"They said, if you leave, don't bother coming back." Chris shakes water from his fingers into the bathroom sink.
JC digs his toes into the long weave of the bathmat. "They really said that?" The rug is ragged, not plush, and the strings feel like clover, like he could twine them together to wear as a crown.
"Well, yeah." Chris frowns at his reflection, licks his palm and smooths it over a stray hair. "Or whatever it is in Russian. Unless he just fucking translated it wrong. Maybe they said have a great vacation."
"He can count," JC says. "He counted to ten on the phone the other night before we said goodbye."
Chris laughs, snorting a little and then catching himself.
"Shest," JC says. "I remember, that's six. I don't know the others." T-minus ten till I'm hanging up, Lance said.
"It's that part, right there." Chris tugs at a clump of hair near the front, by his temple. "It's, I don't know. Maybe it's trying to fall out or something. It looks like shit."
JC runs his hand up the wrong way, from behind, so that all of Chris' hair sticks up on end. Chris looks like a Muppet like this, like Eggbert if Eggbert had brown hair. Or like he's the example for static electricity on one of those science shows that used to come on after Sesame Street. "I like it," he says.
"You would," Chris says.
"You'd look cute with a mohawk." JC puts his arms around Chris' waist and runs the water. He slicks down the sides of Chris' hair, covering it so all that peeks out from under his hands is a spiky forest down the middle. "Like this," he whispers.
Chris tilts his head like he's trying to get a better look and JC nips at his ear. Chris doesn't turn, but he stares at JC in the mirror and his eyes are wide and dark. "I think there are clippers in one of the drawers," he says, hoarsely, and when he swallows the noise is so loud, so close to JC. Under JC's hand, Chris' throat bobs again.
"You'd let me?" JC asks, holding Chris' face in his hands from behind. Chris' reflection blinks and stares down at the marble counter. Chris trusts people with unexpected pieces of himself, like how for months after they met he'd whip off his pants and chase Joey around the house, but he'd always wear socks and shoes all day. He thought his toes were ugly because one of them stuck out weird from when a guy at his grocery store job had dropped a whole pallette of canned lima beans on his foot.
"You've done this before, right?" Chris asks. JC doesn't think so but he nods yes over Chris' left shoulder and Chris shrugs in his arms. JC steps back and claps his hands, steering Chris until he's sitting on the toilet seat.
"Stay here," he says, not that he thinks Chris will go anywhere. Places for Chris to go keep disappearing, and he wasn't drunk, just sad, the week before when he'd sat on JC's couch with his feet in JC's lap.
He digs through a drawer and finds the razor, which has way too many switches and blades and Chris finally takes it from his hands, adjusts it and gives it back. "Who says Lance is the only one doing experiments," Chris says softly, and JC flips the razor on. Chris gives him a thumbs up and JC stands in front of his knees.
JC's arm trembles from the constant whirring of the little engine as he clearcuts first one side of Chris' head and then the other. He bends Chris' ears forward, running the clippers in short strokes like a vacuum. He's not shaving all the way down the scalp, so there's a sheen of dark hair left.
The way Chris' toilet fits against the long counter, JC can only really get to the left side well. He switches off the razor and his forearm trembles residually, like aftershocks. "I can't reach," he says, and Chris turns at the hips a little, but it's still the wrong angle.
It's really quiet in the big bathroom without the buzzsaw echo and JC had kind of gotten used to the sound, it was like static, like lawnmowers on a Saturday morning when you slept in too late. If Chris had lived in his neighborhood, he probably would have been the kid who came by and tried to get people's dads to give him twenty bucks to do the job. JC would have sat in his bedroom upstairs, looking through the window, and if it was hot out Chris would have taken off his shirt and used it to wipe the sweat off his forehead.
JC flips the razor back on and puts one leg between Chris' knees. He pushes one shoulder back with his free hand and when that still doesn't let him in the way he needs, Chris sits back and JC puts one leg on either side, straddling him. To reach the base of Chris' neck from there he has to bend almost in half across Chris' shoulder, but once that's done he can sit down a little.
"This is gonna cost extra, I bet," Chris says, sounding kind of short of breath, but that could be the filter of white noise. Chris is smiling a little, that half-grin that is the best anyone's been able to get since the tour ended.
JC wiggles on Chris' lap and touches the clipper to Chris' temple. "Be still," he says. Hair falls like fine little shards of glass all around them, prickling at his skin. JC goes back over the territory he already covered, evening things out. Chris has closed his eyes and is breathing through his nose. JC turns off the razor and Chris' lids fly open.
"Done?"
JC shakes his head, lowers his feet fully and stands. "Wait," he says. Chris nods. There's nothing like what he wants in the drawers or under the sink and so he walks through Chris' bedroom. Nothing on the dresser and JC leans down and snags his flip-flops, not breaking stride.
"Oh thank god," Chris says first thing when JC gets back. "I really, I was starting to feel like, remember that girl who talked Justin into letting her tie him up and then she just --"
"You didn't have any gel," JC says, snapping open the top and smiling down at where Chris really was still sitting just where JC'd left him. "I just went to Lance's. I knew he couldn't have taken it all with him."
"You," Chris starts, and then he tugs at the tie to JC's drawstring pants until JC folds onto his lap again. This time Chris puts his arms around JC's back.
"Me what?"
"You have hair all over you," Chris says, tracing a finger down the middle of JC's chest.
JC giggles. "So do you," he says. He tries to sweep some off Chris' shoulders but it sticks to his hand instead. "You're gonna have to take a shower, I think."
Chris' hand at the base of JC's back presses in. "Okay," he says. "Before or after we gel?"
JC frowns. Before and the gel will just wash out. But after and he has to move again and he kind of likes right where he is. Chris is warm and his hands are steady and he's maybe got three-quarters of a smile now, which is some kind of record since his grandma died and Dani stopped trying to find the bottom line. JC wishes Justin were there to see it so he knew it was possible after all. But really he doesn't want Justin to be there so much. Justin goes to a stylist to get his head shaved. He wouldn't get it.
"After," JC says, and Chris nods.
Then Chris sneezes, almost dropping JC as he tries to cover his nose. "It's," he says, sniffing hard, "I think it's all the hair. On your shirt."
"Oh," JC says. He puts the bottle of gel on the wedge of counter behind Chris' neck and pulls his shirt off. "Better?"
Chris doesn't say anything but he grins like an idiot and puts his hand on JC's spine.
"Actually," JC says. "We should do yours, too, cause otherwise we'll get all the spikes done and the collar will fuck it up." Chris stares at him, not blinking, and JC scoots back enough to free the hem, pulling up. When Chris' shirt is off, short strands of hair still cling to his shoulders. JC thinks maybe he could blow them off, so he cranes his neck and whispers air through his lips near Chris' collarbone. The hair sticks on the skin like those ancient bugs caught in amber and JC thinks if he can make the gel work it would be fun to sculpt the mohawk into soft little spikes, like a stegosaurus.
Chris' hand moves up along the ridges of his backbone. The five of them went to the Museum of Natural History in New York a long time ago, all those bones on wire frames in the tall hallways. Lance said before astronaut it was paleontologist and when the museum director giving them the private tour asked Chris what he'd wanted to be when he grew up, Chris had said, "Well-fed."
JC's wearing thin cotton pants with a drawstring and when he left his house he just thought they were going to maybe watch some TV so he never put on underwear. Dark red boxers peek out over the waistband of Chris' jeans. Their stomachs both look soft all scrunched out like that. They're both pretty tan because what good is a hiatus if you can't spend some time out by the pool, just chilling. Chris doesn't mind if JC sunbathes naked as long as JC buys the beer. He thinks that's a pretty good deal.
Chris touches one of the vertebrae in the middle and JC jumps. It's the one the tour doctor always says won't loosen up. Chris pulls JC in tight and JC's lips are buried in Chris' neck. Chris is kind of shaking a little, trembling like he's been holding on too tight and JC runs his fingers through the long sheath of hair that's left like the center line down a highway.
Chris puts his hands on JC's shoulder and pushes him back, gently. JC reaches back for the gel and squeezes the clear gluey liquid into his palm.
"You know," Chris says, clearing his throat. "Real punks use egg whites. Or superglue. Real punks use superglue, I think."
"You're not a punk," JC says. He starts to rub his hands together like he's warming up lube but the gel is really sticky so he just works it into Chris' hair one-handed.
"I have a mohawk," Chris protests. "I have, like, I have anger. I'm an angry guy. I could be a punk."
JC hums and closes his fist around a wide tuft of hair. The gel is pretty strong and the spike stays where he left it. He tightens his knees around Chris' thighs and stretches up to reach. He leans forward and Chris laps at the base of his throat like it's an accident, like his tongue just happened to be there. JC's shoulders quiver and he sits back down harder than he meant to. "You're not angry," he says. His hand fits in the crook of Chris' elbow, so he leaves it there.
Chris lifts an eyebrow. "I'm one angry motherfucker," he says. "I could be hard core."
"You're not angry," JC says. "You're sad."
Chris opens his mouth and then shuts it. When he opens it again, JC kisses him. Their chests are warm and slightly damp against each other and Chris splays his hand wide across the back of JC's ribcage. JC holds Chris' head with hands on the shaved sides and licks Chris' mouth, bites at his lips and kisses where dark, pretty lashes rest on his still face.
JC stops to catch his breath and Chris surges beneath him, pushing up, almost standing before coming back down to rest on the toilet lid. JC wraps his arms around Chris' neck, and Chris says, into JC's jaw, "I really wanna fuck you."
"Yes," JC says.
END.
Credits: Ray let me. Shout-outs to freakysparks, Kel. and Glace for indulging the newfound kink, and to Younger, for saying I was allowed to try and convince her.
Sequel: Bought and Sold You