i'm just telling it like it is

[bossymarmalade]

Dear LORD it feels good to have finished something.

Many, many thanks to Beth for her awesome betaing; if it weren't for her encouragement and suggestions, this would be a lot less done and a lot more suck. *g*

For cherry_lips's Exquisite and Unsatisfied challenge.

First link is website, second is lj-post:

style is the vital thing

style is the vital thing

JC had excellent reflexes. They had served him in good stead when he was doing skits on MMC, preventing him from actually getting full-on facefuls of cream and crust; they had gotten rave reviews from a lot of the dancers who'd toured with the group; they also made him less of an easy target when Chris and Lance got into one of those moods where they threw things at people for fun.

So he easily dodged the magazine that flew at him when he stepped into the lounge area of the bus and glared a reprimand at Chris before dropping onto a sofa. Chris shrugged, spreading his hands. "Wasn't me," he said.

"Fucking magazines! I fucking hate this!" Justin said from flat-out on the floor, putting the heels of his hands over his eyes and gouging. "It's fucking bullshit!"

JC considered whether or not to pick up that particular conversational lob while Chris pulled himself up into a little ball on the opposite sofa. Finally, he gave in and prodded Justin's side with a toe. "What's wrong with you?"

"Justin thinks we're being misrepresented," Chris supplied, eyes steadfastly on the game he'd just booted up, and for one chilling instant JC thought oh fuck not again before realizing this had nothing to do with management.

"I'm so sick of it, is all," Justin said, muffled. "Every time I turn on the tv or pick up a magazine it's another interview with us saying the same old shit, same old shit, over and over. And it's not us -- I mean, we're good, we can handle interviews. You know what it is?" JC rather pointlessly shook his head and Justin lowered his hands, staring at him from puffed-up eyes.

"It's the interviewers," he said intently. "It's the questions they ask, and you know what they ask?"

"Same old shit, same old shit," Chris sing-songed. JC couldn't tell if he was being sympathetic to the cause or making fun of Justin. He supposed that Chris, possessing a position of special standing with Justin, was within his rights do both at once.

"Dude," JC said, and stuck one fingernail in his mouth. "Dude. You know they have to -- they have to all ask the same stuff, you know that's how it works --"

"It's not even so much that," Justin amended quickly, sitting up, and JC grimaced around his hangnail. Chris wasn't paying attention but this particular switcheroo was his fault, because he was the one who liked to change tack in the middle of an argument if it looked like it was going against him and start to plead some new modified point. It was his fault Justin had adopted that gambit and JC knew it.

"-- it's the way they ask. It's that whole condescending fucking attitude they have. 'Cause you know they're just waiting for us to fail, even with No Strings going multi-platinum they're waiting for us to flop somehow so they can tear us to bits. And we have to all the time keep smiling and giving them the fucking company line about our favourite colours and what we wear to fucking bed!" Justin petulantly kicked JC's sofa for emphasis and Chris snorted.

"So you don't mind them asking the same questions, you just want us all to be sincere about it," JC said sarcastically. "Yeah, that's gonna happen."

Justin's mouth turned a bit more down and he kicked JC's sofa again for good measure before picking up the other control and interrupting Chris's solo game. JC watched Chris and Justin yell at each other and play their game, nibbling his hangnail until it was jagged enough to stab his tongue.

...

"I've got an idea," JC said casually the next morning. Lance looked up from lavishly buttering his toast -- he always let himself eat more during touring -- and lifted his eyebrows.

"What about?" he asked. Justin was looking interested too; Joey was bored with all of them at the moment and was concentrating on his cantaloupe, and Chris was immersed in stirring an unhealthily high pile of non-dairy whitener into his coffee, but JC wasn't worried.

"About keeping it real through all the interviews." Chris's head shot up and JC smiled and went on, "Because it's all bullshit and we know it --"

"--same old shit, same old shit," Joey and Lance chorused. JC was momentarily flabbergasted but Joey grinned, "We've heard J's rant."

"Yeah, well -- anyway." He eyed them and then tapped his fingers along the edge of his plate. "I think, so we can stand dealing with, and, uh, being insincere people all through this tour and promo, we should be as sincere with each other --" here he made expansive, inclusive gestures, "-- as possible."

"That's a great idea!" Justin said instantly and with high enthusiasm. "Okay, sure," Chris said next, and Lance nodded.

"Joe?" JC prodded with some surprise. "You in?"

"Whu? Oh, yeah -- sure, of course." Joey made a face like he couldn't believe JC had ever doubted, and it was settled.

...

"You know how you hold that last note in This I Promise You?"

Justin stared dully at Chris. "Yeah. The long one, yeah."

Chris finished tugging on his fingerless gloves and turned to Justin. "Don't," he said, then rushed ahead: "you screw your face up and look like a moron. Don't do that. Either a short note and the stupid face, or a long note and don't do it."

Joey and Lance, who had been arguing about who kept using up whose shampoo on the bus, stopped and stared, eyebrows raised. Sputtering a bit, Justin flapped his top hat against the dressing room counter before barking, "Fine. Fine!" He picked up his hat and stomped towards the door, and JC said, "...Justin."

Pulling to a halt by JC, Justin worked his mouth for a moment before turning back to Chris. "Sure, man," he said. "Thanks for letting me know. I really appreciate it." He displayed a still smile and swept his top hat down in a bow, then affixed it jauntily atop his bedazzled bandana and left the room.

A beat of silence passed before Chris huffed in surprise. "Well, shit," he said, rubbing his head and making all the hair stand on end. "I didn't think this lame-o scheme was actually gonna work."

"He took that," Lance remarked, wide-eyed, to nobody in particular. Joey shook his head in amazement.

"The times, they are a changin'," he said, clapping a bowler hat against Lance's chest. "By the way, Bass, I gotta level with you -- when you're doing your big solo number, I really think you oughtta --"

"Shut the hell up," Lance growled, grinning as he followed Joey out. Chris rocked his hip against the counter a few more times before looking over at JC.

"Pretty happy with yourself?" he asked. His voice sounded more or less neutral, so JC felt safe allowing himself a satisfied little nod. Chris nodded too, then said, "I'm sincere all the time."

JC smiled. "Liar," he said softly, prowling to his feet and coming up practically against Chris, smelling hair gel and makeup and fabric freshener in the material of his jacket. Chris raised his head and leveled a droll stare.

"At least I'm honest about it," Chris murmured, and slipped past JC before the laugh even left his throat.

...

"Sometimes I think about things," Justin said two nights after, deep in the middle of a drive between venues. JC blinked up out of sleep and tried to pretend he was interested, but really all he wanted to do was slump back down on the sofa and doze until he needed to get up and go to the bathroom, at which point he would actually make his way into his bunk for the rest of the night.

"Really," he mumbled. Justin swallowed. JC could hear it across the narrow gap between their two loungy chaises, could hear it over the churring of the bus-wheels.

"Yeah," Justin said, and his voice was low and determined. "Yes."

JC turned over, pressing his face into the hard upholstered back of the chaise, and Justin continued, "I think about things I could do. With my body. Things...other people could do with my...with me."

JC's eyelashes scraped as he opened his eyes and stared at dark blood-red patterned cloth. "Basketball," he suggested. He knew it wasn't right, and Justin proved that by just continuing to talk as though JC hadn't said a word.

"I think about things I could put in -- into -- into myself," Justin said. He sounded unreasonably calm and almost dreamy. "Like, I was in the bathtub once and I had my, um, I had my head up by the faucet side, 'cause the plug didn't work. So I had to put my ass on the drain. You know." JC did know because he'd used Lynn's bathtub too, but he'd jammed his heel against the drain. It had been tiring. "And I was there," Justin went on, "and I just turned my head, a little, and licked the tap. Like it...like it was..." Justin drew a shuddery breath, and rushed on, "-- and I mean, it was a faucet and all but it felt good, licking it. I liked how it felt. It made me wonder what it would be like to suck somebody's cock for real."

Justin paused there and JC held his breath. Maybe if he pretended he'd fallen asleep, Justin would stop talking and go to bed, or maybe he'd go jerk off in the bathroom or maybe he'd decide to go wake Chris up and tell him all this stuff.

A few moments passed and there was nothing, then a slight scrub of cloth as Justin stood up. JC let his eyes close in relief, and Justin swayed in the doorway for a moment and sounded pensive when he said, "I thought about sucking your cock."

JC spent the whole night on the chaise and had a really bad shoulder-ache in the morning, so he went to his bunk and slept some more. Things that he didn't want to think about could be thought about later.

...

Unfortunately, what with being late for the meet-and-greet and then the show subsequently being delayed a bit and then going out afterwards, JC kind of forgot about the issue of Justin being more sincere than he really had to. That is, until Justin pushed up damp and heavy against him in the car to the hotel and mumbled, "There was this once, I made out with this girl in Germany --"

"J, shut up, man." JC laughed and it sounded forced even through his own glossy alcohol haze. "I'm smashed; you don't wanna tell me shit right now."

"-- and she was older, maybe way older, I couldn't tell, you know how you can't tell with some girls," Justin rambled on, oblivious. "Anyhow, we kissed a lot and then we didn't kiss at all and I just got her off with my fingers. She was wearing these tiny little panties with cherries on them and she was really loud and I just watched her face the whole time."

"J, shut the fuck up," JC said sharply. Justin bumped his forehead against JC's and sat back with a sigh, sprawling over the seat. "For like a week after, every girl I saw, I thought about what kind of panties she'd be wearing and what her face would look like if I brought her off with my hand."

A few minutes more and Justin's breathing heavied into slight snores. JC sat upright with his lips tight and stared out the window.

...

"Are Joey and Lance telling you stuff?" he demanded of Chris the next day, bursting in to his hotel room.

"Yeah, that fucker Lance told me I should buy clothes in my size," Chris said, blinking at JC from the bed. "And what the hell are you doing up at this hour? You're not supposed to be awake while the moon's still in the sky! You're throwing my whole universe out of whack!"

JC sat down on the bed, then stood back up and started pacing. "It's Justin," he said. "He's doing this all wrong."

Chris snorted and flipped channels until he found a boxing match. "Maybe, but it's his face on all those key chains that's raking in the bucks," he said, amused. JC made a noise of frustration and said, "He's not being sincere!"

"Whaddyou mean? Just yesterday he told Joey his Schwarzenegger impression sounds like a bulimic Nazi. That was huge, man, Joe was pissed."

"Good," JC said in a pinched manner. "Joey's Schwarzenegger does suck. It sucks balls."

"I dunno -- his Mr. Freeze scream is pretty quality." Chris swung his legs off the bed and stretched, belly pushing against his tee shirt. He really did need to buy clothes in his own size, JC noticed dispassionately -- Lance was right. "What's Jup been doing to get you so rattled?"

JC dropped to his knees next to Chris's bed. It was a little dramatic, he knew, but you could never underemphasize with Chris or he'd brush you off. As it was, Chris stopped scratching his knee and his eyes went round.

"He keeps --" JC began, and that was as far as he got before the door slammed open and Justin shot into the room, Joey chasing after him and grabbing for the photos Justin had sheaved in his hand.

"Chris, fucking save me!" Justin yowled, diving behind Chris and clinging to his shoulders. Joey didn't slow down for a second and sailed onto the bed, arms outstretched; Chris, unfazed, dropped heavily backward to avoid getting clobbered. Justin squawked indignantly from beneath him and Chris rolled off the bed and got up, his feet narrowly missing JC's head, and headed for the bathroom.

Joey triumphantly grabbed the sticky bunch of photographs from Justin's flailing hand and sat up. "Hey, Jayce," he said in mild surprise. "Whatcha doing down there?"

Growling, JC stood up and cinched Justin's elbow, snatching the remote control with the other hand and turning the volume on the boxing match up loud before tossing it back down and dragging Justin to the bathroom. "Out!" he barked at Chris, who gave him an affronted stare and spat a mouthful of toothpaste foam at him like an oral hygiene camel before stomping out.

JC slammed the door shut and locked it, then wrenched the taps in the sink on and cleaned the disgusting greenish gob of bubbly froth off his shirt.

"That's gross," Justin commented unnecessarily, then pulled himself up to sit on the counter, slouching happily. "What up, man?"

Closing the water off, JC leaned in close to Justin, hands braced on the counter and bracketing Justin's hips. He could feel the heat from Justin's skin, he was so close.

"Those things you keep telling me," he hissed, then stopped and composed himself. "Justin, being sincere. It doesn't it doesn't mean you have to confess things, it's not like that. You don't have to tell me about all your business."

"But I don't -- " Justin began.

"I don't want to fucking hear it!" JC shouted, and then pulled back, appalled at the tone of his own voice. The feeling took a nasty twist when Justin sniffed, unperturbed, and started rubbing his thighs, looking over at the bathtub. He tipped his curly head and slotted his eyes, mouth falling open a bit so the tip of his pink tongue could poke out, and JC turned and fled.

...

The tour headed into its last leg without them having killed each other, which was surprising given how embarrassingly poorly they took to the whole "being sincere" idea when it was actually in practice. Lance had delivered a volley of cutting remarks one night after a particularly drug-spurred incident, most of them aimed squarely at Chris -- which in turn prompted Chris to fully shut down any sort of filter his brain had and to preface every nasty thing he said with, "In the interest of being sincere."

Justin suddenly started spending huge amounts of time with Britney -- in person if possible, remotely if not. Joey also spent hours on the phone or out at clubs. JC, somewhat resentful of his own sense of guilt for initiating this stupid idea in the first place and very very resentful of those two chickenshits for abandoning him with Chris and Lance, worked nonstop on new songs for the next album. He was pretty sure he was failing since all of the songs seemed to revolve around how good silence was, and the one time he sang some of the lyrics to his sister on the phone she burst into tears and he spent fifteen minutes convincing her that he wasn't clinically depressed and the song wasn't a metaphor for suicide.

He finally managed to catch Joey in the heated outdoor pool of one of the interminable hotels, which was perfect because it was a lot harder for Joey to suddenly need to make a phone call or have the sudden urge to go dancing when he was bobbing in five feet and seven inches of chlorinated water. "Hey, man," Joey greeted him, somewhat lacking in enthusiasm. JC didn't care and practically fell into the pool in his haste to make sure Joey lingered a while.

"Hey, Joe." He swam over and paddled for a bit before putting his feet down while Joey smoothed back his hair and looked cranky. "You know, man -- you know, this thing with Chris and Lance -- "

"Yeah," Joey said shortly. "It's stupid."

"Exactly!" JC would have thrown up his hands to emphasize solidarity, but it would spray water everywhere and look dumb, so he didn't. "They're just screwing with each other now, and it's nothing like what we're supposed to be doing because the whole point of this was -- "

Joey frowned. "No, the whole thing is stupid," he said, shaking his head. "This whole sincerity thing. It was a shitty idea, C."

JC blinked. He wiped water from his face to give himself a moment to think. "It's a good idea," he said slowly. "It's just nobody's doing it right."

Joey pressed his lips together and nodded. "Because all your ideas are good ones, right?" he laughed. It wasn't a nice sort of laugh. "Right, JC. Y'know, people tell white lies for a reason."

There didn't seem to be anything graceful to say to that, but Joey also wasn't bolting from the pool in annoyance, so JC contemplated and decided to take the remark in stride. "It's just," he said, then lifted his feet and made wide semi-circles with his arms underwater. The suspension felt good, and Joey sank down until his chin was hitting the water. The meniscus, or something like that, JC vaguely remembered it from high school chem.

"Justin," he said, when it felt right. "He keeps telling me stuff. Personal stuff, about who he's slept with, that kind of thing."

Quiet except for the fat, delicious sound of their limbs slowly moving through the water, and then Joey murmured, "Maybe he wants you to, y'know. To..." he raised his eyebrows significantly, "...you know."

"No. No!" JC squinted at Joey. "You think?" Joey shrugged and momentarily sank down, coming back up with a headshake and spattering JC with droplets. He absently splashed water at Joey in retaliation and Joey just said, "I dunno. But it sure sounds like it. And he's kind of liked you forever."

JC had known that. It would've been hard to miss. But then, Justin liked a lot of people.

...

Right now, he seemed to like Britney a whole lot.

"I wanna put her in a milk bath," he murmured in JC's ear, standing behind him in a hotel elevator. "I want it to be all milk and roses and honey and then she'd taste sweet like that after, her cunt, everywhere." JC twitched and Justin said it again, rolling the word around in his mouth like he was tasting every secret part of it. The inside of the elevator door was antique-mirrored in some genius display of fancy-pants design and JC could see Justin's eyes reflected blurrily in them, dark and hot.

"She might like that," JC tried. He wished his throat hadn't been so dry from the hotel air-conditioning, because it made him sound all cracky instead of the smooth and blase tone he was going for. Justin was silent for a minute, then pressed his fingers in the small of JC's back.

"I wanna be her fucktoy for a day," he muttered, his voice dipping erratically. "Like, whatever she wants, I do it, no questions, nothing. " JC nodded and the pressure of Justin's fingers deepened, his voice getting harsher as he kept talking, words smashing up against each other and tumbling over, splayed.

"Like, anything she wants, C. Tying me up, getting me to fuck her on her mom's bed, not letting me come, anything." He tipped his head closer, curls tickling and JC had to fight not to move when he said, "Threesomes. Guys, girls, whatever. Whatever she wants. I'd do it."

"Hmmmm," JC said. He wished the hotels they stayed in weren't so tall. "Sounds interesting."

Justin's breath came out in a hsssh and he stepped back, staring up at the floor numbers as they lit up. "I think she might like to fuck Chris," he said conversationally. "I'd want to see that. I'd want to see her take it from him."

JC closed his eyes and leaned forward until his hands pressed against the cold brass of the mirrored doors; Justin sighed behind him, and JC thought he sounded satisfied.

...

Then he got distracted for a couple of days -- willfully so, because he felt that he was in a stagnant place creatively and wanted to get the right side of his brain working again.

"You're painting in your hotel room?" Joey said when he knocked and walked in, as Joey was wont to do. JC frowned at his canvas and stepped back a bit.

"Sure. Why not?"

Joey shrugged and dropped onto the bed, turning on the television. "It's kinda weird, is all. I mean, unless you got, like, a portable studio or something --"

"It's just canvas and paint, Joe. If I'm not using the easel, I could do this anywhere."

"Yeah, I guess. Is the teevee bugging you?"

"No." JC was quiet for a bit, then asked, "So, man whaddyou think?"

Joey crossed his ankles and tipped his head. "Looks good, man," he said. "Looks...artsy. Hey, you can be like -- did you ever see that episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show with the painting?" JC shook his head and fondly imagined black-and-white Joey tripping over an ottoman. Unaware of this, Joey continued, "There was this one episode where they had this crappy painting that Sinatra did, and it was worth a fortune. Because he's Sinatra!"

"What happened?" JC wanted to know.

"Well, it was a sitcom. They fucked up and ruined the painting because there was another one under it and they thought that one was valuable. They didn't even know the top one was a Sinatra painting because he signed his name backwards. Not, like, daVinci backwards -- he signed it 'Artanis'. You could do that too, man. Sign your name backwards."

JC put down his paintbrush and scrubbed a hand through his hair. "Joey, my name backwards is 'CJ'. That's not really incognito."

Hopping off the bed, Joey turned off the television again and announced, "The restaurant downstairs has a VIP. We should go grab something to eat, Rembrandt." JC nodded and Joey added, "Besides, if you signed your work " he paused, "-- 'Zesahc', people would just think you're Polish or something, and then they'd unknowingly have priceless pieces of JC art hanging over their breakfast tables."

"You're a frigging genius," JC said dryly.

...

Joey got the last laugh, though, because he nearly made JC choke when he announced over lunch that Chris and Lance were fucking.

"You're lying. Dude, you're so lying," JC told him, sandwich frozen on the way to his mouth. Joey shook his head happily. Joey was a sucker for dishing the dirt, and he always had the good stuff, as far as JC knew. Joey had the gossip equivalent of cocaine that didn't have baby powder or drain cleaner in it.

"I swear they are," he said, dipping and re-dipping a french fry in his puddle of ketchup. "They keep disappearing at the same time, and when they show up again they won't say where they've been. And they stopped fighting."

"On their own, or did somebody make them?" JC resumed eating his sandwich, wide-eyed. Radical shifts in group dynamics didn't mean he should stop enjoying the perfection of roasted chicken and focaccia.

Joey shook his head and drank some of his root beer. "All by themselves," he told JC earnestly. "When was the last time that happened?"

JC nodded in slow time with his chewing. "It's unprecedented," he said gravely. Joey nodded along.

"You've been watching Law & Order again," he said.

"That's beside the point," JC said with dignity. "The point is, man, Chris and Lance! Is this good, or bad? You know what dating in the group can do to a band!"

"The thing is, would them screwing around and then breaking up be better than them hating each other and letting it slip when we're doing the fucking Super Bowl or something, in the long run?" Joey crossed himself rapidly and then finished the root beer.

"You are so right." JC thumped a fist against the table. "I think -- dude, I think you need to talk to Lance about it."

Joey barked out a laugh, eyebrows shooting up. "Huh! No way, buddy. No fucking way. Why don't you talk to Chris about it?"

"We'll both do it," JC said in a placating manner, seeing any chance of getting out of this unscathed rapidly retreating. "We'll bring it up nice and, um, slide it in. When they don't expect it."

"Catch them off-guard. I like it." Joey held out his hand and they did a series of chummy finger-slaps. "You da man, C."

"Yeah, boy!" JC polished off his sandwich and felt good about the direction things were going.

...

"So," JC said, flustered and so fast his words tangled into the tail ends of the ones before them, "areyouanLancefuckingchother?"

Joey stared at him with wide, glossy eyes and a little round mouth as Chris launched across the table to punch JC in the arm and Lance frowned and said, "What?"

So maybe going out drinking and then just blurting out the question wasn't quite the best method of getting to the truth. But JC had panicked, and it just came out that way, and damn that Joey anyway, because he could've helped instead of just making Chris and Lance sit together on one side of the rounded booth.

Justin, sitting by himself in the curve, looked like he didn't know whether to laugh and clap or pull out his flashcards on Sensitivity to Others' Emotions, and settled instead for drinking his water too fast and then spluttering until Chris sourly thumped him on the back.

"What the fuck kinda question is that?" Chris asked JC, slowing down to rubbing as Justin finally stopped coughing and slumped weakly against him.

JC cleared his throat. "I'm just --"

"Say 'being sincere' and I'm comin' up across this table and beat the shit out've you, fuckhead."

JC swallowed the rest of the sentence and felt slightly nauseated. "Ahh, um...I just think you are. We --" he made decisive gestures between himself and Joey, who was looking distinctly greenish, "-- we think you, uh. You are. Fucking, each other. Dude."

"Dude," Lance repeated, "we're not fucking. I can barely stand to look at his snivelly little face."

"Oh hah ha, hah fucking hah." Chris scowled at Lance, then at JC and Joey. "Look, moron twins -- just 'cause we're not yelling at each other doesn't mean we're automatically having wild monkey sex." Justin giggled against Chris's shoulder and Chris smiled slightly, nudging him.

"Okay, okay." Joey spread his hands. "We just figured, y'know? With you two disappearing together and all."

Chris and Lance exchanged glances, and Chris gently shrugged Justin off of him. "Well, we kinda were doing that," Lance said. "But it's not 'cause we were off having sex."

Silence for a beat, except for the Tom Petty song playing on the bar's jukebox, and then Joey prompted, "Uhhhh...so, what were you doing?"

Taking a deep breath, Lance folded his hands on the table and said, "We don't think this sincerity thing is working." JC slid down in his seat and Justin sat up straighter. "It's not keeping us real at all. We're just getting mad at each other and and stuff."

"So what do you suggest?" JC asked, his voice low and almost preternaturally calm. Joey leaned against him, folding his arms and dropping his chin to his chest while Lance folded and re-folded his fingers.

"Well, since being sincere isn't making us feel any better, Chris and me think we should go the complete opposite."

JC said impassively, "...lie to each other?" and Lance and Chris scrambled against each other in protest.

"Not lie, just go along with the insincere junk," Chris said. "Play up to the bullshit. Like, photo shoots and interviews and all that? Go along with the fuckuppedness. They're gonna be insincere, well -- we can outdo them with the insincere, easy."

"And, uh -- this honesty thing is kind of getting on everybody's nerves, too," Lance added with an apologetic glance in JC's direction. "It might actually do us good to just give 'em the canned answers for a while, keep us from saying anything we maybe shouldn't?..."

Justin looked doubtful and Joey muttered, "You are making no fucking sense, man," but JC gave a grim nod and tapped the table with his fingers.

"Have fun with it," he said. "And fuck with their heads?" Chris and Lance bobbed in agreement and JC nodded. "Okay, then."

...

Cosmogirl and bubblegum and "my name is" tags on their hats and shirts, and JC stared around at the others in bemusement as they joked and jostled. What were the odds that they'd get this kind of interview now, now of all times? How could the universe be so mean?

The girl explained the concept of them answering questions as each other and JC nodded along, but inside he was wondering if *nsync's collective guardian angels were falling down on their job of protecting their charges from situations like this. He figured the truth of what their angels actually spent time doing was something like a big loud game of Marco Polo, except with feathers and harp music and maybe flamingo croquet mallets. Or maybe the truth was they had no guardian angels; they had, like, guardian leprechauns or something that were constantly drunk and didn't guard them from painful irony. Maybe the truth was that they were drifting pointless and unguided in a sea of shit-stupid publicity.

Or maybe the truth was Justin smiling across at him with a sticker saying "MY NAME IS JC" slapped onto his bandana.

...

JC had killer reflexes, sure, but he might have swapped them for precognitive powers if given the chance. Justin had something like that, some innate sense of what direction popular culture was going to swing in, and JC admired that in him, envied the sense of sure confidence with which Justin faced most things and especially publicity.

Because when Cosmogirl sends them promo copies of the magazine weeks from now, JC will scan the article and will feel a strange sense of violation, because for once there will be nothing in there that hadn't actually been said. He'll be aware of that dizzying, frustrating jolt of truth under their glib lies that will frost his teeth and make his cheekbones ache. He'll read their responses and hear them all in his head, not because he remembers the words but because he remembers the tones. He will feel every lash of irritation and annoyance he did then, and his heart will beat a little faster.

...

Joey smiled and smiled and said, "I'm Chris, and my best qualities are my sense of humor and my wisdom because I'm so smart and older and wiser than everyone." And not a one of them missed the hard inflection Joey put on the so, the way he pulled out each r until Chris's grin went brittle and his eyes thinned up.

Justin coyly demurred, "I'm JC, and before I go to sleep I write down what happened in the day." He turned to JC when the room fell silent and demanded with a frown, "You still do that?" Lance turned away, eyes closed briefly, and Chris rushed in to fill the space after JC coldly reminded him, "I haven't done that since we were in Hamburg."

Everybody laughed when JC glibly said, "I'm Joey, and I hate it when a girl plays hard to get." Joey laughed too, but really really loud and sharply and the interviewer girl edged unconsciously away from him.

And when Chris made an offering for best pick-up line, "How about this one; 'I'm Lance. You know that third song? I produced that,'" Lance pretended that he didn't hear and was too busy preparing his answer of "I'm Justin, and I don't need a line. I just sing a little bit and all the girls are like 'OHHHHH,'" and then they were all carefully not looking at each other while the girl crossed and re-crossed her lovely, bare legs and shuffled her note cards.

...

"It's even worse than telling the truth," Chris told JC after, sitting in some cordoned-off bar in some posh Californian hotel. "How the hell do we manage to insult each other even when we're telling a pack of made-up lies and shit?"

"Years of practice." JC swirled the tequila around in his shot glass, watched it smoothly coat the glass like bitter syrup. "Look, can we not talk about it? That was the crappiest interview we've ever done. It's gonna make us look like idiots."

"No more than usual." Picking up the salt shaker, Chris tipped it onto the counter a few times, sweeping all the spilled salt into a little heap with his fingertips. "Maybe we should just scrap the whole idea," he mumbled into his chest. "The whole sincerity thing. We obviously suck at it -- I mean, we even suck at the opposite of it, we suck at it so much. Maybe we should try something new."

JC heaved a put-upon sigh and thunked his shot glass down. "What? What should we do? Take up juggling? Learn Italian?"

"Hey, yeah -- that's the spirit! We could learn how to, uh...do fan-dances!"

Sometimes Chris missed the point so willfully, JC could swear that he took a running start and pole-vaulted over it.

Closing his eyes, JC tossed back his drink and found that when he opened his eyes again and there was tequila scorching a trail down his esophagus, Chris's rabid lameness seemed a lot funnier and pretty damn reasonable. "We could..." he began tentatively, then grinned. "We could learn how to make smoke signals. Or, um, collect bottle caps."

"Or make pottery."

"Write and perform operas."

"Practice animal husbandry." Chris paused and smacked his lips in satisfaction, dusting salty fingers on his jeans. "There's a thought -- we could breed! Things!"

JC giggled. "What, like mad scientists?"

"No, no, what are you, crazy? Like doggies. American Cocker Spaniels."

JC signaled for the bartender and ordered a couple of double bourbons on the rocks before furrowing his brow and asking, "Why spaniels?" Chris waited until the drinks came and greedily collected his.

"People who like spaniels are bonkers for them," he told JC. "There was this Jeep I used to see around town back home, and it had all these bizarre-ass bumper stickers on it, like 'My American Cocker Spaniel is Smarter than Your Honour Student' and shit like that."

"Woowwww," JC breathed. Chris nodded earnestly.

"'If you think putting on a condom is hard, try doing it with paws,'" he intoned in a plummy announcer's voice, then shook his head and drank. "People are fucked up. I love Busta like he's my baby, but that's just fuckin' nuts."

"Totally, man." JC steadily swallowed about half of his bourbon, then said thoughtfully, "I wonder if Catholics spay and neuter their pets? I mean, is it against their religion, y'know, because they're against abortion and all?"

Chris shrugged. "How should I know? Ask Joey."

"Joey's the shittiest Catholic in the history of Catholics," JC said. "All that pre-marital sex."

"Hah! Not to mention the mutual blow jobs. I don't think that's part of being a good Catholic eith --"

"Wait," JC said. The bourbon plummeted to the floor of his stomach and alchemized with the tequila there, shooting fumes straight up to his sinuses. "Wait. What?"

Chris stared at him, eyes going wider, then quietly said, "well, fuck," and drained his glass. "Look," he said, swiveling to face JC. "Look, I thought he'd'a told you, sorry, man. It's no big deal, him and --"

JC waved his hands. "You? You and Joey?" he babbled haplessly. Joey had never told him, he had never suspected. The world was bottoming out.

"No, uh...him and J."

The world did a nauseating swoop and JC pressed his fingertips hard against the edge of the bar. "Joey and Justin," he muttered under his breath, tight spiked caramel. "That little --" He cut himself off because Chris was still sitting there, listening intently, and because JC realized he wasn't sure what he wanted to say.

"C --" Chris began, but JC waved his hand.

"See," he said bitterly. "See, this is why we started the whole damn thing in the first place, isn't it? For Justin. For Justin to get laid, apparently."

"If it makes you feel better, I don't think they're fucking," Chris said in a helpful manner. JC pressed his lips together and nodded slowly, then patted Chris's shoulder.

"Buddy," he said. "Chris, man, I love you. But you can shut the hell up with the goddamn sincerity any time now."

...

It was easy to confront him, because Justin constantly lost or forgot his hotel keycards and JC just waited until Justin had come up once, remembered that he needed a new one, and gone down to get it. When he came back up and opened his door, JC slid up behind him and shoved him in, slamming the door and locking it.

"Jayce --" Justin began, startled, but JC made a strong advance, pushing him down across the hotel bed with one hand vicing Justin's chin.

"You never told me," JC grated, knees pressing into the mattress on either side of Justin's narrow hips. "About Joey."

"Should I have?" Justin asked, eyes glittering. "Seems to me you didn't wanna hear any of that stuff, JC. Seems to me you wanted me to stop telling you."

"What, so you told him instead?"

Justin twisted his head sharply, jerking out of JC's grip. "No. I didn't need to tell him anything, I just did it." Planting a hand on JC's chest, Justin shoved him back and wriggled up, propping himself on his elbows. "He didn't fucking pussy out like some people."

"Some people meaning me-people. Meaning me." JC watched incredulously as Justin smiled, tight-lipped and cruel and hardly a smile at all.

"Yeah," Justin said, and then JC leaned hard into Justin with his shoulder, knocking him flat on the bed and bracing stem-to-stern against him with a deft twist of his body. "This is what you want, huh?" JC asked, throwing some weight into his hips. "I don't have any candles or roses with me, J. None of the stuff you told the magazines you like."

"I didn't tell 'em I like fucking guys, either," Justin grinned, pushing his hips up hard and wrapping his arms around JC's waist.

"But you do."

"I do."

JC tipped his head forward and let Justin raise up eagerly, pressing his mouth against JC's, lips full of blood under thin, thin skin. He made an urgent noise in his throat and JC pulled back, inexplicably a bit saddened by that sound, the desire behind it. Justin was further along than JC expected, more grown or mature or experienced or something just like he always turned out to be, same old shit, same old shit. Nothing ever stayed where it was, and people were always predictable.

"You really wanna do this with me," he murmured finally, sliding one hand into Justin's mess of curls.

"Yeah," Justin breathed again, tipping his forehead up against JC's palm. "Jesus...you're totally hot, C, I always wanted to, yeah."

Justin was lanky and warm under JC, his body solid, slim, and JC wasn't sure how he felt about that, if he felt like he did with Lance where for a while Lance had seemed breathtakingly hot and then suddenly lapsed into being Just Lance. He thought this long-legged creature under him was Just Justin. But he might be wrong. This long-legged creature might be breathtakingly hot.

"Yeah," JC said, and lowered his head.

...

Justin pants against the side of JC's face, huffing with every forward lunge, and his breath is damp and milk-opalescent, almonds and vanilla. His hands press against JC's shoulders, push him into the bed, and JC can't help but love the feel of those long fingers curling and pressing over and into his muscles. Justin takes him apart piece by piece, each deep driven thrust sending shocks up JC's rigidly curved spine and through JC's aching dick as it rubs against the mattress, and he licks and licks just under JC's ear like he can't get enough of the taste of soft skin there. Justin is all over, all-encompassing, filling up all of JC's world and all of his body, touch taste and smell forever and ever amen. It's unbelievable and overwhelming and JC can't wait for it to be over, because he doesn't think he can withstand the intensity for much longer.

When it is finally over, he wishes it wasn't.

...

JC woke up two and a quarter hours later, half-dressed and with Justin's open mouth pressed wetly against his shoulder. He slid out of bed easily and didn't look at Justin, and was glad all over again that he'd lain on his belly when Justin had fucked him because he didn't think he could bear knowing what Justin's face looked like when he came.

Pulling on his t-shirt, JC headed for the door; Justin snored loudly and flopped around in the bed before re-settling on his stomach, and JC was nearly home free when some idiot part of his brain said, "well, don't you want to know?" Because for a while there, two and a quarter hours ago, JC had looked into Justin's eyes and felt hot blood filling his groin. Two and a quarter hours ago, JC had wanted Justin Timberlake to fuck him, wanted it more than anything else at that one moment because Justin had been hot, amazingly scorchingly hot and --

-- and he gave in, a rabbity glance over his shoulder, and of course Justin's face would be conveniently turned out on the pillow because their guardian angels were too busy drinking pink flamingoes elsewhere. Earnest, dorky, annoying Just Justin, who had become too familiar long ago, so familiar that JC didn't even understand anymore why girls found him so attractive. Selfish sweet Justin, who hid JC's cds in his cereal boxes and who refused to borrow other people's lip balm even though his mouth was always chapped.

That Just Justin, who'd pressed his weight against JC's tailbone and pushed his fingers into JC's mouth, murmuring words of encouragement and desire.

JC left and went straight to his bathroom and ran a bath as hot as his fingers could stand it, slithering out of his crumpled damp clothes and stepping in. His cold toes went instantly frozen, then numb, and were aching loudly by the time JC stretched out in the tub. It was penitence, he told himself sternly as the heat rose through him, flushing his body tomato red. It was cleansing.

The skin just above JC's hips felt super-hot, though, like -- burning hot, and his heart was starting to race erratically, and really, people accidentally scalded themselves all the time just running the tap or making the bath too hot, didn't they? JC definitely remembered his mother telling him that once. JC didn't want to disappoint his mother by stupidly getting second-degree burns from a bath, cleansing and penitent through it was.

Flurry of movement later, wrapped securely in a terrycloth robe and starting to doze comfortably in his own bed, JC reflected that two minutes in a searing hot bath was more than enough penitence for anybody. He really wasn't all that religious anyway; he supposed God wouldn't hold it against him.

...

So the tour whooshed onward and they did more interviews, and this strange thing happened where they'd lie their asses off in some interviews and yet underneath they'd be able to channel some strange incoherent wordless version of the truth, but it was the kind of thing you had to be on the in for. Because it was only from hearing Lance yell at Joey to clean the pet bowls on the bus that you'd recognize the tone he used to talk about what hard work being on tour was. It was only if you'd cracked one of Chris' s rollerblades in Germany and had him freeze you out for a couple of weeks that you'd pick up on the deep chill when he talked about JC and Justin getting the leads on the new album.

They knew each other so well, it seemed, that they could be sincere without even saying anything.

It was mean sincere, though. Which was all wrong for the initial goal of the thing, but by this point JC was beyond caring. He'd set up the situation for it all to happen, but only because Justin had been bitching about it, and now look at where they were.

Three concerts later and he and Justin hadn't slept together again, hadn't so much as stolen a couple of kisses in the Quiet Room or held hands across the bunks. In fact, Justin was now pretty much ignoring JC and hanging around with Chris all the time, which really wasn't all that unusual but was still bothersome because JC wanted to ask Chris a few things. He'd already let Joey know that he knew about the blowjobs and stuff, which had gone something like:

JC: So, uh...you and...so, dude, you like sucking cock, huh?
JOEY: Eh, I can take it or leave it. You gonna finish that corndog?

Which pretty much made things go back to normal between them -- would that it were that simple with other members of the band. When JC finally did get a chance to talk to Chris, one morning when Justin was in the shower and Chris was idly watching a soccer game in the back lounge, it didn't go very well.

"Hey," Chris said. "You're waking up way too early these days. Quit doing that, okay? I got a lot of stuff I like to do when I know you're asleep."

JC blinked. "Okay, totally ignoring that extremely disturbing knowledge -- I need to talk to you about something."

"If it's about you and Jup screwing each other, don't bother. I already know and I don't need to know any more than I do. Just lookit this instead." Chris held something out in his palm and JC frowned at it, irritated.

"Whatever," he snapped, trying to wave aside the small stone gargoyle perched in Chris's hand. "Look, idiot, it's important and I really think that for the sake of --"

Chris pushed the gargoyle back in front of JC, protesting, "No, no -- look! It's...look!" He turned the thing over and flipped a small switch in its base, then crowed in delight when the hideous stony little gargoyle tinnily began to play "It's a Small World."

"Is that not fucked UP?" Chris exclaimed. The shower shut off and, window of opportunity gone, JC left the lounge in disgust. He didn't get that damned song out of his head for the rest of the day.

...

JC was stamping a bunch of postcards when Justin finally decided to come talk to him. They were in a hotel in Texas and one of the makeup girls had brought back a whack of San Antonio Tourism Board postcards for JC, so he'd spent the evening catching up on correspondence with acquaintances and relatives. A lot of acquaintances and relatives had sent him letters once NSA hit it big and JC figured that he might as well give them the benefit of the doubt and send them free postcards that all said, "it was nice hearing from you! thanks for the good wishes and i hope we keep in touch." Which wasn't quite untrue, but certainly should sift out the golddiggers.

He was sticking a stamp on the back of the Alamo when Justin strolled in and threw himself on the bed, asking "Whatcha doing?"

"Performing open-heart surgery," JC said without missing a beat, setting that card aside and giving Justin a sheet of stamps. "Here, make yourself useful. I need some water or something to get this glue taste out've my mouth."

He went into the bathroom and rinsed out a glass three times before putting it back on the counter, because he didn't drink tap water. When he felt more rational and less like reaching into Justin's mouth and yanking his silly Timberlake curls through his brainpan, JC nodded at his reflection with great gravity and went back out.

Justin had finished the stack of cards that JC had allotted him and was industriously making inroads on the rest of them, seemingly oblivious to the nastiness of the glue as he busily licked stamps and thumbed them into place. "You're not funny, y'know," he said conversationally, setting aside the Riverwalk. "I heard Chris use that surgery line on you, like, two weeks ago."

JC rolled his eyes and sighed in exasperation. "That would make Chris the one who isn't funny, wouldn't it?" He made a move to sit down, then thought better of it and just put his hands on his hips. "What do you want, Justin?"

Biting his lip, Justin hesitated for a moment and then sat up cross-legged. "I'm in love," he announced.

"I know," JC said. "With Britney. That's not news."

"No," Justin said, breathless. JC had to hand it to him -- the fucker sure knew how to make it seem like his life was comprised of the most thrilling and dramatic series of events to ever happen. "Not Brit. I mean, yeah, I do love her, but it's somebody else."

"Okay." JC waited for a moment, and when Justin said nothing else, raised his eyebrows. "Well? Go on."

"I'm not sure if I should tell you...." Justin squirmed. JC whapped the side of his head and scowled when Justin shouted at him.

"Look, I've seen enough sitcoms to know what's gonna happen if I jump in here," JC told him. "I say something about how it's really flattering that you're in love with me, but I don't think it's gonna work, and then just when I've totally embarrassed myself you're gonna cut me off and say, 'oh no, JC, I'm in love with somebody else!' and then I'm gonna feel like a total fool, and I -- "

"JC, I am in love with somebody else," Justin interrupted quietly. He sounded hurt when he continued, "-- and I would never, ever do anything like that to you, lead you on like that just to embarrass you. You know me better than that, man, for real."

"Well," JC said grumpily, then sat down next to Justin, letting one bony knee dig against him. "Fine. So? "

"Sooooo..." Justin sighed and tipped his head onto JC's shoulder. His hair tickled JC's temple and smelled fresh and cologney, like salon gel. "Jayce. Man, I don't know about this. I don't think he knows, and even if he does, I don't think he'd be into it. Into me."

JC was starting to get the idea. "You want the truth, I'm guessing." Justin nodded and JC tried to rub the coldness out of his own knees, thinking of Joey's bland tone and the taste of cornmeal. "I don't think he would be, J. It's just, he's not...I don't think he's ready for this kind of thing. I don't think he ever will be." He was surprised to find how relieved the thought made him, how good it felt to tell Justin that. JC believed it, truly, that Joey needed something entirely different from a road-relationship with a diva-boy best friend; he believed it, but vocalizing it somehow made it feel stronger, truer.

Justin was quiet and JC hoped to God he wasn't going to start sniffling, because all those self-help books might be good for keeping Justin enthralled on the bus but had an unfortunate side effect of taking root in his brain. Crying, Justin had announced in an affronted manner when mocked (like any guy should be when discovered weeping in the company of other guys), was an expression of emotional security and self-wholeness and one of which he was totally unashamed.

Self-wholeness it might be, but emotional displays made JC twitch and he had no desire to face one down now. Fortunately, Justin simply sat up and unfolded his legs, then reached back to scoop up JC's postcards. His t-shirt rode up briefly and JC stared at the twist of muscle over Justin's arched hip for a moment, sensual regret stirring in his flesh and his blood.

His head, though, had the good sense to just nod and say thanks when Justin mumbled, "I'll mail these for you," and hugged JC tightly. The postcards poked one of JC's shoulder blades, and when he patted Justin's back he felt Justin's shoulder blade shift and shudder under his hand.

...

Concert concert concert after that, and in between it all JC kept an eye on Justin and Joey. He wasn't sure which one of them he would side with, really, if it came down to that; he had a feeling it would be Joey, because JC could sure relate to having to deal with Justin's unwanted attentions. Then again, he understood how Justin could fall for Joey mistakenly, because Justin loved falling in love and Joey knew how to make anybody head-over-heels for him, and it would be mean of him to do that to Jup.

A few weeks of this kind of thinking, and JC started desperately wondering if Lance was carrying a torch for anybody or sucking someone off during quick changes.

Things got odd, though, because one night when they were running off stage, Justin whipped off his soaked-through blue shirt and JC couldn't help thinking how good he looked in the white undershirt, how long and tapered and delicious, but then Joey was pushing past him and hoisting Justin over his shoulder and Justin whooped and honked and flailed his long legs and JC blinked sweat from his eyelashes and thought, waitaminute, that doesn't look right.

Lance went past him, snorting like a little blond bull and scrubbing his head with a towel, and said, "What doesn't look right?" and JC stared stupidly at him for a while before realizing he'd said it out loud.

"Uh," he said, but Lance was moving. JC loped after him and said, "Uh, Joey. And Justin. Do they seem weird to you?"

Lance squinted ahead, where it seemed like Justin was doing his best to try and chase Joey up a cinderblock wall, and grinned, "When don't they seem weird?"

JC laughed nervously. "Yeah," he said. "But, I mean -- do you think they're acting weird around each other, I mean."

"No," Lance replied and seemed about to elaborate, but then Chris came trotting up behind them and jumped on Lance, and JC pulled off his own shirt and headed into the bus.

By the time he was done hosing down and getting changed, the bus was halfway out of the city and Chris was sitting in the kitchen area, riffling through a magazine without stopping to read any of the articles.

"Shower's free," JC said pointedly. Chris shook his head and dropped the magazine. "C'mere, man," he said. "Justin got on Joey's bus, I need someone to help me through the withdrawal."

JC felt in an affable mood, so he got them a couple of sodas and took a seat opposite Chris. "You sure you don't want to take a shower?" JC asked, wrinkling his nose. "You're stinking up the place."

"Whatever," Chris waved, distracted. "Look, I gotta...have you noticed...fuck." Chris ran his hands through his hair a couple of times and it separated out into thick rows from where his fingers had plowed. JC stared at it in amusement as Chris fidgeted and opened his pop and drank noisily from it. Chris's hair looked good like this, much better than the dumbass pineapple-head. Much better than --

"You noticed anything up with J lately?" Chris blurted, in that flat way that he had when he was trying to sound nonchalant, and JC opened his mouth to say something about Justin maybe being in love with Joey but going about it in a really strange pointless fashion when he remembered the night before last, after the show, and --

Justin standing next to Chris and turning his head to bump his nose into Chris's black ploughed hair, eyes fluttering shut

-- and it suddenly made much more sense who Justin had been talking about, quiet and pensive in the middle of the postcards. Chris was looking at him, waiting, and JC bit the inside of his lip.

"Not really," he said slowly, drawing his hands down the table and into his lap. "He seems fine to me."

"Huh." Chris shifted again and stared out the window. "He seems kind of like, uh...like he might feel like...." he trailed off helplessly, twisting the pop-tab on the can of Sprite. It snapped off with a loud crack and Chris said, "Look, I'm gonna level. Is he -- does he have some kind of thing?"

JC thought of Justin's closed eyes, Justin's fists clenched tight at his sides while Chris chattered next to him, oblivious. He smiled sweetly, his tired eyes crinkling, and picked up his soda.

"Who, Justin?" JC said. "Nah. Justin's good."

Chris gave an explosive laugh, embarrassed and, JC could tell, relieved. "Yeah. Fuck, I dunno, man -- all this touring and craziness must be getting to me."

"It's getting to all of us," JC said kindly, and meant it.

...

A little sincerity is a dangerous thing --
and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.
six months after: coda