How JC Escaped from Planet Sequin and Got His Groove Back 1/2
How JC Escaped from Planet Sequin and Got His Groove Back
A TrickC Tale by SnarkyLlama (with bonus awesome!Lance)
This was my Make the Yuletide Gay fic for strippedhalo.
Huge thanks go to phaballa and cativert for hauling the llama brain out of the mud when it was stuck, and to nopseud for beta-ing and helping me make this work. (You make my sparkles bright.) Thanks, also, to turps33 whose cheerleading is... happy-llama-making.
Link to Part 2
I'll call you on the phone
I hope that I get through
"Eric," JC sighed as his phone tried to slip away from him again. "I'm really not interested in that."
Far away and presumably unencumbered by a contrary Samsung, Eric launched into one of his spiels. Visibility was important. Appearances that didn't interest JC would lead, in all due time, to appearances that did interest him. Blah, blah, blah. Get out of the house. Blah, blah.
JC had heard it all before.
He knew that he could stop it. He could say "no" or "hey, let's face it, no one wants me for my music," but he never did. He was just... It was just...
Well, Eric was just so Eric-y and enthusiastic, it would be like kicking a puppy. That's what it was. And sure, it was probably a baby pit bull or something, but that didn't make kicking it any less mean, so JC simply sighed again and moved "buy a new Bluetooth" higher on his mental to-do list.
He needed a headset because it was surprisingly difficult to securely wedge a cell phone between your shoulder and your ear. He kept trying till he managed it, and then opened the refrigerator and leaned forward carefully, an inch at a time, and reached for the cheese drawer.
Sensing his distraction, the phone seized its opportunity. In a desperate bid for freedom, it leapt--
"Fuck!"
--and landed in the Jell-O.
"You wily little bastard!"
He considered just leaving it there in its lime-flavored grave, but the phone actually seemed to be okay. Eric's tiny little voice was still emitting from it, and, okay, this was really stupid, but he rather liked the phone now. It was the cellular version of Chris.
He fished it out of the bowl, then nearly dropped it as he fumbled with slick fingers for the speaker button. He hated how speaker phones made everything sound hollow and echoing, but sometimes that was the lesser of two evils.
"JC? Are you even listening?"
"Hey, man, sorry. I am like... so busy right now. Really busy. I'll call you back in a few, okay?"
"JC, this is--"
JC ended the call and wiped the phone down with a paper towel, before turning back to the 'fridge. Right, so... asiago cheese, eggs, spinach...
He gathered the ingredients, and then set to work, humming "All Day Long I Dream about Quiche" as he cooked. He didn't have an exciting career, but he still had his sense of humor. That was enough.
He did not call Eric back.
#
"I wish you'd recon...er."
Eric's voice faded in and out, and JC had to admit that as spacious and comfortable as his closet was, it had lousy cell-phone reception. That didn't bother him too much, though. He wasn't missing anything important; Eric was still saying the same old thing.
"Look," he said, glad that he had a Bluetooth again and could talk with ease while rummaging through his clothes. "We talked about this before. I think Dance Crew is enough of an appearance. In fact, it's better than an appearance because I'm actually doing something, even if it's not..."
Wait. Were those the ones he was looking for?
He pulled a vintage pair of button-fly jeans from the rack and held them up to get a better look. Oh, yeah. These were great. These made all those hours of watching old, TiVo'd episodes of Project Runway totally worth it. He would have forgotten these if it hadn't been for that Levi's challenge.
"JC... JC, are you even list...ing?"
Oh, Eric.
He really didn't feel like arguing with Eric. He stepped out of the closet, so at least he wouldn't have to listen to Eric cut in and out, and asked, "Do we have to talk about this now?"
"You pay me to talk about this--and, by the way, when I say 'talk,' I mean we have a discussion where everyone listens and no one drifts off in the middle of a sentence and starts in on the musical stylings of the artist formerly known as Prince."
"Prince?"
"You were humming 'U Got the Look' at me, and don't get me wrong, I'd be flattered if I thought that was a compliment, but--"
"I love Prince," JC said. "What's he doing nowadays?"
"He turned fifty and retired, so... I don't know. But whatever it is, I can guarantee it's more than what you're doing, which, in case you haven't noticed, is absolutely nothing."
"Hey! Dance Crew isn't nothing."
There was no answer. Eric had hung up on him.
Well, whatever. Dance Crew wasn't nothing. It really made a difference for those kids. And all those little bit parts in movies weren't nothing. They were a couple days' entertainment and a pleasant distraction, which was pretty much all that JC could ask for these days. Eric could just chill.
JC slipped out of his pants and tugged on the jeans. Oh, yeah. He'd bought them four, maybe five years ago and they still fit perfectly. He stood in front of the mirror and twisted to check himself out from every angle. He looked good. Damn good.
He laughed at his vanity then, and shimmied while singing a little more Prince. Your face is jammin', your body's heck a-slammin'.
He laughed again and twirled around the room. He should give Eric a bonus for having hooked him up with such a great personal trainer, maybe suggest he spend it on a nice, relaxing vacation somewhere 'cause Eric's blood pressure was probably out of this world.
#
When Eric called, JC was in his music room, sprawled out on his favorite lounge chair and listening to Zapp & Roger's "So Ruff, So Tuff" on repeat in preparation for the inevitable debate with Justin over the relative merits of old-school electronic voice distortion versus Autotune. He didn't know when they'd have that debate, but he would be ready.
He turned the music down a bit and listened to Eric with half an ear until he said: "Now, I know you said to focus on acting, but I've had a few ideas and I think we can really do this. You're a much better singer than David, so you can't--"
Oh, god dammit. Was he going to force JC to say it?
"--let him have more of your songs--"
"No, Eric."
"I think we can get your album--"
JC turned off the stereo. He wanted Eric to be very, very clear on this.
"My album is dead, Eric. Kate is dead. Leave it be."
He tried to say it calmly, but he maybe growled a bit at the very end.
Eric growled right back. "I'm doing my fucking job."
"Your job is to do what I fucking tell you to do."
Eric laughed.
"Think again, Chasez. I'm your fucking manager. My job is to help you get what you want, and I'd never manage that if I actually did what you told me to do."
"I want you to leave it alone. I want you to focus on the acting and producing."
"That's not what you want. I can--"
You can't! JC wanted to snap. You can't get me what I really want, and we both know it.
But JC didn't say that, if he said it, then he'd have to admit that Johnny Wright was probably the only one who could get JC what he wanted. And JC didn't want Johnny; he didn't fucking trust Johnny.
And he knew damn well that Johnny didn't want him. NSYNC's time had come and gone, and JC Chasez, solo artist, had never really existed.
He wasn't a solo artist. He could never be one.
"No," JC said. "Just... just listen to me for a moment, okay? Please listen. This is what I want." He paused for a deep breath. If he was calm enough, maybe Eric would listen for a change. "I want to focus on acting and producing. I'm not interested in my music anymore, I'm not feeling my music anymore, I don't care about my music anymore. Okay? Got it?"
Eric was silent.
"Eric? Have you got it? Can I be any clearer?"
"Fine," Eric said. "If you're going to be that way, then... be that way, JC."
There was something very ominous in the way he'd said that. JC hoped it didn't mean that he was planning to quit. Eric was a cool guy when he wasn't in nagging-manager mode.
"Hey, Eric?"
There was no answer.
JC put his phone down, then sighed and looked over at the stereo. He really wasn't in the mood for Zapp & Roger anymore. He could put in another CD or even go more old-school and pull out some vinyl. But that seemed like an awful lot of effort now.
Or he could pull out some porn...
He kept all of his favorites down here. It only made sense. Music got him off as often as porn did. They were both so visceral, all about feelings and sound and bodies in motion, and good sex was as close to music as good music was like sex.
But that wasn't a good idea. He didn't want to associate Eric with jerking off.
He tugged the furry afghan down from the back of his chair and wrapped himself up in it. He'd just close his eyes for a bit and put all this unpleasantness behind him.
#
JC woke up and rubbed his eyes, then rubbed them again more carefully. They seemed a bit gritty. He must have slept longer than he'd meant to.
The room was dark, and he was hungry and... huh.
Why was he in this room anyway? He had a perfectly nice bed upstairs; he didn't have to resort to napping in random spare rooms.
He dragged himself out to the kitchen, and when he saw the time on the microwave's display, he frowned. Late dinner? Or early breakfast?
Neither, he decided. He grabbed a handful of Newman's Own Organic Oreo-type Things from the cookie jar and ate them on his way up to bed.
It was so mysterious,
But something that I liked
A sneezing fit woke JC up. He felt gritty and itchy and gross. He scrabbled at the nightstand, trying to find a tissue, and then stopped, surprised. The whole table was covered in a fine layer of dust. The cleaning service had just been in, but they must have overlooked this table.
Ah, well. It was an easy mistake to make. It was bound to happen every once in a while, and it certainly wouldn't kill him to dust it himself.
Then he sneezed three more times and decided that he could dust after he took a shower. He was too gross for anything else.
#
After his shower, he noticed a strange little line of grit around the drain. It sparkled a bit like white sand.
#
The cleaning crew brought most of their supplies in from the van with them, so JC didn't have any of those fancy micro-fiber dusters like they had. For a moment, he considered making a duster out of one of his old feathered shirts, but that wasn't practical. He might want to wear feathers again someday.
He took a washcloth from the linen closet and wondered if he should dampen it. He remembered doing chores when he was young, spraying Pledge on one of his father's old undershirts and how that thick, lemon scent coated the back of his throat like oil. His mother would say, "Don't just push the dust around, Joshua," and watch him with eagle eyes until she trusted him to do it right.
And now he was woolgathering instead of doing a simple chore; she'd scold him for that if she were here.
"Right," he told himself. "There's time for dreaming when the work is done."
He brandished his washcloth and went off to tackle the nightstand... but it wasn't just the nightstand. His entire bedroom was dusty, seriously dusty. He could write his name in it.
Well, writing "JC" didn't require much dust, but still, there was no way Marciella and her crew would have skipped right over his room in their cleaning. There must have been some sort of atmospheric anomaly recently. Something had kicked up a lot more dust than usual.
Whatever it was, it was sure to settle back down soon.
#
He woke every morning to gritty eyes and sneezing. He used eye drops. He took Claritan. He bought allergen air filters for every room and a humidifier for the bedroom.
He watched Marciella check the filter on the vacuum cleaner, and paid her extra to put in a new filter even though she insisted that it didn't need changing.
Every day, he checked the pollen count. It wasn't elevated.
Then he checked the weather reports, the science news, and the letters to the editor. Nothing was out of the ordinary. There were no forest fires, no volcanic activity, no concerns about a dramatic increase in construction-related dust, and no complaints about illegal quarries or sawmills or anything else that JC could think of that would produce large quantities of dust.
Lance laughed his head off when JC tried asking him about meteor activity and space dust.
Really, his questions hadn't been that outlandish.
#
He always used to go out on the day the cleaning service came. He'd go shopping or catch a matinee or grab a coffee somewhere. That wasn't practical now that he had the service coming so often. He just turned the TV up loud enough to drown out the vacuum and tried to stay out of everyone's way.
He liked daytime television, and it worked out pretty well.
He was dashing to the kitchen one day, hoping to zap a bag of popcorn and get back to A&E's Intervention marathon before the commercials were over, when he saw Marciella pushing the vacuum into one of the spare rooms. He skidded to a halt.
"Oh," he said. "Oh, Marciella, you do so much these days, I really can't ask you to do that room, too."
She stared at him, and he wondered if he was talking too fast.
"I just hate to make you work so hard," he explained.
"It's dusty."
"That's okay. I don't use that room, I can barely even remember the last time I--"
"It's very important, this room."
"No," he assured her. "I think I took a nap in there once, but that's it, I swear. You can skip it."
"You are certain? I do not wish to--"
"I'm positive." He smiled at her, and then realized that his show was probably coming back on. He'd have to make popcorn during the next break.
#
He went out for lunch one day with some pretty little friend of Tara's. They went to an open-air café and had a good time, their light banter mixing delightfully with the truly fabulous sandwiches and drinks, until JC noticed how his arm shimmered in the afternoon sun. He tried unobtrusively to brush the faint sparkle from his skin, but it wouldn't come off.
After that, he could only think of getting inside before someone else noticed. With his luck, Perez Hilton would catch word of it and he'd never hear the end of the Twilight jokes.
#
He liked to buy necessities in the evening when the paparazzi, including the tenacious few who still thought he was worth a picture or two, went to the clubs to hunt for bigger game. He felt better, knowing that the mundane, intimate details of his life were safe for another day. And really, there weren't that many people who needed to know his preferences when it came to such things as condoms, toilet paper, and breakfast food.
He had a favorite corner store, not too far from his home. It wasn't anything special, he just liked it. One of the clerks had green hair and a lip ring and looked a bit like one of Chris' sisters, and the night manager looked like Howie Dorough. It was a good place.
Lately, though, their PA system was on the blink. The Muzak they piped in had gone flat and dull and toneless. He wondered why they didn't turn it off until they could fix it.
One night, when the green-haired girl was at the register, she waved her hand at the ceiling and said, "That must be weird for you, huh?"
He looked up. One of the speakers was over her head. Surely it was weirder for her, having to listen to it all the time. "For me?" he asked.
"Yeah, they elevatored one of your songs. Don't you hate that?"
What?
He concentrated on listening for a moment. Maybe it was an instrumental version of "Girlfriend." It was hard to tell.
"Honestly?" he said. "I didn't notice."
"I guess you get used to-- Oh, this is old."
She wiped at the cereal box he'd just handed her, sending a small landslide of glinting dust to the counter.
"You don't want this," she said. "Let me get you a new one."
"No, no. That's okay."
He knew the cereal wasn't old.
#
He had to cancel the cleaning service after he noticed how nervous even Marciella had become around him. He hated to do it, but he couldn't think of any way to reassure her.
Somehow, he thought telling her, "Hey, I'm not a vampire or anything. I'm just a pale guy with a mysterious dust problem," was unlikely to help.
#
It wasn't that bad, really.
The dust was thick in the bedroom, but there were only small drifts of it in the rest of the house. A guy could get used to sparkles in the shower drain every morning, a line of shimmering dust on the kitchen counter, and little silvery dust bunnies on the stairs.
He bought a couple of those little robot vacuum things and set them loose in the house. They ran continuously, only stopping when their dirt compartments were full or their batteries were drained and JC had to find them and set them back on their charging units. They couldn't suck up everything, but they helped with the worst of it.
He kept busy, catching up on a few books that he'd always meant to read and watching a lot of television.
Sometimes, he'd just turn off the TV and sit there watching how the little eddies of dust seemed to shift and swirl with every breath he took. It was kind of... peaceful.
#
A phone rang and jolted JC from his contemplation of the whirling nebulae at his feet. He jumped, or well, really, he just lurched a bit before slumping against the arm of the couch because, holy crap, man, he didn't have any feeling in his legs. He rubbed at them hard, trying to get some circulation back in his calves, and groaned.
God, all of the parts of him that did have feeling were stiff and sore and achy, and just how long had he been sitting here anyway?
He had no idea. He wasn't even sure what day it was.
He'd ordered a pizza, and there it was, box open and two slices gone, but he didn't have to touch it to know that it was cold. It just had that hard, stale-pizza look. Well... that hard, stale pepperoni-and-extra-glitter look.
His stomach churned, and for the first time, he thought, "This can't continue."
He didn't care for the allergy symptoms, but he'd been kind of enjoying the rest of this, just a little. It felt like being caught up in a mystery, in something special. He hadn't been a part of something special since... well... since Chris had said "no." But he didn't want to think about that.
Thinking about that always left him feeling brittle, like his skin was stretched too tightly over bones that were too hollow and thin. He hated that. He hated knowing that, without Justin, there was no NSYNC for Chris and there was nothing he could do to change that. And he hated that he couldn't hate Chris for that, but he couldn't. He understood it only too well; without Chris, there was no NSYNC for JC.
By the time JC managed to pull himself up and take a few unsteady steps, the phone had stopped ringing. That was okay. He hadn't recognized the ring tone, anyhow. Someone must have accidentally left their cell phone here.
He picked up the pizza box, and took it into the kitchen and chucked it in the trash. Then he stood there, looking down at the smiley-faced pizza logo while trying to remember who he'd had over recently. The pizza delivery guy, the Chinese delivery guy, the little old lady from the deli, the Thai delivery guy... Somehow, he didn't think any of them had left a phone.
He should go look for it and figure out whose it was.
Knocked unconscious,
Walking on water
'Cause I'm thinking of you
Lance let himself into JC's house. He wasn't supposed to, his key was only for emergencies, but he figured that was only a piddling little detail when he was taking precious time out of his busy Cha-cha with the Fangirl schedule and JC wasn't bothering to answer his doorbell or his phone.
Knowing JC, he was probably locked up in his studio, deaf to the world. Normally, Lance would just leave him like that, but this was their night. They had a standing Gin-and-Gossip Night every eighth Wednesday, and Lance had been looking forward to bitching about Lacey and all of her Justin questions. He liked Lacey, he really did, but oh my God, would the Justin questions never end?
He stopped in the entryway and flicked on the lights, and holy shit. Talk about a major wardrobe malfunction, it looked like all of their NSA costumes had exploded in here. A thin layer of iridescent glitter covered every surface, and it wasn't even New Year's or Mardi Gras.
"JC?" he called out, though he didn't expect an answer. If JC hadn't heard the doorbell, he probably wouldn't hear him now.
He walked down the hall and peered into a couple of rooms: glitter, glitter everywhere, but none of the usual post-party detritus that should have gone with it.
"JC?" he called again, and that's when he saw it, a bare foot peeking out from behind the sofa in the den. His heart leapt and he rushed into the room as his mind went into overdrive, telling himself to calm down, it was only someone napping on the floor, it wasn't a body, and it certainly wasn't JC's body.
Except it was JC's body.
Oh, holy Hannah.
"JC!"
He knelt by JC and touched his shoulder, and then, common sense somehow pushing its way through his panic, he checked JC's pulse. Come on, come on, come on... His hands were shaking. What if--?
Oh, thank God.
There was his pulse, nice and slow and steady.
He brushed a little glitter off of JC's cheek and leaned back on his heels.
"You bastard," he said. "Don't scare me like that."
#
The joke might have been that JC could sleep through anything, but in reality, there were limits to that. Sure, JC could sleep through his bandmates' stealthy efforts to decorate him with candy and random bits of flotsam and jetsam, but it was fairly easy to wake him on purpose.
But he wasn't waking up now.
Lance's fear, which had subsided when he found JC's pulse, was ratcheting up again with every minute that passed. Here was JC, prone and unresponsive on the floor, a cell phone clutched in one hand. Had he been trying to call 911? Should Lance call 911? Would he be starting a vicious cycle of rehab rumors or saving his friend's life?
Fuck that. JC could deal with the rumors.
Lance dug his phone from his pocket, but before he could flip it open, JC sneezed twice and curled into the fetal position. Lance grabbed his shoulder and shook him.
"Dammit, C! Come on!"
JC rolled over and blinked wearily at him. "Hey, cat." He closed his eyes, then opened them again a second later. "Lance? What--?"
"Shh," Lance said. He brushed some more glitter from JC's face and checked JC's pupils. They seemed normal, but... "JC, can you tell me what you took?"
JC rubbed his nose and frowned.
"Please, honey. It's important."
"Claritan," JC said. "What are you doing here?"
"Claritan? I found you passed out on the floor, I think that's more than Claritan."
JC started to sit up, but Lance pressed a hand to his chest. He wasn't convinced that JC should be moving yet. JC frowned at him, and then looked around.
"Where's Chris?"
Chris?
"JC, do you know where we are?"
"Well..." JC drawled. "You won't let me up, so I can't say for certain... but it sure looks like the floor of my den." He rubbed his nose again, and then tilted his head thoughtfully. "Where do you think we are?"
Lance cuffed his ear, and JC squeaked in his indignant little way that meant he wasn't hurt, but how dare you lay hands on me, you scoundrel. In the old days, that would have led to a tickling match. Now, Lance just shook his head and called JC a smart-ass.
"If you're well enough for sarcasm, I suppose I can let you sit up."
"I want to sit on the couch."
"Fine," Lance said. He stood and offered JC a hand up. "But don't come running to me if you pass out again."
"How am I going to run if I'm--?"
"Hush you."
JC snickered, and Lance pushed him gently, forcing him to sit down.
"It's not funny. You nearly gave me a heart attack, making me find you like that. If you're on anything..."
JC shook his head. "Just Claritan, I swear. Because of all the dust."
"Yeah." Lance swiped at the knees of his pants, and then bent down to pick up the phone C had been holding. "It's filthy in here, what happened to your cleaning service?"
"Oh! You found Chris." JC reached out and plucked the phone from Lance's hand.
"You named your cell 'Chris.'"
"It's small and wily," JC said, busily pressing buttons. "But I think it's broken. Call me."
"You passed out and you're worried about your phone."
"Please?"
Lance sighed. He had to choose his battles and this one wasn't worth fighting. Sometimes, humoring JC was the only way to get anywhere. He pulled his phone back out and pressed the memory button for him.
The other phone rang, and JC frowned down at it.
"I don't think it's broken," Lance said.
"That's not my ring tone. It's supposed to play 'Treat Me Right.'"
Lance wasn't a Backstreet fan, but he was pretty sure he knew what it was playing.
"That is 'Treat Me Right.'"
"No, it's not."
"It's got the handclaps."
"No, it's--" JC stood up. "No, I can prove it." He stalked out of the room and down the hall.
Lance followed him. At the door to the music room, JC stopped suddenly and turned a pale shade of green.
"Dammit," Lance said, rushing to support him. "I knew you weren't okay."
JC touched the door knob, but didn't open the door. He was trembling.
"This is my music room," JC said.
"Yeah, I know. Are you okay, do you need to--?"
"Excuse me," JC said, ducking away from him. "I'm gonna--"
JC ran to the bathroom.
Lance stood outside the door for a minute, listening to the sounds of JC being terribly sick, and then called Joey. He needed the moral support.
#
"Look," Lance said later, when JC was all cleaned up and looking a little less green. "I think you should come home with me."
JC nodded, but it was the sort of gesture that made Lance doubt that he'd been heard.
"To my place or to a hotel," he added. "Wherever you want, as long as you let me keep an eye on you."
JC nodded again, and it made Lance's heart ache to see him so listless. It was unnatural.
He sat down beside him and wrapped his arms around him. "Hey, you're going to be okay. I promise."
JC simply nodded.
#
Lance did what his mama would have done; he took JC home and fed him.
JC wasn't interested in the food, but Lance kept at him until he ate half a bowl of soup. While JC ate, Lance skipped gin-and-tonics and went straight to Scotch on the rocks. He needed it.
Once he had JC safely tucked away in the second-best guest room--it was the sensible choice when there might be vomiting or God only knows what else--Lance made another, much longer call to Joey. They couldn't leave JC like this. They had to do something, because he didn't want to add "lost JC" to his list of life-long regrets.
Clear my eyes, it's the morning after
Did I fall in love or did I find disaster?
JC wasn't surprised when he opened his eyes and saw the familiar shimmer of dust on the unfamiliar sheets. Yesterday had proved pretty conclusively that there was nothing wrong with his house and everything wrong with him. He was... broken.
He sniffed and wished for a tissue. When he couldn't find one, he hauled himself out of bed and headed for the bathroom. He took care of the usual, pressing morning concerns and then carefully washed and dried his face. He didn't want to wallow here feeling sorry for himself, and the first step was making himself presentable. Nothing aided a good wallow quite like being ugly and unclean.
Not that he had anything against having a good, long wallow. He just didn't want to do it here at Lance's. It would be too humiliating.
Lance wasn't a wallower. He was too... together for that. He smiled in the face of defeat and bought trendy drinks and licked strippers and fucked really hot men, and JC really admired that. He was strong and resilient in ways JC had never been.
It was early and the house was quiet, but he didn't know Lance's schedule. Was he still asleep? Or had he gone to meet whatshername somewhere to foxtrot his heart out? He lingered for a moment outside the door to the master suite. He could poke his head in and greet Lance if he was there... or he could go scare up some coffee.
Coffee it was.
Down in the kitchen, he admired the beautiful, gleaming espresso machine which looked more like a sculpture praising the coffee gods than something he could actually use. Then he opened all of the lower cabinets, one after another, until he found the Mr. Coffee that Lance kept around for his lesser-skilled friends. He fussed with the filters and the grounds, and set it to brew, and then, while he waited--
There was something he had to check while he was alone, because he didn't know how bad it would be.
--he flicked on the 'fridge-door TV and clicked through the channels: plastic morning news anchors, Cascade dishwasher detergent, Bounty the Quicker Picker-Upper, used cars, weather maps...
MTV.
...
There was no music.
There was only sound. Flat, dull, sound.
It was waking up to discover that your heart had been ripped out of your chest three months back and you'd never even noticed, and you wanted to weep and rend your clothing and sit in the ashes, but you couldn't because you needed a heart to grieve.
It was noise.
And a terrible, aching pain that did not hurt.
And how could he live, knowing it was gone?
#
He didn't know how long he stood there, hearing sound and feeling nothing, until Lance came in and smiled and poured coffee for them both.
"Feeling better?" Lance asked.
JC tore his eyes away from the latest, lifeless music video.
"Sing something," he said.
"What?"
"Sing something. Please."
"Yeah, yeah, I meant 'what do you want me to sing?'"
"Anything."
Lance pushed one of the mugs into JC's hand, and then blushed a little and sang. "The best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup. Was that okay? Can I stop being stupid now?"
It wasn't okay. Lance wasn't as flat and lifeless as those videos or his ring tone or the convenience store's Muzak, but it still wasn't music. JC felt music, felt it all the way through, in his blood, in his bones...
Or, at least he had.
"Thank you," he said.
"No problem." Lance took a sip of his coffee. "So, is this a new game? Do I get to ask you for a jingle now?"
"I can't--"
Wait. Did he know that? Maybe there was just something wrong with his ears. Maybe they were clogged with dust.
He straightened his back and closed his eyes and reached, reached for that place where music lived inside him, reached for the joy that made his lungs expand and his voice burst forth strong and pure. He reached... and came up empty.
"I can't," JC said.
#
Lance made scrambled eggs, which JC pushed around his plate, and toast, which he tore into pieces and ate more out of habit than desire. Lance was sweet and lovely and concerned, and JC was horrible because he wanted to run home and have a proper breakdown all by himself. Lance didn't know what it was to be broken.
"Well," Lance said after his second cup of coffee. "I've taken the morning off. People are unhappy, but they'll manage without me."
"You didn't have to," JC said. "I can call a cab and be out of your hair in no time."
"You're not in my hair, C, and I did it because I wanted to."
Lance smiled at him, and JC stabbed at a clump of eggs. He was a horrible, no good, ungrateful person with really nice friends. It sucked to be him.
"So, there's a couple of things we should talk about," Lance said. "First of all, I'd like to call my service, get them to do an emergency cleaning at your place. Do something about all that glitter."
"It's not glitter, it's dust."
"All the more reason to get rid of it, right?"
JC took another triangle of toast and tore it in half.
"You don't need to do that, I have a service."
"They're not doing a very good job."
"I had to cancel them, but they were great. I don't need another service."
"Oh," Lance said. "Okay..."
JC could tell that he had more questions, but he wasn't about to explain how Marciella and her crew had been afraid of him.
"What else?" he asked.
Lance shifted his coffee mug from hand to hand.
"I think it would be a good idea if you weren't alone. Just for a while. Maybe you could call Tyler or visit your parents--"
That was out of the question. He wasn't going to worry his family over this.
"--or, well... Joey would like you to come stay with them."
"No."
"You're always welcome there."
"No."
"Briahna and Kelly adore you."
And there was no way that JC was going to bring his dust into their home. Kelly liked a clean house, and what if the dust was contagious or something? He didn't want it anywhere near Briahna.
"No," he said again.
Lance put his mug down and pressed his hands flat against the table.
"I'm not trying to run your life, C. I'm just concerned. You were unconscious and alone. Has it happened before?"
"I don't..."
Fuck. He didn't really know.
"If you don't know, I want you to be safe. And personally? I don't trust some of your friends, they don't-- I don't know what they might be slipping you."
"I'll be okay."
"You weren't okay. So... hate me if you want, but if you don't at least ask someone trustworthy to stay with you for a while--just to keep an eye on things, to call 911 if you need it--then... I'm going to call Justin and tell him that I think you have a drug problem."
"Lance! Jesus!"
That was fucking blackmail, and what he'd said about Lance being all sweet and concerned was wrong. Lance was evil, evil and concerned.
"I don't want to do it," Lance said. "I really don't. But I want you to understand how serious I am about this. I will do it if I need to."
"Fine."
"Fine?"
"I'll call someone."
He didn't know who, but--
Lance handed him his cell phone, and JC had a brilliant idea.
"Where's Chris?"
"Your phone?"
"No, our Chris. Is he doing anything?"
#
Lance was evil and sneaky, and he obviously didn't trust him, but in the end, he agreed to give JC privacy for his call, as long as JC let him speak to Chris when he was done. JC went upstairs to get his own phone, because it was better and less... Lance-y.
Chris started in before JC could say hello.
"Hey, C, I was going to call you."
"Yeah?"
Chris didn't call him, not in the normal course of things. JC had to provoke him into it, usually by saying something profoundly stupid to the right E! correspondent or, lately, by wearing "Jesus Christ, JC, stop stealing your clothes from blind, old men, will ya?" ties to Dance Crew tapings.
He hoped Chris hadn't been planning to call him just because Lance or Joey had talked to him last night.
"Yeah, I'm going to be out your way soon, gotta see a man about a dancing fish."
"You're coming to see Lance?"
"That'd be the fish. I agreed to this thing, so I have to make an appearance and show my support, you know how it goes. And I figured, hey, why pay for a hotel when three of my best buds live there? So I was going to call you and give you time to go buy some of those little mints to put on my pillow."
Wow. Chris wanted to stay with him?
"Hey, that's great!"
He didn't even have to ask Chris or tell him anything. He could just come, and they'd have a nice time, and... Chris would see the dust... and see how screwed up he was...
"Oh. Oh, wait... that wouldn't... I mean..."
"If you don't want me to stay with you, just spit it out, man."
"No, no, I want you, it's just... I'm not sure you'll want to come 'cause... um. I was calling to ask you to... visit me."
Chris laughed.
"Oh, yeah, C, that's not serendipitous at all. I have no interest in staying at your place if it isn't going to be a huge, freakin' imposition on you. I'll just keep calling around, then, looking for someone who doesn't want me."
"It's not-- Please come, but my place is a mess and it won't be much of a vacation, and--"
"Jesus, who do you think you're talking to? A little clutter isn't going to keep me from having a good time."
"It's actually, uh... a bit more complicated than that. I'm-- I'm having some... I'm a bit messed up right now and I wasn't so much asking you to visit as... asking for your help."
"Where are you, C?" Chris' tone had changed completely. "What's going on? If you need immediate help--"
"It's not an emergency. I'm at Lance's."
"He better be taking good care of you."
"He is. He's not the problem."
"Good, 'cause I'd fight him for you, but he's pretty feisty. It would be one hell of a nasty cat fight, and at least one of us would be walking away with a broken nail."
JC had to laugh, because nothing stopped Chris from being Chris.
"Lance isn't the problem at all. It's just... he's Lance, and I think this is something I need you for."
He didn't know if Chris could help him. He didn't even know if he could be helped. But Chris knew what it was to be broken, and he was really, really good at it. It was like he had learned how to hold all his broken pieces in together. Something could happen, and there would another broken piece of Chris, but somehow, he was always whole.
Maybe he could teach JC the trick to that.
#
They spoke a little longer.
JC didn't want to tell him what was wrong, not over the phone. It was the sort of thing that Chris wasn't going to believe right away, and it would be better to get him here first. Then he might stay, even if he thought JC was pulling some sort of elaborate joke.
They made arrangements and JC agreed to pay for Chris' flight, even though Chris had plenty of money and had been planning to fly out here anyway. It made Chris feel good to think he'd won something against JC's "crazy, penny-pinching ways." And it was worth it, to get Chris there. He'd missed him, and that, at least, had nothing to do with recent events.
When they were finished, JC told him that he needed to go hand the phone to Lance.
"What?" Chris laughed. "Is Lance your babysitter now?"
"No, it's--"
"No, no, don't tell me. Lance is one of those bad babysitters, isn't he? Always on the phone and sneaking into your parents' room to look for their sex toys."
"My parents didn't--! They don't have sex toys!"
"Sure they do, C. Your kinky streak had to come from somewhere."
"That's just-- That's-- Don't even. No."
Chris laughed again.
"You're a sick, twisted man, Chris Kirkpatrick."
"Takes one to know one, baby. Now give me to Lance."
#
JC handed over the phone, and then wandered through the house, noting the changes since the last time he'd visited.
There was a large Christmas cactus in the dining room. It was at the tail end of a bloom, and there were a lot of dead flowers on it. They were ugly and sad, so JC began pulling them off. Some of them were shriveled and crisp like tissue paper. Others hadn't dried as much, and he thought they felt like dead butterfly wings would.
Lance found him and held out his phone.
"He still wants to talk to you," Lance said, and smacked JC's hand away from the cactus.
JC took the phone and left Lance to clean up the scattered trail of blossoms.
"Chris?"
"He found you passed out cold, and then you threw up."
"He told you."
"Yep," Chris said. "I trained our Big-mouth Bass right."
"It's 'large-mouth--'"
"Are you pregnant?"
"What?"
"Fainting and vomiting, C. I think it's a legitimate question."
"I'm still a guy!"
"Are you doing any drugs I wouldn't do?"
"No!"
"What were you drinking?"
"Nothing," JC said. Jesus, did everyone have to jump to the wrong conclusions? "You know, you don't have to come."
"Oh, no, I think I do."
"And why's that? You want to escort me to rehab personally?"
"No, but I'll do that if I have to."
"Then what is it?"
"Lance also said that you have a crush on me."
"Lance is evil, sneaky and conniving."
"I know," Chris said. "I'm quite proud of him."
"You shouldn't listen to him."
"It's okay if you have a crush on me."
"I don't."
"Okay," Chris said. "Well, I've got a lot to do today, so I'd better go do it. I'll see you tomorrow. Oh, and JC?"
"Yes?"
"Say 'hi' to Chris for me."
JC snapped his phone shut.
"Look," he told it. "Don't you get any ideas from him."
#
Lance couldn't put off working on his new choreography forever, so he asked JC if he wanted to come along. JC tried to imagine what it would be like, watching Lance dance while he, himself, couldn't feel the music or even judge how well Lance was doing.
Oh, God, if he couldn't judge... Eric would kill him, but he'd have to get in line behind Randy Jackson and a whole bunch of bitchy MTV execs first.
Even though he'd made the offer, Lance seemed reluctant to have JC come with him.
"It's nothing," Lance said. "Just... Lacey will be all over you like white on rice."
"Aww, I'm not going to steal your girl--"
Lance made a face at him.
"--I know she's crazy about you."
"Ha. She's crazy about Justin, and you're far more like Justin than I am."
"I think I'll be okay by myself."
Lance hesitated.
"Oh, for heaven's sake! I'll go shopping or you can call for a babysitter. I'm sure one of your flies will agree to hang out with me for a few hours. Most of them already think I'm gay."
"'One of my flies,'" Lance said.
Oops.
"You know I only say it with love, man. I'd totally want to be one of your fruit flies if I was a woman."
"You wouldn't be hot enough."
"Mrrow! Chris was right. You're not a bass, you're a mean, mean catfish."
Lance laughed and threw a shoe at him.
"Oh, get out of here! Go hang out in public and I'll see you tonight."
You're so outrageous,
I'm so glad that you came
Lance didn't let JC go home until an hour before Chris' flight was due. JC appreciated his vigilance, but he wouldn't have complained if Lance had been a bit less diligent. It didn't leave him with enough time to get the house ready.
As he'd expected, the mystery dust hadn't accumulated further in his absence, but there were other things to worry about. The linens in the guest rooms hadn't been changed since he let the cleaning service go. But if he made up a bed for Chris, there'd be dust in with the fresh sheets. And he'd stopped buying groceries after a few gritty meals. The dust hadn't been good for his non-stick pans, either.
He did the best he could, calling in an order for groceries, checking the air purifiers, setting the recharged robots loose, and wiping down surfaces. Chris arrived while he was eyeing the stairs, wondering if it was worth going after the sparkles there.
"Jesus, JC, are you still claiming to be straight? 'Cause I've gotta tell you, even your dust is flaming."
"Chris!"
JC spun around and caught him in a hug.
Mmm.
Hugging Chris was good. It had always been good, when he was doing it for himself instead of for a camera.
He'd always thought that Chris was the perfect height; it was natural and comfortable to rest his arm on Chris' shoulders. And he wasn't a romantic, but there was something--maybe just how close they already were to his lips--that always called to JC, tempting him to kiss the corner of Chris' eye and feel the delicate skin there against his lips, to trace the line of his brow and nuzzle at his hairline and kiss his temple. He liked that, that the word was "temple" and it would be so easy to worship him there, each kiss a simple prayer...
And now Chris was the perfect size, too. He was so solid, and he felt more real than anyone else. Mmm, yeah. He breathed deeply, and caught the fragrance of Chris' shampoo under that strange airplane smell.
Chris' voice cut through his thoughts.
"C... I'm not complaining, but if you don't have a crush on me, you're really giving the wrong impression."
Hmm? Impression? Was there someone waiting? Chris' driver or--?
He opened his eyes and looked at the front door. It was closed, and no one was there.
Chris took a step back and then tugged at the dust cloth JC was still holding. He'd completely forgotten about it.
"I told you I could handle your mess." He tugged at it again, freeing it, and then tossed it over his shoulder. "I'm a man, I can handle a little dirt."
"A good host doesn't--"
"If I'd wanted you to clean for me, I would have sent you one of those French-maid outfits first, okay?"
Chris grinned at him, and JC shook his head.
"I am never, ever--"
"Yeah, yeah," Chris said. "It wouldn't be your best look. Tight jeans show you off much better than a skirt ever could. Wanna help me with my bags?"
"What?"
Chris gestured towards the door. "Bags. Suitcases. Those things that people lug around when they fly thousands of miles across a big ol' country to see their friends. You wanna help me with them?"
"You make my head spin," JC said, and then his ears burned with embarrassment. He hadn't meant to say that.
Chris smiled, one of his rare, honest, at-peace-with-the-world smiles.
"Good," he said.
#
"I thought this one," JC said, putting Chris' suitcases down in the guestroom that was on the same side of the house as his room.
"Hmm." Chris scratched at his goatee. His hands were free because the only other bags he'd brought were a guitar case and a laptop bag, and he'd left them in the entryway.
"It's a good room. No morning sun, I know you like that."
"Hmm," Chris said again.
"It's clean," JC said. "I would have made it up with fresh sheets 'cause they get... stale, you know? But you'll have to do that yourself if you want--"
Chris sat on the bed and bounced like he was testing the mattress.
"You'll dust for me, but you won't make my bed? What kind of service is that?"
"I... I can't."
"I can teach you." Chris gave the bed another good bounce, then grinned at JC. "I can even do military corners."
"I know how to make beds! I just can't make yours."
"Do you make your own?"
"Yes."
"Fine." Chris stood up. "Then we'll sleep in yours."
"You can't, it's--"
"Lance wants me to keep an eye on you. I can do it a lot better if I'm where you are."
"I don't think he meant it like that."
"We don't want to get on Lance's bad side, he's fierce."
"Chris-- You can't. I'm like a... like a dust magnet. You'll wake up all gritty and sneezing and it's... not nice."
"I can't sleep with you because you're a dust magnet."
"Yes."
"Huh." Chris circled around JC. "It's definitely creative... better than the old 'I have to wash my hair' line."
"It's not a line."
"Because you really are a dust magnet."
"Yes."
"All that glittery stuff downstairs?"
"Yes."
"Huh."
Chris chewed at his lip for a moment, and then grabbed JC's hand.
"Come on."
"What?"
"I want to see." He pulled JC out of the room. "There's dust in your room?"
"Yeah."
"Okay." Chris tugged at his arm. "Let's go there."
#
Chris ran his fingers through the dust on the headboard of JC's bed, and then rubbed his fingers together.
"It doesn't feel too gritty."
"Your fingers are callused," JC said.
Chris frowned, but ran his fingers through the dust again, and then rubbed them against his cheek, above the line of his beard.
"It's not too bad, I can handle it. And how much can there be in your sheets?"
He yanked back the bed covers, and together they watched as sparkles flew into the air before drifting lazily back down.
"Huh." Chris looked back and forth from the sparkling motes to JC. "Dust magnet?" he said quietly.
"I told you."
"No, no, that's not right. If you were a dust magnet, shouldn't they have... flown at you? Like... like you should look like Pig Pen, you know? With a cloud of dust all around you, and the rest of the house clean... Yeah. Like Disco Diva!Pig Pen."
"But I sparkle."
"No, you don't."
"I do."
JC pulled up his sleeve, because he'd been wearing long sleeves since he first noticed the sparkle, but the light wasn't strong enough to make his arm shimmer. He went over to the window, opened the blinds wide, and held out his arm.
"See? I sparkle."
Chris took his hand and turned it, exposing the inside of JC's arm.
"You're so pale," he said and pressed gentle fingers at the pulse in his wrist, and again, higher, at the fold of his elbow. It took JC's breath away and made his blood surge.
Chris stroked him there, rubbing little circles with his thumb.
"You do sparkle," Chris finally said. "But, you'd look like a disco ball if this stuff was really drawn to you." He raised his other hand and touched JC's hair. "Are you sure you don't just have a really bad case of dandruff?"
JC jerked away from him, the spell broken.
"A really bad case of iridescent dandruff? Enough to fill a house? I think I would have noticed."
Chris shrugged.
"It's just a theory. Oh... Hey, C?"
"Yeah?"
"You've got something..."
Chris lifted his fingers--
"You've got something right here."
--and touched the corner of JC's mouth, and then rested his fingertips against his bottom lip.
God.
"What are you doing?" he asked, trying to ignore Chris' touch.
"Testing the water before I--"
"Why are you even here?" He was never Chris' first choice. "Why aren't you at Justin's? Or Lance's?"
"Well." Chris' hand dropped away. "I could say that I didn't want to get in the way of Lance's busy tango-all-day, horizontal-mambo-all-night schedule--"
JC couldn't help but snort at that. He'd never heard anyone actually say "horizontal mambo" out loud. It figured that Chris would be the one to do it.
"--or say that I'm allergic to Jessica, which I am by the way, but that's beside the point. Or I could say that I'm here because you need help and maybe I can't actually help, but at least I can distract with you with good, good loving because I'm crass and insensitive like that."
JC snorted again.
"Or I could tell the truth."
Chris didn't say anything more.
JC tapped his foot. "Well?"
"What?" The corner of Chris' mouth twitched. He was fighting back a smile.
"The truth."
"Oh, you want to hear that one?"
JC caught hold of Chris' ear and pressed his thumb where the earrings hooked into it. "I'll twist it..."
"I like it when you're mean, Chasez."
The way Chris' eyes flashed and then grew dark, made JC understand just how he liked it. He leaned forward and, feeling like a predator, breathed in Chris' scent. He toyed with the largest silver hoop.
"Tell me."
"Or maybe I've been doing some thinking, reevaluating. Bad reality shows seem to do that to me. Maybe I've let the last few years slip by without pursuing everything I've wanted. Maybe I thought I already had enough, that wanting more was greedy. And maybe I've decided that's bullshit, and I should pursue everything that life's willing to give me."
He threaded his fingers through one of JC's belt loops.
"Do you have a crush on me, JC?"
JC stared at him, and then licked his dry lips.
"I..."
Chris' thumb tucked itself into his waistband, and JC wanted more.
"I have... something on you, yeah."
"'Something.'" Chris smiled. "I'm so glad you're a lyrical genius."
"Something special."
"Oh," Chris said. He tugged at JC's waist, then tugged at his shoulder, and kind of... pulled himself up while pulling JC down to him. "Something special."
Chris kissed him, and JC gave himself up to it, to teeth and tongue and lips and Chris. Chris like maybe he'd always wanted and never truly expected.
He lost himself in it until Chris made a noise in the back of his throat and took a step back. JC leaned forward, following him, wanting to stay in the moment, wanting... well, just wanting. He hadn't felt...
God, when had he last felt desire?
It chilled him to think that it might have been back whenever he'd lost his music, and that was enough of a distraction to pull him completely out of his Chris-kissed haze.
"Look," Chris said.
The palms of Chris' hands were dusted with sparkles, far more sparkles than there'd been just a few minutes before.
"And look," Chris said, pointing at the floor. "That's like-- How did you do that?"
They were standing at the epicenter of a... dust circle. And JC could see where Chris had stood during their kiss because there were two distinct, dust-free footprints right in front of him.
The way the circle shimmered was so pretty... It hardly seemed right, that something so pretty made JC feel so...
"C!"
JC blinked. Chris was standing beside him, bracing him up.
"What?"
"I think you need to sit down."
JC agreed.
But somehow, instead of sitting, he ended up lying on the bed with his head on Chris' thigh. Chris' thighs were really nice; JC approved. He wanted to give Chris' thighs some small token of his appreciation, but Chris wasn't cooperating. He was too intent on making soothing noises and keeping his pants on while petting JC's hair.
Well... that was nice, too.
"So," Chris said eventually. "How long has this been going on?"
His fingers curled around JC's ear and combed through the hair behind it. His movements were deliberate and strong, and JC shuddered with pleasure. Chris could work at a salon, and JC would pay a fortune just to keep him touching his scalp.
"Hey," Chris said. "Are you going to sleep?"
"No, just..." JC waved his hand vaguely, not bothering to open his eyes.
"Ah, I see. My fingers are a secret weapon."
"Don't stop," JC said, and Chris immediately stilled his hand.
"Please?" He rubbed his forehead against Chris' thigh.
"When did this... alien dust thing begin?"
"I don't know," JC said. "I haven't-- I've been sort of losing track of things."
"Jesus, C." Chris sounded angry, but he started petting him again, so it was okay.
"I think maybe August? Late August? Lance wasn't dancing. And you were seeing that girl, I think... What happened to that girl?"
"She was sweet," Chris said.
"She was hot, and you looked cute together." It was true. JC had kind of hated her.
"Eh. She was a little too sweet and a little too young."
"Oh."
"So, August?"
"Definitely not July. Maybe September? What month is it now?"
Chris sighed, and then tugged hard on a lock of hair.
"Ow!"
"After we fix this, I want you to start keeping a diary, okay? And you're actually going to write shit down when it happens. Like... 'Friday night, May fifth. Was abducted by aliens from Planet Sequin--'"
JC laughed.
"No interrupting," Chris said. "Now, where was I? Yes. 'Aliens from the planet Sequin, who, after a cataclysmic disaster wiped out their thriving glitter-manufacturing industry, were forced to use their Sparkle Ray on me--'"
"Their Sparkle Ray!" JC laughed.
"Yes. 'And turn me into a living, breathing glitter-generator, but I escaped and--'"
JC kissed him.
#
"Hey," Chris said a little later. "That was an interruption."
"No, really?"
"Really." Chris brushed at the new dusting of sparkles gracing his shirt. "How are we going to get to the bottom of this if you keep distracting me?"
"Oh, uh... The dust isn't why I called you."
"It isn't?"
"No, it's just... a strange thing that's been happening...?"
JC knew that sounded a bit lame.
"JC, you're spontaneously glittering and you don't--" Chris started to laugh. "Oh, shit. Sorry. I can't believe I just said that." He wiped at his eyes. "I'm sorry, you're spontaneously glittering and you don't think that's a problem?"
JC nodded.
"Jesus," Chris muttered.
"I'm not saying that it's not... problematic, but it's not why I asked for your help."
"I think you better lay it all out for me."
Continued in Part 2
A TrickC Tale by SnarkyLlama (with bonus awesome!Lance)
This was my Make the Yuletide Gay fic for strippedhalo.
Huge thanks go to phaballa and cativert for hauling the llama brain out of the mud when it was stuck, and to nopseud for beta-ing and helping me make this work. (You make my sparkles bright.) Thanks, also, to turps33 whose cheerleading is... happy-llama-making.
Link to Part 2
I'll call you on the phone
I hope that I get through
"Eric," JC sighed as his phone tried to slip away from him again. "I'm really not interested in that."
Far away and presumably unencumbered by a contrary Samsung, Eric launched into one of his spiels. Visibility was important. Appearances that didn't interest JC would lead, in all due time, to appearances that did interest him. Blah, blah, blah. Get out of the house. Blah, blah.
JC had heard it all before.
He knew that he could stop it. He could say "no" or "hey, let's face it, no one wants me for my music," but he never did. He was just... It was just...
Well, Eric was just so Eric-y and enthusiastic, it would be like kicking a puppy. That's what it was. And sure, it was probably a baby pit bull or something, but that didn't make kicking it any less mean, so JC simply sighed again and moved "buy a new Bluetooth" higher on his mental to-do list.
He needed a headset because it was surprisingly difficult to securely wedge a cell phone between your shoulder and your ear. He kept trying till he managed it, and then opened the refrigerator and leaned forward carefully, an inch at a time, and reached for the cheese drawer.
Sensing his distraction, the phone seized its opportunity. In a desperate bid for freedom, it leapt--
"Fuck!"
--and landed in the Jell-O.
"You wily little bastard!"
He considered just leaving it there in its lime-flavored grave, but the phone actually seemed to be okay. Eric's tiny little voice was still emitting from it, and, okay, this was really stupid, but he rather liked the phone now. It was the cellular version of Chris.
He fished it out of the bowl, then nearly dropped it as he fumbled with slick fingers for the speaker button. He hated how speaker phones made everything sound hollow and echoing, but sometimes that was the lesser of two evils.
"JC? Are you even listening?"
"Hey, man, sorry. I am like... so busy right now. Really busy. I'll call you back in a few, okay?"
"JC, this is--"
JC ended the call and wiped the phone down with a paper towel, before turning back to the 'fridge. Right, so... asiago cheese, eggs, spinach...
He gathered the ingredients, and then set to work, humming "All Day Long I Dream about Quiche" as he cooked. He didn't have an exciting career, but he still had his sense of humor. That was enough.
He did not call Eric back.
#
"I wish you'd recon...er."
Eric's voice faded in and out, and JC had to admit that as spacious and comfortable as his closet was, it had lousy cell-phone reception. That didn't bother him too much, though. He wasn't missing anything important; Eric was still saying the same old thing.
"Look," he said, glad that he had a Bluetooth again and could talk with ease while rummaging through his clothes. "We talked about this before. I think Dance Crew is enough of an appearance. In fact, it's better than an appearance because I'm actually doing something, even if it's not..."
Wait. Were those the ones he was looking for?
He pulled a vintage pair of button-fly jeans from the rack and held them up to get a better look. Oh, yeah. These were great. These made all those hours of watching old, TiVo'd episodes of Project Runway totally worth it. He would have forgotten these if it hadn't been for that Levi's challenge.
"JC... JC, are you even list...ing?"
Oh, Eric.
He really didn't feel like arguing with Eric. He stepped out of the closet, so at least he wouldn't have to listen to Eric cut in and out, and asked, "Do we have to talk about this now?"
"You pay me to talk about this--and, by the way, when I say 'talk,' I mean we have a discussion where everyone listens and no one drifts off in the middle of a sentence and starts in on the musical stylings of the artist formerly known as Prince."
"Prince?"
"You were humming 'U Got the Look' at me, and don't get me wrong, I'd be flattered if I thought that was a compliment, but--"
"I love Prince," JC said. "What's he doing nowadays?"
"He turned fifty and retired, so... I don't know. But whatever it is, I can guarantee it's more than what you're doing, which, in case you haven't noticed, is absolutely nothing."
"Hey! Dance Crew isn't nothing."
There was no answer. Eric had hung up on him.
Well, whatever. Dance Crew wasn't nothing. It really made a difference for those kids. And all those little bit parts in movies weren't nothing. They were a couple days' entertainment and a pleasant distraction, which was pretty much all that JC could ask for these days. Eric could just chill.
JC slipped out of his pants and tugged on the jeans. Oh, yeah. He'd bought them four, maybe five years ago and they still fit perfectly. He stood in front of the mirror and twisted to check himself out from every angle. He looked good. Damn good.
He laughed at his vanity then, and shimmied while singing a little more Prince. Your face is jammin', your body's heck a-slammin'.
He laughed again and twirled around the room. He should give Eric a bonus for having hooked him up with such a great personal trainer, maybe suggest he spend it on a nice, relaxing vacation somewhere 'cause Eric's blood pressure was probably out of this world.
#
When Eric called, JC was in his music room, sprawled out on his favorite lounge chair and listening to Zapp & Roger's "So Ruff, So Tuff" on repeat in preparation for the inevitable debate with Justin over the relative merits of old-school electronic voice distortion versus Autotune. He didn't know when they'd have that debate, but he would be ready.
He turned the music down a bit and listened to Eric with half an ear until he said: "Now, I know you said to focus on acting, but I've had a few ideas and I think we can really do this. You're a much better singer than David, so you can't--"
Oh, god dammit. Was he going to force JC to say it?
"--let him have more of your songs--"
"No, Eric."
"I think we can get your album--"
JC turned off the stereo. He wanted Eric to be very, very clear on this.
"My album is dead, Eric. Kate is dead. Leave it be."
He tried to say it calmly, but he maybe growled a bit at the very end.
Eric growled right back. "I'm doing my fucking job."
"Your job is to do what I fucking tell you to do."
Eric laughed.
"Think again, Chasez. I'm your fucking manager. My job is to help you get what you want, and I'd never manage that if I actually did what you told me to do."
"I want you to leave it alone. I want you to focus on the acting and producing."
"That's not what you want. I can--"
You can't! JC wanted to snap. You can't get me what I really want, and we both know it.
But JC didn't say that, if he said it, then he'd have to admit that Johnny Wright was probably the only one who could get JC what he wanted. And JC didn't want Johnny; he didn't fucking trust Johnny.
And he knew damn well that Johnny didn't want him. NSYNC's time had come and gone, and JC Chasez, solo artist, had never really existed.
He wasn't a solo artist. He could never be one.
"No," JC said. "Just... just listen to me for a moment, okay? Please listen. This is what I want." He paused for a deep breath. If he was calm enough, maybe Eric would listen for a change. "I want to focus on acting and producing. I'm not interested in my music anymore, I'm not feeling my music anymore, I don't care about my music anymore. Okay? Got it?"
Eric was silent.
"Eric? Have you got it? Can I be any clearer?"
"Fine," Eric said. "If you're going to be that way, then... be that way, JC."
There was something very ominous in the way he'd said that. JC hoped it didn't mean that he was planning to quit. Eric was a cool guy when he wasn't in nagging-manager mode.
"Hey, Eric?"
There was no answer.
JC put his phone down, then sighed and looked over at the stereo. He really wasn't in the mood for Zapp & Roger anymore. He could put in another CD or even go more old-school and pull out some vinyl. But that seemed like an awful lot of effort now.
Or he could pull out some porn...
He kept all of his favorites down here. It only made sense. Music got him off as often as porn did. They were both so visceral, all about feelings and sound and bodies in motion, and good sex was as close to music as good music was like sex.
But that wasn't a good idea. He didn't want to associate Eric with jerking off.
He tugged the furry afghan down from the back of his chair and wrapped himself up in it. He'd just close his eyes for a bit and put all this unpleasantness behind him.
#
JC woke up and rubbed his eyes, then rubbed them again more carefully. They seemed a bit gritty. He must have slept longer than he'd meant to.
The room was dark, and he was hungry and... huh.
Why was he in this room anyway? He had a perfectly nice bed upstairs; he didn't have to resort to napping in random spare rooms.
He dragged himself out to the kitchen, and when he saw the time on the microwave's display, he frowned. Late dinner? Or early breakfast?
Neither, he decided. He grabbed a handful of Newman's Own Organic Oreo-type Things from the cookie jar and ate them on his way up to bed.
It was so mysterious,
But something that I liked
A sneezing fit woke JC up. He felt gritty and itchy and gross. He scrabbled at the nightstand, trying to find a tissue, and then stopped, surprised. The whole table was covered in a fine layer of dust. The cleaning service had just been in, but they must have overlooked this table.
Ah, well. It was an easy mistake to make. It was bound to happen every once in a while, and it certainly wouldn't kill him to dust it himself.
Then he sneezed three more times and decided that he could dust after he took a shower. He was too gross for anything else.
#
After his shower, he noticed a strange little line of grit around the drain. It sparkled a bit like white sand.
#
The cleaning crew brought most of their supplies in from the van with them, so JC didn't have any of those fancy micro-fiber dusters like they had. For a moment, he considered making a duster out of one of his old feathered shirts, but that wasn't practical. He might want to wear feathers again someday.
He took a washcloth from the linen closet and wondered if he should dampen it. He remembered doing chores when he was young, spraying Pledge on one of his father's old undershirts and how that thick, lemon scent coated the back of his throat like oil. His mother would say, "Don't just push the dust around, Joshua," and watch him with eagle eyes until she trusted him to do it right.
And now he was woolgathering instead of doing a simple chore; she'd scold him for that if she were here.
"Right," he told himself. "There's time for dreaming when the work is done."
He brandished his washcloth and went off to tackle the nightstand... but it wasn't just the nightstand. His entire bedroom was dusty, seriously dusty. He could write his name in it.
Well, writing "JC" didn't require much dust, but still, there was no way Marciella and her crew would have skipped right over his room in their cleaning. There must have been some sort of atmospheric anomaly recently. Something had kicked up a lot more dust than usual.
Whatever it was, it was sure to settle back down soon.
#
He woke every morning to gritty eyes and sneezing. He used eye drops. He took Claritan. He bought allergen air filters for every room and a humidifier for the bedroom.
He watched Marciella check the filter on the vacuum cleaner, and paid her extra to put in a new filter even though she insisted that it didn't need changing.
Every day, he checked the pollen count. It wasn't elevated.
Then he checked the weather reports, the science news, and the letters to the editor. Nothing was out of the ordinary. There were no forest fires, no volcanic activity, no concerns about a dramatic increase in construction-related dust, and no complaints about illegal quarries or sawmills or anything else that JC could think of that would produce large quantities of dust.
Lance laughed his head off when JC tried asking him about meteor activity and space dust.
Really, his questions hadn't been that outlandish.
#
He always used to go out on the day the cleaning service came. He'd go shopping or catch a matinee or grab a coffee somewhere. That wasn't practical now that he had the service coming so often. He just turned the TV up loud enough to drown out the vacuum and tried to stay out of everyone's way.
He liked daytime television, and it worked out pretty well.
He was dashing to the kitchen one day, hoping to zap a bag of popcorn and get back to A&E's Intervention marathon before the commercials were over, when he saw Marciella pushing the vacuum into one of the spare rooms. He skidded to a halt.
"Oh," he said. "Oh, Marciella, you do so much these days, I really can't ask you to do that room, too."
She stared at him, and he wondered if he was talking too fast.
"I just hate to make you work so hard," he explained.
"It's dusty."
"That's okay. I don't use that room, I can barely even remember the last time I--"
"It's very important, this room."
"No," he assured her. "I think I took a nap in there once, but that's it, I swear. You can skip it."
"You are certain? I do not wish to--"
"I'm positive." He smiled at her, and then realized that his show was probably coming back on. He'd have to make popcorn during the next break.
#
He went out for lunch one day with some pretty little friend of Tara's. They went to an open-air café and had a good time, their light banter mixing delightfully with the truly fabulous sandwiches and drinks, until JC noticed how his arm shimmered in the afternoon sun. He tried unobtrusively to brush the faint sparkle from his skin, but it wouldn't come off.
After that, he could only think of getting inside before someone else noticed. With his luck, Perez Hilton would catch word of it and he'd never hear the end of the Twilight jokes.
#
He liked to buy necessities in the evening when the paparazzi, including the tenacious few who still thought he was worth a picture or two, went to the clubs to hunt for bigger game. He felt better, knowing that the mundane, intimate details of his life were safe for another day. And really, there weren't that many people who needed to know his preferences when it came to such things as condoms, toilet paper, and breakfast food.
He had a favorite corner store, not too far from his home. It wasn't anything special, he just liked it. One of the clerks had green hair and a lip ring and looked a bit like one of Chris' sisters, and the night manager looked like Howie Dorough. It was a good place.
Lately, though, their PA system was on the blink. The Muzak they piped in had gone flat and dull and toneless. He wondered why they didn't turn it off until they could fix it.
One night, when the green-haired girl was at the register, she waved her hand at the ceiling and said, "That must be weird for you, huh?"
He looked up. One of the speakers was over her head. Surely it was weirder for her, having to listen to it all the time. "For me?" he asked.
"Yeah, they elevatored one of your songs. Don't you hate that?"
What?
He concentrated on listening for a moment. Maybe it was an instrumental version of "Girlfriend." It was hard to tell.
"Honestly?" he said. "I didn't notice."
"I guess you get used to-- Oh, this is old."
She wiped at the cereal box he'd just handed her, sending a small landslide of glinting dust to the counter.
"You don't want this," she said. "Let me get you a new one."
"No, no. That's okay."
He knew the cereal wasn't old.
#
He had to cancel the cleaning service after he noticed how nervous even Marciella had become around him. He hated to do it, but he couldn't think of any way to reassure her.
Somehow, he thought telling her, "Hey, I'm not a vampire or anything. I'm just a pale guy with a mysterious dust problem," was unlikely to help.
#
It wasn't that bad, really.
The dust was thick in the bedroom, but there were only small drifts of it in the rest of the house. A guy could get used to sparkles in the shower drain every morning, a line of shimmering dust on the kitchen counter, and little silvery dust bunnies on the stairs.
He bought a couple of those little robot vacuum things and set them loose in the house. They ran continuously, only stopping when their dirt compartments were full or their batteries were drained and JC had to find them and set them back on their charging units. They couldn't suck up everything, but they helped with the worst of it.
He kept busy, catching up on a few books that he'd always meant to read and watching a lot of television.
Sometimes, he'd just turn off the TV and sit there watching how the little eddies of dust seemed to shift and swirl with every breath he took. It was kind of... peaceful.
#
A phone rang and jolted JC from his contemplation of the whirling nebulae at his feet. He jumped, or well, really, he just lurched a bit before slumping against the arm of the couch because, holy crap, man, he didn't have any feeling in his legs. He rubbed at them hard, trying to get some circulation back in his calves, and groaned.
God, all of the parts of him that did have feeling were stiff and sore and achy, and just how long had he been sitting here anyway?
He had no idea. He wasn't even sure what day it was.
He'd ordered a pizza, and there it was, box open and two slices gone, but he didn't have to touch it to know that it was cold. It just had that hard, stale-pizza look. Well... that hard, stale pepperoni-and-extra-glitter look.
His stomach churned, and for the first time, he thought, "This can't continue."
He didn't care for the allergy symptoms, but he'd been kind of enjoying the rest of this, just a little. It felt like being caught up in a mystery, in something special. He hadn't been a part of something special since... well... since Chris had said "no." But he didn't want to think about that.
Thinking about that always left him feeling brittle, like his skin was stretched too tightly over bones that were too hollow and thin. He hated that. He hated knowing that, without Justin, there was no NSYNC for Chris and there was nothing he could do to change that. And he hated that he couldn't hate Chris for that, but he couldn't. He understood it only too well; without Chris, there was no NSYNC for JC.
By the time JC managed to pull himself up and take a few unsteady steps, the phone had stopped ringing. That was okay. He hadn't recognized the ring tone, anyhow. Someone must have accidentally left their cell phone here.
He picked up the pizza box, and took it into the kitchen and chucked it in the trash. Then he stood there, looking down at the smiley-faced pizza logo while trying to remember who he'd had over recently. The pizza delivery guy, the Chinese delivery guy, the little old lady from the deli, the Thai delivery guy... Somehow, he didn't think any of them had left a phone.
He should go look for it and figure out whose it was.
Knocked unconscious,
Walking on water
'Cause I'm thinking of you
Lance let himself into JC's house. He wasn't supposed to, his key was only for emergencies, but he figured that was only a piddling little detail when he was taking precious time out of his busy Cha-cha with the Fangirl schedule and JC wasn't bothering to answer his doorbell or his phone.
Knowing JC, he was probably locked up in his studio, deaf to the world. Normally, Lance would just leave him like that, but this was their night. They had a standing Gin-and-Gossip Night every eighth Wednesday, and Lance had been looking forward to bitching about Lacey and all of her Justin questions. He liked Lacey, he really did, but oh my God, would the Justin questions never end?
He stopped in the entryway and flicked on the lights, and holy shit. Talk about a major wardrobe malfunction, it looked like all of their NSA costumes had exploded in here. A thin layer of iridescent glitter covered every surface, and it wasn't even New Year's or Mardi Gras.
"JC?" he called out, though he didn't expect an answer. If JC hadn't heard the doorbell, he probably wouldn't hear him now.
He walked down the hall and peered into a couple of rooms: glitter, glitter everywhere, but none of the usual post-party detritus that should have gone with it.
"JC?" he called again, and that's when he saw it, a bare foot peeking out from behind the sofa in the den. His heart leapt and he rushed into the room as his mind went into overdrive, telling himself to calm down, it was only someone napping on the floor, it wasn't a body, and it certainly wasn't JC's body.
Except it was JC's body.
Oh, holy Hannah.
"JC!"
He knelt by JC and touched his shoulder, and then, common sense somehow pushing its way through his panic, he checked JC's pulse. Come on, come on, come on... His hands were shaking. What if--?
Oh, thank God.
There was his pulse, nice and slow and steady.
He brushed a little glitter off of JC's cheek and leaned back on his heels.
"You bastard," he said. "Don't scare me like that."
#
The joke might have been that JC could sleep through anything, but in reality, there were limits to that. Sure, JC could sleep through his bandmates' stealthy efforts to decorate him with candy and random bits of flotsam and jetsam, but it was fairly easy to wake him on purpose.
But he wasn't waking up now.
Lance's fear, which had subsided when he found JC's pulse, was ratcheting up again with every minute that passed. Here was JC, prone and unresponsive on the floor, a cell phone clutched in one hand. Had he been trying to call 911? Should Lance call 911? Would he be starting a vicious cycle of rehab rumors or saving his friend's life?
Fuck that. JC could deal with the rumors.
Lance dug his phone from his pocket, but before he could flip it open, JC sneezed twice and curled into the fetal position. Lance grabbed his shoulder and shook him.
"Dammit, C! Come on!"
JC rolled over and blinked wearily at him. "Hey, cat." He closed his eyes, then opened them again a second later. "Lance? What--?"
"Shh," Lance said. He brushed some more glitter from JC's face and checked JC's pupils. They seemed normal, but... "JC, can you tell me what you took?"
JC rubbed his nose and frowned.
"Please, honey. It's important."
"Claritan," JC said. "What are you doing here?"
"Claritan? I found you passed out on the floor, I think that's more than Claritan."
JC started to sit up, but Lance pressed a hand to his chest. He wasn't convinced that JC should be moving yet. JC frowned at him, and then looked around.
"Where's Chris?"
Chris?
"JC, do you know where we are?"
"Well..." JC drawled. "You won't let me up, so I can't say for certain... but it sure looks like the floor of my den." He rubbed his nose again, and then tilted his head thoughtfully. "Where do you think we are?"
Lance cuffed his ear, and JC squeaked in his indignant little way that meant he wasn't hurt, but how dare you lay hands on me, you scoundrel. In the old days, that would have led to a tickling match. Now, Lance just shook his head and called JC a smart-ass.
"If you're well enough for sarcasm, I suppose I can let you sit up."
"I want to sit on the couch."
"Fine," Lance said. He stood and offered JC a hand up. "But don't come running to me if you pass out again."
"How am I going to run if I'm--?"
"Hush you."
JC snickered, and Lance pushed him gently, forcing him to sit down.
"It's not funny. You nearly gave me a heart attack, making me find you like that. If you're on anything..."
JC shook his head. "Just Claritan, I swear. Because of all the dust."
"Yeah." Lance swiped at the knees of his pants, and then bent down to pick up the phone C had been holding. "It's filthy in here, what happened to your cleaning service?"
"Oh! You found Chris." JC reached out and plucked the phone from Lance's hand.
"You named your cell 'Chris.'"
"It's small and wily," JC said, busily pressing buttons. "But I think it's broken. Call me."
"You passed out and you're worried about your phone."
"Please?"
Lance sighed. He had to choose his battles and this one wasn't worth fighting. Sometimes, humoring JC was the only way to get anywhere. He pulled his phone back out and pressed the memory button for him.
The other phone rang, and JC frowned down at it.
"I don't think it's broken," Lance said.
"That's not my ring tone. It's supposed to play 'Treat Me Right.'"
Lance wasn't a Backstreet fan, but he was pretty sure he knew what it was playing.
"That is 'Treat Me Right.'"
"No, it's not."
"It's got the handclaps."
"No, it's--" JC stood up. "No, I can prove it." He stalked out of the room and down the hall.
Lance followed him. At the door to the music room, JC stopped suddenly and turned a pale shade of green.
"Dammit," Lance said, rushing to support him. "I knew you weren't okay."
JC touched the door knob, but didn't open the door. He was trembling.
"This is my music room," JC said.
"Yeah, I know. Are you okay, do you need to--?"
"Excuse me," JC said, ducking away from him. "I'm gonna--"
JC ran to the bathroom.
Lance stood outside the door for a minute, listening to the sounds of JC being terribly sick, and then called Joey. He needed the moral support.
#
"Look," Lance said later, when JC was all cleaned up and looking a little less green. "I think you should come home with me."
JC nodded, but it was the sort of gesture that made Lance doubt that he'd been heard.
"To my place or to a hotel," he added. "Wherever you want, as long as you let me keep an eye on you."
JC nodded again, and it made Lance's heart ache to see him so listless. It was unnatural.
He sat down beside him and wrapped his arms around him. "Hey, you're going to be okay. I promise."
JC simply nodded.
#
Lance did what his mama would have done; he took JC home and fed him.
JC wasn't interested in the food, but Lance kept at him until he ate half a bowl of soup. While JC ate, Lance skipped gin-and-tonics and went straight to Scotch on the rocks. He needed it.
Once he had JC safely tucked away in the second-best guest room--it was the sensible choice when there might be vomiting or God only knows what else--Lance made another, much longer call to Joey. They couldn't leave JC like this. They had to do something, because he didn't want to add "lost JC" to his list of life-long regrets.
Clear my eyes, it's the morning after
Did I fall in love or did I find disaster?
JC wasn't surprised when he opened his eyes and saw the familiar shimmer of dust on the unfamiliar sheets. Yesterday had proved pretty conclusively that there was nothing wrong with his house and everything wrong with him. He was... broken.
He sniffed and wished for a tissue. When he couldn't find one, he hauled himself out of bed and headed for the bathroom. He took care of the usual, pressing morning concerns and then carefully washed and dried his face. He didn't want to wallow here feeling sorry for himself, and the first step was making himself presentable. Nothing aided a good wallow quite like being ugly and unclean.
Not that he had anything against having a good, long wallow. He just didn't want to do it here at Lance's. It would be too humiliating.
Lance wasn't a wallower. He was too... together for that. He smiled in the face of defeat and bought trendy drinks and licked strippers and fucked really hot men, and JC really admired that. He was strong and resilient in ways JC had never been.
It was early and the house was quiet, but he didn't know Lance's schedule. Was he still asleep? Or had he gone to meet whatshername somewhere to foxtrot his heart out? He lingered for a moment outside the door to the master suite. He could poke his head in and greet Lance if he was there... or he could go scare up some coffee.
Coffee it was.
Down in the kitchen, he admired the beautiful, gleaming espresso machine which looked more like a sculpture praising the coffee gods than something he could actually use. Then he opened all of the lower cabinets, one after another, until he found the Mr. Coffee that Lance kept around for his lesser-skilled friends. He fussed with the filters and the grounds, and set it to brew, and then, while he waited--
There was something he had to check while he was alone, because he didn't know how bad it would be.
--he flicked on the 'fridge-door TV and clicked through the channels: plastic morning news anchors, Cascade dishwasher detergent, Bounty the Quicker Picker-Upper, used cars, weather maps...
MTV.
...
There was no music.
There was only sound. Flat, dull, sound.
It was waking up to discover that your heart had been ripped out of your chest three months back and you'd never even noticed, and you wanted to weep and rend your clothing and sit in the ashes, but you couldn't because you needed a heart to grieve.
It was noise.
And a terrible, aching pain that did not hurt.
And how could he live, knowing it was gone?
#
He didn't know how long he stood there, hearing sound and feeling nothing, until Lance came in and smiled and poured coffee for them both.
"Feeling better?" Lance asked.
JC tore his eyes away from the latest, lifeless music video.
"Sing something," he said.
"What?"
"Sing something. Please."
"Yeah, yeah, I meant 'what do you want me to sing?'"
"Anything."
Lance pushed one of the mugs into JC's hand, and then blushed a little and sang. "The best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup. Was that okay? Can I stop being stupid now?"
It wasn't okay. Lance wasn't as flat and lifeless as those videos or his ring tone or the convenience store's Muzak, but it still wasn't music. JC felt music, felt it all the way through, in his blood, in his bones...
Or, at least he had.
"Thank you," he said.
"No problem." Lance took a sip of his coffee. "So, is this a new game? Do I get to ask you for a jingle now?"
"I can't--"
Wait. Did he know that? Maybe there was just something wrong with his ears. Maybe they were clogged with dust.
He straightened his back and closed his eyes and reached, reached for that place where music lived inside him, reached for the joy that made his lungs expand and his voice burst forth strong and pure. He reached... and came up empty.
"I can't," JC said.
#
Lance made scrambled eggs, which JC pushed around his plate, and toast, which he tore into pieces and ate more out of habit than desire. Lance was sweet and lovely and concerned, and JC was horrible because he wanted to run home and have a proper breakdown all by himself. Lance didn't know what it was to be broken.
"Well," Lance said after his second cup of coffee. "I've taken the morning off. People are unhappy, but they'll manage without me."
"You didn't have to," JC said. "I can call a cab and be out of your hair in no time."
"You're not in my hair, C, and I did it because I wanted to."
Lance smiled at him, and JC stabbed at a clump of eggs. He was a horrible, no good, ungrateful person with really nice friends. It sucked to be him.
"So, there's a couple of things we should talk about," Lance said. "First of all, I'd like to call my service, get them to do an emergency cleaning at your place. Do something about all that glitter."
"It's not glitter, it's dust."
"All the more reason to get rid of it, right?"
JC took another triangle of toast and tore it in half.
"You don't need to do that, I have a service."
"They're not doing a very good job."
"I had to cancel them, but they were great. I don't need another service."
"Oh," Lance said. "Okay..."
JC could tell that he had more questions, but he wasn't about to explain how Marciella and her crew had been afraid of him.
"What else?" he asked.
Lance shifted his coffee mug from hand to hand.
"I think it would be a good idea if you weren't alone. Just for a while. Maybe you could call Tyler or visit your parents--"
That was out of the question. He wasn't going to worry his family over this.
"--or, well... Joey would like you to come stay with them."
"No."
"You're always welcome there."
"No."
"Briahna and Kelly adore you."
And there was no way that JC was going to bring his dust into their home. Kelly liked a clean house, and what if the dust was contagious or something? He didn't want it anywhere near Briahna.
"No," he said again.
Lance put his mug down and pressed his hands flat against the table.
"I'm not trying to run your life, C. I'm just concerned. You were unconscious and alone. Has it happened before?"
"I don't..."
Fuck. He didn't really know.
"If you don't know, I want you to be safe. And personally? I don't trust some of your friends, they don't-- I don't know what they might be slipping you."
"I'll be okay."
"You weren't okay. So... hate me if you want, but if you don't at least ask someone trustworthy to stay with you for a while--just to keep an eye on things, to call 911 if you need it--then... I'm going to call Justin and tell him that I think you have a drug problem."
"Lance! Jesus!"
That was fucking blackmail, and what he'd said about Lance being all sweet and concerned was wrong. Lance was evil, evil and concerned.
"I don't want to do it," Lance said. "I really don't. But I want you to understand how serious I am about this. I will do it if I need to."
"Fine."
"Fine?"
"I'll call someone."
He didn't know who, but--
Lance handed him his cell phone, and JC had a brilliant idea.
"Where's Chris?"
"Your phone?"
"No, our Chris. Is he doing anything?"
#
Lance was evil and sneaky, and he obviously didn't trust him, but in the end, he agreed to give JC privacy for his call, as long as JC let him speak to Chris when he was done. JC went upstairs to get his own phone, because it was better and less... Lance-y.
Chris started in before JC could say hello.
"Hey, C, I was going to call you."
"Yeah?"
Chris didn't call him, not in the normal course of things. JC had to provoke him into it, usually by saying something profoundly stupid to the right E! correspondent or, lately, by wearing "Jesus Christ, JC, stop stealing your clothes from blind, old men, will ya?" ties to Dance Crew tapings.
He hoped Chris hadn't been planning to call him just because Lance or Joey had talked to him last night.
"Yeah, I'm going to be out your way soon, gotta see a man about a dancing fish."
"You're coming to see Lance?"
"That'd be the fish. I agreed to this thing, so I have to make an appearance and show my support, you know how it goes. And I figured, hey, why pay for a hotel when three of my best buds live there? So I was going to call you and give you time to go buy some of those little mints to put on my pillow."
Wow. Chris wanted to stay with him?
"Hey, that's great!"
He didn't even have to ask Chris or tell him anything. He could just come, and they'd have a nice time, and... Chris would see the dust... and see how screwed up he was...
"Oh. Oh, wait... that wouldn't... I mean..."
"If you don't want me to stay with you, just spit it out, man."
"No, no, I want you, it's just... I'm not sure you'll want to come 'cause... um. I was calling to ask you to... visit me."
Chris laughed.
"Oh, yeah, C, that's not serendipitous at all. I have no interest in staying at your place if it isn't going to be a huge, freakin' imposition on you. I'll just keep calling around, then, looking for someone who doesn't want me."
"It's not-- Please come, but my place is a mess and it won't be much of a vacation, and--"
"Jesus, who do you think you're talking to? A little clutter isn't going to keep me from having a good time."
"It's actually, uh... a bit more complicated than that. I'm-- I'm having some... I'm a bit messed up right now and I wasn't so much asking you to visit as... asking for your help."
"Where are you, C?" Chris' tone had changed completely. "What's going on? If you need immediate help--"
"It's not an emergency. I'm at Lance's."
"He better be taking good care of you."
"He is. He's not the problem."
"Good, 'cause I'd fight him for you, but he's pretty feisty. It would be one hell of a nasty cat fight, and at least one of us would be walking away with a broken nail."
JC had to laugh, because nothing stopped Chris from being Chris.
"Lance isn't the problem at all. It's just... he's Lance, and I think this is something I need you for."
He didn't know if Chris could help him. He didn't even know if he could be helped. But Chris knew what it was to be broken, and he was really, really good at it. It was like he had learned how to hold all his broken pieces in together. Something could happen, and there would another broken piece of Chris, but somehow, he was always whole.
Maybe he could teach JC the trick to that.
#
They spoke a little longer.
JC didn't want to tell him what was wrong, not over the phone. It was the sort of thing that Chris wasn't going to believe right away, and it would be better to get him here first. Then he might stay, even if he thought JC was pulling some sort of elaborate joke.
They made arrangements and JC agreed to pay for Chris' flight, even though Chris had plenty of money and had been planning to fly out here anyway. It made Chris feel good to think he'd won something against JC's "crazy, penny-pinching ways." And it was worth it, to get Chris there. He'd missed him, and that, at least, had nothing to do with recent events.
When they were finished, JC told him that he needed to go hand the phone to Lance.
"What?" Chris laughed. "Is Lance your babysitter now?"
"No, it's--"
"No, no, don't tell me. Lance is one of those bad babysitters, isn't he? Always on the phone and sneaking into your parents' room to look for their sex toys."
"My parents didn't--! They don't have sex toys!"
"Sure they do, C. Your kinky streak had to come from somewhere."
"That's just-- That's-- Don't even. No."
Chris laughed again.
"You're a sick, twisted man, Chris Kirkpatrick."
"Takes one to know one, baby. Now give me to Lance."
#
JC handed over the phone, and then wandered through the house, noting the changes since the last time he'd visited.
There was a large Christmas cactus in the dining room. It was at the tail end of a bloom, and there were a lot of dead flowers on it. They were ugly and sad, so JC began pulling them off. Some of them were shriveled and crisp like tissue paper. Others hadn't dried as much, and he thought they felt like dead butterfly wings would.
Lance found him and held out his phone.
"He still wants to talk to you," Lance said, and smacked JC's hand away from the cactus.
JC took the phone and left Lance to clean up the scattered trail of blossoms.
"Chris?"
"He found you passed out cold, and then you threw up."
"He told you."
"Yep," Chris said. "I trained our Big-mouth Bass right."
"It's 'large-mouth--'"
"Are you pregnant?"
"What?"
"Fainting and vomiting, C. I think it's a legitimate question."
"I'm still a guy!"
"Are you doing any drugs I wouldn't do?"
"No!"
"What were you drinking?"
"Nothing," JC said. Jesus, did everyone have to jump to the wrong conclusions? "You know, you don't have to come."
"Oh, no, I think I do."
"And why's that? You want to escort me to rehab personally?"
"No, but I'll do that if I have to."
"Then what is it?"
"Lance also said that you have a crush on me."
"Lance is evil, sneaky and conniving."
"I know," Chris said. "I'm quite proud of him."
"You shouldn't listen to him."
"It's okay if you have a crush on me."
"I don't."
"Okay," Chris said. "Well, I've got a lot to do today, so I'd better go do it. I'll see you tomorrow. Oh, and JC?"
"Yes?"
"Say 'hi' to Chris for me."
JC snapped his phone shut.
"Look," he told it. "Don't you get any ideas from him."
#
Lance couldn't put off working on his new choreography forever, so he asked JC if he wanted to come along. JC tried to imagine what it would be like, watching Lance dance while he, himself, couldn't feel the music or even judge how well Lance was doing.
Oh, God, if he couldn't judge... Eric would kill him, but he'd have to get in line behind Randy Jackson and a whole bunch of bitchy MTV execs first.
Even though he'd made the offer, Lance seemed reluctant to have JC come with him.
"It's nothing," Lance said. "Just... Lacey will be all over you like white on rice."
"Aww, I'm not going to steal your girl--"
Lance made a face at him.
"--I know she's crazy about you."
"Ha. She's crazy about Justin, and you're far more like Justin than I am."
"I think I'll be okay by myself."
Lance hesitated.
"Oh, for heaven's sake! I'll go shopping or you can call for a babysitter. I'm sure one of your flies will agree to hang out with me for a few hours. Most of them already think I'm gay."
"'One of my flies,'" Lance said.
Oops.
"You know I only say it with love, man. I'd totally want to be one of your fruit flies if I was a woman."
"You wouldn't be hot enough."
"Mrrow! Chris was right. You're not a bass, you're a mean, mean catfish."
Lance laughed and threw a shoe at him.
"Oh, get out of here! Go hang out in public and I'll see you tonight."
You're so outrageous,
I'm so glad that you came
Lance didn't let JC go home until an hour before Chris' flight was due. JC appreciated his vigilance, but he wouldn't have complained if Lance had been a bit less diligent. It didn't leave him with enough time to get the house ready.
As he'd expected, the mystery dust hadn't accumulated further in his absence, but there were other things to worry about. The linens in the guest rooms hadn't been changed since he let the cleaning service go. But if he made up a bed for Chris, there'd be dust in with the fresh sheets. And he'd stopped buying groceries after a few gritty meals. The dust hadn't been good for his non-stick pans, either.
He did the best he could, calling in an order for groceries, checking the air purifiers, setting the recharged robots loose, and wiping down surfaces. Chris arrived while he was eyeing the stairs, wondering if it was worth going after the sparkles there.
"Jesus, JC, are you still claiming to be straight? 'Cause I've gotta tell you, even your dust is flaming."
"Chris!"
JC spun around and caught him in a hug.
Mmm.
Hugging Chris was good. It had always been good, when he was doing it for himself instead of for a camera.
He'd always thought that Chris was the perfect height; it was natural and comfortable to rest his arm on Chris' shoulders. And he wasn't a romantic, but there was something--maybe just how close they already were to his lips--that always called to JC, tempting him to kiss the corner of Chris' eye and feel the delicate skin there against his lips, to trace the line of his brow and nuzzle at his hairline and kiss his temple. He liked that, that the word was "temple" and it would be so easy to worship him there, each kiss a simple prayer...
And now Chris was the perfect size, too. He was so solid, and he felt more real than anyone else. Mmm, yeah. He breathed deeply, and caught the fragrance of Chris' shampoo under that strange airplane smell.
Chris' voice cut through his thoughts.
"C... I'm not complaining, but if you don't have a crush on me, you're really giving the wrong impression."
Hmm? Impression? Was there someone waiting? Chris' driver or--?
He opened his eyes and looked at the front door. It was closed, and no one was there.
Chris took a step back and then tugged at the dust cloth JC was still holding. He'd completely forgotten about it.
"I told you I could handle your mess." He tugged at it again, freeing it, and then tossed it over his shoulder. "I'm a man, I can handle a little dirt."
"A good host doesn't--"
"If I'd wanted you to clean for me, I would have sent you one of those French-maid outfits first, okay?"
Chris grinned at him, and JC shook his head.
"I am never, ever--"
"Yeah, yeah," Chris said. "It wouldn't be your best look. Tight jeans show you off much better than a skirt ever could. Wanna help me with my bags?"
"What?"
Chris gestured towards the door. "Bags. Suitcases. Those things that people lug around when they fly thousands of miles across a big ol' country to see their friends. You wanna help me with them?"
"You make my head spin," JC said, and then his ears burned with embarrassment. He hadn't meant to say that.
Chris smiled, one of his rare, honest, at-peace-with-the-world smiles.
"Good," he said.
#
"I thought this one," JC said, putting Chris' suitcases down in the guestroom that was on the same side of the house as his room.
"Hmm." Chris scratched at his goatee. His hands were free because the only other bags he'd brought were a guitar case and a laptop bag, and he'd left them in the entryway.
"It's a good room. No morning sun, I know you like that."
"Hmm," Chris said again.
"It's clean," JC said. "I would have made it up with fresh sheets 'cause they get... stale, you know? But you'll have to do that yourself if you want--"
Chris sat on the bed and bounced like he was testing the mattress.
"You'll dust for me, but you won't make my bed? What kind of service is that?"
"I... I can't."
"I can teach you." Chris gave the bed another good bounce, then grinned at JC. "I can even do military corners."
"I know how to make beds! I just can't make yours."
"Do you make your own?"
"Yes."
"Fine." Chris stood up. "Then we'll sleep in yours."
"You can't, it's--"
"Lance wants me to keep an eye on you. I can do it a lot better if I'm where you are."
"I don't think he meant it like that."
"We don't want to get on Lance's bad side, he's fierce."
"Chris-- You can't. I'm like a... like a dust magnet. You'll wake up all gritty and sneezing and it's... not nice."
"I can't sleep with you because you're a dust magnet."
"Yes."
"Huh." Chris circled around JC. "It's definitely creative... better than the old 'I have to wash my hair' line."
"It's not a line."
"Because you really are a dust magnet."
"Yes."
"All that glittery stuff downstairs?"
"Yes."
"Huh."
Chris chewed at his lip for a moment, and then grabbed JC's hand.
"Come on."
"What?"
"I want to see." He pulled JC out of the room. "There's dust in your room?"
"Yeah."
"Okay." Chris tugged at his arm. "Let's go there."
#
Chris ran his fingers through the dust on the headboard of JC's bed, and then rubbed his fingers together.
"It doesn't feel too gritty."
"Your fingers are callused," JC said.
Chris frowned, but ran his fingers through the dust again, and then rubbed them against his cheek, above the line of his beard.
"It's not too bad, I can handle it. And how much can there be in your sheets?"
He yanked back the bed covers, and together they watched as sparkles flew into the air before drifting lazily back down.
"Huh." Chris looked back and forth from the sparkling motes to JC. "Dust magnet?" he said quietly.
"I told you."
"No, no, that's not right. If you were a dust magnet, shouldn't they have... flown at you? Like... like you should look like Pig Pen, you know? With a cloud of dust all around you, and the rest of the house clean... Yeah. Like Disco Diva!Pig Pen."
"But I sparkle."
"No, you don't."
"I do."
JC pulled up his sleeve, because he'd been wearing long sleeves since he first noticed the sparkle, but the light wasn't strong enough to make his arm shimmer. He went over to the window, opened the blinds wide, and held out his arm.
"See? I sparkle."
Chris took his hand and turned it, exposing the inside of JC's arm.
"You're so pale," he said and pressed gentle fingers at the pulse in his wrist, and again, higher, at the fold of his elbow. It took JC's breath away and made his blood surge.
Chris stroked him there, rubbing little circles with his thumb.
"You do sparkle," Chris finally said. "But, you'd look like a disco ball if this stuff was really drawn to you." He raised his other hand and touched JC's hair. "Are you sure you don't just have a really bad case of dandruff?"
JC jerked away from him, the spell broken.
"A really bad case of iridescent dandruff? Enough to fill a house? I think I would have noticed."
Chris shrugged.
"It's just a theory. Oh... Hey, C?"
"Yeah?"
"You've got something..."
Chris lifted his fingers--
"You've got something right here."
--and touched the corner of JC's mouth, and then rested his fingertips against his bottom lip.
God.
"What are you doing?" he asked, trying to ignore Chris' touch.
"Testing the water before I--"
"Why are you even here?" He was never Chris' first choice. "Why aren't you at Justin's? Or Lance's?"
"Well." Chris' hand dropped away. "I could say that I didn't want to get in the way of Lance's busy tango-all-day, horizontal-mambo-all-night schedule--"
JC couldn't help but snort at that. He'd never heard anyone actually say "horizontal mambo" out loud. It figured that Chris would be the one to do it.
"--or say that I'm allergic to Jessica, which I am by the way, but that's beside the point. Or I could say that I'm here because you need help and maybe I can't actually help, but at least I can distract with you with good, good loving because I'm crass and insensitive like that."
JC snorted again.
"Or I could tell the truth."
Chris didn't say anything more.
JC tapped his foot. "Well?"
"What?" The corner of Chris' mouth twitched. He was fighting back a smile.
"The truth."
"Oh, you want to hear that one?"
JC caught hold of Chris' ear and pressed his thumb where the earrings hooked into it. "I'll twist it..."
"I like it when you're mean, Chasez."
The way Chris' eyes flashed and then grew dark, made JC understand just how he liked it. He leaned forward and, feeling like a predator, breathed in Chris' scent. He toyed with the largest silver hoop.
"Tell me."
"Or maybe I've been doing some thinking, reevaluating. Bad reality shows seem to do that to me. Maybe I've let the last few years slip by without pursuing everything I've wanted. Maybe I thought I already had enough, that wanting more was greedy. And maybe I've decided that's bullshit, and I should pursue everything that life's willing to give me."
He threaded his fingers through one of JC's belt loops.
"Do you have a crush on me, JC?"
JC stared at him, and then licked his dry lips.
"I..."
Chris' thumb tucked itself into his waistband, and JC wanted more.
"I have... something on you, yeah."
"'Something.'" Chris smiled. "I'm so glad you're a lyrical genius."
"Something special."
"Oh," Chris said. He tugged at JC's waist, then tugged at his shoulder, and kind of... pulled himself up while pulling JC down to him. "Something special."
Chris kissed him, and JC gave himself up to it, to teeth and tongue and lips and Chris. Chris like maybe he'd always wanted and never truly expected.
He lost himself in it until Chris made a noise in the back of his throat and took a step back. JC leaned forward, following him, wanting to stay in the moment, wanting... well, just wanting. He hadn't felt...
God, when had he last felt desire?
It chilled him to think that it might have been back whenever he'd lost his music, and that was enough of a distraction to pull him completely out of his Chris-kissed haze.
"Look," Chris said.
The palms of Chris' hands were dusted with sparkles, far more sparkles than there'd been just a few minutes before.
"And look," Chris said, pointing at the floor. "That's like-- How did you do that?"
They were standing at the epicenter of a... dust circle. And JC could see where Chris had stood during their kiss because there were two distinct, dust-free footprints right in front of him.
The way the circle shimmered was so pretty... It hardly seemed right, that something so pretty made JC feel so...
"C!"
JC blinked. Chris was standing beside him, bracing him up.
"What?"
"I think you need to sit down."
JC agreed.
But somehow, instead of sitting, he ended up lying on the bed with his head on Chris' thigh. Chris' thighs were really nice; JC approved. He wanted to give Chris' thighs some small token of his appreciation, but Chris wasn't cooperating. He was too intent on making soothing noises and keeping his pants on while petting JC's hair.
Well... that was nice, too.
"So," Chris said eventually. "How long has this been going on?"
His fingers curled around JC's ear and combed through the hair behind it. His movements were deliberate and strong, and JC shuddered with pleasure. Chris could work at a salon, and JC would pay a fortune just to keep him touching his scalp.
"Hey," Chris said. "Are you going to sleep?"
"No, just..." JC waved his hand vaguely, not bothering to open his eyes.
"Ah, I see. My fingers are a secret weapon."
"Don't stop," JC said, and Chris immediately stilled his hand.
"Please?" He rubbed his forehead against Chris' thigh.
"When did this... alien dust thing begin?"
"I don't know," JC said. "I haven't-- I've been sort of losing track of things."
"Jesus, C." Chris sounded angry, but he started petting him again, so it was okay.
"I think maybe August? Late August? Lance wasn't dancing. And you were seeing that girl, I think... What happened to that girl?"
"She was sweet," Chris said.
"She was hot, and you looked cute together." It was true. JC had kind of hated her.
"Eh. She was a little too sweet and a little too young."
"Oh."
"So, August?"
"Definitely not July. Maybe September? What month is it now?"
Chris sighed, and then tugged hard on a lock of hair.
"Ow!"
"After we fix this, I want you to start keeping a diary, okay? And you're actually going to write shit down when it happens. Like... 'Friday night, May fifth. Was abducted by aliens from Planet Sequin--'"
JC laughed.
"No interrupting," Chris said. "Now, where was I? Yes. 'Aliens from the planet Sequin, who, after a cataclysmic disaster wiped out their thriving glitter-manufacturing industry, were forced to use their Sparkle Ray on me--'"
"Their Sparkle Ray!" JC laughed.
"Yes. 'And turn me into a living, breathing glitter-generator, but I escaped and--'"
JC kissed him.
#
"Hey," Chris said a little later. "That was an interruption."
"No, really?"
"Really." Chris brushed at the new dusting of sparkles gracing his shirt. "How are we going to get to the bottom of this if you keep distracting me?"
"Oh, uh... The dust isn't why I called you."
"It isn't?"
"No, it's just... a strange thing that's been happening...?"
JC knew that sounded a bit lame.
"JC, you're spontaneously glittering and you don't--" Chris started to laugh. "Oh, shit. Sorry. I can't believe I just said that." He wiped at his eyes. "I'm sorry, you're spontaneously glittering and you don't think that's a problem?"
JC nodded.
"Jesus," Chris muttered.
"I'm not saying that it's not... problematic, but it's not why I asked for your help."
"I think you better lay it all out for me."
Continued in Part 2