My story should be renamed, "Running Thoughts Monthly"... I apologize for taking so long to get each installment out, but here it is! Thanks for all the emails, they each mean a lot to me. It's nice to know there is a response out there for this tale. Keep em coming! :) The following story is fictional and is not meant to imply anything about the celebrities involved. No celebrities were harmed in the writing of this story. Email me for any reason at BrwyDevil@aol.com. Kevin.
Running Thoughts Part Twenty-Two: "Stay With Me"
The image of Justin and Nick being split by some unknown figure jostled Nick Carter from his sleep once more. It was another one of his confusing, recurring dreams. They always seemed to have... to have a type of texture deep within them. His other dreams and even his nightmares contained a different type of flow. These patterns that recurred in his sleep were altogether clearer and less metaphorical.
He had never before been the type to believe in the power of dreaming, but after his experiences in the past months, his faith in predestination was growing stronger. He sat up in bed and curled his legs up to his chest. He brushed a few blond strands away from his eyes and just stared ahead at the shadows before him.
Dreaming of Justin had always been a comfortable thing for him before. As soon as he met him, it was as if his dreams knew which shape to take. As if their two souls had merely been waiting for one another. This was the first time something unpleasant occurred between the two of them in his mind's eye. Some figure was coming between them. Nick didn't want to delve into that and see what meanings it could have.
Instead, he wanted to pretend like it had no significance at all. Someone had once told him that he could cover the events that could be with the belief that they never will be. It was a backwards vision but appropriate. He looked over at his clock and realized it was nearly eleven in the morning. The heavy curtains had kept out the brilliant light of day. It felt good to sleep late. Yet he still didn't feel rested. His dreams used up the energy he deserved to preserve.
There was a knock on his hotel room door and he remembered he wasn't alone in the room. Brian was fast asleep on the floor at the foot of the bed. He didn't want to be with Howie at all, so Nick had allowed him to stay in his room. Nick didn't want Brian to wake up, so he hopped out of bed and rushed over to the door to see who was there.
A messenger handed him a small white envelope. Nick motioned for the security officer to tip the young man and he then closed the door. His heart began to slow in rhythm as he saw Justin's handwriting scrawled across the covering.
He instantly smiled. Nick, didn't even want to go back to the bed. His heart was melting in a passionate joy and he slunk down to sit in the doorway. Before opening it, he held it close to his heart and realized how pathetic he must have looked.
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He wished he could have been with Nick when he read the first letter. He had put a lot of time into it and was quite proud of what he got off of his chest. He would probably benefit from the ever-changing expressions which danced across his boyfriend's face as his crystal clear eyes picked up every word he had placed passionately on the paper.
Just in laid back and put his hands behind his head. A smile appeared on his face. Thinking about Nick Carter always seemed to make his chest tingle and his body feel weightless. It was the closest physical definition he could equate to love.
He ran his fingers along the band of the red bandana on his head and itched at his ear. He was beginning to feel a little tired. All of his energy was thrown into writing... fatigue was the result. He was glad that his messenger made his way to the BackStreet Boys hotel, but there was a desire within him to deliver that letter himself. Being caged in this hospital lounge was beginning to exhaust him.
Justin had read once that even people who have no prior connections to such fears as claustrophobia can develop the tension if forced into remaining in a closed section of space for a long period of time. He wasn't going to freak out or anything but he could feel that the limitations he was experiencing were beginning to take their toll.
He missed being with Nick. He knew all too well that he had to get used to being apart from him- especially as soon as their tours or schedules became even more demanding. But that didn't make it any easier to be separated from him now.
Justin closed his eyes with the smile still on his face and hoped he could dream of Nick. As tired as he was, though, he couldn't seem to fall asleep. It would have been nice to lazily waste the hours away but unfortunately he felt more bored than rested.
After the creativity bug had bitten him, he penned letters to Nick and his mother and his brother- not to mention a few poems he hoped to someday turn into songs. He had written so much that his hand was starting to hurt. It was the first time he ever felt pain and decided it was a sensation worth feeling. Writing was taxing but the end result was worth suffering for.
He had never written to anyone with the intensity and honesty he used after he met Nick. For the most part, he had never really written to anyone at all till he met Nick. It was not a popular way of communication since the invention of the telephone and the expansion of the internet. His other relationships seemed so empty when he realized what he could have been sharing and how much more he could have put into them.
Nick succeeded in totally, completely, one-hundred-percently wooing Justin. Neither of them ever had to stress about being alone again. Their matching was perfect and that was a fact that Justin mentioned in his letter. They'd only been together for a few months but it seemed so lasting and miraculous. His only doubts were distant memories from his past that only plagued him when doldrums set in.
The other area of thought that seemed to constantly occur to Justin was his sexual attraction to Nick. The fact that they had slept in the same bed with each other and had extraordinary kissing sessions and even swapped articles of clothing made Justin quite eager to go all the way. They were both teenaged boys, after all. The fact that they had waited a few months before getting to it was impressive enough. Nick wanted to take things slowly. He was a virgin to any type of love-making and despite his irresistible longing to experiment, he wanted to wait for the right moment. Justin couldn't disagree with that. He found it terribly romantic and remarkably strong-willed. He wished he had been that wise and virtuous when it came to his first time. But when you're young and you think you're in love, hormones play funny tricks...
As Justin lay groggily in the lounge, a soft knock came on the tinted glass door. He sat up slowly and said, "Come in..."
A hospital security guard poked her head into the room and smiled. "There's a visitor here for you. He has a pass that's a few months out of date- but your bodyguards said he looked familiar and could come in if you allowed it..."
Justin thought for a moment. He wasn't sure which of his bandmates would have given out a visitor's pass that could bypass their guards during a situation of this magnitude... He knew he had once written one but that had been so long ago, he never considered it to work this late in the year. "Umm, sure. Send them in." Justin finally nodded as he sat up to look presentable.
The door opened completely and standing on the other side was the only doubt in Justin's mind pertaining to his relationship with Nick.
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The French restaurant was quite extravagant and lovely. It was dim but the violin music in the background made a light of its own. AJ and his girlfriend, Lana, dressed very conservatively, stepped in to meet the host at the front podium.
"Do you have a reservation?" he asked with a wrinkled grin.
"We do. Two for McLean." Lana answered as she held AJ's hand. They walked down the purple carpet towards a finely decorated table inside a quaint alcove. The elderly manager pulled the tall armchair out for the beautiful young lady and courteously pushed it back in to seat her comfortably. Menus were opened for them by two young bus boys and fresh bread and cold water was placed at the middle of the table.
"I just hate the lousy service in this place..." Lana sarcastically shook her head. AJ looked into her eyes and grinned. It was very rarely his intention to go to such elaborate eateries due to the fact that his tastes were much simpler and less refined, but since he was dating someone now, he decided that he would go all out for her.
They had spent a great evening together and this expensive stop was meant to top the evening off. Lana suggested that the two of them visit a museum followed by a little shopping. AJ was happy to oblige. He had rarely ever been so connected to another individual before. He would have agreed to just about anything she wanted to do.
He wasn't sure why he was so intensely engrossed in his time with Lana but there was a mysterious missing segment he always noticed when the two of them were alone together. He tried to cover up this vacant expanse within his soul by convincing himself that he just needed to be closer to her. After all, she had everything he wanted.
Lana was a determined, career-minded, intelligent, unique woman. She had charm and simplicity and always seemed to know the right words to say. She was beautiful and stunning in the most peculiar way and still AJ couldn't focus totally on her.
As they sat silently looking over the names of foreign dishes on the aged yellow pages, the violin music soothingly drifted around them. It was a romantic semblance of sound and the perfect moment. AJ smiled to himself and let the tune invade his senses. In his mind, he had had a vague recollection of this song. He wasn't sure how he knew it but he was positive he had heard it before.
The memory connected to a flash of Kevin. AJ pushed it aside. He felt he thought about him far too much recently. He didn't understand why it was happening, he merely noticed that a lot of outside stimuli seemed to bring up one of his friends.
"Do we want appetizers or do we want dessert?"
A song or a smell or a picture jogged AJ's mind and always brought up Kevin's face. At first, when these images began, he just thought that he wasn't spending enough time with the rest of the boys in the group but when he realized that the flashes never involved any of the other members, he figured something was out of place.
There had been several moments when he would catch Kevin looking at him in a bizarre way, but AJ never paid attention to it. As he thought about it now, he still didn't find anything exceedingly strange regarding how Kevin and himself interacted... he was just curious as to why none of his other friends entered his thoughts as often as Kevin.
"Darling, do we want appetizers or do we want dessert?" Lana asked again, this time a little louder.
"Oh... Oh..." AJ looked up at her and remembered that he hadn't even really been reading his menu. "Well... umm.... its up to you."
"Well, if we're really hungry we should get appetizers... but if we can wait for a whole meal and then save room for something afterwards... we can do that too." She explained. AJ just nodded, his eyes not focussing on anything. "Are you all right?" She inquired.
AJ shrugged his shoulders. "I don't care either way." He said with a small grin. Lana furrowed her brow in thought and got back to reading the menu. AJ's eyes, however, never stopped staring thoughtfully into space.
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Nick wanted to thank Justin for sending the letter all the way across town for him. He hadn't opened it up yet because it would require light to read through it and Brian was still fast asleep on the floor. Nick lifted up the receiver of the phone and planned to call information to get in touch with the hospital Chris was brought to, but instead of a dial tone, he heard the sound of crashing waves on the other end of the line.
"Hello?" he asked. > Nick? It's Howie...
"Howie?" Nick realized he must have picked up the phone without letting it ring. His timing was perfect. "Where the hell are you?" >I'm in the Bahamas at our recording studio.
"Why did you go there?" Nick kept his voice low. He didn't want Brian to be unpleasantly awakened. "Don't you think you should get back here and work this whole fight thing out with Bri?" >Well that's why I'm calling... I want to talk to him. There was no answer in our room, so I knew he must have been by you.
Nick didn't want to answer. He didn't want to say that Brian was in his room because it would have put him in the place of some kind of relationship buffer- and that was a role he refused to play. "Howie, man... you've gotta do this in person. A telephone call from an island paradise isn't the kind of message you want to get across to someone you need to mend things with." >Nick, don't get involved, just get him on the phone.
"That's IS getting me involved. You two need to figure out some way to fix this. I don't care how... But I am not going to get in the middle. Get back to New York before Brian decides to never forgive you." >What did he tell you, Nick?
Nick honestly didn't want to lose either friendship. He was close with both Howie and Brian- and he knew that they had been happy together a long time ago. In his opinion, they needed to talk things out and maybe spend a little time apart. He refused to give his opinion, though, unless he was asked for it. Disastrous consequences often ensued otherwise. "Listen, How... I told him what I am telling you. I can be a good listener but I will not advise you. I'm sorry, buddy... this is an area I can't substitute for you in." Nick said and quickly ended the conversation.
Nick sighed and rubbed at his eyes in the dim room. He looked to the left and saw that Brian had been watching him as he spoke to Howie. He stood up and moved closer to the edge of the bed. "Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you up."
"Thanks for trying to help me and him." Brian groggily shook his head.
"Did I do the right thing?"
"I wish I knew... Maybe nothing can fix things now. Some things are unforgivable." Brian laid back down. "I don't really want to think about it right after I wake up."
"I understand, man." Nick changed his position as he changed the conversational tactic. "Wake up on your own. I'll order breakfast in a little while, okay?"
Brian acknowledged him and disappeared back into the shadowy recesses of the floor. Nick thought about the relationship web that was shredding itself apart before his eyes and sighed loudly. He didn't want to get in the middle of anything, so instead, he just went to the bathroom and turned on the light.
Finally he would be able to open Justin's letter. Brian and Howie's drama was going to have to wait. He had love and future and passion and all that jazz to face now.
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He sped down the crowded streets, just barely making every green light. The traffic around him blurred past in a colorful array of speed and flashing light. Joe was still laughing to himself about some internal joke that he couldn't explain and didn't understanding. His vision was foggy and he felt like he was inside the chair of some video racing game. The movements he witnessed seemed so choppy and surrealistic, he didn't notice the addition of red flashing lights behind him.
The limousine wagged awkwardly down the Manhattan avenue and pedestrians fled to the sidewalks as Joey's vehicle zoomed past. The cop car raced after in hot pursuit. If he got dizzy or tired, many innocent lives could be in danger. He just thought he was having fun.
A taxicab door suddenly opened and Joe swerved to avoid striking it. As he skidded to the left another car pulled down a cross street and Joey turned the car the opposite way. As he zigzagged at seventy miles an hour, the drivers side lifted up off of the ground and sent the balance of the entire car out of control. It landed correctly on all four wheels but steered wildly and crashed through a series of signs and came to a halt at the edge of a large cement fountain.
The glass from the broken headlights shimmered on the cold, dark asphalt. The cops departed their car and rushed to make sure the driver was all right. As they approached cautiously, they saw Joey unconscious in the drivers seat.
"Make sure no one's in the back..." One of the officer's said. "We've got to call an ambulance here..."
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Okay, there's another part for you to mull over. I hope you are enjoying what I have here. The climax or whatever we like to call it, is building... as the number of chapters is running short! Email me at BrwyDevil@aol.com. Kev.