(no subject)
I picked up the book at the library because it was new and I liked the title and cover, finally got to it under my pile yesterday, and finished it last night. And promptly wrote this, and found this place. So. Hi?
Title: define love
Word count: 3584.
Rating: PG, probably.
Summary: Alan doesn't know, but he hopes.
define love
i. walk with me
Alan doesn't know how to take care of a baby, but he tries. He remembers how his mum and dad used to care for him, and he tries to do that for Nick. It's hard, because Nick never cries and never makes a sound and he doesn't know if he's doing it right, but he tries. He learns to tell when Nick needs something, learns to watch Nick every second of every day so that he doesn't miss a single tiny sign. He drags out his oldest toys, the ones from when he was Nick's age, and tries to get Nick to play with them.
Mostly Alan ends up playing with them while Nick watches.
Nick doesn't cry, but sometimes Alan does. Only at night, when Nick's asleep - he watches Nick until he falls asleep, each night, because he knows his mum used to do that for him, and he's pretty much Nick's mum and dad and brother and world, so far as he can see. Nick starts to crawl a little after Dad put him in Alan's arms, but he doesn't do it often, if at all. Mostly Nick lays there, watching, still and silent, and Alan just...does his best. He tries to get Nick to do it more, tries to teach him (Dad comes downstairs to find Alan crawling around the room, Nick sitting up and watching him, but he doesn't say anything) and eventually Nick will do what he wants, quietly. He does the same with walking, taking Nick's hands and helping him stand and walk like he saw his parents do in old home videos, and Nick lets him, craning his little head back and up to look at Alan as he lets Alan walk him around the room.
The first time Nick takes steps on his own, they're to Alan. Alan's doing what his Mum was doing in the videos, holding out his arms and coaxing, smiling. Nick walks, and he topples over but Alan catches him, frightened for a split second when he thinks he's not going to get to Nick before he falls (and it's stupid, really, because Nick won't drown but he's seen Nick cut his lip on a table once when he fell, the other day, and Nick didn't whimper or cry or anything, just sat there with the blood coming from his mouth, and Alan had never been so scared in his life) but then he does. Nick's little hands grip Alan's arms, and Alan feels warm even when he realizes Nick is just using him for balance.
Nick starts to follow Alan around. Alan never went out of sight from his little brother, not when he could help it, but now Nick will just push himself to his feet when Alan crosses the room, and then proceed to walk unsteadily over to Alan, where he drops back down to the ground, apparently content. Alan tests it one day in the living room, moving from the couch and then each of the chairs, and each time Nick will get himself up and toddle over to Alan with determined patience, until he's by Alan again, where he stops.
They end up on the couch, where Nick uses the bottom cushions to help balance himself until he reaches Alan's legs, which he swaps to, and Alan knows he's grinning stupidly. He hauls his little brother up into his lap and Nick puts up with it for about two minutes before squirming off and just sitting next to Alan, looking at Alan and not looking away. Alan's used to this by now, used to Nick's unflinching regard, and he wants to think he knows what it means. It has to mean something, doesn't it? Nick walks towards him and never looks away and doesn't seem to want anything else but to sit here, by Alan, doing nothing much at all but watching.
Alan doesn't really want anything else at that moment, either, so they sit there until Dad comes down to make dinner. Nick had fallen asleep a while ago, crawling back to Alan because when Nick's tired he likes to be warm, and Alan thought maybe, just maybe, his best would be good enough.
Nick's two by the time he doesn't need Alan to balance him any further at all, and Alan sort of regrets that. Nick still follows him, though, his steps now sure, and that, at least, is a fair trade. Almost. Nick's two when he follows Alan onto the boat, the boat that's taking them to another new home, another new life, and he's two when he suddenly reaches out and takes Alan's jeans in his little hand, when Alan knows without a doubt that something is wrong because Nick reached for him. Nick's two when he starts to cough, when blood starts to come from his mouth, and Alan is five when he realizes that there are things much, much worse than a split lip could ever be. He really, honestly thinks that Nick is dying, that his little brother is dying, and for the first time in his life he feels angry at his father, when Dad just says "I was worried about this", like it's okay to have risked this, and even if he feels bad about it later, even if he hates himself for hating Dad for even a second, he's not sure he ever quite forgives Dad for the boat. So he just tries to forget it happened, and promises himself that he's never going to have to see Nick like that again.
ii. talk with me
Nick doesn't speak for three years, and Alan doesn't know how to feel. Scared, maybe, for Nick, because maybe Alan is doing something wrong and it's all his fault. Inadequate, sad, wistful - Alan knows the words, has read them or heard them and latched onto them like Nick never does, but he doesn't know how to make sense of them to Nick. So he just talks. For three years, all the time, he just talks. Nick always listens - or at least he doesn't look away, doesn't walk away, but just sits there, cold eyes locked onto Alan, and it's comforting somehow which probably says more about Alan than he'd like - and maybe it just becomes a habit. He tells Nick everything, talks constantly, reads him stories from the books he's reading, sings him songs he half-remembers from his own mother. Nick watches, Nick listens, and Alan wonders sometimes if this will be his life: desperate words falling out again and again to fill the endless void of Nick.
He wonders if it should bother him more.
It's only a few weeks after Nick's fourth birthday. Alan got him to blow out the candles on his cake by virtue of practicing endlessly for a week beforehand, lighting candles on toast and muffins and meatloaf and showing Nick exactly what to do, while his little brother watched him with no expression at all. Nick looked at him over the cake and blew out all four candles at once and Alan couldn't remember, at that exact moment, ever feeling so proud. Dad just messes up his hair without really looking at Alan or Nick, his eyes on the stairs, but that can't ruin the bright, happy feeling in Alan's chest, and when Dad leaves to go settle Olivia - she's always her worst on Nick's birthday - Alan cuts Nick a huge piece of the cake, bigger than he probably should have, and wipes off Nick's mouth even as Nick tries to pull back (Nick doesn't move away, though, just leans back and watches Alan with something Alan thinks could be annoyance, although maybe he's just seeing things he wants to see, so Alan keeps cleaning away the frosting).
Olivia saw Nick that morning, two weeks after Nick turned four and her son didn't, and one of her bad spells started. Alan did what he always did: he took Nick's hand and led him out the front door as his father took Olivia's face in his hands, speaking softly, quietly.
Nick doesn't tug his hand away when they're outside. Alan always holds Nick's hand when they're outside, when his brother is four years old. Dad does, too, and Alan figures Nick knows that it's not up for debate. He starts to talk about the snow, because it's there, and the possibility of making a snowman, even though he knows this would probably not fill Nick with any sort of particular joy. They've gone around the block once, Nick's nose red from the cold even though he's in a thick jacket and a scarf and mittens and boots, because Alan is worse than any overprotective mother sometimes, and Alan hasn't stopped talking once. He used to leave these blanks in conversation, these spaces other people would speak into, but now he just talks. He's pointing out everything that they come across and naming them, repeating them, like he always does, but for some reason today Alan just doesn't feel like not talking, even for a second.
He realizes he might be angry, not at Nick, but maybe just at their parents, at the way Dad didn't feel the same about the candles as he did and how Olivia never could.
He tightens his grip on Nick's hand like this will help, and maybe it does. Nick doesn't pull away and that's enough, maybe.
Alan is explaining the concept of a mailbox - he's not sure why, really, but they're at their front drive and Alan won't take Nick around the block again if he's at all cold but he doesn't really want to take Nick back inside to a mother that screams at the sight of him just yet, so he's doing what he can - when it happens. "Alan." Flat, infectionless, and inhuman in that way - and Alan's mind goes blank, because he can't, at that exact moment, connect the dots. He whips his head around to look down at Nick, who is looking up at him as always, unflinching and calm.
"Nick?" And his own voice breaks a bit, croaks out, because even if he's desperately wanted this for three years Alan might have stopped expecting it.
Nick appears to consider this, quiet as ever, and Alan thinks maybe he really is imagining things as Nick opens his mouth again. "Alan."
The same flat, cold voice, but right then it's the best, most wonderful sound Alan has ever heard. He can't help himself; he drops down to his knees on the cold pavement and throws his arms around his little brother, and it's a thousand million times better than stupid candles. Nick starts squirming almost immediately, but he says it again: "Alan." This time, though, it's almost hissing, and anyone else would have flinched away (a long time ago, back when a baby was in their arms after not drowning, eyes dead but locked on him) but this is Alan so he just laughs, half breathless, and suddenly the world is perfect again.
He lets go of Nick, and Nick steps back but not away, eyeing Alan in a way that seems suspicious. And Alan can't help himself; he points at the snow and the house and the street and the car and the snow and the sky and Nick and Alan (again and again and again, because Nick can say his name) and Nick plays along for a while, thinking each time before offering up occasionally mangled attempts (Alan's name is always perfect, careful in that flat voice) until he just stops, looking cold and possibly annoyed. Alan doesn't care. He takes Nick inside - he kicks the snow off his boots on the front step, and Nick copies him, like he learned to do when he was three, and inside he takes off Nick's scarf and jacket and mittens and boots, then his own, putting them all in their places, carefully. He makes hot chocolate, having to drag the stool in the kitchen corner over to the stove, and he dumps marshmallows in Nick's cup, because he thinks Nick likes them, or at least likes to watch them dissolve.
For once he isn't spreaking, because for once there's a chance Nick might have something to say, and Alan won't let himself miss a word.
iii. protect me
Alan hates the scar that Nick's talisman leaves, but he always finds the thing and then finds Nick immediately, and makes him put it back on. He knows that Nick needs to wear it, knows it's protecting him from the man Olivia once loved, and that's more important than the pain it might cause his little brother. Alan learns all the hardest lessons in life from caring for Nick, and this is one of them: sometimes neither choice is a painless one, a good one, and sometimes you have to hurt those you love to protect them. He hates the necessity, but he hates the thought of Nick in danger even more than the thought of the talisman pressing pain into Nick's skin. Nick's life is the important thing, here.
The choice between himself and Nick is easy. It always has been, and Dad's last words have nothing to do with this decision. Nick doesn't have his talisman, and Alan does. So Alan takes his talisman off, drops it over his little brother's head, and then they go.
Later, he'll know he should feel something about Nick, about the way his leg was burned, the way Nick had necessitated that, but instead he just feels grateful. It could have been Nick's leg to get burned, and Alan couldn't have handled that. He can handle this, though, can handle the pain himself, can handle being crippled. It means Nick isn't.
He's not sure when he actually realizes it, because he's so busy and worried and pressured now, taking care of Olivia in addition to Nick, taking care of everything, but one day Alan just realizes he hasn't found Nick's talisman lying around once since Dad died, at all. He realizes Nick never takes it off, ever, even when he would have found an excuse before.
He wonders if he can take this as a sign that Nick cares about him, about anything. It's hard to tell, because Nick's expression never changes and his voice is flat unless it's angry, and often even then. And Nick has always, always watched him. How can he tell if Nick's watching him for different reasons now?
Alan can tell that the kitten is fond of him. That's probably why he takes it in, more than anything else. The kitten purrs when he pets it and wraps itself around his feet and climbs into his lap to sleep and meows at him whenever it wants him to look at it. He can tell the kitten cares for him, he can tell that he has an effect on the kitten, and that's as comforting as it is painful. Nick doesn't say much about the kitten, and Alan didn't really expect him to do so.
The kitten becomes a cat, and the cat is still fond of Alan. He can tell. He loves the cat, loves falling asleep with the comforting rumble of a purr at his side, and with Dad gone and Mum gone and Nick being Nick, it's painful and a relief all at once.
The cat bites Nick once and Alan can ignore it. The cat bites Nick twice, three times, whenever Nick comes near Alan - and the choice is easy. It always has been, even though it's painful, even though it hurts. Alan gives the cat to a neighbor, and just shrugs and smiles when Nick asks where the cat went.
He puts Nick first. He always has.
iv. promise me
They're being hunted by every magician in the world and Olivia is as mad as a hatter unless it's just Alan and it's a good day and Nick is a demon but Alan comes back from school - he needs his diploma, he needs to graduate so he can hold a job and provide, because he can't count on Olivia forever - and he'd been in health class and he finds Nick and makes him swear. He's never, ever going to smoke. It's probably stupid and ridiculous and it's probably not important compared to, oh, the rest of their lives, but Alan can't help himself.
He knows Nick thinks he's being ridiculous and stupid - Nick tells him so - but Nick promises him anyway. He won't smoke.
It has to mean something.
Years later he'll be near enough to his mother's family that he'll make an excuse to go and see them. He's curious, maybe morbidly so, and it's hard to remember his mother these days. And he knows he's being selfish, but just once he wants to have someone tell him they love him. Dad's dead and Mum's dead and Olivia is lost in her past, even if she's fond of him, and whenever he tells Nick he loves him Nick just says he knows or tells Alan that he's a sap or shrugs.
His mother's family is warm and they tell him they love him and the children laugh and smile and reach out for him. They make him feel wistful for what will never, ever be and Alan wonders why he hurts himself like this. He knows he does care for Natasha and her family, yes, but he also knows that if it came to a choice, he's make the same exact one he always has.
He does. He goes back home to Nick, who won't ever be like Natasha and her children, and he opens the door to dark, cold quiet and he sees Nick on the stairs and hears Olivia shuffling around upstairs and he hates himself more than he ever has, because he knows. He knows what this means, and he knows he left Nick alone and it was selfish and it doesn't matter if Nick will never say what he needs or do what he needs: Nick is his little brother and Alan can't ever choose anyone else, anything else, over Nick.
He's never been capable of it.
So he promises. He writes Natasha as long as the letters come, and when they stop he almost writes one anyway but by then he knows that he's just trying to pretend. And it's okay, even if it isn't really. Nick is there, and Nick can speak and walk and Nick is always beside him, and Nick promises him stupid things like he'll never smoke, and he always blows out his candles and sometimes if it snows he'll make a snowman with Alan even if he thinks it's stupid, and it's not enough, it will never be enough, but nothing else could ever be enough, either. And Alan will take what he can get. He will try to see in Nick what he needs to see, what he wants to see, and even if he never can he'll keep trying.
This is the truth, this is his truth, and Alan tries his best.
v. be with me
Alan has never been noble, and he knows why. It doesn't matter who it is or who it was: Nick will always be the one he chooses, Nick will always be the one he puts first and does anything for, always, and that doesn't change and won't change and he knows this. He likes Mae, he does, and he likes Jamie and Olivia, cares for them all, and he knows they care for him, but he'd sacrifice them for Nick if he didn't have any other way to protect his brother and he knows this and he hates this but he can't change it. Nick will never know the right thing to say, will never say it, and Nick will never reach for his hand or look at him with warmth or be human for him, but Nick will still be the one he picks, every time.
It doesn't matter that he is weighing Nick against the whole damn world. It doesn't matter that he could be dooming himself and every single person in the world, because this is Nick. Nick wins, every time. And somehow the painful part of this, the painful part of the words I set you free, it isn't what could happen to everyone else in the world. It's just that he knows he can't keep Nick, that he can't keep Nick by his side, that he loves Nick and he can't do anything about it.
Alan has never been noble, and he doesn't start then. He smiles, looks at Nick, and he says the words that could end the world. It doesn't matter; he's choosing Nick, he's saving Nick, because he can't do anything else.
He's scared, so scared, when he wakes up and only sees Mae and Jamie. He tells Mae he's sorry as he doesn't look over at the circle Nick had been in, and he asks the one question he doesn't (he does) want to ask. There's movement at his side, and Nick is there, Nick is with him, Nick won't leave him.
Alan wonders if he can believe this means something. He hopes so, but it doesn't really matter. It's never been about Nick loving him; it has always, always been about him loving Nick.
Title: define love
Word count: 3584.
Rating: PG, probably.
Summary: Alan doesn't know, but he hopes.
define love
i. walk with me
Alan doesn't know how to take care of a baby, but he tries. He remembers how his mum and dad used to care for him, and he tries to do that for Nick. It's hard, because Nick never cries and never makes a sound and he doesn't know if he's doing it right, but he tries. He learns to tell when Nick needs something, learns to watch Nick every second of every day so that he doesn't miss a single tiny sign. He drags out his oldest toys, the ones from when he was Nick's age, and tries to get Nick to play with them.
Mostly Alan ends up playing with them while Nick watches.
Nick doesn't cry, but sometimes Alan does. Only at night, when Nick's asleep - he watches Nick until he falls asleep, each night, because he knows his mum used to do that for him, and he's pretty much Nick's mum and dad and brother and world, so far as he can see. Nick starts to crawl a little after Dad put him in Alan's arms, but he doesn't do it often, if at all. Mostly Nick lays there, watching, still and silent, and Alan just...does his best. He tries to get Nick to do it more, tries to teach him (Dad comes downstairs to find Alan crawling around the room, Nick sitting up and watching him, but he doesn't say anything) and eventually Nick will do what he wants, quietly. He does the same with walking, taking Nick's hands and helping him stand and walk like he saw his parents do in old home videos, and Nick lets him, craning his little head back and up to look at Alan as he lets Alan walk him around the room.
The first time Nick takes steps on his own, they're to Alan. Alan's doing what his Mum was doing in the videos, holding out his arms and coaxing, smiling. Nick walks, and he topples over but Alan catches him, frightened for a split second when he thinks he's not going to get to Nick before he falls (and it's stupid, really, because Nick won't drown but he's seen Nick cut his lip on a table once when he fell, the other day, and Nick didn't whimper or cry or anything, just sat there with the blood coming from his mouth, and Alan had never been so scared in his life) but then he does. Nick's little hands grip Alan's arms, and Alan feels warm even when he realizes Nick is just using him for balance.
Nick starts to follow Alan around. Alan never went out of sight from his little brother, not when he could help it, but now Nick will just push himself to his feet when Alan crosses the room, and then proceed to walk unsteadily over to Alan, where he drops back down to the ground, apparently content. Alan tests it one day in the living room, moving from the couch and then each of the chairs, and each time Nick will get himself up and toddle over to Alan with determined patience, until he's by Alan again, where he stops.
They end up on the couch, where Nick uses the bottom cushions to help balance himself until he reaches Alan's legs, which he swaps to, and Alan knows he's grinning stupidly. He hauls his little brother up into his lap and Nick puts up with it for about two minutes before squirming off and just sitting next to Alan, looking at Alan and not looking away. Alan's used to this by now, used to Nick's unflinching regard, and he wants to think he knows what it means. It has to mean something, doesn't it? Nick walks towards him and never looks away and doesn't seem to want anything else but to sit here, by Alan, doing nothing much at all but watching.
Alan doesn't really want anything else at that moment, either, so they sit there until Dad comes down to make dinner. Nick had fallen asleep a while ago, crawling back to Alan because when Nick's tired he likes to be warm, and Alan thought maybe, just maybe, his best would be good enough.
Nick's two by the time he doesn't need Alan to balance him any further at all, and Alan sort of regrets that. Nick still follows him, though, his steps now sure, and that, at least, is a fair trade. Almost. Nick's two when he follows Alan onto the boat, the boat that's taking them to another new home, another new life, and he's two when he suddenly reaches out and takes Alan's jeans in his little hand, when Alan knows without a doubt that something is wrong because Nick reached for him. Nick's two when he starts to cough, when blood starts to come from his mouth, and Alan is five when he realizes that there are things much, much worse than a split lip could ever be. He really, honestly thinks that Nick is dying, that his little brother is dying, and for the first time in his life he feels angry at his father, when Dad just says "I was worried about this", like it's okay to have risked this, and even if he feels bad about it later, even if he hates himself for hating Dad for even a second, he's not sure he ever quite forgives Dad for the boat. So he just tries to forget it happened, and promises himself that he's never going to have to see Nick like that again.
ii. talk with me
Nick doesn't speak for three years, and Alan doesn't know how to feel. Scared, maybe, for Nick, because maybe Alan is doing something wrong and it's all his fault. Inadequate, sad, wistful - Alan knows the words, has read them or heard them and latched onto them like Nick never does, but he doesn't know how to make sense of them to Nick. So he just talks. For three years, all the time, he just talks. Nick always listens - or at least he doesn't look away, doesn't walk away, but just sits there, cold eyes locked onto Alan, and it's comforting somehow which probably says more about Alan than he'd like - and maybe it just becomes a habit. He tells Nick everything, talks constantly, reads him stories from the books he's reading, sings him songs he half-remembers from his own mother. Nick watches, Nick listens, and Alan wonders sometimes if this will be his life: desperate words falling out again and again to fill the endless void of Nick.
He wonders if it should bother him more.
It's only a few weeks after Nick's fourth birthday. Alan got him to blow out the candles on his cake by virtue of practicing endlessly for a week beforehand, lighting candles on toast and muffins and meatloaf and showing Nick exactly what to do, while his little brother watched him with no expression at all. Nick looked at him over the cake and blew out all four candles at once and Alan couldn't remember, at that exact moment, ever feeling so proud. Dad just messes up his hair without really looking at Alan or Nick, his eyes on the stairs, but that can't ruin the bright, happy feeling in Alan's chest, and when Dad leaves to go settle Olivia - she's always her worst on Nick's birthday - Alan cuts Nick a huge piece of the cake, bigger than he probably should have, and wipes off Nick's mouth even as Nick tries to pull back (Nick doesn't move away, though, just leans back and watches Alan with something Alan thinks could be annoyance, although maybe he's just seeing things he wants to see, so Alan keeps cleaning away the frosting).
Olivia saw Nick that morning, two weeks after Nick turned four and her son didn't, and one of her bad spells started. Alan did what he always did: he took Nick's hand and led him out the front door as his father took Olivia's face in his hands, speaking softly, quietly.
Nick doesn't tug his hand away when they're outside. Alan always holds Nick's hand when they're outside, when his brother is four years old. Dad does, too, and Alan figures Nick knows that it's not up for debate. He starts to talk about the snow, because it's there, and the possibility of making a snowman, even though he knows this would probably not fill Nick with any sort of particular joy. They've gone around the block once, Nick's nose red from the cold even though he's in a thick jacket and a scarf and mittens and boots, because Alan is worse than any overprotective mother sometimes, and Alan hasn't stopped talking once. He used to leave these blanks in conversation, these spaces other people would speak into, but now he just talks. He's pointing out everything that they come across and naming them, repeating them, like he always does, but for some reason today Alan just doesn't feel like not talking, even for a second.
He realizes he might be angry, not at Nick, but maybe just at their parents, at the way Dad didn't feel the same about the candles as he did and how Olivia never could.
He tightens his grip on Nick's hand like this will help, and maybe it does. Nick doesn't pull away and that's enough, maybe.
Alan is explaining the concept of a mailbox - he's not sure why, really, but they're at their front drive and Alan won't take Nick around the block again if he's at all cold but he doesn't really want to take Nick back inside to a mother that screams at the sight of him just yet, so he's doing what he can - when it happens. "Alan." Flat, infectionless, and inhuman in that way - and Alan's mind goes blank, because he can't, at that exact moment, connect the dots. He whips his head around to look down at Nick, who is looking up at him as always, unflinching and calm.
"Nick?" And his own voice breaks a bit, croaks out, because even if he's desperately wanted this for three years Alan might have stopped expecting it.
Nick appears to consider this, quiet as ever, and Alan thinks maybe he really is imagining things as Nick opens his mouth again. "Alan."
The same flat, cold voice, but right then it's the best, most wonderful sound Alan has ever heard. He can't help himself; he drops down to his knees on the cold pavement and throws his arms around his little brother, and it's a thousand million times better than stupid candles. Nick starts squirming almost immediately, but he says it again: "Alan." This time, though, it's almost hissing, and anyone else would have flinched away (a long time ago, back when a baby was in their arms after not drowning, eyes dead but locked on him) but this is Alan so he just laughs, half breathless, and suddenly the world is perfect again.
He lets go of Nick, and Nick steps back but not away, eyeing Alan in a way that seems suspicious. And Alan can't help himself; he points at the snow and the house and the street and the car and the snow and the sky and Nick and Alan (again and again and again, because Nick can say his name) and Nick plays along for a while, thinking each time before offering up occasionally mangled attempts (Alan's name is always perfect, careful in that flat voice) until he just stops, looking cold and possibly annoyed. Alan doesn't care. He takes Nick inside - he kicks the snow off his boots on the front step, and Nick copies him, like he learned to do when he was three, and inside he takes off Nick's scarf and jacket and mittens and boots, then his own, putting them all in their places, carefully. He makes hot chocolate, having to drag the stool in the kitchen corner over to the stove, and he dumps marshmallows in Nick's cup, because he thinks Nick likes them, or at least likes to watch them dissolve.
For once he isn't spreaking, because for once there's a chance Nick might have something to say, and Alan won't let himself miss a word.
iii. protect me
Alan hates the scar that Nick's talisman leaves, but he always finds the thing and then finds Nick immediately, and makes him put it back on. He knows that Nick needs to wear it, knows it's protecting him from the man Olivia once loved, and that's more important than the pain it might cause his little brother. Alan learns all the hardest lessons in life from caring for Nick, and this is one of them: sometimes neither choice is a painless one, a good one, and sometimes you have to hurt those you love to protect them. He hates the necessity, but he hates the thought of Nick in danger even more than the thought of the talisman pressing pain into Nick's skin. Nick's life is the important thing, here.
The choice between himself and Nick is easy. It always has been, and Dad's last words have nothing to do with this decision. Nick doesn't have his talisman, and Alan does. So Alan takes his talisman off, drops it over his little brother's head, and then they go.
Later, he'll know he should feel something about Nick, about the way his leg was burned, the way Nick had necessitated that, but instead he just feels grateful. It could have been Nick's leg to get burned, and Alan couldn't have handled that. He can handle this, though, can handle the pain himself, can handle being crippled. It means Nick isn't.
He's not sure when he actually realizes it, because he's so busy and worried and pressured now, taking care of Olivia in addition to Nick, taking care of everything, but one day Alan just realizes he hasn't found Nick's talisman lying around once since Dad died, at all. He realizes Nick never takes it off, ever, even when he would have found an excuse before.
He wonders if he can take this as a sign that Nick cares about him, about anything. It's hard to tell, because Nick's expression never changes and his voice is flat unless it's angry, and often even then. And Nick has always, always watched him. How can he tell if Nick's watching him for different reasons now?
Alan can tell that the kitten is fond of him. That's probably why he takes it in, more than anything else. The kitten purrs when he pets it and wraps itself around his feet and climbs into his lap to sleep and meows at him whenever it wants him to look at it. He can tell the kitten cares for him, he can tell that he has an effect on the kitten, and that's as comforting as it is painful. Nick doesn't say much about the kitten, and Alan didn't really expect him to do so.
The kitten becomes a cat, and the cat is still fond of Alan. He can tell. He loves the cat, loves falling asleep with the comforting rumble of a purr at his side, and with Dad gone and Mum gone and Nick being Nick, it's painful and a relief all at once.
The cat bites Nick once and Alan can ignore it. The cat bites Nick twice, three times, whenever Nick comes near Alan - and the choice is easy. It always has been, even though it's painful, even though it hurts. Alan gives the cat to a neighbor, and just shrugs and smiles when Nick asks where the cat went.
He puts Nick first. He always has.
iv. promise me
They're being hunted by every magician in the world and Olivia is as mad as a hatter unless it's just Alan and it's a good day and Nick is a demon but Alan comes back from school - he needs his diploma, he needs to graduate so he can hold a job and provide, because he can't count on Olivia forever - and he'd been in health class and he finds Nick and makes him swear. He's never, ever going to smoke. It's probably stupid and ridiculous and it's probably not important compared to, oh, the rest of their lives, but Alan can't help himself.
He knows Nick thinks he's being ridiculous and stupid - Nick tells him so - but Nick promises him anyway. He won't smoke.
It has to mean something.
Years later he'll be near enough to his mother's family that he'll make an excuse to go and see them. He's curious, maybe morbidly so, and it's hard to remember his mother these days. And he knows he's being selfish, but just once he wants to have someone tell him they love him. Dad's dead and Mum's dead and Olivia is lost in her past, even if she's fond of him, and whenever he tells Nick he loves him Nick just says he knows or tells Alan that he's a sap or shrugs.
His mother's family is warm and they tell him they love him and the children laugh and smile and reach out for him. They make him feel wistful for what will never, ever be and Alan wonders why he hurts himself like this. He knows he does care for Natasha and her family, yes, but he also knows that if it came to a choice, he's make the same exact one he always has.
He does. He goes back home to Nick, who won't ever be like Natasha and her children, and he opens the door to dark, cold quiet and he sees Nick on the stairs and hears Olivia shuffling around upstairs and he hates himself more than he ever has, because he knows. He knows what this means, and he knows he left Nick alone and it was selfish and it doesn't matter if Nick will never say what he needs or do what he needs: Nick is his little brother and Alan can't ever choose anyone else, anything else, over Nick.
He's never been capable of it.
So he promises. He writes Natasha as long as the letters come, and when they stop he almost writes one anyway but by then he knows that he's just trying to pretend. And it's okay, even if it isn't really. Nick is there, and Nick can speak and walk and Nick is always beside him, and Nick promises him stupid things like he'll never smoke, and he always blows out his candles and sometimes if it snows he'll make a snowman with Alan even if he thinks it's stupid, and it's not enough, it will never be enough, but nothing else could ever be enough, either. And Alan will take what he can get. He will try to see in Nick what he needs to see, what he wants to see, and even if he never can he'll keep trying.
This is the truth, this is his truth, and Alan tries his best.
v. be with me
Alan has never been noble, and he knows why. It doesn't matter who it is or who it was: Nick will always be the one he chooses, Nick will always be the one he puts first and does anything for, always, and that doesn't change and won't change and he knows this. He likes Mae, he does, and he likes Jamie and Olivia, cares for them all, and he knows they care for him, but he'd sacrifice them for Nick if he didn't have any other way to protect his brother and he knows this and he hates this but he can't change it. Nick will never know the right thing to say, will never say it, and Nick will never reach for his hand or look at him with warmth or be human for him, but Nick will still be the one he picks, every time.
It doesn't matter that he is weighing Nick against the whole damn world. It doesn't matter that he could be dooming himself and every single person in the world, because this is Nick. Nick wins, every time. And somehow the painful part of this, the painful part of the words I set you free, it isn't what could happen to everyone else in the world. It's just that he knows he can't keep Nick, that he can't keep Nick by his side, that he loves Nick and he can't do anything about it.
Alan has never been noble, and he doesn't start then. He smiles, looks at Nick, and he says the words that could end the world. It doesn't matter; he's choosing Nick, he's saving Nick, because he can't do anything else.
He's scared, so scared, when he wakes up and only sees Mae and Jamie. He tells Mae he's sorry as he doesn't look over at the circle Nick had been in, and he asks the one question he doesn't (he does) want to ask. There's movement at his side, and Nick is there, Nick is with him, Nick won't leave him.
Alan wonders if he can believe this means something. He hopes so, but it doesn't really matter. It's never been about Nick loving him; it has always, always been about him loving Nick.