Spindle by MI
the You Are Not Your Fucking Khakis remix by Synecdochic

There's a spot on JC's ceiling that he can only see when he's got his head thrown back, his fists twisted in the sheets, and someone's face leaning over him, whispering blatant lies and affirmations into his skin. Beautiful, beautiful, pretty baby, pretty boy, always mouthed like they're giving him something, like there's something they have to give, like he lives for those little scraps of affection that a thousand anonymous strangers offer up to him like some kind of benediction. He wonders what they'd do if they realized that he doesn't need it. Not the way they think he needs it.

There's a spot on the ceiling, raised and uneven, a single nail-pop thrusting through the plaster or whatever they make ceilings of these days. He can only see it when there's a hand on his throat and he's fighting to get enough air to breathe. He always catches himself thinking that he should patch it, or call one of the thousand people that they keep around to handle shit like that, and then he forgets again until the next time there are thighs clamped around his neck and a cock in his mouth and he's spreadeagled and insensate and dirty and needy and desperate.

Someday, he knows, the nail is going to push through.

JC can already feel it spreading through his knees and elbows, pleasant warning shocks that run through him and center in the depth of his belly, waiting for him to expand on them. There's promise there, and a slow deliberate intent. He can lose himself in that for a little while, shut up all of the little chittering voices that run a constant commentary of not good enough not smart enough not straight enough not talented enough not ever enough. "Joey worries too much."

"You should be nicer to Joey," Justin says, and twists his hand in JC's hair, pulling JC down to his cock. JC opens his mouth and breathes through his nose and gives himself over to it, gives up and gives out and lets go. "Joey's a sweet guy. He's worried about you."

He really has to get that spot on the ceiling fixed. Shoddy construction. Someday the whole damn place is going to all fall down around his ears while he sleeps. "Fuck Joey," he says, and then his mouth is too busy to say anything at all.

*

He's noticed Joey's concern, of course. It would be hard to miss. But once Justin points it out, it's suddenly everywhere, Joey looking at him with that looming lurking patriarchial disapproval. JC's hated the for-your-own-good excuse every time anyone's ever used it on him, and this time isn't any different even if Joey hasn't come out and said it yet.

Joey's sitting in his living room a few weeks after he moves in, while Britney straddles Justin's hips over on the couch and rocks back and forth. Their heads are together, and they're cooing over something inane, and JC wonders how long it's going to be until one or both of them crack, because he can see the fissures that they've both tactfully agreed to ignore.

"They're pretty happy, aren't they?" Joey asks, quietly, and JC thinks with a sudden and blinding clarity he doesn't see it, he's the only one in this room who still believes in forever. Joey sees what he wants to see when he looks at Justin and Brit. He's bought into the media's perfect-American-love-story mythos that's been constructed around the Golden Couple, and he's trying to get JC to see what he sees, trying to get JC to admit that there's some sort of benefit or possibility or plausibility in that perfect happily-ever-after sort of setup.

JC leans over towards Joey, like he's going to confide some sort of secret romantic bullshit, and Joey's got this stupid smile on his face as though all it would take to get JC to come around to his way of thinking is one evening watching Miss Britney Jean Spears spreading her skin all over Justin's thighs. "After you and Brit leave," he says, the words hissing like static in his own ears, "he's going to bend me over this couch and fuck me until dawn."

There's a half-second down-beat, like the entire universe is catching its breath before starting the next measure. JC thinks that maybe Joey's turned to stone on his couch, before Joey swallows down what seems like the prelude to a coughing fit and tries desperately to act like he isn't horrified. Justin and Brit look over to see if he's okay. JC turns his head, unconcerned.

Outside the window, the lights crawl over the hills. Britney's long pink fingernails caress Justin's cheek when she says something about an early photo shoot and slides off his lap. JC finds himself wondering what it'll take to get her to dig those nails in deeper, scratch and tear and rend until she hits bone. Joey's excuses for leaving don't even reach the level of half-assed. JC stares at Joey's back as he lets himself out the door, willing him to turn around, and only feels a little flash of victory when Joey's eyes widen at the sight of Justin's hand on JC's ass.

*

Everyone who knows it has always described the music like a drug, that rush of standing in front of an audience that's screaming your name. JC isn't any different. It gets into his blood and takes up residence there, like the best high he could ever imagine. He doesn't take real drugs, never has. He's never needed them. All he needs is ten thousand girls bouncing up and down and yelling with one voice for the person he is when he's out in front of them.

They're in Boston and for that moment he loves Boston, he fucking loves Boston and every last person in it, he wants to open up his arms and make love to Boston until he sucks the energy out of it and it sucks the energy out of him and they collapse spent and shaking against the sheets until they're ready to go at it again. He can't stop grinning, and everything seems haloed in a dizzying wash of bright primary colors, and this is it, right here, this is what he's always chasing after and oh, it's fucking amazing when he finds it.

Justin catches him outside the Green Room afterwards, pushing him back up against the wall, and JC knows that Justin caught it too, it was one of those shows that they all hit dead flat on and Justin's always ready to go after one of those. They've only got a second before they have to be out the door, but "later," Justin murmurs, rolling JC's nipples between his fingers, and it's a threat and a promise all at once. JC loves those the best.

Justin pulls back and JC's knees are shaky still from the adrenalin high and it takes him a minute to notice Joey standing just at the edge of the corner and watching them. "I was going to come and see if you wanted to go out," Joey says, as Justin lopes by him and they studiously ignore each other. "Or maybe stay in. Catch a movie. Something. I feel like I never see you anymore."

Joey's a good actor, but his smile's still off, tight and stretched over the frame of his face. JC shakes his head. "Sorry, man," he says. "Things to do. Sleep to catch up on. You know. Maybe tomorrow night, I don't think I have anything planned." He's already thinking of Justin's hands and Justin's skin and the way Justin's fingers on the back of his neck grind him down into the pillow.

Joey's shoulders slump a little. He's tense and angry, JC can tell; he knows that body language. "Fuck, C," Joey says, and reaches out a hand to catch JC's sleeve as JC brushes past him in the corridor. "You know you don't have to put up with this." He wets his lips, looking like he's searching for the words.

"Oh?" JC cocks his head to one side and watches Joey's mouth move. He wonders when Joey decided that Justin was the bad guy. "Put up with what?"

"With. You know. Justin. Treating you like that."

He's never seen Joey this much at a loss for words, like Joey's trying to avoid saying anything about it. Like if Joey says it, it'll be real. For a minute, he almost wonders how long he can stretch it out, how many euphemisms he can coax loose, but that game's only fun when the other participant isn't someone you have to share a life with. "It's really none of your business, Joey," he says, as non-confrontationally as he can.

It's not gentle enough, though, because Joey loses his temper and slams his palm against the concrete inches away from JC's head. That had to hurt, JC thinks. The thought trips something small and nasty inside his hindbrain. "Dammit, JC, he's using you," Joey says, and that just fans it further.

"Maybe he is," JC says. There's a brief rill of satisfaction at the look in Joey's eyes. "Maybe I like it. Maybe I want it. Maybe I ask him for it." He takes a step forward, and Joey backs up, step by step, retreating in the face of whatever it is that JC can feel crackling around him like a halo. "Maybe I like it when he fucks me. When he pushes me up against the wall and pulls my pants down around my ankles like he can't even be bothered to take the time to actually take my clothes off and he's fucking my brains out and --"

"Shut up." Joey's breathing is erratic, and his eyes are wide. "Shut up, shut up --"

"--and I don't even come like that, because it's over too quickly, and he doesn't even bother to check. Maybe I like that. Maybe that's what I want." It's snapping through his blood now, like the way it feels when someone's fucking him, like the way it feels when he can barely breathe. "Maybe I'm using him as much as he's using me. Maybe we're not using each other at all."

Joey closes his eyes. "Fine. Whatever. Go ahead, fuck yourself up, I don't care."

JC laughs and keeps advancing. "No, really. Come on, Joey. You wanna know about my fucked-up sex life? Is that what this is all about, you're worried about me? Worried that I'm not doing it right or something? Let me tell you, last night Justin wandered into my room just past midnight -- he's got a key, you know -- and he's got his cell phone with him, he's talking to Britney, going on about how much he loves her skin and how much he wants to taste her, just close his mouth over her thighs and lick --"

"Shut up," Joey repeats. JC has backed him up against the wall now, and he can see it around Joey's eyes, the look of the cornered rabbit looking for a way to get away. Justin never looked like that. The guilt gets worse, and JC thinks that he really should stop, but his mouth is on autopilot and he's talking before he can really register that the sound's still coming out of his mouth.

"--and he's telling her about how he wants to just spread her wide and breathe on her, rub his fingers over her clit, how much he loves the way she tastes, and all the while he's pulling off my clothes with the hand that isn't holding the cell phone, and he pushes me backwards over the bed and undoes his zipper and --"

It must have been enough for Joey, it must have been too much, because he twines his fingers in JC's shirt and shoves, once, hard. Joey doesn't know his own strength, never has, he's too busy buying into his own press as the fuzzy cuddly one. JC goes flying backwards, and as he stumbles, he steps across his own path and can feel his ankle threatening to give. All these years have taught him nothing if not how to fall without hurting himself, and he lets his body go limp, skidding backwards and seeing stars as his head cracks against the wall.

It's not enough to really hurt, just enough to stun him for half a second -- he's gotten far worse banging his head against the headboard of the bed -- but he bites his lip as he goes down and he can taste it, warm wet metallic flood. It's got to look far worse than it really is, because Joey's kneeling at his side before he can shake it off. "Fuck, man, fuck, C, I'm sorry, C, I'm sorry, fuck," Joey is repeating, over and over again, and his hands are strong and warm against JC's cheeks. "C, come on, open your eyes, I'm sorry, fuck, fuck, are you fucking okay?"

It's still under his skin, that show-high, and JC's shoulders twitch with it. He finds the whole situation outrageously, inappropriately funny, and he bites back the laughter and the sharp, edged arousal brought about by the taste of his own blood in his mouth. Joey's right up next to him, warm and real. He slides up to kneel next to Joey, one of his knees between both of Joey's, and the world has just that bit of halo when he opens his eyes. "I'm fine," he says, low and hypnotic. Joey's hands slip down to rest on his shoulders, inches away from his throat, and Joey rises up to his knees as though he were going to get up and walk away and then thought better of it. "You know what the best part of Justin fucking me is?"

Joey's swaying, just a little bit. Like a snake in the hands of a snake-charmer, JC thinks, and there, it's funny again. Joey licks his lips and clears his throat. "What?" he asks on a whisper, and his fingers twitch.

JC smiles, ever so slowly. "I had to teach him how to do it." His feet slide around behind him, his knees opening wide in the way he's knelt for a thousand men, and he tips his head back to expose his throat. Joey can't take his eyes away. "Do you want me to teach you, too?"

There's a minute, just a minute, when Joey's eyes meet his and JC thinks that Joey might say yes. Joey's hands slide over his throat, and he lets his eyes slit shut, exhaling on a noise that's more like a purr than a breath. Joey leans in, like he isn't even aware that he's doing it, and then something seems to spark in his head and he pushes back, rocking angrily to his feet and taking two quick steps backwards. "Fuck. What is with you? What the fuck is wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong, Joey," JC says. It must make an obscene picture, him spread out kneeling on the floor, just the barest trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth, flushed and high on it and waiting. He's almost sad that it's lost on Joey. "Nothing's wrong at all."

*

Britney flies out that weekend to meet up with the tour for a while. Joey and Lance aren't sure why she'd give up her own time off to trail around on another set of buses, hang out in other Green Rooms and order room service from other hotels, but JC gets it. Brit's on her own out there. She has to fly halfway across the country to find people who don't look at her like a meal ticket.

JC's always liked Brit, just like he's always liked Justin. They've both always been so good at being likeable. JC was too old to pick up the skill the way that they did. It's why they're the stars.

Some days he wonders whether or not Brit knows, whether Justin's told her. It's not the sort of thing you can bring up, and he doesn't really want to know the answer, not for sure. He already thinks enough about Britney and Justin together and naked, already wonders enough about whether Brit's got it inside her too. Chris doesn't say a word when he stumbles out of his bunk right before the 3AM refuel-and-Quickie-Mart stop to find all three of them sprawled out on the floor, reminiscing about the good old days. Brit and Justin are sitting cross-legged, trading the same childhood stories they've told a thousand times already, and JC's stretched out with his feet in Justin's lap and his head in Britney's. Justin's got one hand curled around JC's ankles, the pads of his fingers tight and bruising right under the balls of JC's feet. Britney's got her fingernails buried in JC's hair, loosely enough that she might just be innocently petting him and just tightly enough to pull. JC can feel the energy snapping between the two of them, like he's nothing but the wire to conduct the little electromagnetic impulses they're generating. It's one of his favorite places in the world.

Brit's right behind him as they pile off the buses like a litter of kittens. She lifts a hand to wave to Joey and Lance, and Justin catches that hand, bringing it to his lips and then letting it fall, their hands still twined. The sleepy teenager behind the counter doesn't even look up from his porno magazine as they descend, Justin and Brit chittering like magpies, on the deserted aisles and then all scatter like pool balls just after the break. JC picks up a bag of honey-lemon echinacea cough drops -- he's croaking a bit this week and wants to keep it from getting to the level of full-blown cold -- and then adds a box of condoms and some cranberry juice to replace the last of it that Chris drank the other morning. He can feel Joey's eyes on his back, but every time he picks his head up, Joey's looking down at the shelves and studiously ignoring him.

Brit's standing in front of the rack of candy. Her nails are blue this week -- JC painted them for her yesterday -- and she's got one of them in her mouth, worrying at the cuticle with sharp teeth. "Strawberry or raspberry?" she asks around her finger as JC walks by, and he stops.

"Out of gum?"

Joey's watching both of them from over the aisles. Justin and Chris are halfway across the store, doing something ungodly with the Slurpee machine. "Yeah." Brit lets her finger slip out of her mouth, slick and wet. JC thinks that she might have drawn blood. "You know," she says, seemingly apropos of nothing, "when I was fourteen, my mother fed me some bullshit line about there's all this propaganda about how everyone has all sorts of choices in the world, we all get to steer our own lives and decide on our own who we're going to turn out to be, but she said that's totally not true, we're all tied up in all the choices that everyone else makes for us and I should just get used to it early on and save myself a whole world of disappointment, that we are what other people make us."

"Yeah?" JC leans one hip against the candy rack. "What'd you tell her?"

Britney grins, just a quick flash and then it's gone. "I told her that I already figured that one out on my own, and let her wonder what I meant by it."

He really fucking loves this girl. "Strawberry," he says.

"Right," she says. She picks up two packs of wintergreen, then wanders over to worm her shoulders under Justin's arm.

*

JC loves when Brit's visiting, except that it means that Justin's all wrapped up in her. He doesn't begrudge them a minute of it -- let them grab it while it's still there -- but his own personal rules say that he can't pick up on tour. It's too dangerous. That's why he and Justin started in the first place, because Justin saw it and understood it and knew enough give him exactly what he needed, safe and secure. It humbles JC sometimes, that someone could love him so much, and he always feels guilty that he hasn't yet found something Justin needs just as badly so that JC can give that love back to him.

It's another one of the on-nights, and they nail the show, fucking nail it, every inch perfect and polished and everything they always hope for. He wants to go and throw himself at Justin's feet, or maybe at Brit's, wants to fuck it out or scream it out or bleed it out or just scratch at his chest and thighs until his skin stops itching and feeling like it's two sizes too small for him. He can't, though; it's part of their unspoken agreement. He's not going to get in their way, not unless they ask him to, and he knows that they won't. Or maybe someday they will, and that'll be when he knows for sure.

He hasn't showered yet, and the buses are delayed, and his hair is plastered back with sweat. He's in an old pair of Justin's jeans, one that Justin gave up on when the hole in the knee expanded to include most of the inner thigh as well, and he leans against the wall and slides down to put his head on his knees. The floor is filthy and the cool kiss of concrete feels fantastic against his overheated, half-bare skin. From where he's sitting, all he can see are his own legs; he's caught up by the weave of thread over thread. He picks at one loose strand with his thumbnail. The faintest smudge of yellow around his wrist, old bruises that are nearly completely faded, reminds him that he's going back to the hotel room alone tonight.

He knows that Joey's there by the sound of footsteps, soft shuffle of shoe dragging against floor, and he doesn't look up. "Yeah?" he asks his own thighs. "You want something?"

Joey shuffles his weight from foot to foot. JC wonders how long Joey's been thinking about it, whether or not his words last week have found a hold under Joey's skin and started pulling yet. Joey hasn't been sleeping. He'd feel bad about it, except he doesn't, not at all. He supposes that makes him a horrible person. "I'm worried about you," Joey says, but there isn't any conviction behind it. "You don't deserve to be treated like this."

JC picks up his head, and then pushes himself back up to his feet. Joey catches his wrist as he goes, and JC tugs back, just a little, just enough that Joey has to close his fingers more tightly and lean. It's not enough, but it's something. "You really still just don't get it, do you? You're not the knight in shining armor, Joey. You don't get to ride in on your white horse and pick me up off my knees and save me. The world doesn't work like that."

Joey pulls on his arm again. He's right on the old bruises, and JC picks up his head and hisses, daring Joey to pull harder, to push him and tear him and make him feel, give him a way to work out everything that's going to keep him from sleeping tonight. Joey lets go, drawing back with a world of hurt in his eyes, and JC could almost cry with the frustration that Joey still doesn't understand, still thinks that this is some kind of fucking self-flagellation over some fucking lack of self-esteem or whatever bug Joey has up his nose and can't shake loose. Joey's looking at him like he's some kind of hothouse flower, like he doesn't crave the way it feels when someone bites the back of his neck and pushes into him with nothing but spit for lube, and he can feel himself getting so fucking furious that it nearly overtakes the post-show high. "That's not what I'm trying to do," Joey says. "Look, you're my friend, I love you. I can't just let shit like this drop."

JC can see the fear back in Joey's eyes as he presses up against Joey's body, shoving him back against the wall. Rewind, he thinks: back to where we started all of this. Joey's skin is as hot as the concrete is cold, and JC feels thin, so deliciously thin, against Joey's solid weight. "It's not love when you try to only give me what you think I should want, Joey," he says. He can hear his own voice in his ears, each syllable slow and precise and deadly serious. "That's not love. It's self-righteousness. Self-delusion." He licks his lips. "Which are you more scared of? The fact that I keep pushing you away, or the fact that you don't really want to go?"

They're so close that JC can feel the soft whisper of Joey's breath against his cheek, can practically smell the fascination and wariness that's sheeting off him. Joey's got his eyes locked on JC's, and he brings his hands up to rest against JC's shoulders, half tensed to push JC away, half ready to pull him close. JC brings his own hands up to close around Joey's wrists, tight and hard. Joey breathes out, sharply, and rests his forehead against JC's. He smells like sweat and the sour tang of uncertainty. "Oh, God," he says, on a half-moan. "JC. C. I want to tell you something."

He pauses and licks his lips. JC wants to bite them until they break. Joey's breath catches again and he repeats, "I want to tell you something," like he's trying to pick through his head and find the right words to say what he doesn't even dare to think.

There's silence for a minute, stretching the few inches between them like a palpable third party to their conversation, and then JC releases his hold on Joey's wrists. It's going to leave a bruise, he thinks, looking down, and wonders if Joey can understand that this is what he sees when he looks down at his own skin. He laughs: because it's funny, because it's not funny at all. "I know you do," he says, and tries to keep the teeth out of his smile. "Joey, baby. I know you do."

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