Ath
Copyright February 2, 2001 by Matthew Haldeman-Time
Rating: Rish?
Pairing: JC Chasez/Justin Timberlake, Lance Bass/Chris Kirkpatrick
Disclaimer: The young men who comprise *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.
Dedication: This slashfic is for Ewan McGregor and the slashers of Darren Hayes and Daniel Jones.
Wherein Justin throws up, JC laughs, and Joey says, "Um, guys?"
Notice: I wanted to start this story with the statement that Justin had a hangover. Then I decided to say that he was hung over. Then I wanted to say that he was hung. Well-hung. Ahem. I'd better start a different way.
But Lance felt sorry for Justin. He sympathized. He empathized. He knew what it was like to be in love with someone and feel completely hopeless. Desperate. So desperate that you were willing to do something stupid because it didn't matter anymore.
Lance knew that beneath JC's professional ire lay something deeper. Something scared.
JC wasn't stupid by any means. Okay, on occasion his music sucked, but he was pretty damned intelligent. Still, he had a tendency to live slightly on a different plane than the rest of them. For instance, he'd had no clue that his best friend was slightly (slightly?) insane with jealousy and completely in love with him and making everyone else's life hell. He just hadn't noticed.
Last night must have been a startling blow for him. He'd looked as though someone had smacked him in the face with a two-by-four. But he'd recovered very well. Lance had been impressed.
Maybe he was in denial or something.
Justin...Justin was hung over this morning. Hence JC's anger. He was using that as an excuse to hide in his bunk and sleep and be humiliated in private. Unfortunately, he remembered everything from last night. Including his confession of wanting to have naked sex with JC, and his ill-timed attempt at a sloppy, drunk kiss. And his pained, confused questions. Why didn't JC love him? Why didn't JC want him? And his soft, heartfelt, "Love you so much."
Justin and JC hadn't spoken since last night. After the grand confession of love and desire, Justin had fallen quiet. They'd put him to bed and left him to sleep. Now he was avoiding JC, and JC wasn't making any moves in his direction, either.
Justin was a very vibrant person. He was alive and fun and interested. He was young and healthy and hard-working and committed. He had everything going for him and he knew it. When he did something, he did it, flat-out, full-on, no holds barred. He'd fallen for JC, and he'd fallen hard. There was no turning back.
JC was married to his job. Oh, he had other interests. Sports and causes and family and friends. But his primary concern was his work. He lived for *NSYNC, music, performance. Writing, producing, dancing. That was JC. He was good at it, very good at it. It never had occurred to him that the person he was singing and dancing beside might want to do more than sing and dance with him.
Might want to have, what had Justin called it? Naked naked sex with him.
All right, now Lance was thinking about JC naked. Better change the subject.
"JC, Justin knows he messed up. He's been under stress and he wanted to blow off some of it."
"He's under stress? We're all under stress-"
"And we deal with it in different ways. It's been a lot for him right now."
"You and Chris went out with him, and the two of you didn't come back blitzed out of your heads."
"Chris and I have each other. We vent to each other, we help each other. Justin doesn't have anyone like that."
"He can always come to me," JC said.
"Not about that," Lance said.
"We're all here for each other. You and Chris, yeah, but the five of us, we're here together. If he can't talk to me he can talk to one of you."
"Do you have any idea how hard it is to talk to someone about that?"
"People tell me they're in love with me all of the time," JC said.
It was so unexpected yet so true that Lance laughed.
JC laughed.
"Um, guys?" Joey asked.
Lance looked.
JC looked.
Justin was turning a nasty shade of deadly miserable. First white, then gray. Then red with shame.
"Justin," Lance said.
Justin threw up on Joey.
He only spoke when directly asked a question, and then in clipped phrases without eye contact.
He didn't look hung over anymore. He just looked like someone trying extremely hard not to explode.
Explode in what? Lance wasn't sure that he wanted to know.
JC was less energetic than usual. He focused himself on their work, as though avoiding personal problems would make them disappear.
It was worth a shot.
Lance hurried. He heard Justin's voice, raised in fury, as he ran into Chris's hotel room.
"...that I may be just another of JC's bitches, like every screaming teeny girl out there, but I'll be motherfucking damned if I'm going to stand there and watch you rubbing all over him like-"
"Justin!" Lance said sharply.
"-god damn it you have Lance, you have somebody, why can't you just stick with him, why do you have to play the slut for JC, too?! If I can't have JC, you're sure the fuck going to stay the hell away from him! If he doesn't want me, what makes you think he'd want you?!"
"Justin!"
"You can keep your lazy whoring ass where it belongs! Stick with Lance because maybe he wants you, but JC sure as fuck doesn't! He doesn't want you, he doesn't want me, he doesn't want any of us, we're all just his-"
"Justin!" Lance shouted, and grabbed Justin's arm.
The world spun and Lance found himself shoved up against the wall, Justin holding him in place and snarling into his face, soft lips twisted with fury. "He laughed at me! He laughed at me! I - - he doesn't - - there's this - - you don't - - and he laughed at me!"
"Justin-"
Justin slammed him into the wall again, harder. "He laughed at me!" Justin shouted.
JC was in the room suddenly, appearing over Justin's shoulder. He said Justin's name and reached out to comfort.
Justin whirled around and shoved JC hard, then did it again, knocking JC off-balance. JC fell to the floor, landing on his butt and his elbow, looking up at Justin in amazement.
Justin stood over JC, red-faced, shaking, and unleashed an outraged, enraged torrent of violent words. By the end he was so impassioned that he lost coherence. Lance wanted to stop him but was afraid to touch him. JC just stayed there, staring up at him in shock.
Justin stormed out, shoving Joey out of his way, slamming the door violently.
Chris helped up JC.
Lance stepped away from the wall, grateful for the room's false calm.
"Do something," Joey said to JC.
"What?" JC asked.
Lance was angry. Furious. With Justin. For doing that. For hurting Chris. For daring to raise a hand to Chris.
To Chris. His Chris. Their Chris.
He'd walked in and seen Justin standing there in front of Chris, over Chris, Chris back against the wall with a hand to his face, Justin large and seething.
He knew that Chris wouldn't hit back.
He wouldn't have, either. Not right then. It would take more than one blow for him to strike Justin.
But he'd felt a quick, dark flash of temptation. He'd felt that inclination, that possibility. To hit Justin for hitting Chris.
That was just part of love, maybe.
If Justin had hit him, he wouldn't have hit Justin.
But Justin had hit Chris. That changed everything.
Not everything. Not Lance's nature. He hadn't hit Justin. He really wouldn't have. But he'd wanted to, in that initial moment.
Part of him was afraid of that dark streak.
Part of him was proud of
it.
"What?!" Justin demanded, yanking open the door.
"Thanks," JC said brightly, and entered the room.
Justin shut the door with more force than it needed and sat on the bed. He scowled. "What?"
"Joey told me what's been going on."
"What's been going on?" Justin asked.
"You've been terrorizing our friends."
"I have not."
"You want to talk about it?" JC asked, sitting beside him on the bed.
"No," Justin said, and stood.
JC watched Justin move away from him. "Why are you so angry at the guys?"
"I'm not."
"Then who are you mad at?"
"You."
JC didn't react. "Why?"
"What's wrong with you?!" Justin demanded, turning quickly to face him. "Why don't you want me?"
"I do want you. Justin, everybody wants you. You're cuteness on legs. I've lived with you and worked with you for years. It hasn't escaped my notice that you're the most attractive person around and you move like, like..."
"What?" Justin asked, lost.
"I want you. It's not an overwhelming drive, but it's there. I just never did anything about it."
"Why not?" Justin demanded.
"You're straight and you're too young for me and we're too close and we work together and you don't want me." JC shrugged.
"Bullshit, bullshit, that's nonsense, who cares and Chris and Lance do it anyway, and if you think I don't want you you need help. You want me?"
"Yeah."
"And?"
"And what?"
"A lot?"
"Sure."
"Sure?! JC, you're the most laidback luster ever."
"I guess I've just gotten used to it. I've stopped thinking about it."
"I'm so flattered."
JC smiled.
"Okay, I'm flattered," Justin said weakly. "JC, how do you do that?"
"Do what?"
"That thing, that smile, that look. It makes my whole body go whoo."
"It what?"
"You know what I mean."
"I don't, and I think I'm glad I don't."
"I don't make you go whoo?"
"No."
"Damn. Can I try?"
"Yes."
"You're doing it again!"
"I'm not trying it!"
"JC, do you want me? I mean, really want me? Sort of want me? Want me and ten other people?"
JC reached for Justin's hand and made Justin sit before him on the bed. "I want you," he said, looking directly into Justin's dark blue eyes.
"Whoo," Justin said weakly.