by silvercharmer
[Maybe I could read your mind if you’d be so kind as to let me in]
I.
Joey was becoming, for lack of better words, fucking annoying. He was always there, this second skin that stretched animatedly over the existing one with more energy than a chipmunk on crack, as Chris put it, always hovering and bothering, and so goddamn cheery that JC found himself with the need to listen to bad country just to compensate for it.
“Seriously, Lance. He won’t leave me alone.”
Lance glanced up from one of about three hundred faxes he had pooled around him on the table, his classic ‘Do I Really Have To Explain This To You In Four Letter Words’ expression prominently displayed, complete with freakily raised eyebrow. “Where have you been the last seven years? That’s just…Joey.”
“Well can someone pry him off?” JC slumped moodily in the chair next to Lance, praising the heavens that for at least the next five minutes, if the crossword puzzle was any indication, Joey was in the bathroom. “It’s driving me crazy.”
Lance began to hum, and JC smacked him. “Hey!” Lance yapped. “Look, just deal with it, ok? It was part of the fine print in our contracts. Right next to the line about Chris. ‘I have read and understand that Chris Kirkpatrick is a pawn to the voices he hears in his head and promise to buy him tinfoil hats for his birthday.’ Signed, your name. Joey’s just a freak like that. You’re his new pet. Just hope you don’t wind up like the goldfish.”
JC hooted, feeling marginally better. At least, until the toilet flushed and Joey bounded back out from Lance’s bathroom, grabbing JC by the arm and dragging him out the door, shouting something about yougottacheckoutthisthingIfound. JC got one last look at Lance’s grinning face before the door clicked shut, and decided that he really didn’t like Lance that much when you got right down to it.
~
Joey was a slob. Chris liked to think of him as a hurricane, and actually went through a phase over the past summer in which every hurricane that made the news got renamed. Hurricane Joey, Hurricane SupahJoe, Hurrafuckin’DanceboyJoecane, and the like. He ran out of hurricanes before he ran out of names, which depressed him and lead to an impromptu party for the others. In fact, now that Joey thought about it, that was right around the time JC had started to act weird. They’d all been plastered that night, crowing about one dumbass thing after another (Joey seemed to recall a contest over who could say the word ‘yahoo’ the funniest), except for JC, who’d sat in a corner—frustratingly sober—all night, refusing to pay attention unless someone forced him to. Joey remembered better than the others, because he always remembered shit when he was drunk, which pissed the fuck out of the rest of them since he had a tendency to remind them at inopportune times. No one else remembered Lance’s striptease to ‘I Am A Man Of Constant Sorrow,’ but Joey did, and he had the video to prove it.
He’d let it be for awhile, but over the next month or so Joey noticed JC retreating into his shell, sitting out on fun things more than usual, declaring headaches and wanting to go to bed early. Sometimes Joey thought he was imagining it; JC was still his usual self for performances and meetings and such, but when it came to really spending time with anyone, be it in hotels or on the bus, he shrank away. Something was wrong, but when Joey had tried to pester JC about it he’d gotten the brush off.
That’s what had really gotten his attention. JC had always lived on some other plane of existence; he never wore matching socks, wandered off in the middle of a sentence, had to be reminded to eat. It wasn’t unusual to be standing next to him and feel like he was in a different galaxy. But a brush off was a rare thing, and Joey had definitely gotten one. During the course of the week he got avoided, ignored, and brushed off again. Joey hadn’t really taken it personally, never really did with that sort of thing, but when he found out the other guys were getting the same treatment he got upset. Justin had thought he was overreacting.
“It’s C,” he’d protested. “He’ll forget what’s bugging him in fifteen minutes. Or he’ll write a song about it and we’ll call him a fucking genius.”
“You know,” Joey had said, “I don’t think so. He doesn’t forget. He just hides stuff. I’m a little worried this one’s too big to fit in any of his spots.”
It was true; something Joey had paid careful attention to over the years. It had been especially obvious in the beginning, when JC had the thinnest skin out of all of them when it came to being gutted by the critics. Now he’d gotten better at it, faster, but back then you could watch him start to shut down, retreat from the world even more than usual while he contemplated the shape and size of the wound he’d received.
In his sleep he would thrash around, contort himself in really –weird– ways, which was always the tip-off something was bothering him, because JC was usually such a gentle sleeper. All of his movements were soft, melodious, down to the last little sigh. When he was happy, his fingers would curl and flex as though he were playing the piano. When he wasn’t, they would clench and bury themselves in his pillow, as though he were beating the drums with his bare hands. Joey imagined that in his sleep JC folded a problem up and tucked it away in some corner of his heart, where it wouldn’t trouble him. Joey thought maybe, this time, JC couldn’t do it by himself. Maybe Joey could take part of whatever it was and put it in his. He didn’t tell Justin that, though. Justin liked joining crusades, and this had all the makings of exactly that. Joey wanted this one for himself.
After that, Joey made it his personal mission to become JC’s confidant, and voila, JC had a second shadow. JC hated it. Justin congratulated him on the idea. Which was good enough for Joey.
~
It wasn’t long before JC started to get really sick of him. Said he was an annoying pissyfuck, and needed to go bother someone else. When he said that Joey left the room, but only long enough to get a stack of Uno cards. When he knocked on the door again he was pretty sure JC wouldn’t answer, and he was right, so he banged on it with as much irregularity as he was capable of. Anything that lacked rhythm drove JC crazy, and sure enough, he eventually opened up. Granted, it was with a look that would have killed a box full of kittens, but Joey wasn’t going to be picky about it.
“I brought Uno.”
JC crossed his arms, a sour expression on his face. It was kinda cute with his baseball cap (a Pirate’s hat Chris gave him), his hair poking out from underneath it at wild angles, but Joey decided not to mention that to him. He waved the cards instead.
“Wanna play?”
JC heaved a sigh. “Joe, I was gonna try and work on something. I’ve got this thing. In my head. It’s—” He sighed again. “I haven’t been alone all day. Can I just be alone?”
He looked so pathetic for a moment that Joey almost caved, but then he remembered his crusade and held his ground. “Just a game?” he wheedled. “Chris and Justin went out to some fun club—”
“Which you could have gone to.”
“—and Lance passed out an hour ago because he’s a pussy.”
“With a migraine,” JC added.
“Whatever. I’m bored. Unbore me.” For a moment he thought JC had softened. He wasn’t quite as standoffish as he’d been when Joey had dragged him to the Celtics game, or parked in his room to watch T.V. Joey Charm. Worked every time. Chris said he had oodles of it, and he was pleased to find out JC was not immune to it.
“You’re bored because you spent the whole day with me,” JC informed him. “Just like you did yesterday. I’m boring. So there you have it. Go find Chris and Justin. Chew on a sock. I don’t care.”
Or maybe he was.
Joey brushed past him and sat cross-legged in the middle of the floor, spreading the cards out in front of him. JC blinked at him.
“Is that…Justin? On those cards?”
“Yup.”
“’NSYNC Uno.”
“Uh-huh.” He dealt out two piles.
JC looked heavenward, as if summoning divine help. When it didn’t come, he heaved another sigh and sat on the floor. “One game. Then go away.”
But they played four games, and JC was actually laughing and smiling, in a real sort of way Joey hadn’t seen him do in a couple of weeks. They threw cards around, made fun of the pictures, which somehow led to making fun of Lance’s ferret and Justin’s big feet. It was a simple kind of fun, the kind they used to have all the time, just the two of them. It occurred to Joey they hadn’t had much of that kind of fun in the past year or so, and he wondered why. They might have played longer if Joey hadn’t asked him what he’d been working on.
“Nothing,” JC snapped, retreating instantly into his shell.
“C,” Joey started, trying to fix it. “Look, uh.”
JC glared at the floor and picked at a loose string on his sleeve. “I don’t feel like playing anymore.”
“Hey,” Joey said, feeling a little more authoritative. “You can, you know. Talk to me. About whatever. You know that, right?”
“Yeah,” JC replied, still not looking up. “Yeah, I know.”
“If you—”
“There’s really nothing,” JC interrupted. “Please go?”
Joey did.
After that, it was three days before JC smiled at him again. Joey didn’t care. The smiles he’d gotten over the Uno cards were enough to prove to him his crusade was worth it, and there was no way he was going to accept defeat just because JC was a snarky bitch.
Problem was, the end of the tour came up and JC was still pissed at the world. Well, mostly Joey, but the world still had to deal with him when Joey wasn’t convenient. He wasn’t being mean, in fact, most of them had either forgotten JC was in a snit or were just plain ignoring it. But he still seemed sullen most of the time, and distant. Withdrawn. The last thing Joey wanted was for them to drift their separate ways after the last show with JC still tucked within himself. He was determined that his crusade, which had gone blissfully unnoticed by the others thus far, would succeed. So he came up with Plan B, which he was sure would do the trick.
~
The maps were what got him in trouble. Chris happened to stumble into his room two days before the last show and spotted clouds of them floating around the bed, the floors. Joey had scrawled unintelligibly on some of them, others were just horribly wrinkled. Chris dove onto the bed and wrinkled them a little more.
“Going somewhere?” he asked, pawing through them in a Chris-like fervor.
Joey bit at the corner of his mouth a little, trying to decide how to answer. Simple truth usually worked best with Chris. Anything else, and he could smell it out faster than a vulture to a carcass. It wasn’t fun, really, and usually ended up more torturous than it would have been to just tell it flat out. So Joey did.
“Yeah. Me and Jayce.” He didn’t look at Chris, because he didn’t want him to think Joey thought it was a big deal. Misdirection. Chris was like the dog you pretend to throw the ball for. He ran. Every time. Well, most every time.
“You and C?” He uttered a raunchy growl and howled at the ceiling before dissolving into a fit of giggles. Joey glanced at him through the mirror as he flicked water from his razor.
“You. Are a wacky little man,” Joey informed him.
“Naw, I just been drinkin’. Justin owed me a six pack because he bet me I wouldn’t sing Avril Lavigne at a karaoke bar last night.”
“You didn’t.”
Chris looked disappointed in himself. “No, not really.”
“Then how…?”
“Justin’d had about six shots of Tequila by about that time, and you KNOW the boy can’t hold his liquor. When he’s wasted he’ll believe anything I tell him.”
Joey laughed. “Right.”
“Yeah.” Chris tossed some of the maps at the ceiling. “He thinks I’m God. You know. It’s pretty cool. But back to you and C.”
Joey swore under his breath.
“Where you takin’ him?”
That part Joey hadn’t really worked out yet. He’d looked at a lot of maps, but at the moment the best he’d come up with was to go Up.
“Not sure,” he confessed.
“Why don’t you take him to Kansas and plant him in a cornfield,” Chris muttered. “I mean, with that stick up his ass and all. He’d be a pretty scarecrow.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“So.” Chris climbed off the bed and scuttled towards him, poking at him with his finger. “What’s going on, huh? JC, like, hates your bleedin’ guts right now. He really gonna go on the road with you?”
Joey grabbed at Chris’s hand, missed, grabbed again, missed. They went back and forth for a few minutes before Joey threw water on him from the sink. Chris hooted and shot back to the bed. The maps scattered.
“I’ve got a plan,” Joey told him.
“The maps?”
Joey glanced around the room at the folded and crumpled maps thrown haphazardly around the room, and decided that his plan looked decidedly ineffective. But. It was his, and he would stand by it. Unless, of course, Chris told him it was worthless. “Um. Yeah?”
“Brave man, Joe. But be careful, hear me? C’s great, you know I know that, right? I know I know that, so you know I know…that I. Know. I know everything, and I know you know that. ‘Cause you and me? We know.”
“Chris.”
“Anyway, anyway. JC’s fabulous. But when he’s upset he likes to hurt people. Any people, even if it’s you. Not ‘cause he’s mean. It’s his way of protecting himself. And his mom dropped him on his head too many times when he was a baby.”
Joey snickered. “You’re brilliant when you’re drunk.”
“Hey! I’m pretty, too. Don’t forget that.”
“You’re right.”
Chris came over to him and poked at him again with his finger. Joey grabbed, missed. Chris cackled. “I know I’m right, Guido. I’m God, remember? The infant says so. I’m always fuckin’ right.” Joey almost got him, but Chris squealed and ran for the door.
“Hey,” Joey said before he got all the way out. “Don’t. um. You know. I mean, JC—”
“I won’t tell him,” Chris assured him. “But there better be something in it for me, big boy. Got it? Fuckin’ with JC’s head is my favorite game.”
Joey grinned. “I’ll think of something.”
“Make it good.” He shut the door before Joey could try to nab him again, but Joey could hear him singing the Sk8er Boi song in his freakishly high voice as he bounded away.
[Maybe I might find myself in my own mind, won’t you get out?]
II.
It was late. JC knew that much. Other than that, he knew nothing about why Joey was in his house. The tour had ended yesterday—well, make that two days ago, it was that late—and JC was ecstatic about being able to spend an entire night, night, as in, without the sun being up like it had been when he’d crashed after Lance’s ‘Yay! No more tour!’ party. He’d been particularly excited about the prospect of no Joey, since for the last week Joey had made it a ritual to barge into his hotel room at an ungodly hour to watch bad movies MST3K-style. Normally JC liked that kind of thing, it was Quality Joey Time, something just the two of them did, but lately JC just wanted him to go away. He just wanted to be alone, thankyouverymuch, and no one seemed to understand that. Particularly Joey, because he was standing over him right at that moment, silhouetted by the way too bright lamp he’d turned on, on JC’s nightstand.
“Jesus fucking Christ!” JC jerked awake and propped himself up by the elbows, afraid if he went much further he’d do something horribly embarrassing, like fall out of bed. “Joey!”
“Sorry.” Joey snickered. “You’re impossible to wake up.”
“What the hell? Is something wrong? I swear to God, Justin better have sawed his vocal cords in half with a weed whacker, or something equally horrible, for you to be in my bedroom right now.”
“Um.”
“Joey!”
Joey looked somewhat sheepish, and JC flopped his head back on his pillow. This was a nightmare. Truly. He tried to think of what he’d done recently to deserve this, came up with several things, but decided that surely God wasn’t that vindictive.
“Look, sorry to just drop in. Well, maybe not sorry. But. Get dressed.”
“Get what?”
“Dressed.”
“Okay, see I was giving you a chance to say something other than dressed. Like, asleep, for example.”
“Get asleep?”
“Better than get dressed.”
“I should expect as much from someone who thinks ‘unperfect’ is a word.” Joey leaned over enough to tug at JC’s covers. JC yanked them away, uncovering his feet in the process. Great. This just kept getting better. “Jayce, I’m serious.”
“So am I,” JC complained, horrified at how much he sounded like Justin when he whined. “I am not getting up for whatever crackhead idea you’ve got in your head. I am not finger-painting Chris’s fence. I am not going to Wal-Mart to buy an engagement ring for Lance’s ferret. And I am not going to drive around downtown Orlando listening to our Christmas CD with the windows down in the middle of April. Okay? Go away.”
“This is important,” Joey said, in such a small, wounded voice that JC almost –almost– gave in.
“I’m sure it’ll still be important in the morning.” JC pulled the pillow out from behind his head and smothered himself with it. “Gwoo. Waway,” he mumbled.
Joey did. JC went back to sleep.
~
When JC woke up again he was in the backseat of a car, which made him instantly suspicious. He was neatly laid out across the entire seat, boxers and t-shirt still on. The car was in motion, going at a decent, steady speed. Highway. Odd. He could have sworn he hadn’t gone to sleep in a car. In fact he was sure, because he distinctly remembered talking to Joey from his own bed.
Wait.
JC shot upright, hair sticking out at crazy angles, looking around him in mild panic. It took him a nanosecond to identify the driver, Joey, and considerably longer to figure out where they were. In fact, he had no idea where they were, other than that it wasn’t Orlando.
“Joey?”
Joey glanced back at him in the rearview mirror. “Oh, hey. Was wondering if you’d wake up soon. Hungry? We can get breakfast.”
JC’s mind was working furiously. Yes, he was hungry. Famished, actually, so he would very much like to stop for something to eat. It was right around then he realized that this was anything but right, that he had not put himself willingly in this car, and that from the looks of it Joey had kidnapped him.
Now, JC had never been an overly articulate person. In his head he was perfectly clear, always understood exactly what he meant and what he wanted to say. But somewhere between his brain and his mouth things got garbled, unless he had a lot of time to put together the exact words. That was why he liked writing so much—he could organize himself. He had yet to attend an awards show in which he did not have a prepared acceptance speech carefully memorized, even if someone else planned to do all the talking. Of course, the speeches never, ever went according to plan; he got flustered, forgot, reached for his pocket to find the paper only to realize that he’d put it in the other pair of pants he hadn’t worn. That’s when he wound up saying countless moronic things that no one ever let him live down. He did not like to be put on the spot.
Over the years, they had all become accustomed to that about him, learned to wait patiently until he could spit out what he was trying to say, and even learned to figure it out before he did. Which was about the only thing JC was thankful for when he started flailing and sputtering for the right words to bitch about his predicament.
“What? Um. Where, exactly—I mean, how…Joey?”
“We’re on I-75, just outside of Gainesville. I packed a bag for you. It’s in the trunk.”
Oh. No.
“You bitch!” J.C. exclaimed, somewhere between playful and murderous. “What the hell? Take me home.”
“No can do, my friend. You’re stuck with me out on the open road.” Joey made a grand gesture with his arm, and the car swerved a little. JC squawked, and grabbed a hold of the headrest.
“Okay, you know what? No,” he said, feeling his frustration start to boil over. “Joey, I think I’ve been pretty tolerant of…of you lately, but this is bullshit. You wanna shadow my every move on tour, that’s fine. You wanna barge into my hotel room for any dumbass reason you can think of, fine. But we’re not on tour anymore, all right? This is over the line, dammit. Take me home.”
Joey kept his eyes trained to the road. “I’ll take you home when you talk to me.”
JC blinked, not quite sure how to respond. “Talk to you? What d’you mean?” A knot was forming in the pit of his stomach. A big, ugly one.
Joey’s eyes flicked towards him in the rearview mirror, then away again. There was no glint in his eye, no sign that Joey was just being Joey. This was serious, and for a moment JC contemplated throwing open the door and taking his chances bailing out on the highway. Never mind that Joey was speeding. A lot.
“I mean when you tell me what’s been eating you for the past few months, I’ll turn around and take you home. Till then, you and I are road trippin’.
“You’re not serious.”
“Look at my face.”
Joey met his eyes in the mirror, confirming JC’s worst fears. His brown eyes were solemn; the mischievous sparkle that always gave him away when he was screwing around was disturbingly absent. For a moment, JC panicked.
“You can’t…you can’t do this, man!” JC sputtered, even though Joey in fact, had. “People are gonna wonder where the hell I went. And…I mean, dammit! You can’t just kidnap somebody!”
“Of course I can. It’s you. And me. They expect this shit. Besides, Chris knows. He’ll take care of the others.”
“Chris knows? The hell!”
“Make this easy on yourself. Talk to me.”
“There’s nothing to talk about, you moron. I just need space, and this is not helping.”
“You lost your right to ‘space’ when you crawled in your fucking shell and refused to come out,” Joey snapped. “Chris, Lance, and Justin might be willing to let you do your goddamn thing in that shell, but I’m not because I know what you do to yourself when you go there. You and I are going to fix it—whatever it is—on this trip. I don’t care how long. This country has lots of highway, and I have made sure that there’s no way you can ditch me.”
JC didn’t ask how, because he believed it without an explanation. Had it been Chris he would have laughed, had it been Justin he would have laughed harder, and had it been Lance he wouldn’t have had to ask, because Lance would have provided him with a far too detailed explanation automatically. But it wasn’t those three. It was Joey.
“Why are you doing this?” he asked, in a very small voice.
“If you have to ask the question,” Joey retorted, “you don’t deserve the answer. The question you should ask me is ‘why didn’t you do this sooner?’ But you won’t ask that, because we believe in you a helluva lot more than you believe in us.”
“That’s not true,” JC argued.
“Oh yeah?” Joey’s eyes darted to the rearview again. “Prove it.”
JC wouldn’t answer him, so Joey kept driving.
[Maybe I have not yet uncovered what I need to see]
III.
For the first three hours, JC thought for sure Joey would get bored, or maybe decide this was just a bad idea (because it was), and turn around. They’d stopped for breakfast, and actually managed to have civil conversation. Since JC still thought there was a chance Joey would come to his senses; he’d stopped bitching, been polite, and humored him by pretending he was fine with being kidnapped. Problem was, when they got back to the car (JC was in the front seat this time), Joey kept going north.
JC sighed, and fiddled with the radio. Talk. Commercial. More talk. Shit country. More talk.
“Dude. Where’re your CDs?” he asked. “Radio sucks.”
“In the trunk.”
JC made a face. “That was dumb. Pull over, lemme get ‘em out.”
“Nope.” Joey stared straight ahead.
“No?” JC asked, puzzled. “Why? I can’t exactly run away or anything, if that’s what you’re worried about. I just want some music.”
“I know. But when you listen to music you zone out and forget you’re on planet Earth, with other carbon-based life forms who—and I know this is hard for you to understand—might want to talk to you.”
“Joey,” he said patiently, “there’s nothing I need to talk about. Chris is the one with voices in his head. Try your therapy on him.”
“Nah. I’d rather try it on you.”
“Well it’s not gonna work,” JC muttered.
“We’ll see.”
Maybe, JC reasoned, if they just sat and listened to other people talk, he wouldn’t have to. He liked that idea. Unfortunately he got bored of talk shows extremely fast, and went back to flipping stations. Eventually he found an eighties station, and left it alone.
Before long he noticed Joey tapping on the steering wheel with his middle finger. Joey drove with one hand always, unless there was a crisis or Justin was in the car. Justin was cocky as all hell when he was the one driving, but anyone else and he meeped and mewed about recklessness and fearing for his life. Joey’s other arm was resting against the door, still and quiet. Almost without realizing it, JC began to hum along to the beat, experimenting with harmony while trying to blend somehow with Joey’s tapping. Before long Joey’s other hand was tapping too, and JC’s head swayed in time to the music.
This was something they always did, whether there were two of them in the car or all five. During a lull in the conversation, when they weren’t bouncing around being idiots, one of them would start some kind of rhythm, with or without music on the radio. Before long everyone had pitched in, contributing something to the harmony, be it tapping, swaying, humming, or beatboxing, as was often the case with Justin. Those were some of JC’s favorite moments, the private ones, where they were making a kind of music that never found the public ear, that wasn’t judged by critics, would never be recorded by anyone or anything but their own memories.
Joey was his favorite person to watch when it happened. Lance was very quiet, often contributing his part in the form of low, almost whispered sounds. Chris’s added the chaotic element: bouncing around in his seat, slapping his thigh with an open palm. When he still had the god-awful dreds, he would shake his head and whap someone in the face with his braids. Justin would slide into a rhythm with both voice and body, and even though he was hidden away with no audience save whoever was in the car, put himself on stage. Justin was always on stage.
Joey, on the other hand, would close his eyes and adapt to the others, finding something in the melody that the rest of them had missed, making it his own. JC often thought the music came from Joey, that he anchored it somehow, allowing the others to circle their pieces around him like a maypole. Soulful, JC decided. Joey was soulful, in a way that none of the rest of them were.
Joey glanced over and caught JC watching him. JC blushed furiously, and turned to look out the window. He stopped humming and Joey flipped the station. He couldn’t find anything either, and the quiet was starting to drive JC crazy.
“So. Um,” JC started, wanting some kind of noise between them. “Where’re we going? You got a plan, or something? Maps?”
“Something like that,” Joey replied.
“Are you gonna tell me anything?”
“Hey, you’re the one who’s supposed to be talking. Tell me what ails you.”
“Other than you kidnapping me?”
“Something was ailing you before that. Hence the kidnapping.”
“So, at least you admit this is a kidnapping?”
“You know, you’re a lot more fun to be around when you don’t have a stick up your ass.”
“I don’t have a stick up my ass,” JC protested.
“Right. It’s a tree. My bad.”
JC scowled. “Fucker.” Joey shrugged, and began flipping through radio stations again.
They stopped for gas in Perry. They were in fucking Georgia, and Joey still showed no signs of giving up. JC was starting to panic. Why couldn’t Chris have been the one to do this? Why did it have to be Joey? He’d been absolutely right; Joey believed in JC with such intensity that some days JC was afraid to open his mouth for fear of disappointing him somehow. But then again, Joey believed in all of them that way.
Secretly, that was part of JC’s problem. Joey loved all of them with a fierce devotion, but deep down, JC wished that Joey loved him a little more than he loved Chris or Lance or Justin. That wish terrified him so much that Joey’s mere presence made JC uncomfortable. The last several months had been spent pretending he’d never thought of Joey as more than a friend, which was very hard when Joey wouldn’t leave him alone.
JC was sure his heart rate was all screwed up; it did wacky things whenever Joey was close by. His already non-existent attention span had been affected too—JC found it hard to focus when Joey stood over his shoulder, whispered in his ear, or did anything ‘Joey’ when he was around. About a month ago, Joey had stumbled into JC’s hotel room all kinds of drunk, and proceeded to wrap him up in a bear hug while planting a sloppy kiss on his cheek. Joey had reeked of alcohol and smoke, the kiss had been downright gross, and the slobber it had left had been disgusting, but an hour later JC still couldn’t speak. He’d avoided Joey for the rest of the week.
“Joey?”
“Yeah?”
“How long are we going to do this?” JC had dropped the indignation and attitude. The mileage on the signs for Atlanta kept decreasing.
“I meant what I said, C,” Joey replied, his voice soft. “You gotta talk to me.”
They didn’t say another word until Joey stopped at a motel on the other side of Atlanta. He chose a cheap, crappy dump and only got them one room. It didn’t surprise JC at all, but when Joey whipped out a single room key, his heart sank anyway.
“Hey, I’m paying for this shit,” Joey warned him when he saw the look on JC’s face. “I swear to God, Jayce. You can be a bigger diva than Justin sometimes.”
“Don’t blame me,” JC said defensively. “You’re the one who created this mess.” He brushed past him when Joey got the door open, tossing his bag on one of the twin beds and flopping down beside him. His legs hurt from over seven hours in the car, and all he wanted to do was sleep. Joey padded in behind him, footsteps not sounding nearly as cocky as they had earlier. Good.
“Don’t guess we can order room service,” Joey remarked.
“Not my fault,” JC replied in a sing-song voice.
“Look,” Joey said with a sigh. “At least try to play nice?”
JC raised an eyebrow.
“Come on,” Joey said with a roll of his eyes. “Let’s go grab some dinner. There’s a Denny’s up the street, I think.”
~
“I’m gonna hop in the shower,” Joey informed him, when they got back. JC nodded, not bothering to actually reply. JC was pretty sure Joey was sick and tired of his sullen silence, which suited JC just fine.
“You still gonna be awake when I get out?”
“Dunno,” JC said with a sigh.
There was a pause. “Okay,” Joey said finally, though it was more to himself than to JC.
When Joey closed the bathroom door, JC rolled over and listened to the sound of the shower turning on. He remained like that for a moment, hating Joey, hating the world, but mostly hating himself. After a few minutes, he reached for the hotel phone. It was late; Joey had taken full advantage of Denny’s 24-hour policy and gabbed until JC couldn’t stand it anymore. Didn’t matter that JC essentially ignored him. Joey was used to performing. He didn’t need someone to actually interact with, which meant JC just sat back and watched him go. The wait staff seemed to appreciate him, anyway.
JC thought it was odd that no one had recognized them, but then again, they were in the middle of Bumfuck, at a Denny’s that was populated by fortysomethings at the youngest. It was only when JC made a big show of pulling out his empty wallet and not being able to pay for his dinner (which he didn’t eat much of anyway—petty, perhaps, but he didn’t care) that Joey finally said they could leave.
The phone rang once before JC realized he’d dialed the wrong number. He swore, hung up, then dialed again. Seconds later, he held the receiver to his ear waiting for someone to pick up on the other end. The moment he heard the click of someone answering, he shouted into the phone.
“Lance! You gotta come get me.”
JC heard a muffled ‘nyuah?’ over the phone, and twirled the cord anxiously. Joey would be out of the shower any minute. “Hello. Lance, wake up. You have. To come get me.”
“Wha? C?” He sounded bewildered.
“Joey fucking kidnapped me. You have to come pick me up.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose with his fingers.
“Huh? Oh. Um, did he have a reason?”
JC made a disgusted noise. “Are you gonna come get me, or what? Fucker drained my cell phone battery, mailed my driver’s license to his house, and gave my credit cards to Chris. Chris, do you hear me? I’m gonna have a goddamned boat crewed by Ronald McDonald in my backyard by the time I get back.”
Lance roared. “Are you serious?”
“Yes,” JC said, impatient. “Come. Get me.”
“Sounds to me like you’re stuck.”
“Fuck. You.”
“Where are you, anyway?”
“Um. Georgia?”
“Goodnight, Jayce.”
“Lance!” JC yelped. He was getting desperate.
Lance muttered something under his breath. “Look, I am not coming to get you in Georgia. At…fuck. It’s two in the morning, you piece of shit! I was gonna do stuff in the morning. Early.”
“Well pardon me for being abducted from my own house. Ass.”
“Now that is a great way to encourage someone to help you. Insult them. Prick.”
“Lance…please?” JC hated it, but he was not above begging.
“Jesus. What the hell is wrong with you? It’s Joey. Just let him have his fun. It’s not like he wants to toss you in the Grand Canyon or something. Now if it were Chris…” Lance giggled at the thought. JC told him to shut up, and could practically see Lance rolling his eyes. “He wants to help you, okay? In his twisted, fucked up kind of way. It’s kinda cute. Actually.”
JC made a terrible face at the phone. “Die,” he ordered. “Painfully. Big pointy sticks.”
“Big pointy sticks?” Lance laughed. “Will you go away and leave me alone?”
JC waved his hand around, forgetting that Lance couldn’t see him. “I don’t need his help.”
“Tell him that,” Lance said with a yawn. “He’s the one who kidnapped you.”
“But—”
“Goodnight. Again.” Lance hung up the phone.
JC swore, using all the phrases Chris had ever taught him, which was a long list. Most had taken him two years to screw up the courage to even say out loud, but now he said them all quite happily, directing each one at Lance. Then he picked up the phone again and tried his last resort, because Chris was out of the question. Unfortunately, Justin was equally useless.
“He kidnapped you? That’s fuckin’ rad, dude. I don’t believe it. He’s my motherfuckin’ hero. I wish I’d thought of that. Joey’s got some balls, you know that? I’m too scared of your hissy fits.”
JC glared at the wall, resisting the urge to beat the receiver against it. He could always pretend it was Justin. Or Joey. Lance. Chris. “Justin, I am going to kill your firstborn if you don’t shut up and do something.”
He cackled. The fucker cackled. “Write me a memo then, k? So I don’t, you know, forget.”
JC yelled unintelligibly into the phone.
“See?” Justin told him. “Balls. Joey, man. He’s got ‘em. Give’im a pat on the back and tell him I say keep up the good work.”
By the time Joey got out of the shower, JC was so frustrated he wanted to cry. But he wouldn’t. Not in front of Joey. Especially not in front of Joey. It wasn’t until Joey flipped the light off with a lighthearted “Gnite, C!” that the tears stopped burning his eyes and rolled freely down his cheeks.
~
The next morning, JC woke up ten times crankier than he had been the day before. It had been all fine and good yesterday, but he was done. He wanted to go home. He told Joey as much, but Joey had given him his ‘tough shit’ look, and opened the car door. JC gave him the finger and crawled in the backseat, determined to ignore him completely. He was sure that by the time they hit the South Carolina border Joey would get sick of his brooding silence once and for all, and forget the whole thing.
Joey sang show tunes at the top of his lungs until they hit Charlotte, grinning in the rearview mirror whenever JC glanced in his general direction. JC hated South Carolina after that.
~
When they stopped for lunch, JC decided he’d annoyed himself more than he’d annoyed Joey. He was tired of being isolated in the back seat, and wanted the company of someone sitting beside him. Besides, the more Joey drove, the more JC worried about him doing something life threatening, like zoning out and running them off a cliff or something, because they were headed straight for West Virginia now, and JC was pretty sure shit like that happened in West Virginia. But then JC realized that he was the one who would do something like that, not Joey. Still, when they finished their takeout from Wendy’s, JC got back in the front seat. Joey glanced sideways at him, but didn’t say a word. JC breathed a sigh of relief.
They drove in silence for about fifteen minutes. The radio was on, but JC barely heard it.
“So,” he said, breaking their silence. “Um. Where we going next?”
Joey considered this for a moment. “I dunno. 77 meets up with I-64 somewhere in West Virginia. We could go west. I figure we’ll stop for the night before that, unless you wanna keep going. We drove a lot yesterday, and I’m not in a hurry.”
“Yeah, sure. Sounds good.”
“We don’t have to, you know,” Joey said. His voice was gentle, not snarky or condescending. “Look, C, you know I’m not doing this to be an asshole, right? It’s just…”
“I know.”
“I, just, I know you. I know how you work. You’re real good at taking the things that hurt you and driving them in so deep you don’t even feel them anymore. Whatever…” he gestured with his arm a little, trying to pull the words he was looking for to him. “Whatever’s in your head right now…”
“Thanks,” JC interrupted, stopping him before he could say any more.
“For what?”
“It’s kinda…I mean, I didn’t want anybody to notice. But the fact that you did was kinda. Well. Nice.”
“That’s what we do,” Joey said quietly. “Who the hell would I be if I just let you do this to yourself?”
JC shrank down in his seat. “I don’t do anything to myself,” he said, sullen now, as he picked at a loose thread on his shirt.
Joey snorted. “Right. So, if you weren’t here with me, you wouldn’t be shut up in your house, watching bad porn, screening calls, and eating so much Chinese takeout you shit fried rice.”
JC tried to stifle a giggle, but failed. Joey smiled.
“See?”
“It’s no good though,” JC protested. “I’m fine, Joe. Just a little stuck on something. But I’ll get over it and be fine. Everything’ll be fine. Got it? Fine.”
“You don’t know how to be fine,” Joey mumbled, and JC wasn’t sure if he’d meant to say it out loud. By the look on his face, JC was pretty sure he hadn’t. The comment stung, but JC realized it was also the truth. He didn’t like that about himself.
They were silent again.
“Can we get out your CDs next time we stop?” JC asked.
Joey concentrated on the road. “Yeah,” he said, and JC wondered if he shouldn’t have asked.
[Maybe I have and I just don’t know it]
IV.
They stopped in Virginia. Joey slept soundly, snoring like a hog, but JC couldn’t shut his eyes. He was torn between hating Joey’s guts and hugging him for going to such lengths for him. They hadn’t said much the rest of the day; dinner had been a quiet affair and JC had spent most of the evening writing in his notebook instead of making conversation with Joey. A couple of times Joey had asked him what he was working on, but each time JC had shrugged him off and told him to mind his own business. He wondered how far he could push Joey until he snapped. It’s not that he wanted Joey to snap, far from it, but it seemed the only way to get him off JC’s case. Having to apologize for being a complete ass was preferable to giving in and giving Joey what he wanted, which seemed the simpler solution.
It surprised JC that Joey made no phone calls, didn’t check in with anyone. JC hadn’t expected him to isolate himself as much as he’d isolated JC. No one had tried to call him either; JC supposed that Joey had made it clear to Chris that he and everyone else needed to let him torture JC in peace.
JC worried that being on the road with Joey wasn’t as bad as he’d thought it was going to be. Joey was making things worse without even knowing it, and JC couldn’t even tell him that without being forced to explain why. There was just no way this was going to end well, so JC figured he should just draw it out as much as possible. He might not be able to stave off the inevitable forever, but he could give it his best shot.
When Joey woke him up in the morning, bright and refreshed, JC was weary and exhausted. He climbed into the car without protest, pretending he hadn’t felt Joey’s hand on his back when they walked out the door, and waited for the motion of the car to lull him to sleep. But Joey was in a storytelling mood, and regaled him with whatever funny tale came to mind, mostly things that he’d done with the other guys towards the end of the tour when JC had gone into world-hating mode. Some of the stories he’d heard before, others not, but that hardly mattered when Joey was telling it. Against his will he laughed and chimed in, forgetting for a while that he was tired. He fell asleep sometime after noon, a smile on his face and the music of Joey’s voice in his ears.
~
Joey shook him awake at some kind of rest stop, one with a Burger King. They were in West Virginia—he could tell by the mountains and the awed look on Joey’s face. Joey had told him once, only after making him swear he would never repeat it, that West Virginia was a place he’d like to spend time in one day. Something about the gentle roll of the mountains, not tall and spiky like the Rockies—more simple, approachable even. To Joey West Virginia was like a secret, something no one really knew about. It was so covered up by stories about yokels and backwards people and missing teeth that everyone missed the purity of the place itself. For someone who’d grown up in New York, a place like West Virginia was completely foreign and therefore special—the world had a lot to offer that was more beautiful, more elaborate, more impressive, but JC thought it was the simplicity that attracted Joey to it.
He’d teased Joey about it for about eight seconds, then realized that Joey had just confided in him something he’d never told Justin or Lance or Chris, even though Lance was a country boy who would probably understand and Chris wouldn’t care that much, if he even remembered the next day. It was a little thing, but it was something JC knew about Joey that no one else did. There weren’t many things like that still undiscovered about the five of them; secrets were scarce anymore, which meant JC held on to this one as if losing it meant he’d lose everything.
JC stirred as Joey put the car in park, taking in the watchful eye of the mountains overhead. The rest stop was tucked in a small nook right off the highway. The sun was just starting to fade, making the fresh spring green on the trees look almost gold. JC grinned sleepily.
“It’s pretty here,” he said.
“Yeah,” Joey agreed, pleased that JC thought so. “Let’s get some food and eat it outside, kay?”
“Yup.”
There were a few picnic tables outside the Burger King, but only one was occupied, and the couple sitting at it looked ready to leave. They had the place to themselves.
“I can’t believe we’re eating at a Backstreet-endorsed establishment,” JC joked as he sorted out the whoppers and fries. “I feel dirty. Like I should be singing ‘I Want It That Way’ or something. And then I’d have to kill myself.”
Joey shrugged lazily, grinning a little. “You are dirty, Chasez. You need a shower like nobody’s business.”
JC threw a fry at him. “Fucker. We gonna stop for the night soon?”
“Yeah. I’m tired.”
“I could drive,” JC offered, taking a massive bite of his burger. “I slept a lot today.”
Joey raised an eyebrow. “We’d be halfway back to Orlando before I could say ‘Justin Timberlake shaves his legs’.”
JC stared down at his food, concentrating on chewing. Funny, he hadn’t thought of turning around when he’d suggested it. They’d been driving for three days now, and even though he was still pissed about being kidnapped, he kind of liked being on the road with Joey. Enough that he wasn’t looking forward to going back home, where it was just him in his big house, and no Joey.
Joey noticed his sudden silence, and leaned forward. “C?” he asked. JC shook his head. “JC,” he prodded. “Look, this is what I’m talking about. If you’d just—”
“No,” JC said vehemently, raising his eyes enough to meet the concern in Joey’s head on. “Drop it, Joe.”
“You’re going to have to spill something to me at some point,” Joey argued. “Or we’ll be out here for a long time.”
“That’s bullshit,” JC insisted. “We’re on a break right now, but we won’t be forever. We’re gonna have to go back home.”
“You think I care?” Joey exclaimed. “You think I give two shits about ‘NSYNC right now? This isn’t about the fucking band, Josh. This is about you. This is only about you. I don’t give a flying fuck about whatever obligations we do or don’t have. Right now, all I care about is you. And it’ll stay that way until I know you’re all right. I don’t care if it’s Christmas and we’re still out here.”
JC was trembling, and curled his fingers tightly around the paper bag their food had come in. He stood up and turned his back, heading for the car. “Fine,” he said over his shoulder. “If that’s the way you want it.”
Well. At least now he didn’t have to worry about going home.
~
It took Joey a little while to finally rejoin him in the car. He’d sat on the bench for a good half hour after JC walked off, finishing his food and staring off at the sun as it sank behind the mountains and shrouded them in dusk. JC kept an eye on him through the rearview mirror, angry at himself for acting so stupid, but unwilling to go back out and make amends. When he saw Joey finally coming towards him, JC curled up in the front seat under a blanket he’d pulled from the trunk and faced the window, refusing to acknowledge him when he slid back into the driver’s seat.
Joey was silent as he started the car back up. Before they got on the highway, JC chanced a quick look at him. Joey’s eyes seemed a little red, but that could have been because he was tired. It also looked like there was something wet on his cheek, but JC pretended not to notice. It was harder though, when Joey switched CDs and started humming along to the music. It was the same music he’d listened to for the first month after he and Kelly had finally called it quits, and JC knew every note.
Joey had tougher skin than all of them, even tougher than Chris, but that was partly because he had ways of protecting himself that were so ingrained they were subconscious. JC was willing to bet Joey didn’t even realize he wore a lot of sweatshirts when people called him fat, or that he baked casseroles when he missed home, or that he added another lullaby to the dog-eared notebook he kept with him on the road every time he felt he wasn’t good enough to be a dad. JC had helped him come up with melodies for a lot of the lyrics in that notebook, and Joey sang them to Briahna every time he saw her.
They’d listened to two songs, Joey singing along softly under his breath, before JC shifted around to look at him. He loved it when Joey sang.
“You’re listening to Chris Isaak again,” JC said. Joey seemed surprised to hear him speak, and stopped singing.
“So?”
“I’m sorry,” JC said simply. Joey only listened to Chris Isaak when something was bothering him.
“Sorry?” Joey said with a frown. “What’s that got to do with Chris Isaak?”
JC just shook his head, smiling just a little. “Nothing.”
They stopped for the night just outside of Charleston in a town called Nitro. It was another second rate motel, which JC thought to complain about, but the truth of it was he kinda liked it this way.
JC grabbed their bags out of the trunk as Joey went in to go get a room. It was a little chilly outside, and JC hopped around in place a little, hugging himself as best he could with two big duffle bags over his shoulders. Joey snickered when he came out with the keys and took one of the bags, rubbing JC’s shoulders to try and warm him up as he steered him to their room.
“Do you think anyone knows where the hell we are?” JC wondered as he flopped face up on the bed, tracing the swirls on the ceiling with his eyes.
“Probably not,” Joey said, rifling through his bag for a toothbrush. “I told Chris we were going, but I didn’t tell him where or anything. Unless you did.”
“Hell no. I haven’t talked to that shithead since we left.” He grinned. “I’ll bet Lance is having kittens not having out itinerary sitting right in front of him.”
Joey snorted. “You’re probably right.” He disappeared into the bathroom with his toothbrush, and came out scrubbing his teeth with a mouthful of foam. “Yfuh gwanuh sohwuh?”
“Nah, I’ll shower in the morning,” JC said absently. He was thinking to himself. When Joey went to go spit, he reached over and dug out a notebook from his bag. He was thankful Joey had thought to pack it with his things, though he wasn’t surprised. What Joey didn’t notice about himself he made up for by noticing in everyone else. JC supposed that in the grand scheme of things, knowing JC never went anywhere without his notebook wasn’t a big deal, after all, he took it everywhere, but when you got right down to it, it was a big deal. JC hugged the notebook to him, then pulled out the pen he always kept stuck in the spiral and flipped it open. When Joey exited the bathroom, dressed in a pair of boxer shorts with chili peppers on them and an old t-shirt that JC was pretty sure belonged to Chris, he was scribbling away.
“What’s that?” Joey asked, yanking back the covers of the other twin bed.
“You know,” JC said with a shrug. “Had a thought, so I’m writing it down.”
“What’s it about?”
JC narrowed his eyes and halted his pen to look up. “I can’t really explain it.”
“You’re writing it, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, but it sounds stupid. Just wanted to jot a few notes down so I could look at it later and figure out how to un-stupid it.”
“None of your ideas are stupid, Jayce.” Joey paused. “Well, okay. Maybe substituting two cups of beer for two cups of water when you made that cake that one time was a stupid idea. But— ”
“I just haven’t found the right words yet, Joe,” JC interrupted him. “That’s all.”
Joey thought about this for a moment. “Is that why you won’t tell me what’s been bothering you?”
JC blinked and put down his pen. “What?”
“Is that why you won’t tell me what’s been bothering you,” Joey repeated. “Is it because you can’t find the right words?”
JC shrugged. “Something like that. Maybe. Let’s not talk about this, please?” he begged.
“You gotta talk about it, Jayce. Whatever it is.”
“No. I don’t. Okay? I really don’t! I tell you all kinds of fucked up things. I tell them all kinds of fucked up things. Is it so wrong to have something to keep for myself? Something that’s just mine? I can do that, you know. There are some things you just don’t talk about.”
Joey shook his head. “Not this.”
“Why?” JC exploded. “Why won’t you just let me be? Huh?”
“Because it’s eating you up,” he said softly. “And I’m scared. Of what that’ll do to you.”
“Oh, what?” JC said angrily. “Are you the expert on me now? You know Chasez, he’s the one who walks around with his head in the clouds. You punch Justin and he hops up swinging. Slap Lance with more than his shoulders can hold and he shrugs it off and whips out a dozen different solutions you never knew he had. Hand Chris a bomb and he plays with it, fucking plays with it! And you? Someone tells you something you don’t want to hear and you grin in their face. But I get pricked by a needle and everyone expects me to curl up into a ball and die. You think I don’t realize there’s a real world out there that can hurt me? Well I do, Joey. I can take care of myself, even if I’m the only one who thinks so.”
“You think the reason I can laugh in someone’s face when they insult me comes from learning to do it on my own?” Joey asked. “Well fuck you. Fuck you, JC. You’re the only one of us who would rather kill yourself over something than ask for help.”
“This was a bad idea,” JC told him. “You should have left me at home. This was a bad idea.”
“Why? Because I’m making you uncomfortable? Because I’m not letting you sulk around like the world’s going to end when I’m right here? Right here, in the same room, because unlike a lot of other people out there, no matter what shit gets thrown around I don’t run out on you.”
“I don’t want to be here, okay?” JC snapped. “I really don’t. Not here. Especially not with you.”
Joey sucked in a breath, and JC wanted to break his own finger. Not what he had meant to say. Really, really not.
“So that’s how it is, huh?” he said softly. “I’d stand here and put my entire life on hold for as long as you needed it, and you’d…” He didn’t finish the sentence, just shook his head. “Okay then. You win. I’ll drop you at the airport in Charleston tomorrow.” He reached into his bag and grabbed a pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt. As soon as he had them on he shoved his way out the door. “”I’m sorry, C. ” He slammed the door before JC could make his jaws work, and the sound made him flinch, as if Joey had hit him.
“Fuck,” he swore. “Fuck.” He banged his head against the headboard, glad when it hurt.
[Maybe I am not breathing could you have stopped the life and seen in?]
V.
It was an hour later when JC opened the door to the hotel room and scanned the parking lot. In the back of his mind he was afraid that Joey had driven off and left him behind. He deserved it, that was for sure, but if that was the case he had no idea what he was going to do. But no, the car was still where they’d left it, only Joey was inside, stretched out across the backseat, asleep under the blanket JC had been using earlier.
JC looked in the window, taking in the sight of Joey pressed against the back of the seat, body molded into the cushion, feet resting on the arm rest attached to the door. There were headphones on his ear, and JC spotted a discman resting on the floor, CD spinning inside. He didn’t have to look to know which one it was.
Curling his fingers against the glass, JC wondered why it was that his words only came out clear when they were covered in thorns. He gathered his courage and tapped on the glass, but Joey didn’t stir. He tapped again with the same result, and turned around, leaning against the car as he sank to the ground. He was just wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants, no shoes, and he shivered. Some sensible part of him told him to go back inside, but the door had closed behind him and he hadn’t brought the key. Besides, he didn’t want to go back inside.
He lowered his head until his chin was resting on his knees, and wrapped his arms around his legs. His breath fogged in front of him, and he watched it wisp away from him until it dissolved into the night. A tear ran down his cheek, but he didn’t wipe it away.
JC didn’t know how long he was there—he wasn’t wearing a watch—but it was long enough for him to start dozing, despite the cold. He was almost asleep when something struck him hard in the back, sending him sprawling onto the asphalt with a cry of pain. His elbows scraped roughly across the ground and the air was driven from his lungs before he came to rest in a disheveled heap, too shocked to do anything other than lie there.
“Jesus Christ,” Joey swore. “C? Oh hell, JC, are you all right? Fuck.” Joey stooped beside him, gingerly taking him by the shoulder and trying to set him upright. “I didn’t know you were there when I opened the door,” he stuttered.
“S’ok,” JC managed to say, trying to ignore the steady throb in his back from where the door had hit him. “Really.”
Joey pulled him to his feet. “Shit, you’re freezing. How long have you been out here?” He started rubbing his hands up and down JC’s arms, forcing some of the aching chill away.
“Dunno,” JC replied. A key to the hotel room materialized in Joey’s hand, and within seconds JC was seated on his bed while Joey stood over the sink, running warm water over a washcloth.
“I don’t get you, JC,” Joey said when he sat down next to him, gently pressing the warm washcloth to the torn skin on JC’s elbow. “I just don’t get you at all sometimes.”
“I know,” JC said, eyes welling with tears. “That’s why I…um. You know. That’s…why.”
“That’s why you won’t talk to me?”
JC nodded, flinching at the sting of the coarse washcloth.
“Sorry,” Joey said under his breath. He pulled the cloth away, then tried again.
“No, I’m sorry,” JC said, staring dully at the wall. “For what I said.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t. You’re the only person I want to be here with, ok? The only one. Not Justin, not Lance, not Chris. Just you.”
Joey stood up and walked away, and at first JC thought it was because of what he’d just said. He squeezed his eyes shut and put his head miserably into his hands until he heard the water running again, realizing that Joey was just warming up the washcloth again. JC sniffled as Joey reappeared, standing across the room with the wet washcloth dripping water onto the shoddy carpet. He was waiting for JC to continue speaking.
“That’s why I was so panicked about you taking me on this trip,” he admitted. The sight of Joey curled up in the car, all because of him, was too much. He had to tell. He couldn’t let Joey get hurt like that. He sighed. “Because it was you, and not them. At first I thought it was because you knew, but then I realized that you were just being you, and didn’t know at all, and that made it even worse.”
“What didn’t I know, C?” Joey asked, his voice almost a whisper.
JC drew in a deep breath. “Do you remember the night we all got drunk, after the whole hurricane thing with Chris?”
Joey nodded. “Yeah,” he said, smiling a little. “That’s when I first noticed something was bothering you.”
“Goddamn,” JC swore, more to himself than to Joey. “That was the night it started, Joe. How did you pick up on it that fast?”
“I look after you,” Joey replied. “Always have.”
“Do you remember, before we got to Justin’s room, what happened? You were, uh, pretty gone already, but. You usually remember every fucking thing.”
“They were already there,” Joey said, thinking hard. “We’d gone to get Corona, ‘cause Lance is a snarky ho who won’t drink anything else. I asked you to go with me, because I was already slurring, and wanted to make sure I got what I was supposed to get.”
“That’s right,” JC agreed.
“But…what? I mean, I don’t know what else.”
“Right before we went back in,” JC prodded, looking at the ground. “You stopped me before I could knock on the door. And uh, you kissed me. Said something about ‘thank God I don’t have any more hurricanes to my name, here’s to Chris shutting up.’ Or something. I don’t really remember. I mean, it didn’t mean anything. Harmless, you know? But you, um, well, you kissed me. And it didn’t mean anything. Just goofing off. You were drunk. But that’s…that’s when it started.”
“Oh,” Joey said. “Oh.”
“It was stupid. But you’d never done something like that before, and it should have been fine, but it wasn’t, because…”
“Because you didn’t want it to be a drunken kiss.”
JC nodded. “Yeah.”
“How…how long? I mean, did you know you felt like that before I did it?”
“Long time before, Joe,” JC said, tracing the pattern in the bedspread with his finger. “Long time. I’d just been able to put it away, pretend I didn’t know.”
“And after I kissed you, you didn’t know how to pretend anymore.”
“No. I didn’t.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Joey said softly, with a look on his face JC couldn’t quite place. “Why couldn’t you tell me that?”
“Because!” JC exploded, hopping off the bed and facing Joey on his feet. “Don’t you get it? I love music as much as I do because I can feel all the things I can’t explain. I’m not good with words, Joey. Everyone knows that. I screw everything up, make all the things in my head, that are so good in my head, sound so stupid.”
“JC, that’s not—”
“No! You wanted to hear this, so shut up and hear it. I write songs because it’s the only way I know how to say what I mean! And even that comes out all wrong. I mean, look at my songs. You think anyone’s going to remember them in ten years? Five even? No! But I do it because it’s the best I can do. Everything’s up here, Joe.” He pointed to his head. “It’s all there, and the only way anyone else can ever see it is if they’re in my goddamn head. What I’ve got is good, I know it’s good, but as soon as I open my mouth it turns cheap and I lose it.”
“What are you—”
“You’re one of those things, Joey. What I feel for you, and everything you are to me, is so perfect in my head, that I can’t say it out loud. I could never tell you that, because it would never be as beautiful to you as it is to me, and that scares me more than anything has ever scared me in my whole goddamn life. I would rather not tell you at all than tell you everything, because then, even if I didn’t have you, I wouldn’t have to live knowing I’d tried to get you to understand how much I love you and failed. Christ, the only thing I can’t do is lose you. That’s why I didn’t tell you. I could never put it into words. I still can’t. Not any that would do it justice.”
JC stopped talking, and ran a nervous hand through his hair. He couldn’t look Joey in the eye. Wouldn’t. It was over now, he’d gone and ruined it, all because Joey made him tell, made him fucking explain the one thing he was desperate not to explain, and he didn’t care if he never took his eyes off the ground again.
There was silence from across the room. Joey hadn’t moved; JC could tell without looking up. He was perfectly still, so still that JC couldn’t even be sure he was breathing. But then again, it could have been because the pounding in JC’s chest was so loud he couldn’t hear it.
All of the sudden, there was a finger brushing against JC’s chin, forcing him to look up. JC fought back a whimper. It wasn’t enough to break him like this, now Joey was forcing him to look up and see what his confused words and muddled sentiment had done to spoil the only thing he’d ever really wanted in his life. He resisted Joey’s touch for a moment, but it was firm, refusing to let him escape. Reluctantly, he raised his eyes and found himself looking into Joey’s, which mirrored none of the disappointment that JC was expecting. Instead there was something soft, gentle there, like West Virginia.
His mouth dropped open in surprise, but before he could react Joey was kissing him, finger still perched under JC’s chin. For a moment JC was petrified, unable to believe it was real, and briefly he thought it wasn’t, because Joey pulled away and JC was sure that he’d dreamed it all. But then he was mashed against Joey’s chest, enveloped in his big embrace that radiated warmth and protection everything that JC had ever fallen in love with, be it in Joey or anyone else he’d ever met. Then Joey’s lips hovered by his ear, whispering. What he said JC couldn’t tell, but that didn’t matter. All that mattered was the feel and the sound, that the whispering was just for him, another secret that no one else would ever have.
“Joey,” he murmured, forehead bent against Joey’s chest, eyes closed because he refused to cry. “Joey, I—” But Joey ignored him, somehow managing to find his mouth again, and all thoughts flew out of JC’s head as he kissed back, frantic with fear that Joey might let go of him and take it all back.
“Doesn’t matter what you say,” Joey told him, placing his hands on either side of JC’s face. “I don’t care what the words are. I see what’s up there.” He tapped the side of JC’s skull with his finger. “I can hear you clear as a bell.”
JC released a shuddering breath, abandoning all attempts not to cry.
“You think I went and did all this just because I was being me? That it didn’t matter if it was you, or Chris, or whoever?” He shook his head. “I don’t know, maybe I would, but it wasn’t any of them. It was you. I took you out here because it was you. I didn’t want it to be any of the others who helped you. I wanted it to be me.”
A strangled noise escaped JC’s throat, and he flung himself at Joey again, sliding his tongue between Joey’s lips and wrapping his arms around Joey’s neck. He only remembered to breathe because he wanted to inhale Joey’s scent, make it part of him just like he wanted to be part of Joey. In return Joey surrounded him, pulling JC close and shocking his still shivery body with heat. JC gasped into his mouth, clutching the fabric of Joey’s sweatshirt and pulling it to him.
Joey shifted, and within moments the shirt was up and over his head, a heap on the floor. Now he was just in Chris’s old t-shirt, but Joey took care of that just as quickly as he had the sweatshirt. JC stared at amazement at Joey’s naked chest, placing his fingers delicately on the bare skin. He didn’t quite understand his sudden fascination; he’d seen Joey without a shirt more times than he could count. But never like this, never just for him, never just because Joey felt for him the way he felt for Joey.
His eyes slowly rose over Joey’s skin, traveled up his neck to his eyes, and he found that Joey was watching him with the same fascination and desire, which rendered him speechless.
“Is this okay?” Joey asked, his voice the prettiest music JC had ever heard. He nodded, still unable to speak, and rested his head against Joey’s chest. He was even warmer this way; his body was like a furnace. Joey’s arms tightened around him, and JC felt the rise and fall of his stomach as he exhaled. JC kissed the skin just below Joey’s throat, sighing in contentment. For a moment they stood very still, just like that, until JC began to wriggle. Joey loosened his hold just enough for JC to shrug out of his t-shirt. Joey grinned.
“Better?”
“Yes.”
Then they were both on JC’s bed, shucking off the remainder of their clothes until they were naked, tangled in each other’s arms and legs. JC giggled a little as Joey kissed him some more, his fingers pressing into a ticklish spot on his side.
“Sorry,” Joey said, breath caressing the side of JC’s cheek. “Forgot about that spot.”
“Oh, I don’t care,” JC replied, rising to meet his mouth again. His back still hurt, but under Joey’s sure hands the soreness melted away leaving him spry and happy. He almost purred as Joey stroked him, and to make sure he wasn’t the only one getting what he wanted, reached for Joey’s growing erection. Joey moaned and kissed him harder, running his fingers through JC’s silky mane.
“I’m so glad you did this,” JC said when Joey let him come up for air. “I don’t want to go back home. Just this. I just want this.”
“We don’t have to go home yet,” Joey said, flicking his tongue in JC’s ear. “We’ve got plenty of highway left.”
JC laughed in pure delight, wrapping his arms around Joey and snuggling up to him, realizing that maybe for the first time in his life he was expressing something in life as perfectly as it had existed in his mind.
“Thank you,” he whispered to Joey. In response, Joey just kissed him.
End.
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