K: Okay, so title. Hmmm... One of the first things we came up with was the Justin cereal box scene and I think I was all "can we call it that pleeeeeease?" and kel. said yes and so there you go.

kel: As I said in my notes for this story, the title is from an Elliot Smith lyric, by proxy. Because Younger wrote a story called "Your Name on My Cast," with the title from an Elliot Smith lyric, and I always loved the title. So when K and I started talking about Justin and Trace and cereal boxes, a little light bulb went off in my head.

Incidentally, I'm pretty sure we came up with the idea for the cereal box scene during our second marathon phone call ever, on K's birthday. Since then, we've probably spent several thousand hours on the phone, and several hundred of them talking about Trace.

K: Originally this story was gonna be written with Younger, but kel. and I were way to impatient to wait for the gay cowboys to let her go, so we kind of highjacked it. Thankfully for us, Younger is gracious and came through with a lot of great scenes and a helpful beta. k8, she had to sit through me constantly talking about it for months and then! we made her listen to the entire story out loud at two a.m. after Striptified Hartford. Which was mean. But fun.

kel: And by "listen to the entire story," we don't mean "listen to the plot of the entire story." She read the entire story aloud. At, like, two in the morning. Poor, brave k8.

Trace is on the bus twenty minutes too early and he's bored. He always wakes up way before he should when he has a hangover and today is no exception. Justin's awake too, but when Trace wandered into his room, he was on his cell phone and concentrating so hard he barely noticed when Trace left. An interview then, or maybe Chris. Really, it could have been Cameron fucking Diaz, for all Trace knows; Justin listens intently to most everyone.

Trace drops his duffel in the middle of the bus lounge and scratches under his hat. He could wander around the lobby, but he doubts that would really be fun and he's not in any mood to pose for pictures. He sits down on the edge of the couch and looks around. The inside of the bus is all layers of beige-- the carpet, the couch, even the wall hanging things. Lynn says "sand" and "ecru" and "desert mist", but it's just beige and it makes Trace's eyes feel tight and sleepy. He stands up again, yawning and grabs the last cigarette from a pack of Winstons sitting on the coffee table. He looks towards the back, the bathroom, but wrinkles his nose and decides to just go back outside.

K: I was really het up about the beige. Don't ask me why, but it was one thing I knew right away-- lots of beige. We know Trace smokes Winstons because Younger checked this detail when we saw him at Striptified Portland. She and Older went and smoked near him and checked his butt when he dropped it. Not stalking, research.

kel: Not stalking, research. But, Younger was willing to sleep with let K pimp her to Trace if we asked her to. Why? Because she knows how to take one for the team, that's why.

It's kind of strange, Justin's smoking rules. He doesn't mind smoking, has in fact surrounded himself with smokers and bums the occasional cigarette at a party. But, he doesn't want to live with it, so it's not allowed on the bus. Trace doesn't really care. Maybe Lynn does, but he doubts it. Justin, though, he seems to feel kinda guilty about the whole thing, so he's decided they can smoke in the bathroom. It's like he's being generous and Trace appreciates it, but the bathroom's about three steps across and it's kind of like smoking in a phone booth.

K:We decided this early on-- the smoking in the bathroom thing. Lynn and Trace smoking in there together to avoid Justin was the genesis of the story, developed by Younger and kel. one random night. And then later we realized we'd never actually explained it, so this was one of the last parts we added.

Outside, the air is heavy and Trace can feel the dampness seeping into his already sticky skin. He probably should have showered before leaving the hotel. He lights his cigarette and sucks the smoke in harder than he has to. He thinks about sitting on the curb, but there's a spot of oil or something, so he leans against the hotel wall instead. He likes the places with private back entrances large enough for the buses. It makes everything a lot easier and makes Justin feel safer.

K: the whole Jacob the Jeweler scandal re: Kelis's engagement ring had just come out and I knew that Justin had bought the matching Trace watches there, so I figured that would be fun.

Trace wonders what time it is, other than early, but Justin sent their watches off somewhere to be appraised, so Trace just smokes, pulling polluted air in and out, his throat still aching from last night. He coughs, spits in the oil spot and tosses his cigarette to the ground, not even half-smoked. When he first started smoking and didn't have the money or i.d. to buy cigarettes very often, he never threw one away without finishing it, it felt too much like wasting something special. He smoked them all the way down no matter what, until Justin would swat his hand and say 'you're gonna smoke the filter'."

K: My best friend does that to me. Completely stolen.

He climbs back onto the bus and goes to the stereo where he replaces Marvin Gaye and a CD-R marked "JC" in neat black marker with Kid Rock and turns it up until he thinks the candles on the little built-in end table are shaking. He goes into the cramped kitchen area and searches through the fridge. There's nothing appealing in there, but there's an entire cupboard full of cereal, so Trace fills a bowl with Cap N Crunch and Cocoa Puffs, drowns it in milk and sits down on the beige leather couch.

kel: K would like you to believe that she's an unrelenting font of negativity who hates JC and his music, but she wrote this part! She thinks that Justin would listen to JC's tracks! I don't know why I note this, but it amuses me.

He's done and sprawled out, feet hanging off the couch, one arm thrown over his eyes and ready to go back to sleep, when Justin and Lynn finally show up, talking about whether Justin needs to see the waxer when they get to Dallas. Trace groans and moves his arm to cover his ear. He can still hear them and he groans again.

kel: I actually only just saw the pre-show footage from Justin's London concert very recently, but when we were writing this, K kept telling me about the part where Lynn says that as Justin's manager, she can take a step back and look at a picture of him and think "He looks really hot there," which is what she says she was thinking of when she wrote the part about Justin and Lynn talking about whether or not he needs to visit the waxer. And, oh, she was so right.

"I'm turning this down," Lynn says louder than she has to and the music gets quieter. Trace nods.

"Yo, what's up?"

Trace smiles up at Justin and attempts to shrug. "Hangover. You?"

"Radio interview. Same old."

Justin glances around and kicks Trace's bag towards the side of the bus. They both smile at Lynn as she heads back outside, waving her cigarettes in explanation.

"We leaving soon?" Trace toes his sneakers off and curls his legs up onto the couch.

"As soon as Mom's ready." Justin bends over and picks up Trace's empty cereal bowl, carrying it to the kitchen. "You going back to sleep?" he calls over his shoulder.

"Mmm...probably." Trace rolls onto his side and sticks one hand under the lighter beige pillow under his head. He sighs and closes his eyes. Definitely going back to sleep.

"Trace?" Trace opens his eyes and Justin's back in the doorway holding up the empty box of Cap N Crunch. "You finished this?"

Trace makes a show of scanning the bus before looking back at Justin. "I don't see anyone else here, man."

Justin sighs and purses his lips. "I mean, I don't care, but I really wanted Cap N Crunch."

Trace doesn't ask why he didn't order from room service, just blinks and sits up a little. "Sorry. You want me to go find more?"

Justin waves him back down. "No time."

Trace nods and closes his eyes again, starts planning a dream about Tara and Cameron and maybe that other Charlie's Angels' chick. But, he can still feel Justin watching him so he opens his eyes. "Yeah?"

"Just, when we sent the list you said you wanted Cocoa Puffs and Wheaties. If I'd known you wanted Cap N Crunch too, I would've asked for two boxes."

Justin would buy Trace a diamond watch for every day of the week, but he's getting testy over cereal. Trace grins and wonders if he can get away with closing his eyes. "Sorry," he says again.

Justin stares at him and shakes the cereal box. Trace can hear the paper inside crinkling against the cardboard. "Oh, dude. I know." Justin's eyes widen, seeming brighter somehow. Trace tries to look interested, but his head is actually starting to hurt now, so he doesn't know if it works. "We'll put our names on the boxes. That way we'll remember whose is whose."

Justin's smiling and looking satisfied, so Trace nods. It's possibly not even a crazy idea. Relatively. So, "okay" and Justin disappears, mumbling something about Sharpies. Trace just nods again and closes his eyes as Lynn walks back onto the bus.

**

Another show, another after party. "After the show is the after party," Trace hums under his breath as he weaves his way through the club. He's glad Justin isn't there because Justin always makes a face whenever Trace sings along with R. Kelly on the radio and not just because he's not very good at pretending he doesn't think Trace can't sing.

kel: Lise loves the R. Kelly "Ignition" remix, and because she knows I hate it, she used to call me whenever she was in the car and it came on the radio and hold the phone up to the speaker.

Also, I was drunk when I wrote this scene. I was drinking vodka tonics, though, not Jack.

Trace thinks that even if a guy ends up being a fucker, that doesn't mean his music magically stops being all catchy and shit. And Justin still listens to Michael Jackson anyway, which Trace thinks he's actually going to say the next time Justin makes his R. Kelly face of pain. Even if it means having to hear for the four millionth time how Michael is really great and completely sane when you spend time with him in person.

Trace has a Jack and Coke in each hand. When a girl with small breasts but really broad shoulders brushed against him, he almost spilled them all over his pants. He glared at her, because for the money he paid for the two tiny glasses that were mostly ice, he could have bought an entire bottle of Jack and maybe a six pack of Coke, too. But Justin likes to go out, and whatever anyone else says, Trace isn't an idiot, he gets how it works when it's not his money.

By the time Trace makes his way back to Justin, there's a girl trying to plaster herself like flypaper to his side. Justin's shooting Trace tortured "help me" looks and Trace is never really sure what to do in these situations, so he just hands Justin his drink.

The girl has red hair and a top that might actually be a bandanna tied around her chest and not just a bandanna patterned halter-top, Trace isn't quite sure. He's pretty sure if she leans forward any more, she's going to fall out of it, though. He thinks she looks familiar, but when she says, "Hey, Trace," he's still not totally sure if he's supposed to know who she is or if he's someone she's supposed to recognize.

kel: This is a little thing, but I was totally fascinated with whether or not Trace thinks of himself as famous.

"So, anyway," she says, turning her full attention back to Justin, "my theory is that every kid, growing up, every kid had a place where all the kids went to get stoned, and fool around and stuff, and either you were a kid who knew where that place was or you weren't."

Trace thinks that's not really a theory, but a totally obvious observation. K: ha! I love this line. I can say that because kel. wrote this part. Justin's nodding big, and Trace knows that means he's not listening at all. "Yeah, totally, yeah," Justin says, and Trace snorts a little bit behind his drink.

"So, uh, where was the place when you were growing up?" the girl asks, because there's no question what category Justin was in, apparently.

"The field behind the library," Trace says.

The girl barely turns her head toward Trace and doesn't turn her body at all when she says, "Oh?" And then, completely predictably, "what about you, Justin?"

"Trace and I grew up together," Justin says, smiling widely, "and we used to skip out on last period in junior high and go to the field behind the library and, yeah. I don't know if that was, like, the spot, though." He laughs, and anyone else would think he was bored, not nervous, but Trace isn't anyone else, so he just watches Justin swirl melting ice cubes in his glass.

When Trace was in high school and Justin was in Germany, the spot where all the kids went and smoked out and fucked around was the old bowling alley parking lot, but when they were in junior high, they used to sneak down to the field behind the library and smoke pot through a Coke can.

kel: This is something we keep coming back to, the way things were different after Justin left.

Trace is never really sure exactly how stoned they got, because they were thirteen and not really sure how to inhale, but after two bowls they'd both start laughing their asses off and leaning into each other like shade trees. And so maybe it was the pot that made Justin start reaching for Trace's pants, that time and that other time and that one time, too, but maybe not and it's not like Trace can ask.

Justin says, "Yeah, like a bulldog or something," in response to who the fuck knows what. The girl laughs, but that doesn't necessarily mean that Justin was being funny. Trace smirks and takes a sip from his drink. He's trying to make the nine bucks last as long as possible, but the longer he waits, the more watered down it gets. He probably won't even get drunk tonight.

He doesn't think about it a lot and when he does think about it, it's at totally weird times. He could shout, "I've jerked off Justin Timberlake," right now in the middle of the club and everyone would stop and look at him and only him. But he wouldn't and he won't, the same way he stopped going to the bowling alley when he was in tenth grade because a bunch of the kids thought it was funny to get their dogs stoned, and that wasn't cool because the dogs didn't have a choice.

kel: So I mentioned in the posting of the story that I stole a bunch of Trace's characterization from the birth mother of Dan Savage's adopted son as written in his book The Kid. And this is one particular thing that I stole, the thing about how it's not cool to get your dog stoned because the dog doesn't have a choice.

I feel like the characters are similar in a broader sense than that, but it's hard to explain. It has something to do with the fact that she's a homeless street kid and she's giving this middle-class gay couple a baby and there's a little bit in the book about the way that they have a really hard time relating on a monetary level, like, she never has any money, but she's also giving them something that they can't possible pay for.

So I guess the best way to explain the similarity is to say that in the Justin/Trace dynamic, Justin is the one with all the money, but we wanted to show that Trace actually has a lot of the power, and somehow they make it work, because the things that Trace gives Justin are really priceless. Not that he gives him a child, per se, because this isn't mpreg --

Did I mention I was drunk when I wrote this?

Justin doesn't have a choice in a lot of things, either, or at least he tells himself he doesn't. Trace gets that.

K: This random snatch of conversation is great and something I always mean to add to my repertoire of non sequitors.

Justin says, "We always kept the peanuts," and the girl practically laughs herself sick, but Trace isn't listening, because sometimes he jerks Justin off, when he's drunk or stoned or just bored or lonely or horny or whatever reason happens to be lying around. And lately, sharing a bus out on tour with Lynn taking the bed in the back room, "because a lady should have her privacy," it's been happening a lot and sometimes they don't even bother to come up with a reason. And Justin thinks that he doesn't have a choice but not to talk about it, and Trace goes along with that, it's not like it really matters one way or another.

What matters is that Trace needs another drink. "You want?" he asks Justin, noticing that his glass is a pool of pale caramel melted ice.

"I'll come with," Justin says, and he slides away from the girl and bumps against Trace in a movement so fluid it's like he could have gotten away from her at any time. "Drinks are watered down for shit here, aren't they?" Justin says, and he slings an arm over Trace's shoulder.

There was a girl, sitting in front of the sound booth at the show tonight, and she had a fake flower in her hair and a wife beater and she kept turning around to make eyes with him in a way that made her shirt pull tight against her breasts. But Trace doesn't remember anything else about her, just like Justin probably couldn't tell you what the girl just now was wearing, or what she looked like, or even what her name was.

"Should just get a bottle of Jack and go back to the bus," Trace offers.

"Maybe," Justin says, "maybe."

 

There's a roundabout in the center of downtown Millington. Trace isn't sure exactly what the point of a roundabout is, or why it's any different from a four-way stop, but some chick who had to take the learner's permit test four times told him once that once you were in the roundabout, you could go around and around and you'd always have the right-of-way.

kel: When I was traveling in July, I went to visit my old college roommate in her hometown, which is up in the Sierra Nevada mountains in California. She told me the roundabout story while we were driving through town and I actually called K at some point later that day and said, "Doesn't that sound like something Trace would do?" Which should give you some idea of the level of Trace obsession that we were rocking this summer.

Also, we spent a long time trying to figure out if we should call it a roundabout or a rotary. K says they call them rotaries in Maine and I said I'd never heard that before and neither of us could figure out what they call them in Tennessee. I ultimately convinced her that "roundabout" was more self-explanatory, so we left it like that.

When Trace was in high school and he got himself a bunch of friends who weren't Justin and weren't anything like Justin. They drove downtown late at night and ran circles around the roundabout until a car came along and started honking. They went around a couple more times and then peeled out into the night.

Justin came out with them once, when he was home for Christmas, back when Trace could still introduce him as his friend who'd moved to Florida. Justin thought the whole thing was dumb, though, and Trace felt like he had to make excuses for why his friend from Florida was so lame.

K: He was so lame! I love this picture of Trace without Justin and how he functioned and what was different and all that. Even if it's just a glimpse, I love it.

Trace hasn't thought about any of that in years, but he thinks of it suddenly as Justin says, "let's get out of here," just as Trace is lifting his finger for more drinks. They walk out of the bar and people part like a forked creek to let them through and Trace thinks that the reason Justin never thought the roundabout game was funny is that Justin's the kind of guy who's gone his whole life thinking he has the right of way.

But that's just Justin, which is the kind of truth that's so obvious that Justin ought to be able to write it into a song.

When they get back to the bus, Justin says, "let's just watch TV," and Trace shrugs, because, whatever.

Justin flips through all the sports channels long enough to absorb the full highlights package, and then flips to MTV Hits. Beyonce's new video is just starting and Trace watches her rack while she struts. Her tits are small and hard underneath the little white tank top she's wearing and they don't hardly bounce at all.

kel: One of the things I really like about this story is that I feel like it's very timely with it's pop cultural references and that the references aren't just things that either of us like but things that we think that Justin and Trace would like or at least be exposed to on late night MTV. Sadly, it's probably the only story I'll ever write that will be this referential, because it's the last story I wrote while I still had cable television.

She's bending up over herself like a pretzel or a really energetic stripper when Justin says, "I hate this part, she's a good dancer, I don't understand why she thinks this looks good."

Trace shakes his head. "Dude, it's hot, who cares?"

"Yeah, I guess so," Justin says. Trace braces himself for the story about how Justin kissed Beyonce once at a party when he was nineteen, but Justin just watches the TV.

They're sitting at opposite ends of the couch, but after a little bit, Justin stretches out his legs. "Sore," he mutters, like Trace even asked.

It's Eminem on the TV screen when Justin slides over to sit next to Trace. Trace keeps watching the video, and he can hear Justin humming along, but out of the corner of his eye, he sees Justin tip his head against the back of the couch and close his eyes. He's not drunk, Trace is positive, and so if the hand that reaches for him is clumsy, it's only because he's tired.

Trace keeps watching TV as Justin fumbles with his pants, because sometimes if he looks over at Justin while he does this, Justin makes a face like he's been caught doing something wrong and inches back to his own side of the couch.

Justin manages to get Trace's pants unzipped with his left hand and now he has four fingers mostly tucked inside his fly. Trace got half-hard just thinking about Beyonce's tits, so Justin's fingers are nice and warm and welcome, and Trace arches up into it a little bit and sighs.

Justin draws Trace's dick all the way out of his pants to get a better angle, and Trace is never sure where to look during this part, because straight ahead feels rude but down feels weird. He turns his head in toward Justin, but since Justin's got his head tipped back, he's not looking into Justin's eyes but at his neck, craned back and stubbly -- usually he skips shaving when they wake up on the bus.

Justin's fist moves up and down in quick time, just how Trace likes it. It figures that Justin gives great handjobs, even though sometimes Trace thinks that he's the only guy Justin has ever jerked off. That's not true, can't be because Trace knows about everyone Justin's ever fucked and some of that everyone are probably guys, but still sometimes Trace thinks it. Sometimes it feels that way, which is awkward in ways that Trace ignores and accepts at the same time. Trace wants to push up hard into Justin's hand, but he doesn't, because he'll probably fall asleep when this is over and he wants to make it last.

Trace had this girlfriend right after high school who thought it was hot to carry on a conversation while they fucked. Not, like, talking dirty, just regular shit, the weather, her customers at work. She was a waitress and she'd push him back on the bed and lower herself right on his dick and the whole time she'd be telling him about some asshole who sent his steak back for being too dry and then only left a two dollar tip.

Trace thought it was kind of annoying at the time, and he could never keep up his end of the conversation as well as she wanted. But he thinks about trying it with Justin, sometimes, wonders what would happen if he said, "The new Radiohead video freaks me the fuck out," out of nowhere, with Justin's hand wrapped around him.

K: I take this moment to note that said Radiohead video is damn freaky. Like, for real. With birds and Thom Yorke's creepy eyes. Ugh.

kel: She might have mentioned two or twenty-six times how much she hated the Radiohead video (it's the one with the birds) freaks her out. So I put it in the story to torment her.

Justin starts swiping his thumb across the head of Trace's dick and Trace hears his own breath come out in a shutter and he doesn't give a fuck about the new Radiohead video, because Justin's hitting him in all the right spots, playing him like a fucking guitar, and and and --

-- and then Justin pulls back to four fingers, thrust and twist. He must want to make it last, too. Not like Trace can tell from staring at his Adam's apple.

Trace had sex with this girl, this groupie, who sat in front of the sound booth at the second Anaheim show. She seemed to know right from the start that fucking him wouldn't get her a chance to fuck Justin, and he'd liked that about her, that and the way that she giggled when she came.

So when she started to ask a question about Justin as she tugged her panties up under her skirt, he decided he'd give her a totally honest answer.

"I heard that he makes girls look him in the eye the whole time he's having sex with them," she said, smoothing her skirt down. "Is that true?"

"I have no idea."

"Yeah, okay," she said, like she didn't believe him but also didn't really care.

Trace really didn't have any idea, but it wouldn't surprise him, because Justin never looks at him when they do this.

Beyonce's on TV again and Trace hears it more than he sees her, denim hot pants and ruby red hooker heels hovering on the edge of his field of vision. Justin's thumb is in a full court press and Trace comes like he was on a timer, but it's hard and good, so what does it matter.

Justin wipes his hand on Trace's pants and it's annoying but expected, so Trace doesn't say anything. He's trying to figure out if he can reciprocate without moving when Justin stands up and pats him on the shoulder, reaches around so it's with the hand that wasn't just pumping Trace's dick. "Night, man," he says, and ambles off to the back of the bus.

And then Trace is just a guy sitting on the couch with his dick hanging out of his pants in an increasingly sticky mess with J Lo doing a soft-core remix on the TV. He snags the remote from the other side of the couch and starts flipping around to see if he can find any real porn.

**

The thing about touring that no one expects, not even Trace, is how quiet it is. They spend their time on buses or waiting around at venues and Justin doesn't really talk much. Trace figures that whenever he'd been on part of an NSYNC tour, it was sort of a special thing and Justin talked a lot more, but now Trace is a regular thing and so it's quiet. But, it's fine because Trace is pretty happy to just sit on the couch flipping through the TV channels and he finds the motion of the bus really soothing. He wonders if he was one of those babies who could be lulled out of a crying fit by a long car ride.

kel: There was an interview at some point this summer where someone asked Justin what the most surprising thing about being out on tour with him is, and he said something about how quiet it is. I know because K told me, but if I didn't know, it wouldn't matter, because one thing that I love about her style of writing is that she does a really nice job of weaving together little anecdotal things from interviews into the narrative and it's so tight that you might not even realize that it's a piece of canon, you just accept it as part of the natural narrative.

Justin's sprawled next to Trace on the couch and they're watching MTV, Making the Band 2 and Diddy's shouting about something. Trace doesn't really know what he's yelling about, but he does know those kids are all idiots. Justin's foot is pressed against Trace's thigh and it's warm where the rest of him is air-conditioned chill. Lynn's on the smaller couch, legs pulled to her chest, reading a book, a romance novel Trace figures, the way her breath quickens every now and then.

K: Diddy! There's always gotta be a Diddy shout-out.

The show ends and an episode of The Real World comes on and Justin presses his foot harder against Trace, so he changes the channel. He flips past some soaps and Lynn glances up briefly, but frowns and goes back to her book, so Trace keeps surfing.

There's bowling on ESPN and he snorts. "Does that even count as a sport?" Justin hums a non-commital noise and Trace shrugs, watching an older man with a greasy mustache pick up a spare. "I don't think anything you can play drunk really counts as a sport," Trace finally decides, changing the channel again.

There's a still shot of a smiling child and then it fades to a yellow puppet feeding his pigeons. Bert. Trace grins. "Dude, Sesame Street."

Justin doesn't protest, so Trace leaves it there, watching Bert sing and talk to his pets. "Pigeons would be cool."

K: This scene started out as a chunk of dialogue that Younger and kel. wrote together. They sent it to me and it sat in my inbox forever, until I eventually wrote the scene around it. Also, as far as I know, Lou doesn't have pigeons, but Mike Tyson really does. Ew.

kel: Did you know that Mike Tyson spends twice as much a year on pigeon care as he does on child support? Now who else can you think of who would do something so unsanitary and heartless? Lou Pearlman, that's who.

"Pigeons are fucking freaky." When Trace looks over at Justin, his nose is wrinkled and he's staring like Trace is the crazy one.

"Why do you think that?" On the TV, Trace can hear that Ernie's joined the scene, but he always thought Ernie was kind of a bully, so he just keeps looking at Justin, waiting for an answer.

Justin's still looking disgusted and he opens and closes his mouth once before actually speaking. "You know who has pet pigeons?" Trace bites his tongue and doesn't say 'Bert', just shakes his head. "Lou. Lou and fucking Mike Tyson, man. That's not enough for you?"

Trace thinks both Lou and Mike Tyson are gross, but he doesn't think that reflects on the pigeon as a species. He's sure a lot of horrible people have dogs, too and that doesn't make them bad pets. "But, still--"

"You're not keeping them on the bus. They have diseases."

"I could keep them at home."

Justin actually shudders. "At my house?"

Trace does have a house in Tennesse, but Justin's right, he did mean Justin's house, so he doesn't argue. "We could bulid a pen or something. Hire someone to wrangle 'em."

"Dude, no. I'll buy you, like--" Justin pauses, thinking. "A fucking ferret. Just no pigeons."

It's Trace's turn to wrinkle his nose. "I don't want a ferret."

"Why not?"

"Lance has one." Which isn't any better than Justin's points about Lou and Tyson, but Trace has heard over and over from Steve and JC and even Justin, exactly how gross the damn ferret is. Either way, Justin nods like that makes sense and looks at the TV and Trace does the same. Bert and Ernie are gone now, replaced by a dark castle set.

"Did you know that Mike Tyson spends more a year on pigeon care than on child support?"

"What?" Trace looks at Justin again.

"I read it in Sports Illustrated. It's fucked up, man."

Trace blinks. "Dude, you pay someone to put fresh laces in your sneakers." From her couch, Lynn lets out a quiet laugh, but she's not looking up, so it could be about something in the book.

kel: Justin paying someone to put fresh laces in his sneakers is as true as Lou Pearlman owning pet pigeons. Which is to say that if there is any justice in the world, it's true and we just don't know it yet.

"But I don't have kids!" Justin looks indignant.

Trace supposes Justin has a point. But then, Trace doesn't have kids either. He thinks about saying so, but Justin's distracted, watching The Count talk about thunder storms. When he starts counting the flashes of lightning, Trace can hear Justin counting along under his breath. Trace smirks and holds his finger over the remote, changing the channel just before they can count "ten! ten flashes!"

K: You may have heard I have this ocd!Justin thing? Yeah. And I also like the idea of Trace picking on him this way. Intimate knowledge of the crazy, plus the ability to get away with it because he's Trace.

Justin kicks at Trace's thigh and Trace just looks over at him, eyebrows raised. Justin stares him down for a second and then sighs. "Will you just pick something and leave it there?"

Trace nods and flips through, settling on the Home Shopping Network and laughing when Justin mutters something under his breath about 'fucking pigeons.'

**

The couch is magenta, which is a nice change from bus-beige, but still a little excessive. The hotel is in New Orleans, the clock says it's after two, they really did leave the party early, and Trace thinks that sleep wouldn't be totally out of the question except that Justin's hyped up in a way that he only ever gets on the one night a week that they have a chance to get a decent night's sleep in a real bed.

K: So, this scene was written late, when we were mostly done, in an effort to add some things and have more sex and so on and so forth. I still feel like, if anything is off about the story, it's the flow of the scenes we added in towards the end. But, then, for all I know no one noticed it until I just pointed it out, so. Eh, what are you gonna do?

kel: If anything is off about this story, it's that K made me write all the sex scenes and I hate writing sex scenes. I don't know about this scene, man. I think that it's a good scene, independently, but I'm not sure if the implications of what happens in the scene are explored fully enough, probably because we wrote it close to the end. We had a really hard time putting the scenes in an order that had any kind of rhythm, which probably contributed to the flow issue K was talking about.

Colleen Lopez is trying to sell him sapphire jewelry on the Home Shopping Network. He likes the sound of her voice, so he's thinking about buying it -- but with Justin's credit card -- when Justin practically bounces down on the couch next to him and says, "We should order some porn."

K: kel. has some weird HSN fetish that she's passed on to Trace. I'm okay with it, but it's kinda weird, really.

kel: It was actually Younger's idea that Trace be a fan of the HSN, I think. I know that I called her at one point to ask her who Trace would like who was a host, so it must be her. I wouldn't call it a fetish or anything, though.

Trace takes a drink out of Justin's hand and feels sticky sloshed liquid when their knuckles touch. "You hate porn," he says.

"Do not."

"Do, too," Trace says without thinking and when Justin makes a face, Trace adds, "You squirm. And not in that party in your pants way, you squirm like you do when you're in an elevator with too many people."

Justin makes a different face but it means the same thing as before and so Trace sets his drink down and says, "Okay, you win. What do you want? Boys? Girls? Boys and girls? Boys and girls and farm animals?"

Justin licks his lips. "Girls," he says.

"Girls it is." Trace reaches for the menu on top of the TV and flips through it like he's ordering a meal. Then, "You want salicious school girls or naughty housewives?"

"Housewives," Justin says. He never ever picks the school girls.

K: He never picks the school girls!

 

The porn's been ordered and Justin and Trace are sitting an acceptable distance apart on the couch. Acceptable for the moment because the lesbian housewives have finally put down their teacups and are just starting to take their clothes off. The one is a redhead and it looks like it might even be natural. The blond is definitely a fake and so are her tits, but the readhead's are, too, that pretty much goes without saying.

The movie is okay but the way the one chick's got the other spread out on the table so she can eat her pussy means that Trace can't really see shit. Trace and Steve watched porn together a couple of times and Steve spent the entire time bitching about bad camera angles.

K: Steve's mentions and cameos were really fun to sprinkle in. I think this is my favorite one. And, if you haven't guessed by the "eeeep! this rocks!" attitude, kel. wrote this part.

Next to Trace, Justin squirms. Trace squirms, too, but in the way that even medicore lesbian porn makes him hard and what he'd really like right about now is someone's mouth on his dick. He scoots over to Justin and puts his hand on Justin's knee.

He feels Justin's entire body cringe before he even lays his palm flat, though. "What?" he says, pulling his hand back into mid-air.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm just, you know," he waves at the small gap of space between them. "You know," he finishes. It's not like they don't do this, have done this.

Justin somehow manages to get hunched up against the plush magenta couch cushions. "Because of them?" he asks, and points at the TV. On screen, it's a tight shot, all thighs and shoulders and bleached blond hair.

K: There was this point, in the very end of the process and we had the beta back from k8 and there were questions about Trace's motivations and how things work out the way they do and I was pissy and trying to fix it when it suddenly hit me. And I figured out all the stuff Trace does about Justin not getting why straight!Trace is doing this and it being as much Trace's issues as Justin's. And it just completely fell into place because we'd already written it that way without knowing it. And now, rereading, I see that this is very much an example of that-- Justin's insecurities and neuroses, yeah, but also his confusion at what the hell Trace is doing.

"No," Trace says quickly, "just -- because." But already he feels like a complete ass, because he knows, he fucking knows that the only thing Justin hates more than watching porn is fooling around while watching porn because he's got this fucked up idea that Trace needs lesbians to get it up when Justin's in the room.

"Let's just," Trace says, "let's just turn it off, okay?"

Before Justin can pretend to protest, he flicks the TV off with the remote. In the resulting darkness, Justin still manages to look uncomfortable. "Let's just," Trace tries again, "just sit down," he says.

"I am sitting."

"Just sit back, then," Trace says, and puts his hand back on Justin's knee. This time, Justin presses into the touch and leans back into the couch at the same time, which leaves him spread out on the couch. "Just let me," Trace says, unsure of his words so he puts his hand on Justin's crotch.

In his head, he calls it fucking. It's not exactly fucking, though, because they don't exactly fuck. Fuck like ass-fucking, that is, and Trace isn't even sure if he could do it if Justin wanted to, because that's pretty gay and Trace is … not.

But he gets that the stuff that they do is gay stuff. Handjobs, yes, blowjobs, sometimes, kissing, not that often. And that probably Justin is at least closer to gay than not and that could mean something, could worry Justin or be weird for Trace. But it's after three in New Orleans on a couch that glows magenta in the dark, so he leans over and kisses Justin like he means it. And it's not hard to do because he does.

So it's entirely possible that Trace gives really lousy head. It's not like he practices or has plans to ever suck anyone's dick but Justin's, but sometimes when he's doing this, he worries that he's really bad at it, because nobody wants to give bad head.

Justin always comes, but Trace has let enough groupies blow him to know that the technique doesn't have be that great to get a guy off. A couple of times he's been with girls who made him feel like they were sucking out his brain through his dick and he's tried to concentrate on what they were doing that made it so fucking good, but it was too weird. So mostly he just tries to go easy on the teeth and not gag too much.

Justin, on the other hand, gives great head. He pretty much always has, since they were sixteen, not just since he slept with Lance three times on the last tour. The fact that Justin slept with Lance is worth noting because Lance has a policy about bad head (which Trace thinks is really dumb, like refusing to drink the free liquor when it's given to you) and so Justin really is that good, it's not all in Trace's fucked-up head.

K: The Lance backstory was at different levels of present through various stages. I think we ended up with the right balance, but there were things we had to leave out that I think were interesting about the Justin/Lance and Lance and Trace dynamic. Still, stronger story for it.

kel: Also, I think we decided at some point that Justin might not know that Trace knows that Justin slept with Lance, which adds an interesting dimension to things.

Justin probably didn't sleep with Lance to find out how well he sucked cock, though. Trace probably isn't even supposed to know that Justin slept with Lance, but Trace thinks he did it to find out whether or not he'd like it, whether or not fucking guys is something that he likes all the time.

Trace doesn't know what the answer was, or is, but he thinks that the fact that Justin felt the need to experiment at all should be all the answer he needs. Trace has never wanted to suck anyone's dick who wasn't Justin. He's not even really sure he likes it necessarily, having a dick pressed against the roof of his mouth and the back of his throat.

He likes the way that Justin breathes, calm, not regulated, but actually relaxed. He likes the way that Justin just leans back and actually lets Trace do something for him, doesn't protest that he can do it himself.

Trace almost smiles around his mouthfull, because Justin can't do this for himself. Trace doesn't know anybody who can suck his own dick, not even JC. He spreads his hands across Justin's thighs and breathes in.

**

Trace wanders out of the bathroom on the bus, the over-flowing ashtray balanced in his palm. Justin's on the phone and he wrinkles his nose with distaste from the couch as Trace empties the ashtray into the garbage in the kitchen. Trace gives him the finger. Justin shoots one right back at him and says, "Chris, man, you gotta tell Trace this story. Hang on."

K: Another add-in scene. But earlier than the last one, I think. Because we did all this "what is Trace's dynamic with everyone?" work and we really wanted to include the Chris stuff. Plus, like we could really write a Justin story and not include Chris? Come on. I have an otp and I make kel. share it.

kel: What she's implying there is that we'd actually spend hours at a time on the phone talking about how Trace would relate to each of the guys. Why? Because we were a little obsessed.

Justin holds the phone out, waiting until Trace walks over to claim it. "You'll love this," he says.

Trace tucks Justin's phone in his ear. "Yo."

"So I'm at this club in Pittsburgh, right?" Chris doesn't really have any use for saying hello.

"Right."

"And I'm doing my thing, whatever, and then these two girls come up to me, right?"

Trace snorts. "Right."

"They've got one of those Polaroid cameras and in a shocking turn of events, they want to know if they can get a picture."

"With your fat ass?"

Justin's been sitting on the couch flipping through an old copy of Blender, but he looks up and snickers. Chris says, "Shut the fuck up. One of us has been in J-14 in a non-diaper wearing capacity and it ain't you."

Trace snorts again. "Whatever. So, the chicks?"

"So, the chicks," Chris says. "Their friend goes to take the picture, I got one on either side, but right before the camera goes off, they both lean in and start making out."

Trace lets out a low whistle. "Like, with each other?"

K: Trace likes lesbians. It was never even a question, man. He just does.

"Dude, yes. With each other."

"Nice," Trace says. From behind his magazine, Justin smiles.

"And they were some seriously hot chicks," Chris says. "I got a copy, you want me to e-mail it to you?"

Trace frowns. "No e-mail on the bus."

K: While in reality Justin probably does have email of some sort, I still believe his technophobe stuff and it suited the punchline, so. No email.

"Why the fuck not?"

"I don't know," Trace says, fake and mocking. "Justin, do you know why there's no internet on the bus?"

Justin swats him on the knee with the magazine and shouts in the direction of the phone, "The bus doesn't need internet just so Trace can check and see how many days until the Olsen twins are legal every single day."

Chris laughs into Trace's ear. "Two hundred and seventy-two days, baby!" he cackles.

K: kel. looked it up. As of the writing of this story, that was the correct number. It's less now, for all you pervs out there.

"Pervert," Trace replies.

"Dude, no, it's not me," Chris says, "It's Ron's fucking cousin, I swear, he checks every god-damned day."

K: Ron's cousin, created by kel. and Younger and appearing in a fic or two, just for kicks. Also known as "the shithouse rat".

"Whatever," Trace says. It's not like he cares. The only think hotter than lesbians is twins and the only thing hotter than twins is lesbian twins. K: This is the first "whatever", I think. It's later than I thought.

"No e-mail?" Chris repeats. "Seriously, that's fucked up."

"Well, you know how--" Trace starts, kicking his foot up under the coffee table.

"Still crazy after all these years?" Chris asks. He sounds both amused and disappointed.

"You know it."

He does, or at least he should. Sometimes Chris is Justin's best friend, the same way that sometimes Trace is Justin's best friend and Britney used to be Justin's best friend and Lynn will always be Justin's best friend. It only ever bothered Trace before he met Chris, when Justin used to call him up from Florida in the way-early days of the group and go on and on about Chris who could ride a motorcycle and eat a whole lemon at once and swear in Spanish and walk on water and a bunch of other things that Trace stopped paying attention to.

K: You too can be Justin's best friend if he's in the mood!

kel: Hah! But, no, I do think it's interesting that there was a time when the group was still "together" (picture figure quotes if you like) when Justin would say that Chris was his best friend or that the guys were his best friends, and at times he says that Lynn is his best friend and lately since he's been out on his own, he's big on saying that Trace is his best friend, in interviews and the like. I doubt that he ever doesn't mean it, but it's very Justin, I think.

He was mostly prepared to hate Chris by the time he met him, but luckily he wasn't quite as cool as Justin said. But he was still pretty cool and so Trace likes him just fine.

"No, dude, you know it," Chris says. "Probably better than anyone else but Lynn."

"Yeah," Trace says. He's hardly going to disagree.

Trace gets the impression that the reason Chris isn't so much Justin's best friend these days is that Chris spent the last seven years thinking that Justin's particular brand of crazy was something that he'd grow out of, like pimples.

"How's he doing out there?"

"You should come see for yourself," Trace says, not really wanting to give Justin the satisfaction of hearing Trace say that he's "killin' it" or giving Chris the easy way out.

"Yeah," Chris says, "I should."

The thing about Chris, though, is that he thinks that Justin's fucking crazy because he got famous so young and that eventually he'll be not so young and not so fucking crazy. Chris doesn't get that Justin got famous so young because he's fucking crazy, has always been fucking crazy and always will be fucking crazy.

K: Justin is not crazy because he's famous, he's famous because he's crazy. I believe it like I believe that the sky is blue, that water is wet, that the Yankees suck and many other truths that cannot be denied.

kel: I can only concur. But seriously, this is something that we sort of stumbled onto, halfway through writing the story, but it's sort of become my new universal truth for Justin. I thought about it a lot when I was writing my story for DWNOGA.

"Whatever," Trace says. It's his job to get that, not to go around explaining it to everyone else.

"No, really, I'll come out. There's still time." Chris doesn't sound defensive, exactly, but Trace can picture the tiny frown on his face. He hums, somewhere between agreement and comfort. "Dude, I wanna see one of those club shows, like in LA. Is he doing more?"

"Yeah, I think so. Don't know where, though." Trace pauses, makes Justin shove over so Trace can sit down next to him. "Actually, where the fuck are you anyway?"

"Texas. Miami. Pennsylvania." Chris laughs. "I'm everywhere."

Trace grunts, watches Justin shift around on the couch. He finally settles with his back to the arm and his legs dropped heavy across Trace's lap. "Ow, get off me." Trace pushes at Justin's legs, but nothing happens and he gives up, glaring at Justin.

"Yo, I'm still on the phone. Keep the creepy sex games out of my ear."

Trace starts, jumps just a little and looks over at Justin. He's not looking, though, head buried in the magazine. "Fuck off." He didn't know Chris knew. He doesn't think he cares, but it's still a surprise and Trace isn't used to being surprised when it comes to Justin.

"Whatever, man." Chris is still laughing. "Put J back on."

"Later." Trace holds the phone out to Justin, eyes narrowed, staring. Justin cocks his eyebrows as he takes the phone.

"You should read this article about ODB in Blender. It's fucking hilarious." Justin listens, still looking at Trace. "What?" he mouths. "Yeah, a fucking jar of condoms." Justin laughs, loud and braying, but he's still watching Trace.

K: Seriously, that article rocked. His mom gave him a jar of condoms when he got out of jail. 'Cause you know, thirteen kids is enough, apparently.

Trace blinks. "Nothing," he says and flips the TV on, on mute. It really doesn't matter.

**

Another day, some new city and this time they're running late, so they have to take the bus right to some local news studio for an interview and can't go to the hotel until after. Trace is exhausted, so he's trying to sleep on the couch, but Justin and Lynn are talking loudly about interviews he won't do and commercials he shouldn't and whether those jeans make his ass look too small. Trace grunts and pulls a pillow over his face. Lynn and Justin's voices quiet a little.

"You guys were out late the other night?"

Not last night, because they were on the bus, but the night before, the party that Will.I.Am invited them to. Trace thought it was boring, a lot of dancing, but Justin got to beatbox and the drinks were good, so Trace didn't mind too much. Still, he'd convinced Justin to leave early. Trace opens his eyes and he can see a small hole in the pillow right over his left eye. It's white under the beige cover and he thinks about tearing it all off.

"Nah, like, two. We watched TV, though. After."

Trace grins into the heavy silence, wonders what Justin's face looks like, wonders if Lynn knows exactly what he's not saying. "TV" means hotel porn and then sex and Trace flexes his hand a little before tucking it under his thigh and rolling onto his side, still holding the pillow in front of his face with the other hand.

kel: since K wrote this part, I can talk about how much I love that Lynn knows that they're fucking and Trace knows that Lynn knows and Lynn knows that Trace knows that Lynn knows and there's just Justin, stuck squirming awkwardly in the middle.

"Anything good?" Trace can hear Justin swallowing his water. "On TV?" Lynn's voice is light and airy and Trace wonders if she's actually managing a straight face.

He peeks out from behind the pillow. Justin's sitting cross-legged on a cushion a few feet in front of Trace and he can see the back of Justin's neck. It's flushed pink and Trace lifts his eyes to Lynn's. She's smiling, but it's just pleasant, nothing behind it at all until Trace catches her eye, then a quick smirk that she hides with her glass of orange juice.

K: Oh, dear Lynn Harless. So inappropriate! So having no boundries! It's a beautiful thing.

Justin sets his empty water bottle down next to him. "Just, you know, hotel porn. It always sucks, really. Porn kinda creeps me out and hotel porn is even weirder. But, you know how Trace feels about lesbians."

Trace scowls and lifts the pillow, extends his arm to swat Justin on the head. Lynn watches calmly, not even surprised. Justin seems pretty surprised though, when the pillow connects.

"Fuck."

Trace laughs and hits Justin twice more before he grabs hold of the pillow and Trace lets himself be hauled off the couch.

"I thought you were asleep." Justin elbows Trace in the side, hard, and Trace grunts, moving quickly to grab Justin's wrist and twist until he squeals. "Ass."

"How the hell am I supposed to sleep when you're shouting to your mom about my porn habits?"

Justin gets his arm back and bends it, going for Trace's neck, but Trace ducks his head. Justin gets his hand caught in Trace's hair instead and hesitates only a second before pulling. Trace knees Justin's ribcage before Justin's even finished jerking at Trace's scalp. Justin always goes for the hair pulling.

"You're such a girl," Trace says, teeth gritted as Justin pulls a little harder.

Lynn stands up and carries her glass to the kitchen, stepping around them. "We're gonna be there in ten."

Justin nods against Trace's shoulder, where he's pinned, and swears under his breath as Trace presses his knuckles sharply against the back of Justin's neck. Justin tugs Trace's hair again and somehow twists a foot up to hover menacingly over Trace's dick. A normal person wouldn't be able to pull his leg back far enough to get any real power in a kick like that, but Trace knows Justin can, so he moves his hand and lets Justin lift his head.

"Give up?" Justin's smiling, all teeth, and his fingernails are scraping against Trace's scalp.

"Ass," Trace answers, but he nods and Justin moves his leg and then his hand. Trace collapses back on the floor, wincing when his head hits the ground.

K: This whole fighting wrestling whatever scene was weird to write. It was easy, except it felt awkward the whole time. I like the way it came out in the end, though. I knew exactly what I wanted, but it can be so strange to write movement and make sure that a) it's physically possible-- I tend to twist myself up into weird positions to test them. It's a reason I can't really write in public places-- and b) the words flow and don't get repetitive.

"Dude, that hurt. With the knuckles and shit. Where'd you get that one?"

"Nick."

"Fucker." Justin stretches his legs along Trace's side. "Is he still taking those self-defense classes?"

"Mmmm..." Trace stares at the ceiling for a minute. It's not beige and he appreciates that. "Dude."

kel: We keep telling each other that this writing in this story is so tight, because we're egomaniacal, but it's true. I love the way Trace's hatred of the beige gets brought back from that first scene.

Justin's face moves over him, blocking his view, but it's also not beige, so Trace decides it's okay. "What?"

"Not everyone wants to be part of your weird oedipus complex." Trace only knows what that means because he saw it on TV once, but it still applies. "Don't fucking tell your mom how I feel about fucking lesbians."

K: I think somewhere we saw one of those "that character wouldn't know that" moments and decided maybe they could get it from tv. So, that's where that line came from.

Justin rolls his eyes and opens his mouth, but instead Trace hears Lynn from the next room. "His mom doesn't fucking care how you feel about fucking lesbians." There's a beat. "Besides, it's not like it's a surprise." Justin laughs, too loud and Trace thinks it's all probably psychotherapy in the making, but he grins.

"Well, you know. Lesbians are hot," he says quietly and Justin's still laughing. Trace watches Justin's mouth, wide open and just above Trace's face, until the bus comes to a smooth stop.

"We're here." Lynn taps Justin on the head as she walks by and he stops laughing. "I guess you're wearing those jeans after all."

Justin nods, but he doesn't move, just stares down at Trace, mouth still open, until Trace finally sighs and rolls away. "Interview, man." Trace stands up and heads for the door, not looking back to see if Justin's following.

Inside, the makeup girls buzz around Justin and a PA gets Lynn some water. Trace slouches against a poster of the local weatherman, cheery under a blue umbrella and grey sky. Trace doesn't smile at anyone and eventually someone hands him a Coke, says, "Mr. Timberlake said to give you this."

Trace nods and cracks the can, watching Justin be bustled over to the set, settled and mic-ed. He's smiling, but Trace knows he's bored and later will tell Trace exactly how many strangers touched his face. When everyone's left him alone but the reporter, Justin blinks a few times and rubs his neck, slowly coming back, a new smile in place. The interview starts and Trace sips his soda, only half listening. One of the makeup girls is standing by the set, at the ready in case there's a foundation emergency or something and she's kind of cute, a red button down shirt and tight khaki pants. Trace waits until she looks at him and quirks his lips up in a half smile. Her eyes widen and she bites her lip, looking at the set again and then back at Trace. It's really almost too easy, he thinks as he swallows, sweet and cold down his throat.

Lynn touches his hand and nods her head at the set, where Justin's telling some story Trace heard in three interviews last week. But this time, his hands are flying everywhere and there's a different lilt to his voice. Trace snorts.

Lynn rolls her eyes. "Dowse it down a little, boy."

Trace nods. "He's straighter than that when we're having sex," he mutters, probably not even loud enough for Lynn to hear.

kel: I love that line like dirt.

But she does and laughs, covering her mouth and looking away for a second. "I'm sure," she finally says.

Trace wonders again if Justin told her or if she just knows. It's all the same in the end, really, but Trace still wonders. He's wondered ever since he was seven and Justin kicked him out of their secret club for breaking one of the million rules that Trace could never remember but that Justin kept written in a Michael Jackson notebook. Lynn was the one who found Trace sulking in the yard. She gave him Oreos and a big glass of milk and told him that Justin would come looking for him soon. He did, smiles and no apologies and Trace realized that when it came to Justin, Lynn always just knew. Later, he would sometimes test his mom, tell her things about girls and drugs and anything he thought wouldn't shock her if she knew. But she always looked upset and he always ended up grounded, so he stopped trying.

The interview's over and Trace only listened to about thirty seconds of the entire thing. He nods at Mike and then the makeup girl. Mike shrugs, nods and walks over to talk to her. Trace tosses his half-finished soda in a nearby trash can, pushing off the wall to go meet Justin, who wraps a hand tight around Trace's arm and pulls, walking away as he thanks the reporter. As they leave, Trace winks at the makeup girl and she blushes. Trace wonders if he'll remember her when she shows up at the arena.

K: The disposability of the people along the way in this story-- the girls in the club scene and here and in other places as well-- it's not to say that Trace is shallow or self-centered, or that Justin is, either. One of the things this story was always about for me was touring. There are all these scenes that seem so much the same, set on buses and in hotel rooms and over and over. There's a driving forward momentum and a sense of monotony. There's the strange and surprising quiet. And there's this way that people just become one more group of things that aren't part of them, part of Justin. Trace and Justin, Lynn and Cameron, the crew. These are the things that are real, with various degrees of vibrancy. And that's what this is about. For me, anyway.

**

In the week before Challenge, Justin asks Trace nine times if he was sure he didn't want to play in the basketball game. It's not like Trace is keeping track on purpose, that's just how his brain works. He can imagine Justin keeping track, though, and deciding that double digits would be pushing it and finally shutting up.

"You sure?" Justin asks, standing at the counter, carefully pouring skim milk so that it's just barely less than level with his cereal. Same old, same old.

"Dude, I said no, okay?" Trace says. He stares at the cabinet, there's a box of Cheerios and a box of Frosted Flakes. He wants the Frosted Flakes but his name is on the Cheerios. It's way too fucking early.

"You could wear Britney's old jersey," Justin says hopefully.

Trace snorts at that. He's not sure why Justin thinks Trace is qualified to play in a celebrity basketball game, but he knows for sure that he's not qualified to be Brit's replacement. "No way, man," he says. "No way."

 

Trace sees JC standing off to the side in the sand at the obstacle course thing and decides to go say hi. He walks up behind him and slaps him on the back.

K: At different points, we each wrote different versions of this scene. Ultimately kel.'s is the one that ended up here and it's so much better than my attempt. But, the essential point is the same. And the fact that this was probably our favorite scene. We decided that JC and Trace probably get along really well and have a lot in common. That's the JC we see and the one we wanted to write and I do think it's exactly how we envisioned it.

JC winces. "Fuck, bitch, I've got a sunburn."

kel: Younger and I decided that JC calling people "bitch" is really strangely hot.

Trace grins, sunny and wide. "I know."

JC regards him for a minute. Any other guy and Trace might think he was getting checked out, but JC's not gay anymore, or bisexual, or whatever, he's still just JC. "Nice hat," JC says finally.

Trace touches it briefly, feeling the scratch of the felt letters under his fingertips. "Some bitch told me she didn't think it was appropriate for a charity event, can you believe that shit?"

kel: This -- like the thing with the shoes that K is gonna mention in a second -- is actually canon as far as we know. K read that some girl had posted to a message board complaining that Trace's "Fuck You" hat was inappropriate for a charity event, and of course it just made us love him more.

JC rolls his eyes. "People, man," he says, and they both laugh.

Trace hasn't seen JC in a while and it's nice to see him again. He's known JC for what feels like forever, technically since Justin was in the Mouse but he was only vaguely introduced back then.

The first time Trace ever really talked to JC was when he took the Greyhound bus out to Orlando to visit Justin right as the group was getting started, after Lou came on the scene but before Joey or even Jason and then Lance.

Trace got up in the middle of the night to get a glass of water and found JC at the kitchen table, half a cup of coffee, a loose-leaf notebook and three ripped out and crumbled sheets of paper spread out in front of him.

"Hey man," JC said, like they were old friends.

Trace nodded. "Hey." He filled a glass with water from the tap.

"Justin's been so excited about you coming," JC said. "He's been talking about it for weeks."

Trace smiled slightly because he wasn't really sure what to say. He set his empty glass in the sink. He was about to go back to the living room where his sleeping bag was spread out on the couch, when JC added, "It's cool that you came down. I don't have any friends who've stuck around this long."

Trace nodded again.

"And Justin," JC smoothed his hand over his blank page. "Well, you know Justin better than just about anyone, right? He's really glad you're here."

On the beach, JC stretches uncomfortably under the sun. "I might cut out early," he says. "I feel like shit."

K: I love how JC keeps saying that he's gonna leave, but doesn't.

"You look like a lobster," Trace says helpfully.

JC flips him off with his arm down by his side and his wrist barely bent. "Thanks, man." Then he jerks his head over to where Justin is sitting on the edge of the course, trying to shake sand out of his shoes. It's an uphill battle. "How's he doing out there?"

"Well, if he'd stop fucking around with his shoes --"

K: The shoes! And the sand! That's, as far as we know, real canon and I love it so so so much.

"No, retard, I mean, how's he doing out there?" JC flapped his hand around in a way that Trace guesses is supposed to encompass the entire tour schedule.

"You know, it's like --" Trace pauses. "That thing with the Donny Hathaway album and the thousand cruches --"

K: Oh, man. We spent forever just leaving this stuff blank. We had to have it, his pre-show ritual, because it's important later. But, man, did we have a hard time thinking of something. I think we both would have liked something cooler, weirder, but this works and that's really what matters. Sometimes it's function over form and all.

kel: I kept hoping that K, well-known Justin apologist that she is, would think of something and eventually she did! It worked out well for me.

JC laughs, buckling forward under it. "Dude, he's been doing that since Mickey Mouse."

K: I have this thing about them calling it "Mickey Mouse" and not "MMC" or "The Mickey Mouse Club" or what have you. I made kel. go with it. Because she doesn't dare defy me. Oh yeah, I have the power.

kel: For the record, I always enjoy it when they call it "The Mouse," in stories. But that's clearly neither here nor there, because, as K likes ot remind people, if we were in prison, I would be the bitch.

"Dude, he's been doing that since way before Mickey Mouse." Trace remembers Justin, before an elementary talent show, spread out on the locker room floor counting each sit up aloud. "I'm just saying, it doesn't stop being really fucking annoying."

They both stand there and laugh a little bit more, because Justin's a fucking freak and they know it. JC mentions Cameron. Well, he calls her "the chick of the month" and Trace shrugs, says she's here for the weekend and then back to LA for voice work on the Shrek sequel. JC nods, doesn't seem interested enough not to change the subject, so they trade stories about the other celebrities at the event. Lance apparently slept with Trevor and says he sucks in bed. Trace doesn't really value Lance's opinion, but he laughs anyway.

K: When we started, this story was a much more traditionally "happy" thing. But, then Cameron appeared on the scene (it took us an entire summer to write, okay?) and neither of us were willing to let that go or use the beard thing or whatever. And, with the tone, a less obvious ending started to make sense. So, you see Cameron start popping up here because that's how we saw it.

kel: I like that Trace thinks that Justin could be talking to Cameron Diaz for all he knows in the first scene of the story but it's never spelled out whether that was just hyperbole or if they were already dating at that point.

After a while, JC says, "Seriously, I'm gonna cut out early, I feel like I'm going to be sick."

Trace jerks his head toward the stands. "You should pick up a couple girls on your way out, ask 'em if they wanna rub aloe on your back."

JC snorts. "Yeah, right."

"Hey, do it for me, at least."

JC cocks his head. "Are you traveling with girlfriend?"

Trace kicks the sand. His feet are all hot in sneakers. He could have worn sandals, but he thinks sandals on guys looks kind of gay. "Just this weekend," he says, "but that means no partaking in the merchandise."

K: groupies = merchandise. because...yes.

Elisha is cool, she gives killer blowjobs, but she's not the first, last or twenty-seventh girl who wanted to nail Justin and ended up with him. Somehow, because she's almost famous enough to play in a charity basketball game, she gets to invite herself back. Mostly, Trace figures Justin only invited her to the game because he knew Cameron was coming and he didn't want Trace to feel abandoned. Trace guesses that's kind of sweet, but he's pretty sure he knows how to take care of himself when Justin's not around.

"Explain to me again the difference between her and the rest of the merchandise?"

One of the last times Trace saw JC before this was at a party in LA. He had Tara with him and she was drunk and smelling like lemons and JC said, "Honey, this is my very good friend Trace. I want you two to get to know each other and I will be right back." When Trace woke up with Tara the next morning, she said, "So I'm hanging with you guys for a while, then?" and that'd been that.

K: Trace and Tara forever! White trash lobsters! And I really hope they got together something like that.

So when Trace says, "Yeah, like you would know," JC doesn't disagree. "Anyway," he adds, "at least she buys her own drinks."

"The man has a point," JC says. He looks up right into the sun and squints. "Fuck this," he says. "I'm going back to the hotel." As he moves to walk off, he adds, "Seriously, I'm glad you're out there with him."

Trace shrugs. "Somebody's gotta be."

**

The thing about being Justin's best friend is that people ask Trace a lot of really fucking stupid questions. Trace is well-skilled at this point at coming up with the easy answer ("I don't know how many pairs. His sneakers have their own truck."), telling someone what they want to hear ("Yeah, totally, Chris and JC and them, they call all the time.") and lying his ass off ("Are you shittin' me? I have no fucking idea what Justin's dick looks like.") as the situation calls for it.

Nobody asks about the bus arrangements. Apparently the idea that Justin would want his momma and his lapdog with him 24/7 isn't that hard to believe. Which is funny because that wasn't the original arrangement at all. Originally, Justin was supposed to have his own bus because Justin is Justin and nobody wants to be around when he starts putting the magazines in order at three in the morning, even if JC and Chris did a good job of pretending like they did for however many years.

K: We asked about the bus arrangements though. And thought about it. And bugged k8 for her thoughts over brunch at my favorite neighborhood deli. And ultimately decided screw it, this is how it happened, this is how it is and so, here it is. I think it works.

kel: A couple months ago, I saw some pictures of the inside of Justin's bus, and not only was it nothing like this, there was also a computer. I guess there are worse ways to get jossed, though.

Trace was supposed to share a three-man bus with Steve and Anthony. Lynn wasn't supposed to share a bus with anybody, she was only supposed to come out for the first five or so shows. But sometime right around when Vancouver got canceled, Lynn had a bunch of her things sent out and it became clear that she wasn't going anywhere. Trace had been sleeping on Justin's bus since Phoenix.

But now there is Cameron.

Not Cameron in the airbrush-tanned flesh, but the promise of Cameron, sometime in the fairly near future. They're just starting the long haul to Chicago when Justin comes out from the bunks with his phone in his hand and says, "Cameron's gonna come out on tour for a while."

"Cool," Trace says. Justin's behind him, but he keeps staring straight ahead. On TV, Carson Daly gets dissected for loving bad girls. He's kind of a tool but they got stuck in an elevator together at the MTV studios in New York last fall -- him and Carson and several other people, none of whom were Justin, he would have shit himself if he'd been there -- and Trace showed Carson how to split the tobacco from one cigarette into two gum wrappers and Carson thought it was the best thing ever. But that was before Trace hooked up with Tara.

Lynn doesn't look up because she's got the big fuzzy ball of yarn in her lap, but she does say, "That's nice, honey, but where's everybody gonna stay?" Lynn's trying to teach herself how to knit or crochet or something involving fuzzy blue yarn and needles. She says it's supposed to relaxing for the long bus trips, but she gets more pissed off at the yarn than she does when he and Justin make her watch Jerry Springer with them, so mostly the yarn just sits in her lap or balled up in the corner, depending on her mood.

K: Seriously, man, the first time I got this scene in my inbox there were as many different typos of "yarn" as it appears. It was wacky.

kel: See, I'd write my parts longhand and then I'd come home and type them up and send them off as fast as I could. Apparently without spell-checking?

Justin finally gives up and walks around to sit down on the couch. "What do you mean?" he says. "We can all fit, it worked fine whenever Britney used to come out."

He never used to call her that, always "Brit" or one of their long list of stupid pet names, most of which Trace has thankfully forgotten. He probably has some complicated reason for the switch, but Trace has been smart enough not to ask.

Trace is not smart enough not to roll his eyes, though, exageratedly so there's no way Justin can miss it. Because him and Justin and Lynn and Cameron on a bus together is the dumbest idea in the history of dumb ideas.

Thankfully, Lynn points this out for him. "Honey --" she says, and Trace thinks about how JC always calls people "honey" when what he really wants to say is "cunt." He wonders if Lynn does that, too. "-- don't be a dipshit." Then, Trace thinks, probably. "Cameron's a grown woman," Lynn continues, "she's not gonna want to be on a bus with you and your mother and your -- Trace," she finishes lamely and Trace does not even want to know what she was going to say.

Justin frowns and says, "What do you think I should do?"

Lynn tosses the mess of fuzzy blue yarn on the floor. "Figure out it," she says, and then, "I need a cigarette," and she heads toward the bathroom.

Trace can see Justin looking at him out of the corner of his eye like he wants sympathy or for Trace to tell him what he thinks he should do, but he keeps watching the TV.

"What do you think about her coming out?" Justin says finally.

Here are five things Trace thinks about Cameron Diaz: One, she was really fucking funny in There's Something about Mary. Two, she's cooler than Britney in the way that she doesn't have to put on six layers of makeup just to sneak out of the hotel and get a Slurpee. Three, she's possibly a crack-head, but she's going out of her way to try and hide it from Justin in a way that Trace can respect, so, whatever. Four, she and Justin are fucking. Five, Trace doesn't care. And in that way that he really doesn't care, not the way that Justin doesn't care when someone eats out of his cereal box.

K: I love love love these lists. kel. is a genius and I am lucky to get to put my name on it. ....Do I get the money now or later? No, really. Love.

Justin keeps waiting for an answer. Trace shrugs.

"Hey, I've got an idea," Justin says brightly. "Why don't you ask Elisha to come out, too?"

Trace shrugs again. He's thinking about dumping Elisha or just losing her phone number accidentally-on-purpose, except that she says they're gonna make her character on her show a dyke for the next season and that's almost like having a girlfriend who's a lesbian.

But he doesn't really feel like asking her to come out on tour -- unless she wants to ask Cameron if she can make out with her for practice. In that case, Cameron, Elisha, Christina and the entire Dallas Cowboys cheerleading squad are all welcome to stay on the bus.

"Do you care about anything?" Justin asks.

"Do you think the Carson Bash'll be on after the bad girls thing?" Trace asks. "I haven't seen it yet."

Justin's face falls apart like he's been slapped, but if Trace meant it that way, he meant it as an open-handed slap at absolute most. Trace hears Justin's breathing, deep, regulated, in-through-the-nose-and-out-through-the-mouth, and knows he's doing that thing where he's locating his anger.

K: More love. This is my favorite scene, I think and that's good since it is the realization of the scene we started with way back in June.

Before he can find it, Trace stands up and says, "I need a cigarette."

Lynn's still in the bathroom, though, so Trace sits on the edge of his bunk and waits.

Here are five things Trace knows about Justin: One, his first girlfriend was Lauren Ann Whitaker. They dated for three weeks in the second grade and when she tried to kiss him, Justin told Trace it was "gross." Two, when Justin was just a baby, he used to try to crawl around without letting his feet touch the ground, but now everyone who gets VH1 knows that, so telling the story at parties has lost a lot of its appeal. Three, Justin has tried coke four times, ecstasy six times, acid once, heroin never and he says he doesn't smoke pot anymore because of his voice but he's a fucking liar. Four, Justin did fuck Britney and Janet and also Lance three times, but not Beyonce or Alyssa. Five, he believes in geographic fidelity, which is to say that he'll fuck two people at the same time, but not while they're both in the same zip code.

kel: The bit about geographic fidelity, that's from some awful movie, isn't it? Road Trip! Didn't that movie have Tara Reid in it? I'm not even going to go look it up, because I prefer to believe that it did and I am not confusing Road Trip with American Pie, because I like the idea of these things coming full circle.

Anyway, geographic fidelity seemed very Justin.

Justin wants Trace to say that the fifth thing is okay or that it's not okay or something. Justin wants Trace to care about the fact that Justin's kind of crazy sometimes, which is stupid because Trace has always prided himself on not really giving a shit about that one particular thing.

Justin wants. That's pretty much the bottom line.

Lynn's been in the bathroom long enough to light up a pack and a half and she's probably just hiding out, but Trace wants a fucking cigarette. He knocks lightly on the door.

"What?"

"Can I, uh …" she hears that it's him and opens the door. She's got a half-smoked Virginia Slim in one hand and he can see a small pile of lipstick smeared butts in the sink. "He's being all," Trace starts, and waves his hand toward the lounge, feeling like the kid who Justin wouldn't let play with his toys.

"I just really want a fucking cigarette," he says finally, and Lynn laughs.

"I'm sure we can make room for both of us," she says, and inches back toward the shower.

kel: So I wrote this scene, which was a lot of pressure because it was The Scene that we had been imaging for three months and while it was certainly enough for us to get Trace and Lynn in a bathroom together (I think, originally, this was going to be a very, very short little story, three scenes, one of them Justin/Lynn, one Justin/Trace, one of them Lynn/Trace. Forty-two pages later, I'm still laughing), the scene still needed to pull its own weight in the over-all plot of the story. The idea that Lynn could talk about US and Cameron was complete randomness, but it makes sense for someone who can objectively judge the hotness of her son in photos.

Trace perches against the sink and they put the ashtray on the toilet seat. Their knees keep bumping together, but Trace thinks it would feel more awkward to move away. He's halfway through his second cigarette when she says, "Have you seen the new US?"

Trace shakes his head as he takes a drag.

"There aren't even pictures of them yet," she says, cocking her head in the way that "them" means "Cameron and Justin" and looking both impressed and dismayed.

"There were photographers at that thing."

"You know she won't last, right?"

Trace shrugs.

"The best thing you can do for him," she says carefully, "is be the thing that lasts."

This sounds suspiciously like advice or at least like something he already knows, so he doesn't say anything, just exhales smoke in cloudy rings.

"Nice one," she says. When Trace was sixteen, Lynn caught him smoking on his back porch. The first thing she said was, "Does Justin smoke with you?" and then, "he can't, you know, because of his voice," and then she taught him how to blow smoke rings. >K: Oh Lynn!

Through the door, Justin shouts, "I'm gonna call and get you two your own bus. You can smoke as much as you want. It can be like the Rolling Stones' tour bus."

K: Justin! Love that line. Yes, this is just the scene where I gush a lot and lose speech.

Lynn catches Trace's gaze and rolls her eyes. Trace wonders if Justin'll make Cameron smoke in the bathroom, too.

He decides he'll go back to Steve and Anthony's bus, he just hopes that his hasn't been designated the jerk-off bunk or anything. Because there's a line, and on one side of that line there's some vague semblance of normality and on the other side, there's sharing a bus with Lynn.

**

The club isn't as dark as Trace feels like a strip club should be. He's huddled in a booth near the right side of the stage and it's nice, comfortable old leather. He doesn't mind the way his feet stick to the floor, but there's a florescent light over the red lacquered bar and Trace can see it, greenish alien glow in the corner of his eye. It's annoying, but the music starts-- AC/DC and Trace nods his head in time. He focuses on the stage and tilts his hat a little to the left to block the light.

The dancer comes out, red hair, big tits and she's working some sort of rock chick vibe, leather and ripped lace. It's very 1980s and incredibly trashy. Trace slides to the edge of his seat to lean forward and stuff three twenties into the side of her thong when she dances over. She smiles, says "thanks, babe" in a sweet high voice and throws him several flirty little glances as she finishes her routine.

She's hot, Trace thinks, wonders if he should go backstage and find her. Instead, he slides back again and pours a shot of Jack from the bottle he bought and looks back at the annoying light. Steve's standing under it, leaning on the bar and laughing at the bartender, mouth open only a little. Trace watches them for a second and then Steve's turning and heading toward the booth, something red in his glass.

"Hey."

"Yo." Trace tips his head at the stage where there's now a tiny brunette slinging herself around the pole. "You see the last girl?"

Steve shakes his head and sits down on the other side of the table. "Any good?"

"Yeah. Trashy, but sweet." Trace still thinks he might find her later, but he wants to check out the rest of the show first.

Steve nods. "It's kind of a dive, but my guy says it's the city's hidden gem or some shit."

Steve always has a guy. In every city Steve knows someone who can hook them up with the best bars, the hottest girls, the good drugs. It's not like Justin couldn't get the stuff on his own, but it's more fun this way, feels different. Everyone always likes to know a guy. So Trace nods, does another shot, not bothering with the glass this time, and sips his Coke while Steve shares the joke the bartender had told him. Apparently Kid Rock used to come in here all the time "pre-Pam". Trace thinks it'd be pretty cool to see Kid Rock at the strip club, in his element, rather than at some after party or the TRL studio. He wouldn't know who Trace was, but Trace would buy him a drink and maybe they'd talk or something.

K: I have a thing for guys who "know a guy" or for knowing a guy myself. It's fun and vaguely illicit. Also, kel. read that Kid/Pam thing in a tabloid or something once, so it could actually be true.

Trace asks, "he stopped coming in?" Trace read in one of Lynn's tabloids that Kid Rock and Pam went to strip clubs together. He thinks it even said that Pam liked to get lap dances, but he's willing to believe he made that part up.

Steve chuckles. "Would you be going out to watch naked girls if you had Pam Anderson at home?"

Trace guesses he wouldn't. Probably. Still, lap dances, so he glances around at all the customers, wondering.

There's a long pause on stage before the next girl comes out and there's something like feedback coming from the speakers behind Trace's head. He winces and pulls his hat down lower. Finally it stops and the girl comes out, blonde and skinny, almost too skinny. She's dancing to "Come On Over" and he and Steve both laugh as soon as they realize that. Steve's staring at the girl, eyes wide and practically drooling, so Trace isn't surprised when she hops down and starts dancing in a pool of light in front of Steve. Trace laughs, another shot and leans back to watch. She's good, hips moving in ways just familiar enough that Trace refuses to think about it. She's teasing Steve, straddling his lap and managing to never quite touch anything. Steve pulls out some cash and Trace narrows his eyes, squinting, and sighs.

When she's finally finished, Trace motions her over and hands her a few more bills, grinning. "Thanks for the show." She laughs and heads backstage to a smattering of applause. "Dude." Trace glares at Steve.

Steve looks over, eyebrow raised. "Yeah. That was nice." He sips at his drink and Trace sees a cherry sitting on the bottom.

"No, dude, you gotta give them more money than that." Trace believes in tipping well, for everything, but especially strippers. "She might have a kid."

K: This was Younger's thing, the strip club and the tipping. And it became extremely central to the way we viewed Trace. His own moral code and all.

kel: Trace making Steve tip the strippers better was one of the bits that had been living in our collective heads almost as long and Trace and Lynn smoking in the bathroom. K totally managed to make it reality in a way that exceeded m wildest dreams.

Steve laughs. "No way that little thing has ever had a kid."

Trace rolls his eyes. "Fine, but maybe she's putting herself through college." Trace hasn't been, probably won't ever, but he knows it's expensive.

"She's a stripper, man." Steve tips his head back and swallows the last of his drink. Trace wonders if he'll choke on the cherry, but he stops before it slides into his mouth.

"She's doing her job. Well. And we have the money."

"That's easy to say when it's not your money."

Trace shrugs. True enough, but, "you have plenty."

Steve sighs and plucks the cherry from the glass. "Fine, I'll tip better." He gnaws at the little piece of fruit. "You think I can expense it?" And Trace shakes his head, looking away.

Trace pours some of the Jack into what's left of his Coke and swirls it around, listens to the music, some grinding hiphop thing this time, Trace isn't sure who. Justin would know. There are two girls now and they've brought out little cage structures to dance in. Trace thinks it's a great idea.

"Where is J, anyway? Cameron?" Steve asks.

Trace keeps watching the girls, his eyes darting between them. He licks his lips. "Probably."

"You know, she seems like the type of girl who might enjoy a strip club." Trace blinks, pictures Cameron in one of the cages. He nods. "But I guess not?"

"I don't know. I didn't invite them." The girl closest to Trace has dark red lipstick on and Trace thinks it would stain his white t-shirt.

"Really? Are you like, pissed at him or something?"

Finally Trace looks over at Steve. "No. He just doesn't like strip clubs." Steve snorts and Trace grins. "Nah, really. He thinks he does, he'll tell you he does. After the Brit thing he was going every night, but he hates it." Trace remembers Justin calling during that tour and he had a story for every girl, drugs or abuse or whatever thing he'd pulled out of Cosmo or the Lifetime movie of the week. "It depresses him. Too seedy and shit."

Steve thinks for a second, then nods. "Yeah, okay, I see that." He laughs. "Yeah, very Justin."

It is, really, but still Trace figured Justin's strip club issues were part of the great Britney depression, or maybe just something that happens when you go to a strip club with Lance. So when Justin was home on vacation, Trace took him to his favorite place in Memphis. Months after Britney and no gay popstars in sight, but Justin still hated it. And he hadn't even gone to high school with those girls like Trace had, so Trace gave up and just went to the bars when Justin had other plans.

K: Again, that glimpse of Trace's life when Justin was off becoming famous.

Trace turns his head again and he missed the part where the girl on one side of the stage got into the other cage, but now the two girls are dancing together. He takes a long drink. Justin's loss, he thinks and watches, smiling.

**

Sometimes Trace thinks that soundcheck is more interesting than Justin's actual shows. Because the shows are always seamless and he's never seen anything go wrong, but at soundcheck, Justin's fooling around with the roadies and bitching when the mics don't work and running around kissing babies and hearing all about the teenage life he's saved this week. It's fun and Trace always watches, slumped in a seat about eight rows back, his hat off and sitting on the seat next to him. Today, Trace is yawning constantly, tired from an all-night poker game with Steve, Troy, Marty and Charles. He shifts in his seat and feels the wad of twenties in his pocket. He won pretty big, though, more than he usually does, so it was probably worth the yawning.

K: Another add-in scene because we needed the time line to work better and because we realized there was no Marty-who-deserves-blowjobs.

Onstage, Justin is mumbling his way through "Nothin' Else". He's not really singing, the mics are all set, he just wants to test the piano. He tests the piano every time, just in case and Trace thinks he's just pushing his luck because the more times he falls through, the more opportunities there are for things to go wrong. But, Justin probably figures that if he has to get horribly injured at least this way it wouldn't happen in front of the fans, wouldn't mess up the show. Trace watches Justin dance, arms and legs moving in ways that Trace's over-exhausted brain can't really grasp, so it's all just a blur of blue track pants and bright white sneakers. The piano opens and Justin falls and then shouts a loud, laughing cheer when he lands perfectly below. Trace grins and thinks Justin probably doesn't need to worry about pushing his luck.

The meet-and-greeters have come and gone and they were all too young to be interesting. One girl in a pink tank top cried when Justin gave her a hug and Trace watched Justin smile and whisper something in her ear before letting her go and swiping at his shoulder just in case there were tears left behind. Her mother, tall with dark hair and a shirt that was too loose to figure out what was underneath, said 'thanks' to everyone she passed on the way out. Trace just nodded and kicked at his heel.

He looks around the arena, the seats stretching up above him and back behind and it's all kind of ugly and strange now, hard to imagine a concert here. It's sort of just a glorified high school gym. He's turning back to the stage when he sees Marty coming towards him, shuffling a little, one hand on his head. Trace smirks.

"Tired?"

"Fuck yes. I'm never drinking that shitty beer again, I don't care what Steve says about American pride." Marty grimaces and slides down into the seat next to Trace. "You?"

K: Yo! kel. tell the Marty and too much American beer story. It's yours to tell, even though I'm the one who stole it for the fic.

kel: Hah! Once upon a time, K and I (and k8 and Sandys older and younger) were in Portland to see the Stripified show. And I ended up standing behind Marty at a bagel place near Sandy the Older's office (I was making the most important decision of my life to date at the moment, but that's neither here nor there). He was talking to a middle-aged but really fucking stylish woman about how they needed to get rid of all the American beer on the bus, presumably because they were heading for Canada that night -- although we all know how that went.

Trace shrugs. "Whatever."

Marty stares at him for a few seconds and then looks up at the stage. "They finish the piano?" Trace nods. "We've gotta go over a few steps in 'Last Night'. Something's not flowing on the tapes."

Trace nods. He hadn't noticed, but that's not his job. "Cool."

"Doesn't Christina do her soundcheck first?" Marty looks over to the side where Christina's dancers are standing by one of the arena entrances, whispering and laughing.

"Usually. J and Cameron have some late spa appointment or something, so they switched." Trace is gonna go with them to the spa and then head over to some video arcade Steve knows about. He'll get a little thrill making the bored clerks change a couple twenties into quarters, play some old school Streetfighter. It'll probably be more relaxing than a facial and mud treatment or whatever Cameron and Lynn were cooing over yesterday.

"Christina's fine with that?"

Trace shrugs. "I guess." He's talked to Christina maybe a dozen times since Challenge and not many more before that. She's not really into hanging out with them and Trace knows he can't fuck her, so he hasn't found a lot of reasons to chat. Besides, she's quiet in a way that Trace finds strange. "She seemed fine with it."

K: Trace, to me, is a quintessential 22 year old guy. Blunt and sex-obsessed, but not a bad person. I get that that is dependent on a world view not everyone shares, but I really do like the guy and find him compelling. For what it's worth.

kel: This was maybe our cop-out to the fact that Christina is nowhere in this story but I think it works because I love love love the part about how Trace knows he can't fuck her and also because, despite what the press seemed to make you want to think, all the interviews they gave made it sound like they hung out basically never.

"Cool." Marty's watching the stage and he moves to the edge of his seat as Justin looks their way. He's been standing on the stage, watching the techs check the mechanics on the cherry picker and it's finished now. He nods at Marty. "Gotta work."

Trace nods. "After last night I'm guessing you need the cash." He chuckles.

Marty flips him off. "We're gonna play again next week, man."

"Well, start saving now."

Marty flips Trace off over his shoulder as he heads onstage and Justin laughs. "Hey, hey, there'll be no fighting among the help." Marty looks at Trace and they both point their middle fingers at Justin, who rolls his eyes and steps into position for the song. "Okay, fuck you both. Let's go, I've gotta see a girl about a massage." Justin waggles his eyebrows and looks like a complete dork.

Trace rolls his eyes and slides down a little lower as the music starts. He watches Justin watch Marty twice before doing the new step combination perfectly.

**

Trace hears from Anthony that Cameron is leaving the tour for a couple days starting Tuesday to go do a reading for a movie about a cheerleading camp reunion. Anthony might have been making up the last part, but Trace thinks a movie about a cheerleading camp reunion would be cool, as long as the chicks weren't all old and saggy and shit.

Justin comes over to Steve and Anthony's bus at a rest stop sometime after eleven. He's got his hands twisted together and he says, "Do you wanna come over and hang out?"

"Sure," Trace says. He was going to wander over later, after he'd eaten something and taken a shower, but the shower can wait and he's pretty sure there's still a cereal box with his name on it somewhere on Justin's bus.

The bus feels weird, sterile, not at all like there was a new person living there for the last two weeks. Trace sits down on the couch with a bowl of Rice Krispies and wonders if Justin and Cameron fucked there. Probably. Whatever. It's not like they're the first. Trace listens to the 'snap krackle pop' and thinks about geographical fidelity.

Justin sits down next to him, gingerly, and turns on the TV. They watch one of those VH1 list things for a while until Hal Sparks makes yet another lame joke and then Trace says, "Dude, this is fucking gay," and the spell is broken.

Justin thwaps him on the shoulder with the remote. "Shut up."

K: HerterosexuAL Sparks. Lames VH1 commentator of all. kel. and I watched a lot of "I love the 80s" when my MTV was out.

kel: HeterosexuAL Sparks! Reminding you of his HetersexuaALity at every possible commentative moment. For a really long time, we knew that Trace was going to need to call something "gay" in a derogatory way so that they could have this conversation, but we didn't know what that was. Then HeterosexuAL came to the rescue.

"You shut up," Trace mimes back.

"Seriously," Justin says, "shut up, you shouldn't say shit like that."

Justin means that Trace shouldn't say "gay" like it's a cuss word, which Trace thinks is funny coming from someone who practically hyperventilated through telling him that JC and Lance were fucking back during the NSA tour and who half the time can't put his hand on Trace's dick without having some kind of small nervous breakdown.

"Whatever," Trace says. He swipes the remote out of Justin's lap and touches nothing but plastic. "VH1 is for pussies."

"No, I mean," Justin struggles, "If there was ever anything that you wanted to talk about, I just think --"

Trace knows where this is going. He knows what Justin looks like when he's in over his head, both in the way that they almost drowned in a Motel 6 pool when they were seven and in this way, too. K: Beautiful and subtle. He says, "Do you really want to go there?"

Justin just looks at him, head tilted and eyes wide. Trace smiles a little. "I." Justin inhales. "Maybe I don't, but, do you?"

Trace stares back at Justin, confused for just a second. And then, he gets it. Justin, he's definitely not straight and Trace definitely is and somewhere in Justin's head that's the problem-- he's not uncomfortable with dick, he's uncomfortable with Trace's dick because he doesn't get why this keeps happening. Trace isn't Lance, he's not gay and he should need lesbians to get it up for Justin. He doesn't though, and he can't really explain it. So it is weird, if you break it down like that, and Trace thinks for the first time that maybe he's the crazy one. But Trace has made it a practice not to care about Justin's crazy and maybe it's time for Justin to return the favor, so he grins.

K: This is what I was talking about. This sudden moment of realization I had, rereading the story, of exactly what the problem was, what Trace was missing and what we were missing. And it was all already in the story. Nothing had to be tweaked to make it fit. That's one of the coolest things about writing, to me. The way you do these things unconsciously and might not even be sure what you're writing about, exactly, until you go back at look at the puzzle you made for yourself. Then, boom. It's such a rush. I'm pretty sure I called both k8 and kel. to be like "this is it! I see it!" and was very dorkily excited. "Dorkily" not being a word and all.

"Nope. It just is, man. We don't want to talk about it."

Justin tilts his head the other way and Trace holds his smile. "That -- that doesn't mean we shouldn't."

"Dude, that's exactly what it means." And for once in Trace's entire fucking life, it's just that simple. Justin laughs, and throws one of the stupid beige pillows right at the center of Trace's chest. Sometimes Justin doesn't think he has any choices, but the truth is, this isn't one of those times. They can talk about it or they can not talk and no one at all is going to care.

"You," Justin says through thick laughter, "are such a motherfucker!"

Trace is about to say that it takes one to know one when he turns to look at Justin and really, really looks.

The thing is, it's not like Trace looks at other guys. Not in a way where he wants to stick his hand in their pants, anyway. He doesn't even look at Justin like that - that's something everyone else does.

Trace gets that Justin is attractive in a way that's meant for magazines and posters and t-shirts, but that's not what he sees when he looks. When Trace looks at Justin, he sees all the other Justins that were there before, Justin with a peeling sun-burnt nose, Justin with a stupid haircut that Trace gave him with a pair of kitchen scissors, Justin wearing a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles mask.

He doesn't see those things when he looks at other guys. And so only with Justin, then, but Trace can say that about a lot of things in his life that have absolutely nothing to do with dick.

kel: I wrote this line down on a scrap of paper and carried it around with me through about twenty states in three months just to make sure it made it into the story.

Justin finally settles back against the couch and Trace can feel from the way his weight sinks in that he's actually relaxed now and not just pretending. "You're coming up on stage with me tonight, right?"

Trace leans back, too, and their shoulders press together. "Of course." He pauses and licks his lips, looks over at Justin, leering a little. "You wanna fool around after?"

Justin rolls his eyes and bumps Trace's shoulder, but he doesn't say no and Trace laughs again.

**

They stopped at a McDonald's just outside of Boston and back on the bus, Trace's chocolate shake tastes vaguely of strawberry. It's kind of gross and kind of reminds him of the chapstick Justin used to carry with him everywhere. Trace closes his lips around the straw and watches the city approach out the window.

K: I wrote a lot of this story when I had just gotten my new job and still didn't have much to do. So I would take crazy-long lunches at the McDonald's across the street, because I was too lazy to walk further and didn't have much money and all that. And their shakes all taste vaguely of strawberry, no matter what flavor and it is gross and so, it made it's way into the story. Also, a lot of this story was written on McDonald's napkins.

"You fucking asshole, that's not legal."

Trace looks over in time to see Steve toss his Playstation controller at Justin, who laughs loudly, his own controller held aloft as he pumps his fist in the air.

"If it wasn't legal I couldn't do it. You're worse at this than Joey, man." Steve flips Justin off at that. "You lost. Suck it up." Justin reaches forward and turns off the game and Steve whines in protest. "We're almost there, man. Rematch later."

Steve scowls and stays seated on the floor when Justin stands up. "Whatever. I don't want a rematch with a cheater."

Justin sits down next to Trace and raises his eyebrows. "Did I cheat?"

Trace wasn't watching, but, "nope." Justin doesn't believe in cheating. Spirit of the game or something. It made it really easy for Trace to be the uncontested champion of all the games they played as kids. Justin holds out his hand and Trace gives him the shake. Some of the condensation from the cup drips over Trace's wrist and he wipes it on his jeans.

kel: K wrote this part, and I love that there's sort of a contradiction there, the idea that Justin clearly has a loose definition of cheating in terms of romantic relationships but a very hard-line one when it comes to video games. But Justin probably doesn't see it as a contradiction at all, so the reader doesn't either.

"See?" Justin says to Steve.

He snorts. "Right, because he's an impartial jury."

kel: That line says so much about Trace and how he's looked at in relation to Justin.

Trace rolls his eyes and watches Justin wrinkle his nose as he sucks at the straw. "I thought you got chocolate?"

Trace shrugs. "They fucked up." He watches Justin think about being annoyed and decide against it. Good, Trace thinks. Justin doesn't take another sip, though and Trace motions for the cup back.

Steve gets up and walks toward the kitchen. Trace hears the cabinets bang open and closed and then a familiar rustle of cardboard and plastic. Justin's head is tipped and he's staring after Steve with a creased brow. When Steve comes back in with a bowl of cereal, milk sloshing from the bowl onto the beige carpet, Trace is already laughing.

Steve grins, too. "No worries, J. I only took Trace's. He said he doesn't even like Lucky Charms."

kel: Bringin' it back to the cereal. Very important.

Justin looks at Trace and he feels something between amusement, irritation and guilt. Nothing new. He smiles. "The little marshmallows are kind of-- They taste like plastic." Trace just put his name on the box to make Justin happy.

"Dude, if I'd known you didn't like them, I would've let Cameron eat them."

"Sorry," Trace says, but he's not. Not even a little and when Justin turns to watch out the window, Trace pulls his foot onto the couch, letting it rest against Justin's back until they get to the hotel. It's a day off, so after they check in Justin wants to play basketball. Steve bails-- has to see a guy about something for later-- but Trace nods and follows Justin, standing under the basket to get the rebounds and calling Justin a pussy when he misses three shots in a row and blames it on his back.

 

Trace sleeps late the next day and Justin's left the suite before he gets up. At the venue, he only sees Justin in passing for the first few hours. He waves and Justin smiles big before being led off for a fitting, an interview, a doctor's visit or something else he has to do in order to do what he actually wants to do.

Trace is wandering around backstage, looking for a place to smoke. He feels nostalgic for the days when you could just light up anywhere, even if he's only ever seen those days in movies. If he could find Lynn, she'd know where to go, but he can't, so he keeps wondering. He bumps into Fergie on his third pass through a darkened hallway and she smiles and leans against his arm.

They fucked. In LA and then again in Denver, but in between Trace had rediscovered that Justin gave better head and he hasn't wanted to fuck her again. She's nice though, laughs at his jokes and really doesn't seem to care about Justin one way or the other, so they're still friends. But, she doesn't know where he can smoke either and he really wants a cigarette, so he's off again and standing in front of Christina's dressing room when Justin finds him.

"Yo."

"Hey. You left early this morning." Trace runs his hand along the side seam of his jeans.

Justin snorts. "You got up at noon, man. That leaves a lot of room for early." Trace half-heartedly flips him off and glances around. Justin looks, too and taps Trace's shoulder. "This way."

Trace follows down a corridor that he missed the first four times and out an unmarked door. Justin lets Trace pass him and props the door open with his foot, tipped up so only the sole is against the rusted metal. Trace grins and leans against the wall, lighting a cigarette and smoking it in long slow drags. He blows out a large perfectly oval ring at one point and Justin reaches up and puts his finger through it.

K: A lot of the story is about how Trace gets Justin and how Trace takes care of Justin and so on and so forth, but it was really important for me that we show that it wasn't a one-sided relationship, that we illustrate what Trace gets from Justin, how Justin takes care of him. This scene, where Justin gets him outside for the cig and then just lets him smoke, is one of those moments for me. It's a small thing, but it was important.

"Better?" he asks and Trace nods, inhaling one more time before stubbing the butt out under his foot.

"Ready for tonight?"

"Mmm…" Justin nods. "I just have to do the crunches."

Trace groans. "I think I'll pass. Just gonna find Steve, check out the merchandise, you know?"

Justin rolls his eyes and pulls the door open so Trace can head back through. "I still think you shouldn't call them that."

"And I still think you're a fucking girl." Trace shoves Justin down the hall until they're both laughing and then leaves him alone with his pre-show rituals.

Trace fills the time before the show and during the show and everything moves ahead the way it always does, at a pace that perfectly splits the difference between lightning fast and molasses slow and then it's later and Trace is crammed next to Justin in an SUV speeding through traffic behind a police escort. He's drenched and pulling off one t-shirt to put on another, twisting around, elbow jamming against Trace's shoulder. He's wired and laughing and this is probably what people imagine when they think of being on tour with Justin Timberlake.

Everyone samples some of the pot Steve brings with him and when they get out of the SUVs behind the club, the smoke rolls out with them filling the air with the sticky smell, looking like something out of a hiphop video. Lynn giggles and perches on one of the black metal tables in front of the entrance to the stage. Trace does some things, tells some other people to do some things, earns his paycheck and laughs at the crowd, pressed in tight and restless. Back outside, Steve is bending down to light Lynn's Virginia Slim K: This is another shout-out to Younger, who wanted this moment in the story from the beginning. and Trace laughs and goes to sit next to Justin who's got a white towel thrown over his head and is nursing a Coors Light. Trace laughs and bumps his knee against Justin.

kel: As I have said early and often, I love these two paragraphs more than dirt. I was saying in my commentary for a story that is not this story that it's so hard to portray a sense of momentum in narrative. And there's something about the way this is written that just makes it feel like it's rolling over me in waves. The whole story has had this sort of slow and steady pace because it was a tour story and that's what we wanted it to feel like, but I can feel everything start to gear up just in the tone of the words that K uses, and I fucking adore it.

Incidentally, we got some crit on the story that said that the story lacked the energy in the dynamic between Justin and Trace that we usually see when they're on camera together. Our response was that the story we were trying to tell was a tour story, which is something we've already talked about quite a bit, and that there was a certain decision to have a tone that felt quiet and monotonous and sedate. But I always point to this scene as the crux of things, because this is the one time that you get to see them when they're on stage, and I think the juxtaposition really drives the point home.

"They're fucking nuts in there."

Justin grins, smooth and sly, nodding his head to a beat that Trace can almost hear. "They always are. This was the best fucking idea."

Trace pulls out a Winston, lights it and looks around and Lynn raises her eyebrows at him. He turns and Justin is rubbing his thumb over the swoosh on his sneakers, back and forth, back and forth and Trace can't see any dirt there. He looks back at Lynn, shakes his head and stands up.

"We ready?" He takes one last drag and tosses the cigarette to the ground, aiming for Justin's foot, but missing.

Justin looks at his watch and stands. "Yeah." He stretches his arms over his head and twists his waist around.

The band heads out and Trace follows, a bottle of Jack in one hand and a plastic bag full of Coke in another. He watches the show and he's part of the show. Justin looks at him, asking questions, showing off, pointing out girls and just sharing. Trace thinks about how all of Justin's other friends, they've always known what this feels like, but Trace never did, never felt the wall of energy from this side before and it's different than he thought it would be. It affects him differently than it affects Justin. He likes it, but the minute they're off stage, he's fine, relaxed like always, but Justin's bouncing on the soles of his feet, his neck is twitching and under Trace's hand the pulse in Justin's wrist is pounding hard and sharp. Justin's t-shirt ends up on the floor of the SUV and stays there and Steve says something about the whole car smelling like sweat and pot. Trace sniffs and yeah, it pretty much does. He doesn't mind, though.

K: We had already started the story when I saw the Boston club show and I cam home full of all these ideas about Trace's place in the performance and I'm not sure that the original story was going to go this far, but after that we decided to definitely work a show in. And time-wise, it got to actually be the Boston one, so that was a fun treat.

Justin always says he wants to go out after, but Trace suggests the hotel and Justin doesn't disagree. In the living room of the suite, Trace pours two drinks and shoves Justin down on the couch. "Calm. TV. There's nowhere to go."

Justin nods, wide-eyed and his pupils are so large and black that Trace wonders if he could fall in. But he's pretty sure that's just the bottle of Jack messing with his balance as he stumbles his way down to the seat next to Justin.

Lynn comes through, laughing and yawning into her cell phone. "Paul says hi, sweetie."

"Hey Dad." Justin waves and Lynn smiles at him before going into her room and letting the door close behind her. "That was fucking incredible."

Trace nods, agrees and sips his drink, looking around for the remote. He doesn't need a watch to know that in fifteen minutes, Justin's gonna crash, get quiet and moody and start scratching at his neck like he's been bitten. It's all anxious energy, like the horses Trace remembers from trips to the track as a kid. Trace flips on the TV, an ad for Special K filling the screen. Trace wonders if he's hungry, then wonders if they have Special K on the bus. He decides they do and it's kind with the creepy dehydrated berries. He doesn't wonder if the box has his name on it.

"What are we watching?" Justin stands up to get another drink and nods at Trace's glass, but he doesn't need anything.

"Pay per view?" Justin shrugs and Trace watches his shoulders rise and fall. When Justin turns, Trace tilts his head and quirks his lips somewhere between a smile and a scowl. "Didn't the Charlie's Angels sequel go straight to video?"

Justin laughs, loud, but just twice. Two distinct sounds that smother the sound of the TV and make Trace jump a little in his seat. Coke splashes out of his glass and onto his jeans.

"Fuck off." Justin sits back down and glances at the TV, then back at Trace. "Was it really that bad?"

Trace leans back, leaving the TV on the rerun of Friends that started up after the commercials. He doesn't really like the show, but Jennifer Aniston's hot. "You didn't see it?"

Justin shakes his head. "Nope. After fucking On the Line and Crossroads, I learned my lesson. If I'm fucking someone, or you know, thinking about fucking them, I'm not gonna watch their shit." Justin takes a long drink and Trace stares at him until he bursts out laughing.

kel: A story isn't really a story until you've bagged on Lance and Brit's movies.

"That's probably fucked up."

Justin shrugs again. "Whatever."

Trace is still laughing and he can feel Justin slumping lower in his seat and his feet aren't tap tap tapping against the bottom of the couch anymore. Trace leans his head further back and closes his eyes. "Whatever," he agrees.

He can feel Justin looking at him, but Trace doesn't open his eyes, just shifts a little closer until his thigh is pressed against Justin's hip. He feels Justin's fingers as they wrap over his to take his glass out of his hand and then hears the quiet clink when it lands safely on an end-table.

"Thanks." It's kind of mumbled, but he figures that's fine.

Justin takes the remote next and Trace listens as the stations change and voices tumble through the room, louder, softer and then none at all.

"TV sucks, man." Justin moves again and then his open hand is resting just above Trace's knee. Trace kicks up into it once, like he's doing one of those reflex tests. "Cameron's done a day early, so she's flying in tomorrow."

Trace nods. "Cool." He rolls his head to face Justin, but he still doesn't open his eyes. "I'm just gonna stay here tonight, though."

My favorite thing about the ending is that apparently k8 was sure that I wrote it. Because it's a very kel-esque ending, with the last line being a line of dialogue. But K wrote it, which I think highlights my favorite part of writing this story: I really feel like we taught each other how to be better writers.

K: We got mixed feedback about the ending and no, it's not at all a traditional happy ending, but I still think it's positive. They're friends, they get each other and neither one is going anywhere. It may seem like monotony, but it's just comfort and understanding and I really truly don't think it's sad or even that melancholy. I think there's potential for so many different futures from this moment, but in none of them are Trace and Justin not these people in this relationship, taking care of each other's crazy. And that's all sorts of special. So, you know. Whatever.

"Mmm-hmm." Justin's head is resting against Trace's arm and he can feel Justin's lips move just below the cotton of his sleeve as he speaks. "Whatever."



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There's nothin' else that I have kel@obsessivetendencies.net, there's no getting around it or in between, you're out of this world except you're not cliokat@obsessivetendencies.net ....