Author's Note: I wasn't sure of the ages, but I've done the best I could. Let me know if I've got it wrong.
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Backstage wasn't so bad. Tommy Stone was in fine form, loud and jovial with a few of his crew and band before disappearing into his dressing room.
The reporter was sitting there, pale and silent, still dressed in black, his eyes lowered as he rifled through his notes.
Even as Stone watched, Arthur paused for a moment to scribble in a corner before looking up.
"Got everything?" Tommy Stone asked.
"Most," Arthur said politely, "Shannon said to wait here. Said you wanted to see me."
Tommy Stone nodded and sat down. He never drank before a performance but he was itching to inhale something. Only, he couldn't. He was out and he was trying to cut down. Damn smokes were ruining his lungs. Couldn't take the notes so well any more and that scared him. If he couldn't sing, what was he to do? He didn't like being limited by his own failures.
"This business with Brian Slade," he began, "It won't reach here, but in case something comes up, can I count on you?"
"For what?" Arthur asked, frowning a little, "I'm not gonna lie. I don't do that."
"No, no, not lie. Just be discreet."
"You mean, don't tell them the truth."
"The truth is subjective. I'm not officially Brian Slade."
"Changing your name doesn't change your past, Mr. Stone," Arthur snorted, "I thought you'd know that by now."
"By which you mean to say that I am the same man that sucked on Curt Wild's guitar strings?"
It was a cheap shot. Arthur felt himself blush even though he knew it was only Tommy Stone letting a tiny bit of Brian Slade out to play. "Yeah," he said defiantly, "The same man."
"Behind the make-up, of course."
"Yeah."
Tommy Stone leaned forward, narrowing his eyes a little. "You really think I'm the same man?" he asked again, "When this is what I've become?"
Put like that, Arthur was forced to hesitate for a second. Tommy Stone really was the other extreme of Brian Slade. "It's still you," he said doggedly.
"You're a stubborn man," Stone remarked, leaning back again, "You don't think time changes us?"
"Time changes our habits, not our nature."
Stone was quite pleasantly surprised. Arthur had never struck him as any kind of deep thinker. Not that Stone was prejudiced against reporters, as such. Reporters were, after all, living beings, even if they did make their living from ripping apart everyone else around them.
"You sound like you believe in that."
Arthur shrugged it off. "Don' matter what I believe, Mr. Stone."
"You're right. No one cares what you believe." Stone grinned off-hand and checked his make-up in the mirror. "But they will believe what you tell them. So the question is- what will you tell them?"
Arthur was caught there. He knew what he wanted to tell 'them'. He just didn't really want to deal with the consequences. He'd have to explain and Shannon had that ridiculous contract she kept waving around at him every so often. She'd be sure to find some way to sue him for breach of something. And then there'd be all the media and the mess and Al would want to know why he hadn't said something sooner. Arthur had tried to tell him, he really had. But after the first shock of knowing- after meeting Curt Wild again and seeing no recognition in his eyes- Arthur had been so very tired of it all.
"Art? You still here, man?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm still here."
"What'll you tell them?"
Arthur stuffed his notebook back in his bag. "I'll think about it," he said guardedly.
Surprisingly enough, Stone only nodded and left it at that. For the next ten minutes he chatted quietly about nothing in particular. He talked about the jitters before going up on stage, listing rituals that other singers and bands went through.
"Back in the old days," he laughed, "We all used one room. Hair, make-up… everything was flying around in a little box with a door. It was chaos. Clothes stinking of sweat and cigarette smoke and glasses with lipstick marks."
"Lipstick traces, eh?"
Grey eyes narrowed a little as the smirk widened. "Yeah. You remember the old record. Funny. No one else does, you know."
Arthur fidgeted with his nails. "You could say I was a fan. Somewhat, like."
"A fan." A lot of things were making sense. "How old are you?"
"Me?"
"No, the reporter sitting behind you. How old?"
"Twenty-eight."
Stone's eyes widened comically. "Shit," he swore, "That's young. You must have been a baby."
"I left home at sixteen," Arthur excused, "And then there was the two years in London."
"A baby," Stone insisted, "A mere, fucking baby." He sat back, clearly astonished, shaking his platinum blond head with almost paternal concern. Almost. There was nothing paternal about his relationship with one Arthur Stewart of the New York Herald.
"I wasn't that young."
"A baby."
"Old enough to know I weren't going to survive at 'ome," Arthur snapped, agitated by such close scrutiny.
"Oh." A lot more things were making sense. Grey eyes flicked down to the younger man's lap and then flicked up again, bright with humour and delight and knowing. "They found out, did they? How? Let me guess- they walked in on you with another boy. A friend. Was that it?"
Too close for comfort but Arthur steeled himself to behave rationally. He could see himself in the mirror. He could judge how badly he was hiding his thoughts. And he hardened his features to show nothing. "Something like that," he admitted, "It were a long time ago."
"Things like that, they never really stay in the past," Stone commented, "They stick with you. All the time. Everything you do, I bet you see it in your head. Every man you meet, you think of how they looked at you."
"Mr. Stone, this isn't about me. Or my life."
"Your life is intruding on mine, Art. That makes it fair game."
Arthur snorted contemptuously and went back to his notes. "Not so young," he grunted, "There were little kids everywhere. I got on alright."
"Did you? How? Let me guess, you and three other little kids took a room in some crummy bedsit and did odd jobs to get money. Went to shows anywhere you could and spent too much on booze and drugs." Stone sighed and fidgeted with his hair. "All the bloody same."
"I di'n't." Arthur was glad to throw a spanner in the works, even if it was a small one. "I hooked up with the Flaming Creatures. They gave me a place to stay, I wrote pieces on them. It got me my job at the 'Erald."
Once again, he was dropping his 'aitches'.
"The Flaming Creatures… I see." Stone laughed, seeming to enjoy the irony of it all. "So that was why…" he went off again.
Arthur was confused. He hadn't said anything to warrant such humour. All he'd done was show the rock star that he wasn't like the other kids out there. He'd done things different. Apparently something about the Flaming Creatures was funny, even if Arthur couldn't see what it was.
"What?" he demanded.
But Stone wouldn't tell him. He waved him away and went back to making general conversation.
A bearded man with sweat on his brow and a bunch of wires in his hand knocked on the door and announced in a shockingly high voice that Mr. Stone had fifteen minutes to go.
Mr. Stone went even quieter. He was even more charming. He talked a little slower, his accent became a little thicker, but he kept it going steadily. He talked of his sessions in the studio, and interesting letters he got from fans. He talked of other musicians that he liked, picking out three other records that he thought were the best of the year.
The bearded man came back with a cup of coffee and the announcement that there were ten minutes left.
Somewhere in the business of accepting the cup and taking a sip, the conversation stopped altogether.
Arthur found it most disconcerting.
Stone was sipping meditatively on his coffee and gazing inwards, his eyes staring unseeing at the floor. One elegantly shod foot tapped out a staccato beat that might be something to do with a song or might be nervousness; Arthur couldn't tell.
The coffee cup rose and fell.
Shannon opened the door to the announcement that there were five minutes left and was he ready. "Any problems?" she asked hurriedly, "It's all settled. The boys are all ready. It's going to be great, Tommy, really great. The kids are just waiting for you to come out."
Stone looked up with a brief smile and handed her the cup.
Shannon took a large swallow of the cooling liquid, made a face, shook her blond head and put it down. "How do you drink this?" she remarked, more to herself than to him, "So terribly strong!"
Arthur made a discreet note of it in his book.
"Come on, Tommy. Let me have a look at you."
He stood up and pirouetted for her, arms out and turning slowing.
She tipped her head to the side and tapped a red-painted nail against her chin. "Hmmm… Mr. Stewart?" she asked.
The reporter looked up with a start. "Yeah?"
"Mr. Stone requires his privacy now," she said, "I really must ask you to leave."
"Okay." He got to his feet and grabbed up his bag, letting himself be hustled from the room. If he found it odd that Tommy Stone hadn't asked him to leave himself, he didn't say anything. Though, even if he'd wanted to, he didn't get the time! He found himself on the other side of the shut door very fast.
The bearded man brushed passed him swearing at someone called Vince, hand still clutching the bunch of wires.
Arthur shook his head and thought he'd get to his seat for the performance. It wouldn't do to be late, now, would it? Even if he did grimace at the thought.
On the other side of the shut door, Shannon confronted her one and only client- "Alright, Brian. What are you planning now?"
"Planning what, ducks?"
Oh, it was definitely Brian in there, just behind the make-up. Shannon narrowed her blue eyes. "Don't give me that," she seethed, "I can tell!"
"Stop being a twat, Shannon. I'm not planning anything."
"I've put too much work into this, Tommy. I've done too much. I don't give a shit if you want to quit tomorrow. That's fine." She was really desperate, and what was more she could hear it in her voice, could feel it in the muscles of her face. "Fine. But just for tonight, Tommy, please? Behave? Just go through it like we planned and tomorrow you get a long break. I'll cancel everything for three months. Take a vacation. Take a cruise. Take a fucking plane to Timbuktu, I don't give a damn! Just finish the show. Please!"
He wouldn't listen, twitching away from her with a frown on his face. Sinking down before the mirror and looking at the little watch sitting there.
"Tommy, are you listening?"
"I'm listening." He dropped the unfortunate watch to the tabletop with a smack. "I'll do the bloody show. But that's it! Tomorrow I quit!"
"Okay. Tomorrow. Tomorrow you can quit."
Shannon crossed her fingers. Tomorrows were tricky things. So far, Stone had thrown a tantrum before every major show in the last year and he'd always come back the next day. A little restless and a little snappish, but he'd come back. Shannon wasn't stupid- one day he'd do it for real. And she'd be out of a job. She didn't relish the thought but it would happen. She just had to put it off for as long as she could.
"A minute," he commented, "One fucking minute. Two hours after that. Press party junket after. And then home."
Home was always a hotel. The place he slept. Home used to be Belfast but not since he'd left at seventeen.
'Old enough to know I weren't goin' to survive at 'ome.'
Brian Slade had known too. He'd stuck around, of course, longer than he should have. Until the little boy had come back, begging, crawling, whimpering across the floor. And his gang hadn't been too happy about finding out some scrubby schoolboy had a crush on their Brian. Maureen hadn't either.
Hadn't they had a night of it, though? Brian never could remember. Maureen… had he or hadn't he? So many and even the first one was getting to be a haze.
"Tommy?"
He looked at Shannon's reflection in the mirror, jerking his brain away from the memories. He felt stupid even thinking of them. As if he missed Belfast! Ha! What the bloody hell had it ever given him?
"It's time."
She said it hesitantly, like she always did. And he always saw the shy little girl whenever she said it. She used to do it for him 'back in the old days' too. She'd stick around because she just melted into corners, she was so eager to help him.
He swept passed her with a grin. A typical, bluff, hearty, American grin because he knew how worried she got, and then he was out of the room and he could hear the screaming crowds as he got closer.
He'd always loved that sound. It got addictive after a while. To know he'd made it!
He ran out and the screaming just got louder.