Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 17:01:15 -0500
From: Writer Boy <writerboy69@hotmail.com>
Subject: jc's hitchhiker - part 56

Obligatory warnings and disclaimers:

1) If reading this is in any way illegal where you are or at your age, or
you don't want to read about male/male relationships, go away. You
shouldn't be here.

2) I don't know any of the celebrities in this story, and this story in no
way is meant to imply anything about their sexualities, personalities, or
anything else.  This is a work of pure fiction.

Questions and commentary can be sent to "writerboy69@hotmail.com". I've
enjoyed hearing from all of you.

This season would not have happened if not for a discussion I had with
Clive, who is generous enough to cohost this story on his site. Stop and
tell him hello at www.authorclive.co.uk

That said, back to the show.

***Justin***

When I woke up I wasn't quite sure of where I was. Looking around, I
realized that I was in a hotel room, but not my own, and I glanced down as
Josh shifted against me, one of his arms thrown across my chest as he
snuggled up against me in his sleep.  His head was on my chest, pressed up
against my pec, and I realized that my shirt was wet where he was drooling
a little. His face was completely smooth, and looked peaceful in the
morning sunlight spilling in through the open curtains.

"Oh, shit," I though, looking down at Josh.

If it was morning, and he was in bed with me, Jack hadn't come home last
night. I looked around, trying to find a clock, and realized I had my watch
on, along with all the rest of my clothes from last night. I didn't really
remember getting in bed with Josh, but we were both on top of the covers,
and I remembered him crying against my chest for a while. We must have just
fallen asleep like that, not at all surprising considering how tired we'd
both been, and how upset Josh was. What was surprising was realizing that,
while one of Josh's arms was thrown across my chest, the other was bent
underneath him, sort of crushed between us, and his open hand somehow ended
up in my crotch. It was morning, so I was hard, and Josh's hand was on my
cock. When I shifted to get my watch up to my face, Josh clutched at me
with both hands in his sleep, one gripping my shoulder and the other
squeezing me painfully as he murmured something incoherently against my
chest.

This was definitely not a scene for Jack to walk in on, or even one for
Josh to wake up to.  I carefully removed his hand from my cock, trying not
to wake him, and then slid out from under his other arm, scooting carefully
across the bed and sliding a pillow under his head to replace my chest. He
mumbled again, more words I didn't catch, but seemed to settle back into
sleep, so I walked out into the suite room, closing the bedroom door behind
me after I glanced back, just once, to make sure he was ok. I was a little
stiff as I pulled out my phone, and felt little needles shooting up and
down my arm, where the warm press of Josh's body had cut off the
circulation. Rolling it back and forth a couple of times, trying to regain
a little more feeling, I realized that my shirt smelled faintly of Josh's
cologne.

I called Hank first, to let him know we might not be needing that ride to
the airport later after all.

"Everything ok?" Hank asked.

"Not really," I answered, watching the bedroom door, listening carefully
for any sounds of Josh stirring. "Jack hasn't turned up yet. Did he call
you?"

"No, not yet," Hank said. "We weren't going to run today, so I wasn't
expecting him to."

"OK," I said, pacing around the suite room. "Can you just kind of stay on,
I don't know, standby today? In case we need to go out to the airport after
all? I think I'm going to order us a car to run around in, if we have to."

"Sure," Hank said. "I'll call you if Jack calls me, ok?"

"Thanks, Hank," I said, hanging up.

I walked back over to the bedroom door and peeked in at Josh. He had rolled
over, onto his back, his arms flung wide across the bed. I almost laughed,
seeing him sprawled out like that, as innocent as a little kid. Of course,
no little kid had a stomach like the one I could see where Josh's shirt was
riding up, those rippled tanned abs with that little trail of dark hair
leading down to his waistband. My eyes dipping lower, I realized that Josh
had some morning wood going, too, as his basket looked pretty full. I shut
the door quickly, reminding myself again that I had a girlfriend and Josh
had a boyfriend. We just had to find him.

I checked my watch again, and decided that even though it was early in
Florida, this was enough of an emergency to wake Chris over. They were
three hours ahead, but none of us were early risers on days off. If I
called Joey, the phone might wake Brianna, and I didn't like to cut in on
Joey's home time with her, since they had to be separated so much as it
was. If I called Lance, I might wake Howie, and I really didn't like to
disturb them, ever, since I'd caused Lance enough grief. That left
Chris. The only thing I could disturb over there was a model, and this was
worth it. Besides, Chris always seemed like the smartest, wisest one of
us. Maybe it just seemed that way because he was so old.

"Hello?" Chris muttered into the phone.

"Chris, it's Justin," I said, not so loud that I would wake Josh, but
hopefully loudly enough to get his attention. "Chris, I need help."

"Curly, do you know what time it is?" Chris mumbled. I heard someone else
muttering, and then Chris talking to them. "No, go back to sleep. You,
too. I'll be back in a minute."

I smiled, picturing Chris sliding out of a tangle of long, skinny limbs.

"Bad time?" I asked, trying not to giggle. "I didn't mean to wake
everyone."

"It's ok," Chris said. I heard a door closing, and realized he'd left his
bedroom. Knowing him, he was on his way down to the back patio, groping
around for a pack of cigarettes.  Thank God his neighbors wouldn't see him
out there buck naked, talking on the phone and smoking. "I'm assuming
you're calling for a really good reason this early, and only two of them
woke up. What's up, Juju?"

"We can't find Jack," I said simply, sitting down on the couch.

"What?" Chris asked sharply. "What do you mean you can't find him? You guys
fly out today. I'm supposed to pick you up."

"We can't fly out without him," I said, shaking my head. "Josh'll have a
breakdown or something. He already cried himself to sleep last
night. Chris, I don't know what to do."

I hadn't realized how upset I was, but I was really worried now. It wasn't
like Jack to be out of touch for this long, especially if he and Josh
hadn't fought. Even if they did fight, he would never just walk away
without saying anything. Something must have happened, but what? Where was
he? Was he ok? Josh had been distraught last night, and when he woke up
this morning and saw that Jack wasn't there, it was just going to get
worse. Josh was going to be frantic, or else just withdrawn, and either way
I felt completely helpless.  I became even more upset as I explained the
whole thing to Chris, and realized how serious this could turn out to be.

When I finished I heard Chris sigh, and then I heard a lighter flick as he
started on another cigarette.

"OK, Justin, I need to ask you a serious question," Chris said. "What kind
of shape are you in right now?"

"What do you mean?" I asked. "I just went to the gym yesterday."

"No, Justin," Chris said, chuckling. "Can you be the strong one right now,
for JC? I'm asking because, you know, he's going to be a basket case, and
if something has happened to Jack, you're going to have to deal with JC and
with whatever else might be wrong, too.  Can you do that, Justin, or do you
need me to get on a plane?"

"I guess so," I said unsteadily, thinking about it. I could see what Chris
was saying, but Jack was my friend, too. If something had happened to him,
I was going to be kind of upset as well. I didn't know if I'd be able to
deal with everything at once.

"Justin, I'm not saying you have to do it all, but I have some meetings
with marketing people today that I can't get out of," Chris explained. He
only got time to work with his clothing line when we were in Florida, so I
could understand how he wouldn't be able to reschedule the meetings. "If
you can hold it together today, I can be on a plane and out there with you
tonight, if you need me, but I don't think you're gonna."

"Why not?" I asked.

"Because this is all going to be some sort of stupid misunderstanding,"
Chris said.  "Everything's going to be ok."

"But Chris, how do we find him?" I asked, unsure of how to proceed. "What
do we do?"

"OK, listen carefully," Chris said, letting out a long breath that must
have been full of smoke. "First, you have to get JC up, and get some
breakfast into him. If he's depressed, he's not going to want to eat, which
you know, so you're going to have to prod him."

Chris had a long list of suggestions, and they all sounded good. After he
made sure I knew what I was doing, and where we had to go, I thanked him
and let him get back to his guests, however many there might be. I agreed
to call him later and let him know what we'd learned today, and then we
would decide what else we would do and whether or not Chris needed to come
out. He promised to call Lance and Joey, too, and let them know what was
going on and that they should call us if they heard from Jack.  After I let
Chris go, I called the studio, and left word with Bruce to let us know if
Jack called or stopped by, and then I called and asked to have a car
dropped off out front for us to use today. Finally I called room service
and ordered a light breakfast to be delivered in an hour, and then I went
in to wake Josh.

"Josh?" I asked softly, shaking his shoulder.

"Jack?" he asked, rubbing his face against a pillow.

"No, Josh, it's Justin," I said quietly, watching his eyes fly open. He sat
up quickly, his face twisting as his eyes darted around the room.

"Oh, God, Justin," Josh began, his hand flailing out for mine. I took it,
and he squeezed, hard, almost grinding the bones in my hand together. "He
didn't come back last night, did he? Justin, where is he?"

I sighed, and wondered again what we would do if something really serious
had happened to Jack. Chris had given me a lot of good ideas, and I was
sure one of them would turn something up. I just needed to hold Josh
together long enough for us to act on them. I reached out and took the side
of Josh's face in my hand, carefully turning him toward me so that he was
looking into my eyes as I tried to look calm and together, and tried to
project those feelings toward him.

"Josh, I don't know where he is," I answered honestly, feeling him
trembling beneath my fingers. "But we're going to find him, and we're going
to do it together."

"Justin, I'm scared," Josh said, his eyes starting to water. "What if
something happened to him? What if Jack's in, I don't know, what if he's in
some kind of trouble or something? Justin, I don't know what I'll do
without him. I love him, Justin, I love him so much. He has to be ok,
Justin."

"Josh, listen to me," I said, flicking his tear away with my thumb as I
continued to hold his face. "Josh, we're going to find him. We're going to
work on it all day today, and we're going to find Jack. But Josh, if he's
not ok, he's going to need you.  He's going to need you to be strong for
him. He might need help, and you can't help him if you're like this. I need
you to pull it together, bro, and maybe Jack does, too. Can you do that for
me, Josh? Can you do that for me, and for Jack?"

Chris hadn't suggested this, exactly. He said I should do whatever I could
to keep Josh together, but he hadn't told me how. I didn't need any
instructions, though.  I knew all the buttons to push, and always had. That
was part of my problem, and was part of the behavior I wasn't supposed to
use anymore. If I needed Josh to get it together, all I had to do was play
the Jack card, and make him think it would help bring Jack back somehow.
Later I would let myself regret this, would allow myself to feel bad for
being manipulative, but right now I needed Josh to keep himself under some
kind of control, and this was the only way I could think of.

"Yeah, Justin," Josh said, swallowing. He took my hand off of his face,
holding it in both of his, and swallowed again. "What, what should we do?"

"Right now I want you to get up and jump in the shower," I said. "I ordered
some breakfast, and after you get cleaned up I want you to come across the
hall, and we're going to eat. Then we're going to the hospitals, all of
them, to check and see if Jack was admitted to any of them last night. Do
you have a good picture of him?"

"A lot of them," Josh said, standing. He pulled off his shoes. "What do we
need one for?"

"Josh, if he got, you know, mugged or something, he might have been checked
in as a John Doe," I said. "We might need the picture to show people."

"Oh my God, Justin," Josh began again, his face starting to turn red. "Oh
my God, do you think."

"Josh!" I said sharply, hugging him. "Remember, Jack needs you strong, and
I do, too, if you're going to help me. Keep it together."

"Yeah, ok, I'm sorry," Josh said quickly, hugging me and then stepping
back.  He grabbed the bottom of his shirt and tugged it off over his head,
standing before me half dressed and tanned. I looked away, turning toward
the door. "I'm going to get in the shower now, and then I'll come over."

"OK," I said, walking quickly toward the door. "I'll leave my door
unlocked."

Behind me, I heard Josh unbuckle his belt, and I walked away quickly across
the hall to my room. As I crossed the hall, I tried to figure out what was
going on in my head, and why I was suddenly noticing how attractive Josh
was. It had been a couple weeks since I had seen Britney, and I hadn't felt
like picking any girls up at any of the clubs we went to, or at the gym, so
maybe my hormones were just surging. Running my hand across my chest as I
turned the shower on, I shivered, feeling my nipples harden. Yup, that was
the problem. I had too many hormones rushing through me. I sighed,
squeezing my pec, feeling how warm my skin was, feeling my firm nipple
press against my palm.

As I stepped into the shower, closing the door behind me, I let my hand
trail down over my abs, and then ran it through my blond pubes and wrapped
it around my cock, stroking lightly. Oh yeah, I was hard, and ready to
go. Well, if I needed to jerk off to get my mind off of Josh, there were
worse ways to start the day. Grabbing the shampoo, I lathered up my hair,
and then dropped my slick hand down to my cock, squeezing it a little, and
then running it up and down, lazily jerking off as I leaned on the wall
with my other hand. The hot water slid over me, the shower set on the
strongest setting, massaging my skin, tickling me with a thousand tiny
needles as my hand slid up and down my throbbing cock.

Closing my eyes, I felt little shivers of pleasure rolling up from my cock.
I pictured Britney, pictured her below me, her face sweating and twisted in
pleasure, mascara and lipstick smeared, hair hanging back as I pounded into
her, feeling her clasp around me. I felt her hands running up and down my
back, her nails scraping over my skin, but then something in my head
shifted. Suddenly I didn't see Britney anymore, didn't feel her hands on my
back. Instead, I felt Josh, felt his hands running over my shoulders as he
bit my neck. I felt Jack's hair brushing my belly as his mouth folded down,
swallowing my cock. I felt both of them, their warmth, their hard pricks
sliding over me, their hands kneading and caressing my skin. I felt them on
me, kissing, sucking, biting, and I remember the feeling of my mouth
sliding over Jack's abs, sliding down his sweating body. I remembered
feeling Jack's cock pushing my mouth open, sliding over my tongue, painting
a salty trail across it as he pushed into my throat.

Yelping, panting, I came hard, splattering the wall of the shower, leaning
against it to catch my breath. I gave my cock a couple of extra stokes to
finish, and then finished washing up and climbed out of the shower, ready
to face the rest of my day.  Dressing quickly in the outfit I hadn't
packed, I walked into my suite room and found Josh waiting on the couch,
dressed as casually as he could for a day when he picked out his clothes
himself. Josh is a hot guy, and he's a sharp dresser, but sometimes you
just have to wonder where he thought he was going in that outfit. Some days
it wasn't bad, but some days it was all rips and rags and animal prints,
and you wanted to just throw a sheet over him and drag him back inside
before anyone saw him. If nothing else, we needed to find Jack to get
Josh's wardrobe back under control.

"Nice shirt," I said, smirking as I got the door. Breakfast was here.
"Usually you don't see glitter and mesh mixed like that, but hey, on you it
works."

"Jerkoff," Josh sneered, looking down at himself. "I think I look hot."

"Oh, you do," I said, smiling as if I hadn't just suddenly felt my stomach
go rushing out from under me. What was I thinking? "I'm sure the propmaster
on 'Star Trek' didn't even notice that was gone."

"You're just jealous of my fashion sense," Josh said, shaking his head as I
wheeled the breakfast cart over.

"Yeah, that must be it," I answered sarcastically.

Josh kind of just picked at his breakfast, and I had to prod him
continuously to get him to do that. Really, I didn't feel much like eating,
either, but I was worried that if things went poorly today we might not
have time to eat again for a while. We could be busy at the hospital, or
the police station, or the morgue. When the last thought skated through my
head, I felt my stomach lurch alarmingly, as if I might suddenly vomit up
everything I'd just eaten. I pushed the idea away immediately. Jack would
be fine. He had to be. No other option was worth considering.

After breakfast we went to every hospital in the county, checking emergency
rooms and admissions departments, looking for Jack's name, showing his
picture to ask if any John Does matching his description had been brought
in. At one they asked us to look in on a guy who had been pretty badly
beaten up, but he wasn't Jack. He might have vaguely resembled him, but it
was hard to tell. I had to hold Josh's hand when we did that, feeling him
tremble and shake against me, but really I needed the hand holding, too.
As the day progressed I began to get more and more worried, although really
I guess we should have felt better, since Jack couldn't be hurt if he
wasn't in a hospital.

So where was he?

Chris had suggested that after the hospital we go look at places where Jack
might go to think.

"You know, that graveyard they go to," Chris told me.

"Graveyard? When do they go to a graveyard?" I asked. What a morbid
thought.  Did they dress in black like goth kids and read each other death
poetry?

"When Jack and Josh need to talk, there's this cemetery they go to," Chris
said. "I don't remember which one, but lots of famous people are there. Ask
JC where it is."

"OK," I said. Replaying that conversation in my mind, I turned to Josh as
we sat at a stoplight. "Chris says you guys go to a cemetery when you need
to think."

Josh's eyes lit up as he turned to me.

"Yes!" he said excitedly. "Maybe he's there!"

We drove over to Westwood Memorial, but Jack wasn't there. We searched from
one end to the other, but didn't find any trace of him. Sitting on the
bench by Natalie Wood (Wagner)'s tombstone, where Josh said Jack would sit
if he showed up here, I called the club we'd been at last night and asked
to talk to the manager. After I explained who I was, they put him on the
phone, and I asked if he could call all the employees from last night and
have them meet at the club this afternoon.

"It might be hard getting some of them to come in on their time off," the
manager began.

"Tell them I'll give them a week's pay, just for coming in," I said
quickly, hearing the manager's sharp intake of breath. "Please, we really
need their help."

"I'll see what I can do," he promised. "It might take a couple of hours,
though."

"Is four o'clock ok?" I asked, checking my watch.

"That should work," the manager answered. "I'll see you then. Just knock on
the front door, and I'll have someone meet you and let you inside."

"Thanks," I said, thinking that we'd have to stop at a bank so that I could
withdraw a few thousand dollars. I hung up the phone, and found Josh
staring at me.

"I'll pay for that, Justin," he said, his eyes watering. "You don't have
to."

"Josh, Jack is my friend, too," I said, squeezing his hand. "I don't mind,
but if you're really worried about it I'll let you get half."

"OK," Josh sighed, looking at his feet. For some reason all these birds
were walking around near us. They weren't bothering anyone else, but they
were clustering around this bench, and had started doing it as soon as Josh
and I sat down. "What are we going to do now?"

"Now we're going to the police station," I said, standing. The birds
twittered. "To file a missing person's report."

Josh swallowed, his eyes wide, his skin fading from tan to whitish, but he
stood as well, and began to walk with me toward the car. I knew he was
scared, really scared now, but didn't know what to say to him, because I
was scared, too. This seemed less and less like a game, and more and more
like something really serious was going on. It was getting harder to
convince ourselves that this was all going to turn out to be an funny
story, or a chain of amazing coincidences and misunderstandings.

Unfortunately, the police were less than helpful. The guy that we finally
got to talk to us, after waiting for almost an hour, was rather gruff, and
informed us that we couldn't file a missing persons report until Jack had
been gone for forty eight hours.

"But anything could happen to him by then," I protested. "He could be
anywhere!"

"Look, I understand that you're upset," the officer began, and I wondered
if maybe I should write down his badge number. We didn't often get all
prima donna, but I could if I had to.

"Why won't you help us?" Josh demanded loudly. Heads turned, and I put a
hand on his arm, but he shook it off. "Well?"

"Look," the office began, holding up his hands apologetically. "It's not
that I don't want to help you."

"Are you sure?" Josh asked. "Because you're really not helping us. We come
to you and tell you that our friend, my husband, is missing, and all you
can say is that you can't do anything? What kind of people are you?"

It was on the tip of my tongue to say they were the kind of people who beat
up Rodney King and let OJ get away with murder, but decided that would not
be helpful.

"Josh," I said sharply, putting a hand on his arm. "Please let the officer
finish, ok?"

It was exactly the kind of thing Jack would say to him. Josh glared at me,
but settled back in his chair, folding his arms. It wasn't like him to lash
out at total strangers, especially not authority figures, but he was
upset. I was starting to pray that we'd get out of the police station
without Josh going all drama queen on me. That kind of press we didn't
need.

"As I was saying, I understand that you're upset, and it's not that I don't
want to help you," the officer said, speaking more to me than to Josh. I
guess I was the rational one.  "But your friend has been missing for less
than twenty-four hours. He could be anywhere right now."

"Yeah, hurt, lost, in trouble, needing help," Josh began, and I grabbed his
arm again.

"As I was saying," the officer continued, "he could be anywhere right now,
sleeping at a friend's house, checked into a hotel, or even on his way back
to your hotel.  He's a grown adult, after all, and legally we can't file a
report for forty-eight hours.  If you haven't heard from him by then, come
back, and I'll be happy to help you do the paperwork.  Until then, I'm
sorry, but there's nothing I can do."

Josh jumped up out of his chair, and I jumped up with him, ready to
restrain him.

"You're not as sorry as you will be if something happens to him!" Josh
hissed. He turned and walked quickly through the room, and I realized he
was probably about to start crying and wouldn't want to do it in here.

"I'm sorry. He's just, you know, upset and worried," I said, shrugging
apologetically.

"I understand," the officer said, nodding sadly. "You better go after him.
Good luck."

"Thanks," I said, following Josh.

I found him on a bench out on the sidewalk, his head in his hands. As tends
to happen in any city, the passers by walked on as if they didn't notice
him. You get trained not to see people, especially not people in trouble,
because their trouble might become your trouble.  It was a sad sign of the
kind of world we lived in. I sat next to Josh and draped my arm over his
shoulders, and he leaned in, pressing his side against mine as he tried to
bring his sobbing under control.

"Justin, I'm so scared right now," he said quietly. "Where is he? What if
he's, what if he's not ok?"

Josh's voice was so low I had to strain to hear him, but I pulled him
tightly against me, wondering that he could be so fragile but feel so
strong.

"We'll find him, Josh," I said. "Wherever Jack is, we'll find him."

Checking my watch, I saw that we still had some time before they'd be
waiting for us at the club, so we drove over to the old neighborhood. If
Jack had gotten drunk, he might have gone back to the apartments, but
Jackie said she hadn't seen him, and no one had tried to get in. We checked
the stores and shops nearby in case he had ended up there somehow, but no
one there had seen him, either. In the time we'd been here, Jack had become
a regular at some of them, going by every day with Chris and then with
Chris and Hank, so I knew the workers would recognize him, but everyone
told us the same thing with the same shrug or shake of their head. Josh
wasn't talking by the time we stopped at the bank to take out money, and I
was becoming increasingly worried about him and Jack both.

Finally we drove to the club, and I parked at the curb out front. In the
daylight, it was a completely different place, the windows dark, the
painted siding looking a little worn.  The velvet rope was gone, presumably
coiled up inside somewhere, and we stood on the sidewalk as Josh pulled out
his phone to check his messages.

"Nothing," he said, shaking his head.

"Have you tried to call him today?" I asked, trying to remember as I paced
back and forth between the sidewalk and the alley on the side of the club.

"No," Josh said. "Maybe I should."

Josh dialed the phone, and I felt my stomach drop as musical chimes sounded
out of the alley. I played them in my head, realizing immediately that it
was "Drive Myself Crazy", the song Jack's phone was set to play when it
rang. Josh had given him the phone as a gift when they first got together,
and he had never changed the ring. I looked up and saw that Josh heard it,
too, as we stared at each other with expressions of slowly dawning horror
and dread.

"Justin?" Josh asked, his voice shaking.

"Let it ring," I said, walking into the alley.

We both walked around quickly, trying to locate it. I never thought I could
hate one of our songs, but that chiming chorus was burrowing its way into
my brain. We walked toward the back of the alley, and found ourselves next
to a dumpster, right by a door that opened from inside the club. Cigarette
butts littered the ground, but we didn't see the phone or Jack anywhere. I
lifted the lid of the dumpster, forcing myself to, more afraid than I ever
had been before in my life, as Josh gripped my shoulder painfully, standing
behind me. All of the breath went rushing out of me in relief when I saw
that the dumpster was empty.

Then where was the phone?

Dropping to my knees, I saw something under the dumpster. Standing, I gave
the dumpster a shove, but it didn't move, so I crouched and slammed my
shoulder painfully into it. With a squeal of wheels needing oil, the
dumpster lurched to the side, and Josh and I found ourselves staring down
at Jack's ringing phone, lying on the floor of the alley.

***

That's all for now. And yes, before anyone writes in to tell me, I'm aware
that no cell phone battery holds out that long.