mickeym | [ new fic: remember when

Remember When - Chris/JC. No rating.

For

jchalo. I hope it makes you smile a little bit, honey. *hugs gently*

It's a game they play when they've been too long on the bus, when the landscape blurring outside the window looks the same for hours and hours on end. They have years of experience in killing time, but sometimes they have to fall back on old favorites. Sometimes the best way to deal with boredom and melancholy is to remember things, some happy, some sad, some funny, and to do it together, all piled onto one bus.

"Remember when…" Justin begins, curling into one corner of the couch. JC wonders how such a large man can fold up so small.

"…Joey split his pants?" Lance finishes, poking his bare toes into Joey's belly. They all laugh, because yeah, the first show right after Thanksgiving, second leg of the Strings tour. Everyone gave Joey crap about it for days.

"Remember when we first signed?" Joey tugs on Lance's toes, and it's always amusing to hear such a deep voice snort and squeal that high. Almost a giggle, if Lance giggled. "Your birthday, C."

"Best birthday present ever!" JC grins, remembering how proud and anxious and excited and scared he'd been. That they'd all had been.

"Not even legal yet, that year." Chris adds, flicking a wad of napkin across the couch. JC flips him off and throws it back. "Remember when we went to that ski lodge outside Hamburg?"

JC grins. "The first time Joey tried to ski?" They all laugh at that.

"Remember when you told us Kelly was pregnant?" Lance shifts, using Joey's belly for a foot rest, but JC sees the caress, knows the emotion behind it.

"You were sure we were gonna be mad," Justin continues. "Man. The look on your face, Joe."

They'd been surprised and definitely a little wary, but never mad. "You guys strutted around like it was your baby," Joey nods. "Losers, all of you."

"Remember when Johnny got married?" JC twists a piece of hair around his finger idly.

"God. Remember when Stacy got married?" Lance rolls his eyes at Justin and shakes his head.

"Yes. Vividly." They all do, really; it was a big day for Lance's family, and as extended family, they were there for him. He smiles sadly, then, a glimmer of things that couldn't be shining in his eyes. "Remember when I went to Russia?"

"We missed your ass at Challenge that year." Joey pulls on Lance's toes again and smiles sweetly when Lance bares his teeth at him.

"Remember when Briahna was born?" Chris twists and JC finds feet in his lap. He rubs them absently, scrapes his fingernails along the bottoms and smiles fondly when Chris shivers against him. "Prettiest little girl, ever," Chris continues in a soft voice. Joey has a stupid grin on his face and JC feels his own smile broaden. She really was. Is.

"Remember when the DJs from Texas made up that story about Justin and Britney?" JC tugs on Chris' toes gently and he hears the soft snort where he's sure it tickles.

"My momma still fusses about that sometimes." Justin frowns. "It was a pretty sucky thing they did." He turns and looks out the window for a minute, then back at the other four men. "Remember when we got our first gold record?

That's a memory JC hadn't thought of in a while. Nearly twenty years ago, that one, and so much has happened between then and now. Records, promotions, movies, solo albums and tours. Two failed marriages and one that's been successful, between the five of them, as well as four kids. They fall silent, all of them, staring at each other in turn, until Lance smirks. "Remember the photo shoot for that?"

Chris laughs and throws a piece of napkin across the small space. "Remember when we got snowed in over Christmas while we were in Sweden?" Five years ago, that one. The first big world tour they'd done in a while. JC snorts. "Justin was all 'oh, my god, oh, my god'. At least we were at the airport, y'know."

"Y'all suck," he says, grinning. "I was waiting to be a daddy, man. Can't blame me for being high-strung."

"You've always been high-strung, J." Joey sounds sleepy, like he often does after they've played this for a while. Outside the bus, JC sees snowflakes drifting down. "Remember when Chris was paper-training Busta?"

"Damn dog crapped in everybody's bunk at least once." Lance grumbles softly, then growls when Joey pinches him.

"Yeah, because Dirk was so much better trained."

Sometimes the game is more melancholy than tonight. JC's glad, because he's not in a melancholy mood. It's early winter – or really, late fall – and there's snow, and bare tree limbs pointing toward the sky like arms reaching for the heavens, and he's piled onto a bus with the four men he trusts most in life, and he's content. Happy. He doesn't want to be melancholy tonight.

Chris wiggles his feet and rolls his eyes when JC looks at him. They share a quiet smile before Joey's voice tugs them back to the game. "Remember when Bree started school?"

"Two words for you, Fatone: Basket Case." Justin smirks, then laughs when Joey surges up and grabs at his toes.

"Yeah, yeah, little man. You weren't any better when yours started."

"Who you callin' little man?" Justin pokes back, long legs stretched out, feet pressed into Joey's chest.

"If y'all are gonna do this, take it somewhere besides my lap." Lance hunches back into his corner of the couch and glares, then yelps when Justin launches himself toward him.

"Free for all!" Joey waggles his eyebrows toward JC and Chris, but JC shakes his head, nodding quickly toward Chris. He won't say anything, because Chris doesn't complain – it's not his nature – but JC knows Chris' knees hurt bad tonight; bad enough to preclude even a bit of tackle-and-wrestle.

They watch the other three wriggling about on the small floor space, and Chris snorts. "Remember when we thought our children were going to grow up someday?"

JC tips his head back and laughs. "I never thought that. Don't tell me you bought into it?"

Chris purses his lips, then waves one hand. "Well, I bought into Santa, too, for a while, but. You're right. Hey, you're fallin' down on your job, there." He wiggles his toes against JC's palm and sighs when JC strokes gently. On the floor, Joey has Justin pinned, with Lance helping him tag-team. The Joey/Lance team is a strong one, and JC knows from personal experience if they decide to team up against you, it's all over. Call it a match and forfeit gracefully.

Justin's obviously still not figured that out, because he's wiggling and cursing and laughing, trying to get away.

The game's been abandoned temporarily in the interest of other amusements. That's fine with JC, because they have over twenty-two years of memories collected up, and sometimes it's too easy to get lost in the past. There's good and bad there, and while JC occasionally wishes some things had happened differently, he's glad for everything, though sometimes he's had to wait for gladness to happen.

Justin cries Uncle, and slinks off to the back lounge, probably to call home. It's getting dark outside, and he likes to check in at home when they're on the road, talk to his kids before their bedtime, if possible. Lance stands up and stretches, reaching upward until his back cracks.

"I'm gonna lay down for a while. Wake me when we stop; I'll have to get back on my bus to shower." JC nods. He's probably gonna call home, too. JC's listened unabashedly a couple of times when Lance sang his daughter a lullaby over the phone. It makes his heart happy, hearing him.

"I think I'll crash for a while, too." Joey disappears into the tiny bathroom, pulling the curtain separating the bunk area closed behind him, and Chris and JC are left alone in the dimness and quiet.

Chris makes a soft sound beside him, and JC looks over. "You okay?"

"Yeah." But he moves, drawing his legs up off JC's lap, wincing at the movement. "Maybe overdid it," he says quietly.

"Maybe." Which is shorthand for 'yes, you idiot, you usually do'. JC turns to lean back against the arm of the couch and sighs when Chris turns with him, pressing his back against JC's chest, settling close. JC slides his fingers through soft, dark hair sprinkled liberally now with grey. "Remember when we thought we'd own the world?" He breathes the words onto Chris' skin, feels a slight shiver work through him. It's an old joke; at one time, they really did own the world. Or a good part of it, anyway.

"Remember when we were young?" Chris laces their fingers together and squeezes lightly; JC returns the squeeze and presses a kiss to Chris' neck.

"I don't remember getting old," he replies, kissing again. Chris snorts and the sound travels like a muted vibration through his lips and into JC. "I don't," he says again. JC doesn't feel old with Chris, ever.

"Remember the first time?" Chris is half-turned, and JC kisses him, lips soft and lightly chapped parting to welcome him. It's always like coming home, slivers of warm and cool cutting through him, making him shiver deliciously.

The first time was before they owned the world. Before marriages and kids, and huge records. Before solo records and tours, and hiatuses, and space. Before Challenges. Before lawsuits. It was before Janet Jackson, and two tour buses, and their first gold record. Before signing contracts and Germany. Before recording.

The first time was when it was just five boys who knew how to dream big, who wouldn't stop reaching for what they wanted, even when it meant sacrifices and work that people twice their age often wouldn't – didn't – do.

It was a cramped twin bed and sweaty skin, and nervous laughter; two men, hardly more than boys, reaching out for each other as an anchor against all the uncertainty happening around them.

They still laugh, but it's not nervous any more. Their skin still gets sweaty, and they take turns tasting the salt on each other's skin, hands mapping paths they know from memory.

They have a large, comfortable bed, but sometimes like the cramped couch in the bus, just for the memories.

"Remember when—" JC begins, shifting down. Chris turns and slides against him, mouth warm where it hovers just above JC's.

"I remember," Chris says, and kisses him. It tastes like forever, just like JC remembers.

~fin~

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: drift away - uncle kracker