Oh when you need a friend
I'm sailing right behind
Like a bridge over troubled waters
I will ease your mind                                                                                          - Bridge Over Troubled Water,
                                                                                           Simon and Garfunkel.

There was a period of about a year, starting in the August they formed as a group and continuing until they were well on their way in Germany, when Justin couldn’t stop looking at Chris’s dick. And he wasn’t really looking at his dick, per se, just. Chris was so fucking hairy, and Justin was morbidly fascinated by it. His balls were matted with black, curly hair, and his dick looked small in the forest of pubes, and how could Justin seriously look at anything else when Chris didn’t have pants on?

And Chris didn’t have pants on a lot.

“Are you staring at my dick?” Chris asked, the first time they were all changing in the warehouse, stuffed into a back corner. There were cocks everywhere, yet Justin barely even noticed the others, despite the fact that JC was always achingly hard, or that Joey liked coming up behind unwitting people as they sat and bopping them on the head with his, or that Jason treated his like it was a minor god. Chris was furry like an animal; it freaked Justin out so bad. “You’re staring at my dick.”

“I am not,” Justin said. It would have helped if he’d stopped looking. He didn’t.

“Dude, you so are. Cut it out,” Chris said and ruffled Justin’s curls. Justin tried not to look again after that, but he did. He couldn’t help it, but he tried not to do it too obviously. It wasn’t like he was looking for perverted reasons, or anything. It was just. Chris was so hairy, and his balls. It was insane, how much of it there was. All over, too. Like, under his armpits, and his knuckles, and just. Justin found it hard to look at anything else.

“Dude. Dick-staring again,” Chris said one night, maybe six months in. He slapped Justin on the bare ass as he passed, scrubbing a towel between his legs before bending down and hooking his boxers around his ankles. God, Justin thought, staring, even his ass was hairy. “Okay, man. Is there something you want to say to me?”

“No,” Justin said quickly. “No, I.” He shook his head. There was no good way for Justin to tell Chris he was a hirsute freak, from his bushy nuts to the sprouts of growth all over his face. Even the hair on his head was too much: thick, and dark, and overgrown, like a jungle. “It’s nothing.” Justin really tried to stop after that.

It was all the hair that almost swallowed Chris’s dick. They made fun of him for being small, pencil dick Joey called him, but Justin really didn’t think he was. It was just all the shaggy overgrowth. If he shaved, he’d probably look huge. Plus, he had foreskin, which was just cool. Chris’s cock had so much going for it, but the hair. It was just out of control.

Eventually, Justin mostly desensitised himself to Chris’s overabundance of fur, but it pretty much defined their relationship after that. Justin learned to ignore Chris’s inherent, genetic strangeness so well that somehow, despite it all, Chris became normal, and it was the rest of the world who turned into the freaks. And somehow, Justin did, too.

~~~

In Los Angeles, Justin was being heralded as the second coming of Michael Jackson. If nothing else, it was good free publicity, but it also felt really awesome. Like he could do anything. Like he could move mountains with the sheer power of his mind. The only sad part was that when he turned around to tell JC, since he loved stupid jokes like that, JC wasn’t there, none of them were there. They never were, and Justin was, despite himself, slowing accustoming himself to that knowledge, sort of, in a way that still really hurt.

Due to his situation, Justin was prone to moments of extreme fan-boyishness, but he did it all privately. Because the Neptunes! Timbaland! Brian! Justin spent a lot of time squealing into his pillow, trying desperately to remember who he was, where he came from and who was waiting for him back home. But it was so easy to give into the allure and temptation of LA. People wanted him, and Justin loved to be wanted.

Plus, they always put him into VIP at clubs. He was used to this in Orlando, but in Los Angeles, to Justin, that kind of attention meant he made it. Not to be egotistical or anything, but Orlando was a far cry from LA, which made or broke people. In VIP, he got his pick of the ladies, drank the most expensive alcohol, mingled with the best and the brightest entertainment had to offer.

And VIP wasn’t smoky, really, since cigarettes were so passe. Maybe people did coke in the dark corners, and maybe some of the lovely women were hookers, but Justin wasn’t dumb. He didn’t sleep with anybody, hadn’t since Britney and hadn’t before her, and he would never, ever do cocaine or risk Chris’s wrath. And Chris seemed to know everyone. Not, like, famous people, no way, but the doormen, and the bartenders, and the girl who gave Justin hand cream whenever he went to the bathroom. Justin had been tempted once or twice, wanted to feel stronger than he did, but it wasn’t worth it. At least, that’s what he told himself. Mostly, he was terrified of Chris.

All in all, Justin liked LA and LA liked him. Pretty good deal, except he was lonely, despite his posse, as Joey called them, and he missed the guys an awful lot. He didn’t call too often, or he’d want to go home too badly, but it was fine. This was what it meant to be a man, Justin kept telling himself. This was Justin Timberlake growing up. It had to happen eventually.

~~~

Justin got wind of Joey on Rent before Joey even told him, and he dialled Joey’s cell immediately, ready to squeal delightedly for him. It was so awesome, him being on Broadway, it was all Joey had ever really wanted, after the Nsync thing. The Nsync thing, of course, was seriously happening, so though it was still important, task number two in each of their own lives was now permissible.

So Joey got to do Rent, and Justin got to do his solo album. And of course, Lance in Space, which nobody had ever thought would happen, even when Lance called them all up one by one and told them. Justin hung up on him seven times, thinking he was drunk, and there was nothing worse than a drunk Lance on the phone, but he meant it, and once Justin believed it, he was thrilled to pieces. Justin still didn’t know what JC and Chris’s second task in life was, except that FuMan wasn’t Chris’s and JC didn’t probably didn’t know himself yet.

Joey’s cell was busy when Justin called, so Justin kept trying for another half an hour before throwing it away in disgust. The minute it hit the mattress, it started vibrating across the sheets, and Justin picked it up. “Speak to me.”

“J! I’m going to Broadway, dude!” Joey shouted. There was a swarm of noise in the background, and Joey sounded a bit drunk, wobbly and happy. “I’ve been trying to call you for half an hour, dude! And who the fuck cares? I’m going to Broadway! I’m gonna be a star, darling! Broadway, New York!”

“I heard! That’s awesome, man!” Justin shouted back. They yelled excitedly at each other for a few minutes before Justin heard a girl saying, “Joey, Joey,” and assumed – and really, really hoped – it was Kelly. There was too much noise to tell for sure, and besides, Justin told himself, an open relationship. He wouldn’t judge Joey, ever. Justin didn’t think he could do it, though. “Go, man! I’ll talk to you later!”

“Thanks, J! Love ya, babe!” Only Joey could say shit like that and still sound straight.

Justin pressed end and stared at it. Suddenly, his stomach kind of hurt, and he didn’t know why.

~~~

Trying to find JC was a big group problem. Even Melinda didn’t know where he was half the time, and she’d asked Justin to stop calling on more than one occasion because she just didn’t know. Justin wanted to snap, “it’s your fucking job,” but he didn’t. He liked her enough to spare her his wrath when he was really upset. Justin usually spared everyone, except a few bitchy fans. Despite popular opinion, he was not a piece of meat and didn’t need to be treated like one.

Trying to find Chris was a bit easier, even though he was shit about returning phone calls. He did, of course, but at dumb times when everyone had their phones off, like four in the morning. Justin would wake up to long messages from Chris, about the glory of deciduous trees or a detailed list of everything he’d had to drink the night before. Once, when he was really drunk, he left Justin a message that was mostly just him and a girl, panting and moaning and the girl whimpering, “fuck me, fuck me.” Chris had apologised for that one. Justin had felt intensely close to him after it but claimed it was gross.

Justin phoned all the numbers he had for JC, then JC’s parents, then Tyler, then Heather. None of them had seen him, though Karen seemed to think he was still in England, had been for two weeks, and Heather said he was in Alaska, looking for polar bears. It was metaphorical, she assured him. “No, man, he was sleeping on my couch last week,” Tyler said, eating something crunchy. “He went to Nova Scotia, or somewhere the fuck in Canada. I don’t know.”

“Can you ask him to call me, if you hear from him?” Justin asked.

“Sure. Whatever. I probably won’t, though. He knows he owes me twenty bucks,” Tyler said dismissively, and Justin grunted a goodbye. He liked Tyler, he did, but he wasn’t nearly as good-natured as JC and Justin didn’t think Tyler liked him very much.

And Chris hadn’t returned any messages. Justin had even left his phone on and been woken up by his mama at an ungodly hour after a night of hard partying. She’d knew he was hungover, too, and told him to stop drinking so much. She always told him to stop drinking so much, when he really didn’t drink all that much to start with.

Lying in bed, scratching a hand over his naked belly then down to his balls and his inner thighs, he checked his voice-mail. Nothing new, he discovered sadly and rolled onto his belly. He felt sort of sick and miserable, and as much as he loved LA, he kind of wanted to go back to Orlando, just a little bit. Just a lot.

~~~

Lance liked to email porn, and Justin didn’t mind. He paid a lot monthly for a large inbox, and Lance had pretty good taste, so it wasn’t like Justin was being put out by his friendly gesture. Lance was a lapsed bisexual, or so Joey had assured them. Currently, Lance said he was straight and demanded they left it at that. It wasn’t true – Lance had just gotten fucked over by his last boyfriend – but Lance was a sequential bisexual, anyway. He was merely in a woman-phase and really did have excellent taste in porn.

Also, Lance wrote like an intelligent person via email, so it was almost like talking on the phone. They didn’t really talk since their schedules never overlapped, and Justin figured it was just as well. It was easy to make his life sound great and keep the desperation out of email. Mostly, he just complimented Lance on his taste in women and asked for more brunettes.

~~~

Another night, another club. Nelly was around, Justin knew, and they’d talked a bit, but Nelly was after the girl in the gold halter-top, and Justin had never been one to stand in the way of a little recreational fucking. Well, maybe once, Justin admitted, but they were a long way from Germany, and after Chris smacked him over the head and called him a self-righteous little brat, he let bygones be bygones. Everyone seemed to recreational-fuck but him. Justin just wasn’t one for being touched by strangers was all.

He scampered out of VIP and headed to the regular bar. Girls rubbed over him as he snaked through the crowd, and he smiled at them, but they seriously needed to learn about personal space. At least no one went for the jewels. They usually did. They always did.

Justin stayed at the end of the bar and tried to wave down the bartender, who was too distracted by all the cleavage to pay him much mind. Eventually, he slapped down a fifty and hoped someone would notice. The bartender put down a drink and said, “from the brunette. Says you’re cute as a button.”

“Wait,” Justin said but the guy was already gone. Justin sniffed at the drink. It smelled all right, vodka and 7-Up, he figured, but who knew if it was legit? It was probably laced with some date rape drug. He pushed it away and waved his fifty through air. “Hey!”

“What?” The bartender shouted back, pouring shots for two chicks who were currently making out. Justin would have to tell JC. He really loved lesbians, even the fake ones who only did it for free booze. It was one of the few things in life JC was willing to spend money on.

“What brunette?” Justin yelled. There were, like, six within groping distance. Justin was bitterly regretting leaving VIP. And, maybe, if the brunette was hot enough, he’d consider making out with her upstairs or something, maybe touch her boobs. That was about as far as he ever got with groupies, and even then, he always felt dirty afterwards. They weren’t allowed to touch him, though. That was his rule, and they generally followed it.

“The one in the black shirt!” The bartender pointed, but someone shoved Justin from behind, and he banged his head on the wall. He turned around to glare, but it wasn’t worth it. From the look on the girl’s face, she’d meant to do it. Justin turned around and squinted then looked at the bartender, who pointed again. “There!”

Justin scanned the opposite side of the counter, a sea of blondes and redheads and. “Chris?” Justin squinted again then popped his middle finger. “Chris!” Chris lifted an arm and waved, a huge grin plastered on his face. Justin looked up to VIP then back to Chris, who nodded. Justin swallowed the drink down in one gulp.

He wove through the crowd then jumped up the stairs, two at a time. Chris was already there, and Justin took a running leap into him, wrapping his legs around Chris’s waist and trusting Chris to hold him. He did, for a brief but beautiful second, then let go, and they tumbled to the ground. Justin felt like a big excited puppy.

“You asshole. I’ve been callin’,” Justin said and pinched Chris’s nipples through his shirt.

Chris scrubbed his fingertips over Justin’s burgeoning curls. “Yeah, I was busy, you know, sitting on my ass. Decided to stop being busy and reattach the cord. Lemme up, will you?” Chris pushed at Justin’s shoulders, and they stumbled to a stand. Chris’s arm immediately slid over Justin’s shoulders, and Justin tugged on his beard horns. “You all right, J?”

“Yep,” Justin said. “Thanks for the drink.”

“I saw you sniffing at it, man. Good boy.” Chris slapped Justin’s ass, hard enough that it stung through Justin’s jeans. “We done raised you well.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Justin said, laughing. He wanted to latch onto Chris and hug him with all his might, but they’d already made a scene, and Justin had certain things to project. He didn’t like to overanalyse shit, but sometimes, people got the wrong idea about them. About Nsync. “Hey! What the fuck?” Justin said suddenly. Chris’s fingers were on his face, his thumbs tugging at the skin below Justin’s eyes. “Fuck, man.” Justin pulled his head back and blinked rapidly.

“Just making sure, you know,” Chris said, squeezing the back of Justin’s neck.

Justin nodded. It was really good to see him, anyway.

~~~

Justin’s apartment was pretty big. Extreme, his mama said, but Justin had the money, and he had to compete. He thought about buying a house, but that seemed a little over the top, even to him. He was only going to be there long enough to finish up the album.

Justin appreciated Chris didn’t even try to play the hotel game. Chris knew he was going to stay with Justin, and Justin knew Chris knew that. So Justin fixed up the bed in the guestroom, and that was it. He had a guest for as long as Chris decided to stay, and Chris was welcome to stay forever, if he wanted. Besides, Justin barely even noticed he was there.

It was nice, having someone around, even if Chris used his computer and hooted when he found all of Lance’s porn. Chris had at least twenty pictures open, eyes wide and gleeful as he looked at each and every one of them, and Justin begged him to close the program and not look.

“Come on, Chris,” Justin said. Chris had one hand on the mouse and the other firmly planted on Justin’s hip, his arm around Justin’s waist. Justin thought about going limp and hoping Chris dropped him, but he didn’t want to put that much weight on the chair and break it. Wriggling to freedom seemed impossible. “Chris, come on, man. Don’t look at that, all right?”

“Fucking calm down, J. Christ, man, you’re such a freak,” Chris said and closed Photoshop then dropped Justin on the floor. Justin landed hard and simmered for a second, irrationally angry. “Besides, I recognise Lance’s handy work. I get the big-titted blondes, and you get the bushy brunettes. Dude remembers what we like. What a swell guy, that Lance.”

“You’re such a jerk,” Justin muttered, but he didn’t stay mad for long. He never did, with Chris.

So it wasn’t too bad, except Justin’s porn folder doubled and Chris spent his days on the couch, watching movies and eating. Sometimes, Justin would leave in the morning and come back after midnight to find Chris still there, mouth open and snoring loudly. Those times, Justin would get a blanket and tuck him in, making sure the blankets were right up to Chris’s chin, just like Chris liked them. He slept fitfully, otherwise.

~~~

Justin spent one of his lunch breaks trying to track down JC again, but his mom still hadn’t seem hin, Tyler said JC phoned once asking for some of his clothes but Tyler couldn’t remember where he sent them, and Heather said he was still in Alaska with the polar bears. Justin left some messages with Joey but didn’t hold out hope; he phoned Lance too, just on the principle of the thing and didn’t want Lance to feel left out. He even phoned Chris, who took ten rings to pick up. He sounded breathless.

“What are you doing?” Justin asked.

“Nothing,” Chris said. In the background, it was quiet, eerily so. Justin sincerely hoped Chris hadn’t brought some girl back to have sex with in his apartment. He listened, but other than Chris’s light panting, he couldn’t hear anything. “You want something? You’re interrupting me and nothing.”

“Where’s JC?”

“New York, with Joey, playing nanny. Why?”

“No reason.” Justin paused. “You sure?”

“Plenty sure. I saw him off myself, when I came to LA.” Chris sounded like he was trying to figure Justin out, and Justin was trying to assess the same thing. Chris was doing something. Justin wasn’t sure how badly he wanted to know, but he seriously didn’t want Chris having sex with some random girl in his apartment. “Hey, you need something else?”

“What are you doing?” Justin asked abruptly.

“I was jerking off when you called. Still am,” Chris added, “listen,” and there it was, Justin thought in sudden horror, the slap of slick flesh. Justin dropped his cell phone then ignored the inquisitive look of Timbaland and his buddies. When the phone was back at Justin’s ear, Chris said accusingly, “you dropped me, man!”

“You,” Justin lowered his voice, “are you sure it’s just you there?”

Chris chuckled. “Yep. Just me and all your bushy brunettes –”

Justin hung up on him.

~~~

The first thing Justin did after tucking Chris in that night was erase all the porn Lance had sent, and all of Chris’s stuff too. Not before looking at it, though. And there were boys, too. Of course, Justin thought, and rubbed his temples. It wasn’t like he didn’t know, but it was Justin’s firm belief if they didn’t talk about it, it didn’t exist. It was enough trouble that Lance shamelessly hooked up with guys and girls. They were watched so closely. It was so fucking dangerous.

~~~

“So you guys are pretty close,” some guy asked. He’d come in with P Diddy. He had impressive ice around his neck, big and gold and diamond-encrusted, and Justin knew he should know the guy’s name, but he couldn’t remember. So he just shrugged. “That guy.”

“Chris?” Justin asked, looking over where Chris was talking to P Diddy, waving his hands wildly. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt and black leather pants. They’d fought over Chris’s choice of clothing before Chris poked him hard in the nipple and called him an “ignorant little fuck.” Which hurt, because Justin wasn’t ignorant. “What about him?”

“A bit faggy, isn’t he?”

“Chris?” Justin said incredulously. Sure, Chris didn’t mind dick, but still, Chris was the picture of heterosexuality, otherwise. He owned a Harley and really liked women with really huge boobs. He swore, and farted, and was way beyond hairy, and Justin seriously couldn’t believe it. “That’s a friend of mine, man. If you’re –”

“No way, man. I’m just saying, about how things look and how you might want to be careful,” the guy said and held up his hands, like he was planning on surrendering. Justin glared at him until he walked away, just some nameless starfucker, some desperate hanger-on. And he was an ignorant asshole, who was too close-minded to realise that friends, even male ones, didn’t have to be gay to hug or whatever. What the fuck did he know anyway.

“Hey, baby. Brought you a drink,” Chris said, coming up behind Justin and holding out a glass. Justin took it, sniffed it then gulped it down. His eyes watered as the burn snaked down his throat. Chris’s hand settled low on his back, his thumb hooked into the back of Justin’s pants.

It took all the strength Justin had not to step away from him.

~~~

JC called, finally, a little after one on a Tuesday night. Justin was just coming in the door, his eardrums still thumping in his head. He’d been listening to same thirty seconds of vocals all evening as Timbaland tweaked the bass until it was perfect. Justin thought his head was going to explode. He darted for the phone, knocking over the end table and startling Chris awake.

“Yeah?” Justin said, panting.

“Hey, J,” JC said. “You’ve been looking for me, man. Tyler says you’re nuts.”

“Well, he’s an uninformed moron, so we’re even,” Justin replied. He didn’t appreciate JC’s brother making fun of him behind his back, especially to JC, who knew things about Justin most people should never know about each other. “You’re in New York?”

“Yep. Staying with Joey, taking care of Brianna, man.”

JC sounded like he was eating, his words muffled and squishy, and Justin’s stomach grumbled. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast and then it was only a banana and a coffee. Justin looked up as Chris stumbled into the washroom, then Justin went to sit down on the couch, fitting himself into the warm imprint Chris had left behind.

“Chris get there all right?”

Justin watched Chris walk from the bathroom to the kitchen, then nodded. “Yeah.”

“Okay, good. Maybe I could talk to him?”

Justin put his hand over the receiver. “Chris! Get the phone! It’s C!” Justin removed his hand. “Well, I’m glad you’re okay and, like, found. Stop disappearing, all right? It freaks me out, seriously.” There was a click as Chris picked up in the kitchen. “Talk to you later, Jayce. Be good.”

“You too, man.”

Justin turned the phone off and put it down on the coffee table, closing his eyes. His stomach was clenching uncomfortably, empty and hollow, but he was exhausted, too. Justin dozed lightly as Chris moved around in the kitchen, murmuring inaudibly as he banged around.

“Here,” Chris said, dropping a plate on Justin’s stomach, and Justin shocked awake like someone had just thrown ice water on his face, but it was only a cheese whiz and peanut butter sandwich, lettuce sticking out from under the brown bread. “You need food, man. I’ll go shopping tomorrow, because I never want to make you one of those nasty-ass things again.”

“s’fine, until you showed up,” Justin muttered, biting into the sandwich. It was good.

~~~

It took Justin a few days to realise people were laughing at Chris and not in the good way. Sure, some of them, like Angie Stone, bless her heart, seemed to really like him, since he entertained her when Justin was running behind with record company meetings and couldn’t get to their studio date on time. But others, like Nelly and his group, didn’t seem to care for him very much. And Justin couldn’t ask them about it, because it wasn’t the type of things guys asked other guys, not unless they were really twelve-year-old girls. Once, Justin would have, but time away from the guys had helped him sort out the way men really acted around each other.

But he heard people, studio people, say things, about Chris, about the way he looked and acted, and some nameless moron even called him “white trash” which made Justin boil inside. No one was allowed to say shit about Chris. Chris’s beginnings were humble and poor, and maybe, he wasn’t quite as socially adept as JC or Lance or even Joey were, but Chris was a good, funny, nice man. Justin fired the idiot who said that, citing creative differences, when the man was just an unthinking asshole, plain and simple.

Justin was being forced to pick sides, which he hated. Sometimes, when they argued in-group about songs on records and other Nsync-related things, they fractioned off and sided against each other, usually someone acting as the tiebreaker. They all hated doing it, though, and mostly, they agreed on just about everything. But Justin really detested having to pick one friend over another, especially since Chris came first, always and without fail.

~~~

Somewhere along the line, Justin took on too many collaborators for his solo album. They were all great people, unbelievably talented with credentials out the door, but there were too many of them. JC was supposed to produce a track or two, but he got pushed out by the Neptunes and didn’t complain at all. If he’d just said something, Justin would have put in his solo-artist veto and knocked everyone but JC out of the running, but the record company had certain expectations, and JC liked to be treated like crap, since that’s what he believed about himself, too. It made Justin so sad that he cried a few times out of frustration, sitting in the bathroom and knowing people were waiting for him. JC maybe wasn’t the greatest producer to ever live, but he, at least, knew Justin and what Justin liked.

But Justin, pettily, didn’t want to give up anybody who was helping him. It was pathetic, he knew, but he just wanted to make a better album than Nick Carter. They didn’t really compete anymore, but Justin, childishly, just wanted to be more successful. He hadn’t told anybody this, not even Chris, but it was always lurking in his head. It was the same as them, the group, wanting to do better than Backstreet and never talking about it. It was just a part of recording, for them.

So Justin was a jerk, and he accepted this, because he hadn’t stood up for JC when he should have, even if JC didn’t want him to make a big deal, and because he wanted to leave Nick Carter in the dust, even though that whole rivalry was so over and done with. And also: he was a huge jerk because every time someone said something about Chris, a little niggling part of Justin felt the same way, and that was the worst feeling of all. Because it was Chris. It was Chris. And Justin never really stood up for him, either.

~~~

Lance sent another email with more porn. Justin almost didn’t want to look at it, but he knew Chris was out, and it was a gift, really, in Lance’s strange little world. Justin opened the email, scanning over it quickly. Lance talked about his life as a burgeoning astronaut, all the freaky testing stuff he had to do, how he was sleeping with one of the female lab assistants. It all sounded really fun, except for the extracurricular sex. Justin wrote a quick note back, asking about when they were going to send him into the forest and telling him to be careful about the lab assistant. Lance always was, but it still made Justin nervous.

The pictures attached were nice. Nice girls, with average boobs and a bit furry between their legs. And no brightly painted, inch-long fingernails, because that freaked Justin the fuck out. But nice girls, touching themselves, either between their long legs or cupping their breasts. Justin tried to remember how that felt, but it was hard. He licked at his lips, imagining the sweet taste, but even that was faded. Britney seemed like a memory these days, and not even a vivid one. One that happened to someone else. It’d only been six months. Justin felt gypped.

~~~

“So, just to catch you up, JC and I totally mind-fucked each other in Orlando, which is why he’s with Joey and I’m here,” Chris said over dinner. Justin had demanded time off, since his head was killing him. Plus, he’d overheard someone call Chris his groupie, the resounding laughter settling heavily in Justin’s belly. He’d just wanted to come home to eat and had brought Wendy’s with him. “And it’s not especially good, but you know, what did you guys expect?”

Justin closed his eyes. He didn’t want to hear this. He just wanted to eat and go to bed.

“I mean, we’re fine now, but it got a bit ugly for a moment there. Also, we slept together, which was not a good idea,” Chris said. “Pass the ketchup, will you?” Justin groped for it blindly then held it out. “Thanks. And really, J. It’s nothing. Bad judgement, on both of our accounts. We’re okay. I promise.”

“Whatever,” Justin said. “I don’t care.”

“Hey,” Chris said and smacked Justin on the cheek. Justin opened his eyes, his skin smarting, but refused to put his hand up to his face. “It was a mistake. We were both messed up, and we did something stupid, and we’re fixing it. Okay?”

Justin nodded. “Okay. Just shut up about it.”

“You’re been in a bad mood since I got here, J.” Chris looked up from his burger. There was meat in his teeth, but Justin decided to look at that instead of his eyes, which would know everything if Justin made the mistake of facing him eye-to-eye. “You want me to leave?”

“No!” Justin shouted it and didn’t mean to, and Chris jumped back. “Sorry.”

“You’ve been away from the womb too long. Tell me what’s bothering you,” Chris said, pointing with a french fry, and Justin shrugged helplessly, licking mustard off his fingers. It was no use trying to explain to Chris. He would just say something about not being such a baby and ignoring people who spouted shit they didn’t understand. “Hey, J. Seriously.”

“They called you my groupie,” Justin muttered. It wasn’t the biggest concern in his head, but it was the freshest. Justin hazarded a glance at Chris’s face, and the smile was all over him, stretched across his mouth, twinkling in his eyes. “Shit, man. It’s not funny.”

“Look at me, J,” Chris said. Justin already was, so he just nodded. Chris was still smiling, but it seemed tighter, like he was forcing it. “When they say shit like that, they’re not bad-mouthing you. They’re making fun of me, and I’m used to it, all right?”

Justin didn’t want to nod. He didn’t want to make it seem like he condoned it.

“I don’t have groupies,” is what Justin said instead of nodding quietly.

“You’re ignoring an untapped market, J. Think, all the loveliest ladies, in your bed. Tits of all sizes, a sea of naked flesh. You’d have the best groupies, man,” Chris said wistfully, and Justin shrugged, ignoring the urge to shudder. He didn’t want groupies. He didn’t want strangers touching him. “Better than me, probably.”

“You’d have a better chance,” Justin said before he could stop himself. “I mean.”

Chris smirked. “You want my sexy body, Timberlake?”

“No! No,” Justin assured him. “No way. And didn’t you and C just.”

“I’m just messing with you,” Chris said and ruffled Justin’s hair as he stood up. “I know what you meant. Relax.”

“I am,” Justin said and Chris smirked again. “I am!”

“I know,” Chris said again. “Don’t worry about it. You’re too tense, man.” He put his hand on Justin’s head, right on top of the curls, and when Justin looked up, Chris kissed him on his furrowed brow. “Just calm down and enjoy this, J. Chances like these, they don’t come around all the time.”

Justin nodded, even if he wasn’t entirely sure of what Chris was talking about.

~~~

Chris came with Justin to some photoshoot the record company wanted, on some beach in Northern California. Private, they assured him, a very private beach, and the only people who knew about it were a few higher-ups and the photographer’s crew, the photographer and, of course, Chris. They drove up, leaving very early in the morning. Chris sat in the passenger seat and napped. Justin looked for the ocean.

He had to get gas, about halfway, and shook Chris until he woke up. Chris got out of the car without a word and filled up the car as Justin hunched low in his seat, begging not to be recognised. He played with his aviators and kept his other hand in front of his mouth. Chris could walk around, invisible. Justin envied him so much.

“Snickers,” Chris said when he plopped back down and tossed a chocolate bar at Justin’s lap. He had a Twix for himself; it was the first thing Chris had eaten all day. There were times when Justin seriously wondered how Chris was only a hundred and ninety pounds, and still alive. “We almost there, J?”

“Almost,” Justin said.

Chris stayed awake and talked out loud, mostly to himself, though Justin was still listening. Justin liked to keep his focus on the road, on the pavement before him and the people behind him, and Chris knew that, so he spoke quietly, constantly.

They arrived at the beach around noon. The photographer rushed over and introduced himself, ignoring Chris completely, which was the first strike against him. The second strike came when he explained the photoshoot and had his wardrobe woman lead Justin to a tent, where a pile of jeans and wifebeaters were spread on a table. Boring, Justin thought, crossing his arms in front of his chest, always so fucking boring.

It was chilly outside, too. The wind rolled in from the ocean, and the plan, as it stood, was to get as many pictures of Justin as possible, wearing the least amount of clothing as possible. The wifebeater was mainly for show, in case he put up a fuss, but if they wanted bare flesh, he would give them bare flesh. Just so long as no one tried to touch him. That’s not what he told them.

“I’ll do it myself.”

“But the makeup artist,” the photographer, whatever his name was, said. “The wardrobe woman.”

“I’ll do it myself,” Justin repeated, stubbornly. There would be articles, later, about what a diva he was, throwing fits and demanding too much, but he didn’t care. The photographer looked at him before nodding curtly, and Justin bowed his head in thanks then disappeared into the tent. Chris was sitting on the folding chair, eyebrow crooked. Justin ignored him and changed into the first pair of jeans he grabbed, leaving his underwear off like he’d been directed. They would try to get the pants as low as possible, he knew. That was different. Usually, he kept his shorts on. He didn’t know how he felt about it, just that he didn’t feel like fighting.

“Sit,” Chris said when Justin started picking at his hair. He guided Justin into the chair with two hands on Justin’s shoulders, and Justin went without a fight. The curls were at the unnatural stage. Not long enough to really need control, too long to be left alone. Justin really hated them, but he felt so naked when they were gone.

Justin tucked his chin to his chest as Chris misted water over his head then braced when Chris started working the gel through the curls with his fingers. Justin picked at a loose thread and concentrated on feeling sexy and powerful and everything the promo pictures needed him to be. Justin Timberlake, solo artist. It felt too raw. In the beginning, Justin had really liked that, but now. It still didn’t feel right. He really wished they’d let him put on underwear. He felt bare.

~~~

Justin drank by himself after Chris went to bed, emptying the fridge in the hotel room. They were staying in a suite, a nice one that cost so much a night that Justin ended up lying to Chris and paying for ninety-percent of the price himself. The booze was good, anyway. Justin still hadn’t put on underwear. He’d kept the jeans.

So Chris slept with JC. Justin was less surprised than he was troubled by it. Nobody told him shit about intragroup mingling, but he suspected it had happened between more than just Chris and JC. He’d never asked, and Justin could dance with denial better than he could beatbox, but he knew, on some level, that things went on that he wasn’t told about. They thought he was a prude, which they’d never said either, but he had a thing, about touching, that probably made it seem like he was. He liked sex, he did, mostly. Nobody in the group had ever tried to sleep with him. Too many others had.

Justin did tequila shots until his chest was burning then he moved onto the vodka. He wasn’t feeling it yet, but he hadn’t moved from the ground. Hopefully, he’d be so hammered that he’d just fall asleep and stay out for the next day. But not so hammered that he, like, died. That would suck. His mama would never forgive him.

Justin filled half a glass with vodka then topped it off with orange juice, stirring it with his pinky. The really pathetic thing, he thought, was that he didn’t really jerk off, either. He didn’t have sex, and he didn’t jerk off. It’d been a month, at least, since he’d touched his dick to do anything but wash and piss. Before that, it’d been weeks. He was twenty-one. It didn’t seem right. Chris still whacked off all the time. And had sex. A lot of sex, with a lot of people. Maybe, Justin thought slowly, he just needed practice.

Shakily, Justin stood up and sloshed his drink around, licking at his wrist when it dripped down it before downing the rest of the glass. He crouched down again, just to grab the half empty vodka bottle, then drank the rest of it, too. He burped and felt a bit queasy, but that would pass soon enough. Slowly, he stumbled into his bedroom and looked for his tan suede pants.

Shucking off his jeans then kneeling naked on the floor, he pulled out every pair before finding the right ones. He looked through his underwear, hooking his pinky around the white thong he only owned because JC said the pants were too tight for anything but that or a bare ass. Justin had enough of that for today, thanks very much.

He unfolded his legs then dragged the underwear on, spending a good five minutes tucking everything in before inching the pants up the same path. They were so tight he had to lie back and suck in as he laced up the front. The room spun around in spirals. When Justin sat up, it didn’t stop. He forced himself to his feet.

Justin tugged on a white vee-neck shirt then spent a long time trying to fasten a string of beads around his neck. He had to sit his ass on the edge of the desk to stay standing. When he tried to walk, his legs felt like jelly, squishy and. Well, just squishy, really. Justin stopped at the fridge for another drink, tripping a bit on his own feet and setting down heavily.

“What are you doing?” Chris asked from the doorway to his room, rubbing his eyes with one hand, holding his glasses with the other.

“Going out,” Justin said grimly. The fridge was pretty empty. Someone had drank all his alcohol. He shut the door angrily and pushed to his feet again, keeping his hands on the ground until his legs were totally straight then unfolding slowly. The room jumped around, and he wobbled unsteadily. Chris’s arms came around his waist.

“Whoa, J. You’re not going anywhere.”

Justin pushed at his hands, but Chris was really strong, so he just slapped at them a bit until Chris let go and pushed him onto the couch. Justin sprawled for a moment to catch his breath, and then he was going to try again, really. Just as soon as he caught his breath, he was going to go out and have sex and that would be the end of it.

“Dude, did you drink the entire fridge?” Chris asked, collecting all the little bottles. Justin stared at them; there were so many. A million little bottles. Justin smiled. They were Chris-sized bottles. He was a little guy, too. So cute and little, like a pixie or fairy or something. “Okay, you just said that out loud. You’re seriously not going out now, J.”

“m’fine,” Justin murmured, flopping an arm around. His pants felt very soft under his fingers, and he rubbed over his legs, letting the suede tickle his skin. Britney used to touch his thighs. He missed her but just not enough. Just like the guys. Not enough to stop what he was doing to them, what people were doing to him. He could have stopped them, everyone, who singled him out, flattered him and insulted the others, but he didn’t, he didn’t. He’d liked it, the idea of just him. He’d liked it a lot, and they’d been so nice to him.

“I’m sorry,” Justin whispered and closed his eyes. Tears prickled along the seams. When Chris tried to hoist him off the couch, Justin latched on and folded Chris into his arms. Chris was heavy and solid, breathing calmly against Justin’s neck. Justin hummed into Chris’s hair, tightening his grip when Chris tried to pull back.

“Nobody blames you,” Chris said quietly.

“I do,” Justin said. “I blame me. I deserve this.”

“What, J?”

“This,” Justin waved his hand around limply before dropping it back on Chris’s back, where the skin was warm from sleep. “This. badness. This. I am not very happy,” Justin said simply, pursing his lips together. There it was, he supposed, he just wasn’t very happy. He had everything in the world, more than all of his friends, more than even fucking Michael Jackson had these days, and he wasn’t happy. “I don’t want to do this anymore. I want to go home.”

“No, you don’t,” Chris said.

“I don’t?”

“Nope. You want to finish your album.”

“I think I want to go home,” Justin said. Chris was confusing him. He knew that Justin listened to him, and he was saying stuff that wasn’t true so Justin would agree with him. Or maybe he was using reverse psychology and really wanted Justin to come home, too. “That’s what I want. To go home with you.”

“You’re drunk, J,” Chris said.

“Mm, yes.” Justin nodded and petted Chris gently, like he was a big furry cat. He scratched a finger where Chris’s tee-shirt rode up. “You’re really hairy, man. I’ve been meanin’ to say.” Chris had a furry patch right in the small of his back. Justin pulled at it, the soft fuzz slipping through his fingertips.

“Uh huh.”

“Yes.” Justin closed his eyes. His mouth felt strange, and the room was spiralling away into the cosmos, and he just didn’t feel very good. And his pants were too fucking tight to breath. His cock was probably squished useless by now. Not that it mattered, really. Not that it would make any difference. “I am a dickless playtoy.”

“Sure you are, J.”

Justin would have said more, but he fell asleep, Chris’s heavy weight pressing into him, feeling solid and real and alive.

~~~

Chris didn’t mention the drunken night the morning after, so Justin didn’t either. They went back to LA, Justin returning to his studio work, Chris returning to the couch. Justin was going to ask about FuMan, since sometimes Chris needed to be reminded of responsibility he dreaded, but he got an email from Lance detailing the demise of Chris’s company, with a couple pictures attached for good measure, even blondes to cheer Chris up, and some boys with long slender dicks, too. Lance had broken up with the lab assistant, which only meant trouble.

The boys with their long slender dicks were okay, Justin supposed. They looked earnest and sincere, like they enjoyed it, and fresh, like they hadn’t been in the industry long. That was Justin’s big problem with some of the women: they were all stretched out and used. Maybe women just looked like that, but some of them looked downright ragged, and Justin hoped he could tell the difference.

“You switching teams?” Chris asked, hovering over Justin’s shoulder. Jumping, Justin slapped his hand at the monitor and turned it off. He couldn’t look anywhere but at the black screen, the whir of the computer still going, reminding him there was a young, handsome man flashing his hairless ass, just waiting for him when he turned it back on. “Hey, relax. Kidding again. Chill. What’s a little queer joking between friends, right?”

Justin’s heart was racing, but he nodded.

Chris hooked his forearm across Justin’s neck, not pressing, just holding him there. His mouth was right by Justin’s ear, and Justin concentrated on staying very, very still. “Kid, I know you don’t want to talk about that night, but we’re gonna have to, if you don’t calm down.”

“I’m fine,” Justin said. Chris was supposed to be sleeping. Night was his private time, and Chris always slept straight through until morning, always. Just when Justin thought Chris was predictable, he did shit like this. Justin wished he would stop, just cut it out already.

“No, you’re not. Don’t pretend it’s okay, when it’s not.” Chris knocked his knuckles on Justin’s head, only hard enough to ache for a second before the pain faded. “All that shit inside, man. You have to stop swallowing it up, J. You’re depressed. I fucking figured that out the minute I saw you. But you can’t let that control your life, okay?”

“I’m not,” Justin said. He wanted to be mean about it, to point out that it controlled Chris’s life and that was why he recognised it, but he didn’t. Justin would never undermine something like that, especially not when it came to Chris. So he mumbled, “and I’m not really,” instead.

“It’s like looking in the mirror, J. Don’t lie to me,” Chris said and pulled his arm back, just enough to dig a bit into Justin’s throat. He swallowed dryly and focussed on breathing. “How are you feeling, man? What are you feeling?”

The question hung there, heavy and strange. Justin’s throat worked furiously.

“Nothing,” Justin admitted quietly, finally. He wanted to close his eyes then he realised they already were. “It’s just. There’s a whole lot of nothing,” Justin said again and shrugged. So there it was. “I feel numb.” And it was true, mostly, except where Chris was digging his arm into Justin’s neck, but even the pain of that felt muted. “And I miss being touched, too.”

“You don’t make it easy,” Chris said.

“Not for them,” Justin said. The fans, the strangers, they didn’t have any right to him, none at all. And he thought Chris understood that.

“You want me to touch you,” Chris said, slowly, “just say.”

“Okay,” Justin promised. “I will.” He only said it to make Chris let him go, because he seriously couldn’t breathe and the whole conversation was making him uncomfortable. And Chris did, without another word, like everything had been said already.

~~~

Justin quickly wrote the email to Lance then pressed send before he could really think about what he was asking. It was rude and a total invasion of privacy, but then, Lance hadn’t ever asked Justin if he wanted to look at pornography. Lance owed it to him, sort of.

Justin spent the rest of the day in the studio, smiling and laughing and charming all the Jive people, who had pushed him to go solo in light of Lance’s trip to outer space. Perfect timing, they explained, it would keep the momentum of the whole group going, and he’d been planning to do one, anyway. The Nsync PR Machine: a modern day monster. That was what it was, really. They were everywhere, even during a hiatus. No wonder people hated them. Worshipped them.

But it was like going through the motions, all of it. Justin tried to remember when it hadn’t, really wanted to blame it on Chris, but it started long before that. And Justin wasn’t like Chris, no way. Justin wasn’t nearly that miserable, just a bit unhappy, a little discontent. That was all, and if Chris wanted to think otherwise then that was his right.

~~~

Justin returned home to an empty couch. He opened the door to Chris’s room and saw him on the bed, sprawled on his back and with his mouth wide open. He snored in that same jagged way he always did, not exactly loud but unnerving, since sometimes Chris held his breath while he slept and it all went quiet for a heartbeat. His glasses were still on his face, a book open on the ground where it looked like it’d been tossed. Justin crept inside and took off Chris’s frames, putting them on the night-stand, then pulled the covers up to his neck. He was pretty naked under there, the patchwork of black hair an unending shadowy mess on his skin. So hairy, Justin thought, and tucked the sheets under Chris’s shoulders, hoping they would stay.

In his inbox sat Lance’s response, written in caps: YES. Yes, Justin rolled it around in his head. Yes, Lance had slept with Chris. Yes. JC and Lance, then, for sure, and probably Joey. Justin would still need to ask, but probably Joey, straight or not. Which left him, and Chris, and an offer of touching. It wouldn’t be bad, Justin could admit, to let Chris touch him. He did, often enough, in ways that Justin allowed few others, but still. It was weird. It was a really weird idea, to be like that with Chris, but not as strange as the fact that Lance had slept with Chris. Somehow, that struck Justin as extremely unfair.

~~~

A few days later, Justin tried to jerk off in the shower and couldn’t do it. His dick didn’t even get hard; it barely tingled at all when he pulled it through his fingers, trying to entice a response. It twitched, a bit, and it got a big more plump than it usually did, sitting between his legs. But nothing. A whole lot of fucking nothing. It was like he’d forgotten how.

Justin wrapped his towel around his waist and called into the studio, cancelling the day’s work. He could hear Chris stutter-snoring on the couch, his room once again abandoned. Justin hadn’t even thought the couch was all that comfortable, and Chris wasn’t like JC. He only slept in places that felt right to be sleeping in, like beds and first class airplane seats.

Justin stood at the end of the sofa and looked at Chris. Taking a deep breath, he pulled off his towel, tugged down Chris’s blanket then straddled him. Chris smacked his lips together but didn’t wake up, so Justin took Chris’s hands and placed them on his thighs. Small hands, with hairy knuckles and a strip of white flesh on Chris’s left wrist where he usually wore his watch, and warm. Very, very warm.

“Chris,” Justin said. “Chris. Chris.”

“Stop saying my name,” Chris muttered then tipped his head back. In a few seconds, he was snoring again. Justin sighed.

“Forget it,” Justin said, just in case he was faking it.

Chris held his breath, and Justin knew he wasn’t.

~~~

It occurred to him, only later, that he’d tried to sleep with Chris. He hadn’t tried very hard, true, but he’d given it a go, nonetheless. That was something encouraging, Justin thought, that he’d wanted to have sex for a brief moment in his young life with someone that wasn’t Britney or a few of the bushy brunettes from Lance, who were just unreal enough to be fantasy and therefore, not strange. Chris, who’d offered in the first place and hadn’t even really woken up when Justin came to take him up on it. Justin realised he was already so depressed about everything else that he didn’t particularly care.

But he still had a good laugh about it in the car, sitting outside the studio and giggling so hard that his belly ached with it. His life sucked so bad, even though it was perfect. That was the kicker, really. Life was perfect, and it still sucked huge donkey balls. His friends all slept with each other and didn’t sleep with him. His solo album was more of a duets album than anything else. LA liked him enough to want to keep him, but all Justin wanted to do was go back to Orlando, and Chris wouldn’t let him. And Chris, who’d always made everything better in the past was currently making everything worse. He’d made Justin think about things, about his life, and thinking was never good for Justin Timberlake. He was a pop idol, not a man. Not at all.

~~~

And then Chris, the big freak, gave himself a mohawk. The first version was horrendously awful, lopsided and ugly, and Justin, despite being so exhausted he could barely think, took the clippers and evened out the back and trimmed the rest of the hair that was left. It didn’t look bad, per se, just really interesting, and Chris seemed to like it.

Chris’s eyes seemed a lot bigger, Justin noticed as he stood behind Chris while he examined himself in the mirror. Wide and round and darker than Justin remembered, and he met Chris’s steady gaze in the reflection, trying to hold it but losing it eventually. Chris always won staring contests. It was the way things were.

~~~

Challenge for the Children came and went quickly. It was nice to see everyone, of course, but it felt different. Justin cornered Joey in the corner and asked about Chris, getting more detail than he needed on a brief but torrid affair that lasted precisely six months back in the mid-nineties. The problem, Justin realised later, was that he asked Joey when Joey was drunk, which meant no information was too much. Justin listened, regardless, but felt a bit dirty afterwards, just on general principle. There was arousal there somewhere, too. Deep, heavy desire that settled elsewhere from his dick, mostly in his lips.

Justin spent a lot of time just shooting hoops, away from everyone else, just to keep himself steady. The roar that accompanied his name was just a constant reminder of what a fundamentally shitty person he was. The guys barely seemed to notice anymore, which wasn’t any better. Sometimes, Justin entertained the idea of wrecking himself, maybe clawing his fingers over his face or gaining enough weight that people made jokes about him instead of Joey or Chris. Shaving his head hadn’t worked. People thought it was hot, and Justin missed having his hair to hide behind.

And he missed Lance. They all did, but it took Justin a while to recognise it. Joey was loud and happy, as usual, and Chris was being an asshole to just about everyone, as usual, but JC was quiet, not in his normal way but in a way that seemed thousands of miles away, like his mind was in Russia with Lance and not in Orlando with them. So Justin sat beside him, and talked to him, and smacked him on the ass a few times, even though JC really sucked at basketball and did nothing to warrant the congratulations.

The first night, after partying, they stayed up too late talking. Lance phoned, and they put him on speaker phone, shouting over each other to get him as filled in as humanly possible. They watched his greeting to the fans and made fun of him, so he could hear it and feel like he was there. Lance called them all dorks, and Justin laughed into Joey’s shoulder. Inside, he almost felt happy, but he didn’t recognise it as that until later, when he was in bed and trying to sleep.

Chris and JC seemed relatively okay, like nothing had ever happened between them. There was a moment there, right after they’d all been reunited, that they’d just stared, but Chris grabbed JC into a hug and picked him off the ground, whirling him around until he was nauseated and giggling, and after that, it was fine.

~~~

The crash after Challenge, when it was just him and Chris again, was what led Justin to try again. He came home from the studio, the last few hours spent producing since there was very little actual recording left to do, and did his usual check of the apartment, turning on his computer and finding Chris in his own room, the Beatles’s White Album still playing in the background. Justin turned off the music and moved Chris’s arm so it wasn’t hanging off the bed. In the kitchen, he made himself a cheese whiz and peanut butter sandwich, extra lettuce, then went to read his email. Lance hadn’t sent anything, so Justin watched infomercials instead.

Chris was a good guy. He’d humoured Justin when Justin was so nervous about the audition with Lou and had stayed with Justin in the bathroom when all Justin’s worry had finally turned his bowels to liquid. At the time, Justin had been mortified. Even he forget, sometimes, it’d all started when he was just fourteen, and he was allowed to act like that. Hell, Joey still got the runs when things were important, and he was twenty-five. It was a stupid memory, Justin realised, but Chris had done what his own mother couldn’t: pushed him into that room and made him sing. It was easy, once he got going, but right before, Justin would have rather died than risk flopping when it counted.

Justin stood up and rinsed off his plate in the sink then looked at the clock. Three in the morning. He had to be up at seven and to the studio by nine. No point in even attempting to sleep, really. Justin had gone for days without rest back in Germany, when JC was the only one sleeping, doing it in random five minute intervals. Justin dried his plate then put it away.

He let himself into Chris’s room and shut the door quietly. Chris was quiet for a few seconds before he started snoring again, lost in the darkness and the blanket that covered him. Justin pushed off his jeans and briefs then dropped his shirt on the ground. Gingerly, he lifted up the edge of the sheet and slid underneath. Chris was wearing only his boxers.

“Chris,” Justin said.

“Hm,” Chris murmured, rubbing his cheek against the pillow.

“Chris,” Justin said again, and Chris started snoring. Justin looked over at the clock, the red numbers startling against the dark, then closed his eyes. It was mean, anyway, to wake Chris up, and Justin suddenly felt pretty sleepy. The pillow smelled like Chris. Justin never thought that would be a good thing.

~~~

Justin woke up wrapped around one of Chris’s legs, his face pressed against Chris’s hip. The first thing he saw, of course, was Chris’s dick and the accompanying forest of black hair. Justin blinked a few times, just to make sure, then looked up. Chris was reading, one hand holding the book, the other trying to goad his glasses into sitting right.

“Morning,” Chris said, flipping the page.

“Hi.” Justin looked over at the clock and realised it was noon. “Shit.”

“Already called in. Don’t worry about it.”

Justin wondered what the proper procedure here was. Having been the only one, evidently, not to slut around in the group, Justin didn’t have a clue how to proceed, and last night didn’t even constitute that, anyway. Justin had merely invited himself into Chris’s bed, naked, and slept with him, without asking. To Justin, it sounded more like an attempted date rape, which made it that much worse.

He sat up slowly, bringing the sheet with him because he suddenly really didn’t want Chris to see his dick, and stayed beside Chris as he read. Their shoulders touched, and Justin waited for Chris to say something. Chris just kept on reading, his eyes squinting despite the glasses, so Justin chewed on his thumbnail and remained quiet.

“Chris,” Justin said.

“Yep?”

“Nothing.” Justin really hated him, for no reason, except Chris was turning out to be the only person in existence who didn’t know what to do with a naked Justin Timberlake in his bed. Justin still got graphic fan mail from men and women detailing just precisely what they wanted to do to him. Most of the letters, he was told, were kept from him, but he asked to see a few.

“I think I’m impotent,” Justin said instead.

Chris smiled at that, though Justin could tell by the twist of his lips that he didn’t want to. He was totally fucking with Justin, this much Justin knew now, so Justin bumped Chris with his shoulder then offered his mouth, just lifted his chin a bit and hoped Chris would take the bait.

“You’re an asshole,” Justin said, when he didn’t, and Chris laughed.

“Whatever, Timberlake. You come into my bed, buck naked, and expect me to ask you. Right, J. You dickhead.” Chris flicked Justin on the forehead, and Justin grinned at him. “However, you will notice, I took off my boxers.”

“I didn’t. I just noticed.” Justin waved his hand around. “You know.”

“The hair. Right. I was hoping, when you got some of your own, you’d stop with that.”

“There’s just so much, man,” Justin said helplessly. He could feel the heat on the tops of his ears and wasn’t entirely sure why he was blushing, since it was stupid and girlish, still, after all these years. “And I’m better these days. But when it’s right there, it’s hard to notice anything else. It’s, like, whoa.” Chris chimed in at the last word, and they smiled at each other.

“However, despite my apparent willingness, I’m not sleeping with you right now,” Chris said, “but when you finish your album. Then, and only then, will we get sexual with each other. Go put some clothes on, you hussy. Since you slept through all your obligations, we’re going LP hunting.” Chris slapped Justin on the thigh then jumped out of bed, running for the bathroom.

“You fucking asshole!” Justin shouted after him. He could hear Chris laughing, and he really, really, seriously hated him. Seriously.

~~~

They met up with JC for the Teen Choice Awards. He wasn’t even supposed to come, but he was in the area and wanted to say goodbye before he trekked up to Toronto, for some private writing time in Chris’s apartment that no one knew about but them and Rick the Temp. JC showed up scruffy and with an awful looking hat, though neither Justin nor Chris had room to speak and they knew it.

“When did we turn into such freaks?” Justin asked anyway.

JC grinned, his eyes completely covered by the bucket hat, and shrugged. Chris just hooked his arm around Justin’s neck and squeezed. “We always were, man. You’re just finally starting to see it. But what-the-fuck-ever, eh, C?”

“Better to be happy than not,” JC replied, nodding. “C’mere,” he added, waving Justin over. Justin went, albeit slowly, puzzling how JC could even see where he was standing. It didn’t matter much, since JC wrapped him in a big, happy hug and squeezed until Justin yelped. JC was pretty skinny, but he was a fierce hugger, and Justin hugged back, laughing when Chris couldn’t leave well enough alone and grabbed them both in his arms and tried to swing them around. He couldn’t do it, but it was funny enough until they fell in a tangle on the ground. Then it sort of hurt, but Justin didn’t complain. Didn’t really want to.

~~~

Justin wouldn’t say Chris’s cockteasing set the world right or anything, but it changed something, and oddly, it seemed to be for the better. Justin still wanted to go back to Orlando, but not quite as badly anymore, not with Chris being just as annoying in LA that he would have been in Orlando. And while he was still living in dread of the solo album actually being done, it was muted now, his worry slightly blurred, which was better than the overwhelming panic Justin had been barely swallowing in recent weeks.

And Chris kissed him in the kitchen. Which was seriously weird, but in a strangely pleasing way. Justin had been talking smack about Chris’s indie bands, since Chris had awful taste in music and Justin liked to tell him that, and Chris had hooked his fingers into the waist of Justin’s jeans, tugging him forward. Justin had braced himself for a reverse wedgie, hoping his balls didn’t suffer too badly, but got a kiss instead, open-mouthed, with tongue.

“Um,” Justin said when they parted, and Chris smirked at him. He resisted the urge to scrub his hand over his mouth, since his lips were all wet and probably looking obscene, so he chewed his lower lip into his mouth and shrugged. Chris merely patted Justin’s belly then walked out of the room, and Justin was entirely sure Chris’s cockteasing hadn’t set the world right at all. If nothing else, it turned it all upside down again.

~~~

They went to New York, to see Joey in Rent, and Chris yelled when Justin tried to get a hotel, so they slept in Joey’s spare bedroom, in the apartment that cost him a fuck of a lot money every month. Joey wouldn’t say what the price actually was, since Chris would go apeshit if it turned out to be too much, but Justin knew he was probably paying close to what Justin was paying back in LA, even though Justin’s place was bigger and nicer.

Initially, Joey tried to put Chris on the couch, but Chris said, “nope, man. Me and J are a packaged deal these days. The spare bedroom’s fine.” Joey looked over at Justin, and Justin nodded slowly. He supposed, in a roundabout way, that they were a packaged deal. They slept in the same bed. Chris wouldn’t go away. They had a date to sleep together sometime in early fall.

They didn’t sit together in the theatre. Chris sat right up front, wearing a curly wig and blue contacts, the beard horns gelled into his goatee, and since he hadn’t shaved for a whole fucking week, Chris had practically grown a full beard. Justin was up in the balcony, first row but far right. He had enough fake hair on him to cover a small cat, all glued to his skin in the itchiest way. He tried not to scratch; the mustache had kept falling off during the taxi ride over. And the wig was just plain ugly. He looked like a paedophile or something equally disturbing, which also meant that no one actually wanted to look at him.

Justin watched with detached fascination from across the road when Joey was rushed out of the theatre, girls screaming at him, begging for autographs, pictures, anything. It was odd to watch it happen to somebody else. Chris walked by and touched his arm, so Justin followed him and ignored the mass hysteria that was Joey’s to enjoy, at least for a little while. Justin felt guilty even thinking that, so he concentrated on keeping his feet moving. Chris walked right behind.

~~~

“You’re looking better,” Joey said, rubbing a hand over Justin’s neck. Justin leaned back into him and shrugged. He hadn’t noticed anything, but Joey was a pretty observant guy and learned it all from his mom, who always had a good reason to worry about Joey because Joey was accident prone, more than anybody else that Justin had ever met. “You feeling better?”

“I’m fine,” Justin said.

“Yeah,” Joey said and scrubbed his knuckles over Justin’s head. “So you and Chris.”

Justin shrugged. “Same old, same old.” He looked at Joey hopefully, willing Joey to take his word for it, and Joey tugged on a clump of Justin’s hair but nodded. Justin mimicked him. It wasn’t that he had nothing to say, because he had plenty, but if Justin tried to explain anything, it would probably sound like blackmail. Sometimes, to Justin, it definitely sounded like that. Also, it made Justin seem really pathetic, which was probably the truth, too. “You good?”

“I’d be better if I could remember my damned lines, but you know, I’m not complaining,” Joey said and laughed, squeezing his arm across Justin’s chest and bopping their heads together lightly. “Album going well?”

“Almost done,” Justin replied. “Maybe.”

“It’s gonna be great. We’re so proud of you, man, so proud. I mean, people talk all this shit about you, and I just wanna rip off their balls or smack them around, because they don’t understand how it is between us, how we work, you know. And fuck, man. You know?”

“Thanks,” Justin said, but didn’t say anything else on the subject. If he did, he was afraid he was going to start to cry. It meant a lot, though, so he patted Joey arm and smiled and admitted, “yeah, me and Chris. It’s weird, though. Don’t know what he’s doing. But it’s good. Weird, but good.”

“Good,” Joey repeated. And Justin nodded. It was good. It was so fucking good.

~~~

Justin found himself taking his shirt off a lot more with Chris around. He’d come home, take off his shirt and just lounge. The hours were getting better, since the schedule wasn’t quite so tight anymore, and it looked like his release date was going to be close to Nick Carter’s, which Jive thought was a good thing. Competition and whatever; Nick Carter had buffed up too. Justin was suddenly looking forward to the chase and not just kicking Nick Carter’s ass.

Sometimes, Chris even came with him to the studio. A lot of the studio people still didn’t like him all that much, since Chris was disruptive and loud, but Justin made sure everyone knew if they really had issues with his presence, they were free to leave. Justin even let Chris mock-produce a track, which turned out to be so good that Justin just kept his version and ditched the original to the chorus of quite a few protests.

Without his shirt on, Chris touched him an awful lot. He was a big cocktease, which Justin had always known since Chris also loved the chase, even if he didn’t quite know what to do when he got ‘em. Instead of being obnoxious, though, Justin didn’t mind it, not when he sat between Chris’s legs and watched stupid Godzilla movies and let Chris rub his belly with an idle hand.

“Are you my boyfriend?” Justin asked sleepily. It came out before he could stop it, and he pinched his lips together but refused to apologise or explain or backtrack, even when Chris looked at him expectantly. Instead, he just lifted his eyebrows.

“We’ll see,” Chris said.

Justin frowned. “The JC thing?”

“Nope. Told you, that’s over and done with. A mistake, to try shit like that, but us.” Chris stopped, and Justin looked at him, waiting, trying to figure him out. It wasn’t always easy with Chris, but Justin wished it was, so he kept staring. There was something he still wasn’t getting with the JC thing, and Chris was going to tell him, Justin knew it, he just needed a bit of a push. Justin leaned up and kissed the corner of Chris’s mouth, all that he could reach. It was enough.

“We did it to hurt each other, J. All right? We were angry, and instead of getting mad at the people responsible, or being rational, we got pissed at each other. And we, you and I, we can’t be like that. Because it was fucking disgusting, and us, we have to be for the right reasons.”

Chris untangled himself and stood up, trying to walk away, but Justin grabbed him from behind and dragged him back. Justin didn’t like to use his height to make Chris feel short and inadequate, but he’d grown up alongside Chris and knew when it was necessary, so he folded up on Chris and nosed behind his ear.

“I can wait,” Justin murmured. “My album’s almost done, man.”

“I meant the release of your album,” Chris said.

“I can wait until then, too.”

Chris nodded.

~~~

The night Justin performed at the VMAs by himself was the single most terrifying night of his life, besides the night he performed for Lou, and Justin spent it in much the same way: perched on the can, moaning about how he couldn’t do it.

“Listen, if you don’t do it, I’m gonna have to do it, and J, they’ll boo me. They’ll make me cry,” Chris said, swinging a box of anti-diarrhetic pills in front of Justin’s face. Justin seriously needed him to fuck off and go hang by the food table or something, or go back to his fucking seat where Joey and JC were waiting, but Chris was insistent.

“I can’t, I can’t,” Justin kept saying, shaking his head. He was sweaty and hot, and his stomach kept cramping up, painful and tight. They should have asked Nick Carter, Justin thought miserably, Nick Carter would have done it in an instant. “I’m sorry, man. I can’t. It’s just.”

“What? J, baby, idiot. You go up there, you sing your heart out, and even if nobody else is, me and Joe and C will be on our feet, cheering for you, okay? Now, come on, man. Take a couple of these,” he smacked Justin on the forehead with the pills, “and get on that stage.”

Justin rubbed his hands over his face before sighing. “Fine. But can you, like, get out?”

“And let you wipe your ass in private? No problems.” Chris laughed, and Justin looked up at him miserably. Asshole, Justin mouthed, and Chris kissed him, just flicked his tongue over Justin’s lips then did the same to Justin’s teeth when he opened up. “Now, stop being a sissy, all right?” Chris kissed him again. “You’re gonna do great, J.”

“Out,” Justin said, pointing.

“You’ll be great,” Chris repeated.

On the stage, Justin started off a bit shaky, but his ass held tight, and the words came to him, even when he blanked at the very beginning. Slinking across the stage, pivoting his hips and beatboxing, Justin saw Chris and JC and Joey dancing in the aisles, and when Chris looked at him, Justin screwed up his song and didn’t much care.

~~~

At the after party for the VMAs, Justin got into a good old fashioned fistfight with some asshole who called JC a fag. JC, who agreed to insults just to avoid conflict and having to hit someone, wasn’t above letting someone else do the hitting, and Chris and Justin tag-teamed while Joey phoned up Johnny to get the Nsync PR Machine out in full force to put a positive spin on it for the media. They destroyed two tables, and Chris had his nose punched, but at least they were still standing at the end and had done it all in front of Eminem and D-12.

“Woo. This calls for a drink,” Chris decided. His nose was huge and red, and Justin handed him a pile of ice wrapped in a napkin. Chris hissed when Justin put it on his face, smacking him away and holding the ice himself. “Get me a drink, boy!”

“Ass,” Justin replied affectionately but wandered off to get Chris something hard. It took a lot longer than it needed to, since everyone kept stopping him and offering congratulations. Justin thanked everyone politely, and smiled, and realised on the way back to the table, where Chris was gesturing to his nose and JC was petting the bridge of it, he wasn’t faking it. That he meant it. That maybe he was even enjoying it.

~~~

His mama always said patience was a virtue, and Justin always thought he was the picture of patience. He had to be, really, thanks to JC and Chris, one of whom never finished his thoughts in one sitting and the other who really knew how to grate on the last remaining nerve. But if Chris didn’t sleep with him soon, Justin was going to burst.

“Ew,” Chris said one morning, wiping his hand on the pillowcase.

“Shut up,” Justin said and tugged the pillow over his face.

“How old are you again? Shit, man. This is why I make you wear boxers to bed.”

Justin moaned and groped blindly for the blankets, hell bent on tugging them up around his waist, but Chris pulled at them, and Justin wasn’t willing to remove the pillow. In fact, he was hoping Chris would get a clue and leave, but that didn’t seemed likely either.

“If you weren’t such a cocktease.”

“I’m not the one who told me he thought he was impotent a few weeks back.”

“Well, I’m obviously not.”

“Evidently.” Chris patted Justin’s belly, and Justin wanted to roll away, squeeze his legs together and just roll right off the bed, out the door and somewhere far away from Chris, but Chris hauled him back when he started moving. “Nah. hey. It’s flattering, J. Twenty-one and still having wet dreams.”

“And humping your thigh in my sleep,” Justin added.

“And that. I don’t know, man. My ego’s doing pretty good right now. Wants eggs for breakfast? I’m feeling gracious,” Chris said and yanked the pillow away fast. Justin frowned at him, wishing his boxers weren’t glued to his cock, and his thighs, and his stomach. “Take a shower, and I’ll make eggs. All right?”

“You’re such an asshole,” Justin said.

“I know,” Chris replied and grinned.

~~~

Justin emailed Lance just to say hello because he hadn’t heard from him in a long time, and Lance called back within five minutes of Justin sending the note. It scared him, since it was so late, and Chris darted up on the couch, looking around wildly, but Justin pushed him back down and picked up the phone. Chris went right back to sleep.

“Yeah?” Justin tried to keep his voice a low whisper.

“Hi,” Lance said.

“Lance, man. Hey. What’s up?”

“Nothing much.” Lance paused. “Pretty close to cracking, actually.”

Justin walked into the bedroom and shut the door behind him, settling on the bed.

“I know I’m past the point of no return, but god, it’s hard. I’m hiding in my closet. They have cameras on me all the time, and the hour of free time they give me, I spend sending porn to my friends. And I fucked one of the camera men, and it was so damn good, and god! Tell me again why I ever thought this was a good idea?”

“It’s your dream, right? That’s gotta count for something,” Justin said.

“I guess,” Lance replied slowly. “How’s the album going?”

“Well, take every feeling you just expressed on the subject of going into space, and you pretty much have what I’m feeling about it. But it’s done. It should be out next month,” Justin said. He hadn’t told Chris that yet, though he didn’t know why. Probably due to the vague sense of foreboding that seemed to haunt Justin. There were issues he had, with JC and Chris, that Chris still hadn’t been able to address. Maybe Lance could. Justin decided to change the subject. “Me and Chris are. Something.”

“Yeah, I heard. That’s cool.”

“I guess.” Justin nibbled at his thumbnail, chewing off bits of skin and spitting them out. “Lance, can I ask, why. Um. You and him.”

“You sure you wanna know this?”

Justin nodded. “Yeah, I’m sure. Tell me.”

“I didn’t want to have sex for the first time with a man I didn’t know, so I had sex with him a couple times, to make sure I was comfortable with it, that I wanted it, enjoyed it.” Lance paused. “It wasn’t anything more than that, really, not like it was with Joey, and definitely not like it was with Jayce.”

“You were pretty young, then. When you and him.”

“Yeah,” Lance said. “The thing with Chris, if he knows he can fix something, he’ll step right in and not think until later how it might look to others, you know? Like with Joey. When Lou made him cut it off with Kelly, he was devastated, right? So Chris slept with him, and they had fun, and Joey got over it, enough that he could wait until later, when Lou was out of the picture and he could do what he wanted, which had changed by then anyway.”

“Chris didn’t fix C.”

Lance hummed then said, “I think he did. They messed each other up so badly that he went to you, and Jayce went to Joey, and everything’s fine, right? I talked to Jayce a few days ago, and he sounded great, a lot more in his head. Wrong way to go about helping Jayce out, since it hurt him, too, but that’s Chris for you.”

“Lance, man, we’re falling apart without you, seriously,” Justin said.

Lance laughed. “Nice to know I’m missed.”

“Seriously, you are.”

“You’re beginning to sound desperate and, therefore, freaking me out.”

“I should probably get going anyway. It’s late,” Justin said, though he didn’t really mean it. He wasn’t tired, and he didn’t want to let Lance go. “And thanks for stopping with the porn. You know I appreciated it, but.”

“Like hell you did. I figured you didn’t need any with Chris around, anyway. Consider it stopped. I still have two friends who are more than willing. I’ll send you CNN articles or something,” Lance said, and Justin laughed. He wished Lance was close enough to grab, but he wasn’t, wouldn’t be for another couple months, and Justin could wait for that, too. “I’ll talk to you later?”

“Sure, man. Good luck with the training. You’re doing awesome, Lance.”

“Thanks. You, too.”

“Bye,” Justin said. He didn’t want to hang up. He didn’t want to.

“Bye.”

And Lance was gone.

~~~

Justin could admit it. He was pretty vain, when it came right down to it. He wanted to look good, spent a lot of time working out and struggling with his stupid hair and watching what he ate. He worried about things he couldn’t change, like his big nose and his nonexistent ass. But the thing was, he didn’t really own a lot of mirrors. Two in the bathroom, a small one above the sink and a full length one behind the door which he never used, and one in the hall by the front door, and that was it, really. With everyone telling him how beautiful he was, he didn’t need to see it, just needed to make sure they kept saying it.

Chris could have been beautiful, if he tried. Even with all the hair, he could have been gorgeous, but he didn’t want to be. Justin learned years ago not to say anything about it, since it just made Chris angry, or angrier, really. Chris tried his hardest to be ugly outside when he was feeling ugly inside. The mohawk unsettled Justin for that reason, even if Chris had lost a lot of the extra weight, too. One thing for another, Justin feared.

“Are you happy?” Justin asked at dinner. Now that the recording was done, and everything else was mostly finished, Justin spent a lot of time in the apartment, which was actually quite cozy, with a great view. He liked it, even though he was keenly aware it really was extreme and gaudy and costing him way too much monthly.

“Don’t I look it?” Chris replied, which wasn’t an answer at all. He kept his eyes on his spaghetti, whirling it around and around with his fork. They’d tried to make meatballs, but they all fell apart and left behind a mess of ground beef. “Are you happy?”

“Mostly,” Justin replied, “happier than I was.” Justin shrugged. “I guess that means I am.”

“Well, good. So my happiness is inconsequential, all right? I’m not the one whose album is about to drop. Pass the Parmesan, will you?” Chris held out his hand, and Justin put the container of cheese between his fingers. Chris shook it all over his noodles, then over his salad.

Justin ate quietly for a bit, but he never had learned to let things go. “You don’t have to be miserable, just because you have nothing better to do, you know.”

“Never said I did,” Chris replied, stabbing his fork at a piece of lettuce.

“I’m just sayin’.”

“I’m not unhappy, J.” Chris pierced the lettuce and shoved it into his mouth, getting the sauce all over his lips. “Jeez,” he mumbled through the salad. Chris lifted his eyes and stared, and Justin tried, as always, to stare back, but he ended up looking away anyway. “I can take care of myself, you know.”

“And I can’t?” Justin shot back before he realised what he said.

“No,” Chris replied, “you can’t.”

It took Justin another five minutes before he replied with a quiet but firm, “bullshit.”

“I’m not going to argue with you. You’re full of survival instincts, but you have these fucked up notions about loads of things, Justin. About sex, and people, and just because you’ve learned to survive despite your neuroses, doesn’t mean you’re doing it the right way,” Chris said.

“I’m fine with sex and people,” Justin replied, “just not strangers. Just because I haven’t slutted around with my friends –”

“Oh, fuck you,” Chris snapped. “You know, thanks to all your fucking sleuthing into my personal life, that’s not how it was. Jesus. You’re being a fucking bitch tonight, J.”

“I just wanted to know if you were doing all right. Sue me, for wanting to know if my boyfriend was happy. Fuck you,” Justin said and grabbed his plate. He couldn’t believe they were fighting, or rather, he could, but just couldn’t grasp it since it was so stupid. This was why people weren’t supposed to help Chris when he was all fucked up in the head: he turned it into a goddamned fight every goddamned time, and Justin hated that.

They spent the rest of the evening stomping around and ignoring each other, and Justin couldn’t believe he’d ever wanted to sleep with such an asshole, even though he still did and badly and the need got worse everyday, but still, it pissed him off. Later, though, when they apologised quietly before bed, and kissed hesitantly, Justin wondered about why. What he’d come too close to, since sometimes, this whole thing still struck Justin as a mystery. Chris was a freak, yeah, but that hadn’t been a concern for Justin until now.

~~~

His album release was set for a week after Nick Carter’s, on a Tuesday in late October. Only Chris was coming to the party, since Joey couldn’t get the night off from his show, and JC was in Russia, trying to talk Lance down from the ceiling in a local calling area, JC said. Lance didn’t get nervous, so Justin wasn’t surprised he was freaking out. Lance just didn’t know how to handle it. Justin assured him that, if nothing else, he should be glad it didn’t liquify his bowels, and Lance agreed. Lance was, despite it all, a determined optimist.

Justin took a long shower, and put on his new underwear, and fussed with his hair for an hour in the mirror before giving up. It’d be all dumb and awful looking when the press finally saw it anyway, and Chris had seen worse, and he was who mattered. Tonight, Justin thought to himself, tonight he was going to sleep with Chris. The album was done. He was going to tour for two months until the end of December, then it was back into the Nsync thing, with his brothers, and his lover.

“Lover,” Justin said then frowned, “boyfriend.”

That sounded better.

~~~

The album cover was him sitting in the sand, with his back to the camera. The waves were crashing at his feet, and he was looking to the left, his face a profile over his tattooed shoulder. There was a triangle of shadow at the small of his back that vanished into his jeans. If it hadn’t been there, veiling, Justin’s ass would have been visible. Justin knew that because Chris had ended up commenting on it then kicking sand down Justin’s pants. He’d been threatening to do it, too, which was why Justin was looking to the side instead of the ocean, like the photographer wanted. It also explained Justin’s huge smile. It was a good cover. Justin liked it.

The good thing about being the darling of the music industry was that everybody came to the release party, except the four guys who really mattered. Chris was late, or hiding, but nobody had seen him, so Justin suspected the former. In the bathroom he’d tried Chris’s cell, but it put him straight through to voice mail, so he left a quick message and returned to the party. JC, Joey and Lance all phoned, offering their congratulations, and JC FedExed a small gift from the three of them to the party in a padded envelope, which turned out to be a picture of a jukebox that was going to be delivered to his place on Thursday.

Nelly showed up with the St. Lunatics, and Justin hung out with them for a while, before doing an impromptu performance of Work It for the crowd, Nelly’s arm slung across his shoulders. Nelly was a friend, so it was okay that he was so close. Any closer, though. There were still boundaries, even if Chris didn’t understand why, but Justin knew why he kept them at a distance. Because he had to, to keep control of himself.

Justin spent most of his evening with Trace and Wade, though, a rum and coke in his hand that they, like the good friends they were, kept refilling, and that his mama, who was hanging around in the background with his two dads, kept taking away from him. Justin posed for all the pictures people wanted and performed his first single up on the small stage, smiling into the blinding light of flashbulbs. It kept Justin’s mind off his watch, and the fact Chris wasn’t there yet. Soon, Justin kept telling himself. Soon.

~~~

When Chris showed up, Justin thought his knees were going to buckle. As it was, he grabbed his mama and closed his eyes for a moment just to collect himself. That fucking asshole, Justin thought, then waved weakly across the room. Chris lifted his hand and crooked his fingers a few times. He looked good, Justin noticed, really good. Like he’d intentionally tried to.

“Mama,” Justin said, and she looked at him expectantly, smiling in that mama-knows-everything way, before pushing him off in Chris’s direction. Justin was stopped by a bunch of people before finally getting to where Chris was standing, away from the media, by a big potted fern. Justin watched him pick off the fanned leaves before saying, “hi.”

“Hey,” Chris said. He puffed his cheeks and rocked back and forth on his heels.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Justin said quietly, smiling, and Chris nodded, face round like a blowfish. “You want a drink?” Chris nodded and followed him to the bar.

Justin had to do a few interviews for EW and Rolling Stone and stuff, so Chris went off to hang with his mama. He watched them out of the corner of his eye. Chris didn’t appear very happy, but he was nodding. His mama looked downright pissed. Probably chewing him out for being late, though even Justin wasn’t stupid enough to really believe it, but he pushed all his worries out of his mind, not ready to deal with all of that yet. Later, Justin kept telling himself. Later.

~~~

After the driver dropped them off at Justin’s apartment, it was quiet. Chris was quiet. Justin kicked off his shoes and shrugged out of his jacket then went to make them drinks. When he returned, Chris was out on the balcony, sitting on the end of the recliner, pulling at his chin.

“Here,” Justin said and handed him the rum and coke. Chris took it and immediately put the glass to his lips but didn’t drink. Justin sat down on the bench, his back against the metal fence. The leaves of the plants around him brushed at his shoulders. “Chris?”

“You know I love you, right?” Chris said, looking straight ahead. He put down his drink.

“Yeah. Of course.” Justin stuck his thumbnail into his mouth and started chewing at it, leaning forward and keeping his legs tightly crossed. “Listen, if you don’t want to, like. Be with me, you don’t have to. I would like you to, but I won’t make you.”

“Justin,” Chris said. He sounded tired.

“It’s okay,” Justin said, staring at his hand.

“It’s not. I. Fuck.” Chris dropped his head and put it into his hands. Justin could hear him breathing, steady but deliberate. “I fucking don’t know what I’m doing here, all right? I know why I came, but I don’t know why I stayed.”

Justin didn’t say anything. He didn’t know what he could, besides to beg Chris to stop talking, to not go into places that Justin had kept deliberately out of. Dark places, Chris places. What Chris didn’t seem to understand was that, despite it all, in spite of it all, Chris was still Justin’s best friend, even more than Trace, who just couldn’t understand all of who Justin was.

“I came here to do anything I could to stop you,” Chris said, “from leaving us. me.”

Justin looked up but remained silent. Chris’s face was dipped heavy with guilt, and he looked old, suddenly, drained and unhappy and ancient. Chris, the strongest of them all, looked weaker than Justin ever remembered him looking, even during the lawsuit, when Chris had spent most of his time crying behind locked doors. That had been hidden, private. This, Justin could see, was being allowed to see. Justin recognised the difference.

“I can’t be sure I didn’t do this to hurt you. I know what I did to C, and what he did to me, and I know shit like that’s in me, but here. With us. I don’t know,” Chris admitted, running a hand over his hair. Justin wanted to take that hand and twine their fingers together. Or punch Chris really hard, either one, really.

“I don’t know what I’m trying to do to you, J,” Chris said. He folded a hand over his eyes, lifting up his glasses to get at them.

“You kept me going, Chris. When you saw me and all the shit in my crazy head, you pushed me, man. When I stumbled, you picked me up. And when I wanted to go home, you wouldn’t let me. That’s what matters,” Justin said quietly. It hurt to put the words out there, hurt that Chris couldn’t see all the good he had done, regardless of his original intentions.

Chris reached into his back pocket and grabbed an envelope. He held it out, so Justin took it, opened it, and looked at the ticket stub for a flight time four hours earlier, out of LAX to Pearson in Toronto. Okay, Justin thought, and rolled the envelope up, sticking it deep into the soil of the nearest potted plant.

“So?” Justin finally asked, and Chris looked up at him, just for a second, before dropping his head again. Like he expected Justin to be mad, and he had been, for maybe a minute, but Justin really couldn’t stay mad at Chris. It just wasn’t possible, not so long as Justin understood his motives. “Chris, for fuck’s sake, don’t you think I know how you are by now? You have a protective instinct in you a mile wide. Fuck, man, seriously. Seriously. So you got scared? So what? You’re allowed. Jeez.”

Justin slapped at Chris’s shoulder, did it so fast he couldn’t even stop himself or his flimsy wrist, and that was all it took to get a snort out of Chris, and a snort from Chris was all it took to make Justin laugh. “You are such a tool, man,” Justin said, grinning despite himself, “the things I put up with for you, Chris. You scared the crap outta me.”

“This really isn’t funny,” Chris said.

“It is to me,” Justin replied, and when Chris looked up again, he flicked him on the forehead, hard enough to make Chris wince. Chris grabbed at his fingers then pulled, and Justin fell into him, stealing the moment to press a kiss to Chris’s temple. Justin could taste the salty sweat on his lips as he moved his mouth down Chris’s face, Chris’s hair hard and prickly under Justin’s hand, so Justin kissed Chris again and again and again. Because it wasn’t really sweat at all.

~~~

Justin wrapped his legs around Chris’s waist and grimly said, “no fucking way, Chris,” when Chris tried to talk him out of wanting to sleep with him. Chris looked up, face twisted in disbelief, but Justin just slapped at his shoulder and wiggled until Chris stood. Chris stumbled into the wall, and Justin’s back immediately started stinging where the brick scratched into it, but it was romantic, damn it, and Justin just wasn’t willing to let go.

“You’re fucking heavy, Timberlake,” Chris said, an arm secured under Justin’s ass, and Justin grinned into Chris’s hair, tightening his arms around Chris’s neck. They moved slowly into the apartment, and even slower down the hall, which Justin didn’t mind at all, especially not when Chris pushed him up against the wall and kissed his mouth.

Chris lost his footing somewhere near the bed, and while Justin ended up on the mattress, Chris ended up on the floor with a loud thump and stayed there. Grinning, Justin reached over, grabbed him by the mohawk and tugged upward until Chris yelped and went freely, putting his glasses on the bedside table and turning on the lamp before sitting in between Justin’s legs.

Justin watched as Chris pulled off his own shirt then moved to pop the buttons on Justin’s, peeling the shirt open slowly. Justin closed his eyes when Chris put his hands on flat on Justin’s chest and pressed gently, palming around the skin. Justin arched, too, and tried to get the shirt off his shoulders. Helped when Chris did it for him.

Chris’s hands wandered as they kissed, his mouth open and wet on Justin’s, and Justin shivered. He’d forgotten how it felt, bare skin against bare skin, and it took Justin a moment to adjust to the prevalence of hair and the absence of breasts. He kept his hands on Chris’s back, walking down the path of his spine then dragging back up, etching soft scrapes of his fingernails into Chris’s skin.

Justin took the plunge first and put his hand on the front of Chris’s pants, where they were tenting, and pressed his palm over the rigid line of Chris’s cock. Justin nearly jumped when Chris pushed back, but it was hot, so he kept rubbing until Chris knocked his hand away and undid his own pants. It really was a great cock, Justin thought, and the hair maybe wasn’t so bad, in this context. Still way too much, but that was Chris in a nutshell, really. Too much of everything, good and bad. And his cock felt really great in Justin’s hand as Justin tried to give his first, ultimately awful, handjob. Chris let him try for a few minutes before grabbing Justin and threading their fingers together, pulling Justin’s arms above his head. They kissed for a long time, slow and deliberate, and Justin’s face was burning from the scrape of Chris’s beard, but he just didn’t care at all.

“You aren’t mad,” Chris said at one point, and it sounded like a declaration of surprise and not a question at all. Justin shook his head then pushed up his hips, desperate to have his pants off. Justin had forgotten what it felt like to want to be touched, instead of hating it, shrugging from it, and he never wanted Chris to stop, though Justin really would have liked him to stop talking. “I’m sorry, though.”

“There are things in this world that I worry about, but you’re not one of them. You never were,” Justin said and lifted his hips again, wriggling until Chris’s hand slid over his belly and to his zipper, tugging it slowly down. Justin hissed, grateful for the release of pressure from his cock, then squirmed when Chris put his hand on Justin’s underwear and kept it there.

When they were both finally naked, and still kissing, Justin couldn’t stop thinking about all the kinds of sex he could have with Chris, blowjobs and handjobs and even anal sex, which Justin had always been curious about but Britney had never gone for, not even when he begged. But what really happened was they were kissing, legs tangled like vines, and Chris was on top of him, rocking gently, and Justin came before he could stop himself, all over Chris’s belly. Chris swallowed Justin’s moan then came, too, hard and fast and sounding sort of surprised about it all.

“Hm,” Chris said, and Justin nodded and grinned at him helplessly. He just didn’t care, because it had all felt really fucking good, and there was always time for more. More sex, more touching, more kissing. More everything, because fuck, it was just all so good.

“Well, okay,” Chris said and touched Justin’s hips before rolling off to the side. Justin tried to stop smiling, but he couldn’t. He slipped under Chris’s arm when Chris lifted it to flip off the light. “Good night,” Chris said quietly.

“Good night,” Justin replied. He couldn’t stop smiling.

~~~

Justin opened his eyes to the blinding light of morning and stayed absolutely still for one brief, agonising second, but Chris was still there, pressed against his back, snoring in that way he did, with all the pauses and the fearful moments when Justin wasn’t sure he’d start again. But he always did, whistling air into Justin’s ear, arm heavy over Justin’s waist, cock plump between Justin’s buttocks.

“Chris,” Justin said, and Chris smacked his lips wetly but didn’t saying anything. So Justin leaned forward and opened the drawer and took out a condom and some lube, both of which he’d bought months ago, when Chris first promised. Justin had actually expected him to give in long before now, since everyone else would have, but Chris wasn’t like that, which was why Justin loved him. When Chris started nuzzling the back of his neck, Justin said, “Chris.”

Chris moaned. “What is it with you and my damn name?”

Justin just smiled and took Chris’s hand, moving it down on his belly, right above his dick. Chris went to rest of the way, circling Justin’s cock loosely and skimming along it, just enough that Justin wiggled and curled his toes. It was good, Justin thought, as Chris kissed over his shoulders, and nosed his hairline, and rocked against his back. Even better, when Justin lifted his leg and moved it back, sliding across Chris’s hip.

“Here,” Justin said and held the condom over his shoulder, flapping it until Chris took it, though Justin could sense his reluctance. “C’mon, I want to. I dreamt about it,” and he had, thought not the night before, but a few times over the past few weeks as Justin’s desperation had peaked. “I really want to, Chris. Really, really want to.”

And he did, even when it hurt a bit and he tried not to whimper or cry, though Justin’s eyes did tear a bit, but he wasn’t entirely convinced it was because of that. When Chris was all the way in, they paused for a while as Chris mouthed his neck and murmured in his ear and rubbed his belly. Justin exhaled a breath he hadn’t known he was holding, and then it all felt better, a lot better, though it still surprised him when he came abruptly all over Chris’s fingers.

“Pull out,” Justin said, and Chris did, quick enough that it stung, which was Justin’s own fault for not keeping the urgency out of his voice. Chris looked terrified when Justin rolled over onto him, pulling the sticky condom off his dick. “Idiot,” Justin said fondly and kissed him, “calm down.” It felt nice to be able to be the one to say that to Chris.

Justin slid down Chris’s body and took Chris’s cock in his mouth and gave him a really horrible blowjob, but Justin was enthusiastic about it, which Chris had always said he appreciated even if the skills were lacking. Justin even swallowed, and liked it, and stayed down there, mouthing around, long after Chris had come, and played with all of Chris’s hair.

~~~

Chris held his hand as the numbers came in for the album, tight enough that it kept Justin’s attention on him and not on the swirling worry in his bowels. Johnny was on speaker phone, waiting for the official word, which was good, since Chris and Justin were both naked and tangled up on the couch.

“I am so nervous,” Justin whispered, rubbing his free hand over Chris’s hairy thigh, just for something to do. Chris nodded into Justin’s shoulder, and Justin smiled at him, looking back. Chris puffed out his cheeks and lifted his eyebrows, and Justin laughed.

“Okay. We have numbers,” Johnny said, his voice sounding metallic and small. “Justin, you’re number one on Billboard, well ahead of everyone else. Sound Scan says you sold six hundred thousands copies in the first day, a million copies first week. And the single climbed to three on Billboard. Just thought you’d like to know. Talk to you later, Justin, Chris.”

“Thanks, Johnny. Bye,” Justin said. He was shaking as he leaned over to hang up, his finger slipping on the button before he finally got it. Slowly, he turned around to look at Chris, who seemed to be waiting for him to say something profound. Instead, Justin just sniffled and wiped at his eyes and said, “I’m turning into my mama,” right before a few tears leaked out.

“Are you happy?” Chris asked.

Justin nodded and wiped at his cheeks, and when he tried to smile, a few more tears escape down his face. He scrubbed his fist at them then let Chris do it, small, warm hands on his face, drying his skin. He laughed abruptly and bowed his face into Chris’s touch, kissing at Chris’s wrist. “They didn’t let me fail. The fans, everyone, you.”

Chris had bought twenty copies of the CD and mailed them out to his entire family, and Justin knew it, even though Chris claimed he’d meant to buy twenty more copies of Nick Carter’s album and got confused in the record store. That night, Justin had tackled Chris into bed, and kept him up until six in the morning, just to thank him thoroughly. Sex with Chris was beyond amazing. It’d definitely been worth waiting for.

“Are you happy?” Justin asked suddenly, and Chris smiled.

“I will be,” Chris said. It sounded like a promise.

Fin.

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