Chapter One

SINGER BRIAN SLADE SHOT!

The newspaper lies on the bed next to a young man who appears to be sleeping peacefully. The headline, bold and tragic, is smudged, as if someone had spilled water onto it. The picture just below it depicts a man who is obviously enigmatic and beautiful despite the lack of colour in the photograph. He is turned slightly away from the camera, looking back over his shoulder and holding a microphone to his painted lips. His outrageously extravagant costume would have looked garish on anyone else, but he manages to pull it off with easy elegance and grace. The look in his eyes is intense, full of passion and life. At the bottom of the picture you can barely see the crowd in front of the stage, arms raised and mouths open in joyous screams at the sight of their idol. This is Brian Slade, and that is his greatest strength: his ability to make people love him, idolize him, worship him.

The young man on the bed is far less elegant but no less famous now. He is wearing only tight black leather pants, foregoing a shirt despite the chill of Berlin's winter air. He is on his stomach, head turned away from the newspaper and towards the bare, dingy white wall across from the bed. He is thin and pale; if he were on his back, his ribs would have been plainly visible. His shoulder-length bleached hair is tangled and falls into his face even when he is awake. If his eyes were open, they would be easily seen to be bloodshot and shining with the tears that seemed to plague him whenever he woke. The regret and depression would also easily be seen. This is Curt Wild, and he has few weaknesses; white chocolate, electric guitar, heroin and Brian Slade.

With Curt's arms under his head as they are, it is impossible to see the track marks on them. But they're there, and it is obvious that he is using again even without the appearance of the marks. On the dresser, less than a foot away from the sleeping man is a syringe. In the dresser drawer, underneath his shirts—just as tight as his pants and many also black—is the plastic baggie filled with heroin.

He hasn't been using again for very long, only a few days. Brian helped him get clean and he hadn't used at all throughout their relationship. Not even after the breakup. No, it had take much more than that to break Curt Wild.

When Curt first saw the newspaper, he had been in shock. He hadn't thought or felt anything at all as he bought the paper and walked back to the flat he sometimes shared with Jack Fairy (when the man bothered to come 'round). The realization of what had happened to his lover—former­ lover, anyway—hadn't hit him until late that night. He sat at the kitchen table, smoking a cigarette and holding a mug of coffee that had long since grown cold as he stared at the headline. He didn't read the article. Instead, he went to the sink, put his mug down, grabbed his coat—the one Brian had bought for him, he thought with only a faint stab of pain—and left.

Before he could fully comprehend what he was doing, Curt found himself in the dark corner of a seedy bar, buying heroin from a man with thinning hair and crooked yellow teeth. He had taken the offered syringe—new, he noted with only a tinge of relief, because it didn't really matter to him now—and pocketed it before turning around and walking back out into the night air.

Curt had the twenty minute walk back to the flat to change his mind and go back to get a refund. He didn't. Less than an hour after his purchase, the rocker was in his bedroom wrapping a belt around his arm and plunging the needle into his vein with practiced ease.

He didn't remember much after that. He knew he alternated between sobbing over the article about Brian, shooting up more heroin when the high threatened to wear off and cursing the pop star's memory. He spent four days almost constantly high, and that he knew Brian would have disapproved only made him feel worse.

Though he had tried hard not to let it show, Curt had been madly in love with Brian—to be honest, he still was. He had thought that Brian would never hurt him, he had thought that Brian had loved him too, but apparently he had been wrong.

X

Jack Fairy is in a good mood. The record he's currently working on in Berlin with his new-found friend Curt Wild is nearing completion, the price of cigarettes has fallen somewhat, he'd just gotten very good sex from someone who wanted to sleep with him almost constantly for four days and then never see him again and he has his own flat to go to, alleviating the worry of where to go.

He takes out his key to open the door to the apartment he shares with Curt, but when he gets one hand on the knob it swings open. Jack frowns. Curt isn't stupid enough to leave the door open, unless he's severely inebriated, which means nothing good for Jack...

"Curt?" he calls as he steps into the flat, shutting the door behind him. He shrugs off his leather trench coat and pulls off his hat, throwing them carelessly onto the kitchen table. The place looks exactly the same as it had before he left, nothing out of place, nothing missing... Yet something feels different, wrong even.

"Curt," he says again, and makes his way into the bedroom they share. There's only one bed in the apartment, and they're both more than willing to share it. "Are you in here?" Jack shoves the door open and sighs heavily. His blonde-haired roommate is passed out on the bed, a newspaper lying next to him.

"Curt," he shouts. "Wake up." The blonde stirs and groans but does not wake. Jack runs a hand through his short, auburn hair and wonders what to do with him. He walks farther into the room and catches sight of the newspaper. Jack normally doesn't bother himself with the news, and neither does Curt. So why does this particular issue seem to have caught his attention? He picks it up, looking at the front page.

"Oh," he says aloud, taking in the headline. "Oh." He drops it back onto the bed and looks at the singer again. He leans down to shake him but stops short. Laying on the dresser next to the bed is a syringe.

Jack sits down on the bed beside his friend, wondering if he had overdosed. Wondering if he will be alright. Wondering if he will wake up anytime soon.

"Curt, wake up. It's me—it's Jack," he says into Curt's ear. The blonde gasps and his eyes fly open. He pushes himself up and rolls over so that he's sitting on the bed, leaning back on his elbows.

"Are you alright?" Jack asks. Curt nods, slowly. His friend is confused for a moment by the unfamiliar look in those stunning grey eyes. It takes him a moment to identify it only because it's an emotion he is not used to associating with Curt Wild: fear. But of what, exactly?

"I'm fine," he mumbles, bringing Jack out of his musings. Curt gets up suddenly, leaving the bed. Jack sees him shiver, and wonders why he had been sleeping in only his pants—it's cold in Berlin, too cold for even Curt who is used to jumping around on stage in only his signature leather pants.

Jack watches him dig out a shirt and pull it on, followed by his boots. "Are you going somewhere?" he asks as Curt began to pull out all of his clothes.

"Well, yeah," is his answer, as if it is not only obvious, but expected.

"Why?" Jack asks. "Where?"

"I don't know," Curt answers, quietly. His voice is raw and rough, and Jack knows his throat must hurt. "Away."

"Why?" repeats his friend.

"You wouldn't want me here anymore," he answers, voice wavering. "Not now that I'm... you know." The rocker gestures to the syringe.

"Curt, I don't care," Jack says honestly. "My drummer and bassist are on cocaine and my—our producer uses his prescription pills for his supposed back pain."

He stops, and Jack doesn't like what he sees. Curt's shoulders are hunched over, his head is hung and he's shaking. He hopes it's the cold.

"Curt?"

"It's my fault," he whispers quietly. "It happened because of me. Because... because I wasn't there..."

"What are you talking about?" Jack asks, quite confused.

"I... Brian... he got shot..." Curt turns and Jack is floored by the realisation that his normally stoic, fun-loving friend is crying.

"Yes, I saw," Jack replies. He can't care less what happened to that scumbag who hurt his friend, but he won't let Curt know that. "I don't understand how this is your fault."

"If I'd been there... I could have... I could've stopped it... He'd said that... he'd said that he'd had visions of himself dying... dying on stage... but no one listened... I would've... I would've listened." Curt is weeping now, and Jack honestly has no idea what to do.

"Oh, Curt," he whispers sadly. So it is true, no matter how fervently Curt tries to deny it: he loves Brian. Rising from the bed, he steps towards Curt and pulls him into an embrace. The blonde tries to jerk away, but going the past few days without food and a steady intake of drugs had made him weak, and he can not push his friend away. As Jack's arms encircle him, he seems to break down completely. Curt allows his head to fall onto the other's shoulder and his arms to clutch at the shirt Jack wears.

"It wasn't your fault. There was nothing you could have done, even if you had been there," Jack tells him quietly.

"I shouldn't have left, Jack. I should've stayed with him," sobs Curt. "But, I..."

"He drove you away, Curt, there was nothing you could've done," he tries to reassure him. "The split was inevitable."

"But... I..." Curt takes a great, shuddering breath and continues so quietly that Jack is not sure he heard anything at all. "I love him."

X

Jack stays with his friend as he cries himself to sleep, half to make sure that he won't take any more heroin and half to reassure himself that this is really Curt and not one of Jack's drunken hallucinations. When the blonde is finally asleep, he rises and begins putting the clothes back into the drawers where they belong. As he's putting his friend's shirts away, he finds the small bag of heroin. He stares at it for a moment and starts reaching for it when the phone rings. Quickly, he pockets the bag and walks to the kitchen.

"Yes?" he says instead of the customary "hello."

"Is a... Mr. Wild there?" a shy, quiet female voice says. Jack smirks; obviously this woman has never met either of them. If she had, then there would be no way she would have called Curt "Mr. Wild."

"Why?" he demands.

"I'd like to speak with him," she says slowly, faltering.

"Who is this?" Jack asks, deciding not to jerk her around anymore.

"My name is Jennifer... I'm a nurse at the hospital where Brian Slade is being treated," she tells him. "He wants to see Mr. Wild, so we called the Berlin record company he's working with and they gave us this number..."

"Brian Slade?" Jack says, focusing on the name. The man who made his best friend cry... The man who made him turn back to drugs, one of the things he hated most in the world...

"Yes, he was shot three days ago," she says. "On the fourth."

"I know," he answers, mind reeling. Should he hang up and not tell Curt about the call? Should he wake his friend? "Thank you for letting me know. I'll make sure he gets the message."

"Thank you, Mr...?"

"Fairy," he says, chuckling. "Jack Fairy." Jack hears a surprised gasp on the other end and smiles as he hung up the phone.

"Curt," he says, trying to wake up his friend again. "Come on, wake up."

"What?" croaks the blonde.

"You have to get up so you can help me pack," answers Jack. His friend rolls over, straight out of the bed and just barely manages to land on his feet.

"I knew it," he says under his breath. "You don't want me here."

"No," he answers, "I'm going with you." Curt stops short and turns around to face the taller man.

"What?" he asks, bewildered. "Where are we going?"

"London," Jack replies cheerfully. "A certain someone had a nurse call. He wants to see you." He takes out two suitcases and starts throwing their clothes in. He notices Curt hasn't moved an inch. "Curt."

"What about the record?" His eyes are hopeful, and Jack knows he's picturing his reunion with Brian.

"It can wait," he answers. More softly, gently, he continues: "He needs you, Curt."

That seems to do the trick. The blonde springs into action, helping Jack with the clothes. Most of them were Jack's anyway—Curt hadn't taken anything with him when he left Brian except the clothes on his back, cigarettes, his favourite lighter, and a Polaroid of the two of them in bed together, taken by Mandy Slade.

They finish quickly, and Jack sends Curt to call a cab while he dumps the bag of heroin back into the dresser.

X