Falling in love with Frank Hardy is like being punched in the face.
Literally. Ned opens his door one Saturday morning (afternoon), still hungover from trying to drink his nightmares away (side note: it didn't work) only to be greeted by an uppercut to the jaw. He stumbles backward, tripping over the umbrella stand his aunt bought him as a housewarming gift to land flat on his ass, as Frank barrels angrily through the doorway.
"I'm only going to say this once but I want you to remember it. You are an ass, Nickerson." The shorter man towers over Ned's sprawled figure, arms crossed and looking pissed off as hell. Ned is suddenly uncomfortably aware of the fact that he'd answered the door in his underwear.
"Nancy loves you. God only knows why someone as brilliant and kind and incredible as she is would continue to be hung up on some idiot who is too busy pushing everyone in his life away to even notice that he's hurting her, but goddammit she loves you," Frank growls in frustration, running his hand through his hair making the thick, black locks stick up in every direction. "You need to start deserving that…okay? Because you're lucky as hell."
Ned stares as Frank's voice begins to crack, a small chink in the armor of anger and righteous indignation he's been using to keep the upper hand here. His dark, brown eyes are angry but also desperate and his body ripples with pent-up emotions.
Ned's first thought is that he's utterly beautiful.
His second is 'This fucking punk…'
"Why the fuck do you even care, Hardy?" Ned struggles to his feet. His head feels like someone's firing off an M72 Law inside. He turns and heads for the bedroom, he needs to put on some clothes if he's going to be having this kind of conversation.
Scratch that, he needs coffee more he decides and doubles back to the kitchen.
"I care because it's Nancy," Frank says stubbornly, kicking the front door closed and following Ned into the kitchen. He snags a coffee cup from the drying rack and starts fixing himself a cup as casual as anything as if he belongs in Ned's space.
For some reason, that particular thought makes Ned's body flush with heat and he takes a huge swig from his own mug while determinedly not thinking about why that might be. Instead, he focuses on how Hardy is destroying his coffee by drowning it with milk.
Frank turns back to him with a frown. "Look…I've met a lot of vets, I know that everything's fucked up over there and I get that it probably fucked you up." The punk pauses to take a drink before barreling on, "I get that you're probably laboring under some noble but annoying, self-sacrificing delusion that Nancy would be better off without you. Which…yeah…I'd agree with that, especially considering the way you've been acting towards her since you got back," Another pause, Ned turns to rifle through his cabinet. He knows he bought aspirin. It's here somewhere. "but Nancy doesn't see it that way, and her opinion's the only one that counts."
Ned finally gives up looking for the medication and resigns himself to the migraine that is building up. "I'm not the same person I was before Nam. Nancy doesn't realize that yet."
Frank slams his coffee mug onto the counter, "My God…you really are a stubborn ass." He pushes into Ned's space, crowding him up against the counter. Ned feels his pulse quicken and his face flush and dammit, he is not thinking about this right now. Frank fixes him with an assessing gaze, "I'll have you know I'm known to be pretty stubborn myself and I'm not stopping until you start treating Nancy the way she deserves to be treated."
It took Frank all of four days to convince Ned to stop hiding from Nancy and give her a chance to accept this new version of Ned Nickerson. Later, when Ned thinks back on the first real interaction the two of them had, his heart jolts with the realization that even then, before either of them had really even acknowledged the attraction boiling between them, he'd been losing his heart to that fucking punk with the attitude the size of Lake Michigan.
Falling in love with Ned Nickerson is like your first breath of air after being underwater for so long, your lungs feel like they're balloons popping.
Literally. The goons who'd grabbed Frank and Nancy had beaten him and then hog-tied him before dumping him over the edge of the pier. He's under for what feels like ages, his lungs feel like a hundred tiny knives are jabbing into them, his ears are humming, and if he doesn't get any air he's going to burst.
Suddenly there are strong arms wrapping around him, pulling him up toward the surface, and when his head breaks through into the open night air he gasps gratefully, a huge lungful of precious air. He's never going to take oxygen for granted again.
Ned pushes him up onto the dock as Nancy pulls from above. Their girlfriend is sobbing with relief and one of the goons that had thrown Frank into the drink is lying on the planks, out cold by the look of it. Frank lays with his head in Nancy's lap, her hands running gently through his hair while Ned furiously cuts away the ropes from his body with his bowie knife. When his limbs are free, Frank turns to curl himself around Nancy's shaking form, breathing in her scent, reassuring himself that they are both alright. He hears Ned sit down to lean against the post behind them.
"For fucks sake, you fucking punk, Hardy. What the fuck were you thinking, coming down here without me? Both of you, for fuck's sake!"
Frank sighs and sits up, "Can we please save the I told you so's for later? I'm trying to cope with the fact that I almost died just now."
Ned stares at him for a long moment before nodding sharply, "Yeah. Yeah, okay. Okay." He stands up and reaches down to pull Frank to his feet. He then pulls him into the wettest, warmest, most wonderful, and startling hug Frank's ever experienced. He feels himself relaxing into Ned's strong arms, he buries his face in Ned's chest and tries not to weep with how safe he feels. Ned pulls back, finally, and takes Frank's face gently in his hands. His hazel-brown eyes are serious as he stares at Frank.
"Don't you ever fucking do that again, Hardy. Scared the shit outta me."
Ned turns away and begins walking back towards the dock. "C'mon, we need to get out of here."
Frank watches him go and tries not to recognize the warmth bursting inside his chest.
Later, he'll think about it and realize that sometime in the past few months he's fallen in love with Ned Nickerson. He's fucked.