Fall From Grace

Chapter 30

By Danielle

"How are you feeling?"

Nick didn't answer him, he only grunted as he shuffled by and headed into the kitchen.

Alex chuckled and then jumped as a huge sneezing noise was heard.

"Whatever you just sneezed on, make sure you hose it off!"

He snickered again, as the only answer he got was the slamming of a cabinet door. Sometimes the boy just made it too easy.

When Nick walked back in, he was cradling a coffee mug in his hands and breathing in the steam, trying to unclog his nose.

Alex flipped through a few more channels, trying desperately not to smirk, "Morning Rudolph. Or should I say afternoon? Tough night leading the sleigh?"

Nick glared and him and sniffled, "Leeb my node awone."

Over the course of two days he'd gone from a fever and the occasional sniffle to completely stopped up, red nose and all.

Yet through it all, he didn't even complain. Not so much as a "Man, this really blows!" And it was driving Alex insane. If Nick took this with any more good humor and complete grace, halos were going to start shooting from his butt when he coughed. There had to be some way to get him to crack a little. He needed it. He had a whole week to pull himself back together, but right now Alex was worried about the ulcer he was afraid his friend was starting, from holding all of this inside of him. There had to be a way to get him to unload a little.

- - - - - - - - -

"Nicky…"

"Yeah Alex?" Nick looked up from the tv, where he was playing a video game. It was nice to see him doing Nickish things. Alex couldn't remember the last time he'd seen Nick with his tongue sticking out in concentration as he beat the crap out of some mutant or streetfighter or something.

He took Nick's hands in his, forcing him to abandon the video game and look at him, "Nick, how do you do it?"

Nick gave him a strange look, "Well, I move the buttons around and try to kick the crap out of the other guy…"

Alex's eyes rolled upwards as he sighed, "Not the game, Junior. This whole thing with Kevin and watching the love of your life, your fucking soulmate, just slowly slip away from you. I love Kevin like a brother and it's killing me. I can't even bear to think about how it's got to be for you. Yet we all bitch and moan about it and you just carry on like nothing is going on." He clapped his hands on the sides of Nick's head, staring him down right in the eyes. "Nick, react. For god's sake, just scream or yell or even say this fucking sucks. DO SOMETHING! You are scaring the shit out of me. Are you even alive in there?"

Nick's eyes went wide and his bottom lip started to quiver before he bit it with his top teeth to still the trembling. "I am, Alex. But I can't react. I can't cry or scream or yell. If I let one complaint, one yell, one scream leave my lips, I won't stop. I. Will. Not. Stop." Nick put his hands on Alex's on the sides of his head and looked him dead in the eyes to make sure every word was registering with him. To make sure the ballet they had been dancing around each other, Alex trying to make him crack and Nick holding himself together in the face of it, was going to stop. "I don't know how long we have left with him. Right now, spending time with him, even talking to him on the phone like I've been doing this week, it's my first and only priority. There will be the rest of my life to fall apart."

Nick smiled at AJ and took the hands from his head, "I love you, you insane little troll. I know I've been scaring you, but right now, it's what I have to do. If I breakdown like you want me to do, that takes away time from Kevin and I can't do that. We have too little already. He doesn't need to see me lose it. That can wait. Even here I can't let go. He'd know within a second on the phone with me. He'd just know and it would make a little bigger piece of him let go that much sooner, knowing I was hurting enough to let it show."

Alex thought over what Nick had said. It was true, Kevin would know. Alex knew that Kevin could tell how much this was affecting him, just by the looks that Kev would give him when he came to visit. At some points he could almost feel Kevin looking inside his soul and seeing the hurt there and feeling bad that he was causing it. Just by the way Kevin would hold him a little longer when they hugged, Alex knew he was trying to make it better in his big brother sort of way and now that Nick had pointed it out, he knew it had to stop. It may not make a big of a piece of Kevin letting go as it would with Nick, but it was a piece all the same.

His eyes fell to the floor, being taught a lesson in compassion and strength from your little brother was a humbling experience. "I'm sorry. I….I didn't mean to make….."

Nick grabbed him and hugged him tight, "I know you didn't. It's ok. I've been pretty good at dancing around those lame attempts you've been pulling for the past four days to get me to crack. I never figured you would pull out the direct approach. Kev would be proud that you stopped pussyfooting around and just laid it out. Maybe all that stuff he's been trying to bang in your head finally broke through the dye."

Alex gasped in mock agony, "Oh them there's fighting words! You prepared to back that up by putting your pasty white ass on the line?"

Nick rolled his eyes as Alex picked up the other controller and reset the game. "Come on, Junior. I can't beat you down physically cause your pasty ass is still sick, but I can whomp you at video games while you are lamed."

Nick snorted and took the controller out of Alex's hands and turned it the right way around, "That may help."

Alex grinned, "I meant to do that."

"Suuuuuuree you did."

Alex snorted, "Just get your pasty ass down here and prepare to be regulated."

Nick rolled his eyes and picked up the other controller, "Even "lamed", as you put it, I can kick your ass. Which you seem to have an obsession with today. Something you wanna tell me there, Bone?"

AJ rolled his eyes, "Whatever. Like that pasty white, bubbly, out there thing on the back of you would do anything for me."

They both jumped when the phone rang and Alex grabbed it off the table behind them. "Bone's house of pleasure, may I help you?"

"Leave my husband's pasty white ass alone. I like that ass just the way it is."

Alex's jaw fell and he nearly dropped the phone. "You DO NOT have this place bugged. How in the hell…"

Kevin's laugh came through the phone, "Put the owner of the pasty white ass on the line. You'll find out in a second. And maybe I do have the place bugged, Alex. Muaahahahahahha."

Alex practically threw the phone at Nick. "Son of a bitch!" He eyed every corner of the room like it was watching him, how in the hell had he known…."

Nick smiled and put the phone to his ear, "Whatever you said to him, you freaked him out. That's double points."

Kevin laughed, "I just told him to leave your pasty white ass alone."

Nick raised an eyebrow. "That would explain why he's looking at the walls like they're alive. How did you know what he said?"

"Look out the window."

Nick got up from the floor and took the two steps to the window with the phone still to his ear. He gasped and nearly dropped the phone. There, about ten feet away from the window, cell phone to his ear, was Kevin.

"Surprise!"

TBC