Date: Fri, 9 Aug 2002 18:47:23 +0100 (BST) From: Jezebel Subject: Set Adrift Chapter 5 Title: Set Adrift Author: Jezebel the Temptress Feedback: eh_oh_po@yahoo.com Disclaimers: This story is fiction and it is not intended to imply anything about the true sexuality of the celebrities mentioned (BSB, Nsync etc...) or any personal knowledge about their private lives. If you are underage for your area or if it is illegal for you to look at this why not go somewhere else, if you don't like the thought of two men together in a loving, sexual way this isn't for you either. --------------------- Part 5 Sully walked the streets, he wasn't really aware of the time or where he was but that was the beauty of a city like New York, you had anonymity there and he could just wander to his hearts content and no one would bother him. Sometimes he missed Orlando, with the streets of tourists that invaded so much that the locals always rallied around for each other. They were so fed up of putting on fake smiles for the tourists that it helped to have a real one for his friends. In New York you were treated as a stranger, at least that was the way things were for him, although when he was with his close friends they were people that cared. It was a while since he had heard about Alex, the diner had emptied that day after brunch and he had stayed sipping his tepid coffee, refusing a refill and just taking in what had happened. Tony had smiled at him soothingly and had offered him something to settle his stomach, obviously having heard him lose the little he had eaten but he had refused and instead returned to his apartment, wishing for a moment that he were not alone there and wanting more than anything else to have a strong set of arms to just hold him. Now he was walking, because when he was walking he didn't have to worry about the fact that he was alone, he didn't have to answer endless questions about how he was doing or if he needed anything and he didn't have to worry about people bothering him. As he turned the next corner, leading into a side street that he did not really remember having gone down before he looked down, not really seeing where he was going and walked head on into someone. "Oh, I'm sorry." The guy said, Sully looked up and saw the shining face of a man a few years younger than him with a warm smile. "I really ought to look where I'm going." "No, it's my fault." Sully said. "I'm such a klutz. I should have been watching my two left feet, they like to think that they have a mind of their own..." He trailed off, realising that this was probably one of those strangers and that he should not keep them any longer than possible, that was what this anonymity thing was about after all and he was sure that he was not the only one that had come to the city to hide from people. "Actually, I usually find watching the path not my feet helps." The guy said, but his smile belied the insult. "I'm Steve." He said, holding out his hand. "Alexander." He said, then paused, it hurt too much to shorten it either to 'Alex' or 'Xander'' both had connotations that he did not want to think about. "But my friends call me Sully. Short for Sullivan." "Well, Sully, how about we take our four left feet off and get a cup of coffee." Steve said. Sully looked at him for a moment and Steve looked slightly abashed. "I don't normally do this sort of thing you just look like you could use a friend and I am a good listener; plus I want a coffee and you look like you could afford one." Sully laughed and nodded in the direction of a small diner that he had passed a few moments before. "I think that I could stretch to a small coffee." He said with a slight smile. "But I'm not sure how good company I will be." "Fine. You get to buy the coffee and I'll bend your ear." Steve said with a smile. "Either way I get a free drink and you get something better to do with your time than run into poor defenseless guys on the street." The smile on Steve's face belied his comments and took off the otherwise critical edge. Sully laughed again, it felt good to just relax and make small talk. Maybe he had been wrong about the city, or maybe Steve was one of the few kind ones, either way he had something to do and for a brief period of time he didn't have to worry about being alone. ------------------- Nick stared at the papers in front of him, puzzled and slightly confused as to where exactly Sully was hiding. The private eye that he had hired, a good guy judging by his references, could find very little record of Alexander Sullivan since 1996. The guy had drawn some money out while he was staying with them on tour but he had not touched the thousand dollars in his checking account since. Neither had he renewed his now expired passport; it had been out of date a few weeks after the June 15th visit that had been the last real sighting of him. So the only thing they knew for sure was that he was most likey still in the States. As far as his PI knew no one had flown on that passport number for a while and no flights were booked under his name and as far as a paper trail there was nothing to signify that he had even existed for the last five years. Wherever he was he was very well hidden. Two weeks after the initial search had begun Nick got a call, it was a small lead but it was all they had. Desperation and blind hope coupled with the guilt he felt over the entire affair made Nick want to follow it up, and as he sat on the plane waiting for confirmation of take off he thought back over the conversation with his private investigator to remember all the details that he had been given. "Mr. Carter. It's John Jennings, the investigator. I think that I may have found our man." Nick had perked up at that information, he sat back in his chair and had asked for the information, asked for all the details he could find. "Well, Alexander Sullivan was in the New York area in 1997, apparently he was working for a small diner there as a bus boy. He cashed two or three paychecks using his own social security number before he disappeared from sight once again." "So, that was four years ago. What do you have that tells you he's still there?" Nick had asked, he knew enough from the television and from other searches that the record company had done on their potential dates not to take everything at face value. There was also the fact that he could have moved away in four years, especially if he was on the run as Nick suspected. "Well, I went out there to follow up the lead and they got really uptight about me snooping around. The guy in the diner said that he doesn't even know an Alexander Sullivan, let alone remember having one work for him even though he also told me that he had worked there for ten years. So I check at the local library, reports in the papers, obituaries, that sort of thing..." He said, continuing the story. Nick was alert and had gasped at the last reference. "Obituaries?!? You think that he might be dead?" Nick was shocked, that was the last thing that AJ needed to hear while he was in recovery and Nick would never forgive himself if he thought that he had driven Sully to his death. "No." The investigator chided, he had patience learned during his army days though and waited until Nick had calmed down to continue. "It was just the kind of routine checks that I would normally carry out when looking for someone. Sometime you get lucky. Anyway I was reading the obits and there is a death notice for some guy name Andrew Fitzpatrick. Anyway, the interesting thing is that he ran a club on the other side of town and one of the people quoted in the article was talking about how sadly he and his partner Sully would be missed within the community. It was a long shot but I wasn't sure how popular the name was, so I checked it out and there is a memorium from a Xander Sullivan, lover and friend." "You think it's him?" Nick asked. This was the crunch point, Sullivan wasn't that popular a name but it was likely that there was more than one Alexander Sullivan in the entire country. "There was a picture of him and his lover, it was a little grainy but it looks the same." The man had said. "Anyway, this guy died less than six months ago, so if nothing else he was here till then. My guess is that he might even still be here or that he will have left a forwarding address with one of the people he would have known. By the sounds of things at this end there are still a lot of people that would be interested in where he was going to be." "Have you asked around?" Nick asked tiredly, wondering how much of this he had to deal with himself. This investigator had come highly recommended but he was beginning to wonder if the man knew about his job, sure he had come up with the goods but he wasn't using them. "That's where it gets fishy, again, no one has heard of him. When I showed them the picture they said that he seemed familiar but that he could be anyone. Not exactly what you would expect from a 'well- liked couple.'" He said, obviously quoting the obituary. "It's almost as if they are covering for him or something." The man postulated. "Should I come out there?" Nick asked, really he was planning to go anyway and ask for himself about this man Xander Sullivan and his lover Andrew Fitzpatrick. He knew that he ought to at least make an attempt off his own back to find Sully since it was his fault the man had left in the first place. "I think that would be best. There is little more that I can do here and it might be better if you confront him directly." The man said, not that he knew why Nick was looking for him. He had said all he needed to know was that the bill would be paid and that suited Nick fine. So here he was, in mid-July on a plane to New York, it wasn't the best time to travel, especially not when he could only get coach but he had to make up for his mistake and this was the only way to do it. How else was he going to get the two back together? ----------------------- To Be Continued Just a short update this time, I'm not even sure if anyone is still reading this but let me know if you are. Hopefully there will be more soon... Jez