Switchverse: Part VI, or, I Guess You're Not A Ninja
Derek comes home, announces his presence by shutting the front door.
“I’m here,” his dad says from the family room, “but Alicia’s filling in for some band in Frank’s studio.”
Derek raises the strap of his bag over his head, drops it as he walks. He enters the room, and his dad’s reading a glossy magazine with Patrick Stump: Music Mogul on the page.
Mikey says, “You remember Andy Hurley?”
Nodding, because of course he remembers, and pulling up his textbooks on his vidscreen, then hovering over the confirmation key. No. Okay. One of the anatomy ones. He flicks back through his library.
“He’s getting married next month.”
Derek gives his father a glance, and his mouth slowly curls as he keeps paging through. “Yeah. He announced it a while ago. Mom booked the flight out to Chicago and the hotel and everything.”
Mikey shrugs. “Bring me my bass?”
Dad forgot about Andy’s wedding, he tells Audrey, as he’s trekking through the hallway and into the sound-proofed music room. He pulls open the stiff-leather case, and it’s empty, so he sighs and raises his voice. “Is one of Mom’s okay? She took your favorite.”
“Yeah, okay.”
He takes it back to the living room, helps Mikey settle the bass across his thighs, over the arms of the chair.
And Derek settles on the couch to watch his father’s fingers slide down the frets, tuning with the casual familiarity of decades. Audrey gives him a rush of fond amusement and laughter. Uncle Mikey! It’s adorable how little attention he pays.
Mikey catches his son’s eye and falls into a melody, low and rumbling, and Derek’s never asked if Mikey minds that he’s not musically inclined at all, considering how all the adults made their livings.
It doesn’t really matter, because Derek’s focusing on not listing off the names of each tendon as it pulls taut under his dad’s loose skin, and He pays attention when it’s important, Cel.
--
Audrey tells Derek, I’ll never understand how he writes the way he does.
Derek turns to Theo. They’re both finished with the test - taking Spanish after Audrey means that Derek knows it already, and Theo has a gift for languages - so Derek whispers, “Cel doesn’t know your process.”
Theo has his fingers out on the projected keyboard of his vidscreen, still as he thinks, twitching with the potential of the words. He blinks, and his eyebrows slide up, making creases on his forehead that disappear under longish brown hair. They won’t stay creased, not yet, but Derek’s sure that they’ll be his first wrinkles.
Theo shifts, leans his shoulder closer, until Derek ducks in, too. He can feel hot air on his cheek as Theo says, “I get to know my characters just as thoroughly as you do, Cel, it’s like improv, only written down, and I have time to consider in between.”
Derek pulls back to sit upright and focuses on his hands, bones moving across bones smoothly, warm with blood pumping through and through, constant.
Inside their mind, it goes like this:
Derek says, You heard?
Audrey says, I heard.
Derek says, He knows.
Audrey says, He totally knows.
They both say, We have to-
And neither of them articulate it, beyond a stream of images and sounds. How this could go. Theo saying, “That’s unnatural,” or Theo saying, “We should tell (our parents, a doctor, the CIA),” or Theo not saying anything at all, just running.
Audrey’s the reasonable one, in the end. He knows, and he hasn’t done any of those things.
So Derek resolves it, decides for them both; After school. On the way home.
Theo’s still looking at him, eyes trained and sharp, searching. But he’s smiling reassuringly, and he’s not pushing the subject. The bell rings for the end of class, but they’re three more periods from the end of the day.
--
In the car, Audrey hums along tunelessly to the radio, and drums on the steering wheel, and chatters and complains and responds to the DJ when he comes on.
Beside her, Derek doesn’t move, holds himself stiff and fragile, neck twisted to face the window. Audrey’s using up the nervous energy for both of them.
It lasts seven minutes before Theo jumps the gun a little and says, “You’re telepathic.” It’s a question, that flat way he has of inviting a person to explain.
Derek says, Tell him we’re sorry we hid it.
Audrey says, “Tell him yourself.” And I’m not sorry.
Derek huffs and the window fogs up as he says, “I’m sorry we hid it.”
Theo turns this over, eyes moving as if looking at it from all angles. Derek’s watching him in the side mirror, but he doesn’t have to, because he’s watched Theo do this for years.
Theo says, “You didn’t trust me with the secret.”
Audrey, voice too bright, says, “We didn’t! We thought you would tell on us. That’s why.”
Derek slips under the words and her reason matches up with his, so he says, “She’s lying. We thought you’d think we’re weird and avoid us at the very least.”
Audrey sends him flashes of… betrayal, and grudging understanding that it was necessary, and It’s a good thing one of us can talk for the other when the words come out wrong.
From the backseat, very slowly, Theo says, “Well, obviously, neither fear is valid, though I acknowledge your reasoning was sound. Thank you both for telling me.”
After a short, anticipatory pause, Audrey ventures, cautious, “We don’t have to talk about it?”
Derek turns away from the window to give his cousin and meaningful, scolding look. What else do we need to talk about, Cel? Just leave it.
Theo says, “No. Now that I officially know, I assume that you’ll allow me to make reference to this link in conversation. That was my goal; having achieved this, I’m content to let lie.”
“Okay,” Audrey agrees, nodding. She gestures over the top of the wheel and pulls into her driveway. “I just. You’re telling me that we’re going to get out of this car and go inside and watch television and nitpick actors, and it’ll be completely natural, no awkwardness?”
Theo opens the door, stands up, and ducks his head back inside to address them. “Some sense of unfamiliarity is to be expected until we all adjust, but I will do my utmost to ensure minimal awkwardness, Cel.”
Derek climbs out, and smiles a thank-you at Theo when he grabs his backpack from the trunk, and tells Audrey, If he’s going to try, we have to do our best, too.
Audrey meets his eyes, and she sees the tight-taut thread of Ican’tlosethis under his thoughts, and she rolls her eyes, because duh we’ll do our best.
It’s going so well already.