#terribly sorry it took a week tho... i am a snail

[hashtagdex]

aaaaa you reblogged the thing!!! could you write misc 7. “If I die, I’m haunting you first.” 💕

thank you so much for sending me one, jo!! i hope you like this <3

There is a reason Dex gets his hair cut once a month.

if it gets too long, it brushes his ears in a way he’s always painfully aware of and he can’t help but fidget with it if his hands aren’t busy. It’s a terrible distraction that he really can’t afford this close to finals. And yet, here he fucking is.

He’s tugging at it again, at the back of his head this time, when Nursey speaks up. “Dude, are you okay?” he asks, genuine concern in his voice.

Dex drops his hand onto his class notes and looks up at him. “Yeah, I’m fine. I’m just so busy studying that I don’t have time to get my haircut while the shop is open, but it’s growing out and getting so fucking annoying.” He tugs at his hair again once, like that will prove his point to Nursey.

Nursey looks at him for a moment, hand still curled around his pen as he scans Dex’s head, then shrugs. “I can cut your hair for you if you want,” he offers simply, “I saw clippers in the upstairs bathroom. How hard can it be?”

Dex hesitates. It’s not that he doesn’t trust Nursey, but Nursey is no professional, obviously, and he’s clumsy on a good day. His hair is important to him, Dex can admit that to himself, and the last thing he needs is to look like an absolute clown when he has places to be. And especially around Nursey.

But the hair is tickling his ears and it’s driving him insane, so he sighs and nods. “That would be great actually.”

_/ \_

Dex feels oddly exposed, sitting shirtless in front of the bathroom mirror on the stool they dragged upstairs from the kitchen, as Nursey clicks on the clipper’s guard. He knows he doesn’t need to. Nursey sees this—and more—almost every day in the dressing room, but this is more… intimate. There is no boisterous team around, no bro code to adhere to. It’s just them and whatever has been blooming between them for the past few months. 

“Ready?” Nursey asks and holds up the clippers in a much more menacing way than Dex thinks he really needs to. At least Nursey put on his glasses for this. As much as it makes Dex’s heart flutter to see him in them, it also calms his nerves to know he’s taking this seriously.

“If I die, I’m haunting you first,” Dex warns half-heartedly. He sees Nursey’s little eye roll in the mirror.

“Wouldn’t have it any other way,” Nursey replies as turns the clippers on and gets started.

Dex finds it easy to get lost in the low buzz. Nursey’s free hand comes up to tilt his head where he needs it every now and then, and Dex lets his eyes fall shut. He hasn’t been this relaxed since before he started studying for finals two weeks ago and he’s going to soak up every second of this.

He only manages to drag his eyes back open once Nursey declares he’s done and turns the clippers off. It does look pretty good. Almost as if he’d actually managed to make it to the barber shop during opening hours instead of getting an impromptu haircut at home from Nursey at nine p.m. in their bathroom.

“Nice,” Dex tells him. He catches Nursey’s soft smile in the mirror and it goes straight to his heart.

Without warning, Nursey starts to dust stray little hairs off Dex’s neck and naked shoulders. His hands are warm and his touch is so light Dex can’t fight the goosebumps. Not that he really wants to. Nursey’s hands on skin feel good. Really good. Great, even.

Nursey doesn’t stop there, though. He pushes his hands up into Dex’s freshly buzzed hair, tracing along his sides and the back of his head. Dex can’t help but grin, probably embarrassingly lovestruck, when Nursey just keeps at it, going back and forth gently. The goosebumps make their way up Dex’s neck and, after noticing Nursey’s soft expression in the mirror, Dex allows himself to close his eyes again.

God knows when he gets to have this again, if ever, so he’s going to enjoy whatever Nursey’s willing to give him tonight.

Dex is sinking back into that relaxed state from earlier as Nursey leaves the shaved parts he worked on behind and threads his fingers through the longer parts on top of Dex’s head. His brain turns off for the moment and Dex is blissful and calm, finals and hockey and life outside this bathroom all but forgotten.

“You like that?” Nursey whispers eventually, voice quiet and soft with an audible smile.

Dex hums, low and deep, and doesn’t turn his brain back on. “Like you.”

Nursey’s hand stills right where it is at the crown of his head as Dex’s brain catches up with his mouth. Before he can start to panic and try to backpedal, though, Nursey asks, just as quiet as before but a lot more hopeful, “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Dex confirms, breathing a sigh of relief.

Then Nursey is pressing an unbearably soft kiss into the side of Dex’s neck and his heart lurches into his throat. “Me too,” Nursey says against his skin before he leaves another kiss on top of Dex’s shoulder, the smile clear as day.

Nursey’s hand falls from his head as Dex turns around on his stool and finally opens his eyes. The sight of Nursey there, with his soft smile and softer eyes behind smudgy glasses, is almost too much. He’s so beautiful Dex can hardly breathe.

“Thank you,” Dex says into the space between them as he reaches up to cup Nursey’s cheek. He strokes it once, a simple back and forth of his thumb, and then pulls Nursey down into a kiss that’s long overdue.