Title: City Rhythm
Author: Granitite Stone, granitite@yahoo.com
Disclaimer: If they were mine, would I be writing fanfiction?
Rating: R
Distribution: Ask and ye shall receive
Website: Choose Your Poison at my sister's site, who's nice enough to host my stories. https://www.angelfire.com/weird/cobalite/index.html
Author's Notes: Written for the Slash Across America contest, at http://www.ehnsinkink.com/ Joey's POV on Nsync's current situation in comparison to their competition's.

//When my heart is torn apart,
By the love I wish I had,
Well, I spend my nights in the city lights,
And things don't seem so bad.
I'm up, I'm down, I'm lost, I'm found
But somehow I survive,
It's got to be that New York city
Rhythm in my life.//
~ New York City Rhythm

Chris may be the old cynical one, but I can tell an ending when I see one. And what we have here, is most definitely an ending. No one is going to be able to convince me otherwise. Justin and JC get along long enough to write together, so we're not putting out a new album this year. We'll go on tour though, a smaller, scaled back tour, with less dancing. Mostly for mine and Chris' benefit, I think. That at least shows someone still cares about me.

We're at a turning point, and I can't see a way for us to keep it together. Justin will get his solo career, JC will get to write real songs for once, and not have to be pornographic to get attention. Chris has his expanding clothing line, and I'll always have the movies. And Lance, my Lance is finally going to fulfil his dream. He's going to be the first pop star in space.

And that, and not Justin's forays into rap, is what is going to end our little group. This is what makes us different from our founders, the ever lovely Backstreet Boys. They can get married, go into rehab, get arrested. Nick Carter can release a solo album that really isn't, and have their full support. Justin will have his with the rest of us kicking and screaming.

It makes me sick to think that this is going to end because of Lance, and it makes me feel old when he refuses to believe that this is OVER. Six months is a long time in an Industry where fans have a ten-minute attention span, even for the boy bands they love. They will forgive us our trespasses, because they can't remember we've made them.

More than a year ago, I watched the Buffy season finale with Chris. A story about dreams, and one line that has haunted me all this time. 'You think you know what’s to come, what you are. You haven’t even begun.' They think they know, but they don't. Is this the end, or isn't it? When last year's season rolled to an end, I missed it. I asked Chris what happened to the pretty blond savior. She died. Death was her gift. Breaking up, it would be good for all of them. Is that my gift to them?

Lance tries to convince me that nothing is going to change, and sometimes, I can believe him. Like now, when I ran home to New York during our break before the tour starts. When home, to a scarred skyline that fit my mood, a subdued city that will never sleep. I didn't expect him to follow, didn't expect him to care. But he's here, and he tells me everything is going to be fine, that nothing is going to change.

Here, in a New York with a barren winter and a starless sky, curled up together, him whispering reassurances into my ear, I can almost believe him. But then I remember.

Lance has always been a wonderful liar.

Questions, comments, and concerns about my sanity should go to granitite@yahoo.com
Choose Your Poison at www.angelfire.com/weird/cobalite/index3.html 
~ When I look into the mirror, and see a face I don't recognize, I am no longer surprised.