Mid October

 "Oh hell yes!" JC says dropping his bag to the ground in the doorway, running across the room to a fully stocked bar. Perfect ice cubes clinked into the bottom of a crystal scotch glass. JC's eyes wondered around the spacious room, noticing the golden spiral staircase leading to the second level of the suite. An architected beauty he hasn't cared to take notice of in recent times. Reaching for the aged bottle, he poured the deep auburn colored scotch into the ice. Tipping it back, the smooth liquid flowed down his throat causing his eyelids to flutter. "Yum." He expressed graciously, swaying the glass beneath his nose, inhaling the scent he knew so well. "Has to be aged at least twenty years..." he gushed.

Tyler enters the suite behind him, tripping over his bag and crashes to the floor. "JC..." he screams. "Your fucking bag..." Tyler seemed to be in the worst mood ever. He fumbled around the suitcase, finally standing back to his feet. He was not happy; his brother was on the worst path of his life and wouldn't listen to anyone that loved him. Tyler was almost at the point where he was going to give up the way everyone else has. "Joshua, that's probably a five hundred dollar bottle of scotch you're sucking dry there... and it's only..." Tyler looked down at his platinum watch on his left arm, "It's ten in the morning. You need to put the drink down."

"You are not my here to babysit me Ty." He lifted the glass into the air, nodding his head "Have fun and not act like... we're not going there." He swung the glass back in the air chugging the rest of the liquid.

"You were just bitching that Cara-"

"DON'T" JC said with pure hatred across his face.

In frustration his arms went into the air, "You just said you haven't been working... do you really think it's smart to be chugging a five hundred..."

JC cut him off again. "I'm not paying for the room or the bill... what's it matter?" he shrugged his shoulders, "Justin's paying for it. He has no worries..." He rolled his eyes turning away from Tyler and picking up the glass bottle, pouring another drink into his glass.

Justin entered the room dropping his bags near the ottoman, with Trace in tow. "What am I paying for and having no worries about?"

"Nothing" JC rolled his eyes, escaping through the suite, down the hallway to one of the many bedrooms.

Sighing, Justin turned to look at the view of downtown Las Vegas through the floor-to-ceiling glass panel windows. He has been in every major city in the world, seen some of the best places there was to see on this earth... yet this view still made his breath escape. There was something about this city that could just do that for him.            

In that sigh, he says everything he is feeling at the moment. Frustration. All the years they have known each other, this was the most difficult time for them. It's been over a year since Justin and JC have even been in the same room with each other and if it weren't for one of their mutual friends getting married, JC would be nowhere near the rest of this clan. Justin was out of ideas and frustrated as to what he needed to do to get his friend back. Justin had his own demons to deal with, he didn't need JC's.

JC's time was spent better in a dark, less crowded West Hollywood club somewhere, scoping out who he was taking home that night. He became distant from everyone and everything he has known. Work... vanished, the only music in his life, existed in those clubs he ended up at, and women became something of a right here, right now basis. It was not a place that anyone who knew him expected.

Justin hated the place they were in. He wasn't sure what was going on in ‘JC's world' and why over the years their friendship simply disappeared but at the end of a bad day he wanted to call him to come over, have a beer, and watch a basketball game but it wasn't like that anymore. There were a lot of things that Justin has chosen to do over the last decade that JC, and others for that matter, weren't so happy he had done. He took all the heat and the pressure of destroying the career of his so called best friends. Justin may still have a thriving career and still in demand but his life outside of the office, so to speak, wasn't so grand.

"Here's to Chris!" Joey lifted his hand in a toast. "May this night be just the start of a marriage that finally is going to happen..." The room full of guys lifted their glass in a toast.

"To Chris." Everyone said in sync.

Justin's arm and glass lifted back into the air, "And to the last birthday you will ever have without a nagging wife to tell you want you can't do for your birthday." He added chugging the rest of his jack and coke, the first of many and far from the last.

Joey and Lance entered the club like they had done many times before, heading straight to the VIP area which had been blocked off for them courtesy of Justin, which was pointed out several times by JC. Joey, Chris and Lance found a comfortable spot to park themselves for a long haul of drinking, it was the plan anyways. They had no reason to be on the dance floor, or checking out girls.

Joey was still happily married to the one person he could never see life without. He enjoyed being married with children; it was the best choice he had made in his life. Lance on the other hand was in a committed relationship however when there is a high level of alcohol in his system, he was pretty good at making the wrong choices. He thought if he stayed in their designated area, he wouldn't have any decisions to make.

They lined up shots along the table, tipping them back one by one.

Drink after drink, JC's intoxication level seemed to slowly begin to take over his words that were coming out loud and clear for the room to hear. "Oh shut up ‘Mr. In Demand" He blasted the words at Justin."Making music and movies...living the perfect life with the gorgeous girlfriend... soon to be fiancé'..." JC slurred tipping the bottle back over his glass.

Justin slammed back his drink, "I may still have my career kind of in demand, but I'm far from happy."

"Whatever." JC said annoyed by the idea that Justin wanted sympathy for the perfect life he lead.

"Things aren't so crystal clear." Justin said quietly. "Things aren't so perfect..."

 "Yeah, yeah." JC said walking away.

The idea that Justin's best friend, one who knew more about him than most, was walking away from him, hurt. His words flew out before he could stop them. "You have been in your own little world for so long JC... you don't see anything or anyone around you. Maybe if you opened your eyes you would see that there are people who still care. If for a moment you looked at the ones sitting right here with you... there's a lot that's changed and you won't face any of it..."

"Fuck shit!" His arms tossed in the air, spilling his drink on the floor. "It's, lets blame JC for the world gone wrong night." His arms swayed his top heavy body now.

Friendships were hard to repair sometimes. There are things that can't be repaired and sometimes the people involved are so forever changed that they themselves can't be repaired. There has to come a point when you let the past be just that, that past. Live and learn, but never let it take over.

Justin shook his head, taking back another shot. As his head came back to eye level there was a gorgeous brunette sitting with her legs straddled around his. Leaning into him, she ran her hands over the tight muscle of his thighs, slowly bringing her body closer to his. "I'm Anya." She whispered into his ear, as she nipped down, teasing him. He swallowed hard, feeling other areas of him starting to stiffen. "Yes..." he started to slowly caress the tip of his nose on her silky smooth skin, exhaling heated air down on her shoulders. "Yes... you are on me..." He wasted no time pulling her into his face. Their lips touched softly, embracing that warm genuine feeling of the unknown. He allowed her to take her time to grant him access, but when she did he took her lips on if it were the last lips he would ever kiss again.

She liked the way his lips felt and tasted against hers. But she pulled back, "The name's Anya..." She corrected him. "You wanna dance?" She stood puckering her lips at him with a smirk, extending her arm she swayed her hips trying to get him to agree in joining her.

With his focus staying on Anya he didn't notice Lance, Joey and Chris make their way to the dance floor with yet another beer in hand, grinding around a group of girls who welcomed them in with open arms. Savannah, the blonde bombshell jumps in front of Lance, while the other blonde, Carmen completes a Lance sandwich as they grind against one another, song after song, hour after hour.

"Dude..." JC said turning to Trace, beer bottle in hand. He seemed to let loose for a moment. He wasn't that same JC that walked into the suite hours earlier.

"SWEEEET!" Trace roared back across the room.

Tyler became quickly annoyed by the random famous movie quotes. The entire night they were bouncing back and forth with lines, thinking it was the funniest thing they have heard in a decade which resulted in Tyler consuming more drinks, walking away from the table and eventually disappearing all together with a couple females.

Trace began the infamous quote of the night. "Bad Motha..."

"SHUT YO MOUTH!" JC slurred back at him finishing the quote.

Trace and JC had become this unit of the night. They had spent so much time together over the years, it felt like old times again. It was as if this was the time in their lives to come back together. "Why have you been distant man...?" Trace asked, not expecting JC to answer him. After all it had been years since JC picked up the other side of a phone when Trace had called him. His voicemail had gotten an ear full from Trace, but it seemed to always be a one-sided conversation with the voicemail.

Just as he thought, JC sat there shaking his head trying to come up with some excuse, some story, but the word Trace never expected blurted out. "Justin."

"Justin?" he questioned confused, "Justin never wanted to stay away from you, he's just busy." Trace stated.

"Of course he is. Justin has it all." JC admitted speaking in a calm and honest tone. "He has everything I want... I couldn't be in a room with him, having a civil conversation knowing he had taken everything away from me..."

His words took Trace by surprise, shutting the mouth of someone that never gets stunned.

"He is that person that just has everything..." JC continued. "What I would give to simply have a piece of his perfect little world."

Trace couldn't believe the statements there were coming from him. "JC, there is a lot you don't know about Justin's current life ..." Trace swung his drink back in the air, taking yet another shot down. "You know what... maybe you should ask him how he is doing, maybe you should bury whatever hatchet it is that you have with him and be the friend he needs."

"Justin has never needed me."

"Believe what you want." Trace mumbled.

            His words boggled through JC's highly intoxicated mind. In all the years he has known Justin, he has been the strong one through everything. Even in the face of the worst thing imaginable, Justin stood strong. Or did he? JC thought to himself. Could Justin have needed me then? Could he really need me now? I couldn't have been that oblivious to that, could I have?

A few short hours later...

"Ugh." The entire room gasped with frustration as the curtains were pulled open revealing the brightest sun that they had ever seen in their lives. "What the hell happened last night?" a collective question comes from the pack of guys spread out on the floor over the suite.

"Ouch" Justin grabs his head in pain. "Those girls..." He said dropping his head back down to the floor trying to hold his head still from the spinning of the room.

"They came in with a vengeance." Chris garbled grabbing his head, covering the light from his eyes.

"You asked for it..." Joey slaps the back of Chris's head. "You said you could drink them under the table and took on that challenge... pulling us all into it."

"OUCH! You ass..." Chris backed a distance away from Joey. "I used to be able to drink anyone under the table."

"Oh my god.... The room won't stop spinning." Justin says as he grabs his head in pain again. "Ouch. I'm over hung"

Chris glared over at Justin, "Seriously, you're going to complain about being over hung? SHUT UP MAN! I wish that was a problem we all could have."

"WHAT?" Justin says confused as he thinks back at his words he realizes what he said instead of what he thought he said. Covering his face in embarrassment, he reveals to the room around him a new piece of jewelry he had purchased. He notices the coldness on his skin from his hand that he doesn't normally feel. He slowly pulled his hand from his face, his eyes zeroing in on the sparkling of ice back at him. He gasps for air, as his jaw without delay drops to the floor; his eyes become the size of oranges. His skin tone turns a shade of white. Kicking the blanket off his legs in a panic, he struggles to stand on his wobbly feet, continuing to stare at his left hand as if it was death staring back at him.

I couldn't have. He thought to himself. There is no way I would do something that crazy.

"I... love you." Justin wrapped his arms around Anya pulling her into his skin. It could have been the bottle of Mr. Daniels that had taken over his emotions and entire through process but there was something that made him comfortable in her presence. There was something that made him okay being here and not a worry in the world. There was something that allowed his heart and those fateful words to be thrown out there..."Marry me."

"JUSTIN?" Joey expresses... "I think you have some explaining to do."

Justin snaps out of the memory of the night before, shifting his eyes into Joey's direction. The expression on Justin's face screamed scared shitless, yet a smile waving across it. "Joey..." he pointed, "I think you have some explaining to do as well."

Chris jumps to see what was going on between the two of them that he was missing. Justin may have invested in more than just a piece of jewelry but Joey invested in something blue.

Joey lifted his hands into the sunlight, his gold wedding band didn't reflect back at him they way it always did. Glancing down at the matted hair on his legs, a bright shade of blue radiates off his skin. "What the...?" He questioned stepping into glow of the afternoon sunshine.

"How the hell did you turn blue?" Chris bursts into laughter.

"Clearly, its paint dipshit." Joey spouted off. "At least, I hope..." he mumbled to himself.

"I think you found some smurfs!" Chris continues to laugh. "And ya didn't share!"

Joey turns to Chris. "What the hell happened to you?"

Justin snaps his head towards Chris. "Oh my god." He covered his mouth trying to hide the smirk.

Chris looks down, but he didn't see a shade of the rainbow as his new skin color, he wasn't waking up next to someone he shouldn't have. "What?"

"What happened to your... hair?" Joey asks shocked.

Chris runs to the mirror, running his hands through the hair on his head, his eyes begin to focus on not his head, but his arms.

"WHOA!!! WHOA KELLY CLARKSON!!!" Chris screams as the entire room bursts into laughter.

Lance grabs his wrist, keeping him pinned down to the bed. "You may be forty now, but you are no virgin!" he manages to say between his laughter. "HUSH!"

"Damn that fucking Justin..."Chris grunted. "WHOA!" he said again as another strip tears from his skin.

Justin steps closer to the professional who is waxing every single strand of hair off the skin of the birthday boy. "Hey man... I can hear you. I'm right here."

Chris threw up his finger, pointing at Justin with force. "I should have never bet you... not for this... damn... WHOA!" He screamed again as the final strip went over his right nipple, revealing a smooth chest for the first time in his adult life. "I'm in so much trouble for this one."

"You got married last night... that's why I had to wax my entire body." Panic waved over his face, he unfastened his jeans, pulling his boxers out to view an area he was hoping they had left out of the bet. "FUCK." They had not missed a single piece of hair on his body, other than the hair on his head and his eyebrows. At least they had some limits. He thought. "I didn't think you had already gone through with it before I bet you."

Justin covers his face, hoping that he wakes up from whatever version of reality he ended up in. He stood in silence. Married. He looked down at that piece of jewelry that changes his entire world as he knows it.  Why was it that his entire body should be in utter shock or panic but wasn't? His memory and thought process was scattered, but he wasn't scared. Anya. A smile crept up on his face. There was just something about her that made everything okay.

When he asked her to marry him, he never thought she would say yes. In all honestly he didn't even think those two words were part of his vocabulary. The level of alcohol may have rendered his decision to ask that question, at that very moment, just hours after they met but it was the right choice. For the first time in his life, he made an uncalculated move.

"What a night..." Chris chuckled before looking stern straight ahead. "Where is JC, Lance, Trace, and Tyler?"

The three of them scattered through the hotel to find their missing friends.

Justin enters the bedroom on first level of the suite, "LANCE?" Justin said with confusion as the blanket flies off of his face, revealing what Justin thought he had saw. Lance shuffles back and forth looking around the room, and on both sides of him on the bed.

"What the hell happened?" he asked rubbing his face. He looks down at the bodies lying next to him once again. "Why are there two naked women in my bed?" he lifted the blanket. "Here's a better question, why am I naked in bed with two women?"

"I ... I..." Justin began to stutter, "I don't want to know anything..." he turned and quickly walked around of the room looking for Trace but instead, there was Tyler, asleep on the floor on the other side of the bed.

Joey scours through the suite, looking for any sight of his friends. Trails of green and blue feathers lead him to the master bedroom on the second floor. He rounded the corner and he sees JC, sound asleep in the empty whirlpool tub.

"JC" he yelled with no answer, he walked closer shaking his shoulder, "JC, GET UP!"

JC shook his head, opening his eyes slowly adjusting to the brightness that reflected off the white marble tub. "Wh-at" he grumbled spitting out a green feather out of his mouth.

"Where are these feathers from?" Joey asked looking around the room for some reason they would be in here. But there was no reason; there was no logic for the things they had done here.

"I don't have a clue." He placed his hand over his eyes.

"Get up man we have to find the other guys and get to the airport."

"Ugh." JC complained. "I don't want to move."

"Yea JC, the thought is mutual with everyone this morning however there has been some... interesting things that happened in such a short time."

Chris, with much difficulty, walked down the hallway, squinting his vision, as the bright sunlight reflected on everything in his path. "Trace!" He called out. With no response he continued to search through the suite room to room, "TRACE!" he yelled again. "What?" Chris heard garbling from inside the master suite. He picked up his pace and enters the room he heard the sound coming from. "Trace?"

"Oomph." Trace said trying to stand to his feet, knocking his head off of the sliding glass window. "Fuck." He stretched his neck up straight. "How did I end up outside on that patio? I feel like shit."

"Join the crowd..." Chris said before turning to see that Trace had the crowd with him. Every female that Chris remembered seeing last night, was in his room. Some on the bed, on the ottoman, on the floor in the chair, there were females everywhere slowly waking up to the noise around them.

"Oh man... we need to get out before we realize exactly what happened here." Trace admitted to Chris quickly walking out of the room.

*~*

The television at the airport flashed pictures of the guys partying it up in Vegas. But then the photos stopped when they came to JC. There was JC flying high over the stage, swinging back and forth as if he were a show girl, feathered headpiece and all.

The words "washed up" sprawled across the screen as the closed captioning captures what the reporter was saying. "... It's time to hang up your microphone Chasez, the stage will always be for Justin..."

JC's head lowered to the floor. The empty pit in his stomach grew as he felt like they were telling the truth. They were telling him what he needed to do. He knew that there wasn't a turning back point from where he was but it didn't hurt any less to see those words in black and white.

Justin saw the pain on the face of his friend since childhood. There was only one thing Justin could do to make this easier, there was the unthinkable that Justin could do.

"And you see why we're dead set on you guys not returning to Vegas alone?" Danielle laughed looking over at Anya. "I trust Chris... but the five of you together, is T-R-O-U-B-L-E."

            The group of friends sat around the very suite that changed their lives three years ago. It took a decade to get there but once it did, it was like the door had been reopened and everyone had their chance at a new beginning.

Justin takes the hand of his wife, intertwining their fingers, looking right into her eyes, "Best decision I made in my life. That trip changed everything. I spent so many years dating but never once felt what I felt the moment I met her." He pulls her hand to his lips, kissing it slowly. "Sometimes you just know when it's right."

            "I freaked out." Anya laughed, "I can't even lie. I never thought I would get married, let alone to a stranger in Vegas on a weekend trip with my girlfriends."

"She fought me every minute, but as you can see I won her over!" Justin joked.

            The room got quiet as they remembered the happy times that were created by that one single night.

"I owe my career to Justin." JC blurted out as the room stopped to listen to him. "If he hadn't have taken the heat from the Vegas trip, I wouldn't be where I am today, sober, content with who I am and what I can offer someone. If he wouldn't have released a statement about his Vegas wedding..." JC dropped his head, only rising with a smile seconds later, "Justin sacrifised his career, for mine. He did something for me, his friend over his career."

Justin didn't say a word, he didn't need the recognition for his actions... he was happy to see his best friends back. He would do everything all over again to be in this very moment with everything the way it has turned out.

"I love all of you guys" JC said proudly. "I love that you are my best friends, my brothers."

Love. It's a simple word to say, but a word that can't always be explained or defined by words. A word that holds more power and meaning than the respect it gets. Saying the word, "love" and meaning the extent of "love" is something some will never understand the difference of.

True friendships hold that level of love that is untouchable. There may be times when life gets in the way and puts a wedge in the mix, but eventually that wedge can be removed, bringing the friendship back and the love the never went away.

True love stands the test of time. The class of someone of wealth, doesn't matter. A set amount of time, doesn't matter. Someone's perfect life, is never really that perfect. Choosing the one you are going to love for the rest of your life isn't a choice, it's simply supposed to be. The worlds line up at the precise moment and everything happens just the way it's supposed to. Sometimes you let love go, and sometimes it returns for another chance.

Friends, lovers, companions, family... it doesn't matter at the end how you got there, as long as you get there.