Justin wakes up when Lance closes the door. Lance is just standing there, leaning against the door, wet circles of sweat on his shirt. He's been running again, Justin thinks, never a day off from looking good at parties. Justin keeps blinking and desperately wishes he'd had a chance to go running or something before this conversation.

Lance says, "Good morning," and stays by the door.

Justin mumbles, "I'm sure." He closes his eyes. Step, step and the bed dips and Lance is sitting down. Justin says, "Are you gonna bring me breakfast?"

Lance laughs a little, almost sounds amused. "I'm not getting your lazy ass breakfast. I thought, well, we're here to talk, right? And here we are with something to talk about."

Justin opens his eyes. He can think of a million things to say, like, might have made sense to use a condom last night, and maybe they should have done this a while ago or maybe not at all. Mostly Justin thinks Lance has this look in his face like he's actually there, a level of attention, or something, that Justin hasn't seen since Harper split. So Justin says, "Let's talk."

Lance tries a small smile that almost looks real. Close enough these days. "Okay, the thing is. Not that last night wasn't great or anything, but. The last thing we need is another, you know what I mean." Lance waves in the general direction of JC's room.

Justin turns on his side and reaches for Lance's hand. Lance is gone again, Justin can tell, his eyes carefully focused on Justin's nose so it's almost like he's looking Justin in the eye. But not quite. Once upon a time, Justin thinks, Lance looked people in the eye, looked all of them in the eye and once upon a time Lance was in love. And fuck it, this conversation isn't going anywhere Justin likes already so he says, "Do you, uh, how's Harper these days?"

Lance flinches and pulls his hand away from Justin. "What the fuck kind of question is that?"

"I just. I liked Harper, you know? Just thought you'd know how he's doing these days, you know." Justin rubs his eyes and then throws off the scratchy blanket. "I mean, fine, I get it. Wham, bam, never again before we turn into JC and Joey and everything's even more fucked up. I get it. And I just fucking woke up and looking at you and thinking about, you know, you. And Harper." Harper was a pretty great boyfriend. There was a brief stretch there, when Dani was still around and so was Harper and things were good with Brit, and JC and Joey weren't so crappy, when they'd all end up hanging out. They all really got along and everyone laughed at the same jokes. That was a while ago.

Lance sighs. He stands up and looks out the window. Spots of sweat dot the back of his t-shirt and Justin would really like to fuck him again, and maybe that's not just about wanting a distraction. Lance says, "He's fine. He's, uh, helping promote Britney now. These days. It's not like we keep in touch or anything."

Justin says okay and gets up. He finds his clothes and pulls them on. He stands at the door and looks at Lance, still looking out the window. "So, okay, never again, etcetera. I'm gonna get breakfast." Justin pauses, leans against the door. He hears someone walking by, probably Chris, so he waits for Chris to get down the hallway. "But it was pretty great. So, yeah." Lance doesn't say anything and Justin goes back to his room for clean clothes.

The morning's gone before Justin knows it and he can't find Joey or Chris anywhere. JC is sitting by the piano with his headphones on, playing along to something. It's not theirs or the new stuff from the album and it doesn't sound like something JC's written. Justin opens his mouth to ask the innocent question, but JC's hunched over the bench and he never looks up. Justin assumes that all this means there's been another blowup in JC and Joey land. He throws down the book he was pretending to read and walks upstairs to find Lance.

Lance is in his room, showered and clean. Another stack of scripts, open laptop and Lance is just staring out the window. It's fucking infuriating. Justin says, "Do you even care?"

Lance keeps looking out the window. "Care about what? Anything specifically here, Justin?" Lance can make someone's name sound like an insult, and here he seems to be using Justin as a synonym for "asshole motherfucker." Justin thinks he probably should have skipped the Harper question this morning.

"Lance," Justin says, and it just sounds like a whine. "Man, I want things to work, you know?"

Lance stands up but stays by the window. Justin wonders if he left fingerprints there last night, kissing there. Justin wonders if he's left any marks on Lance. If anything breaks through the crap built around all of them these days. Maybe if he can get Lance to care about this, Justin thinks, if he can get just one person to at least agree they need to get something done. Justin says quietly, "I know this is important to you, too. But we're all just wasting this, this opportunity to really talk."

Lance opens his mouth but before he can say anything JC comes up behind Justin in the hall and tugs at his arm. Justin turns around in the open doorway and says, "What?"

JC is holding the CD with the mixes Justin brought and almost hisses, "Let's talk about this, okay? You ass."

Lance steps forward and says, "What's up?"

JC folds his arms and says, "Justin has some notes, it seems. Were you planning on sharing this shit with me?"

"Yes," Justin says, pissed off again. "It's not like I haven't said half of it to you already." Justin inhales deeply. Turns to Lance and says, "What do you think, Lance? Maybe you could say something here for once."

Lance's eyes narrow. "I haven't seen the notes."

JC says, "You can guess. You must listen sometimes in the studio. I think there were a few points your cell phone wasn't attached to your ear."

Lance says, "Maybe they even coincided with the times when you were blowing Joey so he didn't notice the engineer's tits." Lance slams the door in their faces and it's just Justin and JC in the corridor.

JC says, "I don't agree with your notes." He says it quietly.

"I know," Justin says and he's just worn out. He's been having this same fight for so long, and he kind of can't believe that Lance was just so fucking mean to JC. No matter what, they're not mean to JC, not ever. Justin's pissed but he's not gonna be mean. "And I don't agree with yours and we need to find, something, fuck. Fuck, C, we haven't gotten anywhere here."

"Well, you're wrong. I don't know where to go from there, man." JC rubs his arms and walks back to his room. Justin could go after him, could try to talk to Lance, but he's worn out. He walks to his room and sleeps until evening.

---

Justin and Joey wind up cooking dinner because Lance is still in his room and JC convinced Chris to take a walk and look for hieroglyphics or some shit. Joey makes beef Stroganoff and Justin cuts vegetables for a salad. He has to laugh because at least they've all grown up enough to eat decently without needing someone's mom or nutritionist to write out a menu.

"What's so funny?" Joey says, peeking in the oven again. Justin doesn't point out the switch for the light.

"Just, we're all domestic and shit," he says. He knows Joey's gotta be on JC's side even when they're not fucking, and it's not like Justin's got any room to talk when it comes to messing around on someone you actually do care about, but still. Maybe Joey could get JC to at least try to think about fixing things. He smiles at Joey, full-wattage, and bats at Joey's hand when he tries to steal a red pepper off the top of the salad bowl.

"You're all happy," Joey says, cautiously. Justin just shrugs. He's not exactly unhappy. He leans over to scoop up a piece of lettuce that fell to the floor and Joey slaps a hand on his back, holds him bent over like that.

Justin's not sure what the fuck that's about and considers for a second if sleeping with Joey could be a worse idea than sleeping with Lance. He stands up and Joey leans against the sink.

"So that's why," Joey says, voice flat.

"What?"

"Yeah, Mr. I've Got Scratches Up My Back, play dumb, that always works well in situations like this. JC said, cause of your little spat this morning, and I thought he was just talking smack, but he was right, you fucking did it, didn't you."

Justin's frozen and scared for a second like he really had gotten caught doing something wrong, and then he remembers just who he's talking to and what about, and he scoffs a little and throws the lettuce in the garbage disposal, runs cold water and flips the switch. That doesn't last long enough but he'd feel bad stripping the gears even if it's just a rental.

"Well?" Joey says.

"Yeah, and it doesn't matter anyway, Joe, so just get off my fucking back about it."

"Just cause you've got bigger and better to go on to doesn't mean you gotta start lining up your new trophy wife --"

Justin hits a fist against the counter and Joey, finally, finally, finally Joey shuts up. Justin thinks not hearing Joey bitch anymore might be worth leaving for a solo career, then kicks himself mentally and takes a deep breath. He knows there are a lot of cheap shots he could take about fucking your bandmate but that's not gonna do a damn thing to help here, so he just scrubs an invisible stain from the counter with the heel of his palm. "He couldn't kick me out of his bed fast enough," he says, which is maybe half the truth. "And, yeah, I stuck my foot in it somewhere I'm sure, but it's not, it's not gonna be a thing. So don't worry, your boy's fine, he's just the fucking same and I'm sure he'll tell you all about it when --"

Chris bursts through the door, JC on his heels. "Yo!" Chris shouts, "yo, we are totally in a fucking cult hatch." JC is laughing almost too hard to walk straight and Justin watches Joey see that and smile, eyes crinkling up with love.

The tension lifts like a summer storm that's rained itself out. Justin can't help it, he laughs, too. "Dude, how much of that shit did you smoke?"

"No, no," and Chris is serious, waving his hands around emphatically. "For real, guys, this is like, Johnny rented us some doomsday mansion or something. JC and me, we're walking, OK?"

Chris looks at JC and JC nods, holding his ribs. Joey walks over and wraps an arm around JC's shoulders and with those two it's like you'd need a commentator to figure out when's on and when's off.

Chris hops up and down a little. "We're walking back to the house, and JC, like, he trips over this thing sticking out of the dirt, and he almost falls on his face, but it turns out, it's like a handle! To, to, it's connected to a trap door thingie. And we pull it up and there's a ladder and JC, you fucking pussy, JC's all scared so he sends my apparently dispensable ass down there and there are, like, racks and racks of guns. And enough food to feed an army for years after an apocalypse. And cots, and, I don't know, tunnels that go on and on and no way was I doing that by myself, not without a flashlight."

Justin shakes his head. "You're so full of shit, man. Seriously, I know we're all ready to get high every once and a while but you got to cut down."

"No," JC says, "he's serious, man. He made me go down there cause he said you wouldn't believe him. It's like twenty feet from here. It probably runs under the house."

"This was totally some creepy ass cult hangout," Chris says, "and it just figures, it just figures that Johnny would think that was a good idea."

Justin turns and Lance is standing at the edge of the kitchen. "What's a good idea?" he says. JC giggles and Chris actually doesn't seem like he wants to tell the story again, so maybe he is a little stoned, after all. There's a second where it's like they've all been busted for having fun, and Lance is the prison warden, the stern daddy, the stick-up-his ass principal. Justin doesn't like Lance very much right then, and then he doesn't like himself much for thinking that.

Justin opens the oven to check on the food and Joey says, "It's nothing. Just Chris falling down the rabbit hole again." Justin burns his finger on the wire rack and bites his lip.

---

Lance leaves his door open a crack and Justin takes that as an invitation. Or, well, okay, he kind of feels like an ass for letting Lance feel all left out before and also the Harper thing, so at the least it's an opportunity to apologize. That's why he's not knocking, just walking in and pulling the door shut behind him. To apologize.

Lance almost smiles when he sees Justin's reflection in the window. Laptop open at the desk again, and Lance's hair is kind of messy. There's a plum-colored bruise under Lance's jaw that Justin hadn't seen earlier and the scrapes he hadn't even known were on his back burn against his shirt. Fuck. "Sorry 'bout before," he mumbles. He came to apologize.

Lance twists around in the wooden chair and nods, doesn't say Justin's forgiven. But his eyes are sharp so Justin just reaches back and flips off the lights. Lance puts a hand behind him and shuts the computer. Justin waits for him and Lance stands up, smoothes down his khakis and walks over. Justin sinks to his knees and licks the cool metal zipper where it meets soft cotton.

Lance doesn't spend any time being quiet this go around and Justin lets his chin slacken and doesn't fight it when Lance is fucking him kind of hard. Stretch, swallow, step up and steer them both back to the bed. Lance is sweaty to the touch but it's too dark to really see and Justin licks a clean line from Lance's stomach up to his neck. He's just lying on top of Lance and they're kissing slow and soft, nips on each other's noses and eyes and he thinks Lance's mouth is the kind of strong that knows how to carry him home, and then he doesn't know what the hell he's thinking but it can't be good if it sounds like that. And then Lance's hand wraps around his dick and tugs, gently like a question and then harder and faster and faster and Justin comes on Lance's stomach and they fall asleep like that, stuck to each other.