The minute they walked into the loft, he'd started drinking. All anyone else could think about was getting out of their two-day-old, scratchy, sandy, stinky clothes, and on the walk home from the bus stop it had been decided that drawing numbers out of a hat was the only fair way to decide what order they were claiming the shower in.
So the second the apartment door opened, Jess had immediately run to her room to fetch one of her silly hats, and Winston had set to work writing everyone's names down on little slips of paper, while Schmidt and Cece just bickered in the background over whether or not double-showers should be permissible, if two names were accidentally drawn from the hat at the same time.
But Nick had walked in and headed straight to the fridge.
When the shower lotto was underway, he walked up behind them to check on their progress, taking a big swig from his bottle and resting a heavy arm across Jess's back.
She turned, surprised, and immediately erupted, "NICK!"
"What?!"
"You're not supposed to be drinking while you're on pain killers, man," Winston chided in weary annoyance, trying unsuccessfully to take the bottle away from him.
"What's everyone's damage?! No one objected to this last night!"
"Last night you were dying of cancer," Cece pointed out dryly. "At the time it seemed a little redundant to point out that mixing meds and alcohol wasn't good for you."
"Well in case no one's noticed," Nick asserted with dramatic sarcasm, "I've had a really bad 24 hours or so. So if I want to drink all afternoon long, I think I've earned that."
And that's exactly what he did.
His friends showered.
He drank.
His friends ate a quick snack.
He drank.
His friends napped.
He drank.
His friends got up and began resuming life as usual.
He drank.
Which, of course, it could be argued, was his "life as usual". But it had to be admitted that the pills were putting their own "fun" spin on things, and before the night was over, he was saying stuff like:
"Jess, do you think I have a chance with Sadie?"
"SADIE?!"
"Yeah, I mean, I know she plays for the other team and everything. But she did once date a woman who looked like me, right? So I'm halfway there."
"Let me get this straight," Jess said sarcastically, "You're attracted to Sadie."
"Well she was so gentle...and kind...and smart. She gave me these pills, and they make me feel really, really, good. That has to be love, right? I mean, I can't stop thinking about the way she was holding my hand in the waiting room. I'm serious, I think she's in love with me."
"Uh...Nick...that was me holding your hand when the pain got really bad in the waiting room."
"You, Jess?"
"Yes, Nick."
"Ooooh." He paused to think for a second. "Are you in love with me, Jess?"
"NO, Nick," she snapped irritably.
"Oh. Okay, well you don't have to sound so annoyed about it! But that's good. That's really good. Because I think I'm holding out for Sadie."
Schmidt and Cece had been arguing about what to cook for dinner, and how to cook it, and they'd finally taken their fight out the door to continue it at the grocery store.
Jess had never noticed Cece being quite as interested in cooking as she'd been since meeting Schmidt, but she was glad that her model friend seemed to be developing a hobby that did not involve boys with face tattoos, so she didn't say much about it.
They'd been gone for quite awhile, and it was just Nick and Winston and Jess left at the loft. Nick and Winston had been watching a "Ridiculousness" marathon, but out of deference to Jess's extreme distaste for that show, they'd kept it near-muted. If they found that it really was infinitely more watchable that way, they certainly wouldn't ever have admitted it to Jess.
And as for her, she'd been aimlessly wandering in and out of the living room all afternoon, hovering just at the edge of Nick's consciousness, not ever really connecting with him, but not ever really going away. Not ever really saying anything, but with a silence so loud that it was speaking volumes. Always listening, without ever seeming to really care about anything he was saying. Always watching him, but never seeming pleased with what she saw.
And as the hours had passed, she had just seemed to grow more and more restless and frustrated. At the time of the Sadie exchange she was stretched out on the end of the couch, pretending to read a magazine, but really just flipping through the pages with audible irritation. You could all but hear her ticking like a flannel-clad time bomb.
So it was almost a relief for them all when Jess finally, crossly, ended this particular inane conversation by bitching, "You know Nick, if you're going to sit here and drink all day long, the least you can do is throw away your bottles."
Nick surveyed the excessive litter on the table top and mumbled, "Geez Mom, fine, but I don't notice you and Winston getting up to throw away any of yours."
"UH," Winston piped up, "That would be because NONE of those are ours."
"Really?" Nick blinked his eyes a few times at the number of discarded bottles and reflected that it really did seem rather exorbitant for just one person, in just a matter of hours. He raised his eyebrows and pulled a face, dubiously impressed with himself. "Wow."
So he gathered them up, and took advantage of his trip (or two) to the recycling bin to grab a fresh replacement from the refrigerator. But when he returned to the couch Jess pulled her legs out of his way in such a testy fashion that he finally found enough give-a-damn in the fuzzy mental state he was in to ask, "Something wrong, Jess?"
"Nothing," she shrugged benignly, and it was enough like her studiedly detached answer earlier that morning to almost sound like a deliberate parody, making him frown.
"Really?" he blurred, "Because I know I'm drunk, but I've spent enough time with the ladies to know..." he swayed a little on his feet as he pointed at her, "...you've got something you'd like to say!"
"Well now that you mention it, Nick..." she began, throwing her magazine down on the table, her voice already seeping with annoyance.
"JESS!" Winston shook his head at her, trying to stop her.
"WHAT, Winston?!"
"Not right now, Jess," he warned quietly. "What good will it do?"
"I don't know Winston," she answered with exasperation. "None, I guess. Because even if it does do any good, it's not like he's going to remember it tomorrow, right? But when else are we ever going to have this conversation? Because goodness knows, he doesn't ever want to talk about anything when he's SOBER!"
"HEY," Nick finally slurred, "Why don't I know what you guys are talking about? Because I get the strong impression that it has something to do with me."
"Jess is just saying you drink too much, Nick," Winston said quickly, trying to head the entire conversation off at the pass. He wasn't sure where it was going, but he was quite sure that it would end up nowhere good.
"OHHhhhh...the old, 'Nick, I don't like how much you drink' talk." He threw himself down into 'his spot' on the couch, and gestured with his bottle, "Well you know what Jess? Maybe there's stuff about you that I don't like either!"
"Here we go," Winston gritted, conceding that he wasn't going to be able to stop the runaway train.
"Oh yeah?" Jess was asking. "Like what? I'd like to know, Nick! Let's do this! Let's be real with each other! It will be nice, for a change!"
"OK! Fine! How 'bout we start with the WIG I had to pull out of the shower drain the other day! I'm surprised you have any hair left on your head! Do you think we had to deal with stuff like that when it was just us guys?!"
"OH, so you HAVE noticed there's a lady living here now?! I wouldn't have known, the way you're still always walking around in your UNDERWEAR!"
"How could I fail to notice, Jess, when having you around is like wearing a chastity belt 24/7?! Could you BE a bigger cock-blocker?!"
"Nick, if you're talking about all the times that I've saved you from drunken hook-ups with bar-crawlers who were probably walking petri dishes full of diseases, I'll plead guilty to that one! But HELLO, like you're any better!"
"What do you mean?!"
"Does the name PAUL ring any bells with you?!"
"Oh please, you and Paul's cock spent PLENTY of time together! Besides, you were the one who broke up with him because you didn't love him!"
"Yeah, well maybe I could have loved him if you weren't always curling up your nose like he had dog poop on the bottom of his shoes, every time he was around! Paul was perfect for me, but you were always so busy acting like there was something the matter with him that I couldn't stop trying to figure out WHAT IT WAS!"
"Well...yeah...well...you know what else I hate about you?! The way you always smell like cupcakes. You could be laying in a pool of your own vomit, and you would still smell like delicious baked goods. It's not natural Jess! It creeps me out!"
"That's the best you can come up with?! Winston and I are sitting here next to a man who smells like a vagrant sleeping off a bender on Cannery Row, and you want to complain about me smelling like cupcakes?!"
"Not profound enough for you, huh?! Okay, then how about this! You're always telling me to talk about how I feel...to get my feelings out. Well you wanna know how I feel, Jess?"
"More than anything, Nick," she encouraged sarcastically.
"I think letting you move in is the stupidest thing Schmidt's ever done...and we all know Schmidt's done a lot of stupid things in his time."
A horrible silence followed.
An absolutely stricken look fell on Jess's white face, and Winston pleaded softly, "Jess, don't listen to him, he doesn't mean it..."
But Nick was still drunk and oblivious. "The hell I don't! She's done nothing but turn our lives upside down since the day she showed up. Coach was right. A man starts going crazy in the head when he can't just come home, sit on the couch, and let his beans breathe once in awhile."
Jess finally found her voice, and although she was on the verge of tears, her tone was deadly as she continued this game that was no longer a game. "WELL HERE'S WHAT I HATE ABOUT YOU, NICK MILLER! I hate the way I tell you guys I love you ALL the time, and you can't even admit that you like having me around unless you're plastered. OH...but WAIT! There's more! The next night you get plastered again, and tell me that having me around is the worst thing ever!
"So which is it?! How am I supposed to know?! I spent my entire life doing this with my dad, and I'm TIRED of it! Believing that when he got drunk and said nice things to me, it was the real him coming out. But telling myself that when he got drunk and said mean things to me, it was just the booze talking.
"And the sad thing is: I NEVER DID FIGURE HIM OUT. To this day, drunk, sober, I don't know what his truth is. And I REFUSE, Nick Miller, to keep doing the same thing with you!"
"Well if you think I'm such a terrible person, Jessica Day, then why are you still here?!"
"That is a really good question!"
"OKAY!" Winston had finally had enough. "This is getting out of hand! Nick, you're drunk...SHUT UP! And Jess..." he paused, and continued more softly, but just as forcefully, "...there's been a lot going on, and you're tired, and emotional. So you shut up too! I'm going to do the talking for awhile.
"Nick...newsflash...YOU DRINK TOO DAMN MUCH. I worry about you, Schmidt worries about you...but you wanna know why we never say anything about it?! And why Jess DOES?! Because we gave up on you, a long time ago. But Jess still believes in you. She still believes there's hope for you. She believes it so hard that she makes me wanna believe it too, even though I've been around a lot longer than she has, and I know that you getting it under control at this point is, barring some miracle, extremely unlikely. Because you are an awesome guy with incredible potential who is completely pissing his life away, and why yes, I am saying this right now because there is no way you're going to remember it tomorrow."
Winston paused, blew out a wide-eyed breath, and turned to Jess. "You're right. It's not going to make any difference, but it felt damn good just to get that out of my system.
"Now, as for YOU..." Winston scanned her face for a few seconds, and continued more gently. "You've got to stop caring so much, Jess. You can't FIX HIM. And you can't will him into wanting to fix himself. I like you Jess. We ALL like having you around, I promise you...even if we don't act like it sometimes." He gave her a teasing smile. "Would it be nice to live someplace where a guy could air out his beans in peace at the end of the day? Sometimes. But you've become the heart and soul of this place, and it wouldn't be the same without you."
Nick mumbled something incoherent but belligerent sounding, so Winston asked, "WHAT?"
"I SAID,'Why don't you just marry her?' DAMN Winston, you always sound like you're in love with her!"
"You know what Nick," Winston erupted angrily, "if Jess was meant for me, I'd marry her in a hot minute! But she's not for me! I don't know who...I don't know where...but there is someone...someone out there...SOMEWHERE...in this BIIIIIG world..." (Winston's expansive hand gestures delineating the span of "the Whole Big Wide World" seemed curiously confined to the area that Nick was occupying on the couch) "...who she is meant for. Someone who needs her more than he needs his next breath of oxygen. Someone who will HOPEFULLY stop being an idiot some day, and wake up and smell the coffee!"
Cece and Schmidt had walked in towards the end of this conversation, and were standing in the open doorway, bags in hand, mouths agape. At the end of Winston's impassioned speech, Schmidt whispered, "Is he talking about ME?! He's not talking about me, is he?! Because I like Jess and all, but not like that!"
Cece just slammed her bags into his arms, and pushed him towards the kitchen, before stalking towards the couch, positively seething with protectiveness. "Come on Jess, let's go."
Jess was emptied, limp, and only protested weakly, "Ok...just...let me go to the bathroom and wash my face first..."
Cece started following her down the hallway, but paused until Jess was out of earshot, to turn back and hiss at Nick, "YOU! You've been a giant disappointment to me!"
"Oh, you too?!" Nick jeered. "Well guess what, you'll have to take a number and get in line behind my mother, and every woman I've ever dated, BEFORE THIS DEPARTMENT WILL BE ABLE TO PROCESS YOUR COMPLAINT!" He had to yell the last part at Cece's retreating back, as she headed towards Jess's room.
"DAMN." Nick turned towards Winston. "What happened to the love?! Last night the glowing eulogies were writing themselves. Tonight it's like an episode of 'Everyone Hates Nick'."
"Don't look at me man," Winston said with weary seriousness, "I'm tired of cleaning up your messes."
"Is this about the bottles again?" Nick frowned.
"The bottles, and all the rest of your crap," Winston sniped uncharacteristically.
Schmidt came in from the kitchen. "Cece? Where did Cece go? We were supposed to cook dinner together. DAMN YOU NICK! This is your fault somehow, isn't it?"
"Geez, I'm going to develop fake cancer again," Nick muttered to himself, "Everyone was so much nicer that way..."
But all the drama was starting to sober him up enough to realize that, once again, drinking this much had really, probably, not been a very good idea...
