#Nick deserves a chapter to pine over his cowboy

[banannabethchase]

Set the World Alight: Chapter 14 - also on AO3

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It's time for the cheerleader's Spring Show, and Nick is less excited for the routines and more so excited for the sitting near Adam.

~

Warning: Obscure, quick reference to the ending of the (somehow) children's novel Stone Fox, which is weirdly popular to teach with old white women and also super racist. Spoilers for Stone Fox, if anyone cares, but the concern in question is that dog dies in a rather sad way at the end of the race. Skip the line "Adam throws his head back, cackling" if you'd like to skip over that detail.

~

Saturday, March 15th

Nick

“Go away.”

“You don’t have to come.”

Nick opens an eye to see Matt, already wide awake and chipper, standing over his bed. “Oh, god.”

“Do you still want to come?” Matt asks. She looks hesitant. Damn it.

“Yes, I still want to go,” Nick says. He’s not sure he won’t regret this a few hours from now, after two hours in the car and six hours of cheer and dance competitions waiting for Matt’s team.

“Okay because, like, I gave you some extra time to sleep, because I know you’re tired, but we have to leave in fifteen minutes to get there in time.”

Nick groans, flopping back on his pillow. “How are you both considerate and the worst at the same time?”

Matt shrugs. “It’s a gift. Come on, Nicky.”

Nick drags himself out of bed, thankful he showered the night before, and is grabbing a Monster from the fridge by the time Matt is dancing uncomfortably in the doorway.

“Are you ready?”

“Oh, my god, calm down,” Nick says. “You’re not gonna miss the bus.”

“I could!” Matt says. Now she’s pouting. Great. “It’s my last ever Spring Show competition, Nicky.”

He nods, yawning. “I’m good. Let’s go.”

Matt doesn’t stop talking the whole drive there, gesturing wildly with the hand not on the steering wheel the entire time. “And then, if I twist my ankle again, I could cost the whole team!”

It’s somehow giving Nick driving anxiety when he’s not even behind the wheel. It feels unfair.

“I think you’re going to be okay, Matt,” Nick says, gripping the ledge on the door with the force of a thousand vices. “That rough ankle landing was just a fluke. It’ll be totally fine today.”

Matt nods, pulling into the school parking lot. “Okay. Yeah. I’m gonna be okay.” She exhales. “Do I look okay?”

“I – what? Yes. Calm down.”

“I am calm.” Matt pulls into a parking spot as crooked as humanly possible.

Nick’s quite for a second, willing himself not to be that guy.

“I’m going to straighten out.”

“I think that’s a good idea.”

~

Nick is forced to stand next to Adam while Matt and Mox, and Britt and Jamie, for that matter, make out while the rest of the team make their way onto the bus.

“This feels unfair,” Adam says, sighing. “When is it gonna end?”

“Hopefully soon,” Nick mutters. He tries not to think about how close he is to Adam. How easy it would be for him to turn and kiss him, too. “Was I this bad with Jude?”

Adam laughs. Nick – Nick doesn’t quite miss the way that Adam’s face goes a little pink at that. “Not really. But it was miserable for different reasons.” He glances over at Nick, like he’s trying to say something else.

“Yeah,” Nick says, sighing. He folds his arms over his chest, suddenly very lonely. “Yeah, he. He, um.” He does the only thing he can think of to make the moment less awful. He makes a fart noise.

Adam throws his head back, cackling. “Remember when we got to the end of Stone Fox in third grade and you just, like, got so overwhelmed you ripped a loud one? Right as the dog’s heart exploded?”

Nick groans. “Would you stop bringing that up every time you hear somebody fart?”

“I feel like this is on you, at least this time.” Adam bumps his shoulder.

Eventually, the couples dislodge from each other’s faces, and Mox and Jamie turn back to Nick and Adam

“You have glitter all over your faces,” Nick says.

Jamie and Mox both reach up to brush their faces off.

Adam volunteers to drive, which Nick doesn’t want to admit gives him immeasurable relief, and they pile into his truck like it’s a clown car.

“Do I gotta sit back here?” Mox asks, frowning as his leg does, actually, get stuck in by the door. “I don’t fit.”

“Come on, Nicky, get behind Adam,” Jamie says, grabbing Nick by the collar of his jacket and pulling him back. “You can sit in the backseat with me.”

Nick goes along with it, because arguing with Jamie seems like a terrible idea, and slides into the seat behind Adam.

“Sorry it’s messy,” Adam mumbles. It’s not, Nick thinks. At least, not as messy as he’s seen it before. “We just got a hay delivery and that shit gets everywhere.”

“Nah, you’re good, man,” Mox says, making himself comfortable. “Matt left a pair of underwear in my car the other day and my mom opened the door and they fell out, so it can’t be worse than that.”

The truck goes silent.

“I mean,” Mox says, frozen, “a pair of…sunglasses?”

“I would love it,” Nick says, as carefully as possible, “if you would never say anything like that around me ever again.”

“What?” Jamie asks, and, oh no, Nick knows that smile. Nick is afraid of that smile. “You don’t want to think about how Mox rails your sister in his truck?”

“I don’t rail – we haven’t – they were extras!” Mox yells. “We haven’t even - not -"

“Please stop,” Adam says, sounding a little hysterical. “That is not a mental image I want of my best friend." He clears his throat. "Well, not Matt, at least."

“What?” Mox asks, unfreezing to give Adam a befuddled look.

“This is me, not talking anymore,” Adam says. “Here. I have a Spotify playlist. Mock me for my music tastes.”

The first song that comes out is some country song that starts off with a familiar Adam twang, which Nick is half able to process through the blue screen and static his brain is going through, but then the lyrics are…strange.

“Did – did he just sing the line, ‘dicked down in Dallas’?” Jamie asks, leaning forward.

“Put on a damned seat belt,” Adam snaps. “But, yes.”

“Cowboy, what the fuck is this?” Mox asks. “And why is it so catchy?”

They’re all singing along with the chorus by the time they restart the song, Jamie putting on the kind of country accent even a toddler would clock as bad.

The first half hour is the four of them arguing over the lyrics and Nick insisting on arm dance moves to represent all of the various sex acts, and, by the time they take the exit, they’ve developed a list of all the places and ways to fuck in the capitals of nearly all 50 states.”

“What about Concord?” Mox asks. “What do we have left?”

Nick scrolls his notes app. “Comeshots in Concord?”

Jamie does a little chef’s kiss. “I think that’s fair, since we gave cunnilingus to Carson City.” She gets an almost wistful look. "I should go there with Britt."

“Comeshots is probably all there is to do up in New Hampshire,” Mox muses. “What do they have up there? Trees? Maple syrup?”

“Apparently a decent skiing scene,” Nick says, scrolling the article. “They have polar caves.”

“We are going to a cheerleading competition, not New Hampshire,” Adam says. “But polar caves seem kind of cool.” He slows to a stop. “Oh, fuck. Detour.”

Nick’s ready to feel anxious, to get that back seat of a car where the driver is in distress anxiety that always hits when Matt’s got to drive through a construction zone. But that’s not what happens.

Adam, with the assistance of Mox on the GPS, expertly navigates the car through the construction zone, the two of them chatting like they’ve always had a relationship like this.

“If you finally ask out Adam, they can be brothers in law,” Jamie whispers into Nick’s ear.

He pokes her in the arm. “No! Shut up!”

“I’m just saying!”

Mox turns around. “Do I need to come back there, you two?”

“You’re not my dad,” Jamie says, sticking her tongue out.

Mox rolls his eyes.

Adam navigates them seamlessly to the giant high school outdoor arena where the competition will be held, the place already filled.

“So much for parking,” Adam says, pulling into a space that’s at least a quarter mile away from the stadium. “Jesus, are you two dating, like Olympians or something?”

“May as well be, with the way Matt can –”

“Stop it!” Nick half shrieks. “No! No more of that!”

“Sorry,” Mox says, grinning. “It’ll never happen again.”

“I don’t even a little bit believe you.”

Nick’s glad he wore his broken in sneakers for this, because it feels like they’ve walked five miles with the amount of times they’d had to double back to find the place where the team is set to get ready.

“Jamie, go see if you can get in there,” Mox says. “You’re a girl. They’ll let you in.”

Jamie scoffs. “Really? Just because I’m a girl, they’ll let me in to the cheerleading room?”

“Well, yeah,” Adam says. “It says women’s locker room. I don’t think he’s being sexist here.”

Jamie looks closer. “Oh! Right. Maybe I can add another locker room to my list with Britt.”

“Why do I always have to hear these things,” Nick half whines. “Adam, make them stop with the sex jokes.”

“This is getting you back for that time you told me all the gory details of touching Candice’s boobs for the first time.” Adam looks annoyingly smug. “Now you know how I felt.”

“Okay, you’re gay, not her brother,” Nick grumbles. “Boobs aren’t that scary.”

“They’re great,” Jamie says. “Hopefully about to feel my two favorite boobs up. I’ll send Matt out if I see her.”

Jamie swaggers into the room like she owns the entire building, and Nick sighs.

“Think she knows she could take over the world and most people would thank her for it?” Adam asks. “She’s somehow both cool and terrifying.”

“I’d vote for her,” Mox says. “But probably as dictator.”

“You don’t vote for a dictator, idiot,” Nick laughs.

“That’s how good she is,” Mox says, unfazed. “I’d vote for her. As an all-powerful overlord.”

They discuss the merits of different all-powerful overlords in media while they wait, and Matt skips out a few minutes later.

“Hey!” she says, half diving into Mox’s waiting arms. “Hi. You needed me?”

“Just wanted to wish you good luck, baby,” Mox says, kissing the top of her head. “Ew, what the hell. Your hair chemicals are stinging my lips.”

“It’s the gel,” Matt says, and, when she knocks on her hair, Nick swears he hears it clunking. “They take off points if our hair is out of place or isn’t matching the others with the style, so we just plaster on hair gel and pray to the cheerleading gods that it stays.”

“That sounds terrible,” Adam says. His hand goes to his hair patting the little bun he always ties it into. “I can barely handle this.”

“Well, that’s why you’re a farmer and not a cheerleader,” Matt says. She twirls the end of her ponytail around her finger, then freezes. “I gotta stop doing that.”

“You’re fine, Matty,” Mox says, kissing her on the forehead. “Your hair looks great, you’re gonna do great, it’s gonna be great.”

She lights up. “Hey! I’m a good luck kiss for all of you.” She pats her cheek. “Good luck kisses. Come on, boys. Watch the makeup.”

“Do I have to?”

Matt glares at him, hands on her hips. “Yes, Nicky, you do. Come on.”

Mox kisses her cheek then her lips with a lot more enthusiasm than Nick would ever want to see, then Adam presses a gentle little press to her cheek.

She stomps in front of Nick. “Come on.”

“This is not an attitude I generally experience from people asking for a kiss,” Nick mumbles.

She clears her throat. “Nicholas.”

“Jeez, fine.” He leans in and kisses her cheek. “Good luck or whatever.”

“Thanks!”

Matt squeezes Mox’s hand and then makes her way back to the locker room.

“She’s going to do that before every competition from now on, isn’t she?” Adam asks, rubbing at his lips. “What is that on her face?”

“Foundation,” Mox says. “You’re lucky you’ve only gotten it on your face.”

“No kidding,” Jamie adds.

Nick whimpers. “Please. How many times. Please stop.”

Mox gives Nick the weirdest smile. “I was, uh. I was talking about getting foundation on my shirts.”

“I wish I could believe you.”

They make their way up to the bleachers, a spot in the middle open for the four of them to squeeze, and Nick finds himself squished in between Jamie on one side and Adam on the other.

Jamie wiggles her eyebrows at him.

“Shut up.”

“Hmm?” Adam asks, turning to Nick.

“Nothing,” Nick says. “I – nothing.”

Nick thinks the four of them should be given Most Supportive Person awards for the amount of cheer and dance performances they watch that have nothing to do with the people they’re here for. There’s one particularly good little girl in a coral pink costume who does a weird jump into a flip thing that reminds Nick of Matt, but, other than that, there’s not much else that sticks out to him.

“When does this end?” Mox asks. He’s been fidgeting for the past hour, but now he’s slumped over, legs sticking so far out they’re sliding behind the bleachers in front of him. “My ass is sore.”

Adam snickers.

“No,” Nick says, shaking his finger. “Not you, too.”

“I didn’t say anything!” Adam says, hands up in front of him. “Though it is kind of funny how annoyed you get.”

“That one wasn’t a joke, either,” Mox says. Now he’s sitting sort of sideways up on his hip while Jamie stares at him. “Jesus, these benches suck. Adam, how do you put up with this?”

Adam shrugs. “I think I’ve built up an immunity over the years of going to all of your home games.” He pats his hip. “Ass of steel, all that.”

“Okay, that one was on purpose,” Nick says.

Adam blinks. “Huh?”

“Ass of steel?”

Adam fights a grin, and Nick suddenly feels a little too warm. “Nick, we’re talking about sitting on metal benches or hours on end. What are you talking about?”

Nick blushes red and folds his arms over his chest, and tries to conceal the semi he has from imagining Adam’s ass.

~

“Finally!” Jamie says, perking up from where she’d been scrolling some music website on her phone.

“I recognize that music,” Mox says. “It’s them. Jesus. Took for fucking ever.”

They all lean forward as the team makes their way onto the court, shaking their pom poms and jumping onto the court on their toes. Nick watches Matt the whole time, even though it’s about the team as a group. Through all the gymnastics, dance, and cheer competitions over the years, he’s never been good at sitting back and seeing everyone as a group. He always watches Matt.

The routine is fast paced, hyperactive, and enthusiastic to a degree Nick’s not sure he’s ever seen before. The seniors get an entire spotlight section, as Matt had called it, where Matt, Britt, Athena, and the other seniors absolutely shine.

“Damn,” Adam mutters. “So that’s why they picked the three of them for captains.”

Athena and Matt lift Britt into this weird thing where she leaps and spins, and the rest of the team moves back in to make an even bigger tower of high school girls, Riho and Velvet at the top.

They scream the name of their high school, the girls at the top of the towers spinning and flipping down the floor, and then they strike their ending pose.

The entire room explodes into cheers, even from people who don’t seem to be affiliated with the team, and Nick and his three friends leap to their feet. Matt scans the room until her eyes land on them and she waves, yanking Britt and Willow to see them. They all wave.

“That’s my girl!” Mox shouts into the crowd, voice louder than Nick’s ever heard it.

“Dude, are you crying?” Jamie asks.

“Shut up,” Mox mumbles, scrubbing at his face with his hand. “She’s worked really hard.”

“Sap,” Nick says. But, and he’d never admit this, he is a bit jealous of that level of devotion.

They sit through three more performances, during which Nick’s pretty sure his ass goes completely numb, until it’s the break before they rank all the teams.

“I need food,” Adam says. Like it was timed, his stomach growls. “See? I’m a hungry boy.”

“I think I saw hot dogs or something,” Mox says, as they slowly make their way through the busy crowd. Far too many people stop in the middle of the hallway, and Nick’s getting anxious about it. Before he can say anything, though, Adam grabs his hand.

“I got you,” Adam says, little smile on his lips. “Too many people, right?”

All Nick can do is nod.

“For me, too,” Adam adds. A little louder, he says, “Can we find someplace outside to eat? There’s too many people in here.”

“Yeah, text me where you guys end up,” Mox says. “Me and Jamie are going to find the girls first.”

Adam and Nick stay close together as they get in line, as they order, as their wait for their concession meals. They make their way out to a little grassy area in the sun, a spot that looks dry enough for March, and they spread out their jackets as makeshift blankets on the ground.

“How much time we got?” Adam asks, squeezing a ketchup packet onto his hot dog.

“Maybe an hour?” Nick says. “Judges usually argue with each other for a while for these things, so it might even be longer.”

Adam nods. “Cool. Might take a nap or something.”

“How do you and Matt do it?” Nick asks. “You guys fall asleep so frickin’ fast, anywhere.”

Adam shrug, diving in for a giant bite of his hot dog. “For me it’s farm conditioning. Gotta get to sleep fast so I can wake up at ass crack o clock to check on the animals.”

Nick laughs and a glob of mustard drops off of his hot dog.

“You got a – I got it.” Adam leans in and brushes it off the side of Nick’s face with his thumb, eye contact the whole time.

Nick’s heart begins to race. “Thanks,” he says, voice quiet.

“Anything.” It sounds more like a promise than Nick wants to think, sounds like it means something. He wants to say it. He wants to tell him.

“Did you know Matt doesn’t think hand stuff counts as sex?”

Adam half inhales his bite of hot dog and has to cough for a minute before he gets his breathing back in order. “What – what does that have to do with anything?!”

“I don’t know,” Nick says. “I just – the hot dog, and we’re at Matt’s competition, and what Mox said earlier in the car about Matt’s underpants.” Nick feels like his entire brain just short circuited again. He doesn’t even know what he’s saying at this point, just that his mouth keeps going and won’t stop. “It’s weird, right? She’s so weird.”

“I think this entire conversation is weird,” Adam says, but he’s smiling, so maybe Nick hasn’t entirely fucked up. Not yet, at least. “She really thinks that?”

“It’s because of all that Cody bullshit last year,” Nick says, rolling his eyes. “He told her that it didn’t count unless there was, like.” Nick wrinkles his nose. “Well, you know. She's trying to be better about it, but she slips.”

“I can’t believe I introduced them,” Adam grumbles, glaring at the hot dog. “Biggest mistake of my life. He was horrible to Matt.”

Nick sighs. “I feel like we don’t even know how miserable it was, you know? Matt never told me. But I think, mostly, he was just wrong and weirdly straight man for a dude dating, well, what he thought was another guy.” Nick pauses. “You know?”

Adam nods, taking a careful bite of his hot dog this time, like he’s prepared for Nick to say another stupid thing. “She’s so weird about things, sometimes,” he says thoughtfully. “Gets ideas in her head, you know?”

“Oh definitely,” Nick says. “She almost believed that AJ kid a few years ago when he tried to convince people the earth was flat.”

“Aw,” Adam says, frowning. “Poor thing.”

Nick laughs. “I know. She said she was just messing with him, but, sometimes, I think she gets so sucked in she can’t really see the forest through the trees, you know?”

They go on about Matt stories, which devolves into stories of the three of them and Kenny back when they were kids, before Kenny got so caught up in Mock Trial club and became a tiny version of a senator.

“Hold up, that’s me,” Nick says, fumbling for his phone. “Yeah?”

“Hey, where are the two of you?” Jamie asks. “They said we’re ten minutes out from the award ceremony. Don’t want the two of you to be without a seat, yeah?”

“Right,” Nick says. “Be in there soon.”

Nick relays the message to Adam and they clean up their impromptu picnic.

They get to the bleachers and have to scoot past more than a few people before they make it to Mox and Jamie, who had spread out to almost comical degrees to save enough space.

“Jesus, finally,” Jamie says, sliding her legs back to normal. “No one has ever manspread as much as me in this moment.”

Mox shuffles over to make more room, and Nick sits on his other side. Adam sits right next to him again, their thighs pressing together.

Nick turns to Mox. “Do you – is that a lipstick stain?”

Mox yanks out the collar of his shirt. “Oh. Look at that.”

Nick sighs. “I don’t know why I asked.”

They wait, half holding their breath, for the teams in the top five for each category to be called.

“We welcome Mr. Justin Roberts to the floor to make the announcements for the top five in each category,” says the little brunette lady at the end of the table.

There’s some basic clapping, with a few middle aged moms clapping a little more enthusiastically than Nick thinks is necessary.

“Thank you, Dasha,” Mr. Roberts says. “I’m honored to announce some of the greatest cheer and dance competitors in our state.”

When Nick hears the name of his high school called, he leaps to his feet so fast Adam has to catch him by the arm to make sure he doesn’t fall over.

“Top five!” Mox yells.

“They haven’t won yet, boys, don’t get too excited,” Jamie says, patting Adam on the shoulder. “We need to wait to see how they rank.”

They do the solo awards first, then the kid’s group awards, and the senior cheer teams are the last group to be called up. Nick thinks he can hear his mom’s voice screaming from somewhere in the crowd. He only hopes she managed to get there before Matt went on.

“In fifth place for the senior group cheer,” the announcer says, “we congratulate West Walton High School!”

Said high school gets some cheers, but they look disappointed enough that it makes Nick just the tiniest bit sad for them.

“In fourth place,” the announcer continues, “Thomas N. Archer High School!”

More cheers. Adam fumbles for and grabs Nick’s hand.

“I have never cared so much about Matt’s stupid pom poms as I do right now,” he says, lips right by Nick’s ear. Nick shivers.

“Me either,” he says. “Looks like all those late nights flipping and cheering her on really paid off.”

“In third place,” continues the announcer, one the fourth and fifth place schools shuffle off the court, “is Newton J. Peters High School!”

“Holy shit,” Jamie says. “They’re at least second. Oh my god!”

“The winner of the senior group cheer category, and the champions for this season,” the announcer says, and Nick could swear the guy is dragging it out for the drama of it all, “by a total of one point are Robert Orville High School!”

Nick deflates immediately, but claps as kindly as he can.

“Our second place finishes are the phenomenal Arthur E. Williams High School, who, again, only missed first place by a single point.”

Matt, Athena, and Britt look plenty excited, which makes Nick feel a little better, at least. All the high schools celebrate together.

“Is it weird that I think I’m more upset about them losing than the girls?” Adam says, leaning in. “It feels weird.”

“No, I get it,” Nick says, and he’s so close to Adam he might not be able to breathe. “Kinda hard to see someone you love get that close to what they want.”

Adam turns to Nick. “Yeah?”

Nick’s entire body tenses. “I – yeah.”

He doesn’t know what would have happened next.

“Come on, move!” Jamie says, pushing at their shoulders. “We want to get out of here before we get stuck in traffic.”

Nick nods, and almost goes up in flames as Adam puts his hands on his hips to steer him toward the door, like he knows Nick would be overwhelmed without him.

Nick’s in deep.

After a fight for the front seat that Nick wins with Jamies help, they rewrite lyrics in the car ride home, dirty as possible. After the coaches cheer the leaders on, they all get dinner to celebrate.  Adam never leaves his side. And Nick thinks he never wants him to.

~

Dicked Down in Dallas is a true musical adventure and I encourage you all to explore the song and its lyrics. If I were braver I'd do karaoke to this song. I take all responsibility for the New Hampshire slander. All there is to do up there is go to Massachusetts or make irresponsible substance decisions. But also skiing, polar caves, and pretty leaves. But there's a reason I moved 2,000 miles away years ago.

#moxmatt high school au #This chapter is so dumb and I can't believe it but there's zero Matt POV here. In a chapter about her own cheer competition #Though she get almost two entire chapters to herself coming up so #Nick deserves a chapter to pine over his cowboy #Dorks #wtf i like wrestling now??? #in which sara writes