It might just be an excuse, because Joey's revelling in the whole experience, one arm cocked out the open window, head tipped back a little, wearing JC's red and white hat and humming "On The Road Again." JC harmonizes patiently when it's called for, but he's still kind of confused, and wonders what this is all about. It isn't every day that Joey pulls up to his door in a battered old red pickup truck with a cooler in the back, drags JC out of his nice comfortable cool house, and just drives away without a word as to their destination. JC's a little hungry, too, he hasn't had his dinner, but he doesn't want to complain. He likes going places with Joey. He just wishes he was a bit better informed.
Traffic's slow this late in the afternoon, and JC sticks his hand out the window, pushing his palm against the weight of the hot wind, feeling it slide between his fingers like water. He slowly flattens his hand, then lets the wind take it back up to vertical, liking that break-moment when the pressure finally catches his wrist and flips his whole hand back. "Ow!" It's startled out of him when something hits his thumb, a bug maybe or a piece of gravel, and he yanks his hand back in, peering at it worriedly. He doesn't want bug guts on him.
"You okay?" Joey actually glances away from his trucker fantasy long enough to look over, a worried little line between his eyes.
"Yes." JC inspects more closely. Probably not a bug, since there aren't tiny insides splattered on his skin. He hopes it wasn't a pebble infected with some nasty virus, but realizes that's probably unlikely, and it didn't break the skin anyway. "I think it was a pebble," he explains further, so Joey will look back at the road. JC hates it when Joey and Chris stop looking at the road when they're driving. It's why he usually catches rides with Lance. No one rides with Justin if they can help it. Justin gives people carsickness.
"Joey," he says, though he doesn't really have anything to say. "Joey Joey Joey." He likes saying it many times in a row like that, likes the way the vowels eventually slide together into joy. "Joey Joey Joey Joy Joy." Joey's used to him by now, and just smiles, tapping out a rhythm that sounds like the clapping in "Jack and Diane" on his leg. JC's not sure how "Jack and Diane" fits into the whole pickup truck and kidnap-of-JC theme, but he can't resist the call and pretty soon the little ditty is being belted out at full volume. Brianna, who's been around loud people her whole short life and whose hearing will probably never be quite right, just coos and tries to clap along.
They've been driving for long enough that when Joey takes a quick left turn without really slowing down enough, JC is flustered and rattled. He's been focusing on the lines in the highway, how very white they look against the black pavement, especially now that Joey has his headlights on in the dusk. He likes that he and Joey don't really have to talk to each other all the time, that they can be quiet together; in fact, it's one of his favorite things about Joey. But he's almost prompted to ask where they're going again, until Joey swings the wheel again and they're on a dirt road and JC is suddenly quite concerned about things like axels and shocks and the condition of their tires. He doesn't even have his cell phone with him.
"Oh yeah, life goes on..." Joey's still singing, even though JC has stopped so that he can breathe carefully and hang off the strap by the door, bouncing. Brianna thinks it's fabulous and waves her hands joyfully, untroubled by the jolting. JC thinks that Brianna is far too much like her father sometimes.
"Okay." Joey finally stops singing when the truck skids to a stop. JC looks around carefully, waiting for his bones to stop shaking.
"Joey, we're not anywhere!" He keeps looking, waiting for something to pop out of the scenery at him, but the field continues to be a field, and the trees just sit there and wave around in the breeze a little, and he thinks something's chirping. He can't tell if the flying thing is a bird or a bat, and he hopes, bat, because bats eat mosquitos and JC doesn't like those at all.
"We're right here." Joey grins at him happily, and JC can't help but smile back. He can never help it, with Joey, and he obediently crawls out the door and lands in knee-deep grass. He swishes his foot around in it experimentally, and is glad he was wearing jeans on the day that Joey decided to be crazy. He thinks the grass would probably itch his legs, the way it's itching his feet in their sandals.
"C'mon, JC, up, up," Joey's peering at him over the edge of the truck bed, Brianna in his arms, and JC forges through the grass to the back of the truck, feeling like Marco Polo or Lewis and Clark or someone. He thinks they probably wore boots, though, to keep them from possibly touching slugs, and he's happy to hoist himself up onto the truck bed.
Joey's some kind of magic person, because he's got an air mattress that he's blowing up, and the cooler is open and it has sandwiches and sodas and beer, and when Joey spreads a blanket, JC claps and laughs, because he'd just been thinking that he hadn't been on a picnic in a really long time.
"Joey, this is so cool! And look, turkey on rye, and you remembered the Doritos, oh, Joey, it's perfect. Thank you!" He settles carefully crosslegged on the blanket-covered mattress, eyeing the ridged bed of the truck and very grateful that Joey tends to think of such things. Brianna laughs at him, still in her carseat, chewing on a Saltine. JC grins back and wiggles his fingers under her nose.
"Only the best for you, baby," Joey says, smiling wide and cracking open a beer, and JC blushes, for no reason at all.
When the sandwiches are gone and JC is licking his fingers, and Joey is holding Brianna in his lap and singing softly to her, he finally takes a moment to look around. It's really pretty here, he decides, watching the last pink clouds fade into dark blue, and the fireflies flash around him. He watches them flare and dance, calling for mates, and smiles. He forgets sometimes that Florida has so many pretty quiet places that aren't his living room. He drinks his beer carefully, rolling the sharpbitter taste over his tongue and thinking it tastes like summertime and happiness. It's good beer. JC drinks wine so often now that he forgets how much he likes other things.
"C'mere." Joey's voice is quiet, but JC's head snaps around anyway, and he's putting a sleeping baby into her chair again, covering her with a light blanket. For the bugs, probably, JC thinks, slapping at a mosquito and thinking mean things about the bats that aren't doing their jobs properly. Joey holds up a little spray can, and JC goes to him gratefully. The repellant is cold, and he shivers a little at the feeling on his skin, but then Joey is rubbing his arms with big soft hands and JC goes very still. Joey even remembers his feet, and JC's toes curl with the tickle. The smell of Off blends into the picnic perfectly, nudging memories awake, and JC leans back on his elbows, staring up at the first few stars.
"Lance will be there soon," he says idly, watching a plane blink by. "On one of those blinking things. Will we be able to see it?"
"I don't know if Mir orbits here, Jayce," Joey replies, head tilted up as well. "But if it does, we'll be able to see it if we try. Out here, away from the city."
"I don't want him to go." It's not the first time JC has said it. He doesn't trust technology very much, not with the lives of the people he loves. "I don't, Joey, it's not safe. And what if he decides he likes it better there?"
"In space?" It's dark, but he can still see Joey's eyebrow arch. "They're gonna make him come back, you know. Even Lance doesn't have enough money to stay out there forever."
"No, not space." JC sits up again, needing his hands to speak for him. "Just...away from us, doing other things, being all smart and technical and not dealing with music people and music and us. It's a bit scary, sometimes. I think maybe he's trying to find something else to do."
"JC, he loves us. He loves this. Believe me, if he was leaving, he'd let us know. Probably a fully-planned and charted year and a half in advance, complete with a Farewell Lance tour, with promotional tie-ins and possibly a made-for-tv movie." Joey's teasing him a little, but he's also kind of right, and JC can't help but relax a little. He just worries, sometimes.
"Dork." Joey's voice is fond, and he pulls JC close, into a hug. "Don't worry about it. It'll be fine. He'll go and come back, and then a month later we'll get to see the special and tease him for years. It'll be good. Just...drink your beer and look at the stars. It's pretty out here, huh?"
"Yes." JC nods his head against Joey's shoulder. He'd missed Joey very much in the post-tour breakaway time, and he thinks Joey knows it, which is why they're here. When Joey's hand rests warm and heavy on his hip, he thinks Joey maybe missed him too.
They've kissed before, casual things like they all do, gestures of affection and comfort and closeness. But this time, when Joey leans to him, it feels different. Bigger, somehow, and more special. JC blames the fireflies and the stars, at first, but when Joey presses his fingers into JC's side and licks gently at his mouth with a warm wet tounge, he shivers and sighs and opens for him. It *is* different. He's loved Joey forever, sometimes less, sometimes so *more* it hurts his head, and when his fingers catch and tangle in Joey's hair, and Joey's leg slides between his thighs, the happiness is so big that JC feels like he's about to shatter into a thousand tiny pieces.
He thinks the pieces would glow, like fireflies.
[end]