Title: You Can't Always Get What You Want

Author/pseudonym: Tinnean

Fandom: The Big Chill

Pairing: Harold/Nick

Rating: NC-17

Disclaimer: **sigh** They still belong to Lawrence Kasdan, I'm still not making money on this, and there is still no justice.

Status: new/complete

Date: 8/8/02

Series/Sequel: This is part 11 of The Connection series, and follows I Second That Emotion.

Other Web Site: http://www.angelfire.com/fl5/tinnssinns/

Archive: OK, I surrender. Yes to all the list archives. (I'm so easy!)

Summary: The day of Alex's funeral. Both Nick and Harold think of their past.

Warnings: m/m, spoilers for the movie

Notes: Charlie refers to the Viet Cong. I would like, at this time, to thank Athea, Minotaur, Tim, and my internist, Dr. McC, for the invaluable sites, insights, and information on how someone with Nick's injuries would be able to get an erection and make love. Thanks, as always, to Gail for the encouragement and the beta. This is for her, because on August 8, 2000, she posted A Perfect Murder story, Legitimately Sublime, I sent her feedback, and as a result we became friends.

You Can't Always Get What You Want
by Tinnean

There were eight of them, eight friends. Sarah, Meg, Karen, Sam, Harold, Michael, Nick… and Alex. Alex, handsome, brilliant, driven, the glue that held them together in college.

They graduated and went out into the real world, and still the one who kept them connected was Alex, charismatic Alex. They were like a magnet to his North.

They married. Sarah became a doctor, Meg a hotshot attorney, Sam a well-known actor who appeared weekly on TV. Karen settled for security with a man she held in mild contempt. Michael scoffed at his original dream of teaching ghetto kids in Harlem and went to work for People Magazine. Harold got an idea for making sneakers more elitist, founded a company that produced running shoes, and now had almost as much money as Donald Trump. Nick returned home from Viet Nam a changed man, as he liked to put it, with mental as well as physical scars.

And Alex… Alex went from one random job to another. Due to Michael's pugnacious article in the school paper, he'd lost his physics fellowship. Due to Harold's streak of honor, he'd lost his lover when the woman they'd both had became pregnant and couldn't tell who the father was.

The eight friends kept in touch through sporadic phone calls and even more sporadic visits. Everyone thought everyone’s life was going fine, until Alex Marshall committed suicide in the bathroom of his best friend’s house.

****

Nick didn’t think to ask how they knew how to get in touch with him when Alex Marshall was found dead. The running joke among the tight-knit group of college friends was to just copy down his license plate.

He was late to the service. It had been an associate of the funeral director who had given him the lush white carnation that he fixed in his lapel, signifying that he was a pallbearer. He took a seat in the back of the little church, and listened to the fundamentalist minister as he harangued the deceased for his senseless act of self-destruction.

"I didn’t know Alex Marshall. But speaking to his friends and family, I feel as if I did." His words could almost be recited by rote, and mercifully he kept them short. He finished by demanding, "Where did Alex’s hope go?" He gazed sternly at the mourners. "Maybe that is the small resolution we can take from here today. Try to regain that hope; it must have eluded Alex." The minister turned to the man who sat waiting. "Harold."

The most responsible of the group, the one referred to as the perfect man, Harold walked haltingly to the pulpit. He gazed out at the small group of mourners, his eyes lighting briefly as he spotted Nick.

"I did know Alex." Nick watched from the sidelines as Harold spoke achingly of the man who had been his friend, had been more than his friend. "And I loved him," he said softly, almost to himself. "Alex drew us together from the beginning. Now he brings us together again. I only hope that wherever he is now…"

Nick’s lower lip quivered, his face twisted in grief, and he closed his eyes, unable to bear seeing the devastation on his one-time lover’s face.

Harold broke down in the midst of his eulogy, and the minister gently led him away, pausing only to mention the reception that would be held at the home of Harold and Sarah Cooper. As the coffin was rolled back down the aisle, the strains of Alex’s favorite Rolling Stones’ song, You Can’t Always Get What You Want, followed.

The service completed, Nick went to greet the others in the group, gingerly hugging Karen, the woman who had been his girlfriend for a time during their years at the University of Michigan, and shaking hands with her husband, Richard. He was about to join Meg when Sam Webber approached. Richard’s mouth tightened into an angry line, and he refused to meet Sam’s intent gaze. Sam seemed determined to be acknowledged by the other man. Nick caught the subtle interaction between the actor and Karen’s husband, but Karen was looking toward Sarah and didn’t see it.

The cortege of limousines and cars drove to West Glade Memorial Park. Final words were spoken over the coffin, shovelfuls of the sandy Carolina soil were tossed down onto the bronze box by each of the friends, and then everyone returned to the vehicles. The convoy reversed itself, and the gaping hole with the mortal remains of Alex Marshall was left behind. Soon the cemetery workers would arrive to fill it in.

Nick barely acknowledged the occasional comments from Meg, who rode with him. He was lost in that time when they had been so certain that everything they wanted would fall to them, simply because they held out their hands.

Alex had taken Sarah from Harold, for whatever reason he might have had. Nick didn't really care; he had finally been able to get Harold Cooper into his bed.

At first it had just been to show that he could. Nick had had Harold on his knees, blowing him. He'd had Harold on his belly, accepting Nick's cock up his ass, begging for more. Nick had relished it, loved it. And then he had loved him.

Their idyll ended when Nick received that letter from Uncle Sam, the one that in effect said, ‘You have won an all-expenses paid trip to exotic Southeast Asia.’

He’d had a bad feeling about being drafted, but then, so had thousands of other young men. Nick had let Harold think he no longer wanted him. In reality, he had set him free. If he didn’t come home, or worse, came home less than a whole man… And he’d been right to do that, hadn’t he? That gung ho fuck of a platoon leader had gone and stepped on a land mine. Fragments of bone had ripped through Nick’s groin and abdomen, tearing up his body. They’d sent him to Japan, and when he didn’t die, back to the States, to the Naval Hospital at St. Albans in New York.

Karen had postponed her wedding to Richard Bowens to fly in from Chicago to see him in the hospital. Nick had been soaring on painkillers, but he had still been surprised Karen had been willing to do that, the more so considering the news she brought.

"Alex didn’t waste any time in putting the moves on Harold, you know," she said, trying not to stare at his bandages. "He was there to pick up the pieces as soon as Harold received the news that you had been injured! Alex screwed him right on the floor of his dorm room!" She licked her lips. "And don’t think the fact that you survived will matter a single solitary bit! Harold will never take you back!" Her mouth took on a sudden, downward curve. "He married Sarah!"

It had taken months for Nick to heal, and he’d managed to stay high for a good portion of that time. When he had finally been discharged, from both the hospital and the army, Nick had gone back to the University of Michigan and entered the doctoral program, but he never completed it. "I’m not hung up on that completion thing," he would sneer at anyone who questioned him about his unfinished thesis.

Like Alex, Nick drifted from one meaningless job to another. "Now?" he liked to say, "I'm in sales. I supply a need. You want to get high? You want to feel invulnerable?" You want to hide from the pain? "I'm the man to see."

The only problem was, there was no way for Nick to escape from his own pain. He was sure if he just ran far enough and fast enough, one day he would succeed, but then Alex shocked him, shocked all of them into facing reality when he’d sliced his wrists in Harold’s guest bath.

****

Nick couldn't make himself enter the room, so he stood in the doorway and observed.

People ate and drank, formed groups to touch lightly on the bleakness of Alex’s passing, then speak of other things. The groups dissolved, and they moved on to form others and repeat the process again.

Michael had it right: "They throw a great party for you on the one day they know you can’t come!"

All those people mourning Alex Marshall…

The atmosphere was oppressive, like an enormous hand that was threatening to strangle the oxygen from his lungs. "I can't stay here!" he muttered as he poured himself a drink. "I have to get outside!"

Nick sat on the stoop of the stately old home, staring across the lawn to the wooded area on the other side of the drive. He took a bottle of pills from his jacket pocket, poured out a handful and swallowed them, then picked up the plastic cup he had filled with Johnny Walker Black and washed them down with a healthy swig.

Meg walked down the steps with Chloe, Alex’s teenybopper girlfriend. "Hey, Nick," Meg murmured. "How’s it going?" But she didn’t linger to hear his response.

He stared after the two women as they disappeared around the side of the house. "It’s… going," he said although there was no one to hear him. Maybe Alex had the right idea, he thought. You don’t have a good time at a party, you go home. You don’t enjoy life, you just check out.

****

Harold Cooper stood before a window, staring hungrily at the lone figure that sat on the front steps of his house. Behind him the crowd ate and drank, and told stories of Alex.

The cloying scent of the flowers that had filled the little church lingered in his nostrils, reminding him of the day he had married Sarah. Alex had stood up with him as his best man.

What not many people knew was that Alex had also been his lover. But when Sarah had turned up pregnant, Harold had done the right thing and married her, even though the baby might just as well have been Alex's.

What even fewer people knew was that Nick had been his first male lover. Harold thought back to the first time he had sex with Nick. Nick had pushed Harold down onto his knees and teased his lips with his swollen cock. Harold's mouth had dropped open in surprise, and then he found himself with a mouthful of cock. "Come on, baby! Do me!" He'd been inexperienced but willing, and had licked and sucked and nibbled.

It wasn’t until much later that Harold realized the care Nick had taken with his virgin mouth. He’d kept his thrusts shallow, and he’d tried not to come in Harold’s mouth. Nick had barely been able to cry a warning before he came, spilling himself down Harold's throat, and Harold had to swallow or choke.

Nick had a reputation as emotionally shallow, a love ‘em and leave ‘em kind of guy. Harold was certain he was going to leave him unsatisfied, his dick hard and leaking pre come, but to his surprise, Nick had no intention of letting him swing in the wind. "Okay, baby, now it’s your turn!" And Nick had gone down on him. The taller man had dropped to his knees, unzipped Harold's jeans, and dragged them down over his hips, along with the plain white briefs he had always worn.

"Oh, baby, we’re going to have to get you something special! Maybe something in black or deep blue silk!" Nick caressed the other man’s hips, trailed his fingertips through the thatch of dark hair that curled over Harold’s groin, and smiled up into his eyes. "Something low slung, Ha." Nick licked his lips, licked the flared head of the dick before him, and swallowed the quivering length. For the first time, Harold felt another man nurse his cock. He liked it. He liked when Nick fucked him too, slamming into his back passage, battering his prostate, rocking him forward, and driving him wild with lust. Harold knew that they would reach a point soon when his lover would allow him to return the favor, and he was looking forward to burying himself in Nick’s heat.

Harold shook himself out of his reverie. Nick had bought him the sexiest briefs he had ever seen, but before he could wear them for his lover, Nick was out of his life. It wasn't until later that Harold realized Uncle Sam had interfered, and Nick had been drafted.

Harold watched as his wife spoke with Mr. and Mrs. Marshall, who were about to leave, signaling that the exodus could begin. Sarah didn't look well, and something Alex's mother said must have disturbed her even more. Karen took control, waved the older couple off, her eyes chill as they made their way out the door. Dressed in a little black dress that was entirely too sexy for a funeral, the woman standing beside his wife glanced around, frowning, until she spotted him.

"Ha, I’m going to take Sarah to her room." Karen slipped her arm around his wife’s waist and began leading her toward the stairs. "This has taken so much out of her, and I think she should lie down."

"Hmmm?" Harold barely spared the two women a glance. He was snared by the expression on Nick’s face. It was so bleak. "Oh, that sounds like a good idea, Karen. Thanks." Deep in his chest he felt as if there was a fucking huge crater. He wanted to go out onto the porch and pull Nick up onto his feet. He wanted to wind his hands in that thick blond hair and plunder that soft, lush mouth.

But Harold couldn’t just leave the reception. He was the host, after all.

He turned away from the window, and was startled to realize that while he had been lost in thought almost everyone had left. The rooms were a shambles, used paper plates and napkins littering every available flat space. He looked back at Nick, who was now fumbling in his jacket, no doubt searching for a joint.

Making up his mind, Harold ran up to his bedroom to change into something more comfortable. When he came back down, he scooped up the keys to his jeep and went out onto the stoop. "Nick, I’m going to take a ride out to the old house. Want to …come?"

Nick got to his feet, a little unsteady from the effects of the pills and alcohol. "Sure, Ha." He caught his breath at the warm expression in Harold’s dark eyes. Was there a possibility his old friend still cared for him? Nick had never dared hope… "I don’t do anything, you know." But, oh god, he wished he could. After he’d returned from Nam and had gone back to the Michigan campus, Nick had needed to know he was still desired, was still the macho stud he’d been before Charlie had shown him what a chimera that was. He’d tried, but he’d been unable to sustain an erection, and had wound up taking it up the ass a few times. It hadn’t been awful, but those experiences had left him feeling more alone and unconnected than ever. Would it be different with Harold? They had already had a connection. He chewed on his lip, then gestured vaguely below his waist. "It doesn’t work, you know."

Harold smiled at him, took his hand, and squeezed it gently. He urged Nick down the stairs and led the way to the jeep.

****

Harold had put a cassette into the tape deck, and the driving beat of the Rascals' Good Lovin' pounded out of the speakers. Nick was grateful for the loud music. It made conversation impossible.

After all, what could he say? ‘Why didn’t you wait for me? I know I said I didn’t want you any more, but I lied. Why didn’t you read between the lines?’

The car pulled up in front of an old house. "This really is a handy man’s special," Harold murmured ruefully. He got out of the jeep and stepped up onto the dilapidated porch. "I don’t know why Alex wanted it."

"You don’t think the fact that you live right down the road might have had anything to do with it?"

Harold paused in the doorway, waiting for Nick to catch up with him. "Watch your step. Some of the planking in the floor has rotted out." Nick realized his question was going to go unanswered. The two men went into the house. "Alex just finished wiring it for electricity." He gestured toward a book that was on a small, rustic table, The I Never Wired a House Before Handy Dandy Instruction Guide. Nick picked it up and flipped through the pages. Notes that Alex made in pencil were written neatly in the margin, much the way he had made notations in his books in college. On the fly leaf, under the title, he had scrawled, ‘so easy even an idiot who tossed away a fellowship in physics can follow it."

Nick slammed the book shut and looked up. In the late afternoon sunlight that filtered through the dusty windowpanes, he could see the sheen of tears in Harold’s eyes. "Yeah."

"Goddamn Michael!" Nick spat, his anger so great it overcame the effects of the drugs in his system. It tore him inside to see his… to see Harold so broken up by this. "If he had just minded his own goddamned business… If Alex had accepted that fellowship…"

"We all would still have him? Maybe. But not me, Nick." Harold shook his head. "It wouldn’t have mattered; I realized that a long time ago." He gave the other man a crooked smile. "Everyone thinks I’m the perfect man, but you know something, buddy? If Alex had asked me to go away with him the day I married Sarah, I would have left her at the altar without a backward glance. I would have done it in a snap! He didn’t... he didn’t ask."

"What are you telling me, Harold?"

"I’m telling you that the only thing Alex ever loved was physics. When he blew that fellowship…"

"Are you saying… What are you saying, Harold?"

"I’m saying that for me, Alex was gone long before he cut his wrists in my guest bath! I loved him, Nick."

"You said that during the eulogy."

"But I’ll tell you the truth, I stopped liking him a long time ago."

Nick had promised himself when he knew he’d be seeing his former lover again that he would keep his distance. He never had been good at keeping promises. He went to Harold and pulled him into his arms, and then Nick’s mouth was on his and he was kissing him in a manner reminiscent of a man dying of thirst.

Harold began to shake. It had been forever since anyone had kissed him like he was their last hope of heaven. No one knew it, but he and Sarah seldom shared a bed any more. Even when they did, it was obvious that she no longer enjoyed his touch.

Now, here was someone who was actively encouraging him to become physical. Harold was suddenly, achingly hard, and he rubbed himself against Nick’s thigh. "Oh, jesus, I want you, Nick!"

"And I want you, too, Harold." His embrace grew tighter, and he enjoyed the feel of his lover hard against him. He loosened his hold and stepped back. "Do you have anything to use?"

Harold’s eyes widened, and he licked his lips. "Nick, you’d let me…"

"Yeah. But not dry, Ha."

A broad smile curled Harold’s lips, the first real smile that Nick had seen on him since the church. "There should be some lube around here someplace!" He went into another room, and Nick could hear things being tossed around.

"Huh?"

"Chloe came up to the house to see Sarah once," Harold called. "She said that one night after Alex had made love her, and he thought she’d gone to sleep, Chloe’d gotten scared because she heard this moaning coming from the bathroom. She bolted in and saw Alex kneeling on the bathmat, fucking his ass with this dildo. I think what pissed her off was the fact that he’d said he bought the dildo for her! Where there’s a dildo, there’s got to be lube!"

Nick grinned and began to search as well. A feeling ghosted down to his groin, one he never expected to feel again, and his hands trembled in anticipation.

"Got it!" Harold stood in the doorway, waving the battered tube triumphantly. "Are you… are you sure you want to do this, Nick?" He studied his friend carefully.

"Oh, yeah, baby. I promised you a shot at my ass, didn’t I, back when we were in college?" Nick took off his sports jacket and dropped it on the table. "Doesn’t look like I’ll ever have yours again, so… " As he walked toward the man who had once been his lover, and soon would be again, if there was a god, he began to yank off his clothes.

"Nick. I’ll do whatever it takes to make you feel good." Harold backed into the other room, quickly stripping off his own clothes. He got down to his briefs, low slung, black silk. They lovingly cupped his cock and balls, and the stunned expression on Nick’s face made him glad he had taken the time to change into them. "I saved them, Nick." Harold stroked his hand down over the front of his body. "I guess deep down I always hoped you’d come back to me and give me a reason to wear them."

****

Nick lay sprawled on the cot that with a hand crafted pine chest was the only piece of furniture in the room, his breathing slowly coming under control. "You’re fucking amazing, Ha! I don’t understand what you did to me, but you realize I’m your slave for life? The doctor at the VA hospital told me… And when I tried, I couldn’t even get it up! But with you…"

"Nick, I love you. I think you love me too. I think you were able to relax enough for it to happen."

"Ha, I do love you."

Harold sighed quietly. //Thank god.// "Took you long enough to realize it, baby."

The taller man licked a path from his lover’s adam’s apple to the hinge of his jaw. "I’m sorry I left you."

"Nick. You were fucking drafted!"

He tipped up Harold’s chin and their eyes met. "If… if I had asked you to wait for me, would you have?"

"Nick, I kept the shorts you bought for me, didn’t I?" Harold smiled at him, looking so like the young man Nick had known in college that Nick felt his heart constrict. "Yeah, Nick. I’d have waited."

****

Michael was the only person on the first floor of the big house. Twilight had fallen. He had switched on a lamp and was sitting on the floor in the family room, the manual for the video camera set to one side while he attempted to figure out its workings.

The words of Alex’s favorite song kept going around and around in his head. It had been like that since Karen sat down at the organ in the little church and began to play it.

You can’t always get what you want…

"That selfish prick, Alex! Always thinking of himself. If it hadn’t been for his suicide, I’d be in Texas now, interviewing that blind, fourteen year old baton twirler!" he grumbled under his breath. What a feather in his journalistic cap that would be! Michael frowned. And if ever there was a rationalization, that was one! He sighed, thinking he could never get through the week without one or two juicy rationalizations.

You can’t always get what you want…

Like a hunting dog, his head suddenly jerked up, whipping from side to side, and he almost sniffed the air. There was sex going on in this house! He was certain of it!

But if you try sometime…

Michael’s shoulders slumped, and he sighed again. He was just as certain he wasn't going to get any this weekend.

…you just might find…

Maybe he should go home to his girlfriend, Annie.

You get what you need.

~End~