Author: Becky and Lynne
Fandom: Real Persons
Characters: Kevin Richardson & Nick Carter
Prompt: 072, safe
Word Count: 2,269
Rating: R
Author's Notes: This is the first of the 100 fics. For the most part, they will be part of a larger work unless noted as being a standalone ficlet. A link to the index, as well as our BDT, is at the end.
Kevin stands at the door to the beach house. His beach house. Their beach house. It had been their hideaway, their safe place when the outside world conspired against them.
It's deserted now, empty… just like his heart.
Using his key, he lets himself into the front hall and stops to look around. The furniture has been covered, the electricity had been turned off long ago, and the house feels abandoned. Lost.
He moves to the doorway of the large living room. This had been one of the selling points for him, this amazing room. It spans the length of the house and there's a large stone fireplace taking up one end wall . The wall overlooking the beach is almost all windows. He knew Nick would like that.
Letting himself out the back door, Kevin steps out of his sandals and walks across the sand to the wooden deck he had built on top of a small sand dune. The wooden frames for the large lounge chairs they'd had custom made are still there . Who knows where the pads have gone; probably blew away like the love that used to surround this place. He sits at the end of one of the chairs, and stares out at the vast emptiness of the Pacific Ocean.
Yesterday he had left a voice mail on Nick's cell phone.
"Uh, Nick? It's me…look, I'm gonna put the house up for sale, just wanted to let you know. If there's anything there you want let me know, I'm goin' up tomorrow to look around." Kevin had clicked his own phone off quickly, before Nick heard the tears in his voice.
So here he was, saying goodbye to the place where he had loved and been loved unconditionally. The place where he and Nick had lived together freely, openly, happily. The place where he had thought he and Nick would grow old together.
The place where he had destroyed everything.
~~~
The phone call came while Nick was in a meeting, so he'd waited until afterward to check his messages. He'd been on the freeway, and he'd been so caught off guard that he'd had to pull off to the side to catch his breath. Somehow, he'd managed to put it all to the back of his mind, not really forgetting, but certainly pretending it had never happened.
Until yesterday. Yesterday, when the wound was suddenly as gaping and raw as it had been almost twelve months ago.
The day they'd made love. The day they'd fought bitterly. The day Kevin walked out.
A piece of his heart had died that day.
It was late the next afternoon when he managed to get out of the city and on his way, because to bail on the scheduled radio interview would raise more questions than he had answers for. The fine misty rain had begun the closer he got to the coastline, and his wipers kept a steady rhythm that mirrored the pounding of his heart. He pulled off onto the narrow private drive and parked his two-seater sports car next to Kevin's big tank of a hybrid. His throat was clogged with emotion and he wondered how in the hell he was going to get through this. He hadn't been able to think of anything he wanted from the house, but a perverse little masochistic part of him had to see it one last time.
He had to see him one last time.
~~~
Nick slams the door of the car and stands in the gravel, fingering the key to the house, their dream house. Funny how dreams sometimes turn into nightmares, he thinks. Taking a deep breath, he opens the door and steps inside.
"Oh God." He says it to himself, but as he looks around his senses are assaulted with memories.
There's a fine layer of dust on everything, and a dank musty odor that makes Nick's nose prickle. He sneezes, and without thinking, wipes his nose on his sleeve. The French doors are open and a light breeze ruffles the sheer curtains. With a deep breath for courage, Nick steps outside. Kevin is leaning on the rail, gazing out at the ocean, and Nick has the sudden urge to flee.
But he doesn't. He's grown up in spite of Kevin's predictions otherwise, and this is something he has to do.
He sighs, and then speaks softly, his voice neutral. "Have you been here long?"
Kevin's skin had prickled when he heard the car door slam. He didn't think Nick would come even though he had desperately hoped he would.
Just to see him one last time, that was all he wanted. That was all, he'd told himself.
"'Bout thirty minutes, I guess." Kevin doesn't turn around . He's too afraid to turn around, and face the man he had loved for so long. The man whose heart he had carelessly tossed aside.
Nick moves closer until he stands next to Kevin, but he makes sure there is a good space between them.
Neither man speaks, and the silence isn't companionable like it used to be. It has a gaping hole between them, and Kevin has to close it.
"I didn't think you'd come."
"I almost didn't." Nick leans on the railing, looking out at the dark and stormy ocean, the wide expanse of beach he knew so well. "I guess I knew if I didn't, I'd regret it." Like so many other things. Nick wants so badly to look at Kevin, to shake him and ask him all the things he'd wondered about, but he can't. He can only stand there, stiff and brave, and pray for the courage to get through the rest of the afternoon. "So. What things are you taking back with you?"
"Me? Nothin', not a damn thing." Kevin's hands grip the railing tighter. "Nothin' I want from here, just need to get rid of it all." Then maybe I can start over, start living my life instead of slowly dying day by day. "I know you've got some stuff upstairs, in our...in the bedroom, that's why I called." Liar! You called to hear his voice...you called in hopes he'd come, that he'd want to see you, too.
Kevin can't stand it a minute longer, he's got to look at Nick, even if it means seeing the hatred in the younger man's eyes. Slowly he moves his eyes from the vista in front of him to the man beside him.
"Nick..." He doesn't mean to speak, but he can't help it, and tears come to his eyes.
The sound of Kevin's voice is all Nick has wanted to hear for months, and now that he's standing here, right next to him, he can't bear it.
"I didn't leave much, just some spare clothes. I'll go up and see if anything's worth saving."Like I thought we were, once. Without meeting Kevin's eyes, Nick pushes away from the deck railing and strides back into the house. Their house. Upstairs is the bed they'd shared, the balcony where they'd kissed, Nick's studio ...
"Fuck." The bedroom looks abandoned, just like the rest of the house. The blinds are closed tight, as if they'd once upon a time been closed against the afternoon sun, and there is no life here anymore, no love.
In the eerie silence, Nick pulls open the drawers that used to be his, and begins to dig through the t-shirts and shorts. He rifles through his old clothes until his hand hits something sharp. With a curse, he pulls it back, stunned to see blood welling up on his index finger.
"Dammit-" Reaching carefully back into the drawer, he wraps his hand in an old t-shirt, and then prods back in carefully, taking out a broken picture frame. The glass is splintered and he suddenly remembers thrusting it away, out of his sight, the day he'd left.
It's a picture of him and Kevin on the beach. The sun had been warm on their skin and in spite of their dark glasses, they are beaming for the camera.
The day Kevin had walked out, Nick had all but destroyed their bedroom. The other things that he'd broken were set out in the trash, but the picture was all he had left of Kevin, so he'd tucked it away and never looked back.
Now, nursing his finger, he holds it in his other hand as he sinks wearily onto the bed. They'd been so happy.
~~~
Kevin watched as Nick walked away, having never once looked at him, and Kevin's heart ached.
What did I expect? Why would he even give me the courtesy of looking me in the eyes when I've hurt him so badly? I mocked him, and his open, trusting gaze, and now I'll never get another chance to look into the clear blue of his eyes, and lose myself in them.
Kevin pushes away from the railing, thrusts his hand into his pocket to search for his car keys, and walks back into the house and right through it, figuring he may as well leave since Nick's not going to give him a thing, and it's his own damn fault.
Stopping with his hand on the doorknob, he looks back at the stairs. Nick is up there, collecting the rest of his belongings, and if he leaves now, he realizes he may never see Nick again.
Kevin climbs the stairs slowly, not sure if he can take another rejection from Nick, but he knows he has to do this.
"You're bleeding." He looks at Nick with concern. "What have you done?"
"Cut myself. Damn, it stings. I'm making a mess." Nick stands up, intending to hunt for bandages, and the picture slides off his lap and onto the bed. He hears Kevin's sharp intake of breath when he sees their smiling image, and Nick looks up and right into Kevin's eyes. The pain and concern he sees reminds him of what they'd once shared, and it finally gives him the courage to ask the one thing he’d needed to know for months.
"Why?"
Kevin drops his gaze to the hardwood floor. "I dunno," he lies, but then forces himself to meet Nick's gaze head on. "That's not true. The truth is I was an asshole and ran away from you."
"That was almost a year ago, Kevin. You never looked back, you never called … it was like we'd never been together. Like nothing we'd had ever meant a damn thing to you." The hurt in his eyes and the slight wobble in his voice gives him away. This is what Kevin had accomplished by turning his back on Nick. His leaving had hurt far worse than the angry words ever did.
"What we had meant everything to me, Nick. I had to leave you before you left me. I've spent the last year trying to forget you, forget our life together... I couldn't call you, talk to you. It hurt too much!"
Kevin takes a step toward the blonde man, but Nick is wary, and Kevin can see it in his eyes.
"Before I left you? What the hell are you talking about? I wasn't going to leave you. I loved you, Kevin. You say you spent the last year trying to forget me?" Nick laughs, but it falls way short of humor. "I hope you had better luck than I did. There isn't a day, not one, I haven't had to fight to get you off my mind."
Nick has had enough. His hand hurts, his heart is breaking all over again, and he just wants out. Standing, he pushes his way past Kevin and tosses his bloody t-shirt at the wastebasket in the corner. "I don't care what you do with this stuff, give it to charity."
"Nick, stop." Kevin takes Nick's arm, not letting him go, not like this.
Nick stops in his tracks, and looks back at Kevin. Blue eyes bore into green, and Kevin's breath hitches. Before he can stop himself he's leaning forward, his free hand wrapping around the back of Nick's neck, and he's pulling him close.
"Kevin-" It crosses Nick's mind to stop him, but in the end he can't. He just can't. The moment he feels Kevin's breath on his lips, eleven months, fifteen days and two hours just melt away. It takes only the merest tilt of his head to make his lips touch Kevin's, and it's magic. Just like before, just like always. He feels Kevin's arm wrapping around his back and he does the same, desperate to close the gap that's kept them apart.
Kevin moans into their kiss, feeling like he can't get close enough. He wants to crawl into Nick's skin, and never leave.
"Nick, " he sighs, "my Nick."
"Kevin … "
Nick kisses him again, tasting him and re-learning him, and remembering all the other times, and when Kevin's hand sweeps down his back to hold him more intimately, he stills.
"We can't do this." He speaks so calmly that Kevin pulls away, a protest on his lips and stark terror in his eyes. "Kevin, we can't just pick up like nothing ever happened. This is crazy."
"Nick…"
"You know I'm right, baby." The endearment slips out before he can stop himself and he can almost guarantee that Kevin's stomach just did the same crazy flip as his. "If you want this, really want it, you're going to have to work for it."
Kevin's eyes meet his unwaveringly, and he nods his head. "I can do that."
"I'm counting on it."
~ tbc ~
11/11/05
