Pairing: Lance and JC
Words: emulate; kiosk; milky; oops


The knock on his hotel room door was perfunctory; the door was
opening before Lance had a chance to do more than look up from the
proposal for kiosk layout for the second half of the tour.  Chris
and Justin, the Wonder Twins, just what he needed to disrupt the
hour he had free before they needed to leave for the radio station.

"What is it this time?" he asked, annoyed.

"JC's a girl," Justin said.

Lance sighed, much put upon.  "So what?  Who cares how much pink he
wears?  Hello, famous now?  And it's not like you don't wear worse,
Timberlake.  If you're going to choose someone's style to emulate
-- and I can't believe I'm saying this -- Chris is a much better
role model."

"No, dude," Chris said, "you don't understand.  JC is a *girl*."

Lance looked at him.  "A girl.  As in, with breasts?  That kind of
girl?"

Justin nodded fervently.  "A really hot girl.  With milky white
skin, and--"

Chris jabbed him in the stomach, cutting him off.  "I didn't frisk
him, but it sure looked like it."

He blinked as he assimilated the new information.  "All right then. 
So.  Standard press release.  We already did the broken leg thing
with Joey and the heart condition with me.  Exhaustion's out, of
course, because everyone thinks 'drug problem' when they hear that. 
Vocal cords.  He's had a problem with his voice and so we have to
continue the tour without him, and there'll be no in person
interviews until he's better because he might try to talk and set
back his recovery.  Yes, that'll sell.  Do you have any idea how
long he's going to be a girl?"

"That's it?" Justin asked.  "You're not going to freak out or
anything?  Because, you know.  C.  As a girl.  It's pretty weird."

"As weird as having Brian Littrell in Joey's body and having to
come up with an explanation for why 'Joey' suddenly didn't know any
of our dance routines?  As weird as me turning into a doberman and
Chris almost taking me to the pound?"

"I said I was sorry for that, by the way."

"No, you didn't.  You said it was an honest mistake and that anyone
would have done it."

"They would have, too!  You nearly took my hand off!"

Lance gave him a dirty look.  "Is there anything else?  Because I
really need to get this finished before the interview.  And you,"
he looked at Justin, "need to talk to Joey about who's going to be
doing which of JC's parts."

"Um..."

"What?"

"About that..." Justin said, poking Chris.  "C'mon, you tell him."

"He's already pissed at me over the n-e-u-t-e-r-i-n-g thing.  You
tell him."

Lance rolled his eyes.  "I *can* spell, you know."

"But you're still pissed."

"Wouldn't you be if someone threatened to cut off your balls?  Oh,
wait, they already did."  Lance smiled sweetly at him.  "It's
really just a pity that it was before my time and I didn't have
anything to do with it."

"Fucker.  Just for that, you wanna know how we found out JC's a
girl?  Joey came in saying that C was throwing up."

Lance frowned.  "JC's sick?  We're going to need a discreet doctor
for this.  Not the regular tour doctor.  I have some numbers..."

"Dude, you don't get it.  Throwing up.  In the morning.  Like,
being sick in the morning.  He's pregnant."

"JC is pregnant," Lance said flatly.

"Yep."

"Somehow, in the past twelve hours, he managed to get himself
turned into a woman *and* pregnant?"

"Yep."

Lance nodded sharply.  "A very discreet doctor.  Maybe the one we
used when Justin had that little hair problem."

"Who knew Brit knew voodoo, huh?"

"Not me, that's for sure," Chris agreed.

Lance looked up from his laptop.  "So?  What are you two still
doing here?  I have work to do.  More work."

"Well, there was just this one other little thing..." Chris
started.

"Yeah," Justin chimed in.  "He says you're the father.  What's up
with that?  I didn't know you were gay, man."

Chris elbowed him.  "Everyone knew that.  So, Bass.  Didn't use
protection, huh?  I thought everybody learned that lesson with Joey
and his little 'oops' with Kelly.  Not that Brianna isn't great and
everything, but y'know."

"Let me make this perfectly clear to you.  I am very busy.  If you
don't get out of the room in ten seconds, I will make you wish you
had.  Are we perfectly clear?"

Justin was already half-out of his seat.  Chris was giving Lance an
interested look.  "When you say 'make you wish you had', what
exactly are we talking about--"  Justin grabbed him by his shirt
and dragged him up.  "Hey, leggo of me!"

"Sorry, Lance."  Justin smiled apologetically.  "Won't happen
again.  We'll just be going now.  And Chris is really sorry about
the doberman thing.  Really.  Very sorry."

"What are you so scared of, Curly?" Chris protested as he was
hauled bodily out of the room.  "It's just Lance."

Justin's reply, whatever it was, was cut off by the shutting of the
door behind them.

Lance sighed and cracked his fingers.  So.  JC was pregnant.  He
wondered if any of them had thought to get a pregnancy test from
the hotel sundries shop, or if JC had just been throwing up and
they'd drawn their own conclusions.  He made a note to get a test
kit and a bottle of Pepto Bismol sent up to JC.  Then added a copy
of "What To Expect When You're Expecting", because JC liked to read
about everything before doing it, sometimes more than he actually
liked doing whatever the activity in question was.  Among other
things, Lance had gotten JC a copy of "Jazz for Dummies" for
Christmas.  JC had loved it, even though he knew more about jazz
than was actually in the book.

He did a quick Internet search, then checked his calendar.  If JC
was throwing up, he was about six weeks along.  In seven months,
they were due to start touring on a new, as yet unrecorded album. 
Something JC would be stressing about.  Stress wouldn't be good for
a baby.

It was just contingency planning at this point, but Lance made a
note of the timeline anyway.  If there was going to be a baby, and
JC stayed a girl, and didn't lose the baby, and they weren't all
swapped for the Backstreet Boys and not given back, there needed to
be a cover story.  A reason for JC to be gone for a long while, and
not just the short time that an excuse like a vocal cord injury
would buy them.

He'd been reading an article a while back about a businessman from
South Africa who'd paid the Russians to take him up on one of their
space missions.  There'd been a lengthy training period, and the
guy had had to live in Russia for a while.  Russia was a long way
away from the United States, and safely out of reach of most of the
entertainment press.  He made a note to look into it.  Lance had
kind of always wanted to go to space.

Maybe he could do both.  He'd have to look into it.  After the
interview at the radio station, of course.  He flipped back to the
kiosking arrangements.  Yeah, a break would do everyone good.  He
was getting tired of the endless grind.  Day in, day out, the same
old thing.

He added 'prenatal vitamins' to the list of items, and wondered
what his mother would say this time.