Pairing: Justin and AJ
Words: extension; jupiter; dinosaur; blue moon
They'd traded Lance to the Backstreet Boys for AJ once before; it seemed only reasonable when the idea was proposed again that the same two be exchanged. They were used to it, after all. And NSYNC clearly needed all the help they could get basketball-wise. Trading away Justin or Chris, the best players, would be ridiculous, as would trading away JC and Joey, who were at least taller than three out of five of the Backstreet Boys. Lance was the liability. He should go.
But every once in a blue moon, things work out differently than planned. Justin found out that he was being traded to Backstreet for Howie. For Howie. There was no way NSYNC was going to win, short of Justin tripping all the members of his new team every time they took the court, and that really wasn't the kind of thing he did. No matter how much money Chris had offered him.
When the day of the game came, Justin reluctantly joined his new teammates for publicity photos. AJ had done the same with them when he'd played for their team, and Justin smiled and posed as though he didn't really want to wrap an extension cord around Nick's throat and use it as a garrote.
After the photos were done, Justin hung close to AJ, figuring he was somewhat safer than Nick. Nick hated his guts, and Justin returned the favor. AJ, wild-child image and all, reminded him more of Chris, and Justin liked Chris. He tried not to think about how Nick was most like him and what it said that he couldn't stand the person many people thought he'd patterned himself after. Not that he had. NSYNC was in no way a prefab band, and he was in no way a prefab heartthrob. Never mind that JC had started out as the star of their show in the minds of the audience or that they'd wanted to be an ensemble, not a star and his back-up singers, or that Lou had pushed at them until Justin had ended up where he wanted to be anyway, in the spotlight. Justin was his own person, and it was okay to want to see Nick Carter die in many different painful and torturous ways. Maybe while fucking Britney. Roll off a roof top while having sex and fall to their deaths, naked and looking as bad and plastic as a dead person who also happened to be a product of plastic surgery could look.
And he really needed to stop thinking thoughts like that when he wasn't getting high with Chris. Or maybe he needed to stop getting high with Chris. All sorts of strange things seemed to come up then, like the theory that dinosaurs were really dragons, and that they hadn't all died out when scientists said that the dragons had, but some of them had lived on until killed by various dragon slayers. St. George and all that.
So really, there was a perfectly good explanation for why he put his arm around AJ in a public place. He was only removing the bad taste of Nick Carter from his... um, arm. And doing a service for the gay dinosaurs of the pop world who needed to, like, come out and be the big bold dragons that they were.
There was no good explanation at all for why Nick smirked at him just then, or why AJ edged away from him carefully and cautiously, as though he'd bathed in vodka and was exuding eu de alcohol, the forbidden fruit. After all, AJ was into nearly everything, wasn't he? And it wasn't like Justin had been coming on to him. He'd just put his arm around him. He and Chris and JC and Joey and Lance did more than that in photo shoots all the time. Lots more. There was no reason for AJ to be casually leaning against Brian like Justin was some strange alien invader from Jupiter.
He didn't get it. AJ was supposed to be like Chris. He was supposed to like AJ.
Nick handed a folded up jersey to Justin, a smarmy grin on his face. "You're not his type, Timberlake."
"Huh?"
"Please. You were so coming onto him. Everyone who's anyone knows you're looking for someone to replace Britney, and that you want that someone to have a dick."
"I what?"
He backed slowly and cautiously away from Nick, turning his head slightly, looking for signs of Chris or Joey. Even Lance or JC. Anybody. But he didn't take his eyes off Nick, because he knew that's when the predator was most dangerous, when you weren't looking.
"Hey, it's okay with me. I want the same thing." Nick stepped in, cornering Justin against the wall, and wrapped his arm around his waist. "I like you. You remind me a lot of me."
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