"Okay, JC, let me get this straight…" Renee frowned, trying to get a handle on what exactly it was he was complaining about. "You drove over here, interrupted my session to tell me that Justin's got PMS?"

"No, not…" JC threw up his hands in frustration, throwing himself into the producer's chair. He wasn't quite prepared for it to go flying backwards, having forgotten it was on wheels, but he just about managed to get it back under control. Renee giggled at him, but he calmly put the chair back next to hers and tried to think how to explain the tale again.

"Then what?"

"He's just all over the place. It's like he's a total space cadet. He's completely forgotten everything we talked about, he was looking at the desk like it was going to bite him, and you know it was kinda creeping me out the way he looked at me. Like he hadn't seen me in months or something."

"Hey. Maybe the fan fiction's true and Joshtin lives."

"Renee!"

JC stomped his foot on the floor with a whine, unappreciative of that little joke. Renee and her personal assistant had come across some fairly dirty fan fiction which seemed to have confused his and Justin's sexual orientations with Lance's, and she had been teasing them mercilessly about it ever since. She insisted it was harmless, they both insisted it was gross.

"I'm serious! I have no idea what the hell is up with the dude, but it needs to stop now because I'm on a frickin' deadline!"

"I know, C, I…" She flung her hands in the air, reaching for her caramel latte. "I mean, I can't say I haven't noticed him being a little weird, but every time I ask him if anything's up he just says he's fine. I mean, it's not like this is the first time he's had a funny mood, he usually snaps out of it right?"

"Renee, come on," JC kept pushing. "No disrespect to you, I know you know him real well, but I've been working in studios with this guy for ten frickin' years. He can be a little bitch when he's in a mood but he always gets the job done - whereas today he was sitting in there like he'd never been behind a desk before. I just wanna know who that dude is and what he's done with Justin."

"You are such a drama queen." Renee leaned forward and patted his knee affectionately.

"Ahh, you're probably right." JC pushed his hands through his mini Mohawk of hair and sighed. Slouching backwards and twisting from side to side in his seat, he smiled sheepishly at her. "I'm just stressing over this record and Justin didn't pick a great time to have an off day."

"Nah, you definitely have a point about him being a little loopy but he's probably as stressed as you are. Hell," she snorted, "sometimes I think he's more worried about your record than his. But you know him; this'll probably have blown over by tomorrow. Or if it doesn't just tell him straight and he'll snap out of it, he listens to you."

"He listens to you."

"When it suits him he listens to me." She smiled wryly at him, readjusting her suede skirt where it had got caught between her folded legs. "But, since you're here anyway, wanna tell me what you think of this song? I'm loving this melody but the lyrics are totally off and I'm struggling."

"Sure."

JC pulled up closer to the desk and Renee hit a few buttons, letting the song blare out. It was only a rough cut so far, but she'd hit a bit of a block with it. If there was one thing she could say for her relationship with Justin, it was that the plethora of musical types around him had been useful to her. That wasn't why she was with him, but she had no shame in taking advantage of it; neither did he if he came across somebody through her that he thought he could work with.

Most of Justin's contacts didn't really produce her type of music - JC certainly didn't - but it helped just having another musical ear to listen to things occasionally, spark things back off. It was also nice being friends with JC, she had to say. He was a great guy, perhaps a little quieter than Justin but great fun to talk to and always very affable and easy going. It had to be said: the guy was also great for a party. Back in college she had been more of a girls' girl than anything else, so it was cool to have some more male friends around. She couldn't lie and say they were all her best buddies, but it was good to get along with them.

"What do you think?" She asked JC once the song was over.

"Well…" he chewed his lips pensively, considering his answer. "If I'm honest I can't get my finger on it either. Like I like the theme of the song and I like the verse, but that bridge just ain't right."

That was something, she hadn't thought of that. "You think it's the bridge?"

Renee began drawing a little smiley face onto the notepad where she was scribbling the lyrics down, and subconsciously her pen started tracing over the bridge as she re-read it. JC was tapping his fingers together in a Mr Burns style, obviously deep in musical thought. Renee almost had to laugh at how identically he and her boyfriend were dressing these days - she liked to call it 'geography teacher chic.' JC was even wearing a collar and smart shoes on his off time these days; she wasn't sure what had happened to t-shirts and jeans.

"Yeah… I think it's kind of… repetitive. Like, it doesn't say anything the verse didn't already. That make any kind of sense?"

"Hmm… I guess so," her eyebrows bunched together as she considered that. "Eh, it'll come to me. I was thinking of throwing in the towel to be honest, I haven't left this damn room all day and I think it's starting to block my energy or my chi or whatever."

"You need to let off some steam," JC encouraged her. "Me and Tyler were planning on some club action tonight if you and J wanna join us. Hey, maybe it'll kill two birds with one stone and loosen his ass up."

"True." She nodded. "I'll ask."

***

Justin couldn't haven been more relieved when Renee had suggested clubbing.

Clubbing was a wonderfully universal activity which was much the same wherever you went in the world. In fact, it was even the same if you skipped worlds entirely. Clubbing was an activity which required absolutely no previous life information. All he had to do was dress up, show up, and drink up: dancing optional. He could do that, it was wonderfully uncomplicated.

In fact, thus far it had been an absolute blast. Renee had quite naturally commandeered the bathroom after putting on some insanely loud old school disco, and he couldn't say that it hadn't put him in a good mood. He'd even busted a few moves while picking his outfit for the evening - an outfit he'd immediately had to change when Renee had exclaimed that she was wearing blue so he couldn't. He had tried to point out that since he had got dressed first she should be the one to change, but all he had got was a pointed look and a declaration that if he ever wanted to have sex with her again he would change his clothing.

Justin really hoped she hadn't seen him nearly choke when she'd said that. He had in fact slept with her back in his own reality (once without knowing who she was and once with), but she of course thought she was talking to the guy she slept with regularly. He was trying to avoid the issue of what he would do if she came onto him; he wasn't quite sure what his intentions were for sticking around and he didn't particularly want to sleep with her if this was only going to be a passing trip.

He saw no wrong in acting like her boyfriend or kissing her, that was all just par the course to keep this guy's life in check and running as normal, but somehow it felt like sex was a deception too far. Yet again, he'd had some insight into his time with Renee back when she had been the one on an inter-dimensional trip; he was no longer surprised she'd been so jumpy about his sexual advances.

Still, either way, he had wound up changing his shirt to an approved maroon number. He had to admit that the lady probably looked better in blue than he did anyway. Renee was currently holding court in the booth with JC, Tyler, and a couple of girls he had been relieved to hear he had never met before. The club was very much Japanese inspired, and paper screens separated the VIP area from the view of the regular club goers. The dim light came from ornate lanterns set on the wall (although the candle glow was fake and in fact a light bulb), and everywhere you looked there were dragons and Japanese symbols he couldn't possibly read. Renee was giggling manically at some story Tyler was telling, cosmopolitan in hand, and he was struck by how glowingly happy she looked.

There was also the small matter of the dangerously low cut corset and the wonderfully tight jeans which were making her butt look just a tiny bit bigger than it was - a horror from the female perspective, a blessing from the male. Justin wasn't going to deny he felt a strong attraction to her. It was only natural, Lord only knew he'd had a thing for Renee Anderson in all her forms for many a year now, but there was something about this new look and new confidence that was incredibly sexy. He couldn't help lamenting the lack of said confidence in his own girlfriend, but then he supposed that must be at least a part of what he was there for - he wanted to know what was better, what was worse and what remained the same. Maybe he was just trying to gain some outside perspective on his own life from it.

In all this observation it occurred to him that he probably ought to start looking for the necklace if he was even remotely considering going back home (possibly he should have ruminated on that before he started wishing), but then Renee jumped up and asked him to dance. Naturally, all thought of responsibility and destiny and the state of his existence immediately flew out of his head.

"Oh my God did that girl just pinch your ass?" Renee yelled in his ear as he pulled them to a spot towards the side of the floor, away from the heaving mass in the middle. Even as they had been walking hand in hand she could swear she had seen an arm reach between them.

"Pinch is too minor a term - I'd go for grabbed!" He'd had to practically put his mouth on her ear to be heard, the sound of Beyonce's latest was so thunderous.

"Well hmpf!" Renee grinned jokingly, wrapping her arms around his waist and protectively planting her hands over his butt. "That's my job!"

"And you do it well!" Justin joked before putting his own arms around his dance partner and beginning to relax into the beat. If there was one thing he knew how to do in any place it was dance, and Renee was a pretty good little mover herself.

He couldn't help enjoying the way she was so easy and tactile with him. He wished he could reciprocate more fully, but he was still a little too anxious about her and this whole wishing business to be able to completely loosen up. Still, her hands seemed to glide over his back and chest at will, the movement of her hips was fairly hypnotic and her smile was incredibly infectious. He'd always told her - well, the other her - that it was her smile that sold her. You couldn't see it and not want to smile yourself.

'Hey!" Renee exclaimed as a couple of clubbers brushed straight past them (practically through them) without so much as an 'excuse me.' "Like you didn't have three feet of room, bitch."

Giving up on the grinding, Justin turned them down to more of a sway as his rested his forehead on hers in order to speak and be heard. "Somebody's feisty this evening."

"Somebody would like it if people were just a little less rude, grabbing asses and barging into us." Renee rolled her eyes. "Just because we're famous…"

"Look around you baby…" Justin pointed out. "This is a club. People invade your personal space whether you're famous or not."

"That's true." Renee mused as she remembered her college days and the oh-so-fun way complete strangers would waltz up and start trying to grind on her without any preamble. That was something she never appreciated… unless she'd had a few too many and forgot herself. She couldn't pretend she'd always been Little Miss Virtue.

"Okay, I just got your frickin' hair in my mouth." He pulled a face as he removed the offending dark strand. "Maybe you should start wearing it up."

"Maybe you should stop putting your lips all up in my face… course that'd be no fun, would it?" She riposted flirtatiously, hands roaming over his biceps.

"I was under the impression you liked that, considering you're dating me."

"Boy, do you never pick up a hint?"

Justin knew precisely what that hint was, but he chose to ignore it for the moment. Instead he pulled Renee's body flush with his, his hands pressing her firmly to him by the small of her back, and began guiding them both from side to side, his hips leading the way. Renee's eyes locked onto his curiously, waiting with baited breath for whatever it was he was doing. His body started dancing in a way that was almost a challenge, an invitation for her to match or outdo him move for move. For every shake of her shoulders or shuffle of her feet, Justin was bending or rolling his body in some new step, urging her to keep up with him.

It was an odd sensation - she could feel a strange tension between them both that was both exciting and somewhat disquieting in its unfamiliarity. Her boyfriend was keeping on her toes; that was for sure. Every nerve ending in her body was twitching in anticipation of wherever it was he was taking this. There was definitely a sexual vibe about the whole thing, almost like it was the start of a mating ritual or something - except that she really did not like to think of their sex life as 'mating.' Justin had her transfixed in his gaze and it was safe to say he probably could have done anything he wanted with her in that moment, even right there in the middle of the floor - she was that hypnotised.

It was oddly anti climatic as his arms tightened around her in a squeezing hug, and his head dipped to her shoulder to drop a kiss on it. Even as she put her own lips to his jaw and hugged him back, fingers affectionately brushing over the nape of his neck, Renee couldn't help wondering what exactly had just happened and what exactly had got into her boyfriend.