Justin waits at the top of the stairs. His back is to the open door and sunlight streams over him, reaches into the shadows of the stair well. A broom props the door open and the air is full of dust. No-one comes here except an occasional repairman. Forgotten cigarette butts, a fire extinguisher bolted to the wall. Justin has a knack for finding these places. The store-rooms with the open doors. The conference rooms that are silent and dark but for a corner where Justin pushes the windows open, leans out to the sun.

Lance has to study the hotel floor plans at each new place. This building's tall, but there is no rooftop pool, just satellite dishes and the raw concrete with of another chain hotel. He checked two balconies and a laundry room with a row of bright, clear windows before he found this staircase that leads to the roof.

The wind is high and cold, but it's summer and when the wind drops, the heat on bare skin is like a hand pressed down, rubbing back and forth, the friction of skin on skin, and then the breeze picks ups and Lance shivers. Justin doesn't seem to notice. He's wearing a thin t-shirt, one that's been washed too many times. The photo transfer on the front is cracked and peeling, half of JC's smile vanished.

When it's cold, Justin disappears in wool and down jackets, curls up in his bed for hours. Nobody bothers him then, no-one except Lance who remembers what it was like moving from Mississippi, Germany in winter, and snow and hating it, hating the grey slush and constant rain. They used to drink hot chocolate and wrap the hotel blankets round each other, huddling for warmth in front of the tv while the others went out, did their thing. Lance and Justin, curled up and sometimes, sometimes, there might be a kiss, the kind so soft you almost can't feel it, just warm breath and clasped hands.

Germany was a long time ago.

Lance has a sweatshirt on, a cup of coffee and a paper bag with danishes in his hands. His hair sticks up in soft tufts, there's stubble on his chin. He hasn't brushed his teeth. Sometimes, he wonders if Justin has. How early he wakes up these mornings, if when they roll out to the bus, all of them blinking sleepily, if Justin has been awake for hours already, if he's been-- He does not think of these things. He does not wonder. He has brought black coffee with three sugars, no milk, because Justin is his friend.

Justin's smoking and he doesn't stub it out, but balances it carefully on the parapet to take the cup of coffee, cradle it in his hands and sip. Justin has long fingers and blunt nails. They aren't sharp at all. He closes his eyes when he drinks. Lance watches.

"Morning," Justin says at last. Lance nods. He opens the paper bag and passes a danish to him. Lance is not hungry. On tour, on days like this, he can't eat, he forgets until someone, Joey usually, reminds him. They make him eat energy bars, drink glasses of milk and Chris will cook sometimes, if they think he's lost too much weight. When he bends over, there's a roll of fat at his waist, above the waistband of his trousers. He does crunches, and it stays, a slender curve to his hips, the body that stays stubbornly as it is.

Justin eats quickly. He licks the frosting off his fingers, the grains of sugar from his palm. He's grown taller since the tour began, another inch without any weight gained. He's stretched thinner, sleeker. When he leans on his elbows on the parapet to look out over the city, his back curves and the individual bones of his spine can be seen. The collar of the t-shirt is worn and it slides back, his head bent and his hair pinned into corn-rows, pale scalp and golden braids, the long sweep of his neck like architecture. Like a bridge, like a skyscraper, mathematical purity.

He turns his head to look at Lance, and the skin on the back of his neck, pale because they do not get out in sunlight often, except for mornings like these, the skin folds a little, and Lance is reminded of the warmth of Justin's skin, the heat that radiates from him when they're dancing, in clubs pressed up against each other, sleeping tangled up on the bus. The softness of his skin. He remembers the taste of it under his tongue and his eyes sting.

"You sleep okay?" Justin asks.

Lance nods. His room is next door to Justin's. In the mornings, he can hear the door open because he leans against his own door, listening. There is always the noise of the television in JC's room, left running all night, but Lance has learnt to tune it out.

"You?" he asks. Justin shrugs. He picks up the cup of coffee and leans his head back, eyes closed again. He has fair lashes, wears mascara most of the time. They're transparent now, and Justin has bags under his eyes, a scratch along the hollow of his throat. His mouth is still red, dark red and bruised. He always forgets morning to morning, how young Justin will look. Vulnerable. Thin and shivering in old clothes, and that his eyes are dark blue and steady when he looks at Lance, when he returns his stare.

Justin doesn't say anything. He looks away for a moment, then reaches out for the coffee cup again. His hand knocks it, the cup wavers for a moment than falls, splashing hot coffee on Justin's wrist, down the ledge, the cup crashing on the floor.

Justin hisses and stretches his arm out, his other hand wiping gently at the damp, bright pink skin. It almost looks like a birthmark except for the bruises running in ragged circles around his wrist. A trace of scabbed blood. Lance leans closer, hesitates.

Justin turns his palms up, offers both of them, wrists together as if for cuffs. One pale, one burnt, both with ropeburns.

He hesitates again and Justin does not look away. His eyes are a terrible, terrible bright blue. The cigarette has almost burnt itself out, ash and smoke, the smell of smog and spilt coffee.

Lance takes Justin's hand in his, pulls his sweatshirt out and presses it gently to his arm, wipes it dry. Then he raises his hand a little, leans a little, blows lightly across the burned skin. There are little scratches, half moons and long jagged scratches like a cat might make, the rough lines where he's twisted against ropes, faintly bruised, faintly torn. They're mostly healed. His skin smells of salve and soap, coffee and sugar. His hand is perfectly still.

When Lance kisses his wrist, presses his open mouth to where the blue vein is vivid-clear under the red skin, Justin's fingers curl slightly. He licks, a long wet lick across the wrist, over the ropeburn, the little scars. Another along his arm, the curve of muscle, the crook of elbow. He licks and he breathes across the wet skin, and Justin's arm is taut and strong, and Lance traces the lines on his palm, the length of the fingers with their blunt nails and the way they press against his face, the way Justin's hand curves to Lance's mouth.

He looks up, and Justin is breathing fast, a hitch in his throat as Lance sucks on his finger. Lance is hard and he thinks he wants to hug Justin, fold him close. The sharpness of bones pressed against him, that he would lie on the rough, dirty concrete with Justin above, or fold his sweatshirt under Justin's head, rub his back slowly while they kiss. He thinks about kissing Justin slowly, deeply. Tenderly. He wonders if JC kisses.

"Bite me," Justin says, and for a moment, Lance thinks it's a smartass comment, an insult. But Justin says it again, a breathless whisper, and Lance lets his fingers slide from his mouth. Lets Justin's hand fall from his without catching it, without pulling him close, kissing him.

He takes a step back. Justin shrugs as if Lance has said something, shrugs and turns away. He wipes his arm against his t-shirt and picks up his cigarette.

"It shouldn't be like that," Lance says at last. Sweat trickles down the nape of his neck, down his spine. The wind picks up, and for a moment, he thinks Justin hasn't heard him, has forgotten what's happened. They can just stand here like they always do, these mornings after.

"It's not like that," Justin says. He stubs the cigarette out. His other hand restlessly strokes his burnt wrist. "It's not how you think."

If he says nothing, he can keep coming up here, every morning. And there will be nights when JC is tense and snaps at them, and they all keep quiet when he stalks out of the room, when Justin follows a few minutes later. No black eyes, no bruised faces. Nothing that can't be hidden under a turtleneck or long sleeves.

He wakes up sometimes, when it gets too loud. He can't always tell whose voice is screaming, the hotel walls muffle everything, but JC goes sleeveless, wandering round mornings after like a cat, a cat that's been fed and is lazily content, purring and stretching round the others who say nothing, who take the rooms down the corridor and never next to Justin's.

JC says nothing to him these days. They rarely talk, and this is because Lance got drunk last month and hit him, almost broke his nose so they had to make up a stupid story about a backstage accident. JC stared at him in bewilderment, sprawled on the floor, all long legs and beautiful bleeding face.

He wants to say "I wouldn't hurt you," but Justin is drawing his nails across his arms, pressing hard because his fingernails are blunt, and leaving narrow white lines that turn red and fade slowly.

He steps forward, puts his hands on Justin's back, thumbs rubbing the hollow where his shoulderblades rise. Justin sighs and bends his head back. When Lance bites his neck, wide-mouthed and hard on sun-warm skin that slips under his teeth, Justin makes a quiet sound. Lance closes his eyes and wraps himself round Justin like a blanket against the cold, nails scratching hard along his skin.

Cold concrete, soft kisses, the taste of blood. He misses Germany.