This is the eighteenth story in the Rewriting History series, and it follows Smothered A Kiss. This was very, very hard to write. :( The angst, as might be expected, is thick enough to cut with a knife. I hope I've done this scene justice in my own way.

Warnings: m/m, MAJOR angst, AU, *rampant* bad language, and spoilers for the movie, including dialogue for a particular scene.

~Silk

*****

A Torturous Hardship That Smolders

By Silk

Brian walked through the hotel doors and straight into a torrential downpour. He was soaked to the skin by the time he reached the street, but he didn't turn around. Instead he lifted his face up to the skies and let the rain wash all of Curt's painstakingly applied make-up off his face. Eyeliner streaked down both cheeks, making it look as though he was crying. That wasn't all that far from the truth.

He tried to light a cigarette with shaking hands, but the rain made that impossible. With a sob, he broke the cigarette in two and threw it away. "Dammit!"

Curt would be wondering where he was. Oh, God, Curt. Brian closed his eyes and thought, Maybe I'll fucking drown right here. It would be less painful.

As soon as he went inside, he shrugged off his wet velvet jacket. It was completely ruined, but he couldn't care less. He wadded it into a ball and shoved it into a corner of the lift, earning him strange looks from some of the other passengers. Brian glared at them, his red-rimmed eyes giving him a vaguely psychotic look that kept everyone at a distance. "What the fuck are you all looking at?"

He was alone after the lift doors opened again. He didn't particularly enjoy the ride.

*****

Curt hadn't had a drink since he'd toasted Brian at the media circus. Alcohol wasn't on the list of recommended things for former substance abusers to drink. But he was seriously considering falling off the fucking wagon. He didn't know what was going on, but he knew that Jerry was involved. Maybe even Mandy. That felt like a conspiracy to him.

He could understand why Mandy hated him. He'd come between her and Brian, and he was a very real threat to her marriage. But Jerry...Jerry was the one who had offered him another shot at having a career in music. At Brian's urging, Curt added with a wince. Maybe none of this would have happened if Brian hadn't been so adamant about Curt cutting a record with him.

But then...Curt's fevered brain struggled to make sense of what he'd seen and heard...maybe he would never have seen Brian again. Suddenly he craved a drink with sickening urgency.

*****

Brian slammed into the bedroom without a word to Curt. He began pulling things out of the dresser and tossing them onto the floor. Curt stood up unsteadily. "What happened to you?" he asked, noting that Brian's face looked as if it had been scrubbed clean, but traces of black eyeliner were pooled around the neck of his shirt.

"What does it look like? I'm changing my clothes!"

"Why?"

Brian spun around, his light blue eyes almost electrifying in their intensity. "Why? Cause I'm fucking wet, that's why!"

"How did you get so wet?" Curt asked hesitantly. "I thought you were with Jerry."

"I was. I went out. For a walk."

"A walk?" Curt raised his eyebrows in disbelief. "It's fucking raining out there, man."

"No kidding." With that, Brian turned his back on Curt, leaving the other man to ponder what new mood this was and how to deal with it.

"I don't get it, Bri. What was so fucking important that Jerry had to pull you aside, huh?"

"Are you sure you don't already know, Curt?"

"Why would I ask, man, if I already knew? What the fuck kind of attitude is that, Brian?"

"Never mind," Brian said through clenched teeth, brushing past Curt on his way to the bathroom.

*****

Brian couldn't stand to be near him. That was what Curt's tormented mind made out of the next few hours. Alternately sullen and sarcastic, Brian seemed torn between actively disparaging him and avoiding him altogether.

By the end of the night, Curt was at his wit's end. "What the fuck did I do, Brian? Talk to me, man. You owe me that much," he cried hoarsely.

"Nothing, Curt," Brian ground out. The pain in Curt's eyes was almost too much for him to bear. He truly didn't seem to know what could have upset Brian. For a second, Brian considered telling him what Jerry had said. But hard on the heels of that thought came another. What if Curt was pretending? What if all of it had just been one big fucking lie?

Curt gave up and went to bed. Brian waited until he was sure that Curt was asleep before he stripped off his clothes and crawled under the covers. Making certain that his body didn't touch his lover's, Brian pummeled his pillow into submission and closed his eyes.

But the moment he did, all he saw was Curt's face, begging Brian to let him in on whatever secret he was keeping.

"Curt," he whispered.

The man in question rolled over and wrapped his arms around Brian's chest. "I'm here, babe," Curt whispered back.

"I'm not," Brian said, tears suddenly filling his eyes.

Curt didn't even ask him what he meant. He simply sighed and nestled closer, pressing a kiss to Brian's nape. "I love you, Bri."

"Please...don't..." Brian entreated, the pain of betrayal scalding his eyes now.

"Don't what? Don't love you?" Curt asked softly. "Ask me anything else, babe. Not that."

Brian buried his face in his pillow and cried as silently as he could.

Neither one of them slept much that night.

*****

After a week of not sleeping and not eating, Brian and Curt were both too high-strung and volatile to be good company for anyone. When Jerry demanded that Brian finish up the record with Curt, tempers flared all too predictably.

"Do we have to do this now, Jerry? Couldn't this wait till the tour is over?"

"Brian...we discussed this. Remember?" That was Jerry's way of reminding Brian of what he'd told him about Curt.

Brian's sudden pallor alarmed Curt, but Brian pushed him away when Curt tried to touch him. "I don't want your fucking hands all over me!"

It was all Jerry could do not to smile. If he'd had a moustache, he would have twirled it just the way the old-fashioned villains in silent movies had done.

"Curt, why don't you get started in the studio? I'll make sure that Brian's all right."

That didn't sit well with Curt at all. He still didn't understand what was going on, but he knew when he was being manipulated. He could hear the whirr of Jerry's machinations from where he stood.

*****

Things rapidly went from bad to worse. Curt couldn't concentrate. These weren't the songs he'd written for Brian's album. These were shit, thrown together by God knows who. How the hell was he supposed to sing material like this? Curt knew he didn't have the world's best voice, but he was a very emotional singer. He couldn't sing something he didn't connect with.

This was Jerry's doing. He was sure of it.

But his protests fell on deaf ears. Jerry accused Curt of not being a team player, and Curt felt Brian's glare through the plexiglass window of the recording booth. Well, fuck him. Fuck them both.

He had the lyrics down cold. Something about being unclean...healing disease...some crap like that. It was easy to remember, but hell on his vocal cords. The song wasn't even written for someone with his range.

Curt suffered through three more takes before things came to a head. Jerry had an evil glint in his eye, and Curt refused to look at him. "Maybe someone should get the fucking songwriter in here. The song sucks, man."

"I don't recall asking you for your opinion, Curt," Jerry said smoothly.

"Well, I'm the one who has to sing the damn thing."

"And a splendid job you're doing, too," Trevor hooted, his ever-present smirk making him a target for Curt's wrath.

"Why don't you talk to your fucking girlfriend, man? Not me."

"Why are you wasting our time, Curt?" Jerry intervened. "Just sing the fucking song. We've already wasted what? Forty hours on two fucking cuts?"

"Let's do one more," Brian said quietly.

Jerry stared at Brian as if he'd lost his mind. "Fine," he said tightly, chomping down on his cigar. "Let's go again, Eton."

Brian signaled to Curt almost absently. They still weren't talking to one another, and things had been strained to the breaking point when they were alone in their bedroom.

Eton re-started the tape, and everyone held their collective breath.

*****

Curt's mournful wail filled the studio. Brian swore, "Shit!"

Eton turned to Jerry and asked, "Should I stop it?"

Jerry nodded, but Brian interjected, "Not yet."

Curt continued to sing, seemingly oblivious to the treacherous undercurrents flowing through the studio. Eton waved a finger at Brian. "Now he's going to hit the bridge half a verse too early."

Jerry sighed heavily. "Now you're simply wasting tape."

Brian gnawed on his thumb. This felt dangerously like betrayal to him. No matter what Curt stood accused of, there was enough history between them that Brian couldn't just...

...but in the end, he did just that.

"Cut it."

The tape stopped abruptly. Curt blinked, noticing right away that the music was no longer playing. "What? What? Is there a problem?"

Brian slowly turned to face Curt, his expression virtually unreadable. "Because you messed up."

Curt's face was a mask of outrage, but Brian turned his back on him, adding sotto voce, "*Again*."

"What? What?"

Jerry could see where this was going, and fast, so he clicked on the mike. "We're sorry, Curt, but it appears-"

Curt pointed his index finger at Jerry, effectively silencing him. He then pointed that same finger at Brian, saying in a low threatening growl, "What?"

Brian bent his head down to the level of the mike, careful not to actually look at Curt. "Curt, we only ask that when you're going to make changes, you inform us in advance so Eton here can be properly prepared. Otherwise--"

Curt looked puzzled. "I don't know what the fuck you're talking about, man. I didn't make any fucking change."

For a long moment, they simply stared at each other. "Brian?" Curt couldn't keep the plaintive note from coloring his voice.

Suddenly it hit Curt with all the subtlety of a train wreck. Betrayal tasted bittersweet no matter how often it was forced down your throat. "You motherfucker! Fuck you! Fuck you! You fucking motherfucker!"

Brian winced at the fury in those clear gray eyes, and make no mistake, now he knew that Curt wasn't on anything but pure adrenaline. Curt grabbed a stool and threw it through a glass panel at the back of the recording booth with a resounding crash, never once stopping his obscenely repetitive tirade.

Jerry motioned to the engineer. "Eton, please."

Eton cut the sound from the booth, and the silence that fell over the studio was quite deafening.

"Brian, I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, but what started out as an interesting experiment has quite frankly descended into a demeaning waste of your time and mine. I mean, you've already spent forty hours of studio time-"

"Thirty-six," Brian corrected, feeling his lips go numb.

"Whatever, thirty-six, then. Cutting what? Two bloody cuts?" Pause. "Brian, you seem to forget. You're a very big star now. And I think your time is worth a great deal more than this-" Jerry clicked the mike switch open.

Suddenly the air was filled with Curt's rage, most of it aimed at Brian. "You fucking space queen on your fucking high horse! Fuck you! And all your fucking henchmen! Fuck you! Ahhhhh!"

The sound of Curt screaming rocked Brian to the core. With an insouciance he was far from feeling, he asked brightly, "Perhaps it's time for a little break, eh, fellas? Give us a little stretch? Jerry?"

Jerry drew himself up to his full height with a great sigh. "I can't risk extending his contract, Brian. I think it's quite clear why."

"But Jerry...I thought you said that Curt was moving on. What about the record deal? The money? You said-"

Jerry shook his head sadly. "Brian, you're a constant source of disappointment to me, you know that?"

"You mean it was all a fucking *lie*?"

"Try explaining that to the boyfriend," Jerry said, glancing at Curt, who showed no signs of stopping or even slowing down his methodical trashing of the recording booth.

"You fucking-"

"Ah, ah, ah," Jerry warned with a wag of his finger. "I'd love to stick around and watch you two work things out, but...well, no, actually, I wouldn't. Ciao."

*****

Brian registered the sudden stillness behind the glass. Curt was panting and out of breath, but for whatever reason, he had stopped.

Slowly Brian approached the booth. He wasn't afraid that Curt would hurt him. During the entire time that Curt was acting out, he never lost sight of where Brian was or what Brian was doing. His aim was astonishingly good, too, and yet, Curt never turned it to his obvious advantage.

"Are you okay?" Brian asked, vaguely stunned at the sound of his own voice.

"Fuck you," Curt said wearily, his blond hair falling into his eyes.

"I can explain-" Brian reached out a hand to place his palm against the glass.

Curt studied Brian for a moment before he glanced fleetingly at his hand. With a sound that was part sob and part shudder, Curt turned his back on his lover and walked away.

End