Pairing: Nick and Justin
Words: jostle; smoothed; corkscrew; riddle


Fairy tales are lies, and Nick knows it. His life is a fairy tale.
He knows which one, and he also knows how it's going to end, and it
isn't the way they end in all the books.

She's not his evil stepmother, and it isn't her beauty Jane Carter
fears losing, but rather the money and the power. Except beauty's 
just another name for power, and Nick hasn't been beautiful in years.

Aaron is. Girl-pretty and beautiful, and the mirror his mother was
looking into was Nick's when she cut him loose, let him wander into
the forest because the new prince was the fairest of them all.

Aaron isn't, though. Nick knows it. Aaron's cracking, breaking even
now, and genetics will win out with him, too, and it's a twisted
world where you start out as the sweet prince, the innocent heroine, 
and end up as the ugly stepchild.

Ugly stepchildren were always evil. Beauty was the only saving
grace.

But at least Nick wasn't in the woods alone. He has brothers
now, companions, who keep him safe and jostle him for room and
smooth his path. They think he's special, and they treat him
like one of their own.

He knows they'll be rid of him too, though, soon enough, because he
isn't beautiful.

Even though she discarded him, his mother is still here, still
coming around to visit, to collect her due and peddle her own brand
of poison.

Nick always lets her in. The venom isn't the lie. Happily ever
after is the lie.

Justin has always been every inch the prince. Corkscrew curls, and
he was beautiful when Nick was still beautiful, still believed.
Justin maybe always will be beautiful, because he's grown up, and
even with the fleece shorn, is still handsome, something Nick,
gangly and awkward and ugly, has never managed. A riddle
unanswered, how it is that the beautiful baby swan grew into an
ugly duck.

When Justin kisses him, he whispers promises, secrets and plans to
Nick. He tells Nick everything's possible, spinning golden dreams
of a bright future, with NSYNC and Backstreet still both doing
well, and tells him he thinks the idea of Nick doing a solo album
is great, that Nick's popular and a good musician. And beautiful.

Bitter poison apple kisses, and Nick has always been his mother's
son.