Words: ballet, currycomb, chambray, nail file, malevolent, pensive

There are these wide spots in the road, places where the buses can pull over and fuel up, and the five of them can spill out of their cages and into musty little gift shops filled with junk. They can browse the shelves for the next tacky souvenir to send home, or - in JC's case - to add to a collection that grows at an alarming rate. And when they've exhausted the possibilities inherent in currycombs decorated to look like hedgehogs - "What's a hedgehog?" Justin said, and they all rolled their eyes, even Joey, who didn't really know either - they can file out of the store and stand around.

Joey always gets bored with the standing-around part, and inevitably wanders back on to the bus. The rest of the guys, though, they take every chance they get to just...stand around. Not like they won't do plenty of standing around when they get to the venue - they'll stand around on stage, and they'll stand around off stage, and they'll stand around during sound check. But they won't get the chance to stand around like this, staring at a chambray sky, watching the sun set in the American West.

JC is always the first of the rest of them to give it up. He sighs, and goes back to his keyboard and his notebooks and his frustration. Chris soaks it up a while longer. Sometimes he tells them stories of roadtrips with his mom when she danced ballet and they criss-crossed the country, hitting all fifty states, one audition at a time. He only tells those stories when the skies are particularly malevolent. Justin thinks the clouds on the horizon make Chris think of being a little boy riding in the backseat of a beat-up car. But Chris always stops his story when he and his mom get to town and she finds someone to stay with for the night. The shadows enter his eyes then, and he turns, and walks quickly back to the bus.

Lance and Justin are always the last two left outside. Justin doesn't know why; all he knows is that something in him is always hungry to see a wide-open sky from outside a wall of glass and steel. And he knows something is hungry inside of Lance, too. He knows it when Lance turns to look at him, and instead of his normal pensive, noncommital smile, he wears a wicked grin and a cocked eyebrow.

- "This is such a classic little Western town. Bet they even have hitching posts out back." What? Wha...oh. -

So sometimes, after they've gotten their fill of sun and sky and open spaces, Justin and Lance find a shadowy spot behind the store and explore a different kind of heat. Lance presses Justin's shoulders against the splintery wooden paneling, tongues slip-slide between them, Justin's fingers tangle in Lance's hair. The heat and pressure of Lance's mouth on his cock always surprises Justin, but the finger stroking into his ass is predictable. - "God, remind me to get this boy a nail file next time we stop." - But even the scrape and pinch of a bitten fingernail can't stop him from gasping, and squinching his eyes shut, and coming so hard he can barely stand.

And then the busdriver honks the horn, or they hear Chris calling their names, or Joey rounds the corner and promptly stumbles back, screeching about his eyes and how they don't work anymore. So Lance stands, tucks Justin back inside his pants, gives him a pat and a proprietary grin, and they return to the steel cages. Justin usually wraps an arm around Lance's waist, and never likes letting go of him to ride on separate buses. But he's never too sad.

Because there's a new sunset every day.