Chapter 3
"Hey," Vic says back lamely.
"So..."
"So?" Vic raises his eyebrows at his friend's strange behavior.
"Sorry its just, it's been a while, you know?" Nate laughs nervously, playing with the strap of his bag on one shoulder, "But you're good?
We're uh, we're good?"
"Yeah, why wouldn't we be?" Vic bumps his shoulder, "I know I was in a mood this morning but—"
"No yeah, uh," and it's endearing to Vic, for reasons he can't name, to see Nate so uncharacteristically bashful for no reason, "I can cook."
"You can," Vic nods.
"I mean for dinner, I can cook dinner for us, if that sounds like something you want," Nate smiles down at him, and adds a perfunctory, "Or not.
I could not."
"You don't have to cook, Nate," Vic hums, "That's a lot of work just for me."
"I want to," Nate rushes to add, "I want to cook, just for you."
"Okay then," Vic leans into his shoulder yet again, "Is it my birthday or something that I'm missing?"
"Funny," Nate rolls his eyes, keeps their shoulder pressed together as they arrive at Vic's car.
Vic notices Nate's is across the lot, tries not to read into it to much.
"You're off on Thursday, right?"
"Yeah," and again, not reading into that.
"Seven on Thursday," Nate points, and that smile comes back, the glowing, hazy, feelings-inducing one from this morning, and Vic's not sure he's processing the motion of getting into his car.
"Seven on Thursday," he echoes softly, and narrowly misses the car horn when his head falls in front of him, emotions giddy and weighing him down.
This is fine.
He'll be fine.
(Elena and his blushing cheeks seem to disagree.)
It isn't until he's leaving work on Wednesday night that Vic realizes something is off.
He hadn't been able to pinpoint it since Monday, but Wednesday night, it all makes sense.
The entire Station 35 has just stopped teasing him.
Vic knows he's never gotten the worst of it in the station, so he's never complained.
He knows this because he's usually
helping
Morgan and Des with Nate, which
arguably, the worst of it.
But— he's also not clueless. And even if he was, they've
been shy about it before.
The knowing glances, the quirked eyebrows and coincidences they force, the outright comments and the whispers they think he can't hear, or maybe they know he can hear and that's only more infuriating the more he thinks about it.
It's fine, it's never really bothered him, really, only so much as to worry him that it'll clue Nate into the fact that they've never exactly been wrong about it.
Not once.
Nate will get teased about anything, that sibling love from Morgan and Des (and even sometimes Frank) that Vic laughs at and joins in on.
knows
But the poking and prodding they save for Vic usually only ever comes in conjunction with the blonde and whatever feelings they're trying to tease out of him (and at least from Vic's side, they've come really close.)
So it's strange, Vic thinks, when all of a sudden,
it stops
He can't remember the last time Vic mentioned getting dinner with Nate that Des didn't immediately oggle his eyes at.
He doesn't think he's ever gotten away with showing Nate a picture of Ben without Morgan practically cooing in his ear.
It is a Station 35 staple for someone to ask about the wedding when Vic sees Nate is on dishwashing duty so he
just happens
to be nearby and help him with drying.
But Wednesday shift,
all three
of those things happen, and he doesn't get a single reaction out of anyone.
He's not going to complain, sure, because the lack of attention
should be
nice for a change.
But instead it's just unsettling, and gnaws at this paranoia that maybe they know something Vic doesn't.
That maybe Nate's had enough of the teasing because it's just so untrue, that he'd never actually want to marry Vic and do the dishes with him every night in their home before they fall into their bed together (hypothetically speaking, obviously, Vic hasn't thought about this at all.)
But when Nate sits next to Vic on the couch and reaches his arm up around the back, behind Vic and practically around his shoulders, and
no one
says a word, Vic's so shaken he almost gets up and leaves the room.
But he doesn't because,
Nate's arm
is practically around his shoulders.
He's convinced he's either been imagining things all the years he's worked here, or he's imagining things now.
He considers asking Nate, because that would be the easiest way to figure out what kind of strange alternate universe he's entered where his nosy friends have decided to give him space.
Honestly, it's concerning.
In the nicest way possible.
He knows his friends.
He knows Morgan, he knows
Des
, of all people, would have never passed up this opportunity before, when Nate is literally a centimeter from holding his hand down the stairs.
But how do you ask your best friend about why your other friends have stopped teasing you about your feelings without making those feelings glaringly obvious?
That conversation just could not end well.
In
universe.
For anyone.
It's kind of a moot point though, Vic realizes, because Nate either doesn't notice or doesn't care enough to notice.
For every missed glance or forgotten comment that leaves Vic knitting his brows together in confusion, Nate is completely unfazed.
Vic guesses maybe being the butt of enough jokes in the team you stop counting and cataloguing how many and what kind.
It makes sense Vic notes the change and maybe Nate just doesn't.
Maybe.
But it's fine because he's not going to complain about his friends staying out of his business.
They smile and laugh and talk and it's all normal in a completely un-normal way.
He's
Vic's not going to be the first person on earth to
to get teased about his glaringly obvious feelings for his best friend the night before he has a very causal, common-place, completely normally platonic dinner at his best friend's place that he cooks for them.
At seven.
(Maybe one day he'll ask someone about it.
Or ask Nate out.
Whichever comes first.
Either way it's not happening anytime soon.
Or without the world's worst blush on his face while it happens.)
The week has decided to not cut Vic any slack, it seems, when he arrives outside Nate's door on Thursday night at 7:12 with beer and an eight-year-old.
"Nate, I am so sorry—"
"Benjamin!" Nate's eyes go wide just seconds before he's almost tackled to the floor in his doorway, catching Vic's son in his arms, "Didn't know I was getting my actual favorite Reyes tonight."
"I didn't mean to—"
"Daddy said six bad words in the car," Benjamin giggles suspiciously to Nate, or rather, onto Nate's cheek, where their faces are almost pushed together in a tight hug.
"Yeah!"
"Dad," Nate peeks up at Vic from where he's crouched next to Ben, still standing in the doorway, a faux authoritativeness lacing his teasing voice, "What did we say about bad words?"
"Shut the fuck up."
"Oh my goodness!" Nate gasps, sending Ben into another fit of laughter before he hip checks the door to swing it shut, winks at Vic, then throws a hysterical Ben over one shoulder and runs, tosses him with a laugh onto the couch.
Vic's like, three beats away from proposing.
And he hasn't even taken the guy on a first date.
He watches Nate toss the TV remote to Ben, who is adamant he knows how to change the channels himself, so Nate throws his hands up and backs away with a smile still steady.
Six
bad words?"
"Did I not just tell you to shut up?"
"Right,
seven
bad words."
"I cannot catch a fucking break this week, Nate."
Eight
"I swear—"
Nate's smile buckles under the weight of his laugh, his head dipping before grabbing a beer and tossing it to Vic, "What happened?"