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whatwouldfrogsdo · 8 years ago

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Surprise (or Simplicity)

Day 2 of Nursey Week

Or, 5 times Derek was surprised by his sister and once he surprised her.

Triggers for talk about racism // children swearing // coming out (and a couple of instances of misgendering before they knew) // talk about mental illness and medication (#4 references the ficlet I did for Day 1).

Also read on AO3 here.

It had always been easy to surprise Derek. Leila Nurse had discovered this at the ripe old age of six when she found that no matter how many times she played peek-a-boo with her baby brother, it never failed to amuse him. By the time he was three, and she was eight, the activity that gave her the greatest joy in life is watching his eyes widen in astonishment over something she had done. In those first years, she wasn’t always kind about it, taking a thrill out of jumping out from behind doors and creeping up on him while he was walking out of kindergarten. She was eleven, and Derek was six, when she realized that scandalization was another way she could draw that response from him.

“What’s up with you?” she asked, eyebrow arched when she found him sat behind the curtain of the dining room one evening.

“What am I?”

She stared at him like he was being stupid. “What do you mean?”

“Tommy Marks asked me today, but I didn’t know what to say.”

“Tommy Marks sounds like a shithead.”

In normal circumstances, she would have immediately moved on to ask what his teacher had said, but he was six, and she had just sworn in front of him, so she waited a little time to appreciate the way his mouth dropped a little open and his eyes bulged. “That’s a bad word.”

“Not when it’s describing racist fucks, it’s not,” she said. Middle school had been great for learning language that would get a response out of Derek, even if she did know she would be in an awful lot of trouble when this conversation inevitably got repeated over dinner.

Derek didn’t know how to cry around anybody who wasn’t Leila. When he was younger, he could around his parents, but gradually (and much more quickly than any of his classmates), he had started to realize that crying demanded a reaction from people, and usually it turned him into somebody who was being demanding, who was a problem to deal with. So, he took the advice of the first lines of that Avril Lavigne song Leila and her friends were always singing karaoke to and he chilled out. He became the definition of chill, and if that meant holding in any hurt until he was on his own, so be it. Only his sister got to see his tears, and that was because he had seen her ugly-sobbing over Destiny’s Child going on hiatus. And again when they reunited.

That didn’t explain why; standing outside the building that one day would hopefully be his school, but for now was just starting to be hers; he wanted to cry so badly. Leila was happy and bouncing as she talked to her new dorm buddies, and her house counselor and anybody who happened to pass. His parents were smiling while they chatted to the principal, words like ‘opportunity’ and ‘quality’ and ‘intelligence’ floating back to Derek. He just felt sad.

“We should go. Let her settle in,” his ma said, and she put a hand on Derek’s shoulder to urge him to turn away. Leila didn’t even seem to notice, too engrossed in her new friends.

They were halfway along the path back to the parking lot when the shout came.

“Wait. Wait!”

Leila was running towards them, and she tugged Derek back. Their parents stepped a little way off to give them privacy.

“I have a present for you,” she told him, shoving something into his hands.

It was a book. The cover didn’t look like much, just a reddish color with writing on it:

Annie Allen Poems by Gwendolyn Brooks Author of A STREET IN BRONZEVILLE

Underneath, there was a review.

“I don’t know poetry, but this book made her the first African American to win a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Maybe now you can find something you connect with,” Leila told him.

As far as crying was concerned, Derek was now too shocked for that sort of emotion. He had mentioned in passing that they had been doing poetry at school - all Dr Seuss and Jack Prelutsky and Lewis Carroll. He was fascinated by the language of it, but he had complained that he just didn’t get it. Some of the nonsense poems, yes, he understood that they were only focusing on the language, so he loved them, but he felt a distance from so many of the others. He hadn’t expected Leila to even remember the conversation, let alone act on it to give him a present.

“Why?”

She smiled at him, her eyes twinkling in the way they always did when she had managed to catch him off-guard. “I can’t have you forgetting about me while I’m here, can I? Besides, you’re gonna be so bored now I’m not there.”

“What do you think they want to talk to us about? Ma sounded serious.”

Derek shrugged, but in truth he wondered if he had an idea. “Lei, I— I mean. Earlier this year—”

“I know.”

His foot slid and he ended up falling down the last three steps.

“Fuck’s sake, really?” Leila asked in exasperation. Derek just stared at her.

“What do you mean you know?”

“I mean Andy rang me. You think you can go through shit like that at Andover and it not get back to me? Anyway, Dad talked to me about it last week, too. That can’t be what this is about.”

Derek bit on his lip. “Oh.”

“Maybe one of them’s coming out,” she suggested.

“It’s Ma and Dad. What are you even on about?”

She shrugged again. “Okay, that was a joke, but it could totally happen.”

Derek rolled his eyes and headed for the sitting room. “Let’s not try and guess, okay?”

Their parents were sat on the love-seat, hand-in-hand, and they smiled at their children as they settled on the couch opposite. Their ma opened her mouth as if to speak, but no words came out, and she looked to her partner for help.

“I know this will be a little hard to hear, and definitely an adjustment to get used to when you’ve grown up calling me ‘dad’—” In the pause that followed, Derek started to panic. Were they adopted? Did that even make sense? “I’m trans. I’d like, when you’re ready, if you two could start calling me ‘mom’ instead of ‘dad’ and using feminine pronouns, but—”

“What?” Derek said, and he could see on his parents’ faces that he had spoken too sharply, but he turned to his sister without apologizing first nonetheless. “Did you know about this too?”

“What?” she echoed. “Do I look like I knew?” The answer was that she looked just as surprised as he felt, but that didn’t stop Derek from pushing.

“You just said on the stairs—”

“Oh my God, it’s just a coincidence! That’s great, Mom. We love you.”

Shaking his head, Derek whispered, “You know everything.”

“Oh, hey,” Skye said, glancing up as Derek walked into their freshman suite after class. Derek raised an eyebrow. Skye was the quietest of all the girls in their suite, and he wasn’t sure that she had ever spoken to him directly before. “A girl came by looking for you. I let her into your room.”

Derek frowned. He wasn’t expecting anybody. Lardo, perhaps?

It wasn’t Lardo sat in Dex’s desk chair and looking incredibly amused as she pushed his pens slightly out of line with each other. Derek’s mouth dropped open slightly. The last person he expected to see in his college dorm was his sister, especially now that she was well on her way to being a more successful business tycoon than either of their parents.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you. He flips out if I touch his stuff.”

Leila turned to grin at him. “And here I thought you’d learnt not to touch other people’s things after I confiscated Tigger.”

“You didn’t confiscate him, you stole him, Lei. And I was three, you could have just let me play Barbie with you.”

She laughed, and jumped to her feet to throw her arms around his neck. “I missed you, Der-bear.”

“What are you even doing here?”

Her expression turned to serious when she pulled away. “Shitty rang me.”

It took Derek by surprise, sometimes, that Leila and Shitty were friends. He and his sister hadn’t overlapped at Andover at all, her being five years older than him, but she had been there the same time as Shitty. In fact, she had known him before he became Shitty, and it frustrated Derek no end that she wouldn’t reveal his real name. “What did he ring you for?”

“He said you weren’t doing so well.”

Derek groaned, and backed up so that he could sit on his bed. “I’m doing fine. I stopped sleeping, so I went on the antipsychotics and my first day on them they decided to do hazing. It just took me by surprise, and shit happened, but I’m fine. I’ve been taking sleeping pills, too, just to be sure. It’s all chill”

“Have you seen a doctor?”

“I rang my one in Andover.”

Leila sighed and flopped down next to him. “Okay, aboowe, I’m glad you’re trying to take care of yourself, but you do need to get a doctor closer to here, and you need to let other people look after you properly when something happens.”

“It’s chill.”

“It’s okay if it’s not, though,” she told him. “And I’m serious about the doctor. If only because it’s ridiculous to have to drive up to Andover every time you need a prescription.”

Derek let his head come to rest on his sister’s shoulder and breathed out a sigh. “Okay.”

“Promise me you won’t deal with all of this on your own.”

“I promise. There’s a few people now, on the team, who know at least bits and pieces.”

“Including your roommate?”

“Er, no. Dex doesn’t know anything.”

“You know it’ll be easier if he does.”

Derek didn’t know what to say. Leila had no idea of the relationship between him and Dex, and trying to explain the complexities of how they got along, or the way that there was only a small collection of things Derek could actually talk to Dex about, was impossible.

When he didn’t respond, she just knocked her shoulder against his and pulled his laptop onto her knees, guessed his password right on the second try and brought up Netflix. Derek tried to remember the last time things were so calm and simple between he and Leila. A great deal of childhood had been arguments and tension and the constant feeling of being overshadowed. Even at Andover, the upperclassmen had all looked at him and immediately said “You’re Lei’s brother.” That had become his persona for two years until everyone who had known her had graduated. Derek wondered if what fixed their relationship was just them growing up or him finally going to a school where the only person who knew her was Shitty.

“I’m glad you came,” he muttered, and when she looked at him, he could see she wasn’t expecting him to say anything like that.

“Of course I did. You’re my baby brother. It wasn’t too bad a surprise, then?”

“Nah. Since when do you care if it’s a bad surprise or not?”

She gave him that same look she had perfected when she was eight; the one which said he was being stupid. “I’ve always cared, Derek.”

“Happy birthday.”

Derek had been on his way, with Will, to the Haus when Leila rang. He smiled. “Thanks. Are you doing anything for it?”

“I’m sure it’s supposed to be me asking you that.”

“Come on, Lei, you know I’ve never been into it.”

“Birthdays? Whatever you say, baby bro. As you ask, I actually have had a lovely evening with Louis, and I do have some news for you, but as it’s your birthday, I won’t tell you now.”

“What’s your news?” Derek asked immediately.

“No, I’m not stepping on your birthday.”

“I don’t give a fuck about my birthday, Lei, what’s your news?”

Will’s steps had faltered and he was staring at him, but Derek tried to ignore this, waiting for Leila’s reply.

“He proposed.”

“Oh my God. You’re—You’re engaged?”

“So, yeah, for your birthday I was thinking—”

“Leila Tajel Nurse, are you engaged?”

“I don’t want to ask Mom to give me away because that just seems messed up. I mean we’ll see what she says, because maybe she wants to, or maybe Ma wants to, but if— I mean— Will you—”

Derek had apparently walked into the Haus in a trance because Will was now guiding him into a chair at the kitchen table. “Oh my God.”

“Is that a yes? Now can I actually tell you what your birthday present is?”

“What’s your obsession with my birthday when you just got engaged?”

“It’s today! My baby brother is nineteen, let me tell you what your present is!”

“Fine.”

“Rangers tickets in Boston. Two of them. I thought you could take your boy. He’s a New Englander, right? Bruins supporter?”

“I don’t have a boy.”

Will shot him another look, and Derek winced apologetically, but as Bitty walked through at that moment they both straightened their faces and said nothing about it.

“Mhm, sure,” Leila said.

“Lei, I have to go, I love you. Con-fucking-gratulations, oh my God.”

“Okay,” she said with a laugh. “Love you, too, you nerd.”

She hung up before he could say anything else.

There was a long pause, and then Will said slowly, “Uh… What was that about your birthday?”

“Oh, she wanted to tell me my present.”

“Is it— When is it?”

“Today,” Derek said with a shrug.

Will shook his head in disbelief. “Of course it is. Valentine’s Day. Of course.”

+1.

Derek strolled into the building as if he belonged there, went straight up to the desk, and asked, “Could you direct me to Leila Nurse’s office, please?”

Confidence was key, and that was probably why the receptionist didn’t ask for any ID before pointing at the lift, telling him to go to the sixth floor, and that it was the first door on the right.

“Can it wait?” his sister called through the door when he knocked.

“Nope.”

There was a long pause. “Uh… Come in?” He had a feeling she hadn’t been able to place his voice from the one syllable, which was why she sounded so confused. His deduction was proved when he pushed open the door and watched as her jaw went slack and her eyes went wide. Derek could see why she enjoyed making him look like that.

“Hey, sis.”

“What are you— How—”

“We were playing Ohio State.”

“Right, and you thought a four hour drive in the wrong direction wasn’t much of a detour home?”

Derek just smiled. He could spring that particular surprise on her in a little bit. “What can I say, I missed my big sister.”

“It’s been years since I was last big compared to you.”

“I take offence to that,” he told her. She just laughed. “Anyway, I’ve got two hours until I have to get to the airport, but I’m all yours until then.”

She stared down at the file in front of her for a few minutes. “Sure, I’ll take a long lunch. You came up here on your own?”

“Nah, Will drove, but he’s, uh, in a meeting.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Uh huh. I went to loads of meetings in other states when I was a junior in college. That’s totally normal.”

“Sure is!” Derek chirped.

It wasn’t until they were strolling along the River walk with sandwiches from Lunchbox Deli that Derek turned towards the only part of Detroit he knew, and told Leila they should go that way. “Will might nearly be done,” he told her.

She narrowed her eyes again. “Where did you say his meeting was?”

Derek took a few more steps before he indulged her. “Oh, he and I have been talking to the Red Wings. I’m probably signing this year, but he wants to finish his degree.”

Egg mayo splattered over the sidewalk.

“That’s disgusting,” Derek told her, and he shoved the last of his tofu burrito into his mouth.

“You’re— the NHL?”

Finally, he let himself grin, and he practically bounced as he turned to face her. “I’m going to play in the NHL. Well, maybe. I might never get beyond AHL, you know, but they scouted me, they want me, they’re—”

He trailed off into a laugh, because he had an armful of his sister, and she was squealing into his shoulder. “I can’t believe you’re going pro. I’m so proud of you.”

“Thanks,” he said, not letting go. “And we’ll both be in Detroit, if it works out.”

“Oh my God. No. Find your own city.”

“I’m going to live in your apartment.”

“No.”

Derek laughed, and swung his arm around her shoulders as they carried on down the pathway towards the Joe Lewis Arena.

#nurseyweek #omgcp #omgcp fanfic #derek nurse #check please!#stephwrites #nurseydex #i think technically thi si s a little on the early side but it's gone lunchtime here and i'm out all afternoon #freshverse tag

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