// if you're flawless //

He jogs offstage and she's waiting just at the side, stepping out from the shadows and smiling big and wide, holding out a towel. He takes it from her, teeth bared in a grin that feels like it could split his head clean in two.

"Thanks," he gasps as he runs it over his face, and there's salt slicked across his lips, sharp and bright. Like the taste of blood, he thinks, but that's not it at all. It's nothing but sweat and adrenaline, one sheening his skin, the other running just beneath the surface, and it almost feels as if he's walking on air. Almost.

"Y'all did good," she calls back over her shoulder to the others, and the press of her fingertips against the small of his back is a shock of ice-cold, a quick bite of nails as she pulls him closer to her hip. "You though-- you missed some steps," she mutters next to his ear, her breath slipping clammy-cool across the curve of his cheek. "Third song. And then again in the last, too-"

"I know," he says softly, looking straight ahead, staring at the cracked yellow plaster of the wall until it starts to dance before his eyes. Side to side and back again, jittering in time with the pulse that's skittering in his throat, tasting metal thick on his tongue. "I know," he says again, snapping his teeth closed on the word before it can become a whine. "Mama-"

"Not now," she hisses, and he feels her fingers skidding up and away, brushing over his shoulders and through his sweat-tangled hair. She tugs gently on a curl and he ducks his head quickly, biting down hard into his lip. "Go catch up with the rest of the boys, honey," she says brightly, and he can hear a smile lacing through her words. "It's another long day ahead tomorrow."

Forgiven then, he thinks, glancing up again, his own smile a peace offering.

But she's not looking his way; the smile and her gaze focused just past his shoulder, and Justin doesn't need to look back to know who's standing there watching them. He doesn't need to, but he does anyway.

"Goodnight Mr. Pearlman," he says quietly, nice and polite, just like his mama taught him.

I'll live for you
I'll make you what I never was

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