A/N) I am not gonna lie, I loved Sam and Andy initially, but he's been so DUMB coupled with Nick and Andy being so freaking adorable that I just can't help myself. McCollins all the way, baby! I'm in the middle of finishing a ridiculously long fanfic, this is just a short, fluffy as they come, 3 cheers for a "What I Lost" inspired lil fic.
"Easy"
By Ellie
I've had the steady kind of love. The love that's built on trust that you always thought was firm as standing on granite. The kind that you build from the foundation up, the entire time, sure that the bottom will hold. And when it doesn't, when the weaknesses you didn't know were there finally give under the pressure, all you can do is gather up your stuff and run away to lick your wounds.
I loved Luke. I did. But in retrospect? That damn niggling, fiery attraction to Sam Swarek was always right beneath the surface, ready to flare up and burn us both alive. So yeah, I loved Luke, but my stupid heart knew way before my head caught up that it was always about Sam.
Sam. That fucking bastard. Even when I'm burning him in effigy I'm trying not to remember how it finally felt to be with him. To hold him in my arms and meet his lips with mine and just let the world explode.
The kind of love that comes with insane attraction—the chemistry that's enough to make me lose my mind? Yeah, that's all Sam. The fact that he was my training officer just meant that the flash and flare of temper was just as often the kindle to our feelings as any of those mushy thoughts that cropped up when those deep brown bedroom eyes met mine.
Sam Swarek. A puzzle within a puzzle, a maze of contradiction and secrets wrapped up in a firm muscled body, intense emotions and true-blue heroism. How was I supposed to resist that? That's completely rhetorical. I already know the answer: I couldn't.
The grass is green, water is wet, and Sam Swarek will always hold a piece of my heart.
I've had to let him go, and if we meet eyes occasionally, it's on me to push that damnable spark down. To smother the embers of my feelings for him. He has Marlo, and as much as I'd love to hate her, they complement each other in a way that we, Andy and Sam, never did. I think I could manage to hate her if I didn't know that Sam still feels it too; that the spark is still there for both of us.
But damn if he didn't make both of our beds. I've accepted it, I've strengthened my heart against it, and I've started healing. As much as I miss him, I've found that I like the stability of life without fire. I have my friends, I have my life and I'm content. It was exciting, the sex was phenomenal but the issues, the feeling that as close as we were I'd still never truly see into Sam's heart? That sucked.
It sucked and it was exhausting.
I spent half our relationship trying to figure out if we were both on the same page, trying to understand why Sam constantly pushed me away, kept parts of himself hidden from me. And I began to forget what it's like to love without complication. Without self-imposed limits that we both keep erecting just to knock down.
Because what I felt for Sam was love. Absolutely. But I'm beginning to think that there's a better way to love. A better way to be in love, a better way to receive it. I don't think love is supposed to be so damn hard, always fighting, clawing, for one step forward and three steps back.
I didn't even realize that most of my happiness was because of Nick. I wasn't looking for him. He was with Gail, I was strung up on Sam. We were friends. I don't know when the friendship started to change. I don't know when he moved from my good pal Nick, to my best friend. To the first person I wanted to talk to in the morning and the last at night.
It was such a gradual change. So effortless. I know that we started to get closer undercover. God knows, you can't help but bond in that kind of pressure. Living in a tiny apartment, lying your ass off and praying that you can fool the criminals into believing that you're one of them. Staying awake for hours because it's your job to know the exact moment some new scumbag has made a drop.
Pretending to be in love in front of said scumbags. Joking, laughing, knowing that we are all that each other had. It's like that stupid game they make you do in school—you close your eyes and fall back, and your teammates are supposed to catch you. I never doubted that Nick would catch me.
And I knew that he felt the exact same way.
There's incredible power in that. I thought that what I'd built with Luke was on a solid foundation. The difference between that and how I feel for Nick is like comparing one of those earthquake-proof buildings they put up in San Francisco to a cottage made of sticks.
When we came back from UC, our closeness took a hit. Gail was waiting to sock him in the face, literally, and Sam was there with Marlo. My figurative sock in the face. We went from being an island, from being the Nick and Andy show, straight back to the unbearably awkward and painful Andy and Sam—days of our lives drama.
Not that Nick was lacking any drama by hitching his wagon to Gail's. As tumultuous and insane as my relationship with Sam was, Gail is in possession of her own brand of emotional distance issues. But Nick just kept plugging away. Gotta admire that in a man. Maybe it's the soldier in him—nothing less than victory, even against interminable odds.
In any case, he and Gail breaking up threw me. I was finally starting to feel whole again after my second, third, shit, final trial by fire with Sam. Suddenly my breakup buddy is the one that's taken the hit. I tried to cheer him up, I tried to get him to talk about it. When that didn't work, I went with him to get drunk. That worked just dandy. But instead of spewing vitriol about ice-for-blood Peck, or telling me about the break up, we ended up playing silly games and reliving our time under cover.
He ended up crashing on my couch and when I woke up with my head pounding I found him in the kitchen making omelets, a glass of water and two Asprin already sitting on the counter for me. Nick, the homemaker. A side that I got to see plenty of undercover, and one that I was especially thankful for while mini elephants were tapdancing on my skull.
He flipped the omelet onto a plate and smiled at me. Pure Nick with a side of dimples. "Glad you're up sleeping beauty. Breakfast's ready."
And I remember thinking to myself how glad I was that Nick and I were friends. How much better my life felt without the complications of Sam. Without our "love" setting off flash fires everywhere we went.
As I tossed back those Asprin I tried to remember the last time I had felt so happy. I had great friends, a job I loved, a freshly cooked breakfast, and my best friend, Nick.
It felt natural to partner with Nick. Always did, but now it's weird if I look to my left or right and it's not him I feel a slight pang. That nagging feeling that I left something at home. Easy enough to shrug it off and do my job, but sometimes it surprises me that it's there at all. Just a testament to how amazing Nick is, I guess. I've never had a friend that understands me the way he does. And the best part is that I know, deep-down-to-the-bone know that he feels that same way about me.
That's why it was so shocking, so amazingly surreal when we were sitting in the squad car and he told me that I just keep getting more and more magical. He said it with the kind of flat honesty that he would use in one of his reports. He looked me in the eye and smiled, ruefully, barely enough to make those dimples of his show up. Crazy, he said.
Yeah, me and Nick? Definitely crazy. He just broke up with Gail. He and I are... Well. We're Andy and Nick. Compadres. Amigos. Jesus, where is all of this Spanish coming from?
If Nick were in my head right now, he'd make a crack about how it's just another sign that I need a burrito. That's kind of the funny thing. I can actually hear him. I can picture exactly how he'd look, that he would undoubtedly accompany the comment with a friendly nudge or a loose arm around my neck.
I can picture him in my head. Doesn't that just mean that he's already there?
Oh, boy. I guess I can kiss my simple single life goodbye. Things are about to get all kinds of complicated.
He looks into my eyes, smiles and tells me that he'll wait for me. Wait for me to think, wait for me to decide. There's no pressure here. This is Nick. The same guy who makes me breakfast, guards my back and jokes with me. One day when I was feeling particularly low about Sam and the lovely Marlo he took me to an arcade and we played that stupid bop-it game where the groundhogs pop up and you smash them in the head with a padded mallet. We went around indulging our inner kid, winning tickets and snickering whenever the younger kids would eyeball us, wondering what two grown-ass adults are doing playing duckhunter.
At the end of the night he took all of our tickets and picked out a "prize" for us. Some plastic bugs for us to plant in the lockers at work, a bagful of gummy worms and a stuffed raccoon. I busted out laughing when he handed it to me with that playful twinkle in his eye.
He knows I have a history with raccoons. On my second week of working the mean streets of Toronto, I was called to investigate a disturbance behind someone's residence. There had been a string of robberies around that neighborhood and the homeowners were concerned that a prowler might be in their alley.
After minutes of my heartbeat working up and into my throat I heard a loud scuffle by a dumpster and drew my gun, requesting that the perp come out with their hands up.
A family of raccoons ran out and almost gave me a heart attack. I could actually feel my finger squeezing down just as their beady eyes stared at me with curiosity and alarm before scampering off.
Nick just couldn't let me live it down. I still had the stuffed animal sitting on my dresser. Couldn't bring myself to get rid of it even though I knew that Nick wouldn't have been offended if I had.
I'm ready for bed, sitting in my pajamas and staring at the stuffed animal that's sitting in the corner and trying to figure out what the hell I'm going to do.
This is NICK. He and Gail just broke up, he's my best friend. I don't want to lose him. I can feel my lips stretch into a smile as I recall his calm sincerity as he assures me that he'll wait. And I know Nick. I trust him completely. He doesn't say anything that he doesn't mean. He's honest to a fault, a trait we have in common. He'll wait for me to figure this out. No hot and cold. No finding another girlfriend while I try and decide.
It's late and I need to sleep. I've got work in the morning. I glance at the stuffed raccoon and snatch it quickly. I'm not going to cuddle it or anything. I mean, I'm a girl but I'm not 12. I set it on the pillow next to me and turn out the light. It's only as I'm drifting off that I realize that it smells like Nick's soap.
We found Christian and I'm finally feeling the bone-deep terror and crushing guilt begin to ebb away after seeing Diaz cuddling his son. And Jesus if the kidnapping wasn't bad enough! Chris now has to deal with the fact that Christian isn't his biological son. I feel for him. And it's just one more part of the exhaustion that's draping over me. I am so incredibly glad that this awful day is over.
I'm trudging my way to my door when I see Nick leaning against the wall. He smiles at me and I can feel it like a hug. A balm for this horrible day. He's been shoring me up from the moment that he showed up at that park. Watching him with Christian just cemented what I've known about him from the beginning. He is a good man. Generous, kind, patient. It would take a stronger woman than me not to melt at his easy confidence with Christian.
Even after I started to tell him that I thought it was a bad idea for us to get involved-that I'd been backwards and forwards with it and no matter how I looked at it, us as a couple was going to cause some drama. Drama is something I thought I was well rid of. And the biggest fear that I had, the biggest reason that I just couldn't quite let myself imagine Nick in my life in a more romantic way: (And it's not that I haven't had thoughts, I mean, the man is gorgeous and I'm only human.) it's that I'm terrified that we'll screw it up. We'll screw up the Andy and Nick show and that'll be it. I'd rather have him in my life, stably irrevocably IN my life than take a risk and lose him for good.
Even after I started my speech, even though he knew where it was going he still had my back all day. His support never wavered. His strength solidly backing up my own, even if all we could do was answer the tip lines all day. And now here he is. Against my door. That cute little boy smile of his soothing me even after the world's most awful day.
And I can practically hear the little click in my heart. Something snapping into place so quietly that I barely notice the change until after he's already told me that I'm worth it. That he's still going to wait because I'm what he wants. He smiles again, starts to walk off and halts, his hand in his pocket.
He turns back with my phone in his hand and suddenly the click in my heart isn't quiet. It isn't subtle. It's there beating just a touch faster than normal. And I realize that it's Nick. It's NICK and it's the simplest of things, the easiest move to stretch up and cup his cheek in my hand as my lips brush up against his.
And we're kissing, and he's holding me and it's not fire I feel, but a deep burn.
A steady heat. Unwavering and comforting. Just like Nick. And we're in my apartment making a mess as we both try and free ourselves from unnecessary clothes. I don't want clothes I want skin. I want the heat of his body against my own. I want Nick.
And as we smile between druggingly sweet kisses I look into his eyes and I realize that I may have found the best kind of love after all.
Because as we touch, and explore and kiss I realize that the biggest difference between what I feel for Nick and what I felt for Sam is that Nick and I are on the same page. We're in this together, as equals. And god, I want Nick with an intensity that's hard to believe. My buddy Nick has become as essential to me as air. As light.
And it's so easy.
