paulacas | The Moments Of Our Lives (Reply)

Title: The Moments Of Our Lives
Author: YanzaDracan
Fandom: Kane RPS
Characters: Christian/Steve
Word Count: 1,837
Rating: PG
Summary: Fic Friday #13 - Long Road Home; Title stolen from a camera commercial so old I’m not sure, but I think it was Kodak.
Warnings: Character Death!

“Daaamn, I don’t remember looking that young.” He said looking up from the photo album. “Remember the fight at the Viper Room the night you got the Roofies in your Jack? Boy were they surprised when you came up swingin’ instead of bein’ all slow and stupid.” He chuckled as the page turned. “You were awful pretty then.” He smirked at the brunette.

The same brunette sighed heavily at the memory of the women and men vying for their attention. They often took them up on their offers, but the tedium of waking up in strange beds with strange people was wearing, or maybe they just grew up. Eventually they only woke up in each other’s bed, and the soul draining merry go round of nameless faces stopped, and they started their own version of heaven and hell.

It was heaven when they were together. Schedules meshing, music, flowing from their brains to paper like magical incantations, and the sex binding their bodies as much as the music bound their souls.

The first summer they spent in Europe, performing acoustic shows and conventions had been like a dream. They were well known enough to sell out their gigs, but not so well known that they couldn’t move around the cities like tourists, taking pictures and just being…together.

Returning to the States had been a slap in face. He was scheduled to film Secondhand Lions, and planned to ask Steve to go with him when the blond announced his agent had booked a round of gigs that would keep Steve too busy to even visit the set. The fight that ensued left Steve bristled up like an angry cat and Christian hiding behind his public façade and stalking away pretending he wasn’t heartbroken.

The pages turned.

They hadn’t seen each other until the first night of Thunder Road. his expression had been wary as Christian stalked across the stage then practically launched himself into his arms. They’d have outted themselves if Christian’s arm and cowboy hat hadn’t hidden them from the cameras.

Then there’d been THE WOMAN. She had started as a friend that had morphed into a comedy of errors that turned into a tragedy when Sandy got the impression that she and Steve were a couple, and had practically cut Christian from their lives when Sandy made everything about Steve and THAT woman, which led to the next monumental battle that found Steve living with his supposed girlfriend and Christian drunkenly hood surfing through the Hollywood Hills.

A phone call from an angry and scared Jensen yelling at Steve to ‘fix it’ before Christian killed himself, had him watching the part of the video NOT posted on YouTube. The blood had drained from his head so fast he’d had to sit before he passed out. The car had skidded to a stop just short of a cliff causing Christian to slide off the hood. He was headed over the edge when a fast moving Jensen had hit him from the side sending them both sliding through the gravel on the shoulder of the road. Both men came up shredded and bleeding, as a REALLY pissed off Jensen yelled at the driver and the person with the camera as he hauled a pliant, bleeding Christian by the nape of his neck toward his truck.

Steve packed his stuff, drove to his parents’ house, announced that he and Christian had been lovers for five years, stormed out of their house and headed back to LA and Christian.

The next album was opened.

Deciding a road trip to Nashville would afford them the privacy to re-connect they stood in the parking lot of a Cracker Barrel in Oklahoma City and argued for twenty minutes about taking a detour to Tulsa.

In Tulsa, they stood hand in hand while Christian told his family about them, amongst tears, yelling, door slamming, hugs and promises of ‘he’ll come around’, they found their strength in each other.

The door of their Nashville home closed behind them, shutting off their public façades. They built a recording studio in the basement, wrote music, hung out with Eric, and did conventions until it was time to fly back to Europe for another KANE tour.

They had to be more circumspect this time. Eric knew about them, but Jarrod didn’t, and every time he got a second alone with Christian the big man seemed to appear with that fucking video camera. Never had he been so glad of Christian’s reputation for being handsy and physical with friends and family. It was the only reason Jarrod lived through the tour.

The plane had barely touched down when it seemed they were climbing on another plane for Argentina. They had learned over the years that they didn’t do well separated by continents. Things were still rocky with Christian’s folks, but the effort they were putting into accepting their son’s relationship showed how much they cared about the two men.

Coming back to the States threw them into immediate turmoil as Steve had to return to LA while Christian had been wooed into the Columbia stable with promises of a golden future in country music.

Arguments started with the ink barely dry as experts on everything started trying to shove Christian into a box. Pissed with the record company, pissed that he was separated from Steve, pissed that Steve and Darren were ramping up record, publishing and recording companies without so much as a hiccup, pissed that Steve was writing and recording with everyone under the sun but him, he was in a perfect frame of mind to audition for Eliot Spencer when his agent had all but kicked his ass to get him to read the script. The only good thing coming from all that misery was being hired for Leverage got him back to Los Angeles and arguing with a new set of Columbia suits.

He’d wanted to bring Steve in on a couple of the songs, but Columbia had flatly refused. Depressed, he’d gone home to find Steve bouncing through the house like a five year old on a sugar high over his new CD and tour. By the end of the evening they were both miserable, and had curled around each other for comfort, and to hold their fear of losing each other at bay.

The next album opened.

Moving to Portland had been as freeing to Christian as when they’d told the Kanes they were a couple. His contract with Columbia ended with a whimper. Fed up with corporate BS, he gave up his dream of making a name in country music and settled into the idea of performing their music for their fans and corporate music be damned.

Eric had been skeptical, but had agreed to try and book KANE after Jason agreed to come on board.

Pages in the album turned.

“Remember that woman…the one whose hat you kept stealing?” Christian asked.

“Yeah. Some of my favorite pictures of us were taken by her.”

Things had been good. They were both working at what they loved and were able to see each other on a semi-regular basis. Steve had walked into their place in Portland after a round of shows in Los Angeles to find Christian sitting in the dark—a candle and bottle of Jack sitting next to a sheaf of papers.

Christian not acknowledging his presence scared him more than he’d ever admit out loud. As a master fighter, the man had an inordinate sense of peoples’ positions around him.

He’d started to reach out when the dark head lifted and he saw the tears.

“Oh my God, what’s happened?” He asked as he dropped to his knees.

When Christian merely shook his head, Steve grabbed the papers and began to read.

Jimmy Sloas, who’d befriended them the first time they’d gone to Nashville, had, with a small group of old school musicians and producers started a company called The Bigger Picture Group, and they were asking Christian to come on board. His music, his band, however HE wanted to do it and they were throwing Bob Ezrin in to produce as the cherry on top.

The pages continued to turn as they relived their dreams through the photographs.

They settled. Homes in Las Vegas and Nashville. They stayed with Sandy and Chris or Jensen and Danneel when they needed to be in Los Angeles. There were nieces, nephews and godchildren to spoil. They toured and recorded together and separately…Life was good, until their sisters came to them with a hare-brained idea.

A year after the women presented their idea to their brothers, the sons of Christian Kane and Steve Carlson were born in the same hospital on the same day, their fathers’ moving between the two women in a parody of Laurel and Hardy as they waited for their sons to make their debut. Michael Steven Kane and Paul Christian Carlson let the hospital know they had their fathers’ voices as they protested leaving the warmth of their mothers’ wombs.

The pages turned with tears and laughter, stitches, broken bones and broken hearts—Grand and great grandchildren, deaths and births and sixty-five years of life lived…together.

The last page of the last album turned, and the book was placed reverently inside the box alongside the others. The box was sealed, marked and piled along the wall. The two men watched as their family left the house that had been their home for many years.

Two men stood outside the house, their arms wrapped around each others’ waists, younger versions of the men whose pictures they’d been looking through.

“Think they went at the same time?”The brunette asked.

The blond looked at him in disbelief. “Dad went first then when Da was sure everything was taken care of he followed.”

They chuckled as they walked arm and arm to their cars. True to their parentage, Michael stopped his brother before they got within earshot of their families.

“Ya doin’ okay, Paul?” Blue/grey eyes were serious.

“Yeah…yeah I am. If they hadn’t gone together I’d be worried. What about you?”

“I’m good.” He looked toward his truck. “I’m worried about Jenny. His mom’s been sick and we leave out on tour next week.”

“Tell ‘im I’ll keep an eye on them while y’all’s gone. When ya get back, I outta have the new CD ready.”

The brothers hugged one more time.

“Guess that’s our call.” Christian said as he stood and pulled Steve to his feet.

The men picked up their guitars, grabbed the handles on their duffels and walked toward the setting sun.

~ Fin ~

Every memory of looking out the back door
I had the photo album spread out on my bedroom floor
It's hard to say it, time to say it
Goodbye, goodbye.
Every memory of walking out the front door
I found the photo of the friend that I was looking for
It's hard to say it, time to say it
Goodbye, goodbye.

…………………………………Photograph by Nickelback