the people you've been before that you don't want around anymore
that push and shove and won't bend to your will
I'll keep them still
Justin's lips are blue, but maybe it's just the neon. Two a.m. and only half the bars are late night places so they're wandering from one to another, looking for someplace dark but not too dark, hip but not too loud. Hip to Justin these days means a dive bar, lots of lit-up beer signs in the windows, scuffed wooden counters and stools that squeak and threaten to collapse when you sit on them.
Even Justin has a breaking point, it turns out. "I don't understand why they've all gotta be so, so like that," he says, breath making wispy clouds.
JC says, "I know, baby," and "just give them a couple of days, baby," and "they just don't understand, baby," and Justin nods, takes a deep breath and exhales foggy, chilled smoke rings. He falls backwards off the curb and JC grabs his arm. The street is quiet.
They stand on the stained sidewalk and watch their reflections in a locked-up storefront window. Justin winks at his mirror. JC looks at his feet, at his stand-in's nervous shuffle.
Justin elbows him in the ribs wrapping arms around himself. "I'm cold," Justin says, hopping up and down. JC feels flush. He strips off his sweater and hands it over.
"Here," he says, pushing his pendant down under the neck of his long-sleeved shirt. The metal is frozen against his skin and he thinks it should glow from the new heat there, like how a blacksmith makes iron into fire.
Justin doesn't pretend that he won't take what's offered. Long hands, long arms, long neck all caught in the tight weave of the camel-colored cashmere and Justin makes a cry like a colt tangled in its own legs. A whinny. "Help," JC hears. JC thinks there's nothing more painful than watching a horse fall.
JC wraps his fingers around Justin's wrists where they're held immobile in the air, like he's surrendering. JC tugs gently at the ribbing. He runs his palms over the soft knit where it's twisted on Justin's elbows and Justin pushes his head up through the hole, a chick waiting for a meal, mouth open, lips wet. Justin blinks twice and then smiles. He doesn't move.
JC pulls the torso of the sweater down over Justin's chest and lets his hands settle on the curve of Justin's waist.
"Still cold," Justin says, only slurring the words a little. Justin takes JC's arms and wraps them around his own back, steps into the embrace. When Justin's finished arranging them, JC's nose is buried in the crook of Justin's neck, where the skin under the jaw is pocked with stubble, and his pulse beats against JC's mouth. It's steady and strong and hot like an iron.
"You don't disagree, do you?" Justin says, and JC trips on all the negatives and the way Justin's chin juts against his forehead when Justin speaks. It's the pleasant kind of thudding, he thinks, like how a day's worth of beard across a bare stomach is the pleasant kind of sandpaper.
"No," he says.
"You think I should do it?"
"No," JC says. "But I think you will anyway."
"Just because I've always --"
"Yeah, J," he says.
"What if I don't want to anymore?"
JC reaches across an octave of Justin's back, shoulderblade to shoulderblade, pinky to outstretched thumb, lambswool stretched tight against the muscle. "Then don't," he says.
Justin pulls back his head. JC looks at the ridge of collarbone making sand-colored mountains. "Will you keep them --"
"Yes," JC says, whatever it is, yes. Justin doesn't pretend he wanted a different answer, and JC brings his face up.
END.
Credits: J-Lo says the right thing when it's for real. Part of the forthcoming Either/Or challenge by the ddddirtypop collective. Lyrics by Elliott Smith, "Between the Bars."