Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2000 20:00:26 PDT
From: Sam Dauson <sdauson@hotmail.com>
Subject: Blind Faith (Part 5)

Okay, it's here, the fifth installment of my story, Blind Faith. I hope
everyone's enjoying it, and if you are, email me saying just how much you
love it. :) I haven't gotten much feedback as of yet, but what I have
received seems positive enough. Keep it coming, guys, my ego can never get
too large. :) Send all questions, comments, and feedback in general to
sdauson@hotmail.com.

Now for the disclaimers. This story is a complete work of fiction. Any
similarities to real life or any person(s), living or dead, are entirely
coincidental. This story is not meant to imply anything about the sexuality
of Brian Littrell, or any other of the Backstreet Boys. It's fan fiction,
and is not based in any sort of reality. This story appears to be written in
the first person by Brian Littrell, but in fact, this story was not written
by Brian himself, or even by anyone who knows him personally.

If you are under the age of 18, or your local laws prohibit you from reading
sexually graphic or erotic material, please leave now. The same applies to
anyone offended or made uncomfortable by stories involving consensual
homosexual male relationships. Basically, if you continue reading, you are
doing so on your own free will, and I cannot and will not be held
responsible for any consequences.

Authors Note: Two emails on my last installment. I'm going to start getting
depressed soon... I need your email, people. :) Anyway, this was a really
hard part to write. I don't know why, exactly, but it was, so forgive me if
anything seems out of character or forced. For once, now, I've gotten an
installment out on time! I suppose it's because of spring break, so don't
get too used to it. :) Well, not much else to say here, I suppose, so I'll
just move on...

As always, thanks to every single person who's written to me over the course
of these past few weeks. Your feedback is what keeps me writing, you know.
:) Special thanks go to Seth, author of 'Common People', who sends me more
email than the spammers do. :) Go read his story, along with my personal
favorites, 'Studio in the Country' by Mike, and 'Brian and Me' by DLS.

That being said, on with the story...

Blind Faith
Part 5

	It wasn't long before I arrived at the airport. Evan still occupied my
thoughts as I returned the rental Jeep, and walked into the main building
carrying my luggage. It was almost 9 at that time, so I still had a good
hour and a half before I had to board my flight. I figured I'd grab some
breakfast at the airport's McDonalds.

	Still wearing the sunglasses and hat I had come in with, I got myself some
hash browns and a breakfast something or other, but didn't eat much of it. I
spent most the time just looking at my food, nibbling on it occasionally.
'When would I see him again?' I asked myself. Perhaps the better question
was 'When could I see him again?' I'd have enough free time in about a month
or so to come back and see him, but it seemed so far away. What were we
supposed to do in the mean time? We would be able to talk to each other, but
would that be enough?

	And what was going to happen with the rest of the guys? As far as they
knew, I was still straight. Would it be right not to tell them about me and
Evan? Would it even be possible to avoid telling them? After all, they were
relatively smart guys. They'd know something was up if I suddenly spent all
my free time on the phone and took trips to some Colorado ski town every
time I had a free weekend.

	I was long lost in thought when 10:30 came around. I'd only been gone three
days, but so much can happen in that period of time. Those three days had
changed my life, and I knew it then as well as I know it now. I came back
into reality as I realized I should start heading for my flights terminal.

	The rest of the guys were already all together. I'd be flying into Nebraska
to meet them a couple days before we held two concerts there. I did miss
them, even if it had only been three days. I didn't want to be late, either.
Kevin would have had my head if I'd missed my flight.

	I put what was left of my breakfast into the trash, picked up my luggage,
and headed for terminal 5G, where my flight was seating passengers. After
giving my ticket, I quickly boarded the plane. Despite distractive thoughts
of Evan, and the anticipation of seeing my band mates again, I still felt
the uneasiness that always accompanied my plane trips. I hated flying. I
wasn't just afraid of heights, I was terrified of them, and planes, despite
their safety record, seemed like one big death trap.

	I sat myself down at one of the window seats in first class, and took a
look out the window. Luggage carts and people in orange vests moved around
on the ground below, none of which did I pay any particular attention to. I
was more concerned with Evan. I wanted him here, with me, but it just wasn't
possible.

	Take off was the worst part of the flight. The landing was bad too, but at
least I knew that the landing signified the end of the flight. This was just
the beginning. I buckled my seat belt, and held onto the arm rest tightly.
In less than 5 minutes, however, we were safely in the air, and I was 'free
to walk around the cabin'.

	I looked around the first class area. It was nearly empty except for myself
and two or three other passengers. It wouldn't be a long flight, only about
an hour and a half, and we were expected to land at about 12:40. I wasn't
used to getting up at 6am as I'd done that morning. It's just not natural
when you're on vacation, at least, not for me, anyway. It didn't take much
time before I was asleep.

	I slept through most of the flight, which is always a good thing. If I'm
asleep, I've got no time to worry about crashing, or fear what else might
happen 10,000 feet up in the air. I woke up about 20 minutes before touch
down, and yawned slightly. Landing scared the shit out of me too, but it
wasn't as bad as take off. I took hold of the armrests again.

	The landing went without any problems, and a moment later, I was standing
on solid ground. Planes used to be absolute hell for me, but because my job
required that I fly so much, I suppose I'd been de-sensitized to it for the
most part. I found the experience only slightly more than 'unsettling' now.
I still felt, however, the less I flew, the better.

	I looked at my watch, and found it was 12:55. The plane had been 15 minutes
late, nothing major in it's own respect, except for the fact that I was
supposed to meet everyone else at the terminals at 12:50. I quickly made my
way through the airport.

	As I rounded a corner, I was able to pick out Nick almost immediately.
Someone not knowing him personally wouldn't have, with his standard baseball
cap and glasses, but I could tell it was him even from a distance. As I got
closer, I was able to pick out AJ, Howie, and Kevin too.

	"You're late." Kevin said with a smile.

	"Correction," I started. "The plane was late." I pulled him into a hug. I
turned to the rest of the group with a smile. I really was happy to be back.
"So, where to now?" I asked.

	"We've got a concert in about two days here," Howie answered. "Management
has us in some hotel until then."

	"Should we leave then?" I asked the group.

	"I suppose so." Kevin answered. We all stood, and made our way toward the
exit. We didn't usually use limos coming to and from the airports, as they
generally attracted too much attention. Sure enough, after about 2 minutes
of walking, Kevin led us to a large new Chevy Suburban, golden in color. We
quickly got inside to find the driver waiting for us.

	There were enough seats for 7 people, not including the driver. Kevin and
Howie were seated in the middle row of seats, while myself, Nick, and A.J.
sat in the very back, with me and A.J. at the windows, Nick in the middle. I
turned to Nick.

	"Hey, bud. What'd you do these past three days?"

	"Absolutely nothing." he responded with a smile. "I went to Chicago,
actually, but once I was there, I got to spend my entire day sleeping,
eating, watching TV, all that good stuff. Didn't have to go anywhere or do
anything."

	I smiled back at him. He seemed a lot younger than his 18 years at times.
The youthful exuberance, the carefree attitude of a child. You couldn't help
but love him, though. "Sounds like fun."

	"It was." he said. "So what'd you do?"

	All the group knew at that point was that I'd taken a trip to a small
Colorado town. It was the truth, but there was a lot more to it than that.
None of them knew about me being gay, either. I decided to avoid the issue
for the time being. If I was going to tell them about me and Evan, it
certainly wasn't going to be now.

	"Not much, really." I said as casually as I could. "It was nice getting
away from everything, though, wasn't it?"

	"Hehe... that's for sure." A.J. said from his seat next to Nick.

	There wasn't much discussion for the majority of the trip from the airport
to the hotel. Maybe we were all a little depressed to see our free time
disappear so quickly, or maybe we were all just a little tired. Even though
I'd gotten a good nap on the plane, I still felt drained. We arrived at the
hotel at about 1:30, and quickly checked in.

	We didn't have an entire floor to ourselves this time. In fact, we only got
3 rooms. Don't ask me why, because frankly I didn't care. Management
sometimes worked in mysterious ways. Either way, I'd end up rooming with
Nick, so it didn't matter much to me. Kevin, of course, was the one to get
his own room, Nick and myself in the second, and A.J. and Howie were in the
third. It was different from the norm, but it had happened before, so there
wasn't any major commotion over anything. We headed for an elevator.

	As soon as we arrived on our floor, I headed straight for my room. The guys
were probably going to meet in Kevin's room in a few minutes, but I hoped to
catch some time to myself before then. I got to my room, and opened the
door. Nick was still down at the other end of the hall, talking with the
others.

	I didn't even bother to turn on any lights, but instead went toward the
first bed I saw. It was a very comfortable bed, I noted as I tried to relax
myself. I suppose I was still a little shaken by the mornings flight. 'Why
couldn't Evan have come with me?', I asked myself. I knew the answer, but I
asked myself none the less. I missed him so much already.

	I reached into my pocket. Maybe I'd have enough time to give him a quick
call. It was 12:30 in Colorado, so he'd probably be in the middle of classes
at the moment, or maybe he was at lunch. I was debating with myself as to
whether or not I should call, when someone knocked softly at the door.

	"Rok, you in there?" Nick asked. "Everything all right?"

	"Yeah, man, I'm here. Just taking a moment to lie down, ya know? Flying
really takes it out of me." I responded.

	"Ach..." he made a sound of mock disgust. "You're a wuss, you know that?"
he said, giving me a grin, as if I needed it to know he was playing around.
We'd always jab at each other, but almost never would we purposefully try to
hurt one another's feelings.

	"Ya, I know... but I can still kick your ass." I said, smiling as I stood.
"What's up? We heading to Kevin's room?"

	"Yup... he says we need to talk about a few things for tonight. Come on."
He turned in the direction of the doorway, and started walking, me following
closely behind him.

	Nick was like a brother to me. We connected on the same level on just about
everything, it seemed. I loved him like I'd love a brother, and I felt I
could tell him anything. Almost anything, that is. Maybe someday, I'd tell
him, just not now. I knew, though, that if I ever did decide to come out to
the public, or even just to the band, he'd be the first to know. I just
hoped he'd take it okay.

	We walked out into the hall, and into the next door on the right. Howie,
A.J, and Kevin were already seated on the bed, in an arm chair, and at a
small table, respectively. Nick and I took seats on the bed, next to Howie.

	"So, what's the agenda for tonight?" Nick spoke first.

	"Nothing much, as of yet," Kevin answered. "We don't have our concert until
Thursday, that's three days from now. You have these next few nights to
yourself. As for tonight, are we planning on doing something together, or
are we all going out separate ways?" he looked at each of us in turn as he
spoke.

	"I think we're all pretty tired tonight, Kev..." Howie spoke. There were
nods of agreement around the room. "I think we should just go out to eat
somewhere, then come back and settle down for the night."

	It sounded like a good plan to me. I didn't really feel up to any dancing
or clubbing, and if we got back here before too late, I'd have plenty of
time to call Evan. "I'm with Howie..." I said.

	"Okay, then." Kevin said. "How about for now, we grab some lunch?" he took
out his cell phone, presumably to call some place and order some food.

	"You bet!" Nick said. "I'm starved." We all gave a chuckle as we stood,
A.J. coming over to mess up Nick's hair.

	We ate from Subway, as it turns out. We all gave Kevin our orders, who in
turn phoned the driver in our car, still downstairs, and asked him to get us
our lunch.

	The food arrived about 10 minutes later, and we all started eating. Subway
was always good, in my opinion. It didn't take long for me to finish my six
inch turkey sub. Kevin had gotten us some chips too, and a grabbed myself a
bag of those.

	We whittled away the rest of the afternoon doing almost nothing. Mostly, we
watched TV, including a movie on pay per view. We talked about how we were
all doing, what we planned to do with the day or two we had before the
concert here, and about what we did over our vacation.

	Everybody else seemed to have a pretty boring vacation. Kevin and Howie
took trips to visit their families in Lexington and Orlando. A.J. had wanted
to go somewhere with a night life, and opted for Los Angeles, and Nick had
gone to Chicago, claiming he'd liked the city a lot the last time we'd been
there. I carefully avoided any specific details of my vacation, of course. I
told them I'd had some fun skiing, but that was about it.

	By that time, it was almost six. Instead of going out somewhere like we'd
planned, we ordered from room service, and simply ate in our separate rooms.
I guess we were all a little more fatigued than we thought. I didn't order
too much food for myself. I suppose I just wasn't all that hungry. Nick, on
the other hand, ordered himself a full meal, and I finished eating long
before he did. As soon as I was done eating, I went over to my bed, and took
out my cell phone.

	I'd written the number of Evan's new phone on a slip of paper, and pulled
that out as well. I dialed the number with a smile, happy I'd get to hear
his voice again. I missed him so bad, it almost physically hurt. It rang for
a moment before he answered.

	"Hey, Brian!" he said.

	"How'd you know it was me?" I asked with a grin.

	"Even I don't know this phone's number. How is anyone else supposed to?" he
laughed a little. "How you doing?"

	"Fine, I guess. How about you?"

	"Same."

	"I missed you, ya know?" I said.

	"I missed you too." He sounded so sad. "I missed you too." he repeated.
"How was your day?" he asked, trying to change the subject.

	"It was pretty good, actually. We got in around one, and have been at our
hotel ever since. None of us really felt like going outside, so we ate our
lunch and dinner here. What about yours?"

	"I'm as boring as you, actually. Nothing remarkable, just another average
day." he paused. "You're going to have to let me talk to them sometime, you
know."

	I laughed a little to myself. "You mean the other Backstreet Boys?" I
asked, punctuating the word 'other', making it sound like I thought them to
be trivial additions to my talent. "Why would you want to talk to them?"
Again, a mock snobbish tone on the word 'them'.

	"They might not be as awesome as you, B, but they're pretty cool
themselves." he said, trying to suppress a laugh. "You have to at least
admit that."

	"Yeah, yeah..." I said smiling. "I'll see what I can do. They're very busy,
you know..."

	"As busy as you were today, I'm sure."

	"I suppose you've got me there." I smiled.

	"You should have called earlier, you know. I missed you a lot." he said.

	"I'm sorry... I called as early as I could. I missed you too."

	"It's okay, B. Don't worry about it." he said. It was obvious he was
smiling.

	I sighed. "I don't know how I'm going to stand to be without you for any
more than a few days at a time. These next few weeks are going to be hell,
babe."

	"I know, I know. I miss you so much already." he paused for a moment. "You
know what, though..." he started, a mischievous tone in his voice.

	"Yes?" I urged him on.

	"Well, the weekend after this coming weekend is a five day break for me.
We've got early dismissal, and then two inservice days on Monday and
Tuesday."

	My face must have lit up like a lamp. "So, you mean..." I started. I could
fly him out here for at least a few days, couldn't I?

	"I could probably come see you, but only for a day or two." he said.

	"Any amount of time would be great, you know that. Your mom would allow
it?" I asked.

	"She might... I'll have to think of a good story to tell her, though. Maybe
I'm going with some friends to visit a college campus that I might be
interested in?"

	I wasn't sure if his parents would go for that, but I supposed it was worth
a try. "Alright... you really think that'll work?"

	"Let's hope so." he replied.

	I crossed my fingers for just a moment for no real reason. I missed him so
bad, already. I wouldn't be able to hold him in my arms tonight, and it
almost tore me up inside.

	"I'll be in Minneapolis next week. I'd be able to fly you out there, your
family wouldn't have to worry about a thing. Talk to your mom about it,
okay? I'll call you back tonight if I can. If not, tomorrow."

	"Okay... I guess I'll talk to you later, Brian."

	"Yup. I guess this is bye, then, huh?"

	He hesitated for a long moment. If I hadn't been expecting a response, I
probably would have hung up by now. "I..." Another pause. "I... I love you,
Bri."

	I knew I'd loved him, the only thing that had kept me from saying anything
was the fear that he didn't feel the same way. I loved him, I did, with all
my heart. To hear him say those words, for me to know that he loved me back,
it meant more to me than anything else in the world. I replied without any
hesitation, "I love you too, Evan."

	He sighed on the other end, a sigh of relief, I was sure. His voice was
noticeably happier. "Bye, Bri. I'll talk to you later."

	"Bye." I hung up the phone, and slowly put it back in my pocket, reflecting
momentarily on what had just transpired.

	"Ahem..." came a voice from the doorway, interrupting my thoughts. It was
dark outside, and there were no lights on in the room. The figure
approached, and as it got closer, I could see it was Nick. "Who's Evan?" he
asked.

---

Well, that's the fifth part. I know I ended it in the worst possible point
from a readers point of view, but I was already at 20kb, so I had to stop,
right? :) I guess you guys (If anyone's still reading this story...) will
have to wait until next time. :)

Yay, yay! I got it out on time. Like I said earlier, though, don't expect
punctuality from me for much longer. I accredit this installments arrival to
Spring Break. :) I hope everything came out okay, because I did have to
force a little of it. Anyway, I know I say this every time, and even though
this part was on time, I'll try hard to keep the next one on time as well.
:)

As always, I want your comments, I *need* your comments, and feedback. Send
anything you have, even if it's hate mail cause you think the story sucks to
sdauson@hotmail.com. Even if you don't have any comments or feedback, just
write me with a story about your cat, or what you think the winning lottery
numbers will be. Anything, just as long as you let my know you're reading.
:)

Well, that's it for now. Until next time guys,

Sam