Author: CrazedHumor

Title: Getting Attached

Rated: PG-17 (swearing and fantasies to come)

Summary: (AU sorta) I've moved around my entire live and in doing so, I learned to not get attached to anyone or anything. There was only one exception. Nick POV. Niff.

A/N: I starting this story thinking it was going to be a raunchy and quick. But, I guess my fingers decided on something else entirely. This is the story I came up with for Nick and Jeff from before Dalton Academy to the present. (From Nick's point of view.) Also, sorry if there are errors. Currently looking for a Beta…Also, I only now about the military from what my friend in the Marines told me, please excuse mistakes and let me know so I can fix.

Enjoy!

I hate it when people call me Nicky.

I've been going to Dalton since freshman year, when I transferred from a small school in Wisconsin. It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. Starting off high school by moving, yet again, had turned out to be the best thing to happen in my life. We had moved around a lot, and it was good knowing that this time I wouldn't have to transfer between semesters.

I'm an army brat. Or, at least I was.

My father has been in the military nearly all his life. As soon as he had graduated high school he had been shipped off and sent into the army and ever since then he'd do nothing but travel since, taking part in training new recruits and giving inspirational speeches about his time in the Cold War. He met my mother at one of the bases he had been stationed at just few years before I was born. She was a local beauty, known for her sweetness, good looks, and smarts to back it up. At first, my mom told me, she didn't like him at all. She said men came and went all the time throwing themselves at her when they would leave only a few weeks later. But, I guess he had done something right, because eventually she caved and agreed to go on a date. Later they kept in touch through letters. Then one day, out of no where, he showed up on her doorstep, dressed as a normal civilian, and asked her to marry him.

They were together from that moment forward.

Only three years later they had me.

I never knew what it was like to have a home full of memories.

It was in fifth grade, when I had attended a public elementary school in Florida. Usually, children of the military stayed in the school that was provided on the base. It was easier to make friends that way and all of us understood each other. However, my mother insisted that I get what little interaction with the outside world that I could, and so I attended the closest public school in the area. I had met up with a few other brats that lived close to the base too. All of us had been moving for as long as we could remember, not staying in one place for more than a few months. This time had been no exception. Only after six months, we had moved on to the next location. Before my father had taken me away though, I had met another kid my age. Jeff. We hit it off instantly.

A lot of the kids on the bases were either into things revolving around the military or didn't want anything to do with it. I was a rebel. I loved anything related to pop culture. Lock me up in a room with some music, a few video games, and some kickass movies and I could be entertained for weeks. Jeff was the same way. We bonded over games and dancing, rebelling against our fathers' heavy thumbs.

During the time we lived on the same base, Jeff's mom and dad separated. His mother decided that they had had enough. Though our fathers were rarely at "home", when Jeff's dad was there, there were endless midnight fights and scream filled days. Our mothers were friends, their relationship probably growing from the same issues of having to constantly move, dealing with their husbands, and having the same views on their children taking part in public schools. Which is why, I think, what happened next wasn't much of a surprise.

One day Jeff came over, luggage in hand, smiling the biggest smile I had ever seen. "Nick! We're gonna be roommates!" I remember him saying this and the hug I had given him in return.

We became inseparable. He lived in our house, staying over nearly every night unless his mother dictated otherwise. We got ready together in the mornings, sat together at lunch, rode the bus back home, helped each other with our homework at night, and got ready for bed together. In our free time we would banter back and forth about comic book heroes or sit in front of the tv playing the newest game that had been released. Some days were harder than others. He missed his mom and dad more often than not, as any 10 year old would. It had become routine for four months. It was a nice routine. It was one of the few things that stayed steady in my life.

At first he hated crying in front of me. He use to get mad at himself and tell me it was nothing...until one night when his mom had taken him home. Early in the morning...hours before school was even suppose to start, there had been a knock on the door and my father opened it to show Jeff and one of the Generals on location.

I remember my dad flicking on my light and telling me that Jeff needed to squeeze in with me because he had to leave his house early this time. Just as soon as my dad was there, he was gone and we were left in the dark.

Jeff was laying next to me, facing away and toward my closet. I felt the bed shake slightly and when I turned over to look at him, his shoulders were shaking, head tucked into his chest. I had lifted my hand to him then, reaching out to touch his back comfortingly. "Jeff?" He had winced and I took my hand back, frowning and sitting up. "Jeff. What happened?"

He didn't say anything. To this day, I don't think he could. He just shook his head against his chest and curled into a tighter ball. Somehow I had coaxed him into turning over so that he was facing me and through the light that shone through the window, I saw the tear streaks that were slowly crawling down his face. Without thinking, I lifted my hand to wipe them away like a good friend and sighed with sadness. I told him that 'everything was going to be ok and that he could live here as long as he wanted and that we'd be friends forever and that we'd get out of here soon'. I didn't ask him more about what had happened, because I knew he couldn't talk even if he wanted to. He had only been able to utter one word for the, what seemed like, hours that I listened to him cry.

Nicky.

Eventually he fell asleep, our arms awkwardly entwined between us because I was scared to let go for fear that he would wake up and forget where he was. That he would think he was back at his house again, instead of his home.

It was the next morning that he showed me them. There had been a fight. Jeff had gotten involved...and he had the bruises on his back to prove it.

And so he lived with us. He became my best friend and my brother.

I knew it would end eventually. It was a hopeless cause. Army brats, no matter the situation, never stayed in one location for long. As one, you learn that you don't get attached to anyone or anything for long. Jeff's mother found a house in California and took him with her.

I remember the moment he left like it was only last night. I remember waking up and looking over at the empty space next to me and realizing that my best friend wasn't there anymore...and that he had gone to his other home the night before to pack what he had left there. I remember looking to the closet and not seeing his usual bright shirts against my dark clothes that we shared and not fully understanding why they weren't there. I remember looking toward the corner of our room where Jeff's suitcase usually lay with some of his games and toys that he loved and not seeing it there amongst the clutter of my things. His shoes that had ones been mixed in with mine at the bottom of a chest in our closet had disappeared. The hook with my jacket on the back of our door now had a bare hook next to it that once held up Jeff's bright windbreaker.

Later that day, I remember, the car pulled up with Jeff in the front seat, frowning at me through the front window. When he got out I had hugged him as hard as I could. I hoped that the harder I hugged the more I'd rub off on him, some sort of scent or indents that I would leave behind would remind him that I still existed and everything that had happened between us. When he would be in California. Almost 3,000 miles away.

As he and his mom pulled away from our house I didn't look away. I remember thinking of how uncool I was for crying and how much I didn't want to go back to being an only child...and how much I already missed him.

I had reached up to brush the tears away with my sleeve, when my hoodie make a crinkling noise. I had looked down, and saw an indent in the front pocket. Curiously, I reached inside to find a ripped piece of paper out of a notebook. It had an address scribbled in small, yet neat, letters that was obviously Jeff's hand writing.

Nicky, you better write to me every day.

And I had.

Well, not literally. But every few days I wrote letters to keep Jeff updated about what was happening on my end: how school was, what sports I played, how things were at home. He wrote back every time, informing me of the same.

He would constantly write about how he wished he was back in Florida and how hard it was to make friends at his new school. He missed his dad too, for everything that had happened. On the bright side, they had a wider arrange of classes and he was allowed to take dance lessons after school like he had always wanted, both ballet and hip-hop. Every now and then we would catch each other on the phone, ranting about our days, the stupid people at school, and how Wolverine and Spiderman should just team up and be the most awesome duo ever.

After Jeff left, the amount of moving on my end didn't waver. My father would walk into my room and just by the look on his face I knew what was happening. It got to the point where he didn't need to say anything and I'd stand up and grab the boxes at the back of my closet and the luggage under my bed, only asking him where we were going this time.

And every time I would wait, back to him, hoping that the next base would be located somewhere over on the west coast.

Every time it was no where near California.

I broke down in middle school.

One time I had moved to Wisconsin of all places and found myself in a new school, with new rules, and trying to make new friends. Classes were different there. Block scheduling was little to unheard of, so the days seemed to pass faster than normal. Everyone was nice enough, welcoming me even with my weird background.

I went on my first date in eighth grade. Not that I would call it a date. We were 14. Teenagers and ready to act like we were adults. Middle school was all about finding a place to fit in: creating who you were going to be in high school and looking to be someone the kids younger than you respected and the older kids smiled at. Homecoming, though middle schoolers had nothing to do with, was a formality. Everyone would go, get together in their groups, and huddle somewhere in the background of the game. The night was full of drama, breakups, and "scandals."

I had been asked to the game by a girl in my grade through a note her best friend had given me. Yeah, wrap your head around that. It was a "romantic" gesture at the time.

So, when I showed up, mother dropping me off at the gate, I found the group of guys I normally hung out with and stood with them for a while, talking about nothing in particular. Meanwhile, every now and then I would see the girl that had asked me out talking in her group of friends not too far away. Though we never stayed together in a single place for long, she laughed at me at the end of the night and told me she had a good time. Then she kissed me on the cheek before her cell phone went off, and she was beckoned to her ride.

The next day I had called Jeff, telling him the story about how the whole thing was an epic fail and yet it was the only thing anyone at school would talk about. That supposedly her and I were "dating."

And then something interesting had happened.

"Well, did you like it?"

And I remember sitting there...having to really think about the answer to it. The night had been fun. We had won the game and I had joked around with the rest of the guys the majority of the time. When she was around it wasn't much different. The only thing that had changed was that the circle of friends had gotten bigger.

"Yeah...I mean, it wasn't bad or anything. She was pretty cool."

And Jeff hadn't asked me anything about the date after that. I didn't mention the kiss.

I had expected Jeff to bring something up about him dating. We would constantly talk online and by the looks of his pictures he had uploaded he had a lot more friends than he had implied. He seemed to be constantly surrounded by girls and boys alike, smiling in almost every single picture whether they were by the pool, on the football field, or at someone's house. He too, had gone to his homecoming game, though he said his team had lost.

He didn't say if he had taken a date.

It only a month after that that my mother passed away.

One night she had gone to sleep and the next morning she just didn't wake up.

My father was the one that found her. He had woken up, rolled over to give her a kiss like he did every other morning, and instead he had noticed her lack of movement. The next thing I knew there were police and EMT's everywhere.

I had never seen my father cry. Not once in my short 14 years of life, through all his broken bones, family deaths, and arguments with my mother, I had never seen him shed a tear.

Then, for nearly a week straight he had cried over the loss of my mother until we finally laid her to rest in a plot in Ohio near her home town.

I don't remember much about that week. Sleeping. Eyes hurting. Constant headaches. Screaming. Breaking everything around me.

I didn't know what to feel. I wouldn't answer phone calls or text messages. I had shut my phone off after a day of texts from Jeff and didn't talk to anyone for three days.

I had two stable things in my life: my mother and Jeff.

I lost one of them.

Finally, after days of just sitting in my room and silently laying there with my pillow tucked under my head, imagining it was someone else, I took out my computer, hooked up the webcam, and waited for Jeff to call me.

I didn't let it ring once before I answered.

The screen came on, and there sat Jeff, 2,000 miles away from me, face covered in tears just as thick as mine.

At first we didn't say anything. Then-

"Why are you crying?" I asked him.

"Because you're hurting." He sniffled and wiped his nose, looking away from me for a moment.

I stared at him for what seemed like forever until I finally let it all out. I cried in front of my best friend for hours telling him things I had never told anyone and venting to him about all of it. I went through all the what ifs, hows, and buts of my entire life as he listened to every word in earnest, every now and then breaking my thoughts to tell me something soothing.

Towards the end of my conversation, when I had nothing else to say and yet so much, he looked directly into the camera and told me how much how much he hated not being here. How he would do anything to be with me this second so that he could help me. That he wished he wasn't so far away so that he could be here for me like I was for him so long ago.

I remembered shaking my head at him, breaking my lips into a smile that I hadn't shown in nearly a week, and told him, "Jeff. Even though you're 2,000 miles away it still feels like you're right here beside me. Thank you." My smile broke wider when I saw the corners of his mouth turn up in just the slightest way and small wrinkles appeared at the corners of his eyes.

It was then that it happened.

Something inside was turning. Thoughts at the back of my head began to shift and I felt something twistin my stomach and my hear skipped a beat at the last thing I had said...

I quickly recovered myself. "You're my best friend...you know that, right?" I had laughed pitifully, to cover up any... discomfort I felt.

Jeff eyed me quickly, smile never fading, though the light in his eyes seemed to dim. "Yeah. Of course, Nicky."

I had nodded, thanked him, and told him that I'd call him later. I had shut my computer screen while laying my hands on top of them and blinked in confusion. I only had one thought.

What the hell had just happened?

The months passed by slowly. The days were hard and the nights were harder. With my mom...no longer there...I was left at home alone a lot of the time while my dad worked at the base. Any free time I had away from chores I spent skyping Jeff whenever he wasn't at practice. A lot of the time we would set our computers to the side of our desks and work on our homework, leaving the call going just so that we'd be "in the same room" as each other.

Sometimes I wondered why he continued to do this with me. I always thought I was holding him back from anything happening over there in his real life. While he was sitting on the computer talking to me he could have been outside with his friends, going to parties, meeting girls... Then I would shake myself free from these thoughts, because it seemed like whenever this happened, Jeff could hear them and he'd crack a joke from where he sat on my desk like he was trying to make me feel better.

At times I also thought it was weird. I had only known this guy for six months in the fifth grade and here I was, four years later, on the computer with him like nothing had changed. I hadn't even physically been in the same room with him once throughout those four years and yet I knew things were fine between us. He was one of those few people I could sit in a room with in complete silence and it wouldn't be weird.

I tried to let it not bother me at how much I wanted to be in the same room as him.

In May my father did what he did every other time. He knocked softly on my door and stood in the doorway looking at me. I sighed, hanging my head low and already reaching for the luggage beneath my bed.

"We're not moving yet."

I paused, hand on the handle of my bag.

"You're moving in August. To Ohio. Close to your mother."

I had nodded, not realizing what he had said. When I finally did, I turned to him, brow together in confusion. "What?"

My dad wasn't one for talking. He let things speak for themselves. He complied this time, however. "Your mother...she-For the longest time she wanted you to go to a boarding school. Not because she didn't want you with us, that was her biggest fear...but because she wanted you to grow up right. With friends and good schooling." He ran a hand through what was left of his hair. "She didn't want you to grow up like this..." I heard his voice crack, but didn't show him that I noticed. He had breathed in deep. "So, I'm enrolling you in Dalton Academy. It's a private all boys school in Westerville. It has dorm rooms. The army is going to pay for everything. I've been called out, again, to go to South Carolina...and who knows how long I'm going to stay there."

He looked up at me with a pleading look in his eyes for me to understand.

I did. He was abiding by what mom wanted. Somewhat of a last wish...

So, in a few months I was going to be living in a dorm at an all boys school. At the time I was let down. My mother had just passed away only months before and my father was already shipping me off to be out on my own. What I didn't know...was it was going to be the best four years of my life.

I spent the next months looking up anything having to do with this new school I was going to and slowly let it sank in that I would be living there and that it would be my home for four years.

It would be the longest time I have every stayed in one place.

I told Jeff right away, sharing my screen with him so that he could see the place I was talking about. It's website seemed pretty pristine. Apparently, it was a prestigious school known for their "zero tolerance" policy and glee club. Though I didn't think I had reason to worry about the zero tolerance policy, I had raised my brow at the glee club. Videos had been posted online of their performances and they seemed pretty stiff. The most movement they had was their swaying.

I also remember lifting my brow with a smirk, "Challenge accepted."

The more and more I talked about it the more I worried how bummed Jeff would be and whether he would get annoyed at me for going on and on about their all-you-can-eat buffet. Until, that is, I realized he was genuinely excited for me. Almost more excited than I was. He would pull up chat conversations with people who were or had been going to Dalton and show me how cool the school actually was, minus the fact that it was girless.

Somehow, that didn't bother me though. At the time I thought I was just too excited to finally have a place to stay rather than worry about the opposite sex.

I packed my things one last time and my dad drove me to Ohio.

The drive there wasn't too bad. We mostly kept quiet and listened to whatever we could find on the radio. A few times we passed things that brought up conversation, but nothing too extensive. It had been like this between us for years: Never really knowing each other, yet so close. We were comfortable with it.

I remember as we passed by the scenery on the way to Ohio, though there wasn't much to look at, I was still excited to be able say that this was the last time I would be moving until graduation. I could finally throw away the boxes that I had once kept so close at hand. My luggage would sit in storage, gathering dust, rather than taking up space beneath my bed. Though I'm sure they wouldn't allow much of a change to the room, I would be able to put up posters and pictures and calanders that wouldn't be ripped down weeks later. It would be my room.

Well, our room. But, at the time I didn't know who my roommate was going to be. I was just hoping we were going to get alone.

When we reached Dalton, the first thing that happened was a quick tour of the dorms. They showed my father and I where I would be staying and where some of the closer classrooms were, even though I knew most of this just from the research that I had been doing with Jeff. The rest of the bedrooms were empty and locked besides mine, the students having yet returned from break and the freshmen due to show up in about a week. They had made a special arrangement for me due to the circumstances of my father.

My dad helped me take all of my things from the car to my room, stacking them in piles on my bed and across the floor. The spare bed next to mine had still been empty and when I noticed and asked the Principal about it, he said that the boy would be arrive shortly and that he had flown out yesterday and stayed in a hotel last night. They had also making an exception for him, apparently. I remember nodding in approval and not thinking twice about it, instead, I walked with my father back to his car and stood there for a few moments in silence.

My father and I had a rough relationship. We were tethered together by my mother. We loved each other, really, we did, but our anchor was gone and now it was harder than ever for us to understand each other. I didn't get his obsession with such a chaotic live and he didn't understand my passion for music and games.

When I hugged my father, for the first time in years, I felt everything pass between us. It was like everything we'd been meaning to say, 'I'm so sorry, goodbye, I love you, I'll miss you, call me, dad, son, I know" was all expressed into one moment of contact between us, not needing to say anything out loud because we knew everything was going to be alright between us and we knew how much we loved each other...and we knew this was right.

I waved goodbye to him, watching until he passed behind a line of trees where I could no longer see.

I went directly back to my room, laying on my back and staring up at the ceiling I would live under for my entire span of high school. It wasn't exactly normal, going to a school where I would lived with a bunch of other guys that I didn't yet know, but I knewit would become normal. I was thrilled.

I had unpacked for hours. I took my time, this time, first taking out my sterio and blasting the speakers with any type of upbeat music I had on hand. I had taken out pictures over the years, looked at them as they slowly covered the wall over my desk. I saw myself over the years, my face grew older and more defined from one to another. Some were filled with my mother and father and random candids. Some were taken with friends that I had made over the years and I still kept in touch with. Nearly a third of them were pictures of my time in Florida and skyping sessions.

I couldn't help but smile. So much had happened throughout the years. I knew I was going to have to tell nearly every guy I met my story, over and over until I got sick of it and ended up shortening the story to, "I'm an army brat. I moved around a lot. Then I moved here."

I pulled out my computer, debating whether or not I should check to see if he was online so I could show Jeff my new room and home. I knew he would be excited for me and that he was probably anxiously waiting for my status to go "online" where he sat at his next on the west coast.

Insead, I went through the last box and moved over to the large tv to set up my gaming system when there was a knock at the door that I had left ajar. I didn't move though, because my hands were tangled in the wired mess. "Hey, hold on. I'm a little..."

I grunted, and freed my hand from the mess and stood up, turning around to greet whoever it was that had entered. I figured that it was going to be the principal again, checking in on me, or my new roommate, so I smiled and motioned to put up my hand for them to shake...but I couldn't.

Instead, I stood there, mouth agape, heart bursting against my rip cage.

"Hey, man. Sorry to cramp your style. Guess I'm gonna be your new roommate." The blonde laughed and set down the box he had been holding.

My ears were ringing with his voice and I nearly fell over when I crossed the room in three strides to encase my arms around my best friend that I hadn't seen in nearly five years.

He did the same, moving his arms as well as he could under mine to hug back and I felt him smile into my hair. "Hey, Nicky."

DON'T FREAK OUT

THERE WILL BE A PART TWO

It'll pick up exactly where this lift off. Questions will be answered. Niff will be had. Full of fluff…now that I think about it…there may be three parts…

Let me know what you guys think! 3 Sorry that there was little Niff in this section, but the story had to be set first.