by Zoicite
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Nick brings the game with him when they go out on tour. He carries it around with his laptop in a black carrying case, hauling it into meetings with him in case they go long and he gets bored. It’s probably rude, pulling out a computer game in the middle of a business meeting, but most of the people they do business with know Nick. Nick fiddling with a computer is a lot less annoying than Nick bored with nothing to do but harass Howie. Even Kevin approves of the computer distraction. At least Nick looks like he’s doing work. As long as no one looks at the screen. “What’s that?” Howie asks, peering over Nick’s shoulder. Nick rolls his eyes. Howie never keeps up with cool stuff. “A computer game,” Nick grunts, clicking the mouse around, “The Sims.” “Oh,” Howie says, squinting at the screen a little, “I think I’ve heard of that.” “Yeah,” Nick agrees, “Probably. Unless you’ve been living under a rock.” Howie just nods and watches Nick play.  Nick adds Howie to the neighborhood the next morning. It doesn’t really look like Howie, but then it looks more like Howie than the Nick in the game looks like him. At least fake Howie has long hair, dark skin. Nick can’t remember ever having or even wanting a buzz cut. He thinks about writing to the company and telling them that a large percentage of the population still cuts their hair by sticking a bowl over their heads and snipping around it. They really shouldn’t alienate that group in their character options. Nick gets fed up with himself pretty quick. He doesn’t clean up after himself, and sometimes he gets so depressed that he won’t even look in the mirror or pick up the newspaper. He has no friends except for Howie and some fat balding slob that drops by everyday. Bob somebody or other. And Howie is a loser. He works in some lab and he wears a lab coat and Nick is pretty sure he hangs around with the weird gothic family with the cemetery in their backyard. Plus Howie only drops by at night. Nick keeps getting flashbacks of the Everybody video. Howie watches Nick play sometimes. It gets pretty annoying because Howie can’t even fucking type well, Nick doesn’t know how he is going to understand such a sophisticated game. Howie asks questions every five minutes. “Howie, he can’t get through if I put that table there,” Nick rolls his eyes. “Why not? It looks like there’s space,” Howie points at the screen and Nick swats his hand away before he can touch. “Look,” Nick clicks on the home maintenance mode button, “It’s all set up in a grid. You need at least one grid square for your Sim to get by.” “Oh,” Howie frowns, “that’s kind of silly.” “Yeah,” Nick agrees just to shut him up. Howie’s quiet for a while, but he still watches and even that is starting to get on Nick’s nerves. He thinks about doing something to drive Howie away. Insult him or something. “Hey,” Howie says as Sim Howie walks up to Sim Nick’s door, “Is that supposed to be me?” “Yeah,” Nick says, and Sim Nick ignores Sim Howie. “Really?” Howie asks, “cool.” Nick sticks AJ, Brian, and Kevin in a house together because he’s too lazy to build them all separate homes, but he wants more people to befriend. Sim Kevin doesn’t get along very well with Sim AJ and Sim Brian. Mostly because Brian keeps trying to compliment Kevin, but Kevin has a stick up his ass and would rather insult everyone around him. Nick employs Sim Kevin in the military. “Going clubbin’. Want to come?” AJ dances into Nick’s hotel room, same as he does every night lately. “No thanks,” Nick says, same as he does every night. Nick doesn’t like the club scene. It’s hot and everyone is all over each other, and you sort of need to know how to dance. Nick likes it once in awhile, but not usually with just AJ. AJ usually gets drunk, hooks up, and leaves Nick behind. Nick thinks he’s probably more of a bar guy. He likes to play darts and talk over beer that tastes like piss. “No? What are you going to do if you don’t go?” AJ asks. Nick shrugs and AJ dances back out the door singing some made up song about Nick being boring. It doesn’t even rhyme. On the screen, Nick gets a promotion. “I started a fire in the stove on my bus last night,” Howie says, sitting next to Kevin. “Lucky you didn’t burn the whole thing down,” Kevin grunts from behind his newspaper. Kevin is usually bitter until about noon. Howie rolls his eyes and winks at Nick. "That’s really weird,” Nick muses. “What?” AJ asks, stuffing some toast in his mouth, “that Howie can’t cook?” “No,” Nick says and Howie says, “Hey! I can cook.” “What?” AJ asks again. “Remember that time I made that really good Dijon chicken thing?” Nick pinches the skin on the back of his hand, “You started the stove on fire in the game, D. And your one good meal was four years ago. Not really something to brag about.” “Really? The stove?” Howie asks, removing his hand from where it was yanking at the back of AJ’s hair. “Yeah.” “Oooh,” AJ says, “The game knows.” Nick and Howie laugh. Kevin just snorts a little, and Brian finally arrives for breakfast. “You should make this game more interesting,” AJ says the day he decides to ride on Nick’s bus, “We need to have affairs and shit.” “There’s no one to have an affair with but us. Wanna sleep with Kev?” “Fuck no,” AJ says, going to talk to the driver for awhile. Nick adds a house of chicks with big boobs and small clothes to the neighborhood. Nick is staring at the screen and frowning when Howie walks in. “What’s wrong, Nicky?” he asks, climbing onto the bed and scooting up against the headboard beside Nick. “Brian and AJ are in love with each other,” Nick says. He exits out of the house and goes back in, but no, still in love. “Hah!,” Howie grabs at the computer, turning it so he can see, “You made them fall in love?!” “No,” Nick pulls the computer back from Howie, “I swear I didn’t. They weren’t even really friends last time I played.” He bites his lower lip and stares at the screen where AJ is giving Brian a backrub. Nick doesn’t really know what to say when he walks into Brian’s hotel room and sees AJ pressing him to the bed and kissing him. With tongue. The door was ajar, so it’s not like Nick thought he’d be interrupting anything if he came in and asked Brian about the schedule. He turns to leave, but accidentally knocks over a lamp instead. Fucking klutz, he thinks, and squints his eyes shut, because there’s no way Brian and AJ didn’t notice that. “Nick,” Brian says, and Nick turns a little, just enough so that he can glance at them over his shoulder. “I was just,” he starts. AJ laughs and rubs a hand under Brian’s shirt, across his stomach. Brian swats his hand away. “You guys.” “Yeah,” AJ grins, eyeing Brian. “But you’re –“ Nick just can’t fathom this. Brian’s married and he just never. No. Nick never would have seen this coming. Brian shrugs and Nick narrows his eyes and shakes his head a little because it makes absolutely no fucking sense, Brian just shrugging off his marriage. Finally Nick just says “ok,” and walks back out of the room. He thinks he hears Brian and AJ laughing a little, but all he can see is AJ’s hand beneath Brian’s shirt. Sim Howie is in Sim Nick’s house every time Nick turns the game on. He’s never there when Nick leaves, because Nick thinks that Sim Howie is annoying, and usually ignores him when he rings the doorbell. Yet, there he is sitting at Sim Nick's dining room table, eating salad because a kitchen fire took out the stove and the dishwasher and Sim Nick hasn't purchased a new one yet. He’s also not sure how Sim Howie became Sim Nick’s best friend. But it helps him get another promotion - he’s a professional party-goer now - so he guesses it all works out in the end. Brian and AJ are sitting close. Closer than they used to, Nick thinks, walking into the backstage area. They look at each other when Nick enters, and then AJ leans over, a hand on Brian’s hip, and kisses him softly on the mouth. Nick looks at Kevin, but Kevin doesn’t seem to think it’s weird. He’s chewing his lip and reading a self-help book and he doesn’t look up until Nick says “Kev?” “Hey Nick,” Kevin says, but he’s distracted, and he pats the cushion beside him for Nick to sit. Nick does and Brian and AJ are still kissing playfully, though it looks like Brian is pushing at AJ’s shoulders a little too. “Kristen keeps asking me about babies.” “What?” Nick says, and turns away from the other guys. It’s funny, because just the other night Sim Kevin married Sim Kristen. Nick had moved Sim Kevin in with him, thinking maybe they’d get along better than Kevin did with Brian and AJ, but it turned out that Sim Kevin is just a bastard, so he added Kristen to the neighborhood to get Kevin out of his hair. And Kristen had asked Kevin if he wanted to have a baby just last night. Howie was there, watching over Nick’s shoulder and eating salted cashews. He was sharing them with Nick, which was the only reason Nick let Howie stay. “What did you say?” Nick asks. Brian is standing up now, looking down at AJ and saying something that Nick can’t really hear. It sounds like he tells AJ that he tastes like an ashtray, which Nick would bet is true. And it sounds like AJ retorts by making fun of Howie. Either that or he calls Brian a “fucked up lovesick bastard”. “I said no,” Kevin shrugs, “it’s not really a good time.” Nick’s not surprised. Sim Kevin said no too. “Where the hell is my laptop?” Nick asks, trying to collect his things. He’s already checked his room, and Brian’s. Kevin wouldn’t have it, and Nick mostly steers clear of AJ’s room these days, so Howie’s his last hope. “I dunno,” Howie shrugs, placing the last of his folded clothes into his bag. “Did you leave it at the venue?” Nick didn’t, he didn’t even bring it to the fucking venue. He’s pissed about losing it so he flips Howie off and goes back to his own room where he throws some stuff around then double checks under the bed. The laptop shows up in the bottom of his bag in Minneapolis. Nick knows he didn’t put it there. He’s positive he didn’t, but there it is. He’s not at all shocked when he fires up the game and finds Sim Nick in a bathing suit complimenting Sim Howie by the pool. “How much is he paying you?” Nick demands, walking into AJ’s hotel room after the show. AJ looks like he’s getting ready to go out. Typical, Nick thinks. “What?” AJ mutters, pulling on his favorite black boots, “Who’s paying who what?” “Howie,” Nick says, crossing his arms over his chest. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” “If I come back in a few hours, after you’ve had a few, will you tell me?” Nick pokes at AJ’s shoulder, purposely trying to be obnoxious. “Probably,” AJ says, getting up and walking out of the room, leaving Nick alone. Howie drops by Nick’s room in Sacramento to see if Nick wants to hang out. He even brings snacks. “Sure,” Nick says. He’s lying on his bed, and he reaches over and pulls out his laptop, setting it on his stomach and turning it on. “You still playing that game?” Howie asks, lying beside him and propping his head on his elbows. “yeah,” Nick says, “it seems to take on a life of it’s own.” Howie just smiles and pops a few pretzels into his mouth. They talk for a while, about the show that night mostly, and a little about AJ, who almost didn’t show up on time. “I can’t believe you convinced Brian to do that,” Nick says in the middle of a discussion about the superiority of Lays potato chips to other brands. “Do what?” Howie scrunches up his face in confusion and Nick almost laughs. “I know, D. AJ told me.” “Oh,” Howie says. He’s quiet for a long time and then smiles a little, sad almost. “Brian’ll do anything for a good cause. You want me to leave?” “Nah,” Nick says, clicking some things on the screen, “here, Howie, lookit this.” He turns the laptop so that Howie can see, and Howie cranes his neck, his shoulder bumping Nick’s side. In the corner of the screen one of the chicks with the big boobs and small clothes is booing as Sim Kevin plays the piano, but right in the center stand Sim Nick and Sim Howie. As Howie watches, Sim Nick reaches for Sim Howie, kissing him as little red hearts appear over their heads and sappy music plays. Nick watches Howie, who still looks confused and upset, but his fingers are brushing Nick’s chest a little and he doesn’t look quite as ready to bolt from the room. “You’re a manipulative freak,” Nick smiles, pushing the laptop off of his chest and reaching for Howie’s arm. “You should have just told me.” “You would have laughed and brushed me off." “Yeah, maybe,” Nick shrugs, rolling over toward Howie and leaning in, “this way really was much better.” |