Written for ScrewTheDaisies for the 2009 xmas_rocks exchange
| This story is a work of fiction and therefore completely untrue. No harm or libel is meant or implied about any of the individuals named within this work and it was written without their involvement or permission. No profit is being made. |
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Nick had been a minor point of contention right from the start, one of very few things Pete and Rob were fundamentally at odds about. Sometimes Peter spent days braced for the "this is your fault" after a flare-up, an issue, one of the multitude of problems that seemed to follow in Nick's wake like he'd been specifically sent to fuck up anyone who dared get near him. It never came; things kept getting worse. Peter kept waiting.
"So, keep looking?" Peter blinked. "What? I thought he was fine." "Is 'fine' all you're shooting for?" "I - we - are shooting for best we can get as soon as we can get it. I don't think he's the best ever, but he's good enough for now. Better than a machine." "Maybe." "Why'd you suggest him if you're so against it?" Rob looked at him like he'd gone completely insane. "I told you I didn't want him, moron." "Obviously you weren't convincing." Peter nudged his shoulder, grinned, and Rob just rolled his eyes. "You didn't argue when I said 'anything's better than nothing', anyway. And, y'know, he's...anything. We can take him now, keep an eye out for something better - I'm not really getting a 'commitment' feeling from him, anyway, by the time we find someone new he'll probably be ready to fuck off to something else. But I dunno, I think he fits. Might be what we need." Another eye roll, but rather than arguing more, Rob just said, "Fine, I'll have him come out tonight," and that was it.
All he would've had to do to talk Peter out of taking Nick into the band was explain just how batshit-fucking-crazy Nick was. Because Peter had a higher tolerance than most for the affected weirdnesses of most musicians he'd met, but (at least he'd always thought that) his tolerance for actual loopy headfucks wasn't so low it barely existed. Lucky for Nick, Peter was a stubborn ass, and it turned out not even trying to climb out of a moving car on the freeway made him too crazy to outdo that stubbornness.
"I think I'm gonna head home now," Nick said, after only a few minutes on the road. Peter hadn't even gotten his mouth open to say "that's where we're headed" and Nick was in his lap and Jesus fuck he was heading out the window. Peter's body moved faster than his brain, and he flailed for a grip before he was even done processing out the window. Nick was most of the way out by then, and the best he could do was hook his middle finger through a belt loop, but it was something. And at least Nick wore tight enough pants he wasn't likely to just fall out of them. "Rob? Pull the fucking car over!" "Can't you just yank him back in?" "Hey, I'm stuck on something. Little help?" Peter tried pulling him in, and only managed to get him flailing. "Rob!" he hollered, trying to wrap his free arm around Nick's wildly kicking legs. "There's no good place!" "He's hanging out the goddamned window find a place." "It's got my fucking legs! Guys, something's got my legs!" "It's only five minutes, just...hold on to him." "Easy for you to fucking say." "He weighs, like, 20 pounds!" "20 pounds of kicking flailing hanging out the window." Rob took the exit so fast Peter ended up ripping Nick's belt loop, but by then he seemed perfectly calm and the grip on his legs was enough to keep him in until they made it to his house (thank fuck he'd given directions before they ever got in the car) and left him looking just a little bewildered in his driveway. "Still think he's better than nothing?" Probably not. "Yeah."
The vast majority of the time, Nick tended to be a quieter, calmer lunatic. Rambling diatribes that no one could follow, or steadfast refusal to say anything to anyone for any reason, or nonsensical inserts into whatever conversation had been going just fine without him. And, of course, the near-constant unfocused, vacant look in his eyes. Sometimes his behavior went in such a pattern Peter would think he almost had Nick figured out. Rob never suffered from such delusions, and Peter wasn't sure if he envied him for that. It'd be easier if he'd just accept Nick was incomprehensible, period - but then, it'd make him feel better if there were a method to the madness.
It was a fairly simple thing, really. There had been a space between them, Nick had taken a step, and then there wasn't so much space. But it couldn't be as simple as that, because it was Nick, and Nick had this way of complicating things. "You look like a good kisser," he'd said before he stepped forward. Peter had almost missed it, because Nick had this habit of saying something out of the blue and then going silent again, and generally it wasn't worth trying to figure out why he said what he did. He didn't need to try; Nick had leaned in and gotten rid of what remained of the space between them. Nick needs chapstick. If he'd ever given it serious thought, Peter probably would've assumed kissing Nick would inspire thoughts somewhat more earth-shattering. But no - Nick's lips were dry, and rough, and he could really use some balm or whatever. The kiss was over before it was anything more than a brush of dry lips, and Peter should probably say something but "your lips are dry" didn't feel appropriate and his mind wasn't giving him anything else. Not that it matted. Nick's eyes flicked over his face, he nodded, and was out of the room before Peter's brain had caught up.
Peter and Rob had fucked once, somewhere between teenagers and adults. It had been alright - not the best ever, not even great, but alright. Peter had chalked the mediocrity up to Rob being a guy - maybe the problem was Rob wasn't fucking insane. Sex with Nick was on a different plane entirely from any other sex he'd ever had, and in...if not the best way, definitely a good way. It was a once thing, or was supposed to be - wasn't even supposed to be that, really, Peter just went to ask what the fuck the kiss was about and ended up fucking Nick against the wall. And then somehow it was a twice thing, a once-every-couple-months thing, a whenever-we're-both-horny thing, but the main thing was it was...well, a thing. When Peter let himself think about it, he wasn't exactly sure how he felt about that.
"Fuck." Nick had been having one of his quieter days, but Peter managed to get a word out just by shifting Nick's hips and thrusting hard. For some reason (Peter had long since stopped trying to figure out his own motivations when it came to Nick) he was kind of proud of that. Most of the time - but not always, because that would be way too predictable - when Nick was quiet he was less active, and his hips were just barely pushing back against Peter's. But that was easy to deal with, Peter just dug his fingers into Nick's hips and fucked him twice as hard, forced him to move even if just as an aftershock of his own. The room was hot, way too fucking hot, their bodies slick with sweat and skin sliding at all points of contact. Nick was so hard Peter couldn't believe he hadn't come yet, and he jerked him with rough strokes that were supposed to match the motion of his hips but didn't quite sync. Nick gasped, sighed, stayed as close to inaudible as he could with Peter trying to knock sound out of him by force, and then he held his breath and arched his hips and came all over Peter's hand, let his breath out in a low groan and relaxed back into the pillows as Peter fucked his way to his own white-hot orgasm.
Sex complicates the Hell out of things, at least among people who were only together because they were fucked up (and anyone who denied that what Peter, Rob, and Nick did was the product of anything other than a sort of mutual fucked-upness, they weren't really listening). But even knowing that, feeling like that, he hadn't quite expected to get invested enough for it to really make a difference. Then again, he hadn't expected it in the first place. Complicated things further when Rob finally noticed, when every argument - and Nick and Rob argued constantly - turned into "you're siding with him 'cause of the sex, right?". When Nick's darker moods weren't just Nick being his lunatic self, but something that Peter could and should fix by bending him over something. When Rob kept thinking it was more than "I'm horny you're horny let's get off". Not that Peter was as sure as he'd like to be it wasn't. But to his credit, in spite of the way Nick's increasing weirdness ate at all their nerves and left Rob short-fused and moodier than usual, he didn't say a word about Nick's black eye or Peter's scraped knuckles; didn't snap at either of them when Nick said "fuck this, I'm leaving" with two shows to go. "You were right, I guess," said Rob, between swigs of beer in their hotel room in Spain. He only went on when Peter arched an eyebrow. "About the commitment thing. Didn't take much for him to fuck off." "Yeah." Silence, for a while; Peter had a feeling Rob wanted to know what they'd fought about, but even if he understood himself how that particular fight had started he wasn't sure he'd share. "The other thing, too." "Uh...?" "That he might've been what we needed." Rob snorted. "Getting sentimental?" "Fuck you."
It was only a few weeks after they started working on the next album Peter kissed Rob out of the blue, because he preferred whatever fucking everyone he played with implied to whatever missing Nick did. Fucking Rob was alright; not spectacular, not great, but alright. And better than the alternative, regardless.
When it was finally undeniable they'd need a drummer to get this album done, Rob actually asked if Peter thought calling Nick would be a good idea. He thought about arguing, because he knew Rob'd figured out that yeah, Nick was more essential than they'd expected, and it would be fun to hear him defend the guy he'd never wanted in the first place. Instead he just shrugged, nodded, and got a head start on bracing himself.
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