The first time Chris tracks him down, JC is looking for a girl in a coffee bar in D.C.
The girl isn't for him. If she were, the looking would be easier, because he knows what he likes in a girl. After seeing hundreds of them line up for him at clubs and parties and exclusive little restaurants over the years, he's figured it out. The first thing JC looks for in a girl is a complete unwillingness to line up for him.
He doesn't really have a second thing. Not anymore. Maybe when he'd been younger, before he'd learned about the lining up thing, he'd had a certain taste for brunettes who liked to talk. Most girls like that would let him get away with sitting back and nodding at the salient points. But no longer, not on this break. Having a list of requirements only limits your chances of finding the sweetest spots in life. JC's promised himself he isn't going to do any limiting while he's away from the guys. He isn't going to do anything more complex than deciding what album to put on while he eats dinner.
Even that can become a hell of an involved decision if you don't watch yourself.
"You see her yet?" Kacy shouts, winding his way back from the bar to JC's couch.
"No. Two blondes, but both too young. Watch the, um, thing. Strap." He points to a messenger bag on the floor.
"Right, right." Kacy has the same sure feet he'd had as a kid, when dancing was something they'd done because it was a fun way to get a girl's attention. "The one on the left's for you."
The mug is full to the brim, dark and steaming. JC sips at it. It's laced with a shot and tastes like God. "Plus the one had long hair, and you said hers was short."
"It's not that short." The sofa, too cheap for the price of the drinks, swells like a wave under JC's thighs as Kacy sits down. "What, that blonde by the bar?"
"Mmm," JC says into his coffee. "Yeah. You're being all stalker, dude. It's not good."
So this is what normal people do: they spend their evenings in bars that get listed in weekly papers, wearing the same rumpled corporate drag they wore to work, looking for girls to walk through the door. It's kind of like being famous, except without the designer clothes. And without the photographers.
"That's not her. No, if you'd seen her? You wouldn't be saying that. It's like she's not someone who should be riding the Metro and eating takeout and shit." He unknots his tie with one hand. JC should learn how to do that. It's sexy, lazy, like something Cary Grant would do in a movie while making witty conversation.
"Everyone eats takeout." JC stares at the door, willing Kacy's girl to walk in. She'll be wearing black, he figures, because that's what you wear when you want to look cool but you don't want to look like you're trying too hard. Black clothes with red shoes, and the bell hanging above the door will ring as it swings open. People will look up, but she'll look past them to Kacy. Their eyes will meet and then they'll live happily and normally ever after.
"You're saying, what, takeout's the lowest common denominator? Takeout unites the proletariat and the privileged?"
"I'm saying," JC says, then doesn't, because the door opens for Chris Kirkpatrick. Who is wearing black, but not the red shoes, and doesn't make anyone turn away from their Americanos and cheesecake.
If Chris can find the right bar in a strange city, he can find the right couch in the press of people. The arm of the sofa creaks as he perches next to JC, the chain around his neck shining in the low light.
"So what's a nice boy like you--"
"--Hands the bartender three nails," JC says, sipping at his drink before passing it to Chris. "And a gun, and says--"
"'--Nothing, officer, but that can be arranged.' Kacy, my man," Chris says, leaning over to grab Kacy's hand.
"Hey, man. Jayce didn't say you were coming."
"He didn't know. We find it's easier that way. He's prettier when he's confused."
JC stares, which he knows isn't a good way to refute the confused comment, but he is. Very confused. "They have these little phones now that you carry around," he says. "People can call you from wherever, to say hey, ask what you're doing. That sort of thing."
"Yeah, but I'm old-fashioned. I like to annoy the fuck out of you in person." Chris slides down the arm of the couch and wedges his ass tight against JC's hip. "Cup's empty," he says, jiggling it in front of JC's face.
JC points over the mug, which is now dancing a mambo in midair. "Bar's over there."
Kacy smoothes a hand down the front of his shirt. "Here, I've got--"
"No, dude, sit. Your girl, remember?"
JC's first effort to bounce his way out of the sofa fails utterly. He tries again and gets two hands on his ass, pushing him upright. "Thanks," he mutters. The hand on his left pinches him.
He fights his way to the bar. No one moves out of his way. The bartender, who has a spider web tattooed between her collarbones, ignores him until guys who'd been waiting first and every last one of the girls have been taken care of.
This could be what all his Thursday nights are like, JC realizes, if he'd never gone to Orlando. Or if he'd never stayed in Orlando. He passes the bartender a twenty and wonders how long he can go without setting foot in Florida.
By the time he gets back, Chris and Kacy are debating which senators they'd be willing to blow if the prize is getting Bush out of the White House. JC wonders how normal people carry three hot mugs without scalding themselves. "Here. Take these before I drop them."
"How can you live in this town and know so little about where Ted Kennedy's dick has been?" Chris reaches for his mug and drinks too fast. "Whoa. No. This is not Irish coffee."
"It is so," JC says, rubbing the bridge of his nose. He's spent an entire week feeling grown-up and mature. He's sat at his grandparents' kitchen table and impressed his Aunt Carol with what a responsible, level-headed pop star he's turned out to be.
"No, no, and again, no. Where's the menu? Look at this: 'We use Jameson Irish Whiskey and our house blend of coffee, then sweeten it with coffee liqueur instead of sugar.' Bzzzt! No!"
"Chris, we're not in fucking Dublin--" JC says, then watches Kacy sit bolt upright.
"Fucking told you, right? Okay. Okay. Later, Jayce," he says, then makes a beeline for a curvy honey-blonde in a cluster of women. They have sleek hair and even sleeker bodies.
"That the girl?" Chris asks.
"Guess so." She's pretty. She doesn't look like someone who'd wait in line for anyone at all.
"Hope so. Did you drive here on your own?"
"Yeah." JC checks his watch. "Shit. I'm going to wake my grandparents, trying to sneak into the guestroom."
"No, you won't." Chris sets his cup down on a pile of magazines and stands. "I'm staying at the St. Regis. You're driving."
*
The first time JC realized the necklace Chris had been wearing for three months was really a set of clover nipple clamps linked around his throat, they were sprawled in a green room before a show in Grand Rapids.
Justin was pacing the room. He wasn't anxious in a worried way, not Justin, but anxious in a bored way. Every thirty seconds he paused to twist and stretch as if doing a yoga routine designed for the chronically impatient. Lance was reading a paperback with a silhouette of a woman on the cover while Joey slouched against him. Sometimes Joey tilted his head to read over Lance's shoulder; sometimes he stared at the GameBoy in his hands.
Chris was dozing in the oversized chair across the room with his legs splayed wide. That was how Chris sat when he wanted to let people know he was there. JC doubted that Chris even thought about anymore, as it seemed to be a habit left over from when Chris took up very little space and had to fight to keep people from thinking he was younger and dumber because of it.
Or maybe he'd started doing it for the way it pulled his pants tight across his crotch, because wow. That was nice. Way back in the dawn of time, way back during that first Lou-financed summer, JC'd waited for moments like this, when Chris came back from work pissed at the stupidity of all humanity, stripping off his sweat-ringed shirt and throwing himself onto the couch.
Even once he'd started seeing Chris's dick on a semi-regular basis, for a little casual touching on those nights when the girlfriends were out of town, or there weren't any girlfriends at all, or when it was really more appealing to touch someone you knew than someone you'd just met, it was still nice. Awfully nice. Kind of like a present you already knew about, but loved seeing tied up with ribbons under the Christmas tree.
JC thought about saying something about Christmas and presents and how that was what this reminded him of, this waiting for the stage to be ready before they could show up, when Chris threw a leg over the arm of the chair. The switch from nicely-on-display to blatantly-asking-for-it made JC look up.
Chris was laughing at him. Quietly, but still. Laughing at JC like, oh, like JC was the one all chilled and promising.
A knock on the door followed by the customary ten-second pause gave Joey time to lift his head from Lance's shoulder, yawning deeply. Chris didn't bother to bring his legs together when Tim stuck his head in the door. "Ready?"
"About time," Justin said, dashing out into the hall. JC, following at a more reasonable pace, grinned as Tim rolled his eyes and called out the five-minute warning to the crew.
JC had paused on the last landing before the curtains, bouncing to stretch his hamstrings, when Chris sidled up and ran a hand down JC's back. JC was proud of himself for not flinching.
Chris leaned in. "You're gonna give it to me after, aren't you."
"What?" JC shuddered. Dammit. He'd been doing so well, but the show. It was almost time. He could hear the siren of girls' screams not fifty yards away.
Chris pulled back, jogging backwards to the stage. "That's what I thought. See ya," he said, then disappeared into the lights.
If it had messed with his performance, that would have been one thing. If he'd slurred thorough his verses, or stumbled, or something, then Justin would've glared and Lance would have got tight-lipped, and they both would've pounced on Chris after the encore, demanding to know why he just had to fuck with JC.
But no. The show went fine. No, it went better then fine; it went great, because when JC was worked up he hit his notes and his marks just so, with that extra kick that made the screams swell from the pit just beyond his feet.
When Justin whirled past and caught his eye, grinning at him like a kid at a carnival, JC realized it was time he faced facts: he was predictable. Chris had played him. It sucked.
Chris really sucked, which was something JC was going to explain to him in great detail on their way out of town.
Then it was over, and Tim was slapping his shoulder, shouting, "On fire, baby, that was great," as JC sprinted for the bus. Behind his eyelids, the last batch of pyro still burned green.
He ran flat-out, taking the steps two at a time, but he still wasn't the quickest. Chris was waiting for him.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa." Chris sat on the dinette table, legs swinging. "Slow it up. The audience has gone home to their warm little beds, and now it's time for all good JCs to turn back into pumpkins."
"It was the carriage. The carriage was really a pumpkin." JC said, kneeing Chris's legs apart. He took a kick to the shins, but didn't give up.
Chris was squirming. JC couldn't seem to get a grip on his wrists. "Really? Hey, let's break for a minute here and go look it up."
"Let's not." Chris's arms remained evasive, but his mouth was easy to find. All you had to do was follow the words, and then use your lips to stop them from spilling out.
Chris was warm and open for one long, deceptive moment, before he wrenched his mouth away. JC, calling on years of experience and observation, went for his neck instead. Yes, those really were nipple clamps. JC wondered where Chris had got them, and why he'd decided they'd make good jewelry.
"You know what I hear? I hear most people are kind of tired after putting on a show like that."
JC bit Chris's ear.
"Ow! Look, we've got a long way to go tonight, to, um, Boston--"
"Buffalo," JC said, shoving his hand down the front of Chris's pants, where it was hot and damp and like Christmas. Well, kind of. But sexier.
"--Buffalo, and it's going to be a long five hundred miles if someone doesn't learn to keep his teeth--"
JC bit Chris's neck.
"--right the fuck there! Yeah. Right, right," Chris said as JC twisted his hand into Chris's boxers, too, because really, he'd waited long enough to get to Chris's cock.
Justin clambered onto the bus. "Man! We were on out there, I'm saying-- whoa! Fuck! No, wait, no fucking-- oh, Jesus." Then Justin either left again or suddenly lost his voice and crawled into the corner, because JC didn't hear anything else except Chris panting in his ear like a man dying and desperate to see God.
Chris came fast. He might have come faster if he hadn't distracted JC by trying to list the states on the highway between Michigan and New York. When he tried to list them alphabetically, JC got desperate, yanking down his zipper and begging Chris to please shut up, please suck him, please suck him for the entire tedious ride to Boston or Buffalo because JC didn't care where they were going so long as he could fuck Chris's mouth on the way.
JC didn't last long enough for them to get on the interstate.
When it was over and Chris had gone to the bathroom to clean up, calling JC a filthy boy and a rude-ass bandmate who didn't respect the cleanliness of their living space, JC collapsed on the couch and threw a pillow over his head.
His cell phone rang. JC snuck it under the pillow. "Yeah?"
"Now, don't get me wrong," Lance said, sounding cool and reasonable. It was such a nice sound that JC decided to start staring at Lance's crotch instead of Chris's. "I really like seeing Justin all speechless and flustered. Especially the speechless part. But next time you traumatize him, a little warning, please? I was going to work tonight, not baby-sit."
"It wasn't, you know. It wasn't like I planned it."
"Maybe you didn't. But Chris sure did."
"Okay, so, explain this to me," JC said, taking the pillow off his head and flipping onto his back. It was hard to think when he couldn't get enough air. "I'm a pretty typical guy. I'm cool, I go with things, I ride them out--"
"Jayce, you always say that."
"--so why me? I'm, you know, normal. How come things like this keep happening to me?"
"You always say that, too." Lance sighed, and JC heard Justin murmur some nonsense from nearby, like he'd fallen asleep with his head in Lance's lap. "Look, I'm not an expert on what's normal. Probably because I've lived with you all too long. But Jayce? Whatever normal is, you're not it. Normal guys don't dance in a big arena and then blow a teen idol in the back of a tour bus."
"He blew me," JC said, picking at his nails.
"Whatever. I'm saying that you need to accept that you're kind of off. But that's okay, because it kind of works for you."
Chris was singing Willie Nelson over the buzz of his electric razor. "Um. Have you noticed Chris's necklace?" JC asked.
"You mean the clamps?"
"Yes! Yeah. Um. How long's he been wearing them?"
"Around his neck? Since January. Someplace else, and you'd know better than me," Lance said in a voice like wet silk. He'd picked that up around the same time he'd learned to blush only when it suited him.
"No," JC muttered, scratching at his hair. He was gross. Chris needed to hurry up and finish. "I only saw them tonight. Why do you think he's got them?"
"I guess he likes wearing them. Not around his neck, I mean. Or maybe he likes other people wearing them, so he keeps them around. I don't want to rule out some other crazy reason that's beyond my understanding of Chris, which is possible and everything, but I'd guess it's something to do with one or the other."
Lance made sex toys sound so reasonable. "I guess," JC said, wondering if there was a good way to ask Lance if he'd ever worn them. Not Chris's, because really. But someone else's.
Lance murmured something away from the phone. "Hey. The prince is stirring, so I've got to haul his ass to bed. You going to be okay?"
JC told him he would, and promised to let Lance know in advance when he was going to freak out Justin with naked dicks, and closed his eyes to wait for Chris to come out of the bathroom. But when he woke up there was a blanket around his hips and daylight coming through the windows, and he could hear Chris snoring in the back of the bus.
He checked into his room and shampooed his hair twice before heading down to brunch. Lance was sitting at a table alone, eating pink cream cheese on a bagel. "Hey. I asked Chris. And they've got croissants with cheese in the middle the way you like."
"Oh," JC said, taking two. "Asked Chris what?"
"About the clamps. He says they're mostly for him, but he's flexible. Metaphorically speaking."
The croissants were delicious and buttery and flaked apart at his touch. JC choked on a mouthful. "You didn't just ask him. You just asked him?"
Lance licked orange juice off his upper lip. "Yup. He came in with Joey to get coffee."
Clearly, Lance was totally wrong about the normal thing. Just because he'd gone to regular high school, he thought he knew what the world was like. "You cannot just ask someone if they're into. You know. That."
"Sure you can. How else are you going to find out? And if he didn't want you to ask, then he wouldn't have been wearing them like that, right?"
"Well. Okay, but. I didn't ask." The coffee was terrible. JC stirred in another sugar.
"I'm telling you anyway," Lance said, licking cheese off his ring finger. "He said he'd wear them for you, by the way."
JC paid very close attention to his breakfast and tried not to think about anything until sound check.
*
Not thinking about it until sound check turned into not thinking about it for the rest of the week. From there it was easy to ignore it for another month. Before JC knew it, it was May and the tour was over. He wouldn't have to not think about sleeping with Chris for a good long while, because they'd all decided they didn't even want to see each other for about that long.
Just because you loved your family didn't mean you wanted to live at home forever.
JC thought he'd have longer before it was back to hotel rooms and room service. But here he is, sitting on the edge of Chris's king-sized bed on the seventh floor, watching the ice melt in his untasted scotch while Chris takes a quick shower. The RV, Chris had argued, stripping down while JC watched, just didn't have water pressure, and for what he was paying for this room he was going to enjoy it.
The last thing Chris had taken off was the necklace he'd made of the clamps, tossing them on the nightstand. They would have slithered off onto the floor if JC hadn't caught them. He sits and plays with them while the water runs. First he pinches the skin between his fingers, waiting until he can feel his pulse over the pain. Then he switches to the other hand, then he switches back.
The shower cuts off. Still naked, Chris walks into the room, toweling his hair dry.
"Got a question for you, if you can put those down for a sec. Are we still not having sex? Because if we're not, you coming back with me and waiting on the bed is a huge-ass mixed signal."
"That's kind of premeditated, don't you think?" The clamps hurt a lot more coming off than going on. If you'd asked JC yesterday, he would have said that wasn't possible. It was kind of like touring with four people who knew everything about you, then stopping cold.
"Well." Chris drapes the towel over the footboard. "We could go back to you pretending you're clueless, if it makes you feel better. But I think it's a fucking waste of time."
JC's on vacation, on the longest vacation of his life. He's got nothing but time. "Come here."
"Where here?" Chris shifts his weight from one foot to the other. "I'm right in front of you. I don't think I can get more here than this."
"Come here," JC says. That's better. Much better. He sounds like he means it this time.
He gets a better response, too. Or maybe Chris is just getting cold standing at the foot of the bed. He steps around to face JC, standing close enough for their knees to touch. "Do I get somewhere to sit?"
"You're fine," JC says, because yes, Chris is. Very fine, and JC is an asshole for not admitting it well before this. "I'm sorry about that. For, really, for all of it."
Frowning, Chris presses the back of his hand against JC's forehead. JC shivers. Touching is really underrated. It's underappreciated by just about everyone. "This is your official warning: you're no longer making sense. If you ever did."
"I meant about being clueless. It was mostly on purpose. And I want you," JC says, spreading his legs. He runs his hands down Chris's back, pulling him in. Chris's hand slides into his hair and doesn't let go.
JC tilts his head to kiss Chris. Perfect. This sneaking in from below, this sneaking under the radar, is JC's best idea tonight. Chris even stands still for it, which Chris doesn't often do. JC's mouth catches Chris's lower lip where it tastes like peppermint. JC thinks about Chris getting ready for him, thinks about him standing in front of the mirror and thinking there, that's where JC's going to touch me. His brain fills with white noise.
No one kisses anymore, either. People kiss, but not like they want to be there. They kiss like their lives are on film and there'll be a vote at the end of the hour.
For someone who is so good at living in it, Chris hates reality.
"Um," JC says against Chris's tongue, which is taking small tastes here and there. "You could turn off the big light."
"I sure could," Chris says.
JC breaks away and glares at him. Grinning, Chris nips at his ear.
"The light," JC tries again, shoving at Chris's shoulders. "C'mon. I'll. Work with me, here."
Chris makes a grab for JC's crotch, but JC, who's been watching for something like this, cups his hands over his zipper. "Okay, fine," Chris says. "But when people ask, I'm telling them what a diva you are in bed."
Chris hits the switch and the room mellows to the dim warmth of the bedside light. It really is better. If JC doesn't look too closely and uses his imagination, now he can pretend this is a bedroom, and the beige bed is really his own, and the paintings on the wall are things he's discovered by trolling through galleries on Saturday mornings.
JC toes off his socks. "And the curtains, too?"
Chris glances over his shoulder. "They look closed to me."
"Yeah, I was thinking. Open would be better."
The look Chris gives him reminds him that he's not so jaded after all, and really a good long way from being spoiled, because God. That look, like there's something Chris needs to have but it's something he's willing to wait for is a look JC's seen on another person's face maybe a handful of times. And half of those times were with Chris.
With the screech of metal on plastic, Chris throws the curtains wide. The room's high enough that they can see the lights of the monuments sparkling on the Potomac. High enough, and JC's getting higher, and he laughs because he hasn't even had a performance or enough to drink to blame it on. It's all in his own head.
"Crazy boy," Chris says. "What do you do with naked people who don't realize you're loony?"
"I gave 'em up. Too much trouble, trying to explain." For once, he doesn't have to fight with the buttons of his cuffs. His shirt wants to come off as much as he wants it gone.
Chris crawls onto the bed, on hands and knees with feral eyes, moving in and taking over. Leaning against the headboard, JC waits for him, slowly rubbing his dick through his jeans. Time to wake up. Time to be entirely here, not wanting to be anywhere else.
JC moves his hand to make room for Chris's ass in his lap. His own hand's overrated, way outclassed compared to this. Chris is heavy and never stops moving, hitching forward and back in a way that must feel incredible to judge by the look on his face. Mouthing at Chris's shoulders, at his throat, at every line and bend he can reach, JC watches Chris's cock grow hard and flushed.
If Chris looks good naked and on top of him, he feels even better. JC's half-dressed and starting to overheat, but the pinch of his jeans is just too good to bring to an end. He licks his own hand and reaches for Chris's dick.
JC jacks Chris until he's grunting for it, his voice sharp as a blade against JC's throat. Then JC pins Chris's cock against his own and thrusts up.
"Fuck! You fuck, oh shit." Chris is panting, so JC bears down as best he can from this angle. He should spread Chris out and crawl on top. He should lay down under him. He should drag him over to the window and dare everyone to look up. Chris is snarling now through clenched teeth. "Hard. Harder."
Now JC's panting, his hand slipping through the sweat on Chris's back. "How hard? Tell me."
Suddenly Chris hunches forward. "Whatever. Anything, okay? Whatever, stop making me ask, don't be so fucking clueless."
That's... that's not fair. Chris doesn't ever fight fair, the bastard. The bastard. Before he can talk himself out of it, JC has one hand on Chris's throat and the other around Chris's dick and shoves him away until he falls flat on his back.
"Shut up," JC snarls, watching with gold-hot pleasure as Chris shivers and does. It's simple. It's so simple.
Chris, who fights everything, who fights everyone, doesn't fight at all. Clear-eyed and calm, there's one layer of JC that understands what this really is. One layer knows if he blinks, Chris can put his ass on the floor.
The rest of him doesn't care.
He goes for Chris's throat where it's hot and the skin's bitter with old cologne, but so thin he can track the flow of blood underneath. It becomes very important to get Chris's hands over his head and pinned to the sheets, very important to know Chris can't go anywhere JC doesn't want him to go.
He can't go anywhere that's beyond JC's reach.
Chris is strong, but JC is stubborn. He works Chris's legs apart until he can kneel between them and shove a knee against the root of Chris's dick. Chris grinds down, working for the pressure, until his arms are stretched out and he's straining against JC's grip.
"That what you wanted?" JC grits out.
"Baby, how can you even ask?" Chris bucks and twists, eyes closing. "You don't know a thing about me, a thing about you--"
JC squeezes Chris's wrists together until he yelps. He stares up at JC.
"Don't move your hands," JC says. "Hold onto the headboard if you have to."
The clamps are lying in a pile on the sheets, pretty and shiny and innocuous. JC can sympathize. He picks them up and pours them onto Chris's belly, one cold link at a time.
"Who'd you buy them for?" JC asks. He bends his head to lick at Chris's nipples. They're already hard.
"What? Um, me. For me. That's nice, nice," Chris says.
"No. I meant who were you fucking when you bought them? Tell me." They're growing red between JC's teeth. Blood's rushing in to where it hurts. While he bites down, JC turns his head.
Chris is twisting like he can dig himself into the mattress. "Doesn't matter. I'm fucking you now. You, you, oh," he says, sighing deeply. "Now, okay?"
Okay. JC pinches a nipple between his fingers, fumbling for one end of the clamps. It slides on easy, spit-slick as the skin is. It's letting it go, letting it pinch tight that's hard for JC to do.
Chris goes still. His eyes are screwed shut, and he's breathing in little gulps of air through his mouth.
"Got to do the other one," JC says. Chris nods his head.
This time JC watches Chris's face. It's almost like watching Chris come, but better, because it lasts and lasts, and because there's nothing to distract JC. Not even his own pleasure. Then it's done, they're both on, and Chris's is face is still so... blissful.
Chris is humming high in his throat. When JC tilts his head to lick at the flesh caught in the metal, Chris starts whining.
"You're so good at this," JC whispers. The words aren't enough. He wants to sing praises to Chris, to write epic poems to him. But the best he can do right now is keep petting him, running his hands down Chris's body, reminding him to breathe and to stay here, stay present.
He runs a finger up Chris's cock, which has grown soft without attention. It twitches under his hand. So does Chris's entire body, though his hands never move in their invisible bonds. JC keeps playing with his cock, squeezing and stroking and being clumsy on purpose, all the while licking at Chris's nipples.
Chris moves like he doesn't know which he should be concentrating on: where it hurts or where it feels good. Though maybe they're the same thing, JC realizes, riding out every shudder that travels through Chris.
A last kiss to where it hurts the most and then JC starts to work his way down. He mouths Chris's belly, his hips, and the curls around his dick. When he's straddling Chris's thighs, he opens up and takes that cock into his mouth.
Chris shouts, no words, just sound. JC pulls back long enough to murmur that he's good, so good, that it's all good. But he can't leave Chris's cock alone for long, can't leave him wanting when he's like this.
And then there's the fact that JC wants it.
He takes Chris as deep as he can, then forces himself to go even deeper. It's perfect. It's lights behind his eyes, it's the last pyro going off at the end of a performance. If JC reaches up, he can grab the chain between the clamps, he can tug on it and he can suck on the cock in his mouth and really, it's more than he can stand to think about.
Under his breath, Chris is chanting, "C, Jesus, C." Then his hips snap, and he holds his breath, and JC's pulling on the clamps when Chris breaks in his mouth. Then it's all he can do to swallow, to keep up, to remember that he's got to breathe, too.
No, he doesn't. He doesn't need anything but this.
Chris is still panting, eyes closed, as JC inches up to lie beside him. He brushes his fingers over Chris's lips. Chris bites them.
"Off," Chris says. "Get them off, now."
JC frowns. "You okay?"
"Peachy keen, I promise," Chris says. "But right now, they just fucking hurt. Off, off, off."
JC bites his lip and gently, very gently, brushes his hand over one nipple.
Chris jumps.
"Shit, sorry," JC says, then stops fumbling and gets a grip on the clamp, releasing it as slowly as he can manage.
It's still not slow enough. Chris is gritting his teeth, whining deep in his chest. JC kisses him gently, trying to be a distraction, and gets rid of the other one, too.
JC's tired. He's so tired he doesn't even want to come, he just wants to fall asleep on Chris. He closes his eyes, tucked against Chris's hip, still idly petting him.
"Oh, fuck me," Chris says, shuddering.
"Not tonight, dear," JC says, which earns a faint laugh from Chris. There's a sheet and a blanket somewhere at the end of the bed, but he doesn't even want to move that much.
Chris reaches over and pats JC's belly. "Go to sleep, babe. There's always tomorrow, for whatever. I'll buy breakfast."
JC sleeps. But when he wakes up to dawn at the window and Chris dead to the world, sleeping on the edge of the bed, he can't stay.
*
The second time Chris tracks him down, JC is drinking his way through every beer on tap at a brewpub in Seattle.
He's been minding his own business, getting drunk with Carter and Mike and Carlos. Except Carter and Mike and Carlos are now across the room, chatting up four girls who look like they'd come in for happy hour and stayed for dinner, for dessert, and are now working their way through a pitcher of lager for a nightcap, while JC sits alone in their booth and studies a long row of tiny empty glasses. He closes his eyes to see if it will make his headache go away. When it doesn't, he opens them and finds Chris sitting across the table.
JC blinks.
"Beer," Chris says.
"Um." JC looks at the considerable wealth of evidence between them. "Yes."
"You couldn't make up your mind, so you had them bring you the kiddie size of everything?"
"It's called the 'select sampler,'" JC says. "It was good. Is good. I forget what the waiter said this last one was, though." Very carefully, because his hands aren't as steady as they could be, JC constructs the Olympic logo on the table top out of condensation rings.
Chris narrows his eyes. It's a pretty sexy look on him, JC thinks. Pretty and sexy. He's wearing the clamps as a necklace again; the chain is peeking out of his collar. "You're drunk."
"I am not drunk."
"You're drunk."
"I've had ten--" JC pauses to swallow the last of the bourbon stout. "I've had eleven four ounce beers. That's forty-four ounces, which is less than forty-eight ounces, which is less than four real-sized beers, and if I can still multiply, I'm not drunk. At all."
"You're buzzed."
"I'm kind of dizzy," JC concedes, staring at the gray river rippling under the gray sky beyond the window.
"That redhead's not bad," Chris says. He steals one of JC's remaining beers and watches the group up at the bar. Mike's got his hand up the one girl's skirt in a way that he probably thinks is subtle. It's not. "She's also not a real redhead, but who is these days? Look at her checking her watch. She's this close to ditching her friends."
"Go talk to her. Maybe she wants to get out of here."
"Nah." Chris makes complicated gestures at a waiter across the room. The waiter nods like he understands perfectly. "See, that ditching your friends thing? That's not me. You, now, you're pretty good at it."
"I'm sorry," JC says. He needs another beer.
"Yeah, no kidding. I'll forgive you, though, because of what I said about not ditching friends."
JC eyes Chris, suspicious. The waiter shows up with two drafts.
"Thanks, man," Chris says. He slides a glass across the table. "Here. Drinking alone in public's pretty goddamned pathetic."
"That's me. I'm pathetic." JC likes that he can be honest with himself.
Chris drinks, loud and obnoxious. JC just knows he's doing it to make a point, but the problem with Chris's points is that he pisses you off so badly you don't listen. "You're sorry; you're pathetic. I think we've established that. Now how about saying something that you mean?"
"I've been working on some stuff. A couple songs. Nothing serious, but since I put the studio in the house and everything."
For a moment, Chris loses some of his sharpness. They've never argued over music. "That's cool. I was hoping you would, but you said no writing over the break."
"I said no writing. I also said no fucking around with you." He's gone past dizzy to that point where every sip is making his stomach turn. He can't seem to just put the glass down and leave it alone. "Guess I'm not so good at listening to myself."
"I guess I should be glad you only told yourself and not, say, Kurt Loder, People magazine, and the entire White House press corps that sex with me is on your list of shitty habits you need to break."
Frowning, JC says, "I don't think the White House press corps would really care."
"Not my point, and you know it. Jesus." Chris leans forward. "You can't even think about it, can you? Does it really freak you out that bad?"
"Sex? No, Chris, I'm not afraid of sex. I like sex. Like, I really like it a lot, kind of like every other guy I know with a functioning dick."
"Catch up, Jayce. We're not talking about sex anymore." Sighing, Chris slumps down until he's at the edge of the bench. He looks around the bar. No one's looking back. "This is the part where, for my own well-being and self-respect, I should slam my glass down on the table and stomp out of here, not looking back."
"Um. Please don't?" Hunched over like that, JC doesn't think Chris could make any sudden moves without whacking his head on the side of the booth. "Have you been watching cable movies or something?"
Chris made a face. "Justin used up a bazillion international minutes to tell me this story about Trace and this girl, and this guy she was dating before she met Trace, and maybe I paid too much attention." When JC shakes his head, Chris says, "It wasn't my fault! I was stuck in traffic and didn't have anything else to listen to."
"The radio--"
"Everything on the radio sucks. Don't you know anything about music?"
The lighting in this place is lousy, but JC looks at Chris. Really looks at him, and not his mental picture of what Chris should look like.
"Let me buy you that breakfast," JC says. "Okay? We'll have breakfast and then it'll be morning."
Chris shakes his head. "I've got a flight in three hours."
"But you," JC says. Chris just got here. He doesn't need to leave. "It won't take long."
"Nah." This time Chris really does get up from the table, no slamming or stomping involved. "I wanted to see you, so I saw you, but now I've got things. So do you. Later," Chris says, and walks out the door.
If his life were a movie, JC would throw a wad of cash onto the table and run out to the parking lot.
He flags down the waiter instead.
*
When JC gets home, he makes uses of the marvel that is the modern grocery delivery service and doesn't leave his house for fifteen days. There are plenty of other modern marvels to keep him entertained. Television's kind of boring after the first few days, because that's when the shows start to repeat on MTV and TLC and you have to wait until next week for new episodes. But there's his studio, and when his lack of creativity pisses him off, there's the internet, and when that starts to look as dull as the repeats on cable, there's books.
JC's got lots of books he hasn't read. He gets them as presents, and then doesn't want to haul them around the country. They sit in neat lines on his shelves, staring at him.
He's staring back when his cell rings. The number's not one he recognizes, but really. His life's been kind of dull lately, so he answers anyway.
"In the future, no matter how drunk I get, no matter how bad I might want to get laid after I get to that level of drunk, remind me to never, ever try to get at your dick," Lance says.
"Hey. How are you?" He should give Lance the book on the third shelf that he'd started to read yesterday, but put down because it was too nonfiction for a Saturday afternoon. "And what if you're not drunk and just, I don't know, really horny and I happen to be there?"
"Lock me in a room with some hand lotion, I don't care. Just don't touch me." Lance slams a door so hard JC winces on the other end of the line. "Maybe let me have my phone, too, because there's this guy I met last week, and he... you know what? Nevermind. You don't deserve details. And I'm fine, but you're not."
"I'm fine! I've been chilling, messing around with some stuff, and I think it's really coming together."
"All right. You're fine. So why'd you have to go and break Chris?"
"Chris is fine, too," JC says, because he just saw a picture of him online yesterday. He was in a golfcart. Chris is never not fine when he's in a golfcart.
"He came to my house and made me dinner and sat for seven hours straight in front of my stereo, headphones on, not saying a word. He was here for a week and I didn't see him talk to Justin once. My dog ignored me to follow him around the house."
"He made dinner?"
"Twice."
"Oh." Oh, God. "Lance, I didn't want to hurt him. That's the whole problem. I didn't want to hurt him but I did and then I did it again, except in a different way."
"I know. I just said that. I'm telling you to go fix it."
JC takes a book from the coffee table and starts turning it over in his hands, top to bottom, front to back. When he holds it this way, the words make sense; when he looks it this way, they're just black marks on paper. "No, you don't. I know you're trying to help, man, but whatever you think you know, you don't."
"After five years of being subtle about it, Chris got you to the point where you were so rough with him in bed you made him scream, which was exactly what he wanted, and also what you wanted, but then you decided you shouldn't want it after all."
JC sets the book down, very slowly. "That thing about me never sleeping with you? You don't have to worry about it."
"I love you, too."
"I never wanted to hurt him," JC murmurs. Lance should be here, in the room with him. Chris should be here, too. So should Joey, who never makes him think about shit like this, and Justin, who knows what JC's thinking before he does. He wants to live at home again.
"Jayce." Lance sounds hoarse, like he's been arguing for hours. "There's a difference between the type of hurt that you want and the kind of pain that you don't. Okay? Please."
"Do you know where he went?" JC asks.
*
The third time, it's JC who tracks down Chris in a diner in Orlando. It wasn't as hard as JC thought it would be, even after Lance confessed he didn't have the foggiest idea of where Chris was, other than somewhere in Florida. So JC called Joey and asked him to call Chris to find out where he was without actually coming out and asking.
Joey could do things like that without making you suspect he was doing anything at all. Plus he only called JC a pussy twice, first when JC called to explain what he wanted, and the second time when he called JC back with directions.
The diner's made of chrome and neon, both a little tarnished. Chris is in the last booth on the right, alone, eating eggs and hash browns and what must be a triple serving of bacon.
JC sits down and steals his coffee.
"The fu-- oh." Chris frowns at the cup in JC's hands, like he's not sure what it is, or why JC's here to take it.
"Hey." JC takes a drink. He winces. "This isn't, ah. Very good."
"Then go somewhere else." With his fork, Chris breaks the bacon into his eggs and takes a huge bite.
"See, the thing is, nothing's really been good lately. I haven't been able to write shit. Or I mean I have been able to write, but it's all been shit. People can tell you that it sounds okay to them, that you're doing fine, and all. Someone even told me that there's different kinds of hurting and that I'm getting them twisted up in each other."
Chris doesn't stop eating, but now he's looking at JC. That's something, JC thinks.
"But the problem with people telling you things is that maybe you understand the what the words mean, but you don't believe it. Not inside of your head, not really. Like how people can tell you that you're on break from your life, and maybe you agree that you needed it, but it's not going to convince you it's okay to write songs for only one voice."
Chris swallows, laying his fork across his plate. "What I learned on my summer vacation, by Josh Chasez? Can I have my coffee back?"
"Um. No," JC says.
"No. Okay. Sure. You keep the coffee you don't like." Chris leans across the aisle to get the ketchup from another table, but JC grabs his arm and pulls him back.
"I'll buy you another coffee. I'm buying you breakfast, too. And what I'm trying to say is that I wanted to see you, but there's nothing else I've got to do. Because this is my vacation, and what I want most is to follow you around buying you breakfasts because you're what I like in a guy."
Chris rather pointedly looks down at JC's hand, at where it's holding onto his arm, but JC doesn't let go. Then Chris stares at him. It's all JC can do not to blink.
"I'm going to need that arm. Mostly for when I beat the shit out of Lance."
JC grins. "Lance didn't do anything to you. I did."
"And you're happy about that? Hey! Hey, hey, hey, keep your hands to yourself and didn't your mother ever tell you--" Chris squirms, but JC's got him by his necklace, which also doubles as a fairly good collar. He undoes the clamps with both hands.
"I think I should hang onto these," JC says, putting them around his own neck. They're warm and heavy. "They could be, you know. Dangerous. If they fell into the wrong hands."
"Like I'd get involved with some neurotic asshole with the wrong hands. Jesus. You've got issues, Jayce. Big ones." Chris tucks two twenties under the sugar bowl. "Let's go. You can pay tomorrow."
Chris leads the way out the door, JC following him through the lunch crowd. "Tomorrow I get to pick the place," JC says.