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It had been going on way longer than the team ever realized- like the beginning of their freshman year long. It was on a roadie, the night before the game, in Vermont of all places. Coach Murray dealt with room assignments and for some reason always stuck Derek with Dex, probably a forced bonding attempt. That night they were fighting, as usual, this time about which one was at fault for the losing goal during last week’s game.
Dex was so comically expressive, Derek thought absently as he watched Dex’s face screw up like a cartoon to hurl an insult at him.
“Yeah well, for all the clumsy I am, you’re the one who can’t keep your eyes on the ice” Derek snipes back. “You lost control of the puck, the only thing I did was try and keep those gorillas off of you while you were fucking up.”
Dex- already a fairly orange person as it is- had turned a delightful shade of persimmon, a fact that Derek could only take muted pleasure in. Yeah, it’s kind of fun to fight and bicker and snark but sometimes it gets mean and Dex gets under his skin like no one else.
“You’re such an ass,” Dex struggled out, his hands clenched at his sides. They were standing about a foot apart, still in the clothes they wore boarding the bus. Neither had unpacked yet and a forgotten suitcase lay on the ground next to them.
“Maybe,” Derek answered, “but at least you’re the only one who thinks so. The entire team knows you’re an ass.” It was mean, and low (and not really true) and Derek knew it. But he also knew it would hit home, and for a brief second that’s what he wanted. He watched hurt flash in Dex’s eyes, then more anger, and the victory of his barbed remark quickly gave way to regretful guilt.
They’re predictable, like this. It’s almost a dance that they do. Derek steeled himself for the inevitable cut- usually something about him being fake, pretentious, or rich- but it doesn’t come. Instead Dex is coming towards him and he instinctively prepares to push him off, deflect his blow, but then there’s a second pair of lips against his.
The kiss is violent, but in a good way. Derek doesn’t know what to do, but he likes this, so he leans into it, starts to kiss back. Soon Dex has both his hands around Derek’s face and Derek’s palms start to rest on Dex’s hips. They break apart, panting, and there’s a little fear in Dex’s eyes, but he kisses again, and this time they don’t stop.
Dex pushes Derek up against a wall, his arms on either side, and Derek’s hands experimentally creep down his torso. His hand a few centimeters above Dex’s belt, he whispered “yes, or no?”
There’s a “yes” in a low, hungry tone. They finish like that, almost in silence, speaking in hesitant touches, desperate nods.
And the next day, they play better hockey. They don’t talk about it, but there’s much less bickering on the bus ride home. Derek considers this a win, especially because SMH did win, and he kind of moves on.
Except then it happens again, at the next away game. And the next. At one point, Derek looks up at him, mid-make out, and asks “what are we doing?”
Dex responds shortly, but there’s a hardness in his eye that warns Derek away from pushing the issue. “We’re… letting off steam.”
And Derek’s been getting into ancient poetry and reading the Illiad and all of that, so this makes sense. They’re soldiers, working off extra energy, helping each other fight better.
Derek keeps dating other people. It doesn’t seem like Dex does, but he honestly doesn’t think Dex was dating people beforehand. And this thing between them keeps happening.
Somewhere in there, they become friends. Maybe it’s because Chowder invited them to so many movie nights. Maybe it was bonding over bullying Ransom over his shorts. They were both extreme night owls - Dex because he was downright mental about his grades and Derek because of, well, insomnia - and they often meet at the library at around 11 pm and stay there until 3.
In their sophomore year, Derek starts inviting Dex over, under some pretense or another, and they start hooking up at Samwell, too.
At one point, after they’ve finished and are watching some Penguins game together, he looks up at Dex, and asks “So, what… are you gay?” It’s a stupid question, Derek knows. They had been hooking up for a little over a year. But it’s not really about that. Derek wants to talk to Dex. He wants to know if this thing could be something bigger than just two bodies, if there was some possibility that Dex’s heart had started to recognize the beat of Derek’s pulse the way he had for Dex.
Dex glared back at him in response, a stubborn crease setting in his eyebrows. Derek raises his hands, a placating gesture. “Hey, hey, it’s my dick that you’re sucking, I’m not exactly going to judge.”
Dex doesn’t really laugh at his comment, but his body language changes from defensive to something… quieter, softer. His eyebrows are still tugged together but it’s more with confusion than functioning as a glare.
“I don’t know. I just… like what I like.” Dex says. Derek has to chip him, of course, and sings out “Dexy likes me!” Dex has to get angry at that, of course, and sulks off leaving Derek to finish his Penguins game alone. And then Derek doesn’t see too much of him the rest of the week, not really until the epikegster on Friday.
Dex goes to the parties, but rarely gets too drunk. “Irish stomach,” he’ll say after necking down a full cup of tub juice and still beating the shit out of everyone at darts. Most of the time, he’s on the sidelines, though. He usually shuts down the various people who try to flirt with him and nurses a cheap beer.
Tonight, Derek can’t find Dex in his usual spots. Scanning the crowd, though, he’s pleased to see Aicha, a girl in his feminist lit class that he had been texting for a few weeks.
“You made it!” He said by way of greeting, wrapping her in a friendly hug.
“Wow, a famous Samwell Hockey Haus Party,” Aicha teases. “So, give me the tour!”
Nursey slings his arm around her shoulder. He starts with the kitchen, whips out a reliable Bitty anecdote. In the living room, he reluctantly introduces Aicha to Ransom and Holster who (maturely) wriggle their eyebrows at him as soon as she’s turned away.
“And this- the back yard- the site of many a bacchanal” he adds in a joking whisper, leading her down the steps to where the party has overflown. The crowd out here is quieter, a little less drunk, and more cliquey.
“Bacchanals? How scandalous,” Aicha says with a flirty smile and he’s just about to respond when out of the corner of his eye, he sees a familiar shock of red hair entangled with some other guy.
Dex is pinning him to the wall. The other guy is shorter, but handsome, running his hands all over Dex’s body. Among all of the things Derek is feeling, confusion is definitely up there. Scanning the rest of the crowd, he sees that Bitty, Ransom and Holster, Chowder, and Lardo have all made their way out to the back yard and, exchanging looks, all clocked on to Dex’s current activities.
They finally break away from their kiss and the other guy says something that makes Dex grin. Dex gives him his phone, and the other guy types at it for a second before shooting Dex a wink and walking away. A moment later, Dex starts back indoors. He catches the eye of his team, but all that’s there is heat, and a raised eyebrow, almost like he’s daring anyone to say something. He disappears indoors and Aicha’s voice breaks Derek’s reverie.
“Who was that?” She asks and Derek tries to ignore the gnawing hole in his stomach as he answers, “that’s my D-man-“ after a confused look, he goes into a little more explanation about hockey and then not-so-gracefully steers the conversation elsewhere.
She goes home with him that night, like Derek had hoped. It was fun, relaxing. Afterwards, he held her tight against his body, and tried to enjoy the moment. But he couldn’t stop thinking about Dex’s hands on someone else.
No one really brings up Dex’s choice of make-out partner at breakfast, but everyone treads exceedingly carefully around him. If Dex notices, he barely shows it, just wolfs down his cereal and glares at the terminal open on his laptop, which had reported “Segmentation Fault” the last six times he had attempted to fix and re-run his project.
Dex starts dating more, after that. A lot more. Nursey sees him on around campus with a few girls and all sorts of guys. Maybe some of them are friends but Dex is sporting mad beard burn frequently and Nursey has been clean shaven for months.
They’ve only hooked up once in the past two weeks, a quickie after SMH lost to BU, and didn’t talk after.
Even though there’s less sex, they don’t fight any more than they used to. They’re still sort of friends.
When their second year ends and the now-infamous coin flip determines the fate of their living situation, Dex pitches a royal fit. But that night, they have, like, really good sex and Derek figures everything’s okay.
It is, for a while.
It’s good over the summer. Dex and Derek even call a few times to chat. Dex tells Derek about the lobster boat he’s been working at and Derek tells Dex about the new novella he’s writing. They’re kind of… close. Derek’s been ignoring, more consistently, the romantic bloom in his heart that is just dying to fantasize about Dex in any way other than physical.
It’s even good the first few weeks of living together. They have a lot more sex, hooking up almost every night. Partially because they fight a lot more, partially because with their beds right there, it’s really fucking convenient.
But then there’s a party. Derek is chatting with Sebastian and this guy Paul had been following Dex around practically all night. He loses track of Dex and Paul eventually, and when Sebastian leans in and asks in a low voice “you live right upstairs, right?” He finds himself showing Sebastian the way, checking the room is clear, and placing a conspicuous sock on the doorknob. He doesn’t catch Dex coming off the balcony (Paul a few steps behind) to see the sock, or witness Dex blowing Paul off rudely the rest of the night. He’s asleep when Dex comes back to the room, quietly, and curls himself in bed.
After that, they fight about anything and everything. The mean fights too, the ones they only used to have before they started hooking up. They’ve stopped being physical- once or twice Derek has put his arm on Dex’s leg or tried reaching for his hand and Dex has shoved him unceremoniously off.
Dex is just pushing and pushing in a way that Derek doesn’t understand, and then it comes to a head over Tide Pods, of all things. They’re screaming like normal and then Dex grabs an empty laundry bin and starts shoving everything on his desk into it. Derek stops for a second, kind of at a loss. Dex marches down the stairs and Derek follows him to the basement, where Dex tips the bin out. There’s a couple of trips like this and Derek sits in his room watching Dex clear his entire life out.
After that, they’re not even friends any more. There’s no fighting because there’s no…anything. If they have to sit next to each other, they do so in silence. Their hockey gets much, much worse, but Bitty’s captaincy has the other players somehow able to pick up their slack so the team is doing okay. But they can all tell that something is wrong with the two of them. Chowder tries more movie nights, Bitty bakes them some “friendship pie” that they have to share. When Jack comes down for a weekend, he even awkwardly tries to ask Dex what’s been going on, and gets shut down with an icy comment.
But Coach Murray fucking loves rooming them together. Derek dreads the game against Yale for a full two weeks and the entire bus ride there and then he and Dex are left alone together in the same room for the first time in ages.
They’ve both gotten under their covers. It’s really fucking quiet. Dex is radiating frustration all the way from his side of the room. Derek tries to sit there and listen to his music and unwind but he can’t stop thinking about what the fuck ever happened and how mad he is at Dex, so he finally snaps something out,
“What the fuck is wrong with you, man?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Dex says, shortly, and Derek groans.
“Yes you do. Why’re you so.. angry all of the sudden?”
“Can you honestly tell me you’ve ever known me to not be an angry person?” Dex’s voice is much calmer than usual, but cold in a way that Derek hates more.
“This is different dude, just tell me whatever I did, and don’t give me any of this crap that this is about me stealing your Tide Pods.”
Dex doesn’t say anything, so Nursey asks again, “Dude.”
“You know, not everyone finds your whole chill hipster “dude” thing charming,” Dex mocks, avoiding the question. Derek throws a pillow at him, which he swats away.
“What’s the problem, Dex? What is it.” His voice is urgent now, less a question, more a demand. There’s no pretense of chill there.
Dex was laying on his bed, had turned on his side away from Derek.
“Look I- I knew what this was. I knew what we were doing but I couldn’t fucking stand living in the same room as you and watching you bring other people over to fuck.” He finally got out.
Derek felt like he had been hit by a train.
“You’re jealous? What, of..” He thought back, trying to recall when that had happened. “Sebastian? At the epikegster?”
“I’m not fucking jealous.”
“Seems like you’re jealous.”
“Seems like you don’t know how to be a decent human being,” Dex spat out.
“Dude, okay, listen, it’s not like you haven’t been hooking up with other people too, so-“ Derek cut off.
“I haven’t been!” Dex intejects. “Not since. Not since the coin flip.” Derek let that hang in the air.
“Not Paul?” He asked
“No, he was just super into me and I couldn’t shake him off.” Dex said, in a quiet tone. He was embarrassed, Derek realized. He could only see the tips of Dex’s ears turning red, but the slump of his shoulders said enough.
“Why?” Derek finally asked.
“You’re such a dick.” Is all Dex said.
“Not really an answer,” Derek responded.
“Yeah, but you’ve figured out the answer, and you’re just being a dick, trying to humiliate me by saying it. Asshole.” Dex muttered angrily.
Derek doesn’t really know what to say to that. He watches Dex’s silhouette pull his blankets more tightly around his body. The silence hangs, for a long time, before he says,
“I miss you, Dex.” He knows Dex isn’t asleep, but he doesn’t respond.
The game is shit, not entirely because of Dex and Derek but they certainly didn’t help. On the bus ride back, barely any of the team talks to each other and there’s a few resentful looks cast in Derek’s direction that he wishes he didn’t see.
He doesn’t really care about any of that, though. He feels awful. Worse than he felt when he saw Dex making out with someone else, if that was possible. Over the next few days, he keeps replaying conversations from the summer over in his head. Dex would sometimes call him right after his shift on the lobster boat, when Derek was just waking up, and they’d talk on the drive back. He realized that maybe things really had changed between them after sophomore year. Those first few weeks (when they were constantly hooking up) Derek hadn’t really thought of anyone else. To be honest, this entire year, he had barely thought of anyone else.
He thumbed with his phone, eventually sighing and just typing out a text.
Derek Nurse: I’m a fucking idiot
Dex doesn’t respond, but he “thumbs up’s” the message.
Derek Nurse: where are you
No response, but the “Read” symbol appears.
Derek Nurse: can you come to Faber? Bitty’s making us run drills
Dexy Pointdickster: k
So, Bitty wasn’t making them run drills. And Derek doesn’t really have a plan, but he knows he needs to talk to Dex, so he grabs his gear and heads to the rink. He arrived just before Dex, who brushed past him on the way to the locker room. Dex started to change and Derek blurted out, “Bitty’s not here. There’s no drills.”
Dex looked at him with loathing, tugging his shirt back down. He made a little scoffing noise.
“Look man I really need to talk to you, can you just sit there and listen to what I have to say?” He rushed out, scratching at a place behind his neck.
Dex still looks pissed but he grunts “fine” and sits down, looking up at Derek expectantly.
“Basically, I’ve realized I’m an idiot.” He waits for Dex to make a requisite derogatory comment, but when he doesn’t, keeps going.
“I didn’t realize. I didn’t think anything had changed, but then it had. Not just for you for me, too. I haven’t-”
He breaks off because they haven’t been honest like this and he’s scared. He’s really scared, but Dex’s face isn’t changing and he has to keep going, so he says
“I haven’t thought about anyone but you since- for a while. The beginning of summer I think. And Sebastian? I just didn’t want to ruin things between us so I’ve been pushing it all down and he made it easier to, just, I don’t know, ignore it.”
“The point is, Pointdexter, I’m sorry, and I was an ass for not thinking about how it would make you feel and-“ he breaks off, and Dex raises an eyebrow.
“I don’t know if you still - feel anything for me, I guess. But I’m done sleeping with other people. It’s, it’s you or its no-one for me.”
Dex is looking at him differently now. There’s something Derek hasn’t seen before in his eyes. He stands up and Derek emotionally prepares for him to walk out, but instead Dex catches his hand. He gently tilts Derek’s chin up and he kisses him.
This kiss isn’t violent at all. It’s warm, soft. It’s the taste of chocolate melting in your mouth. They stay like that for a while, then walk back to the Haus.
Dex leads him downstairs, to the bungalow, and picks up another laundry bin, loading it up. And he moves back into their room, one laundry bin at a time.
After that, the team turns a corner. Maybe Dex and Derek really made that much of a difference in the points, or maybe morale was just way better with them acting like friends again. Whatever the case, the team wins the Frozen Four and everything’s really, really good.
There’s a huge party, of course. Jack is there, so are Ransom and Holster, and Shitty and Lardo. The music is loud, the booze is warm and everyone’s lost control. Dex and Derek are dancing near each other, and then a few songs later, they’re dancing on each other, and then they’re making out against a wall - this time Derek has Dex pinned- and the crowd goes wild.
“THEY’RE FINALLY HOOKING UP!” yelled Chowder and in ridiculous time the entire team had appeared in the living room, cheering them on.
Derek flushed, and smirked at Dex. “I guess we were good at hiding it,” he murmurs and Dex laughs a little back. Dex leaned forward and kissed him again, then lead him upstairs to the sound of raucous wolf whistles.
The next morning they’re harassed for deets, mostly to settle a team-wide bet that had apparently been happening since the start of Sophomore year.
Holster peered over a very creased piece of paper.
“Okay folks the bet was “when will Dex and Nursey finally get it together!” He says in a mock-announcer voice.
“Let’s see. Lardo bet mid-sophomore year, Bitty had beginning of senior, Jack had “i don’t care,” and Ransom and I had guessed end of senior year.”
“so I guess we’re out.” He added.
“Whiskey claimed beginning of junior and Shitty said over the summer between sophomore and junior.”
“Okay, so fellas, beginning of junior, then?” He said expectantly, over the rims of his glasses.
Derek glanced at Dex, who looked equally confused.
“For… what? Dating or hooking up?”
“You guys are DATING NOW?!” Chowder piped up from the end of the table. Dex flushed beside Derek.
Holster turned his head to Ransom, and they conversed in a flurry of whispers.
“Okay, Ransom and I are going to change the ruling. Because the initial phrasing “finally get it together” was not specific enough, we’re going to split the money between the person to get the closest to their initial hook up and the closest to their becoming an item.”
The team turned to look expectantly at the two of them.
“So..” Derek started slowly. “Bitty wins for us dating, which started like. A few days ago, so that’s closest to the start of senior year.”
Bitty grins smugly at the end of the table. “And the hooking up?”
Derek laughs a little, and turns to Dex to let him respond. He chews his cereal for a second.
“Um. like. Four weeks into freshman year?”
The team riots.
“This ENTIRE TIME?” Bitty is scandalized. Chowder is pouting that he never figured it out.
“I guess that makes me the other winner, then, boys,” Lardo cheers, fist bumping with Bitty.
And it’s sweet, how happy the team is for them, aside from the chirping. They start to get sin binned way more, but they can handle it.
Dating Dex is somehow so much easier than Derek could have imagined. In the three years they’d known each other, they’d come to understand one another in such a close, intimate way that dating felt more like picking up an old book than starting a new one.
When school ends, they say goodbye, for the summer, but Derek’s heart is actually free of anxiety about it. He knows that in three months, his boyfriend Dex will be waiting for him in Boston, and until then, he can handle FaceTime.