Africa
by Cecilia

Justin calls him on it before anyone else does. This is probably about half because Justin doesn't have much patience for anyone's moods but his own but, to be fair, at least partly because they've been sharing rooms all over western Africa for a week and it would drive anyone a little crazy to have his roommate fucking ignore him for six — six and a half, now — straight days. So although the others notice, it's Justin who finally snaps, goes over to the corner table in the latest room, and yanks the headphones off of JC's ears.

"What the --"

"C, either stop acting like such a fucking girl, or find another roommate, OK?" And he throws the phones down on the floor, half-hoping that they'll break, and retreats the bathroom to, he doesn't know, brush his teeth or something, anything but stay in the same room as JC.

But JC follows him immediately, which means he's really mad — otherwise, he'd just go back to the silence. And it's so unlike JC that he's shocked when he's swung around and shoved up against the tile wall, not hard enough to really hurt, but hard enough to make the point. Justin's well aware that JC works out more than he does and he's almost freaked for a moment, but then JC backs off, leans against the sink, crosses his arms, smiles sweetly right at Justin, and says, "Say that again."

Justin takes a deep breath and repeats himself, a little less forcefully this time, wondering if he's going to get hit now. He's pretty sure JC's thinking about it, and then he realizes that JC is not the kind of person who punches people after thinking about it, and then that the silence has grown so long that there's no way JC's gonna haul off now, so he relaxes, just as JC says ruefully,

"Funny, I thought not talking about problems was supposed to be a guy thing."

Justin rubs the back of his neck and, now that he's not in immediate danger of being pounded into the floor, starts to get mad again. "Yeah, but it's chicks who let you know something's wrong and then expect you to understand why they're upset without them telling you. Guys — look, JC, you wanna be a guy, you can tell me what's wrong and we'll talk, or you can repress your fucking emotions and not sit around 24-7 pouring out your tortured soul into the keyboard or whatever and not talking to us" — he pauses for breath and emphasis — "but if you wanna be a chick, C, you're doing a fabulous job."

JC's face is so closed that he can't even tell anymore whether his friend is mad back at him.


First they're a month back from Africa, then two, and right after that day in the bathroom JC starts repressing, all right, so it's nearly three months after their return that Chris the psych major catches on. And even then he only notices because one night they all bring girls back to the hotel, except JC, who rides in the front seat of the limo and talks to the driver while they all make out in the back. And it occurs to Chris, who hears the low murmur of JC's laugh from the front just as he is sliding a confident hand under his girl's hem, that JC hasn't had sex in like three months. JC hasn't ever exactly slept around, at least a lot less than the others, but still. And Chris knows that if he had they would have known, because they can't help knowing, living on the same hotel floors city in and city out, and then he thinks that it's unhealthy to be focusing on his friend's sex life, and turns his full attention back to his own. But in the morning, when they all get up and the four girls leave, he watches JC's back as they ride the elevator down to breakfast, and thinks about it again.


It's not like they all don't kind of know after four months of it, loud and less loud and, more or less, solitary (though whoever has the connecting wall can hear clearly the hissing sound of the modem establishing the link, a few minutes before the soft noises start), but JC blushes deeply when he shows them the song, anyway.

Chris raises his eyebrows and Justin wolf-whistles and Lance's ears get red at the tips, and Joey cuts off the teasing before it can really start, for which JC will be eternally grateful, and just says, "OK, let's go — what key do you want, C?" Later, though, he pulls Chris into his hotel room. They look at each other and agree that JC needs to get laid, by a real live honest-to-God three-dimensional girl, as soon as possible, and Joey says he'll try to help.

JC is not cooperative, and after he dances with the fifth girl Joey has practically shoved at him he gets pissed off and goes home alone. Which means it will have to be done the hard way. Joey waits a couple of days, storing up the courage he figures he'll need to hammer through whatever walls are separating JC and his weirdass fantasy world from the human race, these days, and finally, after a sound check, he puts his hand on JC's shoulder and tells him he needs to quit with the computer. JC, predictably, tenses up, and Joey tightens his grip so JC can't bolt.

"Look, JC," he says. "You're twenty-three, you're really hot, you sing lead in the most famous band this side of the fucking Beatles. You're not, last time I checked, a total loser. I don't know if you've, like, forgotten or what, but real girls want you and you can have them anytime." That sounds weird and lame and abrupt, but he hasn't planned anything else to say, so he stops.

JC doesn't reply, just looks at him with glittery eyes and goes to ask a techie something. He doesn't get laid, either. But he does stop with the cybersex, at least when anyone's around to hear, and after a while Joey puts it out of his mind for good.


It's Lance who, for some reason, can't let it go, can't get all professional and just rehearse the damn song without feeling the curiosity — sick, he chastises himself — lurking at the back of his brain. He can't seem to keep himself from speculating out loud, in the dressing room, during studio breaks, wherever, whenever they've been working on it, even though he knows JC hates it and it inevitably ends with someone smacking the back of his head, hard. It's like somehow, if he just bugs JC long enough he'll tell him the name of that girl he'd had that one night in Nairobi when they'd all had single rooms. No one had seen her, and they'd both been quiet, but the other four had looked at JC's movement the next morning and just known, because they always did. And this girl, my God, she must have been something, because first JC had stopped speaking — at least until Justin'd flipped and yelled at him — and then he'd...gone online. Lance thinks about the tall blue-black braided women they'd met, and their long legs, every time they sing the song, and all he wants is to put a face to whoever had JC so hung up, so he can think about that, too, although really just the legs are almost enough, and he's blushing again. He can't seem to stop having that reaction when they sing it, either.

After the last recording session, which they have in New York in between a TRL appearance one day and a pair of interviews the next, Lance goes back to JC's room with him and flops onto the couch. JC sits on the bed and they talk about nothing for a while, friendly, until finally (he hates himself but he can't, can't help it) he asks again.

JC's face shutters, like it does whenever Lance brings this up, but as usual, once he's let himself start he's like an unstoppable train. He gets up, restless, and paces a little, and gets tense, and more tense, and finally a little angry, he's not sure at JC or himself.

"I don't know, JC, I mean, I know I'm making a big deal out of it, but you're helping, man, I mean, why not just tell us?" JC's still sitting on the bed in the exact same position, but his shoulders have gotten all defensive, also like they always do, like JC has got some big secret that he can't know about, and Lance realizes that maybe he can't let it go because he's kind of hurt. JC was supposed to be his best friend. And then bam — Big-Secret time, no more sharing. He feels stupid for feeling left out (what, he doesn't want you in on the intimate details of his sex life and you're hurt? You're a freak!), which of course only makes him angrier, and before he knows it he's practically yelling and he sees the muscles flexing in JC's arms and thinks maybe he's finally going to push it too far but he can't, he can't stop and "Jesus, whoever she was, she changed your whole personality, man,--" can't stop "--she gave us this whole new JC, and forgive me for wanting to know who she was. We must have met her, you didn't go out without us so it must have been someone we met. That girl Marie from the bar? --" can't stop "-- or what was her name, Simone? Christ, C, why won't you just tell me? It was just some girl, man, it's not like you have to protect her honor or something, just some random chick who's still in Africa —"

"It wasn't a fucking chick! OK?" JC cuts him off, loud. "Not a chick!" And suddenly JC's off the bed, angry and nose-to-nose, grabbing his arms, and then he's kissing him so fast, so hard, that it's pure instinct for Lance to shut both his mouth and his eyes, so fast that he can't get his hands up quick enough to stop JC from going, just like that, saying "Fuck" and slamming the door, so hard that he will still feel it half an hour later when they all meet for dinner and JC won't meet his eyes and Lance will think about pulling him aside and saying, "JC, I didn't know," and then he'll wonder if he wants to know what JC would say back.

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