Fall From Grace

Chapter 39

Nick threw his keys on the table and kicked off his shoes, smiling to himself. It was a good day. It was picture postcard weather and Sam hadn't smacked him when he'd dropped Dylan off. Mercifully, the morning sickness had stopped. And not a moment too soon for Nick, who was pretty sure he had a dent in the back of his head from Sam's vicious little hands. She may have been tiny, but she was a scrapper, pregnant or not.

Seeing Taco skitter along the floor, nails tapping along the hardwood, made him smile even more. "Hey Taco! How's my favorite rat dog?"

"Do NOT call my dog that!" Brian walked around the corner from the living room and scooped his dog up and hugged him to his chest. "If you keep calling him rat dog he's going to have issues."

Nick grinned, "Bri, he's your dog. Issues are pretty much his state of being."

With a laugh, he grabbed Brian's middle finger that had a blown a kiss in his direction and made like he was going to twist it back.

Faking a throw of Taco at Nick's head, Brian rolled his eyes as he pulled his finger back in his possession. "You're a brat, you know that right?"

Grinning proudly with a puffed out chest, Nick nodded. "Ask yourself who I could have possibly learned that from."

Brian met Nick's eyes and they both nodded, "Bone."

They both cut up laughing and Brian looked at Nick's shining eyes and felt a realization free-fall into his stomach. It had been too long. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen Nick with his eyes lit up, laughing. He missed it.

"Nick?"

Both of them looked up to the landing of the stairs and saw Alex standing there.

With a smile, Brian raised his eyebrows, "Well, speak of the devil."

Nick's hand squeezed his arm. The smile had fallen off of his face again. He had noticed what Brian hadn't, the way Alex was rubbing the hem of his shirt between his thumb and first finger and the sway of his body as he unconsciously shifted his weight from the ball of one foot to the other.

"Alex?"

His fingers pressed harder on the edge of his shirt, as his eyes lifted towards the second story, "He won't come out of the bathroom. We can hear him moving around, but he won't answer us."

Nick was halfway up to Alex before his sentence was finished and put an arm around the other man's shoulders as he crossed the landing. "He had a rough night last night. It could just be fallout from that."

Nodding, Alex followed him to the bedroom and stood at the foot of the unmade bed while Nick joined Howie at the door to the bathroom.

"Kev? C'mon man, it's Howie. Are you okay in there?"

Laying a hand on Howie's shoulder, Nick knocked softly on the door, "B, it's me. I'm back from bringing home the munchkin."

He wiggled the doorknob gently and was surprised to find it locked. He couldn't remember a time it had been locked, since they moved in. "B? Can you answer me? I'm going to give you three seconds and if I don't hear anything, I'm going to come in."

The three of them waited in silence for an answer, but the only sound was a rustling whisper of someone moving.

Silently counting to fifteen, just to give him some extra time, Nick walked over to the TV cabinet and pulled out the screwdriver he kept handy for popping out stubborn cartridges on the old Nintendo system he had hooked up. He was an old pro at popping bathroom locks, one of the secret skills of an older brother that had four younger siblings who thought a mere lock on a door could stop him.

Within a few seconds, he heard the spring of the barrel unlatching and turned away from the door. He handed Howie the screwdriver and with a look, asked him to put it back. Nick knew both he and Alex saw where he got it. Their eyes hadn't left him since he walked into the room.

Taking a breath, he walked into the bathroom, his eyes automatically trained on the floor. Subconsciously, he knew the only reason Kevin would not answer his call was if he was unconscious or gritting his teeth through an attack of pain like he had the night before.

Scanning from one edge of the floor to the other, a foot came into focus at the far end and Nick followed it upwards to see Kevin sitting on the edge of the tub, his head held in his hands.

"Kevin? Are you…"

Without a word, Kevin held out his arm with his fist clenched at the end of it, knuckles facing upwards.

His eyebrows drawing in with confusion, Nick walked to him and held his hand out, palm facing up, beneath Kevin's clenched one. The hand opened and dropped a mass of something in his hand.

Kevin's hand dropped and Nick looked down into his. It was soft and black, but he couldn't make out what it was. The edges weren't defined, and were blurred as he looked down at it. Lifting it until it was shoulder level so he cold get a better look, he watched as that gentle movement caused it to break apart into hundreds of strands that fell through his fingers and fluttered to the floor. His stomach took the same path downwards to his feet when he realized what it was. It was hair.

It was Kevin's hair.

Maybe his stomach hadn't gone to his feet, because there was something awfully big in his throat right now. He wasn't even sure how he was breathing with that throbbing lump in there, making it hard to swallow.

'Pull yourself together. This is not the time to stand there like an idiot. Do something.' Nick mentally shook himself, his eyes straying to the scattered strands that lay around his feet and then across the tile to Kevin's feet.

What he saw there broke his heart. Instead of the hundreds of strands of hair that lay at his feet, there were thousands laying around Kevin's, only broken by pieces that had fallen in clumps.

Nick could feel his heart weeping inside of him. He knew if someone opened up his chest at that moment they would see his heart drowning in a pool of tears. But he would not let them out. Now, more than ever, he knew two things. That Kevin needed his strength more than his tears. And that if he gave into those tears his heart was weeping, he would never stop until the whole world was flooded over.

Instead, he knelt in front of Kevin, raising his husband's face by two fingers beneath his chin. Then, he gently kissed the tears from his face and rested their foreheads together.

Wrapping his arms around Nick's waist, he let himself be held. His head found Nick's shoulder and his face buried in the warm comfort of the crook of his neck before he allowed himself let go. Once the tears started, there was no stopping them.

He felt like he was choking and no matter how hard he sobbed, he couldn't dislodge the weight from his chest. It wasn't like he was a vain man. Sure, some of the most beautiful people in the world, and those that had declared who the beautiful people were, had singled him out as one of them, but it had never really meant anything to him besides an increase of good-natured teasing from the rest of the group. But this was his hair! Something that had always been there, from the earliest days of his life and now it was falling out in fucking clumps!

It was not like he hadn't been warned this could happen. Sully had told him that the possibility of him losing his hair even without taking chemo was there. That the blood coursing through his veins with malformed and cancerous cells could start mistaking parts of his own body for the enemy instead of themselves. His body had already betrayed him in so many ways, this was just one more.

He knew the tide had turned inside of him, that there were more cells running through his veins killing him, than working to keep him on the plateau he'd been on for the past few weeks, ignorantly taking the stability for granted. Oh, Sully had warned him, but this was still a shock; a slap in the face saying, "YOU HAVE CANCER AND YOU ARE GOING TO DIE." Undeniable proof of it.

Nick held Kevin tightly, feeling his own tears falling, damning his efforts to stay strong. His hand went up over Kevin's shoulders and over the nape of his neck and there it froze. He didn't know what to do with his hand, it was just wired into him, that to comfort Kevin he ran his fingers through the thick, dark hair. That gentle motion soothed him better than anything Nick knew. And now, suddenly, it was not an option. His other arm wrapped more tightly around Kevin's waist as his frozen fingers found life again and rubbed in slow circles over the nape.

Instead of the touch of seduction it had been, a touch that caused Kevin to arch against him with low moans and whispered promises, it became a familiar touch of skin on skin that told Kevin that Nick was there and he wasn't going anywhere, hair or no hair

It was a touch that Kevin needed right now. He arched with it, his sobs tapering off as the motion lulled the storm raging inside of him enough that he could breathe. Enough that he could think of something besides the screaming tempest inside of him that was shouting denials over and over inside his head.

"I want you to cut it off."

Nick raised his head from where it had rested on top of Kevin's head and opened his mouth, but all that came out was a halting breath. He cleared his throat and tried again, trying to dislodge the backed up tears enough to speak, "Wha…what?"

Kevin lifted his head enough that he looked in Nick's eyes unwaveringly, "I want you to cut my hair off. All of it. I can't stand to watch it go clump by clump.... I'm not that strong, Nick. I can't handle that. At least this way, it's my choice to cut off what's left of it.

Nick reached up and touched the tips of Kevin's hair, wincing when even that gentle touch sent a rain of strands falling between them to the floor. "Are you sure you want me to do it? We can get a Sam or Melinda over to do it or get a hair cutter from in town to come out...."

Kevin's warm fingers pressed against Nick's lips, stilling his words, "No. It has to be you. I ne...need you for this. I want to feel your fingers in my hair one last time. I want you to do it."

And with those words, Nick was powerless to say no. Kevin needed him and no matter how much it ripped his own heart out, he would be there for him. Brushing his fingers over Kevin's cheekbone, wiping away a fallen strand of hair, he nodded. "Okay. Let me ask Alex and Howie to get some things and we'll do this."

Kevin smiled, a small one, but it made Nick's heart squeeze with the sincerity of it. "Thank you, Nickorice. I knew you could do this."

Nick shook his head, "No, WE can do this." He put his forehead back against Kevin's, "Right?"

Kevin nodded both of their heads by moving his, "Right."

Nick pulled back and turned his head towards the door to the bedroom, "Alex? D? I need you to grab me some things...."

*****

Five minutes later, Kevin was sitting in a chair facing the mirror with a towel around his shoulders and another laid out on the counter in front of him with a comb, a razor, shaving cream and scissors laid out in a row. Behind him stood Nick, his hands on Kevin's shoulders. Standing in the doorway were Brian, Alex and Howie, offering their silent support to both of them.

They'd been given the option of waiting downstairs or coming in the bathroom with them. With just a look between the three of them, the decision had been made. Alex looked up from the hem of his shirt, "We need to see this. We need to see it to make it real for us too. We stay."

Kevin's smile was all they needed to see to know they'd made the right decision for all of them.

Kevin took a deep breath and reached for the scissors, feeling the weight of the cool metal in his palm, before handing it up to Nick's hand. Their fingers overlapped and neither of them moved. As their eyes met in the mirror, Kevin nodded slowly in answer to the question he saw in Nick's eyes and gave his husband's hand a squeeze before letting go.

Nick looked down at the shears and then at Kevin's hair. He could see where the clumps had fallen out, leaving bare patches with only a few wisps of hair scattered across it. Closing his eyes, he slid the scissors in his pocket and rested his hands on Kevin's shoulders again, feeling the muscles knotted in apprehension of the scissors' work.

He couldn't do it like this. Even though he knew it wasn't the case, with him this tense it made it seem like Kevin was afraid of him. True or not, the though of it still settled in his gut like a ball of lead.

He started moving his hands in deep strokes across Kevin's shoulders, feeling them tense further in surprise and then loosen as Nick's familiar touch soothed him. When the muscles loosened enough that he felt Kevin's shoulders drop down to their normal level, he worked his way up the column of his neck and then his fingers slid in the soft hair, working their way through in long trails of touch from the back to the front and the opposite way. Both of them ignored the shower of hair falling to the towel and tumbling to the floor as Nick kept up the slow, reassuring sweep of his fingers through Kevin's hair.

When Nick saw Kevin's eyes close and his head slump forward in total relaxation, he pulled the scissors from his pocket and started cutting.

Alex watched from where he was leaned against the doorway as Kevin's hands balled into fists, then clamped onto the chair, knowing that this was the hardest thing he'd had to face so far in this whole ordeal. Looking at Brian and Howie, he nodded and the three of them went into the room and knelt around Kevin, Howie on his left, Brian on his right and Alex directly in front of him. Brian and Howie took Kevin's balled fists in their hands and waited for Kevin to realize they were there.

Kevin felt hands on his and opened his eyes to see the three of them kneeling there. He unclenched his fists and held the hands that were offered to him. AJ placed a hand on both sets of joined hands, while Howie and Brian's free hands rested on Nick's waist and hip.

Nick knew that if he thought about it, he could find some grand symbolism in this huddle of the five of them, but for now all he could concentrate on was the rhythm of the scissors in his hand. If he thought too much about this now, he'd never be able to finish. But, in the back of his mind, he was grateful for the warm comfort of those two hands laid upon him, giving his shaking knees the strength to hold him upright.

When the scissors stopped, the silence fell heavy in the bathroom until the hiss of the shaving cream startled them all. Nick rubbed the lather all over Kevin's head and took a deep breath before dragging a path through the whiteness with a razor.

Now, there was no turning back.

Ten minutes, careful maneuvering around ears, and a wipe with the face cloth later, Kevin's pinkish, newly shaved head was revealed. Nick stayed behind Kevin and ran his fingertips lightly over the soft skin, "Open your eyes, Bumpkin."

Kevin took a long, slow breath and his eyes fluttered open, his hands squeezing Howie and Brian's unconsciously as he looked at himself in the mirror.

His eyebrows were prominent before, but now, they dominated over his entire head and made attention focus on his eyes, which were so deeply green right now, they even startled their owner. He released Howie's hand and brought it up to lay on Nick's, which was still tracing paths over his skin.

A shiver slid down his spine as Nick's touch touched nerves that had never been exposed and now just tingled with even the air from Nick's breath hitting them. It felt odd, but good. Kevin entwined their fingers together and brought Nick's hand down so he could kiss each fingertip, "Thank you, Nick. I know that wasn't easy for you."

Nick gave him a small smile and squeezed his hand affectionately, opening his mouth to say something, then reconsidering it with a shake of his head. He leaned down and kissed the top of Kevin's head softly and grinned a little when Kevin shivered.

"What were you going to say, Nickorice?"

That got a snort of barely contained laughter from Alex, who was hushed by a gentle squeeze on his hand from Howie.

Nick ignored Alex and traced the tip of Kevin's ear with his finger, absentmindedly as his cheeks pinked slightly, "I was just thinking that some people have funky shaped heads and don't know until they have no hair covering it any more. But you…even the shape of your head is gorgeous."

Kevin's blush creeped all the way up his cheeks and right up his head until his whole head was a nice pink color.

Alex grinned, "Nick is right, some people have like, crater heads, with like funky formations on them but you hit it lucky, dude. You could do a centerfold for Better Scalps and Chrome Domes."

That broke the last of the tension in the room as Nick pulled Kevin to his feet, took the towel from his shoulders and flicked it clean, then sat down in the chair, pulling Kevin down on his lap, "My turn."

Kevin sat up straight and turned to look back at Nick, "What? No!"

Nick nodded his head, "What did I say, Kevin? I said WE would get through this. Together." Nick handed Alex the scissors, "Go ahead, Alex. I know you've wanted to for years."

Alex's eyes got a funny gleam in them and with a cackle he set to work.

****

Nick ran his fingers over his newly shaved head and shivered. It looked odd to see himself in the mirror with no hair, but the sensations were out of his world. Now he knew why Kevin kept running his fingers over his scalp, it was because it felt so odd and tingly when you did.

Not to mention the fact that he almost orgasmed on the spot when Kevin kissed a path around the circumference of his head, then licked the spot behind his ear that Kevin was way too good at using and abusing.

He smiled at Alex in the mirror, "Good job, Alex. Not even a cut the whole way through."

Alex grabbed his chest in mock insult, "You doubt my skills, Boy? Oh for shame. Makes me rethink not charging you for my professional services."

Nick snorted, "Yeah, if dying your hair odd colors until it fries beyond repair, necessitating shaving it completely off makes you a professional, then yeah, you got the skills."

Rolling his eyes, Alex took the towel from Nick's shoulders and snapped it clean again, surveying the hair lying from one end of the bathroom floor to the other, "I think I cut off your intelligence somewhere along the line. If we look real carefully we may just find the strand of hair responsible for it."

Not surprisingly, Alex chose to ignore the finger that was reflecting back at him in the mirror.

Howie grinned and pulled both Kevin and Nick out of the chair and plopped into it himself, pulling his hair out of the ponytail it had, after a year of re-growing, finally went back into. "I'm next."

Both Kevin and Nick froze, looking at each other. Kevin squeezed Nick's hand, "You getting a trim, D?"

Howie turned in the chair to face them, "No."

He turned back around and nodded at Alex, who was smiling widely at Howie, "Ready when you are, Bone."

Alex raised scissors and Kevin darted in front of him, "No! Howie, I appreciate it, but you don't have to do this." Kevin took Howie's hair in his hands and pulled it all back into it's ponytail, holding it in his hand as he reached for the elastic.

Only he didn't see Alex slip Howie the scissors. When he reached for the elastic, he heard a "snip" sound and turned back to see his hand still holding Howie's ponytail, only it wasn't attached to Howie's head any longer. His mouth fell open.

With a shit-eating grin on his face, Howie gave Kevin and innocent look. "Well now I'm going to have to cut it."

Kevin's head spun again when another snip echoed through the bathroom.

"Whoops." Brian was standing there with a handful of hair and a bare patch where his bangs used to be.

"Snip."

Now Alex was standing there with a handful of hair and a bare patch in the middle of his head like a target. "Oh bad scissors. Bad, bad scissors." And the same shit-eating grin as the other two.

Kevin didn't know whether to hug them to death or kick their asses. So he compromised on a roll of his eyes, a big grin and a long-suffering sigh, "You guys…are you sure?"

Howie took his hair from where it was clenched in Kevin's hand still, threw it to the floor, and put his hand on top of Kevin's. "It's a Backstreet thing." As if that explained it all. And in a way, it did.

Three other hands lay on top of theirs, and Kevin realized that he quite possibly had the best friends on the face of the planet. Not only that, but for the second time in his life, a bathroom was setting for one of the most memorable moments of his life.

And that, most definitely, was a Backstreet thing.

TBC….