death warning

...No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee...

from Meditations 17, by John Donne

It' so stupid. That is what Justin keeps telling himself. It can't be real, because it's stupid.

He's said as much, many times. Not, it is true, once the gun had actually been fired. Not since then. But before, when they were tramping through the woods. When Lance would pause and glare at them, and they would freeze, five men with rifles and matching orange jackets. When they camped out, and the mosquitoes came out in force, and the fire died down halfway through the night, leaving them freezing, and they had to store their food in trees so the bears wouldn't get it. Right up until the moment he actually shot Joey, he had complained constantly that it was stupid.

When his gun goes off, the loud bang and the lurch from Joey and the red slowly spreading, clashing with the orange jacket, bleeding into the dull earth beneath Joey's chest, and everyone is yelling but he can't hear a word they say, can only stare, stare into Joey's eyes, that's stupid too. Unreal. Unfair. Not Happening.

Justin is sure of it.

* * *

They carry Joey out of the woods, Lance holding his arms, Chris his feet, JC the gaping hole in his chest. Justin follows behind, helpless, holding his gun. He doesn't want it Ð wants desperately to leave it in the woods, along with the patch of red soil and mottled leaves Ð but he can't seem to let go. He has it in his hands when they Ð finally Ð get to the hospital. The nurse makes him take it back to the car before letting him inside.

* * *

The ambulance, which meet them at the edge of Lance's property, rushes Joey and Lance ahead of them, so by the time Justin arrives, gun in hand, the news has broken. They don't have bodyguards, because who needs Lonnie when there's a rifle handy? But he isn't going to use his rifle now, doesn't want to touch his rifle, has returned to the car to stow his rifle in the trunk, and the cameras are everywhere. He can't see in the flash of bulbs, stumbles into the emergency room, stares through the windows at the reporters. He's blinded by it all, almost forgets that Joey is dying, that he has killed him, because it's so normal. Stupid.

It isn't until the next day, when he sees the newspaper with the headline *NSYNC's Fatone Shot by Bandmate and the picture, Lance and Chris huddled together, grimy, in shock, JC, his hands still dripping blood from Joey's chest, himself, frightened, unsure, smiling for the camera, that it begins to seem real.

Joey is dead.

* * *

It rains during the funeral. Great big heaving torrents of rain, and Justin can't hear the priest, can't hear the sermon, can barely hear Brianna crying as he holds her, presses her close and safe against his chest. Phyllis is sobbing, and Kelly, and Papa Joe. Steve is holding his father up, and Janine is hysterical on her husband's shoulder, and JC and Chris haven't let go of each other since the hospital, and Lance. If the rain had started before the service began, Justin might have been fooled into thinking that Lance was alright, his face cold and solemn and unmoving. But unceasing tears left a groove down Lance's cheeks long before the first clap of thunder.

Justin wants to cry. Is certain, in fact, that he is *supposed* to cry, not just for the cameras, but for himself. But he couldn't possibly. He keeps seeing Joey, Joey's eyes wide with shock, Joey's body falling, crumpling to the ground. The slow reddening of his jacket, the maroon mud that cakes his back when they carry him out of the woods. The ambulance, speeding away, red lights flashing in the silence.

Brianna's tears are hot against his neck when she finally cries herself to sleep.

* * *

It is Lance's decision to finish the album.

"A fitting tribute," he calls it.

Justin was early to the meeting. He couldn't sleep, couldn't eat, sat up all night staring out the window as the sun slowly brightened the sky, wondering that it could rise at all. He had been relieved to leave his house, to have something to do, somewhere to be, someone to see.

Now, he's sorry he came. Lance's voice is filled with sorrow. Chris' face is lined with pain. JC's eyes are constantly filling with tears.

He feels numb.

When he looks at them, he sees Joey. Joey's arm slung around Lance's shoulder, his laughter drawing a grin from Chris, a giggle from JC. Joey, bringing Brianna with him because they've been working too hard and need a break, time spent around her, cooing, playing, helping her grow. Joey, harmonizing sweetly, never complaining that his voice is overproduced, his sound disappearing under electronics, under JC or Justin. Joey, sprawled across a couch, tossing ideas around. Making his ice cream talk. Laughing. Always laughing. Laughing until his eyes grow, suddenly, and he falls into silence.

He leaves the room abruptly.

* * *

Chris isn't talking to him. This is made abundantly clear when it's JC who pulls him back to the meeting, when Chris glares at him with icy, red-rimmed eyes. When Chris shrinks next to Lance, keeps Justin away just by the force of his gaze.

"There's still two songs left to record," Johnny's saying. "Someone needs to take the baritone."

"It's my real voice part anyway." Justin is Ð not *glad,* not *happy,* but. activated. by the chance to do something, for Joey. To make it up. He can sing Joey's part, since Joey can't do it himself. He can make it better.

"Absolutely not," Lance says.

"What?"

"Personally, I think no one should sing it. Just like if we were in concert. It should be left empty, gone, like J--like he is. But if someone sings it, it's me."

"The notes are too high," Justin says.

"I'll do it."

"Don't be ridiculous, Lance. You don't have the range."

"Fuck you." Lance shoves Justin backwards, stands over him when he falls on the floor. "Not you. Chris would get it first. You want Joey's part, J? You want it? Over my dead body, you'll sing Joey's part. You gonna do that? You gonna kill me too?"

It is Johnny who pulls Lance away, in the end. Chris is silent, a towering wall of opposition. JC is curled on the couch, his fist pressed against his mouth, his eyes like Joey's, when he falls, stumbles into the mud, when Justin kills him.

Justin scrambles backwards, grabs his hat, heads for the door.

No one stops him this time.

He doesn't answer his phone anymore. All the voices on his machine blend together, become Lance, yelling at him.

You gonna kill me too?

They shout at him. He shoves his hands over his ears, rocks back and forth, and still heard them. Hears Lance shouting at him. Hears Chris, suddenly tall with furious silence. Hears the shot ring out, the small gasp from Joey's throat as he's hit, the resounding thud of his back smacking against the forest floor.

He can't eat, can't sleep. Hasn't moved in two days, except to rock back and forth, continually, pressing the heels of his hands against his head.

The voices won't stop. The screaming, the silence, the shot and fall and smack of mud.

The wailing of the ambulance in the distance, too late, always too late.

The pounding of their feet as they run through the woods, carrying Joey.

The pounding never ceases, never goes away, no matter how hard Justin pushes at his ears, until suddenly his hands are ripped away, and there is utter quiet as JC stares down at him, gripping his wrists so tightly it hurts.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?"

Justin shakes his head, doesn't understand.

JC pushes him against a doorframe, holds him there, one hand fisted in his shirt, and this Justin gets, this is anger. This he deserves.

"Not gonna lose you, too," JC says. "You don't get to take yourself away as well. Not gonna happen."

Justin tries to explain that it isn't a question of getting. That he can't make it stop, keeps seeing it over and over, is trapped in those twenty-four hours. When he opens his mouth, JC growls at him, "shut up," and kisses him, hard and fast against the doorframe, and pulls him to bed.

There are the slick sounds of JC's body against his, the heavy pain of JC thrusting deep inside him, the dead weight of JC on top of him.

He welcomes the pain, doesn't let JC prepare, thrusts himself backwards. The ripping, the awful tearing ripping pain is what he craves. He is Joey, falling, not struggling at all. Bleeding, always bleeding, and gasping, and crashing to the ground.

For a little while, he is free. Free from JC, and from Lance, and Chris. Free even from Joey. Free to float away in his own pain, his own feelings.

He cries against his pillow until JC pulls him close, strokes his hair. When he clutches at JC's shoulders, he can't tell whose tears are whose, his or JC's or Joey's, and none of them are his, and the water on his face is the rain from the funeral, and the moans in his ear are Brianna, fussing, and he is numb again.

While JC sleeps he unplugs his answering machine, and throws it in the garbage.

* * *

JC drags him to the studio.

"You're gonna do this," he says. "For Joey, you're gonna do this, Justin."

JC makes him hurt at night, makes him *feel,* so he slips on the headsets obediently, opens his throat.

He can't sing.

He tries. He swears to JC, over and over, that he's trying. But it won't come, not right. JC shoves him again, yells at him, kisses him. Fucks him.

Lance finds them like that, fucking on the floor of the studio, JC on Justin's back, pounding, telling him over and over, "you're gonna do it, Justin. You can do it."

He waits until JC's climaxed to punch Justin in the face.

"You stay the fuck away from Jayce," Lance says. "I don't give a *shit* what you tell him, don't you fucking dirty his body again, Timberlake. He doesn't need this. He doesn't need *you.* Handle your goddamned guilt on your own."

Justin sings his part in one take, and goes home.

* * *

JC pounds on his door. Justin can hear it, as he lies in bed trying not to sleep. He doesn't like sleeping, anymore. Every time he closes his eyes, he sees it, all over again. The hitch of breath, the fall. The rush through the forest, stumbling, tripping, gasping back tears. The long wait in the hospital, which isn't nearly long enough. The funeral, the meeting, the singing. JC, pounding into him, always pounding, releasing him, freeing him.

He's changed his locks.

* * *

His mother lets Chris in.

He knows it was his mother, because she's the only one who has a key. He doesn't even have a key -- what would he need one for, he asked her, when he's not gonna go anywhere. She kissed his cheek and promised not to lend her key away, and now Chris is in his house, standing over him, glaring, not speaking to him.

Chris makes breakfast, a heaping plate of scrambled eggs, and makes him eat it. Justin can remember, before, when he would beg and beg Chris to cook for him, offer him sexual favors, even, because Chris made the best scrambled eggs, would stand over the stove, the heat on low, stirring for half an hour. Chris would always say, "I'm no man's bitch, J," and Justin would blow him anyway.

The eggs taste like dirt in his mouth. He gags on them, but under Chris' gaze he swallows anyway, takes a sip of coffee.

Chris cooks him lunch, and dinner, and sleeps in a guestroom, and won't touch him. Won't let Justin touch, either, knocks Justin's hands away, and shakes his head, once, still silent, and shuts the bedroom door.

Justin curls up in the bathroom, presses his head to the cool porcelain of the toilet. Sees Joey, wrapping his dinner in aluminum foil, locking it in a baggie and climbing up a tree to keep it away from the animals. Sees Joey grinning at Chris, when Chris refuses to climb, and catching Chris' dinner, stowing it for him. Sees Joey chasing the next day's meal, following Lance's instructions, blending into the background. Raising his rifle, aiming it. Sees the deer come flying out of the brush, between them, hears the rifle shot, the blast, and then the silence as Joey falls. The mud, and the red, and the leaves on the ground, and Joey rotting into them, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, dirt like his dinner and he throws it all up.

He stays in the bathroom all night, until he hears Chris' car peel away from the house.

He empties his refrigerator, takes everything to the dump, locks himself at home again.

* * *

Chris shows up again, Lance and JC in tow. It's the first time they've all been together since the meeting, and Justin is pretty sure none of them want to be there.

"We need to talk," JC says. Lance crosses his arms, Chris leans against the couch, and Justin drops his head to his knees. "We need to talk," JC repeats, and the others nod, so Justin does too.

"I guess I should start," JC says, and turns to Justin. "I hate you, sometimes. I hate you for taking Joey from me, even though I know you didn't mean to. I hate you for taking Joey, for taking *nsync, and for taking yourself. You need to deal with this, Justin. Talk to a therapist, talk to *us.* But deal with it. Because I refuse to lose you as well. It's not fair, and I shouldn't have to. I love you too much to let you go."

There are tears streaming down JC's face, and Justin figures he means it, nods his head again, but it feels empty. Hollow. Because he's already gone, and no one's showing him how to get back.

"You took away my best friend," Lance says softly. He's staring at his hands, clenching and unclenching his fists, and Justin remembers that hand hitting his jaw, remembers Lance yelling at him to leave JC alone. "Joey loved me before any of you did. He was. He knew me better than anyone, even my mother, even Laura. I loved him so much, J, and he's gone now, and maybe it isn't fair to blame you, but there's no one else. I have to blame someone, I have to. It's not fair," he says, and Lance is *crying* and that's just wrong, because Lance hasn't cried since the funeral. Lance yells, and hits, and that Justin can deal with. This. This broken shell of a man, this sobbing heap who rests his head in JC's lap and begs Justin to bring Joey back, this he doesn't understand. Can't begin to understand, because how should he react?

He curls into a tighter ball, ignores Lance's tears, and concentrates on Chris, who hasn't spoken since the ambulance arrived.

"I miss my dad," Chris says, and Justin knows he means his stepfather, knows he's remembering. "The tabloids all think. I tell everyone I was raised in a single parent home, and they know Dad couldn't keep a job, and everyone assumes I hated him. But he was my father. And. I keep seeing the blood, everywhere, and the gun dangling from his hand, and I couldn't stop it, I couldn't *do* anything, and now it's Joey, it's Joey and my dad, and." Chris stops, swallows heavily. He gets up, walks over to the floor space that Justin has claimed as his own, and hugs him tightly.

Justin hugs Chris back, clings to him, whispers over and over, "it won't go away."

"I know," Chris says. "I know."

Justin buries his face in Chris' neck, feels Chris' arms around him, Chris' words in his ears, Chris' lips in his curls, and bursts into tears.

* * *

Justin gets up in the morning, eats his cereal, brushes his teeth. He goes to the studio, sings perfectly when they ask him, gets on the plane, flies to New York and MTV. He does the appearance with the others, squeezes Chris' hand. He flies home again, and sits in his house, watching TV.

He lives from day to day, and it gets better, easier. Chris smiles at him one day, across the breakfast table, and one day Justin smiles back. JC holds his hand, and Justin grins at him. He and Lance teach Brianna how to play ball, and Justin laughs.

Justin learns, little by little, to forgive himself. And when he forgets how, when he finds himself rocking on the floor, hands pressed to his ears, Chris or JC or Lance will pull him close, and make him cry it out. Without them, he would be lost.

He lives from day to day, and it gets better, easier, but he's always there. Joey, picking up his daughter, swinging her around and telling her she's the most beautiful girl in the entire universe. Joey, slinging an arm over Lance's back, wrestling with him, buying him a watch for his birthday. Joey, dancing with JC, twirling him, dipping him low to the ground. Joey, singing drunkenly with Chris, staggering onto the bus at three in the morning, a huge grin plastered across his face. Joey, letting Justin snuggle against him, wrapping an arm around him, helping him with his homework. Joey, his eyes going wide, his knees buckling, his back slick in the reddening mud.

Joey, always, always dying.

Always dead.

It's stupid. Incredibly, utterly stupid. But it's real.