JC did it because he had no shame.
Justin did it because it was easier that way.
It wasn't Chris' fault that Justin indiscreetly slept around.
It wasn't JC's fault that Justin was willing.
It wasn't Justin's fault he was afraid of love.
And it didn't really matter what "it" was, because it happened anyway.
The break-up was quiet, because it was 2 am in a hotel room, and while Justin was drunk, Chris was not. Justin had tried raising his voice, but Chris clamped a hand over his mouth and shoved him against the door, and told him explicitly just how fucking through they were. Everybody knew it had happened, though.
Chris had gone back to his room and cried for a while, but discovered it wasn't all that painful, not yet, because it wasn't as if he'd only just become aware of Justin's lack of faith. He'd smirked, the next morning, when Justin came down to breakfast looking haggard, but discovered he didn't really feel all that contemptuous.
Rather, he felt almost willing to take Justin back and whisper fervent apologies against his neck during rough makeup sex, but he figured those weren't feelings one was supposed to have for a recent ex-boyfriend, so he resigned himself to not looking at Justin.
Justin convinced himself he didn't really care that his relationship with Chris was over, because for him, it had been over some time ago. This, however, meant finality, and that scared him almost as much as commitment.
He didn't think it was fair, really, that when he woke up, he was still drunk, rather than hungover, and JC was operating quite fine, as far as JC went, after just as much alcohol. It wasn't fair, either, that Chris would talk to JC, but not Justin, when JC had as much to do with the break-up as anybody else. Almost.
Not that he really wanted Chris to talk to him or anything. Of course not.
JC felt bad about it. Certainly, no one would turn down Justin if propositioned, and it wasn't as if he was the only one Justin slept with outside his relationship with Chris - only one in the group, yes - but he still felt guilty. He wasn't sure that things would be even tolerable between Chris and Justin, which could eventually backfire on all of them, but it was too early to tell.
It was too early, moreover, for an interview with some teeny magazine while Justin was smashed off his ass and he was hungover, but some things couldn't be helped.
At first, it had seemed like a good idea for Chris to be at least civil to JC. It wasn't JC's fault, not really, that Justin was irresistible when he wanted to be, and sometimes even when he didn't. So Chris couldn't blame him for sleeping with Justin, and he couldn't voice his discomfort with the situation, because at this point, he had no claims on Justin.
That didn't stop him, however, from hurting when he'd see JC not-so-subtly run the heel of his hand along Justin's spine, or from crying, just a little, when he heard them fucking through thin hotel walls. It didn't stop him from tensing when he'd catch Justin pressing kisses into JC's neck, or from punching walls when he'd see their hugs lasting a little longer than usual, or even from stopping JC when he caught him leaving Justin's room one night.
"Hey, C," he said, seizing JC's elbow. "You wanna stop flaunting the god damned prize?"
JC frowned, and said, "You wanna share the wealth?"
And Chris did.
JC did it because Justin loved Chris, even if he wouldn't admit it, and JC would never have that. Chris did it because JC smelled like Justin after fucking him, and had Justin's respect, which Chris didn't think he'd ever had. Justin let them do it because it let him know Chris still wanted him, and because he never fancied JC as being his. Nobody else really bothered to look into why Chris and JC were fucking, and that was just fine.
Even with JC, though, Justin didn't stop picking up girls at clubs or guys at bars, depending on his mood. He was only as discreet about it as he needed, which wasn't very, and while it pissed off Chris, JC let it slide.
JC started to tire of it first, more because of his emotions than from the fact that he was fucking two people on the same night. It was draining, being the third corner of a twisted love triangle that shouldn't have existed. It was unfair to him, and unfair to Chris, and to a lesser extent, unfair to Justin, but he'd started it, anyway.
He was only in it for convenience, he knew, because Justin knew JC had a thing for him and was willing to abuse it, but suddenly it wasn't that convenient at all. Suddenly, Chris was crying after they fucked. Suddenly, Justin was coming to him more often - too often; he'd come after he'd sent home whoever it was he picked up earlier, and it was trying, because JC knew it meant nothing to Justin. Suddenly, JC didn't feel like putting up with it any more.
"Fuck off," JC said, when Justin came to him the next time, reeking of sex and cheap perfume.
"What," Justin asked, and touched JC's forearm lightly, "Why?"
"Stop being such a god damn pussy," JC said, and shook off Justin, and that was pretty much it.
Justin noticed that the Chris and JC thing didn't stop, though. They weren't noticeably different, really; they didn't touch each other or kiss or anything when anybody else was around to see, but they did have long, involved conversations in corners, during which Chris seldom smiled and JC usually ended up crying some. Otherwise, they were still the friends they used to be, and Chris still made fun of JC's hair and JC still neglected to acknowledge that Chris existed, except now they were both still having copious amounts of sex.
Somehow, that bothered him more than he thought it should. Bothered him not in a my-best-friend-is-sleeping-with-my-ex-boyfriend way, but rather in a my-best-friend-is-sleeping-with-my-ex-boyfriend-who-I'm-still-in-love-with way. And that, too, bothered him, because it was his own damn fault any of it happened, and he couldn't be bothered to fix it.
Sometimes he wondered about things. About JC. Chris. Himself. Them. Whatever. He wondered what JC meant when he told him to stop being a pussy, he wondered why Chris let it go on so long, he wondered why he did it in the first place. He questioned their motivations, but eventually, it stopped making sense.
Eventually, it all caught up to him. His heart hurt.
Chris wasn't aware of it, at first, when Justin stopped getting laid. He didn't consciously know when Justin went home with someone from a club, but he noticed that JC spent inordinate amounts of time brushing off Justin's advances, and Justin spent markedly less time on the dance floor and more at the bar. It dawned on him, finally, after JC said,
"He misses you, Chris. I mean, he's got a shitty way of showing it, but he does. At least, y'know, he's stopped with the. uh. picking up girls and stuff."
JC wasn't very surprised when Chris stopped sleeping with him, after that. Nor was he very disappointed, though it severed his link to Justin's love. He'd get over it.
But things didn't really change. Justin hit on JC when he was drunk, and ignored Chris, for the most part, except when it was unavoidable, like when Chris was the only one who stayed up late enough to hold Justin's head while he threw up alcohol. Chris didn't ignore Justin, per se, but it hurt more than he cared to admit to see Justin throw himself at JC, when JC claimed Justin didn't give a shit about him, so he ignored the situation, which often involved ignoring Justin. His conversations with JC didn't trail off, but maybe he was crying a bit more, during them.
And JC was beginning to get sick of the deadlocks. Sick of Justin deliberately trying to hurt Chris, sick of Chris being affected by it, sick of himself getting all the shit dumped on him and nobody really caring. He was sick of Justin fawning over Chris, but being too proud to admit that, yeah, maybe he shouldn't have fucked him around in the first place. He was sick of having to push Justin away when all he wanted to do was hold him close, but he knew he couldn't, because he wasn't supposed to have any part in this, anyway. He was sick of Chris saying,
"Dude, could you just talk to him for me? Please? I don't even know him any more,"
until it got to the point that he said,
"You know what, talk to him yourself. He's your god damn ex. He's in love with you, right. Not me. So go live with him yourself, instead of trying to live with him through me."
It might have been the wrong thing to say, JC reflected, but after a pause, Chris said, "Yeah, okay." JC hoped maybe it would happen, just so it would be something, because even a massive Chris-Justin fight would be less stressful than this deadlock. And it would surely be more useful to all three of them than sitting around and doing nothing and crying and pining and wishing that one of the others wasn't so definitely male and would snap and fix the problem for them.
Justin thought it was a little strange when Chris said, "Justin, I wanna talk to you," on the way back to their respective hotel rooms, one night. It wasn't like they really weren't talking, because it was hard not to talk to one's co-worker - or friend or whatever he was. But, they weren't talking in a way that it was typical that Chris might say, "Justin, I wanna talk to you." Their communication was fueled by necessity, rather than desire.
So Justin pretended he was maybe a little annoyed, and that the reason he could hear his blood pounding in his ears wasn't because he was excited Chris would even acknowledge him as human, when he said, "Uh-huh," and followed Chris into his room.
"Dude, I'm closing the door, 'cause I don't think the guys really want to hear what I have to say, a'right?" Chris said, and Justin hoped it wasn't that obvious when he flinched.
JC could hear them through the walls. It was funny at first, because everything up until then had been quiet. When they were together, he'd hear them on the bus whispering, "shh, don't want to piss of- holy fuck, again," or in hotels, he'd hear Justin whimper, "I want to, but not when everyone else can hear," and there would be no carnal noises, even though they'd all know they were fucking. The break-up was even quieter, because he hadn't heard any of that, but it had obviously happened. The aftermath was civil and maybe frigid, filled with silence and not much else.
After a while, though, it stopped being so amusing, because they weren't shutting up. There was a lot of yelling and swearing and probably some tears, and that wasn't really funny, because they weren't having sex. It wasn't funny when Chris said,
"Christ, Justin, you don't sleep with JC by accident,"
or when Justin replied, "No, you plan it out so you can pretend he's me, even though he gives you beard burn and I don't."
It wasn't funny when Justin said, "I don't know where the fuck your mind went, anyway, if you thought fucking JC would get me back. Nothing will."
It wasn't funny when Chris said, "I'm sorry, okay, and I don't even know why the fuck I'm apologizing."
It wasn't funny when Justin said, "Fuck you. You think this is so damn easy,"
or when Chris said, "I didn't fucking want to talk to you so I could fucking beg for your forgiveness. I don't need anything from you. I didn't even fucking want to talk to you so I could sleep with you. This isn't about sex, okay?"
It wasn't really funny, either, when Justin broke down crying and yelled, "You're right, it's not about sex. But. I love you, okay? I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," and Chris, too, started crying.
JC didn't mind, though, when Chris and Justin started talking again, or kissed in corners, or touched each other during interviews, or smiled across the stage at each other. He laughed with Joey and Lance when they'd hear them fucking on the bus or in hotels or backstage after a concert, and it didn't really hurt. He thought maybe his fascination with Justin only lasted as long as Justin was willing, and he didn't really miss sleeping with either of them.