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Nursey’s a clingy drunk.
Freshman year, Dex hated it. He and Nursey spend all their sober time bickering; fighting nonstop about everything from politics to slapshot form to whether ketchup belongs on scrambled eggs (Dex will never fucking admit it, but he’s actually started to find it delicious; Nursey can never know). But the second Nursey slips over the line from tipsy to drunk, he’s Dex’s best friend--hanging off Dex’s shoulders, draping his feet into Dex’s lap, hell, draping himself into Dex’s lap, two hundred pounds and then some of languid muscle. He’s sweet when he’s drunk, his chirps soft and fond instead of scathing, and his fingertips are gentle when they wander over Dex’s skin, dipping under the collar of his t-shirt, brushing against the short hair at the nape of his neck.
And Dex hated it, because morning would come, and hungover Nursey is clingy too but not in the same way, and they were always back to sharpness, and Dex would have to pretend he didn’t get home from those kegsters and throw himself into very, very cold showers.
Sophomore year, it’s a little better. They’re friends more often than they’re not, but on the flip side, that means the rest of the team actually trusts Dex to be on Nursey Patrol (“If you don’t want to kill him all the time, we can probably trust you to make sure he doesn’t drink himself into a coma,” Bitty said cheerfully the first time, shoved Nursey, already tipsy, towards him, and disappeared onto the dance floor with a solo cup in his hand).
Except Nursey Patrol, he learns, doesn’t end with the kegster. No, Nursey Patrol ends with Nursey safe in his bed, at least out of his shoes but ideally in something comfortable enough to sleep in, after a cup or two of water and two tabs of Aspirin, his phone plugged in and the door to his room locked.
(Dex does not want to know the series of events that led to this level of Patrol being in place. If he thinks about it too hard, his chest starts to hurt, and he doesn’t wanna deal with that.)
But--
“Dexy,” Nursey says, as Dex manhandles him down to his bed and then flops down next to him, hauling Nursey’s foot into his lap to start on his shoelaces, because Three Cups of Tub Juice Derek Nurse is not a Derek Nurse who has the coordination for tasks involving dexterity. Dex had said that, once, and Nursey had said “ha, Dexterity,” and giggled for ten minutes. “Dex, will you stay with me?”
“That is not my job,” Dex says, partly because it’s true, and partly because he has a shred of self-preservation, and knows himself well enough to be aware that a night pressed against Nursey’s side. Especially when Nursey’s like this, loose-limbed and reaching for him, running his fingertips over the sleeve of Dex’s hoodie where he can reach it, like he’s fascinated by the texture.
“Please?” Nursey gives him a pleading look that shouldn’t be nearly as attractive as it is. “I get lonely.”
Dex rolls his eyes. “Should’ve hooked up, then,” he says, and tries not to sound petulant. Nursey actually doesn’t pull at kegsters that often, for all that his flirting tends to be reciprocated, and he never seems to have any shortage of dance partners.
Nursey huffs. “You guys never let me,” he says.
“Yeah,” Dex drawls. “We, the Samwell Men’s Hockey Team, with our captains and their literal spreadsheet-based wingman assignments, are totally trying to cockblock you, Nurse.” He gets one of Nursey’s shoes off, and starts on the other.
“You didn’t let me tonight,” Nursey says.
Dex pauses, his fingers stilling where he’s been struggling with the knot of Nursey’s tennis shoes. He looks over at Nursey, who has his eyes closed, his lips tugged down in a pout. “Wait,” Dex says. “Are you talking about that guy I pulled you away from on the dance floor? The one you wanted to go home with?” Nursey shrugs one shoulder, not opening his eyes. “Nursey. Dude. You were fucking wasted, you were like...way past the point of making that choice.”
“He was chill,” Nursey says, and Dex just…
“It doesn’t matter that he was chill, Jesus.” He pokes him, hard, in the middle of the chest, and Nursey makes a face and finally looks at him. “I need you to tell me you understand that you can’t have sex with strangers when you’re this fucking drunk, Nurse. Like, please tell me that all the shit you preach about consent isn’t just lip-service.”
Nursey presses his mouth into a line for a moment, and then he drops his head back onto his pillow. “I don’t like sleeping alone,” he mumbles. “They usually let me stay the night. Or they stay. Whatever.”
Dex stares at him, trying to feel something other than horrified. Pity, his brain tells him, is the appropriate feeling here, that Nursey would hook up with someone just to have company for a night, but instead all he’s coming up with something like fury. He takes a deep breath, finally gets the knot of Nursey’s shoe undone, and wraps his hand around Nursey’s ankle. “Get a fucking teddy bear,” he says, keeping his voice carefully measured.
Nursey closes his eyes. “Sure, Poindexter,” he says, and he sounds suddenly tired.
He’s not touching anymore, Dex realizes suddenly. His hands have fallen away from Dex’s sleeve, his fingertips not brushing over the fabric of Dex’s jeans. “Hey,” Dex says. “You okay? Not gonna throw up, are you?”
A huffed laugh. “Nah.”
“Good.” Dex gets to his feet and goes to Nursey’s dresser. By now, he knows where Nursey keeps his sweatpants. He grabs a pair, and then pauses, thinking, looking over his shoulder--
Whatever, fuck it. He unzips his hoodie and adds it to the bundle, then turns. “Heads up,” he says, and throws the clothes at Nursey, then pulls Nursey’s SMH sweatshirt out of his drawer to pull over his own head for his walk back to his room.
He absolutely does not duck his head into the collar to see if it smells like Nursey’s cologne in addition to his laundry detergent.
(It does. Fuck.)
When he turns, Nursey is sitting up in bed, blinking at the clothes in his hands in vague confusion. “This is yours,” he says, poking at Dex’s hoodie.
“Brilliant, Sherlock,” Dex says.
“Why is it yours?”
Any other time, the confusion on Nursey’s face would be gratifying. Right now, there are too many emotions in Dex’s chest in head for him to try and feel smug. “Because I don’t see a damn security blanket around here, Nurse,” he says. “So just--I don’t know. Snuggle that.”
Nursey looks at him, and there’s something in his expression that Dex can’t place. Vulnerability, maybe, or hesitation. “Dex,” he says, but Dex can’t look at him, not when he looks like that.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” Dex says. “Your water bottle’s on your desk. Drink the whole thing before you crash.” He’s cutting out early, but whatever. He goes for the door.
“Dex,” Nursey says again.
Dex pauses, his hand on the doorknob.
“Will you stay with me?”
Dex takes a breath. He doesn’t turn around. “Go to sleep, Nursey,” he says. “I’ll see you in the morning. Drink your water.”
He leaves.
(The next time he’s on Nursey Patrol, he catches sight of his hoodie, bunched into a corner of Nursey’s bed, half-tucked under his pillow. Dex doesn’t comment, and Nursey doesn’t ask him to stay.)
Junior year--
Well.
The cup of tub juice in his hand sloshes as Nursey crashes into him, long arms winding around Dex’s shoulders. “Jesus,” Dex says, switching hands so he can wipe what he’s pretty sure is some combination of Everclear, pineapple vodka, coconut rum, and lemon-lime soda off his fingers from where his drink had spilled. “Walk much, Nurse?”
“No,” Nursey says, looking delighted at the idea of it. He nuzzles his face into Dex’s shoulder and Dex sighs, taking it. At the very least, two years and change of this have immunized him--he can deal with this without blushing. “I don’t walk, Dexy, I float.”
Dex snorts. “Maybe try keeping your feet on the ground,” he says, giving an apologetic look at Raf from his data structures class, who’s watching them with confused amusement.
Nursey shakes his head and leans harder against him. “’s what I got you for,” he says. “All solid. Strong steady feet, from wanderin’ round lobster boats.” He gives a sudden laugh. “Pero no amo tus pies sino porque anduvieron sobre la tierra y sobre el viento yo sobre el agua, hasta que me encontraron.”
He punctuates that with another laugh, this one more of a sigh than a snort, and presses his face back into Dex’s shoulder. Dex makes a face. A sudden switch to another language usually means Nursey’s chirping him, and all Dex got from that was agua, which he knows means water, so probably Nursey’s making some kind of lobster joke. He huffs a sigh and looks at Rafael. “Sorry about him,” he says. “Usually someone keeps a better eye on him.”
It’s not him, for once, and he’d actually thought for ten seconds he might get lucky--he’s not really into Raf, but he figures getting laid might get this Nursey thing out of his system. Fat chance, probably, if he hasn’t gotten over it in the past two years it’s probably gonna stick, but he might as well try, especially if someone else was going to keep Nursey out of their shared room for him to get off with someone.
(He’s got enough awareness of his own body and how long it’s been since he’s hooked up that he can admit he probably won’t need all that long. But, y’know. He’ll be a gentleman and shit.)
Raf’s looking at them, though, and he doesn’t look mad. He mostly just looks…amused. And a little embarrassed, which makes…no sense. “It's cool,” he says. “Um, sorry, dude. I didn't realize you had a boyfriend.”
Dex is really, really glad he didn't decide to take another drink, because he's pretty sure he would have just done a spit-take all over himself. “What?” he sputters. “I don't—we're not—”
“Oh.” Raf’s brown skin flushes pink along his cheekbones. “I just thought, uh…” He looks at Nursey. “¿No ustedes están saliendo?”
Nursey lifts his head a fraction. He glances once at Dex, expression flushed and unreadable despite how open his face usually is when he’s drunk. “Él no lo quiere.”
Raf cocks an eyebrow. “Right,” he says, like he doesn't believe whatever Nursey just said, and okay, Dex knows when he's being talked about.
“Hey,” he says. “Not to be that white guy, but like…I only took half a semester of Spanish in high school before I switched to Latin?”
Raf snorts. “We weren't talking about you,” he says, which Dex doesn't believe for even a second. He gives Nursey another lingering, thoughtful glance, then says, “I’m gonna split. Past my bedtime. Will, I’ll see you in class?”
The fuck, Dex thinks, but he says, “Yeah, dude, see you.”
He waits until Raf has disappeared into the crowd, and then steps away from Nursey just enough to make sure he staggers. “What the fuck, man?” He complains, as Nursey wobbles on his feet and gropes for the wall to steady himself. “I was trying to actually get some for once!”
Nursey has the decency to look guilty, because as much as Dex complains, Nursey is not, at his core, an asshole. “Sorry,” he says. “I just, uh. I lost Wicks? Or Wicks lost me? And there was this dude from the Bentley soccer team who came with a bunch of Ollie’s friends and he’s been trying to wheel me all night, and I was into it earlier but I'm just not really feeling it now but he wouldn't get the hint, so I thought…”
Fuck. The timing’s shit, but he basically did exactly the shit Dex has been trying to get him to do for literal months. He sighs. “It's fine,” he says. He reaches out to haul Nursey off the wall, and Nursey sways into him with a tired, contented sound, tucking his face into Dex’s neck.
That hasn't gotten any easier to deal with. Nursey turns his face, his stubble scraping Dex’s skin and his breath warm, and Dex has to suppress a shudder.
“Okay,” he says. “I think the party’s over, yeah? Let's get you to bed.”
Nursey huffs and doesn't lift his head. “You never wanna go to bed with me,” he says.
Dex doesn't even know what to do with that. “I sleep three feet above you,” he says, because that seems like a safe response. “Come on. Upstairs.”
It takes them the better part of five minutes to get up the staircase and into their bedroom—Nursey keeps wobbling into Dex’s side, and refuses to let go of Dex long enough for Dex to get him properly on his feet again. Dex is out of breath by the time they get there and he can kick the door shut; he’s built and he works out, but Nursey is fucking heavy, and not particularly cooperative. He dumps Nursey down on the bottom bunk and flops down on the floor beside the bed with a grunt.
“You’re on your own for your shoes,” he says. “I'm not moving.”
“Okay.” Nursey doesn't move, though, and after a few seconds of no rustling or thrashing, Dex opens his eyes. Nursey’s staring at the underside of the bottom bunk, the lopsided grin he gets when he's drunk gone from his face. He looks blank, now, like there's nothing in his eyes, and that twists at Dex’s chest.
Before he can ask, though, Nursey rolls onto his side to look at him. “I'm sorry I fucked you over tonight,” he says. “I didn't realize you were trying to hook up.”
Dex shrugs. “It's fine,” he says, and is surprised to find that he means it. He'd wanted to get off, yeah, but it was more about scratching an itch than any real urge. “You're more important.”
Nursey sucks in a breath, but doesn't say anything else. Dex allows him the silence, busies himself with kicking his sneakers off, shoving his jeans down and yanking them off his ankles. He leaves his t-shirt on, and looks woefully up at the ladder to his bed.
And that's not even counting the trek to the bathroom to brush his teeth. He grimaces, then works his tongue around his mouth. Fuck it. It's close enough to morning anyway. With a groan, he hauls himself to his feet.
A hand catches his wrist as he reaches for the ladder and he stops, looking down at Nursey. “You okay, bro? You've got water, it's on the nightstand.”
“I know. I know, I just—” Nursey bites his bottom lip (Dex wishes he wouldn't; it's fucking distracting, and Nursey’s way too drunk for Dex to think about kissing him without being a huge skeeze) and then looks up at him, all bright, tired green eyes. “Will you stay with me tonight? In my bed?”
Dex almost says no, just out of habit. But Nursey hasn't asked him for months, and there's something small in his voice that Dex doesn't like. He sighs. “Okay,” he says.
Nursey looks startled. “Really?”
“Yeah.” Dex drops his hand from the ladder and ducks down to the bottom bunk. “Move if you don't want me to step on you, I know you like the outside.”
It takes some wrangling in the dark, the two of them really too big for a bed this small. Dex ends up wrapped around Nursey’s back, one arm slung over his waist. Nursey feels good in the curve of his arms, and he wishes he didn't. He pokes Nursey’s ankle with his foot. “Your shoes are still on,” he says. “You're gonna get Haus floor grime in your sheets.”
“They gotta be washed anyway,” Nursey mumbles, but he squirms around, and Dex hears the thumps of his sneakers falling over the side of the bed.
“You're still in your jeans, too.”
Nursey’s shoulders tense, almost imperceptibly. “I wanna keep them on.”
Dex doesn't like whatever just slipped into his voice. He takes a careful breath and then shrugs. “Whatever you want,” he says.
A moment of quiet. “Thank you.”
Dex snorts. “You're not gonna thank me in the morning when your button’s permanently embedded in your skin, but whatever.”
“Not for that.” Nursey’s hand curls over Dex’s wrist where it lies low on his stomach. “For not asking.”
“Oh.” Dex thinks about that. It's not a lack of wanting to know—to know why Nursey hates being alone when from everything he's told Dex about his moms he grew up desperately loved, to know why he drinks like he wants to wipe his memory when he talks about his life with a voice curved soft with sweetness. It's just that… “I figure if you wanna tell me, you'll tell me,” he says.
“I’d tell you,” Nursey says. “If you asked.”
“I know.” It surprises him a little that he believes it.
They lie there together in the dark, quiet. Dex can feel Nursey’s heartbeat through his shirt. His skin smells like sweat and the spicy-sweet scent of his cologne and that strange mix of alcohol and sex that permeates the Haus during parties. He tries not to breathe too deeply.
“Hey Dex?”
Dex opens his eyes. He hadn't realized they'd drifted closer. This, at least, is familiar—Nursey is always chatty when he should be sleeping. “What,” he says. As gentle as he can.
“You look at me sometimes like you wanna kiss me,” Nursey says. Simply, quietly, like he hasn't just frozen all of Dex’s blood in his veins.
“I,” Dex says, and falters. He's desperately glad that Nursey’s facing away from him, and he has no idea whatsoever what to say next.
Nursey tightens his fingers around Dex’s wrist. “Do you? Want to, I mean?”
“I,” Dex says again, because he's clearly the eloquent one in this relationship. He takes the easy way out. “Not right now,” he says. “Not while you’re drunk.”
“Oh.” Nursey’s quiet for a moment. His thumb is tracing quiet lines over Dex’s pulse point. “If you wanted to, when I'm not drunk,” he says slowly, “I’d be okay with that.”
Dex swallows. “Yeah?” He asks. Cautious.
Nursey nods. The motion makes his hair tickle Dex’s nose, and Dex has to duck his head to scratch his nose against the back of Nursey’s shirt. “Yeah. I think. Yes.”
“Okay.” Dex’s head is spinning, even though he only had one cup of tub juice tonight. He takes a careful breath, and then pulls Nursey closer to him. “Go to sleep, Nursey.”
“And you’ll kiss me in the morning?”
“Maybe,” Dex says, like he isn't counting the hours like a fucking idiot.
“And you'll be here when I wake up?”
The question comes out soft, but Dex hears the weight in it. He tightens his arms. “Yes,” he says. “Now sleep.”
Nursey’s breathing evens out and deepens. Dex closes his eyes, and rests his head against Nursey’s back.
A kiss in the morning, and staying through the night.
He smiles.
He can do that.