Copyright June 9, 2003 by Matthew Haldeman-Time

Rating: NC-17

Pairing: Nick Carter/Justin Timberlake

Disclaimer: The young men who comprise the Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC are their own people.  The author has not met anyone here described, nor does the author mean to suggest that these people act this way in real life.  This writing is a work of fiction.  I make no money from this venture.

Wherein Justin has been sharing way too much information, and not nearly enough information, at the same time with the wrong people.

Notice: All right, this one has a bit more real life in it than normal.  Justin’s developed a habit that I have some trouble with, and I wrote this story to resolve the issue for myself.  That’s just my way of dealing with things.

---

Adam

        “Hi, this is Nick, I’m not in right now but I will be eventually, so leave your name and number.”

        The usual.  He called the cell.

        “Hey, this is Nick.  Leave me a message.”

        Damn it!  The same fucking thing!  He hadn’t gotten through to Nick since last Tuesday!  Nick didn’t answer the house phone, didn’t answer the cell phone, didn’t answer e-mail, probably wouldn’t even respond to a fucking carrier pigeon.  Justin had no idea where the hell Nick was or what the fuck he was doing.  And what the hell was he supposed to do, tell Christina to hold the show by herself tonight so he could run off to track down his…

        His…

        His whatever.

        Justin rubbed his hand over the top of his head, grimacing.  What he and Nick were to each other wasn’t exactly defined.  It just…was.  He wasn’t even sure he’d call Nick his friend, since that didn’t describe Nick at all.  Joey was his friend.  Trace was his friend.  Nick was his…whatever.

        Nick was also lost in fucking space.  If something had happened, something serious or real, he would have heard about it.  That meant that nothing had happened, that Nick simply wasn’t answering his calls.

        It wasn’t like Nick to ignore calls, to ignore him, to ignore calls from him.  But after ten days, Justin was facing facts.  Nick was screening his calls, and Justin was on the “don’t pick up for” list.  Not only was Justin not worth interrupting his busy important life to answer the phone for, Justin wasn’t worth taking a second to call back at a more leisurely time, either.

        Something was going on, something unpleasant, something that was unsettling Justin’s stomach.

        Maybe Nick was very busy, and didn’t have time at the moment, but wasn’t ignoring him on purpose.

        Yeah, right.

        No, but it wasn’t like they had to talk every day.

        Except they had.  They’d talked every day.  Even if it happened to be ten minutes of checking in before going to sleep, they talked every day.

        This ten-day stretch of not talking at all was really breaking that pattern.  It was starting to look like their new habit was never speaking to each other again.

        Justin wanted to try Nick’s cell again, but it would show up on the caller ID and Nick would know he was calling again, and he’d look like a - - Justin blanched.  His first thought had been that he’d look like a faggot.  Except he was, wasn’t he?

        There were words no white person with a conscience could ever say in front of a black person.  And there were supposed to be words that straight people didn’t say in front of gay people, but everyone said them anyway.  Justin wouldn’t consider saying certain words at all, ever, not in front of black people but also not behind their backs, just never.  But some words, words like faggot and homo and anything else that came to mind, he’d said from time to time, whenever they popped up, and it wasn’t a big deal, it wasn’t like anyone was offended, it wasn’t like he was homophobic, or anything.  Two of his best friends were gay, and it wasn’t like Lance and JC were offended.

        Except now, he wondered.  Maybe they were.

        Jackass.  Of course they were.  They just hadn’t said anything to him, like they hadn’t said anything to Joey, like they hadn’t said anything to Chris, even though he’d seen the discomfort, the pain, flickering in their eyes so quickly that if he didn’t know them as well as he did, if he weren’t their best friend, he wouldn’t have noticed.

        Best friend.  Best friend who degraded who they were like it didn’t matter.

        If he called Nick’s cell phone back to back, he’d look like a faggot, look like a weak little girl-man, look soft and pathetic and needy and clinging and grasping.  He had too much pride for that, too much pride to give that impression, so much pride he wished he’d stopped calling Nick days ago, wished Nick didn’t know he was still trying to get in touch, wished he looked like he’d dropped the whole thing immediately.

        Wished he looked like he didn’t care.

        Didn’t want Nick to realize that he did care.

        Except he did care.  He cared, and he wanted to talk to Nick, and he wanted Nick back, as his friend, as his whatever.  He didn’t know what had happened, didn’t know why Nick was giving him the cold shoulder, remembered how warm Nick’s shoulder usually was, remembered rubbing his hand over Nick’s shoulder, kissing it, grazing his teeth over it, from in front, from behind, out of bed, in bed.

        Justin wanted to know where Nick was and what Nick was doing and why the fucking bastard was throwing him over like, damn it, he was too big for this now, too big, too important, these things were supposed to stop happening after he hit a certain level of success.

        He didn’t call Nick’s cell phone.  He called Howie’s.

        “Hello?”

        “It’s Justin,” he said.

        “Justin?” Howie asked.  His voice had a certain tone of surprise, like Justin was a friend he’d thought he’d outgrown about a year ago and hadn’t expected to hear from ever again.

        Bitch.  Howie was a bitch.  Justin didn’t get it, didn’t understand, had no fucking clue what was in Nick’s head and what Nick was spreading to other people’s heads, but Howie had never talked to him like this, never sounded like this.  Howie was supposed to be the nice one; that was why Justin had called him.  If Justin wanted to talk to a fucking ice queen, he could’ve called Brian, who’d never liked him anyway, who’d never wanted him near Nick, who probably never said anything like “faggot” but surely thought he was going to burn in hell for being with another man, and which was worse?

        “I think I misplaced Nick’s itinerary,” Justin said, not liking the ha-ha brightness of his words but knowing it was better than sounding outright desperate.  Or maybe it was worse.  Or maybe it was the same.  “You know what he’s been up to?”

        It was strange to have to ask, strange to have to ask someone else, strange not to know.  Usually, Justin knew, knew what Nick was doing that day, knew what Nick’s plans were for that week.  Usually, Justin knew where Nick was going to be, his appearances, his performances, whether he were going to be in Japan or Australia or Cleveland, whether he were appearing on some TV show or having another Backstreet planning session with the fellas.  The two of them would talk about Nick’s plans, about Justin’s plans, and they’d map out when they’d be able to see each other, how they might manage to meet.

        Now, Justin didn’t know where Nick was, which city, even which country.  It was making him feel like the ground was slipping out from under his feet.

        “He’s been around,” Howie said.

        Howie knew what was going on, knew what Justin didn’t know, had information Justin didn’t have.  Howie was being cold to him because Howie knew why Nick was being cold to him.  Howie knew, and Justin didn’t, but Justin needed to know, needed Howie to tell him, and desperation (fear) overcame pride.  “Howie-”

        “Sorry, I don’t have time to talk right now,” Howie said, and just like that, Justin was the only one on the phone.

        Justin hung up, cursing.  What the hell was going on?  God, he needed to talk to somebody, needed to talk to JC, needed-

        When was the last time he’d talked to JC?

        Shit.  Either something was going on, or he was getting paranoid.  It could be nothing; he and JC didn’t talk every day.  He’d called JC just the other day, and…

        …and JC hadn’t answered.  JC hadn’t called him back, either.

        Justin grabbed the phone and dialed.  JC was his best friend, they’d been best friends for years, even if Nick had decided to turn away from him, that had nothing to do with anything else.

        “JC.”

        “Hi, JC, it’s Justin.”  Thank fucking god.  Okay.  He was okay.  It was just Nick, and that was fine, that was okay with him, that didn’t mean anything, it wasn’t like he and Nick had been that serious.

        “What’s going on?” JC asked.  “You sound winded.”

        “I don’t even know,” Justin said, rubbing the back of his head.  “You still talk to Howie?”

        “Sometimes,” JC said.  JC and Howie had had a thing, not a hard-core thing, just a thing, and they still kept in touch, still had sex sometimes.

        “Do you have any idea what’s going on over there?” Justin asked.

        “Over where?” JC asked.

        “With them!” Justin said, and the words came out harder than he’d meant them to, came out too vehemently.  “Nick’s dropped out of sight.  I just called Howie to find out what’s going on, and he treated me like a reporter, slammed me off the phone.   What’s going on?”

        “They don’t want to talk to you,” JC said.

        That much had been obvious, but hearing it from JC, having someone say it to him, realizing that JC knew what was going on, it made it more real for Justin.  Something really was going on, it wasn’t his imagination, Nick was avoiding him, Nick was rejecting him on purpose, deliberately, choosing to do it.  Justin held his phone a little more tightly.  “What’s going on?”

        “They don’t want to talk to you,” JC said again, in response to the question Justin was asking again, and for a moment it seemed like they’d be trapped in this question-and-response forever.  “It’s not safe to talk to you.”

        “Not safe?” Justin asked.  “Not safe since when?  What the fuck does that mean?”

        “You’ve developed a policy of full disclosure,” JC said.  “Anything that happens to you, anything you do, you disclose to the press and the public.  Nick’s afraid of being the next casualty.”

        “What are you talking about?!” Justin demanded.

        “Yes, I had sex with Alyssa, yes, I had sex with Janet, yes, I’m doing Christina, yes, I smoke with Nelly, yes, I broke up with Britney after the second time she screwed Wade.  You tell people anything, everything.  Nick doesn’t want to be the next one in your list.”

        “That’s bullshit!” Justin said.  “Alyssa, Janet, Christina, Nelly, they don’t care what I say, they’re not trying to hide it.  Britney, I never said that, I never told all of that.  My personal life isn’t personal, it’s public, everyone’s prying into it and I’m sick of fighting!  I can’t win!  Yes!  I’ll tell them whatever they want, I’ll answer their questions.  But I never said anything about Nick, I wouldn’t tell-”

        “How does he know that?” JC asked.  “How do I know that?”

        “What?” Justin asked.  “JC.  I’ve never - - that’s your personal life, that’s your privacy, I’d never-”

        “I know,”JC said.  “I know, but sometimes I wonder.  You’re so free with information on yourself, someday you might…”

        “I won’t,” Justin said fiercely.  “That’s not mine to tell. ”

        “Okay.  I know.”  JC sighed.  “But how does Nick know you won’t spread his business out for the press along with your own?”

        “That’s not like Janet or Christina,” Justin said.  “That’s not-”

        “When you break up with him, when it no longer matters to you, when you maybe want to hurt him a little or just make him sweat…”

        “I won’t,” Justin said.

        “Why should he believe that?” JC asked.

        “Where is he?” Justin asked.  “I, shit, I’m stuck here for - - can you get me a schedule, an itinerary, some sort of - - he won’t answer the phone, I can’t get through to him, if I know where he’s going to be I can try to get out there.”

        “I’ll find out for you,” JC said.

        “JC.  I don’t…  I don’t want you to worry about what I might tell people.  I’ve been at this too long to let anything slip.  I’ll either put it out there deliberately or keep everybody the hell out of it.  Your business is your business, and that’s not mine to put out there.”

        “Thank you.”

        Justin hesitated.  He was going to sound like a…  Conscious rephrase: he was going to be emotionally vulnerable, and he didn’t like that.  “I love you.”

        “I love you, too,” JC said, and it came more easily to JC, always had.  But that wasn’t a gay thing, not necessarily, because it came easier to Joey than to Lance.  “I’ll get Nick’s schedule.”

        “Thanks.”

        When Justin checked his e-mail in the morning, he had a message from JC.  Nick’s schedule, and some personal encouragement.  Justin e-mailed JC back with his thanks and a few dirty jokes, then called Lance just because.

        Just because he’d disrespected Lance who knew how many times with his “harmless” little comments.  Just because Lance had never deserved anything like that, and he wanted to treat Lance right to try to make up for it.

        Then he checked his schedule against Nick’s.

        Well, look at that.  He could fly down Sunday night and show up on Nick’s doorstep looking like an emotionally vulnerable needy desperate pathetic little shit.

        Or, he could fly down Sunday night and show up on Nick’s doorstep ready to launch a complete verbal assault.  He didn’t have to be emotionally vulnerable; he could put up his defenses, go on the attack, and let his pride get in the way of any sort of future he and Nick might have together.

        Not that he was planning on having a future with Nick.  It was just that, whatever he and Nick had been doing together, whatever that was called, he wasn’t ready for it to end.  He wanted it back.

        He wanted Nick back.  As his whatever.

        Sunday, Justin got on a plane and flew down to Florida.  He booked a hotel, sat in his room drinking alone, and went to bed early.  Procrastinating, wasting time, wasn’t his thing, wasn’t how he operated, but it seemed better than going to see Nick.  If he put up his defenses he’d fuck up his chance of having whatever it was with Nick again, but he refused to expose any sort of need to someone who was in the process of rejecting him.  That left him optionless, as far as approaching Nick went.

        Monday morning, he took a cab to Nick’s house.  He knocked on the front door and shoved his hands into his pockets.

        The door opened.  Nick looked a little surprised, a little bitter, and a lot closed off, emotionless, distant and unmoved on purpose.  He didn’t say anything, either, which left the first sentence up to Justin.

        Instead of speaking, Justin moved forward.  He got so close that Nick was either going to have to let him in or make a scene and force him out, and at that point Nick backed up just enough to let him in, clearly not liking that forced decision.  Justin didn’t care; it had gotten him inside, and now that he was in, he wasn’t leaving until he was satisfied.

        Nick closed the door and gave him one of those remote, cold looks that Nick had perfected in front of the camera ten years ago, only now it was adult and real.

        “I tried to talk to Howie,” Justin said.  “He didn’t want to talk to me.  I guess it’s time for the fellas to pull back, close the ranks, protect their own.”

        “Why are you here?” Nick asked.

        “I’m not going to hand you over to the press,” Justin said.  “JC told me that’s what you’re thinking, and it’s not going to happen.  Why the hell couldn’t you just talk to me yourself if you were so worried about it?!”

        “You sold Britney out,” Nick said.  “Years together, saying you still loved her, but telling the whole story from your poor betrayed lover’s perspective, making it a single, putting out a video, sending the clearest fucking message you ever could have.  If that’s what you’ll do to her, after years and saying you still love her, what the hell are you capable of doing to me?”

        “That’s not the same!  I have to keep this a secret.  No matter what happens, good or bad, it has to be a secret.  Even if I do get furious and I want to hand you over to the press, I can’t, because I’d be putting myself out there, too.  You have the best safeguard in the world.”

        “Because I’d be bad for your image,” Nick said.

        “Yes,” Justin said.  It was true, and they both knew it, and lying about it wouldn’t make it go away.

        “Then why are you here?” Nick asked.

        “My personal life is public.  My private life isn’t private.  Maybe I want to have something I can keep to myself.”

        “Like me.”

        “Like you,” Justin agreed.  Then he amended it to, “You.”

        “Aren’t you supposed to be on tour?” Nick asked.

        “I have to fly out in the morning,” Justin said.

        “That gives you, what, twenty-four hours?” Nick asked.

        “Twenty-four hours to live my private life,” Justin said.  “Twenty-four hours to have something all to myself that no one can ask me about.”

        Nick kissed him.

        “Answer your fucking phone from now on,” Justin said, tugging up Nick’s shirt.  Nick took over, pulling off his shirt, taking off Justin’s, starting to open Justin’s fly.

        “I missed you, too,” Nick said, and Nick’s kiss was unbearably intimate while Nick’s hands undressed him.

        They got off right there in the foyer, right there against the door, like they were horny teenagers, like they weren’t sexually experienced adults.  When it was mostly over, when Justin was settling back into his skin, Nick’s words flickered through his brain.

        “How do you do that?” Justin asked.

        “Do what?” Nick asked, and sucked cum off his thumb like it was the most natural, commonplace thing to do, like he’d just finished eating a peach and was licking up stray peach juice, like he’d been eating fries and was licking off extra ketchup.

        “How can you tell me you missed me?  You’ve gone through as much shit as I have, you’ve been hurt just as badly, not the same ways but just as much pain.  How can you be so open like that?”  He knew some of what Nick had gone through, could guess at the rest, sometimes saw shadows in Nick’s eyes and didn’t want to guess.

        “I’m telling you what I want you to know,” Nick said.  “I missed you, and I want you to know that I missed you.”

        “Why do you want me to know?”

        “So you’ll know that it matters to me when you’re gone.  So you’ll know I care that you’re here.”

        “Do you…  Are you okay with being gay?”

        “Yeah,” Nick said.  “I’m happy being who I am.  I wish it were easier, I wish it didn’t have to change the way people look at me when they know, but I don’t want…  I don’t want to change it.”

        “You wouldn’t be straight if you could?”

        “If I were straight, I’d be changing something…fundamental.  I’d be changing who I am.  I don’t want to do that.  I want to change little things about myself, and big things about myself, but I don’t want to change who I am.  It’s hard, it’s scary, it can be hella fucking difficult, but you know that.  I used to want to change, I used to wish I could, I used to pray to God to make me straight.  But it didn’t work, and that’s probably for a reason.”

        “I don’t know if…  I used to be open.  I used to tell people how I felt.  I used to put myself out there and let myself get hurt.”

        “If you can tell the world that you used to cry at night over your broken heart, you can tell me whatever it is you want to tell me.”

        “Naked in your foyer?”

        “Naked in my foyer.”

        Justin looked a little more closely into Nick’s eyes.  “Why don’t you tell me how you feel about me first?”

        “I’d like to be able to think of you as my boyfriend.”

        “How can your pride let you say that?” Justin asked.

        “Maybe I have less to prove than you do,” Nick said.

        “Maybe you have less to lose.”

        “No,” Nick said.  “You know that’s not true.”

        Justin rubbed his hand over his forehead.  “I don’t know.  This is so…  Boyfriend?  That’s a little…  It sounds concrete.  Boyfriend.”

        “You’ve been a boyfriend before.”

        “Not to a guy.”

        “Is it the guy-guy thing that’s bothering you or the exposing how you really feel thing?” Nick asked.  “What are we doing here?”

        “It’s the exposing how I really feel, to a guy,” Justin said.  “Even when I’m with a girl, a woman, if I tell her how I feel and I end up getting hurt, I can pull back and turn the tables on her and hurt her back.  I don’t think it’s going to work the same with guys.  With you.”

        “That’s stupid,” Nick said.

        Justin sighed.  He didn’t know anymore.  He knew how he felt, but there was knowing it, and then there was saying it, and he couldn’t say it.  Not saying it had consequences, but saying it would be worse.  A lot worse.  “I’m slightly confused.”

        “I noticed.”

        “Maybe we should just have sex and not talk about our feelings.”  That would be a lot easier.  He could feel how he felt, but keep it to himself, and Nick would never have to know; no one would ever have to know.  But how fair was that to Nick?  He’d been hurt before, yeah, sure, but not by Nick.  Nick was great to him, respected him, treated him like an equal, laughed at his corny jokes, understood when he just wanted to stay in, understood when he had to go out, and was great in bed.  So what was he supposed to do?  Say, “Nick, you have a beautiful smile?”  Say, “Nick, I’m new to this whole confronting my sexuality and dealing with how I feel about it thing, but there’s no one I’d rather do it with, do it for, than you?”  Say, “Nick, I almost went out of my mind thinking you were pulling away from me, and if I’d lost you because of my own jacked-up jackassness, it would have been the biggest fucking tragedy of my life?”  Say, “Nick, I don’t want you to be my whatever, I want you to be my...my...”  Shit, he couldn’t think it, he couldn’t say it, Nick could say anything, what the hell was wrong with him that he couldn’t face up to shit like Nick could?  And what was he going to say, anyway, that he wanted Nick to be his boyfriend?  His lover?  Lover, lover sounded like they were in love, sounded like Nick was in love with him, sounded like he was in love with Nick, and they’d never said that, never claimed that.

        “Maybe you should tell me I’m your boyfriend,” Nick suggested.

        Justin rubbed his eyes, kept his hand there as a shield, confessed, “I think I’m in love with you.”

        Nick didn’t say anything.

        Justin winced.

        Nick’s hand was on Justin’s hip, pulling Justin in; Justin’s hand fell and Nick kissed his mouth.

        “Can we pretend you didn’t hear that?” Justin asked.

        “I love you, too, Justin.”

        Justin tried to keep up his end of the kiss as those words echoed slowly down his spine.

        “You’re learning,” Nick said.

        “Learning what?” Justin asked, the door solid against his shoulders, Nick’s mouth generously erotic against his skin.

        “When and where to tell your business,” Nick said.  “You’ve been doing it backwards.  You’re finally figuring it out.”

        “Congratulations to me,” Justin said, trying to keep his eyes open while Nick kissed his neck and held his hips.

        “Keep practicing,” Nick said.  “Try keeping your mouth shut when you’re on the radio, and try telling the people in your personal life how you really feel and what’s really going on.”

        “It might be a good change,” Justin admitted.  Nick went down to kneel in front of him, licking his navel, hand caressing the back of his knee.

        “Try it with me.  Justin, I love you.”

        “Nick, I - - oh - - I love you,” Justin said, vibrating suddenly and sharply as Nick’s tongue found his dick.

        “No comment.”

        “No…ooo…comment,” Justin said, closing his eyes, arching his back and bracing his foot to push his hips forward.  Nick was good at this, made it good every time, and he always came too fast when he was in Nick’s mouth, always got off too soon.

        “Justin, I want you.”

        “Nick, god, I want you.”  He was moaning now, body aching with lust, cock dripping with it, voice saturated with it.

        “No comment.”

        “No…no…no com-com-comment.”  Nick’s words were humming over his dick, and he was trying to keep his mind on what the words meant but his body was buzzing over the way the words felt.  God, he was so fucking close, he shouldn’t be this close already, it was too soon, too oh god fucking soon.

        “I’m gay.”

        “I’m so fucking gay,” Justin said, and came in Nick’s mouth, gripping the doorknob for control.  He panted, too buzzed to be all that embarrassed over the half-muted whimpers that had just come out of his mouth.  Nick stood, Nick’s hand covering his on the doorknob, intimate and reassuring.  Justin panted a little more, then confessed, “Actually, I’m bi.”

        “I know.”

        “I’m bi and I’m…  I’m in love with you,” he said, because even if it came out all in a frightened rush he was still saying it, “and I’m not telling anyone else jack shit.”

        Nick smiled, and kissed him.

        “Now let’s get out of this foyer.  I want to enjoy my very private, very emotionally risky, very much worth it private life.”  He looked into Nick’s eyes.  Full disclosure.  “With you.”