Here We Go
by Allecto

~..~

i. Here we go

~..~

There were voices, hovering somewhere in the vicinity of his head.

"Do you think he's alive?" That sounded like JC.

"He's breathing." Justin? But Justin's voice wasn't that high.

Suddenly someone poked him. Chris' eyes flew open. "What the hell?!" Then he saw the people staring down at him. It was JC, Joey, Justin, Britney and Christina, only it wasn't. They were. They were babies. "Okay," he said, "I know I'm the oldest, but this is a little ridiculous, don't you think?"

"What's he talking about?" Britney asked.

"He's a drunk," Joey said. "Stay away from him, kid."

"I'm not a drunk," Chris said.

"I'm not a kid," Britney said.

"Sweetie," JC said, "you are. You're 12."

"Just 'cause you're almost 18, you think you're so hot. Anyway," and Britney rounded on Joey, "you're not even an extra anymore. Don't you tell me what to do, Joseph Fatone."

Joey and JC's eyes met across Britney's head, and they smiled.

"Still don't explain what a drunk's doing on our set, yo," Justin said.

"I am not a drunk!"

"But you are on a private set," JC said. "I've been on MMC for years, man. They don't let strangers sleep on the backlot."

"MMC?"

"Hul-lo," Christina said. "Mickey Mouse Club."

"We're famous, you know," Justin said.

Chris groaned, and buried his face in his hands.

"See," Joey said. "Drunk."

"For the last time, I'm not drunk. I'm just."

"What?" Justin asked.

Chris sighed. "I'm from the future."

"Say what?"

"Well," Britney said," that would explain the beard."

"There's nothing wrong with my beard!"

"It has. Horns," JC said.

"Oh, like you're one to talk, Mr. Chin-stripe."

"Huh?"

"C grows a beard?" Joey said.

"No," Chris said, "not a full --"

"Shut up!" JC cried, throwing his hands over his ears. "I can't hear this! You'll alter the path of my future!"

"Dork," Justin said fondly.

"So this is, like, 1993? 4?"

"4," Joey said.

Chris did some rapid calculations in his head. "Crap."

"What?"

"I can't go stay with me." He paused, and looked at the five children who were staring at him. "C! Your mom wouldn't mind, right?"

"Mind what?"

"When you put me up."

"Dude," Justin said, "you're a stranger. He ain't putting you up."

"But I'm not a stranger. I'm a friend of yours, and his, and Joey's and Brit's. You just don't know me yet."

"What's wrong with me?" Christina asked.

"Besides the fact that you won't give Brit the time of day, and therefore we have to hate you? Absolutely nothing."

"Hey!" Brit glared at Christina.

"STOP it," JC said.

"Well, I still don't see why you have to support her," Christina said.

"Because of Justin." The teens stared at him. "They're dating," Chris clarified. Joey burst out laughing.

"I can't HEAR you," JC sang, "Lalalalalala."

Justin hit him.

"So you'll put me up, right?"

"Okay, look," JC said. "Even if you are a freak sent from the future, I don't see why you can't stay with your past -- current -- other freak self."

"A, I'm not a freak, Mouseboy. And B, my other freak self has no cash, and is currently in college and working three jobs."

"You're in college?" Justin said, staring a Chris with a respect that was bordering on awe.

"No," he said. "I graduated already. My other freak self is in college."

"Stay in his dorm," Joey said.

"Actually," JC said, "I suppose that could cause a temporal paradox too, if you don't remember an adult you from when you were your other freak self."

"Y'all are all freaks," Justin said. "I'm jettin', yo."

"Fine," Chris said. "Just. Give me bus money. I'll go to Mississippi and see Lance."

"Who?" Joey asked.

Chris stared at him. "Lance. 5'10", blond hair, green eyes, bass? You haven't met him yet. Fuck! This fucking sucks."

Justin, who had not jetted after all because his mom wasn't there to pick him up, stared at Chris with round eyes. "You cursed," he whispered, and a slow grin spread across his face.

"So? People don't curse around you?"

"This is Disney," JC said.

"You can stay with me," Justin said. "You're cool."

"He's not staying with you," Joey said. "What would your mom say?"

"Actually," Chris started, but JC covered his mouth.

"Shut. Up."

"So I can stay with you, then?"

"You are taking away his shelter, yo," Justin said.

"I ain't putting him up," Joey said. "Mom would freak."

"Not me," Christina said, and shoved her nose in the air. Joey grabbed it and twisted playfully. She ducked away, and then giggled and leaned against his side.

"Fine," JC said, "the freak from the future can stay with me."

"He's not a freak from the future," Britney said scornfully. "He's a lying stranger freak. Because, hello? Like I would date Justin?"

"Well, I wouldn't date you either. And, hey!" Justin said. "I'm a prime catch, woman."

"Get off me," Joey said to Christina. "I am not gonna sleep with you."

Chris wished desperately for a camcorder.

"Mom?" JC called. "You home?"

"Hi, Josh." Karen Chasez leaned out of the kitchen to kiss JC on the cheek. "Who's this?"

"I'm Chris. Kirkpatrick."

"He's a friend from work, Mom. It's cool if he spends the night, right?"

"My apartment's being fumigated," Chris said, "so I can't really stay there."

Karen waved her hand, resigning fumigation to some invisible, inconsequential place. "Stay as long as you like," she said, and reached for his coat. "Would you like some tea? Soda? Snacks?"

"Mom!" JC said.

"Coke, if you have it," Chris said. "Thank you."

"I have to offer, because Josh never thinks of these things himself. I swear, he'd starve if his father or I weren't around to cook for him."

Chris laughed. "I know," he said, "C never remembers to eat. It's ridiculous."

"Chris!"

"Oh, I'd feel so much better if you remind him," Karen told Chris, handing him a coke. "One of these days he's going to waste away to nothing."

"Mom!"

"Absolutely," Chris said. "We can't have C disappearing on us, can we."

"My bedroom," JC said desperately, "is this way." He tugged on Chris' arm, pulling him down the hallway.

"Thanks for the soda!" Chris called.

"What the hell was that?"

"I like your mom. She's always been -- always will be -- she's a nice person."

"So you felt free to criticize my eating habits? Are you sure we're friends?"

"Of course I'm sure. What, I'm gonna lie?"

"Well, for all I know, you really hate me. Or I really hate you. Maybe you were sent back in time to make amends, and fix the fact that you fucked me over or something."

"Maybe you're paranoid."

"What? I'm not worth fucking over?"

"Not yet, you ain't. Give it a few years. When we get back from Germany, and leave Tran--"

"I'm not listening! Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb, Mary--"

Chris clapped a hand over JC's mouth. "If you shut up," he said, "I will too."

JC nodded. Chris removed his hand.

"hadalittlelambitsfleecewaswhiteassnow. Sorry. I can't just, you know. Stop in the middle of a verse."

"Fucker," Chris said. He flopped onto JC's bed. "So. How many more shows do you have left?"

"What?"

"You know. Before they cancel MMC?"

JC's eyes went round. He stared at Chris, his jaw dropping. "You. You."

"You're very cute when you're angry."

"TEMPORAL PARADOX!" JC said.

"Sure," Chris said. "'Cause you know so much about physics."

"Anyone whose read any science fiction--"

"Knows it's all made up. No one has the slightest clue. For all I know, I've told you all this already, and you just never mentioned you knew me."

"You shouldn't test it," JC said. "Remember Back to the Future?"

"I remember," Chris said, his eyes lighting up. "There was that whole thing with Biff getting rich off the book of World Series winners."

"That was Back to the Future 2," JC said.

"Whatever. Root for the Yankees in '96."

"Chris!"

"And '98. '99. 2000."

"Shut up!"

"Unfortunately, it's the D'backs in '01. Of course, they don't exist yet."

"SHUT UP!!"

"Make me," Chris said smugly.

JC kissed him.

Chris stared at JC, his eyes wide and confused. "You're straight," he said.

"You're quiet."

"Yeah, but. Shit. I really am messing up the space-time-parathing?"

"No," JC said, "I've pretty much always been bi."

"Not since I've known you. Shit shit shit."

"Chris, it's okay. I probably just never said -- I mean, I like girls better, and..." JC reached for Chris' arm.

"Don't touch me! We could disappear into a cloud of smoke or something!"

"If that were gonna happen, don't you think it would've when I kissed you?"

"You're altering my past." Chris scrabbled against the bedboard, fending JC off with a Luke Perry pillow.

"You're altering my futu--" JC stopped, his eyes narrowed. "You're a homophobe."

"What? No!"

"You are. You're homophobic. That's why--"

"I'm not homophobic, C. I'm from Pittsburgh."

JC blinked. "What the fuck does that mean?"

"I have no idea. You cursed."

"I'm not on set anymore. Don't tell Justin, okay?"

"Okay."

"Pittsburgh?"

"It got you to stop freaking. Anyway, I'm not homophobic. I've been bi all my life, whereas you've just been bi since I got sent back in time."

"I've been bi for almost 18 years, thank you very much!"

"Nope," Chris said, shaking his head wisely. "Just the one day. Not that you'd know or anything. But trust me. If you were bi, you would've said."

"We're that close, huh?" JC said.

Chris bumped shoulders with him. "Closer."

"Okay," JC said, and kissed him again.

Chris shoved him away. "What the fuck, C? You can't just. I mean. You've only known me for a day!"

"But you've known me forever."

"Yeah," Chris said, "and we don't fuck."

"I'm not trying to fuck you, I'm trying to kiss you. And why not?"

"What?"

"Is there something wrong with me? It's the hair, isn't it. It's too long."

Chris barked in laughter.

"'s not funny," JC said, pulling his knees up to his chest. Chris fell off the bed.

"Sorry, sorry. Just. If you only. I mean no, it's not the hair."

"The nose?"

"C, you're perfect, okay? You're sweet, and funny, and gorgeous, and fuck it." Chris leapt back onto the bed, tackling JC. "You're sure?"

"You're kinda cute," JC said, "even if you do have weird facial hair. And you're funny. And you're mmmph!"

"Huh," Chris said a moment later. "It works for shutting up other people, too."

JC took Chris with him to MMC the next day, because "I told Mom I knew you from work, man."

"It's okay," Chris said. "I can be all boyfriendly and supportive. C, C, he's my man, if he can't do me, no one can!"

JC turned bright red. "Listen, Chris. Um. Chris."

"That's my name, don't wear it out."

"Yeah. Chris, the thing is."

"No one knows you're bi?"

"How'd you? Yeah."

"Easy," Chris said. "Justin and Joey don't know in my time, so they couldn't know in yours. Being from the future is pretty handy, don't you think?"

"Temporal paradox," JC muttered, but he sounded suspiciously fond.

Chris poked him. "You know you like me."

"Whatever, dude."

"Uh-huh. I see that smile tugging at your mouth. Embrace the happiness, man. Once you've had you some Chris Kirkpatrick, life ain't never the same again."

JC fiddled with his window.

"What?"

"I just. I mean. You're so."

"Sweet? Funny? Annoying? I'm told I'm annoying a lot of the time, when it's really my secret mating ritual, but I can stop, if it's bugging you. New and Improved Chris Two Thousand and Two, annoyance sold separately."

"Hot," JC said. "You're hot. And sweet and funny, and sexy and what are you doing with me?"

"Well, you started it. And then, like. Man. You should see how you grow into your looks. If I'd known you were bi, I would've jumped your ass ages ago. Er, in the future. And. What's with the self-esteem issues? This is not the JC I know."

"Well, duh!" JC snapped. "I'm 17, not however the fuck old I am in future-land. I'm not rich, I'm not famous, and I think I'm perfectly justified in questioning a hot mysterious stranger who comes back in time to make out with me!"

"Okay, okay. I'm sorry. I didn't. I mean." Chris looked at his hands. "I like you," he said. "I like you."

JC gripped the steering wheel tightly. "I like you too."

"Then what's the problem?"

"If you like me so much. I mean. You keep saying. Why didn't we get together before?"

"You were underage, and we didn't know each other?"

"No, I mean. Your before. If I'm so hot, and we're so close, why didn't."

"C."

"When you go back, how long am I gonna have to wait?"

Chris looked away. "Temporal paradox," he said softly.

"Yeah," JC said. "Temporal paradox."

Justin pulled Chris aside while JC was running lines.

"What did you do to him?"

"What?"

"JC. He's different."

"No he's not."

"I think I'd know," Justin said, glaring at Chris. "I've only worked with him for nearly two years."

"That long, huh?"

"Whatever, future-man. I'm just sayin'. He looks sad."

"Think so?" Chris turned, scrutinized JC. "He is. Slumping a little."

"See? You have to stay away from him."

"I what?"

"Don't make me get medieval on your as--on you."

Chris cracked up.

"It ain't funny, yo. C's my homie."

"I know, I know. I just. Damn." Chris pulled Justin into a tight hug, ignoring him when he tried to squirm away. "I missed you, kiddo."

"You're freaky, man."

"I know." Chris ruffled Justin's hair.

"Quit it."

"Make me."

"I could, if I wanted to."

"Absolutely," Chris said. "In about 4, 5 years."

Justin stuck his tongue out.

"You should watch that. Someone might grab it from you."

"Sthmnlkyuh?"

"Yes," Chris said, holding Justin's tongue firmly between his fingers. "Someone like me. And now that I have your tongue, what are you gonna do?"

"Let go," JC said, slipping his arms around Chris' waist, "or I'll have you arrested for child abuse."

"I am not Louis Perlman," Chris said hotly.

"Who?" Justin asked.

"Temporal paradox."

"I'm gonna be abused?"

"You damn better not have been!" Chris said. "If that fat, greedy windbag so much as looked at you funny, and you didn't tell me -- promise you'll tell me."

"But if I didn't, wouldn't that be para--"

"Promise," Chris said firmly.

"I'm not a baby, you know. Maybe I tol--"

"Promise," JC said.

Justin scowled. "I promise."

"Good," Chris said. "That's one thing I don..."

"What's wrong?" JC asked, holding Chris tightly.

"Nothing," Chris said slowly. "Just. A little woozy, I guess."

"So, lemme get this straight," Joey said over lunch. "We're all in a band?"

"Yup."

"TEMP--oh, I give up," JC said.

"With some guy named Lance," Joey pressed.

"He's not 'some guy'!" Chris said. "He's Lance. He's your best friend."

"What the hell kind of name is Lance?" Justin asked.

"Well, I was perfectly happy keeping Jason in the group, but no! You people were all..." Chris trailed off, pressing a hand to his head.

"That does it," JC said. "You are not allowed to talk about the future anymore."

"I wasn't," Chris said.

"So, what? You lied? You made Lance up?"

"No, no. Lance was there. But I didn't. Jason wanted leave. There was no... I can't. I." Chris frowned.

JC stared at him, wide-eyed. "You changed the future," he said.

"You're nuts."

"No, really. Like with the Justin thing, earlier."

"I did NOT change the future."

"Chris--"

"Look. I like my future, okay? It has money, and happiness, and fame, and money. Did I mention that my current freak self is working three jobs and trying to get a college degree? 'Cause the money? It's pretty much worth keeping my future the same. And in my future, in case I haven't made this perfectly clear yet, I happen to have a hell of a lot of money."

"You don't have me," JC said. He tipped his chair backwards, blinking rapidly to keep his eyes from overflowing, and hurried off to make-up.

"Fuck!" Chris said.

Justin tried to hit him anyway.

JC wrapped his fingers firmly around the steering wheel. His eyes were still red-rimmed -- the director had yelled at him for forgetting lines, making him cry again after shooting. He hadn't been yelled at since he was as young as Justin.

He thought he might hate Chris.

"I want to have you," Chris said softly, "in my future."

JC sniffled, ignoring him. It was a gesture Chris was intimately familiar with, and the very fact of it made him smile. A hint of the JC he knew.

"I want to have you," he said again. "I do."

"Not as much as you want your money."

"It's more complicated than that, Jayce."

"It all boils down to the same thing, though, doesn't it? You're gonna go back soon, and I'm gonna have to live for years without you. Worse -- close to you, living with you, and never letting you know."

Chris looked down at his hands. "If we get together right after the group start, I might never come back here. I might disappear. We all might. Every time I do something to change your future, I get weaker."

"We're not gonna just disappear," JC said. "You can't just snap your fingers, and make us go away."

"But *nsync could. And that's not acceptable. I don't expect you to understand, because the group isn't real to you, not yet. But *nsync is more than us, C. And it's worth more. If that means I have to give you up, I will. Years from now, when I come back to you, I think you'll understand."

"I'll never understand," JC said.

Chris looked out the window, and remembered why he didn't fall in love with Justin back in Germany.

JC waited until he heard the click of his mother's bedroom door. The house was quiet, dark. He didn't have to wake up early, because it was a Friday night. There was just him, and Chris, and he clutched Chris tightly.

"Fuck me?" he whispered.

"WHAT?!"

"Shh! My mom."

"Jayce, no." Chris brushed JC's cheek with his thumb. If the light weren't so dim, JC would've been able to read his eyes.

"Why not?"

"I'm leaving, soon. We don't know when."

"I know you are," JC said. "That's why. Just once, before you leave me. Chris, Chris, please?" He pressed his lips to Chris', eager, gangly, loving. "Please, Chris."

He slipped inside Chris' mouth, not giving him a chance to say no. Chris wrapped an arm around JC's waist, stumbling backwards. They fell on the bed, lost in a flurry of kisses and tugged clothing.

"Please," JC said, butterflying kisses down Chris' neck.

He was still saying it when he came, lost in Chris' hold. Chris groaned, laid his forehead on JC's neck.

"I love you," he whispered, trembling. His head was killing him, but he wouldn't go back, wouldn't leave JC. Not yet.

"I love you too." JC nestled closer, burying his face in sweaty, sticky skin. He wanted to glue himself to Chris, mold them together, always. Chris ran a hand along his back, soothing him into dreams. He closed his own eyes, and as he fell asleep, the pain in his temples eased, just a little.

There were voices, hovering somewhere in the vicinity of his head.

"Do you think he's alive?" That sounded like JC.

"He's breathing." Justin? But Justin's voice wasn't that deep, not yet. Not yet.

Suddenly someone poked him. Chris' eyes flew open. "What the hell?!" Then he saw the people staring down at him. JC, Justin, Joey... and Lance. That wasn't right. That couldn't be right. "What the hell?"

"You tell us," Lance said. "You're the one who disappeared on us."

Chris met JC's eyes. "Just drunk," he said.

"Jesus, man." Joey closed a hand over Chris' arm, pulled him upright. "I don't care what shit goes down in your life, Kirkpatrick. You don't fucking disappear on us, okay?" He wasn't yelling, because Joey never yelled, but Chris could hear the anger in his voice, the concern behind it. He knew that voice better than his own.

"Okay," he said, allowing Joey to fold him into a hug.

Justin crossed his arms, trying not to sniffle. He was twenty-one, but Chris knew the boy who still lived inside him. He'd worked hard to protect that boy, keep him young and safe and happy. "Promise not to disappear again," Justin said.

Chris leaned out from Joey's chest to ruffle Justin's head, stopping himself just in time because the curls were long gone, again. Again. His eyes slid sideways, settling on JC's shuttered face. "I promise," he said.

When JC backed away, pale, silent, Joey squeezed tighter, and Chris knew he'd remembered what happened.

"What was that about?" Lance asked.

"Nothing," Justin said, a little too quickly. "Jayce is just a freak, man. You know that."

"Yeah," Lance said. "We've only known him seven years."

"Nine," Chris whispered, but it wasn't true.

No one heard him anyway.

Chris parked his car outside JC's house, but he didn't get out. He couldn't. He needed a few minutes to order his thoughts, figure out what to say. This JC, this current, older JC, wasn't the fresh-faced eager young boy he'd made love to just the night before, but he still had to tread carefully.

Nine years had gone by, in one night. He went to bed with his arms full of a sweat, happy lover, and while he slept, JC had lost him, gone to LA, gotten burned, come home, joined *nsync, and suffered seven years of not-telling-Chris. He had watched Chris in Germany, and said nothing. He had watched Dani, watched Chris fall apart, drown in bitterness and hatred and declare that he could never love anyone like her, ever, that she was it. He had watched, later, when Chris pretended Michelle was just as sweet and wonderful and perfect as Dani had been, refused to admit otherwise until it was too late, and Michelle had left him, too.

He had dated Bobbee.

Suddenly, Chris was out of the car like a lightning bolt, ringing the doorbell furiously.

He had dated Bobbee.

JC pulled the door open on the eleventh ring, staring at Chris, face closed, shut-off. Chris shoved past him, pacing in the hallway while JC closed the door, keeping the outside world at bay.

"What?" JC asked.

"You dated Bobbee."

"You expected me to wait?"

That drew Chris up short. It had been nine years. But still. "Bobbee?"

"Fuck off."

"You could've said something," Chris said.

JC laughed. "*nsync was more important to you."

"Jayce."

"It was. You said it was, and you were right. It is. I love them. You love them."

"I love you," Chris said. He was verging on hysteria, he knew that, but JC last night, last night, if he'd raised a hand to JC's cheek, it never would have occured to Jayce to knock that hand away.

"Get out," JC said. His fingers closed on the doorknob, twisting, and when Chris reached for him, he stumbled into daylight instead.

"Jayce--"

"Stop living in the past, Chris. We had a lovely couple of days, sure. Nine years ago."

Chris watched the door close, helpless. He hated feeling helpless. He wanted nothing more than to pound on that door until JC either let him in or called the cops.

The guys would kill him if he were arrested.

He climbed back into his car, and drove away.

"Are you on something?" Lance asked suspiciously. He leaned over Joey, pushing his eyelids up, peering at his face.

"Knock it off," Justin said. "He's telling the truth."

"Jesus, Joe. You gave it to Justin too?"

"Chris went back in time," Joey said patiently. It was hard to speak with Lance's nose in his mouth, sniffing for alcohol, but he managed.

Lance sat back on the couch, eyes still narrowed.

"He and Jayce were in love," Justin said. "C was 17. They fell in love, and then poof. No more freaky future guy."

"Freaky future guy?"

"Chris," Justin said. "Why? Do you know any other freaky future guys?"

Lance dropped his head in his hands. "Let me get this straight," he said.

Justin giggled. "Sorry, sorry. Just. Poor choice of words, man."

Joey rolled his eyes, and Justin's laughter subsided. "Go ahead," he said, waving magnanimously. "Pontificate."

"Chris didn't really go missing a couple of days ago. He went back in time. He showed up on the set of the Mickey Mouse Club, where you two, JC, Britney and Christina Aguilera found him.

"You five then preceeded to believe him when he said he was from the future, rather than drunk, and you sent him home with JC.

"Karen let a strange 30-year-old man spend the night at her house with her 17-year-old son.

"Chris, whom we've only ever seen with women, fell in love with JC. Despite resisting the not inconsiderable wiles of a 17-year-old Justin, back in the day.

"JC, whom we've only ever seen with Bobbee, and really, let's all try to forget that memory, fell in love with Chris. Despite the fact that he was a 30-year-old freak from the future. And then Chris came back."

Joey and Justin looked at each other, and then back at Lance.

"Yeah," Joey said, "I think that sums it up pretty good."

"Okay," Lance said. "Okay. Time-travel aside. What about the fact that Chris and JC are straight?"

"If you were bi," Justin said, "and Lou told you that you had to be straight, but not have a girlfriend, and then you got really famous, and the entire world told you you had to be straight, would you still go around fucking guys?"

"If you were gay," Joey said, and that was a little too pointed, so Lance raised a hand.

"I give," he said. "Chris went back in time and fell in love with Jayce."

"Thank you," Joey said.

"You're gay?" Justin said.

Lance sighed.

Chris couldn't sleep. He'd driven home, sat in his car, in his driveway, and just zoned.

His life often seemed ridiculous, unimaginable. Not his.

He had been so poor once, dirt poor. There was the poverty line, and then there was minimum wage, but working a couple jobs, and then there was minimum wage plus workfare/welfare, and then there was shit. And then there was his childhood.

He had been so poor, and now he was so rich, and he often had trouble believing he could be so lucky. He'd told a magazine once that sometimes he'd wake up in the middle of the night and wonder whose house he was in, and he hadn't been kidding. There was a while, from the end of the lawsuit through the No Strings tour, where he'd had a permanent bruise on his arm from pinching himself.

He'd always been awake.

He hoped he was dreaming now, because suddenly life felt terribly real again. In two days, forty-eight hours, he had fallen in love with a gangly boy, and the man he knew that boy would become. And then he relaxed, and lost it all.

He started the engine, and headed back to JC's house.

"You have no clue," JC said, "what love really is."

"What?"

"You think love is happiness and roses and meeting your girlfriend on the set of a music video. You think it's fucking desperately on my bedspread, hoping my mother doesn't hear us. Well, it's not, Chris. Love is spending seven fucking years knowing that I can't touch you, or hold you, or kiss you, because when I offered you the chance to change our future, you preferred to make me wait. You had the opportunity, and blew it."

"Then let me try again."

JC looked away. He locked his jaw, swallowing back the bitter words that wanted to pour from his mouth. Chris raised a hand, again, brushed JC's curls off his forehead. Leaned up, pressing his body to JC's like he had not 24 hours -- nine years? -- before.

They still fit together.

"Chris--"

"Please," Chris whispered. He wasn't used to begging -- it had been a point of pride, most of his life, never to beg for anything. If it wasn't given to him, he would take it, and if he couldn't take it, he'd never wanted it in the first place.

He wanted JC.

"Please," he whispered, and rubbed his nose under JC's ear.

It made him shiver just like he was 17.

"Please."

"The grou--"

"Please," Chris said. He tugged JC closer, grinned into his lips when JC moaned.

"Please."

"I waited so long," JC said.

They were curled around each other in bed, naked and glistening and slowly winding down.

"I know," Chris said. "I know you did."

"What if it doesn't measure up? What if it doesn't work again?"

"It will."

"You can't know that."

Chris twisted around, so he could peer down into JC's eyes.

"If I disappear," he said, "and only show up nine years later, and you have to spend all that time without me, I'll still love you and ask for another chance. And if you disappear and I have to go on alone, I promise, I'll try us again when you come back to me."

"Really?"

Chris nodded. "I'll always try it one more time," he said, hoping JC could hear the silent I love you behind his words.

"Me too," JC said.

Chris knew what he really meant.