** Same disclaimer as before. I'm not putting it here again.**
Author's Notes: Well, this is the last real building chapter that doesn't show any clear road to romance. I'll be finally leading them towards the good stuff in the next couple of chapters, and don't worry, they'll be together soon enough. But hey, these things take time you know.
Whatever It Takes - Chapter 2
By, Teresa
A week had passed since the morning that Justin and Lance had argued in their hotel room. It had cast a dark cloud over the group, but nobody had said anything so far, figuring that the two friends would work it out amongst themselves like they always did when they had a little argument. It was group policy not to interfere or take sides. There were just fewer problems that way. But over the past week, nothing had changed. When the two boys were in the same room, the air was cold, and tension ran high. Although none of the guys knew why they'd argued or what had been said, it was starting to affect all of them.
On this particular day, they were headed off to a random photo shoot, where a photographer would get them all in hundreds of poses, and then hawk them to magazines and merchandisers for years to come. None of them was particularly excited, and they all slowly dragged themselves out of their rooms and into the hotel hallway, where they met at the elevators. Lance stood off to the side, slightly obstructed by JC, and he used his semi-obscured position to gaze at Justin. He noticed that Justin seemed withdrawn, and his face was fixed into a permanent frown, causing deep lines to crease his forehead. He was still so worried about Justin. He knew that nothing had changed since their argument, except for the fact that they weren't speaking.
Justin lifted his head and tentatively looked up at Lance, hoping to silently check on him. When he saw Lance looking back at him and their eyes locked, Justin immediately fixed his face into a scowl and redirected his eyes toward the floor. The lost and hopeful look in Lance's eyes sent a pain through his chest. He felt like shit. The past week had been hell for Justin. He knew that he had really hurt Lance and that he had said things that he couldn't take back. It was true that he didn't want anybody questioning him or telling him what to do, but he missed Lance. Rooming with Joey just wasn't the same. Even though he considered all four of the other guys as his best friends, he didn't have the same closeness with Joey that he had with Lance. He missed having someone to talk to about stupid little things, someone to go to the movies with whenever he felt like it, or someone who he could just sit around with dying their hair different colors because they were bored. When it came down to it, he knew that he really missed Lance, but he was too stubborn to admit he was wrong and so he continued to put on his tough and angry face whenever Lance was around.
JC glanced back and forth between the two boys, growing more and more curious by the second. He wondered what they could have argued about to drive them apart so quickly and so definitively. They were always together, just hanging out and having a good time. Over the years, their closeness in age had brought Lance and Justin so incredibly close, and they had become practically inseparable. He couldn't imagine what they would have fought about to bring them to the point of not speaking to each other. As the elevators reached their floor, security began to load their luggage into one of them as the boys filed into the other. Justin and Chris boarded one elevator, and Lance stood to the side with his arm out, waiting for JC to enter so that he could follow.
JC motioned for Lance to get in first. "Uh, you just go ahead Lance. Joey and I are going to catch a ride with the luggage this time. I've gotta, uh, look for something in my bags," he stammered out.
Lance just gave him a strange look and started to walk into the elevator. "Okay JC. Whatever you say. See you downstairs."
Joey raised his eyebrow and looked at JC questioningly as they crowded into the elevator with two of their security guards and their luggage. "What the hell was that about?" Joey asked. "You couldn't have been less convincing back there."
"I know," JC replied, as he leaned his head back against a duffel bag. "But I was desperate to get away from them for two seconds and talk to you. What the hell is going on with those two? Justin's been rooming with you. He had to have said something."
"Nope," Joey replied. "He just showed up at my door a week ago, and told me that he needed to stay with me for a while, and that I shouldn't ask any questions. I've tried getting him to tell me what's going on, but he won't budge. All he'll say is that Lance was `up in his shit' too much and he needed some space."
JC furrowed his brow in confusion. "I just can't understand why they're still so upset with each other. This is so not normal. I know we're not supposed to get involved, but things are getting way too uncomfortable around here, and I'm going to talk to them and find out just what the hell is going on so that we can get things back to normal around here."
Two hours later they were firmly entrenched in the boredom of their photo shoot. They had already been through most of their group shots, and now they were waiting through the long and tedious process of taking turns for their individual ones. JC was the first to go, and as he came out of the shooting area, he noticed Justin sitting in a chair by himself, looking physically and emotionally exhausted. He walked over and nonchalantly took the chair next to Justin's. He grabbed a water bottle and feigned complete interest in taking sip after sip, as he glanced over at Justin out of the corner of his eye every few seconds. Justin didn't seem to notice at all, and he remained frozen in the same position, with his elbow propped up on the arm of the chair, holding his chin in his hands, and looking out at nothing in particular.
"Hey Just, what's up?" JC asked with mock cheeriness.
"Nothin'," Justin mumbled, not turning his gaze or otherwise acknowledging JC's presence.
JC turned to Justin. He wasn't going to beat around the bush because he didn't see it going anywhere. "Justin, talk to me. What's going on here? Why aren't you and Lance talking?"
"It's nothing JC. Just don't worry about it," Justin said, still not moving.
JC let out an exasperated sigh as he reached his hand out and put it on Justin's arm. "Justin," he said softly. "You know you can talk to me about anything. I'm neutral in this whole thing. Whatever went down between you and Lance, I have no opinions. I'd just like to do whatever I can to smooth things over, because it's making all of us a little uncomfortable."
Justin looked up at JC with an emotionless expression. "Fine, you want to know what happened. I'll tell you," he said. "Lance freaked out on me. I woke up after partying maybe a little too hard the night before, and he went off on me like he was my mom or something. He got all up in my business and started making assumptions and accusations and I didn't need to hear it."
"Didn't need to hear it, or didn't want to hear it?" JC interrupted.
"JC," Justin said sharply, giving him a look of warning. "Do you want me to talk to you about this or not?"
"Sorry, go ahead," JC said.
"He was all yelling and screaming, and being very un-Lance-like, and I got pissed, and I yelled back, and that was it. I went to stay with Joey because I figured that we needed time apart. If he can't take me as I am, then I don't need him around."
JC studied Justin thoughtfully for a moment. It seemed like Justin was trying harder to convince himself than JC. He wasn't even looking at JC as he finished speaking and JC noticed the sad and vacant look in his eyes. There was a moment of silence as JC thought about how he should approach the situation. He could tell that Justin wasn't really convinced of his anger. There was something else there behind it. But he was also worried about Justin's stubbornness. God, that kid was so stubborn. If you said things the wrong way, you could be on the receiving end of his "bad side" for who knows how long. Finally, JC spoke.
"Do you think that maybe Lance was just reaching out to you as a friend who was concerned? I mean, you know it's not like Lance to just freak out like that. He must have seen something or felt genuinely worried enough to let it get to him that way. I don't think he was really trying to boss you around or tell you what to do. You know he's not like that. I think you should just talk to him. Just let him explain himself, and be honest with him too."
Justin snapped his head up at JC and looked at him angrily. "What the hell do you mean, be honest with him'?" he snapped. "There's nothing to be honest' with him about. He put his nose where it didn't belong and he pissed me off. Isn't that honest enough for you?"
JC turned his head away from Justin and rolled his eyes. `Here we go again,' he thought. "Look, nevermind Justin. If you want to start shutting out all of your friends one by one, and not let any of us be a part of your life anymore, then fine. But you know that we all love you and like it or not, we ARE a family. Sometimes, families get nosier than they should be, but that's only because they love each other."
JC noticed that Justin flinched a little as he spoke, but he still refused to back down. "Yeah, well maybe I'm sick of being in this `family,'" Justin said. "Right now you're really not showing me that you're any better than Lance. He butted in where he didn't belong and now you are too. You say you're neutral and then you just jump on Lance's side without even understanding what happened. You weren't there and you don't know, so just leave me alone."
JC just looked at him with an expressionless face. His lack of a reaction set Justin off even more.
"You know what?!" Justin yelled. "I just wish that for once, people would stay out of my life. What I do is my business and if I want to drink myself stupid every night and fuck every girl that crosses my path, then that's what I'm going to do, because it's my life and I'll do whatever I want with it. As long as what I do doesn't have a direct impact on you or your life, just keep your comments to yourself." He stood up from his chair and stormed off into one of the dressing rooms, slamming the door shut behind him. As soon as the door was shut, he leaned against it, slid down to the floor, put his face in his hands and cried.
Back outside the dressing room, Chris watched the action unfold from across the room. People in the room had begun to turn around at the sound of Justin's loud yelling, and Chris watched as Justin stormed into a dressing room and slammed the door behind him, leaving JC looking confused and defeated. He walked over to JC and put his hand on his shoulder.
"Hey man, what was that all about?" Chris asked.
JC looked up at him with tired eyes. "There's something wrong with Justin. He's in trouble."
"Why? What's wrong with him? Did something happen?" Chris asked, panicked.
"No, no, it's not like it's any one specific thing. It's just that he's not himself. I mean, haven't you noticed how different he's been lately? That's definitely not the Justin that I've known for the past eight years, and I know that there's something bad going on with him. Lance tried to help him and he just flipped out. Now he's not speaking to Lance or me, and I'm afraid that if we don't get through to him soon, something really bad is going to happen to him, and it's not going to be so easy to cover up this time."
"Oh man," Chris exhaled as he ran one of his hands down over his face, almost like he hoped that he could erase the scene unfolding before him.
Several hours later the guys returned to their hotel ready for the chance to unwind. In the elevator, Justin did his best to avoid looking at JC or Lance. At one point JC caught his eye and Justin just rolled his eyes and turned to Joey.
"Hey Joe, you want to go clubbing with me tonight?" he asked. "I need to get out and unwind a little. Today blew."
"Yeah sure, why not. I could stand to get my groove on for a couple of hours," Joey replied.
JC looked over at Lance and caught the exasperated look on his face. He knew that Justin had asked Joey in front of Lance on purpose, rather than just waiting until they had gotten back to their room. He wanted to show Lance that he was still doing what he wanted, regardless of what Lance felt. As soon as the elevator reached their floor, Lance rushed out and hurried to his door, quickly sliding the key card in, and shutting the door behind him. JC immediately walked up and lightly knocked on the door. There was no answer. He knocked again.
"Lance," he said softly. "Please let me in. I need to talk to you."
The door opened a crack and Lance looked out at him with one eye. "I don't really feel like talking right now JC," he said. "I'm tired and I'm just going to go to bed early."
JC looked at him pleadingly. "Please Lance, just let me in for two minutes. I need to talk to you about what's been going on."
Lance stepped back and opened the door all the way. "Fine, come in. But I don't want to be grilled and analyzed. Please, let's just make this quick." He plopped down on the bed and looked down at the floor.
JC walked over and sat down next to him. He put his arm around Lance's shoulders, feeling the week's worth of tension in his muscles. "You know, you don't have to be so tough all the time," JC said. "You carry the weight of the world on these shoulders, and it's okay to let your guard down every once in a while and be human." Lance began to relax under JC's touch and words, and he leaned his head down on JC's shoulder.
JC continued. "Justin's a grown man now, but he's still a child in so many ways, and so are you. I don't really know what's going on with him, but I know he's not really mad at you, and you're not mad at him, are you?" Lance shook his head on JC's shoulder.
"I'm just so worried about him," Lance said softly. "I mean, if you could see what he does every night. He comes in and he's not Justin anymore. He's this different, callous person, who's all controlled by these unnatural substances. It just tears me apart inside to watch him like that. Seriously, he's like the best friend I've ever had. I've never had anyone that I could talk to like I could talk to him, and I've never been so incredibly comfortable with anyone as I was with him. But over the past month or two, he's just changed so much, and I feel like I don't even know him anymore."
JC rubbed Lance's shoulder softly as he continued to speak. "This all started because I care, that's it. I don't know what I would do if something really bad happened to Justin. I know he doesn't know it, but he really means a lot to me, with his big fat hard head and all." He and JC both laughed at his last statement.
"Oh man, he does have one hell of a hard head doesn't he?" JC laughed.
Lance rolled his eyes in reply. "Man, don't even get me started," he said.
JC pulled back from Lance and grabbed his hands. "We'll have a group meeting without Justin tomorrow and we'll figure out what to do. I know there's a way to get through to him, but we need to do it in the right way or we'll never get anywhere with him. Tonight, you just get your rest. You look like shit, boy."
"Oh shut up," Lance said as he playfully smacked JC's arm.
JC stood up and began to leave the room. "Thanks JC," Lance said quietly as he reached the door.
"Anytime. You know that's what I'm here for," JC said as he turned off the light and silently shut Lance's door.
Lance snuggled into the covers and he was out cold as soon as his head hit the pillows. It felt so good to finally be sharing his stress with someone else, and he was so relieved to have the opportunity to get a decent night's rest.
Joey sat at the bar of the club talking to an attractive girl, trying to put on his characteristic Fatone moves. On his way out that night, Chris had asked him to keep an eye on Justin, and to just look out for him. Joey didn't really understand what was going on, but he had told Chris that he would. He looked across the club at the dance floor and saw Justin basically making a spectacle of himself. He was dancing in the middle of the floor, surrounded by five or six girls who were taking turns grinding up against him, and injecting giant plastic syringes full of jello shots into his mouth. Joey watched him down three shots in a row and just shook his head before turning his attention back to the girl. He can't be that far gone yet,' he thought. I'll get him out of here in like twenty minutes. He'll be fine.'
Thirty minutes later, Joey was still completely engrossed in flirting with the girl in front of him. He had all but forgotten about his promise to Chris, but was pulled back to reality at full force, when he heard a commotion coming from the area of the dance floor. He looked over and noticed that the people towards the center of the dance floor had stopped moving, and Justin was nowhere to be seen. He excused himself from the girl and hurried over to the dance floor where he saw that Justin had fallen down drunk. He was lying on the floor giggling, but he couldn't steady himself enough to get back up on his feet. Justin looked up and saw Joey.
"Oh hey Joe," he slurred. "Do you think you could help me up man? I don't feel so good."
Joey looked over and signaled to their security guard Lonnie to come help him. He reached out a hand for Justin and said, "Come on man, we gotta get you out of here."
With Lonnie's help, he was able to load Justin back into their van and they slowly drove back to the hotel. Joey noticed that Justin was barely conscious. They pulled up to the side entrance of the hotel and Joey shook Justin a little, "Come on man, you just need to get from the car to the room. Can you make it?"
With great effort Justin shook his head, "I don't think I can Joe. I can't move."
Joey and Lonnie grabbed Justin and carried him into the hotel and to the service elevator, so they could avoid being seen by any fans. Lonnie shook his head at Joey, "What the hell happened to him?" he asked.
Joey let out a small laugh. "I don't know, but he sure as hell needs to sleep it off."
The elevator arrived at their floor and they carried Justin to his and Joey's room, where they laid him down on his bed.
"Thanks Lon, we'll see you in the morning," Joey said, as Lonnie exited the room.
He looked over at Justin who was already passed out cold on his bed. He shook his head and entered the bathroom to shower off his night of clubbing. A few minutes later, he exited the bathroom and went to check on Justin one last time before turning in for the night. He noticed that Justin's breathing seemed strange. It was slow and irregular and it didn't sound like the normal breathing of a sleeping person. Justin's back was facing him, so he rolled Justin onto his back and gasped. Justin's skin had taken on a bluish hue. He shook Justin hard, but got no response.
Joey ran out of the room and down the hall to Lance's door, and started pounding on it. "Lance!" he yelled. "Lance open up! Hurry man, it's an emergency!"
Lance threw open the door and squinted at the light in the hall. "What is it Joey? It's 3:30 am."
"It's Justin. He got really wasted tonight. I think he drank more than usual, and now he's not breathing normal and he's kinda blue. I can't him to wake up." Joey said quickly.
"Well shit Joe, go call 911 now! I'll put some clothes on and be right there. Hurry." Lance yelled.
Lance scrambled to put on some pants and a shirt, and slipped into the first pair of shoes that he found. He could have cared less that he had his shirt on inside out and his jeans were buttoned up wrong. His thoughts were only on Justin at the moment. He rushed down the hall to Justin and Joey's room and saw Joey on the phone with 911. He ran to Justin's bed and started lightly tapping Justin on the face.
"Justin. Justin. Wake up. Come on, you have to wake up," Lance said, feeling more and more despair at the unresponsiveness of Justin's face.
"Oh God, what do I do? What do I do? Okay, think," Lance thought out loud.
He gently turned Justin onto his side, and put a pillow behind his back. He remembered seeing on some TV show, how this could help the person from choking to death if they became ill while dunk and unconscious. He stroked Justin's hair lightly and fought back the tears as he silently prayed to God that Justin would be all right.
The paramedics arrived a minute later. They loaded Justin onto a stretcher and began to wheel him out. Lance and Joey followed close behind. As they reached the ambulance one of the paramedics turned to them. "I'm sorry, but only one of you can ride with us. It's policy," he said.
Lance turned to Joey with pleading eyes. "Please let me ride with him Joey. I need to be with him right now." Joey didn't know how he could say no. The look in Lance's eyes spoke volumes to him.
"Go on Lance, go. I'll get Lonnie to bring me and the other guys in the van. Just hurry up and go." Joey said.
"Come on, let's go now!" the paramedic yelled.
"Thanks Joe," Lance said with gratitude in his eyes as he jumped into the back of the ambulance, and took a seat next to Justin's still form.
Lance grabbed Justin's hand and held it next to his heart. "Please Justin, don't leave me. I need you here with me." He turned his eyes upward. "Please God, don't take him away from me," he begged.
He clung to Justin's hand and gazed down at his friend, fully realizing for the first time, that he didn't just want Justin in his life, but he needed him.
You know what? I'm mean, and I'm a hypocrite. I hate cliffhangers, but I did one anyway. I promise I'll try not to do that again. It's just that the rest of it needs to happen in Chapter 3, so I'm going to have to split it this way. I'll try to have the next one out within two days. You can send feedback to teresa_8998@hotmail.com. Thanks for reading!