Stadium JC's changed out of stage clothes and into loose jeans and a t-shirt, and he's running along one of those corridors, down one of those staircases, through one of those doors. A cancelled show is like taking ecstasy and being asked to sit down. It's raining and everyone's going home and JC's filled to the brim with the buzz and it's not going to settle. He's been here before. He runs.
He tests the water and walks slowly a few steps and the buzz fills his head and makes his hands shake. He drops to his knees and counts off pushups in a voice that's full and open and warm in his throat. He adds a melody to the numbers and does a little ending riff and jumps to his feet. Bounces a few times. He's still jazzed. Doing a show's all he needs in way of drugs, and he's not ready to settle down into sleepwalking yet. He's got his cellphone in the back pocket, but it's on mute. Someone's calling him, no doubt; someone's swearing death and destruction and probably plague on his worthless head just this moment, but he just can't go back to the hotel or to the bus or anywhere cramped and filled with people. The guys will be okay - they know how it is. They feel it, too. Justin must be working out like a red hot...guy who works out a lot, and that's a nice image; Chris is probably harassing the staff or trying to kill himself by experimenting with the backstage gadgets or getting in the crew's way. Lance, who never gets so excited he can't work, is most likely already arranging a conference call, and Joey's making that hard by trying to challenge him to a dressing room catering fight.
The hallway curves gently to the left, and seems to go on forever. He's lost count of the stairs. Up or down or somewhere else entirely? He's not sure where he is anymore.
The floor is green lino, a shade never intended to be seen by sane eyes. It's ever so slightly dusty. The whole place smells of industrial cleaner. He stops and looks around. No one in sight, so he cartwheels and ends in a handstand against the wall. That's pretty comfortable, so he stays in it a while. Justin's been Mr Yoga-yogi the last couple years. Maybe he has a point. JC tries to think of the colour yellow, but the green lino is screwing with his concentration. Either that or the excitement that isn't going away. He needs to get some of it out so he can crash and prepare for the next rush in the next city. The colour yellow isn't working for him.
"Calm. Blue. Ocean. Calm. Blue. Ocean. Calm. Blue--"
"Dude, you're upside down," Justin says somewhere under him. Or above. Either way, he loses count of his blue oceans and his arms buckle under him. The world tilts and only years of dancing and falling and dancing and falling save him from a pratfall.
He lands on his feet. Justin is standing still, but the pose is like a frozen dance move and JC knows he's quivering with energy, too.
"How'd you find me?" he asks.
"I didn't," Justin says and unfreezes, jogs in his place. "I was just. Doing what you're doing, I guess." He lifts an eyebrow. "Except I look cool when I do it."
"You do not," JC shoots back automatically.
"I do too."
"Do not," JC says and starts running again. Justin runs with him.
"Do too, five million times and in a box and the key's on the moon."
"THAT is not cool."
"I know," Justin says, but he doesn't look too put out. "How long is this corridor, anyway?"
"Long," JC says and then he sees the end. There's a door at the end. He sprints and beats Justin, mostly because he got a head start. He expects the door to be locked, because it's stern and grey and has that locked door vibe, that don't-come-here aura. It's not a door that says, 'hey guys! come in here and frolic!'
That's probably why he hits it without slowing down first, and stupidly catches himself on the handle, and it twists under his hand and then he's tumbling into a dark, cramped space, face first. A fraction of a second later, Justin tumbles after him.
There's darkness and something poking him in the side, and Justin's weight pushing him into the floor. He gets a close-up whiff of the industrial cleaner. Lemon-scented. That's nice, he thinks. Classy.
Justin's not moving. JC squirms under him and tries to roll over, get his hands under him to push up, but the floor is slick and is that a broom or what, trying to poke its way through his ribcage.
"Would you mind?" he mutters, a little breathlessly.
"I like it here," Justin says. "Comfy."
"It's a utility closet."
"Yup."
JC gives up for a while and lies still and feels his own heart beat. It feels like it has to try harder, all pressed up against the floor like this. The sound of it goes upward, somehow, fills his ribcage and bounces along his veins up into his head. He can almost picture his heartbeat as a funny-looking little guy, kind of like in this weird cartoon he saw in Germany, about the human body, where all the cells were little dudes with big noses and space ships. Europeans are weird. Especially Germans.
Justin's breath tickles his neck and he gets little shivers that zip along his back. The zipping goes in the rhythm of his heartbeat for a while, and that's pretty funny when he thinks about it. The funny looking heartbeat guy chasing the shiver girl around his body. It's kind of heavy and uncomfortable to laugh with Justin's weight crushing his ribcage against the floor, though, but that is what it takes to make him laugh harder.
"What?" Justin asks.
"Nothing," JC says between guffaws. "Get off me."
Justin doesn't move. "I think I'm coming down," he says, thoughtfully. "I could just take a nap here. I got a mattress and all."
"You're kinda crushing my ribcage. At least let me roll over."
"Sure," Justin says and the pressure eases and then the entire world rolls over and slams him in the back.
"Oof," he says. Justin's back, covering him entirely.
"You're rolled over!" he crows.
It's started feeling a little...silly? stupid? uncomfortable? all of the above? to lie here with the stubble on Justin's head scratching his face and Justin's hipbone digging into his upper thigh and Justin's heart exchanging pleasantries with his own through the divider of ribs and muscle and skin and skin and muscle and ribs. There are two heartbeat guys now, and they've left the shiver girls behind and are having a male bonding session all on their own.
What am I thinking? he thinks, and then that's what he's thinking, so he loses track of that other thing he was thinking, whatever that was. Justin's making fake snoring sounds in his ear, and JC's still vibrating with the remnants of his buzz. When Justin moves just a little his hip isn't so much digging into JC as kind of...fitting into his hollows somehow. Funny that. Key, meet lock.
That's an entirely new thought, though, and if their heartbeats are bonding, what exactly are they doing, lying in a heap on the lemon-scented floor like this? There are things to do and places to be, and this is pretty much neither.
"Dude," he says, happy to find he's no longer quite as breathless. Justin stirs, moves his hips and when JC says, "Dude," again, the breathlessness is back and brought his friend, the muted whimper.
Justin raises his head, and JC can see his grin in the dusty light from the corridor. "Oh yeah?" he says. And moves again, and the grin stays and tells JC all he needs to know about intent.
Justin's told him, more than once, that performing is like having sex with thousands of people at once. Like that's news to anyone.
He's on his back in a utility closet. If he turned his head, he'd see buckets and mops and rags. "Um," he says, but his hands are already moving to rest on Justin's shoulders, and when Justin pushes his hips forward in a questioning proto-grind, he forgets what he was going to complain about.
"Hell, yeah," Justin mutters and leans down and kisses him. JC counts off seconds: one - he opens his mouth - two - there's tongue - three - a real grind - four - his hands clamp down on Justin's shoulders and pull him in - five - Justin licks the roof of his mouth - six - they start scrabbling at each other's clothes.
Justin's wearing a loose, grey sweater that JC thinks might be Joey's. JC's t-shirt is a Fumanskeeto from the first line, a little too tight and the logo has faded. Justin pushes his hands under it, and the movement presses his crotch harder against JC's and his mouth harder against JC's, and JC shivers, not with frustration now, but with something that's more like anticipation. The good buzz that you get to do something about.
His shirt pulls up and the floor is cold under his back. He ignores it and works a hand between them, fumbles around until Justin hisses into his mouth and pushes his hips forward. Someone's foot hits a bucket and kicks it over. JC thinks this will be quick and sloppy and he's happy with that. Quick and sloppy sex, like randy animals in the night. He tries to think of animals that would have quick and sloppy sex on the floor of a closet and comes up with a blank. He can't actually think of any animals at all. Just the cartoon Killer T Cells with their space ships, and the penguin baby named Pingu. They watched a lot of weird cartoons back when they were in Germany.
Penguins probably have neat, careful sex, he thinks and arches off the floor, bites Justin's tongue, palms his cock through his khakis. Justin's thrust is forceful enough to push them both forward on the floor, and JC feels something go crunch under his back.
"Was that my cellphone?" he says into Justin's mouth. Justin strokes his chest with hot fingers, pinches a nipple just hard enough to make JC forget about his phone.
"You know," Justin breathes, letting JC's mouth go just for a second. He's got a rhythm going, mangling JC's hand between their bodies, his own hand skipping restlessly over JC's chest like he doesn't quite know what to do with it. "You know what, I was thinking-- no, actually, it's kinda like--" He breaks off and JC figures he's lost his train of thought. That wouldn't be a big surprise. JC can't really keep those trains on track, either. For some reason, he has the image of a penguin stuck in his head, but it's not screwing with the vibe, so he's not going to make an effort to push it out. His cock's not too happy about being trapped inside his jeans, though, and that will definitely be the next thought. Yeah, pretty much.
"I was thinking I wanted to suck your dick," Justin says and punctuates that with a delicious full-body grind and a descriptive swipe of his tongue along JC's jaw. Justin has better control over his trains, apparently. "But maybe--"
"Wh-what?"
"Don't think there's time."
JC has time to feel disappointed for the time it takes for Justin's hand to slide down his chest to his fly, which isn't very long. There's a few moments of confusion when they've got all the combined hand power down there, futzing around with his fly, but Justin makes a deep, rumbly sound that's close enough to a growl to make JC's stomach tingle, and he keeps his hands still while Justin unbuttons and unzips.
Justin's hand on his dick makes the world flare with bright light, and he can't stop making these noises. He's pretty sure it's him, at least, because they bounce around in his head: little moans and whimpers, and it doesn't really help to bite his lip throw his arm over his mouth.
"Fuck it," Justin says, in a voice that's a little foreign, too throaty, somehow, lower than usual, "fuck it, I'm totally gonna--" and he's sliding down, slithering down, dropping out of JC's line of sight. Again, a moment when thoughts pop in and stay in order, and JC thinks, wow, he's hoarse with lust for-- but then hand is replaced by mouth and the lights are a step brighter and the buzz has somehow grown to a roar, a deafening roar, a swarm of killer bees circling his head, only without the sting, just soft, hot, sliding, goodness, more hot and groan instead of whimper.
And still - and he thinks this while he's coming, while orgasm is being torn from him in a big rush of floodlights - still he'd rather have done the show.
The tingles in his stomach have spread pretty much everywhere, especially anywhere Justin's hands have gone, and he's warm and doesn't think he can stand up just yet. Justin kisses the arch of his hipbone in a surprisingly gentle gesture.
"Uh, hey," JC says, because there's usually a protocol to all this. Tit for tat and all that, and he really needs to get that penguin out of his head before it gets forever connected to sex.
"Don't worry 'bout it," Justin says.
"But--" JC says, and Justin crawls back up and kisses him, swollen lips and a faint bitterness, and he's boneless and warm and whispers,
"I like that." Pause. "You know. A lot."
JC gives that a few seconds to sink in. The buzz is spent and he could probably fall asleep here. "I think I fucked up my cellphone," he says. Justin rests his head against his collarbone and doesn't answer. "So, you know, they're calling me and it'll be turned off. Do you have yours?"
"Nnnnh. Left it in my other pants."
"Maybe we should--" He pats Justin's back a little. This wouldn't be a good place to nap in. They've turned over a whole row of buckets. "Um. Get up?"
"Nnnh," Justin says again.
Then again, the show's cancelled and nothing's going to happen tonight. Justin's a large ragdoll, half on top of him, half just pressed against his side. His head is a heavy but not uncomfortable weight on his shoulder.
"I like playing stadiums," he says and closes his eyes. |
