Work Text:
If there’s one thing that Dylan has learned in his short life, it’s that he’s pretty sure he loves to sleep. He just hasn’t had much of a chance to experience it.
His first attempt at sleep is at the ORTBO, in the warm heat of his tent, on a squashy air mattress. When he enters the tent he has a dark feeling in his gut about Irv, about how angry he’d been and the fact that he hasn’t come back yet after storming off. He’s shocked about how easily all the bad feelings go away when he lies down and covers himself in the blankets, simply listening to the whistling of the wind outside.
This is nice, he thinks to himself. I could get used to this.
He's almost drifted off when he hears the first mumblings in Mark and Helly in Helly’s tent. It’s just talking, just quiet whispers, until it isn’t. When the two of them go quiet, he assumes Mark had left to go back to his tent, but the noises resume. Not talking this time.
Instead, his ears are suddenly assaulted with wet kissing noises punctuated with gasps and moans, moans that become louder and more drawn out the longer his friends have their baby goat sesh.
He should be happy for them, he supposes. He’s seen the signs because he has eyes and knows how to use them. He’s seen the flirting and the smiles and the way Mark always finds an excuse to be with Helly alone. Dylan’s not going to pretend that he hasn’t had similar thoughts about Gretchen. Nothing too indecorous, of course. Maybe hugging again. Maybe kissing.
“Mark, oh god, Mark,” he hears Helly moan.
Dylan slams his pillow over his ears and forces his eyes shut until he finally falls asleep.
His second time sleeping doesn’t go much better.
The day has been chaotic. Red lights and a loud klaxon and shoving Milchick into a locked room has not prepared Dylan to see Mark leaning against Helly’s shoulder, covered in blood. After she cleans Mark up, after O&D arrives with the same Lumon air mattresses, Helly pulls one of the mattresses into the MDR closet and shuts the door the minute she gets Mark inside.
Dylan makes a bed for himself in the corner of MDR, fluffing the pillow and shaking out the blanket. He’s never done either of these actions before, but they feel familiar. There’s a low murmur of chatter as other innies make camp around the room, but it’s mostly quiet as the lights go off. The quiet whispers give Dylan a sense of calm as his eyes begin to close.
Until a moan comes through the closet door.
Dylan’s eyes snap open. Not again.
After learning that it had not been Helly in the tent at the ORTBO, Dylan had made a promise to himself that he would not make fun of Helly for the noises he had heard. She hadn’t made them, and he had no desire to cause her more pain for an already painful situation.
He will have absolutely no issues making fun of her for this, though. He considers loudly singing the Kier Hymn to them. Or maybe even pounding on the door until they stop.
“I’m here,” Helly whispers in between her moans. “I’ve got you.”
“Helly,” responds Mark, his voice sounding hoarse and weak. “Helly, Helly, Helly.”
Dylan sighs and presses his pillow over his ears. He’ll give them tonight. They’ll just get extra shit in the morning.
After Helly and Mark are banished to Milchick’s unused office, Dylan’s sleep gets a lot better. The whispers of the other innies surrounding him become like white noise, lulling him into a mostly restful sleep.
It’s on day three when he realizes that sleep doesn’t have to be confined to the eight hours he gets at night. The word nap comes into his head when he finds himself bored to tears listening to Lorne drone on about the feeding habits of goats. As she talks, he feels his eyes getting heavy.
The thing is, he can’t nap in MDR. It’s too full of busy innies running around and chatting and working and laughing. So, he wanders around the halls, looking for a more private and quiet space to sleep.
It’s by chance that he comes across the plant room. Irv had told him about it, how quiet and peaceful it was. It seems like the perfect place.
Except when he grabs the door handle and opens the door just a crack, his ears are again assaulted by the sound of Mark and Helly panting and gasping and moaning. Dylan lets out a silent groan. They have their own private room but they have to defile the plant room for some reason?
He’s about to close the door when he hears it.
“Say it again,” says Helly with a gasp. Her voice sounds like she’s been laughing and crying at the same time.
“I love you, Helly,” responds Mark.
Dylan freezes, his hand feeling glued to the door handle. He can hear the wet sounds of kissing.
“I love you,” says Helly, her voice slightly muffled. They’re not bothering being quiet this time, clearly thinking that no one is around to hear them. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”
“Fuck, Helly,” moans Mark. “I love you so, so much. More than anything or anyone.”
Dylan swallows and finally closes the door with a quiet click. He eventually finds an empty office, dark and cool, where he can lay down under one of the desks. The sounds that Mark and Helly were making rattle around in his head, spurring a feeling of jealousy in his chest. He’s no stranger to sex, but it’s very clear that what happened at the waffle parties was very different to whatever emotions Mark and Helly are feeling. The waffle parties were a release, nothing more. Hugging and kissing Gretchen somehow felt a million times more important.
As he dozes off, he thinks about Gretchen and their kids and feels an ache in his chest for them.
Later, when he finally sees Mark and Helly the next day, faces flushed and giggling as they help distribute food, he can’t bring himself to give them shit about it. When he sees how happy they are, he can’t help but feel happy himself. He also can’t help but feel a little sad.
A few weeks into the revolution, Dylan can no longer handle sleeping in MDR. It’s not just the noise. It’s not just the complete lack of privacy. It’s also the fact that since they threw the rager, the whole room has the distinct smell of vomit that no amount of cleaning can get out.
He manages to negotiate for an empty closet from one of the C&M innies with a trade of two packets of cookies and a bottle of vodka he swiped from the kitchen. He pulls his bed in there and decorates with some of the plants from the plant room. It’s cozy, all in all.
He just wishes that he didn’t feel so lonely. He wishes he had some photos of Gretchen and the kids to put next to his bed. He wishes that he could bring Gretchen here, show her how well he put the room together. Maybe she could even lay down in bed next to him, where they could kiss some more, and maybe even more than that.
As he drifts off to sleep, he sees Gretchen in his dreams, leaning towards him, ready to give him a kiss. He can feel the tension in his belly as she gets closer and closer and–
“Dylan, Dylan, wake up!”
Dylan jerks awake, arms flailing around. Mark hovers above him, wearing only some sweatpants and nothing else. Dylan grabs his watch and sees that it’s two in the fucking morning.
“Dude, fucking seriously? I was having a fucking sweet dream before you woke me up.”
“I’m sorry, but this was super important and it couldn’t wait,” says Mark, his eyes pleading.
Dylan groans before grabbing his glasses. “Okay. What’s wrong? Better be a fucking emergency.”
Mark looks down at the floor and then back up at Dylan, clearly trying to find the words.
“Dude, seriously, if this could have waited till morning—”
“It can’t,” says Mark, looking at Dylan’s door as if someone was about to barge in. “But it’s top secret, you can’t tell anyone.”
Dylan sighs, rubbing his face as he looks at Mark. “Alright then. Spit it out.”
Mark takes a deep breath before speaking. “So, Helly told me about that ring you made for Gretchen.”
Dylan feels a stab of pain in his heart as he thinks about the last day he saw Gretchen but doesn’t let it show on his face. “Yeah?”
“Can you…can you show me how to make one?”
Dylan blinks and looks down as Mark pulls a massacred finger trap and some scissors out of his pocket. Every attempt at a ring is too small, too big, or not ring shaped at all.
“My hands keep shaking whenever I try,” says Mark. “I just…I need it to be perfect.”
Dylan takes the finger trap from Mark, giving his work a look over. It’s a total mess. “And you need a ring, because?”
Mark looks down and bites his lip. Dylan knows what the ring is for. He absolutely does. He sees the way Mark looks at Helly, hears the way he talks about her, knows how much happier Mark became after Helly joined MDR. He just wants Mark to squirm a little as revenge for waking him up.
“It’s for Helly,” Mark finally admits. “I…I want to marry her.”
God, Dylan should be taking this opportunity to talk about just how whipped Helly has Mark, but he can’t bring himself to do it. His chest is filled to the brim with a stupid amount of love for his friends.
“And are you planning to ask my permission for her hand in marriage?” asks Dylan.
“Uh…I…What?”
Mark stares at Dylan, confusion etched on his face.
“Well, considering her dad’s a fuck and Irv isn’t here, I think I’m the closest relative she’s got,” says Dylan, sitting up a little straighter. “I mean, I’m basically her brother.”
Mark squints at Dylan, looking bemused. “I think Helly would actually kill me if I asked permission for this.”
Dylan puts his hands up. “Hey man, I’m just laying out my terms. You want a ring, so you gotta ask my permission.”
Mark blinks a few times, then sighs before clearing his throat.
“Dylan, can I please marry Helly?”
“Well, since you asked so nicely,” says Dylan, taking the scissors from Mark and showing him how to cut out the ring. When he’s done, he places the spongy ring in Mark’s hand. He looks up at Mark’s beaming face and feels the familiar ache return.
“Now, go forth and don’t fucking wake me up again.”
Mark gives Dylan a squeeze on the shoulder and quickly bounds out the door. Dylan sighs as he lays back down and quickly falls back asleep.
Mark doesn’t know how he’ll be able to fall back to sleep now. He had spent any spare moment he had that day hiding in one of the closets, swearing and cursing every time he fucked up another attempt at the ring. He rolls the ring around in his sweatpants pocket, the feel of it making his heart beat fast. It beats even faster when he enters his and Helly’s apartment.
He crawls back into bed with her, wrapping his arm around her middle and pulling her to him. Helly moans as he touches her, turning so that she can press her face into the crook of his neck.
“Where were you?” murmurs Helly, snuggling into him closer, her breath puffing against his skin.
“Couldn’t sleep,” he whispers, pressing a kiss to her hair. “Just took a walk.”
“You okay now?” asks Helly, clearly on the verge of falling back asleep.
“Yeah,” responds Mark, feeling calmer than he has all day. “I’m perfect.”
Dylan waits in anticipation all of the next day, but Mark doesn’t pop the question. He’s forced to watch as Mark goes about his day normally, the only difference being the giddy rolling on the balls of his feet when Helly’s not looking at him. By the time it’s time to go to bed, nothing has happened, and he manages to grab Mark and pull him into a bathroom stall.
“Dude. I’ve literally been waiting all fucking day.”
“I know,” says Mark, running his hand through his hair, “but I just…it’s gotta be perfect, you know? And I keep coming up with ideas that I then think are stupid.”
“Come on, they can’t be that stupid,” says Dylan. “Hit me with some of them.”
Mark fidgets, his hands in his pockets. “Well, Helly loves the goats, and I was thinking I could have a goat bring her the ring.”
Dylan blinks. “Yeah, that’s stupid. Also, the goat would probably eat the ring before it got to Helly.”
“Fuck, I didn’t even think about that,” says Mark, his head falling to his hands. “I was just worried about her stepping in goat shit.”
Dylan sighs before laying his hand on Mark’s shoulder. “Just go to sleep, and if you’re still worried in the morning we’ll talk it out.”
Mark gives Dylan a little smile. “Thanks, man.”
Dylan watches Mark grab Helly’s hand after they exit the bathroom, feeling a sharp jab of sadness when Helly leans up to kiss Mark on the cheek. As Dylan lies down to sleep that night, he thinks of Gretchen again. He can still feel the burn of the carpet in his knees when he asked her to marry him. He dozes off on that image, dreaming of a scenario where she said yes, when he’s being shook awake once again.
“Dylan, Dylan! Wake up.”
Dylan wakes up flailing again, his hand almost colliding with Helly’s face.
“Woah, woah, woah, it’s just me,” says Helly, putting her hands up.
Dylan groans as he fumbles for his glasses and checks his watch. It’s almost three am.
“Helly, someone better be dead or dying.”
She at least has the decency to blush. She’s wearing what’s clearly one of Mark’s sweatshirts and some shorts underneath it.
“Uh, it’s not that,” she says, twisting her hands nervously. “I just…had a question.”
Dylan is seriously about to commit a murder. “And it couldn’t wait till tomorrow because…?”
He watches as Helly bites her bottom lip, her twisting hands stopping only to tuck her hair behind her ears. “It just…it just couldn’t.”
She looks at him with her doe eyes and dammit, he can’t be mad at her. Dylan groans as he sits up and gives her his least annoyed facial expression. “So, what’s on your mind?”
She bites her lip harder now and Dylan is seriously worried that she’s gonna draw blood.
“Helly…?”
“How did you know…” she starts, clearly trying to find the right words. “How did you know you wanted to marry Gretchen?”
Dylan feels his mouth go fuzzy and his tongue go thick. He has to clear his throat a few times to be able to speak. “Uh, well, I just kinda woke up one day and knew.”
“Really?” asks Helly. He’s expected her to have a sarcastic response to that, but instead she looks unnervingly sincere.
“Yeah, like, I came out of the elevator after we had a session the day before and…I don’t know. I just knew. It felt right. Like it was what I was supposed to do. Like it was my ultimate purpose in life and it just took a little while for me to realize it. It felt like the most natural thing in the world.”
He remembers Helly’s words at the kitchenette. Some outie woman you don’t even know. She was right, in a way. It just didn’t change the fact that he knew deep in his soul that his life’s purpose was to have a life with Gretchen.
He blinks back a few tears before clearing his throat again. “Why do you want to know?”
“Because…” starts Helly, a small smile forming on her face. “Because I think I want to ask Mark to marry me.”
Dylan deserves a waffle party for the way he is able to keep his face straight. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“So, what’s the hold up? Do you need help making a ring t–”
He manages to cut himself off before saying the word too. Luckily, Helly hasn’t noticed. She shakes her head and reaches into her pocket, pulling out a ring cut out of a finger trap.
“I made this last week. After the party,” she says quietly, rolling the ring around in her fingers. “But I was…I was worried that it would scare Mark. Or weird him out. Cause he’s the only person I’ve ever loved and…it was like you said. I just woke up and realized I wanted to marry him. He’s…he’s my best friend. And there’s a part of me that worries that he’ll panic if I ask and I’ll lose him.”
Dylan scoffs. Helly looks up at him, confused. Whatever reaction she had been expecting, she clearly had not expected that.
“What?” she asks, her brows furrowed.
“Helly, the only reason Mark would say no to marrying you was if he developed retrograde amnesia and forgot who you were, and honestly I think there would be a chance that he would still say yes in that situation.”
“Really?” asks Helly, trying to hold back the smile breaking out on her face.
“Dude, he’s absolutely crazy about you. Genuinely obsessed. It’s honestly kinda disgusting, how much he loves you.”
Helly snorts, her cheeks turning red. “Really?”
“Dude, before you arrived I genuinely thought that Mark had no deal. Like, nada. We’d talk about sex and he would stammer and get sweaty and practically curl into himself.”
“You’d talk about sex?” asks Helly, raising an eyebrow.
“You know…guy talk,” says Dylan, waving his hand away. “Waffle parties and the like. After Petey told Mark what happens at them I think all the blood drained from his face.”
Helly snorts again.
“And then you arrived and…I don’t know man, Mark changed. You influenced him a lot. He became a lot braver, more assertive. More like a leader. I think he was doing it because he wanted to impress you.”
Helly blinks, her cheeks almost as red as her hair. “He never told me that.”
“Irv noticed it too. He once cornered me in the kitchen and asked if we should talk to Mark about his very obvious crush on you, because you were starting to find your feet and he didn’t want Mark potentially hurting you in some way.”
Helly full on laughs at that, but her eyes look sad. She turns away from Dylan as she wipes a tear off her face.
“I miss Irving a lot, you know,” whispers Helly. “I wish he was here. I had a thought…it was silly.”
“What?” asks Dylan.
“I couldn’t stop imagining Irv walking me down the aisle,” says Helly, not looking at Dylan. “It’s silly, I know.”
“It’s not,” says Dylan. “And for the record, I miss him too.”
There are more tears in Helly’s eyes now, but she’s still smiling. “Would you do it?”
“Do what?” asks Dylan.
“Walk me down the aisle? You’re basically my brother, so, it’s fitting.”
Dylan blinks before feeling a huge rush of affection towards Helly and can only respond by leaning forward and wrapping her in a big bear hug.
“Oooft,” says Helly.
“I’ll only do it if you and Mark promise to stop waking me up in the middle of the night,” says Dylan.
“Mark woke you up in the middle of the night?”
Shit.
“Uh, yeah, the fucker was hungry for a midnight snack but was too lazy to walk all the way to the kitchen, so he was wondering if I had any food,” says Dylan a little too quickly as he releases Helly from the hug.
Helly gives him some side eye but apparently chooses not to press it. She stands up and stretches, but before she leaves, she turns around once more.
“I almost forgot. I found this in Milchick’s back office. I thought you would like it.”
She pulls something flat and shining out of her pocket before handing it to him. Dylan takes the gift from her and gasps. It’s a picture of him and Gretchen and their three kids, the one of them dressed up as cowboys. His heart pounds and his throat goes thick with emotion.
“Thanks, Helly,” he manages to croak out.
“Goodnight, Dylan,” Helly says before quietly shutting his door behind her.
Dylan reverently places the picture on a shelf at his eye level, so he can look at it while laying down. As he drifts back off, he thinks about Irv and feels a punch in his gut that he was never able to introduce Gretchen to him.
Helly practically skips back to her and Mark’s apartment, quietly closing the door behind her and shedding her clothes before climbing back into bed.
“You okay?” murmurs Mark as she snuggles up next to him.
“Yeah,” she whispers, reaching up to kiss him. “I’m fantastic.”
She can’t sleep. She’s vibrating with happiness and nerves. So much so that her gentle kiss becomes deep and passionate, and she climbs on top of Mark, who quickly gets the memo despite his sleepiness.
“You want this, baby?” he asks, smiling, his eyes still heavy with sleep.
“Yeah,” she says, leaning down to kiss him again before reaching into his boxers. “More than anything.”
The next day arrives and there’s no proposal from either of them. Dylan keeps almost dozing off from another night of interrupted sleep. At one point he thinks it happened when he finds Mark and Helly making out in a secluded nook in the hallways. But no. They’re just making out.
Three more days pass and now Dylan can’t sleep due to the anticipation, for the projected excitement for his friends. And those two assholes have no idea. They just keep walking around and giggling and making out wherever Dylan happens to be walking.
By day four, he realizes he has to take matters into his own hands.
“So, what are they fighting about?” asks Mark as Dylan leads him and Helly to the plant room.
“All I heard was that one of the trombone players called the French horn players ‘weak ass bitches,’ or something like that,” says Dylan.
“Oh shit,” says Helly, clearly trying not to laugh. “Sounds serious.”
They reach the door and Dylan lets Helly and Mark enter first. When they’re both inside, Dylan quickly shuts the door behind them and removes his belt, wrapping it around the door handle.
“Hey!” shouts Helly.
“Dylan, what the fuck!” calls out Mark as he tries to open the door.
“I’m not letting either of you out until you do what you need to do,” says Dylan, giving the belt a final tug to make sure it’s secure. “I’ll be back in an hour.”
He ignores the yells of Mark and Helly as he walks away, thinking that he’ll take a nice long nap. Maybe for an hour. Maybe two.
Helly can’t help but laugh as she watches Mark try to shove the door open with all the strength in his body.
“Stop, stop, you’ll hurt yourself,” says Helly, putting her hands on his shoulders.
“Well, I’m so glad you’re finding this funny,” says Mark with an annoyed huff. “Locked in the plant room is exactly how I wanted to spend my day.”
Helly sighs and lays her head between his shoulder blades. “Well, it’s not the worst room to be stuck in. Remember last time we were in here?”
Mark huffs out a laugh, his cheeks blushing red. “Yeah.”
Helly turns from Mark and stops in her tracks. Milchick’s record player sits in the middle of the room with a piece of paper tapped to it. The words PLAY ME are written on it, with two glasses of something bubbly placed next to it.
“What the fuck?” mutters Mark at the sight.
“At least he left us a drink,” says Helly, handing Mark one of the glasses. He sighs and raises his glass to her before taking a drink. When she takes a sip from her glass, the bubbles make her cough and the alcohol goes straight to her head.
“Woah,” says Helly, swaying a little and Mark lets out a chuckle. “I’m still not used to that.”
Mark takes another sip before walking over to the record player, pressing the play button. A soft, romantic song fills up the room, the music coming from what he thinks is a trumpet.
“That’s really nice,” says Helly, taking another sip before walking over and laying her chin on Mark’s shoulder. “It’s pretty.”
Maybe it’s the alcohol. Maybe it’s the music. Maybe it’s the plants. All Helly knows is that her brain feels hazy with happiness and love for the man in front of her.
“Dance with me?” she asks, putting her glass down.
Mark turns and grins at her, taking her in his arms and spinning her around the room. Helly can’t help the giggles that rise out of her. She feels safe and deliriously happy in Mark’s arms. He spins her again and again, releasing her so that she lands in the large leaves in one of the plants. Helly’s laughing so hard that she doesn’t notice that Mark’s gotten down on his knees.
“Are you praying?” asks Helly with a laugh before Mark reaches into his pocket. When he pulls out the ring, she stops laughing.
“Mark?” she whispers, stunned.
“Helly, I’ve been trying to wait for the perfect moment to ask you this, but I couldn’t figure out what counted as a perfect moment because every moment with you since the moment I met you has been…well, perfect.”
Helly lets out a noise that sounds like half a laugh and half a sob. “Even when I threw the speaker at you?”
Mark laughs, hunching over as he does so. “Helly, will you–”
“No, wait.”
“No?” says Mark, his face dropping.
“No, not that kind of no,” says Helly quickly, dropping down to her knees in front of Mark. “It’s just, I had a question for you too.”
Helly pulls her ring out of her pocket and holds it up to Mark, who breaks out into the widest smile Helly’s ever seen. She’s not good at speeches like he is, but right now she doesn’t need to be. All she needs to do is lean forward to meet his passionate kiss in the middle.
When Dylan wakes up, he feels more rested than he has in the last several days. He stretches and rises from his bed, beginning the walk back to the plant room.
He can’t hear anything when he gets to the door. As he unwraps the belt from the door handle and slips it back into his belt loops, he presses his ear against the door. Still, nothing.
It’s not until he opens the door, just a crack, when he hears it. The gasps, the pants, the moans, the sound of skin on skin. Those fucking horndogs.
Dylan sighs and is about to close the door when he hears Mark speak.
“Say it again,” Mark moans. “Please. Say it again.”
“Yes,” pants Helly. “Yes, yes, yes, yes.”
Dylan can only chuckle as he quietly shuts the door. When he walks back down the hallway, he has a spring in his step. Looks like he has a wedding to plan.