Hello! Okay, so I did not forget about this! I merely struggled to think of anything good, got entirely side tracked by school being difficult, and then had to wait until yesterday night at 11:30 pm to have an idea worth rolling with, all of which is to say I’m sorry this took so long, but I finally did this, and I hope it’s decent. Prompts are: “Forget it.” “That’s in the past.” and “You make me happy.” (which I kinda cheated, but here we go)
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Derek Nurse is of two minds as he and Dex look around this place. There’s a practical part of him that knows booking a tour of a haunted house, no matter how nice it is, objectively ridiculous. The location isn’t awful, a bit away from the city but certainly not a deal breaker, and it’s certainly bigger than their current place. They’re looking for their second apartment out of college, though; something much more two bros living it up in Boston rather than the soft suburban domesticity of the countertops Nursey’s currently admiring. If he’s honest with himself, which Nursey has a policy of restraint with, the quiet and vulnerability of the image this place conjures might fight their dynamic better anyway.
The better part of Nursey, however, is elated. It’s not particularly often he gets to tour around supposedly haunted houses, and as reluctant as he is to admit it, Dex is just the right amount of superstitious to make the whole experience that much more fun. The tour through the house has been uneventful so far, but there’s a pleasant back and forth routine as they walk through the house. Nursey will point out a great place for potential hauntings and Dex offers up his best on the fly scientific explanation for whatever phenomenon Nursey comes up with. He’s in the middle of listening to Dex rattle off one such explanation about refrigerators and the noises they’re prone to making when Nursey walks squarely into a ladder.
A ladder up.
Presumably to an attic.
Dex apparently sees the glint in Nursey’s eye before the idea is even voiced, because he’s immediately shaking his head. “Oh, absolutely not, Nurse. I care about you deeply, but I will not be going into a possibly haunted attic. Forget it.”
“You’ve spent time in the Haus attic,” Nursey smirks through the ladder rungs, “and Ransom swore up and down that it was haunted.”
“Okay, first of all the most dangerous thing about the Haus is probably the couch and that’s only because it’s a health code violation,” Dex rattles off without hesitation. It takes every fiber of Nursey’s being not to laugh, but he manages to let Dex continue. “And second, even if it was haunted, that’s in the past. I am a whole grown ass adult now with self-preservation.”
Nursey shrugs his shoulders. “Fine, you don’t have to go into the attic, but I 1000% am going up there and seeing what’s around.”
Nursey makes it halfway up the ladder before he hears a sigh and something suspiciously like “horror movie protagonist type fucker” follow him up into the attic.
The attic itself is nothing special compared to the rest of the house; it’s dusty in the way unused living rooms are, but really not so bad for what looks to be primarily a storage space. Dex stays by the entrance, but Nursey walks in further to explore. He’s kind of unfairly enamored with this space. A few old books stick out from piles of boxes, and the small window on the far wall conjures up images of potential cozy reading spaces in Nursey’s mind. Bean bags and bookshelves would be incredible up here with all the natural light during the day, and warm lamps at night would make it a perfect space to wind down for the day.
“At least the window’s nice,” Dex offers, making his way over to inspect it. “Sealed correctly and a good size for this placement.”
Nursey’s about to explain his grandiose vision for an attic library in response when the attic door closes with a sudden thud. “I didn’t do that.
“I know... Nursey, please tell me that door isn’t locked.” Dex doesn’t sound quite scared, but he doesn’t quite look comfortable as Nursey crosses over to the hatch in the floor.
Nursey tries it once, twice, three times before closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. “Okay, so it locks from the outside, but it’s okay; it’s fine, I can text the realtor and she can come get us out of here!” When Dex slumps down against the wall under the window instead of replying right away, Nursey gets worried. “Will, I am so fucking sorry I—”
“Nursey,” Dex interrupts, just barely keeping the giggles out of his voice, “in your own words: chill.”
To his credit, Nursey does take a second to steady himself and sit down beside Dex, but he still feels bad. “I’m serious, I really didn’t think anything would happen coming up here, and ghosts or not I’m sorry you’re stuck with me.”
Dex shrugs, leaning ever so slightly into Nursey’s side. “I mean, this whole thing is fucking ridiculous, and it’d be more convenient if I could come get you unstuck from this stupid attic, but if I had to be stuck with anyone, I’m okay with it being you.”
“You’re not mad?”
Dex does snort a laugh at that. “I reserve the right to reevaluate if I get haunted by ghosts, but not really no.”
Nursey’s quiet for a moment, mostly because Dex’s tone feels much softer than he deserves right now. He’s not quite sure what to do with all of this, but Dex seems content to let him sit with it for now. Nursey, on the other hand, feels no such contentment leaving things where they are. “Listen, not to look a gift horse in the mouth here, but why are you not mad at me? I don’t want you to be or anything, but I feel like you have the right to be mad.”
Dex knocks his foot against Nursey’s ankle, shooting him a soft smile. “There’s worse ways to spend a Saturday, Nursey. I don’t know, hanging out with you makes me happy, I was already planning on us making a day out of whatever nonsense we got into, this is just a change in location. We’re good, okay? I like spending time with you, even in a probably not haunted attic.”
The look on Dex’s face is remarkably earnest, and there’s some part of Nursey that thinks somewhere along the way things shifted between them; either the air feels heavier, or he feels lighter, but either way he thinks this moment could be incredibly important to them. It’s frustrating how Nursey’s not sure of the right thing to say at a time like this. Everything feels either too much or not enough, too vulnerable, and yet insincere. He wants to say something, to respond to the soft look Will’s giving him in the afternoon attic light, but none of the right things are coming to mind.
Before he can say anything though, the realtor finally gets the door to the attic open and bursts the bubble between them. Maybe, Nursey thinks as he follows Dex back to the ground floor, if he’s lucky, he’ll get that moment back and hold onto it for good this time.
"I have masters degree because of mash" is not a statement you can simply make in the tags and then not tell us that story 👀
hahah- there’s not much more to it than that. MASH got me hooked on war humor. In college, I took a few more classes that somehow wove their way into veteran’s issues, but ultimately decided to be a teacher. After teaching for a couple years, I then decided to give my other passion a try and went and got a masters degree in psychiatry, specifically PTSD and war issues. My thesis for that masters was about the necessity of military humor for those in active duty and for veterans. the paper was more focused around comics than MASH, but the central thesis: that military humor serves a specific purpose that is beneficial to the mental health of soldiers (and is something veterans actually lose access to when they come home, which is bad) can be directly linked to MASH. that is where the interest started! the only reason i didn’t write the whole thesis about MASH was because it is a bitch and a half to cite tv shows. comics were easier.
(after that masters program, I missed teaching so much that I went back to it so it’s a small little blip in my life story but still! the tv shows you watch as a child will influence you in unknown ways!)
Re: Tan France getting married at 26 bc utah: as a gay 24 year old exmormon who lives in utah: yeah, that's normal here. It's A Thing
It seemed weird, but then I remembered that Utah is weird. God, if I for some reason moved there and stuck to my plan to not get married before 30 I’d be fucking ancient, huh? Anyways I finished the book yesterday and I have thoughts.
•Every time someone from a country with a functional healthcare system talks about the US like we’re all morons who just decided out of the blue to live like this, they owe me $30 so I can pay my deductible. “Why do you have this system” I mean, I could tell you, but I don’t think you’re actually asking me to tell you about historical wage caps and the need for companies to compete with each other to provide benefits that discouraged our government from setting up its own healthcare system for so long. I know he lives here now and is thus affected by it, but it still bugs me when people talk in that smug “oh aren’t Americans stupid for not having a functional health system” tone.
•Tan. My dude. I’ve met English guys, y’all aren’t that much fancier than we are. Y’all eat fish on the street, don’t act like you’ve all got perfect table manners all the time
•Americans can also say “oh really” sarcastically, Mr. France, it’s not a special British thing
•a very defensive section about how he’s terrified that everyone online will hate the outfits he picks out adds to my belief that he needs therapy. Like this is a very public facing career for someone who’s terrified of the public.
•”ask your friends where they shop if you like their style” yeah I know where they shop, it’s just that I wear size 16 pants and 14-16 dresses and they all wear like a size 6, even if the shops sold a full range we still have different body shapes and heights and proportions.
•Tan seems to forget that gay women exist sometimes. Lots of sections talking to straight men, or gay men, or straight women. Let’s get him a lesbian friend
•actually I think he needs some anxiety meds. It’s like, a big issue in his life here
•he watches 30 rock every day??? every single day??????????
anyways it was a pretty good audiobook, I enjoyed it, and I enjoyed even more that it didn’t have a 12 week waitlist like Jonathan Van Ness’s audiobook
