18 - okay, fine, let's chat

A blanket of silence had laid itself over Oakwell on this rainy Sunday, drops of water gently knocking on the windowed roof of the greenhouse.

Quinn didn't know when this place had become his favourite part of Oakwell. Didn't know how many times he'd visited it. But here he was again, the smell of plants and soil greeting him like a familiar hug.

He quietly pressed the door behind him shut as to not disturb the silence, stood there for a few seconds, breathed in. Storms and tornadoes inside of his head fell quiet, and all that was left was a single pale blue dot, himself, floating about in the void.

His wet and muddy shoes left footprints on the cobbled floor as he walked along the planters, looking at the plants as if he knew anything about them other than them being well cared for.

Once he'd circled the middle planter to reach his usual sitting spot, that beloved old creaky bench, his heart skipped half a beat in shock. Someone had already taken that seat. Great, fantastic, of course he had taken it.

Dev sat on the bench, one leg propped up, a thick sketchbook leaning against it as he drew, a mechanical pencil in his left hand. He used his headphones as a headband to push his hair out of his face, just a single wavy strand had fought its way out, hanging over his exposed forehead, still a little wet from walking here through the rain.

This might've been the first time Quinn had seen Dev not wearing that hideous green. Not that he didn't look all prim and proper regardless, though. His dark brown pants were perfectly tailored, the collar of a button up stuck out from his expensive looking yellow woollen sweater. So he always looked like this. How annoying. Had this guy ever heard of wearing something comfortable?

His eyes were focused on the sketchbook, his head nodding along to the music he was listening to, loud enough that Quinn could hear its faint beat from where he was standing. Loud enough to not notice Quinn.

Well, that was awkward.

Quinn really, really wanted to sit on that bench. But he also really, really didn't want to sit next to Dev. And he also didn't want to talk to Dev, and also didn't want to bother Dev, well, he did want to bother Dev, but not like that, and so he just stood there and stared at the empty seat next to him.

And after a couple of really agonisingly weird seconds, Dev finally had realised that someone was standing in front of him. His head snapped up and he dropped his pencil as he flinched, then rolled his eyes as hard as possible when he realised who it was that had stared at him for way too long.

He pressed a button on his headphones to stop his music and pushed one side off his head, his brows furrowed.

"What do you want?"

"Nothing. I'm just chilling."

"And why do you need to stand there like a creep?"

"I mean, it's not like I can sit down, you know, since you're occupying my spot. So I'll just have to-"

Dev sighed, and rolled his eyes again, and they darkened just a little bit, but not quite that much, just enough to make it clear to Quinn that he was annoyed. Then, he scooted to the side, making more space on the bench. Quinn blinked at him.

"You can just ask me to make space, you don't have to stare at me, you weirdo."

"Well, I wasn't going to-" Quinn sighed, rolled his eyes as well, even harder than Dev ever could, and sat down at the very edge of the bench, with enough distance between the two to fit a third person.

"Just don't piss me off," Dev mumbled, picking up his pencil and continuing to sketch. "Not more than you already do."

"Well, don't piss me off."

"Sure, whatever." Dev turned his music back on, and Quinn could hear it a little more clear now. He was fairly certain he'd heard that melody before, but wasn't quite able to pin it down, a somewhat heavy rock sound, perhaps he knew it through Grace.

So now Dev kept his word and didn't piss Quinn off, which was pissing him off even more. That Dev just sat there silently, drawing and nodding his head and minding his business, getting comfortable all while Quinn sat there unable to relax because he was busy thinking about how unrelaxing it was to be in the same room as Dev.

Usually he would've leaned back and breathed in and out and closed his eyes, would've looked into the sky through the roof, would've hummed to himself, but he didn't feel like doing any of that.

Dev's presence was disruptive in a way he didn't quite understand, like he couldn't let his guard down, or maybe couldn't manage to get his guard up, either way, he felt on edge.

And Dev just sat there.

So Quinn attempted to lean back. He stared up, then stared forwards, then looked to his right, then, hesitantly, to his left. Dev still just sat there. Why did he just sit there?

Quinn attempted to take a look at his sketchbook, its pages well loved and used, dirty and frayed around the edges. Dev's pencil glid over the paper in long smooth strokes, and though Quinn couldn't see what exactly he was drawing, the motions mesmerised him nonetheless.

He'd always loved watching his mother draw. The movements of her hands were equally magical. She only ever needed a few lines and suddenly figures would appear on the paper, wearing boxy suits or ball gowns or elegant jumpsuits.

Her style had always been angular and sharp, reminiscent of the fashion and design magazines always laying on the living room coffee table. Reminiscent of herself, as well, of her thin face and long legs and the elegant sharp way she carried herself. Like Grace, too. And like James. Quinn had never managed to be like that. Maybe he wasn't born with it.

Dev now looked up again, catching Quinn's curious glance at his sketchbook, and though he only furrowed his brows in something that maybe was supposed to be annoyance, he ended up lowering the leg he'd propped up his book on just enough for Quinn to be able to see what he was drawing.

Nothing sharp, nothing angular. Organic, rather, natural, realistic. The drawings were just plants. But they were near perfect copies of what Quinn could see in the planters around him, with some of the leaves looking just a little more curved, a little more fantastical.

He thought back to the painting Nico had shown him weeks ago, an almost carbon copy of his own face save for the erasure of his imperfections. Something that was somehow far less impressive than these simple sketches.

Woah, wait, was he siding with Dev here? Against Nico? Oh, what were the fumes in this greenhouse doing to him? Well, never mind then, these stunning little doodles Dev was creating were so ugly and stupid.

So that's why Quinn moved a little closer, the gap on the bench between them becoming just a bit smaller.

"Do you always stare at people like this when they're busy working? It's unnerving," Dev mumbled, not looking up. His voice seemed too tired to sound agitated.

"I do, you're not special."

"Great. What was that about not pissing me off, again?"

"I'm not pissing you off, I'm just looking at what you're drawing."

"Just look at me in a less annoying way, then."

"I cannot please you, can I?"

"You can please me by shutting the fuck up."

"Can't do that, sorry."

Dev sighed, and looked up, and it was really weird when he did, because his eyes were soft and almost, almost, gentle. He scanned Quinn's face for just a second, before he gave his attention back to his sketchbook, turning the page and starting to doodle something different.

"What are you drawing now?" Quinn found himself asking. Not that he was interested.

"Nothing," Dev answered.

"Okay. And what does 'nothing' look like?"

"Can you have patience, maybe?"

"No. I thought you knew that by now."

"I wish I knew less about you."

"You haven't even seen the best of me. Or the worst of me. Oh! It's a butterfly!" Quinn leaned just a little closer. Only now he noticed that there was no more music playing from Dev's headphones.

"Yes. Can you leave me alone now?"

"A true artist shouldn't be bothered by somebody breathing down their necks."

"Well, but I am. Besides, what true artists do you even know?"

"My mom." Quinn shrugged, and Dev's hand froze mid movement, for just a second.

"She's an artist?"

"Oh, yeah, she wanted to be a fashion designer. She was a seamstress and was going to have her own little collection at a boutique she worked at." Quinn leaned back. "Well. That never... happened."

"Oh? Why not?"

He now turned his head back to Dev, his brows furrowed, though Dev only looked at him with genuine curiosity. There was no way he didn't know, right?

"Well, I mean, she's like, dead and all, so..."

The colour left Dev's face. He actually didn't know? Really?

"Oh," he let out, his voice mellow and quiet. "That's- I didn't mean to-"

"You didn't know? They're both dead. Like my parents. Did you actually not know? I thought that was the hottest gossip around here."

"Well, I don't really- I'm not quite into gossip, especially not about you."

"You're not? Huh. I had expected you to maybe try and dig up shit about me. Oh, well. Now you know."

"I-" Dev stammered, inhaled, his face now pale. There really was no need to turn into a ghost now, was there? "I'm so sorry, Quinton."

"Don't say sorry, I mean, it's not like you killed them. You didn't, right?" Quinn tried to grin. Dev didn't grin back.

"That's not what I-" He looked back at his sketchbook. "I didn't know you had lost your parents. I wouldn't have, well- I wouldn't have asked."

"It's fine," Quinn said, an attempt of reassurance in his voice. "I mean, I have no problem talking about it and all. Like it's chill. They died when I was like thirteen, so. It's not like you're poking around in fresh wounds."

"When you were thirteen? That's-"

"I don't really need your pity, Dev. They're dead and I'm alive and the world is still spinning." Even though Quinn sometimes wished it could stop. "And like, I totally turned out fine, didn't I?" Dev didn't answer. "Yup, see, I'm fine and normal."

"It's not pity, Quinton. It's-" Dev hummed, tilted his head a little as he looked at, or maybe through the sheets of his sketchbook, his pencil tapping against the page and leaving small light grey dots. "It just-"

"Makes sense for me to have daddy issues? And mommy issues? And like, brother issues also. I have a lot of issues."

"How are you so... silly? Surely this can't be, well, healthy."

"Imagine if I was a grump like you. I'd be even more miserable than I already am."

Dev huffed at that, but didn't say much more. Sometimes people acted as though Quinn was doing something wrong. Grieving in the wrong way. Coping and living and acting wrong. Which, perhaps, he was. But whatever. He had survived until now just fine.

"You know, there's a lot of shit I can speak up and rebel against, there are plenty of issues I can do something about. But them dying isn't one of these things." Quinn pulled his legs up onto the bench, slinging his arms around them. "Of course I'm fucking sad, but how is that going to help me? What's that gonna change? Mom is dead, Dad is dead, the motherfucker that fucking rammed into them is dead-" And he should have lived. He didn't deserve that easy way out. He didn't deserve the quick end when his victims, when Quinn's mother was in pain for so long. "-They're all dead and I'm alive." He inhaled. Something burned, somewhere. "And now I'm here. Despite all that shit. So what can I fucking do?"

The endless void in which Quinn had lost himself was quiet. A lone rock hovered in space, and something, very gently, for just a second, collided with it.

Dev reached out, hesitantly, his finger brushing against Quinn's arm for a fraction of a second, pulling back immediately as though the contact had scared him. The burning stopped, though, and Quinn was back on earth once more.

"You're here," Dev said, his voice heavy with something absolutely fucking terrifying. A mere whisper that felt like a punch to the chest.

"I told you I don't need your pity, Dev, I don't-"

"Can you stop hating everything I say and let me comfort you for a second?"

"I don't need your comfort either."

"You don't need me at all, I know that, you need nothing I could potentially offer you. But I want to say this anyway."

Quinn sighed, rolled his eyes, turned his head away from Dev ever so slightly as though something inside him wasn't intently listening now. How embarrassing. That he was catching some pathetic part of himself wanting to hear whatever the fuck Dev had to say.

"I think that you should probably- I mean, from what I've seen, you're just... quite... Okay, how do I say this."

"Do I want to hear it?"

"You certainly don't." Dev shifted in his seat, and Quinn threw a glance towards him after all. "But now that you're here, and we aren't preoccupied with homework, I'd like to tell you regardless."

Dev opened his mouth again to continue, his brows furrowed, then he pressed his lips together again. He thought for a few seconds, then closed his eyes.

"Quinton, you are very, very annoying, and extremely hard to work with. But I understand now, and I understood this before as well, but now more than ever, that you've had a very difficult life. And it doesn't seem as though you always got the... accommodation, let's say, that you needed and deserved. And whether you wanted it or not, and I'll assume that you didn't want it, you've shown very vulnerable sides of yourself with me."

"Vulnerable? Fuck no, what's that even supposed to mean, when did I-"

"And whenever you were," Dev continued, his voice a little louder as he cut off Quinn, "it made me realise how... Well, how much you piss me off, because you let out all that shit that happened in your life out on me. But I also understand your position a little better. And I think, maybe, the fact that you are here despite it all, and are doing quite decently as well, is a testament of how far you've made it. And while I want to remind you that I cannot stand ninety eight percent of you, I still think the fact that you're here is probably an achievement that you can be proud of-"

"Wait, ninety eight? What about the other two percent of me, then?"

Dev opened his eyes again, though they were narrowed, and he looked at Quinn, looked him in the eye, and then:

"I suppose there's two percent of you that are alright. Maybe a little more than just alright, even."

And then Dev did the worst thing imaginable. He smiled. He smiled? What the fuck, what the actual fuck. If Dev didn't stop with these weird ass, stupidly kind of encouraging, terrifyingly calm mixed signals, Quinn was going to-

He was going to do what? Start liking him? Or at least stop pretending like he hated him? He couldn't do that, could never let that happen, oh no. So Quinn did the only thing he could think of doing to make the warmth in his chest stop.

"Well, I don't like one hundred and one percent of you, Dev."

"Yeah, you sure don't." Dev let out something that maybe almost kind of could've been a chuckle, before he turned back to his sketchbook, resuming his doodles.

Quinn huffed, crossed his arms as he leaned back again, staring at the glass walls, drops of rain running down on them like tears. The familiar peaceful quietness of the greenhouse had mixed with rain and the sound of Dev's pencil scratching against the paper, a silence too comfortable to be bearable.

It wasn't this weird usually, sitting here and resting and doing nothing for once. In fact, the greenhouse was one of the very few places, perhaps the only one, where Quinn had no trouble sitting still and not thinking. Once he'd stepped in here, his mind would drift to various strange places, before it'd eventually shut off.

Not today. Not now. Not with Dev sitting next to him.

This boy was a hassle, really, such a distraction. Just his mere presence sent a feeling of static through Quinn's body, a strange kind of pressure. One that, sadly, worked wonders during their tutoring lessons ever since Dev had switched up the curriculum. One that very stupidly made Quinn work because he just didn't know what else to do with himself and his hands and his mind and his eyes.

And he'd infected him with this usual restlessness once again, except now Quinn didn't know where to channel all that.

"What do your parents do for work?" Quinn suddenly found himself asking, not looking at Dev through, instead very focused on a strand of hair he was brushing through with his fingers. Dev shuffled in his seat.

"Doctors," he answered, his voice a little duller now, and something stinging rippled through Quinn's body. Along with it, curiosity.

"Ah," Quinn said, tempted to ask for more, to figure out whatever that situation with Dev's father was. It wasn't his business, of course, and the fact that he had listened in to whatever Dev was going through on the phone had filled him with inexplicable guilt, but god, Quinn was nosy.

After a couple of seconds of silence, and Quinn being very strong in order to hold back and not poke deeper, Dev spoke up again himself.

"My mother is a neurologist. My father's a cardiothoracic surgeon. Technically." Dev hummed to himself. "Heart and brain. Almost poetic."

"I mean, I wouldn't have thought about that being particularly poetic, but fuck, dude. Sure. If you say so." Not that Quinn was particularly poetically inclined in any way. "So like, your parents are both doctors? And you're-"

"An artist. With zero understanding of science, or math, or the human body aside from basic anatomy."

"And here I was thinking I was a family disappointment."

"Well." To Quinn's surprise, Dev actually let out a short chuckle. "Yeah. I'm probably worse. They're generally fine with me being into art, but I guess I'm not-" He exhaled, gave the butterfly he was drawing a little broken wing. "I mean, they're fine with it, really." He turned the page once more, and began sketching something else.

It didn't quite sound like they were fine with it, really.

"Are they, though? If they're happy with what you do, why would they be disappointed then?"

Dev pressed his lips together, his jaw clenching just a little bit, and Quinn feared that this might've been the end, that Dev would snap at him, that he would get up and leave, something Quinn strangely didn't want to happen, for once.

"I don't want to tell you," he said, the same softness in his voice, showing no intention to leave or yell or end this conversation in any other unpleasant way.

"You don't have to! You don't. Ignore the question."

"What did your parents do?" Dev asked instead. "Your mother was a seamstress, you said. And your father?"

"Ahh. Uuh. Well, mama worked at this small cutesy boutique and dad did... Well, one of these boring office accountant economics jobs or whatever. The one where you trade your joy and soul in for a somewhat livable wage. Though, in the end that wasn't quite livable enough, I guess. So he kind of wasted his soul on a low paying job that wasn't even as, like, selfless as your double doctor parents."

"Mh, I wouldn't call that selfless, honestly. They're not the people to do a job out of the goodness of their heart but just because they can, you know." With a few skilled strokes, Dev turned his current sketch, a skull of sorts, into a fantastical undead deer creature, winding and curved antlers sprouting from its head. "Just like some people, say, make art. Not because they want to express something with it, not because they want to be creative, but just because they have the skill and know that they get praise for that."

"That feels oddly targeted, Dev."

Dev shrugged, adding small flowers around the skull and inside its empty eye sockets. Weird, Nico had called Dev's art once. Interesting, but weird. And weird it was, now that Quinn actually got to look at it, but not weird in the way Nico felt about it, probably.

"Besides," Dev continued, oddly good at ignoring remarks he didn't like today, "my father isn't a practicing doctor anymore anyways. He's like-" His nose scrunched up as he said this. "-more of a businessman now. Like he has this startup for some portable cardiac pacer thing that you don't need to implant. And has an app, I guess."

"Which doesn't sound that bad?"

"In theory, but I already know he has no intentions of making that thing affordable to the people that might actually need it. And the app's probably gonna have microtransactions or something."

"Oh great!" Quinn clapped. "Can't wait to open my loot boxes I got from the pacemaker battle pass! I hope I get a rare skin."

Dev laughed. Oh god, wait, holy shit, hold on. Quinn's insides turned in the world's most painful and disgusting way ever. The way Dev laughed was so oddly, uncomfortably sweet, so melodic, so absolutely fucking horrible.

"Ah, yeah, sorry. My subscription for my cardiac pacer ran out so they're gonna turn off my heartbeat next week. Yeah, sucks," Dev mused followed by a giggly sigh, and Quinn didn't dare to look at him, to turn his head towards him and see the way he smiled, or worse yet, let him see the fact that Quinn was smiling too.

Oh god, what the fuck, man. He was supposed to hate this dude. Why not now?

Dev let out another sigh, this time a real one.

"The worst thing about this whole startup thing is that it's exactly as slimy as you'd imagine." Oh, and Quinn absolutely imagined people like that to be slimy. "They're making a shit ton of money from investors and stuff and surround themselves with the kind of people that would buy a life sized oil painting of themselves."

"Ew."

"Exactly."

"Not that I'd know anyone with the money to buy a life sized oil painting of themselves. But I feel like I know people that would, if they had the money." Quinn huffed. "Actually, yeah, my brother probably would."

"No offence, but I don't think I like your brother."

"Me neither," Quinn said, shaking his head.

What an interesting thing to say. That Dev wouldn't like James, when in Quinn's head, they'd been so... similar. When, for the past two months, Dev had been just as annoying and mean and judgy and self absorbed and harsh and stuck up and bitter as James. Except right now, Dev was none of these things.

And it threw Quinn off. Something was breaking, slowly. A tear in the canvas Quinn had been painting on from the moment he'd met Dev, no, had gotten the acceptance letter for this school.

And Quinn had very well known that much of this was a lie. That didn't mean he was ready to be truthful yet.

Was there still a reason to think Dev was homophobic? Or was Quinn forced to admit that maybe, Dev wasn't as shitty, and there might be potential to coexist, or perhaps be buddies, homies even? Bros, perhaps?

Not friends. That'd go too far.

"Weird question," Dev said after a while of silence, the static one, the strange one that didn't allow Quinn to relax. "But are you religious?"

"Weird question indeed." Quinn furrowed his brows. "Like the kinda question a guy that has 'I hate smalltalk, let's chat about the deep stuff' in his Tinder bio would open with."

"Can't say I've encountered a person like that before?" Dev tilted his head as he looked at Quinn. "You don't have to answer, I suppose. If you happen to be more of a smalltalk fan. Or a not-at-all talk fan, but I can't really imagine that."

"I'm a shit talk fan, if you haven't realised that yet. But, no. I'm not, like, really religious. I mean, I technically grew up catholic but I always got bored in church, and when I grew up, I just... Well. I'm a scientist. We don't mesh well with the whole bible stuff." Did that sound pretentious? It might've. Very much, even. Atheist scientist destroys Jesus with facts and logic.

That wasn't it, though, was it? The fact that Quinn knew the universe very well and thus knew that god didn't make it the way some holy book explained. There'd always been something a little bit deeper, though. About god and heaven and hell and what that would entail for him and the world and the dead.

Thoughts and pleas and prayers too difficult to put into words. Well, no, they were very easy to put into words, actually. If god was real, then fuck him. Like, what an asshole. What a bitch.

"My sister actually became more religious after our parents died," Quinn said. Maybe because Grace felt as though she owed it to their mother. Maybe she just wanted a reason to wear that beautiful rosary she'd left behind. "But like... I dunno. Screaming into the void for change to happen isn't for me." A few quiet seconds passed. "Why were you asking?"

"I don't know. Just curious. Because some people, you know, when they're faced with death, they seek comfort or... I don't know."

"Feels more comforting to know that there's not some super scary hell afterlife they had to go through. I mean, these days you kinda get sent to hell for anything." Quinn shrugged, crossed his hands behind his head as he looked up, and maybe, if heaven was real after all, God was staring right back at him. "Like, if I'm dead, I'm dead. And I won't run the risk of running into like, highschool bullies or teachers or shitty politicians or my father on accident or something."

Dev snorted, and it felt like there was this terribly strange bond forming between them.

"You don't like your father too much?"

"Well, he didn't like me all that much. So."

"Yeah. Same." Dev cleared his throat, loudly, as though that would erase his words, then he stretched his arms out, his legs, and let his head roll side to side, back and forth. "Well. I've sat here for long enough, so I will head off. I will see you on Tuesday, 17:20, sharp. If you're late, I'll cancel your cardiac pacer subscription."

"Finally a real threat." Quinn watched Dev get up, eyed him, his embarrassingly well coordinated outfit, the clean white bangadge still wrapped around his right wrist, the gentle smile that was tugging at the corners of his mouth.

A smile that disappeared in the blink of an eye, and something more thoughtful, worried even washed over Dev's face. He looked towards the floor, his eyes dulling just a little, as though he was suddenly regretting the past god knows how long they'd spent talking.

"Well. Right." He cleared his throat.

"It was nice chatting to you?" Quinn said, or maybe asked, words just tumbling out of his mouth without his brain's permission. What the fuck! Nice? Quinn wasn't supposed to find it nice! At least he wasn't supposed to tell Dev that it was nice! "I-I guess you, sometimes, you can be- Well, sometimes, when you're not an asshole-"

"Sure, whatever." Dev shrugged, brushing through his thick dark hair with his hand before putting on his headphones again.

Oh, god damn it, really? Seriously? Did he really ruin it again?

"Hey, I guess-" Dev notably did not look back up to Quinn when he spoke. "You're not that bad after all, Quinton."

"Say that again?"

"No."

And he didn't say it again, but left. Dev was gone. Quinn was alone. The rain was tapping against the widowed exterior of the greenhouse.

That was- What exactly was that? How had that started? Why had it started? The order in Quinn's head, those perfectly fine boxes Quinn had constructed and filled with first impressions and half truths and half lies, all of that was very much starting to... Not fall apart, not quite.

Celeste's little box hadn't fallen apart, for example, just neatly rearranged and corrected. Nico's box had been abandoned, ignored. And Dev's box, it had been kicked over, violently, and though Quinn had known how unstable it was, here he still stared at it, contents spilled and revealed, not matching the label he had put onto that box after all.

Well, great. And he even kind of tolerated, maybe liked those contents. Which sucked. And meant something that Quinn knew he should think about further. But he decided not to.

After all, he'd come here to not think. Especially not about Dev.

Quinn closed his eyes, finally, leaned back as he'd always do, and tried to allow the silence to drown him.

There it was again, the rock in the void he saw as soon as he'd closed his eyes. Just that now, something was in his trajectory. Something was approaching. But it was too slow for Quinn to care. For now.

☆-☆-☆-☆

WC: 5042

whew! you've made it through the longest chapter so far! which, if you know me and my previous work, isn't actually that long compared to some... other monsters i've written in the past. but, you made it through, and i hope you enjoyed this chapter!

i certainly did <3 we learn a little more about both dev and quinn now... at the same time, quinn now knows less, in general. not that he ever really knows anything.

well, if you enjoyed this chapter, please leave some comments and a vote! thank you so much for reading! and, if you're reading this on the day its released, keep scrolling, there's something else after this 👀