The Deepest Blues Are Black

Nicky sat near the couch, alternating between feeding himself and feeding a very hungry Chris. They had the TV on, tuned to "TMZ." Harvey and Charles were talking about Kylie Jenner.

Looking at him, Nicky licked chilli off his spoon. "You okay?"

Dave took a few seconds to catch his breath. "I had a nightmare."

"Oh. You hungry?"

Oogly wound around Nicky's ankles, purring, and then stopped to lick her paw. She had obviously been fed. Dave wasn't sure he wanted to eat after that horrible nightmare, but his stomach betrayed him, growling. "I could eat."

"Okay. By the way, who the hell are the Kardashians?"

Once he was done feeding Chris, Nicky warmed up some chilli for Dave too, even bringing him a beer. "Are you still mad at me?" Dave asked.

"Not really. You can't help how you feel." He gave him a swig of beer. "You just showed me what I have to do, that's all."

A feeling of dread coated Dave's heart with ice. "What do you have to do?"

Nicky grinned mischievously to himself. He fed Dave another spoonful of chilli. "You'll see," he said ominously, and got a fresh spoonful.

"Nicky, whatever you're thinking of doing - "

His hand stopped midway to Dave's mouth. Nicky quit moving altogether, frozen in place, the spoon hanging from his fingers as his eyes glazed over.

"Nicky?" Dave said.

Nicky did not move.

He called quietly, "Chris."

Chris took his eyes off the TV, looking at him.

"It's time," Dave declared, and closed his eyes.

Concentrate on your breathing. Think about how it works. In through the nose... down the throat... into the bronchial tubes... filling the lungs...

Goddamnit, just get in here, Kurt's voice said in his head.

Dave felt himself rushing down a tunnel into the mindscape; it was a little nauseating, like a sudden onslaught of vertigo. Although Kurt had told him how this was going to work, he still found himself surprised and a little disturbed by the scene before him. Kurt had located the memory of the first time something sexual had happened between himself and Kurt. It sat there, roughly twenty feet from the bed where Taylor lay asleep, a fingertip in his mouth.

Apprehension made Dave's heart feel like it was being squeezed for a moment when he saw that the end of the bed was almost covered with bloody red handprints. They were trying harder and harder to get to Taylor.

Standing before the memory was Kurt, still off Boddah's chain, and sitting on the floor was Nicky, the real Nicky, watching the memory, hypnotized. Dave didn't want to interact with the ghost in his real form, didn't want to talk to him, but he had to so this whole plan would seem innocent. Munchie the cat purred loudly, rubbing against Nicky's knees; he petted his cat absently while watching the memory play out.

"Kurt?" Dave said, pretending this was the first time he'd seen Kurt in a really long time.

"Dave!" Kurt cried, and they hugged like long lost friends reunited.

Eyes wide, Nicky turned around. "Dave, it's Kurt. Kurt's here." His voice quavered with nervous admiration, like Kurt could walk on water. Apparently, there was someone Nicky admired more than Dave.

"Yeah, I see that. It's great to see you, Kurt." Considering the memory before them, Dave asked, "What are you guys doing?"

"Kurt said I could watch the first time you two made love," Nicky replied. His eyes glimmered with excitement.

Laying it on thick, Kurt crouched down and rubbed Nicky's back as they watched.

Dave was only supposed to stay for a short time, just long enough to make sure Nicky was well enthralled with the scene. He remembered every second of this, and couldn't stop looking either.

It was a story he'd recounted more than once in the press, about how Kurt had reacted the first time he heard the demo of "Alone + Easy Target." The main difference from the story the public heard to the actual tale was he left out what happened after the kiss.

"Dave! Where are you?" Kurt called in the memory.

"I'm in the bathtub!" young Dave called back. The water in the tub was clouded with soap and Dave's hair was slicked back from a fresh washing; he was almost ready to get out.

Kurt burst excitedly through the door. Dave jumped in surprise hard enough to slosh a little water over the side of the tub. "Dude, do you mind?"

Nicky giggled, absently stroking Munchie's tail.

Kneeling beside the tub, Kurt seemed to imitate that motion, putting a hand on the back of Dave's head and stroking his wet hair. "That song you demoed, it's so good! I can really make something out of it! I'm so glad you shared it with me." Kurt grabbed Dave's face in both his hands and kissed him on the lips in a rather comical, exaggerated way, crying, "Mmmmwaaaa!"

Dave laughed, a little embarrassed. After all, he was naked in the bathtub. "I'm really glad you like it, Kurt."

The way Kurt was looking at him... a mischievous little grin on his face, his eyes shining... "It really is a great song," he said, and kissed him again. Only this time, the kiss was quite passionate.

A bit shocked, Dave raised his hands out of the water, reacting on impulse, about to cup Kurt's face in his hands, but then realized that not only were his hands wet, but it was Kurt who was kissing him. His hands just hung there, dripping, until Kurt broke the kiss. "Kurt, what are you doing?" he asked quietly.

Older Dave saw that Nicky was shaking a little. Truth be told, he was shaking a little himself, watching, and remembering. Remembering what it was like to be kissed by someone he admired, whom he was attracted to, someone who was growing into one of the most well thought of songwriters of the 1990s.

"Coming onto you," Kurt whispered, and kissed Dave again.

Dave pulled away. "Why?"

Both Kurt in the memory and Kurt's ghost in the mindscape chuckled in reaction. "Why?" Kurt mimicked, and looked at older Dave.

Dave grinned back at him. "We were so young," he said, and reached out to stroke Kurt's arm, feeling a little melancholy.

Kurt put a hand over his.

In the memory, Kurt responded, "Because you're cute and talented and I really wanna mess around with you."

"You think I'm talented?" Dave asked in surprise.

"Yeah," Kurt said, as if it was a silly question. "So do you want to?"

"Are you bisexual?"

"Are you?"

"I guess... a little," Dave replied.

"A little," Kurt repeated, slightly mocking him. Dave's face colored, and he looked down. "I suppose I am 'a little' bi too. I mean, I'd have to be, with the things I'd like to do to you right now."

Eyes widening, Dave wondered, "What do you wanna do to me?"

"Whatever you'll let me," Kurt whispered. He kissed Dave again.

Dave did not pull away this time.

"This is really hot," Nicky remarked. He looked at Kurt, then Dave, as if he hoped something would happen between the three of them.

The look suddenly put a very dirty idea in the head of the older version of Dave, and he wished Taylor was awake to meet Kurt... that they could all get in that big white bed together and meet each other real good. Even in the middle of all this, he was still a man.

After half a minute of kissing, Dave no longer cared if he got Kurt a little wet; his hands were now dampening Kurt's hair as he ran them through it. When he could take a breath, Dave asked, "What about Courtney?"

Kurt told him, "We got an open thing. I can have all the guys I want, just not other women."

"Oh," Dave said, then made a surprised noise when Kurt reached between his legs and aggressively inserted a finger into his backside. He began to shake as Kurt stroked and caressed his prostate.

"Anybody ever touched that before?"

Dave shook his head, undulating his midsection a bit in reaction to the sudden pleasure moving up his spine.

"Lay back, lay back," Kurt said, lightly pushing on Dave's shoulder.

Dave laid back in the tub, just feeling and enjoying what Kurt was doing to him. He started to pant and moaned softly. "Kurt... that's pretty nice."

Nodding, Kurt said, "It feels even better when it's a big ol' dick inside you, rubbing against that."

Dave eyed him suspiciously. "You want to fuck me, don't you?"

Kurt nodded again. "Real bad, Dave. Right here in the tub." Still working between the other man's legs, Kurt stroked his hair with his free hand. Leaning down, he brushed his lips over Dave's. "Will you let me?"

Dave visibly shook at the thought. He kissed the offered lips before grabbing Kurt's shirt, like he might just yank him in the tub, clothes and all. "Yeah. Yeah, Kurt. I want you to fuck me. Give it to me."

Grinning, Kurt took his finger out and began to remove his clothing. First the long-sleeve overshirt, then the T-shirt, the shoes and socks, and finally the jeans and underwear. Dave watched him, touching his own cock while he did, playing with himself. Naked now, Kurt got into the tub, lying back against the opposite side. "This could be a little warmer," he commented, turning on the water to hot to freshen its temperature a bit. Then he motioned for Dave to come closer.

Within seconds, Dave was in Kurt's lap and wrapping his legs around his waist. They rubbed against each other, kissing, stroking, groping, two of Kurt's fingers going up inside Dave again. Dave gasped, moaning at how good it all felt. "Mmm, Kurt," he growled, and humped at his cock, baring down on the searching fingers.

Kurt stood up and went to older Dave, pulling him close and kissing him on the mouth. Dave gratefully kissed back. He'd hoped Kurt would do this; the memory was affecting him in that way, and he couldn't say goodbye without another kiss. If their plan worked the way it was supposed to, this would all be over soon.

They held each other for a moment, breathing hard into each other's faces. "You should go," Kurt said at a whisper.

"I don't want to," Dave confessed.

Nicky turned around, watching them, starting to pant too.

In the memory, Dave cried out in a mixture of pain and pleasure when Kurt entered him. His mouth hung open as Kurt began to fuck. Both pairs of Kurts and Daves kissed once more. Nicky couldn't decide which pairing to watch.

Kurt pushed away from the older version of Dave, a tentative hand on his chest. "Not now," Kurt declared, continuing to whisper.

Dave smiled at the promise Kurt seemed to be making. There was a way they could make love again, here, once this was -

A crash sounded from the sky. Everyone but the Kurt and Dave in the memory looked up.

Dave opened his eyes. Before him, Nicky came to in Taylor's body, blinking and looking around, perplexed. His hand jerked and the spoon shook, a dollop of chilli falling on Dave's chest. They both looked over to the place where the booming crash had come from.

Chris looked up guiltily from where he was sitting on the floor, one foot stuck in the wall of the art room. His hands were, unfortunately, still shackled around the bar, although the reason why he was off the couch was because he'd been trying to pull so hard on the handcuff chain that it would break, using the bar as a fulcrum. In an effort to give his backward motion more power, Chris had braced his foot against the wall and tried to use his weight to break the chain, but that action had backfired, as the wall had given way. Now frozen with fear, caught, he looked helplessly from Dave to Nicky, his eyes crying, "Save me!"

Instantly furious, Nicky threw down the spoon and bowl and whipped out the gun, pointing it at Chris. "What the hell are you doing?!" he yelled.

"Uhhmm, uhhh..." Chris glanced from one man to the other, frantic for an answer, any answer. "...nothing," he finally said.

Dave cringed. They had been caught. The plan had failed.

"Nothing, shit!" Nicky hollered. "Get back on that couch! NOW!"

Chris did as he was told, yanking his foot out of the wall.

"Do I have to tie your legs down?! Is that it?!"

"No! No, I promise, I won't do it again!"

"Like I'm going to trust you now?!" His face turning red with anger, Nicky kept the gun trained on Chris, his hand shaking.

Dave, afraid his friend was about to be shot, tried to talk Nicky down. "Nicky, we're sorry. It's just really uncomfortable to be chained down like this, and we wanted some - "

Nicky turned the gun on Dave. "SHUT UP, GODDAMN YOU, SHUT YOUR FUCKING MOUTH!"

Dave also did as he was told, knowing better than to challenge a hostile psychopath.

For a moment, Nicky glared at him, anger burning in his eyes. Then he turned and headed for the stairs, yelling at Chris on his way out, "Don't you move!"

"I won't!" Chris said. When Nicky reached the kitchen, he whimpered, frightened and full of regret. "I'm sorry, Dave. I didn't mean to screw everything up."

"I know you didn't mean to."

"But we had him. He was totally mesmerized and under your power, and I ruined it all by - " Chris abruptly ceased talking when he heard Nicky coming back.

He had the yellow rope in his hands. Without a word, Nicky used it to tie Chris's legs down to the couch, winding it around his calves and ankles, the couch's legs, and the couch as a whole until Chris could hardly move them. Chris grunted and whined to himself as it was done; obviously, it was uncomfortable.

Once he felt he was finished, Nicky stared at Dave with hurt in his eyes for so long that Dave had to look away. "You betrayed me," Nicky accused. Tears began to run from his blue eyes. "You and Kurt, all of you... you betrayed me." With that, he left them to their thoughts, disappearing up the stairs.

"Oh shit, shit, shit..." Chris said to himself. "He's gonna kill us. He's going to come down here and fuckin' shoot us both."

Dave thought of his dream. "No, I think he's much more likely to stab you to death and slit my throat."

Turning crystal blue eyes filled with horror on him, Chris cried, "Don't say things like that! How can you say that?!"

Dave laughed almost hysterically. "You had to go put your damn foot through the wall."

"I didn't do it on purpose! And anyway, I told you guys we needed to wait until Nicky left the house before we tried this."

"Oh, like that would have helped. He still would have found the hole in the wall when he came home. Or do you think we could have hidden it behind a painting?" Using an exaggerated, sarcastic voice, Dave said, "Yeah, Nicky, that Magritte has always been hung down by the floor. Didn't you notice?"

Chris burst into tears. "Don't make this all my fault!" He took a deep breath and wailed, panicking. "I don't wanna die! I want to see my wife and kids again. My baaabiiies..."

Dave choked back tears, inwardly kicking himself for getting his friend so upset. "I'm sorry, Chris. It's no one's fault. We gave it a shot, and it didn't work out." Laying his head back, he tried to think of what they were going to do, what came next in this life or death situation.

Somehow, he had to figure it out. Their only chance was to wake up Taylor.

******

Nicky did not come back. Hours passed.

Dave didn't know how he managed to fall asleep, but he must have, because he was back in the mindscape, near the end of the snow white bed. Although, it wasn't so white now.

It terrified him to see how many bloody handprints covered the edges of the fitted sheet. In some places, there were so many of them, they ran together in big blobs, unrecognizable as hands. The handprints not only littered the bottom edge now but also the sides of the bed; the demons wanted to get at Taylor so desperately, they were testing the boundaries with greater enthusiasm and more frequency.

In the middle of the bed, Taylor tossed and turned in his sleep. "Dave... Chris... he's gonna hurt you. Get out. Run!" Groaning, he turned over again, getting himself more tangled in the sheet.

A booming voice startled Dave and he jumped, realizing the voice was Nicky's. "Creatures of the Beyond, you have served me well. I have a reward for you. A slumbering prize. In the safety of a celestial bed sleeps the soul of a talented human male named Taylor Hawkins. Some of you may have tasted him before, as he once listened to you and lost himself in a drug problem. That's something he seems to have left behind. His soul has grown and flourished, and he can now call himself a drummer, singer, songwriter, and poetic lyricist, as well as a father. All of these things, as you know, make for an especially full and tasty soul."

Dave could hear other voices reacting favorably as Nicky ticked off Taylor's accomplishments, some of them sounding more like roars and growls than people who spoke actual words. But they weren't people Nicky was talking to, were they? They were demons.

He went on, saying, "The bed is protected by the light of Heaven, but if you all storm it at the same time, only a few of you will be burned, and the bed will collapse, spilling the prize within. Then you can feast on the handsome, caramel-flavored soul cradled by Heaven itself!"

The demons roared and cheered.

"If you do this thing for me, I promise we will hunt down the soul of another hiding here, the famous Kurt Cobain!"

They really cheered then; Dave could hear their feet (or were they hooves?) pounding on the ground. God, they were close. Already panting with terror, Dave crawled onto the bed and made sure Taylor's arms were inside the bundle he began to make, crossing them over his chest. Then he wrapped Taylor in the sheet like a burrito.

"Kurt has an especially bright soul, just full of talent! A little known fact, Kurt has the ability to communicate with his reaper, a talent he's had since he was a child. Such a psychic power helps make for an especially delicious soul, as you well know."

The demons agreed, cheering and growling uproariously.

Dave took the Taylor burrito into his arms and picked him up off the bed. Making a contented noise, Taylor cuddled up to him and said, "Dave, you're so warm."

Dave took a moment to kiss Taylor's lips before turning and running with him, not even knowing where he was going. "Kurt!" he called, trying to keep his voice down so the demons wouldn't hear him. "Kurt, where are you?"

"My Creatures of the Beyond, these things I offer to you for how well you've served me! Now go, and claim your first prize!" Nicky bellowed.

The sound of their running feet and boisterous cries became thunderous; as Dave ran, he could hear them approaching. The crash as they trampled and tore the bed apart hurt Dave's ears. He found himself in a hallway with different-colored doors on either side. Running this hall with Taylor cradled to his chest, he continued to call for Kurt, hoping he would know a good place to hide the soul the demons were after.

As the demons realized the bed was empty, they screamed in anger, tearing the bed to shreds. "Where is it, where is the soul you promised us?!"

Nicky gasped. Then he howled like an animal, as if in death, his soul had become completely twisted and inhuman. "DAAAAAVE!" he screamed. "WHAT DID YOU DO WITH HIM?!"

Dave kept running, breathing hard and grunting with the effort of the escape. His legs felt like they might give out any second. "Kuuurt!" he shrieked.

Suddenly, one of the doors came open, one that was a beautiful shade of blue, and Kurt poked his head out. "Dave! Here!" he called.

Letting out a grateful but exhausted groan, Dave ran in the door and shut it behind him. All sounds of the angry demons were silenced by that door. In here, there was only the memory hidden there, and Kurt.

"Kurt, thank God!" Dave held Taylor out, finally understanding what Nicky meant when he said he knew now what he had to do to be happy. "Taylor's in danger. Nicky's trying to kill him!" Dave's face crumpled in anguish. "He's trying to kill his soul!"


Notes:I'm pretty sure in the real story of "Alone + Easy Target," Kurt was the one in the bathtub, but somehow it felt more right this way.

Why is Taylor's soul caramel-flavored? Because when I look at him, that's what I think you would taste if you could psychically touch his soul. Still weird? Sorry, I have some strange spiritual beliefs. ;)