"Shit… I should've stayed home."

"It'll be fine."

"Renee," Justin said testily, "I'm about to walk a red carpet with somebody who's meant to be my girlfriend. I haven't done that in years. Did I mention that I'm not actually the guy I'm supposed to be and I have no idea how to answer any questions about the asshole?"

"Hey!"

"Sorry," he mumbled unhappily.

When at the last minute Johnny Wright had called the house to remind them both that they were supposed to be attending the MTV Movie awards, his first instinct had been to play sick. He was now wishing he'd listened to it instead of Renee who had cajoled him into it. Her reasoning had been that they needed to keep up pretences and people would talk more (and thus the paparazzi hunt for them more) if he didn't go. Begrudgingly Justin had conceded the point, but he wished he'd stood firm.

It was nothing unusual; he'd done this type of thing a million times before, but that wasn't the part he was worried about. He'd have to sign a few autographs and talk to a few people's best friends on the phone or record answer machine messages for them. That would be a piece of cake. It was the press he was terrified of - he knew nothing about this guy's career, had purposely eschewed finding out. He figured he ought to learn the lesson from his other self's mistakes and not start delving too deeply into what could have been. Having to stick with Renee so much he couldn't entirely avoid it, but he could do his best.

He allowed himself a sideways glance at her. It was becoming less and less strange to see her with blonde hair, but he still had trouble getting over the body difference. The breasts were the obvious part, but he didn't think he'd be able to pinch even a little fat from her. His own girlfriend was soft, a little cuddly - still toned, but she had more curves and maybe she was a dress size bigger (if he ever saw her again, he would never ever admit that). Her midriff was on display under a black turtleneck sweater that had been cropped, but her legs were hidden under a floaty white skirt and she had covered up for the most part.

Justin privately thought she looked a lot nicer for it than she did in the scantily clad publicity shots he'd seen around, but he was as likely to mention that as he was the dress size thing.

"Look…" she said reasonably. "We just have to make an appearance, get the promo done. I have to present this award, but you're really only here because they expect you… him… whatever, they expect Justin Timberlake. We usually do the awards shows together so it got to the point where if they don't get what they expect the rumours start, and we don't need that right now. It'll be fine, you do this all the time superstar."

"I just…" he sighed. It occurred to him that the only reason he'd stopped doing this public relationship thing was learning from the Britney debacle. He guessed this guy had met his Britney and never broken up with her, thus hadn't been taught it yet.

"What?"

She was encouraging, so he spoke. "I stopped doing this whole public relationship shit a long time ago because it was more hassle than it was worth. I mean, people know me and you… her…"

"Pronouns are hard with this magic crap, huh?" She laughed and he had to chuckle with her.

"No shit. But yeah, they know we're dating and it's not like we're hiding out in our houses but we don't do work stuff together except for behind the scenes. This…" he gestured to the crowd beyond their darkened windows, "is like my worst nightmare."

"Really?" She tilted her head to the side, looking at him from behind thoughtful eyes. "I always just considered it like going to the work Christmas party together or something. Least it's an excuse to spend some time together when you're always away from each other."

"I guess I just learnt to make up the time elsewhere."

"Hmm."

Renee became quiet again, staring out of the window. Justin was driving them both in her Porsche - normally they would have just shared a limo, but they had wanted to avoid having any kind of staff around. They needed to speak freely in order to prepare him to act as his alter ego.

"So… remind me again what I'm supposed to be doing right now?"

"Tell them you're just playing around in the studio but the details are a surprise or something on those lines."

"And, uhh…" he swallowed nervously. "Exactly how openly do you guys usually talk about each other?"

Finally she cracked a small smile. "Feel free to be as sycophantic as you want about my work or my appearance but any relationship details always get a no comment."

"Okay." Justin breathed as the pulled up to the valet and he prepared to make his entrance in front of the flashbulbs. "I can do that. Sure. No problem."

"You trying to convince you or me?"

"Does it matter?"

"No because it's not working either way."

Renee poked a playful index finger against his cheek and then quickly checked her hair in the mirror as Justin grimaced and reached out his hand to open the door.

***

Meanwhile, at the same time the other Justin was looking similarly pained. The look was similarly brief, but it wasn't the cameras he had to smile for: it was Louise. Louise in his reality had always been like an annoying but still much liked older sister - she was always picking on him. In this reality she seemed to treat him mildly like an adult, which was a nice change, but she was still sharp as a tack and she still made a lot of fun of him. The woman was not stupid, didn't miss a trick, so he needed to keep his game face on.

It would be nothing compared to the game face he would need if the worst happened and he did in fact have to face Nathan Anderson. The scenario was looking more and more likely; Faith's attic was looking neater and tidier by the day but had still not yielded the gem, and he was already a week and a half into his three week stay.

"God I hate it when she does phone interviews." Louise punctuated herself with a huge yawn. "We have to sit and be quiet for hours while they keep her on hold just in case they suddenly decide to talk, and they always ask really dumb questions."

"Try having to give the damn interview." Renee riposted.

"Enough people have mistaken us over the phone…" her sister replied with an evil grin.

"Oh hell no, bitch." Renee chuckled, tossing a sofa cushion at her - she felt free to swear with her mother out getting groceries. "I can only imagine the shit you'd say just to be evil which you would then leave for me to clean up. I still haven't forgotten the aneurysm Ken Sunshine nearly had over that comment you made about buying me handcuffs for Christmas."

Justin nearly choked, which only served to make Louise laugh louder. He was still having trouble reconciling this version of Renee with the one he'd met on her body swap; call it brazen, call it merely open, the girl was a lot less prudish. That wasn't the easiest concept for him to get his head around. His perception of her was as somebody sweet, sensible, even a little shy, so it was strange for her to have picked up some of the confidence he more associated with his actual girlfriend.

Or at least he had until the last couple of years where she'd stopped talking except to have fights with him.

"Hello?" Renee finally said into the phone, signalling that somebody was in fact talking to her. Justin and Renee fell obediently quiet.

"Yes sir, I'm here…"

"Well thank you, it hasn't sucked that's for sure!"

"Yeah, I've been really pleased with how the first album's done and hopefully I can match that with this next one I'm doing now."

"It's more a… uhh… I guess you could say it's a little more up tempo, a little perkier, but I think generally it's not a huge step out to the left, it's just me getting better at what I do. At least I think so, hope to God everybody else does or I'm in some deep doo-doo!"

It was inane, it was banal, and Justin didn't even need to hear the other side of the conversation to be able to fill in the blanks. It was the radio version of small talk, getting the pleasantries and the plugs over with before the DJs started getting bold and going for the personal. Sometimes they did just go for the jugular straight off, but most of them were canny enough to let their subject get comfortable first.

A lot more inane talk about her music went by before the conversation took a more interesting turn and he began to pay attention.

"Uhh… he's alright… he's fine… I mean what do you want me to say?"

She was laughing, obviously making a joke of what he suspected was them getting coy with her (obviously over one Justin Timberlake), but the expression on her face was entirely incongruous with her tone. That was the upside of phone interviews - you could be picking your nose the entire time and nobody would know.

"No, it's not that, it's not like it's some huge terrible thing that people ask me how my boyfriend is but I just don't get why people are so interested. I mean, I know he's famous and all, but I swear we're just as boring as anybody else. People always ask me what we're doing like they expect me to say we're whizzing around the world or bungee jumping in Africa or something and I'm like 'well last night we rented a movie', that's about as exciting as it gets."

Louise was clutching her stomach and her mouth, clearly trying to keep her laughter silent. If she was anything like her other world counterpart, she had concocted something far less innocuous in her mind and it was that she was laughing at rather than anything Renee had said.

"Oh boy, I love rumours."

"Uhh… I don't think so. If any of them are about me he hasn't mentioned it. He's got better things to talk about anyway."

"Yeah, it's really good stuff. I mean, but I think this one's just going blow everybody away with how much better it is, and it's not like the first one wasn't fantastic, if you know what I mean."

This was the part where her face went white. The voice remained happy and upbeat, but her entire body seemed to sag into the chair.

"There's nothing I can say to that which people won't take as either a lie or me being stupid or something, so I'm gonna keep my mouth shut and people can think what they want. I'm really not going to talk about it."

"Which part of 'really not going to talk about it' didn't make sense to you?"

And then she did something that he had never seen his own Renee do … she hung up entirely.

Louise immediately did exactly what she knew her sister needed her to do. She plopped herself down on Renee's lap and curled her body into the tight space of the single armchair with her, wrapping her arms around her neck and kissing her cheek before laying her head atop of hers. Justin remained quiet, deciding that he'd rather just watch. It felt a little voyeuristic but finally he thought maybe he was going to get a taste of this life, even if it was a moment.

"Assholes?"

"Assholes," the brunette replied as she rubbed her hands along her older sibling's arms. "They're back on the shit about Cameron being back in the picture."

"Justin?" Louise addressed him loudly.

"Yeah?" He hadn't counted on being drawn in.

"Are you screwing around with your ex girlfriend behind Renee's back?"

"Not that I'm aware."

"Well there you go. Nothing to it, so they can go fuck themselves."

Louise took it as sarcasm, but it was in fact a truthful answer - if her boyfriend was screwing around on her, Justin didn't know it. He tended to doubt it, much as he'd like an excuse to think badly of his other self. Even he had only managed to nearly kiss somebody else once while he and his girl were on a break; he'd been free as a bird, but couldn't stomach it. Cameron Diaz was hot and all but he couldn't see the other Justin going for his own leftovers rather than Renee; he'd certainly looked like he was into her in that bathtub, much as he shuddered to remember it.

Of course he wouldn't remember if he hadn't been the Peeping Tom who had watched them in their room, but that was another issue altogether.

"I wouldn't even give a shit if they just didn't keep pushing, you know?" She complained. "No matter what I say they'll keep thinking what they want and all they'll do is try and make me look stupid with it, so why the fuck am I expected to answer them all seven zillion times? I mean God, they wouldn't even be interested enough in it if not for…"

Everybody in the room knew that the missing word was "Justin."

It was a strange thing, that if you put two celebrities together in a couple they became a force in Hollywood that was more than the sum of its parts. Once you hooked up with somebody else who was famous, together your fame grew exponentially. In Renee's case, most of her tabloid appeal was her relationship. Her music wasn't the most commercial stuff around so her fans weren't the type to care, but by dating somebody so much more famous than her she had become a rumour magnet by association. Gossipers were drawn to Justin first, but she had been dating him long enough that she was starting to become a target in her own right and she really didn't appreciate it.

It occurred to Justin that he had come across his first truly significant difference, right here. As far as celebrity and other people's perceptions went, he and his own girlfriend had entered their relationship on equal terms. This Renee and Justin really hadn't, and through that he thought he had just discovered the first downside of being Justin Timberlake in this reality.

That was interesting.