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“Okay,” Nursey said, coming into the attic. “Don’t be mad.”
Dex’s eyes narrowed. He knew what that meant. “Don’t be mad” was Nursey-speak for “I’ve done something expensive.” Previously, it had meant such things as “I bought us plane tickets to go see Chowder,” “I replaced the bunk beds,” and “I bought $200 worth of fancy liquor.” Nursey was one of Dex’s best friends and also an extremely unique burden.
Dex turned in his chair to look at Nurse. “What did you do?”
“It’s not what I did, it’s what my Great-Aunt Irene did. She died.” Nurse dropped his bag and came to perch on the edge of Dex’s desk. They’d lived together for nearly three years and Dex had given up that fight four months in.
“I’m ... sorry?” Nursey didn’t seem upset.
“Nah, it’s fine. She died like a while ago and we weren’t close or anything. But my mom inherited all of her stuff.” Nursey paused for emphasis. “Including her apartment.”
Dex frowned. “So ... you’re going to live in your great-aunt’s apartment?”
“No, *we* are. It’s in Manhattan!” He looked cool and unruffled, like absolutely always. Dex had already committed to grad school at Columbia and was staring down a huge set of loans to cover the cost of living in the city.
“I thought you were gonna go to Europe or something?”
Nursey shrugged. “I hadn’t really made up my mind. I kind of miss New York. And besides, you need someone to look after you in the big city. Show you how things work.”
Dex clenched a fist. “I don’t need a babysitter, Nursey.”
“I didn’t say babysitter. Think of me more as a buddy. Trust me, it’s really different there. Won’t it be nicer with a friend?”
---
Dex still wasn’t used to the subway. His Monday classes ended at 5:30, forcing him into sea of grumpy humanity known as rush hour. The first month or so, he’d just stayed at school, getting work done until it was quiet enough that he didn’t feel so claustrophobic on the train, but Nursey, home and bored, provided excellent incentive for him to get home on time.
“That smells amazing,” Dex said, coming into their kitchen. This was a routine. Dex’s bag went in the right hand chair, Dex himself went in the left hand chair, and Nursey put the finishing touches on the meal he’d spent all afternoon making. “What is it?”
“Pork chops.” Nursey slid the chops out of a pan onto the plates and it looked as good as anything Dex had seen on tv. Nursey was good at everything he tried, including, apparently, the decision he’d made during a night of drinking and chick flicks to try Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking because it couldn’t be as hard as Amy Adams made it look.
“Man, it sure is nice having a house husband.” Nursey gave him the finger, but still dished extra mashed potatoes onto Dex’s plate. Dex took the plates to the little table by the window because of course when Nursey said something innocuous like “my great-aunt’s apartment”, what he actually meant was a 21st floor two-bedroom with windows that looked out over Central Park. When he’d walked in the door the first time, Dex wasn’t even surprised.
They sat at the little table, Nursey’s long legs bumping into Dex’s, and Dex tried to explain what they’d been learning in class that day. Nursey really concentrated and then Dex took pity on him and changed the topic to something that they both cared about: the Columbus Blue Jackets. Chowder was their second-string goalie now and Dex had gotten so nervous the first time they’d watched him take the ice that he felt like he was going to throw up. It was getting more normal to see him on the ice. If he ever started, Dex was sure he’d have an actual panic attack.
After dinner, Dex took his reading and his laptop to the big squashy armchair in the living room. He had a desk in his room, but after three years in the attic, it was too quiet in there. He preferred it out here, where Nursey would lay on the sofa with a book or his laptop and it would be like before.
---
“Caaaaare,” Dex said when she walked into the lab and Caroline laughed and sat down at the computer next to his. “Caroline, I’m gonna flunk out of grad school.”
“You’re not. This isn’t even a required course. Scoot over. Lemme see what you did wrong.”
Caroline was Dex’s favorite person in his cohort. They’d been stuck together as partners for a project in the first month of school and found that they neatly filled the gaps in each others’ abilities. Dex could see the overall architecture of a program in a way that sometimes eluded Caroline, but she could drill down line by line and edit the work in a way that he just did not have the patience for. So when he’d managed to screw up an assignment where he was just supposed to edit code and remove redundancies, he texted her first.
“This is ... really short. What did you do?”
“I removed all the parts that the script didn’t need. And now it won’t compile. So I removed too much?”
He sat in silence while she examined his work more closely. “Okay, tell me what the script was supposed to do.”
That was the first step in the assignment. They’d been given a bunch of SQL code and no explanation. “It’s supposed to search the database and return all the rows that have been modified within a certain period.”
“What did you delete?”
“All that stuff that was searching extra columns. To return the right rows, it only needs to search the mod-date.” She lifted her eyebrows as if urging him to go on. “Unless ... it does need to search those?”
“Unless it’s actually supposed to search for products that were changed in a certain way within that period.” She opened the original assignment again. “You have to spend more time figuring out the intent. No more of this ready, fire, aim business, Tony.”
He pushed her out of the way and started over. “How was drinks last night?” Unlike Dex, she’d actually managed to make a ton of friends at Columbia. She went out and explored New York’s nightlife while he watched hockey in his apartment.
“Super fun. You should have come!” She turned on the computer next to his and settled in.
“I know, but...” Dex shrugged.
“I know, I know. Date night.”
“It’s not like that, Care.”
“Whatever. I have an actual boyfriend and he’s never made me steak au poivre.”
Dex moved his windows around and tried not to shift nervously in his chair. “Well, Dave’s got a thesis to write. Derek’s just sitting around most of the time. He might as well take up cooking. Speaking of, how is that thesis going?”
The change of subject was so vital. Dex couldn’t go down that road again. He’d realized on his fourth day at Samwell that Derek Nurse was almost absurdly out of his league. He’d been angry about that for months. He was finally away from the town where he grew up, finally in a place where he could explore the weird way hot guys made him feel without worrying that the news would get back to his mother, and then he was slammed back into reality again. Oh, right. It doesn’t actually matter how hot guys make you feel, because you’re a ginger nerd with dumb ears and a temper problem.
But he couldn’t escape Derek. They were linemates, for God’s sake. They had to bury the hatchet and be cordial. Then it turned out that Derek was actually pretty cool and not as stuck up as feared, so they became friends. And then there was a mortifying ceremony and some bullshit about a proud D-man tradition and suddenly he found himself with a coveted room in the Haus and Derek as a roommate.
The attraction was part of him now, like freckles. He’d been living with it what felt like his whole life. It was awkward when it felt like someone was going to make him talk about it, but mostly he ignored it. Dex got irrationally excited when a program compiled on the first try and he felt a tendril of warmth in his stomach when Derek wandered around shirtless. Those were just things about him.
That still didn’t mean he was going to give up sitting at that little table over Derek’s home-cooked meals in favor of drinking with a bunch of science nerds.
---
“Wow,” Chowder said, getting closer to the screen. “What did you do to your kitchen? Did you use every dish? How are you gonna serve dinner without dishes?”
“Shut up, Chowder.” Derek was scraping the entire pan into the garbage and getting ready to start over.
“You should just order a pizza,” Chowder said. He was bored on the road and had Skyped in clearly for the express purpose of making Derek’s life hell.
“I’m not ordering a pizza,” Derek said, teeth clenched. “When Dex has afternoon classes, I make dinner out of this fucking torture book. That’s what we do.”
“Correction, you make dinner like three times.” This wasn’t the first time Chowder had caught him with his kitchen wrecked and a Julia Child recipe destroyed in a pan. The time he’d tried coq au vin, Derek actually cried and Chowder panicked and added Bitty to the call to talk him down. “Bitty cooked a ton for Jack before they started dating, but this is insane.”
“This isn’t a dating thing. Dex is working really hard and he deserves to come home to something nice.”
“Spaghetti is nice,” Chowder said, rolling upside down in the window on Derek’s laptop screen. “You’re frying things.” Derek started angrily washing dishes. Chowder was right. He was going to have to clean some stuff if they were going to eat Chicken Kiev on actual plates. “What’s your backup plan?” he asked, but Derek didn’t hear him over the water running. “What are you gonna do if you don’t make this in time?”
---
Professor Pierce had set aside a whole class to discuss the mistakes of their first exam, but they’d all managed to get it mostly right, so he let them go almost an hour early. Dex actually got a seat on the A train. That hadn’t happened in a while.
He opened the door to hear Derek swearing up a storm and what sounded like Chowder. “I’m not fucking giving up, Chow. Do I look like a man who fucking gives up? I DO NOT FUCKING GIVE UP.”
Dex’s steps slowed. He’d never heard Nursey so ... un-chill.
“Okay, it’s New York,” Chowder said, with the familiar tinny quality of coming over laptop speakers. “Someone’s gotta deliver Chicken Whatever, right?”
Dex went into the kitchen to find what looked like a battlefield. The sink was full of dishes, the dishwasher was running, and it smelled like there had very recently been a fire. “Whoa,” he said, dropping his bag on the floor. “What did I miss?”
“Shit,” Derek said, spinning around to look at Dex. “This isn’t what it looks like? Why are you already home?”
Dex smirked. “Got out early. Hey, Chowder,” he said, waving at the screen. Chowder enthusiastically waved back. “So, Nursey, finally found a recipe you couldn’t handle?”
“Nah,” Chowder said. “This is pretty standard, I think.” Derek turned to the computer with a growl and slammed it shut.
Dex rolled his sleeves up and went to the sink to start scrubbing. “Is it? How come you don’t let me clean up?”
“You’re busy. You’ve got school. I’m just doing nothing, basically.”
“You’re already making me a gourmet dinner. The least I can do is the dishes.” Dex sorted the pans and bowls and utensils and started a proper sink full of soapy water to process them through. “Why did you get started so early, though? It’s like not even five.”
“I always do. These recipes are kinda tricky. Anyway, I have to run out to the store for some stuff I forgot.” He was shoving his shoes on. “Do you need anything?”
“Nah. I’ll get these started.”
“Okay, great. Be right back.” Derek was out of the front door five seconds later like he was fleeing.
Dex hummed and did the dishes. He’d done this chore every day growing up and he didn’t mind it. It was meditative almost. When the dishwasher finished a few minutes later, he opened it and started to put things away.
When he turned to put the clean plates in their cabinet beside the stove, he saw that Nursey’s copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking was open to the page for Chicken Kiev, so he read it. And immediately, something didn’t add up. The recipe called for the chicken breasts to be rolled around butter and deep fried. That should take maybe a cutting board or two, a couple of plates, and a big pot for frying. But there was a pot in the dishwasher and a pot in the sink. There were five dirty plates, several bowls, and every cutting board in the apartment was in the washer.
Dex had a suspicion, so he opened the garbage can and grabbed an empty paper towel tube to poke through it. And he found four chicken breasts, two scorched black and two raw and fallen apart. But why? If the recipe didn’t work out, why not do something else? And why start so early.
Dex opened Nursey’s laptop and Skype was still logged in, so he rang Chowder, who answered immediately. “Hey Dex. Where’s Nursey?”
“Went to the store. Hey, what’d you mean by this is pretty standard?”
“Oh,”Chowder said, settling back against the pillows on his hotel bed. “We talk sometimes while he’s cooking. And your kitchen is usually pretty trashed like that.”
“Are these recipes really that hard?” he asked, flipping through the book.
“I guess. It usually takes him a couple tries to make it all pretty and perfect for you.”
“Then why bother?”
“Oooh, nope. I am not answering that question for you. Gotta go be an important hockey player now. Bye!” The window closed and Dex turned back to the dishes. He knew Nursey was feeling weird about not doing things during the day except read and try to figure out what he was doing with his life, but cooking was supposed to be a thing he was doing for fun. Nursey had never been the kind of sore loser who wouldn’t admit that he’d gotten something wrong. That was usually Dex’s job.
Okay, back up. Examine intent. If this wasn’t fun, then why would Nursey do it? Was it to impress Dex? Was it to manufacture a reason for them to spend time together? Sure, Dex would never pass up one of these meals, but they spent a ton of time together. Nursey had basically guaranteed that when he got them an apartment together instead of touring Europe like he’d planned...
Examining intent was hard when the clues pointed in a direction that was patently wrong. Dex frowned and scrubbed harder. Was he choosing facts that supported his hoped-for conclusion?
Okay, okay. Two lists. First: Facts pointing to the borderline insane conclusion that Nursey was into him:
These insane dinners, which had to cost a fortune and were clearly driving him insane. He must be doing so many dishes. In secret. To impress Dex?
Following Dex to New York and getting them a place together. Would he have come along if Dex had decided on Rochester?
It would explain Chowder’s sudden flight from Skype, if that was a thing he knew and Dex did not.
Nursey had friends in New York. Dex had met them all at their housewarming. So he presumably got invitations to hang out, the way Caroline was always pushing Dex to come out. But Nursey was with Dex every night.
List number two: Facts supporting the status quo assumption that Nursey is a good friend and does not at all have feelings like that for William Poindexter:
Dex was still trying to come up with the first thing on that list when Nursey came back in. He knew he looked stunned. He’d been holding the same plate under the tap for a while. “Hey, okay,” Nursey said, that breezy confidence back. “First try was less than successful, but I think I can do it this time.” He set his bag down on the counter and started unpacking. “Why don’t you go sit down and I’ll handle it from here.”
The only thing Dex could think to say was, “Why?”
Nursey’s grin went a little strained around the eyes. “Because that’s what I do. I planned a whole thing. Just had a little mishap with the chicken.”
“You had two mishaps. At least.” Dex felt horrible a second later when Derek’s face fell, the secret out. “I mean, that’s fine. It looks ... I mean, I couldn’t cook that. But you know you don’t have to go to all this trouble, right? I like hanging out with you even when we get pizza or whatever.”
Nursey turned and yanked the refrigerator door open, then started shoving things in. “You’re working really hard. You deserve to have something nice.”
“Yeah, like hanging out with you. I just said that.” He tried to smile, but most of his brain was focused on not running away and just living on the streets until everything calmed down.
“It’s ... just let me do something nice for you, okay?” Derek shut the refrigerator and leaned back against it, his fingers twitching against the door.
“You mean like get me an apartment in a neighborhood I can’t afford? Or come to New York with me and explain how to use the subway like nine times?” Dex couldn’t help his little smile then and the smile Nursey gave him in return made his heart leap a little. Dex stepped close and tapped Nursey’s foot with his own. “You don’t have to go to all this trouble, okay? I don’t want you to get all upset over me.”
They were so close. How did Dex let himself get this close? Nursey was smiling and close enough now to see his individual eyelashes. “That’s the kind of thing you do for people you like.” His voice was soft and Dex did not miss the way Nursey’s eyes glanced down at his mouth.
“Like? Or like like?”
Derek reached out and put a hand on Dex’s hip, dragging him even closer. “What’s a step above that?”
Dex shrugged, but leaned up a little and then Derek leaned down and kissed him.
Part of Dex was screaming. This wasn’t supposed to be happening. This couldn’t be happening. This didn’t make any sense. But clearly Nursey didn’t hear the screaming because he slid both hands to Dex’s back and pulled their bodies flush. And after that, everything went quiet. Dex was completely present and focused. He cataloged the feel of Derek’s lips against his, the heat of his hands, and the thrill that went through him when Derek’s tongue slipped against his own. There was a soft whimper and then the exhale of breath that told Dex that it had been Derek who made that noise. That gave him enough steam to push forward and seal their mouths together. Derek’s hand slid up to cup the back of Dex’s head and Dex moaned and leaned against him, pinning him to the refrigerator.
When they finally pulled apart, long, long minutes later, Derek was smirking, loose-hipped and stunning. “So, dinner?”
Dex frowned and stepped away. “Nurse, I cannot explain how little I want dinner right now.” He turned instead and started to pull Derek down the hall toward their bedrooms.
Derek laughed and jogged to catch up.
---
When Derek’s phone buzzed with a new text from somewhere inside his pants on the floor, he ignored it, way too busy exploring how to make Dex giggle via the application of stubble to sensitive places. When Dex’s phone buzzed, he was about to be coached through his first blowjob, but he took the time to text back “Busy” to whoever it was and turn his phone off.
Derek finally let Dex out of bed an hour after that when the doorbell rang. He caught a glimpse of himself in the hall mirror, flushed across his chest and cheeks, a hickey on his collarbone and another on his hip, and Derek's too big sweats nearly sliding off. The look on his face could only be described as gloriously smug. He swung the door open.
“Pizza. I'm supposed to tell you it's from someone named Chowder.”