You Promised
<~*~>
Three Days Later�
It was the day before A.J.'s funeral. Brian and Nick took it upon themselves to make sure Howie wasn't planning on taking his own life so he could join his lover. Howie assured them that he was planning nothing of the sort, but they were still wary, so they stayed.
Howie was working on some random file or another for the Dorough Lupus Foundation when Brian noticed how almost normal his friend was acting. That in itself frightened him more than the thought of Howie sobbing up a hurricane.
"Howie�" Brian said quietly, sitting on the couch beside his band mate. "What's wrong?"
Howie glanced at him from the corner of his eye. "Nothing, Brian." Without another word, he looked back to the table, but Brian could see his heart wasn't in it.
Brian laid a hand between Howie's shoulder blades, sighing when Howie's body jolted slightly. "D, please�do something. Cry, curse God, do something!"
Howie shook his head. "No," he whispered.
Brian's eyes were pained. "Howie, please. You're scaring me, man. Very badly." He searched his mind for a better approach. "I know you still love him. I can see it in your eyes. You're not over this after a week, Howie. You won't be over this in a year. Or even the rest of your life if you don't react to this!"
Silent tears clawed at Howie's face. "I'm sorry� I don't� I didn't want� I just�" He broke off, instead burying his face into his arms. "I�I miss him, Brian."
Brian hooked an arm around Howie's neck, relieved his friend was finally grieving properly. "I know you do, and you always will. But after time it'll get easier and you'll miss him less and less. You'll never forget him, but someday he'll be a memory that you can look back on�I don't know, fondly. You'll remember the days you had together, and the memories you shared together. He's alive as long as you hold him close in your heart." He brushed his hand against Howie's chest, above his heart.
Howie tried to verbalize his understanding, but ended up in a fit of sobs, buried in Brian's embrace. He cried until he felt tiny pins and needles piercing his eyes and his stomach clamp. He lay in Brian's arms long after he stopped crying, only wishing that he could take back his and A.J.'s stupid argument. If he could, he would have given his soul to have A.J. back, or rather, what was left of his soul. Then one of the last things A.J. ever said to him came zeroing in on him.
"I don't plan on dying. You got me?"
Howie sniffled. Things don't always go the way you plan them, baby, he thought sadly.
<~*~>
The service was beautiful. There were plenty of tears and fond memories. But suffocating everything were the pitying looks those informed of the secret relationship shot Howie. Howie stood at the side of the gravestone, staring at the engraved name and date of death.
His mind wandered throughout the entire service. He wondered why he wasn't sobbing like everyone else. After all, he lost more than most of them. Over the months A.J. became the reason he lived and now A.J. was�gone. Howie banned the word "dead" from his mind. Losing Caroline was difficult enough.
But who got him through it?
A.J.
A.J. was gone now.
Who was going to get him through it?
No one.
He was depending on himself, a very unstable decision, but his only choice. Nick approached him more than once with those baby-blue eyes begging him not to die. Brian offered to be a shoulder to cry on, but Howie refused. Kevin never said anything to him. Kevin stood on the other side of the grave, tears flowing down his cheeks while they lowered A.J.'s coffin into the ground.
"I'm sorry, angel. I just want to be with you."
A tear fled Howie's eye. He would never see A.J. smile at him in that fond, loving way and call him "angel" as habitually as Howie called him "baby". He would never feel A.J.'s lips against his own or A.J.'s ring-clothed hand holding his. Howie ducked his head and shut his eyes, unwilling to watch A.J.'s coffin disappear from his vision.
"Bye baby," he whispered, the wind taking gentle hold of his words and carrying them - hopefully - up to Heaven, where A.J. could hear them and somehow send them back.
A warm breeze trickled through the trees and swept through Howie's hair. Did he just imagine it or did he feel someone's hand graze his forehead and travel through his hair? Howie let his posture die, leaning his back against the tree A.J.'s gave stood under.
The sun was shining. The sky was cloudless. Howie shook his head. Why wouldn't it rain? It was too happy. There should have been dark, dreary clouds in the sky, rain pouring on the mourning party below. It was suiting. A.J. was loved by millions and on his funeral the sun was shining, almost mocking his memory.
After the funeral, Nick stopped Howie underneath the tree. His eyes were pleading. "D, promise me you won't do something stupid like commit suicide or something, please?"
Howie blinked. "Nicky�"
"Promise!" Nick cried. "Promise you won't die too!"
Howie bit his lip. He shut his eyes and hugged Nick tight. "I won't. I promise."
Howie went home. He couldn't deal with people just yet. He was too busy dealing with the throbbing in his heart. He went out onto the veranda and wrapped his arms around his head, leaning against the railing, crying quietly.
The wind caressed his skin and flowed through his hair, seeking to soothe his wracking sobs, but he continued to cry. He knew he sang songs about broken hearts being rebuilt, but he never wanted anyone to take A.J.'s place, to try and fill that now-empty void in his soul. A.J. was something irreplaceable and trying to replace him would disgrace A.J.'s memory, and Howie didn't plan on doing anything like that.
But what could he do with his life? He knew life without A.J. would be nearly impossible when everything in his life could easily be related somehow to A.J. and what they had once had together. That left a life of sorrow and grief or�the alternative.
<~*~>
The alternative turned out to be a lost cause. Howie toyed with the handle to a razor for a good fifteen minutes before his nerve finally faltered and he threw it against a wall angrily, breaking it into four pieces. He didn't clean it up.
Instead he retired to bed and lay there, trying to block out the sound of silence. He tried not to think about what he would have been doing had A.J. been alive. He thought about it and ended up sobbing. He couldn't help it. A.J. was more than a part of him. A.J. was half of him. He was what brought out the brighter sparkle in Howie's eyes, he was the reason Howie smiled more, and he was the one that made Howie happier than the Latino ever thought possible.
Howie finally decided on visiting A.J.'s grave. If he couldn't be with his body, heart, and soul at the same time, he'd visit the cemetery. Only there would A.J.'s memory be intact and Howie's heart slightly soothed.
On the way there, Howie sang to himself to try and console his dying heart. "What did I say�" he trailed off, the memory of writing that song clattering back to him like a broken plate. He wrote it for A.J. His best friend who he fell in love with�
He was paying little to no attention to the road, and therefore almost missed his exit. He cursed loudly and spun the wheel, but it was too late. The car squealed into a three sixty degree spin and hit the exit sign, lying his car parallel to the lane, a white Jeep Cherokee smashing into the side of the car soon after.
Little after an hour the ambulance arrived. Just in time for a Benjamin Silver and a Lee Thompson, but too late for a Danielle Troy and a Howie Dorough.
<~*~>
The funeral for Howie Dorough was crowded and more miserable than A.J.'s. Mostly because most of the mourners had already attended a funeral within the past month for a dear friend and were now attending another. But while A.J.'s funeral had at least been sunny, Howie's funeral had pitch black clouds and hammering rain.
Long after everyone else had gone, Nick Carter stood in between Howie's grave and the white grave beside it. Nick stifled a sniffle and forced a smile. They were happier in Heaven together. Howie's grave was black with a beautiful statue of a dove at the top, its wings outstretched. On A.J.'s was a skillfully crafted halo perched atop a crucifix. The graves stood side by side, both the plots fresh. That alone made it a sight worth crying for. The engravings made it worse.
Alexander James McLean
January 9th, 1979 - May 2nd, 2002
Loving son, brother, friend and lover
"Music is love, Love is music. Music is my life, I love my life."
Then right beside it:
Howard Dwaine Dorough
August 22nd, 1973 - May 9th, 2002
Loving brother, friend, son and lover
Fly to Heaven, our hearts will be with you always
Nick laid a rose in between the dove's wings and another on the right arm of the crucifix. He stepped back and examined the graves. He did a double take. Something was stuck in the cement! He knelt on the ground despite the rain and brushed his fingers below the final line of the engraving on Howie's tombstone. A gold ring was cemented into the grave. The same was true for A.J.'s.
Smiling sadly, Nick stood up and prepared to walk away. He hesitated. "I miss you guys," he said, tears welling up in his eyes.
The rain lessened and the clouds began to part. A few minutes later, the sun pushed its rays through the dismal blackness and hit each of the rings in a large beam, mirroring their golden glares onto Nick's shirt. Nick glanced down and from the way the light hit his shirt, it looked like two rings entwined together.
Nick nodded. "I know. I know. You're happy together. But�"
The wind pushed his hair back comfortingly, gently urging him on.
A tear hit the grass. "You promised� You promised me, Howie. You died. Why'd you lie to me?"
The air was still. The rings' light vanished.
Nick never felt Howie or A.J. attempt to speak beyond the grave to him again.
Somehow, he knew he was better off.
The End