Chapter 14

Three hours after Nick, Kevin, Brian, and Howie had come back, A.J. was torn between the urge to tell Howie Kevin was the one behind his sickness and killing Kevin or keeping his mouth shut and berating himself for accusing one of his considered brothers of trying to murder Howie.

The latter was winning.

Finally, as Brian, Nick, and Kevin were in the living room watching television, A.J. dragged Howie into the hallway, deciding to tell him what he had found out.

Howie frowned. “What’s going on?” he asked, evidently suspicious thanks to the look on A.J.’s face.

A.J. looked to the living room to make sure Kevin was preoccupied. He was. “It’s Kevin, he did it, he did everything,” he said quietly.

“What?” Howie cried. His eyes widened considerably, disbelieving. “Kevin?” He shook his head. “You’re crazy, Aje, that’s impossible! He wouldn’t!”

A.J. scowled. He didn’t have the patience for Howie’s loyalty. “I found a needle under his pillow, D.” Howie’s face paled slightly. “And medicine… And he has Novocain in his medicine cabinet.” He sighed. “I’m sorry, man, but it’s true.”

Howie was still shaking his head, his eyes wide and incredulous. “That…” He shut his mouth, seeing the words he needed weren’t reaching his lips.

Desperate to prove he wasn’t lying, A.J. grabbed Howie’s wrist and hauled him to Kevin’s room. He reached under the pillow and pulled the needle out. He snatched Howie’s wrist and pushed the needle into his hand.

A.J. glowered at Howie as the startled Latino stared at the needle. He stumbled for words, but they never came. He looked up at A.J., hurt, betrayed, and unwilling to believe one of his brothers had tried to kill him.

A.J.’s expression softened. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I am.”

Howie nodded, expressionless, staring at the needle. Tears strained to escape, but he shut his eyes and blocked them. “I can’t believe he’d do this,” he whispered.

A.J. rested a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “I know. Me neither.” He sighed. “Let’s get out of here before the guys realize we’re gone.”

<~*~>

That night, as Howie lay in bed with his eyes wide open, he tried to work out what he had done to make one of his band mates want to kill him. Tears streaked his face, but he was far past caring. After all, how many people had had their best friends try to kill them?

Not many, Howie guessed.

But wait… How do I even know it was one of the guys? It could be Lou for all I know. He sighed. He doubted that. Lou could never have gotten that close to anything the Boys touched or looked at without one of them or their management knowing. And if A.J. or anyone Howie knew had seen Lou putting acid in his drink, that someone would have tackled him.

As reluctant as he was to accept it, Howie knew it had to be one of the guys. No one knew him better and no one had access to him so often. But why on earth would they ever want to hurt him, let alone kill him?

Did I do something to deserve it? Howie wondered, sitting up. Sleep was a lost cause. It had been since A.J. had shown him that damn needle.

“No,” he said to himself quietly. “I didn’t do anything to any of them…” He paused. But he did let A.J. down. He winced. Not a good time to bring that up. He sighed and leaned his head against the headboard. “Why me?” he asked the Heavens. “Am I that fun to torture?”

Suddenly, Howie’s intuition began to yell. He opened his eyes slowly, an old concept springing to his mind. What if Kevin really was innocent? What if it was some enormous misunderstanding and that needle was used for something else?

“Yeah, Howie, like what?” he muttered to himself. He gave that consideration. He sighed. “Okay, so he’s not a druggie, I know that…” He frowned. “Then what the hell could he have a needle for?”

His frown deepened. “And a needle…” He examined his arms. No puncture holes anywhere. Kevin couldn’t have hid scars from Howie with Novocain, or anything else for that matter. Not that Howie knew about. If anyone had put a needle into his body without his knowing, he would get very pissed. He hadn’t rejected A.J.’s insinuating him getting another piercing for almost ten years for absolutely no reason at all.

“It’s not Kevin,” he said abruptly. “It just can’t be.” He got out of bed, groaning. “But I have to prove it to know for sure. It’s got to be either Brian or Nick.”

He got dressed and headed for A.J.’s room. Right now, A.J. was the only one he found he could trust.

<~*~>

A.J. yawned for the hundredth time as they walked down the hallway towards Brian and Nick’s room.

Howie glared at him. “Would you try and act like you care about this?” he snapped quietly.

A.J. grinned sheepishly. “I’m sorry.” He fell silent before asking the dangerous question he had been too nervous to ask while staring into Howie’s determined, uncharacteristically wild eyes earlier. “Um, D, why are we doing this? I mean we know Kevin did…”

Howie stopped dead where he was and gave A.J. the fiercest look A.J. had ever seen Howie give anybody. He backtracked a step. “We don’t know Kevin did shit, Alex,” he growled.

A.J. nodded rapidly. “Okay, okay, sorry.” He held his hands up in his own defense. A braver man than A.J. would have decided to become a mime by the look on Howie’s face and the hurricane in the Latino’s eyes, but A.J. knew better than to shut up when his point wasn’t made yet. “Look, I mean, it just…”

Howie sighed, the anger and fury fading from his eyes and his face. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I just… You know, it’s…” Breaking off, he just gave A.J. a pleading look, praying he would understand.

A.J. nodded solemnly. “Yeah. It’s not easy finding out one of your assumed brothers tried to kill you.” He paused. “You don’t think it’s me, do you?” he asked uneasily.

Howie’s jaw dropped. “What?”

“Nothing,” A.J. said quickly. “Just wondering.”

Howie knew A.J. wasn’t “just wondering” if he had asked – now of all times – but he decided to drop it. He would have to remind himself to interrogate A.J. about this later.

With that in mind, he and A.J. quietly snuck into Nick and Brian’s room. Nick was mumbling in his sleep and Brian was on his stomach, face buried into his pillow, snoring.

A.J. snickered. “Good thing they had to share a room,” he whispered with a smirk. “I’d kill myself if I had to go through another night of Brian’s snoring or Nick’s sleep problems.”

Howie rolled his eyes, smiling slightly. “Shh,” he reprimanded, trying to focus (which was impossible, he knew, considering he was sneaking around with the world’s loudest idiot, in Howie’s current opinion).

“What are we looking for?” A.J. whispered as he rubbed his hands together devilishly.

Howie almost regretted waking him up. “Nick’s journal,” he whispered back.

A.J.’s eyes visibly widened. Howie could see the whites of his eyes reflecting off the dim light coming through the window. “Nicky has a journal?” he giggled, sounding oddly as if he planned to use that against the blonde in the future.

Howie slapped him round the head and glared at him. “Kindly shut up so we don’t get caught,” he hissed.

A.J. nodded, barely containing the laughter in his lungs.

The two of them went through Nick’s bags and backpack. Howie felt like an asshole. He should have been sleeping, not going through his little brother’s things trying to find the book Nick wrote his every insecurity in. And with A.J. If Nick decided to murder him for trying this, Howie wouldn’t object. He felt like turning himself in as it was, as neither he nor A.J. were having any luck at all.

Finally, Howie found himself contemplating giving up. Nick was the oldest in his family, with four younger siblings. Obviously it wouldn’t be easy to find one of the only personal things in his life. But, Howie thought with a grin, he was the youngest in his family. And while Howie had never really found sneaking around his older sisters’ rooms much fun (they trusted him too much for their shock to be any real amusement for him), he figured he must have some evil qualities the youngest sibling usually harbored, even if it was up until now unused.

He began thinking of the most obvious places it could be, instead of the least. After all, Nick’s mind worked in ways no one could ever comprehend, and for years he had fooled his band mates with pranks so incredibly obvious they would have realized they were being set up, had they not been looking for the incredulous all the while.

So while A.J. dug through Nick’s duffel bag, Howie looked around the room thoughtfully, trying to imagine he was Nick. That attempt died in the process of being done, and Howie decided to just play his own role. If Nick were trying to hide the one thing he would never want anyone to read, where would he put it?

He turned to A.J. “Hey Aje, where’s the most obvious place possible Nick could put his journal?” Howie asked under his breath, wondering just how stupid he sounded.

Judging by the sardonic, somewhat pitying look on A.J.’s face, pretty stupid. “Um, I don’t know, D,” he said, rolling his eyes, “why don’t you check his Nintendo?” He turned back to Nick’s bag with a few mumbled words Howie recognized as, “dumbass” and “while I’m actually trying to find the damn thing…”

Howie suddenly had an epiphany. He grinned. “Aje, you’re a gen-” He cut himself off. “Forget I even started to say that.”

Before allowing himself to be slaughtered, Howie ran from the room into the hallway and down the stairs. Faintly he heard A.J. shut the door and follow him, probably wondering what the hell his friend was doing. Howie stopped short in front of the television and opened a drawer in the table that held the machine. There was Nick’s Dreamcast carrier. Grinning, he pulled it out and opened the side panels. Nothing.

“Try the top one,” A.J. said from behind him, arms folded across his chest.

Howie gave him a look that easily said “Yeah, like he’d be that obvious.” But then again, Howie thought, this was Nick… Of course he would put it in an obvious place, just to screw with their heads a bit. Opening the top panel, he grinned and saw a leather-bound book. He held it up to his shoulder, grinning up at A.J.

A.J. grinned in return. “I love you, God.” He made a wild snatch at it, but Howie held it away from him, scowling. A.J. threw up his hands. “Oh c’mon D! I’ve been waiting years to read that!” He made another grab for it. “My entire life’s work is in that book!”

Howie glared at him. “Your life is devoted to embarrassing the shit out of him?”

A.J. smiled innocently.

Howie rolled his eyes. “You’re too much sometimes,” he said exasperatedly. “We’re only reading what we need to.” He shuddered. “I really don’t want to know what goes on inside his head.”

A.J. sighed. “Fine, fine,” he followed Howie to the couch and sat down, glaring daggers at his friend. “Killjoy,” he grumbled.

Howie ignored him and opened the book to a random page.

A.J. laughed. “No dates? This kid needs a lesson on journal entries.” He pulled half the book onto his leg, examining the entry. “Damn! Seriously, how does he know where to start off?” He looked at the front half of the pages, flipping through them to find they were all blank. He frowned. “Ookay, the journal has five pages in it.”

Howie shrugged. “Nick may not be as into the whole journal thing as you are, Aje.”

A.J. bristled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Howie gave him a dry look. “He doesn’t consider it sacrilege when he misses an entry.”

“Yeah, but D, look at this. This isn’t just ‘missing an entry’, this is erratic!” He examined the entries. “D, this ranges from when I went into rehab to two months ago!”

Howie frowned. “How can you tell?” he asked, beginning to read the entries also.

A.J. pointed at a random sentence. “’I can say without question that this entire week has sucked. My wrist is broken and A.J.’s in rehab.’” He gave Howie a “get it now, Sherlock?” look.

Howie rolled his eyes. “Okay, okay, I get the picture.” He read the latest one aloud:

“’I don’t write journals. In fact, this is the first time I really might write an entire entry. Well, maybe. It’s late and I’m tired. A.J. and Brian took a shift at the hospital…’”

He skipped ahead. His forehead creased.

“I don’t want to be near Howie right now. He’s like a fucking mummy. He’s unconscious and dying. I don’t want to be around that…’”

Howie shut the book. He glared at the floor. Tears were quickly forming around his eyes, but he figured if he held still enough, A.J. wouldn’t notice.

A.J. silently took the book from Howie’s numb hands and put it back where Howie found it. He came back to the couch and resumed his position next to Howie, examining his face. “We were all worried,” he said quietly. “Nick’s been taking it harder than the rest of us at times.”

Howie nodded stiffly. “He didn’t do it, then.”

“Yeah the kid’s clean,” A.J. said with some hesitancy. Howie wasn’t okay, and he knew it, but what more could he say? “I think we should check out Brian.”

Howie shook his head slowly. “No. I don’t…” He took a deep breath. “Not tonight.”

A.J. was sympathetic. “Okay.” He rubbed his back. “You sure you’re okay?”

Howie nodded again. “This was a bad idea,” he said, almost inaudible. “I already knew he didn’t do anything. I just had to prove it and…” He shut his eyes. “I wish I never read that journal.”

A.J. didn’t know what to say or do. He couldn’t very well go beat Nick’s ass, or Nick would know they had read his journal, and Nick was depressed enough without A.J. making him royally pissed off.

“I’m sorry I ever thought it was him,” Howie was saying, opening his eyes.

A.J. regained his voice. “We know it’s not him now, D. But it could be Brian or Kev…” He trailed off. “Look, you know he didn’t mean that.” He tried to catch his friend’s gaze. “He didn’t. He was worried and he’s been having some real problems recently. He was probably screwed up or angry with someone when he wrote that. I mean, he said I was PMSing, man, don’t think I’m not pissed.” He made an attempt at a grin, a desperate attempt to make his friend stop moping like that.

Howie snorted. But after a moment, he looked at A.J. with a smile. “You think?”

A.J. nodded. “He’s a kid, D, he gets emotional.” He hesitated. “Well… Not in front of us, but you get what I mean.”

Howie yawned. “You’re right. I’m gonna go back to bed.”

A.J. looked at his watch. “Yeah, we’re gonna look great in the morning.” He rolled his eyes. “’Night, D.”

“’Night Jay.”

But as both of them quietly made their way back to bed, a silent figure slipped out of bed and down the stairs, to where A.J. and Howie had been only a moment before. A pair of cerulean eyes glanced back at the staircase to check no one was coming.

Cautiously he made his way to the television to see what exactly had held their interest for so long and had made Howie so upset. He pulled the drawer out and held the journal in his hands. He opened it to the front and examined the scrawl on the inside cover:

Nick Carter

Brian frowned. “What were they doing? This isn’t Nick’s journal…”