The clock on the nighstand buzzed harshly as it clicked over to three AM. Lance leaned back in his chair, let his head fall and pull his back into a long slow arch until pops rippled up and down his spine.

"ohhh." The near-silent moan filled the room with cobweb-thin sound, and the release of tension left him relaxed and comfortable for the first time that night, and he stayed where he was, draped over the back of the chair, staring at the ceiling.

The remnants of dinner, fried chicken with all the trimmings, was still in the room; he hadn't bothered to get room service to take it away. He knew he'd just get hungry again, and it was easier to just shove the tray into the corner and nibble off it than getting fresh food from the kitchen. Two cold buttermilk biscuits, soaked in congealed gravy, were currently leaking crumbs all over the paperwork strewn on the desk.

There was a soft sound, and the connecting door opened. Lance didn't move, closed his eyes, and felt more than heard Joey approach, padding in sock feet across the cheap carpet. Beneath his hands the work of the day still waited, neverending, never finished. He saw them in his sleep, sometimes, red-inked lines of business code and legalese and contract-talk marching through his dreams, smooth and orderly and logical.

He didn't mind those dreams, though, usually found them comforting. The weird ones were the ones where he was being chased through endless office corridors by fluttering forms in quadruplicate, and caught himself in sticky spiderwebs of red tape and was torn apart by praying mantises with Lou Pearlman's face, and after those he usually made himself take a couple days off.

Joey's hands weren't a surprise when he felt them, warm and strong and slightly damp from sleep, rubbing with calm confidence at the knotted muscles in his shoulders and neck. He groaned quietly, let his head fall forward again, and for a while there was no sound, no movement, nothing but the steady pull and knead of Joey's wonderful perfect hands, a poet writing on Lance's body.

It passed, as all times do, and Lance straightened, pulled away with a sigh of regret. Joey slid his hands down Lance's chest, stroking soothingly, and Lance felt him bend down, felt the soft press of Joey's kiss in his hair. "Soon," Lance said softly, and Joey kissed him again, on the mouth this time, turning Lance's chair enough to slide between him and the desk.

"Okay," he murmured after a time, slow lazy exploration and gentle tongue, Lance nipping slightly at Joey's lip to make him jump and smile. "Fifteen, yeah?"

"Yeah," Lance promised, pulling away, and Joey gave him an affectionate bop on the head before ambling back to the other room. Lance bent back to his work, timing himself now--fifteen minutes, and he could swich off the lights of "his" hotel room, shut and lock the connecting door, and go into Joey's arms, lay next to his broad hot body, relax in the heat of the sun in his solar system, around which his personal planet had always orbited. Fifteen minutes, and he'd be hearing Joey's breathing in his ear, close and reassuring.

He looked down at the paperwork in front of him, glanced over at the clock, and got up.

Or maybe sooner.

~end~