the By Your Side Remix by
JC Chasez "Right Here (By Your Side)"
JC had thought he'd have a day or two after the album dropped, so when he opened his eyes and Chris was standing at the foot of his bed slapping a copy of the CD into his palm, he was a little surprised.
"Chris?" he said.
"Which one's about me?"
JC blinked. "Huh?" he said. Chris had always been sort of …unpredictable, but it had been a while since he'd just shown up in JC's bedroom. Too long of a time.
"Which song?" Chris asked, holding up the CD. "Which one's about me?"
"Oh. Um." JC sat up and rubbed his hand through his hair. "None, I guess."
"My ass," Chris said. "I'm going downstairs to make coffee. You have ten minutes to get your ass downstairs and tell me which of these songs are about me."
JC flopped back onto his pillow. His pajamas were on the floor next to the bed, so he still had about eight minutes to lie here and just…relax…
"CHASEZ!"
JC got up and put on his pants.
Chris handed him a cup of coffee and watched him take a sip. "So?" he said.
"None of them," JC said. "Did you like it?"
"Fantastic, lovely, stunning. Which one is about me?" Chris leaned over the kitchen island on his elbows.
"None of them. Which one did you like the best?"
"'100 Ways' is clearly Lance," Chris said.
"What? No!" JC felt his cheeks flushing red. He wasn't entirely lying. Only, like, ten of the one hundred ways were Lance. The rest were an amalgamation of a bunch of other people. Okay, five other people. Three. Two.
"And, hmm." Chris scanned the back of the CD, tapping his fingers on the plastic case. "Okay, "She Got Me" isn't so much about Justin as it is basically a tribute to Justin. Well, Justin and Space Cowboy, so there you go."
"Hey! Space Cowboy is a good —"
"And 'Lose Myself' is clearly Joey. I mean, c'mon."
JC blinked. He'd forgotten in the last few months away from Chris how perceptive he was. If he'd remembered that while he was in the studio, he might have rethought the inclusion of certain songs, or, at least certain lyrics. "So, guess," he said.
Chris laughed. "I knew it! Chasez, you are too easy!"
"Well, guess," JC said, folding his arms across his chest. "If you think it's so easy."
Chris went back to scrutinizing the CD case, murmuring under his breath. He was going to figure it out; JC could feel it. "One Night Stand" and "Some Girls" and "Shake It" were just jokes, written as fun club numbers. And Chris would know that "Build My World" was about the day that Bobbi walked out on him — he'd been there that afternoon, handing JC kleenex and listening to him blubber about how she'd tiptoed out without even saying goodbye. And "Blowin' Me Up" was written for the movie, and "If You Were My Girl" was an homage to the groupies they met on tour, and "Everything You Want" was an homage to Bob Marley and "Come to Me" was an homage to JC's favorite 80s artist Corey Hart, and that left three: "All Day Long", which Chris would recognize immediately as an experiment with genre, because otherwise there wouldn't be so much synthesizer in it and so little singing; "Something Special," which Chris would know right away that Tony had written, and "Right Here." "Right Here", which JC had written one afternoon, after Chris had called him from the golf course and chatted with him about the weather while he practised on the driving range and gave no sign of declaring his undying love anytime soon. JC stared into his coffee cup.
"Oh," Chris said finally. JC lifted his eyes. Chris looked vaguely stunned, but also sort of happy. His eyes were very deep brown. JC had always liked his eyes.
"Yeah," JC said. "So."
"Oh," Chris said again. Then he lunged across the island and grabbed JC and kissed him. He tasted of coffee.
"Just in case you're wondering," he said afterwards, his lips brushing the back of JC's neck, his arm a comforting weight over JC's waist. "I'm telling Justin it was "All Day Long."
JC smiled. "Sure," he said.