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When AJ McLean boarded the 747 from Boston, Massachusetts at 6:30 that morning, he never figured it could be his last flight. That he could die before he reached his final destination.
He figured he'd have time for other things. He'd have time to tell the people he loved that he loved them. That he'd be around until he was old and bald and fat. And that he'd be able to come home to his lover and spend more time with them.
He was blissfully unaware as the terrorists boarded the plane. Blissfully unaware when they started to take over the plane and make plans to crash it into the World Trade Center. Blissfully unaware until the alarm lights began flashing and everyone around him began buzzing with an excitement.
"What's going on?" The woman beside him asked him, as if he knew what was going on.
He shrugged. "I have no idea. Why are all the alarms going off? You think it could be some kinda drill or something?" He was afraid of the answer. In all the flights he'd been on, and he'd been on hundreds, this had never happened before. He was afraid of what was happening and what would happen.
A flight attendant suddenly scurried up the aisle and to the PA system, her voice cracking with emotion. "Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, we have a slight situation here. We won't be flying to the airport we had been scheduled to." She paused and AJ wondered what was going on. Where were they going? What was happening? Was there something wrong with the plane?
"We..." She was suddenly cut off by a burly man's arm around her neck, effectively cutting off her words. A heavily accented voice took place of hers' on the PA system. "Greetings, American pigs, you are under control of Afghanistan government and you are going to die." He laughed a cruel laugh and the PA system crackled rudely. "Pray for all of your dirty American asses, because you are never going to see any of your loved ones ever again." Another cruel cackling laugh rang out and the PA went dead.
AJ looked at the woman beside him wide-eyed. They were going to DIE? He didn't want to die. He really didn't want to die. He wanted to see everyone he loved again. He wanted to be held in the arms of his lover one last time. But he couldn't. And he wouldn't.
He reached for his cell phone, knowing the late hour, but knowing that he didn't have much time left.
A sleepy husky voice answered and a grin unwittingly plastered itself onto his face, momentarily breaking him from his desperate time.
"'Lo?"
"Hey, baby..." He trailed off, tears pricking the back of his eyelides, finally sliding down his cheek and choking him up so that he had to cough to clear his throat.
"What's wrong?" The voice immediately cleared and became more alert.
"I...Oh God...I don't know how to tell you this..." AJ's voice cracked and his hand shook as he cradled the phone to his ear.
"Alex, what's wrong? Are you hurt? Where are you? You're coming home, right?" The voice persisted in his ear, shooting AJ questions that he didn't know how to answer without falling apart. Without making the person on the other end of the phone fall apart.
"I..." He swallowed a choked sob and took a deep breath, trying to calm himself down enough to tell his lover what was going on and what would happen.
"Kevin...the...the plane I'm on...it...it's been taken over by terrorists. I'm...they're going to kill us all. I...I...God, I don't want to die." His hysterical sobs met silence on the other end of the phone line and he prayed that Kevin hadn't hung up, that he was still there, because he wanted his last moments to be spent talking to the one he loved more than life itself.
After a few more minutes of silence, other than his sniffling and sobbing, he whiped his wet palm on the lap of his pants and took the hem of his wifebeater between two fingers and started worrying it. That was his nervous habit. He did that when he was in a desperate situation. And this was one hell of a desperate situation, he thought.
"K...Kev? Are you...still there?" He sucked in a sharp breath, trying to control his emotions.
Then he heard it. Sobs. Hysterical, heart wrenching sobs coming from Kevin. It broke his heart to hear his lover like that. And it broke his heart that he was the cause for it.
"Oh, Kev, please, baby, don't cry. Please. I just...I want to talk to you until..." His voice cracked again. "Until...I don't have any time left. I just...I want to be able to hear your voice as I...." He cleared his throat and stared out the airplane window. "I want to talk to you until the very last second that I'm alive. I just need you, Kev. I love you more than anything on Earth and I just...I wanted to tell you that." He chewed his lip with the top row of his teeth and watched the city lights below whizzing by as they flew over. As he was flown closer and closer to his impending death.
"I...I'm sorry, Alex. I just...I don't know what to say. I...God, why is this happening? Why?!? I love you! I need you! And now, after all we've been through, God's taking you away from me! I can't take this, Alex. I need you here with me." He started sobbing again and AJ sat there, for once, unable to help Kevin through his crying.
"Kev...listen to me, baby, you have to calm down. I'm not gone yet. I'm still here for however long I'm here. You just...I love you damn it. I don't want my last minutes being spent on dwelling on me dying, okay? Just...talk to me." He drew a shuddering breath as a thought occured to him. "Kev...you have to call the other fellas. You have to let them know what's going on. You have-"
Kevin cut him off. "I...I know. I'll call right now, if you want me to...you can...you can..." His sobs forced him to stop what he was saying, but AJ knew what he meant. He had been going to say that AJ could talk to them one last time before he died.
"Yeah. Get 'em on the line, baby." His throat suddenly dried of its tears and he blinked stoically at the dark night. He wondered when his number was up. When the bastards who were doing this, were going to murder them all. How they were going to do it.
"Hold on, Alex." Came Kevin's soft voice and then a click was heard.
AJ waited a few minutes and heard another click, announcing that Kevin was back.
"Alex? I'm back...and all the fellas are here. So's your mother."
"Hey, guys, what's up?" AJ said, taking a deep breath and slumping in his seat.
"What's going on, Alex? Why are we all on the line at such an early hour?" His mother, Denise, asked him sleepily, yawning.
AJ smiled. His mother was a sweetheart. She was his best friend. "Hey, mom. I just...I'm sorry for wakin' all of you up but...this is...important."
"Spit it out, Bone, if it's that important. We wanna get back to sleep." Cracked Brian, causing the others, save AJ and Kevin, to laugh.
Kevin snapped. "Brian this is NO joking matter! This is serious. Now just...listen what Alex has to say." He began to cry again, and AJ could hear that he tried to muffle the sound but wasn't succeeding.
"Kev, please, stop crying, this is hard enough without you breaking down like this. Please. Just...stop." A tear ran a trail down AJ's cheek and he swallowed loudly. "Mom, Rok, Kaos, D, I know you're all wondering why Kev got you on the horn so early so...I'm just gonna spit it out. There's no...way to tell you this easily...."
Howie interrupted him. "AJ? What's going on?"
AJ sighed. "My plane's been hijacked by terrorists. I...I won't be coming home."
Dead silence was something he hadn't expected, but that's what he got.
Finally, Nick spoke up. "You're jokin', aren't you man? If you are, this is one fucked up joke."
"No, Junior, this is no joke. I...I'm going to be killed along with all the other passengers on this plane. Some fucked up terrorist is going to kill us."
"Oh God, Alex, Oh God." His mother broke into sobs, unable to utter a complete sentence, because her only child was about to die and there was no way she could prevent it.
"Aw, mom, please. Stop crying. Please. It's bad, I know that, but you have to stay strong. I'll see you all again some day, I promise. I just...I wanted to tell you all that...I love you and not to worry about me. I'm okay. Really." He blew out a breath and rubbed his eyes tiredly.
"I'm sorry, honey, I can't help it. How would you feel if I was in your place, telling you these things?"
"I know. I'm sorry. I just...I don't want anyone to feel bad or sad for me. I just...I want you to remember the way I was. Don't think about now. Just...I don't know." A commotion at the front of the plane caused him to trail off and he manouvered so that he could see what was happening.
One of the terrorists, he didn't know how many there were but there was probably more than 1, had taken a man out of the bathroom and dragged him up to the front of the plane so that others in First Class could see them.
"Okay, American bastards, this is going to be your only warning. Do not try anything like this man did. He tried to jump out of plane. To use parachutte. Did not succeed. And would not. He will pay for his crime. With his life." The terrorists grinned a wide toothless grin and pushed a gun into the man's temple.
AJ swallowed, his nerveless fingers holding onto the phone tightly as best he could. He watched with horrid fascination as the gunman pulled the trigger and the man's brains splattered all over the side of the plane and all over some woman that was sitting close to them. She screamed and the gunman dropped the body to the floor as if it were nothing but a bag of flour.
AJ assumed he must've killed many people from the way he was not reacting to what he had done. He heard a voice down by his crotch and he suddenly remembered the phone, but couldn't get his arm to obey his brain to raise it to his ear.
The gunman saluted the passengers mockingly and walked back to the cockpit of the plane, leaving people crying and sobbing over everything.
AJ finally managed to pull the phone back to his ear.
"Alex??? Oh God, are you there? Please God, be there. What was that sound? Are you still alive?" A very flustered Kevin was talking faster than he'd ever talked in his life.
"Y...yeah, I'm here guys. Sorry. Someone just....was killed. You heard a gunshot. Dude just stuck the gun to the guy's head and...killed him like a fucking dog." AJ rubbed his hand over his face and sighed, his body tight with tension.
"Oh God. Are you okay?" Kevin asked worried. It was so like Kevin to worry about him like that, AJ thought. That thought actually brought a small smile to his face. It showed how much Kevin cared about him.
"I'm...as okay as I can be, Kev, given the circumstances. I just...wanna know how y'all are all doing. How are you...taking this?"
He heard a few sniffles, but he couldn't tell who was crying. It was probably all of them.
"This sucks." He could always count on Nick to put it so eloquently.
"Ditto." Brian sighed and for once he was somber and serious, not cracking a joke.
"This is so horrible, AJ. I don't want to lose you as a friend. God, why did this have to happen?" Howie was such a good friend.
"Alex...I love you. I want you to know that...I...I can't do this. Kevin....I can't do this. I....I love you Alex." There was a click and he knew his mother had hung up.
"Alex, I'm sorry-"
"It's okay, Kev, I understand. I don't fault her for doing what she did. Fuck, I'd do the same if I were in any of your positions. I wouldn't want to be talking to a dead man either."
"Don't you fucking DARE talk that way, Alex, you're not dead yet." Kevin snarled through the line.
AJ sighed. "I know I'm not, Kev, but I feel like I am. It's only a matter of time."
Kevin choked back a sob, and Brian rescued him. "AJ, please, stop talking like this. We...we love you, man. We just...we're takin' this kinda bad right now."
"Yeah. I know. How do you think I'M taking it?" AJ snorted derisively shoving a hand through his platinum blond hair. "I don't know what the fuck to do, Rok. I've never been this close to death before. I just...I don't want to die!" AJ's voice wavered and his resolve not to cry melted.
He began to cry, hot tears, fat tears that trailed in droves down his cheeks. He began to hiccup in his state of emotion.
"Alex. Please, stop crying. Please, baby." Kevin's voice cracked.
"Guys. We're going to leave you alone. You need this time...to...to..." Howie's throat closed on him and he trailed off not knowing what else to say.
"I love you guys, and I always will. Just remember that, okay? I'll be watching over all of you from where ever I am."
Nick's strangled sob floated through the line and AJ nearly broke down again as Nick struggled to say something.
"B....bone...I...I love...you...I know I've always...been...a shit...but...I do love you. Always have, always will. You're...my brother..." Nick's wrenching sobs continued to abuse the other 4 guys' ears and they sat silent for a moment.
"I know, Junior. I love you too." AJ said quietly, when he finally regained the ability to speak.
Nick blew his nose loudly on the edge of his t-shirt because that was all he had at the moment. "Listen. I...I'm gonna go. I love you, Bone. I'll pray for you. And I'll...see you again some day."
"Ditto, Junior." Was AJ's only reply as Nick finally hung up leaving Howie, Brian and Kevin on the line with him.
"I guess, I should go too...I'll see you in Heaven, AJ. I love you." Howie said softly into the phone.
AJ shut his eyes tightly. "Me too, D. See ya." He said goodbye, trying to act like it didn't matter. But it did. He didn't want to die anymore than they wanted him to. But he had no control over it. There was nothing him nor anyone else could do to save the lives of those on the plane headed for doom.
And then there were just Brian and Kevin and AJ on the line. Silence eery and thick greeted their ears until one broke the silence.
"Bone, you know I love you, right?" Brian asked quietly.
AJ opened his eyes and sniffled loudly. "Yeah, B, I know. I love you too."
"Okay. So long as you know. I'll pray for you, AJ. Some day, we'll all meet back up in Heaven. Until then...bye."
"Yeah. Bye, Brian." His throat closed up and he held off crying again until Brian left the conversation. As soon as he left, though, AJ was bawling like a baby into Kevin's ear.
"C'mon, baby, please stop crying. It'll be okay. Really. You're loved. And God is sure to give you a place in Heaven, cause your one of the best men I know." Kevin pushed his hair out of his face and whiped the tears from his eyes as he sat there staring at a picture of the two of them when they'd first started dating.
A picture that Brian had snapped unbeknownst to the two of them. They were laughing loudly, jaw breaking grins plastered on their faces, arms laced around each other, on the beach.
Kevin sighed and rubbed his finger across AJ's face in the picture.
"Kev...you're lookin' at our picture again, aren't you?"
"You know me too well, babe." Kevin took a deep breath and blinked back fresh tears. "I can't believe this is happening. If only you had flown back here yesterday or tomorrow. Just not today. Any day but today. Oh God, Alex, I don't know what I'm going to do without you. I just...I need you. You're the air I breathe. I can't live without you here with me, baby." Kevin's lips trembled and he bit them to keep from screaming out in the tortured pain that he was in.
AJ's eyes misted over. "I know, Kev, I know. I feel the same way. I love you more than anything. More than I've ever loved anything or anyone. I don't know why this is happening, babe, but we've had 5 wonderful years together. And we've known each other for 9 years. That's all that matters. We loved to our fullest capabilities. Just...remember all the good times we had together. Okay? And don't be sad, I'll always be with you." AJ laughed a scornful laugh. "That's so fuckin' cliched, but really...I mean it."
Kevin sucked in a sharp breath, falling back on their bed. "I know. I love you too. I'm glad I found you, Alex. I really am." He stared up at the ceiling and wished AJ was there with him instead of on that plane.
Silence washed over both of them. Kevin thought about AJ. AJ thought about Kevin. And then the silence was shattered by the PA system crackling to life once again.
"American bastards, listen up to me. This is your last 5 minutes to live. Make best of it. We are going to crash plane into World Trade Center tower. Along with another plane. Hope you have enjoyed your flight."
"Oh God." Kevin cried into AJ's ear.
"I know." AJ sighed, a grave expression washing over his face. "Guess this is goodbye. Here's lookin' at you, kid." AJ made a half-hearted attempt to crack a joke to lighten the mood, but it didn't work.
Kevin held back his tears, his body wracking with unreleased sobs. "Alex. I'm so sorry. I wanted more than this for you. For us. I just...baby...I wanted to marry you. I wanted to grow old with you. I wanted to adopt kids with you."
AJ sat there silent for a moment. "Now you tell me." He smiled a little smile. "It's okay, baby, some day we'll be together again. And everything will happen for us, I promise."
Then the plan began shuddering and AJ grew scared, his fingers bit into the metal of the phone in his hand. "K...Kev....will you sing to me? Just one last song?"
Kevin heard the sudden fear in AJ's voice and he knew the end was near. His emotions threatened to drown him, to suck him under, but he held it all in. He kept himself from letting it show for AJ.
"This song has special meaning to me, Alex. Has since the day we recorded it. I just...I want you to know, that every word of it's true."
AJ listened intently as Kevin began to sing. His voice ringing true in AJ's ear, as it washed over him. The emotion in Kevin's voice was almost unbearable and AJ thought he was going to start crying.
"Don't pretend you're sorry AJ sucked in a harsh breath and he trembled. Kevin's voice was so beautiful.
I know you're not
You know you got the power
To make me weak inside
And Alex, you leave me breathless
But it's okay
Cause you are my survival
Now hear me say...
I can't imagine life without your love
Even forever don't seem like long enough
Cause every time I breathe I take you in
and my heart beats again
Baby, I can't help it
Keep me drowning in your love
and every time I try to rise above
I'm swept away by love
Baby, I can't help it
Keep me drowning in your love
Maybe I'm a dreamer
Maybe not
Cause I have known the safety
Of floating freely in your arms
I don't need another lifeline
It's not for me
Cause only you can save me
Oh, can't you see
I can't imagine life without your love
And even forever don't seem like long enough
Go on and pull me under
Cover me with dreams, yeah
Love me mouth-to-mouth now
You know I can't resist
'Cause you're the air that I breathe"
"I keep drowning in your love." Kevin finished the song and he knew their time together was almost up.
"Kev...that was beautiful. I love you. I always will." AJ whiped a tear from the corner of his eye, and looked out the window. What he saw scared the living shit out of him.
The World Trade Center towers stood prominantly against the backdrop of the lightening skyline. He could see the windows lit up with lights and he swallowed loudly, knowing that this was it. He was going to be hurled into the building like some kind of GI Joe toy that a kid threw across a room.
"Alex. I love you." Came Kevin's choked reply, as he listened to AJ choking on his own sobs.
AJ listened to the restlessness of the people around him and he knew that they knew what was about to happen as much as he did. They started crying and screaming around him and he knew Kevin could hear them.
He tried to be strong. He really did. But then everyone started screaming and that started getting to him. He started crying. Full out crying. His sobs nearly choking him, making him have a hard time breathing as they flew closer to the building.
Then there was a loud wrenching sound. A sickening lurch and the scrape of metal on metal was heard and felt. Suddenly AJ felt the plane crash and everything was going in slow motion around him.
Suddenly he was seeing himself and Kevin on their first date. He'd been just 18 and Kevin had been 24. They had been so shy, so young, so in love with one another.
And then Kevin was bending over AJ after he'd slipped and fallen on the pateo and broken his leg. He was calling the ambulance to come and get him. That had just been 3 years before now.
And then AJ was leaning over Kevin in a hospital bed when he'd had to have his appendix removed. He'd been so scared that Kevin would die. But he hadn't. Kevin was strong.
Then AJ and Kevin were curled up on their sofa watching 'The Shawshank Redemption'. It wasn't really a movie that AJ cared a lot about, but Kevin loved it and that's why he watched with him. That was their ritual. They would pop in that movie, make popcorn, curl into each other on the sofa and watch it. AJ would always fall asleep before Andy Dufraine got gang raped by the Sisters, but Kevin always stayed awake and caressed AJ's hair, letting it tangle in his fingers.
Then they were recording "Drowning" in the studio just last year. Kevin had stared at AJ during the entire song. Mouthing the words when he wasn't singing, making AJ know how he felt about him. How the song was conveying every emotion that Kevin felt about him. And it was how AJ felt about Kevin as well. He'd told him that.
"I love you, Kevin!" AJ screamed as the plane was engulfed in a red hot flame and the phone melted into his hand. His body shattered and he felt horrible pain as the plane smashed into the building. People screamed around him and he screamed with them. He didn't even realize Kevin could hear them or him, but Kevin did. That's the last thing Kevin heard before AJ's cell phone melted completely into the flesh of his hand and shut off.
AJ's last thoughts were of Kevin as his eyes shut for the final time and he breathed his final breath as his body was engulfed in flames and he went into a blissful oblivion.
Kevin's nerveless fingers dropped the phone onto the bed. AJ's last words and that horrible scream ringing in his ears. He knew that was something he'd never forget.
"Oh God. Oh God." Kevin screamed. He screamed loud and long and it was from his heart and soul. He didn't know how he was going to live now. AJ was his life. His soul. His heart.
"Alex. I love you." He sat up on the bed and rocked in place. Shock and anguish marring his beautiful tear-streaked face.
Kevin sat on their bed...HIS bed...for a long time. He didn't know how long he sat there rocking to and fro. He just knew it had to be a while, because the sun was high in the sky by the time he finally figured out how to move again.
He picked up the picture on the bedside stand. The one of he and AJ. He cradled it in the palms of his shaking hands and caressed AJ's face through the glass with the tips of his fingers.
"God, Alex, I don't know how I'm going to live without you." He murmured softly to the photo, his fingers still caressing the cool glass beneath his fingertips.
He put the picture back down on the beside table and looked at it intently for a moment, wishing he could have done something to keep the love of his life from being taken from him. But he knew there was nothing he could've done to prevent something like that.
He sighed, his body caving in on itself. He stood up and walked out of the room, unable to stay in the room where they'd loved, for such a short span of time, anymore.
~The end.
*Lyrics taken from "Drowning", sung by The Backstreet Boys
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