Chapter Text
August 1996
Dagur Dérangé was born on a cool, stormy day, with the wind battering the windows of the hospital room. He came into the world screaming, curling his little fists into balls. A fighter, even then.
But no one soothed the screaming baby; no one ever does. A nurse rushed him into a cot and wrapped him up. Even before Dagur could form memories, he felt the confused panic - like flailing in the dark - of people rushing around, machines beeping, metal clattering, and then...
A flatline.
Postpartum haemorrhage, Dagur would learn much later. But all he knew was that he was born, his mother died, and his father Oswald made sure to let him know it was his fault.
He was confusing, Dagur’s father. One day, he was kind; the next, Dagur was hiding in his room, his harsh words ringing around his head as he tried not to cry. He was five, six, seven, and his teachers hated his “eccentricities.” His loud voice and unusual ideas didn’t belong in a classroom. And they were to be kept silent in Oswald’s home.
“I’m just looking out for you, Dagur,” he said. “I’m just trying to help you fit in, so you can have a good life.”
As Dagur grew older, Oswald went on dates to meet other women. Dagur wondered why, but Oswald shrugged, and gave a vague answer - something about “moving on” - which only confused Dagur more. Didn’t Oswald love his mom anymore? But Oswald slapped him for that comment, and he didn’t bring it up again. Eight, nine, ten, and Oswald was sick of getting called into school every week.
Eventually, Oswald spent more time away from Dagur- going on more and more dates, working longer hours with the police. Dagur tried to work out for himself what his father was doing that was more important than him- he stole newspapers, and scrolled articles on the rickety school computers, but whatever his dad was doing was very top secret.
One evening, his mother’s sister - a tough woman named Grethel - was babysitting Dagur while Oswald was out on another date, when there was a knock on the door.
The police.
“What’s wrong?” Dagur asked. “Is Os- my dad okay?”
One man just shook his head. The other held his father’s bag.
Grethel turned him harshly away by the shoulders, and said he died in a car accident. Dagur had a gut feeling she was lying, but he was eleven, and already, people thought he was destined to wind up in prison, so he dropped it.
He picked himself up, and stood tall. His elbows became scraped from getting into fights with the other boys, and soon he was getting expelled from all the middle schools in the state. It didn’t matter to him. He was thirteen, and already, people treated him like he was destined to end up in prison, so he dealt with it.
Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. Drugs became appealing; he knew it was wrong, and illegal, but it gave him a high he couldn’t stop chasing. It was his light in the tunnel where nothing else mattered.
He was seventeen when he joined the Dragon Hunters. Weird name, he thought, and full of even weirder kids, under the command of someone named Ryker. But everyone but him was dumb as a bag of rocks, and - aided by street smarts, and a thirst for chaos - he soon climbed the ranks.
Seventeen, eighteen... He was going on missions- wrecking stuff Ryker told him to, picking up shipments of Dragon Root and smuggling it into important places. The exhilaration throbbed in his veins, fuelling him for days without sleep.
It didn’t matter. He was eighteen, and on the verge of ending up in prison anyway, homeless if it wasn’t for his dad’s massive inheritance, so why did it matter?
None of it mattered. This was his life. May as well get used to it.
Not too far from where Dagur lived with his aunt, was a young girl, hiding in her room, unwilling to befriend the fifth set of foster parents she’d had in her life. From verbally to physically abusive; warm and kind, to cold and cruel, she was sick of two different sets of faces every couple of years, once the old ones got fed up.
Her sharp, soulful eyes stared out of the window, wondering if there was anything in her life worth living for. All she had were books- worlds she journeyed into in her head that dared to be better than her own. And they weren’t even real anyway.
There had to be someone out there. Her whole family couldn’t be dead, surely?
But even if they did, would they ever come? And did they even care about her?
Dagur Dérangé was twenty years old, with no life outside of the Dragon Hunters, when he was called by a random number.
“Ugh. Spam mail.” He shrugged, but - against his better judgement - decided to pick it up anyway.
He pressed the phone to his ear, but was surprised to hear a crisp voice speaking to him.
“Hello, am I speaking to Dagur Dérangé?”
“Um... yeah?”
“My name is Martha Smith, and I work with Oregon Foster Care. We’ve recently been tracing one of our clients - Heather - and in her records, we’ve found her father had the surname Dérangé.”
“So wh- wait! Wait, wait, wait.” He paused, wondering if he was tripping on last night’s Dragon Root. “Did you say Dérangé ?”
No one else he knew had that surname.
“Yes. We went through her system records at her request to see if she has any other family she can stay with. And since you’re almost twenty one, which is the age we usually recommend people gain custody of a child, we contacted you.”
“What the hell?” Dagur actually laughed in disbelief. This woman had to be kidding. “I can’t adopt a kid! ”
“I’m sorry, but we have no other way of meeting her maternal family. Her mother’s dead.”
“Yeah, well so’s mine. She died in childbirth.” Dagur scowled, anger masking the hurt.
“Her only other family lives in Japan, and she isn’t in contact with any of them. You have the same father, different mothers. Heather Ushijima - that’s her last name - is your half sister, Mr Dérangé.”
“Um... okay?” Dagur hesitated, but - for some reason - didn’t hang up the phone.
“I think you’d like to meet her,” Martha said. “She’s been dying to meet you since she found out she had an older brother.”
Something about that made Dagur’s stomach do backflips. He had a sister. A half sister, technically, but that was still a sister! Right? He wasn’t in any position to raise her. Hell no. The Dragon Hunters didn’t let anyone have kids- too much of a risk. But Dagur could at least get to know her.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll meet her.”
Dagur hadn’t felt nerves like those in his life. His stomach was in knots, his heart pounded, and he was pretty sure he was rapidly losing salt levels with how much he was sweating. He tried to take deep, even breaths, as he always did before a mission.
You’re good, Dagur. You’re just meeting the half sister you never knew existed... okay, it did sound bad when he thought about it, but he tried to calm himself down, focusing on the pattern of his heartbeat, until an unfamiliar car arrived in front of Heather’s house.
To his relief, a friendly-looking woman - who he found out was Martha Smith from the phone call - welcomed him in, explaining that Heather had asked to meet him in her bedroom. Martha would supervise, obviously, but she wouldn’t interject unless things went badly.
Once they had arrived, Martha introduced him to Heather’s parents, a cold-seeming couple, showed him up the stairs, and opened Heater’s room.
He stopped short.
Sis.
For the first time in his life, he took in the sight of his sibling. Her light brown skin shone in the midday light from her window, which she used to read the book in her hands. Her hair, the colour of ravens’ feathers, was in a loose braid down her back.
I bet I could learn how to take better care of that hair, Dagur thought, then stopped short. Nope. No no no, this doesn’t mean anything. You’re just meeting her.
He waved, trying to give a friendly smile. “Hey.”
Heather looked sceptically at him, and moved away. A shadow of fear flashed on her face.
Dagur took two steps back, raising his hands to the height of his shoulders. He tried to contort his lips into a smile, but she didn't return it, so he stopped.
His heart sank. What if this didn't work? What if things were ultimately just awkward between them, and Dagur was better off with the Dragon Hunters?
Then, Heather stood up from her bed, and stuck out her hand, as if practised many times in front of a mirror. “Nice to meet you, brother.” He took her hand wordlessly, and shook it. It was ice cold, and her grip hesitant, as if she feared he'd grip too hard and break her bones. Everything about her was cautious- her inky-brown eyes flitting around the room, her free hand curled into a fist (excellent punching form, Dagur noticed- but why does a thirteen year old know that?). A bag sat by the window, fully packed, as if ready to be snatched at any moment.
As their hands remained interlocked for entirely too long, he didn't say hello. Not a “how are you”, nor even a “nice to meet you.”.
No, he stared directly at her, drinking in her frightened, brown eyes, and said, voice rough and ragged, “who hurt you?”
“There. That's the last of the paperwork,” Dagur announced to no one in particular, and slammed his laptop shut.
“Phew!” He placed his hands on his hips. “That was long. And difficult. But hey- I know my legal details like the back of my hand, at least.”
Something weird and unfamiliar tingled in his chest- pride. But something else deeper... accomplishment? A sense of purpose, better than chasing highs.
Heather. He was adopting her. In precisely one week, now that the paperwork had been finalised. Heather was leaving the foster care system for good. And coming to live with him.
One week later, on a rainy weekend in October, he arrived outside the same house. The same cold-seeming couple greeted him.
Heather was in her bedroom, her hair in the same plait it was always in, the rucksack by her window on her shoulders.
“You ready to go?” Dagur asked.
“Yeah,” Heather said.
And in five minutes, they drove away, just like that. The windshield wipers cleared a path amidst the patter of rain and hail against the car.
In the backseat, Heather read a book called You Exist Too Much, by a woman called Zaina Arafat. A thought-provoking title for a thought-provoking girl, Dagur thought to himself, watching the windshield wipers going back and forth.
When she arrived, Dagur showed her around every inch of the house - he’d cleaned and tidied especially for the occasion. He wanted to make an occasion of it. In every room, Heather looked around, slack-jawed in wonder.
“It’s all ours, sis,” he said. “My dad was a cop, and he was in the money, so... he left me a lot. I got it all when I was seventeen. So I can buy you whatever you need. And if there’s anything you want, I’d be happy to get that to you too.”
He’d been expecting her to say something along the lines of a phone, a laptop, even a pet. “I’d like some books. I like reading,” she said quietly, her face pensive as she stared at the garden out of her bedroom window.
“I’m sure that can be arranged,” Dagur said. “What kind?”
“I dunno. George Orwell. Neil Gaiman. Stephen King. They’re alright.”
Dagur stared at her, slightly slack-jawed. Had he accidentally adopted a prodigy? What would he even do with someone as obviously smart as her.
Oh shit... what if she was smarter than him? What a hell of an embarrassing ego-bruise that would be.
He decided not to think about that for a while, and offered Heather a trip to the supermarkets. They came back with a week’s worth of food. Then, he got takeaway pizza, and the pair ate it ceremoniously on the couch, watching Greys Anatomy . Dagur made Heather help him put the shopping away and unpack her bag (which she seemed very reluctant to do, but did as he asked) before getting her to bed at a sensible time.
He left her curled on the sofa, reading an old textbook from med school he was vaguely interested in once upon a time - why the hell is a thirteen year old reading college textbooks? - and made her bed. The duvet was fairly standard, a patterned grey and purple with a green pillowcase he hoped matched. He’d strung up some fairy lights, and a desk, as well as the bed frame, thankful he’d had the foresight to do it all before she came. Finally, he left out plain black pyjamas. She could shop for new ones, but for now, all that mattered was her comfort.
“Come on, you need to sleep now,” he said, opening the lounge door.
Heather’s soulful eyes flickered up to him from the pages. “Okay.” She hesitated, carefully placing a stray piece of paper to mark her place.
“You can finish reading that in the morning, but I’d like you to have some rest now, it’s past ten pm.” Dagur mulled his words over in his head. Why did he sound like a parent all of a sudden? Where did this stroke of responsibility come from? He thought deeply, rubbing his knuckles in a repetitive motion as Heather disappeared to her room to get dressed.
He waited outside until she re-emerged, wearing the pyjamas he’d left out for her. “I know this might be awkward, but I’ve got period products in the bathroom in a basket if you’ve got yours yet.”
Heather replied that she hadn’t, but thanked him anyway. “I’ve got my own toothbrush and toothpaste, though.”
“Ok then. Night sis,” he whispered into the darkness, and hesitated before he kissed her on the forehead.
He held his breath, hoping he hadn’t overstepped, but if she was uncomfortable, she didn’t show it. “Night bro. Thank you for everything.” Her beautiful, soulful eyes fluttered shut, and she settled.
He made it all the way down the stairs before collapsing onto the couch, drained of all energy.
“How am I supposed to raise a kid?” He thought aloud, despairing. “She’s so sweet and smart... she deserves better than I can give her.” He glanced around the spacious living room. “She deserves someone who can love her. I- I’m barely an adult, and she’s already thirteen, for hell’s sake!” He finished angrily, taking care to keep his voice as quiet as he could. Storming to the kitchen, he took out his old stash of Dragon Root, neatly organised into joints, a lighter buried at the bottom.
He stared at the box: his bad habit, his guilty pleasure, his faux pas. His addiction, he dared to think.
“No, Dagur.” He tossed several joints into the trash, ceremoniously taking out the whole bag. It was almost full anyway. That was a lot of money wasted, but he didn’t care. He’d rather be sober.
I need to be better. For Heather. No more of this ‘Dragon Hunter’ bullshit. No more hanging out with Ryker. No more law breaking.
He collapsed into his bed that night, and stared at the ceiling. It sounded impossible, to restart his life all so suddenly, and all for a half sister he met not even a year ago.
But he had to do it. I have to.
Dagur Dérangé had to be better. And he tried. He got a job at a place called Berserker mall, and saved every penny in a separate account for Heather. He resat his finals at a college, and found them surprisingly easy to do when he wasn’t high. He then began training to be a nurse in Sarasota. Heather moved down with him the two years he was there, and loved learning about what he learned.
He ate proper food, not protein bars and endless cups of black coffee, in the hopes Heather followed his lead. He went to therapy, and encouraged Heather to do the same, bought takeout when she finally did.
He also sobered the hell up. Because no way will he raise a teenager stoned cold, he’d thought.
He waited patiently for the day when Heather let herself trust him, and that day crept up on them both. But when it did, slowly and surely, Dagur tried not to let his roomfuls of relief and joy show on his face.
After a turbulent year in Heather’s school in Sarasota, she met a girl called Rafaela, whom she insisted on calling Ruffnut, and soon joined Berk Middle, then Berk High. She came home rambling about the cool friends she’d made, and Dagur couldn’t help but smile.
And they grew together, an unstoppable force of brother and sister: two twin stars, who had more in common than anyone expected them to.
“Them against the world,”
Dagur whispered every night to his bedroom.
“Just us against the world, sis.”