*Disclaimer - I do not own any of the members of 'N Sync (nor would I ever want to) they belong to their respective owners (probably themselves). I do, however, own all fictional characters such as Devon, Mike, Ashley, etc. Plagiarism is, as always, against the law. Penalties will be enforced. Thank you.

**Spoiler - this is yet another Christmas story.. I can't seem to get the darn holiday out of my head, especially with their Christmas album.. *shrugging*

Devon sat in her office, her eyes burning from lack of sleep and working in front of a computer for the past two hours. It was almost two in the morning and she had yet to go home for the night, but a new shipment of merchandise had come in at the last minute today and she wasn't about to ask her employees to stay this late to help her take inventory. So she was here doing it herself, like she had many nights in the past. The phone rang shrilly, making her jump about a foot off the chair she was sitting on. She laughed shaking her head as she grabbed the phone and held it to her ear.

"Empire, open til midnight this is Devon."

"What are you still doing there?!"

"I'm not here at the moment, but if you leave your name, number and a brief message after the beep, I'll get back to you as soon as physically possible. Beep."

"You don't fool me Devon."

"Didn't think I could."

"What are you still doing at work? It's almost two in the morning there. You need to get some sleep."

"And you're one to talk Chris. Look, we had a huge shipment come in today and I needed to take inventory. I've already promised myself that I would sleep late in the morning so you don't have to worry about me not getting any sleep."

"Yeah, right. I always worry about you, and you know that."

"That's not my fault. I told you not to you silly boy!"

"Devon, I swear, you're gonna be the death of me."

"I guess that's what I get for choosing the gramps of the bunch. I should've went after Justin instead."

"Yeah, and gotten ten to twenty and only cause you batted a single eyelash at him."

"I knew there was a reason I didn't. Oh well. What's going on? Why are you calling this late? You should be getting some sleep too, y'know."

"I know, but I was missing you, so I thought I'd give you a call. I tried the house, but there was no answer, so I knew you were there."

"You've very perceptive."

"That's what they tell me, anyway. How're you doing doll face?"

"Um, doll face? I'm all right, kinda tired, but that's nothing unusual. Is there snow where you are?"

"Yeah, which reminds me of something. I have your Christmas present in my hot little hand right now."

"You big tease! What is it?"

"If I told you, it wouldn't be a surprise, now would it?"

"Whatever. Will you at least give me a hint?"

"Okay, it's small."

"That doesn't help any, Christopher."

"You said a hint, that was a hint."

"Not a very good one. What is that racket?"

"JC and Justin, they're playing a video game. Justin's winning and JC yelling that he's only winning cause he's a cheater."

"I should have known. Don't they do anything other than play those games?"

"Um, well, it's not like we can go out and see a movie or something."

"Oh right. I keep forgetting that you guys are, like, famous and stuff."

"When are you going home?"

"When I get all this work done. When are you going home?"

"Funny. You know I'll be home in a couple of weeks."

"An eternity from now. I know."

"I gotta go now, sunshine. Go home and get some sleep, will ya?"

"What do I get out of the deal if I do?"

"How about a full night's sleep for a change?"

"I'll think about it. Take care, hon."

"I will. I miss you."

"I miss you, too."

"I'll talk to you later."

"You better."

"I love you."

"I love you, too, Chris."

"Bye."

"Hasta." Devon smiled as she hung up the phone. Her conversations with Chris were always interesting and a bit warped, but she loved the guy with all her heart. He had changed her and made her realize that work wasn't her whole life. He had taught her how to have fun again, something that she was grateful for. The phone rang again and Devon sighed picking it up.

"Empire, open til midnight. This is Devon."

"I thought I told you to go home!" Chris scolded with laughter.

"ARGH! Chris, you told me that two minutes ago. Go play with your little friends and let me do my work!" she yelled laughing into the phone.

"I will, eventually. Go home now."

"I will as soon as I finish this. I promise."

"Okay. Sweet dreams sunshine."

"You too, Pippy."

"How many times have I told you not to call me that?"

"About as many as I've told you not to call me sunshine."

"So I guess we're even, huh?"

"You could say that."

"I'll talk to you soon."

"I know." Devon laughed and hung up again. One thing she would always say about Chris was that he was so damn infuriating. She shook her head with a smirk on her face, trying to figure out how to get him back for not giving her a better hint on the gift he had gotten her, not to mention on giving her hell for being at work, when he was at work at the moment, too. Double standards, you had to love them. Devon sighed, getting back to work. Hopefully she would have this stuff done within the next hour.

"Chris, I honestly don't know why she puts up with you." JC laughed shaking his head as he made a face, pressing buttons on the control of the video game he and Justin were still playing.

"It's because she finds me irresistible. All women do, you know." Chris dead panned with a straight face.

"Whatever you say, grandpa." Justin smirked over at JC, who was losing sorely. "Give it up, man. You're never gonna beat me at this game."

"I never give up, blondie." JC grinned, his eyes never leaving the television screen. "Damn it, Justin. Stop doing that!" he cried as his character disappeared from the screen.

"Do what?" Justin inquired innocently with a raised eyebrow.

"The innocent routine doesn't work with me, J. I know you too well." JC shook his head tossing the control to the floor as he got to his feet. "How's Devon doing?"

"She's at work. She's tired and she's plotting her revenge on me." Chris grinned as he leaned back against the headboard of the hotel bed he planned on sleeping in that night.

"How do you know?" JC inquired, his eyes sparkling with mischief.

"I know her. Right about now, she ranting and raving about me telling her to stop working when I'm working right now. Call her and ask her." Chris laughed. Devon was a trip sometimes and easy to rile, which he loved doing. She was stunning when she was angry, so he couldn't help but get her just a little angry every once in a while.

"I'm beat, man. See you guys in the morning." JC mumbled, letting out a yawn as he headed for the door so he could go to his hotel room where Joe had already passed out. Chris glanced at his watch and smiled. He would wait another ten minutes before calling again.

Devon was going to love her Christmas gift, he knew that without having to think about it. Planning the whole thing had been the hardest, and then getting their management to agree to it, not to mention the rest of the guys to promise to keep silent. This is going to knock her socks off. Chris sighed closing his eyes as he listen to Justin flip through the channels on the tv. He stopped briefly on MTV and watched a video before moving on after a few minutes.

"Justin, find a station and stick with it. You're giving me a headache." Chris mumbled, suddenly becoming tired. It had been a long day filled with interviews and photo shoots, then sound check, practice and finally the show which had ended only two hours ago. He grinned to himself when he thought about him getting on in years. Maybe this should be a Menudo gig. Justin hit the lights and flopped onto his bed, closest to the tv. He had chosen a late night talk show that boasted of having George Carlin, Hanson, and Steve Martin as their guests for the evening.

Chris groaned loudly. "Do we have to watch this?"

"Do you have any other bright ideas? It's the middle of the night, so there's not much of a selection." Justin sighed folding his arms under his head.

"Check Comedy Central, maybe South Park is on or something." Chris replied opening his eyes again as he picked up his cellular phone. Justin grabbed the remote and started flipping channels again as Chris dialed the phone number he knew by heart. Three rings later, someone picked up.

"Empire open til midnight. This is the boogie man."

"Okay, so what happened to my girlfriend?" Chris laughed softly.

"She ran away and left all this work here for me to do. Thanks, by the way, I really needed all this stuff."

"Please go home and get some sleep."

He heard a sigh. "Okay Chris, I'll go now. I promise."

"Thank you."

"Yeah." Devon said and hung up.

Chris smiled as he hung up the phone and set it on the bedside table. Soft snoring came from the bed three feet away and Chris groaned silently covering his face with a pillow. This was why he hated rooming with Justin. The kid snored, sometimes so loudly that Chris's teeth rattled in his skull. Chris closed his eyes and did his best to ignore Justin and his snores.

"Chris, come on, man. Get up, we're running late." a voice called, bringing Chris out of his dreams.

"Five more minutes." he mumbled sleepily.

"No, get up. We all overslept by almost an hour. The reporter is waiting for us downstairs and she's not happy. Now get up!" the same voice scolded yanking the blankets off him. Chris opened one eye, to see JC glaring down at him. Justin was griping to himself as he rushed around the room, gathering the clothes he was wearing for the day.

"I'm up warden. God." Chris sighed sitting up, rubbing the sleep from his face. JC left the room through the adjoining door to make sure that Lance and Joe were up and ready to go downstairs to the hotel lobby to meet with the interviewer over a late breakfast. Soon all five men boarded an elevator with a couple of bodyguards and headed downstairs. Steven, their road manager, was talking with a woman who looked to be in her late twenties, gesturing with his hands as he told her a story about the road.

"Morning everyone. Sorry we're late." JC sighed with a weary smile.

"Don't worry about it. I always seem to be running late for everything these days. I'm Deborah Jenkins, but please, call me Deb." the woman stated shaking each of the men's hands before they turned and walked to the hotel's restaurant. As soon as they were seated, she launched into her interview.

"You guys are blowing up the charts with your hits 'Tearing Up My Heart' and 'I Want You Back', how does it feel to finally be recognized in your home country?" she inquired setting a mini tape recorder on the table.

"It's great, we were hoping that the US would embrace us like Europe did." Justin smiled and took a sip of his Starbuck's coffee.

"We couldn't have asked for a warmer reception." Lance added with a nod.

"Okay, every girl on the continent wants to know, do you all have girls waiting back home for you?" Deb questioned with a gleam in her eye.

"We date, yes. A few of us have one person that we see on a regular basis." Lance replied, evading a definitive answer to the question.

"I have a girlfriend, yes." Chris stated firmly, giving a defiant look at their road manager who just sighed, shaking his head with a hint of humor.

"I do, too. And so does JC." Joe stated folding his arms across his chest.

"Is that true, JC?" Deb raised an eyebrow at him.

"Yeah, I have a girlfriend. She's great." JC replied with a nod and a tight smile.

"Okay, tell us about your girls." Deb leaned back in her chair, holding a cup of coffee in her hands.

"I'm sorry, but that's our private life and I don't want the whole world to know who my girlfriend is so she can get harassed." Chris shook his head. "But I will say this much, she's a wonderful girl."

"Same goes for me." JC nodded tiredly. Deb looked over at Joe, who just shook his head, silently agreeing with the others.

"All right, just one more question about your ladies. Do they go on tour with you?" she pressed, unwilling to let the subject drop.

"Sometimes they do, when they have time. They have their own thing, so their lives don't revolve around us. My girlfriend is a full time college student, and also works full time at our fan club, not to mention spends a lot of time with her friends. Chris's girlfriend runs her own business and takes some night classes. And Joe's girlfriend is a full time college student and works part time at a hospital. So they definitely have their own lives." JC replied with a sigh. He really didn't like divulging information about any of their girlfriends. Chris poured himself another cup of coffee, giving Deb an intent look.

"So, they don't spend too much time with you?"

"They spend about as much time with us as we do with them. It's hard, yeah, but they understand that this is our job and they accept that." Chris shrugged as their orders were set down in front of them.

"Do they ever get upset with all the female attention you get?"

"Not really, no. It comes with being a singer and they know that. At times it can be aggravating when you're trying to spend some down time with each other and fans interrupt, but they take it in stride because they know." JC replied giving Steven a pleading look.

"Last question about this, I promise. What's the most romantic thing you've ever done for your girls?"

"It hasn't happened yet." Chris sighed. "And that's the last question we're answering about that subject. Sorry."

"Justin," Deb turned to the youngest man at the table. "How does it feel to be the sex symbol of the group."

"I don't really look at myself as a sex symbol. I mean, I'm seventeen years old and part of this group. Without the rest of the guys, I wouldn't be who I am today. I'm no sex symbol, just a kid who's doing what he always dreamed of doing." Justin shrugged.

"Is there any kind of resentment about how many of the fans think you're the hottest?"

"Never that. Never that. No, we all realize that people are gonna find certain people attractive. I don't know how many times I've had fans come up to me and ask me to tell me they think Joe, or Lance, or Chris, or JC that they're totally fine and all that. We all have our individual fans." Justin laughed as Chris rubbed his head in a nuggie.

"Isn't he just so sweat to acknowledge that fact?" Chris demanded with laughter.

"What do you guys like to do in your off time?"

"Hang out with family and friends." Chris answered immediately.

"That and sleep." JC laughed.

"Play basketball." Justin pouted slightly.

"Hang out, go jet skiing or something." Lance replied.

"Anything." Joe shrugged.

The interview lasted another fifteen minutes before the guys had to head off to a photo shoot that was going to be taking place out in a park. The magazine the interview had been for, wanted to take a spread of shots of them in the snow, so they had agreed, only because they were going to have a little bit of fun with it. 'N Sync was going to drag everyone into a knock down, drag out, no holds barred snowball fight.

Devon, clad in a pair of ratty old jeans and a faded t-shirt, roamed around her apartment looking for the Christmas gifts she had hidden over the past six months. She sighed heavily as the doorbell rang.

"Leave it to me to hide them so well I can't find them again." she grumbled to herself as she wandered over to the door. Her cousin Mike and friend Ashley stood there with grins on their faces, holding packages in their arms. Today was December twenty-third, and the three of them had planned to have an early Christmas party considering that all three were heading home for the actual day.

"Hey, come on in." Devon smiled holding the door open.

"You look grumpy, what's going on?" Mike questioned as she dropped her gifts onto the floor in front of the Christmas tree in the corner.

"I hid some of the things I bought for people so well, I can't find the damn things." Devon grumbled walking over to the couch.

"Did you check the closets?" Ashley inquired taking off her light weight jacket. Devon nodded rolling her eyes.

"Last time you did this, you found everything in a box in the trunk of your car." Mike reminded with a soft giggle.

"Well hell, that's the one place I haven't looked yet. I'll be right back." Devon sighed and headed outside just as the phone rang. Mike leaned over the couch and picked up the phone.

"Fire Pit, Satan speaking." she smiled impishly into the phone.

"Uh, well hi there Satan, I'm looking for my girlfriend. She isn't with you by any chance, is she?"

"Hi Chris, Dev will be right back. She had to go get something out of her car. How's everything with you guys."

"Not too bad, Mike. Though we all miss you three."

"Believe me, we miss you guys too." Mike laughed as Ashley waved to the phone. "Ashley says hey."

"Hi Ash! Anyway, JC, no. I'm waiting to talk to Devon. JC.. Erk.. No! Fine, just a second, all right? Mike, JC's practically beating the poop outta me cause he wants to talk to you. Do you have a few minutes?"

"I think I can spare one or two."

"She doesn't want to talk to you, man. Says you're a bonehead for not calling sooner." Chris laughed as JC grabbed the phone. "Hi little bird."

"Hi Josh. You guys having fun without us?"

"Something like that. You're going home for Christmas, right?"

"Yeah, dad said I had to come home. He missed me too much to let me stay in Orlando, so I guess I'll be getting the white Christmas I've been bitching about for the past month."

"Good, because if you weren't I was going to fly you up here. I miss you."

"I miss you too. But it's good to hear your voice."

"I know what you.... OUCH! Chris, for God's sake, knock it off!"

Mike burst out laughing as she heard JC and Chris go back and forth about who should be talking with whom. The front door opened and Devon walked in with a triumphant grin on her face, holding a box under one arm.

"Josh, sweetie, Devon just walked in so give the phone back to Chris."

"All right. I'll call you later, little bird."

"You had better. I barely get to talk to you anymore."

"I promise and I love you."

"I love you too." Mike smiled then handed the phone over to the awaiting Devon.

"'Lo?"

"Hi sunshine."

"Hi Pippy, what's going on today?"

"Not a whole lot. We finally have the afternoon off."

"That's good, you better catch up on your sleep. After all, you are the old man of the group."

"You're cute, and yeah, that's what I was planning. I just wanted to tell you that your gift is gonna show up today, right about now I think."

"Yeah?" Devon inquired as the doorbell rang. She walked over to the door, the phone resting between her shoulder and her ear. She opened the door and saw a man in a uniform holding a medium sized box and an electronic clipboard. She signed the clipboard and took the box with a smile and shut the door. "Okay, it's here. You want me to open it now?"

"Yeah."

"All right. Hold on a second." Devon laughed setting the box down on the floor. She then began the tedious job of trying to open a box that had been sealed shut with tape so badly she thought she'd never get the flaps open. "You put enough tape on the damn thing!"

"I know," Chris laughed. "You didn't think I would make it easy for you, did ya?"

"I guess not, okay. I give up. What's the winter jacket for? I'm in Florida. There's no snow here."

"Look in the pockets."

"Okay...." Devon made a face searching the pockets of the jacket. "Which one? There's like ten."

"I don't remember which one. Just check them all."

Devon found an envelope in one and opened it with curiosity. Inside was a card from the guys and she laughed reading each of the notes they had written. "All I found is a card."

"So far, you mean."

"So far? There's more?"

"Keep checking."

"I feel like I'm hunting for Good Will or something." Devon snorted as she kept searching pockets. She felt something velvet in one of the pockets and pulled it out. Her breath caught in her throat as she opened the long rectangular box. Inside was a beautiful silver necklace with a heart of diamonds on the chain. "My God, this is beautiful. Thank you, Chris."

"That's not all. Keep looking." Chris laughed.

"What? You're kidding me. This was enough, Pippy."

"Just keep looking."

"Okay, if you say so...." Devon shook her head as Mike and Ashley looked on with amusement. Mike unpacked the bags she had brought with her and Ashley set the gifts under the tree, shaking her head. It would be interesting to see what the whole pocket thing was about. Devon finally came across another envelope and she opened it. Inside was a plane ticket for Vermont, a place she had always wanted to visit. "Vermont? A plane ticket to Vermont?"

"You leave on the twenty-ninth."

"Chris, all of this...it's too much."

"No it's not. I love you and wanted to do something special for you this year. A driver will pick you up at the airport in Vermont and drive you to the bed and breakfast you'll be staying at."

"I've learned not to argue with you. Thank you Chris. I love everything."

"I knew you would. Now, you get back to your little party and I'll talk to you later."

"All right. Love you."

"Love you, too." Chris said before hanging up. Devon pressed a button on the phone and tossed it onto the couch.

"What was that all about?" Ashley inquired standing in front of the tree. Devon looked up at her with a smile.

"He gave me a necklace, a jacket, and a plane ticket to Vermont." she answered, a dreamy smile on her face.

"Leave it to Chris to be extravagant." Mike snorted with a casual toss of her hand.

"You knew the whole time what he was planning!" she exclaimed launching herself at her younger cousin.

"Well, how else did you think he found out about Vermont?" Mike laughed throwing her hands up into the air.

"You brat! And you wouldn't even give me a clue!" Devon laughed hugging her. Ashley looked on with utter amusement.

Chris smiled as he sat down on the couch in the tour bus, and picked up a controller for the video game he and Lance were about to play. He loved shocking Devon like that.

"What's going on fellas?" Justin questioned walking into the small room.

"Not much. Chris just earned points today." Lance replied shrugging his shoulders.

"Yeah? How's that?" Justin asked, grabbing a magazine to flip through.

"Just what he did for Devon as a Christmas gift." Lance smiled giving Chris a sideways glance. Justin nodded as he sat down in a chair.

"You're going to Vermont next week, right?" Justin questioned distractedly.

"Yeah, I leave the twenty-eighth." Chris nodded, pushing buttons to make his character beat on Lance's character. The week that he had painstakingly planned for him and Devon was going to be one of the best weeks in his life. They were going to be totally alone, so they could spend some quality time together and he could barely wait. He missed her too much sometimes, but this was going to make up for the amount of time he had been gone.

This page hosted by Get your own Free Home Page