Summary: It's two in the morning when Jess comes tiptoeing into Nick's room. "I need you to take back your apology." (Takes place directly after the final scene of episode 2.16 "Table 34". Oneshot.)
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters. And I don't even have anything witty to say here about how "New Girl" would be if I did own it, because its writers are incredible as is.
Like a damn fairytale.
It's two in the morning when Jess comes tiptoeing into Nick's room. He's asleep, but barely, and he hears the door squeak open and click closed.
"Nick!" she whispers screechily. "Nick, are you awake?"
He wipes his hand across his eyes and flips on the lamp. Jess is standing directly between the door and the edge of his bed, eyes wider than usual, hair slightly disheveled, stupid pink robe pulled tight around her small frame.
"Jess...?"
It's then when she seems to realize the idiocy of what she's doing. "I'm sorry, I... I don't know what I was thinking... Just go back to sleep..."
She turns for the door.
Nick sits up in his bed, hunter green tee clinging to him loosely, hair matted down in the back right from being pressed uncaringly into a pillow. He's curious now. He wants to know why she came.
"Jess, wait..."
She stops with her hand on the knob, her back to him.
"What are you doing? What's wrong?"
She hesitates for a moment and he watches her shoulders rise and fall with her breaths. She spins back around but doesn't look him in the eye. "I need you to take back your apology."
He squints at her beneath the pale yellow light of the lamp. "What?"
She nervously combs her hair behind her ears and then wraps her arms around herself as if she's cold. "I thought about it... And I need you to take back what you said."
"What are you... Which part?"
"Well... all of it, mostly."
Sleep still clouds Nick's mind, but he remembers full and clear the events of the previous evening. All the loftmates had attended Cece's "find an Indian lifemate" gathering. He and Jess had mistakenly made a sturdy table out of newspaper (strong table, strong couple), everyone had speed-dated with some lovely Indian-Americans, Schmidt had made a heartwarming (if not completely unprovoked) speech about Cece... Oh, and Sam had broken up with Jess because he couldn't deal with the fact that his girl and her, at times, homeless-looking roommate had undeniable sexual chemistry.
Nick had been ecstatic, but Jess was upset, so he'd danced to Taylor Swift like a monkey who'd just realized it had control over its own limbs and apologized for kissing her.
And then, when that wasn't enough, he'd stupidly promised that he'd never do it again.
And now she's in his room in that stupid soft robe in the middle of the night because she wants him to... take it back?
He sighs, runs a hand through his hair, and leans back against the headboard. "What do you want, Jessica." Not a question, but a statement. A hidden plea.
Jess animatedly shrugs her shoulders and slaps her palms against her sides. "I was just thinking about it, you know? And you shouldn't have to promise that you'll never kiss me again. Because, like, what if a complicated situation arrises, and the only way out of it is to plant one on me, but you can't because you promised you never would again!?"
He raises an eyebrow. He's clearly amused, although not at all surprised at the fact that she'd said all of that in one breath.
He decides that he isn't going to let her off the hook easily. He's going to take this and delicately twist it up as knotty as it can go. Because that's what Nick does – takes simple things and complicates them to the point where they're a completely new and sometimes even worse thing than they were to begin with.
"And what kind of situation do you think we'd ever find ourselves in where we saw no way out of it than to french a little?"
Jess takes a step towards the bed and sighs dramatically, exasperated. "I don't know, Nick! Say we're playing True American, and everyone's a tax-paying U.S. citizen, and you cross the line between the couch and the chair, so now you're Bill Clinton, and I fall into the purple mountain's majesty, so now I'm Monica Lewinsky, and the only way everyone can get out of the propaganda hold is if you lie and say you've never had sexual relations with this woman, but the citizens don't believe you so the coffee table won't let them pass, so it's me and you and we have to kiss! It's nothing personal, Nick, it's just how the game works! And you'd just have to do it for the sake of the game! Take one for the team! I don't make the rules, Nick! I just follow them!"
He holds back a grin because she does make the rules most times. They all kind of do. And if they didn't want to kiss, they'd surely bend the rules and find a way out of it like they always do. Or did, up until the night the group locked them behind the steel curtain and Nick climbed out onto the ledge.
His cheeks redden at the embarrassing memory, and he worries that Jess will see them and assume they're due to the conversation. And he can't have that, so he does another thing that Nick does best – he gives up. He rolls his eyes and pulls his blankets back up to his chin.
"This is ridiculous. You spent the entire day worming your way into getting me to apologize for kissing you and breaking up you and Sam. I'm not taking it back."
He rolls over, hiding himself from her gaze, but he doesn't turn the lamp off, and he doesn't know why.
His mattress wiggles beneath him and he knows Jess is standing at the edge of his bed. She isn't relenting. "I just think it's best that you not promise what you promised earlier, okay? I mean, I thought you'd be happy about this."
Oh, no.
Nick shoots up in his bed.
"Happy, Jess?! You thought I'd be happy about it?! About which part, exactly? About you giving me permission to kiss you again, or you categorizing it into a situation void of meaning? Is it just to win a game of True American, Jess!? Really? Is that what it's come down to, Jessica? Is that all it is between us?!"
She swallows, clearly hurt. She folds her arms across her chest. "Yeah, Nicholas," she says. "I guess that's all it is."
He is hurt, too, but he masks it with apathy like he does most days.
"Fine."
"Fine!"
"Good!"
"Fine!"
"Great!"
"Fantastic!"
Nick slams his face into his pillow once more, thrusting an arm out to shut off the lamp this time. He waits silently for a few moments, but he never hears footsteps or the creaking of the door.
"Jess."
"What."
"Get out of my room."
"You still haven't taken back your apology."
"For the love of God, Jess!"
Nick throws back the covers and storms past her, yanking open the door.
"Out. Now! This conversation is over."
"No, it isn't!"
"Well, this is my room, and I say it is!"
"Well, I pay rent here, too! So, according to the law, a fourth of this apartment belongs to me!"
"Yeah, Jess, a fourth! Meaning a corner of the living room, a corner of the kitchen, an even smaller corner of the bathroom, and the entirety of your own room!"
"Well, that's not fair, Nick!" she says as she stomps over to the doorway, to him. "Because your room is at least five feet wider than mine! So, legally, I should be responsible for at least this threshold!"
He throws his hands up in the air childishly. He's so tired of aimlessly arguing with her. It's getting them nowhere but irritated. "You know what, Jessica? If you wanna be held accountable for this threshold, fine! I'm not stopping you. But I am going back to sleep now, so do you think you and your stupid eyes and your stupid hair and your stupid face and your stupid robe could just leave me alone for eight damn hours!"
She raises her eyebrows. "Fine! I'll just stage a coup!" She sinks down into the threshold and Nick looks down at her, annoyed.
"Do you even know what 'staging a coup' means, Jess?"
She sticks out her bottom lip. "Yes, I do! I am a teacher, Nicholas, and I know what 'staging a coup' means! It means that I am going to sit here in this doorway until you take back your apology."
He scoffs. "Ha! You're barely a teacher anymore, Jess. You teach under-privileged, middle-class, forty-something adults with no sex lives how to properly write their single-and-miserable diary entries."
He realizes just a little too late how terrible that had sounded. He retraces his steps in my mind, preparing to sucker down. "Man, Jess, I'm sorry... I didn't mean..."
But she stands up clumsily, no hurt in her features, just rage. "Yeah, well, maybe you should attend a few classes, Nick, and maybe then your hideously-written zombie novel wouldn't have sucked so bad."
Ouch. Right to the heart. Well, he probably deserved it.
He gives up, for real this time, feels the energy draining from him, seeping from out of his toes. He doesn't care anymore. He just wants to go to bed.
"Alright, you win. I'm not sorry I kissed you. I did it on a whim, and I didn't do it just for the game, Jess, I did it because I wanted to, and I had wanted to for quite some time. Is that what you wanted to hear?"
She grins, proud of herself for besting him. "Thank you. That wasn't so hard, now, was it, Mr. Turtle Face?"
He narrows his eyes at her gloating, comeback in hand. "I won't, however, take back my promise never to let it happen again... unless you admit that you saw through time and space a little."
Jess's mouth drops open for a moment, and then her brows come together. "Cece!"
Nick smirks. "Schmidt, actually."
"She took that entirely out of context! What I meant was that I didn't have a proper hold on reality... in that moment... and I couldn't control my reciprocating actions... and everything was dizzy... and I was really hot, and..."
"You're just digging your hole deeper, Day."
She squints at him, irritation that her plan had backfired plain on her features. "Goodnight, Nick."
Nick grins and leans in daringly close to her, testing the waters, and he's pleasantly satisfied when her breathing hitches. "Goodnight, Jess."
Then she sort of harrumphs and swivels away from him, her hair swatting him in the face as she stomps immaturely back to her room.
He closes the door to his and leans against it. He runs a hand through his hair again and breathes deep, trying to slow his heartbeat. He hadn't realized how fast it had been beating. That stupid pink robe and those stupid cartoon character blue eyes. Eyes that are probably blinking back tears right now.
He sighs. Maybe he should go and apologize. He was kind of rude before. He doesn't want their daily flirtatiously friendly dynamic to change all due to his insensitivity – he really doesn't. And maybe he'd overreacted, even. Maybe she really just wanted to keep the option of future kisses open and on the table and didn't know how else to say it?
Crap. Had he just completely ruined his chances with her? No. Not again.
He opens the door.
And when he does, Jess is standing right outside of it, and she looks so pathetic and child-like with her slightly-poofy hair and downcast eyes that it's actually the cutest thing ever.
She opens her mouth before he has the chance to say anything. "You were right," she almost-whispers. "It was the best kiss of my life. It was like a damn fairytale, that kiss."
He nods once, and then he makes a decision, and then there's nothing. Nothing but her pink lips pressed firmly against his, nothing but her dark hair tangled between his fingers, nothing but the feel of the soft robe beneath his palms.
He pulls her closer, closer, he can't seem to get close enough to her. And maybe this is all a little premeditated, what with her and Sam just ending things, but maybe this has been boiling for months and months now, and it's just now finally reached it's burning point, long overdue. And the fact that she's returning his efforts with as much enthusiasm and desire as he is isn't really helping the matter of potentially stopping.
Oh, what the hell.
He stumbles backwards into his room and somehow manages to close the door behind them, all while keeping her close in his grasp. She's so small, so soft beneath his fingers. It's as if he could press too hard and she'd break, and she probably knows this, yet she just doesn't care.
He slides his fingers across her shoulders and beneath the robe and her hands tighten atop his chest, clutching fistfuls of his shirt between them. They sink down onto his bed and he pulls away, pressing his hands into the mattress on either side of her head and hovering above her. Her expression seems unsure but there's a fire in her eyes that he's never seen before and she nods slightly, giving him permission to keep going.
And this is Jess... his Jess... and she's laying beneath him on his sheets atop his bed... And he's wanted this for so long... And damn any repercussions this might bring in the morning.
"Get ready to see through time and space again, Jessica Day."
"Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no! I thought you were bluffing, Winston, when you said you heard stuff going down in here last night. I honestly thought you were just trying to get back at me for referring to your so-called 'mojo' as your submission to black history month, because there is no way in hell that Jess would ever consciously spend the night with our Mister Grumpy McGrumpyPants, but no! You were actually serious! I'm truly baffled! And with the vast amount of knowledge I've acquired from all of my intricately detailed personal experiences, you all know how much it takes to leave me speechless!"
Nick's eyes flicker open, and he sees his two roommates standing at the foot of the bed, surveying the damage before them. Winston has an eyebrow raised with one hand in his pocket and the other around an apple, but Schmidt is shirtless with a towel wrapped around his head and a whisk in his hand.
Nick gives an irritated groan and rubs the sleep from his eyes. "Schmidt, what the hell were you doing before?"
Schmidt gives his best friend a wild look. "Do not turn this monstrosity around on me, Mr. Miller," he says as he waves the whisk around in the air. "I'm not the one who is currently in the lewd act of breaking what is, perhaps, the most sacred of all the loft codes!"
Nick is tempted to sit up and snatch that stupid utensil right out of Schmidt's hand, but he finds that he can't because something is holding him down. He looks to his right and sees a sleeping Jess curled up next to him, her back against him, her cheek pressed against his arm. His heart jumps at the sight, and then again when he recalls the events of the previous night.
Nick smiles lazily and brushes some hair out of her face and behind her shoulder. "Shhh, guys, she's still sleeping."
"Oh, no," Schmidt shakes his head. "This is much worse than we thought."
Winston takes a bite out of his apple. "Mhmm. Told you."
Before Nick can stop him, Schmidt reaches out and taps Jess on the head a few times with the whisk, and Nick noticably winces. She is so gonna hate him for this.
"Jess! Jessica, wake up! There's an unhappy-looking, half-naked man spooning you!"
Jess starts and rolls over, lets out a confused "hmm?" before her eyes widen at the sight before her. Her cheeks flush and she fixes her gaze straightforward, refusing to look at her partner in crime next to her. She instinctively pats down her hair and pulls the blankets farther up to her chin even though they've all seen her in her bra before, and Nick brings his arm in from around her.
"Do you know the gravity of the trouble you're in, Missy?" Schmidt asks, still waving the whisk maniacally.
Jess's gaze turns from frightened to confused as it levels in on the object in Schmidt's hand. "Schmidt, why do you have a whisk?"
"Geez, what is with you people!" Schmidt cries. "You've committed a felony, here, and all you two are worried about is my cooking utensil..." he pauses, waggles his eyebrows and elbows Winston in the side, "that Cecilia and I weren't exactly using for cooking, if you know what I mean."
Nick closes his eyes as if that will block out the images that are now pouring into his brain, but that makes it worse. "Ugh! Come on, man!" he grouches.
Jess scrunches her nose and points at Schmidt. "Jar!"
Winston swallows a bite of apple and nods. "Yeah, dude. Jar."
Schmidt puts his hands on his hips. "Seriously, you guys, it's these two perpetrators who owe the jar money, not I! They're practically criminals! Back me up on this, Winston!"
Winston takes another slow bite of his apple before answering. "I don't know, I just thought it'd be fun to get a free show with my breakfast fruit."
Nick grunts and Schmidt gives Winston an evil look. "Whatever, Winston. It's still in the Roommates Handbook, stated plainly and clearly on the first column of the third page in size twelve Times New Roman font: 'Thou roommates shall not sleep with other thou roommates!'"
"You guys have a handbook?" Jess asks, her brows pulled together.
"We have a handbook?" Nick asks, his brows pulled together.
Schmidt rolls his eyes, his brows pulled together. "Yes, Nick! I typed it up and put it together and even had the covers laminated, remember? I added in that little section right after we interviewed Jess to move in! I saw that she was an attractive young woman, and, while I figured it would be me, I assumed that at least one of us would be tempted to hit that. No offense, Jess."
Jess shrugs. "None taken."
Nick makes his signature turtle face. "I don't remember ever receiving one of those handbooks. Do you, Winston?"
"No, uh, I do believe that handbook was concocted before I moved back in, so... uh... I don't believe I've ever seen that, no."
All three men begin talking simultaneously then – Nick trying to get the other two to leave, Schmidt complaining about the lack of respect the other two were giving him about the handbook, and Winston asking why he, being an honorary loftmate, was never given one.
Jess tries to interrupt them by saying "guys" a few times, but when that doesn't work, she clears her throat. "I'm not really sure where my underwear are."
All three men stop mid-sentence and look over at Jess – Winston amused, Schmidt disgusted, and Nick terrified.
Jess turns towards Nick and makes eye contact with him for the first time. She gives him a look that says she's fibbing and for him to go along with it. "Do you remember where I left them, Nick?"
Nick lifts the covers off of himself and peeks beneath them, and, to his gratitude, the both of them are wearing underwear. He sucks in a breath through clenched teeth as he drops the blankets back atop them, putting on a show.
"Ah, nope! Definitely bare naked, full-on R-rated nudity down there beneath these sheets." He looks up at the guys smugly and then back to Jess. "Do you think maybe we left them... you know... in the place... with the thing..."
Jess nods vigorously and makes wide gestures with her arms, not caring as the sheets fall to her waist.
"Yeah... when we were doing the thing... you know... up there..." She points aimlessly and it lands on the dresser in the far corner of the room.
Nick's eyes widen and he shakes his head at her. "Up... there? On the... On the thing? High up...!?"
Nick looks again at his roommates, whose expressions have drastically switched places – now Schmidt's is pleasantly awed and Winston's is grossly appalled.
"I think we'll take that as our cue to leave... So Jess can find her..." – he does airquotes here – "panties..." Schmidt winks, and Nick and Jess share confused glances over why he airquoted the word 'panties.'
Winston gives them one more disapproving look before he tosses his apple gourd onto the bed and follows Schmidt out of the room, closing the door behind him with a shake of his head.
Nick straightens up in his spot and Jess pulls the sheet back up over her chest shyly.
"Hey," he begins awkwardly.
"Hey."
"Thanks for that, by the way... The whole, uh... underwear thing..."
"Yeah, don't mention it." She laughs. "The, uh... checking to make sure if I was actually bluffing or not was a nice touch."
"Oh, yeah," he laughs, too. "I should've made sure the door was locked last night, too, though."
"Well, I don't think either of us were really in our right minds to remember to... you know."
Nick nods and looks down as he recalls again a few different scenes from last night, not wanting Jess to see the emotions he's sure are showing well and clear on his face. "Yeah. So, uh..." he begins, but he's unsure of what to do next, so instead he pulls a really jerk move and lifts his fist, holding it out to her, fist-bump style. Jess had confided in him that she hated when Sam fist-bumped her in the morning. Nick doesn't know what is wrong with him.
And, as he expected, Jess gives him a dirty look. "Seriously, Nick?"
He cocks his head sideways. "What, still too soon?"
"Just a little," she says irritably, but a grin sneaks back onto her features.
"Okay, but is it too early to do this?"
Nick surprises her by taking her face in his hands and finding her mouth with his. She sighs against him and wraps her tiny hands around his wrists, daring him to release his hold on her. When he breaks away, he presses his forehead to hers, breathing her air and attempting to keep his girlishly racing heart in check.
"No, it's definitely not too early for that," she breathes out.
He pulls back slightly, searches her eyes for any sign of indecision. He's glad when he only sees that familiar Jess sparkle. "So, last night. Any regrets?"
She looks down, bites her bottom lip, and grins, and he almost kisses her again.
"No, I don't think so." She looks up at him through her unbelievably long lashes. "You?"
He shakes his head and mirrors her grin. "And praying for many similar occurrences in the near future," he admits.
Jess blushes, and he loves it.
"Hey, do you still have that coupon I gave you for the weird nerd sex?" she asks after a moment.
Nick laughs nervously. "I'm not sure." But he is sure, and it's in the top slot of his fold-out wallet.
"Well, maybe you could use it, and we can try something up there next time." She nods in the direction of the corner dresser.
"Yeah, okay, about that..." he starts, but he doesn't finish because a harsh knock comes at the door.
"Panties on, lovebirds!" Schmidt calls. "Loft meeting in two minutes sharp! We have to discuss the changing dynamics that your little lapse in judgement may bring upon the group, slash our regular household duties. Chop, chop! Hop to it!"
Nick almost asks what his and Jess's impending relationship has to do with any of their daily chores, but then something else taps against the door that isn't a fist, but it does sound almost exactly like a whisk.
Jess shudders. "Remind me never to use that whisk again."
Nick nods in agreement. "Yeah, noted."
"So... you wanna lock the door and climb out onto the ledge?" Jess jokes, a spark in her eyes that Nick is vainly attempted to call his.
"I can say from past experience that that may not be the wisest decision," Nick jokes back, fighting the color that he feels threatening to taint his own cheeks now.
She gives him a dubious look. "And you think facing our insane friends would be any safer?"
"Eh." Nick shrugs. She has a point.
They sit in comfortable silence for a few moments, just gazing at each other all soap-opera-cheesy before they hear the whisk rapping against the door again.
"Don't make me come in there, you two!"
"So, the ledge?" Jess offers, raising her eyebrows.
Nick nods once, turtle face intact, and then he hops out of bed and walks around to the window, unlatching it. "Yep. C'mon, I'll give you a boost."
A/n: Thanks for reading! My main goal with this (besides Ness getting together ofc) was for it to seem like it could actually be a couple scenes of the show. Like, if you could read this and picture the characters actually saying and doing these things, then my work here is done. So if you're feeling it (or if you're not feeling it), let me know!