Chapter Text
Will had figured out fairly early on that Nursey was messing with Chowder. It was slowly becoming their favorite game — to chirp their best friend who got worked up but still knew they liked him, while staying away from arguments with each other. Chowder didn’t seem like the sort of person who would hide his birthday for any reason other than to stop people making a fuss, so they figured that they could tease him about it without it causing any harm, and his reaction, though typically exaggerated, confirmed their suspicions. When Bitty found out anyway, though, more by their being too loud than anything else, Will suddenly doubted himself. He didn’t know everything about his new best friend and what if there was a reason that he had kept today a secret? What if their ability to turn the simplest of things into a competition and a fight had actually upset him? Will found himself struggling for breath as all the reasons he hated his own birthday flashed through his mind. So, he did the only thing that he could think of to keep his attention off his heart rate: he blamed Nursey.
“What the fuck. Chill, Poindexter, it's not—”
“He didn't say for a reason and you forced it. Birthdays can be sensitive for some people, you know?”
“For fuck’s sake, I know .”
“Oh, Chowder, honey did you not—” Bitty cut in.
“I just didn't want anyone to make a fuss. I do like my birthday.”
Will wanted to relax, but now that the doubts were swarming around his mind, he couldn’t help but worry that Chowder was just saying that, and the worst thing was that Nursey was still looking at him with that intense stare that he got sometimes when he wanted to make Will admit something. “Still your fault,” Will muttered in response to the stare.
“Lay off it. I wasn't even actually going to say anything. I'm not kidding when I say I know birthdays can be a sensitive thing.” When Will snorted, Nursey snapped. “Go on, then. What's your issue with birthdays? My parents have literally given each other presents on my birthday before and forgotten me. So don't try and preach to me about how they can be 'sensitive for some people'.”
His breath caught. It was the worst question to be asked for him anyway, but how could he reply when it would only look like he was trying to one-up Nursey? Not to mention that it was something he never talked about, and he definitely didn’t want to start here, with an audience no less. “I don't— Fuck you,” he stormed out, letting the door slam behind him.
Nursey’s words echoed in his mind as he walked down the road. Could it be true that the boy he had considered a spoiled brat, had actually been forgotten by his own parents on his birthday?
“Dex!”
It was Nursey’s voice, and Will scowled because this was the last thing he wanted to deal with when he had the alternative option of curling up in bed and crying because he missed his twin sister.
“Will, wait up. Please. I was just saying—”
Will snapped. “You were just saying what? That your parents don’t always buy you everything? Well at least you have fucking parents, Nurse, okay? You didn’t spend your twelfth birthday thinking about their funeral. You haven't spent every year since reliving their death. ”
Will closed his eyes as soon as he had said it so that he didn’t have to look at Nursey’s reaction, or see that pitying look he knew all too well. He heard the scrape of pavement as if Nursey had started to trip, but the thud of him hitting the ground never came.
“Will.” Nursey’s voice was close. “Will, look at me, please.”
Will squeezed his eyes tighter and shook his head. Warm fingers brushed against his cheekbone, and then he was pulled into a hug where he ended up crying into Nursey’s shoulder.
“I’m so sorry,” Nursey murmured.
Will hiccupped. “Me too.”
“Can we — Will, we really need to talk about this. Not about your parents, if you don’t want to, but about us fighting like that when C—”
“Yeah.” Will pulled away. He felt sick to the stomach. “Yeah, let’s go home and talk.”
It had now been almost two months since they had shared a bed, despite having vaguely talked about a potential friends with benefits situation, but they now both curled up on Nursey’s bed, close enough that they didn’t have to watch the other’s expression when dealing with the difficult conversation.
“If we’re going to keep fucking, we have to sort our shit out in private and talk about things before we end up yelling at each other,” Nursey said into Will’s hair. “You’re the one who said that when we first started.”
It was a funny thing to say when they still hadn’t had sex since that first time; still not done more than occasional kissing after a fight or a kegster since that conversation. Will knew what Nursey meant, though. “I’m sorry. I think one minute we were just messing about and the next I was thinking about— Did Bitty come and talk to you earlier?”
“This afternoon? Yeah.”
“You think I’m privileged. You’re always going on about it around other people in the team, but—” He screwed his eyes up as tears threatened once more.
“But at least I have parents,” Nursey finished, with a bitter tone.
“Yeah. And you have money, too. And yet you still applied for the scholarship.”
“Shit.” Nursey leaned his chin on the top of Will’s head. “That was— Look, I know you see me as privileged and entitled, but you’re probably the first person I’ve ever spent a lot of time with who thought that. I grew up around people who were more privileged and more entitled and if not richer, at least in the same class, except that they were usually white. I heard you bring up the scholarship and I thought here we go, here’s another white kid who thinks he’s entitled to the world, and I got angry, because I’ve spent my whole life with people assuming all sorts of things about me and then taking opportunities like that away from me because of those bullshit assumptions. I— I’m sorry. It wasn’t fair to make you feel like you might lose out on the scholarship just because of a rich kid trying to prove a point, but yes you're privileged. And the fact that I'm rich is not the same as you being white. It just isn't. They're not things we can compare. It's not like I get so many privilege points for my parents' incomes, and you get some for the color of your skin and being Christian, and then I get a few more for going to a private school. That's not how it fucking works.”
Will nuzzled closer to Nursey's collarbone. “Sorry,” he croaked.
“You have a lot of privileges, which I don’t know if you always realize,” Nursey continued. Will bit on his lip to stop himself from replying too soon. “I thought you were starting to try but then you go and put a Republican sticker on your laptop and I don’t know what to think of that.”
“I did that because my foster family rang.”
“What?”
“My foster family. When I said I was going to Samwell, it was only ever because of the scholarship, but they still made sure I knew that they didn’t really approve. But that they’d still let me go back there at Christmas, and next summer and see my siblings, because they knew it wasn’t like I was one of— one of ‘those gays’ or anything.”
Nursey sucked in a breath. “That’s why you won’t come out? Because of some asshole—”
“Because my sisters need me. I mean… they're not really my sisters, just foster siblings but I always considered them more than that. I was even there when Chloë was born. But sometimes I worry. At any time, they could stop letting me go back. It’s not like they signed any contract or anything to still have me around after I turned eighteen.”
“So the sticker—” Nursey trailed off, waiting for an explanation.
“I thought if I can go back over break and show them that I got involved in Samwell Republicans, it would be okay. I’m not political. I’ve never had time to even think about it. I guess, yeah, I’m a Republican because that’s what I grew up with the most, and as far as the Buchard family are concerned that’s what they have to think I am. They don’t need to know that I just stole the sticker and that I’m really fucking gay. Of course it makes them assholes that they’d care, but—”
“Okay. I get it. It doesn’t— I’m— I’ll lay off about the whole coming out thing, at least?”
Will let out a sigh, and sat up so that he could look Nursey in the eyes. He had ended up so far down the bed that he had to turn around completely to be able to look at him. “Thank-you. I will try more to understand with the whole privilege thing. And I guess we all have our family issues.”
Nursey sighed. “I don’t have family issues. Not really. Not— But privilege— yeah, if you can understand that. Not just relying on me and Ransom to inform you on issues, or thinking you can get away with ignorance. It’s kind of a privilege you can be unpolitical in the first place.”
Will bit his lip. He hadn’t considered it like that before. “Right. So I’ll read more about it, and educate myself on all the civil rights stuff. And I’m sorry you got treated like that, and that I brought those memories back. That I contributed to that. That I still am. You— You deserve to be appreciated.”
The silence that followed dragged on for so long that Will had to put a hand on Nursey's cheek and turn his head to check if he was crying. He wasn’t, but when their eyes crossed, he offered up a strained smile. “Thanks.”
“Yeah. We, uh, we should go and apologize to Chowder?”
“Mm. Hey, one other thing first? Putting all the blame on me for fights? I know it's self-defense or whatever, but—” He shrugged, and never finished his sentence.
Will shifted uncomfortably. “Yeah. I’m sorry. I don’t know— No, that's a lie, I do know why I did that, but it was shitty and unnecessary. I won’t again, I promise.”
“Thanks. What should we do for Chowder’s birthday?”
“That’s today.”
“And Target should still be open if we take my car.”
Will jumped up suddenly. “Oh my God, they had shark-themed dinnerware last time I was in.”
“Perfect. We could do an aquarium trip, too? I think he’d appreciate it if he thought we were trying to be friends.”
Will pulled a face. “How much does that cost?”
“Okay, so the aquarium trip is my present to Chowder, and I’m paying for us to go and be good friends there, as well. You can buy the shark things.”
“Derek—”
“Will.”
“ Fine. ”
Nursey smiled smugly. “Good. Now how about I go and pick them up, and you can go to the Haus first. We should probably apologize separately, and no offence but you are the one who left all angrily so you should probably clear the air first.”