There and Back Again, by Mercutio (mercutio@europa.com)


[the beginning]

Chris woke up first.  He rubbed his eyes, yawned and then stopped. 
Laid there in the tall grass for a second, then sat up and looked
around.  Looked down.  Looked left and right.  Snorted and nudged
Justin with his elbow.  "Dude."

"What?  'm sleeping.  Go 'way."

"Dude!"

"Like, seriously, Chris.  What'd I ever do to you?"  But Justin
grumpily opened his eyes anyway.  Sat up and said, "Dude!"

"Dude, I know!"

"Seriously, dude."

"Exactly."

Chris pointed around them.  "Sun.  Fields.  Dirt.  We are sleeping
on *dirt*.  How the fuck drugged *was* I last night?"

"No, dude.  Forget about the fucking sun.  Look."  Justin pointed
down.

"Oh.  Dude!"

"Exactly.  What the fuck happened to my fucking feet?  What if I
can't ever wear my shoes again?"

"Dude, that's the least of your problems.  And, you can always get
them custom-made."

"You don't get it.  Half the fun is shopping for them."

"Girl.  And it's my feet, too."

Justin pulled his bare, hairy feet closer to his chest as though
that would somehow make them smaller or vanish or something.  "I
wanna note, for the record, that your feet already looked like
that, so you don't have anything to complain about."

"Shut up."

"I mean, I had long, graceful feet.  Pretty feet even.  Your feet
look just like they always have.  So really, I don't see what your
problem is."  Justin stood up and looked around them.  "So, like,
are we thinking really bad pot?  Or what?  'Cause I don't even
remember you being *in* L.A., dude."

Chris didn't move.

Justin kicked him.  "Dude, get over your feet already.  We've got
a problem here."

Chris hmphed and stood up.  "You have a funny idea about what's a
prob-- hey!"

He was now exactly the same height as Justin.  In fact, if
anything, Chris was about a half-inch taller than Justin.

"Dude!"

"Oh, hell no."

"Woohoo!  You're short again!  Yes!"

"Damnit."

"Y'know?"

"What, damnit?"

"I'm beginning to think this might not be the result of bad pot." 
Chris turned around, examining the placid rolling farmland
surrounding them, the endless blue sky, and then finally, Justin,
curly-haired, short, in bare feet, and wearing plain homespun
clothing.  "Whoa.  Dude.  I get it!  We're hobbits!  You're short
because you're a fucking hobbit!"  He slapped himself in the
forehead.  "God, I'm stupid when I wake up without coffee. 
Hobbits!"

"I'm a what?"

"A hobbit!  'The Lord of the Rings', man!  You saw the movie! 
Frodo and the ring and the elf dude."

Justin looked at Chris, then looked at himself.  "Oh, wow.  This is
so cool.  How the fuck, *what* the fuck is going on?"

"Dunno.  But, dude.  We're like in that movie!  We're, like, Frodo
and Sam!  Only we're still in the Shire, obviously, before the
movie starts, and well, as anyone could tell, you're my faithful
sidekick, Samwise..."

"No way.  I'm Frodo."

"Hah.  I'm so Frodo."

"Look, you moron.  *I'm* Frodo.  I'm the star."

"Ooh, it's Justin 'Tennman' Timberlake, bearer of the One Ring." 
Chris pretended to swoon, staggering and falling over onto Justin,
who pushed him upright.  "Just for the record, I think you'll look
just as sexy with sunken hollow eyes and missing a finger."

A beat.  "Okay, you can be Frodo."

"Oh, no, I'm perfectly content to be Samwise, your faithful
servant."

Justin snorted.  "Yeah, right."

"Okay, so first chance I'm get, I'm shoving you off a cliff, taking
the ring and running off to make it with a hot elf chick.  But Sam
woulda done that, too."

"Okay, first, you know Sam totally wanted Frodo.  He never woulda
shoved him off a cliff."

"Oh, yeah?  You're so full of it.  What movie were you watching?"

"The one where he called him 'master' every five seconds.  He
nearly drowned to keep Frodo from leaving him.  Sam was so totally
in love with Frodo."

"Yeah, and Obi-Wan wanted Qui-Gon, too."

"He did!"

"You're delusional, Infant."

There was a moment of silence as they walked through the field, and
then Justin said, "You just don't want to admit that you want me."

"Oh, right.  I'm completely hot for the skinny Timberlake ass."

"Skinny??"

"Bony.  Flat.  Non-present.  Invisible -- hey!  Maybe you *are* the
Ringbearer!  You took the ring and shoved it up your ass to make it
invisible.  Pull down your pants and let's take a look."

"No!  What were you watching, some triple X version of 'The Lord of
the Rings'?"

"'The Lord of the Cock Rings'.  It was a gay S&M love fest. 
Totally your style.  In fact, I'm pretty sure those were your
greasy fingerprints on the videotape."

"You take that back!"

"Never!"  Chris shoved Justin and they went down in a tumbling
heap, where, ten minutes later, dirty and weeds sticking in their
hair, they were stumbled over by another hobbit, one with a dark
cloak flung over his shoulders.

"Merry!  Pippin!" the new hobbit said, picking himself up.

Chris looked at Justin.  "Told ya you weren't Frodo."

"Always knew you were the comic relief, Shorty."

"Shut up."  Chris sat on Justin.  Frodo stared at them, and Samwise
came out of the tall corn field, running into Frodo.

"We've got to go, Mister Frodo, sir, and -- oh!"

Frodo sighed.


[the tavern in bree]

"There's a man in the corner who keeps staring at us," Frodo
whispered urgently.

Chris elbowed Justin.  In a whisper, he said, "Dude.  It's Aragorn. 
Look."

"Oh, Aragorn.  He's, like, somebody from the movie, right?"

"Idiot.  How drunk *were* you when you watched it?"

"Shut up," Justin said as they both craned their necks for a look
at the man who would be king.

"Oh, hell," Chris said, looking at the man with long, dark, stringy
hair wearing a cloak and sitting in shadow.  "That's not Aragorn. 
It's Kevin fucking Richardson.  So much for this being an
NSYNC-only club."

Justin grinned.  "Let's go say hi."

"And annoy the fuck out of him?  I like the way your mind works,
Pinky."

"Oh, you are so not the Brain."

"Whatever you say, Pinky."

"The Brain would never say that."

"Shut up."  Chris pushed Justin out of his chair and stood up.

Frodo grabbed at Chris' sleeve.  "What are you *doing*?" he hissed,
but Chris pulled away.

"Dude.  Chill.  We'll be right back."

Frodo put his head in his hands.  "Why me?" he asked plaintively.

Chris and Justin threaded their way through the crowd.  They halted
in front of Kevin.  Justin was still grinning.  "Hey."

Kevin closed his eyes.  Opened them again.  Slowly re-closed them. 
"Now I know I'm crazy."

"I think he thinks we're hallucinations."

"I'm insulted.  No, wait.  I'm what the great Kevin Richardson
fantasizes about?  I'm -- no, I know I'm definitely insulted.  Or
revolted.  Maybe both."

"Hey!" Justin protested.  "Why revolted?"

"Oh, yeah.  You're the one who thinks he's a pretty little
motherfucker.  You probably think it's the best thing ever that
Kevin's thinking kinky hobbit-sex thoughts about you."

"He is?"

"I am not," Kevin said through gritted teeth.  "For the record, I
have never been interested in Timberlake, and I am definitely not
interested in hobbits.  I would, however, very much like to wake up
from this nightmare."

"Can't," Chris said cheerfully.  "We tried.  Justin's got bruises
from pinching himself.  No waking up from this, buddy-boy."

"Yeah," Justin agreed.  "It's like some sort of drug thing, only
without the drugs.  And it's pretty cool once you get used to it. 
Everyone thinks we're the guys from the movie, except they all look
like the people from the movie and we look like ourselves."

"Speak for yourself, little man," Chris said.

"Little?" Justin squawked indignantly.  They started scuffling. 
"Who are you calling little?"

Kevin groaned.  "Somebody really hates me, letting me get stuck
with you two.  Anyone else would've been better.  Anyone."

Chris popped up.  "Even AJ?"

"Yeah," Justin chimed in.  "What if it was AJ and Nick here instead
of us?"

"Are they?" Kevin asked hopefully.

"Nope."

"Oh."  Kevin peered at Frodo and Sam across the room.  "I don't
recognize the other two."

"Frodo and Sam, dude," Justin said.  "Y'know, from the movie?  Like
Elijah Wood and Sean-not-a-Corey whatshisname?  Where've you been? 
Under a rock?"

"No."  Kevin rolled his eyes.  "Just grateful that Bass and Chasez
aren't here to make my life even more hellish."

Chris got a far-off look in his eyes.  "Betcha Lance is Sauron. 
He'd love that.  Near infinite power."

"No way, man.  Lance'd be Gandalf," Justin disagreed.  "Crotchety. 
With sexy robe action."

Chris poked him.  "Something you wanna tell me, Curly?"

"Shut up."

Chris ignored him, struck by a sudden thought.  "Ooh, ooh, and
maybe JC's Arwen."

"Dude!"

"Hot elf action!"

Chris and Justin both turned identical leers on Kevin, who pulled
his hood down further around his face and leaned even farther back
into the shadows.

"I'm going to go to sleep, and when I wake up..." Kevin began.

"There'll be a whole bunch of Nazguls trying to kill us," Justin
finished.

"Ssh," Chris said.  "Let the old man keep his delusions.  Poor guy
needs some incentive to keep his strength up for when he meets JC."

Justin snickered.

Kevin growled and muttered.  "Orcs.  I hope you both get eaten by
orcs."


[welcome to rivendell]

Kevin, Chris, Justin and Samwise straggled into Rivendell two days
after Arwen -- the movie Arwen -- carried off Frodo.

Chris and Justin generally agreed that it was just as well that Sam
was still with them, because otherwise, Kevin would have just
killed them and left them dead under a tree somewhere.  They were
quite sure of it, because Kevin had kept telling them that over and
over, generally with his hand clenched around the front of one of
their vests.  Sometimes both hands, one for each of them.

"Welcome to Rivendell," an elf told them.  "Welcome to the house of
Elrond."

"Dude, I just want a bath and something hot to--" Chris looked
wearily up.  "Whoa!"

JC smiled down at him.  A JC with long brown hair, a serene
expression -- and pointed ears.  The pointed ears were new.  Chris
was pretty sure he would have noticed the pointed ears if they'd
been there before.  Pretty sure.

Chris grabbed JC and hugged him.  The other elves looked faintly
scandalized.  Justin grinned and waited his turn while Sam looked
confused.  Kevin just groaned.

JC's smile was big and crinkly.  It looked very strange on the
elven face.  "Hey, guys.  Lance is here, too.  And AJ.  I don't
understand what's going on, but we seem to be reliving the movie."

Kevin looked a little happier.  "AJ's here?"

The elf nodded.  "Yes.  Do you remember Gimli?"


[frodo's bedside]

JC, Chris, Justin and Lance had gathered in Frodo's room,
ostensibly to watch over Frodo and give Sam a chance to get some
sleep, but really to talk.  Kevin and AJ had gone off together,
presumably to bond over being the only Backstreet Boys in the
entire known world.  Frodo had so far only woken up for brief
moments at a time, not recognizing his surroundings, but the elves
had assured them he would get better.  Chris had just rolled his
eyes and said, "Duh."

Now Chris looked at the pale figure lying in the bed, sleeping. 
"Y'know, I just figured out who Lance reminds me of."

"Who?"

"Frodo."

Lance smacked him.  "What, I'm short, dark and ugly?"

"No, dude, look at his eyes.  That's the way your eyes look.  Like
he's just recovered from some deadly illness.  That's exactly what
you've looked like ever since you got back from Russia."

Justin looked at Lance closely.  "He doesn't look like that now. 
You're making it up."

"Of course he doesn't look like that *now*.  He's Legolas.  I don't
look like *Chris* now, do I?"

"Well..."

"Shut up."

"You *have* always been short, dark and ugly," Justin said.

"Jerk."  Chris whapped Justin.

Lance was carefully not looking at them.  "I've noticed that we're
both ourselves and not ourselves.  I can do things I didn't know
how to do before, like use a bow, and none of us look exactly the
same as we did before, but neither do we look exactly like the
characters.  JC, for example, resembles Elrond from the movie, but
he looks a great deal more like JC than Elrond."

"Yeah, you hardly look half-dead at all anymore," Chris said. 
"And, dude, what was up with that?  I mean, I get the Frodo thing. 
Stabbed with a Nazgul blade, and in need of elf magic to bring up
back from the brink of death, but you?  What did they do to you
over there in Russia?"

Elves, Chris discovered, were extremely good at looking
inscrutable.

"Nothing," Lance said, and then qualified, "Nothing that I didn't
ask for."

Chris looked at Frodo, lying in the bed then back at Lance. 
"Y'know, I'm really glad you're not the Ringbearer, dude.  'Cause
it'd make too much sense.  You fit the role too well, and.  You
don't need that, y'know?"

JC took Lance's shoulder in his hand.  "It's all right.  It'll be
all right."

"Yeah.  Sure."

AJ poked his head in the room and Justin snickered at the sight of
the formerly extremely cool AJ as the extremely uncool Gimli the
dwarf.  "Shut up," AJ said, then called back behind him, "Found
them."

Kevin slouched in.  "I don't know what you want to talk to *them*
about.  There's nothing *to* talk about."  He threw himself onto a
low couch and glowered at all of them.  "We're here and I, at
least, don't want to be.  I don't care about how 'cool' it is to be
here.  I definitely don't want to *hear* about how cool it is."

Lance raised his eyebrows but didn't comment.

Chris was not so reserved.  "Kinda grumpy for a future king, aren't
you?"

"Orcs," Kevin muttered under his breath.

Chris snorted.

AJ cleared his throat.  "What about how we're getting home?  Or
where the others are?  Brian and Nick and Howie."

"And Joey," Justin chimed in.

Lance shrugged.  "They'll turn up or they won't.  I was surprised
when I arrived here and JC was here, but you've all shown up now. 
I think I'd almost be more relieved *not* to see them."

AJ raised his eyebrows.  "That's cold, man."

"Think of it this way.  How many books are there?"

AJ rolled his eyes.  "Three."

"And how many movies?"

"Two."

"And which version of the story are we in?" Lance asked patiently.

"Given the pretty boy on the bed, the movie version."

"So what happens when we get to the end of the second movie?"

AJ rolled his eyes again.  "This isn't real.  You're acting like
it's really happening."

"If you can find a way to tell this apart from reality, you're
doing better than I am," Lance said seriously.  "The only way I can
tell this apart from reality is that I *know* it's a story and that
I'm not an elf.  In every other way, it feels real.  And you have
to have noticed that you aren't entirely the same person you were
before."

AJ snorted.  "I walked in here and Chasez over there gave me a look
that said, 'hey, he's blowjob height now *and* he's got handles'. 
Sure as hell I noticed something was wrong."

"Have you noticed that you know things you didn't know before? 
Like how to use that axe you keep hauling around with you?  Or
things about dwarves or this place?  Things you didn't know
before?"

Chris raised his hand.  "*I* don't know anything I didn't know
before.  And I'm pretty sure Justin doesn't either."

Lance snorted.  "Merry and Pippin are comic relief.  The only thing
they need to know how to do is cause trouble, and that isn't
anything new to either of you."

AJ laughed.  Lance gave him a meaningful glance and AJ held up his
hands.  "Okay, okay, so maybe there's some stuff different.  I keep
thinking that everything around here, like the rooms and buildings
and stuff, should all be darker.  More club-like.  And that's
normal, except when I think about the music, I think more about
pickaxes and less about something with a bass beat."

"And you need to find Joey and the others," JC said unexpectedly. 
"They're out there, and they're alone and wondering what's
happening to us."

"Of course they are," Lance said.  "If they're here at all."

"No..."  JC frowned.  "I mean, they really are worrying.  I'm
pretty sure."

"You can tell that, C?" Chris asked.  "Feel it in some sort of
freaky elf-way that obviously the Bass-man isn't in on?"

JC shrugged.  "Yes?  A little?  And.  If we go forward, then we
know what will happen.  If we don't, we have no idea what will
happen.  Forward, we have some guidance at least, and.  Then
there's the rest of the world.  We have a responsibility to them as
well."

"Yeah, dude," Chris said, latching onto the last, and bouncing. 
"That'd be cool.  Who wouldn't want to be a hero for once in your
life?"

Kevin groaned and covered his eyes.  "Orcs."

There was a cough, then a rush of cloth as someone entered the
room.

Justin's eyes widened, and in a whisper he said to Chris, "Dude,
it's Magneto!  He's going to take the ring and use it to destroy
humanity!"

Chris whispered back, "Wrong movie, dumbshit."

Gandalf cleared his throat.  "How is Frodo today?"


[galadriel in lothlorien]

"Oh, fuck," Justin said.

"Dude, I *told* you it was a bad idea to tell people how many times
you ate out Britney," Chris whispered to him.

"You did not.  You said I was lying about never having had sex with
her and that she was a skank anyway and that I should do it with
Janet Jackson."

"Same diff."

"Is not."

The tall blonde elf queen looked down on the Fellowship of the
Ring.  Her gaze passed over Boromir, Frodo and Sam, lingered a
moment on Kevin, AJ and Lance, paused on Chris and finally lingered
on Justin.  She was icy and distant.

Britney was wearing a great deal more than she had the last time
Justin had seen her, but she still looked really really pissed at
him.

"Should I help you?" Britney asked dreamily.  "Do I even want to
help you?  And... you know.  I see this all as in a dream."

"Dude, your girlfriend is seriously whacked out," Chris whispered
to Justin.

"*Ex*-girlfriend," Justin whispered back.

Lance and Kevin were exchanging worried glances.  Kevin stepped
forward, "Perhaps, milady, it would be best if you instructed the
Ringbearer alone?"

Sam spoke up, "I dunno about that..."

"Or mostly alone," Kevin said.  "We all know you'd just sneak in
and listen anyway, Sam."

Sam looked sheepish.  Justin took the opportunity to escape, Chris
hot on his heels, chortling.

****

Justin, however, was not so lucky as to escape Britney.  It was her
woods, after all.  She found them, coming to Justin while he was
sleeping.  Chris, who was sleeping near him, woke up to see her
sitting there, watching them.

He let go of Justin's hand, which had somehow curled into his while
they were sleeping.  "Britney," he acknowledged warily.

"They call me Galadriel here," she said.  "They say I am an elf and
a queen.  I do not know whether to believe them.  I remember...
other things.  But when I look into the pool, I see what they say
I should see, an elven queen, and I thought perhaps all that came
before was but a dream, except here you are."

"It isn't a dream, Brit.  Or, if it is, it isn't one we can wake up
from.  This is happening."

She didn't seem to hear him.  "I don't remember ever being able to
see things before they happened prior to this.  If I had... well. 
Things would be different.  Justin.  But now, I can and.  Yes.  No
one will ever betray me now.  He will not betray you."

"Britney," Chris said urgently.  "If you can see things, can you
see the others?  Joey?  Nick, Howie, Brian?  Do you know where they
are?"

"I cannot see Howie.  He is beyond my powers.  Perhaps he is well,
perhaps he is dead.  I cannot tell.  The others are safe."

"Where?"

"Brian is with the horse lords, Nick with the people of the white
city, and Joey is altered out of all recognition."

"What the hell does that mean?  Is he okay?"

"He is well."

"I suppose that's good at least."  Chris looked at Justin, who was
still sleeping.

"The Ringbearer offered me the One Ring, you know," Britney said,
still looking past him to the mallorn trees.

It was eerie how she no longer seemed part of the world.  Britney
had always been very much of the world, maybe too much.  "You
didn't take it, did you?"

"No," she said.  "I did not take the ring.  It did not tempt me. 
There is no power more compelling that which I have already tasted,
in my former life."

"Former life?"

"Yes."  She turned her gaze on Chris.  He found it impossible to
meet and looked away.  "Was it real?  I remember being worshipped
by all who saw me and still being unhappy.  When the ring offered
me ultimate power, I knew that it had nothing to offer that I could
want.  And yet, I thought it but an echo of a memory until I saw
you, and him."

She was looking at Justin, who slept on, his hand flexing as though
feeling for Chris in his sleep.

"It was real, Brit," Chris assured her quietly, worried for her.

"Oh."  She rose, moving to kneel next to Justin.  Chris jumped up,
trying to place himself between her and Justin.  She looked at him. 
"I would not harm your friend, halfling.  He simply reminds me of
someone I knew once, long ago."

"Britney, it wasn't long ago.  It's your life.  Your *real* life."

She ran a hand over Justin's hair, then stood.  "My name," she
said, "is Galadriel."


[eomer]

"Oh, look.  People on horses to stop us and interrogate us about
what we're doing here.  Why don't we avoid them and save ourselves
the hassle?"

"No.  I vote.  We stop," AJ said, panting.  "Some of us.  Have. 
Shorter legs.  Than others."

"Some of us are just more out of shape than others," Lance said,
smirking.

Kevin frowned.  "No, we'll stop.  Chris said that Brian was with
the horse lords."

"He said Britney said she thought Brian was with the horse lords,"
Lance corrected.

"Good enough," Kevin said.

"Whatever."

"Riders of Rohan!" he called out to the riders, who wheeled and
advanced on them.

"Relax," Lance said to AJ, who was gripping his axe.  "They aren't
going to kill us.  They don't in the movie."

"Yeah, well, I'm not trusting my life to a stupid movie, okay?"

The horsemen surrounded them and the ring tightened.  The leader
broke through, 'Eomer' throwing himself off his horse and forward
without challenging them.

He pulled his helmet off.  "It *is* you.  Thank the Lord," Brian
said, and then grabbed Kevin in a hug.

"Oof," Kevin said, letting out a hiss as the mailed Brian squeezed
the breath out of him.

"Told you you wouldn't need the axe," Lance said, but AJ'd already
sheathed it.

"God," Brian said, tears in his eyes.  "I missed you guys.  I
thought.  I was beginning to think... I don't want to talk about it
now.  And we don't have the time, do we?"

"No, not really," Lance said.  "The story..."

"Right.  I've seen 'The Two Towers'.  I know what I'm supposed to
be doing."

"Good."  Kevin smiled tightly.

Brian let go of Kevin and turned to the other two.  "And this
is..."

AJ glowered up at him.  "Don't say it."

Brian blinked.  "Wow.  You're a dwarf."

AJ raised his axe threateningly at Brian, which caused the horsemen
surrounding them to raise their temporarily lowered spears.  Brian
immediately waved at them to stand down.

Lance smirked.  "I think I'm supposed to threaten Brian now to
defend your honor, Master Dwarf, but..."  He shrugged.

Kevin sighed.  "Put the axe away.  You know you won't use it on him
anyway.  And Lance..."

Lance arched fine elven brows.  "Yes?"

"Never mind."  Kevin gave Brian a long-suffering look.  "Sure you
don't want to trade places?  I know it probably *seems* worse to be
alone, but..."

"No, no, that's fine," Brian said.  "But what about the others?"

"The others?  We've been led to believe that Nick's some person
from Gondor..."

"Faramir, probably," Lance said.

"Oh, good," Brian said, brightening.

"And we have no idea where or who Howie is."

"Oh."

"Have *you* seen him?"

"I've only seen you."  Brian's eyes roamed over them hungrily. 
"And I have to let you go, don't I?"

"You'll see us again."

"At Helm's Deep?"

"Most likely.  It's the movie, by the way.  We decided it would be
a good idea to stick to the plot.  If we don't, we have no idea
what will happen and, at least this way, we have some idea."

Brian's eyebrows rose.  "Some idea?  You must be going nuts with
not being able to control anything.  I'm scared out of my wits. 
I've been praying every day that God will let me wake up, that I'm
not deluded or that, if I am deluded, that I wake up in a ward for
the insane rather than just continuing to wonder about my sanity."

Kevin clapped him on the shoulder.  "It'll be all right."

Lance's eyebrows rose.  "It will?"

"It will," Kevin said, turning on him fiercely.  "There's no other
alternative."

"If you say so."

AJ elbowed Lance, then bodily pushed him aside to get at Brian. 
"Don't listen to him.  He thinks he has to be all mysterious
because he's an elf now."

"And being a dwarf is your excuse for being rude and belligerent?"
Lance asked.

"Shut up, elfboy," AJ retorted, and hugged Brian.  "God, it's good
to see you.  Kirkpatrick *said* you'd be here, but..."

"Chris is here?"

"Yeah.  And Timberlake and Chasez."

"Are they all right?  What about Joey?"

Lance's mouth tightened.  "JC's Elrond.  We don't know where Joey
is or who he is.  We've been told he's been changed somehow though. 
And orcs have Chris and Justin."

Brian gave him a look of sympathy, understanding suddenly.  "You're
right on schedule then.  The orcs are dead.  There weren't any
hobbits among the dead."

Lance nodded a thank you, then added, "We don't know, you see, if
things will stay the same as the story.  Especially if we change
things.  We *think* if we stick to the plot, they'll be all right
and so far, none of our people have been in a place or a role where
we need to worry about them dying, but..."

"But you don't know and it might be real, because nothing here
seems like a story."

"Yeah."

"Hey!" AJ said indignantly from the vicinity of Brian's waist. 
"Stop bonding with him and bond with *me*."

"Um," Brian said.  "I miss you and all, AJ, but, well, you could
really use a bath."

Lance snickered.


[helm's deep]

"Elves aren't meant to be streaked with blood," AJ observed,
reaching out to Lance.  He checked his motion before he touched him
-- his own hands were red and brown and ingrained with the blood of
others.  "It looks wrong on you."

Lance gave him a weary smile.  "I think blood looks wrong on
everyone.  But it wasn't one of my life's ambitions, no.  I'm a
singer, not a warrior."

"We're all warriors now.  Or dead."

Lance nodded.  "They're going to come again, you know.  In a few
minutes.  I can hear them already preparing another assault on the
wall."

"How can you tell the difference?  They've never *stopped*
attacking the wall."

"I mean a real assault.  And I can tell.  Elvish hearing."

AJ gave him an appalled look.  "If you can hear that, what else can
you hear?  The people dying, the..."

"The boy under the stairs with the water bucket who's crying for
his mother.  He can't be more than eight.  Yeah.  I can hear it
all."

"Lance..."

"I keep telling myself it's not real.  That it's a movie and it's
not really happening, but it gets harder and harder to believe,
because it's just as real as anything I've ever done.  The way my
hands hurt.  The sounds.  The smells.  Everything.  It wasn't so
bad earlier.  In Moria.  Or with the orcs.  Because they aren't
human and they don't look human, and it wasn't like any of us,
other than Gandalf, really got hurt.  But there's people dying all
around us, and I can hear all of it, and it isn't the least bit
like a dream.  Children, AJ.  There's children dying here."

AJ cleared his throat.  Laid his hand on Lance's shoulderblade,
that being as high as he could reach.  "I've been picturing them as
fans."

Lance shot him a horrified look.  "The dead people?"

"No.  The orcs.  Like a giant concert, and they're all rushing the
stage, only we're the roadies this time, trying to keep them off."

"That's just appalling."

"No, no," AJ insisted.  "You gotta picture it."  He waved at the
mass of orcs beyond the walls.  "Think of them with little pink
mini-halter tops and 'I love Kevin' on their hairy cheeks."

Lance frowned.

"C'mon, just picture it."

Lance did.  He snorted despite himself, despite the gravity of the
situation.  There was just something about a large hairy ugly
orc-beast in a pink halter with a 'I Heart Justin' sign.  "The
orcs'd win."

"No, man, no way.  The teenies would win, no question."

"Orcs."

"Teenies."

And then the next wave started, and they didn't have time to talk,
but every so often Lance would look over at AJ and snort.


[faramir and brotherhood]

Nick stared at the hobbits, at the hobbit doubles of Elijah Wood
and Sean Astin, then looked down, picking at his nails with the
point of his knife.  He really needed a manicure.  "So, it would
grieve you to know that Boromir was dead?"

"Boromir is dead?"

"Yes."  Actually, he didn't know that for certain.  He hadn't seen
the body.  He'd been told his brother, Boromir, was dead, and Nick
knew the story of 'The Lord of the Rings', probably better than
anyone else.  He didn't know what he was doing here or even what or
where here was for sure, but he did know that much.

"Yes, it would.  He was one of my companions."

"Just about the only normal one, too, even if he did want the
ring," Sam muttered.

"Sam!" Frodo said.

"Only normal one?" Nick asked.  That wasn't the way this
conversation was supposed to go.

"The others.  They kept calling each other funny things and going
off and having strange conversations.  And now I know elves aren't
like ordinary folk.  Sam, I says, elves and dwarves aren't like
ordinary folk, I says, but then Mr. Merry and Mr. Pippin were doing
it, too, calling each other names like Chris and Justin and I says,
Mr. Frodo, sir..."

"Sam!"  Frodo pulled Sam backwards.  "My apologies for my friend. 
He isn't... he doesn't always think before he says things."

But Nick didn't care.  Chris and Justin.  NSYNC?  Almost certainly
NSYNC.  And if they were here...  then his friends had to be
somewhere here, too, Backstreet was here, and if they were here...

Oh, hell.

His brother was dead.

"Boromir," he said.  "Did he, did he or any of the others ever call
him by another name?  Like maybe Aaron?"

"I don't think that's any of your business."

"It's very much my business.  He may have been... he *was* my
brother.  I need to know."  He looked at Sam, feeling desperate. 
What if Aaron had been here?  Was dead even now?  "Please, I need
to know."

"Not that I ever heard, but they was always very secretive about
those things," Sam said.

"Oh."  Nick hung his head.  "Oh."

Aaron might very well be dead.  And, yeah, Nick was in serious geek
heaven, smack-dab in the middle of 'The Lord of the Rings' in one
of the best non-lead roles, but his brother was very possibly dead,
and he didn't dare even ask to look at the One Ring.  The ring was
there, a few feet away, and it would alarm both Frodo and Sam if he
asked, and in any case, Nick knew.

He didn't dare look at the ring.  He wanted to hold it, to touch
it, so that he can say that he had.  He didn't want it for himself,
he just wanted to *see* it, but he knew better.  Its power
corrupted absolutely, and the only thing he could do was to let
Frodo and Sam go.  Let them go *now* rather than later, in Gondor
the way the movie had it, because Nick knew how the books went and
he could stay faithful to them, but he didn't know how the third
movie was supposed to go.  He had to let the hobbits go *now* and
hope and pray that he was doing the right thing.

Let them go and wonder about Aaron and the dead Boromir.

Funny.  He'd always thought it would feel better being the hero of
a story.


[the ents and joey]

"Maybe," Justin said panting as they fled through the forest from
the orcs, "We shouldn't have sang '100 Bottles of Beer' so many
times when Kevin was taking us to Rivendell."

"Dude," Chris said, "didn't you see 'The Two Towers'?  The orcs
were gonna get us anyway.  He didn't *let* us get taken."

"Still," Justin said.  "He coulda done something.  He woulda done
something if we were Nick and Brian."

"Lance's with him.  Lance could've... okay, never mind."

"Yeah."

"But, you know, we get rescued."

"We do?" Justin asked, as they paused by a tree, catching their
breaths.

"Yep.  Any minute now."

An orc leapt out at them.

"Dude!" Justin yelled, dodging.  "We better fucking get rescued!"

"We will, we will!"

A tree branch fell over as though struck by silent invisible
lightning and struck the orc.  Then, impossibly, grabbed the orc
and picked it up.

"See?" Chris asked, as though he hadn't just been running for his
life.  "We're saved."  He didn't mention that, in the movie, their
rescuer thought they were mini-orcs.  It turned out all right in
the end.  And what Justin didn't know couldn't freak him out. 
Someone must have been giving him a blowjob when Justin saw the
movie, 'cause he didn't remember half of it until he was reminded
about it.

Justin's hand slipped into his.  "Did a tree just eat that orc?"

"Sorta.  It's an Ent."

"What's an Ent?"

"A tree herder."

"Actually," a deep booming voice said, as the 'tree' bent down to
them.  "I'm not an Ent.  I'm an Italian."


[return of the king]

"The hands of the king are the hands of a healer," the woman told
him.

Kevin nodded, because there was nothing else he could do.  He was
a musician, not a doctor.  Faith healing, maybe that was what she
was babbling about.  People believing the king's touch would make
them better and that doing it for them.  Because he wasn't anyone. 
If these people, this Faramir and this Eowyn, believed it would
help, then it would help them...

...except the man lying on the bed was unconscious.

This wasn't going to work.  He was being watched from the doorway
though, and so Kevin sat down at the man's bedside.

The man on the bed was tall and pale.  His long blonde-brown hair
had been combed out of his face, and it was clear that the people
here had done their best to take care of him even in the midst of
the war.  Someone important then.  Kevin wasn't that familiar with
the movie characters.  He'd seen the first movie, but not the
second, and he'd never read the books.

Then he looked at the man's face.

And recognized him.

Oh, shit.  It was Nick.  Nick on the bed.  Nick who was dying if
Kevin didn't do something.

Justin slipped into the room.  "How is he?"

"I don't know," Kevin said.  "It's Nick."

Justin nodded.  "I figured.  Before we got separated, Chris said
this is where he'd probably be."

"You knew?"  The look Kevin turned on Justin was angry and
despairing all at once.

"Yeah."

"You..."  Kevin's brows beetled and his face drew into lines of
anger.  Someone to blame for this.  For not warning him, not doing
something that could have kept this from happening, kept Nick from
ending up here.  "You could have kept this from happening.  You
could have *told* me."

"No, dude.  It had to happen.  Chris explained it to me.  But it's
all right.  You fix him; he gets better."

"No.  *Aragorn* fixes him.  There's nothing I can do."

Justin rolled his eyes.  "*You're* Aragorn.  And.  There was
something else, too.  Something Chris said I was supposed to tell
you if you didn't think of it yourself.  Um."  He snapped his
fingers.  "Pot!  You're supposed to use this wicked weed to cure
Nick!"

Kevin rolled his eyes.  "I don't think they've got marijuana here. 
If you don't have anything useful to say, just get out, all right?"

"Okay, so not pot.  Chris did said that they think it's a weed here
though.  Um... what did he call it?  King something.  Kings... tin
foil!  Yeah.  King's tin foil.  Er, except not with the tin. 
Kingsfoil."

"Kingsfoil?" Kevin asked.

Justin shrugged.  "Well, I *think* it was kingsfoil.  I might be
wrong.  I mean, it *was* a while ago, but Chris was kinda
insistent.  He's hard to ignore when he starts screaming all
high-pitched like that.  So I'm pretty sure."

"You better be right."

"I'm right."  Justin flashed Kevin a big love-me smile.  Kevin just
scowled at him.  Justin maintained the sunny grin.  "Trust me.  I'm
right."

Kevin didn't, but he didn't have any better ideas.  He got up and
went to find the woman who was actually in charge of the place.  If
Justin was wrong, Kevin was going to take care of what the orcs
hadn't.


[reunion]

It was a ragged gathering in Faramir's stately rooms in the palace. 
Those who had actually been involved in the fighting were dirty and
tired, with signs of bruises and cuts and bandaged wounds.  Not
serious, because few with serious wounds had lived out the battle. 
War was a brutal, primal business in Middle Earth.

Lance perched sideways in a window, face turned out and up toward
the sky, looking westward.  AJ had taken a spot near Lance's feet,
learning forward on his axe.  He didn't go anywhere without it, and
indeed, looked perfectly comfortable with it.

Nick was reclining on the bed, still looking wan.  Brian and Kevin,
both by his side, were forestalling all attempts on his part to get
up.  There had been several; despite their having reassured Nick
that Boromir had been the guy from the movie and not Aaron, Nick
had been worried, because just because Aaron wasn't Boromir didn't
mean that he wasn't here somewhere, wasn't in trouble.  That there
was nothing he could do about it didn't help calm Nick down.

Justin had attached himself to Chris as soon as he'd seen him;
their separation had hit him hard, and while Chris had not bothered
to tell him in advance that 'Merry' got his ass kicked by a Nazgul,
Justin had figured it out when no one had wanted to tell him that
Chris was there or how he was.  He'd insisted on being with Chris
since then.  He was sitting on a couch with Chris, legs looped over
Chris' lap, holding him down.  Chris didn't look as pale as Nick,
but it was a close contest and, unlike Nick, he wasn't nearly as
willing to be kept down.  Justin was managing though, fencing Chris
in with his body, hand in Chris'.

JC had a chair to himself, and was the least touched of them all by
their long ordeal.

"I've had enough of this," Kevin said.

"It's not over yet," Chris said.  "There's the thing with the dark
gates and then the happily ever after part."

"Do I sail off into the West?" Lance asked.

Chris shot him a deeply concerned look.

"Not in the main part of the book," Nick said from the bed.  "I
don't think.  It's been a while since I read the whole series."

AJ growled, "You're not going anywhere, elfboy, and nowhere on
water.  Dwarves don't float."

Lance raised his eyebrows.  So did Chris, who slapped Justin's leg
and crowed with delight.  "So you finally nailed AJ! 
Congratulations, Bass."

"I did not.  Not that it's any of your business."

"Baby, everything you do is my business."

"He said it wasn't," AJ said menacingly, running his fingers over
the blade of the axe.  "So shut it."

"Bass!  Your boyfriend's threatening to beat me up!"

Lance gave Chris a long look and went back to staring out the
window as though the affairs of mortal kind were beneath his
notice.

By contrast, AJ gave Chris a pleasant grin.  "Anytime, anywhere."

Kevin sighed.  "No one's beating up anybody.  We have enough
problems already.  Like, when is this going to be over?  And what
are we going to do if it *isn't* over?  I, for one, have no desire
to be Aragorn.  I'm already married and I don't want to be a king."

"Yeah, well, everyone knows that's Elvis anyway," Chris said.

"I like it here, dude," Justin said.  "Kinda.  It grows on you."

Kevin snorted.  JC looked inscrutable and Lance didn't turn his
eyes from the sky outside the window.

"The hard part's over," Justin continued.  "Right?  We've supposed
to... um, okay, so I don't remember, but Chris said the worst part
would be over when we all got here.  And, dude, we're all here
except for Joey and he couldn't have come anyway 'cause trees don't
move that fast.  And Howie, but he might not even *be* here, so."

"The hard part for us," Brian said.  "There's still the ring."

Nick nodded.  "The hardest part for Frodo and Sam is gonna be now. 
From now until they get rescued.  We've all gotta go to the Black
Gates and distract Sauron or they could still fail."

Kevin let out another sigh.

"At least we're together."  Brian smiled at them.  "Right?"

No one answered him.  Nick had closed his eyes again, perhaps
falling into an invalid's doze.  Kevin was carefully not looking at
him.  JC was still inscrutable and Chris was looking at Justin, who
was trying to distract Chris from his own depression and despair
left over from his run-in with the Nazgul.  Lance had not looked
back from the window, and AJ had a frown on his face as he rested
his chin on his clasped hands on his axe.

"Different," JC said finally, into the silence.  "Things are
different now.  We won't know if they're better until we're done."

"Done with *what*?" Kevin wanted to know, but JC didn't and
wouldn't answer.


[back again]

Chris woke up first.  The blankets were too hot and some moron was
running a lawnmower outside.

He squeezed his eyes shut, then yawned and gave up, opening them. 
The alarm clock stared him in the face.  8:01.  Way too early for
lawn mowing.

Wait a minute.  Alarm clock?  Lawn mower?

Chris threw back the blankets, sat up and looked at his feet.  Got
up and looked out the window.  Let out a yell of triumph.  He was
back home!  With his own feet!

The phone rang and Chris picked it up.  It was Justin's number and
he answered it.  "Dude!"

"Dude!"  Justin said, "Whoa, man, Chris.  I just had the weirdest
dream."

"Um..."

"No, really.  It was like it was all real and everything.  You were
in it..."

"Um..."

"And you were being a dick, just like always, and all the other
guys were there, even Backstreet--"

"Except Howie."

"Right!  Except Howie.  Wait a minute.  How do you know that?"

"Um, dude?  Because it wasn't a normal dream, duh."

"Oh, wow.  So you think everyone else had it, too, then?"

"I think maybe someone should call Howie."

"Yeah.  Bet Lance has the number."

****

"Um, hello?"  Howie stood in the doorway of his house, hair
rumpled, wearing a pair of shorts and a shirt with the buttons
fastened in the wrong holes.

Lance, Chris and Nick had all arrived nearly simultaneously, a neat
feat all things considered, but they were the only ones actually
*in* Orlando, or the throng would have been larger, and were
standing there.  Nick'd been slowed down some by his frantic
efforts to find Aaron; all of which had been in vain, as Aaron had
been not been a part of their strange experiences, and had
completely oblivious as to why Nick had called him.  Nick had been
relieved.

At the door, Nick took point as the token Backstreet Boy, Chris and
Lance deferring to him slightly, standing a bit back.

"So, any strange dreams lately?" Chris asked, since deferring
wasn't the same as actually shutting up.

Nick rolled his eyes.  "You feeling okay?  You look okay."

As Howie answered that he was fine, Lance pulled his phone out and
dialed.  "Yeah, AJ?  Lance.  He's alive.  Tell Kevin to call off
the hounds.  Further updates as events warrant.  Yeah.  I'm fine. 
Really.  Kevin?  Yeah, well, you can tell him to stop worrying
'cause his hair's too good to lose to being pulled out by the
fistful.  Oh, please.  You know yours is awful.  You can't do that
much to hair and expect it to survive.  Yeah, well, we'll see. 
Later."

"Um..." Howie said, still obviously confused by what all three of
them were doing on his doorstep.  "What's going on?"

Chris pushed his way inside.  Howie looked between him and Nick,
who wrapped an arm around his shoulder and pulled him in after
Chris.  Lance followed them, closing the door behind them.

"Well, see, it's like this.  We -- and by we, I mean us and them,
all had this dream where we were in 'The Lord of the Rings'."

"Okay," Howie said, nodding.  "Hey, you know..."

"Yeah?"

"I think I have some soda in the fridge."

Lance rolled his eyes.  "So, no dreams?"

"Well," Howie brushed his hair back from his face, "no, not really. 
Nothing out of the ordinary.  Um.  Soda?  Or, juice maybe?  I think
I have orange juice."

"I'm getting the feeling," Chris said, "that he's trying to
distract us into another room so he can call the guys with the
butterfly nets and send them down to recapture us and take us off
to the loony bin."

Nick looked down at Howie, who shrugged.

"Well," Howie said, "you have to admit.  It does sound sort of..."

"Psycho?"

"Well, I was thinking something pharmaceutical, but..."

Chris sniffed.  "I reject your bad pot theory.  Besides, how could
we all have possibly taken bad pot at the same time when most of us
weren't even in the same city?"

Howie raised his eyebrows.  "Most of who?"

Chris rolled his eyes.  "The rest of NSYNC and Backstreet, duh."

Howie coughed.  "So, um, soda?"

"Lance, I'm getting the distinct feeling that we are not being
taken seriously.  I vote we go elsewhere where you can call your
new boyfriend in peace."

"He is not my boyfriend.  We just came to a better understanding of
each other."

"You say to-may-toh, I say evil red fruit of doom."

Lance shoved Chris, who grabbed onto Nick to keep from falling into
the umbrella stand, which teetered.  "C'mon, Nick.  Let's leave
Howie in peace so he can get some sleep without being bothered by
his drug-addicted non-friends who happen to care about him."

Nick gave Howie a concerned look.  "You sure you're all right?"

Howie smiled back, gently.  "I will be.  With some more sleep."

Nick took the hint.  "Okay then."

Chris shoved on Lance's back, pushing him out the door.  Nick
followed behind them, not without a backward glance at Howie, who
waved.

He shut the door after they'd left, locking it securely and
resetting the alarm.

Howie turned around and settled the tall walking stick more solidly
in the umbrella stand so that it wouldn't fall over in the night
and made his way back upstairs to bed, smiling to himself.