Nick had been an only child until he was almost eight years old. His parents weren’t expecting to be able to have any more kids, and tried to make sure both got a good amount of attention so no one was lacking. Liv, his little sister, always looked up to him and, outside of trying to be a good older brother, he was a pretty typical kid, with a good group of friends in his elementary and middle school years. By high school, his friend group had thinned out — not due to any conflicts necessarily, but more to just going in a different direction. Natural drifting of ways, if you will. The consistent ones were his buddy Rick, and Ryan, both of whom were like two different sides of a coin. Where Rick could be loud and boisterous, Ryan was quieter, preferring to keep things to himself, though this was attributed largely to his conservative, religious parents. Nick himself was somewhere in between, depending on his mood.
Around the time Nick was fifteen, he and Ryan began to hang out a lot more. Rick was having a difficult home life as his parents were going through a divorce, and he was often needed to keep an eye on his siblings, so he wasn’t able to hang out as much. When he was sixteen, he learned that Ryan had feelings for him. This was declared by a surprise kiss when they were over at Nick’s place watching movies, and it was the first time Nick acknowledged that his sexuality was in question.
They began dating, but it was kept as secret as possible. Ryan was afraid of coming out to his family, and Nick had agreed to the secret, though it eventually came out to his own family — or at least his parents. His little sister, Liv, couldn’t be trusted to keep the secret, so she was never let in on it. They experienced a lot together, and supported each other. Ryan was a little athletic, and could be found playing basketball, both for the school and when just hanging out with friends on occasion. Being a bit of a geek, he’d often ramble on to Nick about one of his passions — comic books. Because of this, they’d often watch movies based on comics — some of which Ryan approved of — others he’d critique to high hell and back.
For Nick’s part, he competed on the swim team at school, and keeping in shape was one thing the two teens did together. At other times, especially when they got older, was to go hiking or desert camping. Sometimes with Rick and a couple of others; sometimes alone. Those alone times were special, and it was during one of their first trips alone that they had their first sexual experience together. Nick’s main passion was music, and he’d taught himself to play a couple of different instruments, and tinkered with writing his own, but he got easily frustrated with the process.
In their junior year, they explored faith. The main reason this came about was because of Ryan’s mental health. Christianity was doing a number on him, and he needed to find something, some source of faith to hold on to in bad times. Nick tried to point out that he was there for Ryan, but Ryan countered that it would help. So they explored theology a little; looked into various denominations in the area. Eventually, they went to a pagan meetup — and it was here they both discovered openness and acceptance in the different flavors it had to offer. They both became involved in the community as much as they could manage, between time together, school, and sports. For their small celebration of Yule that year (spent at Nick’s) they gifted each other pendants — a triquetra for Ryan (something that could get past his parent’s scrutiny), and a pentacle for Nick.
In their senior year, the class were encouraged to apply for their colleges and universities of choice. Ryan had been looking at out-of-state places, mostly to get away from his parents. He hadn’t fully decided on if he was going to get into teaching or counseling, but he figured he could get general classes out of the way and be decided by that time. Nick had a harder time deciding. When he came to Ryan with his choice to join the military first, Ryan blew up at him. He was angry, and very much against this choice. They argued back and forth on it for some time, before Nick gave up and remained quiet for a while. It wasn’t until graduation that Ryan learned about Nick having signed up already, and after the ceremony there was a huge fight, and they broke up.
It hurt that Ryan didn’t understand, but Nick believed in what he was doing, and he had the support of his family, even his little sister, who was only ten when he left. He’d joined the Army over any other branch, and he did well in basic training, though remained in the stated for a while, getting stationed over in Texas for nearly a year. He’d built up a few loose friendships with some guys from the barracks, and one night on a short leave they went into town to do some drinking. While out, there was another soldier there, shit talking about the fresh meat that had just shown up. There was some arguing back and forth, getting heated. Nick, more than a little buzzed at this point, stood up to defend them, actually throwing a punch at the height of the arguments.
He was dragged outside by the other soldier, and the others inside got quiet and were at a loss as to stay or follow. Outside, he was getting yelled at for something — his head wasn’t very clear, and he didn’t remember well — and was getting yanked over to a jeep to be dragged back to base. In reality, they drove out to a roadside motel where Nick ended up getting a room, and he spent a steamy night with the other soldier. It wasn’t until the next day when he was sober (but hungover) that he realized that, for starters, he’d punched a woman and had one hell of a damn good night with her. She was showering at that point, and when she came out, he flipped. He recognized her from base — Captain Alyssa Ortiz, and she was a known hardass and all around badass bitch.
She wasn’t mad at him, though, and found his panic kind of endearing. After reassuring him, they talked for a while, and developed a relationship. This time, it was a much bigger secret than what his and Ryan’s relationship had been. In the course of their three-year relationship, they learned about each other — Nick talked about his ex a little, his family, and interests; she talked about being an Army brat and her hobbies (she liked to cook, and when she could, paint). Eventually, they were both sent overseas. In once incident, where they were trapped in a building, Nick was able to grab some injured and drag them to a more secure location so that a medevac unit could get to them. However, and explosion rocked the building, and he got trapped under some rubble, and it took time for him to be freed.
Due to this, he developed some claustrophobia. That was two years into his relationship with Alyssa. Over the course of the next several days, he began to have dreams. In these dreams, he was trapped again. It terrified him, but gradually, through the terror, he began to see ways to break things down, and get out faster by finding good points to pull rubble from. This was his Awakening into greater things, though he didn’t realize it at the time.
A year after all of that, he was riding along in a Humvee, while soldiers were walking around, looking for signs of mines. Unfortunately, they missed one, and it hit the Humvee he was in. Some were killed, but he managed to escape only with some shrapnel wounds. Most of the shrapnel had scraped him or embedded themselves in his armor — except for his right leg. It had torn through that and shredded his knee. He’d be the first to tell you that sand in a bloody wound was not pleasant.
It was a bad enough issue that he was informed that, as soon as he recovered, he would be medically discharged ahead of his mandatory eight-year commitment (having only served four at this point). Alyssa would visit him, though these visits were less discreet, and because of these visits, their relationship was discovered, and she got busted for it. Despite his apologies to her, she told him to knock it off. They had a deep talk one last time before he was due to be sent home, and they discussed their future. Now, instead of talking about things like potentially getting married someday and having a family, they talked about how they would handle t heir relationship moving forward, now that they would be seperated for a while.
They agreed to try keeping their relationship-alive via long-distance and see how things went. Within a few months, however, it had become clear that it was difficult on them both, so they agreed to a spli. both remained on good terms, and promised to update each other once in a while, but the communication was more sparse than it used to be. He would maintain that she should focus on her career when they were able to talk, and she told him to focus on recovery.
After arriving home, his appointments with his doctor at the VA sparse, and depression weighing heavy on him. Liv was fourteen at this point, and did everything she could to help her big brother. He did his best to put on a good face for her, but the reality was he was not doing well. He worked on investing his pay, and was able to save up enough to get his own place. He was smart about it, and moved in shortly after securing the place, much to his mother’s worry. After he got his new place and set it up, depression turned into alcoholism fast, and while not an angry drunk, he wasn’t a happy one – he just wanted to dull the pain. Being in the pool or jacuzzi that his place offered helped with that some, but outside of the alcohol, or painkillers he was eventually prescribed, not much else did.
He spent over a year like this before his parents talked him into going into a rehab facility, where he got clean of both the liquor and the painkillers, as well as underwent physical therapy in order to learn how to tolerate the pain better. After a month he was released, and started attending AA meeting to help with the temptation of the alcohol, and he tried attending what he could of the same pagan meetings he’d gone to before he left, in an effort to have something to turn to when he couldn’t reach his sponsor. Additionally, he got approved for a veteran’s service dog, a german shepard named Chase.
Since getting sober, he’s attended UNLV enough to gain a certificate in Music Technology, sometimes working as a DJ for events on the side, his actual job being a valet at the Montecito. His younger sister, now seventeen to his nearly twenty-five, often drops by to ‘check up on him’. In reality, he suspects it’s because she doesn’t want to be at home.
At one point, during a particularly bad night, he hoped against hope, and texted Ryan’s old number.
I don’t expect you to respond to this. Hell, I don’t even know if you have that same number, and Ryan – if this isn’t you…sorry. I just wanted to say…you were right. I’m sorry.
After he hit send, he swore. How was what he did any better than a drunk text? There was nothing to be done about it now though, so he took his mind off of things by going for a soak, then spending time with Chase watching movies until the pain began to die down, wondering if he should ask for full-time at the casino.