It’s 3:07 AM on August 9th when he hears his phone begin buzzing against the nightstand and extracts his arm as carefully as he can from beneath his peacefully slumbering wife so that he can roll away from her and answer it. His fingers fumble for a moment against the wood before grasping it as he uses his other hand to wipe at his eyes and brush away the sleep and blur from them.

He doesn’t know which alarms him more, the time on the clock or the name on the caller ID, both of which glaring at him in the darkness thanks to the harsh light of his phones screen.

He clears his throat as he hits the answer button, “Uh… Hey….” He sounds less than certain anyone will be on the other line at this hour figuring the caller must have fallen asleep with his phone in his pocket and rolled over on it …or something? 

“Hey.” The single word resembles the voice of the man who was once his best friend and closest confidant, though they were still close, time… distance… and many miles and milestones have now separated them farther apart than either one of them ever believed they would be.

Resembles, but is different, more drawn, more exhausted. “You alright?” The question blurts out before he can compose a proper greeting, but at after three in the morning who can blame him?

“You didn’t call….”

The stringing together of those three little words is such a soft reply he almost doesn’t hear it and blinking against the darkness lets out a short breath. “Hm? What?” He sits up a little making sure to keep his own voice quiet as to not wake the woman beside him.

“You didn’t call,” comes the reply again only slightly louder than the first time, “You didn’t call, and you didn’t come back, Justin.”

His words are thick and low.

He’s drunk.

Justin notices Jessica stir slightly and exhales lifting the covers off and climbing out of bed before tiptoeing out of the room, closing the bedroom door behind himself and heading toward the dining room.

It was clear this was not a butt-dial or a sleep-dial or any other accidental ringing of his phone.  “JC. What are you talking about man?” He pinches the bridge of his nose and sits down at the table where in just a few short hours his son would be up and ready for the day, eating his pancakes, it is Jess’ day to sleep in, which means Justin would be up again then too. The thought makes him groan as he clears his throat, resting his forehead in his palm and rubbing it, trying to rouse himself enough to make it through this conversation. “How many have you had man?... It’s really late.”

“Don’t do that.” The retort is quiet and clipped.

“Don’t do what? C…. Where are you man? Are you alright?” He presses.

“’M fine.” There is a slight hiccup that follows his less than convincing statement before he continues. “Don’t change the subject… Why didn’t you call???? Why didn’t you come back???”

“Come back where man I- “

“Chris called. Joe called; Lance called Twice…. Granted, the second was a butt dial, but not you, you didn’t call, and you didn’t come back.”

“I meant to call…” It sounded lame before the words even finished coming out, Justin knew how feeble of a statement it was. “I just got-got busy in the studio with- “

“with your NEW crew, right? Your NEW family” The inebriated man interrupts. “Someone who was not me. Not us.”

Justin frowns and audibly winces at that remark. “I- Didn’t- I never said that- I- I meant… That’s not- That’s not fair JC. “He fumbles.

There was a quiver in JC’s voice that shook each syllable slightly, a quiet yet emotion filled tremble behind his next words. “You meant for a lot of things didn’t you Jus?” They were followed by the sound of what Justin knew to be liquor sloshing against the sides of a bottle and quiet gulps of false salvation.

His gut knots, he doesn’t have to be in the room with him to see the man on the other end of the line.

JC’s eyes red-rimmed, shimmering and glassy but not just from the alcohol he has consumed as tears slip from them, each one more pain filled than the one before it.

 Shuttered breaths of restrained emotions the only sound that dares to whisper against such deafening quietness while he searches to fill his devouring and paralyzing emptiness with the contents of a bottle.

“Is- is Jenn with you man?”

“No.”

“Are you at your LA place? Can I uh- Do you want me to c- “

“Some of us are just expendable, we don’t have expendable income.” The bitterness on his tongue is palpable as he snorts “I’m in Florida. Sold the LA house...”

It wasn’t like JC was broke, broken by events of the past, but not broke by any means.  All those years of frugal living helped him prepare for the inevitable... when the spotlight faded, and the checks were not as glamorous as they had once been. When he was left alone. Again.

However, having had a few too many, his tongue was sharp even if his brain was dulled with Jameson scented fog.

He had Justin on the line and with his inhibitions absent these back handed comments were his defenses against years of pain and he didn’t have the ability.... nor the desire, to silence them.

“JC.” Justin drew his lip into his mouth and bit down on it at the other man’s words and the insinuation behind them... “You’re not expendable man... don’t talk like that...”

“Invisible...” JC mumbles as Justin listens to the near silence on the other end and can hear the lazy shuffle of feet against carpet.

“What?! No. JC, come on-“

 “Just invisible righhhhht!?!”  His best friend’s protest going unheard he continues “If you can’t see me, don’t see m-me- NO, won’t see me...  If ya Just pretend I’m not there... That I’m nowhere... Maybe then you can just forget the past right?”

“Stop this!!!! Please C- You’ve been drinking you - “

“Am. Curly, I am drinking.” There is a beat of a pause, “oh no wait ... not Curly anymore right? It’s JT now, like Madonna and Prince. If ya change yer name, ya change yer past. Who cares who you leave in the dust? Who cares who lifted you on to the pedestal where you currently sit high and mighty lookin’ down at all us little folk?  Living the high life. Who cares who helped you get that big house? Those gold records? Who fuckin’ cares?  New life, NEW best friend… Fuck everyone else.” He laughs a little now but it’s pained and more like a sob, “well cheers to you JT... MAN of the woods.”

He can hear the bottle being raised into the air followed by a long swallow.

Justin quickly realizes that rationalizing with his longtime friend, one of his longest aside from Trace, is a losing battle, at least for tonight, and only now releases his lip from between his teeth, these pain filled and painful words now bouncing around in his head. “OK JC.” He whispers.

After a second, JC’s rant seeming to have lulled for the time being, Justin takes the opportunity to check the clock on his phone when something dawns on him and he raises it back to his ear, “Wait, you’re in Florida? JC it’s after six in the morning there!” He doesn’t mean for it to come out sounding as worry filled and fatherly as it does, or maybe he does, and for a split-second he wonders when in their friendship the two of them had switched places.

 “Almos’ six-thirty now.” He corrects.

“There is no way you started drinking this early you aren’t even up at this hour! Have you been up all night?” He cringes, "Been drinking all night?"

“So?” the older man snorts, “You didn’t call.”

“Y-you were waiting for me to call? JC! There have been lots of years I’ve missed your birthday in the past man, you know I always call within a few days if it slips my mind. You know how life can get.” He leans back in his antique dining chair now his jaw clenching and unclenching.

 “You didn’t come back!”

They were back to that now, “Come back from where?!?!” He asks again this time with a little more force and demand for an answer in his tone. “Come back to where?!?! What are you talking about?”

“YOU DIDN’T COME BACK!” There is fire behind the repeated statement this time as in the dead of night it seems to bounce off all the walls surrounding him and vibrate with intensity inside Justin’s skull, causing the younger man’s eyes to widen as he takes in a startled breath.

“Hey… Hey Calm down C- just tell me man- Tell me Wh-“

“YOU. DIDN’T. COME. BACK! “

“YOU SAID THAT!” Without meaning to his own words come out in a matching tone as Justin finds his jaw closed tight not in anger but more in frustration, or even fear, as the two of them seem to be dancing around in some sort of circle.  Around what though? Justin still didn’t know “WHERE JC? WHERE MAN? WHY ARE YOU SO ANGRY? WHERE WAS I SUPPOSED TO GO JC?”

“YOU WEREN’T SUPPOSED TO GO!” He sneers, “YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO COME BACK AND YOU DIDN’T COME BACK! YOU LEFT.” The words are loud screams filled with anger as though some sort of switch had been flipped, something inside JC triggered.

They were angry but, more than that they were pained, their slight tremble now a full-blown shake as Justin jumps to his feet hearing glass break. In his mind’s eye he sees the bottle of poison that was bringing all these emotions to the surface fly across the room and slam into the far wall shattering to pieces, as his rant continues. “FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU! ANSWER ME! “

“JC STOP! YOU-“

“FUCK YOU!”

“JC STOP!” Justin tries again, praying like hell his words could break into the fit of rage and whiskey currently consuming the other man. “TAKE A BREATH AND STOP. TALK TO ME BRO- USE YOUR WORDS”

“NO! YOU STOP! YOU STOP…. Y-Y- You Stop Justin! You Stop! Just Stop!”

“Ok.” When he hears JC’s voice quiet, he follows suit glancing behind himself to make sure their little outburst had not awakened Jessica as he continues, “What am I doing JC? What do I need to stop?”

Justin has to remind himself that the man on the other line is deep in the throes of intoxication, taking a second to himself he inhales and evens out his tone before daring to speak again forcing an evenness into his words,  “JC I don’t know how to help man, I don’t know what you want from me… I don’t-“

Strangled breaths silence him, and he listens, his heart fracturing in his chest as he swallows hard.

Drunk or not, JC was shattering, so many emotions coming to the surface it almost sounded as though he were drowning in them, and to be honest, he was, just not in the literal sense. 

“No one comes back!” He pants, “No one fucking comes back Justin. Everyone leaves and no one comes back. I don’t understand Justin… I don’t understand.” He swallows drawing in a fractured breath, “It hurts man… It fucking hurts and- you- Why- Why doesn’t it ever fucking go away?” His whisper is chillingly broken as from hundreds of miles away Justin is helpless and can only sit by as the man who all but raised him to be who he has become, both in private and in the public eye, chokes on quiet sobs gasping for air that seems to elude him much like the answers he was pleading for seemed to. “She-She left….”

“She who?” His inquiry is quiet as Justin finds himself fighting back his own tears at what he is hearing, their conversation having taken another drastic turn. It takes everything he has in him to even get out those two little words and not sound as broken as the man he was trying to console. He’d never heard JC sound like this before and frankly it was scaring the shit out of him.

“Everyone leaves. You, You left. You- she- you weren’t supposed to be like them. Like her. Why didn’t you come back? Why didn’t you call? “

JC Chasez was a man in his forties in every way, from how he dressed, the car he drove, even the quiet life he had slipped into in the last three years or so…

Every way that was, except one.

He would always be the little boy who needed answers, a dreaded fear of abandonment simmering below the surface of every relationship in his life, it was why he never settled down. It was far better to leave than to be left, at least that is how he saw it.

He’d found a way to move past every exit from his life, those that were forced and those that were voluntary.  

Well, almost all of them.

Justin draws in a breath as a realization slaps him so hard it steals the air from his own lungs and nearly knocks him from where he is seated at the table, sobered from any remnants of sleep he was depriving himself of  he steadies his hands which are now trembling and then his voice. “It’s not your fault.” His tone is stern and clear. Suddenly he knew exactly where he'd gone and where he was supposed to come back to….

WHO he was supposed to come back to.

The pieces falling into place.

How had Justin not seen this before? How did he not know? Had JC really been holding on to this for almost twenty years? Had it taken that long for him to break? Had he broken before and Justin had not been there….

Did he really blame himself?

When all he was met with on the other line was an outlet of breath, the broken pleas and rambling cries now quieted to a lull of emotion filled breathing, Justin knew he had to continue… even if he didn’t know what to say.

At this point, Words seemed like a band-aid over a bullet wound, about as useful as the bottle JC had polished off, at fixing any of this at all. “SHE LOST YOU. YOU DID NOT LOSE HER.“ He inhales, “and I promise you man…. I promise you, YOU DID NOT LOSE ME. I PROMISE YOU.”

There is a long pause, long enough that Justin wonders if JC is even still conscious, “Are you listening to me JC? It’s not your fault. Do you hear me?”

“you didn’t come back.” The answer is small… “You weren’t supposed to be like them, like her.”

Justin wishes like hell that only the length of a hotel room separated them now like it once did, that with a few quick strides his hands could rest heavily on his brothers’ shoulders, feed him strength, pull him back together again.

He wishes he could stare into the broken blue eyes of his best friend and make him see, make him believe these words that didn’t seem like nearly enough even as they were spoken into the quietness of the night.

He curses himself for the years that he’s allowed to slip away from him, from them, the years of selfish notions and actions, the years of NOT being there for the ones…. THE ONE who has always been there.

The one who has cheered him on through everything from their first skit together on MMC to their last show together…  and every single thing he had done since then, the one who had spent 20 years silently breaking beneath the surface while smiling to the world, blaming himself while singing his little brother’s praise.

The one who was now out of reach.

“I didn’t leave you…” He tries again this time with far less confidence than before, in his heart he knows this is a lie and he realizes that JC is right, that he hadn’t meant for a lot of things to happen, but they had and the consequences of what he hadn’t meant to happen ran far deeper than he’d ever realized.

“w-woah.” There is a slurred mumble on the other line as Justin hears a small thud which reminds him that the man he is reasoning with right now is more than half a dozen sheets to the proverbial wind.

He would have to digest these newly surfacing feelings of remorse and idiocy later, right now there were more pressing matters at hand like making sure JC didn’t end up running naked through the neighbors yard or ass up with a broken nose in the middle of his kitchen before morning …. Or well, later morning.

“JC, You alright over there?”

The first reply he receives is unintelligible maybe having something to do with a horse…. Or a house?

He tries again, “Buddy? You ok”

“The spins….” Comes an uncertain reply.

“How fuckin’ much did you- “Justin inhales deep and shakes his head cutting himself off, “You know what? That’s not important…. Where-“ He clears his throat, “Where are you- what room are you in?”

“I made- mmm­- I want off the ride Jay.”

“JC. Focus bud. Come on.” He swears he can hear the other man running his hand through his now longer hair and giving it a slight tug as if to wake himself. “What room are you in?” He repeats.

“I made it to the uh- uh …. I see the couch. But I’m holdin’ up the wall.”

“Alright, good… that’s good man. Go to the couch ok? One foot in front of the other, the wall can hold itself up. Which is more than I can say for you right now.” He muses.

“Hey- I heard that.”

“Yeah, well.” The sober man shrugs even though he cannot be seen. “You heading toward the couch bro? Careful, take your time.”

“It’s like a disco. M’ pretty sure I’m drunk.” His words die off a little and there is a long pause before Justin hears JC’s body thump with the grace of an elephant on to what he hopes is the sofa… and not the floor.

“JC?” He is almost afraid to ask into the receiver.

“Made it“, Came a not so coherent reply a few seconds later.

“Good.” Justin rises from the table where he has been sitting and goes to the kitchen to get a glass of water leaning against the counter and crossing his legs.

“I wish you were here man…. It’s- I- mmm”

“What was that C?”

“hmmmmm?”

Justin wonders for a moment what thought was lost to JC’s inebriated state especially after all the drunken truths that had been revealed over the last thirty minutes or so of their conversation. Truths Justin would never forget, truths JC would never remember sharing.

“heads heavy...”

He can tell by the discombobulated words that JC’s battle for coherency is quickly being lost.

“You were supposed to come back.” A tinge of the same saddened and childlike emotion dances on the edge of JC’s words, he sounds so small, so alone.

“I’m here JC.” Justin makes sure to keep his voice reassuring as he glances up to the photo of the five of them from last years star ceremony on the fridge and finds a lump in his throat realizing he doesn’t want to hang up any more than JC wants him to hang up. Inwardly, yet again, he curses the hours and miles between them, the pain of nostalgia gripping him tightly, but it was more than that even, deeper…

He really needed to do better.

To make time.

To be there.

He needed to call.

He should have called.

And with every fiber of his being, at that moment, alone in the darkness of his kitchen, the only light a dim glow from a nearby streetlamp peeking in through a crack in the blinds, Justin knew above everything else surrounding and inside of him, He should have come back.

He should have come back.

Even if it was only to let things go properly, they deserved that much, JC deserved that much. The wounds he had caused were so apparent, so devastating, especially to a man he never would have dreamed of hurting.  JC was not just collateral damage left on the waste side along the path to a successful solo career. He was a mentor, a best friend, a brother.

Justin was so damn sorry, he’d never said it, not out loud, but that didn’t mean he didn’t feel it.

“I should let you go…” JC’s words are again strung together and break through Justin’s thoughts pulling him back to the task at hand and pushing even more down to be dealt with at another time.

Sometime soon.

 Soon.

But not now.

“I’m- I’m not leaving you alone like this…. Put me on speaker phone.” It was more a demand than a request.

“Mmm’ Kay”

He can hear the beep of the phone signaling the switch. “What did you drink C? You think you’re gonna be sick?”

“Top shelf…. Eric spared no expense. I won’t hurl…. I uh-I don’t think.”

Accepting this as, as much reassurance as he is going to get, Justin allows his shoulders to relax a bit more, leaning heavier against the counter “well, that’s good. Put me on the arm of the couch C and put your feet up.”

“They’re heavy….” It was almost a whine and Justin could not help the chuckle that he had to swallow down.

“I can’t help you there man. You can do it.”

There is an almost irritated umph that sounds in Justin’s ears seconds later and he knows JC and his heavy limbs are now safely on the sofa and out of harm’s way.

“Now, rest your head back and close your eyes.”

“Who the fuck let me drink so much?”

“Dude you’re 43, no one LET you do this, YOU did this, now shut up and close your eyes JC.”

“Fuck off! They’re closed!”

“Good.” Justin rolls his neck and runs his hand over his mouth.

“Dun hang up yet k?”

“I’m not.” Justin set his water down on the counter and closes his own eyes. “Just relax C.”

There is another pause and the voice that Justin hears next is only seconds from sleep, “Jus?.... m’ sorry.”

“Shhh, sleep bud you don’t have to be s-“

“I- do.”

“No. You don’t, we all drunk dial our family at 6am man, it’s no big deal, just try to get some sleep.”

“No, m’ sorry we weren’t enough.” He exhales his voice softening to a ghost of a whisper, “ I wassn’ enough.”

“JC-”

“F’ I was you’da come back…Er, never left… M’ sorry.”

The lump in his throat only seemed to grow at that moment and Justin can only shake his head in reply to the other man who could not see him. “Shhhhh….” He tries and nearly chokes on the simple sound rubbing at his eyes with his free hand as they begin to burn and water, the weight of the night, the weight of what the man he looked up to most in the world had been carrying bearing down on him so hard his shoulders physically slump a little further and his chest tightens.  “Shhhh.”

Moments tick by…. First a few, then a handful, but he doesn’t move, everything is sinking in and he has no choice but to let it as he stands there leaning against the sink with his eyes closed listening to his best friend’s breathing even out signaling he’s fallen into what Justin knew would be a deep and much needed sleep.

He still cannot bring himself to hang up.

To sever the connection, their connection.

He stands there for 20 Minutes, maybe more… until finally his voice returns to him.

JC’s last statement before inebriation overtook him and he drifted off sounds again against the silence of the night and he draws in an uneven breath.

“I’m the one who is sorry JC… Happy Birthday Man.” He finally whispers before pulling his phone down from his ear his fingers shaking as he clicks the off button.

Setting his phone on the counter he wipes hard at his face with both his palms and fills his lungs with as much air as they will hold before releasing it, trying and fighting to let go of at least some of the heaviness now resting in his soul and his heart. 

It doesn’t work, not really, he knows what he’s got to do.

With a nod he makes his way back into the bedroom and pulls down the covers climbing back in bed beside his wife.

It’s now 4:37 AM and the last hour and a half are weighing heavily on his mind as he brings his hands up resting them behind his head knowing sleep won’t come to him now. JC might not remember tonight and all that he willingly and yet unwillingly revealed but, he still carries it with him, the same way Justin now would…

And it was time for Justin to do something about it not for himself, but for his brother.

Jessica stirs beside him and lifts her head up a little. “Babe?”

“Shhhh, go back to sleep.”

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah…” He draws his lip between his teeth and tilts his face toward her, “I just uh… I have to take a trip tomorrow for a few days… something I need to take care of.” He leans down and kisses the top of her head, “we will talk about it tomorrow.”

Tomorrow will be when he tells her he has to go back.

-Finished