Adult-FanFiction.org : Celebrity

Fates Warning	By : TheFairyWithBoots Category: Singers/Bands/Musicians > Iron Maiden Views: 206 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: l obviously do not own any of the characters in this story. No disrespect is intended towards any of the real people mentioned, it is simply a fictional story based off their public personas.

Chapter List
- 3
- 4
- 5
1991
The tour went on into America, and Steve and Bruce were not fighting as much any more. Janick was spending a lot of time with Bruce, leaving Dave in his room by himself in between shows. Dave hated being alone; it reminded him that Adrian was no longer with him. He liked spending time with Jan; he was a nice enough bloke, and he enjoyed playing with him and coming up with song ideas together. And more importantly, when he was with Jan, he wasn’t alone.
But Dave didn’t have much time to take solace in the new guitarist’s presence because Bruce always seemed to be pulling him away for something. This didn’t bother him at first because of course Jan would be spending more time with Bruce - they were lovers. But he quickly became annoyed when they happened to have a room right next to his one night, and the sound of them moaning could be heard through the thin walls, and it woke him up in the middle of the night.
Dave took both of his pillows and shoved them over his ears, wondering if he and Adrian were ever this obnoxious.
He went down to the breakfast room the next morning to find Steve and Nicko sitting together, talking in low voices so that they couldn’t be overheard. Dave didn’t want to sit alone, but they looked like they didn’t want their conversation to be interrupted. He grabbed a plate and went to the buffet to get some food.
He sat down at an empty table with his eggs, biscuits, and doughnuts when Janick entered the dining room. After piling a plate with eggs and bacon, and pouring a cup of coffee, he approached Dave’s table. “Mind if I sit here?”
Dave smiled and nodded towards the empty seat. “Where’s Bruce?” It was the first time he had seen Janick by himself since the American leg of the tour had started.
“Sleeping,” he said, “I think the multiple flights must have exhausted him. So he’s sleeping in this morning. How’d you sleep last night?”
Dave didn’t tell him what he had overheard last night, knowing it would have been embarrassing for Jan. “Not very well,” he said truthfully. “I’ve had trouble falling asleep for the past few nights.” More like for the past year and a half, he thought to himself. Every night he had to deal with the crushing feeling of loneliness when he was made painfully aware that Adrian was not laying beside him. The bed always felt so empty and cold.
“Sorry to hear that,” Jan said while cutting his eggs with the flimsy plastic silverware that the hotel had provided them. “You look tired…maybe you should get some rest before the show tonight.”
And what, spend more time with the crushing loneliness? he thought to himself. “I’ll be fine,” Dave said while cutting his biscuit open, debating if he should get up and get some more. He always ate more when he was upset. “It’s just… I have trouble sleeping alone, and have since H left.” he admitted in a low voice. Anyone else he would have been embarrassed to admit this, but he found it easy to talk to Jan about anything.
Jan gave him a sympathetic look, “Are you guys still in contact?”
“Yeah,” Dave said, “Not as much though because last time we talked, he said that he was taking a break from music altogether. It’s just… all of those years, I was so happy that we were in the same band together. Our relationship had felt like a rock, y’know? And no matter how much we had leaned on each other, we never caved in on each other. And now he’s gone… I never thought he would do it, but he just decided that he was tired of doing it. I feel like I was a bad boyfriend for not realizing that Maiden was draining him…”
“You’re not a bad boyfriend,” Jan said with a sympathetic look in his eyes. “He had his own personal problems. It wasn’t your fault.” Janick sipped his coffee and furrowed his brow slightly. “I felt guilty, y’know, for taking his place…felt like I could never fill his shoes. When he had left last year, I called him. Tried to get him to rejoin.”
Dave looked up at him, surprised. From what Janick had told him, he had almost been homeless before he started working with Bruce. “Why…would you do that?”
Jan shrugged. “I knew how much the band meant to him…or so I thought. He just…seemed so tired, I guess. I thought he would be pissed at me for taking his place since we’ve been friends for years, but he wasn’t. In fact, he gave me his blessing. I don’t know, it still feels weird though…”
Dave stared at Janick, awestruck. He knew he was a good bloke, but never knew he was this selfless… Hearing how he tried to convince Adrian to come back only gave him a sense of finality that there was genuinely nothing he could do. It didn’t cause the feeling of loneliness to diminish, but left a new feeling of anger towards his ex-boyfriend for not even trying to stay with him. He knew he was being selfish, but he couldn’t help it.
The two of them finished their breakfast. Steve and Nicko were still at their table, though they had finished eating their food. Steve glanced up at Dave, and immediately averted his eyes, avoiding eye contact. Dave furrowed his brow, wondering why Steve was acting so strange this morning.
~~
Later that evening, Dave and Janick were going over their guitar setup backstage before the show. Talking to Jan soothed the feeling of abandonment that Dave had felt earlier that morning.
Bruce came out of his dressing room and saw them standing near their guitar rigs. Dave could have sworn that a frown appeared across his face, but Bruce immediately forced a smile onto his face and walked over to them. He placed a possessive arm around Janick’s waist.
“Hey, guys,” he said.
“Hi, babe…” Jan said, looking flustered and embarrassed.
“Hey, do me a favour?” Bruce told Janick while Dave averted his attention to his guitar rig. “When we go onstage for the show, I want you to act more flamboyant than you usually do.” When Jan raised his eyebrows, Bruce added with a giggle, “I want it to mess with Steve.”
Naturally, this did not sound like a good idea to Janick since he was still new to the band, and Bruce was asking him to try and deliberately piss Steve off, and he did not want to risk losing his job within less than a year of playing with the band. But when they were performing the show, adrenaline got the best of him as always. Bruce practically chased him across the stage, provoking him to run faster than he normally would. By the end of the show, he was so hyped up on adrenaline, he had taken his guitar off and was swinging it around by his neck.
Steve didn’t even seem bothered by this. If anything, he seemed as entertained as everyone else.
After the show, Janick was with Bruce and Dave backstage helping the crew get all the equipment packed up. Janick was relieved when Bruce had not tried to start another argument with Steve. They had not had another public argument in several months, and he was grateful for that because them screaming at each other stressed him out.
When they finished getting all the equipment packed away, the three of them went further backstage to their dressing rooms when Bruce stopped suddenly at the dressing room that had Steve’s name on it. Both Dave and Janick watched him curiously as he pressed his ear up to the door.
“Bruce,” Janick said, his head starting to hurt as it usually did when he suspected that Bruce was about to have some outrageously stupid plan, “What are you doing?”
Bruce didn’t answer him, but instead opened the door to Steve’s dressing room without knocking. The boldness of this action astounded both Janick and Dave as they both looked at each other as if they were both thinking the same thought: “What the hell was he up to now?”
“Bruce!” Jan called. He had too much common decency to enter the room uninvited. “What the hell are you-“
There was a startled shout as Janick heard Steve swear loudly, and something fell over from inside the room. Bruce shouted “I KNEW IT!!!” before breaking into a fit of hysterical laughter.
The commotion caused both Dave and Janick to peek into the room curiously. To their absolute shock, Steve was not alone; Nicko was in there with him. He had apparently fallen to the floor when Bruce barged in without warning, and when Janick saw him adjusting his belt on his trousers, he felt the sudden urge to slap Bruce upside the head for barging in on them. This only confirmed what he had suspected several months before, but he still couldn’t help but stand there in shock.
“What the fuck you fink you’re playin’ at, you fuckin’ wanker!?” Steve shouted as he grabbed Bruce by his jacket and pinned him up against the wall.
Nicko was red in the face with embarrassment as he watched his lover scream in Bruce’s face. They had got into many verbal altercations in the past but nothing had ever escalated to physical violence before. His eyes travelled over to the door where Dave and Janick stood and all the colour drained from his face, giving him a petrified and sickly look.
“It’s your own fuckin’ fault for not lockin’ the door, you dumb arse!” Bruce shouted while shoving Steve off of him. Bruce was shorter than Steve but stronger.
Janick looked at his side for Dave, but he had already gone outside in the hallway to get away from the altercation. Jan followed him, afraid that Steve would see him and think that he had something to do with this.
Nicko finally got the situation to die down without Steve punching Bruce in the face. Janick was sitting with Dave in the hallway when the three of them came out of the dressing room. Dave was staring up at them, shock and confusion written across his face.
Nicko refused to meet their eyes, but Steve placed his hands in his pockets before saying “Erm…there’s somethin’ you guys should know…” He took a deep breath before saying, “Nicko and me… we’ve been goin’ together for some time now…”
“What?” Dave said, clearly shocked, “For how long!?”
Steve rubbed his face anxiously, and mumbled, “Ever since a year after Nick joined the band… so… ‘84… at the beginnin’ of World Slavery tour…”
“You’ve been together for seven years, and you never told us?” Dave asked, almost sounding hurt, “But…why? Why would you hide that from us? You knew what was going on between me and Ade. You knew that we wouldn’t have judged you guys. Why did you hide all this time?”
Bruce was standing behind Steve wearing a smug expression. “Actually, I always knew that they were together!”
The last remaining colour seemed to drain from Steve’s face. “Y-you what…?”
Dave only frowned. “He told you but not the rest of us?”
“He didn’t tell me, but I always knew!” He crossed his arms across his chest arrogantly and Nicko looked at him as if he could deck him. “Because I knew that was the only reason he turned me down.”
“What?” Janick said, flabbergasted.
“Bruce,” Steve said in a low voice with his teeth clenched, “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll keep your fuckin’ trap shut-“
“Of course, I always figured it was because Nicko was just better in bed than I was, which I honestly doubt-“ His eyes moved over to Janick who wanted nothing more at that moment than to just evaporate into thin air. “But I respected his wishes because I knew that was the only reason he would want to sit on that flat face than on me-“
“A’right, then, ‘ow ‘bout I just kick your arse!?” Steve shouted while rounding up on Bruce, obviously offended.
“‘Arry, don’t…” Nicko said while placing a hand on his shoulder, “‘e ain’t worth it…”
“I ain’t gonna stand ‘ere and let ‘im talk ‘bout you like that!” he said, “e’s run ‘is fuckin’ trap all fuckin’ tour and now ‘e’s gonna insult you!?” He rounded on Bruce who was still staring at him with a smug smirk on his face. “So that’s what you’ve been pissed about, eh!? Mad that I turned you down all those years ago!?”
Bruce shrugged. “It doesn’t matter since you were never interested in me in the first place. I tried making you jealous, of course, because I thought you were just in denial. That’s why I got with Jan.”
Janick jerked his head back as if he had been slapped. His head was spinning at this statement. He could hardly believe his ears.
Steve sighed. “You’re fuckin’ pathetic, you know that, Bruce!?”
Jan didn’t hear much else of what was said. His heart was pounding so loudly, and it was all that he could hear. A sort of rage could be felt from within himself that told him that if he didn’t leave the room soon, he was going to hit Bruce. Their entire relationship was built on some petty lie that Bruce had used as revenge because he was jealous of Steve and Nicko, he realized. He felt so used and dirty - Bruce had convinced him to fall in love with him.
He saw Dave’s lips move, probably asking him if he was okay. But Janick didn’t hear him. He got to his feet and stormed out of the building, making way towards the street to call a taxi. When he was there, he decided that he didn’t even need a taxi; he was so angry, he walked all the way back to the hotel.
~~
Janick stormed into the hotel lobby, taking long strides towards the staircase. He often smiled and greeted the clerk at the front desk, but was too angry to even acknowledge anyone else. The doors burst open when Janick reached the doors to the staircase, and Bruce stumbled in, breathless. Janick shoved the door open and ran up the staircase to his floor.
He stormed down the hallway towards his room when the doors to the staircase burst open.
“Jan!” Bruce shouted frantically, “Wait!”
Janick ignored him, making his way down the long corridor. Bruce ran after him. Janick’s legs were much longer than his, so he had to jog to keep up.
“Jan, please listen to me!” Bruce pleaded as he reached for his hand.
Janick jerked his arm away. “Leave me alone!”
“Please! Let me explain!”
Janick unlocked the door to their room and went inside, picking his clothes up off the floor and shoving them into his luggage.
“Please! Let me explain!” Bruce pleaded again, trying to stop him from zipping his suitcase up.
“Explain what!?” he shouted, finally losing his temper, “That you’ve been using me all this time to get back at someone who turned you down!?”
“It’s not like that!” he cried while trying to wrap his arms around him. Janick placed his hands on his chest and pushed him away. “Please! Just sit down for a few minutes and let me explain.” He looked at him with large brown puppy dog eyes. Those eyes normally would have caused Janick to melt, but right then, they only made him angrier. It was as if Bruce knew how to turn them on and off as a manipulation tactic. He stood with his hands on his hips, giving Bruce room to talk. Bruce took a deep breath before saying, “Okay… yes, I had originally got with you to make Steve jealous- but listen!” He exclaimed when Janick rolled his eyes and turned back to his luggage. “Just listen! Please… I did… but I swear to you that I really have grown to have feelings for you! What we’ve had… between us, it’s so much more than what I felt towards Steve. I mean this when I say that I’ve grown to love you!”
Janick sighed, plopping down on the edge of the bed, his face in his hands. He felt so conflicted. Bruce crawled towards him on the bed, wrapping his arms around Janick’s torso from behind.
“Please believe me, baby…” Janick felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up as he felt Bruce’s breath on his ear. “I mean it… I love you.”
“I love you too, Bruce…” Jan said quietly.
Bruce pushed his blond hair aside and kissed him on the back of his neck. Janick stiffened up. He knew where this was headed.
“And besides…” Bruce said while running one hand over Janick’s chest, and the other massaging his scalp. “It’s been years since Steve turned me down…” He curled his body around to place a kiss on Janick’s lips. Jan pushed him away. Bruce fell backwards, looking shocked.
“Years?” he demanded, “We’ve only been dating for a few months!”
“I-“ He seemed to be at a loss for words.
Janick’s head was pounding all of a sudden. “I can’t stay here,” he said while getting up from the bed, suddenly realizing that his jeans were fitting him tighter than usual. He grabbed his jacket and put it on, stubbornly believing that would hide it. He reached for his luggage.
“Where are you going!?” Bruce was looking up at him with large pleading brown eyes, but Janick refused to look into them.
“I’m not staying here tonight,” he said, “I’m going down to the bar. Maybe Dave will let me stay with him until I can get my own room.”
“What!?” Mentioning Dave’s name only seemed to anger Bruce, and Jan was afraid that he was going to start accusing him of things again. “Did you not hear what I just said!? I meant what I said! Do you not believe me!?”
Janick didn’t answer him, and Bruce wrapped his arms around him. Jan pulled away from him and grabbed his guitar case. “No, I don’t!” he yelled. “You’ve been using me all of this time, and…and… I genuinely thought that you did mean it at first…” He was on the verge of tears.
“I do!” Bruce cried, reaching for him again, trying to pull him to his chest.
“Don’t touch me!” he cried, shoving his arms away. “I don’t want to stay here! I’m not going to let you use me any more…” He couldn’t stop the tears falling from his eyes.
“I’m not using you, Jan…” Bruce reached out and wiped away a tear. “I meant what I said… Don’t you love me?”
“I do love you, you selfish bastard,” he said while shoving his hand away, “I have all this time… but you’ve been trying to get with Steve all this time… you said you did… but I’m not going to be the one you use to get under his skin.” He wiped his own tears away and picked up his stuff. “I’m going down to the bar. If Dave is there, I’ll ask him if I can stay with him until I can get my own room.”
He opened the door and left the room, leaving Bruce alone in the room, completely speechless.
- 3
- 4
- 5
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Fates Warning