Medley for A Latter-Born Activist: A Challenge AU

by Ian McDuff

This is for the Nick Slashficathon Challenge. My assignment? Well, here’s how it read:

Name [of who I was writing for]: kid sinclair. (Yes, one of the wondrous Eastwaterites, which was nice, as it allowed me to make some slight repayment for the EWAUFFA nods.)

Backstreet Pairing [that the recipient preferred]: Nick/Kevin. (This must be why they call it a challenge, quoth the McDuff.)

(Alternatively,) Crossover Pairing [that the recipient preferred]: Nick/JC. (Tempting. But it’s only right to go with the first choice.)

Two things [the recipient] wants: ‘AU, other than that I’m good.’ (Can do.)

One thing [the recipient] doesn’t want: mpreg. (NOOOOO PROBLEM. Shudder.)

Well, then. Here’s looking at you, Kid.

Sometimes, when he daydreamed, Kevin Richardson thought he would have liked to have been a lawyer. He could have been a real crusader then. Taken on causes. Promoted progressive causes. Defended living things from soulless corporate greed.

But when he was honest with himself – and Kevin was brutally honest, mostly: the only person he ever successfully hoodwinked was himself, and that wasn’t for long, as he was as harsh on himself as he was on the world at large – when he was honest in examining his daydreams, he would always reflect that he just hadn’t been cut out for college, and law school would almost certainly have been worse. And besides. Looking at his contemporaries who had gone the college route, much less at the ones who’d gone on to law school, he suspected he would have lost his dreams and his passion along the way. Most of them had, becoming cogs in the evil system.

Instead, of course, he’d gone to Mouse Town to seek fame and fortune. There had been a few bitter months when he and some other guys had tried and failed to get a vocal group together, only to see Lou Pearlman abscond with their demos and a lot of people’s money, one step ahead of a Federal indictment; when last Kevin had heard Lou’s name mentioned, it was a rumor that he’d been sighted in Costa Rica, still evading extradition. A few Disney alumni had managed to make it on their own, but Orlando’s brief day as a launching pad for teen-idol careers had been eclipsed pretty quickly after the Pearlman scandal.

He still kept in touch with two of the guys with whom he had briefly shared some dreams. Howie Dorough had taken his share of the civil judgment they’d gotten against Lou in absentia – they had, for a miracle, found some assets to collect against – and started small, with a bar / nightclub. Nowadays, he owned half of Orlando and Kissimmee and was the biggest developer on the Redneck Riviera, around Pensacola, and was extending into Tampa now. Oddly, or perhaps not, Howie himself lived on the other coast, in Coral Gables, which gave him plenty of status whilst still allowing him to interact with the island-Hispanic communities, Cuban and Puerto Rican, in Miami itself. Howie would probably be governor eventually, as well as richer than Donald Trump, if the GOP ever got over its homophobia. Kevin loathed Howie’s politics with a burning intensity, but, like everyone else, he was more than a little in love with Howie, and would support him in anything. He salved his conscience by investing in Howie’s empire, and using the proceeds to fund progressive interests. He and Howie both enjoyed the irony of that, even though the lines were clearly drawn when it came to politics.

In fact, the only thing about Howie that Kevin could never forgive was his choice of boyfriends. That smart-ass hotshot twink from Cape Canaveral that Howie had taken up with might be a brilliant rocket scientist, but, as far as Kevin was concerned, Lance Bass was a prick of the first water. Even if he was the only man who could keep up with Howie in the smarts department.

The other old trouper Kevin had kept in touch with was Alex McLean. Or ‘AJ,’ as he was known now. Kevin had worried at the time that Alex was something of a born dead-end kid, and in the first years after their dreams had crashed and burned, so had Alex. But Howie – of course – had stepped in and gotten his old friend cleaned up, brought him in to his nascent empire, sent him through school…. Now Alex had found his niche, combining his born showmanship with his personal history, and with another old acquaintance of Howie’s, Chris Kirkpatrick (another hard-scrabble guy, now that Kevin though of it), Alex was one of the best-loved advice gurus on daytime TV and a popular motivational speaker. ‘Dr Chris and Dr AJ’ had left Dr Phil in the dust, and Kevin had been on their show plenty of times. It was the only commercial network show that had any real room for progressives, after all: Chris and AJ were firm liberals.

No, when it came down to it, he was probably doing more for the cause this way than he would ever have managed as a lawyer. Still, sometimes he wished things had been different. At least a ‘JD’ after his name would have forced more people to take him seriously over the years.

It was Alex’s fault, his and Chris’s. Kevin admired their dedication to the cause. But they’d overreached themselves, in his opinion. Yeah, politics – even activism – was the art of the possible. And yeah, politics sometimes meant some strange bedfellows, and a big tent, and all that bullshit. But sometimes, you had to draw the line.

‘Let’s not forget the oceans,’ the kid had said. And Kevin had lost it. Sure, the ratings had gone through the roof, and it had carried for a couple of news cycles, and the cause might have benefited in the end. But it should never have happened.

It was Alex’s fault, and Howie’s. Kevin hadn’t had much use for the kid a decade and more back, when he was always tagging along worshipfully with Howie, and Howie and Alex had indulged him with promises that he could be in the group. If it ever had gotten off the ground, if Lou hadn’t done a bunk, Kevin imagined that either he or the kid would have been dead – at the other’s hands – or out of the group in a month, tops. There was a reason Kevin had not kept in touch with that one. And the kid was just as annoying today. Nicky Fucking Carter. God, Kevin reflected, Howie’s personal twink Bass would have been less annoying. He hadn’t thought that was possible.

‘Let’s not forget the oceans.’ It wasn’t the interruption: Kevin was a veteran of talk shows, and knew that guests talked over one another often enough. It wasn’t even the sentiment: sure, the oceans were a major concern of any conservationist worthy of the name. No, it was the source: that vapid, blond twink, who had no record with the cause, spouting off. And that vapid blond twink in particular.

‘Let’s not forget the oceans.’ Fucking little bastard, looking like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. Kevin had erupted.

‘Those of us who really care don’t, Carter! Never would. But what the hell do you have to say on the subject, huh? My God, you personally have accounted for the waste of more fossil fuels, and wrecked more coral reefs, than friggin’ Exxon. And you have the gall – oh, screw this, I am outta here,’ he’d bellowed, and ripped off his mike pack and stormed off the set.

Afterwards, Nick, all injured pride and very much on his dignity, had talked to Chris and Alex about the incident. As his friends, they had been apologetic. As hosts, they had been carefully neutral.

‘I just don’t see,’ Nick had insisted, implacably, ‘that he’s all that better than I am. Okay, fine, I remember back in the day, when I was a kid and he was already an adult and all. Back when you and I and Howie thought we’d put a band together, Alex? But now. Damn. What’s the difference between us, to where he gets the right to act all high and mighty like this? We both went the same path, okay, except that, yeah, I have a racing team. Big fuckin’ deal. He ain’t no environmental scientist, he’s just what I am, a celebrity who likes to support some causes.’

‘The difference,’ Chris explained, gently, ‘is that he has a long record of commitment and involvement, okay? He may not have a degree, but he knows his stuff – not that you don’t, I don’t mean that, you’ve taken your oceans foundation seriously, I know that. But. He has a lot invested in this, emotionally, and he isn’t always big on newbies speaking up, okay?’

Alex shook his head, dissenting. ‘The difference, Nick,’ Alex said, ‘is that Richardson is a True Believer, man. It’s – it’s like a religious thing for him. He’s not precisely a PK, but, close, and there’s a strong religious streak in that whole family; Kevin just channels that into progressive issues. This is his religion, y’get? He was born out of time, okay? Shoulda been in his prime in the Sixties and Seventies.’

Thinking about it later, Nick was willing to admit that Chris and Alex might be right, in their ways. About Kevin, they probably were. And okay, that level of commitment was admirable.

But Nick was right, too, and he knew it. If Kevin wanted to throw his weight around, then he should have some credentials to back it up. Because Nick was right. He and Kevin were peas in a pod.

And not by accident.

Whatever dreams and aspirations Kevin had had, after their embryonic band had crashed on takeoff, Kevin had stayed in Orlando, after all. And it hadn’t taken long for that body of his to attract attention. He’d gone from modeling to acting in the soaps, he’d leveraged his soap following into being able to spit in Lou’s eye with a solo CD, and, then, instead of going the full Ricky Martin route, he’d leveraged his following from the soaps and pop pinup status into serious roles, Broadway, and then, when he had fame to spend, into using his fame as a springboard to become a spokesman for all the causes he held dear. An activist, and a more serious and better-informed one than Hollywood usually produced.

And through it all, he had had at least one absolute idolater.

Nick could still remember, with the burning blush of shame, what it was like, during those brief weeks when they thought they could get backing for a band. He’d always had what, later, he recognized as a crush on Howie and Alex both, from when they were all on the Orlando audition circuit. But that had been puppy love. But from the moment he had been introduced to Kevin Richardson, he had been in lust – even before he knew what lust was. Kevin had been the star of his first wet dream, and was to this day the recurrent star of his fantasies.

Even now. Even now that he was Nick Carter, the only non-Mouse, the only NMMC reject, to make it from Orlando to the big time. He had modeled himself and his career on Kevin and Kevin’s ascent, suffering his malignant mother’s abuse and monomaniacal thrustingness to get him center-stage, to make him a child star. And he had gone from the bratty-younger-brother role of his longest-running sitcom to a primetime soap, paying his dues, and thence to a brief adult sitcom, honing his slapstick chops, before landing a plum role on a cop-shop drama that had forced the critics to acknowledge him. Through it all, he’d kept up his voice lessons, and had defiantly flipped off the world with a critically acclaimed debut on Broadway, in Avenue Q. And then, thanks to his having maintained a foot in Florida and a love of its waters, he had gotten involved in his racing team and thence into ocean preservation.

They weren’t so different, damn it, they weren’t. And that Kevin would act this way to him – that Kevin would act this way, to him – after all these years….

Nick never cried. He’d learned not to in a hard school indeed. But he was closer that night to crying than he had been since they got the news that Lou Pearlman had run off with their upfront money and – out of pure spite – their demo masters.

If there was one thing Kevin hated, loudly and adamantly, scathingly, it was dishonesty.

Especially in himself.

The last time he had tried to make himself believe an untruth, it had been a disaster of epic proportions. For him, and for her. His brief, ill-fated marriage, and his attempt through that marital farce to lie to himself about himself, had failed noisily. And it was his penance, in part – Chris and Alex had said as much, and they were, hard though it was to believe, sometimes, qualified professionals – it was his way of doing penance to have publicly apologized to his ex-wife at the daytime Emmys. And come out in the process, defying the network to fire him.

That had been a matter of character.

He knew, better than anyone, that he could be a self-righteous prick. He had left organized religion behind him long ago, but there was still a great deal in his character that had been shaped by its strains; and rigorous, unsparing self-examination was engrained in his nature.

So when Howie had called him, a few hours after he had blown up on the Chris and AJ show, he had not been able to shake it off, as someone else armored in his self-righteousness might have done.

‘We should call you “Prime Time,”’ Howie had said. ‘You made the news again.’

‘Um. Yeah. About that….’

‘I don’t really want to hear it, Kev. I am very disappointed in you.’

That had stung. Since his father had died, there were only a handful of people whose opinions had mattered to Kevin in the least. His mom, his brothers, Alex, his cousin Brian back in Kentucky, and Howie. There was a certain quirk of fate in the realization that all of them except Alex disagreed with almost everything he held dear (one of his brothers and his cousin were evangelical ministers, after all); but they were the people he loved and trusted, and who loved him unconditionally. When he had let one of them down, he was clearly doing something wrong.

‘Howie?’

‘Very disappointed. Look. I’ve seen the two of you make polite, distant, “I vaguely remember him from the old days” chit-chat on red carpets. I know you still think of Nicky the way you did when he was hardly out of diapers, and you didn’t like him for shit then. But I also know something you don’t, because you chose not to keep in touch with him after Lou. Nick worships you, you self-centered asshole. He has been carrying a torch for you, even before he knew it, since before his nuts dropped. And until today, he still was. I know: I was the one who got the call when he found out you two would be on the same segment, for the same purpose, and he wasn’t that giddy when called about his Tony nomination. You would have had no right whatever to treat anyone the way you treated Nick today. And that it was Nick you treated that way, especially under these circumstances, was … contemptible.’

And Howie had hung up without waiting for Kevin to reply. Kevin wasn’t sure he could have replied, in any case. He had never heard Howie sound colder.

Since the on-air incident, Kevin had issued a public apology. He had also pestered Chris and Alex to distraction. Alex had finally told him to get over himself, to stop hiding behind a public apology and go make nice with the Carter kid, and to ‘expect a bill in the mail for any further professional advice and counseling, man, because you are seriously pissing me off with the need for free advice every fucking day.’

And then Alex had added, ‘And when you do apologize to the kid, take his ass to dinner and see if you can’t tap it. He’s obviously your type, and the amount of unresolved sexual tension between the two of you on the set would have caused some sort of blowup the other week anyway.’

Now Kevin wasn’t talking to Alex at all. And might never again. If that was Alex’s idea of advice and counsel, maybe Mister Reformed Character was using again. Because that notion was seriously cracked-out.

Sure, Carter was, objectively, hot. For one thing, it was just nice not to be surrounded by nothing but midgets. At least Carter had some height to him. And muscle. Acres of golden – well, shit. Oh no. No no no. He was not that suggestible. Just because Alex was out of his tiny mind. NO.

Hot or not, the kid was whiny, annoying, huggy, a prima donna, devoid of Commitment, Damn It, a resource-hog, hung like a – damn it.

Maybe he’d be better off taking Chris’s advice: ‘shut up, go away, catch a concert, and try to go for at least a week without the spotlight.’

Right. That was the plan. Besides, when it came to hot, his favorite out star was playing the Sunset Strip House of Blues that weekend. He had his people make the call.

A JC Chasez concert – in WeHo, to boot – would be perfect for getting past this. Hot guys, superchilled music, and plenty of Chasexy eye candy. And you never knew whom you might find in VIP.

Besides, he wanted to hear JC cover Dylan live.

‘Sir, we’re getting to it, all right?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

The harassed, wild-haired youngster turned around and looked fully at the man with the deep voice. His eyes widened. ‘Oh, my God. Mr Richardson. I. I am so sorry –’

‘Problem, man?’ The voice was full of laughter, and as JC Chasez emerged from the wings, his eyes were already crinkling with that same famous laughter. ‘Whoa. Richardson, man! Long time no see, dude. You givin’ my cats grief, man?’

‘Just requesting a song, C-man.’

‘I am so sorry,’ the gopher began. JC waved him silent. ‘Which one?’

‘Your cover of “The Mighty Quinn.”’

‘You are so a late-born hippie, man. But one was enough, dude, we put it on the set-list for after this break.’

‘I didn’t. Oh. Oh. Okay, my fault. You’re telling me there was already a request for it from VIP.’

‘Yeah, man. Not yours? Ah. Well. Okay, means we weren’t bein’ pricks and you weren’t nagging. ’S all good, man. Now get that award-winning ass back up there to VIP, man, I’ll be starting any minute. With your request. Come see me after, backstage, if you wanna; you got any more requests, though, send your posse, ’mkay? We can’t have big name gay celebs wandering out of VIP, man, there’ll be a twink riot on the floor and mass spooge.’

‘You. Are. Insane.’

‘Always have been, sweetcakes, and you know it better’n most. But seriously, man, vanish, like, or the boys in the glitter will have a mass orgasm out there over you, and, the fag-hags with ’em see us talking, there’ll be a slash-fest.’

Kevin laughed, and allowed some of JC’s bodyguards to herd him back to the stairs to the VIP lounge.

Who the hell else up here, he wondered, had already made that request? A very few people in the biz had already heard or heard rumors of C’s covering that tune, but if he did in fact sing it live tonight, it would be his first public performance of it. He looked around, and saw no one he knew well enough to know if they’d beat him to the punch. In fact, though most of the faces were vaguely familiar, he saw no one he really knew at all.

Then JC was back onstage. When the squealing subsided, he grinned up at VIP, and waved, and said, ‘Hey. Got a request here. Been, like, tinkering with this one, and supposedly it was top secret, but, you know how that goes. So, y’know, somebody knew I was doing this, and, okay, this is your world premiere, seriously, no shit. First time in public, man. ’S a cover. You prob’ly know it?’

As JC’s voice filled the venue, Kevin saw someone who had been in the very darkest corner of VIP stride to the railing and look down, his face transfigured by pure joy. Someone big. Someone blond. Someone gorgeous.

Nick Carter. In that moment, Kevin’s heart turned over within him, and he made a mental note to apologize to Alex, because, yes.

Kevin must have gasped, because Nick turned his head in his direction. Kevin could actually see the light go out of Nick’s eyes and his face lose all expression.

‘Nick –’

Nick held up a hand. ‘No. You made your public apology. About your uncharacteristic immaturity. I guess you wanted to emphasize that you’re the mature one. And yeah, I get that you wouldn’t want to be near me if we were the last men on earth. Six weeks ago, I would have taken even that, and prayed for it. Now, it’s the only way I’d even consider being in the same room with you, either. You made your public statement, man. It’s done, and I don’t want to hear the rest. Enjoy the show.’

And Nick left, in the middle of the song he had obviously been the first to request, his shoulders hunched and all joy in him quenched.

Kevin hadn’t felt this low, and this disgusted with himself, since his marriage had fallen apart.

It had taken a month, but he’d finally managed it. Or, to be honest, Howie had. Or, to be really, painfully honest, Howie’s Lance had, and Kevin would never stop resenting that. But facts were facts. Once Kevin had faced the fact that he didn’t merely want to mend his fences with Nick, but to tear them down completely and see if there couldn’t be some spark there. Once Kevin had gutted it up and admitted that he wanted a chance to do a lot more than set things right with Nick. Well, Howie had thrown himself into the project with the zeal of fifty Paula Doroughs. And in the end enlisted Alex and Chris. But it had been that damned Bass who had found out that Nick would be attending a conference on ocean preservation on a private cay in Bermuda. And it had been that damned Bass who had helped arrange Kevin’s attendance, under the radar, so that Nick wouldn’t know until it was too late. It had even been that damned Bass – displaying, Howie had laughed, unsuspected fanboyish depths that were beginning to make Howie jealous – who had dug up the fact that Nick had a passion for papayas.

And that was why Kevin found himself standing outside a bungalow just one over from his, in the Bermudan night, with a crate of fruit, waiting for Nick Carter to return from a seminar.

When he did, it was from the direction Kevin wasn’t watching out for. His growled ‘what the fuck’ almost caused Kevin to drop the damned papayas.

‘Um. Hi.’

‘What are you doing here?’

‘Um. Well.’

‘Armageddon happen while I was walking back from the main building? I the only other man alive now?’

Kevin surprised himself by his answer. ‘You are to me.’

That rocked Nick back on his heels.

Kevin plunged forward. ‘Look, um, I talked to Howie, I always kept up with him, and.’

‘Howie has a big mouth, and lies like a rug.’

‘But it was Alex who pointed out the real reasons I was an asshole to you.’

‘Why, you somehow knew how I felt and wanted to nip it in the bud?’

‘More like, you’ve turned into this god, from the kid I once briefly knew, and I couldn’t deal with my subconscious.’

‘You are shitting me.’

‘Um, no. I’m not. I wouldn’t be standing here holding what is beginning to feel like about ton of fucking papayas if I were shitting you.’

‘Oh, Jesus, put them down, they have got to be heavy. Though it’s doing great things for your biceps. Um, forget I said that.’

‘I’d rather not. Look, at JC’s show. I wanted to apologize for real. And I feel even more like shit that you missed the song you requested.’

Nick’s eyes widened. ‘How did you know I requested that?’

‘Because when I went down to request it, someone already had.’

‘Jesus.’ Nick leaned against a pillar and raked Kevin with his eyes. ‘You mean this.’

‘Yeah, I do.’

‘Even about the, um, maybe beginning to reciprocate the feelings I had. Have.’

‘Well, yeah. I mean it.’

‘I can tell,’ Nick said, looking at Kevin’s ill-timed – or well-timed – erection. Kevin blushed.

‘It’s okay,’ Nick said, huskily, gesturing to his own crotch. Kevin boggled, and unconsciously licked his lips. Nick ducked his head, muttering.

‘What was that?’

‘I said,’ Nick repeated, not looking up, ‘let’s hope we’re both size queens, because, damn.’

Tentatively, then, meeting no resistance, with decision, Kevin gently raised Nick’s head with a hand under his chin, so that their eyes locked. ‘We’re both lucky, I guess. At least … I’ll think I’m lucky if you’ll tell me that we could, maybe, start over, and see what happens?’

‘Are you asking me out, Kevin Richardson?’

‘Um. Yes?’

‘I have a better idea. Howsabout I ask you in?’

Kevin blushed a little more, high on his cheekbones, and smiled. Nick’s answering grin lit up the night.

It was a pity that they forgot the papayas on the porch until morning, when they had to be discarded. But Kevin always said afterwards, at the gay activist events that the two did agree on, that it was a small price to pay.

END