Post by Nicki on Jan 4, 2007 2:53:08 GMT -5
Title: ‘Til It’s Gone
Pairing: Tucker Cohen/Andrew Wells
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Tucker and Nicki are mine. Everything else isn’t.
Notes: Written for the Willow and Tara challenge.
---
Sometimes it feels like I'm completely still, and the world is just spinning out of control all around me. I'm scared to move; even my arm extending a fraction could cause the hurricane of life to suck me in and force me to play until I'm battered and broken.
When I was a child, my mom used to play me this one song by Joni Mitchell all the time. Even my earliest memories are of Big Yellow Taxi blasting out the car speakers, or the stereo, or my mom's Discman as she danced around the house. It's safe to say that all the lyrics got burned into my brain, and one lyric always stood out to me above all the others.
Don’t it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone.
And it's true, isn't it?
I never really got on with my dad, but when he left there was so much pain. It was like I hadn't realised how much I'd loved him, how much he'd meant to me, until he wasn't there anymore for me to see or hear.
The same thing happened with Nicki. We were friends and more than friends and back to friends and in the end it was all too complicated and I didn't know who we were or what we were doing. Nicki disappeared, like always, and I fell for Jessy, but she liked that Rory guy and... Well, everything became one big soap opera.
So I went off to do a little soul searching and tried to forget about everything. And then one day I was in my local comic store, and I was picking up a couple of issues of Runaways, when my phone rang.
"Mr. Cohen?" A deep voice had boomed into my right ear, almost making me drop my comics in shock. "It's Arthur."
Okay, so, I swear I'm not some kind of weird stalkery creep, but Arthur is this guy I sort of hired to check up on Nicki every once in a while. Considering her line of work, I just wanted to know she was safe. Is that really so bad? And without Arthur I never would've found out what I did next.
"Hey Arthur," I greeted. "What's up?"
There was a pause so long that I just knew something had happened. The whirlwind of life picked up around me while I just stood there motionless, phone gripped tightly in my hand.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Cohen, but Nicola Next was killed."
And that was the moment I figured out I loved her. The second she was gone, I knew that I should've held onto her for as long as I could. It was just another moment in my life when Big Yellow Taxi could slot into the soundtrack with ease.
So after the phone call I very quietly paid for my comics and left the store. I didn't have a clue where I was gonna go because all my brain could process was that she was dead. A body. A lifeless shell.
I was so distracted with some kind of mental quest to remember her smile that I didn't even notice a young, blonde man had been tapping my shoulder as I stood, once again, completely motionless. Although this time I was literally motionless and I probably looked like a dork.
"Hey, statue guy, you dropped one of your comics." He took in my expression for a moment and bit his lower lip. "Are you okay? You look like Frodo when he saw Gandalf plummet to his death in The Fellowship of the Ring."
I looked over at this guy, this guy who was obviously a level one geek if he enjoyed Lord of the Rings, and felt strangely comforted by his presence. For some weird and unexplainable reason he just made me feel safe.
"One of my friends died," I said softly.
He smiled sadly, holding onto my comic book so tight I could see his knuckles whiten. "I'm sorry. I know what that's like, you know. My two best friends were killed a couple of years ago, and..." He trailed off, shaking his head a little as if to rid himself of bad memories, and held my gaze. "Talking about it helps, more than you know. I'm a good listener if you want to get a milkshake together or something."
His offer sounded so sincere that I had to accept. And maybe talking about it would help me, because I didn't see any other way I could get through this.
That's when it all started; the day I found out Nicki was dead. It was one of the hardest days of my life, it was a Big Yellow Taxi day, and while it wouldn't be the last, it was also a day that would start something new.
The day I met Andrew Wells was the beginning of everything.
Pairing: Tucker Cohen/Andrew Wells
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Tucker and Nicki are mine. Everything else isn’t.
Notes: Written for the Willow and Tara challenge.
---
Sometimes it feels like I'm completely still, and the world is just spinning out of control all around me. I'm scared to move; even my arm extending a fraction could cause the hurricane of life to suck me in and force me to play until I'm battered and broken.
When I was a child, my mom used to play me this one song by Joni Mitchell all the time. Even my earliest memories are of Big Yellow Taxi blasting out the car speakers, or the stereo, or my mom's Discman as she danced around the house. It's safe to say that all the lyrics got burned into my brain, and one lyric always stood out to me above all the others.
Don’t it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone.
And it's true, isn't it?
I never really got on with my dad, but when he left there was so much pain. It was like I hadn't realised how much I'd loved him, how much he'd meant to me, until he wasn't there anymore for me to see or hear.
The same thing happened with Nicki. We were friends and more than friends and back to friends and in the end it was all too complicated and I didn't know who we were or what we were doing. Nicki disappeared, like always, and I fell for Jessy, but she liked that Rory guy and... Well, everything became one big soap opera.
So I went off to do a little soul searching and tried to forget about everything. And then one day I was in my local comic store, and I was picking up a couple of issues of Runaways, when my phone rang.
"Mr. Cohen?" A deep voice had boomed into my right ear, almost making me drop my comics in shock. "It's Arthur."
Okay, so, I swear I'm not some kind of weird stalkery creep, but Arthur is this guy I sort of hired to check up on Nicki every once in a while. Considering her line of work, I just wanted to know she was safe. Is that really so bad? And without Arthur I never would've found out what I did next.
"Hey Arthur," I greeted. "What's up?"
There was a pause so long that I just knew something had happened. The whirlwind of life picked up around me while I just stood there motionless, phone gripped tightly in my hand.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Cohen, but Nicola Next was killed."
And that was the moment I figured out I loved her. The second she was gone, I knew that I should've held onto her for as long as I could. It was just another moment in my life when Big Yellow Taxi could slot into the soundtrack with ease.
So after the phone call I very quietly paid for my comics and left the store. I didn't have a clue where I was gonna go because all my brain could process was that she was dead. A body. A lifeless shell.
I was so distracted with some kind of mental quest to remember her smile that I didn't even notice a young, blonde man had been tapping my shoulder as I stood, once again, completely motionless. Although this time I was literally motionless and I probably looked like a dork.
"Hey, statue guy, you dropped one of your comics." He took in my expression for a moment and bit his lower lip. "Are you okay? You look like Frodo when he saw Gandalf plummet to his death in The Fellowship of the Ring."
I looked over at this guy, this guy who was obviously a level one geek if he enjoyed Lord of the Rings, and felt strangely comforted by his presence. For some weird and unexplainable reason he just made me feel safe.
"One of my friends died," I said softly.
He smiled sadly, holding onto my comic book so tight I could see his knuckles whiten. "I'm sorry. I know what that's like, you know. My two best friends were killed a couple of years ago, and..." He trailed off, shaking his head a little as if to rid himself of bad memories, and held my gaze. "Talking about it helps, more than you know. I'm a good listener if you want to get a milkshake together or something."
His offer sounded so sincere that I had to accept. And maybe talking about it would help me, because I didn't see any other way I could get through this.
That's when it all started; the day I found out Nicki was dead. It was one of the hardest days of my life, it was a Big Yellow Taxi day, and while it wouldn't be the last, it was also a day that would start something new.
The day I met Andrew Wells was the beginning of everything.
It is technically against the rules unless you can plead your case to me efficiently. And since you used your main gay character(cause Jessy was gay at one point which is why she wouldn't qualify((normally-only acception to using Jessy as a main is only subject to Jessy herself.)).) So Jessy has the added challenge of making a great story.
