Nick calls Patrick from the launch party. He's a little tipsy, and probably louder than he should be when talking to his boyfriend on the phone while there are still press around, but he's having fun, and he's happy, and he wants to share with Patrick.

"Hey Nick, how's the party?" Patrick asks.

"Oh it's great!" He says, gesturing wildly. "At least half of these people hate us and are totally hoping to see the album go down in flames."

"And this is... fun?" Patrick sounds confused.

"Oh, right." Nick pulls his somewhat fuzzy thoughts together. "Yeah, it's kind of a game. We totally know who likes us and who's going to talk shit about us no matter what, so we like to prev... prov... give them stuff to talk about. We take bets on how they'll spin it."

"Like now?" Patrick guesses. ""Carter disses other Boys, break-up imminent!""

"Ha!" Nick barks out a laugh. Okay possibly he's a little past tipsy. There's a drink in his other hand. He deposits it on a nearby table. Time to go hide in a corner for a little while until he remembers which stupid things he's not supposed to do tonight. "Yeah, like that."

"Interesting." Patrick sounds amused. Nick likes the warmth in his voice, the way it curls against his ear and makes him smile almost without realizing.

"How's tour life?"

"Hasn't much changed in the couple days since you last saw me."

"Oh fuck off, I miss you. I'm allowed." Finding no unoccupied corners, Nick leans up against the wall, one eye out for the rest of his Boys. Even Kevin's here tonight, which is pretty sweet.

"If I start missing you now I might go a little nuts," Patrick admits. "No break until the holidays is brutal."

"Six weeks, maybe seven." Nick says, trying but probably failing to sound breezy. "Over before you know it. "

"Sure."

"So, you're not going to tell me how our stuff is going?" He made Patrick swear not to talk to him about the album until two weeks after the album launch, but Nick's pretty sure Patrick won't last.

"I thought this was a party night, dude?" It's a really weak excuse because this is Patrick and Patrick works on music without even noticing half the time. But maybe...

"You were totally waiting by the phone, dawg. Admit it!"

"Yeah, maybe a little."

When the first week sales numbers come out for Unbreakable, Patrick sends Nick a text.

crowds are won and lost and won again but our hearts beat for the diehards

Some hours later he gets a message back

stop stealing pete's words

Quickly followed by

top 5 in 6 countries, top 10 in 8 more.

So he calls.

"Lotta diehards."

Nick laughs at him. It's a little wistful, but he sounds mostly okay. "They're the best."

"Are we gonna play the "my fans are better than your fans" game?" The idea of having Nick on the phone for hours is tempting, but he'd prefer more entertaining conversation.

"My album just came out, give me a break."

"You have some loyal fans." Patrick concedes.

"Thank-you."

"So when can I grab you for some celebratory sex?" Apart from the "We're not talking about the solo album until halfway through November" thing, Nick's been pretty quiet about his schedule.

"Not sure," Nick sighs, sounding like he's stretching. Oh. Patrick was unaware Nick was near a bed. Patrick's brain goes south and his mouth goes dry. "What kind of sex do you think this deserves?"

"Um..." No, seriously. South. If Nick expects Patrick to lead the phonesex, he's going to be very disappointed. So is Patrick, for that matter.

"Because I'm pretty happy here." Nick's voice lowers, smooths out. "Add that to seeing you, and I'll bet I'd be all over you, if you randomly turned up in my bedroom right now."

"Guh." Andy looks up as that noise escapes Patrick's mouth and it's really time to move back to the bedroom.

"I can't decide if I'd go straight for your dick or if I'd slam you up against the nearest wall."

Patrick stumbles, but manages to keep from falling into his fake door. He jerks it open and slams it closed, making damn sure to lock it before leaning up against it, panting. The bed has never seemed so far.

"I think I'd like that," Nick says, slow and speculative. Patrick can just imagine Nick's fingers on his own cock right now, stroking slowly, savouring. Fuck the bed. He fumbles with his fly one-handed.

"Yeah," And oh god, that tone of voice does things to Patrick. He squeezes hard to keep from coming rightthefucknow. "I think I'd really like to shove your pants down around your ankles, pick you up by those thighs, God, Patrick..." His voice cracks in a way that is very fucking satisfying to Patrick. His boyfriend thinks he's hot.

And then what he actually said catches up to Patrick's brain and holy fuck. Patrick's somewhat aware that he's making sounds, but most of him is focused on not coming until Nick finishes painting this picture, or comes first.

Nick's breathless now, really jerking himself off. "Push you up against the wall, feel those thighs tight around me, your heels against my back and just... fuck, Patrick!"

It's the high, desperate tone as Nick comes that takes Patrick right over the edge. When he regains awareness of his surroundings, he's on the floor, a complete, if pretty happy, mess. He still has a hold of his phone. He should probably check the case for cracks.

"So um... when was that?" He manages to ask, still out of breath.

"Let's make it a surprise." Nick says, and hangs up.

Patrick is dating one seriously evil fucker.

On November 13th, precisely two weeks after Unbreakable drops, Nick opens up his laptop to find a couple of emails from Patrick with all the stuff they'd worked on in Las Vegas. The only thing left to do is lay down some changes to the vocal track on the twelfth song.

Nick sits back, staring at the screen.

It isn't as if he didn't know what needed to be done when he left Las Vegas. He's even made sure to have equipment with him, so he doesn't have to go hunting for a decent mic.

Still, Nick suddenly really wants to go for a walk or something. Put this off a couple days. They've only got a couple of weeks to rehearse before hitting the Jingle Ball circuit, followed by Howie's wedding, which leaves them another man short until just a week before they fly off to Japan. He really should just leave his solo stuff until they're on the road and there's downtime to be filled on the bus.

Forget that he's got the time right now and AJ's off preparing for the release of his solo record. It just, wouldn't be right. It's not a good time. He closes the e-mail and starts going through the rest of his inbox.

Nick's e-mail organization is pretty simple. He deletes things he doesn't want to keep and leaves the rest of them in his inbox. Half the screen is previously-read emails. About half of those are from Patrick. When he realizes what he's looking at, he knows waiting till January isn't an option. He's going to see Patrick at least once before he leaves, and it's not like Patrick's going to leave him alone until then.

Nick spends the next two hours standing in the shower with the laptop propped on the sink, doing take after take until he gets what he needs.

The next day on lunch break, he sends the disk to Jive's A&R, before emailing Patrick with the finished product. It's done.

"What did he do to you?"

Nick looks up at Brian from his comfortable sprawl on the floor of the rehearsal space, from which he is not moving until someone brings a wheelchair. Possibly a forklift. Their choreographer is Satan. Probably a friend of Johnny's.

"What?" He asks, genuinely perplexed. Brian is standing over him, looking fierce and protective, and if it wasn't for the fact that Nick hasn't had the energy to annoy even Howie very much, and therefore Nick is probably not the target of Brian's anger, Nick might re-think that moving thing. "Who?"

"Your asshole boyfriend."

"Hey!" And okay an insult like that, especially from Brian, who doesn't use language like that unless he means it, does motivate Nick into moving enough to swat at Brian's ankle. "Lay off Patrick, man."

At this, Brian's shoulders drop and he relaxes enough to sit cross-legged by Nick's head. "Damn. He was the only one I could think of."

"Seriously, Frick, I have no idea what you're talking about."

"You're... off, Nick. You're workin' hard, don't get me wrong, man. But you're working at more than just the singing and the dancing. You ain't even laughed at my jokes for a couple of days now."

"That's because your jokes aren't funny." But the uneasy feeling in the pit of Nick's stomach that has been there on and off since he sent the demos to Jive, comes back with a vengeance. Patrick hasn't asked about it yet, he must know Nick would say something if he'd heard, but it's a big pink elephant in their conversations. It's been five days with no word. A&R doesn't wait that long when they're dealing with a star artist.

"C'mon, Frack. You c'n talk to me." And now Brian looks a little hurt. Brian's maybe not the last person Nick wants to talk to about this, but he's pretty low on the list. He can't talk to the Boys about it. AJ and Howie's solo albums aren't going to be released until next year. Nick's... well luck wasn't exactly a factor in getting Now or Never out, not good luck anyway, but he shouldn't be whining.

That much he can say. "I don't want to whine," he explains. "I'll be okay."

"Okay isn't good enough." Brian says stubbornly. "Maybe I should call Patrick? If he's not the problem, and you can't talk to me..."

"Patrick knows what's going on. Sort of. Mostly." Patrick's been pretty good about keeping things light, telling tour stories and once letting Nick talk to Hemmy on the phone. He hasn't said a word about the music Nick knows he must be working on. For Patrick, that's hard. Nick can't wait to see him again, give him a piggyback ride instead of the thanks he's not sure he's going to be able to say if this doesn't work out.

"Maybe I should kick his ass after all."

"Hey, shut up. Not his fault." Nick pushes himself into a sitting position. "Promise me you'll be nice."

Brian still looks uncertain, so Nick ignores his aching muscles and tackles him. "Promise!"

Once Brian has cried Uncle and they both stagger off to Nick's car for some forbidden McDonald's drive-thru, Nick feels a little better. Maybe he'll get off his ass and call Jive tomorrow.

"So I have an appointment with the label tomorrow."

For a horrible moment, Patrick has no clue how to respond to this. It's been a solid week since Nick's email telling him the CD had been UPSed to Jive. A week. He knows that Nick's first CD didn't sell as well as expected and that the label is unhappy with him. Nick Carter is still a bigger star than Patrick can properly conceive of, and labels do not make their stars wait.

Ranting won't help Nick, so Patrick tries to forget that Nick's not just one of his friends who managed to scrape a demo together. "Hey, at least they want to talk," he says, trying to sound encouraging.

"I guess." Nick sighs. "It's a phone conference. Gotta find somewhere to have it that's away from the guys - there's probably going to be yelling."

"Labels mostly yell about money," Patrick reminds him. "They didn't spend any on this. Or if you break equipment," he muses, remembering the many Talks they... okay mostly Pete and Joe, have gotten from Island Def Jam, and Fueled by Ramen before them, on the subject. "Okay so that's kind of money, too."

"Did I say who was going to be doing the yelling?" Hey, that's almost a joke. Patrick feels proud.

"Don't yell too much. Gotta keep those pipes in shape."

"Oh tell me about it." Nick groans. "Brian's already coming down with a cold. I swear to God, Howie's mainlining his tea."

"And AJ?" The rehearsal process Nick's been describing to him all week is completely out of Patrick's experience, all this dancing and worry about knees. It's fascinating. Patrick can't imagine moving around so much and still singing well. Nick tried to talk him through some breathing exercises over the phone but it didn't work out.

"One day Bone will give up smoking and it'll stick and we'll all die of the shock. Otherwise, he's good. Extra stretches and stuff."

"Huh." Patrick resists the urge to talk about the Gym Class Heroes album he's working on. Topic, topic, anything other than tomorrow. "What time is it tomorrow?" Ok that didn't work. "So I can cross my fingers."

"Uh... twelve thirty? We should be on break by then."

"I could call and you could three-way me in," he suggests. It's about the only way Patrick can think of to help by this point. Clearly his skills as a distraction have worn thin over the last week.

"That..." And hey, Nick actually sounds like he's thinking about it. "That would be sweet. But this is something I need to do by myself." Patrick resists the urge to bang his head against the wall. He thought they'd gotten past this part. Apparently not.

"You'll call me after?"

"Yeah, sure." Nick laughs and ow, this is undoing all Patrick's good work from earlier. "We can do an autopsy or whatever. It'll be fun."

Patrick takes a breath. "It's going to be okay, Nick." He's said it before over the course of the project, but this is the first time he's realized how much Nick doesn't believe it. Or maybe the first time he can't make Nick believe it. "Whatever they say, we'll figure something out."

"I've gotta go, Patrick. Have a good show." And just like that he's gone.

Patrick has never wanted Kevin Richardson's number before, but right now he thinks somebody in that band ought to know what's happening tomorrow, and Nick doesn't want to talk about the album with the other three he's holed up with. For a moment he considers asking Pete to find it for him, before putting his phone away and getting started with his warm-ups. If things go down as badly as Nick seems to think, it's going to be obvious to his guys, and if it goes well Nick's going to want to sit on it until after AJ's album comes out. Patrick can wait. Just not much longer.

"Hey Nick," Patrick's voice is quiet, tentative. Nick doesn't blame him. They haven't talked, emailed or texted in three days. He knew Patrick would call him eventually, but he's not ready for this. Maybe he shouldn't have picked up.

"Hey." He hasn't even called Kevin yet. He should. Howie's already avoiding him, AJ's been staring at him as if Nick's behaviour will make sense if he looks long enough, and Brian's been trying to catch him alone for a talk. So far, he's respected the closed door, but Nick knows it's just a matter of time. Gotta fix Nicky before they go on tour, after all.

"You talked to your label, right?"

"Uh huh."

"And?"

"And what?" Nick kicks at the carpet. "I told you how it was going to go, like two months ago."

"Crap," is Patrick's first reaction, almost too low for Nick to hear it. Then he gets loud and, angry. "Bullshit. That is complete and utter bullshit. Those songs rocked!"

It's almost nice to hear, but Nick's long past angry. He's tired, he's done, and he's got to make Patrick realize that.

"If you do say so yourself," he hears himself say. Ow. Okay maybe he's a little angry. "You gotta know that's not how it works, man. They let me do what I liked with the first album, it didn't pull the numbers they wanted, now they're teaching me a lesson."

"They're idiots."

"That's the business." It's sort of weird being a has-been and an international popstar at the same time, but welcome to the business.

"They didn't approve any of them?" Nick's starting to find Patrick's incredulity amusing, in a bitter sort of way. "Not one song. Not even..."

"Nope." He wonders if Patrick realizes that one had the least possibility of getting anywhere. He wonders if he should have explained at the start of all this exactly how unlikely it was that any of this was going to get rubberstamped. But he really wanted that last kick at the can, and Patrick's enthusiasm let him hope, sometimes, that this wasn't what would happen.

"Okay." Patrick takes a deep breath, audibly calming himself down. "What's our next step? An independent release?"

Next step? Nick almost pulls the phone away from his ear to stare at it. Who is this guy and why is he trying to beat his head against an obvious brick wall? "Patrick, I'm getting ready for a world tour right now. Tour of the world. I'm kind of busy, dawg."

"You weren't too busy to record it." Patrick insists.

"Yeah, well. Also, I still have a contract." Which is good and bad, he supposes, but it's not like they'd drop a member of the Backstreet Boys while there's a possibility they might get some more money out of him. Maybe if AJ's album does well, he'll get a phone call. Right now he can't make himself care. He's got too much work to do.

"I could get you on Decaydance..." Suddenly all the anger Nick has been pushing down so he can get through his days comes exploding out.

"Don't you fucking dare. If you even try I swear to God, I'm never speaking to you again. I didn't do all this just to get a handout and get patted on the head by your asshole friends."

"Fuck, Nick." Actually that's about what he needs right now. Hard, angry sex. Too bad Patrick's on the other side of the country or something. "Don't you give a shit? I poured a hell of a lot of time and effort into this, and I didn't do it to have some idiot in a monkey suit tell me it's not worth releasing."

Nick wants out of this conversation. "You got paid either way, Stump."

"Oh, fuck you." The phone goes dead abruptly when Patrick hangs up. Nick closes his eyes. He'll deal with it later.



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