Chapter 33 - Crossover

“There’s no place like the studio!” Justin said cheerfully, bouncing through the door ahead of his four band mates. Today was the day they were to meet with the Backstreet Boys to record their song together.

“Justin?” Lance asked, rubbing his temples.

“Yo!”

“Just how much sugar did you have before you came here?”

Justin grinned at him and patted his head. “Trust me, you don’t want to know.”

Joey appeared behind them, with a contemplative look on his face. “Hey Chris?” he asked.

“What?”

“Do you think if we watered that boy’s fro, it would grow? I mean seriously, he just looks too much like a Chia Pet. I swear, he must be like, some lab experiment gone wrong. Really, really wrong.”

“Oh, and you’re volcanic head of hair is a fashion marvel, right” Justin retorted.

“At least I don’t have to cut it with a hacksaw.”

“We could change that,” Justin suggested.

“Not on your life, poster boy.”

“Poster boy?” Justin placed a hand over his heart. “I knew it. You are jealous of the booty. I knew it. You want my body.” He put a sympathetic hand on an incredulous Joey’s shoulder. “I hate to break it to you buddy, but not everyone can be the very image of perfection. I hope this won’t change our friendship.”

Joey glanced over at Chris, who nodded. Together they pounced on the youth, grabbing his arms and feet and hoisting him up into the air. He started screeching in protest.

“Guys? Fellas? Holy shit, don’t you dare drop me. Lance! Cut it out, I’m not kidding. Oh for- J.C.! Help me! What the hell did I ever do to you?”

At that very moment, Brian and Nick walked through the door. Nick raised his eyebrow at the scene before him. J.C. noticed their presence, and gingerly stepped around the fighting trio to greet them.

“Don’t mind them. Tour’s getting to them.” He cracked a grin. Brian smiled back at him and offered his hand.

“It’s been awhile. Good to see you J.C.”

“Same to you. I’m glad we’re doing this.”

“Come off it, J.C.,” Lance said with a groan. “You just love the studio. You don’t care why you’re here, as long as you’re here.” He offered his hand to Brian and Nick, who both shook it.

Kevin showed up a moment later with Howie and A.J. in tow. The latter two looked deep in conversation about something that, judging by the pained look on Kevin’s face, was very, very trivial. By that time, J.C. and Lance had managed to separate the other three, and hellos were said all around.

“Well, we’ve got today and tomorrow to do this if we need it,” Lance said once they got down to business. “So there’s no need to rush this. We’ll keep at it until we’re satisfied.”

“Great,” Brian said.

“I’ve come up with a few ideas if y’all want to hear them,” J.C. spoke up.

“Why does that not surprise me,” Justin said with a grin.

“Let’s hear what you’ve come up with,” Kevin said.

“Well, I’ve been listening to your stuff a lot, trying to get a really good feel for your voices and what might work best with this song.”

“We have kinda agreed that all of us want to sing lead at one point at least during the song,” Brian said quickly. We want this to be a unifying thing for us.”

“Yeah, I kind of figured you’d want something like that when we started talking about it a little bit. This is actually a very nice song to incorporate all of us.”

Lance and Joey both snorted.

“I’m not gonna say anything. Are you, Lance?” Joey said, looking innocent.

“Nope not a thing,” Lance replied.

J.C. shot them a dirty look.

“What?” they both exclaimed. “We’re not complaining,” Joey continued. “I for one am more than fulfilled after singing lead on ‘This Is Where The Party’s At.’ I don’t need to do it again.”

If J.C. had had something to throw at their grinning faces he would have. He contemplated hurling Justin, but it was too far to reach. “Well, I think that as far as the verses go, whatever we keep for lead, we won’t change.”

“Toldja,” Joey said mischievously. He and Lance high-fived. “Useless!” they shouted in unison.

J.C. shot them a killer look. “You are not useless,” he said flatly.

“We know,” Joey said fiendishly. “But you should see the look on your face right now man. It’s classic J.C., and we just seem to find this perverted pleasure in seeing how many ways we can get it out of you.”

“Dude, Joe. If looks could kill,” Lance said solemnly. “You and I would be under a whole garden of daisies. We need a camera. It’s the best one yet!”

J.C. chose to ignore them. Chris and Justin seemed to think it was funny as hell.

They began discussing how they wanted the harmonies to work, and after a brief warm up they began to tinker with their voices, deciding what worked and what didn’t. All were surprised at just how well the song seemed to fit them. Brian was ecstatic, although not surprised, to discover that ‘NSYNC’s work ethic was as strong as their own. They weren’t satisfied until it was perfect. If at all possible, J.C. was even more of a perfectionist than Kevin.

“Justin, you’re flat,” J.C. said.

“I am not,” he said indignantly.

J.C. responded by playing back what he had just sung.

“Ooooh, ouch!” Joey snickered. “Slam! You weren’t just flat, you were…”

“Okay, shut up,” Justin said.

J.C. smirked. “What do you have to say now, JuJu?”

“That’s it. Screw you guys. Chris, I’m switching groups. I’m now a Backstreet Boy.”

“I dunno man,” Nick said cautiously. “If you’re a Backstreet Boy that means you gotta accept Kevin as your almighty High Commander and kiss his feet and stroke his ego. It’s the price we pay, anyway.”

“Whoa,” Lance said. “J.C., Kevin just outdid your ‘Eat-Shit-And-Die-Face!”

“You’re slipping man!” Chris hooted.

“Kiss his feet, ‘eh?” Justin mused, considering his options.

“He doesn’t make me do that,” Brian said innocently.

“Me neither,” Howie agreed.

“Don’t look at me,” A.J. said with a shrug. “Methinks it’s just you, Kaos.”

“And you ain’t seen nuthin yet,” Kevin said with a look of pure evil.

They broke into laughter.

“All right y’all, let’s do it again,” J.C. said once they had calmed down. Justin sang his lyric a few more times until everyone was satisfied. Then they moved on to part of the chorus.

“I’m not so sure about that one,” A.J. said, his brow furrowed. “The sound isn’t quite right. Howie, you take it. See what you can do with it.”

Howie obliged with the lyric, and J.C. clapped his hands.

“That’s it. Good, let’s go with that. I like it.”

“Okay, let’s try it again,” Justin said. “From the chorus.”

“We’re missing something. Joey, you and Nick try that section there together. Let’s see what it sounds like,” J.C. said. He and the others listened carefully, and had them try the lyric in question several different ways. After playing it back a few times, a broad grin broke out over J.C.’s face. “This is going to be really good,” he said with a chuckle. “Really good.”

During a break for lunch, Joey found himself sitting beside Nick, watching the blonde youth pack away the food. He thought for a moment about whether or not to ask the question that had been tugging at the back of his mind, and then decided the hell with it.

“So Nick, was it true about replacing your knee cap?” he asked suddenly.

“Yup,” he said with a nod, as he shoved another bite of food in his mouth. “I completely shattered it. They said the surgery to clean it all up took forever.”

“Wow. And the new one it works just as well?”

“Well, I’m still in therapy to get my range of motion back up to what it was. I’m almost there, but the dance practices we’ve done have been murder. There is so much I have to do to be able to keep up and make sure that I take care of it. It’s a pain in the ass, but soon I shouldn’t notice a difference. At least that’s what they say. God, it’s hard work.”

Joey nodded slowly. “That would freak me out, having to have something like that done.”

“Oh, it did.”

“So what exactly did they do?”

Nick began to tell him about the process that had gone into repairing the damage done to his knee. He pulled his foot up to his chair and pointed to a few things, and used his hands to demonstrate what he was describing. Brian watched him from another table, and was delighted to see how freely he spoke about it. He had come such a long way since that day in the clinic when he had finally confessed his fears. Brian was proud of him.

Following another recording session, the ten of them took a quick break. Chris and Howie were about to wander off when some familiar music played over the speakers followed by a voice that neither of them was suspecting.

“I’m doing this tonight, you’re probably gonna start a fight

I know this can’t be right hey baby come on.

I loved you endlessly, then you weren’t there for me,

So now it’s time to leave and make it alone.”

Justin’s voice picked up where A.J. left off.

“I know that I can’t take no more, it ain’t no lie

I wanna see you out that door baby bye bye bye.”

As the others listened in disbelief, the two sang the entire song.

“Oh boy. Curly’s at it again,” Chris said with a burst of laughter. Howie groaned.

“I think this is going to be a long day, don’t you?”

At the end of the day, the song was just about done, and only a few finishing touches needed to be taken care of the next day.

“Hey Brian,” J.C. said thoughtfully. “Have y’all done any more work on that demo you sent to Lance?”

“Yeah,” Brian answered, suddenly excited. “We’ve done a lot of work on it. We’re gonna lay it down next week.”

“Do you want to perform it during the ABC thing?”

“We would love to,” Brian declared.

“Cool. Would you mind a quick performance right now? We’d like to hear it.”

“Fellas?” Brian asked, looking around him.

A.J. nodded, looking pleased. “Sure thing. We’ve got it down.”

“I don’t mind,” Howie said with a smile. “Not at all.” Nick nodded in agreement.

“Kevin?” Brian asked hopefully. “This okay with you?”

He looked uncomfortable for a moment, but then he shrugged. “Why not?”

The five of them stood together in a half circle. “Ready?” Brian asked.

“Take it away, B-Rok,” A.J. replied.

Brian began to sing, and they performed the song a capella. They didn’t miss a beat. When they finished, the other band was quiet for a moment.

“Wow,” Justin said, breaking the silence.

“Yeah,” J.C. echoed. “Wow.”

“I hope you don’t mind me saying, but I do believe that is your best yet,” Lance informed them.

The five of them grinned. “Thank you. Whew,” Kevin said with a nervous laugh. “You have no idea how worried we are about this comeback.”

“You shouldn’t be,” Chris said. “You’re going to be fine.”

“Thank you guys,” Brian said. “I mean it. Thank you.”

They called it a day in the studio after that.

“Anybody need to unwind?” Nick asked as they gathered their things.

“What did you have in mind, Kaos?” Howie asked.

“There’s a basketball court real close to here.”

“Hell yeah!” Brian yelped, jumping to his feet. “I need to play me some b-ball.”

Four out of five ‘NSYNC members groaned loudly. The fifth looked miffed.

“What was that for?” Justin said, exasperated.

“We are really in trouble now,” Chris said. You said the ‘B’ word around Justin. Big, big mistake.”

“You’re just mad ‘cause I can toast you,” he said smugly.

“Not a chance, brother. We’ve had this argument before.”

“I don’t know about y’all,” Nick interjected. “But B-Rok here didn’t get his nickname for nuthin.”

“Oh ya?” Justin said, standing toe to toe with Nick. “You are ON.”

In record time, the ten of them gathered on the court, and prepared to pick teams.

“Ok, how are we gonna do this?”

“Nick and Brian play the best out of us. They are monsters out on that court,” Kevin informed them.

“Justin’s the best we got,” Joey said.

“Please don’t feed his ego,” J.C. muttered.

“Then whichever two wind up on the same team gets Lance too. That should even things up,” Chris said.

“Hey!” Lance yelled, smacking him upside the head. “That was uncalled for.”

After some friendly bickering, the teams were picked, and they got around to playing a game. The rush that Brian got from it was one he hadn’t had in awhile. He was very aware of what a gift it was to be able to play at all anymore. None of them were as slick as they had been before the accident, but they were close to it. It was a refreshing feeling, and seeing Nick running around with his huge grin slathered all over his face made him want to laugh out loud.

When they finally departed, all of them were happy, but exhausted. A.J. noted it was the greatest feeling he’d had in a long time, and the other four agreed with him.

Chapter 34

Index