Chapter Text
Derek exited the campus bus two blocks from what he hoped was going to be his favorite place on campus. Smoothly, he adjusted the black strap across his shoulder, resettling his messenger bag, and shaking off the vestiges of travel. He dusted himself absently, and started toward the deceptively small building. Today is just a tour , he reminded himself.
Derek Malik Nurse shook his head, and scratched his hand across his scalp, sucking his teeth while walking up the steps of Faber. His mothers had wished him a safe trip a day ago, he was staying in one of the dorms for the night, and the buzzing feeling in his head got lighter with every step. Another boy was walking beside him, positively vibrating with excitement. Derek glanced in his direction, and that seemed to be all that was required to set the other off.
“ Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh!! I’m so excited to be here! Are you here for the hockey tour, too?!”
The corner of his mouth involuntarily twitched, and the other powered on, undeterred by pesky things like answers. “I can’t believe that my auntie is missing this!! I heard that they take the parents to their own activities on purpose , but I was really looking forward to looking at the rink together!” The asian boy leaned in conspiratorially like he was sharing a rumor heard from someplace seedy, but his bright brown eyes and ridiculous, metal-filled grin were open and pleased.
And then his toe caught the next step and the ground rose like a vengeful lover.
“Ow,” Derek said, His knee throbbing numbly and his left palm stinging. His right...wasn’t. A hot hand, burning through his henley and light jacket hauled him up like air.
“Are you okay?!?!”
“It’s chill,” Derek told him, “I’m a lot steadier on the ice, I swear.”
The other’s smile returned, blazing brighter by several notches, “Awesome!!!”
“Has anyone ever told you they can hear the exclamation points when you talk?”
The pair continued into the building side by side, the sunlit boy chattering a mile a minute about how fun the prospective student tour has been, how it tingly and amazing it was to be so far from home, wondering what winter at Samwell University would be like, if the hockey team was all he was hoping for, and oh, by the way, he played Goalie and his name was Chris.
“Derek Nurse, D-man. Nice to meet you.”
They were greeted by two team managers, a tiny asian woman whose smirk could buzz the hairs off Derek’s testicles, and a blonde boy not much larger than her holding a box of goodie bags. They tag-teamed a tour of the Wellie ice rink, from center ice to offices, press box, and locker room, snacking on hand pies the whole while. It was while they were saying goodbye to the ice that through the crowd, he appeared.
Derek could not say his hair was like fire, it was too orange-toned, without the russet. He could not say his freckled, pale skin was like stars, the clusters were so densely packed it could not mimic the dead space between stars. He could not call his eyes brown, they shown eerie amber, reflecting the light from the skylights oddly, like something was shifting in the back of the eye.
Derek fell in love instantly.
It seized him, poetry clawing at his lungs, freezing his breath, half-lines started, stuttering, and dead within fractions of seconds, half-formed. Derek’s cliched lines tangled, falling flat and meaningless, and he needed to introduce himself --one in four, maybe more, right? Struggling to think of something, the unsettling yellow eyes turned towards him and Chris.
And whatever tricks of light that played behind them shuttered like a slammed door. Unreadable.
“HI!” Chris beamed, his arms tightening around Derek’s in a vice of brilliant excitement.
Derek’s living muse raged silently with a flash of his eyes, a cracked and crooked smile tearing across his face.
Derek was so fucked.