Title: The Tracks Of My Tears

Author: Tinnean

Fandom: The Big Chill

Pairing: Harold/Alex

Rating: NC-17

Feedback email: Tinneantoo@aol.com

Date: 1/2001

Series: This seems to have developed into a series and is part 3 of what is now titled The Connection series. Yesterday, When We Were Young is part 1, and Chain of Fools is part 2.

Disclaimer: They still belong to Lawrence Kasdan, and I'm *still* not making money on it.

Archive: If I sent it to you, please feel free. Otherwise, just let me know; I'm so easy, of course I'll say yes!

Summary: Harold learns of Nick's injuries, and Sarah is not the one who comforts him.

Warning: m/m, m/f implied, spoilers for the movie

The Tracks of My Tears
By Tinnean

Harold was gazing broodingly out into the bright, late August sun, drawing deeply on his cigarette. The sweet odor of pot filled the room that was blue with marijuana smoke.

"Hey, Ha." The voice greeted him softly.

His eyes dazzled by the sunlight, all Harold could see was the fair hair surrounded by a nimbus of gold. "Nick!" he whispered hoarsely and dropped the weed, almost stumbling in his haste to get to his lover.

And then his eyes adjusted to the dimmer light in the room, and he saw that he had been fooled by the drug and his own desires.

It was Alex standing in the doorway of the apartment they were sharing for the summer.

"Problem, Harold?" Alex asked achingly.

Hell yes, there was a problem! His heart was a bloody mess on the floor! Harold turned back to look out the window.

"He's not coming back anytime soon, Harold, you have to know that."

"Do I?"

"C'mon, man! Get real! He's stuck in Viet Nam for the next eighteen months!"

"Are you trying to make a point, Alex?" Harold stooped over to pick up his smoking toke. He froze as he felt his friend stroke the firm contours of his ass.

"Goddamn it, Ha, I've been trying to get you to see the point since January! *I'm* here! *I* want you!"

Harold stared at him, his eyes agog and his mouth hanging open. The words that he tried to utter verged on gibberish. Alex touched his mouth to the other man's, sliding his tongue in to taste the bite of the grass.

"But what about Sarah?"

Alex had the grace to look ashamed. "You never noticed me, Ha, not like I wanted you to. All you saw was Sarah. And that hurt, that hurt so bad! All I wanted to do was hurt you back!"

"So you set about seducing Sarah away from me?"

Alex nodded, uncomfortable with the pettiness he was revealing. "And it was so easy."

Harold just watched his friend, and Alex began to chew on his cuticles, as he always did when he got nervous.

"You hate me, right?"

"Alex, for the only one of us who was up for a fellowship, you can be so fucking stupid!"

"Oh, please! Don't remind me! I never should have tossed that off so lightly, at least not in front of Michael! But what does that have to do with you and Sarah?"

"Sarah and I had been drifting apart for months before you made a move on her!"

Alex was dumbfounded. "How come *we* never knew?" referring to their circle of friends.

"Why would we tell you guys? You had elected us the perfect couple. We couldn't have an argument; we couldn't get tired of each other. We couldn't ... fall for someone else."

"But..."

"What you did with Sarah didn't bother me because it gave me the opportunity to explore some other areas of my sexuality."

Alex looked sick. "With Nick?"

Before Harold could answer, there was a knock on the door. He left Alex standing in the middle of the room, cursing the fates.

Things had always come so easily to him. He never had to crack the books the way his friends had; people gravitated toward him; he was a natural born leader. The six others in their group were there because of him.

And although they would go their separate ways, now that college was finished, they would remain close friends. Because of him.

Now, he had lost the fellowship that meant the world to him, and only because he was showing off for Harold. But Michael had been there as well, and heard him. The journalism student wrote a
scathing article denouncing the bureaucracy that sponsored the fellowship, using Alex's own words to damn him, and the offer had been withdrawn.

He had taken Sarah from Harold in another vain attempt to get his attention, only to lose him to the disenchanted Nick.

Alex looked at the faint traceries on his wrists, and was tempted to slice them again, only this time succeeding in ending his pathetic excuse of a life.

And then he was yanked out of his orgy of self-pity by the moan from the other room. He ran in to see Harold on his knees, doubled over, and keening with raw emotion.

Alex dropped beside him and encircled his friend with arms that held him snugly. "Ha, what's wrong?"

Harold gasped for breath, but the sobs ripping through him prevented him from getting a word out. He thrust the telegram toward the other man.

Alex smoothed out the crumpled page and read the message with growing horror.

"Regret to inform you...seriously injured...not expected to survive..."

"*Nick*? Oh, Harold, I'm *so* sorry!"

Alex held him tightly and rocked him. Unconsciously, he began pressing comforting kisses to Harold's tear-stained cheek, murmuring nonsense words so that he would know he wasn't alone.

Harold turned his face toward his friend, and suddenly their lips met. They shared the salty taste of tears, and the sweet taste of life, and then they were fumbling with buttons and zippers. Hands stroked, and fondled and worshiped.

"Ha, please, I have to have you! Right now!"

Harold's velvet brown eyes stared into Alex's light blue ones. "Yes."

Alex ran into his room and Harold could hear the curses as his friend searched frantically for the lubricant that would ease his way to paradise. He was back before Harold could question the
need that had arisen so unexpectedly in him, his arousal already dripping with precome.

He rolled his friend over onto his stomach and caressed the crevice between Harold's taut buttocks. That first time, it had taken Nick a while to prepare him, but this time, Harold was ready, so hot he was backing toward Alex before he could do more than stroke a couple of lubricated fingers into his snug passage.

"Fuck me, Alex. Make me remember that I'm alive!"

Alex had been waiting too long for this moment, certain it might never come to him. He took his time, wanting to make it so special, wanting Harold to remember him, only him, when he thought of this.

Harold's ass was high against him, and Alex relished the submissive posture. He reached around and took his friend's cock in his hands and began jerking him in time to his own thrusts. For long minutes they hung on the brink, and then they were flying, soaring, and the colors of the rainbow surrounded them.

Sweaty and sticky and thoroughly sated, they lay, replete, on the floor. Alex kissed the side of Harold's neck.

"Can we do this again?"

Harold pulled Alex's arms around his waist. "And again, and again!"

The phone rang. "Don't answer it," Alex begged.

"I'm expecting a call from my Pop."

Reluctantly, Alex let his lover go, and Harold rose to walk lithely to the little table that held the phone. "Hello. What? Oh shit! Okay, don't cry, I'll be right over to see you!"

Alex was on his feet, his stomach knotting. "What's wrong? Is it your Pop? Is everything okay?" He had never seen Harold look like this before. "Goddammit, tell me what's wrong!"

"What? Oh, no. Sorry, babe, no. That was Sarah."

"What did she want?" Alex was getting a bad feeling about this.

His friend swallowed heavily. "She's pregnant!"

Alex did something his friends had never seen him do. He lost his temper. "*Fuck* Sarah!"

Harold was pale. "That's the problem. I did."

His friend scowled at him. "Yeah. And so did I!"

Harold dressed and left to see the woman they had both shared.

Alex stood in the center of the room, clenching his fists impotently.

Alone.

~End~