Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2001 15:18:47 +0000
From: Elly Iles <uptowngurrl@hotmail.com>
Subject: Little White Lies: From The Heart - 5

Sorry I've been so long with this.  I'm incredibly busy at the moment with
college (yeah, what's new?) and it slipped my mind.  Anyway, I hope people
are still reading, and if you are, please send me feedback.  It really,
really cheers me up, and not a lot is doing that at the moment.  Oh, listen
to me feeling sorry for myself.  The weather must be getting to me.  That's
England for ya.

Disclaimer: Nope, I don't know the Backstreet Boys, and I definitely don't
own them.  I don't know anything about their sexualities, and I don't
pretend to, either.  This story is pure fiction, from the mind of a bored
teenage girl.  This is FICTION.  I'm not making any money out of this, so
please don't sue me.

Chapter 5

Now...

AJ's trembling hand pulled a few bottles out of the bathroom cabinet before
finding the pills he wanted; the anti-depressants.  He'd been diagnosed
with clinical depression four months ago, and ever since then he'd become
reliant on these pills.  Of course, everybody assumed it was because of
Nick's death, and so nobody questioned it.  The depression was down to it,
AJ concluded, but not in the way that everyone thought.  That was something
that they would never know.

It took him a lifetime to unscrew the safety cap; his sweaty hands kept
sliding off as he tried to get a grip.  When he finally managed the simple
task, he swallowed four in one go, without washing them down with some
water.  He hated feeling like this, and he hated this dependency on the
drugs, but they had become part of who he was now.  If he came off them,
he'd probably die through sheer despair.

He wondered how Nick must have felt as he had taken that bottle of sleeping
tablets.  The whole bottle.  Not just half of it, which would have worked
just as well.  The whole damn bottle.  Nick, who had been so full of life a
few weeks previous to the suicide, so tirelessly wholesome and cute, and so
damn innocent.  Brian, Kevin and AJ had collectively taken away that spirit
between them, perhaps unknowingly, perhaps not.  But that loss of innocence
would always play on AJ's conscience, as much as he knew it would on
Kevin's, and probably as much as on Brian's.

Screwing the cap back on, and shoving the bottle back into the cabinet, he
began to feel slightly better.  Kevin had popped out to get the morning's
paper, and would be back soon.  Maybe they could actually act like a real
couple this morning, rather than two strangers who just happened to share
the same bed.

He crawled onto the bed and was beginning to fall back asleep when he heard
the door open quietly.  Opening his eyes, he saw Kevin staring at him.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you."

"It's okay."  AJ smiled at him.  "I was just drifting off again.  I
shouldn't be so lazy."

"I'm gonna go make some coffee."  Kevin went to leave the room, but AJ
called out to him.  He wanted desperately to sleep with this man right now.
He wanted to feel normal again.

"Don't go."  AJ pleaded with him.  "Come and lay here for a while.  The
bed's still warm."

"AJ, I..."

"We can't keep avoiding this, Kevin.  Either you make love to me now, or
you tell me why the hell you can't bear to touch me anymore.  Why you never
could bear to touch me."

"It's not like that."  Kevin walked into the room, closing the door behind
him.  "I just don't want you to feel like our relationship is just about
sex."

"Kevin, it's never been about sex."  AJ almost felt himself laughing at his
boyfriend's poor excuse.  "Or love, or loyalty, or any of those things that
relationships are meant to be about.  Maybe if it was just about sex I'd be
happier than I am now, cos at least that would prove that you want me in at
least one way."  He saw Kevin's expression grow into a hurt frown as he
dealt him out the facts that he could no longer avoid.  "I'll tell you what
this relationship is about.  It's about convenience.  Am I right?  You
couldn't get Nick, you panicked, you saw yourself spending the rest of your
life alone, and so you decided that I wasn't that bad a second option.  And
as for me, well the relationship for me is about love, but it's also about
convenience.  It's convenient for me because I got my so-called dream man
after his so-called dream man went off with his cousin.  It was all highly
convenient for everyone involved, wasn't it?"

"Shut up."  Kevin warned him.  "Shut the fuck up, AJ."

"No."  AJ stood up to face him.  "I will not shut the fuck up.  We have
gotta face the facts here, Kevin.  I am not gonna waste the rest of my life
hoping that one day you'll wake up to the fact that Nick's dead."  He saw
Kevin visibly flinch at the mention of Nick's name.  "That's right, Kevin,
he's dead.  Dead and buried now for over a year.  I've accepted it, and I'm
sure that Howie and Brian have as well.  So when the hell are you gonna say
'Shit happens', and get on with the rest of your life?"

"You haven't accepted it."  Kevin accused him.  "I think that bottle of
anti- depressants you've tried so hard to keep hidden can confirm that you
haven't got over it yet."

"They've got nothing to do with Nick."  AJ lied, even to himself.  "The
only reason I take them is because of this relationship, Kevin.  That's it.
I'm unhappy, yeah.  But it's got nothing to do with some dead kid who gets
more and more idolised every single day that passes until he isn't even
real anymore."

Kevin suddenly punched him hard across the face, and AJ fell to the floor,
looking up at the tall man in total shock.

"I'm sorry."  Kevin backed away from him.  "I didn't mean to..."

"It's okay, it was my fault." AJ felt strangely calm, as if this simply
confirmed everything he had already thought.  "What do people say?  Never
speak ill of the dead?"

"I can't do this anymore, AJ."  Kevin admitted.  He quickly rushed out of
the room, and AJ heard him retreating down the stairs, and out of the front
door.  Holding his nose, which was now covered in blood, he looked out of
the window to see Kevin jumping into his car, pulling speedily away.  This
must be it, AJ thought to himself.  The last argument, the end to our
relationship.  The terrible thought was enough to send him into a shaking
fit all over again.