tuesday.

But it was all okay in the morning, or at least as close to okay as it could possibly get when one had just had mind-blowing sex with one of one's best friends, with whom one had never had mind-blowing sex before. Which was to say, it was weird, but it was an acceptable level of weird. Neither of them could look the other in the eye for the first twenty minutes after waking up, but that could have been the fact that Lance had forgotten to set the coffee-timer the night before and they had to wait for a fresh pot.

"Hey," Chris finally said, once the coffee had yanked him up the evolutionary ladder, and Lance looked up.

"Yeah?" he asked, fearing that Chris was gearing up for a classic and world-famous Kirkpatrick Freakout, but all Chris did was reach across the table and rest his hand over Lance's. The familiar thrumming intensity quickened through that contact. Lance welcomed it.

Chris smiled, just a quick flash of off-kilter humor, and ducked his head. "Thanks," he said, and Lance knew that it was all going to be okay.

The only thing that JC was ever on time for was studio time; Chris and Lance were the last to arrive. Joey's eyes asked Lance a question the minute they walked in, and Lance tried to answer it as well as he could. It became a moot point when Chris trailed in behind him, pointed one finger at Lance, and loudly announced, "If any of you have issues with the fact that Lance and I are fucking, get over them now so that we don't accidentally freak you out when you walk in on us necking in the broom closet on break."

The guys just looked on, surprise bringing on disbelief. Lance held his breath to see what the reaction would be; they'd talked about it, but nobody could ever tell how someone would react until something happened. But then Justin just rolled his eyes and said, "As if Lance would ever stoop so low as to make out in a broom closet, how tacky can you get," and Joey let out a big relieved belly-whoop of laughter, and JC's ears were bright red.

"Guys," JC tried, after a minute of Chris attempting to stick a wet finger in Justin's ear and Joey leaning against the wall still laughing, "guys? Album? Studio? Singing? You know, that thing where you open your mouth and music comes out?"

"Shut up, C," Joey managed through his laughter, "I want to hear about Lance and Chris getting it on." Lance imagined that his face was probably bright red.

"Well, I don't!" JC held up his hands, and his own laughter was bubbling up from the base of his stomach with the tinge of incipient hysteria. "I don't need that mental image, man, I really don't --"

And that was when Lance knew that it really was going to be all right, at least for a little while, and tried not to think about the rest of the week.

"Johnny called," Justin said casually on one of their afternoon breaks. "He's making noises about setting up the tour again. You guys want to do stadium, or smaller?"

Lance held his breath and glanced at Chris, but Chris was looking away, his face unreadable. "Stadium, I think," Joey said, after an uncomfortable silence. "Lance, you mind if I bring Bri and Kel along on the bus for a while?"

"Guys," JC said, softly, and reached over to wrap his hand around Chris's wrist. Lance winced as Chris jerked his hand back again. "I think that maybe we should talk about this next week."

"Fuck that," Chris said, his voice angry and jagged. "I'm not made out of glass, guys. You don't need to tiptoe around me like I'm going to break or something."

JC drew back, and sighed. "Chris, I'm just trying to --"

"Well, you can stop fucking trying," Chris barked, and turned around. "I'm going for something to drink. I'll be back. Or not."

"Nice going, C," Justin muttered under his breath, dragging a hand over his face, once Chris was gone.

"I didn't -- I wasn't -- I was just saying. You know. We can figure all of that out next week. You know. When we -- when we know. For sure." JC's eyes were wide.

"Nice going, C," Justin repeated. "You don't think -- Look, he's scared as hell, okay? You can tell. And he's looking at us to see if we really believe that things are going to be okay, and when you pull shit like that --"

"Guys," Lance said. It came out sharper than he intended, and he winced and modulated his tone. "Can we not argue about this? Please? JC, I know, you're just trying to make sure nobody's feelings are hurt, and Justin, yeah, you're just trying to make sure that Chris gets some reassurance, but I really think that the best thing to do is for everyone to just act normal, because even if this isn't freaking him out, it's really starting to give me a headache. Okay?"

JC had the good graces to look ashamed. "Lance, I'm sorry, I didn't think --"

"It's okay," Lance said, and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm gonna. Go find him. And then I'm going to see if I can drag him back here to get stuff done, and if I can't I'm just going to take him home, and I think that maybe somewhere in there I might pick up a couple of Advil."

"Here," Joey said from behind Lance. Lance turned around just in time to catch the little white bottle that Joey underhanded at him. "Take a few of those. Then go after him. I'll hold down the fort."

Lance found Chris standing in the hallway next to the vending machines. One of his hands was propped against the wall, and his face was buried against his arm while he breathed deeply. "Hey," Lance said, as he approached, and Chris jerked upright as though he'd been burned. "JC says to tell you sorry."

"It's okay," Chris said, but it was an automatic response; his shoulders were tense, and Lance could practically smell the rage and fear sheeting off of him.

"No," Lance said, and leaned against the wall himself. "What's bugging you?"

"It's just," Chris started, and then stopped himself. He raised his eyes, bubbling with anger, to Lance's. "You don't need to come following after me just because we were fucking last night."

Lance was glad for all of his pop-star experience in keeping his face neutral and not showing what he was really thinking. "You're right," he agreed, as casually as possible. "I do, however, have to come following after you because I give a flying fuck about whether or not you're okay, which you're not. So I repeat: what's bugging you?"

Chris closed his eyes and muttered something that sounded like "such an asshole." Lance couldn't tell if he was talking about Lance or himself, and he didn't ask. "Yeah," Chris said, a little louder. Lance didn't bother pointing out that it hadn't been a yes-or-no question. "It's just. They don't need to try and pretend for my sake. I know that none of the guys actually believes a single word I've said so far. They're -- like trying to wrap me in padding. It's like they're smothering me."

'They', and not 'you'. Lance filed that away for future consideration. "We're just trying to help," he said, softly.

Chris threw him a look. Lance felt for half a minute as though that look might ignite his skin, reach through the air between the two of them and set him to burning. He didn't flinch. "Yeah, well," Chris said, sharply. "I don't need help."

"No," Lance corrected as pleasantly as he could. He was astonished to find just how pleasant that was; for once, for once in a very long time, Chris's pointed nastiness didn't disturb him. If nothing else, he thought wryly, the whole fucked-up situation at least gave him more of an insight into Chris's head. "You need help pretty desperately, and you refuse to admit that you do, and we're all conditioned to believe what you say and leave you alone. Not going to work this time. Are you coming back to record, or shall we just go back to my place?"

Chris just looked at him again, and then closed his eyes and sighed. "I don't know if I like Lance version two-point-oh," he muttered, but it was under his breath enough that Lance could pretend to ignore it. "No, I'll come back. C's right. We don't have a hell of a lot of time to finish this stuff, not if --" He broke off, and sighed. "Yeah. Let's just all go and pretend that I'm not an asshole, okay?"

"Sure thing," Lance said, and curled his hand into a fist to prevent himself from resting it on the base of Chris's spine as they walked back down the hallway.

Tuesday night they did it all over again, and then they did it in the shower. Afterwards, Chris rolled over and nestled his back up against Lance. Lance splayed his fingers out on Chris's hip and tried to remember how to keep breathing enough for them both.

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