First actual, finished fanfic. Evarrrr.
Title: Bad Hair, And Other (Less Publicised) Stories
Fandom: Popslash. Westlife RPS. Who else? MY BRAIN, IT IS CONSUMED BY IRISH PROSTATES.
Pairing: Vague multiple; Shane/Nicky
Rating: ...PG-13 for language?
Notes: ...please read? Even if you have no idea re: Westlife. I'd appreciate it greatly.
The years go by.
There are number ones and Bryan leaves and somewhere in the middle Nicky gets his teeth fixed. Shane vaguely remembers being bitterly disappointed about this, but it all gets lost in more number ones and the ratpack album and Mark comes out but the rest of them never do.
Sometimes they laugh and sometimes there's guilt and sometimes they just get really fucking drunk, because out of the five (they still included Bryan, still remembered the chubby 19-year-old boy with a giggle like a 12-year-old girl) Mark was the only one none of them had ever touched. He didn't - doesn't - know, and maybe one day they'll tell him, only that's not true, because he's not part of it and gay as he is, he wouldn't understand.
Shane looks at them, at Bryan too, and sees what they were and what they are. Nicky was a beautiful boy with slightly-off teeth and the sweetest blue eyes God had ever granted; now he's a beautiful man with a money-bought mouth that leers unattractively and Shane himself has partaken in removing the innocence from those eyes. Kian - vanity personified since Shane can't even remember when - woke up one day earlier that year with a handful of hairs on his pillow and hasn't had it cut since. Bryan had surprised them all by becoming first a husband, then a father, then an asshole. And Mark - sometimes it hurts to look at Mark, because he's grown from a hermit into someone who's so proud of who he is and still loved for it and Shane wants desperately to know what that's like.
He sees them all and he wants to yell "why haven't I changed?", but that's stupid because here's Nicole, here's his beautiful baby daughter whose namesake people guess but will never *know*. Here in the mirror is his stupid pseudo-mohawk, different in that it was cool when he was 20 but becomes more and more ridiculous with each passing birthday. Here are four of his best friends - one he no longer sees but hears on easy-listening radio channels and reads about in low-grade teen magazines; one who he sees on telly with his arm slung so casually around another man and can't quite manage to feel uncomfortable about so much as *jealous*; one he's been there with and done that with and can still laugh about it without avoiding eye contact; and Nicky. Nicky, who brings his wife and dog to spend Boxing Day with Shane's family, seeming almost spiteful in flaunting his marriage; Nicky who spends half an hour staring at pictures of Shane with Gillian and Nicole and never quite turns far enough to see Shane staring at *him*; Nicky who still crawls into Shane's bed in his usual nighttime attire when they're on tour and he's cold, or he's warm, or he's *there*.
Shane watches them all, and thinks: Seven more years?
Fuck, yeah.
Fandom: Popslash. Westlife RPS. Who else? MY BRAIN, IT IS CONSUMED BY IRISH PROSTATES.
Pairing: Vague multiple; Shane/Nicky
Rating: ...PG-13 for language?
Notes: ...please read? Even if you have no idea re: Westlife. I'd appreciate it greatly.
The years go by.
There are number ones and Bryan leaves and somewhere in the middle Nicky gets his teeth fixed. Shane vaguely remembers being bitterly disappointed about this, but it all gets lost in more number ones and the ratpack album and Mark comes out but the rest of them never do.
Sometimes they laugh and sometimes there's guilt and sometimes they just get really fucking drunk, because out of the five (they still included Bryan, still remembered the chubby 19-year-old boy with a giggle like a 12-year-old girl) Mark was the only one none of them had ever touched. He didn't - doesn't - know, and maybe one day they'll tell him, only that's not true, because he's not part of it and gay as he is, he wouldn't understand.
Shane looks at them, at Bryan too, and sees what they were and what they are. Nicky was a beautiful boy with slightly-off teeth and the sweetest blue eyes God had ever granted; now he's a beautiful man with a money-bought mouth that leers unattractively and Shane himself has partaken in removing the innocence from those eyes. Kian - vanity personified since Shane can't even remember when - woke up one day earlier that year with a handful of hairs on his pillow and hasn't had it cut since. Bryan had surprised them all by becoming first a husband, then a father, then an asshole. And Mark - sometimes it hurts to look at Mark, because he's grown from a hermit into someone who's so proud of who he is and still loved for it and Shane wants desperately to know what that's like.
He sees them all and he wants to yell "why haven't I changed?", but that's stupid because here's Nicole, here's his beautiful baby daughter whose namesake people guess but will never *know*. Here in the mirror is his stupid pseudo-mohawk, different in that it was cool when he was 20 but becomes more and more ridiculous with each passing birthday. Here are four of his best friends - one he no longer sees but hears on easy-listening radio channels and reads about in low-grade teen magazines; one who he sees on telly with his arm slung so casually around another man and can't quite manage to feel uncomfortable about so much as *jealous*; one he's been there with and done that with and can still laugh about it without avoiding eye contact; and Nicky. Nicky, who brings his wife and dog to spend Boxing Day with Shane's family, seeming almost spiteful in flaunting his marriage; Nicky who spends half an hour staring at pictures of Shane with Gillian and Nicole and never quite turns far enough to see Shane staring at *him*; Nicky who still crawls into Shane's bed in his usual nighttime attire when they're on tour and he's cold, or he's warm, or he's *there*.
Shane watches them all, and thinks: Seven more years?
Fuck, yeah.