etrelibre | [TAG NICK] "It's just a place I'm looking for. We might as well be strangers in another town..."

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[TAG NICK] "It's just a place I'm looking for. We might as well be strangers in another town..."

Who: Jeff Hinton and Nick Matheson
Where: The beach
Time of Day: Late afternoon/early evening
Open or Closed: Closed

Jeff couldn't say that Kurt didn't warn him that Nick here wasn't the same Nick he knew. He couldn't say that he didn't realize that might mean that Nick wouldn't remember that they had been a couple. And honestly, he couldn't even say that there wasn't a part of him that wondered if Nick had found someone new on the island. But there was that optimistic part of Jeff that hoped that maybe his boyfriend had waited for him. That was until he and Kurt had come across Nick and Quinn kissing not far off the beach. For a moment, it was so surreal that Jeff hadn't known what to say, but he'd stood there gawking, in complete shock for a bit longer than he should've, before turning to Kurt and asking him to get him to wherever the fuck he was supposed to be going.

That night, once checked into his room, Jeff had honestly gone to pieces. It was too much. Too much to see the love of his life in someone else's arms, holding them, looking so... happy with them. But for it to not only be someone else, but someone who was a friend in the real world. Someone they both cared about as Kurt's best friend and hag. And then there was the whole added fact that Kurt was fucking dead, and had died on his wedding day... Fucking murdered on his wedding day. Who the fuck would be so evil as to kill someone on the happiest day of their life?

It had been a day or two of just hiding in his room before Jeff had finally come out of his shell to go back down to the beach, needing more than anything just to have some peace and quiet. As he sat on the beach, quietly watching the waves with his arms crossed and resting on his knees, Jeff spotted Nick a little way down the beach. Not all that far away, but he was focused on a drawing he was working on. The blonde's first reaction was to just go away... Just go back to his room and hide away again, but as long as they were both on this island, he needed to face Nick. And sooner rather than later would be best.

So with a deep breath to strengthen his resolve, Jeff rose from the sand, dusting off his shorts, before walking over to Nick. "Hi, Nicky," he said softly, trying to keep his voice from quivering.

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Nick had spent the morning in bed with Quinn when they both managed to score the same day off together. Kurt was still off work himself and she wanted to hang around in case he needed anything or wanted to talk, but she didn't want to make it obvious that she was so she sheepishly asked Nick to help throw up the red herring for her that she was hanging around the bungalow to snuggle. Not that Nick actually minded, because that is exactly what they did. The red herring turned out pointless though. Kurt stayed in bed the whole morning and they didn't hear him surface at all throughout the morning.

Then, when he finally did, it was obvious he had been drinking so Nick excused himself discreetly so Quinn could try to deal with that on her own. Kurt was a great friend, but there weren't many people he confided in, including Nick. Just because he was Quinn's boyfriend didn't mean Kurt opened the same lines of communication up with him as he did her, and that was fine. It was just how Kurt was since he got to the island and he had plenty of reason to be like that.

"Hi," Nick responded automatically before he even looked up to see who it was. He had been on the island for years and knew a lot of people. It was a friendly placed, people were always being bright and cheery. He finished the couple of strokes of his watercolour he was working on and then finally looked up to flash the person a smile. Which was exactly when he choked on a gasp when he dropped all of his art supplies through his knees onto the sand, his eyes widened and a shriek of, "HOLY FUCK!"

Jeff nearly jumped out of his own skin at Nick's abrupt response to his presence. Sure he wasn't exactly expecting to be tackled to the ground with kisses and hugs and possible groping, because it was pretty clear from what Jeff had seen earlier, Quinn was the person on the receiving end of those things right now. That thought made him ache, but it also somewhat made him angry. Jeff and Nick had both come to be jealous bitches when it came to one another, in the years since they started dating. All sorts of awkward and embarrassing moments had occurred along the way when they'd discovered their jealous streaks, between Jeff once yelling at a Cheerio for touching Nick, and Nick threatening to call in his Mafia and IRA connections on a guy who'd not-so-subtly perved on Jeff's ass out in public once. Their shared possessiveness was a big joke with all of their friends, but the pair were very much okay with it. As long as it meant no one else was touching things that belonged to them.

Still, it wasn't exactly what Jeff had expected in their reunion, and he had to drop back and punt just a little. "Nicky, it's... It's okay. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you or anything. Are you okay? Shit, let me help you." He sank down to his knees in the sand, helping to collect as many of Nick's art supplies as possible. "I... I just got here, and I saw you over here by yourself... I wanted to see you. I don't..." He couldn't really explain it, because he had no idea where exactly in time Nick remembered him from. "It's... It's good to see you."

Nick had always hoped that Jeff might show up on the island, but he wasn't sure he ever believed he would. He also asked Quinn to tell him if Jeff's name cropped up on the register, but he knew that Quinn had been so worried about Kurt recently that she probably hadn't as stringently kept up with the new arrivals as she normally did. She was delegating a lot of her duties to her 2IC so she could be there for Kurt if he broke down again, and honestly, it was how it should be considering how close they were. And all Nick could do at this moment was sit there and gape up at his old best friend and think how much older Jeff looked. When Nick came to the island, it had been in the wake of Blaine's eyeball slushie when Nick had done a fuckload of soul searching. It had also been right after Nick and Jeff got drunk at a Warbler party and had sex together. That party had been the night before the showdown with New Directions with the slushie. Neither Nick nor Jeff had any time to visit what accidentally sleeping together meant before Nick found himself on the island.

But this wasn't school-age Jeff. At all. In fact, Jeff looked a similar age to what Nick was now, and even though he knew how the island worked, it was screwing with his head. "I...I..." he stammered at first, letting the rest of his art supplies drop through his knees onto the sand. Those were the least of his worries right now. "How long have you been here? When... when did you come from?"

Only a few days before, Jeff had been standing there, in his house fighting with Nick, telling him that he wasn't ready to marry him, that he didn't want to get married yet. That their lives were good now, and Jeff didn't need any stupid vows to tell anyone how he felt about Nick. And then, when things had gotten harsh and heated and angry, Jeff had accused Nick of not trusting him, not believing that Jeff loved him, not believing in their relationship enough to trust that it would be okay if they didn't have some big ceremony. It was all well and good for Klaine, but Jeff wasn't fucking ready. And now? Standing here looking at Nick, his heart filled with pain that his best friend and boyfriend back home had no idea here that they'd ever started dating. The truth was, if Jeff went back home right now and had his version of Nick back? He'd get down on one knee and beg him to marry him. But that option wasn't open, and Jeff had to deal with the hear and now.

Jeff was gathering Nick's art supplies even as more were falling onto the ground, and then he was close to him and smelling his cologne mixing with the salty sea air, and it didn't smell like his Nick... It was a different cologne than he was used to smelling when he buried his face in Nick's shoulder in bed, and that thought alone made Jeff want to cry. He figured it was probably the cologne that Quinn liked, and that just hurt more to think about, so he stood up again, moving a little to put just a hint of distance between him and Nick. "I... I got here a couple days ago. I... I came from the week before Kurt's wedding. He... He told me he was murdered..."

Nick gave a short nod of confirmation. "He was. I was here when he arrived here, he was a mess. I wasn't the one he appeared in front of, but I know he arrived with bullets in him, bleeding all over the place. The medical team here are awesome, though, and they got to him in time here. The surgeon was one of the best trauma surgeons in America, so he had the bullets out of Kurt pretty succinctly. Some of us already knew what happened, but to actually have him come from that point, it was awful. But he's never really been the Kurt we knew back home. Not without Blaine. Still the sassy gay bitch he is, but he's missing the light we knew Kurt to have back then..." He paused a little, frowning to himself as he picked up some of his supplies. "He's been here two years, so two years without Blaine. He's not coping so well lately. You might have noticed. He hasn't been able to hide his grief."

"One week before their wedding..." He just gave Jeff an apologetic look, pressing his lips together with a shrug. "I came from a lot earlier than that. I just know stuff that happened from being told, but it still blows my mind to hear it or see people show up older. Not that I haven't gotten older here. I have. I've been here about ten years now. I must be missing something because I've never been given the ticket home."

"Thank God the doctor was there to help him. We were all so fucking happy for them in the lead-up to their wedding. It was going to be this amazing, special day. They had this incredible reception planned, and Kurt had chosen all the music, and the food and decorations. It's hard for me to believe it just... Ended that way. The thought of anybody murdering another person is hard enough, but murdering someone on their wedding day because you disagree with their marriage? It's sick. Sick and disturbing, and it hurts me to even think about it. Why do things like that happen? It's just disgusting to think of someone doing something so awful to somebody else for no fucking reason beyond hate and ignorance. What if..." He stopped there, though. He'd been about to ask what if it had been them... There was a sick feeling washing over him at the very thought of sitting on a sidewalk, holding Nick while his life faded out of him because someone hated them for no other reason than being gay. But that wasn't exactly a concern he could bring up right now. "Yeah... He was so angry when I appeared that it was me and not Blaine that... Fuck, it broke my heart. Part of me wished I could go back and sent him Blaine instead." He didn't mention that the even bigger part of him had wanted to go back home when he'd seen Nick and Quinn tangled in an embrace that clearly had nothing to do with friendship, and everything to do with what was very clearly a pair of lovers.

Once all of Nick's art supplies were gathered up, Jeff plopped down on the sand next to Nick's chair, glancing up at him. The setting of the sun over the ocean cast seemingly millions of hues of color over the water, and Jeff knew that Nick had been attempting to recreate the beauty on the canvas in front of him, but the sun would soon be gone, and with it, his chance to complete his painting. "Yeah... Kurt told me... He said you wouldn't remember... a lot of things that I remember. That may be for the best on some stuff..." He sighed softly, grabbing a handful of sand and letting it sift slowly through his fingers. "You missed a lot.'

Nick was quiet for a moment once the art supplies were collected again and set beside him on the sand. He chewed softly in thought on the inner corner of his lip, a habit he always had being a deep thinker. He had come from quite a confusing time in his life, that very much involved Jeff. There had been a lot of confusion in Nick's life at that time. What ultimately brought him to the island was the guilt he couldn't shake over the Warblers betraying Blaine with that slushie that nearly blinded him. Nick hadn't found the balls to stand up to Sebastian, though he wished he had, and he soon found himself standing on the hot sand about three days after the new broke that Blaine needed a corneal replacement because the injury had been that bad, and the Warblers, plus Nick had just... walked away from him.

But even before that, Nick had a shake up. There had been a Warbler party and everyone had gotten pretty trashed, Nick and Jeff included. It was one of those cases where your inhibitions were let down, and he ended up getting so drunk, he and Jeff had kissed each other... and then inevitable slept together. Neither of them had even had an iota of suspicion they could be anything but straight, and Nick actually barely remembered the party. But he remembered patches of that, very distinctly actually. He just never had the time to bring the subject up with Jeff before the whole slushie thing was happening and then suddenly, Nick was here on the island and had never managed to find his way home.

Now Jeff was here, and Nick had no idea what that was supposed to mean. "No one ever really knew. People have come from that time and beyond, they know. The murderers got thrown in prison without parole, something like that. Kurt's been waiting for Blaine to come ever since he arrived. Two years gone now, and I think he's starting to give up hope. He's not quite the same Kurt he ever was, there's something missing. I don't think that will change until Blaine gets here... if he ever does. He didn't make it back home, so he might not." He paused and glanced at Jeff, clearing his throat with a small nod. "Um, yeah, see... it's not really that I missed anything. It might seem like that to you guys, but really, you can't miss something you never actually lived, so..."

This whole thing was way too awkward. How could Jeff just sit here, talking to Nick like they were old friends, when only a few nights before, they'd been together in bed, post-coital and totally in love... only to fight like hell the next day and have everything turned upside down. Part of Jeff wondered if he was being punished for being such a dick to Nick about the marriage thing. But the punishment of having the person he loved right there in front of him, but as a different version of himself that had no clue that they'd ever been in love. It was taking every ounce of his concentration for Jeff not to just start crying and beg the island to take him back home to his Nick.

There were so many things he wanted to say, but to this Nick, they wouldn't mean the same thing, and they wouldn't fix the fact that this wasn't his Nick. This was Quinn's Nick. And fucked if Jeff had any idea how he was supposed to feel about that... About living in a world where the man he loved belonged to someone else after they'd been together all that time in Jeff's own world. It just fucking hurt.

"That's... I wish I could say that I was glad they got some justice, but that's not justice... That's three square meals a day and medical care when they need it, when Kurt couldn't get medical care he needed, and he freaking died... But I guess nobody asked me the proper punishment, huh?" Yes, there was a part of Jeff that was just fucking angry. Angry that Kurt had been taken from Blaine on their wedding day. Angry that there were still people in the world with enough hate in their heart that they would murder a man on the day he wed the love of his life. Angry that, even in this day and age, there were still people who were so backwards. "Everybody we cared about... They all fell apart without Kurt, didn't they?" he asked weakly. He couldn't help wondering if he and Nick were among the casualties of that godawful murder in their relationship or in the future they'd hoped to find together. "Well, yeah... I guess that's true. There's just... I can't believe I lived all this time that you don't know about... That you weren't even there for, even though you were there. It's kinda fucking with my head, you know?"

Nick let his fingers slowly and softly traced through the sand at his side as he listened. His dark eyes were on the water and even though he was concentrating on what Jeff was saying, the soft lapping of the water on the shore was still somewhat comforting. It had come to be an extremely soothing sound to him over the years, and why he spent a lot of time on the beach doing his art. No matter who you were or where you came from, it was almost like the beach was the catalyst of why people were brought here because it was so serene and sobering. "I know it's hard. I do. I've watched a lot of my friends arrive over the years, but I'm one of the ones who have been here the longest out of us all. It was a total mindfuck at first, people coming from different times, older to what I remember and all that. Coming with the horrible stories of what happened. It's just sort of become my norm now, though."

"Kurt's death... it's all only something I have heard secondhand, so I can't say I know any direct experience of it. Just what people have told me, and little pieced Kurt told me. He doesn't remember dying, though. He only remembers the last few minutes of his life. All I can say is that to you they fell apart, but to me? They came here. They started afresh and they've picked up the pieces the best they can. It takes time, but you eventually come to resolve yourself to how this place works and you find your feet. It's why the island gives you six weeks leeway on a free ride before you have to begin settling in a job or a life. You get the time to process and understand. You interact with people here, and everyone has a story. That's the biggest piece of advice I can give you. Everyone here is in the same boat. We've all been dumped here out of a confusing time in our life and forced to adjust. So, I do understand how hard it is, Jeff, but I've also been there myself and had to adjust just like you need to. And I was just sixteen when I came here. It was awful. I was scared homesick, lonely."

"It's just so weird to... To look at you, and you're the same age as me, but the life I know that you lived isn't the life you lived here. It's really hard to wrap my brain around, to be honest. It's this whole parallel universe thing that's really and truly fucking with my head, you know?" He turned his eyes to Nick's face, finding himself choking up just a little at the familiarity of it all... The same eyes, the same nose... The lips that, in his world, he kissed probably ten times a day just for the fuck of it... The same bone structure. The same fucking everything, only this was Quinn's boyfriend. Not Jeff's. And how on earth was Jeff supposed to swallow that? It hurt so much that he could barely breathe when he thought about it too long. "How do you... get used to it?" Jeff asked. "I mean, just deal with the fact that your whole world is completely different to the ones your friends have come from?"

"Well... I never got that far either," Jeff replied with a shrug. "When I came here, Kurt was still alive, and... It was that really awkward moment where your friend is the one who tells you he's dead. I'm really trying to settle in, but some things... Some things are really hard to accept. Really. Like, painfully hard. I know it's going to be fine when I get the hang of things, but... Nicky do you ever still feel like something's missing here? Even though you've been here for ages? Like something just... isn't right?" He wasn't sure why he was even asking. Maybe he needed to hear from Nick that he didn't feel right without Jeff. Maybe that was it. And maybe Nick was totally content here, and Jeff would just have to suck it up and deal, and hope that he made it back to his Nick sooner rather than later. "You were... You were really young when you got here. Wow. What... What was it that made you come here? Do you mind me asking?"

Nick smirked faintly and shrugged. "The whole place is weird. Only, not really. When you're here, it's just like living somewhere different to home. Everything is normal here, you just can't leave. There is everything you need is here, maybe even more than what you would find in one place back home. Seriously, it will blow your mind once you start exploring it more. But you, well, you become accustomed to it. It takes some people longer than others, but once you get over the strangeness of it and start resolving to the fact this is where you are now, it gets easier. A lot of people can't separate home from here. We all have memories of home and we don't forget, but the best advice I was given when I got her was live like this is your home. Because once you go back, you don't remember being here anyway, and the you back there doesn't know you're here now. If you leave, people here miss you, but nothing back home changes. You won't be any the wiser you've left anything here behind. Plus, until you go, you're here anyone so you may as well live like you're going to be here forever. Once I had that mindset, it was easier. At least, after the homesickness faded. That could take awhile. It's not so hard having people here you know, though, even if they're from all different times."

He nodded, realising he had already slipped over the different times everyone was from. "Kurt's pretty blatant and to the point about his death. Blaine is his weakness. The topic of Blaine comes up, he'll shut down on you pretty quickly. Sometimes he might open up about it, but mostly not. It still blows my mind that they got so far and ended up married, that it all worked out. At least, until Kurt was murdered, I mean. More just that we all knew they were the forever deal, and they proved us right." He toyed with the leather bracelet around his wrist at the question. "I feel like a lot of things are missing here. Which they are. Most of my friends are from years in advance of me, so it's easy to get a sense you're missing pieces. They know stuff I don't, and I never really asked them. Not about me, anyway. I asked about them. But again, I never experienced what you did, Jeff, so it negates the sensation something isn't 'right'," he pointed out, making quotation marks with his fingers. "It probably seems like it's not right for you, but for me, the island has been my right for ten years."

He glanced over at Jeff, squinting a little in the sun. "The night Blaine got hit with the rock salt slushie. After we walked away from him, went back to Dalton, I walked through the front doors of the school and onto the beach. I hated that we walked away from him. But it was a confusing time of life in general. Luckily, I did eventually hear from Puck that Blaine wasn't blinded or anything. Almost, but he had surgery and recovered. But even hearing that, I'm still here, so."

Jeff wanted to believe what Nick was saying... That it was easier having your friends there... the people that you loved back home. But it was hard to accept when the person he loved most back home was sitting right in front of him and he belonged to someone else. Still, Jeff wasn't ready to bring that up, especially not when Nick was with Quinn now, and seemed happy. He couldn't do that to him right away. "Yeah. I guess that's true. I mean, it's different, but it's really not all that different, either. It's like a really nice vacation, where nobody has exactly all the same background as me... Not even... my best friends." Fuck, why was it so hard to refer to Nick as his friend? Easy. Because that wasn't all he was, and it never would be in Jeff's mind. And this was killing him. He found himself wondering if this would be easier if Nick weren't here at all, or if it was better to have him in some aspect than not at all.

"How the hell does that even happen? Kurt and Blaine went through so fucking much hell. They finally got their happy, and followed through with it, and karma takes Kurt away? How is that fair? I mean, I get that life's not fair, but goddamn... It just doesn't make sense." For the moment, he was going to leave the comment about things feeling right or wrong alone. Clearly, he was just making things more weird and awkward instead of helping anything, and he needed to stop doing that before Nick just didn't want to even talk to him at all. "I'm sorry," he said finally. "There's just... It's a lot to wrap my head around. I'll get it, though. You know me. I've always been a slow learner. You used to get so mad at me for going nuts around the dorm room when you were trying to study."

But then, Nick was revealing to Jeff the point in time he'd come from, and before he could stop it, Jeff's jaw was falling open, only to be snapped back shut just as suddenly. "Right after we..." he began, before closing his mouth again. They'd been so damn drunk that night, but Nick had bottomed, so Jeff knew without a shadow of a doubt that he'd know he had gay sex with somebody the night they'd slept together. Which meant that Nick possibly remembered the whole thing, and that was a whole new can of worms that was opening in a hurry.

Nick had now looped his fingers into a leather necklace hanging loosely around his neck with a pink shell with Quinn's name engraved on it as a pendant. Quinn had one with Nick's name, and they got them from a custom jeweller in town for their anniversary. Nick didn't know why this whole thing was making him nervous, beyond the shock of actually discovering Jeff was on the island and from a way different time to Nick. It was throwing him off, and Quinn was automatically on his mind. He knew there had always been a chance Jeff might come here from a different time to him, but there had been a tiny piece of him that hoped that wouldn't happen because what had Jeff progressed to in his life back there Nick had no idea of? "You eventually figure it out, and your mind shifts more predominantly to island life rather than what you left behind. It's not easy. We're just some of the lucky ones who do have people from home. Most people aren't so lucky."

He traced his tongue over his lips wetting them, and his nose scrunched up slightly. "I don't know. He is the only person I know who came from near death. There are others. The soldier dude called Rob who owns the shooting range, he was killed in the line of duty and he's stuck. It's hard to wrap your mind around the fact Kurt's dead, I know. He's here and he's breathing, alive. That's where you start to adjust to stuff here." He smirked a little. "The cool thing about coming here in high school? I didn't have to finish. No high school or college education, and I'm a fully-fledged artist and manage the art gallery here. I'm in my element. Couldn't be happier. Like I said, things are different here. Very different. Not worse. Just... different." Three differents in one breath. What was he trying to emphasise here?

Jeff was continuing then and Nick looked back to him sharply, fingers closing around the shell pendant tightly. "Right after we left Blaine screaming on a cold parking lot floor... yeah..." That probably wasn't it, and he knew it. But he had to shut this down for now because he didn't know how he was supposed to deal with it. This wasn't the same Jeff he didn't those things with back in school. This was adult Jeff, who was probably married or something and Nick didn't know how to deal with that.

Jeff's eyes involuntarily followed Nick's hands to the necklace he wore. This was all wrong. He couldn't possibly screw things up for Nick and Quinn. Not when it looked like Nick truly was happy with her. He loved Nick with all his heart, more than he'd ever loved an other human being in his entire life. And didn't loving someone mean that, even if it hurt, you wanted them to be happy? Swallowing hard, he nodded to the necklace. "How long have you and Quinn been together?" he asked, grateful that he'd managed to ask without his voice cracking or any other embarrassing moments. The fact that it was Quinn, of all people, was hard for Jeff to follow, too. He'd just come from a time when Quinn was happily married to Puck. He knew that things were going to be different here, and he was hearing what Nick was saying loud and clear, but fuck would this be easier if he could go to bed and cuddle with Nick to get through the tough times.

"I'm glad I didn't see it," Jeff admitted, picking up a handful of sand and letting the breeze off the ocean slowly blow it through his fingers. "I'm glad I wasn't there that long. I seriously can't wrap my mind around seeing him die like that. It makes me feel sick even just thinking about it." Still, at Nick's next comment, Jeff had to smile. "That's freakin' awesome, Nicky!" he said. "I wish I'd gotten here sooner! I already did all that stuff. How'd you get to be the lucky one who came here in school?" There was the slightest hint of relief just at being able to lighten the conversation a little. "That's amazing, though. You always said you wished that school could all be art. I guess you got the closest thing to your wish that you could."

There was no mistaking that Nick was avoiding something in the way that he turned the conversation rapidly off the path that Jeff was accidentally taking it on. "Yeah. Right after that," was Jeff's lame reply. He breathed in slowly, holding his breath for just a moment before he let it go. "I..." he began, before shaking his head. "That was a really long time ago. I guess you know from knowing Kurt here that he and Blaine forgave us for what went down then."

"A few years now," Nick replied quietly, glancing at Jeff with a shrug. "She and I have been here sort of the same amount of time and we became close friends just by default. We were the only ones from back home at the time until others started to arrive, so we bonded over that. It's not like we hooked up right away or anything, though. We were still young and neither of us were really ready for that sort of thing. But we grew up a little and the island became our home, so it was just sort of a natural progression. We don't live together or anything. She lives with Kurt in one of the bungalows and I have my own room at the resort. We've never talked about anything further, so we know we're not ready for that yet. Maybe we never will be. Who knows?" If Nick was honest, somewhere deep down inside, it felt like something was holding him back from the next step with Quinn, but it wasn't ever a big enough issue to bring it up yet. He had never been able to put his finger on what it was, though.

He nodded in understanding. "We saw the aftermath. Quinn's the CEO here of the resort, so she has a little computer system that flashes up everyone's names the minute they arrive. She knows then who hasn't checked in for accommodation, because sometimes people arrive sick or injured or unconscious. Kurt was one of those. She was at work and his name popped up on the screen. It was all of ten minutes later the whole resort was in a panic because Kurt appeared bleeding to death with a bullet in him. But the paramedics who work on the beach were awesome. They got him to the hospital straight away and the surgeons were onto it. We have a brilliant trauma surgeon here who is a wizard with a scalpel. He saved Kurt's life. Apparently back home, the ambulance didn't get to him quick enough. He bled to death in Blaine's arms right there in front of everyone..." he murmured and fell silent, still unable to fathom it himself. "I wasn't lucky coming here in school. I was terrified. Homesick, scared, lonely. It's why I connected with Quinn. We were both in the same boat."

"Yeah, Kurt filled me in one he realised how long I had been here. Of course, I know there was stuff he wasn't tell me. He filled me in about everyone else, but not my own life personally. Generally that's something you need to be ready to hear and I guess I figured I was unaware of such a huge portion of my life back there that it didn't really matter to me here. I'm a different me here. Some people want to know everything, I just never got around to asking."

"Oh," Jeff replied quietly, feeling like he really should say something else, but not knowing exactly what it should be. Maybe he needed to accept that all of this was just the way things were here, like Nick said. Maybe he had no choice but to just realize that he wasn't Nick's other half here. He hadn't been a part of Nick's life for ten years as far as the other man was concerned, and that realization hit him like the force of a meteor hitting earth. With that realization, Jeff actually bit down on the inside of his jaw so hard he tasted blood to keep the tears from coming on. He couldn't help but take a shred of hope from the statement that Nick and Quinn weren't ready for the next step. Maybe he was grasping at straws -- he probably was. Nick had been with Quinn for a few years, and hadn't seen Jeff in ten years. Ten fucking years. Why would he wait around forever for Jeff when he didn't even know what had happened between them after that crazy night? "Quinn's great. I knew her and Kurt were really close back in school. I'm glad they've got each other here."

Wide-eyed, Jeff looked up at Nick, burying his toes in the sand absentmindedly. "You... You saw him when he was hurt? Or after he was in the hospital? I'm honestly still trying to wrap my head around all of this. I'm sorry... I know I have to be frustrating you. I'm just... In the time that I left, you were... about the same age as you are now. But you'd had a whole different life than the life you have here, and the memories that I have of you aren't... aren't your memories at all." He couldn't think too long about any of this right now, or he'd end up a weeping snotty mess right here in front of Nick, and that would just suck beyond belief. Instead, he was tucking all of this away, and later on, in his room at the resort, he'd probably lock himself in and cry his eyes out for hours. But for now, he'd just converse like this was relatively normal. "I'm glad you weren't alone," Jeff replied. And that was true. This place was intense enough for an adult. Trying to imagine being a kid here was scary, and even more so with the thought of being alone and not having any of your friends and family around.

"I think I'd get curious," Jeff replied. "ADHD would kick in and I'd have to know everything. But then again, maybe it would be better not to know certain things. I mean... I don't know what I mean... I just... I'm sorry. I'm not trying to make no sense, ba... Nicky." Shit. He'd almost slipped up there, and fuck -- he couldn't do that. He just couldn't. It was only going to make things harder and more complicated.

Nick nodded, once again looking at the ocean and taking peace from the soft lapping sound. It grounded him, it always had done. He was an artistic person and when he had first arrived here, he spent hours on end painting or drawing on the beach to process the fact he was stuck here and couldn't get home to everything he knew. Even though he was here now and had been for years, coming to thrive on the island and be content with his life, when he first arrived, he really struggled with homesickness and confusion. It was just hard to explain that to Jeff, or to anyone really, because Nick had still been a kid. It was a unique experience and he had never understood why he had come so young and no one else but Quinn really did. Why him? It never made sense. Still didn't. "Yeah, she's amazing. We connected over the same issues. Things are just different here. I know I keep saying that, but you'll eventually see for yourself. There's a different dynamic, you cherish people in different ways. I mean, Kurt's sort of like a brother to me here. I was never as close to him back home."

He gathered up a handful of the warm sand and smoothed it out in his palm to trail his fingertip through it in a circle pattern. "I saw him when he was hurt. I was down here on the beach when he arrived. He was... it was blood everywhere. His wedding suit was a pale colour. Grey, I think. I can't specifically remember, and it was hard to tell what. He has wedding photos in an album in the bungalow. But it was just blood-soaked, he looked dead. Plus, he was an adult. The Kurt I last saw was the one leaning over Blaine on the parking lot floor after the slushie. Kurt here is, well, you'll see what I mean. He's gorgeous, tanned even. He manages the gay nightclub here and also has his own designer label of couture clothing. People pay craploads for his stuff because they're all custom-made. But he's different to the Kurt you would know back there. Not having Blaine, he's just different. There's something constantly masked about him."

"A lot of people do get curious. I just never did. I never experience growing up back there so I didn't see the point in knowing." That's when he stopped and he looked at Jeff quietly. "We're together back there, aren't we?" Maybe it was too much too soon, and he didn't know what was telling him this, but there was just something deep inside where he knew what Jeff wasn't saying and this was the first time he had ever asked anything of his adulthood back home. He let the sand slip through his fingers and then brushed his palms off, not sure if he even wanted to hear the confirmation or not now he had asked.

The awkwardness of the whole scene was really getting to Jeff. He'd never handled awkward very well, usually ending up trying to talk more to escape the awkward, but in turn making it that much worse. He was getting the distinct feeling that the more he talked, the worse he was going to make things here, and he didn't really know how to respond to that. This was Nick. He had never in their entire time of knowing each other struggled to know how to talk to him, except for the period of time that had apparently led to Nick's arrival here. After they'd slept together for the first time, when both of them had shared a room, but almost actively avoided one another because neither of them knew what to say. After everything had gone down with Blaine, they'd realized quickly how damn important it was to keep from fucking things up further with anyone they cared about. That had been what led to the talk that would more or less become their defining of the relationship as what it went on to be. "You just... you learn to appreciate people more because they're all you have, huh? You treasure what you have because they're the people who matter the most."

"I... I saw him here," Jeff offered, glancing over at Nick before his eyes returned to watch the waves lapping at the sand. "I never thought I'd see Kurt Hummel with a tan, but I guess the beach does things for a guy. I just... I can't imagine what that must have been like. How scared he must've been... How scared you must've been. He forgave us all, you know. Even Sebastian. He's kind of friends with us all these days. You probably wouldn't even know him. He misses Blaine a lot. I knew that as soon as I got here. I was getting ripped a new asshole from the second I got here for not being Blaine. But he kinda recovered and ended up helping me out a lot. But you're right. There's just... It's like there's a card that he just won't lay on the table, no matter what.

Nothing really could've prepared Jeff for the question that Nick asked him then. He'd been so careful, trying to avoid bringing anything up that would directly implicate the fact that they were a couple back home. Nick had just said he had never really seen the point in knowing where his life had gone, and as painful as it was for him, Jeff had been willing to leave it at that for the sake of the love of his life. But then Nick was fucking asking, and when Jeff opened his mouth to answer, there was no sound. The best he could do was just offer Nick a very small, nearly imperceptible nod of his head before he turned his face away, forcing himself to focus on some kids playing in the sand a little way down the beach so he wouldn't completely lose it.

"Sort of. I more just meant that you value different things here. Everything is so contained and somewhat isolated, that you miss home but you also learnt very quickly what you took for granted back there. What mistakes you made, what regrets you have. They don't become amplified here, but you have a renewed sense of knowing you have to make a fresh start here because it's not home. Everything is different, the people are different. The lessons you learn are different. You'll start to understand what I mean very soon," Nick promised.

He gave a little laugh. "It took him a long time to tan. He's still not a fan of being out in the sun, but the weather here is generally always sunny, save for some bad days here and there. You get tropical storms and rain. It never snows, hardly ever gets cold. Probably why I love it so much," he added with a smirk. "Seriously, though, I'm not really surprised to hear any of that. The guys that have come here, most of them are adults from that era. I can see how far people have come from what they have told me. Which is why to hear about Kurt's murder, it makes it all seem like a such a waste. And maybe why we've all ended up here at the end of the day."

Nick looked away too once Jeff did. He looked in the opposite direction and just really didn't know what to say. There was always a part of him that wondered if anything ever came of that night they spent together, but he never quite convinced himself it did. He always just assumed they never thought about it again and moved on in their lives to stay best friends but end up with other people. But there had been something in the way Jeff was talking, the way he was wording things, edging around something. Nick was a cluey sort of guy. He had always been in tune to people. Something just told him this was what was going on, and it was the first time he ever needed confirmation of anything back home. He didn't know what that meant, and it scared him. "I'm sorry," he soon mumbled, at a loss of knowing how to cope with this.

"Because no matter how many people are or aren't here from home, it's still a different life..." Jeff reasoned, looking down at the sand and burying his toes a little deeper in. The waves rolled in and washed out, and Jeff was acutely aware of Nick's presence, despite every attempt at focus. "It's like being in witness protection or something, only with some wonky time warp aspect. I swear, this would make a hell of a movie. But I would've liked it a lot better as that... A movie. Not my freakin' life." Still, his frustration wasn't getting him anywhere, and was probably just going to make things uncomfortable if he didn't stop. "Sorry," he said softly, shaking his head. "I'm not usually like this... Just... I'm struggling with it, Nicky. I know it's gonna be fine. I really do. I'll get used to it and find my way. It's just blowing my mind big time right now. I trust you, though. I'll find my feet with it. Eventually."

The talk about Kurt and tanning brought a smile to Jeff's face though, and he even laughed himself, if only just a little. "I can see him when he first started here... He probably rocked some kind of fabulous hat with a wide brim, and lots of sunscreen, yeah? Oh, yeah... You and cold have never gotten along. Once a Floridian, always a Floridian. Back at Dalton, you used to bundle up in this huge coat, and I swear, you always looked like an Eskimo with your hood closed over your face. It was hilarious. But everybody's going to be different here from home. It makes sense, though. If it were just like home, it wouldn't change anything at all... You might as well just be home."

If he hadn't been listening carefully, Jeff wasn't sure he even would've heard Nick's words. But as it was, he was carefully focused on hearing the other man's voice, and he caught the words before the breeze off the sea blew them away. This changed the whole thing. Jeff had finally begun to slowly make himself realize that he couldn't tell Nick anything about home... That he had to let go for the sake of the man he loved and the happiness he'd found in Jeff's absence. And then Nick had asked that question, and no matter what he'd said then, his face would've given it away. "Don't... don't be sorry," Jeff said quietly, shaking his head. "You don't have a reason to be sorry. You didn't do anything wrong. I wasn't... I wasn't here. What were you supposed to do?"

Nick shook his head. "No. Well, yes, but that wasn't the direct point. No matter how many people who are here from home, we're not the people from home," he explained, looking down at his toes buried in the sand. "Back home, you have... home. All those home things that influence and shape who you are. But at some point in time that is different for all of us, the island has intercepted that timeline and those influences to bring us here. It's like a giant roadblock that has disconnected you from getting to moments in your life back home that shaped you and made you. You come here instead and it's a whole new set of experiences and influences that start to build on who you are if you're here for any length of time. Just arriving here impacts. Back home, you stay exactly the same, you leave the island, you go back to the exact moment you left without any memory of being here. But while you're here, from this moment on, you become a different you. It's your chance to time out on the you back home. You come here with your home memories, whatever it was that brought you here, and from there on, you start differently. We all still love each other here, and we're all still close friends, but it's not the same as it would be back there... and back there, well, it doesn't matter here because we can't bring any of that here with us." At Jeff's next thought, Nick just nodded and made a hand gesture for emphasis. That was exactly his point right there.

"I am sorry, though. Because I understand what it's like. I don't want you to think that I'm completely devoid of sympathy for you being shoved here to a place where nothing is the same. I just..." He paused, frowning as he thought over what it was he was trying to say. "I was one of those sorts who never asked much about back home because it didn't feel like me. It was me, but it wasn't this me. I didn't grow up and have any of those experiences you did that led you and... and me to whatever place we are together back there. We were only best friends when I came here. We had... there was that drunk night, but that was it. That was nearly ten years ago. That's ten whole years of stuff you have that I don't, Jeff. I have a different ten years to you. I have... I have ten years without you. Think about that for a moment. I know this is hard for you and confusing and a lot to get your head around, but just stop for a moment and look at it from my point of view. Ten years... no you, no us, no BFF."

"You're not the Nicky I know," Jeff reasoned, grabbing handfuls of the sand as if trying to somehow ground himself to the beach and accept that this was his life right now, at least for the time being. "Nobody is the person I know. I think I get that, but it's kind of hard to wrap my mind around. You look just like the Nicky I left back home... Well, I mean, except your hair's longer, and you're more tanned. Kurt's different. Everyone is, really. I do get that. I know I do in a way, but on the other hand, it's a matter of looking at you, and realizing that you're the same person, but at the same time, you're not. It really is an alternate reality, and I never thought those really existed. I thought it was just something in the sci-fi books and movies. So your whole life changed and you came here, while I kept living my life with you there? That... I believe you, Nicky, but it's really hard to make myself totally understand, if that makes sense."

Jeff's eyes were really trying their damnedest to well up with tears, and he was fighting it like hell. He didn't want to fall apart on Nick when this was the first time Nick had seen him in ten years, even if he'd seen him only a few days ago. So he was quiet, trying to keep his calm and listen instead of freaking out, which would've been all too easy to do. But this wasn't the time or place for that. It wouldn't help anyone, least of all him or Nick, and he did have to realize this was just as strange for Nick as for him, it not more, because this was the first time he'd ever really found out anything major about his life after the point where he'd come here. "The... the drunk night was what started it all," Jeff said softly. "I don't... I'm trying to imagine the last ten years of my life without you, and I just... I can't even think that way. It hurts too much. I wish... No. No, there's no point in wishing things were different when they're not. I'm sorry." He paused, looking down at his left hand and imagining it with a prominent wedding band on the ring finger. He could've had that if he hadn't been such a dick. He'd still be at home with his Nick, and everything would be normal. He didn't really know where to go from here. He swallowed hard against the urge to just break down in tears, and looked at Nick quietly. "Ten years..." he repeated with a shake of his head. "Ten years without your family, and with friends from all different points in their life... Nicky, I'm sorry. I wish I knew where to even start with all of this. I mean... Do you even want to know, or is it easier if you don't? I swear, I'm not here to get between you and Quinn. I won't. I'm not that kind of guy."

Nick sucked on his lower lip and eyes were back to the line of the horizon in the distance as he gave a shake of his head. "Nope," he had to confirm, but it was quietly and guiltily. But why did he feel guilty? It wasn't his fault he had been brought here at sixteen before anything between him and Jeff really progressed. The guilt that he had been riddled with over walking away from Blaine that night he had the slushie thrown at him had been enough to bring him here and keep him here. That wasn't his fault. Once you got here, everyone had to learn to wear the very reason that brought you here because that was why you were here to begin with. But he knew without having to verbalise it that the reason hew as feeling guilty now was because being different meant Jeff was probably going to hurt over it, and that would be the last thing in the world he would want. It was completely out of his control, however, and as a result, that hurt him too. Since getting here on the island, he hadn't really explored his sexuality all that much. He knew he was bisexual, just knew deep down in his heart, but he hadn't acted on it. Other than Jeff back home before he was sucked here, he hadn't slept with any other guys. He had visited Aquatique a few times, and danced with some guys, but mostly he had just gone to visit Kurt who managed it. Since he started dating Quinn, as to Nick's romantic loyalty, she was the only one he had eyes for since. "We're different, but the same. It's a weird concept. Maybe a more accurate way to explain it is we are innately the same, as personality, but different as to life experiences and how they impacted on us. Life shapes you, but inside, you're still you. That's what people are like here. For me, I've been here for ten years, so I had to grow up here and I grew up doing things way different to how I would have done back there. Kurt's no doubt the most different of all of us, but without Blaine, he's not the same person. Blaine built such a distinct part of him, that without it, he is different. He's lost a light no one has ever been able to coax back into him. No one but Blaine can."

He could see that Jeff was visibly upset and a lump formed in his throat to witness it. What he would give to not hurt Jeff, but he had no other choice here. He couldn't just snap his fingers and be the Nick Jeff wanted and needed because he didn't know who that other person was or what made him who he was. He put his arm around Jeff's shoulders and gave him a soft, gentle hug so he could at least show him that their friendship could still be there if they wanted it. It might take a bit of work, but he was sure it could be. "I just think for now, for me, it's better to not know. I'm pretty much already riddled with guilt that I can't somehow change it for you and I don't know how I would cope hearing the full story. I've heard enough to understand where you stand here, and I really am sorry that you need to go through this. But we're a strong group here and we help each other get through it. Plus, back there, a lot of pain and loss is left that here we get a new chance to live without. I know it's going to take a lot and it will be time, but we can still be friends, right? I... I never honestly thought I'd see you again. Ten years is a really, really long time to wait for someone and them to just... never arrive."

Jeff just watched Nick quietly, the way the other man's eyes scanned the horizon and the coast in front of them. Nick had always loved the beach. He was a Florida boy, born and raised, despite his very European heritage. Jeff could remember so many times the two of them had visited Florida with Nick's family, both before and after they hooked up, and they'd just enjoyed the beach... There was even one time that they'd made love on the beach at the private portion that belonged to a friend of Nick's family. It had been Nick's idea, and there was some sand involved, but the blanket they'd used had kept the discomfort to a minimum, and it had ended up becoming one of their most special memories. They had so many good ones on the beach, from the romantic, to the exciting (when Nick had taught Jeff to surf, for example), to the most simple. The beach had held so many of their special moments, and now here they were... on another beach, in another place and time where Nick wasn't his at all, and Jeff was trying like hell to make sense of all of this. He didn't want to be that obnoxious little kid throwing a hissy because he wasn't getting his own way. It just still was taking him time to wrap his head around it. That there was actually a world, a world he was in now, where Nick wasn't his other half... Where Nick hadn't even seen him in ten years. That was a hard thing to swallow on many levels, especially the whole side of things where he had just come from a world where he and Nick lived together... shared their lives with each other every single day. This wasn't something that was going to be easy for Jeff by any means. But he was just going to have to learn to deal. "I can't even imagine coming here as a kid... spending part of your growing up years here without your folks. Did they have people that you could at least kind of... go to for guidance or something? Friends that were older or anything like that? I can't even imagine Kurt without Blaine, but I think I saw at least the beginnings of what you're talking about when I got here."

The touch from Nick, while well-intentioned, only hurt that much more. Jeff didn't want it to be that way. But how did you go from only a few days ago sharing your life with someone on every level -- sharing your home, your bed, your body, heart, and soul -- to a friendly hug with that same person, only he was with someone else and hadn't seen you in ten years. It was just a mindfuck that Jeff was going to need time to figure out. Even the hurt that came from Nick's hugging him like that couldn't stop Jeff's arm from snaking out and wrapping around the other man's waist, needing just for a moment to feel that connection to him, even if everything was different now than it had been then. "Nicky, I don't... I don't want you to feel guilty. It's not your fault, okay? I don't hold it against you or think you suck for not just... being who you were back home to me. That's not your fault." And then Nick was asking if they could be friends, and Jeff just stared at him for a moment, not really meaning to. Could they be friends? Just friends? After everything Jeff had experienced on his end of things? Part of Jeff wanted to say no. But there was a bigger part of him that needed the connection with Nick, no matter how it came. And how was it fair to deny Nick his best friend when he hadn't done anything wrong? So he nodded slowly. "Of course we can still be friends. You're... the best one I've ever had. I can't imagine if it was me here for ten years without you. I'd have lost it."

Nick nodded and bit down on the inside of his cheek to tell himself not to start crying. It had gotten easier as he got older, but he still missed his family and what he had left behind at home now and again. He had been here so long that he could never be sure anymore if he would go back. Not that he would remember behind here if he did, but none of his family had come here to-date, so he wasn't sure if he would ever seen them again. And he had missed Jeff, he really had, but now like he had always suspected, Jeff had come but from a very different time to where Nick was from and whatever Jeff had grown up with, Nick had no awareness of it. It could make things really hard and awkward, but he was determined to not let it. All the other guys from home made their differences work, why wouldn't Nick and Jeff? It was just that added difficulty that there had been some sort of relationship to them and Jeff had the memories, but Nick didn't. It was somewhat comforting to hear they must have finally gotten their act together back there when Nick wasn't sure he would ever have the balls for it, but here? Here he had grown up on the island, and he was happily dating Quinn. It was different, so their friendship was going to take some time to build-up. Jeff would need to learn the island, adjust to it, and they would need to get to know each other all over again. "Everyone here will help guide you. We all have been in your shoes, which you need to remember. It's just like any other place, though. There's a hospital, doctors, therapists. You name it. If you need professional help, it's there, but people are friendly here. Most will help, though like any place, you'll get your shady characters. All sorts live here."

He sort of winced a little and shrunk back under Jeff's gaze at his question. There was distinct hesitation and it was understandable, but it was all Nick could offer for now. He didn't know this Jeff, and in turn, Jeff didn't know who he was anymore now he had grown up. He didn't think he had changed that much from when they were younger, but he had definitely grown up a lot. "You adjust. And you will. You'll wake up one day and just realise this is like home." He cleared his throat, not wanting to make anything more awkward than it already was for now. They could catch up again... when they had time to process the where the dust was settling now. "It's getting a little late, I really should get back up to the resort. I've been trying to help Quinn out as much as I can because Kurt's sort of fallen into a deep depression after Mercedes came and told him that back home, Blaine committed suicide. Kurt thinks that means he'll never come. It's just... a bit of a mess. I... shit, I'm sorry if you didn't know what about Blaine. If you want to talk, you can just give me a call or drop by." He wrote his phone and resort room numbers down on a bit of his sketch pad and tore it off to give to Jeff. "Just take some time to let things sink in, but I'm always around. Or I work down at the gallery in town."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[TAG NICK] "It's just a place I'm looking for. We might as well be strangers in another town..."

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