Nick knew that alcohol was bad for his health and swore that he had never liked the taste of it. "Not when you're down and out," he muttered and groaned when he felt a ton of stones going down onto his head. "Damn the hangover." As he cursed, he inhaled deeply and the morning fresh air greeted his air system. Naturally, he turned over to the side of his bed and immediately darted under a pillow when the sunlight attacked his eyes. "Morning? Grr... I hate mornings..."

After greeting a concerned Jane and listening to her narrating on what was going on with Nick, Kevin almost ran to Nick's room. "Jesus-" Kevin gasped as he stood there, watching the younger man as if he was trying to waste himself away. "I knew I shouldn't have left you alone for even a second." he said aloud before closing the door and walking towards the bed.

"I'm just glad... you did." a muffled voice came from under the pillow. Nick lifted the pillow up and peeked at Kevin. "Draw the damn curtains..." he requested and Kevin did as he was told. "Just let me drink to my death..." Nick murmured and laughed bitterly as he slumped over the bolster.

The older man furrowed his brows and sat down on the bed. "You never drink. You hate it."

"I hate my fucking life now more than anything..."

"Nicky..." Kevin felt terrible at the words Nick had just used. His love for Nick had caused Nick to lose his best friend. How considerate of his love for Nick. "I'm sorry."

When the apology came, Nick turned around and lay flat on his back as Kevin hovered above him. "Don't be sorry... Don't." he said, reaching out to touch Kevin's cheek. "Just lost a friend. Big deal."

"Brian needs time and someone to talk to him. All of this will be over soon and you'll get your friend back, I promise you." Kevin said and planted a kiss on Nick's nose. "And you'll have to promise me that you'll not ruin yourself with alcohol. This is going to be the first and the last time I'm going to ever see you in this state. Do you understand?"

"Yeah..." the younger man vaguely agreed.

A piercing ring tone of Kevin's cell phone sounded in the room and Nick's hand immediately flew to his ears. "Let me rip that person's phone apart if this ain't important." Nick muttered as he dreaded hearing irritating noises at such an early hour.

"Yup... Okay. Right, we'll be there in a few." Nick watched as Kevin clicked off his cell phone and went to Nick's closet.

"What?"

"Have to be out in the Pentagon Studio for a TV Special. And that includes you." Kevin said. "Get your ass up for a shower and change."

"Studio?! Excuse me, but it's off day if they forgot to look at the schedule." Nick grumbled. "I don't wanna go. Don't wanna see Brian... Not now." His voice went faint when he mentioned Brian and pulled the blanket over his head.

Kevin sighed and randomly picked a decent looking shirt and jeans out of the closet. "He's not going to be there. Neither is AJ or Howie. Just the two of us." He put the clothes down on the bed and hovered above Nick again. "Shower?"

Nick threw open the blanket and a smirk formed on his face. "Together?" he replied suggestively. Kevin raised his eyebrows in surprise and Nick's smirk faded away almost immediately. "Forget it..."

"Nick-"

"I say forget it, alright? I wasn't suppose to bring that up..." The slew of words followed Nick into the bathroom as Kevin sat there on the bed, starring blankly.

Kevin didn't mean that surprised look on his face in any other way. He was just surprised at the sudden suggestive vibe that Nick gave out. Nick never gave out real suggestive vibes. Not to him, at least. There's always a first time for everything. 'And this first time kinda came at the wrong time.' he thought.

...

Silence took over for almost the entire journey to the studio. Kevin didn't know what to say after what had happened earlier on. He just kept pretending to adjust the rear mirror when, in fact, he was taking peeps at Nick. Nick, on the other hand, was bopping his head along to some Aerosmith songs as he still felt a little high. Due to some weird reason, the euphoria in his body had not completely worn off. He thought that perhaps he had drank too much last night or it's just his body processing very slowly. However, he was aware of that pair of emerald eyes looking at him. When they reached their destination, neither of them got off the car. They just sat there until Nick spoke up.

"You know-" he started. "I wasn't angry..."

Kevin let out a relief. "I know. It's all right, Nicky. I know what you're thinking. Always." He gave Nick a loving smile and a gentle squeeze on his hand before getting out off the car together.

Even before Kevin stepped into the studio, the surrounding area was already making him suspicious. The area was unusually quiet. In fact, he didn't even see a single soul at all. His attention quickly shifted to a moving shadow, which flashed past them and disappeared into Studio IV. Nick almost jumped - the euphoria in him disappeared at the same time - when he saw the flashing shadow and Kevin quickly put a protective arm over his shoulder. "Shh... Might be someone pulling a prank on us. Notice that it's so quiet around here?"

All Nick could do was nod his head as he looked at his surroundings carefully. He felt a chill running down his spine and almost couldn't resist bringing a hard knock onto his own head. There he goes again, acting useless and scared shitless in front of Kevin. Perhaps he had been used to the sweet protectiveness that Kevin had always shown. However, he hadn't been appreciative of that fact until their relationship came along. At least Nick was going to make up for that up now.

"Stay here while I go in." Kevin instructed.

"Let me go with you." Nick said firmly. "I don't wanna leave you for even a second."

Kevin's mouth dropped slightly at the unexpected sentence. Nick always had something amazing coming out of his mouth, ever since they confessed their love, which surprised Kevin over and over again. "Come on." he smiled and the both of them went into the studio.

As they entered, the place was quiet, dark and no one was around. With the little light coming from the door, Kevin strained his eyes as he tried to figure where that mysterious owner of the shadow was when, all of a sudden, all the studio lights were turned on. Kevin quickly looked over to the control room and found a woman sitting in there. As he tried to strain his eyes again to see who that woman was, he heard Nick grasped. "Mandy..."

Mandy came out of the control room and sashayed her way towards them. As she stood before them, she flashed a sarcastic smile to Kevin and a sweet one for Nick. "Hey. You guys are late."

Nick rolled his eyes and walked nearer to her. "What games are you playing, Mandy? Why the hell did you call us down?"

"Tsk, tsk. Time to work on your temper, Nicky. I just wanted to see how in love my ex-lover is now. So, how's the feeling of dumping a girl and falling for a guy in return?"

Nick's eyes widened and turned to Kevin, who just looked back at him with the same expression. "Are you out of your mind? Do you know what you're talking about?" Nick yelled, throwing his hands up and took a few steps back as he watch her expression carefully.

"Aawww, won't you relax? I'm not gonna harm you. Just seeing for myself whether it's true that the both of you are together," she said flatly. "Nick-" she took a few steps towards Nick and smirked. "You know you could take me back and become straight again." Trailing her finger down Nick's chest, she leaned forward to kiss him on the cheek when Nick jerked back and ran towards Kevin.

"You can dream on, Mandy. I'll never take you back. Never. 'Cause I've found the one whom I really love and the one who really loves me for me."

"Oh." she acknowledged the fact sarcastically. "A person of the same gender as you, Nick? I never knew you liked men romantically. Kevin's the reason why you broke up with me, huh? You wanna be with him and you found a cheap excuse to break off with me. That's a good one."

"NO! Why don't you just shut it? He's not the reason why I've left you. I had enough of your nonsense! You abused me in a way which only you think is right, Mandy. I was just too foolish to have let you have your way all the goddamn time!"

"That's not abuse. It's fun."

"Fun?" Nick glared hard at her. "It's fun to hurt your boyfriend by throwing books and metal objects at him and leaving cigarette burns on him? Oh, how fun."

Kevin let out a grasp and looked at his boyfriend in shock. "What? You never told me. Cigarette burns? Lord..." he turned to face Mandy. He couldn't believe how a beautiful woman like her would do such a hideous thing. "Mandy, you're totally fucked up. You should know that."

Mandy advanced towards Kevin and tapped her finger several times on Kevin's chest. "You're the one who's fucked up, Kev. You can be a queer for all I care and why do you feel the need to drag Nick into being one? Haven't you already realized that? YOU have turned a young, innocent and straight man into a homosexual! Great job."

Instantly, Kevin's face fell.

"STOP IT! Who the fuck gave you the right to judge Kevin? And he did not turn me into one. I fell in love with him on my own accord!" Nick hollered. "Now, you get the facts right and get out of this place before I hurt you."

"You don't even dare hurt an ant, Nicky." Mandy teased.

"Well, try me." Nick raised his hand and when he was about to bring a hard slap to Mandy's face, Kevin grabbed his hand.

"No..." Kevin pleaded. "It's not worth it, Nick."

"Kevin's right. Wonder what the press will write if they saw a five-fingered bruise on my cheeks. And even though I'm going to step out here alive and well, you can be very sure that this is not going to be the end. You can be with Kevin and out came all the bull crap that you'll have to take. That's the fact. But the real reality is more complicated than the fact." she said and proceed her way to the exit. Before she stepped out, she spun around again. "You two are so gonna regret this." she finished her piece and left.

Nick looked at the exit where Mandy had left and cursed. "You're damn wrong that we're going to regret this."

"I'm sorry." Kevin said softly.

"Huh?" Nick was taken aback by the apology. "For what?"

"Taking away your innocence and turn you into..." At this point, Kevin finally broke down. "I'm such a bastard." he cupped his face into his hands, ashamed to look at his lover.

"Kevin! Look at me!" Nick commanded. Kevin refused to look up and Nick had to force his hands away. "Open your eyes and look at me!" Kevin slowly opened his eyes and Nick placed his finger on his chin, lifting his lover's face up. "It's just words, Boo. Some really idiotic and untrue words. You do believe me, right? That I love you will all my heart, soul and everything under the sun. You didn't take away my innocence. In fact, you have given me things, that I thought I probably would never have. I can't thank you enough for you have finally reached for me and let me know your feelings. How could you say that you're a bastard for all the wonderful things that you've done for me?"

Kevin looked straight into Nick's blue eyes. He could saw his own reflection in them and felt that the two of them were one. One body, one heart, one soul. How could he let those meaningless words destroy the love they had for each other?

"You're not allowed to push me away after stealing me, ya hear me?" Nick said. "You promised me that we'd go through all the crap. This is only the beginning and how could you allow this? We're not going to go down like this. I'm NOT allowing that to happen. I would give everything away to be with you... Just don't hurt me..." His voice started to crack and tears slide down his crimson cheeks.

Feeling his heart wrench at the sight of Nick crying, Kevin reached out and gathered Nick into his hug. "I'll never hurt you and I'd rather die than live without you," he said, squeezing the younger man tightly. "And there's no pun intended in that."

Nick sniffed and chuckled through his tears as he let go of Kevin. "Bear this in your deepest mind, Boo. We're going to walk down all the tomorrows together. No one can tear us apart."

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