AN/ probably a fair amount of typos and just general unnecessary fluff at this point. But I needed it, and hope you don't mind if I indulge myself a bit.

Keeping the straightest face possible, Nick took one of the chocolate dipped ice cream cones from Sam's too big hands. "I was joking you know."

"I totally wasn't." June snatched one up too, eyes so big and eager.

"You're both welcome, and your Papa can buy us all lunch later." Sam nodded in Nick's direction with a meaningful look.

So Nick nodded along. It seemed like a fair enough trade, but he couldn't manage to get the words out because Sam was licking his sweating ice cream with long, slow swipes of his tongue. And good god, it proved to be a distracting sight. He put a heavy hand on his daughter's head and started her walking away from the food stand. Sam followed. He could feel the warmth of the other man somewhere off to his left. Distracting even when he was out of Nick's line of sight.

Too much walking had already happened today, and he found that stepping around erratically to keep from kicking Meatball was taking whatever energy he had left. Maybe the doctor was right, and Nick should be taking things easy- but he'd never been all that good at following directions, so he tugged June along about halfway down the Boardwalk until he found an empty bench to sink down into. His ankle was killing him, the muscles trembling and the join almost too weak to hold his weight. That's just how things went though. He just needed to rest a bit. God, but he felt like he was getting old.

"You doing ok, Papa?" June asked with a crunchy mouthful of sugar cone, already having finished off the ice cream portion of her treat.

"Yeah… your face is a mess." How one child and one ice cream cone could make such an unholy wreck in such a short period of time was beyond him.

"Well, your hand is a mess." She countered. "You have to eat the ice cream, not just hold it."

"It would have been nice if you'd told me that earlier." He awkwardly passed his rather sticky cone to the same hand that was holding onto the dog's leash. There was some attempt to lick the trail of vanilla from the backs of his fingers, but June just looked disgusted.

"I'll go get you some napkins."

"Don't get… lost," he called out to his already disappearing offspring.

Sam sank down beside him on the bench. "You think she's having fun?"

Nick chuckled. "She's been looking forward to this for weeks. It's all she talked about." But that wasn't exactly what he'd been asked, so he tried again. "Yeah. I think she's having fun." He glanced over at Sam to see that the man still had half his ice cream left.

He'd been carefully working away at it, all the chocolate shell gone, and the soft white vanilla shaped into a rather smooth and perfect cone by the patient work of that mouth of his.

Too perfect.

It was almost insulting to normal humans like Nick who could find endless ways to make a mess of such a simple treat. So, not really thinking, or worrying about the fact that his actions were horribly inappropriate, Nick leaned over and took a sloppy bite right out of the side of the other man's ice cream.

"Hey!" Sam looked on helpless, but laughing. "Jerk- eat your own."

"Yours was prettier." He said like it was an excuse, wanting to laugh, though he couldn't voice it because he could see how Sam was watching his mouth.

And Nick was almost positive that the kid had no idea what he was doing to him. Sam was too innocent and gentle to be intentionally stirring him up. They were long and far past this point in their non-relationship.

It had been months since they'd stopped seeing each other. Months of being sober and figuring out just what the hell he was supposed to be doing with his life. Not bad months. But lonely kinds of months, at least where Nick was concerned. Lonely enough that he'd decided that maybe the time had come for him to swallow his pride and angst down and to reach out for a little bit of company.

Not that June wasn't wonderful.

But the simple pleasure of being able to look the person he was talking to, square in the eye, should not be overlooked.

There wasn't a technical name for what he and Sam were now… maybe friends. Though the word didn't sit quite right. But they'd fallen right back together like they'd never been apart, laughing and joking in the car on the drive out here. As easy and unavoidable as gravity. Too comfortable with each other for Nick to call the man his ex- because he'd never had any good feelings at left after his many and colorful other broken relationships.

He supposed the difference was, a stupid and as obvious as it sounded, Sam had never been as ass to him. Not when it counted. It was hard to be mad at someone who only held good memories for you.

And as much as he dreaded it, Nick had a feeling that they'd come back around to where they were when they'd first met.

Awkward and tentative, giving each other far more space than really necessary, and somewhere underneath that, interested.

At least he was interested. Even though he knew he shouldn't be. Didn't want to be. Really, really would like to stop having these thoughts about this man sitting here beside him, smiling with those damn perfect dimples of his, and his knee almost touching Nick's. But it was hard to keep his thoughts unbiased and pure when he knew that Sam smiled the exact same way when he was on his back and naked.

The napkins that June brought him helped a little- to clean himself up and to distract himself.

"Can we have hotdogs for lunch?" June asked as she leaned over to pet Meatball's head.

For the smallest moment, Nick let himself think about what it would be like to watch Sam eating a hot dog. Just for a second or two. Not any longer because it certainly wasn't a helpful kind of thought. His eyes caught on one of the many, many little restaurants dotting the Boardwalk between rides, "I was thinking maybe chilli cheese fries."

Which apparently was a passable enough suggestion, because June was willing to take some of his cash, along with Sam, and leave him alone on the bench to go get real lunch.

Nick gave the uneaten mess that was his ice cream over to the dog who was more than happy to help, wiggling her fat little tail as she snorted and licked his fingers. And Nick hadn't been the most enthusiastic pet owner to date. He found that he had a hard enough time taking care of himself, much less a kid and a small ball of fur. But she was upsettingly cute, and June was very good at taking her on walks and cleaning up after her, so really all Nick had to do was buy food, and then spoil her.

He liked spoiling the dog almost as much as he liked spoiling his daughter. Simple pleasures.

Once the shaking his his leg had lessened enough to walk again (not that he was telling either of the people with him how bad it really was), he suggested that they go back down to the beach. He wanted to give June as much time as possible to run herself to exhaustion- which she seemed only too eager to do.

Only, Nick hadn't anticipated Sam wanting to go for a swim too. He'd sort of wanted the chance to just sit in the sand with the other man and tease him. But no. Sam had to go and take off his damn clothes and run out to sea. Sure, he'd been wearing surprise trunks under his jeans- but Nick hadn't known that at first. He'd just looked over to see the man stripping. Like a deer in headlights, Nick just sat there staring at all those lovely lines of hard muscles- him and roughly twenty other people who happened to be near enough to witness such a beautiful sight.

They left him in the sand, and Nick found that he was ok, because the perceived solitude helped him sort through the fact that he wasn't fourteen years old any more- not that his body really felt like remembering that fact.

Maybe that was his problem.

It wasn't just that he needed a friend… needed some kind of company because humans weren't made to be alone.

Nick also needed someone to touch him.

And Sam had always, always been rather good at touching him.

Except he couldn't have Sam for both of those things. He knew himself well enough to know that much. It wasn't like he'd never slept around. Casual sex had been pretty much the only thing on the menu for him for years- and it had been kind of fantastic in it's simple design.

Just with Sam… Nick cared about him too much to do casual. And he cared about himself too much to go back to what they'd had before.

So… friends.

Just friends.

Because anything more than that and Nick would be asking Sam to move in with him. They'd be picking out curtains together and whatever else it was that stupid couples do when they're blissfully blinded by each other and then Nick wouldn't know what to do with himself when it all fell apart. He'd be more of a wreck then than he was now- more than he'd been these past months. And he couldn't. He just couldn't.

But friends were good.

He just needed to keep some distance between them. Not keep finding ways to remind himself of all those subtle but vast differences in things this time around. Of the calculating kind of distance that they were keeping from each other. The hesitation in being too near, the little pauses after they said very normal things, like they were second guessing every little joke.

The object of all his conflicting feelings planted himself down to Nick's left, water beaded on his skin, hair dark and clinging to the back of his neck.

"You… really seem to be having a good time." He said in the most off handed way that he could, rather pointedly not looking at the curve of Sam's arms or the thin trail of hair down his stomach.

"I was never a big fan of the beach. I'm not much of a swimmer." He stretched his legs out long in front of him, sand clinging to the backs of his calves. "But this is… it's nice."

"Oh, nice," he stressed the word with a chuckle. "Don't oversell it there."

He shrugged, squinting into the bright sun. "I mostly just here for June."

"Same." A crowded beach in the middle of a summer day would never be his first choice of a vacation. "Did you just leave her out there?"

"She's fine." Sam waived it off like a man who'd never felt overwhelming and possessive fear for a child of his own. "Right over there."

Fine was a loose term. Those boys were talking to June again. The ones who had been helping her build her lopsided sand castle. And he wondered if Sam's offer to chase them down and help Nick feed them to a pelican was still on the table. Good god, but he'd only just got a daughter. He wasn't ready for boys to be taking notice of her yet. She was just too pretty for her own good. Just like her mother had been- only June didn't seem to know it, which made her infinitely a better human than Lilith had ever been.

"I wish I'd had an ugly child."

Sam laughed, warm and open. "With your genes? I don't think it was an option."

"Aw, shucks."

"She's got your smile."

"You think I've got a pretty smile?" He just barely managed to resist the urge of elbowing the man in the ribs. There would be far too much bare skin on skin, which was to be avoided at all cost.

Sam kept on laughing.

"You think I could pull of those shorts half as well as she does?"

The other man pretended to consider this, a thoughtful expression passing over his face. "Well, you've definitely got the legs for them. But I don't know if the world is ready."

Nick grinned, eyes still tracking his daughter's movements as she walked back and forth with those boys who were so obviously trouble. "I think she's actually really lucky that she looks almost nothing like me."

"She's so much like you it's scary."

"Really?" He finally let himself look over, reluctant to stop his distant supervision of June's interactions.

"Except for that Elvis thing." Sam made some hesitant eye contact and it was most welcome. Warm comfortable gaze under the hot, hot sun. "It's… weird for someone her age, right? Or is The King making a comeback and I missed it?"

Nick smiled, rubbing the back of a thumb over his lip to half hide any hint of amusement. "As far as I've been able to piece together, her mom spent the last three years working as a showgirl at a casino that had an Elvis tribute… thing at it pretty much every night. Lil didn't want to pay for a baby sitter, and June was a little too old anyways, so she tagged along and hung out backstage. Those Elvises were apparently very… nice to her. Like dads when she didn't have one. Apparently they'd help her with her homework, and sometimes their wives would make cupcakes for her." It had taken him quite some time to figure that all out. Puzzling it together from off handed stories that June would tell from time to time. "I don't mind playing second fiddle to The King." He added, just in case Sam somehow had gotten the wrong idea.

Without much warning, Sam broke into a grin. "I always kind of wished my dad could have been Henry Jones."

"Who the fuck is Henry Jones?"

Sam snorted softly. "Indiana Jones' dad." Like it was just common knowledge and the idea that Nick might have somehow missed it was almost beyond him.

"Sean Connery?"

Which turned Sam's incredulous laugh into something free and all together open. "No. Sean Connery is a drunken Welshman. I wanted the squirly archaeologist."

Was it any wonder that Nick loved this man? "Of course you did."

Sam just shrugged, utterly shameless. "He was smart. Funny. And never around."

"I can see the appeal."

"How about you?" Sam leaned into him, bumping their shoulders together- which was a lot more than Nick had been expecting. "If you could pick a family member to replace, who would you, and with who?"

Nick's skin was still prickling from the warm spot that Sam had left on his skin."Michael. I'd trade him for… for a roast beef sandwich with swiss."

And that got Sam laughing, startled and happy. "A sandwich?"

"It would be an upgrade. Trust me."

"How's… things with Anna?"

A question that hit him like a brick to his chest. "We're good actually. I think she was more mad at the fact that I'd lied to her than anything else."

"But… you didn't lie to her."

It was complicated. "But she thought that I did, and then she found out that I wasn't and it sort of threw her off for a bit." It had only lasted a few hours. "But she's about ready to pop out a baby and has more important things to worry about than who I've been, or haven't been, having sex with. So we had lunch and she hugged me and told me that I could have made worse choices recently, and now we're ok."

Sam nodded along, kind of settling down into this information with a pleased expression. "You ready to be an uncle again?"

"I think so." Though to be honest, he hoped that Mike and Anna were about done. Four kids seemed like… well, a lot. It was a lot of kids. Especially because this newest one had been predicted to be yet another girl. That was a lot of females under one roof. Nick almost felt bad for his brother and his only nephew. "It's a very low commitment kind of job considering they live about two hundred miles away."

Sam's shoulder crashed into his again, brief and just as startling as the first time. "Hey, are you going to freak out if June and those boys start wrestling?"

"What-" and then Nick made the mistake of glancing over to where he'd last seen his daughter, who had somehow managed to lock her arms with the older of the two brother's that had been hanging around and the kids were laughing and trying to shove each other into the surf. There were no thoughts that really passed through Nick's mind. He was just rolling Meatball off his lap and getting uneasily to his feet.

"Whoa there." Sam grabbed at his pant leg, anchoring him in place rather effectively. "A simple 'yes' is enough."

"They aren't allowed to touch her."

"What exactly is going to happen to you when she's old enough to start dating?"

"I will be doing consecutive life sentences for manslaughter." He said without feeling, but Sam was tugging at his leg, throwing him off balance.

"Sit back down. I'll go break it up before you have a coronary." Sam always seemed to know what to say, and Nick found himself sinking back into the sand and trying to comfort the dog who didn't understand what was going on. Nick didn't get it either.

It was inexplicable how anyone could get so attached to another human so quickly, so irrevocably. So impossibly and helpless. But Nick sat there in the sand, watching Sam swoop in and scoop up June whos peals of laughter could be heard over the crashing waves- and he wondered how he'd ever lived without either of them.