The procession of buses came to a halt in the middle of the night in a particularly rainy east coast state. Nick didn't know which one, and didn't suppose it really mattered, since they were all rainy and eastern and states, and they had to make it through all of them at least seven times before they did another show.

Except now apparently they weren't going anywhere, and that was more than a little inconvenient.

He scrubbed uselessly at his eyes, which had gone filmy from staring too long at the TV, and wandered up to the front of the bus. The bus driver - Dan? he thought; he could never remember - was fiddling with the reception on the radio, and getting mostly crackling interference from the rain, interspersed with voices from the other buses.

"What's up?" Nick asked.

Dan, or whoever, looked up at him, and shrugged. "I dunno." He nodded towards the dark road, "I can't get a good enough reception. The other guys just pulled over, so I guess there's a problem or something."

Nick looked unimpressed. "Yeah, okay," he said, as if that hadn't been glaringly apparent. He returned to the back of the bus, and clicked off the TV, having lost interest. He checked his cell phone, but there was no reception there, either. He briefly considered going to bed, because it was probably ungodly late, or early, but it had also reached the point of darkness that it just creeped him out to go into the bathroom, and he wasn't going to bed without brushing his teeth. He was picky about that sort of thing.

He sprawled into one of the window seats, watching rain drops trickle down a path to meet the seal between window and wall. It felt as if they'd been stalled for an hour, but it couldn't have been much more than ten minutes, maybe. Dan called from up front, but Nick couldn't hear, and didn't bother to ask him to repeat it.

Brian got on the bus moments later, announced by the squeak of his shoes in the narrow corridor. He was soaked from the rain, hair plastered against his skull, and he looked a little bemused.

"Hey," Nick said quietly.

"Hi," Brian said, kicking off his shoes before proceeding into the lounge. He ran a hand through the tangle of his hair. "Sorry, um, can I borrow something?"

Nick sized him up, and said, "You mean like clothes?" having deemed Brian sufficiently drenched in rainwater.

"Yeh."

"Yeah," Nick said, and could feel an oddness crackling in the air, the way relationships seem strained when you're tired and not formulating things rationally. "You, um, can come in," he added, and got up to look for a suitcase of presumably clean clothes.

"Oh," Brian said, as if he hadn't expected to stay, even though there couldn't have been any other reason for him to come over.

Nick tossed him a shirt that would undoubtedly be too big - it was navy blue and said, "SPAM - can't beat the canned meat" - and asked, "you fine for underwear?"

"Er, yeah," Brian said, and Nick nodded.

"Stay, then." He crawled back onto the window seat, watching Brian slip in and out of clothes as if he hadn't seen it countless times before, and hadn't appreciated it each time. "C'mere," he said, finally, and sat up a little.

Brian slid in between the vee of Nick's legs, back to chest, and Nick linked his arms around Brian's waist. "D'you know what's up?"

"Eh, not really," Brian said. "Something with Kev's bus. But I thought he got on AJ's, so I dunno what's the hold up."

"Oh," Nick mumbled, and slipped his hands up the front of Brian's shirt. Brian was shaking a little from the rain, and the coolness of his skin was a sharp contrast against the warmth of Nick's. "Did you wanna go to sleep?"

"Nah," Brian said, and pushed back, closer against Nick. Nick buried his nose in Brian's hair, inhaling the chloric smell of the rain and only faint traces of shampoo. He splayed his palms across Brian's abdomen, and tilted his head to press his lips to Brian's neck, just under his ear where it met with his jaw. Brian murmured, "hey," which turned quickly into, "oh," as Nick turned it into an open-mouthed kiss.

Brian turned, and Nick lifted his head. Brian met him halfway, lips already parted in anticipation of a kiss. Nick kissed him hesitantly, tongue only briefly sweeping into Brian's mouth before out again. Brian's lips were quivering, because that was how he kissed: nervously at first, until his body came to terms with the fact that he was wanted, at which point he tended to drop all his inhibitions. He tipped his head back against Nick's shoulder and Nick kissed him again, more deeply, tongue slick against Brian's.

Nick slid his hand further up Brian's shirt, fingers tracing over the scar on Brian's chest. Brian gasped against Nick's lips, and Nick could feel his nervousness fading away. He smoothed his palm across Brian's skin, and there was still a cool prickle of dampness to the touch. Brian brought his hand up to curl around the back of Nick's neck, fingers feathering along his hairline.

Nick forced Brian's mouth further open with his tongue, simultaneously shoving his hands down past the waistband of Brian's boxers. He rubbed his palms across the skin just below Brian's navel, over his hipbones, protruding from the angle. Brian tensed slightly and twisted, tilting his head away from Nick, but Nick put a heavy hand on his stomach, murmuring, "hey, hey." He slid a hand further down Brian's abdomen to trace the curve where his groin met with his inner thigh, and Nick felt him go very still.

"Just let me -- let me move," Brian said, sounding a little breathless, and Nick let him. He turned, sliding one knee between Nick's legs, and put his hands on Nick's shoulders. Nick brought his hand up to touch the back of Brian's thigh softly, and Brian shivered.

Brian delivered a series of whispering kisses to Nick's throat; Nick drew his hand up under Brian's boxers, stroking along the gentle curve of his ass. Brian pressed back into Nick's touch, making small noises in Nick's ear. His breath was hot against Nick's neck.

Nick raised his hands and curled his fingers around the waistband of Brian's boxers. Brian's hips were shimmying a little beneath his touch, quakingly, and he was sub-vocalizing something like, "do it, do it," over again. Nick tugged Brian's boxers down roughly, and Brian immediately moved to kick them aside, a shiver moving down his spine.

Nick turned his head slightly, and pressed his mouth to Brian's. He slid one hand between Brian's thighs, fingers trailing over but bypassing Brian's erection, working past his balls to caress at the cleft of Brian's ass. Brian's mouth opened against his, his uneven breathing mingling with Nick's own. Nick snaked his other arm around Brian's waist and pulled Brian's body down against his.

Brian's dick was hot and silky and hard, and he was pressing it insistently against Nick's groin, trapping Nick's hand between them. Nick lifted his hips into Brian's, and slipped his hand from between them, resting his palm on the back of Brian's thigh instead. Brian twined one arm around Nick's neck and his tongue licked into his mouth, and Nick's grasp tightened around Brian.

Brian ground his hips strenuously into Nick's, and moved to straddle him. Nick could feel him twining fingers through the hair along the nape of his neck, pulling at Nick to force their mouths closer together. Nick slid his palm up the back of Brian's shirt to press between his shoulder blades, and by now Brian's skin had warmed up so that Nick could feel tiny points of perspiration forming along his spine.

Brian held him tighter between his thighs, and he was rubbing against Nick like a god damn cat, and Nick thought he was probably going to come in his boxers. Brian mumbled something that sounded a lot like, "fucking touch me," into Nick's mouth; sometimes Nick forgot that he used to talk dirty before they had to stop.

Nick exhaled sharply into the kiss, and moved his hand from Brian's thigh to his ass, fingers pressing into the cleft. Brian made an indeterminate noise into Nick's mouth, and tilted his head back as he came. He lifted his hips away from Nick a little, and found Nick's erection through the thin fabric of his boxers, delicate fingers working roughly.

Nick broke the kiss and threw his head back, eyes squeezed shut. Brian dropped his head and pressed a kiss to Nick's throat; a final tug on Nick's erection, and he came, body going rigid. He could feel Brian smile against his throat, and then Brian climbed off him, gripping the window ledge for leverage. Brian plucked his boxers from the floor and made his unsteady way towards the small bathroom.

Nick tilted his head back against the arm of the window seat, breathing in sharply, and then got up in search of his clean laundry, again. He wrinkled his nose and stripped off his t-shirt and underwear, and bent to retrieve fresh ones.

"Bed?" Brian said quietly, as Nick was tugging a shirt on over his head. He hadn't heard him come back, but that wasn't surprising, not for Brian.

"Kinda late for that, huh," Nick said with a wry smile, and proceeded back to the sleeping area. Brian followed him, fingers light on the small of his back, and climbed in between the sheets of the bed: the one reason Nick appreciated the single buses.

Brian spooned up behind him, throwing one leg across Nick's thigh, and slipping his hand up under his t-shirt. His breathing was slow and steady and with the warmth of his palm against Nick's stomach, Nick could almost ignore the cool bite of Brian's ring, where it touched him.

He slipped out of bed, and peered into the bathroom. Sometime between earlier and now, the bus had started moving again, and the sun had risen enough to cast an eerie glow into the bathroom stall. He inspected himself carefully in the mirror; he looked much as he usually did, even for the small hours of the morning. He splashed some water on his face and brushed his teeth, frowning, and went back to bed.

As he fell asleep, Brian still curled around him, he thought that sometimes there were things he just had to do.