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*** There was an airport; you aren't sure where, or when, not with the way it all blurred together and became something almost ethereal. You'll never be able to name the places or times of a lot of important things. Not even the things involving Justin. You remember they happened, and that will have to be enough. That, and the little details, like that it *had* been an airport, and that it had to be in Europe, where security was fucking *security*, dudes walking around with Uzis. You remember Justin elbowing you, hissing, "What the fuck, dude," and being stunned because that was the first time he'd really paid attention in an airport. So maybe that means it was near the beginning, which makes it all seem fast. As whirlwind as the rest of your lives then, but then again, the thing that hadn't lasted as long. You're back to flying high, but Justin is. Justin is Britney's. So yeah, it had to be near the beginning. *** In Europe Chris had gone through the motions of sneaking Justin into clubs that wouldn't have turned him away anyway, because it let him know he wouldn't be left behind. Chris watched him drink his first beer with cautious sips and three weeks later, held him upright as he puked into a trashcan. He saw sheepish amusement in Justin's eyes when he smiled weakly. "Got too confident," he'd said. The start of a life trend. The first time Lynn went home for awhile, he was fine, excited to be free. The second he lingered at the gate a few minutes after her flight left, and the third time he fell asleep against Chris after a night of depressed silence. In the morning he'd looked guilty, for being young and human, and Chris twisted a hand through his hair and told him to get dressed so they could all actually accomplish something that day. The first time Chris kissed him he wasn't quite sixteen and was impatient, drunk and pushy and really, really good at it. Chris didn't actually know who kissed whom-- too much of a blur of yelling and anger and finally, the slick pressure of lips opening against his. All he could think was, Justin, and it wasn't until his hands were tugging at Justin's shirt that he remembered it had been tequila that night, and he stopped. Justin started yelling again, but Chris went to bed. *** Justin is all about balance and always has been. Now, Britney is around more and more, and Dani not at all, and you always have to wait for weeks, until midway between Brit's visits for Justin to get frustrated and horny and show up at your door. Then you get a few weeks of that, until they start planning her next trip to Orlando, or his to LA; it's all a cycle of Justin's juggling. You don't know exactly why you put up with it, except that you did the same thing with Dani and funny how buddy fucks had worked during that too brief time when you were both happy with someone else. *** Justin stayed angry for weeks after that kiss, and refused to speak to Chris until he'd glanced up on the way to a photo shoot and Justin was suddenly all over him. The driver probably never even batted an eye; Chris fought hard for the rest of the day to think of road kill, dirty diapers, surgery videos on TLC--anything to keep his pants fitting. Justin didn't disappoint, showed up in his room late, so late Chris had given up, and let him see the first of his balances: for someone so young, he liked it dirty, hot, and fast. He didn't mess around with intimacy and tenderness, but moaned loudly and scratched hard and after a few months when he said he loved Chris, it was a rough, quiet mutter lost somewhere between a groan and a snore. The really nice thing about Justin was that he never made Chris feel like he was fucking a kid. *** It was your fault, anyway, for setting the precedent. You met Dani and she told filthy jokes while sipping wine, cursed a blue streak with casual class, and liked you. Eventually she loved you and Justin shrugged when you tried to explain how serious it was getting, so you figured it was okay, that he understood, that he didn't mind the way you didn't come to him so much anymore. You figured if you could be satisfied and happy with someone else, so could he. You figured it was never all that serious in the first place. Now, you figure you were an ass about it. It really was your fault. *** Thing was, they got back to America and something happened, as things do. They got famous. They got photographed and harassed and insulted and trotted out on MTV to make chitchat with Carson Daly. They got asked stupid questions and had to give stupid answers that were sent by messenger every week so that they'd be sure not to forget. Sometimes they all hated it. Justin would vent a good ten minutes into sex, griping about "goddamned baby blue pansy ass shirts" while tugging at the zipper of Chris's jeans. At least every few days Chris had to bite his tongue to keep from telling Lou to keep his fat ass and fat nose on the business side of their affairs. He always managed to keep that quiet, though. There was fame and there was Dani, and he once tried to sort it all out but there didn't seem to be a point. *** Justin smiles at you sometimes, during the day, quick little grins and you know what they mean. He's okay; he knows things about you and your body and your soft sounds that only a handful of people on the planet know; he's thinking of showing up one of these nights. A long time ago, you told him it might be a bad idea and he pouted. You wish you'd been more adamant, wish it had never been more than a kiss. It had all been a colossal bitch of a bad idea, but fuck, you miss him in Germany. You miss the days when it wasn't so complicated. *** When Chris got a dog Joey started laughing. "What the hell? Are you planning to iron its face or something?" "Shut the fuck up," Chris snapped, snatching Busta from the floor and grinning into his face. "This, I'll have you know, is a true friend. All he wants to do is curl up and lick your face every once in awhile." "Damn, Chris, you didn't need a dog for that. Millions of girls in this country would give their eye teeth for that privilege." Joey snorted. "But maybe this is a perfect match for you. Short and furry." "Bitch." Justin just poked the dog in a semblance of petting, then grinned. "Cute," he said, and later he stayed and Chris had forgotten how warm and slick his mouth was, had forgotten until Justin breathed, "what'd you need a dog for?" right into his ear. Chris didn't answer, just hitched Justin against the wall and pressed his hip in exactly the right spot. Justin always liked it the same, getting worked up and felt up until clothes were an obstacle and they both had to think for a minute to figure out the best route to bed. He curled around Chris like he had since the first time, with all the fumbling grace of a baby giraffe, getting his lips and hands to impossible places by virtue of height and determination. Chris felt bad the next morning when Dani called. But he didn't make himself stop with Justin. He couldn't really bring himself to do that, not entirely. *** It's better this way, you tell yourself. It's just better. *** There was a night of tense jokes and cautious laughter when Chris was faintly buzzed on champagne and the realization that they'd won, which came also with a vague notion that eventually, they'd stop winning. "Everything with a grain of salt, Chris," his mother said. "You'll deserve things you won't get. And you'll get things that don't last. Understand that." None of that mattered, though, not really. He was drunk. That should have mattered more. Except right then, they had won and the album could go, the album and the tour and the hard knot Chris had held in his chest since he first sat down with Lance and Lance's uncle to figure out if there was really anything concrete to mention to the other three. It made him remember how he had felt some other night, that first award. That was when he let yourself think they'd definitely made it, yes. Or maybe, but that maybe was still comfortable, ensconcing, soothing. He had wanted to bounce off the walls, and from the way the guys kept laughing at him and rolling their eyes, he might have been. Down the line, he would no longer remember it as any special *moment* in their success, not a turning point or anything, but he hadn't yet forgotten how he told himself, this is it. You've made it. He hadn't forgotten looking around and loving the sight of Joey wrapped around Kelly, really relaxed and confident for the first time since it all started. And he hadn't forgotten looking at Justin, awkward with his champagne, one of those rare kid moments, and wanting to laugh, or cry, hysterically. Either one, but instead he wrapped an arm around Justin's head and rubbed knuckles through the thick curls. "Ghetto superstar," he sang under his breath. Justin shrugged away. "Hey, hey, watch the hair. Some of us care about how we look." "Exercise in futility, anyone? Bueller? Bueller?" "Tell me honestly, Chris. What the fucking hell have you been smoking?" "I'm high on life, dude." "That some new designer drug?" "Designed just for meeeeee, baby. Wanna dance?" "Buzz off." "Jus-tinnnn," Chris whined. "Don't make me bitchslap you in front of every single person controlling your career." "Fuck *off*, okay?" And for a flash of a moment, Justin just looked scared, before the composure slipped back into place and he cocked a wry grin at Chris. "Sorry. A little freaked out by it all." His face right then: one thing remembered. There were ways that moments of reality stood out in the madness, tiny little signs that the world wasn't comprised of flashbulbs and screaming teens. Justin had looked like a sick puppy the night Lance shoved numbers and contracts across the table. He'd thrown a glass that night, splashing the wall of Joey's living room with rum and coke. Later Chris took him home and Justin looked scared again, but neither of them said a word. And then there were some rough months and it was over. Justin, sprawled on a sofa, flushed with laughter and slightly drunken ease. Justin, mumbling that the rumors about Britney were true, right into Chris's mouth. Chris filed away the heat of his moving lips instead of the words, the sound of soft cotton falling on a hardwood floor; those were the parts he wanted to remember. Needed to remember. Already, Justin was pulling away, pulling towards her. *** Here's the way it happens. You wake up one morning and you think, no way in hell. You scrub a hand through gel-crusted hair and you get up anyway, stumble to the shower and wash away the stench of sweat and smoke and alcohol and loneliness, and you look at the empty bed and your hands get a little rougher, a little angrier, scrubbing water from your hair. And then you remember it isn't just one morning, but every morning, and somehow making it bleaker, more hopeless, also makes it easier to nod to yourself. Force yourself to hum and get dressed and check the schedule to see who the first interview is with today. Make the misery routine, make it a pattern, and there. You've already figured out how to deal with it. "You'll want them and you won't be able to have them," your mother said. You should have listened when you were young. She always was a smart lady. *end* |