igrab
in
grabi_hands
Normality and Wanting (Nick/Alan, PG-13)
Nick/Alan . for insane_duckfish @ goblinmarket_sw . 3,233 words . PG-13 . It's all right for you to want something.
One day, Alan would have to admit it.
Nick was in college now. It hadn't - shouldn't have been a possibility, but against all odds (and, more likely, in Mae's capable hands) he'd gotten a scholarship, of all things.
That day, Alan had cried into his tea, and was certain he could not be happier.
+
If there was one thing the Final Battle (as Mae liked to call it) had brought (aside from loads of death and destruction, as Jamie would point out frequently) it was a chance for stability.
Nick hadn't ever known what it was like. Even at a small age, they'd always been running. He'd seen people live their little lives and understood, theoretically, that this was what Alan wanted. So it became what Nick wanted, by the simple law of Nick and Alan.
But this, this was the first time it was real. This was the first time it had the potential to mean anything to him - and that, that was a new and difficult concept as well. Mae had held his hands and told him It's all right for you to want something, and he'd known what she meant at the time but her words had taken on a different meaning since then.
He wanted Alan to be happy. He wanted stability.
He brought home his textbooks and piled them on the dining room table, and when he told Alan 'I need help with this physics problem', he actually meant 'I want you to learn this, too'.
+
For the first time, Alan worried about interior decorating.
He'd never given it much thought before and, of course, he hadn't needed to. But now, he suddenly found that he was seriously concerned about the color of the carpet in relation to the wallpaper.
He called Mae.
"Mae, I need your help."
Belatedly, he realized how it must have sounded, over the phone, and Mae's voice dipped in real fear, even it still contained the strongest of convictions to help in any way she could. "What is it? What's wrong?"
"No - no, it's nothing dire," he hastily backpedaled, and even laughed a little, at himself. "It's - I need..." Of course, now that he was here, saying it out loud, it sounded so much sillier. "...The carpet doesn't match the walls."
A long pause followed that profound and deep statement. Then Mae made a sound that Alan was fairly certain meant she was trying to hold back laughter herself, and said, "I'll be there in five minutes."
Alan considered, not for the first time, that he was going slowly insane.
+
Nick stood in the doorway and stared at the living room.
"What," he asked, his voice at its very most dangerous and thus, completely brushed off by the room's inhabitants, "are you doing?"
"Um," said Alan, and looked at Mae, and Mae could only laugh.
"Don't go blaming this on me," she said, and held up paint-streaked hands to profess her utter innocence. "It was your idea."
Alan gave Nick a soulful, chagrined look. It made him look so very much like a wounded puppy. Perfect, Nick thought, satisfied. We don't even need a pet when we have Alan. "The carpet didn't match the-"
Nick strode forward like silk and steel, brushing off Alan's words because they didn't even make sense - of course it didn't, why was this a problem? - and fisted his hand in Alan's curls, pulled his head back.
He'd tried this on a girl, once - in a much more appropriate situation, too - and though she'd tried her best to master it, he had felt the fear rolling off of her in waves. He had almost been able to taste it.
Alan wasn't afraid. Alan was never afraid of him. Alan believed, to the very core of him, that Nick was and would always be a good person.
"You have paint under your chin," he muttered, his voice dry and teasing.
"Do I?" Alan said, and reached up to see - consequently only smearing it further.
"Yes. Shut up." And he meant stop that, but the words were unkind to him today. It didn't matter. Alan knew what he meant.
Nick had stopped wanting to be what Alan wanted. It was an impossible task. He was, however, beginning to realize that he wanted to be someone Alan loved.
The best part about that was that it required no effort on his part. He already was.
+
Once upon a time, Alan knew everything about Nick's sex life.
It had gone like this: he wanted to know everything about Nick, to find out how he was doing in school, whether people liked him or not, because it was Nick and Nick was Alan's responsibility. What he meant was for Nick to tell him about making friends and fitting in and whether he needed to study for a chem quiz. What he got was Nick talking about girls.
He never knew their names. That had bothered Alan, until the day he had remembered her name, and it had only bothered Alan more, because he'd grown used to it. It was much easier to accept that Nick had anonymous sex with random girls, because it meant he was listening to his body and understanding what it needed (as long as you use protection, Alan had said, and it wasn't the most awkward conversation they'd ever had but it was up there). What wasn't okay was Nick forming attachments to them.
It didn't make sense, and Alan hated himself for it. But he was used to that, too.
Nick had finally explained that he learned their names when it would prevent them crying on him. Alan didn't approve of making girls cry, so it seemed a sound moral principle. He didn't think about the wider applications of this facet of Nick's development. He was used to his own selfishness, but this was taking it to a new level completely. In fact, he would have felt better if Nick just didn't tell him, making it a non-issue. Yes, that would be the best. It would demonstrate an understanding for the social normative and the difference between private information and public. Yes.
Halfway through Nick's sophomore year, Alan realized with a sudden pang that Nick hadn't told him about any girls at all since, well. Since the Final Battle.
His first thought was that Nick was finally learning to keep his liasions to himself. Naturally, he couldn't sit still unless he'd confirmed or denied this, and interrogated Jamie and Seb until they told him point-blank to drop the issue.
Nick wasn't sleeping around. Yes, he looked at girls and occasionally guys, no, he never did any more than look. Yes, we're telling the truth. No, we're not going to spy on him for you.
His second thought was Mae. Just to be certain (and, perhaps, to spend a little time with her - he still hadn't given up hope), he talked to her in person, over a cup of tea at the coffeeshop down the street.
Mae couldn't hold back the laughter this time.
"Oh, Alan," she said, reaching over to pat him on the head, like a dog. "You're sweet. But no."
He frowned at her, suspicious. "....Not even a little?"
She shook her head and smiled into her tea. "Maybe once upon a time. But we never had sex, and..." she was looking pointedly at him, and Alan couldn't for the life of him understand what he was supposed to magically be comprehending. "...Things change."
Things did change. Two years ago, he'd thought he'd never be over Mae Crawford. But he'd come to realize that the place she held in his life - the insight she gave to him, that it was okay to have friends that weren't Nick, that it wasn't his responsibility to make Nick happy, though he liked to try - those things were more precious to him than something as simple as boyfriend and girlfriend. She made him wonder if he ever really wanted that at all.
"I'll see you later," she said, and leaned over to smooth his hair from his forehead and kiss it, right at the hairline. What she meant was, I have better things to do than deal with your boy problems.
+
Nick found Alan in the kitchen, for which the only recipe possibly being cooked was 'disaster'.
"Move," he muttered, quiet and soft in Alan's ear.
It was different, now that Alan bore his mark. He could remember a time when touching him meant suppressing his revulsion, but now - now it was the opposite. Every time they drew close, there was a curling feeling in his insides that whispered take, take, take.
Nick stood close enough behind him that he could feel the heat as Alan blushed. "It's my turn to make dinner," his brother said, his voice as thin as rice paper. He didn't move. He was, in fact, holding himself so tightly in the effort not to move, not to let their bodies touch, that Nick was only frustrated. Couldn't he feel it, the way they sang out to each other? He knew that Mae could. Jamie might, if he ever let him get that close.
"I need you to do something for me," he said, and could feel the shiver that induced, too.
"What is it?"
"I need you to read me a story."
"It's my turn to cook dinner." Alan was nothing if not stubborn, but his pot was boiling over. Nick reached an arm around, caged him in, and quietly turned the burner down.
They stood like that for a long minute, Nick amused, Alan shaky and stiff and uncompromising. "I have a lit test tomorrow," Nick finally said, breaking the silence. "I need your help."
He could hear it when Alan acquiesced in a small breath of air, just barely passing his lips. He was still as taut as a bowstring, wary, though not nervous. "You're standing behind me," Alan pointed out.
Nick grinned. "Make me move."
"Could you-"
"Without words."
Alan froze. Then, very slowly, he turned - pushed with his shoulder and his hip, braced against Nick's skin and ground into it until Nick stepped back, and back again. It wasn't the force, or the motion. Alan might as well have curled a hand around the back of his neck, for all that the laws of physics had to do with it.
But every place they touched burned and sizzled and roared, and that little voice in Nick's body screamed TAKE. TAKE. TAKE.
He didn't want to take Alan, not like that. But it was more complicated than that, and maybe he could have one and not the other, maybe he could have everything and Alan would trust him and that, that thought was a rush like no other.
+
Alan sat at the kitchen table, breathless.
He'd meant to finally give up and just ask Nick about the whole girl thing, today, but now he was not honestly sure he could string two words of his own together. What was that? Whatever it was, it was still humming and sparking along the connection they shared. He didn't know. He didn't understand it. Not for the first time but scarcely enough to matter, Alan felt completely out of his depth.
Nick would understand. But Alan was, quite simply, too terrified to know the answer.
He picked up Nick's literature text and read from it. It was a wonderful story he'd never actually heard before, and soon enough he had lost himself in the music of the words and completely failed to notice that Nick wasn't even paying attention.
Over dinner, his curiosity got the better of him.
"Have you been sleeping around?"
Nick gave him a long, puzzled look. "Has someone been complaining to you?"
"No, I'm just-" He flushed again. "-curious."
Now, now Nick only looked amused. "I thought you didn't want me talking about it."
"I didn't-" But he did, he had meant it. And yet, like so many things Alan had wished Nick would do differently, he'd gotten used to it. "It's just strange to think you wouldn't," he finally finished, sounding more than a little hurt about it.
"Make up your mind," Nick said. "But no. I haven't been."
Alan's head snapped up, and he looked more suspicious than ever. Nick never lied. "Why not?" he demanded.
With that, Nick snapped. "Why do you care?" he snarled, his words lashing out like a whip to strike right at the heart of Alan's insecurity.
He did care. He was furious mostly with himself for even bringing it up in the first place. It's Nick's life, not yours, Mae's voice told him in his head but it mattered.
"It's nothing," Alan whispered, but they both knew it was the flimsiest of lies. "Never mind."
"...I thought you'd be glad," Nick said, quietly, and when Alan looked he was staring down at his plate with that look that said 'I'll never understand you humans.'
He sighed. "Nick- don't. Don't hold back on yourself for my sake."
"I wasn't," he replied, with a frank honesty that had Alan's eyebrows shooting skyward. "But I did think you'd be glad."
Oh. Oh. He was reading too much into things, as always, and Alan felt a little unexpected bloom of warmth, because some things changed, but others would always stay the same. He smiled. "I am glad," he said, and it was the truth. "I was just surprised, that's all."
Nick's mouth twisted in a grin. "I like to keep you guessing."
+
It wasn't that he didn't think about it. He did, and he'd tried, once. But it was just too difficult to pretend - to put on this great big act, and for what?
He couldn't understand it, when Mae said she'd rather be with someone who wasn't involved in all of this. "That's just great for you then, isn't it?" he'd snarled. "Some of us don't have the luxury of making this a part-time job."
And that was the end of it. In more ways than one, though he didn't really understand them all until he was back in school, living a normal life in the normal world and feeling, if possible, more out of place than he'd ever been.
Three things made it tolerable. The first was Jamie, and by extension Seb, though in many ways they agreed to disagree and left it at that. Jamie made college interesting, and Nick found he actually had a place in Jamie's circle of friends that he was comfortable with - 'the guy that terrifies everyone except Jamie', but he liked it. He liked the combination of being feared but accepted. Disliked, but trusted. It was stable but it wasn't exactly normal, and Nick was okay with that.
The second was Mae. Mae was hard to define, in his head, but more and more he saw her as 'the person that understands Alan and I and is thus indispensable.' But it wasn't just that. He liked spending time with her, liked that she was impressed with him but not afraid, understood him but didn't presume or judge or try to change him in any way. She just genuinely seemed to like him, which was weird, but he accepted it. Mae was, by definition, weird. And Nick was okay with that.
The third was - of course - Alan.
Alan was pushy. Alan was presumptuous. Alan wanted everything from him, but expected nothing. Alan continually put himself down for Nick's sake. Alan made Nick so angry that he couldn't breathe, and so frustrated that he couldn't see.
But Alan was his. And Nick loved him so much it caused him physical pain, so much that his throat would close and he couldn't say a word, there were no words in this stringent human language to even attempt to explain.
He wanted Alan, he wanted everything.
They had left the living room half-painted, with trays all over the floor and big yellow handprints on the makeshift sofa cover. Nick woke up before dawn, changed into his oily car clothes, and finished the job in three hours.
"Thank you," a quiet voice said from the doorway. Nick's head snapped up. Alan was standing there in his pajamas, leaning on the doorframe, his hair an incurable mess. He looked beautiful.
"It doesn't matter," Nick muttered, and Alan's eyes widened a little. "It doesn't matter," he clarified, "what color the walls are. Or the carpet. But it's ours," he said, rushing on before Alan could get a word in, before he could completely misinterpret what Nick was trying, desperately, to say. "So... we can do whatever we want. To it. And it'll last."
Understanding dawned in his eyes, and Alan smiled, open and free and light. "Yes," he murmured, and the relief and affection in his voice could have been heavy, should have been, but it was a burden Nick wanted. "Exactly that. It's beautiful," he said, but Nick knew it meant you're beautiful.
He couldn't say it. He tried, like he'd tried so many times before, but his throat closed around the words and he sat there, not knowing what to do with himself, not knowing how to make it perfectly, absolutely clear that Alan was Nick's and the house didn't actually matter as long as they were together, as long as they had each other.
It's ours, so we can do whatever we want to it, and it'll last.
Nick stood up. He let the paintbrush drop back into the pan. He moved closer to Alan - closer, and closer, until he was as close as he'd been that time in the kitchen, only this time, Alan didn't shy away.
He slid his hand into Alan's hair, gripped it tight between sword-callused fingers. "Alan," he said, his voice rough and soft and nothing more than a breath in the air. "I want this. I want you."
Alan's smile only grew. "Then take it."
+
One day, Alan would have to admit - it wasn't normality that he wanted, and 'safety' no longer meant having to conform.
if you liked this, you may like:
Lips and Teeth . Faeries
One day, Alan would have to admit it.
Nick was in college now. It hadn't - shouldn't have been a possibility, but against all odds (and, more likely, in Mae's capable hands) he'd gotten a scholarship, of all things.
That day, Alan had cried into his tea, and was certain he could not be happier.
+
If there was one thing the Final Battle (as Mae liked to call it) had brought (aside from loads of death and destruction, as Jamie would point out frequently) it was a chance for stability.
Nick hadn't ever known what it was like. Even at a small age, they'd always been running. He'd seen people live their little lives and understood, theoretically, that this was what Alan wanted. So it became what Nick wanted, by the simple law of Nick and Alan.
But this, this was the first time it was real. This was the first time it had the potential to mean anything to him - and that, that was a new and difficult concept as well. Mae had held his hands and told him It's all right for you to want something, and he'd known what she meant at the time but her words had taken on a different meaning since then.
He wanted Alan to be happy. He wanted stability.
He brought home his textbooks and piled them on the dining room table, and when he told Alan 'I need help with this physics problem', he actually meant 'I want you to learn this, too'.
+
For the first time, Alan worried about interior decorating.
He'd never given it much thought before and, of course, he hadn't needed to. But now, he suddenly found that he was seriously concerned about the color of the carpet in relation to the wallpaper.
He called Mae.
"Mae, I need your help."
Belatedly, he realized how it must have sounded, over the phone, and Mae's voice dipped in real fear, even it still contained the strongest of convictions to help in any way she could. "What is it? What's wrong?"
"No - no, it's nothing dire," he hastily backpedaled, and even laughed a little, at himself. "It's - I need..." Of course, now that he was here, saying it out loud, it sounded so much sillier. "...The carpet doesn't match the walls."
A long pause followed that profound and deep statement. Then Mae made a sound that Alan was fairly certain meant she was trying to hold back laughter herself, and said, "I'll be there in five minutes."
Alan considered, not for the first time, that he was going slowly insane.
+
Nick stood in the doorway and stared at the living room.
"What," he asked, his voice at its very most dangerous and thus, completely brushed off by the room's inhabitants, "are you doing?"
"Um," said Alan, and looked at Mae, and Mae could only laugh.
"Don't go blaming this on me," she said, and held up paint-streaked hands to profess her utter innocence. "It was your idea."
Alan gave Nick a soulful, chagrined look. It made him look so very much like a wounded puppy. Perfect, Nick thought, satisfied. We don't even need a pet when we have Alan. "The carpet didn't match the-"
Nick strode forward like silk and steel, brushing off Alan's words because they didn't even make sense - of course it didn't, why was this a problem? - and fisted his hand in Alan's curls, pulled his head back.
He'd tried this on a girl, once - in a much more appropriate situation, too - and though she'd tried her best to master it, he had felt the fear rolling off of her in waves. He had almost been able to taste it.
Alan wasn't afraid. Alan was never afraid of him. Alan believed, to the very core of him, that Nick was and would always be a good person.
"You have paint under your chin," he muttered, his voice dry and teasing.
"Do I?" Alan said, and reached up to see - consequently only smearing it further.
"Yes. Shut up." And he meant stop that, but the words were unkind to him today. It didn't matter. Alan knew what he meant.
Nick had stopped wanting to be what Alan wanted. It was an impossible task. He was, however, beginning to realize that he wanted to be someone Alan loved.
The best part about that was that it required no effort on his part. He already was.
+
Once upon a time, Alan knew everything about Nick's sex life.
It had gone like this: he wanted to know everything about Nick, to find out how he was doing in school, whether people liked him or not, because it was Nick and Nick was Alan's responsibility. What he meant was for Nick to tell him about making friends and fitting in and whether he needed to study for a chem quiz. What he got was Nick talking about girls.
He never knew their names. That had bothered Alan, until the day he had remembered her name, and it had only bothered Alan more, because he'd grown used to it. It was much easier to accept that Nick had anonymous sex with random girls, because it meant he was listening to his body and understanding what it needed (as long as you use protection, Alan had said, and it wasn't the most awkward conversation they'd ever had but it was up there). What wasn't okay was Nick forming attachments to them.
It didn't make sense, and Alan hated himself for it. But he was used to that, too.
Nick had finally explained that he learned their names when it would prevent them crying on him. Alan didn't approve of making girls cry, so it seemed a sound moral principle. He didn't think about the wider applications of this facet of Nick's development. He was used to his own selfishness, but this was taking it to a new level completely. In fact, he would have felt better if Nick just didn't tell him, making it a non-issue. Yes, that would be the best. It would demonstrate an understanding for the social normative and the difference between private information and public. Yes.
Halfway through Nick's sophomore year, Alan realized with a sudden pang that Nick hadn't told him about any girls at all since, well. Since the Final Battle.
His first thought was that Nick was finally learning to keep his liasions to himself. Naturally, he couldn't sit still unless he'd confirmed or denied this, and interrogated Jamie and Seb until they told him point-blank to drop the issue.
Nick wasn't sleeping around. Yes, he looked at girls and occasionally guys, no, he never did any more than look. Yes, we're telling the truth. No, we're not going to spy on him for you.
His second thought was Mae. Just to be certain (and, perhaps, to spend a little time with her - he still hadn't given up hope), he talked to her in person, over a cup of tea at the coffeeshop down the street.
Mae couldn't hold back the laughter this time.
"Oh, Alan," she said, reaching over to pat him on the head, like a dog. "You're sweet. But no."
He frowned at her, suspicious. "....Not even a little?"
She shook her head and smiled into her tea. "Maybe once upon a time. But we never had sex, and..." she was looking pointedly at him, and Alan couldn't for the life of him understand what he was supposed to magically be comprehending. "...Things change."
Things did change. Two years ago, he'd thought he'd never be over Mae Crawford. But he'd come to realize that the place she held in his life - the insight she gave to him, that it was okay to have friends that weren't Nick, that it wasn't his responsibility to make Nick happy, though he liked to try - those things were more precious to him than something as simple as boyfriend and girlfriend. She made him wonder if he ever really wanted that at all.
"I'll see you later," she said, and leaned over to smooth his hair from his forehead and kiss it, right at the hairline. What she meant was, I have better things to do than deal with your boy problems.
+
Nick found Alan in the kitchen, for which the only recipe possibly being cooked was 'disaster'.
"Move," he muttered, quiet and soft in Alan's ear.
It was different, now that Alan bore his mark. He could remember a time when touching him meant suppressing his revulsion, but now - now it was the opposite. Every time they drew close, there was a curling feeling in his insides that whispered take, take, take.
Nick stood close enough behind him that he could feel the heat as Alan blushed. "It's my turn to make dinner," his brother said, his voice as thin as rice paper. He didn't move. He was, in fact, holding himself so tightly in the effort not to move, not to let their bodies touch, that Nick was only frustrated. Couldn't he feel it, the way they sang out to each other? He knew that Mae could. Jamie might, if he ever let him get that close.
"I need you to do something for me," he said, and could feel the shiver that induced, too.
"What is it?"
"I need you to read me a story."
"It's my turn to cook dinner." Alan was nothing if not stubborn, but his pot was boiling over. Nick reached an arm around, caged him in, and quietly turned the burner down.
They stood like that for a long minute, Nick amused, Alan shaky and stiff and uncompromising. "I have a lit test tomorrow," Nick finally said, breaking the silence. "I need your help."
He could hear it when Alan acquiesced in a small breath of air, just barely passing his lips. He was still as taut as a bowstring, wary, though not nervous. "You're standing behind me," Alan pointed out.
Nick grinned. "Make me move."
"Could you-"
"Without words."
Alan froze. Then, very slowly, he turned - pushed with his shoulder and his hip, braced against Nick's skin and ground into it until Nick stepped back, and back again. It wasn't the force, or the motion. Alan might as well have curled a hand around the back of his neck, for all that the laws of physics had to do with it.
But every place they touched burned and sizzled and roared, and that little voice in Nick's body screamed TAKE. TAKE. TAKE.
He didn't want to take Alan, not like that. But it was more complicated than that, and maybe he could have one and not the other, maybe he could have everything and Alan would trust him and that, that thought was a rush like no other.
+
Alan sat at the kitchen table, breathless.
He'd meant to finally give up and just ask Nick about the whole girl thing, today, but now he was not honestly sure he could string two words of his own together. What was that? Whatever it was, it was still humming and sparking along the connection they shared. He didn't know. He didn't understand it. Not for the first time but scarcely enough to matter, Alan felt completely out of his depth.
Nick would understand. But Alan was, quite simply, too terrified to know the answer.
He picked up Nick's literature text and read from it. It was a wonderful story he'd never actually heard before, and soon enough he had lost himself in the music of the words and completely failed to notice that Nick wasn't even paying attention.
Over dinner, his curiosity got the better of him.
"Have you been sleeping around?"
Nick gave him a long, puzzled look. "Has someone been complaining to you?"
"No, I'm just-" He flushed again. "-curious."
Now, now Nick only looked amused. "I thought you didn't want me talking about it."
"I didn't-" But he did, he had meant it. And yet, like so many things Alan had wished Nick would do differently, he'd gotten used to it. "It's just strange to think you wouldn't," he finally finished, sounding more than a little hurt about it.
"Make up your mind," Nick said. "But no. I haven't been."
Alan's head snapped up, and he looked more suspicious than ever. Nick never lied. "Why not?" he demanded.
With that, Nick snapped. "Why do you care?" he snarled, his words lashing out like a whip to strike right at the heart of Alan's insecurity.
He did care. He was furious mostly with himself for even bringing it up in the first place. It's Nick's life, not yours, Mae's voice told him in his head but it mattered.
"It's nothing," Alan whispered, but they both knew it was the flimsiest of lies. "Never mind."
"...I thought you'd be glad," Nick said, quietly, and when Alan looked he was staring down at his plate with that look that said 'I'll never understand you humans.'
He sighed. "Nick- don't. Don't hold back on yourself for my sake."
"I wasn't," he replied, with a frank honesty that had Alan's eyebrows shooting skyward. "But I did think you'd be glad."
Oh. Oh. He was reading too much into things, as always, and Alan felt a little unexpected bloom of warmth, because some things changed, but others would always stay the same. He smiled. "I am glad," he said, and it was the truth. "I was just surprised, that's all."
Nick's mouth twisted in a grin. "I like to keep you guessing."
+
It wasn't that he didn't think about it. He did, and he'd tried, once. But it was just too difficult to pretend - to put on this great big act, and for what?
He couldn't understand it, when Mae said she'd rather be with someone who wasn't involved in all of this. "That's just great for you then, isn't it?" he'd snarled. "Some of us don't have the luxury of making this a part-time job."
And that was the end of it. In more ways than one, though he didn't really understand them all until he was back in school, living a normal life in the normal world and feeling, if possible, more out of place than he'd ever been.
Three things made it tolerable. The first was Jamie, and by extension Seb, though in many ways they agreed to disagree and left it at that. Jamie made college interesting, and Nick found he actually had a place in Jamie's circle of friends that he was comfortable with - 'the guy that terrifies everyone except Jamie', but he liked it. He liked the combination of being feared but accepted. Disliked, but trusted. It was stable but it wasn't exactly normal, and Nick was okay with that.
The second was Mae. Mae was hard to define, in his head, but more and more he saw her as 'the person that understands Alan and I and is thus indispensable.' But it wasn't just that. He liked spending time with her, liked that she was impressed with him but not afraid, understood him but didn't presume or judge or try to change him in any way. She just genuinely seemed to like him, which was weird, but he accepted it. Mae was, by definition, weird. And Nick was okay with that.
The third was - of course - Alan.
Alan was pushy. Alan was presumptuous. Alan wanted everything from him, but expected nothing. Alan continually put himself down for Nick's sake. Alan made Nick so angry that he couldn't breathe, and so frustrated that he couldn't see.
But Alan was his. And Nick loved him so much it caused him physical pain, so much that his throat would close and he couldn't say a word, there were no words in this stringent human language to even attempt to explain.
He wanted Alan, he wanted everything.
They had left the living room half-painted, with trays all over the floor and big yellow handprints on the makeshift sofa cover. Nick woke up before dawn, changed into his oily car clothes, and finished the job in three hours.
"Thank you," a quiet voice said from the doorway. Nick's head snapped up. Alan was standing there in his pajamas, leaning on the doorframe, his hair an incurable mess. He looked beautiful.
"It doesn't matter," Nick muttered, and Alan's eyes widened a little. "It doesn't matter," he clarified, "what color the walls are. Or the carpet. But it's ours," he said, rushing on before Alan could get a word in, before he could completely misinterpret what Nick was trying, desperately, to say. "So... we can do whatever we want. To it. And it'll last."
Understanding dawned in his eyes, and Alan smiled, open and free and light. "Yes," he murmured, and the relief and affection in his voice could have been heavy, should have been, but it was a burden Nick wanted. "Exactly that. It's beautiful," he said, but Nick knew it meant you're beautiful.
He couldn't say it. He tried, like he'd tried so many times before, but his throat closed around the words and he sat there, not knowing what to do with himself, not knowing how to make it perfectly, absolutely clear that Alan was Nick's and the house didn't actually matter as long as they were together, as long as they had each other.
It's ours, so we can do whatever we want to it, and it'll last.
Nick stood up. He let the paintbrush drop back into the pan. He moved closer to Alan - closer, and closer, until he was as close as he'd been that time in the kitchen, only this time, Alan didn't shy away.
He slid his hand into Alan's hair, gripped it tight between sword-callused fingers. "Alan," he said, his voice rough and soft and nothing more than a breath in the air. "I want this. I want you."
Alan's smile only grew. "Then take it."
+
One day, Alan would have to admit - it wasn't normality that he wanted, and 'safety' no longer meant having to conform.
if you liked this, you may like:
Lips and Teeth . Faeries