For Nico, who asked for depressed!Chris and
evil-eyebrow-asshole!Kevin.  (With a side helping of Saint!Brian
and abuser Joey.)  Based on her post on character stereotypes
(http://www.livejournal.com/talkread.bml?journal=xoverau&itemid=7
5129).


Pairing: Chris and Kevin
Words: apathetic; charade; bacon; minstrel


Kevin went ballistic when Brian showed up for rehearsal with long
red marks on his back that looked like someone had been beating
him.

"What the *hell* is going on?" Kevin thundered, looming over Brian.

Brian shrugged.  "Not sure what you're talking about, coz."

"What the hell happened to your back?" Kevin asked again, biting
off each word precisely.

"Could you please not curse?" Brian asked.

"Brian... I'm not asking you again."

"Well, good."  Brian wandered off in the direction of his towel and
bottle of water.

Kevin caught up to him in two long strides and grabbed him by the
shoulders, yanking hard on them and whirling him around.  He shook
him.  "What's going on?"

Brian shrugged.  "Mortification of the flesh.  Nothing you need to
worry about.  The marks won't scar, and they'll fade long before we
have to perform again."

"Brian, someone's beating you up."

"Yes, I know."  And Brian smiled at him beatifically, ducked away
from his hands, and went to get some water.

So, of course, Kevin had to follow Brian.  Not just to the water
bottle, but home.  And when Brian went out.  To keep an eye on him
and an eye out for the guy who'd done this to Brian.  Kevin was
doing it for Brian's own good naturally, since Brian was obviously
too sweet and wholesome to understand what he was getting into.

Kevin's intention was to beat the shit out of whoever was doing
this to Brian.  Let the sadistic asshole who was abusing Brian get
a taste of his own medicine.

He spent two weeks following Brian around until there was a break
in their rehearsal schedule.  Brian, he found out from their
security, had a plane ticket to Minneapolis, and wouldn't be
returning until just before they were starting up again.  This
seemed suspicious to Kevin.  Who the hell went to Minneapolis?

Kevin got his own ticket to Minnesota.

It really didn't surprise him much to find out that Brian's
ultimate destination was an upscale, but otherwise anonymous,
hotel.  Precisely the kind of place for a clandestine rendezvous. 
Thick walls and no one to really care about comings and goings. 
Perfect.

Except for the screaming hordes of people outside the hotel.  He
felt like he was on tour.  The only difference was, the hordes had
NSYNC signs.

Those bastards.  NSYNC, not the screaming hordes.  Kevin wouldn't
put anything past NSYNC.  It was probably Lance abusing poor,
innocent Brian.  Kevin had always hated Lance.  Lance used his
Southern drawl -- exaggerated, of course -- to get people to do
what he wanted, pretending to a facade of gentility and naivete
that was just not possible.  Kevin could see through *that*
charade.  Anyone who got to their level of fame wasn't that
untouched -- or to the lesser level of fame that NSYNC had
achieved, which wasn't nearly as good and was based solely on their
appeal to hormonal teenage girls and would fade quickly, whereas
Backstreet had sustained musical value that would carry them
through the ages and sustain them as a classic long after NSYNC was
a trivia question on Jeopardy.

If he'd been less prepared, it would have been difficult arranging
entrance.  As it was, his bodyguard called Brian's bodyguard and a
few minutes later, Kevin was being escorted up.  It wasn't like
he'd done his own following of Brian.  Skulking around with a 300
pound black man on your heels wasn't exactly stealthy.  He'd let
them do it.

Kevin knocked on the door he'd been told belonged to Brian.  There
was a Do Not Disturb sign on the door, but obviously that didn't
apply to him.  He could imagine the kinds of sordid things Lance
was perpetrating on Brian, and he wasn't going to let a sign bar
him from stopping that.  There was no answer to his knock.

A head popped out of the next door over.  "Thank God.  I'm going
crazy over here.  Fucking minibar thieves.  You'd think you could
get it restocked, but -- oh.  Kevin."

Kevin nodded tightly to Chris.

"Wild guess -- you don't have my bacon and eggs, do you?  Fuck."

"This Lance's room?"

"No, that's Joey's room."

"Fatone?"

"No, the other Joey who tours with us.  Joey Buttafucco.  Who the
fuck do you think?"

Kevin gave him a death glare and stalked over to him.  "Listen,
Kirkpatrick, I'm having a very bad day.  A very bad month.  Your
bandmate is abusing the sweetest, most innocent man I know, and I'm
here to make that stop happening.  And I don't really care if I
have to do it over your unconscious, bleeding body.  Get me?"

"What, Joey's got Zonker Harris in there?"  Chris shook his head. 
"Never mind.  Cultural references go directly over *your* head,
obviously."  The opening of the elevator door and the appearance of
a waiter with a cart diverted Chris' attention.  "Thank the patron
saint of minstrels, childless people and innkeepers.  Food!"

Kevin rolled his eyes.

Chris motioned the guy with the cart toward his door.  He waved at
Kevin.  "Have fun waiting."

Kevin bulled his way through Chris' door as Chris tipped the
waiter.  The waiter closed the door behind himself and Kevin
exploded.  "What the hell do you mean, 'have fun waiting'?  Give me
one good reason why I shouldn't just call the hotel manager and
drag Brian out of there?  Hell, why I shouldn't just call the cops
on Fatone's abusive ass?"

Chris dumped all the plates of side orders onto the plate with the
eggs.  "What do you want me to say?"

"That you'll get the fucking door open so I can collect Brian and
we can go back to Florida."

Chris looked suddenly very tired.  "That's not gonna happen."

"You think I'm bluffing about calling the cops?  I will."

"You can, but it's gonna be just as bad for you as us, even if they
do anything about it at all."

"Fatone is fucking *beating* Brian.  You better hope they do
something, or I'll kill him."

"You don't get it."  Chris picked up his fork and looked at his
eggs.  "Look, can you give me a minute to eat my breakfast?  I
don't want it to get cold and who the heck knows when I'm going to
get another chance to have an actual meal today?"

"You want me to wait while Brian's--"

Chris held up his fork.  "They're probably still asleep.  Joey's a
night owl.  He'd rather grab a cup of coffee later than get up
early.  You've got a few minutes.  And maybe I can fill you in a
little more between chewing."

"Fine," Kevin said, sitting down and crossing his arms over his
chest.  "So talk."

Chris eyed his eggs longingly.  "Why don't you start out by telling
me what you saw or thought you saw to set this off?"

"I know what I saw."

Chris gave him a go-on motion with the forkful of eggs, then put
them in his mouth.  "Dude," he said as he chewed, "no one's
disputing that.  Just tell me so I know how much you already knew."

"Fine.  I saw Brian at practice.  He was wearing a white,
sleeveless, low-necked t-shirt.  He'd been sweating hard, too, so
the shirt was sticking to his body.  It was very obvious that he
had some kind of marks on his back -- marks I hadn't see there the
last time I'd seen him without his shirt.  They were newer than
that.  Then..."

"Mm-hmm," Chris said around a mouthful of hashbrowns.

"I followed him when he went to shower.  I saw him without the
shirt, too.  You don't get marks like that accidentally.  They were
long, red and I've seen that kind of thing before."  One of his
uncles -- not Brian's father, thankfully -- had been an alcoholic. 
He'd beaten his wife and kids a couple of times -- probably more
than a couple, but a couple where it'd been bad enough that the
family had heard about it.  There'd been legal action taken against
the uncle when the youngest child had shown up with marks just like
Brian's.  He'd gotten them from a belt, and Kevin knew even then,
from his own experience, having gotten the belt to his behind a
couple of times, that it took a lot of force to make marks like
those.  He'd never been marked and he'd deserved his hidings. 
Nobody deserved to be marked up like *that*.  "He wouldn't talk
about it.  So I followed him here.  I thought it was Bass..."

"Lance?" Chris asked incredulously.  He choked on his orange juice. 
"Lance?  Not hardly."

"Well, that's what I know.  So start talking.  What don't I know?"

Chris shrugged and set the glass down.  "Just that it's part or
mostly Brian's idea."

"I can't believe that."

"You should.  Before Brian -- Joey was involved with someone else."
Chris' mouth twisted.  "Really involved.  I thought -- Joey said it
was the real thing.  He'd mostly just playing the field, except for
show.  He *said* he had, anyway, and I didn't -- none of us had any
reason not to believe him.  Then he ran into Brian -- or Brian ran
into him -- at some sort of industry shindig.  I wasn't there, but
after that, Brian was calling.  All the time.  And Joey said it
didn't mean anything, but then he broke up with -- with the person
he'd claimed was the love of his life, and ever since then--" Chris
shrugged.  "He doesn't talk about Brian.  Like, ever.  But when
we've got a couple days' gap in the schedule, he flies out and
rejoins us in the next city.  And you know where Brian is now.  It
seems consensual to me.  Probably kinky.  But consensual. 
Sometimes--"

There was a knock on the door.  Chris raised his eyebrows and went
over to it.  Opened it.  "This isn't a good time."

"Why?" came the response.

Kevin stiffened and stood.  He recognized that voice.  "Brian--"

Chris said hastily, "Now's not a good time, good to see you, bye,"
and tried shutting the door but, by then, Kevin had strode across
the room and pulled the door open.

"Kevin," Brian said without surprise.  He smiled a little.  "I
suppose I should have known you wouldn't let it drop."  He strolled
in.  "Did you leave anything, or should I order my own breakfast?"

Kevin turned on Chris.  "I thought you said he wouldn't be up yet."

Chris shrugged helplessly.  "Joey doesn't get up this early."

"But I do.  And I'm starving."  Brian was making a plate out of the
food Chris hadn't touched.  Fruit and cereal mostly.  "I don't like
to disturb him, so I get breakfast with one of the other early
risers."

Chris sighed heavily.  "Me, of course, since Lance gets pissed when
people interrupt his--" finger-quotes-- "business time."

Brian swallowed.  "Yeah.  He's not very good company.  Plus, he
orders coffee while Chris orders actual food."

"I'm hypoglycemic, you dolt.  Plus, breakfast is the most important
meal of the day."

Kevin was looking between them.  There was something going on there
that he didn't quite understand.  Chris seemed almost apathetic
about Brian's intrusion.  Like he neither welcomed it nor was going
to forbid it.  And Brian--

Looked, God forbid, happy.

Kevin towered over Brian.  "Brian, what the *hell* is going on
here?"

Brain smiled gently at him.  "You know how I feel about cursing. 
And I told you what was going on.  It was the pure and simple
truth."

"Mortification of the flesh.  I remember.  And what does that mean
exactly?  Because it sounds like a euphemism for getting the s--
crap kicked out of you."

"Have you ever felt you needed something that you just weren't
getting?  Like the essential part of you was spiralling out of your
control and you didn't know what to do?"

"It's called fame.  We've been living with it for years."

"Yes, but I realized it wasn't *me*.  That I was meant to be
someone else.  Someone nicer, someone kinder."

Kevin stared at him.  "How is anyone supposed to be nicer than you
already *are*?"  The one thing for sure about his cousin was his
saintlike patience and forbearance when dealing with *everybody*.

"The reason for that -- one of the reasons for that -- is this." 
Brian was still smiling.  "Catholics do penance for their sins. 
Have you ever wondered why that is?"

Kevin shook his head.  "But you're not Catholic."

"It's still the same principle.  We -- humans -- need to feel we've
paid for our transgressions.  We don't need just forgiveness; we
also need concrete evidence that we've repented of what we've done
and that we're serious about making up for what we've done."

"But you haven't done anything."

"Of course I have.  I've been guilty of many things.  Pride,
jealousy, anger, impatience..."

"It doesn't count if you don't do anything about them.  I know you,
Brian.  You're talking about feelings, not things you actually do."

"It does count.  If you fully contemplate the act, then you're as
guilty as though you'd done it.  Carrying out the action is merely
a fulfillment of a decision you've already made.  Making that
decision is what informs your character.  If you decide to steal an
apple and then go to do it and it isn't there anymore so you can't
steal it, you're still a thief."

"You're only a thief if you go through with it."

Brian smiled gently.  "If you're found outside the grocery store
with breaking and entering tools, but are caught before you can
actually get into the store and take the apple, you're every bit as
much of a thief as the man who gets away with it and doesn't get
caught.  You're just not as competent.  You made the decision to
steal and that's the important part."

"It's not the same," Kevin protested.  "You're more like someone in
the grocery store who thinks about stealing the apple then never
does it."

"That would be different.  Making the decision *not* to do
something is every bit as important.  That, in fact, *is* the
difference.  Making the decision in your mind is where the actual
crime occurs."

"No," Kevin said, frustrated.  "It isn't.  You're talking like
you've done something wrong, when you're like someone who takes a
bite out of an apple then goes up to the cash register and pays for
it."

"Since produce is usually sold by weight, that would actually also
be stealing," Brian said.

"Forget about the goddamned apple.  What have you personally done
to deserve this?"

Brian's smile went sad.  "I deserve it for many things."

"Like?"

"Vanity, for one.  Pride, if you want to call it that instead.  I
have, on more than one occasion, started to believe that the
adulation of our fans makes me something more than human, when in
fact, I am every bit the same as them, just following a different
path in life."

"But--"

"Forgetting that isn't just vanity or pride -- it hurts *me*.  As
a person.  It changes me and makes me less than I should be. 
That's the point of paying for our sins.  It makes us better
people."

"You don't need to be a plaster saint, Brian."

"Did I give that impression?  I'm sorry.  I didn't mean to.  I
meant that it makes us stronger and healthier to atone for what
we've done.  Less weak, less full of self-loathing.  Vanity and
pride -- and other sins -- make us weaker.  As people.  It's not
even strictly a religious issue.  It's about who you want to be and
how you want to be."

"Okay, fine.  Say I buy that.  Say I agree with you.  That it makes
you a better person to make the right decision rather than the
wrong ones.  Say I even buy that just asking God for forgiveness
isn't enough.  What in the name of all that's holy makes you think
that getting beat on is what you deserve?  I'm not a Catholic and
even I know that isn't what penance usually is."

"That really depends.  There have been times and orders where it
was considered appropriate.  The man who ended up heading the
Jesuits..."

"Beating you, Brian.  Joey Fatone is *beating* you."

"I asked him to," Brian said calmly.  "And it makes me feel better
about myself and my life."

"So it's not some kind of sick sexual game then?" Kevin asked a
little less suspiciously.

Chris choked.

"It's that, too.  Only I wouldn't call it sick precisely."

This time it was Kevin who choked.  Chris helpfully pounded him on
the back, muttering, "Not like you did the same thing for me, you
ungrateful ba--" a sidelong glance at Brian, "--jerk."

Brian watched them and, once he was certain Kevin could breath and
that Chris had not, in fact, killed him, said, "We're both adults,
Kevin.  There's not really a lot you can or should do."

Kevin shoved at Chris, who was hugging him around the neck and
offering to perform the kiss of life.  "I don't agree."

"That's what makes you a good friend.  Nonetheless, it's true."

There was another knock on the door.  Chris let go of Kevin and
went to answer it.

Joey came in.

Kevin stood up, glowering.  "Fatone--"

Joey ignored him and went straight to Brian.  He curled a gentle
hand over Brian's shoulder, bent down, and kissed him.  "How are
you this morning, baby?  You were gone when I got up."

Brian smiled sweetly back at him.  "I always am."

"I know, and it sucks.  You feeling okay?" he asked solicitously.

"Good," Brian said, smiling at Joey.  "Just fine."