WELCOME TO DOLLYWOOD!

Author’s Note: Hey gang, I wanted to say a warm thanks crediting @Cuchuilain for pitching and drafting the broad strokes of this chapter and the following two, and inviting me to see what sprang from it. I had a really fun time discussing how to bring this thread to life. Special thanks also for the enthusiasm and general forbearance from the architect, particularly after the lengthy private message in which I originally set out to talk about the chapter but instead sidetracked myself into naming everything I could immediately think of about the state of Arkansas.

Someone, a persistent someone at that, is shaking you. On a deeply animal level, you want nothing to do with this interloper. You make an irritable noise, to get the point across that whoever this monster thinks they are, they aren’t half the monster you’re going to be if they don’t fuck right off and let you sink back into your somnolent, boozy oblivion.

If anything, the fiend redoubles his efforts, actually grabbing the back of your calf to shake you more fully awake! Like, what is the fucking urgency here, exactly? You decide, on no valid basis that you could explain or describe, whose vibe you think this is. “Scott,” you mumble, twisting away and moving to hide your face under your crossed arms in the crease of the sofa, “fuck off buddy.”

“No, Birdie,” you hear in a low whisper instead. “It’s me.”

Ugh. It’s a shitty feeling, to be this unexcited to see somebody who on paper at least is still your best and oldest friend. And you never won’t love him with your whole fucking heart. But for just this split second, you sincerely wish he just… wouldn’t. Because you know it’s only going to be more of this dumb, vaguely repentant, distant behavior, and your head hurts, and why would he decide his self-absorbed thing needs your attention right this very second?

“Are you here to lecture me some more about what an irresponsible dumb bitch I am?” you say peevishly to the back of the couch, and then don’t stop until you run out of breath. “Because you just woke me from a sound, regrettably not blackout, sleep. My head is fucking pounding, because obviously. Probably because it feels like I’ve been asleep all of five minutes.”

The cushion behind you shifts as he sits down on the edge of the couch. Dex sighs. “If you’re looking to hash out the stuff from earlier, we should maybe table that bit. Sorry. This is a different thing.”

“Oh cool,” you say into your folded arms. “Sounds fun.”

“No, look… it’s not a lecture,” he says softly. “Sorry. This is something else. I just…” You feel him set his hand gingerly on your hip, then pick it up again almost right away. Yep. You’re still the Amazing Man-Repeller!

It’s depressingly unfair how close that is to being the Amazing Man-Rappeller. Never mind. Moving on.

“I just need to talk to you,” he says, and it’s that sentence that suddenly gets your attention, because he sounds so weird and hesitant. Enough that even in your still sleepy-confused-drunk state, something seems wrong. You sigh inwardly, then roll yourself over to face him, struggling to open your eyes up and focus on him with squinty confusion.

You must have been passed out quite a while after all. It’s dark outside.

“Please?” Dex says in a voice like a sad little kid. That’s when you notice how tired and red-rimmed his eyes look.

“Are you okay?” you both ask at the same time. He motions for you to talk first.

You shrug, frowning at him. You’re starting to feel a prickle of apprehension about what is making him act so weird. “I’m probably still kinda drunk. But other than that… yeah, still no. Why?” You don’t know already, why he’s being this way, and it’s a little troubling not to already understand what’s going on in his head. Is that just a thing that happens eventually, with friends and growing up? Once you’re old enough just nothing gets to feel simple anymore?

“Do you wanna get dressed or something? Have some coffee?” Dex suggests.

Not really. But you probably owe him for drunk-sitting you, even if he was a judgy shit about it. “Okay,” you concede grudgingly.

He looks so miserable that it makes you want to ask what changed while you were passed out, but you get the feeling he wants you a little more coherent for whatever the big thing is. “I’m gonna take a shower if you don’t mind.” You rub at your face, which is studded with the texture of the sofa pillow you were sleeping mashed up against. Of course it is.

“Is a shower a good idea? With the sunburn?” Dex bites his lip. It’s a particular nervous tic of his that makes him seem like an anxious chipmunk.

“Probably not.” You stare sourly at him until he retreats to the kitchen.

Recap: You’re a sofa-faced virgin and you smell like lake water. No wonder Scott gave you such a hard pass.

Awesome. You can’t wait to see what new bummer club there is into which Dex is so eager to recruit you.

Maybe it’s a plot twist and the bummer club is membership: you, because the big news is both he and Scott are dumping you and he feels guilty about it but it’s time to finally rip the band-aid off.

You’re in a thoroughly bad mood as you peel off your suit in the bedroom, and observe your naked tits in the mirror with vast irritation. You’ll have to be careful until this burn fades, not to let Mom see you in anything cut low enough that she figures out just how skimpy your secret bikini is. It makes you tired just thinking how she’s going to act about that, if she finds out.

You get in the shower and begin gingerly cleaning yourself up. The sunburn hasn’t fully bloomed yet so you’re just red and warm to the touch and not yet at a stage where your dermal layers are rapidly shedding like you’re in some disgusting larval phase.

A few minutes into your shower, Dex knocks on the bathroom door and cracks it open to talk to you. “Are you hungry? It’s been kind of a really long time since you ate.”

“I guess,” you say. “Kinda. Do we even have anything?”

“Scott made patty melts earlier and wrapped one up for you. I can warm it up if you want.”

“Okay,” you say, keeping your eyes squeezed shut against the shampoo lather. “Thanks Teddy.”

When you finally make your way into the kitchen a while later, aloe reapplied and clothes gingerly put on, there’s an unpleasant lump of visceral dread lodged in your throat that you can’t seem to banish. You’re not even sure what it is you’re dreading. Probably he isn’t actually going to dump you as a friend, just because you dragged him on this stupid trip and when as anybody could have predicted it didn’t go well, you got drunk and yelled at him and passed out and acted like a bitch. Probably he isn’t.

Dex is sitting at the table, messing around on his phone and looking generally fidgety. When you come in he half rises, then sits back down, then changes his mind again and gets up to make you a coffee. “Here, have a seat,” he says, picking out a gold-rimmed WELCOME TO DOLLYWOOD! mug from the cupboard. You sit there like a lump, watching while he warms the cream in the microwave and pours the coffee and sets that in front of you, then retrieves the foil-wrapped sandwich from the oven, cuts it in half, and puts it on a plate.

You’re sort of waiting for him to start with his mysterious thing, but he just does all this in silence, gives you the plate, and sits back down again, looking anxious and unhappy, and fidgeting with the crocheted top to the kitchen towel his uncle keeps buttoned onto the oven door handle. There’s a large wooden button on it that looks like it came from a coat you remember Dex’s mother used to wear a long time ago when you were both little. Probably she made this towel topper and gave it to her brother.

His mom has always been really nice to you. You kinda missed her, while you were grounded.

This line of meander isn’t doing your mood any favors, so you **** yourself to stop being self-pitying about Dex’s mom and your mom and whatever this thing is and how bad this lake trip has turned out overall, and you take a bite of the patty melt. Turns out it's really fucking good. It has griddled onion on it, diced small and sauteed and embedded in the gooey cheese. The beef is greasy and Scott made it on rye and the mild caraway flavor is really chiming through, mingling pleasantly with the meat and onion.

Maybe it’s just how hungover you are but the sandwich is so outrageously fucking good that you take another bite, and then another, and since he isn’t talking right now you distract yourself with the taste and smell and glorious texture of the beef and the greasy griddled bread, alternating bites of the patty melt with bracing sips of the hot coffee, until you’re too full to keep going.

“Want the last couple bites?” you ask, but Dex shakes his head so you shove the plate away and look expectantly at him. “Where’s Scott, anyway?”

He winces. “Right. Uh. He’s gone off for a while,” Dex says. You’re about to inquire more specifically about that, but after a second he adds, “I pissed him off,” which makes his voice crack a little, and he moves to cover his face with his hands.

You’re starting to feel rather worried. Across the table is starting to seem distressingly far away, so you shove your coffee in front of the chair closest to Dex and slide into that seat. “What happened?” you ask, reaching up to put both your hands on his, pulling them away from his face. He lets you, and doesn’t move to pull his hands away or cover his face again, so you give him what you hope is a reassuring squeeze. “It’s probably not as bad as it seems right now in the middle of the night when you haven’t slept for twenty hours or something.”

You glance at the clock hanging above the sink. Quarter past three. Yeah, your sleep schedule is fucked, all right. Might as well commit to this discussion. “Anyway, you know how he gets sometimes, if he feels attacked. He probably just got rattled and now he’s trying to figure out how to take back whatever shitty thing he said. Like, remember that time he got so angry at me in the lunch room because I finished his milk without asking? He was so pissed but after school he was fine again.”

Partway through that thing about the milk you’re losing steam, because Dex is already shaking his head no, no, no, that’s not what this is. You fall silent. “It wasn’t him that said shit. It was me.”

You stare at him, baffled at how shaken he’s acting. And why now? “So, what then? What’d you say that’s so bad?”

Your normally fastidious friend is miserable enough right now that he gives a loud sniff and pulls his hands out of yours so he can wipes his nose with the back of one of them, leaving a streak of clear snot trailing down his forearm, and then doesn’t even wipe it off on the towel or get up for a tissue. “We were talking a while. About you mainly.”

“Right,” you mutter with a sigh. “I’m sure you both had plenty to say about what an irresponsible piece of shit I am. No wonder it was such a fun conversation.”

He glances up at you. “More like, about our relationship.”

“Okay…” you say, starting to wonder if this whole conversation is just going to be, a series of ambiguous remarks that all require your intervention before he elaborates on their actual meaning. You’re not sure you have the stamina to coax out every little bit he isn’t brave enough to say. You might never. “I need to heat this up,” you say, when he still doesn’t speak. You shove abruptly away from the table and pick up your mug.

Probably Dex shouldn’t technically have put this in the microwave, with the gold stuff on it, but it didn’t blow up then so it’s probably fine now. Still, you’re standing there, back to him, watching to make sure the cup doesn’t either explode or boil over or something, when Dex finishes dithering and blurts suddenly, “Scott says I’m in love with you and I think he might be right.”