Zine, Please! Vol. 2: #SwawesomeGreetings is open for sign-ups!
Crunch-times, fun-times, more balls than you'd think, firsts, lasts, and so many moments to celebrate. 'Tis the busiest season of the year. Is your favorite character making intricate towns out of snow on The Haus lawn? Are they home for the break, having uncomfortable conversations with relatives they don't know? How about orchestrating a Friendsgiving with no less than eighteen pies when he should be studying for finals? Reigning in the new year with fireworks and dragon dances? It's all up to you in Zine, Please! Vol. 2: #SwawesomeGreetings!
While our awesome future contributors are signing up, let's give them some motivation and spark with our first poll!
What would you like to see in #SwawesomeGreetings?
Bitty and Jack celebrating Channukah in small moments around Jack's game schedule
The Haus 2.0 Crew in a Holiday Decoration War with their sworn enemies (40 y/o Denise and Thomas Williams next door with their obnoxious teenage kids and their stupid 15 feet inflatable snowman that [Holster vc] IS NOT HOA COMPLIANT, AND YOU KNOW IT DENISE!!! I DON'T CARE IF YOUR ENGINEER HUSBAND SET IT UP. WHAT DOES THAT EVEN HAVE TO DO WITH ANYTHING, IT'S NOT EVEN HOMEMADE WE SAW IT AT COSTCO!)
SMH reunion Snowball fight!!!
Dex and Nursey kissing Chowder's cheeks under the mistletoe (Pls, I'm begging -Mod Atlas)
Your favorite Aces (yep, the two who have actually appeared in the main comic and all of the OC's you've thought up including that one guy who's 3 hockey players, 2 dogs, and one of Parse's cats in a trench coat. I think his name was something like..Shmeff?) all crowded into a kitchen cooking for thanksgiving and….oh no there's a fire on the stove… (Pls, I'm begging -Mod Tea)
Anything else you wanna see? Tell us in the reblogs!!!!
If you haven't signed up for #SwawesomeGreetings yet, sign-ups can be found here!
Hope you're all well. This is just the first poll and there's tons more fun things to come. Looking forward to hearing from you all!!
-Mod Atlas 🧉 and Mod Tea 🍵
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Congratulations on 400 followers! I’m newish to the fandom and your blog was one of the first I followed!
Pair: Nursey/Dex
Song: 28
Vibes: first date (can include smut if it fits in)
Congratulations again!!!!
thank you so much and welcome to the fandom!! this is only the second time i've written nurseydex and it's an honor to do so for you ❤️ i did not manage to squeeze the smut in but i did provide the lead-up so i hope that's acceptable. please enjoy these banana nut muffins being dorky and awkward on their two first dates
28. nurseydex + first date + I Love You More Than You Think by Rizzie Kicks for @hrtstppr95
I think that we know that we know each other really well
I know I wanna know you for the rest of my life
Because no matter the length of time that’s gone by
When I see you, it’s fine
It’s like I just saw you last night
Dex is thinking about why fancy restaurants invest in stupid shit when Nursey says, “Poindexter, I don’t think this is working.”
Their table is a good one, tucked into a private corner and partially hidden by a big potted plant. The downside to this is that apparently nobody thought to install overhead lighting in this swanky Boston seafood bar, and the candle holder—which, for some reason, is shaped like a miniature lobster wearing a chef’s coat—is doing a terrible job at casting light on the worried expression that Nursey is wearing. Dex looks down at his clenched hands in his lap and can’t help but mirror what he can see of the frown.
read more below or on ao3 | request a fic here
God, he knew he was going to fuck this up. Dex doesn’t do a lot of standing on ceremony, but even he can admit that first dates are a big deal, that they deserve care. When Nursey had come to him with this grand plan for a fancy, candlelit dinner, his treat, he’d known it might be uncomfortable, that he might have to pretend to get it. This kind of thing isn’t him, not at all.
But it is Nursey. He looks right here, casually elegant in a blazer he doesn’t wear to games, half-empty glass in his hand with the ice clinking soft at the bottom. He’s been so excited for this, talking it up all week to anyone who’d listen. Of course it’s Dex who doesn’t fit in. Four years in this weird parallel world to the one he’s used to and he still can’t make himself take the shape of someone who belongs in both.
“No,” he agrees, eyes dropping back to his hands. There’s a long fresh scar along the base of his thumb, the brightest thing in the room. “Sorry.”
“Shit—Dex, no.”
Nursey’s hand appears in his field of view, warm and brown and stark against the tablecloth. Dex looks up, surprised, and finds Nursey’s face much better lit and clearly concerned.
“I just meant, like—you look uncomfy, dude.” He bounces the outstretched hand lightly on the table until Dex reaches up to still it with his own. “Are you having a good time?”
“Oh.” He feels wrongfooted by how much Nursey notices. “Uh, yeah, I guess… not really.”
The thought’s only out there for half a second before he scrambles after how wrong it sounds in the air between them. “I mean, with you, yeah. But it’s, um, fancy here. Didn’t wanna… ugh, it’s stupid.”
“It’s not.” Nursey considers the watery Coke in the bottom of his glass, then drains it in one. “That’s not on you, ‘kay? I should have thought of that.”
The ensuing silent discussion, born of many years of finely honed skill at arguing silently on the ice, leads to an agreement that they need to get the hell out of here as soon as possible. Nursey flags down the server for the check; Dex lets go of Nursey’s hand on the table and spends the next ten minutes cussing out the stupid lobster, who, thankfully, does not respond.
They don’t speak again until they’re back in Nursey’s (asshole) Jeep. The parking lot is packed; the only space they’d been able to find is out in the farthest row from the restaurant, looking down the hill that faces Route 9. The air is freezing in the way that precedes a blizzard. Every leaf is crackling with frost, and even with the doors closed and the engine shuddering to life, Dex can see his breath.
He can see Nursey’s, too, when he says, “Dude, I’m really sorry.”
“S’okay.” Dex shivers. “Really. Not your fault I can’t hang.”
“Poindexter, come on.” The collar of Nursey’s sweater is folded funny over the top of his coat. Dex’s eyes stick on it. “That’s not it. I should have picked somewhere we would both have fun.”
Asshole Dex says in his head, Oh, you think?
Civilized Human Dex, perched on his other mental shoulder, says, Hey, you agreed to this. Be an adult.
Dex the Walking Basket Case tips his head back into the seat and wonders how long the chirps would last if he fessed up to talking to himself like this. Out loud he says, “It’s really okay, Nurse. ‘Sides, night’s young.”
Nursey turns the heat up as high as it’ll go, makes that noise that means okay, I’ll bite. He reaches over and folds Dex's fingers into the warmth of his palm, a conciliatory gesture that Dex can never admit makes him feel all soft in the middle like a homemade Bittle pie. “That’s true,” he says. “Any ideas?”
Dex leans on the cold window, lets it chill his overheated skin. Without really thinking about it, he says, “We could go skate.”
It’s more to break the silence that’s fallen than anything else. When he turns back around, though, it’s to find Nursey looking at him with interest.
“What, at Faber?”
“Yeah.”
“Isn’t it locked?”
Against all odds, Dex finds himself smirking. “Come on, Nurse, I’m the captain. You think I don’t have keys to our own rink?”
Nursey’s grinning too, now. This is what Dex loves and hates about him, the way it comes so easily. He never wants that to change, no matter how much he used to tell himself otherwise. Despite this failure of a night, he thinks, he’s happy.
“Well,” Nursey drawls. “‘Swawesome.”
He pulls their hands apart and squeezes Dex’s thigh twice. Dex bats him away, smile stretching despite himself, and says, “Just drive.”
---
Faber is cold and quiet, no signs of life but the hum of the heating vents far above. Dex hits the ice first, sketches a long, curving line towards the box and then back toward the bench. He can’t really see Nursey, but hears him follow through the dark just the same.
The air between them is suddenly charged, heavy. They don’t speak. They don’t even really skate together, each carving their own loops at opposite ends of the ice, watching each other out of the corners of their eyes. Dex feels oddly naked. It’s a weird combination of silk tie and suit pants and his grimy skates, marked up by the years.
He stops on the blue line, bracketed by a big white square of moonlight. The windows are gorgeous, especially without the fluorescents to compete, framing the sky and the spreading branches of the linden tree that Shitty always told the story about getting stuck in. In three or four months they’ll play their last game here, a thought that settles leaden and cold in Dex’s stomach. He watches a cloud pass over the moon. If there’s someone out there to hear him, he thinks, then let them hear him wish, desperately, for five more minutes.
Someone does hear, because there’s sudden warmth at his back. Nursey’s chin settles heavy on his shoulder, and his hands curl around Dex’s bare forearms. Dex leans back and lets Nursey hold him for no reason other than that he likes to, and Dex likes it when Nursey likes the things he does.
“Feel better?”
It’s a whisper. Dex’s whole body goes cold, then hot.
“Yes,” he says.
“Good,” says Nursey, nosing into the side of Dex’s neck. “Nice save.”
Dex shrugs and feels Nursey’s head move with him. He has the weirdest sense that the two of them have become the same being, moving in tandem, breathing as one. “I wouldn’t mind doing dinner again,” he says. “Don’t want you to think it wasn’t a good date.”
Nursey frees his thumbs from where they’re tucked under his fingers and runs his hands lightly up and down Dex’s arms. “Well, I’m flattered,” he says. “Still. We’re just two college idiots, man, no need for fine dining just yet. Sorry.”
Annoyance sparks in Dex’s gut. He was starting to enjoy this, feels like he doesn't need to be reminded every five minutes of how sorry they both are about the whole thing. “Will you stop apologizing,” he groans, and goes to turn around, but Nursey’s massive hands clamp down swiftly on his arms, and he freezes in place.
“No,” Nursey says.
Dex’s heart is suddenly slamming against his ribs, just like that. Huh. Mood officially un-killed.
“As a matter of fact,” he continues, “I was thinking about how to make it up to you.”
Oh—oh.
Dex is not the poetry guy of the two of them, but Nursey makes him feel like that last long look before a kiss. Maybe they don’t make sense together. Maybe they’re only going to belong in each other’s lives for a little while. College relationships can be like that. But here, now, Dex is in the place where he and Nursey became a team twice, and that means something. Dex knows it does.
“Yes,” he says.
Nursey finally releases him and spins him around so they’re facing each other. He quirks an eyebrow, but he’s smiling, and the moon in his eyes is huge and bright.
“You didn’t even hear my proposition, Poindexter. I had this whole—”
Dex cuts him off with a kiss. The two of them together might not be logical or satisfying, but they’re a damn good twist ending, and besides. The night is young, and he knows what he wants.
When he says yes again, Nursey just shakes his head, laughs, and pulls him towards the tunnel to the locker room.
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