"All I'm saying is, there are better ways you could go about
this..." Lance begins.

And it is Lance who has to say it, something that pisses him off
further even as Chris simultaneously understands it. He rolls his
eyes. "All you're saying, if I let you say it, would take as long
as all the Presidential primary and election speech-making put
together and I already know who I'm voting for. Go home."

Lance gives Chris an engaging grin. Utterly sincere, with just the
right flash of teeth and his eyes as fully involved with the smile
as the rest of him.

It'd even be convincing if Lance didn't use it all the time. But
Lance does. Lance uses it for everything. To say how special Sharon
Osbourne looks. To say how disappointed he was that he didn't go to
space. To tell Chris that he's embarrassing the rest of them by
tuning in, turning on and dropping out.

Chris holds up his hand. "Don't even fucking start with me, Bass."

Lance lifts an eyebrow. "If you'd stop cutting me off, maybe I
could."

At least that's an honest emotion, and Chris lets Lance have it
uninterrupted. "I know why you're here, okay? All appearances to
the contrary, I know exactly why the fuck you're here. And I don't
fucking care. I know the score, and no matter what you have to say,
I already know the answers. And the only one you need to know is,
fuck off."

"Kelly's in rehab."

And that's, whoa. Out of the blue.

"No way. How's Joey taking it?"

Lance frowns at him. "Why would Joey care?"

"Uh, hello? She's the fucking mother of his child?"

"Oh." Comprehension dawns. "Not that Kelly. Kelly Osbourne."

It's Chris's turn to frown. "Why the fuck would *I* care?"

"Because you need to be there, too."

While Chris is caught ever-so-slightly off-guard with the
roundabout-ness of the attack, Lance carries on and presses his
advantage. "I mean, look at you. You're a joke. Completely out of
shape. You actually go out wearing a black knit ski cap. You blow
off important group events because, and I quote, you can't be assed
to show up. It's time somebody did something."

Chris is torn between an urge to rip off one of Lance's arms and
beat him around the neck and head with it and see if that helps and
the feeling that he didn't start a group in the BackWhen; he
started a cult.

"Lance..."

"You're using right now, aren't you?"

Chris rolls his eyes.

"You aren't, aren't you?"

"It doesn't fucking matter, Lance."

That same genuine smile. All the faker than fake because of it. "It
does."

"It doesn't. I don't have a problem. I don't do it in public, and
even if I did, it's not like anyone even cares what fucking illegal
pharmaceuticals one Chris Kirkpatrick, formerly of NSYNC, is
doing." And that, by itself, is a trick question. He already knows
Lance is going to get it wrong, but short of physically throwing
Lance out, there's no way to stop this conversation now that it's
happening.

"They'd care. And it isn't formerly."

And Lance misses the basket by a fucking mile. If Lance had
genuinely believed Chris had a problem -- well, Chris still
wouldn't have taken him *seriously*, because there's Lance's
drinking to bring up and his tendency of sleeping with people if he
thinks it'll get him something, and everyone else's neuroses and
tics and behaviors that none of them are willing to live with
anymore. Call it cabin fever, except the cabin has gotten a whole
lot bigger.

"NSYNC is dead. Stop kicking the fucking corpse already."

"And I suppose you're the corpse," Lance says in the long-suffering
tones of one who believes that they're dealing with a martyr.

"No, the corpse, so to speak, is the fans and rep we have left. And
the kicking is trying to stir it up and make something of it when
there isn't anything there."

Lance opens his mouth to begin something -- indignant, Chris
guesses, although there's no way to tell it from the smile -- but
Chris steamrollers over him.

"I mean, seriously. I get why you're kicking it. You have no life.
And I'm sad for you. Really. Fucking broken up and everything. But
you gotta stop doing it, and you definitely have to fucking stop
expecting me to do it."

Lance is livid now. You can tell by the way he smiles with all his
teeth. It really is a good smile. Just as good for genuinely
conveying snarling rage as everything else. "This isn't about me."

"Isn't it?" Chris is only amusing himself now. That's what he tells
himself anyway, because he can't think of anything else that's
keeping him in this conversation. "NSYNC's dead. You're still here.
Joey's not -- he's got a kid and an acting career and prospects.
Justin and JC've got their things. That leaves you, and you don't
want to be just another nameless hot young thing thronging around
the real celebrities. No, you have to be at the fucking front of
the line, and you'll use me and everything else you can get your
hands onto to get yourself there."

"NSYNC. Is. Not. Dead."

"Save it for someone who'll buy it. Far as I'm concerned, it died
before Celebrity. Somewhere in between where we stopped working
hard together on something we believed in and when we started
exploiting it."

"Jesus, Chris. You're trying to tell me that you think *Joey*'s
exploiting it? That *JC*'s solo album is just an attempt to
*exploit* NSYNC?"

"No! Fuck no. More power to the both of them. I don't fucking care
what they do with their lives. I'm happy if they're happy. But..."
Chris shakes his head, trying to find a way to explain something
that's been growingly self-evident to him for years now.

"I don't want to hear it."

"You were the one who fucking showed up here and started trying to
tell me what to do. You can fucking listen to whatever I have to
say. And this is it. There's this thing. Along with NSYNC. Along
with success and money and everything else. And, fuck the cliche,
that thing is celebrity."

Mocking smile now, lips open, eyes wide. "The album, the song, or
something else?"

"Shut the fuck up. All of it. The song, sure. Celebrity. We got it
and you want it. You want to keep it and live it and be that. Only
you have to *keep* doing stuff if you want to stay a celebrity.
Stay in the spotlight, keep your name out there, all of that."

"And your point? That's most people's dream."

"It's a stupid fucking dream, all right? It's fun for about five
minutes and then it's old and only an idiot would want to stay
there forever, especially when he isn't doing anything to justify
it. There's two types of celebrity. The kind that comes 'cause you
do something, like when we released NSA and everyone loved it, and
the kind that comes because people can't stop talking about you.
Like the Paris Hilton kind. Hell, like the fucking Lance Bass kind.
A hot young blonde thing getting his picture taken everywhere he
can get it taken, not because he's done anything recently for
anyone to remember his name for, but because he can't stand the
idea that someone might forget."

There's silence when Chris finishes and that surprises him. He
looks at Lance, then gives him a c'mon gesture. "That's it. I'm
done. Say whatever the fuck you want to say."

Lance shakes his head. "What can I say? You seem to think you have
all the answers." The smile seems to be a rueful one now, and it's
the sincerity in the wide-open eyes that's communicating that.

"The fuck I do."

"Shall I tell everyone then that if NSYNC gets back together, you
won't be coming?"

Chris knows then, not that he hadn't known all along, that this was
a waste of time and Lance didn't understand a thing Chris told him.
"No, I'll be there for that, if and when it happens."

"And you just somehow expect our fans to be there when we get back
if we ignore them in the meantime."

"No, I expect that whatever happens will happen." The only person
Chris is being is himself. Not
Chris-with-a-capital-C-Kirkpatrick-with-a-capital-K, or
Chris-of-NSYNC, or anyone else. Just whatever he feels like doing
and being today.

"It doesn't *work* that way," Lance says. "You have to work hard to
stay on the top in the music business. You can't just give up and
expect to be able to get it back."

Chris shakes his head. He isn't smiling. "I'm not expecting to be
able to get it back. I'm not expecting anything at all, Lance. I'm
just living."

There should be something profound in that, but there isn't and
when Lance does eventually leave, Chris is left with a feeling that
might almost be doubt. Or emptiness. Or some kind of regret.

But whatever hole Lance has chipped into Chris's hard-won apartness
is filled by the memory of Lance's smile.