Disclaimer: NSYNC belongs to themselves, what they do with their lives isn't my business, and I sincerely hope that wherever they are, they are acting far more manly than I chose to portray them in this story. No offense or libel (is it slander? I always get those mixed up) intended. It is very likely that nothing like this has ever, ever happened.

Rating: PG-13/PG-15 for strong use of the 'f-word.' Oops!

Summary: Justin is the world's biggest drama queen, and normality depends on the person. Also, Joey has a one-track mind and a one-dimensional characterization, Chris makes truly awful analogies, JC wears pink flip-flops, Lance is straight and Justin misses Chris, JC, Joey and Lance. Especially Chris.

Warning: Slash so slight it could be considered mere friendship. There is also excessive schmoop because I haven't learned to write any other way, and Justin and Chris embrace their feminine sides.

Challenge: Patti Rothberg-"Inside", bathroom, NSYNC, Justin/Chris

Gold (Justin is a big girl)

***

Haven't done a thing today. I'm here, pathetically discontent in the bathroom of my suite, sitting on the edge of the bathtub with my cell phone clutched in my hands.

***

There was this time…it's funny. There was this time when the guys and I, we were in some unpronounceable European city, still young and green-little pop star embryos-and we were seven kinds of trashed. We were in our bus unsupervised and Chris pulled out his emergency stash of Smirnoff and Jagermeister.
Chris and Joey were always sloppy, happy, tactile drunks, draping themselves over the nearest warm body, smacking loud, wet kisses on the person's cheek and giggling madly over inane, tasteless jokes; jokes that started with words like, "So this guy I knew went to the proctologist because of a hemorrhoid in his ass…" And Joey had a distressing predilection for licking body parts after he hit a certain point in the night. Lance coined it his "infant regression stage," because when we were in public, we had to constantly stop him from putting anything female or items within his reaching distance into his mouth. Chris smiled widely, his face open and sunny in a way it never was normally, not back then when the weight of poverty still hung around his neck and the corners of his mouth like a boat anchor.

JC drunk was like JC squared. Completely random objects enraptured him. His eyes would be drawn inexplicably to the empty food cupboards next to the bunks for fifteen or twenty minutes, silently mesmerized, before finally asking us out loud for a word that rhymed with "malnutrition." ("Nocturnal emission?" Joey suggested) He also had a tendency to revert into the behavior Lou referred to as "fucking career- ending." By his third or fourth shot, he would have replaced his masculine, Pearlman-approved basketball jerseys and Nike's for t-shirts with phrases like "Slut" and "Boy Toy" written across the chest and pink flip-flops. (One of my fondest memories is of an early interview for the group when JC accidentally named the Philadelphia 69ers as his favorite professional team)

Lance drunk was a foreshadowing of the person he'd eventually grow in to. At seventeen, he was awkward and skittish, hair bleached beyond recognition and down home Baptist morals making him almost prudish. His face flushed hotly whenever Joey bragged about his sexual exploits or Chris leered at the bathing suit clad lifeguards on Baywatch. Lance when he had a few was loose and quiet, studying the rest of us from his position on the couch with cool, guarded green eyes and legs spread lasciviously apart. When Lance got drunk, he talked smooth and slow and his movements were deliberately sexual in a way they never were during performances. He never had any problems picking up women while intoxicated either. In fact, his main problem came from choosing between them.

When I got drunk, I was pliant and needy, wrapping my arms around whoever was convenient; lazily nuzzling my cheek and nose at their throats and encouraging them to run a hand through the curls on my head. In Europe I didn't drink often, because my mother was on patrol, and I was still too young to even get into the German clubs; so when I did it was almost always with the other guys within the safety of the bus or a hotel room. It was during those times that I really acted my fifteen years. The filter that usually worked so well at keeping my countless worries inside my head defected after my second drink, and as I preened under the hand that pet me ("Kitten," JC would say fondly, a hand rubbing my back), all of my insecurities would tumble out of my mouth.

I was fifteen years old on a bus riding through the middle of Holland, and I had lost count of the number of shots of Smirnoff I had taken. My head was tucked under Chris's chin, his hands trailing slowly over my arms that were still too long for the rest of my body. On days like those-when I was away from home and feeling it sharply every time I looked out the window-I always gravitated towards Chris because he never bothered to try and cheer me up, just put a hand on the small of my back and lit another cigarette. ("Those are really bad for your voice, you know," I admonished him once, to which he snickered, "Kid, my voice can stand to get a little gruffer. The worst that could happen is I start sounding like you.")

"If this doesn't work out, you'll never see me again."

There was a long silence, and I thought that maybe I hadn't spoken and my elusive mental filter had held out past drink six or so. There was a pregnant pause. ("How can a pause be pregnant?" I asked once during an English tutoring session. "Dude, Joey could knock anything up," Chris responded from his place on the couch.) Then Lance questioned, "If what doesn't work out, J?"

"This, us, our group," I answered, my words slurring the slightest bit, "We'll be back in the States in a few months, and that's what really matters, you know? This is practice or pretend or something. In the U.S no one is going to want another Backstreet wannabe band, and it will be over and you guys won't talk to me again. Cause it's my fault, you know? For not being great enough. Or whatever. Maybe I could go to high school and be a…DJ or something and remini…remember or whatever. My experience being, like, a child star. You know. To all my new high school friends. Or something."

Another long pause as the rest of the guys untangled my words in their own inebriated minds. Finally, after a few moments, Chris spoke, his mouth next to my left ear, but his voice loud enough for everyone to hear.

"So there's this guy I knew, right?" He began, and I could see JC tense up in front of me, expecting Chris to launch into another one of his half-assed, asinine jokes. "Anyway, this guy, this kid, he's like…gold. Golden, I don't know. When he walks, little gold flecks are left on the ground behind him. People are just…pulled to him, they can't help it, because they're so surprised to see someone made entirely of gold. There are some people who are part gold, 12 karats or something-but no one else so completely...

"Anyhow, he had this gift too, fucking Midas touch and shit, anything he even breathed on strong enough transformed into pure gold. Fucking fantastic to watch, let me tell you, like a magic trick. But it wasn't easy, turning copper and aluminum and straw into gold all the time, and the more he made, the more people demanded. Exhausting for the kid, who always tried to give people what they wanted.

"He had these friends though, platinum friends, whose lives he helped mold into gold. While he was doing it, he didn't realize that they'd all stopped caring about that part of him. And fuck, everyday can't be about work, right? Sometimes this kid's friends wanted to hang around with him, playing Mortal Combat and mini-golf and eating really bad German food, but the kid was so used to everyone loving him only for his golden touch that he couldn't see that even if it went away his friends would still…want him…without the…shit, I've totally lost the thread. You get that that was a metaphor for you and us, right?"

I snorted a little and nodded my head. Chris was never any good at being subtle.

"Ok, well that was me being sentimental. It happens once every five years, so there you go. You're a fucking maudlin drunk, Timberlake, you're seriously messing with my buzz."

JC took that moment to ask, "What rhymes with 'fear of rejection?"

"How about 'really big er…'" Joey managed before Lance put his hand up to stop him.

"That was far too easy," he reasoned.

Stretching, Chris pushed me off of him and reached out vaguely for the liquor on the table.

"Hand me alcohol," Chris demanded, holding his hand out.

Lance held up the Smirnoff in one hand and Jagermeister in the other. "Which?"

Chris shrugged, "Doesn't matter, I can't even taste it anymore." Lance passed him the vodka, and he took a long swallow of it before turning to Joey, "I'm sick of this touchy-feely shit. Let's go watch some porn."

"Because that's not touchy-feely?" I asked.

"It is," Chris agreed, "But in a much better way. Come on Joe, I'll even sit through the straight shit for you."

Joey shrugged and pushed out of his chair, body swaying unsteadily a moment before he righted himself and followed Chris to the back of the bus.

***

I haven't done a thing today. I'm here, pathetically discontent in the bathroom of my suite, sitting on the edge of the bathtub with my cell phone clutched in my hands. There are thirty-four messages on my voicemail. It is my day off today, and tomorrow I'll have to respond to these people. But tonight I've decided to pretend that most of them don't exist.

Message #1- "Hey Justin, it's Erik. I'm calling to get your opinion on this phat new beat I've put down. It goes something like 'da da dum chicka dum dum…' whatever man, you'll hear it when you come over. I'll be at the studio all night tweaking this shit out. It's dope, dude, you're gonna trip. Call my cell whenever you get a chance."

Message #2-"J, it's me. I have Lauren Tymchuck from People asking for a comment on a story that says you and Britney were seen kissing in the back of some New York nightclub. You need to keep me informed when you do this shit, J, I need to be able to cover your back. I felt like an asshole telling Tymchuck I'd get back to her. That was practically an admission, you know what I mean? Call me as soon as you get this so we can clear it up."

Message #3- "Justin, I'm letting you know rehearsal has been moved up an hour this Saturday because of some radio interview thing you have scheduled. So that's at two instead of three, same place and everything. Talk to you then."

And on and on, etcetera. I've only answered one message today.

"Hi Mom, how are you?…That's good, how's Paul?…I'm doing great, I talked to Erik and he has some new idea he says I'm gonna freak over, and Dylan and I were talking about the stage set-up today. Oh man, Mom, you should see this, it's gonna be great!…Ha, no, no, I'm fine. I kind of like the freedom of not having to settle every single idea between the five of us, you know? If there's some song that I think kicks ass I don't have to worry about JC saying it isn't 'edgy' enough or wanting to put some crazy two-step shit into it….Echo? Oh, I'm in the bathroom. I was brushing my teeth when I heard your message…Joey called you?…No, I'm not. I mean, I'm surprised, or whatever. How's he doing?…That's good. How's Brianna?…No, I haven't talked to them in a while, but it's cool, I could use a break. I'll see them soon enough…Ok, bye Mom, I love you too."

Not one from Chris or JC or Joey or Lance or Chris. Which is why I'm holding my cell phone now, staring intently at the caller ID every time it rings. I haven't talked to a single one of them for nearly five months now. I didn't think about this, didn't factor it into the whole "taking a break from the group" scenario. I know Lance is in space, Joey is on Broadway, JC is in the studio, Chris is in an RV and I am on the cover of magazines, but still. Maybe it's my idealistic, overactive imagination, but here is what I imagined: getting four am phone calls from Lance in Russia because he keeps forgetting the time zone differences. Having lunches with JC and talking about our new songs, maybe getting him to produce a few of mine. Phone calls from Kelly in the middle of a theatre during intermission gushing about how Joey finally nailed that line he's been having trouble with, and holding up the phone to Brianna so I can hear her babble into the mouthpiece. I still half expect Chris to knock on my door in the morning holding a bag of Krispy Kreme doughnuts and explaining that I am his next spot on his cross country trip. ("I don't know, Chris. I think I like Dunkin Donuts better," I made the mistake of admitting sometime during the first year or so. "Dunkin…are you kidding? BLASPHEMY! I know you didn't say that those cheap ass Dunkin Donuts are better than Krispy Kreme, which were my very lifeblood all through college and at Universal. I mean I know you didn't, because if you did I obviously couldn't associate with you anymore. That would make things so much more difficult for the group, but I don't voluntarily speak to crazy people--that's something you learn when you live in a car, kid.")

None of that happened. I used to get the occasional postcard from Chris from places like the Baseball Hall of Fame and Andrew Jackson's grave, and about once a month I get a mass email from Lance detailing his progress in Russia that is about as personalized as a form letter. In my head, there is a loop of that conversation I had with Chris when I was fifteen going through my head on repeat. It seems important now, because there are very few times I can recall Chris ever lying to me, his chronic bluntness making that almost impossible, but I think that might have been one of them.

Message #1- "Hey Chris, how's it feel getting your Kerouac on? And before you ask, yes, I know who Jack Kerouac is. I had to read On The Road for my second tutor, the horn-rimmed devil, remember her, you fucker? ("What did you think of the book, Justin?" She asked after I had finished it. "It was really messed up! Was he high when he wrote it or something?" I asked. She looked incredibly uncomfortable for a moment and pushed her purple horn rimmed glasses up the bridge of her nose before responding, "Um, yes, actually." "Huh. As an educator, do you think you should be advocating that kind of behavior?") Anyway, it's like eleven o'clock, and I got in from an interview with Entertainment Weekly about twenty minutes ago. Same old shit, 'Britney, Britney, Britney, and oh yeah, don't you make music or something too?' I have all day tomorrow off, and I plan on just sitting around and wasting time away, so call my cell whenever. I'll be home. Later."

Message #2- "Hey Chris. Justin again. I thought maybe if I called at five in the morning I'd catch you, I know the fucked up hours you like to sleep. I guess not, though, huh? Anyway, I couldn't sleep, so I thought I'd see if you were up to keeping me entertained. Obviously I'll have to think of another plan though, won't I? Maybe I'll order some porn. Oh, jealous now, aren't you? Ha. Ok, call me whenever…wait, wait, one more thing, really quick. Have you talked to Lance, JC or Joey? I'm only asking because I guess Joey called my mom. Like to talk. And not me. So whatever. Talk to you later."

Message #3- "Chris, so I have this red carpet fashion award show thing to go to next week, and I think it's funny, because every time I think about it, I remember that day in Orlando like three years ago when you and Joey held me down while Lance removed all the shirts from my closet and said he was 'saving me from myself.' Ironic, I guess. Thought I'd mention it. I've been thinking about you guys lately, remembering really stupid, insignificant shit like how JC would make all of us eggs and toast in the morning if he got laid the night before, and how you would always hide my shoes in your suitcases to see me freak out about where I left them. Unimportant stuff. So you're probably pretty busy learning about the world's largest ball of twine, or whatever the hell it is you're doing now, huh? So. Yeah. Call me back if you get a chance. It's, uh, two in the afternoon."

Message #4- "Four o'clock. I'm calling to clarify my last message. Because I'm busy too. There's so much shit to do here, Chris, it is unbelievable. Well, no, you'd probably believe it, I'm sure, having lived through it. You're doing stuff, and I am too. But, like I said, it's my day off and stuff. So yeah. I'm free today. Call me."

I am sitting here in the bathroom of my suite because it is the only room that I don't feel like I'm drowning in. The others are too big, making me become even more neurotically lonely. It's six o'clock, and I'm three hours into a bottle of Jack Daniels, my drink of choice lately. Sadly, I can't blame my nostalgic, overemotional behavior on being drunk. Over the years, I have learned to hold my alcohol fairly well, and this bottle of whiskey isn't even half gone. I know that I should be doing something constructive with my time. Get some exercise, jog a mile or two. Maybe I have been watching too many reruns of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on FX, but I feel like if I go outside in the sunlight, waning as it is right now, I'd catch fire and burst into ashes that would scatter throughout the piss and garbage-filled streets of New York City. Then, no doubt, one of the many reporters constantly following me around would gather the ashes up and sell them on Ebay for some obscene amount of money.

I have been trying to get myself back into gear by thinking about what Joey would say if he could see me now. ("Justin, instead of being a pussy, why don't you try getting some pussy? It's fool proof, a tried and true Fatone remedy for all ills. Trust me, it'll make a whole lot of things a whole lot better.") As tempting as picking someone up-male or female-would be, I can't seem to gather the energy it would take to actually get up and go out.

Anyway, I have always preferred to brood long and hard in times of sadness until the pain goes away. Kind of like when you have a fever and wrap yourself in blankets to help bring the sickness to a boiling point quickly so it can pass-I surround myself in my depression until it swirls all around me, overpowering every other emotion, then it breaks and the sun peaks out from behind the storm clouds and I'm ok once again. Self-pity is a terribly satisfying feeling in moderation.

The cell phone in my hand rings, and when I see the number on the caller ID, I am so surprised I almost drop the phone into the bathtub.

I take a deep breath and say as calmly as I possibly can, "What's up?"

I am greeted with a long-suffering sounding sigh on the other end of the phone. There is a brief moment of silence, as if he is getting his breath back after expelling it all in such a huge rush, and then he says:

"So there's this guy I knew, right? Might have told you about him, fucking spectacular, this guy, completely made of gold. Long, gold-fingered hands, gold arms, gold chest, curly gold hair on the top of his gold head. His whole life is golden, and even if sometimes some tin or aluminum or-fuck, whatever-gets tossed in, it's passed soon enough, and then it's back to gold as far the eye can see, for miles at a time. Problem is, this golden boy isn't walking with his friends anymore, remember the platinum ones? He's walking by himself, and he thinks his friends don't want to speak to him anymore because he isn't there to paint their hallways gold. What this guy has failed to see time and time again, though, is that his friends don't give a fuck about him making them perpetually gold. They like him anyway; he grows on you like a fungus or a really terrible new haircut. And furthermore, he isn't giving his friends enough credit, because they're not exactly inept and if they want to they can create some gold of their own. Of course the guy doesn't see that, because he's so fucking dense sometimes he makes me want to kick him in his head. He's so busy feeling sorry for himself that he wouldn't even believe me if I told him I was about ten minutes from his hotel room after having driven ten hours, or that I took off when I got those first two crazy messages from him on my voicemail."

I take a long pull from my whiskey bottle before answering him. I can feel hope creeping into my chest

"Once every five years, right?"

"Damn straight."

"You gonna use up those moments with the same fucking analogy every time or what?" I ask and I can hear him snickering into his cell phone.

"I choose the easiest possible method to achieve my desired result," he responds.

"Yeah, I guess."

I can hear the smile slide off his face as his voice gets serious. "Joey's been getting some really good reviews."

I rub my eyes wearily with my thumb and forefinger. "I read most of them."

"You never called him," Chris pauses a moment then continues, "Lance sends us emails every two weeks or so and you never respond to them."

"It would have been like answering back to one of those automated responses you get from Amazon.com that let you know your order has gone through," I defend myself weakly, though I have a sinking feeling I know where this argument is going. As I've said, Chris has never been one to dance around the issue.

"He's got at least thirty people who want to know what he's getting up to over there, you think he's going to write the same shit over and over to each of them? All you needed to do was write back. 'Lance, glad it's going well, hope you don't die up there. Justin.'"

"It felt like he was ignoring me."

"See, that's your problem, J; in your head you've made your life out to be some kind of weird J.D. Salinger-meets-Melrose Place melodrama. You against the world, everyone either wants something from you or disappoints you. Did you ever think that maybe the reason why none of us have called you is because we see you constantly in magazines and on Entertainment Tonight talking about your grand fucking life and how orgasmically happy you are to be on your own? Not to mention the small fact that you haven't called any of us?" Dimly, I can hear the sounds of girls screaming in the background of wherever he is. My head is suddenly pounding with the rapid realization that I might be a little bit of an asshole. "And if you thought even for a second that I could get on with my life without you, then you're an even bigger fucking idiot than I thought. I'll call you back."

The last part is said so quickly that I don't even have time to react before I hear the dial tone in my ear. Fucking Chris, this is exactly like him. I'm smiling for real for the first time in months though, and I stifle the urge to feel triumphant. Once every five years my ass. And he calls me a girl? That was two Chris-styled endearments in five minutes, and my face actually hurts from grinning so hard. Nerves are jumping around doing what, if I had to guess, is the choreography to "Bye, Bye, Bye" in my stomach and Chris is here, he's here and fuck it, I am a girl.

My phone rings again and I answer it without looking at the caller ID. "Hello?"

"The receptionist down here is a fan."

"Chris, the receptionist down there is a sixty year old man," I answer and will my stomach to please stop with the jumping and arm waving and resolute stomps of Finally Ending A Relationship.

"Well then, it might have been the money I handed him that he was so taken with. Room 804? I'm getting on the elevator now. I brought Krispy Kremes, because if I know you, you haven't eaten anything all day, and nothing says 'stop being a dick' like Boston Cremes."

"I'm in the bathroom."

"You're in…you know what? I don't even want to know. Wash your hands before you touch my doughnuts, you freak."

I can hear the door to my room open and shut quietly. It is amazing how much smaller the whole place seems to get. It's like I can suddenly breathe again. Is there a word for anti-claustrophobia? Claustrophilia?

"Hmm, bathroom, huh, Timberlake?" There are footsteps that are getting steadily nearer to where I'm standing, and now I can hear his voice in my phone and outside the door. "Is this locked?"

"No."

"Are you going to let me in then?"

I hang up the phone and take a deep breath before opening the door slowly.

Chris is standing in front of me wearing cargo pants and t-shirt that says 'Atari' on it, which may or may not have been Joey's at some point. He's holding the promised box of doughnuts. I am staring.

Finally, I raise an eyebrow. "What happened to the horns?"

"Eh, more trouble than they were worth," he glances pointedly at the bottle of whiskey on the counter, "Half a bottle of Jack on an empty stomach. I hear that's healthy. You trying to get back to your Tennessee roots?"

I shrug, "Something like that."

He smiles fondly at me and says, "You really know how to freak a brother out, J."

"You could have called me back."

"What, and ruined the surprise?"

I shake my head exasperatedly, still grinning widely, unable to stop.

"You hungry?" He questions a moment later.

I point to the box in his hand. "You brought doughnuts."

"They'll be here when we get back. I mean real food. We can go someplace. You need to get out of this hotel room. Or, hotel bathroom, as the case may be. Do you have a TV and little mini-fridge in here too?"

"No, but I brought my Jack, and if I got desperate I could have eaten the toothpaste." I don't mention that the only entertainment I had was staring determinedly at my phone, pretending to be God and demanding it ring.

"That's…disgusting, actually. And obviously a cry for help. I saw a Steak-n-Shake, and you know I can't resist their little fries. Let's go, I'll even let you pay."

I laughed and took a step forward, my head clearing away all the nastiness that had gathered there over the past few weeks. "Too fucking kind. You're a martyr, Chris."

"And don't you forget it," he steps over the threshold and into the bathroom and throws his arm over my shoulder, "Come on, J, let's blow this popsicle stand."