Quiet "Brit--" he says, helplessly. She hits him again, in the same spot, right on the breastbone.
"Jesus, you're fucking ALL of them? How long?"
"Brit--"
"How long have you been doing it?" She's pale with anger, he sees. That's funny. He always thought people got red in the face when they're angry. He does. His face feels flushed and itchy.
"Brit," he says with a little more force. "Not now." He can hear the low hum that is the crowd gearing up outside. JC and Joey move restlessly at the end of the bare corridor. JC's talking to someone out of sight, maybe Anthony, maybe Wade, maybe the stadium manager. "We have to go."
She backs off; she's a professional. But her eyes are chilly. "We'll talk about this," she hisses.
"It's not," he tries. "It's not like that. It's not."
She didn't see that much, he thinks, not everything. But Lance was restless that night, for some reason - stress, hangover, family issues, whatever - and it helps to step things up then, they do it for everyone. So maybe they were a little naked, and maybe Chris was licking Justin's neck and maybe Justin was stroking Lance's stomach, and maybe Joey was tracing the lines of Lance's face with his fingertips and maybe, just maybe, JC was about to give Lance a blowjob. It was just what they did.
What they did.
"I can't anymore," Justin says. "It's too weird."
It calms him to say that, but it's a cold, lonely calm.
Britney mellows out after a lot of explaining. "It wasn't like, like an orgy. Not ... completely," he says, "it's just something. It wasn't like that," and after he's repeated it a dozen times, she believes him. She's a good friend.
"I guess it just freaked me out," she says. "It was just. Wow. Too much information. You guys are so weird. And, like, I thought. You know, I thought you were straight."
"I am," he says. "I just..." But he feels strange, and can't finish the sentence.
He didn't think it was weird before. It feels different now that she knows, like he's looking at it from the outside and it really is freaky. Not something they should be doing. He tries to remember how it started, and realises it was so gradual that no one even noticed when it crossed the line between comforting and kinky. "I don't do that anymore," he says. He's said it so many times it sounds like a mantra.
"Cool," she says, but it's not, really. He can't go into the Quiet Room anymore. They're still doing it.
"We need the contact," JC says. "Come on, Justin."
But he can't, and they do it without him. He sits in the corridor, staring at the wall and feeling curiously vacant, like it's not show night, none of the build-up, none of that sweet excitement. When they come out, flushed and glowing with it, he looks away.
The show's still good; it doesn't affect that, but he wakes up the next morning with a wet pillow and an aching head. He feels stupid, but he still can't.
"Come on," JC says, every time, because he's stubborn as hell and never knows when to quit.
"He's not gonna change his fucking mind," Chris mutters and turns his back, and Justin feels like he's been dismissed.
He doesn't see Britney a lot, and somehow it seems like he can't quite hang out in the same way with the guys anymore. Like they're sharing something he's not in on, and that's true, that's exactly what's going on. If he walks in on Joey sliding his hand down Lance's side, they step away from each other. Chris doesn't talk to him. He thought it was just because Chris is pissed that he has an opinion on this, like he's not entitled to say no, but it just goes on and on.
"Chris is being an asshole," he complains to JC, who's the only one who listens.
JC doesn't say anything, but he looks like he's trying to think of something comforting and can't come up with it. He looks tense, he's been looking tense for days, Justin thinks.
That night, he stares at his own reflection in the mirror until his face starts looking freakish - garish pastel colours: pink and peach and blue, and the skin under his eyes is thin and translucent and smudged deep purple at the same time. "Freak," he says, and the too-pink reflection of his mouth looks wrong forming the word.
He knocks on JC's door and when JC opens, he wraps his arms around his neck. Sometimes, JC is oddly smart, and this is one of those times. He doesn't say anything, just hugs back.
"We miss you," he does say when they slip into bed and Justin nuzzles his neck. "You know this doesn't work."
But Justin still can't, even though he stays until morning.
He sleeps alone the next night and has nightmares. He tries not to think about it, not to make it obvious. He never had trouble sleeping before.
At breakfast, he asks Chris to pass the cheese five times and Chris just ignores him.
"Here," Joey says and hands him the cheese. Smiles at him, even. That evening, Justin knocks at Joey's door.
"You wanna tell me what's up?" Joey says.
"No," Justin says.
He doesn't know it himself. He doesn't know what's up. On the bus, Chris talks to JC about eighties music and Justin watches the world fly by outside. Flat prairie, birds, houses, telephone poles, the whole damn enchilada.
At the next stop, he takes his bag and switches buses.
"You get sick of them?" Joey asks.
"Yeah," Justin says. "What are y'all watching?"
"Wet t-shirt competition," Lance says and laughs. His deep, rumbling laugh sounds so right and soothing that Justin slides into the sofa next to him and leans his head on his shoulder. Lance pats his head. "Changed your mind now?"
"No," Justin says, but he doesn't move.
He tries to make it less obvious. He sleeps in his own room except when he has nightmares or feels restless. The shows go fine, he tells himself, they go fine, they're okay. But Chris doesn't talk to him and picks fights with the crew.
"You're both acting like morons," Lance says, but he doesn't make Justin leave his room. He strokes Justin's back and Justin pushes his face into the crook of his neck and sleeps soundly.
"Why are you ignoring Chris?" Joey asks another night and pushes him onto his back, kisses his neck. Justin breathes deeply and says,
"I'm not. He's ignoring me."
"Right," Joey says.
He falls asleep in Lance's bunk and dreams about the Quiet Room. One of those days when everyone's wired as hell and it takes a little more to mellow them out, when it becomes a blur of naked bodies and heat and closeness and he wakes up panting and hard, and the last thing he remembers is how it always ends, every time; Chris wrapped around him, just the two of them curled into each other, and kissing, soft kisses and Chris' tongue and lips and teeth, and Chris' hands.
"Fuck," he says. "Fuck, fuck--"
"What is it?" Lance asks from the lounge. Justin rubs his sweaty forehead.
"Nothing," he says. He slips out of the bunk on shaky legs and goes into the bathroom and locks the door carefully. He feels sick and sickly excited, and he can't stop himself from thinking about Chris when he closes his eyes and slides his hand under his sweatpants, and that makes him feel even sicker, because Chris is so angry now. He doesn't look much at Justin, looks past him, like Justin's turned invisible, and Justin doesn't want to be the one to crack. It's not like he didn't explain how he felt, but Chris is so angry.
It occurs to him, then, that maybe it was like that, their Quiet Room things, and maybe he lied to Britney, and he steps into the shower and turns it on, cold.
"Nut," Joey says when he comes out.
"Fuck you," Justin says because he wants to be rude to someone.
He wonders, sometimes, how long they can go on like this, pretending like it's nothing and smiling and looking past each other. Not that Chris smiles that much. Not that Justin smiles that much, although he's better at faking it.
"Jesus, just-- talk to him. Tell him you're sorry," JC says, and Justin wants to push him or slap him or something.
"For WHAT?" he snaps instead, but JC just looks puzzled, like he can't understand that Justin can't fucking read minds.
He goes into the Quiet Room forty-five minutes into the hour. They're just sitting there, quietly.
"Hey," Lance says. He's leaning against JC, but they're not doing anything. Just sitting.
"Hey," Joey says.
"Hey," JC says and smiles a little. Chris sits on the floor. He doesn't look at Justin, and it's suddenly too much. Not his place anymore. He turns and leaves, and slams the door behind him, even though he's not angry. Not angry, but there's a numbness in his chest, and a ringing in his ears. He leans against the wall outside and tries to think about good things. The crowd, everyone who loves him, his brothers, his mom, his grandfather's house, his own house and everything beautiful in it--
"Are you okay?" Lance asks right next to him, and he jumps and almost takes a swing. "Jesus, tense much?"
"I'm fine," Justin says, but he's lying and Lance isn't that stupid.
"Hey," Lance says softly and Justin bites his lip, but he knows he's going to start crying if he says anything. "Justin, hey. It's a little. It's just."
And that does it, doesn't it, that's just the final straw: Lance speechless.
He lets Lance hold him, and he doesn't cry for very long because he can still pull it together for a show. And smile.
He calls Britney that night, wakes her up. "You woke me up, Timberlake," she says, "so it better be good."
"Sorry," he says, and doesn't know what he wanted to say. He's sure he had a plan.
She's quiet on the line, and he can almost see her quirked eyebrow.
"Things suck," he says after a while. "Chris hates me."
"Moron," she says. "Chris loves you."
"Yeah, right."
"Say you're sorry."
"About what?"
"Whatever it is you did."
"That's good advice, Brit, thanks a fucking lot."
She laughs. "You're kinda dumb sometimes, Justin."
He hangs up and wants to throw his phone at the wall, but it's two am and JC's next door. He hates being woken up.
Instead he puts the phone carefully down on the table.
The hall is dimly lit at this hour, quiet in that lurking way where every shadow seems to be a skulking figure. Yeah, okay, now he's freaking himself out, tip-toeing quickly, the carpet rough under his bare feet, and he's shivering. It's not cold, but his skin crawls into goosebumps and he rubs his arms roughly and gives himself a mental slap. Knocks on Joey's door, because Joey's usually cool about being woken up, cool and warm both, welcoming and able to smile through the grogginess.
He has to knock for a while, but finally Joey opens, blinking a little. "Hey, Justin," he says, and Justin loves Joey a lot just then, with more heat than normally, and he takes a step towards him, relieved, but Joey turns his head and the smile slips off his face.
"What?" Justin says and turns his head, too. Chris stands in his door, next door from Joey, cold-eyed and tight-mouthed and it looks a lot like he hates Justin. Like maybe he wants to scream and punch things and never see Justin again.
"Hey, Chris, man--" Joey says carefully and lifts his hands defensively, as if he's feeling it, too. Joey hates arguments; he'll do anything to keep people friendly, but Justin figures this is a little beyond Joey's buddy magic.
"Hey, Joe," Chris says, and his voice is calm and gentle in that way it gets when he's two seconds from exploding into a whirring ball of claws and teeth.
"Chris--" Justin says, and tries to stop, really tries, but it's late and he's tired and it hurts to look at Chris, "Chris--" but he can't say he's sorry when he doesn't know what he's sorry for.
"Don't talk to me, Justin," Chris says, still calmly, but quivering with anger.
"But--" he starts, and Chris takes the two steps between them so quickly Justin can't even retrace the movements, and then Chris has him by the shoulder and he's slammed against the wall and sees, with perfect clarity, Chris' hand curl into a fist and he thinks, oh, oh SHIT, and closes his eyes.
He can hear is, hear bones break, crunch like twigs, and wonders why it doesn't hurt. Then he hears Joey gasp and Chris gasp and opens his eyes, and Chris is curled up around his arm, and when Justin looks to the side, there's a gouge in the wall by his head.
"Holy fuck," Joey says and Justin sinks to the floor, slides along the wall, his knees like water. Chris is breathing heavily and not moving.
It makes it easy, really. Chris is hurt, in pain, hey, that's easy. Justin crawls towards him and doesn't even feel stupid, on his knees in a hotel hallway, and reaches for Chris and finds his unbroken hand and pulls at it, and Chris comes, folds into him, a tight ball of trembling Chris, and it's disgusting to feel this relieved when he's hurting.
"Hey, man, are you okay?" Joey's voice says somewhere up there, in the distance. "Chris?"
"Broke my fucking hand," Chris mutters, but he presses his face against Justin's chest and lets Justin wrap his arms around his neck.
Now it's easy to say sorry, because he IS sorry. It doesn't matter what it's for. He's just sorry, and Chris shivers in his arms and burrows closer.
"You stupid bastard," Joey says, but he doesn't sound angry, just puzzled.
"It's okay," Justin mumbles into Chris' hair, "it's okay," and he kisses Chris' head and strokes his neck, and it's a little like before.
They sit quietly in the emergency room, held mute and still under the disapproving stone glare of Lonnie. Chris gets a cast and painkillers and a stern warning to keep still.
"Yeah, right," Chris mutters on the way out.
"Um," Justin says when they're back, outside Chris' door and Lonnie says,
"For God's sake, don't hit anything more," and goes back to his room, and Joey says,
"You be okay?"
"Yeah," Chris says.
"Uhuh," Justin says, and Joey closes his door and they're alone. For the first time in ages, Justin realises, and it feels really weird. Fluttery and scary. He's got a cold spot in his chest again, not numb, but cold and achy, like he swallowed an ice cube and it's melting and sucking up the heat from his stomach. "I'm sorry," he says quickly.
"For what, you moron?" Chris asks sharply.
"Uh," Justin says.
"Exactly," Chris says and opens the door. Justin slips inside, because the cold's spreading and he's suddenly got a spark of courage, because really, caught between a rock and a hard place, he'll pick Chris.
He feels pretty pathetic, but he stands straight and bites his lip and says, "I'm just sorry. Why do you hate me?"
Chris stands in the door, still and silent, with his right arm protectively laid around the left.
Justin waits.
Chris blinks and scratches his elbow. "I don't hate you," he says, reluctantly.
"What, then?" Justin asks.
"I don't know," Chris says. "You've been acting like an ass."
Justin blinks. "ME? I have been acting like an ass?" He wants to yell, because really, Jesus fucking Christ-- but then he looks at Chris with his cast and the dark shadows under his eyes, and takes a deep breath and swallows his indignation. It's stupid. He has been stupid. So Chris has been, too, but that doesn't help. "Okay, so. Yeah, sure. So, like. What?"
Chris' mouth curls a little in what could be a smile or just a trick of the light; the shadow cast by a car passing. "Stop."
Justin frowns. He can feel his face scrunch up. He must look like a boy trying to puzzle out a complicated maths assignment, he thinks, and makes an effort to look less ... stumped.
Chris waits, and it's strange, almost eerie, how still he is. Chris is never still; he twitches and skips and fiddles and vibrates with nervous energy. But he's perfectly still now, and Justin wants to poke him to see if he's suddenly been turned into a salt pillar. For a second, he has an image of that: stretching out a hand to touch Chris' face, only to feel it crumble under his fingers and fall to the floor in a rain of white crystals.
He shivers and steps closer, reaches out.
Chris is warm and living and human, and Justin lets out a breath, surprised at how tense he was. As if he really believed his own creepy brainfarts.
Chris turns his face into his palm, and suddenly, things slip and come loose in his head, and he can just pull Chris closer and hold him there.
Chris mumbles something, and it sounds like "see?"
The Quiet Room is really quiet when he comes in, and Justin thinks it's going to be horribly awkward, in that foot-scraping, looking-at-the-walls-to-avoid-eye-contact way.
Then JC smiles sunnily at him and says, "You back in now, J?" and he says,
"Yeah, I guess," and JC hugs him, and he feels Chris' hand come around his waist, too, and in the corner of his eye, he sees Joey catch Lance and pull him closer for a kiss.
"We missed you," JC whispers, his breath hot against Justin's neck. Chris is behind Justin and leaning against him, his hands creeping up under Justin's shirt.
"We missed you," Chris says, and leans even closer, so close Justin can feel his mouth move against his ear, "I missed you."
"We missed you," Joey says, somewhere to the side, and Lance's deep voice echoes him.
Chris mumbles soft words into his skin, on damp puffs of warm air. "You shouldn't have gone away," he says, and JC says, "didn't you get that?"
Justin thinks, why didn't you say so?, but he says, "I missed you, too."
They all surround him, then, hands sliding under his clothes, over his face, mouths on his skin, fingertips, hair, and he shivers and closes his eyes and doesn't know who touches what, just relaxes into it and lets them. He feels the scratchy edge of the cast on his stomach and knows where Chris is, and it's soothing.
He leans back and there's a mouth on his, beard and sharp teeth and a clever tongue; a hand on his face; soft hair tickling his stomach and a mouth sliding lower, and he opens his eyes and blinks and looks right at Chris. "I missed you," he whispers, for his ears only, and Chris smiles and kisses him again, and he keeps his eyes open and feels warm all over, warm and quiet. |
