SUMMARY: NSYNC, Chris/JC.  Everything changes, NSYNC not least of
all.  This is how they deal with the hiatus.


Landslide, by Mercutio (mercutio@europa.com)


can i handle the seasons of my life? 
well, i've been afraid of changin' 
'cause i've built my life around you 
but time makes you bolder 
even children get older 
and i'm getting older too


Part I: Leaving the Nest

Justin thinks it feels a lot like an intervention, even though it's
just JC and Chris.  He's sitting on the couch, with JC facing him,
looking serious, and Chris pacing in front of them.  He doesn't
like it.

"It's not your fault," Chris says.  "You were too young.  You
figured the way we acted was normal.  But it's not.  The drinking. 
The sex.  These are not real life, baby boy."

"NSYNC isn't real life," Justin says harshly, like a child who's
been abandoned before and knows better than to trust its parents,
but wants to, because you always want to, even when you know
they'll just do it again.

Chris slaps down a set of papers.  Justin knows they're clippings
of his recent interviews, the promos for his new album.  He doesn't
know which interviews they are.  "Three bodyguards.  Kim.  Silas."

"Kim wasn't my idea.  And *Freddy*--"

"J, you know what that's about.  You know Lance and Joey..."

Justin slaps his hand down, loud and startling, something he's
learned from Kim or she's learned from him, but he doesn't do it in
interviews, because he wants everyone to love him.  He doesn't care
if Chris and JC love him.  They're conquests already won, or maybe
he gave up on them a long time ago.  "Just forget it, okay.  It
doesn't fucking matter.  I got my posse, y'all got yours.  What the
fuck business is it of yours?"

Chris looks at JC and once upon a time, Justin would have known
that look, but now he doesn't care.  Maybe they're plotting against
him, maybe they're finally fucking.  Maybe Chris has gas.  "I guess
it isn't," Chris says.  "It's your career now, not ours."

"Glad you finally remembered that."

"Yeah."  Chris stands up, and he looks old.  Chris isn't old, but
sometimes he looks like he is.  Like now.  "It's your life, J. 
Enjoy it."

JC stays after Chris walks out, and Justin thinks that they must
not be fucking, after all.  Maybe Chris does have gas, and in a
while, he'll be over it and they can get together again and be
friends, even though they haven't done that in years, not since the
'No Strings Attached' days, when it was them against the world,
NSYNC against everyone.

JC just looks at him.

"What?" Justin finally asks.  JC has a lot of patience.

JC shakes his head.  He's smiling, but it isn't one of the big
crinkly ones.  It's small and maybe sad.  "I remember know what it
is I don't like about L.A."

"What?  Why the fuck can't any of you be happy for me?"

"We are, Justin."

"No.  You aren't."

****

Lance is happy with Freddy.  Very little else is going well for him
right now, but that is.

And, yeah, Freddy's a hanger-on, a starfucker, one of the many who
flock to the wealthy and famous, eager to live their reflected glow
and Lance doesn't delude himself that Freddy would have anything to
do with him if he were a brown-haired country boy living in
Mississippi and holding down a 9-5 job.  That Freddy is staying on
even though Lance isn't going to space is a lot of sacrifice for
his type of person, that he even came to Russia, away from the
glitz and glamour of New York and Hollywood.  And Lance appreciates
it.

Freddy's flexible, friendly, good company, and good in bed.  He
puts up with Lance's schedule and how Lance isn't a lot of fun in
the little free time he does have.  It's not the party life Freddy
signed up for, the one Lance was leading when he attracted him into
his orbit.

And Freddy stays anyway.  In their circle, that's the same thing as
love.

Lance should know, because he is Freddy, deep down.  The other guys
think it's all about Joey, that Lance has a crush on the
straightest of them all, and that's what the problem is.  It's
kinder than thinking that he's jealous of Joey's acting success,
and Lance is, a little, but he always knew Joey could act, and Joey
is his best friend, and what everyone forgets is that Lance never
really wanted to be in "On The Line".  He thinks now that it
would've gone better with someone else in the role, or if it'd been
a different movie, or, for that matter, a better movie, because
look at "My Big Fat Greek Wedding", but Lance thinks a lot of
things now.

He's glad that one of the things he doesn't have time for right now
is regret.

Because Justin really is the most beautiful boy.

****

New York is strange and unfamiliar after so many years away.  Cold
after Orlando, and dirty.  The people move too fast.  His fellow
actors don't like him much; they resent him for being able to waltz
in when they've had to work to get to where they are.

It's unfamiliar and it's off and it's different, but Joey loves it. 
Loves being so far from anything NSYNC related, loves being Mark
and not Joey Fatone.

Some days, he ignores bodyguards and the psycho fans and the
hostility, and imagines that he's a real actor, and that he's
always been a New Yorker and that he belongs.

He doesn't belong yet, but he will.  He's getting used to New York
and it's getting used to him.

He'd stopped smiling near the end of April, been gaining weight and
feeling pressured and unhappy.  NSYNC was his home and he'd never
realized how much he'd hated it until he left.

Joey loves his new life, problems and all.  He wasn't smiling
before, but Joey's smiling now.

****

Chris doesn't actually like golf.  He sucks at it, and truthfully,
as far as he's concerned, the only real golf has windmills, trick
shots and you get a free round if you make an impossible shot at
the end.

Minigolf is the only real golf, and this stuff where you wander
around on endless green fields slapping a little white ball a few
feet further each time is something old people did.  People who are
old and settled in their ways.

Chris feels old.  He isn't.  30 isn't old, not even in their
business, except when you're being marketed as a sexual icon to
13-year-olds, and your lead singer is a decade younger.  Even if
NSYNC theoretically doesn't have a lead singer.

Chris finds comfort in doing old people things.

He hadn't been able to protect any of them, hadn't been able to
help them.  Hadn't stopped Lance from growing jaded, or Justin from
getting hardened.  Hadn't stopped Lou.  Hadn't done anything right
at all.

He could try to find some measure of peace that Kevin had screwed
up spectacularly with AJ, but really, the only difference there was
that AJ had admitted to having a problem.  AJ might even turn out
to be a success in the end.  Chris doesn't pretend that Lance's
drinking isn't a bad thing, or that he doesn't know where Joey and
Justin, or even he and JC are heading with their behaviors. 
They've just kept their own indiscretions out of the press mostly,
and alcoholism is a small thing, a normal thing, really.

Chris doesn't think Lance knows why Chris doesn't return his late
night calls.  Lance probably isn't even aware enough at those times
to get it, but Chris knows that pattern from the past; the late
night obsessive rambling of the drunk to do... he doesn't know
what.  Reassure themselves that they're wanted, special, loved,
maybe.  The same things that everyone else wants.  Probably that.

But Chris doesn't answer.  Maybe Lance will dig himself out, but
really, despite the bad press, AJ is the lucky one.  He's getting
help.  He's getting better.

Chris is just getting older.  He golfs sometimes with AJ and Brian. 
They're getting older, too.

Sometimes he thinks the best part of his life is already over, but
of course, he has no way of knowing that for sure.  He thinks that
if someone came up with a way to let people know when they've
reached that peak, the suicide rate would rise to a point where
percentages would no longer be a meaningful way of expressing the
number.

Chris, though, is looking forward to what happens after he gets
old.  He doesn't know what that is yet, but he thinks he'll know it
when he sees it.

****

JC has sacrificed a lot to get to where he is.  A lot.  Sleep, a
normal life, an abnormal life, inappropriate friends, his dignity,
and some stuff he doesn't like to think about.

The only thing he hasn't yet sacrificed is his musical integrity. 
Mostly because no one's ever asked for it.  There was a time when
he would have paid that over too.  It might have been easier.

Now, though.

He fingers the latest letter from Jive, another 'we regret to
inform you'.  They didn't want to back his solo effort; they were
already backing Justin's, and JC understands.  Mostly.  Justin's
more popular and then there's Nick Carter's album in the mix,
blurring the picture, never mind that anyone who cared at all about
the actual music would know that they were nothing alike.  In the
public eye, they were the same, and JC's would look the same too,
even though it wouldn't be even a little like either of theirs.

JC is his own person.  He's never stopped being that, and it's time
to let Jive know that.  He can find other ways to get his material
heard.  Because it's time.

And because, unlike his soul, unlike his honor or his innocence or
his pride, his music is one thing he still has left.

The one thing.

He might even write a song about it.



Part II: Learning to Fly

JC doesn't know how he feels until he writes about it, and then
everybody knows, and most of his truest, best thoughts never make
it anywhere.

It's unfair, but it might very well be that what makes Justin a
successful songwriter is that he's shallow and oriented toward the
basest kinds of desires.  Justin is about Justin, and for a pop
star, he's humble and kind and unaffected.  For a person, he's an
arrogant asshole.  It all depends on how you frame him.  JC doesn't
bother to frame him; Justin isn't art to him.

His latest work is about time and love and recognizing what's
there, but not too late, and JC didn't know he was in love.  Didn't
know he was missing anything until now.

But he is, and eventually, everyone will know it, because the fact
that Jive won't support him means that he can make his own album,
and this song will make it onto the new album, because the one
thing he's going to be, now that he can, is true to himself.

It's ironic that he had to sell all of himself to buy integrity,
but JC won't write about that, because he doesn't want to feel it.

****

JC shows up at the door of his hotel room, backpack slung over his
shoulder.  Chris nods at the bodyguards behind him; they've got the
rest of JC's luggage.

"Hey."

"Hey.  Can I come in?" JC asks, which is absurd, because he had to
track down a PA and arrange flights and talk to their security just
to get here, and for Chris to say no would be nothing short of
petty, but he still asks because he's JC.

"Yeah."  Chris nods at the bodyguards as they drop the luggage.  JC
won't need them here if he's staying, not both of them, and he's
obviously staying, because they're gone already.

He picks up the two suitcases and takes them to the second room in
the suite.  It's empty; he'd gotten a suite not because he needed
or wanted one particularly, but because he was told to do so; it's
on a higher floor, one you need a key even to get on, and it's all
about protecting him.

They can protect him from strangers, but not from friends, and
Chris drops the suitcases and goes looking for JC, who's in Chris'
room, looking out the window.  His backpack is on Chris' bed; it's
open, and JC's got a notebook in his hands, fiddling with a pen.

"What are you doing here, C?" Chris asks, gently, because he
doesn't want to startle JC, who looks miles away.

JC turns around right away though, all in this world for once.  His
smile is real and full and half-crinkly.  "I came to see you."

"Here I am," Chris says, spreading his arms.

"I wrote a song.  I think I'm going to use it on my album."

"So you're going ahead with that?"

"Yeah.  I've been talking to some people.  It won't get the
publicity that Justin's is, but I can get it made.  People will
have to buy it because they like the music, and not because..." he
waves his hand, and Chris nods.

They don't talk much about the realities of the music business;
some things are too obvious to need explanation.  But they know
it's a popularity contest and that it's about who you seem to be
and what you look like and who wants to fuck you, not whether
anyone actually likes to listen to what you come up with.

And everyone wants to fuck Justin.

Still, a lot of people want to fuck JC, too, so he should do well. 
Chris would happily listen to JC singing the phone book.

"Yeah," he says, because he doesn't have anything else to say, but
that seems to be enough, because JC smiles again.

"It's about you," JC says.  He's looking at Chris, and he's got the
notebook open in his hand, but he isn't looking at it.  He's
leaning in; and he's rangy and lean and looking at Chris.

"Is it?" Chris asks.  JC is the oldest after him.  In every way,
and some people think that JC is flighty, that he's scattered and
unfocussed, but it's exactly the opposite.  JC is too focussed, so
much so that he has little attention to spare for anything outside
that focus.

And he's looking at Chris now.

"I'd like to hear it," Chris says.

"It's not ready yet," JC says.  "I've got most of the words, and I
know what I want it to say, but I'm not sure if it works yet.  Or
what the melody will be.  It just..."

"I'd like to hear it," Chris says again, gentle this time because
he wants to be, and smiles at JC.

JC lifts the notebook, and reads the song to Chris.

It isn't great poetry, but Chris thinks he knows exactly how JC
feels when JC is done.  He reaches out a hand, and JC takes it, so
he knows he's right.

"That was beautiful, C.  I want to hear the music for it when you
figure it out."

"Maybe you could help with that," JC says, and he steps closer to
Chris, laying his notebook and pen on the bed.  He's still got
Chris' hand, and he's humming quietly.

Chris draws him in, tucks him against him.  "Yeah.  I could."

****

Lance calls Joey the most.  Joey has a fixed address now and the
most predictable hours.  Chris does a lot of traveling and rarely
answers his cell; if Lance was calling about official NSYNC stuff,
he'd be upset, but it's personal and they're technically off, even
if all of them are still working.

They've gotten into the habit of working.

Justin and JC keep the least predictable hours, and then there's
the other issues.  JC hates being woken up, and Justin.  Justin
actually uses his personal assistant now, and if Lance wanted to
talk to her, he'd call her.

He thinks sometimes, although never for long, that maybe he should
develop some actual friends, instead of the quasi-business contacts
the other members of NSYNC have become, but for all his
socializing, Lance doesn't make friends.  He networks.  He builds
human assets.

He doesn't have anyone he can call at 4 a.m. when Freddy's asleep
and he's had a shot or two of vodka and is too exhausted to sleep
for the hour and a half he has before he has to leave again.

He probably shouldn't be drinking at all, but some days are worse
than others.  Today wasn't one of them, and that's almost worse,
because today was a good day, and he's going to be doing this until
April if he's lucky.  Lucky.  Funny meaning of the word, but then
everything means different things here, like how awful is good, and
the continuance of the awfulness is luck.

It's bad when your problems are so terrible you can't even think
about them and just counting your blessings is enough to lead you
to drink.

Press conferences and tele-meetings with business executives who
have nothing but excuses and promises he doesn't believe anymore,
but has to pretend to believe because lies are all he has, and he's
the king of lies.  The prince of lies, and he sees himself in every
insincere promise, in every evasion.  He doesn't believe anyone
anymore, and never the guy in the mirror.

And a good day is 16 hours spent at the space center being poked
and prodded and tested and made to throw up, because at least then
he's doing something related to his dream instead of the rest of
it, the lying and the begging and the smiling that might maybe get
him there.  That's good, and Lance calls Joey, half-drunk because
he doesn't know anything anymore.

Joey is sanity.  Joey is something outside this fucked-up world of
bad and worse that Lance has put himself into and he wants to
believe that if Joey's dream is easier, it's because it costs less.

Not because Lance is lacking, because he is a failure.

Even if he feels like he is, like the Tin Woodman, and his heart's
been removed.  He's hollow and rattling, a shell of a man and
there's nothing worthwhile inside.  And if he's the Tinman, then
Joey is the Scarecrow, except Lance doesn't want a heart.  He's
happy without it.  He wants instead to click his heels and go home,
except he can't, because giving up really would make him a failure.

He's going to force them to fail him, make someone else be
responsible for crushing his dream.  He won't lose it because he
gave up, no matter what it costs him.

****

It's 2 p.m. when Joey gets the phone call.  He knows who it is;
there aren't a lot of people with this number, and he's got caller
id anyway, because it's the right thing to do in his position.  You
have to know who's calling.

It's Lance.

Lance always wants the same thing; to piss and moan and bitch about
how hard he's got it, and Joey's okay with that.  Lance is his best
friend, and he feels for him, really he does.  Lance is in a tough
spot, off chasing his dream, and Joey misses him, too.

Most of the time.  But it's one of his rare afternoons off, and
he's got reservations at a great Italian restaurant, and Kelly's
meeting him with Bri, and he's really looking forward to being with
them.  They're becoming part of his new, normal life, and he likes
it a lot more than he ever thought he would.  Likes being an actor,
and not even an important one at that.

He's on his way out the door, and if he takes the call, it'll delay
him, and once he would have done it.  Because Lance was important
to him, and NSYNC was important to him.  Being a pop star was
important, too.  Being on top of the world, and having it all, and
being famous and getting whatever you wanted, and sleeping with
whoever you wanted and partying all night and then getting up and
dancing all day for a living.

Things are smaller now, dimmer.  He's becoming a family man and
getting what he needs instead of what he wants.

Joey lets the machine get it.

****

Justin's single is number 11 on Billboard, and rising.  It'll make
number 1, and when it starts to slip, then the next track will be
released from the album.  He's on the top.  He's got everything
he's ever wanted.

He's young and he's hot and he's going to be number 1.  What else
is there?



Part III: Spreading Their Wings

Chris and JC are spending what time they can together while it's
still possible.  They know they won't get the opportunity often;
publicity and golf take Chris everywhere, and JC has the same
publicity requirements, just frequently in different places.  When
JC gets his album into serious production, Chris will hardly see
him at all.  They could be in the same city, but it wouldn't
matter.  JC lives in the studio when he's recording, leaving only
when forced to by such natural disasters as studio time being
allotted to other, lesser mortals.

About the only thing anyone can do for him at times like that is to
make sure he eats and has some place handy for him to crash when he
inevitably does.

Chris plans to do both.  If there isn't a couch in the studio JC
eventually selects, he'll have one put in, no matter who he has to
bribe.  And he knows places that will deliver food in New York,
Orlando and L.A.  JC will eat if food is available; he just doesn't
think about obtaining it.  And Chris is not above having notes,
flowers and/or candy bars included in the order if that will make
JC more likely to take care of himself.

It's not the same as getting to be with JC, but JC is a tyrant in
the studio, and Chris is just as happy that he won't be welcome
there.

He's only got one chick to protect now, and he thinks maybe he'll
do okay this time, if JC lets him.

****

Joey knows they're there, of course, but he doesn't have time to
see them until after the show.  It's great that they're there, in
many ways.  To the public, it shows that they support him and shuts
up the people who'd said they didn't.  For him, it's great to see
them again.  He's used to seeing them all the time, all four of
them, not just Chris and JC, and they're like long-lost friends,
except they haven't been lost.

And except that he hasn't really missed them.

That's the not-so-great part.  Chris and JC are reminders of
something he doesn't want to remember, intrusions into his brave
new world.  It wouldn't be so bad if this was actually a new
beginning, if he'd made a clean break and was starting over, but
he's not.  NSYNC isn't over; they're under contract to do three
more albums as well as the attendant touring, and that's another 6
years of his life at least.

He wants to think he's started over, and he has -- but it's almost
more like running away.  He knows he's going to get dragged back
home and he doesn't want to go.  Doesn't want to even think about
going home while he's still happy and enjoying his freedom. 
Doesn't want to be reminded of what misery is.

After the show, Joey meets them along with everyone else waiting to
congratulate the actors, and he knows.  JC isn't standing any
closer to Chris than he usually does, and they aren't holding hands
or anything like that, but he knows.  JC is *there*, powerfully
present, and Chris.  Hyper, intense Chris, who smiles most when
he's hurt or confused, is quiet and standing by JC's side as JC
talks to one of the other actors, smiling and not leaping in to
interrupt or correct.

Something's going on, and Joey makes his way over to them.

JC breaks off his conversation and smiles up at him, big and
crinkly.  "Joey, you were just great.  I mean, I knew you'd be
great, but you were even greater than that."

Joey looked at Chris, expecting a 'what C means is...', but Chris
doesn't.

When he sees Joey looking at him, though, Chris says, "You really
are.  You're looking good, Joe.  Happy.  I'm glad for you."

It's genuine.  Joey can feel that.  He grins at Chris and claps him
on the shoulder.  "I am, man.  I really am.  You look better, too. 
You guys."

Chris gives him a narrow-eyed look, and JC takes Chris' arm.  It's
casual enough, and the room is crowded with well-wishers all
brushing against everyone else, but Chris stops.

"We're good," JC says, and that means Joey is right.  "We'll be
better later, but we're good now.  You really deserve this, you
know.  It couldn't have happened to a better person."

"I don't want to go back," Joey blurts out, not sure why he's
confessing.

That statement doesn't earn him Chris' scrutiny.  It should.  Chris
is intensely protective.  Insanely protective even.  And it used to
be that NSYNC was one of the things he was protective of.  He was
the one who fought to keep Lance in the group when the German
record execs said they'd sign them on the condition that Lance
leave the group -- and the one who'd driven Lance into
near-collapse until Lance had gotten their routines down.  He'd
been the one Joey had most been dreading, is the most likely to
chivvy Joey back into the fold by any means, fair or foul.  Except
he isn't.

JC nods solemnly.  "Sometimes it feels like there isn't anything to
go back to.  I think what we have to realize is that phase of our
lives, that phase of NSYNC, is over, and that anything we go back
to isn't going back at all, but going forward.  Has to be.  It will
have to be a new NSYNC, or it won't be anything at all."

And maybe JC doesn't know what he's talking about, because
sometimes he doesn't, but it sounds right to Joey.  "I don't want
to go back to the way it was.  I didn't like it."

"You don't have to," JC says.

Chris gives them both a dark, toothy smile.  A Lance smile, the
smile of someone unworried over how his teeth with look, as though
he no longer has the memories of years of bad teeth and braces. 
"Keep doing well, Joe.  You're an inspiration to us all."

Joey growls and mock-punches him in the arm; Chris dodges.  "I
don't want to be an inspiration to anyone.  Especially you,
Kirkpatrick.  You make me feel old."

"You're not old," Chris assures him.  "Just grown-up."  He rubs an
imaginary tear away from one eye dramatically.  "My little baby,
all grown up."

"Fucker," Joey says, but he means it affectionately, and he's
finally glad to see them.  "You guys wanna grab something to eat?"

****

Most people can't handle lying.  They think they can do it, and
yeah, there's the social lies and the polite fictions, but when it
comes right down to it, they're not equipped to lie.  Whatever it
is that makes other people able to do it, they lack.  You could
tell them what to say, and they would simply forget it.  They tell
the truth and, by doing so, they confuse and hurt people for no
good reason.  Even when the lie is merely a shade of grey, and not
a true lie at all.

Or perhaps especially because the lie is a shade of grey, because
there are people equally incapable of telling the truth.  Lance has
met a lot of those of late.

It's the shades of grey that are confusing, and it must be that
there's something missing in those people's heads that prevents
them from seeing gradients, that keeps them seeing simply on and
off.

They say people aren't computers, but the truth is, most people are
binary.  Only a few people are something else, and it may be that
most of those are base 3 or 4, and only geniuses and the insane
ever make it as far as thinking in degrees of difference amounting
to base 10.

On/off, true/false, black/white, gay/straight, go/don't go.

Binary thinking rules Lance's life, and he thinks maybe he's doomed
forever to be base 3.  Stuck in limbo, transmission in neutral, bi,
and of all the tortures he's ever put himself through, being stuck
in the middle is the worst.  Eternal purgatory.

They say the mind can't remember pain and that's why the current
pain is always the worst one has ever undergone.

Lance thinks that's mostly true, but he's still sure he'll compare
every hellish experience after this to now.  He's also pretty sure
which will come up lacking.

He feels old.  He's 23, just two years past legal drinking age, but
he's been at this for what seems like a lifetime, and now, he just
feels old.

He's staring at a mountain, and for once, he doesn't feel able to
move it.  Knows he can't, and he's tired of waiting for it to move
on its own.  All he can do is wait for his dream to collapse, for
the mountain to come tumbling down in an avalanche of rocks and
dirt and crush him beneath it, and Lance is weary beyond measure.

He's waiting for it to all fall down, because it's beginning to
seem like that's the only possibility.  He doesn't know what's on
the other side.

****

A charity event, a phone interview in the town car on the way back
to the hotel, and JC is looking over the press clippings his PA
collected for him on the elevator ride up to the room.

They're saying conflicting things about Lance, that he'll be coming
home soon, that he's staying in Russia, and that the guy who does
'Survivor' is thinking of doing a reality show where the prize will
be what Lance has been working toward.  There's also a review of
'Rent', and the latest Billboard.  Kelly Clarkson's still number 1. 
Justin still isn't.

One of the bodyguards unlocks the door for him, and makes a cursory
check of the inside.  JC drops the clippings in the garbage can and
heads to the bathroom.  He shuts the door, strips and takes a
shower.  All those people touching him, and the make-up and the
stuff in his hair, and the smoke, and he just feels dirty.  He
feels better after the shower.

JC comes out of the bathroom and pads into the bedroom.  Chris is
curled up in the bed sleeping.  He looks tired, but then, JC
supposes that most sleeping people look tired.  The radio's
playing.  He recognizes the song.  It's "Like I Love You".

He turns off the radio and gets in bed, fitting himself against
Chris' back.  He wraps an arm around Chris, buries his face against
his hair, and sighs.

Chris wakes up; they can both fall asleep easily, but Chris also
wakes up easily.  Attuned to danger, maybe.  "C?" he mumbles,
reaching up to clasp JC's arm.  "You okay?"

"Yeah, Chris," JC says.  He closes his eyes and lets himself relax. 
"Go back to sleep.  Everything's all right."

"'Kay."

JC takes a deep breath and sleeps.

****

He's dating Alyssa Milano now, and really, it was easier dating
Britney, because they both understood the rules, and he could have
sex with anyone he wanted as long he pretended he wasn't having sex
at all.  Justin had thought it would be easier now, that it would
be cool to date people who weren't just nameless, faceless fans,
but it sucks having his love life in the public eye.

It's cool that he no longer has to maintain the boyish, virginal
image, but the questions in interviews that he gets now are just
bogus.

He's not so dumb that he really thinks it's about the music, but
SBP?  How many times he's eaten out Brit?  God.

Justin thinks he's going to dump Alyssa soon.  It was cool being
with someone he'd wanted to fuck when he was a kid -- it made him
feel, to quote a really cheesy movie, like the king of the world to
nail his former crushes.

But she isn't with the image and, anyway, there are other women he
hasn't gotten with yet, other conquests to make.  Because, if he's
gonna do the fuck-and-tell thing, he's gotta have some good shit to
tell people.

Still, if that doesn't work out, there's always Britney.  That was
a pretty good deal he had going there, too.

Justin thinks maybe he'll see what Avril Lavigne is doing.



Epilogue: Soaring

He didn't get to go to space, but Lance figures now, several months
after the fact, that it still wouldn't have been everything he
wanted it to be, that even if he had gotten everything he ever
wanted, it still wouldn't have been enough.

It's easy to call that sour grapes, to say he's dismissing it,
diminishing it in his mind to make up for his disappointment, to
make up for his colossal failure to do what he wanted to do, but
Lance doesn't think so.

He wanted it, but it wasn't what he needed, and it wasn't until he
finally gave up on it, finally accepted that his planning and work
and hopes were dead and destroyed that he was able to start seeing
that.

Well, no, that isn't precisely true.  It wasn't until a lot after
that, when he was getting over it, that he saw it.  But he did see
it.  Eventually.  And, really, failure is better than waiting was. 
Those endless months in limbo, living with the dread that he
wouldn't get to go and the need to do something, but knowing there
was nothing he could do that he wasn't already doing, and the fear
and the denial and the pain and, yes.  It's better being on this
side of things, even as a failure.

Freddy's moved on, too, to someone else.  They're getting married,
and Lance has already decided that he's going to give them a very
nice present.  Maybe a house.

Because Freddy stuck with him through all the bad things and it was
wanting to settle down and have a family and kids that took him
away, the need for different things, not looking for someone more
famous, richer, more successful, and Lance kinda sorta maybe loves
him.

Cares about him, at least.  And money is how you say "I love you"
to someone like Freddy, so Lance will spend a lot of it.  A lot
from Freddy's point of view, at least.

He smiles at the record executive.  The meeting's about the next
album, and it's going to be less dance music and more R&B.  Less
Justin and more JC.  The suits are having a fit, as is Justin, but
there's good reasons for the change.  Chris' knees, for one, and
other things.  Chris is on JC's side, might have been even if they
weren't very obviously in love, and so is Joey, and more
importantly, so is Lance.  It might seem like he's selling out
Justin, but Lance knows exactly what to say.  He's good now, at
when and how to tell the truth and when to mix it in with just the
right amount of lies.  He's had a lot of practice.

"Of course," Lance says to the suit who's been earnestly saying
that dance music is their bread-and-butter.  "We want to keep the
distinctive NSYNC sound, but we've always been about having a range
of music, and that range is very close to JC's work."

"When you look at the sales number for Mr. Timberlake's album..."

Lance smiles again, listens to the justifications, lets the man
talk himself out, and says, "Yes, Justin's numbers were very good,
but he's positioned now as Justin Timberlake, solo artist.  We
don't want to try to imitate or take over that sound.  It's very
distinctive, and it would be a mistake to try to piggyback on his
success.  We want him to stay distinctive, and not let his image
get subsumed in NSYNC's.  Jive has invested a great deal of money
in the Justin Timberlake image, and I don't think you want to lose
that investment..."

He lets his voice trail off and watches them fall over themselves
to assure him that, no, that wasn't what they'd meant at all.

Before they can get started justifying their position, Lance moves
relentlessly on, "Whereas, with JC, it's unfortunate that his album
didn't sell as well, but as an independent effort without much
promotion behind it, Jive isn't losing any capital.  And, unlike
Justin's album, JC's was very well-received by the critics.  Now,
it's always been an issue for NSYNC that we don't receive much
critical attention for our music.  The direction JC has been taking
is close to our own past work, so clearly, it's one our audience is
ready for, if the name is behind it.  And NSYNC is certainly a
name.  Unless you disagree?"

Lance waits for comments.  Justin looks hurt that Lance is so
thoroughly trashing his involvement in the creative side of NSYNC's
next album, even though nearly everything Lance said about him was
complimentary.  And what was not complimentary was true.

He foresees no real problems in getting his way.  Everyone but
Justin is behind it, and Jive is as much bound by their contract as
they are.  Justin and Jive are the only ones who might want to go
on with NSYNC as it was; the rest of the guys and their audience is
ready to move on.  If you don't change, you die.  Change hurts, but
it's inevitable, and trying to stand still is folly.  And painful.

Justin has yet to learn this, but he will.  Lance can wait for him,
because he's waited longer for less reason, and he's learned
patience along with everything else.  He'll wait for Justin,
whether it works out for them or not.  It's what he wants, but more
importantly, he thinks it's what he needs.  He'll find out.  He's
looking forward to it, to the changing of everything.  The new tour
will be different, and his life is already different.  Better. 
Freer.

Lance only lacks one thing, but he can wait for it.  He has all the
time in the world.

-the end-