Written for the 100 Ways challenge
In Your Defeat
Phone. The fuck? Fuck, it's past 3am. Jesus.
"H'lo?"
No response. Breathing. Prank call? Motherfuckin . . .
"Y'don't talk, I'm hanging up, asshole."
More breathing. Heavy, but not loud. Air sucked in through the nose and forced out through closed lips, and you suddenly know who's not crying on the other end.
"Don't freak me out, J, just talk."
"Is there something wrong with me?" His voice is controlled and flat. "Like, fundamentally wrong?"
You take a breath. "This isn't the way to not freak me out, man."
"Do you love me?"
Oh Christ, what's happened? "Justin."
"She fucked around. With her ex." Still flat, and only you and five other people in the world would be able to hear the desperate edge underneath. "She fuckin . . ."
You can see him. He's on the floor, back to the wall, knees pulled to his chest. He's cold, but he's not shivering. That's how he gets.
"She came up here. Fucking . . . fucking one year anniversary. I gave her fucking lilies. All weekend, all smiling and laughing and I love you and shit. And she gets back to LA and she called me and she said."
You can see him. His face is white and still, his eyes shut against what she tells him. He'll get loud with Trace. He's quiet with you.
If he breathes before he speaks, you can't hear it. "So what is it?" he asks, he's so quiet with you. He scares you sometimes. "What about-"
"It's not you," you tell him, "it's not you, it's not you." He thinks it is. He always thinks it's him. "It's not, Justin. Jesus." Tomorrow you'll be able to say you'll take out a hit on Jared Leto, you'll say Joey knows people. Not tonight, not now. No sarcasm, no jokes, he's dangerous like this.
You still can't hear him breathe. You want to tell him to calm down, but he's calm. You want to make him laugh, but there's no laughter for this. You hold the phone gently, like you would hold him. "It's not you, kid." Believe me, you think.
"Remember Atlantis?"
The fuck? "Of course I do."
"We were trying, but it was hard, right, it was strained, it wasn't working." Ah. He's talking about Britney. You sigh, but not so he can hear. You wish you could lift him into bed and make him sleep before he thinks any more. "I was trying," he insists, and his voice is younger than he'll ever be again.
"I know you were. It wasn’t-"
"After the party, at the hotel? Do you know?"
At the hotel? Everyone was drunk, you had gone to sleep pretty much right away.
"I called her. Or she called - no. I called her. Back in the room. I called. She was home. It wasn't working. So I called. JC was there."
And you know about Justin and JC, of course you do, but you don't know this.
"I asked her." Low voice, and steady, inexorable, nothing's going to stop him telling you this. "It wasn't working, but it used to, and I wanted it to, so I pretended, and I asked her. What she would do. What she would want me to do. And I told her what I would do.
"When it wasn't working with her. Before she did it. Or maybe . . . I don’t know, maybe she fucked him before that." So cold, so fucking cold, so unhappy, so resigned. "But I wanted . . . I wanted it to work, and I didn't know any better. Not then. So I told her, because I wanted her there, but Jayce was there, and . . . yeah . . ."
You can see it if you close your eyes, but you're not gonna close your eyes, you're gonna keep them wide open, sure you are.
"I told her I'd lift up her shirt, slow, with my fingernails running up on her skin, and he did it to me, Chris."
You can see him. He's on his back on the wide hotel bed, one hand holding the phone to his face, the other hand over his head, clenched in a fistful of short curls. He's speaking to Britney as JC slowly drags the hem of his shirt up over his stomach.
"I told her I'd pull her shirt off and lean down, and lick, and when I told her, he did it to me."
JC licks at Justin's nipples, rough tongue over sensitive flesh, and he bites a little because he's JC and he likes to bite a little. Justin's mouth is open, breathing into the phone, and you can see him harden under his white linen pants, and you can see JC brush a hand over him, and jesus, you're hard too.
You hold the phone in both hands. He's hurting, that's why he's telling you this, he's hurting and you're not going to.
"He pulled off my pants, I didn't look at him, I was talking to her, I was telling her how I'd spread her legs and lick her thighs, and I didn't look at him when he did it, when I felt him, when he did it."
JC's tousled head is bent over Justin's lean legs, his hands skim up Justin's calves, over the muscles in his thighs, coming to rest on his hipbones. Justin tells Britney that his tongue is working her, and JC's tongue flexes and curls around Justin's cock. Justin's voice catches, and Britney thinks it's for her.
"I heard her on the phone, she was touching herself, she was making these little noises."
You know those noises, hers and his, you've heard them through hotel walls. You know JC's noises. You know everything. Even the noises you're trying not to make.
"I told her to touch herself. I told her to pretend. And he sucked me, and I didn't. I wasn't. It was him, it wasn't her, it was him."
You can see him. His legs are wide. His mouth is wide, he moans into the phone, but that's purely circumstance, because it's JC who licks his lips at the sound, JC who slides one hand under Justin's thigh, hefts it up, slings it up his shoulder, and Justin's toes curl in the air.
You can see them, you can see JC swallowing down Justin's cock, all the way down, as his hand slots neatly into the space behind Justin's crooked knee. You can see how the golden skin flows together, the bob of a head between legs, fluid and deliberate.
"I'd fuck her, I told her, and he."
And he did, and you can see it, when your hand closes around your cock, Christ, you can't help it because it's so fucking hot and wrong, what he's telling you, the words filling the air of the miles between you, the words painting the picture of JC sliding up, aligning himself.
"And I didn't want her to hear, so I."
Justin's hand reaches up, the one not holding the phone, and it eases over JC's burning mouth, muffling the harsh pants when JC pushes in, and Justin groans and Britney hears it, and it's for her, but it's not for her. And it's not for you either, and you don't kid yourself, because Justin's not getting off on this, and you're sick, but fuck.
"He fucked me, he fucked me, I wanted him to fuck me, I wanted to fuck her, what's the matter with me?" His voice is so ragged, so intent. "And I thought, I thought, but she didn't, and he did. He does. And you do, you do, right? Right, Chris? Right?"
Right. You do. You all do, you think, as your hand curves around your cock, slick steady slide matching JC in your mind as he strokes into Justin.
You can see him. JC fucks him, first slow and then faster, and Justin's clutching the phone white-knuckled, mouth so close he's practically licking it, hot little tongue running over his lips. Says something, something to Britney, about fucking her deep, riding her, yeah, but his eyes are open and he's looking at JC, and JC's looking at him as he mutters to Brit, as he pushes his hips up to meet JC's thrusts, he rises to meet him and they're moving together, as your hips arch up off the bed into the tight grip of your hand, oh jesus, oh god, they're so pretty when they fuck, you can see it, you can see them.
"You love me, right?" He's still not crying, not for real, but just a little, you can hear how his throat clogs with it. "I'm not bad, right, I deserve good things, I do, and he loves me, you love me, right, Chris? Right?"
"Right," you gasp, and no, just no, just no, just stop stop stop stop stop stop stop.
You stop. You bite through your tongue with the effort of stopping, but you stop.
"Chris?"
You taste copper. You can still see him. His head is bowed.
"Chris?"
You remember the first time you saw Justin cry. It was March 1997, and you had seen more of Germany than you ever cared to see, with show after show after show, and Lou ragging all of you tirelessly, his nasal voice like a whip across your backs. Justin broke in Steinheim, just for fifteen minutes backstage, had sank to the floor and refused to get up, the kid who wanted it more than any of you, had just sat and stared at the dust tracks on the floor with his elbows on his knees and tears in his eyes.
"Yeah, J."
You had cajoled and danced around him, threatening and pleading, there's no crying in baseball, dammit! Joey and Lance, on the other side of the stage, had been craning their necks, trying to see what was happening, what was wrong.
"I can't-"
"Sssh. Yes. We love you."
JC had come over, not even asking, not doing anything but crouching down, putting his hands over Justin's cheeks, broad thumbs swiping under his eyes. This isn't baseball, he had said quietly, looking at you over Justin's shoulders, and you had watched as he stroked Justin's face with one hand, brought the other to his mouth and licked the tears off, tasting Justin's weariness, swallowing it away. This is something you can do, he had said to Justin. And Justin had believed him enough to get up.
You can see him. You always could. But everyone sees him, and he needs to be more than seen.
"Justin. Justin. It's gonna . . . yeah, ok, do me a favor, kid. Give Jayce a call. Right now, ok?"
"C?"
"Yeah. Call him. Can you do that, you're gonna do that, ok?"
You can hear him breathe now. "Chris, I can't . . . that fucking bitch . . ."
"I know. You're gonna tell him. OK?"
Still breathing, and it's steady, anticipatory, god you love this kid, it's so fucked up, doesn't matter what happens or how much time passes, you're always gonna love him, and you tell him so, and you tell him JC's gonna say the same, and you don't say more than that. You can see him try to smile. It's not quite there.
You lie awake for a long time after you hang up the phone.