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Matt and Bruce were standing closely next to each other, waiting for Tim to arrive at '. Bruce had been quizzing Matt since he picking him up at his apartment.
Matt's octogenarian roommate Gene had also been quizzing Matt whenever he got the chance to. Most of the time, Gene asked Matt questions about the civil war — Gene's favorite topic. So Matt's expertise was a little, well, as Bruce called it "Inselbegabung".
"It's when you're only really good at one specific thing but nothing else, like an island in the middle of the sea being the only place you won't drown. Germans have a word for everything", he had joked.
It was a rainy evening in spring, the air smelled like freshly blooming flowers, awoken by the cold rain. Matt muttered facts to himself, rocking back and forth on his feet. The last time he had studied this hard for something must've been the NCLEX.
He jumped a little, clutching his chest, when the lights of Alex's car blinded him as they were turning into the parking lot.
Through the windshield, Matt and Bruce watched Tim kiss Alex goodbye. As Tim got out of the car, Alex waved at them. Matt enthusiastically waved back.
Bruce lightly pushed Matt's arm down: "you don't always have to wave so hard"
"Oh, okay", Matt nodded embarrassed.
Bruce's hand still kind of wrapped around his fingers, as if they had gotten tangled. They were warm while his felt like they were about to freeze off. Slowly, Matt clasped his fingers deeper into Bruce's.
"Eww, your fingers!", Bruce exclaimed, pulling his hand away, "I'm gonna tell the bartender they don't need to put ice into your drink. Your fingers will cool it enough"
"Hey guys, sorry for letting you wait… it took a little longer to get ready with Ella and Luke-", Tim flimsily hugged Bruce and Matt.
"Ahhh, let's forget about the kids tonight and focus on what's in here", Bruce ruffled though Tim's hair with his fist.
He was eager to win. This whole thing brought Bruce right back to participating in science bowls. When his father sat in the audience, cheering him on. God, he missed his dad. His eyes lingered on Matt's hand, now wanting to grab it again for comfort.
A shiver ran through Matt's body: "Can we go inside? It's a little cold after the rain"
"Right, of course", Bruce shoved Tim and Matt into O'Malley's.
There was a small hallway before you entered O'Malley's. A big black door led to the bar itself, another one led to the toilets.
Behind the entrance door a bartender had been tasked with writing down which trivia teams had arrived.
"Team name?"
"The Kings", Bruce replied. Without Steve being with there, this name didn't really make sense. And was a bit embarrassing. But Bruce was mostly done with Steve after the past week anyway. He felt like he was trying to suck up to one of his high school bullies. Bruce exhaled relieved when he realized he didn't have to be cool enough for Steve to like him tonight.
Matt grabbed Bruce's arm, pulling him over to the table assigned to them. Bruce's heart skipped a beat when he felt Matt's fingers on his arm, noticing how Matt's little mullet was swinging from left to right with every step, glowing in the dim light.
There was a bench mounted to the wall. Opposite it was a singular chair, a table in between. Matt, still holding Bruce's arm, slid onto the bench taking Bruce with him.
Tim was a frankly relieved that he got the single chair. Not that he was weirded out by Bruce or Matt… but sometimes he was weirded out by Bruce and Matt. He had learned that again during their practice session a couple of days ago.
"I'm going to get something to drink, first round is one me! What do you guys want?", Bruce pulled his wallet out of his jacket before giving it to Matt to put it aside. A rare generous mood had overcome him.
"Oh! Thanks! Just a Lemonade for me", Matt smiled.
"I'll get a beer, thanks Bruce", Tim replied.
"Okeydoke, be right back"
For a moment Matt and Tim silently smiled at each other.
"Man I really hope we can win this… seems to mean quite a lot to Bruce", Matt broke the ice.
Tim furrowed his eyebrows:"I don't know. To me it's more about the fun, about going out together with your—", Tim paused, "with your friends"
"Huh, yeah I've never done anything like this before so", Matt examined the wooden table with his eyes, "I really hope I won't look like a complete doddypoll"
"Oh no, I'm sure you will do fine", Tim assured him while being not so sure himself.
A couple of minutes later, Bruce came over balancing their three drinks: The same beer for him and Tim and a lemonade for Matt.
"To a great game of trivia!", Bruce exclaimed.
"Cheers", Tim joined in followed by Matt.
"Prosit!"
They clinked their classes together, Matt especially making sure to deeply look into Tim and Bruce's eyes.
"God, did you have to stare into my soul?", Bruce laughed nervously after taking a sip.
Matt's shoulders caved in: "Sorry, I didn't mean to—"
"See, now you're doing it again", Bruce slapped the table with his hand.
Tim gladly enjoyed his single chair. He glanced at the piece of paper on the table, neatly prepared with an O'Malley's -branded pen.
Trying to get rid of whatever it was that was freaking Bruce out, Matt rubbed his eyes. Hungry for the competition, Bruce had already moved on, turning his head around in search for the host.
In the background, rock music from the 90s was playing. A slight dust wobbled through the bar coming from the small smoker section. Matt had coughed terribly the first couple of times he was subjected to the second hand smoke. Over time though he had grown familiar and comfortable with it. In a corner a couple of regulars were playing table football, cheering and shouting loudly.
When Matt looked around to their competitors, he noticed it was a lot more middle aged men with rings on their ring-fingers than he had thought. Maybe lot of wives had husbands on bar trivia teams.
Matt nipped on his lemonade, counting the red and white stripes on his paper straw to distract himself from the nervous growling in this stomach.
Bruce's elbow hit Matt's ribcage, throwing him out of his empty stare: "See that guy with the microphone? I think could be the host. Ugh, I hope they start soon"
"Hmhm", Matt nodded.
"You're awfully quiet today", Bruce scoffed.
"I'm just nervous", Matt murmured.
Under the table, Bruce grabbed Matt's wrist to double check if he was really telling the truth and didn't just secretly start hating him.
"Makes sense", he shrugged, "your pulse is definitely elevated"
Surprised, Matt looked at Bruce, his eyes questioning if Bruce actually just checked his pulse to see if he was really nervous. His eyes wandered down to their hands, letting his slide into Bruce's and holding it tightly.
"I feel less nervous this way", he quietly defended himself.
Tim had been watching their interaction from a safe distance, wondering if they really thought that holding hands under the table wasn't noticeable. Whatever tension was between them— whether it was platonic or romantic, Tim couldn't tell— was always so intimate. Like two middle-schoolers in their first relationship being so unbelievably co-depended.
During their trivia training session, Bruce had asked Matt to massage his back. Matt had jumped up and Bruce stripped off his shirt, only wearing a tight tank-top underneath. That was something that Tim did with Alex. Not his work friends. But maybe saving lives together in the ER made them have a different bond than growing grass. So Tim tried not to judge too much.
"Welcome to-", a painfully squeaking blare emitted from the speakers, "excuse me… Welcome to the monthly O'Malley's trivia quiz! "
"Yes, finally", Bruce's eyes glowed with excitement.
"As most of you know, we will play six rounds on different topics. For every question, you get time to write the answer down on the paper on your team's table which you're going to give me for scoring after each round"
Matt nodded attentively, checking if their paper hadn't suddenly turned into dust.
"Rules are: no cheating, no phones, no smart watches-"
Hectically, Matt took off his apple watch doing the same for Bruce and tucking them away in their jackets. Bruce felt the hairs on his arm perk up when he noticed Matt's fingers softly touching his wrist.
"- you already know the drill. Let's get right into our first topic: Geography!"
Bruce glanced at Matt who was heavily breathing, blinking like something was in his eye and kneading his hands. A bit pathetic how he got flustered at just a simple bar trivia. But also cute that he cared so much. The way his frontal veins would become visible whenever he had strong feelings intrigued Bruce– just like right now. His eyes got stuck on Matt, distracted by his presence. He wondered if Matt knew that he noticed things like that. Probably not since Bruce tried his best to not let that happen.
"What river", the host continued, "flows through London?"
A sharp gasp came from Matt. He grabbed Bruce's upper arm, shaking it: "I know this one! I know this!"
"Then write it down", Bruce laughed and handed Matt the pen.
With how much Matt's hands were trembling, the letters came out looking like a preschooler had just made his first attempt at writing. The first anxiety fell off his shoulders though, allowing Matt to lean back against the cushions on the wall.
They did decently well in geography. Matt was actually a good help here. Reading up on every thing to ever exist had let to him mostly remembering places. Out of the 10 questions they got 8 right. Which was one point less than the team "O'Trivia's" as the host declared.
"What a dumb name", Bruce leaned closer to Tim and Matt as if their name wasn't "the Kings". His Teammates nodded agreeing, polite smiles on their faces.
The next topic was science, in which of course Bruce dominated. He had to loudly laugh at every question just so everyone in the room knew this was light work for him. His confidence wasn't rooted in nothing though, this round they got all 10 out of 10 points.
In the three following rounds not much notable happened. "Music", "Movies" and "General Knowledge" all were answered by the trio, sometimes not knowing what to do at all, sometimes knowing the exact answer. At the end of round five they were tied with the O'Trivia's. A thorn in Bruce's side.
With every round, the adrenaline that had kept Matt awake past his usual bedtime wore off. He yawned, rubbing his eyes which were getting smaller and smaller.
The next topic was history. Tim grinned at Bruce: "I've got this one, trust me"
"What year did the Berlin wall fall?"
Tim grabbed the pen to scribble down 1989. Just when Bruce wanted to high five Tim, he felt something tip against his shoulder. He looked to his side and noticed Matt leaning against him, his eyes closed. Carefully, Bruce lifted up Matt's chin.
Matt blinked, confused about where he was for a second. He exhaled heavily, scanning the room he was in. "Sorry", Matt mumbled, forcing himself to sit up straight again to fix his shirt.
"Don't worry, not like you're much of an asset anyway", Bruce caught himself running his hand up and down Matt's back. Abruptly, he stopped, friskily hitting Matt on the back before leading the hand back to the beer in front of him.
"Probably should've stuck with Steve", Matt grumbled.
"Oh come on, you're not doing that bad. Also Steve is busy anyway and you can't really make us worse so…"
Matt's head had tipped over to the other side now, asleep again.
"Hey Matty", Bruce shook Matt's shoulders, "we've only got a couple more questions left! "
Reluctantly, Matt squeezed his eyes and alternately lightly slapped his left and right cheeks: "Okay! I'm so ready again!"
"Which historical figure is being referred to with the nickname 'the sun king'? "
"This is too easy", Tim scoffed, jotting Ludwig the 14th down on their answer sheet.
"A battle in which city is considered a turning point in the American civil war?"
"GETTYSBURG" Matt blurted out loudly.
Bruce buried his face in his hands, then formed a fist which he banged against the table: "C'mon Matthew! Apparently you can make us worse"
"Woah, let's not get our tempers up!", the host appeased, earning him an annoyed look from Bruce, "the kings will get an extra point for enthusiasm"
Every single person in the bar had turned towards them. As a result Matt felt his face heat up so much, he could only imagine how red he must've looked. Matt starred at the table, his eyes wide open and the adrenaline rushing through his veins again.
"Right, moving on…" the attention moved back to the trivia questions.
Bruce grabbed Matt by the shoulders, positioning his head so close to Matt, their noses almost touched: "Listen man, I know you're tired and clumsy like that but you don't have to screw this up for us now"
Matt nodded, his eyes fixated by Bruce's: "Yes, boss"
Tim almost forgot to write down the answers to the questions, a responsibility left to him because his teammates were too busy feeling each others breath stroke along their cheeks, watching them again. He had to discuss this with Alex. This couldn't be most ER work friendships, right?
For a quick moment he focused on writing. When he looked up again, somehow Bruce's hand had moved to the back of Matt's head, giving him a gentle forehead kiss before saying: "You got this kiddo"
"Yeah", Matt said bobbing his head, "you're right, I got this"
'Got this' in Matt's case apparently meant looking wide-eyed at Bruce, who he leaned over to Tim, discussing if the last czar of Russia was named Nicholas II or Nicholas I.
"You guys are so smart", Matt commented after the last question was answered.
Tim smiled: "You didn't do bad either"
He got up to hand in their final answer sheet to find out the final results.
"I mean, yeah you got us an extra point", Bruce patted Matt's shoulder, "good job"
Matt grinned, trying to stay humble: "Thanks"
"Well, don't be too proud. We don't know if we won yet", Bruce immediately had to bring down Matt's enthusiasm. An old habit he regretted because Matt's smile was especially cute tonight.
He felt something tip against his shoulder again. It was Matt's head like earlier but this time Matt was fully awake. Bruce decided to let it happen. Even when Matt searched for Bruce's hand to hold it, he didn't fight it. The deeper their fingers intertwined the less Bruce cared if they won bar trivia tonight.
Tim had had enough beer to lose a bit of his social barrier: "So you two are dating or something?"
"Huh?", Matt perked up in the same moment as another shrill sound blasted through the speakers:
"I have the results of tonight's trivia game ready! Okay so… the third place goes to the Wise Quakers"
"There's Quakers here? You know my grandfather had a conflict with this Quaker community near us about the apple harvest— " Matt started to tell a story.
"Psshht", Bruce shushed Matt, "it's just their team name! Now quiet, I need to hear the results"
"On the second place, we've got", the host drummed with his fingers, "The O'Trivias!"
Bruce tightened his grip around Matt's hand. They had either won everything or nothing.
"Okay, is everyone ready for the first place?!"
A tired yet agreeing chatter traveled through the room.
"Winning… with just one point…give it up for……The Kings!"
"Yes, haha!", Bruce cheered, pulling his arm up in the air together with Matt's.
Surprised, Tim, high-fived his teammates: "Alex is never going to believe this"
Matt felt like a rock was lifted from his chest. He was more relieved than ecstatic like Bruce.
Bruce dragged Matt to the host with him to collect their winning certificate.
"This is going to hang in my office", he triumphed, "you can come see it any time of course… and if they ever start giving offices to nurses one day, we can debate who gets to keep it when it's time"
Matt smiled: "I'm just happy to have a reason to come to your office"
"Oh yeah?"
"I just like spending time with you…"
"Guys? You can go back to your seats now by the way", the host pushed them back towards their table to say his closing words.
"Sorry, we're already gone", now Matt pulled Bruce with him. He slid the certificate over to Tim who took a picture to later proudly present to his wife.
Matt leaned back onto Bruce's shoulder yawing: "Good lord, I'm tired"
"Yeah, you do look weak and pale", Bruce nodded, carefully stroking his fingers over Matt's arm under the table.
"I don't think Matt looks that pale— and also not that weak", Tim voiced disagreement.
"No Tim, you don't- he looks weak and pale and which one of us is a doctor, huh?", Bruce scolded him, then turning to Matt: "I can totally carry you to the car later"
"No Bruce, don't be silly. I can still walk. I'm just tired, you know, like how you normally get tired when it's late", Matt declined the offer.
As he felt how he fought against his eyes closing, Bruce gave him a second look, as if he was asking: are you sure?
"But maybe we can go home?"
"So… time to text Alex to pick me up, huh?", Tim asked. In reality he had already texted Alex ten minutes ago.
"Yep", Bruce slapped his hands onto his thighs before getting up to grab his jacket. Matt was sitting on the bench, his eyes half closed and mostly motionless.
Bruce took his chance:"Let's put your jacket on, buddy, we don't want you getting sick in the cold"
Hesitantly, Matt cooperated with Bruce. Sliding his arms into the sleeves and helping Bruce close the buttons. Their faces got so close they could count each others pores yet another time today.
While waiting for Alex, Matt leaned against Bruce. Bruce put his arm around Matt, caressing Matt over his jacket. Stifling a heavy sign of soothe, Matt shoved his hands into the pockets of his pants to keep them from freezing off.
Eventually, Alex's car turned onto the parking lot. Tim waived them goodbye before running to Alex, eager to ask what was going on between those too.
"Alright, let's get you home", Bruce held his hand out for Matt to grab.
"Thanks Bruce", Matt held onto Bruce's hand while they were walking to the car.
During the drive, Matt was completely silent. He leaned his head against the window, slightly nodding along to the unfamiliar music Bruce was playing. Apparently music by "The President of the United States of America". He didn't know the presidents were making music too, but he liked it!
Finally, Bruce parked the car on the parking lot of the apartment building.
"Here we are— I'm walking you inside", Bruce jumped out of the car to open the door for the sluggishly moving Matt.
"Wow, you're a real gentleman", Matt laughed.
"Anything for m'lady", Bruce grinned.
Matt slurped his feet along to concrete and up the stairs while Bruce watched him, something like concern building up in his eyes.
In front of the apartment door, Matt turned to Bruce:"Thank you for everything, I had a really nice evening"
"Oh that? No prob! Yeah, just happy you were there… and got us that winning extra point", Bruce wildly gesticulated with his hands before resting them on his hips, instead of just saying that he had a nice evening too.
"Alright then, enjoy the rest of the night and get home safe!", Matt smiled at Bruce, debating what the right way to say goodbye was.
"Yeah, you— you too!", Bruce was about to turn around but suddenly stopped his movement, "Hey, I just have one more thing"
"Oh yeah?", Matt froze in his movement to open the door with his keys.
Scratching the back of his head, Bruce stuttered: "Yeah, it's, uhh, I don't know how to say this—"
Matt raised his eyebrows, waiting for elaboration. Before he could register what was happening, Bruce's hand pulled his chin up, the other one messed with his hair in the back and their lips intertwined. Quickly, Matt let go off his keys, the sound of them falling on the ground echoing through the stairwell. His arms wrapped around Bruce's neck to pull himself closer.
After a solid minute, Bruce loosened his grip around Matt: "that's what I wanted to say"
Matt lowered his hands to lay on Bruce's shoulders: "I liked what you had to say even though you technically weren't speaking"
Both were heavily panting, Matt looking a bit like he had just seen a ghost from the sudden adrenaline rush.
"Well, at least now you've got some color on your face again", Bruce laughed, commenting on how Matt's cheeks had turned bright red.
"Shut up", Matt mumbled embarrassed, turning even redder.
"You know, whenever you get nervous your frontal veins become totally visible—", Bruce pulled Matt's face up to look into his eyes again by putting both of his hands underneath his jaw, "I— is this a weird thing to notice?"
Matt felt how his heart skipped like a handful of beats before he could articulate any of his thoughts:"No, it's… thoughtful… and it's freaking me out a bit but it's also sweet"
"Yeah?", a careful smile spread on Bruce's face.
Enthusiastically nodding, Matt reassured Bruce.
"Can we maybe kiss again before we say goodbye?"
"Don't have to ask me twice", Bruce wrapped his hands around Matt's waist this time.
Matt closed his eyes, only focusing on what he felt. How Bruce's soft lips touched his, the warmth radiating from Bruce, how Bruce's heart was so close to him he could feel it beating, how Bruce's fingers dug into his waist and how Bruce's breath hit his cheeks.
As Bruce let go of Matt, he couldn't help but say: "So the rumors are true, Matty the kid is a superb kisser!"
"There's rumors about me??"
"Only about how good you are at kissing, so, I think that's a good thing… a good rumor to have going around…especially when you live up to it"
"Alright, I better get inside. Gene is going to be mad about me coming home this late anyway"
"Right and then there's also the rumor that you and Gene are dating"
"What?! We don't— he's like 86! Nothing against old people but, you know! People actually think that?"
"No, just kidding, I made that up", Bruce appeased Matt.
"Ohhhh good", Matt sighed relieved, "well I better get inside now"
Bruce hugged Matt tightly: "Sweat dreams, Matty!"
"You too, Brucey! Text me when you get home!", Matt called after Bruce who had already turned around to the staircase again.
"I will!"
"Love you!"
Bruce paused.
"Love you, too!"