"That's it! Y'all are as ready as your sorry asses are ever gonna be to go back on tour!" Fatima announced. A.J. flopped to the floor in mock exhaustion.
"I... thought... she... was... never... gonna... say it!" he panted.
"McLean, you're going to hyperventilate." Fatima warned.
"Dude you sound like the kid on Malcolm in the Middle," Nick smirked, standing over him.
"How old are you and you watch that show?" A.J. inquired, still on his back on the floor. The sudden banter from Nick was unexpected but he wasn't going to let it end there. He'd been quiet all week. Eventually even the dimmest person involved with the tour had noticed that there was some kind of distance between Nick and the others. The word most people used was "tension", although that wasn't true at all. Nick had immersed himself in the work at hand, barely speaking to the others during off moments, and disappearing completely once rehearsal was done. The rest of them didn't push it. A.J. let them all know that whatever he was doing was helping Nick hold it together somehow, so they were waiting him out. It looked like maybe he was ready.
"It's a good show," the younger man shrugged. He wasn't as easy to bait as he had been at twelve, or even nineteen. He offered a hand. "C'mon. I got something to ask everyone."
"Do my ears decieve me?" Howie joked as A.J. let himself be pulled into a sitting position. "Does my Lord Nick wanteth to speak to his subjects?"
"*Doth* mine ears deceive me? *Doth* my Lord Nick wish to address his subjects?" Nick corrected smoothly. "And yeah, I do."
"You been studying Shakespeare this week, Nicky?" Brian looked at him quizzically.
"It's a week of listening to A.J. romance Amanda."
The others laughed and A.J. turned red. "One poem. One!" he protested.
"Ok so it was maybe more Lina than me," Nick admitted. "But it fit."
Keep your voice down, A.J. directed sternly. Still people around!
You're getting pretty good, Alex. Mindi's a good teacher.
I didn't think you knew about that! Mindi had been tutoring A.J. on a few simple tricks all week. He now knew how to focus his thoughts so that another psychic could hear and choose to link to him, and he was getting fairly good at a light mental sheild to keep himself from eavesdropping on everyone within range.
I'm not Deaf, bro.
"Break it up," Brian hissed. "A.J. looks weird."
"That's new. It really is." Next session, get her to help you deal with the two-things-at-once trick. "Anyway, yeah... I know it's Friday night and you guys probably have plans..."
"Well," Kevin drawled, "Brian's wife has kicked him out of the house for the night, and mine's abandoned me..."
"They called Claudia," Howie grimaced. "I'm a little scared of Saturday morning right now. Those three women..."
"Amanda actually wants to spend some time with you, Nicky. She's worried about you."
"Um..."
"I was going to tell her anyway." A.J. answered the unspoken question. "Maybe she won't freak out too badly with witnesses."
"You sure?"
He nodded, not quite calmly. Amanda could take pretty much any curveball he threw at her - sometimes he thought she enjoyed the challenge - but this was a big challenge.
"So, what'cha got planned for us, Kaos?" Kevin asked, throwing an arm around his friend's shoulder.
Nick coughed. "Moving out."
"You don't have that much stuff at my place.... oh." The four Backstreet Boys stared at their youngest member. "Wow."
"Wait, wait, wait!" Howie protested. "It's your house. Shouldn't Mandy..."
"She's looking." Nick cut him off. "I just wanted to get it over with before tour." He looked around at the sea of shocked faces. "I don't have that much crap, guys."
"Are you sure you want to do this, man?" Kevin searched Nick's face for some sign that this really was what he wanted. "You're not just doing this because..."
"I want to do this." Nick met his eyes with a steady gaze, "It's a starting point."
Kevin nodded.
"So, the big question," Brian broke in. "Will you feed us?"
Several hours later, around eleven, Amanda and the Backstreet Boys gave up on moving Nick in and collapsed together with a few pizzas in his new living room. There were still plenty of boxes left to be opened, and the room was pretty bare, but there was a sense of freshness about the whole house. The others had noticed the haunted look that came over Nick the moment he'd stepped back into his old house, and none of them needed to be psychic to see that he was simply more at ease here.
They all concentrated on their food for a while, enjoying a companionable silence and the feeling of being *really* together for the first time in weeks. After a while, Nick gave a contented sigh and stretched. He was lying on the rug, his legs in the air and head propped up on one hand. He looked across the room at A.J..
"Bone, I'm ready to listen, if you're ready to tell me."
The entire atmosphere of the room changed immediately. A.J. became extremely self-conscious, something that didn't happen very often. He glanced at Amanda, then nodded.
"Is this "Boy stuff"?" she asked warily. "You want me to leave, hun?"
"No..." Nick caught A.J.'s eye. Start with me. Things will go easier from there. "Nick wants to hear about the accident," he explained. "He's never really remembered it, and we haven't talked about it before. There's some stuff... I never told you. It's kind of hard to take. It's harder to believe."
"Go ahead Aje," Kevin pushed, "Say it."
Nervously, he began playing with his hands. How Amanda reacted to this would be a big clue to how she was going to react to *him*. Finally, he couldn't take it anymore. "Nick's psychic!" he blurted.
All eyes were on Amanda. She started, her eyes wide, her mouth forming an O. She stared at her boyfriend for a long moment, before breaking into giggles.
"Manda?" A.J. couldn't figure her out. He didn't feel any disbelief from her, just amusement.
She shook her head and held up a hand for him to wait. When she regained her composure, she looked over at Nick, a smile still broad on her face. "I know."
Four pairs of eyes stared at her. Nick just nodded slowly. "Always kinda thought you did. How?"
"In high school, my best friend emerged right in front of me. Telekinetic pyrotechnics. She's lucky it was just me around."
"Lydia's psychic?" A.J. sputtered.
"Oh I know her!" Nick grinned in recognition of the mental picture Amanda had of her friend. "*Wicked* teekay - she can thread a needle three blocks away in less than a second."
"She says you're better."
He shrugged in reply.
"Why is it that it was *him*" A.J. glared at Kevin, "who was all spooked about anyone being a psychic, and it's *me* who keeps proving it?" he demanded.
"You're not proving it," Howie denied.
"Oh yeah?" He started ticking off points on his fingers. "One of my best friends is a seriously powerful psychic. My *best* friend is allergic to psychic energy. The saxaphonist in my backup band is psychic. My girlfriend's best friend is psychic. And now *I'm* psychic. Tell me that doesn't prove *something*."
"It proves that you are a complete and total blabbermouth, Alexander" Brian drawled.
"Get him worked up enough and he'll say *anything*, won't he?" Howie grinned, thoroughly amused.
It still took A.J. a few minutes, plus the startled look on Amanda's face, to figure out what he'd said. He groaned. "Boy am I subtle."
"Subtle isn't the word I'd use, Bone" Kevin teased.
"Since when?"
"Huh?"
"Since when are you psychic and *why* has it taken you so long to tell me?" Amanda demanded, starting to get thoroughly annoyed. Nick went in for the save.
"Probably since the accident. No one realised it until Saturday. He hasn't told anyone outside this room."
"Since the accident?" A.J. hadn't had *this* talk with Mindi yet. He knew most psychics emerged in puberty and had pretty much assumed that no one had picked up on a weak reciever until it was impossible to miss.
"Well yeah. Most receivers have the potential, but it takes a trigger to get them up and working. I'm guessing that for whatever reason, you needed to be able to talk to the psychics around you, so you just switched yourself on."
"Oh," He turned back to his girlfriend. "Are you okay with this?"
"I will be. But..." she stood up, stretching. "If you're going to have some deep talks about psychic business or whatever, I want to get my head around this first. I'm going to go see what the girls are up to, and I'll see you later, k?"
"Promise?"
She leaned over and kissed him on the forehead. "Swear. I'm not g forehead. "Swear. I'm not going to run out on you over this, McLean."
"Good."
"Nicky, take care of him."
"Yes'm."
They waved their goodbyes and Amanda let herself out. There was silence for a moment, until Nick prompted gently, "What happened that night?"