monday.

He was on the back of a white horse, plunging hell-bent-for-leather down a thin dirt-track road, with the horse's mane and the reins tangled in a death's grip in his hands. Music surrounded him, and other riders, each of them easy and free with their seat and matching the pace. The song was wordless, sweet and aching, twining into his ears and wrapping around his throat, and he opened his mouth to say something and chirped like a cell phone.

Hazily, Lance reached one hand out of the nest of covers and patted around on the table, the dream still threatening to grab him and throw him back down into its grasp. "Hnff?" he said, finally, once he managed to locate his phone and flip it open one-handed.

"Lance." It was JC, sounding concerned. "Lance, it's Monday morning, and we're all waiting on you down at the studio. Are you okay?"

"Fuck," Lance said, and sat up, running his hand through his hair. He snuck a glance at the clock. 10:13. "Yeah. Fuck. Alarm must not have gone off. I was having a wicked dream, too." He could hear the Mississippi creeping back into his voice, the way it always did in the morning. "Lemme just toss myself in the shower and I'll be down as soon as possible. Y'all record without me until I get there."

He took the fastest shower he'd ever taken, trying to wash the last remnants of the dream down the drain along with the shampoo, and pulled on the first clean clothes that came to hand. By the time he got down to the studio, JC and Justin were arguing again, though this time it only looked like a mild stormfront instead of Hurricane Pop Diva. Joey tossed Lance a bottle of water and made vague "they've been at it forever" hand motions. Lance just sat down at one of the stools to watch the carnage. It was almost educational, as long as you weren't in the direct line of fire.

A pair of arms twined around his neck from behind. "Get lucky last night?" Chris whispered into Lance's ear, and Lance jumped, feeling his face flame red.

"Nah," he said quickly. "Just overslept, is all. Weird dreams." Chris's arms were warm against him, and Lance imagined that he could feel the barely-tamed life quivering just beneath Chris's skin.

"Yeah," Chris said. It was quiet and rueful. "Tell me about it."

Just then, JC lost his temper, and his voice spiked viciously. JC might have been the quiet one, but he was also the one of them with the most classically-trained voice, and when he felt like yelling, everyone in a five-mile radius could hear it. "--have to get this finished by Thursday, dammit, or we might not get another chance, so get your head out of your ass and let's just get it right this time --"

Chris's arms tightened around Lance's neck, and the comfortable warmth turned to desert sunlight at high noon. "You told them." His voice was deathly still.

Joey automatically moved to lean against the door. Chris had always had a habit of getting fed up and walking out halfway through a confrontation whenever he felt ganged up on, and they'd all learned the hard way that any Serious Conversation that was more than one-on-one should also have someone blocking the exits. Lance closed his eyes, briefly cursed JC, and tried not to move. Chris was clinging to him like poison ivy.

"Yeah," Lance said. He barely recognized his own controlled tone. "You were the one who made the rule that promises didn't have to be kept if it would mean worse problems for the group."

Chris had cashed in on that many times in the past, cheerfully breaking confidences right and left to haul shit out into the open instead of letting it fester. Somehow they had always all kept going to him anyway, because when he did it, it was always necessary, and it always worked out better in the end. Confronted by that, Chris faltered for a second before he let go of Lance and turned around blindly to head for the door; Joey moved just an inch to intercept, and Chris stopped with his fists clenching at his side.

"Dammit, you fuckers," he said, closer to tears than anger. Justin and JC had stopped arguing the minute that JC had blurted out what they all knew. There was a minute of silence, until Justin stepped across the room to first punch Chris in the shoulder and then fold him into a long-limbed and lanky embrace.

"You're the fucker." Justin sounded as though he couldn't decide between laughter and screaming. "When were you going to tell us? Didn't think we'd believe you?"

Chris's shoulders were tense as Justin hugged him. Lance could tell that he was barely resisting pulling away. "Didn't think you'd believe me," he said, roughly. "Didn't want you involved. I told Lance over there because I was under the mistaken impression that he could keep a secret."

"Yeah, like you haven't told secrets hundreds of times before," Joey said. Once Chris let you hug him, he generally wasn't going to bolt anymore, so Joey pushed himself away from the door and came over to hug Chris from the other direction. JC came over after a minute and threw his arms around all three of them, and Lance hesitated for half a second before completing the circle.

They stayed like that for a long minute, and Joey finally said, "It's okay, Chris. We've got a plan."

Chris's shoulders tensed just as they'd relaxed. He pulled back from the group hug; they all let him go, scattering across the studio like pool balls after the break but still never really out of arm's reach of at least one other. "I said I don't want you guys involved in this, dammit."

"And I said that I wasn't going to let it drop, and I'm not, dammit," Lance said, matching Chris's tone exactly. "Joey and I found out some stuff last night. We've got a plan." He looked over at JC and Justin, who hadn't heard the details yet. "I, uh. The guy I was talking to said that you're not supposed to know what's going on, in case the Lady tries to make you tell. But he says it'll work."

Chris's eyes flashed with anger. "You told someone other than the guys?" That, Lance knew, would be the ultimate betrayal to someone who guarded his privacy and his dignity so closely as Chris did, and Lance winced. Maybe Justin and JC could handle the first part of the plan, maybe Joey could, because if Chris was this pissed off at him --

Just as Lance was about to crack, Joey grabbed Chris by the shoulders. He turned Chris roughly to face him, taking the heat of that anger off of Lance. "Chris," Joey said through gritted teeth, with the first warning flare of temper, "you are one of my best friends in the world, and you are being a selfish, self-absorbed idiot. Did you even stop to think that dumping all of that crap on Lance's shoulders and then expecting him not to do something about it was the shittiest thing you could have done? Did you honestly think that he wasn't going to tell us? Did you honestly think --"

Justin didn't even bother to wait for Joey to finish; he stalked over and slammed the palm of one of his hands into Chris's shoulder to turn him even more. It was as smooth a taking over from Joey as though they'd rehearsed it. Justin had been on the receiving end of group lectures often enough, Lance supposed, to know his cue when he heard it. "Asshole," Justin said. "Lance was probably up all night looking for some way to save your sorry ass, you shut the hell up right the fuck now and apologize to him."

Chris broke off, closing his eyes and breathing deeply. "All right," he finally said. "All right." He opened his eyes again and looked at Lance. He was still angry, but it was banked. "I'm sorry I yelled at you."

"It's okay," Lance said, and took a deep breath. "It's okay."

Chris took another deep breath and then looked back at JC, who was standing mute and horrified that he had been the one to slip and say something. "Come on," Chris said, and his tone was as casual as he could make it. "We've got an album to finish up."

-- * --

They sent Chris to pick up lunch so that Lance could fill Justin and JC in on the plan. "Don't think that I don't know what you're all doing," Chris warned, but went anyway. Lance thought that maybe, just maybe, he was relieved to have someone else in on it, to have someone else around to worry about it so that he didn't have to.

"That's, um." Justin stopped himself, and then tilted his head and looked up at Lance. "That's going to work?"

"Kinrowan said it would." Lance wondered briefly when his life had become a fantasy novel. Maybe Joseph Campbell would pay for the rights. Or wasn't he dead?

"It might work," JC said. "You'll have to write it all out for us. What we're going to have to do."

Lance felt an unnatural surge of relief. "You're in?" He looked at Justin, whose eyebrows were still drawn together dubiously. "Both of you?"

"What kind of a stupid-ass question is that?" Justin said. "I'm gonna pretend I didn't hear that question, or else I might have to be offended."

"Told you they'd be in," Joey said, and nodded.

They stayed in the studio well past dinnertime, and only gave up for the night when Joey put his foot down. "Sorry, guys, but if I sing one more note, I'm going to sprain my vocal cords." He made vague gestures towards the door. "Tomorrow morning will be soon enough."

Lance caught a hold of Chris's arm as the rest of them were packing up to leave. His fingers curled around Chris's wrist, pressing into the soft skin there, and he could feel Chris's pulse running wild and steady beneath his fingertips. It felt comfortable, like holding his hands over a fire to warm them. "Come and stay with me tonight."

"Why?" Chris asked, bluntly.

What a wonderful question. "Because I don't think that you should be alone much this week," he said, meeting Chris's eyes. "You don't have to pay any attention to me if you don't want to, but I want you to come and stay at my place anyway."

After a moment of thought, Chris nodded. "All right." Lance thought that he detected a note of relief in Chris's voice. "Let me just run back to my place and pick up some clothes and stuff. I'll meet you there."

JC came up behind Lance as Chris headed out of the studio. Together, they watched the door swing shut behind him. "Will you be able to do it?"

Lance was asking himself that very question. "Your guess is as good as mine. You know how stubborn he can get."

JC rested a hand on Lance's arm, and Lance caught himself comparing JC's touch to Chris's. JC's hands were softer, more delicate; his touch contained none of Chris's tense sliding energy, only a calm and quiet pool of warmth. "You should tell him, Lance," JC said. It was one of his rare moments of total presence, and Lance always treasured those. "Ahead of time. If he finds out later --"

"Then he'll find out later," Lance said, as evenly as he could, and bit his lip. "I don't want to risk it. You know how stubborn he can get. If he decides --"

"You're going to be the one who has to live with it," JC said, after a minute, and shook his head. "I just don't want either of you to get hurt."

Lance turned away, only to see Justin watching them, concern in his own eyes. "We'll all just be happy enough to be around for the argument," Lance said, and made his own escape as quickly as possible.

He stopped on the way to pick up takeout -- no use in either of them trying to bumble around in the kitchen when Orlando sported hundreds of places willing to feed them -- but still managed to beat Chris back to his place. Setting out plates, he wondered whether or not Chris had changed his mind about staying. That fear slipped away when his front door opened; the doorbell hadn't gone off, which meant that Chris had, at some point, grabbed the spare key from Joey, or maybe from Justin. House keys were communal property when they were all in the same city.

"In the kitchen," Lance called, and a moment later, Chris wandered in. He tucked his hands into his jeans and leaned against the doorjamb, giving Lance his best impenetrable stare, and Lance just jerked a thumb at the table. "Chinese. I even remembered to order from the place that you like."

"Good," Chris said. It was the kind of cheerful nasty that only Chris could pull off so well. "Because the place you usually order from tastes like ass."

Lance hadn't expected the opening as quickly as it arose. He pondered letting it go, picking up something later on, but he went for it anyway. "Please. I don't need to know the fact that you are intimately acquainted with the taste of ass in order to make a comparison."

"Out of all of us, one would think that you would be more likely to know it than I would," Chris said. It was the old Chris again, sharp as knives and twice as deadly. He watched Lance, eyes dark, as though poised at that moment in the gulf between staying and going.

Lance only busied himself with the lo mein carton, feigning a nonchalance that he did not feel and keeping his voice as casual as possible. Chris was the only one who would tease Lance for his sexual preferences. His theory was that if Lance wasn't comfortable enough with his own sexuality to take some teasing about it, he sure as hell shouldn't be sucking cock to begin with. Then again, Chris did the same to the rest of the group, so Lance didn't feel all that special.

Lance tried to never respond. He wanted to never gave Chris the satisfaction of knowing when barbs hit home and when they were just another variation on a song he'd been hearing his entire life, but that policy was going to have to change soon and there was no reason not to start now. "Actually," he said, turning around to raise one eyebrow at Chris, "I've found that the taste varies so widely that there's no use in making comparisons. Now, are you laying claim to any of this lo mein, or is it all mine?"

Chris recoiled, just a little. "That's not how this game is supposed to work," he said, after a minute. "I'm supposed to make snide and sexually suggestive comments at you, and you're supposed to get flustered and refuse to say anything."

"Yeah, I know," Lance said, and held out the lo mein carton. "I'm kinda tired, though, so can we just pretend that we went through it?"

As though he was hypnotized, Chris plucked the white cardboard from between Lance's fingers. He looked as though he'd been cast adrift. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

Lance had been the only one to ever bother to learn to eat with chopsticks; he plucked a pair out of the paper bag the food had arrived in and tucked them under his plate. "Maybe I'm just tired of you spending so much energy mocking me for sleeping with men when you're really talking about yourself," he said, and headed for the living room without waiting to see if Chris followed. "Is there anything good on HBO tonight?"

Chris did follow. "Hey," he said, halfway between confusion and irritation. "What's with the Cool Hand Lance act?"

"News flash, Chris." Lance swallowed hard and let the words come. "You could only harass me about liking cock until I was about nineteen or so. I got a thicker skin round about then. And don't think that I don't know you only did it because a lot of other people would do the same thing if they ever figured it out, and don't think that I don't know that you wanted to make sure I could handle it when I had to, but you know what? I was the one who sang on national TV at the Grammys this year wearing a t-shirt from the most notorious gay bar in Manhattan, and the world didn't end, so I think you can lay off the smartass comments for one night."

"Oh," Chris said, and fell quiet.

Lance let the moment stretch out before he said something. "I always knew what you were doing. Well. After Joey explained it to me."

"Explained what?" Chris's eyebrows drew together.

"The way that you figure out the things that can get under our skin the worst, and then spend so much time poking us about it, so that it comes from someone who loves us instead of from someone who hates us. So we can get used to it. Because we're going to get hit with it anyway, and we have to learn how to handle it."

"Oh," Chris said again. After a minute, he made a little thoughtful noise. "Joey said that?"

Lance picked his way mechanically through the lo mein with his chopsticks, pulling out the water chestnuts and transfering them to Chris's plate. "Yeah," he said, his mouth full. "One night in Germany when you'd made me cry again, and I was swearing up and down that I was going to quit the band and go home and become an accountant. Joey dragged me out of the bathroom and told me about how you'd lit into him the previous week for being the 'slut' and he was ready to kill you, and then he got the same shit from an interviewer the next day, and finally realized what you were doing."

"Jesus," Chris said, and dropped his head into his hands. "You all really think I'm that much of a shit?"

"Actually, we all think it's really kind of sweet, in a demented Chris kind of fashion." Lance glanced up and then sighed, a bit. "Chris. It's not like we don't know where it comes from. When all of this started, you were the only one of us who was tough enough to stand it. So you set out to make all of us just as tough as you were. We all wanted to strangle you every now and then, but we got over it. You're not a shit, you're just too overprotective for your own good."

Chris looked up after a minute. "I just worry sometimes. That I fucked you guys up. That I fucked you guys up to prevent you from getting fucked up by someone else, and I didn't have to."

"We were already fucked up." Lance bestowed another water chestnut on Chris's plate. "All of us, in one way or another. You too. Maybe you the most. But you were the realist. The one who saw through all the shit and found what needed to be done and did it. The one who showed the rest of us what the hell needed to be done and how to do it. We forgave you an awful lot. We always have."

"You're the realist now," Chris said. "Mr. Hollywood. You're the one who handles shit. You gotta promise that -- that starting next week, you'll pay attention to stuff and take care of the guys. If I can't."

From Justin, or JC, or hell, even from Joey, that would have been his cue to leap in with reassurances that everything was going to be all right. Lance didn't, though. Chris would know better, and Chris deserved more. "I'm not giving up on the idea that you're getting out of this, Chris," he said, and then met Chris's eyes firmly. "But if I'm left as the only person in this band with his head screwed on straight, I'll do it right."

"Jesus," Chris repeated after a long minute. "We're writing my eulogy here."

That should have been Lance's cue as well, but it wasn't in the script. "Must be nice to be able to hear it ahead of time." He pushed the last of his lo mein around his plate with the tip of his chopsticks, and finally set his plate down on the endtable. No matter how casual he sounded, he could barely breathe through the weight of it all on his chest.

Silence again, and then Chris broke it. "You brought me here so that you could take me to bed, didn't you." It was said in the same detached, dispassionate tone that Chris had always used to hide behind when something was so enormous, so important that he didn't trust himself not to fall apart halfway through it.

It had taken Lance a long, long time to tell that tone apart from disinterest. He should have known better than to think that Chris wouldn't be able to tell what he was planning. Nobody could ever hide anything from Chris, no matter how much they thought they were being subtle. He only wished he knew if it was working or not. "Yes," he said, and then nodded at Chris's plate. "You'd better finish that. You know it never tastes right when you reheat it the next day."

Chris's plate clicked against the table as he put it down, just a shade too quickly. "I'm not hungry," he said, and stood.

Neither of them said another word as they climbed the stairs to Lance's bedroom. Chris suddenly lost his momentum the minute they stepped inside and he turned to look back at Lance. Lance shut the door behind himself and stepped right into Chris's personal space. Chris tipped his head up, obviously fighting the urge to step back and away.

"Shh," Lance said, lifting his hand to cup the side of Chris's face, and brushed his thumb along Chris's lips. Chris shifted his weight, one foot to the other, and Lance replaced his thumb with his mouth. Chris's mouth was a furnace, hot and ravenous, and it took a long sweet forever before Lance realized that his hands were cupping Chris's face and Chris's hands were twined in the hem of his shirt.

"Less with the clothes, more with the naked," Chris said, and pulled Lance's shirt off. Lance heard the desperation unfolding into those words and fumbled with the buttons of Chris's jeans as quickly as he could, before Chris could realize what he was doing.

Chris was beautiful when Lance finally got him naked, all whipcord angles blending into soft curves, and then Chris was kissing him again, suddenly the one in charge of the situation. Lance let him control the kiss for a few minutes, knowing that Chris had to think that he was at least partially in the lead. To be honest, he wouldn't have minded letting Chris tip him backwards, have his way, ravish Lance until they couldn't see straight -- but not tonight. Tonight, Lance knew, one of them had to stay in control, and so he pulled his head back just enough to meet Chris's eyes and knocked him over onto the bed.

Chris's eyes widened as Lance leaned over him. For half a moment it looked as though he was planning on objecting. Lance silenced him before he could say another word by the simple but effective method of another of those dizzying kisses. He ran his hands down Chris's sides, and just the brush of palm against curve lit the fire under Lance's skin that always seemed to burn when he touched Chris. But this time it was so, so much hotter.

He knew that he could lose himself against Chris's mouth, against Chris's skin. He knew that the thrumming beat of Chris-energy, of Chris-fire, would snake through the air between them and try to seduce Lance. Hypnotize him. Control him. He knew, logically, that it was a side-effect of the touch of Faerie on Chris's skin. Knew suddenly that Chris had never once, in all the years of flirting casually with all of them, ever seriously made overtures, for that very reason. Chris had never wanted to wonder if someone wanted him for him, instead of because of that reflected glory -- much less any of his friends. Lance could taste, in that reckless no-holds-barred kiss, just how long Chris had been wanting him, wanting them all, never once daring to reach.

But dammit, Lance wasn't without a few tricks of his own.

He nuzzled his way down Chris's chest, open-mouth kisses, wet and loose, and kept his hands on Chris's elbows, as if to say stay, stay, let me touch. Chris was hard -- hell, he was hard, harder than he'd ever been in his life and trying to ignore it and keep control when his body was crying Chris, Chris, Chris. He wrapped one hand around Chris's cock, took a deep breath, and swirled his tongue around Chris's head. Chris tasted like apples, apples of all things, and his skin was warm and soft and perfect.

"Lance," Chris hissed. Lance liked the sound of his name on Chris's lips like that, liked knowing that Chris was there and concentrating and aware. He opened his mouth and opened his throat and took Chris in, as slowly as he could. Chris's hips rocked underneath his fingers; Chris's breath was loose and ragged, full in his throat, halfway between moan and sob.

Lance ran his fingers over Chris's hipbones. Shhh, that touch said, or he tried to make it say. I know what I'm doing. You don't have to worry about it this time. Just let go. And maybe Chris heard him, maybe Chris could feel it in the press of skin against skin, because he rolled his shoulders and let his head fall back against the pillow and twined his fingers roughly in the covers to avoid pulling at Lance's hair.

They knew each other better than any first-time lovers had any right to. Lance knew that Chris liked it rough and fast, hard enough to leave him feeling well-fucked afterwards, bruised and shaken and stung and alive in his own skin. He reached blindly for Chris's face, the inside crease of his knuckles scraping across the faint prick of Chris's beard-stubble. Chris caught one of Lance's fingers between his teeth, then suckled it between his lips, nuzzling roughly. Lance could feel his toes curling.

Chris's cock was warm and solid in his mouth, and he let his throat close around the head. Who needed air to breathe? He could survive for hours on the sounds that Chris was making alone. He drew his fingers back from Chris's mouth, spit-slicked and well-tongued, and reached between Chris's legs to rub them along the crease of Chris's ass before sliding one finger inside.

"Fuck," Chris said, on a half-moan. "Fuck, Lance, I don't need -- I just want --" One hand unknotted itself from the covers and lifted as though in illustration of the sentence that Chris could not complete, but fell back to the bed loosely when Lance swallowed again. "Fuck," Chris repeated, and that time it was more of a prayer.

Lance knew what Chris was asking, and pulled his head back, swirling his tongue along the underside of Chris's cock, in order to look up and meet Chris's eyes. He made a soft inquisitive sound, and Chris gasped, then laughed, at the vibrations this sent through him. "Bedside -- table," Chris said, and laughed again. It was a good laugh, the kind that Lance remembered from long nights in Germany, high on too much candy and never having anywhere near enough freedom except the kind that they made for himself.

He pulled back entirely, rising to his knees and reaching over Chris; Chris ran his hands along Lance's chest, flexing fingers against Lance's skin like a cat kneading. One ankle hooked over Lance's calf, and Chris's hips rose, roughly, demandingly. "Just gimme a minute," Lance muttered, and fumbled to open the condom package between his teeth, fumbled one-handed to roll it onto him. The pinch of latex rocked through his own belly, and he knew that he wasn't going to last long.

He knelt between Chris's knees and ran one damp hand over his cock in preparation. Chris twined one knee around Lance's hips, pushing himself up onto his elbows and staring Lance directly in the eye. He nudged Chris's knees a little further apart, and slid two fingers inside of Chris to test the waters. Chris let out a sound that edged towards a whine and shimmied, hips going up, strong thighs closing around Lance's waist, and if that wasn't a direct order Lance had never seen one before.

When he finally slid inside, Chris was hot and slick and tight beneath him, and Lance dropped his head to Chris's shoulder, mouthing at Chris's collarbone. He could taste the salt-tang weight of Chris on his tongue. Chris's head fell backwards, just brushing the pillow, and his hips rocked again. "Lance," Chris said; "fuck, Lance, don't wait, want you hard, want you now," and Lance drew back and slid forward, and Chris moaned.

"Hold on to me," he said, setting the pace just like he knew that Chris wanted, and oh, God, it was just like coming home, even though he'd never been there before. Chris rolled his hips, and Lance thrust into him, and at some point their mouths and tongues found each other again.

Chris was whining into Lance's mouth, a rhythmic stuttering keeping the beat, and Lance couldn't breathe through the haze. Somewhere in the middle of all of it he'd slid his hand between their bodies, closed it around Chris's cock, rubbing hard and slick with sweat. Lance reined in his control as hard as he could, but Chris was so hot, so fucking hot and tight and perfect, and it was a relief when Chris came hard on a single keening high note, because it meant that he didn't have to hold back anymore. He angled his hips more sharply, and threw back his head and bit his lip. After what felt like forever of perfection, the orgasm slid up from the backs of his knees, white-blood fire, and slammed him just behind the eyes and oh, he didn't care if he was screaming.

It took him a long time to be able to breathe again. "I was a long time coming," Chris eventually said against Lance's skin, his voice thick and ruddy with sleep. "I'll be a long time gone."

Lance knew that Chris was quoting something, but couldn't drag the next lines out of his mind. He spread a hand over Chris's shoulder, and found himself listening for Chris's heartbeat.

He wondered which of them would break first, in the morning.

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