This is the twelfth story in the Rewriting History series, and it follows Essential Dreaming.

Warnings: m/m, AU, a teensy bit of angst, occasional bad language, and big spoilers for the movie.

After this, Curt and Brian are going to take a much-needed holiday. ;)

~Silk

*****

Varda the Message

By Silk

"Did you tell Jerry about this?"

"Not in so many words, no." Brian sat in front of the mirrored table in his dressing room and lightly dusted his face with powder. He looked *hot*...and he knew it. Something in Curt's expressive face caught his attention and held it. He stared at his lover's reflection for one long moment before turning slowly to face him.

"Are you worried about how this is going to go over, Curt?"

"No." Curt's voice rustled like dry leaves. "It's just..." Curt looked down at his hands, which were clenching and unclenching almost restlessly, before making eye contact again. "I thought we'd have more time, you know?"

"For what?"

"Before we went so public, man."

"Are you ashamed of me, Curt?"

Curt shook his head, his dirty blonde hair falling across his face in unruly strands that Brian longed to push out of his face. "You know that's not it, Bri," Curt said, his low sensual rasp a vibration that raked across Brian's fingertips. Brian looked up at his lover, his fingers a stroke away from caressing Curt's mouth.

Suddenly Brian's light blue eyes darkened and became uncharacteristically somber. "You want to know if *you're* more important than *this*?"

Curt was afraid to move for fear of breaking the tenuous connection that held them fast to one another. "Yeah," he whispered, black eyeliner emphasizing the bleak look in his gray eyes.

For the longest time, Brian didn't speak, and Curt thought he had his answer. He was part of the machinery that drove Maxwell Demon now. But his heart lamented, I'm not in love with Maxwell Demon.

Brian stood up and cupped Curt's chin in his hand. "You are...the only one...who matters, Curt."

"Prove it," Curt said hoarsely.

Brian smiled faintly. "You think I won't *kiss* you because I might smear my make-up? You think I won't *fuck* you right here because there are thousands of people waiting outside?"

"Words, baby, words."

A wicked glint entered Brian's blue gaze. "Well, here's some more words. Let's go away together. After the concert. You and me."

"We've got to play Hammersmith."

"We'll be back before that."

"God, Brian. What will Jerry say? Mandy?"

"Fuck 'em all."

Slowly but surely Curt's entire body relaxed. "We're really going to do this."

"Yeah."

"Let's give them something to remember."

"Varda the message," Brian agreed, unhurriedly pulling a hand through Curt's long hair before he kissed him.

*****

The low throb of the bass guitar signaled the opening of "Baby's On Fire". Brian took the microphone in his right hand and glanced into the wings as he began to sing. Curt was there, bouncing up and down like a puppy trying to get the attention of its master.

When Brian sang the word "baby", Curt grinned and tossed his long hair back and forth. For once he was eager to show off for the crowd. Relieved by Brian's reassurances, Curt felt high. But not on drugs. The playful part of his nature surged to the fore, and he literally danced onstage to plug in his guitar.

As Curt started to play, he could feel the noise level of the crowd abruptly rise. He met Brian's eyes as he twisted the strings of his guitar together to produce a wail that went right through him. Brian bent down, his hands sliding down his thighs as he circled Curt. But it was that predatory half-smile that struck Curt like a sucker punch to the gut. Curt backed up, but Brian continued to advance, never taking his glittering eyes off the other man.

Brian was stalking him, for Christ's sake, and the audience was in a rare state of excitement. Curt played as though he was hypnotized, and in a way, he was. Brian's costume sparkled under the hot lights, his bare shoulder glistening with sweat that Curt wanted desperately to lick off.

Brian's gaze sank lower...and lower...until Curt felt like he was brandishing his guitar as a shield. Slowly, in time with the bass line, Brian crept closer...and closer. Anticipation grew inside Curt, his fingers splayed protectively across the heart of his guitar, and he felt as if he were taking every single breath along with Brian.

Suddenly, without telegraphing what he was about to do, Brian dove to his knees between Curt's legs, his tongue flicking out to caress the guitar strings that guarded Curt's lower body. Brian gripped the waist of Curt's pants, inadvertently pulling them low on his hips, as he continued to lap almost delicately at the fine strands on the electric guitar that concealed Curt's groin.

Energized to the point of being hyperactive, Curt brought both hands down to strike a strident chord, unintentionally pushing Brian's head away, and cartwheeled away from him, lifting his guitar high into the air as he completed the break. Brian fell back onto his hands, his mouth wide open in mock horror, and crawled backwards. Curt chased after him, straddling Brian with his wild, wailing guitar, until Brian abruptly stopped and slumped to the floor in a boneless heap.

Curt skipped back in the other direction, chortling with glee like some demented schoolboy, while Brian gracelessly pulled himself along the floor without using his legs. Glancing back over his shoulder at his lover, Brian drew himself up to a standing position one awkward movement at a time.

Curt smiled. Even when he tried to look inelegant, Brian couldn't quite pull it off.

The audience roared its approval.

They came back for three encores. Curt despaired of ever getting Brian off the damn stage, and to be perfectly honest, his fingers were beginning to bleed. But he would rather die than admit it.

Brian would make it up to him.

He'd better.

*****

Back at the hotel, there was an orgy in progress. Everyone in the entourage, including Jerry and the ubiquitous Shannon, was engaged in some form of sexual act, most of them with multiple partners. Mandy shrieked her delight, and pulled Cooper's head to her breast. He was a dutiful lover, even if he was boring, but then, he would probably rather be fucking *Brian*. Mandy rolled over onto her stomach, her eye makeup smeared, making her look more like a raccoon than the 25-year old woman she was. Where *was* Brian anyway? Her kohl-smudged eyes sought out her husband, and she breathed an unconscious sigh of relief to find him in the arms of two barely legal girls.

Turning to her side, she found Curt on the opposite side of the room, staring at Brian in silent entreaty. While she watched, Curt got up, extricating himself from the arms of several nubile young women, and sauntered to the door of the adjoining bedroom, his eyes never leaving Brian's face.

Twisting around to face the other way, Mandy saw her husband get up in similar fashion. But where Curt's walk was somewhat self-assured, Brian's was curiously tentative, either due to guilt or simply because Mandy was eyeing him with fat intent.

It's funny how beautiful people look when they're walking out the door, Mandy thought with a pang. Those thoughts should have been buried when Brian first laid eyes on Curt. But sometimes, when she least expected it, they resurfaced.

She'd think about it tomorrow, she promised herself. Scarlett O'Hara had nothing on Mandy Slade.

*****

There was nothing tentative about the way Brian held Curt, however. The two of them made love the way some people wrestled, a post-coital haze descending upon them with stunning intensity.

It was more than sex. Or infatuation. They were star-crossed lovers playing at Romeo and Juliet, with all of the rapture and none of the tragedy that befell Shakespeare's most famous couple.

When Brian rolled onto his stomach, Curt followed suit, spooning behind him, one hand possessively claiming his hip, the other affectionately buried in his hair.

That was how Shannon found them. Together. In the same bed. Their naked bodies redolent of sex, but more to the point...love.

Gasping in disbelief, the stricken young woman backed into the corridor. Moments later, she was crying on Mandy's shoulder, the older woman scrutinizing her with considerable suspicion. "Now, darling, don't go on so. Brian would be positively chuffed to know that-"

"You can't tell him! Swear you won't tell him! Swear!" Shannon cried out.

Mandy almost fell over in her haste to get away from the younger woman. "I swear," she declared.

Quietly, Mandy crept along the dimly lit hallway, pushing open the bedroom door with more than a little trepidation. Seconds later, she shoved the door open all the way and strode into the room.

The bed was empty. Soiled, rumpled linens clung half-heartedly to the mattress. Brian and Curt's clothing was strewn around the room haphazardly, as though they had literally torn one another's garments from their overheated bodies.

An inexplicable look crossed Mandy's face when she found the note.

"Sudden change in plans. Brief holiday. Much needed. Back before Hammersmith. B."

Things would never be the same after that.

End