Oreos for Breakfast: Nick BSB Fiction

Oreos for Breakfast - Chapter 15
By The Paperbag Princess and The Pumpkin Coach

Sex with Damon had certainly never been like that. Nick rolled off of me, and we both laid there for a moment, gasping for breath. Damon didn't have a fraction of Nick's passion. Nick couldn't keep his hands off of me, he couldn't tell me enough times how gorgeous and sexy and amazing I was. Damon never told me I was pretty. Hell, all Damon ever did was tell me what I was doing wrong.

Turning my head, I stroked his face, making him look at me. I loved the way he looked at me, that little smile that I knew was only mine. "I love you."

His smiled deepened and he kissed me. "I love you, too." Moving away from him, I sat up, and it was only then that I realized. "Damnit, Nick," I snapped.

"What?" Worried, he sat up, reaching out for me.

"We didn't use a condom! Again!"

"Oh, god, sorry, I just…" His face was so worried, I laughed, interrupting him.

"No, I'm sorry for snapping. I'm overtired and I'm overwrought and …" I stopped myself. Seeing Damon had freaked me out, Nick did not need to know all about that. What the hell was I doing, comparing the two of them? Fucking Damon.

"And you're what?" Nick asked softly, playing with my hair, smoothing it back behind my shoulders.

"I'm hungry." I was, I had barely eaten all day with the excitement. No wonder I was freaking out. I kissed him. We'd eat and make love again, and Damon would go back to that locked room in the corner of my mind where he belonged.

"I'll order us something," he said, jumping up and offering me his hand. I took it, standing up beside him.

"And I'll go clean up. That's the worst thing about no condoms, its much messier," I complained, making him laugh. "Yeah, you laugh, you're not dealing with it."

"I'll help clean you up," he leered, and I pushed him away.

"Order dinner. Or breakfast, whatever. What time is it?" I looked around the room, finding the clock on the TV. 3 am. I had to leave in 4 hours. We looked at each other for a moment, and I could feel my chest ache.

God, I was a fucking mess. I needed something to eat. I could sleep on the plane soon.

"Stop it!" he said, kissing me. "We'll worry in a few hours. Don't look so sad, Rache."

I wrapped my arms around him, leaning my head against his chest. "Sorry. I'm totally strung out."

He rubbed my back. "It's okay. It's been a long day. And…" he hesitated, but then went on. "Have you seen Damon since you left him?"

Did it show? I shook my head against him. "No. And I didn't expect to see him tonight. Thank you."

"For what? I shoulda decked him."

I smiled. "Thank you for just being there. Oh!" I looked up at him. "And thank you for dissing Willa!"

He laughed. "How did you hear about that?"

"She told me."

He jumped back, shocked. "She told you?"

"We do not get the option of dissing an interview, darling. I went from catching a glimpse of Damon to her whining in front of me."

"Yeah, she whines well. Did she seem pissed off?" He looked happy at that thought, and I grinned at him.

"Dunno. I wasn't paying a lot of attention. I'm sure it's on film somewhere, and I'm sure we're gonna get to see it."

"Cool!" he crowed. "Our publicist tried to get me to talk to her, and I said no. Fuck that, I'm not pretending I like her for even a 30 second interview, after the shit she's pulled."

I kissed him. "I love you."

He grinned at me, and my heart stopped. I loved his smile. That smile sold a million records, and now it was right here in front of me, all mine. "I love that you love me for dissing Mandy. Howie was all pissed off."

"Ah, that's sweet Howie D. Why wasn't he at the party tonight? He was looking fine."

"Hey…" he pouted, and I danced away from him towards the bathroom.

"Get me some dinner, or I'll start the rumors that I'm dating Howie, not AJ." I caught his pout as I shut the door on him and giggled. I jumped, seeing myself in the mirror. I couldn't get used to straight hair, it was too weird. I wondered if Nick liked it. He hadn't said anything.

I grinned at myself in the mirror. No, he just ravished me on the dance floor, and in the bathroom at that club, and just now on the living room floor. I felt safe in assuming that he approved of the hair.

Five minutes later, I found him picking up our scattered clothes, and he frowned when he saw me dressed in the hotel robe. "I like you better naked," he informed me, and I fell into the couch with a grin.

"I'm sure the room service waiter will, too. What did you get me?"

"A burger."

"So uninspired," He started to pout again, and I shrugged. "That's okay, you used up all your brain power on the sex."

Laughing, he sat next to me, sliding his hand under my robe to touch my thigh. "You looked so amazing tonight, I couldn't help myself."

"What do you think of the straight hair?"

He pretended to consider it for a moment. "It's hot."

"It better be, it took forever."

"It was worth it. All the fellas were impressed."

I smirked at him. "AJ did say so."

He moved closer, kissing me. "I'll say so all night if you want. You are completely gorgeous, Rache."

He was so good for my ego. I needed that tonight, after seeing Damon and getting the sell out lecture. Nick kissed me again, running his hand farther up my thigh. "I like having sex without a condom. Can we make a habit of it?"

My breath caught in my throat, and I moved away from him. "No."

I could feel his smile as he leaned back into me, kissing my neck. "Please? I know you enjoyed it. I have the scars on my back to prove it." His hand moved higher again, and I caught it, standing up and moving away from him, pretending to look for something in my bag. We were quiet for a moment, and I felt bad for ruining our fun. But I didn't even want to joke about it. Especially after just seeing Damon.

"I'm sorry, Rache," he said quietly. "I just thought, since we're not sleeping around, and we're both negative and you're on the Pill, why bother?"

Oh, god, I've got him all worried now. Damnit. I should have just joked him out of the topic, instead of freaking out. Damnit. I turned around, candles in hand, and his face was so confused and hurt and angry that I just gave up.

It wasn't fair of me to dump this on him, but I had to. Usually I could ignore it. It and Damon and everything associated with that time… well, except Dad. I couldn't lock my thoughts of Dad away, but everything else I could. But not tonight, it was bothering me too much, haunting every other thought. Putting the candles on the table, I went back to the couch, taking his hands in mine.

"I'm going to tell you something that no one else in the world knows," I started, taking a deep breath and looking up at him. His eyebrows went up as he searched my face. "It's something pretty terrible, and I hope you don't hate me for it."

Oh god, oh god, we've never talked about any of this. What if he's all Christian and pro-life and he won't respect me any more? I dropped my eyes from his, playing with his hand in mine. "And it's stupid. It's the stupidest thing I've ever done." Managing to take another deep breath before I lost my nerve, I said it. "The last few weeks I was with Damon, I knew about the baby. He wanted that baby so bad, he was beside himself. So… I thought maybe if I could give him a baby, he would stay with me, and pick me."

I glanced up at Nick, but he was still lost. Damnit. I looked back at his hand in mine, tracing the lines in his palm. Would one of them tell me how many babies he would have? "We didn't have sex that often, so it was easy enough to just hide the condoms. And I stopped taking the Pill. I wasn't trying to get pregnant really… I was just… I don't know, maybe just removing the obstacles. Who knew it would work?"

I heard him gasp, but I couldn't look at him. "I didn't figure it out until after my dad died, and by then I'd come to the conclusion that Damon was a loser. I was only steps away from a complete mental breakdown, so I didn't really have much of a choice."

"Oh, my god. Rache…" he whispered, his voice unsure.

I looked up at him, blinking back tears. "I'm not proud of it, Nick. But that's why the thought of sex without a condom sorta freaks me out tonight. And that's why I'm freaked out about seeing Damon."

There was a knock at the door and we both jumped. "I'll get it," I told him, glad for something to distract us. I wrote the guy a huge tip and wheeled the cart inside, taking a minute to put the plates on the coffee table. Nick just watched me, silent. I tried to pick up our drinks, but my hands were shaking too badly, and instead I fell into the nearest chair.

"Say something, please," I whispered. "Even if you think abortion is horrible and wrong, you have to admit I couldn't have had that baby."

"Oh, Rache!" he exclaimed, coming over to me and kneeling in front of my chair. "I don't think it's horrible and wrong. Well… I've never really thought about it at all, actually."

"Lucky you," I muttered. "Believe me, the personal is a lot different than the political. It was a horrible decision to make."

"I know, I can tell. I just… I don't know what to say." He considered me for a moment. "No one else knows?"

I shook my head. "No one. I was too embarrassed."

"Not even Damon?"

I snorted, getting up and finding my dinner. If I ate something, I'd be more rational. "Especially Damon. I was there when he was trying to figure out what to do with Suzi and Missy. I knew what my options were with him, and none of them were good. Better not to reopen contact at all."

"So, before tonight, you haven't seen him since… when?" He joined me on the couch, stealing one of my fries.

The food needed to hit my system soon. I was way too overwrought. Just the fact that he was sitting next to me brought tears to my eyes. "You really don't think I'm an idiot?" I whispered.

"Rache! No, of course not." He cupped my face in his hands, kissing me. "I have done plenty of stupid things myself. Nothing like this, but… no." Kissing my forehead, he let me go, reaching for his food. "When was the last time you saw Damon?"

"When I slammed the door in his face on my way out of his house the day my dad died."

"No wonder you're so freaked out tonight. Did you want to tell him?"

"No," I snorted. "No. I didn't even… I… I didn't really think about it until just now. I don't really feel guilty about having an abortion, I just feel stupid. What the fuck was I thinking?"

We were quiet for a moment, picking at our food. I could tell he wanted to say something but was nervous about upsetting me. He was so sweet that way sometimes.

I put my plate down, suddenly not hungry any longer. "You can say it, bunny. What did I ever see in him, right?"

He met my eyes, surprised and a little amused. "He was kinda an ass, Rache. And is he the reason you hate pot? He was toasted tonight, wasn't he?"

I rolled my eyes. "He's always fucking toasted. And so was I, when I was with him." Sighing, I pulled my knees up to my chest. I didn't want to think about this. I didn't want to ruin this otherwise amazing fucking night. I didn't want to waste my precious time with Nick thinking about Damon.

She was upset, I could see it. She'd barely touched her dinner, and now she was curled up on the couch, her mind a million miles away from me.

Fucking British asshole. I should have punched him when I had the chance.

I put my plate down and pulled her into my arms, hugging her tightly. "Talk," I told her. "Tell me about him, you never really have."

She shook her head against my chest. "I have already wasted so much of my life on him. We only have a few hours, I don't want to waste any more."

I kissed the top of her head. "Maybe if you talk about it, you'll stop thinking about it." What the fuck? Since when am I the grown-up here? I didn't want to hear about him! "Have you been thinking about him all night?"

She was quiet for a moment. "Sorta. I keep realizing how wonderful you are in comparison to him."

I had to smile at that. I knew he was cooler than me, I knew that Blur was supposedly one of the best bands in the world, and I sang sappy pop songs. He'd be good for her image, not like me. "Do I have a bigger dick?"

She cracked up, moving away from me to laugh more, and I giggled with her, pleased that I'd made her happy again. "So like a man," she finally managed to say between giggles. "And you do, for the record. Even if you didn't, it hardly matters, you're a much better lover."

Okay, I liked hearing that. She reached for her food again, and I knew she was feeling better. I gave her a cocky smirk and she grinned back.

"You're in a different league, bunny. It could have something to do with the fact that you actually love me."

"Or just that I'm better."

She giggled. "Or that. Both. Dunno. I just… I wasn't very happy when I was with him."

"Then why were you?" I got Jeremy. It had taken a while, but I got it. She'd told me about when they'd first gotten together, and they'd been happy for a long time. But Damon? That was a mystery to me.

She sighed, considering her burger. "Revenge, maybe? Jeremy and I were at the end of our long saga of breaking up, and there was Damon fucking Albarn." She said his name in a tone of awe, not the normal aggravated tone that usually accompanied those words. "I mean… Blur is a fucking awesome band. Getting the opening slot was such a coup for us, and we spent the first few weeks just dazzled to be near them. Then Graham and I hit it off, and Jeremy just hated it. He wanted to be in with them, not have me do it. And Damon started paying attention to me, and Jeremy and I had the final fuck off fight- not that I really knew that at the time- and Graham and Damon helped me out that night."

"Was that the lighter fluid on the clothes and the fucked up CDs?" I asked, and she nodded.

"Yeah, the tour was in New York that night. No show, but I ran into Graham and Damon, and they came over and helped me clean up… that was the night Damon and I wrote 'Long Island'," she remembered.

"You were writing songs?" I had to ask, and she smiled.

"Sure," she shrugged. "We might have been a bit drunk." She shook her head, looking back at me. "We had to finish the tour. Jeremy was around, and it was so easy to hang with Damon and just rub it in his face that I'd moved on. Not that I really had… Damon and I didn't hook up until later, but Jeremy certainly didn't need to know that."

"So Damon was rebound guy?"

She looked at me for a long moment, and finally smiled. "I guess he was. I never thought about it that way, I was so busy feeling like his rebound girl. But I guess we were just using each other, and it got way out of hand. I was in New York, and he was in London, and it was just falling apart, so I went to London."

I set my plate on the table and then leaned back on the couch, studying her. "Why? I don't get that, Rache."

"I thought I needed to save the relationship," she shrugged. "Stupid girl makes a stupid decision. Oldest story in the book."

I shook my head and just watched her as she took another bite of her burger. "But you left James. You didn't talk to him that whole time you were gone." I still couldn't believe that. James and Rachel did everything together. I couldn't imagine her without him standing right there.

She placed her plate next to mine carefully and curled up on the couch again, considering my question. "I picked the boy, instead of the band. The band was always in the middle of every decision Jeremy and I ever made about our relationship, and I very consciously decided with Damon at that point that I needed to pick the boy. I was… I was not happy, Nick. I felt like a total failure, and I thought that maybe Damon was my best bet for success. I could settle down with him and make him happier than Justine ever had. She was a musician, too, and I knew they'd broken up because she couldn't stand the constant competition of their bands. So I gave up on my band and went to follow the boy."

I didn't even know what to say. It's like she was talking about a different person. Sudden Silence was everything to Rachel. It wasn't just the music, the guys were her family. I couldn't imagine her picking me over the band, ever.

"It was stupid," she said, bitterly. "It was the biggest fucking mistake of my life. If I'd had an ounce of self-confidence, I would have told Damon to fuck off. But he was fucking with said self-confidence, and he was the great Damon Albarn, so of course he had to be right when he said that we'd never get anywhere, right?" She smirked at me. "And who got fucking ignored tonight at the VMAs, huh?"

"Not you, baby," I told her, making her grin. I reached over and took her hand in mine, needing to touch her, connect with her somehow as she relived all of this in her mind.

"Not me. He accused me of selling out, but I know we didn't. We made the album we wanted to make, and we were finally at the right place at the right time. You gave us a bump with airplay, and Em made a great video, but that's still my song that's getting play. Fuck him."

Suddenly she leaned over, kissing me, and I pulled her onto my lap, wrapping my arm around her as she settled against me.

"I love that you love my music." She grinned up at me, pushing the hair out of my eyes to see me better. "He never did. He was always giving me fucking advice, and he convinced me that we weren't very good. But we are."

"You're a great band, Rache." They were. I was sometimes jealous of how great they were, just the four of them. They didn't need producers and songwriters and actual musicians. They had that all with just themselves.

"I'm never forgetting that again. I try not to regret the time I spent with him, because that's what I learned: that a man can't make me happy, but the band can. But sometimes I wish it hadn't hurt so damn much to learn it. I was so… stupid. I had to have a fucking abortion because of him. I know how to use birth control."

I kissed her forehead. "Very well, yes."

"I'm sorry, Nick. You're right, we could probably stop using condoms, but I just can't… at least not tonight. Maybe we can have this discussion another time."

I shook my head, stroking her face. "I think I get it. I can't… no one else knows? Not even James?"

"No. I was so fucked up then. It wasn't really… it was a big deal, but I was in so much pain from Dad dying that it was almost a relief to think about something else. I couldn't tell Mom, she had her own problems. I was too embarrassed to tell James. We were just figuring out how to be friends again, and I felt like I was taking so much from him already, I didn't want to tell him. So I… I took care of it myself."

"Did you ever think of… um… keeping it?" Should I even ask that? Was that insensitive? I had no idea.

She shook her head, her eyes never leaving mine. "No. Not really. I could not have possibly had a child then. I was too selfish and too miserable and on too many damn drugs. I meant it when I said I did a lot of pot with Damon, and that's when I got pregnant. Then when I got home, they had me on these massive sleeping pills and anti-depressants, and I was drinking a lot. I loathed myself for getting pregnant, I was such a fool. I really only had one choice."

I just nodded, not sure of what to say. Her life. I certainly didn't think she should have had the baby. I knew how screwed up she was then, sorta, and that could not have been good.

She reached out, tracing my face with her fingertips. I loved it when she did that, like she was trying to memorize the feel of me. "I had to figure out how to love myself before I could love anyone again. You have no idea how many times I thought about just taking that entire bottle of sleeping pills and not waking up again, because waking up always… hurt. I had to remember everything all over again, that I was stupid and foolish and I'd ruined my band and Daddy was gone. The only reason I didn't is because I couldn't do that to my mom."

"Rachel…" I whispered. I had no idea… sure, I knew it was bad, I guess it even made some sick sort of sense. But a world without Rachel?

She smiled at me, erasing the worry lines from my forehead gently. "It's okay, bunny. Don't look so scared. That's in the past. I've figured it out now. I'm happy, and I am a pretty cool chick, I know that now. But… Damon is all tied up there with Dad dying. I can't quite separate the two. That's why I hate talking about him. Hell, I don't think about him if I can help it. I knew seeing him again would rattle me, but I thought it would happen next month, when we are in London. I'm glad it was tonight, because you were there, and you're here now, listening to me whine."

"You're not whining," I assured her, and she kissed me quickly.

"Thank you for making me talk about him. I might be able to make love to you now and not compare you to him."

I grinned. "But that's okay, because I'll win."

Giggling, she kissed me again, but this time she didn't pull away quickly. No. I opened my mouth to her and her soft tongue explored me. I melted into her kiss, never wanting to move away. But she finally pulled back, "You so definitely do."

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