when we were ourselves (part vi)
Dec. 26th, 2010 06:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
minimusesThey drove out far enough into the mountains that they started to see a little skiff of snow on the rocky landscape whipping by in the headlights. Joe found a turn-out and parked in the crunchy gravel; he left the headlights burning as he gathered Nick up and climbed out of the car, his breath fogging in the air. He let Nick down, watching him immediately strike out, nose to the ground, investigating this new area. It was totally new to Nick, as far as Joe knew, not just to his puppy senses; Nick wasn’t exactly an outdoorsy type of guy, and Joe didn’t think he’d every been this far out of the city into the mountains. Nick sniffed the scrubby vegetation and eyed the shallow drifts of snow with wary curiosity, burying his nose in one and then yanking back with a disgruntled snort. Joe might have laughed at him, a little bit.
Eventually Nick came trotting back from his explorations and Joe tossed his brightly-colored ball for him by the light of his car’s headlights. Nick ran flat-out after the ball across the frosty ground, little body loping and graceful, tail wagging so fast it was hard to follow. Joe shivered a little and stamped his feet, watching his little brother dash after the ball for all he was worth - the way Nick did everything, full-on, a hundred and fifty percent. It made Joe’s heart twist a little funnily in his chest, knowing how little his brother had changed, even when he was completely different.
When he got so cold his teeth were chattering obnoxiously, Joe started chasing Nick around, startling him into a dash and then provoking Nick to chase him instead. He stalked Nick around like a grizzly, growling and looming his arms over his head like claws to make Nick jump away from him, barking excitedly. But in a moment when Joe wasn’t really paying attention, Nick leapt in and snagged a mouthful of the leg of Joe’s jeans, growling and yanking at him with surprising strength. Joe yelped as Nick pulled him just enough off-balance to send him tumbling to the ground, Nick immediately climbing all over him, licking his face enthusiastically.
“Uncle, uncle!” Joe cried over breathless laughter, their breath misting between them as he giggled and Nick barked, over and over. Joe finally got his arms around Nick and hugged him, kissing his head, and Nick struggled a little but eventually went slack, resting peacefully against Joe’s chest, for all the world exactly like he would have as a human.
“God, Nick,” Joe said, gasping for breath and flopping his head back dizzily, looking up at the stars blazing in the clear sky. The horizon was going pearlescent to the east but directely overhead the stars were still burning cold through the lessened light pollution. Even not quite an hour out of the city, the sky here was completely different from the sky in L.A. “What are we gonna do? How on earth are we gonna tell mom and dad? And Kevin? I mean, I’m pretty sure Frank will have no objections. He’s always wanted a dog of his own, after all.”
Nick made a vaguely disgusted-sounding rasp in his throat, making Joe laugh. “Yeah, no, I’m not sure you’re exactly what he had in mind, either.” He sighed. The ground beneath him was frozen, cold and hard, but Nick was like a furry little furnace against his chest. Joe maneuvered them around a little so he could unzip his thick fleece-lined hoodie and cover Nick with it, zip him up inside of it so they could keep each other warm. Nick sniffed and licked and gnawed slobbery little lovebites on Joe’s jaw, and Joe rubbed his velveteen ears gently, absently, between his forefingers and thumbs. Nick’s head drooped, lulled and blissed out, and Joe kissed his nose. “I don’t want to tell them, Nicky,” he admitted quietly, voice a little heated. “They wouldn’t get it, and they’d probably take you to some weird doctor, and I don’t...you’re my responsibility, you know? And I can take care of you, better than some stranger. Better than mom and dad even. Nobody needs to...to fix you, but that’s exactly what they’d try to do and, just.” His voice dipped even quieter, a little freaked out. “I don’t know what they’d do to you, Nick. I don’t want them messing with you. Or taking you away from me.”
He leaned his head up to look at Nick, who was just watching him with eyes too knowing for a puppy’s, and then flopped backward. The stars were winking out one by one overhead.
“You’re perfect, Nicky. Just how you are. If this doesn’t make you happy, if this totally fucks up your life, that’s one thing. But this kind of thing happens for a reason, I know it does, and I don’t want you poked and prodded and convinced that it’s bad when really...really, it might be the best thing that ever happened to you. Maybe. I love you so much. I just want you to want things for yourself, for your own reasons, not for anybody else’s, for a change.” He swallowed hard, his throat dry from the cold air. Not just from the cold air, perhaps. “I don’t want you to want things just ‘cause I want them either. Cause the things I want...Nick, you’d. You’d never speak to me again if you knew. I want...so much. So much. Stuff I shouldn’t want, that I know I shouldn’t want and can’t help wanting anyway. I don’t even know everything I want, but what I do know...” He cut himself off, gulping again, and just looked at Nick in the gathering light. He shook his head, feeling heat rise in his face, and, wrapping an arm securely around Nick inside his jacket, he levered himself to his feet and extracted the puppy from his clothes again, setting him down and waving his ball at him.
“C’mon, Nicky,” Joe said, making his voice light. “You don’t wanna worry about that stuff right now, anyway.”
He and Nick played fetch and chase, and fooled around in and with the snow, while the sun came fully up, painting the hills with golds and pinks and the deep blue-black shadows of early morning. The temperature rose a little, slowly, but it was still chilly enough to warrant Joe wearing his hoodie when the puppy abruptly stopped in front of Joe, dropped his ball at Joe’d feet, and then cocked his head quizzically as the air around him warped and shimmered. “Oh shit,” Joe said, because he hadn’t been paying attention to the time at all, and then there was his little brother, crouched and shivering and naked and a lot less covered in protective fur, blinking his way back to his human senses.
Joe hurried to his car, grabbing out from the backseat the thick quilt and the big thermos he’d packed last night. He dashed back to Nick and swathed him in the quilt, Nick looking at him a little disgruntled but mostly grateful and maybe a little tired. He had run himself pretty hard playing fetch. Joe grinned at him, pushing his hair back off his forehead. “Morning, little brother,” he said, voice warm and fond, and Nick’s expression eased into a small, crooked smile.
“G’morning. Hey...that was really fun, Joe.”
“Well of course it was,” Joe sniffed, looping his arm around Nick’s waist to help him back over to the car while Nick clutched the corners of the blanket tight around him. “I thought of it, didn’t I?”
Nick pulled a little face. “My lawyer has advised me not to answer any questions that could incriminate me, he said, teeth chattering just a little, and Joe gave him a boost onto the hood of the car, sliding up onto it beside him and popping open the thermos to pour the lid full of coffee.
“You are such a funny man, Nicholas, I don’t know how you manage to keep this rapier wit hidden away most of the time,” Joe said dryly, smirking, and Nick smirked back as he took the cup of coffee Joe handed him and blew impatiently across the top of it.
“A necessary life skill,” Nick told him loftily, then slanted a sideways look at his brother, sipping at too-hot coffee and holding the corners of the blanket tight around him to shut out the cold air. “Hey, what were you talking to me about so serious, a little while ago? When you had me in your coat?”
Joe kicked idly at the front bumper of his car, shaking his head with an expression that said nothing important. “Just, about going home. How I don’t want to tell mom and dad, or...anybody, really, about. About this.”
Nick quietly slurped another drink of coffee. “Me neither,” he admitted, subdued. “I don’t think we should. Until we absolutely have to. See if we can just...wing it. Just us.”
A little of the tension went out of Joe’s shoulders, and he smiled over at Nick, taking the cup as Nick passed it back and drawing a long, hot drink off of it. “That’s what I think too.”
“Is that all? That you were saying earlier, I mean?” Nick wrinkled up his nose a little. “You shouldn’t talk about important things when I’m a puppy, Joseph. You know I can’t understand you.”
Joe laughed, just a tiny frisson of nervousness to it. “Maybe that’s the point, Nicholas.”
Nick eyed him. “So you did say something else?” he pressed.
Joe shook his head. “Not really. Just...” He licked his lips, selected a fragment of the truth. “Just that I’m here to take care of you, and I don’t think I trust anybody else to do it right. That you’re my responsibility.”
Nick leveled a serious look at Joe. “Joe, I shouldn’t have to be your responsibility. It shouldn’t be your job to babysit me.”
Joe shrugged, the tiniest bit jealously. “It’s what I want to do. It’s what I’ve always done and always been good at. And I’m the only one who can do it right.”
Nick looked at him for a long, quiet moment, seeming to size him up, and Joe felt that instantaneous thrill of fear again, that Nick somehow knew what Joe had been saying. He was reminded of the puppy’s thoughtful, knowing, intelligent eyes, and wondered if Nick had exaggerated how little he could understand Joe when he spoke.
But then Nick just leaned into him and stole the cup of coffee back, draining it while they watched the sun climb higher in the sky over the hills. After a while he said, in a voice so soft Joe could just barely hear, “I’m glad you want to, Joe.”
Predictably, Nick zonked out on the ride back into town, curled into the passenger seat still wrapped in the blanket. He hadn’t even bothered to put on the clothes Joe had brought for him, and the blanket slid down over one white shoulder. He had his bare feet tucked up under him on the seat, the hair on his shins still fairer and more downy than Joe’s had been when he was Nick’s age. Nick looked young, like that, and slightly otherworldly, like something wild Joe had caught and was carrying home. He still had little flecks of frost and snow stuck, melting into glitter, in his hair, from the snowball Joe had hurled at him after Nick nailed him in the back of the head with one of his own. His face was flushed with cold and exertion, mouth red and soft-looking, and Joe found himself having to tear his eyes away, over and over, found himself continually distracted by him. He reached out and tucked a damp curl behind Nick’s ear, fighting the urge to pet his hair, run his hand down Nick’s pale neck and shoulder again, the way he’d done a few days ago. It would just be indulging himself, now, and he felt a little guilty about it, about taking advantage of Nick again when he’d lied to him once that morning already.
***
The morning they were supposed to catch their plane home to Texas, Joe got himself up early, scooping his sleepy, furry little brother up with the blanket off his bed and tiptoeing downstairs. He settled Nick on the couch in his cocoon and went into the kitchen to make coffee and omelets for breakfast. By the time he was finished and carrying their plates and mugs, precariously balanced in his arms, back into the living room, Nick was human once more and blinking sleepily at Joe, wrapped in the blanket, his hair a messy halo around his head. Joe stepped out of his own pajama pants, leaving him in just his boxers, and handed the pjs to Nick, who gratefully pulled them on and cinched them at the waist.
“Where did those come from?” Nick asked, voice still thick with sleep as he eyed the brightly-wrapped packages under their little popcorn-strung Christmas tree. They hadn’t been there when he went to bed the night before.
Joe smiled smugly, incredibly pleased with himself. “Santa Claus,” he replied vaguely, whistling and calling for Elvis and Winston. He was aware of Nick watching him narrowly, but he blithely ignored it, waiting for their dogs to clamber noisily into the room, sensing the advent of treats. Joe plopped down on the floor next to the tree and pulled out two of the boxes, dripping with ribbons, and handed them to Nick. “For Elvis,” he said, grinning, and Nick laughed and shook his head.
“You realize they don’t know it’s a holiday,” Nick told him, but his voice was fond and his mouth fighting a smile as he carefully undid the wrapping paper on one side of what, he would see in about fifteen seconds, was a box of gourmet dog treats from a boutique downtown.
“Shhh,” Joe said, pulling Winston into his lap and letting him chew interestedly at the side of one of his packages. “Of course they do. And they don’t need an excuse to eat fancy treats anyway.”
Both of their dogs got boxes of Christmas-themed dog treats - gingerbread men, Christmas trees, snowmen - and a bow-wrapped rawhide bone apiece. They immediately settled down to gnaw on the bones, both of them with identical looks of deep contentment on their faces that made Joe grin and rub them both behind the ears.
Nick was frowning again, though, because there were still two boxes under the tree. Joe pulled them out, handing them up to Nick with a huge smile. “It’d be hard to explain these on Christmas morning,” he offered, crawling up to sit next to Nick on the couch.
The tips of Nick’s ears went a bit red, but he was smiling a small smile as he unwrapped the boxes that said, on their tags, “From: Santa, To: The New Kid.” One of the boxes was crammed full of dog toys and treats - a new rubber ball, some chewy toys, a box of the same little Christmas biscuits Elvis and Winston had gotten. Nick burst out a laugh and unceremoniously threw the squeakiest of the toys at Joe, which prompted Joe to whack Nick with it repeatedly just for the fun squeaky noise it made and how hard Nick laughed. When they’d finally caught their breath and Nick had wrestled the squeaky pirate out of Joe’s hands, he put the toys back into the box and set the box aside. The other box was smaller; inside was a simple, inexpensive little collar Joe had found at the pet store and sneaked back later without Nick to buy, with little flaming electric guitars all the way around the band. Nick blushed furiously when he saw it.
“Now, before you get mad,” Joe said peremptorily, holding up his hands in defense, “I got it so that we can go out again more regularly. I hate keeping you shut up in the house but I’m afraid to take you out to the park again without a collar and tags.”
Nick didn’t say anything, just pulled the collar out of the box and held up the silver dogtags to the light. One of them simply had the symbol for veterinary medicine on it, with the word DIABETES printed below. The other was two-sided. The front side said Nicky; on the back it read, If I’m in trouble, call Joe. Below that was Joe’s cell phone number.
“That way, if you get away from me, or we get separated, or something like that, then whoever finds you can get you back to me,” Joe kept babbling, hoping Nick wouldn’t be too embarrassed. Joe had thought the collar was funny as hell, but he was dead serious about the tags. He knew they needed safeguards; they had plans and backup plans and backup-backup plans for the unexpected in their everyday lives. There was no reason they shouldn’t have them for this, too. “I just wanna be safe.”
Nick was still staring at the tags with a blank expression that Joe couldn’t read. After a moment he blinked, and Joe realized with a start that his eyes were a little too bright. Nick cleared his throat and gently arranged the collar back in the box, set it aside, and then turned to Joe and smiled lopsidedly.
“You always look out for me, Joe,” he said, his voice a little bit scratchy. “Thank you.”
Joe breathed a sigh of relief, not even realizing he was holding it, and then reached out and hugged Nick tight. For once Nick didn’t struggle or argue in the slightest, just buried his face in Joe’s neck and held on.
“You’re welcome, Nicky,” Joe murmured, shivering a little as Nick pressed a kiss absently to his neck. Joe squeezed him a little tighter. “Merry early Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas, Joe,” Nick replied with a little laugh, pulling back just a little, his lips grazing over Joe’s jaw. Joe was sure it was unintentional, but then Nick didn’t move away any further, and Joe could see the flicker of his eyelashes out the corner of his eye. His heart pounded fast, unexpectedly and sudden; it seemed like they stayed like that, their faces too close, for a minor eternity. He knew he was only just letting his mind run away with him, and that he should sit back, let go of Nick before he did something monumentally stupid. Only then Nick was pressing a kiss to the corner of Joe’s mouth, and Joe was tipping his head in a little to catch Nick in a real kiss, an undeniable kind of kiss not like the kind that brothers are supposed to give each other. And Nick wasn’t moving away, was the thing, he was kissing back, his mouth every bit as soft and expressive as it looked. Joe gasped, curling his fingers against Nick’s smooth, naked back, and he could feel Nick smiling against his lips.
“The more I hear words, as a puppy,” he whispered, “the more I understand them.” He pulled back enough to look at Joe, his face flushed red with embarrassment and his mouth curled up uncertainly on one side. “And...you say ‘love’ kind of a lot.”
Joe just stared at him, and then, just as Nick’s expression was sliding more toward “uncertain” than “smile,” he darted in and kissed Nick again, curling his hand around Nick’s neck and licking open his mouth, his whole body feeling electrified when Nick kissed back, when his hand curled in the front of Joe’s shirt. There were a million questions to be asked and answered, of course; when and how and why and whether this was actually the stupidest, most suicidal idea either of them had ever had. But they still had this whole puppy thing only half-figured out, and they were going home for Christmas to their family today, and Nick was kissing him soft and wet, so Joe didn’t think either of them really wanted to worry about any of those questions right now anyway.
“You,” he said, breathlessly, when the kiss finally broke and he had rested his forehead against Nick’s, “were listening that whole time? You are a bad dog.”
Nick gave him a priceless look that eloquently spoke to Joe’s doom if he ever even thought those words in Nick’s direction again. “Like you were entirely truthful, either,” he said, making Joe grin, not the littlest bit chagrined. “So what all did you say? I didn’t understand most of it, that wasn’t a lie.”
Joe’s smile broadened and he squeezed gently at the back of Nick’s neck. “You’ve got the general idea of it, I think,” he said, dropping another fleeting kiss to Nick’s mouth and petting down his back the way he’d done to Nick’s puppy self dozens of times already. Nick squirmed just a little closer to Joe, a shiver racing down his spine that Joe was certain would have been a tail wag, had Nick been just a little smaller and furrier.
fin
Eventually Nick came trotting back from his explorations and Joe tossed his brightly-colored ball for him by the light of his car’s headlights. Nick ran flat-out after the ball across the frosty ground, little body loping and graceful, tail wagging so fast it was hard to follow. Joe shivered a little and stamped his feet, watching his little brother dash after the ball for all he was worth - the way Nick did everything, full-on, a hundred and fifty percent. It made Joe’s heart twist a little funnily in his chest, knowing how little his brother had changed, even when he was completely different.
When he got so cold his teeth were chattering obnoxiously, Joe started chasing Nick around, startling him into a dash and then provoking Nick to chase him instead. He stalked Nick around like a grizzly, growling and looming his arms over his head like claws to make Nick jump away from him, barking excitedly. But in a moment when Joe wasn’t really paying attention, Nick leapt in and snagged a mouthful of the leg of Joe’s jeans, growling and yanking at him with surprising strength. Joe yelped as Nick pulled him just enough off-balance to send him tumbling to the ground, Nick immediately climbing all over him, licking his face enthusiastically.
“Uncle, uncle!” Joe cried over breathless laughter, their breath misting between them as he giggled and Nick barked, over and over. Joe finally got his arms around Nick and hugged him, kissing his head, and Nick struggled a little but eventually went slack, resting peacefully against Joe’s chest, for all the world exactly like he would have as a human.
“God, Nick,” Joe said, gasping for breath and flopping his head back dizzily, looking up at the stars blazing in the clear sky. The horizon was going pearlescent to the east but directely overhead the stars were still burning cold through the lessened light pollution. Even not quite an hour out of the city, the sky here was completely different from the sky in L.A. “What are we gonna do? How on earth are we gonna tell mom and dad? And Kevin? I mean, I’m pretty sure Frank will have no objections. He’s always wanted a dog of his own, after all.”
Nick made a vaguely disgusted-sounding rasp in his throat, making Joe laugh. “Yeah, no, I’m not sure you’re exactly what he had in mind, either.” He sighed. The ground beneath him was frozen, cold and hard, but Nick was like a furry little furnace against his chest. Joe maneuvered them around a little so he could unzip his thick fleece-lined hoodie and cover Nick with it, zip him up inside of it so they could keep each other warm. Nick sniffed and licked and gnawed slobbery little lovebites on Joe’s jaw, and Joe rubbed his velveteen ears gently, absently, between his forefingers and thumbs. Nick’s head drooped, lulled and blissed out, and Joe kissed his nose. “I don’t want to tell them, Nicky,” he admitted quietly, voice a little heated. “They wouldn’t get it, and they’d probably take you to some weird doctor, and I don’t...you’re my responsibility, you know? And I can take care of you, better than some stranger. Better than mom and dad even. Nobody needs to...to fix you, but that’s exactly what they’d try to do and, just.” His voice dipped even quieter, a little freaked out. “I don’t know what they’d do to you, Nick. I don’t want them messing with you. Or taking you away from me.”
He leaned his head up to look at Nick, who was just watching him with eyes too knowing for a puppy’s, and then flopped backward. The stars were winking out one by one overhead.
“You’re perfect, Nicky. Just how you are. If this doesn’t make you happy, if this totally fucks up your life, that’s one thing. But this kind of thing happens for a reason, I know it does, and I don’t want you poked and prodded and convinced that it’s bad when really...really, it might be the best thing that ever happened to you. Maybe. I love you so much. I just want you to want things for yourself, for your own reasons, not for anybody else’s, for a change.” He swallowed hard, his throat dry from the cold air. Not just from the cold air, perhaps. “I don’t want you to want things just ‘cause I want them either. Cause the things I want...Nick, you’d. You’d never speak to me again if you knew. I want...so much. So much. Stuff I shouldn’t want, that I know I shouldn’t want and can’t help wanting anyway. I don’t even know everything I want, but what I do know...” He cut himself off, gulping again, and just looked at Nick in the gathering light. He shook his head, feeling heat rise in his face, and, wrapping an arm securely around Nick inside his jacket, he levered himself to his feet and extracted the puppy from his clothes again, setting him down and waving his ball at him.
“C’mon, Nicky,” Joe said, making his voice light. “You don’t wanna worry about that stuff right now, anyway.”
He and Nick played fetch and chase, and fooled around in and with the snow, while the sun came fully up, painting the hills with golds and pinks and the deep blue-black shadows of early morning. The temperature rose a little, slowly, but it was still chilly enough to warrant Joe wearing his hoodie when the puppy abruptly stopped in front of Joe, dropped his ball at Joe’d feet, and then cocked his head quizzically as the air around him warped and shimmered. “Oh shit,” Joe said, because he hadn’t been paying attention to the time at all, and then there was his little brother, crouched and shivering and naked and a lot less covered in protective fur, blinking his way back to his human senses.
Joe hurried to his car, grabbing out from the backseat the thick quilt and the big thermos he’d packed last night. He dashed back to Nick and swathed him in the quilt, Nick looking at him a little disgruntled but mostly grateful and maybe a little tired. He had run himself pretty hard playing fetch. Joe grinned at him, pushing his hair back off his forehead. “Morning, little brother,” he said, voice warm and fond, and Nick’s expression eased into a small, crooked smile.
“G’morning. Hey...that was really fun, Joe.”
“Well of course it was,” Joe sniffed, looping his arm around Nick’s waist to help him back over to the car while Nick clutched the corners of the blanket tight around him. “I thought of it, didn’t I?”
Nick pulled a little face. “My lawyer has advised me not to answer any questions that could incriminate me, he said, teeth chattering just a little, and Joe gave him a boost onto the hood of the car, sliding up onto it beside him and popping open the thermos to pour the lid full of coffee.
“You are such a funny man, Nicholas, I don’t know how you manage to keep this rapier wit hidden away most of the time,” Joe said dryly, smirking, and Nick smirked back as he took the cup of coffee Joe handed him and blew impatiently across the top of it.
“A necessary life skill,” Nick told him loftily, then slanted a sideways look at his brother, sipping at too-hot coffee and holding the corners of the blanket tight around him to shut out the cold air. “Hey, what were you talking to me about so serious, a little while ago? When you had me in your coat?”
Joe kicked idly at the front bumper of his car, shaking his head with an expression that said nothing important. “Just, about going home. How I don’t want to tell mom and dad, or...anybody, really, about. About this.”
Nick quietly slurped another drink of coffee. “Me neither,” he admitted, subdued. “I don’t think we should. Until we absolutely have to. See if we can just...wing it. Just us.”
A little of the tension went out of Joe’s shoulders, and he smiled over at Nick, taking the cup as Nick passed it back and drawing a long, hot drink off of it. “That’s what I think too.”
“Is that all? That you were saying earlier, I mean?” Nick wrinkled up his nose a little. “You shouldn’t talk about important things when I’m a puppy, Joseph. You know I can’t understand you.”
Joe laughed, just a tiny frisson of nervousness to it. “Maybe that’s the point, Nicholas.”
Nick eyed him. “So you did say something else?” he pressed.
Joe shook his head. “Not really. Just...” He licked his lips, selected a fragment of the truth. “Just that I’m here to take care of you, and I don’t think I trust anybody else to do it right. That you’re my responsibility.”
Nick leveled a serious look at Joe. “Joe, I shouldn’t have to be your responsibility. It shouldn’t be your job to babysit me.”
Joe shrugged, the tiniest bit jealously. “It’s what I want to do. It’s what I’ve always done and always been good at. And I’m the only one who can do it right.”
Nick looked at him for a long, quiet moment, seeming to size him up, and Joe felt that instantaneous thrill of fear again, that Nick somehow knew what Joe had been saying. He was reminded of the puppy’s thoughtful, knowing, intelligent eyes, and wondered if Nick had exaggerated how little he could understand Joe when he spoke.
But then Nick just leaned into him and stole the cup of coffee back, draining it while they watched the sun climb higher in the sky over the hills. After a while he said, in a voice so soft Joe could just barely hear, “I’m glad you want to, Joe.”
Predictably, Nick zonked out on the ride back into town, curled into the passenger seat still wrapped in the blanket. He hadn’t even bothered to put on the clothes Joe had brought for him, and the blanket slid down over one white shoulder. He had his bare feet tucked up under him on the seat, the hair on his shins still fairer and more downy than Joe’s had been when he was Nick’s age. Nick looked young, like that, and slightly otherworldly, like something wild Joe had caught and was carrying home. He still had little flecks of frost and snow stuck, melting into glitter, in his hair, from the snowball Joe had hurled at him after Nick nailed him in the back of the head with one of his own. His face was flushed with cold and exertion, mouth red and soft-looking, and Joe found himself having to tear his eyes away, over and over, found himself continually distracted by him. He reached out and tucked a damp curl behind Nick’s ear, fighting the urge to pet his hair, run his hand down Nick’s pale neck and shoulder again, the way he’d done a few days ago. It would just be indulging himself, now, and he felt a little guilty about it, about taking advantage of Nick again when he’d lied to him once that morning already.
***
The morning they were supposed to catch their plane home to Texas, Joe got himself up early, scooping his sleepy, furry little brother up with the blanket off his bed and tiptoeing downstairs. He settled Nick on the couch in his cocoon and went into the kitchen to make coffee and omelets for breakfast. By the time he was finished and carrying their plates and mugs, precariously balanced in his arms, back into the living room, Nick was human once more and blinking sleepily at Joe, wrapped in the blanket, his hair a messy halo around his head. Joe stepped out of his own pajama pants, leaving him in just his boxers, and handed the pjs to Nick, who gratefully pulled them on and cinched them at the waist.
“Where did those come from?” Nick asked, voice still thick with sleep as he eyed the brightly-wrapped packages under their little popcorn-strung Christmas tree. They hadn’t been there when he went to bed the night before.
Joe smiled smugly, incredibly pleased with himself. “Santa Claus,” he replied vaguely, whistling and calling for Elvis and Winston. He was aware of Nick watching him narrowly, but he blithely ignored it, waiting for their dogs to clamber noisily into the room, sensing the advent of treats. Joe plopped down on the floor next to the tree and pulled out two of the boxes, dripping with ribbons, and handed them to Nick. “For Elvis,” he said, grinning, and Nick laughed and shook his head.
“You realize they don’t know it’s a holiday,” Nick told him, but his voice was fond and his mouth fighting a smile as he carefully undid the wrapping paper on one side of what, he would see in about fifteen seconds, was a box of gourmet dog treats from a boutique downtown.
“Shhh,” Joe said, pulling Winston into his lap and letting him chew interestedly at the side of one of his packages. “Of course they do. And they don’t need an excuse to eat fancy treats anyway.”
Both of their dogs got boxes of Christmas-themed dog treats - gingerbread men, Christmas trees, snowmen - and a bow-wrapped rawhide bone apiece. They immediately settled down to gnaw on the bones, both of them with identical looks of deep contentment on their faces that made Joe grin and rub them both behind the ears.
Nick was frowning again, though, because there were still two boxes under the tree. Joe pulled them out, handing them up to Nick with a huge smile. “It’d be hard to explain these on Christmas morning,” he offered, crawling up to sit next to Nick on the couch.
The tips of Nick’s ears went a bit red, but he was smiling a small smile as he unwrapped the boxes that said, on their tags, “From: Santa, To: The New Kid.” One of the boxes was crammed full of dog toys and treats - a new rubber ball, some chewy toys, a box of the same little Christmas biscuits Elvis and Winston had gotten. Nick burst out a laugh and unceremoniously threw the squeakiest of the toys at Joe, which prompted Joe to whack Nick with it repeatedly just for the fun squeaky noise it made and how hard Nick laughed. When they’d finally caught their breath and Nick had wrestled the squeaky pirate out of Joe’s hands, he put the toys back into the box and set the box aside. The other box was smaller; inside was a simple, inexpensive little collar Joe had found at the pet store and sneaked back later without Nick to buy, with little flaming electric guitars all the way around the band. Nick blushed furiously when he saw it.
“Now, before you get mad,” Joe said peremptorily, holding up his hands in defense, “I got it so that we can go out again more regularly. I hate keeping you shut up in the house but I’m afraid to take you out to the park again without a collar and tags.”
Nick didn’t say anything, just pulled the collar out of the box and held up the silver dogtags to the light. One of them simply had the symbol for veterinary medicine on it, with the word DIABETES printed below. The other was two-sided. The front side said Nicky; on the back it read, If I’m in trouble, call Joe. Below that was Joe’s cell phone number.
“That way, if you get away from me, or we get separated, or something like that, then whoever finds you can get you back to me,” Joe kept babbling, hoping Nick wouldn’t be too embarrassed. Joe had thought the collar was funny as hell, but he was dead serious about the tags. He knew they needed safeguards; they had plans and backup plans and backup-backup plans for the unexpected in their everyday lives. There was no reason they shouldn’t have them for this, too. “I just wanna be safe.”
Nick was still staring at the tags with a blank expression that Joe couldn’t read. After a moment he blinked, and Joe realized with a start that his eyes were a little too bright. Nick cleared his throat and gently arranged the collar back in the box, set it aside, and then turned to Joe and smiled lopsidedly.
“You always look out for me, Joe,” he said, his voice a little bit scratchy. “Thank you.”
Joe breathed a sigh of relief, not even realizing he was holding it, and then reached out and hugged Nick tight. For once Nick didn’t struggle or argue in the slightest, just buried his face in Joe’s neck and held on.
“You’re welcome, Nicky,” Joe murmured, shivering a little as Nick pressed a kiss absently to his neck. Joe squeezed him a little tighter. “Merry early Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas, Joe,” Nick replied with a little laugh, pulling back just a little, his lips grazing over Joe’s jaw. Joe was sure it was unintentional, but then Nick didn’t move away any further, and Joe could see the flicker of his eyelashes out the corner of his eye. His heart pounded fast, unexpectedly and sudden; it seemed like they stayed like that, their faces too close, for a minor eternity. He knew he was only just letting his mind run away with him, and that he should sit back, let go of Nick before he did something monumentally stupid. Only then Nick was pressing a kiss to the corner of Joe’s mouth, and Joe was tipping his head in a little to catch Nick in a real kiss, an undeniable kind of kiss not like the kind that brothers are supposed to give each other. And Nick wasn’t moving away, was the thing, he was kissing back, his mouth every bit as soft and expressive as it looked. Joe gasped, curling his fingers against Nick’s smooth, naked back, and he could feel Nick smiling against his lips.
“The more I hear words, as a puppy,” he whispered, “the more I understand them.” He pulled back enough to look at Joe, his face flushed red with embarrassment and his mouth curled up uncertainly on one side. “And...you say ‘love’ kind of a lot.”
Joe just stared at him, and then, just as Nick’s expression was sliding more toward “uncertain” than “smile,” he darted in and kissed Nick again, curling his hand around Nick’s neck and licking open his mouth, his whole body feeling electrified when Nick kissed back, when his hand curled in the front of Joe’s shirt. There were a million questions to be asked and answered, of course; when and how and why and whether this was actually the stupidest, most suicidal idea either of them had ever had. But they still had this whole puppy thing only half-figured out, and they were going home for Christmas to their family today, and Nick was kissing him soft and wet, so Joe didn’t think either of them really wanted to worry about any of those questions right now anyway.
“You,” he said, breathlessly, when the kiss finally broke and he had rested his forehead against Nick’s, “were listening that whole time? You are a bad dog.”
Nick gave him a priceless look that eloquently spoke to Joe’s doom if he ever even thought those words in Nick’s direction again. “Like you were entirely truthful, either,” he said, making Joe grin, not the littlest bit chagrined. “So what all did you say? I didn’t understand most of it, that wasn’t a lie.”
Joe’s smile broadened and he squeezed gently at the back of Nick’s neck. “You’ve got the general idea of it, I think,” he said, dropping another fleeting kiss to Nick’s mouth and petting down his back the way he’d done to Nick’s puppy self dozens of times already. Nick squirmed just a little closer to Joe, a shiver racing down his spine that Joe was certain would have been a tail wag, had Nick been just a little smaller and furrier.
fin
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Re: been nursing on this all evening, didn't want it to end!
Date: 2010-12-27 01:03 pm (UTC)I don't THINK I've locked anything JB of mine, but I do like to friend back anybody who friends me here, so I've just added you. I'm sorry if you've been waiting on it a while, I've been super busy lately - my apologies!