Chapter Text
Dev Dimmadome was not a normal person. From the day he was born, he had never been normal. And he especially wasn’t normal now. After all, what normal person got granted a fairy godparent, got them revoked, and got their memories wiped, only for those memories to come back? Now he had to keep his knowledge of fairies a secret all over again, except this time it was an absolute secret. Nobody was allowed to know that he remembered- not Hazel, not any fairies themselves either. Because Dev wasn’t supposed to remember, that had been the whole point. But somehow he did.
That was only the most recent abnormality of his life. There had been many, many other things that set Dev apart from the vast majority of other people in the world. For instance, his father, Dale, was the single richest individual person on the planet and Dev held the unique distinction of being his only child. A very expensive, deliberately planned child. Such an odd thing in hindsight, considering Dale’s lack of interest in actually raising him.
So who had raised Dev then? Who cared for him as an infant, who actually was handling his care needs all this time? A full-time nanny, perhaps multiple nannies? Not the way most children were raised, but not necessarily an uncommon practice for high-income parents.
No, of course not. That was too normal. No, no- Dev Dimmadome was raised by drones. Oh sure, Dale had designated them the ‘Au-Pairs,’ a very real human job title that encompassed the task of childcare, but that didn’t change the fact that they were A.I.-powered drones, not human people. Wildly advanced A.I. naturally- they had successfully kept Dev alive up to age 10 so far after all- but that was very not normal. Dev was certain no other child had ever been raised in such a fashion.
Some people might find this interesting. Dev knew for a fact that a number of students in his grade alone held some kind of jealousy towards his life. But they only saw the outermost things- they saw the drones at his beck and call, the extravagant house, the significant allowance, the helicopters and luxury cars. They thought Dev had everything that a child would ever possibly want. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Because if they had even one parent who actually loved them, then they had something Dev never had.
Not entirely true. You had that once, but you took him for granted. Dev swept his gaze across the desks in front of him, hidden behind his sunglasses. He liked sitting in the back of the classroom, it made it easier to keep an eye on everything going on. From this vantage point, Dev could observe the other students. Which probably wasn’t a normal thing to do either, but he couldn’t help the paranoid tendencies he’d picked up from living with Dale. Dev was careful around people. Guarded. Children or adults, it didn’t matter. Trust issues are hard to shake. What else was he supposed to do anyway?
School bored him- not because it was boring necessarily, but it was either too easy or the lessons were things he already knew. Math, the class Dev was currently stuck in, was the worst for it. Thanks in part to his own decisions to study math independently in a pathetic attempt to be ‘helpful’ to Dale in business matters, on top of other hobbies like puzzle-solving and coding, Dev was two full grade levels ahead in math. According to the Au-Pairs’ evaluations anyway- Dale wouldn’t advocate for Dev to be given more advanced material, since his higher skill level practically guaranteed straight As. Even though the boy was bored out of his mind in class.
He glanced at his phone. 5 minutes until lunch, thank god. He really did try to pay attention in class, hoping that maybe something interesting would happen or the teacher’s explanation might give him some new insight. That rarely happened. It was a small reassurance that most of the other students looked bored too, but that was probably because they were only doing review today. And lunch beckoned.
Lunch meant food and lunch meant socialization. And socialization meant Hazel. His gaze immediately shifted over to the back of her poofy hair. Hazel always sat up front, so they couldn’t chat in class unless there was group work or something and they were allowed to move around the room. It’d been possible when they both had access to magic, getting the fairies to pass notes or messages. That wasn’t an option now.
One month. It had been one month to the day since the disastrous Fairy World assault. Dev had his memory wiped, then mysteriously restored by some unknown force. He was no closer to solving that spell’s origin. All he’d been able to assume was that someone must’ve specifically targeted him to return those memories. For what purpose, he didn’t know. Was it an act of kindness or some convoluted method to torture him further, forcing Dev to be dishonest to the only person he trusted enough to be honest with in the first place.
He was trying to be honest regardless, to whatever degree he could. Trying to be more of what Dev thought of as himself. He still wasn’t quite sure who that person was, he’d spent so long trying to be the person that he believed would earn his father’s love and respect. He understood now that love was not on the board- strangely enough, he was closer to respect now than he’d ever been when he was trying to earn it.
Dev idly reached up to pat his hair. Curly, natural. That was part of the real him. So was his fondness for purple- manifested from having Peri as his godparent, as unfortunately short-lived as it had been. He’d slowly been incorporating the colour into his wardrobe, distancing himself from looking so much like Dale.
The sunglasses had stayed though. Dale gave them to him as a means of shielding Dev’s too-expressive blue eyes and while Dev did resent that fact, the shades retained their comfort. Allowing Dev to watch without being seen back, to hide away when his anxiety spiked, to ensure nobody saw when his eyes got a bit too watery. He couldn’t get rid of them, not entirely. Although… Hazel did prefer him without his sunglasses. At least he was pretty sure she did? Dev cared a lot about what she liked, it was important. And it’s perfectly normal to care about what your best friend likes about you. Isn’t it?
A shrill RING! ejected Dev from his spiraling thoughts. He swept his school supplies messily into his bag and climbed on the Au-Pairs, zipping out ahead of everyone else. If the teacher was planning to give them homework, well, it was their problem for not announcing it before class ended. As far as Dev was concerned, once the bell rang, he was no longer required to be in the room. Hazel would tell him if there was homework anyway.
He was one of the first into the cafeteria, snagging the school’s designated meal and taking his place at the usual table. Ah yes, there were french fries today. Hazel would be extra cheerful now. That was good, her happiness was important.
Dev began carefully nudging his pile of fries around, separating out the best-cooked ones. Hazel was an absolute fiend for potato-based dishes, french fries most of all. Personally, he didn’t get it. Fries were just fine to him, which meant he had no issue giving away most of them to Hazel. And that was perfectly normal- why wouldn’t you give your best friend her favourite food off of your own plate? It wasn’t good to waste food, Hazel always said that, and this ensured it wasn’t, so it was definitely normal.
From across the cafeteria, Dev heard a delighted squeal. Hazel had discovered the fries. He rolled his eyes fondly from behind the shades. She’s so weird, getting excited about fries, honestly… He glanced at the subtly organized fries on his tray. Of course Dev encouraged her behaviour, didn’t he? It was just nice to see her happy.
It only took a couple minutes before Dev’s friends joined him at the table. The boy smiled softly. Friends, plural. He could officially call Winn and Jasmine his friends now, not just Hazel’s friends who hung around him for her sake. They’d accepted him, even though he was pretty sure he hadn’t been very normal about it.
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He’d approached them one day about a week ago to ask about it. Purposely when Hazel wasn’t around- he needed their honest answers and if she would’ve been there, Dev had no doubt that she would’ve started freaking out and reassuring Dev that of course they were all his friends. Which honestly wasn’t much different than what Winn and Jasmine did, just a lot less dramatic. Both of them gently affirmed that they did consider him a friend now and that they were glad to have him around.
Dev had felt really stupid afterwards. He may or may not have cried a bit in his room later, mortified that he’d actually asked. Normal people didn’t need to ‘check’ that they were really friends with someone. Friendship was just something you knew, it was mutually understood.
At least that’s how it’d been with Hazel- yes, maybe Mr. Guzman had stated that they had become friends while explaining the purpose of the treasure hunt. But Dev hadn’t needed that to know. He and Hazel had exchanged phone numbers the day before and had been texting. He even waited so he could walk into class with Hazel when normally he went in as soon as he arrived at school. Because she was his friend.
Dev hadn’t felt the certainty with Winn and Jasmine. They were nice to him, sure, and he could tell it was different from the slightly nervous politeness he received from other students. But he couldn’t convince himself that they really meant it, not after everything he’d done. That didn’t even have anything to do with the Fairy World debacle- after all, they couldn’t remember it. But Dev had been a bully for years, he’d done nothing to earn any goodwill from either of them. So he wound up asking, just to be sure.
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Hazel slid excitedly into her seat beside him, her tray piling high with probably as many fries as she could convince the lunch lady to give her. “I didn’t even know we were getting fries today, this is so great!” Dev snickered, moving his sunglasses up to his head as she gleefully kicked her feet. “Ah yes, the wonder of oil-drenched potatoes, truly the food of champions.”
“Yeah!” The girl began plowing through her fries, either ignoring or completely missing Dev’s sarcasm. The little snort and giggle from across the table indicated that Winn and Jasmine had not. It was nice when they laughed and Dev had found he was actually pretty good at getting them to do that. Apparently the sarcasm and snark he’d always used as a bullying tactic were quite funny when employed in a friendlier context. Laughing together was good, it was a thing that happened in normal friendships.
Dev ate his meal between snippets of conversation, only picking at the french fries. Winn explaining a new skateboard trick they were learning, Jasmine claiming she’d been practicing her singing- Dev didn’t believe her, she sounded just as bad. Hazel was so focused on inhaling her fries that Dev had to keep nudging her to participate in the conversation. He was also a bit concerned that she might choke with the way she was going, so he was forcing her to take a breath by chatting.
Moments like this were good for helping Dev feel normal. Just sitting in the school cafeteria, listening to his friends ramble about their interests and cracking jokes. He could almost pretend he was an average kid. Almost.
Behind him, there was the ever-present soft whirring of the Au-Pairs. He wasn’t allowed to get rid of them. Not that he wanted to, not really. They were part of Dev’s normal, people hardly paid them any mind. Even though they couldn’t ‘care’ for him, the drones had always kept him safe and Dev had been tweaking their code to make them seem a bit more personal. It was all fake of course, you can’t give A.I. real emotions, but it brought him some minor comfort.
His friends had real emotions though and they really did seem to care about Dev. He still didn’t quite understand why. Hazel had been willing to forgive him for what he’d done, somehow, or at the very least she was willing to give him a second chance at friendship. Forgiven might’ve been a bit strong of a description. It wasn’t like he could ask her directly. He’d apologized for what he could- which wasn’t the same as apologizing for everything.
Dev knew he cared about them. He did not know the correct way to express it. What was the normal level of caring when it came to friends? How were you supposed to let people know that you cared without being weird? Especially considering they couldn’t have the full context as to why their acceptance meant so much. Dev could get them gifts- if he knew enough about them to confidently choose a gift. Which he didn’t. Except for Hazel.
Okay, so maybe not gifts. It’s probably weird to just give a person something when it’s not a special occasion anyway, I shouldn’t do that. Umm… oh! I could host a sleepover, they all seemed excited about that idea before! Yeah that could work, I’ve worked out all the glitches with the 360 screens so we can do movies now… ah crap but I still don’t know what else you’re supposed to do at a sleepover. I’ll need to research and-
“Dev?” There was a finger snap right under his nose and Dev jolted upright. “What? Sorry, did I miss something?” Hazel pulled her hand back, observing him with a confused expression. “No, but you just got really quiet all of a sudden… And you haven’t eaten much. Are you okay?”
Dev rubbed the back of his neck nervously. The way she paid attention made him jumpy. He knew it was only because she was worried about how he was doing after losing Peri, but it’d be really great if she could be a little less observant. It’d been a month, he had hoped Hazel would’ve eased up more than this by now. He was constantly terrified that he’d give something away about his memories being intact.
“I’m fine, Hazel, just not super hungry. You don’t need to worry about every little thing, you know.” The girl furrowed her brows and went to protest, but promptly got distracted when Dev shoved his pile of fries in front of her. “You want these? I’m throwing it out otherwise.”
Hazel squealed and grabbed his arm. “Really, are you sure?” Dev just shrugged and smiled in response. You’re so ridiculous, Hazel… “Thanks Dev!” The girl reached out and ruffled his curly hair for a split second before turning her attention onto the fries.
Dev’s brain took an additional moment to recover from the contact. He felt that strange warm feeling on his face again. It happened a lot when Hazel got close to him. He usually tried to brush it away since thinking about it only confused him. Dev had enough things to worry about already, he wasn’t going to allow himself to obsess over this too.
Hazel was his friend, someone important to him. He wasn’t sure if he was her best friend but he knew that she was his best friend. Perhaps feeling warm and fluttery around your best friend was normal. He’d never had one before so he didn’t have any past experience with this. It could be, how was he supposed to know?