oo7. Belonging (original) (raw)

Title: Belonging (1/3 ; AU)
Author: Me. zrisj
Rating: PG13? Not sureee.
Pairing: Nemi/Dick, Jemi, Nick/Demi/Joe idk what people are calling that. (For this chapter, it's Nemi-centric.)
Summary: It's strange how they all fit together. Well - they do because of Demi, anyway.
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters in the story, though the words are mine, thanks.
AN: This is going to be a three part Nick/Demi/Joe story, hopefully if I finish it. Each part is going to show each characters' point of view of their relationship. Okay? Okay. AND THANK YOU SO MUCH KELLY brachyura FOR BEING AN AWESOME BETA and not kissing my ass. ilyilyilygurl. <3

Nick sometimes thinks about how the three of them fit together and how he lets it be like that.

Well – they fit together, but not necessarily with each other. It’s a whole lot easier when it’s just him and Demi, but it hasn’t been like that for a few months now.

Nick thinks that maybe he lets it be like that because – well, Joe is his brother. His best guy. And Nick likes it when his best guy is happy.

Nick thinks about it whenever Demi stands up, letting go of his hand so she could go over to the older boy and do something affectionate like cup Joseph’s face and press a kiss on his forehead. Joe’s sick and needs a check-up so Nick and Demi bring him to the hospital; the doctor needs his blood.

Demi’s trying to get Joe to breathe a bit more evenly. Her thumbs push his eyelids closed, and she presses a kiss on top of each. It’s not that Joseph’s scared of needles – just that he’s scared of what could happen if something goes completely and totally wrong with them in his body.

An hour ago, Nick saw this coming. At that time he tells Demi, “You do know that the only way to get him through this is a game, right?”

Demi smiles at how well Nick knows his brother and nods. And that’s exactly what she does. She turns it all into a game.

“It’s simple,” she tells Joe. “Just don’t look and we’ll do something fun like bumper cars later.”

“Don’t look at wha–”

“_Don’t peek!_”

The corner of Nick’s lips pulls up. He’s watching Demi smooth the worry off of Joseph’s forehead and he laughs when she goes, “Joey, you’re cheating.”

His older brother grunts, Nick can tell he’s fighting the urge to move around. “It’s hard,” he says, and it’s not the type of whine you’d expect from a nineteen-year-old. “It tickles.”

“Yeah, but you remember that one time we tickled Nick? He… wiggled around so much.” Nick’s head snaps up, and Demi’s smiling at him. Usually Joseph would’ve already thrown a fit (Nick likes to exaggerate a little when it comes to making fun of his older brother and his issue with jealousy.) if he realized attention for him was diverted to Nick, but he remembers that Joseph’s eyes are closed.

But a laugh vibrates lightly from his chest anyways; Nick doesn’t have to think to know that he’s laughing at him. “Yeah,” Joe chuckles, “Party pooper faked a tummy ache.”

But the younger boy frowns. “I didn’t fake it.”

Demi lets them bicker for a moment. “I know, man, just pretended to have one.”

“Shut up, Joseph.”

“Just speaking the truth, little brother.”

“You’re bad at it.”

“_Hey!_”

Nick stops at the look Demi’s giving him. It’s not telling him to shut up or anything – but she’s amused. She smiles her big and easy smile and he wishes it isn’t that contagious, because now he’s smiling, too.

She beckons at the both of them and mouths in a somewhat theatrical way, You guys are adorable. Nick looks at her like she’s crazy.

“Guys?” Joe’s eyes are still closed; Demi’s still smiling at him. “It’s… sorta quiet.”

Demi doesn’t say anything, but Nick knows she wishes he and Joe would just fall in love with each other.

Okay – there’s no way to word that the right way. But that’s what it is.

“That would be insanely weird,” he tells her over a bowl of cereal at three in the afternoon. Weird isn’t the word that describes it, but he doesn’t exactly want to swear on it. “Don’t count on it,” he adds, “Ever.”

But he knows that smile on Demi’s face. “But you love each other anyway,” she says like it’s a well known fact. It’s not like it isn’t true anyway – how can Nick even think twice on it? Of course he loves Joseph, he’s his brother, his best friend, his partner-in-crime – even though said crimes are mainly committed by Joe.

Nick doesn’t want to argue, because Demi’s smile is one that isn’t easy to shoo away. And Nick knows that smile on Demi’s face.

And, well, she’s always smiling like that nowadays. Joe can’t tell the difference between her smiles – just that they’re all beautiful. Well, except when she’s faking one or not, and she rarely ever does. Nick thinks the same; he just thinks a lot deeper into it.

Nick didn’t fall in love with Demi the first time he met her, first time he saw her. He was actually convinced that she was more of Joseph’s type – and he was right. Nick remembers his older brother asking, should I go for it now or should I go for it later?

It wasn’t exactly fair when Nick turned out to have feelings for Demi, too, and she started reacting and responding in the time period whilst she was hooking up with Joe.

One night, Nick told her, “I belong with you.” And neither of them really thought it was possible to feel that deep for someone when you’re seventeen years old, but Nick decided to defy that fact into opinion. Demi followed the day right after.

But Joe and Demi still act like they’re so, so in love. Which, maybe, they are.

And Joe.

Joe refuses to fall into that ‘belonging bullshit’, but he still wraps his arm around Demi’s waist and rubs his nose against hers affectionately and tells her he loves her from here to the moon. Demi tells him she loves him from here to the moon and back and Nick knows she got that from a story book. He doesn’t know what that means, though.

They’re at a party, Joe’s at the other side of the room working the turn table. He’s shooting looks at Demi and only half of them are being returned. Nick’s the one catching the rest.

Demi picks up her drink, looks at the wet circle it leaves on the table before sipping, smiling sweetly at Nick who is seated close to her side. He isn’t drinking anything, not even his usual Diet Coke, but he smiles a half-sided smile.

She looks down, still smiling, and whispers, “You know I belong to you, right?” And suddenly feels like they’re in a small bubble all to themselves, because even with the music and the lights and the people and her voice turned down that low, he can hear her loud and clear.

Nick looks at her, surprised, like he doesn’t know what to say and like she doesn’t tell him I belong to you all the time. Because now he’s taking it as, I belong to you, no matter how much I love Joe.

Clearly, he’s been thinking too much. Again. That’s always Nick’s job.

Complicate things.

He clears his throat. “You love him, though,” he says. He wants to wince at how he can’t say the name ‘Joe’ right now.

But she frowns, looks away. “Yeah, but I belong to you,” she tells him. “Belong.. I do, I really do.”

He wants to snap, he really does. Snap and ask _what does that even mean?_“I know that, Dems.” And now Nick regrets not saying that he belongs to her, too.

“Can’t that be all that matters the most for once? Because I really do belong to you.”

Oh, he thinks. Right. I forgot about that. He forgets that the fact that her apparent love of his older brother doesn’t cancel out the fact that Demi belongs to him.

Nick shifts around, puts an arm loosely around her waist with his body now facing hers. Demi’s there with her hands on her lap because it feels like she can’t convince him enough.

“Can I?” he asks, voice soft, eyes behind unruly curls.

Demi smiles and laughs, despite the subject change. “Why would you even ask that?”

“I don’t know. Joe uh… yeah, Joe.” He shrugs, lets a coy smile rest on his face. For a second, he’s tempted to look his older brother’s direction. Demi rolls her eyes, laughs lightly and moves closer.

Nick slides their lips together, her hand moves from her lap to his knee and he pulls her closer. He lets the feeling ripple across his chest, down his arms and legs and it tickles the tips of his fingers that touch the skin on Demi’s hip.

And it takes exactly that to make Nick remember how it feels like to have somebody belong to him.