Leave me hypnotized, love.
Continued on from the first part, here.
4. "dreaming while awake"
from Jamie's beta: Any reason why this one is in quotes when the others aren't?
AddictedKitten: BECAUSE (alert: pretention ahead!) it's, actually, a long story.
bludandwhiskey: *throws up plastic sheet*
AddictedKitten: it's from this: Recreational drug users sometimes take several times the recommended dose of dimenhydrinate in order to attain an intense and long-lasting state of anticholinergic delirium.
The mental effects are described by many as "dreaming while awake" involving visual and auditory hallucinations which, unlike those experienced with recreational drugs known as psychedelics, often cannot be readily distinguished from reality.
AddictedKitten: it's about the drug Dramamine.
AddictedKitten: and the beginning of that section was written with that idea in mind.
bludandwhiskey: ...
bludandwhiskey: dude.
AddictedKitten: *WINS*
AddictedKitten: layers!
AddictedKitten: my writing has LAYERS, BITCH!
AddictedKitten: and MEANING!
The Death Cab documentary has some really nice shots of the passing landscape taken from the bus, of flatlands and highways and sunsets and all the things you see when you're just staring out the window. I've always had a tendency to romanticize the road a bit; my mom and I used to drive from Washington to California every summer to visit my grandparents, and we'd usually take the eighteen-hour trip straight through. I loved it. I'm all about drifting off and staring out the window for hours, and I love taking the trip even now.
Which doesn't have a whole lot to do with what I was trying to convey here. It's all inspired by the Modest Mouse song Dramamine, which has the lines "I've said what I said and you know what I mean / But I can't still focus on anything" and opens with "travelling swallowing Dramamine." The summary came from WikiPedia, and I was listening to the song a lot when I was trying to figure the story out, when it was still just a lot of mental images of Justin staring out the window. I didn't go as weird with this as I could have, but I still tried to get in the idea of this being a sort of separate space, like the road feels to me; you came from somewhere, and you're going somewhere, but that ceases to exist when you're on the road. There's only this nebulous space between when you're free of responsibility and there's nothing but time and what you choose to do with it, or not do with it.
A week passed, seven days straight with a show every night, living on the bus and sleeping on the bus and it was just like it always was. Justin wished he could remember it better, say for sure that it had been this way before, this quiet and strange and verging on unreal. Chris spent most of his time on Lance's bus for no reason that Justin could see, and JC was just-- weird, and not in the way that JC had always been kind of weird. He slept a lot, and wrote a lot, and lounged on the couch watching the Food Network for hours. Justin wrote a little, and talked on the phone with his Mom or Trace or whoever else he thought to call, but the longer he was on the bus the more he was content to just be there.
from Jamie's beta: Chris spent most of his time on Lance's bus for no reason that Justin could see...
Um. Hot Lance lovin' maybe?
AddictedKitten: YOU ARE CORRECT, MISS.
AddictedKitten: this was also going to be trickyfish, but I couldn't fit it in without it being a big gay anvil of trickyfishness.
bludandwhiskey: \0/
bludandwhiskey: A WINNAR IS ME
bludandwhiskey: It was that and the "this is the real NSYNC. It's very gay." comment that pinged me
AddictedKitten: !!!! i just copied that to paste in and go, see, right there!
AddictedKitten: you! smrt!
It's generally safe to assume that in every JuC fic I write, Chris and Lance are also fucking on the side. Because in my head, they usually are. (Poor straight Joey.)
AddictedKitten: How's yours going?
bludandwhiskey: If fucker 1 ever gets off the couch and checks the door, it might go better.
bludandwhiskey: This piece apparently needs to be all symbolism and shit
AddictedKitten: Hee! I have this image of like, you trying to explain it. "Now, the vases represent the boyband members. When one of them tips over, it's meant to show the angst of the human soul."
AddictedKitten: "See, this vase is filled with ashes. JUST LIKE JUSTIN."
AddictedKitten: Oooooh this has made me delirious.
bludandwhiskey: HAHAHAH
AddictedKitten: That's okay, you know the cooking shows in my fic are meant to echo the emotional journey of Justin.
AddictedKitten: Because you need the right INGREDIENTS. Otherwise you can't have gay sex.
bludandwhiskey: From Child to Man? (Child being Julia Child, Man being Emeril. BAM means he's finally ready to admit things to himself.)
AddictedKitten: YOU ARE SO RIGHT.
AddictedKitten: See, this fic has layers, man.
AddictedKitten: Like a pastry.
bludandwhiskey: mmmm, pastry
Touring was insane, it always had been, but he'd been doing it for so long that it was almost more normal than real life, more real than five years of hiatus and vacations, red carpets and celebrity events. He tried to explain that on camera, tried to put it into words that would make sense to someone that had never been there, but it all came out wrong. He wasn't even sure if people really needed to know any of it.
Justin sat by the window, thinking and letting the camera run, recording the sunsets and sometimes turning the camera on JC's sleeping form, crashed out on the couch in front of Julia Child or Rachael Ray. He moved to the floor sometimes, leaning up against the armrest of the couch and getting JC at different angles, in daylight and dusk, bright with contrast or striped with shadows from the slitted blinds. They didn't talk to each other much, but it wasn't lonely.
from Jamie's beta: Is all the footage of JC sleeping just because JC sleeps a lot and Justin spends a lot of time with him (because of the repressed crush) or is there some deeper meaning I'm missing? Just curious.
AddictedKitten: well, first of all, JC sleeps A LOT. canon, baby. but it's back to the "dreaming while awake" thing, and it sets up another wall between them, like the camera. so they spend all this time with each other protected by their respective excuses to not talk to each other.
AddictedKitten: because, do you think he'll be sleeping a lot now? no, he'll be fucking justin.
AddictedKitten: as. well. he. should.
It started raining around two in the afternoon on the seventh day, so there wasn't much to look at outside except for the pouring rain. Justin sat at the end of the couch and taped JC sleeping until JC startled awake, jumping a little and making Justin jump as well.
"What's wrong?" Justin asked.
"I had a- were you taping me?" JC asked, blinking.
"Yeah. I think there's going to be a montage of you sleeping everywhere."
JC squinted at him. "That's kinda kinky, Justin."
Yeah it is.
"What?!" Justin put the camera down. "Dude, you're kinda kinky. What the hell."
"Is this what- have you just been taping me sleeping? Is that gonna be your documentary?"
"No!" Justin said. "I've been getting a lot of good shots of the landscape. It's like, artistic," he added, feeling somewhat defensive now. "It'll be good. You know, in between all the performances and stuff."
"Artistic."
"Yeah. You like art."
"Justin-"
"Look, it's my documentary, okay?"
JC put his hands up. "Fine, whatever. What the hell is your problem, man?"
"I don't have a problem."
"You don't." JC looked skeptical.
"Everything's fine. I just wish you guys would be more cooperative about this."
"Like let you tape us all sleeping?"
"That's not- goddammit," Justin said. The bus was slowing down, and when he looked out the window he saw that they were pulling into the venue. "You're missing my whole point in doing this."
"What is your point in doing this?"
"There doesn't have to be a point," Justin said finally. "It's just something I want to do."
Dodge the question, Justin! Dodge it!
"Can't you just do this? Can't you just be happy to be here?"
"I wouldn't be doing this if it wasn't what I really wanted-"
Aaaaand there's the conflict of the story. Every point I wanted to make is right here, condensed.
Justin was cut off as the door opened and Joey peered in. "Hey, you guys coming out anytime soon?"
"You'll have to talk to Justin about that," JC said, shooting a stony glare in Justin's direction.
"Okay!" Joey said, giving them a thumbs up of infinite neutrality. "Great, I'll be outside!"
Joey!! I feel like I always shortchange the guy in fic, so when he does come on he has to be amusing. Aww. Joey. I do love him, I do.
"What the hell was that supposed to mean?" Justin asked as the door shut behind Joey.
"Forget it. Let's go." JC didn't quite stomp off the bus, but he was huffy enough to forget his jacket. Justin scowled. He should just let him freeze to death, but JC had always gotten cold really easily, and he was just wearing a t-shirt, the jackass. It was October, what was he thinking? Stupid hardheaded JC. Justin hadn't missed him at all.
And again, a summation of Justin's feelings for JC.
JC glowered at him when he got outside, but he still took the jacket with a muttered "thanks". His arms were covered in goosebumps, and Justin did not want to rub them away, even when JC shivered a little.
"Trouble in paradise, kids?" Chris asked, throwing his arms around their shoulders. "Come on, patch it up, if you kill each other Joey'll get all the leads and no one wants that. Both of you, say you're sorry." His grip tightened.
"Sorry," JC muttered. "Ow, Chris, I'm gonna bruise."
"It's not my fault you're so damn delicate," Chris said cheerfully. "Justin?"
"I'm not delicate." Chris squeezed harder. "Okay, ow, fuck! Sorry, JC. You know, I'm not fourteen anymore."
"Great, act like it," Chris said, slapping them both on the back. "We might start thinking you don't love us."
"You know I love you guys," Justin mumbled.
"Well, it would help if you would show it sometimes. Come on, we have a show to put on."
I love Chris also.
"Yeah yeah," Justin said as Chris scampered off to bother Lance and Joey. "I really do want to be here, you know," he said to JC. "It just wasn't the right time before."
"You think it's the right time now?" JC asked him, and Justin wasn't sure they were having the same conversation anymore. Looking at JC, he suddenly wasn't sure they ever had been.
Justin, we caught that like three parts ago, man.
5. like the one where everyone's mean to jude law
AddictedKitten: I just gave section five the single most retarded title in the history of life.
bludandwhiskey: *waits with bated breath*
AddictedKitten: 5. like the one where everyone's mean to jude law
AddictedKitten: THANK YOU THANK YOU I'LL BE HERE ALL WEEK.
bludandwhiskey: ...
bludandwhiskey: DUDE.
AddictedKitten: Literally all week, unless the trains start up again.
AddictedKitten: NO SEE BECAUSE
AddictedKitten: They talk about Julia Roberts movies!
AddictedKitten: And, uh.
AddictedKitten: Hehe, they were all mean to Jude Law.
AddictedKitten: *coughs*
AddictedKitten: I've scared you away, haven't I.
AddictedKitten: No, that's fair.
AddictedKitten: I scared myself away. I'm hiding in the corner as we speak.
AddictedKitten: ...but see!
AddictedKitten: They talk about honesty! And hidden agendas!
AddictedKitten: And coming back to people!
AddictedKitten: Plus I was totally listening to that Damien Rice song when I wrote part of this.
AddictedKitten: Well, only because it's on my 'let's write sex' playlist.
AddictedKitten: ...
AddictedKitten: *hides in corner*
Of course, eventually Jamie came back from toasting her bagel and wtfed at me because she hadn't actually seen Closer and so had no idea what I was talking about. But, yes. Closer. In which Clive Owen and Julia Roberts and Natalie Portman are all really hot with breaks in between to be mean to Jude Law.
Look, it works, I swear.
"How am I supposed to do a documentary if you guys won't talk to me?" Justin asked. They were leaving a venue in Cleveland. He had some footage of them fucking around and being stupid, but it wasn't like that was hard to come by. He still hadn't gotten them all to sit down and talk.
He also had even more footage of JC sleeping, taken with considerably more stealth than he'd used before. It would be one of the special features, he decided, entitled "The Non-Stop Excitement of Sharing a Bus With JC." He'd taped almost an entire episode of Emeril with JC sleeping in the foreground, twitching whenever Emeril "BAM!"ed. It was very Gus Van Sant. Justin was patting himself on the back already.
There's a part in Last Days, the Gus Van Sant film about the last days of a rock star who is obviously meant to be Kurt Cobain, where the main character is passed out in front of a TV playing a Boyz II Men video, and the camera keeps running for the entire video. I haven't actually seen the movie, but I read that somewhere. I think Justin might have too. Oh, Justin.
Also, hee. JC twitching when Emeril "BAM!"s.
"You can talk to me," Lance said.
"Lance is my favorite," Justin announced, and followed Lance back to his bus. "Do you have any popcorn?" he asked, sitting down on the bed and bouncing a little. Cushy.
"Why? Are we going to watch Julia Roberts movies and talk about boys?"
Justin smiled. "Yes."
"We're not braiding each other's hair, I don't care what you say," Lance warned him, bringing a bowl of popcorn in and sitting crosslegged on the bed. Justin threw a piece of popcorn at him.
Whatever, Lance, secretly you really do want to braid Justin's hair.
"So let's talk about boys," Justin said.
"You go first."
"Funny. You know what I mean."
Lance settled back into the pillows, looking thoughtful. Justin zoomed in. "Everyone's been really cool. The fans have been really supportive. You know, it's 2006. It's not like I'm the first boybander to ever come out. It's just nice to be honest with people."
Seriously, Lance, come out of the closet already. No, seriously.
"You waited a long time."
"Yeah. Better late than never though, right? There just never seemed to be a right time. I mean, we were so huge, and then there was the hiatus, and there didn't seem to be any point to telling anyone then. But I'm glad I have now. Makes dating a hell of a lot easier."
There's this one Lance quote I wish I could find where an interviewer asks him if they ever date fans and he's like, "well, most of our fans are girls, so..." Lance. Seriously.
"Yeah? How's that going?"
"How's it going for you?" Lance asked, eyebrow raised.
"It's my documentary, I get to ask the questions," Justin said, shooting Lance a testy look.
Lance shrugged. "Dating on the road is hard. Most people can't handle it."
"What about groupies?"
"Who are planning to sell this documentary to, Justin? E!?"
"I just want people to know what it's really like," Justin said, lowering the camera a little. "We should be honest, you know? We don't have anyone telling us what to say now. You're gay, Joey has a family, Chris has all this stuff going on and JC's, you know, he's JC. We don't have anything to hide anymore, right?"
What does Chris have going on? Back in August, I think it was, Pete Wentz from Fall Out Boy went to one of Chris's parties and they ended up hanging out, and ever since I have been trying to work that into a fic. So in my head Chris had another band before this that did some stuff, and he worked with Fall Out Boy a bit and was in that scene and still is. But that would be kind of a lot for Justin to say, so he doesn't. But now you know.
"I don't," Lance said.
"Well, okay. Good."
"Do you?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Lance sighed. "Nothing, Justin. But- you have to be honest with yourself before you expect us to be honest for you, you know?"
"Why do you all think I have some hidden agenda here?"
"Fine," Lance said. "So you tell me what it's like, Justin. You decided you wanted to do this again, you're here, you're single, you hardly go out anymore-- what's the deal? Why'd you come back?"
"What- how do you even expect me to answer that? Maybe I've just grown up and decided what I really want!"
There's a Rolling Stone interview from late 2003 where Justin talks about being in NSync, and says some not terribly nice things about pop music, that he tried to tell himself that what they were doing was more than just pop, but that in the end that's all they were doing, making pop music, and that interview bothered the hell out of me. I talked about this a lot with Glenda, about the fact that he's still really making pop music in the dictionary definition of the word, that, you know, whether it's Big Red or bubblegum you're still chewing it, man, and there's no need to disparage something that makes people happy.
So I like to think that he thought about that later, really thought about it, and figured out that he wanted this again. Well, and that he wanted JC still, but. Obviously.
"And what would that be?"
"This," Justin said. "You guys. I missed this. Although not, you know, getting the third degree, that I was doing fine without."
Lance was silent for awhile, just looking at him. "That's really why you're here?" he asked eventually.
"That's why you guys have been all weird?" Justin demanded. "It didn't occur to any of you to just ask me?"
"Uh," Lance said, scratching his neck. "No? JC said we should, but he was outvoted."
Justin didn't feel there were adequate words for the what-the-fuck of that explanation, so he didn't bother trying to find any, just moved across the bed and leaned back against the headboard next to Lance, sighing huffily.
"I could make more popcorn," Lance said after a minute, looking sideways at Justin, who figured this was about as much of an apology as he was going to get.
"Okay," he said. "But you're giving me a good interview later, and you're gonna tell me all about your big gay boyband lifestyle."
Lance rolled his eyes, but didn't argue. Justin took that as a yes.
Aww. Boys.
6. distance has no way
AddictedKitten: that's the only one that really needs explaining. it's from a wilco song.
AddictedKitten: line is "distance has no way of making love understandable."
AddictedKitten: I write popslash to Wilco songs because I'm hardcore like that.
Somewhere around here, I hit a roadblock. I was a little fuzzy on Justin's motivation, at least in terms of how I was going to explain it, so I sat around for awhile and thought about it, and then failed to come up with anything, so I decided to go read some fic. I ended up rereading jae_w's fic A Little Uncomplicated Hymn, a fic which I can't reread all that often because I only have the one heart to break and it needs time between to mend. It's one of the most affecting pieces of writing I've ever read, and just- yeah, again not so much in the mood I needed to be to write this particular story, but! She wrote it for the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot challenge, to the song Radio Cure, and once I got done reading I played the song, and then I played it again, and then everything made sense and I did a little dance and finished the fic.
"So Lance said the reason everyone's been all weird with me is that no one knows for sure why I'm back and you all keep expecting me to pitch a fit and leave the group," Justin said, hopping onto the bus the next morning after they stopped to pick up breakfast.
"Yep," Chris said, not looking away from the television set.
"Okay, that's stupid. I'm here because I want to be here, and I'm not going to leave."
Chris switched channels, Cartoon Network, then Lifetime, then Comedy Central. He stopped on an old episode of The Chappelle Show. "Yeah?" he said, finally looking back at Justin.
"Yes! God! I can't believe you guys were just doubting me the whole time and none of you said anything!"
"Oops," Chris said.
"You are such a fucker," Justin said, sitting down next to him and stealing the remote. "You're all a bunch of fuckers."
Letting Justin steal the remote = forgiveness.
"Sorry," Chris said. "You wanna play X-Box?"
"Yes," Justin said sulkily.
He was pretty sure Chris was giving him a sympathy win, but eventually Chris punched him in the arm and called him a punk, and everything was okay again.
"So where's JC?" Justin asked, once they'd flung their controllers away and decided to find a nice mindless action movie to watch.
"On Joey's bus, helping him with Bri. Kelly's off for the day. What's up with you guys?"
"What?" Justin asked, distracted. Chris had stopped on The Island, and Scarlett Johansson and Ewan McGregor were racing goldenly across the desert. It was-- distracting.
Someday I will post the clone fic that's a crossover with The Island. Someday.
"You and C," Chris said, nudging him. "Does he know you're here for good?"
"I guess. I mean, he should. Or, maybe not, since everyone seems to think my bags are already packed."
"You should probably let him know."
"He should know already," Justin said, getting annoyed. "I've been hanging out with him all the time. I was hanging out with him even before we got started on the album. Why doesn't anyone trust me? Some bands go on hiatus for like twenty years, do they have to deal with this shit?"
That is a valid point. And they have been hanging out a lot lately.
"Tell JC," Chris said.
"Fine, god. I still haven't talked to you," Justin said, realizing he had Chris cornered. Excellent.
Chris raised an eyebrow at him.
"On camera, I mean." He pulled it out of his pocket and aimed it at Chris. "Come on, you ready?"
"No," Chris said.
"Great. So what's it like being back in the band?"
"Cool, I guess. Except for our weirdo lead singer."
"Don't talk about JC like that," Justin said, grinning. "Seriously. You happy to be back?"
"Sure, it's great. I missed the money and women, and not having any feeling in my knees."
"Hey, at least we're not dancing as much."
"And now most of our fans are legal."
"Chris!"
Chris grinned. "And there are all these boys in the audience holding signs for Lance, it's great. Almost as many boys as there are holding signs for you."
"That happened once."
"But the look on your face was worth a thousand teenage boys holding 'I heart Justin' signs."
Oh man, can you even imagine how amusing his expression would be?
"If I ignore you, will you go away?" Justin asked.
"You mean like your thing with JC?"
"What?" Justin sputtered, snapping the camera shut. "I don't have a thing for JC! That's not- that was years ago! And it wasn't a thing!"
"I said 'with', not 'for'," Chris pointed out. "You still have a thing for JC? Awww."
"I'm not going to talk to you anymore," Justin said, getting up and heading to the back of the bus.
"What?" Chris yelled after him. "Come on, this is the real NSync, right here! It's very gay."
It so hadn't even been-- it wasn't a thing, or a crush, or whatever. He'd just been, JC was nice, and pretty, and Justin was young and stupid and nothing ever came of it. If JC knew he never said anything, and Justin eventually got over it-- okay, after he'd gone solo and wasn't around JC all the time, and then he had Cameron and that was great, and then it had crashed and burned and that was fine, he wasn't bitter or anything, but now he was around JC all the time again, and.
See, I think the Cameron thing is great. I wish more people would write current canon (or future) fic more often that actually dealt with Cameron in a way that didn't either paint her as the antichrist, pass it off as a publicity stunt (yeah, okay, one that's lasted for how many years now?), or ignore her entirely. Sometimes people have relationships that end amicably and then people move on. No, really. I swear.
Justin threw himself down onto the bed in the back, careful not to land on the camera. He was twenty-five, and it was utterly stupid to have a crush on someone that lasted, god, fourteen years. Over half his life. And he hadn't even been thinking about it, had been determinedly not thinking about it, in point of fact, because he was too old for this, and too smart for this, and too straight for this, even if JC had always been the exception.
And he wasn't why Justin had come back, either. He loved being with them all again, being part of a group, writing pop music, making the fans happy and winning new ones. It was amazing, a rush just like it always had been, and maybe he'd needed to spend time with JC to help him remember that, remember what it was like when they were together. All of them. Well, except for when Chris was being irritating and truthful, or Lance was being cagey and weird, or Joey was- actually, Joey had been pretty inoffensive so far. He liked Joey a lot.
Yeah, Joey's pretty okay.
"You know," Chris said, leaning in the doorway. "If you write JC a note that says 'if you like me, check yes or no', he might just check yes."
"You got stuffed into lockers a lot in high school, didn't you?" Justin asked.
"Usually only by girls. I kinda liked it," Chris said cheerfully. Justin mourned the lack of things within reach that he could throw at Chris. "Seriously, though. I'd miss the dynamic sexual tension of the stage shows, but you guys could live happily ever after and have tiny beautiful little children."
And dynamic (sexual!) tension. Yeah Rocky Horror Picture Show.
"Not unless you know something about JC that I don't."
"You could adopt them! Or get a surrogate."
"Jesus, Chris," Justin said, a little horrified. "Could you stop whittling the stakes for our white picket fence? He hasn't checked yes yet."
"You could teach the kids to whittle," Chris said thoughtfully.
"You know, if he checks no- I mean says no, things could get awkward."
"That's why we have more than one bus," Chris said, slapping him on the shoulder. "Good luck!"
"Wait, I-"
"Hey, Joey," Chris said into his cell phone. "I'm gonna switch with C, okay? Cool, see you in a few minutes."
JC came onto the bus about ten minutes later. Justin was sitting on the couch, acting casual.
"Hey, what's going on?" JC asked.
"Nothing," Justin said. "Watching TV."
"The TV's not on," JC pointed out.
Fuck, Justin knew there had been a flaw in this plan. "I was going to watch TV," he said.
"Cool, what are you gonna watch?"
"Nothing," Justin said quickly.
JC looked at him. "Did you wanna talk to me?"
"I am talking to you," Justin said.
This scene cracks me up, because I'm a dork who laughs at my own jokes. But, hee.
JC nodded at the camera that Justin hadn't even realized he was holding. "I mean on film."
"Oh. Uh. Yes."
"Cool," JC said, flopping gracefully down onto the couch next to him. Justin wasn't sure how he did that. "So."
"Right." Justin fumbled with the camera, setting it up. "So here you are."
"Here I am," JC said. He looked amused. Justin felt like he was about twelve, holding the valentine he'd made for Britney and waiting for the right moment to give it to her. Maybe he should have made something for JC. He was probably still pretty good with construction paper and glue. There could have been glitter, even. "Justin?"
Of course there could have been glitter, sweetie.
"What?" Justin lowered the camera, and JC reached over and took it from him. "Hey."
"You've asked the rest of us what we're doing back here with the group. It's your turn. Come on, you can't have a film about NSync without Justin Timberlake," JC said, nudging Justin with his foot. "So you go." He propped the camera up on his knee and looked at Justin expectantly.
"Chris said I should tell you," Justin said, "that I'm sticking around."
"What?"
"I'm back, I'm not leaving again. I didn't, you know, I didn't leave the first time, I just had to do some things. We all did, right?"
"Chris wanted you to tell me that?"
"Yeah." Justin wasn't looking at the camera anymore. "He said you should know. I thought you did already."
"I didn't," JC said softly. He put the camera down on the table.
"I'm sorry you didn't- I should have said something sooner."
"It's cool. You're saying something now."
"Yeah, actually," Justin said, and meant to follow that up with something, he wasn't sure what yet, but then he realized JC was looking at his lips, and all he could think was fourteen years, fourteen years, I've been in love with you for over half my life. "Hey," he said, meaning for it to serve as a warning of sorts, and then he leaned forward and kissed JC on the mouth.
It just seems polite to warn people before you kiss them. I mean, just so they know.
JC kissed him back. His imagination hadn't done it justice.
He was pushing back and JC was pushing forward, and they met in the middle, Justin's hands fisting in the back of JC's shirt, clutching at him and reaching underneath, distracting him enough to make him fall back a little until he was lying back on the couch, JC over him. "There's," Justin started, but then JC started sucking on his neck, and that was, yeah, really nice, and Justin was arching up, trying to get more, something, get his clothes off, JC's clothes off, because there was too much happening that wasn't naked.
"There's what?" JC asked, kissing along Justin's jawline and then moving over, close enough that their lips brushed when JC spoke. Justin opened his eyes and found JC looking back, and for a wild terrifying moment he thought he might be dreaming this, might have just let his mind wander too far and in a second he'd blink, wake up, find himself alone and watching the world through a video camera. He reached up, taking JC's face in his hands, sliding his thumbs over JC's cheekbones, over his lips, back into his hair, memorizing just in case, in case this was just vivid beautiful delirium and it was all he'd ever get.
Bringing back the Dramamine idea here, sort of.
It had been so long, years and years of this, of frantic hot fantasies of JC on top of him, under him, crawling into his bunk, pushing him against a wall and doing this, giving him what he wanted. Years of sharing a bus, sitting by the window and letting the landscape act as blurred backdrop while his mind wandered, put him in a thousand different positions ending the same way, with JC looking at him like this, just like this.
Yeah.
"Bed," Justin said, congratulating himself on remembering what the hell he'd been talking about before. JC grinned and pulled him up, and Justin seriously did not remember the hallway being this long, or himself this graceless, but now that he was touching JC he couldn't seem to stop. Every inch of space between them was just completely wrong, and Justin wasn't going to stand for it. He left his shirt somewhere in the lounge, and his jeans in the hall, and JC's clothes were probably somewhere but they weren't on him anymore, which Justin was really in favor of, except for JC's jeans with their impossibly complex buttons. They reached the back and Justin dropped to his knees, working at the buttons and looking up when JC made a choked sound.
Because when Justin goes to his knees in front of you, breathing becomes secondary.
"C," Justin gasped, because JC's hand was threading into his hair, gripping what he could and Justin tugged at the buttons, opening and pushing JC's jeans down and oh god, JC's cock was right there, right in front of him, and Justin remembered every time he'd done this in his head, and he hadn't. He'd never, there was just never another guy he wanted enough to try for, never a guy that was worth the risk-
Justin licked a long slow line up JC's cock, taking it in hand and stroking up and down, once, twice, shuddering at the feel of it. JC was looking down at him, eyes wide, running his thumb over Justin's jaw with infinite care, like he was something breakable, something precious.
"I want-" Justin said. "You can fuck me. If you want." He'd never done that, either, but he was here now and he could wake up tomorrow and never have another chance, and that seemed like a fate worse than death; worse, even, than never singing again, or ending up alone. They'd do this, and even if it all went down in flames at least he'd have something to hold on to. "Please," he said, because JC hadn't said anything. "Please."
I think this is the closest I get to angst in this entire story. I go back and forth between thinking the whole better to have loved and lost thing is bullshit and thinking it has merit, but at least you have something, right? At least you tried.
"Justin," JC started, but Justin stood up and kissed him, cutting off his words and pushing him the rest of the way back to the bed, yanking at the rest of their clothes until they tumbled naked onto the mattress and JC rolled them over. He looked down at Justin, who spread his legs hopefully and leaned up, meeting JC in another kiss and holding on, keeping him close. JC pulled back after a minute, reaching out to the nightstand, and Justin felt a thrill race through him, felt his heart rate pick up when JC's hand slid down his thigh and grasped his cock, stroking once before moving downward, between his legs. Justin bent his knees, waiting.
The first touch wasn't a surprise, but the second was, one finger sliding inside before Justin could tense up. A shudder went through him, starting at his shoulders and moving slowly through the rest of him, following the rough drag of JC's other hand as his fingers moved down Justin's chest, grasping his cock as JC pushed another finger into him and slid them both out before pushing back in again. Justin breathed, and it was a conscious effort, in and out with each slow thrust of JC's fingers. His rib cage felt too small, insufficient to the task of holding everything in, and Justin shuddered again, hoping JC would understand, hoping he wouldn't have to beg. He was nearly there already.
"Look at me," JC said quietly, drawing his fingers out. JC leaned in, bending Justin's leg a little more and sliding his other hand around the back of Justin's neck, holding his gaze as he pushed in, slowly, slowly, but it still hurt, was still bigger than JC's fingers, thicker, enough to pull a small hurt sound out of him. JC stilled, waiting for Justin to adjust, then moved again, insistent pressure with the edge of pain to it, sharpening each spark of pleasure until he wasn't sure which was which anymore. He stopped, finally, deep inside Justin, filling him until Justin could barely breathe, could barely focus on completing each shaky breath.
Justin squirmed a little, gasping at the feeling that brought. He was still a little shuddery, could feel each shiver along the surface of his skin, marvelling at the strange distance of it until he realized it wasn't him at all. JC was trembling, shoulders shaking as he held himself over Justin and, "It's okay, it's okay," Justin said, running a hand down his arm, murmuring it softly over and over until JC moved, pulled back almost all the way and thrust in deep. "Oh, fuck," Justin gasped, throwing his head back as JC did it again, lowered his mouth to Justin's neck and kissed him, taking his skin between his teeth and marking him there, each slow wet scrape against his skin matched by his steady thrusts into Justin's body.
Justin moaned and clutched at JC's back, urging him on, wrapping his legs around JC's waist and arching up to meet him, digging his nails into the back of JC's neck and pushing his hips up, taking JC in as deep as he could go. He was close to coming already and JC had barely touched his cock, hadn't needed to when it felt this good just having JC inside him, moving in him increasingly faster until Justin felt almost raw from it. He'd feel it tomorrow, he wanted to feel it tomorrow, wanted to remember the feel of JC-- oh god, JC taking him like this. "Harder," Justin said.
JC looked at him, then moved back a bit, bending Justin into a harsher angle and then thrusting in hard. Justin moaned, and he did it again, slamming his hips forward with enough force that Justin thought he might have bruises from it tomorrow, and then JC did it again and he knew he would. "Yeah," Justin murmured, and JC leaned in, bracing himself with his hands on either side of Justin, and began thrusting hard and deep, fucking him roughly, just like he wanted. Just like he had always wanted. Each thrust hit right where he needed it, and JC just kept going, pounding into him until he took hold of Justin's cock and stroked him up and down, bringing him off with a few easy flicks of his wrist.
It was all he could do to hold on, gripping JC's arms as JC came inside him, hot and frantic and keeping his eyes on Justin. Justin thought it was worth all those years, and when JC sighed, settling down on top of him, Justin changed that to absolutely, definitely, completely entirely worth it. Hell, something this good was worth even longer, although he was glad they'd done it now. He was glad they'd done it at all. He was glad to be alive.
*cough* Yes, that was my commentary fading to black as the fic did not. How much can you say about porn other than yay! and quick, everyone write me some? I do love writing porn, though. Which I think makes me a minority. Porn! Yay!
"Gonna talk about this in your documentary?" JC asked after awhile. He tried to roll away. Justin didn't let him.
"Documentary, not sex tape, C," Justin said. "But," he said, giving that more consideration, "who says it can't be both?"
Exactly, Justin. Exactly.
"We'll get a whole new audience," JC said. "Or make our current one really happy."
My stories seem so much more meta when I read them later.
"I like the way you think."
"Just think?"
"I like the way you do many things," Justin corrected himself.
"I like where you're going with this. Tell me more."
Justin laughed. "I'll tell you more tomorrow, man. We got all the time in the world."
And we end on banter and a hopeful note. I tend to write stories where people go yay, happy ending! while I'm standing in the corner going yes, until they crash and burn later ahahahahaha! But I think this one could actually be semi-functional, which is nice. I think my favorite ending ever is that of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, because, "Okay." It's realistic. But hopeful. And I think that's all you can ask for, really.
4. "dreaming while awake"
from Jamie's beta: Any reason why this one is in quotes when the others aren't?
AddictedKitten: BECAUSE (alert: pretention ahead!) it's, actually, a long story.
bludandwhiskey: *throws up plastic sheet*
AddictedKitten: it's from this: Recreational drug users sometimes take several times the recommended dose of dimenhydrinate in order to attain an intense and long-lasting state of anticholinergic delirium.
The mental effects are described by many as "dreaming while awake" involving visual and auditory hallucinations which, unlike those experienced with recreational drugs known as psychedelics, often cannot be readily distinguished from reality.
AddictedKitten: it's about the drug Dramamine.
AddictedKitten: and the beginning of that section was written with that idea in mind.
bludandwhiskey: ...
bludandwhiskey: dude.
AddictedKitten: *WINS*
AddictedKitten: layers!
AddictedKitten: my writing has LAYERS, BITCH!
AddictedKitten: and MEANING!
The Death Cab documentary has some really nice shots of the passing landscape taken from the bus, of flatlands and highways and sunsets and all the things you see when you're just staring out the window. I've always had a tendency to romanticize the road a bit; my mom and I used to drive from Washington to California every summer to visit my grandparents, and we'd usually take the eighteen-hour trip straight through. I loved it. I'm all about drifting off and staring out the window for hours, and I love taking the trip even now.
Which doesn't have a whole lot to do with what I was trying to convey here. It's all inspired by the Modest Mouse song Dramamine, which has the lines "I've said what I said and you know what I mean / But I can't still focus on anything" and opens with "travelling swallowing Dramamine." The summary came from WikiPedia, and I was listening to the song a lot when I was trying to figure the story out, when it was still just a lot of mental images of Justin staring out the window. I didn't go as weird with this as I could have, but I still tried to get in the idea of this being a sort of separate space, like the road feels to me; you came from somewhere, and you're going somewhere, but that ceases to exist when you're on the road. There's only this nebulous space between when you're free of responsibility and there's nothing but time and what you choose to do with it, or not do with it.
A week passed, seven days straight with a show every night, living on the bus and sleeping on the bus and it was just like it always was. Justin wished he could remember it better, say for sure that it had been this way before, this quiet and strange and verging on unreal. Chris spent most of his time on Lance's bus for no reason that Justin could see, and JC was just-- weird, and not in the way that JC had always been kind of weird. He slept a lot, and wrote a lot, and lounged on the couch watching the Food Network for hours. Justin wrote a little, and talked on the phone with his Mom or Trace or whoever else he thought to call, but the longer he was on the bus the more he was content to just be there.
from Jamie's beta: Chris spent most of his time on Lance's bus for no reason that Justin could see...
Um. Hot Lance lovin' maybe?
AddictedKitten: YOU ARE CORRECT, MISS.
AddictedKitten: this was also going to be trickyfish, but I couldn't fit it in without it being a big gay anvil of trickyfishness.
bludandwhiskey: \0/
bludandwhiskey: A WINNAR IS ME
bludandwhiskey: It was that and the "this is the real NSYNC. It's very gay." comment that pinged me
AddictedKitten: !!!! i just copied that to paste in and go, see, right there!
AddictedKitten: you! smrt!
It's generally safe to assume that in every JuC fic I write, Chris and Lance are also fucking on the side. Because in my head, they usually are. (Poor straight Joey.)
AddictedKitten: How's yours going?
bludandwhiskey: If fucker 1 ever gets off the couch and checks the door, it might go better.
bludandwhiskey: This piece apparently needs to be all symbolism and shit
AddictedKitten: Hee! I have this image of like, you trying to explain it. "Now, the vases represent the boyband members. When one of them tips over, it's meant to show the angst of the human soul."
AddictedKitten: "See, this vase is filled with ashes. JUST LIKE JUSTIN."
AddictedKitten: Oooooh this has made me delirious.
bludandwhiskey: HAHAHAH
AddictedKitten: That's okay, you know the cooking shows in my fic are meant to echo the emotional journey of Justin.
AddictedKitten: Because you need the right INGREDIENTS. Otherwise you can't have gay sex.
bludandwhiskey: From Child to Man? (Child being Julia Child, Man being Emeril. BAM means he's finally ready to admit things to himself.)
AddictedKitten: YOU ARE SO RIGHT.
AddictedKitten: See, this fic has layers, man.
AddictedKitten: Like a pastry.
bludandwhiskey: mmmm, pastry
Touring was insane, it always had been, but he'd been doing it for so long that it was almost more normal than real life, more real than five years of hiatus and vacations, red carpets and celebrity events. He tried to explain that on camera, tried to put it into words that would make sense to someone that had never been there, but it all came out wrong. He wasn't even sure if people really needed to know any of it.
Justin sat by the window, thinking and letting the camera run, recording the sunsets and sometimes turning the camera on JC's sleeping form, crashed out on the couch in front of Julia Child or Rachael Ray. He moved to the floor sometimes, leaning up against the armrest of the couch and getting JC at different angles, in daylight and dusk, bright with contrast or striped with shadows from the slitted blinds. They didn't talk to each other much, but it wasn't lonely.
from Jamie's beta: Is all the footage of JC sleeping just because JC sleeps a lot and Justin spends a lot of time with him (because of the repressed crush) or is there some deeper meaning I'm missing? Just curious.
AddictedKitten: well, first of all, JC sleeps A LOT. canon, baby. but it's back to the "dreaming while awake" thing, and it sets up another wall between them, like the camera. so they spend all this time with each other protected by their respective excuses to not talk to each other.
AddictedKitten: because, do you think he'll be sleeping a lot now? no, he'll be fucking justin.
AddictedKitten: as. well. he. should.
It started raining around two in the afternoon on the seventh day, so there wasn't much to look at outside except for the pouring rain. Justin sat at the end of the couch and taped JC sleeping until JC startled awake, jumping a little and making Justin jump as well.
"What's wrong?" Justin asked.
"I had a- were you taping me?" JC asked, blinking.
"Yeah. I think there's going to be a montage of you sleeping everywhere."
JC squinted at him. "That's kinda kinky, Justin."
Yeah it is.
"What?!" Justin put the camera down. "Dude, you're kinda kinky. What the hell."
"Is this what- have you just been taping me sleeping? Is that gonna be your documentary?"
"No!" Justin said. "I've been getting a lot of good shots of the landscape. It's like, artistic," he added, feeling somewhat defensive now. "It'll be good. You know, in between all the performances and stuff."
"Artistic."
"Yeah. You like art."
"Justin-"
"Look, it's my documentary, okay?"
JC put his hands up. "Fine, whatever. What the hell is your problem, man?"
"I don't have a problem."
"You don't." JC looked skeptical.
"Everything's fine. I just wish you guys would be more cooperative about this."
"Like let you tape us all sleeping?"
"That's not- goddammit," Justin said. The bus was slowing down, and when he looked out the window he saw that they were pulling into the venue. "You're missing my whole point in doing this."
"What is your point in doing this?"
"There doesn't have to be a point," Justin said finally. "It's just something I want to do."
Dodge the question, Justin! Dodge it!
"Can't you just do this? Can't you just be happy to be here?"
"I wouldn't be doing this if it wasn't what I really wanted-"
Aaaaand there's the conflict of the story. Every point I wanted to make is right here, condensed.
Justin was cut off as the door opened and Joey peered in. "Hey, you guys coming out anytime soon?"
"You'll have to talk to Justin about that," JC said, shooting a stony glare in Justin's direction.
"Okay!" Joey said, giving them a thumbs up of infinite neutrality. "Great, I'll be outside!"
Joey!! I feel like I always shortchange the guy in fic, so when he does come on he has to be amusing. Aww. Joey. I do love him, I do.
"What the hell was that supposed to mean?" Justin asked as the door shut behind Joey.
"Forget it. Let's go." JC didn't quite stomp off the bus, but he was huffy enough to forget his jacket. Justin scowled. He should just let him freeze to death, but JC had always gotten cold really easily, and he was just wearing a t-shirt, the jackass. It was October, what was he thinking? Stupid hardheaded JC. Justin hadn't missed him at all.
And again, a summation of Justin's feelings for JC.
JC glowered at him when he got outside, but he still took the jacket with a muttered "thanks". His arms were covered in goosebumps, and Justin did not want to rub them away, even when JC shivered a little.
"Trouble in paradise, kids?" Chris asked, throwing his arms around their shoulders. "Come on, patch it up, if you kill each other Joey'll get all the leads and no one wants that. Both of you, say you're sorry." His grip tightened.
"Sorry," JC muttered. "Ow, Chris, I'm gonna bruise."
"It's not my fault you're so damn delicate," Chris said cheerfully. "Justin?"
"I'm not delicate." Chris squeezed harder. "Okay, ow, fuck! Sorry, JC. You know, I'm not fourteen anymore."
"Great, act like it," Chris said, slapping them both on the back. "We might start thinking you don't love us."
"You know I love you guys," Justin mumbled.
"Well, it would help if you would show it sometimes. Come on, we have a show to put on."
I love Chris also.
"Yeah yeah," Justin said as Chris scampered off to bother Lance and Joey. "I really do want to be here, you know," he said to JC. "It just wasn't the right time before."
"You think it's the right time now?" JC asked him, and Justin wasn't sure they were having the same conversation anymore. Looking at JC, he suddenly wasn't sure they ever had been.
Justin, we caught that like three parts ago, man.
5. like the one where everyone's mean to jude law
AddictedKitten: I just gave section five the single most retarded title in the history of life.
bludandwhiskey: *waits with bated breath*
AddictedKitten: 5. like the one where everyone's mean to jude law
AddictedKitten: THANK YOU THANK YOU I'LL BE HERE ALL WEEK.
bludandwhiskey: ...
bludandwhiskey: DUDE.
AddictedKitten: Literally all week, unless the trains start up again.
AddictedKitten: NO SEE BECAUSE
AddictedKitten: They talk about Julia Roberts movies!
AddictedKitten: And, uh.
AddictedKitten: Hehe, they were all mean to Jude Law.
AddictedKitten: *coughs*
AddictedKitten: I've scared you away, haven't I.
AddictedKitten: No, that's fair.
AddictedKitten: I scared myself away. I'm hiding in the corner as we speak.
AddictedKitten: ...but see!
AddictedKitten: They talk about honesty! And hidden agendas!
AddictedKitten: And coming back to people!
AddictedKitten: Plus I was totally listening to that Damien Rice song when I wrote part of this.
AddictedKitten: Well, only because it's on my 'let's write sex' playlist.
AddictedKitten: ...
AddictedKitten: *hides in corner*
Of course, eventually Jamie came back from toasting her bagel and wtfed at me because she hadn't actually seen Closer and so had no idea what I was talking about. But, yes. Closer. In which Clive Owen and Julia Roberts and Natalie Portman are all really hot with breaks in between to be mean to Jude Law.
Look, it works, I swear.
"How am I supposed to do a documentary if you guys won't talk to me?" Justin asked. They were leaving a venue in Cleveland. He had some footage of them fucking around and being stupid, but it wasn't like that was hard to come by. He still hadn't gotten them all to sit down and talk.
He also had even more footage of JC sleeping, taken with considerably more stealth than he'd used before. It would be one of the special features, he decided, entitled "The Non-Stop Excitement of Sharing a Bus With JC." He'd taped almost an entire episode of Emeril with JC sleeping in the foreground, twitching whenever Emeril "BAM!"ed. It was very Gus Van Sant. Justin was patting himself on the back already.
There's a part in Last Days, the Gus Van Sant film about the last days of a rock star who is obviously meant to be Kurt Cobain, where the main character is passed out in front of a TV playing a Boyz II Men video, and the camera keeps running for the entire video. I haven't actually seen the movie, but I read that somewhere. I think Justin might have too. Oh, Justin.
Also, hee. JC twitching when Emeril "BAM!"s.
"You can talk to me," Lance said.
"Lance is my favorite," Justin announced, and followed Lance back to his bus. "Do you have any popcorn?" he asked, sitting down on the bed and bouncing a little. Cushy.
"Why? Are we going to watch Julia Roberts movies and talk about boys?"
Justin smiled. "Yes."
"We're not braiding each other's hair, I don't care what you say," Lance warned him, bringing a bowl of popcorn in and sitting crosslegged on the bed. Justin threw a piece of popcorn at him.
Whatever, Lance, secretly you really do want to braid Justin's hair.
"So let's talk about boys," Justin said.
"You go first."
"Funny. You know what I mean."
Lance settled back into the pillows, looking thoughtful. Justin zoomed in. "Everyone's been really cool. The fans have been really supportive. You know, it's 2006. It's not like I'm the first boybander to ever come out. It's just nice to be honest with people."
Seriously, Lance, come out of the closet already. No, seriously.
"You waited a long time."
"Yeah. Better late than never though, right? There just never seemed to be a right time. I mean, we were so huge, and then there was the hiatus, and there didn't seem to be any point to telling anyone then. But I'm glad I have now. Makes dating a hell of a lot easier."
There's this one Lance quote I wish I could find where an interviewer asks him if they ever date fans and he's like, "well, most of our fans are girls, so..." Lance. Seriously.
"Yeah? How's that going?"
"How's it going for you?" Lance asked, eyebrow raised.
"It's my documentary, I get to ask the questions," Justin said, shooting Lance a testy look.
Lance shrugged. "Dating on the road is hard. Most people can't handle it."
"What about groupies?"
"Who are planning to sell this documentary to, Justin? E!?"
"I just want people to know what it's really like," Justin said, lowering the camera a little. "We should be honest, you know? We don't have anyone telling us what to say now. You're gay, Joey has a family, Chris has all this stuff going on and JC's, you know, he's JC. We don't have anything to hide anymore, right?"
What does Chris have going on? Back in August, I think it was, Pete Wentz from Fall Out Boy went to one of Chris's parties and they ended up hanging out, and ever since I have been trying to work that into a fic. So in my head Chris had another band before this that did some stuff, and he worked with Fall Out Boy a bit and was in that scene and still is. But that would be kind of a lot for Justin to say, so he doesn't. But now you know.
"I don't," Lance said.
"Well, okay. Good."
"Do you?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Lance sighed. "Nothing, Justin. But- you have to be honest with yourself before you expect us to be honest for you, you know?"
"Why do you all think I have some hidden agenda here?"
"Fine," Lance said. "So you tell me what it's like, Justin. You decided you wanted to do this again, you're here, you're single, you hardly go out anymore-- what's the deal? Why'd you come back?"
"What- how do you even expect me to answer that? Maybe I've just grown up and decided what I really want!"
There's a Rolling Stone interview from late 2003 where Justin talks about being in NSync, and says some not terribly nice things about pop music, that he tried to tell himself that what they were doing was more than just pop, but that in the end that's all they were doing, making pop music, and that interview bothered the hell out of me. I talked about this a lot with Glenda, about the fact that he's still really making pop music in the dictionary definition of the word, that, you know, whether it's Big Red or bubblegum you're still chewing it, man, and there's no need to disparage something that makes people happy.
So I like to think that he thought about that later, really thought about it, and figured out that he wanted this again. Well, and that he wanted JC still, but. Obviously.
"And what would that be?"
"This," Justin said. "You guys. I missed this. Although not, you know, getting the third degree, that I was doing fine without."
Lance was silent for awhile, just looking at him. "That's really why you're here?" he asked eventually.
"That's why you guys have been all weird?" Justin demanded. "It didn't occur to any of you to just ask me?"
"Uh," Lance said, scratching his neck. "No? JC said we should, but he was outvoted."
Justin didn't feel there were adequate words for the what-the-fuck of that explanation, so he didn't bother trying to find any, just moved across the bed and leaned back against the headboard next to Lance, sighing huffily.
"I could make more popcorn," Lance said after a minute, looking sideways at Justin, who figured this was about as much of an apology as he was going to get.
"Okay," he said. "But you're giving me a good interview later, and you're gonna tell me all about your big gay boyband lifestyle."
Lance rolled his eyes, but didn't argue. Justin took that as a yes.
Aww. Boys.
6. distance has no way
AddictedKitten: that's the only one that really needs explaining. it's from a wilco song.
AddictedKitten: line is "distance has no way of making love understandable."
AddictedKitten: I write popslash to Wilco songs because I'm hardcore like that.
Somewhere around here, I hit a roadblock. I was a little fuzzy on Justin's motivation, at least in terms of how I was going to explain it, so I sat around for awhile and thought about it, and then failed to come up with anything, so I decided to go read some fic. I ended up rereading jae_w's fic A Little Uncomplicated Hymn, a fic which I can't reread all that often because I only have the one heart to break and it needs time between to mend. It's one of the most affecting pieces of writing I've ever read, and just- yeah, again not so much in the mood I needed to be to write this particular story, but! She wrote it for the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot challenge, to the song Radio Cure, and once I got done reading I played the song, and then I played it again, and then everything made sense and I did a little dance and finished the fic.
"So Lance said the reason everyone's been all weird with me is that no one knows for sure why I'm back and you all keep expecting me to pitch a fit and leave the group," Justin said, hopping onto the bus the next morning after they stopped to pick up breakfast.
"Yep," Chris said, not looking away from the television set.
"Okay, that's stupid. I'm here because I want to be here, and I'm not going to leave."
Chris switched channels, Cartoon Network, then Lifetime, then Comedy Central. He stopped on an old episode of The Chappelle Show. "Yeah?" he said, finally looking back at Justin.
"Yes! God! I can't believe you guys were just doubting me the whole time and none of you said anything!"
"Oops," Chris said.
"You are such a fucker," Justin said, sitting down next to him and stealing the remote. "You're all a bunch of fuckers."
Letting Justin steal the remote = forgiveness.
"Sorry," Chris said. "You wanna play X-Box?"
"Yes," Justin said sulkily.
He was pretty sure Chris was giving him a sympathy win, but eventually Chris punched him in the arm and called him a punk, and everything was okay again.
"So where's JC?" Justin asked, once they'd flung their controllers away and decided to find a nice mindless action movie to watch.
"On Joey's bus, helping him with Bri. Kelly's off for the day. What's up with you guys?"
"What?" Justin asked, distracted. Chris had stopped on The Island, and Scarlett Johansson and Ewan McGregor were racing goldenly across the desert. It was-- distracting.
Someday I will post the clone fic that's a crossover with The Island. Someday.
"You and C," Chris said, nudging him. "Does he know you're here for good?"
"I guess. I mean, he should. Or, maybe not, since everyone seems to think my bags are already packed."
"You should probably let him know."
"He should know already," Justin said, getting annoyed. "I've been hanging out with him all the time. I was hanging out with him even before we got started on the album. Why doesn't anyone trust me? Some bands go on hiatus for like twenty years, do they have to deal with this shit?"
That is a valid point. And they have been hanging out a lot lately.
"Tell JC," Chris said.
"Fine, god. I still haven't talked to you," Justin said, realizing he had Chris cornered. Excellent.
Chris raised an eyebrow at him.
"On camera, I mean." He pulled it out of his pocket and aimed it at Chris. "Come on, you ready?"
"No," Chris said.
"Great. So what's it like being back in the band?"
"Cool, I guess. Except for our weirdo lead singer."
"Don't talk about JC like that," Justin said, grinning. "Seriously. You happy to be back?"
"Sure, it's great. I missed the money and women, and not having any feeling in my knees."
"Hey, at least we're not dancing as much."
"And now most of our fans are legal."
"Chris!"
Chris grinned. "And there are all these boys in the audience holding signs for Lance, it's great. Almost as many boys as there are holding signs for you."
"That happened once."
"But the look on your face was worth a thousand teenage boys holding 'I heart Justin' signs."
Oh man, can you even imagine how amusing his expression would be?
"If I ignore you, will you go away?" Justin asked.
"You mean like your thing with JC?"
"What?" Justin sputtered, snapping the camera shut. "I don't have a thing for JC! That's not- that was years ago! And it wasn't a thing!"
"I said 'with', not 'for'," Chris pointed out. "You still have a thing for JC? Awww."
"I'm not going to talk to you anymore," Justin said, getting up and heading to the back of the bus.
"What?" Chris yelled after him. "Come on, this is the real NSync, right here! It's very gay."
It so hadn't even been-- it wasn't a thing, or a crush, or whatever. He'd just been, JC was nice, and pretty, and Justin was young and stupid and nothing ever came of it. If JC knew he never said anything, and Justin eventually got over it-- okay, after he'd gone solo and wasn't around JC all the time, and then he had Cameron and that was great, and then it had crashed and burned and that was fine, he wasn't bitter or anything, but now he was around JC all the time again, and.
See, I think the Cameron thing is great. I wish more people would write current canon (or future) fic more often that actually dealt with Cameron in a way that didn't either paint her as the antichrist, pass it off as a publicity stunt (yeah, okay, one that's lasted for how many years now?), or ignore her entirely. Sometimes people have relationships that end amicably and then people move on. No, really. I swear.
Justin threw himself down onto the bed in the back, careful not to land on the camera. He was twenty-five, and it was utterly stupid to have a crush on someone that lasted, god, fourteen years. Over half his life. And he hadn't even been thinking about it, had been determinedly not thinking about it, in point of fact, because he was too old for this, and too smart for this, and too straight for this, even if JC had always been the exception.
And he wasn't why Justin had come back, either. He loved being with them all again, being part of a group, writing pop music, making the fans happy and winning new ones. It was amazing, a rush just like it always had been, and maybe he'd needed to spend time with JC to help him remember that, remember what it was like when they were together. All of them. Well, except for when Chris was being irritating and truthful, or Lance was being cagey and weird, or Joey was- actually, Joey had been pretty inoffensive so far. He liked Joey a lot.
Yeah, Joey's pretty okay.
"You know," Chris said, leaning in the doorway. "If you write JC a note that says 'if you like me, check yes or no', he might just check yes."
"You got stuffed into lockers a lot in high school, didn't you?" Justin asked.
"Usually only by girls. I kinda liked it," Chris said cheerfully. Justin mourned the lack of things within reach that he could throw at Chris. "Seriously, though. I'd miss the dynamic sexual tension of the stage shows, but you guys could live happily ever after and have tiny beautiful little children."
And dynamic (sexual!) tension. Yeah Rocky Horror Picture Show.
"Not unless you know something about JC that I don't."
"You could adopt them! Or get a surrogate."
"Jesus, Chris," Justin said, a little horrified. "Could you stop whittling the stakes for our white picket fence? He hasn't checked yes yet."
"You could teach the kids to whittle," Chris said thoughtfully.
"You know, if he checks no- I mean says no, things could get awkward."
"That's why we have more than one bus," Chris said, slapping him on the shoulder. "Good luck!"
"Wait, I-"
"Hey, Joey," Chris said into his cell phone. "I'm gonna switch with C, okay? Cool, see you in a few minutes."
JC came onto the bus about ten minutes later. Justin was sitting on the couch, acting casual.
"Hey, what's going on?" JC asked.
"Nothing," Justin said. "Watching TV."
"The TV's not on," JC pointed out.
Fuck, Justin knew there had been a flaw in this plan. "I was going to watch TV," he said.
"Cool, what are you gonna watch?"
"Nothing," Justin said quickly.
JC looked at him. "Did you wanna talk to me?"
"I am talking to you," Justin said.
This scene cracks me up, because I'm a dork who laughs at my own jokes. But, hee.
JC nodded at the camera that Justin hadn't even realized he was holding. "I mean on film."
"Oh. Uh. Yes."
"Cool," JC said, flopping gracefully down onto the couch next to him. Justin wasn't sure how he did that. "So."
"Right." Justin fumbled with the camera, setting it up. "So here you are."
"Here I am," JC said. He looked amused. Justin felt like he was about twelve, holding the valentine he'd made for Britney and waiting for the right moment to give it to her. Maybe he should have made something for JC. He was probably still pretty good with construction paper and glue. There could have been glitter, even. "Justin?"
Of course there could have been glitter, sweetie.
"What?" Justin lowered the camera, and JC reached over and took it from him. "Hey."
"You've asked the rest of us what we're doing back here with the group. It's your turn. Come on, you can't have a film about NSync without Justin Timberlake," JC said, nudging Justin with his foot. "So you go." He propped the camera up on his knee and looked at Justin expectantly.
"Chris said I should tell you," Justin said, "that I'm sticking around."
"What?"
"I'm back, I'm not leaving again. I didn't, you know, I didn't leave the first time, I just had to do some things. We all did, right?"
"Chris wanted you to tell me that?"
"Yeah." Justin wasn't looking at the camera anymore. "He said you should know. I thought you did already."
"I didn't," JC said softly. He put the camera down on the table.
"I'm sorry you didn't- I should have said something sooner."
"It's cool. You're saying something now."
"Yeah, actually," Justin said, and meant to follow that up with something, he wasn't sure what yet, but then he realized JC was looking at his lips, and all he could think was fourteen years, fourteen years, I've been in love with you for over half my life. "Hey," he said, meaning for it to serve as a warning of sorts, and then he leaned forward and kissed JC on the mouth.
It just seems polite to warn people before you kiss them. I mean, just so they know.
JC kissed him back. His imagination hadn't done it justice.
He was pushing back and JC was pushing forward, and they met in the middle, Justin's hands fisting in the back of JC's shirt, clutching at him and reaching underneath, distracting him enough to make him fall back a little until he was lying back on the couch, JC over him. "There's," Justin started, but then JC started sucking on his neck, and that was, yeah, really nice, and Justin was arching up, trying to get more, something, get his clothes off, JC's clothes off, because there was too much happening that wasn't naked.
"There's what?" JC asked, kissing along Justin's jawline and then moving over, close enough that their lips brushed when JC spoke. Justin opened his eyes and found JC looking back, and for a wild terrifying moment he thought he might be dreaming this, might have just let his mind wander too far and in a second he'd blink, wake up, find himself alone and watching the world through a video camera. He reached up, taking JC's face in his hands, sliding his thumbs over JC's cheekbones, over his lips, back into his hair, memorizing just in case, in case this was just vivid beautiful delirium and it was all he'd ever get.
Bringing back the Dramamine idea here, sort of.
It had been so long, years and years of this, of frantic hot fantasies of JC on top of him, under him, crawling into his bunk, pushing him against a wall and doing this, giving him what he wanted. Years of sharing a bus, sitting by the window and letting the landscape act as blurred backdrop while his mind wandered, put him in a thousand different positions ending the same way, with JC looking at him like this, just like this.
Yeah.
"Bed," Justin said, congratulating himself on remembering what the hell he'd been talking about before. JC grinned and pulled him up, and Justin seriously did not remember the hallway being this long, or himself this graceless, but now that he was touching JC he couldn't seem to stop. Every inch of space between them was just completely wrong, and Justin wasn't going to stand for it. He left his shirt somewhere in the lounge, and his jeans in the hall, and JC's clothes were probably somewhere but they weren't on him anymore, which Justin was really in favor of, except for JC's jeans with their impossibly complex buttons. They reached the back and Justin dropped to his knees, working at the buttons and looking up when JC made a choked sound.
Because when Justin goes to his knees in front of you, breathing becomes secondary.
"C," Justin gasped, because JC's hand was threading into his hair, gripping what he could and Justin tugged at the buttons, opening and pushing JC's jeans down and oh god, JC's cock was right there, right in front of him, and Justin remembered every time he'd done this in his head, and he hadn't. He'd never, there was just never another guy he wanted enough to try for, never a guy that was worth the risk-
Justin licked a long slow line up JC's cock, taking it in hand and stroking up and down, once, twice, shuddering at the feel of it. JC was looking down at him, eyes wide, running his thumb over Justin's jaw with infinite care, like he was something breakable, something precious.
"I want-" Justin said. "You can fuck me. If you want." He'd never done that, either, but he was here now and he could wake up tomorrow and never have another chance, and that seemed like a fate worse than death; worse, even, than never singing again, or ending up alone. They'd do this, and even if it all went down in flames at least he'd have something to hold on to. "Please," he said, because JC hadn't said anything. "Please."
I think this is the closest I get to angst in this entire story. I go back and forth between thinking the whole better to have loved and lost thing is bullshit and thinking it has merit, but at least you have something, right? At least you tried.
"Justin," JC started, but Justin stood up and kissed him, cutting off his words and pushing him the rest of the way back to the bed, yanking at the rest of their clothes until they tumbled naked onto the mattress and JC rolled them over. He looked down at Justin, who spread his legs hopefully and leaned up, meeting JC in another kiss and holding on, keeping him close. JC pulled back after a minute, reaching out to the nightstand, and Justin felt a thrill race through him, felt his heart rate pick up when JC's hand slid down his thigh and grasped his cock, stroking once before moving downward, between his legs. Justin bent his knees, waiting.
The first touch wasn't a surprise, but the second was, one finger sliding inside before Justin could tense up. A shudder went through him, starting at his shoulders and moving slowly through the rest of him, following the rough drag of JC's other hand as his fingers moved down Justin's chest, grasping his cock as JC pushed another finger into him and slid them both out before pushing back in again. Justin breathed, and it was a conscious effort, in and out with each slow thrust of JC's fingers. His rib cage felt too small, insufficient to the task of holding everything in, and Justin shuddered again, hoping JC would understand, hoping he wouldn't have to beg. He was nearly there already.
"Look at me," JC said quietly, drawing his fingers out. JC leaned in, bending Justin's leg a little more and sliding his other hand around the back of Justin's neck, holding his gaze as he pushed in, slowly, slowly, but it still hurt, was still bigger than JC's fingers, thicker, enough to pull a small hurt sound out of him. JC stilled, waiting for Justin to adjust, then moved again, insistent pressure with the edge of pain to it, sharpening each spark of pleasure until he wasn't sure which was which anymore. He stopped, finally, deep inside Justin, filling him until Justin could barely breathe, could barely focus on completing each shaky breath.
Justin squirmed a little, gasping at the feeling that brought. He was still a little shuddery, could feel each shiver along the surface of his skin, marvelling at the strange distance of it until he realized it wasn't him at all. JC was trembling, shoulders shaking as he held himself over Justin and, "It's okay, it's okay," Justin said, running a hand down his arm, murmuring it softly over and over until JC moved, pulled back almost all the way and thrust in deep. "Oh, fuck," Justin gasped, throwing his head back as JC did it again, lowered his mouth to Justin's neck and kissed him, taking his skin between his teeth and marking him there, each slow wet scrape against his skin matched by his steady thrusts into Justin's body.
Justin moaned and clutched at JC's back, urging him on, wrapping his legs around JC's waist and arching up to meet him, digging his nails into the back of JC's neck and pushing his hips up, taking JC in as deep as he could go. He was close to coming already and JC had barely touched his cock, hadn't needed to when it felt this good just having JC inside him, moving in him increasingly faster until Justin felt almost raw from it. He'd feel it tomorrow, he wanted to feel it tomorrow, wanted to remember the feel of JC-- oh god, JC taking him like this. "Harder," Justin said.
JC looked at him, then moved back a bit, bending Justin into a harsher angle and then thrusting in hard. Justin moaned, and he did it again, slamming his hips forward with enough force that Justin thought he might have bruises from it tomorrow, and then JC did it again and he knew he would. "Yeah," Justin murmured, and JC leaned in, bracing himself with his hands on either side of Justin, and began thrusting hard and deep, fucking him roughly, just like he wanted. Just like he had always wanted. Each thrust hit right where he needed it, and JC just kept going, pounding into him until he took hold of Justin's cock and stroked him up and down, bringing him off with a few easy flicks of his wrist.
It was all he could do to hold on, gripping JC's arms as JC came inside him, hot and frantic and keeping his eyes on Justin. Justin thought it was worth all those years, and when JC sighed, settling down on top of him, Justin changed that to absolutely, definitely, completely entirely worth it. Hell, something this good was worth even longer, although he was glad they'd done it now. He was glad they'd done it at all. He was glad to be alive.
*cough* Yes, that was my commentary fading to black as the fic did not. How much can you say about porn other than yay! and quick, everyone write me some? I do love writing porn, though. Which I think makes me a minority. Porn! Yay!
"Gonna talk about this in your documentary?" JC asked after awhile. He tried to roll away. Justin didn't let him.
"Documentary, not sex tape, C," Justin said. "But," he said, giving that more consideration, "who says it can't be both?"
Exactly, Justin. Exactly.
"We'll get a whole new audience," JC said. "Or make our current one really happy."
My stories seem so much more meta when I read them later.
"I like the way you think."
"Just think?"
"I like the way you do many things," Justin corrected himself.
"I like where you're going with this. Tell me more."
Justin laughed. "I'll tell you more tomorrow, man. We got all the time in the world."
And we end on banter and a hopeful note. I tend to write stories where people go yay, happy ending! while I'm standing in the corner going yes, until they crash and burn later ahahahahaha! But I think this one could actually be semi-functional, which is nice. I think my favorite ending ever is that of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, because, "Okay." It's realistic. But hopeful. And I think that's all you can ask for, really.