TITLE: Perfect
AUTHOR: Alicia Edwards
FEEDBACK: [email protected]
SUMMARY: In the midst of an inner crisis, JC feels the need to prove himself.
Notes: I heard somewhere in passing that JC was adopted. I haven’t a clue whether he was or wasn’t, nor do I care to find out one way or another. That kind of thing is his business. This is fiction, and it worked for the story.
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PERFECT
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JC pushed. He pushed himself, he pushed the guys. But he mostly pushed himself. He had to do things the best that he could. Better than that. He had to sing higher, dance harder, hold notes longer. He had to write more music, write better music, do more with the better music he wrote. He had to be certain things. He was the artistic one, and he had to do that past the best of his ability, too. Not just with music, but with painting, too. Everything had to be perfect. And to be perfect, he had to play it off like perfection wasn’t his main objective, just a side benefit. And he was good at that, too.
For all appearances, JC had it good. He had everything. The greatest friends in the world, an unending reserve of talent, atypical good looks, and the adoration of thousands, which was a bittersweet kind of blessing, once you had it, but something lots of people aspired to having before they knew what having thousands of people adoring you was like.
JC was probably a lot of the reason *NSYNC was so successful, actually. Because he kept them on task, and because he did push them to be their very best. He got so high off of flawless performances that the other four couldn’t help but feed on his enthusiasm. But the flipside of that was that when they didn’t do their best, it hit him hard. He got really down about sloppy shows or bad interviews or the likes.
No one really thought about why JC was like that. They kind of figured he just was.
He was just JC Chasez, Perfectionist Extraordinaire.
So maybe it didn’t come as a big surprise to everyone else that night when JC collapsed. They’d come off a string of mediocre performances, and everyone knew JC was high-strung. He’d been practically buzzing and vibrating down to his cells, running on no sleep and gallons of coffee and pure adrenaline and determination.
The usually-mellow JC, the one everyone else was used to, had completely disappeared for the last week or so. Even Chris had told him to chill, to tone down the energy a couple notches. Which had made JC want to work harder. And that had translated to all five of them working their asses off, and pretty much rightly so, since their last few shows had borderline sucked.
But this last one had gone perfectly. Not one trip-up, not one mistake, not one note sharp or flat, not one word missed. They had been perfectly in synch with each other, in every sense of the word, moving five as one, singing in perfect harmony. Perfect. All their hard work had paid off, and bigtime.
When they’d exited the stage, they’d been flying high on everything. Energy from the crowd that was pumping through their veins, the feeling of walking on air brought on by a sense of accomplishment after a series of hard practices, the lightness in their heads from singing their hearts out and dancing like never before… it all contributed to pure elation.
Everyone but JC.
JC should have been the happiest of all. It had been he who had strived for a perfect performance, he who wanted it the most, so shouldn’t it have been the sweetest for him?
JC was all smiles and energy onstage, but the moment he blew through the curtains, he turned an almost grey color and the sweat that had given him a healthy glow on stage made him look eerily slick. His eyes were glazed over and he got kind of limp-looking before he slumped to the floor, breathing shallowly. He hadn’t fainted completely. He was sitting on his bottom, with both legs folded out to the sides, like he would have been kneeling, but had gone too far. It wasn’t until Chris got down behind him and slipped his arms under JC’s that JC actually did faint, his eyes rolling back into his head in a way that made Chris’s stomach churn and his arms tighten around JC’s torso.
Lance, Justin and Joey all stared, their faces perfect reflections of each other’s: shocked, scared, worried. Lance was shaking a little, and he knelt before Chris and JC, his eyes looking helplessly into Chris’s, who looked just as helplessly back.
Justin turned and ran, and Joey just turned. His hand shook as he brought it to his mouth, which was suddenly cottony-dry. He couldn’t look at JC, who had become a pile of limbs flopped in Chris’s lap.
Chris tried desperately to reorganize JC into something that looked like JC, but only succeeded into creating a stretched-out JC-noodle. He started lightly slapping JC’s cheeks when Justin returned, someone who looked to be at least somewhat knowledgeable in the medical field in tow.
Their makeshift medic pulled JC’s head into her lap and Chris backed up slightly, leaving his hand on JC’s shoe. She pushed open each eye and peered in, then let the lids fall closed. Then she held two fingers against his limp wrist, activities Chris thought she should have done in reverse order, but oh well. Once she had ascertained that JC was alive, she started checking other parts of him. That’s when his eyes fluttered and he tried to sit up, but ended up falling back into the medic’s lap and resigning to looking around with his eyes and not his whole head.
“God, C, what happened?” Chris asked, crawling forward so that he was sitting next to JC’s shoulders rather than his feet.
“Jayce, man, you okay?” Justin was squatting next to JC. Joey’s arms were folded and he just gazed down, eyes full of concern. Lance was still kneeling, and he touched JC’s arm.
JC’s hand went to his forehead and someone laid a damp cloth there, too, which JC held in place. “I—I don’t know.”
“You don’t know if you’re okay, or you don’t know what happened?” Chris asked.
JC attempted sitting up again, and this time succeeded. “I’m okay. Yeah. I’m alright.” He let the cloth fall to the floor and tried standing. Everyone stood with him, ready to catch his wiry frame should it fold again. He wobbled a little, and Justin’s arm shot out to support him, but he shrugged it away. “Sorry I scared you guys.”
“You need to see a doctor,” Lance insisted.
“No.” JC shook his head, and then realized that probably wasn’t a good move.
“Yes, you do,” Joey agreed. “You just fainted, man. Totally collapsed.”
“I’m fine. I’m okay. I just need some sleep, that’s all.”
Chris and Joey and Lance and Justin exchanged doubtful glances. “Okay, but if you still look like death warmed over in the morning, we’re canceling tomorrow’s interview and you’re going straight to the hospital,” Chris finally said.
“We’re not canceling the interview,” JC said. Chris just raised his eyebrow.
“And you’re getting an escort to your room.” JC didn’t protest as Chris fell into step beside him. They walked slowly, JC brushing off the looks dripping with concern that Joey, Lance and Justin were giving him.
The limo ride to the hotel was shaky. Chris was worried JC was going to pass out again, as his head was back against the seat and kept rolling from side to side. Every time it did, Chris would say “JC?” and JC would open one eye and peer at Chris through thick lashes and grunt, “I’m fine.”
When they got to the hotel, Chris took JC’s arm and slung it across his shoulders, making JC slump a little since JC had a good couple inches on him. The limo went back for the others, and for the first time, Chris realized that everyone could have come at least this far together. JC made a concerted effort to look alert and as “fine” as he claimed he was the moment they walked through the hotel’s door. He left his arm draped across Chris in a friendly sort of way, rather than the supportive sort of way it was really there for.
The elevator ride made JC close his eyes and lean back against the wall, resting a good amount of his weight against the handrail that ran around the elevator’s perimeter.
When they were safely on their secured floor, JC slumped across Chris once more and allowed Chris to practically drag him into his room. Chris shrugged JC off of him and onto one of the beds, and stood in front of JC, hands on his hips. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“What do you mean?” JC tried to look innocent, but the flash of pain through his blue eyes betrayed him.
Chris sat delicately on the bed next to JC and rested a hand on JC’s knee. “Dude, you’re one of my best friends. I’ve practically spent every waking hour of the last half-decade in your company. Don’t pretend like I don’t know when something’s bothering you.”
JC ground his eyes with the heels of his hands, then raked his fingers through his hair, tugging at the curls. He dropped his hands into his lap and avoided Chris’s gaze.
“Jayce?” Chris lightly bumped JC’s shoulder with his knuckles.
JC took in a lungful of oxygen and let it out in a hissing sigh. “I told you, I’m fine.” But he sounded more deflated, not so emphatic.
Chris reached over and clamped JC’s chin, forcing JC to look into Chris’s eyes. “Say it again,” Chris said.
“I’m fine,” JC whispered through a squished mouth, but he had to close his eyes. Chris dropped his hand from JC’s face and shook his head. JC’s chin trembled and Chris’s heart clenched. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen JC cry. It scared him.
Chris pulled JC into a tight embrace, chins resting on shoulders, arm muscles trembling. JC sniffed next to Chris’s ear and Chris pushed him back gently to look into JC’s face. JC’s eyes were red-rimmed and damp and his nose was pink, and his chin and lower lip were still trembling. He caught his lip between his teeth to stop it. It worked, for the most part, but made his eyes well up a little more in exchange.
“Fuck, C. Something is going on. If you can’t tell me, talk to someone. Anyone. I don’t care who, but you gotta get this off your chest. Or you’re gonna get really sick.” Chris’s eyes were huge and concerned and he had pain for his friend splashed across his face.
JC breathed in and let it out a few times, calming his chin, and swiped at his eyes. His voice was shaky and thick when he spoke. “I—I’m not who I thought I was.”
“What do you mean?” Chris’s eyebrows lowered and knitted.
JC studied his hands. “I’ve never told anyone. Never.” He breathed in shakily again, filling his lungs with air so that his chest puffed out and his shoulders raised, and then letting it all out again like a deflating balloon.
“JC?” Chris touched JC’s shoulder lightly, his fingers warm through JC’s thin t-shirt.
JC looked up. “I was adopted.”
“I thought you were going to tell me you’re gay, or something. Which would be cool, you know, cuz you’re you and we’ll always love you, but…” Chris trailed off.
“My mom told me a month ago. When we got those four days off, and I went home. She—” He swallowed and Chris watched his Adam’s apple bob. “She said she thought I should know.” His eyes were huge and flooding. “Why now? Why did she tell me now?” He swiped angrily at his spilling eyes. “Fuck, why am I crying?”
“That doesn’t mean you’re not the JC you always were. And that doesn’t mean your parents aren’t your parents, and you aren’t all a family, or that they love you any less.”
“Shit, Chris, you sound like a corny eighties sitcom.” But he smiled a little. A sad smile, but a smile just the same. “And that’s exactly what my mom told me. But…”
“But nothing, man.”
JC felt like a ton of bricks had been lifted off his chest. He’d been suffocating before, but telling someone, telling just one person, took all that crushing weight away. It felt so good.
“Do you know what it feels like to know someone didn’t want you, though? That you weren’t good enough?” His eyes were raw emotion, and Chris could see right into them. Right into the depths.
“But what about the people who did want you? The ones who chose you out of all the other babies they could have had?”
“I feel like—I feel like I have to be better than myself so that no one else throws me away.” He kept talking like he hadn’t heard Chris. “Like, I need to make myself important to people so that they can’t throw me away. I have to be the best, Chris. I can’t mess up, I can’t step down, I can’t do anything that’s less than perfect, because then what am I? Then I am that kid my mom didn’t want.”
Chris wanted to slap JC right across the face. He’d have done it, too, just to snap JC out of things, if he didn’t have a strict rule about not hitting group members. “JC, listen to me. You are important. To a whole lot of people. Your mom is Karen Chasez. Not whatever dumbass teenager gave you up twenty-five years ago. And look what she’s missing out on, C. Look at what an amazing kid she missed out on. Your mom, your dad… they’re the lucky ones. They got you. They picked you. And we got you, too, and we are not giving you up. Not for anything. You’re part of us, like it or not. One-fifth of the hand.” Chris held up his hand in demonstration, and a slow grin spread across JC’s face.
“Thanks. Thanks, Chris.” JC hugged Chris again. It was times like these that Chris’s years really did translate into wisdom. Like he forgot he was an overgrown twelve-year-old and stepped into his thirty-year-old shoes.
“Is that why you’ve been working so damn hard? To prove yourself?”
“Kinda.” JC looked sheepish. “When she told me, I just felt… smaller. I don’t know why. I can’t explain it. Like everything I’d done so far just wasn’t enough, because I was still adopted.”
“You ran yourself ragged, man.”
“I know. I guess I knew there was a breaking point, somewhere, but I hoped I wouldn’t hit it until… I don’t know. Maybe I wanted to feel something again, because I’ve felt kinda empty inside lately. Hollow, like.”
Chris couldn’t believe JC could really feel unloved. “Dude. JC, you’ve got, like, the greatest parents on the face of this earth. You know we’re all jealous of you. Shouldn’t the fact that you’re adopted make that more special? Cuz, God, they love you like you’re their flesh and blood, and you’re not. They couldn’t love you more. They really couldn’t. Families have to love you. It’s, like, some unwritten law. But those two people – the Chasezs – they didn’t have to love you. They were under no obligation, and they did it anyway. Your family wouldn’t be your family without you in it. And shit, maybe you’d never have tried out for MMC if you weren’t a Chasez. Maybe we wouldn’t be us right now. Call your mom right now and thank her. Thank her for all of us. Thank her for the thousands of screaming fans that want to marry you. Cuz without her choice, without her picking you, all of our lives would be emptier.” Chris was grinning goofily, which counteracted the sappiness of his words and made JC grin right back.
“Yeah, Mom, I wanted to thank you on behalf of America’s female teenage population for adopting me, because if you hadn’t, they’d be walking around like zombies, feeling this deep and awful void only I could fill. So you’ve really done a public service, you see. By choosing me out of all the possible babies. We all thank you.” He giggled, and his cheeks were tight with dried tears.
“Don’t get carried away, yo.” But Chris was glad to have JC back. JC’s eyes were alive again. And Chris thought that maybe rehearsals would get a little easier, too, since JC didn’t feel it necessary to beat them all to a useless pulp in his quest to be better than the best.