Work Text:
In her hands, any simple game can become dangerous. That’s why they play games like True American—the more distracted and confused you can make a Jessica Day, the safer everyone will be. The men of Apartment 4D learned this the hard way, of course: there is an early Jess-memory of a dark night involving Jägermeister (Schmidt still turns pale whenever Duck, Duck, Goose is mentioned). No one is allowed to speak of it, but it is a universally acknowledged truth that they should all Know Better.
When Winston therefore suggests Truth or Dare after a particularly aggressive round of tequila shots (Tequila Friday is a bimonthly event in the apartment, and sometimes it goes further than anyone plans), Nick could actually kill him. To be fair, he’s exceptionally drunk (they all are), but the gleam in Jess’s eyes is almost enough to scare a man sober.
“Alllll riiight,” she says, adopting her Cool Guy voice (Voice #17 in Nick Miller’s mental Jessica Day Catalogue).
“This is a terrible idea,” he mumbles to nobody. “A really, really terrible idea. No good can come of this.” Schmidt, the only potential ally, is drifting in and out of sleep on the sofa. Occasionally, he wakes up enough to demand latkes, but he is not to be relied upon.
“WINSTON!” Jess shouts, pointing dramatically. “Truth or dare?”
Winston’s eyes narrow. “Oh, it’s on, girl. Dare. Dare all the way to the bank!”
“What does that even mean?” Nick whines, but his roommates are too busy with their own uproarious laughter.
“I dare you to…to… cling-wrap Remy into his own apartment!”
Winston hoots and Jess hollers and Nick wonders why the role of ‘sane, logical adult’ must always be his to play.
“Nope. Nope. We’re not doing that. We like living here, remember?”
Jess gives him a Look (#21) and scoots across the carpet to her other roommates. In an exaggerated way, she beckons Winston closer with one finger. He leans down until his chin rests on her shoulder, and they both give Nick baleful looks.
“THIS—ISN’T—FUN—DRUNK—NICK,” Jess stage-whispers behind her hand, and Winston bobs his head up and down in agreement.
“Oh! Oh, you wanted Fun Drunk Nick?” he slurs, feeling wounded. “Fine. Fine. Fine. Fine. Jessica, truth or dare?”
“Dare!” she says confidently, and Winston (seemingly ambivalent about the fact that it is technically his turn) gives her a high five/fist bump/finger-wiggling combo that the two of them have deemed their “secret handshake”.
Nick blinks hard, trying to bring her face back into focus. “I dare you—not to play this game anymore!”
The booing commences, immediate and loud. Even Schmidt wakes up to participate, though he promptly buries his face back into the throw pillow upon which he has already begun to drool and is gone again. Still, Nick is properly shamed, which means that real game play can finally commence. Mostly he resigns himself to just watching as his roommates give each other more and more ridiculous challenges to complete. He steps in only when asked a Pity Dare (usually involving reading choice paragraphs from his novel or wearing random items of Jess’s clothing) or when he vetoes anything too dangerous or stupid. He feels, as usual, like the dour old man stuck babysitting the rambunctious children.
“Hey, mister. You frown any harder and you’ll turn yourself inside out,” says a soft voice by his knees. He looks down.
She is all blue eyes and brown curls and worry lines across her forehead. “Winston passed out like…ten minutes ago,” she explains. “I was gonna get us another drink, but you looked really growly over there, so I thought I’d ask first.”
“I don’t know why you guys hang out with me.” Nick Miller has perfected the art of the self-deprecating half-smile. “I’m an 80 year old man in a 32 year old body.”
She smiles fondly and wraps her arms around his legs, hugging them tightly. “That’s why we like you, Nick,” she says to his shins. “You just kept Winston from making me eat the three-week-old mystery leftovers in the fridge.” She looks up, eyes shining, pupils dilated. “You probably saved my life.”
“We should really throw those out,” he muses, absently dropping a hand into her hair. He tries to tell himself that it isn’t really as soft as he thought it would be; that he doesn’t like how it feels twined between his fingers; that he can’t actually smell the faint whiff of strawberries. He tries not to notice how she leans into his touch; how she settles her body more comfortably around his legs; how she sighs almost silently with contentment.
He knows her better than most, but after several minutes, he still isn’t sure whether she’s asleep or just reaching the quieter phase of her drunkenness. It doesn’t happen every time she drinks, but he knows that Tequila Fridays generally see her down for the count by 2:27 at the latest. A quick glance at the cable box tells him that he has a window of exactly fourteen minutes.
“Jessica,” he says quietly. He pauses, listening for a response. “Truth or dare?”
After a moment of silence, she murmurs, “Truth,” her lips brushing against his knees.
“Do you still think things are weird between us?”
He doesn’t know what makes him ask it. As the seconds tick away without an answer, he almost hopes that she has fallen asleep. The clock reads 2:16.
“I dunno,” she says suddenly, though she still doesn’t look up. “Kind of? No. I dunno.”
It’s his turn to fall quiet. A small electric current, a hidden livewire, is flickering somewhere inside him. He watches the clock intently.
At 2:18, she speaks up again.
“Truth or dare?”
“Truth,” he replies automatically.
She looks up, finally. To his surprise, she looks far more sober than he feels. And almost sad. The look is #12b in his catalogue—hurt/scared/sad. It is by far his least favorite look.
“Do you regret kissing me?”
“No!” he says, much louder than intended. Winston snorts in his sleep and burrows closer to Schmidt, who mumbles in his sleep. Jess stares unnervingly. “Jess, no. I told you I didn’t mean that. I don’t regret it. Not for a second. Well, maybe the second that Schmidt found out. Or the second that Doctor Sam broke up with you and it made you sad. But that’s—that’s it. I swear.”
2:20.
“Dare or dare?”
He half-laughs. “That’s not how the game works, Jessica.”
“Dare or dare?” she repeats.
“Jess, it’s not your turn!”
“Dare. Or. Dare?”
Another pause. His palms grow sweaty, and he wipes them against his jeans. “Dare.”
2:22.
“I dare you to let me kiss you.”
“Jess—” he begins, but she raises her eyebrows in the way that means she is serious. His mouth is suddenly dry and he can’t seem to swallow. After what feels like an eternity, he feels himself nod.
At 2:25, she stands up and offers him a hand. By 2:25:27, she is pulling him down the hallway and positioning him in front of his bedroom door.
“Scene of the crime, Sarge,” she quips, using her film noir voice (#4).
“This evidence could use a fresh set of baby blues…to look at it...to see something,” he tries lamely, and is rewarded with an eye-crinkling smile (#2c, his favorite).
He takes a deep breath and tries not to do anything weird with his face as she leans in, and then she is kissing him.
Her arms loop around his neck and he slides his down around her waist, crushing her to him as closely as he thinks he can manage without hurting her. She makes a small noise—one that is part of a series he has heard through closed doors on occasion, but has never permitted himself to catalogue. She nips at his bottom lip and he has completely lost track of time. She is kissing him and he is kissing her and his hand has found its way back into her hair and it is absolutely a kiss that makes him See Through Space and Time for a Minute.
They pull away simultaneously, more than a bit breathless.
“Game, set, match, Miller,” she says, smiling in a dopey sort of way that he recognizes as satisfaction for a job well done. This smile falters a bit as he shakes his head.
“I don’t… It’s not gonna be a game anymore, Jess. The next time we kiss—it’s can’t be a game.”
Her face flushes pink, but she keeps her eyes locked on his. “The next time?”
“Yeah,” he says, cupping her cheek with his hand, feeling the soft warmth of her skin against his. “The next time.” He braces himself and backs away from her towards his door, feeling like he is making his way out of a vacuum. She still hasn’t moved, but at least she’s smiling—at him—at 2:30 in the morning after a Tequila Friday. Only when his hand successfully latches onto the doorknob behind him does he know he’s safe; that he can do the right thing and let her go to bed alone, no matter how much he wants to do the opposite.
“Good night, Jess.”