*****

“That’s quite a video you’ve got there, Justin,” JC said pleasantly. “Very dramatic. I really like the fatal fiery car crash at the end, man. Nice touch.”

JC could hear Justin’s teeth grinding on the other end of the phone as he growled, “Fuck off.”

JC ignored him. “You know,” he continued, “this is kind of embarrassing to admit, dude, but I’ve given it some thought, and at the end of the day, if I could pick someone to play me in a video, Scarlett Johanssen might not be my first choice.”

The only answer was sort of an angry sputtering, so JC kept talking. “Scarlett’s hot, though, man, so I guess I can’t really complain. And, you know, other people have to pay their shrinks a lot of money to deal with their issues, but you get to do it on MTV and Jive foots the bill. We should all be so lucky. I think I’m jealous.” He laughed. “No, wait, that’s you, isn’t it?”

“Go to hell, JC,” Justin hissed before he hung up and JC smiled with grim satisfaction. Over-dramatic ass.

*****

A few months earlier

“JC. JC. Hey, JC!” JC glanced over at Justin, who was looking at him with fond exasperation. “You’ve already got about fifty different things going on in this song, JC. We don’t need cowbells, too, man.”

JC shifted on his stool, his hand still poised over the soundboard. He frowned doubtfully at Justin. He liked the cowbells. “I like the cowbells.” He flipped a switch, and the sound of cowbells rang out in the studio again. He started to sing, punctuating every rhythmic clang with a word spit out in feigned fury. “If-you-play-with-fire-then-you’ll-get-burned, when-will-you-learn-” He closed his eyes as he sang, listening to the effect. When he finished the chorus, he opened his eyes to find Justin watching him with that same bemused expression. “See?”

Justin laughed. “Yeah, no, I see, I do, really. But seriously, man, you don’t need it.” Justin sounded so confident, and JC felt kind of warm and fuzzy, thinking about how easily they’d found their working vibe again. “Sometimes less is more, C,” Justin said patiently. JC knew less was more. He just liked cowbells.

JC sighed. “No cow bells?”

Justin shook his head. “No cow bells, C.” He started the playback from the beginning of the song. “But, here, on this part, I think you can sweeten that part up a little bit. Let me show you what I mean, man.”

JC smiled. “Okay. No cowbells.”

Justin grinned at JC with that new confidence that JC had been noticing and that, quite frankly, JC found a bit of a turn on.

As they worked, they talked, catching each other up on what was new in their lives. “So, J, tell me about the new fall line. How does Trace like being a fashion mogul?” JC asked, as Justin pulled up the bass track for Until Yesterday.

JC listened while Justin told him all about William Rast and the fashion biz, counting out the beats of the chorus in his head. “Like when Chris had to fly out to LA to promote the FuMan line that one time,” Justin chuckled, “and he said-”

“'I have no idea how to get the corduroy pants to stop making that noise, man. Maybe it’s the models,’” JC finished for him, and they both laughed.

“Trace couldn’t figure it out, either, dude.” Justin frowned as he added a conga beat and some violins to JC’s song. “Fucking Elisha,” he muttered, which JC guessed was a natural enough segue. Justin brooded a minute in silence, then said, “I’m thinking about making What Goes Around my next single. Jive is pushing for My Love.” He cocked his head at JC. “What do you think?”

What did JC think? He thought Elisha Cuthbert was a bitch, but no one was ever going to believe that What Goes Around was about her and Trace. No matter what Justin said, everyone was going to think it was about Britney. Cry Me a River, Part 2. He twiddled a few knobs on the soundboard, and his own voice came back to him two octaves higher, and with three times the reverb. “I really dig My Love, cat. The falsetto’s in fine shape these days.”

“Yeah,” Justin shrugged. He brought JC’s recorded voice back down to its normal pitch, then he looked sideways at JC and said, “Actresses, man. They’re a whole ‘nother breed.

“You’re not wrong, dude.” JC shook his head. He peered closely at Justin. “Trouble in paradise?” he inquired. Cameron could be a bit psycho on occasion, although Justin didn’t really seem to notice.

“Nah,” Justin said quickly. “Everything’s fine.” He stared at his shoes for a moment. “It’s just-” he paused, then looked directly at JC, smiling right into his face, which was how JC knew he was lying. “It’s nothing. It’s all good, dude.”

JC clapped a hand on Justin’s shoulder. “You know I’m here for you, man, if you need me.” Justin nodded, then poked around at the controls some more. He seemed to be searching for something else to talk about. He brightened and grinned at JC.

“So. Lance.”

JC smiled, trying to ignore how his song sounded with the calliope dance break Justin had just conjured up. “I know, can you believe him?”

“Fucker,” Justin said fondly. “Now I have to answer questions about it in every interview. And I can’t be like Chris and just say duh every time they ask me if I knew he was gay. I have to be all diplomatic about it.” He rolled his eyes.

JC laughed. “Tell me about it.”

Justin grinned, then looked at his shoes again. JC waited, wondering what else Justin had on his mind. He knew from experience that you couldn’t rush Justin when he was trying to tell you something he wasn’t really sure he actually wanted you to know.

When he finally blurted out, “I’ve been with a couple of guys, you know,” JC blinked at him in surprise.

“Excuse me?” It’s not that JC didn’t believe him, because, well, there had been that one guy in Germany, and that other guy in Milwaukee, and then the thing with--but here Justin was, actually saying it out loud. Whoa. They’d never talked about this before.

“C’mon, JC. You knew about that guy in Germany, and that other time in Milwau…” Justin trailed off uncertainly. “Didn’t you?”

JC nodded, his eyes wide. “Um, yes?” Justin looked quickly away. He seemed to find his shoes really interesting today.

“So, I just wanted you to know for sure. And, um, I kind of wondered if maybe you’d ever-” he broke off and peered up at JC, smiling, all blue eyes and white teeth and scruffy neck. He was totally irresistible.

“Well, um, this one time, in London, there was this guy-” Justin’s smile widened and JC found himself smiling back.

They grinned at each other and Justin said, “I was hoping you’d say that.” JC was startled to see how close Justin had gotten, close enough that JC could see right up his nose, and feel his warm breath on his cheek.

Then Justin kissed him, and it wasn’t like JC had never thought about it before, had never imagined what it would be like to kiss Justin. It went pretty much the way he’d pictured it. Justin’s lips were warm and soft, and they moved over JC’s with the same confidence Justin seemed to do everything with these days.

They kissed, and JC could hear his own voice in the background, wailing away about babies and blood types and playing with fire and one night stands.

“God, C, your voice,” Justin moaned as JC ran his hands down his sides, pushing Justin’s shirt out of the way to get at some skin. “I didn’t think it could get any better, but I think it’s improving with age.”

JC didn’t say anything, he just pushed Justin back against the soundboard, licking his neck as they almost lost their footing among all the chairs gathered around the board. Justin whined high in his throat and JC wished they’d been doing this for years. He certainly never would have said no if Justin had asked. Okay, maybe when Justin was eleven he would have said no.

It turned out to be a good thing those chairs were there, at least JC thought so when he was firmly planted in one, his hips lifting helpfully as Justin slid his pants down to his knees. Justin certainly moved fast. Justin smiled at him, his eyes warm, then put all that confidence he’d obviously gained between his last album and his present one to good use by blowing JC until he saw stars.

The words isn’t this a bit sudden, J? were completely muffled when Justin kissed him through an orgasm that threatened to blow off the top of JC’s head.

*****

Justin was strangely hard to find over the next month. Every time JC thought he had him pinned down to a specific location, Trace would tell him helpfully over the phone, “Sorry, C, you just missed him. He was here yesterday, but he had to head to LA/ Memphis/ London/ Outer Mongolia this morning. No, sure, I’ll let him know you called.”

Just when JC was getting ready to park himself in Justin’s kitchen and stay there until Justin showed up, Justin called him. “Hey, JC. What’re you doing next week, man?”

“Um,” JC said. But Justin wasn’t waiting for an answer. It must have been a rhetorical question.

“My show, after the VMAs’. Will you come? We can do your song, dude. It’ll be fun.” There was something about Justin’s voice, but JC couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was. He almost sounded nervous, which was silly. It wasn’t like JC could ever tell Justin no.

“Sure, J. That sounds cool.”

It was weird as hell, walking off the stage in New York, the crowd’s screams in his ears, and leaving Justin still out there, all alone. Well, alone except for his band and his backup singers and Timbaland and TI and Three Six Mafia and Will. I. Am and half the people who had attended the VMAs.

Performing together again was almost as good as having sex in the studio, which for some reason they hadn’t done again. Okay, it was possible that reason was Cameron. Justin was not big on cheating, whether he was the cheater or the cheatee, JC knew that. After Cry Me a River, the whole world knew that. But JC would liked to have done it again. The memory of Justin’s warm, wet mouth had kept him awake any number of nights since that day.

JC had hoped-well, he didn’t know what he hoped, he just knew he was hoping for something to happen in New York. But Cameron was there, and so after the show, JC just hugged Justin, thanked him for the opportunity for some exposure, and after repeatedly telling MTV that Until Yesterday was definitely not autobiographical, decided to drink a lot at the afterparty.

The William Rast show in LA was more of the same, and JC began to think the whole thing with Justin was just a one-time hookup. Lance rolled his eyes when JC confided to him at the afterparty that he thought Justin was avoiding him.

“Justin? Avoiding things that make him uncomfortable? Things that he’s not sure what to do about? Really, JC? You think?”

JC smiled weakly as Reichen strolled up to them, bringing Lance a drink. Lance thought he was so smart, but JC could tell just by looking at Reichen that he was trouble. Nobody could be that good looking, it wasn’t natural.

*****

JC watched Justin host Saturday Night Live, but only because Tyler made him. He was determined to put Justin out of his mind completely, to just focus on Kate and see if he could actually get his CD finished sometime in his mother’s lifetime, as she kept saying with no small amount of exasperation every time he talked to her on the phone. He began avoiding her phone calls, until Tyler threatened to kick his ass if he didn’t talk to her.

JC looked away from the TV as Cameron and Justin hugged at the end of the show. Tyler gave him a sympathetic smile, because, yes, they looked completely happy together, and JC was glad for them, really he was.

He was completely surprised, therefore, when he was fucking around online a few days later and TMZ informed him that Justin and Cam had broken up.

“What the fuck, Lance?” he demanded, when Lance finally answered his phone.

“JC. Are you really going to believe online gossip sites?”

Lance sounded stern and JC swallowed back the “of course I am!” that threatened to spill out of his mouth. Online gossip was a touchy subject for Lance, after all. “Um, no?”

“Well, in this case, you probably should,” Lance allowed. “Things have been a little rocky for a while now. Which you wouldn’t know since J’s been avoiding you,” he added kindly.

“Hmm,” JC mused. He wondered if that meant there was a chance he and Justin could hook up again. “Do you think-”

“I have no idea, JC, and since I’m neither one of y’all’s pimp, don’t even ask me.” JC heard Reichen’s voice in the background. “Gotta go, C. Kiss Justin for me when you see him,” Lance snickered, and hung up.

Stupid Lance.

JC gave it some serious thought, and decided he should try to call Justin again. If he couldn’t reach him, that would pretty much answer his question.

Justin answered his phone on the first ring. “Hey, C. What’s up?”

He sounded perfectly normal, like he hadn’t been avoiding JC for months, like he hadn’t just ended a four-year relationship. JC began to doubt the wisdom of Page Six.

“Hey, J. How’s things, dawg?”

“Cam and I broke up. You want to get together?”

*****

Justin didn’t mean let's get together for dinner and drinks. He meant let’s have sex, which was fine with JC. He found himself spread out on Justin’s bed, naked and begging, before the sun had even gone down.

“You’re really good at this, J,” JC gasped, as Justin licked a slow trail from JC’s right nipple down to the top of his left thigh. Justin grinned up at him, then swiped his tongue up the length of JC’s dick. JC made a noise that sounded a little too much like a squeak at the sensation. ”Where did you learn to do that, dude?”

“I told you, C, there was that guy in Milwaukee,” Justin mumbled around the head of JC’s cock, and the vibration made JC’s eyes roll back in his head. JC knew Justin was a fast learner, but wow, he learned all this from one guy in Milwaukee? He didn’t have the necessary capacity for speech right now to ask, so he just settled back to enjoy the fruits of Justin’s gay sex education.

His power of speech deserted him completely when he slid into Justin and felt tight heat all around him. He rested his forehead on the back of Justin’s neck and just tried to breathe. Justin turned his head, looking back at JC over his shoulder. He said one simple word, and JC closed his eyes, struggling not to come.

“Move.”

JC had heard Justin moan before, mostly on records, but that was nothing compared to the real thing.

“I’m glad we decided to do this, J,” he gasped after a mind-blowing orgasm, as he wrapped himself around Justin, trying to catch his breath. Justin murmured his assent and twined his arm around JC’s neck.

They lay there in lazy silence for a while, and then just as JC felt himself drifting on the cusp of sleep, Justin said softly, “I’m glad I broke up with Cam.”

Later he would blame it on the fact that he was almost asleep, but at the time, the best JC’s fuzzy brain managed to come up with was, “Why’s that, honey?”

Justin snuggled in closer and said, “Um, so now we can be together,” like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Together?” JC echoed stupidly. Really, he wasn’t at his best right after losing half his brain cells, and Justin should know that. Or, he would know that if he hadn’t made himself so unavailable over the past few months that they had only had sex the one time.

Except now, Justin was holding himself still in JC’s arms, and even in his stuporous state, JC knew enough to sense danger. “What?” he said, trying to blink himself awake.

Justin slowly pulled away from him and sat up. “JC, what did you think this was all about?”

“Um, what, you and me?”

“Yes, JC,” Justin said. “You and me.” The words you moron were unspoken but very clear to JC.

“Well, um, J, I thought we were, uh, having fun?” It’s not like he didn’t want it to mean more, he’d been in love with Justin since he was sixteen. Since Justin was sixteen, not since, he, JC had been sixteen. That would just be weird.

It had never occurred to him that Justin might feel the same way.

“Fun?” Justin demanded. “Fun? You call this fun?” That kind of hurt. JC thought it had been enjoyable, at least.

“I thought we were just…” JC looked at Justin helplessly.

“JC, we had sex. We made love that day in the studio. How could you think we were having fun?”

JC stared at Justin in confusion. Did a spur-of-the-moment exchange of blow jobs, brought on by the rush of rediscovering their studio vibe, really mean a lifelong commitment in Justin’s world?

Judging by the expression on Justin’s face, apparently it did. JC really had no problem with that, but he wished he’d known.

“I wish I’d known, J,” he said.

“How could you not know, JC?” Justin asked, blinking at him.

“I wish I’d known that you wanted us to be, you know, together. Exclusive. In love,” he finished quietly, looking down at the rumpled sheets at his feet.

“Why? What do you mean?” Justin narrowed his eyes. “What did you do, JC?” Justin’s voice rose, just a little, but JC felt a sense of foreboding.

“Well, honey, I didn’t know that’s what you wanted.” He looked at Justin pleadingly. “You wouldn’t talk to me, Justin. How was I supposed to know?”

Justin was furious. “JC, I’ve been in love with you since the age of sixteen. Since I was sixteen, not you,” he added hastily. “That would have just been weird.” He looked sadly at JC. How could you not know that?”

“I--you--I mean--what?” This was news to JC. They were obviously going to have to work on their communication skills.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, JC.” Justin jumped out of bed and looked around the room, plucking his underwear off the lampshade. “How many people have you fucked since that day in the studio?”

“None!” JC said indignantly. “Well, okay, a couple,” he admitted. “But Justin, you were with Cameron!”

“I was working on that! Didn’t what happened between us mean anything to you?” Justin yelled as he pulled his pants on.

“You disappeared!” Not for the first time, JC wished he still had long hair, if only so he could pull it out in frustration. “You’re insane, Justin, you know that? Of course it meant something, but I’m not a mind-reader, you know!”

Justin tugged his t-shirt on over his head, marched over to the bedroom door, yanked it open, then looked back at JC.

"Goodbye, JC.” Then he was gone.

JC wondered if Justin would remember that he was in his own house before he stormed out the front door and drove away. He fished around under the bed for his pants, quickly got dressed, then warily peered out into the hallway.

The coast seemed to be clear, so JC made his escape while he still could.

*****

January was a long month, and JC spent it working on his album and tossing promo ideas around with Eric. He resolutely didn’t think about Justin.

And then he saw the video for What Goes Around, and he realized that Justin really and truly had gone off the deep end.

“That’s quite a video Justin’s got there, JC.” Lance’s voice had that amused note in it that made JC want to clock him, except he himself was not the violent type. Not like that psycho, Justin. JC did not want people to die in fiery fatal car crashes. “What did you do to him? Did you really cheat on him?"

“He’s a psycho freak, man,” JC fumed. “I didn’t even know we were together.”

“You should have,” Lance said matter-of-factly. “All the signs were there.”

“What signs? We had sex once! One time, man.”

“That’s what I mean.” Lance sounded like he found this all a little too entertaining. “You know Justin’s all about the deep and profound beauty of sex.”

“You’re as crazy as he is, dude.” JC hung up to the sound of Lance’s laughter in his ear.

“Sorry, C,” Trace told him. “I think he’s rehearsing right now.”

“Where?”

“Well, actually, come to think of it, I think this is the day he’s auditioning dancers for the tour.”

“Where is he, Ayala?” JC demanded.

“Or maybe he’s with Tim. I think I might have seen his name on the schedule today.”

Trace’s poker face wasn’t nearly as good as Lance’s, and JC vowed that someday he’d pay him back for the smirk in his beady little eyes.

JC reminded him that he still had pictures of Trace with his head in a toilet from that time in Milwaukee that he and Justin had gotten totally trashed during the No Stings tour. Trace’s mom had never seen those pictures, and JC thought maybe she’d like to.

Trace thought maybe she wouldn’t so he told JC that Justin was actually on his way to JC’s house right now. “Go home and finish this, JC,” he said. “It’s time to put and end to the crazy.”

Sure enough, Justin’s black BMW was parked in front of JC’s house. JC let himself into his front door, then stood listening intently for anything to indicate where Justin might be. He moved quietly to the stairs, where he heard the sound of water running coming from the master suite.

Justin was in his shower.

JC wondered if things could get any more stalkerish. He purposely didn’t look in the kitchen. If there were any boiled rabbits on his stove, JC didn’t want to know about it. It would be bad enough if he found Justin in the shower sniffing JC’s shampoo.

He crept up the stairs and along the hallway, careful not to make any noise. He didn’t need Justin meeting him at the bedroom door with a pair of scissors, ready to strike. Now wouldn’t that make a fun video?

He tiptoed into his bedroom and slipped out of his clothes. As he approached the bathroom, he thought he heard voices coming through the partly open door. Well, terrific. Justin had company in the shower. That would also make an interesting video, just the kind that Justin seemed partial to.

But it turned out Justin was talking to himself, or rather, murmuring breathily to himself as he jerked off. JC was tempted to just watch, and indeed, Justin made a pretty picture, wet, naked, his head thrown back and his eyes closed, his dick in his hand, slowly stroking himself as he mouthed JC’s name. But the shower door had an intricate pattern cut into the glass, one JC had designed himself, and also, there was a lot of steam. JC couldn’t see as clearly as he would have liked.

He cleared his throat and said, “J?” Then, knowing he sounded like a bad porn video, he added, “Need some help with that?”

Justin’s hand stopped moving and he blinked and lowered his head, meeting JC’s eyes through the etched fleur-de-lis on the shower door.

They stared at one another for a long moment, then Justin jerked his head at JC. “Get in here, C.”

JC only hesitated for a minute. Justin was obviously insane, but he was Justin, and JC could live with that. As long as Justin promised that he wouldn’t someday pursue him down the streets of LA and cause him to die in a fiery fatal car crash.

Justin promised, and then kissed him to seal the deal.

*****

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