"Slow Ride" + "The Best Man"

[turlough]

My prompt table/list.

Claim: Backstreet Boys: general
Title: Slow Ride
Author: Without Me, at kittenfic and without_me
Characters: AJ, Nick, Howie
Prompt: 21 Epiphany
Rating: -
Length: short
Brief summary: On the bus at night during the Up Close And Personal tour AJ is confronted with Nick and their mutual past and he realises something he didn't expect at all. A well-written story with an insightsful portrayal of AJ.

They've talked. Of course they've talked, talked plenty; they were talking before the group got back together, some, and they've been working together now for months, in the studio and making plans for the tour and rehearsing and traveling and doing appearances and none of it has given AJ the faintest idea what to say right now, when it's just the two of them alone in the middle of the Georgia night. He reaches over and takes the orange out of Nick's hand, cuts a small circle in it with his thumbnail, and starts working the peel off. The fruit is soft-firm, like flesh, and the scent of citrus makes his mouth water. Or maybe that's just Nick.

'I want you,' he thinks. 'Please hold me,' beats under his heart.

Link to the story: Slow Ride

Claim: Backstreet Boys: general
Title: The Best Man
Author: clumsygyrl, at stargaze*N and clumsygyrl
Characters: AJ, Howie, Nick, Kevin
Prompt: 30 Seduction
Rating: PG-13
Length: short
Brief summary: AJ is a wedding singer. At one of the weddings he meet Kevin. The first half of this short story gives us place and persons and tone, the second is a beautiful description of a classic mutual seduction. We never get to see the result but that doesn't really matter, what the writer makes us imagine is quite enough.

AJ's head whipped around trying to suss out where the voice was coming from and who was talking to him. He flicked ash into the wind, and he angled his head. "What?" The question gruffer and more hostile than he wanted, but then again he was sitting in the rain minding his own goddamn business.

One of the shadows separated itself from the side of the building and came to stand under AJ's overhang. "Do you have a light?"

AJ wasn't usually impressed with the tall, dark and handsome. He liked guys that weren't conventionally good looking, like himself. He would admit that the guy had cheekbones that could cut glass. "Yeah. You just taking a survey or did you want one too?" He tempered the sarcasm with a faint smile. 'Play nice with the guests,' AJ heard Howie singsonging in his head.

The guy smiled either at the sarcasm or the open appraisal from AJ. "Both." He said holding out an unlit cigarette.

Link to the story: The Best Man