“Okay, can you tell me what the hell got up his ass today?” Mike muttered murderously as he watched Justin stomp around his dressing room. “If he’s like this when his momma shows up…”

“I have no idea. I know he went over to Renee’s…”

“Lover’s tiff?”

“He said they were fine.” Trace shrugged, eyeing his best friend warily.

It wasn't like Justin had been a complete asshole or anything - he just hadn’t been his usual self. He’d disappeared inside of himself and wasn't talking so much; a bad aura just emanated from him. The less than cheery mood was more than evident and he couldn’t imagine it getting any better if Lynn got there and started calling him on it, which she inevitably would.

“I thought you said she was cheating on him.”

“Might be. I said might be. But he’s still with her so I guess it hasn’t been proved either way.”

“Or he’s proved she didn’t?” Mike asked.

“If he’d proved that she didn’t we wouldn’t be having this conversation because he’d be walking round here like he was the shit.”

“Good point.”

“Trace man did you see my Coldplay album anywhere?” Justin finally spoke with a frown on his face.

“Think you left it in the car yesterday,” he said mildly.

“Okay then. Let’s move; I wanna get this crap over with.”

“It’s only a couple radio stations.” Trace clapped a hand on his friend’s shoulder in what was meant to be a reassuring gesture but fell extremely flat.

“Dude if they start with me today I will not be responsible for my actions.”

Justin stormed out of the room ahead of his friend and bodyguard, leaving Mike to hurriedly scoop up any remaining stuff from the counter and hurry after his young charge. Trace was forced to jog to catch up, wondering what the hell had got into him.

***

“Renee…”

Claire stood over her best friend, not sure how long she could keep this up. She wasn't corporeal - she had absolutely no way to wake the girl up other than to keep yelling at her. She seemed extremely dead to the world. It had always been that way, even at their sleepovers in middle school; Claire would always be up long before Renee had even stirred.

This was all well and good except that she seriously needed to talk to the woman and she was as always on the clock; though Renee seemed to have forgotten that she was on the clock too. Apart from anything else, without a body Claire couldn’t pick up and read the note on the pillow next to the blonde’s head. She was dying of curiosity, but she also needed to know if it was anything important.

“Fine. You asked for it.” She sighed before reaching out and letting her hand pass straight through her friend’s skull. Renee practically bolted upright with a violent shudder.

“What the… Claire? Did you just do that?” She whined as she spotted her ghostly pal and connected the dots.

“I’ve been yelling at you for five straight minutes, you left me no choice. Besides, it’s like one in the afternoon; you need to get your butt out of bed. Now, first you’re gonna read the note on the pillow next to you and then you’re going to tell me why I found you naked in Justin Timberlake’s bed. I’m pretty sure I know already but I just gotta check.”

“Oh God…” Renee pushed a hand through her knotted and tangled hair, wincing slightly as her fingers hit snags and she remembered the events of the previous night. Grabbing up the note, she unfolded it to find that it was pretty brief.

Ren;

Didn’t want to wake you but I got interviews. There’s coffee and cereal in the kitchen.

Later, J

“Well. Not exactly a profession of undying love, is it?” Claire snorted. “Were you that bad in bed?”

“CLAIRE!” Renee raised her voice, sounding so pissed off that Claire actually took note and dropped the sarcasm.

“Sorry. You just kind of threw me for a loop here. Last time I checked you were trying to avoid sleeping with him.”

“I was drunk and he was pretty.” It was the only lame defence she could come up with on her own behalf.

“I knew it.” Claire stood up and began pacing the room. She would have been chewing her fingernails, were that physically possible. “I thought you said you weren’t in love with him.”

“I’m not!” Renee protested before trailing off into thought. “God I just made me sound like such a…”

“Slut? Yeah.” The reply was completely unsympathetic. “I don’t get it, Ren. What the hell happened?”

“Like I said… I was drunk, we’d had a nice time and we started kissing and boom.”

“Yeah, you have got pretty cosy with him lately.” She couldn’t help snorting again.

“What? I thought you wanted me to start thinking about my decision… maybe he’s part of my decision.” Renee narrowed her eyes as she pulled the sheets around herself and got up to locate her clothing. “Unless you know which decision I’m supposed to make and that’s why you’re pissed, because I did something I shouldn’t.”

“Your destiny is something for you to find, not for me to know and tell you,” the brunette replied irritably. “I’m just worried that you’ve gone and complicated this for yourself.”

“It’s not like I’ve gone and fallen desperately in love with him overnight, Clara.”

“Then why did you sleep with him?”

That was a fairly good question, and one she had to think about for a few moments before she answered. In the second where she’d crossed the line with him, she could explain all that. Mostly it came down to her being drunk and him being very good with his hands. Why did anybody sleep with anybody on the spur of the moment? They’d both been turned on and it had happened. She got that part.

The only thing she didn’t quite understand was the part where it had been him. She’d been in college - those kinds of situations with that kind of potential for sex had come up quite a few times before and she’d mostly resisted them. So logically something about Justin must have been what made her succumb to temptation this time; if it wasn't love then what was it?

“I guess… it’s like…” She struggled to explain while putting her underwear on beneath the sheet. “I feel like I’m friends with Justin now. Like he’s a really close friend. He’s just been so caring and… I don’t know. I guess I kind of got used to kissing him and stuff and now it’s like that’s just how we show affection, you know?”

“Like you’ve de-sexualised it?” Claire asked, trying to understand what she meant.

“Sort of. Not completely, but kind of like it’s not as big a deal with him as it would be any my normal guy friends back home.”

“Basically you’ve got used to acting like his girlfriend.”

“Yeah.”

“And you were drunk.”

“Most emphatically.”

“God…” Claire sighed. “So you’ve definitely decided you’re not gonna fall hopelessly in love with him?”

“I don’t know…”

Renee sighed as she struggled to do up her bra one handed; she didn’t mind getting changed in front of Claire - they’d done it a million times when they were younger - but full nudity was too much, she needed her underwear on first. Thankfully it was front fastening; otherwise it would have been completely impossible.

“I feel… you know how you’re in the first few weeks with a guy and you’re just kind of dating and you know you like him but you’re not sure exactly how it’s gonna go?”

“No, actually.” The first hint of resentment cracked Claire’s voice. “I kinda died before I had the chance. But I get what you’re saying.”

“I think if I stuck around I could fall for him. I’m nowhere near that yet but…”

“You could. It’s in the realm of possibility.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you regret it?”

“I probably should…” She trailed off before giving a mild smirk. “Hell no. He’s hot. And obviously all that dancing does something for ya ‘cause the boy’s got skills. Almost enough to make me choose to stay just for that.”

“Well you better hurry up and get your ass in gear and choose.” Having been taken wildly off point, Claire steered the conversation back around to the reason for her little visit. “The bigwigs have been sensing a disturbance in the Force, so to speak.”

“First of all, please don’t use crappy Star Wars phrases when you’re giving me bad news and second, what the fuck do you mean?” Renee yanked on her pants, looking almost as panicked as she had when she’d first been dumped into this whole mess.

“I don’t know exactly… some shift. It’s hard to explain if you’re not a celestial being with all the knowledge of the universe like they are. I don’t get it exactly but crux of it is something’s happened and they’re not sure why, but they really don’t like it.”

“So why you telling me?”

“Because you need to get your damn ass in gear and find that necklace.” Claire replied grimly. “There are only two possible explanations for this. One, the cosmos is realising that you’re running out of time and shifting to make the wish permanent, or something’s happened that wasn't supposed to. But we knew the first one was going to happen and it shouldn’t have created that kind of… of… whatever it did.”

“By any chance did the… thing… whatever, did it happen last night?” Renee asked grimly.

“Come on sweetie, maybe you made the Earth move for him but you’re not that good.”

“Fuck it, Claire, I’m being serious.”

“Well… last night, this morning, some time like that.” Claire paused for thought as Renee hurriedly buttoned up her shirt. “Ren… you haven’t made anybody suspicious, have you?”

“If I pulled off the VM freaking As why would they get suspicious now?” She hissed, beginning to seriously panic. “I don’t know… my mom started on this riff about how nice it was to see me back to my old self.”

“You mean like you actually put your family over work for once? No. She might’ve been surprised but that can’t be enough. Still, this is all I can figure it’d be; I don’t know what else would cause that kind of ripple.”

Claire began pacing as Renee sat on the bed and held her head in her hands, trying to breathe deeply. She really didn’t want to wind up in a nuthouse - which was where she would wind up if she had to try and explain this all to anybody who realised that something weird was going on.

“Renee?” A voice called that was most definitely not Claire’s.

“Shit, he’s home.” Now was the time she panicked.

“You still here?” Justin’s voice sounded again, only marginally closer this time.

“Uhh… up here!” Renee yelled back before turning to Claire. “You gotta go.”

“I can’t. We still need to talk and once I go back up there I have to stay until they let me go again.” She spoke in a rush. “You just get rid of him or get out of here as fast as you can, it’s not like he can see me anyway.”

“You in the bedroom, Ren?” Justin called out as he strode along the upstairs landing to the familiar door. “I need to talk to you.”

“Yeah.” She yelled out to him nervously, turning away from Claire. It was easier to pretend she wasn't there if she couldn’t see her.

“Okay…” he said grimly as he passed through the door and met his girlfriend’s eyes. Stopping short of where she stood in the centre of the room, his eyes passed over the place. The bed hadn’t been made - a sure sign she’d not been long out of it. Renee looked kind of nervous, too. “Hey.”

“Hey.” She made a pitiful attempt at the smile. Justin made an equally poor expression back at her and then turned slightly to Renee’s left.

“Umm… not meaning to be rude but who the fuck are you and why are you in my bedroom with my girlfriend?”

Renee’s eyes widened when she turned around and saw that Justin was staring right at Claire.