Chapter 25:
Labels and Lingual Livers
After Brian’s funeral, Kevin, Nick, and Howie trudged sadly back to AJ’s hospital room to visit their recuperating friend.
“How was it?” the rebel asked in a whisper.
Nick shrugged. “About the same as his last funeral,” the blonde replied, sighing. “Why does all this crap keep happening to us, guys?”
The four singers looked around the room at each other, and Kevin shook his head. “Wish I knew. I mean… he was my cousin!” The Kentuckian squeezed his cucumber-colored eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose.
Howie put his hand on his older brother’s back, wishing he could comfort him. Yet the Latino knew there would be no comforting the former high school football player today, or any other day, not for a long time. Or at least not until Brian miraculously came back from the dead again. But there was no counting on the born-again Christian’s return this time.
“I’m surprised VH1 hasn’t contacted us about doing a ‘Behind the Music’ yet,” spoke up the original member of the Backstreet Boys from his hospital bed.
The dewy-eyed youngster gave a derisive snort. “I know, bro… we’ve got enough material for a five-hour ‘Behind the Music’ special.”
Some of you readers may be going, “Didn’t the Backstreet Boys do a ‘Behind the Music’ in 2005?” But remember, you’re reading a teenybopper fanfic, and some teenyboppers take years to write their stories because they only update every few months. This particular fanfic, for instance, was started by its teenybopper author years before the BSB “Behind the Music” was made and yet is still in progress because the teenybopper got a little distracted with a couple of other stories. So, no, in the world of “Not Another Teenybopper Fanfic,” there is no “Behind the Music: Backstreet Boys’” yet. But fear not… by the end of this story, there will be enough drama to fill about ten seasons of “Behind the Music.”
Getting back to the story, Kevin smirked through the tears reflecting off his shamrock green irises. “I’ll say,” the Caucasian said.
The four teen idols fell silent for a few minutes, none of them knowing what to say. Not comfortable with awkward silences, Nick decided to break this one. “So…” the licensed scuba diver said slowly, looking around the room. “Anything interesting happen here at the hospital while we were gone?”
The puppeteer in the hospital bed laughed dryly. “I’ve been lying here in my bed all day. What sort of interesting things did you expect to happen?”
The heartthrob shrugged and said, “I dunno. Just making conversation.”
“Don’t start bickering, fellas,” the certified ballroom dance instructor scolded flatly. “That’s the last thing we need today. We’re gonna have to stick together more than ever now.”
“He’s right,” agreed the Irish-Puerto Rican.
“We’ll never be all together again,” sighed the tow-headed singer. “Not as long as Brian’s gone.”
“Don’t say that, Nick,” said the ex-Disney World employee sharply. “Brian’s never gone… never far… in our hearts is where he are.”
The three Floridians exchanged looks. “Kev’s speaking in Redneck again,” the bad boy whispered to the kid on the Slip-N-Slide from Edward Scissorhands. The uncredited extra-turned-famous popstar giggled.
“Hey!” said a random voice. “Don’t mess with Kentucky!”
The four male vocal harmony group members looked at each other in confusion. “Who said that??” demanded the blue-eyed baby.
The colon cancer advocate cocked his head to the side, his substantial eyebrows furrowing in concentration. “That sounds like… my cousin…” he said slowly.
“Brian? Kevin… Brian’s dead,” the peacemaker replied, his brown eyes filled with concern for his green-eyed bandmate.
“Dead… but not gone,” the voice spoke up again. “A part of me lives on…”
All eyes turned to the lead singer in the bed. “What?” asked the recovering alcoholic. “My liver?”
“My liver,” the voice objected. “Don’t forget, buddy, I drank bleach so you could live.”
“BRIAN?!?!?!” the four living Backstreet Boys exclaimed in unison.
“Alright!” the Lexington native’s famous voice rang out, and his band brothers all looked around in shock.
“Frick? Where are you??” asked the sea-grass destroyer, his voice rising.
Suddenly, the high-falsetto crooner gasped. “His voice! It’s coming from AJ!” He pointed to the Capricorn, who looked down at himself in shock.
“Frick! Say something else!” shouted the star of Phantom of the Opera in fourth grade.
“Something else,” quipped the smart-aleck.
The Winter Olympic torch-bearer’s finger shook as he continued to point to his best friend. “It’s AJ’s liver… I mean, Brian’s liver… well, the liver that was once in Brian but is now in AJ – it… it’s talking! It’s Brian! Brian’s talking through his liver!”
It took the other “If You Want It To Be Good Girl (Get Yourself a Bad Boy)” singers a few moments to process the kid who was an extra in Parenthood’s stammering nonsense, but finally, the Ninja Turtle asked, his voice quivering with emotion, “How could this be??”
“Don’t question it, dude,” the one-sixteenth-Blackfoot Indian, I mean Native American, cautioned. “He already came back from the dead once… so it’s only natural that he’d now be projecting his voice through an organ in AJ’s body.”
“This is whack!” exclaimed the tattooed freak, still staring down at his torso. He poked at the bandages covering the healing incision on his side. “You in there, Rok?”
“Don’t be stupid, J,” the Tates Creek High School graduate said. “Listen, there’s no time to mess around… I can’t explain this either, but I don’t know how long it’s going to last, and I need to warn you!”
“Warn us? Warn us about what?” asked the mummy from the “Everybody” video, his blue eyes wide. Then he, the vampire, the phantom, and the Jekyll/Hyde dude with the briefcase listened as the pimped-out, back-flipping werewolf told them everything, how one of the nurses at the hospital had broken confidentiality and sold their story to a conniving tabloid reporter.
“You need to come clean with the fans and break the story yourselves… before Teen Beat can,” advised the Healthy Heart Club for Kids founder seriously. “AJ… are you willing to do that?”
The stage-humper nodded. “You’re right, Rok… we need to tell the truth about everything. The fans will understand. We’re only human; we make mistakes too.”
His liver – or rather, the spirit that possessed it – snorted. “I’ll say. Like drinking a bottle of bleach when you could have just given away part of your liver and still lived… my bad.”
The Aquarius chuckled awkwardly and then asked, “Hey, Frick? Do you think… do you think you’ll come back to life again, like you did before?”
When he answered, the choirboy’s voice was solemn. “I don’t know, Frack… we’ll see. We’ll see…”
The other four MTV Video Music Award Viewer’s Choice winners nodded in equal solemnity.
If only they knew what was to come…
***
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Skin created by Kali & edited by Karen.