AN: A fairly dark Justin fic, take it as you will.  Felt like writing something serious.  Umm, 
this is named for the song Naked, by the Goo Goo Dolls, which is on A Boy Named Goo cd I 
believe.  They rock.  They're my all time favorite band, sorry guys.  I luv *NSYNC and BSB but 
the Goos are totally in a league of their own.

Standard disclaimers apply.



*************************************** Naked *************************************


*Yeah I'm fadin
 And I call out 
 No one hears me 
 Never been never felt never thought I'd say a word*


He was on top of the world, and dead inside.

Dead, dying, numb.  Lost to all feeling.  

He sat at another bar, drink in hand.  He stared at the shot glass, at his white knuckled 
fingers, at the amber liquid that promised oblivion, if only for a little while.  He thought 
for another moment before tossing it back and letting the familiar liquid burn its way down 
his throat before warming his stomach.  

He welcomed the sensation.  He was so damn cold all the time.  

And he wondered if anyone would bother to look for him if he didn't show up the next morning.  
Or if they'd leave him, a fallen angel, a god dethroned, drinking away the memories of a 
perfect life.  Of dreams fulfilled.  Of fame and fortune and adoration.  If they'd leave him to 
drink away his guilt so all he had left was his misery.   


*Weighed 
 Down
 Safe 
 Now*


He woke, head pounding, limbs tangled in the silken coolness of another.  Blonde hair, 
bleached and perfect, blended with his own golden curls.  

He rolled and found sleeping lips that woke at his touch.  It was wrong and cheap and over far 
too soon but the feel of flesh on flesh, of screams and whispers and bodies joined in nature's 
harmony grounded him.  

Held him to a life he no longer felt.  Tied him to a world he no longer knew.  

Kept him from closing his too blue eyes and never opening them again.  

And so he took his pleasure while he could.  And he clasped the guilt and the shame to his 
aching heart and wounded pride, content that he was in pain.  Because the pain meant that he 
was still alive.   
 

*You're naked inside your fear 
 You can't take back all those years
 The shots in the dark from empty guns
 Are never heard by anyone 
 Never heard by anyone*


Its funny how someone who had no privacy could have so many secrets.  So many damn lies that 
no one called him on.  

Or maybe everyone knew, and no one cared.  

Its funny how someone loved by millions could feel so achingly alone.

Funnier how, in his darkest moments, he didn't care.


*Yeah I'm hiding 
 in the fallout 
 Now I'm wasted 
 They don't need me don't want me don't hear a word I say*


He did what was required, no less, no more, a dancer with no passion, a ghost with no 
substance.  He drifted through the endless routine of stardom, blue eyes glazed with an inner 
pain no one questioned.  

No one cared what he said, what he felt or wanted.  His words were created for him, his 
feelings were insignificant, his wants ignored.  

The strings had been cut but he was still a puppet.  Still a slave.  

And it hurt so damn much.


*Weighed 
 Down
 Safe 
 Now*


He was afraid, as time slid by, of the numbness.  At his inability to feel.  

Because soon the alcohol lost its warmth and his soul grew too burdened to shelter the guilt 
that made him human.  Ruined, but human, and that had been better than nothing at all.  

Afraid because the comforting weight of shame no longer slowed his steps as it once had.  

Afraid because his safety nets were failing.  And matter how many shots he drank of whores he 
bed, no matter what drugs he did, or people he destroyed there was still the nothingness.  
Still a pit that destruction wasn't big enough to fill.  

And soon he didn't even care that he was a mockery.  That he was a puppet.  That he was 
everything he had once abhorred.  
 

*You're naked inside your fear
 You can't take back all those years 
 Shots in the dark from empty guns 
 Are never heard by anyone 
 Never heard by anyone*


In the end, he was terrified of his fear too.  Because it broke down the shells of the 
barriers he had raised.  Because his tattered self seemed laid bare to the world, stripped of 
protection, naked.  

It would have hurt more if he still remembered pain.  

If he remembered who he used to be.

If he cared. 

But Justin had been lost a long time and he couldn't find his way back home.  

Didn't particularly want to.


*Inside your head 
 No one's there 
 And I don't think I'll ever be 
 And I don't care*


He slipped quietly into darkness.  Quietly into despair and despondency.  

Slipped quietly because no one would have heard him if he tried to scream.  He had screamed 
for years and no one had heard him.  


*You're naked inside your fear
 You can't take back all those years 
 The shots in the dark from empty guns 
 Are never heard by anyone*


And suddenly, with no warning at all, Justin Timberlake was gone.