Fic: And the Card Attached Would Say | popslash | bsb gsf
And the Card Attached Would Say
Fandom: popslash
Pairing: Nick/Everyone
Summary: Nick falls in love. A lot.
Comments: Written for turps33's amazing Awesome April challenge! Many thanks especially to justhitstatic for all the footage and answering my ten million traumatizing questions about Nick. And to boomingvoice who is an amazing cheerleader and beta and helped me so much with my characterization. This is my first BSB fic. So be gentle, dear readers.
And Also: Because I am super lame, I also made a soundtrack. You can download it right here.
Warnings: recreational drug use, Jane Carter.
Nick knows he's not the smartest kid around, but he's not stupid, either, and he knows what people think about him, even his mom and Lou and sometimes Kevin, who gives him these looks when Nick decides to blow off his homework to play video games instead-all superior and special, because he graduated from a real high school so he must know so much, or something. Nick knows the other stuff people think about him, people who haven't ever met him or anything, just looking at him or seeing him perform or reading about him in some stupid magazine or whatever: that he's lucky he's good-looking because he's not really all that talented and he's definitely not very smart.
That's what people think, and maybe they're right about some of it, but Nick thinks that being smart has to be about more than just memorizing stupid stuff like dates and battles and how to find the radius of a circle that he's never going to use anyway, because when is he ever going to need to know the radius of a circle with his job? Not ever, that's when, and so when people give him that look like he's just some dumb kid who doesn't know anything, Nick lets it slide off him because he knows better, or else he lets them go on believing he's dumb because he's saving the truth for a surprise.
He's not sure what the surprise will be, but he can't wait to see the looks on everyone's faces when it happens.
So Nick knows he's not the smartest kid around, probably not even as smart as AJ, who always does his homework and gets it all done in the length of time it takes Nick to do one set of Algebra problems, but he's smart at other things. Things that are way more important than stupid math problems and he's better at them than AJ and the rest of them combined, like being likable and charming and making people believe he really means it when he says stuff, even if he totally doesn't. He's good at figuring out what people want from him and giving it to them, and that's much better than being smart like AJ or having a really good voice like Brian or being old like Kevin or being a really good dancer like Howie.
His mom says, "Sometimes you have to do things you don't really want to do or say things you don't really mean because it'll make other people happy. Do you know what I'm saying, Nicky?"
Nick just shrugs and frowns because he doesn't like it when she calls him that, it makes him feel like some sort of stupid little kid and of course he knows. That's the most obvious thing in the world and he figured it out three years ago when he first auditioned for the group.
Besides, he's fifteen and he's not a baby and he's not stupid, either. He might not be the smartest kid around, but he's not stupid.
*
The first time Nick falls in love is the first time he ever thinks, you're such an idiot, you're so fucking stupid. Falling in love is a bad idea to begin with because he has a lot of other things to worry about and falling in love is not on the list. Falling in love with Kevin, who's mean and old and thinks Nick is stupid, anyway, should never even be anywhere near the list, except somehow it happened and now Nick finds himself doing all sorts of stupid shit to get Kevin's attention. And it works. Sort of. He's not even gay, so. He's not even gay.
Kevin is old and mean and thinks Nick is stupid, but he's the one who says no when people try to make Nick do things that don't feel right, like taking his shirt off because it's not like he's built or anything, he's just skinny and he'd look stupid next to AJ and Howie so he'd rather keep his clothes on, thanks, and Kevin is the one who gets it. Kevin's the one who says no and glares at the people asking until they back down, and Kevin's the one who gets in trouble for it later, but he just ruffles Nick's hair and says, "Don't worry about it, kid." Kevin thinks Nick is too stupid to get what's going on, but it's not like that. Some things, Nick thinks, are just better off not knowing.
Kevin is the one who makes Nick stay late and practice until he gets everything perfect. Kevin's the one who looks over Nick's school assignments and makes him fix all the spelling errors; Kevin is the one who won't let Nick go out to the clubs in Europe, even after he officially turns sixteen and could totally go legally. His mom doesn't care what he does, his mom is happy as long as he's in the group and the record is moving up the charts. His mom is probably happy he's not at home because she doesn't have to feed him or wash his clothes and she has four other kids to think about and dad is no help, so.
So Kevin is the one, because there's no one else there, and even though Nick isn't a kid and he's not stupid and he's old enough to take care of himself if he's old enough to support his family, Kevin's the one who is always saying no. Even though AJ's pretty much allowed to do whatever he wants, which Nick doesn't think is fair at all because AJ's not that much older than him and he's still in school, too; AJ says, "You're such a fucking baby, always gotta have someone taking care of you," and he says it like he's joking, like it's a joke and it's supposed to be funny or a tease or something, but sometimes Nick sees him watching Kevin during photo shoots-watching Nick and Kevin--and AJ looks more sad than angry.
Nick never had an older brother, but he thinks this is probably what it feels like. He tells Kevin, "So, um. I'm maybe in love with you. And I know you're not like that or whatever, and I'm not even…whatever. But I just wanted to say that. So."
Kevin looks at him, sits down on the opposite bed and just looks at him for a moment. The hotel room smells like onions and old sweat and the bedside lamp makes this whining, humming sound that sort of hurts Nick's ears. Nick stares at the carpet, dark blue industrial stuff designed to hide stains, and for the first time, he feels stupid. He's so stupid, he's such a retard, why did he have to say anything? It's not like. Like he wants this to go anywhere. Like he wants to date Kevin, or something. That's even stupider. He just. He really loves him a lot. Is in love with him. Nick doesn't know how else he's supposed to be.
Kevin smiles a little. "That's really sweet, Nick, but I'm pretty sure you have to be gay to be in love with another guy. Don't you think?"
Nick shrugs. "I guess. I just know how I feel, man. That's all it is."
"There's a difference," Kevin says, and taps Nick's knee with one long finger. Twice, tap tap, before pulling away and leaning back on his elbows on the other bed. "You'll figure it out eventually. There's a difference between love and in love. Like, you love your family, but you're not in love with them. You'll see. Whatever you think, you're not stupid. You'll figure it out."
Nick has never felt more stupid. He's only ever known one kind of love. He doesn't know what else there could be.
*
Nick's favorite television show is The Golden Girls because Brian is obsessed with it and it's one of the few things they can always manage to get on the bus TV, so Nick makes it his favorite, too, even though he thinks the storylines are sort of stupid and he doesn't really get the jokes. But he likes being alone in the back of the bus with Brian, each of them sprawled out on the couches opposite each other, Brian watching the screen with a quiet intensity while Nick watches Brian to the backdrop of Rose's inane stories about her dead husband and the tinned sound of the laugh track.
No one else comes back during The Golden Girls. No one else wants to watch it and it's Nick's favorite time most days, when everyone else is off doing their own stuff and he's just alone with Brian, quiet quiet. He can just lay there and not even watch the show and be still and not be on. He doesn't have to be anything, now. It's nice.
It's perfect. He's in love with Brian.
He doesn't say anything about it, though. He's not stupid. He knows Brian would be nice about it but he wouldn’t really get it the way Kevin did and anyway, Nick is older now and he knows you don't just go around telling people who will never love you back shit like that, because it makes things weird and it's pretty much the last thing anyone wants to hear. Nick's in the business of giving people what they want and that isn't it. He's okay with that. He wouldn't want to hear that, either.
Brian is nice. He's a lot of other things, too, but the thing Nick mostly notices about Brian is that he's nice, and of all of them, he's the most like a real person. He feels real to Nick in a way that the others don't. He feels real in a way Nick doesn't even feel about himself, but when Nick's with him, when Brian pulls him into a supply closet at a venue and says, "This is gonna be the best prank ever," and his smile is wide and uneven and makes him look slightly insane and a goofy as hell; when he's just Brian and not Brian from the Backstreet Boys, that's when Nick is happiest. Because if Brian is just Brian and he still wants to be Nick's friend, that means something. Nick thinks maybe it means everything, and he's in love with Brian.
He's doing his homework at the kitchen table, chemistry problem sets that make his head hurt because he never knows which equation thing to use and AJ across from him, pen moving in a steady stream across the page in front of him. It's AJ's last semester of not-school and he's always moving so fast, too fast for Nick to keep up and it makes him dizzy thinking about it. Behind him in the back room, Brian's watching the show and Nick can just hear the theme song from beneath the folding door, thank you for being a friend. He hums along under his breath because it's easier than trying to balance these stupid chemistry things that he's never ever going to use in real life and AJ looks up from his paper and makes a face.
"What a stupid fucking show," AJ says. Nick sings louder (YOUR HEART IS TRUE, YOU'RE A PAL AND A CONFIDANTE) and kicks AJ under the table, hard, right in the ankle.
AJ kicks him back twice as hard, grabs his chemistry book and tosses it across the bus, sits back with a satisfied smirk while Nick scrambles to get his shit together, stuff the loose pages back into the book and he'll have to tape them later because he has to pass chemistry no matter how useless it is. Has to get his GED because he's maybe not the smartest kid around but he's not stupid, either, and he's getting kind of sick of people telling him he is.
"Your face is stupid," Nick says, holding his book against his chest, eyes skittering to the door. He wants to be in there with Brian where it's quiet and calm and he doesn't have to be ready for anything because it's just Brian. Brian, who's always straight with him and mostly nice. Who doesn't kick him or throw his shit across the room or tell him the stuff he likes is stupid. Brian, who doesn't look at Nick like he's stupid even if that's what he's thinking, not like AJ does with his sharp eyes and his mouth curled up all nasty.
"If you were a Golden Girl," AJ says, tapping his pen against his notebook, "you'd totally be Rose."
"Fuck you, I wouldn't be fucking Rose," Nick says, and slides into his seat, slouches down and gives AJ his coldest stare. "Who would you be?"
"Duh, I'd be Blanche." AJ wiggles his eyebrows a little and Nick absolutely does not think it's funny, absolutely not, because AJ's a jerk and he thinks Nick is the fucking Rose and he's not, so. He's not. "I'm the slutty one, right? I'd be Blanche, man. Totally. Kevin would be the Sophia. Cranky old bitch who never wants anyone else to do anything fun. Howie is a total Dorothy, all overbearing and always thinks he's right about shit when he really doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about."
"What about Brian," Nick says. Even though he's not the Rose and he's not, like, admitting or accepting that he's the Rose or something, because Rose is kind of retarded and Nick isn't that bad. He's not.
AJ shrugs. "There were only four of them. Brian's like, the mailman or something, I don't know. He doesn't fit the whole theme or whatever, it doesn't matter."
Nick wants to say, you're the one who doesn't fit. Nick wants to say, you're the jerk who's always getting on me, who's always better than me at everything except the things that don't really matter, like how good his hair looks or how tall he's getting. Not things he can help, anyway. Nick wants to say, you're the one who makes me feel stupid, but instead he closes his book and shoves his work in his bag. He can do it later, when AJ isn't around to fuck with him. The Golden Girls is on, and Nick wants to watch.
He's in love with Brian. Brian never makes him feel stupid.
*
When Nick goes home now, it's never like going home anymore and sometimes Nick misses the old days before he went to Europe, when they all lived in one house and were sort of almost like a real family. Then he goes to his parents' house for a family dinner and remembers why he doesn't live there anymore, because his dad is drunk and his mom screams a lot and Aaron hangs all over him and Leslie spends the whole time glaring at him. Only twelve years old and she already hates him.
BJ pretends like he doesn't exist. Angel just shrugs when she sees him and disappears into her room like she doesn't care. She probably doesn't.
His dad gets so drunk he passes out on the couch and vomits a little in his sleep, right onto his mom's new beige carpeting. She scrubs at it, crying and almost hysterical, and they never actually get around to eating dinner. Nick takes Aaron and they go to Sonic instead, eat burgers and fries and cherry limeades in the drive-in.
"So it's pretty much always like that, huh?" Nick says, staring straight in front of him. He licks the salt off his fingers and wipes them on his jeans, drinks the last of his cherry limeade that he shouldn't be drinking at all because of the sugar, but whatever.
"Um. Well sometimes mom gets drunk, too," Aaron says, and giggles a little.
When they get back to the house, his parents are both asleep and the rest of the kids are watching a Freddy Krueger movie in the living room with the sound turned down real low. It's a pretty old one that Nick remembers from when he was like eight or something-the one where the girl is lifting weights and turns into a spider and gave him nightmares for a month.
"We brought you guys food," Nick says, holding up the bags. "I'm taking off, if anyone wants to come," but they all ignore him except for Aaron, who climbs on his back and wraps one arm tight against his throat. Nick leaves the food and takes Aaron home.
He takes Aaron home even though it doesn't feel like home anymore, or maybe not yet, but it's not like anywhere really feels like that, except maybe the bus or being on stage, which changes every night but it's always the same and it's always familiar, too. He always knows what to expect, anyway. Aaron crawls into bed with him and wraps his skinny little kid arms around him and says, "I love you."
Nick is in love with Aaron, a little bit. He's in love with the idea of Aaron, anyway-that there's one person who loves him more than anything else in the world and who's always happy to see him and just loves Nick for being Nick and not for anything else. He still doesn't understand what Kevin means when he says there's all these different kind of love, because Nick only knows the one.
The next day, his mom calls him screaming because he took Aaron without her permission and he fed the kids junk food and they were supposed to have a nice family meal but Nick ruined it as usual. Nick just says, "I love you, too, mom," and hangs up on her.
*
It feels like everything's been moving really really fast for so long that Nick can't even keep up anymore, can't tell what city-state-country they're in, can't tell the difference between Germany and Austria anymore and he only knows they're in Boston when the clerk at the front desk of their hotel says, "I have a message for you, Mr. Carter," only she says, "Cah-tah" and that's how Nick knows, because normal people don't talk like that and he's getting tired of trying to figure all this shit out. She slides a sealed envelope across the smooth marble surface of the counter and looks at him with her lips parted a little, the tip of her tongue smoothing along the crease and leaving a wet trail behind. Nick takes the envelope and ignores the way she's trying to lean down to show off her tits. She's like forty. He's not interested.
Howie waits for him by the elevator, looks at the envelope and says, "Are you gonna open that? What if it's important?" Howie's eyes are huge and dark and worried. He looks like an anime character with stupid hair and he's such a fucking tool, always worried about stupid shit that doesn't mean anything like getting a note that's probably just his mom telling him to call home so she can make up a reason why she needs him to wire her some cash right away. Howie doesn't get shit like that because Howie has real parents who don't try to steal from him. Howie is such a tool.
Nick gets to his room and it's not a note from his mom, it's from Leslie, but it's basically the same deal only Leslie always thinks there's actually a problem and she always believes mom and she only ever talks to Nick when mom needs something. "She's your mother," Leslie tells him in her little girl voice when he calls. "She needs your help, Nick. She's really sick this time." Leslie is fifteen and she thinks she knows everything but she's really just repeating whatever mom says. Nick knows because he thought the same thing when he was fifteen, but he had a whole bus of people telling him he was wrong, so.
"Don't be stupid, Leslie. She's a faker. She pulls this shit all the time. Why do you think she's making you call me and not dad or doing it her own damn self?"
"I'm not the one who's being stupid," Leslie says, and hangs up on him. Nick just shrugs. He knows he's not the smartest guy around, probably not even as smart as Howie, and Howie never gets jokes until like ten minutes later, but Nick knows his mom and the stupid shit she does. He's smart about some things and he knows about this. He knows when someone's trying to fuck with him and manipulate him. He knows about that.
"Is your mom okay?" Howie asks the next day at breakfast, taking careful sips of tea and staring at the newspaper with dull eyes. He looks tired. Nick is tired, so he knows Howie is probably pretty tired, too, and everything is moving so fast now that it's just hard to catch up at all. Nick just shrugs and says, "Same shit, different day," and Howie nods like he gets it even though Nick knows he doesn't. What a fucking tool.
So everything starts moving so fast, a blurry pace that makes Nick feel like he's constantly coming down from speed only if he had speed he'd probably feel a lot better and not have to worry so much about his weight all the time. Brian is married and Kevin is married and AJ is never around or else he's loud and mean when he is. Howie is boring and a tool and Nick is so bored and there's too much, too fast, show-interview-photo shoot-show until Nick feels dizzy and sick all the time and he just wants it to stop.
And then it does.
*
Nick falls in love with Howie on purpose, because he's the only one left.
Howie is a tool and he won't go out clubbing with Nick at all, but if Nick makes himself sound really sad on the phone and says he really needs to talk, Howie will drive down for the day and after a couple beers, Nick can usually convince Howie to smoke up with him, "But just a little, I can't stay here tonight, okay?"
Nick nods and passes the joint, leans back until he can feel his elbows rubbing against cement through the plastic shell of his inflatable pool lounger. His hand was aching before but now he can barely tell it exists and when he looks down at it, all he sees is white cast and his fingers sticking out like weird disembodied fingers, or maybe they'd be disenhanded fingers, but it's weird anyway. He feels pretty stupid about the hand and someday he's going to stop punching walls but he sort of thinks he had a pretty good reason and he remember what Howie said after, on the way to the hospital, looking at him with his mouth all pinched up and disapproving. He said, "Better the wall than a person." It didn't really make Nick feel better at the time, but it also hurt pretty bad and now Nick thinks that was pretty smart. Howie can be pretty smart sometimes, especially when Nick's hand doesn't hurt anymore, and Howie doesn't like it when Nick punches things. When Nick punches things, which maybe happens more than it should-but still better walls than people right?-when Nick punches things, Howie always says, "Oh, Nicky," and squeezes his eyes shut and presses his lips together. Nick doesn't like it when Howie says his name like that.
The stars are always so bright here and he's in love with Howie even though Howie's a tool but at least he's not married or in rehab, so that makes him Nick's favorite because at least Howie's here.
"I'm in love with you, you know," Nick says, taking the joint back and holding it carefully at the end, pinched between the nails of his thumb and forefinger so he can get one last hit.
"It's dead," Howie tells him. "And no, you're not. Don't be stupid." Pot makes Howie's voice hoarse and a little deeper, less stupid sounding, and it makes Howie more cynical and less Mary Sunshine, like he can't put on the cheerful show through the fog of the high. Nick likes it.
"I'm not stupid," Nick says. He flicks the roach into the pool and watches it float for a minute before rolling onto his side to look at Howie. Howie's already looking at him, big dark anime eyes and stupid hair. Howie's small and he makes Nick feel big but not fat, which is why Nick's decided to be in love with him. He doesn't tell Howie that, though. "We’re the only ones left," he says. "I'm in love with you."
Howie says, "Don't be stupid," but then he leans over and kisses him. He tastes like beer and the sharp acid burn of smoke and Nick knows Howie's right, but he kisses him anyway. They make out for a long time, minutes or maybe hours, and Nick likes the feel of Howie on top of him, heavier than a girl but still small; Nick feels big but not fat and he likes that best of all, like a slow sticky dream and the opposite of the month before, when Nick still had AJ sometimes, at least, but everything was so fast.
Nick's not stupid, though, and he knows he's not in love with Howie, not for real, not when they're not the only ones left. Nick's not in love with Howie, but he can pretend for now and maybe, he thinks, he was always pretending. Maybe Kevin was right. Nick's pretty sure he's never been in love at all.
*
AJ goes to rehab and gets out of rehab and proposes to a girl he barely knows, and that's when Nick decides to go solo. He's already solo, really, because everyone else is doing things, married or getting married and Howie only kissed him the one time and nothing else, so yeah, Nick is pretty much already solo. He decides officially the night he gets arrested, sitting in the police car at three thirty in the morning, drunk and handcuffed and crying, but only a little, and it's okay to cry. He doesn't know what to do or how to fix this because he's never been arrested before and it's not like he has a publicist hanging around when he goes clubbing to tell him what to do in situations like this. He doesn't know what to do and he's alone, so he just sits there and thinks, well, this is it.
Later, after he gets home and showers and sleeps for fourteen hours straight, Kevin is angry and Howie is really angry and Brian is disappointed and AJ doesn't even bother calling because he has his own shit to deal with and he can't always be taking care of Nick. At least, that's what AJ says when Nick finally sees him again to film their Sesame Street segment. They're standing there, right beside Oscar's trash can and it's so completely weird to be here when Nick used to watch this show with Aaron when Aaron was little. But there's the trash can and Nick says, "You never even called," and AJ says, "No point. You have to learn how to deal with this shit on your own. You can't always be running to one of us when you get in trouble. We talked about co-dependence and enmeshment in rehab. I'm not gonna be an enabler and give you attention when you fuck up."
Nick looks at him, but AJ's sunglasses cover his eyes and his ski cap covers his head so there's really not much to see. "Whatever," Nick says. "Fuck you, too."
"I'm not trying to be mean," AJ says. "It's not like that."
It never is, Nick thinks, but he doesn't say anything. He just shrugs and walks away, tries to find Howie, who at least gets the whole alone thing even if he only kissed Nick once and they were high at the time so it probably doesn't even count. But he can't find Howie anywhere, not at the Krafts services table or the bathroom or the sound stage or in the props room and eventually he gives up, finds a couch and stretches out on it until someone calls him because it's time to work.
*
Nick dates girls. He fucks a lot of girls and dates a few girls and falls in love with Paris, who is rich and spoiled and needy but she doesn't need him. They go from events to parties to hotels because Nick doesn't have a place in LA and what's the point of dating a hotel heiress if he can't stay for free, and he doesn't go home for months and months. It's hard to even think about what that is when he's with Paris and he's in love and he's so busy with recording and promo and the rest of that shit anyway.
He falls in love with Paris because she really is stupid. And not in the way that Nick is kind of stupid because he never really went to school for real and he just never had a chance to learn dates and names and formulas because he was working all the time. Paris went to a private school with other spoiled rich kids and she didn't even have AJ throwing her books across the bus to fuck her up so she should be pretty smart. But she's not. She's dumb, a lot dumber than Nick in all the ways that count, and Nick falls in love with her empty eyes and her blank smile and they way she eats diet pills and Zoloft for breakfast.
Kevin says, "You're an adult now and you can make your own decisions," but Nick can tell by the way Kevin's eyes focus on a spot just over Nick's left shoulder that he wants to say more. Howie says, "Whatever makes you happy makes me happy," and Brian says, "I'm worried about you. She's kind of a party girl, you know?" Nick knows. He's not worried though, because he likes to party and he likes getting in places for free and he likes a girl who drinks. Paris tells him she's an alchorexic. "I save all my calories so I can get wasted," she says. So yeah, she's pretty stupid, but Nick's not exactly the smartest guy around, either, and he thinks it's kind of charming.
AJ says, "You know she's a spoiled little bitch, right?" but that's pretty much what Nick likes about her.
Aaron says, "Nothing happened between us, I swear, it was just a friends thing. You don't gotta get all pissed off about it but I mean, I don't think she's good for you, dude. She's a cheater. Nothing happened, but she tried, and you know, that's kinda sick, I'm only sixteen."
Aaron sounds smug and completely delighted and if he wasn't already back in Florida, Nick would punch him. Instead he throws his phone across the room, the phone with the pictures of Aaron and Paris on it that Aaron just happened to steal from Nick's jacket pocket when he took Nick's car on a date with Nick's girlfriend. The phone Aaron just happened to decide to take pictures of himself and Nick's girlfriend on, and just happened to leave in Nick's car for Nick to just happen to find later. Everything always happens by accident with Aaron except for when it's completely on purpose and Nick's not stupid, he knows exactly what Aaron's doing. Nick's not the smartest guy around, but he knows when someone's trying to manipulate him and it feels like a betrayal when it's Aaron. He wants to hit Aaron's smug little face but he can't so instead he gets in a fight with Kevin and only feels a little bad when he sees Kevin's black eye and Kevin doesn't talk to him for a month.
AJ says, "I told you so." Nick doesn't hit him, though. It's not like AJ is wrong.
*
Nick falls in love with AJ because he's the only one left, but really he falls in love with AJ because he's AJ and Nick's maybe always been a little in love with him, even when he was an asshole and mean and had a death wish.
They're in Japan and it's weird because it's their first time doing this for real without Kevin. Being in the studio without him was weird enough, but there was so much weird shit going on in the studio that Kevin being gone didn't really sink in, but now it's so obvious. Four doesn't feel like enough and Brian is married and Howie is married so it's just Nick and AJ now.
AJ knocks on his hotel room door and they spend the night watching a Golden Girls marathon because it's either that or game shows in Japanese that are fun sometimes because of all the flashing lights and random food items being dumped all over people, but neither of them are in the mood and it's easier to watch Dorothy roll her eyes at Blanche and Rose babble on about Saint Olaf's.
"This is my favorite show," AJ says. "They don't make TV like this anymore, about people who aren't rich high schoolers getting wasted and fucking everyone they know."
"Well, Blanche kind of does that, though."
"Okay sure, but Blanche is a classy lady. She's not like a fucking Marissa or something."
"You used to hate this show," Nick says. He's not watching the show anymore. Rose is telling another boring story and AJ is way more interesting. Nick's in love with him, he thinks. He loves the way AJ takes up space even though he's not even a big guy, but when they're lying on Nick's bed their shoulders press together, and maybe AJ's not big but the bed is just smaller because they're in Japan. But he seems big; he has this way of taking up all Nick's focus and energy, just sucks it in until all Nick can think about is the fact that their shoulders are touching and it's not like he hasn't touched AJ a million times before, but this is different. They never had a laugh track before.
AJ turns his head and looks at Nick. "I just said that to fuck with you. You were so in love with Brian, it was stupid. It was mean, so. Sorry."
Nick shrugs and they're touching even more now, the slide of Nick's bare arm against the soft, worn cotton of AJ's t-shirt. "Do you still think I'm the Rose?"
AJ leans up on his elbow and looks down at Nick. "I think you're the Nick, and that's all you need to be, you know?"
Nick knows. He leans up and AJ leans down and then they're kissing, just like that. AJ is rough and his teeth slide sharply along Nick's bottom lip but his tongue is soft and slow and his hand is hot against the thin skin over Nick's hip. Nick's in love with AJ, and he thinks he finally gets it because this isn't the same at all. It's not the same as Kevin or Brian or Howie; it's definitely not the same as Aaron or Paris. It's a feeling so big he can't really describe it and maybe that's why Kevin never really tried. Nick would know what it was when it happened, Kevin said, and yeah. Nick knows.
"I'm in love with you," Nick says.
"I'm not stupid," AJ says, but he's smiling. "I pretty much had that figured out."
"You're totally smart," Nick says, and kisses him again.
Fandom: popslash
Pairing: Nick/Everyone
Summary: Nick falls in love. A lot.
Comments: Written for turps33's amazing Awesome April challenge! Many thanks especially to justhitstatic for all the footage and answering my ten million traumatizing questions about Nick. And to boomingvoice who is an amazing cheerleader and beta and helped me so much with my characterization. This is my first BSB fic. So be gentle, dear readers.
And Also: Because I am super lame, I also made a soundtrack. You can download it right here.
Warnings: recreational drug use, Jane Carter.
Nick knows he's not the smartest kid around, but he's not stupid, either, and he knows what people think about him, even his mom and Lou and sometimes Kevin, who gives him these looks when Nick decides to blow off his homework to play video games instead-all superior and special, because he graduated from a real high school so he must know so much, or something. Nick knows the other stuff people think about him, people who haven't ever met him or anything, just looking at him or seeing him perform or reading about him in some stupid magazine or whatever: that he's lucky he's good-looking because he's not really all that talented and he's definitely not very smart.
That's what people think, and maybe they're right about some of it, but Nick thinks that being smart has to be about more than just memorizing stupid stuff like dates and battles and how to find the radius of a circle that he's never going to use anyway, because when is he ever going to need to know the radius of a circle with his job? Not ever, that's when, and so when people give him that look like he's just some dumb kid who doesn't know anything, Nick lets it slide off him because he knows better, or else he lets them go on believing he's dumb because he's saving the truth for a surprise.
He's not sure what the surprise will be, but he can't wait to see the looks on everyone's faces when it happens.
So Nick knows he's not the smartest kid around, probably not even as smart as AJ, who always does his homework and gets it all done in the length of time it takes Nick to do one set of Algebra problems, but he's smart at other things. Things that are way more important than stupid math problems and he's better at them than AJ and the rest of them combined, like being likable and charming and making people believe he really means it when he says stuff, even if he totally doesn't. He's good at figuring out what people want from him and giving it to them, and that's much better than being smart like AJ or having a really good voice like Brian or being old like Kevin or being a really good dancer like Howie.
His mom says, "Sometimes you have to do things you don't really want to do or say things you don't really mean because it'll make other people happy. Do you know what I'm saying, Nicky?"
Nick just shrugs and frowns because he doesn't like it when she calls him that, it makes him feel like some sort of stupid little kid and of course he knows. That's the most obvious thing in the world and he figured it out three years ago when he first auditioned for the group.
Besides, he's fifteen and he's not a baby and he's not stupid, either. He might not be the smartest kid around, but he's not stupid.
*
The first time Nick falls in love is the first time he ever thinks, you're such an idiot, you're so fucking stupid. Falling in love is a bad idea to begin with because he has a lot of other things to worry about and falling in love is not on the list. Falling in love with Kevin, who's mean and old and thinks Nick is stupid, anyway, should never even be anywhere near the list, except somehow it happened and now Nick finds himself doing all sorts of stupid shit to get Kevin's attention. And it works. Sort of. He's not even gay, so. He's not even gay.
Kevin is old and mean and thinks Nick is stupid, but he's the one who says no when people try to make Nick do things that don't feel right, like taking his shirt off because it's not like he's built or anything, he's just skinny and he'd look stupid next to AJ and Howie so he'd rather keep his clothes on, thanks, and Kevin is the one who gets it. Kevin's the one who says no and glares at the people asking until they back down, and Kevin's the one who gets in trouble for it later, but he just ruffles Nick's hair and says, "Don't worry about it, kid." Kevin thinks Nick is too stupid to get what's going on, but it's not like that. Some things, Nick thinks, are just better off not knowing.
Kevin is the one who makes Nick stay late and practice until he gets everything perfect. Kevin's the one who looks over Nick's school assignments and makes him fix all the spelling errors; Kevin is the one who won't let Nick go out to the clubs in Europe, even after he officially turns sixteen and could totally go legally. His mom doesn't care what he does, his mom is happy as long as he's in the group and the record is moving up the charts. His mom is probably happy he's not at home because she doesn't have to feed him or wash his clothes and she has four other kids to think about and dad is no help, so.
So Kevin is the one, because there's no one else there, and even though Nick isn't a kid and he's not stupid and he's old enough to take care of himself if he's old enough to support his family, Kevin's the one who is always saying no. Even though AJ's pretty much allowed to do whatever he wants, which Nick doesn't think is fair at all because AJ's not that much older than him and he's still in school, too; AJ says, "You're such a fucking baby, always gotta have someone taking care of you," and he says it like he's joking, like it's a joke and it's supposed to be funny or a tease or something, but sometimes Nick sees him watching Kevin during photo shoots-watching Nick and Kevin--and AJ looks more sad than angry.
Nick never had an older brother, but he thinks this is probably what it feels like. He tells Kevin, "So, um. I'm maybe in love with you. And I know you're not like that or whatever, and I'm not even…whatever. But I just wanted to say that. So."
Kevin looks at him, sits down on the opposite bed and just looks at him for a moment. The hotel room smells like onions and old sweat and the bedside lamp makes this whining, humming sound that sort of hurts Nick's ears. Nick stares at the carpet, dark blue industrial stuff designed to hide stains, and for the first time, he feels stupid. He's so stupid, he's such a retard, why did he have to say anything? It's not like. Like he wants this to go anywhere. Like he wants to date Kevin, or something. That's even stupider. He just. He really loves him a lot. Is in love with him. Nick doesn't know how else he's supposed to be.
Kevin smiles a little. "That's really sweet, Nick, but I'm pretty sure you have to be gay to be in love with another guy. Don't you think?"
Nick shrugs. "I guess. I just know how I feel, man. That's all it is."
"There's a difference," Kevin says, and taps Nick's knee with one long finger. Twice, tap tap, before pulling away and leaning back on his elbows on the other bed. "You'll figure it out eventually. There's a difference between love and in love. Like, you love your family, but you're not in love with them. You'll see. Whatever you think, you're not stupid. You'll figure it out."
Nick has never felt more stupid. He's only ever known one kind of love. He doesn't know what else there could be.
*
Nick's favorite television show is The Golden Girls because Brian is obsessed with it and it's one of the few things they can always manage to get on the bus TV, so Nick makes it his favorite, too, even though he thinks the storylines are sort of stupid and he doesn't really get the jokes. But he likes being alone in the back of the bus with Brian, each of them sprawled out on the couches opposite each other, Brian watching the screen with a quiet intensity while Nick watches Brian to the backdrop of Rose's inane stories about her dead husband and the tinned sound of the laugh track.
No one else comes back during The Golden Girls. No one else wants to watch it and it's Nick's favorite time most days, when everyone else is off doing their own stuff and he's just alone with Brian, quiet quiet. He can just lay there and not even watch the show and be still and not be on. He doesn't have to be anything, now. It's nice.
It's perfect. He's in love with Brian.
He doesn't say anything about it, though. He's not stupid. He knows Brian would be nice about it but he wouldn’t really get it the way Kevin did and anyway, Nick is older now and he knows you don't just go around telling people who will never love you back shit like that, because it makes things weird and it's pretty much the last thing anyone wants to hear. Nick's in the business of giving people what they want and that isn't it. He's okay with that. He wouldn't want to hear that, either.
Brian is nice. He's a lot of other things, too, but the thing Nick mostly notices about Brian is that he's nice, and of all of them, he's the most like a real person. He feels real to Nick in a way that the others don't. He feels real in a way Nick doesn't even feel about himself, but when Nick's with him, when Brian pulls him into a supply closet at a venue and says, "This is gonna be the best prank ever," and his smile is wide and uneven and makes him look slightly insane and a goofy as hell; when he's just Brian and not Brian from the Backstreet Boys, that's when Nick is happiest. Because if Brian is just Brian and he still wants to be Nick's friend, that means something. Nick thinks maybe it means everything, and he's in love with Brian.
He's doing his homework at the kitchen table, chemistry problem sets that make his head hurt because he never knows which equation thing to use and AJ across from him, pen moving in a steady stream across the page in front of him. It's AJ's last semester of not-school and he's always moving so fast, too fast for Nick to keep up and it makes him dizzy thinking about it. Behind him in the back room, Brian's watching the show and Nick can just hear the theme song from beneath the folding door, thank you for being a friend. He hums along under his breath because it's easier than trying to balance these stupid chemistry things that he's never ever going to use in real life and AJ looks up from his paper and makes a face.
"What a stupid fucking show," AJ says. Nick sings louder (YOUR HEART IS TRUE, YOU'RE A PAL AND A CONFIDANTE) and kicks AJ under the table, hard, right in the ankle.
AJ kicks him back twice as hard, grabs his chemistry book and tosses it across the bus, sits back with a satisfied smirk while Nick scrambles to get his shit together, stuff the loose pages back into the book and he'll have to tape them later because he has to pass chemistry no matter how useless it is. Has to get his GED because he's maybe not the smartest kid around but he's not stupid, either, and he's getting kind of sick of people telling him he is.
"Your face is stupid," Nick says, holding his book against his chest, eyes skittering to the door. He wants to be in there with Brian where it's quiet and calm and he doesn't have to be ready for anything because it's just Brian. Brian, who's always straight with him and mostly nice. Who doesn't kick him or throw his shit across the room or tell him the stuff he likes is stupid. Brian, who doesn't look at Nick like he's stupid even if that's what he's thinking, not like AJ does with his sharp eyes and his mouth curled up all nasty.
"If you were a Golden Girl," AJ says, tapping his pen against his notebook, "you'd totally be Rose."
"Fuck you, I wouldn't be fucking Rose," Nick says, and slides into his seat, slouches down and gives AJ his coldest stare. "Who would you be?"
"Duh, I'd be Blanche." AJ wiggles his eyebrows a little and Nick absolutely does not think it's funny, absolutely not, because AJ's a jerk and he thinks Nick is the fucking Rose and he's not, so. He's not. "I'm the slutty one, right? I'd be Blanche, man. Totally. Kevin would be the Sophia. Cranky old bitch who never wants anyone else to do anything fun. Howie is a total Dorothy, all overbearing and always thinks he's right about shit when he really doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about."
"What about Brian," Nick says. Even though he's not the Rose and he's not, like, admitting or accepting that he's the Rose or something, because Rose is kind of retarded and Nick isn't that bad. He's not.
AJ shrugs. "There were only four of them. Brian's like, the mailman or something, I don't know. He doesn't fit the whole theme or whatever, it doesn't matter."
Nick wants to say, you're the one who doesn't fit. Nick wants to say, you're the jerk who's always getting on me, who's always better than me at everything except the things that don't really matter, like how good his hair looks or how tall he's getting. Not things he can help, anyway. Nick wants to say, you're the one who makes me feel stupid, but instead he closes his book and shoves his work in his bag. He can do it later, when AJ isn't around to fuck with him. The Golden Girls is on, and Nick wants to watch.
He's in love with Brian. Brian never makes him feel stupid.
*
When Nick goes home now, it's never like going home anymore and sometimes Nick misses the old days before he went to Europe, when they all lived in one house and were sort of almost like a real family. Then he goes to his parents' house for a family dinner and remembers why he doesn't live there anymore, because his dad is drunk and his mom screams a lot and Aaron hangs all over him and Leslie spends the whole time glaring at him. Only twelve years old and she already hates him.
BJ pretends like he doesn't exist. Angel just shrugs when she sees him and disappears into her room like she doesn't care. She probably doesn't.
His dad gets so drunk he passes out on the couch and vomits a little in his sleep, right onto his mom's new beige carpeting. She scrubs at it, crying and almost hysterical, and they never actually get around to eating dinner. Nick takes Aaron and they go to Sonic instead, eat burgers and fries and cherry limeades in the drive-in.
"So it's pretty much always like that, huh?" Nick says, staring straight in front of him. He licks the salt off his fingers and wipes them on his jeans, drinks the last of his cherry limeade that he shouldn't be drinking at all because of the sugar, but whatever.
"Um. Well sometimes mom gets drunk, too," Aaron says, and giggles a little.
When they get back to the house, his parents are both asleep and the rest of the kids are watching a Freddy Krueger movie in the living room with the sound turned down real low. It's a pretty old one that Nick remembers from when he was like eight or something-the one where the girl is lifting weights and turns into a spider and gave him nightmares for a month.
"We brought you guys food," Nick says, holding up the bags. "I'm taking off, if anyone wants to come," but they all ignore him except for Aaron, who climbs on his back and wraps one arm tight against his throat. Nick leaves the food and takes Aaron home.
He takes Aaron home even though it doesn't feel like home anymore, or maybe not yet, but it's not like anywhere really feels like that, except maybe the bus or being on stage, which changes every night but it's always the same and it's always familiar, too. He always knows what to expect, anyway. Aaron crawls into bed with him and wraps his skinny little kid arms around him and says, "I love you."
Nick is in love with Aaron, a little bit. He's in love with the idea of Aaron, anyway-that there's one person who loves him more than anything else in the world and who's always happy to see him and just loves Nick for being Nick and not for anything else. He still doesn't understand what Kevin means when he says there's all these different kind of love, because Nick only knows the one.
The next day, his mom calls him screaming because he took Aaron without her permission and he fed the kids junk food and they were supposed to have a nice family meal but Nick ruined it as usual. Nick just says, "I love you, too, mom," and hangs up on her.
*
It feels like everything's been moving really really fast for so long that Nick can't even keep up anymore, can't tell what city-state-country they're in, can't tell the difference between Germany and Austria anymore and he only knows they're in Boston when the clerk at the front desk of their hotel says, "I have a message for you, Mr. Carter," only she says, "Cah-tah" and that's how Nick knows, because normal people don't talk like that and he's getting tired of trying to figure all this shit out. She slides a sealed envelope across the smooth marble surface of the counter and looks at him with her lips parted a little, the tip of her tongue smoothing along the crease and leaving a wet trail behind. Nick takes the envelope and ignores the way she's trying to lean down to show off her tits. She's like forty. He's not interested.
Howie waits for him by the elevator, looks at the envelope and says, "Are you gonna open that? What if it's important?" Howie's eyes are huge and dark and worried. He looks like an anime character with stupid hair and he's such a fucking tool, always worried about stupid shit that doesn't mean anything like getting a note that's probably just his mom telling him to call home so she can make up a reason why she needs him to wire her some cash right away. Howie doesn't get shit like that because Howie has real parents who don't try to steal from him. Howie is such a tool.
Nick gets to his room and it's not a note from his mom, it's from Leslie, but it's basically the same deal only Leslie always thinks there's actually a problem and she always believes mom and she only ever talks to Nick when mom needs something. "She's your mother," Leslie tells him in her little girl voice when he calls. "She needs your help, Nick. She's really sick this time." Leslie is fifteen and she thinks she knows everything but she's really just repeating whatever mom says. Nick knows because he thought the same thing when he was fifteen, but he had a whole bus of people telling him he was wrong, so.
"Don't be stupid, Leslie. She's a faker. She pulls this shit all the time. Why do you think she's making you call me and not dad or doing it her own damn self?"
"I'm not the one who's being stupid," Leslie says, and hangs up on him. Nick just shrugs. He knows he's not the smartest guy around, probably not even as smart as Howie, and Howie never gets jokes until like ten minutes later, but Nick knows his mom and the stupid shit she does. He's smart about some things and he knows about this. He knows when someone's trying to fuck with him and manipulate him. He knows about that.
"Is your mom okay?" Howie asks the next day at breakfast, taking careful sips of tea and staring at the newspaper with dull eyes. He looks tired. Nick is tired, so he knows Howie is probably pretty tired, too, and everything is moving so fast now that it's just hard to catch up at all. Nick just shrugs and says, "Same shit, different day," and Howie nods like he gets it even though Nick knows he doesn't. What a fucking tool.
So everything starts moving so fast, a blurry pace that makes Nick feel like he's constantly coming down from speed only if he had speed he'd probably feel a lot better and not have to worry so much about his weight all the time. Brian is married and Kevin is married and AJ is never around or else he's loud and mean when he is. Howie is boring and a tool and Nick is so bored and there's too much, too fast, show-interview-photo shoot-show until Nick feels dizzy and sick all the time and he just wants it to stop.
And then it does.
*
Nick falls in love with Howie on purpose, because he's the only one left.
Howie is a tool and he won't go out clubbing with Nick at all, but if Nick makes himself sound really sad on the phone and says he really needs to talk, Howie will drive down for the day and after a couple beers, Nick can usually convince Howie to smoke up with him, "But just a little, I can't stay here tonight, okay?"
Nick nods and passes the joint, leans back until he can feel his elbows rubbing against cement through the plastic shell of his inflatable pool lounger. His hand was aching before but now he can barely tell it exists and when he looks down at it, all he sees is white cast and his fingers sticking out like weird disembodied fingers, or maybe they'd be disenhanded fingers, but it's weird anyway. He feels pretty stupid about the hand and someday he's going to stop punching walls but he sort of thinks he had a pretty good reason and he remember what Howie said after, on the way to the hospital, looking at him with his mouth all pinched up and disapproving. He said, "Better the wall than a person." It didn't really make Nick feel better at the time, but it also hurt pretty bad and now Nick thinks that was pretty smart. Howie can be pretty smart sometimes, especially when Nick's hand doesn't hurt anymore, and Howie doesn't like it when Nick punches things. When Nick punches things, which maybe happens more than it should-but still better walls than people right?-when Nick punches things, Howie always says, "Oh, Nicky," and squeezes his eyes shut and presses his lips together. Nick doesn't like it when Howie says his name like that.
The stars are always so bright here and he's in love with Howie even though Howie's a tool but at least he's not married or in rehab, so that makes him Nick's favorite because at least Howie's here.
"I'm in love with you, you know," Nick says, taking the joint back and holding it carefully at the end, pinched between the nails of his thumb and forefinger so he can get one last hit.
"It's dead," Howie tells him. "And no, you're not. Don't be stupid." Pot makes Howie's voice hoarse and a little deeper, less stupid sounding, and it makes Howie more cynical and less Mary Sunshine, like he can't put on the cheerful show through the fog of the high. Nick likes it.
"I'm not stupid," Nick says. He flicks the roach into the pool and watches it float for a minute before rolling onto his side to look at Howie. Howie's already looking at him, big dark anime eyes and stupid hair. Howie's small and he makes Nick feel big but not fat, which is why Nick's decided to be in love with him. He doesn't tell Howie that, though. "We’re the only ones left," he says. "I'm in love with you."
Howie says, "Don't be stupid," but then he leans over and kisses him. He tastes like beer and the sharp acid burn of smoke and Nick knows Howie's right, but he kisses him anyway. They make out for a long time, minutes or maybe hours, and Nick likes the feel of Howie on top of him, heavier than a girl but still small; Nick feels big but not fat and he likes that best of all, like a slow sticky dream and the opposite of the month before, when Nick still had AJ sometimes, at least, but everything was so fast.
Nick's not stupid, though, and he knows he's not in love with Howie, not for real, not when they're not the only ones left. Nick's not in love with Howie, but he can pretend for now and maybe, he thinks, he was always pretending. Maybe Kevin was right. Nick's pretty sure he's never been in love at all.
*
AJ goes to rehab and gets out of rehab and proposes to a girl he barely knows, and that's when Nick decides to go solo. He's already solo, really, because everyone else is doing things, married or getting married and Howie only kissed him the one time and nothing else, so yeah, Nick is pretty much already solo. He decides officially the night he gets arrested, sitting in the police car at three thirty in the morning, drunk and handcuffed and crying, but only a little, and it's okay to cry. He doesn't know what to do or how to fix this because he's never been arrested before and it's not like he has a publicist hanging around when he goes clubbing to tell him what to do in situations like this. He doesn't know what to do and he's alone, so he just sits there and thinks, well, this is it.
Later, after he gets home and showers and sleeps for fourteen hours straight, Kevin is angry and Howie is really angry and Brian is disappointed and AJ doesn't even bother calling because he has his own shit to deal with and he can't always be taking care of Nick. At least, that's what AJ says when Nick finally sees him again to film their Sesame Street segment. They're standing there, right beside Oscar's trash can and it's so completely weird to be here when Nick used to watch this show with Aaron when Aaron was little. But there's the trash can and Nick says, "You never even called," and AJ says, "No point. You have to learn how to deal with this shit on your own. You can't always be running to one of us when you get in trouble. We talked about co-dependence and enmeshment in rehab. I'm not gonna be an enabler and give you attention when you fuck up."
Nick looks at him, but AJ's sunglasses cover his eyes and his ski cap covers his head so there's really not much to see. "Whatever," Nick says. "Fuck you, too."
"I'm not trying to be mean," AJ says. "It's not like that."
It never is, Nick thinks, but he doesn't say anything. He just shrugs and walks away, tries to find Howie, who at least gets the whole alone thing even if he only kissed Nick once and they were high at the time so it probably doesn't even count. But he can't find Howie anywhere, not at the Krafts services table or the bathroom or the sound stage or in the props room and eventually he gives up, finds a couch and stretches out on it until someone calls him because it's time to work.
*
Nick dates girls. He fucks a lot of girls and dates a few girls and falls in love with Paris, who is rich and spoiled and needy but she doesn't need him. They go from events to parties to hotels because Nick doesn't have a place in LA and what's the point of dating a hotel heiress if he can't stay for free, and he doesn't go home for months and months. It's hard to even think about what that is when he's with Paris and he's in love and he's so busy with recording and promo and the rest of that shit anyway.
He falls in love with Paris because she really is stupid. And not in the way that Nick is kind of stupid because he never really went to school for real and he just never had a chance to learn dates and names and formulas because he was working all the time. Paris went to a private school with other spoiled rich kids and she didn't even have AJ throwing her books across the bus to fuck her up so she should be pretty smart. But she's not. She's dumb, a lot dumber than Nick in all the ways that count, and Nick falls in love with her empty eyes and her blank smile and they way she eats diet pills and Zoloft for breakfast.
Kevin says, "You're an adult now and you can make your own decisions," but Nick can tell by the way Kevin's eyes focus on a spot just over Nick's left shoulder that he wants to say more. Howie says, "Whatever makes you happy makes me happy," and Brian says, "I'm worried about you. She's kind of a party girl, you know?" Nick knows. He's not worried though, because he likes to party and he likes getting in places for free and he likes a girl who drinks. Paris tells him she's an alchorexic. "I save all my calories so I can get wasted," she says. So yeah, she's pretty stupid, but Nick's not exactly the smartest guy around, either, and he thinks it's kind of charming.
AJ says, "You know she's a spoiled little bitch, right?" but that's pretty much what Nick likes about her.
Aaron says, "Nothing happened between us, I swear, it was just a friends thing. You don't gotta get all pissed off about it but I mean, I don't think she's good for you, dude. She's a cheater. Nothing happened, but she tried, and you know, that's kinda sick, I'm only sixteen."
Aaron sounds smug and completely delighted and if he wasn't already back in Florida, Nick would punch him. Instead he throws his phone across the room, the phone with the pictures of Aaron and Paris on it that Aaron just happened to steal from Nick's jacket pocket when he took Nick's car on a date with Nick's girlfriend. The phone Aaron just happened to decide to take pictures of himself and Nick's girlfriend on, and just happened to leave in Nick's car for Nick to just happen to find later. Everything always happens by accident with Aaron except for when it's completely on purpose and Nick's not stupid, he knows exactly what Aaron's doing. Nick's not the smartest guy around, but he knows when someone's trying to manipulate him and it feels like a betrayal when it's Aaron. He wants to hit Aaron's smug little face but he can't so instead he gets in a fight with Kevin and only feels a little bad when he sees Kevin's black eye and Kevin doesn't talk to him for a month.
AJ says, "I told you so." Nick doesn't hit him, though. It's not like AJ is wrong.
*
Nick falls in love with AJ because he's the only one left, but really he falls in love with AJ because he's AJ and Nick's maybe always been a little in love with him, even when he was an asshole and mean and had a death wish.
They're in Japan and it's weird because it's their first time doing this for real without Kevin. Being in the studio without him was weird enough, but there was so much weird shit going on in the studio that Kevin being gone didn't really sink in, but now it's so obvious. Four doesn't feel like enough and Brian is married and Howie is married so it's just Nick and AJ now.
AJ knocks on his hotel room door and they spend the night watching a Golden Girls marathon because it's either that or game shows in Japanese that are fun sometimes because of all the flashing lights and random food items being dumped all over people, but neither of them are in the mood and it's easier to watch Dorothy roll her eyes at Blanche and Rose babble on about Saint Olaf's.
"This is my favorite show," AJ says. "They don't make TV like this anymore, about people who aren't rich high schoolers getting wasted and fucking everyone they know."
"Well, Blanche kind of does that, though."
"Okay sure, but Blanche is a classy lady. She's not like a fucking Marissa or something."
"You used to hate this show," Nick says. He's not watching the show anymore. Rose is telling another boring story and AJ is way more interesting. Nick's in love with him, he thinks. He loves the way AJ takes up space even though he's not even a big guy, but when they're lying on Nick's bed their shoulders press together, and maybe AJ's not big but the bed is just smaller because they're in Japan. But he seems big; he has this way of taking up all Nick's focus and energy, just sucks it in until all Nick can think about is the fact that their shoulders are touching and it's not like he hasn't touched AJ a million times before, but this is different. They never had a laugh track before.
AJ turns his head and looks at Nick. "I just said that to fuck with you. You were so in love with Brian, it was stupid. It was mean, so. Sorry."
Nick shrugs and they're touching even more now, the slide of Nick's bare arm against the soft, worn cotton of AJ's t-shirt. "Do you still think I'm the Rose?"
AJ leans up on his elbow and looks down at Nick. "I think you're the Nick, and that's all you need to be, you know?"
Nick knows. He leans up and AJ leans down and then they're kissing, just like that. AJ is rough and his teeth slide sharply along Nick's bottom lip but his tongue is soft and slow and his hand is hot against the thin skin over Nick's hip. Nick's in love with AJ, and he thinks he finally gets it because this isn't the same at all. It's not the same as Kevin or Brian or Howie; it's definitely not the same as Aaron or Paris. It's a feeling so big he can't really describe it and maybe that's why Kevin never really tried. Nick would know what it was when it happened, Kevin said, and yeah. Nick knows.
"I'm in love with you," Nick says.
"I'm not stupid," AJ says, but he's smiling. "I pretty much had that figured out."
"You're totally smart," Nick says, and kisses him again.