He didn’t think the phone managed to even ring once before it was answered, followed by a really annoyed sounding AJ going, “Fuck you Nickolas, fuck you.”

Did he laugh? What a stupid question. This is Nick, he’d laugh at every opportunity given if it means annoying AJ McLean. He leaned back against the soft, weathered leather of the seat; his arm perched lazily on the opened window on his side of the Impala. The cool early afternoon breeze rushed past his face (because Dean Winchester drives the only way an Impala should be driven, fast), ruffling his hair in the process and it took everything in him to not close his eyes.

“Dude, we’re pushing 90 now.”

“Go fuck yourself and don’t call me again!”

“Yeah, yeah, sorry I interrupt your porn surfing.”

That felt good. That would finally pay back the hell he got when AJ kept ‘reminding’ him of the fact that he was the one behind the wheels of that Pontiac in their video. That was a fun time, doing that video. AJ fucking himself up with the car when it jammed (it’s a muscle car Alex and you have no muscles whatsoever on you, he had mocked, to which AJ had yelled ‘shut up you fatass!’ and that had shut him right up, and pout about it but no one had to know that), Kevin eating snow (or choking as he recalled fondly of the old man spitting tiny specks of Styrofoam while going ‘I prayyyyyy…’), Brian freezing his ass off and almost drowning his tiny self in that big, big wave (which was awesome for surfing and he had wished he had brought along his surfboard) and wet, wet Howie on his knees (and when he had seen the video for the first time, went ‘oh my God! Howie dude, that is totally my move!’ when the Puerto Rican had went down on his knees and friggin slap those innocent sands) with that cute hat of his.

The sound of plastic being ruffled made him turned to his left, where he found Dean expertly driving this muscled car (black and slick like a panther and purrs like one too and he had taken his time to run his hand over her body, to appreciate this monster of a beauty and wow, couldn’t believe he had actually slept, fine, passed out, whatever, on the backseat of this very…beast) with his left hand while the right arm was now wrist deep inside a huge yellow plastic bag and coming out with a couple of assorted coloured M&Ms, which quickly disappeared inside his mouth.

He took a couple of yellow ones himself and started munching and then resisted the urge to moan at his personal choice of aphrodisiac and then holding back his laughter as he imagined the little balls of chocolate waving their arms and legs begging him not to crush them and then blinked his eyes a couple of times to shake that image out of his head because that was just morbid.

“Shamywuvporwaintoo,” Dean said (or whatever you call that, he thought) with his mouth full.

“Yeah?”

Dean nodded, grinned, swallowed and both arms now back on the wheels. “Caught him doing it once. He’s a fast guy you know, put him in front of a Wendigo and he’d probably outrun the mother, but leave him alone in a motel with porn channels and his fingers couldn’t work fast enough to switch off the damn TV when I walked in.”

“That motel sounds good.”

Dean shrugged. “As far as motels goes, I guess.”

“And that must be awkward.”

“That’s what I said.”

“Do I want to know what a Wendigo is?”

“Probably not.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” he said and popped another M&M in. This time it was blue, in honour of all the porn videos he’d ever had the opportunity of watching, and those, had been quite a lot.

Dean reached out for the radio button and he immediately recognised the familiar tune of Rascal Flatts’ Moving On. That was okay though, listening to Rascal Flatts, he had done it only a gabillion times, he liked the band, one of the few country bands that he actually liked listening to; but listening to Moving On when the volume was put on at the max, was something else. That had hurt.

It was immediately turned off and he caught the flinch on Dean’s face. “Ugh, of course it’s country music, we’re in Nashfreakinville!”

“I take it you’re not a country music fan.”

“Bingo.”

Somehow he couldn’t see a gun loving, leather jacket wearing Dean saying Bingo, but he did, and Nick decided maybe he liked this guy just a tad bit more.

“Hey, help me out would you.”

“What?”

“Get that box under your seat.”

“What the hell is a box doing under this seat?” But Dean didn’t have to explain because the box was now sitting on his lap and he was marvelling at what he was seeing.

“Dude, these are like, cassette tapes.”

“You got a problem with that?”

“With these? Hell no. These are awesome man.”

Dean took a chance and turned a little to look at him. He looked kind of surprised.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah! I mean…Metallica? Black Sabbath? AC/DC? In cassette tapes! Do you have any idea how hard it is to get your hands on them these days?”

“Why would you be going around looking for those?”

Shrugged. “I like to collect them. I have them in CDs for my car back home but these are something else.”

There was a short silence where Dean concentrated on the road and he went through the collection and found one by Motley Crew.

“Fuck, you have Dr. Feelgood in cassette tape. Wait till I tell Tommy this.”

Oh fuck shit, what had he done now? Kevin always said he needed to learn to keep some things to himself, to think first because saying out loud. He used to say you know Nicky, one of these days, your fast mouth is going to be your own downfall and I sure hope when that happens, it’s not in front of your mother.

He wished he had said that in front of his mother because what’s the worst he would get for saying fuck out loud? A smack on the head if that had happened way back then, and that was something he could live with, he had received far worst from that same hand anyway.

Now this was something else. He hoped Dean was too busy concentrating on the road to hear that tiny slip.

“Did you say Tommy?”

Maybe he should have prayed instead of hoped. “Did I?”

“Yeah, you said wait till I tell Tommy this.”

“Hmm…yeah…maybe I did.”

Silence.

This would be the best time to –

“As in Lee?”

“Dude, you have Metallica’s black album! Haven’t heard this one in a while now.” Forget what I said just now and just play this okay?

Dean shrugged and he allowed himself to breathe, didn’t even realised he had not been breathing and that had scared him, to not know he hadn’t been breathing and wondered what was he trying to achieve? Death by self inflicted suffocation?

“Usually I’d pull out the house rule on everyone but since you asked for Metallica, I’ll give it to ya.”

“House rule?”

Dean shrugged. “Yeah. Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole. House rule. It’s the only way to not get myself killed by Sammy’s emo crap.”

He tried picturing Dean listening to Backstreet Boys and got himself a horrible picture, a deadly one, and decided his little secret shall remain a secret.

Another silence before the beginning of Enter Sandman took over. And then his muscles relaxed, head felt light as he welcomed the rushing breeze on his face again, fingers tapping to the beat and head lightly bopping to the music, lost in the song. Next to him, Dean was mouthing the words to the lyrics and he wished it had been Kevin sitting next to him, because even though Kevin doesn’t really like heavy metal and would most often than not yell at him to keep it low, Kevin was also the only one who would be crazy enough to jam to Metallica with him while they were stuck in traffic on their way to another radio interview or whatever just to kill time (AJ would tell him to shut the fuck up because he’d rather listen to James Hetfield than him), and he missed that.

= =

He wasn’t sure what it was exactly. Perhaps because he was getting used to the idea of staying in motel rooms (although he could do without the creaking pipes and wheezing air con and oh, spring mattress poking him every time he moved), or maybe because he liked waking up to birds chirping right outside his window, how he could hear the soft rumble of semis passing by the motel from the main road and then mingling with the early folks at the diner, all geared up for work. He liked how normal everything felt like and maybe because of that, maybe because he felt one with the folks at Nashville, he forgot that tiny detail of being recognized in public.

Although to be fair, he didn’t think the public library was public, public. That surely, no one in a library would recognize him. He was also expecting the librarian at the counter to be in her forties, with silver hair pulled to a tight, neat bun, a pair of black rimmed glasses perched on her nose, long grey skirt with buttoned up white shirt under a grey cardigan to match. What he wasn’t expecting was the librarian to be blonde and about in her early twenties, and right now, as he opted to stay back and wait (I’ll just wait over here while you work your, um, charm, he had said to Dean), he realised an intervention of some sort had to take place, because Dean was having a hard time convincing this one.

“…you need a membership card for that and I can get the process done in thirty minutes, if you could just-”

“I’m sorry,” Dean said, paused and glanced over at her nametag. “Linda, right?” The librarian nodded and smiled. “Thing is, my paper is due in an hour and I really, really need this last piece of information and then drive back to College and climb all those stairs…I’m not going to make it in time and then they’ll flunk my ass and my dad’s gonna be so pissed…”

He slapped Dean’s shoulder as a greeting and smiled at her, gave her a few seconds and then noticed that slight recognition as her pupils went wide and he knew he got this one in the bag.

“Hi there.”

“Hi, Nick right?”

Bingo. “Yeah I’m Nick.”

“I heard you’re around.” Okay, so they weren’t as stealth as they thought. Maybe bargirl really did post her encounter online.

“You heard right.”

“What can I do for you?”

“Actually, I’m with my buddy here,” he said, patting Dean’s shoulder lightly again. “I understand we have to wait about half an hour to register.”

“That’s right.”

“Well okay, he’s really rushing to get this done and we’re desperate for time and he cannot fail because we promised his dad if he flunk, we’re kicking him out of the band and we don’t want to do that cause you should listen to this guy sing.”

“Oh, are you guys replacing-”

“Oh no, not replacing anyone. This is my other project.”

“Oh, that’s good, for a second there I thought-”

“Yeah no, not gonna happen,” he cut in again. Although by now, he was certain there was no hiding this anymore. “Look, how about this. I register for a membership with your library and while you’re processing it, you let us use the newsroom. I mean, what’s the harm in that right? I’ll still get my membership in thirty minutes so technically, I’m already a member.”

Sometimes, he really liked having quite the charm to work with.

“Yeah well…okay fine, I think I can give you both the exception here. Why don’t you fill up this form and then I’ll show you to the newsroom.”

Five minutes later, they were standing in front of the newsroom, with Linda now no longer in sight.

“I take it charming librarians are usually Sam’s card?”

“I’ve charmed librarians before,” Dean defended.

“If you say so man.”

“Dude I have, okay.”

“Fine Dean, if it makes you feel any better, this is the first time I ever charmed a librarian.”

“She knows you man. And what is this about being in a band? Are you a musician or something?”

“Or something,” he shrugged as they made their way into the newsroom. Thankfully, they were the only two people in there. “And I think she mistook me for someone else.”

“Are you kidding me?”

Shrugged. “She asked if I’m Nick, which I am, so I said yeah, but the rest I’m not too sure. I think she confused me with some other Nick.”

Okay so where did that come from?

“You’re one lucky son of a bitch, you know that?”

“I agree with the bitch part,” he snickered. “So what do we do here exactly?”

Dean shrugged and looked around the spacious room. “Nothing actually, this is just a diversion.”

Huh.