#7.6k

*~*~*

“Is the apartment nice?” Ma asks, when she calls the next morning.

Dex bends to grab a water bottle from his fridge. “It’s clean,” he says, pressing the bottle against his red, sweating neck. “It’s in a good location.”

“It was so nice of them to set you up with a place,” Ma says.

Dex nods, taking a breath. “Yeah, I got lucky.”

“It wasn’t luck,” Ma says. “You worked hard.”

Dex breathes.

“You’re breathing funny,” she says. Hesitant, “Are you okay?”

He shakes his head at nothing. “Yeah, I’m fine, Ma. You just caught me right as I finished my run.”

“Oh. You must’ve been up early.” Dex doesn’t know what to say to that, and doesn’t really want to explain that he woke up in the middle of the night after dreaming a memory all twisted and couldn’t force himself back to sleep, so he doesn’t say anything. After a moment, Ma asks, “Is there a nice running route nearby?”

“There’s a park close enough to go through.” He takes a quick sip of his water. “It’s nothing like home, though.”

“Well.” Ma fiddles with something—a pen or a piece of scrap paper in front of her. “It’s a good opportunity.”

“I know, Ma. I’m—I’m glad to be here.” 

“Good.” She lets out an audible breath. 

Dex can picture her, curled small against the phone, fiddling with a pen. She’s probably sitting in the kitchen, at the end of the table they squished in there. They use it as a kids’ table during family gatherings, but it’s otherwise just a junk surface for every odd end they bring into the house. Every few months Ma will get stressed at work, or worried about money, or someone in the family will get sick, and she’ll decide that it’s time to go through all the junk and keep the table clean for once, God damn it. Now, it’s probably half organized, half mess. She’d only started a week ago, when Dex got home from Samwell to pack for New York.

“Good,” Ma says again. “This really is a good opportunity. The company is great, right? And it will give you experience.” Dex hums, sipping his water. “And—and you won’t be alone, right? You have that—that friend of yours, Nurse something?”

Dex stops drinking. The water bottle sweats in his hand, one chilled droplet sliding down his skin. “Yeah,” Dex says, “he lives nearby.”

“Good.” Ma taps some more, with the pen. “Good.”

Dex puts down the water bottle and wipes his hand off on his gym shorts. “How’s cleaning going, Ma?”

“Oh. You know, it’s getting there.”

“This time’s the charm, I’m sure. As long as Dad remembers to keep it clean.”

“Yes, yes. He has to get better about that.” Dex breathes. Tries to think up another thing to say that won’t lead anywhere that makes Ma tap. He can’t think of anything. Ma says, “We all have to get better about things, though.”

Dex tangles his fingers in the fabric of his shorts. “I—I’ve got to go shower, Ma, but I’ll call you, okay?”

“Oh—okay.” She hesitates, and Dex thinks about just hanging up. “We love you.”

“I love you, too.” Dex picks up the cap from his water bottle. Ma doesn’t say anything more. “Okay, bye, Ma.” He hangs up, cutting her off in the middle of a second-too-late goodbye. He debates calling back to apologize.

He ends up leaving his phone on the counter, chugging the rest of his water, and stripping on the way to his shower. Whatever heat the run in the summer city air had given him has since disappeared, leaving his skin chilled, shivering.

*~*~*

The dreams don’t stop.

The next one is in a bathroom. Dex doesn’t remember the tile or the shower curtain with little blue whales on it, but he knows somehow that it’s Luke’s childhood bathroom. Downstairs a graduation party ensues, clean fun music simmering through the floorboards as Dex is nudged back into the wall.

Cold hands push under his shirt, nails catching. Cool breath hits his neck, wet, and he shivers. He is not drunk. He is worrying, about Luke’s parents, about the other guests. People here know him, know his family. This is a bad idea.

“We should go back,” he says, in the dream. He didn’t say it, back when this happened. “This is a bad idea.”

“You never go along with my ideas, Poindoodle.” Nursey laughs into Dex’s chin. “Come on, just try one play. I think we could make the two headed beast work.”

This is wrong, Dex thinks, and opens his eyes to the soft grey ceiling of his New York apartment.

*~*~*

“Good work so far, Will.”

Dex looks up from his screen as his boss raps his knuckles against Dex’s monitor. Dex’s fingers pause on the keyboard and he smiles. “Thank you, sir.”

Dex’s boss shakes his head. “Call me Hugh. I don’t feel old enough to be a sir yet.”

Dex inclines his head. “Thank you, Hugh.”

Hugh smiles, wide, and lifts his coffee mug. “Keep it up,” he says, and heads into his office. The walls of his office are see-through, all made of glass, and Dex’s eyes follow him without thought as he sits down at his desk. The building they work in is nice enough, clean, lots of glass that lets in sunlight. It’s nothing like Dex had been picturing, some dark room where they code for hours on end with no break. Dex likes it. Likes it here. Likes the people. To think such a thing feels almost like a betrayal, like he shouldn’t be enjoying this place of exile, but he can’t help it.

Dex returns his attention to his code. He lets the logic of the work soothe his brain, until thoughts of trading in worn wood for clean glass and disguised disappointment for blatant pride leave the forefront of his mind. He just works, and doesn’t think, and enjoys every moment.

Sometime later, his phone buzzes.

what’s up willy p, ready to hit the town this weekend :PPP

Dex stares at the screen until it goes to black. He turns over his phone and pushes it away, to focus on work, and two minutes later has to restrain himself from looking when it buzzes once again.

*~*~*

Not all of the dreams have Nursey in them.

“Good work so far, Will,” Luke pants into Dex’s neck.

They are in a car—Luke’s probably, it has the fancy leather seats and the driver’s side window isn’t stuck perpetually open. The air tastes like sweat and the windows are fogged, obscuring the beach outside with its black, freezing water.

Luke’s fingers scrape at the base of Dex’s back. “Keep it up,” he says, grin wide against Dex’s shoulder. “Keep it up, keep it up.”

Dex stares at the glassy waves. They loom ever closer, higher and higher tide until they reach the tires of the car. The air tastes more and more like salt until it’s dripping from his tongue. The car has filled with the sea. Luke is cold, like the water, and he keeps saying his lines, “Good work,” until Dex opens his eyes to a grey ceiling, alone.

*~*~*

On Friday afternoon, Dex texts Nursey back.

I’m not up for anything crazy. Still settling in.

Dex grabs his things—wallet, keys, sticky note reminding him to call Ma—and bids goodbye to the few left in the office, Hugh and a nice girl named Kate a few desks over he’s chatted with during their coffee breaks.

Nursey responds by the time Dex reaches the street. no p dude. wanna come over and watch a movie?

Dex falls into step with the endless, faceless mass of people. The city buildings around him cut into the sky, grey, unyielding. He needs something like fresh air.

What movie? he asks.

;) Nursey sends back.

Dex breathes. Okay.

*~*~*

Nursey’s brownstone is tall and clean and, surprisingly, cozy. Dex was picturing something styled out of a magazine, hard edges and white and unwelcoming. Nursey welcomes Dex into a house full of oranges and deep browns and yellows with a big smile. He’s wearing a t-shirt and Samwell branded shorts. He is not wearing socks.

“Dude,” he says, emphatic, and pulls Dex into a hug. “Feels like it’s been years, bro.”

Dex hugs back, automatic. “It’s been three weeks, Nursey. Chill.”

Nursey laughs, chest rumbling against Dex’s. His back shakes, sweaty and warm, under Dex’s hands. “Shut up,” he says, pulling back. “You’re allowed to say you missed me, too.”

Dex scrunches his eyebrows. “Did you say you missed me? I didn’t hear that part.”

Nursey laughs again. With all the colors around him, he looks like sunshine. Dex skitters his eyes away, blistering. Nursey coughs. “We’ll be in the living room tonight,” he says, walking towards one of the open doorways. Dex follows. “I’ve got snacks and shit, and my dad made food and put it in some containers before he left but I don’t know what it is.”

“He’s not here?” Dex asks, looking at the old concert posters on the far wall, next to a long stretch of built in bookcases, all filled to the brim.

“Nah, he left on a business trip on Wednesday. Mom and Mama have been gone since Monday. Date vacation.” Nursey flops onto a leather couch, plush. With limbs thrown about, he embodies coziness. Despite the heat outside, the air conditioner keeps it nice inside, and the idea of climbing onto the couch with him is irritatingly desirable.

“You’re here alone?” Dex asks, taking a seat on the other end of the sectional.

Nursey grins. “Not anymore, now that I have you.” He flutters his eyelashes at Dex. Dex laughs and says, “Shut up,” and doesn’t think about it any more than that.

*~*~*

When Dex gets home that night, after several movies, more than half of them Very Bad, full of popcorn and homemade food and laughter he’d forgotten the taste of, he gets into bed alone with his grey foreign ceiling and does not dream of anything.

*~*~*

“I’m glad work is going well,” Ma says, when Dex calls her in the morning. She’s on speaker phone, he can tell, while she works around the house.

“Me too.” Dex stirs the eggs in his pan. Eating Nursey’s dad’s food reminded him that he could actually use the kitchen in his temporary apartment. After his run, he decided to start easy, with breakfast.

“That girl you mentioned, Kate, she sounds nice.”

“She is.” He scrapes some cooked egg from the bottom of the pan and swirls around the yolks a bit. “She’s been working there for about two years now and she says it’s a nice place.”

“That’s good.” On Ma’s end, there’s some movement, probably throwing something out because there’s a soft swooshing sound, like the trash can makes. “Have you been able to do some fun things around the city yet? Maybe with your new coworkers?”

“Kate invited me out to dinner next weekend.” Dex turns down the heat and continues to scrape.

The movement noises stop. “Oh! How nice of her.”

“The restaurant is supposed to be really good. Her fiancé is the head chef there.” Dex checks on his toast just as they pop and he carefully plucks them from the toaster.

“Oh.”

Dex hums, dropping the toast on his plate and turning to find the eggs done. “I also watched some movies with Nursey last night.” He deposits the eggs next to the toast and then hurries to check the bacon before it gets too crispy.

“Oh. Your aunt and I wanted to see a movie, but nothing was playing that we liked.” Distantly, Dex hears tapping of something, probably as Ma cleans.

Dex pulls out the tray of bacon. “We didn’t go to the theaters, so we could just stream.”

“He came to your apartment?”

Dex uses tongs to transfer the bacon to his plate. “I went to his family’s brownstone.” Satisfied, he gets the pre-poured glass of orange juice out from the fridge.

Ma hums. “Were his parents nice?”

Dex gathers together his plate, utensils, napkin, drink, and phone onto a tray and carries it out to the living room. “They were traveling, but I’ve met them before. They’re nice.”

“Oh.”

Dex settles his things down on the coffee table and sits on the couch, refraining from digging in for a moment to admire his handy work. It isn’t amazing by any means, but since being home, since finals, the playoffs, even before that when the stove was temporarily disengaged, he hasn’t had a chance to make food for himself, really. He almost wants to snap a picture.

“Are you—”

Dex looks away from his plate, to his phone sitting next to it. He picks it up and turns off speaker. “What, Ma?”

“Nothing. Nothing.”

Dex drags his thumb against the case. Either the lack of AC or keeping up the call has made his phone heat up. Against his cheek, it itches. “Everything okay, Ma?”

“Yes. Yes, of course. I just—” Dex hears the tapping, louder now that it’s in his ear. “I just want you to remember why you’re there. You’re working. This is for your future.”

The uncomfortable wrinkles appear between his eyebrows. “I know, Ma.”

“Good. I just don’t want you to—”

“To what, Ma?”

She doesn’t say anything for a moment. Tapping fills the silence. “I’m glad you’re having a good time so far,” she says, quiet. “I’ll let you go. Have a nice day.”

“You, too.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Ma hangs up. Dex drops his phone from his ear, hot in his hand now. He breathes for a moment and then picks up the tray. He digs into his eggs and, though they’ve just started to go cold, it tastes good enough.

*~*~*

He dreams he’s trapped under sheets.

Fingers curl in his hair, tight. His scalp hurts, but he keeps going, stops breathing. He’s smothered under blankets, but he’s shivering. Every time he tries to surface, the hands on his head hold him steady.

After long, long minutes, the sheets flood with saltwater and he breaks through the waves and gulps in air. The world is still freezing but he can breathe. He can breathe.

“Be quiet,” Nursey rasps, cold breath against Dex’s ears. “Don’t want to wake anyone up.”

Nursey is swallowed by the sheets and Dex is left floating, freezing, staring at the ceiling of his own childhood bedroom. The open window lets in chilled winter air that flutters the drapes, dark blue that blends in with the water he’s drowning in. Ma could walk in at any moment. Jay could hear them, just a few walls away. What if someone walks in? What would happen then?

When Dex opens his eyes, he’s staring at the grey ceiling again. He can’t breathe, even though the air is air, and not water. He grabs at his chest and tries to press down, like he could manually make his lungs work.

With his free hand he reaches for the nightstand, the light, and floods the room with yellow. He sits up, gasping, and knocks his phone off the table, disconnecting it from the charger. Grabbing for it, because it seems important in the moment, he sees there’s a notification.

y tf are safiya nygaard’s videos so entertaining

it’s fucking 3 in the morning and i’m watching her wear clear plastic jeans for a week

like wtf

Dex realizes that he still can’t breathe, but now because laughter is bubbling in his chest and clogging up his throat. He laughs, hard and long and unbearable, until his whole body aches.

He lies back in his bed, on land, now. He types back a message.

Who let you on YouTube this late at night? You know how easy you fall into holes.

The three dots appear within seconds.

i am but a simple man with no self restraint

The dots appear again, disappear, and reappear.

you would understand if you watched her

Dex grabs for his laptop, sitting by the foot of his bed. He double checks the name and clicks on a random video about a merged Ugg and Teva shoe.

What… I.. what? Teva Uggs?

ur watching!!

I don’t understand

it’s Art dexington appreciate it

Dex doesn’t end up falling back asleep for a while, and getting up for work that morning is hell, but when he lies back down in bed with a buzzing phone and too-bright computer screen, he’s not drowning.

*~*~*

Someone taps Dex’s shoulder and he turns to find Kate smiling pleasantly at him. He takes out one earbud.

“Break time!” she says.

Dex laughs. “Wouldn’t want to be productive for too long.”

“Exactly.”

He turns off the music he was listening to to concentrate—some Spotify playlist Nursey made him to “be more productive” that just tends to make Dex laugh at inopportune moments—and then he joins Kate in the break room as she talks at him about dinner the other night.

“George says to come back whenever you want, he loves when people love his food, it’s a little ridiculous.” She fiddles with the coffee maker as Dex grabs his smoothie from the fridge. He’s taken to making himself smoothies in the morning and bringing them in for his breaks, since he’s never loved coffee all that much.

“I’ve been telling my friend all about it and he’s begging me to take him now, so tell George he can expect me back soon. My friend is pretty pushy.”

“Perfect, then he’ll stop bothering me about it.” Kate reaches out without looking. “Could you pass the cream?”

Dex dutifully hands her the cream.

“You’re coming to the office party next week right?” She fixes her coffee the way she likes it and turns to Dex, sipping. Her eyes are wide and clear that Dex’s answer should and will be yes. It’s a bit like Bitty’s captain look and it curls something sharp and sad in Dex’s chest. Going back to school in August is going to be so very different without him.

“I didn’t know there was a party next week,” Dex says, licking excess smoothie from his upper lip. “What’s it for?”

“Jenny’s birthday. There’s gonna be a cake.”

“How can I say no to cake?”

Kate grins. “You can bring a guest, too. We need fresh meat at these things. Also if you don’t bring a date someone is going to try to set you up with someone and believe me, you do not want to get stuck on a date with Karen’s second cousin Stew. He’s basically the opposite of whatever a hoot is.”

Dex snorts into his smoothie. “Noted.”

Dex’s phone buzzes in his pocket. He pulls it out without thinking twice. He doesn’t check it while he’s working and there are a few messages.

buzzfeed unsolved is THE SHIT

shane and ryan r defo u and me but i can’t tell who’s who. you believe in ghosts right??

ur homework is to watch every episode tonight and then come sleep in my apartment bc i’m scared af rn

Dex smiles and quickly types out a response.

Sounds like the writing is going well.

“Who’s that?” Kate pushes onto her tiptoes to look over the lip of Dex’s phone screen.

“My friend from school.” Dex keeps his phone out long enough to see Nursey’s response– f off– and then shoves it back in his pocket. “He’s supposed to be writing a short story for the publication he’s working with over the summer and he’s getting a little sidetracked.”

“Ooh, a humanities. How did we meet someone from the Other Side?” Kate grins into her coffee.

“He’s on the hockey team with me.”

Kate hums. “Hockey, I should’ve known.”

“Huh?”

“George and I were betting that you played some kind of sport. I thought basketball because you’re so tall, but he guessed baseball.” She scrunches up her nose. “Basketball’s closer, I think.”

Dex huffs, laughing a little. “What was the prize?”

Kate is staring at nothing, face scrunched up, and then blinks, hearing Dex, apparently. She waves her hand dismissively. “Oh, I can’t tell you that, HR would have a fit.” She sips her coffee again and Dex can’t help the volume of the laugh he lets out.

*~*~*

In the next dream, the sun is high and bright and dead in the sky.

“You’re good,” Luke says, walking next to him on the sidewalk. The ground is too hard against Dex’s feet, even through his sneakers. He turns and Luke is Luke, but also Jack. They speak at once. “If you work hard, you could take this somewhere.”

“You really think so?” Dex asks. He is small. Short. He looks up at Jack and his neck aches.

Luke grins, all teeth. “I really do.”

Dex wakes up reaching for his phone. Two texts wait for him, and he breathes as he makes his shaking fingers type out a response.

*~*~*

“I can’t believe you work a block away from my favorite coffee shop and it’s taken you this long to meet me on your lunch break.” Nursey tsks, reaching over to steal a bit of Dex’s muffin.

Dex slaps lightly at his hand, but Nursey still escapes with a sizable crumb. “I’ve been here for less than a month, it isn’t that long.”

“It’s ages,” Nursey insists, fingers still in his mouth as he speaks.

Dex winces to smother his smile. “You’re ridiculous.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Nursey retorts, and then sticks out his tongue to further prove it.

Dex huffs, sipping his smoothie to keep himself from doing something stupid, like responding. “How’s writing going?” he asks, when he’s taken his sip.

Nursey hums, swirling a mixing stick through his iced coffee. “Pretty good. I have a working draft done, but it needs some serious editing.”

“That’s good, dude. ‘Swawesome, even.”

Nursey grins around his straw. “’Swawesome,” he repeats. “C would be proud.”

“You talk to him recently?” Dex picks at his muffin.

“Yesterday, actually. Training is going well.”

Dex chews thoughtfully. “S’good. Last time I talked to him he was more worried about Bitty than the NHL.”

“Oh, he definitely still is.” Nursey laughs and makes another dive for Dex’s muffin. Dex deftly moves the plate out of the line of fire.

“It took him two weeks to pick a wall color,” Dex says, pausing to drink his smoothie. “And Jack must be drowning in all the tester bakes.”

“Let’s be real, though, if Bitty Bakes ever does open it’s gonna be the sickest bakery of all time.”

Dex inclines his head, slowly nodding. “Oh, I’ll definitely be spending my entire paycheck on imported pastries.”

“If you run out we can share my trust fund,” Nursey says, batting his eyelashes.

The laughter tastes so pleasant and—more than that—familiar on Dex’s tongue that he doesn’t even do anything as Nursey makes another grab for his muffin.

*~*~*

The worst dreams are ones that aren’t really memories at all.

It’s a beach, but the sand is blue and the ocean is clear and all Dex can see is sunshine, though he can’t feel a thing. Nursey is next to him and their hands are stuck in the sand, twisted together and hiding.

“I love you,” Nursey says, and it’s his voice and his words except not, because Dex knows it’s wrong, know it’s his brain that made it all up, and he starts running, slipping against the sand.

He trips and falls onto his knees and he looks up and it’s Luke and he’s grinning and looming and huge and he speaks, “Quiet, kid, quiet or they’ll hear you,” and for some reason Dex knows they is Nursey and he swallows every breath, worried it will sound like a scream, and when he wakes up he is, screaming, except no sound will come out and he’s just broken with his throat open and empty and—

He presses call without thinking and Nursey answers on the third ring.

“Dex—what—”

“Can you—just—” Dex swallows, tries again. “Just talk. Please.”

“Dex, what’s going—”

“Please.”

“I—uh. Okay.”

And he does. He talks, about the funny conversation he had with his mama today and these cool shoes he saw on Instagram and the pretty clouds he saw yesterday and this fruity drink he wants to try at a bar downtown that he’s going to drag Dex to whether he wants to go or not.

And sometime later, Dex falls asleep. He wakes up with his phone warm and nearly dead against his ear and a text from Nursey asking if everything’s g and Dex doesn’t respond, half because Nursey used g for good and half because he doesn’t know the answer.

*~*~*

His old running route in Maine took him through the woods. Past gnarled roots that curled, mischievous, and tried to trip him up, under a canopy of green that shivered in the early morning wind. He liked to wake up with the sun, at home, liked the quiet moments before the rest of town woke up and started looking at him. So he’d wake and run and take his path until the trees gave way to a dusky beach, accompanied by a barely awake sun.

A lot of the time, the water would still be smeared with the red hues of the fading sunrise, and Dex would stand and pant and stare and think about nothing, or Samwell, or—later on—Nursey.

It was a nice path, back home. Even if it would inevitably bring him back to houses that creaked under his footsteps, full of people that couldn’t look away until he met their gaze.

In New York, he runs against sidewalk. Smooth and uncomplicated, it brings him to a small park, with a few trees and some grass and, occasionally, some pigeons. He takes the path set out for him there and doesn’t have to think about winding roots, but does, anyway. He thinks about how easy it is without them, and how much he misses them, and wonders what that means before the adrenaline in his body pulses in his temples and he stops thinking of much all together.

He returns to his apartment and guzzles down water and makes himself breakfast and sometimes calls Ma and tries not to think about how different his life is here, tries not to categorize the things he misses, and the things he’s glad to be without.

He runs to forget, and it doesn’t always work, but it doesn’t mean he can’t try.

*~*~*

Jenny’s birthday party is, surprisingly, fun. Nursey texts him in the middle of the afternoon apologizing, saying that his meeting is running late and he might not be there in time, but he will be there. Dex, dejected, expects the party to suck, but when they all clock out and the cake is wheeled out on one of the trays they typically use for mail and Kate grabs the AUX cord for the speakers, things actually become interesting.

It’s not quite a kegster—nothing is quite like a kegster—but his coworkers are nice, funny people and the music is lively and the cake, while not Bitty’s, is pretty damn good. Nursey texts him intermittent updates with ridiculous comments and Dex, after Karen is drawn to the dance floor to Cotton Eyed Joe, takes up a spot by the wall with his cake and his phone and snickers down icing to type out a response to do you think they sell candles that smell like the subway.

Then, suddenly, Hugh pops up.

“Will, hi,” he says, holding his own plate of cake. “Thought I’d come over and say hello, now that Karen’s let you go.”

Dex swallows a bite of cake and shoves his phone in his pocket. “Oh, Karen wasn’t holding me hostage or anything. We were talking apple pie recipes.”

“Good to hear she wasn’t trying to get you to meet Stew.” Hugh leans in, secretive and exaggerated. “I don’t know if anyone’s told you, but he isn’t quite the catch she makes him out to be.”

Dex laughs, because Hugh is his boss and you laugh when your boss makes a joke. “I’ve been warned.”

“Good, good.” Hugh leans back, nodding. The silence hovers for a second, then he asks, “How’ve you been liking it here?”

“New York or the company?”

Hugh shrugs. “Either. Both.”

“New York I’m liking more than I thought I would. I’m from Maine,” Dex says, smiling in that way Nursey describes as country-boy-sheepish, “so I’m used to some greenery, but the city has its perks too.”

“Good, good!” Hugh grins. “I grew up in the country too. Northern Michigan. It sure is an adjustment. But I think it’s worth it.”

“Working here has helped,” Dex says, and if Nursey was here he’d probably cough to poorly disguise a kiss up but he isn’t really lying. Working here has proved to him that he would enjoy going into this field, and while he is keeping his options open, that’s a good thing to know.

“Oh, I’m glad,” Hugh says, gesturing haphazardly with his cake. “We’re lucky to have you here.”

“Thank you, sir—Hugh.”

Hugh smiles, and they stand there for a beat, two, and then he says, “Forgive me if this is inappropriate, but are you seeing anyone?”

Dex stiffens. Hugh isn’t—? He’s Dex’s boss, he can’t—is he? It’s like ice, gone down Dex’s back, through his veins. He wants to pinch himself, almost. Is he dreaming? But Luke never said those words before. But the dreams have been stranger lately. Is it—?

“Because my brother,” Hugh continues to speak, unaware, “just got out of college and I couldn’t help but notice the Bruins t-shirt you had on last Friday and he is the biggest hockey fan—”

Nursey is there, suddenly, and he’s right there, bumping his shoulder into Dex’s. He’s out of breath and smiling and warm and Dex leans back into him without thinking. “I am so sorry I’m late,” he’s saying, to Dex, and then to Hugh, “I’m sorry, I just completely interrupted you. I’m Nursey—well, Derek, but everyone calls me Nursey, so take your pick.” Then, to Dex, “Do you go as Dex or William here?” He scrunches up his face. “William. Ew. You sound like an uncle.”

“I was named after my uncle,” Dex says, vaguely.

Nursey nods. “Exactly.”

Hugh coughs. “My apologies, Will. I didn’t know—well. I see now.” He smiles, tight. “I’ll let you two catch up,” he says, lifting his cake, untouched, in parting.

“What was that about?” Nursey ask, peering after him obviously. “Ooh, is that cake?”

Dex hands over the rest of his second slice. He isn’t much hungry now.

“You will not believe my trip here,” Nursey says, beginning to eat. “It was, like, totally unchill, dude.”

Nursey hasn’t moved, still pressed up against Dex’s shoulder. Dex takes a deep breath. “Tell me about it,” he says, and Nursey does.

*~*~*

“—and all the ladies at church say hi,” Ma says, over speaker phone as she works around the kitchen. 

The table, a continuous project, has been tabled for now—pun intended—for the sake of getting the dishes clean. Ma has to yell over the roar of the faucet. Dex is doing his own tidying as he folds laundry and listens to Ma talk. She always did used to talk while doing chores, Dex following her around, soothed by the words and the humming and the simplicity. It’s been a while since they’ve done chores together, and the familiarity, the comfort, mellows an ache in Dex’s chest.

“They all worry for you down in the big city,” Ma says, scrubbing audibly. “They don’t like the idea of a sweet country boy like you surrounded by all that crime and greyness.”

“You can tell them I’m holding my own,” Dex says, which makes Ma laugh a little, the short chuckle thing that he inherited from her.

“I will,” she says. A small clatter comes over the line as she, presumably, adds a dish to the drying rack. “They’re all in a tizzy planning for the July 4th social. I’ve been assigned drink coordination, which really means fielding arguments between Mrs. McMahon and Mrs. Fielding about soda over spirits, even though we all know we’re going to end up with the same drinks we always get and one of the rotten teenage boys is going to spike the lemonade despite whatever ridiculousness Mr. Spaulding tries to rig up.”

Dex smiles, remembering. When he was a kid and accidentally drank some of the spiked lemonade and wouldn’t stop giggling the whole ride home, when he was a teen and helped his then-girlfriend Isabelle spike it herself, when he was back from college and roped into standing watch over the lemonade but let one of the teens through anyway, on account of tradition.

“Oh, and you’ll never guess who I ran into in the grocery store the other day,” Ma continues as Dex reminisces. He probably could guess—there’s only so many people in their town, after all—but he lets Ma tell it how she wants as he searches for the pair to the sock in his hand. “Do you remember your old hockey captain? Luke Rossi?”

Dex freezes with his hand buried in laundry. A chill runs through the apartment.

“I ran into his mother,” Ma continues without a response. “She looks great—she says it’s yoga! I wish I had the time for something like that. But she was telling me all about Luke—you remember him, he was your hockey captain back when you were what? A sophomore?”

“A freshman,” Dex says, rough.

“Oh, that’s right. Well, anyway, his mother was telling me, he’s working with some big company out in Boston. He’s engaged! His mother says the girl is sweet as all get out, a tiny little thing. And she’s one of us, a ginger!”

Dex sits back on his couch. Small. Ginger.

“His mother’s just thrilled. It must be so nice to have a son engaged. Jay’s been with Kelsey for years, but who knows with him. Maybe I should send him Luke’s way, let that boy rub off on him!” Ma laughs. “Maybe he could rub off on you, too.”

A sick kind of laugh bubbles up in Dex’s throat. He swallows.

“It was just such a surprise. I knew all those kids you boys were friends with in high school, but I never get to hear what happens to them after, really. Luke was such a nice boy, too. It was just nice to hear about him.”

Nice. Yeah.

*~*~*

He dreams he is swallowing ice.

Someone’s mouth is on his and their tongue is heavy, leaden. Dex’s mouth catches on it, too cold, and it rips the skin from his lips until they’re bloodied. Copper stains everything, his tongue and eyes, and it rushes until he can’t hear anything but the blood.

He tries to open his eyes, and between one blink and the next the boy above him shifts, blond hair and blue eyes and too many teeth, then green and smile and salvation, and back again, sickening, spinning.

He manages to push himself away, sits up in whatever bed, ocean, driftwood, he’s on. Ma stands in the doorway. “Luke was such a nice boy,” she says, smiling, laughing. “That friend of yours, Nurse something? Is he a nice boy?” she asks, frowning suddenly, eyes intent.

“You’re wrong,” Dex goes to say, but chokes on the blood on his lips. He looks back over to the end of the bed, where Luke or Nursey or whoever is sitting, except it’s not just them anymore, it’s Jack and Hugh and Bitty, even, and they’re all staring at him.

“Good work,” they say, “If you work hard, you could take this somewhere,” they say, “Keep it up,” they say.

“She’s one of us,” Ma says, “Maybe he could rub off on you,” she says, “Nice boy,” she says.

Through it all, he can hear Nursey. “I love you,” shivers down Dex’s spine, ice. Dex swallows and swallows and tries to push through the rest of the voices to find Nursey in the haze.

Dex wakes up running and doesn’t—can’t—stop.

*~*~*

The sky is dark and the world is dizzyingly bright when Dex knocks on Nursey’s front door.

By all rights, it should be too warm to stomach. Late June, with all these people stuffed into one little place, blistering. But Dex clutches his jacket to his body, shivering. He can’t get warm. He can never get warm.

“Dex?” Nursey answers the door with a frown. Dex’s eyes catch on it and can’t pull away.

“Can I come in?” he asks.

“I—okay?”

Dex nods. He steps inside, around Nursey, and their arms brush. It burns.

“What’s going on?” Nursey asks, shutting the door.

“Are your parents home?” Dex turns around to face him. The door—big and green behind Nursey—brings out the deeper green tones in his worried eyes. Nursey’s eyes have always made Dex homesick. Now, he aches.

“No,” Nursey says. “Mom’s in Milan and Dad’s in Chicago and Mama—she’s somewhere in the UK. Why are you—”

“I need to talk to you.”

“Okay?” His face is all scrunched and his hair’s a little messy, curls hanging over his forehead, and he’s soft in Samwell pajama bottoms and so fucking gorgeous and Dex’s whole body is shaking, shivering, freezing.

“I—I’ve been having these dreams,” Dex says, hands clenching in his pockets. “For months now, these—these dreams about—” He swallows and shakes his head. “And now he’s engaged and it doesn’t—it doesn’t make sense, he—he shouldn’t get to move on when I’m drowning every fucking night, I don’t—I—”

“Dex.” Nursey is closer. Hands up, palms forward. Frowning. “What are you talking about?”

Dex shakes his head, but all of him is shaking and he doesn’t—he shouldn’t have come here. His broken brain isn’t Nursey’s problem, just because he’s in New York doesn’t mean they’re more than what they were before all this. Just because Dex’s home isn’t home anymore doesn’t mean he can build one in Nursey.

“I’m—I’m sorry, I shouldn’t—I should go.” His mouth tastes like a panic attack. How did he make the decision to come here in the middle of the night?

“Dex.” Nursey grabs onto Dex’s forearm, a brand. “Sit down. Please.”

Dex stares at Nursey’s hand. He hasn’t been warm in—it feels like years, now. It feels like he went out into the Maine winter one year with a boy’s hand curled around his wrist and frost spread from that point out and he never got warm again.

“Nursey,” Dex says, the word broken like so many shards of ice, and Nursey’s grip on his arm stutters, hesitation. Dex, without thinking, breaks the hold, and in the next moment he has his mouth pressed against Nursey and it’s warm, it’s warm, it’s—

Dex doesn’t know if he’s been alive, before this. The heat from Nursey’s mouth, soft and surprised and then—firmer, more intent, it warms him from the bones out, until his skin itches with it, sings. Dex sighs into it, slumps.

Hands come up to his cheeks, pull him back, so soft. “Dex,” Nursey says, quiet. “Can we please sit down?”

Okay, Dex thinks. He breathes. Okay.

*~*~*

Nursey makes them cocoa. In July.

Dex holds the mug between his shaking hands and explains, in starts, but mostly stops. I had this captain when I was a kid, he says, and then, not a kid, he says. Well.

“I was fourteen,” he says. “He was—older. I wanted—I wanted to be good for him.”

I was, he says, but doesn’t quite make the words work.

“Ma never knew. No one ever knew. Ma, though, she loved him. Thought he—brought me out of my shell.” He brushes his thumbs along the sides of the mug, takes a sip and licks marshmallow off his lip.

He jumps in time. “After Bitty and Jack—after the kiss, home wasn’t—home. Maybe before that, too, but—but after the kiss, everyone knew, they knew I was.” He shakes his head. “It was hard to be there. So I came here.”

She doesn’t, he says. She thinks, he says. “Ma thinks you’re gay, because you live in New York, and you go to Samwell, and it’s easier to think it’s—it’s you. Easier than thinking it’s me.”

Nursey holds back questions. Dex swallows. It’s me, he says. I talk about you. Too much. She worries. She thinks—she sees. Sees that I—that I love—hm. “She doesn’t like it,” he says, without finishing the last sentence. “It worries her. It worries me, I guess.”

He tries to put it together. The dreams—they pulled it all together. “She looks at Luke and she doesn’t—she likes him, he’s a nice boy, but he—he left me with all of these—these things, the things where I can’t have a normal relationship with my fucking boss, and all this—this cold in my body, and she doesn’t—she likes him when he is so cold and she doesn’t like you when you’re so warm and it just—I couldn’t stop thinking about how wrong it was and how angry it made me and Nursey, it’s just—it’s so—you’re so–”

Nursey curls his mug-warm hand over Dex’s knee. “Hey,” he says, quiet. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not,” Dex says, and he can feel the way his eyes are rimmed red, itchy, and hear the hoarseness in his throat, and feel the way that Nursey’s hand burns against his skin, and he wishes that he’d done this different, more coherently, earlier.

“No,” Nursey agrees, “it’s not. But I—it’s late. And we’re both tired. We can talk more in the morning, if you want. But I think—I think we both need to sleep.”

Dex swallows. He tastes cocoa and gratitude and—thick, clinging love. “Okay,” he breathes.

Nursey leads him up to a bedroom filled with books. Mussed blankets encourage Dex into the bed. Nursey gets in on the other side. It’s cozy and the duvet is heavy against his aching body and the ceiling is blue and Dex is not alone.

Nursey curls his hand around Dex’s, under the blankets. Dex curls back, and squeezes.

“I love,” Dex says and swallows.

“I know,” Nursey says, close, breath hot against Dex’s skin. “Me, too.”