Chapter Text
“What the fuck is that?” Derek hisses into the darkness. It’s nearly 1 am and he’s really not with it enough to play any games - especially any that involve Casey in his childhood bedroom asking for help holding… something.
Something that’s moving.
Something that’s moving, and that glistens when the moonlight catches it through his window.
(He’s always been shit at closing his curtains.)
“Clearly,” Casey replies, in a tone that suggests she’s saying something obvious to a toddler, and not saying something absolutely off-the-charts instutionalisingly mental, “It’s a dragon.”
The thing in her hand sneezes. A puff of smoke follows the movement out of it.
Derek really wishes he was more awake for this.
In fact, he’s not 100% certain he’s not dreaming.
“But… dragons aren’t real.”
“That’s what I thought!” Casey whisper-yells back at him, “So I guess we’re either both wrong, or we’ve both gone mad.”
There’s a strange silence that follows her comment, an energy permeating in the air between them… and Derek knows, he knows, that if he is awake - and that’s still a pretty big if in his head right now - he’s being dragged into this entire situation fully and irrevocably whether he likes it or not.
“Is there any chance,” Derek starts slowly, each word carefully enunciated in a way Casey never expects from him, “That we’re both high on mushrooms right now?”
Casey looks up at him sharply, which is at least something he is used to. “The ‘both’ there is concerning.”
“I’m not high right now, Case.”
“Then why phrase it like that!?”
She’s panicking - of course she is, it would actually probably be more weird if she wasn’t at this point - which is the only reason Derek doesn’t grumble at the assumption he’d do mushrooms whilst they’re back for the summer. In their family home. As if he’d have any with him now when there’s even a chance Ed would find them and steal them.
Ed can buy his own fucking drugs, thank you very much - Derek knows he has a hook up at U of T, Ed doesn’t need him for that.
He’s saved from carrying the conversation any further by the… dragon? (Christ. A dragon.) The thing is maybe six inches in length as it unfurls itself in Casey’s hand - wings fluttering gently, and neck arching as it stretches before it curls itself back into a ball with a gentle chirp.
It’s, without a doubt, the cutest sound Derek has ever heard in his life. He won’t be admitting that out-loud though.
“Was that another sneeze? Is it sick?” He asks, instead.
Casey looks up to meet his eyes, horrified, “I don’t think so!?”
Her response is to raise the creature up to her face, holding the thing delicately between her hands as she presses her nose gently to its snout - apparently ignoring the fact it had probably been trying to produce fire moments earlier.
The thing responds with another gentle wave of its wings, before its tongue emerges and it gives Casey a gentle lick. The same gentle chirping sound follows after.
“I think that’s just the noise they make,” Casey says, the smile evident in her voice.
She’s enraptured now, that much is clear. Holding the tiny thing close to her face as it continues to… scent her? There’s a lot of sniffles involved. A few more gentle licks where it can reach. Casey beams throughout it all.
Apparently, Derek is going to have to be the one to come up with an action plan here. Un-fucking-believable.
He glances around his room, hoping to spot… something. He’s not sure what he’s looking for. He’s still not quite awake - truthfully he’s hoping he can go back to sleep and wake up in the morning and realise this has all been a fever dream - and that’s his main motivator for his suggestion.
“Look, Case, it’s late. Maybe we should just get some sleep and deal with this in the morning?”
Casey either doesn’t hear him, or ignores him in favour of her new best friend.
At least it means she’s not looking at him when he pouts about it.
“We should name them.”