And. "Dude, I'm suspending your movie privileges," Chris says. "Get a grip."
"No," Justin says and grabs Chris' arm. "I mean it."
"Then you're stupid."
"I've never been in a fight," Justin says. "No one's ever hit me, ever."
JC pokes his head in the door and says, "And you should be thankful."
"Why haven't I been in a fight?" Justin asks the room in general. "I'm not a wuss. I can handle it. Why is the world coddling me?"
"Um, are you okay?" JC asks. He's looking worried, like maybe Justin might start banging his head against the microwave or something.
"He's having a fucking existential crisis," Chris says. "Again."
"I just wanna know what it's like--"
"I know what it's like. Not fun. The end."
"I know it's not fun!" Justin says and he's sort of fighting to keep his voice down. He knows they're making fun of him for a reason, he's not explaining himself very well. He can't explain it any better than this. "I'm not asking for fun. I just."
There's the rub - he hasn't thought up a good reason. It's a fucking feeling, but "because I want it" won't cut it.
"Maybe you should go lie down," JC suggests. Lying down is his cure for everything, it seems.
"Call your therapist," Chris mutters and salts the popcorn. He always puts too much salt, so Justin slaps his hands away.
"I stopped going," he says. "I didn't like her."
Lance has showed up now, too. He's leaning against the counter and Justin thinks he might be smirking just a little. "You mean she didn't let you bullshit her, pretty boy?" he says and that is definitely a smirk. Lance is always a notch meaner after he's had a couple drinks, like he forgets to keep his bitterness tamped down.
"No, I didn't like her," Justin says. She made a pass at him, that's what happened, but Justin isn't going to tell anyone about that, ever. A fucking shrink. The world's just not a nice place. He wonders when his life turned into an episode of the Red Shoe Diaries. Next, David Duchovny will show up.
"Are you over yourself yet?" Chris asks. Sometimes, most of the time, Justin likes Chris' no-nonsense way of handling things. Today he just wants to punch Chris in the face. He can't bring himself to do it, though. There's another rub. He can't see himself hurting anyone. God made him into a big, meek lamb and never asked his opinion about it. He tries to picture his hand flying out and hitting Chris' face; tries to imagine what it would feel like when his knuckles slap into Chris' jaw, smashing lips against teeth. It would hurt him, too, but not as much as it'd hurt Chris.
Just thinking about it makes him feel a little sick.
"No," he says. "Would you guys stop treating me like I'm some kind of idiot?"
"When you stop acting like one, sweetie," JC says mildly and takes the bowl.
Lance pushes off the counter and steps up to Justin. He walks like a sissy, with swinging hips; he always has. Justin doesn't know why no one ever notices that Lance is a big sissy with a nasty sense of humour.
He opens his mouth to maybe say something about that, but then Lance pivots and swings and next thing, Justin's on his ass on the floor, holding his face.
Everyone's staring. Justin looks up at Lance, who looks back with calm, green eyes that look like polished glass in his pale face.
"How about that?" he says. "Was it everything you hoped for?" He's not even rubbing his hand. Justin can't get his hands away from his face. He heard a crunch, he clearly heard something go crunch in his face.
He stares at Lance who stares back.
He forces his hands down. They're bloody. "Yeah," he says. His voice doesn't really carry. Everyone's still staring in horror. Joey's standing in the door with his mouth open. "Yeah," Justin says again and tries to smile. It hurts. Lance doesn't smile back, but his eyes seem a little warmer.
It's never Lance, though. Lance is the only one looking at the TV.
His face hurts something fierce, but he doesn't want to touch it, doesn't want to draw their attention back to it. His nose isn't broken and that's good enough. There's still the raw metal aftertaste of blood in the back of his throat, but he sort of likes that.
"I'm gonna go home," JC says and he looks at Justin, worried expression on his face, but Justin just nods. JC touches his shoulder when he passes and says, softly, "are you okay?"
"Yeah," Justin says.
"Hang on, I'm coming with you," Joey says and when he gets up, Chris does, too.
Chris also looks at Justin, but not with worry. He seems a little pissed off. Or disappointed. He narrows his eyes at Justin and says, "You're an idiot," and then glares at Lance, but Lance doesn't lower his eyes like Justin did.
Chris calls out from the hall, as an afterthought, "Can I leave the two of you alone here?"
"Tell us you won't kill each other," Joey adds. There's giggling, but it sounds just a little hysterical and Justin hears JC hiss something too quiet to make out.
"We won't kill each other," Lance says, loudly and without warning, and Justin flinches. He finds the last bottle of Bud and picks at the label. The door falls shut and Lance says, "are you gonna drink that?"
"No," Justin says and gives it to Lance.
"You want to hit me back?" Lance asks, completely casually. He looks cool too, like he knows Justin's gonna say no.
Justin tries to consider it. Lance looks at him over the beer bottle.
"No," Justin says.
Lance isn't picking at the label, but his fingers move a little over the glass, small, jerky movements. He has neat hands, small and delicate and sort of girlie. Perfectly manicured, of course, but so are Justin's own. They're the ones who keep their hands pretty - JC and Chris chew their nails down to the quick and Joey's just a big slob and hates sitting still for manicures - but Justin's hands are big and strong, with long fingers.
He doesn't know why he's thinking about Lance's hands all of a sudden, but he is and it doesn't feel all that weird.
He touches his face, finally: swollen lip, hot under his fingertips. His nose hasn't, surprisingly, swollen to twice its normal size.
"Have you figured out what you wanted now?" Lance says.
Justin pokes at the soreness and can't tell if he likes it or if he's just pretending. The pain makes him feel cold along his back and hot in his stomach.
Lance puts the bottle down and leans closer. Pushes Justin's hand aside and grabs his jaw with ungentle fingers. It hurts. Justin hisses and feels the sting of tears in his eyes and a cold wave of excitement in his stomach. It's almost making him feel sick, but stays just on the good side of that; like a chill throughout his body, except somewhere in the pit of his stomach or maybe somewhere below, where heat is pooling and spreading.
He tries to open his mouth and say something, anything; maybe "stop it, you freak", but he can't seem to get his muscles to obey.
"Maybe you know, anyway," Lance says. Justin swallows painfully and whispers, "What do I know?"
It's hard to remember that he knows Lance, knows that Lance is usually this slightly awkward guy who works hard and sometimes says the wrong thing and blushes and looks down. This guy is not going to look down.
Justin looks down and Lance pushes him off the sofa. He doesn't fight, just slides to the floor onto his knees.
Maybe he does know. Maybe he does; he puts his hands on Lance's knees and doesn't look up. Maybe he doesn't just want to know what it's like to be in a fight.
He gets ideas and they won't go away. They don't need words, just pictures right now. His hands. Lance's hands. He licks his lips.
Lance pushes him away and gets up.
"I'm going home," he says softly. "Have a good night, Justin."
Justin's pretty sure, pretty damn sure Lance walks a little funny when he leaves. He puts his hand over his sore mouth and watches Lance walk.
He spends a lot of the following week alone. There are people he can talk about stuff like this with, and people he can't. The people he can talk to are all somewhere else, being busy.
He works out a lot and looks at his body in the full-length mirror in the gym. Oh, he's strong, getting stronger all the time. If he cocks his head just so and squints, he looks like a badass. If he knots his hands into fists and curls his lip, he looks like a thug.
If he blinks and widens his eyes and lets his lips part just a little, like so, he looks like a little boy.
"Fuck," he mutters. "Stop being an ass."
He rolls onto his back and tries to go to sleep, but he's thinking about the fading bruises on his jaw and the blisters on his hands. And Lance, Lance's quick punch that came fast and unhesitating, like Lance knew what he was doing. Lance sometimes know unexpected things. Justin thinks about other unexpected things Lance might know, or know how to do. He's not surprised that he's thinking about that. He's more surprised that it's not unexpected.
He slides his sore hand down his body and he's hard and it takes only a couple of hard strokes before he comes.
After he's cleaned up and held his hand under cold water for a while, he can fall asleep.
Chris comes over on Thursday, but he doesn't stay long. He has a new girl and she takes a lot of his time. And that's okay. It's how it's supposed to be. Justin wishes he had a girl who was around like that. Britney's in Japan and she doesn't call him much. He's not sure she needs him for anything anymore.
"Dude," Chris says over the pounding of the stereo. He insisted on playing his new record - a mint condition vinyl of the original Batman soundtrack: dudun dudun dudun dudun Batmaaaan! - "Dude, your hands are fucked up. What happened? You get into a fight with a brick wall?"
Justin hides his scratched hands behind his back, realises he's hiding them and crosses his arms instead.
"I just worked out. I got a new bag."
"Weirdo," Chris says dismissively. His attention span when it comes to working out is equal to his attention span when it comes to crocheting. He bops his head to the music. "Man, this is some classic shit. Pow! Kerpow! Splat!"
He dances around Justin and feints punches. Justin thinks about stepping into one of the wild swings. Chris would be pissed, though. He doesn't like being played.
Justin sits on the sofa and watches.
"Wanna hang out?" he says. He thinks Lance looks uncomfortable for a second, but then it's gone and Lance smiles sardonically and raises his eyebrows.
Lance has contracts and memos spread over his coffee table like a collage of economics.
"I was going through these things," he says and shuffles them into a pile.
Lance has a girlfriend, too, but he doesn't seem to let her take much of his time. Lance is excellent at time management.
"Britney says hi," Justin says. He doesn't sit down, can't choose between the chair and the sofa. Lance lounges.
"I know. She called me."
"Oh."
"We could watch a movie," Justin says.
"Nothing with van Damme, though," Lance says. Justin shoots him a glance, but his face is expressionless.
Justin squints at him. Is that supposed to mean something?
Lance stands up. "What do you want, Justin?"
"I just wanna hang," Justin says, "since when is that a crime. What do you mean?"
"You're twisting your hands like my grandma at a funeral."
He looks down at his hands and there they are, tightly twined together. His knuckles sting.
He looks up, and Lance has somehow gotten out of the couch and around the table without making a sound.
Lance moves forward and Justin, inexplicably, backs away until he hits the wall. The back of his head rests against the cool glass of the large abstract painting Lance has by the door. Justin can see bright Technicolor swirls in the corner of his eye.
He can't meet Lance's eyes. Something has happened in the air between them. He thinks it's because there's a new awareness now. His need and Lance's need, maybe, sniffing each other like dogs meeting in the street.
He looks at Lance's mouth, instead, and his throat, shoulder, hands. He's wearing a loose white shirt. Cotton, plain, cool. Justin's hand follows his eyes and he touches Lance's sleeve. Lance hmmms softly under his breath and twists his hand around and grabs Justin's wrist, hard; rubs his thumb over the ragged knuckles.
Justin can't catch his breath, it's escaped somewhere, like when he opens the car window too wide and the rushing wind outside blows straight into his face.
"What did you do to your hands?" Lance asks.
"I hit something," Justin says. His knuckles itch and ache. Lance's thumb scrapes over the wounds and leaves a silvery, tingling pain that fades back to itch a few seconds after each touch. He tightens his fist even more and pushes against Lance's hand. "I just hit something."
Lance's eyelids flutter a little and now Justin can look straight at him. He thinks, right here, right now.
Lance lets go of his hand. "Maybe you should leave, Justin."
Justin tries to protest, but his tongue stumbles over his teeth and what he says is just, "Okay."
He's in the hall already, with his hand on the door, in fact, when his body decides to back away, turn around, stride back through the house to find Lance again. Lance is sitting in the sofa already, utterly placid and flipping through papers as if nothing happened. Maybe nothing happened, Justin thinks, panicking.
His momentum carries him the rest of the way, though, momentum and his throbbing knuckles and the slow twisting of his stomach and the pool of heat just under the pain.
Lance looks up and Justin grabs his hand, the one on the papers, grabs it and pulls at Lance; tries to get his ass off the sofa. "I'm not--" he says, "I'm not gonna leave until--"
"Until what?" Lance says. Justin thinks he sounds angry, but he's not sure and he's stopped caring. He yanks at Lance's hand, frustrated. Finally Justin's knees bend and he's back on the floor in front of Lance. Familiar spot, this.
"Until..." he mumbles and lets Lance's hand go. He doesn't know what he's saying, but his mouth forms words anyway: "Touch you," it says. "Touch me," it says. "Fuck me," it says. His hands hurt more when he opens them; the scrapes on his knuckles want to stay stretched in the same shape, they don't want to squeeze together when his fingers straighten. He ignores them and presses his hands flat on Lance's thighs, rubs upward over the expensively dirty denim.
He's hard. He's so hard he's in pain, it's pain just like in his hands and his mouth. Pain like the time he broke his thumb. He needs bigger jeans; he needs to get out of these jeans. He needs to sit in Lance's lap and get Lance's hands on his cock somehow. He wants to get his hands on Lance's cock--
When did he decide that's what he wants? Needs. Needs. He back-pedals and remembers - "Fuck me." - and looks up, ready.
"What the fuck are you doing, Justin?" Lance says.
Justin's mouth is ready to yell, "NOW!" and has opened halfway to do so. Out comes, "NO?" Too loud.
Lance pushes his hands away. Justin doesn't think he imagines the light frown of distaste. "When did you last see Brit, Justin?" he asks.
"What?" Justin says.
"Go home, call her, jerk off. Calm down."
He's still throbbing hard and it's almost impossible to understand words. He stops himself from saying "What?" again. He sounds like a parrot, even more so inside his head - his thoughts have stalled at "Whatwhatwhatwhatwhat?"
"I'm sorry, Justin," Lance says, gets up, puts distance between them. Justin crawls onto the sofa. His hands slide on the cool leather. It's cream-coloured, sinfully soft. Sexy, somehow, with the smooth glide of living skin on leather. If he doesn't watch himself, he'll imagine himself naked on his back on this sofa. "I so didn't see that coming," Lance continues and Justin stops thinking about leather and skin.
"But--" Justin says. But you KNEW.
But you DID.
But it WAS.
He has both his hands over his mouth, pressing against the hurt there. Lance stands in the door and shakes his head. He's back to being awkward and ordinary Lance. Justin thinks the cool and suave Lance was just in his head. "What's wrong, J?" Lance asks. "I mean, I didn't-- That punch was just. I just lost it, it wasn't some 'he hit me and it felt like a kiss' crap. I mean, I don't go for that shit."
Justin feels horribly misunderstood and at the same time it's like Lance was poking at a hard shell with a needle and accidentally hit the soft spot. There's a weak, twitchy place somewhere in him that screams and cries in pain. He bites his sore lip and gets up. He's happy to notice that his knees aren't wobbly.
"Of course not," he says. Happy, happy to notice that his voice is back at normal volume, normal speed, forming sentences. "I mean. No, that's not it. Sorry, man."
Lance looks relieved. Really relieved. Thank God I'm off the hook relieved. Justin thinks about his punching bag and he's never felt such a burning need to work out until he falls over.
"Yeah, wow, awkward shit. I guess I'm just. You know."
"Yeah," Lance says and he smiles now, still relieved. Or whateverthefuck he is, because Justin's not trusting himself to read Lance. Oh, never again. Major fucking blind spot right there.
"So I guess I'll just."
"Yeah," Lance says and laughs this time.
"Catch ya later," Justin says.
"Yeah," Lance says and Justin walks, steady enough on his feet, thank God, right past him, through the hall, out the door and doesn't even think about Lance again until he's back home, in his pristine, quiet gym. |
