Date: Sun, 07 May 2000 17:28:45 GMT
From: Scotty T <thepoetboy@hotmail.com>
Subject: mirrors-4

Here's the fourth instalment.  I'm also working on another story, a more
mainstream boy band story, which may pop up some time in the next little
while.
It'll be my first BSB story.

But this one is NSYNC -- but it's not based completely on NSYNC, cause quite
frankly I don't know them, and even if I did, I wouldn't out them.  (If any
of them
are queer.  *shrug*)

Thanks for the raves that've come for this story -- and thanks for the
critiques and the shrugs.  This story was never meant to have the broad
appeal of LISA, but it let me stretch some borders.  I'm glad some of you
are enjoying this, and glad some of you are honest enough to not like
it. :)

I've started a full time job (manual labour!  lots of sunburn and
exhaustion!) and I had to move back on Wednesday, so life is chaos.  I'm
still living out of boxes until housing comes to repair my closet.  (This
place is a dump -- but it's cheap, convenient, and bigger than my last
place.)

Also -- if you do like the magical/psychic edge to this story, go check out
Magic Can Be Real, also in the boy bands section.  It's pretty well written
and the author seems to be a great guy . . . .  so far.  *evil laugh*

On with the story!

thepoetboy@hotmail.com

***

Part 4

Things went downhill from there.  You wanted me at rock bottom, so this is
it.  Alone in the world, unable to function within conventional systems,
and miles beyond crazy.

But mostly alone.  The other voice that had always been there was silent.
The background noise was gone -- it was just me and the silence.  Those
moments between thoughts that used to be filled with stuff that was below
the conscious level, but that was as much me as the surface voice.

Silence can be deafening.  And equations can't work when you start taking
out the terms.

I didn't move for an hour after he left.  I didn't want to move.  That
would acknowledge the world -- it would give reality some authority, a
measure of belief.  To interact with the world would have been to accept
it.

And I didn't want to accept it.  I wanted to find a way out -- to step
sideways from the timeline and find a new reality where none of this could
touch me.

I was small from all the weight I'd lost.  Free of energy from the
cocktails.  Brittle from the malnutrition.  Scarred from the rape.  And I'd
run out of trust.

My fingers were betrayers -- representations of a damaged existence.  My
skin was an illusion.  The thoughts in my head were foreign beasts; they'd
slipped across the borders and usurped the usual mechanics.  Gears were
turned in directions they were never meant to turn -- switches didn't work,
or they switched themselves.

When I finally did move, the first place I went was to the phone.  I went
through the yellow pages, calling every hotel I could find.

"Joshua Chasez please."

"We have no record of that name, sir."

"Any Chasez then."

"We're sorry, sir."  Click.

It was my body that made me give up the search.  The exhaustion that washed
over me, dragging me down.  My crippled fingers could no longer dial, I
couldn't raise my arm to the numbers even had I wanted to.

I couldn't have made it to the kitchen if I'd wanted to -- and there was
nothing there to eat anyway.  So I slipped into the other world -- into
sleep.  A far deeper sleep than ever before.

But at last my dreams were my own.

***

I lie on the bed, the white sheets tucked in too tight.  I pull against
them but they don't give and I am weak.  The room is a deep grey, with no
windows or doors.

No, not a room -- some sort of elevator.  It's going down.

Down.

down

***

Several dreams came to me -- very simple and very quiet.  Low energy
dreams.

Each one had fewer elements than the last, each one had less light.

And I wasn't fighting anymore.  These dreams were what I wanted, and they
would lead me home.  I was certain of it.  At the end was peace -- there
was an alertness there -- an awakeness I hadn't felt in months.  In years.

But after countless dreams, I felt the prodding.  The edges were being
pushed and pulled -- unseen hands worked to unravel the weave.

As they worked, the hands became more and more panicked.  They were
tearing, frantically seeking entry -- but they were repelled.  The doors
were closed.

Mirrors shatter.

And then, after all of the descent, I was lifted.  Pulled upward, not just
in the dreamscape, but in the reality abandoned somewhere before.

Strong arms, the voice.  My eyes opened and there was Joshua, staring at
the elevator doors and crying.  A door up the hall slammed and there was
running, two people approaching.

A southern accent saying the ambulance was coming.

A curly haired man coming into my line of sight and saying, "He's awake."

And Joshua looking down at me, our eyes meeting.  I clenched mine shut with
whatever energy was left.  Not wanting a connection -- or to see the source
of those tears.

But I was clutched to his chest, being held in his arms, and I could feel
the sobs expanding in his chest -- his entire body pumping like a sorrow
heart.

And then I was falling again, down to the lobby and the world below.  Into
the darkness.

***

Pain in my arm.  Pain in my arm.

I blink my way into consciousness.  Something is keeping my hand from
moving, from me grabbing at whatever is hurting me.  I pull against it, but
it holds tight.

A hand on my forehead.  Voice in my ear.  "No, Eric.  Don't struggle."

The face before me -- the familiar skin, the oddly shaped eyes, the broad
chin.

My raspy voice.  "Get it away from my arm."

"No, Eric.  It stays."

The faces behind him, the relaxed look of off duty celebrities, even in
times of crisis.

He is next to my ear, this Joshua, this entity that should never have
existed.  He is whispering so only I would here.  "I could feel you, even
if you didn't want me to.  I had to come back for you."

That rape.  That mental rape, entering into my pain -- my moment of
release, and tampering.  Interfering with my existence without invitation.
Going to places he was never invited to be.

"I didn't want you to come back."  I feel the truth in it, coexisting with
the lie.  It lingers on my tongue like sugar.

He pulls away, hit.  "Tough fucking luck."

My eyes pull themselves shut.  For safety.  His eyes contain the keys to
the doors - - those doors that should never be opened.

"Let's leave him alone, Josh."  It's Joey -- I know somehow, and it scares
me.

"You guys go," Joshua says, sitting in the chair by the bed.  "Eric and I
have to talk."

They listen, quietly grabbing their stuff and retreating.  I'm an oddity to
them and I wonder how Joshua explained me.  Maybe he said I was an email
pal.  I was so small because of disease.  AIDS maybe.  That would explain
my size.

"Go with them, Joshua."

"I want to be here."

"Don't be so selfish.  They need you -- and I don't want you."

"If I'm being selfish, I'm not alone.  It goes both ways."

"Not anymore."  I play with his words, testing my muscles and my thoughts.
They've been feeding me, I feel.  But every muscle hurts -- the place where
the IV goes in is torment.

"You can't do this to yourself, Eric.  You've got exams in a week -- how
the hell are you gonna manage that?  You're killing yourself."

I know it's true, but it's all a part of freedom.  Canada has given me the
choices concerning my own life -- but Canadian freedom is incomplete.
Suicide is fine, but they'll do anything to stop you.  Medically, mentally,
legally.  They tie your arms to the bed, give you pills to change your
mind.

I give him no answer.

His voice -- once so full of play and energy.  "And you're killing me."
His words hit.

It goes both ways.

"I want you back," he says.  "You words in my head -- you in my dreams --
whatever we had going."

I open my eyes, staring at his carved cheekbones.  I'd have run my fingers
down them, travelling to his mouth and the smooth skin of his chin, but the
restraints held me back.

Still, somehow I can feel the bristle of his five o'clock shadow on my
palm.
  His eyes close and he tilts his head back, accepting the caress.

"You're ruining me, Joshua."  The tendons in his neck, the ball of his
Adam's apple.  "I can't live connected to you."

"And you'd have died without it."  His breath on the back of my hand.
"Without me."

"And you'll fly away, you'll go to your next concert, and we'll be back to
dreams.  Back to sacrificing our realities for mental constructions."

His eyes meet mine, his face abandons my caress.  "If that's all we get,
then I'll accept it."  His hand is on mine, and he squeezes.  "Any bit of
you is all I ask."  His eyes are bloodshot, the pupils wide.  I step inside
them.  "I can't take the loneliness," he says.

I feel welcomed.  A door swings quietly open and the silence drains away.

A smile spreads across his face, a look of bliss and contentment. The
innocence of a child returns in the dimples on his cheeks, the blush of his
cheeks and the tear in his eye.

"And I love you," he says.

"I love you too, Joshua.  I always have."

***

"Glass, after all, is just sand," I thought, staring up.  He was asleep in
the chair, his hand still in mine.  My thoughts travel, shifting through
the sand, trying to find my reflection.

I'd told him once that there was something we needed to say.  He was asleep
then, just as he was now -- but now it had been said.  We'd both said the
words.

And he'd once told me that he'd forgotten himself.  Now I felt the same
way.
  I was lost, somewhere.  My travels were a search, trying to find a long
dead trail.

I was convinced that Joshua came from the same place -- was looking for the
same thing.


His hand felt so right on mine.


The doctor had a fragile look -- like he'd seen death one too many times
and was running short of strength.

"I'm not convinced we should release you, Eric."

Our voices were hushed.  Joshua was still asleep.

"I'll be fine."

"From what I hear, that's what you said the last time."  His greying
eyebrows pushed together.  He had a pencil perched above his ear.  "We're
exploring some places for you.  Places where you can get the observation
and help you need."  His voice lowered further.  "I know it can be hard to
recover from an attack like you had, but there is help out there."

Joshua's hand squeezed mine.  There was help in here too.

"I don't want your help, doc."

He closed his file, shook his head against another defeat, and turned away.
"I didn't say you had a choice, Eric."  I felt sorry for him, for all the
problems the world wouldn't let him solve.

When he was gone, Joshua raised his head, stretching to pull the cricks out
of his neck.  He gave a small smile, but I knew he'd heard everything.

"Where were you?" he asked.

"Couldn't sleep."

"I missed you."

I grinned -- feeling the resistance of each muscle.  "Good."

I still couldn't hear his thoughts -- or his words before they were spoken.
I was glad for such a small blessing.  But the drone was back -- the
hundreds of whispered voices -- just beyond audibility.

"You should let them help you, Eric."

"Really?  You think it would be good if I told some psychiatrist that I had
a dream relationship with some famous guy that turned out to be real --
that I had a constant mental connection to that guy?  They'd lock me up for
life."

"But it's true."  He was grappling with the same issues -- our truth versus
scientifically accepted reality.

"You wanna give up touring and fame to sit around and face tests for a few
decades?"

His face fell -- the wall of voices grew deeper.  I was beginning to find
the drone to be a sign of Joshua's emotional state.  Now it was angry and
confused -- when he said he loved me it was like a choir of children.

"Then come with me, Eric."

"They won't even untie me from the bed."

"We'll get you out -- if you promise to come with me."

"I've got exams, Joshua."

He leaned forward, rising off the chair.  His eyes were wide and full of
the old energy.

"Fuck the exams.  You don't care about school anymore anyways.  Petition to
drop.  Or petition to just skip them and walk away with a three year BA
instead of the honours one."

The thoughts were mine -- I was thinking them too.  He knew the system as
well as I did, just as I knew the layout of his home, the faces of his
family.  Two decades of connection lead to a lot of shared information.

"You don't really know me.  I'm a handful."

He took my hand in both of his.  "Then let me learn."  Looking into my face
he must have read my reservations, because he continued to build his
argument.  "You can't afford to be jobless, Eric.  You'd lose the
apartment.  And let's face it, if you walked into a job interview you'd be
rejected on the spot -- assuming you have the energy to walk into the
interview.  You look like crap."  He smiled, broad and toothy -- and pure.

I fell in love with him again in that moment.

"But," I was still searching for a defence, a logic flaw.  He beat me to
the punch.

"I'm offering you a job, someone to lean on, and a change in scenery.  This
place is killing ya, man, and I want to be around you for a lotta years."

I couldn't say no in the face of such ambition.  Especially when it spoke
truths.

"I'll think about it."

His face read victory -- the same look the doc must've had once upon a
time.

I might have taken the doc as a prophesy -- a warning about future burns
and blood, what can happen when you face the world with my perspective on
life.  Always seeing the sharp edges of the world can eat away at you.

Instead I let myself be caught up in a good spirit, carried away on the
wind.

And maybe that was the best choice.

***

End part 4.

End note -- sorry for yet ANOTHER hospital (those of you who have read LISA
will have noticed the theme) but they are big things in my head.  I spent a
lot of time in one as a kid due to a health problem I (thankfully) outgrew.
I'm pretty sure this instalment is the last of the hospitals. :)