Tell me how long See, I don’t care what people say See, I’ve been watching you Keep your thoughts right here Pull you close to me, you feel so nice I’ll be right here by your side — JC Chasez Justin remembers the first time JC ever kissed him. And he knows he’ll never, not in a million and seventeen thousand years, forget it. Or be unable to feel it all over him still. It was soft, padded lips and deep, sliding steam. It was a lot like touching your mouth to a gently leaping flame. It was the sweetest, sweetest, most deadly sin of all. “Mmm. I’ve been meaning to ask you if you minded, J,” he’d whispered, licking at the humid residue along Justin’s lower lip before he pulled away. “If you minded if I did that.” “I, uh, didn’t………I mean I guess I don’t……….mind,” Justin had answered back. Breathless and up against the wall. Surprised to realize/admit that he’d wanted that very kiss for so long now. Craved it. Awakened alone in the dark night with warm, sticky sheets clinging to him, to his groin, from dreams of it. “Why the hell haven’t you ever……….done it before?” It was right after The Betrayal by Britney. Right when he’d been so undone and depleted. So empty. So cold. The kiss of naked fire that wakes and earthquakes heat, over you, into you, and through you. Like that rising ball of fierce sun in the sky, arousing life, stirring energy, rippling warmth. “Oh. Well. Then maybe I could do it again. That first one was, whoa……….swell,” JC had rasped in response, voice hushed and longing and still so near Justin’s mouth, eyes heavy and low. “That would be……….coooool.” Justin had whispered the last word out in a long, slow drawl, adding invisible syllables and wanting JC to, oh please, do it again. Wanting it far more than he wanted to want it. JC had smiled, subtle and shaded, easy and hypnotic, and had leaned in and kissed him again, harder this time, with the warm push of hipbone into hipbone and the skilled brush of fingers over a burning nipple. “I always knew it……….You taste like mascarpone. And I love mascarpone……….So rich and tangy, so sexy……….leaves sweetness in my mouth.” Justin had been glad for the wall behind him then. It had caught him when the waves of those words had weakened him, when he’d felt like falling. Falling to the floor. Falling in on himself. He’d had to close his eyes because everything had amazingly turned to a hazy tint of deep scarlet. ~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~ Justin remembers the first time JC ever made love to him. It was right after The Kiss. Right after rehearsal one evening a few days later. He’d been with guys before in his time. Intimately. Sexually. But he’d never, ever done *that* with any of them. Made love. And he’d certainly never even come close to doing *that* with JC. Although he’d thought about it. He can’t deny that he’d thought about it. Secretly. Often. It was like submerging your whole body into that slow-dancing flame. Feeling it lick and sizzle at you with its teasing, scorching burns until it breaks over you with its full-body smoldering-intense power and fills you up with its thick numbing heat rather than engulfing and consuming you. He’d been sure the earth had moved. Very sure. Hokey, over-the-top analogy, yes. But he’d been sure. The earth had fucking twisted on its axis, and he’d had to grab at the soft cotton sheets under him to keep from slipping into a crack in the center of the planet. He’d also been sure that this was the JC he must have more of, wouldn’t be able to go without now. Now that he’d tasted the one-of-a-kind, exotic, forbidden fruit. And he’d been quite sure then of another thing too: that he’d forever have that reddish imprint of the Leo pendant seared into the flesh just below his right collarbone. Like an omigod reminder. Like a sweet-delicious souvenir. Like a tingling brand of possession. He’d known that night what it was like to waltz with a hurricane, to have made love with fierceness and lie in bed afterward, like a beautiful stricken deer. “Please let me stay, Jace,” he’d straggled out in short winces when he’d found his breath again, and lifted his hand to feel those messy dark waves of hair in the dense shadows, spread across his bare abdomen, a long smooth arm draped over his thighs. “I know you hate giving up your privacy and personal space and all, but……….fuck……….please let me stay.” The ebony silkiness had tickled Justin’s skin when JC moved his head. The graze of soft lips and puffs of hot breath had spiraled out in loopy, sensitive curls over his flesh again. “I won’t let you go, J……….now that I’ve finally got you here……….I always thought you should be here……….and now you are……….So yeah. Stay. Please.” The voice had been cottony, cloud-like. Full of promises of warm, spring rain. And Justin had lowered his eyelids and sighed. He’d stayed. With a very big, very devastating love. ~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~ Justin remembers the little things too. All of them. He flips through the catalogs of files in his mind and double-clicks on the sweet “little things.” When he needs to. Or when he just wants to. Which is always. It was a week or so into the mania of the “Celebrity” tour — a bit more relaxed mania than “Pop Odyssey” had been, but still mania, still stressing, still draining. They’d had a day off between San Jose and San Diego. He and JC had donned their hats-and-shades camouflage, rented a Jeep, and driven up the coast ‘til the world slowed down and shushed itself enough for them to stop at a run-down but reclusive small bar/café where they’d sat out back for an hour or two with burgers and beers. With the constant lull of the Pacific Ocean only yards away. And with each other. “Unwind already, J. What’s with the tenseness and angstage over there?” JC had asked and brushed a flip-flopless foot down Justin’s calf under the table. Justin had turned, to the touch, to the voice that was like soothing music drawing the anxiety out of him. “I’m okay, Jace,” he’d lied. Comfortably slouched in his chair, JC had smiled, with eyes colored more surreally stunning than the natural blue of the sky behind him. “Bullshit. What are you dreaming on over there, man?” “Nothing. Sorry. Didn’t mean to zone out to the moon, C.” “Yeah, ‘cause that’s *my* job, dude, remember.” Justin had smiled too, and he’d been speculating right then how there’s absolutely not enough time left in all the big ol’ vaults of time everywhere for him to be able to hear and see JC’s laugh as much as he wants to. No way. Totally not enough time for that. But he hadn’t said so. Not aloud. “I’m really fine.” “You’re really a liar, J. Now tell me. What’s up? What’s so tragical that it’s got you pulling the sad look?” “The ‘sad look’? I look sad?” “It’s your eyes, J. They say you’re tortured.” Justin had glanced down at his sunglasses on the table between them. “Tortured. Hmm. Maybe I should cover ‘em up then. For your sake.” JC had shaken his head slowly. “That won’t hid what you’re feeling. Not from me. You know that. Dude, don’t forget how we know each other inside out already……….how we have for a long time now……….even before we started doing *this*.” “What ARE we doing, Jace? What the fuck exactly IS *this*?” Justin had wanted to whisper, to beg. But he hadn’t. Because, whatever it was, it was enough for him. And if it happened to not be enough for JC, Justin hadn’t been prepared to find that out. Not yet. “So no secrets between us, eh?” he’d chosen to say instead. “Have there ever been?” JC had answered, and it had sounded delicate but deep to Justin, like a fabled voice from another dimension. “Reading my mind then, are ya?” “Don’t act surprised, babe. You do it too. Just one more talent we share.” Justin had shrugged. And he’d wondered why they hadn’t spent this gorgeous off day in their hotel suite. In bed. “I’m just over-analyzing the solo project thing, C. Like whether I can really pull it off and be successful on my own or not.” “You can. You will. ‘Cause, see, you’re……….the world, J. You can do it. You hear me? So stop tripping. And whining. It’s a drag, man,” JC had breathed out softly. Quiet pause and then even more whispery. “Thanks, Jace, for, you know. Everything……….And sorry. I’ll lighten up and stop bumming us out.” The never-ending waves of water had been the only melody around them for a few peaceful moments. JC had pulled his chair closer to the table and pressed his shin against Justin’s for a quick, warm second. “J, if you want to talk about it, that’s cool. I’ve got all day, man. I’m yours.” Justin had cut a sidelong glance and a subtly coy smile at him. “Are you? Mine?” “Maybe. If it’s acceptable with you.” “Damn. It’s just really frightening how much the answer to that fucker of an ‘if’ is *yes*……….Yes, it’s damn acceptable to me, Jace, as long as you keep making up your own vocabulary like ‘angstage’ and ‘tragical’ and putting up with my pathetic, self-absorbed drama. Oh, and the bring-down whining too.” The ragged sigh that had followed was generated by Justin’s rapidly strumming heart. *Mine.* “You just caught yourself a little mood virus, man. Don’t sweat it. And pathetic? Fuck, no. Not you. You’re just human. It’s natural to fret and worry. But, at the end of the day, I’m here. I got your back. Don’t forget that. ‘Kay?” Justin hasn’t forgotten. Not ever. Not any of it. Not the way that easy pull of JC’s gentle smile had made blurry for him the fine line between logic and magic. Or how it had felt like the ocean’s dangerous and dreaded undertow, dragging him away from the comfortable safety of the shore out into deep, intense, and fearful warmth that was scary as hell but that he wasn’t afraid of because it was somehow still familiar, as if he’d known it as part of him for his entire life. Neither does he forget this soft-spoken exchange: *“So no secrets between us, eh?” “Have there ever been?”* And when the bright explosion of it fires through his memory sometime later, he has to dash for the bathroom and puke up everything in his gut. ~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~ Justin remembers the first time JC wrung out his heart like a used-up dish rag and then walked away from him, left him completely alone. It was near the end of the “Celebrity” road trip, in Philadelphia. He and JC had slept in late and then ordered at least half of the room service menu, which they’d shared between the two of them. In bed, of course. “I think I could fall the fuck back to sleep, J,” JC had whispered, his voice light and airy above Justin. “Don’t let me stop you, babe,” Justin had answered, his cheek bristly and warm against JC’s sleek, nude hipbone, his fingertip tracing lazy-eights on the skin of JC’s long, lean thighs. The same thighs that had been damp with sweat and wrapped around Justin’s waist minutes earlier, clutching desperately and rising further and further up Justin’s slick back muscles with every grunted, gasped, whimpered, sighed thrust. “Catch a nap if you dig. I want to just lay here……….and listen to you breathe.” And that truly had been all Justin wanted to do. Then and a thousand times just like it. “Can’t. Gotta book. Shit. What time is it?” “It’s hours before sound check, Jace. What the fucking rush?” Justin hadn’t liked the nervous tremor under the flesh of JC’s inner thigh nor the responding sharp twinge in his own stomach. JC had shifted his body and slithered around with fluid ease on the tangled sheets until he’d flipped Justin onto his back and hovered over him, the Leo pendant sliding down off his shoulder and dangling just above Justin’s chin. Those ever-changing eyes — which, Justin had learned to recognize, would deepen to a dusky royal blue when JC was sexually satiated — had driven heat into him with slowly blinking eyelashes. “I almost forgot, J. I’ve got an appointment, something I need to do, something I promised. It’s no big thing. I’ll catch up with you over at the Center, ‘Kay?” Justin had lain there, feeling helpless, and swallowed, and, for the second time ever, had seen the world around him through a lens of burning-red. This couldn’t be happening, he’d screamed in his head. It couldn’t be fucking real. *“No big thing.” Fuck.* Sometime during the week before, he’d overheard Chris and Lance dicking around and ragging JC backstage about his “Philly fling” and asking him if he was going to “hook up with that piece of ass like usual” on this breeze through town. “Yeah, man. City of Brotherly Love and all that good shit. Take it where you can get it, right, C?” Lance had chided and rumbled a laugh. “Dude. More like City of Backdoor Lust for Chasez and his little fuck buddy. Ain’t that the way it’s gonna, um, go down, C?” Chris had jabbed and heehawed too. Justin hadn’t turned toward them, hadn’t wanted to let on that he’d heard the inane chatter. And the only reply he’d caught from JC had been a guttural, snippy, “Fuck the both of you assdorks. You only *think* you know shit. Go. Away. Now.” So Justin had decided to write it off and forget about it entirely. Because, really, how could Chris and Lance be aware of something that private about his JC when he didn’t know dick about it himself? Hell, he hadn’t even heard any ridiculous rumors about it. Therefore, there couldn’t be anything to it. Yeah, he’d dismissed it right away. Okay. Until now. “Are you going to meet somebody, Jace?” he’d asked, gravelly and smoldering, his mind and his pulse trying to outrace each other inside. “Sort of. Why?” JC had laughed and reached up to finger the crimson teeth marks, his own, swelling at the base of Justin’s throat. “Hey. Sorry ‘bout this, babe. Looks like it might leave a bruise.” Justin had flinched away, and “Don’t fucking touch me” had echoed in his head. “Who?” “Nobody you know, J. Why? It’s nothing.” “Are you going to FUCK him too?” Justin’s back molars had clenched tight, and he sat up on the mattress to move backward into the pillows, his eyes alive with tiny blazes. With a disbelieving stare, JC had retreated as well, to the side of the bed, naked and standing. His cheeks beginning to simmer with a flush, and no longer laughing. “Um, what?” “I heard ‘em, Jace. Kirkpatrick and Bass. They were giving you hell about your fuck friend. The one in THIS city. How many MORE are there, Jace? Huh?” “I……….I gotta go, J. This is……….I can’t……….This is too fucking intense.” JC had almost choked on the whisper. And, with cold dread, Justin had watched him turn and grab his jeans off a nearby chair. The dark denim had already been pulled up loosely over the slim hips by the time Justin was able to still his pounding heart enough to force any more words out of his chest. “You’re not even gonna fucking deny it, JC? You’re just gonna drop a bomb like that and leave?” “I can’t, Justin……….can’t talk to you when you’re like this.” “Well, how in the hell am I SUPPOSED to be, JC? Bouncing off the fucking walls with joy that you’re leaving me to screw around with somebody else?” “Justin, don’t. I have to go.” “Fine! Fuck you then. I hope dude gives it to you good and hard. Just the way you like it. What a fucking loser I was to think I was enough to keep you satisfied. Fuck me. No, fuck you! Fuck you to hell!” JC had yanked the T-shirt over his tousled head carelessly as he’d sauntered to the door, the door that would take him away. Then he’d turned gracefully and stepped all over Justin with his beautifully-iced, steel-toed eyes. “I’ll ride on the other bus to Hartford tonight. Then I’ll stay in my own room when we get there. See ya at the Center. Try and have a good show.” With the sound of the door latching closed, something brilliant-hot had soared through Justin. And then every small, not-nailed-down object on both nightstands next to the bed had soared through the room as a result and had crashed on vicious impact with the wall. “No secrets between us, huh, asshole?” he’d hissed and twisted knots into the pillow with his fist as his stomach twisted knots in him. “Well, fuck you and your secrets.” He’d barely made it to the bathroom before falling to his knees and retching out everything he’d just eaten. His portion of at least half the room service menu. ~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~ Justin remembers the little things. More of them. There are so many. Such as how impossible it had been to focus on asinine sound check questions that afternoon or how difficult to ignore the concerned glances Joey, Lance, and Chris kept exchanging between himself and JC on that huge, bitter-cold stage. Such as how much he’d wanted to pretend JC wasn’t standing there — way the fuck over there, safely away from him — or wanted to pretend that a hurt so bad hadn’t filled him up and made him feel like he might burst. He remembers grinning like a fool too much up there in front of everyone — his little accommodation to a shattered heart, his perfect cover-up for aches inside he didn’t want to speak of but couldn’t stop thinking about. He remembers pretending he was actually a normal person. And he also remembers Joey hopping a ride on his bus that night and wrapping big, warm arms around him on the small couch and cradling him while he sobbed like a baby. While every layer of him that was peeled away left him trembling for a little while. He remembers Joey smoothing a palm up and down his back and telling him that he really should reconsider punching any more holes in the flimsy doors to the overhead storage compartments on the bus and then telling him what a kicked-up, energized, awesome show it had been back in Philly when he’d known good and damn well how much it had sucked ass. Sucked ass because the “lead chemistry” was dead and on ice. “Aw, c’mon, Ju. Don’t say that. It’s not dead. You’ll work it out with him.” “Nah, man. It’s croaked. He can have his man whores. He doesn’t need me. Fuck it.” “He does, Justin. And you need him. Now whether you both *want* the same shit, you know, want things to turn out the same way, that’s for you two to figure out.” “I want *him*, Joe. More than everything.” Joey had held him and brushed over his thick, short hair until he’d stopped shaking. “I know, man. I know. And soon, after your record takes off, you’re gonna have lots of other shit you’re gonna want too. When you hit the big-time and make that super-nova status, dude, you’re gonna explode. And you’ll have lots of choices to make for sure then.” “I’ll still want him.” “But is that what C’ll want, Ju? You gotta think about it. It’s a lot of shit. And he’s a different breed of animal, you know. You both need to be on the same page when that tidal wave of fame hits you from all sides. I’m just saying. Give it some thought.” And Justin had. ~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~ Justin remembers the first time JC came back to him. He smiles with the seduction of the memory. Because it’s a lasting one he’ll never forget. Never. It was around 3:00 p.m. that next day, and all was quiet in Hartford. Isn’t everything always quiet in Hartford? Fuck. Justin hadn’t known. He hadn’t much cared. He’d just laid there in his hotel room — in the middle of the wide-ass queen-sized bed that was far too big for one solitary body, legs drawn up slightly, pillow hugged to his chest. It had been near 70 degrees outside, but he’d still pulled a blanket up around his chin to fight off the ugly chill that kept creeping into his bones. If Joey had rung his house phone one more goddamn time to check on him, he’d been sure he’d bash the thing against the wall into a zillion tiny cruel pieces. Which had been exactly how he’d felt inside. “Justin.” The silver-toned voice had been whispered from out of nowhere, and it had been the single voice Justin wanted and needed to silence all the other hundreds of voices in his head. The gentle touch had been warm, sliding over his cheekbone, a sweet and familiar caress. But still he’d been sure he was dreaming. “Justin……….babe……….Don’t hate me.” Slowly, he’d opened his sky-blue eyes. To the talking dream, the gorgeous illusion crouched next to him on the bed. “I don’t hate you, Jace.” “I wasn’t leaving you.” “But. You did.” “I didn’t……….Shane’s a friend of mine from D.C. We’ve known each other for a long-ass time, since high school even……….He lives in Philly now, and the thing between us has been for awhile that if I came through town and we were both unattached, we were friends with ‘benefits.’ Sexual ones. Sure we fucked here and there. But, at the end of the day, it never meant anything more than just that. Fucking. We were always still just friends. That’s all.” “Great.” Justin had sunk down further under his safe haven of bed linens. “Sounds like a lovely fairy fucking tale. Pun intended.” “Justin.” “What?” “You’re a sulky, stubborn ass.” “Why didn’t I ever know about this Shane fucker before now, if it’s been going on so damn long, Jace?” “‘Cause you were always otherwise occupied being up Britney’s twat 24/7. You didn’t have time. That’s why.” “You could’ve told me.” “Justin.” “What?” “I’m telling you now……….Look. I met up with him yesterday to give him the lowdown on *you*, to let him know I’ve found somebody……….somebody special.” “Somebody special.” “Yes. And he was in shock and happy as fuck……….that I’d finally landed your ass after having a major jones for you for all these years.” Justin had shifted so that his face was no longer covered. “Then you didn’t. With him.” “Justin, babe, think about it……….how well you and I know each other……….There was never really anything to tell……….No. I fucking didn’t. With him…………Now wake up, you spoiled, pouty little fuck……….Damnit, I love you.” Justin had paused, closed his eyes, breathed deeply a few times, and wet his lips. “Are you sure you’re in the right fucking room?” “Yeah, babe. Your room’s the only one they ever give me a spare keycard to. They come with warnings now, by the way. I think it says ‘Sexy-ass, Crazed, Jealous Maniac’ on it today. Oh, and ‘Beware harsh language and hurling objects. Enter at your own risk.’” “I didn’t hurl a damn thing ‘til you were gone. How do you know that?” “Justin, give me a break. Because I just know.” “Jace?” “Yeah, babe. Even after all that shit?” “You’ll stay?” “Yes. I’ll stay. I don’t know how to leave you, J.” “I don’t want you to ever figure it out.” JC had laughed and touched Justin’s unshaven face again. “Interesting side effect to this little passion-play psychodrama, babe.” “What’s that?” “You being so insane and jealous and possessive really stokes some fires down below for me, man. Turns me the fuck on.” Justin had found the cocky half-smile for one side of his mouth. “Do we have time? Before sound check?” “Babe, we’ve always got time for that.” “Then move your ass. Here I am waiting.” And as JC had shimmied out of his clothes and crawled into the cotton, warm-afternoon Timberlake bed, Justin had sighed when the hot, lithe body surrounded him again. “Damn, I love this……….Damn……….I love you.” ~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~ Justin remembers the little things. Such as the red, red wine. It had been in May, after the tour had ended, after they’d taken a short breathing-room break from each other — JC off to the Kentucky Derby with Chris and Joey while Justin headed to Lynn’s place in Tennessee. They had decided to go away to the sunny seclusion of Cozumel, just to wind down and get their heads back together before Justin threw himself full-throttle into the song-writing process for the new CD. “If I have to hear *that* damn song one more time, man, I’m gonna self-combust!” Justin had hissed through a snicker as they made their way between the palm trees from the beach back up to the cabana bar responsible for the random piped music. “Hey, now. Don’t be hating on my boys UB40, dude. I dig this one,” JC had laughed and kicked sand at Justin. “But do they have to play it on the loud speakers *everywhere* we go? Nine hundred times a fucking day? Jeez. Is it the national anthem around here or something? UB40 *did* do other songs, ya know.” “Ah, but this one’s got that island-y reggae groove going on, mahn.” Justin had snickered again and bumped his shoulder against JC’s. “Island-y, Jace? Creating words again, mahn?” “Yeah. Island-y. And tropical-icious. So shut the fuck up, smartass……….Besides, it’s some kick-ass getting-busy music.” “Oh.” Justin had slowed down and slipped his shades up onto the top of his head. “Then let’s get some.” “Some UB40 tunes? I’ve got plenty of their stuff, babe, back at home.” “Some red, red wine.” “I think Cozumel is more of a rum kind of joint, J.” “We’ll find some somewhere. Trust me, Jace.” And they had, as Justin remembers fondly. “Well, it’s not a ‘64 Merlot, but it’ll do, I guess,” JC had said quietly a little later, swallowing and swirling the blood-red liquid in his glass. “Mighty sweet, but okay.” After scouring the island for a decent bottle of wine, they’d come back to their bungalow and made love. Again. It had been unhurried and clinging and sultry, just like the weather there, and afterward they’d lain in their wicker bed that faced the sand and water and nothing else, wrapped around each other like the thick humidity wrapped around everything outside the open window in front of them. “Hmm. I kind of like it,” Justin had answered, propped on one elbow alongside the length of JC, who’d been slumped comfortably against a stack of fluffy pillows behind him. With their legs in a warm tangle together in the wrinkled sheets, Justin had carefully balanced his glass on JC’s toned and tanned abdomen and held it there. “For 45 bucks, it’s ripped. And I don’t even like wine shit.” “It’s giving me a 45-dollar buzz, man. What’s the alcohol content on this bitch?” That had been when Justin looked up at JC’s rosy cheeks and at the light music of his giggle. It had crossed his mind that they could stay there, like they were, indefinitely. Fuck a solo effort. Fuck everything else. He wanted to keep this going, this strong bond, to keep a grip on all the feelings they absolutely shared because it mattered so much that he stay close to JC. Close like this. “You’ve got some dripped on your mouth, Jace. You little pig.” “Where?” A pink tongue had darted out for a swipe or two. “No. Here. Be still,” Justin had whispered and moved nearer, heart pressing against heart, and dabbed a few red droplets from his fingertip across JC’s bottom lip. “I’ll get it for you, babe.” Leaning in even closer now, hot breath melting into hot breath, he’d slowly brushed the wine off with his tongue and then covered JC’s mouth with his own, tasting the sweetness of the liquid and the even deeper sweetness of lover’s lips. “Tropical-icious, Jace. Totally. We’ve gotta get more of this. I could develop a serious addiction for that flavor. I’m saying.” JC had been staring silently, still licking Justin off his mouth. “I think I already have me one, an addiction……….You’re, like, my strongest weakness, J. I think I never told you that before.” “Jace……….it’s scary, you know. Really fucking scary.” “What is, babe?” “The whole idea of making this new record all alone, how it’s gonna do, where it’s gonna take me, what it might do to you and me.” “So you’ve been in the over-analyzing tank again, have you?” “Only ‘cause of something Joe said a while back.” “And Fatone’s your emotional advisor now, J? Wow. That’s pretty fucking cracked out.” JC had laughed and turned to grab the wine bottle from the table by the bed for refills. “I just want everything to end up okay, Jace. I want *us* to end up okay most of all. I don’t want shit to change the way we are now. I don’t want to *be* the shit that changes the way we are now.” “C’mere. Lay down,” JC had whispered, replaced the bottle, and then opened his arms out to offer Justin the solace of his chest, the comfort of his heartbeat. “You fear too much. Relax. It’s all right.” Justin had folded into him, and he’d been so warm, Justin had tightened his grip on the glass he held at the sensation alone. “J, we can’t know what’s going to slap us upside the head on down the road. We’re not supposed to know. But, at the end of the day, we do our best and hope it’s good enough……….Your best will be better than good enough. Everybody fucking knows that. And when you get way up there, so damn high in the world and on top of everything, if things get scary, babe, just don’t look down. That’s all. You’ll be fine.” “I’ll be fine if you’re there, Jace. At the end of the day.” “Do I look like I’m going anywhere, man? I already said I don’t know how.” “Nobody learned you yet?” “I’m not trying to find out, smartass.” “I want some more wine, Jace. To drink to that.” “I just poured you some, Baby Diva.” “No. The other way, the best way……….off your mouth.” “Well, move your ass. Here I am waiting.” ~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~ Justin remembers everything, all of it. The good and the bad. And for the times when he’s unwillingly away from JC, for however long they have to be separated, he keeps each little special moving picture of memory close to him, always. Right by his side. ~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~ FINI
Were we together, before we got together
Tell me how strong
Have we grown together, since we’ve been together
No one else has ever made me feel the way you do
Think about it, it just make sense
We already know everything about us
It’s like I can read your mind
You don’t have to say a word
Let go all your fears
Just let ‘em go, just let ‘em go
We’ll stay up sipping on red, red wine
The red stays on your lips, my baby
I’ll clean them off with my lips, my baby
Give you all the love I’ve got to give
Right by your side
All through the night, so close to me