#dalesley

cooking some concepts of paisley in his 20s before testosterone fixed him. plus some younger dales

(individuals under cut)

dale and paisley met when (pre-coming-out) paisley got hired on as dale's personal assistant during paisley's college years. what was supposed to be a dumb internship to carry paisley over during school ended up becoming a long-term committed relationship. doug saw this as dale's "rebellious phase", given dale started pulling away more from work so he could spend time hanging out with paisley, and also being a lot less focused on keeping a super rich and fancy image up

dale was also the first person paisley came out to about being transmasc, and dale was completely fine with it. in fact, dale proposed to paisley not long after that moment (much to doug's dismay)

they ended up eloping, and at the time, they believed this was the best decision they'd ever made in their lives. they had their own special puppy dog baby, and they were even ready to expand the family with human children, but then dale caved to the pressure of work and his family image (mostly due to his father's strict expectations), so he decided he wanted to end the relationship in order to become the Perfect Dimmadome and make his father proud again

sooo then he served paisley divorce papers... on their literal wedding anniversary date to wave n' rage. while they were on a water coaster. yeahhh if you're wondering why dale looks Like That when dev and hazel namedrop that place...

... you now know why. to say paisley was beyond furious is a genuine understatement, and i'm shocked dale walked out of that park in a single piece

the divorce was MESSY and UGLY and DREADFUL and everything in between. didn't help that paisley was under contractual obligation to never speak about his past marriage, so once the proceedings were over, they went full no-contact. only time this was broken in over a decade was when paisley sent a letter to notify dale that their dog (that paisley won in the divorce) had passed

the first actual time they saw each other face to face after the divorce was during 10yo dev's parent-teacher session, and while paisley's 100% over dale at this point, dale is now suddenly hyperaware that (despite being the one to file for divorce) he's still absolutely smitten by paisley, and he doesn't know how to cope with this

dale probably tries finding "subtle" ways to come in contact with paisley again because he HAS to figure out what's gotten into him with this reignited crush, and paisley just finds it incredibly annoying and even taunting. i think this leads to dale going bananas, realizing he's genuinely in love still, and showing up at paisley's door one night just for paisley's new girlfriend (principal amy krentz) to answer the door in paisley's place. and that's when dale understands juuust how little paisley wants to do with their old relationship anymore

which sucks double because by this point i feel like dev would have figured out that paisley, his teacher, used to date his dad by this point, and dev latches himself onto another person who has been personally victimized by dale dimmadome not showing them the care they deserve (and paisley's kind of a mentor figure for dev at this point because of it, helping him navigate his complicated feelings surrounding his dad). so now not only will dale's ex not take him back, but also said ex is now his son's favorite adult too. what next, the BOOTS want paisley too!? THE HORRORS!

in the au i have where paisley is also dev's biological parent, i think eventually the two of them have to learn to coparent once dev figures out that his weird wifeguy teacher is also the person who bore him and then promptly freaks out over this information. dev probably resents that he wasn't allowed to know his other parent for the first 10 years of so of his life and so now paisley has to unfortunate make a truce with dale to navigate the consequences of their messy divorce NDA