#where all th FUCKING school banners come up behind each of the players

[revasserium]

just: cry fly

[likeshipsonthesea]

An Always to Rely On

Nursey Week Day Two: Simplicity

*

         When Nursey knocks, it isn’t Shitty that answers the door. It’s a young blond guy who’s taller than Nursey. He grins, but his eyebrow quirks up, confused. It’s evident than not many people knock on the door of this hockey frat house at seven o’clock on a Thursday.

         “Sup, man?” the guy says, seemingly friendly.

         “Uh, is Shitty here?” This is stupid, so stupid. Who knows if Shitty is even home? Even if he is, why would he bother to entertain Nursey?

         “Yeah, he’s up in his room.” He starts to move aside to let Nursey in, but then pauses. “Uh, how do you know him?”

          A part of Nursey almost wants to laugh at that. How does he know Shitty Knight? He knows him loud and brash, without a filter to hear of and a tendency to take off his clothes at inopportune moments. He knows Shitty soft and quiet, half-high but mostly just emotional, in the dark of midnight when everything seems far away but heavy at the same time. He knows Shitty like a lifeline, like a lighthouse in a dense fog, like the one good thing out of all the rest.

         “We went to Andover together,” Nursey says. Then, when the guy seems less likely to let him in at this statement, he adds, “We’re friends.”  Are we still? Nursey wonders, agonizes over, hopes.

         “Oh, uh, cool. Up the stairs, first hallway on the left, first door on the right.” He moves aside, letting Nursey in. “I’d knock first; he might be naked.”

         “Yeah,” Nursey says. “Thank you.” He heads inside, following the man’s directions and trying to ignore the group of guys sitting on the couch. Too much, too intimidating at this moment. He finds the mentioned door and hopes that it’s Shitty’s and not some random guy’s. He knocks.

         “Come in, brah!” Shitty’s voice calls back. Nursey sighs a breath of relief and pushes it open. Shitty is lying on a bed, boxers and socks the only clothing in sight, and when he looks up to see Nursey he grins so widely that Nursey feels the air in the room making space for it. “Nursey! My main brah. Come ‘ere!” He stands, pushing his laptop off of his lap, and grabs Nursey in a tight, wonderful hug.

         “Hey Shits,” Nursey whispers into Shitty’s shoulder, closing his eyes and just relishing in the warmth.

         “You fucker.” Shitty pulls back, still beaming. “You didn’t tell me you were visiting.”

         “It was a last minute kind of thing.” Nursey shrugs. He’s always considered himself to be good at hiding his emotions, but Shitty narrows his eyes at whatever he sees on Nursey’s face. Nursey doesn’t know if it’s because he’s shit at concealing anything or just shit at lying to Shitty.

         For a moment, Nursey is terrified that Shitty is going to ask about it, the reason why he’s here. He doesn’t know how to verbalize it yet. He doesn’t know what he’ll do if Shitty asks. But Shitty, because he’s Shitty, doesn’t ask. The suspicious expression on his face disappears after a moment and he grins again.

         “It’s great to see you, man. We haven’t talked since, what, July?” Shitty scrunches up his face. “Shit, that long?”

         “Hans’ Fourth party,” Nursey says. “Well, his dads’ party.” The Fourth of July party hosted by The Hans Casterman was the event of the summer, and Nursey, as a teammate of Hans’ son, Hans Jr., was one of the lucky few who got an invitation. As did his parents and Shitty and his parents. Before the fireworks started, all the kids grabbed some liquor more expensive than any liquor needs to be and went to the roof. There they played a mix between Spin the Bottle and Truth or Dare that ended with another one of Nursey’s teammates- Jonesy- stripping angrily in an attempt to prove his dick wasn’t the tiniest on the team.

         Shitty laughs, probably at the memory, and shakes his head. “As much of a crapbag that kid is, he throws good parties.” Nursey nods, eyes going down at that. Hans, at the first July 4th party of his that Nursey went to, asked Nursey if he “even celebrated the Fourth of July” because he was “like, foreign”. “C’mon dude, let’s play Screw.”

         Nursey manages to grin at that. Not even the worst of days can stand up to a good game of Egyptian Rat Screw.

         “I brought some of Jiggy’s stash if you wanna make it more interesting,” Nursey suggests as they sit down on Shitty’s floor. Not that he feels like getting high at the moment, but he figures that Shitty might enjoy it more. He has no reason to be entertaining some high school kid now that he’s at college.

         Shitty waves him off, rummaging through his bedside table drawer. “Nah, we don’t need that.” He pulls out an old looking deck of cards and turns back to Nursey. He smiles. “Let’s keep it simple.”

         Simple, Nursey thinks as he watches Shitty shuffle. Oh how I long for simplicity.

         When Shitty’s finished shuffling, he splits the deck and hands half of it to Nursey. Shitty starts, flipping over a fairly useless four, and off they go.

         “How is Jiggy, by the way?” Shitty asks, then curses as Nursey flips over a Jack. Shitty returns with a seven and grumbles as Nursey takes the pile.

         “Good. Market’s getting bigger. He’s got half the school buying from him and I’m pretty sure he’s giving some to Harrison as security.” Shitty slaps a sandwich and takes the pile, but there were no face cards in it, so Nursey doesn’t mind.

         “Totally. I saw Harry and Camilleri smoking up behind the gym my junior year.” Shitty curses loudly and colorfully as Nursey slaps a pair of kings. Nursey smiles at the creativity of the expletives. “How’s my love?”

         Nursey snorts, flipping over an ace. “Actually he seems kind of bored since your stunt in February.” Last February, when Shitty came back to Andover to visit for Nursey’s birthday, he snuck into Headmaster McGuire’s office and stole all of his underwear. Then he strung them up in the main hall like a banner, the tightie-whities being the centerpiece. The vein in McGuire’s forehead nearly popped when he saw them.

         “Ah, I’ll have to come back to visit.” On Shitty’s fourth card, he puts down a queen and sighs a breath of relief. Nursey gives back a six and a nine, so Shitty takes the pile.

         “You should,” Nursey says, and tries not to make it seem like he’s desperate. Needy people don’t keep friends well, he’s learned.

         “I will,” Shitty says, pausing in putting down another card to look Nursey in the eye. “I promise.”

         There’s a conflict in Nursey’s body when he hears that word. Promise. Broken comes to mind first, if it was a word association game, but it’s not. Promises were maybes, when he was younger. If his parents had promised to come home early, it would be a toss-up if they’d walk through the door before nine, claiming that nine was early in Beijing, where they were doing business. Promises turned Nursey into the master of words he is today- he learned, through trial and error, that to get them home on time he had to make them promise to be home before seven New York time. But by the time he had learned this, they stopped promising so easily.

         When he got to Andover, he met Shitty. Shitty, whose father had connections, whose grandmother was on the committee for every major association ever, whose grandfather probably owned his own country. His mother, well, she was an anomaly, but knew how to conduct herself in society anyway, and was very well read and a, um, writer. At least, this was what Nursey’s parents told him when he brought up Shitty being one of his new friends at school.

         Shitty was nothing like Nursey expected him to be. He yelled at one of the other freshmen players at the first practice for saying something homophobic. At the first party, he went around to the new recruits and made sure they weren’t drinking too much. After a couple kids in the grade above his started making comments about Nursey being an “affirmative action” kid, Shitty punched one in the face even though Shitty has about zero knowledge on how to fight. When he turned back to Nursey, mouth bloody from the responsive hit, he grinned.

         “Why’d you do that?” Nursey had asked, still afraid that one of the douchebag’s friends would take a swing at him, next.

         “I’ve got your back, man. Promise.” It was one of those moments, the kind a literary kid dreamed of. The moment when a word and a definition finally made sense. When you understood it well enough to use it yourself. Every time Nursey made a promise, he would remember to be as stubbornly present and honest as Shitty was. He would remember the feeling of safety, like a blanket locked around his shoulders, like an always. And it is an always. Sitting here, now, on Shitty’s floor playing Egyptian Rat Screw, is proof of that.

         “Thank you,” Nursey says after a long pause. Shitty flips over his card, then Nursey does his, and on they go.

         It goes on endlessly, as Egyptian Rat Screw usually does. Nursey forgets about the time, the reason he came here, everything. Shitty keeps asking about the old crew even though they go through the ones he actually likes within the first half hour. He tells Nursey about Samwell, how awesome everyone here is. Talks about these two freshmen d-men who are basically soulmates, finishing each other’s sentences and shit like that. Mentions a guy named Johnson who lives across the hall and talks about “how weird it is to be in an outside narrative that could possibly be canon but isn’t really” all the damn time. Raves about his captain, Jack Zimmermann, and how fucking great of a guy he is. His voice gets softer, sweeter, when he speaks about his new manager, Lardo.

         There’s a knock at the door, but not the one Nursey came in through.

         “Come in!” Shitty calls. The door to the bathroom pops open and actual Jack Zimmermann pokes his head in.

         “It’s late, Shits, you should-” Jack cuts himself off when he sees Nursey. “Oh, hi. I’m Jack.”

         “Nursey,” Nursey says. “Uh. Hi.”

         “It’s getting late,” Jack says, looking back at Shitty for a moment. “You two should get to sleep. We have practice in the morning.” He nods at Nursey, once, and then disappears behind the door.

         “Oh, wow, it is late.” Nursey looks at the clock. 2:05. “Count your cards, then we’ll hit the sack.” Nursey has twenty-seven. Shitty has twenty-five. He laments his loss as he tosses a pair of sweatpants to Nursey, then gets in his bed. It’s not huge, but it fits the two of them well enough. Shitty turns off the light and they both stare up at Shitty’s ceiling, silent.

         “Did you hear about Jamie?” Nursey says quietly, half-hoping that Shitty didn’t hear him.

         “Chatty? No. What happened?”

         “Got disowned.” Shitty sucks in a quick breath, but even the shortness of it can’t hide its shakiness.

         James Chadwick was a sweet blond boy with a laugh that scrunched up his eyes. He laughed so much that it took a month for Nursey to figure out his eye color. He’s two years older than Nursey, left Andover for college in August. He’s always wanted to be an artist. He’s good at it, too. Damn good. He’s selling pieces already at eighteen, though he’s not well known. His parents- mother the CEO of a major publishing house and his father an executive at a company that sells soaps- always wanted him to go into business, like them.

         Two days ago, Nursey’s mom mentioned offhand that the Chadwicks had disowned that creative son of theirs. She had said creative like it was a dirty word. He called Jamie up and asked about it. It was true; he had told them that he was quitting college and moving to California because there was an opening at a low-level comic company that was willing to hire him as an artist. It wasn’t what he was aiming for, but it was a start, and college wouldn’t help him in his ambitions, he had decided. His parents hadn’t taken it well.

         When Nursey said he was sorry that it had happened, Jamie had laughed bitterly and said, “It was worth it for the looks on their faces when I told them I was gay.” Jamie had also been Nursey’s first boyfriend. But that wasn’t what had made Nursey take a car all the way to Samwell. Jamie may not need money for a college degree, but Nursey knew that he would.

         “They found out he was gay?” Shitty asks, because he doesn’t think about the creative thing. His mother is a writer; anything he wants to do will be accepted.

         “No. That he was an artist.” Nursey almost laughs at how stupid it sounds. He almost cries at how familiar it feels. He does neither. It hurts, still.

         Shitty doesn’t say anything for a while. It gives Nursey space to think about his own situation. He wonders if his parents would even care enough to disown him. As long as he didn’t make them look bad, he’s sure he could do whatever he wanted. They could lie to their friends and say he was going into business, or law maybe.

         But maybe they would care. Maybe they’d yell, maybe they’d react. There is a small part of Nursey that wants that. Wants a reaction. Wants emotion. Wants something. But he’s never liked being yelled at, so he doubts he’d actually enjoy that kind of moment. He just- he doesn’t know what would happen. What will happen. None of it is simple, the situation, being his parents’ child. He wishes it was so hard that he feels the strength of it in his chest.

         “If they disown you, I’ll pay for your college,” Shitty says eventually.

         “Shitty-”

         “No, I’m serious.” Shitty sits up, pulling the blanket with him. Nursey sits up, too, and pulls his knees into his chest, staring at Shitty from over the tops of them. “My mom loves you, she could totally convince my dad to pay for it. And-and even if she can’t, I’ll do it myself. I’ll be a kickass lawyer. I’ll make bank. It’s that simple, I’ll do it, I promise.”

         And there it is. The stubbornness of a promising Shitty Knight has never been a maybe in Nursey’s life. It’s cemented now, Nursey can feel it. Despite the improbability, despite everything that could go wrong, he knows it will work. Because Shitty promised. Because it’s that simple.