Date: Tue, 1 Oct 2002 15:34:19 +0100 (BST)
From: Jezebel <eh_oh_po@yahoo.com>
Subject: Set Adrift 13

Disclaimer: This is fiction. I don't know the Backstreet Boys. This is not
true.

Just an update for the people that asked for one :)

***

The Jive compound was bigger than Sully had expected, there was a long
convoy of buses there already and he knew that thanks to his diligence he
and Nick were early. Nick had grumbled about leaving before he absolutely
had to but Sully wanted them to be there on time so that the others were
aware that he was going to be there. Nick knew but that was only as Sully
had told him, it did not necessarily mean that Alex had informed the others
as well.

"So, are you ready to tour half of the states of America in a few weeks?"
Nick asked sarcastically as he unloaded his bags. "You certainly seemed
eager earlier on."

Sully tried to ignore the jaded tone of Nick's voice knowing that this was
not the first time that the boy had done this and that he had been doing it
for ten years. For Sully, who had seen England, Florida and
 New York it was a bit of an adventure, but mostly it was a chance to
rebuild what he had with Alex.

"I just wanted to make sure that you were here on time." Sully retorted. "I
can hardly see the tour manager and the rest of the entourage warming to me
if I was the excuse you used for being late."

Nick rolled his eyes and made his way towards a dark bus with the
Backstreet Boy logo along the side.

When Sully got closer he realised that it was obviously one of the official
buses.

"Is this the bus you guys use?" Sully asked.

Nick laughed.

"No. This is my bus." Nick said. "The one that I share with Aaron if he's
with us."

Sully realised that Nick was looking up at the doors and waiting for
someone, perhaps a driver, to let him on. When no one did he dumped his
suitcase and went back for another.  Sully put his case down and went to
help Nick with the rest of his ample luggage.

"So you have a bus each?" Sully asked.

Nick shook his head and locked the car after removing the final bags.

"We usually double up. Kevin and Brian share the old, married bus."Nick
explained.  " Howie and AJ share the dodgy looking bus and Aaron and I
..."

"Share the dumb blonde bus..." A second voice interupted.

Sully turned and saw Howie behind them with a larger man behind him.  Sully
realised that this must be one of the security guards that were probably a
must now that they were famous.

"Ha Ha." Nick said, obviously not finding it funny.

"So, it's true..." Howie said. "Nicky really did find you and persuade
you to come on back to Orlando."

"I guess he did." Sully replied evenly.

Sully could not tell from Howie's guarded tone what this was supposed to
mean and when he turned to Nick for help he realised that his young friend
was too engrossed in a conversation with the security guard about parking
his car to be any help.

"You still owe me that backrub." Howie stated with a small smile.

Sully found himself engulfed in a warm hug.

"Welcome to the madness." Howie added with a pat on Sully's back.

"It's good to be back." Sully said.

"Howard Dorough, what have I told you about playing with my toys?" A voice
hollered from behind them.

"I was being careful." Howie mimicked a small child as he let Sully go with
a laugh.

Sully too let out a laugh but it was carefully quiet, he did not want to
overstep the bounds and was not sure if he understood what they were
saying. It gave him a tingle of anticipation that Alex had called him one
of his toys, that had connotations that Sully knew it would be dangerous to
explore.

Alex was at one end of the parking lot and his car was being dealt with by
the same security guard that Nick had been speaking to. AJ was laddened
with bags but had a smile on his face that almost reached his eyes.  He was
glad to be going back on the road.

"Hey Bone." Nick said as he smiled widely and went to help his brother. "I
found this stray and thought that you might like to adopt him."

Sully smiled amiably when he realised that they were talking about him. I

t felt good to be 'adopted' by this extended family.  So far it was only
Howie, Nick and Alex that had adopted him but that was more family than he
had had in a long time.  Even when he was with Drew he had not felt this
close to loving and being loved.  With everyone else there had been an
agenda but this was just familial love.

"What's all the shouting?" Kevin asked as he pulled in, Brian at his side.

Nick was now embracing Alex as the pair play wrestled.  Alex's bags lay
strewn at his feet as he tried desperately to fight off Nick and his
playful advances.

Brian went straight into the fray with Nick and AJ although Sully could not
tell whose side he was.  Kevin, being the more businesslike of the five,
dealt with their luggage and his car first before coming to join them.

When Kevin saw Sully his face darkened.  He remembered this face, a man
from the past that had not been around much and whose name they dare not
mention.  He had never really known what had gone on between Alex, Nicky
and Sully but he knew that this man had caused his brothers pain. Now the
man was here in their midst once more.  Kevin would not let him hurt them
again.

"What are *you* doing here?" He asked forebodingly as he eyed Sully.  His
tone clearly voiced his disgust that Sully had deigned to come anywhere
near the Backstreet Boys again.

"Kevin, this is Alexander Sullivan, Sully. You remember him, right?" Howie
asked.  He sensed the tension and wanting to play diplomat before anything
bad went down.  The last thing that they needed was anyone to get bruised
before they even left.

"He's a friend of Alex's."

"Some friend." Kevin retorted.

Kevin's voice was loud enough that it carried to where the three other
Backstreet Boys still fought.  Nick and AJ stopped instantly when they
heard Kevin's ire.  The oldest Backstreet Boy did not get angry very often,
but when he did he would explode.  That was not a situation that they
needed right now.  Brian too must have sensed it as he was already on his
way to diffuse the ticking timebomb of Kevin's anger.

"Where were you when he needed you?" Kevin asked Sully bitterly. "Did you
ever have to make excuses for him, or clean up his drunken binges or hold
him any of those times after he was trying to quit and he couldn't stop the
withdrawal?"

Sully felt himself tense, he had his own guilt for what he had missed of
his friend's life.  He certainly did not need anyone else adding to
that. Especially not someone that was so close to Alex.

"Did you even care?"

"Kev..." Brian said softly. "We don't need this right now. Let's just
take a second and calm down..."

"NO!" Kevin replied adamantly. "I want to know where he was nine months ago
when AJ nearly got arrested..."

"I was at the bedside of my dying lover." Sully said flatly.

Sully's face was pale and his fists clenched as he tried to fight back the
wave of emotion that threatened to overtake him.  He was never one for
arguments and this was the quickest way to silence Kevin.  He just hated
the fact that in telling the truth he had to bring back a lot of the pain
that he was not ready to deal with yet again.

"I was holding his hand as he was sick and when he was suffering from the
gnawing effects of his chemotherapy.  I was there to clean up after him
when he was not strong enough to look after himself and to help him through
those last agonising days." Sully continued as he pushed the anger and pain
back down inside him.

"I..."

"No."

This time it was Alex that spoke.  He sounded strong and not at all the
weak man that Kevin remembered from some of those days in rehab.  It was as
if the old Alex was back.

"I think you've said enough. Don't you?" He asked Kevin.  "Now, the record
company have okayed Sully coming with us, he'll be on my bus and Nick is
sharing with Howie.  If you have a problem just stay away from us both."
Alex's tone was one that was not to be argued with.

Sully smiled slightly at his friend and when a hand reached out for him
Sully took it without hesitation.  Together the pair walked in silence to
the second bus in the fleet and never looked back.

The others followed a moment later and they too were silent.  They were not
sure what they had witnessed that day or if they would ever understand.
Theywere glad to see some of the old AJ attitude that had been missing for
so long.  Maybe being with Sully would be just the balm he needed after
all, and maybe they could heal each other a little at a time.

***

***

The bus was different than Sully had expected, it was a lot more luxurious
than those that he had seen before.  Of course the last time that he had
travelled with the band they had not even had a bus, it was more of a large
van.  Now they shared three large buses, each with a large seating area
with a TV set up and a separate sleeping area.  Sully had to admit that if
he was going to go anywhere for a long time that he would like to travel in
style like this.  They didn't even have to do the driving themselves.

"You can take the left hand side bunk." Alex told him as they climbed
aboard.
 "I usually use the top one to store my stuff and sleep on the bottom, but
it's up to you what you do."

Sully nodded, still not trusting his voice to speak.  He turned to look at
Alex and was surprised that he friend just seemed to be leaving him to get
on with it.  Maybe Alex remembered him better than he would have imagined.

Sully didn't really know what to unpack, he knew very little about touring.
He wondered if he should have found out a little more before agreeing to go
with them.  Still, maybe he would be able to learn it as he went along.
Instead he took the chance to check his luggage for everything he needed.
His carry on held the few things that he wanted with him at all times.

After thirty minutes on the bus it finally pulled out.  Sully made his way
back towards the seating area in the back.  Here he found AJ lying on one
of the seats there with a magazine open in front of him.  Alex looked up
and smiled when Sully entered.

"Hi." He said shyly.

Sully returned the smile.

"I'm sorry about before..." Sully began, but Alex held up a hand to stop
the apology before Sully could get it all out.

"There is nothing to be sorry for." AJ replied. "You have a right to stand
up for yourself.
 I know that it must have been painful for you to lose..."

"Drew." Sully added when he realised that AJ had tailed off because he
didn't know his former lover's name.

When Sully thought about it he realised that neither of them knew that much
about what the other had been up to.  They had five years worth of
friendship to catch up on, maybe it was about time they started.  Alex must
have been thinking the same thing because he was the first to speak.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Alex asked. "I always wondered what type of
man you would end up with."

Sully felt a pang of guilt when he wondered how he could tell AJ that only
one man that had ever really owned his heart.
 That was AJ himself. Instead of dwelling on that thought he went on to
talk about Drew.  It was a safer topic than leaving or losing Drew.

" .. was kind and considerate and I guess most of all he loved me." Sully
said, concluding his description.

Alex had listened throughout all of it.  He felt a strange jealousy because
his friend had been lucky in love whereas he had been relatively unlucky.
Amanda was not the nicest of people to have as a girlfriend and he was glad
to be rid of her.  Amanda was one of the damaging things he had gotten rid
of along with his addiction to alcohol.  She was one thing that he did not
miss.

"So, what about you?" Sully asked.

AJ paused. He supposed that it was only fair seeing as how he had seen into
a little of Sully's past.

"Mostly the band took up my time." Alex told him honestly.  "But I did a
few other things to. Have you heard of Johnny No Name?"

Sully hadn't.  So instead Alex told his friend about his times as an
anonymous rockstar and stuck to this as his safe topic of the day.

Neither of them really noticed the day wearing on as they shared their
chosen topics.  They were really only scratching the surface of those five
years and the pains and experiences that they had endured .  It was a new
friendship and one that needed to be treated reverently.  When they had
been through so much they did not want to lose it again just as quickly
with one misplaced word.

The important thing was that they were opening up and that could only lead
to better relations all round.  Maybe, just maybe, they could return to the
way that things used to be.

***

To Be Continued...

More Nick coming soon and we're getting close to the first sex scenes
too...  You'll have to wait and see who it is that gets lucky :P

Note: I'm sorry if the formatting is a little screwed, I'm working with
Word Pad at the moment.  If you want to read a cleaner version, or just
want to read other stuff by me then you can get it at: www.authorclive.com