Work Text:
At their core, Nick and Terry know that being here in the Forgotten Realms is dangerous. Dangerous because of magic, because of monsters, because of evil people who want to kidnap them and use them for their own personal gain in one way or another. Between the bandits and the vampire, they have faced their own dangers. Not to mention the whole thing with their grandfathers? That feels like bad news. The general conclusion is: danger lurks around every corner of this weird, foreign, magical world.
But here on the banks of Ass Sweat Falls, late at night with nothing but the sounds of Walter sleeping and the silent night to keep you company, the most dangerous thing is quickly turning out to be boredom.
Nick has been trying to be frugal. He doesn’t know how much weed goes for in this world, or if there is an age limit, or if there’s even anything relatively safe to smoke. And he doesn’t know how much Glenn keeps on his person. And it’s not like there’s been much time to talk to Glenn after the rescue attempt – he always seems much too busy to hang out, which Nick supposes is okay. He’s got to figure out a way to get back home anyways. Nick doesn’t blame him for that. Maybe it’ll be different once they travel to find their own anchor. Spend a bit of quality time with his dad, get past all these horrible feelings of trauma and abandonment, and just get back to being together, Nick and Glenn, Glenn and Nick, only good vibes again.
But anyways, he hasn’t asked Glenn yet, so now, he’s only limited to the half joint tucked safely away into the inside of his jacket and the lighter he always turns around in his left pocket whenever he feels uneasy. The cool plastic turns under his fingers now as he contemplates the half-blunt burning (figuratively) through the denim.
Terry kicks around his feet – shoes forgotten back at the campfire – and lest the bubbling water swish around him. The feeling of grass beneath his hands, the warm breeze leftover from the hot day, the sweat beading around his temple. Focusing on those sensations make it easier – if he can focus on something else maybe his mind will stop wandering back to his dad and the imposter he wanted so deeply to believe in. He’s almost grateful for the bruises peppering his arms, the consequences of playing too much with Lark and Sparrow, but instead of distracting him, they sorta just add to the dull pain lodging in his chest.
This silence with Nick is getting dangerous – the moments stretching on and inviting any intrusive thoughts to fester – but if Terry starts a conversation, he’ll probably just bring it back to the vampire and he suspects Nick has already heard about those feelings too many times.
For the record, Nick hasn’t heard about it too many times. He’s actually pretty disappointed Terry doesn’t talk about it more — doesn’t describe every wicked detail right down to the sickening crunch the vampire’s head made as it was decapitated into a fanny pack – but for all his complicated relationship with maturity, he at least knows when to shut up and stop asking. So instead, Nick groans and leans back onto the grass, feet still dangling into the river.
“What do you think happened to Grant?” he asks, because he knows it’s okay to ask intrusive questions as long as the subject of those questions isn’t there in front of them. That’s what Glenn always says, and if Glenn says it then it must be a universal truth.
Terry shrugs. “I heard Ron mention something about football?”
Nick snorts a laugh. “Of fucking course.”
“Why do you ask?” Terry kicks out his foot again. A splash crashes a little too forcefully than expected and some of it gets on his shorts. Terry grimaces at the wet fabric – he wishes he had chosen better pants that morning. Something with more coverage like Nick’s black jeans, or even something in a cargo short fabric with pockets like Henry. Not this pocketless bright blue athletic material. There are a lot of things he wishes he did differently, but at the present moment, his fashion choice is the most offending mistake.
“He looked kinda down when they came back. You know, like he had after Fortnite.”
And because the whole concept of the real-life video game is still incredibly silly to them, both Nick and Terry breathe a unanimous laugh, which very quickly turns into a unanimous sigh as they remember the faraway look in Grant’s eyes once he appeared in Ravenloft. When poked and prodded about it, Grant refused to talk about it.
He got weird after that.
Then again, Nick and Terry can’t say they knew Grant very well before all this started. The Wilsons live in a different part of town, and as much as they see him at school, he has the misfortunate luck of a birthday past the grade cutoff. So while Nick and Terry happened to sit next to each other in first grade and quickly became decent friends (even if they more often than not sat alone together in their own thoughts and feelings), Grant was still learning the alphabet in kindergarten. On the team, they hadn’t really spoken that much, Nick and Terry favoring the company of the other seventh graders than the coach’s sullen son a whole grade below them, the boy who often kept to himself playing Fortnite on the back of the bus when not forced to be role model for the fifth graders or Lark and Sparrow. Looking back on it, the whole idea of arbitrary grade allegiance seems stupid to Nick, and maybe, he thinks, they should’ve reached out to Grant more, asked him to sit with them, shared a Gatorade, practiced more outside of school.
When Grant emerges from the trees about a hundred feet downstream from them, they silently turn to watch him. His sweatshirt hangs off of his thinning frame in a way that almost swallows him whole when his shoulders hunch up to his chin and start shaking. Through the darkness, Nick and Terry can’t see his face well, but the sounds of crickets and rushing water cannot mask the sniffling, heaving breaths coming from Grant.
Oh. Nick and Terry realize at once. He’s crying.
But that’s where their thought patterns diverge.
Because while Terry is ready to silently creep away and give Grant a wide radius of space, Nick already has his hands up and shouts, “Hey! Grant!”
“What are you doing?” Terry snaps his head to find Nick’s grin and wild, reckless eyes.
“Inviting him over,” Nick explains and waves his hand a little harder. “Hey! Grant! Come over and dip your feet in!”
“No, Nick!” Terry hisses. “He’s sad, he needs space, he –”
“GRANT!”
Terry collapses his burning cheeks into his hands. After years of friendship, he doesn’t know why he expects Nick not to take the reckless path and not to embarrass him by making things so exponentially worse. He contemplates throwing himself into the river, but there’s no telling what sort of monsters could be lurking in the water. He doesn’t and instead relegates himself to this fate of dying of complete mortification by his friend's hand.
Grant, who nearly jumped out of his skin at the first call, brushes furiously at his face. A wobbling voice calls out to them as he wraps his arms around himself: “Oh, uh, no, that’s okay. I’m sorry, I thought I was alone, um…”
“Jesus Christ , Grant!” Nick teases. Grant flinches a little at that like he shouldn’t even hear the very words spoken by Nick’s cursing tongue. “Come on, stop your moping! Join us!”
Terry lifts his head at this and shoves Nick hard enough for him to hit the soft ground with his elbow and unravel into a snickering laugh. He turns back to Grant, with what he hopes is a comforting smile. “Only if you want. If you want space, though, that’s also okay.”
“No, um, that’s…” Grant’s voice trails off into a deafening silence, filled only by the rush of the falls and the nocturnal animals of this strange land. He sucks his bottom lip into his teeth like he’s holding back another sob. Then, he nods and sighs. “Yeah, okay.”
They shift over to make a space between them. While Grant unlaces his shoes, Terry shoots Nick a burning glare. Nick just grins and shrugs, then gestures to where Grant is slowly sinking his toes into the water as if to say, See, I did something right, I am making him feel better.
Three boys with their feet submerged in the river at the bottom of Ass Sweat Falls stares up at the sky, the silence again falling between them.
That is, of course, until Terry, who can’t stand another silence to live with his own thoughts, breaks it with a cough and turns to Grant.
“So,” he starts slowly, eyes locked on Grant’s expression, “do you want to talk about it?”
Now it’s Nick’s turn to shoot a frown Terry’s way. Why ruin this moment with feelings, he wants to spit. Don’t drive him away now that he’s here.
Grant takes a long moment to process the question. A long moment where he bites his lip again. A long moment where tears start to form in his thousand-yard stare. Then, he shakes his head quickly.
Nick lets out a relieved sigh. “Good. Let’s not talk about it. Let’s talk about something happier.” He starts pawing through his jacket to find the joint. Tonight, he needs this. When Glenn gets back, he'll ask. Give them something to bond over again after all this weirdness.
“Like what?” Terry tears his gaze away from Grant, still not entirely convinced he should drop the subject.
“Well, fuck, Terry, I don’t know.” Nick expertly lights the joint and takes a drag. A small one. Not nearly enough to let the smoke fill his lungs. Just enough to look cool, enough to let the tip of the joint flare in bright radiant orange. He coughs only a little bit, then glances over at the other boys. “Like, we could talk about soccer? Or like movies? Or like - oh! If this was a movie, who would you want to play you?”
Terry sighs and glances toward Grant again. “Nick-”
“No, I’m serious!” Nick’s voice is getting louder now. Maybe if he can be loud he can drown out the bad feelings happening so closely. Maybe he can make Grant laugh, maybe he could even make Terry laugh, and if they’re all laughing then there’s nothing to worry about, no problems to solve, no way to ruin the vibes going on. Keep the vibes going, pull Grant up from whatever deep hole he’s found himself in. “I think I’m stuck between two choices. Now if we want to go more off of vibes, then I’d want –”
“I asked him to kiss me.”
Terry and Nick simultaneously slide their gazes over to Grant. He still stares out at the water, eyes hard, tears blinking onto his cheeks.
“What?” Nick asks.
“Who?” Terry asks.
“Uh, this boy. At For Knights. And… and… also at the Supperbowl.” After a moment, Grant sighs and adds, meekly: “He, um, he has a skateboard for feet.”
“Sick,” Nick says, at the same moment that Terry goes, “Wait, sorry, you asked him to… kiss you?”
Grant nods, lips pursed together into a straight line. Then, his resolute mouth screws up into something awful and he starts sobbing. Heaving sobs. Shoulders racking sobs that left him choking and wailing and crying into his hands. Loud, unabashed, but incredibly concerning and offputting sobs. Sobs that probably have tears gushing and snot pouring out of his nose and that gross feeling in your chest that something just needs to be gutted out for you to feel better.
Nick and Terry don’t move. Panic blooms in both their chests, Nick with the joint dangling from his lips, Terry's hand midair as if to comfort.
Nick’s breath suddenly comes short. He’s not equipped for this. Not in the least. He’s never been a crier, not even when he’s alone, not even when his mom died. Crying just isn’t something you do when you’re a Close. Crying doesn’t match well with laughing and chilling and rocking out. Crying isn’t part of the deal. So Nick doesn’t know what to do – he’s never had anyone help him, so how would he even know how to start?
Terry finds his limbs heavy, his thoughts racing. He’s more than equipped for this. He’s had enough conversations with his mother to recognize the need for support, the need for comfort. He’s seen enough people cry to her about their various problems: the most stoic of men, the most put-together of students, the most successful adults. The tears don’t scare him. It’s just figuring out what next to do that’s the problem – his mother’s voice echoing and overlapping itself with every various method and solution is not helping. He wishes he knew Grant better – that way he’d at least have some idea of what could help and what could very much hurt.
They meet eyes over Grant’s lurching, gasping shoulders. Nick raises an eyebrow at Terry. Terry glances down at Grant, then nods to Nick. Nick shakes his head. Terry rolls his eyes and huffs a breath in Nick’s direction. Nick, too, rolls his eyes and begrudgingly lifts a hand to place on Grant’s shoulder. He juts a chin to Terry, who copies him.
Grant calms down a little at the touch, sobs coming quieter, now mostly shaky breaths punctuated by whimpers. Nick pats him once before he withdraws and takes another drag. Just a small one. Not enough to start coughing.
Terry withdraws his hand as quickly. Then, to replace it, he adds: “Do you want us to distract you?”
No answer except another sob. Nick seems to take this as an answer though, and he clears his throat, wide eyes meeting Terry’s.
What? Terry mouths, stomach suddenly dropping.
Trust me, Nick mouths back, and then does probably the worst thing he could possibly do: he starts singing.
“HER NAME IS NOELLE…” he starts, eyes darting between Grant’s sobbing and Terry’s aghast expression, head bouncing to nonexistent music. “ AND I HAVE A DREAM ABOUT HER .”
Grant’s sobs immediately stop. Perhaps out of shock. Probably out of shock. Still, Nick continues:
“ SHE RINGS MY BELL, I’VE GOT GYM CLASS IN HALF AN HOUR…”
“What are you doing?” Terry hisses. Nick shrugs.
“ OH, HOW SHE ROCKS – I don’t know, this is what Glenn does – IN KEDS AND TUBE SOCKS …”
“What?”
“He used to sing this, okay? And like, it helped? I don’t know! Just-” Nick starts singing even louder. “ AND SHE DOESN’T KNOW WHO I AM. NO, SHE DOESN’T GIVE A DAMN ABOUT ME…”
Terry groans and slaps a hand on his forehead. But then he sees Grant, whose breathing has slowed, whose shoulders are still hunched but have stopped shaking. And begrudgingly, Terry starts to sing along, once they reach the part he knows.
“ CUZ I’M JUST A TEENAGE DIRTBAG, BABY,” they sing together, Nick belting it out with his full body, drumming some invisible drumset. Terry a little quieter, mumbling some of the lyrics. “ YEAH, I’M JUST A TEENAGE DIRTBAG, BABY. LISTEN TO IRON MAIDEN, BABY.”
“ WITH ME…” At this, Nick cups a hand around his mouth to imitate backup singers, just like Glenn would: “ooooOOOOoooo.”
As Nick starts on the second verse (somehow he knows all the lyrics and it’s awfully impressive), Terry looks towards Grant. Who, yes, is not sobbing anymore, but he’s still crying. This time though, it’s freely. There’s no desire to bottle anything up or to hide the painful noises coming out of his mouth. Maybe this is cathartic, Terry realizes, or maybe it’s a way to mask the sounds he doesn’t want other people to hear, so Terry gives it all he’s got.
By the time they get to the bridge, Nick has launched into a full-body rendition, lurching around with his hands strumming a mock guitar. Terry can’t help but laugh around the words.
“ OH, YEAAAAAH. DIRTBAAAAAAAAG. HE DOESN’T KNOW WHAT HE’S MISSING.”
Terry forgets to sing, suddenly incredibly aware of Nick’s lyric change. Oh, right. Grant tried to kiss a… a boy.
Oh my god. It dawns on him. Grant’s gay.
Nick jabs at Grant’s shoulder – “HE DOESN’T KNOW WHAT HE’S MISSING.” – then starts making electric guitar sounds with his mouth.
It’s not like being gay is unheard of. It had just… always been something more than casual. Terry remembers a car ride home a couple of years before, when Coach Darnell had first taken the position on the team. His mom had stopped in their driveway and (because he hadn’t yet graduated to the passenger seat) turned around to face him, an imploring sorrow in her eyes.
“Terry,” she had started, slowly, carefully. “So, your coach, Darnell… he…” She hesitated, watching as Terry blinked up at her. “He’s married to a man.”
Terry’s mom hadn’t meant it to be disdainful. Just objective information, her eyes constantly searching for some change in her nine-year-old’s face.
“Do you understand what that means?”
Terry had nodded at that, though he supposes now he didn’t fully understand what she was asking. Back at nine years old, it had seemed so silly that the conversation was actually happening.
“There are some people,” she had started to explain, “that fall in love with people of the same gender. And that doesn’t mean you should treat them any differently, okay? You can’t help who you fall in love with.”
And Terry had agreed, without even thinking of the possibility of being mean to someone just for who they loved. But… well, he didn’t think it would actually be a problem until much later in life.
Gay was still this intangible thing. It was still an unspoken threat, a tense rule between the boys as they explored what was acceptable and what was not. It was still an echo of a joke – something they would grow out of before it caused any real harm.
Terry had been sure he had more time to figure it out. He certainly wasn’t expecting any of his friends to figure out their sexualities so… quickly.
Not that Grant is his friend. Well, maybe Grant qualifies as his friend now. Maybe they could all do with more friends.
As Nick comes to the end of his now-solo performance, he suddenly realizes that Grant has not been cured by the song. And the icky feeling of dread starts to curl in his stomach. No, no, no, they can’t be having feelings right now. Not here, not on a night that was supposed to be good. Not when Nick’s own feelings are always bubbling so close to the surface. He swallows them down again and plasters on another smile.
“Come on, Grant-” He shoves his shoulder into Grant’s, maybe a little harder than intended. “-You’re okay. It’s just a boy. Nothing to cry about.”
“It’s not just a boy!” Grant wails, sending him into another wave of tears. “I made a fool of myself. I… I… I asked him to kiss me. But he just wanted to be friends, and… and... And…”
And Grant is choking on his sobs again. And Terry is still blinking back into the present. And Nick is so very uncomfortable that he almost starts singing again. He’s racking his brain for the first lyrics of Stacy’s Mom when Grant starts babbling again.
“And now he knows! Now he knows I have this big stupid crush on him and -” Grant gasps and snaps his head up. His red eyes widen in fear. “Oh. Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no-”
“What?” Terry asks, soul slamming back into his body at this new distress.
Grant whips his head between the two of them. “Do you think it’s illegal here? To be… to like, to like boys? Oh, gosh, I never thought I’d have to worry about that. You know, at home, it’s not like dangerous, I just have to deal with God and everything and like my parents, but like… do you think they execute people like that here? What if he hates me? What if he’s hunting me down? And like, we don’t need more people hunting us? Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, noooooooo…” He runs his hands worriedly through his hair, repetitive and forceful, push back, push back, push back, like it would solve something.
“Hey, hey, hey, Grant. No one’s gonna hunt you down.” Terry nudges a little closer.
Nick shrugs. “Eh, they might.”
Grant lets out a strangled sort of noise.
“NICK!” Terry hisses. “WHAT THE HELL?”
“What? They might! We don’t know what goes on here!”
“It’s not helping!”
“I’m just trying to be realistic!”
“He’s CRYING!”
“So it’s not like I made him cry any more than he already was crying!”
“NICK! JESUS CHRIST!”
“He probably hates me!”
(This last one comes from Grant, through gasps of pain.)
“No, he doesn’t!” Terry tries.
“Maybe, but fuck him!” Nick tries.
“I shouldn’t have asked him!”
“Grant, that type of thinking is not conducive-”
“You don’t need him!”
“I thought he liked me!”
“He does! He probably really likes you! Just as a friend!”
“You’re a strong, independent, twelve-year-old soccer player-”
“But I wanted it to be more!”
“-who don’t need no man!”
“I know, but he didn’t-”
“Like is that so hard to ask? I just wanted… like…”
“I feel like you’re spiraling - like my mom would definitely say you’re spiraling-”
“And we’re gonna find you some really hot guy in the next town-”
“WHY WOULDN’T HE KISS ME?”
“Okay, so do you want one of us to kiss you?”
And that looks like it hits Grant like a ton of bricks. He practically chokes on his next words as he lurches away from Terry, who had said that.
“Um, what?”
“Do you…” Terry says it slower now, gesturing between him and Nick, “Want one of us… To kiss you?” When Grant stares back – wide eyes blinking but not producing any more tears – he continues: “Like would that make you feel better? Having a boy kiss you?”
“Um…” Grant sniffs and wipes the snot. “But… but you’re not…” His lip wobbles, like he’s scared to say it: “...gay?”
“Heteronormativity is a fascist construct, Grant,” Nick pipes up, “and it’s actually conformist of you to assume that everyone you meet is straight by default.” At this, he flicks Grant on the side of the head. “You don’t know what we might be into.”
“Yeah, I…” Terry stutters, totally not prepared to have this conversation, “like, I think we both like girls-” (“For right now, at least,” Nick interjects, “sexuality is fluid.”) “But like… I don’t know. If you want to. To make you feel better. Like, it wouldn’t have to mean anything.”
“Uhhh…” Grant chews on his lip again, like he might be seriously contemplating it. Then, he averts his gaze back to his kneecaps and shakes his head. “No, um, that’s okay. I…” He blushes, then tries to hide under his bangs somehow. “I kinda want my first kiss to mean something.”
Nick’s first instinct is to laugh and wax poetic about the arbitrary nature of first kisses. Add a tone of levity to the conversation, while also beating all that Catholic purity culture bullshit out of Grant. But… well, maybe it’s the foreign magical air or the weed settling in his lungs, but he doesn’t. He simply pats Grant on the shoulder again and offers the joint. Grant stares at it in shock, then shakes his head.
Terry nods along, tension unfurling from his shoulders as Grant himself relaxes too.
Then, Grant collapses back onto the grass with a sigh. His redrimmed eyes produce no tears, his blotchy face drying, his shoulders heaving with regained breath. All cried out, his voice croaks out: “I just really wanted that first kiss to be with Yeet.”
The shocked laughter that bursts out of Nick and Terry completely ruin the sentiment.
“WHAT?” Terry shouts. “YEET?”
“YOU’RE CRUSHING ON A BOY NAMED AFTER A VINE?” Nick cackles.
“THAT’S JUST HIS NAME!” Grant cries back. “THEY DON’T HAVE VINE HERE!”
“HIS NAME IS YEET!”
“GRANT LIKES A BOY NAMED YEET!”
“STOP! YOU’RE GONNA MAKE ME CRY AGAIN!” And isn’t that the biggest lie? Because Grant is holding his stomach laughing now, a rare smile stretching across his face.
Proud of this outcome (but not quite sure how they got there), Terry leans back to match Grant. Nick quickly follows suit.
An easy conversation falls across them, the water rushing by their bare feet. Their skin is probably getting wrinkled by now, one of them idly thinks, but doesn’t move for fear of ruining the moment. They stare up at the unfamiliar sky for a while, pointing out what they think might be constellations. They splash their feet at the funnier jokes, punch each other in the arm at teasing insults, swat at unknown bugs in the darkness.
By the time Walter calls out through the trees, any remnants of the heartbreak are forgotten, buried deep under dick jokes and a particularly stupid argument over the spelling of racket (or racquet, in Nick’s case). With wet feet and tired eyes, they pull themselves up to their feet and start the trek back toward the light of the fire.
“Hey, um, Grant?” Terry asks as they start walking. “I know you didn’t want either of us to kiss you, but…”
Now late into the night, they can barely see each other, but Nick can just make out the outline of Grant hunching into himself again.
“Uh… yeah?”
Terry coughs, clears his throat. “Do you want us to give you a hug?”
Grant’s footsteps halt, so Terry and Nick stop where they are too. After a long moment, a choked sob comes from Grant’s direction.
“I… uh… yeah, um, that- that’d be nice.”
It’s a clumsy hug: one with flailing limbs and too much momentum so they all have to stumble to find their balance again. But it’s a good hug: one with intention and compassion, and perhaps even a bit of comfort for even Terry and Nick. They each revel for a moment, taking in the feeling of unity among them.
Then, Nick breaks off to light the joint again. And Terry breaks off to swat at a bug. And Grant breaks off to tie his shoe again.
One of them – Grant can’t tell who in the darkness – pushes his shoulder and takes off running.
“Race you to Walter!” Terry’s voice echoes through the trees. The other shadowy figure (Nick) laughs and starts to follow.
Grant grins and, maybe, just for a second, thinks this is what having brothers might be like.