Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2000 15:17:26 EDT
From: Scotty T <thepoetboy@hotmail.com>
Subject: Mirrors 7

Standard situation.  This NSYNC isn't the real NSYNC.  This doesn't claim
anything about the sexualities, personalities, or psychic abilities of the
real guys.  :)

Thanks to everyone who emailed about the LISA that recently came out.  It's
nice to know y'all are still out there.

And special thanks to DLS for looking this over.  And here's a hullo to
Sheldon -- for no apparent reason.  Happy Birthday and Happy Anniversary to
my Danny-boy.

I'm already 5 pages into the next Beneath It All, so the wait shouldn't be
too long.  And as for Mirrors, I started this story saying it wouldn't be
as long as LISA, and I stand by that.  At the moment I expect Part 9 to be
the final instalment.  This instalment, 7, also marks a return to this
story since I admit to having slacked off on Mirrors Quality Control.  I
apologize to the readers and to the story itself for that.

Here's hoping you enjoy this.

On with the show!

thepoetboy@hotmail.com

***

A delicate tea cup, the arched handle meant for finer fingers than mine,
the pale rose emerging from it's side, the light green stem fading into the
polished white of the cup, the steam rising from the dark liquid.

"Do you hear me?"

The voice is from somewhere else, some other table.  My hands rest on
either side of the cup, the fingers spread on the crisp white table cloth.
I look up, staring across the restaurant, over the dark wood of the chairs
and walls, through the open glass doors that lead to the terrace, and
ultimately to the sand and the ocean.

"I hear you," I say. "I can always hear you."

I listen for the voice, seeking it over the sound of the distant waves and
the occasional clink of dishes from the kitchen.  There is smoke in the
air, and it stings my eyes.

"I need you."

I nod, knowing this.  My napkin is placed beside the tea as I make my way
to the glass doors.  He must be on the beach, I decide.

But the wind is coming.  With each step, another set of doors slams shut,
blocking my way..

***

Someone is shaking me, and after a while I stop fighting it.  I open my
eyes to see Lance above me, fully dressed and smiling.  "Wake up, Eric.
Nurse Ratchet is lookin' for you."  His deep voice and soft accent make for
a soothing wake-up call, so I force my eyes to stay open.

"What time is it?"

"Nearly nine," he says, sitting on the edge of the bed and putting on a
pair of white runners.  "Josh went back to his room to shower, but didn't
want to wake you."

"Too bad you weren't as considerate."

Lance chuckled deeply.  "It was either me or some overly perky nurse, your
choice."

"I choose you.  Cuteness leads to a lot less morning violence."

"You hurt her and you owe management a nice sum of money."

"I'm not worried.  I'm dating rich."

The pillow that comes flying at my face isn't completely unexpected.

***

The morning is spent with Jake and Scott, learning how to set up and take
down the equipment in as short a time as possible.  They don't always have
much time in the booth at a new location before sound checks start, so they
want to make sure I won't slow them down.  This lull in the touring gives
them the perfect opportunity.

"Yeah, and they're doing a Dungeons and Dragons movie," Scott says,
watching me patch a level board into the system.  "That kid who played
Jimmy on Lois and Clark -- the second Jimmy -- the one who didn't look like
a skinny Clark -- is in it.  They're in post-production already."

I nod, trying to care about the wiring.

The conversation seemed awkward for the first hour.  They aren't used to
having one of the boys hanging around, and Josh has spent most of the
morning here the last fifteen minutes were spent seeing how many times he
could make an office chair spin.  He'd get up to speed, then raise up his
feet and off he went.

Quite frankly, the noise was bugging the hell out of me.

"Stop it," I think.

"I'm bugging you?" comes the reply.

"Naw, this wiring is downright simple when cute boys are around making a
helluva lot of noise."

He laughs, and Scott looks over at him with his brows together.

"Sorry," Josh says with a grin.  "Just remembering that time that Justin
fell off the stage."

Scott smiles, and promptly discards Josh from his reality, returning to
Dungeons and Dragons and outlining the changes in the rule system for the
new edition.  I'm not really listening to Scott though.  There's another
conversation holding my interest.

"What did Suzie feed you this morning?"

"Oatmeal, toast, the whole milk and OJ thing, and she tried to force a
muffin on me, but I rebelled.  She should be around in the next half-hour
for more food torture."

"But you're doing alright?  You don't look too tired."

"I want to sleep for a decade."

"As long as I can be there beside you."

"Can Lance be on the other side?"

Josh laughs in my mind.  I look up -- this time he manages to keep nearly a
straight face.  "Sorry, Jimmy's gotta finds his own cuddle buddy."

"I'm a cuddle buddy?  Sounds too cheesy for my taste.  I think I'll pass on
that job."

I'm pulled out of the conversation by Scott's sudden silence.  I look up
again and he's staring at me as if he's expecting a response.  My mouth
hangs open slightly.

Josh comes to my rescue in my head.  "He said you put the red wide in the
wrong place."

"Yeah, sorry," I say out loud, pulling the red wire and putting it in the
proper place.

"No problem," Scott smiles.  "The whole crux of the movie is that it's
following all of the rules for the actual RPG, so it's . . ."

And time passes.

***

But I've slipped again -- I've let the biography pull me from an overview
into incidents.  There's a tempting little trap that keeps making me want
to tell everything, rather than just the vital information.

And I feel I've been turning into a therapist -- or worse, a therapist with
no patients.  Having to turn my craft on myself to keep my talents honed --
ripping myself up for the sake of the story.

You don't need that.  Trust me, whatever I say is something you've already
thought -- you can find your own way through your catacombs.  My map won't
work for you -- make your own.

So I learned my new job, and I learned it quickly and well.  Soon I was
setting up speakers on my own, rigging wires through ceilings and floors
with no supervision.

The nurse was a constant, always checking in on my progress with the diet
she'd set, always trying to draw me into conversations about my past, my
issues, my drama, my trauma.  But walls are built for a reason, to serve a
purpose.  She was excluded.

And, over the next week, it became clear that my secrets had passed into
the lore of the company.  Sympathetic eyes watched as I passed.  "He's the
one," they said.  "Nearly killed him," said the whispers.  "If someone ever
raped me, I'd destroy him."

Josh was there, as always, spending every moment he could close to me.  The
rumours came for that too -- he was the protector.  The one who had reached
out to me when no-one else could.

They never thought he was gay -- there were too many women in his past for
any such thinking.  Lance and I were the only men from his past, the only
two males in a line of women.

And the two he cared for the most.

Every night, after everyone had gone to sleep, he would knock softly on my
door.  And each time I was there to open it -- knowing it was him even
before the knock by the feel of the air.  His breath in the world.  His
thoughts in my mind.

Even when we were physically apart, he was there, in my head.  I got used
to hearing him hum, to hearing little melodies playing out behind my
thoughts.  He'd laugh at the jokes Scott told, supply come backs when my
own supply dried up.

And I would stand on a vast stage, singing and performing under harsh
lights, barely able to hear myself over the screams of the thousands of
screaming fans.

The first time I took the stage, I could see the nervousness on his face.
My stage fright made a blemish in his armour, it made his dance steps
awkward.  My two left feet took time to adapt.  But it passed -- and soon
he could perform, and I could perform my own duties, and each could perch
in the other's mind to enjoy the show.

The worries about the connection faded as I got used to them.  Eventually
my love for being on stage overwhelmed them entirely.  The love of the fans
was a new addiction -- one that wasn't meant for me, but something I could
borrow and share with Joshua.

And he gave willingly.  Even when there were no shows, he'd pull me onstage
and let me stare into an empty venue.  I'd imagine the screaming fans,
while running my hands through my short blond hair.  And Joshua would sit
in the front row and applaud, becoming all the audience I ever needed.

Lance and I grew closer as well, united in our secrets.  The other guys
were oblivious to the man we had in common, oblivious even to the
relationship Joshua and I had, the love that made everything work.

They knew something was up though.  When Joshua smiled for no reason, they
didn't know it was a result of a joke from the booth.  When he grew quiet,
they couldn't know it was because my thoughts had wandered into dark
territory.

And the rape was still on my mind -- flashes of it appearing and
disappearing like the tide, coming over me in frigid waves.

Joshua was worrying me, and he knew it.  Every day I could feel him open
more of his doors, and every day his voices grew stronger.

***

"How did you turn off that light switch?" I ask.  I'm in the booth, here in
California somewhere.  I've lost track of the cities, no longer caring
which place contained the hotel or the venue.  The glass of the booth looks
down on the distant stage.

The rehearsal is on break -- and Joshua stands centre stage, staring up at
me.

"Practice," he says, and I know he's grinning.

I feel his voices grow quiet, and then hear a pattern in the voices.
They're speaking as one, with words too quiet for me to hear.

The levels on the sound board in front of me start to change, all of them
lowering to zero.  And then he's laughing, in my head and on the stage.
The others turn to look at him, and I grin as I reset the board.

"You'll get me in trouble," I say, my grin spreading.

***

That said, my own doors stayed very firmly locked.  I could hear his voice,
could share his dreams, and our eyes were shared, but everything else was
sealed.  I wanted to close even those -- but I was hooked.

If I closed those, I'd be normal -- but too alone to enjoy it.  And all of
Joshua's new tricks would go dead -- we'd seen that much.  If one of us
wasn't playing, neither of us could.

And our connection didn't go unseen.  Lance was friends with both of us.

***

"Who are you talking to?" Lance asks from behind me.

I turn, my face suddenly stone.  Joshua is swearing in my head.

"No-one.  Just passing some time."  I stand up, letting the patch cords
fall to my feet.  "What brings you up to sound central?"

"You.  Hadn't seen you all morning.  What's up?"

He leans against the wall by the door, his blond spikes at odd angles from
the sweating and dancing of yet another rehearsal.

"Not much."  I'm listening to Joshua in my head, busily constructing cover
stories.

"I'm over here, Eric."

I look up, putting a smile onto my blank expression and studying the blond
boy's face.

He leans forward, staring into my eyes.  "Where were you?"  His eyes stay
fixed there, and I can see recognition in them.

I don't reply.  There's no need.

He pushes away from the wall and brings his hands to either side of my
head, staring deeper into my eyes and finding a familiar experience there.
"Josh used to look at me like that," he says softly.  "Looking right
through me, for someone else."

There's a sadness in the voice, the deep southern bass.

"So you are the one he was looking for."

"And I was looking for him."

He pulls back, looking at me again, instead of at Joshua.  "Is that what
happened at the concert in Toronto?"

"I didn't know he was real."

Lance is shaking his head, making room in his world for a possibility, a
new equation.  "And he knew when you needed him -- when you were sick."  He
turns to me.  "And that's how you knew he and I had been together."

Those green eyes narrow.  "How much do you know?"

I can hear Joshua swearing as he dashes up a distant staircase, running to
be here, to salvage things.  But it doesn't matter -- there can be nothing
to reverse this.

"Everything Joshua knows.  I can't explain it."

He looks into my eyes again.  "You don't know how much I wish I was you
right now, Eric."  His voice is too quiet to be a whisper, but I hear it.
And I see the tears come into those eyes, those eyes that come to me from a
thousand memories.

I put my arms around him -- and when Joshua finally arrives, there's
nothing to be said.

***

Lance was pushed away for a while, holding himself distant from Joshua and
I, but he got over it.  Soon he was there again, having fun with things.
He'd use one of us to make dinner plans with the other, talk to one to make
the other laugh in an inopportune time.

And the euchre game was his idea.

***

Joshua and I have nine points -- and a comfortable lead since Joey and
Chris are still at zip.  Lance has been laughing to himself since the game
started.  I've got no idea where Justin is.

Chris' chair is just resting on its back legs and he's staring at his cards
in disgust.  "They're cheating, Joe."

"I know," Joey mutters, staring intently at his hand.  "Pass."

In my head, Joshua giggles.  "Okay, so you have both red bowers?"

"Yeah.  And the Ace of diamonds."

"Diamonds," Joshua says out loud.  He has four diamonds of his own, and the
Ace of Clubs.  He looks me in the eye and smiles.  "Lone hand."

Joey and Chris both groan.  Chris tosses his hand down in disgust.  "You've
already won four games, give us a chance!"

"They've got to have marked the deck," Joey growls, running his hands
through his hair.

"It's my deck," Chris adds.

Lance falls off his chair from laughing too hard.

***

And I admit -- I was truly enjoying it.  But again, I'm sidetracked.  What
I was enjoying more was the way Joshua was responding.  He was like a kid
-- happily exploring everything from these new perspectives provided by our
. . . .  whatever we had.

His eyes were like dancing stars when he looked at me, his grin spreading
across his face, all of his teeth on display.  It was a look I wasn't used
to -- the look of someone who loved me, and was happy I was there.  A look
so unlike that of the man from the bar.

But there were still lines I couldn't cross.  All of these fantastic
elements aside, I still wasn't better.  The food was still forced on me.
Sleep was remained a high priority.  I tired easily.

And however close our minds got, our bodies stayed separate.

***

The third kiss comes down, and I rise to meet it.  My hands are on his back
as he lowers himself on me.  The hotel comforter scratches the back of my
neck.

His hands travel down my sides, meeting at my belt and . . .

He rolls off, lying on his back beside me.

"I'm sorry," I think.  It's been a long time since we've had our private
conversations out loud.

"No, it's not your fault."  His eyes clamp shut, trying to suppress the
image in my mind.  I can feel him clenching, trying to keep it from getting
to him.  He doesn't want to relive the experience anymore than I do.  "I'm
not him, you know."

"I've noticed that, thanks."

His hand searches for mine between us, his fingers entwining with mine.

"I might be able to help you," he says.  This time it's aloud.  The real
sound surprises me, and my eyes open to look at him.

"How?"

He props himself up on his elbow, looking into my eyes.  "Open up to me,"
he whispers.

I feel him at the door, the doors, all of them.

But I can't.  I can't offer him that.  I close my eyes to keep the tears
away.

He rests his head on my chest, and holds me like he's done too many times
before.

***

And there's the problem.  No matter what else a person may become, he or
she is first and foremost a human -- an emotional being that has no control
over what they feel and when.  We carry our wounds around like silver,
hoarding it and protecting it.  Making sure healing never comes.

I've always told myself that I was above my past.  I was untouchable.
There was nothing that my mind couldn't overcome, no emotional reaction
that can't be conquered with logic.

But it's never been said that humans are inherently logical.  Logic can
bring a man to fame and fortune, but emotions can take him to his knees.

No matter how many times I repeated to myself that Joshua wasn't that same
man, it didn't mean a thing.  And now every time I said it, I could feel
the tension wash through Joshua.  But there was also understanding, and
patience.  And love.

But sometimes that isn't enough.  It falls short.

Sometimes you get so full, you can't eat anymore.  You get so sick of
waking up, that you just can't take it.  Sometimes, living for someone else
loses it's strength.

And any distance becomes far too much to stand.

There were times when I was happy -- truly happy and content in what I had
been given.  But there were too many other times, to many moments when even
the world wouldn't have been enough.

All of the kisses and love in the world can fall short.

And he could feel me slipping away -- despite our connection, beyond the
love that had existed before any individual thought.  He could feel me
pulling back, and sank himself into his music and the exploration of his
new abilities.

That's why he could move things -- he had his doors open, and he had so
much time to think about it.  His study was an aversion -- a diversion.
From me.

He could see me healthy, could feel the meat returning to my bones, and
could feel my underlying sadness.

I wanted to starve.  I wanted to go to sleep, to close my eyes, and to
never open them again.  I loved him -- and for him I had tried this hard,
but I couldn't keep it up.  Not for him, not for Lance.

Not for me.

And so, lying on that bed, I closed the last of my doors.  On that bed, as
he started to cry against my chest, I turned away.

***

End Part 7.