two for the price of one
I kind of overslept on the whole wip amnesty day thing, so I'm having mine now instead, on JuC day. Because I really don't think I'm ever going to finish this thing - it's been sitting quietly in its folder for a year and a half, while I wrestled with the difficulties of non-linear writing and other people did much better Justin-is-kinda-nuts stories.
nameless heartbreak
"We have to talk," JC said, looking back over his shoulder, and Justin shook his head and stepped back. He wanted the door to close between them, but JC reached out and took his hand, lacing their fingers together. He didn't do it evenly; two of Justin's fingers were squished together.
Justin frowned. "I'm kinda tired," he said. He shut his eyes and heard the door close, with both of them on the same side. If he didn't look, he wouldn't really be in this room. All outside sound fell away, as though he'd walked down underwater.
"I know." JC's voice was too clear and too close. "Or, I mean, I know there's something. And I wish you would tell someone. Wish you would tell me, man."
*
Justin looked in the mirror and counted in his head, one two three four, and step step slide turn roll, and his shoulders were too stiff. He backed up and started over. Step, step, remember the knees, slide, right arm, not too forcefully. Fluid. He was going to be fluid. He thought about Terminator II and whatsisface coming back together again like quicksilver. Yeah. Like that. Slide, arm and shoulder, turn, roll, shoulders to knees. That was better. He stepped up the pace of the music in his head, listened to the soft sound of his feet on the floor. Step. Step. Slide. Turn. Roll, and he kept moving, because the music was playing in his head and he knew just how to do this. Had it down cold, finally, from the length of his steps to the exact curve of his fingers. He watched and saw the boy in the mirror smile, saw the sweat running down his temples.
*
Another of his guys died, and he swore and Chris crowed and made a rude gesture with a handful of pixy stix. "Another stunning victory for Kirkpatrick! This is like taking candy from an overgrown baby."
"Fuck you," Justin said, but it was the laid-back, friendly fuck you that not even his mom could have found anything wrong with. Well, maybe his mom. He shifted his grip on the game control, shifted an inch on the ratty hotel carpet. "Joey, you were gonna cheer for me!"
"Yeah, yeah." Joey looked up from his magazine. "Go team Justin."
"Wow, the Laker girls would be so impressed." Justin rolled his eyes.
Joey rolled his eyes right back. "Whatever. Chris doesn't have a cheerleader, and he kicked your sorry butt."
"I have a cheerleader," Chris said, pointing with a red- and yellow-stained finger. "C is my cheerleader. He's sitting there sending out secret mind-warping signals to mess with Justin's game." He raised his voice. "Right, C?"
"I'm not actually deaf," JC said, in that half-amused, half-annoyed voice, and threw his pen at Chris. He rolled over on his stomach between Justin and the couch, caught the pen when Chris threw it back, and went on drawing mustaches on everyone in the crossword picture. Justin craned his neck to see if JC had filled in any clues at all.
"Ready to get your sorry butt re-kicked, J?"
"In your dreams," Justin said. Two clues, and one was spelled wrong. He pointed at it, and JC poked a sharp finger into his side just above his hipbone, and he dropped the game control.
"I think I'm gonna win the next one on walkover," Chris said, and kicked Justin's foot. "Pay attention, J. There will be a test on this material later."
"I am," Justin said, and picked up the game control again. JC left his finger hooked in the waistband of Justin's jeans, tapping out an irregular rhythm just under the hem of Justin's t-shirt. "I'm ready. I'm paying attention."
"Somehow," Chris said, "I don't think so."
*
"I. Justin," JC said. He looked incredibly surprised, and incredibly kind, and Justin wondered if he could die just from wanting to. "Whoa. I wasn't expecting that."
"It's okay," Justin said, taking a quick step backwards, holding up his hands, his not-at-all-touching-JC hands, "never mind, don't--"
"I just don't think of you like that," JC said, unstoppable. "You're like my kid brother, I love you, you know I love you, right?"
"Right," Justin said, and fled. He thought about jumping off the roof, and he thought about making Chris get him a drink or twenty, but instead, he went down to the gym and lifted weights until his arms were shaking, ran on the treadmill until he was ready to drop. It wasn't supposed to go like that. Not like that.
*
Britney was perfect. Onstage, when she moved like a dream, every move radiating confidence. Offstage, when she giggled and pulled her hair back in a messy ponytail and sometimes got this slightly confused look when she wasn't following the conversation. It made him want to pick her up and kiss her, or just hold her close, with her head tucked under his chin, the side of her face pressed against his chest. When she held still like that and just rested against him, it made his heart feel warm and soft like chocolate syrup. He wanted the stars to spell out her name. Everything about her was right.
*
Anneke was the hotel owner's niece. "Summer job," she said with a shy smile. "In August, I will back to school go." When she worked in the dining room, she wore a white apron. She kissed Justin behind the kitchen door, and she tasted like cigarettes and pink bubble gum. Later, he got to slip his hand up under her blouse and feel the slinky-silky synthetic of her bra, the stiff lacy edge that tickled his fingertips.
*
JC rounded the corner and stopped behind a huge rack of costumes. Justin and Britney were sharing a can of Coke and giggling about something, heads together, but then they straightened up and launched into a dance routine JC had already seem them practice twenty, thirty times. They were light, lithe, fast and easy and they glanced at each other now and then, checking that their rhythms matched, and JC thought they looked a little bit like some famous pair of dancers out of a movie.
Towards the end, they got out of sync and bumped into each other. They stopped. Britney bit her lip, and Justin scrubbed at his head with the flat of his palm. With no more than a shared glance, they started over.
JC moved away, quietly so they wouldn't see him. He didn't have to be anywhere for another twenty minutes, and he'd been planning to pick up some fruit or candy bars or something and go find Tony. Instead, he wandered off to a quiet corner and sat down on a big box and let his heels drum slowly against the side. He'd gotten a new script that morning, and he tried to run through Wipeout's lines in his head, but he couldn't remember a single one of them.
He wrapped his arms around himself and stared down at his toes.
*
"This outfit first," the stylist said briskly, shoving a pile of clothes into his arms, "and then for the part against the white and green background, something like this." She held up a jacket against his face and narrowed her eyes. "This doesn't go with your skin tone," she said, sounding a little accusing. "I looked at the pics from the shoot in March, and I thought you'd be a lot paler."
"They used a lot of makeup that time," JC said, shifting his grip and trying not to drop the slithery down vest. "I had, um. A pimple."
She blinked, and scrutinized him more closely. "Can't see anything now. I'll find another jacket. And one of these shirts, you pick," she said, holding them up and giving him a small smile.
JC looked at the shirts. He glanced over her shoulder at the rack of clothes. "Actually," he said, and paused, but he'd started so he might as well go on, "actually, I kind of like that one. Behind you."
The stylist turned her head. "Which one? The dark blue?"
"No." JC cleared his throat. "The one over on the left, with the." He pointed. "Looks like flowers?"
"Oh." She looked back at him and narrowed her eyes again, just the same way. "Hmm." Then she nodded. "Okay. No jacket, then. You're going to need different shoes." She looked at the clothes he was holding. "And a different belt. Go put that stuff on, I'll be back with the rest."
"Thanks," he said to her back as she walked away.
*
JC put a hand on the back of his neck and squeezed a little, affectionately, and then didn't take his hand away but stroked all the way down Justin's spine, thumb following the groove, and then in under his t-shirt and up again, skin to skin. Oh, Justin said, just very quietly to himself, and he turned his head and looked at JC, who looked back at him with a sort of detached fondness. The back of Justin's neck felt cold, and he shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and then JC did take his hand away.
*
The bus engine turned over, then settled into a steady purr. Justin put out a hand to steady himself against when the bus would start moving. He looked at JC, whose hair was still damp from the post-concert shower. "Where's Chris?"
JC smiled. "He went with Lance and Joey. There was a." He waved his hand. "Something." It was his adrenaline smile, the smile that meant he was still singing and dancing in his head, sometimes hours after the show was over. Justin knew that smile.
"You're wired, man," he said, and JC nodded, not bothering to deny it. The bus started moving, and JC stumbled into Justin and grinned like it was the funniest thing to happen to him all day.
"Sorry!"
"I love you," Justin said, and kissed him.
"Fuck you," JC said, "get your hands off me," and his face dissolved into television static.
"I love you," Justin said, and kissed him.
JC took a skittish leap backwards. "I, um, that's. Love you, too, man, but." He didn't meet Justin's eyes. "I'll just. I'll go back on the other bus, okay?"
"I love you," Justin said, and kissed him. JC leaned into Justin, humming like electricity, hot and strong and full of movement under Justin's hands.
*
"I don't like Houston," Justin said.
Joey ruffled his hair and laughed at him. "Why not?"
"That girl, that one time, when we were signing at the place? Who spat in my face?"
"What?" Joey shook his head. "Justin, I was right next to you the whole time. Nobody spat in your face."
Justin blinked. "But," he said. He rubbed at his cheek, that spot right under his cheekbone.
*
"You know," Trace said, "half the time I think you're making this shit up." He waved his hand around. "But then I'm here and it really is this crazy. I don't know how you do it, man."
*
Tara giggled, leaning her forehead against his shoulder. She straightened up again and her eyelashes, weighted with black, swept through the air like crow's wings. "I've never known anyone quite like you," she said.
JC swept a flake of mascara off her cheek before it could smudge. "Isn't that like the point of people?" he said. "That they're all, you know, different."
"You're not gonna talk about snowflakes, are you."
"No." JC shook his head. "No, I leave that kind of stuff to Justin."
*
Jenny was one of the prettiest girls JC had ever seen, and she was a friend of a friend of Dale's, and it started to seem like a good idea to have a party on New Year's after all. At midnight, she was the prettiest girl he had ever kissed. At one thirty, she was the prettiest girl he'd ever made out with. At one forty-five, she was the prettiest girl who'd ever slapped his face and told him to back off. He had fingerprints on his cheek for three days and had to wear pancake makeup an inch thick, or that's what it felt like.
*
Bobbi squirmed. "Don't," she said, pushing him away. "I need a shower."
"You smell good." JC kissed the inside of her arm.
"No, I'm. Ick. I really need a shower, okay?"
"Kind of spicy. And really you."
She frowned. "You think the real me smells bad?"
"It's not bad. I like it," he said.
Bobbi frowned. "You're weird." She wriggled out of his grasp and went to the bathroom.
When she came back, he was sitting on the edge of the bed. "I didn't mean to weird you out," he said. "I just. It's you. I like everything about you."
"That's nice," she said. There was no conviction in her voice. He didn't tell her how, at the end of a long day of rehearsal, he could tell the guys apart, could tell who was coming up behind him just from the way they smelled.
*
Justin came back at three with his head full of beer. The house was weighted with sleep. All the way to the bedroom, he thought about waking his mom, just to talk, but then he didn't. He left his clothes strewn across the floor as he climbed into bed, and then he lay there in darkness for a while and stared at the ceiling.
After about half an hour, he got up and picked his clothes up and folded them and put them on a chair. Then he went back to bed.
After another hour, he got up again. He got the cushions from the chair and the window seat, and the extra pillows and the big comforter and the blanket from the closet. Justin piled them along the left side of the bed and then he got back in, on the right side, and rolled up until he was right next to them. It was almost, only not really, like having someone else in bed with him.
~
and that's all she wrote, sadly. Happy JuC day! Go and read someone else's more cheerful stories! fuskeez is keeping track of all the good new stuff.
nameless heartbreak
"We have to talk," JC said, looking back over his shoulder, and Justin shook his head and stepped back. He wanted the door to close between them, but JC reached out and took his hand, lacing their fingers together. He didn't do it evenly; two of Justin's fingers were squished together.
Justin frowned. "I'm kinda tired," he said. He shut his eyes and heard the door close, with both of them on the same side. If he didn't look, he wouldn't really be in this room. All outside sound fell away, as though he'd walked down underwater.
"I know." JC's voice was too clear and too close. "Or, I mean, I know there's something. And I wish you would tell someone. Wish you would tell me, man."
*
Justin looked in the mirror and counted in his head, one two three four, and step step slide turn roll, and his shoulders were too stiff. He backed up and started over. Step, step, remember the knees, slide, right arm, not too forcefully. Fluid. He was going to be fluid. He thought about Terminator II and whatsisface coming back together again like quicksilver. Yeah. Like that. Slide, arm and shoulder, turn, roll, shoulders to knees. That was better. He stepped up the pace of the music in his head, listened to the soft sound of his feet on the floor. Step. Step. Slide. Turn. Roll, and he kept moving, because the music was playing in his head and he knew just how to do this. Had it down cold, finally, from the length of his steps to the exact curve of his fingers. He watched and saw the boy in the mirror smile, saw the sweat running down his temples.
*
Another of his guys died, and he swore and Chris crowed and made a rude gesture with a handful of pixy stix. "Another stunning victory for Kirkpatrick! This is like taking candy from an overgrown baby."
"Fuck you," Justin said, but it was the laid-back, friendly fuck you that not even his mom could have found anything wrong with. Well, maybe his mom. He shifted his grip on the game control, shifted an inch on the ratty hotel carpet. "Joey, you were gonna cheer for me!"
"Yeah, yeah." Joey looked up from his magazine. "Go team Justin."
"Wow, the Laker girls would be so impressed." Justin rolled his eyes.
Joey rolled his eyes right back. "Whatever. Chris doesn't have a cheerleader, and he kicked your sorry butt."
"I have a cheerleader," Chris said, pointing with a red- and yellow-stained finger. "C is my cheerleader. He's sitting there sending out secret mind-warping signals to mess with Justin's game." He raised his voice. "Right, C?"
"I'm not actually deaf," JC said, in that half-amused, half-annoyed voice, and threw his pen at Chris. He rolled over on his stomach between Justin and the couch, caught the pen when Chris threw it back, and went on drawing mustaches on everyone in the crossword picture. Justin craned his neck to see if JC had filled in any clues at all.
"Ready to get your sorry butt re-kicked, J?"
"In your dreams," Justin said. Two clues, and one was spelled wrong. He pointed at it, and JC poked a sharp finger into his side just above his hipbone, and he dropped the game control.
"I think I'm gonna win the next one on walkover," Chris said, and kicked Justin's foot. "Pay attention, J. There will be a test on this material later."
"I am," Justin said, and picked up the game control again. JC left his finger hooked in the waistband of Justin's jeans, tapping out an irregular rhythm just under the hem of Justin's t-shirt. "I'm ready. I'm paying attention."
"Somehow," Chris said, "I don't think so."
*
"I. Justin," JC said. He looked incredibly surprised, and incredibly kind, and Justin wondered if he could die just from wanting to. "Whoa. I wasn't expecting that."
"It's okay," Justin said, taking a quick step backwards, holding up his hands, his not-at-all-touching-JC hands, "never mind, don't--"
"I just don't think of you like that," JC said, unstoppable. "You're like my kid brother, I love you, you know I love you, right?"
"Right," Justin said, and fled. He thought about jumping off the roof, and he thought about making Chris get him a drink or twenty, but instead, he went down to the gym and lifted weights until his arms were shaking, ran on the treadmill until he was ready to drop. It wasn't supposed to go like that. Not like that.
*
Britney was perfect. Onstage, when she moved like a dream, every move radiating confidence. Offstage, when she giggled and pulled her hair back in a messy ponytail and sometimes got this slightly confused look when she wasn't following the conversation. It made him want to pick her up and kiss her, or just hold her close, with her head tucked under his chin, the side of her face pressed against his chest. When she held still like that and just rested against him, it made his heart feel warm and soft like chocolate syrup. He wanted the stars to spell out her name. Everything about her was right.
*
Anneke was the hotel owner's niece. "Summer job," she said with a shy smile. "In August, I will back to school go." When she worked in the dining room, she wore a white apron. She kissed Justin behind the kitchen door, and she tasted like cigarettes and pink bubble gum. Later, he got to slip his hand up under her blouse and feel the slinky-silky synthetic of her bra, the stiff lacy edge that tickled his fingertips.
*
JC rounded the corner and stopped behind a huge rack of costumes. Justin and Britney were sharing a can of Coke and giggling about something, heads together, but then they straightened up and launched into a dance routine JC had already seem them practice twenty, thirty times. They were light, lithe, fast and easy and they glanced at each other now and then, checking that their rhythms matched, and JC thought they looked a little bit like some famous pair of dancers out of a movie.
Towards the end, they got out of sync and bumped into each other. They stopped. Britney bit her lip, and Justin scrubbed at his head with the flat of his palm. With no more than a shared glance, they started over.
JC moved away, quietly so they wouldn't see him. He didn't have to be anywhere for another twenty minutes, and he'd been planning to pick up some fruit or candy bars or something and go find Tony. Instead, he wandered off to a quiet corner and sat down on a big box and let his heels drum slowly against the side. He'd gotten a new script that morning, and he tried to run through Wipeout's lines in his head, but he couldn't remember a single one of them.
He wrapped his arms around himself and stared down at his toes.
*
"This outfit first," the stylist said briskly, shoving a pile of clothes into his arms, "and then for the part against the white and green background, something like this." She held up a jacket against his face and narrowed her eyes. "This doesn't go with your skin tone," she said, sounding a little accusing. "I looked at the pics from the shoot in March, and I thought you'd be a lot paler."
"They used a lot of makeup that time," JC said, shifting his grip and trying not to drop the slithery down vest. "I had, um. A pimple."
She blinked, and scrutinized him more closely. "Can't see anything now. I'll find another jacket. And one of these shirts, you pick," she said, holding them up and giving him a small smile.
JC looked at the shirts. He glanced over her shoulder at the rack of clothes. "Actually," he said, and paused, but he'd started so he might as well go on, "actually, I kind of like that one. Behind you."
The stylist turned her head. "Which one? The dark blue?"
"No." JC cleared his throat. "The one over on the left, with the." He pointed. "Looks like flowers?"
"Oh." She looked back at him and narrowed her eyes again, just the same way. "Hmm." Then she nodded. "Okay. No jacket, then. You're going to need different shoes." She looked at the clothes he was holding. "And a different belt. Go put that stuff on, I'll be back with the rest."
"Thanks," he said to her back as she walked away.
*
JC put a hand on the back of his neck and squeezed a little, affectionately, and then didn't take his hand away but stroked all the way down Justin's spine, thumb following the groove, and then in under his t-shirt and up again, skin to skin. Oh, Justin said, just very quietly to himself, and he turned his head and looked at JC, who looked back at him with a sort of detached fondness. The back of Justin's neck felt cold, and he shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and then JC did take his hand away.
*
The bus engine turned over, then settled into a steady purr. Justin put out a hand to steady himself against when the bus would start moving. He looked at JC, whose hair was still damp from the post-concert shower. "Where's Chris?"
JC smiled. "He went with Lance and Joey. There was a." He waved his hand. "Something." It was his adrenaline smile, the smile that meant he was still singing and dancing in his head, sometimes hours after the show was over. Justin knew that smile.
"You're wired, man," he said, and JC nodded, not bothering to deny it. The bus started moving, and JC stumbled into Justin and grinned like it was the funniest thing to happen to him all day.
"Sorry!"
"I love you," Justin said, and kissed him.
"Fuck you," JC said, "get your hands off me," and his face dissolved into television static.
"I love you," Justin said, and kissed him.
JC took a skittish leap backwards. "I, um, that's. Love you, too, man, but." He didn't meet Justin's eyes. "I'll just. I'll go back on the other bus, okay?"
"I love you," Justin said, and kissed him. JC leaned into Justin, humming like electricity, hot and strong and full of movement under Justin's hands.
*
"I don't like Houston," Justin said.
Joey ruffled his hair and laughed at him. "Why not?"
"That girl, that one time, when we were signing at the place? Who spat in my face?"
"What?" Joey shook his head. "Justin, I was right next to you the whole time. Nobody spat in your face."
Justin blinked. "But," he said. He rubbed at his cheek, that spot right under his cheekbone.
*
"You know," Trace said, "half the time I think you're making this shit up." He waved his hand around. "But then I'm here and it really is this crazy. I don't know how you do it, man."
*
Tara giggled, leaning her forehead against his shoulder. She straightened up again and her eyelashes, weighted with black, swept through the air like crow's wings. "I've never known anyone quite like you," she said.
JC swept a flake of mascara off her cheek before it could smudge. "Isn't that like the point of people?" he said. "That they're all, you know, different."
"You're not gonna talk about snowflakes, are you."
"No." JC shook his head. "No, I leave that kind of stuff to Justin."
*
Jenny was one of the prettiest girls JC had ever seen, and she was a friend of a friend of Dale's, and it started to seem like a good idea to have a party on New Year's after all. At midnight, she was the prettiest girl he had ever kissed. At one thirty, she was the prettiest girl he'd ever made out with. At one forty-five, she was the prettiest girl who'd ever slapped his face and told him to back off. He had fingerprints on his cheek for three days and had to wear pancake makeup an inch thick, or that's what it felt like.
*
Bobbi squirmed. "Don't," she said, pushing him away. "I need a shower."
"You smell good." JC kissed the inside of her arm.
"No, I'm. Ick. I really need a shower, okay?"
"Kind of spicy. And really you."
She frowned. "You think the real me smells bad?"
"It's not bad. I like it," he said.
Bobbi frowned. "You're weird." She wriggled out of his grasp and went to the bathroom.
When she came back, he was sitting on the edge of the bed. "I didn't mean to weird you out," he said. "I just. It's you. I like everything about you."
"That's nice," she said. There was no conviction in her voice. He didn't tell her how, at the end of a long day of rehearsal, he could tell the guys apart, could tell who was coming up behind him just from the way they smelled.
*
Justin came back at three with his head full of beer. The house was weighted with sleep. All the way to the bedroom, he thought about waking his mom, just to talk, but then he didn't. He left his clothes strewn across the floor as he climbed into bed, and then he lay there in darkness for a while and stared at the ceiling.
After about half an hour, he got up and picked his clothes up and folded them and put them on a chair. Then he went back to bed.
After another hour, he got up again. He got the cushions from the chair and the window seat, and the extra pillows and the big comforter and the blanket from the closet. Justin piled them along the left side of the bed and then he got back in, on the right side, and rolled up until he was right next to them. It was almost, only not really, like having someone else in bed with him.
~
and that's all she wrote, sadly. Happy JuC day! Go and read someone else's more cheerful stories! fuskeez is keeping track of all the good new stuff.