Fixing Nico [boyxboy / yaoi]

Ch 1 - Suitcases and First Impressions

~NICO~

I'd always liked road trips. The way the dry, golden hills rolled past lazily, small rural towns flitted in and out of view, past highways with signs ushering you towards them; they'd temp you with offers of homemade meat pies and lethargic little cafes. Their colourful handmade signs adorned the grey roadside.

Every few kilometres you'd come across an abandoned house - rusted, graffiti-clad little islands of sad waste, in limbo between being in the middle of nowhere and yet just off the highway. Every time I saw one, I thought of just how much I wanted one; my own abandoned, empty skeleton. Falling apart, but still standing. It looked vulnerable and weak, but it really was strong - stronger than people thought it was. After all, it was still there. Despite it all, it was still standing.

I guess maybe it was like me, in a way.

'Nico…' my Mum's voice made me jump in the backseat, jolting me from my daydreams. I blinked my eyes back into focus and glanced at her. Her hands were clamped on the steering wheel, which was how I could tell she was nervous.

I cleared my throat. 'Yeah?' I croaked - it felt funny to talk after the hours of silence between us. It wasn't a hostile silence, though. I just… wasn't very talkative.

'Nico,' Mum repeated, sighing heavily through her nose. 'We're almost there, so I just wanted to talk to you.' I kept silent. I knew exactly what she wanted to talk to me about. 'Listen… I know you already know Christian Matthews will be staying with us for three weeks this summer. And I know you know he's the son of your father's boss. He may be here for your brother, but we want him to have the nicest possible time with us - and that means all of us.' Mum glanced at me desperately from the rear-view mirror - her dark eyes grew even darker with concern. 'Nico…'

I knew what she wanted me to say - the words had been spelt out clearly for me. 'I'll be nice,' I promised.

Mum pursed her lips. 'I know you will,' she sighed. 'And its not that you're not nice - you're just a little…' Mum trailed off, trying to find an appropriate word without ripping my self-esteem to shreds - not that it already hadn't been. She smiled wanly at me from the mirror when she found it; 'Antisocial.'

I just nodded faintly - it wasn't like I could argue with that. I turned my head, gazing out at the thick, dotted towns that were growing bigger, closer together. We were almost there.

'Just try to be friendly,' Mum begged. 'Your father's job hangs in the balance - we can't say what will happen if Mr. Matthew's son doesn't like it here...'

I nodded again, growing more and more dejected as Mum flicked our blinker and took the exit, turning off into a smaller road. I would try to be friendly and nice to Christian Matthews. I would try to sustain a conversation that lasted more than two minutes. I would try to make sure he was always comfortable, always having fun, always had something to do when he wanted to do something, something to eat when he wanted to eat and something to drink when he wanted to drink. I would try to be friendly.

I would try. But even now, before I'd met him, I found myself hating him.

***

Our holiday house was only a fifteen-minute drive from Coffs Harbour - a big town that was annually flooded with families escaping their cities for the sweaty, sticky summer. I wasn't really sure what attracted people to Coffs; after all, it was a lot hotter up here than in Sydney, it only had harbour beaches and the teenagers and kids ran rampant through town from the Caravan park most of the families stayed at - a huge plot of sickly-looking yellow and green grass that was practically an abandoned field for most of the year, until December and January, when every available blade of grass was battled over for pitching tents and wheeling in caravans. Although many people only stayed for a few days or maybe a week before venturing further North, the Caravan park was perpetually full and bustling with families.