~ Chapter Fifty ~
Nick reached up and shoved his hair out of his face. It had been raining steadily for most of the day, and he had left without a jacket or hat. His sneakers were squishing with each step he took along the sidewalk. Today just hadn't been a good day, first the fight with Brian in the clubhouse, then the fight with Stacy. He couldn't have done a better job of screwing up his life if he had actually been trying.
He really hadn't meant to get into a fight with Stacy, that was the last thing he wanted to do. If he had just said what he wanted to say, rather than yelling back at her - but no, he hadn't, and to top it all off, he had chickened out and left, and all he had been thinking for the last few hours while he wandered the darkened streets of Seattle was that he probably wasn't going to be able to go back either.
Without thinking about it, he had ended up at the corner of Brian's street. That wasn't an option either. The two people in the world he trusted, and he'd managed to shove both of them away in the space of six hours. He stood at the bottom of the steps leading to Brian's floor, trying to figure out another option. He didn't really have one.
Nick climbed the steps and knocked quietly on Brian's door.
"Nick?" Brian finally opened the door, squinting in the light from the street.
"Hi." Nick shoved his dripping hands into his pockets. He wasn't quite sure what to say after that. There were fifteen different options running through his head, including apologizing for telling Brian to f--- off earlier, but Nick didn't even know where to start.
"Hi to you too. It's three AM." Brian opened the door the rest of the way and waved him in. "What's up?" Trust Brian to invite him inside, as if finding a soaking wet person at his front door in the middle of the night was a regular occurrence.
"Um..." Nick stepped inside and stared down at the water dripping around his shoes. "I couldn't sleep. Did I wake you up?" He added, suddenly realizing that if it really was three in the morning, Brian had probably been sleeping.
Brian ran his hand through his hair. "Yeah. Wasn't there another insomniac around you could have hooked up with?"
Nick didn't even attempt a smile. He was too depressed and too cold. It almost seemed as if it was colder in Brian's apartment than it had been outside. "Sorry. Um, if you're not feeling good, I can just leave."
Brian shook his head firmly. "At this point, sleep isn't gonna help me any... here." Brian stepped back and dug through Mount Tide, emerging with a faded blue towel. "Y'all're soaking wet."
"Yeah, well, it's raining." Nick tried to mop himself up enough that he wasn't dripping on the floor anymore.
"I think I'm gonna make tea." Brian disappeared into the little kitchen. "If y'all want me to be your fellow insomniac, I'm gonna need something to keep me awake. You want some?" He added, sticking a cup of water in the microwave.
Nick shook his head slowly, dragging himself into the kitchen after Brian.
"Now," Brian perched himself on the counter next to the microwave, swinging his feet against the cabinet door. "What's up?"
Nick sighed. Why couldn't Brian just be telepathic? Nick didn't feel like trying to explain everything, much less answer the nine million questions Brian was sure to fire at him. "I'm sorry about what I said earlier." He started.
Brian waved his hand in dismissal. "I know that. Somehow, I have a feeling it's not the reason you're appearing at my door in the middle of the night. What else is up?"
"Stacy." He wasn't sure he could explain any of it.
The microwave beeped. Brian didn't move.
"She..." Nick stopped and tried to compose himself. He wasn't going to lose it now. He couldn't lose it now. "We kinda had a fight."
Brian sat quietly on the counter and thought.
"Well?" Nick burst out, unable to sit there in silence any longer. "C'mon, Brian! Say something!"
Brian slowly dropped down off the counter and opened the microwave door. "What about?"
The questions had started. Nick leaned back against the counter and watched Brian make his tea. "Um... she has to go to Minneapolis this weekend."
Brian finished his tea making and disappeared into the living room. "Did you start it?"
"No. Yes! No... Brian, I don't know!" Nick flopped down onto the couch, not bothering to move the stack of newspapers perched on the arm. They slid off onto the floor, fanning out across the carpet. "I wanted to know if she had to go, and she said I was making her choose between her career and me, and we started screaming at each other - and I left."
"Were you making her choose?" Brian sat cross-legged in the chair across from Nick.
"I don't know!" Nick had been saying that a lot tonight. "Maybe I did... I didn't mean to. I don't want her to do something like that. I wasn't trying to make her do anything."
"Okay." Brian nodded.
"I just wanted her to come with me. You know, with everything going on right now, and... I don't want to... I can't deal with everything by myself..."
"You're not by yourself." Brian interrupted.
"Yes, I am." Nick stared down at the laundry next to him, unable to meet Brian's eyes.
"So why didn't you tell Stacy that?" The ever present Brian question - why - raised it's head once again.
"I don't know." Nick clammed up.
"You don't know, or you don't want to talk about it?"
"Yeah."
"Oooh boy. It's gonna be a long night." Brian drained half his mug of tea with one swig.
Nick sighed. "Nothing's going right, Brian. No matter how hard I try, it all just falls apart - and I'm so damn tired of it happening. Just once, I'd like things to go right."
"I'm sorry, Nick." Brian sighed. "Really, I am."
"I know." Nick still couldn't bring himself to meet Brian's eyes, picking at the fuzz on the towel instead. "I just... I don't know - I didn't tell Stacy cause... if I had, she would have come to LA, and... that's not fair to her."
Brian thought about this last statement for a moment. "So... you don't really want her to go to LA with you anyway."
"Yeah, well, no... but... I don't know." It made Nick's head hurt just thinking about it. Why couldn't something just make sense for once? "Brian? What am I going to do?"
"Get yourself a good psychiatrist." Brian quipped.
"That's not funny."
"Sorry, I wasn't thinking... seriously, Nick - if I were you, I'd go explain things. When does her flight leave?"
"I don't know."
"Okay, it doesn't matter. I bet she hasn't left yet."
"5:50." Nick remembered.
"Or... not." Brian leaned over to see the clock on the wall. "Better get a move on. Y'all might be able to just catch her."
~*~
Stacy turned the lock on her apartment door and dropped her keys in her purse. She had been hoping - no, wishing - Nick would appear back at her door, but five hours later he hadn't. That had been too much to hope for - this was Nick she was dealing with here. Now she had no choice - she couldn't wait anymore.
She paused when she stepped outside the apartment building. Nick's car was still parked outside. Now she was worried. He hadn't left, so where was he? She hesitated, wondering if maybe she shouldn't go after all.
Of course, he was at Brian's - Brian lived four blocks away. Once again, it all came back to Brian. He was tangled in everyone's life, and once he was gone - Stacy didn't even want to think about what was going to happen. Everything was going to come apart at the seams.
She was riding to the airport with one of her co-workers, a short, dark-haired woman named Julia, also known reverently as ‘the microscope freak'. Stacy watched Julia's dinky little blue car pull up to the curb. Stacy shoved her bag into the little space that passed as a back seat and dropped into the passenger seat, closing the door.
Brian was just going to have to take care of things until Monday.
~*~
Nick pushed Brian's apartment door back open, wondering as he always did WHY Brian's never locked his door - and people accused Nick of being the clueless one. Brian was still sitting cross-legged in the chair, where Nick had left him fifteen minutes ago.
"You're back, this isn't good." Brian surmised.
Nick couldn't really say it any better than that.
