Title: Shades of Gray - - Light Gray
Author: Granitite Stone, granitite@yahoo.com
Disclaimer: If they were mine, would I be writing fanfiction? There is no malicious intent in this story, I know nothing about these men's real lives.
Rating: R
Summary: When one moment changes everything, and one decision can change a lifetime, you make the best choices you can. The question is, what choice is the right one? Even if you think you've made it, what's not to say you wouldn't have been happier the other way?

They were all staring at him. "What? Do I look that different?"

"Yes." Nick looked like he was in pain. "It's just a little odd. I mean… you're not my Brian, but you could've been."

"What's with the wedding ring?" AJ sprawled across the floor, knowing they weren't letting him go back to sleep.

"I'm married." Brian tried to ignore Nick's hurt look. "To Leighanne Wallace."

"After all these years, it's strange to think of you with anyone but Nick." Howie was fighting with AJ for a pillow. "How come you're watching our concert?"

"Management wants me to perform tomorrow night. I don't want any surprises." Brian wondered why he'd been sent into the Twilight Zone.

"Last night's tape is missing one thing." Kevin realized. "Management gave the go ahead for us to sing No Place I'd Rather Be at the next concert."

"I can't sing that with him!" Nick jumped to his feet. "You can't make me. Don't do this to me, Kevin."

"What's No Place I'd Rather Be?" Brian wondered why Nick was so upset over one little song.

"We wrote it together, Brian and I, not you." Nick was shaking.

Kevin clamped a hand on his shoulder. "It's okay, Nick. We'll just ask to sing it next time. You need to calm down. He's not the enemy."

"You said no. How could you say no?" Nick allowed Kevin to seat him.

"Lay off, Nick." Howie too came to accept there would be no more sleep this morning. "It's not his fault they switched places."

Nick twisted the ring on his right hand. A shark was etched onto the band. "I'm sorry."

"Okay, I'm here, and you all believe me. Now what?"

"Management says Joey will know." Kevin handed him a phone number.
---
His mind was racing, and he couldn’t sleep. After waking Kevin up for the third time, he'd been asked to leave. Well, thrown out. So, Brian hoped tonight was an insomnia night for AJ, because he had a feeling Howie would be comatose, and Nick wasn't speaking to him.

Brian had spent the day trying to track down Joey, with little success. Lance was somewhere in Mississippi, JC and Chris weren't answering their phones, and Justin kept hanging up on him.

All he'd done was cause Nick to retreat into a shell, and avoid AJ's probing questions. Why was he going there again? Oh yeah, no one else would let him in. The light was on, and Brian knocked.

"Brian, you are a glutton for punishment." AJ let him in. "I'm not going to stop bugging you until you give in."

"You're the only one who'll let me in." They'd put AJ on an antidepressant, and the day he took the weekly pill, he didn't sleep well, and was good for long meaningful talks. At least that's how it worked where Brian came from.

"The idea of you existing scares the hell out of Nick." AJ turned the TV off. "Especially since you're with Leighanne. When he came to you, you were already seeing her. You broke up immediately, but the threat was always there. Especially since they stayed friends to make that movie, and the media doesn’t believe they broke up."

"I didn't know." Brian remembered the ring on Nick's finger. "Are they…?"

"No one knows but them for sure." AJ admitted. "They both started wearing them just after Christmas of '99. Brian's has the first few notes of No Place. Nick's has a shark. They've never taken them off."

Brian winced. "We're more alike than you'd think."

"What's that supposed to mean?" AJ handed him a soda, and Brian briefly wished AJ had something harder.

"Things aren't going that well between me and Leighanne. Right before your Brian and I switched, we had a huge fight."

"About what?"

"She wants a family." Brian bit his lip. "I can't imagine raising a child on the road. I can't imagine life without Backstreet either. It's not a choice she should be asking me to make."

"I don't know what to tell you, Brian." AJ's Brian didn't have these kinds of problems. His biggest concern was not getting jumped backstage.

"Neither does anyone else." Brian looked to the ceiling for guidance.
-----
AJ shook him awake. "Gotta catch the bus, man."

"Point the way." Brian yawned. "I want to avoid Nick as much as possible."

AJ gave him a confused look, then realized. "You and Nick share a bus, Bri. So do me and Howie. Kevin is the only one who has his own bus, and that's just because Kristin wanted it. You can ride with us, though."

"No, I should talk to him." Brian scrambled out of bed. "All my stuff is with him anyway, right?"

The silence was deafening, and Nick hesitated before speaking. "Why did this happen?"

"I don't know." Brian was sprawled across the couch. "Maybe someone is trying to tell me something. Maybe marrying Leighanne was a mistake."

"I wouldn't know." Nick stared at his hands for a second, then looked at Brian. "Are we still friends?"

A muffled, "Yeah." Came from the couch. "He never let things get weird. I don't know what I would do without him."

"Then your Nick must be a saint, because I probably never would have spoken to you again." Nick slumped in the chair he was sitting in. "Why did you say no?"

"I almost said yes." Brian lifted his head. "I was walking out the door when the phone rang."

"A phone call changed your mind?" Nick vaguely remembered Brian saying he had to check his answering service, but Nick's tongue had been licking his tonsils at the time. "He didn't answer it."

"It was my mother."

"Oh god." Nick felt a shiver run down his spine. "She hates me, you know. Before she stopped calling altogether, whenever I answered she hung up. We had to drop The Perfect Fan from our last tour."

Brian gave a short bitter laugh. "Sometimes, I used to wonder what would have happened if I'd just kept walking. Now I know."

"I love hi. These rings, they're the only outward sign we're allowed, and I almost screwed up everything because of them." Nick tugged on the band, and it refused to come off. "As you can see, I haven't taken it off in a while. The inscription reads Frick and Frack Forever."

"Something the fans wouldn't find too suspicious." No one ever thought anything was going on between AJ and Howie, and they had friendship rings. Brian's cell phone rang, and he answered it. "Hello?"

"This is Joey. We need to talk."

Go to Dark Side Part Two or Go to Light Side Part Three

~When I look into the mirror, and see a face I don't recognize, I am no longer surprised.
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