Taylor

For some odd reason that I couldn't fathom, my little brother who disliked coffee was catching up with Scott has he headed to the counter, leaving me standing with my lover's little brother. Well, not so little. I had the disheartening thought that I was still incredibly unacquainted with Dave. He seemed to realize it, too.

"Let's get a table," he suggested, and I agreed amiably. We selected a little table which was sort of hidden by one of the many fake trees in little gold pots that the lobby had apparently deemed stylish. We sat across from each other, each with an empty chair beside us for our counterpart. Then, we were quiet. I peered around, feeling paranoid. I couldn't help it. Dave noticed this, as well.

"I'll keep an eye over your shoulder so you don't have to keep twisting around like that," he offered in a genuinely nice voice.

"Thanks." I smiled in gratitude.

"No problem," he dismissed.

And again, silence surrounded us, the background noise of the reception and the fountain keeping things from being too awkward.

"These tables are dirty," I said, just to be saying something. He looked down at it.

"Yeah, they are, kinda," he commented. I was grateful that Dave seemed to have a properly-working train of thought, because then he asked, "What kind of places are there to eat around here?"

I shrugged and then said, "Mainstream restaurants mainly. A really great Italian place a couple of blocks that way. We should all go there before we have to leave."

"Time flies," he commented.

"Yeah," I agreed. "Speaking, do you guys leave early for the Never Been Kissed thing? Or--"

"Yeah, we get there an hour and a half before to set up on whatever stage they have for us, I think."

"Oh, well, will we be able to find you after you play? To sit by you?"

"I'm sure Scott will have his Taylor-radar on full blast," he said with a goofy grin that I found both shy and teasing at the same time, and I laughed.

"Dave, can I honestly ask you something?"

"Um - sure," Dave nodded, as if he knew what I was going to ask, which he probably did.

"Uh . . . do you have a problem at all with . . . me and Scott?" Quickly, I corrected the way my question had slipped out. "I mean, is it weird for you? I really don't want to be the cause of relations between you guys and your brother to be strained, or . . . weird."

Dave nestled his chin in his palm and cocked his head, his eyes investigating. For a shock they reminded me of Scott's with their forthright, probing manner.

"Clint will get over it," he assured me. "And - to - tell you the truth . . ." he began haltingly, "Scott - if only you knew . . . he's . . . so weird about . . . himself. The fact that he has interest in someone of his own gender doesn't surprise me too much, at least, it doesn't now that the surprise of seeing you guys together got past me. What Scott prefers is never really set, he's very experimental and when he wants something - he gets it. And - uhh - in my opinion, he could have done worse . . . at least you're a nice, attractive guy and not a crack-snorting porn freak . . ."

At this point I was red-cheeked and laughing. Dave was a bit pink, too.

"I do feel rather like I'm an experiment for him . . . but he's one for me too, in a different sense. This is . . . sorta . . . the first time I've ever felt this way - about anyone - and I just . . . uhhh, I bet you love talking about your brother with me." I flashed him a grin, not wishing to embarrass myself by further acting like a giggling schoolboy in love. He just returned an eternally sweet smile.

"It's okay. It's not like the whole world knows."

His words gave me a happy tingle in my chest. "Yeah . . . which is good. But in a perfect world . . . we would be able to get away with it."

My fingers drummed a little on the pictures envelope.

"Those are really scary, huh?" Dave said with sympathy laced in his voice.

"Yeah. Scarier yet is that I can't actually remember when a lot of these pictures were taken. I don't remember. This person's captured things that I just sort of traveled through, you know? Without paying any attention."

"Doesn't it make you feel . . . creeped out?"

Zac

I had never been so uncomfortable in my entire life. The red plastic was sticky and was sticking to the small of my back where my t-shirt rose up and my pants slid down, the guy sitting in the booth next to us had a seriously puffy mullet and kept giving Tay the eye, and Scott was giving ME the eye from across the table, and I knew he was thinking of the conversation I'd started then just as abruptly aborted.

Well here's news, Scott - giving me the eye isn't gonna let you read my mind!

I decided to kick his shin under the table.

He yelped. "ZAC#@&%@!# WHATTHEFUCKWASTHATFOR?"

"What do you mean?" I feigned innocence and was returned with an infuriated glare and a couple of confused ones. At my side, Dave returned to coloring with poor-quality wax crayons on a kids' menu, which he'd asked specifically for, filling in the outlines to the walking foods that decorated the sheet of paper. Tay was craving more coffee though he'd polished off the coffee Scott had bought him in about five minutes flat, and he already looked sort of wired, so I wasn't sure how good of an idea giving him more would be - and Scott was going back and forth from sending Taylor doting gazes to sending me penetrating stares, and every once in a while saying,

"Where's my FOOD?"

I'm sure we were quite the group. They just better be glad I'm not awake yet, I could do some real damage to that guy's mullet with one of these many flavors of syrup . . .

"What are you guys performing?" Taylor asked, for his need to have conversation always. "'Until You Loved Me,'" replied Scott, fiddling with his IHOP silverware.

"Oh, I liked that song." If Taylor and Scott could possibly look at each other more lovingly, I could put on a plastic Superman cape and fly. From the looks of it, they might have been holding hands under the table again. Remembering the previous meal we'd all had together, I hoped it wouldn't progress further than that in a public restaurant. "Hey, is it just me, or are we being stared at?" Taylor suddenly asked. We all looked at him and then followed his gaze to a group of middle-aged women sitting in the smoking section. We grew red-faced when they all looked at us and began to talk to each other furtively. Taylor and Scott shifted a little.

"Well, that's disturbing . . ." commented Scott.

"I'm sure it's the fact that we're all teen stars and not that you two are gripping each other for dear life," I said dryly.

"Hm . . . maybe they just like my coloring!" Dave artistically shaded in the walking sausage link with a strange off-red color, as much as it was possible for the clumps of wax sticking onto the paper messily. I nudged him and murmured,

"Dave, you know what that reminds me of?"

Dave's crayon squiggled a little on the page at my comment.

"I have a pretty good idea . . ."

I think he was blushing a little.

"I like your other sausage better," I told him. He fumbled and dropped his crayon.

"Eh . . ." He coughed and elbowed me in the ribs lightly. "Ahem. 'Scuse me, I dropped my Berry Berry Red crayon." Then, he ducked over to get it. I grinned at Taylor and Scott as widely as possible.

Just then, our waitress, Shirley, appeared at our table with our tray of food, and we all sat up at attention, hungry for even IHOP. Dave reluctantly moved his colored menu to the center of the table to make room for the breakfast items.

"Short stack?" she questioned? That was Taylor's. "Blueberry waffles?" That was Dave's. "Funny Face Waffles?"

"That's me, that's me," I cheered. I was rewarded with a lipstick-caked smile and a plate of yummy waffles decorated in whipped cream, fresh fruit, and bacon in the shapes of facial features. I became immensely happy all of a sudden, and laughed merrily when Scott discovered the waitress hadn't brought his breakfast to him yet.

"What'd you have, honey?" she asked him.

"Rooty Tooty Fresh And Fruity," he said in a dejected voice. The three of us all managed to hide our snorts behind forkfuls of food. Shirley flounced to get it for him, and he looked at us all.

"This is rich," I giggled, and left them to discern whether I was talking about Scott's order or the food.

Dave

I had to feel for Scott and Taylor as they looked at the pictures. Scott flipped through them as if the very action caused him physical pain, and Taylor leaned in close to him, one hand threaded into his arm, fingers clutching at Scott's elbow slightly, gazing over his shoulder with a delicate frown.

"These . . ."

Nobody rushed Scott. He tried again.

"These pictures . . . aren't all from . . . this week. Are they?"

"No," Zac spoke at my side, swilling his orange juice with his straw. "You can tell because Taylor's clothing tastes have changed. Not necessarily for the better, but . . ."

"Quiet, you," Taylor glared.

"I can't believe it. Who is it again? Whose are these?" Scott chewed his lip.

"His nameplate said T. Hanson," we repeated.

"But of course, who's to say that's his name? It's a Rent-A-Cop whose office is down in the parking garage, and it says 'Employees Only' on his door. It's the back parking lot that you can get to if you take the old bellboy's elevators," I informed them.

"I'm only relieved because apparently, this is the person taking pictures of us. I'm a little unnerved that he works at the hotel, though," Scott remarked softly. "I mean, how can we go back now? And even if we were to tell someone about these photographs, you and Zac would get in trouble for breaking and entering, and stealing this guy's film, and we don't have proof that he's the one who's actually been sending threats."

"But Scott," Zac argued, "it's undeniably creepy that this guy has not only pictures and pictures and pictures of Tay, but his nameplate says 'T. Hanson' and he was playing a Hanson CD in his office. That's what attracted it to us in the first place."

"He was listening to your CD??"

"Live From Albertane," Zac confirmed.

"Shit."

"Yeah."

"But," Taylor spoke, "if we were to show anyone the pictures, we'd have to lie about the first one we go. We can't go around flashing the picture of me and Scott - er-"

"Tongue-tying?"

"Zac," Scott had that warning level in his voice. Zac smirked.

I spoke in the pause. "Yes, we really can't let anyone find that for more than one reason. We might do best to destroy it. Completely. How many pictures in total are there, now?"

"Okay, the first one said, 'I Saw You,' right? That's the one we need to get rid of. Burn. The second one . . ." Taylor lulled off.

"That one was sent to me. It said 'I Got Your Back,'" reported Scott, sneaking a hand to brush over Taylor's fingers quickly, very subtle and quiet. Taylor visibly shivered, but I wasn't sure whether it was from the picture's caption or from Scott's touch.

"Then was the one - with - the heart . . ."

At Taylor's voice, both he and Scott looked a little squicked.

"Is this the one we gave to you last night?" Zac questioned.

"Yes." Taylor clenched his jaw.

"From the looks of it, it wasn't . . ."

Scott interrupted me, but not rudely.

"It said, 'I Think I Love You,' and it had a heart scratched around Taylor's face. In-" he swallowed, "Blood."

"Blood?!" Zac was squicked now, too. But something else had caught my attention.

"Isn't that what you guys were singing in the hotel room?"

They nodded in unison. I added the fourth squick.

"This is just so scary," Zac bowed his head into his arms and let out a hollow sigh. "Argh, I wish we knew what to do."

"Um, right now, we probably need to get back to the hotel to get ready." Scott shoved the pictures of Taylor back into the envelope and handed them back to me and Zac, dubbed keeper of the pictures.

"Oh! Right! We've been out for almost three hours now!" Taylor glanced at his watch.

Scott

As we walked back along the sidewalk to the hotel, Taylor at my side and Dave and Zac trailing right behind us, I thought out loud,

"We probably ought to have a game plan. We should meet and discuss this further this evening, maybe we can further search through T. Hanson's office."

"You wanna go in there?!" Taylor seemed shocked.

"I just wanna find out more," I told him honestly. "I feel like if we can gather enough evidence, we can get him caught, turn him in, tell someone about this. I think we should - you know - investigate, or whatever. I really do."

Taylor only sighed.

Dave caught up with us a bit.

"We need to stick together, be careful. I don't want to creep anyone out, but this guy just doesn't seem too - uh - sane? I mean, maybe he's just - I don't know. But whatever it is, we should never be alone wherever we go in the hotel. We should be extra careful. I mean, take Bob with you if you have to go to the ice machine. This guy really seems to have it in for you, Scott, just like he seems to have a fixation on Taylor. Either way, you're both at risk, and I just think that if we all four try to stick together as much as possible, then we'll be much safer."

"That means no koochie-coo in public, lovebirds," Zac shot to us.

Taylor touched his forehead in embarrassment.

"Zac, just shut the fuck up already."

"Sorry," apologized the slightly shorter blonde, softly.

Dave returned to his thought pattern. "Right. So this will be over at probably seven, given the movie's running time and our little set, which means we'll be back at the hotel by about eight. We'll meet in one of our rooms afterwards and then go down to T. Hanson's office to see if he's there. Last night he had left the office at about . . . nine-forty-five? So we can go down there about then, until then we'll take care of ripping up that photo and anything else we need to do. Sound good?"

"Agreed, it sounds good," Taylor nodded. I gazed at him momentarily, then turned my head forward and touched his arm briefly.

"Hey," I said to the air in front of me, "we'll take care of this, it's okay. I won't leave your side unless I absolutely have to."

Taylor caught it and sent back just as non-interestedly,

"I feel intensely uncomfortable with this entire situation. It's just almost too much to handle at once."

"I know I'm a handful." I grinned at him.

"More like two." He grinned lecherously in return.

"GAAAH you two!!"

We ignored Zac's pained choking noises.

"Oh, don't bother them! You're only making it worse," Dave nit-picked.

"Oh, sorry, that's right, I have to leave all the relationship quirks up to Dr. Dave, I gotcha . . ."

"I thought you liked leaving things up to Dr. Dave!"

"Well, I have been known to leave things up to you . . ."

I spun around and started walking backwards.

"My GOD, what is it with you two? Do you just suddenly have a wealth of inside jokes built up within three days?"

"Well! Dr. Dave, someone OD'd on cranky pills!" Zac looked superior.

Dave was just flushing knowingly. I huffed and turned back to walk alongside Taylor. I heard them erupt in laughter behind me, and rolled my eyes.

"I don't know whether you guys are a blessing in disguise or a complete nuisance! It's bad enough that some crackhead security wannabe has caught on, but you two? Christ! Is this my punishment, God? Is it??" I raised my eyes to the sky in effect.

"Hey, count your blessings, buddy, that we're watching over you also. If not, you might start singing - ugh - DAVID CASSIDY again! Lord knows we can't have that, that was God awful! Hey, don't think I like hearing you two and your sexual comments every five seconds . . ."

Taylor and Dave only seemed mildly annoyed. Zac and I continued our conversation.