"Do I remind you of somewhere you wanna be, so far out of reach?"

[warble_on_jeff]

Who? Nick Matheson and Jeff Hinton (with Rory Matheson)
What? "Oh, I wish you'd open up for me, cause I wanna know you..."
When? Late Sunday night
Where? Nick and Rory's apartment

It had been a hell of a long shift for Jeff. One of those stupid nights when everything that could go wrong did, short of, thank God, losing a patient. He'd been about to shower and change when his pager had buzzed. They were shorthanded in the OR on an emergency surgery, and they needed him to come help out. Jeff figured he had nothing better to do, other than go home and sleep, so he headed right back into surgery to lend a hand.

What he hadn't anticipated was the doctor running into complications, though he wasn't sure why. Surgeries always seemed to go off without a hitch in the middle of his shift, and then hit every complication in the book when it was time for him to leave. The patient had made it, though, and Jeff had quickly caught a shower and changed, fully intending to go home and sleep for a day and a half or something, since he was about to start his off days. But when he decided to check Facebook before walking out the door to his car, Jeff noticed the post from Nick, timestamped only a few minutes earlier. He wasn't sure why, but he'd somehow ended up planning to head over to Nick's, and it was probably for the best, given that Nick's place was closer to the hospital than his own, and he was fucking exhausted.

He followed his GPS's directions to the apartment complex where Nick lived, and parked his silver Civic, climbing out of the car and walking toward Nick's building. He couldn't deny that it was nice to have his former best friend so close again. He found himself really hoping that he and Nick would have a chance to rebuild what they'd lost over the years, and work things out again. No matter how good things were, Jeff couldn't deny that it had always felt like a piece of him was missing without Nick in his life for the past several years. Maybe this would finally be his chance to regain that.

When he got to Nick's door, he could hear his friend's son through the door, obviously feeling quite miserable. Jeff felt for the kid, and for his dad, and he hoped like hell it didn't make anything worse when he knocked gently. "Nicky, it's me," he called out through the door, hoping he wasn't being too loud.

Comments

[nickthewarbler]

Nick knew that if he stopped and let himself think too much on any of this, he would overthink it and talk himself out of it, like he did with any possible risk since he had been cheated on and became a single dad. He protected his heart under lock and key and got anxious or worried about any situation that might get him hurt or hurt Rory. He always talked himself out of everything. It wasn't like he was awful to look at and he was a nice guy, but every offer of a date he got, he turned them all down. He didn't go to work parties, he didn't even make random eye contact with people when he was out with Rory in case he got disapproving looks, or worse, lurid looks. He played on the safe side all the damn time these days, and as a result, he was lonely and his life revolved around parenting and work. He never complained, but right now, with Jeff here, he was really wondering if this was going to hurt him or help him. Jeff was a comfort zone. He was the closest friend Nick had ever had, even if they had lost touch. Sure, he hadn't known back then that Jeff was into guys on any level so it hadn't crossed his mind to be into him but now he was maybe realising that perhaps they were close because they had a deeper connection than most friends. A connection that was still very much there and was pushing to the forefront as sexual attraction now. Fuck, it had been a really long time since Nick had sex. What if he didn't know what to do?

No, no... he had to stop overthinking everything or he would back out. Rory was asleep, he was safe. He was teething, but he was still settled enough to sleep without stirring, and Nick had the baby monitor if that changed. Then you had Blaine who had taken a leap of faith and slept with Kurt, laying his heart on the line there, even if the situation was very uncertain there too. Maybe Nick should take a leaf out of his old friend's book here? He didn't have answers to Jeff's questions. He hadn't really known a lot back then that he was into guys, so it was hard to say if they would have developed into more. But they did have the hear and now, and maybe they should just take each moment as it came?

He wet his lips and nodded, pulling Jeff closer with his hand into his bedroom. "Come on then," he murmured. Hell, if he needed to overthink it, he could do that afterwards, right?