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No matter how long it had been since it was over, Deacon would always search for an answer, an explanation as to what had overcome him.
He seemed to be so old, yet he would always find himself stuck back in these ways, searching for external validation.
It was his fault that he had let Wave get so close. It was the first person that he had felt he could trust when he felt so alone. When he felt like he was alone, at least.
Deacon's face is half turned into the sheets, the pillow sinking under his hair, now greasy with stress and how little sleep mattered in these moments of solitude. Was it not ridiculous that he wanted to fade away into dust for what he had let happen? For the amount of times validation felt like only thing in the world that mattered to him?
These moments always started small—with Wave grabbing his hand, to the first time he almost tripped and fell in front of him, from Wave smiling and listening to the stupid stories Deacon would always think of but hesitated to write about because they were never good enough.
Deacon would drink in that curve to his mouth and the surge the mere act of Wave listening like that gave him. It was a deadly surge, one that Deacon should've known he couldn't truly have, couldn't truly deserve. What was he thinking, befriending a boy with waves in his hair, crashing down onto the shore, every crash what he so deeply needed?
And how hypocritical was it of him to tell Chase not to trust Buddy? Because hadn't Deacon done the same thing? He'd worried about safety and keeping Buddy far from gathering information for so long, practically gathering a whole profile on how dangerous Buddy could be, and then watched as Wave smiled at him and offered him kindness and a brush to his hand and taken it?
Adoration was not a new concept to Deacon. He'd seen it before in his favorite authors, the women in the books he'd chased after when he didn't have a grip of reality. He wanted to create and he wanted someone to listen to him create, and this was so different that Deacon couldn't even explain it, because this was not the safe type of adoration.
This was bad.
He'd snuck off with Wave in the past, had talked to him in secret about his stories and had watched, bewildered, as Wave had smiled, talked to him and had asked him to keep talking—because for fuck's sake, that's all Deacon wanted. He wanted Wave to talk to him, even about the stupidest of stories and the smallest of ideas. God, it was so stupid.
Deacon's world feels quiet around him even as he tries to think to the present.
Even if things had worked out, even if...well, everything had ended weeks ago, it didn't mean that he couldn't be upset about it. Wave was gone now. Deacon knew that.
Yet his hands grasp at his bed, face flushed into the pillow, and regret swirling through his mind. He'd reprimanded Chase enough for trusting Buddy at first. And yet, he'd gone and adored Wave, adored his affection more than anything.
He wanted the validation so badly, maybe he'd find a way to talk to Wave again, go out of his way to talk to him...
Fuck.
Deacon's an idiot. He hates Wave with all his heart, knowing well that he could be in his position, forced to do anything to keep his family safe, and Deacon would lie his way through, even if it meant keeping an entire other family safe. Wave had a choice to be cruel. He had a choice to put his loyalty where he wanted to.
It was better than admitting that Wave wanted to manipulate them, wanted to latch onto Deacon's kindness and take the little things that Deacon let slip away from his mouth when he had someone to listen to his rambles.
Maybe Deacon had made it worse, playing right into Wave's little tricks, his soft voice and his curated smile. It felt so real, and that's all that Deacon could think about. Everything about it felt so real, and Deacon had never felt so seen in his life, even if it was under the false, watchful gaze of information gathering and manipulation.
You need someone that'll listen, dudes. And I'll be that someone.
And Deacon had ran with it, had rambled a little too much and had let too much slip, letting Wave rotate around every bit of information he could have and let Wave continue to tear apart into his heart in the little ways only a horrible— friend could do.
The world feels numb around him as he thinks and thinks and thinks. He'll lose sense of his legs and lose sense of his self, but he'll have the memories to keep him grounded, so that was all Deacon deserved to have.
And it's even worse, because Deacon had people to talk to. He had the keys, he had Chase, he had it all. He could've easily talked to them more and more, but they struggled too, and it was too much to go up to Chase about his selfish wishes to be adored when Chase was dealing with struggles deeper than his own. And it was too much to go up to the keys, who deserved a life of relaxation and rest.
And maybe that was just Deacon's foolish excuses. Because whenever they'd ask about the next story Deacon had written, Deacon would open his mouth and close it, feeling like his stories had already been run dry with how much he had talked to Wave.
Wave had listened, and maybe even more than listened. He'd leaned against him, had whispered that Deacon could tell him anything and that he'd never be too busy to listen to him, and Deacon had found that vow too big to share with the rest of the world.
So whenever Deacon's real friends had asked him about the next story, the next fanfic plot, the next anything, Deacon had simply shrugged, and mumbled, "it's just a...little something. I'm still working on it."
The cycle of validation had always felt normal to Deacon. It had never felt out of place to him. It was his new normal, until he'd distanced himself from Chase, had nearly let the whole world go to shit as long as it meant he could find Wave in stories, have a listening ear—a better one, Deacon had selfishly thought earlier.
Part of Deacon still felt the same. He wanted to go find Wave once more, hand him the lover key, transport the two of them into a story and let Wave exist next to him.
This stupid need for affection would never leave Deacon as long as he lived. It didn't matter that things were okay now, especially because Deacon still missed Wave and wanted him back so horribly that it made his stomach churn.
Nothing seemed new with Deacon's ways, no matter how much he thought he'd grown. He'd wanted affection so long that it never seemed to matter the state of who was giving it, as long as they had a pretty smile and listened enough, listened correctly—whatever correctly was supposed to mean.
Deacon couldn't place the feeling onto himself, of where his brain had taken him when it went with Wave. It felt like it wasn't his brain at all, like he was too old to be stupid like this. It felt impossible that Deacon had let this happen. Deacon, who swore he was good at emotions and withstanding manipulation, Dorkin', knew where his heart was.
But it seemed like he didn't know his heart if it meant a boy could come along and soften the barriers he'd tried to build—those walls came crumbling down, and Deacon loved too hard, he knew this and it was always true even if he tried not to show it.
His freckles scrunch across his face when he lets his face fall back into the mattress, trying to ground himself.
There's a creak that sounds behind Deacon, and he almost flinches at the sound, that he would ever have to step out from the shame that he felt at himself.
This was his fault. He didn't deserve—
"Deac?"
Deacon spots a blur of blond out of the corner of his eye, and he tenses, but somehow softens all at once. "Sorry," he whispers into the sheets, turning his disheveled expression away.
He doesn't even get an I told you so. But Chase wasn't going to give that in the first place, and maybe Deacon just expected one.
Chase finds his cousin, sitting at the foot of his bed and pushing him back to reality with just the slightest of his presence. It wasn't enough to get rid of the validation he yearned for, not ever. It was never going to be enough, not when he'd gotten them in trouble but had his soul satiated, something he never felt like he'd ever have.
Deacon finds his face away when Chase's hands find the strands of his hair carefully, caring and comfortable. "We're okay now. I don't blame you."
"Hm." Deacon whispers, voice cracking even in between the small sound. He doesn't want to speak, his throat clogged with tears and regret so deep even a well couldn't hold back the stone he wanted to hurl towards his emotions. He wants to retract his arm, throw everything he thought was real far from his grasp, away, away, and away.
Chase's hands in his hair are ever so careful. They just search to comfort, much like Aunt Myra did when Deacon had fell off his bike, trying to go as fast as he could trying to impress a girl from his first grade class.
The motion is so familiar that it makes Deacon a little weary and calm, all at the same time. It feels so odd that any motion so silent could feel so familiar. "Deac?"
"Hm?" Deacon whispers, biting his lip and holding back a wave of emotion that threatens to wash over him.
"You're okay. I'm always here."
Deacon hums into the bed, even when nothing feels like it could come close. It's not the same, but he'll take all the affection he can get. Chase is trying. He knows it's hurt Deacon so horribly that even speaking about it feels foreign now.
The words he speaks about Wave never feel like his own. It had been only a month, and even then, it had felt like every little emotion Wave had made him feel had turned him into a completely different person, one that even Deacon couldn't voice and recognize.
Deacon's eyes squeeze shut, and he breathes, just a little harder than he once was. "Thanks." Deacon croaks to the sheets of his bed, to the hand in his hair that isn't stopping.
He can't feel the validation just yet, but Deacon still has it. And he'll never truly be over Wave, at least not for a long time.
But he has Chase, he has the keys, he has people that want to help him, he has Wave gone.
Maybe that was a start.