Justin wakes up sometime in the pre-dawn hours of Sunday morning, hearing the echoed hiss of his own breathless gasp and smothered by utter thick darkness. Despite the definite chill in the room, he’s bathed in a warm sweat, and he can’t hear a solitary sound anywhere at all — not even the low, distant hum of the house’s controlled-atmosphere system (and that would be good ol’ central heating and air conditioning to regular non-wealthy, non-celebrity types, yo). This is the environment, he knows, that JC finds ideal for sleeping — soothing-cool and pitch-black. And that’s precisely why they do it this way — because JC likes it. Justin’s okay with it. No complaints. It’s just one more of the necessary little give-and-takes that fortify the foundation of their relationship, that keep the sweet-peace-and-harmonious-union machine oiled and running between them. Deep and unspoken, love is trust and compromise, yo. Sitting up in the wide bed now, Justin struggles to steady his too-rapid breathing rhythm and listens again for noise — any noise — somewhere in the sprawling, multi-leveled house. There’s absolutely, positively none. Zero. Zip. Nada damn thing. Not even the sure-fire sound of JC snoring softly beside him. Not even the sounds of Scottie scuffling around somewhere, getting into shit he shouldn’t be getting into to. Justin’s gotten very used to both of those sounds now, one perhaps more so than the other, and they’re equally pleasant and familiar riffs in the songs of his psyche. Especially when sleeping at night. He turns in the heavy shadows and gropes at the sheets on the other half of the bed. They’re bunched up and wrinkled, but empty and cold. They hold exactly nothing. Justin forces himself more awake, tries to clear his head, attempts to determine if he’s still dreaming or actually conscious, fights to not get alarmed. He’s done this before, been in this same situation. Several times out on the road during his solo-dom, he’s busted wide awake in the night into the silent tomb of his tour bus, into chilly, dark loneness. Into raw, vulnerable, unseen-by-most-even-closest-to-him regions of his soul he can’t bear to live in all by himself. Surrounded by millions, yet essentially alone. “Jace!” He rasps out through the blackness rather than switching on a bedside lamp or pulling a blanket up around him. Because that’s what he wants and needs — the light and warmth of JC. In those spooked nights on the bus, and now in his own bedroom. “Baby? Where’d you go? Jace?” he cries again, strains of fear and desperation lacing his high, thin voice. “I’m right here, sweets. Don’t blow a gasket or call 9-1-1, damn. I had to take a piss, man. But I’m right here……….And if I stumble on any fucking DOG toys still laying around on the floor here, somebody’s ass is gonna have some hell to pay, I’m saying, damnit,” JC grumbles quietly. Justin can’t see him, not literally, but he senses, in his mind’s eye, JC’s slow, sleepy swagger from the bathroom over to their bed — the way his raven mop of hair falls all over his head in a beautiful, chaotic mess and his day-old stubble casts shadows on the fine and defined features of his face, the way he absently rubs at his squinted eye sockets with a knotted fist and half-consciously and out of habit reaches down and fondles his exposed dick and balls before collapsing onto the mattress with a tired groan and slithering back across the sheets to snuggle once again into Justin. And he’s a lanky, lithe bundle of bright heat that molds around Justin instantly and instinctively. Just as Justin expects him to be, knew he would be. “I just freaked a little when I woke up and you were MIA.” JC writhes against him in the dark and kisses his earlobe. He snickers softly. “Jesus, Justin. Hysterical much? Next time, I’ll leave you a fucking note. Sorry I panicked you, babe.” “It happens sometimes when I’m out touring, away from home……….Middle of the night, I wake up, and you’re gone,” Justin explains in delicate whispers. “But you don’t come back from taking a piss and hold me like now, like this………..It’s a real drag. Depressing as fuck.” JC squeezes him tighter, presses into him harder. “It’s okay now, babe. You’re done with the road for a while. You get to go and become a fucking movie starlet next, J. You’re going to tear up that big screen, love.” Justin remembers then why it had been so deathly-quiet when he’d been slammed into stark consciousness a few minutes earlier. Scottie the dog is there no longer to make any noise. He lives with Lance and Jesse now. Happily. Justin shrugs into the pillows beneath them and murmurs. “Yeah. Whatever. But, see, you’re not, Jace.” “Not what, J?” “Not done touring……….And that’s why I think I picked up Scottie……….So I maybe wouldn’t miss you so damn much when you’re away.” JC swallows back a half-guilty, almost-regretful wince. Because he’s been thinking, see, mulling shit over, and he’s sure he understands a little more, a little deeper, about the thwarted experiment with Scottie now. JC had foreseen the addition of the wriggly, hyper, yapping puppy as one more entity to steal time away from the two of them, to eat up more of their precious solitude together. He’d envisioned inevitable pee odors and shit stains, ripped carpets and missing socks, hassling trips to the vet, disgusting flea treatments, and half-chewed dog treats in his sneakers. But Justin hadn’t foreseen or envisioned anything like that at all. He’d only looked at the rambunctious little animal as nothing more than something to keep him company on the road when JC wasn’t around, someone to love him unconditionally — like JC does. JC wishes for a brief second that the baby pup would leap up from out of nowhere, like he was always prone to do, onto the bed with them now, rub his disgusting velvety-wet nose on their faces, paw irritatingly at their ears, and keep them awake for hours with his boundless, annoying energy. Maybe he wishes that. Maybe a little. For Justin, he does. Yes. “Man, I feel like a selfish, heartless ass of a boyfriend, Justin. I should’ve been more understanding about the dog. I could’ve tried harder to adjust to the new living arrangements, as it were.” ’Cause, hell. Lord knows the damn puppy wonderchild that he was sure didn’t have any trouble doing that. Kind of like Justin always seems to adapt so easily to new shit. “No, baby. You shouldn’t have had to try at all. I’m, like, the selfish one for just throwing him into the mix of us without warning.” “J, don’t,” JC stops him with a finger pad to Justin’s mouth. “No second-guessing yourself. It’s done. Over. We survived, somehow, and now we’ve got funny-as-fuck stories to tell. Besides, good ol’ Scottie Hellboy is just across town. Dude didn’t go far. You can see his weird-looking little ass anytime you want.” “He’s not weird-looking, Jace. C’mon, baby.” Justin laughs gently, nestling into JC’s hot hug all over him. “Man, he was too! Is, I mean. Especially when he tries to skedaddle somewhere fast with those fucking one-inch-long legs of his,” JC giggles. “Hey, remember Thursday when he found one of the floor-length mirrors in the closet? The fucker went nuts, man! Yelping and jumping around and spazzing and wagging that lame excuse for a tail — all at his own reflection! Like a wild dog! It was crazy!” “Yep. That was hilarious as hell!” Justin says, chuckling too. “He thought it was another damn puppy in here with him!” “And he was like, ‘Dude! Who the fuck are YOU? If you think you’re gonna be munching up on MY motherfucking dog grub, then you and me, we’re gonna throw down, hoss!” Justin giggles so hard his stomach muscles start to ache. And he rubs the slick flatness of his abdomen against the slick flatness of JC’s. JC’s warm breath gusts out with his own snickers and ghosts over Justin’s cheek. “You got his picture doing that shit, didn’t ya, Jace? Own up to it, man. You did.” “Dumbass that I am, I have to say I couldn’t help myself. He was cracking me the hell up. I had to capture it. And how sad does that make me?” “Not sad at all, babes. And neither am I, you know, sad. Thanks to you,” Justin says, much quieter now. “I love you, Justin Trousersnake,” JC whispers at the steam from Justin’s mouth as he ropes their long legs together under the sheets. “Same here, baby. Love you……….and I love all the ‘stories’ we make together too. They’re like our……….secrets.” “Yes. So do I, J. Our secrets.……….Hmm. I love everything we ‘make’ together.” “Well, then, you wanna ‘make’ something else before we catch more Z’s?” “Ah, yessss. Let’ssss.” ~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~ After they fly each other to the desert side of the moon and back, sparkly stars and red-hot planets streaming past and banging at the backs of their eyelids the whole way, while they lay together in a jointed tangle again and slowly come down off their orgasmic highs, as sleep creeps into claim them for its own once more, JC holds Justin close in the darkness that surrounds them until he feels Justin’s strong, thudding heart wind down to a steady slumber beat, until he hears Justin’s breath come out in hushed rhythmic sounds, until he knows Justin is snoozing peacefully again. In his embrace. And JC knows then that it’s those times that Justin had described — when he’s out on the road and wakes up unwillingly into the solitary prison of a luxury tour bus that can provide him with all he could ever need except loving companionship, wakes up not just alone but desperately lonely too — that it’s those times when JC’s cell rings in the late-late-late night, with Justin’s small, soft voice shivering over the line, flooded with everything deep that he hides in the daytime, giving JC a bittersweet love song in earnest whispers………. “Jace, sorry to wake you. Just had to say I love you……….You’re the only one, baby……….You bring me balance to all the madness in my life.” And JC holds him even closer now, kisses his mouth, and eventually sleeps. “I’d build a road in gold just to have some dreaming ‘Cause dreaming……….Dreaming is free” ~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~ Justin is saying something, with lots of conviction in his voice and lots of animation in his face and hands, and, from behind his opaque sunglasses, JC’s watching him across the table. Not exactly listening to him — no, because, to JC, the whole little scenario here with them starring in it is transpiring in that eerily bewitching hazy-days soundless slow motion that reminds JC of some Pink Floyd mood lyrics: “I can see your lips move, but I can’t hear what you’re saying.” So, no, he’s not really listening. He’s comfortably numb just watching, just soaking up and drowning in all that is Justin Timberlake. It’s close to 1:30 on Sunday afternoon, and they’re finishing up brunch on the rooftop patio of some casual-chic place Justin had heard about — a place where they don’t have to worry so much about fans approaching their table, which is safely distanced from all the other tables out here and yet not too far away from the outdoor cabana bar where Lonnie and Eric sit guard, shooting the breeze and waiting patiently for their “clients.” The subject of Justin’s energetic ramblings, JC is pretty sure, is a debate on whether GOLF is a “real sport” or not. There had been an editorial in the newspaper that morning stacking the yays and nays on the matter, and it had ignited Justin’s volatile, soapbox-worthy opinions about the issue once again. JC’s heard it all before. So he doesn’t need to listen now. He can sit back in his comfy chair, relax, take in the sight of Justin, and let his own mental wanderings carry him away. Like a sweet, creamy, delicious dessert oozing down easily when the entrée is done. Because, really, c’mon. Face it. Justin seriously is quite stunning to look at, now isn’t he? Especially since he finally scraped that overgrown chinchilla, or whatever the hell kind of nasty wooly beast it was, off his jaw line and neck this morning. JC shudders at the dying memory of it, cringes at how much he’d truly hated the facial scruff and simply never bitched about it to Justin. Okay, not never bitched about it to Justin. But certainly kept irritated complaints to a healthy minimum, you know. Because, get real, it was gross, and it scratched his sensitive skin like a mofo, damnit. So good fucking riddance. He lets his eyes rest on Justin’s mouth across the table now, as it moves, as it contorts, as it forms perfectly lilting and often beautifully falsetto-ed words that slide wispingly out into the atmosphere like gentle puffy clouds. And sometimes when the boy’s talking, JC thinks, sometimes without even being conscious of it, thinks that it, that mouth, really does resemble a small crimson rosebud like he’d seen it described in some of those freaky fan fiction stories people write about them on the Internet. Lips made of sweet blood-red soft curves and plush texture, spreading open slowly and invitingly like the velvety layers of that rose, kissed by drops of dew that glisten on the outer petals. One of nature’s most exquisite offerings. Justin’s gorgeous-beyond-gorgeous mouth. “Dude compared it to fucking pro cheerleading, man! Can you believe that? He fucking dissed golf, said it requires no fucking skill or stamina or training, but fucking pro cheerleading for a big-ass sports team DOES? The fuck? Skill at what? Hoochies shaking their coochies? Um, fuck that!” Justin scowls quietly with his naturally lovely mouth, and the sound of it somehow filters coherently into JC’s dreamlike reality. JC nods, as if actually focusing and responding. Justin keeps going. Just as JC expects. “Who’s dude think he’s fucking kidding? He’s just all down with the beaver show ‘cause it gets his cockus erectus. Let him bring his can’t-write-for-shit ass out on the green with ME and go 18 fucking holes. I’ll educate the bitch on stamina and skill in fucking golf.” JC stretches out his long legs as he settles further into his chair. Through his pleasant brain fog, it occurs to him that the mimosas he’s been imbibing steadily (How many is this? Six?) may be contributing to this hypnotically good blur he’s experiencing. And then a slow, hot, sassy smile begins to creep its way across his sun-drenched features as he reminisces about Justin’s “stamina and skill.” The stamina and skill he’d educated JC on yet again earlier this morning. He recalls how he’d hopped up on the vanity’s counter in their master bathroom, wearing nothing but his trusty Leo necklace, and avidly watched with shiny silvery-blue eyes every detailed movement of Justin shaving his face. Every long, careful stroke of the razor’s blade, every fast flick of Justin’s wrist as he proceeds methodically, every sensuous stretch and writhe of the elongated muscles under the flesh of his throat. Every streak-quick flash of Justin’s bright eyes as they’d swung off his own reflection in the huge mirror and engulfed JC sitting next to him on the marble countertop — so lit up those eyes had been with the contagious smile from his lips, and so full they’d been of the spilling-over love in his heart. “You kinky little voyeuristic slut, Jace.” “Am I annoying you? Watching you like this while you shear yourself?” “Um, staring at me, you mean. Drooling. And in the fucking raw too, I might add. How’s that slab of marble feel against your bare ass, babe?” “Smooth. Warm. Hard,” JC had purred and licked his bottom lip. “So? Am I making you nervous, J? I just wanted to watch you, um, do the grooming thing.” Justin’s gaze had breezed over JC’s nude form quickly. He’d hummed a short sigh. Of want. “Making me horny is more like it. Sexy fucker. You do that without even trying, you know.” “Do I?” “Don’t be coy. Yes. You do. You even fucking breathe sexy, Jace.” “Okay. So sue me. ‘Cause you do the same thing. To me,” JC had answered, whispery still, his piercing eyes giving a mere hint of a petulant roll, and had opened his thighs a little so that the swelling appendage between them could rise and move more freely. Justin had gazed and swallowed thickly. “Hmm. I can see that.” And he’d whimpered as JC’s knee had brushed into the warm erection, there at counter level, inside his boxers. “I think I’m done here……….Let’s do sum’ing. ‘Kay?” “Ah, wait. You’re not done yet, baby. You’ve still got lather……….C’mere. Lemme help.” JC had reached for the nearest fluffy hand towel next to him and leaned over to soak it with steamy running water from the sink. Then, squeezing it out and holding it, he’d scooted closer to the edge of his perch, looked up at Justin, and smile-beckoned him forward, between those spread welcoming legs. Justin had let out an aching kind of moan with the feel of the hot, moist towel swabbing soap off his fresh-sensitive skin and with the feel of JC’s firm, rippling thighs under his hands. He’d moaned even louder and more desperately when JC had tossed the towel aside and dove forward for the softened, clean flesh of his neck. More swabbing. And sucking. And lapping. With a hot, moist mouth instead of the hand towel. “Jace……….baby……….please.” “You don’t havta beg, sweets,” JC had hissed into the side of Justin’s mouth, sliding one hand under the Jack Daniels T-shirt and up the flat, goose-bumpy planes of his back while tease-stroking his cock through the Calvin shorts with the other hand. “Let’s get these damn clothes off you.” “I’ve still……….got……….lather,” Justin had panted hoarsely. “I know. And I plan on taking care of it, babe. How’s that you say all the time? I’m, um, feeling you.” Justin’s gasping moans had turned to grunting yelps when JC had bent himself over double and proceeded to “take care of it.” Ah, yeah, the Timberlake lad had made some noises then. Some animalistic pleasedon’tfuckingstopdoingthat noises. Because, see, it’s one thing to find yourself as the denuded captive hostage of the sexual firestorm of JC Chasez — one of his hands grabbing and massaging your hipbone while the other splays open across and then squeezing the cool flesh of your ass cheek, fingers slipping into the hot crack and delving ‘til they find your little hole and arousing you more, his hothothot mouth sliding down over your hard cock, sucking and swallowing you in with those vacuum-like expert lips and jaws, wet slurping sounds sending jolts of heat straight to your tight balls, wavy vibrations bristling along your spine as he groans a hum up and down your rigid length. However, it’s another— way superior — thing entirely to glance up in this lust-smoked state and discover that you can fucking watch this sizzling little peep show — watch him leaning forward and sucking your dick, watch strands of dark curls fall over his shoulders while he works on you, watch silky beads of salt-tangy sweat pop out on his smooth, bare back, watch the muscles in his firm ass clench and relax with his own excitement as it raises up off the marble counter when he bends his body impossibly further down far enough on your erection to nose your damp pubes — in the fucking mirror behind him. Justin’s knees had weakened and buckled at the beautifully erotic sight. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Gold, frankincense, and myrrh too. Fucking hell. What the mpeg of this shit would net on eBay. Untold gazillions. Holy motherfuck. Justin had come quickly and forcefully. He hadn’t been able to help it. The multiple H.O.T. sensations of JC going down on him plus the rear view of it all happening had very soon proved too much to handle. He’d arched, groaned, and given JC the whole load. A warm, thick mouthful. Then he’d sunk to those wobbly knees that failed to hold him up any longer, slid between JC’s parted legs, latched onto JC’s ass from around behind, pulled his crotch closer to his face, and taken care of JC much like JC had taken care of him. With baby’s-butt-smooth cheek caresses to JC’s inner thighs rather than prickly-stubble beard burns while he devoured JC’s rigid, aching cock. And the breathy, hushed grunt sounds JC had been making above him had been enough to bring jerking life back to Justin’s own softening shaft. Promises of more sleek heat. Always promises of more sleek heat with JC. It had been, ah, sinfully divine. “Jace. Baby. Yo, did you hear me? Or maybe I’m flapping my jaws over here putting you the fuck to sleep. Is that it? Yeah, ‘cause I know how much you dig my retarded sports speak.” Justin breaks into the past of that steamy morning and pulls his quiet partner back into the present of that crisp afternoon. At the restaurant. “No. I heard you, J. Every fucking word. And you did NOT put me to sleep. Not you. Never,” JC grins, flashes of the memory still lingering in his mind like a sweet aftertaste in his mouth. “You were crack-heading out over the Scottster, weren’t ya, babe? Wishing we had him on a little leash here with us ‘round the table, tossing him some poached egg and a spot of French toast? Maybe some bacon too?” JC’s shaking his head and smirking, but he can’t resist laughing too. “Um, fuck no. Don’t even start.” Justin giggles slyly. “Um, fuck yes. I can see you buying him a cute little rosy-pink collar with sparkly shit on it and taking him out and showing him off with that big ol’ daddy pride. Maybe get him a little puppy sweater from Prada or something.” “Shut up, Justin. I’d do nothing of the sort. He’s a boy, for chrissakes.” “So? You are too. It ain’t stopped you from putting on the pretty stuff and showing off.” JC rolls his eyes with dramatic flair behind the dark shades. “I would NOT be dressing the dog up. IF we even still had him. That’s just plain stupid. So shut the fuck up with that. However, I CAN see YOU prancing into Gucci of London or Harrods, maybe, and spending thousands on ridiculous puppy bling for his ass or feeding him all that shit if he was here so he could, like, puke all over the Porsche’s leather upholstery on the way home. And you know damn well he would too. Most likely on MY lap……….Fucking little monster.” “Who? Me or Scottie?” “Both of you.” Justin chuckles again. “Aww, man. Dude’s bark was way worse than his bite, Jace. He was a real sweetie.” JC squints and sighs. “Bark? Are you living in the real damn world, J? You call that noise he makes a bark? Dude, it was just some lame baby squeak-toy kind of sound. Pathetic.” Justin purses his lips and cocks his head to the side. Gorgeously. “Nah, nah. Cut it out, baby. No posing here like you don’t care about the little feller. You’re the one just HAD to call over to Lance and Jesse’s pad this morning and check up on him. That was way adorable.” JC rolls his eyes again and fiddles with the car keys in his hand. “Shut up. I wasn’t checking up on him. I was only making sure they lived to tell about a night of being terrorized by the menacing little Hitler-Youth fiend.” “You miss him.” “Um, no. Not really.” “I think you do, Jace. Admit it. He got under your skin.” “No. He tore under my skin. Remember? Now stop bugging. Are you finished eating?” “Yeah. But not finished drinking yet. Can I buy you another mimosa cocktail, baby?” “Hmm. Okay. I’d like that,” JC murmurs and gives him a smile. “I’d like that a whole lot, yo.”