It's the first time I've covered the SweetBone pairing, but … you're only 21 once. Evamaria, this one's for you. Many happy returns of the day.

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The Thousand Nights and One Night and the Perfumed Garden

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by Ian McDuff

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Centered. If there were one quality to which, with a quiet pride masked by his façade of humility, one Howard Dwaine Dorough laid claim, it was his being centered, grounded, the still center around which the madness raged, the calm eye of the storm that was Backstreet.

He felt threatened now.

He also felt guilty.

Threatened because that role was no longer exclusively his. He was no longer the only sane one. And if his role was no longer his and his alone … well, it had for so long been the only thing he truly had, that role. He wasn't the one everyone knew. He wasn't exciting or sexy or cute or wild; he wasn't known for dubious scrapes, thunderous rages, or disastrous ideas gone wrong, either. For good and ill, if Backstreet got any attention, it was someone else's doing. The fact that Backstreet largely existed because of his dream (even if that meant also that he bore some responsibility for their disastrous – though he'd had no way of foreseeing the disaster – involvement with Lou): forgotten or ignored. His contributions to keeping the group from falling apart? Forgotten or ignored or minimized. He was the 'Quiet Beatle,' and unless he pulled a George Harrison and went off to an ashram somewhere, no one would notice him any more than they did now. (An ashram. Right. Hoke and Paula would have him dragged off by Dominican friars to an Opus Dei retreat center so fast it would make a Jesuit's head spin.) He wasn't the frontman, the pinup, the sex symbol, the lead. He was just … 'oh-and-D-too.' The one they tacked on in the introductions at the last second, always sounding as if they'd just – and just barely – remembered that Howie was there.

And the guilt?

Well. Who was now sharing in the role he'd had to himself for so long? Who was the new 'inner peace' Boy? Who was the new mediator, the level-headed one, the one with inner strength? Who was now the one to talk Kevin down from his high horse, gently nudge Brian into taking the stick out of his ass, coax Nicky into behaving like a decent, mature human being, a gentleman, even?

Of course D rejoiced that Alex had come back to them so well recovered. Of course D was thankful, whole-heartedly glad and relieved, to see his oldest friend doing so well. To see Aidge not edgy. To see him placid and peaceful and still, his wit less mordant, his heart now open, his eyes shining again.

Of course D was overjoyed. Of course he was glad. Of course he was so proud of AJ he could almost dance a jig.

But. It did mean that AJ, of all people, was now the one who shared Howie's role. AJ was being turned to. AJ was becoming a caregiver and a dispenser of wisdom. And if nobody needed Howie any longer … what then?

Oh yes. Guilt. The guilt, also, over letting AJ get so far down the road to destruction. Over each occasion on which D hadn't intervened, or intervened more forcefully. Over each twist and turn in their long friendship that might have harmed AJ, or in which D might have been, even if unknowingly, an enabler. Guilt over even owning Tabu.

D was miserable.

Miserable that his happiness for AJ in his recovery was tinged with jealousy of AJ's new peace and the way people now needed AJ. Guilty that he felt that way. Guilty that AJ had ever had anything to recover from.

He'd finally taken his problems to an old college friend who understood the pressures of the celebrity life, and understood, too, what it was like to put something like this – to put one's dream – together and have it become the province of others. Things were serious when D was troubled enough to go to Chris Kirkpatrick for advice. Not because CK was anything like his public persona; not because his old college friend didn't give excellent advice; and certainly not because of that inane, media-manufactured 'feud' that the public was led to believe existed between the groups. No: D went so rarely to Chris with a problem simply because he felt guilty, weak, for asking, when he knew that Chris's life, growing up, made his problems seem so … petty.

Chris didn't stand for that, either. 'Okay, right, you are officially loco, D.' Chris's voice was piercing even over long distance. Howie had to hold the receiver away from his ear, worrying as he did so lest anyone overhear. Chris was still riffing: 'I'm sure it's somewhere in the DSMR-III. Problems aren't like dicks or boyband members – not that there's always a difference between those – they don't come in sizes, 'kay? If it's bothering you, it isn't petty.'

'But –. Look. Um. I know you've been through shit that makes my two-bit worries look –'

'Will you shaddup about that? You ever notice that of the ten of us, we split five and five on family issues? I mean, you know, missing dads, divorces, adopted, whatever? That oughta make a difference, I guess you think. I guess you think that Joe and Lance and Kevin and Bri and you oughta have no real problems and Nick – God, talk about the stage mother from Hell – and AJ and C and me and Justin oughta be in therapy, huh? Bullshit. We all have problems, equally serious regardless of background – trust me on that, and I ain't never gonna act like any one of the guys deserves less than another when it comes to taking a prob serious, you get me? So, spill. Digame, hermano.'

And now here D was, taking Dr Crazy's prescription. 'Sometimes,' Chris had said, 'you hafta love yourself. 'Specially if you're feeling like you need the love and nobody else's giving it to you. Look. Sounds like you finally been given the time to pamper yourself 'stead of having to cover the other guys's asses. I say go for it.'

Well, he was going for it. Borodin and Glinka and Rimsky-Korsakov on the CD player, billowing lush, Slavic, introspective Romanticism through the suite. Scented candles – enough to open a New Age shop in California (which tickled him when he thought about it. He even smiled, briefly). He was still punishing himself a little for his past imagined sins: he would have enjoyed a decent Condrieu (he liked Viognier, and the Cotes du Rhone knew how to treat that noblest of white wine grapes), but with AJ just a few doors away, he simply couldn't bring himself to drink.

He's taken Chris's advice perhaps a bit more literally than it was meant. He had soaked, wallowed luxuriantly, in a hot bath. He was stretched comfortably in a robe and nothing more, reading. And he was reading classical erotica. Howie hadn't taken Chris's admonition, 'sometimes you hafta love yourself,' so literally that he'd, for example, rented DVD porn and was spending a night whacking off, but he was taking the evening pretty sensually.

On the other, um, hand, he was reading straight erotica, so it wasn't as if he was indulging himself in a night of self-satisfying, per se. It was just … if he shared a slightly off-beat interest in wine with JC (and to a lesser extent, JC's Lance, though Lance was more a connoisseur of brandies, small-batch bourbons, and obscure single-malt Scotch, just as JC had a hang-up about drinking only reds), he had equally picked up an eccentric interest in obscure books, a hobby he shared with – surprisingly – Kevin, Joey Fatone, and (again) Lance. He allowed himself another grin: it was becoming, marginally, easier to smile as he relaxed. But it was amusing to reflect that the fans would probably have an easier time dealing with his being gay ('especially,' his inner snark reminded him, 'since you're the least popular one anyway') than they would if they discovered that their idols had adult lives and tastes, an interior life and some glimmers of intelligence. JC still caught shit for publicly admitting a liking for oil paintings and Pauillac wines, Kevin's marriage had made him fewer enemies than had his environmental activism, and the teenies and the patronizing critics had united in mocking Lance when he said, with more seriousness and passion than anyone On the Outside could know, that his favorite author was Elie Wiesel.

God forbid, D snorted to himself, the public should hear we care about anything more post-adolescent than video games.

He sighed, and returned to Umar ibn Muhammad Nafzawi's classic 'The Perfumed Garden.' The CD was playing 'Scheherazade' now: he supposed he ought to put Sheikh Nafzawi aside in favor of the 'Thousand Nights and One Night,' the fabled 'Arabian Nights,' but he figured old Nikolai Andreievich wouldn't mind too badly if he didn't.

'Know, O Vizier, that there are eight things which give strength to and favor the ejaculation. These are: bodily health, the absence of all care and worry, an unembarrassed mind, natural gaiety of spirit, good nourishment, wealth….'

Not a lot, Howie reflected as he read Nafzawi's words, not a whole lot had changed in the past six hundred years. Well, he was healthy, wealthy, and well-fed. But an absence of all care and worry? An unembarrassed mind? A merry heart?

There was no avoiding it. The other part of what Chris had told him … he wasn't going to be able to avoid it after all. 'D,' Chris had said, with a rare quietude. 'Listen. You and me, we both know you're glad to have AJ back, your old bud, the way he was when you guys were starting out, the way he was when he was the trying-t'-be-cool teenager who followed you around at auditions like a pup, back when you and I were in college. But I know – and I think deep down you know too – there was a … tension … there. I were you, I'd take this time alone to maybe get to the bottom of that, y'know?'

The problem was, D didn't want to get to the bottom of it. He was pretty sure he already had that one figured out. Back when he was legal and AJ wasn't, it had been simple enough. You just didn't – not if you were a decent human being and not a Lou Pearlman – you simply shut it out, walled it off, didn't think, didn't touch. Back when AJ was sweet, and unsure, yeah, but solid, centered, grounded. Back when he was – well, when he was what he was now, once more: a whole person, a man in full, someone with a character and a heart and a spirit it was fatally easy to come to love.

And back then. Before. Before the black nail polish and the damned ink and the piercings and the less physical first steps towards self-mutilation and self-destruction and why the HELL hadn't D been able to stop it, he was supposed to be looking out for AJ and he'd failed him and –. Wait. Breathe, D. Let go. Chris was right: the only soul you can finally be responsible for is your own. AJ had had to hit bottom and realize it, and want help, before any help at all could reach him. That was a given. AJ not only repeated it, as he'd learned it in rehab, as he learned it anew One Day At a Time, (twelve) step by step; AJ not only said it, like a mantra, he clearly knew it for truth and believed it. So, D, buddy (D lectured himself), you have to start believing it too.

But back then. When D had been so young and choirboy-seeming, himself. When AJ's very gawkiness was powerfully attractive. If AJ's inner demons hadn't intervened, D could admit – he damned well knew – then, the minute AJ had turned street legal, Howie would have busted a nut – er, busted a gut – making a move.

Of course, that was then.

Now, of course, D had no interest in AJ at all. Well, not that way. Not as a lover. Not as an object of lust, even. Certainly not physically. Not now. After all, AJ had lived hard in the intervening years, and it showed. He was beginning to get healthy once more, and D was glad, truly he was, as he'd be for any friend-and-brother. But he wasn't D's type now. The tats alone were enough of a turn-off….

And since when, D asked himself harshly, were you that shallow and that superficial? He's once again the same person inside you were on the sweet cusp of falling for Back Then.

But not now. Of course not.

Oh who the HELL was he trying to kid? CK had read him like a boo – he threw the book across the room, then winced, realizing it was a first edition of the Burton translation and had cost him more money than his father had made in several years, when D was young.

So much for self-pampering and time alone. Damn Chris anyway. Some relaxing prescription this was. He needed to talk to – oh, screw it. Talking to Chris was what got him into this mess. And there was never anyone else he could talk to. He'd always been the counselor and father-confessor. Who had he ever had? And now everyone else took their problems to – the hell with it.

D arose and stomped over – stomped, knowing he was being childish, but not caring – stomped over towards his book, there where he had thrown it in his pique. Naturally, that meant he was right by the door when whoever was outside knocked, and naturally, it meant he couldn't very well pretend not to be in or not to be awake or not to have heard. He took a deep breath, resisted the urge to fling the door wide in tantrum, and – mask in place – opened it politely to….

'AJ?'

'Hey.'

'Come in.' He'd be polite if it killed him. It just might. As AJ sidled past, D noted the clear eyes and steady gaze, the long-buried confidence in the set of the shoulders; and he smelled cigarettes and enough coffee to clog the ports of Seattle and New Orleans. He knew what that meant. AJ'd been at a Meeting.

For his part, AJ surveyed the room, with a slow, sweet smile, and sighed, an exhalation of peace and relief. He breathed in again, deeply, of the candle-scent, and turned his steady, clear gaze (how long had it been, D wondered, as he wondered daily of late: how long had it been since AJ's gaze had been steady or clear?) to Howie. His face was open, peaceable, his smile wistful. And was that – as he looked at D standing there in his robe, against a backdrop of private indulgence – was that, D was afraid to wonder, a glint of – appreciation, perhaps, in those eyes?

'I'm sorry I disturbed you, man. I can go –'

'No.' D surprised himself. 'No. It's no disturbance. Sit down anywhere.'

D automatically went to the suite's coffee-maker. AJ's voice was caring, concerned. 'I'm sorry I interrupted your downtime. I came by 'cause I needed to talk –'

Howie spun around, almost spilling the water for the coffee brewer.

'– But you look like maybe you need to talk more'n I do. Can I help, man?'

'You … you already have.'

AJ thought for a moment, then nodded. 'I get ya. Feels like everyone comes to me and don't need you no more, huh?'

D nodded, mutely: a tight, barely perceptible, wholly ashamed motion of the head.

'You realize they're just tryin' to give you a well-earned rest – and make me feel useful so, I guess, I don't suddenly Fall Off the Wagon.' AJ chuckled.

'Oh.' D felt like a total idiot.

'But me,' AJ said softly, 'I need to go to the source. That's you, man. Always has been. Like the Paul Simon track: "Who'll be my role-model / Now that my role-model is gone"?'

Howie had given up on trying to make coffee. All he could do was sit down, gape, and listen. Measuring Folger's was far beyond him right now.

'Yeah,' AJ answered the unspoken question. 'In my good, for all that was right with me, you were that. Still are.

' 'S why I'm here. Look…. I really don't want to mess with your night if you wanted the downtime or make this about me if you need to talk – 'cause if you do, now or ever, I'm listening, I love ya, man, y'know that, right?'

Howie nodded, and licked lips gone far too dry. 'I – yeah. I know. And same here. You go ahead. There's nothing more important than y- … than if you need me to listen. So. I'm listening.'

AJ raised an eyebrow at him, with an odd look of affectionate exasperation. ' 'Kay, man, if you're sure. Um. I do need to tell you something. And if you can, like, just hear me out. Lemme tell ya up front, I don't need anything back. That – that's not what this is about. And be honest with me: I need ya to be, and whatever it is, I can take it. And don't kick yourself over anything, either. You ain't done nothing wrong.

'So. Look, at NA tonight, it hit me that I'd avoided – missed. Blew. Blew off – a whole big chunk of one of my steps. I was taking inventory – y'know, a Ten-Step –'

Howie did know. All the guys knew, though D expected they 'knew' in different ways: Brian probably had it on a prayer list, Kev was using it to check on AJ and play Daddy, and Nick had heard it, nodded, and promptly forgotten, D was willing to bet. But he and they all knew AJ's steps. D called it to mind and concentrated: 'Step Ten. "We continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it."'

'Okay,' D said, nodding.

'And it kinda crosses over to Nine, too. "We made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others." I … I don't think this would injure anybody – long as you don't beat yourself up over it.'

Howie was pinned to his chair by the raw honesty of AJ's glance. 'I won't,' he half-whispered.

'Better not, man, I'm holding you to that. Anyways.' AJ took a deep breath. 'I am fully responsible for my own acts. You ain't at fault.' D nodded, again, and AJ went on. 'I hurt you by my behavior, and I apologize. I hope I don't hurt you when I tell you … D, one of the things I was dealing with – or not dealing with: I was drinking and using so as not to deal with it – was, I was having major probs with my, um, sexuality even before the group started. And you deserve to know. I don't need labels – they're meaningless, to me. But D, just so you know, and don't be mad if you can help it, but when we first met and well into the start of Backstreet, I had the damnedest crush on you. And you deserve to know, I still do. I, actually, love ya, I mean as in "in love," and I 'spect that may be a torch I always carry.

'Um. Anyways. I know I hurt you a lot, not just by using and drinking and being self-destructive, but all the times I pushed you away and all the times I was snide about your being gay and all. Well, that's what I was running from when I was shitty to ya. I hope you can grant me your forgiveness.'

Time, in its cliched way – D had never believed it before, but apparently even hack writers could sometimes be right – time seemed to slow, to cease, as the question hung there. AJ was looking at him with total trust, total candor, naked honesty. And as he returned that look, all the tarnish of the years was stripped away, all purely physical questions of attraction or otherwise were dismissed as the irrelevancies they are, and D saw an end to his care and worry, an unembarrassed spirit, a natural gaiety of heart. He saw Alex, again, the Alex he'd known and, no matter how he'd try to fool himself, always loved.

'I think,' D said slowly, 'I can offer you something better than forgiveness.'

AJ looked at him, hardly daring to hope. D was on his feet now, was crossing the distance between them in a few short strides, was standing before him with open arms – with arms open to bring him home at last.

'You have my forgiveness,' D murmured as AJ stood, unsteadily, intoxicated at last upon no material wine. 'I'd rather offer you my heart,' he said, as their lips met and their story, like the endless stories Scheherazade spun for the Caliph each night, came to

THE END – AND THE BEGINNING.

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There you go.

- Ian