Switchverse: Part II, or, Meet The Hive
Audrey and Derek can do this thing.
They’re cousins, first cousins, but they live about two streets apart and they’ve been allowed to walk it themselves since Audrey turned eight, even though Derek was still six.
But the distance has never really meant anything, because they can do this thing where Audrey gets a song stuck in her head and all the way across campus in sophomore biology Derek says, You’ve been listening their old tracks again.
In her senior physiology class, Audrey dives into the dead goat up to her elbows and says back, Blood, blood, gallons of the stuff, and hey Derek is this a liver or a spleen do you think?
It takes him a minute, but Derek sends back, It’s a liver, Cel. It’s shape, see?
She just believes him and tells her partner about it. She projects a pictures-colors-hum thing back to her cousin that means thanks and gets a feedback loop of stomach-twisting want.
After dinner at Uncle Mikey and Auntie A’s house, Audrey drags Derek up to his room and they experiment with a few different ways to read her monologue for her audition coming up and Audrey says aloud, “You’ll get to take physio next year, probably, and hey, that’s super early.”
Derek studies the starburst of glitter fanning out around her eyes and his mouth doesn’t smile but she can hear it in his heart that he’s indulging her. “Hey, Cel. I thought I’m coming with you to LA to be your agent?”
Audrey beams and puts on the diva act and murmurs, “Af course, dahling,” and doesn’t mention the medical shows cued on his personal vidplayer or the anatomy books replacing his actual homework.
It’s a thing they can do, this hearing each other when they don’t want to talk.
--
Theo and Derek are best friends.
As they all walk to school together, Theo asks, “Did you sit up all night?”
Derek hangs his head low to pretend that neither Audrey nor Theo could see the bruise-circles under his eyes, even though he’s tallest. He shrugs, awkward and lanky in teenaged bones, and doesn’t answer out loud.
Audrey supplies, “He was reading your latest.”
“It wasn’t so long as that,” Theo says, worried crease between his eyebrows.
Audrey, privately, says, Your medical texts. She sees a few flashes of thumbs holding the compact vidscreen, words marching steadily across the world. It’s a confession.
Theo rolls his shoulders back, breath puffing in autumn air. He’s used to their silences, by now. “Have you been studying for med school again?”
Derek flinches, fingers scrabbling and falling against the strap of his backpack.
Audrey sets her hand on the back of her cousin’s neck, sends him comfort warm as wings and summer glow. He never wants to hear that no one’s mad about it.
She watches her two boys - she was much closer to both of them than any of the other kids in the gang. They’re quiet, but she’s used to that, too.
She plants her feet and throws her arms wide, calling for the entire street; “Friends! Romans! Countrymen!”
“Antony doesn’t suit you, Cel,” Theo teases.
Lend me your ears, Derek fills in reflexively.
“I know how it goes,” Audrey sniffs.
Theo meets her eyes and keeps laughing.
Audrey’s heart flutters and sometimes she’d swear he knows.
--
Audrey has a boyfriend. Kind of.
His name is Nathan, Nate, and he smiles blankly when she makes an in-joke.
Audrey’s not used to people who don’t find corpses inherently hilarious, and she’s working on that.
Audrey likes him will enough - he’s in drama with her, he had great stage presence. And Derek carefully leaves her to it, keeps out of her head, doesn’t flood her with how much Derek thinks Nate doesn’t fit.
And Audrey hasn’t told anyone else, really. Not Theo, not her Daddy, not her Mom. It hasn’t come up. She’s dated other guys, casually, so it’s not a big deal or anything.
She’s not really sure that she’ll take Derek’s girlfriend in stride, if that becomes more than hypothetical.
--
2way and Audrey get along. Mostly.
Okay, mostly they ignore each other, but no one’s ever thrown a tantrum and shattered an entryway mirror, like Mary Jane did at Derek’s house one Christmas.
2way spends a lot of time in the basement, because it’s easier to smother the percussive rolls. Audrey spends a lot of time outside.
It’s easier.
They’re cousins, first cousins, but they live about two streets apart and they’ve been allowed to walk it themselves since Audrey turned eight, even though Derek was still six.
But the distance has never really meant anything, because they can do this thing where Audrey gets a song stuck in her head and all the way across campus in sophomore biology Derek says, You’ve been listening their old tracks again.
In her senior physiology class, Audrey dives into the dead goat up to her elbows and says back, Blood, blood, gallons of the stuff, and hey Derek is this a liver or a spleen do you think?
It takes him a minute, but Derek sends back, It’s a liver, Cel. It’s shape, see?
She just believes him and tells her partner about it. She projects a pictures-colors-hum thing back to her cousin that means thanks and gets a feedback loop of stomach-twisting want.
After dinner at Uncle Mikey and Auntie A’s house, Audrey drags Derek up to his room and they experiment with a few different ways to read her monologue for her audition coming up and Audrey says aloud, “You’ll get to take physio next year, probably, and hey, that’s super early.”
Derek studies the starburst of glitter fanning out around her eyes and his mouth doesn’t smile but she can hear it in his heart that he’s indulging her. “Hey, Cel. I thought I’m coming with you to LA to be your agent?”
Audrey beams and puts on the diva act and murmurs, “Af course, dahling,” and doesn’t mention the medical shows cued on his personal vidplayer or the anatomy books replacing his actual homework.
It’s a thing they can do, this hearing each other when they don’t want to talk.
--
Theo and Derek are best friends.
As they all walk to school together, Theo asks, “Did you sit up all night?”
Derek hangs his head low to pretend that neither Audrey nor Theo could see the bruise-circles under his eyes, even though he’s tallest. He shrugs, awkward and lanky in teenaged bones, and doesn’t answer out loud.
Audrey supplies, “He was reading your latest.”
“It wasn’t so long as that,” Theo says, worried crease between his eyebrows.
Audrey, privately, says, Your medical texts. She sees a few flashes of thumbs holding the compact vidscreen, words marching steadily across the world. It’s a confession.
Theo rolls his shoulders back, breath puffing in autumn air. He’s used to their silences, by now. “Have you been studying for med school again?”
Derek flinches, fingers scrabbling and falling against the strap of his backpack.
Audrey sets her hand on the back of her cousin’s neck, sends him comfort warm as wings and summer glow. He never wants to hear that no one’s mad about it.
She watches her two boys - she was much closer to both of them than any of the other kids in the gang. They’re quiet, but she’s used to that, too.
She plants her feet and throws her arms wide, calling for the entire street; “Friends! Romans! Countrymen!”
“Antony doesn’t suit you, Cel,” Theo teases.
Lend me your ears, Derek fills in reflexively.
“I know how it goes,” Audrey sniffs.
Theo meets her eyes and keeps laughing.
Audrey’s heart flutters and sometimes she’d swear he knows.
--
Audrey has a boyfriend. Kind of.
His name is Nathan, Nate, and he smiles blankly when she makes an in-joke.
Audrey’s not used to people who don’t find corpses inherently hilarious, and she’s working on that.
Audrey likes him will enough - he’s in drama with her, he had great stage presence. And Derek carefully leaves her to it, keeps out of her head, doesn’t flood her with how much Derek thinks Nate doesn’t fit.
And Audrey hasn’t told anyone else, really. Not Theo, not her Daddy, not her Mom. It hasn’t come up. She’s dated other guys, casually, so it’s not a big deal or anything.
She’s not really sure that she’ll take Derek’s girlfriend in stride, if that becomes more than hypothetical.
--
2way and Audrey get along. Mostly.
Okay, mostly they ignore each other, but no one’s ever thrown a tantrum and shattered an entryway mirror, like Mary Jane did at Derek’s house one Christmas.
2way spends a lot of time in the basement, because it’s easier to smother the percussive rolls. Audrey spends a lot of time outside.
It’s easier.