Work Text:
Can you see me?
Here I am
Standing here,
Where I’ve always been
-Safest Place to Hide, BSB
The first time Brian notices, he really has no idea what exactly he’s noticed.
He wakes up cold and alone, more than a little sick at the realization that he fell asleep waiting and Nick never came to bed. Brian finds him on the balcony, and the smile he gives over his shoulder when he hears the glass door slide open makes Brian’s chest hurt.
“Thought you were gonna sleep all day, man.”
It’s barely past eight, but it seems best not to mention that. He watched AJ down coke at an impressive rate for long enough; he knows what the too bright look in Nick’s eyes means. He hasn’t slept at all, and if the restless way he’s shifting is any indication, he won’t be sleeping tonight either. There’s a hell of a lot he could say, things he wants to say, but he doesn’t want to fight and pushing back against Nick rarely gets results anyway.
Brian half tackles him instead, arms around his waist in a bear hug he knows will make Nick laugh. He loves Nick’s laughter; he always has. The vibration of it is comforting, and he smiles against Nick’s shoulder as he kisses the soft skin at the base of his neck.
“I might have, if you’d come to bed with me.” He does his best to make sure it’s light, no accusation. Either it works or Nick’s guilt has the better of him because there’s no moment of tension, no move to push him away, only Nick’s hand coming to hold Brian’s arm against his chest, anchoring him close.
“ ‘m sorry about that; I just couldn’t sleep and I didn’t wanna keep you up.” Nick’s hand squeezes against his arm. “But hey, I went and got you coffee. We can heat it up if it’s cold.”
“I ever tell you you’re my favorite?”
“Every day.”
Brian nuzzles into him, trailing kisses up his neck with increasing intent until he can’t resist flicking his tongue against his skin just to hear the hitch in Nick’s breath. He loves that sound and the whimpers he knows he could get to follow it if he tried because they’re his. AJ can make Nick scream and that’s a beautiful thing, but it’s only Brian who can make him whine with a well placed kiss. It doesn’t change that Nick’s sliding away from him, but it’s something. He’s learned to take small victories where he can.
“You have fun last night?”
Nick nods, absent and noncommittal, and Brian lets him keep his silence. There’s no use dragging the story out of him anyway. He knows exactly the sort of people Nick’s been with; he doesn’t really want the details.
Instead, he slides his hand under Nick’s shirt to rub lightly against his stomach, traces his right along Nick’s arm. They all thrive on touch, Nick more than most, so it’s second nature, so familiar he’s not really paying attention until his thumb brushes a thin line and Nick jerks hard enough to pull out of Brian’s arms entirely.
Looking at him Brian can see the cut he felt, thin and pretty superficial but decently long, fresh and red and likely to get redder with the way Nick’s rubbing at it.
Brian’s more confused than suspicious, so he doesn’t bite his tongue. “Hey, what happened?”
Nick flinches like he’s been hit, turns away so fast he’s back inside before Brian really catches his muttered answer.
“It’s nothing; don’t worry about it.”
Worrying’s exactly what he should do, but he’s up past his eyes in worry already. Weighed against the drugs and the drinking, a scratch seems harmless enough to let go.
-------
The second time, there’s no telling himself his list of worries hasn’t gotten just a little longer.
Living like they do, their bodies have no secrets from each other. He knows every inch of all four of them down to the last detail—the scar on the back of Howie’s knee from when he was four, the stretch of skin at Kevin’s hips so sensitive a stroke of Brian’s tongue will make his grip turn rough and desperate. Between the five of them they collect an impressive number of transitory additions, bruises from the stage and the busy and wrestling with each other at 4 AM in hotel rooms, but all of those are public knowledge. They’re bragged about, laughed about, occasionally treated but always noticed.
The mysteries on Nick’s skin pop up out of nowhere and fade without any explanation and earlier than he’d like to admit to himself, deep down Brian knows what the answer for that has to be. He knows, but he has no proof and too much fear and he’s already having a hell of a time keeping Nick in his bed. When he sleeps at all it’s on the couch in the middle of the afternoon, rarely with any of them and almost never with AJ. Knowing that, there’s a part of Brian that tells him he shouldn’t complain because though he has no doubts AJ can see Nick’s rough attempts to protect AJ from his old demons for what they are, that’s not enough to take away the hurt.
He hurts for AJ, but he hurts more for Nick because right now it’s Nick that’s lost.
He’s not naive and he’s certainly not stupid, but none of that lessens the blow when he finds a blade in the bathroom of a hotel in Georgia. Whatever he told himself about wanting proof, he didn’t want it half as much as he prayed to be wrong.
-------
The unyielding line of the knife inside his pocket burns him for a day and half before he makes up his mind. After that, it’s just a matter of waiting until he gets Nick alone.
A week and a half and a dozen planned openings later, he lets the knife start the conversation for him, places it gently on the nightstand next to the bed Nick’s already sprawled out on. For a half second he’s frozen but quicker than Brian expects he’s all motion, ripping his headphones off to sit up and grab for Brian’s hands with something close to panic.
“Brian, I swear, it’s not what it—“
“Don’t, don’t do that.” There’s the same hint of warning in his voice that worked wonders on Nick when he was twelve. These days, it rarely makes him stop anything, but it usually buys him a second or two, and that’s all he needs. “Don’t say this isn’t what it looks like; it’s exactly what it looks like, and we’re gonna talk about it, just you and me. Okay?”
25 years old, and sometimes when Nick looks up at him all Brian can see is the kid who’d never had anyone look out for him until he met them. Nick swallows, blinks though it does nothing to help him clear the fear out of his eyes. Other than the way Nick’s hands slide a little higher up his to lock around his wrists, it seems the only answer he’s going to get.
Brian sits down beside him careful and slow, lets the anxious flex of Nick’s fingers over his pulse center him before he starts. “I’m not gonna ask you why, because believe it or not, I get it. I do.” He catches Nick’s eyes, let’s himself smile just a little at the shock he finds there. “I’m not here to yell; I’m not even pissed. I’m pretty scared, not gonna lie about that, but I’m not pissed, alright?”
“It’s not…” Nick’s voice is thick, weighed down though his eyes are still dry. “It’s not all the time, but it helps. Sometimes I just have to clear my head, y’know, and I— I just need—“ His hands slide higher, like if he increases their points of contact he’ll make Brian understand. “I need it, but I know what I’m doing. Hell, I’ve been doing this one way or another since I was kid; I’m careful.”
That much Brian had to largely concede; he had been pretty careful, pretty shallow, but still there’d been one at least that he’d found across Nick’s ribs that was too jagged, too disorganized. It wasn’t surprising really, cocaine was good for making hands shake.
Cocaine, and nerves. All things considered, it’s a miracle Brian’s hands aren’t shaking right now.
“Tell me something.” Brian swallows, shifts his arms in Nick’s grip so he can trace the crease of Nick’s elbows with his thumbs. “You trust me, right?”
“You know I do.” God love him, he doesn’t even skip a beat. “But that doesn’t mean—“
“Because see what I’m thinkin’ is…you’re trying to be careful, and that’s a good thing, but that one time you have too much to drink and cut deeper than you mean to? That happens, and it doesn’t really matter how careful you were the other dozen times you did it. And I can’t—“ He practiced for this, and still his voice cracks, his vision blurs. His imagination is just too good. “That’s too much risk.”
“It won’t happen.”
“You can’t know that.”
“And you can’t know that this isn’t helping me, so—“
“No, I can believe it’s helping you; all I’m saying is there’s a better way to do this. If you trust me, then let me help you.” Brian’s heart skips and he sucks in a breath, tries his best to push the rest of it out quick. “Before you say anything, I’ve thought about this a lot; I have. You might go too far, but I know I won’t. If you need this, okay, I can accept that, but don’t do it like this. Please.”
He half expects Nick to pull from him, but the way he looks down as his chest heaves is almost worse. His breath is uneven as he studies Brian’s arms alongside his, and there’s a glint of light against his cheek in the late afternoon light that tells Brian the tears he’d heard when they started have won.
“I can’t ask you for that.”
“You’re not asking; I’m offering.”
“Brian…c’mon, man, I know you; you wouldn’t want—“
He takes Nick’s face in his hands, firm enough to make him look up. “What I want is to look out for you for the rest of my life. So let me.”
He’s said I love you to this kid a thousand times, a thousand ways. If Nick needs to see it as blood on his skin, he’ll do it. He’ll be whatever Nick needs.