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obsidianstrawberrymilk · 2 years

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Talk to me about Dex.

Talk to me about Dex who grows up seeing his parents jeered on the rare occasion they walk through Noble cities, who sees the way his mother straightens with her eyes locked ahead and the way his father grins, as if he can’t see it - as if he’s learned pretending not to see is really all he can do. Talk to me about Dex who hears his mother sobbing after she finds out she’s having triplets, hearing her cry and hearing his own heart break because she doesn’t want them to be born into a world which will hate them for their existence twice over. Talk to me about Dex in his father’s shop the next day. Talk to me about him being quieter than normal, quieter when he sees the way the Nobles with their jeweled capes and Council jobs sneer at them. And talk to me about Dex, holding his younger siblings for the first time, staring down at them, thinking off the comments he’s been hearing since birth about bad match, useless, hardly going to amount to much, thinking about the nobles outside their shops and his mother’s tears, and thinking he’ll protect them with his life.

Talk to me about Dex walking into Foxfire, his eyes wide because he got in, and immediately noticing eyes on him. Talk to me about Dex’s mentors in his first year, about their eyes widening in surprise whenever he manages to accomplish something, much less faster than the children of good matches. Think about him noticing the way their eyes narrow on his last name, about him thinking about his mother and father and siblings, and feeling embarrassment gradually turn to rage at every comment, every laugh, every oh wow, I didn’t expect that! With a talentless parent?, at every genetically inferior, at every dig at his father for being useless, surely, every laugh at his mother having ‘no other options’. Think about him in the lunch room, sitting alone, his food choices whatever he likes and he acts like it doesn’t bother him, he goes home with a grin on his face, but then he goes back and he sits all alone in this huge lunchroom of people and he goes back to classes of sneering mentors who give him lower grades for existing and snooty nobles who scoff when he tries to brag about how cool his dad’s apothecary is, and he feels like spitting at them then, how come he’s seen at least most of them in there, then?

So yes, talk to me about Dex. Talk to me about Dex who glares at Fitz Vacker in the hallways, because he walks into a room and gets the respect and praise and the attention Dex and his family have to fight for every single second. Talk to me about Dex finding notes in his lockers, things thrown his way, barbs well placed, acting like it doesn’t bother him, acting like he doesn’t care, but for every prank and every grin and every brush off he can feel it sinking deeper, and he knows he shouldn’t, he knows they’re stupid and ignorant and there’s no reason he should care what any of them think. He knows his parents will tell him, over and over if he asks, they love him, they love him, and the world may only see them as worthless but it doesn’t matter- but it does. It does, and he hates that it does, and he goes home and wants to be able to look his younger siblings in the eye and tell them it doesn’t matter but he can’t. Because every single comment or paper or fist shoved his way (but they don’t talk about those, no, who cares about the weird kid of a bad match anyway-) matters. And he doesn’t know what to do about it.

Talk to me about Dex waking up in the middle of the night, screaming and crying and begging just to make it stop- tell me about him shying away from dark corners, his throat closing up at caves. Talk to me about how he can’t wear things around his wrists for a while, because he’s been born into a world where everyone says this doesn’t happen but it did, it happened, he was gone and he nearly died and his best friend nearly died saving him and talk to me about how he can feel that guilt eating him up on the inside, sometimes. Talk to me about how he sometimes finds himself sobbing at heat, instinctive, even though it’s just Mom’s cooking, Dex, stop- Dex, are you okay? What’s going on? Dex? Dex? Dex- Talk to me about that same best friend drifting away, slowly, drifting towards the Vackers and their nobility and power and status and he knows it’s not that, Sophie’s not shallow, but on some level he knows she’s leaving him behind and she’s his first friend, maybe not his only one anymore but his first, and he feels so much he doesn’t know how to label it. Talk to me about Dex, who’s lost in a world that’s supposed to be perfect but has known his whole life that it isn’t, but everyone seems to be trying to act like it is, anyway.

Talk to me about Dex who doesn’t tell people things anymore. talk to me about Dex who’s never a first priority anyway, because he knows his friends have each other and he knows they’re all leaving him, but it’s okay, because he’s not totally alone all over again, right? Talk to me about Dex who doesn’t share much about his inventions anymore, doesn’t dare, because the last time he did, so happy and excited and hopeful that the Council would care about some Technopath child of a Bad Match they used it to torture his best friend, used it to imprison her like a puppet, and it’s his fault, all his fault, for being as naive as to think the Council would ever care about someone like him if not for their own goals. Talk to me about Dex who can’t look at Sophie as much, not that she notices, because he can still see the Circlet around her head, the torture to his first friend he caused. Talk to me about them kissing, about him realizing he doesn’t love her, not like that, and talk to me about how it solves nothing, how no one still cares and how every single time someone asks him about anything he’s working on he can’t say anything, he can’t do anything but hide his blueprints and act like they very thought of the Council doesn’t make him sick because what if. What if. What if he makes something else they can use, what if they hurt his friends all over again, what if he hurts his friends all over again, and they may barely consider him one of them but the least he can do for them all is this.

Talk to me about Dex trying. Giving out inventions where he can and ignoring the way warning signs go off in his head, because he will help, he will contribute where he can, they can’t totally leave him behind as long as he’s useful, right? Talk to me about Dex, and the way he’s had anger in his veins for so long, fear in his eyes for long, for his parents, sobbing in dark rooms and grinning painfully in shops he knows will never get the same clout as Noble ones, for his siblings, as he can see them becoming more and more aware of the stares and whispers and jeers every day. Talk to me about Dex in the Black Swan, about Tinker and pats on the shoulder and the shock, the surprise, because here’s someone who doesn’t raise an eyebrow in surprise when he does things, who doesn’t act like the bare minimum is somehow too much for genetic inferiority. Talk to me about the way his eyes widen in their discussions, with Tinker’s suggestions, about the way he views the world widening, because Dex has always seen things differently, in taking it apart and putting it back together better and here’s someone who agrees with him, who sees the rage in his eyes and the fear and desperation underneath, who takes it all with a sign and teaches him how to make it better, more creative, more, more.

Talk to me about Dex and Juline, his mother. Talk to me about, for all his initial shock, he can see the way she reflects him, the anger in the pursing of her lips and the sadness in the tapping of her fingers. Talk to me about frosting is a stupid talent, about the unconscious way he’d always wanted his mother to be more, as if her being someone else could have saved them from the cruelty over everything else - of him knowing he’s wrong, knowing it wouldn’t have, but realizing he’d always wanted it anyway. Talk to me about conversations in the dark, whispers in the living room, smiles exchanges across meetings and worried eyes across infirmaries. Talk to me about Juline knowing, knowing, she can’t keep her son out of this any more than she could herself, but by god does she want to sometimes. Talk to me about fights, maybe, in worry and panic clawing up throats, because this is dangerous, this world is dangerous, but they both know, on some level, they’ve never had a choice. Talk to me about Dex and his father, Kesler, sitting in their shop, later, as they always have, hovering over lab tables and tubes of elixers, cheerful chatter above the steaming, because that’s all they know, now. Because on some level, some time, Dex has felt a wall grow between them, a wall of experience and secrets and fear, because Kesler isn’t on the front lines of this, not always, and he doesn’t understand on the same level his mom does, not really.

Yeah, talk to me about Dex. Talk to me about laying on the floor with Biana, sobbing and laughing about invisibility and alone and realizing he has more of a connection with the daughter of the Vacker family than anyone could have realized. Talk to me about him and Linh and Keefe, about them giggling in his dad’s lab as he makes paints and elixers, bright colors and wild colors and the way all their eyes widen and it’s amazing, Dex, oh my- about the way they laugh about it, brainstorm the best locations to put it so everyone will see. Talk to me about him looking at them, a girl abandoned by this world and a boy who everyone allowed to hurt, and him looking at himself, who everyone in their world chooses to sneer at, look down upon, as if it will keep this fragile, stupid perfection. And talk to me about the way they put art in obvious places. Put it on huge, visible walls across the Lost Cities, because they will break this fucked up perfection in rebellion and in art and in shops with burbs for doorbells that make nobles squirm and in every way possible if they have to.

Talk to me about Dex and Fitz. Talk to me about Dex realizing nothing is perfect, and he’s known their world is a mess for as long as he can remember but he’s never realized it’s messed up Fitz too - perfect, Wonderboy Fitz Vacker, from his perfect Noble family with their respected genes and somehow, somehow, he’s fucked up too. Talk to me about jabs that use to be filled with rage at the world turning annoyed at most and then affectionate, familiar, with Fitz returning them, a bit, with a sparkle in his eyes, because he never hated him, not really. Talk to me about late night conversations on missions, in hideouts, at Dex’s home (never Fitz’s - he never asks why), about explanations and admissions and Fitz bolting up, his eyes wide, because he’s never realized that the world looks at Dex and sees something disgusting and useless until just now, no matter how many times he’s heard it from everyone around him, because Dex is a person, and on some level, he’s never comprehended it happens to people. Talk to me about a shared interest in humans, about Fitz talking about the Search, abouy Dex’s mom’s human TV and him tinkering with their gadgets. Talk to me about shared shook heads when people laugh about how inferior humans are, because Fitz has seen them, on some level, the good too, and he’s seen things that they could use, and his world has been turned on his head so really, this is the least startling realization. Talk to me about Dex laughing at that, about looking at everything they’ve made and have they don’t, and realizing that at least humans don’t act like they’re perfect. At least they don’t see perfection as everything. At least they’re flawed, at least they’re imperfect, and their world doesn’t claim otherwise.

So. Talk to me about Dex. About winning the war and the scars on all their hands and in their hearts and minds. Talk to me about children broken by something they should have never had to fight. Talk to me about Dex, and his anger and fear and his family and friends. Talk to me about Dex Dizznee.

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