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“Okay,” Holster said, holding up the two DVD cases in either hand. “The official Samwell Men’s Hockey movie night vote has come down to Mighty Ducks, 1992, or MVP: Most Valuable Primate, 2000. As your captains, Ransom and I will be abstaining from the poll, so.... Gentlemen—and Lardo—your votes, please?”
“Mighty Ducks,” Lardo said immediately.
“Agreed,” said Dex.
“No, no, no. MVP!” said Chowder. “It’s a monkey who plays hockey! C’mon guys!”
“Ditto,” said Nursey, taking a spot between Chowder and Dex on the couch.
“But the monkey’s name is Jack,” Bitty said insistently. “Are y’all seriously going to make me watch that?”
“Hold on, its name is Jack?” Lardo asked. “I’m changing my vote. Count me down for the monkey one.”
Bitty sighed. “Et tu, Lardo?”
Lardo shrugged.
“Okay,” Ransom said. “That’s two for Mighty Ducks, and three for MVP. Whiskey? Tango?”
“...Mighty Ducks....”
“Um, I guess I’m the tie breaker then?” Tango said. “Um, I guess I’ll vote for MVP?”
“Alright, we have a winner!” Holster hollered. “Get ready for the most talented non-human hockey player ever, because we’re about to watch MVP!”
“...Yay,” said Dex.
Nursey didn’t really care about which movie they watched, but voting against Dex was always fun. He looked a little sullen now, his hands crossed over his chest as he slouched back against the couch. It was cute. It made Nursey want to kiss him.
There was no real reason why he shouldn’t kiss him. They’d been dating for two months, and they’d talked about coming out to the team. Neither of them had any particular reservations about it, but they just hadn’t... done it. Not yet. It was hard to find the right time, what with their rigorous practice schedule and midterms coming up. Maybe tomorrow, they kept saying. Maybe next week.
He could’ve just kiss Dex and gotten it over with, but he didn’t. He didn’t especially feel like trying to explain anything at the moment.
Instead, Nursey just draped his arm casually over the back of the couch behind Dex’s head and settled in to watch the beginning of the movie.
After about ten minutes, it was clear that Dex had no intention of actually paying attention to the movie. He started out by criticizing the movie’s plot—“There’s no way they would hand over custody of an animal like that. That’s not what happens when a lab loses funding.”—but the others shushed him enough that he eventually kept quiet. After another few minutes or so, Dex was on his phone.
That wouldn’t do.
As surreptitiously as he could manage, Nursey took his own phone out of his back pocket and opened up his text conversation with Dex. r u 2 good 4 this movie? he typed, then tapped ‘Send’.
Nursey waited until he heard Dex’s phone buzz. He could feel Dex’s eyes on him, but he refused to look. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he could see Dex tapping out a response.
Are you too good for spelling out full words? came the reply a moment later. Nursey tried not to laugh, but there was no way he was suppressing his grin.
rude. im an english major, u kno
And I’m a CS major. Now we’re both saying things that have no relevance to this conversation.
u kno i only use chatspeak 2 annoy u bae <3
Yeah, I do know. I’ve seen your text conversations with Chowder.
As casually as he could manage, Nursey moved his arm from behind the couch, tilted sideways, and leaned his head against Dex’s shoulder. As if by reflex, Dex draped his own arm over Nursey’s shoulder in response. They could probably play this off as platonic, if they wanted to. Ransom and Holster did worse all the time.
Nursey started to lose track of the movie, devoting most of his attention to chirping Dex via text instead. When his neck started to get stiff from leaning onto Dex’s shoulder, he shifted so that he was lying mostly on Dex’s lap instead. None of the others commented, so he figured they were safe. Dex began to run his hands through Nursey’s hair, his long fingers tangling in Nursey’s curls, and it became increasingly difficult to keep his eyes open.
The next thing Nursey knew, the room was dark and someone was shaking his shoulder. “Hey, Nursey,” Dex murmured. “The movie’s over. Let’s go home.”
“Mmh,” Nursey mumbled. He tried to bury himself deeper into Dex’s lap but Dex just shook him harder.
“Nursey. Babe. Everyone else already went to bed.”
“But I don’t want to...” he whined. “Can’t we just sleep here tonight?”
“Here? On this biohazard of a couch?”
Ugh. Dex had a point.
“Fine,” Nursey sighed, picking himself up off of Dex’s lap and groaning. Fuck, it was going to be hell to walk all the way back to his dorm. He couldn’t wait until one of them got dibs next year. Dex got to his feet and offered Nursey a hand, and he took it, letting Dex pull him most of the way off the couch. He kept Dex’s hand in his as they left the living room and headed for the front door.
“God, you’re really fucking clingy,” Dex commented, slipping into his shoes. “You better not sleep on top of my arm again tonight.”
“Baby, that was one time,” Nursey said, regretfully letting Dex have his hand back to put on his jacket. “One time in the two months we’ve been dating.”
“Once is still too many times. I couldn’t feel my arm for like, an hour after you did that.”
“Babe, can’t you just let that go? Don’t you love me?”
“You know I love you, but—” Dex stopped, staring at a point beyond Nursey’s shoulder. Nursey turned around, and—oh. Well then.
Apparently, when Dex had said that everyone else had gone to bed, he really meant that everyone else was in the kitchen, sharing one of Bitty’s pies, sitting only a few feet away from where he and Dex were currently standing and staring at them with an interesting variety of shocked expressions.
No one moved.
Usually, Nursey was a pretty reasonable and mature person—but not tonight. For some reason, the only solution his tired and mildly panic-stricken brain could come up with was “RUN.” Nursey caught Dex’s eye, and knew almost telepathically that Dex was thinking the same thing.
They flung open the front door and bolted.
“What the fuck are we doing?!” Dex laughed as they raced across the street and cut through the lawn of the LAX house. He sounded giddy and out of breath. “What the actual fuck? It’s midnight! We’re running!”
“I don’t know, just roll with it!” Nursey replied. They sprinted towards the bridge over the Samwell river, the echoes of their feet slapping against the pavement and their breathy laughter the only sounds on the empty street.
“I cannot believe we’re doing this,” Dex said.
“Hey, did you want to try to have that awkward conversation right then?”
“Fuck no.”
“Then I’m pretty sure this was the best solution,” Nursey grinned.
“And the most stupid solution.”
“Who cares? We’re in love. We get a free pass to be stupid.”
They slowed when they got to the bridge, coming to a stop at the apex and gazing out onto the still water side by side. It looked a little like a postcard, the moon and the streetlamps reflecting on river. Their dorm building wasn’t too far from here, but Nursey didn’t really want to leave just yet.
“Hey,” Dex said. Nursey turned, and even though it was dark, he could still see the fond look in Dex’s eye and the freckles on Dex’s cheeks.
“Hey yourself,” Nursey replied. Dex bumped his shoulder lightly.
“I was just going to say,” Dex murmured, “that if there was one romantic spot on this campus right now... it would probably be here.”
“You think so?” Nursey said, but Dex was right. The dim moonlight was making Dex’s skin look damn near ethereal. “Maybe we should rise to the occasion.”
They both leaned in for the kiss, meeting in the middle and slotting their lips together with a sigh. Dex felt warm, his breath still coming a little harder from all the running. He swiped his tongue across Nursey’s lower lip. The soft pressure of his mouth against Nursey’s was so fucking perfect, Nursey couldn’t help but melt into it.
They made out on the bridge for a little longer than was probably sensible, considering how cold and late it was. When they finally broke apart long enough to catch their breath, both their lips were swollen and tingling. Nursey had to stop himself from going back in for another round of kissing.
Dex leaned back against the stone ledge separating them from the river and pulled out his phone. “The group chat is on fire,” he said. “There are literally too many questions for me to read right now.”
“What are you writing?”
“Uh,” Dex paused. “How about, ‘We’re safe, we’re going back to the dorms, we’re sorry we ran out, and we’re dating’? Does that sound good?”
“Perfect,” Nursey grinned. A cold breeze blew over the water, making him shiver. “Let’s go. It’s cold.”
Dex nodded, and they started walking back to the sophomore dorms. “...Is your roommate home?” he asked after a moment.
“Dex!” Nursey said, looking at him out of the corner of his eye. “I like your enthusiasm, babe, but I am fucking exhausted. It’s late, and we just ran most of the way home.”
“I wasn’t talking about—not tonight,” Dex said quickly, sounding flustered. “I meant... tomorrow.... In the morning, maybe....”
“Oh. Well, in that case. Yeah, my roommate’s gone for the weekend. He’s visiting his parents again.”
“Cool,” Dex said.
Nursey’s dorm room was dark and silent when he unlocked the door. It didn’t take either of them long to take off their clothes and slip under the covers. Nursey really hadn’t been kidding—he was exhausted. The warmth of Dex’s skin against his own was comforting, safe. Before long, his eyelids felt too heavy to lift, and his thoughts started to go down that scattered, disorganized route they always did just before sleep took him.
“Hey, Nursey?” he heard Dex whisper into the darkness.
“Yeah, babe?”
“I love you.”
“And they say I’m the romantic....” Nursey mumbled. “Love you too, babe.”
“Goodnight.”
“Goodnight.”
And then, finally, he was asleep. In the morning, he and Dex would make out, maybe do a little more, and then they would fix things up with the rest of the team. Until then, though, he was going to rest. The world could wait until morning.