It started, Justin would realize later, in Miami.
The benefit on the beach had seemed like a good idea when they came up with it, but like many good ideas, didn't seem to come together quite so well in execution. The much talked about "free seats" on the beach were set up so the fans couldn't even see the stage, and the crowd control in the VIP section wasn't controlling much of anything. They had been in a few crazy situations with crowds before, but they had never been this worried about people getting hurt.
And then there were the sound problems.
Each of them wore in-ear monitors in performance, all the time. They filtered out the screams of the crowd – a doctor had once told them, completely serious, that the high-pitched screams of thousands of teenage girls could do more damage to the hearing than a gunshot – and enabled them to hear their music, and each other.
They each had their quirks about what they liked to hear, though. Lance wanted the music, and only the music. He had commented in an interview for On the Line that he didn't know the leads for most of their songs, only his own parts, and Justin thought it was probably true. Lance knew where his harmonies fit in with the backing instrumentals, and that was all he worried about. "I already know what y'all sound like," he told them, "I hear you all the time."
Joey and Chris both listened to the full mix – the band, and all the other guys. They liked hearing the other four parts, hearing that something was missing, and adding their piece to complete the full picture.
Justin and JC listened to each other.
Justin used to listen to the full mix, just like Chris and Joey. But one day during rehearsal Lance had been busy on a conference call, Joey and Chris had gone off to find food, and he and JC and the band had been fooling around with the timing on one of the songs. He'd liked how it felt with just JC singing in his head, and that night he'd asked the sound guys to just give him the band and JC in his monitors. He had been surprised when Mike had laughed. "That's cute, kid, are you guys sending secret messages to each other or something?"
Justin had just looked confused, until Mike pointed to the piece of tape on the mixing board labeled "JC". "Band/Justin only" it read.
Justin hadn't known that JC listened to him – and only him – in his monitors, and it gave him a kind of warm and fuzzy feeling to know that. After that night, he'd kept his monitors on just the band and JC. It reminded him of long afternoons on the bus, when JC would randomly start singing some song, and Justin would jump in, the two of them harmonizing around each other, while Chris rolled his eyes and said, "Don't you two freaks get enough singing already?"
He didn't really notice it much during the fast songs. Then, they had dance steps to worry about, and hearing the band and the beat were more important than anything else. But on the ballads, it was like they were singing a duet – or singing to each other. Which was such a stupid, girlish thought that Justin banished it from his head whenever the notion crossed his mind. Mostly.
So in Miami, he didn't really notice the problems with the monitors until they sat down to do This I Promise You. Then he could see JC frowning, and Lance wincing, and Joey and Chris shaking their heads. When they got past his solo, he noticed it too – the band sounded kind of tinny and distant in his ears, and he couldn't hear JC at all. They tried to catch the eyes of the sound guys offstage, gesturing at them that something was wrong, but it was kind of hard to communicate properly in the middle of a song. "Tell them to turn it up," he hissed at Lance, and Lance dutifully looked off stage, pointing up. When JC started singing again he winced at the volume, pointing down while he glared.
It wasn't quite a disaster, but it was all pretty messed up.
Justin felt kind of lonely for the rest of the concert, without JC singing to him, but they got through it okay. Afterwards, though, he could feel his tension starting to mount again. They were all rushing around, getting ready to go down to the Bahamas to tape the Atlantis concert, and it really didn't seem like the best time for Johnny to pull him aside for a private meeting.
But that was exactly what he did, taking Justin into his hotel room and thrusting a sheaf of papers at him. "There's another package back at the compound for when you get back, but this is the most urgent stuff."
Justin didn't even have to look to know what they were. Proposals, offers, treatments. But not for the band. No, those were passed through Lance, and then presented to the whole group so they could consider them. These were the people that wanted him. Alone.
Some of it he didn't really mind. Being featured on other peoples' albums was fun, and JC did that too, sometimes. They had been working with Elton John's people for a while on a video idea that sounded like it was going to be a blast. Doing stuff outside the group could be fun and creative and a nice break. It was the rest of it that he hated.
The stuff that made it perfectly clear, without actually coming out and spelling it out, that this could be it. A starring movie role. A solo album. Even a solo tour. His stepping stone. His breakout. The thing that would make him stop being "Justin Timberlake of *NSYNC", and just, "Justin Timberlake." Formerly of *NSYNC.
No one seemed to really understand that wasn't what he wanted.
Even Johnny, who was shifting his weight back and forth uncomfortably and refusing to meet Justin's eyes. "Justin, listen, you know I love you, but maybe it's time for you to think about getting your own manager. For stuff outside the group. Because it's not really fair to you that I have to balance what's best for you with what's best for the group. You deserve to have someone who only has your best interests in mind."
Justin threw the pile of papers onto the desk. "What's best for the group is what's best for me, Johnny. And I don't want anyone to forget that. Ever." He walked out on Johnny, too mad to even stay and finish the conversation.
He was still agitated during the flight, and JC came and sat next to him. "You okay?" He rubbed Justin's back soothingly. "It wasn't too bad, all things considered. The fans liked us. The sound wasn't that bad."
Justin had to smile. JC was such a raging perfectionist that he assumed that Justin was also obsessing over the errors in the show. And JC, who had probably ripped apart the sound guy who had been responsible for their monitors, was downplaying it and saying it didn't matter in an attempt to make Justin feel better.
Justin put his bad mood aside. Johnny and his stupid pile of offers didn't matter. They were all together, and off to do another concert. Nothing had changed. "Yeah, it was good. Just tired, I guess."
JC pulled him back to rest against his chest. "So sleep. We've got a while yet before we're there." He wrapped his arms around Justin. Justin snuggled up to him, feeling JC's chest rumble beneath his ear, and he knew that JC was humming to him. He wished he could hear him over the whine of the engines.
It was while they were at Atlantis that Justin started to get worried about JC. He was so quiet. Generally, JC was pretty spazzy, babbling about something that had caught his interest, singing along to something in his head that only he could hear. Always singing. To JC, life was a song, and he wanted to harmonize with it. Justin could hardly remember a time before he'd lived with the sound of JC singing in the background of his life.
And now he wasn't doing it, which worried Justin a lot. He had to look up to check just to make sure that JC was even in the same room. He didn't seem upset about anything, sitting on the couch with Lance or writing in his notebook, his lips moving as if he was talking to himself in a voice too low for Justin to hear. But still… there wasn't any singing.
"You think everything is okay with C?" he asked Chris finally, knowing that if anyone would have noticed it would be Chris.
Chris just shrugged. "Sure, I guess. Whattya mean?"
"He's just so… quiet."
Chris gave him a strange look. "Quiet? C? Justin, maybe you should get your hearing checked. The boy doesn't seem to have an off switch, in case you haven't noticed."
Chris walked away, and Justin frowned. That was kinda weird.
Kinda weird turned into really fucking terrifying just a few hours later.
They were rehearsing with Tim McGraw, practicing the medley that the six of them would sing together. They had gone through and marked out solo parts. Lance had started protesting as soon as they decided that everyone would have a solo, but the others had over-ridden him. Joey had been dancing around happily, and even Chris, who tried to act blasé about the whole thing, had been practicing his part quietly with a smile hovering over his mouth.
JC was leaning over the sheet music talking to Tim earnestly, as always obviously loving any sort of collaboration with another musician. "Everyone we work with ends up respecting us, right?" he'd asked Justin just after the Superbowl performance with Aerosmith last year. "So if we work with everyone, then everyone will have to respect us. Right?" It seemed sort of simplistic, but Justin had to agree that if they could somehow manage to work with everyone, JC would somehow make them all love them.
Justin was just enjoying all of it, enjoying being with the other guys having fun. Hell, just enjoying having fun. Sometime around the end of the tour they had lost hold of their "fun through work" ethic, and it had all just been work. Great work, but still. Work. Maybe the time off had been just what they needed to really remember how to appreciate each other again.
They started going through the medley, Tim singing the first solo, and then nothing but the piano playing. Curious, Justin looked up from the music to see why JC wasn't singing his part, and froze.
JC was singing.
His head was thrown back, his eyes closed in concentration the way he always did when he was really into the music. Justin could even see the tendons in his neck move as his vocal cords worked. He looked exactly like he always did when he was singing his heart out.
Justin couldn't hear a sound.
His panicked gaze darted over the other guys, but none of them seemed to have any inkling that something was wrong. Joey was tapping the beat against his leg, and Lance was watching JC with a smile on his face. Chris was still going over his own part, but he looked up once and gave JC a thumbs up when JC opened his eyes.
JC looked over at Justin, who was staring at him with wide, shocked eyes. Justin saw him hesitate, and then pause. "J? What's wrong?"
Justin heard those words clear as day.
"N-n-nothing," Justin stammered out, his mind reeling. "Sorry. Just zoned out."
JC looked at him for a second, his head cocked to one side, then shrugged. "Okay. Um, let's take it from measure 15?"
They started again, and Justin never took his eyes off JC. As soon as he stopped talking and started singing, it was like his voice disappeared into a vacuum. Justin didn't hear anything but silence where JC's voice should be.
He wasn't quite sure how he got through the rest of the rehearsal, but he did. As soon as it was over, he spit out some mumbled excuse, and got the hell out of there. He was freaked. He was totally, completely freaked.
Alone in his room, he took deep breaths, trying to calm himself down. Maybe he was going crazy. Maybe all the stress and pressure and fucked up things that happened to your psyche when you were a child star had finally caught up to him, and he'd cracked. He could just see the headlines now – "Timberlake Goes Mental! Fans Despondent." Or something.
He rifled through his CD's until he found the one that had the demos they had cut for Celebrity, before all the postproduction had been done. He slipped it into his discman almost fearfully, half expecting to hear nothing but music halfway through the first verse of Pop. But no, there was JC, sounding exactly like JC always sounded. The way he had always sounded, until today.
The phone rang, and Justin considered not picking it up. He didn't really want to talk to anyone. But since they had concerts to do tomorrow and the next day, hiding in his room indefinitely wasn't really a viable option. "Hello?"
"J! Where the hell did you go? C'mon, there's something I want to show you."
Justin closed his eyes, hearing JC's voice wash over him. He could hear him. He could. "Um, I dunno, I'm kinda --."
"Good. Be in the lobby in five minutes!" JC hung up before Justin could finish voicing his protest.
When he got down to the lobby, JC was practically dancing back and forth he was so excited. Even the camera crew from CBS that had been following them around looked amused. "C'mon, c'mon, you gotta see!" JC tugged him by the hand, and after a look at the other guys, who looked as confused as Justin felt, they followed JC.
"Remember, in Europe, how we'd try to find rooms with good acoustics to practice the a cappella stuff in? And remember that one time, when Chris was shaving, and we all started singing in the bathroom? And how cool that sounded? And remember, after that, we'd try to find places like that to sing, just to hear the way the sound bounced off?"
"And remember, that one time, at band camp --." Chris cut into JC's babble sarcastically, but he was grinning as he said it. JC's mood was pretty infectious when he was bubbly.
JC made a face at him. "Anyway, so I was looking around the aquarium, and I found the coolest thing, oh, you gotta see!"
Just then, they rounded a corner and Justin saw the immense glass tunnel that led through the heart of the aquarium, and he knew exactly what JC had in mind. He let himself smile, because really, this was so JC. They were on vacation, sort of, performing in paradise, and what did JC get off on? Great acoustics.
Typical. But awfully cute, too.
They arranged themselves in a little semi-circle, and JC said, "Promise?"
Lance nodded. "Grammys version."
And they were off, Justin singing the first verse, hearing his voice bounce around the glass, seeing the fish swim by just out of reach. This was actually really cool.
And then they got to the harmonies, and he felt as if he'd been dipped in ice water. He could hear their voices, mixing around them, trapped and reflecting back. Lance's rumbling bass, Joey's smooth baritone, Chris's high counter-tenor, and his own nasal tenor.
Four parts. Just four.
JC looked serious, singing his heart out, and then his eyes caught Lance's, who was smiling at him fondly, enjoying how much fun JC was having. JC broke into a helpless grin, delight spreading over his face, excited at how good they sounded, and how much fun they were having, and that this had all been his idea. He smiled over at Justin, and Justin managed a weak grin back, as JC never stopped singing.
At least, he assumed he never stopped singing, because Justin still couldn't hear a note.
When it was over, Justin couldn't get out of there fast enough. He hated seeing the joy slip from JC's eyes, but he couldn't take this anymore. He just couldn't. Maybe he really was going crazy.
He took a hot shower, letting the water pound down on his head, hearing nothing but that. Maybe there was some logical explanation. Maybe Justin was deaf to some special pitch that JC hit only when he was singing. Maybe the guys were playing an elaborate practical joke on him, and had somehow convinced Tim McGraw and a whole bunch of camera guys from CBS to take part. Maybe all the screaming of all those girls really had damaged his hearing.
Maybe he was completely nuts.
When he was dressed again, he suddenly didn't want to be alone. It was just about dinner time, so he headed down to the main room of the suite. The door was ajar, and he stopped when he heard his name.
"Justin… acting strange?" he heard. That was Joey.
Mumbling he couldn't quite make out, and then Chris spoke. "Offers… Johnny said…. Break." Justin could only pick out words here and there.
"He always gets offers, Chris." Justin recognized Lance's voice, sharp and distinct. "Why would you think…" The rest was lost, as Lance's voice dropped.
He heard a sweet, almost musical sigh that he knew belonged to JC. "We have to let… can't keep him from…. His choice."
Justin pushed the door open, clearing his throat. They all started, looking a little guilty. "Hey, guys. What's up?"
They looked at each other, not sure what to say, and then Lance spoke up. "Just wondering when you'd get here so we could all get some dinner, J."
Lance always had been the best liar.
They soundchecked that night, late, like they had in Miami. It was easier with less people around.
Justin had taken a nap after dinner, ignoring Chris's teasing, convinced that whatever had happened this afternoon had been some sort of weird delusion brought on by exhaustion. He needed some sleep, and he'd be fine. It was that simple.
So when they slipped on their monitors, and started performing Pop, Justin didn't let himself panic when he didn't hear JC. It was a technical glitch. That was all. This was why they did soundchecks in the first place.
Before they started Gone, Justin made his way over to the sound crew. He even managed to keep his voice calm as he said, "Hey, I think there's something wrong with my mix, I'm not getting JC."
One of the guys whose name Justin didn't know checked his notes, and the settings on the board. "Timberlake... Timberlake gets the band, and Chasez, right?"
Justin nodded. "Right. But I can only hear the band." Because the settings were wrong, he told himself. That was all.
They guy shrugged. "Well, you should, that's what you're set for."
"Well I don't." Justin tried to keep his voice from rising. He tried really, really hard. He almost succeeded.
"Hey, Chasez, say something!" the sound guy yelled.
Justin heard, "What do you want me to say?" come through his monitors, loud and clear. Justin nodded that, yeah, he had heard that.
"Now sing something!"
Justin didn't hear anything but the hiss of empty air. He closed his eyes, defeated.
"There, see?" The guy looked satisfied. "Told him the mix was right," he muttered to one of the grips, a little smile on his face. Justin knew that a new story about him being a spoiled diva would be starting tonight. Which, really, was the least of his problems right now.
The concerts were a strange mix of highs and lows for Justin. On the one hand, they were in this beautiful location, having a blast, getting to perform in front of a crowd that was small enough to be almost intimate. They were working so well together, having so much fun. It was almost like the old days, when everything didn't have to be bigger, flashier, better. When it was just the five of them, and it all seemed like such a distant dream, so they might as well enjoy the ride.
On the other hand, Justin had never felt so damn lonely in the face of so much adoration in his entire life.
After making a huge deal about his monitors at soundcheck, Justin chickened out and couldn't bring himself to ask to have the other guys added back in to his mix. So it was just he and the band out there. After a couple songs, he didn't have any idea how Lance could stand it. He couldn't hear the crowd. He couldn't hear the guys. It felt like he was living in some damn karaoke nightmare.
He had a feeling they wouldn't be able to use any of the footage from the first night, because he was just so out of it. He somehow didn't miss his cues, and he could do the dances in his sleep -- and probably had, a few nights on tour -- but he was like an automaton. Mechanical. He couldn't really connect with anyone, not the crowd, not the other guys.
It sucked. A lot.
He knew the others were worried about him, knew it in the way they looked at each other, and the way conversations would stop when he came into a room. But they seemed reluctant to ask, and Justin wasn't about to tell them. How could he even begin to explain without them thinking he had lost his mind?
The second night, he knew he had to do better. This was going to be televised. He was a professional. If he couldn't pull himself together, he didn't deserve to be here in the first place, right?
So he glittered. And he shone, and he flirted, and he was the camera whore everyone always teased him about being. Then, half a verse into This I Promise You, with the complete and utter lack of JC's voice pounding at his brain, he bit back a savage curse and yanked his monitors from his ears.
He almost lost his place in the song as the unfamiliar sounds hit him. He could still hear the band, and now he could pick up Lance and Chris on either side of him, barely. But over all of that, the crowd. My god, the crowd.
The waves of energy coming toward him were almost palpable. He usually felt it even with the monitors in, but this was intense. It made it all just a little more bearable, somehow.
During Gone, his thoughts turned inward a little. It was like that, kind of. JC was gone. Justin didn't know how to bring him back. And the crowd, their fans, just wanted to make him feel better. Okay, so it was a pretty stupid motivation, as motivations went, but whatever got him through the song, right?
And by the end, he was even having fun with it, enjoying milking the screams and gasps that he could hear so much better with his monitors out. He even played with the last word of the song a little, giving the audience a come-hither look, holding out on them, making them scream even louder before he sang it. They went nuts, and really, that didn't suck at all.
The rest of the concert was almost fun. He put his monitors back in, because he had to hear the band in order to be on tempo for the dancing, but it didn't bother him quite as much. Maybe just because he simply refused to let it.
They partied hard that night in the VIP bar on the top floor, and Justin held on to the post-concert high as long as he could. He caught JC watching him a few times, almost pensively, but he told himself he was imagining it. JC had no reason to think things were strange between them.
Justin was taking a breather out on the balcony when JC came out. He stood next to Justin, looking out at the ocean for a little while before he said anything.
"You were beautiful out there tonight, you know." JC's voice was low and melodic, and Justin was thinking so hard about the fact that even JC's speaking voice was something like music that it took him a minute to catch up and grasp the meaning of the words.
He blushed a little. "Thanks. You were great, too." And Justin knew that JC had been, always was, really. But he'd found that since he couldn't hear JC anymore, he watched him more closely. Justin had always known that JC was passionate about his music, could hear it every time they performed, but there was something surreal about watching him without being able to hear him. He could see the intensity come off of him in waves.
Just like the crowd tonight. Maybe that was why he'd liked it so much. Because it reminded him of the way he felt when he watched JC.
"It's not the same. I could sing in a room with no one there except the four of you and I'd be perfectly happy. But you... you were born for this, J. The crowd loves you. You're gonna get everything you ever wanted. And you deserve it. Really."
Justin felt like he had come in halfway through someone else's conversation, because he didn't have any idea what JC was talking about. "Um, C? In case you haven't noticed... we've got it. All of us. And it fucking rocks, dude." And aside from Justin's recent onset of selective deafness, or whatever the hell his problem was, it really did.
For someone who had just been told he had everything he ever wanted, JC looked pretty miserable. "I don't... forget it, okay. I just... wanted you to know." He pulled Justin into a hug, burrowing his face into Justin's neck. Justin hugged back, feeling how tense JC was against him. "You were so beautiful," JC whispered again, and then he was gone.
Justin still didn't quite understand what was going on. But he had a feeling it wasn't very good.
They gathered at Justin's house to watch the concert. He supplied the biggest television and best sound system, and they all brought the booze. It seemed like a fair trade off.
Normally, they were pretty rowdy during one of their television appearances, having seen the footage about a million times beforehand. But because of the quick turnaround time from taping to air, none of them had seen this rough footage at all, except for JC who had helped mix the sound. "Dork," Chris had teased him, ruffling his hair. "If you'd gone to a real high school, you would have been in the AV club. C'mon, dude, you know it's true."
Because it was new to them, instead of keeping up a ringing stream of commentary mocking each other as the action unfolded, they actually paid attention to it. Justin, especially, leaning forward in his seat, never taking his eyes off the screen, watched with an intensity that seemed to burn.
He let out a long breath during the beginning of the McGraw medley. "Damn, C, that was fucking awesome. You two sounded so great together."
Chris gave him a puzzled look. "Um, J, you were there, remember?"
Justin shifted uncomfortably. "Yeah, but, um. It sounds different on TV. You know."
The others just sort of shrugged, and a look passed between them that Justin couldn't read.
He was coming back from the kitchen with another beer when Joey let out a shout. "Hey, J, wasn't that your movie?"
Justin looked at the commercial, noting Mandy Moore with brown hair, and some guy who looked vaguely familiar. A title flashed across the screen -- "A Walk To Remember."
"Oh, yeah, I guess. I had forgotten about that."
It was supposed to be his big-screen debut in a starring role, the movie that was shipped all over town as the 'Justin Timberlake project' until practically everyone forgot its name. The guys had teased him about being stuck down in the middle of nowhere North Carolina for six weeks to film it, telling him that he'd be going completely insane after his first weekend without a club to hit, but Justin had been kind of looking forward to it.
In the end, it hadn't worked out. Recording on Celebrity had run longer than they had planned, and there had been so much work to do in post-production to get the tracks ready, and then they had to prepare for the tour. Lance had been able to make time to record his vocals while starring in and producing a movie, but Justin knew there was no way he could record, write, produce, and still do a movie on the side. He'd backed out, late enough in the game that it had caused more than a few problems, and the producers had ultimately found some kid from a TV show to take the role.
He'd never regretted the choice, never even looked back. Celebrity was their baby, the album that they made together out of their blood, sweat and tears. He wouldn't have traded those hours in the studio for anything, ever.
The silence after that seemed sort of oppressive. JC had grown more withdrawn as the evening went on, and by this time he was practically curled into a ball in the corner of the couch, with Lance huddled behind him. Justin frowned, but turned his attention back to the television again when the show came back on.
"Dude, it's like you've never heard us sing before," Joey finally observed.
Justin didn't answer. He couldn't very well tell them that this was the first time he was hearing this particular concert -- at least with all five of them.
He tried to keep his reactions low key after that, but when they got to This I Promise You, he pretty much lost it. When they showed the footage of them inside the tunnel, harmonizing together, he stopped breathing. He remembered it so clearly, watching JC smile at them, wishing to hear it so bad he could almost taste it. And it had been so damn amazing.
He didn't realize he had tears in his eyes until he wiped them away. When he looked up, the other guys were all looking away from him, except for JC, who was staring right at him with a look that seemed full of despair.
Justin managed to smile at him. "That was so incredible. It was the best idea, really. I'm so glad we did it."
And JC let out a strangled cry, pushing back against Lance so he could scramble off the couch. "I'm sorry," he whispered, not meeting anyone's eyes. "But I can't do this. I just... I can't."
Justin's mouth gaped open as the door slammed behind JC. "The fuck?"
Lance got up too, looking at Justin like he wasn't sure whether to yell at him or hug him. "Jesus, Justin. You know we support you. But really. Timing, much?" He shook his head and went after JC.
He looked back from Chris to Joey and back again. "Um. I don't get it?" When neither of them answered, he took off in the direction Lance and JC had gone.
He skidded to a stop in the foyer, because he could see Lance and JC talking out on the front steps. Lance had his arms around JC, who had rested his head on Lance's shoulder. JC looked like he was crying.
"C... come on. Don't do this. We promised, remember?" Lance patted JC's back as he talked, but Justin heard him sniff, and wipe at his own eyes.
"It's just so hard," he heard JC say. "Did you see him? He was watching it like, like, he'd never see us again. What if that was it, Lance? What if that was our last concert."
Justin nearly choked on his next breath. Last concert? What the hell were they talking about?
"Then it was a great one." Lance's voice was low and soothing. "You know it's better for Justin if he does this while we're still on top. We talked about this."
"But I'm going to miss him. So much. All of you." JC laughed a little, a watery, self-deprecating laugh. "See? I am selfish. The song is about me."
"We're all gonna miss it, darlin'. You know that. Justin will, too. But you're the one who said it best. We can't hold him here if he doesn't want to stay. And it's not fair to him to make it any harder on him than it has to be."
And finally, it all clicked into place, all the looks and the comments and the overheard conversations. He turned and strode back into the living room, and turned off the TV.
"Hey!" Chris started to protest, and then he saw the look on Justin's face.
"You think I'm leaving?" Justin demanded. "You think I'm quitting the group? You really think I'd do that to you guys? Jesus Christ, don't we know each other at all?"
Chris and Joey had the grace to look ashamed. "Well, you have been acting kind of weird lately," Joey said.
"And Johnny kept talking about all these offers you were getting in. And how taking a long break might be the perfect, um, transition period for you," Chris added.
Justin made a mental note to talk to Johnny about that comment. But this was more pressing. "How many times do you have to hear me say it? I don't want a solo career. I don't want to 'spread my wings', or whatever the fuck it is that they say when someone leaves a group to go out on his own. I love being in a group. I love being in this group. And I'm here to stay, so you better fucking get used to me."
They just stared at him, and then they both broke into wide grins. "Well, why didn't you just say so?" Chris asked, trying to pick Justin up and swing him around, which was pretty much anatomically impossible.
Rolling his eyes, Justin answered, "How about talking to me about it next time, instead of jumping to conclusions?"
Joey was grinning like an idiot, slapping Justin on the back so enthusiastically Justin could barely stand upright. "Okay, now could you go tell C, please? Because he's really been wrecked over this."
Just then, Lance came back in, stopping short at the sight of them hugging and laughing. "Did I miss something?"
Justin punched him in the arm, not so lightly. "Yeah, dickwad, I'm not leaving the group. And y'all are idiots for thinking I would." He peered behind Lance. "Where's C?"
"He, uh, went home." Lance was looking at him in shock. "You're not leaving? Really?" Justin nodded, waiting for the smile. He wasn't disappointed. It nearly split Lance's face in two.
Justin looked around at his living room, thought about what a disaster it would be in the morning, and left it behind without a second thought. "Try not to completely trash the place, okay? I'm going over to JC's."
They were still smiling like fools when he left, dancing around and hugging each other. Justin smiled at them fondly. Okay, they were a bunch of dorks, but they were his dorks.
And he was planning on keeping them.
When he got to JC's, Justin hesitated for a minute, and then rang the doorbell. He had a key, of course, but this didn't seem to be the ideal time to use it.
JC opened the door, and Justin's heart jumped when he saw how red his eyes were. JC looked totally shocked to see Justin, but he opened the door all the way and let Justin in.
"JC, I need to tell you --" Justin began.
"It's okay, J. I already know."
Justin started to tell JC that, no, he didn't know, but JC put soft fingers over Justin's mouth, stopping the words. "Shhhh. I realized something tonight." The fingers brushed lightly over his lips, and Justin gasped a little. "I don't want to look back and remember that I never had the nerve to do this when I had the chance."
Before Justin could say anything else, JC's lips covered his. For a second nothing happened, and then Justin kissed him back almost frantically, his hands coming up to tangle in JC's long hair. JC moaned and pressed Justin back against the wall.
Later, he'd never be able to remember exactly how they got up to the bedroom, it was all a whirl. His senses were overwhelmed, and all he could see or hear or taste or feel was JC. They came together so naturally that it was if they had done this a hundred times before, but everything was so wondrous and new. Justin arched up against JC's firm fingers, letting himself be opened, then thrust back eagerly when JC entered him. It was so utterly perfect. He felt JC's hands stroking him, in perfect rhythm with his thrusts, and then he was coming, in a rush of feeling that left him limp and sated. Just a few seconds later he felt JC stiffen, and collapse behind him.
"Need to. Tell you," Justin whispered weakly, barely able to keep his eyes open.
"Shhhh. Tell me tomorrow, baby."
Nestling back into JC's arms, Justin let himself fall into a deep, dreamless sleep.
When he opened his eyes, JC was still there, one arm cradled under Justin's head, the other stroking lightly down his chest. Justin let out a sound that was something like a purr, and turned to kiss JC.
When their lips parted, JC smiled down at him, looking luminous in the early morning light. "You know how long I've wanted to do that? I'm only sorry I waited so long." His lowered his lips to Justin's shoulder, raining down light kisses.
"I'm not leaving," Justin blurted out. Then he winced. That wasn't really how he had wanted to tell JC.
JC's motion stilled. He looked like he wasn't even breathing. "You're... what?"
Justin cupped JC's face with his hands, and kissed him. "Not." Kiss. "Leaving." Kiss. "The group." Another kiss, this one long and deep. "I never was. Y'all just jumped to conclusions. The wrong ones."
"Oh!" Comprehension dawned in JC's eyes. "Oh." He looked a little embarrassed. "So. Um. This was. Um."
"Amazing." Justin cut in, kissing him again. "Just like you. I'm sorry you waited so long, too." Then they didn't talk at all for a while.
After that, Justin figured things would be pretty much perfect. The guys had figured out that he really wasn't leaving, which meant they could actually enjoy their vacation. Johnny had stopped badgering him about exploring solo projects. And JC... JC was, as Justin had told him, amazing. Justin guessed this was about as close to paradise as an ordinary mortal could hope for.
There was only one problem. Justin still couldn't hear JC sing.
He still hadn't told him, because he just didn't know how to explain it. Waking up in JC's bed that first morning, Justin had thought it would be gone, that everything would be back to normal. He'd formulated a convoluted theory about repressed feelings and not hearing things, and had been pretty proud of himself... until he'd walked into the kitchen and seen JC's mouth moving as he brewed coffee, and heard nothing but silence.
It didn't make any sense to him, and he hated it. He hated missing out such an important part of JC, of being completely deaf to the one thing that any fan with enough cash could come hear at any one of their concerts.
But in the end, he decided that if it came down to it, he could live with it. What he was rapidly becoming sure he couldn't live without was JC. His sweetness, his smile, his soft kisses and gentle touches, his passion and intensity. If he was forced to choose between all of that, and JC's singing, he could manage without the singing.
But he did miss it. Sometimes, when they were lying in bed, Justin would whisper, "Sing to me." And JC would, lulling Justin to sleep by the gentle vibrations in his chest, instead of the sweet sound of his voice. But JC never knew that.
By the night of the Billboard Awards, Justin had almost become resigned to it. It wasn't the same, performing without hearing JC there with him, but he could do it. He still pulled his monitors, needing to hear something besides the band, and it was almost enough.
When he and JC were back in their hotel room, wrapped around each other in bed, it was more than enough.
"You know, that's when I thought for sure you were leaving," JC said idly, tracing patterns on Justin's chest.
"When?"
"When you pulled your monitors out during the Atlantis concert. It was like... oh. Justin doesn't want to listen to me anymore. He wants to hear the crowd telling him how great he is. He needs them more than he needs me... us."
Justin's cheeks flushed. "I didn't know you knew I listened to you in my monitors."
"You know how I like to play with the sound board." JC paused. "Why did you stop?"
"I guess... I guess I wanted to know what it would be like to be out there without your voice in my head." It wasn't entirely a lie, Justin told himself.
"Oh. And?"
Justin pulled JC tighter. "I learned that I never, ever want to be out on a stage singing and not be able to hear your voice in my head." And that, he knew, was entirely the truth.
JC sighed. "You know I love you. Right?"
As heartfelt declarations went, it wasn't all that impassioned, but it was the first time either of them had said it, and Justin thought he just might completely disgrace himself and cry. Instead, he blinked very hard and said, "You know I love you, too. Right?"
Their lips met, and that was all the questions they needed to ask for the night.
They were at Chris' the next night having a barbecue, pitying all the people who didn't live in Florida and couldn't have a barbecue in the middle of December, when Justin's head snapped up. He looked around the yard, his eyes sweeping frantically. "Is that... is that a CD or something?"
Chris looked confused. "Huh? Oh, no, that's just C and Joey messing around with some music Lance got in to look at for Free Lance, I think." Justin saw them then, sitting on the end of the porch, Joey with his arm slung casually around JC's waist. He watched JC's lips move, and he could hear him singing. He could hear him singing!
Chris was watching him with a bemused smile on his face. "You are so completely gone on him. It'd be disgusting if it weren't so damn cute."
"I couldn't hear him." Justin blurted the words out before he could stop himself. He needed to tell someone. "It started in Miami, I think. When JC would sing, I couldn't hear him. It was like there was just... nothing there."
Part of him was afraid that Chris would burst out laughing, or tell him that he was cracking up. But Chris just nodded at him as if what Justin had said had made perfect sense. "And now you can hear him?"
Justin nodded. "This is the first time. But I don't know why."
"Maybe you finally heard what you needed to hear."
Hmmm. Maybe that theory about repressed feelings hadn't been quiet so convoluted after all. "Yeah. I think maybe, maybe I finally did." Justin laughed, the clear sound ringing out across the yard, and JC looked up and smiled across at him. Justin smiled back, as JC never stopped singing. And Justin never stopped hearing him.
It was a beautiful, beautiful sound.
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