Work Text:
“‘Before you’,” Raz intoned, “‘the narrow passageway suddenly opens up into a vast cavern. Its walls stretch some two or three hundred feet across, disappearing into a darkness so thick that your torchlight barely illuminates it. The space echoes with a low, baleful rumble–’”
“What does ‘baleful’ mean?” Dogen asked.
Raz pursed his lips.
“It’s sort of… scary, or menacing. Like the distant howl of a monster that makes your blood run cold.”
“Woah.” Dogen’s eyes went wide. “Is there – is there gonna be a monster in the cave?”
“Guess we’re about to find out,” Raz grinned. He turned back to the book, skimming his finger along the lines on the page. “‘The space echoes with a low, baleful rumble, so deep that you feel it rattle the inside of your ribcage as you approach. The light of your torch glints off something in the base of the cavern. It’s a huge pile of treasure, silver and gold and the gleam of precious jewels – riches beyond your wildest dreams. And sitting atop this mountain of wealth, you see the source of the noise’.”
He turned the page, and Dogen scooched a little closer. He always appreciated it when Raz offered to read out loud. Dogen was a slow reader – he had to stay completely one-hundred-percent focused, or else all the letters would jump about and get all messed up on the page. But Raz was great at reading, and he liked to read lots of long, serious books, and he knew almost all of the long words that Dogen didn’t (even though Dogen was pretty sure that sometimes even he needed to guess). And he would read things in this fancy, dramatic voice, like he was up on stage or performing in front of a big crowd, even though it was just the two of them. It was nice.
So normally, Dogen would leave him to it, and not pay too much attention to the pages. But he wanted to pay attention to this page, because this page had a picture.
“Whoah.” Raz’s eyes sparkled as he took in the illustration. “Oh, man, check that out. Ahem - ‘the dragon is enormous. Its serpentine length coils twice, thrice around the pile of treasure. You creep as close as you dare without waking the beast…’”
They were outside the lodge at Whispering Rock, sitting together on the bare brick. It was twilight, and the sun had gone down but there was just enough light to read by still. Across from them through the trees, Dogen could catch a glimpse of the lake, and past that a long, wide sliver of sunset. The sky above them was dull blue, but at this time of year the sun set right across the lake, like it was sinking down into the depths, and it painted one edge of the sky orange and molten gold as the last of the day said goodbye.
Dogen found his eyes getting lost in the pen-and-ink criss-crossed scratchings on the dragon’s scales. Its long tail and neck wound around and around, and as he looked at it Raz’s voice started to fade into a comforting background drone, like when he’d still been young enough for bedtime stories from Sam. He almost felt a little bad for not paying attention to the words. But there was a lot on his mind tonight.
Dogen was twelve. Which meant next year he would be thirteen. Which meant next year, he wouldn't be able to come to Whispering Rock any more. Whispering Rock was for kids between seven and twelve, was what the words on the brochures all said, and Dogen had read them over and over until he got cross-eyed trying to see if, well, maybe there was a way you could still come if you were thirteen – but he’d come up empty-handed.
(Well, that wasn’t totally true. Raz was already thirteen. Their birthdays were in the same month but Raz was almost a whole year older than Dogen. He wasn’t here as a camper, though. He was here as a junior counselor to help out with some of the kids. Or, that was the official story, he’d said with a wink and a grin. So there was a real story there, too, but Dogen didn’t know what it was. He felt a little bit left out to not be a part of it. But he hadn’t asked Raz, because he knew that Raz saying out loud that he couldn’t tell him would hurt even more.)
Dogen wasn’t a secret agent. He didn’t have any special circumstances. So this was going to be his last year ever at Whispering Rock. The realization had hit him at the end of the first week – and that had just made matters worse, because not only was this his last year at Whispering Rock, now half of it had already gone and he hadn’t even noticed.
He’d brought it up to Sasha, shyly, and Sasha hadn’t really done anything to ease his mind.
“Well, yes. Given the rapid neurological changes at the onset of puberty, it simply becomes too risky to have so many children here with so few counsellors. Teenaged psychics demand more attentive supervision, or preferably one-to-one mentorship.” He had smiled down at Dogen, in a way that had been kind of awkward and not really comforting. “But if you’re interested in furthering your psychic education, you should consider the Motherlobe’s internship program. I’m certain you’d be an excellent candidate.”
The intern program. Maybe he could try and apply for it. But it’d be full of strangers, and older kids he might not like, and it was for the whole summer. And from Sam’s descriptions, he'd have a boss if he was an intern, and he'd have to do work and chores and assignments. And… and…
And anyway, that wasn’t really what this was about. It wasn’t about his ‘psychic education’, because Dogen didn’t know if he even wanted to be a Psychonaut. And it wasn’t like this was the last time he would see Raz, because they were friends now, real friends, and they saw each other outside of summer camp. But…
Whispering Rock was their time. It wasn’t working at an internship. And it wasn’t like one of their other visits during the rest of the year, which were always so fun but so sad because they never lasted long. Whispering Rock was their own time, really all their own, in those hot humid days in the middle of summer where it felt like anything could happen. And now, all of a sudden, it was the last time that he'd have these two weeks, forever. He hadn’t been able to stop stressing about it, worrying the days away like bitten fingernails until they sped by, and now – now it was his very last night.
Raz teased the edge of the page with his fingers, and Dogen wriggled a little closer, listening to the soothing hum of his voice. Maybe he should have seen this coming. They were all getting older, after all. Lili had started cutting her hair short, which made her look cool and serious, and Raz had started shooting up like a sunflower (was what Lili had said), getting long in his legs and arms like he was being stretched in a taffy pull. His whole family were tall, so it wasn't a surprise, really.
Dogen's family weren't tall. They were small and fat, and Dogen guessed that he was probably going to end up like that, too. He didn't mind. It was a good shape to be. But it meant that the way the two of them fit together was different, now. Raz had grown a lot and Dogen had hardly grown at all, and he'd always been the shorter one but now he was so much shorter that when they were sitting like this, with their sides pressed together, Raz's arms were long enough to wrap all around his whole body.
And there were other things that had started changing, too.
Dogen craned his neck, looking up at Raz as he read from the page. He wasn’t paying enough attention to catch the words, but something made Raz’s nose crinkle in a grin. And something about that made Dogen feel for just a moment like he’d tripped and there was nothing there to catch him, that bubbly, stomach-flipping feeling like bouncing up in the air with levitation.
He knew what it was called when a boy and a girl looked at each other like this. When he'd been little, and he'd held Lili's hand when the other kids had picked on him, and all the grown-ups had smiled and said how cute it was – he knew about all of that.
But he didn't know what this was called, what it meant for him to be hanging on to every heartbeat he could feel where Raz's long chest pressed into his shoulderblades. He didn't know why he felt so warm, even though it was a chilly evening, or why every time his eyes trailed down to where Raz's shirt had ridden up and he could see a little of his tummy, the same golden colour as the edge of the evening sky, it sent something like lightning fizzling along his spine.
It was complicated. It was all really, really complicated, and Dogen didn't know what to do about any of it.
“What do you wanna do?”
Dogen blinked.
“Um. Huh?”
“About the dragon.” Raz leant forward, resting his chin on Dogen’s shoulder, and tapped the open book.
Right. Yeah. The dragon. Dogen craned his neck up, peering at the page and trying to will the words to resolve into something legible. It was starting to get kind of dark, now, which wasn’t helping. But then Raz’s finger slid along one of the lines, and the top of his chipped fingernail helped corral the letters into place just enough for Dogen to make them out.
“To try and steal… the dragon's hoard… turn to page four – four hundred and six.”
Raz’s eyes gleamed.
“I think we should.”
"Hmm…" Dogen peered down at the dragon. It was very big, and looked very, very fierce. "What if we wake it up?"
"I'm sure we can make it," Raz said. And there was that something in his voice – that little magical, magnetic whisper of trouble that Dogen could never, ever resist.
So he reached for the dice. One of them was orange and one of them was little and blue, a funny pair that they'd scrounged together from the board games in the lodge. He jiggled them around in his closed fist, thinking very hard about getting a good roll. It was like shaking up a soda can. You had to wait for the perfect moment, and then–!
Raz brought one of his long arms to rest across Dogen's knees.
"What's the holdup?" he murmured, right by Dogen's ear, and suddenly something was fizzing and bursting inside of Dogen like exploding pop, and he panicked just a little. He flung the dice onto the brick. They bounced up, high, and then scattered away and disappeared into the long grass.
Dogen blinked.
"Oops," he said. "Sorry."
Raz giggled. He folded the top of the page down in a dog-ear, and got to his feet, unwrapping himself from around Dogen and leaving him feeling cold in his absence.
"It's cool," he said, hopping down to peer under the picnic benches. "I'm sure we can find them again."
Dogen slid himself off the brick to go join him. They couldn't have gotten far, he thought – but the grass had gotten very long, without Groundskeeper Cruller (who was also every other Cruller, except he wasn't any more, and Dogen still didn't really get the whole thing but Raz made a face every time he brought it up, so he never brought it up any more) around to mow it. And it was even darker now that he’d stepped away from the glow of the lodge, and –
"Oh, wow!" Raz said. "Dogen, look at this!"
Dogen was about to ask, look at what, but then he straightened up and the movement disturbed a handful of fireflies from the grass in front of him and he realised he didn't need to. He hadn’t noticed them before, but suddenly they were everywhere, taking to the air all around him. There must have been hundreds of them. The little lights on their abdomens winked to life as they buzzed clumsily up into the lavender sky, like stars close enough to touch.
Raz laughed, a high, squeaky laugh that bubbled in Dogen's ears, and then Dogen wasn't looking at the fireflies any more. Raz's hair was glowing at the edges as the lights danced around him. His cheeks were stretched in a smile, and his eyes were huge and shiny and full of wonder. He looked happy, Dogen realised. Happier than he'd seen him in a long time. He hardly ever smiled at the Motherlobe, because the Motherlobe was a place to be serious and stern and grown-up. But here…
"Oh, man," Raz laughed, face turned up towards the sky and arms spread wide as he took it all in. "I'm gonna miss this."
There was a lump in Dogen's throat that he couldn't swallow. He felt like his chest was about to burst – like he was suddenly feeling something bigger than he'd ever ever felt before, blazing inside him, and maybe it had a name in a book somewhere but right now he just didn't have the words.
"Yeah," he said. "Me too."
Raz looked back over his shoulder at him, grinning wide. Then he looked at Dogen's feet.
"Oh, hey! You found 'em!"
Dogen followed his gaze. There, at the end of one of his sneakers, were the two dice. That was funny. They’d landed right next to each other.
They both reached for them at the same time. Raz's fingertips brushed over Dogen's knuckles. As they sat back down, Dogen hoped it was dark enough that Raz couldn't see his blush.
No shaking the dice for luck this time – that had been proved to be distinctly unlucky. Instead. Dogen just let them topple from his palm onto the floor. The two of them leant over with bated breath to peer at the results through the gloom.
"Two and a one." Raz sucked in through his teeth. "That's probably not good."
He flipped through the book, and his grimace settled further on his face.
"’Your foot slips on the pile of treasure as you creep forward. Sure enough, the great reptile stirs at the sound. It opens one great eye, and its pupil narrows to a vicious slit. If you have drunk a potion of fire resistance’ –" (they had not) "– ‘turn to page one hundred eighteen. Otherwise’… uh oh. ‘The dragon draws a mighty breath. You can feel the sheer heat of a furnace as it opens its mouth, a split-second before you are engulfed in a torrent of flame. Your adventure ends here.’"
Dogen frowned at the big, bold words saying YOU ARE DEAD at the bottom of the page.
"Bummer," he said.
Raz clicked his tongue.
"Them's the breaks. This dungeon-delving, treasure-hunting thing is a tough gig."
Dogen watched as he teased the dog-ear smooth, and clapped the book shut.
"You don't wanna try again?"
“Nah. It’s getting too dark out to read.” Raz shoved it in one of the oversized pockets of his shorts, and bent to help Dogen up. “We should probably head back to the cabins. C’mon.”
Reluctantly, Dogen took Raz’s hand and got to his feet. It really was getting dark. There was only a little bit of brightness left in the sky, yellow smeared across the far horizon behind sooty clouds and black, reaching trees. The last few fireflies scattered around their ankles as they trooped away from the lodge through the long grass.
It was the last night. And Dogen knew, just knew somehow, that there was something special about this moment, as he watched Raz’s back get bluer and bluer in the dusk. He wanted to live in it forever. Maybe he could, if he just filled his lungs a little fuller with the smell of pine and grass and hot earth. Maybe he could write the cool night air, the crunch of the dirt beneath his boots, into his memory so that he’d never forget. Maybe he could dig his hands into the sunset, and make it hold on for just a moment, just a moment longer, and in that moment he’d be always twelve and always confused and always sat next to his best friend among the fireflies.
He shoved his fists deep into his pockets as they crossed the bridge to stop himself from reaching out. The cabins loomed before them out of the darkness. Raz kicked off his shoes, scrambling up to the top bunk as Dogen tucked himself under the covers in the bottom bunk. They’d always shared a bunk together, ever since that first year. The thought made him smile for just a moment, and then another pang of something sad hit him and the smile dropped again.
The bunk above him creaked as its occupant rolled over.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” he heard Raz mumble into his pillow, and he hummed back. But somehow, he couldn’t quite get to sleep. He just laid there, in the bed that was a little uncomfortable under the covers that were a little bit itchy, with his eyes open staring up at nothing at all.
“Hey,” he said under his breath, “Raz?”
But there was no answer. Just the soft, steady sounds of Raz’s breathing from above him. He must have already fallen asleep. Dogen sighed. He let his head fall back on the pillow, and watched the black fuzzy shapes that rippled in the darkness above him until his eyes got heavier and heavier and finally fluttered shut.
He couldn’t even remember what he’d wanted to say, he thought to himself as he was drifting off. But that was okay. It probably hadn’t been important, anyway.