Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Nursey tapped his pen against his page to the beat in Nina’s words. Her rhyme was nice—he liked the internals she was pulling at the center of every third line—but it felt a little too constructed. Ages better than her last piece, though, he could tell she’d had more time (and been less constrained by bullshit workshop guidelines).

She trailed off. “So—that’s where I stopped, like. I’m not really sure how to end it.”

“Literally the worst part,” Nursey said, commiserating. “If the point is to channel emotion especially it’s like, of course you can’t end it, you just have to bring it to some kind of pause.”

She sighed and cracked her neck. “Yeah. Anyway. What do you think?”

“Really good,” said Nursey, honestly. “Really good.”

Her face broke open in a smile. “Yeah?”

He nodded. “Seriously. I like especially that you hint toward the lyric pattern we’d expect from a sonnet but don’t follow through, pulling us out to the longer line instead. It works really well, subverts—“

A door slammed down the hall and Nursey cut himself off, frowning. “Was that—“

“Dex,” Nina confirmed, and sighed. “He broke up with Dan last night.”

Nursey—carefully—kept his face at distant concern and didn’t let it slide at all to overjoyed panic. “Really?”

Nina shrugged. “Might’ve been the other way around, with how pissed he is, but I doubt it, Dex really didn’t seem particularly into it. Honestly I’m shocked they ever dated at all, they barely spent any time together. Plus I heard Dan misgender him the other day, and that’s like. Pretty serious, no?”

Nursey bit his lip. “They started hooking up before Dex did the pronoun thing, I think Dan had some problems with that.” He shrugged, trying to rid his shoulders of their sudden tension. “He’s a douchebag anyway.”

Nina raised her eyebrows at him. “So, good news.”

Nursey nodded. “Yeah, good news.”

She cocked her head. “So how come you look like you’re dying?”

Nursey smacked her shoulder with his notebook. “Shut up,” he muttered, feeling warm.

Nina smirked at him. “C’mon,” she said, “you might be able to hide your source of inspiration from the other fools in our workshop but I know the guy and some of your references are a little on the nose.” Her smirk widened. “Kinda like Dex’s freckles.”

Nursey tried to make his face as warning as possible. “If you ever—“

“Please,” she scoffed. “You think I don’t know about hopeless lit crushes? That feeling where you don’t even know if it’s real, because maybe you’re making stuff up because it sounds romantic and then painting the real person with the color you made? I get it, dude, I won’t say shit.”

Nursey relaxed. “Thanks.”

She watched him sideways. “That doesn’t mean, if it turns out it is real, that you shouldn’t say shit.”

Nursey shook his head. “Shouldn’t, though,” he said. “We’re teammates, it would be weird.” Plus, like, all of the other reasons it would be weird, including Dex’s absolute confusion and hostility when he’d flirted with him the first day they met. And the fact that they couldn’t spend longer than fifteen minutes in the same room without fighting, but hell, that was part of the problem, wasn’t it. Thin line between anger and desire, et cetera, et cetera.

Nina narrowed her eyes at him. “Jocks.”

Nursey rolled his eyes at her. “Funny, my teammates always go poets in the same exact tone.”

He let himself out of Nina’s room a while later, intending to just head back to his own—listening to other people’s work always made him hunger to make his own better—but Dex’s door was ajar, and he found himself unable to just step past it without saying anything at all.

He lingered, a little awkward, in the doorway. “Dex.”

Dex didn’t sit up. “Nurse.” He didn’t sound surprised.

Nursey worked his tongue around in his mouth, not really knowing what to say, how to. Their relationship didn’t really include emotional conversations.

“They’re gonna think I’m gay,” Dex said from where he was lying on his back in his bed. “My parents. I cut my hair and now they’re gonna think I’m gay.”

It was as good an invitation as any. Nursey stepped inside. “You are gay,” he pointed out.

Dex pushed himself up on his elbows to glare at him. “I mean a lesbian,” he said. “They’re gonna think I like girls.”

Nursey smirked at him. “Oh,” he said, “so they’re gonna think you’re straight. Truly, every parent’s worst nightmare.”

Dex had that twisting kind of expression that told Nursey he couldn’t decide if he should be pissed or laughing. Good. It was better than the anger that had been there before, the fragile kind that was only the eggshell between him and fledgling terror.

“Shut up, Nurse,” he said, but he didn’t really seem like he wanted Nursey to go away.

Nursey wandered closer, leaning against his desk, and Dex flopped back down onto his back. “I was going to bring Dan home,” he said. “At Thanksgiving, like. Here, ma, pa, I’ve got this stupid muscle-head lacrosse douche of a boyfriend, please ignore how much more like him I look than when I left.”

Nursey made a face. “You don’t look like Dan.”

Dex rolled up on his side to look at him. “What?”

Nursey shrugged. “You don’t look like Dan. You’ve gotten more muscle and there’s a certain similar douchiness—“

“Shut the fuck up—“

“—but you pull it off way better than he does. For the record.”

Dex stared at him. Nursey fought not to fidget. He’d just been trying to—

“Thanks,” Dex muttered after a minute. “Appreciate it.”

Nursey shrugged again, hesitated, broke eye contact. “Why don’t you just bring someone else home? Get a friend to come, act the part.”

Dex snorted. “Who? Nobody’s going to do that for me. Besides, who could even pull it off? Chowder can’t lie to save his life, plus he looks like he’s about five. Bitty—I, I can’t ask Bitty. There’s no one outside the team that I trust enough with this, so unless.” He raised his eyes at Nursey.

Nursey stared at him. “What?”

Dex sat up fully, crossing his feet at the ankles and giving him a wry look. “You wanna come pretend to be my boyfriend, Nurse?”

There were a lot of reasons Nursey was glad he wasn’t white. Subtle blushing ranked really high up there. “I, uh,” he started.

Dex shook his head at him. “It’s okay, I was kidding. I appreciate the suggestion but I know you weren’t offering—“

“I would,” Nursey heard himself saying. Which he’d always thought was a dumb literary convention, but here he was, words coming out of his mouth without his useless fucking brain’s influence at all. “If you actually want me to, I would.”

Dex’s eyes went wide. “I—really?”

Nursey shrugged for the third time in as many minutes, feeling like he was trying to press up against some weight he’d definitely just made heavier. “Yeah,” he said. “If you think it would get your parents off your back, I’d go with you. I’m a good liar, and I think I could stand to hang out with you in the backwoods of Maine for a few days.” He made himself raise an eyebrow, trying to get his composure back. “Barely.”

Dex was frowning at him, but it was his confusion frown, not his anger frown. “Why?”

Nursey jammed his hands in his pockets. “Because we’re friends?” he said, instead of because when I have a crush I turn into the stupidest person alive? “Besides, my mom’s half Navajo, we don’t exactly celebrate Thanksgiving, I’d probably just be rattling around here otherwise.”

It’s not quite true—he’d been planning at least to head to the city for a few days, and he and his mom usually had a kind of anti-Thanksgiving just the two of them, but the holidays were coming up and he was sure his mom would be swamped with cases. Everybody always wanted to get divorced during the holidays.

He was, in fact, a good liar, so Dex didn’t question it, though he did frown even more and ask, “Why don’t the Navajo celebrate Thanksgiving?”

Nursey made a face at him, back on familiar Dex doesn’t know shit ground. “Uh, because it commemorates the time we welcomed some white folks to a land that they then systematically murdered us for?”

Dex hesitated. “I mean, okay, but Thanksgiving itself was peaceful–“

“Yeah, we should probably ignore the Holocaust because Hitler and FDR had a nice meal one time,” Nursey shot back. “You’re right.”

Dex shook his head. “Jesus, Nurse,” he muttered, “how do you go from offering to do me a giant favor to calling me a holocaust denier in the space of like four sentences?”

Nursey grinned at him. “I dunno,” he said, “how do you go from being my friend who I wanna help out to being just another ignorant white boy in the same?”

Dex threw a pillow at him, and Nursey caught it just before it smashed into his nose. When he dropped it, Dex was watching him again, face serious. “Hey,” he said. “Thank you.”

Nursey almost shrugged again, but stopped himself. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s—you know.”

“No, I mean.” Dex pressed his lips together. “I don’t just mean for the Thanksgiving thing, though that’s—huge, and. Amazing of you. I just mean for generally—for coming to talk to me, and for always being so good about the gender thing—everyone’s good about it, but it always seems so natural from you, it’s. Nice.”

Nurse raised his eyebrows at him, warmed down to his toes. “You mean you like it when I call you an ignorant white boy? Noted, I’ll do it more often.”

“Jesus,” Dex snapped, “could you ever take me seriously for one fucking second? I’m trying to be really genuine here—“

“Yeah, it’s gross,” Nursey shot back, because he—really cannot take Genuine Dex, not when he now had to think about pretending to be his boyfriend for four days straight. “We’re supposed to be all snark and fire, Poindexter, this mushy stuff is no good.”

“I hope you’re better at mush in front of my parents,” Dex warned.

Nursey smirked at him. “Don’t worry, darling,” he said, “we can hold hands for hours.” He wiggled his fingers. “This D-man’s hands aren’t just good for blocking.”

Dex swung out a leg in a halfhearted attempt to kick him in the shin. “We’re both D-men,” he pointed out, in that absent way he did when his mind was on other things.

“Yes, I’m sure your hands are immensely talented too,” Nursey said placatingly, and then immediately wished he hadn’t.

Thankfully Dex didn’t seem to pick up on the innuendo, or if he did he didn’t care. Nursey hoped it was the first—he tried not to flirt with Dex, but when he slipped up he would hope there’d be a little more response than Dex just going “hmm” and staring past his ear. Shit like that could wound a man’s pride.

He wouldn’t have to not flirt, when he was at Thanksgiving with him. He in fact should flirt, and Dex. Should. Respond.

Oh, god, this was the worst idea he’d ever had.

He cleared his throat. “So—“ he said, “um. Think it over, let me know.”

That seemed to wake Dex up a little, and his eyes flicked to Nursey’s face, his lower lip between his teeth. “Yeah,” he said. “I will.”

Nursey nodded. “Cool.” He paused, wondering if he should extend his sympathies about Dan, but he wouldn’t mean them, and it’s not that he thought Dex would know—he’d said he was a good liar and meant it—he just. Something sat wrong, about lying about this.

One of these days he was gonna map out all the weird stuff his conscience twinged him about and all the weird stuff it didn’t, try and get to the heart of the thing, but he was a little worried about the picture it would make. One man can only do so much self-examination, and honestly Nursey preferred to do his in the form of poetry.

“See you at practice,” he said instead, and left.

+

Dex was perched on the wall outside Faber, early for morning practice because sleeping was a joke these days—maybe he’d drunk enough coffee that it was just permanently running in his veins now, or maybe it was the fact that his fucking brain wouldn’t stop telling him how much he was ruining his own life. The autumn sun was nice, though—he was trying to concentrate on taking that in, maybe in lieu of sleep, get all his energy from the sun like a plant. Or Superman.

His phone was open on his knee. no hard feelings yeah?

Dex jiggled his leg, staring at the text from Dan, the first in a few days. Before they broke up it wasn’t like they texted that much, mostly they just met up to drink too much beer and make out and not talk and yeah, okay, this had been a long time coming, probably should never have happened in the first place but Dex had thought maybe dating a guy—as guy a guy as he could find—would make him feel. More. Well, normal. Girly. Real.

He should’ve given Dan up when he gave up “normal”, but. Thanksgiving.

no, he typed, and then, no hard feelings.

good, Dan said, and then bc i was talking to that guy on your team. brendan or brian or bryce or w/e.

Dex stared at that for a long time, frowning, and then he responded, you mean Shitty?

sure, said Dan.

There was a long pause where Dex wondered if maybe that was all he got, a mysterious “I was talking to Shitty” as if he should know what the fuck that meant just magically out of thin air, but just as he was about to tuck his phone away and start getting ready to go inside it buzzed again.

he told me to think of attraction as like. a history or whatever? so i guess i just wanted to say that i’m not gay or whatever but i think you’re a good-looking dude and you’re gonna make some gay guy really happy sometime.

Dex blinked at his phone, his heart flung up between his ears to pound loudly in his skull. What—what the fuck was he even supposed to say to that, how was he meant to—

“Dex! Good morning.”

Dex whipped his head up fast enough to wrench the too-tense muscles in his neck. “Bitty,” he greeted, quickly locking his phone and tucking it away. “Hi.”

Bitty hopped up on the wall next to him. “A little bird told me something interesting yesterday.”

Dex bit his lip, looking sideways at him. “Yeah?”

“Mhm,” Bitty said, sipping his coffee. Dex glanced around--he couldn't see Jack anywhere but he was sure he'd be carrying a matching paper cup. “I heard you broke up with Dan the lacrosse douche.”

Dex looked away from his little inquisitive smile. Bitty was like sunshine—he was never anything but warm and bright, but even so sometimes Dex felt like an ant under a magnifying glass.

“What was really interesting to me was that I had no idea you were even dating Dan the lacrosse douche,” Bitty said conversationally, “which probably means Chowder also didn't know, because Lord knows that child can't keep his mouth shut worth a damn.”

Dex shrugged, trying not to feel sullen or resentful or. Or whatever he was. “I wasn't exactly advertising it,” he muttered.

Bitty sipped his coffee again. “No? Why?”

“It’s right there on the tin, isn’t it?” Dex pointed out. “All my friends refer to him as Dan the lacrosse douche, and they’re not even wrong, he is a douche.” He remembered the texts sitting behind his lock screen. “Mostly.”

“He’s also straight,” Bitty pointed out. “A little more confusedly so because of you, maybe, but basically straight.”

“Yeah,” said Dex, “that was the point.”

Bitty took a breath, his face full of concern. “Dex—”

“Look,” Dex interrupted him. “It’s over, right? It was a bad idea in the first place and now it’s over and it’s fine, okay? You’re not my mom, I don’t need the lecture.” He caught sight of Nurse making his way into Faber, gym bag slung over his shoulder and headphones jammed in his ears. “Excuse me.”

He hopped off the wall, gathering his own stuff before he could think about the dismay on Bitty’s face too hard, and hurried after Nursey.

He caught up to him in the locker room as he slipped off his jacket, and not for the first time Dex found himself distracted by the muscles of his arms, the kind of distraction that was half attraction and half envy. His gaze caught on Nursey’s tattoo—it circled the impressive muscle of his bicep, a kind of armband pattern of black darts. It looked like the kind douchebag hipsters at music festivals always had, or looked like what they wished they had. Nursey was what all of those douchebag hipsters wished they looked like in general, the beautiful asshole.

Dex cleared his throat. “Hey,” he said, “Nurse.”

Nurse turned as he opened his locker. “Dex,” he acknowledged.

Dex unzipped his own jacket slowly. He wanted to ask were you serious, wanted to make certain it had been a joke or an idle promise before he actually thought about bringing home Nurse—Derek fucking Nurse—home to his parents. As his boyfriend.

But he couldn't quite make himself ask. It was half that he was certain that it hadn’t been serious—why the fuck would Nursey voluntarily spend Thanksgiving with him instead of going home to Manhattan, even if he didn't actually celebrate the holiday?—and half terrified by the idea that it wasn't, that Nursey had actually meant it.

He wasn't sure what he would do with that.

Nursey leaned back against his locker, watching him. “Have you thought about it?” he asked, crossing his arms over his chest. “My offer.”

Dex shrugged out of his jacket and unzipped his bag. “You, uh. You meant it, then.”

Nursey frowned at him. “Of course I meant it,” he said, “I don’t make idle offers.”

Dex rolled his eyes at him. “What about that time you offered to walk all the way to that away game with Lardo on your back because we thought we weren’t going to be able to use the van? Or the time you told me you would sing every One Direction song off the Haus roof, in discography order, if I did a kegstand? Or that time you told Bitty you’d—”

Nursey smirked, waving a hand. “Fine,” he said. “I don’t make idle offers sober.”

“We weren’t drinking that time with Bitty,” Dex pointed out.

Nursey raised an eyebrow at him. “I’d been hanging out with Shitty and Nik all day, you think we weren’t high as fuck?”

Dex made a face. “Fine,” he acknowledged.

“I was sober last week,” said Nursey, “and I’m sober now, and I’ll still do it. If you think it would help to have me there, I’ll go with you.”

It was the same promise, but somehow his phrasing—if it would help to have me there—gave Dex a different sort of pause, pushed it from him struggling to both think and not think about Nursey as his boyfriend into a, a supportive kind of space, something—anchoring.

He must have stayed silent too long, because Nursey gave him a little smile and pushed himself back up to his feet, starting to strap himself into his gear. “Think it over,” he said, “and let me know either way.”

Dex got ready, also, the motions of buckling himself into his equipment so familiar now as to be automatic. He stood at the edge of the ice and thought about safety, and comfort. Thought about speed, and power, and the singing stretch of his muscles working in harmony. Thought about gliding across life on the edge of a knife.

He remembered visiting Faber his first week, watching the team tryouts with a kind of wistful longing—the idea that he could be down there nothing but an impossible hope. Samwell had no women’s ice hockey team, and anyway Dex had never felt comfortable on women’s teams of any sport, plus—god, the idea of skating with Jack fucking Zimmermann—

He remembered staring down at the ice and catching sight of a familiar face—newly familiar, just from orientation the week before, a mocking sort of face with moss-green eyes. As if feeling Dex’s eyes on him, the asshole turned, their gazes meeting for a moment before the coach’s whistle drew him back into play.

Over a year later Dex again stared at Nursey, gliding easily across the rink, and thought about bringing a piece of home home.

+

“So this might be a kind of insanely personal question,” Nursey started, “but what the hell else are road trips for, right?”

Dex tried not to spill his coffee on his leg as he dropped it back into the cupholder on his dashboard. “Right,” he said, kind of vaguely.

The world stretched away golden and warm in front of them—too warm, weirdly warm for late November, but they said the world was dying. Death by slow-roasting. Dex tried not to think about that “they”, about how much it had expanded from the original group of ecologists—Nursey would call them climate change experts, Dex’s father had called them crackpot liberal pseudoscientists—into, well. Pretty much everyone in the world except a few people who also still believed the earth was flat.

The drive from Samwell to Maine was a beautiful one. They could have taken highways—it would have been faster, and there was a part of Dex that itched and itched and itched to be home, even as he dreaded it. He felt as though he could figure out exactly how to bear this weight, if only it were already settled on his shoulders. Bracing to bear it before you knew the poundage and balance of it was an exercise in paranoid futility. But when Dex had proposed the two routes to Nursey, the latter had immediately chosen the more meandering, scenic way, just tapping the map with his fingertips.

Why rush? his little shrug seemed to say, but why rush? was written into Nursey’s every movement. He wasn’t lazy, there wasn’t a lazy bone in his body—nobody who produced as much art and power and speed could ever be called lazy. He just didn’t give a shit, or if he did he was very, very good at hiding it—there was a constant spark of amusement in the back of his eyes, like the fact that everyone else gave a shit about stuff was secretly hilarious.

He was also, Dex realized, still waiting for an answer.

He swung off left, the roadway before them strewn with golden leaves going brown. “Your question,” he prompted. “Shoot.”

“Right,” said Nursey. He had his feet up on Dex’s dashboard, his coffee balanced on one of his knees. Dex resisted the urge to take the next turn too sharply and spill it all over his expensive jeans. “Um. Are you ever going to tell them?”

They hadn’t talked about it. Honestly they hadn’t talked about the trip at all since the beginning of the week. Dex felt the question in every vertebrae of his spine; knew the answer was no; knew that wasn’t what Nursey wanted to hear.

“I don’t know,” he said instead. “Not for a long while yet, if I do. They’re not—“ He shook his head. “They wouldn’t get it. They love me,” he said, and felt, wincingly, the warning note creep into his voice, “but they wouldn’t get it. It’s too new.”

Nursey hummed. “It’s not, actually.”

Dex blinked at the road, and then at him. “What?”

“It’s not new,” Nursey said, and sipped his coffee. “Oh, it’s new to them, and it’s new to you, but that doesn’t make it new.”

“What are you talking about?” Dex asked. “Are you saying there were trans kids running around during, like, the French Revolution? Because, dude—“

“During in terms of timing, sure. Not necessarily in France, though.” Nursey ran a hand through his hair. “Though I don’t know, I haven’t done the research.”

“Get to the point,” Dex said. “I don’t actually give a shit about the French Revolution.” He ran a hand through his hair and added a muttered, “Sorry, Jack.”

“Like I mentioned when we first talked about this trip, my grandma’s Navajo,” Nursey said. “On my mom’s side. My mom grew up on a reservation in Arizona before she met my dad.”

Dex concentrated on driving. Nursey’s family was something he never talked about, and there was a kind of delicate care to his voice that Dex had never heard—not a crack in his flippant mask but a deliberate unveiling of the things behind it, and Dex was afraid that if he looked at him the curtain would fall again, cutting him off from whatever sliver of Nursey’s heart he was getting to see.

“The Navajo have this word—it was a thing in a lot of Native American cultures actually, but in Navajo the word is nádleehi, sometimes translated as “two-spirit”. They were people who didn’t fit for whatever reason into the binary—maybe they were intersex, or people ‘born male’—“ Nursey tucked his coffee between his knees so he could do the air quotes and Dex bit his lip at the inexplicable tightness in his chest, “who end up dressing in traditional female dress and playing traditionally female roles in the community, including taking husbands. And. Y’know, vice versa.”

Despite his resolution not to look, Dex found his eyes sliding sideways, flickering over Nursey’s profile as he talked, waiting for—something. Some twist of his lips that conveyed confusion or disgust, or worse, some indication that he was lying, using Dex’s ignorance of his culture to pull one last prank, offer him this—this connection, this impossible history that could be an anchor and a certainty that he’d never had—and then pull it away like Lucy from Peanuts, leaving Dex flat on his back, gasping and alone.

He ran a hand through his hair, not quite used, yet, to its shortness, and tried to convince himself that it was paranoia, not self-preservation, talking. Maybe both.

But there was nothing in Nursey’s face except calm and peace and a kind of wistful memory, and it simultaneously made Dex’s heart lift and drop to the pit of his stomach. There was a history there, but it wasn’t his. It was Nursey’s—a thread stretching back and tying him to this golden-brown world Dex drove through in a way that all his stubborn familial white-boy clinging to America never would.

Sometimes he hated the way hanging out with Nursey made him feel. It was like pointing a gun at yourself and having your best friend hand you bullet after bullet.

“The Navajo consider all spirits to be androgynous,” Nursey was saying. “So grow up enough and you can choose to shape it male or female or whatever. If your body doesn’t match, so be it.” He glanced over at Dex, catching him staring, and Dex flicked his eyes back to the road, his neck prickling with heat. “They’d call you nádleehi,” he said, casually, like he wasn’t giving Dex an incredible, impossible gift. “Me, too, maybe, what with my penchant for making out with men.”

Dex felt like someone had tossed his brain into a tornado. He seized on the last part of the whole deal because it was easiest, and because it wasn’t about himself—he would store the rest away to think about later. “Wait,” he said, “You’re bi?”

He’d seen Nursey hook up with girls—well not. Not seen, not—he took his brain in firmer hand. He’d seen Nursey pull girls out of dark, crowded rooms, or into his lap while in dark crowded rooms, so he’d just. Assumed. Bisexuality he understood in theory but—other than Lardo he’d never really met a bisexual, and Lardo was so secretive about her hookups and now she was maybe possibly dating Shitty and he’d never really.

There was a short silence. When Dex glanced at him, Nursey was staring at him like he was crazy. “Uh, yes? I thought you knew, I’ve never exactly been closeted. Surely you can tell from my poems—“

“You mean the poems I’ve never heard?” Dex shot back, finding his footing in the fight, rather than the flight his heart so desperately wanted. “Because someone never tells me when his goddamn readings are?”

Nursey squinted at him. “I didn’t think you’d come.”

Dex frowned at the road, offended and a little puzzled by the note of guilt in Nursey’s voice. “Why the hell not? We’re friends. You’d come to my shit if I had shit, right?”

“Yeah,” said Nursey, easy in a way that was somehow gratifying.

“So what the fuck,” said Dex, his offense only growing, because there was some part of him that refused to put the words “bisexual” and “Nursey” anywhere in proximity in fear that they’d snap together like two magnets and he’d have to confront the inseparable whole, think about what it meant. “What, you think your poetry’s too good for me?”

“No,” said Nursey, and then he huffed a kind of laughing sigh that, if Dex didn’t know for a fact that Nursey’s ego was off the fucking charts, would have sounded kind of self-deprecating. “No, not at all.”

“So what the fuck,” said Dex again.

“Sorry,” Nursey muttered, and Dex cast him a startled glance. He was staring at his knees, his brows drawn together. He licked his lips, and Dex forced his eyes back to the road. “You know how sometimes you divide your life up into spheres, and then it’s hard to like. Cross the boundaries? Like, bringing the team into my artistic life feels weird, like. There are two pieces of me that don’t understand each other and maybe that’s how it should be.”

“Lardo went to your reading,” Dex said. “I know because she told me I’d really like it.”

He felt Nursey’s eyes on him. “She did?”

Dex nodded, licking his lips. “Said you were talented as hell.” Lardo’s exact words had been he’s like if someone slowed Kendrick down and gave him a rose garden to languish in but he figured that basically translated to talented as hell.

“Oh,” said Nursey, sounding pleased. He coughed. “Lardo’s—different though, she was there as her art-self rather than her hockey-self.”

Dex rolled his eyes. “Oh my god.”

“What?” Nursey asked.

“You can’t fucking pull that crap. Everybody’s just themselves, dude. It’s not like if someone asked Lardo a question about hockey at your reading she’d be like ‘oh sorry bro idk I have to go retrieve hockey-Lardo from where I hung her in the closet and you can ask her’, like, c’mon. Just because you have multiple interests and you’re too much of a coward to let me hear your poems doesn’t make you into some kind of, like. Were-poet.”

There was a small pause, and then Nursey chuckled, low in his throat. “We are pretty much just as insufferable about the full moon.”

Dex took a swig of his coffee. “Next reading though I’ll be sure to come as car-mechanic Dex, or maybe acoustic-guitar Dex. He’ll be just as bad at understanding your lyrical crap as hockey-player Dex, because guess the fuck what, they’re all me.”

Swigging from his own cup, Nursey made a choking noise that might’ve been a laugh, and there was something in Dex that felt smug at that. The times that Nursey was laughing with him and not at him were few and far between and should be treasured.

Nursey finished his coffee, squinting through the hole in the lid to make sure. “You play acoustic?”

Dex nodded. “Yeah,” he said, pulling up to a stop sign. “In Maine half your social events involve bonfires and the other half involve beaches, and both of those experiences are definitely enhanced by being the kid with the guitar.”

Nursey shook his head, popping the plastic lid off his paper cup and spinning it between his hands. Dex watched him for a minute. “It’s a shame you don’t like girls,” Nursey said casually, and Dex checked the rest of the intersection and pulled out into traffic. “I hear they flock to dudes with guitars.”

The still-unfamiliar rush of that casual dude gave Dex courage enough to tease, “and what about you, obvious bisexual Derek Nurse, have you never fallen for a boy with a guitar?”

He glanced at Nursey to see his reaction, caught his raised brow. “Well,” Nursey said, “now that’s a very personal question.”

Dex’s heart was pounding a little fast in his chest. He ignored it, muttered, “What else are road trips for?” and felt that stab of pride again at Nursey’s quiet laugh.

It trailed into silence, and then Nursey said, just as quietly, “Yeah, I have.”

Dex waited, but the silence pulled taut and awkward and he didn’t know if Nursey expected him to ask or wanted him to accept that and back off, and whichever it was he clearly didn’t do it well enough because Nursey said, in a quick, too-bright voice, “So what kind of boyfriend are you?”

Dex blinked, rerouting his brain from its unprompted images of Nursey and some unnamed musician boy, laconic and wrapped up with each other in a Manhattan apartment somewhere. “I won’t be your boyfriend though,” he said, hearing it come out a little bit grim. “You gotta treat me like your girlfriend.”

Nursey hummed. “I’m not gonna do that.”

Dex went cold. Had he made some kind of terrible mistake, was Nursey going to out him to his parents? “You’re fucking kidding, that’s the whole —I’ll turn around right the fuck now if that’s—“

“Chill, Poindexter,” Nursey said, in his worst, most placating voice, holding up his hands.

“Don’t tell me to fucking chill, Nurse—“ Dex snapped, feeling himself tap into that well of familiar anger that was fighting with Nursey, but Nurse cut him off before he could do more than dip a toe.

“Your parents,” Nursey said firmly, “are gonna see what they want to see. I’m gonna act like we’re dating. I’m gonna act like I’m head over heels for you, but I won’t act like you’re my girlfriend. For one thing, I wouldn’t have a fucking clue how.”

Dex stared sideways at him, suspicious. “What do you mean?”

Nursey raised an eyebrow at him. “Would you know how to pretend I was your girlfriend?”

Dex tried to think about that. Thought about taking Nursey on dates, pulling his chair out for him, picking him up and dropping him off and all the other masculine bullshit stuff Maine boys had always done for him. Thought about serenading him, buying him flowers. And through it all Nursey remained Nursey, beautiful and mocking and kind of dizzyingly male, and Dex. Really needed to stop thinking about this. “No,” he said. “Not at all.”

“So.” Nursey shifted his seat a little bit backwards, folding his hands under his head. “I’m gonna act like you’re my boyfriend, and because of their own assumptions they’ll never suspect a thing.”

Dex licked his lips, his heart sitting a little funny in his chest. “Well,” he said, and then coughed. “Well, what kind of boyfriend are you?”

He could hear the smirk in Nursey’s voice: “I’m an awesome boyfriend.” He paused for a minute, then: “I bought us NHL tickets for our six-month anniversary.”

Dex blinked. “You—what? No you didn’t.”

“I would have if we were dating,” Nursey countered. “You’re not supposed to know because obviously we’re a few weeks out from six months—“

“Obviously,” Dex muttered, aiming for scornful but not quite making it all the way there.

“—but I know you hate surprises, so I told you.” Nursey crossed his feet on Dex’s dashboard.

Dex leaned over and smacked at his ankles until he yelped and withdrew his legs. “So when you say you’re a good boyfriend you mean you throw your money around,” he snapped. “Typical.”

“I mean that I know you,” Nursey insisted, “and yeah, I'm gonna use my money to make you happy, why wouldn't I?”

“Because it's a fucking waste?” Dex said. “I’m not dating—I wouldn't be dating you for the money, so don't—”

“Oh, I see what kind of boyfriend you are,” Nursey said, and when Dex cast a glare his way, he finished: “a pain in the ass.”

Dex drained his coffee, making himself relent, reminding himself of the huge favor Nurse was doing him. “Yeah, well. Why break with tradition, right?”

Nurse laughed softly, and they lapsed into a surprisingly comfortable silence.

As Dex drove, though, anxiety crept under his skin again. He couldn’t stop imagining all the things that could go wrong—Nursey slipping up and referring to him by male pronouns, Nursey not being able to keep up the sham, Dex himself not being able to keep up the sham. What if his siblings found out? What if one of them had checked into the hockey roster online and seen his name—listed just as M. Poindexter—on the roster of the men’s hockey team? He’d talked to Lardo about keeping him out of the publicity photos for the most part and it wasn’t like they really noticed him with Jack around but—

“So what am I gonna be walking into here?” Nursey asked. “I know you’ve got a bunch of siblings, right?”

Dex nodded, a little weirded out at their synchronicity of thought. They got like that sometimes, but usually only after coming off the ice—whatever spirit of teamwork they channeled in games taking a while to fade out of their systems. “Three,” he said.

“Are you the oldest?” Nurse asked.

Dex blinked. Usually people took him for a younger sib. “What makes you think that?”

Nursey didn’t say anything, and when Dex glanced at him he had his eyes closed. Dex hit him in the knee with a knuckle. “What the hell, I asked you a question.”

“I shrugged, didn’t I?” Nurse answered lazily, without opening his eyes.

“I’m not fucking looking at you, am I,” Dex retorted, even though he was—probably too much. “I’m driving the goddamn car.”

“Touchy, touchy,” Nursey said, but Dex—eyes now fixed fastidiously on the road—heard him shift to sit up. “Anyway, I’m listening, I promise.”

“Right,” said Dex sourly, and then sighed. “I’ve got an older brother and two younger sibs, a brother and a sister.” He licked his lips. “Owen’s the oldest. He’s—for a while I thought he was everything I wanted to be.” Tall. Muscular in an easy, nonchalant way that Dex could never be, because muscle on Dex always warranted comment, whether disparaging or complimentary, comment that separated him out from normal. Reckless and territorial in a way Dex felt but couldn’t act on. “Didn’t help that he was always smarter than me, as well as being stronger and taller and whatever else.”

“Dex—”

Dex waved a hand, his cheeks heating like they did whenever anyone caught him being self-deprecating. “Okay, whatever, just a different kind of smart. Owen wouldn’t last a semester at Samwell, not with all the writing requirements. But he’s—y’know, math smart.” The better, practical kind of smart. “I’m doing liberal-arts-level engineering. Owen will probably end up in like, biochemical or something. Physics.”

“Will end up?” Nursey asked. “You said he was older than you?”

“Yeah,” said Dex. “You won’t meet him, either.” He took a breath. “He’s in Afghanistan.”

“Oh,” said Nursey, and then, “oh, like. Oh.”

Dex willed his shoulder muscles to relax. “You get money for college after you serve,” he said evenly. “Last I heard he might be home by next Christmas.”

Nursey was silent for a long moment, and then he said, “I hope he is.”

Dex let his breath out again. “Yeah,” he said. “Thank you.” He cleared his throat. “Next after me is Nora. She’s—” He made a face, remembering how she’d refused to talk to him for three days when he’d gotten back from his first year at Samwell. “We’re too close, I think.”

“Close, like, you get along?” Nursey asked.

Dex snorted. “No, no, just in age, though we used to when we were littler. She’s only a year and a half younger than I am, and we’re—I think in a weird way she’s jealous of me for. I don’t know.” He stared hard at the road, grasping at something he’d felt all his life but had never tried to put into words. “Even though I never plan to tell my parents I’m trans, and it’s so outside of their worldview that I don’t think they’ll ever come to it on their own, they always knew there was something—” He almost said wrong with me and stopped himself with an effort. “Different, about me. Whatever they thought it was, it freaked them out enough that I think I got away with shit that she never could, because she was more. I dunno, like, they were holding her to a higher standard.” He licked his lips. “Maybe—maybe they were trying to make her into the perfect daughter they wanted, once it became obvious I would always fail to live up to that ideal.”

“Doesn’t sound like she’s doing too good a job either,” Nursey said quietly.

Dex shook his head. “She dropped out of high school in tenth grade,” he said. “Got her GED eight months later.”

“She did two years worth of high school in eight months?” Nursey sounded impressed.

Dex felt suddenly and fiercely proud. “She’s smart as hell,” he said sincerely. “Never did get the hang of authority though. No interest in college, and she’s been fired from the same waitress job twice in the last year.”

“Why keep hiring her back?” Nursey asked curiously.

Dex shrugged. “She’s cute, and everywhere’s short-handed. This isn’t Manhattan, there’s not sixteen hundred applicants per job.”

“Dig at Manhattan out of nowhere,” Nursey said mildly. “You got something against my hometown, Poindexter?”

“Your hometown’s got a lot of shit against me, mostly,” Dex snapped back. “And I don’t understand how anyone lives like that, jammed in like sardines.”

He glanced at Nurse—because what was the point of needling him if he couldn’t watch whether or not it worked?—and caught a weird, lazy grin on his face, his eyes somehow sharp. “Yeah,” he said, and Dex shifted suddenly sweaty palms on the steering wheel. “I’d take you to Brooklyn, I think. If I were your boyfriend. You’re much more a Brooklyn boy, with your flannel and your guitar.”

“Bite your fucking tongue,” Dex muttered. “Fuck those Brooklyn kids. You know how easy it used to be to buy a good cheap pair of work boots? And now because all of a sudden they’re hip they all cost upwards of a hundred fucking dollars.”

“It might surprise you to hear this,” Nursey said conversationally, “but I have never actually tried to buy a good pair of work boots.” He grinned wider. “And damn, that appropriation must sting, I have no idea what that feels like.

Dex shot him a glare. “Anyway. My brother Rowan is two years younger than Nora.” He smiled a little despite himself. “He’s a little shit. Annoying as hell. You’ll probably love him.”

“Implications aside,” Nursey said loftily, “thank you. I’m. Not awesome with kids, though.”

Dex rolled his eyes. “He’s fifteen, not a toddler,” he said. “Just treat him like a human being.” He caught site of roadside sign. “Hey,” he said. “You hungry?”

“Sure,” said Nurse, and Dex swung onto a side street in search of a burger and fries.

The spent the rest of the trip in post-food silence. Nursey had a notebook open on his knees and would occasionally jot something down, his eyes fixed somewhere in the middle distance, and Dex felt no need to interrupt him. The sun was fading, clouds rolling in across the blue of the sky, and his stress had faded to a kind of itching, waiting buzz as the miles between him and home shrank and shrank and shrank.

“Oh,” he said, as they pulled into the driveway with the first drops of rain. “One other thing—don’t tell them you play hockey.”

Nursey looked at him, confused. “What?” He asked. “Why?”

Dex rolled his head on his neck. “My parents don’t pay much attention to college sports,” he said. “If they did, I never would’ve risked joining the Samwell team—even without Jack, we’re pretty high profile.”

“Oh,” said Nurse, and then realization dawned. “Oh—”

“Yeah,” said Dex. He pulled around the loop of his driveway, parking next to Owen’s old pickup. “Last thing I want is my mom looking up pics of my charming boyfriend playing hockey and getting a nasty shock.”

Nurse grinned at him over the center console as they both undid their seatbelts. “You saying you think I’m charming?”

Dex returned his grin, teeth and all. “I’m saying you’d fucking better be.”

He got out of the car.

+

Dinner with the Poindexters, Nursey decided, was like trying to walk on a tightrope above a net whose every knot contained a bear trap, only instead of physical pain to yourself the traps would cause emotional pain to someone you cared deeply about and were maybe crushing on enormously hard.

Okay, so maybe it wasn’t his best metaphor in the world. But. Fuck, he was too stressed to think of a better one.

Dex’s father was sitting at the head of the table. Nursey didn’t really know what he’d expected—some kind of stereotypical Blue Collar Working Dad, with an intense farmer’s tan and a beer gut and perpetual stubble?—but it hadn’t been the man currently holding out his hands to his family, his wide palms and blunt-tipped fingers curled upward, prompting someone to say grace. Mr. Poindexter was a large man, but he was built entirely of muscle, his red-bearded jaw jutting out over the thick column of his neck like the prow of a ship. He had a crooked nose, maybe broken once—or more than—and hard blue eyes, currently shifting over the faces of his children.

“Derek,” he said, though his eyes lingered on Dex, “what about you?”

Absurdly, it almost made Nursey feel better to be so directly challenged, but he saw Dex stiffen at his side. “Dad,” he protested, a note of panic in his voice, “Derek’s our guest—”

Nursey reached over and squeezed his knee under the table, and Dex cut himself off in surprise. “I’d be glad to,” Nursey said firmly.

Mr. Poindexter inclined his head, and, like dominos, his family followed suit, each taking hands with the person next to them.

Nursey took a breath, bowing his own head, though he didn’t close his eyes. “Bless us, oh Lord, and these, thy gifts, which we are about to receive through your bounty. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.”

He raised his head to find Dex staring at him. He allowed himself a small smirk in return.

Everyone else raised their heads, and Mr. Poindexter opened his eyes. “A little Catholic for my tastes, but it serves.” He released his wife’s hand, and Dex’s.

Nursey let go of Nora’s, but—daring—kept his fingers linked with Dex’s, hanging between their chairs, under the table but still in view of Dex’s parents.

Mrs. Poindexter smiled at him. She was slight and wrinkled, her wisps of thinning brunette hair going grey at the temples. “I doubt God minds which version of Him we thank, hm?”

Her tone was nothing but kind, but Nurse still couldn’t quite let out his breath until her bright eyes—so like Dex’s—had moved on to the rest of her family. “So,” she said with a sigh, “dig in, everyone.”

Nora immediately served herself an enormous helping of mashed potatoes. Dex was right—she was cute, brunette to Dex’s redhead but still with all his freckles. There was something about her that made her seem younger than seventeen, though, some jarring edge that made every move one of defiance.

“So, how did you two meet?” asked Rowan in a falsetto voice, propping his chin up on one hand while serving himself turkey with the other, piling slices of white meat haphazardly on his plate. He was small, with a sharper face than Dex and longish hair in a red-brown muddle like riverside clay.

“Rowan,” Mrs. Poindexter said warningly, but then flashed Dex a Look. “I am curious, though, I admit.”

“We met our first week, actually,” Dex supplied. “We were in orientation together.”

Nursey nodded. “We kept seeing each other around—you know, there are all those, like, dumb orientation exercises you do, and we were always paired up by last name, so.”

Dex nodded, glancing sideways at him. “We were friends for a long time before he asked me out,” he said, and for some reason that more than anything so far got under Nursey’s skin—Dex’s voice was soft, like he was remembering something fondly, and it itched at him. What was he imagining? How should Nurse do—have done it? He bit his lip and cut that thought short. Eyes up. You’re in the spotlight, he reminded himself. Don't think about being his boyfriend. Think about pretending to be.

It was an enormously grounding, cut down the butterflies in his stomach by half. Derek Nurse was good at Pretending.

“Well,” he said. “Had to get up my courage. Dex is so—” he stopped. “It was important I not screw it up.”

“I bet,” Rowan muttered. “She’d tear your head off if you did.”

Nursey glanced sideways at Dex’s face. He was scowling at Rowan, who made a face back.

“Sounds like you two got along immediately,” Mrs. Poindexter said pleasantly, and Nursey made a supreme effort not to snort at that.

Dex didn’t bother. He shook his head when they all looked at him in surprise. “We fought all the time,” he said easily. “Still do, if you set us off. But I think—” he glanced sideways at Nursey, a deliberate motion, meant for his parents to see, but they wouldn’t, couldn’t have known the way his grip on Nursey’s hand tightened very slightly, “I think that’s what makes it so good.”

Dex’s father smirked. “You like a girl with fire, Derek?”

Nursey returned the squeeze that Dex had passed him, like kids playing games at summer camp, only there was no rest of the circle, just the two of them sending little echoed reassurances back and forth like sonar—I’m here, I’m here. “Dex has a lot of—opinions, is all,” he said, exaggeratedly diplomatic, “and—”

“Why do you keep calling her ‘Dex’?” Nora interrupted, stealing turkey from Rowan’s plate.

Dex froze for a split second of shock, and then said smoothly, “it’s a team nickname.” He let go of Nursey’s hand and started eating, as if suddenly remembering that that was, in fact, what they were there for.

Nursey himself had forgotten to even take food, and was serving himself green beans when Dex’s father asked, “Team? What team?”

“Wildcats,” Nora murmured, and if Nursey hadn’t been so terrified he might have laughed at her. Instead he thought fast, remembering Dex’s no-hockey rule, which obviously—by the tension in his shoulders—he’d forgotten himself. “A bunch of my friends are on the lacrosse team at Samwell,” he said finally. “We hang with them a lot, and they’ve all got sports nicknames, so. I’m Nurse—” he jerked a thumb at Dex. “She’s Dex.”

The pronoun came out a little clumsy, but no one seemed to notice. Instead, Dex’s father folded his hands over his plate. “You must be pretty close to these boys,” he said mildly, though there was something ugly in his undertone, “for them to be giving you cutesy nicknames and all.”

Nurse had a flash of cold panic—had Mr. Poindexter somehow read him as not straight?—before he realized that the man’s gaze was pinpointed on his son, not Nurse, and the fear in his spine turned to anger.

“Dad,” Dex said steadily, though his knee was bouncing under the table. “They’re my friends.”

“You know,” Mr. Poindexter said, sitting back in his chair. “When I saw your hair, I thought maybe I should be concerned with the female company you might be keeping up there in Massachusetts. Turns out maybe it’s the opposite I should be worrying about.”

Nursey’s jaw was clenched so hard his teeth ached, and before he could stop himself he’d gritted out, “what exactly are you implying?”

Mr. Poindexter’s eyes opened innocently wide. “Nothing,” he said. “All I’m saying is, in my day the only girls who got cute nicknames around the locker room were the ones that had, shall we say, been around the locker room.”

Nursey was on his feet, angrier than he could remember being in a long time. Mr. Poindexter looked at him for the first time, raising red brows above his smiling eyes. “You have something to say, son?” He ran a hand through his beard. “You have a problem with the way I’m speaking to my daughter?”

Nursey had about a million things to say, starting with he’s not your daughter, he’s your fucking son, and continuing with and if he were your daughter the way you’re talking to him would be just as horrible and misogynistic and no fucking wonder Dex has internalized this shit so intensely—but. But he really super couldn’t say that, and Dex was looking at him, flushed and angry and perfectly capable of snapping back to his father if he thought it would do any good, and he wasn’t, which means it wouldn’t, which means Nurse shouldn’t, but, god, he couldn’t just. He couldn’t just sit back down and eat like nothing had happened—

“Nurse,” Dex said quietly, just to him, and Nursey took a breath, stepped back from the table.

“Excuse me,” he said as steadily as he could manage, and left the room.

He ended up in an old-fashioned living room/parlor—there was a couch, and a deep armchair, and a fireplace, a TV on a stand that could be wheeled to various parts of the room. Other than the TV, which was relatively slim and new, it looked like a room that hadn’t changed since maybe the 60s. He stared hard at the clock on the mantel, willing his fists to unclench.

Dex cleared his throat, stepping into the room carefully, like he wasn't sure Nurse wanted him there. Nursey turned, trying meet his eyes like a normal person and not someone about to explode. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Dex said, and then: “I’m. Sorry about that--”

“You’re—” Nursey started in disbelief, then stopped himself. “Dex, jesus, you have nothing to be sorry for.”

“My dad,” said Dex, “he was needling you, testing you—making you say grace even though you’re—”

Nurse shook his head sharply. “Stop,” he said, stepping closer to Dex. “God, I'm not mad about the shit he's doing to me, dude. The grace thing, whatever, I didn't think it was a great foot to start things off on, hey guys this is my heterosexual boyfriend, he’s Navajo & thinks God is a great spirit, and anyway I’m not and I don't, I don't think God is anything but people and the universe and love if She’s anything at all, I'm.” He forced himself to calm down. “It’s. Fine.”

“I was surprised you knew the words,” Dex admitted, still watching him warily.

Nursey cracked his neck, going back to staring at the clock. It was stopped, clearly for show in a house full of people with cell phones, but the second hand twitched against whatever mechanism had broken inside, an endless rhythmic struggle. “Yeah, well,” he said. “My dad’s Catholic.”

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Dex open his mouth and then close it again. “Oh,” he said. “I always thought he was—”

“Dead?” Nursey filled in wryly. “Nah. He's very much alive, lives out on Long Island with his family. My white dad with his nice white wife and kids. Haven’t seen him in.” He stopped, then grinned. “Oh, hey, ten years exactly. Which is also the last time I said grace.” He shrugged. “Guess that shit sticks with you.”

Dex stared at him, leaning against the arm of his couch. “What happened?”

Nursey cracked his neck. “Nothing dramatic,” he said. “My mom graduated law school and started her firm, we stopped depending on him for money, so we stopped making the requisite performing-monkey Thanksgiving visits, too.” He made a mock-praying gesture. “Thank god, amiright?”

Dex’s eyebrows twitched. “Nurse—”

“Jesus,” muttered Nursey, crossing to him. What the fuck was wrong with him, pulling his own weird dad-problems into this already tense space? “None of this—it doesn’t fucking matter. Okay? It’s so incredibly not the point right now.” He wanted to reach out, take Dex’s hands, reestablish that nonverbal communication, but alone in the dim living room it would be—weird, too much. Probably. Right? “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” Dex said, crossing his arms over his chest, something hard and defiant in his eyes. “Are you?”

Nurse took a breath. “Yeah,” he said, and leaned against Dex’s couch at his side, hip brushing hip. “Yeah.”

+

Dex shut his bedroom door and leaned against it, staring at the floor. The rest of dinner had been quietly tense—Dex returning first, then Nurse finally sitting stonily at his side—and the conversation with his father afterward had been so one-sided that Dex felt like maybe he’d gone mute. The click of the lock on his door felt like the pop of a balloon, releasing him from its breath-held, performance-space silence.

“Hey,” said Nursey, and Dex raised his head to look at him. He was hovering awkwardly by Dex’s bed, and when Dex met his eyes he smiled, tentative. “There you are. I feel like I haven’t seen really seen you all day.”

There was something in his voice—apology, and relief, and something else that made Dex itch. He sagged, exhausted. He wanted to—to beckon Nursey closer, to have him as close as he’d been in front of his parents, have him as a bulwark against the world outside his bedroom door, but of course the relief of being able to be himself, the relief of reality settling in around him, brought with it a distance between them. Because that was real, too.

He ran a hand over his face. “My father approves of you.”

Nursey stared at him. “But—what? I fucked it all up, I ruined dinner. I wanted to punch him in the mouth—”

“Yeah,” said Dex, feeling sick and weary, “he was testing you. If you hadn’t wanted to defend his little girl from slander with your fists you’re probably some kind of pansy.”

Nursey sank down on the edge of Dex’s bed. “Jesus,” he said, his voice quiet but heavy with scorn. “I should’ve known—you’re my property, right, so of course I should defend you.”

Dex crossed his arms over his chest, but he was too weary to really fight. “It’s not like that,” he said firmly, because it. Wasn’t, mostly. “It’s—to him it shows you care about me.”

Nursey didn’t look at him. “Yeah,” he said. “Well.”

Dex pushed his weight back onto his feet, the silence suddenly crushing. “I’m sorry about. You know, the bed situation,” he said, because he was, and to say something, to get Nursey to look at him. “They assume—”

“Dex,” Nursey interrupted, “I know, it’s fine, you don’t. Have to apologize.”

Dex stepped toward him, cracking his knuckles out of nervous habit. “I do, though,” he said. “Maybe not for the bed thing but for. You didn’t exactly know what you were getting into, and I didn’t exactly warn you.” He settled cross-legged at Nursey’s side. “So. Sorry.”

Nursey finally looked at him, the corner of his mouth curling up. “Actually,” he said, “they’re exactly what I expected. Although I thought there’d be more guns.”

Dex made a face at him. “Wait til tomorrow,” he said. “Now that my dad likes you he will definitely take you out to the range.”

Nursey’s face turned horrified. “You’re kidding.”

Dex held his eyes, keeping his face entirely serious. “Hope you’re ready to bag your first bird, Derek.”

Nursey shook his head. “Nope,” he said. “No, no way, I refuse—Dex, I’m a pacifist and also very terrified of guns, as I believe basically everyone in their right mind should be, not to mention the fact that we are pretend dating, I am not going anywhere near your father when he’s armed—”

Dex cracked up, dropping his face into his palm. “Chill,” he said, when he stopped laughing at the sheer panic in Nursey’s eyes. “My dad just met you, he’s not gonna trust you with a firearm. If we do this again next year, that’s a different story, but you’ve got some time to confront your cowardice before then.”

“It’s not cowardice, asshole, it’s common sense,” Nursey muttered, but there was something distracted about it. He rolled his shoulders. “And I’m sure by next year you’ll have a real boyfriend you can bring home and I‘ll be out of a job.”

Dex flushed, staring down at his hands. “Yeah,” he said, “I—maybe.”

He expected Nurse to just move on, crack some other joke about how surprised he was that Dex’s siblings had all their teeth or something, but instead he turned so he was mirroring Dex, knees almost brushing knees. “Yo,” he said. “You okay?”

Dex grimaced, not liking the tightness in his chest. This—he’d been doing so well, not letting his guard down. A different kind of armor than the one he wore outside this room, closer to his skin, easier to bear, but armor nonetheless, only—he’d only ever needed it to deal with the kind of glancing, roundabout attacks that defined his relationship with Nurse. It wasn’t built to withstand direct blows. “I’m,” he said, and then stopped. “It’s funny,” he started again, though it wasn’t. “You’re the only person who’s not a family member to ever be in this bed.”

Nursey—because against all odds Nursey sometimes just fucking got it—said nothing.

“I used to think about it a lot. I guess everyone does, right, think about love and dates and stuff, think about what it would be like to have someone I cared about like that. But it was always one-sided, it was always me having the emotion and me acting on it, because every time I thought about the way they’d feel about me there was like this. Like.” He stopped, searching for words past the lump in his throat. “Mistranslation, or something, this displacement, because I’d think about them loving me and then the person they loved wasn’t me anymore, I was outside of it looking in and it looked nice, it looked good and happy and picture-perfect, a thing I should want but didn’t.”

Nursey shifted, his hands hanging loose from his knees, and Dex remembered fingers threading through his, a nod to the audience, a show for the cheap seats, and shut his eyes. “It’s not that I don’t want a boyfriend,” he said carefully to the red-bright darkness of his own eyelids. “I just have a hard time picturing anyone wanting me right.”

He heard Nursey shift again. “Dex—”

“I don’t need your pity,” Dex snapped, opening his eyes. “That’s not what I’m fucking asking, okay?”

Nursey cracked his neck, his face placid. “Good,” he said, “because I don’t have any for you, and you’ve got enough for yourself. Sympathy, sure, I could spare some of that if I thought you needed it. But mostly I think you’re being an idiot.”

Dex stared at him. “What?”

“You’re not the only trans kid in the world,” Nursey said bluntly. “Hell, you’re not even the only trans kid I know. I just saw Grace last week and she’s very happy with her girlfriend. I’m not saying I know anything about the shit you’re going through, because I don’t. But there are people who do, and there are a surprising number of people out there who will look at you and think ‘hot freckled athletic boy’ and nothing else will matter.” He smirked. “I say surprising because I expect the rest to be put off by the ‘superior asshole’ vibe that oozes from your every pore.”

“Shut up,” Dex said, a little thrown by hot, especially in conjunction with freckled. “Like anyone is into freckles anyway, I look like someone ran over my face in cleats.” He stood up, suddenly filled with nervous energy. “My whole body, actually.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Nurse asked, his voice incredulous.

Dex wandered over to his dresser. “What? No, I’m fucking covered in the things.”

“I meant kidding about them being attractive, moron,” Nursey said, and Dex could almost hear his eyes rolling, though he didn’t know why the fuck they would be.

“Of course I’m not kidding,” he said. “I’ve been bullied for them my whole fuckin’ life.” He turned, fixing Nursey with a disbelieving glare. “You bullied me for them the first time we met, don’t tell me you don’t remember. We were in that bullshit orientation together and you called me freckles.”

Nursey stared at him, his eyebrows furrowed in genuine confusion. “Dex,” he said slowly, “I was flirting with you.”

Dex blinked at him. “What? No you weren’t.”

Nursey’s confusion was giving way to a kind of incredulous amusement. “Dude,” he said, “I think I’d know.”

“I think I’d know,” Dex countered, because. He fucking would, wouldn’t he?

Nursey muttered something unintelligible, flopping onto his back on Dex’s bed and covering his face with his hands.

Dex glared at him. “What?”

“I said, this isn’t fucking happening,” Nurse said, clearer, and then sat up. “And it’s not. Over, done, drawing a line in the sand.” He raised his eyebrows at Dex. “You got any pajamas I can borrow?”

Dex tried to get his feet back under him, frustration an anchor, a refuge.“You didn’t bring pajamas?”

“Don’t own any,” Nurse said with a smirk.

Dex opened a drawer, not thinking about that. “And it didn’t occur to you that anything i might have here would be for girls?”

Nursey shrugged. “So give me a nightgown, I’d rock it.”

“No one rocks nightgowns, Nurse, not even you.” He closed the drawer. “Just wear your boxers, I don't care.”

“Yes, sir,” muttered Nursey, and started pulling off his shirt.

Dex looked away, making a beeline for the bathroom. He brushed his teeth and washed stress-sweat and makeup off his face, then pulled off his own shirt, staring at himself. He owned a binder—Bitty and Chowder and some mysterious benefactor whose name he’d never managed to get out of Bitty had pooled their resources to get him one as a “welcome to the team” present—but it wasn't like he could wear it home. He ran his eyes over his reflection, his fingers over the band of his sports bra, touched the freckles on his collarbone, the scattering of them under his ribs on the left side like a little constellation.

Nursey had been flirting with him.

Nursey—bisexual asshole Derek Nurse—thought he was hot. Liked his freckles.

And—yeah, maybe he thought Dex was hot the way Dan had, the way boys always had. A buff, tomboy type. Cute, in a rough and tumble way. “One of the boys” the way only a girl could be.

But—

I’m not going to think of you as my girlfriend. For one thing, I’d have no fucking clue how.

Dex buried his face in his hands, pulling at his cheeks. Stared himself in the eyes, his hand over his mouth. Shook out his shoulders, took some long, steadying breaths. Then, very quickly, he pulled off his sports bra, stepped out of his jeans, slipped on a tank top, and left the bathroom.

Nursey was sitting in his bed, wearing only his boxers and apparently entirely at ease. His eyes were tired when Dex met them, seemed to drift over him with lazy interest. Dex felt his cheeks and neck heat, couldn’t help the tiny daydream blossoming in the back of his mind, the thing his parents thought would be happening—Nursey, sitting as he was, shirtless and watching Dex, raising a hand to beckon him; Dex crossing to him, leaning in to trail a hand down his bare chest and—

He made himself move, casually flick his gaze off the fucking miles of muscled skin that he really didn’t need to think about right now. He put his sports bra back in his suitcase, then crossed to the bed and sat down on the edge Nursey wasn’t monopolizing, his back to his friend.

“Do you snore?” Nursey asked. “Because I think that would definitely put a damper on our relationship.”

“No,” said Dex shortly, and then, because for once Nursey hadn’t even done anything to deserve that shortness, “but my dad does, you’ll probably be able to hear him through the floor.”

“Oh,” said Nursey. “Good.” He shifted over slightly, perhaps picking up on the aura of sheer panic and confusion that Dex was sure he was exuding and trying to give him more space.

Dex swung his legs up and lay down, staring at his ceiling, trying to find a kind of peace of mind in the familiar cracks and stains of his ceiling. He started at the wall and made his way across the ceiling, trying to shift his focus slowly enough that his eyes never jumped from one thing to the next. A sort of—meditation, a thing he trained himself to do in high school those times when he was so overwhelmed with helplessness and rage that it was this or—shit he couldn’t reverse.

This was a different kind of overwhelmed, sad and terrified and relieved and disbelieving and a whole bunch of other shit that Dex couldn’t or didn’t want to identify—but there was just as much danger of irreversible action.

“Dex,” said Nursey quietly, and Dex’s gaze jumped wildly from its slow, calming path across the ceiling.

He swallowed. “Yeah?”

“Have you thought about names, at all? Like obviously we can keep calling you Dex but eventually you’ll probably want a first name.”

Dex shifted, their shoulders brushing, made himself not pull away. “Yeah,” he said, “a little.” He licked his lips. “I’ve got this uncle. My mom’s brother. I really liked him, but. We—don’t really talk to him anymore.” He thought about the last time they had—he could remember saying goodbye, his uncle’s truck in the driveway. A large, gentle hand in his hair. A strong jaw, a sweet smile.

“Why not?” Nursey asked.

Dex took a breath. “When I asked,” he said, “my dad told me my mom didn’t have a brother, especially not ‘that faggot’.” He felt Nursey tense, moved on quickly to prevent the thickening of his voice. “So I thought I’d name myself after him. Keep it in the family.” Not that he’d ever actually tell them—one ostracized fag was enough—but he knew Nurse would fight him on that, and he was too fucking tired.

Nursey’s voice was blank, almost distant when he asked, “What’s his name?”

“William,” said Dex.

“William,” echoed Nursey, and Dex had to shift his eyes rapidly to stop them stinging. “I like it.”

“Thanks,” snapped Dex, unfairly, rolling his tongue around his mouth. “I was really looking for your approval.”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Nursey, and he turned over on his side, the curve of his spine pressing warm against Dex’s arm. “Goodnight, William Poindexter.”

Dex leaned over and turned off the light, and then sank back, pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes and trying to cry as silently as he could.

Chapter Text

Nursey woke up once in the night, impossibly comfortable, wrapped around someone warm and breathing slow. He opened his eyes, disoriented—was he drunk, did he hook up with someone and completely forget—and was met with grey-blue Maine dawn and Dex curled hard against him, his nose to Nursey’s chest and one arm flung over his hip.

Nursey wondered, in a kind of hysterical, fairy-tale sort of way, if Dex could feel it when his heart stopped.

He pulled back a little to look down at him, slow and gentle because waking him up right now would be—his metaphor brain escaped him, still slumbering. Bad.

His face was relaxed—his mouth a little slack in sleep, his eyelashes long against his cheeks. Gone was the pretense he’d had to keep up in front of his parents—gone was the uncertainty of movement as he tried to claim his new space with gestures he’d learned in an old one. This was just—Dex, at his purest, at his most vulnerable. Nursey wanted to trace the curve of his cheek, the cut of his jaw. Wanted—

He closed his eyes, took a breath, and turned carefully over, leaving Dex to sleep on.

He woke up again to a much brighter morning and an empty bed. He sat up, running a hand through his hair. Dex’s room in daylight remained as simultaneously ill- and perfectly-suited to him as it had seemed the night before; the unfamiliar (and by the looks of them unworn) dresses hanging in the open closet and the set of pastel journals and stationery—clearly received as a gift—stacked on one shelf of his desk looked like they should belong to someone else entirely, but it was impossible to miss Dex in the halfway-disassembled clock radio that took up the other shelf, and Nursey was trying to ignore the acoustic guitar tucked behind the row of clothes. It was like looking at the border between two countries with vastly different cultures, at war for too long: outposts of who Dex was stuck out in the middle of fields strewn with what the world thought he should be.

Nursey wanted to get up and touch, wanted to clear away the debris of battle. Maybe they’d not yet sown the ground with salt; maybe he could help something grow.

Dex wandered back from the bathroom, his hair mussed—Nursey could see a part Lardo had left a little too long behind his ear—and a toothbrush in his mouth. “Morning,” he said around it, and then, removing the toothbrush, “what’s up, you’re making a face.”

Nursey shook himself a little. Fuck, what kind of face? “Weird dreams,” he said, though he couldn’t remember any at all. He’d slept ridiculously well, actually. “What’s on the plate for today?”

“Usually everyone’s in way too much of a turkey hangover to want to do anything,” Dex said, and Nursey seized gladly on that—tryptophan, and all—as the reason he felt so lethargic and good, and banished firmly the memory of Dex curled in his arms.

“There’s a James Bond marathon on TV we usually tune into sometime, and my dad makes awesome leftover turkey sandwiches. Otherwise our time is kind of our own.”

Nursey had just enough time to remember his mocking i think i could stand to spend a few days in the backwoods of Maine with you, barely in Dex’s dorm room at Samwell and deeply regret not ever thinking about what that would involve, and then Dex said, his voice a little hesitant, “I was thinking we could go out driving? Later, once I've had enough of.” He gave a little self-deprecating wave with his toothbrush, like his unwillingness to face being unrelentingly misgendered and misunderstood was a character flaw. “I could show you around—there’s not much to the town itself, but the woods are pretty beautiful.”

He squinted at Nursey, a tousled, ridiculous thing in a tank top and boxers, pale in the sunshine and still half asleep, and Nursey unstuck his tongue from his dry mouth and said, “Yeah, I’d really like that.”

Dex tucked his toothbrush back in his mouth, nodded, and wandered away.

Nursey got up slowly, getting dressed with care and making sure his own hair was in place before making his way downstairs. He didn’t see Dex, but Mrs. Poindexter was in the kitchen. She had three large platters in front of her—white meat, dark meat, and the remnants of the turkey carcass, at which she was carefully carving away. The tense atmosphere of the night before seemed totally dissolved by the clear light of day but there was still something terribly unnerving about the little warm smile she gave Nursey, fingers wrapped around the carving knife.

“Morning,” he said, returning the smile with as little nervousness as possible.

“Good morning, Derek,” she said, “there’s coffee in the thing on the counter.”

Nursey pressed his hands together and bobbed a little bow. “You are an angel.”

He poured himself a cup of coffee, and was just turning back, his brain desperately seeking something to say to Dex’s mom that wasn’t hostile, awkward, or way too personal when Dex came in, his cheeks flushed with cold, pulling off his gloves. He tossed them on the counter, leaned in to kiss his mom on the cheek, and then with no apparent hesitation crossed to Nursey and did the same to him, his lips sending a little spark of cold down Nursey’s spine. He pushed his lips up in a smile, muttered a quick, “Hey, babe,” and was rewarded with the tiny shocked widening of Dex’s eyes as he pulled away.

He bit his lip, watching Dex cross again to steal a bit of turkey from one of the plates, popping it into his mouth and wandering through the doorway. “Rowan!” He called as he vanished down the hallway. “Come help me split wood!”

“You’re staring,” Mrs. Poindexter said conversationally.

Nurse turned startled eyes to her. His first thought was to deny it, but he remembered as his mouth opened that he was supposed to be staring, that this was all part of the game. He let himself laugh, a little, as if caught in the act, which he. Had been. Christ. “Yeah,” he said, hoping to God Dex was far away enough not to hear the truth in his voice. “Can’t help myself.”

Mrs. Poindexter’s eyes warmed. Without looking away from him, she called, “You know, sweetheart, you have a big strapping boyfriend who I’m sure would be glad to help too.”

Nursey shifted in his feet. “Oh, I—”

Mrs. Poindexter leaned close. “Normally I wouldn’t dream of asking a guest to help,” she said conspiratorially, “but why not give your girl a show, huh?” She slapped his arm with the back of her hand. “Those biceps.”

Nursey met her amused gaze like it was oncoming headlights. He’d never been happier to see Dex poke his scowling head around the corner in his life. “Mom,” Dex hissed, “Derek’s our guest—”

“He told me just now that he’d love to get some exercise in,” Mrs. Poindexter said firmly. “Besides, just because Owen isn’t here doesn’t mean you should have to do the manual labor when we have two strong boys around.” She narrowed her eyes, raising her voice. “Rowan, did you not hear your sister?”

Nursey caught the familiar tightening of Dex’s jaw and quickly crossed to him. “I’m sure he’ll meet us outside,” he said, and reached out, taking Dex’s hand as smoothly as possible. “C’mon, babe, show me how to help.”

He meant with splitting wood and he meant with—everything, and he was pretty sure Dex caught it because his fingers tightened briefly on Nurse’s and he let himself be led outside.

As soon as they were in the yard Nursey turned, staying close to Dex so they could talk quietly. He raised a hand to touch Dex’s chin, making him look up at him. “Hey,” he said, and then realized he had no idea what to say, how to. Make this okay, convince Dex he was there and could be support for him, could be a shield or a comfort or whatever the fuck Dex needed. He took a breath, desperately searching for words, and Dex’s eyebrows were starting to draw together in confusion over his gold-brown eyes, the longer he remained silent the weirder this was, why couldn’t he think, Dex was going to pull away still thinking he had to take this shit alone—

“Jesus, you two,” said Rowan from the doorway, “get a room.”

Fuck it, thought Nursey, and kissed Dex on the mouth.

He felt the moment Dex decided not to punch him in the face. He would have laughed about that—would have made some comparison to how easy he was to read on the ice, to how he always knew which way Dex was going to dodge in order to intercept—but he couldn’t manage to make any kind of comparison to anything at all, because Dex decided not to punch him in the face in favor of kissing him back, hard. His lips were soft and a little chapped and he kissed Nursey like it had been his idea all along, cocky, self-assured.

Nursey had to concentrate very very hard on not letting his knees buckle.

Dex finally pulled back, not looking at Nursey’s face at all, instead turning directly to Rowan and sticking out his tongue, raising his middle finger in a smooth, totally unflustered “fuck you”.

Rowan made a disgusted face at him, and stalked past them and around the side of the house.

When Dex turned back to Nursey, his entire face—and ears, and all of the throat that Nursey could see—was flushed a bright, sun-burn pink. It gave Nursey the leg up he needed to get his own stupid fucking feet under him, to ignore the insane racing of his heart and flick Dex on the nose. “Nice delayed blush,” he said. “Can you control that at will?”

“Shut the fuck up,” said Dex warningly. “I should remind you that in about thirty seconds I’m gonna be swinging an axe.”

“If you handle an axe the way you handle a stick, I am worried,” Nursey shot back, rounding the corner with him.

Rowan was picking through a pile of machine-cut logs, choosing them seemingly at random. There was a wide, flat stump in front of him, and an axe leaning against the wall behind him. The ground was muddy from early-morning dew and yesterday’s rain, and it was cold enough Nurse could see the breath in front of his face.

He grinned, nudging Dex with a shoulder. “You promised me the Maine experience,” he said, “and boy did you deliver.”

“Shut up,” said Dex again, though the corner of his mouth was curling up. “Rowan, show my stupid boyfriend how this is done, would you?”

Rowan picked up a log and stood it up on the stump, balanced on one end. “Isn’t that your job, sis?”

Dex curled an eyebrow at him. “Skipping out on work?”

Rowan crossed his arms and scowled. “Who’s the one getting her boyfriend to do the dirty work? Surely one log won’t pain your gentle lady arms.”

Both of Dex’s eyebrows flew up, and Nursey sucked in a breath through his teeth. “Careful, kid,” he said. “In thirty seconds she’s going to be swinging an axe.”

He hated the way Dex’s shoulders tightened whenever he couldn't avoid the pronoun, but was immediately distracted because Dex turned the motion into shrugging off his jacket, setting it aside and pushing his hair out of his face. His arms were bare, his biceps peppered with little freckles that shifted over his muscles when he lifted the axe, and Nursey wanted to call inside to Dex’s mom who’s giving who a show here? but it was a bad idea and his mouth was dry, dry.

“Nurse,” said Dex, and Nursey forced his eyes back to his face. “You watching?”

“Intently,” Nursey assured him, and Dex gave him a little nod, turned his eyes back to log, and swung. There was a thunk, and a crack, and the log split in two perfect halves, dropping off the stump onto the ground.

Rowan gave a few sarcastic golf claps, then turned expectantly to Nurse. He looked at Dex. Dex held out the axe. “Go on then,” he said, “show me what you got.”

Nursey--tried, he really did. Rolled up his sleeves to his elbows, made sure he was standing at his most flattering angle, tried to make himself at ease in this early morning cold the way the boys at his side were, tried to fit into this green and brown world the way Dex did, like some modern-day equivalent to the proverbial woodcutter, like a model out of a rugged men’s catalog. He raised the axe, swung—and missed.

He didn't completely miss. He sheared the bark off one side of the log he was aiming to split, sending it spinning off into the woods. The log itself toppled off the stump & into a puddle with the force of his axe blow, spraying mud all over Nursey’s jeans.

Nursey stared at the empty stump. Dex, after a moment of silence, burst into disbelieving laughter.

Nursey turned to look at him, and his gaze passing Rowan’s face set him laughing too, leaning into Dex’s space and grinning into his fist.

“Hey Nurse,” Dex managed between his chuckles. “How are you enjoying that authentic Maine life?”

Rowan pushed his hair out of his grinning face in a move so similar to Dex it made something in Nurse’s chest twang like plucked piano wire. “If I went and got my phone,” Rowan asked, “do you think you could do that again? I wanna add it to my snapchat story.”

Nursey made a sour face at them both, but it wasn't the mockery he resented. Instead he felt—weirdly displaced, almost left out. He wondered if Rowan had any conception of the easy laughter they shared as brotherhood, or if Dex did—better equipped to recognize it as such if he saw it, but maybe less good at seeing.

Dex raised an eyebrow at him. “You wanna try that again?”

Nursey met his eyes, holding the axe out to him. “Show me again? Clearly I wasn’t watching closely enough.”

“Clearly,” murmured Rowan, but Dex didn't break Nursey’s gaze, reaching out and wrapping a hand around the handle of the axe. Nurse let go, letting Dex take the weight, and then Dex stepped past him and Nurse went to join Rowan again.

He actually watched Dex’s stance this time, managed—except for one brief moment when Dex raised the axe and his shirt rode up over the curve of his hip—to pay attention to his form rather than his, well. Form.

He got better. He’d always been a fast learner, and after a while it was easier to put aside the memory of Dex’s mouth on his, easier to let himself enjoy the competition, enjoy making Dex take him seriously. Soon they had a neat pile of split logs on either side of the stump, Nursey had shed his own jacket and undone probably too many of his buttons, and his jeans were covered in mud from the knees down.

Dex leaned the axe back against the wall of the house. “Good enough,” he said, and stretched, cracking his back. “Rowan, congrats, you get to take it all inside.”

Rowan scowled at him. “What? No way.”

Dex raised his eyebrows. “I'm sorry, did I miss the part where you contributed to this effort at all?”

Rowan glared, but finally gave in. “Fine,” he snapped. “But only to stop your boyfriend from ruining more of his expensive clothing.”

Nursey felt vaguely insulted. He was about to protest that his clothes were thrifted, thanks—even if it had been in a crazy-overpriced thrift store in Williamsburg—but Dex grabbed him by the wrist and tugged him away inside.

“So,” said Nurse when Dex had closed the door behind them. “Um. I kissed you.”

“You did,” said Dex, crossing to his dresser.

“You—didn't punch me in the face,” Nursey continued cautiously.

Dex paused, then flashed him a quick smile. “Thought about it.”

“I know,” said Nursey, and it came out all weird and soft. He swallowed. “Dex—”

“Nurse,” Dex said, still rummaging through drawers, “stop. You don't have to apologize, or whatever you were going to do. You saw an opportunity to really sell us to my little brother and you took it, I get it.” The corner of his mouth turned upward again. “If you'd crossed a line, I would have punched you.”

Nursey chuckled, but kept watching the line of his back, bothered by something brittle in Dex’s voice. Finally he said, “It wasn't just for show.”

Dex froze, then turned to look at him. “What?”

“I was trying to convey—support, I guess, something to counteract all the misgendering bullshit.” Nursey shrugged a little. “Maybe it wasn't the way I'd’ve conveyed that back at Samwell, but. When life gives you lemons.”

“When life gives you lemons, platonically make out with your friends in order to reaffirm their gender identity?” Dex said, voice heavy with sarcasm. He turned away again, wrenching open one of his drawers. “Where the fuck is my flannel?”

Nursey raised an eyebrow. “Probably in your suitcase, with everything else you brought back from Samwell?”

“Oh,” said Dex. “Right, I forgot I don’t just live here.” He cracked his neck and walked over to his suitcase. “It’s fucking weird being back.”

Nursey tucked his hands in his back pockets. “How are you holding up?”

Dex crouched to unzip his suitcase. “You don’t have to keep checking up on me, dude,” he said, sounding annoyed. “You’re not my therapist.”

Nursey blinked at him, startled. “Fair enough.” He licked his lips, looking around for something to talk about that wasn’t—kissing, or emotional intimacy, or the way Dex’s arms looked when he’d been using his muscles for a while. He caught sight of a necklace hanging off the knob of a dresser drawer, a long chain with a strange, bulky glass pendant. He reached out and touched it. “What’s this?”

“Oh,” said Dex. “My best friend from high school gave me that, it’s a one-hitter.”

Nursey raised his eyebrows and examined the pendant further. It was vaguely floral in design, a bit like spreading petals, and there was a channel down the center and a small carb to one side. “Huh,” he said. “That’s pretty cool. Doesn't look like you've really used it much.” That or he kept it impressively clean.

“Don't smoke much,” Dex said shortly. “You want it?”

Nursey turned to him, startled. “Really?”

Dex straightened up, pulling his flannel on over his shoulders. “Yeah,” he said. “It was a parting gift from someone who turned out to kind of be a homophobic asshole, so.” He shrugged. “Feels appropriate to give it to my bisexual fake boyfriend. Besides, you'll get more use out of it.”

Nursey lifted it from the dresser, examining it a closer before slipping the chain over his head. The pendant tapped against his ribs, a hammer breaking eggshells, releasing a fluttering nervousness into his stomach. “Thanks,” he said.

Dex left the flannel unbuttoned over his white beater, turning to Nursey with eyebrows up over his gold-brown eyes. “Well?” he asked, looking Nurse up and down. “Are you going to take those off or not?”

+

Mr. Poindexter was sitting on one half of the couch, and Nora was sprawled over the rest, raising a challenging brow when Nursey looked at her, so he chose the wide armchair instead, perching awkwardly on the edge of the cushion.

Dex followed him into the room to be met with the same look from Nora. He shrugged and shoved at Nursey’s shoulder. “Budge over.”

Nursey did so, and Dex folded himself into the chair at his side, his legs swung over Nursey’s lap. He was facing the TV, but his face was close enough that if Nursey leaned forward a mere inch or so his lips would brush Dex’s skin.

He didn't; he took a breath as quietly as possible and tried desperately to focus on Sean Connery.

The only Bond films he’d ever seen were a couple of the recent ones, Casino Royale and Skyfall. He’d thought they were decent enough action thrillers if you could see past the white-ass misogyny of it all, and at least Daniel Craig was a silver fox in a way any hot-blooded man-loving-man could appreciate. He preferred objectifying him to objectifying the women involved, certainly—and there had been the new Q, also, who was adorable, and they’d flirted, and Nurse had been sufficiently entertained.

He could probably have managed to not pay attention to every shift of Dex’s movement if it had been the new Bond cast on screen. As it was, though, it was either pay explicit attention to the arrangement of freckles that lay across Dex’s cheek and throat, be alternatingly bored and offended by the movie on the TV, or be straight-up just offended by the remarks that Mr. Poindexter and Rowan, wandering in and out with his arms full of logs, were making at the screen. They, apparently, had no reservations about objectifying the panoply of models and femme fatales that was parading before them. He even caught Mr. Poindexter giving him occasional glances when he failed to follow up on some dangling sexist hook.

Finally Dex turned his head, his nose brushing Nursey’s cheek, and Nursey fought down the drumbeat of his heart so he could hear him when he muttered in his ear, “I need to get the fuck out of here.”

Nursey nodded, tightening his hand briefly on Dex’s knee in reassurance. “Thank god,” he murmured back. “Take me for a drive?”

Dex nodded and stood up. “We’re gonna go get some air,” he said. “Back soon.”

Mr. Poindexter barely glanced away from the lounging, swim-suited woman on the television. Nora waved at them, looking as bored as Nursey felt. For a second he thought about asking Dex if they could extend the invitation to her, as well, but Dex was already moving, and if she was there Nursey couldn’t talk to him about how he was—if he wanted to talk about how he was—and. He settled for smiling at her and following Dex outside.

“No, no,” said Dex, waving Nursey away from the side of his car. “We’re taking my baby.”

Dex’s “baby”, it turned out, was an ancient jeep the color of the summer sky. It looked more like the skeleton of a car than a car itself. It had no roof. It had no doors. The paint was fresh, and when it coughed to life—after a few false starts—it was quiet as hell. An old machine perfected; made beautiful through the love of its owner.

To Nursey’s eye, it was also a fucking death trap.

“Oh no,” he said, backing up. “Nope. No.”

Dex sneered at him. “You fucking chicken,” he said. “Don’t know how to swing an axe, won’t even ride in my car.” He shook his hair out of his eyes. “What’s the matter, babe, don’t you trust me?”

Nursey opened his mouth to retort, but there was a tension in Dex’s eyes, something ugly and angry, and he had a feeling if he pushed he'd get more fight than he actually wanted. Instead he held up his hands. “Fine, fine,” he said. “I didn’t plan to survive this trip anyway.”

Dex rolled his eyes and swung himself into the driver’s seat.

Once they were moving he seemed to relax a little, the tension slowly draining from his shoulders. Nurse kept looking at him, trying not to be too obvious—you don’t have to keep checking up on me—but Dex caught him, their gazes flickering across each other rather than really meeting.

“Sorry,” Dex muttered, eyes forward again. “I just really couldn't handle being cooped up in there listening to them talk about what a paragon of manhood Bond is.” He turned onto a dirt road, the jeep sliding through twilit woods. “There's gotta be some way to be male without being a fucking misogynist shitheel.”

Nursey made himself stop staring at his profile. “I sure hope so,” he said. “You’d think we’d have figured it out by now.”

Dex snorted, then glanced sideways at him. “It makes a lot of sense that you were raised by women.”

Nursey smiled at the sun-dappled earth they were shifting past, onward through the trees. “Thanks,” he said. “Do you know Saul Williams?”

“Who? Should I?”

Nursey shook his head. “Nah. He’s a rapper, and a poet. He’s got this line—when I was young I cried when I found out I couldn’t have children. He explores it a lot, this concept of like. Motherhood without femininity necessarily, the way men could be or could want to be mothers, and that always really resonated with me.” He shrugged, feeling Dex’s silence suddenly and uncomfortably, feeling like he had shifted over a line that wasn’t necessarily his to cross. “I know this is crazy biased but there’s nothing in, like, the typical way of being a father that appeals to me. Being a mother, though.”

Dex stayed silent for a while, pulling up to the edge of a clearing, in the center of which sat a small weatherbeaten picnic table. He got out of the car, and Nursey followed.

Dex took a few jogging steps toward the picnic table and strode up onto it, gesturing with his head for Nursey to follow him. He did, standing shoulder to shoulder with Dex, following his friend’s gaze, and stopped.

The picnic table gave them exactly enough height to stare out over the low screen of bushes through a gap in the tall autumn trees to a shining expanse of water. On a still day Nursey was sure it would reflect the impossible blue of the sky, the brilliant flame-tones of the forest at the water’s edge. Today, though, the wind shifted it in tiny ripples like folded pages, mottled green and silver in the too-bright sun. “Damn,” Nursey said softly.

“I knew I wanted to be a dad before I knew I was a boy,” Dex said abruptly. “My dad—I love him, I do, but there are things—” He swallowed. “Even as a kid, I'd look at the way he was with my little sibs and think, I could do better.”

Nursey thought about what he'd seen the night before, what he'd seen earlier. “You could,” he said. “You’d be a great dad.” He scratched at the side of his neck, where the unfamiliar chain was irritating his skin. “That’s, uh. Actually what made me ask whether you were the oldest sibling, in the car yesterday.”

Dex blinked at him. “Really?”

Nursey nodded, turning back to the lake. “You’re, like—you get this whole put-upon, martyr-like, weight-on-your-shoulders attitude—”

“Wow, thanks,” Dex interrupted, “if that’s what you think dads are like then no wonder you don’t want to be one—”

“But really,” Nursey said louder, “it’s a shield for someone who is actually a really thoughtful, responsible man. And that’s what a dad is.” There was a short pause. He didn’t take his eyes off the shifting water. “A good dad, anyway,” he continued, quieter. “‘Responsible’ is the last word I’d associate with my father, for one.”

“And ‘thoughtful’ is the last for mine,” said Dex, just as quietly, and when Nurse turned to look at him he was looking back, something small and grateful in his eyes.

Nursey smiled at him, felt it come out too tender, coughed into his fist. “You, uh. You wanna smoke a joint?”

Dex closed his eyes and said fervently, “God yes.”

Nursey pulled his altoids tin from the inside pocket of his jacket and flipped it open, taking out one of the three joints he’d rolled before they left Samwell. He patted his pockets until he found his lighter and lit up, taking a few swift breaths to get it started and then holding out it out Dex, who kept his arms crossed and just leaned forward and took a drag with the joint still in Nursey’s fingers, his lips just barely brushing Nursey’s skin.

Dex hopped up on the hood of his jeep and leaned back on his elbows, letting smoke leak from his parted lips, and Nursey felt like someone had opened a door in his chest to let the sun-drenched air swirl right into his lungs.

God, he’d fucked up. He’d fucked up so bad.

He couldn’t stop thinking about the way Dex had kissed him back. Nursey was no fucking stranger to kissing. He liked to think—and had been told—that he was pretty awesome at it. But there was something in the way Dex had kissed him that made him forget all of that, forget how to kiss, forget that he’d ever kissed anyone before. There was something in the way Dex had kissed him that made Nursey want to give in.

He took a hit, holding it in his mouth for a minute, and then opened his mouth cheeks hollowed, tongue flickering, sending a series of wobbly concentric rings floating over the treetops toward the lake, dissipating into light.

Dex laughed at him. “You douchebag.”

Nursey tried to make himself look offended, but the early winter sun on his skin made it hard. “Excuse me?”

“Standing in the woods in your fucking designer jeans and your perfect coiffed hair, blowing smoke rings like it’s your own damn back yard,” said Dex. “Christ, Nurse, you couldn't look more out of place if you tried.”

Nursey flipped him off, taking another hit, and then passed him the joint, spreading his arms. “So help me out,” he said. “Mold me, William. Teach me your redneck ways.”

The tip of the joint flared as Dex took a hit, then let it out in a laughing cloud. “Firstly,” he said, his eyes flickering up and down Nursey’s body, “no shirt, and no shoes.”

Nurse blinked at him. “But it’s cold.”

Dex gave him a disbelieving look. “I’m sorry, does New York not have winter? It’s late November and it’s upwards of 50. Shut up and get that shit off.”

There was a long moment where Nursey stared at him, trying to tell if he was serious, trying to tell—well. Whether. There was any motivation other than mockery for Dex to get him to strip down alone and getting high with him in the woods. Dex held his gaze until he got smoke in his eye, at which point he squeezed it shut and rubbed at it with a muttered, “shit.”

The moment passed; Nurse folded his arms over his chest. “Yeah, like, one degree upwards,” he said, too late to be natural. “I concede the shoes, but I’m keeping the shirt, thanks.”

Dex shook his head at him. “I thought you were all about being chill.”

Nursey crossed to him. “Listen to you,” he said, “already making dad jokes.” He hopped up on the hood of the jeep next to Dex and slid his feet out of his shoes, taking off his socks and tucking them inside.

“Feet in the mud,” Dex ordered, and when Nurse gave him a disbelieving look he shook his head. “You told me to mold you,” he said. “Whatever happened to ‘I don’t make idle offers’?”

“Sober,” Nursey countered, stealing the joint from him. “I did say sober.”

Dex scoffed. “Please,” he said. “You’d had like one hit.” He raised an eyebrow and reached out, running his fingers down the chain hanging around Nursey’s neck. “Speaking of.”

“Oh,” said Nurse, “yeah, you want—”

He tucked the joint into his mouth and fished out his altoids tin again, breaking open the second one. He packed as much weed as he could into the channel that ran through the flower’s heart, then tried to hold it steady with one hand while pulling the chain over his head with the other. He got it caught on one of his ears, tried to switch hands, and nearly poured all the weed onto his lap before Dex snapped, “for fuck’s sake, just leave it on.”

“Oh,” said Nurse, his cheeks heating. “I—yeah, okay.”

He relinquished the one-hitter to Dex, leaning closer to him as Dex put it to his mouth and held out his hand for the lighter. Nursey passed it to him. He should have wanted to laugh when Dex’s eyes crossed a little as they tracked the flame; he should have made fun of the inexpert way Dex took the hit, the way he coughed up smoke. Should have instituted the rule his friends had in high school where you had to lie on the floor if you coughed. Instead, he found himself fighting the urge to pat him on the back, run his hand down his spine. Fighting, constantly, the need to touch.

Dex straightened up, still much, much too far into Nursey’s space. He met Nursey’s eyes. “Feet,” he said, “in the god damn mud.”

Nursey stared at him, and then started laughing. Dex dropped the one-hitter back into his palms and he carefully knocked the ash out over the side of the car and refilled it with the rest of the joint. He took the hit with maybe a little too much flair and slid down into the mud. It was, despite Dex’s scorn, fucking cold.

He tilted his head back and let the smoke go in a cloud. “Jesus,” he said.

“Jesus,” Dex echoed, though about what Nursey wasn’t sure.

They stayed in the woods, breathing in the quiet, until the wind had plucked the smell of pot from their skin, and then Dex drove them home, twilight deepening to dusk, dusk—slowly—fading to night.

“If Bond were a woman,” Nora asked lazily from the same spot on the couch she’d been in when they left, “what would her bond boys be called?”

“Dick Member,” Nursey said immediately.

Nora laughed. “Tom Havecock.”

“Big Willie,” Nursey retorted.

Dex leaned over to Nora. “He’s not actually this quick,” he said matter-of-factly. “He’s just had this conversation before.”

Nursey made a face at him. He had, in fact—he was pretty sure Holster still had a post-it on his wall of their best ones. “Babe, c’mon, don't ruin the illusion.”

Dex stuck out his tongue. Nursey clenched his fists against the leather of the armchair underneath him in an effort not to grab him and kiss him.

“Magic Johnson,” said Dex’s father, like the world’s weirdest olive branch, and Nurse was so startled he burst out laughing.

+

Dex was—drunk. Too drunk. Too drunk to be curled so close to Nursey, too drunk to listen to his father giving Nora a lecture about her latest boyfriend, too drunk to withstand the “like your sister”s that lecture contained.

He stood up abruptly, barely managing to not kick or headbutt Nurse in the process, and then pulled him up after him. “Bed,” he said, half to Nurse and half to the world at large. Nursey laughed at him in the back of his throat and Dex was too, too aware of the warmth of his palm.

“Goodnight,” said Nora, sounding amused. Dex ignored her, ignored whatever his father said after her—heard only the snide tone of his voice and bit down hard on his lip.

Nursey pulled him from the room, or maybe Dex was pushing, he wasn’t sure, and he repeated, “Bed,” again, just in case Nursey hadn’t. Heard him, and Nurse took a little breath and then he was definitely the one pushing Dex up the stairs, one of his hands on Dex’s hip, and, hey, that. Was new and good.

They were barely through his bedroom door before Nursey was kissing him, missing his mouth but catching everywhere else in a disorienting drum solo of warm wide lips and scraping teeth. Dex buried his hands in his hair with a kind of perverse satisfaction about messing it up, feeling weirdly zen, detached, slipped sideways into a world where this was. Happening.

“Yeah,” he said, his voice cracking a little with nerves and hysteria, and Nursey latched his teeth into the skin under his jaw. “Let’s give them something to believe in.”

He slid a hand down the muscles of Nursey’s chest, tugging at the button on Nursey’s jeans before slipping his fingers lower to cup him through the denim, feel the length of him against his palm. Nursey groaned against Dex’s throat and Dex took a ragged breath in through his teeth.

“For someone who’s never had anyone in this bed you seem to know what you're doing,” Nursey growled in Dex’s ear.

Dex grinned fiercely at nothing, his body twitching and curling at every nip of Nursey’s teeth. “I never said anything about the backseat of my car.”

Nursey’s hands slid down his back to his ass and his leg slid between Dex’s and for a second Dex’s hand was caught between them, his fingers still curled as best they could be around Nursey’s covered dick while his knuckles pressed back against himself, and he let out another ragged breath, semi-, muzzily conscious of making it not a gasp, keeping his voice low, of all the ways he could mess this up and be too much like a girl, break Nursey’s seemingly bulletproof conception of his gender—

“Dex,” Nursey murmured, and sucked the lobe of his ear into his mouth. “Will,” and Dex was stumbling backward, his whole body shaking, pulling Nursey after him into the bed.

Shirts were an inconvenience easily done away with, and then Nursey’s hands were all over him, his callouses pulling deliciously at his skin.

“You’ve done this before,” he managed as Nurse kissed a line down the center of his chest, Dex’s palms skimming over his shoulders, feeling his muscle shift.

Nursey flicked his jeans open one-handed. “Maybe, yeah,” he said, and Dex could hear the smirk in it, hated how it made his hips twist. Nursey worked with the motion, tugging his jeans down his legs, and immediately tangled them with his own leg somehow, almost toppling over sideways as he attempted to disentangle himself.

“You’d think with all that practice you’d be better at it,” Dex said drily, sitting halfway up and trying to help.

Nursey made a noise that was halfway between a growl and a chuckle and was absolutely the hottest thing Dex had ever heard. “Shut up, asshole,” he said, “I’m, I’ve had a little wine.”

Dex raised his eyebrows. “A little?” he said. “Between the two of us we drank, what, a bottle and a half? Not to mention my mom’s bourbon pecan pie which, yeah, she always says all the liquor’s cooked out but you can never fucking tell—Nurse?”

Nursey had removed his hands from Dex completely, which seemed pretty unfair. He was sitting back at the bottom of Dex’s bed. They’d never turned on the lights, and Dex could just barely see the shine of his eyes, the set of his mouth.

He frowned. “What the fuck, what’s wrong?”

Nursey was quiet for a minute, and then he said, slowly, “this was a bad idea. You’re drunk—”

“So are you,” Dex snapped, “that kind of levels the fucking playing field—”

“Great,” Nursey shot back, “so we can both do something we regret.”

Dex went cold. “Right,” he said.

Nursey shifted closer. “Dex, that’s not—I didn’t mean—”

“I get it,” Dex said firmly, cutting him off. “It’s fine.” He tugged his jeans back up his hips and tried desperately to feel relieved.

Nursey was right. It was a bad idea. Probably the worst idea he could think of, for about a thousand reasons. And. On one level—a level he did his best to ignore—he was relieved. Nursey had been. Amazing, this whole time, a source of strength and truth and he couldn't--he couldn’t be sure that hooking up wouldn't ruin that. Maybe it was better to have Nursey continue to want what he thought Dex was instead of waking up, instead of being jarred by Dex’s body against his.

It didn't make the sick weight in his throat go away, though, or the helpless stinging in his eyes.

Nursey shifted backward off the bed, adjusting his jeans. “I, I guess we should. Sleep?”

“Yeah,” said Dex dully.

Nursey fled to the bathroom. Dex lay on his back in the dark, his eyes dry, staring upward.

He could admit he’d been playing with fire. Letting himself cross the line between fight and flirt. Letting himself touch, letting himself be buoyed up on Nursey’s casual assertion that he was hot, reveal—in looks and touches and challenging words—how hot Dex found him. Worse, he’d let Nursey close emotionally as well as physically, to a degree that he hadn’t fully understood until Nurse pulled himself back and left an aching gulf so wide it was unbelievable that it had been the norm only a few days before.

He could admit that he’d done this to himself. Forgotten that he’d always be more trouble than he was worth. He’d gotten caught up in the whole couple-y fantasy, they both had—Nursey convincing himself he was the kind of boy who would want to date Dex, Dex convincing himself he was the kind of boy Nursey would want to date. That would be over soon. They’d go back to Samwell, back to their lives, tangled up but separate, and Nursey would be surrounded again by the beautiful people of the world and forget he’d ever tasted Dex’s lips.

He heard Nurse turn on the water in the shower. He took a breath and rolled onto his side, squeezing his eyes closed against a darkness that threatened to overwhelm him.

He woke up once in the night long enough to push his jeans off his legs and deeply regret not drinking any water, but not long enough to get up and fix it. Nurse was curled away from him on his side of the bed, not touching, but warm enough that Dex could feel him there anyway, radiating, a dark sun to Dex’s pale, sweating, miserable moon.

When he woke again it was because the bed was shifting with Nursey’s weight. It was impossible to tell what time it was—the grey sky outside could be anything from dawn to afternoon on an overcast day, and he had less than a clue about the whereabouts of his phone. Nursey was pushing himself out of bed, moving carefully, and he seemed startled when Dex sat up. “Hey,” he said, a little weakly. “I—sorry, did I wake you?”

Dex shook his head and then immediately regretted it. “Ow,” he said, and then, “no.”

Nursey winced in sympathy. “Hungover?”

Dex glared at him. “You’re not?”

Nursey shrugged. “I don’t really get hungover.”

Dex squeezed his eyes closed and slumped backward so he was flat on his back next to Nurse. That was patently unfair, and he told Nurse so.

Nursey didn’t say anything, but after a minute a broad palm settled on his forehead and across his closed eyes, cutting off the light. Dex took a breath in relief and then wanted to punch him, or bite him, or. But Nursey removed his hand after a minute, flicking his finger against Dex’s nose. “I’ll get you some water.”

He was gone before Dex was able to summon his “thanks”, but back before Dex could figure out what else to say. He handed Dex a bottle of water and crossed to his suitcase, flipping it open.

Dex thought about getting dressed as someone he wasn’t. Thought about going downstairs into a world that didn’t know him the way he wanted to be known, or. Staying here, in a world where he wasn’t wanted the way he wanted to be wanted. Suddenly he was so exhausted he felt like crying.

He sat up. “I want to go back today.”

Nursey froze for a second as he pulled his shirt over his head, and then said, finishing the motion, “Is this about last night? Dex, I’m sorry—”

“Don’t,” Dex snapped. “It's not about last night. Hard as it may be for you to believe, it’s not about you at all.” His hands were shaking, toying with the hem of his boxers. “This—being home, it's. Like running a damn marathon. Honestly, you help—you really help—but this is the first time I've been home since i figured out for sure what was up with me and I can’t. Take anymore.” He took a breath and looked up, feeling ugly, exposed, vulnerable to Nursey’s gaze. “I did it,” he said, almost plaintive. “I came home, I faced them, I played my part. And now I want to go.”

Nursey stared at him for a long moment. “Yeah,” he said at last. “Okay. Let’s go.”

They packed up in silence. Dex watched Nursey coil the one-hitter into his toiletries bag and tried to regret giving it to him. He couldn’t, quite; the same way he couldn’t quite regret leaning close to him in the woods, couldn’t quite regret their fumbling, desperate kisses.

His parents were disappointed, but Dex thought he saw relief in his mother’s eyes, relief that grew when his father and Nursey shook hands. He felt his jaw set, hard, made no attempt to loosen it when she gave him a quick hug or when he gave Rowan the same. He hitched his suitcase higher on his shoulder and walked out the door.

Nora was sitting on the hood of his car, smoking. She held the cigarette out to Dex and he took it with a silent apology to Bitty (“if you're not going to stop smoking because it'll literally kill you, at least stop smoking because it kills your taste buds!”), watching his sister. She blew out a breath at him. “Your boyfriend’s chill,” she said. “He calls you dude and thinks God’s a woman. He's weird, but chill.”

Dex focused on not choking on smoke and sudden, probably unjustified panic. “You heard that, huh?”

Nora smirked at him. “Your boyfriend storms away from the dinner table in righteous rage, and you think I'm not going to go after him to see what you guys talk about? Do you even know me?”

Dex inclined his head, acknowledging the point, and Nora stole the cigarette back from him. “Don’t fuck this up,” she warned. “I like him.”

“Yeah,” said Dex unhappily. “So do I.”

Nora pushed herself to her feet and draped her arms over his shoulders in a loose, brief hug. Releasing him, she stepped away, giving Nursey a nod as he approached.

“Nora,” Dex called after her, and she turned to look at him, taking another drag. “Come visit me sometime,” he said. “At Samwell. Might be nice to get out of this piece of shit town, right?”

Nora stared at him for a minute, and then smiled. “Yeah,” she said, “it really would. Thanks!”

Dex nodded at her and slid into the car. Nursey was already in his seat, and as Dex started the car he said quietly, “was that, uh. A good idea?”

“No,” snapped Dex, “it was a fucking terrible idea. I'm just made of them, huh.”

He swung viciously backward out of the driveway, the relative smoothness of his steering compared to his jeep pushing his jittery self-pity into restless anger.

They took the quick way back to Samwell, and Nurse didn’t protest. He was uncharacteristically silent—the silence itself wasn’t unusual, but the unnatural, forced quality to it was. He kept pointedly not looking at Dex, his shoulders hunched forward a little, the opposite of the way he’d been on the drive down—infuriatingly loose, infuriatingly at home in Dex’s car, in his space.

Well. That was over.

Dex searched for something to say so he didn’t just shove Nursey out of the car onto the side of the highway, and thought about Nora’s guarded approval. “Do you really think God’s a woman?”

Nursey blew out a breath. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve got a complicated family history in regard to spirituality. My black Muslim granddad knocked up my Navajo grandma and left her to raise my mom, who left the reservation with my white Catholic dad only to be paid off with a Manhattan apartment and a law school entrance fee because his parents didn't approve.” He cracked his knuckles. “It’s like we were talking about yesterday. I don't know what I believe, but if there is an all-present, all-nurturing force out there, it’s not gonna appear to me as a father, you know?”

Dex pressed his lips together, his chest tight at the studied lightness to Nursey’s tone.

“What about you, protestant white boy? You miss going to church every sunday?”

Dex gnawed on the inside of his cheek. “No,” he said, “and I don’t—I don’t think I believe in God.” He shrugged. “My mom would have a conniption if I told her but. If there’s a God, He made me with this body and this brain and is forcing me to go through a whole bunch of shit to reconcile the two, so either I believe He doesn’t exist or I believe He’s a fucking asshole.”

Nursey gave him a quick but genuine smile. “Either one is equally possible,” he said. He held out a fist for Dex to bump. “Welcome to the agnostic club.”

Dex tapped knuckles with him with muttered thanks.

They were almost home when Nursey shifted. “So,” he said, “what—what do you want me to tell people?”

Dex glanced at him. “What do you mean?”

“Like,” said Nursey slowly. “I tell people I came home with you and pretended to be your boyfriend, they’re gonna want all the hilarious details, and I figure you maybe don’t want your family aired out like that.”

“Oh,” said Dex, “Christ, yeah.” He thought about the endless questions, the no-doubt amazingly funny tag-team jokes Ransom and Holster would have for them, Bitty’s well-meaning but laughing concern. “Chowder would go full anxious-brows on us,” he muttered.

Nursey laughed, startling in the quiet. “Anxious brows?”

“Yeah,” said Dex, “you know, when he looks at you like this.” He turned to Nursey, widening his eyes and twitching his brows together in as best an impression of Chowder’s ‘I’m Very Confused But I Love And Support You’ face.

Nursey laughed harder, and Dex smiled despite himself, had to take a breath and make himself look away from the curls at the corners of Nursey’s mouth. “I guess,” he said, eyes back on the road, “I guess tell him—everyone—you came with me as a friend, and stop it there.” He lifted a shoulder. “I mean, you did, so.”

Nursey was quiet for a minute. “Yeah,” he said. “I did.”

Dex drove on.

+

Nursey had a personal vendetta against describing people with food metaphors. It was overdone, boring, and more often than not racist as hell. But there was something about the pale column of Dex’s throat that defied him to compare it to anything but milk, cream, ice cream—maybe really good vanilla, his freckles the dark flecks of actual vanilla pod.

Maybe it was just that Nursey wanted to put his mouth on it so damn bad.

He sighed and flipped his notebook shut, leaning back in his chair to stare at the ceiling.

“Nursey?”

Nursey opened his eyes and looked at his doorway. Chowder had his head stuck round his door like a concerned sitcom mom, his eyebrows at Maximum Worry Angle. Nursey snorted, remembering Dex’s spot-on impression of him, and then winced and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Um,” said Chowder, “you okay?

Nursey raised an eyebrow at him. “Sure,” he said, “why wouldn't I be?”

Chowder slipped inside, closing the door after him and settling on Nursey’s bed. “Well,” he said, “neither you or Dex even opened my Thanksgiving snaps, you haven't responded to anything in either of the group chats in days, and you're not talking to each other.” He scratched the side of his face. “And your room’s closer than his.”

Nursey sighed, turning in his chair to lean against its back and regard Chowder with his head on one side.

Dex was wrong—or he was right, pedantically; Chowder couldn't lie to save his life, but he could lie for his friends. Loyalty oozed from the boy’s every pore.

“If I tell you, do you promise not to tell anyone?”

Chowder hesitated. Nursey sighed. “Except Farmer,” he qualified. She’d probably get a kick out the melodrama of it all.

“Yes!” said Chowder immediately, tucking his hands under his legs and looking expectant.

“I went home with Dex,” Nursey started, then winced at his own phrasing. “For thanksgiving. He was worried his parents would think he was a lesbian because of his hair and the muscle he's gained, so I was there as his fake boyfriend.”

“Oh my god,” said Chowder, “like out of a movie, that's really cool.” He looked at Nursey, his eyes uncomfortably, innocently wondering. “That was so nice of you. Did it work?”

Nursey laughed, a little bitter. “Yeah,” he said, “it worked. “

Chowder cocked his head. “So what happened?”

Nursey licked his lips. “I. Kissed him.” Chowder opened his mouth, but Nursey waved a hand at him. “Not—as part of the act, just because. I. Wanted to, I guess.”

Chowder blinked at him, his eyebrows furrowed. “You guess you wanted to kiss him?”

Nursey glared at him. “I wanted to,” he corrected himself, “really fucking badly.”

Chowder stared at him. “Wow,” he said. “So?? Did he kiss you back?”

Nursey ran a hand through his hair, grimacing. “Yeah,” he said, almost said more than, but thought better of it. “But—Chow, we were drunk, and he was really—it was hard for him, emotionally, being there with his parents, and what if I took advantage of that—and I’d just done him this favor, maybe he thought he owed me—”

Chowder raised a hand like a child in class. “Um,” he said, “are we still talking about Dex?”

Nursey blinked at him. “What? Of course we are.”

Chowder tugged at the first few strands of his hair, escaped from his beanie. “Okay, ‘cause. I don't think Dex has ever felt like he owed anyone anything. Especially not you.” His eyes were mild on Nursey’s face. “No offense.”

“None taken,” Nurse said. He took a breath. “That’s not—everything, though. I said some stupid shit, made him think—well. I said something really stupid, and I don’t know how to take it back.”

Chowder cocked his head. “You probably can’t take it back,” he said. “Maybe you just gotta say something else smart.”

Nursey glanced at his notebook. “Yeah,” he said, “Yeah, I’m trying.”

+

“I think those of you who have heard me read before will know who this one’s for,” Nursey said, to quiet laughter that Dex didn’t understand. He looked around, frowning, looked back to find Nursey looking directly at him, not lowering his gaze when Dex met his eyes. “This is one of those poems that hits like the tide coming in, you know? Like you get hit with that first big wave and you stagger a little and then you think you’re done, you get your bearings, whatever, but when you look down you’re up to your ankles in sea.”

More scattered laughter, but Dex couldn’t look away from Nursey’s face. His mouth was twitching sideways in that joke-teller’s smile, like he wanted to be looking around at his audience, but his eyes never left Dex’s. “And every time you get your feet under you there’s another wave, hitting you harder, the undertow sucking harder at your feet and then another, and it’s suddenly all you can see, the ocean on every side.” He stopped, finally glanced around. “I emailed myself part of this poem from the locker room of an away game. I wrote half of it on the back of a napkin I got from a diner halfway through New Hampshire. It’s that kind of poem.”

Little murmurs of understanding from the people around Dex, and Nursey shook his head, his eyes drifting back to Dex’s face—not intense, now, but just appraising and a little bit anxious, a look Dex had never seen on Nurse—confident to the point of narcissism everywhere but here, under these simple lights, holding Dex’s eyes.

Then he smirked. “It’s called Idiot.”

Dex’s jaw twinged with his sudden anger, and he wanted to—do something dramatic, stand up and walk the hell out, because Nursey had no fucking right to do this to him—to build him up this way and pulled the rug from his feet, to—

“You make a total fucking idiot of me.”

He stopped halfway to standing, his eyes caught again on the line of Nursey’s body in the dramatic light, the shadow of his jaw. He sank back into his seat.

“I stand in your bedroom door and pretend my heart isn’t already two feet in front of me, outstretched, not even on my sleeve but in the palm of my fucking hand because I am offering it to you, here, now, as I offer it to you every time I open my mouth.

I stand in your bedroom door and I pretend that I know anything about love, or about anger, or about you.

We’re in a car somewhere in that convergent East Coast space—a space that is to geography what twilight is to time—Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Massachusetts—but it doesn’t matter. We’re in a car and you’ve told me, I have very talented hands.

You’ve told me, think of me with grease between my fingers. You’ve told me, think of me making wood and wire sing.

And you look at me and you say, have you ever fallen for a boy like that?

And I say: Yes.

You make a total fucking idiot of me.

The first time we kiss I’m asleep on a bus and you’re in my head and you’re looking at me, and you’re looking at me, and the sting of defeat creeps into my eyes like sweat. You step forward and you take my face in your hands and then I wake up, and I can’t even remember your mouth but you push your knee into mine and I feel the same car-sick flip of heart.

The second time we kiss—well. You remember, you were there.”

Nursey paused for a moment, not looking up from the paper in his hand. When he resumed his cadence was completely different, shifting from a sort of loose spoken-word to something with a little more velocity, an urgency that took Dex’s already disbelieving, shuddering heart and swept it further onward.

“The peaks of your knuckles fit the gaps in my teeth perfectly
but is it anger’s impact or the first step in me
devouring you whole?

I’d eat your weapons first. I have always been disarming.

I would—
Swallow you down until there is nothing but tender heart
The sweetmeats, the soul, the sin
With your armor gone maybe you would let it be me
Lying closest to your skin.

The peaks of your passion fit the gaps in my knowledge perfectly
but am I mountain or ocean, rock-solid or shifting sea,
diamond or coal?

The moon, she loves to flirt. Do you find me charming?

If I—
Got close enough to burn would you spit fire against my throat?
I have spilled all my secrets to this page
Could I keep you bright-eyed, could I keep you guessing?
If love should replace rage?”

Nursey stopped, took a long breath, and then, almost laughingly: “You make. A total fucking idiot of me.”

He ran a hand through his hair, left it hooked around the back of his neck. “Because no matter how many times I tell you the truth it comes out not enough. And there’s a part of me that hopes that means I’m not enough. There’s a part of me that wants to never read this aloud, there’s a part of me that says let this fire die if he’s not yet followed the smoke, there’s a part of me that says you know yourself, it’ll never last. But for once in my life I’m going to get ahead of this. I’m going to do you one better, I’m going to make a total fucking idiot of myself so you don’t have to.”

Nursey stopped again, and his lips curled up at the edges—a tiny shadow of his usual arrogance. “And like everything else we compete at, I’m going to win.”

He folded the paper slowly, tucking it into his back pocket with a fluid, practiced motion, suddenly just like every other kid who’d ever stepped up to an open mic in their life, except every other kid who’d ever stepped up to an open mic hadn’t make Dex’s heart want to explode. “Thank you,” Nursey muttered into the mic, and then he was gone, vanishing into the shadows and the crowd.

Dex—barely making any conscious decision at all—followed him.

+

The readings were held in the library of one of the old mansion houses that had been converted into dorms, and on either side were long, low porches with metal railings that served as outdoor study space in the warmer months. Now, though, all the chairs were overturned on top of the tables and the porches were deserted, a welcome respite from what felt like a thousand pairs of eyes. Though, really, only one pair had mattered.

Nursey’s fingers shook as he slid the cigarette from the pack, little seismic ripples spreading out from his pounding heart. He tucked it between his lips and flicked the lighter, nearly dropping it when Dex said from behind him, “Nurse.”

He turned, but couldn’t quite make himself meet Dex’s eyes. “Hey.”

Dex took a step toward him. He had his hands in his pockets and Nursey could feel his gaze on his face. “Can I bum a smoke?” Dex asked, voice too light, and Nursey forced his clumsy hands to tap one out for him, passing it over into Dex’s hand without raising his eyes to his face.

Dex took it, tucking it between his lips, and Nursey lit it for him. Dex leaned on the railing and Nursey leaned, too, a few feet away from him, and for a moment they stood together in silence, the brightness of the poetry reading at their back, the green darkness of lawn stretching off ahead of them into nothing.

“So,” said Nursey, finally. “What did you think?”

Dex licked his lips. “I,” he said. “I dunno.”

Nursey raised his eyebrows at him, his heart pin-balling off his ribs, his throat, the pit of his stomach. “You don’t know.”

“If you’re asking objective critic Dex,” Dex said, a little weakly, “I’m afraid he’s fucking comatose. You got two choices.”

Nursey took a drag, waited.

“There’s Dex who wants to fucking murder you for airing our business out in front of all your pretentious poetry friends,” he said, “and there’s Dex who thinks that was the most incredible thing he’s ever seen and who really,” he took a step closer, dropping his cigarette butt and stamping it out with a toe, “really wants to kiss you right now.”

Nursey felt a bubble of hysteria crest in his throat and pop, flooding his brain with soft, laughing panic. “Well I guess out of those options—”

Dex wrapped a hand in his shirt, pulling him up short and sharp, close enough that their noses brushed. “Shut,” he said against Nursey’s mouth, “the fuck up.”

They both tasted like Nursey’s cigarettes and for a moment he hated that, hated the taste of nicotine in a way he never had before for obscuring the taste of Dex’s mouth, and then Dex’s tongue moved against his and Nurse tasted heat and wine instead, caught up in a heady, push-pull flash of being shoved up against Dex’s bedroom door, Dex’s knee between his legs.

Dex pulled back, wiping at his lower lip with his thumb. “So,” he said, but Nurse had momentum tucked in his back pocket and it propelled him forward, slotting their mouths together again. Dex made a small noise in the back of his throat and Nurse bit his lip and then Dex’s hands were in his hair, messing up his careful arrangement of his curls, but the blunt nails on his scalp made his gasp of outrage into something a little more embarrassing.

They separated and stood, forehead to forehead, just breathing in the night air. “You are,” Dex said, and Nurse blinked his eyes open. “By the way.”

Nurse looked at him, the brightness in his eyes, the joy masked even still by a veil of uncertainty. “I am what?” he asked, running a thumb down the line of Dex’s jaw.

Dex turned his head to kiss the pad of Nursey’s thumb, looking sideways at him, and the uncertainty was gone, his gaze steady and sure. “Enough.”