Fic (Forsaken, Nick/Sean, PG)
Today's fic was written for writingpathways. I was going to write her something else in a fandom I've never attempted before, but then I chickened out and wrote this instead. Well. Also this is what today's song inspired, but it is sort of a comfort zone, so. Anyway, I wrote it for Rachel, and then I made her beta it, because that's the kind of lame I am. But I knew she was the only one who'd tell me exactly what was wrong and what I needed to do to fix it, and that's exactly what she did. I hope I got it right this time. I will let you all be the judge.
Fandom=The Forsaken, pairing=Nick/Sean.
~
The first time Nick left Sean, he figured it would be the last. Sean getting caught up in the hunt was an accident; all Nick had been looking for was a ride, a quick way out of town before things got too heavy. He hadn’t planned for Sean to get caught in the middle. He definitely hadn’t planned for Sean to get bit.
So Nick figured, after Sean was cured and it wasn’t his problem anymore, that leaving would be the smartest thing to do. The least complicated thing, anyway. He didn’t really want to take off, to leave behind some lame Dear John letter like Sean really cared where he went, but he still had his own little problem to deal with and he wasn’t expecting help from someone who’d been a total stranger just a couple days before.
Still, he hadn’t been all that surprised when Sean pulled up next to him in that shitty Charger, looking all heroic and determined. What did surprise him was how glad he was to see Sean, because he hadn’t realized until that minute just how much he’d missed having someone around. Having Sean around. And yeah, he was kind of uptight, but he was so intense and focused and Nick had a lot of nights alone to think about what all that intensity would be like up close.
Not that he had any plans to fuck Sean, at least not until he was cured. But it was nice just to be around all that intensity again, to have it focused on him and know that Sean had come looking for him. For him. It was the first time in his life someone had given a damn, and it felt pretty good. Though, okay, Sean was mostly focused on his saving the world bullshit, but Nick was okay with riding the wave of his hero complex. For awhile, anyway.
~
The second time Nick left Sean it was because of the hero complex bullshit. At first it was kind of nice, having somebody around who would fight the good fight with him. For him. But fighting was exhausting, and at some point even he knew when to call it quits. His Forsaken always stayed a step ahead of them, mocking them every step of the way and Nick could only take so much. He thought about offing himself before he turned, but whenever he mentioned it Sean would get pissed and then there’d be a huge, bitchy fight where Sean would act like a chick. He even cried once. He tried not to let Nick see, but he wasn’t an idiot.
That was when Nick decided that it would be better for both of them if he just took off. That way Sean could go home, back to his little life with his movies and his sister calling every week to check up on him, and Nick could…do whatever. Walk out into the desert and shoot himself, maybe. Or stop taking his meds and turn into one of those things. The meds were still working - sort of - but the disease was strong enough at that point that he could see the appeal of turning. The appeal of sinking his teeth into the nearest warm body, which was, ninety-nine percent of the time, Sean.
So maybe that was the real reason he left, waited until Sean was passed out in some ratty hotel room and breathing deep before he packed up his shit and hit the road again. He figured he had a good six hour lead before Sean woke up, which was long enough to find a bus station that would take him somewhere Sean wouldn’t think to look. Away from his Forsaken, away from the hunt he’d been on for the past two years, away from any chance of beating this thing.
It was kind of weird how calm he was when he boarded the bus for Albuquerque.
He tried not to think about Sean. Mostly he hung around the outskirts of town, hustled a little, tried to keep his head down. He thought about giving in to the disease, but taking the pills was such a habit that he just kept on taking them. Thought about heading out to the desert and letting nature take its course or whatever, but somehow it seemed like too much effort. So he just hung around, getting sicker and sicker, waiting for the day that the drugs stopped working.
He was pretty close the day he woke up cured. He could tell, because the urge to kill had been getting stronger and he could smell the blood whenever he got too close to another person. So he mostly stayed away from people, which worked out okay because most people didn’t want to be anywhere near him. It wasn’t all that hard; he just stayed out of town, and if he needed something he only went out at night. So he was living the lifestyle already, and all he had to do was wait for the urge to feed to get so overwhelming that he couldn’t fight it anymore.
Then one day he woke up and his fever was gone. The pounding in his pulse was gone, there was no headache and no nagging ache in his gut. He opened the curtains of the shitty motel room where he’d been paying by the week, and the sun didn’t feel like fire on his skin. It was just…the sun, and he stood there and squinted into it for a long time.
~
The third time Nick tried to leave, Sean caught him. Nick wasn’t even sure why he’d tracked Sean down; to say thanks for saving his ass, or maybe just to see him again. Just to look. He didn’t even have to tell Sean he was there, he could just see that Sean was still alive and undamaged and move on. That’s what he told himself when he set out for Florida, meaning to look up Sean’s sister and find out where Sean was staying these days, and finding Sean instead.
He was alive, all right, but he wasn’t undamaged. There was a long scar down one side of his face, and when he moved it was with a kind of stiffness that looked like it might have required surgery. And that was Nick’s fault, because if he’d just made Sean give up and go back to L.A. none of this would have happened. If he’d just shot himself while he had the chance…but Sean probably still wouldn’t have stopped even then, and in the end it would have been for nothing.
Still, even with the injuries he didn’t look unhappy. He was smiling when Nick first saw him, moving a little slow climbing out of his sister’s car and laughing at something she’d just said. Nick couldn’t hear them from across the street, but he could see enough to know that Sean was okay. Not perfect, but okay, and that was all Nick needed to know. He could go back to his life - not that he had much of one to begin with - and forget all about Sean now, and they’d both probably be better off.
Because Sean didn’t need him, and Nick sure as hell didn’t need Sean. Except that he had, in the end. Sean was the one who’d killed both their Forsakens, and Nick was just the fuck-up who’d dragged Sean into his mess.
He wasn’t sure why he went back to look at Sean again. Not to talk to him, just to look. And yeah, he was turning into a stalker, but after the three months Sean spent driving around looking for him, Nick figured he would probably understand. If he knew Nick was there, that was, and Nick had no intention of letting him find out. He didn’t even let himself cross over to Sean’s side of the street, because if Sean saw him that would be the end of Nick’s plan to slip out of town without being noticed.
So he just hung out in the alley across the street, back to the neighbor’s fence and it wasn’t the perfect cover, but he’d never been too proud to take what he could get. He wasn’t sure how long he stood there, enjoying the warmth of the sun on his face and watching the house for the moment when Sean would finally appear.
What he hadn’t counted on was the possibility that Sean might already be out. Or maybe he’d been hoping to get caught, he wasn’t sure. Either way, when he heard footsteps behind him in the alley and turned around he wasn’t all that surprised to see Sean walking toward him. He thought about taking off. He might have tried, if Sean hadn’t already been looking right at him.
He looked pissed enough to take a swing, and Nick sort of wished he would. At least that he would have known how to deal with, but he had no clue what to do when Sean stopped in front of him and just stood there.
Sean’s hands were in his pockets, and Nick could see the outline of his knuckles pressing against the fabric where he’d balled his hands into fists. He was wearing a dress shirt even though it was at least 80 outside, the top two buttons open to reveal pale skin starting to turn a little red. He looked…good, like he'd been somewhere important, and Nick wondered idly if he'd decided to stay in Florida. A bead of sweat slid down his forehead but he didn’t reach up to wipe it away, and for a second Nick had an overwhelming urge to do it for him. His fingers twitched with the need to touch, to trace the sweat-damp hair curling against Sean’s neck, or maybe just to trace the scar on his cheek.
“Well?” Sean finally said, and Nick realized he'd been staring for awhile.
“Hey.”
“What are you doing here?” Sean asked, and yeah, he was definitely pissed. It looked good on him; maybe not as good as that intense focus always looked, but it was Sean, so he'd take it.
“Thought I’d stop by, make sure you didn’t get yourself killed while you were busy saving the world.”
“You’ve gotta be kidding. You ditched me in a shitty motel in the middle of fucking nowhere and now…what? You just stopped by to say hi?”
Nick didn’t have a decent answer for that, considering. Because yeah, Sean was kind of a pain in the ass sometimes, but he’d stuck it out. Nick was the one who’d bailed, and even after he did Sean had still stuck it out. Maybe he wasn’t doing it for the reasons Nick wanted him to, but that didn’t change the fact that he’d done it.
“Look, I just wanted to say sorry. And thanks.”
It was a long way from what he meant, but he wasn’t sure Sean would get it even if he tried to explain. For Sean the hunt had been about making the world a better place or some bullshit like that; he’d made that clear pretty much from the second he found Nick walking down that deserted highway, and it wasn’t his fault Nick wanted…more.
He liked that Sean gave a damn, that he tracked Nick down instead of just hunting Nick’s Forsaken on his own. He liked that Sean gave up everything to be with him, so yeah, maybe he’d read a little too much into it. Maybe Sean didn’t think about After the same way Nick did, that wasn’t really his fault. But Sean’s hero complex was a lot to take, and he’d caught Nick at pretty much his worst.
“I didn’t even know if it was too late, Nick. Even after…Jesus. Do you know what it was like, lying in a hospital bed while they tried to fix my leg, wondering if you were even still alive?”
Nick shrugged and looked away, because the intensity was hot, but sometimes it was a little too much. “Yeah, well, you still saved the world, right?”
“Fuck you,” Sean said, and Nick braced himself for the punch he knew was coming. He wouldn’t even try to stop it, because he knew he deserved it. And Sean’s hands did leave his pockets, but instead of hitting Nick he grabbed the front of his t-shirt and hauled him forward. Their teeth clashed as Sean’s mouth landed on his, and when he started to lose his balance Nick gripped his hips to steady him.
The kiss started out angry, tense and brutal and Nick wasn’t sure, but he thought he tasted blood. Then he wrapped his arms around Sean’s waist and slid a hand up his back, moving in slow circles until some of the anger drained out of him. He wasn’t any good at this; he’d never been the relationship type, and usually he preferred sex without strings. He’d always known it would be different if it ever happened with Sean, but he hadn’t expected the rush of emotions that flooded him.
And this wasn’t how he’d pictured it, making out in an alley like a couple teenagers. Wasn’t how he wanted it, but he’d fucked everything else up, so he wasn’t surprised he’d made a mess of this too. If he’d stayed…but if he’d stayed things might have ended a lot differently.
“Look,” he said, dragging his mouth away from Sean’s to take in dark eyes and flushed skin, “I was turning. I could feel it. Toward the end there I couldn’t take the sunlight, couldn’t be around people. I figured if I left, at least you’d be safe. Maybe you’d even go back to your life and forget about risking your neck on a fight that wasn’t yours to begin with.”
“You’re a moron,” Sean answered, and when he let go of Nick and stepped back, Nick wished he'd kept his mouth shut. “I wasn’t trying to save the world, Nick. I was trying to save you. And you just ditched me like it didn’t even matter.”
“It mattered.”
“Yeah, well, you’ve got a hell of a way of showing it,” Sean said, then he was walking away and Nick just let him go.
~
The fourth time Nick left he didn’t have a choice. He stood in that damn alley for the rest of the afternoon, until people starting coming home from work and giving him weird looks. Once he started to worry that the neighbors would call the cops he took off, back to his motel room to stare at the ceiling and think about what he was doing.
It would be easy to leave town, disappear out of Sean’s life again and let him go back to working on forgetting him. Only Sean had kissed him, and Nick was pretty sure that meant he didn’t want to forget. Nick sure as hell didn’t want to forget, because Sean was a pain in the ass, sure, but that didn’t stop Nick from loving him.
He didn’t really decide to go back to the alley. He just sort of wound up there, started out walking in the sun because the novelty still hadn’t worn off, and ended up in front of Sean’s house again. He still didn’t cross the street, but he leaned against the fence and watched. Obvious this time, and he was pretty sure he saw curtains twitch a couple times.
Three days went by before he saw Sean again, three days of blazing Florida sun and peeling skin and probably a little dehydration. He wasn’t even sure why he kept showing up, but it wasn’t like he had anywhere else to be. There was nowhere else he wanted to be, anyway, except maybe inside Sean’s house. That wasn’t looking too promising, but he figured Sean couldn’t stay in there forever.
And sure enough, Sean appeared again just after noon on the third day. Nick expected him to head in the other direction, and he wasn’t really sure whether he was going to follow or not. He’d never really thought of himself as the obsessive type before, and Sean was probably only going to put up with so much stalking before he called the cops. If none of his neighbors beat him to it.
But Sean crossed the street and stopped in front of him, letting out a heavy sigh when he reached Nick. “Come on.”
“Where are we going?” Nick asked, though he knew he’d follow even if Sean led him straight to the local police station.
“You’ve already got a sunburn. Come inside before it gets worse.”
He turned around without waiting for an answer and headed back across the street. His bad leg slowed him down a little, so it was easy for Nick to catch up to him. And he knew he should keep his mouth shut and just let Sean take pity on him, but he’d never been all that smart. “I’m sorry, Sean. I mean it.”
Another sigh and a sideways glance, and at least he didn’t look as pissed as he had the last time. “You should be.”
“Might've helped if you’d kissed me like that before I took off.”
"Are you kidding? I ditched my job, my life, my own sister's wedding…she's still giving me shit for that, you know. I spent three fucking months driving around looking for you, and you still didn't get it? Jesus, Nick…"
He had a feeling there was a lot more Sean wanted to get off his chest. Maybe Nick would even let him yell for a while later; it wasn't like he didn't deserve it, especially after everything Sean went through to save him. But for now he'd heard everything he needed to, so he leaned in and cut off the rest of Sean's words with a kiss.
For a second he thought Sean might shove him away and start yelling again, but then he relaxed and slid his arms around Nick's waist, dragging him backwards toward the house without breaking the kiss. They almost fell over a few times before they finally got inside and kicked the door shut, but Nick barely even noticed. All he knew was that Sean was kissing him like he needed Nick to breathe, and there was no way Nick was ever leaving again.
~
And today's song: Bettye Lavette -- The High Road
(So Nick/Sean it kind of hurts a little. I can't listen to it without thinking of them.)
Fandom=The Forsaken, pairing=Nick/Sean.
~
The first time Nick left Sean, he figured it would be the last. Sean getting caught up in the hunt was an accident; all Nick had been looking for was a ride, a quick way out of town before things got too heavy. He hadn’t planned for Sean to get caught in the middle. He definitely hadn’t planned for Sean to get bit.
So Nick figured, after Sean was cured and it wasn’t his problem anymore, that leaving would be the smartest thing to do. The least complicated thing, anyway. He didn’t really want to take off, to leave behind some lame Dear John letter like Sean really cared where he went, but he still had his own little problem to deal with and he wasn’t expecting help from someone who’d been a total stranger just a couple days before.
Still, he hadn’t been all that surprised when Sean pulled up next to him in that shitty Charger, looking all heroic and determined. What did surprise him was how glad he was to see Sean, because he hadn’t realized until that minute just how much he’d missed having someone around. Having Sean around. And yeah, he was kind of uptight, but he was so intense and focused and Nick had a lot of nights alone to think about what all that intensity would be like up close.
Not that he had any plans to fuck Sean, at least not until he was cured. But it was nice just to be around all that intensity again, to have it focused on him and know that Sean had come looking for him. For him. It was the first time in his life someone had given a damn, and it felt pretty good. Though, okay, Sean was mostly focused on his saving the world bullshit, but Nick was okay with riding the wave of his hero complex. For awhile, anyway.
~
The second time Nick left Sean it was because of the hero complex bullshit. At first it was kind of nice, having somebody around who would fight the good fight with him. For him. But fighting was exhausting, and at some point even he knew when to call it quits. His Forsaken always stayed a step ahead of them, mocking them every step of the way and Nick could only take so much. He thought about offing himself before he turned, but whenever he mentioned it Sean would get pissed and then there’d be a huge, bitchy fight where Sean would act like a chick. He even cried once. He tried not to let Nick see, but he wasn’t an idiot.
That was when Nick decided that it would be better for both of them if he just took off. That way Sean could go home, back to his little life with his movies and his sister calling every week to check up on him, and Nick could…do whatever. Walk out into the desert and shoot himself, maybe. Or stop taking his meds and turn into one of those things. The meds were still working - sort of - but the disease was strong enough at that point that he could see the appeal of turning. The appeal of sinking his teeth into the nearest warm body, which was, ninety-nine percent of the time, Sean.
So maybe that was the real reason he left, waited until Sean was passed out in some ratty hotel room and breathing deep before he packed up his shit and hit the road again. He figured he had a good six hour lead before Sean woke up, which was long enough to find a bus station that would take him somewhere Sean wouldn’t think to look. Away from his Forsaken, away from the hunt he’d been on for the past two years, away from any chance of beating this thing.
It was kind of weird how calm he was when he boarded the bus for Albuquerque.
He tried not to think about Sean. Mostly he hung around the outskirts of town, hustled a little, tried to keep his head down. He thought about giving in to the disease, but taking the pills was such a habit that he just kept on taking them. Thought about heading out to the desert and letting nature take its course or whatever, but somehow it seemed like too much effort. So he just hung around, getting sicker and sicker, waiting for the day that the drugs stopped working.
He was pretty close the day he woke up cured. He could tell, because the urge to kill had been getting stronger and he could smell the blood whenever he got too close to another person. So he mostly stayed away from people, which worked out okay because most people didn’t want to be anywhere near him. It wasn’t all that hard; he just stayed out of town, and if he needed something he only went out at night. So he was living the lifestyle already, and all he had to do was wait for the urge to feed to get so overwhelming that he couldn’t fight it anymore.
Then one day he woke up and his fever was gone. The pounding in his pulse was gone, there was no headache and no nagging ache in his gut. He opened the curtains of the shitty motel room where he’d been paying by the week, and the sun didn’t feel like fire on his skin. It was just…the sun, and he stood there and squinted into it for a long time.
~
The third time Nick tried to leave, Sean caught him. Nick wasn’t even sure why he’d tracked Sean down; to say thanks for saving his ass, or maybe just to see him again. Just to look. He didn’t even have to tell Sean he was there, he could just see that Sean was still alive and undamaged and move on. That’s what he told himself when he set out for Florida, meaning to look up Sean’s sister and find out where Sean was staying these days, and finding Sean instead.
He was alive, all right, but he wasn’t undamaged. There was a long scar down one side of his face, and when he moved it was with a kind of stiffness that looked like it might have required surgery. And that was Nick’s fault, because if he’d just made Sean give up and go back to L.A. none of this would have happened. If he’d just shot himself while he had the chance…but Sean probably still wouldn’t have stopped even then, and in the end it would have been for nothing.
Still, even with the injuries he didn’t look unhappy. He was smiling when Nick first saw him, moving a little slow climbing out of his sister’s car and laughing at something she’d just said. Nick couldn’t hear them from across the street, but he could see enough to know that Sean was okay. Not perfect, but okay, and that was all Nick needed to know. He could go back to his life - not that he had much of one to begin with - and forget all about Sean now, and they’d both probably be better off.
Because Sean didn’t need him, and Nick sure as hell didn’t need Sean. Except that he had, in the end. Sean was the one who’d killed both their Forsakens, and Nick was just the fuck-up who’d dragged Sean into his mess.
He wasn’t sure why he went back to look at Sean again. Not to talk to him, just to look. And yeah, he was turning into a stalker, but after the three months Sean spent driving around looking for him, Nick figured he would probably understand. If he knew Nick was there, that was, and Nick had no intention of letting him find out. He didn’t even let himself cross over to Sean’s side of the street, because if Sean saw him that would be the end of Nick’s plan to slip out of town without being noticed.
So he just hung out in the alley across the street, back to the neighbor’s fence and it wasn’t the perfect cover, but he’d never been too proud to take what he could get. He wasn’t sure how long he stood there, enjoying the warmth of the sun on his face and watching the house for the moment when Sean would finally appear.
What he hadn’t counted on was the possibility that Sean might already be out. Or maybe he’d been hoping to get caught, he wasn’t sure. Either way, when he heard footsteps behind him in the alley and turned around he wasn’t all that surprised to see Sean walking toward him. He thought about taking off. He might have tried, if Sean hadn’t already been looking right at him.
He looked pissed enough to take a swing, and Nick sort of wished he would. At least that he would have known how to deal with, but he had no clue what to do when Sean stopped in front of him and just stood there.
Sean’s hands were in his pockets, and Nick could see the outline of his knuckles pressing against the fabric where he’d balled his hands into fists. He was wearing a dress shirt even though it was at least 80 outside, the top two buttons open to reveal pale skin starting to turn a little red. He looked…good, like he'd been somewhere important, and Nick wondered idly if he'd decided to stay in Florida. A bead of sweat slid down his forehead but he didn’t reach up to wipe it away, and for a second Nick had an overwhelming urge to do it for him. His fingers twitched with the need to touch, to trace the sweat-damp hair curling against Sean’s neck, or maybe just to trace the scar on his cheek.
“Well?” Sean finally said, and Nick realized he'd been staring for awhile.
“Hey.”
“What are you doing here?” Sean asked, and yeah, he was definitely pissed. It looked good on him; maybe not as good as that intense focus always looked, but it was Sean, so he'd take it.
“Thought I’d stop by, make sure you didn’t get yourself killed while you were busy saving the world.”
“You’ve gotta be kidding. You ditched me in a shitty motel in the middle of fucking nowhere and now…what? You just stopped by to say hi?”
Nick didn’t have a decent answer for that, considering. Because yeah, Sean was kind of a pain in the ass sometimes, but he’d stuck it out. Nick was the one who’d bailed, and even after he did Sean had still stuck it out. Maybe he wasn’t doing it for the reasons Nick wanted him to, but that didn’t change the fact that he’d done it.
“Look, I just wanted to say sorry. And thanks.”
It was a long way from what he meant, but he wasn’t sure Sean would get it even if he tried to explain. For Sean the hunt had been about making the world a better place or some bullshit like that; he’d made that clear pretty much from the second he found Nick walking down that deserted highway, and it wasn’t his fault Nick wanted…more.
He liked that Sean gave a damn, that he tracked Nick down instead of just hunting Nick’s Forsaken on his own. He liked that Sean gave up everything to be with him, so yeah, maybe he’d read a little too much into it. Maybe Sean didn’t think about After the same way Nick did, that wasn’t really his fault. But Sean’s hero complex was a lot to take, and he’d caught Nick at pretty much his worst.
“I didn’t even know if it was too late, Nick. Even after…Jesus. Do you know what it was like, lying in a hospital bed while they tried to fix my leg, wondering if you were even still alive?”
Nick shrugged and looked away, because the intensity was hot, but sometimes it was a little too much. “Yeah, well, you still saved the world, right?”
“Fuck you,” Sean said, and Nick braced himself for the punch he knew was coming. He wouldn’t even try to stop it, because he knew he deserved it. And Sean’s hands did leave his pockets, but instead of hitting Nick he grabbed the front of his t-shirt and hauled him forward. Their teeth clashed as Sean’s mouth landed on his, and when he started to lose his balance Nick gripped his hips to steady him.
The kiss started out angry, tense and brutal and Nick wasn’t sure, but he thought he tasted blood. Then he wrapped his arms around Sean’s waist and slid a hand up his back, moving in slow circles until some of the anger drained out of him. He wasn’t any good at this; he’d never been the relationship type, and usually he preferred sex without strings. He’d always known it would be different if it ever happened with Sean, but he hadn’t expected the rush of emotions that flooded him.
And this wasn’t how he’d pictured it, making out in an alley like a couple teenagers. Wasn’t how he wanted it, but he’d fucked everything else up, so he wasn’t surprised he’d made a mess of this too. If he’d stayed…but if he’d stayed things might have ended a lot differently.
“Look,” he said, dragging his mouth away from Sean’s to take in dark eyes and flushed skin, “I was turning. I could feel it. Toward the end there I couldn’t take the sunlight, couldn’t be around people. I figured if I left, at least you’d be safe. Maybe you’d even go back to your life and forget about risking your neck on a fight that wasn’t yours to begin with.”
“You’re a moron,” Sean answered, and when he let go of Nick and stepped back, Nick wished he'd kept his mouth shut. “I wasn’t trying to save the world, Nick. I was trying to save you. And you just ditched me like it didn’t even matter.”
“It mattered.”
“Yeah, well, you’ve got a hell of a way of showing it,” Sean said, then he was walking away and Nick just let him go.
~
The fourth time Nick left he didn’t have a choice. He stood in that damn alley for the rest of the afternoon, until people starting coming home from work and giving him weird looks. Once he started to worry that the neighbors would call the cops he took off, back to his motel room to stare at the ceiling and think about what he was doing.
It would be easy to leave town, disappear out of Sean’s life again and let him go back to working on forgetting him. Only Sean had kissed him, and Nick was pretty sure that meant he didn’t want to forget. Nick sure as hell didn’t want to forget, because Sean was a pain in the ass, sure, but that didn’t stop Nick from loving him.
He didn’t really decide to go back to the alley. He just sort of wound up there, started out walking in the sun because the novelty still hadn’t worn off, and ended up in front of Sean’s house again. He still didn’t cross the street, but he leaned against the fence and watched. Obvious this time, and he was pretty sure he saw curtains twitch a couple times.
Three days went by before he saw Sean again, three days of blazing Florida sun and peeling skin and probably a little dehydration. He wasn’t even sure why he kept showing up, but it wasn’t like he had anywhere else to be. There was nowhere else he wanted to be, anyway, except maybe inside Sean’s house. That wasn’t looking too promising, but he figured Sean couldn’t stay in there forever.
And sure enough, Sean appeared again just after noon on the third day. Nick expected him to head in the other direction, and he wasn’t really sure whether he was going to follow or not. He’d never really thought of himself as the obsessive type before, and Sean was probably only going to put up with so much stalking before he called the cops. If none of his neighbors beat him to it.
But Sean crossed the street and stopped in front of him, letting out a heavy sigh when he reached Nick. “Come on.”
“Where are we going?” Nick asked, though he knew he’d follow even if Sean led him straight to the local police station.
“You’ve already got a sunburn. Come inside before it gets worse.”
He turned around without waiting for an answer and headed back across the street. His bad leg slowed him down a little, so it was easy for Nick to catch up to him. And he knew he should keep his mouth shut and just let Sean take pity on him, but he’d never been all that smart. “I’m sorry, Sean. I mean it.”
Another sigh and a sideways glance, and at least he didn’t look as pissed as he had the last time. “You should be.”
“Might've helped if you’d kissed me like that before I took off.”
"Are you kidding? I ditched my job, my life, my own sister's wedding…she's still giving me shit for that, you know. I spent three fucking months driving around looking for you, and you still didn't get it? Jesus, Nick…"
He had a feeling there was a lot more Sean wanted to get off his chest. Maybe Nick would even let him yell for a while later; it wasn't like he didn't deserve it, especially after everything Sean went through to save him. But for now he'd heard everything he needed to, so he leaned in and cut off the rest of Sean's words with a kiss.
For a second he thought Sean might shove him away and start yelling again, but then he relaxed and slid his arms around Nick's waist, dragging him backwards toward the house without breaking the kiss. They almost fell over a few times before they finally got inside and kicked the door shut, but Nick barely even noticed. All he knew was that Sean was kissing him like he needed Nick to breathe, and there was no way Nick was ever leaving again.
~
And today's song: Bettye Lavette -- The High Road
(So Nick/Sean it kind of hurts a little. I can't listen to it without thinking of them.)