5th Day: That’s  When You Know It’s Christmas Time Again

I had to use it. Of course I had to use one of the few Christmas songs we've recorded. Which reminds me that we have to record a Christmas album somewhere in the future.

But enough with that.

Fifth Day. I bet you’ve thought that I’ve already ran out of ideas. Well, my dear, that’s where you’re wrong. Everything is already planned and the truth is that Christmas is an endless list of activities and traditions, some of them you can actually make it up year after year. That’s the beauty of this time of the year. That’s the beauty of having someone to share those traditions with.

Fifth day. Well, I should have started with this one right from the beginning but we’re gonna just forget about technicalities, okay? Fifth day is about taking an old tradition and turn into a new one. A special one. An unique one because, sir, don’t think that I’m gonna do it year after year. This is just a special occasion, one that happens only once in a lifetime.

Just like love.

You probably know about Advent, right? And maybe you know about the existence of Advent calendar, which is a funny way for children to count down the days until Christmas. This is an old tradition, born years and years ago when a German man decided to twist something his mother used to do, mostly because she was tired of kept asked when Christmas would arrive. What did she do, you might ask. Well, she simply baked cookies and put them into 24 small bags, one for each day left to Christmas. The kid, once he grew older, decided to change it and created the calendar as we know it.

As you can see, though, I changed it a little bit. There aren’t chocolates or sweets waiting for you, I didn’t want it to something that you can buy wherever you want. I wanted it to be special because... well, because that’s Christmas. Making something special for that someone that you love.

Nick couldn’t help but feeling as if his heart had just been transformed into a nest of butterflies, small wings that were ready to take the first step and fly in the sky. He couldn’t help it because he still couldn’t wrap his mind around the fact that it was, in fact, all too very real.

He still couldn’t believe that they were really doing it, they were referring to each other with all those names and words that he had only dared to use in his dreams. But he was Brian’s loved one and that was already the biggest and most precious gift not only for that Christmas but also for the future years.

For infinity and eternity.

And for you, Nick, I decided to change a little the Advent calendar and create a new one. It’s our personal calendar, keeping track of all these years of knowing each other. Sometimes it hits me, you know? You’ve been part of my life for almost 25 years; you’ve been holding my heart season after season, change after change.

 It’s mind-blowing.

Every year is a memory. Every year is a collection of snapshots, pictures that we bring along in out memory because they meant something. Sometimes we wish we could erase the worst ones but, you know, they still deserve to be reminded. They’re part of our journey, they are part of who we’ve become and they do make the good one smell and appear even more beautiful and sweater.

So that’s what this day is all about.

You and me. Our history. Our journey to a Christmas day that I hope it would be the most wonderful day in our lives.

Oh, Nick already knew it.

Nick already knew that this was going to be the most wonderful day ever. And he couldn’t wait for it to arrive, just like every child in the world was waiting impatiently for Christmas to arrive, with its gifts and its joy.

24 envelopes. 24 years to discover all over again. 23 memories and one ready to be written.

You ready to count them down?

Nick didn’t wait a second longer. Brian’s letter was soon put away, delicately and with a care that Nick had never had for a piece of paper before. But those letters couldn’t be throw away, they were statements that he was dreaming, he wasn’t creating a beautiful fantasy that reality was soon going to destroy in a blink. He then turned his attention to the table, where 24 envelopes were forming a tree. The last one, the top of the that paper tree, was also the bigger and Nick wanted to just start from that one, just so that he could see where this crazy idea would bring him to. Yet, at the same time, he didn’t want to leave the other envelopes behind: what was he going to find? Would they be only pictures? Or did Brian add something more? A text? A comment? An episode that had stood out between everything they went through?

Without another thought, Nick took the first one and opened it, revealing a picture of them, two younger themselves. That was really a throwback, straight back to when he was just a kid and Brian... good Lord, Brian hadn’t seriously aged a bit.

1993
When everything started. The group. Our adventure. We didn’t know what was going to happen, we couldn’t even imagine how far and big we would become. But 1993 is also the year when two halves finally met. Have you ever thought about our lives before we met? Have you ever looked back and realized how hollow those years have been? How lonely we have been, only because we still haven’t met each other? I did, Nicky. When we met... I can’t forget that day. I was afraid. I was so damn anxious and you know how bad my anxiety can get... I was almost ready to just say hello to Kevin and then go back home when you came up behind him. And smiled. I didn’t know love could strike with just one smile. I didn’t know, back then, that it was love. But I felt better immediately. The group, that project, could turn into dust but I knew, in that moment, that I had found something even more amazing. 

A best friend. My Frack.

Nick couldn’t help that smile that was warming up his face. As always Brian had been able to put down in words all those emotions and thoughts that he had but never been able to say out loud.

They were young, back in the days when Brian was actually taller than him. They were young and Nick had never known love. Or friendship. School hadn’t been kind with him, pushing him into the shadows and never letting him shining, or noticed by someone else. He had walked those halls always alone; always wondering how it felt not to be always his own best friend; always watching other people laughing and having fun while he was in a corner, reading comics and desiring to be somewhere else.

Then the group came along.

He thought, he believed that things had to change, for they were in four and they had to become friends if they wanted to have, at least, a chance. But he was the youngest and Kevin’s eyebrows kept scaring him. He was the youngest and both Howie and Aj were already friends, sharing jokes and things that he couldn’t understand.  

Then Brian came along.

Nick remembered how anxious he was before his arrival. He had been so set upon the two of them becoming friends, he had wished and prayed that, this time, it would be his turn not to be left behind but chosen in spite of everyone else.

And it happened.

One smile. One joke. One single match at basketball and they were already inseparable, not really knowing what it was that linked them but sure that it was something rare and precious. And Brian was right, oh yes. Brian was damn right that, looking now at those first glances and smiles, it was impossible not to seen how they were always meant to be together.

1995
What a year. Remember? Our first time in Europe. Our first recording. The memories we made. The laughs, especially when it came to make fun of Kevin and Howie. Especially Howie. He has always been your favorite victim and this hasn’t changed through the years.

Why this picture?

Nick barely remembered that that photo actually existed. Brian had always gone around with a camera, always taking pictures as if he was afraid to forget where they had been or the moments they were sharing. This particular photo had been taken during a night out, one of the few they were allowed because it had always been all about the work. It was just the two of them, drinking from the same glass of coke and Nick could remember how, that night, he had been so lonely and nostalgic because it was his first time away from his family. Far away, as in on the other side of the ocean and in a country where he could barely understand even when people talked in English. He remembered, now, how Brian had basically pushed him out of that tiny room they were staying and took him to a McDonald. Nothing too fancy. Nothing big but soon all his worries and his fears had been banished and that picture, probably taken by someone Brian had prayed and managed to make himself understood, was the proof that there had been always much deeper and bigger between them.

This picture just showed us. Our friendship. Our love, whatever it might have been that year. It shows how the world always ceased to exist when we were together, how happy we were together. It shows what I wish for us. Be that happy together, even if we have hurt each other so many times.

“I wish it too.” Nick whispered in the silence, putting the picture down and taking a new one.

1998

Nick’s heart clenched painfully watching that picture. He couldn’t forget the exact moment in time when it had been taken. Their first show after Brian’s surgery, the tension clearly visible on everyone’s face. Good Lord, he had been scared. So fucking scared because Brian wasn’t supposed to be up and dancing after only eight weeks. Brian should have been back home, resting and putting on some fucking weight, cause he looked like he had been shrieked.

I almost didn’t want to include it. This year and others, actually. I still don’t like thinking back at this year, there are so many bad memories that I still can’t shake away. It’s stupid, actually. I’m alive, that’s the most important thing. I’ve made it through and we made it through so I shouldn’t be this afraid to talk about it, almost twenty years later.

And yet, I am.

That night I almost ran away. I wasn’t ready, no matter how much I appeared the opposite. Everything felt strange. My own body felt as if it didn’t belong to me, as if I was a stranger mind that had happened to live in that body out of the blue. I was angry. So much angry, filled with resentment and frustration. I was angry at you, Nick.

Nick had been angry with himself too. The first cut in their relationship had happened right there, where he had failed at being the supportive shoulder that Brian had needed. But no one had ever taught him how to be strong one, how to put away his own fears because someone else needed to be comforted and helped. How could he know, back then? He had been afraid, terrified of losing his whole world that he had thought that, maybe, it was better to stay away from the destruction.

I was so angry with myself, too. I let it happened. I didn’t put myself first, I didn’t make myself a priority. I didn’t ask for help. Even that night. I should have put my foot down but, instead, I wanted to prove to you that I was still your hero, that brave superhero that wouldn’t let anything to hold him back.

But you know who helped me that night?

You.

Even if we didn’t talk much that night, even if you kept looking at me like I was about to break into a million pieces. But you were there, silently pushing me to keep going and keep smiling. You were there, offering me a bottle of water at every break. You were there and, that night, it meant the world to me.

Another envelope. Another picture. Another year and another step into their complicated relationship. The world at their feet, the crazy months spent around the world and people screaming and going crazy even for just one smile. Nick didn’t remember much of those years, alcohol and meaningless sex had already beginning to be part of his routine; he remembered how lonely he had felt, no matter how many people were always around him, wanting and demanding something from him.   

2000

I know you felt like I’ve abandoned you when I got married. You were happy for me, although it was kinda of obvious that you showed up to my wedding already drunk and I can’t really blame you. You were hurt. You were hurting and I can still read your pain even in this photo, when you tried to smile although you were dying inside.

We really hurt each other, didn’t we?

I can say a lot of things. I can ask for your forgiveness but the truth is that you weren’t the only one who felt lost. I was too. I loved you but I knew that that love wasn’t the one people would be comfortable. I knew that people expected from me the perfect family, the perfect family man who settled down and started his own dream. I was lost because... because I needed someone who would take care of me, who would take the reins of control because I was tired of being the responsible one. The mature one. The one who knew everything. I needed a direction. I needed a purpose and she... she gave it to me. She saw the little boy who had tried so hard to be invincible and didn’t make me feel invisible and played her cards. She knew I was in love with you and did everything to make me feel like it was wrong. Like I was the one wrong and you know, Nick, how much I try everyday to be perfect.

Nick sat down, reading those words over and over again. Because Brian never opened himself up this much. Not with him. Not with anyone else, as much as Nick knew. Even not with Aj that, over the years, had become a sort of second confident, that friend that Nick hadn’t been able to be because... well, because he had been too busy trying to find himself all over again.

The truth hurt. The truth of those years that had kept them apart, the hate they had both felt because they believed that it was the other that had to take the first step. The truth was that, yes, Nick had felt abandoned by his best friend, by his whole world and had tried so hard to drink away the pain and the hurt. But, between those waves of heartache, there was the realization that he had abandoned Brian too. He had left him behind because they didn’t share the same interests anymore, because Brian wanted to be someone Nick couldn’t be at that time. Brian wanted him to be someone he couldn’t be at that time, someone that could stand up and tell Brian that it was okay to need someone, that it was okay not to be always so damn perfect.

But how could Nick be that person if he hadn’t known yet who he was?

Everything happens for a reason. That is what my mother has always told me. Maybe we needed to go through that dark time. Maybe we needed to make those mistakes, we needed to learn how terrible and unnatural it is to be so far away from each other. Can we promise each other not to make that mistake once again?

“Of course.” Nick knew that Brian couldn’t hear him, unless he was hiding somewhere in the house. Yet those words left his lips as if they were made of the same air that he breathed out.

The 2005 envelope contained a picture of them, during a sound check: Brian holding a too small Baylee and Nick looking at them, unaware of the world keep moving around.

I love this picture, you know? Somehow it shows what we could have been. Us. Our family. Good Lord, listen to me. We are not even together and I’m already talking about a family. Don’t mind me. Or mind me, because I know that a family is what you’ve always wanted. And that was also what scared you the most. You wanted the fame. You wanted to have fun and live the popstar life. You wanted the attention and you know just one way to obtain that.

Been used. That was the only way Nick knew. He didn’t matter how much sick and ashamed it made him feel in the morning. He didn’t want to be alone. He didn’t want to look at what he could have had, if he hadn’t been so lost. Looking at Brian and his perfect family hurt more than Nick would ever admit with himself because... well, it wasn’t just that he wanted to be part of that family, it wasn’t just because that was his dream, impossible to realize because Brian hadn’t wanted him back then. It hurt him because it wasn’t fair. Or, that was what he felt at that time. It wasn’t fair because he was the one that should have deserved it more than anyone else.

I know you resented me. I know you were jealous because that was your dream and, instead, you kept getting shit and people who used your heart and leave it broken. And as much as I wanted to reach out and pull you inside my world, I was afraid. I was scared because it wasn’t just about me and my desires. There was a little one, my son, and I promised myself that I would never turn out to be just like my father.

But instead than looking at this picture with regrets and sadness, you know what we can do? We can look at this picture and see how perfect we can be. How we are meant to be together, even when we hated each other. Something always pulled us together. And that something, now, it’s something that can’t be fought anymore. Look at this picture and see our future, Nick.

Another picture. Another year. Another memory or, as it turned out, another revelation. This wasn’t just a trip memory, this wasn’t just a collection of snapshots of them through the years: this was Brian’s way to let Nick inside those moments that had always been closed off from everyone. This was Brian’s way to show his soul and his weakness, secrets that could turn out to be weapons or could glue them even tighter.

2012

There were so many pictures that I could choose from for this year. This is the year when we started getting back together, wasn’t it? London helped it. London helped us because it was just us. You and me. It was so easy to think and believe that it could always be like that.

But fate hasn’t always been by our side, right?

I chose, for this year, a picture from the show we did in London. You remember it, right? The night when we told everyone that Kevin was coming back. That smile... there is only one person that can make me smile like that, even when I’m in the middle of my self-destruction.

You.

I was terrified. More than ever, more even than when I had my heart surgery. At least, with that operation, I knew that I was going to fix whatever was wrong with me. My voice? It was a nightmare. A nightmare that I’ve been living for months, dark clouds that had already managed to pull me under and blinded me into believing that if I didn’t say something, maybe everything would just go away.

What a fool.

That night was the hardest. I just had my diagnosis and it hadn’t been a relief. Because it didn’t give me a solution, it didn’t give me a cure. Just a hope, although thin and fragile. How was I supposed to stand on that stage and sing when it hurt? How was I supposed to be happy and carefree when all I wanted was to break down? I almost did. Right before that smile, when we were still behind the stage, you just put a hand on my shoulder and asked me if I was fine. It shouldn’t have bothered me that much. Just a simple question, right? But I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t say that I was fine. I couldn’t lie, not like that. Not to you. For once, I wanted to be comforted. I wanted someone to say that it was going to be okay, just a few more songs and I could go home and rest.

That’s what you did.

You always made me think and believe that I could push through everything. You always believed in me, even when I didn’t have any faith left.

Only one left.

Nick didn’t know how much time had gone by. Maybe hours. Or maybe less. It didn’t matter. It had been a hell of a journey, a glimpse into a life that they could have had if they hadn’t been so naïve and so desperate to be loved.

Because that was the end of the story, the red line that linked every picture and every year together. They wanted to be loved, they wanted it so badly that they ended up following the wrong road. They wanted to be accepted, even Brian, even the man Nick had thought had never had problems with confidence.

How could he miss it?

Not anymore.

Nick was about to take the last envelope left when it started to ring, which was kind of funny because the ring was exactly similar to his own. Confused and surprised, Nick opened it just to find that, somehow, Brian had managed to take his phone and put it in an envelope.

“When did you take my phone?”

“Obviously. When you were sleeping. �“ Brian’s voice came with a silver ringing, that happy tone that was always able to shake something inside Nick’s heart. �“ Also, you shouldn’t leave it around. What if I was a thief?”

“A thief that only steal a phone?”

“Nick Carter’s phone.”

“You know that I don’t keep compromising photos on my phone.”

“A thief can sell our numbers to the fans.”

“Good Lord.”

“Howie will probably be the happiest.”

“Probably Aj.”

“Let’s hope we’ll never find out.”

“True. �“ Brian took a breath, shuffling from one foot to the other. �“ So, did you like today’s task?”

“You’re crazy, you know? How long did it take?”

“A few days. But only because I wanted it to be perfect. And also because we have so many pictures together. It was hard to choose the right one.”

“And the right memory.”

“That too. �“ Brian answered after a moment of silence. �“ I wanted to show how we’ve always been intertwined together, even those times when we felt like strangers.”

“You’ve never been a stranger.”

“I hoped. I wished.”

“Except that one photo is missing.”

“That’s the reason why I’m calling. I mean, it’s kind of obvious why there isn’t a picture for this year.”

“Because you want us to take one right now?”

“You’re getting smarter.”

“I try to.”

“But yes. That was the idea. A circle that finally finds its end. An ending that it’s also a beginning because we’re about to start something new. �“ Brian lowered his tone, as though as he didn’t want Nick to hear it. �“ I hope, at least.”

It hit Nick. That insecurity. That second guessing. It hit him and Nick wanted nothing more but reach out and shake those emotions out of Brian because they didn’t belong to him. Or, better to say, they didn’t belong to the Brian that was always in his mind, that hero that would never be written off no matter how many falls and blows was going to take.

“So, are you gonna come inside and do I have to come outside?”

“Wherever you want. It’s your task, after all.”

Nick looked around, trying to find the perfect spot for their first picture together. Well, technically they had already taken thousands of pictures together but this one was different. Of course it was, it was going to be the picture that would remind them about this courtship, about these twelve days full of wonderful things and a love that was already bursting.

Then he was his, actually, their Christmas tree.

“I’ll meet you by the Christmas tree.”

“Right under the mistletoe?” Brian asked while opening and closing the front door behind him. There he appeared, a smile that could win any competition against the brightest lights in the whole world.

“When did you place it?”

“You did. I’m shorter, remember?”

Nick closed the phone call, already preparing its camera so that he could take a picture right in that moment. He didn’t want to forget, he didn’t want to let his fantasy paint and design something that was almost impossible to come up with.

Camera ready, Nick wrapped his arms around Brian’s waist, catching the man by surprise. “Smile to the camera.”

But Brian didn’t smile. Or, better, he did smile but Nick was taken away by another surprise. A small kiss, a touch of a butterfly right upon his lips and right when he was about to hit the button.

And that was how the camera caught their 24th moment together.

And that was how the camera caught their first kiss. Not quite a first kiss but it was as tender, sweet and important.

Right underneath the mistletoe.