Author's Note: Sorry for the wait. I do have a busy schedule right now and I have to warn you that it won't lighten any time soon. Forgive the infrequent updates, but I promise that I will go on to the end. I won't abandon this fiction.

------------------------------------------------------

"This isn't supposed to happen," Arthur murmured, silent and still.

The man lying next to him stirred slightly and didn't answer.

"I should go," Arthur said.

For two seconds, nothing happened. And then Brian turned on his side and propped himself up on his elbow. "You're still here."

Arthur sat up too, brushing his hair off his face. "One thing," he said urgently, "This didn't happen. I didn't come here and we didn't…"

"Have sex?"

"No. We didn't have sex."

"If you want," Brian shrugged.

Arthur got off the bed and pulled his underwear on, feeling his chest constrict until he managed his trousers and shirt too. He might almost have made it through the door if a very naked rock star wasn't standing in the way, a sheet wrapped around his narrow hips like some kind of afterthought.

For the second time in one day, Arthur looked at him and said the first thing that came to mind- "Lipstick traces."

Brian raised an eyebrow and looked down at himself. "If you like," he agreed, "I was thinking of something far more practical."

"You're in my way."

"Good. Then you can take a seat and listen to me."

Arthur narrowed his eyes but Brian really did seem to mean it. He didn't intend to sit in a bedroom, however. That was just asking for trouble. He pushed passed the rock star and fell into a chair.

Brian hitched his sheet a little higher and rolled his eyes as if amused at himself. He proceeded to shuffle to another chair and he sat down just a primly, for all the world as if he were wearing a suit.

"What guarantee do I have," he asked, "That you won't tell."

"I won't tell," Arthur pointed out, "What will I tell? I don't have any proof."

"You can find proof," Brian said, smiling tightly, "That woman- what was her name- the reporter. She seems to have a handle on things."

After all of the mess and bother of the last few months, all the manipulative little games… Arthur couldn't understand why Slade had to wait for the end to have this conversation. They could have sat down at the start, talked things over. Arthur would have given his word and signed a reasonable enough contract. Stone could have gone on his little tour without the hassle of anyone else tagging along. And none of this would have happened!

"She has a theory," Arthur corrected, "Not the same thing."

"So she won't find out."

"No, she could find out. But it'll take her a while. You didn't leave a lot of loose threads."

"Shannon," Brian said proudly. One slender foot emerged from under the sheet and began to kick distractedly. "That's all her work. I told her what I wanted, she got it done."

Arthur watched the foot rise and fall. "Sounds great."

"She doesn't like you," Brian commented, clearly amused by the idea, "She has this theory, this idea, that you're goin' to ruin me. Since that would ruin her, she's not too happy."

"You think I'll ruin you?"

"I can ruin myself," Brian quipped, "I don't need anyone's help."

Arthur saw the gun go off again and he fervently agreed with Brian Slade on that one. The rock star could ruin everything, if he wanted to. Destroy hopes and dreams and bright visions of the future.

The rock star stared vacantly around at the mess of his hotel suite, quite interested in the havoc he'd managed to wreak without realizing it. He lifted his arm and looked down. The red marks were there, but only scratches this time. He guessed he hadn't waited to find anything sharper than his own nails.

Arthur caught sight of the red and sighed. "You cut yourself last night, Stone?"

Grey eyes flashed up. "I think we can use first names, now, Art."

Arthur swallowed but tried not to show it. "Fine. Tommy."

"I'm retiring Tommy Stone, Art." Brian looked down again and traced one line redder and longer than the rest. Welts, most of them, but this was the worst of the scratches.

"Again."

The wealth of frozen memories almost smacked Brian across the face they were so obvious. Arthur was not very good at hiding his emotions, but Brian found himself still uncertain and untrusting. Trying to see beyond, even if his logic told him that there was no beyond. Arthur wasn't hard to understand. But Brian was still, somehow, finding there was a lot to learn.

"No shooting this time," he remarked, "Just a simple retirement notice and disappearance trick. I can go somewhere quiet for a rest."

Arthur nodded coolly. "Then what?"

"Pardon?"

"Then, when you get bored with your own head, what're you gonna do? Come back as someone else?"

"I could. Why?"

"Just want to know."

"You make it sound sordid," Brian told him, "Like I'm screwing someone over for this."

"What about all your fans?" Arthur growled, "All those kids that believe in you." The little boy outside the television store, the one with his nose pressed up to the glass. "You're doing to them what you did to us."

"There's no 'us' and 'them'," Brian snapped, "And I don't owe them anything."

"So you're saying we don't count?"

"I'm saying that I play music, write a few songs, sing a few verses. If they like it, they buy the record. If they don't, tough!" Brian had been aware of this symbiotic relationship forever. And he was aware of the paradox. That didn't mean he had to like it. "I'm not cutting corners just for a handful of kids I don't know."

"A handful?" Arthur exclaimed, fascinated by the sheer self-absorption, "It's a few fucking millions, mate. Those kids pay for your mansions and your cars. Without them, you're nothing."

"I know." Brian nodded quite seriously and didn't seem to find the statement very upsetting in one way or another. He just looked down and watched his foot bob. He wondered if his arches were falling in. They got sore faster. And they looked lower.

Arthur shook his dark head and raised a hand to settle his collar, only to find that he hadn't exactly done up the top buttons of his shirt very well. A few had slipped open again and those grey eyes were moving from the bobbing foot to his hand to the bared 'v' of his chest.

Arthur perversely left the buttons open.

Who the hell cared, anyway? So many years since he'd been… well, since he'd done that, and really, after Brian had had his cock all the way up his arse, could the glimpse of his chest really be so shocking.

"You're strangely attractive," Brian commented, pulling the words out of nowhere.

Arthur thought casually of the movies he used to watch when he was a kid. He'd have to say something coquettish or outraged or something if they were in a movie. Something snappy. Something that let Brian know he wouldn't be just another girl in a long line.

Except Arthur wasn't a girl. He didn't feel like a girl. Being on the receiving end with another man never made him feel a girl. He felt like a guy who was getting sex. Nothing girly about it whatsoever.

"I can't see you as one of the kids who used to come to my shows. I find it hard to imagine you even believed in it like you say."

Arthur smiled. "Oh, I believed. I left home for it; got thrown out."

"I thought that was your friend, your first love."

The veiled mockery normally had the effect of raising Arthur's hackles. This time, they only made him smile wider. "No. My Dad walked into the room to find me jerking off to your picture."

Brian was certainly surprised. "My picture?"

"Well, you and Curt." Arthur watched comprehension dawn. "You know the one."

"I know the one," Brian admitted. He sat back, quite still, concentrating on adjusting this new piece of information against everything else he knew about the other man. It made a lot more sense. Arthur hadn't been experimenting, he'd been fantasizing. Somehow, Brian understood the dynamics- experimentation was stupid and immoral, but masturbation was completely not to be borne. And to a picture of two men and a guitar! No middle class father would willingly tolerate that.

"An' you?" Arthur taunted, "What made you leave?"

"A little boy I took upstairs and fucked neatly in his own bed," Brian smirked.

Arthur laughed and Brian knew he wouldn't take it seriously. He'd already given so many different answers to the same questions- London called to the artist in him; he followed his first love down to London; he went to stay with family and just never left.

"I sucked the school uniform right out of him," Brian embellished, "He wasn't discreet."

Arthur went hot and cold at that. The fey quip about the 'little boy' didn't exactly make his heart pick up but the image of those lips sucking hard enough to break a school boy's soul hit too close to home.

Brian stifled a grin. He was rusty at this, but by God, Arthur made him think the seventies had never ended.

And then Arthur said, "What's the time?"

And just like that, they were back in the present. Brian blinked and found his toes were cold. He pulled his foot up under him to warm them up and tried to remember where his watch had ended up. And his cigarettes.

He couldn't see a clock anywhere.

Arthur got up and disappeared into the bedroom for a moment, returning with a frown on his face. "It's two in the morning," he scowled, "I hate stayin' up late."

It was getting more and more surreal by the minute. "You do?" Brian asked.

"Makes it harder to wake up," Arthur sighed, scratching his chin, "I can't go in late to work. My boss would have a kitten."

The very American term turned the world upside down.

Brian looked up meditatively at the ceiling but it still looked the same. Maybe it was just perceptions.

"You don't look good," Arthur said suddenly, bending down to look him in the face, "Hey! Brian?"

Oh. Brian. And he hadn't even needed to ask this time. "What?"

"You look sick," Arthur told him.

"I'm flattered," Brian muttered, lifting a hand to his unexpectedly light head. There was a clock ticking somewhere. The sound was going to burst his eardrums and shatter his skull, he just knew it. Maybe there was a song in that.

'tumbling down… tumbling down…'

That damned song! Since when had he had that stuck in his head? It felt like forever, but he hadn't noticed it before. And if Arthur didn't switch off the light his eyes were going to melt and really, Brian would prefer it if they didn't. He said so, somehow, and the light was switched off. Helpful, Brian's mind said, the first helpful reporter he'd ever met. The others had all been sharks.

"God, my head," he mumbled, raising a hand fearfully in case said appendage fell off.

"You need a doctor," Arthur grunted, heaving him out of the chair and dragging one limp arm around his shoulders. "Should I get Shannon?"

"No. I'm fine. Let go, I'm not a sodding patient."

Arthur obligingly let go.

Brian almost fell face flat on the floor.

Arthur obligingly caught him and dragged him to bed. "Lie down," he ordered.

Then he proceeded to untangle the sheet. Brian didn't help him; more to the point, he seemed inclined to think it all a game.

"You should ask first," Brian teased, "Whisper sweet nothings."

"I'm not trying to fucking sleep with you, you prick," Arthur snarled, finally losing his patience, "Just get the sheet off!"

The anger might have helped because Brian didn't fight it any more. Arthur got the sheet off and pulled the blankets up and somehow or other felt like a nurse for making sure Brian had enough pillows and wouldn't choke on his own bile if he felt nauseous in the night.

"Art?"

Arthur paused before rolling the sheet into a corner. "Yeah."

"It's cold."

Arthur was going to go for the sheet again.

Brian snorted contemptuously and yanked him down. "Stop that," he commanded, "Hold still. I'll be asleep in a minute."

Arthur fell asleep first.

Brian stared at the ceiling and turned over, thankful for his own space. He liked the feel of another person in his bed. Just not clinging to him. Arthur was a solid presence, too. Brian could feel a crazy idea forming.