Author's Note: Pretty different from the usual smut/plot I usually go with. Veering more in the direction of disconnected thoughts, like in Sometimes I Think. I may have found my style. Enjoy! Written with MusicDiamond in mind. *Smiles* For her birthday. Until I can come up with something better.
Why do people with no real talent, but who have the looks, get glorified to the heavens?
And people who have the real talent are always pushed into the background, and are made to feel inferior to those with the looks, until it gets to a point when the talent becomes useless and the looks are all that matter, and then those with talent push it aside, and instead try to act like those with the looks, because they believe that's how they'll get big, that that's how people will recognize that they're special, too.
But what they don't see is that the arrogant demeanour that those with looks have, just doesn't suit them. And instead of getting bigger, people start getting put off by how they're 'copycatting' those with the looks. And they don't realize it until it's too late. Or if they do, they don't care. They've been pushed to the edge of their sanity, and this is their last resort, their plea, to the people to understand that they want to be recognized too, and that they need to know they're worth *something*.
But don't they understand that as long as they do what they do, they'll always have true fans?
Because people with talent attract crowds. It has nothing to do with how they look or act, or what they say or do. As long as they use their talents the way they should be used, they'll always have true fans.
Perhaps they've been pushed too far. Their talent has been spat on, jeered at, looked down on, trampled over, put to the test and crushed over and over so many times, that they just don't believe they have it anymore. So they try to 'grow' looks, when looks can't be grown. They don't see that at the end of the day, the people with the looks will be thrown aside, and the people with real talent will become legends. Everyone in their life has turned against them, in some way or another, and they can't find the way out of this rat race. The only direction they can move on in, is on. They can't stop to wonder what if, or maybe, or hope. They just *can't*.
Maybe sometimes they sit back, and they watch those with the looks shine, and wonder why it's never been that way for them, wonder why things have turned out the way they turned out, wonder why they never seem to get any praise for their efforts - and god knows they try - and they give up; they give in. They accept that they're never going to touch the sky, never going to reach out to people the way the 'glamorous' stars have, and they're never going to be given the chance.
But by then it's too late. Because they've gone so deep into acting glamorous in a way they aren't, that they've forgotten how to live any other way. And the only thing they can do is to continue living their fake lives, with their fake smiles, and fake girlfriends, and fake looks, and wonder why in the world they let things go so wrong.
And the people with the looks will always crush the people with the talent.
And perhaps ninety percent of the talented people die believing they are worth nothing; that their talent wasn't really talent - just some kind of sick joke God played on them.
Oh god, I hope JC doesn't die thinking that.
Because, really, I wouldn't let myself live knowing everyone makes him feel that way, makes him feel like he has to change himself into some sort of Justin clone to try and open people's eyes to the gifted musician he is. How can anyone deny it? The way he breathes music into the group. Justin couldn't turn out a successful solo album if he tried.
He curses, he does drugs, he holds grudges against people for the most ridiculous things� he has *no* talent. His voice is a male version of Britney's. In a word, it's nasally. He couldn't sing ballads for his life. So why is it that everyone is supporting the release of 'Justified', and not insisting that Jive promotes JC's at all?
Why do people not see the flair that JC has for his craft?
I mean, what kind of Michael Jackson rip-off is 'Like I Love You', anyway? What kind of shitty album has Justin produced? Every track is angsty and full of crap from his and Britney's break-up, and he tries to play it off by laughing and saying it's not about her when his every action just screams 'Britney! You cheated on me! '.
What is it that people see in Justin that they don't see in JC?
The looks. The shaven 'bad boy' look he has going now, and the angelic golden curls before that.
If I've picked up on that fact, JC sure as hell has.
So after trying and trying and *trying* to get a single off any of our albums, and getting cruelly rejected over and over, JC grew curls out to be more like Justin. And instead of saying something to gently discourage him, his so-called fans started calling him 'gay' (not that he isn't) and 'ugly' and throwing all sorts of harsh insults his way. He's a robot, he doesn't have feelings, he's fine just 'cause he's always flaming and putting on a smile for the world to see, thank you for noticing.
Most of his life he's been in Justin's shadow. Can anyone imagine how that must feel? Justin's the kid he kept under his wing while they were on MMC together, and now that scrawny kid's the one who's been overshadowing him for seven years! The shining star of the group. Sure, it doesn't matter at first - we're all here to do something we love - but then as songs are submitted, turned down, and submitted again, and turned down again, he loses hope. No Strings was his finest moment - 4 of his songs were on the album! And then Celebrity spelled his disaster. Justin's first try at producing songs, and he got all the singles!
No, it doesn't matter either. It doesn't matter that he's being jeered at in the studio because he doesn't seem to cut it. It doesn't matter that management rejected his songs without listening to them because Justin was more popular. It doesn't matter that all his brothers voted against him when it came to choosing singles. It doesn't matter that everything revolves around Justin right now. Of course it doesn't matter. He just smiles and shrugs, and says he'll try harder next time.
So much harder that he's decided he's in a corner and there's no way to go. So he does the only thing that seems logical to him - he follows in the footsteps of the popular one. He wants to know that people appreciate his songs, and that they know he can do it, but no one seems to realize it. So he releases a single that completely mutates his voice, swaggers in a video that is completely out of his style, tries to act arrogant, tries to do everything he's seen his younger brother do� and it all blows up in his face.
Again, his fans are slamming him with insults, sending hate mail and telling him the video was the worst thing they'd ever seen, telling him to just stop acting like a Justin wannabe and get his act together. Have they ever considered it was their insults that started this in the first place? Started this whole Justin-JC agenda?
But guess what? It doesn't bother JC now. Because he got a single! He actually got a fucking *single*! Off a movie soundtrack, no less! But guess what? This is completely Justin's style. JC's gone deeper. He's going to actually believe this style will help him show the world what he can do. He doesn't understand that everyone's going to hate him even more for this, that they're not going to appreciate what he writes anymore than they do now, no matter how hard he tries to be like Justin.
'But it's worked once, hasn't it?' he'll say, 'Maybe it'll work again!'
And he'll keep on writing this way, until this is labelled his style. He won't be able to shake the label, and that's how he'll have to go on. For the rest of his music career. Forever.
I just can't bear watching him destroy himself this way.
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Lance sighed softly as he shut his laptop. He glanced at the figure hunched over his desk, scribbling away furiously, never stopping to look up. He could feel his chest tighten with a flurry of emotions - fury, grief, desolation� and something close to despair.
No one else seemed to realize the core reason to JC's change. They simply shrugged it off as a 'flame period'. Lance was the only one who knew better than that.
He got up quietly, then, and walked over to JC, gently resting a hand on the older man's shoulder. "Josh?"
JC jerked his shoulder away. "Don't," his tone was so gruff, so cold and impersonal, that Lance shuddered.
"I need to finish this, Lance. I *have* to." And when he looked up, his cerulean eyes were full of such aching desperation that Lance had no choice but to comply, even though he knew, deep down, that he was helping JC to destroy himself, and that he would never forgive himself for doing it after the damage had been inflicted.
He turned and left JC's side, crawling into bed, his back facing the man he loved.
An hour later, Lance heard JC's pen bounce off the wall, shortly followed by an livid cry of anguish. He got up quickly, and went to JC's side, realizing with a gasp that the brunette had lain his head on the table, and begun to cry. His shoulders were shaking, his breathing was ragged, and his head had been buried in his arms, where his locks spilled haphazardly, hiding any part of his face from Lance's view.
Lance placed a comforting hand on JC's back, stroking the dip of his spine tenderly, trying to offer what comfort he possibly could. Never once did he utter the words 'it's okay'. Who was he to guarantee the future? To foretell what might pass in JC's life? Instead, he held his lover close and whispered, "I don't know what's going to happen from here, but I'll be with you, every step of the way."
JC shifted so he was crying into Lance's shirt, and his sobs tugged at Lance's heart. He wrapped his arms around Lance's neck, and uttered brokenly, "I can't. I just can't. They don't. It doesn't. Nothing comes out right. I don't want to be like this. I don't. I'm not Justin, Lance. I just. I'm not."
And amidst the feeling of complete heartbreak at JC's dispirited words, Lance allowed himself a pained smile.
Maybe there was hope for JC yet.
End.