A terrible curse, a thirst has begun

At some point you drift off, because the next thing you know it's dark outside and someone is shaking you gently awake. "Hey, Birdie," Dex says gently, "I brought you some aspirin and water. Sit up for me?"

You really don't want to, but you also sort of feel like you owe him, a little, for refusing to quit saying penis. So you let him help you sit laboriously up, then dutifully take the aspirin and finish the bottle of water. At least he doesn't sound mad anymore. Which is nice, because if you come home today sunburnt all to fucking hell your mom will be too pissed to ever let it go or stop lecturing you about skin cancer.

You expected him to take the empty bottle and go, but instead he sets it on the bedside table and lets you lie back down.

"I should put some more aloe on you," he says.

"That's fine," you mutter. "Thanks I guess."

Dex has you stretch out on the bed, and you let him take your limbs in turn, rubbing the cool gel into your skin. He doesn't talk for a long time, apart from telling you when he needs to get to a certain part of you, and neither do you, but eventually, as he's getting close to done with your chest, he speaks. "Sorry we didn't realize just how bad you were feeling."

You shrug.

"So... he and I talked. Only a bit," he says after a moment. "Nothing's like... fixed, exactly. But we made some decisions."

Well, that's unexpected. "Like what?" you ask.

Dex hesitates. "First... we think, let's not go home yet. We have another week and a half and we might as well use at least some of it. Plus even though that sunburn should have been totally avoidable, your mom is going to be such a bitch about it. At least let's stay long enough to let you get healed up all the way. We'll try to get along as well as we can."

"Okay," you say guardedly, doing your best to keep listening while you try to work out what the catch is. "Is there... anything else?"

"Couple of things. One's best saved for when we're all sober." There's a sort of long pause, while Dex fumbles with the tube of aloe to give himself an excuse not to look up at you. "And we've decided to tell you some stuff we kept private from you," he says finally. "Which, we did that for a reason. You're going to be pretty unhappy with at least one of us. Probably both of us." His shoulders slump a little. "But you're right. You deserve to know the truth. So we're going to let you decide when you want us to tell you. You might want to try to have a nice time before that potentially tanks everything."