The view was better on the way up, he decides. They're in Minnesota and everything looks brittle and frozen and it's fucking cold. Lance knows they have bigger things to worry about but he's shivering, he's actually fucking shaking with chill and the rest of it's just not as immediate.
When he can feel his toes again he'll consider the fact that calling a tour "intimate" is dangerously close to admitting that fourteen-year-olds have found new things on which to spend their famed disposable income. Somewhere along the way someone convinced the rest of them -- it might have been him, he can't even remember anymore -- that it made sense to scale things down, that it was a better sell artistically to play smaller venues and trim the entourage. He thinks that's how he wound up sharing a suite with Justin. He's gotten used to being alone or with Joey, who snores but has better aim, doesn't piss all over the tile floor at three a.m. when he's too drunk to hold his dick straight. But Joe's the only one with an actual family and they all love the little kid, just not enough to deal with The Powerpuff Girls at five-thirty in the morning.
It's possible the windows in his room are bleeding late December air, so Lance opens the sofabed in the living room and pulls the blankets from both beds up over his head, trying to blow warm breath into cupped hands and back on his own face. He's almost asleep when Justin comes back from wherever and yelps at the chill before the door is even closed.
"Fucking A," Justin says, and Lance can hear him slam a palm against the heating unit. And then in one quick jump Justin's plucked open Lance's carefully constructed fort. A whoosh of cold air follows Justin before he pins down the edge of the blanket with a narrow hip. He giggles and grins at Lance, white teeth shimmery in the near-dark. "It's fucking cold," he says and Lance just shrugs, still half-asleep. "You stole all the covers, man."
"I called," Lance says, because of course he did. They're working on it. It's not the Comfort Inn but it's not exactly the Plaza, either, and Lance thinks he's gotten over his entitled phase, the years when he was the one who threatened to pull the plug if things weren't fixed yesterday. They're dangerously close to taking what they can get, and he knows it even if the rest are fooled.
"Fuckers," Justin says, his shoulders quivering. Lance blinks and blows on his hands and Justin brings his own palms up like they're miming. "Fucking -- where are we?"
"Minnesota," Lance says. Great music scene, Prince and all. Town that loves its music. Likes it in small, intimate venues. It'll be perfect in December. Fans in Minnesota understand the kind of music they're trying to make now. He says these things again so in the NPR interview tomorrow he'll sound like he believes them.
"Fucking Minnesota," Justin says, puffing. It used to shock Lance, that first year especially, a couple of young southern gentlemen so browbeaten by the German winters that they'd curl up together and curse Lou for taking them away from Florida. Justin was always so little and icy and had the foulest mouth Lance had ever heard, all those years of Sundays triggering something that felt like revulsion even though he'd stopped really believing. It's only now that Lance begins to wonder about pride coming before, about second chances. About resurrections.
Justin still swears in almost every sentence that's not uttered in front of a television camera, and occasionally even then. And sometime around when Lance gave up his wings he started thinking it's cute, Justin swearing, big bad words coming out of that little red mouth. Somehow it's become this thing he's drawn to in guys, when they're all at some premiere and a twenty-year-old kid from the new high school show is bitching about his drink, about the crowd, about the fucking crappy quality of pot at parties these days, and Lance leans in. Listens carefully, watches how lips and tongue shape sin. And when he gets the guy alone, Lance makes him say it again right in his ear, and Lance whispers along.
Justin exhales over his knuckles this time and Lance closes his eyes and his nose feels less cold. Justin giggles a little, all this and still he's like a fucking kid half the time. He bounces up and down a little and the springs squeak and it's all feeling like a bad setup for a porn movie but Lance isn't thinking about that or the tour or how once Justin asked Lance what was the hottest thing a guy had ever done to him and Lance had told him. Justin pokes his shoulder. "Dude, remember? In Berlin, when the fucking furnace in that place --"
"Yeah," Lance says, smiling even though it makes his teeth chatter again and he doesn't at all want to remember right now how they got warm, legs and feet poking out, all five squeezed together in a too-small bed and Lance on the end, facing out so his hard-on didn't touch anyone's thigh.
"Man, what I wouldn't give for, like, a few pounds of Joey right now. I could just hibernate until spring, you know? Just a little flesh around the middle to keep me warm."
Lance closes his eyes and tries to curl into a ball. And on the list of things to think about later or never is Justin and Joey. Joe. Joey, watching Brianna scramble down a slide a few months ago and saying, "Joe. From now on, I'd like the releases and shit to say Joe. I'm a father, I'm not twenty and haven't been for a long time and I'm not Joey anymore." Chris insists they all have what he calls "little sister" privileges, so the guys get to call him Joey in perpetuity. Lance tries to correct himself, though, each time he thinks it.
Justin presses closer with a little shimmy and Lance keeps his eyes closed but grabs Justin's back and rubs his cold hands against Justin's warm skin. On his hierarchy of needs right now he thinks being close to someone is right after being warm. Justin giggles again and says, "That tickles. And your hands are fucking cold."
"Deal with it. I'm getting this in while I still can." Lance wonders when the cold got to his brain. That's not part of any plan, not on the list of things that are safe to say to Justin.
Justin maybe shivers and definitely inhales sharply. He presses against Lance again, wraps his own arms around Lance's waist and Lance breathes in, holds his stomach tight. There's nothing except clothes between them now, and Lance decides it's better to concentrate on Justin being almost hard than all the things they're not talking about. Justin doesn't cooperate and says, warm breath against Lance's neck, "What do you mean, while you still can?"
Lance is wearing sweatpants and thick wool socks. A long sleeve t-shirt from the Strings tour under another t-shirt from Popodyssey and he should just have burned it all in the middle of the room for heat instead of wearing them because he's still cold. Even Justin melded to his clothes and his skin isn't working yet. Lance burrows against the mattress.
"You're ignoring me." Justin isn't even pouting as he says it, so they've grown up that much. Lance flashes on years and years of Justin pouting as he flounced around the bus or backstage, wrapping himself around whomever. Whomever being mostly Joey for those few years when. And Lance stops that train of thought right there. Behind his closed eyes, though, he still sees Justin's long, perfectly defined arms around Joey's bulk. Joe's bulk. And only in contrast to that impossible slimness that Justin barely works for.
Justin pushes Lance a little by thrusting his hips and pulling closer with his arms. He breathes against Lance's neck again. "While you still can, Lance? Care to share?"
"You know," Lance says finally. "Before I, like, fucking freeze to death."
"Not gonna let you," Justin says, almost seriously, and then there are lips against Lance's Adam's apple, warm and wet, and bolts of lightning run down his spine to meet where Justin's lazily circling a finger under the elastic of Lance's sweatpants.
"Do you remember," Lance says, and Justin murmurs a low ouch as Lance's chin juts into Justin's nose. Justin lays his head back down on the mattress, looks like he's willing to wait. Lance can't really remember when Justin got patient and isn't sure he likes it, rushes through his silly story about the part in Space Camp when the kids run out of oxygen, and Joaquin Phoenix back when he was still called Leaf. Justin smiles indulgently and Lance wraps a hand around the back of his neck, pulls him back close, puts his hands in Justin's hair. It's short, perpetually short for the last three years with a bare half inch of curls.
Justin shivers into the touch and Lance remembers when he was so scared to touch Justin he'd literally shake. Joey noticed first, yelled at him for not eating enough and when Lance said he'd had three meals already, three and a half if you included an apple when they broke during rehearsal, Joey frowned. And then Justin walked by and it happened again and Joey, Joe, Joe had just clapped him on the back and said, "Yeah. Okay."
"Still fucking cold," Justin says against the pounding pulse in the pocket under Lance's jaw.
"That's what you get," Lance says, getting hair in his mouth and finding that indescribably hot before tilting back a little. "You're all skin and bones. You have the metabolism of a fucking racehorse."
"Still jealous after all these years," Justin says, flicking the elastic and Lance flinches harder than he should.
"Fuck off."
"Still say you got the better end of the deal," Justin says. "I mean, look at me. I have no ass. It's like, concave."
It's a conversation they could have any day of any tour, on the bus or backstage while they wait for the screaming to reach maximum velocity. But they're under the covers, their hands are wandering and things look different than they did on the way up.
"You don't have -- you can't have a concave ass, Justin. It's, like, not physically possible." Lance lightly rests a hand on it. Just to be sure. He has to be sure of something, he tells himself, might as well be that.
"You know what I mean. It's fucking embarrassing. I'm still occasionally called upon to shake my booty onstage. I say, what fucking booty." Justin puts his own hand on Lance's ass, cupped down around the bottom where it folds into his thigh muscle. "You've got an ass I could hold onto," Justin says.
"Whatever," Lance says, and shifts away but still within Justin's embrace. "Thank Mario." Lance has had his own trainer for two years now and he hates how much he believes there's a correlation between the size of his biceps and the quality of his press. It was hard enough to put the time in when he knew he was protecting Lou's investment. Now he's bankrolling his own security and he's stopped looking in mirrors altogether but he never misses a workout.
"You let Mario near your ass?" Justin asks, something strange and whiny and immature like he used to be coloring the question.
Lance squints, tries to make out Justin's expression. He wonders for a moment why Justin's breath smells like mint and not alcohol at all. He says, "Man, if fucking Mario was enough to stay thin I would in a second," and Justin smiles. Is maybe relieved.
"You look fine," Justin says.
"Thanks a lot."
"No -- you." Justin puts his hand back on Lance's ass. "You look fiiiine," he says, drawing it out, drawling it into a crackly purr. "You are a fucking fine man, you really --"
And Lance kisses him, eating the end of the sentence like a last meal and Justin is quick to pull him on top, and they've never really done this but it doesn't feel like that's true. Justin's hand is inside his sweats now, a few degrees warmer than Lance's ass, pushing their bodies together.
Lance is sucking on Justin's tongue like he might just swallow it to see what happens and Justin's bucking his hips and shifting down farther, wrapping his legs around Lance's back. Lance thrusts into Justin's crotch, too many clothes, too much friction and not enough skin and he pulls back, panting, holds his chest up above Justin with palms flat on the mattress.
"Fuck..." Justin says, opening his eyes. "What?" His legs fall to the bed.
Lance drops into a pushup and catches Justin's mouth again, straightens his elbows again. "Take off your clothes," he says hoarsely.
"It's like --" Justin begins to protest and Lance dips into another kiss, comes back up.
Lance draws an open-mouthed breath, looks Justin in the eye. "Take them off. Yours. And mine."
And he does. Lance is inside Justin and their feet are freezing, hanging out of the covers, and the back-and-forth makes the blanket slide down Lance's shoulders to pool at the foot of the bed. And when he rears back, hanging onto Justin's hips, and says, shaking, "I want you to, you have to say it," Justin does that, too.
*
The heat kicks in with a vengeance during the night and Lance wakes up covered in sweat, even though he's only wearing a t-shirt and boxers under half of the covers. He throws off Justin's arm and the covers and turns down the heater.
In the shower, he scrubs hard with twenty dollar an ounce gel and thinks about Jason. He met Jason once, two years ago, when Jason auditioned for the first movie that made a profit in the theaters without having to count video sales. Lance laughed out loud when he saw the name and barely kept a straight face watching Jason read the lines and try to look pretty and thin for the part. He'd written Jason out so thoroughly from everyone's history, he'd forgotten that the boy actually existed and still lived out there, somewhere. Lance wondered if Jason got mad, and had a momentary vision of Jason shooting out television screen after television screen while Lance talked about how they chose the band's name and being there from the start.
He steps out of the bathroom and starts rifling through his bag for clothes. Only the one radio thing today and then the show so he can get by with one outfit for everything on their schedule. He's pulled on jeans and started weighing the merits of two shirts when Justin clears his throat. Lance looks up to see Justin sitting on the edge of the bed, in sweats and a t-shirt. Lance looks at the faded image of Wade from Wade's failed tour on Justin's t-shirt and not at Justin's face.
"So. We finally did that, huh?" Justin sounds gravelly and Lance drops the shirts and starts looking for tea or something. Justin stands up and grabs Lance's arm, making a sound that's almost like a laugh. "Lance. Isn't this the part where we talk?"
"Sure." Lance doesn't shiver but he almost does. "What do we say?"
Justin sighs and lets go of Lance's arm. He walks to the bathroom and stands in the doorway. "You know, you know you do whatever you're doing there and I'll shower and we'll try this morning-after moment again."
Lance makes tea and adds honey for Justin. He picks the orange shirt and decides not to tuck it in. Justin comes out of the shower and wordlessly takes the tea from Lance. He takes a sip and Lance laughs. Justin just raises an eyebrow. "You look like a picture," Lance says, smiling.
Justin knows which Lance means and he smiles back. "That's one I still like."
"As opposed to the child porn Lou used to peddle. Those topless pics of you at fifteen are pretty, uh, special." Justin groans and puts the tea down on the table by the bed.
"Never fucking again," Justin laughs. "Dude, I was watching that first shitty video last week at my Mom's and there you are at nineteen -- fucking nineteen, saying, 'Be dedicated. And always have a back-up plan.' You look nine hundred times better now. And me? Those clothes. And the hair, fuck." Justin runs his hands through his short curls. Same hairstyle for three years and it's probably some kind of record.
Mornings when the hotels were nicer than this but not as nice as they would be later, Lance would watch Justin roll out of Joey's bed, Joey then so Lance doesn't have to think Joe when he thinks of it. Joey reaching back absently to slap Justin's ass or run his hands through Justin's hair and make the fro stand up even more, never losing the thread of whatever conversation Joey and Lance were having. Lance thinks Joey is the least pretty person Justin ever slept with.
Lance swallows a little of the tea. It's almost lukewarm. "Justin, I know about the Dreamworks offer."
Justin shakes his head and crosses his arms across his chest. "You thought we'd better fuck before I went solo?"
Lance realizes he hasn't eaten since maybe early the day before. "Maybe you want to take another shower and we'll do this one more time," he says, playing with the spoon.
"You said, you said you wanted to get some. Get some of me, right? Like everyone else, you want a piece of me? Jesus."
Justin's voice is low and livid and Lance thinks about how Justin was mad at Chris for a week after one of those awful shoots where the photographer spent too long with his hands on Justin's face, making sure he was posed just the right way. That was a long time ago. Lance isn't sure why he keeps thinking about it again.
Justin shifts his weight to the other hip and says, "It's not like things are that fucking bad, man. You're acting like --"
"While I still can," Lance says, putting down his cup harder than he means to. He stands up and leans against a wall. Justin stares the question at him. "I said, while I still can."
"Yeah?"
"You think this is progress? Look around."
"Lance, man, it's not -- this isn't worse, here. We didn't make something worse by doing this." Justin's coming toward him now, arms open, palms up.
"Look at the bed," Lance says. It's a pull-out couch. And it's still messy, and that makes everything look cheaper, and he remembers he never called back his lawyer the day before and isn't even sure what it was about. Business. Some carefully calculated risk with a sure return.
"I'm looking," Justin says, inches away, hand on the wall boxing Lance in.
"It's a difference of scale," he says, thinking Justin should get that much. He tilts his head back against the wall and wishes he'd slept more.
And Justin smirks, kisses Lance, looks like he thinks he's won. "Scale this," he says.
*
Three weeks later and Lance keeps saying things to himself like "blaze of glory" and "live hard, die young" and when they're screwing that seems to be enough. It's nice just to mostly stand and sing this go around, he'll admit that much, to not spend all their time hyped up like spring-loaded mannequins, even if he's still working his ass off with Mario every day. It's easier to settle down after a show, less screaming to shake out of his head, and he thinks that's good, too, even if the lights still get him crazy enough that he usually comes back into himself around the time Justin's doing a striptease at the end of the bed.
Everyone's more on their own this time, even with sharing rooms again. Joe and Chris are on this higher learning kick and keep trading nineteenth century novels back and forth and reading parts aloud during dinner. Most of the time they fly now, it's actually cheaper than keeping up buses, certainly separate buses. Some of the gigs are four or five days apart and Joey flies home. Chris and JC sometimes rent a car and drive from one place to the next. They've usually only got bodyguards before and after performances.
Mostly Justin and Lance just fuck. It's a new thing to do, and they don't have much new left, and it's a blaze of glory and Justin says "fuccccck" low and long every single goddamn time Lance comes and never once throws it in his face. He says he likes it when Lance grips his forearms hard, almost hard enough to bruise, so Lance thinks they end up about even. Lance does business during the morning while Justin sleeps and sometimes they spend a day apart. He thinks they made a deal without saying to stop talking so much. He doesn't really mind.
They've got a gig in LA but Lance is going early for auditions on the new movie he's producing and Justin's supposed to be on Leno to pimp a guest spot on a new John Wells baseball show. He plays a rookie who's too homesick to pitch and at Lance's newish house up in the hills Justin's been on the phone with the Leno producer. Earlier he was talking about basketball, about playing pickup when he was a kid. Lance thinks Justin shouldn't be talking about being a kid when he still looks so baby-faced. He'll find that a hard enough thing to get past anyway.
It's late afternoon and Lance pulls on old jeans and a dark green button-down untucked, slouches back into the overstuffed chair they were fucking on before. He looks at headshots while Justin goes back and forth from the walk-in closet back out to the bedroom, naked, holding up a different tie each time. Lance rejects all of them. They're Lance's ties but they look all wrong on Justin. Even naked. Justin wants to wear a suit but he's only got one kind of nice jacket with him and it's too late to go shopping. All of Lance's are too big. Justin puts one on anyway and it's like the Frosted Mini-Wheats commercials with little kids in grown-up clothes.
Finally they settle on the white Oxford open at the throat and dark gray dress slacks and something resembling combed hair. "Where's a fucking stylist when you need one?" Justin laughs and Lance goes back to the stack of photos. Justin's never asked why he isn't asked to audition, maybe because Lance stopped casting himself after the second PG movie, after a friend who smoothed things over with Miramax looked him in the eye and asked if he really wanted to know why.
Justin perches on the arm of the chair, cocks his head at one pretty boy on top and then scrunches up his nose. "He's got nuthin' on you, baby," he says, and leans down into a quick kiss. "Why don't you come with me tonight?" He puts his hand on Lance's shoulder.
"They have a crappy green room," Lance says. "We can watch it later here if you really want."
"No," Justin says, standing up and pulling Lance to his feet. "Come with me to do the thing. You can do the movie, I'll do my thing, two for the price of one."
"Justin --"
"We can talk about the tour, you know. The show here. It'll be good for everyone."
Lance doesn't tell Justin that he fired three publicists who hadn't gotten a any prime late night bookings before calling and trying himself. Then he sent flowers and a bonus to each one, but he couldn't very well bring them back.
"Come on," Justin says. "Please? I fucking hate these things, I do." Lance rolls his eyes and Justin kisses Lance's forehead and grins and presses a tie into his hand. "You can put this on in the car."
Justin drives and wants to play the Newlywed Game. "Who's my favorite athlete?" he says, cranking some acid jazz thing he found the last time they were in Europe. It's giving Lance a headache and he's thinking this is a profoundly bad idea, it's never good to do spontaneous press. They're too used to having a script to suddenly go off-book.
Justin slugs him in the arm. "Michael Jordan," Lance says, rote inflection.
"Ding ding!" They go through security and it's quiet when the car's turned off. "What about baseball?" Justin asks.
"Dude, they're not gonna ask me about baseball. It's your thing."
"I'm just saying --"
"Yeah," Lance says. "But still. I don't even know why I'm here."
"Cause I asked," Justin says, come-hither and bouncy walking backwards down the hall and Lance knows for sure it's a bad idea.
"So what's this about how you and --" Leno looks at Lance, back down at his notecard. "You and, uh, JC, playing -- you tell me the story."
Justin laughs a little and pats the armrest next to Lance's arm. Lance wonders if he's in the shot at all.
"Actually it was me and Britney," Justin says, chuckling, good show, perfect smile, light catching eyes so they sparkle just right. "She used to kick my ass at pickup games on the back lot when we were on Mickey Mouse Club. Still got scars, yo. You know how chicks can be -- no blood, no foul." He pushes out a laugh again and the red light in front of Lance pops so he smiles tightly.
"But you two," Jay starts, and Lance bites down into the grin. "You two, you know, you never know how these teen love stories are going to end, but when they do." Lance thinks Leno is a totally incoherent moron and he wonders, not for the first time, if that's what it takes to make it here. Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty, he thinks. Fucking blaze of glory.
Justin just nods and glances over at Lance. Lance tries to look serious because his cheeks are fucking hurting.
"You know, did it, did it end well? Would you say it ended badly?"
"Oh no," Justin says, reassuringly, and even Jay doesn't seem sure which question Justin's answering.
"Maybe we should ask, you know, maybe Lance wants to give us the inside story. Were you there, you know? Was this boy broken-hearted?"
Someone in the front row laughs, loud, and it echoes in Lance's head, and Justin's patting the armrest again. "You never know," Lance says. "Things are ending, and you know it, and everyone around you knows it but no one ever says anything." He licks his lips and swallows and Jay almost jumps for it but Justin cuts in first.
"Or, you know," Justin says. "They just don't think things are as bad as other people do."
"Did, uh," Leno leans over the desk a little, "did you guys get back together a couple of times, you mean?" and Justin actually says, "Who?" and Lance sputters half a laugh at how everything's actually worse than he expected.
Leno clears his throat and the audience guy laughs again. Lance's camera comes on again and he just stares at it. "Lance's got a new movie," Justin says, and Jay asks and Lance blurbs it in something slightly more nuanced than a monotone, maybe. "It's about staying too long," he says, and Jay says, "Great!" and they go to commercial.
*
Joey dumped Justin and everyone knew it was coming except for Justin, even Britney. Chris made him wait until the end of the tour, cornering Joey in some bar while JC looked one way and Lance looked at his shoes. "Wait two fucking weeks, man." And Joey shook his head but agreed. Two fucking weeks left for this tour, and Lance hears it in his head in Chris's pleading voice from five years before.
Joe turns twenty-eight the day of the show in LA. He pulls Lance aside before they go on and laughs a little. "What?" Lance doesn't try to hide his annoyance.
"You and Justin, huh? Finally?" Joe, looking every inch Joey and not this person he's supposed to address as an adult, grins and nudges him. "He's a fucking handful, you know?"
Lance rolls his eyes. "Joey, shut the fuck up."
"Fine. Fine. Just, you know, I thought you got over that thing. Like, years ago." Joey leans back against an unfinished wall and tugs at his beard. Lance decides he will call Joey "Joey" for the rest of their lives.
"Did -- did you even like him, Joey?" Lance doesn't even know where that question came from. He knows the answer, he listened to Joey's side of that story for long enough. Joey narrows his eyes and looks hurt and Lance thinks he asked just to see that look.
"Yeah. Actually, I was in love with him, actually." Lance knew that and he knows that he's going to have be even more of an asshole for real reasons later so he apologizes and says what he needs to until Joey's smiling again. And now Lance's best friend is twenty-eight with his four-year-old kid and his girlfriend who will be his wife any day now and they're both there in LA for the show. Justin doesn't hold grudges, or he doesn't when it comes to Joey, so he plays with Brianna after the show with a ready laugh and a genuine smile.
The only thing still playing is the house band, and Lance wonders what would happen to the preplanned encore if one night nobody clapped. Chris corrals them all into Justin's dressing room. He sits on the makeup table and lights a cigarette. Glaring at Lance, he says, "Hollywood says we're not talking about things, so we should stop that." Then Chris sighs and shakes his head.
Justin bites his lip. JC says, "We should talk about it. All of it."
Joey sighs. "Can we -- could we not decide to break up on my birthday?"
Chris looks down with a laugh. He waves his wrist and points at his watch, and his smile is kinder than his words. "It's after midnight, Joey. It's the day after your birthday, and if we wait too long, it'll be Justin's birthday and that's not nice either."
Justin steps back against the door and hugs himself. "Why are we -- you guys are all talking like this is inevitable. Like you already fucking decided."
Lance looks at Justin and then looks at the floor. "It wasn't inevitable but it's where we are now, Justin. No more screaming girls, you know."
Justin coughs as Chris's smoke drifts towards him. "It wasn't -- so what? The album was good, we got good reviews, we're still making money. We don't need to be -- this isn't a bad place."
JC reaches out and rubs Justin's shoulder. "It's not a bad place, Justin, but it's not a place where we have another place to go to. Where we want to go to."
Justin has that expression on his face, the same broken one he had for a month after Joey ended things. Except this time he's staring at Lance. Lance swallows, inhales the sour air of the confined dressing room and says, "You'll be fine, Justin. We'll all be fine. And we should stop before we're a complete joke. This is a good time to do it. Finish the tour, finish everything. And we all come out still very solvent and debt-free."
Chris nods and Joey mumbles something that sounds like yeah and they talk a little more and it's over. Joey goes off with his family and Justin shrugs off Lance's hand so he can follow Chris and JC out for heavy drinking. Lance chooses to drive to his house in LA and drink everything he can find there. At four a.m., a cab drops the other three off at his doorstep. Justin shoves Lance a little as Lance drags him upstairs and Justin sleeps in one of the guest rooms with JC and Chris, all three of them snoring out of synch ten minutes after they lie down.
Lance is the point man on this, he's been the one to deal with these things for years so it doesn't change now that he's dealing with ending things. Calls to Johnny and the lawyers and then the record company and none of them sounds surprised or begs them to reconsider. So Lance understands why Justin ignores him for two days and sleeps in his own bed as the tour winds its way up the West coast.
Then Justin turns twenty-four so they have a cake for him on stage and Justin makes one of the stagehands use up an entire roll of film on the pictures. Justin drinks too much and crawls into Lance's bed when he comes back to the room. "It's that special time of the year," Justin drawls in Lance's ear, "when you're only one year older than me." Lance thinks about pointing out that he will always be seventeen months older than Justin and age is just a number but Justin pulls him into a sloppy kiss. Lance believes no one should be alone on his birthday.
They didn't know this would be the last tour when they planned it or that the last show would be their last show so the tour is ending in Chicago. Chris and Johnny rent out a nightclub for the party. "No one gets in who hasn't signed a confidentiality agreement or doesn't rely on one of us for income for the rest of their life," Chris says with a grin. "This is going to be our own fucking party for once. Our rules."
The show is packed with friends and family and leeches sitting with the fans. They do a medley of "I Want You Back" and "Tearing Up My Heart" and only rehearsed the choreography once because they've done those two for nine years now and even Lance thinks he could do them in his sleep when he's seventy. The show's great, it's magic and no one fucks up or misses a note. Justin's face is wet and his eyes red as soon as they walk off stage so Chris starts pouring tequila down Justin's throat before the applause fades.
The five of them stand on the stage at the club as the party begins and Chris is the only one to speak. He says, "There's a place called heaven and a place called hell. A place called prison and a place called jail. And this band, these years have been all four except one. And now I'll stop quoting our dear friend Marshall Mathers --" Everyone grins and Chris says sweet things and nice things and a few obscene things, but mostly funny things. He winds up by telling everyone to drink themselves into oblivion, "'cause Lou's paying! It was part of the settlement, right, Lance?" Lance nods seriously and Chris whoops, "Drink up!"
After an hour, three beers and three shots and a teary goodbye to his folks and sister, Lance leans against a wall in the back in the club where there's a window letting in cold, wet air and shares a cigarette with Chris. They're drunk and talked out already and they both just smoke and listen to the first Christmas album. All their records and remixes are playing on a loop behind them. Joey wanders over and wordlessly snags the cigarette for a long drag. Chris lights a new one on the second try and passes it to Lance.
Justin walks up to them and says quietly, "Uh, Joey?" The two take a step away from Chris and Lance. Justin's probably already very drunk and Lance omits the probably as Justin pulls Joey into a deep kiss. Justin breaks off the kiss and says, "I know -- I know you loved me, but, you know, I thought, I was convinced for a long time that you were the love of my life. And you never thought that about me once, right?"
Joey runs his thumb across Justin's lips and says, "I'm sorry." He hugs Justin for a long time and Lance thinks it's one of the saddest things he's ever heard in his life. Joey stubs out the cigarette with his boot and wanders back into the party. Justin sags against the wall and sits on his heels by Lance's feet. Chris rubs Justin's head and wanders back to the party, too.
Justin sniffles a little against Lance's pants leg. He sighs twice and looks up at Lance. "I have this list. Of things I wanted to do before the end. So, uh, that's one checked off. Do you have one?"
"Yup. But mine was done before this."
Justin wipes his nose with his hand. "Yeah, I started mine during Popodyssey." Lance started his the second week after he joined the band. He doesn't want to punch Chris in the face anymore, and he's told off Lou for calling him a fat fag, and he's fucked Justin, so there's really nothing left to do. Justin starts talking again. "So, well, I guess there's no time for an interview now, I'll just tell you. I think we're much better than Backstreet Boys, man. Much better. We deserved to crush their asses."
Lance laughs and sinks down next to Justin, dizzy and holding up the wall with his back. Justin leans his head against Lance's shoulder and giggles a little. Lance says, "I completely agree."
"Also, I never liked Carson Daly. And, like, a lot of our fans either scare me or annoy the shit out of me."
"Me, too." Lance grabs Justin's hand and plays with his fingers. Chill seeps down from the window and around their shoulders and he pushes his body against Justin's more.
Justin sighs. "Okay, well, I should talk to C now."
Lance tugs on Justin's hand. "Justin? Is this the part where you tell JC you didn't really like 'Space Cowboy' and, uh, you were always a little scared of his, uh, constant excitement during the Strings tour?"
Justin nods with his eyes wide and mouth open. "How'd you know that?"
"You've told him that before. Like, three times before. When you were drunk. You keep forgetting. And he's always nice about it, but maybe tonight isn't the night for a repeat performance."
Justin shakes his head. "I forgot. So, yeah. Just two things left then." Justin tugs Lance up and they walk through the crowd to find Chris. Justin and Chris start mumbling about something that happened before Lance was even in the group, and all Lance can hear is something about bicycles. He'd walk away but Justin won't let go of his hand. Across the room John Norris nods his way and Lance is glad he quit bringing hometown girls to premieres a while ago because he kind of likes just standing there with Justin's hand holding his. Lance never really held hands with anyone because he spent their glory years in bathroom stalls and shuttling guys into the waiting hands of the bodyguards after he was finished. Someone hands him a purple drink and he gulps it down. Blaze of glory, good-looking corpse, what the hell. Justin claps Chris on the shoulder and turns around before he can see Chris roll his eyes and wink at Lance.
Justin pulls Lance onto the dance floor and Lance drops the plastic cup and steps on it. Justin pushes him toward a half-lit corner off the dance floor. There are red gels throwing patterns on the wall and Justin backs him into the speckled glow. "Justin," Lance says, hands tight on Justin's waist, wishing there was a cool breeze now when his face is hot and Justin is hot next to him, "are you done with your list? One left, right?"
Justin grins and kisses Lance. "Yup." Justin moves Lance's hand so Lance can feel Justin's erection through his jeans.
Justin has his back to the crowd dancing to "Bye Bye Bye" and Lance laughs. "Public sex at an aftershow party was on your list?"
Justin kisses Lance and thrusts his hips into Lance's hand. "Basically." Lance laughs again and throws his head back against the wall. Justin licks Lance's neck and unbuttons his own jeans so Lance can reach in and wrap his hand around Justin's cock.
Lance sputters, "Dude. Going commando at our last party. Fuck, you." And he remembers one of those things you almost convince yourself never happened, remembers being eighteen and watching Justin across some bar. He remembers trying to get drunk enough to go tell Justin how he really felt and now somehow they're both wasted and he's got his hand on Justin's dick in front of everyone. He leans against Justin's forehead, drunk and warm and saying it after all. "You drive me crazy," he says seriously.
"Wrong fucking album, man," Justin says, thumb jammed through a beltloop so his pants don't fall down. Justin's tongue is in his mouth and it still tastes sweet, like honey, some sugary liquor crystallizing on the edges of his lips and he's like a hummingbird in Justin's sweet mouth, Lance thinks, feeling fast and fluttery inside. He's gotten a nice rhythm going and Justin closes his eyes and thrusts up into Lance's hand with the beat.
"Fuck," Justin says, slowly, and Lance's stomach flips and it's real again, it's like it always is in that moment. He thinks when he's seventy and he hears one of their songs what he'll remember is Justin saying that word as he's about to come.
"Uh, Justin," Lance says, and when he looks up there are Joey's eyes over Justin's shoulder. Joey starts laughing and gives him a big thumbs-up and Lance just grins because it's all good. "Justin, I really like this shirt. So, uh." Justin reaches into his back pocket and shoves some cocktail napkins into Lance's other hand. Lance laughs. "You're so prepared, I love that about you."
Justin giggles into Lance's neck. "Told you I had a list," he says and then bites down as he grunts a little and comes. Lance throws the wadded up napkins on the floor and Justin buttons up his jeans. Justin kisses him again. "Your turn, man." Justin grins wide.
"Told you I finished my list already," Lance says and Justin touches Lance's face and kisses him slowly, deeply, like they're having a conversation. Lance thinks maybe Justin's led them off the script again and maybe that's what they needed and then Justin sinks to his knees.
"Justin. Justin, dude." Lance tries to tug Justin up as Justin unzips Lance's jeans. "Justin, this is, uh."
Justin shakes his hips a little to "Just Got Paid." He says, "Don't worry, baby," and slowly licks the length of Lance's cock and the barbell in Justin's tongue is like the cherry on top and the prize in the crackerjack box. "This is, like, the bonus list," Justin says.
Lance closes eyes and sighs. You drive me crazy, he sings to himself. He leans back and hopes his fine ass will hold up his pants a little as Justin's hands go to work and Justin's sweet, pretty red mouth moves up and down. "Just Got Paid" ends and "It Makes Me Ill" starts and Lance grabs at Justin's hair and opens his eyes. It feels like there are more people now, like people are dancing around them or standing closer than before, some of Joey's cousins maybe and definitely one of Chris's sisters. They look over at Justin and Lance, their eyes widen and they start giggling and Lance thinks he should wave but he's incapable of letting go of Justin's hair. There's heat and suction and that little spark of metal and Lance starts thrusting and fists his hands in Justin's hair and he would stop, but he wants this to happen quick and nasty and not while he's listening to Justin's voice from five years ago singing some Richard Marx ballad.
He comes right after Justin starts humming along with the song and at the same time as he's staring at JC's parents' horrified expressions which only makes him grin wider. He's slamming his head back against the wall a few times or else the hangover's kicking in early. He maybe shouts but the music's loud enough to cover it and Justin definitely swallows and shakes off Lance's hands. Justin wipes his mouth and stands up, tucking Lance back into his pants and zipping him up. Justin kisses Lance with his wet mouth. Lance rubs Justin's head and says, "Sorry about that."
Justin grins again, white perfect teeth shining. "S'okay. No harm, no foul." He pulls Lance back out into the crowd. "Dance with me, now."
They're pressed against each other for "This I Promise You," Justin hanging over Lance's shoulders and you can't choreograph this kind of dancing, there's no way to count out what it feels like be draped around a guy who smells like saltwater taffy. Chris pinches Lance's butt and lewdly smirks at him when Lance turns around to complain. JC glares at them and says, "You couldn't've waited until my parents were gone, man? Fuck. They're, like, traumatized, I swear." Justin just giggles down into Lance's neck and Lance smiles into his ear, tonguing the hole where Justin used to wear a half-dozen carats.
Everyone dances and drinks too much, Joey grinding against Lance on the dance floor during some lame remix of "Girlfriend," Chris dipping Lance twice during a slow song from the album before this past one. Justin tries to kiss JC during the second playing of "I Want You Back" and JC pushes him away, saying, "Dude, I know where that mouth's been tonight, please, get away!" Lance sobers up for a while and feels bad about JC's folks but then there are more and he forgets again.
In the end, it's just the five of them left, passing around a bottle of whiskey, watching the cleaning staff start to file in. "I feel like we should all say something," Joey says, and passes the bottle to Lance.
"Guys, we're linked for, like, life, legally. Scary contracts and partnerships. And we have two daylong meetings in the next three months to wind things up and deal with record company shit. So, this is hardly farewell," Lance says after a long drink from the bottle. He passes the bottle to Justin.
Justin takes a modest sip and Lance can see he's starting to sniffle again. "And there's the Grammys in a month, too." He passes the bottle to JC.
JC stares at the bottle for a moment. "We didn't have any glasses? Nothing personal, Justin, but, uh."
Chris giggles. "Dude, shouldn't you be equally worried about Lance's hand?" Lance thinks maybe he should be doubly offended but can't do much but laugh, bent over himself and holding his stomach.
JC shudders and finds a napkin to rub the bottle down with. He takes a drink from the bottle, finally, and says, "We're not gonna win. Maybe if we'd announced sooner, we coulda got the sympathy vote or something."
Chris finishes the bottle and throws it on the floor and the breaking glass echoes against the empty club. "Well, whatever. We should go. We should leave here, I mean. We're done." He pauses and looks at all of them. "We fucking rock and you guys rock."
They all hug and everyone but Lance cries a little as they wait outside for cabs. And then it's just Justin and Lance and Lance can't help thinking this is wrong. He shouldn't be waiting with Justin, they shouldn't be the last two standing here. It should be Chris and Justin, or Joey or JC. Justin leans against him, crying. It's fucking freezing and they cling to each other. Because of the cold. Lance thinks it's because of the cold Chicago night that he's sniffling and his eyes burn. "I wanna go home," Justin snuffles against Lance's shoulder, and finally there's another cab and Lance waves an arm out. Lance doesn't know where Justin means, doesn't remember where Justin's mom is staying so they just go to Lance's hotel room.
Justin lolls against him in the back of the cab and almost falls asleep but when they get into bed, he starts crying again. "Fuck," Justin says, "I'm not in a band anymore. I'm a fucking crybaby and I'm not in our band and I miss the guys already." Lance rubs Justin's back until Justin falls asleep and feels inadequate to Justin's loss.
*
"So what are we doing today?" Justin asks, like Lance is in charge. It's taken two days to sleep off the hangover and the belated embarrassment and somewhere in the middle they've taken a plane back to LA. He doesn't remember asking Justin to come along but he guesses he's glad Justin's there anyway.
Justin is drinking tea, sitting on Lance kitchen counter in a damp D&G swimsuit. They had breakfast by the pool and Justin kept changing his mind about what he wanted to eat and finally just did half-hearted laps instead. "Well, you'll probably be hungry in an hour," Lance says, "so if I were you I'd start thinking now what you'll want for lunch." He's in khaki shorts and a t-shirt and thinking about bleaching his hair again. It's been a while. He's in California now, probably for good.
Justin snakes an arm around Lance's back where he's standing at the sink, looking out the window, and they kiss. It's California, where the boys are pretty.
He waits a week to bring up the Dreamworks deal. He thinks they deserve a week's vacation for the last few months, at least, but before it's even done he's itchy for some kind of real work. He wonders if maybe what they need is a vacation from each other.
"I'll get to it," Justin shrugs. They're at the beach and Justin's freckles have flared up and they're just two guys of a few thousand who came to Malibu to lie in the sand with their boyfriends. He keeps thinking this should be enough. This should be happy. But there's no plan and he's never been here with Justin, just one night stands that lasted through the afternoon until he had to get ready for the second show.
Lance's voicemail gets full every other day and it's even more work than it was with record producers. He has an office on Sunset Boulevard and assistants bring him whatever he needs. They're starting production in twelve days and Lance wonders what it will be like to just do that. To just go hang out on a movie set some days. No new songs to learn. No choreography changes sent on video and mirrored against Joey on the balcony of a Canadian hotel room.
Lance asks, "Haven't they, like, called?"
"Dunno," Justin says. "I sort of, uh. I threw my phone down into the canyon when I was taking a walk last week."
"You, Justin, what the hell? What if, Jesus, what if something happened to your mom or something?"
Justin shrugs again, lets sand drizzle through his fingers. "They'd call you anyway."
Lance shakes his head and knows he sounds disappointed when he sighs. He is. He doesn't talk the rest of the afternoon and when they get back Justin calls the cell company and gets his messages and sits there on the Mexican tile portico and calls everyone back. There are vague offers from Arista and Maverick, too, and Justin asks Lance what he thinks he should do.
"Make a decision," Lance says. He's mixing drinks and they're talking through the open door.
Justin whines something about how it's so fucking hard to make decisions all by himself and Lance slams the shaker too hard against the etched martini glass. It breaks in his hand and he bites his lip. It's not really bleeding. He sweeps the shards into the trash and grabs two beers from the fridge.
"What happened to, I thought we were having gimlets," Justin says. "I thought it was your new drink."
"I changed my mind."
"Oh," Justin says, and his voice is little and Lance knows how he must have sounded if that's what he got in return.
"Look," he says, and Justin flinches and stands up.
"I'm tired," Justin says, and Lance grabs his arm, stops him. In between the shadows there is light from the kitchen and he can see the tattoo Justin got on the inside of his forearm. They were in Europe, after Joey. It's the Chinese character for love, Joey told him that's what Justin had said. It was supposed to be self-love, love comes from within, but they fucked it up, Joey said.
"You've gotta," Lance starts. "I think you might like being on your own if you tried it."
"We are," Justin says, and he sounds young and plaintive and Lance thinks a manager would tell Justin to work on that. "It's just us now," Justin says, and Lance wonders where Justin will go, what he'll do. Lance thinks he wants it to happen with a little distance, somewhere outside the periphery so he can just be in the car and hear Justin selling the new album on drive time radio and not know all the stock answers anymore. He wonders who Justin will be when he's really doing it on his own.
"We just can't anymore," Lance says, and he thought there would be more but it's all he has to say.
Justin talks him into breakup sex and of course it has to be fucking great, it's languid and then fevered and Lance thinks maybe he does leave marks. Maybe he leaves something that will scar. Justin makes Lance open his eyes the last time, it's the third or fourth time really but they know the sun is coming up, they know they're getting tired. They know, and Lance squints and Justin's just mouthing the words, breath against his forehead, keeping him cool.
He sleeps through the day and Justin is gone when he wakes up. The new cell number is taped to the stainless steel fridge and Justin's keys are on the counter. It's dark out again and he sucks on the wedge of lime in his glass and when he cries it's just because everything is really over. The air is warm and this is all he has.
*
The guys call every day, except for Justin and even Justin leaves voicemail messages twice in the first month. They sound good, they sound sad sometimes. They sound like grown-ups. JC and Justin went to the Grammys on their own but the group didn't win anything. Lance is hip-deep in the movie and Joey calls to say he's coming out to visit. Joey arrives in his typical whirlwind and he's only been there a few hours when he absolutely has to call home to talk to Brianna and Kelly.
It's two a.m. and they're sitting by Lance's pool, drinking their third beers, when Joey starts talking about Justin. Lance stares at the moon on the chlorinated water.
"Maybe it was just one day in rehearsals, or something," Joey says. "Or his smile. But mostly, it was because he wanted me. Eighteen years old and he's all shaking his booty and he wanted me. Not like you and your insta-crush."
"Come on. That was nothing. I mean, I was just -- sexually confused teen boy and he was just the safest person in the group to have a crush on. I knew he'd never -- he wouldn't have ever gone for me. And then there was you." Lance swallows the last of his beer and sets it carefully by the chair. "And you dumped him."
Joey puts his beer down hard and it sounds like the bottle might have cracked. "Yeah. And you know why. He was -- he was in love with me like he was moved to write sonnets and poetry. And I was in love with him, like, quoting song lyrics. And that wasn't going to change and I broke up with him and I moved on and so did he." Joey snarls, "Why'd you dump him?"
Lance stands up and crosses his arms, looking at the pool lights bleeding with the reflection of the night sky. "Because he needed to move on. He was just marking time and he needed to -- he needed to be pushed out of the nest."
Joey snorts. "You were so playing the mama bird. That's fucking you to a T." Joey stands up quickly and rubs his thighs with his hands. "Fuck, I'm not gonna be the pansy ass here like C and Chris. You're an idiot, but you're my best friend and he's -- Justin matters, too." Joey pauses and stands right behind Lance, breathing hard. "Grow up, Lance."
Lance whirls around and starts picking up the beer bottles, heavy in his hands and sticky as he stomps back into the house. Warm, pungent backwash rolls down to his elbow and drips on the floor. "Fuck you, Joey. I grew up way before the rest of you. Way before."
Joey follows him in and takes the bottles, washes them out in the sink. He turns and looks at Lance and says quietly, "You just got old before the rest of us. Old, not grown up." Joey goes to bed and they don't talk about it in the morning.
He drives Joey to the airport and hugs him goodbye. He starts crying. Twice in forever, he thinks. "I miss the group," he says. Joey pats his shoulder and doesn't say anything as he waves goodbye.
*
They finish shooting the movie and it's good. Lance thinks it's really good this time and when JC's around he sees a rough cut and says so too, and Lance doesn't think JC would lie about something like that.
Lance has talked to Justin without the intermediary of voicemail twice in eight months and both times were at business meetings in Orlando where they spent more time reading contracts than catching up. Everyone else he hears from at least once a week. Everyone is good. Things, Lance thinks carefully, are good.
"You look good," Mario says, coming out of the pool. Lance considered bailing on the whole personal trainer thing but at three a.m. one bad night he realized that he's not in a band anymore and it might not be so easy to get laid. Mario's from LA, it turns out, so that worked fine, and the rest of it is just sometimes, when nothing else is going on. Mario's a big buff kitten in bed and Lance likes it that way because it's nothing like Justin. Lance flinched once when Mario cursed after dropping a weight and Mario thinks it's because Lance is a Christian, so now Mario watches his language when they're together.
There's this other guy, one of the assistant directors, who Lance fucks sometimes. His name is Joseph, which is really kind of funny, except Joseph doesn't like pop music, just little indie rock bands no one's ever heard of. Lance doesn't take it personally, goes along once to see something called Blanket or maybe Comforter at the Whiskey and Joseph is really into it, pulls him outside for a cigarette and makes like he wants to blow Lance against the outside wall but Lance pushes away, goes home early, smokes more cigarettes and watches dead bugs float in his pool. He fucks the pool guy the next day after waking up in the chaise lounge.
"Come home for Thanksgiving," his mom pleads, but Lance thinks it would be nice to go someplace really cold instead. Tries to talk her into letting him pay for everyone to go to Vail or maybe Maine or Vancouver but she wants to cook and he finally gives in. She saw some picture in Movieline and says he's too thin.
Lance thinks one of the guys should pick a holiday they'll always get together for but figures he'd probably have to be the one to plan it, and he's sick of fucking planning things. He makes and executes plans all day long and then he goes home and fucks whoever can get there first, and it's nothing like his life used to be but he figures that's a good thing, too. He's in charge, and this is how he likes things. This is what he's making of his life, and he could do worse. This is what he tells himself at three a.m. when he wants to get up and play their old CDs.
He's in his car, talking to Joey about the big studio party, telling him about this tow-headed fifteen-year-old kid in the movie who kept trying to kiss him. The call waiting beeps, unknown ID, and when he flashes over it's Justin. "Hey," Lance says, looking over his shoulder. Maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to pull over. "My mom was just asking about you."
"Home for the holidays?" Justin says. Lance can't tell if his voice sounds more serious or if it's just the reception.
"No, no, I'm in LA, I just talked to her this morning. You?"
"I'm here," Justin says, and Lance checks his rearview mirror again, cuts across two lanes.
"Where?"
"In town." There's something in the background, people talking, or a TV maybe. "In LA."
Lance slides onto the shoulder and there's a big honk from a car he almost hits on his way. "Okay?" Justin says as Lance repeats "LA?" back at him and it's such a bad rhyme, it's so bad all around that Lance just laughs and then remembers.
"Dude, Joey's on the other line, hang on."
"No, it's -- I'll just call you later," Justin says and hangs up. Lance stares down at the phone and hangs up on Joey. He goes right past his own driveway and has to turn around and come back.
"He's here in town, did you know that?" he says without preface.
"I was getting to it," Joey says, and Lance hangs up again.
Mario's just up the road finishing a session with Shiri Appelby and he's at Lance's a half hour later. They fuck against the island in the kitchen and then Mario wants to go out so they shower and have two dirty martinis in the back garden at the Abbey. It's his new drink and Lance still isn't sure he likes it. There's a marble gargoyle that stares accusingly at Lance and the later it gets the more it fucking creeps him out. Around midnight he heads for the bathroom and thinks about just walking out the front door. Mario will come back. Lance pays him well enough.
But once Lance doesn't have to piss so much things seem better and he stops at the bar for another round. On the TV above the bar Leno is coming back from commercial and the captions say, "Ladies and gentleman, Justin Timberlake" and then "[APPLAUSE]." Lance gives the chick a fifty for two drinks and tells her to turn it up. He leans on the counter to watch.
Justin's hair is longer, curly but not unruly, loose and hanging over his ears. He's wearing jeans that aren't too loose or indecently tight and a slim-cut orange button-down shirt open at the neck. He looks good. Lance sits down on the stool. He didn't even know the album was coming out this soon, figured it for closer to Christmas. Jay's still a moron and asking all the wrong questions and Lance thinks the album is all written by Justin but can't quite tell from the conversation. He glares at a loud guy next to him until the guy slinks off. Lance listens harder.
"So, you're on your own now," Jay says. "Do you miss the guys?"
Justin looks into the camera. "Every day," he says. "It had to happen eventually, but, you know, you never really know how or what it's gonna look like. How it all comes down."
"And, can you, did things end okay? You're all still friends? Cause, you know, it always looked like you were all pretty tight."
"Of course," Justin says, and Lance wonders who's writing the script now. Who told Justin it was bad form to talk about awkward endings on television.
But then Jay tries to ask something else and Justin interrupts. Apologizes, says he's sorry, but he's not done.
"I mean, there are things, at the end -- you do things because you can. Because you still can, because you're still this, like, force of nature, when you're together." Jay nods like he gets it and Justin doesn't stop looking right at Lance. "But there are things at the end that are better than you ever thought was possible, when you finally get everything on your list and it's, just, you know. Beautiful. It's beautiful."
"Yeah," Jay says, and he doesn't make a joke and for that Lance will love him forever. "We'll be back with Justin Timberlake after the break," he says, "performing the single off his new album. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Justin Timberlake!"
Lance calls Joey from the car. "Where is he," Lance says, running a red light even though he doesn't really know where he's going. Joey tells him and it turns out Lance was going the right direction anyway.
He gives the concierge hundreds until it finally yields a room number and it's in the elevator that Lance remembers time zones and live-to-tape schedules. He's looking at his watch, trying to add and subtract and feeling fuzzy-headed. Joey saw it maybe three hours ago, and Justin probably left Burbank by six California time. Lance fumbles for his phone, checks when he called Joey on his way home and it's after that.
Lance jogs down the hall but the door's all the way at the end and he slows before he gets there, doing the math again. He stares at the grooved wood and wonders when he started making a new list. The one that assumed Justin would be around for the encore. He knocks, three short, loud raps, like they used to do on tour when they were sharing, right before they barged in. But he doesn't have a key, so he waits. Not long.
Justin's got on his same old blue striped pajama pants and no shirt and he blinks like he doesn't believe it.
Lance doesn't wait to be invited in. "Were you calling to say you didn't mean it?" he asks, arms over his chest, standing in front of the TV in the open armoire where Conan's doing his monologue.
Justin closes the door and grabs the remote and it's quiet for a good minute. Lance drops one hand to his waist and then shoves it in a pocket. Shifts his weight. Doesn't have anything else to say yet.
"I didn't need you to tell me it was time to grow up," Justin says finally, looking at the foot of the bed and not Lance. Even when Justin's sad he doesn't look young anymore, Lance thinks. "It was kind of inevitable," Justin says, and Lance sighs.
"I'm still in love with you," Lance says, as if he's said it before. He sits on the edge of the bed and stares at his feet. "We can still do this, I know we can. I can. I want us to do this for real." He's crying again, fucking tears dropping down onto the thick rug.
"Come over here," Justin says softly, and Lance looks up and things are blurry. "C'mere," Justin nods and Lance stands up, crosses the few feet left between them. He stands with his arms at his sides, looking at Justin's forehead like they taught him for the first movie. He thinks he's shaking.
Justin puts his palms on Lance's face and waits for their eyes to meet. And then Justin kisses him, one long kiss like this is the only plan they need to make. Lance is out of breath when they pull back, and Justin clears his throat.
"Take off your clothes," Justin says, and Lance does. Lance undresses them both, and they watch their bodies come together and apart in the dresser mirror. "You are so fucking beautiful," Justin says, and Lance believes him.
Lance whispers, "You too," and Justin's back is cool under his steady hands.
END.
Credits: The ddddirty pop collective. Roxette and suburban Best Buy. Location scouts and long Decembers. Samuel Delaney, Aimee Mann and The Commitments. And the Thanksgiving special slumber party host (mom) and new girl (Nikki).