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“I’ll be back later,” Dex tells him, slinging his bag over his shoulder. No practice today, but Dex has an early class. Normally he doesn’t mind morning classes – years of working and living in Maine enforced an early to bed/early to rise mentality so fierce he can’t knock it even on off-season. Not even for Christmas. But he’s making a bit of an exception today and allowing himself to want to stay at the Haus, in bed with his boyfriend. Because it’s Nursey. And for Nursey, he’ll always make an exception.
And right now, for Nursey’s sake, there’s a niggling worry. By the time Dex had gotten out of the shower, Nurse was sitting at their shared desk, already staring into his computer screen, bedhead in full force, with one hand buried in his enormous copy of the Norton Anthology. Nurse is functional in the mornings, he’s responsible, but he doesn’t like mornings and more often than not if he has a day to sleep in, he’ll take it. Dex loves that because it means he can slip out early, pick up coffee from Annie’s and maybe a bagel too. He’s still not sure what Nursey’s deep love for them is, but it makes him light up, and as far as Dex is concerned if a bread product is what will make Nursey smile in the mornings, he’ll pick them up as often as he can.
Today is not one of those days, and while Dex throws his books in is bag and laces up his shoes, he realizes Nursey is unusually quiet.
“You all right?” he asks, letting one hand come down on Nursey’s shoulder and his thumb stroke gently over his pulse point.
“Yeah, chill,” Nursey says, sounding a little absentminded but otherwise okay. “Just got a lot to do today.”
“Your paper is due Friday, right?”
“Mm, yeah.” Nursey leans into his touch briefly, and continues scanning his screen – for what, Dex isn’t sure.
“Okay, well, I’m out. I’ll be back at 6.” He drops a quick kiss on Nursey’s temple.
“See you,” he mutters, and Dex leaves the door just slightly cracked open so that if Chowder’s around he knows at least one of them is there.
The day is long, and Dex does so much coding his eyes are going blurry – his program keeps stalling and he isn’t sure where in the code he went wrong, so he’s been reading line after line trying to figure out where his mistake is. It’s frustrating as hell, and after several hours at Founders he decides to call it quits. Going back to the Haus for dinner, relaxing for an hour and then getting in a little more work before bed sounds like the best course of action here. Maybe he’ll find the bug with a fresh pair of eyes.
He shoots Nursey a text to let him know, and starts to wind up what he’s doing – and he’s just saving his program when the little niggling worry comes back, because Nursey had no classes today, was just planning on spending time working on his paper, and he actually hasn’t responded to any of Dex’s texts today.
So he does the next best thing: he texts Chowder.
> Yo, C, have you seen Nursey today?
< Once! I poked my head in around noon and he was working on a paper.
> Is the door still open?
< Yeah, I think so. lemme check
< It’s open! He’s still sitting at your desk. I don’t think he’s left all day?
> Thanks, C.
Dex changes course immediately.
If there’s anything Nursey will eat when he’s in a pit of studying hell, its vegetarian stir fry. Nursey says when he gets too stressed all he wants are small, bland things that are easy to eat, and stir fry is a little more exciting than that, but it’s also his favorite. So he places an order and picks it up first before heading home.
Dex takes the steps two at a time and waves to Bitty as he gets in. “Hey,” he says, grabbing a couple of 2-litre water bottles from the cupboard and filling them. “Nurse is in study mode, so we probably won’t be down for dinner.”
“That’s all right,” Bitty says, “I got so carried away earlier I hadn’t even thought of real food yet!”
“Midterms are the worst,” Dex agrees, hooking the bag of takeout around his wrist and heading up the stairs.
True to Chowder’s word, the door to their room is still cracked open the way he left it. He knocks on C’s door, hands off the stir fry he’d offered to pick him up, stuffs the ten in his back pocket and quietly opens the door to his own room.
“Derek?” He says, pitching his voice a little quieter than normal. Nursey doesn’t even look up, but Dex can see the frisson of tension in his shoulders, “Baby, hi,” he tries again, soft, and kneels next to Nursey’s chair. He catches his attention with a hand on his arm, and one of Nursey’s earbuds falls out when his head jerks around.
He looks awful.
That’s not true, Dex’s brain backtracks. Nursey never looks awful. He always looks good in a way Dex can’t fully describe, it’s usually warm and effortlessly handsome and he loves him for it, but he loves him like this too – with dark circles under his eyes, lips looking painfully bitten, tension all over and an expression so strung out Dex is automatically afraid.
“Hey, woah, what’s going on?” Dex always struggles to keep his voice soft in situations like this, defaults to angry-concerned more often than not. But he knows Nursey won’t respond to it well right now, he needs gentle, so he tries harder. “Baby, what’s wrong?”
“Dex, I can’t, this paper – it’s killing me, I don’t know what to do, and it’s too late to change poems, but I don’t know what to do.” Nurse’s voice is hoarse from disuse, and it comes out choked in a way Dex knows comes before panic. So he leans forward and pulls Nursey into his arms and lets him bury his face in his neck.
“It’s okay, Derek, it’s okay, it’s gonna be okay,”
“It’s not,” Nursey gasps, “it’s due on Friday and I don’t even have a thesis—”
“Shh, stop, just stop for a second, baby, okay? Just count with me first and then we can talk about it, all right?”
Nursey nods against his chest, and they go through the breathing exercises Dex knows Nursey likes using best when he’s early into a panic attack.
After his breathing evens out a little, Dex shifts. “Come on, let’s take this to the bed okay? Just for now.”
Dex lets Nursey curl up first and then crawls in next to him, puts his arms around him, holds him close.
They’re quiet for a few minutes, breathing slow and measured, until Nursey presses a tiny kiss to Dex’s bicep.
“You wanna tell me what’s going on?” Dex asks, and he can feel Nursey nod.
“I’ve been working on this paper all day, I haven’t stopped once, and I’m not getting what I need to out of it. It’s not that it doesn’t fit with the theme, but Spenser just isn’t my thing. And I could work around that normally, but for some reason I just can’t right now and I don’t know why.”
Dex rubs a calming hand up and down his back, trying to soothe him. “Have you eaten anything today?” he says, and frowns when Nursey makes a negative sound. “Water?”
“I had a couple of 5-hour energy shots.”
Dex sighs.
“Here’s the plan,” he says, “I brought veggie stir fry. We’re going to eat, and we’re going to drain those water bottles, and we’re going to watch Brooklyn 99 or something, and then we’re going to go to bed.”
“Will, I can’t, I have to work on this–”
“I know, baby, I know you do. And you will. Tomorrow. I’ve seen you write A-worthy essays at 3am on the bus with no wifi. You still have a couple days. Just leave it for tomorrow. You won’t be able to think if you keep hammering away at it right now, and if we go to bed early we can get a good night’s sleep. We both need it.”
Nursey is quiet for a moment, and then tilts his head to look up at him, touches one hand to his face. His expression is exhausted but tender. “Did you finish your coding?”
“Nah,” Dex says, shaking his head, “can’t find a bug. It was driving me crazy all afternoon.”
“You’ll work on it tomorrow, too?”
“Yeah. But no more tonight.”
Nursey looks at him for a long moment, and then nods. Dex smiles at him and leans up for a kiss, then rolls off Nursey’s bed and fetches the food. It’s a little cold, but after a few slow bites Nursey seems to realize he’s starving, and he finishes well before Dex does.
Then, true to word, they curl up together and put on Netflix, and Dex pulls Nursey between his legs, leaning back against his chest so that he can rub some of the tension out of his shoulders. Little by little, Nursey unwinds, until he’s boneless and soft and his eyes are dipping closed.
After the episode ends, Dex tips the laptop closed and nudges Nursey, pushing him so he’s curled up on his side. Dex gets up to remove his jeans, hits the light and climbs back into bed to where Nursey is reaching for him, sleepy and warm. “I’m turning both our alarms off,” Dex says, dropping his phone off the side of the bed, too lazy to reach for his charger.
“You got class,” Nurse mumbles, a weak protest. “I’m skipping it,” he says, pressing a soft kiss to Nurse’s forehead.
“You never skip class.”
“I’m going to pick up coffee and bagels and we’re going to have a relaxing morning, and then we’re going to go to Founders and build ourselves an academic hovel out of library books and we’ll spend the day there. Sound okay?”
“But you never skip class. ‘s against the rules.”
Dex nuzzles closer, and he feels Nursey’s contented huff across his neck, their feet tangled together.
“You’re always the exception to my rules,” he murmurs, “and I love you for it.”