when we were ourselves (part v)
Dec. 26th, 2010 06:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
minimusesIt was remarkable how easy it was to become accustomed to it.
The next night, just before ten, Joe pulled Nick into a hug, right in the middle of something Nick was saying, and told him he should probably get out of his clothes and take his pump off, too, to make it easier when he changed. Nick stammered a little, and then did as Joe suggested, unhooking his pump. He eyeballed Joe when he realized his brother wasn’t planning on leaving the room while he got undressed; when Joe just looked back at him levelly, nearly daring Nick to make him leave, Nick huffed in a put-upon fashion and turned away to peel out of his shirt. Joe grinned, only barely resisting the urge to go over and snap the waistband of Nick’s gym shorts. His little brother was still so buttoned up in so many ways that Joe didn’t fully understand (being, himself, an exhibitionist and shameless besides), but which he found kind of endearing. That was just the way Nick was; the way he’d always been.
Nick flatly refused to step out of his shorts, crossing his arms over his chest in a move both stubborn and embarrassed, defensive like he didn’t want Joe to see him. Joe rolled his eyes and carefully put away Nick’s pump on a shelf, well out of the reach of curious puppy teeth. “You’re just going to end up losing them, anyway,” he told Nick, smirking at him. Nick sniffed dismissively.
“When I have fur to cover myself up, that won’t be a problem,” he replied shortly, and no sooner had the words left his mouth than Nick gasped, eyes widening, and then the air around him...shifted, Joe wasn’t really entirely sure what he was seeing. Nick’s surprised face suddenly blurred out of sight and then there he was, four-legged and curly-furred, blinking and shaking his head a little, confused-looking. He licked his nose almost self-consciously and then peered up at Joe, his tail starting to wag. Joe looked back at him, every bit as stunned speechless, and then burst out laughing as Nick untangled himself from his loose-fallen jeans and stumbled out into the floor, Joe crouching down to fluff up his ears and kiss the top of his head.
“You’re right,” he said, grinning against Nick’s silky fur, “Not a problem after all.”
Joe couldn’t manage to stay awake the whole night; he fell asleep sometime after four, and when he woke up, it was after nine, and Nick was curled up next to him on his bed, naked and dead asleep. Joe blinked groggily as he looked at him, at Nick’s tired features and the near-perpetual dark smudges under his eyes. He was tired - not just from this whole puppy business, though Joe was sure that didn’t help. They were still figuring out how to regulate Nick’s sugar as a puppy, and wide swings in his levels always made him sluggish and unhappy. But it was life in general, too, how hard Nick had been working, how little sleep he’d been getting. He’d spent hour after hour in his “lab,” slaving over a hot soundboard and barely emerging for caffeine or food, let alone sleep. He’d lost weight, Joe had noticed days ago, but seeing him bare and curled, pale against Joe’s dark sheets, the change was striking. Joe put his hand out and ran it through Nick’s curls, mushed soft and disarrayed by the pillow, then ran his palm down over Nick’s shoulder, down his side, fitting his fingers to the grooves of Nick’s ribs. He wasn’t sick-looking, nothing like he’d been when he really was sick. But Joe was still glad that they’d be going home, soon, that Nick would be under an enforced regimen of rest where Joe could stuff him full of too much pecan pie and Christmas ham.
Nick’s skin was sleep-warm and white in contrast to Joe’s hand, and Joe traced out the lines of him, up the bow of his ribcage, down the line of his abs, over his hipbone and the curve of his thigh beneath the blanket, Nick curled tightly in the fetal position, like a squashed s in Joe’s bed. Joe didn’t ever get to idly touch Nick the way he sometimes wanted, knowing Nick would just frown at him, pull away and shrug his shoulders up and tell Joe to stop being weird. So for just those few moments, Joe took advantage of Nick’s lethargy and deep sleep, petting his brother a little as a human, just the way he’d petted him as a puppy the night before as they fell asleep.
Nick woke, then, slow and disoriented and adorable, and Joe hugged him tight and obnoxious until Nick remembered he was naked and should therefore be mortified that his brother was all over him.
They fell into a routine that way. By trial and error, and a hell of a lot of Mountain Dew at three in the morning, Joe discovered that Nick changed back to a per--to a human at just about eight in the morning. He almost always fell asleep and stayed sleeping through the change, but that wasn’t, apparently, necessary, taking into the account the morning Nick had been in the middle of scrambling up onto the couch when he went from four legs to two and ended up sprawled half on top of Joe with one leg and both arms on the couch, yelping in distress as he slid right back off and onto his bare ass on the floor. Joe didn’t stop laughing for a half hour.
The mornings were hard, though, Nick’s body out of whack from his levels and, he said, a little bit from transitioning between forms, too. He said his balance would be off for a while, and it would take a few minutes to see and hear normally again. He slept a lot more than he normally did, which worried and kind of freaked Joe, at first (would his little brother ever be able to live the way he was used to? was this thing making him sicker?). But as Joe got the hang of puppy insulin injections and Nick got the hang of pacing himself, not running himself ragged playing fetch and chasing Joe around the house like some tiny Hound of the Baskervilles, he didn’t spend so very much of the following day asleep, or at least not much more than Joe himself did, zonked out after a full night of puppy-sitting.
After the first four nights, Joe went and retrieved Winston from Garbo’s place, thanking him profusely for looking after his puppy. Wins was thrilled to see Joe again, wriggling onto his lap in the car and refusing to budge, but he seemed to balk a little at the door of the house, squirming and whining in Joe’s arms and making him frown.
“What’s up, pup?” he asked Winston, concerned, as the little bulldog snorted, clearly disgruntled.
“He probably smells an unfamiliar dog,” Nick said reasonably, coming down the stairs. He’d just got out of a shower, his hair damp and a towel around his neck, clad just in a pair of pajama pants. One subtle but noticeable side-effect of this whole turning into and out of a puppy thing was that Nick seemed to be getting less and less meticulous about whether Joe saw him shirtless. He’d wandered around most of the night previous in his jeans and nothing else because he’d spilled taco sauce on his t-shirt and didn’t want to dirty another one for only a few hours.
He came up and scratched solicitously at Winston’s head behind his ears, frowning at him thoughtfully. “Like how he and Elvis were when they first met, you know? He probably smells, um. Me.”
Elvis came tap-tapping up to greet Joe and Winston, straining his nose up toward Joe’s puppy, who stretched his head way down to try to sniff Elvis, too. He seemed to be more at ease after smelling Elvis; he and Elvis were buddies, so he must’ve felt safe with him. Joe bent and set Wins lightly on the floor, and Elvis immediately greeted him in the approved dog manner. Nick wrinkled up his nose, pulling a horrible face.
“I do not do that, do I?” he asked, thoroughly appalled and pointing at their two dogs. Elvis was already reassured of Winston’s identity and was turning, tail swishing lazily, back into the kitchen for a snack while Winston clicked across the foyer toward the living room. Joe grinned evilly at Nick and didn’t reply, just turned on his heel and followed Winston, who was backing his little self up to take a flying leap up onto the leather armchair that he’d long since claimed as his favorite.
“Joe,” Nick said suspiciously, following Joe and hovering over him, arms crossed, as Joe flopped down on the couch and turned on the tv. “I don’t. Joseph. Joe.”
Joe’s grin widened even as he kept his eyes fixed on the television screen, and Nick snorted disgustedly, pulling his towel down off his neck to snap it at his brother. “You freaking jerk,” he said, pissy, beating Joe with the towel. Joe flailed his hands up in defense, snagging the trailing end of it in midair and trying to pull it out of Nick’s hands. They grappled with it, Joe reeling Nick in til they were nearly nose to nose and wiggling his eyebrows at his brother, which had the desired effect of cracking Nick up. Laughing, he pulled on the towel with his full weight, bracing his feet. Joe smirked wickedly and let his hands go loose on the towel for just a half-second; Nick's eyes flew open wide as he started to tumble backward, and Joe immediately closed his hands tight again, catching him and yanking Nick forward. Nick stumbled, off-balance, and pitched right over on top of Joe on the couch.
Joe snickered and squirmed, Nick huffing laughter right in his face as they tried to decipher whose limbs were whose. Joe hummed, Nick warm and heavy on him, and he couldn’t help but think of how just last night, puppy-Nick had dozed off lying sprawled right over his chest, a small, warm weight of fur and snuffles. Joe had stroked his fingers through the puppy’s curls until he’d nearly put himself to sleep too. Now he buried his hand in human Nick’s hair, carding his damp curls through his fingers. Nick blinked down at him in surprise, expression almost quizzical, and Joe pushed his fluff of curls off his forehead, their noses almost touching. Nick’s forehead and cheeks flushed under Joe’s hand while he watched, and Joe was very aware of Nick’s weight all of a sudden. Nick’s dark eyes were very wide and Joe thought he could count all his eyelashes if he tried.
An insistent tugging on the towel, still wrapped halfway around Joe’s arm, broke them out of staring at each other. Joe looked down, startled, to see Winston with his little mouth full of terrycloth, yanking and tugging, growling a little as he tried to wrestle the towel out from between them. Nick sat up and scrambled off, carefully coaxing the towel away from the little dog, and Joe felt cold when Nick’s body heat was gone.
The rest of the evening, Nick was strange and quiet, going and pulling on a shirt and a hoodie though it wasn’t the least bit cold in the house. Joe tried to distract him with the last of the Christmas decorating - Nick had complained about it all week, We’re only going to be here a few more days, Joe, and mom’ll have a cow when she gets back and has to take all this crap down - but Nick still stayed mostly silent as he helped Joe hang Christmas ornaments on the small fake tree that usually went in the front entryway. Their fingers brushed as Nick handed Joe the ornaments he’d outfitted with hooks, but otherwise he kept his distance.
After the Change (it had acquired a capital letter in Joe’s mind at some point), the puppy acted mostly normal, if slightly subdued; he was fascinated with the twinkly Christmas tree lights, in a way that Joe found vaguely, hazily familiar. He eventually realized he was thinking of Nick as a toddler, on the barest edges of his own memory, being delighted by the red-green-blue twinkle of Christmas lights on the tiny artificial tree in the corner of their living room in Jersey. Joe plopped on the floor next to Nick, rubbing the silky fur just behind and beneath his ears, and Wins came and planted himself on Joe’s other side, head flopped against Joe’s thigh. Joe huffed a laugh when, after a little while, Elvis trotted into the room, not one to be left out of a party, and dropped himself lazily to the rug next to the tree.
“You guys are making me feel like the dog whisperer,” Joe cracked, grinning around at all of them and feeling not in the least lonely, even without Nick in a position to actually talk to him. Winston sniffed and Elvis licked his chops, but Nick lifted his head a bit and panted up at Joe in a doggy sort of grin, and Joe bent down to touch his nose to Nick’s. This time, Nick didn’t pull back or run away; he licked wetly at Joe’s nose, crowding in to lick all over his face like he had that first night. Joe laughed and gathered Nick into his lap, where he and Winston sniffed each other’s faces suspiciously for a long moment but, to Joe’s eternal dismay, did not sniff each other anywhere else. Nick wagged his tail excitedly but Winston looked vastly less enthused, dropping his head down to Joe’s leg again with a huff.
“Don’t worry about him, Nicky,” Joe said sympathetically, kissing Nick’s soft head. “He gives me the same treatment about half the time.”
Much later, when Joe could barely keep his eyes open any longer, he scooped up his boys, Nick in one arm and Winston in the other, and took them upstairs to his room. Winston immediately made a beeline for his bed in the corner, but Nick easily jumped onto the bed as if it was exactly where he belonged. The first couple of nights Joe had felt a bit guilty letting him up there, when Elvis was never allowed, but then he thought, what was he going to do, kick his little brother out of his bed? He’d never done that in his life. He was not about to start now. So ever since then, Nick had been as welcome to Joe’s bed as a puppy as he ever had been as a human - and he certainly took advantage of it more, as a dog, which Joe couldn’t begin to pretend did not secretly delight him.
He curled around Nicky’s tiny, furry self as the puppy circled a likely spot in the hollow of Joe’s body and then settled himself fastidiously down. He looked utterly content with the world, well-fed and already through with his last round of testing and insulin for the night, and Joe smiled drowsily at him, reaching out to turn of his bedside lamp and then slowly, rhythmically running his fingertips down Nick’s spine, over and over, making his short little tail wag.
“You are kind of ridiculously easy to please as a puppy, aren’t you?” Joe murmured, grinning into the dark. “I wish you were this easy to make happy as a boy. I’d get you to smile all the time, that way! Just rub your belly or scratch your back and you are putty in my hands.”
Nick wriggled and whined a little, sounding intrigued.
“Yes, putty. Exactly.” Joe sighed, every bit as contented as his brother, right now. “If I could just get you to relax a little more, as a human, Nicky. Just...just take it easy sometimes, you know? Enjoy life, just stop and really enjoy it. Laugh a little more. Laughter never killed anyone, Nicholas.” Joe peered down at Nicky’s glittery eyes in the dark, his own eyes adjusting so that he could just make out the outline of Nick’s head. Nick just blinked back at him, tail lightly thumping the bed, and Joe nearly laughed to think of the look he’d be getting from human Nick right now. He’d be so huffy that Joe was saying such ridiculous things, all I enjoy life to the fullest already, Joseph and When would you like me to relax, exactly, before the next world tour, or after I get my rabies shots? Puppy Nick was nowhere near as lippy, and while part of Joe missed the verbal sparring that was not so much sparring as Nick protesting and then Joe putting him into a hug-headlock, a large part of him was also extremely gratified that Nick was just...listening. Couldn’t understand a word, of course. But he was listening.
And it occurred to Joe, that he could say anything to puppy-Nick, and he would listen, and wag his tail, and just continue to soak up Joe’s attention. Joe could tell Nick that the sky was purple, and not only would Nick not argue, he would absolutely listen to every word. He wouldn’t comprehend it, but Nick had told Joe that he heard every single word, that it was simply all garbled and incomprehensible. But he listened.
Joe swallowed thickly. “I just want to see you happy, Nicky, you know? You’re...you’re the most important thing in my life. I mean, the whole family is, of course, you know that. But. But I worry about you sometimes. I don’t have to worry about Kev, he’s got Dani to look after him, and Frank’s got mom and dad. But you and me have just got each other, you know?”
Nick squirmed up the bed a little, whimpering in his throat, seemingly concerned by Joe’s solemn tone of voice. He swiped his velvety tongue against Joe’s scruffy jaw, and Joe carefully, gently wrapped shaky hands around the tiny form of the puppy in his bed.
He was so little. So desperately little. His tiny heart fluttered rapidly under Joe’s thumb, his ribcage puffing in and out with his rabbit-quick breathing. Joe remembered Nick being little as a boy, just a fragile, pale thing even before he got sick. Since then Nick had made every effort he possibly could to beat his own body at growing up; he fairly burst out of his own skin, trying to get bigger, stronger, better. It had been a long time since Nick had been small enough for Joe to feel physically bigger and more powerful, as if he really could protect Nick if Nick needed it. But with Nick so little now, such a vulnerable thing, for the first time in years he genuinely needed Joe to look out for him and keep him safe. It simultaneously thrilled and terrified Joe.
“I’ll take care of you, Nicky,” Joe said, cuddling his face into Nick’s fur. “I’ll always take care of you, you know? Always. You don’t have to worry about anything. I want to take care of you. I love you.” His throat closed a little around the words, something in him balking at saying them quite like that. Deep down, he knew he meant them in a way Nick could never know, a way he’d never admitted before and instinctively tried to hide. Clearing his throat, he said it again, stronger. “I love you so much, little brother. Furry, human, doesn’t matter. You’re kind of my life, Nicholas.”
His heart raced to say the words. He pressed a long, lingering kiss to the soft curls on Nick’s shoulder, the puppy snuffling at his hair. Joe held onto him just this side of too tight, needing to feel Nick alive and present under his fingers. He thought about Nick from earlier, shirt stripped off and his ribs just a little too prominent for Joe’s liking, all his white skin and his dark curls, even glossier and almost as soft as his puppy curls. He was beautiful to look at no matter which form he took, and Joe couldn’t get his fill of looking, touching. Only the puppy really let him get away with it, but Joe would be lying if he said he didn’t want to get his hands on the boy just as much.
“I love you,” he whispered voicelessly. “You make me happy, Nick, and I want you to be happy, too. I think...I think I might be more than just a little in love with you.”
The puppy tucked his cold, damp nose into the hollow of Joe’s throat, huffing a little sigh, like he was trying to hide in Joe’s arms. Joe curled himself even more securely around his little brother.
“Yeah,” he said, giving a breathy, shaky laugh. “I know. Crazy, right? Your big brother’s kind of a lunatic.”
Nick whined softly.
“I love you too, Nicky. Sleep tight.”
***
Nick seemed more relaxed again by morning, as the two of them started packing up all their stuff to head home for Christmas. Of course, “relaxed” for Nick meant “micromanaging the washer and dryer to maximize laundry efficiency” and “militantly nitpicking Joe’s packing ability.” But that was familiar to Joe, a longstanding tradition: Nick would come by Joe’s room periodically to nag him into finding better uses of space in his suitcase and critique the way he folded his clothes, and Joe would smile and fully agree with Nick and then, as soon as Nick walked back out again, continue wadding up his t-shirts into the corners of his bag as he came across them haphazardly in the laundry.
While Nick was busy color-coding the contents of his duffel bag or whatever he was doing upstairs, Joe sneaked around the kitchen making Secret Plans for later. He smuggled things out to his car under the pretense of packing the Christmas presents they were taking with them to Dallas, unable to wipe the huge, happy grin off his face the whole time.
He suggested that night that they try to catch some sleep early, to get their sleep schedules back on track before they went home. Nick had grown progressively more quiet and anxious throughout the day, frowning as he packed and stealing glances at Joe whenever he mentioned going home. Joe figured out after a while that Nick was nervous, worried about the puppy thing in the face of spending the next couple of weeks with their parents in the next rooms. They hadn’t talked about what they would say, whether they would say anything at all; for now, it was just for them, just their fight, and Joe selfishly rather liked it that way.
Even distracted by anxiety, however, Nick seemed dubious of Joe’s responsible, mature suggestion; he gave Joe such a look of disbelief that Joe rolled his eyes and heaved a great, put-upon sigh.
“Fine, fine, if you have to know,” he said, aggrieved, his lips twitching with a barely-suppressed smile, “I’m taking you to the park tomorrow morning.”
Nick looked, if possible, even more incredulous. “You’re ‘taking’ me?”
“Yep. Early-early. Puppy-you can’t stay cooped up in the house all the time, it isn’t healthy. You need exercise. Fresh air. Man cannot survive on beatlab air alone, Nicholas.”
Nick blinked at Joe. “You mean...you wanna take me, puppy me, out?”
Joe nodded at him, grinning, a little sheepish. “Yeah. You have to promise not to run off, though! You don’t have a collar and tags, I’m not losing you in the mountains because you lost control of yourself and started chasing a squirrel...”
Nick’s face softened from blank shock to bemused, somewhat amazed fondness, a smile curving his lips unexpectedly. “You gonna make me play fetch?” he asked, but he actually sounded kind of pleased about it.
“Of course. I may even make you fetch an actual stick. But I’ll take your ball, too. We’ll see if we can’t get high enough up to see some snow, it’s not Christmas without snow--”
Joe abruptly trailed off when Nick leaned forward and hugged him without warning. Joe’s arms came up around him immediately, and he tucked his face into the curve of Nick’s neck, holding him tight. Nick’s fingers curled in the back of Joe’s shirt.
“No, it really isn’t,” Nick quietly agreed, and Joe could feel him smiling against his shoulder. “Thanks, Joe. Thanks a lot. For looking out for me.”
For the briefest, heart-stopping moment, Joe was absolutely certain that Nick was alluding to what Joe had said to his puppy self last night. But Nick’s voice was nothing but sincere, and he didn’t pull back from Joe even a fraction. So Joe relaxed and just held him.
“That’s what I’m here for,” he assured Nick, ruffling his hair for good measure.
Just after four the next morning, Joe startled awake with his alarm, rousing the puppy in his bed at the same time. Groggily, Joe pulled on warm clothes, Nick skittering and wagging and bouncing excitedly around his feet, yipping at Joe as if demanding he hurry up. Joe snorted at him.
“You are way too much of a morning person no matter what you look like,” he groused, but he was smiling as he pulled a knit cap down over his ears and scooped up the wiggly puppy.
He felt a bit guilty leaving Elvis and Winston behind as he locked the house and picked his way in the dark to his car parked in the breezeway. But he didn’t want to be distracted chasing after actual dogs when he needed to be looking after Nick. And, selfishly, he kind of just wanted to spend time with Nick on their own.
Joe could barely stop smiling the entire drive out to the park in the predawn, Nick a boundless little ball of energy, crawling all over the passenger seat, across the console, into Joe’s lap, back into the passenger seat, putting his paws up on the door to peer out the window. Grinning wickedly, Joe put down the passenger-side window. Nick flinched away at first, then, curious, put his paws back against the door and poked his head out. Joe actually watched his tail double in wagging speed, and he half-froze in the cold rushing air, but he left the window down the rest of the way so Nick could hang his head out and pant, tongue lolling, into the wind.
part vi
The next night, just before ten, Joe pulled Nick into a hug, right in the middle of something Nick was saying, and told him he should probably get out of his clothes and take his pump off, too, to make it easier when he changed. Nick stammered a little, and then did as Joe suggested, unhooking his pump. He eyeballed Joe when he realized his brother wasn’t planning on leaving the room while he got undressed; when Joe just looked back at him levelly, nearly daring Nick to make him leave, Nick huffed in a put-upon fashion and turned away to peel out of his shirt. Joe grinned, only barely resisting the urge to go over and snap the waistband of Nick’s gym shorts. His little brother was still so buttoned up in so many ways that Joe didn’t fully understand (being, himself, an exhibitionist and shameless besides), but which he found kind of endearing. That was just the way Nick was; the way he’d always been.
Nick flatly refused to step out of his shorts, crossing his arms over his chest in a move both stubborn and embarrassed, defensive like he didn’t want Joe to see him. Joe rolled his eyes and carefully put away Nick’s pump on a shelf, well out of the reach of curious puppy teeth. “You’re just going to end up losing them, anyway,” he told Nick, smirking at him. Nick sniffed dismissively.
“When I have fur to cover myself up, that won’t be a problem,” he replied shortly, and no sooner had the words left his mouth than Nick gasped, eyes widening, and then the air around him...shifted, Joe wasn’t really entirely sure what he was seeing. Nick’s surprised face suddenly blurred out of sight and then there he was, four-legged and curly-furred, blinking and shaking his head a little, confused-looking. He licked his nose almost self-consciously and then peered up at Joe, his tail starting to wag. Joe looked back at him, every bit as stunned speechless, and then burst out laughing as Nick untangled himself from his loose-fallen jeans and stumbled out into the floor, Joe crouching down to fluff up his ears and kiss the top of his head.
“You’re right,” he said, grinning against Nick’s silky fur, “Not a problem after all.”
Joe couldn’t manage to stay awake the whole night; he fell asleep sometime after four, and when he woke up, it was after nine, and Nick was curled up next to him on his bed, naked and dead asleep. Joe blinked groggily as he looked at him, at Nick’s tired features and the near-perpetual dark smudges under his eyes. He was tired - not just from this whole puppy business, though Joe was sure that didn’t help. They were still figuring out how to regulate Nick’s sugar as a puppy, and wide swings in his levels always made him sluggish and unhappy. But it was life in general, too, how hard Nick had been working, how little sleep he’d been getting. He’d spent hour after hour in his “lab,” slaving over a hot soundboard and barely emerging for caffeine or food, let alone sleep. He’d lost weight, Joe had noticed days ago, but seeing him bare and curled, pale against Joe’s dark sheets, the change was striking. Joe put his hand out and ran it through Nick’s curls, mushed soft and disarrayed by the pillow, then ran his palm down over Nick’s shoulder, down his side, fitting his fingers to the grooves of Nick’s ribs. He wasn’t sick-looking, nothing like he’d been when he really was sick. But Joe was still glad that they’d be going home, soon, that Nick would be under an enforced regimen of rest where Joe could stuff him full of too much pecan pie and Christmas ham.
Nick’s skin was sleep-warm and white in contrast to Joe’s hand, and Joe traced out the lines of him, up the bow of his ribcage, down the line of his abs, over his hipbone and the curve of his thigh beneath the blanket, Nick curled tightly in the fetal position, like a squashed s in Joe’s bed. Joe didn’t ever get to idly touch Nick the way he sometimes wanted, knowing Nick would just frown at him, pull away and shrug his shoulders up and tell Joe to stop being weird. So for just those few moments, Joe took advantage of Nick’s lethargy and deep sleep, petting his brother a little as a human, just the way he’d petted him as a puppy the night before as they fell asleep.
Nick woke, then, slow and disoriented and adorable, and Joe hugged him tight and obnoxious until Nick remembered he was naked and should therefore be mortified that his brother was all over him.
They fell into a routine that way. By trial and error, and a hell of a lot of Mountain Dew at three in the morning, Joe discovered that Nick changed back to a per--to a human at just about eight in the morning. He almost always fell asleep and stayed sleeping through the change, but that wasn’t, apparently, necessary, taking into the account the morning Nick had been in the middle of scrambling up onto the couch when he went from four legs to two and ended up sprawled half on top of Joe with one leg and both arms on the couch, yelping in distress as he slid right back off and onto his bare ass on the floor. Joe didn’t stop laughing for a half hour.
The mornings were hard, though, Nick’s body out of whack from his levels and, he said, a little bit from transitioning between forms, too. He said his balance would be off for a while, and it would take a few minutes to see and hear normally again. He slept a lot more than he normally did, which worried and kind of freaked Joe, at first (would his little brother ever be able to live the way he was used to? was this thing making him sicker?). But as Joe got the hang of puppy insulin injections and Nick got the hang of pacing himself, not running himself ragged playing fetch and chasing Joe around the house like some tiny Hound of the Baskervilles, he didn’t spend so very much of the following day asleep, or at least not much more than Joe himself did, zonked out after a full night of puppy-sitting.
After the first four nights, Joe went and retrieved Winston from Garbo’s place, thanking him profusely for looking after his puppy. Wins was thrilled to see Joe again, wriggling onto his lap in the car and refusing to budge, but he seemed to balk a little at the door of the house, squirming and whining in Joe’s arms and making him frown.
“What’s up, pup?” he asked Winston, concerned, as the little bulldog snorted, clearly disgruntled.
“He probably smells an unfamiliar dog,” Nick said reasonably, coming down the stairs. He’d just got out of a shower, his hair damp and a towel around his neck, clad just in a pair of pajama pants. One subtle but noticeable side-effect of this whole turning into and out of a puppy thing was that Nick seemed to be getting less and less meticulous about whether Joe saw him shirtless. He’d wandered around most of the night previous in his jeans and nothing else because he’d spilled taco sauce on his t-shirt and didn’t want to dirty another one for only a few hours.
He came up and scratched solicitously at Winston’s head behind his ears, frowning at him thoughtfully. “Like how he and Elvis were when they first met, you know? He probably smells, um. Me.”
Elvis came tap-tapping up to greet Joe and Winston, straining his nose up toward Joe’s puppy, who stretched his head way down to try to sniff Elvis, too. He seemed to be more at ease after smelling Elvis; he and Elvis were buddies, so he must’ve felt safe with him. Joe bent and set Wins lightly on the floor, and Elvis immediately greeted him in the approved dog manner. Nick wrinkled up his nose, pulling a horrible face.
“I do not do that, do I?” he asked, thoroughly appalled and pointing at their two dogs. Elvis was already reassured of Winston’s identity and was turning, tail swishing lazily, back into the kitchen for a snack while Winston clicked across the foyer toward the living room. Joe grinned evilly at Nick and didn’t reply, just turned on his heel and followed Winston, who was backing his little self up to take a flying leap up onto the leather armchair that he’d long since claimed as his favorite.
“Joe,” Nick said suspiciously, following Joe and hovering over him, arms crossed, as Joe flopped down on the couch and turned on the tv. “I don’t. Joseph. Joe.”
Joe’s grin widened even as he kept his eyes fixed on the television screen, and Nick snorted disgustedly, pulling his towel down off his neck to snap it at his brother. “You freaking jerk,” he said, pissy, beating Joe with the towel. Joe flailed his hands up in defense, snagging the trailing end of it in midair and trying to pull it out of Nick’s hands. They grappled with it, Joe reeling Nick in til they were nearly nose to nose and wiggling his eyebrows at his brother, which had the desired effect of cracking Nick up. Laughing, he pulled on the towel with his full weight, bracing his feet. Joe smirked wickedly and let his hands go loose on the towel for just a half-second; Nick's eyes flew open wide as he started to tumble backward, and Joe immediately closed his hands tight again, catching him and yanking Nick forward. Nick stumbled, off-balance, and pitched right over on top of Joe on the couch.
Joe snickered and squirmed, Nick huffing laughter right in his face as they tried to decipher whose limbs were whose. Joe hummed, Nick warm and heavy on him, and he couldn’t help but think of how just last night, puppy-Nick had dozed off lying sprawled right over his chest, a small, warm weight of fur and snuffles. Joe had stroked his fingers through the puppy’s curls until he’d nearly put himself to sleep too. Now he buried his hand in human Nick’s hair, carding his damp curls through his fingers. Nick blinked down at him in surprise, expression almost quizzical, and Joe pushed his fluff of curls off his forehead, their noses almost touching. Nick’s forehead and cheeks flushed under Joe’s hand while he watched, and Joe was very aware of Nick’s weight all of a sudden. Nick’s dark eyes were very wide and Joe thought he could count all his eyelashes if he tried.
An insistent tugging on the towel, still wrapped halfway around Joe’s arm, broke them out of staring at each other. Joe looked down, startled, to see Winston with his little mouth full of terrycloth, yanking and tugging, growling a little as he tried to wrestle the towel out from between them. Nick sat up and scrambled off, carefully coaxing the towel away from the little dog, and Joe felt cold when Nick’s body heat was gone.
The rest of the evening, Nick was strange and quiet, going and pulling on a shirt and a hoodie though it wasn’t the least bit cold in the house. Joe tried to distract him with the last of the Christmas decorating - Nick had complained about it all week, We’re only going to be here a few more days, Joe, and mom’ll have a cow when she gets back and has to take all this crap down - but Nick still stayed mostly silent as he helped Joe hang Christmas ornaments on the small fake tree that usually went in the front entryway. Their fingers brushed as Nick handed Joe the ornaments he’d outfitted with hooks, but otherwise he kept his distance.
After the Change (it had acquired a capital letter in Joe’s mind at some point), the puppy acted mostly normal, if slightly subdued; he was fascinated with the twinkly Christmas tree lights, in a way that Joe found vaguely, hazily familiar. He eventually realized he was thinking of Nick as a toddler, on the barest edges of his own memory, being delighted by the red-green-blue twinkle of Christmas lights on the tiny artificial tree in the corner of their living room in Jersey. Joe plopped on the floor next to Nick, rubbing the silky fur just behind and beneath his ears, and Wins came and planted himself on Joe’s other side, head flopped against Joe’s thigh. Joe huffed a laugh when, after a little while, Elvis trotted into the room, not one to be left out of a party, and dropped himself lazily to the rug next to the tree.
“You guys are making me feel like the dog whisperer,” Joe cracked, grinning around at all of them and feeling not in the least lonely, even without Nick in a position to actually talk to him. Winston sniffed and Elvis licked his chops, but Nick lifted his head a bit and panted up at Joe in a doggy sort of grin, and Joe bent down to touch his nose to Nick’s. This time, Nick didn’t pull back or run away; he licked wetly at Joe’s nose, crowding in to lick all over his face like he had that first night. Joe laughed and gathered Nick into his lap, where he and Winston sniffed each other’s faces suspiciously for a long moment but, to Joe’s eternal dismay, did not sniff each other anywhere else. Nick wagged his tail excitedly but Winston looked vastly less enthused, dropping his head down to Joe’s leg again with a huff.
“Don’t worry about him, Nicky,” Joe said sympathetically, kissing Nick’s soft head. “He gives me the same treatment about half the time.”
Much later, when Joe could barely keep his eyes open any longer, he scooped up his boys, Nick in one arm and Winston in the other, and took them upstairs to his room. Winston immediately made a beeline for his bed in the corner, but Nick easily jumped onto the bed as if it was exactly where he belonged. The first couple of nights Joe had felt a bit guilty letting him up there, when Elvis was never allowed, but then he thought, what was he going to do, kick his little brother out of his bed? He’d never done that in his life. He was not about to start now. So ever since then, Nick had been as welcome to Joe’s bed as a puppy as he ever had been as a human - and he certainly took advantage of it more, as a dog, which Joe couldn’t begin to pretend did not secretly delight him.
He curled around Nicky’s tiny, furry self as the puppy circled a likely spot in the hollow of Joe’s body and then settled himself fastidiously down. He looked utterly content with the world, well-fed and already through with his last round of testing and insulin for the night, and Joe smiled drowsily at him, reaching out to turn of his bedside lamp and then slowly, rhythmically running his fingertips down Nick’s spine, over and over, making his short little tail wag.
“You are kind of ridiculously easy to please as a puppy, aren’t you?” Joe murmured, grinning into the dark. “I wish you were this easy to make happy as a boy. I’d get you to smile all the time, that way! Just rub your belly or scratch your back and you are putty in my hands.”
Nick wriggled and whined a little, sounding intrigued.
“Yes, putty. Exactly.” Joe sighed, every bit as contented as his brother, right now. “If I could just get you to relax a little more, as a human, Nicky. Just...just take it easy sometimes, you know? Enjoy life, just stop and really enjoy it. Laugh a little more. Laughter never killed anyone, Nicholas.” Joe peered down at Nicky’s glittery eyes in the dark, his own eyes adjusting so that he could just make out the outline of Nick’s head. Nick just blinked back at him, tail lightly thumping the bed, and Joe nearly laughed to think of the look he’d be getting from human Nick right now. He’d be so huffy that Joe was saying such ridiculous things, all I enjoy life to the fullest already, Joseph and When would you like me to relax, exactly, before the next world tour, or after I get my rabies shots? Puppy Nick was nowhere near as lippy, and while part of Joe missed the verbal sparring that was not so much sparring as Nick protesting and then Joe putting him into a hug-headlock, a large part of him was also extremely gratified that Nick was just...listening. Couldn’t understand a word, of course. But he was listening.
And it occurred to Joe, that he could say anything to puppy-Nick, and he would listen, and wag his tail, and just continue to soak up Joe’s attention. Joe could tell Nick that the sky was purple, and not only would Nick not argue, he would absolutely listen to every word. He wouldn’t comprehend it, but Nick had told Joe that he heard every single word, that it was simply all garbled and incomprehensible. But he listened.
Joe swallowed thickly. “I just want to see you happy, Nicky, you know? You’re...you’re the most important thing in my life. I mean, the whole family is, of course, you know that. But. But I worry about you sometimes. I don’t have to worry about Kev, he’s got Dani to look after him, and Frank’s got mom and dad. But you and me have just got each other, you know?”
Nick squirmed up the bed a little, whimpering in his throat, seemingly concerned by Joe’s solemn tone of voice. He swiped his velvety tongue against Joe’s scruffy jaw, and Joe carefully, gently wrapped shaky hands around the tiny form of the puppy in his bed.
He was so little. So desperately little. His tiny heart fluttered rapidly under Joe’s thumb, his ribcage puffing in and out with his rabbit-quick breathing. Joe remembered Nick being little as a boy, just a fragile, pale thing even before he got sick. Since then Nick had made every effort he possibly could to beat his own body at growing up; he fairly burst out of his own skin, trying to get bigger, stronger, better. It had been a long time since Nick had been small enough for Joe to feel physically bigger and more powerful, as if he really could protect Nick if Nick needed it. But with Nick so little now, such a vulnerable thing, for the first time in years he genuinely needed Joe to look out for him and keep him safe. It simultaneously thrilled and terrified Joe.
“I’ll take care of you, Nicky,” Joe said, cuddling his face into Nick’s fur. “I’ll always take care of you, you know? Always. You don’t have to worry about anything. I want to take care of you. I love you.” His throat closed a little around the words, something in him balking at saying them quite like that. Deep down, he knew he meant them in a way Nick could never know, a way he’d never admitted before and instinctively tried to hide. Clearing his throat, he said it again, stronger. “I love you so much, little brother. Furry, human, doesn’t matter. You’re kind of my life, Nicholas.”
His heart raced to say the words. He pressed a long, lingering kiss to the soft curls on Nick’s shoulder, the puppy snuffling at his hair. Joe held onto him just this side of too tight, needing to feel Nick alive and present under his fingers. He thought about Nick from earlier, shirt stripped off and his ribs just a little too prominent for Joe’s liking, all his white skin and his dark curls, even glossier and almost as soft as his puppy curls. He was beautiful to look at no matter which form he took, and Joe couldn’t get his fill of looking, touching. Only the puppy really let him get away with it, but Joe would be lying if he said he didn’t want to get his hands on the boy just as much.
“I love you,” he whispered voicelessly. “You make me happy, Nick, and I want you to be happy, too. I think...I think I might be more than just a little in love with you.”
The puppy tucked his cold, damp nose into the hollow of Joe’s throat, huffing a little sigh, like he was trying to hide in Joe’s arms. Joe curled himself even more securely around his little brother.
“Yeah,” he said, giving a breathy, shaky laugh. “I know. Crazy, right? Your big brother’s kind of a lunatic.”
Nick whined softly.
“I love you too, Nicky. Sleep tight.”
***
Nick seemed more relaxed again by morning, as the two of them started packing up all their stuff to head home for Christmas. Of course, “relaxed” for Nick meant “micromanaging the washer and dryer to maximize laundry efficiency” and “militantly nitpicking Joe’s packing ability.” But that was familiar to Joe, a longstanding tradition: Nick would come by Joe’s room periodically to nag him into finding better uses of space in his suitcase and critique the way he folded his clothes, and Joe would smile and fully agree with Nick and then, as soon as Nick walked back out again, continue wadding up his t-shirts into the corners of his bag as he came across them haphazardly in the laundry.
While Nick was busy color-coding the contents of his duffel bag or whatever he was doing upstairs, Joe sneaked around the kitchen making Secret Plans for later. He smuggled things out to his car under the pretense of packing the Christmas presents they were taking with them to Dallas, unable to wipe the huge, happy grin off his face the whole time.
He suggested that night that they try to catch some sleep early, to get their sleep schedules back on track before they went home. Nick had grown progressively more quiet and anxious throughout the day, frowning as he packed and stealing glances at Joe whenever he mentioned going home. Joe figured out after a while that Nick was nervous, worried about the puppy thing in the face of spending the next couple of weeks with their parents in the next rooms. They hadn’t talked about what they would say, whether they would say anything at all; for now, it was just for them, just their fight, and Joe selfishly rather liked it that way.
Even distracted by anxiety, however, Nick seemed dubious of Joe’s responsible, mature suggestion; he gave Joe such a look of disbelief that Joe rolled his eyes and heaved a great, put-upon sigh.
“Fine, fine, if you have to know,” he said, aggrieved, his lips twitching with a barely-suppressed smile, “I’m taking you to the park tomorrow morning.”
Nick looked, if possible, even more incredulous. “You’re ‘taking’ me?”
“Yep. Early-early. Puppy-you can’t stay cooped up in the house all the time, it isn’t healthy. You need exercise. Fresh air. Man cannot survive on beatlab air alone, Nicholas.”
Nick blinked at Joe. “You mean...you wanna take me, puppy me, out?”
Joe nodded at him, grinning, a little sheepish. “Yeah. You have to promise not to run off, though! You don’t have a collar and tags, I’m not losing you in the mountains because you lost control of yourself and started chasing a squirrel...”
Nick’s face softened from blank shock to bemused, somewhat amazed fondness, a smile curving his lips unexpectedly. “You gonna make me play fetch?” he asked, but he actually sounded kind of pleased about it.
“Of course. I may even make you fetch an actual stick. But I’ll take your ball, too. We’ll see if we can’t get high enough up to see some snow, it’s not Christmas without snow--”
Joe abruptly trailed off when Nick leaned forward and hugged him without warning. Joe’s arms came up around him immediately, and he tucked his face into the curve of Nick’s neck, holding him tight. Nick’s fingers curled in the back of Joe’s shirt.
“No, it really isn’t,” Nick quietly agreed, and Joe could feel him smiling against his shoulder. “Thanks, Joe. Thanks a lot. For looking out for me.”
For the briefest, heart-stopping moment, Joe was absolutely certain that Nick was alluding to what Joe had said to his puppy self last night. But Nick’s voice was nothing but sincere, and he didn’t pull back from Joe even a fraction. So Joe relaxed and just held him.
“That’s what I’m here for,” he assured Nick, ruffling his hair for good measure.
Just after four the next morning, Joe startled awake with his alarm, rousing the puppy in his bed at the same time. Groggily, Joe pulled on warm clothes, Nick skittering and wagging and bouncing excitedly around his feet, yipping at Joe as if demanding he hurry up. Joe snorted at him.
“You are way too much of a morning person no matter what you look like,” he groused, but he was smiling as he pulled a knit cap down over his ears and scooped up the wiggly puppy.
He felt a bit guilty leaving Elvis and Winston behind as he locked the house and picked his way in the dark to his car parked in the breezeway. But he didn’t want to be distracted chasing after actual dogs when he needed to be looking after Nick. And, selfishly, he kind of just wanted to spend time with Nick on their own.
Joe could barely stop smiling the entire drive out to the park in the predawn, Nick a boundless little ball of energy, crawling all over the passenger seat, across the console, into Joe’s lap, back into the passenger seat, putting his paws up on the door to peer out the window. Grinning wickedly, Joe put down the passenger-side window. Nick flinched away at first, then, curious, put his paws back against the door and poked his head out. Joe actually watched his tail double in wagging speed, and he half-froze in the cold rushing air, but he left the window down the rest of the way so Nick could hang his head out and pant, tongue lolling, into the wind.
part vi
