the one that makes me laugh
JC was always weird. He wasn't always so pretty about it, and before Chris had any idea just how pretty JC would be, he spent bone-weary nights thinking of new ways to torture this boy who was younger and taller and sometimes stronger but never entirely sure of himself.
He switched his own pants with JC's and JC could pull them up fine but when they only hung to mid-calf he'd just stare and stare and finally, somewhat sadly, take them off again. Once he kindly offered them to Chris, saying they must've shrunk, and Chris pretended to be offended and then bounded off to laugh in the hallway.
Walking through the markets with a heavy pocketful of gold German coins, Chris picked out white-dusted candy shaped like tongues. "Saure gurken," he said, handing one to JC and JC frowned because that was how to say pickles, and even halfway around the world from home they all knew how to order burgers the way they liked them. "You think I'm gonna poison the talent?" Chris jeered, and JC put on a brave face and bit off a chunk before gagging at the sour tartness and swallowing fast.
"Here," JC said, handing the bag of candy back. "Um, thanks."
I promise that I'll run away with you
On a day when the sky hung down like heavy lids and people named storms after girls and then boys and then girls again, Chris and JC sat on a concrete pier on the edge of the continent and didn't talk about it.
"He's sick, not dead," Chris finally said, and JC's shoulders hitched. Chris put his arm around JC's shoulders and waves kicked up higher and higher until they had to go back to the car.
"why are you so far away?" she said
"Nice bike," JC said, and he stubbed his toe into Chris' steel boot like maybe he thought he should kick the tire but was afraid he'd hurt it. "Ow," he said.
"Mid-life crisis," Chris said. "I was thinking, hey, I picked international superstardom over being a good boyfriend, I should at least get a younger, prettier group with, like, more breasts. But the guy at the dealership really knew his shit."
JC ran a squeaky finger over the chrome handlebars. "It's not because she doesn't love you," he said.
"Yeah," Chris said. "Cause that would be worse, I bet."
strange as angels dancing in the deepest oceans
Not long before everyone else finally noticed how weird came in very pretty shades, JC caught Chris wearing a stare that felt like a frayed guitar string about to snap.
They were in the basement of some club and Lance had stumbled into a bathroom with someone. Lance had noticed JC, too, and the guy was too blond and mean-looking to be a threat to whatever it was those two had, whenever it was they had it. Chris was still sick of noticing all the things about Lance that might be worth waiting for.
JC was smudged with black kohl and poured into leather pants and he'd had two drinks. Chris'd had nine, and JC had watched Lance wander off and then rested his head on Chris' shoulder. When Chris pushed off to get number ten, JC grabbed his hand and put a thumb on his cheek.
"You should be happy," JC said, tracing his lips, eyes wide and drunk. "I really, you should be happy, okay?" Chris let his mouth fall open and he shifted to box JC against an oversized speaker, bass thrumming through the ubiquitous, shimmery strip of exposed stomach.
He'd hated all of them at some point. Chris faked like he was going in for a kiss and JC's chin came up. He bit JC's ear, hard, and leaned back. "Why? You're not." JC cupped a hand to the side of his head and Chris left. The crowd surged against his back like he'd never passed through at all.
daylight licked me into shape
Four a.m. and JC didn't look like he'd been sleeping. "I was just thinking about you," JC said easily, and Chris ran his hands through his hair and hated JC's couch and the way the counters in his kitchen gleamed and his paisley fucking wallpaper because those things were close to JC but not of him. Chris wasn't twenty-five anymore and he'd maybe learned to pick around the scab.
"I never asked." Chris tugged at a diagonal zipper on his leather jacket and looked up to see the corner of a grin on JC's face. A slow bruise of a smile grew on his own face and he breathed out the rest, fast, before he hated all of it too much. "I thought you might --" He waved at the bike, kicked the molding at the base of the door. "You want?"
JC took off his Hello Kitty pajama pants and pulled on jeans while Chris stood in the bedroom doorway. Chris handed him a t-shirt off a chair and JC sat in front of the closet to put sneakers on bare feet. He looked like any other boy except not in the slightest and Chris had loved all of them at some point but never like that.
you, soft and only, you
JC held him too tight, at first, and Chris had to let go around a sharp curve and loosen the strangle on his ribs. The bike shuddered and it was another five or ten miles before he could blink away the fear. JC's hand on his thigh and breath fast against his neck and the sky was humming with almost-light.
It wasn't even really a beach. More like a dune, more like a long scratch on the underside of an arm, a bleeding sunrise at the edge of a body. JC took off his shoes and let water lap at the cuff of his jeans, then dropped Chris' jacket on a rock and walked right into the surf.
He came back, eventually, and Chris peeled the wet shirt from JC's chest and ran skidding fingers over the ridges of his backbone. Salt crusted to JC's eyelashes and Chris pushed him down, pressed shoulders into the wet sand like it wouldn't all wash away in the next tide.
Chris gasped. "I want --"
JC craned his neck up and bit Chris' bottom lip. "Show me," he said.
show me show me show me how you
Moans, roars, crashes torn from mouths and heat and friction and Chris opened his eyes after a long while and expected to find a bed of glass.
"I thought, maybe..." Chris licked his lips and swallowed grit. "All this time?" he said, because he could, because they would, now, make better use of it all.
JC picked dark mineral flakes off Chris' thigh and then curled into the bend of Chris' shoulder. "I didn't have any idea how to love like that," JC said. "Like you. You're all, you think no one can see it because it hurts worse for you. But I didn't know how, before."
There was a long strand of seaweed almost tangled in their feet. "With Lance, you mean," he said, because he could.
JC pushed his nose to Chris' temple. "With you. You had to show me."
END.
Credits: The Cure, "Just Like Heaven." Beta by all-ages Sandy and Lise. Candy by Jae.