Archive of Our Own

“So, who are we spying on?” Nursey asks, crouching down beside Chowder in the bushes.

For an athlete of Nursey’s caliber, this action should go a lot more smoothly than it does. Instead, he ends up half falling into the shrubbery, Chowder shushing him several times along the way.

Ultimately, he makes it to snooping height unscathed, and then peeks out over Chowder’s shoulder at the sunlit area by the lake.

When Nursey spotted Chowder here on his way to class, it was an easy decision to join. Not least of which because Senioritis has Nursey looking for any and every opportunity to avoid going to classes in general, even though they only just got back from summer break barely a month ago. But also because, since when has Nursey ever said no to infamous SMH shenanigans?

“Come on, man, clue me into the deets. What are we doing here?” he asks.

“Watching Dex get hit on.”

Nursey sputters and falls back onto his ass in the leaves.

After a moment of flailing, he manages to get out an inelegant, “No, but seriously.”

Chowder smirks that mischievous goalie smirk. “I’m timing how long it takes for him to notice.”

Nursey finally rights himself and gets another look in the general direction of where Chowder’s gaze is locked. And he does in fact spot Poindexter there, sitting beneath a tree with his laptop balanced on his thighs and a textbook open in the grass next to him. A cute girl is standing over him, chatting him up with a shy smile and several calculated tosses of her shiny black hair.

“Holy shit, she’s really into him,” Nursey says.

“I’ll be sure to let Dex know the level of your shock at the mere idea.”

Nursey punches Chowder in the arm. Chowder shoves him in the chest so that he falls back onto his ass again.

“I’m not shocked,” Nursey argues, not bothering to get back up just yet. He’s not sure he wants to witness this episode of Dex unintentionally picking up. Or even intentionally picking up. He doesn’t want to think about what it might entail or how it might look or why his gut twists uncomfortably at the thought. “I’m sure plenty of people are into Dex. He’s got, like, a whole... I don’t know, thing. Or whatever. It probably works for him sometimes.”

“You’re allowed to admit he’s attractive without spontaneously combusting.”

“Sure. Very attractive. If you’re, you know, into that.”

“Right.” Chowder rolls his eyes. The smirk on his face is still there, but it’s gotten a little too knowing for Nursey’s comfort.

“I’m just surprised he hasn’t already shut her down,” Nursey says. “The guy doesn’t date.”

“Exactly.”

Nursey frowns and rights himself to take another look at the scene by the lake. The girl is walking away now, looking like a kid whose balloon just got popped, and Dex has returned to his homework. “Ouch, Poindexter,” Nursey mutters. “Stone cold.”

“I don’t think he understood what she was doing,” Chowder says. “She offered him her phone and he pulled his own out to show her that he already had one.”

Nursey snorts a laugh. “Okay, Dex may not have a single romantic bone in his freckly ginger body, but the guy isn’t an idiot. He had to have noticed.”

“Nursey, I am telling you, he had no idea. It legit never even occurs to him that people might be into, as you put it, his ‘whole thing.’ I’ve tried to talk him through it and I got nowhere. He just-- Oh my god, it’s happening again.”

Nursey whips his gaze back towards the man in question, only to see a stupidly attractive guy in a loose-fitting tank top holding a frisbee and chatting Dex up.

“This is so weird,” Nursey breathes.

“It happens more than you’d think,” Chowder tells him.

And it’s not that this fact is hard to believe. Dex is a catch and Nursey knows this, even if he’s loath to admit it. But something heavy and unpleasant settles in Nursey’s gut at Chowder’s words.

That unpleasantness twists when he tries to look more closely at the reasons, and so he refrains. Hot people hitting on Dex is apparently an everyday occurrence? So what? This impacts Nursey how exactly?

But Nursey suddenly feels a little like he might throw up.

Hot Frisbee Dude kneels down and braces himself against the tree behind Dex with one large, flexing bicep, so close that Dex’s ear brushes against his tanned and corded forearm.

Dex continues to explain something that involves a lot of pointing at his laptop screen and that Hot Frisbee Dude only half succeeds in pretending he’s interested in.

A phone is handed over, obviously for contact info exchanging. That same phone is handed back with no contact info provided, and Dex smiling in a way that suggests he has no idea he just killed all of someone’s romantic hopes and dreams in one fell swoop.

Hot Frisebee Dude walks away glumly, looking like he isn’t sure what just happened but it will haunt him to his dying day. It’s strange, but Nursey kinda both wants to hug him and also set him on fire.

“See?” Chowder says. “Oblivious.”

“Yeah, this is wild.”

“So if someone has been, I don’t know, flirting with Dex for a while now. Years even. It would probably be a good idea to warn that person about this particular blind spot of his.”

Nursey frowns. “Has someone got an unrequited case of pining going on that we should be more mindful of?”

Chowder gives him a significant look.

Nursey chokes on his own tongue. “Oh my god. Bro. I have not. Been flirting. With Poindexter. What the hell?”

“I’m just saying. You know. If you had been. He might not have realized.”

“Well, I haven’t, and so there was nothing to realize.”

Nursey’s almost offended by the insinuation. He has way more game than that. If he had been flirting with Dex, the guy would’ve succumbed to his advances ages ago, blind spot be damned.

“Okay, Nursey,” Chowder says indulgently, hands raised in faux surrender. “Whatever you say.”

“Don’t look at me like that. I have not been lusting after my D-partner for the last three years.” Nursey swallows, not quite certain why his voice has gone a little rough around the edges, or why his heart is beating a little faster.

He has not been flirting with Dex for their entire academic careers at Samwell.

Right?

Because it would be one thing for Dex not to notice something like that, but Nursey definitely would have.

“Well, if you really haven’t been hitting on him, that would make you one of the few,” Chowder jokes.

Nursey scoffs automatically, but Chowder raises an eyebrow and gives a pointed glance back over at where Dex still sits, completely oblivious. “I don’t think you realize exactly how often this happens to him.”

The idea of it happening at all is doing odd things to Nursey’s gut, never mind the reality of it that he just witnessed. Does that make him a bad friend? He should want Dex to get attention sometimes, right?

Chowder pointedly ignores the internal war that’s been incited within Nursey, and very strategically instigates one more. “Begs the question,” he says idly, his smirk once again way too knowing for comfort, “what would Dex do if he did finally notice? Or, you know, when he finally notices.”

An oddly hot emotion grips Nursey by the throat, but he refuses to name it.

There’s really only one obvious takeaway from all of this, in Nursey’s eyes.

Obviously, he’s gotta start flirting with Poindexter now to see what happens.

You know, for science.

The thing about Nursey and Dex’s relationship is that the whole messy, absurd chaos of it all rests on the precarious balance they’ve learned to strike over the last three years. They exist within a delicate ecosystem of their own, idiotic making, because otherwise this stupid house of cards called a friendship will come tumbling down on not only their own heads, but the heads of the entire Samwell Men’s Hockey Team.

Which is to say, they’re kind of best friends? But also kind of melodramatic antagonists. They rarely leave each other’s sides, and yet can’t be in the same room for more than an hour without an argument.

Like, they love each other, of course they do. And they have each other’s backs to a freaking fault. But they spend at least half of their time together looking for every opportunity to mess with each other or pick a fight.

Picking a fight with Dex is kind of one of Nursey’s favorite pastimes actually.

It’s weird. Nursey’s a very nonconfrontational, chill sort of guy with everyone else. But when it comes to William Poindexter, something just gets under his skin and starts a fire. Even now, as seniors, when the two of them have (mostly) calmed down and (sort of) grown up.

“Do you ever think that might mean something?” Ford asks him from her seat at the kitchen table, homework spread out before her. “That you guys only like to be assholes to each other?”

But it’s a conversation Nursey’s had with her (and with Chowder, and with Lardo, and with Shitty, and with...) so often that his reply is automatic. “Arguing is the foundation of our dynamic,” he says, waving a hand dismissively.

“So you enjoy winding Dex up so much because it’s what you did when you guys were eighteen, and not because getting a reaction out of him makes you all warm and giddy on the inside?”

Rarely does anyone put it so bluntly as that, and Nursey has to catch himself against the kitchen countertop to keep from tripping over thin air at hearing the words out loud.

But he recovers smoothly, turning to lean a casual hip against that same counter, and he sticks to his guns on the topic. “It’s just muscle memory at this point. See a Dex, torment a Dex.”

“Right. Totally explains the embarrassing look you get on your face every time he rises to the bait.”

Clearly by “embarrassing” Ford means “smug,” because there are zero other emotions Nursey feels whenever Dex succumbs to their latest round of aggressive banter.

Okay, maybe a bit of delight. And a mild amount of excitement. But that’s it.

Ford snorts a disbelieving laugh, but doesn’t push any further, instead returning to her homework. Nursey watches her for a long moment, trying to remember what he even came into the kitchen for. But his thoughts skip over each other chaotically, swirling around the inability to really define his relationship with Dex.

Somehow they’ve reached a point where they know each other better than anyone else, even Chowder, but the journey to get here was so reluctant and hard fought that it feels like an out of body experience whenever Nursey makes the mistake of looking at it too deeply.

He and Dex are so close, and so in tune, and yet there is something between them that Nursey remains too terrified to really poke at, lest this whole thing blow up in their faces.

What that something is not, however, is some repressed version of pining like Chowder was alluding to the other day. Nursey has not been flirting with Dex, and he’s going to prove it.

By flirting with Dex until the guy notices.

This makes way more sense in his head than he suspects it would out loud.

But if he can prove that Dex notices, than that means he probably noticed when others were doing it, and was just politely turning them all down like Nursey secretly suspects.

That has to be it. It’s not, like Chowder said, that Dex is oblivious, and that one of these days he’s finally going to wise up and whoever managed to be the one to instigate the realization will have magically won the Poindexter romance lottery.

Which... is not a train of thought Nursey feels fully capable of following to its gut-churning conclusions. So.

So Nursey is gonna flirt and see what happens. And he has faith in the end result. Dex is smart and capable and so rooted in reality that there’s no way he doesn’t occasionally pick up on what other interested parties are putting down. Those instances by the lake were just... flukes. Dex is going to notice.

And he does. Sort of.

“Why do you look like that?” Dex narrows his eyes suspiciously at where Nursey’s shirt is open two buttons more than normal.

Nursey freezes, leaning over the essay Dex asked for help editing, and looks back at him through his eyelashes. “Like what?” he asks, lowering his voice an octave.

Dex makes a face like he swallowed a lemon.

But when he answers, he doesn’t reference any of the ways in which Nursey has been very obviously trying to get his attention: the exposed collarbone, the bedroom eyes, all the places from thigh to shoulder where the two of them are currently pressed up against each other.

Instead, Dex says, with great reluctance: “Like... Like you actually want to be here.”

Nursey blinks, caught off guard. “...I do want to be here?”

Clearly unconvinced, Dex huffs. “Usually you make me read and analyze a Rumi poem or something before you agree to edit my papers. And even then, you complain the whole time.”

“I, uh, was feeling generous?” Nursey sits back, brow furrowed, and tries to reorient himself. Dex apparently couldn’t care less that Nursey’s got his ankle hooked over Dex’s beneath the table, but Nursey being willingly and sincerely helpful is grounds for paranoia.

“You haven’t given me grief about my ‘pedestrian’ takes on Emily Dickinson even once since we sat down,” Dex says, crossing his arms over his chest. Like he thinks that Nursey refraining from chirping him is more unusual than Nursey letting his fingers linger meaningfully along Dex’s fingers when stealing his pen.

And, all at once, it occurs to Nursey that this is true.

Oh shit, was Chowder right? This whole time, has Nursey been...

Now that Nursey thinks about it, of course the one thing that Dex noticed this afternoon is that Nursey so easily and happily agreed to help with his essay. Because that’s really the only thing that’s different between them right now.

They see each other naked all the time in the dressing room, not to mention during the few months when they shared a bedroom. They’re constantly catching each other’s gazes with intense looks to silently communicate, having conversations with just facial expressions when across the room from each other, or across the ice rink. And even in the moments over the years when they couldn’t stand the other, they were still so physically connected that every emotion would get translated into a form of roughhousing. If they’re within a few feet of each other, they’re never not touching.

But that wasn’t... flirting. God, no. Obviously not.

It’s just that it probably looks an awful lot like it from the outside. Which means Nursey is going to need to change tactics. Just being more blatant about all the things he already does with Dex is not going to get Dex to notice he’s interested.

Not that he is. Interested. This is just a social experiment. A more interesting use of Nursey’s time than agonizing over his future post-graduation.

So, since all of Nursey’s usual methods for flirting are somehow already, naturally baked into his relationship with Dex, he’s gonna need to get creative in his approach going forward.

“Is this because you’re gearing up to tell me you broke the dryer again?” Dex asks.

Nursey’s instinct is to argue, snark, chirp. So he does the opposite. He smiles at Dex with a sincerity he very rarely allows to show through, and lets that same sincerity bleed into his words. “I just wanted to help, Will.”

This startles Dex so thoroughly that his mouth goes slack and it takes him a long moment to collect himself. “Oh,” he says, dumbly. Then immediately narrows his eyes, back to being suspicious. “Are you messing with me right now?”

Nursey’s honestly not sure what the answer to that question is. So instead he says, and once the words are out there he finds he genuinely means it, “Dex. Bro. I want to be here.”

A blush blooms dark across Dex’s cheeks, and he ducks his head a little.

Nursey is immediately and absolutely transfixed by the sight. He can’t look away from what appears to be Dex going momentarily... shy? Definitely something a touch more intimate than general embarrassment.

Nursey’s gaze traces the blush down Dex’s neck to where it disappears beneath his shirt collar, and the strangest desire to reach out and feel exactly how warm it is hits Nursey so hard that it nearly has him falling out of his chair.

Dex clears his throat, grabs his pen back from Nursey, and points it at the words on the printed pages in front of them. “So, uh, this thesis.”

“Oh, right. Yeah. Your thesis.” Nursey resituates himself in his seat and forces his eyes onto the page. He clears his throat and shakes off... whatever the hell that was. “Honestly, Poindexter, it could use some work. Like hardcore. And is that a split infinitive in the first sentence? Bro, you’re killing me here. Outright murdering me in cold blood.”

Dex rolls his eyes, his lips quirking up in an amused half-smile. “Less chirping, more redlining, Nurse.”

“This entire thing is going to be red by the time we’re through.”

Dex socks him lightly in the arm. Nursey elbows him gently in the ribs. And everything immediately and seamlessly feels like it’s falling back into place.

Maybe the moment is over. The perfectly constructed and entirely intentional moment of Nursey own design that he totally meant to pull off through the power of... sincerity. Gross.

But Dex is still blushing, which is interesting. And he keeps tapping his fingers in a nervous rhythm against the table. He never did any of that with those people out by the lake the other day. So maybe Nursey is onto something here.

He’s going to need a larger sample size, though. Just to be sure. He can’t go back to Chowder with... this. C will laugh in his face and accuse Nursey of seeing things that aren’t there, seeing what he wants to see.

Only he’d be wrong. Nursey doesn’t want to see Dex all blushy and uncertain and fucking bashful. Jesus. That’s not at all hot or going to secretly consume Nursey’s thoughts late at night when he’s trying to fall asleep.

“Thanks,” Dex says softly, several minutes later, not looking up from where Nursey is scribbling in the margins.

Nursey swallows and shrugs his answer, since he can’t quite make his vocal cords work. If he tries to speak right now, things are going to get embarrassing.

Well. More embarrassing.

A sideways glance at Dex’s profile reveals the blush that hasn’t faded in the slighted, and Dex biting his bottom lip with uncharacteristic nerves.

Nursey has to quickly look away and remind himself that he’s the one in control here. Even if he has no idea what his own emotions are doing, his heartbeat rabbiting as Dex leans in closer to watch him annotate.

Best not to think about it.

“You’re an idiot.”

“I don’t think you’re allowed to say that to me.” Nursey frowns and keeps his eyes forward, skating laps around the rink in Faber.

But Hops stays on pace beside him. He’s a little more confident on the ice than he was last year, even if he’s still a complete dork when off of it. “I’m not a Waffle anymore. I can call it how I see it.”

“You will always be a Waffle. Respect your elders, Bro.”

Hops rolls his eyes and taps Nursey on the ass with his hockey stick. “Okay, Old Man. But you’re still an idiot.”

Nursey sighs, skating past where half of the team is huddled around Dex, who’s going over drills with them. The other half of the team is warming up in lazy laps along with Nursey, still trying to fully wake up. It’s barely seven in the morning and Nursey has not had enough coffee yet to deal with this conversation. “What did I do this time?” he asks, just to get it over with.

“It’s what you’re not doing, dude. We’re already two months into your last school year.”

“If you’re about to lecture me about grad school not being a solid career path, you can get in line behind my parents.”

“No, I’m talking about Dex. He doesn’t even know you--”

Nursey trips over his own skate blade and it’s a miracle he doesn’t break his arm for the second season in a row.

But he catches himself in time, and then he uses the momentum of the almost-fall to shoulder Hops into the boards. “Don’t gossip about your Captain, Hopper.”

“Ow, fine.” Hops pushes off the glass and rejoins Nursey with a scowl. “Someone’s sensitive.”

Which is more than a little accurate, but that’s always been the case. Anyone so much as looks at Dex or Chowder funny, Nursey’s going to throw down. And the other two would do the exact same for him. Even when they were freshmen, barely getting along, practically strangers, they’ve always been an oddly protective trio.

Also, it’s one thing for Chowder or Ford to insinuate things (that are decidedly not true) about the nature of Nursey and Dex’s relationship, but Nursey refuses to put up with it from a damn underclassman. Making it to senior year has earned him that much at least.

Nursey switches direction and skates away from a still grumbling Hops, skidding to a stop beside Dex and spraying snow across his shins.

Dex doesn’t miss a beat as he continues wrapping up instructions to the others, just keeps on talking and blindly reaches a hand out sideways to smack Nursey in the face with his glove.

It’s possible that a normal reaction to getting hit in the face is not the wide grin Nursey immediately starts sporting. And when he realizes, he does his best to school his features.

The other guys nod their heads seriously at Dex’s words, and then start branching off in different directions to do as he’s instructed. Nursey wants to make fun of the look on Dex’s face as he watches them all. The one that’s simultaneously the hardened but proud gaze of a commanding officer, and the soft fondness of a parent at their kid’s first day of school.

But then Nursey reminds himself: be sincere. Kind. Earnest even. Change the game and see if Dex notices.

“You’re a good Captain,” he says.

Dex turns to him with a bemused frown. “Whatever favor you’re about to ask me, the answer’s no.”

Nursey shrugs a shoulder. “Was just noticing how well you handle all this. I’m glad we voted for you, Poindexter.”

The frown on Dex’s face turns into a scowl, but the red tint to his skin that was originally caused by the cold goes even redder with embarrassment. He opens and closes his mouth without sound a couple of times, and then covers by shoving Nursey away with both hands. “Go bother the other defensemen, Nurse. Maybe work on your offsides awareness while you’re at it.”

Nursey slides backwards on the ice from the force of the shove, and then lets himself keep gliding leisurely toward where his fellow D-men are huddled.

He keeps his eyes trained on Dex’s blush the whole way. And he doesn’t even realize that the grin from before has reinstated itself back on his face until Ford raises a pointed eyebrow at him from the bench.

So, Nursey might have a problem.

And no, it’s not that he’s secretly in love with Dex. That would be ridiculous.

It’s also not that being so nice to Dex all the time is starting to feel... a little odd. Like, the more he does it, the more he wants to do it.

Which shouldn’t be an issue, and isn’t an issue. Nursey was nice to the guy all the time before this anyway. He is a great friend, he’ll have you know. It’s just that, when it comes to William Poindexter, he usually hides that niceness under several layers of excessive sarcasm and studied aloofness.

The problem is that Nursey is now hyperaware of every single interaction Dex has with anyone outside of the team.

He wants to claim that this is intentional, that he starts paying more attention because he’s curious and because it pertains to his ongoing experiment. But he’s only so good at lying to himself.

Really, he genuinely just can’t seem to help looking for it now that he knows that people hitting on his friend is apparently a common occurrence.

And what he discovers is that it’s not that Nursey has been intentionally ignoring it this whole time. It’s that he hasn’t really had an opportunity to witness it.

Because no one hits on Dex when Nursey’s there.

Whenever he’s with Dex... well, other people tend to stay away. Because approaching one of them means approaching both of them, they come as a set, and why waste time trying to pick up someone who looks like he’s already taken, right?

Dex is not taken, though. And neither is Nursey. It just, you know, kinda looks like they are.

At parties, Dex always sticks close to him all night, whether on Nursey Patrol or not, and doesn’t really let others invade their space beyond casual conversations. Around campus, Dex is so laser-focused on his studies or getting to his next class on time that the only words that break through are the ones in response to Nursey intentionally provoking him.

And it’s like Nursey told Chowder that day in the bushes. Dex doesn’t date. Has made a point on more than one occasion to declare hockey and school the only two things he has the mental capacity to deal with for his four years here, and Nursey’s pretty sure all of his friendships have only been allowed because they kind of came hand in hand with the hockey part.

So Nursey starts taking a step back occasionally. To see if he’s been unintentionally cockblocking Dex this whole time.

Turns out he has.

“Are we in a fucking episode of Black Mirror?” he asks Whiskey as they watch Dex nod politely at the lacrosse player currently trying to pick him up in the middle of the first kegster of the school year.

Whiskey sips his tub juice, a bored expression on his face. Nursey has learned not to take it personally. The guy only has, like, three facial expressions in his arsenal, and two of them are just different versions of locked-in hockey mode. “You mean because that lax tool is striking out with Dex right in front of you?”

Nursey’s been trying to keep his distance from Dex throughout the party tonight, just to see what would happen. And this is the second person so far to approach his friend with very obvious intentions. It’s more than a little distracting, what he’s now noticing is the near constant attention Dex has been getting from other people. But why that fact sits so heavily in Nursey’s gut is still something of a mystery.

“That he’s attempting at all is blowing my mind,” Nursey says.

“Fair. They usually don’t have the balls when they know you’re somewhere under the same roof.”

Nursey reluctantly drags his eyes away from where Dex totally has not noticed that said Lax Tool is hardcore DTF, and gives Whiskey’s profile a puzzled glance. “I think we’re having two different conversations right now.”

“Are either of them about to wrap up soon? I promised Tango a beer-pong rematch.”

“I’m just saying it’s weird that the moment I leave Dex alone, someone swoops in to try and score with him.”

Whiskey nods absently. “And I’m saying the weird part is the idea that anyone would go for it with the captain when they know you’re actively plotting their slow, painful death somewhere in the same house. Are we done now? I need another drink.” He shakes his empty solo cup in front of Nursey’s face and then slips into the crowd of bodies without waiting for a response.

There are only so many revelations that Nursey is prepared to have in one single week, and none of them should be taking place when three beers in. So he files Whiskey’s comments away for later and heads over to save Poindexter from himself. “Yo, Will! You save me a dance?”

Dex rolls his eyes, his full attention immediately on Nursey approaching through the throng. Lax Tool visibly deflates as Dex basically forgets he even exists.

Nursey can feel the pleased smile tug at his lips, and knows it’s probably a little mean looking. A little cocky and more than a little smug. There’s just something about commanding William Poindexter’s complete attention in the middle of a crowd. Dex doesn’t waste time or energy on anything or anyone that he doesn’t deem worthwhile. So sue Nursey if he feels pretty damn special in the face of being able to draw it out without even trying.

“We are not dancing,” Dex tells him once Nursey has finally made it through all the bodies to stand at his side. It’s not so crowded in here that they’re forced to stand within each other’s personal bubbles, but they do anyway. They always have.

It doesn’t have to mean anything.

Lax Tool slinks away. Nursey’s already forgotten he was ever there.

“You just live to crush my dreams, Poindexter.”

“If your dreams include drunkenly grinding on someone at a kegster, I don’t think we can be friends anymore.”

“Drunkenly grinding on you at a kegster.” Nursey only manages the words because of the pleasant buzz of alcohol in his system, but oh boy is it worth it to watch Dex’s tomato-red reaction.

“I have not had enough tub juice yet to deal with you like this,” Dex says. “Where’s Whisk? I thought he was on Nursey Patrol tonight.”

“Yeah, we should really take him out of the rotation. I can annoy that guy away in five minutes flat even when I’m sober.”

Dex sighs, but doesn’t actually look all that put out. “Good thing you have me then, I guess.”

Nursey throws an arm around Dex shoulders and leads them towards the kitchen where it’s quieter. “Good thing I have you,” he agrees.

The next morning, Chowder sits in a booth across from Nursey at Jerry’s Diner and tells him, mock-seriously, “Buying me pancakes does not mean I’m going to play therapist for you.”

Nursey levels a look at his friend from over his coffee mug. “You say that, C, but we both know you do it for free all the time. The pancakes are just a bonus.”

Chowder concedes this with a shrug. “We should still probably make it quick. We’ve only got maybe five minutes before Dex gets here,” he says, and then steals Nursey’s bacon.

Five minutes might be generous. Dex is running late because apparently the role of captain of the SMH team includes things like officiating hungover arguments between Louis and Bully about who gets to control the playlist at the next party, and exactly how much EDM is appropriate to play at 1 AM before it starts messing with certain hockey player’s ability to score with cute coeds.

Dex’s food sits beside Nursey’s own on the table, because Nursey went ahead and ordered it when the waitress came by without thinking twice.

Which doesn’t have to mean anything. Just because he has Dex’s usual post-kegster Jerry’s brunch order memorized doesn’t indicate some deeper meaning, alright?

Nursey starts adding a very precise amount of cream to Dex’s waiting coffee automatically, only pausing briefly as he stirs it when he realizes what he’s doing and that Chowder is watching him with clear amusement.

“So.” Nursey clears his throat. “About Dex.”

It’s been a long few days, but Nursey’s hangover this morning is minor enough that he doesn’t have a real excuse not to take stock of it all and assess the damage head on. He may be willfully ignorant at times, and is a master at compartmentalization, but he’s not an actual idiot.

Chowder pretends to be absolutely fascinated with drawing patterns with his fork in the maple syrup on his plate, but Nursey can see that he’s trying not to smile. “Yes?”

“Way more people are into his whole thing than I originally thought.” This is harder to verbalize than Nursey thinks it should be. “Not that he’s not... You know. I mean, he’s Dex. Anyone would be lucky to... Whatever.”

Chowder trying not to smile is starting to turn into trying not to laugh.

Nursey forges ahead regardless. “But Whiskey said something last night and I think I figured out why I didn’t know about this before.”

“Because no one hits on him when you’re around?”

Nursey startles. “You knew?”

“Of course I knew.”

“Is it like that when you’re with him too?”

Chowder snorts. “I think he gets even more attention when I’m with him. People always think I’m going to play wingman for them or something.”

Which makes sense, Nursey supposes. Chowder is a naturally friendly guy. He’s got the kind of energy that makes complete strangers feel comfortable asking him for directions or a cup of sugar or, like, help burying a body.

Nursey’s energy, at least when he’s with Dex, seems to be more of a “touch him and die” sort of deal.

This isn’t exactly news. Nursey’s rather proud of how comprehensive his mask of chill has become in recent years, but Dex is still the one consistent crack in that armor, and it’s not surprising that other people would notice.

“Right.” Nursey swallows. “So it’s just me.”

“It’s just you.”

Look, the things that Nursey has learned this week that he somehow managed to completely ignore for the last three years while at Samwell are a lot. This unexpected journey of personal growth and enlightenment was not on his senior year bingo card, and he feels he should get some credit for even getting this far.

Because there’s the fact that quite a few people on campus are seriously into Poindexter, the fact that Dex is completely oblivious to this, that Nursey and Dex’s unique friendship includes an awful lot of aspects that from the outside might look like flirting, and, now, that no one who’s into Dex dares approach the guy when Nursey is around.

Nursey’s pretty sure that’s everything so far, but he knows he’s somewhat intentionally skirting a much larger realization. Honestly, some of his blind spots might be worse than Dex’s.

“Any chance you figured out why it’s just you?” Chowder asks gently. He sounds a bit like an elementary school teacher patiently waiting for their third grader to remember their multiplication tables.

Nursey sucks at math. He shifts uncomfortably. “Sort of.”

“And?”

“And I don’t want to talk about it.”

Chowder sighs. “I’m going to need more pancakes at this rate.”

“I’ve started flirting with him,” he tells Chowder, needing to get this out before his usual defense mechanisms against emotional honesty start to kick in.

“I’m pretty sure you were already flirting with him.”

“No, it just looked like I was.”

“But now you’re actually flirting with him?”

“Yeah. I just... I want to see what happens.”

”Which will be different from what happens when anyone else does it how?”

“Because there’s a reason no one hits on him when they know I’m around, right?”

Chowder pinches the bridge of his nose. “I thought you didn’t want to talk about it.”

Magnanimously, Nursey places the rest of his bacon onto Chowder’s plate. “I don’t. But--”

The bell over the door jingles then as Dex enters the diner. He stops to talk to the girl slinging coffee at the counter, and Nursey watches as the man gets hit on yet again. What the actual fuck.

“Uh, Nursey?” Chowder says in a tone that’s half hesitant and half once more trying not to laugh. Which is the only thing that clues Nursey into exactly how tightly he’s gripping the edge of the table, causing all the dishes to vibrate.

Nursey lets go, though he continues to bore holes into the side of Dex’s head with his eyes. Better that than continue to try shooting laser beams with them at the girl who’s now writing her name and number on a napkin and sliding it across the counter towards Dex.

“It’s chill,” Nursey says. “I’m chill.”

“Are you?”

Of course he is. Even though there’s bile rising up in his throat because he can’t stomach the thought that this will finally be the one time that Dex wises up and realizes someone wants to take the spot of his significant other and he’ll agree to it.

It’s just that Nursey’s never had to think about it before. Dex doesn’t date. It’s never been a possibility he had to contend with, and so he never bothered to think about it beyond jokingly trying to set up Dex at a couple of Winter Screws. Even though he knew deep down, every year, that they’d just end up with each other for most of the night, bemoaning their rotten luck with school dances that they never actually tried all that hard to participate in.

But what will happen when Dex does try? What will happen when Dex finally realizes someone else likes him. Is he finally going to go for it when that happens? Fuck that, Dex needs to realize Nursey is into him before he realizes anyone else is.

...Wait.

“C,” Nursey whispers faintly, still staring at Dex across the room and feeling a bit like he’s in a fever dream. “I think I like Dex.”

This is such a revolutionary statement that Nursey loses his breath along with his appetite. His throat goes dry, his limbs feel like lead, a cold sweat breaks out along his temple.

Chowder makes an aborted noise that sounds like a shout that he’s graciously choked back. “Oh my god, is it finally happening?”

Nursey shakily picks his coffee up and drains the last half of it in a single swallow. Oh shit, Dex is on his way over. Why is this happening now? Why is this happening at all?

“Uh oh, are you freaking out?” Chowder asks.

“Nope,” Nursey lies.

“Hey, guys.” Dex slides into the booth next to Nursey, his large frame pressing up against Nursey’s equally large one. The two of them are used to practically being on top of each other in areas always built smaller than what their 6 foot 2 inch hockey playing physiques require, but suddenly Nursey feels the lack of personal space like a hot brand against every bit of contact between them.

“Do you know Amy?” Dex asks.

Nursey was already struggling to catch up to the present moment, but now he’s doubly confused. “Amy?”

Dex nods his head towards the girl at the counter and hands Nursey the napkin with her contact info on it. “I think she wanted me to give this to you.”

A strangled, delirious laugh dies in Nursey’s desert-dry throat. “Uh, no, I don’t think she did, Dex.”

Dex shifts awkwardly and keeps his eyes on the coffee that he somehow knows is his without having to ask. And somehow he also knows that it will be exactly how he likes it because he doesn’t bother adding his usual splash of cream to it before taking a sip. He shrugs a shoulder with a carefully constructed nonchalance. “Does that mean you’re not gonna call her?”

Chowder blinks owlishly at the both of them from across the table, absolutely riveted by whatever is happening here.

But Nursey’s not entirely sure what is happening. Nursey’s not entirely sure of anything anymore. Other than the fact that Amy is probably a catch and will make someone very happy one day, but no one at this table is ever going to call her.

“Not interested,” Nursey says. He balls up the napkin and drops it into Dex’s water.

Dex frowns and flicks Nursey on the forehead for that, before stealing Nursey’s water to replace the one Nursey’s just contaminated.

That frown turns into a small smile, though, as he ducks his head and tucks into his hash browns.

For once, Nursey doesn’t need anyone else to point out that he’s grinning like an idiot in response to Dex’s attention. He knows he is. Just like he knows now, for the first time since he started at Samwell and met William J. Poindexter, exactly how much freaking trouble he’s in.

Nothing really changes after that.

Unless you count Nursey getting uncharacteristically flustered whenever Dex sits next to him at the dinner table. Or Dex getting uncharacteristically flustered whenever Nursey offers a compliment that isn’t paired with a chirp.

So Nursey keeps doing it. Being nice to Dex. Being sincere and heartfelt and kind.

What this ends up looking like is a bunch of tiny actions that he probably would’ve done for the guy anyway--a random coffee from Annie’s or a seat saved at team breakfast--but now done without the usual accompanied grumbling and teasing. Without the usual push and pull that it always takes for them to get anywhere with each other.

In response, Dex turns an endearing shade of red and then brushes it off in the awkward way of someone who’s never really had to deal with being cared for so earnestly before and has no idea what to do with it.

Nursey feels about as subtle as a chainsaw.

But Dex never comments on it directly, other than to shoot Nursey suspicious glances like he thinks some elaborate prank is about to reveal itself.

And Nursey can’t bring himself to just come out and say the words, “Hey I think we should make out some time, and by the way how does a spring wedding sound?”

It’s unclear just how long this new dynamic can be sustained, but Nursey suspects not long. Their house of cards friendship is starting to look precariously close to collapsing, and whether something new and exciting will replace it, or else they’ll just be left with the mess of what once was, is anybody’s guess.

“You guys are being weird,” Tango says one evening without looking up from his phone.

Nursey pulls his face out from under the throw pillow that he used to try to smother the scream of embarrassed delight that erupted out of him once Dex had left the room.

Dex didn’t even do anything to elicit this kind of response. Just picked up Nursey’s textbooks along with his own after they were finished doing homework over the coffee table. “Want me to take these upstairs for you?” he asked, and Nursey nodded dumbly, completely, embarrassingly smitten. He stared after Dex, watching Dex’s ears get increasingly redder from the feeling of that gaze. Until Nursey remembered himself enough to call out a belated but emphatic, “Thank you, Will! Best Captain ever!” Which had Dex tripping over two different stairs as he went.

Thus: muffled screaming into a pillow like he’s a teenager with a crush.

“Are not,” Nursey tells Tango smartly.

Tango keeps playing with his phone at the other end of the couch. Is that the New York Times Sunday Crossword on there? The dude apparently contains multitudes.

In a chair across the room, Bully is absorbed in his reading. On the porch just beyond the front door, left open in the wake of the last fading bits of summer warmth, Louis is laid out on the deck with his headphone on, falling asleep on top of a Chemistry textbook. A couple other teammates chat on the porch steps just out of sight, their voices the muffled white noise of home.

Nursey hesitates. “...How weird?” he asks Tango quietly.

“Usually you fight more.” Tango shrugs a shoulder. “Is Dex mad at you?”

Caught off guard, Nursey blinks. “Poindexter being mad at me would mean less fighting?”

“I just figured something must really be wrong if he’s not arguing with you. That’s like, your guys’ love language.”

“Maybe we’re turning over a new leaf. Maturing.”

Tango snorts.

Nursey throws the pillow at him.

“Quit antagonizing the Tadpoles, Nurse,” Dex says sternly as he descends back down the stairs. That’s his newfound and already trademarked Captain Voice, which is only a little bit hot. Like, the most miniscule amount of hot. Nursey does not internally swoon.

“He started it,” Nursey defends.

“Well don’t make me finish it.”

“You’re all talk, Poindexter. Like you’d ever--”

But Dex interrupts with a quick pinch of Nursey’s bicep as he passes by the couch, quickening his pace to get just out of reach when Nursey tries to kick his shin in retaliation.

“Got your back, Tango,” Dex says, but keeps his eyes on Nursey with a smirk all the way until he disappears around the corner toward the basement.

Nursey grumbles under his breath, rubbing his arm, and turns back to Tango. “See? We still fight.”

“Oh,” Tango says, eyes having gone suspiciously wide and knowing, phone forgotten.

Nursey frowns. “What?”

“I get it now.”

Nursey does not like whatever Tango thinks he gets. But Tango’s also probably not wrong. “No, you don’t.”

Tango smiles a little, and says again, with just as much dawning comprehension and unfettered amusement, “Oh.”

“Shut up, Tony,” Nursey mutters, because that’s all he can come up with in the face of freaking Anthony Tangredi being able to read him like an open book.

“Right. You’re not fighting less,” Tango says, nodding. “You’re just lying less.”

“That doesn’t even make sense. Dex and I have never lied to each other.” Or, at least, not on purpose.

But Tango just stands up and pats Nursey on the shoulder on his way to the kitchen. “Honesty is definitely the best policy. I’m glad you guys figured it out.”

Nursey fucking wishes they’d figured it out. He feels like he’s thirty seconds from reciting poetry at Dex every time the guy so much as repairs a toaster.

And Dex repairs a hell of a lot of toasters.

Alright, Nursey has way more chill than this. Even if Dex is always the one person who can consistently disrupt said chill, Nursey’s too familiar with the sensation now not to have some defenses against getting his feelings everywhere.

At heart, Nursey is every bit the cliched romantic poet, but he’ll be damned if he lets that show when he’s not even in a relationship with the guy. Yet.

Except that there’s a chance that this is entirely one-sided, right? Dex could shoot him down cold the moment Nursey finally says or does something with a bit more text than subtext.

Dex could not be into Nursey at all, or just not be into being into people in general. Nursey may have butterflies attacking all of his internal organs constantly ever since he realized his own emotions, but that doesn’t mean Dex is going to choose him.

Oh god, what if Dex doesn’t choose him?

What if he chooses someone else? Or no one at all? Nursey thinks he could live with the no one at all, but the thought of someone else sends a wave of numb panic through his entire body.

Shit. This is not what “chill” looks like.

“I am so screwed,” Nursey whispers, slumping back against the couch cushion to stare up at the water stain on the ceiling in the shape of Italy.

“Yup,” he hears Bully’s voice confirm coolly from his chair in the corner.

Nursey groans loudly and throws his arm over his eyes.

“Sounds about right,” Bully agrees.

Damn this stupid team and their stupid ability to see right through him. Did Jack and Bitty ever got this much flak? Shitty and Lardo definitely didn’t, but that’s probably because Lardo is terrifying.

“Nobody asked you, River!” he shoots back.

Somehow the responding silence is as cool as Bully always is, and makes Nursey want to do something decidedly uncool, like ask the guy for dating advice.

Instead, Nursey pushes himself up off the couch, only to hesitate in place for several seconds, because his natural instinct is to head straight downstairs to the basement and bother Dex for a little while longer. To bother Dex for as long as the guy will let him, and then some. Which is a sobering thought, since that’s been Nursey’s natural instinct since he first got to Samwell three years ago.

Bully raises a single, judgmental eyebrow at him.

Nursey huffs, frustrated with himself, and heads upstairs to his own room to continue losing his chill in private.

“Mind if I join you?”

Nursey opens his eyes to find Dex standing over him. He squints against the afternoon sunlight, and Dex automatically moves to shade Nursey’s face so he can see. The light halos around Dex’s red hair, highlighting the edges in gold and making Nursey lose his breath.

It’s a rare warm day as autumn starts to fully settle in. Nursey is laid out on his back in the grass by the lake with a thick book and his journal, but has so far spent more time alternating between lightly dozing and watching the geese a few yards down the shore attack unsuspecting underclassmen.

“Depends. You here to partake in some inspirational napping, or are you gonna make me do homework?” It comes out a little hoarse, but Dex doesn’t seem to notice.

“I wouldn’t dream of disturbing whatever creative process you’ve got going on here, Nurse. You can nap while I study.”

Nursey unsuccessfully holds back a smile as he shakes his head. “You work too much, man.”

“And you’ve got at least three different leaves in your hair.” Dex pulls a textbook out of his backpack, and then settles down on his stomach beside Nursey, holding himself over the book with an elbow on either side of it.

But he keeps his head turned, facing Nursey from just above and to the left, watching him. Nursey turns his head and lazily watches him right back.

None of this feels new, or strange. As restless and conflicted as Nursey’s been recently in regards to Dex, Dex is still the easiest person for him to just exist around.

Yes, there is a fire that thrums beneath Nursey’s skin in Dex’s presence, that makes him want to reach out and provoke. But there’s also a stillness deeper down in Nursey’s gut. A calmness that feels almost like safety. Acceptance. The bone-deep security of being known.

Dex moves a hand over to Nursey’s hair and plucks one of the leaves from it. “You’re like a magnet for these.”

Nursey hums and closes his eyes again, not bothering to hold back his smile this time. “It’s all that natural charm and charisma, Poindexter. Even the trees love me.”

“The trees will have to get in line.”

Nursey’s eyes snap right back open, wide and startled. The hand that he’s got resting idly on his own chest nearly vibrates with the force of his rapid heartbeat beneath it.

But Dex is looking down at his book now. The blush across the apples of his freckled cheeks could just as easily be a product of the sun as of any embarrassment, and his stoic expression gives away nothing. “You know,” he adds, keeping his gaze firmly down, “behind your resident fan club.”

Nursey studies Dex’s profile for a long moment. “My fan club’s been waning of late. Haven’t autographed a course catalog in ages.”

“Should I have brought mine along? Don’t want the lack of attention to start messing with your hockey.”

“Nah, I’m good. But if you could bring a ‘Marry Me Nurse’ sign to our next game, I’ll probably get a hat trick.”

Dex laughs softly, while in the background some poor hacky sack player runs for his life from a goose.

“Alright, shut up now so I can get some work done,” Dex says. “I only came over here because you looked like you’d probably bother me less than Tango would if I joined him in his study room at the library.”

“I take offense to the idea that anyone could bother you more than I do.”

Dex rolls his eyes. “Fair. Definitely my bad for assuming that sleep would make you less annoying.”

Nursey lifts the hand on his chest up and reaches over himself to ruffle Dex’s hair.

Dex bats the hand away, but doesn’t do anything about the fact that Nursey then lets it fall down to rest on Dex’s forearm.

Are they flirting? They are totally flirting. But also being so, so very careful and mindful of each other as they navigate these weird and choppy new waters.

Dex doesn’t do this with anyone else. Whether because he’s oblivious to other’s attentions, or for some reason yet to be revealed. But this is different. Nursey knows it.

“Take a break, Poindexter.” Nursey grips that forearm a little tighter for several seconds.

“I have a test tomorrow.”

“When don’t you? Succumb to my bad influence already and let yourself relax.” Nursey can see Dex hesitating, chewing his bottom lip while glancing from his textbook to Nursey’s hand and back. So Nursey pulls out the big guns, the hashtag sincerity. “You’ve more than earned it, Will.”

The blush on Dex’s cheeks spreads like wildfire across the rest of his face, up his ears and down his neck. He covers admirably for the response with a heavy, put-upon sigh, and then looks over at Nursey with a scrutinizing expression. Like he’s trying to decode Nursey’s motivations.

Whatever answer he finds in Nursey’s earnest gaze has his features softening.

“Yeah, okay,” he breathes. “Fuck it.”

The leaf from Nursey’s hair is still on the ground between them, and Dex picks it up to use as a bookmark, closing his textbook and shoving it under his backpack. He resettles his body fully into the grass on his side, facing Nursey, and closes his eyes. “Wake me before I sunburn.”

“So, in about thirty-seconds?”

Dex huffs an annoyed laugh and, without even needing to open his eyes for accuracy, flicks Nursey on the tip of his nose. The two of them are just that physically aware of each other. They always have been, of course, whether on the ice or not. It’s a little intoxicating when Nursey stops to think about it. Which may be why he made a point never to do that over the last few years.

Nursey turns so that’s he’s on his side as well, facing his defense partner. Just over Dex’s shoulder he can see the tree that Dex was sitting under when Nursey and Chowder spied on him from the bushes what feels like centuries ago.

The present moment is too lovely to disturb with newly discovered insecurities, but Nursey’s brain doesn’t know how to leave well enough alone.

“You know you could have your pick, right?” he asks, hardly above a whisper. The campus around them is bright and teeming, but this patch of grass feels like its own little world. A quiet bubble in which all that exists is the two of them and the few inches of ground between their faces.

“Hm?” Dex mumbles a confused noise from his already half-asleep mouth, his eyes still closed.

“I’m just saying.” Nursey tries to keep his tone even, though his throat has randomly started constricting around every other syllable. “I’m not the only one with a fan club here. You could pull any girl or guy at Samwell if you wanted.”

Dex remains well on his way into unconsciousness, but his eyebrows furrow together. “Shut up, Nursey.”

“Do you think you’d ever--” Nursey cuts himself and swallows thickly. “There’s no one you...” Only he can’t bring himself to finish the question. The potential answers are too tied up in a lethal combination of terror and hope.

Dex slips into sleep entirely then, his body falling forward as the puppet strings of his rigid perfectionism go slack. He ends up with a shoulder resting on Nursey’s shoulder, his nose brushing Nursey’s forehead.

They stay like that for long time, well past when Dex’s fair skin would’ve started to burn. But Nursey holds his journal up to block the sunlight from Dex’s face and let him sleep a little longer, never actually falling asleep himself.

The leaves turn and hockey season starts up in earnest. Everyone on the team hardly has time to breathe now around games and practices and schoolwork.

It feels different this year, though, knowing that it’s the last one for Nursey, Dex, and Chowder. Experiencing it all from the standpoint of a senior almost makes Nursey feel like he’s already on the outside looking in.

All the little things that his friends are stressing out about seem somewhat inconsequential anymore. Nursey still wants to win games and keep his grades up, but the two most important things in his life have evolved from the general and collective “school and hockey” into the much more specific and daunting “get into grad school and ask William Poindexter out on a date.” Goals that no one else on the team currently share.

Or, at least, he hopes they don’t. That could get awkward fast.

“How would a teammate be any different from anyone else on campus scoring with Dex?” Ford asks, and just the words “scoring with Dex” make Nursey simultaneously uncomfortable and kind of turned on. Jesus, he’s a mess.

“Because then I’d have to be, like, supportive and shit. I wouldn’t be allowed to hate them.”

Ford rolls her eyes beside Nursey as they walk back to the Haus, both of them bundled up in several layers against the chilly, late October air. From Nursey’s shoulder hangs a reusable grocery bag of ingredients from Murder Stop and Shop that Dex wrote out for him in detail with the promise that they would magically turn into peanut butter chocolate chip cookies later that evening.

He sips the dirty chai that they stopped by Annie’s to grab. In his other hand is the coffee he automatically ordered for Dex. Thankfully Ford thought to order something for Chowder as well, which she’s carrying along with her own hot chocolate.

Nursey feels a little bad that he didn’t think of Chowder before she did. He doesn’t think he’s turning into a bad friend, necessarily, just a distracted one. He at least made sure to pay for everything.

“Why are we talking about this again?” Nursey grouses.

“Because I accurately intuited that you finally figured out all your gross, sappy emotions, and I’m short on gossip.”

“You’re a Theater major. There’s no way you aren’t overflowing with gossip being around all those stagehands and actors.”

“Nursey, this is Samwell. Actors don’t have anything on the melodrama of the men’s hockey team.”

Hard to argue that one.

The Haus looms up ahead, surrounded by a grey sky threatening the kind of icy sleet that means snow is on the horizon. The lax bros across the street are playing touch football in nothing but shorts and tank tops like assholes.

“Okay, obviously I want Dex to be happy,” Nursey says.

“Obviously.”

“But if that happiness comes with a significant other, you might as well start scooping my insides out with a melon baller now.”

“Yikes,” Ford laughs. “I didn’t think you could get even weirder about Dex than you already were.”

“If people would just stop hitting on him for two seconds, I might be a little calmer about the whole thing.”

“Didn’t realize you had so much competition, huh?”

“I didn’t know that was a realization I would even care about until, like, three weeks ago. I feel like I’m losing my mind. If my only competition was my own stupid anxiety, I might have a fighting chance. But at this rate...”

At this rate, Nursey’s only consolation is his increasing certainty that Dex really doesn’t care about anyone else in a romantic way, and his obliviousness is all for show. Because if he’s as ignorant to others’ interest as Chowder thinks he is, then it’s only a matter of time before the lightbulb goes off.

Like the freaking mind reader she is, Ford says, “You’re worried that if he notices someone else paying him attention before he notices you’re interested, he’s just going to say yes?”

Nursey grimaces, and Ford somehow elbows him without spilling either of the drinks she’s holding. “Dex is way more discerning than that, Nursey.”

“Exactly! So maybe I don’t have anything to worry about. Maybe it’s not that he doesn’t notice, it’s just that he would never deign to date any of these losers who approach him.”

Ford hums thoughtfully, taking a sip of her cocoa while Nursey does the same with his dirty chai. “I hit on him once,” she says.

Nursey spits out his drink.

Ford has to stop walking because she’s laughing so hard, her glasses falling off her nose to hang from her ears over her chin.

“Holy shit, are you messing with me?” Nursey turns on her, wiping his mouth on his coat sleeve and desperately trying not to drop the bag of groceries or either drink.

“Guess I was just one of the many losers he wasn’t interested in.”

“Do not play with me, Foxtrot, obviously that wasn’t the case.”

Oh God, this changes everything. Nursey didn’t seriously consider that the call might be coming from inside the Haus. How many other teammates have tried to pull Dex? What if Whiskey likes him too? Or Bully? Nursey can’t compete with that!

“Nursey, relax. He really wasn’t interested.”

“Or he didn’t know what you were doing!”

Because there’s no way Dex would’ve turned Ford down if he’d known. The closest to heart-eyes that Nursey has ever seen Dex make was the time Ford walked him through all the tabs in her spreadsheet schedule of practices and games, complete with budget breakdown for roadies. Once, when Louis and Tango broke a lamp when wrestling, she chewed them out so thoroughly that Hops hid for an entire day and Dex looked like he might legit swoon.

Plus, Ford is cute. Like, ridiculously cute. To a degree that Nursey doesn’t know how to quantify other than in units of puppies and kittens.

Ford draws in a deep, centering breath and deftly readjusts her glasses with her forearm. “Derek,” she tells him calmly, “I’m not actually interested in him, so you can curb the panic attack. It was a long time ago and we’re friends now.”

“But you--”

“Yeah, well, I thought he was cute. In a ‘weirdly dorky and uptight for a jock’ sort of way. And the idea of being the one to finally get him to loosen up occasionally was low key kinda hot. But this was over a year ago, and I have since learned that there is exactly one person in the entire world who can somehow berate Dex into ever loosening up. Three guesses who.”

Nursey ducks his head and studies the sidewalk.

“Come on, you big idiot.” She nudges him forward toward the Haus with her elbow. “I’ll prove he likes you best.”

“Why do I not like the sound of that?”

But Ford is already making a beeline up the path to the Haus front door, and Nursey has no choice but to reluctantly follow her before the coffee gets cold or a lax bro brains him with a rogue football.

Inside the Haus, Chowder, Dex, and Whiskey are sitting around the kitchen table playing a very serious game of Uno, if the downright murderous expressions on their faces are any indication. Whiskey appears to be losing epically, which has resulted in a frustratedly rumpled state of both his hair and his clothing that Nursey’s never seen from him before, even in the dressing room after a bad loss against a rival team.

Witnessing this lack of chill from Connor Whisk would typically be the highlight of Nursey’s day, but he’s too keyed up and nervous about whatever Ford is about to do to fully appreciate it.

“One Annie’s vanilla soymilk latte for the best goalie in the world,” she declares as she hands Chowder his drink.

Chowder beams, immediately abandoning the card game. The guy’s smile could start and end wars, and that was before he got the braces off. “’Swawesome! Foxtrot, you are my very favorite Tadpole.”

“I’m right here,” Whiskey mutters, and then runs an uncharacteristically annoyed hand through his hair so that it sticks up in even more directions than before. He squints at the thirty-some-odd cards in his hands like one of them will save him.

“I, uh,” Nursey says, shuffling over to Dex’s side once he’s set the groceries on the counter. “I got you one too.”

Dex places his cards face down on the table and takes the offered coffee with a quirked eyebrow up at where Nursey is standing over him. “You got me a ‘vanilla soymilk latte’?” he asks, amused.

Without even meaning to, Nursey moves so that he’s kind of caging Dex in a bit, a hand on the back of Dex’s chair that he leans against in a way that he hopes looks casual but is really just an excuse to get closer. His knuckles brush against the fabric of Dex’s shirt. “No, smartass, I got you a double Americano with a splash of whole milk and a sprinkle of cinnamon.”

“You know I’m perfectly fine with a regular black coffee, Nurse.”

“Well, sometimes ‘fine’ isn’t good enough, Poindexter.”

Dex bites his bottom lip against a smile and then takes a sip of his drink. Nursey unintentionally leans in a bit more, bending just enough that he can count the pale eyelashes around Dex’s amber eyes. He watches Dex drink his coffee so intensely that he ends up holding his breath and leaning in even more...

Only to realize what he’s doing when he catches Chowder and Ford staring at them with pointed smirks.

Whiskey, of course, couldn’t give a shit and is still eyeing his handful of cards mutinously.

Nursey straightens up abruptly and takes a step back. “You can thank me by letting me out of optional skate tomorrow.”

Dex frowns a little, his gaze briefly dropping to where Nursey’s hand used to be, but then back up so quickly that Nursey wonders if he imagined it. “It’s called ‘optional’ for a reason.”

“But you get all Disappointed Dad at me whenever I don’t go. Chowder, tell him not to do the eyes at me if I skip.”

Chowder raises his hands. “If I tell him that then he’ll just do the eyes at me. No way.”

“Ford?” Nursey tries, and she grins like he’s just handed her the perfect opening. Crap.

“Hey Dex,” she says. “If you let Nursey off the hook tomorrow, I’ll take you to dinner.”

Nursey feels the ground drop out from under him.

But Dex just rolls his eyes. “You don’t have to do that, Foxtrot. I promise I won’t be too hard on Nursey just because he’d rather slack off and set a bad example for the freshman than be a team player.”

“Hey!” Nursey protests, as Ford steps around him so that she’s between him and Dex.

“I want to,” she tells Dex sincerely, with those big, doll eyes, magnified by her glasses. “When was the last time someone treated you to a meal?”

Dex pauses to think about this. “I don’t know. Never? I’m surrounded by broke college kids who can’t cook.”

“Perfect. It’s a date then.”

“Uh, no it’s not,” Nursey blurts out.

Everyone, even Whiskey, turns to stare at him.

Ford puts on an overly innocent expression, and asks him sweetly, “It isn’t?”

“I just. I mean.” Nursey licks his lips and swallows and tries to find words that won’t make him sound insane. Or worse, jealous. A glance around Ford’s tiny frame reveals that Dex just looks confused as hell, which is probably better than the alternative. “I don’t, uh. Well, ya know. Ford’s a broke college kid, too. I’m not letting her bribe the captain on my behalf, I’d never hear the end of it.”

“So you’d rather bribe me yourself?” Dex asks.

“Yes, actually. I’ll buy you dinner.”

Dex rolls his eyes again. “It’s okay, Nursey, I was just messing with you. It really is an optional skate.”

“Yeah, but you said no one’s ever taken you to dinner. And as your D-partner, I call dibs. Ford, you can save your money.”

“Alright, Dex, your call,” Ford says, like they’re just discussing the weather. Like any of this is at all a normal direction for a conversation over Uno to take. “Me or Nursey?”

“I--” Dex opens his mouth, and then cuts himself off with a furrowed brow, looking back and forth between them. “You’re making me choose who I’d rather exploit for free food?”

“I’m making you pick a favorite.”

Nursey covers his face with both hands and mutters an emphatic, “Oh my God.” His cheeks feel like they’re on fire.

But Dex snorts and says easily, “Oh, well in that case, I pick Chowder.”

Chowder laughs, delighted. “Thanks, man.” He holds out a fist and Dex bumps it with his own. “But no way am I buying dinner for anyone other than Caitlin. I’m broke too.”

“And I would never ask you to,” Dex says, and then crosses his arms over his chest and leans back in his chair with a judgmental quirk to his mouth. “Ford, quit trying to cover for Nursey. He’s got plenty of practice reaping the consequences of his own poor decision making.”

“Hey!” Nursey protests once more, embarrassment instantly replaced with the zealous excitement of an argument with the only person he’s ever loved arguing with. Dex intentionally antagonizing him is almost more fun than when Nursey intentionally antagonizes Dex, if only because it happens a little less often. “Don’t be such a drill sergeant, Captain.”

“What do you have going on tomorrow that’s so much more important than hockey?” Dex asks.

“The chance to chill for a couple hours without having to look at your ugly mug the whole time?”

“Okay, that’s definitely a fine. Chowder, grab the sin bin.”

“’Fine’ my ass. I think dinner will more than cover it,” Nursey protests.

“It’s settled then,” Ford jumps in, clapping her hands together. “Nursey, you’re taking Dex to dinner. How’s tonight at seven?”

“Uh,” Nursey and Dex both say in unison.

“As manager, I’m legally requiring it.”

“I don’t think that’s how the manager title works,” Dex says carefully.

“Don’t make me call Lardo,” she threatens in a tone that brooks no further argument. Honestly, Ford can be just as scary as Lardo ever was, she just doesn’t always realize it.

“Are we still playing or not?” Whiskey pipes up.

“Nope,” Chowder says, grinning. “Dex and I both forfeit. Whiskey, you win.”

Whiskey scowls so hard Nursey worries he might hurt himself.

But Ford shoves her half-drunk cocoa at Whiskey’s chest. “Here, drink the rest of this and cheer up. I only got it to share with you anyway.”

“I don’t even like coffee,” he grumbles, sounding uncharacteristically like a petulant five-year-old.

“I know,” Ford says gently.

Whiskey sniffs the cup, then pauses for a split second to rearrange his features into something that won’t give away any vulnerability. “Whatever. You want to go study for our poly-sci class?”

“I’d love to.” Ford smiles indulgently and hooks her arm around Whiskey’s, allowing him to lead her upstairs.

“Well,” Dex says, still looking mildly confused as to whatever’s just happened. “Should I make cookies before or after this court mandated dinner?”

“Definitely before,” Chowder tells him with a decisive nod.

As soon as Dex has his back to them, organizing all of the groceries on the counter, Nursey bugs his eyes out at Chowder and mouths desperately the words “I am going to throw up.”

Chowder grins back at him and gives two encouraging thumbs up. Which is not as helpful as he probably thinks it is.

So now Nursey has to take Dex to dinner. You know, without having a panic attack about it first.

“If I cook for him, I’ll burn the Haus down and he’ll murder me. If I take him somewhere fancy he’ll storm out all offended and then murder me. If I take him to Jerry’s it will be just like every other meal we’ve ever had together and I’ll have wasted the opportunity and then I’ll murder me.”

Hops stares from his perch on the windowsill at where Nursey is pacing a hole into the floorboards of his bedroom. “I don’t understand how responding to a group text about freshly baked cookies ended up with me here.”

“You were the first person to arrive. Next time, be less punctual.”

“I want my cookie, man.”

“Hopper, what do I do?”

Hops looks dramatically towards the heavens and sighs. “Fine. You know that pizza place on First Street?”

“The one with the killer lunch special?”

“Look, it’s just pizza so it can’t be that fancy, but after five o’clock they put out those little candles in the red glass cups on every table, so it’ll still feel kind of intimate. Get the mozzarella sticks to start, not the garlic bread, and order desert ahead of time right when you get seated, otherwise Dex won’t let you.”

Nursey stops pacing and blinks at him. “Hops, what the fuck.”

“And change your shirt. He likes you in green.”

“How the hell do you even know that?”

“Because you guys are the weirdest and most obviously down-bad lunatics I’ve ever had to play hockey with. Can I leave now?”

Nursey magnanimously gestures for the door, and Hops doesn’t waste any time.

Dinner ends up being not nearly as anxiety-inducing as Nursey feared. He’s switched out his blue sweater for a forest green Henley that he might actually have to send Hops a thank you card for because Dex’s eyes keep lingering over the shirt like he’s trying to memorize every fold.

“Why do I feel like Ford has an ulterior motive with this?” Dex asks as they don their coats inside the Haus front entryway.

Nursey freezes momentarily, but then puts on his usual blanket of faux chill as easily as he finishes zipping up his jacket. “You think she wants us both out of the Haus for some reason?”

“Or she’s one more of our arguments away from stuffing the two of us into an oversized ‘get along’ shirt together, but sending us to dinner required less man power.”

Nursey huffs a laugh. “We’re not that bad.”

“Have you met us?” But Dex is smiling as he says it, all soft and disarming, like their notorious inability to get along is some sort of secret in-joke between the two of them, rather than the surface-level antagonism that everyone else sees.

Like they both know the truth of what’s really beneath all that banter and chirping.

Nursey clears his throat, stuffs his hands into his coat pockets so he doesn’t do anything stupid with them, and leads the way out into the cold, autumn night.

Pizza turns out to be a great idea and Hops is a genius. Nursey makes a mental note to keep him off the dish duty roster for the next couple weeks.

There’s nothing at all awkward about grabbing a small table near the window, since he and Dex have been here for rowdy lunches with the team before, and the vibe is easy, but still hushed and, like Hops said, intimate in a comfortable sort of way, complete with flickering tea light in its classic red glass cup at the center of the tiny table.

Nursey requests the cheesecake for later right when they put in their drink orders and it’s almost worth it just for the disapproving look Dex levels at him once the waiter leaves.

“We just had cookies,” Dex admonishes.

“I promise to work it all off with extra laps at optional skate tomorrow.”

“Wasn’t the whole point of this that you wanted to skip practice tomorrow?”

Nursey shrugs a shoulder, trying to play it cool. “Nah, I just wanted to rile you up a bit. It’s surprisingly more difficult now that you’re Captain. Gotta get creative.”

“Maybe I’m just used to your antics by now. Immune, even.”

“Liar. Bet I can still make you turn red without even trying.”

Dex raises an eyebrow in a clear challenge.

So Nursey leans forward across the table to catch Dex’s gaze with his own suddenly intense one and hold it for a long moment. Dex gulps.

“Did you know your eyes have freckles too?” Nursey finally asks quietly, after a prolonged and heavy silence.

“Um. What?”

Like the two of them are magnetically tied, Dex has unconsciously leaned forward slightly as well. Nursey licks his lips, and Dex tracks the motion before looking back up.

“Freckles,” Nursey repeats. “Flecks of gold and spots of dark brown. Have you ever noticed?” He reaches out and places a subtly trembling hand beneath Dex’s chin to lift his face and more fully stare into those eyes.

“Nurse,” Dex breathes, nearly a whisper that Nursey can only hear because they’re so close. “What the hell are you playing at?”

Thankfully their drinks get brought out then, because Nursey doesn’t have an answer for that other than to do something outrageous like throw caution to the wind and kiss the hell out of him.

Nursey sits back in his chair and busies himself with peeling his straw out of its wrapper. “Told you I could make you go red,” he says, and he doesn’t need to look back up to know it’s true. He feels a bit red himself, but luckily the scruff on his cheeks and the low lighting in this place should make it hard to tell.

Dex throws his own crumpled up straw wrapper at him, hitting Nursey square on the forehead. And then he hooks a leg around Nursey’s beneath the table, solid and grounding. “You’re such a dork.”

“The word you’re looking for is ‘poet.’”

“I can think of a few other words that would suit you better actually.”

Nursey smirks around sipping his iced tea, and then continues chewing on the end of his straw as he stares across the table at Dex.

Dex stares right back, like it’s the easiest thing in the world. The blush across his cheeks is dark, but his expression is relaxed, as unguarded as Nursey’s ever seen it. Though it occurs to Nursey that he’s been seeing it a lot more recently. And that he might be the only person who has.

Something sharp clenches tight around Nursey’s heart. Not quite fear, but no less urgent. Not quite hope, but no less stirring.

He’s able to ignore it for the most part, playing at normalcy for the entirety of their meal. Familiar chirping and a lighthearted back and forth about hockey plays. Idle talk of the future post-graduation that they keep intentionally vague for reasons neither of them dare put into words. An argument over the bill, because Dex still insists he chip in, despite the entire premise of the evening.

That bickering takes them all the way back to the Haus, at which point Dex practically tackles Nursey into the fallen leaves scattered across the front yard, trying to shove a twenty down the back of Nursey’s jacket.

“Just be grateful for the food, you weirdo!” Nursey manages to push the cash away and wrestle Dex onto his back.

“If you’re actually going to practice tomorrow than I refuse to let you hold this over me for another favor in the future.” Dex rolls them over a couple more times, until Nursey’s not sure which way is up and they’re both covered in leaves, their panting breaths visible clouds in the chilly dark.

Nursey manages to get Dex into a headlock. “It was my treat, Poindexter! Let me spoil you!”

Dex breaks out of Nursey’s hold and pins his arms to the ground. “You already got me coffee today! Take the money!”

“Oh my God, you are the most frustrating person to try and love.”

Everything goes still at that. Their bodies and their voices and the entire world around them. It all feels frozen and untouchable, even as the motion sensor porch light finally clicks on. It casts a soft glow over where Dex’s face hovers barely a couple inches over Nursey’s.

“I just mean,” Nursey says soberly, “that you gotta let me care about you sometimes, alright?”

“I know you care, Nursey. You don’t have to--”

“If I could cook, I’d cook for you,” Nursey interrupts. “If I could fix the dryer without electrocuting myself, or repair the roof without falling off of it, I’d do that. But I can’t. This is what I can do. Let me do this for you.”

Dex considers him, expression unreadable, even with how close it is. “...You can do other things.”

There’s an implication behind the words that has Nursey going suddenly short of breath. “...Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Dex says, letting his face fall a millimeter closer... Before he seems to remember himself and pulls back with a teasing smile. “I have a paper due next week that I haven’t started yet. You can definitely do that for me.”

A startled laugh gets punched out of Nursey, and it’s second nature now to meet Dex’s teasing with his own, no matter the acrobatics his heart is doing inside his chest.

He grabs a handful of leaves to shove down the front of Dex’s coat. Dex wrestles him into submission, shoving that twenty into Nursey’s back jeans pocket. And the two of them don’t make it inside the Haus until they’re both sore and exhausted and in need of showers, and, of course, grinning from ear to ear.

The stupid thing about time is that it just keeps going, and as they get progressively further into the school year, the reality starts to sink in that Samwell is about to become a fond memory rather than the safe haven of a present that Nursey’s gotten used to it being.

Which is freaking terrifying.

He’s applied to a handful of grad schools, despite his parents’ passive aggressive disappointment over the idea. But his nerves over whether he gets into any of them have him scouting job prospects and internships just in case.

Snow starts to fall, and Nursey tries to occupy his thoughts with finals and hockey rather than the future. Or even with his plans for the upcoming winter break, because there’s a part of him that doesn’t want to go home for it like he normally would. A part of him that doesn’t quite think of home as home anymore. Which is also a really scary idea, though he suspects a pretty common part of growing up.

But it’s easy to get lost in the familiar and not think about the rest of it. Play hockey, go to class, hang around the Haus with his friends and teammates. Annoy and flirt with William Poindexter in equal measure.

He and Dex keep skating the line between friendship and something else without ever crossing it, and Nursey wonders if maybe this is just the new normal. Maybe this in-between place is as happy and comfortable a state to settle into as any other would be.

And then they’ll never have to talk about it. Perfect.

Or it would be, if people would stop hitting on Dex right in front of him.

“I’m not a violent person, C,” Nursey says, going for an idle tone that’s probably belied by how hard he clenches his jaw afterward.

Chowder pats his shoulder consolingly. “I know, Buddy.”

Through the window at Annie’s, they watch Dex linger on the sidewalk outside, talking to a pretty girl who’s sporting a thousand-watt smile and an aggressively on-point eyelash fluttering game. The two of them walked up together before pausing to chat animatedly, and Nursey thinks he recognizes her as a member of Dex’s computer science study group, but can’t recall a name.

Inside Annie’s, Nursey and Chowder are tucked into a couple of armchairs in the corner by the bookshelf, with an empty third chair they’ve been saving for Dex. They’ve got warm, holiday-themed beverages in their hands and seasonal pastries on the table before them. It’s the coziest anyone could possibly get on a snowy afternoon in December, and Nursey kind of wants to commit a homicide.

“Why the hell does Poindexter bring out such aggressive instincts in me? I feel like a walking advertisement for toxic masculinity.”

“Maybe you’re just not used to the feeling yet. You’ve never been jealous before.”

“Ugh, I feel gross. It is taking literally every fiber of my being not to stomp outside and drag Dex away from that girl by his ginormous ears.”

Chowder has the audacity to laugh at him.

Well okay, Nursey deserves it. He’d laugh at himself if he wasn’t so busy dealing with a roiling stomach and the kind of heartburn that he can’t decide is the precursor to a fistfight or to tears.

“Or maybe,” Chowder tells him, “you’re really just angry with yourself for not making an actual move on him, and you’re taking it out on everyone else. If you knew Dex was with you in the way you want him to be, I don’t think you’d care who else tried to shoot their shot with him.”

Nursey scowls and takes an overly aggressive bite of his danish. “Stop making sense and tell me I’m prettier than she is.”

Chowder laughs again. “Nursey, you are prettier than at least seventy-five percent of the Samwell student body.”

This only sort of makes Nursey feel better. It’s nice to hear, at least.

Dex eventually parts from the girl and enters Annie’s without her. A fact that she is visibly disappointed by, and that Nursey tries not to look too smug about. He definitely fails, though, since Chowder cuffs him upside the head right before Dex reaches them.

He’s flushed from the cold, and smiling in the easy way that he’s grown into over the last couple years. The kind of smile that Nursey didn’t even think Dex was capable of during their freshman year.

“Hey guys,” he greets, shucking off his coat and scarf onto the back of his chair before sitting. “What Christmas monstrosity did you order for me this time?”

“Don’t worry, I told them to go easy on the holiday cheer when they made it,” Nursey teases.

Dex eyes the waiting coffee cup with suspicion, and then gingerly picks it up to sniff its contents. “Is there peppermint in this?”

“And sprinkles,” Chowder says brightly.

Dex makes a face.

Nursey punches him in the arm. “’Tis the damn season, William. Get in the spirit and enjoy your caffeinated sugar bomb.”

Which he does, complaining the whole time while trying to hide a smile with every sip.

Nursey’s answering smile is just as obvious, and frankly embarrassing. Did he always enjoy making Dex happy this much? He thinks maybe he did, and that’s even more embarrassing because he didn’t even know it. The mere idea of whatever moony expressions Nursey was making before he knew what he was doing are going to haunt him forever.

Eventually, and with great reluctance, they each break out the homework they ostensibly got together to work on. Though Nursey makes it all of twenty minutes before he shoves his books back into his bag and declares the need for a distraction.

“If you’re not going to do your own work, you can help me with mine,” Dex says, and hands him the essay he’s been editing.

Chowder declares defeat as well not five minutes later, right after a text from Farmer, because abandoning his friends in favor of going to hang with his girlfriend without a second thought is apparently acceptable now.

“The audacity.” Nursey shakes his head.

Chowder just grins and steals the uneaten half of Nursey’s danish, holding it between his teeth as he puts his jacket on, and winks at them before departing.

At least Nursey has this nightmare of a first essay draft to keep him occupied. And a cozy looking Dex in the chair beside him, leaning in close to get a better look at what Nursey’s just underlined.

“Not gonna ask me if I want to be here this time?” Nursey asks.

“I’m worried if I press the issue, you’re going to make me do a book report on Dostoyevsky or something.”

“Aw, you’d read Russian classics for me, Poindexter?”

Dex blushes furiously and doesn’t deny it.

Nursey shifts his chair a little closer to Dex’s, so that they’re pressed shoulder to shoulder as they look down at the paper. He doesn’t even try to find an excuse for it, simply leans into Dex and schools his features as Dex leans right back into him in response.

“Alright, let’s get to work,” he says. Out of the corner of his eye he can see Dex’s smile, but Nursey focuses on marking up one of the most offensively constructed sentences he’s ever come across in his life.

He must really have it bad, because he somehow secretly finds Dex’s atrocious English skills endearing, though what he says out loud is a string of chirps and creative cursing.

Dex responds in kind, and the back and forth is so familiar, and yet charged with an inexplicable newness at the exact same time, that it makes Nursey’s head spin.

Samwell loses five straight games in January, and everyone on the team suddenly develop the kind of short fuses that usually herald an assassination attempt or deciding to cut their own hair.

Nursey worries that Dex will feel it the worst, but instead of anger and frustration radiating off of their captain like he’s expecting, there’s just a sad vulnerability that follows Dex like a little storm cloud as he retreats down to his basement bungalow at the Haus after that fifth loss.

Nursey, much to his own surprise, finds he would’ve preferred the anger. Dex yelling is way less concerning than Dex doing a Charlie Brown impression all the way down the stairs to his Fortress of Solitude.

“It’s not your fault, man,” Nursey says softly from the doorway to Dex’s room.

Dex is lying on the bed, staring up at the ceiling, and doesn’t give any indication that he’s even heard him.

“Bro,” Nursey tries again. “We hit a slump every year, and we always bounce back.”

When Dex’s only response is to close his eyes and let out a long exhale of breath that sounds too much like defeat for comfort, Nursey decides he’s had enough.

He enters the bedroom fully, closing the door behind him, and then lays down on the bed beside Dex, shoving at his defense partner’s uncooperating form until they can both sort of fit on the narrow mattress.

Once settled, Nursey reaches over and tugs sharply on one of Dex’s big ears.

This, finally, gets a response. “Ow! What the fuck?”

“Quit feeling sorry for yourself already, Poindexter. You’re gonna make Louis cry.”

“I’m not feeling sorry for myself, Nurse. I just... need a moment.”

“I will give you exactly ten minutes to mope before I call Bitty.”

Dex turns his head to face Nursey with a comically betrayed expression. “You’d rat me out to Bitty?”

Nursey digs his cellphone out of his pocket and holds it up. “Don’t tempt me.”

With an exasperated huff, Dex returns to looking up at the ceiling. “Fine. Ten minutes and then I’ll rally.”

“Deal.”

There’s a moment of stubborn quiet, and then Dex starts shifting around to get more comfortable in the wake of Nursey’s physical assault. “Are you staying here with me for that ten minutes?” he asks. Not accusingly. More like he’s genuinely curious what could possibly be going on in Nursey’s head that would lead to them being tangled up together on a twin bed.

Nursey throws a leg over one of Dex’s, pinning it to that bed like an unspoken claim. “Obviously.”

And for reasons that Nursey hesitates to investigate, this is what finally gets the maudlin look off of Dex’s face. One side of Dex’s mouth quirks up in the hint of a smile, and he lets an arm fall across one of Nursey’s arms in a casual answering claim of his own.

Nursey’s never felt more accomplished than when realizing he’s responsible for that minor twist of lips. Has never felt more settled than with all of his limbs so securely tangled up in someone else’s.

They stay lying there quietly for a lot longer than ten minutes.

Nursey doesn’t even realize he’s fallen asleep until he’s being gently woken up by a hand resting on the bare skin at the juncture between his neck and shoulder, gently shaking him into consciousness. His eyelids flutter open gradually, and he thinks he must be dreaming because he’s greeted with William Poindexter’s freckled amber eyes looking down on him with such fondness that it almost hurts.

“Nursey...” Dex whispers.

Nursey smiles lazily, drowning in the kind of full body contentment that comes from the rarely successfully executed nap. He feels like a cat stretching in the sun, only the sun right now is simply Dex’s undivided attention.

“Oh good,” he says around a yawn, only halfway back to consciousness, “you’re not sad anymore.”

Dex purses his lips together tightly, like he’s holding back whatever his first instinct’s response might be. But then he lets himself smile and slump down half on top of Nursey in the kind of hug that he could easily deny later. “No, I’m not sad anymore,” he says, muffled into Nursey’s shoulder.

Nursey wraps one arm around Dex’s middle and pulls him in a little more securely. "Got your back."

Except that he’s got more than that, cares way more than what that expression typically means when said to any of his other teammates.

And more and more, he thinks that Dex must feel the same way.

“But you still haven’t actually talked about it,” Lardo says.

Nursey scowls at the video call on his phone while Lardo and Shitty make matching judgmental expressions back at him from Boston.

“Bro,” Shitty says, and somehow makes that one word sound like an entire sentence.

“Things are good right now, man,” Nursey defends. “Our friendship is the best it’s ever been.”

“Then why did you just spend the last thirty minutes complaining to us about it?” Lardo asks.

Well that’s an easy one. It’s because Nursey’s already complained to the entire rest of the team so often now that they’re all actively avoiding any situation where they might end up alone with him.

“This isn’t me complaining, Lards. This is me seeking the council of my older and infinitely wiser brethren. Hit me with some hard truths or whatever.”

“It sounds like I just need to hit you, full stop.”

Nursey sighs and leans back against the pillows along the wall behind his bed. “Chowder already tried that.”

Shitty and Lardo roll their eyes in unison.

“You’re too much of a romantic to be this boneheaded about your own feelings,” Lardo tells him.

“I think you mean that I am exactly enough of a romantic to be this boneheaded about expressing feelings that my stupid romantic heart has decided are too overwhelming for words.”

“Okay, fair. If you were a more practical person you might be able to have conversations about this stuff without getting all weird about it.”

“If I loved him less, I might be able to talk about it more.”

Lardo groans. “Don’t get cute, Nurse.”

Shitty leans in with a quirked eyebrow, his slightly-longer-than-a-year-ago brown hair flopping down over his forehead. “Are you sure you’re not just deflecting, Nursey? Like, distracting yourself with what’s right in front of you, so you don’t have to deal with everything you’re really worried about? Graduation can be scary.”

In a way, Shitty’s not wrong. It’s definitely easier to focus on that growing warmth in Nursey’s chest whenever he’s with Dex than on the anxiety of waiting for grad school responses to start coming in. But when Nursey really sits down and lets himself spiral about the impending Future of Adulthood... The part that terrifies him the most is the part where he might not see Dex everyday anymore.

“Love is scarier,” he says decisively.

Shitty nods. “Well, can’t argue with you there.”

“I can,” Lardo says, leveling a hard look at Nursey through the camera. “Man up and use your words, Nurse. If it blows up in your face, at least you can say you tried.”

“There’s no way he doesn’t already know everything I would say anyway.”

“Bro,” Shitty says, and once again the many different meanings he can imbue in that one word is honestly kind of impressive. “This is Dex we’re talking about. You think anything short of spelling out your intentions with a fucking skywriter is going to get through that stubborn ginger head of his?”

Nursey wants to dispute this idea, but knows when he’s been beaten. He turns his head to groan loudly into one of his pillows, and then turns back to pout at his friends. “Do I have to?”

Lardo crosses her arms over her chest and goes in for the kill. “You want someone else to hire that skywriter first?”

Fuck.

Not that Nursey immediately acts on their advice, though. On everyone’s advice, really, so it’s not like he doesn’t know he’s being willfully obtuse about the whole thing.

But it’s a whole hell of a lot easier to keep trying to get a different, less terrifying answer out of his friends than it would be to confront Dex with a truckload of feelings and hope that Dex is harboring at least a fraction of that himself.

So Nursey keeps taking it one day at a time. He plays hockey and he works on his thesis and he generally drags his feet as much as he possibly can where Dex is concerned.

The thing is, sometimes he catches Dex looking at him like... Like maybe this dreaded conversation that needs to happen won’t go as badly as Nursey fears.

But sometimes he catches Dex looking at other people like maybe it’s not that he’s uninterested or oblivious, but that he’s just so freaking William J. Poindexter that it wouldn’t matter who tried to woo him, Nursey included. He’d still brush it aside as a potential distraction from more important matters like schoolwork and the captaincy and preparing for life post-Samwell.

Dex is pragmatic to a fault. And while that pragmatism balances out Nursey’s more chaotic energy so perfectly it’s like they were always meant to slot into place beside each other, it also means that getting Dex to take a chance on anything that isn’t carefully calculated and already factored into his ten-year plan is like lassoing the moon.

“You’re overthinking it,” Bully says from his perch on the back of the Haus couch, his gaze trained on the sketchbook he’s holding in one hand while the other hand does something magical with a number two pencil across the page.

“Obviously I’m over thinking it,” Nursey says distractedly, his own attention fully absorbed by the grad school acceptance letter that he’s just opened.

Brown. He got into his top choice.

But he hasn’t voiced this fact out loud yet. Is, in fact, frozen in place, standing in the middle of the Haus living room, holding the letter in slightly trembling hands.

Because he thought he’d want to shout his excitement about this from the rooftops. Only now that it’s happening, there’s just one person that he wants to tell.

It’s a feeling so strong, he almost tucks the acceptance letter away, hiding it from everyone until he can find Dex. It’s ridiculous and nonsensical, but Nursey doesn’t want a single other person to know about this before him.

“Just tell him,” Bully says.

And it hits Nursey square in the chest on multiple levels. He knows Bully is talking about the giant crush Nursey’s been annoying the entire campus with all school year. But the words sit so perfectly in this moment on multiple levels that Nursey feels them resonate a little more profoundly than usual.

He needs to tell Dex about Brown, and he needs to tell him right fucking now.

He needs to start talking to Dex about the future in more than just vague, hand-waving what-ifs. And he needs to do it before that future finally comes hurtling at them both, with zero regard for all the plans and confessions that they might have made but never did.

But Dex, it turns out, is otherwise occupied with a guy who looks like a long-lost Hemsworth brother.

Nursey has a confused moment of wondering where he recognizes this dude from, before realizing with a start that it’s from the other side of that very same course catalog that Nursey’s own face is pictured on.

Of course it would all come full circle back to when Nursey first got kickstarted into realizing his feelings. Of course the jealousy that rises up in him when he sees other people hit on Dex, combined with the helplessness of not having a leg to stand on in claiming any right to that jealousy, would be what finally gets him to fucking say something.

Nursey watches the two of them huddled over textbooks at a table in the library. He’s so familiar with Dex’s schedule and his study habits that he knew right where to find him, even in the middle of the afternoon on a random Tuesday.

But Nursey didn’t think to brace himself for the possibility that Dex wouldn’t be alone. That there would be a damn Norse god in skinny jeans, who probably has his very own Samwell Course Catalog Fan Club, leaning in close enough that his oversized pec brushes against Dex’s arm, and whispering something that has Dex chuckling softly in the golden lamplight deep in the library stacks.

Nursey almost has a stroke.

Instead, before his brain has time to catch up and think better of it, he marches up to their table, tosses his jacket across their books, throws himself into the chair on the other side of Dex, and settles a possessive arm around Dex’s shoulders. “Hey, Babe.”

Thor freezes like he’s been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

Dex twists in his seat to look at Nursey with raised eyebrows, and repeats incredulously, “’Babe?’” making a face like the word leaves a gross taste in his mouth.

Nursey ignores this in favor of glaring at their third wheel. “Yo,” he greets, voice lazy and low and not at all threatening. Just, you know, a little less than friendly. He is definitely not giving the dude murder-eyes.

Knockoff Hemsworth makes a contrite expression and carefully puts a couple inches of space between himself and Dex. “Hey, man. Derek, right?”

Nursey feels a little bad that this guy knows his name and Nursey has no clue who he is beyond one more photogenic Samwell student. But only a little.

“Did you need something, Nurse?” Dex asks with obvious annoyance. His muscles have gone rigid, but he hasn’t shrugged off Nursey’s arm. “I have a quiz tomorrow that I’d rather not fail.”

“I’ll help you study,” Nursey tells him.

“Alex was already--”

But ‘Alex’ interrupts, with an uneasy glance at where Nursey’s forearm rests against Dex’s collarbone. “Actually, I should probably get going. You’ve got the material down, Will, you don’t really need my help.”

Intellectually, Nursey understands that ‘Will’ is Dex’s given name, but it chafes to hear someone else use it.

“Okay,” Dex says uncertainly as Alex packs up his stuff. “Thanks for getting me started.”

“No problem. See you in class.” Alex goes in for a fist bump, then seems to think better of it and raises his hand up at the last second in an awkward wave.

As soon as they’re alone, Dex slugs Nursey hard in his bicep. “What the hell was that?”

“Shhh,” Nursey says with a cheeky smirk. “We’re in a library.”

Dex scowls and punches him again.

Nursey removes his arm from Dex’s shoulders so that he can rub gingerly at the new bruise on his other one. “Ow, jeez, sorry I scared off a prospective suitor. Were you actually into him?”

“I was actually into studying, and Alex has the highest grade in the class.”

“What Alex has is the express goal of getting into your pants by the end of the semester.”

Dex turns a shade of red so bright that it’s practically another light source down here in the shadowed bookstacks. “That’s not what was happening.”

“Oh, so he wasn’t flirting with you so obviously that it could be seen from space?” Nursey scoffs, and oh God, what the hell is he doing right now? His mouth is seemingly operating without any permission from his brain. The grad school acceptance letter is burning a hole in his back pocket, but he can’t bring himself to pull it out.

“Of course he wasn’t. Why the hell would you think--”

“It’s chill, Poindexter. He was hot and into you. I wouldn’t blame you if you went for it.”

“I don’t-- He wasn’t--” Dex sputters, his discomfort and confusion manifesting as a steadily increasing anger. Much like back when they were freshmen and didn’t know how to navigate any emotion more complex than the desire to win the next hockey game. Back when Nursey would poke and prod without really knowing why he was doing it, and Dex would erupt and overreact before remembering to breathe.

That’s how badly this is going. In a matter of seconds they’ve both regressed to eighteen-year-old versions of themselves.

“Seriously, I’m sorry that I interrupted,” Nursey says, and he knows how flippant and intentionally confrontational he sounds. And underneath it all his heart fucking hurts but he can’t seem to stop. “I figured I’d save you from having to awkwardly let him down, but I guess I misjudged.”

“Yes, you misjudged!” Dex manages to keep his volume just barely within library-appropriate levels, though it looks like it’s a struggle. “Because he wasn’t flirting and I would never do anything about it even if he was!”

Nursey makes a show of rolling his eyes. “It’s chill, Dex. You don’t have to spare my feelings.”

Dex’s jaw clicks shut, and his whole body freezes. For a long moment he just stares at Nursey with wide eyes, like he’s never seen him before. He swallows audibly. “...Your, uh. Your feelings?”

Shit.

Nursey stands up abruptly, nearly knocking his chair over backwards. “I should go.”

“Nursey--”

But Nursey is already halfway to the nearest exit, shrugging into his jacket along the way, and refuses to look back at the unmitigated disaster that he’s leaving behind.

He only makes it as far as the frozen lake on the other side of the quad from the library before he feels something hit him between his shoulder blades.

Nursey stops more out of surprise than anything. He turns to look down at the hockey puck on the sidewalk, and then up at the defenseman who just chucked it at him.

Dex jogs to catch up, still stuffing textbooks into his open backpack and struggling to finish putting on his coat as he goes. “You’re such an asshole sometimes,” he huffs, slightly out of breath.

Nursey crosses his arms over his chest protectively. “Well... so are you,” he says lamely.

“Tell me what’s going on, Nursey. Whatever that was back there...” Dex trails off, and Nursey assumes it’s because he’s struggling to come up with words that don’t sound quite as harsh as ‘clusterfuck of embarrassment.’

“It was nothing, Poindexter. Just me being an idiot.” Nursey shrugs.

“Don’t give me that. You’re the smartest guy I know.”

“Nah, Ransom is way--”

“And don’t change the subject. What’s wrong? Why are you being weird?”

“It’s just hard to watch you be oblivious to this stuff. That guy was flirting with you. Did you really not notice?”

“Oh my God, fine,” Dex huffs, exasperated. “Maybe he was hitting on me. What does it even matter?”

“It matters because I...” Nursey swallows thickly and glances sideways at the driven snow along the walkway. He scuffs the toe of his shoe against the concrete and pulls the sleeves of his jacket down over his hands. “Because I don’t want you to date him.”

Dex blinks several times. “Nursey...” He trails off helplessly. “You know I don’t date.”

”Yeah, but you could. And you don’t even realize it.”

“Derek. Do you know how busy I am this year? I’m getting an ulcer just thinking about it. And don’t even talk to me about post-graduation plans, holy shit, I might throw up. You think I have time to date anyone around all that?”

But Nursey waves this aside. “Like you don’t already have everything all lined up and planned out to the exact second for after you graduate.”

Sure, they’ve only ever talked about it vaguely, but Nursey has never doubted that Dex has a plan for the future, even if he won’t voice it out loud.

Dex ducks his head, and the blush that creeps along his cheeks is a slow moving thing, different from his usual full-faced embarrassment, or even his frustrated self-conscious flush. Nursey thinks he might finally be able to translate all the different ways Dex can color, like each variation might have an entirely different, secret meaning that he can now read between all the freckles.

“Yeah, well,” Dex says softly, an uncharacteristic mumbling, like he’s trying to lessen the impact of his next words. “We still don’t know what grad school you’ll be going to. So not everything’s figured out yet.”

All the air in Nursey’s lungs gets punched out of him in a single, shocked exhale. “Why would you...”

“Listen.” Dex squares his shoulders and puts on his game face. He looks at Nursey head on, and takes a step forward to close the distance between them entirely. “We don’t have to talk about it.”

But Nursey is suddenly sick of not talking about it. “I think maybe we do. I think if we don’t talk about it now, I’m just going to flip my shit every time someone tries to get your number. Which is apparently pretty damn often.”

“Nursey,” Dex says in this exasperated but oddly affectionate tone. The kind he uses whenever Nursey’s made an especially bad pun, or has orchestrated a play on the ice that saved the day but that only Dex noticed was entirely accidental. “You’re seeing things.”

“Maybe you’re not seeing things. Like how hot you are.”

“Jesus,” Dex hisses under his breath, and glances over his shoulder, like he’s afraid someone might overhear Nursey giving him a freaking compliment.

“I like you, Will. Just so we’re clear. I’ve literally been flirting with you since before I even knew I was flirting with you.”

“You flirt with everyone,” Dex argus halfheartedly.

“Yeah, I realized recently that I was gonna need to up my game. Start being a little more intentional if I wanted you to notice.”

“Oh, is that what that was? I was worried that maybe you’ve just been messing with me.”

And because Nursey can’t come up with a better way to get his point across, he pulls the grad school acceptance letter out of his pocket and holds it out to Dex. “How do you feel about Providence?”

Dex’s whole face transforms, like the joy and the pride he feels are trying to escape in every single facial feature. “You got into Brown?” He grabs the letter and excitedly unfolds it to scan the words.

Nursey’s not sure what he was expecting from Dex’s response, what he was hoping for, but this is already enough to have his heart racing and his breath catching.

And then Dex throws himself at Nursey in a bear hug, and suddenly it all feels real now. It all feels possible and inevitable and here.

“Providence sounds great,” Dex says, a whisper of warm breath on Nursey’s neck. And Nursey has never been so happy to talk about the possibility of a life after Samwell.

They’re still complete morons when it comes to each other, though.

Dex untangles himself from their hug and the two of them spend an entire minute awkwardly navigating how to say a simple, “See you back at the Haus,” that ultimately has Dex heading back to the library to finish studying while trying to hide his smile in his coat collar, and Nursey walking backwards in the other direction, not wanting to tear his eyes away, only to trip and fall onto his ass in the snow.

But they’re happy morons.

“Oh good,” Ford says when she sees Nursey’s face half an hour later in the Haus living room. “I was worried I’d lose the pool.”

She’s sitting crisscross-applesauce on the couch, knitting a lengthy, multi-colored scarf. The finished end of it is wrapped around Tango, who’s sitting on the floor in front of her playing a video game with Whiskey and Hops.

At her words, the boys all glance briefly up at Nursey, and then collectively groan and start handing over wads of cash to Ford.

“You guys are gonna give me a complex.” Nursey pouts. “I’m not that much of an open book.”

“Don’t worry, Nursey,” Ford tells him consolingly, “you are still very mysterious and enigmatic about everything that isn’t your giant crush on the captain.”

Whiskey snorts. “No, he’s not.”

Ford cuffs Whiskey upside the back of the head, and Hops snickers, using the opportunity to KO Whiskey’s character on the screen.

“Oh fuck off,” Nursey says. “I’m telling Dex that you were all mean to me. I have pull with him now.”

“If you didn’t know that you always had pull with him, then you’re both even more hopeless than we thought,” Hops says.

It’s meant as a dig, but Nursey can’t keep the grin off his face in response. He flips them all the bird and heads to the kitchen to wait for his defense partner.

Two hours later, the sun is setting, Nursey’s got two steaming bowls of the best Panang Curry within delivery distance that he’s already had to threaten dismemberment to four hungry teammates over, and Dex walks into the kitchen looking exhausted but tentatively happy.

“I made dinner,” Nursey announces proudly.

Dex freezes like a deer in headlights. Nursey can just see the gears turning as he tries to come up with a nice way to get out of eating whatever burnt poison Nursey has likely cooked.

“I bought dinner,” Nursey amends.

And Dex immediately relaxes. “Oh thank God.”

“Shut up. I don’t have to share this with you.”

“Was the other bowl for Tango then?”

“Bully, actually. I’ve decided that he and I need to make peace. Finally put aside this heated rivalry for the title of Coolest Bro on the team.”

Dex tries to hold it back, but the laughter springs up out of him anyway.

And it may be at his own expense, but Nursey has never felt so pleased and accomplished to make another person laugh before.

They sit down to eat, and it’s the strangest thing but nothing really feels all that different from how it’s been on any other night. They chirp and argue and efficiently gang up in teasing any underclassmen who passes through the kitchen around them. They keep their legs hooked around each other’s beneath the table and lean in close across it even though it’s not really necessary.

Eventually they end up in Nursey’s room, which seems fitting given it was where they once nearly murdered each other over a coin toss because they couldn’t just use their words and communicate.

“I think this could work,” Dex says, nodding, his hands on his hips and his eyes on the papers they’ve laid out across Nursey’s desk. There’s the acceptance letter to Brown, and print outs of the three different tech jobs in Providence that Dex has already applied to, and a handwritten, collaborative To Do List, color coded with four different highlighters.

It’s the most concrete the future post-Samwell has ever looked. And Nursey kind of can’t believe he might be excited by it all for once.

“Does it feel a little like we’re doing things in the wrong order?” Nursey asks, sitting down on the edge of the bed.

Dex joins him there, close enough that their thighs are pressed together, and smirks. “Should I not have planned out our entire future before even kissing you?”

Nursey laughs softly, but it’s a little breathless at the prospect of kissing. He tries to play it off coolly. “Well at least buy me a drink first, Poindexter.”

“How ‘bout I make you waffles in the morning. Does that count?”

“Throw in that bomb frittata you made last week and I’ll let you plan the wedding.”

Nursey grins, and Dex grins right back at him, and then they’re just staring goofily at each other for several long seconds, they’re gazes slowly softening even as the air between them becomes increasingly charged.

Dex starts to lean in at the same time Nursey does.

But then Nursey puts a hand on Dex’s chest to stop him at the last second. Like an idiot. “Wait. Are you still too busy to date anyone?”

Dex’s eyebrows furrow together. “Yes?”

Nursey’s heart drops like a stone all the way to the floorboards.

But Dex rolls his eyes and presses in even closer. “Dating yes. The hypothetical, superficial, get-to-know-you endeavor of horny singles everywhere. I’m too busy for that shit. But Nursey... Have I ever been too busy for you?”

Nursey has to kiss him then. It would be impossible not to.

And it’s exactly everything that he’s been too scared to imagine.

The press of lips against lips feels like a natural extension of every other physicality between them. It feels comfortable and somehow already familiar. Thrilling, amazing, and yet also just another conversation they’re having with their bodies.

But then Dex deepens the kiss, sucks Nursey’s tongue into his mouth like he’s starving for it, and that conversation becomes more of an argument. The two of them pushing and pulling and only drawing in quick, desperate breaths around it all because they’d pass out otherwise and then how would they keep the fight going?

Dex has always been Nursey’s favorite person to fight with. The only person, really.

Dex slows them down gradually. Runs gentle, reverent fingertips along Nursey’s hairline, down to his jaw and then further to his throat. And the argument becomes something else. Becomes a question and an answer.

Becomes a promise.

Three weeks later

“How did I ever think that this evolution of your relationship would be better than the ones before it?” Chowder says in a long-suffering tone from Nursey’s bedroom doorway, a hand slapped over both of his eyes.

Dex hops around on one foot trying to quickly get his pants back on. But Nursey just grins and tucks his hands behind his head, lounging bare-chested across his rumpled bedding. “Don’t front, C. You love our love.”

“I think I loved it more when the only time I ever saw either of you naked was in the dressing room.”

“Learn to knock, Bro,” Nursey tells him, unbothered, at the same time as Dex, struggling into a shirt that turns out to be one of Nursey’s, says, “Sorry, Chris. We’ll take it to the basement next time.”

Chowder heaves a heavy sigh, though it sounds a lot more performative to Nursey’s ears than truly annoyed.

Which is a common theme among their teammates. The boys all give Nursey as much shit as they did when he was just mooning over Dex without doing anything about it, but it’s with a little more affection now. And also usually followed by exaggerated gagging noises or shouts of “Fine!”

They all, of course, give Dex significantly less shit for his relationship with Nursey. Whether that’s because he’s the captain, or because he’s the only one who knows how to both bake a pie that doesn’t burn the Haus down and repair the antiquated water heater, is up for debate.

“Downstairs in five, or I’m leaving without you,” Chowder tells them, and shuts the door behind him.

“Goalies are so dramatic,” Nursey jokes.

Dex throws a balled-up shirt at his head, which turns out to be one of Dex’s. Nursey happily puts it on anyway.

At Jerry’s, the three OG Frogs settle into their usual booth and order their usual post-kegster breakfasts. It’s all so familiar and such a crucial piece of what Nursey has now come to think of as home, that he feels like his chest might crack open at the thought that they won’t get to keep it for much longer.

But Dex knocks their shoulders together as he steals the last bite of Nursey’s omelet, and across the table Chowder magnanimously offers up a piece of his bacon, and Nursey starts to think that even if they lose this place and this moment, they don’t necessarily have to lose each other. And maybe that’s more than enough.

When Dex manages to grab the check before the other two, and heads up to the counter to settle it, Nursey takes the opportunity to appreciate his backside for a moment, and then stage-whisper to Chowder, “Yo, C. I’m totally hitting that later.”

“Ew,” Chowder says succinctly.

“Bro, you are just as bad when it comes to Farmer.” Nursey turns to fully face his friend.

Chowder primly sips from what’s left of his coffee. “Lies and slander.”

“Right. And when you guys were making out in the middle of the dance floor last night, that was just a casual conversation.”

“Well, she started it.”

“Of that I have no doubt.”

Nursey glances back over at where Dex has finished paying, but has gotten sidelined by a girl trying to get his number. Of course he has. Nursey nearly spits out his own coffee around laughter at the sight.

He can remember the hot, helpless feeling witnessing this would’ve inspired in him just a short time ago, but that almost seems like a dream now. All Nursey feels anymore is a mild amusement as he watches Dex struggle with how to respond.

Because Dex knows now what’s going on. He sort of always had an inkling, it turns out, but was very good at compartmentalizing any attention he got as something so out of the realm of his current needs and wants that it became a nonissue.

But Nursey has made it explicitly clear to Dex now what it looks like when someone is flirting and interested, and Dex can’t seem to unsee it. Nursey watches as he blushes and fumbles his words and the girl just leans in closer like she finds this even more attractive.

Eventually Dex takes her offered phone and types something into it. Nursey frowns, though he’s not especially worried, just curious.

“You collecting more members for the official Poindexter Fan Club?” Nursey asks when Dex rejoins them.

Dex rolls his eyes. “I gave her Bully’s number. He said he’s down for blind dates, and she looked way more excited by the idea of his contact info than she was at the prospect of getting mine.”

“Her loss,” Chowder says in solidarity, offering a fist to bump.

Dex bumps it automatically with a, “Thanks, C,” though he doesn’t look particularly bothered. “You guys ready to head out?”

As they do, Nursey makes sure to place a somewhat possessive arm around Dex’s shoulders. Call it habit, or instinct, or simply the overwhelming contentment at being close to Dex and knowing that Dex enjoys it just as much. At any rate, the movement is open, honest, and sincere, rather than hiding behind oblivious excuses or what was once a standard bone-deep need to deflect.

Nursey has found recently that sincerity when flirting with Dex has become as easy as breathing.

Even if flirting through chirping or picking a fight is often more fun.

Dex shakes his head with exasperation, but still leans into Nursey’s touch. “You’re such a dork, Nurse.”

“I’m a damn delight, Poindexter,” Nursey argues.

“Tell that to the poor guy you spilled beer all over last night,” Dex argues back.

And they continue arguing all the way back to the Haus.

All the way through a lazy day of post-kegster cleanup, and board games with teammates who tease them mercilessly at every opportunity. All the way past the pie that Dex bakes and the takeout that Nursey orders. And then all the way up the stairs to Nursey’s bedroom, and to the plans for a shared future spread out across his desk that are waiting for them.