You Do What You Have To Do:
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by: Tina and Danielle
Rated: R (adult stuff, ya know?)
copyright: 1999

They finally left at 6. The last of the delivery men were driving down the
driveway and it was just Kevin and I again. Just the way I wanted it. The
afternoon was long and long and did I mention long? God, if I thought Kevin
was bad, Sam was worse. It was amusing to see the two of them together,
trying to outdo each other's bargains, but that was only for the first hour
or so, then it got boring.

They both knew I was bored out of my mind, so I was given the job of finding
a couch I liked. So for the next hour I went around the furniture store and
tried to find something I liked. I knew what I was looking for, but do you
think I could describe it for the salesdude? Of course not. I needed
something long because let's face it, Kev and I are pretty tall guys and I
hate shrimpy couches that my legs hang over when I'm trying to lay down. I
wanted a comfortable couch too, and it had to be wide and deep. I wanted it
to be able to fit both Kevin and I spooned together on there. I loved being
all cuddled up to him watching that chick flick in the hotel.

I could tell the sales people didn't know what to make of me flopping down
on each couch I liked to test for length, comfy and spoonability. It was my
own little perfect couch checklist. It took me a while, but I found the
perfect couch. It was in a navy blue with tiny green little stripes in it.
It was really comfy, nice and fluffy. I scrunched myself against the back
and saw there was more than enough room for Kev to even lie on his back if
he wanted to. I stretched out all the way and my legs didn't fall right off
the end of the couch. I smiled. This was it. I saw the price tag hanging and
grabbed it, my smile growing even bigger. It was on sale. Oh Kevin was
never going to be able to argue with this.

"Nick? Where are you?"

I sat up and looked over the rows of couches to see Kevin and Sam standing
there. I grinned, "I'm laying on my couch."

I saw Kevin laugh as he and Sam started on their way to me. I grinned and
waited for them, looking up at the ceiling tile as I waited on my back. I
smirked when I saw Kevin's face enter my field of view and look down at me.
"Comfy?"

I shot my hand up and grabbed the front of his t-shirt and,pulling him down
on the couch with me, causing him to yelp. I laughed, "See for yourself. I
was looking for three things."

Kevin looked both ways and saw Sam in conversation with the sales people so
they weren't even looking. He laid down behind me, cuddling me close to
him. I heard him sigh.

I looked over my shoulder, "Comfy huh? that was number one. Number two was
length. See, we can stretch all the way out to lie down for a nap and not
have our feet hanging over the edge." I snuggled closer to him, "And number
three was it had to be deep enough for us to do this."

I shivered when I felt a pair of lips hit me dead in the middle of the nape
of my neck, "It's perfect. I don't even care what it costs. You've sold me
on it."

I sat up and smacked the price tag in the middle of his chest, standing up
and doing a little victory pose, "On sale! How do you like them apples?!"

He threw his head back with a laugh as he shook his head. He sat up and
looked at the sales people who were now all looking at us, "We'll take it
and we want it delivered now."

Kevin and I closed the front door and looked at our brand new couch lying in
the middle of the living room with the piano. We had it facing the
fireplace because it was pretty much the only thing to watch, since we
didn't have a tv yet. Sam had conned the salespeople into delivering a few
essentials for us today. The couch, the kitchen table, a small stereo system
that we could use until we got the house wired up the way we wanted and a
coffee table so we had someplace to set stuff.

It wasn't much, but it made the house seem even more like home. We stopped
at a few more places after the furniture stores, for essentials, like comic
books. Yes, they are essentials! Kevin knows that I need to read something
on the plane or I'll go nuts. I hate to fly. If I was given the option to
walk to California or fly, I would walk. It was also my reward for not
whining too much about all the shopping.

Kevin got himself a book and some gum for the flight, throwing the bag with
all of our stuff on the coffee table and clicking on the stereo to find a
good station. I ran upstairs to my bag and pulled out my cd book and came
back down the stairs to find Kevin still fiddling with the stereo. I popped
a cd in and Kevin heard instrumental music coming out of the speakers.

He looked surprised. I smiled and shrugged, "My mom bought it for me to
listen to on planes. She figured the calm music would calm me down. It's
never worked, but the music is nice."

He smiled and bobbed his head to the beat, "I like it."

We were beat after all that shopping, so we just sacked out on our new couch
and decided to read for a while. We started out sitting side by side, he with his novel and me with my comic book, but over the course of the evening, we moved as one got up to get a drink or stretch their legs and now we were both finally comfortable. I was stretched out with my head resting on Kevin's thigh and was so comfortable I never wanted to move ever again.

His fingers were going through my hair as he read and it felt nice. It felt....right. I took his hand and brought it down to my lips and kissed right in the middle of his palm before releasing it.

Instead of putting it back in my hair, the back of his fingers slid over the side of my face in a slow caress. I closed my eyes and felt myself leaning into the touch, a sigh leaving my lips as his fingers slid lower and over the side of my neck. I sighed again, I swear I was going to start purring in a second if he kept doing that. It felt so good.

His fingers slid lower, over my collarbone, down my chest, hardly touching my ribs. Then it stopped on my tummy. I looked over the top of my comic book at his hand just resting there, going up and down with my breathing. I flicked my eyes upwards to see Kevin engrossed in his book, so I just shrugged to myself and went back to my comic book.

A few minutes later I felt his hand start moving on my tummy in circles, rubbing it gently. I smiled into my comic. He knew how much I loved having my tummy rubbed. I remember one time when I was...god, I couldn't have been more than 14 and I was so sick when we were in New York to do some recording. It was one of the rare times my mom hadn't come with us and of course I picked that time to get sick. I remember Kevin sat up with me all night while I sniffled and threw up. My tummy hurt so bad I thought I was going to die. Kevin told me that I was going to live and he laid with me the whole night, rubbing my tummy to calm it down like my mother always had. I smiled at the memory.


"What are you smiling about down there?"

I looked up to see Kevin looking over the edge of his book at me. I smiled even more, "Remember when you rubbed my tummy all night that time in New York I got sick?"

His face lit up with a smile and his voice softened, "Yeah, you though you were going to die. It took me an hour to convince you that you weren't."

I nodded, "And then you spent the whole night rubbing my tummy just like this."

He smiled even more, "Yeah. You were just a kid. I felt so bad for you." He laughed softly, "However, you were one hell of a puke factory that night. Sheesh, I had never seen so much come out of a kid so small!"

I swatted him on the forehead with my comic book, "Well that ruined the warm, fuzzy moment we had going there!"

He laughed some more, "Well you were!"

I rolled my eyes and sighed a long suffering sigh, "Read your book, Kevin."

He chuckled and watched me get back into my comic book. Just when I was getting caught up in it again, it was snatched from my hands and Kevin's book was dropped in it's place.

I looked up at him, "Hey!"

He smiled, "I want to know why you are so addicted to these things. We're switching."

I tried to grab my comic back and he kept pulling it out of my reach. I realized short of giving up my comfortable little position and chasing him around the room, I wasn't going to get it back. I sighed very loudly, letting him know I was not happy about this.

He chuckled and started reading the comic book. I crossed my arms over my chest and pouted. When he happened to look down at me, he laughed and put the comic book down on the other side of him, out of my reach. Before I knew what was happening, he had grabbed my shoulders and lifted me up.

I opened my mouth to ask him what the hell he was doing, but before I could, his mouth was on mine and the breath I had taken in was left in a moan against his lips. My arms came up and wrapped around his shoulders as his tongue did things to me that made me lose feeling in my whole body for a second and then made my nerves spring back to life with so much intensity every part of me was tingling.

Kevin's arms slid down from my shoulders and around my lower torso, being careful of scars and broken ribs as he pulled me as close as he could. With a sigh, I just lost myself in the kiss.

When he pulled away, we were both a little breathless. My mouth was hanging open and I knew that I probably looked like a guppy, but damn! I just did not know how I was going to survive being away from his lips, his arms, his mind, his everything for a month. This was going to be hell, pure and simple.

Kevin smirked at the shocked look on my face, "Take that as a thank you for letting me borrow your comic book." Then he took the book that had fallen on the couch, putting it back on my stomach. He tapped it with his fingers, "Try it, you might like it."

I would have cut my arm off at that second if he had asked, he had me that dazed by the kiss. Instead I picked up the book without another word and opened it.

I heard Kevin chuckle that I hadn't put up a fight as he went back to the comic book. To my surprise, it wasn't some brainy, boring as hell book. It was actually good! It was interesting! I snuggled into Kevin a little more and kept reading.

It was dark outside when I felt Kevin's hand sliding over the side of my face, trying to get my attention. I turned away from the book and looked up to see him smiling down at me, "Hey Nickers, it's ten o'clock. You were into that book, huh?"

I nodded and stuck a piece of paper that was laying on the table in the book to mark my spot. "I want to finish reading it after you. It's actually good. Who knew?"

He chuckled and handed me back my comic book, "So is this. Who knew?" He said, mocking me. I swatted him with it and he got up and stretched giving me a good view of his abs right at eye level. I reached out and touched them, sliding my fingers over his skin and watching his muscles jump under my fingertips.

I leaned closer and brought my lips to a spot just above his belly button and kissed it softly, then rested my cool forehead against his warm skin. "I don't want to leave."

One of his hands tangled in my hair and the other wrapped around my shoulders, "Neither do I, Nick. Neither do I."

We just stayed like that for a few minutes, savoring being in each other's arms for the precious little time we had left.


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