Kiss Kiss, Bang... Crash

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"Dude, what the hell happened to Kevin's kitchen table?" Howie Dorough is standing in the doorway into Kevin Richardson's kitchen, staring at what used to be a beautiful wooden table. Now it is missing three legs, and has a huge crack running down the middle. He turns to fix his stare on Alex McLean and Nick Carter, who are both standing in the living room, hands gathered in front of them and looking down into the floor like a pair of schoolboys who have just been caught sneaking into the girls locker room.

"It... kinda broke" Nick says, not taking his eyes off the floor. "I can see that" Howie replies. "Want to share how?"

Alex clears his throat. "Well, you see... It's like this, right..We were just, you know... Well. And then, you see... Well, there was this thing, right, with a... thing... OK, so not a thing, but a.... We just want to... Which yeah, stupid, but... Not thinking..." He has raised his head and is looking at Howie. "For an author Alex, you sure have a way with words." Howie remarks and walks back into the living room, shaking his head.

"My cousin is not going to be happy about this" Brian Littrell says from his place on the couch. He arrived a few minutes earlier than Howie, and has already seen what is left of Kevin's beloved table. "He is going to kill you both" Howie adds, which has Brian shaking his head. "You shouldn't talk like that Howie" Brian says, but gets no other response from Howie than a pair of raised eyebrows.

Howie had received a phone call from Nick, telling him to come over right away. As he got there he had found Brian, who it seemed had gotten the same phone call, and he had also found the kitchen table in it's current sorry state. Sitting down on the couch next to Brian he directs his attention back to Nick and Alex, who has sat down on the carpet on the other side of the table.

"So, Alex, how about you guys try to explain this to me one more time, this time coherently. How the hell did you manage, after having stayed here for less than 24 hours, to break Kevin's most favoured possession. Well, most favoured when excluding his books of course".

Nick and Alex looks at each other, and then Alex clears his throat. "It kind of couldn't take the weight" he finally says. "The weight of what?" Brian asks. "Well, me" Alex replies, his eyes fixed on a point somewhere on the wall behind them.

"Why on earth would you be on the table in the first place?"

Neither Alex or Nick looks like they want to answer Howie's latest question, but finally Alex takes his eyes off the wall and focus on Howie. "He was sort of on it too" he replies, his voice so soft it comes out almost as a whisper, and he lifts his hand to point his thumb towards Nick.

Howie shakes his head, burying his face in his hands, fighting off the urge to slam it against the tabletop. "You two morons had sex on Kevin’s kitchen table?"

"Kind of" Nick says, and makes a face Howie assumes is meant to be an apologetic smile. "Technically it broke in the middle of the, well, sex part" Alex adds.

"OK" Brian says, getting off the couch. "I really need to be somewhere else right now. So I think I'll go into the hall, or something". He starts to walk towards the door, ignoring Alex who is rolling his eyes at him. "It's just sex Brian" he remarks. "Yeah.. Hall" Brian says, motioning towards the hallway as he half turns towards them.

"Oh go read a Bible, youth minister Brian" Nick says, getting up off the floor and turning towards him, folding his arms.

The remark gets Brian's attention, and he stops dead in his tracks, spinning around to face Nick, his face flushed with anger "That was uncalled for Nick. Just because I happen to be religious doesn't mean you can..." "Brian" Alex says loudly, interrupting him. Brian looks at him, and calms down a little. "I just don't feel the need to hear all the juicy details about your sexlife Alex. I already have enough mental images of you two having sex to give me nightmares. Plus a few really disturbing memories including you two and the back row of my church!"

"I remember that" Howie says with a chuckle. "Yeah, and I remember Kevin yelling at us for an hour right here in this living room afterwards" Nick adds. "Ok, Brian, I get your point. No details, promise. Now, can we please get back to the business at hand?" Alex asks.

Brian grins at him, the anger gone as quickly as it had come. "And what is that again Alex?" he asks. "You need to help us break this to Kevin. And then you need to be our human shields as he tries to kill us with his bare hands" Nick says.

"I guess we can try" Howie says. "No promises though, my cousin can be extremely scary" Brian adds. "Yeah, I know" Alex says. "You should have seen his face when I dropped his copy of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in the bathtub. I could have sworn he was going to kill me right then and there, regardless of the fact that I was naked, dripping wet and wearing only a very small towel that really didn't cover much."

"Librarians and their books" Brian says with a laugh. Then he adds, "Why were you reading Harry Potter in the tub? And more importantly, you actually read other things than those raunchy near pornographic novels written for lonely housewives?"

"Ha ha, very funny" Alex says, smacking him over the head. "Those are research for my own books thank you very much. And besides, I love Harry Potter. Now what you need ask yourself is why a man who has every Russian author known to man - whose names I for the most part cannot for the life of me pronounce - in his bookshelves would treasure Harry Potter as much as he does. If I didn't know better I would think that he loves those books more than life itself!"

"I think maybe he does. It is a book after all" Howie says, and they all nod in agreement. For as long as they had known Kevin, which seemed like for ever but in truth was only about a year or so, they had known of his love for books. His house were filled with them, all sorted alphabetically, and it was close to a capital sin to drop one of them in his presence.

"Ok, back to saving our very sexy butts" Nick says, putting an end to the cheerful laughter. "Because Kevin will be home any moment now, and when he comes, he will kill us, slowly!"

"You know, I really don't think we can help you guys" Brian says. "He's right" Howie adds. "Kevin was nice enough to take you in after you somehow managed to flood your own house - and I have a feeling sex is involved in that story as well, so let's not go there because I too have more mental images of you two in my head than can possibly be healthy - Kevin took you in, and you repay him by having sex on his kitchen table - his beloved kitchen table, his very heart and soul - and then while having the sex, you break it. So no, we can't help you this time. When he comes home, which will be very soon, you are on your own".

Howie almost regret his little speech right away, as Nick and Alex looks like they around about to throw up. He is about to tell them Kevin will probably only give them another speech and leave it at that when they hear the garage door open. Kevin is coming home. And, judging by their facial expressions, Nick and Alex are quite possibly about to pass out.

They are on their feet right away, both looking like a pair or deer’s caught in a headlight, as they stare at the door out to the hall. Howie and Brian quickly start walking towards the stairs, not wanting to be caught up in hurricane Kevin as he finds out what has happened to his kitchen table.

As the doorknob on the hallway door turns, Nick grabs Alex' hand, holding on to him as if his life depended on it. "I love you" he says, and gives him a quick kiss. "Love you too" Alex replies, and swallows hard as the door swings open.

*****

Kevin parks his hybrid car in the garage with a smile on his face. In his briefcase he has a copy of the latest Harry Potter book, along with a few others, and he can't wait to get inside so he can sit down at the kitchen table and continue reading it. It's something he has been looking forward to all day. 'Maybe I'll even finish it today' he thinks to himself as he closes the garage door and unlocks the front door.

He takes off his coat and hangs it up, and then places his shoes on the newspaper he has laid out in the hallway to keep the floors from getting too dirty. He can hear voices coming from the living room, Nick and Alex must be home, so he goes to open the door that leads into it.

As he opens it he finds himself standing face to face with his current housemates. They are standing in the middle of the room, hands joined, and matching expressions of fear on their faces.

Something is wrong, that much he can tell by their facial expressions alone. They are both scared shitless, and he has no intention of trying to calm them down until he finds out why they look like someone just walked over their grave.

"What the hell have you two done this time?!"

FIN.

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