Justin wakes up with a heavy rock in his stomach and his skin feels tight and dry. He knows that's probably just the lack of humidity but it all feels like a bad omen, like down the road there's some Navajo tribe casting feathers into a pile of dust or something. Lance isn't there but the sweatshirt and jeans he was wearing the night before are folded on the desk chair so he probably really is just out running. Justin wants to run. He wonders how far he could get before they'd miss him. If they'd find him. If they'd even come looking or if after a few hours everyone would just realize things were easier, less complicated, when he's not around.

He pulls on warm-ups and Lance's Abercrombie sweatshirt and walks out the front door empty handed, no water or even his watch. He turns right off the driveway and just puts one foot in front of the other, weaving around the brush like he's doing some crazy cross-training exercise. He runs for a while, slows to a trot, sprints again and then hangs over his knees, panting. It's fucking hot out in the middle of the godforsaken desert, sun beating down and he's using the sweatshirt like a towel around his neck to catch sweat.

One of the crew chiefs on the Strings tour was Native American. American Indian. Justin isn't sure which is correct. But anyway the guy was from near here somewhere, or maybe Arizona, and one day when they were fixing a light problem and Justin perched on the edge of the stage making small-talk with everyone, he told Justin how some tribes still sent young men on these coming-of-age rituals. Six or seven days out in the wilderness with, like, a hunting knife and a bag of peyote. If they couldn't catch food they'd just go hungry, but that was okay because part of the point was to ascend to a higher plane of mental spirituality, which Justin thought was probably just a fancy way to say hallucinate. So they'd commune with the spirit gods or whatever and come back adults.

Justin runs a little farther and decides he really is good in bed. Look at how fit he is. And someone would have said something. Lance, for sure, Lance would have said something because Lance isn't any more impressed with Justin than Harper was with Lance, and Chris doesn't know what he's talking about anyway, fucking pothead freak.

He collapses on the ground, tongue working in his throat but just finding scratchy, dry coughs, and he looks hard but can't see the house anymore. He thinks it was that way. Or, turning to look to his left, he thinks he might have spun around before falling down. Fuck. He really didn't have time for any goddamn communing today, there's, there are things they're supposed to be doing. Important things, he thinks, even though right now he can't remember exactly what they are. He hides under the sweatshirt but it's not really enough shade and his eyes are on fire from all the light, everywhere there is this intense bright white light, and when he lies down it's a little better.

It's later but he doesn't know when, no watch, the sun's still hot and up above him somewhere, but now the ground is rumbling kind of and Justin thinks, great, earthquake. That'll fix everything. He pushes himself up into a sitting position and there's more rumbling and a dustcloud and it's all centered around this big brown moving thing and Justin wonders if there are still wild horses out here, or maybe mountain lions. Or wooly mammoths like at the dinosaur museum.

His knees shake but he manages to stand very, very slowly. The dust cloud makes a sharp turn toward him and Justin remembers the guy, his name was Malcolm Eagle-something, Malcolm telling him how in Native American battles it wasn't about killing, it was about counting coup, and you hit your opponent on the shoulder as you passed instead of running him through and that was what won the battle. It's more like a sport than a war and Justin braces his legs and stands tall.

The moving dust machine slows as it approaches, finally, and when it stops and the air has settled, there's Lance. "Lance," Justin says, hoarsely. Happily. So so happily, he thinks he's never been as happy to be at not-war with anyone so much as this beautiful strong man standing in front of him. "Lance!" he says again. "I thought you were an earthquake."

He wakes up on the couch in the great room, everyone crowded around like the end of the Wizard of Oz and as soon as his eyelids flutter open a second time Chris hits his shoulder and says, "You fuck, you fucking fuck."

Someone squeezes Justin's hand and he's not even sure who but JC just says, "Hey, man, you're okay." Justin sits up and Lance feeds him gallons of water and wipes his face with a washcloth that looks soft but scrapes like hell. Justin's arms are sunburned so he thinks maybe that's why. Joey hands him cut-up apples and peanut butter and it doesn't take too long for everything to start making a little more sense.

"Wow," he says, "I can't believe, that was. Crazy."

JC smiles, actually smiles wide and full and just a little worried and says, "You just went looking for some new songs, right? Like, little desert birds to sing top forty hits in your ear?" Justin laughs and shakes his head and JC hugs him and sits on the floor next to the coffee table.

Lance is leaning against the wall. "How did you find me anyway?" Justin asks, and Lance shakes his head a little.

"Turns out there are all these laser night-vision goggles and binoculars and shit down there with the guns," Joey says. "Plus, man, those pants are fucking day-glo, so. It wasn't too hard."

"And Lance has the biggest car in the U.S. Army," Chris says, and Justin giggles till Chris shoots him a mean, angry look.

"What?" he whines.

Chris stares at him. "Don't ever pull that shit again, Timberlake. It's not fucking funny, and it's a miracle, really, that you didn't die out there and have your bones picked clean by the fucking coyotes and this -- this is not the Parent Trap, you ass. You're not gonna distract us out of fucking things up on our own schedule."

"I'm not --"

Lance clears his throat. "Well, what did you think you were doing?"

"I just. I." Justin closes his eyes again and his skin is hot and tingly all over and all the scrapes up and down his calves and arms burn like fire. He breathes in and out deep and looks at them all. "Are we gonna do this now?"

Lance says, "Yes."

Chris stands up and says, "We are not your parents. We'll fight and we'll make up, or not. But don't fucking act like you're eleven."

Justin swallows. "I know that."

Chris says, "Do you?"

Justin closes his eyes and drinks more water. He sighs, opens his eyes and says, "Okay. So that's me, Chris, I'll stop being. I'll stop thinking that us ending is the end of the world and -- it's not the end of the world, it's just the fucking saddest thing ever to happen, that might happen to me. But that's, that's me. What about the rest of us?" Because Chris is smart, he's probably got this figured out.

Chris blinks. He considers. He rubs his chin and looks serious, really serious for once. He says, "Well, Lance should stop blaming the rest of us and the group in general for Harp -- for Harper breaking up with him."

Lance says, "Fuck you."

JC looks up and says, "He's right." He says it softly. JC sits up a little and looks at Lance. "He's really right. Like always, really. Seriously, Lance. I know it was love, real love, but you know what? Everything we had, we have, it's a lot to take, man, and you can't keep blaming us. And you do." JC pauses. "Maybe you don't think you do."

Lance says, "I'd like a fucking moratorium on my ex-fucking-boyfriend being a subject of discussion around here. And JC, don't give me relationship advice, okay? Not from you."

Joey sits down behind JC and says, "Shut up, Lance. And you know, no damn moratorium. You went out with the guy for two years, for more than two years. And we could see there were problems and then one day, you're all, Harp's gone. Harp broke up with me. I don't wanna talk about it. And you never have and that's bullshit."

Lance is biting his lip, crossing his arms over his chest. He starts talking with a deadly calm. "He came to my house and he said he couldn't take it anymore. That he was tired of all the time I spent on the band and he knew I couldn't really do anything about it and that was who I was and it's not like I could come out and there you go. Satisfied now? I've talked about it."

JC says, "See? It's not something we did, or you did. It's just, it's really hard to be in a relationship with the things we do. The time it takes, the demands, the fame. You shouldn't blame yourself, Harp didn't, and you shouldn't blame us."

Lance rubs his face with his hand. He sits down on the end of the couch where Justin is. Justin sits up and rubs Lance's shoulders, rests his head against Lance's back. Lance says, "Fuck you all," but he doesn't shrug off Justin's weight against him. Lance says, "I really loved him."

Chris says, "Yeah. We noticed."

Justin gulps more water and says, "Okay, so. Who's next?" He looks to Chris. "You're supposed to be the smart one," Justin says.

Chris, for the first time in as long as Justin can remember, Chris doesn't make a joke. And it freaks Justin out a little, that maybe Chris is scared serious, but they're in for a penny or a pound or whatever so they might as well keep going. Justin nods at him again and Chris says, "Okay. You two --" and he points at Joey and JC, JC sitting with his back up against Joey's knees where Joey's sitting in the chair. "You love each other. Act like it. Quit fucking around, Joey, or, well, JC, don't keep forgiving his skanky ass and maybe he'll realize he can't do that and just expect you'll take him back."

Joey's jaw tightens and he says, "Cause you're the king of all things? Cause you've settled down for happily ever after and it was all a fucking piece of cake?"

"Joe, c'mon," Lance says. "Don't -- he's just sayin', you know, what we all see. And maybe this is just how you two get through the day, but every time y'all are too tired to deal with it anymore all the rest of us get dragged into things. So, you know, JC hates my guts half the time cause I gotta go make sure you're okay, and then Justin freaks out cause he hates it when we fight, so he's off with Chris, and JC's got nothing to do but dream up new ways to make us all think he's a loon."

JC rubs his eyes and says, quietly, "I don't hate you, man."

Justin can see Lance bite his lip and say only, "okay," very calmly, and for once Justin is glad Lance can front like that and that JC's so gullible, and maybe if they can all bend a bit they won't actually break.

JC says, "And I do too stick up for myself. You think because Joey and I work out things different from how someone else might that it means I've gotten screwed over? I know who Joey is, you know, and anyway the rest of it is ours to work out. That's my life, it's our lives, and it's not why I think how I do about the album, J. That's work, and maybe I'm not right about it all but that doesn't mean I'm wrong, either."

Chris says, "Well, I guess we can skip JC." Joey rubs JC's shoulders and Justin still doesn't understand, he doesn't get how the two of them are really okay but maybe it's time to at least believe they think so and that's what counts.

"Then I guess it's your turn," Lance says, looking at Justin but Justin knows he means about Chris.

Chris opens his arms wide like he wants someone to hit him and Justin says, "You started this."

"I'm not gonna break, kid," Chris says. "Say whatever the hell you want."

"No," Justin says. "I mean, you started this, all of this. We're all here cause you wanted this enough to find us and put up with us when we didn't know a real contract from our ass. And even when it all almost fell apart you were there and you wouldn't let us quit."

Chris looks down and doesn't say anything. All Justin can hear is his head is the fucking narrator from Behind the Music, all the dozens of "and then the band breaks up" scenes he's watched, interrupted only when somebody plays the magic chord that saves the album or somebody goes to rehab, but most of the time they just break up. Most bands break up, and he knows this, they all do.

Justin remembers Jon Bon Jovi saying that when their tour was done they were just five guys who took five planes to five different cities. He think he'd rather melt under the hot desert sun than ever say something like that in an interview. He looks around, from JC to Joey to Lance and last to Chris. Chris' eyes are clear and like he's waiting for something, like he thinks something's going to happen. Something exciting. Like he thinks Justin's gonna be the one to do it.

And Justin doesn't know what he's doing exactly, but he's willing to work for this, he's pretty sure they all are. JC and Joey are watching him, too. Maybe all it takes is charisma. He says, "The easy thing to do would be to break up. And when was the last time we did what was easy?" Lance puts a hand on Justin's knee and Justin takes a deep breath. "So, okay, Chris, you're not twenty-five anymore, you're not even thirty, but half the time I think the only person that matters to is you. You never cared what people said before so why the hell does it make a difference that they think you're old? You had to work for this, you maybe worked the hardest, so why don't you give all of us a fucking break and take a little pride in that for a change?"

There's a long, ugly minute where nobody says anything and it's like a free fall, it's like the time Joey hauled them all up that thing at Epcot where they drop you down at fifty feet a second. And then Chris says, "Okay. I mean, okay if you, you and Jayce gotta make a deal about how you're gonna do the album. And Lance's gotta clear some time in his schedule for us, though I'm thinking maybe that won't be such a chore anymore. Assuming, you know, that you two can figure out some way of working things out like how the other crazy couple apparently does."

"Hey," JC says mildly. "Who are you calling crazy?"

Chris says, "Shut up, motherfucker!" all squeaky and high, and JC laughs and when he tilts his head back to smile at Joey, Joey starts chuckling. Lance kind of hums contentedly and Chris snorts and Justin closes his eyes, because the dam's finally broken, but it's not failure that washes them away, it's this. Them. They're all there, and no one's walking out the door, at least not today.

Lance puts an arm around Justin's sunburned shoulders and whispers in his ear, "Nice work. Charismatic and likable it is."