"Hung Up"

By Silk

RATING: NC-17

Authors Note: The NC-17 rating is for rampantly bad language throughout this fic, not for sex, sad to say. (Maybe there'll be some in the next one.) If the F-word squicks you, please don't read this. I wrote this without censoring the Muse. Despite the language warning, this is surprisingly romantic. Well, for two guys who aren't sure whether they love or hate each other, anyway.

Oh, and it's twice as long as the first one. Hope you don't mind. I think I like living in their universe. I didn't really want to leave.

 

"I'm hung up at the same old place. This is what always happens," Curt said bitterly.

Mandy sighed. Both of them knew what, and more to the point, who they were talking about. In what had to be one of the oddest alliances ever, Mandy, as Brian's ex-wife, and Curt, as Brian's ex-lover, stood together in the wings before Curt went onstage.

"You'll be fine. Just put him out of your head, darling. It's what I do."

Mandy's intermittent and ultimately pretentious English accent suddenly set Curt's teeth on edge. "It's not the same for me. Not like it is for you. You were married to him, for fuck's sake."

"Oh, my dear. So were you," Mandy said softly.

The truth of that statement thrummed throughout Curt's body like the vibration of an amp turned up too high. All at once his face crumpled and Mandy drew him into her arms. She alone saw what Curt was unable to show anyone else. Oh, they knew he was in pain. Some of them even suspected why. But they hovered like the omnipresent press, hungry for details, and when Curt wouldn't give them to them, they castigated him.

"Why, Goddammit? Why?" Curt cried, his voice muffled against her shoulder.

"Does it really matter?"

"Yeah," Curt choked out, swiping his bare arm across his face, smearing the splendid eye makeup that outlined his tormented eyes.

"After all this time?"

"Why do you still look for him out there? Huh? I know you do," Curt said belligerently.

Mandy smiled faintly. "Habit?"

Curt shook his head. "Hope. You can't give up the idea that someday, some fucking day, he's going to stroll in here, like he was never gone, and say, 'It was all a fucking mistake.' Can you?"

Mandy bit her lip. "Even if he did...I would never take him back."

"Liar."

"Don't tell me you would."

"In a heartbeat, sweetheart," Curt rasped.

"After what he did to you?"

"It's nothing compared to what I've done to myself." Curt shrugged out of his shirt and scratched his bare midriff. "I gotta go. Natives are getting restless," he said, referring to the clapping, whistling audience outside.

*****

By the time Curt reached the part of the show that he feared the most, he had indeed given in to the despair that cloaked his soul. Sometimes he thought, I'll be singing this song when I fucking die. But he couldn't stop singing it. It was his ode to Brian. His lost love.

He hated Brian for forcing him out of the act. Not because he was wrong. But because he was right. Curt wasn't good for the act. What they had...was personal. It should have stayed that way. Instead it became fodder for the press. Their entire relationship was subject to the vagaries of who was reporting what that week. If only he could have stayed in his life. But to Brian, the act was his life. Image was everything. When that image was threatened...Curt had to go.

He had no further use for him.

Sometimes Curt thought, if only he'd been able to say, Fuck off, I don't love you anymore. They had words. Unpleasant words. Vicious words. But they never said *those* words to each other. Because those were the only words they couldn't say.

They did love each other.

They always had.

Curt channelled all of his anger into the next song. "Gimme Danger" was the most painful song he'd ever written. To him, it laid it all out there for anyone to see. But the person he needed to see it most...was never there.

Brian would never come back. "Get over it, Wild," he mumbled to himself, taking a swig from the ever present bottle of whiskey on the amp.

Time and time again, he told himself to sing the fucking thing, not live it, not feel the intensity of its power over him, but it didn't do any good. The words came straight from his heart. His irreparably wounded heart.

"Gimme dan-ger..."

He *was* courting danger. He was headed straight for a fucking breakdown. Curt cackled maniacally and dove to the floor of the stage. Sometimes, when he was lying there, looking up at the ceiling, he saw stars. Real stars. Like the ones in the sky overhead when he and Brian made love outside on the back lawn. Sharing furtive kisses. Fumbling to take off their clothing in their rush to be one...fucking...person.

Oh, God. He didn't know if he could do this anymore. Pain bubbled up in his throat and spilled out onto the stage, his voice growing more and more intense with his suffering.

"I wanna fucking feel it!"

He closed his eyes and collapsed on his stomach, his dirty blond hair covering his face. Just once, God. I need to see him one more time. Please.

*****

The tiny hairs on the back of his neck stood up, electrified by the sudden feeling that he was being watched. Ordinarily, he might have chalked it up to being paranoid. That came with the alcohol and the constant abuse his body took. But this was different.

There was someone out there...watching and waiting. Oh, fuck. He clambered to his feet and stood unsteadily, his bleary eyes struggling to make out something, anything. Then as if he had radar, he turned his head to the side and could just make out a shadowy figure lurking in the shadows by the door.

He didn't say his name out loud. He knew he didn't. He was done here anyway. Curt dropped his guitar where he was standing and jumped off the stage. A few members of the audience, evidently drunker than he was, protested the intrusion, not seeming to care that he was the supposed star of the show.

The figure at the door moved, disappearing into the darkness beyond the door.

Curt ran, almost falling in his haste to catch a glimpse of the mysterious figure. He broke a sweat and stopped once to gasp for breath. The streets outside the stage door were deserted. There was no one there.

Oh, shit, it was a fucking hallucination. He couldn't stand it. He staggered to the wall and leaned against its cool rough surface. With a heartbreaking sob, he slid to the ground, his legs folding under him. He was fucking pathetic.

He buried his face against his leather-clad knees. A sudden noise in the seemingly empty street got his attention. Footsteps. Someone was coming.

He scrambled to his feet, almost falling, and he was forced to put out both hands to steady himself. He couldn't let anyone see him like this.

Then he saw him.

His eyes widened, his nostrils flared. Curt heard the match strike the brick wall and saw it flare into existence, lighting the cigarette the other man held between long, elegantly-shaped fingers.

The light illuminated the man's face.

"Brian..."

The figure didn't speak. He blew smoke in Curt's face and studied him intently. When he finally spoke, his voice sounded rusty and unused. "You look like hell, Curt."

"Yeah? Well, that's where I fucking live," Curt said hoarsely.

"I know."

"Is this the first time you've--?"

"No," Brian said quietly, avoiding eye contact with his former lover.

"Were you ever going to say anything? Come see me? Something?"

"No," Brian repeated, staring at the ground.

"Just like before. You were going to let me go. You fuck-"

Brian threw his cigarette down and seized Curt's face in both hands. Without waiting for permission, he kissed him, hard enough to bruise his mouth. When he broke away, Curt looked stunned. "You might as well fucking finish the job, Brian. I'm no fucking good without you," he whispered.

Curt's unexpected admission echoed throughout the silent street despite its apparent softness. Brian buried his face in Curt's hair and wrapped his arms around his neck. It was a possessive gesture, one that someone who was planning to stay might make.

Curt's heart leapt into his throat.

"We can't go back," Brian said, his lips moving against Curt's ear. "There's nothing to go back to."

"There's us."

"There was no *us*, Curt. Only you and me. And the fucking record company and the fans and the groupies and last but certainly bloody least, there was the fucking music."

"I wanted forever. You promised we'd be like the fucking stars, Brian. We could've gone on forever."

"No, we couldn't. They wouldn't let us."

"Who?"

"Them." Brian looked up at the sky and for a second, Curt swore he could see a falling star. Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it.

"You're fucking crazy, you know that?" Curt grinned, but there was no disguising the tears that stood in his kohl-lined eyes.

"Yeah. But you love me."

"Yeah."

"Something about the curve of my lips rewriting history, wasn't it?" Brian threaded a hand through Curt's long hair and anchored it at the back of his neck jealously.

"Are you trying to be fucking romantic?"

"I don't think I know how."

Curt snorted and surreptitiously wiped his eyes. "You used to be."

"I used to be a lot of things, Curt. I used to think I was fucking Maxwell Demon, too. Till I killed him."

"You did that for me, huh?"

"I thought we could finally be together," Brian said with aching slowness. "Instead we're standing here in the fucking street wondering what the fuck to say to each other."

"There's one thing you never told me."

"What is it?"

"Guess." Curt's eyes looked bleak. Hope had finally died.

"I've got nothing left, Curt. No money. No reputation. No fucking place to go. I have nothing to offer you anymore."

"I was never into that stuff anyway, man. I guess you never got that."

"Words don't count. I lied with words. But I couldn't fake this."

Brian kissed him, the tip of his tongue tentatively exploring Curt's mouth. Curt grabbed him by the wrist and whispered, "I still love you. Don't fuck with me, Brian."

"I'm not." Suddenly Brian looked weary beyond his years. "I still love you, too, Curt."

"Prove it."

"How?"

"I don't know. Think of something."

All at once Brian smiled. He reached for his lapel and removed the faux emerald pin that he'd worn religiously ever since he'd stolen it from Jack Fairy years ago. Curt could only watch as Brian carefully dropped it into his palm.

"It's yours."

"But you never take it off."

"It's time I did. It belongs to you now."

"Why?"

"Cause you need proof and I don't blame you. I haven't been fair to you, Curt. But there's one thing that's always going to be true. I love you."

"Where do we go from here?"

Brian shrugged. "To the stars? Who knows? Want to find out with me?"

"Yeah."

They stood there awkwardly for several seconds, swaying towards each other like two people who crave the destination, but fear the journey.

"Don't look back, Curt. It'll only make you crazy."

Curt nodded.

"Come here."

They wrapped their arms around each other and held on for dear life. Sometimes a moment is all that you have.

This was theirs.

 

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