He is so tired.
That’s all he can think about as he sits and stares blankly at the stage and waits for the awards show to be over, waits for the night to end, as it seems it never will.
How the hell did he get here? He ponders this, shifts in his seat, and redirects his gaze.
He focuses on Lance and JC’s hands locked together, fingers intertwined and can’t help but roll his eyes. Real inconspicuous, guys, he is thinking.
He raises his eyes and let’s them fall on the man a few rows away. He is familiar- he should know this man, he thinks, but is too tired to care.
The man catches him looking, smiles a wide smile, and he is surprised by the man’s brown, expressive eyes and long black eyelashes.
The man winks, then looks away as if nothing happened.
So denied I lied are you the now or never kind
In a day and a day love I’m going to be gone for good again
Are you willing to be had are you cool with just tonight
Here’s a toast to all those who hear me all too well
He is still wondering about this and the show is over and they all stand up, hurrying to get out of the stuffy auditorium which is filled with disappointment and elation.
He gets lost in the press of celebrities and bodyguards and fans just trying to get a glimpse of their role models, but he can feel the man behind him and he smirks to himself.
Perhaps he is not so tired as he thinks.
He tugs on his pant legs, runs his fingers over his arms, shivering in the chilly auditorium.
“Are you cold, Justin?” Lonnie asks and looks concerned.
He shrugs, smiles a little. “It’s just the auditorium. When we get out of here, I’ll be fine.”
And he remembers, briefly, that the man is in another boy band. But he still, for some reason, can’t remember the man’s name.
Here’s to the nights we felt alive
Here’s to the tears you knew you’d cry
Here’s to goodbye
Tomorrow’s gonna to come too soon
He is drunk, and he knows it. It doesn’t bother him- it’s better, he thinks, to get smashed then to see everyone else enjoy the happiness he knows he’ll never have.
The crowd is a blur and he’s too shitfaced to dance, so he leans against the wall and sips at his drink and watches the lights spin.
He honestly isn’t looking for the man. He can’t tell where one person ends and the other begins so how could he be looking for anyone?
It’s funny, he thinks, because he doesn’t remember reacting to alcohol like this. He hasn’t had that much. Only three, four glasses. And he could hold his own with the band, and that was saying something, because Chris drank like a fish and it didn’t seem to affect him at all.
He brings his hand up to run his fingers through his curls and then remembers that he’d chopped them off. He feels unbelievably foolish, and more than that, naked without the curls, the golden mop of hair he was so famous for.
He looks down into his drink, and sees those brown eyes reflected in them. He looks up, and the man is there, in front of him, slightly apart from the colored haze.
He blinks and the man is gone.
Put your name on the line along with place and time
Wanna stay not to go I wanna ditch the logical
Here’s a toast to all those who hear me all too well
He watches cigarette ashes fly into the night air and feels detached, disconnected, as if he was somebody else, somewhere else. It doesn’t register that the man smoking is a proclaimed enemy of *NSYNC. It doesn’t register that the man smoking is Eminem.
He sighs, shrugs, turns away. He isn’t tired or smashed any more and he came outside merely to get away from the smoky club interiors and flashing lights and the celebrating celebrities.
And to get away from Britney who is clinging to him again. He’d told her years ago that he was gay and he doesn’t know why she still tries, but she does.
It seems oddly calm, oddly peaceful here even with the roaring traffic and Lonnie looming over him and he thinks of the man with the chocolate eyes and silky-looking skin.
A voice interrupts his thoughts and it is gravely around the edges and velvety as well.
“Justin?”
He doesn’t have to turn to know who it is.
He takes the offered hand and follows the man to the waiting limousine.
Here’s to the nights we felt alive
Here’s to the tears you knew you’d cry
Here’s to goodbye
Tomorrow’s gonna come too soon
He stares at the ceiling and feels unfocused, imprecise.
The night is ground into his mind and he thinks the guys might be worried about him.
Then again, they might not.
It doesn’t seem to matter now, in this hotel bed with the sheets flung across him and the man sprawled beside him, the man with the glossy hair the color of a raven’s wing, the man with the chocolate eyes and chocolate lips and chocolate voice.
He knows he’ll see the man again but not like this- they will look at each other, exchange that glance, and wonder if it was all a dream.
He’s been through this before.
But this time it’s different- this time he doesn’t want to leave. The man is not awake and he knows he has to go now, before the sun rises and the morning comes and he sees the look in the man’s eyes.
He remembers the man’s name now, in the semidarkness. The man said to call him Alex. The world knew the man as AJ.
All my time is frozen in motion
Can’t I stay an hour or two or more
Don’t let me let you go
Here’s a toast to all those who hear me all too well
He sits on the bus, ignoring the guys’ chatter about the awards they won and stares out of the window.
It is a grey and dreary day and the rain splatters against the windows and he thinks, not for the first time, that the weather reflects his mind.
It has never been so hard to let go, to move on, to leave the room with no emotion.
He’d wanted, as he dressed and took his key and opened the door, blinking in the harsh light of the hallway, to press a kiss against Alex’s forehead.
He hadn’t, of course.
But he wanted to.
And now they’re heading to another state, another concert or conference or something and he knows it will be just the same tonight- another hotel, another nameless, faceless person, another cab ride home at 3:00 in the morning.
And he can feel the tears slipping down his face, and he doesn’t bother wiping them away because the guys’ don’t see them, and even if they did, they wouldn’t care.
He is crying because he knows he can’t escape, knows there is no way to stop the slow dissolution of his soul.
And he is thinking that he is empty.
Here’s to the nights we felt alive
Here’s to the tears you knew you’d cry
Here’s to goodbye
Tomorrow’s gonna come too soon
Tragic's Main
Home
Email the Author: Tragic