The Whole Shebang
By Silk

Moments after Arthur left him, Curt stopped trying to struggle into his
clothing and settled back against the roughly-textured brick. Peering over the rooftop at the scenery below, he lit yet another cigarette, idly registering that if the drugs didn't kill him, the smokes would. He exhaled,a long, nearly transparent wisp of smoke leaving his lips with a soft gasp.

"So you were here," Curt muttered to himself. "Wonder what the fuck you
wanted then. Not me. *Never* me."

Curt shifted with a heavy sigh to lay on his back and stared up at the
morning sky. Why was it so hard for him to believe what Arthur said? That Brian came to see *him*? That Brian still *loved* him? It had taken a couple of years for that last hope to fade, and Curt wasn't really sure that it had. After all, wasn't *he* the one who had asked Mandy if she'd seen Brian?

"I don't want you back in my life. I don't," Curt whispered with a grimace of pain. His finger automatically tapped the ash off the end of his cigarette. "I couldn't go through that again, Bri. I don't even know how I did it the first time."

Liar, he told himself. You drowned yourself in alcohol and when that wasn't enough to anesthetize you, you resorted to long-forbidden drugs. But they didn't help. None of it helped. The truth is, you fucking moron, you never *did* get over Brian.

"I wanted it all. The whole shebang." Curt squeezed his eyes shut as the unwanted tears came. "But what I wanted most...you couldn't give me." He stabbed the ground with the cigarette, putting it out almost violently. He wrapped his arms around his bare chest and rolled onto his side. He was going to try to sleep now.

If he was lucky, there would be no dreams.

*****

Brian raised his eyes from his glass to survey the rapidly growing crowd at the bar. He didn't like to drink. At least, not alone. He figured he would pick up someone, *anyone* really, to take home with him. But suddenly there was a lump in his throat and he couldn't bear the thought of waking up next to one more someone who wasn't *Curt*.

He wasn't an introspective person. Not anymore. He might have started out that way, keeping his hopes and dreams to himself, but the one time he had dared to share them with someone, it had turned out badly. Very badly.

It wasn't Curt's fault. When they first met, they wanted the same things. But that was before Maxwell Demon and his own fucking ego got in the way.

"I blew it, baby," he murmured to himself, scowling at his reflection in the mirror hanging over the bar. The mirror image met his troubled eyes with a curiously accusatory expression.

"I don't want someone to *fuck*," he whispered. "I want someone to *hold* me. Maybe then I could sleep," he said, his words lost in the ambient noise that surrounded him.

No one noticed the man staring helplessly into his drink. What was one more hapless drunk with nothing to go home to?

*****

When Curt woke again, it was evening. The chill of the night air raised
goosebumps all over his body and he shivered. He raked a hand through his dirty blond hair and wondered if he could find someone to let him take a shower. He felt even more filthy than usual. Somehow that always struck him as vaguely ironic. A drug addict who felt compelled to stay clean. That had to be a first, Curt snorted as he lit his first cigarette since morning.

Maybe he could find a likely prospect at the pub down the street. If he
could find his shirt.

*****

"Whiskey. Neat."

The familiar phrase rocked Brian's senses like nothing else had for hours. He frowned at his reflection, not caring for the wide-eyed look of wonder in his eyes at the mere sound of his former lover's voice.

What was he doing here? And more to the point, had he seen him?

"Hey, man."

For a second, Brian thought Curt was addressing him, but then he realized that the punkish rocker was speaking to the bartender.

"Make it a double, okay?"

"You want to show me some cash, sunshine?" the bartender asked
sarcastically. He was more than acquainted with the likes of people like Curt Wild. He wanted the money up front.

"You can't run me a tab, man? I'm good for it."

"In your dreams, hotshot. I don't even know you and I don't like what I
see."

Curt blinked. He looked as though he wanted to protest, but he truly wasn't carrying any money on him. He was going to have to find a friend. Sooner than he thought.

Brian couldn't believe the words that came out of his mouth. With a
peremptory slap of bills on the counter, Brian inclined his head in Curt's direction. "I'll pay for him," he said softly.

The bartender nodded, but it was clear that he didn't care for Brian any more than he did Curt. The only difference was that Brian still had money.

Brian reached for a cigarette inside his jacket and pretended not to feel Curt's eyes on him. It was too much. Brian wasn't sure he could bear Curt being so close...and yet so far.

"Thanks," Curt rasped in his ear.

Brian fumbled for a few more moments before he found what he was looking for and withdrew a fresh cigarette. Curt produced a lighter and Brian was forced to make eye contact with him. Curt's hands were shaking as he struggled to hold the flame steady over the end of Brian's cigarette.

Brian took a long drag, holding the smoke in his mouth for as long as he could. But eventually he had to breathe. The drawn-out sigh that signaled his exhalation made Curt shudder, but not with the cold. The act of breathing out all that smoke drew attention to Brian's lips. Always full and sensual, Brian's mouth was inches away from Curt's, and it seemed to be poised expectantly, as if he were anticipating a kiss.

"How are you?" Curt asked, needing to say something, anything, to keep
himself from claiming that mouth that had never really belonged to him in the first place.

"How do you think?" Brian responded, his light blue eyes suddenly dull and gray.

"I heard you came to see me last night," Curt said quietly, attempting to keep what could only be heartache out of his voice.

"Yeah," Brian admitted, biting his lip.

Jesus. Curt wanted him so badly, he swayed on his feet. "Why?"

"Don't you know?" Brian asked, reacting to the need in Curt's eyes. His
entire body was rigid, painfully so, but he couldn't do more than place his cigarette carefully in a nearby ashtray.

"One last fuck for old times' sake?" Curt said bitterly.

Brian's nostrils flared as his light eyes darkened, giving him an
incongruously dangerous look. "It was never about *fucking*, Curt. If you don't know that, you don't know a Goddamn thing."

Curt slammed him up against the bar and trapped him there, his rough
fingertips restlessly kneading Brian's shoulders. Brian could feel the heat coming off Curt's body in waves. Oh, God, he'd longed for this.

"Hey, hey, break it up, boys. No fighting in here."

"We're not fighting," said Curt, his dark blue eyes intent on Brian's face.

Suddenly Curt was kissing Brian, brusquely nudging his lips apart for his tongue to slide inside. Brian opened his mouth on a sigh and Curt stepped between his legs, pressing his groin flush against Brian's. Despite the darkness of the bar, this was clearly unacceptable behavior. The bartender growled, "And none of that here neither!"

"Your place?" Brian whispered.

Curt laughed. "I don't have a place anymore." All at once quite sober, Curt said, "I don't have a fucking thing. Can't we go to your flat?"

Brian shook his head, relieved that Curt hadn't taken his hands off him. "I don't have anything left either."

"We could always rely on the kindness of strangers," Curt offered. But he didn't really mean it. He didn't want anyone touching Brian but *him*.

Brian reached up with one finger to stroke the side of Curt's face. "I'm tired of sleeping with people I don't know, Curt."

"Me, too."

"Guess in a way, this is almost like starting over, isn't it?" Brian asked with a wistful smile.

"Do you think we can?"

"I hope so."

To the consternation of the bartender, Curt wrapped his arms around Brian and buried his face in his hair. When the older man opened his mouth to say something, Curt glared at him so fiercely that the bartender quickly found something else to do.

"Oh, God, I missed you," Brian said, tangling his hands in Curt's long hair.

Curt drew back sharply and tugged on Brian's hands until he released his hair. Raising both hands to his lips, he kissed them. "You know I still love you, right?"

"I wasn't sure," Brian whispered. "Curt...I don't want to hurt you again."

"Ssh," Curt said, pressing a tender kiss to his lips, earning him a fervent response.

"I mean it. I know I never said it, but...I love you."

That was it. The whole shebang. Everything Curt had dreamed of...was still within his grasp.

And he was never going to let go.

End