Work Text:
today
July 2017
Fifteen miles.
Fifteen miles, says the GPS, blinking up at Will from his phone in the cup holder of his truck. Fifteen miles, twenty minutes. It’s all that stands between him and his destination.
Fifteen miles is a long way back home— Mount Desert Island is about that wide, give or take, so to drive that far means driving all the way over to the other side. Will hasn’t left his island all summer— hasn’t left Bar Harbor, even— until today. And fifteen miles is nothing when you’ve been driving for almost five hundred of them.
And yet. Fifteen miles, and they can’t go by more quickly. The sun beats down on him through the rolled-down windows; he wonders vaguely if the past eight hours of driving have burned up his face, but then again, his cheeks have grown pink enough in these weeks on Uncle Tommy’s boat in the open water. At least two hours ago, he exhausted the various classic rock and Frank Sinatra CDs that Pa stores in the truck, and resorted to trying to pick up random Connecticut radio stations that would always turn to static after two songs as soon as he landed on one that sounded halfway decent.
It’s been the longest drive of his life, and not just because it’s eight hours. He’s done long drives before— it takes five hours to get from home to Samwell, and roadies on the bus for the past three years have gotten him well acquainted with long periods on vehicles. It’s just that today is different. Today, he got up at five in the morning— which isn’t unusual— and rolled out of the driveway at six, which also isn’t the most unusual, except that when he got to the fork at the end of his road, he turned left, toward the road out of town, instead of right, toward the ocean.
And then he drove. For eight hours. He’s stopped three times, first for Dunkin’ Donuts circa eight o’clock in Augusta, then for a bathroom break somewhere in the touristy beach area south of Portland, and then finally just to stretch his legs near Samwell. He’s only been doing so when absolutely necessary, because stopping makes the drive longer.
No, the thing about this drive is that there’s something very different, very new, and very good waiting for him on the end of it.
This drive is to see Derek.
It’s only been two months since they parted ways after finals, but they’ve felt like the longest two months of Will’s life, full of texts and early-morning FaceTime calls and thoughts softer than he’s ever entertained and more yearning than he’s ever felt in his life. He never thought, at this time last year, or even this time a few months ago, that he’d be taking a week off work in the middle of the summer to drive to New Fucking York City to see Derek Malik Nurse.
And yet.
Fifteen miles. Fifteen miles and he’s there.
*
eight months ago
December 2016
Dex isn’t drunk.
Tipsy, maybe. Buzzed, definitely. But he isn’t drunk. He lingers against the back wall of the Haus living room, feels the pulse of Louis’ kegster beats pumping through the floor beneath his feet. He’s been nursing the same cup of tub juice for what feels like the past hour and a half, and he hasn’t moved much since then, either.
It’s just.
His brain. It was racing.
He maybe shouldn’t be drinking. But this doesn’t usually happen when he drinks, so he doesn’t think it’s a product of the tub juice, no matter what Ollie and Wicks spiked it with tonight. This was happening before he started drinking, anyway. The party, the drinks, they just make his mind a little more blurry. Which should help. But it doesn’t.
Because— because Nursey .
Dex can see him from across the room, dancing with some tiny redheaded girl from the soccer team. She’s drop-dead gorgeous, because of course she is, because Nursey must have this unspoken rule that even though he has no sexual preference, he only flirts with people who look just as flawless as he does, or something— God , Dex doesn’t fucking care, but they just won a huge home game and Nursey hugged him so tightly after that it was almost like they weren’t fighting for a second—
But are they even fighting, Dex wonders? Sure, he moved to the basement last month, but he and Nursey have been civil. Better, even, than they were when they were both cramped into the room together. He thinks maybe it’s all in his head, that they haven’t been fighting, that everything is perfectly fine, but he watches Nursey flash his disgustingly perfect smile at the soccer girl and Dex isn’t sure he’s ever felt more ill at a party.
“Hey, Dex.”
Dex jolts. “Oh.” He almost didn’t notice that there was an entire person standing next to him— and not a small one, either, but an NHL centerman just barely under his own height. “Hey, Jack.”
Truth be told, Dex isn’t even sure when Jack got here— but as a team, they’re long past wondering what their alumnus-captain-slash-current-captain’s-boyfriend is doing back on campus. Jack leans against the wall next to him. There’s no Bitty in sight, which is slightly unusual. “How are you?”
It takes Dex several alcohol-induced extra seconds to realize Jack is still talking to him. “Uh.” He tries to tear his eyes away from his d-man and the soccer girl. “Fine.”
“Where’s Nursey?”
It’s a casual question, but it sends a shock of anger through him, white-hot and worsened by his aching head. Maybe it’s the fact that Jack seemed to read his mind, or that he doesn’t want to think about him, or, maybe worst, that people always think they go together, him and Nursey, that they’re some kind of a package deal, and yeah, Nursey is his friend , best friend, even, but he knows when you get down to it that that’s all they’ll ever be, that he can never really have Nursey in the way he wants him, the way he’s been growing to want him, more hyper-aware of it with every chirp and casual touch and beautiful smile on Nursey’s face—
“I don’t know,” he sneers. “And I don’t fucking care.”
It comes out sharper than he intends, and he can tell, because Jack dims a little; his friendly smile flickers with an awkward anxiety for a split second. Dex feels bad. He knows he’s being a dick. He’s opening his mouth to apologize when Jack puts on what he distinctly recognizes as his Captain Voice and says, “Y’know, Dex,” and Dex knows he’s in for a fucking lecture in the middle of a kegster, which is just great, really.
“I don’t think Nursey hates you,” Jack is saying, over the music and the lights and the crowd. “I think he’d want to be your friend, if you’d have him.”
Dex locks his eyes on Nursey in the crowd. “He is my friend,” he replies, more forcefully than he means to. “He’s my best friend.”
Nursey throws his head back and laughs at something Soccer Girl said.
“But.” Dex swallows. His brain feels hazy. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Jack still looking at him, still paying attention. His stomach is in a tangle, and the words slip out from under him like your feet on a soaking wet floor.
“I don’t want to be his friend.”
Dex is too inebriated to care that he’s said this out loud. Sober Dex would be losing his shit. Kegster Dex doesn’t care.
Jack, for his part, says nothing, but he does pat his shoulder. It’s a little awkward, but a kind gesture all the same. Before they can exchange any other words, Bitty appears, making a beeline over from the kitchen holding two drinks.
“ Sorry , honey, it’s a mob scene in there— oh, hi, Dex!” Bitty grins. He’s rosy-cheeked and in perfect spirits. “I thought you were with Nursey.”
Dex groans and takes another drink.
*
today
Ten miles.
He can see the skyline of the city creeping up ahead of him. He’s never been here, never even much further south than the schools they play in Connecticut during the season. It’s populated and dense in a way Will can’t even fully wrap his head around, and though today marks the start of his first visit, somehow he can see exactly how and where Derek fits into the picture. New York is where people are important and successful and creative. It’s so full of people from all over the world; it’s a culture shock away from Bar Harbor.
His duffel bag is riding shotgun in the truck, with his right-hand man— Cromwell the lobster, of course, a plush friend from childhood he can’t seem to travel without— perched on top of it so he can see out the windshield. He packed light— it’s five days in New York, and they’ll go by just like that, but he’s really trying not to think too hard about the end of the trip when it hasn’t even started.
Will isn’t nervous. Not really. This trip has been on his calendar for six weeks, a quickly-planned thing brought about by a mutual admission of wanting to see each other. This summer, with Derek, has been nothing he could have ever predicted, full of phone calls before sunrise and long-repressed confessions and the shifting of their relationship into something that is definitively not just best friends.
They’ve put a label on it, he reminds himself. They’ve talked this out plenty. Dexy, Nursey said to him on the phone, two weeks after school let out, those weeks populated by near-constant texting, FaceTime calls full of laughter, awkwardly and desperately skating around the words ‘I miss you’. This isn’t going to work if we don’t talk about it.
Talk about what? he had replied, with his heartbeat in his ears.
This, Nursey had said. Us. You and me.
And that had been that.
And so Derek Nurse actually, by some freak of nature, became his boyfriend.
But it feels weird, to say that without having seen him in person since they had that conversation. The last time he was near him physically, it was to drop him off at the airport when they left campus in May. They parted on good terms, with promises to text and a hug Will remembers as being long and tight— God knows he’s gone over that last moment with him, over and over, in his head since they parted— but there was no romantic intention there. Longing, maybe. Will knows as much for himself, and Derek has shared a similar sentiment in the phone-call relay that’s followed. But nothing like what’s been happening since then.
He was terrified of this summer, directly because he thought Derek wouldn’t want to keep in touch as frequently as Will’s pride wouldn’t let him admit he did. The way it’s actually turning out is something he never could have predicted or imagined, even in the dreams and fantasies he used to beat down for shame.
And now— now, ten miles. Ten miles and he’ll face the person he’s been thinking about every day since they parted, his best friend and so much more, the boy he’s wanted for years, who is finally going to be his .
Okay. Alright. Maybe he is a little nervous.
*
two months ago
May 2017
“Come to New York this summer.”
They’re sitting in the bottom bunk in their— Derek’s— no, their room, in the Haus. Will sits against the headboard, and Derek is opposite him, but two 6’2 hockey players don’t fit well in a small bunk, so their legs are tangled and cramped together, and neither of them moves or retracts from the touch. It’s the night before Class Day for the seniors; their finals are over. All that’s left to do is pack and say goodbye.
It’s well past two in the morning by now, and the room is lit up only by Derek’s desk lamp that they haven’t bothered to turn off. They were in Chowder’s room for Frog time earlier, but Chowder went to bed, so they retreated back here armed with a (now-empty) bag of sour patch watermelons and enough conversational ammunition to take them several hours into the night.
But this— this is a new topic. Will squints at him; his face is half-shadowed in the low light, but he’s grinning, knuckles pressed against his cheek as he reclines. In the past, Will would scowl at this expression, call him a smug asshole or something, think for certain he was being made fun of. Tonight, he doesn’t.
“Me?” he asks instead, and his voice comes out soft.
Derek snorts. “No. The other person in the room I’ve been talking to for three hours.”
Now he rolls his eyes, but he knows he’s smiling, too. “Shut up, asshole.”
Derek reclines further, rubs his knee against Will’s thigh. “You walked yourself right on into that one, Dexy.”
“Whatever.” He feels his grin lingering as he stares at the bottom of the top bunk for a second, then back down at Derek. “If you’re tired, we can go to bed.”
“You’re dodging me.”
“I’m not dodging you. I’m saying, it’s been three hours, and if you want—”
“ Will . I’m serious.” Derek leans forward to knock his hand gently against Will’s elbow. “You should come. Visit me, I mean. It’d be chill.”
A flock of butterflies inhabits Will’s stomach. “Why would you—” He stops himself midsentence, and he means to rephrase, but Derek gets to talking before he can.
“Why would I what?” he asks. His hand is still on his arm. Derek has nice hands, veiny and smooth, always warm. “Want you to come visit me?” Will nods, just the slightest bit, and he continues, “Man, I dunno, maybe because you’re my best friend and we’ve never been to each other’s houses?”
Will takes a long breath, willing himself not to focus on Derek’s hand. It’s his constant refrain every time Derek touches him. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it. Because Derek is casually tactile, and if Will reads into every little gesture he gives, he’ll drive himself crazy.
He’s already in love. Fuck. He hates himself.
Finally, he mutters, “I don’t think I’m even rich enough to walk down the street in your neighborhood.”
Derek laughs at the ceiling. “Oh, shut up, man. I promise my neighborhood is not entirely comprised of stuck-up assholes. There are some chill people.”
“Still.” Will raises his eyebrows. “I bet your summer consists of, like, dinner parties and black-tie galas.”
Derek snorts. “Try takeout from my one Hawaiian place and avoiding Times Square like the plague.”
“Sounds magical.”
“It is.” Derek takes his hand away from his elbow, but the absence of his touch, once it’s been there, is even worse than the overthinking that comes with the touch itself. “C’mon, you should come. Chill in New York for, like, a weekend. I’ll take you to Central Park.”
“Ah.” Will nods. “And the Statue of Liberty.”
Derek sticks his tongue out. “You’re a dick.”
Quiet falls, for just a second, and hangs in the air between them like an unanswered question. Will lets out a breath and shrugs, like it’s no big deal, like visiting Derek in the summer isn’t simultaneously the most terrifying and most tempting hypothetical plan he’s made in years. “Well, maybe.”
Derek beams. “I’ll settle for maybe,” he says, and then he shifts until he’s crawling up the mattress and sprawling himself out next to Will. He drapes his tattooed arm lazily over his chest, rests his stubbly cheek against his shoulder, and Will sighs a little, like he doesn’t feel like he’s about to have a heart attack.
“What are you doing?” he hums, meeting Derek’s eyes from inches away.
“Going to sleep.” Derek grins up at him, then closes his eyes, nuzzling himself into Will’s arm as it wraps around him. “You said it yourself.”
“I didn’t tell you to go to sleep.”
“No, you said—” Derek drops his voice a little, puts on a grouchy face, and gears up for his best Will impression. “ If you’re tired, we can go to bed. It’s been three hours. ”
“Oh, shut up, Nurse.” Will is grinning. He hates that he’s grinning. He is so dangerously far gone on this boy. “No one’s going to sleep until you turn that desk light off.”
Derek sticks out his bottom lip and pouts. “You’re closer.”
Will sighs, because even though he’s right, Derek is wrapped all around him and he really, really doesn’t want to get up. He lays there for several prolonged seconds before he reluctantly rolls off the mattress, walks the two strides over to the desk, and flicks the lamp off. All that remains is moonlight, pooling onto the floor through the open window. Derek is a silhouette in his bunk, and when he gets back into it, he pulls the covers over the both of them and snuggles right back into him.
Well, whatever. This might as well happen. It wouldn’t be the first time.
Even though Will is sort of still having a brain aneurysm about it.
“Nighty night, Dexy.” There’s a smile in Derek’s voice, his stubble prickling against Will’s shoulder. “Sleep tight.”
Will closes his eyes. He’s okay. It’s okay.
Don’t think about it.
That’s getting harder to do.
“Night, Der.”
*
today
Four miles.
He’s in the thick of the concrete jungle now, stopping every two seconds at lights, observing all ends of weird shit going on on the sidewalks. His route has taken him through the north side of the city, so Manhattan is still a ways down the line. In the heat of midday, the streets are bustling— vendors selling food and random t-shirts, groups of people talking by lampposts, businesses with their windows wide open and fans at full blast.
Ahead of him, someone slams on the brakes and lays on their horn, and Will comes to a jolting stop lest he rear-end the person. “Christ,” he mutters. He learned to drive when he was fourteen, and he’s driven in cities before— if Boston counts as cities , that is— but today is testing his confidence in his abilities. He’s never had road-rage, but now might be the time. New York drivers are another breed.
According to his GPS, he’ll turn in two miles, and then again, and then again, and then the destination will be on his left.
Derek is here. Derek is in this city. He’s so close. He’s about to see him.
His heart is going to beat out of his chest.
And then— ring — his phone nearly gives him the heart attack he’s been anticipating all day. It’s hooked up to the aux cord, and he didn’t realize how loud his volume was turned up in the car. A glance at the screen and he realizes Derek is calling him; the contact picture he took by the Pond at Samwell a few months ago grins up at him.
He picks up, then sets it to hands-free so he can keep using the GPS. “Hello?”
“You’re almost here!” Derek sounds like he’s outside. “You’re in Harlem.”
“Uh… yeah?” Will furrows his brows. “How can you tell?”
“Because I see you on Snap Map.” He can hear Derek’s smile. God, he can’t wait to see him. He’s past the point of being ashamed of how much he wants him. “I’ve been, like, tracking you for the past, uh— six hours.”
Will nods sagely, making his slow way up to another red light. “Like a serial killer.”
“Exactly.” Derek lets off this maniacal chuckle, then drops the supervillain persona. “No, but I’m so excited. Do you know how excited I am to see you?”
“Der,” Will laughs, “you called me to tell me that, like, an hour ago.”
“That was at least three hours ago, fuck you,” Derek replies. “And buy my silence. I won’t shut up until I see you.”
“You won’t shut up then, either.”
“Okay… you’re right, but also, why am I being attacked?”
Will grins. “Because you called me,” he says. “You asked for this— Jesus Christ .” He slams on his brakes for a jaywalker, and as tempted as he is, he doesn’t lay on his horn. “People in this city have no fear.”
Derek is chuckling. “What happened?”
“Somebody just walked out in front of me when I had a green light.” He shakes his head, sighs, and drives on. “You people have a fucking death wish.”
“You people as in…?”
“ New Yorkers , Derek.”
“Hey, you asked for this, bro,” Derek says. “You came all the way down here.”
“I came down so I could see your annoying ass.”
“That’s it.” Derek pauses. “I’m hanging up.”
“Good.”
“Good.”
There are a few seconds of still-connected silence, then, at the same time, they both laugh. Will takes his next scheduled turn as he asks, “Are you outside? There’s a lot of white noise on your end.”
“Oh, shit, can you not hear me?”
“No, I can hear you.” Will pauses, then grins a little. “Are you just… staking out on the street waiting for my truck?”
“ No ,” Derek replies, then, “Okay, well, sort of. I don’t think you’ll be able to figure out the entrance to the parking on your own. It’s, like, under my building. I’ll be your air-traffic controller.”
“Great.” He’s still smiling. His cheeks feel warm. “Are you wearing a neon vest?”
“Oh, you know it, sexy Dexy.”
“Okay, now I’m hanging up. On you.” He hovers his thumb over the end call button. “I’m actually serious, because if I don’t, I might hit a fearless jaywalker.”
Derek snorts. “Okay. Good luck.” He pauses, and his voice softens. “I’ll see you in a minute.”
“Yeah.” Will smiles at the street. “You, too.”
*
one month ago
June 2017
They settle into this unintentional routine.
It starts by accident. Will is walking the rocky beach after his morning run, ten days into the summer, when his phone buzzes in his arm band. Nobody ever texts him at five in the morning, so he pulls out his phone thinking it must be something important, Ma or Pa or Uncle Tommy needing something—
But it’s not; it’s Derek. He’s sent him some random meme from Instagram. Will takes a moment to study it, then double checks the timestamp like maybe it could be coming in from last night, but no, it was sent at 5:02. He types back to him.
wjp_2018: Why are you awake?
dmnurse: yooooooooooo
dmnurse: why are YOU awake?
dmnurse: 🧐🧐🧐🧐🧐🧐
wjp_2018: I always get up this early
wjp_2018: But you already knew that
wjp_2018: And you didn’t answer the question
dmnurse: wow
dmnurse: touche
dmnurse: and fyi i cant sleep
The texts turn into a FaceTime call, and then the cycle repeats the next morning, and so it begins. Will knows that Derek’s sleeping habits are far from healthy, but he always ends up napping for another, like, four or five hours before he gets the goooooooooooood morning dexy text around lunch hour on the boat. He grows used to their early-morning conversations, attached to them, even. They become just another part of his day. Talking to Derek is a good way to start it.
And they’re odd conversations, too— never awkward or weird, but unexpectedly heartfelt, the kind of stuff they’d talk about on late nights in their room or on roadies or on the roof of the Haus. It’s not that they’ve never had these kinds of conversations before, it’s just they didn’t really happen on a regular basis. They bridge topics like Will’s nerves about captaincy next season, and Derek’s mental health, and, most surprising of all, this sudden tenderness between them since Will came out to him.
Will wasn’t sure if they were ever actually going to talk about it.
This morning, the sun is staining clouds red as it makes its slow arrival out over the water. It’s low tide and a little foggy, and Will sits on his favorite rock on the beach, salt clinging to his skin and his tongue.
“I like the sound of the waves,” Derek tells him, a little face on his phone screen, buried in pillows and blankets in his New York bedroom. “It’s soothing.”
“Ayuh,” Will mutters. “For me, too.”
And then, for a second, they’re quiet. Will looks around the beach, then back at his phone screen. It’s a place he knows so well, tied to endless childhood and high school memories. All of a sudden, he wishes Derek were sitting on this rock with him, sharing the sound of the surf and the gulls, morning on his island coming to life.
“I had my first kiss on this beach,” he remarks.
He’s not sure why he chooses this, of all random things, to say, or why he feels the need to share that with Derek. Maybe he just wants to see Derek’s reaction. He watches him on the screen as he rests his cheek in one hand, raises his eyebrows. He isn’t wearing a shirt, because of course he isn’t. “You can’t just say that and then not tell me the story,” Derek says.
Will snorts, then pauses. “It’s not much of a story.”
“Still.” Derek shifts in his blankets, pulls one up to his stubbly chin. His hair is tied back in a green scarf; he sleeps like this some nights. “Tell me.”
“Uh.” Will knows the memory well; it involves beer and a bonfire and a late summer night when he was sixteen. “It was the summer before my junior year. We used to sneak down here and drink.”
“ Wow , you ?” Derek cries. “A good Catholic boy? Sneaking around and drinking? Poindorkster, I’m scandalized.”
Will rolls his eyes, vaguely aware that he’s grinning into thin air. “Believe it or not, we also used to smoke weed .”
“ William James . You are a sinner .”
Will snorts, shifting on the rock a little. “I know.”
“But wait, continue,” Derek says. “Now I’m invested. Who was your first kiss?”
“My girlfriend from high school.” Will pauses. “I mean. If you can call it that.”
“Oh, right,” Derek replies. “I know this person. Rose, right?”
“Rosie. Yeah.” He hasn’t talked to her much since they graduated, but there’s no bad blood between them, exactly, or at least he thinks there isn’t. He always sort of feels guilty when he thinks about her, like he made her believe he was somebody he wasn’t. His relationship with Rosie wasn’t much more than an attempt to make himself believe that girls were his thing.
They weren’t. They still aren’t. This— Derek, and whatever this is, whatever it’s becoming— that’s more his speed. Though he didn’t know Derek back then, there was a tiny part of him, deep down in his repressed subconscious, that knew there was something about his relationship with Rosie that wasn’t right, that it wasn’t what he wanted.
He wonders if maybe she could tell.
“It was at a Fourth of July party,” he tells Derek. “I was sitting out by the water, and she came and sat with me and started talking to me.” Derek is quiet, so he continues. “And we just talked for, like, I dunno, ten minutes, and then— she just— yeah, she kissed me.”
Derek lets off a vague hum. “Was it good?”
“What, the kiss?”
Derek nods.
Will shrugs. “It was okay.” In truth, he’s only been kissed a few times since, and all by girls. He doesn’t know how to tell if a kiss is good when it’s not even with the gender he wants to be kissing. “Like, average, I guess. It’s hard, when— when you don’t want to be kissing girls, and girls are all you’ve kissed.” He stumbles over that part a little; he’s still getting used to talking about it. Derek is the only one he’s been talking about it with. It feels nice. It’s a weight off his brain. “But I don’t think it was a bad first kiss,” he finishes.
Derek sort of whistles, with a grin on his face that seems to signal a smart-ass remark coming on. Will almost reddens in anticipation, and when it comes, it’s, “What a lucky woman.”
Will’s stomach does a somersault. Now he’s definitely red in the face. It’s the kind of thing he might have said as a chirp earlier in their friendship, when they were figuring out all the most effective ways to push each other’s buttons. Then, it would have set him off. But this morning, in the low light of dawn on the beach, through the crackly FaceTime connection, it feels… sincere.
It feels tender.
Still, because apparently, he’s incapable of having a vulnerable conversation without reverting to his repressed defense mechanisms, he mumbles, “Shut up, Derek.”
“What?” On the screen, Derek grins from ear to ear, cheek pressed into his maroon pillow. “What did I say?”
Will grumbles, feels the blush overtaking his ears. “You know what you said.”
There’s a moment of quiet, and Will’s heartbeat is somewhere in his burning ears. Then Derek pulls his phone a little closer to his face, squints into the camera. “So… we’re not going to talk about it?”
Will bristles. “Talk about what?”
“This.” Derek pauses. “That. What I said. I meant it.”
“I don’t understand what you meant , Derek.”
“I meant— God, Poindexter. You’re so dense.” Derek rolls onto his back. “I meant I want to kiss you.”
Will is going to pass out.
They’ve been moving in this direction. It’s not like he hasn’t been thinking about the exact same thing. I mean, Christ, they spent the last three nights at school falling asleep in the same bed. Derek has been sending him heart emojis. They’ve had a love confession. Slowly, but steadily, they’ve been progressing into something much more complicated than a friendship, or at least learning how to.
It’s just… God . Kissing him. Kissing Derek Nurse. It’s a lot to absorb at once, even as a hypothetical concept.
“Is that…” Derek pauses. “Do you not want that? Because it’s okay if you don’t.”
“No— no .” Fuck. He can’t even think straight. Literally. “Sorry. Yes. I— yeah. I do want that.” He exhales, like the weight of the world is lifting off his shoulders. “I want that a lot .”
“Oh.” Derek’s smile returns, spreads across his stupid beautiful face. “Oh. Chill. Because same.”
“Oh my God.” Will hides his steadily flushing face in one hand. “Shut the fuck up, Derek.”
“You love me.”
“I— yeah.” Will exhales, laughs into his hand. “Yeah. I do.”
*
today
One-quarter of a mile.
Derek’s street seems lined with money.
It’s somehow exactly how Will pictured it, all brownstones with ivy crawling up their walls, spotless entryways and awnings over front steps, window boxes full of flowers, little balconies high above the ground floors. They may still be in the middle of the city, but it feels like the Beacon Hill neighborhood in Boston, a secluded, quiet area where the rent is high and the noise level low. He drives down the road at maybe ten miles per hour, hunting for Derek’s building, for his promised presence outside the front door.
And then— he’s there.
Derek is on the sidewalk, waving his arms over his head like it’s not obvious that Will knows it’s him. He’s in a Samwell tank top, gym shorts, and Birkenstocks, with his green hat on his head, and, God, Jesus— he’s fucking gorgeous, because of course he is, he’s Nursey, he’s Derek, he’s always so beautiful —
Will is in love.
Fuck.
He really is.
Adrenaline courses through him as he pulls over next to Derek’s spot on the sidewalk, and Derek waves into his rolled-down window. “ Yoooooooo !”
Will can’t stop the smile that takes over his face. “Hi, Der.”
“Holy fuck.” Derek is beaming. He pushes curls off his forehead and hangs through the window. Will registers, vaguely, that Cromwell is in plain sight on his seat, but Derek’s eyes are only his right now. “I— I don’t even have words for how excited I am to see you right now.”
“I think that’s a first,” Will replies with a laugh. “You not having words?”
“Oh, shut up ,” Derek says, then reaches to grab and squeeze his hand. Will smiles across the console at him, all of him, Derek Nurse , leaning through his window; he’s in New York and Derek is here and he’s—
Will opens the door on his driver’s side, then hops out of the truck. He barely makes it around the front before Derek meets him halfway, and the hug that ensues nearly barrels the both of them over. Derek’s hat is knocked off onto the sidewalk, and Will laughs into his shoulder. Derek buries his face in his neck, and they share a collective exhale. Will is shaking a little. He holds Derek tight. He smells like coconut oil and sunshine.
Finally.
It’s a hug that lasts forever, and the only reason Will wants to let go is so he can get a good look at his face again— not his face on a screen or in a Snapchat picture, but his real, actual face, in person, beaming and five o’clock-shadowed, inches away from his own. “ Yo ,” Derek murmurs, almost reverently, when Will meets those hazel eyes.
“Yo,” Will echoes, with a smile all for him, and Derek laughs into the huge, blue New York sky.
*
three weeks ago
June 2017
“His parents said they’d be happy to have me.”
Ma and Pa sit across from him at the kitchen table. Will has rehearsed the speech he’s giving them several times over, but he’s still nervous; his leg is shaking beneath the table where they can’t see. “I already asked Uncle Tommy about the boat; I told him I would only seriously think about going if he was sure he could find other help for five days.”
Pa folds his arms— contemplative, but not standoffish. He and Ma are the last line of defense, the sole individuals who can give the green-light to his spontaneous New York vacation planning. “What did Tommy say?”
“That it’d be fine,” Will replies, which is true. Actually, Uncle Tommy’s words were more like, hey, sure thing, Junior! You go on and have fun in the big city! Hey, do you think you could bring me home one of them fancy souvenirs? Like a snow globe? “He said he’d get help from Eamon.”
“Hm.” Pa knits his brows at the ceiling. “I’m sure I could help him, too.”
“But Junior,” Ma says, leaning forward in her chair, “are you sure he said his family wouldn’t mind? Five days is a long time; I don’t want you to be imposing…”
“I know,” Will says. “I asked that. But he said it’s totally okay. His parents— like, they travel a lot, I guess? He’s kind of lonely and bored.”
“What about his job?” Ma asks. “Isn’t he doing an internship? For a publishing house, right?”
Will almost curses himself, that he’s talked about Derek enough since getting out of school for his parents to remember where he’s working. Whatever is going on between him and Derek, it absolutely, positively cannot become Poindexter-family common knowledge, no matter if he gets to go to New York.
Derek is his best friend. To his parents, that’s all he is. And it has to stay that way.
The thought of their knowledge otherwise makes him feel ill.
“Yeah,” he says, scraping the last of his potatoes off his dinner plate with the edge of his fork. He eats before responding, then, once he’s fully chewed and swallowed, lest Ma chide him for bad table manners, says, “He gets a week off, and he said he’d use it for this.”
Pa raises his eyebrows, but there’s still no suspicion there, more just surprise. “Huh. That’s nice of him.”
Will shrugs. Stay chill, stay chill. Channel Derek.
Pff. That’s useless. Derek is actually the least chill person on the planet. It’s just that there are limited people who know that about him.
“He’s bored,” Will repeats. “And all his friends are— well, all over the place.”
Pa glances at Ma, and she looks back at him. Will watches his parents have a completely nonverbal conversation. This isn’t the first time they’ve done this, and no doubt it won’t be the last, either. Married for almost thirty years, they work as a team to run their family. Will fears losing them more than he can even say.
Which is why they can never know the truth about Derek. Not now and not ever.
It’s not that they’ve ever been outwardly hateful. But his parents are devout Catholics, moderate Republicans, working-class, middle-aged, patriotic Americans. He knows his family’s laundry list of demographic traits doesn’t line up with understanding their son being gay.
So, instead: this. Going to New York to see his ‘best friend.’
It’s not untrue . Derek is his best friend. He’s just also… well.
His parents finish their nonverbal conversation, and his heartbeat speeds a little when they both look back at him.
And then: Ma smiles. So does Pa.
“Go visit your friend, honey,” Ma says.
“You could use to have some fun,” Pa adds. “You help out all summer. You’ve been working hard.”
“What?” Will smiles just a little, glances between them. “You’re serious?”
“Of course we’re serious,” Ma laughs. “If they’ll have you, go. You’re only in college once. You might not get to see these people often, after next year.”
That part hurts. But for now, he doesn’t pay it any mind. Instead, he beams at his parents. He didn’t think it would be this easy.
He’s going to New York.
*
today
Zero miles.
Derek helps him park, and then insists (after several minutes of back-and-forth) on carrying his duffel bag while he leads him up into the actual house. Trailing him, with one hand linked in Derek’s, Will is vaguely aware of his heart beating in his ears. There’s a part of him that feared this moment, this reunion, their first facing of each other since they talked about any of this— he was afraid that maybe, once Derek saw him, once he remembered that that boy he’d been texting and calling for the past two months was Dex , was his d-partner, the person he’d done nothing but butt heads with for an entire year and then only gradually ease into the state of friendship they’d attained since then— he thought that once he realized that Will was still Poindexter, Samwell number 24— that Derek wouldn’t want him in this soft, vulnerable way anymore.
And yet. Here is Derek. Here is Nursey. Holding his hand and leading him up the stairs to his house.
“My parents aren’t home,” Derek says, as he takes a key to a mahogany front door. He looks back at Will briefly, to waggle his eyebrows, then, when Will turns the color of a beet, laughs and adds, “They’re just at work. And Maya’s at her internship. I’ll give you the tour, and we have the afternoon to chill.”
Will exhales. “That sounds perfect.”
“Fucking— hold on, babe; I’m sorry.” Will tries to stay steady on his feet at the nickname as Derek unwinds his hand from his. He jiggles at the key in the door with both hands, then, when it gives, flashes a triumphant grin. “There we go. Here, after you.”
Will doesn’t have time to be nervous. He walks into Derek’s home.
The front door leads him into a fancy parlor, and beyond that, Derek brings him to a big kitchen, complete with marble countertops and state-of-the-art equipment he thinks Bitty would probably die to get his hands on. “Welcome,” Derek says, spreading his arms out and smiling, “to my humble abode.”
Will almost laughs. The state of the kitchen alone is almost intimidating. He tries not to think too hard about the fact that he’s having dinner with Derek’s parents tonight.
It’s okay. For now, there’s only him and Derek.
“Hey,” Derek says, gently, stepping toward him. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah— yeah , sorry, I just—” Will pauses as Derek takes both of his hands. “I’m just. I’m.” He falters, laughs at himself. “I missed you.”
“I missed you too,” Derek replies, without missing a beat, and then winds his arms around him to hug him again. Will tucks his face into his neck, takes a shaky breath against his warm skin.
“So much,” Derek adds, then gives him one last squeeze around the waist before pulling away just enough to meet his eyes.
Derek rests one hand on his cheek, cups his face.
And Will thinks, for a second, that it might happen right now, in the kitchen. He looks at him for a moment, then Derek leans in, and Will braces himself— but the kiss lands on his cheek, not on his lips. It’s soft all the same, a little stubbly, and he feels himself blushing again. He thinks, actually, that he’s probably been blushing the entire time already.
“C’mon,” Derek hums, in a voice so soft it might turn Will’s legs into jelly. “I’ll give you the tour.”
The house is a lot bigger on the inside, full of rich-people furniture just as nice as the kitchen. There’s a literal chandelier in the dining room, and Derek’s dad has a whole wall in the living room dedicated to an elaborate wooden bookshelf. (“Maya and I used to sit there for hours,” Derek says of a leather armchair next to the shelf, “as kids, just going through Dad’s books when no one was home.”) There are plentiful windows to give it natural lighting, and an upper level, too, with a winding staircase to lead there.
They wind up in Derek’s room, which— almost looks nothing like the rest of the house. His things are still nice, all up-to-date, no hand-me-downs in sight, from his bedding and plentiful pillows to the nice clothes in his closet. He and his dad share a love for giant bookshelves, because there’s a chock-full one against his back wall, with more than a few of them stacked at odd angles and a few more dispersed around the room (in his bed, on his nightstand, one next to a hairbrush on the dresser). There’s a small framed sketch of Manhattan on the wall, one Will wonders if Derek maybe did himself, and a string lights with pictures clipped onto it; Will sees a lot of himself, Chowder, and the other members of the team. The walls are his signature green, the color of the hat on his head.
“You can leave your bag here,” Derek says, gesturing to the foot of his bed, so he does.
The room is a total mess, in a way. Will knows Derek is a disaster; he shared a room with him for an entire year, save his time in the basement. But it’s another thing to see his bedroom— really see it, not just the snippets from FaceTime. It’s like seeing another part of him.
“Here,” Derek says, offering his hand again. “This is my favorite part.”
Will follows him to the window, directly beneath which there’s a human-sized window seat with a Samwell throw blanket draped inside. The view outside it is of the other side of the street, and beyond it, just faintly, the skyline of the rest of the city. Will exhales. It’s nice. Derek’s hand in his is nicer.
“Do you read up there?” he asks him, surveying the window nest.
“You know it, baby,” Derek laughs, then rubs his thumb against Will’s knuckle. He brings his hand up to his face, plants a kiss on his palm, and then reaches for his waist, a question in his eyes.
Will steps forward, lets him put his arms around him. He rests his hand gently against Derek’s shoulder, and lets himself look, lets himself touch.
It’s okay. They’re touching. And he doesn’t have to tell himself not to think about it.
It’s all he can think about, actually.
“Hey,” Derek mutters, smiling with half his mouth.
“Hi,” Will replies. He knows he’s staring at Derek’s lips. He doesn’t care, and besides, he saw Derek’s eyes flick down to his own too. He wants it— he wants this so bad. He’s been thinking about this for weeks on months.
“I really want to kiss you right now,” Derek says. “Is that okay?”
“ God ,” Will says, and it’s like letting out the longest breath. “ Yes . Please.”
Derek beams. “ Chill ,” he says, and then he is kissing him.
It’s soft, but not chaste, exactly; Derek kisses tenderly and fully, and Will just might dissolve in the feeling of his lips on his own. For all the times Will has imagined what it would be like to kiss him, he never thought it’d be in a moment like this. He pictured anger, all biting, something in the middle of an argument, charged by animosity and their standard bickering or worse. This is none of those things. This is Derek’s kiss, warm and soft, romantic, even, a confirmation of all the longing and yearning of the weeks and months and years.
Will takes Derek’s face gingerly in one hand, and he feels Derek smile against his mouth. When they pull away to breathe, Derek is grinning something fierce. He knows he’s blushing. He doesn’t care anymore.
He just kissed Derek Nurse.
He wants to do it again.
“Was that better?” Derek asks. Will knits his brows. “Than your first kiss on the beach.”
“Oh my God .” Will laughs, tipping forward to press his forehead against his. “You fucking dork.”
Derek raises his eyebrows. “You’re dodging me.”
“Of course it was,” Will says. He takes his face in both his hands. His brain is in the best kind of fog. “Can I— can we— again?”
“Jesus Christ, yes,” Derek mutters, and the next kiss is searching, a little deeper, a little closer. Derek’s palm presses flat to his back, and oh, God , is this what he’s been missing? Is this what he could have been doing, for three years before this?
Is this really something he can have?
“C’mon,” Derek says, pulling away to take a step backwards. He holds out only his pinky, like he wants Will to take it, and stands next to the edge of his bed. “If you want?”
“If I want what?” Will folds his arms, smiles like the fucking dork he just accused Derek of being. “Use your words. You’re an English major.”
“ William .” Derek massages one of his temples. “Would you like to make out with me on my bed.”
“ Fuck yeah I do,” Will says, because finally, finally . He takes Derek’s pinky with his own, because that’s a thing now, apparently, and lets Derek pull him all the way down.
They flop onto the mattress, and Derek laughs. Will props himself over him for a second, then smiles until his face hurts. Derek’s eyes are so green, and they shine in the daylight through the window. His hat has fallen off in their tumble backwards. He’s the best thing Will has ever seen.
“What are you waiting for?” Derek mutters, wrapping his arm up toward his neck to pull him in.
Will has no idea. Maybe he’s just admiring, in disbelief.
But he has five entire days with him, five days to kiss him, to learn how they fit together best. And after that— well, who knows how long. This won’t end when he leaves New York; he knows that much.
He might as well get to it.