#this was such a fun one

[montrealmadison]

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.

[frommybookbook]

la or sf noir?

Ooo, what a fun question, thank you for asking!

As much as I love them both, I'm going to have to say LA. I know Hammett is the OG and considered the greatest, etc., etc., but I think Chandler is the better writer and Marlowe is the ultimate hardboiled PI and so for me, LA is the ultimate setting.

I think there's something, too, to the contrast between the glitz and the glamor and the bright lights of Hollywood that's necessary to really play off the hard edges and dark corners of a good hardboiled story.

But either way around it, hardboiled really does have to be set on the west coast, preferably in California. I just don't think eastern cities, not even NYC, can really match the vibe of the hardboiled story. The location is a character in hardboiled, and the west of the 1920s and 1930s, when the genre was getting its start, and of the 1940s and 1950s, when it was reaching its peak, had such a distinct tone and mood and social consciousness that just can't be matched by plopping a detective story in another place.

[platoapproved]

Top five favorite scenes from interview with the vampire!

Choosing just five is going to be AGONY. I may do a few lil extra ones, some are just moments and some full scenes...

2x05 The San Francisco fight. It's just so completely out of control and so absolutely rancid. Literally watched the whole thing with my hands over my mouth like I could not BELIEVE.

2x02 The first flash of misplaced Armand memory Daniel has, while Louis is mocking him about Alice. I had to pause the episode and get up and walk around a little. The filmmaking is just so good. It's so jarring the way they slip it in there and leave it as this discordant little mystery.

2x04 Armand's backstory monologue. It's like. So hard to watch and agonizing, but the writing is so careful and spare, and the acting is haunting. Does the thing I always wish I was better at with writing where it suggests so much with a few deliberate very evocative choices. The vacillating between first and third person pronouns, the shifting between Armand's face and the painting, the music. Just a great bit of filmmaking.

2x08 "For the nights in front of me, where I might learn to live honestly" still can't watch or think too hard about this scene without tearing up a little bit. Louis means so much to me. 😭

2x04 The slow zoom in on Armand as Louis is talking about hallucinating Lestat. It's just such a fantastic use of like... there is no dialogue here to communicate what is happening. It's all in the performance and the focus of the camera on Armand, getting closer and closer, looking at Louis as he's talking, so the focus isn't on his words but on the pain that is creeping out past Armand's mask. Brilliant stuff.

1x01 The church scene, specifically Lestat convincing Louis to accept the Dark Gift. This is like.... It. If I had to show someone just one scene to explain to them what IWTV is, it would be that one.

2x04 The jarring hard cut ending of Daniel listening to the mp3 of the argument. It's SO abrupt and violent and wonderful. What a fucking cliffhanger.

Okay, so I did a top 7, I'm restraining myself from any more although there are so many...

[sennamaticart]

A Revenge for @abneyart on artfight!

[bit-of-a-nerd]

song that could break you from a vecna trance (I'm aware this question is old af I don't care)

I LOVE THIS QUESTION THOUGH

you’re on your own kid, for sure.

it might be too on the nose but running up that hill because i have a lot of good memories from that summer

same with the separate ways (worlds apart) remix (plus it’s literally so cool)

telling myself, feel something and finally free (all by joshua bassett)

tbh a lot of songs by him would do the trick

im a pretty firm believer that it’s not just about “favorite song�� it’s songs you have an emotional connection with so i’m trying to think about like positive ones with an impact on my life yk. there’s probably a lot i’m missing

[dippyface]

I hope the editor of this mv is making bank

[mysillycomics]

[rioblitzle]

working retail

[crookedtines]

I finally took the time to photograph my vintage dip pen nib collection, and I need to share with you all how wonderful and diverse their designs are.

These two are my favorite. Just look at them! One of them is named Gorille and the other Mephisto, but to me they're little pumpkins.

And of course you gotta love the Pinocchio nib. You get to write with the nose of a tiny guy! Just not something you get to do anymore.

[captainbee66]

I miss the era of the internet where everyone had an evil alter ego/character that would show up on their channel, just to be silly, that eventually got a lot of lore from the fandom for no reason. It was a simpler time.

[mangozic]

my dead goth son and his friendly neighborhood personified concept of insanity

[evercelle]

it was all so simple then

[housederiva]

Gaby Soto is a gift

Edit: I missed one!

[triona-tribblescore]

Behold! My goofy ahh try at human desings

(they are very precious to me <3)

[cordspaghetti]

would you bury me?