Chapter Text
Winter breaks, if they meant anything to Dyce, usually meant being alone.
It wasn’t his mom’s fault. Wasn’t her fault that Dyce’s father had left, or Dyce’s mom’s fault that her boss always forced her to work long hours around Christmas. She was gone before Dyce woke up, most days, and even more often she came home too late at night to do much else than pass out.
And sure, Dyce had some friends staying in Witherburn for Christmas, and he had games to play and streams to run. But at some point during his two week break, the days would always start to yawn into chasms of nothingness. He could watch movies, bake bread, and knit socks as much as he wanted, but it was inevitable.
This particular year, the boredom had taken Dyce rather quickly, and just three days into break, he was already settling down on the couch to rewatch ‘Klaus’ for the twelfth time. That movie blurred into the next, then the next, and before Dyce knew it, it was 11PM. With a sigh, he realized that getting sleep was probably the best choice he could make, and to the tune of his mother’s snores in the other room, he pointed the remote at the TV, ready to turn it off.
Just as he moved to press the power button, though, something interrupted him. A knock at the door.
Dyce checked the time again, the weather, and then the time a third time, just to be sure he was right. It was the middle of a snowstorm, late at night on the 20th of December. Half of the town was away on holiday, and the other half was no more eager to go outside than Dyce. So who could be at his door?
He considered briefly the option of taking the smart answer and leaving the thing closed.
Dyce then immediately thereafter brushed that thought off, and made for the door. In a shocking moment of self preservation and logic, he also found it within him to grab the baseball bat his mother kept by the door, for situations like these.
Armed, ready, clad in plaid pajamas, and with the theme of ‘Mission Impossible’ surging through his head, Dyce wrenched the door open. When he saw who was on the other side, he almost swung the bat on principle.
In the flurrying snow and ice stood Dyce’s former childhood friend, Hunter Clark. He looked, for lack of a better term, like shit. His jacket and sweatpants were soaked through, and half-frozen by the elements. He looked feverish, almost, which Dyce wouldn’t doubt is what Hunter was, if he were out in this weather. What struck Dyce the most, though, was the fact that Hunter had no shoes on. Even if this were some kind of odd prank, surely the teen would have something?
Peering past him and onto the street, Dyce saw nothing out of the usual, no glaring headlights or new cars that had shown up in the hours since Dyce had last glanced out the window. Straining his ears, there was no giggling to be heard. No other noise at all, really. Even Hunter’s footprints were already half-covered by the snow. That anomaly alone raised a whole new question; how had Hunter gotten there?
Finally, and intent on getting answers, Dyce’s gaze landed on Hunter’s face. His jaw chattered, his cheeks were deep red, and his eyes were tired. Just above them sat eyelashes encrusted with crystals of ice. Dyce’s mouth paused, half-open, and Hunter took the opportunity to speak.
In a voice rough with cold, and oh so tired, he said seven words. “I didn’t know where else to go.”
And then, in a show of all the poise and properness a family like the Clarks demanded, Hunter Clarkson Clark fainted on Dyce’s doorstep.
-
After checking that there had been no visible head injury from the fall (and setting down the baseball bat), Dyce dragged Hunter inside, ignoring how much water he was trailing all over the wooden floors. He deposited his fellow high schooler in the bathroom upstairs, and only then did he finally begin to freak out.
Questions like ‘Why is the worst person from my school at my doorstep?’, ‘What do I do?’, and ‘What the fuck?’ swirled through Dyce’s head, but luckily for both him and the unconscious, potentially frostbitten teenager in his home, he was both able and willing to suppress those for the time being in favor of damage control.
Turning on the water at a nice, scalding temperature, Dyce let the bath tub fill up as he went to grab first a pair of scissors, and then in the face of his sewing sensibilities, a seam ripper. He was able to remove Hunter’s jacket pretty well, but the rest of his clothing was just about attached to his body, and while being hot and wet was preferable to cold and wet, it still wasn’t great. So seam ripper it was.
Dyce stripped Hunter down to just his boxers, doing his best to be respectful all the while. He set the pieces of clothing to the side, making a mental note to toss them in the wash before making salvation efforts. The only thing of real note on Hunter was the sheer amount of scarring across his chest. White lines marked his torso like streaks of paint on a canvas, and they were just as varied in size and intensity. They seemed old, though. Probably just from hunting accidents. Dyce tossed a eucalyptus bath bomb into the water with a grimace, and made another mental note to not ask.
He heaved Hunter into the tub, rejoicing in a most-of-the-way lack of splashing. Dyce strained his hearing again, double checking that his mother was still asleep, and at the sound of her light snores, he continued his plan. He looped the shower hose underneath Hunter’s arms, securing him upright and virtually unable to drown, and finally stepped back out in the hallway to grab a change of clothing for both teens, and then clean up the mess left behind. Dyce secured the clothes, and then grabbed a towel and turned on his Christmas playlist, hoping that the sound of Mariah Carey could drown out the fact that his childhood friend turned enemy turned guy freezing to death on his porch was currently unconscious in his bathroom. It almost worked.
But the chore was over far too soon, and Hunter was still in the now-rapidly-cooling bath. He was warmed up, though, and that was a win as far as Dyce went. With the same uncomfortable haste as he had taken on putting Hunter into the tub, Dyce removed him, dressed him, and carried (read: dragged) him downstairs. Settling Hunter into a pile of pillows and turning on the space heater, Dyce briefly considered leaving a note for his mother, explaining what had happened, eyeing the pen and paper on his desk.
Then he turned off the light, climbed into bed, and fell asleep, instead.