Joey found out by accident. He wasn't paying attention and he walked into the wrong hotel room. An honest mistake, considering how many hotel rooms they stayed in, it was natural to get mixed up sometimes and end up someplace you weren't supposed to be. And Chris could have locked the door. Probably should have, really, but he hadn't, and there it was. There Chris was, and there Joey was, and that was that.

"Um," Joey said, startled. Chris stiffened, his back to Joey, shirt in hand. "Um, that's... how...? Wow."

Chris turned slowly, his face blank. Joey was staring at his ears. His long, pointy, not-quite-human ears.

"Those are neat, where'd you get 'em?" Joey asked.

Chris just stared at him.

Joey faltered a little, took a step back. "They're... why're you wearing fake ears, man? 'S there a costume party nobody invited me to?" He laughed a little, unnerved by Chris' unwavering stare.

"No," Chris said, his voice flat.

Joey shook off his unease and walked up to him, reaching out to touch them. "Wow," he said, awed. "These are cool. It's like... you can't even see the seams. Seriously, where'd you get these, how are they...." He tugged a little, and Chris hissed, his hand flying up to his head.

"Ow! Jesus, Joe!"

Joey yanked his hand back. "Oh, shit, sorry, man! I guess you really got those glued on there, huh?"

Chris hesitated a moment before answering, "No."

"No?"

"No."

Joey stared at him, confused. "Um, so... what... how are they... on there, then?"

Chris sighed and raised his eyes to the ceiling, his lips moving soundlessly. Then he brought his eyes back down to Joey's. "Close the door," he said. "And lock it."

~*~

"I'm a leprechaun."

Joey stared.

"As in... you know, a little... Irish... legend-type... leprechaun."

Joey blinked.

"Only real. You know...."

Joey's eyes strayed to the ears.

"They're... my ears. My real ears. All leprechauns have 'em. You just never saw 'em before, 'cause... well, it's magic." The air seemed to ripple around Chris' ears and all at once they were normal again. Joey's mouth fell open a little. "See? We learn that spell as soon as we're old enough to grasp it. It's in case we need to go out into the human world, you know, and still stay hidden."

Joey closed his mouth.

"Um...." The air rippled again and the not-human ears came back. "I'm still the same person I always was, Joe. It's just... I couldn't tell you. I shouldn't have told you just now, but I couldn't outright lie. Not to you."

Joey blinked.

"Say something? Please? Joey?"

It was the desperate, pleading tone in Chris's voice that finally snapped Joey out of his stupor. "Um.... You're a leprechaun."

Chris looked down at the floor, kicking his legs restlessly against the side of the bed where he sat. "Yeah."

"As in 'here's me pot o' gold,' leprechaun."

"Well.... We don't actually go around hoarding pots of gold, but yeah. I guess."

"And you kept it hidden because...?"

Chris looked at him incredulously, raising one expressive eyebrow. "Why they hell d'you think, Joey? If I'd said to you, the day we met, 'hi, I'm Chris and I'm a leprechaun,' what would you have said?"

Joey shrugged. 'Hi, Chris, I'm Joey?"

"Oh, you would not."

~*~

Joey wanted him to tell the others. He hated having to hide things from his brothers, especially something as big as this. He ached to just blurt it out: "Hey guys, Chris isn't human, how cool is that?" But he knew Chris would kill him and considering that he was a leprechaun and could do magic and shit, who knew how weird and painful his death would be? So he kept quiet. Except when he was alone with Chris.

"So, when you gonna tell 'em?"

Chris sighed and let his forehead hit the table. Hard. "Joooeeeeyyy....."

"Come on Chris, this is killing me! You know I hate keeping secrets!"

"I know, Joey, I know, okay?" Chris's voice was muffled against the Formica. "But this whole thing is a lot bigger than you know, okay? A lot bigger."

"Don't you trust us?" That was what it came down to. That was what hurt the most, that Chris hadn't trusted them enough to tell them. Hadn't trusted him until he'd practically been forced to.

"Of course I trust you, Joe, I told you didn't I?"

"Only because you had to." Joey looked out the window of the hotel dining room. He couldn't remember what city they were in, only that it had been eighteen days since he'd found out about those damned leprechaun ears.

"I didn't have to, Joey," Chris said, raising his head. "I could have told you, 'yeah, Joe, they're glued on pretty tight, haha. Guess I shoulda followed the directions better, huh?' But I didn't. I told you the truth, and now I'm thinking I probably shouldn't have because you're getting the Hell on my nerves!"

Joey got up and walked away.

~*~

They were all hanging out in Justin's room—all of them except Chris. Joey had been avoiding Chris for days, and it was starting to wear on him, but it was a matter of principle. JC, Justin, and Lance all noticed, of course. It was really pretty obvious. Chris would come into a room, Joey would walk out. Chris would say something funny and everybody would laugh—except Joey. And then Chris would stare at him with hurt making those deep brown eyes shiny and Joey would look away. After a while, Chris stopped trying.

That's why they were all surprised when he appeared at the door, looking small and unsure. "Uh, guys?" Chris' voice was soft and a little tremulous. "Can I talk to you?" Joey looked up sharply at him, and Chris avoided his eyes.

Justin exchanged a look with JC and shut off his Playstation without even saving the game. "Sure, Chris, come on in."

Chris stayed in the doorway, though, his eyes on the floor. "I have something to... to tell you, and I'm sorry I didn't tell you before, but it wasn't just me it affected, and I wasn't sure how you'd react, and I'm not really supposed to tell anybody, but it's too hard to keep hiding it all the time. It's too big and I feel like it's eating me from the inside out."

"Chris," Lance said quietly, sincerely, "There is absolutely nothing you could say that would make any difference to us. You're our brother, nothing can change that."

"Um...." Chris shuffled his feet a little, still not raising his eyes from the floor. "Okay. Um...." The air rippled and there were the ears. "So, I'm a leprechaun."

Dead silence.

"Um.... That's all. Sorry."

And he was gone.

Justin was the first the speak. "Dude." He stood shakily, staring at the empty doorway. "Dude!"

"I thought he was gonna say he was gay, or something," JC said numbly. "The leprechaun thing was...."

"Unexpected," Lance supplied. "Very, very unexpected."

"Right."

Joey didn't say anything.

~*~

They all ended up at Chris' room, about an hour later. Joey was feeling pretty shitty about driving him to distraction they way he had, but dammit, he'd been hurt, and angry, and betrayed, and.... Well, now he felt like shit, and so did Chris, and there was no need for it. So he'd pretty much decided to apologize and hope Chris would accept it.

The others weren't mad at him, or they'd said they weren't. They understood why he'd reacted the way he did, why he'd treated Chris that way. Lance said he didn't know if he would've been able to keep such a secret for so long. Joey wasn't sure if Lance was referring to him or to Chris, or if that was admiration or condemnation in Lance's voice. JC and Justin just asked a lot of questions—questions that he didn't have the answers to. That was why they were here now. To get those answers and to assure Chris that there were no hard feelings. Not anymore.

They had to knock several times before Chris opened the door. He looked horrible. His eyes were red and puffy and his face was blotchy as though he'd been crying, long and hard. The ears were hidden again.

"Um," Justin said.

"Chris...." Joey held his arms out and waited. He was nearly thrown backwards by the force with which Chris threw himself into his embrace.

~*~

"So, um...." Justin began, wringing his hands. "Leprechaun, huh?"

Chris nodded, still sniffling a little. "Yeah."

"So your whole family are, like, leprechauns?"

"Well...." Chris looked guiltily up at them. "Kind of... sort of.... No."

"Huh?" was JC's articulate response.

Chris sighed. "I'm actually only half leprechaun. But the problem is... the reason I'm here, and hiding, and all... is that my father—my leprechaun father—is, um... the king. Of leprechauns."

"The king of leprechauns?" Justin repeated, only slightly more articulate than JC.

"Yeah. And I'm his... bastard son."

Joey flinched at the pain and self-loathing in Chris' voice.

"The problem," Chris continued, playing with a stray thread on the comforter of his bed, "Is that I'm still first born. When my father dies, I become king. And a lot of people don't want a bastard half-breed as their king. My father and his advisors thought it'd be safer for me to live here, hidden, until the time came for me to take the throne."

"People are trying to kill you?!" Lance burst out, absolutely horrified. "But... but...."

"Don't worry, Lance," Chris said tiredly. "As far as I know, nobody knows who I really am. Except you guys."

"You mean... that's why you didn't tell us?" Joey suddenly felt even more guilty than before. "Because it could put you at risk?"

Chris looked up at him, his eyes guarded. "No. I didn't tell you because.... Because I was scared. Because I loved you too much, and I was afraid of what you'd say. And then I'd waited too long and I knew you'd be mad that I hadn't told you before."

"And I proved you right," Joey whispered, his face heating up with shame.

"No." Chris slid off the bed and knelt in front of him, his hand on Joey's knee. "You were hurt. That's different. And you were angry that I made you hide it from the rest of the guys. I was wrong to ask you to do that, and I'm sorry."

"I... I'm sorry, too."

This time, when Chris hugged him, he was the one who couldn't stop crying.

~*~

"So, does this mean we have to call you 'your highness,' or something?" Justin looked Chris up and down critically. "'Cause I don't know if I'm down with that, yo."

Chris rolled his eyes. "No, you don't have to call me your highness."

"Does your family know about you?" Lance wanted to know, "or do we have to watch it around them, too?"

"Mom knows I'm part leprechaun," Chris answered, "but she doesn't know about the royalty thing. The girls just know I'm their half-brother."

"If your Mom doesn't know, then how do you know?" JC asked. "And who taught you the magic spell to hide your ears?"

"I got a little visit from a leprechaun one night," Chris told them, his eyes far away. "I musta been, like, four or five? He told me who and what I was, and took the spell off my ears to prove it to me."

"Took the spell off?"

"Yeah. It had been in place since before I was born. In the womb, even. They can do that, if they need to, so it doesn't show up on sonograms and stuff."

"Wow."

"Yeah. Anyway, so he's the one who told me the whole story. Or as much of it as a four or five year old child can understand. He was one of my father's most trusted advisors, and I still see him sometimes. He likes to check up on me at the weirdest times. I see him in the audience at our concerts sometimes, or when we do TV appearances where there's a studio audience. He was even at Rosie's show once. I think he gets a kick out of this whole... NSYNC... thing."

"Did Beverly know your father was a leprechaun when she, ah...."

Chris gave Justin a hard look.

"Um... hooked up...? With him?"

Chris closed his eyes and stifled a sigh. "No."

"Oh."

"Frankly, my real father isn't any more of a catch than Byron Kirkpatrick. He just wanted to bed a human girl, and he picked my Mom. She was fifteen, he was... well, a hell of a lot older. I'm just glad he took responsibility for me."

"Wait, so Byron Kirkpatrick's not your real Dad?"

"Nope. Mom thought he was, and didn't realize the truth until it was too late. He was already on the birth certificate. It's better that way, anyway. It helps my cover."

"Man...." JC shook his head. "That's... wow."

"Yup." Chris stood and stretched. "I'm hungry all of a sudden. Who wants pizza?"

"Me!" Justin yelled, already diving for the phone.

"You know," Lance said, "I thought you were gonna tell us you were gay."

Chris looked at him incredulously. "You thought I was gay?!"

"No! Well, not until you came in looking all scared and pathetic."

"Scared and pathetic?!"

Lance gulped and backed away. Chris could really be a scary little guy when he wanted to be. "Well... um... you were, a little...." He broke off, his cheeks flaming red.

"Shut up, Lance," Joey advised him, sotto voce, "before you really stick your foot in it."

Chris grinned suddenly. "Nah, I'm just kiddin'. Did I scare ya?"

Lance let out a sigh of relief and tried to play it off. "No."

"Sure." Chris winked at him, patting him on the shoulder. "Whatever. Hey, Justin, don't you dare put green peppers on that thing!"

Lance watched as Chris wandered over to Justin and tackled him, never mind that he was on the phone at the time.

"Not very king-like, is he?" Joey observed.

"Nope."

"And that's okay with me," JC added.

"You got that right," Joey agreed. Then he launched himself over to Chris and Justin, sending them both tumbling to the floor. "Wrestle war!"

And so they did.

End

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