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It was not much of a secret that he partied and slept around. Hell, any night he wasn't freaking out over this and that of his doctorate program he was at some club trying to release stress the only way he knew how.
Casual sex.
He had a reputation. Vince Masuka the pervert, the man whore.
The only reason they didn't call him a player was because he wasn't a complete asshole and he didn't try and trick girls into sex by promising relationships or some shit.
He had a lot of drunk sex too. A side effect of picking girls up at parties and bars.
So, in theory, waking up to find a redhead next to him in his bed should not be much of a shocker.
And in theory, it shouldn't have been so shocking to know he'd definitely had some sort of sex with a med student.
But this ginger med student happened to be male.
And in the strange phase in-between lean and muscular with a healthy helping of freckles and moles and what looked like a fucking bowl cut.
There was a naked or mostly naked guy in his bed.
And Vince was sure of this, he was wearing his glasses and that was a dude. A shirtless dude with a diagonal scar slashing down the side of his ribs closest to Vince. (He wondered how one would obtain such a scar).
He'd had a night out and there was a naked guy in his bed. (And attractive one but a dude nonetheless).
And from the snippets of memory he was getting back through his headache just from looking at the guy... yeah they'd definitely fucked.
Shit.
Vince Masuka was a ladies' man.
He swung one way.
(Apparently not, if he was to trust his memory).
And there was no scientific basis for alcohol consumption turning dudes gay. If there was... he was pretty sure a lot less guys would drink.
The med student would probably know how much bullshit the hypothesis "alcohol made me gay" was. (In that case, he probably better not say anything, he was already going to look stupid at the not used to waking up after having sex with a dude).
Vince only had a vague idea of how he knew mystery ginger boy was a med student. But he could clearly remember what his lips looked like wrapped around his cock. His brain had some mixed priorities. (Or maybe they were good priorities...)
Fuck.
Did this mean he was gay now?
No, gay guys probably didn't enjoy sleeping with women as much as he did. And it wasn't like his ginger Romeo could have turned him gay. That whole conversion thing seemed dumb and unlikely.
And the mental image of tits and a wet and willing vulva was getting his dick just as interested as the memory of Mr. Med Student's mouth.
So he wasn't gay...
But he definitely wasn't straight.
Damn. He was 25, he was too old for figuring out his sexuality. Not because he was old, because he'd been having sex for longer than he had been legal...
And if you'd fucked around as much as he had, you should probably already have figured out if you were into dudes. Though apparently fucking not.
Vince was helpfully distracted by his conflicted sexuality and thoughts of it by the person that helped cause all that confusion: the dude in his bed.
The ginger shifted a little bit and blinked awake, sitting up and frowning at what had to be unfamiliar surroundings, then at what was probably a mild hangover.
"Hey," Vince said, and immediately wanted to smack himself. There had to be better things to say to your first gay fling... or perhaps he was overthinking it.
"Hey," the guy parroted back, just as awkwardly, or maybe even more so. They sat. Vince looking at him, him looking at Vince. Damn, this was really fucking awkward. And his head still fucking hurt.
What was a guy supposed to say to a guy on the morning after? Was it different than what you said to a woman? Was he overthinking this again just becuase it was gayer than he'd ever... gayed?
"So..." Vince started, unable to stand any more of this awkward silence bullshit. If things were gonna be awkward and uncomfortable they could at least have some noise.
His... guest watched him, Vince took it as a cue to continue.
"Do you remember what we uh- what happened last night?" He asked.
The med student's face turned bright pink. Yup. He remembered.
"Have you ever... uh... before?" Some day in the future he will invent time travel to come back to this moment and hit himself in the head with a baseball bat. Vince c'mon use your fucking words, you're just asking about fucking... to a guy you know you fucked.
"Sex?" The guy frowned in a very distinctly confused way.
"With a guy," Vince clarified.
"Oh," the ginger said, with wide eyes and high brows. Illuminating fucking nothing about what the answer to his question could possibly be.
Then after an eternity that could only have been three seconds-
"No,"
"Yeah, uh me too," Vince added, trying to cut the awkward quiet out... and only succeeding in ridding of the quiet.
"Oh," the ginger said again. And Vince agreed, oh.
"Want some coffee?" He asked just as his gay fling asked-
"Do you want me to go?"
Vince blinked at him, "Eventually, but like not exactly now, I kinda wanna figure out this whole... gay thing," he could have said that better. But Vince was not known for being good with the talking thing, he was good at the pick-up lines and the drunk flirting and the casual sex, not the real talking stuff.
His med student paramour looked shocked. Huh.
"So... coffee?" He asked.
"Yes," Mr med student answered.
Vince was relieved to find he had been wearing some underwear (which was dumb becuase his dick had been in the other guy’s mouth so it shouldn't have been a big deal for the other guy to see it). (He should probably figure out the guy's name... most people generally liked if you remembered their name after you fucked them).
He was also relieved to see two used condoms in the trash. Thank fuck. He was pretty sure even at his drunkest he would remember condoms but until he had proof there was always the wriggling anxiety of diseases and germs...
His blessed coffee drip was working (it was a testy machine on the best of days) and soon Vince had two mugs of black coffee and a mostly clothed man sitting at his tiny dinner table.
Vince handed him a mug. He took one sip of black coffee and winced, his nose scrunching up with distaste, and Vince was getting ready to throw him out. Gay confusion or not, he was not about to associate himself with a coffee hater. (And no, it wasn't just his stupid hangover headache making him confrontational).
"Do you have any sugar?" The crazy coffee-hating med student asked. Oh. Sugar. Right. The thing that most people put in their coffee because it was bitter.
"I've got chocolate syrup," Vince waited for the stupid questions of why he didn't have real sugar (you'd think a guy with such a sweet tooth would always have some on hand, but you'd be wrong).
The not a coffee hater tilted his head with a blank and curious look, "I like chocolate," he muttered with an even blanker look. Vince was starting to wonder if he was actually awake yet. And how much his hangover was affecting his ability to think.
"You want it in the coffee?" Vince asked to make sure that this was what his guest wanted.
"Yes, like a mocha... without the milk," the ginger said with a thoughtfully blank frown.
Vince blinked, "Yeah, sure," he didn't know what to do with the information that Mr ginger med student who definitely works out liked mocha lattes. He fetched the store-brand chocolate syrup.
His guest was much more enthusiastic about the coffee now that he had some form of sugar in it. And while Vince had a huge sweet tooth, putting sugar in coffee had never appealed to him. He'd rather eat something sugary with his coffee. Like a donut or coffee cake.
"Did you know mocha is actually the name of a particular type of coffee that could only be traded from Yemeni ports?" He asked, to break the silence, "They had a smoother chocolaty kind of taste,"
His guest hummed, drinking his own faux mocha as he did. He looked interested.
"Though the mocha drink has pretty much nothing to do with the mocha coffee bean variety,"
"Huh,"
"Coffee is a bit of a hobby of mine," he said with a shrug.
"Blood is mine,"
Vince just barely avoided getting hot coffee up his nose. He put his mug down, making sure his near-boiling hot caffeinated beverage went down the correct pipe.
"What?" He asked, wondering if instead of a med student he'd taken home a serial killer.
"Blood is my hobby," the ginger said, like it was a completely normal and not at all unsettling thing to say. Vince may be getting his PhD in forensics but he could not be alone in thinking that blood was generally not a hobby.
His guest didn't seem to have noticed his discomfort.
"It's such a strange liquid, it has different consistency especially depending on the size of the blood vessel and it sets my teeth on edge but I can't ever look away, it's fascinating." The ginger continued, he really did like blood it seemed.
Oh, maybe he liked studying blood. Which was weird, but less unsettling. At this point, Vince had no right to judge as he was working now so he could be at murder scenes and all that 'nasty' gorey shit.
"I guess that makes sense, I can't really judge, both my undergrad and the doctorate I'm working on now is in forensics science,"
"Really?" the blood guy asked, actually interested. Most people were grossed out by his career plans. Though, given the guy just shared that studying blood was a hobby of his... yeah, he probably wasn't that squeamish about the stuff that forensic science entailed.
"Yeah," he nodded, "Hopefully, I can get a position here in Miami, I wouldn't want to leave," he shared.
"I think they're looking for someone at Miami Metro,"
"How do you know that?" Vince asked, feeling suspicious and once again wondering what the chances were that he brought home a serial killer as the first guy he'd had sex with.
"My parents worked there, I've got a few family friends in the building,"
"Huh," he shrugged, "What happened to the old forensic?"
"He's got stage three lung cancer, Camilla says they're moving him to the hospital for full-time care,"
"That sucks," he said, lamely. But there wasn't really a good way to respond to a near-stranger sharing about someone they knew dying of cancer.
"Yeah,"
"I'm Vince Masuka," he said, breaking the awkward silence and holding out his hand over the table with a very stupid and awkward introduction.
"Dexter Morgan," His guest said, shaking his hand with only a bit of confusion. Dexter stays until he'd finished his coffee an affair that shows off just how strange and awkward Dexter himself is.
And to think Vince had been worried, that he might be a serial killer. While it was still possible... there was no way.
Vince was also pretty sure Dexter didn't do the casual sex thing that often. (Certainly not as often as he did, but that was never a fair comparison, he was a whore).
And if Vince had thought he'd seen the last of Dexter Morgan that morning, he'd been sorely mistaken.
For one thing, he kept remembering little bits and flashes of what they'd done, that night, their gay thing. (Dexter had a little mole on one cheek, like a misplaced beauty mark). (Floppy reddish hair falling into his light brownish eyes.) (His face, blurry in the darkness just before Vince had fallen asleep).
But he also bumped into him again.
And again.
And again.
In the very short span of like two weeks. It was almost ridiculous, how he kept coincidentally bumping into the guy. Either karma had something to do with it or he had a stalker.
Mostly it happened while getting food or coffee.
Which sometimes led to them having coffee together or a quick conversation while eating. So... his first gay thing was now his friend of that circumstance.
Vince talks more with Dexter than half the friends he's had in his life.
Maybe it's 'cause Dexter is like him. Obviously not in surface-level ways. But like. He's awkward as fuck and constantly trying to fit in.
(Thankfully, it is easy to prove that Dexter has not been stalking him).
If you let him joke, his sense of humor is pretty dark, and Vince really appreciated not having to censor his own dark jokes or stuff about forensics.
Dexter's folks both worked Miami PD and were both dead from cancer or heart disease. The only family he had left was a little sister going into the police academy.
Dexter used to be a med student, top of his class, but he transferred out to study blood spatter. (He'd wanted to be a pediatrician but was convinced he didn't have the social skills to talk with parents).
Vince told him about stupid shit, like how he'd been obsessed with forensic science since he was a kid. Watching crime thrillers and live coverage of murder investigations on the news. (And Dexter used to keep a little journal covering the investigations into a local serial killer and crimes that he thought could be related).
And about the science of tattoos and how he'd gotten the huge one on his back done. (He was pleased in the curious look that Dex gave... he would enjoy showing Dex his ink).
And somehow the coffee and lunch became less like friend stuff and more like actual damn romantic feelings (as well as the background sexual ones). Dammit.
So by the time Vince got around to accepting that he felt feelings for what was once his "one-time gay thing" Dexter asked in the most awkward and backward of ways if they could go on a date. Or if they already had been on dates and if they could continue.
That was the first time Vince had both been a boyfriend and had a boyfriend. (And they were both still debating on whether the upcoming official first date was their unofficial 4th).
An actual date with the guy wasn't much different except the connotations of the word 'date had certainly made the both of them nervous and even less socially competent than usual. (It probably did not help at all that neither of them had been on a date with a guy and that Vince was usually more of a sex without feelings sort of guy). (And he was pretty sure that Dexter wasn't that great at the whole dating thing in general).
He did get to meet Dexter's sister though. She punched both of them and made a comment on how she should've seen her brother's gayness coming. (Vince couldn't really say he was that surprised that Dexter had forgotten to tell his only living family with whom he shared an apartment about that).
Vince was pretty sure she did not like him. And his sense of humor probably had a lot to do with that. (Had it been tasteless to make sex jokes?) (Especially the more gay type ones that he'd only familiarized himself with and started coming up with because of her brother).
And Vince tried his best not to let his stupid feelings take ahold of Dexter's confusion (shit, the guy liked him enough he didn't get why his sister didn't ) and run with it.
(It was too late). (Feelings were fast and sneaky bastards). (And easier to catch than a rhinovirus in winter).
Dexter was spectacularly terrible at flirting which only further doomed Vince. (He always thought bad flirting would have no effect on him... but damn, he had already caught the damn feelings, and instead, it was funny and endearing). (Worse yet, endearing had never been a word in his vocabulary before... fuck, he had it bad).
Vince sometimes felt like he was going through the motions and doing what he could to fit in or make connections. Like he was putting on an act so people would like him. Because people didn't genuinely like who he was, not who he really was. He was unsettling, a creep, gross.
And as weird it is to think it at first, he can see that in Dexter too. Dexter doesn't creep people out that often, at least not to the degree that Vince does. And Dexter certainly isn't a pervert like him. But sometimes Dex is unsettling.
The blood thing. How he talked about blood science or spatter or whatever.
It's hard to piss off Dex. He doesn't really get angry. He gets quiet and focussed.
Sometimes it seems like Dex is tuned into a different wavelength from every other person in the room. Sometimes Dex is very aware of it and trying to pretend that he gets it and knows what he's supposed to do, which only makes it more obvious that he doesn't. And sometimes he is completely unaware of it and his face is blank like plastic.
Dex is always trying to fit in, always putting on his act, his show. Just sometimes less than others.
And Vince doesn't know what he thinks about it or how he feels about it. (Other than sympathy and a sense of comradery). (Becuase maybe it means Dexter is just as lonely as Vince pretends he isn't and Dex also doesn't believe that anyone would want to be around him if he weren't pretending).
"Why don't you have any normal underwear?" Dex-bot asked in with his typical mild insult without meaning to be insulting or even registering that his words were rude but so stupidly endearingly honest way that he did. He, of course, asked this while holding up a neon leopard print thong.
"Sometimes it hard to believe you grew up here," Vince said instead of answering.
"What does that have to do with underwear?" His boyfriend (boyfriend... what a weird word) asked.
"Maimi is a party town,"
"For retirees and tourists," he should've remembered that Dex had never been a partyer and thus would probably know nothing about Miami's party and club scene.
"And enough young blood like us to keep the clubs packed,"
"Why not just have underwear for that occasion... what if you-"
"You never know when you're gonna need to strip, and I for one will not be caught in the same tighty-whities pre-teens wear,"
"You need to wear thongs every day because sex could happen?" Dexter asked slowly with no hint of actually understanding the concept. Dex was usually clueless and awkward about sex. If Vince were to believe him, the ginger had basically never been that horny and his sexual thoughts were less of the hot and steamy variety and more confusion and trying to figure out the logistics or appeal.
Of all the guys Vince could've had his 'gay thing' with, he'd chosen one of the few that wasn't horny all the time. Or maybe he was thinking too much in stereotypes and gay guys weren't all horny 24/7.
Regardless, it was like karma had decided to get ironic.
Not only had he gotten attached to what was originally supposed to be a one-night fling.
And that fling happened to be the first guy he'd had sex with.
But on top of that, the guy was an awkward dork with a dark sense of humor (not that he minded the humor) and a low sex drive.
It was like the universe wanted to give him a dry spell on top of stupid real feelings he didn't know how to deal with. And all of it in time to try and ruin his doctorate. Ugh, feelings.
Dexter proves to be a ridiculous distraction.
For one thing, he is both hesitant of physical contact and possibly the most touch stared guy Vince has ever met.
Another, his face goes blank when he's really thinking hard.
Yet another, his lips are pink and soft, and sexual acts are not the only thing that Vince can and has pictured doing to them.
When they share a bed again, Vince discovers that Dexter is a little spoon and that he does this stupid little sigh/hum in his sleep when Vince wrapped his arms around the ginger. And it was a happy little sound that made Vince feel like a giant fucking idiot because he thought about it like five times a day.
One of the worst, Dexter likes his baking and his coffee. And even admitting how much that means to him makes Vince feel like a love-sick teenage moron and not a guy in his mid-twenties getting his PhD in forensics.
(Oh no, he was 25... a quarter of a century... he did not want to think about that).
But the biggest distracting part about Dexter is that he was an actual human person who --for some damn reason-- actually seemed to genuinely like him. Vince almost wanted to run a background check on him. He also didn't want to and knew he couldn't becuase he knew his floppy-haired paramour would take it the wrong way and think Vince was looking for reasons to get rid of him.
(And damn, from the sound of it, Dex had not had a great time in his past relationships). (And Vince didn't like it but was also selfish and kinda perversely glad for it. Because if Dex had had good relationships he'd never want to be around, much less with a creepy mess like him).
Then there's the first time they have sex (well, first time sober).
Vince had done a lot (okay, not that much) of research (he watched a lot of gay porn and read a few poorly written erotica web novels that he was fairly sure were written by women with no practical experience with having a penis. Or anal sex). (Not that Vince had much experience with anal).
It was a bit awkward, straightforward, and vanilla. (Much like Dexter himself).
All things considered, it was pretty good for any sex. His stupid feelings however made it feel like a much bigger deal than it was. It was just sex. And it wasn't even the first time he'd done something sexual with Dex. They just hadn't been sober or dating the first time around.
Somehow having feelings about a guy was similar to being tipsy, except his affection showing wasn't just the sexual kind. It was actually like ...affection. And for some fucking reason, for plain, vanilla, sex, (albeit with a man), it was more. Becuase he really liked the guy he was doing it with.
Damn, he had it bad for a guy who sometimes talked like an ax murderer. (Not that Dexter was an ax murderer, he was just really fucking weird and morbid). (Not that Vince could really say anything, a few people had likened him to sexual sadist serial killers. Which was a huge fucking insult he didn't want to address.)
(People who had sex with people who didn't consent or have sex sober with drunk people were fucking gross and pathetic). (He may be a pervert and say a lot of shitty stuff, but he wasn't a complete tool).
Vince shook his head, dispelling the unsavory thoughts and snatching his glasses from the bedside table.
"Do you want me to go?" Dexter asked. Like he had that first time around, that hungover morning. He sounded different this time.
Then it had been toneless, out of courtesy, he'd woken up in a stranger's bed. Vince turned to Dex, feeling his mouth frown and his brows scrunch together.
Why would Dex think he would want him to leave? Dex was his boyfriend. They'd been on dates. As much as it pained him to admit it, he liked the guy. (Not because Dexter was awful to like, because liking someone was mortifying).
Dex's face was a mix of blank and sad. What the fuck. He was serious. He thought Vince wanted to boot him out. Vince didn't even have anything to do for the rest of the evening. What the fuck.
"No," he answered. Staring his boyfriend in the eye until he got the point, wishing Dex was one of those empath/mind-reading aliens in DS9. (But that was a stupid wish, because if Dexter had any idea what people around him were feeling he would be a very different person).
Somehow they end up cuddling. And Vince will not comment about how nice it is to be touched in a casual way, or how nice it is to hold someone and/or be held.
He will, however, chuckle to himself about how Dex really likes to be the little spoon. (Which is funny and endearing because Dexter is not small, and certainly has a larger frame than Vince's).
Vince is almost late for his morning program because Dex makes such a nice teddy bear, and Vince really is in trouble... because he really likes the ginger and he doesn't really know how to do that or deal with that. At least, he is not alone in that, if there is anyone else in the world who doesn't know how to cope with or express real feelings, it's definitely Dexter Morgan; the dork, blood specialist, and very distracting boyfriend.
His obligatory grad-school gay thing that he hoped wouldn't end anytime soon. (Even if commitment and the emotional implications of long-term relationships terrified him).