#i wanted to practice my writing and what do i do? a berby fic with 3.4k words obviously what else

[evildoe-r]

sunstroke (bif x derby)

word count: 3,434

rating: T

main characters: bif taylor, derby harrington

spoilers for video game: yes (Dishonorable Fight and Complete Mayhem)

...now he had thrust his apology back into his hands. Bif was one of the few he could not freely take sincerity from, that was his own mistake, and one he just made deliberately. Presently, he felt sickening remorse pooling inside of him, steadily drowning him.

warning; very long post

I

It was a year nearing its lively prime stretching across dusty, strange Bullworth. The evening crept and called the fading light that spread its warm hue across the rooftops and glistened on uncertain waters. Bif made his way through the subdued small town, to return to his dorm at the Academy after he and his friends spent the day at the gym having sparring matches, choosing to spend the penultimate day of school there instead of waste it at Miss Peters’ traditionally mind numbing school play that took place at the end of each academic year. They’d all had a much better time in their gym - all of them except for the absent Derby, who he rarely saw anymore, even around the Harrington House. Derby, who once would let him walk alongside him as his right hand man. He couldn’t tell if he was avoiding him or it was simply coincidence - a coincidence that occurred directly after he had lost a boxing match to none other than new kid Jimmy Hopkins, and disgraced the Preps’ standing within the school hierarchy. 

He hated losing, but he hated the confusion that had followed even more, the vague insights and cues into Derby's fluctuating relationship with him on the rare occasion he did see him around. It was stupid to dwell on this, he knew it. But no matter how much he pushed aside the thought that Derby somehow hated him, it would creep up on him in the school hallways, in the classes he hadn't ditched, before he slept, always circling back to him. 

He had lingered around in the gym longer than the others. Somehow, even after the usual high he got from defeating an opponent in a sparring match, today his movements as he showered and dressed back into his uniform had been slow and his thoughts were cloudy. On the morning after tomorrow's summer day of suspended classes, they would all return home, far away from Bullworth Academy. 

Although the day had been hot, the evening lent a cool breeze which had given him some relief. Even after a cold shower, Bif felt too warm. His hair was still damp and he slicked a hand through it as he walked along the path looking out onto the sea. He could sense the day's sickening heat slowly retreating, which he was grateful for. He would have welcomed the warmth any other time, but all week his head swam with thoughts that made him almost weary. As he made his way toward the bridge, a pack of Greasers raced past him on their bikes, turning toward New Coventry and paying him no mind. Looking straight ahead, he narrowed his eyes against the waning sunlight. He heard their voices before he spotted them. It was Justin and Chad several feet in front of him, their backs turned to him, speaking excitedly and louder than usual. Bif almost halted in his path as he suddenly recognised that unbearably familiar voice mingling with theirs. 

Derby. 

He forced himself to continue walking as normal. Lighthearted laughter erupted from them before he heard Derby’s courteous parting dismissal as the other two departed towards the direction of the Academy. 

Shit.

Derby was left there, standing uphill in front of the setting sun like a great shadow. He watched Bif carefully, and now, Bif had no choice but to meet him and his gaze, always razor sharp.

Derby was the first to speak. 

“Bif.”

“Hey,” Bif tried. 

As he approached Derby, he couldn’t help but notice how he observed him, studied him so closely. Bif knew that Derby had seen him before he realised he was there, just as he saw everything. You didn’t just escape Derby’s notice.

“Thought you’d be back at the House by now,” Derby said.

“Well, yeah, I just got held up,” Bif replied, making an attempt for his voice to remain neutral. But he was scared, excited, anxious. He hadn't realised how much he had anticipated this, whether it was to confront him or to reconcile with him. He only wanted for things to return to what was supposed to be normal. 

But now, Derby’s voice was calm, slightly softer than usual. It eased him a little. Maybe he didn't hate him after all.

II

Derby watched his taller friend’s nervous hand run through his hair. The reddish brown strands were the color of fire in the last reach of the small town sunlight. 

“What’s the matter?” he asked. Bif’s green eyes widened a little in surprise at the question. 

“Uh, It’s nothing, Derby,” he finally said.

"You seem a bit on edge," Derby observed.

"Oh, boxing and all that. Parker gave me a hard time. But I won anyway, you know." 

Derby offered an acknowledging nod before changing the subject. “Well, I don’t plan on going back to the school grounds for another while.” He gazed out towards the sea, and then turned expectantly onto Bif, awaiting a response. 

"I guess I didn't either," his friend admitted. “I’ve had enough of that place right now.”

“Walk with me, then?” Derby straightened the clean white collar of his shirt. 

“Sure.”

It was quiet. The evening had completely settled upon the town, the sky a gradient of bright pink and a moody blue. Familiar lighthouse beams shone against the darkening horizon. The sound of the sea relaxed him, always inviting him to reminisce about his hazy days as a very young child, on holidays with his family to otherworldly time zones, where he would run on mystical white beaches while his father’s voice commanded him to behave, and so he did. But now, the sky was a soft bluish purple, and the quiet beach was dark and lulling and his friend was right beside him.

As they walked in silence together, Derby watched Bif, noting his furrowed brow, his mind seemingly unsettled. “Shall we walk down the pier?” he suggested, making his way down the wooden surface perpendicular to their path. Bif was at his elbow and slowly followed him down, his familiar movements sure and steady as his body, yet his face was always an open book. As the sun’s last rays leapt above the buildings, Derby knew he must be anticipating something, but he did not speak. 

III

Derby began to hum a slow, sonorous tune that he could not recognise. This was almost like old times. Derby by his side as they walked through Old Bullworth Vale, then down to the beach, spending the early summer days during free periods there, as he convinced Derby to go diving into the cool waters with him and swim to the lighthouses and back. 

They were alone here, besides a weary eyed middle aged man who could have been thirty five or fifty, in a slightly tatty grey suit who was leaning casually against the ledge looking down into the dark waters below them.

“Man, don’t do it!” Derby called with a grin. The stranger turned to them, and spat, before turning and walking away as he lit a cigarette. 

“I’ve seen that guy before,” Bif insisted. “Comes around here a lot, tries to go where it's quiet."

“Then it’s his unlucky day,” Derby smiled, as they watched the man depart. Despite himself, Bif laughed with him, his previous anxieties lapsing.

“Hey, can you believe Miss Peters had that dumb school play even with everything that happened?” Bif had suddenly felt lighter, and was in the mood for banter.

“Everyone made quite the mess of the school, that’s true,” Derby agreed, “But the auditorium seemed virtually untouched. I didn’t even see any renovations taking place there. I guess nobody bothered with it.

“You know, when father heard what happened he wasn't happy at all. He searched for a prestigious school worthy enough for his investment and then all hell breaks loose." He shook his head in disapproval.

“He’s considering transferring me somewhere else for my last academic year,” Derby confided. 

“Yeah?” Bif was oddly disheartened. “I thought your dad was busy with y'know, stuff.” Derby would occasionally mention his dad and how his business was fairing, but truthfully, Bif never had the patience nor the interest to hear it all out. 

“He is. He really doesn’t have time for all this,” he agreed. "But my God, what a state the school was in afterwards..." 

“Yeah, the place really turned into a total dumpster fire after Hopkins beat your-”

A look of irritation flickered over Derby’s face and Bif stopped short. “Uh, yeah, you know,” he said awkwardly, feigning an itch on his neck. He tried to think of something witty, but his head felt confused and muddled again. With nothing more to say, their conversation dissolved into silence, and they watched the waves in the distance for a while. The islands ahead were sharp shadows, only their dark outlines visible in the late evening light. 

It was certainly like old times, he thought. Nonetheless, something felt misplaced, wrong, and he was unable to focus. 

“Can we talk about it, Derby?” He was venturing blind into a conflict, he could feel it, but he had to try. “I don’t think I gotta explain what I mean.” He braced himself for surprise or even offense from his friend, but his face remained impassive. 

“I’m actually not sure what you mean.”

It was Bif’s turn to look annoyed. Reigning in his sudden anger, he found himself raising his voice more than intended. “You ignored me for ages, and now you’re acting as if everything’s normal.” 

Derby’s neutrality stubbornly asserted itself as he spoke. “There is nothing out of the ordinary here, Bif.”

“Were you mad after I lost to Jimmy?” Bif demanded.

“We have nothing to talk about regarding this matter, I mean it.”

“But you were avoiding me! You avoided me for weeks, Derby!” he said desperately.

“I don’t want to discuss this now-”

“Well I do!”

“Of course I was angry, Bif,” came the reply, and his mask of nonchalance had disappeared.

“I don’t need to explain why, you know that quite well. Can we drop it now?” the corners of his mouth quivered slightly and his voice rose and fell a little as if he couldn’t decide whether to be angry or not.

Bif gave an exasperated sigh as he dragged his hands down his face. Didn’t he realise the guilt he felt after he lost? He disgraced himself, and worse, Derby Harrington. He was one of his closest friends, yet he was unreachable all the same. You lost to him too, Derby, don't you remember?! 

Derby glared at him, jaw clenched. Those sharp eyes, and now he’s finally cutting. “You want me to say I lost too, is that it, Bif?”

There it is, and just how had he figured? It seemed like he could always see what was swimming past the surface, and sometimes, with Derby, he didn’t know himself. Always so precise, never anything less. He spoke of loss, and now he'd taken every word from him. 

IV

Derby recalled that day at the gym too well. Bif lying there, barely conscious, as Hopkins taunted them. It was undeniably embarrassing, and Bif would never know the sensation of anger and betrayal that had struck him afterwards. Not just Bif, but his supposed friends too, humiliated by an apparent nobody, suddenly crowned King. Bif seemed taken aback by his question, and he was unsure if he meant it rhetorically or not. He decided to allow him to feel shaken a moment, before he carried on. He needed to make him understand. 

“Have you ever thought about how the situation affected me, Bif? Just once?” 

Bif was angry, that much was too obvious, but his poise was diminished, almost giving way. He was more than angry, he was upset.

“That’s all I’ve been thinking about since that day, Derby,” he said, quietly this time. Suddenly, he turned away. Derby could hear the waves again for a brief moment, slow and rhythmic, distinctly timed. Bif seemed to focus on an object in the distance before he exhaled loudly and whirled to face Derby again.

"Why does any of this matter anyway? It was just a stupid boxing match!" 

"You think this is about boxing? Oh, you're so naive, Bif. " Derby was indignant. 

"Then what is it about?" Bif pressed him. “You just love patronizing me, I know you do.”

“Patronizing? Did you just learn that word from English class yesterday?” 

"Seriously? Whatever, you're too important to tell me anyways. Keep it to yourself, I don’t care."

He had avoided Bif in his shame, he knew that much. He would not ask questions about his whereabouts to other Preps, but he had picked up on his altered emotional state whenever he saw him, which he would insist to himself was a lesson of sorts, a justified consequence of his own failure. His friends had left him disgusted then, most of all Bif, who seemed to guard his champion title so fiercely beforehand. Bif, who he slowly and so carefully placed his shaky trust into.

“So you’re not even gotta admit you pretended I didn’t exist, right?” Bif looked like he found it impossible to stay still. His fists were clenched, and he seemed almost breathless.

“I would never admit something that wasn’t true.” But it is true, he knows.

“Fuck you, Derby.”

Derby almost flinched. His friend’s venom had left him witless, and he wanted to reply with equal scorn, but the rebuttal would not come.

“And guess what, maybe I didn’t wanna see your face either, Derby.”

“Good. I was getting pretty sick of you, you know.”

He rued his words as soon as they left him, and he averted his gaze. Bif was hurt by this, he knew, and this time, there was no reply, no hostility. A bitter quiet fell on them.

“I didn’t mean that truly, Bif. You know that.”

I’m sorry.

“Yeah.”

"Look, I'm sorry."

Bif voiced his apology like a tired surrender. Derby had never seen him like this. Not even on that day at the gym. There was a terrible vulnerability about the person who stood in front of him.

"Don't say sorry to me,  Bif." 

"I just felt like I owed you-"

"Don’t." he told him. “Don’t apologise.”

“Then what the hell, Derby?” His annoyance was tinged with relief, appearing  somewhat yielding, which Derby was grateful for, as an unexpected tiredness grabbed him. For once, he felt out of control of the unraveling before him. He was being hurled off the tracks and he was finding it hard to steer them both into his direction. He had wanted to see Bif today, take in the reassuring presence he gave him, which became so familiar to him over these past few years. They’d argued, and now he had thrust his apology back into his hands. Bif was one of the few he could not freely take sincerity from, that was his own mistake, and one he just made deliberately. Presently, he felt sickening remorse pooling inside of him, steadily drowning him. 

V

He'd fought with Derby before, but it was usually over something stupid. 

"My dad is more important than your dad!" He'd jokingly taunted one night in a slightly drunken daze, and Bif, also in a liquor induced stupor had gotten angrier than he'd wanted to be. 

Derby had turned away from him and Bif said nothing for some time. It was a similar feeling to the tiresome end of a gruelling fistfight, but he was unsure whether he had won or lost this time. Bif felt lighter now, but consequently emptier too. 

"Bif," Derby began slowly,  "I did wrong you. It was a mistake on my part." 

His admission was unexpected, for sure, and he found himself stricken. He would have felt less surprised if Derby had suddenly burst into awful, messy tears. 

"God, Derby, you weird me out. I’ve known you for years, but you still confuse me." 

He felt uneasy now, and he wished this would end. Derby turned, and Bif expected another disagreement to ensue, but there was none.

"Look, It's fine, Derby. I mean, I guess it’s not fine, but we don't have to bring it up anymore." I'm exhausted. "Let's just forget this, for now." 

Derby looked tired too, for once.

“Okay, Bif.”

He's as shaken as I am, he realised.

“Let’s start to head back. It’s late. If you have any more gripes about me, you can tell me directly on the way.”

At least he could retain his sense of humor.

But it really was late, Bif realised. The stars were coming out, and the town’s usual toll had trailed off into silence, save for the occasional car rumbling through the street. They made their way wordlessly across the pier, turning toward the Academy. He almost hated Derby that night, yet he still he wanted him by his side, and despite his fatigue, he wouldn’t have minded staying there a while longer with him. 

There was a peaceful air following them as they traveled to the place they’d had to call home for the school year. A yellow crescent moon was suspended in the cloudless dark sky. The night was warm, and still young. They would arrive well before midnight anyways, and when they reached the Academy, they knew it was past curfew, but Derby had made sure early on in the year that they would go unnoticed by the displeased prefects who wandered the school grounds with torches at night, looking for troublemakers. After all, they loved money, same as everyone else. And besides, it seemed pointless to enforce a curfew on the second last day of school. When they entered the house, the lights were dimmed and it was mostly quiet, except for the muffled sound of footsteps on one of the top floors. They started to make their way upstairs and through a carpeted hallway decorated with paintings and houseplants. Bif stopped suddenly.

“Wait, Derby, are you really leaving Bullworth?” 

He eyed Bif for a moment before answering. “I certainly hope not. How am I going to find so many lackeys who are willing to fight for me in a new school in so little time?” he said, looking at Bif, a laugh breaking out of his neutral expression, and Bif let out a chortle. 

“Man, hadn’t thought of that,”

They stood there in the faint lamplight, so mellow it made him slightly dizzy.

“I gotta go to bed, have an important day of doing nothing tomorrow,” Bif said. As Derby laughed, he looked younger, and for a brief second he was the person who would sneak out of dinner parties with him as a lark and explore the old, stately home they’d both been confined in for the evening, finding dubious locked doors and dusty basements.

“Alright, I’ll see you tomorrow then, Bif,” he said, laying a hand on his arm, suddenly pausing. He could feel his warmth through his cotton shirt. He realised how much he had sweated that evening in the summer heat, but either Derby didn’t care or didn’t pay any attention. A sensation in his chest exulted, unsettled him. There was the flicker of longing he’d experienced through the years, now plain and clear as day, and not so uncertain as it used to be. Derby seemed to linger there for a second, lifting his ambiguous gaze to his own eyes, keeping it there, making him restless, but in that moment, Derby began to back off into his room. And when he tore his hand away, Bif almost objected, calling his name and telling him to wait. Derby just stood there in anticipation, and when Bif asked if he was okay, he replied in that affected tone that Bif had always hated, asking why he shouldn’t be. Bif just shrugged his shoulders, and Derby then hastily bid him goodbye, retreating into his room. The door clicked shut, leaving him there.

When he finally went to bed, his frustration had begun to stir among his fatigue and he wondered if he was wrong to think he might fall asleep that night. At one point, the heat in his room was stifling, and he leapt up from his bed and threw open the windows. When he was finally able to close his eyes, he thought of Derby, the sea and its lighthouses, his wanting and his hurt, and the mess he’d thrown himself into. One more day and they’d be apart, and now he wished that he’d caught Derby’s arm before he’d made himself scarce that night.

______________________________________________________________

Notes

Hey, If you read the full thing, I greatly appreciate it! This was quite difficult to write at times because the characters of Bif and Derby were not given so much nuance in the game itself, so it was quite challenging to write a story that delves into their psyche and way of thinking. I wrote this with the intention of exploring their individual characters and feelings toward each other a bit further, especially after the events of the Dishonorable Fight and Complete Mayhem missions. The interactions and the implications of their relationship dynamic are quite interesting to me. Please feel free to tell me what you thought, and once again, thank you for reading!

-A