It takes about three months before Will is certain he's over his hero worship of any and all members of the Samwell Men's Hockey Team.
Wait, that makes it sound like it was everyone. It wasn't. He came to Samwell not quite believing that Jack Zimmermann would be here and playing with him and then he got to Samwell and Jack was a little intimidating and incredibly good at hockey and it took until Hazeapalooza for Will to actually remember that Jack is just some guy.
And then there was Ransom.
Ransom, who introduced himself to the frogs with a smile that basically made Will's brain short-circuit, who's pretty much the smartest guy on the team and looks good in the most ridiculous outfits and is a total social butterfly, not to mention that he's kickass at defense.
Then midterms happened, and Will learned about coral reef mode, and logically that should have put Ransom into the category most of the team fits in: namely, a whole lot of 'just some guy's.
Only it didn't.
Sure, he's no longer under the impression that Ransom does it all effortlessly. And Will's pretty sure that coral reef mode isn't actually healthy. But when Ransom's only flaw seemed to be his penchant for boat shoes, he was unapproachable, some kind of weird, inhuman perfection.
Nah. Ransom's a normal person. He's still incredibly smart, great at talking to people, and 'swawesome at hockey (which is an adjective Will is trying to get used to). Will is still a little wary of actually being around him, because whenever Ransom addresses Will directly he feels on the verge of seriously embarrassing himself in one way or another. (Mostly because Ransom looking at him seems to be the key to making his brain cells evaporate.) But he's normal. He gets stressed out over classes and has neuroses Will can honestly relate to and organizes his entire life via Excel sheets, which is something Will kind of wants to try.
ransom and dex are talking about game day routines and stuff and ransom half-jokingly mentions the ghost stuff and dex, completely seriously, goes ‘oh yeah the haus is super haunted’
turns out there are only so many hours you can spend in the basement or the attic of the house before Weird Shit starts happening. even sophomore-year dex has spent so much time down there fixing the dryer that he’s picked up on it
anyway i have too many wips right now but insert matchmakers mandy and jenny fic here
Over the summer, Dex gets a Snapchat from Ransom. It's a shitty, slightly-blurry picture of his computer, featuring an Excel sheet prominently titled MED SCHOOL OPTIONS. He's captioned it wish u were here X(.
Dex has absolutely no idea what to do with that.
After about two minutes of deliberating (it can't be too long, he can't overthink too much, because it's Snapchat so Ransom knows Dex has seen what he sent), he takes a similarly shitty picture of a bunch of lobsters on the deck of his uncle's boat and sends it, captioned Wish I was there too.
He's in so deep.
Fuck.
Med school options. This fall, Ransom's going to be a senior, and he's going to be co-captain, and just... time moves so fast. Soon they'll be back on campus for pre-season, and then it'll be midterms, then winter break, then spring semester and Ransom's last semester at Samwell.
Gah.
He winds up Skyping Ransom that evening, when Dex is back from work and Ransom's taking a break from future-induced crises.
"How was the ocean?" Ransom says. He's clearly sitting in bed with his laptop, a blanket draped around his shoulders and tied like a cape. The look on his face is soft, in a way, or maybe he's just tired and Dex is reading too much into it. "Still big as fuck?"
"Still big as fuck," Dex confirms. "Still salty, too. Fewer lobsters in it than there were this morning."
Ransom chuckles at that, more of a 'ha' than a real laugh, but Dex feels warm inside anyway. Hopefully he's not blushing. "How are the spreadsheets treating you?"
"Ugh. I'm narrowing down schools, and there are a bunch that are like... fine? But nothing's really grabbing me." He shrugs. "They're all just places I could go to learn medicine. It's weird. My spreadsheets for undergrad were way more opinionated than this."
"Oh, mine too." Dex's college apps spreadsheet was almost entirely subjective, with a few columns of hard data so he could back up his opinions to his family. "Are you looking for a dream school?"
"I guess?" Ransom doesn't look all that convinced, though. "I've been planning to become a doctor for a really long time, so I feel like looking for med schools should be more... exciting. But I might just not have found the right places yet."
"That's the good thing about starting in the summer. You've got time." Even if Ransom looking for med schools already is just driving home the point that he'll be gone soon.
"I do, yeah. But I don't want to spend this whole year trying to figure out where I'm going next, you know? I want to enjoy it too. Spend time with people. That kind of thing." From the way Ransom says it, it sounds like he has more specific ideas than that, but he's not sharing so Dex doesn't pry.
Talking about how it's about to be Ransom's last year at Samwell sucks, but there's one topic that sucks even more, and like he's poking at a loose tooth, Dex gravitates directly to that one next. "How's March?"
Ransom blinks. "Oh. Uh. I have no idea? We kind of fell out of touch once the semester ended."
God. Okay. This is either good, because Dex won't have to hear about March anymore, or bad, because now he doesn't have March as a convenient reason to repress the shit out of everything.
"Oh, sorry," he says. "You don't sound too upset about it?"
Ransom pauses. He always looks kind of up toward the ceiling when he's thinking, and that's what he does now, gaze drifting up for a couple of seconds before he looks back at Dex. "I'm not, really. March is cool, but I think we both knew it wasn't going to last."
Alright, there's a legion of things Ransom is leaving unsaid there, but again, he's not sharing so Dex doesn't pry.
"I'm glad you're feeling okay." It comes out a little more serious than he means it to, but he can't take it back now, so he tries to backtrack a little with something humorous. "Because I haven't accumulated any vacation days, so I can't come to Toronto to watch rom-coms and yell at the screen with you."
Ransom gives him a confused smile, like he can't decide if that's weird or endearing. Which is fair, because Dex also doesn't know if what he just said is weird or endearing. "That's... oddly specific."
"Uh, that's what happens after the breakup in Legally Blonde." Dex shrugs. "It was the first thing that came to mind."
Ransom looks up at the ceiling again, and he doesn't quite look back at Dex before saying, "I mean, I could drive to Maine. It's not that far. You have weekends off, right?"
"Yeah," Dex says, probably too quickly. "Yeah, that would be..." 'Swawesome. Bizarre. A lot of adrenaline packed into one weekend. Probably crisis-inducing. "Cool. If you have time, I mean."
He does look back at the camera then. "Dex, please give me a reason to stop thinking about med school applications for a couple of days."
Dex feels himself start to smile. "Well, if you say so."
Ransom arrives at Dex's house and Dex is pretty sure he's going to spontaneously combust at some point over the next forty-eight hours.
It starts with his mom going "Oh, Justin, we've heard so much about you!" and it continues with his brother conspicuously mouthing He's cute at Dex behind Ransom's back and it's been like a minute and a half and Dex is ready to vibrate out of his skin.
He cuts in before his mom can get into an actual conversation with Ransom. "Come on in, I'll give you the grand tour."
They wind up squeezing into Dex's twin-size bed to watch bad rom-coms on his laptop, and Dex gets so absorbed in talking shit about the movies and trying to make Ransom laugh that he forgets to be nervous.
He's trying to come up with increasingly terrible puns on the male romantic lead's name in the third generic movie with the generic title and the even more generic plot...
And then all of a sudden it's morning.
He knows it's morning, because there's light shining on his closed eyes, which is unpleasant. He's still sitting in his bed—he must have fallen asleep leaning into the corner of the walls. And there's a warm, solid weight against his side.
Dex opens his eyes a little.
Ransom.
He's asleep, head on Dex's shoulder, as peaceful-looking as if this happens all the time, which it most certainly does not.
All of a sudden, Dex feels extremely awake. Which one of them fell asleep first? Was it Dex? Did Ransom notice he was asleep and decide to stay here instead of switching to the air mattress on the floor? Dex definitely fell asleep without noticing if Ransom was still awake or not, and he thinks he would have noticed if Ransom fell asleep, but it's not like he can be completely sure.
Does it really matter, though? The fact is, both of them fell asleep sitting up, crammed into this small bed. They spent so long watching movies. Ransom had plenty of opportunities to move.
He didn't.
Dex didn't, either.
And, well.
Obviously Dex isn't going to move now and risk waking him up.
He smiles a little to himself and closes his eyes again, shutting out the sunlight as best as he can for just a little while longer. He's not expecting it to go anywhere, especially not when Ransom's only here for the weekend and a decent fraction of that time will probably be taken up by his family trying desperately to embarrass him, but it's nice.
So, yes, it's April and Dex is still very much into Ransom. Yes, he's started to rival Holster for knowledge of how best to support Ransom during finals, midterms, tests, quizzes, et cetera. Yes, he's a little bit worried about the fact that this doesn't seem to be going away.
But it's fine, okay? It's all fine. He's figured out how to behave like a functioning person around Ransom, mostly because if he didn't he'd be a puddle of nerves on the floor by now, and Dex is many things but he is not a quitter and being a puddle of nerves would make it really hard to keep playing hockey.
(That being said, he's never going to be good at beer pong. Ransom tries to teach him at every kegster, and Dex genuinely tries to learn at every kegster, but it's hopeless. He's never going to learn when Ransom is right there, close enough to brush against his shoulder, reaching out to adjust his form every so often, grinning at him whenever he does even marginally better than he did last time. Dex is too busy trying to cover up his flusteredness to actually improve at the game. At least he can blame the flush on the alcohol, when it's a kegster.)
Anyway. He can function.
That's good enough.
It's good enough, which is why it absolutely cannot bother Dex that Ransom has been hanging out with March from the volleyball team a lot. Because he's functioning, and part of functioning means not making his crush incredibly obvious.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Justin "Ransom" Oluransi/William "Dex" Poindexter
Characters: William "Dex" Poindexter, Justin "Ransom" Oluransi, Poindexter Family (Check Please!)
Additional Tags: Supportive Poindexter Family, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Pining, I mean like strong hints at it being requited but I seriously needed to just. finish this fic, Sharing a Bed, Kegsters, Snapshots
Summary:
Ransom's a normal person. Will is still a little wary of actually being around him, because whenever Ransom addresses Will directly he feels on the verge of seriously embarrassing himself in one way or another. But he's normal. He gets stressed out over classes and has neuroses Will can honestly relate to and organizes his entire life via Excel sheets, which is something Will kind of wants to try.
So this isn't a hero worship situation.
It's a crush.
That's worse.
--
THIS IS THE COMPLETE VERSION OF THE RANDEX FIC I POSTED 4 PARTS OF ON TUMBLR AND THEN SAID I WAS WORKING ON FOR A FULL WEEK WITH NO UPDATES WOOOOOOOOOO HERE YOU GO IT’S DONE!!!!!!
They wind up squeezing into Dex's twin-size bed to watch bad rom-coms on his laptop, and Dex gets so absorbed in talking shit about the movies and trying to make Ransom laugh that he forgets to be nervous.
