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Fixing things around the Haus was never really about the dibs for Dex. But, all the same, in the back of his mind he was still relying on his efforts in that department to secure him housing for his junior year at Samwell.
Which is why he’s a little surprised at himself for the sinking feeling in his gut when he’s officially offered a spot.
“Oh,” he replies dumbly.
Lardo blinks at him, clearly startled by his lack of enthusiasm, her hand still held out between them waiting for him to reach out and seal the deal.
Dex shakes his head and reaches his own hand out belatedly. Only to have Lardo pull back. “Bro. I’m not gonna give it to you if you don’t really want it.”
“No, no, I do! I promise I do. I’m sorry, I just thought…”
He thought that he’d be getting either Ransom or Holster’s dibs. And that Nursey would be getting the other’s. And, despite the fact that Dex has been dreading the very idea of that for the entire school year, he feels off kilter and lost now trying to imagine a scenario in which he lives at the Haus without Nursey constantly underfoot.
Even these past two years of living in the dorms, Nursey still always somehow manages to end up at the Haus whenever Dex does, stealing the last slice of pie while verbally needling at sore spots he knows well enough will get a rise out of his fellow D-man.
It seemed pointless to even hope that getting dibs wouldn’t somehow include Nursey at his side, and so Dex never bothered to factor in the possibility. He resigned himself to his fate. And now, presented with an alternative, he has no idea what to think.
“Do you, uh,” he clears his throat, watching Lardo’s eyes narrow at him, assessing. “Do you know who Rans and Holster are giving theirs to?”
“They’re giving them to Nursey, bro.”
“Right. But to Nursey and…?”
“Just Nursey.” She shrugs. “Those bunkbeds don’t even have a ladder anymore, so we figured we’d turn the attic back into a single for now. And we thought we’d do you all a solid by making sure the SMH didn’t lose it’s next best D-man pair due to mutual homicide within the first week of preseason by making you shack up together. We’ve all seen how you two handle sharing a hotel room on roadies.”
To be fair, how they handle it nowadays is wildly different from the roughhousing mess of their first semester at Samwell. But apparently no one’s noticed that.
Dex goes abruptly still as a thought occurs to him that feels like a bucket of ice water over his head. “Wait. Was this Nurse’s idea?”
Lardo frowns and opens her mouth to answer– just as the front door bursts open and in storms the man in question, glaring daggers at whoever happens to be in his line of sight and looking decidedly un-chill. “Was this Poindexter’s idea?”
A strangled laugh escapes Lardo, half amusement and half surprise, and then she raises both hands in the air like she’s very much ready to shuffle backwards all the way into the kitchen and nope out of this entire conversation.
Nursey doesn’t seem to notice her reaction. He just keeps barreling forward once his steely gaze lands on Dex. “Really, dude? You can’t stand me that much, huh? Is this why you were always fixing shit? Because you wanted the leverage to get your own room and get away from me?”
Dex huffs and crosses his arms over his chest. Because, despite whatever hesitations he’d been feeling mere seconds ago, Nursey just has that kind of effect on him. “I was ‘always fixing shit’ because shit always keeps breaking.”
“Oh, so the getting away from me was just an added bonus?”
“What are you even talking about right now, Nurse, you get the entire attic to yourself. It’s practically like having your own place. I’m betting the groupies you bang are gonna love it.”
“What? I don’t– They aren’t–” Nursey makes a sound that’s almost a growl, runs both hands quickly back and forth over his untamable curls, and then shakes his head like he’s shaking off whatever thought process got him here. “Screw you, Will,” he says evenly, his expression suddenly as guarded and blank as Dex has ever seen it. Which is saying something. “I’m done.”
And with that, he turns right back around and exits the way he came, at a brisk and steady pace.
Dex stares after him for all of thirty seconds before Lardo punches him in the arm, hard, and raises her eyebrows at him like he’s the biggest idiot she’s ever let grace her presence. “Dude, are you gonna go after him or what?”
“…Or what?” Dex tries, but he knows that’s wrong as soon as he says it. He knows it for certain when Lardo cuffs him upside the back of his head. “Jesus! Fine! I’m going after him!”
By the time he catches up to Nursey they’re nearing the pond. The sunlight is mottled through the leaves on the trees, and there are storm clouds in the distance. Storm clouds that might as well already be here for the stormy expression on Nursey’s face when he finally pauses and turns around.
Dex never wanted this.
He wanted security and routine and never having to question the nature of his relationship with his defense partner. He wanted a place in the Haus and a place alongside Derek Nurse, without ever saying out loud that he did. Without ever admitting to anyone, especially himself, any of the things that he really wants.
Poindexters don’t want things. They need things and they work for them. Anything more than that is frivolous and embarrassing.
“It wasn’t my idea,” Dex says, only slightly winded from the short jog here. But his chest feels tight anyway, for a number of other reasons that he doesn’t know how to deal with.
Nursey scowls. “I don’t want your fucking pity.”
“Derek. Have I ever lied to you before? It wasn’t my idea. Hell, I thought it was yours.”
The scowl on Nursey’s face twists into something less bitter but still miles away from okay. It takes Dex a second before he recognizes it as that rare, self-deprecating look Nursey only sports during his most vulnerable and defensive moments. “Right. Of course. Because leave it to me to have fucked this up so badly you think I’m trying to get rid of you. Got it. Whatever. My bad, bro.”
Dex is this close to taking the bait and throwing something insensitive back at Nursey, but he catches himself at the last possible second, his mouth still hanging slightly open, ready to argue.
He licks his lips and swallows. He tries again.
“Fucked what up, Nursey?” he asks quietly.
Nursey looks up and away, towards the canopy of leaves overhead, and he stuffs his hands into his pockets so hard Dex worries over how well the lining will hold up.
“Us,” he says with a forced shrug.
And, just like that, they are an “us.” Just like that, it is suddenly very obvious that they have been an “us” for awhile now.
The realization hits Dex all at once and with enough force to send him stumbling back a half a step. Because the truth is that he and Nursey are on exact the same page about each other after all, and they’ve been refusing to acknowledge it out loud for exactly the same reason. This thing that’s been building between them is too important to fuck up. But it has been building.
On the ice this year they’ve been as in sync as Ransom and Holster at their best. Hanging out in the Haus with their teammates, they’ve played off each other without even thinking about it, like two halves of a disgruntled and slightly dysfunctional whole. Whether it’s studying with Chowder at the library or kicking at each other’s shins beneath the table at team breakfasts, they’ve been pairing themselves off together in an entirely natural and yet entirely intentional way.
“Look, whatever,” Nursey continues. “I know you don’t swing that way; it’s not like I was expecting this to ever actually… For you to ever feel exactly the same way. It’s chill. But I thought we were at least, like, friends now. You and me against the world, got your back before anyone else’s, all that shit. I just– I thought–”
“I don’t want to share the attic with you,” Dex blurts, which is, of course, the last thing he should have said, even though it’s suddenly become very true.
Nursey’s expression crumples for an instant, and then hardens so fast that it must be instinctive. Or else, as Dex has started to discover, so desperately learned in his youth that it can now pass as natural. “Right. Aces. Yeah, I’ll just…” he motions over his shoulder at the path that leads away from Dex, away from the Haus, and Dex cannot have that become a reality.
“You didn’t fuck anything up,” Dex says in a rush, catching Nursey’s wrist in a loose grip. “And I hope I didn’t either. I did want to share the attic with you before, but that’s because I– I didn’t realize that doing other things with you was on the table? And if I kiss you right now and it completely backfires, living together is gonna be pretty fucking awkward.”
“Wait. What? You– Wait. What?” Nursey gapes a little and blinks his saucer-wide eyes, and then just stares at Dex, frozen, for one, long, heart-stopping moment.
And then a slow grin spreads across his face, nothing about it manufactured or forced. The sudden, unadulterated joy in Nursey’s eyes is blinding, and Dex can feel his cheeks go hot with a responding blush at being the cause of it.
“Well alright then, Poindexter. Get on with it.” Nursey angles his grin into a smirk, though there’s still too much happiness behind it for his words to sound like the taunting he’s going for. “Kiss me already if you’re gonna do it.”
Dex takes a step closer. Hesitates. “…Don’t hit me for this.”
“I’m a pacifist.”
“You’re a hypocrite.”
Nursey rolls his eyes, but his smile remains unwavering. “Just kiss me, Will. And then go back to the Haus and shake Lardo’s hand. This isn’t going to backfire on you, but moving in together would probably be skipping a couple of steps if we’re gonna start dating.”
Dex, feeling somewhat dazed and also somewhat like he’s more aware of himself and his place in the world than he has been in a long time, reaches a hand out to cup Nursey’s jaw. The hairs of Nursey’s growing beard tickle his palm, and then scrape against it a little rougher as Nursey leans his head to the side and nuzzles into the gesture.
“You sure about this?” Nursey asks softly, his voice nearly drowned out by the rustling of leaves in the steadily increasing wind. A couple of rain clouds have finally started to make their way over, and in the back of his mind Dex thinks: good. The drought this spring has gone on for far too long.
“Yes,” Dex answers easily. The truth is the easy part now. The actions that the truth requires are a little bit harder. “But I’ve never… I mean, it can’t be all that different from kissing a girl, right? I’ve just never…”
Nursey’s expression softens. “We don’t have to do this now. I’m not trying to expose you out in the open like this.”
Dex glances around at all the students walking the paths between classes, and the students still milling around the pond despite the scattered rain drops that have started to fall. And maybe a few months ago he would’ve cared. Ducked his head and pulled his hand away from Nursey’s cheek; shuffled his feet and started breathing a little quicker.
Right now all he cares about is Nursey.
Poindexters don’t want things. They need them, and they work for them.
“I’m good if you’re good,” Dex says.
Nursey nods once, his lips brushing against Dex’s thumb as he does. “I’m good if you’re good,” he repeats, and sounds like he means it.
So Dex kisses him.
The rain starts to fall heavily mere seconds later, like it was just waiting for them. But they don’t stop, or flinch, or shuffle their way over to a dryer location.
Nursey’s hands grip Dex’s hips, drawing him close, and his thumbs dig into the bare skin they find just beneath Dex’s shirt. Dex runs his fingers through the shorter curls at the back of Nursey’s head, and he marvels at the fact that the mechanics of kissing really don’t change based on gender, and yet somehow this is still on a completely different level from every other kiss he’s experienced. Though maybe that has less to do with Nursey being a guy and more to do with the fact that he’s Nursey.
“Please don’t be my roommate next year,” Dex breathes against Nursey’s slick and swollen lips as he pulls ever so slightly back. The rain slides down both of their cheeks and foreheads and noses, as much a relief from Dex’s hot blush as a general nuisance.
Nursey swallows thickly. “Yeah, alright. Then what can I be?”
“Everything else,” Dex whispers, and kisses him again.