Mr. Winter || Self-Para (For Reese)
Nick had come to the conclusion long ago that his life did not include a happy ending. He didn't mind it much; the middle had been one hell of a ride, and it wasn't exactly surprising--the warning signs had been there every step of the way. For one, he'd found fame fast, and the old saying that attached itself to that life style followed him everywhere he went: live fast, die young. Luck was not meant to occur the way it did for Nick--in bursts of the very very good and then the very bad. Fame, fortune, all the women he could could want met death, despair, and destruction at every turn. What goes up must come down--he knew this well--and he'd been up for quite some time before he came crashing down. All was fair, right?
High, well, that was another matter.
Christmas morning, Nick woke up relatively sober. Given, he was still coming off a buzz from a particularly heavy drinking binge the night before, and he had plans to spend Christmas in much of the same way. But not yet. Much of Nick's last few years had been spent in a haze--drinks, and drugs, and women whose names he couldn't remember--and he didn't regret it--not exactly. If anything, he regretted that he couldn't remember more of it, regretted that the "epic" stories he'd gathered under his built were lost to him a haze of never ending parties. He liked to drink, liked to smoke, liked to feel as high as the clouds above because that's where he thought best--up above the world, the words came to him in a rush, nearly knocking him over in their haste to find the paper. Lyrics and poems--they were only his when he was gone. Sober, he figured, was all relative.
But he did regret the women. Or, more accurately, he regretted that there were different women, that each night he'd fall asleep with a stranger in his bed, and an aching in his heart as he dreamed of the girl who set fire to his world in the best of ways. It was a regret, a pain, that never left, a constant unbearable aching in his chest, and he knew there was no happy ending.
Gathering up his guitar, an old boom-box, a couple of CDs, a bottle of Whiskey and a bottle of wine, Nick left his room at the Inn, and in a matter of minutes, found himself outside Reese's room. He knocked once, twice, then stood back and waited for her to answer. The second her long black hair and bright eyes greeted him in the doorway, he felt that familiar spinning in his stomach--the perfect mix of having drank just a bit too much, and just enough, the nervous burning in his chest mixed with that perfect buzz, that perfect escape.
"Merry Christmas," he said, setting the boom-box down on the ground by his feet and placing a CD inside it (he'd always been drawn to the old fashioned, playing CDs rather than downloading mp3's, and always preferring vinyls if he could help it). "I know we're not going anywhere. I know I messed up any real chance I ever had with you and that I'm not getting that back. I know. I don't know where we're at, and I don't know what we are, and I don't know if we'll ever be anything again. But I know you loved me once, and I know I love you still, and I know that if we never become anything ever again, our past doesn't disappear. So as long as I'm here, and you're here, I'm still going to say Merry Christmas because once upon a time, you were the most important part of my life, and...today is supposed to be about celebrating that, right? Family, and loved ones, and all that crap on TV. Well, I'm not ready to let that go. Not this time."
He pressed play on the boom-box then picked up his guitar. "I can't sing to you anymore, but I can play. And I can pretend." As a Christmas song played out of the speakers, Nick played the guitar loud enough to drown the instrument out in the original, and he mouthed along to the words. It was some old classic, and the singer was good--truly--but it came like a physical pain to Nick to move his mouth over the words and not be able to express them. For so long, singing had been like breathing for him--natural and easy, something he needed far more than he ever needed a damn drink, but that part of his life was gone now, and he couldn't take it back, not if he wanted to do anything good with his life. He couldn't bear to look at another dead body.
When the song ended, he set the guitar down, and extended the bottles of whiskey and wine in her direction as an offering. "I have All I Want For Christmas Is You on here, and I will lip sing to Mariah Carey if you don't let me in. Come on. We can make a fire--in a fire place, or on the the first building you see, your choice, you know I like watching you burn things down--and we can get drunk and talk, or yell if you want, and...well it's Christmas. And baby it's cold outside," he said, referring to the old Christmas song and pretending to shiver despite the not so cold degrees outside.
He shrugged helplessly. Nick was well aware that his life held no happy ending, no happily ever after with the girl of his dreams, but it wouldn't stop him trying for a happy middle until his last days finally caught up with him.
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