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laniew1 He’d been expected for about two hours, JC knew that his house would be one of the first places that Justin came to when he returned home.
So yes... I'm PMS'ing, if I depress anybody I'm sorry.
Also there are exactly two stories left in this series.
Every Good Plan… Has The Release of A Solo CD
Every Good Plan… Has Payout of Bets
TITLE: Every Good Plan… Has The Return of JRT – JC/Britney, JC/Justin
SERIES: Every Good Plan
Author: Melanie
DISCLAIMER: I own nothing at all, least of all those contained within.
This is a series, the rest of the stories can be found here:
http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=laniew1&keyword=Every+Good+Plan&filter=all
Every Good Plan… Has The Return of JRT
He’d been expected for about two hours, JC knew that his house would be one of the first places that Justin came to when he returned home.
He’d been meditating when Justin arrived, trying to find the right words to keep Justin from flipping out and tearing his heart out when he told him the truth.
About a million scenarios had been gone through and each and every one had Justin killing him in some way. And hating him forever.
Britney didn’t know that the moment of truth was imminent. From the way that Nick had visibly scrutinized every word that left his mouth (plus the ones that hadn’t) and his body language the night before he knew that Nick was aware that the end was near.
He didn’t want to tell the truth just yet, because it would mean telling the whole truth. He’d have to tell Justin about the Plan, and about why Britney and he had come up with the Plan.
And since Justin hadn’t admitted to anything but wanting things to go back to the way they were, he certainly had not admitted to having any secret yen for JC, the Plan wasn’t even working out the way that JC wanted it to.
But he was tired of lying to everyone.
He was tired of listening to his father spout off all the good reasons for marrying Britney, not the least of which was the fact that he could have grandchildren.
He was tired of listening to Chris talk about the pain that Justin was in.
And he was tired of calling Justin and hearing the rough voice that was tangible proof that Justin was spending most of his free time crying… keeping the Plan going and continuing the charade was just bordering on cruel.
The miniscule joy that he felt at having pulled something over on the others was dimmed by the fact that Justin was hurting.
He never heard him enter the room, just felt his presence mere milliseconds before, “Hey C.”
He opened his eyes, turning his neck to look at the man standing in the doorway.
“You’re back,” he stated quietly, inwardly wincing because of course he was back. That was the reason that he was standing in JC’s doorway hesitantly.
“Yeah,” Justin said softly. “If I’m interrupting…” he started, cutting off when JC shook his head.
“I was just…” he waved a hand as Justin came into the room, stopping in front of him. “You know trying to clear my head.”
“Did it work?” Justin squatted, studying his form. “Maybe I should try it…” he laughed harshly, rubbing at his head.
“Justin…” he started, licking his suddenly dryer than the Sahara Desert lips and wondered why this was so hard. This was Justin… this was his best friend and the one person that he’d been able to talk about almost anything with. “I wanted to talk to you.”
“Yeah,” Justin sighed. “I wanted to talk to you too.”
They stared at each other for a minute, neither saying a word, the silence thick between them.
“I’ll go first,” JC took a deep breath, preparing himself. Justin was going to hate him forever. For not only lying to him, but for using Britney in his plans knowing how Justin felt about her.
“No let me…” Justin interrupted. “I just… I’ve been thinking a lot over the last week,” he began, his voice wavering slightly.
“Justin…”
“Let me finish this… please… because I don’t think I can do it if I have to wait any longer,” JC nodded slowly, letting him continue. “I just want you to be happy you know, that’s all I’ve ever wanted is for you to be happy and I thought…” Justin laughed harshly. “Well I guess it doesn’t matter what I thought anymore… I just… if this is what you want, if you want to be with… her… you know, actually marry her… well I’ll stand by you, stand up for you at the wedding, whatever you need, I’ll you know… be there for you…”
The moment of truth, JC closed his eyes, drew a deep breath and re-opening them stared directly into Justin’s.
“There’s not going to be a wedding,” he said it firmly so there was no room for mistake, no going back. “Britney and I aren’t together.”
******************************************************************************
Justin gawked at him.
Sure for about a second that he hadn’t heard that right. Pinched his leg discreetly to make sure he wasn’t dreaming in his car.
He ran it through his mind again, then suddenly a million birds start singing in his ears, the chorus of ‘ding dong the witch is dead’, with a side chorus of ‘Hallelujah’ and he crazily wondered if doing cartwheels around the room would mean that he was laughing in the face of whatever pain JC might be going through.
Because he wasn’t.
He just barely kept the grin off his face. “Did…” he cleared his throat, wondering idly why JC was staring at him so intently. “Did something happen? She didn’t cheat on you did she?” he asked with alarm.
JC shook his head. “It wasn’t like that.”
“If she hurt you C you need to tell us,” that way we can have her killed, Justin wondered if the others would finally let him do it.
He was sure Lance knew some people, of course that was all dependent on whether or not they could drag him away from Trace’s dick long enough to get that information.
“She didn’t hurt me…” JC coughed lightly. “We’re… uh… friends.”
“Friends,” Justin repeated dumbly. “Look JC, I know that you think that you can still be friends with the people that you break up with… but all that shit that went down with Bobbie should have taught you that just because you think that you all are friends doesn’t mean that you are still friends.”
“No I mean… I mean that Britney and I are only friends,” JC’s eyes bored into his and they begged him to understand something that Justin didn’t think he really wanted to understand.
Regardless of what the many tabloids and newspapers had said about him he was not a dumb blonde, he might affect that persona at times to get his way but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t 100% aware of what was going on around him at all times.
“… Britney and I are only friends.”
When his eyes widened and his mouth opened and closed twice JC had the grace to look away.
“You…” he sputtered shoving himself to his feet. “You and Britney aren’t…”
JC gracefully unwound himself and stood before him shaking his head.
“You lied to us,” Justin hissed.
“Technically I didn’t,” JC said softly.
“You said you were dating Britney.”
“I never said that… you all just assumed…”
“We assumed because… hell C…” Justin ran a hand along his head, scowling. Because dammit he was right. JC had never once said that he was dating Britney.
“She’s an attractive young woman, enough times passed that it doesn’t look to strange and we’re both a little lonely. She’s good company…”
“They had the stones that I liked… Britney’s been a really good friend lately…”
“She’s my friend… She’s not doing anything that I didn’t ask her to do.”
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Justin swore ignoring JC’s pointed look, people that didn’t tell their best friends that they weren’t in fact dating their friends ex’s didn’t get an apology for swearing. “You should have…”
“What? Told you the truth? Pot meet my friend Mr. Kettle,” JC growled.
“Excuse me?”
“I did exactly what you did Justin, I posed for a couple of pictures, smiled a few times, no one ever asked me if I was dating her, you all said that I was dating her and that you’d save me from her.”
“I told you the truth.”
“Yeah you did,” JC said softly. “And then you said that if I ‘broke up’ with Britney that we could go back to the way things were before…”
“So?”
“Maybe I didn’t like the way things were before Justin,” JC pulled a hand through his hair, stared at his fingernails for a minute and wondered what the soonest he could get in for a manicure would be. “Maybe I wasn’t happy with the way things were.”
“What are you talking about C? If you weren’t happy you should have said something, we could have done something. Whatever you needed, you didn’t need to take things this far,” Justin was trying to be reasonable, he really was.
The fact that he wanted to kill his best friend not withstanding.
JC stared at him like he was the most clueless person on the face of the planet. He hated that look because it meant that JC thought he didn’t understand and he did.
At least he thought he did.
JC wasn’t happy… but you know what, Justin wasn’t happy anymore either so welcome to the fucking club.
“I’ve loved you for almost half my life Justin, and I’ve had to sit by and watch you with Britney and Jenna and Alyssa and Janet all the time wondering what they could offer you that I couldn’t, with the exception of the whole them being girls thing. I couldn’t stand by and watch you start over, yet again with Cameron.”
“You’re blaming this on me?!” Justin asked incredulously. “This is so not my fault; I did everything I could but get down on my hands and knees and beg you to get rid of Britney.”
“So we could go back to the way things were?! You know what?! The way things were? That way is no longer acceptable.”
“You don’t get to decide what’s acceptable and not acceptable anymore JC, you don’t get to ride some pity party train because you love me… because you know what? I loved you to and the only person that couldn’t see it was you.”
“Justin…”
“You know what? I think we’re done here,” Justin announced, his posture rigid and unforgiving. “I need to go and punch something and if I stay here any longer it’s going to be you.”
“Justin.”
And with one final glare he turned on his heel, and left.
******************************************************************************
They found him sitting in the middle of his studio, door wide open eyes blank and unseeing.
They exchanged looks before Britney dropped down next to him, touching JC’s hand lightly.
“JC,” her voice was soft and gentle. Justin had come back that morning; they’d stayed away because they knew that Justin would most likely make his first stop JC’s home. “Sweetie what’s happened?”
“It’s over,” JC’s voice was rough and scratchy; Nick touched his chin, tilting his head up. JC had been crying. “He knows.”
“You told him,” Nick said quietly. Not a question, a statement of fact. He’d known when he’d left the night before that JC was going to tell Justin the truth.
Obviously it hadn’t gone well, hence Justin no longer there and JC crying alone in his studio.
“He hates me,” JC said decisively. “It was all for nothing because he hates me and there’s no way that once the others find out that they aren’t going to hate me to.”
“JC,” Britney said calmly, drawing his attention. “It’s going to be okay.”
“No its not,” JC shook his head, closing his eyes. “He wanted to hit me, he left because he was so angry that he wanted to hit me.”
Nick looked at Britney who looked like she wanted to cry and JC who was about a second from crying again and sighed.
“So what do we do now?” Britney asked softly, Nick watched as she linked her fingers with JC’s, squeezing tightly. “How do we fix this?”
“We do nothing,” Nick shook his head. “Timberlake needs to calm down, JC needs to relax… we don’t do anything.”
“But…” Britney started with wide eyes.
“We can’t do anything Britney,” JC agreed with him, he didn’t smile but for the first time since they’d entered the room his expression lightened a bit. “Everything’s up to Justin now, if he still wants me after all of… this… well he’ll need to make the first move.”
“And you think he’ll choose you?” Britney asked.
“Probably not,” JC shook his head a pained smile crossing his face. “And honestly if I were in his shoes I wouldn’t pick me…”
“JC…”
“I lied to him, I lied to his face and I grinned and laughed because he was playing right into my hands, all I could think about was how much I wanted him. I don’t think I ever even thought that I’d have to tell him about the Plan someday, it didn’t even cross my mind that he might not take it the way that I wanted him to.”
“You just wanted him,” Nick said gently.
“Yeah and The Plan… that pretty much made sure that I was never going to get him. I’m such an idiot.” JC laughed bitterly, Britney squeezed his hand again and Nick watched as he swiped angrily at the tears falling from his eyes. “I don’t know why I’m so upset; I’m not the injured party here.”
“You thought you were going to get something you wanted.”
“I… don’t know what I thought… but hey… at least I don’t have to worry about getting caught in a lie any more.”
******************************************************************************
So yes... I'm PMS'ing, if I depress anybody I'm sorry.
Also there are exactly two stories left in this series.
Every Good Plan… Has The Release of A Solo CD
Every Good Plan… Has Payout of Bets
TITLE: Every Good Plan… Has The Return of JRT – JC/Britney, JC/Justin
SERIES: Every Good Plan
Author: Melanie
DISCLAIMER: I own nothing at all, least of all those contained within.
This is a series, the rest of the stories can be found here:
http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=laniew1&keyword=Every+Good+Plan&filter=all
Every Good Plan… Has The Return of JRT
He’d been expected for about two hours, JC knew that his house would be one of the first places that Justin came to when he returned home.
He’d been meditating when Justin arrived, trying to find the right words to keep Justin from flipping out and tearing his heart out when he told him the truth.
About a million scenarios had been gone through and each and every one had Justin killing him in some way. And hating him forever.
Britney didn’t know that the moment of truth was imminent. From the way that Nick had visibly scrutinized every word that left his mouth (plus the ones that hadn’t) and his body language the night before he knew that Nick was aware that the end was near.
He didn’t want to tell the truth just yet, because it would mean telling the whole truth. He’d have to tell Justin about the Plan, and about why Britney and he had come up with the Plan.
And since Justin hadn’t admitted to anything but wanting things to go back to the way they were, he certainly had not admitted to having any secret yen for JC, the Plan wasn’t even working out the way that JC wanted it to.
But he was tired of lying to everyone.
He was tired of listening to his father spout off all the good reasons for marrying Britney, not the least of which was the fact that he could have grandchildren.
He was tired of listening to Chris talk about the pain that Justin was in.
And he was tired of calling Justin and hearing the rough voice that was tangible proof that Justin was spending most of his free time crying… keeping the Plan going and continuing the charade was just bordering on cruel.
The miniscule joy that he felt at having pulled something over on the others was dimmed by the fact that Justin was hurting.
He never heard him enter the room, just felt his presence mere milliseconds before, “Hey C.”
He opened his eyes, turning his neck to look at the man standing in the doorway.
“You’re back,” he stated quietly, inwardly wincing because of course he was back. That was the reason that he was standing in JC’s doorway hesitantly.
“Yeah,” Justin said softly. “If I’m interrupting…” he started, cutting off when JC shook his head.
“I was just…” he waved a hand as Justin came into the room, stopping in front of him. “You know trying to clear my head.”
“Did it work?” Justin squatted, studying his form. “Maybe I should try it…” he laughed harshly, rubbing at his head.
“Justin…” he started, licking his suddenly dryer than the Sahara Desert lips and wondered why this was so hard. This was Justin… this was his best friend and the one person that he’d been able to talk about almost anything with. “I wanted to talk to you.”
“Yeah,” Justin sighed. “I wanted to talk to you too.”
They stared at each other for a minute, neither saying a word, the silence thick between them.
“I’ll go first,” JC took a deep breath, preparing himself. Justin was going to hate him forever. For not only lying to him, but for using Britney in his plans knowing how Justin felt about her.
“No let me…” Justin interrupted. “I just… I’ve been thinking a lot over the last week,” he began, his voice wavering slightly.
“Justin…”
“Let me finish this… please… because I don’t think I can do it if I have to wait any longer,” JC nodded slowly, letting him continue. “I just want you to be happy you know, that’s all I’ve ever wanted is for you to be happy and I thought…” Justin laughed harshly. “Well I guess it doesn’t matter what I thought anymore… I just… if this is what you want, if you want to be with… her… you know, actually marry her… well I’ll stand by you, stand up for you at the wedding, whatever you need, I’ll you know… be there for you…”
The moment of truth, JC closed his eyes, drew a deep breath and re-opening them stared directly into Justin’s.
“There’s not going to be a wedding,” he said it firmly so there was no room for mistake, no going back. “Britney and I aren’t together.”
Justin gawked at him.
Sure for about a second that he hadn’t heard that right. Pinched his leg discreetly to make sure he wasn’t dreaming in his car.
He ran it through his mind again, then suddenly a million birds start singing in his ears, the chorus of ‘ding dong the witch is dead’, with a side chorus of ‘Hallelujah’ and he crazily wondered if doing cartwheels around the room would mean that he was laughing in the face of whatever pain JC might be going through.
Because he wasn’t.
He just barely kept the grin off his face. “Did…” he cleared his throat, wondering idly why JC was staring at him so intently. “Did something happen? She didn’t cheat on you did she?” he asked with alarm.
JC shook his head. “It wasn’t like that.”
“If she hurt you C you need to tell us,” that way we can have her killed, Justin wondered if the others would finally let him do it.
He was sure Lance knew some people, of course that was all dependent on whether or not they could drag him away from Trace’s dick long enough to get that information.
“She didn’t hurt me…” JC coughed lightly. “We’re… uh… friends.”
“Friends,” Justin repeated dumbly. “Look JC, I know that you think that you can still be friends with the people that you break up with… but all that shit that went down with Bobbie should have taught you that just because you think that you all are friends doesn’t mean that you are still friends.”
“No I mean… I mean that Britney and I are only friends,” JC’s eyes bored into his and they begged him to understand something that Justin didn’t think he really wanted to understand.
Regardless of what the many tabloids and newspapers had said about him he was not a dumb blonde, he might affect that persona at times to get his way but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t 100% aware of what was going on around him at all times.
“… Britney and I are only friends.”
When his eyes widened and his mouth opened and closed twice JC had the grace to look away.
“You…” he sputtered shoving himself to his feet. “You and Britney aren’t…”
JC gracefully unwound himself and stood before him shaking his head.
“You lied to us,” Justin hissed.
“Technically I didn’t,” JC said softly.
“You said you were dating Britney.”
“I never said that… you all just assumed…”
“We assumed because… hell C…” Justin ran a hand along his head, scowling. Because dammit he was right. JC had never once said that he was dating Britney.
“She’s an attractive young woman, enough times passed that it doesn’t look to strange and we’re both a little lonely. She’s good company…”
“They had the stones that I liked… Britney’s been a really good friend lately…”
“She’s my friend… She’s not doing anything that I didn’t ask her to do.”
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Justin swore ignoring JC’s pointed look, people that didn’t tell their best friends that they weren’t in fact dating their friends ex’s didn’t get an apology for swearing. “You should have…”
“What? Told you the truth? Pot meet my friend Mr. Kettle,” JC growled.
“Excuse me?”
“I did exactly what you did Justin, I posed for a couple of pictures, smiled a few times, no one ever asked me if I was dating her, you all said that I was dating her and that you’d save me from her.”
“I told you the truth.”
“Yeah you did,” JC said softly. “And then you said that if I ‘broke up’ with Britney that we could go back to the way things were before…”
“So?”
“Maybe I didn’t like the way things were before Justin,” JC pulled a hand through his hair, stared at his fingernails for a minute and wondered what the soonest he could get in for a manicure would be. “Maybe I wasn’t happy with the way things were.”
“What are you talking about C? If you weren’t happy you should have said something, we could have done something. Whatever you needed, you didn’t need to take things this far,” Justin was trying to be reasonable, he really was.
The fact that he wanted to kill his best friend not withstanding.
JC stared at him like he was the most clueless person on the face of the planet. He hated that look because it meant that JC thought he didn’t understand and he did.
At least he thought he did.
JC wasn’t happy… but you know what, Justin wasn’t happy anymore either so welcome to the fucking club.
“I’ve loved you for almost half my life Justin, and I’ve had to sit by and watch you with Britney and Jenna and Alyssa and Janet all the time wondering what they could offer you that I couldn’t, with the exception of the whole them being girls thing. I couldn’t stand by and watch you start over, yet again with Cameron.”
“You’re blaming this on me?!” Justin asked incredulously. “This is so not my fault; I did everything I could but get down on my hands and knees and beg you to get rid of Britney.”
“So we could go back to the way things were?! You know what?! The way things were? That way is no longer acceptable.”
“You don’t get to decide what’s acceptable and not acceptable anymore JC, you don’t get to ride some pity party train because you love me… because you know what? I loved you to and the only person that couldn’t see it was you.”
“Justin…”
“You know what? I think we’re done here,” Justin announced, his posture rigid and unforgiving. “I need to go and punch something and if I stay here any longer it’s going to be you.”
“Justin.”
And with one final glare he turned on his heel, and left.
They found him sitting in the middle of his studio, door wide open eyes blank and unseeing.
They exchanged looks before Britney dropped down next to him, touching JC’s hand lightly.
“JC,” her voice was soft and gentle. Justin had come back that morning; they’d stayed away because they knew that Justin would most likely make his first stop JC’s home. “Sweetie what’s happened?”
“It’s over,” JC’s voice was rough and scratchy; Nick touched his chin, tilting his head up. JC had been crying. “He knows.”
“You told him,” Nick said quietly. Not a question, a statement of fact. He’d known when he’d left the night before that JC was going to tell Justin the truth.
Obviously it hadn’t gone well, hence Justin no longer there and JC crying alone in his studio.
“He hates me,” JC said decisively. “It was all for nothing because he hates me and there’s no way that once the others find out that they aren’t going to hate me to.”
“JC,” Britney said calmly, drawing his attention. “It’s going to be okay.”
“No its not,” JC shook his head, closing his eyes. “He wanted to hit me, he left because he was so angry that he wanted to hit me.”
Nick looked at Britney who looked like she wanted to cry and JC who was about a second from crying again and sighed.
“So what do we do now?” Britney asked softly, Nick watched as she linked her fingers with JC’s, squeezing tightly. “How do we fix this?”
“We do nothing,” Nick shook his head. “Timberlake needs to calm down, JC needs to relax… we don’t do anything.”
“But…” Britney started with wide eyes.
“We can’t do anything Britney,” JC agreed with him, he didn’t smile but for the first time since they’d entered the room his expression lightened a bit. “Everything’s up to Justin now, if he still wants me after all of… this… well he’ll need to make the first move.”
“And you think he’ll choose you?” Britney asked.
“Probably not,” JC shook his head a pained smile crossing his face. “And honestly if I were in his shoes I wouldn’t pick me…”
“JC…”
“I lied to him, I lied to his face and I grinned and laughed because he was playing right into my hands, all I could think about was how much I wanted him. I don’t think I ever even thought that I’d have to tell him about the Plan someday, it didn’t even cross my mind that he might not take it the way that I wanted him to.”
“You just wanted him,” Nick said gently.
“Yeah and The Plan… that pretty much made sure that I was never going to get him. I’m such an idiot.” JC laughed bitterly, Britney squeezed his hand again and Nick watched as he swiped angrily at the tears falling from his eyes. “I don’t know why I’m so upset; I’m not the injured party here.”
“You thought you were going to get something you wanted.”
“I… don’t know what I thought… but hey… at least I don’t have to worry about getting caught in a lie any more.”