"Rain King is a book I read, but in this song I was relating it to me. Just someone who maybe pours out a little too much. Sort of a vision of excess. You know, just someone who does everything just a little bit to excess, like a big open wound of a person. For good and for bad, get yourself all over other people." -- Adam Duritz

When JC tries to remember the first time that he saw Justin, he can't call it to mind. All he can see is a tiny figure, already too adult for the body he wore, standing at the edge of one of the Disney lots at sundown, his too-large shirt plastered to his chest and his head tipped back to catch the raindrops on his tongue.

He lies in interviews, because he doesn't want Justin to know that he saw it.

*

"Do you think they're sleeping together?" Lance asks. He has his head resting against JC's shoulder, and his feet in Joey's lap. Joey and JC follow his eyes; Chris has Justin in a headlock and is attempting to make him say "uncle".

"Dani," JC says. "Britney. I don't think they would --"

"They're not." Joey knows these things. Joey always knows these things. "Never have."

Lance makes a thoughtful noise and rubs the side of his cheek against JC's skin. JC works his fingertips into the muscles at the base of Lance's neck. "What's their thing all about, then?"

"I don't know." Joey runs his hands over Lance's ankles. "I don't know if they do, either."

*

Sometimes JC thinks that the reason he sleeps so much is that he's storing up the sleep that the rest of them aren't getting.

He wakes up on the couch in the Quiet Room to find that Justin's draped himself between his legs like a blanket. Justin's head is resting against his chest, and his breathing is even, but JC knows that he's not asleep.

Justin smells like ozone and sunshine and the faint traces of detergent from the threadbare t-shirt he's wearing. "What're you doing?" JC asks. His voice is rusty with sleep, and he knows that he'll have to run through a few extra scales before taking the stage.

Justin doesn't move. "Listening to your heartbeat."

*

The sky is that ugly orange color that only happens when rain and pollution have hazed over the clouds and there's a city on the horizon somewhere to throw all those flourescent and neon lights against the backdrop of smog. The road is slick and grey and the bus keeps driving through puddles that don't look like puddles until the wheels touch them. JC can just see the lights of the refineries out of his window. He thinks they might be somewhere in New Jersey. They were in Pennsylvania yesterday, and they'll be in DC tomorrow.

He can hear Chris moving around out in the lounge. He's trying to be quiet, which means that Justin isn't awake, because nobody bothers trying to be quiet when it's only JC who's asleep, but JC knows Chris well enough to know when he's got a song stuck in his head and can't get it out except by singing along. Chris's voice is so much more beautiful when he thinks that nobody's listening to him and nobody's got a microphone handy. JC drifts back off to sleep with "yeah, but you love like you're desperate, you don't know what love is, and I thought if there was one thing I could give you, maybe it was this" twining through his ears and into his dreams.

*

Sometimes Justin shines in the darkness like an explosion. JC wonders who set him on fire. They all try to remember to draw their hands back before they get burned.

*

"So which one of them do you think has the cold feet?" Lance combs his fingers through JC's hair and watches Justin play with Chris's braids, across the room.

"Chris is scared that Justin would get tired of him in a few weeks." Joey leans over with a bottle of blue nailpolish, probably lifted from Kelly, and painstakingly applies it to JC's toenails.

Lance makes a little thoughtful noise. "Nah. Justin's all worried that Chris wouldn't be able to stop thinking of him as a little brother."

JC thinks that they're both wrong, but he doesn't know what the right answer is. He never has.

*

Sometimes JC catches Justin looking at Chris like he's a desert mirage that might disappear when Justin reaches out a hand. Sometimes JC catches Chris watching Justin underneath his eyelashes like he's everything Chris ever wanted. It's only a flash when it happens, and JC is never sure if he's imagining it or not.

*

They all protected Justin for so long that it took them forever to notice that Justin didn't need protecting anymore. JC wonders sometimes if he should resent Justin's brightness, until he remembers that fire not only warms but burns if you're not careful with it. Justin is so thin that you can see the light right through him if you squint your eyes right. Maybe that's the only way Justin ever sees the sun anymore.

*

JC comes awake in the middle of the night in his hotel room and spends the usual few minutes of disorientation before he remembers where he is and what he's doing. Houston, he thinks. Hot and dry and sticky all day, the kind of brutal heat that sinks in behind the eyes and won't leave until the headache is fully formed. He'd turned the air conditioner up to full before he fell asleep, and now he's shivering with that artificial cold that's gotten down into his bones and won't shake loose.

The door to the balcony glides open on noiseless rollers, and the slap of heat in the face actually feels good. It's not as dog-ugly hot as it was when the sun was up, thank God, but it's heavy and still, with no breeze to stir the air. His eyes automatically seek out the moon in the sky.

Someone standing on the balcony next to him clears his throat. JC nearly leaps through his skin before glancing over. "Justin," he says, and feels stupid, because of course it's Justin, even though it's the balcony of Chris's room. "What are you doing up?"

Justin doesn't turn his face to look over. His fingers curl over the metal railing of his balcony, and he's gazing distantly and distractedly over the city. "They need rain," he says, slow and even like a metronome. "It's so hot and dry here, it's like a brushfire burning through the smog."

JC thinks that if Justin didn't want to tell him why he was up, he could have just said as much without the small talk, but doesn't bother to say it. The warmth rising from the concrete of the balcony feels good underneath his bare feet. "You should try and get some sleep," he says. "We've gotta be up early for that radio thing."

Justin turns his head at that, and in the darkness, his eyes look like two small black diamonds. "I'll be awake in time," he says, and smiles. "Though I might need a hit of coffee or something."

The door slides open behind Justin and Chris pokes his head through. "You planning on sleeping tonight, J? Oh, hey JC, still up?"

Chris is wearing only a pair of boxers, and JC thinks that they may be Justin's. He wonders if Joey would still say that they're not sleeping together, and knows the answer is "yes" without even having to ask. "No," he says, "I woke up because the air conditioner was set too cold," and makes a tiny gesture behind him. "I'll just, you know, go ahead and --"

"Don't forget the radio thing in the morning," Chris says, absently, and blows JC a kiss across the space between them. JC's chest hurts as he turns back into the ice of his room.

*

In the morning, the bus's wheels leave a spray of water behind them, and they go slowly to avoid drowning the other cars that don't have the advantage of bulk and weight. The sheeting sound of waves of rain is loud against the windows. JC stops in the lounge on his way back to his bunk from the bathroom and sees Chris sprawled out on the couch, asleep with his head in Justin's lap. Justin looks up and gestures for JC to be quiet with one finger pressed against his lips. "If you wake him up, he'll move," Justin mouths, and JC nods. He thinks that maybe, he might finally be starting to understand.

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