āthis is my husband/boyfriend/partner etc.ā + NurseyDex
that's mine
nurseydex, alternating pov
.
Nursey goes flying. Headfirst into the goal, arms flailing, Will thinks he hears a yelp sort of flying. He only resists the urge to roll his eyes because Bittyās looking right at him and he doesnāt want a lecture.Ā
Stillāwhen one of the assholes on the other team barks out a laugh and says, āWho was that, Bambi?ā, Will canāt help but sigh.
āThatās my teammate, asshole,ā he says, and cuts over to check him against the boards.Ā
ā
Derek misses the days that the frogs were wide-eyed and respectful in the Haus. These kidsāheās going to need some sense knocked into them soon. Theyāre loud, rowdy, and far too interested in integrating into the group by joining in on the teasing, which is a right they have not yet earned.
Like now, when theyāre giggling to themselves and looking at him.
āSoāā one of them starts, smirking, and never finishes.
āSo,ā Derek repeats, jerking his thumb at Dex, āthatās my roommate.ā
The laughter grates on his nerves, but not as much as pretending he doesnāt care about sharing a room with Dex.
ā
Nursey is ā¦ singing? Will thinks thatās what heās trying to do at least, and heās heard him sing almost every day in the shower so the warbling coming out of his mouth is surprising. Heās not saying Nursey is good by any means, but he can sound decent with the right song and this ā¦ this is not the right song.
He doubts the fact that all the words being slurred thanks to being absolutely trashed is helping.
Will stays at the bar until the song is done, resolutely facing away from the somewhat dimly-lit karaoke stage so he doesnāt get dragged into participating. Luckilyāor not, considering Ransom and Holster seem to have disappeared so the drunken idiot is now his responsibilityāNursey doesnāt say anything when he comes crashing up to the bar except, āTequila shots?ā
Will can barely understand him, but the look on his faceāthe one that appears whenever Nursey thinks heās had a particularly good ideaāspeaks volumes. āWater,ā he says firmly, sliding a waiting pint glass over.Ā
He really doesnāt understand whatever Nursey mumbles then, but he has more pressing problems, because his lapāpreviously empty of everything except his coatāis now occupied. āJesus,ā he mutters, trying to wiggle away. āDudeāNurseyāā
āSācomfy,ā Nursey says, and Will tries once more to get him to move to his own seat with no avail.
The bartender, when she returns, gives Will a raised eyebrow. āHe bothering you? I can get him out.ā
Will sighs. āHeās a friend,ā he says, and adds, āso he pretty much bothers me all the time.ā
āYa love me, pretty boy,ā Nursey says. He starts to laughāat what, Will has no clueābut it makes him wiggle in a way that Will isnāt sure heās entirely comfortable with, and Nursey goes sliding to his own seat after another shove.
āShut up and drink your water,ā Will says, and motions to close their tab.
ā
āThatās Jack,ā Derek says, nudging his grandmother and pointing at the television, where Jack is leaning on the boards and chatting with the coach. āHeās on the Falconers.ā
āIām rooting for them,ā she says, and tuts when Derek makes an aborted noise. āHush, you donāt get to choose who I like. Is he a defender?ā
Derekās been playing hockey most of his life and every time he watches a game with his grandma itās like sheās never heard of the sport before. āNo, heās not a defenseman,ā he says. God help him, heās never going to get through this game alive.Ā
The shot switches to a close-up and she hums. āHandsome.ā
Derek shrugs. Jackās fine, he supposes. A bit too bland for him, nothing that really stands out, not likeāāAnd thatās DexāWillāover there, in the white. Willāheās myāā he swallows a bit too hard.
āIf you think I havenāt figured out you like men and women, Derek, weāre going to need to have a conversation regarding your assumptions about my intelligence.ā
He wonders if God would actually strike him down if he prayed hard enough. āHeās my boyfriend, Gram,ā he says, staring resolutely at the television.
She hums again. āThat Jack is more handsome though, donāt you think?ā
Itās going to be a long game.
ā
Willās trying to hide. Table at the back, hat still on and pulled down low, black hoodie and black jeans. Anything to make himself blend into the background, because he doesnāt want to be caught dead here.
He also doesnāt want to be involved in any conversations, not that the girls at the table next to him have picked up on that. Heād made two fatal errors: being cordial when one of them had said hello, and admitting heās never been to an open-mic poetry night.
They havenāt stopped talking to him since.Ā
āOkay, this guyāIām not sure heās your type, you know? Not that you arenāt like, super intelligentāI mean youāre here, right, so obviouslyābut he has a lot of heavy themes in his work if you really dig in and you really need to hear them a few times to peel back the layers. Iām hoping he reads the tree above the grave again, itāsāā
She cuts off, finally, when a cough sounds from the front and Derek begins to speak. Thereās utter silence while he recites words that Willās heard a hundred times over in various iterations, tweaked and stressed and polished until he could probably say them in his sleep, then an excited outburst of conversation among applaus when itās over.
āAmazing, right?ā she says, and keeps talking while Will nods. āHave you heard of him before?ā
Will looks at her. āHeās the one I came for,ā he answers honestly, grinning for the first time all night when he sees Derek making his way over. āHeās my husband.ā
thereās something so admirable and poetic about girls on here who are obsessed with hockey men. like you took the sport with the least face visibility and most indiscriminate injuries by sharp hard objects and you thought this too is poetry. even blonde men with weird beards and no teeth can feel love
I think that every so often Bitty would retweet a very NICE photo of Jack from the official Falcs twitter and be like "This boy is good at hockey AND looks like that š³??" And there would be random dude bros saying he's being disrespectful and weird and so Bitty just replies with a self of him literally laying on Jack or vice versa
Notable scene is where the Falcs twitter is like "Smiles all around š" and there's a picture of Jack smiling and Bitty is like "This boy" and some guy goes "He wasn't smiling at YOU" but then the Falcs twitter posts a video that shows the shot as it was taken and it literally shows Jack smiling at Bitty in the stands
As far as unexpected character reveals go, Iām still SUPER into āoverbearing hockey dad with impossibly high expectations, Bad Bob Zimmermannā turning out to be largely an invention of Jackās anxiety, when actual Bobās main dad moments turned out to be:
-nice goal, short kid! Iām also silently enjoying your motherās massive middle school crush on me!!!!
-Hey, Jack, bud, have you noticed youāre in love with that boy? Maybe you should go kiss him on the face, eh? We can wait!
Not to mention, when you translate the French, āHey Jack, I know the thought of me watching your game makes you really anxious. Would it be easier on you if I didnāt come tonight? I love you and donāt want to make things difficult for you.ā
i have A LOT of feelings about this subject. this comic uses so called ā"daddy issuesāā as a major character plot device in three of its main characters (jack, bitty, and shitty, to lesser extent because weāre exposed to his background far less), but itās handled SO BEAUTIFULLY.
itās easy to create one-dimensional ābadā parent figures as a frame for your character and what drives them in life. itās way harder to create them as decent, well-meaning people, who fuck up sometimes, because theyāre people, and theyāre parents, and parents fuck up.
bob loves jack so fucking much, itās ridiculous how obvious ngozi makes that. bob adores his son and is so fucking proud of him and is SO WORRIED for him. but bob was also an absent father when jack grew up, and he clearly got overexcited when jack loved the same sport he did, and he probably pushed more than he shouldāve. mostly, jackās own anxiety made him convinced heād never be as good as his father and that his father must be so disappointed by that, and it made him alienate his parents as he went down a bad spiral. it wouldāve been easier to write bob as an overbearing dad. it wouldāve been cleaner to build him as someone who sees jackās anxiety as a weakness and is disappointed at his āfailureā. but heās not. he doesnāt.
and coach. goddamn, what a beautiful character. i have the notes ngozi wrote about him saved somewhere. coach couldāve been a stereotypical religious southern man, a trope so often used. he couldāve just been a straight up hateful bigot, much easier to write. but ngozi said ā bitty wonāt be the character that he is if coach was. and sheās right. coach is an average ex-athlete in small town, georgia. itās probably statistically unlikely that coach would be immidiately supportive of who bitty is. but coach loves his son and he wants him to be happy, so he will learn. heād fuck up (the coach panel, āyou want me to pretend like this is normal?ā, is such beautifully uneducated homophobia), but he will learn.
most of bittyās hesitation towards his father, much like jack, is his own projecting of his environment growing up. he doesnāt think the state of georgia would ever make effort to fit him in, and his parents, to him, is what the south is. hospitality. warmth. friendliness. traditions. but also football, and small towns, and small minds. if the south wonāt, and coach is the south, then coach wonāt.
the bottom line is: when jackās story is first told, you fear bob, and youāre immidiately untrusting towards him. but then walks in this charming, protective father who just wants his kid to be happy. and when bitty first mentions coach and that football game, you immidiately hate his father, because this is a gay boy from the south who did figure skating, and youāre familiar with how this trope goes. but then coach walks in and heās a loving dad clearly struggling to connect with his son over their differences, trying so hard to change his world views in his late forties.
THE CHARACTERS IN THIS COMIC ARE ALL GORGEOUSLY ROUND AND I LOVE THEM
just posting this casually because iām writing a fic that takes place during the q years and this particular page always makes me emo. be emo with me, guys.
kianamaiart
izzy806
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