hearnospeakno: (Default)
nick andros ([personal profile] hearnospeakno) wrote in [community profile] all_inclusive2013-08-06 07:30 pm

the broken window and the pretty blue sky

This is a medical emergency. I need alcohol. I will pay you back.

This is what you may find held up to you on Nick Andros' palm, if you seem like the kind of person who might buy a guy a beer on credit. If you're not, or he just hasn't gotten around to you yet, Nick is the skinny guy hassling people in the Smoking Room.

It's been one of those days.

Nick doesn't like this. He's paid his own way for years, and he's been buying his own drinks since he was first able to bluff his way into a bar. But he's not going to steal, and he hasn't carried cash since--he doesn't even remember when he stopped thinking about having money in his pocket. It's been a while.

If this is whatever comes next, Nick has some pointed questions to ask whoever runs the place about why he gets a room free, but not a drink. (Nick's experience with hotels doesn't extend to the kind with minibars, so he didn't think about going up there first. He's honestly not thinking much.)

He's not begging. He's done that before, and it left a sharp, slippery taste in his mouth like sweaty pennies. Whatever is going on, wherever this is, Nick is asking for a loan, not a handout. It might be a stupid thing to be hanging onto, but under the circumstances--

Under the circumstances, Nick just wants a break. Five minutes to sit, drink a beer, and try to reconcile this bustling, beautiful place with what came before.

(He indulges in enough bitterness to think that isn't very fucking likely, but hey. He can dream.)
digyourman: (005)

[personal profile] digyourman 2013-08-07 11:29 am (UTC)(link)
Larry took a moment to exhale, sudden and shuddering, and then reached to pull Nick into a full embrace, both arms wrapped tight around his skinny body, poetry book wedged in between them. Eyes squeezed shut, Larry held on as if for dear life.

It had been his fault, hadn't it? He'd known, him and Frannie, they'd sat there and read the vitriol spewed across the pages of that ledger, and they ought to have expected it, somehow, they ought to have known. Nick had been meant to go to Las Vegas, not Larry, and Jesus, even now knowing what end would have awaited him there was little relief when held against the fact that Larry could have prevented that fucking bomb if he'd just be a little bit less wrapped up in his own problems.

A couple of hot tears slid over Larry's cheeks and splashed down onto the back of Nick's shirt, but he forced himself back after that, gulped down a fortifying breath and hastily wiped at his eyes before nodding toward the bar.

"Come on," he said, leading the way, and immediately ordered two glasses of scotch. Beer was not going to cut it anymore.

Leaning up over the bar, he found lime wedges and maraschino cherries stowed beneath but nothing like writing paper. He grabbed a stack of cocktail napkins instead, and pushed them Nick's way as he settled back onto his stool.
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[personal profile] digyourman 2013-08-07 02:00 pm (UTC)(link)
There wasn't any resentment for the question being asked, because there wasn't any other conceivable question to lead with. Still, those two words, stark against the pale and flimsy paper of the napkin, felt as if they were dropped suddenly and solidly upon Larry's shoulders. It took him a moment to nod in the affirmative.

"Nobody else here, though," he clarified, and then went on, each name weighing him down a little more. "Susan, with you. Ralph and Glen with me. We were in Vegas. Stu maybe, too, I don't know." He desperately hoped that wasn't the case, despite the staggering odds against it. If anyone could beat those odds, it had to be Stu.

Gaze still fixed on Nick's question, it occurred to Larry that he finally had a definitive answer as to whether or not this place was heaven, because no heaven he'd ever heard of would keep a man deaf and dumb. What the hell that made the place instead, he couldn't begin to fathom. A way station, maybe. Someplace between life and death where martyrs mingled with fictions.
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[personal profile] digyourman 2013-08-08 06:52 am (UTC)(link)
This wasn't the place to be having this sort of conversation. The two of them had already been crying, and the way this new question punched Larry in the gut told him he would probably be setting his masculinity aside again sooner rather than later. Nick looked all tied up, in that strained place between anger and sorrow, and Larry figured he probably should have just taken them upstairs in the first place.

"We should go someplace private," he answered, and slung back the remainder of his scotch before letting the empty glass drop solidly back onto the bar top. "I've got a room."

In the lobby, he had the presence of mind to pop into the shop and buy a little spiral-bound notebook, which he passed off to Nick on the way to the elevator. Better than half the hotel seeing one side of their conversation because they used the stationery provided in the rooms.

The door to Larry's guest room was innocuous enough, giving no indicator that the space beyond was a near-perfect replica of the living room from his and Lucy's home in Boulder. Even its scent evoked the original, a mixture of freshly mown grass, cool air, and the distant aroma of dish-washing liquid. Larry had been sleeping on the sofa, and he now wadded up the linens and pushed them aside.

He sat, drew a breath, slid his hands over his thighs.

"Mother Abigail came back."
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[personal profile] digyourman 2013-08-09 11:52 am (UTC)(link)
Larry shook his head, and hated himself a little bit for the vagueness of his answer. "I don't know," he said, which was possibly worse than a yes. "I never saw them, but—"

No, wait. He needed to back up. Needed to pick up the thread where Nick had dropped it.

"The bomb at Ralph's house that night was Harold," he began again, not knowing whether Nick would have intuited as much or not. "Harold and Nadine." Eyes falling heavily closed, Larry scrubbed a hand through his hair and swallowed hard against the guilt clawing up his throat.

"I knew he might be dangerous," he admitted, eyes open again but fixed on the floor. "Frannie and I knew, we found this book Harold had been keeping, like a diary, we were going to bring what we'd read to the council that night, suggest exile—"

He looked up, then, looked Nick straight in the eye, and it was one of the hardest things he'd ever done. Dying had been easier.

"I'm sorry, Nick," he said, eyes welling with tears again. "I'm so fucking sorry. It wasn't supposed to happen that way."
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[personal profile] digyourman 2013-08-16 09:20 am (UTC)(link)
There had been moment there, unsteady but comforting, where Larry had thought he might just be able to hold himself together despite the bald and ugly face they were two suddenly staring down. The center would hold, maybe, just this once, the denial of the past couple of weeks gone sluggish but still serviceable. It told him he was okay, that he was a Zen fucking master, and that the reunion in the bar notwithstanding, he could be something solid for somebody else for once in his miserable life.

The last thing Larry had ever wanted, though, was forgiveness from Nick Andros, regardless of where the fault actually fell.

He was weeping then, too, a desperate and interminable helplessness welling in his chest, pressing against his lungs and squeezing the feeble muscle of his heart, a physical pain that he wished came from anger so that he might have some hope of channeling it some way other than grasping onto Nick's thin shoulders and just fucking holding on for dear life.
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[personal profile] digyourman 2013-08-20 02:46 pm (UTC)(link)
A laugh erupted from Larry's throat, breathless and good, and he grabbed gracelessly for Nick again, pressed a sloppy but enthusiastic kiss to the messy hair over his temple. He couldn't remember if he'd ever hugged Nick before today, thought he must have at some point amongst all their tiny triumphs and little sorrows in that time working together, because the particular musky scent of him was nearly as familiar as the room they were sitting in. A wave of homesickness swelled up and got swallowed down again as Larry sat back, squeezing Nick on the back of the neck.

"You got no idea, buddy," he replied with his own smile, the levity strung between them easy but fragile, something to be handled with care. There was more to say, so much more, but it could wait. They had time, more time than either of them probably would ever fathom.