Liner Notes
by Cecilia

Back then, back when JC had been a weird kid with a big nose and big ears and big just about everything on his face, back when he'd worked out practically 24/7 trying to convince a body that lost weight on eight Big Macs a day that it wanted to put on enough bulk to catch up with his too-big head, back when every time he passed a mirror he winced and tried to ignore the nose and thanked God for the small favor of decent skin, back then, Chris had already been hot.

And no matter how much JC might have liked, then, to believe he liked Chris because he'd given Lou the finger and wore black leather to the album photoshoot while JC had been too shy to argue and gotten stuck in weirdass brown suede and pink checks, when he held the insert in his hands for the first time and looked at Chris glaring at the camera, he knew it wasn't the truth. He thought then that there were advantages to being old; the rest of them all looked fake, somehow, like they belonged in playpens or something instead of in more-or-less sexy clothes and on an album cover. Chris was neat and compact and competent, his nose was in perfect proportion with the rest of his face and his head with the rest of his body. Everyone else had been trying too hard to convince themselves that they were having fun. And then there was Chris, who hadn't made love to the camera, who had just looked at it like he'd be happy to fuck it into the middle of next week if it could only convince him it was worth his time. Chris had had confidence. And really sexy hair.

When they first got copies of the album they were in Germany. Joey grinned very big and didn't stop for a month; Lance got unnaturally quiet, even for Lance, but JC caught him once sitting with it in his lap and smiling gently. Justin kind of screamed and bounced at the time, and later on cried a little. JC thought, looking back, that he himself should have been diagnosed with shock, because he'd smiled and made the right noises but for days and days it had been like he was swimming in sticky fluid, where every sound he heard came from far away and nothing seemed exactly real. He didn't really know what Chris had felt, because after he'd seen the pictures he decided it might be best to not be around Chris too much, for a lot of mixed-up reasons he couldn't exactly explain to anyone who asked, maybe not even to himself.


During the lawsuit, when Chris called Dani every ten minutes, and Lance and Justin both spent a lot of time crying on their mothers' shoulders, and Joey just ate a lot, JC sometimes pulled out the album in the privacy of his own room and stared at Chris, who stared back at him from beside his liner notes.


JC had stopped worrying that Chris would grow up suddenly and want to quit the band about two years back, around about when it occured to him that personalities got older at the same rate that people got taller. So although Justin seemed to add an extra year every day (and an extra inch, more or less) Chris, who was already old, wasn't getting any more so anytime soon. JC himself is twenty-four now, and he's grown into the head (though he still worries about the nose). They've all grown, except Chris, who's just changed, who's passed through periods of bad hair and existential despair and self-hatred and everyone-else-hatred and love and engagement and miserable breakup, and now he's back out on the other side, with different hair, but otherwise still Chris. These days, when JC repacks his CD case and glanced at the album, he isn't sure he still recognizes anyone else.

And there isn't much to be done; and JC learned a long time ago that you could get by pretty happy on what you were given, as long as you didn't think too much about what you were not. When, after a long, long day, Chris not only hugs him but runs a hand along his spine, from his shoulders to the small of his back, JC takes a deep breath and reminds himself that it's Chris, Chris who is alternately physically affectionate and physically destructive with really anyone who happens to be in the way. Of course it's true that JC tries to be in the way more often than not.

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