Work Text:
Because I know I'm not inadequately skilled
It's just some things take two people to build
– “IKEA” by Grace Petrie
1
“C’mon it’ll be fun, I swear.”
“I’m busy.”
“Just for an hour, you need a break, bro.”
“Nursey, seriously, I have to do laundry and meal prep and like, clean my bathroom and shit,” Dex huffs. “I don’t have time to get all the way to fucking Rockefeller Plaza to ice skate ‘just for fun’ with you.”
“But Deeeeeex,” Nursey whines, “We haven’t hung out in ages, what happened to NYC Frog Bonding?”
“What happened is we both have jobs that keep us busy and you were hanging out with your moms and Farrah while they were in town all last month. And before that I was at home for the world’s most uncomfortable Thanksgiving.”
“Oh, right.”
“Plus, does it even count as Frog Bonding when Chowder isn’t here?”
“What are you saying, William, I’m not good enough to bond with alone? That dear Christopher must be present for us to maintain our friendship? I am hurt, nay, devastated. I have laid my heart at your doorstep—”
“Oh here we fucking go—”
“—only to have you trample it every time you cross your threshold—”
“Nursey, c’mon.”
“—Leaving me to barely survive on the meager dregs of your affection—”
“You are the single most dramatic person I have ever met,” Dex mutters, trying valiantly to hide his grin.
“—I fear I shall not last much longer, I can feel myself beginning to shuffle off this mortal coil. Tell my family I loved them well,” sighs Nursey, draping himself like a swooning heroine over the couch and Dex’s lap, eyes closed and hand on his forehead. “It’s been a good run, I suppose—”
“Oh my god, fine.”
Nursey’s eyes pop open as he grins.
“Really? You’ll come?”
“Yes, I’ll come. But I really do have a lot of chores to do today, Nursey, I can’t spend all day at that tourist trap they call a rink.”
“I’ll come back here and help you,” Nursey offers.
“And you won’t complain when I make you vacuum?”
“Pinky swear.”
“Alright, pinky swear,” Dex agrees, linking their fingers together to seal the deal. They stay that way for a beat before he realizes that Nursey is still sprawled out on his lap and they are basically holding hands. He gets lost staring at their entwined fingers before straightening up and clearing his throat.
“Let me just start my laundry and we can head out,” he says, dumping Nursey on the floor and ignoring his indignant squawk.
“Rude, Dex, so rude!” Nursey calls after him.
A quick laundry swap and a sweep of his apartment for his phone, keys, and wallet, and they’re off. It’s only a short walk to the subway, but Dex is glad he brought his warmest jacket, a hat, gloves, and a scarf. He may be used to Maine and Massachusetts winters, but there’s something about the wind whipping through the city in early February that gets into Dex’s very bones and refuses to leave if he’s not careful.
Dex chats easily with Nursey as their train makes its way toward Rockefeller Plaza. Their schedules since the New Year have only allowed for sporadic texting; Dex has missed hearing about the nitty gritty details of Nursey’s publishing office.
“—and remember that awful manuscript I made you all read around Halloween?”
“The one that you made into a drinking game?” asks Dex, laughing at the memory. “Even Lardo was hungover after that party!”
“Yeah that one. It’s fucking back, bro,” Nursey whines.
“No,” Dex gasps.
“Yes,” says Nursey grimly.
“What? How?! It was so bad – we did a ritual burning of it after you rejected it in case there was a curse on it!” he protests.
“I don’t know! The author must have submitted it to a different editor or a different genre and it got sent back to my desk because the universe hates me or something.” Nursey slumps in his seat, head falling on Dex’s shoulder in defeat.
“Fully yikes, Nursey.”
“I’m too pretty to be haunted by the ghost of shitty writing, Dex, you have to save me.”
“Well I’m definitely not reading it again, but we can figure out some sort of exorcism ritual for it if you want.” Dex allows his arm to squeeze Nursey’s shoulders in commiseration.
“My hero,” says Nursey, fluttering his absurdly long eyelashes at him. Dex steadfastly ignores the swooping sensation in his stomach. Fucking eyelashes.
“Oh hey, we’re here,” he points out hastily, pulling Nursey off the train with a hand on his upper arm.
“Hey, the rink is running a deal since it’s February, look!” Nursey points, “‘Buy one ticket and get one free for your Valentine.’ That’s cute!”
“Ayuh, cute.”
“Dex, are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
Oh crap.
“That we should get hot chocolate after?” he tries.
“No! Well, yes, we absolutely should, but no! We can pretend to date and get the discount!”
“Why?” Dex asks warily. This does not sound like a fun game.
“C’mon, it’ll be a fun game!” Dex very narrowly refrains from groaning in frustration. “Just hold my hand and smile at me more than you normally do and let me do the talking,” Nursey pouts a little, pushing his already plump lips even further out. Dex is helpless to look away. Or to refuse. “Please?”
“Ugh, fine. Let’s see what sort of relationship story you tell.”
“Dex,” Nursey says seriously, “this will only work if we build the story together. You in?”
“Yeah, alright,” he says with a sigh.
“Hell yes, let’s go, loverboy,” cheers Nursey, already dragging Dex by the hand over to the ticket counter. He lets himself be pulled along, focused on the feel of Nursey’s hand in his, warm even through the gloves.
2
“What are you getting Jack and Bitty for a wedding present?” Nursey asks out of nowhere one afternoon in early April.
“What?” Dex is distracted enough that he falls off Rainbow Road and loses. “No no no no you absolute asshole. I was winning! Underhanded tactics, Nursey, no fair,” he says, elbowing Nursey hard in the side in retaliation.
“Ow! Okay I deserved that. All’s fair in love and Mario Kart,” smirks Nursey as he tosses his controller off to the side. “In all seriousness, what are you getting them?”
“I have no fucking idea, man. What are you supposed to get for the power couple of the millennium, one half of which has a serious case of gift giving as a love language and the NHL salary to back it up?” asks Will.
“Yeah, that’s about where I’m at too. How are you supposed to shop for people that don’t even have a registry! What is this, the Dark Ages?”
Dex’s bites his lip to try to hide his grin – Nursey’s face is just so adorable when he’s grumpy. He racks his brain, trying to come up with anything other than something dumb like a handyman coupon book. Bitty’s got a brand new kitchen and access to professional repair people in Providence, he hasn’t needed Dex’s repair skills since he moved out of the Haus. Although…
“I could make something for them. For the ceremony maybe, it’s not like they need anything in their house.” A glimmer of an idea comes to him, and he sits up. “They’re going with a hybrid ceremony, right?”
“Yeah, that’s what Bits said when I talked to him last week,” says Nursey slowly.
“Think they have a chuppah yet?” he asks.
“No. No way. You can’t!”
“Why can’t I?” asks Dex, raising his eyebrow in defiance. “It wouldn’t even be that hard, plus they could keep it – put it in the backyard or something. Use it for their kids – ow! Two minutes for roughing!”
“You fucker,” Nursey says, pushing him into the far corner of the couch. “You’re going to make the rest of us, namely me, look bad!”
“Aw, Nursey, don’t worry, I’m sure they’ll love whatever you get them,” Dex chirps. He pulls out his phone to text Jack and Bitty about logistics, but before he can get very far, his phone is knocked out of his hands and Nursey is pinning him down.
“Don’t even think about telling them your gift until we figure out what the fuck I’m getting them.”
Dex gulps, throat abruptly dry.
“Nursey—” he tries.
“Nope, not letting you up until you help me figure this out,” Nursey says, pushing Dex’s hands further into the cushions when Dex makes a weak attempt to get out from the hold.
“Alright, alright, hang on, let me think.” He thinks as hard as he can through the haze of arousal Nursey’s position has caused. Dex is just glad that he’s not blushing anywhere Nursey can see – though the back of his neck feels particularly warm right now. He keeps his eyes firmly on the ceiling and away from Nursey’s – one glance and he knows his brain would stop working from the proximity.
“You could, um, write them something?” he tries desperately. “Like a poem about them? Or like, love in general?”
“That’s not a bad idea,” says Nursey. His hands relax a bit, but he still isn’t moving off of Dex. “I’d need some way to give it to them though. Get someone to do calligraphy and frame it maybe?” he muses, biting his lip.
Dex is going to combust. He looks around Nursey’s apartment in a desperate bid not to lean up and bite Nursey’s lip himself, and his gaze snags on the hockey stick Nursey has hung on his wall. Dex had made it for him as a graduation present – a wooden hockey stick, with the number 28 and ‘Samwell University Class of 2018’ burned into the blade. He’d even gotten the whole team to sign it.
“I could wood burn the poem onto the chuppah,” he blurts out. “Joint present?”
“Holy shit that would be amazing,” breathes Nursey.
“You gonna get off me now?” Dex asks tightly. If Nursey moves the wrong way he’s going to feel just how much Dex never wants him to move – and then Dex would have to flee to Argentina to avoid the teasing and mortification.
And his Spanish is lacking, to say the least.
Nursey’s eyes go wide for a moment before his usual ‘chill’ expression smooths it over. “Oh yeah, sure,” he says, scrambling off him, and actually falls off the couch in his haste. Dex busies himself sitting up and adjusting the throw pillows that got messed up in the struggle, pointedly not looking at Nursey.
“You – you really think I can write a poem good enough for them?” asks Nursey quietly. Dex’s head whips around to stare at him in shock, but Nursey is staring at his lap, brow furrowed.
“Nursey, you’re a ridiculously talented writer, and you love them. I’m sure whatever you come up with will make them, and everyone else, cry – in a good way.”
“Oh – I – thanks.”
“‘Course. Got your back.”
He finally sends off the text to Jack and Bitty, grinning when Bitty’s response is four lines of exclamation marks and an incoming FaceTime request. He shows his phone to Nursey, grinning. “Think he’s excited about our present or what?”
Nursey just laughs and accepts the call for Dex, and Bitty’s voice echoes through the apartment.
“—can’t believe that you boys would do this to me on my filming day, now I’m gonna be all puffy and red on camera! This is just the sweetest darn thing, and it’s even more meaningful coming from such a devoted and committed couple, why I could just melt—”
Dex doesn’t hear a word past ‘couple’ and from the look on Nursey’s face, he doesn’t either. Their eyes are locked on each other, silently daring the other one to interrupt Bitty at full steam, but before either of them can—
“Oh! That’s the oven. Y’all call us later and we can talk more specifics, ok?”
The room is silent without Bitty’s happy chatter, and Dex can’t quite bring himself to meet Nursey’s eyes anymore – worried that he’ll somehow read the truth of Dex’s yearning in his gaze.
“I vote we just – pretend he didn’t say that? It’s not like Bitty meant anything, he was probably just overwhelmed, right?” he asks Nursey.
“Right. Probably just a mistake,” Nursey agrees. He clears his throat. “Ready to lose more at Mario Kart?”
“Oh it is on, Nurse.”
Dex seizes the normality of video games and trash talking with both hands. If Nursey isn’t bothered by Bitty’s slip of the tongue, Dex won’t be either.
He won’t.
3
“Don’t forget, the end of fiscal year party is next Friday, July 16th, at 7pm at the Four Seasons,” Dex’s boss says on his way out the door.
“Dress appropriately for once, Daniel. All of you email Flora with your dietary restrictions and those of your plus-one by next Tuesday. And yes, Poindexter, you have to have a plus one. Especially when you know the whole team has been waiting to meet Derek for months now.” And then he’s gone, leaving a pit in Dex’s stomach.
Fuck.
He hadn’t set out to lie to everyone at work. It had started innocently enough – Nursey was his best friend, they hung out regularly, and they’d known each other for years. It was only natural that he would come up in conversation.
His first week, overhearing someone in the breakroom talking about All Systems Red: “Oh, you should definitely read that book, it’s fantastic – well, the whole series is, actually. Derek read them in college and got me into them.”
His fourth week, after Flora had asked him what smelled so good: “I forget what it’s called, but Derek forgot to halve the recipe, so there were a lot of leftovers, and he said I could take it into work with me.”
His seventh week, when his team tried to get him to get a drink after work: “Sorry, not tonight, Derek’s taking me to a fancy dinner for my birthday since we didn’t have time on the actual day.”
His ninth week: “Back in college Derek and I binged all the episodes of Chopped while we were on roadies and now we tape the new ones to watch together once a month.”
It took until after he’d been working there three months that Dex realized he’d misled everyone.
“So when do we get to meet the famous Derek?” asked Flora.
“Um, well he’s not usually in this part of the city unless we’re meeting for dinner or something – why?”
“Maybe because he sounds awesome, and all of us want to meet the guy who makes you smile like that?” she teased. “How long have you been together, anyway? I don’t think you’ve ever told us.”
What?
“Uh–he’s – we’re—”
“Poindexter, Smith, and Vitale – new project just came in for you!”
“Coming!” Dex said, fleeing the conversation with Flora before actually managing to clarify that he and Nursey weren’t dating – despite his crush.
From one angle, he and Nursey could have been dating since at least senior year of college. From a slightly different angle, Dex had been pining for so long that it was a sick sort of relief to indulge in his fantasies.
But now, because of the party, he was out of time and faced two equally terrible options. One: go to the party alone, pretend that they broke up and spend the entire night and the next however long suffering from the pity and blind dates of his coworkers. Or, two: go to the party with Nursey, pretend to date him and spend the entire night and the next however long wishing it was real.
There really was only one option Dex was ever going to take, and Nursey’s reaction is at once a relief, and a gut punch.
“Dude, of course, this is going to be hilarious, of course I’ll do it. Next Friday?”
“Ayuh.”
“I’ll have to meet you at the hotel since I have a late meeting, but I got your back, bro. I’ll be the one in the killer suit who’s too good for you,” he said, and fucking winked at Dex.
Dex might be a little bit of a masochist.
4
Dex is in the middle of meal prepping when he hears a key scrape in his lock. Only one person has his spare so that means—
“Dex! I found the perfect apartment for us! Where ya at Poindexter?”
He hears Nursey kicking off his shoes and throwing his keys onto the side table as he makes his way to the kitchen. Dex refuses to acknowledge how much his heartbeat speeds up as the footsteps get closer.
“Kitchen!” Dex calls back.
“Okay, so it’s two bedrooms, two bathrooms, like, a billion closets, has laundry in the apartment, wood floors, and it's pretty much a twenty minute commute to work for both of us.”
“I don’t believe you,” he says flatly.
“What?” laughs Nursey. “Why?”
“Because you just described a dream set up and there’s no way that apartment can possibly exist in this city at a price point we can afford? What’s the catch?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.
“No catch.”
The second eyebrow joins the first as Dex puts down the knife he was using and folds his arms, holding Nursey’s gaze steadily.
Nursey holds out against Dex’s stare for longer than Dex thought he would but he breaks within two minutes.
“So the catch would be that the landlady thinks we are boyfriends who want to move in together by the end of September, and is unwilling to rent to two single people,” Nursey says quickly.
“What.”
Dex isn’t sure what his face is doing, but whatever is happening, it gets Nursey talking again.
“I know, I know. She’s a super rich friend of my grandmother who has owned the building for like forty years or something, only rents to people she knows, or those that get recommended to her from people she trusts. And I told my moms we were looking for a place together since we both got busier at work and its harder to hang out and they told my grandmother who mentioned it to her friend who said that a unit just opened up and she’ll cut us a friends and family deal on the rent, and seriously, dude, it’s like, gorgeous, I took so many pictures here, look—”
“Back up for a second,” Dex says, cutting him off. “Why does this random old lady think we are boyfriends and why is she unwilling to rent to two people who are not dating?”
Nursey’s not meeting his eyes, instead starting pretty determinedly at a point over Dex’s left shoulder. “I maybe told her we were dating when I found out about her rule. I don’t actually know why she has that rule – Ms. Johnson’s always been sort of weird and mysterious, and like, oddly prescient? Anyway, when she told me she’d only rent to a couple—”
“—you let her believe we were dating,” Dex finishes, running a hand through his hair.
“Do you want me to tell her nevermind?” Nursey asks in a small voice. He’s rubbing his hand over his tattoo, a classic Nervous Nursey Fidget.
And—
Dex should say no to this. It’s going to be hard enough living with the man he’s been into since senior year, without having to pretend to actually be dating anytime they’re in the building’s public spaces or while they’re moving in. He should really, really, say no to this. But—
“How good is the friends and family discount?”
Nursey beams at him, and Dex can’t help but to grin back in response.
“Good enough that you won’t regret this, Dexy. We won’t even have to pretend that much, and even if we did, did you not hear me about the in-unit laundry?!”
“You’re just lucky I care about that, and the discount, more than I care about lying to an old lady.”
Dex is, in fact, willing to do quite a lot if it means that Nursey keeps smiling at him like that. He pushes his reservations aside until he can freak out away from Nursey’s gaze, and just leans against his counter and lets himself float on the current of Nursey’s excitement.
5
“Tonight is the last time that Nursey gets to pick the bar,” Dex grumbles to himself as he tries and fails yet again to get the attention of the bartender.
They’re in some new, pretentious, pre-Halloween pop-up bar situation that Nursey had heard about from one of the other editors last week. Dex hadn’t wanted to go – he was utterly exhausted from work this week – but Nursey had pleaded with his puppy-dog eyes and Dex had found himself agreeing.
He’s definitely regretting that now.
Dex had just wanted to drown this shitty week with alcohol and hang out with his best friend, but it appears the universe isn’t done having fun with him yet. Despite being over six feet tall, Dex has been jostled around so much tonight, it feels like he’s back on the ice, fighting for the puck in the corner. The place is completely packed, the people are stacked three-deep around the bar, and the low level of the lighting isn’t doing anyone any favors. He’s been trying to get close to the bar for almost twenty minutes now. He’s tired, dehydrated, and his feet are absolutely killing him. He’s about to just give up and drag Nursey back to their local dive bar where at least he knows he’ll be able to get a fucking drink and sit the fuck down, when someone taps him on the shoulder.
The guy is attractive, so much so that even while Nursey-obsessed and exhausted, Dex notices. Attractive and smiling hopefully (and a little lustfully) at him. Getting this sort of attention is a rush that Dex rarely experiences.
Dex has seen (and lived in a Haus with) his share of beautiful people, but being hung up on his best friend for so long has meant that he hasn’t really noticed other people. The Nursey Tunnel Vision™ is real. But living with the object of his affections for months – binging movies together, seeing him come out of the shower, meal prepping together, getting asked his opinions about whether Nursey’s goddamn underwear is flattering enough – means that Dex is ready to tear his hair out.
So just this once, he wants to fucking bask in the sensation of mutual interest.
He lets himself grin back.
“Something I can help you with?” he asks with a tilt of his head.
“I sure hope so,” the guy says, leaning a little closer to be heard over the music. “I’m Wayne. What’s your name?”
“Will.”
“I saw you standing over here and couldn’t help myself from coming over. You’re just so pretty. And luckily for me, your face is as great as your ass.”
“Oh. Well, thank you,” Dex says, feeling his ears heat up. It’s not like Dex doesn’t ever get hit on, but well, he’s usually out with Nursey. He’s never managed to meet anyone when he’s out with his stupidly attractive best friend – has in fact, had to watch Nursey get hit on almost every place they go. Plus, his crush on Nursey means he’s more than a little out of practice with flirting. “You’re certainly no slouch, yourself.”
“Be still my heart,” Wayne drawls. “Dance with me?”
“I– I, uh, I’m pretty bad at dancing, to be honest. I feel like I’d look like an idiot out there with you,” Dex admits.
“Well, I am an amazing dancer.” Dex believes him. “I can make anyone look good. So in this case, I think, maybe, that where there’s a Will, there could be a Way-ne?”
Dex can’t help but laugh at the awful come on. Wayne is utterly ridiculous, but somehow still charming. And while that particular combination is horribly familiar, it’s working enough for Dex to want to say yes. Before he can answer though, he feels strong arms wrap around his waist from behind.
“Babe! There you are – you’ve been gone forever!” Dex feels his whole body heat up as Nursey’s chin rests on his shoulder. Of fucking course.
“Sorry ‘bout that, Nursey,” he says, “The bartender is skipping over me specifically at this point, I’m pretty sure.”
“How rude of him!” Nursey finally unwraps himself from around Dex, but just moves to stand next to him instead, leaving one arm draped low on his hips. Everywhere Nursey is touching him, Dex is tingling – his fingers leaving little sparks of lightning in their wake.
“Who's your friend?” Nursey asks, with a colder tone of voice than Dex has heard in a while. He feels the Nursey’s arm tighten around him a fraction more.
“Oh, this is—”
“Wayne, sorry, dude – didn’t mean to hit on your boyfriend,” he says, arms up in surrender, and disappears into the crowd in a blink.
“You okay, Dex?” asks Nursey. “I saw him over here and figured I’d better come rescue you.”
And suddenly, Dex is done. The day’s exhaustion. The crowd. The noise. The build up of years of pining and frustration and yearning breaks all at once. Dex is tired, so tired, of the just-on-the-edge of flirtatious touches, of innumerable inside jokes, of constantly walking the line of deniability. Tired of being infatuated with his best friend.
“And why,” he asks icily, turning to meet Nursey’s eyes, “would I need to be rescued from a hot guy hitting on me?”
“What?” Nursey falters, “Dex, I—”
“Are hot guys not allowed to hit on me?”
“Of course they ca—”
“So there was something about Wayne, specifically, that made you feel you had to come over here, pretend to be my boyfriend, and scare him off?”
“No, but—”
“But, what, Nursey?” he presses. “You’re allowed to get hit on almost everywhere we go with no intervention from me, but when someone approaches me, I need to be fucking rescued? Do you realize how fucked up that is? I already had my bi crisis – you were there! And I have pretty good instincts for people; I know how to ask for fucking help if I want it. But I’m a grown man, Nurse, and if someone attractive wants to flirt with me, I’m gonna let them.”
Nursey just stands there, shocked after Dex’s outburst.
“You know what, forget it. I’m going home – good fucking luck getting the bartender’s attention.”
He turns on his heel and stomps out of the bar and into the night. He’s far enough away from their apartment that he’d normally take the train, but since he’s so worked up, Dex decides to just start walking until he calms down enough to be in an overheated, smelly box underground with a bunch of strangers.
+1
He’s barely a block away from the bar when he hears running feet behind him.
“Dex! Wait!”
He recognizes the voice, because, really, who else would it be? But he keeps walking, picking up his pace a little.
“Dex!” Nursey calls again, getting closer with every second. Dex continues ignoring him, still fuming.
“Will, please,” Nursey begs, finally close enough to get a hand on Dex’s arm and pull him to a stop. He wants to pull away, shrug off Nursey’s hold, but the use of Dex’s real first name – for maybe the first time since their infamous Taddy Tour – and the sincere and wrecked sounding ‘please’ is utterly disarming.
He lets himself be turned, shocked to see the utter panic on his best friend’s face. The sight knocks away the sharpest edges of his anger.
“What, Derek?” he sighs, even more exhausted than he was when they got to the bar. “I’m tired and grumpy and I just want to go home.”
“I just – couldn’t let you leave like that.” Nursey sighs, scrubbing his hand over his face. “I feel like I’ve been going crazy these last few months. Well, the last few years, if I’m honest, but—”
“What are you talking about?” Dex’s words come out a lot softer than he intended – barely any breath behind them – and Nursey looks cautiously hopeful at the tone.
“Fuck, since college, we’ve been – and then I dragged you skating with me. That’s when things started to – not change – but I guess, intensify?”
“Took me skating?” Dex asks, confused. “Oh, at Rockefeller? Wh—”
“And then we were figuring out what to get Bitty and Jack for a wedding present and somehow I ended up pinning you to the couch and I realized I didn’t want to move, and Bits calling us a couple made my fucking heart skip a beat.”
As his words gain speed, Nursey’s hands are twisting in the hem of his shirt, restless, and it’s easier for Dex to watch them than try to meet his eyes.
“I was so ecstatic when your work had that party in July – they all thought I was your boyfriend anyway and I turned up and you were in a suit and it was so beautiful on you – I had to work really hard to focus on anything but you the rest of the night.” Nursey’s rubbing the back of his neck now, and for once Dex isn’t distracted by the movement of his biceps – the words spilling from his best friend’s mouth are tantalizingly, achingly familiar.
“And like, after that, I knew I wanted to be more than friends with you but I was so fucking scared that you wouldn’t feel the same and I didn’t want to ruin our friendship because we worked so hard for that shit you know? And – you wanted to move in with me – because you missed living with me, because we missed living with each other, and I thought maybe, just maybe.”
Fuck. This speech is everything Dex has been feeling – everything he’s been holding back from blurting out every time Nursey so much as breathes in his direction.
“Ms. Johnson gave me the world’s most perfect excuse to just drape myself all over you and live out almost every stupidly domestic fantasy I’d been having about the two of us for months. And I still couldn’t get a read on you, so I didn’t say anything, and just let myself fall further in love with you, helplessly.”
Dex isn’t sure what his face does when he hears that his feelings have been reciprocated this whole time. The confession hangs in the air between them. Dex can’t stop staring at his best friend, at the man he’s been in love with longer than he would care to admit. Nursey steals a glance up and whatever he sees in his expression makes him take another step closer to Dex and hold his gaze steadily, sure, for the first time since Dex left the bar.
“I’ve never been more jealous in my life than I was ten minutes ago,” he says fiercely. Dex swears he can feel the air between them crackle from the intensity in Nursey’s eyes.
“I was coming to find you, to tell you to forget it, to drag you to our bar instead, when I saw the two of you standing there. And – fuck, Will – he was standing so close to you, fully in your space, and you were just – letting him. And smiling at him, and something inside me just fucking broke.”
Dex is having trouble breathing, heart racing wildly, waiting, more tense than in the final minutes of the Frozen Four, for Nursey to finish.
“And, for fuck’s sake Dex, it took you almost a whole year to let Chowder and I into your personal space that much, let alone anyone else, and there you were just letting some rando get close to you? I knew I was being a supreme asshole when I interrupted, I knew, okay? And I’m sorry – but it was either pretend to be your boyfriend, or punch him in the face.”
Dex can count on one hand the number of times Nursey has punched someone. They were all on the ice. All in reaction to the other team targeting Chowder, or Bitty, or Dex himself. Each time had been accompanied by the same steely look Nursey has on his face now. And being the focus of that expression, without even the slight protection of a full cage mask to blunt the intensity, makes him feel like he’s being sucked into a riptide.
“You couldn’t have just pretended there was an emergency back at the apartment?” Dex tries weakly. His whole body is vibrating so hard he’s amazed that the street around them isn’t shaking in response.
“I really could not have,” Nursey says, certain this time. “For me, it’s simple, for all it took me a while to realize it: If Dex, then Nursey. And—”
Nursey cuts himself off when Dex steps closer – close enough to wrap an arm around his waist and bring his other hand up to cup the back of Nursey’s neck. He can feel goose bumps break out under his fingers. Amber eyes meet green for the space of a single heartbeat and then—
They kiss.
It’s a different kiss from the many versions he’s thought about. It’s not a battle, resulting from frustrated bickering, or heated from Dex losing his patience and just fucking pouncing on his stupidly gorgeous best friend. It’s not a dare, a game, or pretend. It’s not desperate or drunk or an experiment.
It’s just the two of them, softly trading breaths back and forth as they kiss and kiss and kiss and kiss in the middle of the sidewalk. Eventually – unfortunately – they both need to breathe and he pulls back from Nursey’s mouth – but only far enough away to rest his forehead against Nursey’s, and gazes again into the bright green eyes he loves so much.
Nursey’s hands are flitting from place to place: Dex’s waist, fiddling with a button on Dex’s shirt, hooking through his belt loops. Dex’s own hand is reverently rubbing circles into the small of Nursey’s back, his thumb running along a perfect cheekbone without any input from his brain. The gentle touch makes Nursey shudder and lick his lip, about to say – something – Dex will find out in a moment. It’s a visceral need, a higher calling, or maybe destiny itself that has him swooping in to press one last kiss against that plump mouth. He can feel Nursey’s lips twitching, trying to break into a grin, and reluctantly allows himself to be pushed back – just a bit.
Dex is unwilling to move very far from him ever again.
“Not that I didn’t enjoy that immensely – don’t look so fuckin’ smug Poindexter – but I poured my heart out here and you didn’t say shit,” Nursey says. His hands are now rubbing up and down Dex’s arms and it takes a couple of tries for him to focus enough to get any semblance of a thought together.
“Ahem. I, William Jacob Poindexter, have previously had, am currently having, and will continue to have reciprocal love feelings for one Derek Malik Nurse.”
Nursey giggles with a hint of giddy tears, and playfully shoves at him. “I’m in love with the dorkiest asshole in all the land.”
“Takes one to know one.” Dex shrugs and grins, pulling Nursey closer yet again. “You knew what you were getting into.”
“I guess I did,” Nursey says, leaning in to kiss Dex again.
Dex’s heart fucking soars.