Title: Nothing That Hurt
For: Erin on Goodreads :)
Summary: short sequel-ish thing to "Under the Bridge" set a few years later.
Warnings: if you haven't read that, be warned, they have a dark edge to their relationship. Or well, they are also sort of fluffy? It's hard to say.

AN: This is another commentfic, written in a scramble right now. So sorry for typos and things. Don't hold it against me.




Chris was staring and he knew it, but he couldn't stop and he didn't want to. Nick had showed up. Nick was in his mom's kitchen, hugging his mom, showing off just a little in his uniform. Chris studied the clean, sharp lines of it though Nicky was gorgeous enough without it that maybe it wasn't showing off at all. But his mom was fussing over it, asking Nick questions that she already knew the answers to because Chris had filled her in on everything Nick had ever written him about--well, almost everything--firing questions at him like she just wanted to hear his voice.

Chris couldn’t blame her. She hadn't seen Nick in years, and not inside her house in longer than that. Being the awesome mom she was, she hadn't said a word about the fact that after high school Chris had suddenly started receiving letters from Nick, addressing to him even though he was living on campus hours away. She'd just forwarded them to him inside his care packages, and as a thank you, Chris had given her information about Nick's stories of basic, of Afghanistan, knowing she had started watching the nightly news the same way he had, breathlessly, tense, sick and relieved when Nick's name was never mentioned.

The letters were always weeks old by the time Chris got them. He knew if something did ever happen to Nick, he wouldn't find out until it was long over. It was infuriating and just like Nick, somehow. Like a way for him to protect himself even though the lateness probably wasn't on purpose.

Just like today. For the past two years Chris had written to Nick and begged him to try to make it home for a holiday, or just to make it home at all. Chris would have made room in his off-campus apartment for him, his roommate be damned. But Nick had never answered those requests, and he'd never come. Now here he was, Thanksgiving morning in Chris' mom's kitchen, in his uniform, all dressed up and so beautiful Chris actually hurt to look at him.

The last time he'd seen him he'd been drunk. Maybe if he hadn't been so wasted he would have felt this broken back then too. Or maybe he had and he'd convinced himself it was just the Jack making him so weak and shaky. Nicky's hair was shorter, his body leaner yet somehow more muscular, but he was still Nicky, dark-eyed and handsome and troubled. The kind of boy Chris' roommate would have warned him away from. Hell, Nick had warned him away and it hadn't done anything.

Nick should never have expected that to work if he was going to write Chris letters. Chris had them all back in his apartment. Every single one stacked in his nightstand. Wrinkled and real and oddly old-fashioned. They had emailed too, spoken on the phone once or twice, Nick's voice hot and hesitant even across the planet, but still Chris had gotten the hand-written letters in the mail, pages long, like Nick took days to write them all.

"I got your letters," Chris said out of nowhere right as his mother finally let go of Nick and they both turned to look at him. His mother had her eyebrows up and flour in her hair. Nick just grinned at him, not even taking the trouble to mock him the way he should have.

"Oh yeah?" he murmured, looking at Chris the exact way he had when Chris had opened the front door and found him standing there. Chris didn't know what to do with a look like that, especially not in front of his mother, so he took a deep breath and turned away.

Of course Nick knew he got the letters. He'd answered them in the same way, learning how much international mail cost and debating nice stationary until he'd realized what a dork he was and that all Nick would care about was getting the letter at all.

It was hard to look Nick in the eye, knowing the things he'd put in those letters, but Chris did it anyway, raising his head again to give Nick the strongest look he could manage with his stomach twisting and his skin cold and his legs like rubber.

He didn't know what it meant that Nick was here. He knew what he wanted it to mean, but that was it. He almost laughed about it, because he was crazy like that, and none of his attempts at dating and boyfriendhood had made him feel like this.

"Yeah," he replied finally, watching Nicky's mouth, watching his eyes, "You want to see the house again?" It was a dumb question. An obvious question. But even with his mom there, suddenly focused intently on her pie dough, Chris couldn't make himself care. All he could think was how grateful he was that Nick was alive, Nick was there, and that he hadn't brought anyone he'd been seeing back home with him for Thanksgiving.

Nick's lips curved up and Chris took it for an answer and turned on his heel to head outside. He had no idea where he was going but the air was cold, so cold he could almost think, except that all he could think were words from Nick's letters.

God Chris if you were here… When I can't sleep I think about you. You always could make me feel safe, makes no kind of sense with you as small as you are, but there it is. Stupid right?

I hooked up with some at the airport during my last leave. He took me to his room at some airport hotel. Only guy besides you so far. Do you want to know how it was? Or just that it made me miss you and wish… I wish we'd gotten to do more. Or just what we did, but over and over again. He was good but I can't remember how you taste and I want to. Shit. Don't answer this one okay. Pretend I was drunk.

You think like that about me? You shouldn't, Chris. You got boyfriends. Good guys I bet, from the sound of it. Unless your taste has stayed awful and you're still chasing guys like me. Be just like you. You shouldn't… you shouldn’t think about me, when you're with me. Not even once in a while. But part of me is glad you do. And part of me hurts for it, wants to make you hurt. If you still like that. It's like I shouldn't want you, but you're all I want, and I wish you weren't but I'm not sorry.

Chris? Chris. Don't answer this one either.

Chris stumbled out onto the back garden path and walked around the corner of the house until he was between the house and the shed and the high fence separating them from the house behind them. Nick was behind him, flicking a lighter to light a cigarette. Chris inhaled the tobacco scent as he stopped by the shed, taking a good, long, breath to feel it down to his toes. Then he turned but he was too slow, Nick was already there, right in front of him, giving Chris that same look, like he wasn't sure what he was looking at.

"You're taller," he remarked, exhaling a small stream of smoke. It mingled with the steam from Chris' breath. Chris frowned at him, a little startled to finally notice that he was only a few inches shorter than Nick now. "You filled out in the shoulders," Nick observed a second later and Chris frowned at him for real.

"You don't like it?" He lifted his chin and narrowed his eyes. Nick stopped, staring at him for a moment before tearing his cigarette from his mouth and tossing it into the cement path.

"You're still wasting those," Chris pointed out, and Nick made a small sound that wasn't exactly a laugh. In high school he might have fought someone for less.

"You're wearing my jacket," Nick whispered back, confused or satisfied or both, and reached out to run his palm over the fur collar. His hand was shaking. Chris felt just as unsteady. He sagged back against the wall of the shed and struggled to get any air at all with Nicky so close to him again.

"It was… it was cold during the drive up this morning." He licked his mouth and Nicky stopped looking at the jacket to consider his mouth. Chris had gotten in a lot of kissing practice since the last time they'd seen each other, lots of sweet kisses and hurried kisses, lots of tongue. But nothing hard or desperate. Nothing that hurt or set him on fire. "Of course I'm wearing your jacket, Nicky," he added, keeping his chin up even as his knees were getting weaker, "what else would I wear?"

"Nicky," Nick repeated, his whisper doing things to Chris, curling up inside him. Something else they hadn't done, not together, not yet.

"Nicky," Chris said again, watching Nick try to fight a shiver. He'd told Nick all about what he'd done with other boys, it had only seemed right. A torture, but a good one, the kind that he jerked off to, the kind that Nicky obsessed over in letters without apology. He just kept warning Chris away from him as if the dark things he wanted to do weren't what Chris wanted to.

Chris wished he was drunk, or at least seventeen again. Then he could be confused and horny and not know exactly how much he was offering Nicky. In the shed behind his mom's house no less. He almost laughed but it came out as a groan and just one word. "Nicky." Nick hurt him just by being, and there was nothing he wanted more. Now Nicky was here, in the flesh, he wasn't going to let him go. He slid his nervous, sweaty palms over Nick's uniform jacket and pulled until Nick had to step forward.

Nick bent his head and curved into Chris' shoulder. He was panting, the sound rough against Chris's ear, his breath hot where it slipped past the fur on the jacket collar. He hesitated, his breath hitching, and then his hands pushed under the jacket to curl tightly into Chris' shirt, into his skin.

Chris' hands kept moving, up to Nick's back to his neck, the neat edge of his short hair.

"You shouldn't have answered them," Nicky swore with his mouth sliding to Chris' ear. He clenched and unclenched his hands, tearing up Chris' shirt, not even a little smooth, more like he couldn't wait to touch him, like he wasn't sure he could. Chris shut his eyes and let out a moan that should have embarrassed him more than it did. Barely touched and already getting hard. So much for showing Nick how experienced he was.

"Of course I did, Nick. And I will, no matter what." Chris was still shaking, not exactly cold. It was a given that he would answer that. Nick should just accept that now. Chris opened his eyes again and choked back a gasp when Nick curled a hand over his fly. "Fuck, Nicky."

"Fuck." Nick echoed it against his skin, hot and angry, and sucked hard, bringing blood to the surface, bringing Chris away from the wall, making him sees stars and black behind his eyes. The sound he made had him blushing, but Nick had him aching. Already Nicky was kissing softly over the hickey he'd left.

"Yeah," Chris agreed, hard and desperate, hurt and on fire, if he could last that long. Nick pulled his hands up and lifted his head and kissed his mouth. His hands were almost too tight on his face, his breathing was too fast, the pressure nearly too much. Chris kissed him back until he was dizzy, until neither of them was breathing, and then he pulled back so he could keep on staring at Nicky.

Nicky was staring back, looking at Chris just like he had on his porch a few minutes ago. Like Chris was everything he wanted.