Brian and Tommy

Obligatory warnings and disclaimers:

1. If reading this is in any way illegal where you are or at your age, or you don't want to read about male/male relationships, go away. You shouldn't be here.

2. I don't know any of the celebrities in this story, and this story in no way is meant to imply anything about their sexualities, personalities, or anything else. This is a work of pure fiction.

Questions and commentary can be sent to "writerboy69@hotmail.com".

Author's note: This story has absolutely nothing to do with my other story on the archive, "JC's Hitchhiker".

Brian stared out over the skyline, watching helicopters go by, seeing planes pass in the distance, wondering why it had to be overcast tonight, when he wanted to look up and see the stars. He wanted to see something beyond himself, something beyond the world he lived in, but the clouds lay low over the city, like a blanket, covering everything, hemming him in a like a low ceiling in a small room. Everything felt like a small room to Brian now, no matter where he was. There was nowhere he could go to escape, nowhere he could go to be himself. He had dreamed about this for so long, had worked so hard to be where he was, but he had never realized that to become Brian, from the Backstreet Boys, Brian the singer, the artist, the star, he would have to give up being Brian Littrel.

He was up here because he had to get away, because he'd felt like everyone was watching. It happened more and more often lately. He'd be at a party, or in a club, or at a photo shoot, and would just feel like everyone was staring. He would start to feel trapped, finding it hard to get a breath, hard to turn around, hard to do anything, even think. Everywhere he looked there would be eyes, just eyes, and where there were, then there were also expectations. Everyone who looked at him expected to see something, and there was always pressure for him to be whatever was expected. The fans expected him to be their idol, or their fantasy. The management expected him to be a good boy, to keep up the squeaky clean image, to be the perfect band member and the perfect husband. The rest of the band expected him to keep it together, to keep the facade going at all costs for as long as they stayed together. His family expected not to hear from him, expected him to burn in hell with the rest of the sinners, and he sometimes wondered if they were right about his fate, but wrong about the timing.

So often lately he felt like he was in hell already.

His phone rang, startling him a little, and he set down the bottle he'd lifted from the bar. The bartender had raised his eyebrows, but Brian had passed him a large bill, guaranteeing that he'd let him take it with no questions asked. He didn't normally drink, but sometimes he wanted to just dull the pain, wanted to make everything blurry. Sometimes it helped, but the next day he would feel worse than before. That didn't stop him, though. He thought about it every time, but his hand still reached for the bottle. It was just one more thing to feel bad about later. He pulled out his phone and checked the number. It was one of the safe ones, one of the people who wouldn't hurt him right now.

"Hey Lee," he said, answering the phone.

"Hi Brian," Leighanne sighed into the phone. "Are you ok?"

Leighanne was Brian's wife, and over the past year, she'd also become his best friend. Leighanne knew everything about him, everything, and she didn't care. The arrangement the two of them had worked out, the marriage and all the rest, would have worked from a business sense, but it wouldn't have seemed real if the two of them weren't so close. Lee got everything she'd been offered and promised for going through with this, a comfortable life, the chance to travel and meet celebrities, the opportunity to go places and take things for granted that most people could only dream about, but she also gave Brian so much more than had ever been asked. She gave him a shoulder to cry on, a friend to lean on when he needed one, an outlet when he had no one else to talk to, and she was his cover, for the band and for the world. Sure, the rest of the guys knew that the marriage was a construction, an arrangement pushed by management when there had been too many rumors about Brian, too many indiscretions, but they didn't realize that Lee was his shield from them, too, when he felt like he couldn't deal with anyone.

He thought of the other guys, who the press always said were like brothers, and laughed. If they were a family, dysfunctional wasn't even the word to begin to describe it. Kevin, his real family member in the band, his cousin, still tolerated him, and still tried to be here for him, but when it had come down to a choice between their family and Brian, Kevin had sided with the family. He was supposed to be best friends with Nick, Frick and Frack, but the two of them barely spoke. They hardly ever appeared together when the guys went out for shows or ceremonies, but no one seemed to notice. Behind closed doors, away from the cameras, Nick barely spoke to him, and it had been like that since Brian had come out, since he'd turned to his four best friends and found only tacit acceptance, at best. AJ was too wrapped up in his own problems, too needy and insecure, to ever be there for Brian, or for anyone, really. They had publicly spoken up for him and stood behind him when he went to rehab, but only Brian had actually gone to visit him, and when he had AJ had spent the entire time talking about himself. And Howie, of course, was always a puzzle. The most private of the boys, the quietest, Howie was almost a cipher to them, and to the public. He wasn't one of the cute ones, and he wasn't the crazy one, so there was no spot left for him. He had accepted Brian's lifestyle as easily as he accepted everything else, just nodding his head and waiting for the rest of the guys to decide how to handle it. They never knew how he felt about anything, and he never felt the need to share.

"I just need some air," Brian said. "I had to get out of there."

"I kind of figured," Lee said. "I saw you by the bar, and I noticed you were getting close to the side door, and then you were gone, so I figured you'd ducked out."

"Did anyone notice?" Brian asked, worried. He didn't want to get lectured by Kevin again. He was tired of having to nod his head, hearing about how much he was letting them all down, and how he needed to just pull himself together. He was tired of seeing that disappointed, exasperated look on Kevin's face. Kevin, maybe because they were related, always seemed to hold Brian to a higher standard than the other guys, but maybe it was because Brian's secret put them most in danger of scandal.

"Not for a while," Lee answered. "When they did, I beat a hasty retreat, but I think I covered pretty well. I told everyone at the party that you were upstairs, waiting for me, and they seemed to buy it. Kevin sidelined me at the elevators, and I told him you were sick and probably on the toilet with explosive diarrhea, since you'd had it all day, and he backed off immediately, so I think I've cleared you until at least the morning."

"Thanks, Lee," Brian sighed, taking another sip out of the bottle.

"That's what friends are for, Bri," she said. "Now, are you going to need me to come get you later, or are you ok to get back here?"

"I'm still in the hotel, actually," Brian answered, looking around. "I'm on the roof."

"Are you sure you should be up there?" Lee asked, sounding concerned.

"The door was open," Brian pointed out.

"That's not really what I asked, now was it?" Lee said pointedly. She sounded a little worried now. "Brian, are you sure you're ok? Do you need me to come up there?"

Brian looked around, but felt sad suddenly. It wasn't fair to keep leaning on Leighanne like this, to keep asking her to hold his hand and be there for him. He already asked her to give up so much already, so much of her privacy, and her chance to date a real guy, a normal guy who might be interested in dating her. He was causing so much trouble for everyone, for his family, for the guys, for Leighanne. Maybe it would be better for everyone if he wasn't here.

"No, Lee, I'm fine," Brian lied, looking at the edge of the roof. He was so high above the ground, above everyone. "I'll be down soon, ok?"

"OK," Lee answered. "But I'm worried about you. Tell you what: I'm going to order a nice, big cheesecake from room service, with two forks and a couple root beers. You come back down, and we'll order up a movie from the desk, and we can talk about how men are all jerks and we wish we were Julia Roberts. What do you say, Bri? Come hang out with your best girlfriend, or, barring that, with your wife?"

"I'll be right down," Brian repeated, walking closer to the edge.

Brian hung up the phone and walked closer to the wall, looking out at the skyline, and not down at the ground. He walked closer to the wall, taking another sip. He'd be right down, in just a second, right down, and then this would all be over. Everyone could go back to their lives, go back to being happy, once he was gone. All the misery and disappointment he brought to everyone would be over. The edge of the wall hit his knees, and he stepped up onto it, one foot and then the other, staring out at the buildings as he took another sip off of the bottle. He took another sip, standing right at the edge, and closed his eyes, getting ready to just step off, to jump out into space. Would it be like flying? Maybe it would be. He'd feel the wind rushing past his face, and then this would all be over.

"Careful," a voice said, startling him.

Brian spun around, looking across the rooftop, his feet close to the edge of the wall. The roof was empty, but it was dark. Someone could be in the shadows, maybe there by the door, and then, suddenly, someone was. Someone stepped forward, sliding out of the darkness as it peeled off around him like a blanket folding back or curtains parting. Brian gasped in surprise as he stepped into the light, stepping toward him. The moon drifted out from behind the clouds, and moonlight spilled across the roof, falling on him as Brian watched.

He was gorgeous, a beautiful young guy, maybe twenty-three or twenty-four. He had short, spiky blonde hair, so pale it was almost white, and the face beneath it was perfect, with firm, angular lines, high cheekbones, and a thin, pink mouth. His eyes were blue, bluer even than Brian's own, a flat, icy blue that sparkled in the dim lighting. He was tall, almost as tall as Nick, stepping toward Brian in jeans, plain white sneakers, and a white t- shirt that stretched across his chest, clinging to his pecs. He wasn't brawny, or bulky, but was more of the lithe, thin build of a swimmer, or a soccer player, and his arms were lightly tanned and well defined, the veins standing out a little.

Brian stepped back without thinking as the guy stepped toward him, and realized in a flash of panic that there was nothing behind his foot. He flailed his arms, pinwheeling them, trying to get his balance as the guy, looking just as surprised, grabbed the front of his shirt with both hands and jerked him forward. As quickly as he'd been falling backward, Brian was now falling forward, and he didn't have his balance back. He fell off of the wall, onto the guy, who stumbled and fell down backward. The bottle hit the roof and broke, splashing them both, as their chests collided, the air knocking out of both of them with an audible sound as Brian landed on top of this strange guy on the roof. Brian looked down, staring into the guy's eyes, as neither of them breathed, and he noticed that the guy looked panicked suddenly, but it passed as they both inhaled, taking in long, gasping breaths. Brian rolled off of him, sucking in air, and they lay on their backs in the spreading pool of bourbon.

"This is wet," the guy observed. His voice was soft, but flat, without any accent.

"And it'll be sticky," Brian added, reaching out to take the guy's hand before he thought about it. He tugged the guy over, both of them turning as they leaned up, so that they were sitting with their backs against the low wall Brian had been standing on. Brian realized that he was still holding the guy's hand, and let it drop. "Your hands are cold."

The guy didn't say anything, just staring at Brian, gazing into his eyes, scanning his face. Brian waited for that flash, the one that came any time anyone looked at him, that glimmer of recognition, but it didn't come.

"I'm sorry I fell on you," Brian began again.

"What were you doing up there?" the guy asked, gesturing toward the wall with his eyes.

"I don't want to talk about it," Brian said, looking away, suddenly ashamed of what he'd been thinking. Was he really about to step off of the roof of his hotel? Had he really been about to throw everything away?

"I don't mean to pry," the guy said, and Brian looked at him again, staring into his smooth, open face. There was concern there, but nothing else, no guile. "You were just awfully close to the edge."

"I'm awfully close to the edge all the time," Brian said quietly, looking down.

It was too much to say to a complete stranger, too much already. He needed to just go back downstairs to Leighanne, but he didn't want to. When he went back down there, he'd be diving right back into all of this again, and right now, up on the roof, he was out of it. No one knew where he was, no one would come to find him, and this guy seemed to actually be worried about him as a person, just as one person to another. This guy was treating Brian as a human being, and nobody ever did that. He was also somehow comforting. As soon as he had stepped toward him, Brian had felt a kind of soothing calm, like he was safe.

"That's not a good place to be, by yourself," the guy said quietly, looking down as well. "Sometimes things happen when you're in a place like that. Bad things."

Brian looked down, and felt tears sting his eyes. He couldn't hold it in anymore, but this wasn't the place to let it out. He didn't even know this guy, but maybe that's why it suddenly felt ok.

"I'm in that place all the time," Brian said quietly, his voice barely a squeak.

He started to cry, suddenly, full out sobbing, and couldn't hold it in. The guy sitting next to him reached out and draped an arm over his shoulders, pulling him close, and Brian just leaned into it, laying his head on the other guy's shoulder and letting the tears fall. The guy held onto him, smoothing his hair back off of his head, letting him cry, not saying anything. Brian realized as he got himself back under control that it wasn't just his hands that were a little chilled. He could feel it through his t-shirt, too. How long had this guy been on the roof, and what was he doing up here?

"Are you sure you don't want to talk about it?" the guy asked. He reached out with one of his hands, soft but cold, and brushed a tear out from under Brian's eye. It was a quick gesture, but surprisingly intimate. Brian felt his heart flutter a little.

"I just, I don't know," Brian began, shrugging. "Have you ever just felt trapped? Have you ever had everything you wanted, and found out that it wasn't what you wanted after all? I feel like everything is pressing in on me, and I can't be who I am, because everyone wants me to be someone else."

The guy didn't say anything, just staring at Brian, watching him, waiting for him to continue.

"I never feel happy anymore," Brian said. "I never feeling anything anymore, really. Every time I walk out of my bedroom, wherever it happens to be this week, I'm on stage. I have to have the mask on, and I can't find what's behind it anymore. I feel like every time I go out, I lose another little piece of myself. I feel like I don't even know who I am at all anymore."

"Well, who are you?" the guy asked, and Brian blinked at him in surprise. The guy really seemed to mean it, really actually did have no idea.

"My name is, um, it's Brian," he answered, holding out his hand. The other guy shook it, but didn't offer his name. "Pleased to meet you."

"You, too," the guy said. "But that wasn't quite what I was asking. Who are you, Brian? Inside? Behind your mask? Who are you, and who do you want to be?"

"I'm not sure," Brian answered, swallowing. "You sound like, you know, like you have some experience with stuff like this. Do you?"

"I feel like I do," the guy answered, shrugging. Brian blinked. Something was definitely off here.

"What are you doing up here?" Brian asked, gesturing at the roof.

"I'm not sure," the guy said, looking confused for the first time. "I think I'm here to talk to you."

"How did you know I was up here?" Brian asked, wondering if this guy might be a stalker after all.

"I saw you," the guy answered. "I saw you, and you looked like you needed a friend, and I wanted to help."

"Where did you see me?" Brian asked, watching the guy's face. He looked just as confused as Brian did. "Was it downstairs? Were you in the ballroom?"

Brian didn't think this guy had been at the party. He wasn't dressed for it, for one thing, and for another, Brian would have remembered someone who looked like him.

"No, I saw you here on the roof," the guy said, shaking his head. He blinked at Brian, his wide blue eyes flashing.

"When?" Brian asked, noticing that the guy was starting to look a little panicked. Could it be drugs? Maybe he should get this guy downstairs. He might need help, or Brian might need it. What if the guy was about to flip out on him? "You're cold. How long were you on the roof?"

"I've been up here for a while," the guy said, looking away. He shook his head, as if denying something, and his eyes squeezed closed. Brian watched, and realized that he was in pain. "It doesn't matter what I was doing on the roof. What are you doing up here?"

"I told you, I just came up for some air," Brian said, turning away.

"Actually, you didn't tell me that," the guy answered. "You told me you felt trapped, as a matter of fact."

Brian turned away, looking out over the skyline again. He didn't want to face this. He'd had a moment of weakness, a moment, that was all. He could handle this. He could handle all of this, like he had been all along. He didn't need some stranger, some handsome, breathtakingly handsome stranger, out here prying into his life. He ran his hand over his cheeks again, making sure they were dry, and turned back around.

"Look, mister," Brian began, and realized he didn't even know this guy's name. "What's your name?"

"Tommy," he answered, watching Brian. Brian wondered how his eyes could look so much like ice chips and gaslights at the same time.

"Look, Tommy, I appreciate you know, you sitting by me and letting me have a good cry, but really, I'm ok," Brian began, trying to cover this. Tommy just kept watching him. "I am. I mean, you don't know me. You don't know anything about me. I'm just some guy you happened to run into on the roof."

"Are you sure?" Tommy asked, leaning back on the edge of the roof, sitting on it with his arms crossed. "Are you sure you just happened to be on the roof?"

Brian looked at him, cocking his head to one side.

"Why else would I be here?" Brian asked.

"Maybe this is exactly where you're supposed to be," Tommy said, giving Brian that same neutral look. "You say I don't know anything about you, but I do, Brian. I know how you feel inside. I know what it's like to have to lie to everyone, to feel like nothing's true. I know what it's like to feel like no one knows who you really are."

Brian sat next to Tommy on the wall, not looking at him, staring down at his feet. They had their backs to the drop now as they both looked down at the slowly evaporating pool of bourbon and the sparkling shards of glass.

"It's hard, Tommy," Brian said softly. "It's so hard to be who I am. It's like I said before, there's just so much, so much pressure."

"And you can't be who you really are," Tommy said, repeating the words Brian had said before. "Because everyone wants you to be someone else."

"And I can never be myself," Brian agreed. "I mean, I can with Lee, but even with her, I still can't be who I am. It wouldn't be fair to her, if I brought someone home. What if people found out? They might start talking, might start rumors. She's given up so much for me, and this is the least I can do for her."

Brian realized that he hadn't even mentioned Lee, but Tommy was just nodding as if he already knew. Not only that, but Brian also realized what else he'd just said, but Tommy had just nodded at that, too. Brian felt another little flutter, wondering if his feelings about Tommy might be right.

"But what about you, Brian?" Tommy asked.

"She's been a friend to me," Brian said, and he meant it.

"But you haven't been a friend to yourself," Tommy said. "Brian, every day you're not true to yourself is just going to hurt you more."

"But it's hard, Tommy," Brian said, feeling himself tear up. "It's so hard to just let it all go, to stop worrying about how other people feel. It's so hard to just decide not to listen to them anymore, to just say that this is who you are and how you want to live."

Tommy took Brian's face in his hand, and Brian shivered a little at the feather soft touch of that cold skin over his cheek. He stared into Tommy's eyes, losing himself in those icy blue depths. He noticed in the back of his mind that they were flat, completely flat, but he was too mesmerized by the lines of Tommy's face, by the concern he thought he saw there. Not just concern, but also a kind of sadness.

"You were about to let it all go before, Brian," Tommy whispered. "You were on the edge of the roof, and you were about to let it all go. I saw you. I saw what you were thinking."

Brian shook his head, denying it.

"No, it wasn't what you thought," he began.

"Brian, don't lie to yourself, and don't lie to me," Tommy said, brushing a finger over Brian's lips. "I saw what you were about to do, Brian. It's why I grabbed you, why I stopped you."

"Well, maybe you shouldn't have!" Brian said suddenly, standing. "Maybe you should have just let me do it!"

"Why?" Tommy asked, his voice neutral.

"Because I can't do this anymore!" Brian cried, dropping to his knees. He felt himself starting to cry again, and he fought it. "I can't live like this anymore! I can't keep doing this for everyone else. There's nothing left for me."

Tommy dropped into a squat in front of Brian.

"I know," he said, taking Brian's face in his hands again. "Every day a little more of you dies inside."

"And someday there won't be anything left," Brian whispered, shaking.

"Then stop living like this," Tommy said, matter of factly. "Stop doing this to yourself. Go be who you are, Brian."

"I can't!" Brian said, shaking his head. "I can't. There are too many obligations, too many things I have to do, too many people who depend on me. I have to do this. There isn't any other choice."

"Yes there is," Tommy said, standing. He pulled Brian up with him. "There's always a choice, Brian. Right now, tonight, you stand on this roof, and you hold your own future in your hands. You already made one choice tonight, and it was the wrong one. Don't follow through with it. Choose to live, Brian."

Brian stepped back, away from him.

"It's not that easy!" Brian said, shaking his head. "You don't know what it's like to feel like this!"

"Yes I do," Tommy answered, shaking his head sadly.

"No, you don't," Brian argued. "You can't. Nobody knows."

"Nobody knows how it feels to be trapped?" Tommy asked. "Nobody knows how it feels to be so afraid to not meet everyone's expectations of you? Nobody knows what it's like to hide? Nobody knows how hard it is, how much it takes away from you, to just smile and pretend? You're wrong, Brian."

Brian stared at him, still shaking his head.

"Nobody knows what it's like to decide that it would be easier, that it would be better for everyone, if you just stepped off the roof, Brian?" Tommy asked, staring at Brian still. "It doesn't feel like flying, Brian."

"How would you know?" Brian asked. It was so easy for this guy, this random roof guy, to say stuff like this, to act like he knew it all.

"Because this is where I did it," Tommy said quietly, finally turning away.

"What?" Brian asked, shivering. Tommy said it with such conviction, as if he actually believed it.

"This is where I came when I had to make the same choice as you," Tommy said quietly. "This is where I stood, and this is what I thought. There wasn't anyone here then, Brian."

"What?" Brian asked, stepping back.

"I told you, Brian," Tommy said, looking at him again, his face still blank. "I told you I've been on this roof for a long time. I saw you, and you caught my attention. I saw you, and heard you, and saw what you were thinking, and I reached out to you. It's not quick, Brian, and it's not painless."

Brian shook his head, glancing at the door, wondering if he should try to make a run for it. Tommy, as nice as he seemed, and as comforting, was obviously not right in the head.

"That's impossible," Brian whispered finally.

"Of course it is," Tommy agreed, shaking his head sadly. He stepped toward Brian, and his hands swept up to take Brian's face again, to tilt it up toward him. His lips, as icy as his hands, brushed across Brian's, and Brian shivered a little, feeling tingles run up and down his spine. "Make the right choice, Brian."

Brian's eyes popped open as Tommy stepped away from him, climbing back up onto the wall.

"What are you doing?" Brian asked, stepping toward him. Tommy shook his head.

"Be who you choose to be, Brian," Tommy said, facing him. "Be true to yourself."

Tommy tensed, and then leapt backwards, his legs together, his arms outstretched. For a second he hung there, as Brian stepped toward him, disbelieving. Tommy hung against the sky, cruciform, and then he was just gone. He didn't drop out of sight, or dissolve away. He was just there, and then he wasn't. Brian stepped back, staring at the patch of sky where Tommy had just been, and then he heard the door open behind him.

"Brian?" Leighanne asked quietly.

Brian turned, and saw her standing in the doorway, wind whipping her hair to the side, her coat rippling.

"Brian, are you ok?" she asked.

"Lee, what are you doing up here?" Brian asked, walking toward her. He felt a shiver, a fingertip brush across his cheek, and then it was gone.

"I was worried about you," Leighanne answered, taking his arm as he stepped back into the hallway. "You're cold."

"But I'm ok," Brian said, giving the roof one last glance before he let the door swing closed. "Lee, can I ask you something?"

"Sure," she answered, walking with him toward the elevator. He seemed a little off to her, a little quiet, and she wondered again if he was ok.

"Has this all been ok for you?" Brian asked, and she knew what he meant. "Has it been worth it? Have you enjoyed it?"

"More than you know," Lee answered. "I've seen things, and done things, that I never would have been able to otherwise. I've been able to help my family, and you, and I've picked up a best friend, too. Why?"

"Because tomorrow everything is going to change," Brian said, pressing the elevator button. "Starting tomorrow, I'm going to be who I am. I'm going to be true to myself, and not hide from it anymore, or let anyone hide me."

Leighanne stared at him, trying to figure out if he was drunk, or on something, but his eyes were serious. She smiled.

"Are you sure?" she asked.

Brian thought for a second before answering. He thought about being up on the roof alone, and what he'd been about to do. He thought about the bluest eyes he'd ever seen, and one kiss that had reached into his heart.

"I wasn't," he answered. "But I am now."

To be continued.