Chris liked rockabilly music, and JC could read his mind.

They weren't necessarily linked, those things; but Chris pretty much always thought of them at the same time, since they both ranked real high on the scale of im-fucking-possible.

The rockabilly stuff started first, and basically all because Chris didn't like Lance. He actually made the assumption that the younger man liked country music, he bought into the stereotype, because it was easy. And because Lance knew Chris had, in fact, seen a BR-549 CD or two in his case, and maybe Lyle Lovett, he didn't bother to try and disabuse him of any it. But now Chris had to wonder if Lance just let him think it, give him shit about it, so he could lord it over him at some later juncture and they'd have to be friends. Or something.

Because Chris teased him, all the time, especially one night when a change in schedule meant that Lance would have to miss a club date he'd been looking forward to for weeks.

"Quit your bitching, Garth," Chris told him, laughing at himself.

"You don't know shit," Lance chuckled. "It's not ... "

Chris trying to line dance with only his own high-pitched voice as accompaniment was pretty fucking funny.

"STOP!" laughed Lance, harder. "It's not, like, pop country ... "

"Oh, 'cause there's a difference?"

Lance's mouth thinned. "Okay, CHRISSY. You come with me, next show we can see, and I'll tell you where Justin stashed your Indigo Girls CD that you've been weeping like a pussy over."

And never let it be said that Chris Kirkpatrick couldn't admit when he was wrong. Hell, even Lyle had his moments.

And so Lance would fly home when they were on tour, sometimes, or more often to Austin -- once they had the money and the clout to do it -- when he had heard through the grapevine that one of his favored groups had a new CD they were handing preview copies out of at gigs. He'd always be back the next day, bleary-eyed, and stubbly once he actually could grow stubble, and toss a copy on Chris's bed.

"Track seven," he'd mumble on his way out.

The JC thing was a little harder to adjust to.

Had it happened a couple years earlier, Chris wasn't sure he would've noticed. He and JC had clashed from the start, and it was a testament to the extent to which Justin always got his way that the three of them even stuck together in the beginning.

But as it was, Chris had grown up, and JC had stayed pretty much the same, which meant they could actually communicate on some level beyond JC saying something lame in an appearance, and Chris petulantly giving him the silent treatment because of it.

It all started when JC would snort during those times they would all be sitting around, doing nothing, SAYING nothing. And inevitably someone would look guilty. Which wouldn't have been a big deal, either, except it got a little worrisome when it was HIM with the guilty looks, and Chris wasn't sure why, unless it was the unnerving way JC would raise an eyebrow or shake his head.

Or, JC would randomly mumble 'yes,' or 'no,' or 'you better fucking not,' just before someone would ask a question. Finally, Justin just got fed up with it.

"What the FUCK, Jace," he spat out, right after JC had murmured "noon" two seconds before Joey asked when they were in the studio the next day. "How the hell did you know Joey was gonna ask that? What the fuck is UP with you lately?"

And JC crumbled under the collective weight of all their stares, maybe made worse by what must have been a chorus of similar 'what the fuck?'s in their heads. Or maybe, Chris figured, he was just tired of trying to bother to hide it.

"Okay," he mumbled. "Okay. Guys. Um ... I have this thing. Um," he blushed, "not a -- a power, exactly, but ..." Justin grunted impatiently and JC shot him a dirty look before continuing. A little more quickly and confidently than he had been before, however, Chris noted. "I have a low-grade form of telepathy," he finished, and looked at them expectantly.

"Cool," Joey shrugged, and Chris wondered if he even knew what that meant, or if he was still stuck on the idea of one of his friends having an honest-to-God superpower.

"Is that the thing where you can bend spoons with your mind, and shit?" Lance asked, and Chris kicked him.

"Low-grade, meaning ... what, exactly?" he said after a moment.

So JC sat them down and, surprisingly calm, explained it to them: that it was only the four of them, and only when he was in the room with them, and he didn't know how it happened, dammit, so not to ask him, and so forth.

"So, how does it actually work?" pressed Chris, then, wondering why he was the only one asking the good questions. "I mean, how do you know who's thinking what?"

"I, uh ... like, hear your voices. In my head. It's really just like if you were all talking out loud at once, you know?"

Joey looked uncomfortable. "So you can't, like, see anything we're thinking about, right? Like, um ... what we're picturing, or whatever ... ?"

JC rolled his eyes at him, and Chris snickered, wondering if what he'd gotten out of Joey's head already was sufficient to convince JC of what, exactly, Joey was talking about. "No. It's all aural. Auditory. Whatever. And I can, like, tune you out for the most part, too. Sometimes. Or, like ..." Just as Chris was thinking that this kinda made JC seem infinitely more interesting than he had been, he turned and looked at Chris. "...focus on you. One at a time."

Chris flinched.

The telepathy thing also explained a lot of things in a way that they just couldn't justify to the general public. Like the time they did the Today show. Afterwards Justin wouldn't stop glaring at JC. Lance thought it was hilarious, but Lance never acted sane when he was in New York. Joey just claimed it made him hungry.

"Jace?" Chris ventured, once they were settled in the limo. "Um. Hot dogs?"

JC blushed and dug the heel of his hand into his forehead. "I know," he moaned. "What the hell. It's all of y'all's faults, though."

Chris settled back into the plush leather, thinking this was going to be good. "Oh?"

"Yeah," sighed JC. "'Cause, see. I hear the question, right? And then all of a sudden, I'm like. Bombarded. With the responses you guys are coming up with, mixed in with all the other random shit. And so I try to, like, figure out what you want me to say? instead of just what I was going to say? But with all of you, I end up just ... talking too much ... " he tapered off, then grinned sheepishly. "I dunno. Hot dogs."

It also explained why JC, who already had this tendency to fucking STARE at them when they were doing interviews, watched them so carefully that Chris wondered if he'd developed X-ray vision too. Until it occured to him that it was like JC was honing his technique of identifying when they were lying through their teeth so that, if the ability ever went away, he'd still be able to do it. Like a survival tactic.

One day they were all sitting around, concentrating half-assedly on coming up with a good cover to do for Celebrity, when Chris and Lance exchanged a look.

"Oh, God," JC muttered, and left the room.

Chris stood up and started yodeling one of their favorite Old 97s songs, about dying staring at dressing room walls, right up until he got to the line that went: "I'm gonna try not to fall down, when I'm singin' for y'all ... "

"Go, boy, go!" Lance hollered, and Joey hooted at the idea of having to say "y'all" in a song.

"Oh my GOD shut them up," groaned Justin, before muttering that if they weren't careful he was going to make them dress up in fucking cowboy hats during the next tour, and then they'd see how clever they thought they were.

They hadn't been serious, before that, really; but since Justin was being a bitch about it, they dug their heels in and decided they would do a skit for it.

"What the fuck?" JC asked, when presented months later with the costume.

"That's what happens when you leave the room," Chris explained solemnly. "Skews the voting dynamics. No plurality. Had to pull rank."

JC was actually a lot better at keeping it to himself when other people were around, which pretty much convinced Chris that he could do it all the time if he wanted to -- but just didn't bother. Chris wouldn't have been surprised if it was his roundabout way of being really nice and doing the guys a favor, blurting things out when it was just them -- reminding them that they weren't alone in their heads anymore, and as uncomfortable and unfair as it was, there wasn't anything he could do about it.

Lance, on the other hand, was the worst. Chris had always hated how he'd characterize the rest of them when they interviewed him -- the Crazy One, for him, or the Sporty One, or the Flirty One. Chris could laugh off outsiders' criticism but he thought it was stupid to invite it, like that. And so one time, when Lance wasn't particularly sober for a radio appearance, he called JC the Freaky Mind-Reading One, and Chris had to smack him.

Chris found he had to smack a lot of them, a lot of the time, since they found out.

One of the things Chris did like about it was if you got JC drunk, he'd wrap his arms around you from behind, nose underneath your ear, and tell you everyone else's secrets. The ones you didn't mind hearing, of course. Like how every time Lance pissed Justin off by saying that Britney was skanky, it was really because he was consumed with guilt for having jerked off thinking about her the night before.  And how Joey'd kissed her.  And how Justin was just as scared of needles as JC was, but even more scared of being left out of something, and thus the flame tattoo, and then it turned into some weird one-upping thing with Chris and Joey and JC couldn't keep track.

Other things happened when he got drunk, too, though. The problem was that before JC knew Chris's every thought, he could say things to himself like: "I really fucking wish I knew what JC's lips would feel like between my teeth," and no one would be any wiser. The particular incident in question, Chris himself didn't have the excuse of being particularly plastered, it was just that Joey had come in with a bottle of vodka and a bag of blow-pops, and JC got the sour apple one.

Chris later had to admit that he probably was thinking to himself that he wanted JC to do it. Staring at JC intently until he got up to sit beside him probably didn't seem like rejection-prepping behavior either. But Chris did it anyway, and JC got all the way up to the point where Chris could practically taste the artificial flavoring on his tongue before he froze. Chris muttered "Dani," but realized -- resignedly -- he must not have been concentrating on her too hard before that.

"Track four," Lance winked this time, and Chris chuckled when he saw it was called "Big Brown Eyes."

The only real problems occured because JC was a pretty slick cat, and could be quiet, and sometimes they wouldn't even know that he had entered the room until the door slammed shut behind him as he ran out. JC didn't talk to Justin, much, anymore.

Maybe in response, maybe not, JC would bring his new songs into the studio and actually fight against Justin when he lobbied for the better verses. When he used to give in easily, apologetically, even, like he felt he owed him something. And all of a sudden, then tension between JC and Justin, always so remarkable because of its absence, had become huge and palpable and mutli-layered and would force JC to cry and Chris to soothe Justin even though he figured if he knew the whole story, it wouldn't be Justin's hand he was holding.

On the other hand, JC defended Lance a lot more than he once did. Chris didn't understand that so much, how JC was suddenly so supportive of Lance's latest project or venture or hare-brained scheme, but then he noticed that Lance had stopped with the ass-kissing and brown-nosing and hob-nobbing, and the random sleazy people he'd meet in bathrooms, for the most part. There seemed to be some sort of understanding, there -- a compromise -- and since all Chris ever wanted for Lance was for him to have a little self-respect, he was pretty happy with that bargain.

It helped in other ways, too; ones that weren't as happy for Chris to think about, but wondered if they all weren't better off having to deal with. JC was like a guardian angel as they got bigger and bigger and it got harder and harder to fight off temptations and stay humble. He sent one of the bodyguards to grab a drunk Joey out from behind the bar where he had hidden, ego and super-ego long-since passed out and leaving him to the whims of his id, two seconds away from snorting the heroin being offered to him by some trashy girl. He himself went to yank Lance off a some other chick that, JC later confessed to Chris, Lance knew wasn't as into what he was doing to her as he wanted her to be.

Chris did discover he was prone to random fits of jealousy about that. Not that he particularly fancied himself the big brother of the group, or anything, but did JC have to have to be so ... magnanimous? It wasn't like what he actually did was that special or anything -- what was it, anything more than just enhanced perceptiveness, or someone who knew shit about behavioral studies? Really, Chris would scoff to himself. What could really be gained by being inside the head of Joey? What would that tell you?

And then JC would come ask him, with a bashful smile, to help with a harmony on some new song or other. And Chris would remember why those phases passed pretty quickly.

For his part, Joey just refused to accept that JC couldn't read other people's minds, too, and was convinced JC was holding out on them. A week wouldn't go by when Joey wouldn't drag JC out onto the floor of the club and say "that one," trying to get him to tell Joey if the chick really wanted him for him, or if she was just getting with him for the opportunity to ride back to the hotel in the same limousine as Justin Timberlake. Kind of like that Seinfeld episode where Jerry dated the girl who could read lips.

The greatest part was that all of a sudden JC was really good -- even better than before -- at reassuring each of them about whatever their fears for that day were. Looking fat, sounding bad, slipping in the group rankings ... he'd placate them without them having to look weak by asking.

But as great as it was for them, in a lot of ways, Chris started noticing that it kinda really sucked for JC. All of a sudden, JC didn't date anymore, or even really hook up with fans. He just didn't. Chris was met with a ton of foot-shuffling and blushing when he confronted him about it, but eventually got JC to admit that he couldn't. Because it felt too weird to try to be close and intimate with someone when he couldn't know them like he knew the guys. He looked so forlorn that Joey, listening in, hugged him. All Chris could do was feel oddly guilty.

Chris felt a little bad for JC for other reasons, too; like how after a couple ridiculously embarrassing games of I Never and some absolute reamings at Asshole, the other guys were very particular about which drinking games they'd let JC play with them. And of course it turned out he was just naturally good at Quarters and Beer Pong, too, and couldn't convince Joey that he really couldn't control the dice in Threeman with his mind.

So he was odd-man-out, a lot -- something Chris tried to tell himself he would've fought a little more vigorously, maybe, if the whole Dani thing and the weight thing and the approaching-thirty-like-a-fucking-freight-train thing didn't have him second-guessing his own status with the guys all the time.

One night, Chris and Lance had tickets to go see "Ryan Adams -- no, not the Summer of '69 guy, Timberlake, you doofus -- the singer from Whiskeytown," except in New York, ignoring the fact that they both agreed that the shows north of the Mason-Dixon were really lacking. But they still wanted to see him and Joey and Justin had gone out whoring when JC's busted ankle rendered him immobile and thus quite pitiful-looking.

"It's not bad," he said when Lance offered to stay and keep him company, even if he didn't mean it -- Chris didn't have to read minds to figure that out. Chris meant it, when he said it, but JC said "go," softly, anyway.

To the best of Chris's knowledge, JC only freaked out about the whole thing once - had it been Justin, he would have bet it would've occurred on a daily basis -- but it still scared the shit out of him. JC'd gotten in the habit of listening to his discman a lot more - loud, like loud enough for someone standing close to be able to figure out exactly which track of which CD he had on repeat that day, something that Chris figured was probably the only real way he had of tuning them out. On this occasion, however, he ripped his headphones out of his ears and threw them down in disgust.

"Get the FUCK out of my HEAD!!!" he screamed. "GOD, you're all such fucking self-centered PRICKS and I just need you to SHUT the fuck UP for two SECONDS!!!"

He was crying by the end of his rant, probably more out of frustration than anything, and ran out of the room. Joey followed him, because out of all of them everyone knew that JC couldn't stay mad at him.

But Chris went and found him later, carrying his abandoned discman and a pack of two dozen AA Energizers from Costco as a peace offering. Since he'd been the one sitting next to JC, two minutes before he started screaming, and noticed that the tinny sounds from JC's security blanket had gone quiet. Death by dead batteries. It was kind of depressing.

Dani broke up with Chris the day he got the new accoustic Dwight Yoakam CD from Lance. Nice fucking Christmas present, he figured, and went on a liquid diet for about a month. Dwight Yoakam was good for that.

Of course, he didn't tell anyone, and of course, he knew he couldn't keep it from JC. That was kind of awkward, the first time there was something he really minded that JC know about without his permission, or whatever, and he couldn't do anything about it because it was on his mind ALL the damn TIME.

But JC didn't say anything, didn't even give him the pitying looks he was at least expecting. Which meant that Chris ended up going through these phases of trying to figure out WHY he didn't -- did JC really NOT know, somehow? Or was he still so upset about the whole near-kiss thing that he figured Chris deserved it? Or ... was it just a case where JC decided he had to force himself to forget he *could* read minds, that it was just TOO private, and that Chris would tell him when he was ready to talk about it?

Chris never admired JC more than he did then, knowing that if their roles were reversed? he wouldn't have been able to resist saying something. Even as he cursed the fact that it meant he had to ask for help.

"What, Justin busy?" JC muttered, and Chris was sure that he must've picked up on his reluctance to talk to him.

"That's not ... " Chris started, wincing. "I know you can tell I don't want to talk to you about this. And I know you know what 'this' is. But ... look, it's not for the reasons you think." JC just sat in silence, and Chris frowned accusingly. "Why haven't you said anything to me about it? I know you KNOW, man."

JC still sat mute, and Chris eventually realized that he was doing it again, making his mind as blank as he could, out of habit. "Dani," he said finally, choking out the name. "JC ... please. I -- I have to ... "

"Okay," JC cut him off with a soft expression. Finally. "Okay, Chris. Shhh."

At least JC knew enough not to sit there and tell him it was okay if he wanted to cry. Because he didn't, okay, in the first place; but even more than that, he didn't want to know that JC thought he needed to. Even if it might be nice to have to have wiry, strong arms wrapped around him.

"So, yeah," Chris eventually spoke up again, stiltedly. "Are we just all fucked? Like, what you were saying earlier, about how you just can't be with anyone else? Dude ... we've all got that problem, don't we." It wasn't a question, as much as Chris wanted JC to tell him he was wrong. He was getting a little desperate. "And if someone like Dani can't fucking hack it? then we are totally fucked. No one will understand."

JC sighed. "Maybe not right now," he admitted, but he had the good grace to sound reluctant. "Just ... don't say anything to the other guys, okay?"

Chris sat very still and pinched the bridge of his nose sharply, concentrating on breathing and the way JC radiated calm and did he have to be so goddamned perfect at everything Chris sucked at?

"I'm surprised you're here," said JC softly, which in turn surprised Chris enough to make him look up. "I don't ... despite stuff that I know about you, sometimes it doesn't seem like you like me very much. And you're not like the others, you know."

Yeah, Chris kinda knew that, but figured he'd see where JC was taking this.

"I can't ... 'hear' you, like I do them," he explained awkwardly. "And I can't decide if it's because you expend the most effort at making sure I don't? or if that's just ... the way you're layered. Like ... okay, you know how you never bother to hide it when you're pissed off? And everyone knows when you are? Nobody ever knows why, though, or if it's camoflauge for something else. Even me."

JC was starting to look a little anxious, like this was something he'd been meaning to say for too long, enough so that Chris figured it was best to try to head him off already. "Jace ... "

"How deep do you keep it?" JC choked out, cutting him off, and Chris recoiled. "That I can read your fucking mind and I still have to wait for you to tell me when your heart's somewhere near your spleen? How are you ever going to let anyone in if you hide your feelings inside as much as you do outside? How can you expect to live like that?"

Chris might've just told him, then, except JC had just finished making quite the dramatic point and he wasn't going to undermine it. Thoughts were going to speak louder than words. He tried to keep them PG-13.

JC looked at him carefully. "Are you gonna say some other chick's name, again, if I try to kiss you?"

Chris bristled, but kept his mouth shut in a petulant pout at a warning look from JC. He did deserve it, after all. "This isn't ... because of her," he said painfully, and even though he said it out loud, he wasn't sure.

JC must have been certain enough for both of them, though, actually smiling weakly when he reached a gentle finger out to trace along Chris's jaw. "I know that," he said simply, the note of bitterness almost imperceptible. "I've learned a little bit about how to do this. And I'm not setting myself up to get hurt."

And that, really, was all the encouragement Chris needed.

JC walked into Chris's room, looking confused, a CD clutched tightly between his fingers. "Um," he started. "Lance said this is for you? and I'm supposed to tell you 'track number eleven'?"

"Okay, thanks," Chris mumbled absently, tossing the CD on the bed and reaching for JC instead.

JC picked it right back up. "Don't you even want to know what it is?" Chris shook his head. "It's called 'Designs on You.' What does THAT mean? Is he trying to, like, tell us something? Tell YOU something? Does he mean something by that? Do you think he ..."

Chris plucked it out of his fingers again. "You tell ME, JC," he said patiently. "He gave it to you. You were in the room with him, so you should know what he was trying to say. Was he thinking anything, when you saw him?"

"Well ... no," JC replied shyly, and Chris only grunted a little when he fell bonily into Chris's lap.

Chris really liked how he could keep all the funny things he used to say out loud to himself, even think them a little snarkier, and make JC crack up just for him. He even let himself acknowledge that JC laughed harder than he used to; even more when the other guys would look at the two of them with blank expressions. And not for the first time, Chris wished the thing would go both ways, wondering what kind of things JC would say just for him, in front of the other guys, given the chance.

And of course it was good for sex, a lot because JC would always know just when Chris was about to come. And he'd kiss him right then, buried deep inside him; or bite him, tugging on the flesh between his shoulder blades like some lioness picking up her cub. Or thrust that extra inch, or let out that breathy little "oh" that made Chris feel like he was imploding.

"Yeah … yeah, right … there … "

"I know."

"No … yeah … there. Fuck!"

"I know, Chris."

Except then there was the time, with the tongue, which led Chris to wonder wildly whether it didn't have anything to do with telepathy, even thought he kind of fervently had to hope that wasn't the case because boy had he been missing out if it was.

Then one morning they were listening to CDs together, which they did sometimes, but maybe not as often as they should. It was Achtung Baby, 'cause JC'd just dragged Chris down to see U2 in Fort Lauderdale in an effort to get him to "just quit with the hick crap, already."

So maybe Chris got caught a little off guard when JC stepped into a patch of sunlight, and started harmonizing, resembling nothing less than than the physical embodiment of the angel that Chris realized with a tight throat he'd always been for all of them. And so maybe he couldn't keep that thought, the one thought he locked away, hidden any more.

But it worked out okay, Chris guessed, because when JC cocked his head in that way he did when he was 'hearing' something and then turned to face him with luminous, watery eyes, Chris understood that maybe that mind-reading business might not be such a tough thing to pick up, after all.

AN: Chrisfic dedicated to my girl Lois, who inspired the story by actually seeing Chris and JC together at the U2 concert in sunny Ft. Lauderdale. Blame goes to Helen and Rhys, whose JC/Chris stories captivate me. And thanks, as ever, go to CJ and Em for beta and hand-holding duties.