Next Generation Chapter 12
Time for Nick to meet the two people he's been forced to hate all his life. Enjoy the encounter and don't forget to donate to Nifty https://donate.nifty.org/
Chapter 12
\\\ Nick ///
I tried closing my eyes to doze off again but it was no good, I was wide awake and there was no way my eyes were going to stay closed. I knew it was really early as my room was still dark and that was confirmed when I checked my phone to see it was only 6am. I put it back down and lay there a little longer but no matter how hard I tried I just couldn't get back to sleep. Ever since I'd started at the school I'd been prone to panic attacks whenever I was nervous or stressed out about something and I could almost feel one coming on now. Even though it was a Saturday I was still nervous as hell about the day ahead. This was the day I was going to go to see where Lucas lived. This was the day I was going to spend with Lucas...alone...just the two of us, and I just didn't know if I could do it. On top of that I'd probably meet his parents, the two guys I had been almost trained to hate from a young age, but one of them was also one of my favourite artists from some of my favourite comics. I didn't know how to feel about all of those things or if I could even go ahead with our plans, but then I started to worry about how things would be with Lucas if I stood him up, which left me feeling trapped and more anxious.
Time kept dragging on and I could gradually see more light coming through those flowery curtains, telling me that it was at least getting to a more civilised hour. Checking the time again I could see that it was still before 7am and I just flopped back onto the bed with a groan. I finally decided to at least go and make some breakfast, just to kill some time if nothing else. Mum was staying over with Luke again so I had the house to myself but I still had to be fairly quiet as the walls between our house and the neighbour's weren't very soundproof.
As I ate my cereal I kept playing through how things would go with Lucas today but it was hard to imagine as I didn't even know what his place was like. Would we hang out in his bedroom? In Sammie's room? I knew he lived on a farm so would we end up shovelling horse shit, or worse, just sitting in one of the family rooms with his dads, trying to make small talk. I could only think of one course of action to hopefully make the day less awkward but I knew it wouldn't make me very popular.
"This better be important." Ben said groggily from the other end of the phone. I felt a bit bad calling him when the sun had only just risen, but if I'd waited any longer I would have gone insane.
"Hey, uhhh sorry it's a bit early but you got any plans for the day?"
"Well my plan was to sleep in quite late but some fuckwit screwed that up for me." He replied.
"Sorry...uh anyway...I'm going over to see Lucas today and I was wondering if...well...I mean you don't have to if you don't want to but...umm..."
"You want me to come with you in case the big, bad gay boy decides to bum rape you." I couldn't help but smile as Ben said that but I had to play it cool, even though he was right on the money.
"Nooo...of course not...I just kinda thought you might wanna hang out with Sammie and...well I'd be there anyway so I thought we could go together."
"Fine, I'll pick you up at ten." While I was glad he said yes, I still wasn't so happy.
"You don't want to go any earlier?" I asked hopefully.
"For every minute you keep me on this phone I'll add an hour..."
"Okay okay, I'll see you at ten." I quickly ended the call and then checked the time again. I still had nearly three hours to wait, which seemed to stretch out even longer as I paced around.
After what seemed like an eternity I heard a knock at the front door and suddenly realised I'd lost track of time. Since phoning Ben I'd showered and tried on loads of different outfits to see which would look best on me. I'd spent a long time trying to figure out what to do with my hair, but after gelling it and styling it, then putting on some of my smartest looking clothes I looked at myself in the mirror and thought `what the fuck are you doing?' I looked like I'd made far too much effort to just hang out with friends so I quickly washed the gel out and left my hair to do its own thing, then put on some casual, but fairly decent clothes.
When I opened the door Ben was standing there with a bit of a scowl on his face and I figured he'd had about as much luck at getting back to sleep as I did. I gave him a rather sheepish smile and a fist bump as his scowl actually turned into a smile. Dickhead was just trying to make me feel bad. I was glad to see his dad in the car behind him as I knew it'd be quite a walk to get to the farm. I'd met Sam a few times when I'd been into the comic shop to see my mum and he was every bit the same as his twin, even though he was slightly thinner than Luke. All the way to the farm I felt my stomach practicing its own free running skills but listening to the banter between Ben and his dad helped to calm it a little.
We pulled into a nice little road with a few houses along one side and then I could see it leading off to a much narrower track at the end. A little way down I spotted what looked like an old barn on the side of the road and at the end of it was a chest high, wooden gate with Lucas sitting on top. As we approached I saw a big smile cross his face as he hopped down and pushed the gate open for us. We drove past him and into the courtyard and I couldn't help noticing that his usually floppy blond hair was neatly styled and he looked like he'd agonised over picking out the perfect outfit for today.
By the time we'd parked up and got out the car Lucas had made his way over to us.
"Mini me!!!" Sam exclaimed, holding his arms open as Luke had done.
"Ha feckin ha." Lucas replied sarcastically, wrapping Sam up in a hug with an amused smile on his face.
"Hope you don't mind but I bought this dickhead along to hang out with us." Ben said, pointing over to me.
"Yeah I guess he can, I wasn't really expecting him." Lucas replied, flashing me a brilliant smile. I blushed when he did though as I knew he'd clearly made an effort to look good for me. Wait, did this mean Lucas liked me? Oh fuck!! I tried to take my mind off it by looking around the courtyard as Sam asked Lucas if his dads were around. I soon spotted Sammie walking over from what looked like the stables and when she reached us I was surprised when she gave me a warm hug to say hi.
"Hey!! I'm you boyfriend remember?" Ben protested as she released me wrapped him in a hug as well before planting a huge kiss on his lips.
"I don't think I'm ever gonna get used to that." Sam said in mock disgust.
"How do you think I feel?" I turned around to see where that deep yet soft voice came from and was stunned to see an absolute mountain of a man walking over from the main house. The guy was a few inches taller than Sam but I was only at eye level with his chest...which was huge. Even though he was wearing a thick sweater I could still see the shape of the muscles beneath. Looking at the size of this guy I thought he must be able to bench press a tank, and I suddenly felt myself wanting to see him take off that top to marvel at the amazing body I knew had to be hiding under there. He gave Sam a bro hug and I couldn't believe Sam wasn't crapping himself at the size of this guy.
"Hey Josh, the kids wanted to hang out here for a while if that's ok with you." Wait, this is Josh? Lucas and Sammie's dad? Holy shit!! I remembered Sammie saying that Lucas was actually Josh's biological son and I suddenly got to wondering how successful Lucas could actually be with his plans to `bulk up a little.' I could definitely tell Josh and Lucas were related as, facially at least; they looked very similar, even down to the same hairstyle and dazzling blue eyes.
"Sure not a problem." He replied, and then fixed me with a glare that nearly made me wet myself. "So you must be Nick."
"Ye...yes sir." I replied, trying to lock my knees so I didn't collapse through fright.
"Hmmm...Brandon's kid." He grunted, still with a look of utter contempt on his face as I meekly nodded. "I remember your dad, he was an absolute cunt." I didn't know what to say, I know I'd hated this guy all my life but now that the feeling seemed to be mutual it was really scary, especially considering this guy could probably kill me with his little finger.
"Knock it off DJ; he's not Brandon so lay off him." Sammie was fixing her dad with a deadly stare like she was ready to kick his ass to defend me. Looking over his body though I didn't think she'd be too successful.
"We'll see. At least you don't look like your dad, that's one thing going in your favour." He scowled and then walked back to the house.
"Wow that was intense; I haven't seen him like that for a long time." Sam said. "I'm gonna head off anyway guys, just let me know when you want me to come pick you up." He ruffled Ben's hair and then started walking back to the car. I was so tempted to go running after him to take me home as well but I knew I couldn't.
"Hey, don't worry about DJ; he's a big softy really." Sammie said as we all started to walk away from the house towards one of the outbuildings. I wanted to believe what she'd said but it didn't look like any part of her dad was soft. Hugging him must be like trying to hug a brick wall.
"Why do you call him DJ?" I asked.
"It's short for Daddy Josh." She replied. "It's less confusing than calling them both Dad."
"Ok, I think I'll stick to calling him Josh." I replied, although I was tempted just to call him sir so he didn't turn me into a stain on the floor.
The twins led us over to what they called their studio and I was amazed at the size of it when I walked in. You could almost fit my house inside it and I could definitely see why my dad was jealous of what Alex and Josh had. Lucas was almost like a kid trying to show me his dance studio area and then almost dragged me up to the mezzanine to show me where they liked to just chill out and play games. Now when I say he almost dragged me up there I wasn't kidding. I remember Amber telling me he was stronger than he looked and I now know exactly what she meant. Even though he was eager to show me all of his stuff I was more drawn to Sammie's area. Her drum kit was far superior to the ones in Adrian's shop and she had a couple of guitars, a bass and some amps scattered around which made it look like it was set up for band practice. What I really wanted to get my hand on though was the keyboard and computer set up she had as it looked like you could just create music without even having to have all the instruments there.
While I was still admiring Sammie's gear, Lucas started blasting some music over the sound system and cranked out some pretty silly dances in front of the mirror. He seemed much more relaxed and spontaneous than he had been in the dance studio at school. There he'd been trying to get me to mimic some more elaborate dances but here he was busting out moves like the electro shuffle and even did some pretty good Michael Jackson dances. We spent what must have been over an hour doing random stuff in front of those mirrors; sometimes as a group and sometimes one at a time with Lucas giving us little pointers. The funniest thing was trying to watch Lucas loosen up his flips and tricks to copy Ben as he always seemed to want to keep his legs straight and point his toes. Then there were times when Ben would show us some tricks that I hadn't seen when we were out in the park like his wall flips, but when I encouraged Lucas to try them he just said he didn't want to damage the wall. I could see his point; I mean you wouldn't really want scuff marks on that fantastic mural of their names.
After a while I started to get too tired to do any more dancing so Sammie and I switched to the instruments. Lucas still kept the music on and carried on dancing around with Ben but this time Sammie and I played along to the songs to give him some semi-live tracks to dance to. By the time we'd played three of the tracks Ben was starting to look a little worn out as well and just slumped down against the wall to watch. Lucas didn't seem to be flagging at all though, I dunno where he got his energy from but he just didn't seem to be slowing down even a little.
We finally managed to get Lucas to stop as we all went to flop down on the couches upstairs. Lucas ran back to the house to get some drinks and soon came back with two milkshakes for himself and Sammie and just Coke for Ben and me. He saw me looking at the milkshake longingly but then he went red as he said they were the last ones, which didn't surprise me as he'd been bringing them to school all week. He made it up to me though by running back to the house and grabbing a load of snacks, so we just sat there for a while playing Xbox, eating and chatting together. I didn't know what to expect from being there but my anxiety from earlier was definitely misplaced, it was just a normal, chilled out day with friends hanging out. I kept thinking back to when I saw Lucas dance though and felt that there was something I really needed to do. I really wanted to play that melody I had stuck in my head from when Lucas had been dancing in school so I asked Sammie if I could use her keyboard setup to try something out.
While I sat there with the headphones on in my own little world Lucas had gone back to dancing in the mirrors while the other two watched over the balcony. I watched Lucas dance as I carried on making the song up on the computer, all the while I could see him looking at me and pulling faces in the mirror to distract me from what I was doing. Finally I had the general gist of the song planned out and asked him if I could play it to see what he thought. He turned the stereo off and just leaned back against the wall near the mirrors as I started the track up.
The track itself was more of a backing track with strings and a general beat to it but I played the main part on the piano myself. As I played I looked up to see Lucas dancing along to it by the mirrors as I'd hoped, but what amazed me was that he almost seemed to be in a trance and it was like he knew which way the song was going to go, making his movements completely fluid and perfectly in sync with the music. As the song came to a close Lucas finished off with a flourish before ending up on the ground like he'd just finished a full on performance. Before I knew it there was applause coming not only from above us but from the doorway as well. I looked over to see Josh there with another handsome, buff guy, both applauding with huge smiles on their faces. They both walked over as Sammie and Ben came down to join us and I couldn't help noticing that Josh had one of those milkshakes that Lucas said had run out.
"Wow! That was amazing, how long have you been rehearsing that?" The other guy said.
"That was the first time. I just wrote it." I replied, feeling my face burn up.
"Really? You guys were so in sync it was incredible. I'm Alex by the way, their other dad." He held his hand out for me to shake but I was too stunned to say anything. I'd never met one of my heroes before but now, right in front of me was one of my favourite comic artists and he was seriously good looking. Not only that but he was wearing a t shirt that looked painted on under his jacket and I could see the contours of his chest and abs just poking through the opening. I remembered my dad saying Alex had modelled some underwear a few years ago but I'd never seen the picture on the box so I didn't realise he was so hot, especially all these years later.
"Are you ok?" Ben asked as I still stood there with my mouth open. I suddenly remembered where I was and all too eagerly grabbed his hand and started babbling about how much I loved his work and thanking him for signing the comics for me.
"Always nice to meet a fan." He chuckled, drawing his hand back from me. "I might end up becoming a fan of yours if you keep on playing music like that." I felt my cheeks heating up again as this awesome guy just paid me another compliment. I instantly felt at ease it him and found myself asking how the hell I had ever hated him.
"I'm not that good." I protested.
"Don't sell yourself short, from what I've just seen as well as when you were busking in town I can tell you've got a bright future." Alex replied.
"Huh? You were there in town last week?" I asked in surprise. I hadn't seen him there but I sure as hell would've remembered if I had spotted him.
"No I missed it unfortunately but Lucas showed me the video."
"Ah right...wait, what video?" I couldn't believe Lucas had actually videoed me and not said anything.
"Here." Lucas said as he suddenly pulled up the video on his phone and handed it to me with a big smile on his face.
I saw a little image of myself strumming away by the fountain as the camera panned around a little to show that there was quite a crowd gathered around. I even felt my heart flutter a bit as I spotted Lucas standing off to the side looking impressed, but without his phone in his hand. Hold on, if it wasn't Lucas then who the hell had been filming it? As the video finished it went back to the listings screen and that was when I realised this was online and not just stored on someone's phone. I looked at the title and then noticed my name, the town and the date had all been tagged in the description which made me feel a little uneasy, but when I saw the viewer count I felt another panic attack coming on. It had been viewed thousands of times and then I noticed there were other videos on there of different songs and angles, all with similar amounts of views. I couldn't believe it.
"Oh no...no no no no no no...I need to get these down...delete them. No...too late I need to go...gotta get out of here..." I started to hyperventilate again as panic set in. I almost dropped the phone as I could feel myself shaking like a leaf. I didn't know what to do. I felt like I wanted to scream, or cry, or just run away, but where to? Now it was making sense why people in school were looking at me like they knew me; they'd obviously seen the videos, but that wasn't the worst part.
"Hey Nick it's ok...tell me what's wrong." Josh was kneeling down in front of me, bringing us face to face. I should have been more nervous but I didn't feel intimidated by the look of genuine concern in his eyes and the way he gently held me by the shoulders so I didn't try to run.
"He'll see it!! He'll see it and find us!! I need to go!!" I tried to back away so I could escape but Josh held me firmly.
"Ok just take a few deep breaths and tell me who will see it?" He asked.
"MY DAD!!!" I screamed. "He'll see it!! He'll know where we are!!! He'll come after me again!!" I'd never been so scared in my life. I was looking around crazily for a way out but there was no way past Josh and Alex who were blocking the doorway. There was a brief flash of anger in Josh's eyes but it quickly melted away to a look of sympathy.
"Don't worry; your mum's got a restraining order on him." Ben said. "If he comes back to town the police will get rid of him."
"It won't stop him...he'll never stop trying to hurt me." I sobbed as I sank to the ground, crying into my knees. I suddenly felt my chin get tilted back slightly as I was looking into Josh's eyes again.
"Listen to me ok, you've got a huge support network here now; you're not alone anymore so you don't have to be scared of him. If he tries to contact you in any way at all I want you to let someone know as soon as possible and if the police don't get rid of him then I will ok?" I don't know what came over me at that point but I suddenly flung my arms around Josh's huge neck and just cried into his shoulder as his powerful arms wrapped around me, all the while he kept quietly reassuring me. There was a determination to Josh's statement that let me know he wasn't messing about, and I kinda wanted my dad to run into him as it would probably be the last thing he'd ever do. I was still convinced that my dad would see the video and find out where we were. I knew he'd find me, there was no doubt in my mind about that; it wasn't a matter of if but when. I needed to get home to warn Mum but what would she do? Would we go on the run again or would she stand her ground and fight back? It was so unfair, just as I was starting to make friends and get over the past it suddenly came roaring back again.