It was all kind of chaotic, and afterwards everyone remembered the ten seconds leading up to it
just a little bit differently, but one thing everyone knew was that Justin threw the first punch.
People could definitely agree on that: somebody said something, and somebody else said
something, and then Eminem said something, and Justin hauled off and busted him in the nose,
and then it was on.
The cameras caught a little of it, and some of it actually made broadcast. Mostly just a mad blaze
of the agitated crowd screaming in confused panic, and the MTV security people pouring in from
every direction. It almost looked like the private security people, Lonnie and his guys and the
guys who worked for Eminem, prolonged the fight just a little bit, holding the MTV people away
for twenty or thirty seconds. Maybe they were worried that their employers, who were rolling on
the floor by that point, would get hurt further, or maybe they just wanted to see who would win.
Most of it, of course, didn't play on televison. The director cut to videos for a good ten minutes,
until they could coax Carson out from behind the MTV news desk. By then, order had been
restored, at least on the set.
Lonnie guarded their retreat to the green room, but it was Joey and Lance who dragged him
away, one on each arm. Joey was laughing by the time they locked themselves in; Lance was
absolutely not. Not at all.
"You idiot!"
"Oh my God!"
"I can't believe you!"
"I can't believe it!"
"What were you thinking, Justin, just what were you thinking?"
"The look on his face! He had this look, like-- "
"Joey. Stop. You are not helping."
"Both of you, come on," JC said. "Cut him some slack. He's hurt."
"I'm fine," Justin said, but his mouth had blood all over it. "I just bit my lip. I'm fine."
"Here," JC said firmly. "I'm gonna...." He used the pitcher of water and the sleeve of some shirt
that belonged to one of them, or maybe to MTV, to wipe Justin's mouth clean, and then he
poured Justin a glass to drink. Lance yelled the whole time.
"-- TRL, Justin, do you know what that stands for? Total. Request. Live. Live! Hello, live?
As in, anything you do, all of Times Square and most of the rest of the planet sees you do?
And they all saw you get in a fucking catfight with Marshall Mathers, of all people! How do
you think that's going to look, huh? We're supposed to be the ones with some class, Justin!
We're not supposed to be on his fucking level! On his level, hell. He's never tried to beat the
shit out of anyone on national live television!"
"Look, I don't like him, okay?"
"Nobody likes him, Justin! You're not supposed to like him. That's the whole point of him.
But people are supposed to like us, and-- "
"God, will somebody please shut him up!"
"-- look totally ghetto on MTV, this isn't Jerry Springer, you know -- "
Joey gripped him comfortably by the shoulders. "Okay, Lance, breathe, huh? You gotta admit,
the guy's had it coming for a while now."
"Give me your hand," Chris said to Justin. Justin's knuckles were swollen, turning red and
purple. Chris turned his hand over a couple of times, inspecting it, and he almost smiled. "First
bar fight, huh?"
"This ain't no bar," Justin said with a weak little laugh. "Just ask Lance."
"MTV! TRL! TR-fucking-L!"
"See?"
"Good point."
"I really never thought that we should make an appearance with him," JC said placidly. JC had
many fine and admirable qualities, but he also did a lot of I told you so when he was right. He
was right a lot, so pretty much everybody was used to it. "It was just a stupid TRL publicity
stunt, and we shouldn't have gone along with it. Carson's my dog, but...." He seemed to
remember that the rest of them all thought Carson was a toadying little tool, and he shut up.
"Well, you'll live," Chris pronounced.
"Are we going back out there or not?" Joey asked, and everyone looked at him like he was a
moron. Joey raised his hands, a forget-I-said-anything gesture, and went over to the tray of subs.
Justin tilted his head up, giving Chris a sideways look and a lazy little grin. "'S kind of hot,
though, huh? Kinda Hell's Angel, badass...." He made a meaningless gesture with his free hand.
Chris' eyebrows shot way, way up. "It's hot. You think it got me hot. You think you were
impressing me out there, is that what you think?"
"Um." Justin's smile went away.
"I ought to kick your ass myself, you little twit!"
JC's eyes were on the hand that Chris was clenching down on. "Chris, man. I think you're
hurting him."
"I'm trying to hurt him!" Chris gave the damaged hand another sharp squeeze, and Justin
whimpered. "What could possibly have put it in your head to defend my fucking honor on TRL?"
"TRL!" Lance echoed, indignantly. It was beginning to sound a little hysterical, so Joey thumped
him on the back to shake him out of it.
"I -- well -- " Justin looked around the room for help, but no one would meet his eyes. They'd
gotten this far by never, ever interfering in personal shit, Chris-Justin kind of shit.
"Justin, you're a fucking moron! Did you not even think about how this would look? He's
spent three years dissing your girlfriend to anyone with a microphone and a tape recorder, and
what do you do? Nothing. He puts my name in one song and makes one smart-ass comment on
television, and you go completely Mad Max on him. Thanks for making me look like your
fucking bitch on national tv, sweetheart. That's just fucking terrific. I'm just gonna wear a
jacket from now on -- stitched right across the back. Justin's Bitch. That's how I want to be
credited on the next album, too, by the way."
"I just wanted-- "
"Yeah, I know what you wanted. You're in love, you've got a brain built out of tofu."
"I don't think it's quite that bad, Chris," JC offered.
"You wear pants with flames made out of sequins on them. You obviously have no concept of
how not to look like a complete queer in front of our entire target audience."
Justin jerked his hand away. "Is this some fucking straight guy thing? I'm queer, but God
forbid you should be, right?"
"Don't even, Justin. Just shut up. You have no clue, okay? You're this -- this big, giant slab
of sexy. You'd be a fucking stud no matter who you were boning, so you don't even -- you don't
even count. Of course you don't think about this kind of shit."
"Dude, maybe the rest of us should go back out there," Joey stage-whispered. He totally loved
Chris and Justin, and he had the natural impulse of all happily mated people to see everyone
around him just as happily mated, but he didn't really need to, like, see it. Them being all
significant-othery. Usually they kept that sort of thing pretty much to themselves.
"Dude," Lance said, quiet sarcasm dripping in his juicy Southern accent, "maybe you should hold
it down."
"It's called being a gentleman, okay, Chris?"
"Well, I'm not your fair lady."
"He was making me crazy!" Justin's voice dropped smoothly as his eyes lifted back up, skittishly,
toward Chris. "You make me crazy. Okay?" JC awwed a little bit, and then stuck his
knuckles in his mouth to keep quiet.
"How's that lip, Bruce Lee?"
Justin shrugged with one shoulder. "Stings a little. It ain't nothing."
"Gimme that glass." Justin handed it over, and Chris pulled a crescent of ice out of the water. He
drew it carefully along Justin's lower lip. Justin's eyes closed and his spine lengthened, reaching
up into the sensation. "You made a total ass of yourself," he said quietly.
"Got that memo. Yeah." His tongue flicked out and swept the ice out of Chris's fingers and into
his mouth.
"And you totally had him. I think you broke his nose."
Justin's eyes opened. "Yeah?" He sounded nervous, like there was almost definitely another
insult swimming around at the end of that sentence.
"Oh, yeah." Chris put his hands up and moved his shoulders, miming a boxer's defensive dance.
"On the ropes, baby. He's gonna be feeling that for a while."
"And you will never, ever, ever do anything like this again, right, Justin?"
"Not if I can help it. My hand is fucking killing me."
"At least you don't play an instrument," JC said brightly. "I mean, it's not like you really have to
use that hand for anything."
"Do not," Joey said quickly, at the first sign of a glance passing between Chris and Justin.
"Wherever you're thinking about taking that, do not, okay?"
Justin shrugged. His eyes didn't leave Chris's. "Straight guys."
"Yeah, what are you gonna do?" Chris said philosophically.