this chapter is for someone who never has read this story, but is quite important to me nevertheless. the title is for him, but i hope it won't always be that way. it's for Billy m' a leannan as well

ps -- i think i've planned out the rest of the story. there should be seven or eight more chapters left, plus a really short epilogue.

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Chapter Eight: "Love is Cruel"

Build me up, break me down. He always knew that's how his life would go. What he did not understand was how it would catch him so off-guard when it happened.

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The Rats were upstart local celebrities. They were a sensation. And like most sensation, word gets out about you. Anthony Starr, a record producer actually based in Detroit started to hear buzz on these young ruffians with their crazy lead singer and signature style. He decided to see them in action down at their mainstay, the Green Light Bar. He loved their sounded, and loved the little dark-headed spaz with the growling vocals -- the one everyone talked about -- Curt Wild. He followed their next couple of shows. They were consistent. He wondered how anyone let this little gem get under the radar.

" 'Cuse me," Starr said, wading through a bunch of rabid fans. Shit, if they've got crowds like this... He could hear the "cha-ching" in his mind. These boys were something else.

"Hey, boys!" he called, jogging up to them. The little lead singer looked up at him, beer in hand.

"Who the hell are you?"

"Anthony Starr, producer. You, boys, are fuckin' amazing. Whaddya say to signin' with me -- becoming the big stars you know you are?"

Starr watched them, gauging their reactions. The bassist's eyes lit up like stars. The vocalist turned to his crew, but Starr could tell his mind was made.

"Whaddya say, guys?"

"Fuck yeah!" the bassist all but squealed. He did not seem to be taken into account.

"Jack, Scott?"

"Fuck, man. Why not?" the guitarist said. "Sounds far out to me."

Curt turned back to Starr. "Well, man. Seems we've gotta fuckin' deal."

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Before long, Curt Wild and the Rats had secured a date for a huge concert. It was a gig where there would be other bands, but still, it was the biggest thing they had ever done, the most exposure they had ever had. At a noted event. Underground, true. But hell, that was a huge following in and of itself.

It was the beginning of their superstardom.

Curt lay reeling in his full-sized bed, Tawny right beside him. They lay on their sides, face to face. Tawny playfully draped his long hair over both their faces. With a laugh, Curt let it stay.

"You're never gonna grow up, are you?" he inquired, looking into Tawny's face. Those familiar freckles he had tried once to count (he'd failed miserably, not to mention he had been high) and those improbable eyes.

Tawny met his gaze squarely. "I'll grow up when you do," was his simple reply.

"You're just like when I met you. It's been years and you haven't changed."

"Sure I have: I don't take me meds as a rule now," Tawny deadpanned.

"True."

"You've not changed all that much. Still that pretty little fairy with those eyes." Tawny kissed the tip of Curt's nose.

"Yeah, but I'm a rockstar now."

"Yeah."

"God, Tawny. That huge-ass concert is on Saturday, man." Curt had rolled over onto his back.

"Yeah." Tawny's usually jaunty voice had an absent quality to it, as if the reply was automatic.

"You 'kay, Tawny?" Curt asked, looking back over at him. Tawny looked up and flashed him a quirky smile.

"Bonzer." He propped himself up on one elbow and leaned forward to kiss Curt thoroughly.

"I love you, Tawny." So very rarely did those words ever slip from either of their lips. Over the entire course of their relationship, from the nuthouse on, both could count on one hand the number of times those three words -- "I love you" -- had been uttered by them.

Tawny smiled -- a half-smile that didn't reach his eyes -- and sighed. He lay back down, on his back this time,. Curt rolled to his side, throwing an arm and leg across Tawny as Tawny hooked an arm around him. Both were quite the possessive sleepers.

"You too, Curt."

That of course, never counted.

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"I love you, Curt. Go knock 'em out, love."

A quirky grin from both to each other, and Curt raced off to jump on stage to start the concert that would commence the Rats' fast rise to superstardom and national notoriety. As Curt waited for the lights to suddenly flash on, he looked to the side, catching Tawny's bright, big beautiful eyes. Tawny gave him a half-smile, nodded to him to go do his thing and then melted back away into the shadows.

Away out of Curt's life.

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Curt knew something wasn't right as soon as he stepped off the stage, ears still ringing from the loud music, his shouted lyrics and the audience's screams --good and bad.

He couldn't find Tawny.

Maybe he's gone home. Yeah, that's it. Later, he would wonder why he had held out that pathetic, feeble hope. But he had. He'd reasoned it out in his head. Tawny, like himself, was not a big fan of crowds. Curt, of course, didn't see audiences as crowds. He was up before them, doing his thing. If he was amongst them though...well, that was when the agoraphobia kicked in.

Curt was nervy the entire trip back to his and Tawny's apartment. It only took thirty minutes, but it felt like ages.

"Tawny!" Curt called as he burst through the door. "God, Tawny -- we kicked ass! Tawny! Tawny, where're ya? We're gonna be big, Tawny." He had a strange feeling, one that made the words he was saying die in his throat though he still forced them out. He pushed it aside.

The bedroom, Curt figured. Yeah, that was it. Congratulatory sex. He smiled and dashed up the stairs to the bedroom.

"Tawny..." Curt said as he threw open the door.

Nothing.

No

No, no, no.

That strange feeling was back, with a vengeance. It was panicky. It clenched his chest in an icy vise, making it hard to breathe. He could hear his pulse in his ears. Everything was suddenly magnified, stark and sharp --painful --but the colours muted, dull. Curt felt like he'd been punched in the gut and a knife jabbed and twisted in his heart. He felt sick.

The feeling of loss, of the suddenly bereft.

Of betrayal.

"TAWNY!"

Curt had felt something...slip...long ago, in the fight with Arik before he and Tawny had runaway. It had been falling for a while, but at that moment it had slipped and clicked in his mind. Now it snapped, completely.

His only constant -- the person he had loved -- was gone. As suddenly as he had come into Curt Wild's life, Talbert Koyel was now just...out of it. He had left him. Tawny had walked out on him.

"You bastard! You-goddamned-piece-of-shit-stupid-motherfucking-asshole! You fucking LIAR!"

Curt ripped into the room, raging, screaming, crying. And all his rage was nothing but a mask for the absolute pain and fear Tawny's betrayal had struck him with.

(The lyric in the page break is from "Bitter's End" by Paul Kimble)