I Need You Tonight

1.- A lonely night.

It was the middle of the Tour, and the group was stranded between Toronto and NY. It was the middle of November, and everyone was ushered to hotels because the buses were too cold for everyone.

               Perhaps it was a twist of fate, or perhaps it was just bad luck, but half the groups' reservations were mixed up and a lot of people ended up with the strangest roommates.

               Kevin, Brian, AJ, Nick and Howie were the lucky ones. Being part of the group, they got the reservation labeled 'Backstreet Boys' for a double room. And Lance, who for some weird mistake had two different rooms for him, let them have one.

               Still, when the keys were handed, some other mixup happened.

               And somehow, Lance ended up sharing a room with Justin, Tony with Chris and JC with Misha, the girl from makeup.

               It was too late at night when they realized the little mixup and, since neither Lance nor Tony wanted Tony to explain why they had been trying to get the same room, the changes stayed like that.

               Tony thought fate was mad at him, to pair him up with Crazy Kirkpatrick. It was not that he disliked the little elf. They hadn't been together long enough for him to dislike Kirkpatrick, but he had heard way too many rumors for him to feel safe.

               Of course, some of the rumors weren't true, and Tony knew that. For instance, he knew it hadn't been Chris the one who glued the electrician's fat ass to his chair for calling the clothes the guys wore 'sissy'. It had been Tony himself, after said fat electrician said that AJ hairdo looked like a bad accident with an outlet socket.

               Still, he was going to sleep with one eye open. And that was going to be a welcome distraction for the fact that he wasn't going to sleep with Lance.

               Or that even when he and Lance had shared a room for at least 50% of the tour, they still hadn't talked much.

               It was going to be a long, long night, he thought, thinking about not thinking about Lance, and keeping up with the bundle of energy that was Christopher Kirkpatrick.

               However, Kirkpatrick barely said good night to him, before getting under the covers and fell asleep almost immediately, leaving Tony feeling somehow cheated out. He kinda was looking forward to have to worry for his hair that night.

               And that was other think that he really didn't want to think about, the fact that he had some inbuilt desire for suffering.

               He closed his eyes, trying to think about Lance, and about the nights when, even if they hadn't been done more than kissing, he had started to feel close to the other man again.

               One step at a time, it seemed.

               They were still not as close as they had been when they met. It had been the most casual encounter ever, or so it seemed to Tony. Outside of Anthony's, because the same day Tony opened his place, Lance rented the office next door for Freelance.

               Amazed that someone so young had started his own business, both had started talking to each other. When Tony had a bad day with a particularly nasty costumer, he went to Lance to drink a beer, and rant for a while. When Lance had a bad day because a singer didn't liked what was going on, or a studio wasn't ready, Lance could go down to Tony, and rant while his hair changed shape under the Italian's hands.

               It had been like that when both found out that neither liked girls at all. And, some time after, between Lance convincing Tony to dye his tips green, and Tony dyed Lance's hair in the weirdest Metallic Blue ever, they fell in love.

               They had been happy for exactly four months. Tony couldn't blame the Backstreet Boys for the sudden change on Lance, even when he had wished to have such an easy way out. The truth was that, no matter how much he wanted to deny it, Lance didn't love him as much as Tony loved Lance. For Lance, Freelance was first and foremost, and that was it. No one could come between him and his work.

               Not even Tony and his devotion.

               And that broke Tony's heart.

               Still, he wasn't so heartbroken and lost in his thoughts as to not to hear the soft sob coming from the other bed.

* * *

2.- Lies and tears

               Things went pretty much to hell after that night, so Tony couldn't process all what he had learned about Kirkpatrick just by hearing him cry.

               A girl from makeup had to quit, as she was pregnant. Tony really didn't understood what one thing had to do with the other, but let her go anyway, sure that she had her reasons.

               And, to top things up, Joshua and Justin were breaking up.

               Because according to Joshua, Justin had cheated on him.

               Not that Tony talked much to Joshua, as he hated the fact that Joshua never made sense but everyone else had listened to Joshua's tale of woe.

               And Tony didn't want to believe that.

               Because if Justin had cheated on Joshua that night…

               Better not think about it.

               Better to keep quiet.

"You ok. Tony?" Lance asked, worried. It was one of the few moments they had for themselves, outside of hotel rooms. They were supposed to be discussing if it was possible to let Howie's hair grow longer or if it was better to cut it while Howie still looked like a Boyband member and not a heavy metal reject.

"Yeah. Just thinking." Tony answered, not really sincere. "Our anniversary is coming up."

"I know. We'll still be on tour." Lance didn't smile. He never smiled when talking about the relationship in a 'work' place, as Tony had learned very early on. Lance was a private person, and Tony's enthusiasm sometimes clashed with that.

"I know."

               The longest talk they had had in weeks. And still, Tony couldn't bring himself to believe what his treacherous mind told him when he was alone.

               The meeting ended shortly after that, when Lance told Tony he trusted in his judgment regarding Howie's hair, Nick's sudden desire for a change of look and AJ's new found love for cornrows. And Tony let Lance go, as he always did, his love for the other man making it impossible for him to say his worries out loud.

               Outside the truck where Lance had his makeshift office, Tony could see Justin berating Nick again for mixing up the steps for one of Joshua's most complicated songs. Justin didn't seem to faced about the break up, not if you didn't look closely enough.

               If you did, you would notice how Justin was more ruthless in rehearsal, how there was no forgivable mistake.

               And things weren't better with Joshua.

               Joshua had took things the hard way, and had asked to be excluded for the rest of the tour. And even when Lance couldn't afford to loose the composer for the Backstreet Boys' last 5 hits, he had agreed that Joshua could return to Orlando.

               Tony didn't know what to think about Joshua's tears that morning, the last one he was going to spend among the crew.

               He was too busy trying to believe his own lies.

* * *

3.- I need you tonight.

               Christopher Allan Kirkpatrick hated hotels.

               He didn't liked to sleep in a place that was not his own house, his own bed, surrounded by his things. So the tour, as welcomed a distraction as it was, forced him to have the worst possible rooms a man could find.

               Well, not exactly.

               If there was one thing Lance Bass didn't do was to go cheap for his team. The rooms were nice.

               The problem was that somehow Bass did manage to find the most clumsy, distracted clerks ever. And suspiciously, the keys ended up mixed up a lot.

               The first time, Chris didn't really minded it much. Sharing a room with Tony Fatone wasn't unpleasant. The guy kept to himself all night, and didn't mention if he heard Chris cry. That was appreciated by Chris, and so, he had decided that Tony Fatone was a good man.

               The second time, Chris had ended up sharing the room with the guys from the light show. And he hadn't slept for even a minute (Which, in turn, ended up with Kevin wearing the most strange combination of purple, green and yellow for an interview the next day). The third time, he had been lucky, getting a room for himself. Unfortunately, it was a completely different hotel from the one in which the rest of the crew was staying.

               This, the fourth time, he was with Tony again.

               And that made Chris be sure that the mixed keys weren't exactly an accident, a slight oversight of their really collected manager.

               Because while Chris was locked up in a room with Fatone, Bass was sharing a room with the newly single Justin Timberlake.

               Like he had done the last three times the keys had gotten mixed up.

               It didn't take a genius to know what was going on. Chris had a very good idea of who had been the one with whom Justin had cheated on JC. And looking at Tony Fatone's shaddy eyes, he knew the taller man knew it too.

"You o.k., man?" He asked, almost against his will. He knew that the hairdresser wasn't o.k. and he knew that if he asked, a lot of things could happen. In the worst case scenario Chris could think, Tony could misunderstand his words and take them as an invitation.

               But Tony just looked at him for a long, long minute, before his eyes cracked and tears started to stain his cheeks.

"I love him." Tony finally said, between sobs. "But… I don't… I don't think that's enough anymore…"