Title: Tandem
Bandom: Jonas Brothers
Pairing: Joe/Nick, Joe/Demi
Rating: PG-13
Summary: When it comes to Nick and Joe, everything happens in tandem. [AU]
Warnings: Slash, incest, some het, and angst.
Dedications:
naruke_chan for being an awesome, amazing beta.
sillyfax just because. And
mandac424 because I'm really sorry I accidently made her want punch Joe in the face.
Word Count: 2,591
Joe meets Nick when he’s three years old. He’s little and his big brother Kevin is holding his hand.
Mommy is resting and Daddy is holding the new baby and Joe is scared.
The night before, while they had stayed with Grandma and Grandpa while Mommy and Daddy had gone to the hospital, Joe had crawled into bed with Kevin and pressed his face into the soft material of Kevin’s pajama top. Joe had cried and Kevin had petted his hair, demanding to know what was wrong. After, Kevin had laughed.
“Don’t be stupid, Joey. Mommy and Daddy still loved me after you were born.”
And Joe had fallen into an easy sleep. Kevin had said everything was going to be alright and Kevin was always right. But now, Joe feels small next to Kevin, staring up at his Daddy who for once isn’t paying him any attention as he fusses over the baby.
Joe doesn’t see what is so special about the baby. It is loud, for one. It’s screaming hurts Joe’s ears. It is kind of like one of his cousin Anna’s baby dolls except a lot louder. Kevin says the most interesting thing Joe did as a baby was poop a lot.
“Daddy?” Kevin calls as he runs forward. “I wanna see the baby.”
Daddy smiles down at them and sits down at a rocking chair. “Of course, son. Come meet Nicholas. You, too, Joey. I bet your little brother really wants to meet you.”
Joe creeps forward slowly, standing on his tiptoes to see into the bundle of blankets Daddy held.
Nicholas is red and squishy. He isn’t at all remarkable, eyes shut and mouth working at nothing. Joe isn’t impressed.
“He’s boring,” Joe whines.
Daddy laughs, “You were, too, when you were a baby. You won’t think he’s boring when he’s hungry. This little one has lungs to match yours, Joseph.”
Joe is still watching the baby, waiting for it to do a trick or something. Maybe then, he can see why Mommy and Daddy like it so much. Nicholas’ face screws up and then his eyes blink open. Joe gasps, his world narrowing quite quickly until it is only Joe drowning in dark eyes and a beautiful soul.
Joe smiles so wide his cheeks hurt.
Kevin kisses his first girl when he’s twelve. Joe, ten years old and curious, can’t stop thinking about it.
“Think about it, Nicky,” Joe says as they sit and color. Joe really isn’t that fond of coloring; after a while, he gets bored and wants to do something else like play ball outside or sneak cookies out of the jar on the counter. “Where does your nose go?”
Nick shrugs. “Why kiss girls anyway, Joey? Girls are gross,” he pauses in his coloring long enough for his nose to wrinkle up, “Girls have cooties.”
Joe rolls his eyes, “Nuh-uh. Only stupid babies think that.”
“I’m not a baby!” Nick protests.
Joe fiddles with a bright yellow crayon. He likes yellow. It reminds him of the sun and flowers and butterflies. “Do you think it’s fun?”
Nick frowns, “Being a baby?”
“No, doofus. Kissing.”
Nick shrugs again. “Not if you’re kissing girls.”
“You have to kiss girls. You can’t go around kissing boys.”
“Why not?” Nick is finally looking up from his coloring, his unruly curls flopping into his eyes. Joe absently brushes them away like their mom always does. Mom says that Nick needs a haircut but Nick absolutely hate haircuts and kicks and screams whenever someone brings scissors near his head.
“Because. Boys don’t kiss boys.”
“Why. Not.” Nick repeats and he has that insistent tone that Joe kind of hates.
“Because,” Joe scowls. He doesn’t exactly know why, he just knows that’s the way things are. Nick is always asking questions, always wanting to know why. It’s kind of annoying.
“Well that’s a stupid answer.”
Joe scowls even more. Seriously, Nick is like seven! He shouldn’t sound like he’s smarter than Joe. Nick is totally not smarter than Joe.
“Shut up, Nicholas.”
Nick cocks his head to the side and he’s clearly not paying any attention to what Joe’s saying, otherwise he’d be glaring and pinching Joe’s arm really hard because that’s what Nick does when he’s angry. He pinches. Hard.
Joe is still lost somewhere in his head when Nick surges forward and kisses him. His lips are dry and chapped against Joe’s, small and warm. Joe sits, kinda frozen and unable to think.
Nick sits back and blinks at Joe for a second. “Kissing is stupid.” He decides and returns to his coloring.
Joe’s first girlfriend is small and pretty. Her hair is soft and blonde and her eyes are big and blue and she’s the prettiest girl in his class. He’s lucky. Or, at least, that’s what Kevin says after he walks her home that first time. Kevin high fives him, too.
Nick rolls his eyes and says the girl must be stupid, if she likes Joe. He doesn’t even look up from his guitar, the one he can just barely play.
“You’re just jealous, Nicky,” Joe teases.
“Of what, your giant forehead,” Nick mutters absently, focusing determinedly on a difficult chord progression that’s completely kicking his ass.
Joe shoves Nick off the bed they’re sitting on. Nick hits his elbow on Joe’s dresser and his guitar skids across the floor.
“Joseph! Why’d you do that, you jerk!”
Joe leans back against his wall and props his foot up on his knee. He makes a face at the state of the bottom of his shoe and starts picking at the dried gum stuck there. “You’re jealous because I have a girlfriend and you’re just a loser.”
Nick drops onto Kevin’s bed opposite Joe and situates his guitar back into his lap. He starts absently practicing chords and runs, eyes fixed upon the strings. “I am not.”
“Sure.”
“I,” Nick pauses for a moment, takes a deep breath, and holds it. When he exhales, it’s a rush of syllables that tumble and slur together, “I don’t like girls.”
Joe looks at him for a moment and frowns. “Well, duh. You’re eleven.”
Nick rolls his eyes. “When you were eleven, you were obsessed with kissing girls.”
“That’s because I’m more mature than you.”
Nick snorts, and yah. It’s pretty laughable, Joe being any kind of mature. Nick picks at his guitar, Joe picks at his shoe, and for a while it’s just silence aside from the twanging of the guitar.
“Are you sure?” Joe asks, looking up after a moment.
“Yah,” Nick sighs.
Joe isn’t sure what to say, but that’s okay because Frankie runs in with chocolate smeared across his face. He tries to climb up into Nick’s lap, laughing and giggling and getting chocolate all over Nick’s clothes and Kevin’s sheets. Joe laughs and stands up, picks up Frankie and tosses him over his shoulder.
“Bath time!”
Frankie shrieks with laughter.
Joe is scared.
He and Nick had been at home, Kevin and their parents off attending Frankie’s soccer game. They were playing video games, laughing and shoving at each other. Nick hadn’t been feeling well, had been pale and clammy and their mother had let Joe stay home with him. They were eating ice cream and joking around, having fun.
It was their third game of MarioKart and Joe was winning. He looked over to gloat and froze.
Nick was pale and sweating hard, eyes a little unfocused. He licked at his lips and dragged his eyes up to meet Joe’s.
“Nick? Are you okay?” Joe asked slowly.
“Joey… I don’t feel good.”
“Let’s… get you into bed. You look like you need to lie down or something.”
“Yah… yah.”
Joe helped Nick to stand and started for the stairs.
“Joey…”
All of a sudden Nick was dead weight in his arms. And that’s when Joe started freaking: when his baby brother passed out cold and he had no idea what to do.
So, yah. Joe is scared. He’s in the waiting room, pacing. He wants Kevin because Kevin makes things better, and he wants his mom to hold him and pet his hair because he feels about six, but most of all he wants Nicky and he wants him healthy and okay.
“Joseph!”
Joe nearly cries with relief and clings to his mom when she pulls him into a hug. Kevin looks scared, holding Frankie who is crying, and their father is trying to soothe him as best he can. Their mom strokes Joe’s hair and makes him look into her eyes.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know! We were just goofing around and, and playing video games and he just… just collapsed! And they won’t tell me anything and won’t let me see him and he was… he was so still and I didn’t know what to do!”
“Joey, baby, you did great. You did fine.”
She soothes her hand through his hair and pulls him to her, hugging him again. Joe’s chin knocks against her shoulder, because he’s just a little taller than his mother, and his mouth presses into her shirt and then he really is crying, fat tears rolling down his cheeks. His sobs are muffled and just a little terrifying, echoing off the fabric his face is pressed against and back into his ears.
Nick has to be okay because Joe doesn’t know what he’d do without him.
Nick knocks lightly on the door before he sticks his head in. Joe looks up from where he’s been scowling up at the ceiling.
“What do you want?”
“I… I’m sorry.”
“Yah right.”
Nick sighs, stepping into the room and closing the door behind him. “I am. I shouldn’t have. Done that.”
Joe looks back at the ceiling. He doesn’t understand. Nick usually has his back.
“Why did you?”
“I… I don’t know.”
“Nick.”
Nick sighs again. “I can’t explain it.”
“You fucking owe me some kind of explanation.”
Nick doesn’t call Joe on his language, but Joe kinda figured he wouldn’t. Nick doesn’t look up from where he’s staring at the floor. He looks sad and guilty and sincere. Joe has to keep staring at the ceiling or he’s gonna crack and Nick - Nick totally doesn’t deserve his forgiveness on this one. Not when its Nick’s fault he’s grounded for the next month, Nick’s fault Lauren isn’t ever going to talk to him again, Nick’s fault their parents crashed the party he was at, just in time to catch Lauren blowing Joe.
Nick slides down until he’s sitting on the floor, head resting against the door. “I was jealous.”
“Of me?”
“Of… Of her.”
“What? Nick, that doesn’t even make sense.”
Nick groans. “I hate that she has you! You’re supposed to be mine.”
Joe’s eyes widen and he bolts upright. “Nick!”
Nick is blushing but he doesn’t look away when Joe meets his gaze.
“I’m sorry.”
The first time Joe kisses Nick -that first time when they were seven and ten not counting because Nick had totally kissed him -it’s raining. Joe is goofing off, as always, and is being chased by Nick through the house. Joe is waving Nick’s cell phone around, shouting about calling Selena or something (because, as far as Joe knows, he is still the only one that knows that Nick doesn’t like girls). Nick is yelling at him to give it back and their dad is yelling at them to knock it off and Kevin is shouting about how he’s trying to study, can they just shut up?
Nick chases Joe outside and in a matter of seconds, they’re both soaked to the bone. Joe turns, grinning broadly, and there’s Nick. Except he doesn’t look anything like Nick, not the brother that Joe has grown up around.
Nick’s curls are dripping, clinging to his face. He’s pale and his eyes are dark and he looks unearthly in the moonlight. Nick is the poetic one but Joe thinks he could write whole sonnets about Nick’s beauty at that moment, like Nick is some sort of girl. Joe is frozen in place, unable to breathe, and Nick is still smiling, still laughing.
Joe drops Nick’s cell phone but neither of them notice when it splashes into a puddle of wet mud. Joe’s already reaching for Nick, one hand sliding around his neck, thumb brushing his jaw, the other arm looping around his waist to draw him closer. They’re standing in their front yard, visible to anyone who happened to glance outside, and Joe can’t bring himself to care because Nick is so fucking beautiful staring at him with those dark eyes. He can hear the hitch in his brother’s breath, almost groans when Nick licks nervously at his chapped lips.
When Joe finally kisses him, it isn’t like how he remembers. Nick’s lips are wet, from rain and spit, and cold. They’re soft and part willingly, eagerly, beneath his own. Nick’s hands find his hips, clutching at them desperately, and a tiny whimper echoes from the back of Nick’s throat.
There is a sense of finality and Joe knows nothing will ever be the same, but he’s fine with that.
Nick is Joe’s first and only love for three years, seven months, fifteen days, and nine hours. And then he meets Demi.
Demi is pretty and smart and funny. She likes to goof around and have a good time. They’re lab partners during Joe’s final semester at college and Joe falls head over heels for her within the first week.
Joe brings Demi home during Thanksgiving. Their parents love her, Kevin and his fiancé love her, and Frankie loves her. Nick hates her, but then Joe was kind of expecting that.
Joe spends Christmas away from Demi -they both have families that miss them and love them -but he drives up to see her for New Year’s. Nick doesn’t talk to Joe for two weeks for that.
Demi comes home with Joe again during spring break and Nick sulks in his room for most of the visit. On their final day, Joe has had enough.
“Nicky.”
“Go away, Joseph.”
Joe climbs into bed with Nick, curls their bodies together. They always fit together perfectly, as if they were two halves of a whole. Joe believed whole-heartedly that he and Nick belonged together, two parts of something amazing.
“I will always love you more.”
“I hate her, Joey. I hate her and you can’t ask me not to.”
“Give her a chance.”
“I can’t. I love you and she gets you. It isn’t fair.”
“I’ll always love you more.”
“I know. But it isn’t enough anymore.”
Joe asks Demi to marry him two years, three months, and six days later. Nick hangs up when Joe tells him and doesn’t call back for over a month. He doesn’t RSVP to the wedding, but Joe knows he’ll be there. Kevin stands up as best man.
Joe wonders off sometime during the reception, while Demi talks with his mom and beams happily. Nick is in the chapel, sitting in a back pew, and Joe finds him easily.
Nick kisses him desperately and Joe lets him. Joe clutches at Nick’s curls and kisses back and his heart fills with so much love he thinks it might burst. Nick whines and whimpers when he pulls away.
Joe lets their foreheads touch and tries to smile but if he succeeds at all, it’s twisted and ugly. He presses a final kiss to Nick’s forehead and walks away.
Their hearts break in tandem.