EIGHTEEN

 

It was about three in the morning by the time Darien finally got in. He and Justin had been working all night, and Darien would have to get up pretty early the next day to continue to practice himself, but the song was done.

Darien was ready for this. He felt something deep down inside himself, something that was growing all the time, and that had been planted in the very center of his being a long time ago. Maybe a year ago, when Noah had asked him not to leave. Darien hadn’t been ready back then, but he was now.

Life, light, hope. Something good and green, that was what was inside of him. He couldn’t understand it, but he could put a name to it. Several names. Caring. Compassion. Trust. Need.

Love.

All of those and more and all of it related to Noah. Had Darien really been so scared of this? It was the best thing in the world, nothing to fear, except losing it. But that was what made this all the more potent.

He could lose everything. Not just Noah, but also his career. In fact, if he got Noah, he was going to lose his job, because there was still no way in hell that Lester would accept him and Noah.

If Darien were allowed to date, he knew it would be to someone else famous. One of his bandmates, maybe. Or some other celebrity. Not to someone like Noah, someone quiet and private, someone who wouldn’t enjoy the limelight, who would prefer not to be photographed.

Well, that was just the way it was. Noah was who he was, and that would always be more than enough for Darien. So, exhausted, he slipped into the apartment, already looking around for Noah.

He knew that he wasn’t there, though. He could feel the other man’s presence in the room, but he knew, before he even looked around, that Noah was gone. Sure, the bedroom smelled of him, but the house felt empty and cold, and Darien softly sighed as he saw that Noah’s laptop was gone.

Was Noah still at school? He had been working so hard, but it was so late. Was something wrong with him? Darien had so badly wanted to talk to him about what was going on, had wanted to beg him to come to the concert, but it looked like he might not have that chance.

Wasn’t it possible that Noah, with his almost ethereal loveliness, had found someone else? That he was with someone else? But that was jealousy talking. He knew Noah, and he knew there was no way that he could move on so quickly after a breakup.

With a groan, Darien fell down onto the couch, and his body was so tired that he even managed to fall into a fitful sleep. He woke up every half hour or so, though, sure that he’d heard a noise outside of his door, that Noah was coming home and that he would finally have the chance to plead his case.

It was about five when Darien finally gave up on that. Noah wasn’t going to come home that night. Wherever he was, he was there for the night. So Darien did the next best thing. He made a few phone calls, got Noah set up with a ticket to the concert, along with the VIP backstage pass, and got an email sent out to tell Noah about it.

At least Noah would know that Darien had wanted him there. At least there was a chance, however small, that the man that he still considered his boyfriend would be there as Darien made the sacrifice.

Whether Noah was there or not, though, Darien’s feet were set on this path. He was going to do it. He was going to lay everything out at love’s feet. And if Noah turned him down, or if he didn’t show up at all, then at least Darien could know that he’d done his very best to save what they’d had.

For a few more hours, Darien slept. Every hour or so, he woke up enough to try Noah’s phone. At first he texted, but when no answer came back, he tried calling.

As the hours passed and there was still no answer from Noah, Darien’s worry grew. Noah was the sort of person who was very serious about the things he did, including, apparently, breaking up with Darien, but he wasn’t a cruel man. Surely he would answer back, even just a few words telling Darien to go to hell, once it became clear that Darien was worried?

What if something had … happened to Noah? What if he was hurt? Not able to get to his phone for some reason? Darien tossed and turned, and finally, he just got up. He was going to start calling hospitals, he decided, looking for Noah. He had to do something because this just wasn’t like Noah at all to disappear off the radar completely.

Until he was called in for a surprise rehearsal, a full three hours earlier than the one that they had planned. And all he could do, really, was make phone calls in between numbers, any chance that he got.

It wasn’t until the afternoon that he finally had some luck, at least sort of. The good news was, he found the hospital where Noah had been. The bad news was, he was already gone. And, of course, the worse news was that he’d been in the hospital at all.

At least he’d been let out. That was something, though, of course, the nurse who took his call couldn’t tell him any details about a patient, as she so irritably told him before abruptly hanging up.

It drove Darien insane, and the whole time that he was practicing, his mind wasn’t on the moves he was doing. It was on the beautiful, frustrating man who had been his friend for so long, his boyfriend for such a short time, and the man who he was coming to realize he would do anything to get back.

His song was the one that came second to last. Justin gave him a meaningful look as he announced their set list, and the rest of the guys looked jealous that he got to have the spotlight all on him.

Let them be jealous. Soon enough, if everything went the way that Darien desperately hoped it would, they wouldn’t have to compete with him for attention anymore.

Slowly, he nodded back to Justin. Yes, he was still going to do it. He had poured his heart out to Justin the night before as they wrote that song, had told him everything that he planned, and Justin had approved of it all.

“It’s love,” Justin had said, and Darien nodded. It was love because only love could make him do something so reckless, put everything out there.

Now if only Noah would make it. If only Darien could find him, but where would he even look? All he could do was throw himself into this practice, and hope that somehow, by some miracle, Noah could forgive him enough to try again.

This wasn’t about Lance, or Ken, though Darien knew that Noah was jealous about them. And he could even understand why. But this was about something else. This was about Darien leaving a year ago, and the way that had stepped on Noah’s heart and made it hard for him to trust again.

He hadn’t done it on purpose, but he had done it, and he was going to make amends. He had been thoughtless, and Noah had been through so much in his life, some of which Darien knew about and more which he only saw reflected in those beautiful eyes.

Then it was time to go get warmed up at the venue, and before they left, Darien grabbed Justin by the arm and pulled him close. He whispered in his ear, and then he was swept off into the rising tide of the excitement for this concert, his bandmates taking him away as inevitably as a strong undertow would.

Which was fine, maybe, because when Darien whispered to Justin, the other man nodded his agreement, and Darien saw it before he was carried away.

“Watch for Noah. Bring him to me if you see him,” Darien whispered, and Justin gave one of those rare smiles and a nod, and Darien somehow knew that it would be okay if Justin had anything to say about it.

 

* * *

 

The bright lights, shining in his eyes so that Darien could barely even see the crowd, didn’t thrill Darien as much as they usually did. He was enjoying himself, and he loved the cheers just as much as ever, but as he and the rest of the members of the Lost Boys sang and danced and flirted with each other, he found that it just didn’t matter to him.

The last year of his life would have been a complete dream for most people. And truthfully, that’s how it felt to him. Like a dream, like he’d been asleep ever since he left Noah. And it was Noah coming back which had started the process of waking him up.

He couldn’t go back to sleep after that. After feeling love for the first time in his life, at least in a romantic sense. He would be a complete idiot if he gave up on that, and as he sang his heart out and spun through the complicated choreography, he said goodbye.

Regardless of whether Noah showed up or not, and Darien couldn’t see into the crowd well enough to know if he had, Darien was done. This just wasn’t the life for him anymore.

It was a bittersweet time for him when the lights finally lowered, except for a single spotlight which fell on him. His heart clenched in his chest, nerves fluttering away in his stomach, the butterflies there feeling like they’d been given steroids or something.

Being one of four was safer. Comfortable. People weren’t just looking at him, not usually, and as he stepped forward to the mic which was just waiting for him, he became even more sure than ever.

“Hey, everyone, I’m Darien. This song was written for someone who means a lot to me,” Darien said, and he was speaking to a crowd of thousands, but really, he was only speaking to one person. To a person who wasn’t even there, maybe.

Just as he opened his mouth, just as the music was swelling around him, a movement caught his eye from backstage, someone desperately trying to get his attention.

For a moment, it was like someone had cast a spell which had literally stopped time. Darien wasn’t even sure that he was breathing, because when he glanced over to see who it was, he saw Justin’s intense gray eyes gleaming at him, the waving of his hands as he pulled Darien’s gaze to him.

Beside him was the one person that Darien, if he saw beyond hope to what was likely, had not expected to see. Noah, shielding his eyes against the bright light coming from the stage.

Darien didn’t so much look at him as he did devour him with his eyes. He raked him over, from the tip of his adorably pert little nose to the tips of his toes. When he saw the cast, and how Noah was leaning on crutches, he winced slightly.

But Noah didn’t seem too hurt. In the little glimpse that Darien was able to catch, anyway. Unfortunately, Darien couldn’t read his face at all, and he had no idea how any of this was going to go over.

For just a moment, a split second of weakness, Darien considered just staying right where he was, giving up on making anything with Noah. For a little bit longer, he thought that the best thing that he could do would be to go over to the other man and wrap his arms around him and kiss him until Noah couldn’t deny that there was something here.

But they had a plan, him and Justin. Justin had been in his corner this whole time, and Justin was standing there, everything about him, his expression, his posture, encouraging Darien on. Noah might have seemed completely neutral, but the same could not be said of Justin.

He had made his decision, anyway. All of this uncertainty, it was just nerves. Just his old, careless way of being messing with him, trying to pull him into habits that didn’t serve him anymore.

No. He wasn’t backing out. Though it was much more terrifying to face this than he had thought possible, though he was certain that he was going to open his mouth and nothing but a squeak of terror was going to come out, he was still going to try. He owned it to Noah, and to Justin, and most of all, to himself.

So he stepped up to the mic, and he cupped it with shaking hands. He took a deep breath, a singer’s breath, right down into the very depths of his diaphragm, his stomach expanding with it. He stole one more glance at Noah and sent up a silent prayer to anyone who was listening that this would work, that Noah would feel his emotion through this song.

Darien didn’t even know if the song was good anymore. It had all been so rushed, and he had put too much of himself into it to know anything about it on an objective level. His heart and soul was in this song, and all he could do now was perform it and see what other people thought.

What Noah thought.

So he took the mic in hand, and he stepped closer to it, his body intimate as he wrapped himself around the stand, looking out into the bright light, hearing the cheers of the crowd, and hoping that he didn’t completely ruin the flow of the concert with this.

But Justin was the expert, and Justin had arranged their set. He would just have to put his faith in him. Gazing out into the light, but with Noah’s intense little face the first and foremost thing in his mind, Darien parted his lips and let the first words of the song escape from his mouth.

He just hoped that they found Noah’s heart.