Pairing: JC and AJ
Words: altruism; aspire; etiquette; imaginary
People thought they knew the story behind AJ's drinking problem. They were wrong.
Even AJ's supposed nearest and dearest, the Backstreet Boys themselves, didn't know the real reason until AJ attempted to bludgeon his brain out of his head with a half-full fifth of vodka. Nick stopped him, at the cost of a broken hand, and there had been a serious discussion about AJ's lack of responsbility, what he owed to the group, and his need to curb his growing addiction.
Unfortunately, his problem was larger than any of them could have possibly imagined.
"I don't believe you," Kevin said, looking at AJ, who had been cornered on the couch, and brought to bay, Howie sitting guard at the other end. "If you're psychic, how could we not have known? You're lying."
AJ's head was tipped back against the couch, eyes closed. His glasses had been confiscated, the better to keep him from lying. AJ could lie to anyone, anywhere, anytime, so long as they couldn't see his eyes. "Fine. I'm fucking lying. I don't give a damn if you believe me, Kevin. I don't give a fucking goddamn about anything right now except getting some sleep."
"There's more important things--"
His head shot up, and he glared at Kevin. "There is nothing more important than sleep. I would kill for a decent night's sleep. I would sell my soul. I'd sell Howie's soul. Anything. Just to get some time alone in the dark where they aren't any fucking thoughts or feelings or anything but nothing. Do you get me, Kevin?"
It was the truth, that much was obvious in the flash and pain of AJ's eyes, but it was an obvious and worthless truth.
"That won't solve anything."
"Nothing will solve anything. Nana's dead."
"I'm sorry for your loss. Your grandmother was a wonderful woman. But you have to move on, AJ. You can't let it ruin your life."
AJ laughed. An insane cackle. "You don't understand anything. That's why I can't move on. Why everything's wrong. Why it's falling apart. Why I need to shoot myself in the head and just get it over with already."
Howie gave Kevin a concerned look, and scooted closer to AJ. "I'm sorry, AJ. I knew Nana was important to you, but I had no idea she was that important. Would it help if I called your mom?"
AJ laughed again, the sound only slightly more sane. "Yeah, call my mom. At least she can tell Kevy-Kev that I'm not making this up."
"Denise will say you're psychic." Kevin's tone was flat and disbelieving.
"Have been since I was little. Wasn't so bad then. And I had Nana. It was mostly just emotions, and never very strong. I could ignore them. It got stronger as I got older. Still, it wasn't so bad until Nana got sick. Then I started feeling it more. Especially when we do this," he gestured to the hotel room. "Crowds. Lots of people, hormonal, intense teenager, focused on us. Yeah, and that's a rush. Don't know half the time if I'm them or me, and whether I want to fuck all of us stupid or shoot myself in the head because I can't have us."
"You're gay?"
AJ's laugh sounded broken off in his throat, and he closed his eyes. "Hell if I know. Don't know if it's me or them, and you know what? I don't really care. With Nana dead, I can't stop it. Nothing stops it except the liquor, and even that isn't working much anymore. Nothing's working."
"So your grandmother exerted some sort of control over your powers?" Howie asked.
"I can't believe you're going along with his bullshit," Kevin said. "It's all in his head. Imaginary. The delusions of a drunk." AJ wrapped his arms around his waist tightly.
"Kevin," Howie said gently. "Maybe you should go in the other room and call in Denise. And then check on Brian and Nick. See if Nick's hand's okay."
Kevin snorted, but got up and left.
"Thanks, D," AJ said, relaxing minutely. "He's... intense up close. So you believe me?"
"Yes. I never really understood why you were so devastated when she died. I know her death hit you hard, but you were shattered. I figured you must have been closer than you let on, but it seemed kind of strange since, as far as I knew, the two of you didn't see each other much or talk much."
"No, we didn't. It wasn't really necessary. Not with... the thing. I don't know what to call it. The bond. Whatever kept this from ahppening. I knew she was alive and well and happy, and I was okay, and that was it. Until she wasn't. And I wasn't either. She was a really awesome grandmother, too, but this..."
"I understand. Sort of. Isn't there... wasnt't there anyone else in your family who could help out with whatever it is that's going on with you?"
AJ shook his head. "It's complicated. Nana was always there for me, from when I was really little, but she told me a little, and I've been looking for a while now. People like her are really rare. No one else in my family an do it."
"What's it?"
"I don't know. It's just something I can feel in them. Something that makes tem able to control whatever it is that I do. Sometimes I feel people like that when we're on stage, int he auidence, but separting out one voice in a crowd. I can't do it. It's so frustrating, feeling that brush of whatever, and having it gone and all those other feelings just hitting me over and over and over. God, Howie. I don't know what to do. I swear, if there were any other way but the alcohol, I'd take it. But it's the only thing that makes it even a little liveable. I don't want to hurt the band. I know how much it means to you. I know it's your life. Even if you don't say it." Tears were leaking from the corners of AJ's eyes. Howie's feelings projected outward, he realized.
Howie pulled back. "I'm sorry, AJ. I didn't mean to make you feel guilty. Yes, Backstreet's important to me, but you're more important. I want you to get better."
AJ rubbed angrily at his face. "Yeah, I know. Just makes me want to fuck you more."
"Um..." Howie debated whether to back away. Was there some sort of etiquette for dealing with an empath or a telepath or whatever brand of psychic AJ was.
"Sorry. Didn't mean to freak you out. I just... fuck. Help me knock myself out. Help me to stop feeling like this, at least for a little bit."
"Would a sleeping pill help? I know you said you're having trouble sleeping."
AJ shuddered. "No. No sedatives. Those just make things worse. Alcohol deadens the edges, makes it easier to deal with, but sedatives... I end up lying there, awake, unable to make my body move, and still feeling like I do right now. Don't know if I've ever wanted to kill myself more than that. I have a new worst nightmare -- being paralyzed and unable to slit my wrists to make this stop."
"You need help," Howie said gently.
"Yeah? What kind of help? Mental help? Do you think anyone would believe this? Kevin doesn't. A shrink sure as hell wouldn't."
"Still, you can't go on like this."
"Don't you think I know that? What am I supposed to do?"
"We'll think of something, AJ. We will."
****
Rehab was the reason everyone got for why the tour had to be cancelled abruptly. It was dramatic, shocking, and inspired altruism in the fans and management alike. AJ hated it. His problem wasn't the drinking, and this meant -- if they could find a solution for the real problem -- he'd have to give it up. And spend most of the rest of his life with people watching him to make sure he didn't relapse into his 'alcoholism'.
Of course, given that his current plan was to shoot himself in the head if he had to go back on tour without the benison of alcohol, it didn't really matter very much.
Alone in a rented house in Arizona, miles from the nearest human, he felt fine. Better. Normal. Lonely.
Howie called him a lot. The others not so much. Despite Denise vouching for his story, Kevin still didn't really believe him. Nick was still a little hurt by AJ pushing him away -- but Nick was the hardest to deal with. He felt things more than the rest of them, perhaps because he was younger. Howie was soothing, both in person and on the phone.
"How are you going to find the person you need to find if you stay locked inside the house?" Howie asked.
"Could be the delivery guy," AJ said. Twice a week, groceries were dropped off at the door. He never saw the person who brought them, and that was fine by him.
"You only have a month, AJ. You have to do something about this before then."
"But what?" AJ asked, frustrated. "I'm supposed to be in rehab, not wandering around the country, achecking out random strangers."
"No, because if you were doing that, then we'd back on tour."
"Surely there's someone you know who would fit. We've met so many people, Isn't even one of them the right kind of person?"
AJ sighed. "It's a little more complicated than that."
"Okay, so explain it to me."
"The person... they have to be right, mentally, or whatever it is that lets them be able to control this thing of mine, but..." he paused, not sure how to say it, not sure if he wanted to say it. "It's more than it sounds. They could... tkae advantage of it."
"Take advantage? How? You rarely saw your grandmother. Would you need to spend that much time with whoever it is?"
"No, but... this is going to sound stupid, but, it's like I always knew Nana loved me -- I could feel it. And I had that standing between me and everything else I felt. I don't know if it works any other way, or if it could work. I do know I'd feel whatever they wanted me to feel, wehter I liked it or not. And how do you ask a complete stranger to love you no matter what, and not take advantage of you, when you're who I am? I've thought about it. A hundred times in the past few months. I just... I'd rather self-destruct than have someone else have that much control over me. I can't stand Kevin as it is, how the hell am I going to stand... y'know."
"AJ..." Howie said carefully, "Maybe I'm not understanding you, but are you saying that you do know someone who might be able to help?"
"It wouldn't work."
"But there is someone?"
AJ let out his breath in a low groan. "JC. Chasez. The NSYNC guy. He's got whatever it is that Nana had. I felt it when we did that basketball thing together."
"That's great!"
"No, it's not. It's not even close to great."
"Why not?"
"I just told you why not. It'd never work. Look, Howie, there's not a lot of options left here. I don't want to be the reason Backstreet breaks up, but I'm not going to be able to go back out on tour, and without the touring and the public appearances, we're nothing." He wasn't going to tell Howie that after enough time out here without contact with people, he'd probably beg to go back to touring. There was something he got from being in front of an audience that he couldn't get anywhere else, an emotional charge that was probably the true addiction, far more than alcohol.
"He's a nice guy, AJ. Let me talk to him. Sound him out."
"It won't work."
"You can't give up yet. C'mon, what could it hurt?"
He didn't know. He had no answers about any of this; he'd come into his 'powers' such as they were when he was a pre-teen, and his grandmother had almost immediately taken him under his wing. He didn't know anything more about htem than she had, which was almost nothing, just that sometimes, in his family, this kind of thing happened, and when it did, the person affected either found help or went crazy. He supposed he should have talked to her more, but he'd always kinda thought of her as permanent, something that wouldn't and couldn't change. And when she'd gotten sick, he'd done his best to deny that there was anything wrong, that his perfect life could change, could come crashing down around him.
"Fine. I can't stop you."
"Thank you. I'll be careful. I want you to get better."
"I'm not sick."
"Well, then, I want you to be yourself again. I want you to be happy."
"Yeah. I want that too."
****
It wasn't really a surprise when someone knocked on the door three days later. No one ever knocked -- the house was too far removed from civilization to get salesmen, and both the Boys and the delivery guy knew better.
There was really only one person it could be, even if AJ hadn't been able to feel his presence through the closed door.
He opened it anyway.
It was JC standing there, looking, well, feminine with the nearly chin-length curling hair. He looked -- and felt -- concerned. "Hi. Howie told me. I wanted to -- thought we should probably talk about it. If that's okay."
"Yeah." AJ stepped back. "Come in."
JC did so, and followed AJ into the living room. "So, um, you can read minds?"
"No. Not really. I just know how people are feeling. When they feel strongly about things."
"Oh. So you don't know what I'm thinking?"
AJ shook his head. "I don't want to know either. It's bad enough being able to feel it."
"I feel bad?"
AJ winced. That had hurt JC. "Yeah. I don't want to have to feel how you're feeling. Bad eough to have to feel the way I do without adding in how you feel and how the guy down the street feels, and how the ten thousand screaming girls feel. Put that all together and I feel like shit. Hell, shit probably feels better than I do."
JC seemed a little happier at hearing that. He was almost as exhausting as being with Nick, except JC didn't feel so strongly. His rollercoaster didn't go as far up or down. Wouldn't even faze him if he didn't feel so raw.
"What would I need to do for you?" JC asked. "Howie wasn't very clear about that."
AJ shrugged. "I don't know. Just, act as some sort of buffer between me and the world. I don't know how it works."
"So, um, if you don't know, then how...?"
"Listen, this was a stupid idea anyway. I know it isn't going to work, you know it isn't going to work, you should just go back to Florida or wherever you were when Howie got a hold of you, and forget about me and my weird-ass problems."
"No, no!" JC said hurriedly. "I don't think that. No. You need help. I can. Well, I can feel that. Sort of. It's strange."
"You can?" AJ had never come across anyone who could do what he could. Not that it was something he talked about, so, for all he knew, half the world's population could do it. His grandmother could tell what he was feeling, but she couldn't do that with anyone else. Maybe this could work. It was a scary thought.
"Yeah. You... you're freak out. A little. By this. Aren't you?"
"Yeah. More than a little."
"And you don't like me."
"It's not personal. Mostly. I don't want to have this problem, and I don't want to have to ask anyone for help, much less, well, you."
JC frowned. "I don't like it that you don't like me. How is this going to work if we can't get along?"
"It doesn't have to work."
"Uh huh." JC folded his arms. "What are you going to do if you don't find someone to help you? Kill yourself?"
"Probably."
"That's awful."
"Yeah. This hasn't exactly been a happy joy-ride for me, y'know?" He didn't know how to express the way he felt, like things were spiralling further and further out of control, and how this time away from public contact should be making him feel better, but was instead letting him experience falling apart in slow, excruciating detail without the pressure of other minds to distact him from coming apart inside.
"It's okay." JC touched his knee. "You don't have to tell me."
He nodded. Felt an impulse, and took JC's hand. "Thanks."
"You're welcome." JC squeezed his hand.
Maybe this could work. JC was smiling softly at him now, pretty and girl-like, and he was glad now that Howie had called him, had gotten JC to come. "You can't tell anyone about this."
"I wouldn't. I won't."
If you do this, you'll know how I feel all the time. It isn't -- I don't think it's a bad thing. Nana never said how it affected her." And, he realized, maybe it had been bad for her. She loved him a lot. Maybe she'd dealt with a lot of bad things to make sure he was well and safe and happy. It wasn't like he could ask JC to do that for him. He didn't know that he would do the same for JC. Or for anyone. "I always knew how she felt, but it wasn't a big deal, just something I knew. The sky's blue, the sun's shining, Nana loves me. Like that."
JC threaded his fingers through AJ's. "That's really cool. That you could have a connection like that with someone."
"Would you..." he felt like an idiot. "Do you think you would want to be that for me?"
JC looked at him. AJ thought that he was going to say know, should say no. He hadn't given JC much to base a decision on, and it wasn't like this was something the other man had ever planned on doing with his life, like he'd aspired to be an emotional liferaft for another person.
"Yeah. I would. Do. For you."
He tipped his head back against the couch. Felt JC's hand in his, and rubbed his thumb across the back of it. "I don't want to need you."
"I know. I can tell. But you do."
"Yeah. I do."
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