Interludes

This series is made up of short fics that take place between my stories "Any Path" and "No Painless Way". Reading them is not necessary, but if you want to, go here: www.nifty.org/nifty/gay/celebrity/boy-bands/any-path Those of you who aren't into the Backstreet Boys may want to skip "Any Path" and go straight to "No Painless Way". If you don't like 'Nsync...then why are you reading this? :) Um...this one's kinda short. Sorry 'bout that.

DISCLAIMER: Don't own, don't know, don't imply. Fiction is fun, lawsuits are not. Long live slash!

DEDICATION: For Colleen, an angst-queen who enjoys some 'Happiness' now and then. :)

~INTERLUDE : HAPPINESS~

by DaraLynn

"Love is never a sin, only the lack of it."

• 'Rob Roy'

"C'mon, Just. Open up."

"I don't wanna." The seventeen-year-old pouted childishly.

"It doesn't taste that bad. Please, sweetie? Just let me put it in and it'll be over before you know it," J.C. promised.

"But Josh," Justin whined, "it's gross!"

"Please? Both of us will feel better. For me?"

Justin rolled his eyes and opened his mouth, making a face at the taste of the liquid poured onto his tongue. The teenager shuddered as he swallowed, thinking that after all the centuries people had had fevers there should be medicines for them that weren't so disgusting.

J.C. smiled. "You know, angel, sometimes you're just like a big baby."

Justin stuck his tongue out. The older man grinned again and lifted his best friend off the kitchen counter. Slipping a strong arm around the slim waist, J.C. guided the boy upstairs and into his bedroom.

"Now, the stuff I just gave you should help you sleep."

Justin scowled as he was gently pushed down onto the bed. "I don't wanna go back to sleep. I wanna talk to you."

J.C. pulled a blanket up to Justin's waist. Sitting down on the edge of the bed, he soothingly stroked the blond curls.

"About what?"

"Anything. I love talking to you."

"Aw, I love it too. We'll talk after you sleep a little more. But your fevers are always high and they make me nervous, so humor me and take a nap, all right?"

Justin smiled playfully through a yawn. "What if I'm not sleepy?"

"Baby, I didn't weasel us out of today's rehearsal so you could argue with me. You wanna be okay for the show tomorrow night, right?"

Justin nodded, rubbing his eyes.

"Good. Now go to sleep or I'm calling Lynn."

"Hey, ya don't bring a guy's mom into stuff like this. Dat's just wrong," Justin mumbled.

J.C. laughed softly. He kissed the boy's warm forehead, whispered "Sweet dreams," and stood to leave.

"Josh, can you sing to me before you go?"

He sat back down. "What do you want to hear?"

"Um...'Sailing'."

J.C. began the song softly but clearly. He sang the entire thing, though Justin was asleep by the chorus. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

J.C. returned to the kitchen afterward, wincing slightly at the garish sunlight streaming through the wondows over the sink. Grabbing the small notepad by the phone, he scribbled down the time Justin had taken his medicine. He blinked with surprise at the message written on the same sheet of paper, in Justin's handwriting.

~Josh - Tony called. Call him back on his cell phone : 555-6121~

"'Kay," J.C. murmured aloud.

Picking up the phone, he dialed the number and smiled when his former fellow-Mouseketeer answered.

"Tony? It's J.C. How ya doin', man?"

"Spaz! I'm good, you? It's been a few months."

"Yeah...I'm cool. How are things going with Marc?"

Tony laughed. "Great! You with anyone yet?"

J.C.'s voice noticeably lowered. "Nah. I'd've told you."

The older Mouseketeer sighed. "Still pining away over the little superstar, huh? Spaz, you have got to get over that."

J.C. closed his eyes. "I can't. I told you once, I'm telling you again - I can't."

"We had that conversation years ago. C, everything I said to you that day...I think I was jealous, but it was more than that. I didn't want to see you hurt, and I don't now."

"I know..."

Eyes still closed, J.C. let his memory reach back to that day over three years earlier. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

J.C. swallowed reflexively as a rush of warm liquid shot down his throat. Leaning back where he knelt on the floor, the eighteen-year-old wiped his mouth as his slightly-older friend, seated on the bed before him, pulled up his pants. As J.C. plopped down onto the mattress, Tony sat down in front of him and reached for his zipper.

J.C. stopped him. "It's okay. I'm not really in the mood."

Tony laughed. "Don't tell me you've got a headache. Man, we're like an old married couple and we're not even dating!"

J.C. smiled weakly. "No headache. Just...thinking."

"Ah. About a certain pesty little blond?"

J.C.'s face hardened. "Justin's not pesty."

"I was kidding, Spaz. Have you ever noticed that the few arguments we've had have all been about him? Like the time I jokingly called him a whiny little mama's boy. No hard feelings, C, but you didn't have to tackle me like you did."

"Joke or not, you said it right in front of Justin and he got upset. That wasn't necessary."

"Yeah, I know." Tony looked down at his shoes, and his voice softened.

"It's not a crush, is it J.C.? You're actually in love with the runt, aren't you?"

"I think so. I'm sick, aren't I? He's just a kid..." J.C. slumped where he sat.

Tony put his arm around his friend's shoulders.

"You are not sick, C. You're in love, and no one can choose who they love. The only thing bad about this is you're probably never gonna feel it back from him. I mean, Justin worships the ground you walk on, yeah, but you're like his big brother. And do you really think he's gay?"

"Nothing on my gay-dar...what about yours?"

Tony shifted uncomfortably.

"Well, could be too early to tell. But I don't think you'll come outta this one a winner, C. We can hope, though. And Justin's not 'just a kid'. If he's captured your heart...then he must be pretty damn special."

J.C. smiled fondly. "He is."

"Enough for you to be going off with him to Tennessee next month...I can't believe you're leaving." Tony frowned.

"He depends a lot on me," said J.C. "And I need him just as much. If I can't be anything more than his best friend, then I want that. I can't let distance take it away from me."

"Roy and Karen are actually letting you do this?"

"Mom and Dad are cool with it. And they trust Lynn."

"Lynn know you're gay?"

"I think she guesses. She's very perceptive. And Justin knows, of course."

Tony nodded. "Does he know how you feel about him?"

"Not yet. I'm gonna tell him soon, before we leave. I actually wanted to ask your advice about that."

Tony chuckled. "You want to know how to tell your five-years-younger best friend, who's probably straight, that he has your heart? How to tell the kid you're practically raising that your greatest wish is something he's not capable of giving? If it was any other person in the world I'd say 'Don't do it, he'll turn away from you'. But Justin...what you guys have is so tight, and it's getting stronger all the time. I think you could probably tell the kid you're an ax-murderer come to kill him and he wouldn't blink. He'd still sit on your lap and follow you around like a playful little puppy." Tony sighed.

J.C. grinned hopefully. "Yeah? So I should tell him?"

"Yes. Just make sure he understands that he's under no obligation, and that nothing has to change. Honesty and friendship is worth a little guilt, but if he thinks you expect something from him he'd probably give it - he's a weird kid when it comes to you. And then he'll be scarred for life and I'll be visiting you in jail. And you'll have to do talk shows with other child stars who went bad."

The younger Mouseketeer laughed. "I guess me and Just are kinda touchy-feely for best friends...we both like it though. But I'd never take advantage of him."

"Oh, C, I know that!"

"Then why do you look like your goldfish just died?"

Tony sighed deeply. "You know how I'm good at guessing things. Well, I can just picture how it could be for you. You and Justin will go on being attached at the hip, each thinking the other is his whole world. And that kid is gonna go from cute to beautiful, and date girls who can't see him as anything more. You'll be there, holding his hand when he needs you to, protecting him like he's still the twelve-year-old you walked away from me that day to meet. And Justin'll break hearts and get his broken, and he'll still sit on your lap and let you baby him, because he'll love and need you in the same innocent way he always has. You'll never take your heart back from him, never be able to exchange it with anyone else. You'll give up happiness for the adoration of a boy you think of as an angel. Don't, C. Look at Justin and see only a friend."

"I can't, Tony. I can't." ------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I still can't, man. I look at Justin and I see the other half of me. He's not just a friend, not like..."

Tony sounded sad. "Like I always was."

"I'm sorry you and I couldn't have been more. All that time we fooled around...I never bothered to notice how much you cared."

"Spaz, it's okay. It's in the past...and now I got a great guy that I'm crazy about. I just wish you could say the same."

"I can. It's just that my guy loves me like the best friend and protector I am. No more."

"Sometimes I hate being right. Well, on the bright side, he's still young. Hearts can change."

"Josh?" came a voice from the living room.

"Hold on, Tony."

Cordless phone in hand, J.C. went into the living room, and pulled Justin down to sit on the couch with him.

"Baby, what are you doing up? Hmm...you're still kinda warm..."

Justin curled up on the couch cushions, resting his head in J.C.'s lap.

He murmured, "I missed you", before falling right back to sleep. J.C. began to run his fingers through the mussed curls, and brought the phone back to his ear.

"I'm back, Tony."

"Hmm. Let me guess...the little angel is asleep on your lap."

"Um...yeah, sorta."

"Thought so. So...was my prediction right?"

//Was it?// J.C. wondered. //Justin and I are closer than we've ever been, we still depend on eachother. He is beautiful, inside and out, and the girls he dates are too overwhelmed by how he looks and who he is to do anything more than frustrate him. I still hold Justin and comfort him and baby him, newly thankful every day that he lets me. He is and always will be my angel, and no, I'll never take my heart back from him. Because something inside me, something deeper than wisdom and older than experience, says my heart is where it belongs.//

"No, Tony. Sorry, but you were wrong."

He sounded surprised. "I was?"

"Yes." J.C. smiled. "I'm not unhappy."

"C...how is that possible? You are hopelessly, madly in love with someone who can't love you back that way."

"I don't understand it either, but...when I'm away from Justin, I feel empty, and the knowing that he's straight gnaws at me. But when I can hold him, and hear him laugh and listen to him breathe, I can't feel regret or bitterness. I can't be so sad for what I don't have when I have so much. He is my happiness, Tony. And I'm lucky."

The elder man was silent for a moment. "Then, this time," he said, "I'm glad I was wrong. I gotta go, Spaz...I'll call ya again sometime?"

"You better. Thanks, Tony."

"Sure. And C..."

"Yeah?"

"Justin is damn lucky too. I hope he knows it." With that, Tony hung up the phone.

J.C. looked down at Justin, love for the boy burning as brightly as ever in his heart. He placed a hand on the teenager's forehead, and smiled with relief that it wasn't as warm as before, that this fever like all the others had broken.

//It's good that some things cool after flaring so hotly for a time, // J.C. thought vaguely. //But others...well, there's a reason for some fires.

Even if we never know what.//

J.C. smiled one last time, and fell asleep.

~FIN~

Questions and non-flame comments welcome to DaraLynn_writings@hotmail.com