“No,” Dex mutters, and burrows deeper into his pillow.
Nursey shakes his shoulder again. “Get up.”
“M’sleeping,” Dex mutters smearily. “Is the Haus on fire? Is someone bleeding out? Then leave me alone!”
It’s an impressively complex set of sentences for someone who is still asleep. Nursey chews his lower lip. “Well, actually.”
Dex sits up. “What? Where’s the fire?” He’s completely awake and down the ladder in an instant.
Nursey steps back. “What the fuck, dude.” Seriously. Dex was literally just dead to the world.
“Yeah?” Dex says. His voice is still rusty with sleep.
“Okay,” Nursey says. The fact that Dex can transition instantly to wakefulness is Useful Information, but it’s distracting him from his mission right now. “Tango says the stove isn’t turning on.”
Dex groans. “You woke me up for that?”
“Um,” Nursey says. “Well, actually, it was the furnace.”
“Oh my god,” Dex says, and scrubs his fists across his eyes. “You’re being weird. Why are you being weird?” He pulls on a pair of gray sweatpants, slides his feet into slippers (Dex wears slippers, like the old man he not-so-secretly is) and heads for the door.
“Aren’t you going to put on a shirt?” Nursey’s overtaxed pansexual heart cannot handle this.
Dex rolls his eyes. “No, I’m going to see the extent of the damage, and then if I need a shirt, you can get me one. Since you woke me up.”
“Okay, wow,” Nursey says, “Rude,” but he follows Dex out of the room and down the stairs.
The kitchen is clear and quiet. Dex goes straight to the stove and twists one of the burners. The gas comes on with a ‘pop.’ “Okay,” Dex says. “Not that one.”
Nursey makes a frantic hand signal.
Most of the SMH comes crashing in from the living room. “SURPRISE!”
Tango’s holding a coffee cake studded with candles.
Dex turns around, forgetting to shut off the burner. “What?”
Nursey grins. “Happy birthday!”
“Oh,” Dex says, and turns off the burner.
Tango sets with flaming cake down on the table. Chowder puts down a platter of eggs and bacon and beams.
“Wow,” Dex says. He’s clearly at a loss for words.
Nursey steps closer to him. Under the cover of giving him a bro hug, he says in Dex’s ear, “Is this okay?”
Dex shivers. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I’m just...surprised.” He steps back. “Wow,” he says. “Thanks guys!”
Chowder grins. Whiskey begins setting up plates, and takes a platter of pancakes out of the oven.
Nursey nudges Dex. “Go on,” he says. “Get food!”
Dex takes a plate. “Thanks everyone. You made all this?”
Chowder is still smiling. “Most of it,” he says. “Bitty made the coffee cake--it’s been in the downstairs freezer behind the Coors. He says happy birthday, by the way.”
“Aww,” Dex says. His cheeks are pink. “You all didn’t have to--”
Chowder elbows him. “Don’t be silly,” he says.
“Okay,” Dex says. “Thank you.” The way he says it, all quiet and sincere, that makes Nursey’s heart skip a beat in his chest.
