Here is a oneshot of my attempt at Trick fluff and angst (mostly Nick yearning tbh)
Nick and Troy stop in an abandoned town to look for gas and candy bars
~Failure by design~
“What about that one?”
Troy pointed at the cloud as I drifted overhead. The knuckles on his right hand were freshly split from shoving one of the dead into the brick wall of what used to be a bakery. The half coagulated blood glistened against the sun. Nick squinted at the sky, long strands of yellowing grass scratching at the backs of his ears as they lay in the empty field off to the side of the ghost town.
It’s been two days since their truck ran out of gas, because Troy wanted to take a detour a few miles back. They abandoned the truck on foot to look for gas. Troy took his time, he sauntered, strolled along the side of the road, no hurry about him. It’s like he didn’t care that they were hours away from the ranch. He couldn’t understand why Nick kept acting like he was in such a hurry and Nick didn’t understand it either. Troy was quite confident that the only person who’d care that he hadn’t come back was Nick, and Nick didn’t mind the thought of his mother getting sick with worry in his absence.
“That one looooks—,” Nick pondered, scanning the outline of the long, crooked cloud, “—like, I don’t know, a pair of scissors? They’re closed obviously, who would leave an open pair of scissors in the sky.”
“Scissors?” Troy scoffed. He shifted, tucking his arm behind his head. His elbow rested against Nicks shoulder, and he didn’t mind the weight of it. “It’s obviously a rifle. Double barrel, moderate kickback if you’re not steady, probably a 95 Winchester, maybe a Remmy if you’re feelin fancy. Why the fuck would God put scissors in the sky?”
“Why the hell would there be a rifle?” Nick crinkled his nose to hide his smile. The last thing he wanted Troy to know was that he found his insanity endearing.
This was why Nick liked spending time with him. Their conversations were easy, and neither of them put the other down, no matter how crazy the thought. Nick had learned that he could talk to Troy about nearly anything. About things that he’d never want Alicia to hear because she wouldn’t understand. About things like life, stories from his past he’d never been comfortable enough to speak outloud. About the well of black sludge that clung to the stony sides of his soul, slowly crawling its way up to the surface.
“Oh hey, I got ya something. Found it in the convenient store while you were clearing out the back,” Troy said with a grin. “Made me think of you.” He removed his elbow from Nicks shoulder to pat down his pockets. The loss of contact was haunting enough to make Nick shift in the grass until his boot touched Troy’s ankle.
His ears perked up at the sound of a plastic wrapper. Troy placed an unopened red pack of cigarettes and matches on Nicks chest with half of a PayDay candy bar, the wrapper folded down around it protectively.
“Just be glad I saved you half. Peanuts are my favorite,” Troy said, voice softening as he spoke.
Nick stared at him, his gaze the magnifying glass and Troy’s smile the sun. I got ya somethin. Nick tried to swallow the lump that set up camp in his throat. Made me think of you. As the heat of the moment warmed his chest, he held his breath and looked away, hurriedly tearing open the pack of cigarettes. The fire in his lungs burned so strong, if he exhaled now he might not even need the matches.
“Thanks,” Nick finally replied. He pulled a cigarette out of the pack with his teeth.
When he looked up, Troy’s eyes were on his mouth, staring at the place the filter indented his lower lip. Nick closed his eyes and lit the cigarette, but he only got half an inhale of smoke before Troy plucked the thing away and took a drag.
“Mmm,” Troy hummed. As he exhaled, the smoke curled around his nostrils and without thinking Nick reached out to touch it. Troy raised his eyebrows at him with an amused smirk, then handed back the cigarette. “Tastes like heaven, Nicky. You better savor it.”
Nick stared down at it. A smudge of dried dirt or blood from the corner of Troy’s mouth blotted the orange paper around the filter. He touched it with the tip of his tongue before caressing it with his lips, and hoped that Troy didn’t notice.
A hissing growl rattled the air. Troy craned his neck and sighed, watching the dead stumble up the hill behind them.
“Got it,” he said and patted Nicks thigh as if touching him there was something they’d done all the time instead of just a hope Nick kept locked away in the cage of his ribs.
Troy stood, egging the walker on as it made its slow ascent. The bottom half of its jaw hung loose like it’d been broken, and intestines wrapped around its ankle, trailing behind it like a dog broken free from its leash. There was no stomach wound, so they must have belonged to someone else.
“If I don’t make it, donate my body to science,” Troy said, then winked.
Nick rolled his eyes, taking a long drag as he flipped up his middle finger. With an exuberant laugh, Troy unsheathed the hatchet at his hip, took two skipping steps, and swung his arm around in a windmill motion, slamming the blade of the hatchet through the skull of their approaching threat.
“And that makes twenty-seven,” Troy said, slipping the weapon back into its sling, not even bothering to wipe the blood from its blade.
“That’s not twenty-seven, it’s twenty-four!” Nick scoffed. He pushed himself up, snuffing out the rest of the cigarette on the bottom of his boot.
“I killed seven of them in the convenience store!”
“Yeah, but you got four of them at one time! That should only count as one!” Nick argued. He didn’t actually care, if he was being honest. Keeping score wasn’t his top priority for this mission; keeping Troy out of trouble was. Nick also got a kick out of riling him up, but that was beside the point.
“Not uh!” Troy shot back. “It took a precise amount of effort and the perfect angle of the swing to get all those fuckers at once, not just anyone can do that! They count separate!”
“Fine, you’re right,” Nick said. Not just anyone can do that. “Keep your stupid points.” Just you. “Shouldn’t be surprised. After all you’ve always been a cheat.”
“Take it back,” Troy said. His lips pressed in a firm line, and the fight in his eyes flared up, ready to burn him to the ground.
“No, cheater, I don’t think that I will,” Nick replied, angling his body so that he could look right at him.
Troy closed the distance between them with a scowl. Nick did his best to pretend that he couldn’t feel the way his stomach flipped around the moment Troy entered his personal space.
“Fine,” Troy said, tilting his head, refusing to break eye contact. “If you won’t take that back, then I’m taking this back instead.” In an instant he had the other half of the Payday bar out of Nicks hand and in his own. He sank his teeth into it before letting out an outrageous fit of laughter, sprinting back in the direction of the town.
“Hey! You said that was for me!” Nick shouted and ran after him. He would allow himself this one indulgence. Troy didn’t need to know he was chasing him in more ways than one.
Troy took off into the small, abandoned town, and Nick listened to the echo of his footsteps against the dirt road. When the noise faded, leaving Nick standing there only able to hear the sound of his heavy breaths, he felt truly alone for the first time in months. And he hated it.
“Troy?” Nick said. Rocks skittered about as he walked around, peering into the windows of lonely store fronts left to their own devices. If he wanted to find Troy, he had to think like Troy, which appeared to be no more difficult than thinking like himself.
Weston’s Hardware to his right caught his eye, the door not quite shut all the way. Nick slipped inside, a small bell signaling his entry. The door clicked shut behind him and he turned the lock, just in case. For a moment he closed his eyes, listening for boots on linoleum, or the heavy breathing of someone who had just run in here like a psychopath on a mission to devour their own peanut flavored pride. Nick swiped a small hammer from the display by the counter as he walked by, surveying the seemingly empty shop.
“Troy?”
He crept down the first aisle taking in the empty shelves with barcode tags labeled for various colors of spray paint and gloves and little plastic glasses meant to keep you safe.
“Troy?”
He rounded the corner to the next aisle, almost knocking over a rack of small, novelty license plate keychains with names on them. Holding it up with one arm, he held it steady, pushing the rack back onto its small metal feet til it was stable. A sigh passed through his lips. All the names on the top row read ‘Nick’ and the entire second row ‘Troy’.
“I know you’re in here,” Nick said, turning around in a circle. He tried to see over the tops of the aisles. Sadly, he was about six inches too short.
Nick heard a soft scuff, or maybe it was an exhale. He turned sharply on his heel, hammer raised with the intent to strike, but Troy was standing so close that Nick’s nose brushed the scruff on his chin as he cocked his head back to meet his eye.
“You gonna hit me, Nicky?” Troy grinned. “Swing, batter batter, swing.” His eyes were wild and manic, staring down at Nick with too much time on their hands to think about the lack of space between them.
Nick could taste the peanut flavor of his breath. He pursed his lips, lifting his hands to Troy’s chest with the intent to shove, to thrash like an animal caught in a trap, but Troy grabbed his wrists, the hammer clattering to the ground.
“Take it back,” Troy said, voice calm and low.
“What?” Nick said, his upper lip curled into a sneer. “This is insane Troy, let me go.”
“Take. It. Back.”
Troy leaned in, his lips so close that Nick couldn’t control his eyes from drifting down to look at them. Troy slowly swiped his tongue across his bottom lip, and Nick watched the gentle, precise movement, staring at the plump pink tip as it lingered at the corner of his mouth before retreating behind his teeth.
“Troy,” Nick whispered.
All of his limbs felt deflated, fleshy wet sockets filled with loose air and broken bones. If Troy wasn’t holding him up he was sure he’d collapse to his knees right before him with nothing left to do down there but worship.
Troy let go of Nick’s wrists, slipping one arm around his lower back, using the other to tilt up Nicks chin with his index finger. He leaned in, gently pressing their lips together and time as he knew it halted to a stand still. Nick couldn’t breathe, could hardly think past the thrumming of his heart ricocheting up his throat and in his ears. He pushed up on his toes, or maybe it was Troy drawing him in with his sickening gravitational pull of self destruction. The wild fire that was them roared to life as their lips began to move in a rhythm of scars and teeth and desperation. Their tongues slid along each other like shotgun shells being loaded into the barrel and Troy’s finger was already on the trigger ready to pull.
Troy’s lips twisted into a grin against his and he pulled away just in time for him to hear them speak the words, “Take it back.”
“What?” Nick spat, brain crash landing on earth, thrust back into reality. His eyes blinked open, and he was greeted by Troy’s malicious smirk. Nick shoved away from him with a grunt, lips fluttering like he couldn’t find the right words as they knotted up his tongue.
“Take it back. I’m no cheat.”
“What the fuck Troy, you’re literally cheating right now!” Exasperated and embarrassed, Nick stormed away from him, not wanting to risk Troy seeing the pink tinting his cheeks. “I don’t even know why I followed you in here. Fuck you, and your stupid shitty games.”
Troy’s laughter filled the vacant store room, mocking him from every angle.
“It’s only cheating if it worked, Nicky!” Troy called after him. “Otherwise, it’s just failure by design.”