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“Come on,” Dex says, throwing Nursey’s sweatshirt at his head.
Nursey doesn’t manage to catch it, so it smacks him in the face, but that does at least get him to look up from his laptop, which he’s been staring bleary-eyed at, fingers pushing into his temples as if he can force coherent sentences out of his brain with enough force.
“Wassit?”
“I said c’mon, pack it up.”
“No, I’ve gotta finish this draft, it’s due tomorrow.”
“You haven’t written anything; we’ve been sitting here for over an hour and we were here until 2 last night and you didn’t write anything then.”
“But I...I have to...I...you don’t understand, it’s my senior sem paper, if I don’t get this draft in, she’s gonna flunk me, and if I flunk this class I can’t graduate, if I don’t graduate I—I’ll—”
“C’mon,” Dex says for the third time, rounding the corner of the library table this time to bodily pull Nursey, albeit gently, to his feet.
“But—”
“You’re spiraling. You need a break.”
“I had a break last night when I was sleeping.”
“Yeah? You really want to tell me you didn’t lay awake the whole time worrying about this paper?”
Nursey can’t actually say that, so he stands there, a bit numb, watching as Dex carefully packs up all Nursey’s stuff.
Then he’s being forced into his sweatshirt and practically frog-marched out of the library.
Okay, okay, “frog-marched” is maybe a bit of an exaggeration. Hauled along by his elbow. Gently. Actually it’s kind of nice, because every time he trips over something, Dex manages to keep him upright. And Dex’s hand is warm and...solid. Nursey wonders suddenly what it would be like a little further down his arm. Like. Maybe his hand. Just for an example.
Before he can explore the thought further, they arrive at the Haus, which, if Nursey had given their destination any thought, would have been in his top five guesses. They do not, however, go in. Instead Nursey finds himself being bullied into Dex’s death trap of a rusted out pick-up and then driven even further away from campus.
“Am I being kidnapped?” he eventually asks.
“Obviously,” Dex replies with a sharp grin.
They park in what Nursey considers the fanciest part of tiny downtown Samwell, just down the street from the restaurant his moms always take him to when they visit. Dex parallel parks the truck, and Nursey has absolutely no feelings about how deftly he manages it.
Next thing Nursey knows, he’s being shepherded down the sidewalk, which is much worse than being frog-marched, because he left his backpack in the car and Dex’s hand keeps brushing his back and he’s going to explode, he is, into a million pieces, but then at least he’ll be dead and it won’t matter that he couldn’t finish his draft and flunked out of college.
“Hmm guess we’re a little early,” Dex voice interrupts Nursey’s internal meltdown. When Nursey looks up, he finds himself standing in front of the small local art gallery Lardo had had some pieces in after she graduated. A sign on the door notes they don’t open until 10. Before he can ask what time it is, though, a dark-haired, heavily tattooed woman glides up from a backroom, unlocks the door, and flips a small sign to “Open.”
She pushes open the door. “Coming in?”
“Thanks,” Dex says, and that’s his hand on Nursey’s lower back propelling him through the door.
Once they’re a sufficient ways away from the door, Dex removes his hand—and Nursey, for the record, does not make a single noise at the loss of it—and turns to face Nursey. “Alright, want to tell me about art, Nurse?”
“What?”
“You know, art,” Dex gestures at the pieces on the walls around them, “Want to look at it and tell me what you think?”
Dex’s ears have gone red, a sure sign of embarrassment, but Nursey has no idea what for. He has, in fact, no idea what’s going on.
“I don’t know anything about art,” he hisses, after glancing to make sure the woman who let them in isn’t anywhere near them.
Dex snorts at that.
“Poetry, Dex, I deal in poetry, not...not paintings. Please tell me you know those are different.”
“Oh I am vividly aware. And I am also aware you’ve told me at least a dozen stories about going to art museums with your moms in New York, so,” he gestures around them again.
Nursey gapes at him.
“We don’t have to talk about them,” Dex finally offers in the face of Nursey’s silence, the blush now spreading from his ears to his cheeks, “You can just—I dunno, go look at them. I can go wait by the door.”
Nursey’s had dreams like this, where he’s trying to shout, but can’t make a noise; trying to run, but can’t move his legs. It’s just...he hadn’t realized.
“Fuck, this was a stupid idea,” Dex finally mutters, turning away.
“Wait,” Nursey finally manages, reaching out and snagging the end of Dex’s sleeve.
Dex glances down at where Nursey’s fingers are now almost brushing against his own hand and then back up at Nursey.
“I didn’t realize...you were listening.” Freshman year had been the worst of Nursey’s homesickness. Ransom and Holster had always made Nursey and Dex sit together on roadies for bonding or something. It hadn’t been so bad because Dex always fell asleep within minutes, and it was the only time off the ice they didn’t yell at each other. So Nursey had just...blathered on about home while Dex slept, usually with his head on Nursey’s shoulder. Or...perhaps not slept, as the case may be.
“You’re very hard to ignore,” Dex says dryly.
“But you remembered.”
Dex glances down at their hands again and then back up.
“’Course I did,” he says roughly. “I always remember what you tell me.”
And oh, Nursey thinks. So, so carefully, he lets his fingers slide from Dex’s sleeve down Dex’s hand, until they’re palm to palm. Dex’s fingers part to allow space for Nursey’s to interlock his. Then he pulls Dex over to the nearest piece of art.
“I really like the colors of this one,” Nursey says softly after a moment, still holding Dex’s hand. “And the ways it shifts from real moss to yarn.”
“Yeah?” Dex says, and squeezes his hand. “Tell me more.”