"Curt doesn't know I'm here," Dr. Holtz explained. "It's not so much that I'm keeping our meeting from him as from-"

"Jack," Brian supplied, suddenly keenly interested in what the doctor had to say.

Holtz nodded. "When you left Berlin, you thought Curt rejected you?" he queried.

Brian glanced quickly at his ex-wife before agreeing. "Yes. That's why I left. He pushed m-me out of his l-life and-"

"Do you know why?"

Brian shook his head mutely.

Holtz sighed. "Neither do I. But I do know one thing. Jack punished Curt after you were gone."

Brian gasped. "For what? What did he do to him?"

"The only thing I can tell you with any degree of certainty is this. Jack...forced Curt."

"Forced? You mean he raped him?" Brian very nearly leaped out of his chair, but a gentle press of Mandy's hand to his wrist kept him seated.

The doctor nodded again, his expression grim. "Beat him, too, from the look of him. I tried to intervene, but my message to you...went astray."

"You mean Jack managed to intercept it," Brian corrected.

"Yes. I'm almost sure of it."

"Jesus. All this time I've been concerned with what happened to me, and Curt..." Brian swallowed over the lump in his throat, his eyes suddenly filled with unshed tears. But not for himself. This time, he was sadly conscious of who had suffered more.

An image of Curt, badly beaten and compelled to be submissive, flashed into Brian's brain, searing it there savagely. "I'll kill him," Brian said softly yet distinctly. That he meant Jack Fairy was equally clear.

"Brian, no," Mandy interjected. "Chances are, Jack won this much by threatening you. I think Curt's been trying to protect you all along. All of it's terribly suspicious. The fight in the recording studio, the way he rejected you in Berlin, and then there's..." She broke off, waiting expectantly for the doctor to fill in the rest of the blanks.

Holtz smiled sympathetically before continuing. "Curt suffered a very real trauma when your...death...was announced. He's recovered," he added quickly when he saw how stricken Brian looked.

"But?" Brian prompted.

"But he still has something I'd call...hysterical anesthesia."

"Doc, please," Brian protested. "In English."

"Curt's anxiety level was so high, his body literally went numb."

"What?"

"He can't play the guitar anymore because his fingers can't feel the strings. He can move them...he just can't feel anything."

"Oh, God."

Brian reacted as Mandy predicted. Emotionally. He wanted to strike Jack down and avenge Curt. That would be as good a motivator as any.

Holtz smiled kindly. "Brian, taking revenge against Jack wouldn't help Curt nearly as much as you think. Curt is buried in anger right now, and he needs to let that go before he can heal."

"You mean there's a chance he could get better?"

"Yes. You're that chance."

*****

"Curt, you're not singing that fucking song."

"Fuck off, Jack. It's my song."

"It's our record. I say it's out."

"Stop trying to push me around, Jack. It won't work anymore." Brian's alive, Curt thought, and I'm going to see that he stays that way. I'm going to make him hear me. Somehow.

Curt brushed past Jack on his way to the wings, and Jack couldn't follow him. He had to begin the introduction to the concert. "...the Death of Glitter!"

The crowd roared as The Flaming Creatures broke into Twentieth Century Boy. Jack's eyes scanned the people backstage. No one who didn't need to be there. Wait, wasn't that Mandy Slade? What the hell was she doing here?

Brian watched anxiously as Mandy made her way through the literally rocking throng. He stood in the doorway, his face and body hidden by an oversized hat and coat. He looked like a little boy lost under the blue light. His hands shook slightly as they adjusted the collar of his coat, and for a moment, his well-known face was clearly silhouetted before it vanished into the deepening shadows again.

Mandy darted into the wings before Jack could reach her, pressing a piece of paper into Curt's hand before moving into the audience once more. Curt frowned and opened the note. Jesus, it was Brian's handwriting.

"I'm here."

That was all it said. Curt clutched the note to his bare chest like a blind man who craved sight. "Brian," he said out loud, the sound disappearing into the surrounding din.

He was here. It didn't matter where. Curt could close his eyes and wrap his arms around himself and be back there. In the time when he and Brian made love. And Brian would hear him sing.

That song.

The one that Jack hated because it represented everything pure and good in Curt's wretched life. It wasn't a pretty song. Love wasn't always pretty. To Curt, more often than not, it was messy and complicated, but it was real when he was in Brian's arms.

"Oh, God, I want that again. If you're listening...and please be listening...I need to feel that way again," Curt muttered under his breath, lips barely moving.

He felt Jack coming before he saw him, but he eluded him, grabbing a mike on his way out. The Flaming Creatures had finished and joined the crowd of enthusiastic fans anticipating the return of Curt Wild to the stage. They flashed Curt the high sign, and he gave them a thumb's up.

The throb of the bass line energized the audience who continued to bob in time to the music. Curt strode to the center of the stage and looked out. Somewhere in that sea of faces was the man he loved. He stared into the blue spotlight, his eyes momentarily unfocused, and felt the familiar build-up of sexual tension in his body. It had been so long. It seemed like forever since someone touched him with love.

"Gimme danger..."

Little stranger. That was Brian. Curt gripped the mike tightly in both hands and groaned the lyrics that were so close to his heart. "Kiss me like the ocean breeze..."

He nearly fell to his knees when he sang that line. His hand twitched, and for a second, he thought he could feel something more than the numbness he'd become accustomed to.

He threw himself to the floor, flailing his body as though he was having a seizure. Christ, he felt like he was being electrocuted. Then the sensation passed through him and into him and jolted his body halfway into the air.

Throughout all of this, he continued to sing, reaching the chorus in a state that was almost trance-like. "I wanna feelllll it..."

Over and over he chanted the phrase like a favorite mantra. It was the key to reclaiming his feelings. It was the key that could unlock his heart again. It would be painful, he had no doubt about that, but it was necessary.

Suddenly he exploded in a fit of frustration and ill-concealed temper, his arms and legs working at odds with each other till the music faded into the background, a startling counterpoint to what he was feeling now. "I wanna fucking feel it," he clipped out, pain forming each word like a bite in his mouth.

His fingers caressed his left nipple before raking their way across his chest. Then he slid his left hand down till it reached the belt buckle he wore above the top of his silver lame pants. He could feel it now, Brian's hands caressing him, loving him, pulling him closer to the edge.

He wanted so little. He needed so much. His body arched taut like the strings of his guitar. He whimpered piteously, low in his throat, and clung to the note that crumpled within his hands. He's here, he's here, he thought with a frisson of excitement dancing along the length of his spine. He could feel that!

He cried out involuntarily, his pleasure at being able to feel something again only slightly overshadowed by the pain that surged its way across nerve endings that had been put to sleep months ago.

He rolled over onto his stomach, his back already clenched uncomfortably tight as the muscles went into spasm. He lay there spent, trying in vain to summon the energy to get up. Panting. Then sobbing. For what he had lost. For what he could never get back. For what he had yet to recapture.

His health.

His music.

But above all else, his heart. It was somewhere out there in the restless throng.

With Brian.

*****

Someone helped him up, and he turned with a grateful smile, only to find Jack Fairy glaring at him. "Let go of me," Curt said. His face was wet with tears and sweat and ruined eye make-up, but he shone brilliantly, like the star he once was. Like the star he could be again.

"No," Jack said, his eyes gleaming ferociously even in the relative darkness.

Curt wrenched his wrist out of Jack's grasp with a power barely hinted at before, and for a moment, Jack seemed startled. "You could feel that," he declared.

"Yeah. No thanks to you," Curt said bitterly. "Now get the fuck away from me."

Curt was several feet away before Jack yelled after him, "He won't take you back, you know. Not now."

Curt spun around with an agility that he thought he'd lost. "That's what you think," he said.

"I can get rid of him...any time I want," Jack threatened.

Curt trudged wearily back to where Jack stood, his intentions clear as crystal. "This time you'll have to go through me." Once the two men were face to face, Curt growled, "If you so much as talk to him, Jack, I swear I'll kill you."

"Brave words, Curt. But this isn't over," Jack sneered.

"Yes, it is," a voice behind Jack announced.

Jack whirled to face his new adversary. "Brian! I thought you were-"

"Strung out on coke?" Brian laughed, but it wasn't a pretty noise at all. It reeked of despair and hostility, its sour notes ringing in Jack Fairy's ears.

"Brian-"

"I could kill you..." Brian said in a deceptively soft voice. "...for what you've done to him."

Curt frowned anxiously. "No!"

"But it wouldn't be enough," Brian continued as if he hadn't heard. "I could kill you over and over and it would never be enough, Jack."

Jack didn't care for the dangerous glint in Brian's eyes. He could call for help, but he had a feeling that no one would come. Even Jerry seemed to have deserted Jack in his hour of need. Meanwhile, the drama played out off-stage, out of view of the audience or security personnel, the only interested parties people who would very much like to see Curt avenged.

"You took something that belonged to me...and you refused to give it back."

"So did you," Jack blurted out, referring to the faux emerald pin reputed to have been Oscar Wilde's.

Brian began to nod slowly. "You think that's a fair trade, Jack? Curt's fucking life for a piece of green glass?"

Jack was stricken dumb.

Brian pulled the pin out of his coat pocket and offered it to Jack. Jack regarded the pin twinkling in the palm of Brian's hand with something like fear. "You're giving it back?"

Brian threw the stone at Jack, and when Jack ducked, Brian used the opportunity to pull Curt away from him. With Curt's body flush against his side, Brian could feel the damp heat radiating off his former lover. Heat that was both familiar and welcome. Brian pushed back a long wet strand of blond hair away from Curt's face, and Curt clamped a hand on Brian's wrist, his grip astonishingly strong.

"You're better," Brian whispered, his light blue eyes mesmerized by the look on Curt's face.

"Because of you," Curt whispered back.

Sensing that the two men wouldn't notice if he left, Jack started to back up. Right into the arms of Mandy Slade. "Where do you think you're going?"

"Anywhere I bloody well like."

"You think you can get away with rape?"

"You can't prove that. You know what a slut Curt Wild is. Everybody knows. He'll lie down for anyone," Jack spat angrily.

"Funny. That's not what he says."

"It's his word against mine. You'll never prove a thing," Jack added.

"Well..." Brian said. "We could always ask the fans what they think-"

Jack disappeared before they could put it to a vote.

*****

tbc