Chris was pretty sure that he'd gone to sleep alone, on a couch in one of the decorated-but-unused rooms in Lance's house. He was also pretty sure that he'd been fully dressed at the time, although that was possibly more iffy, since he could concievably have been trashed and he was known to find clothing...restrictive...when he was drinking.

However.

These things were not true, he found when he opened his eyes the next morning. In fact, they were kind of spectacularly untrue. Firstly, he was in a bed. It was a big bed, a very big bed, and a very comfortable bed. There were pale yellow sheets and blankets and a quilt in the same faded shade, with squares of orange.

All of Lance's couches were green. It was a theme. At least, that's what Lance claimed--Chris was pretty sure he had them cause they were money-colored and Lance was an avaricious bastard at heart. Or possibly, he thought they brought out the color of his eyes. Lance was also a little vain.

Just a little.

Just enough to be cute.

But then came second--second, there was a scent in the room, shampoo, cologne, warmth somehow. Guy smell, in a good way. Most of Lance's house smelled cool and empty, but the kitchen, one of the lounges, the sun room and the bedrooms all had this same smell. Chris'd liked it from the first time he came to visit. It made Lance, who had been a little...distant? at the time, seem much closer.

And maybe more real.

Third, his head didn't hurt and his head always hurt after he'd been drinking, no matter how much water he drank or how much ibuprofen he downed before passing out. It was a fact of life. He'd accepted it at nineteen.

Fourth, despite the lack of headache which indicated that he hadn't really been drunk at all, he was decidedly. Not dressed.

Technically, he was naked.

All of this could have been dealt with. There were explanations. There were even reasonable explanations, which were sometimes a stretch for him. Like, he'd gotten off the couch in the middle of the night because he was...lonely, and had crawled into one of the rooms Lance did use, one of the warm and comfortable places he inhabited almost despite himself, because those were the rooms other people gravitated towards too.

He'd finally learned to hold his alcohol better, after years and years of watching Joey and JC drink until they passed out and then wake up feeling bright and chipper the next day.

He'd been hot--it was Florida, after all--and had been so mostly asleep that he took off all his clothes without thinking about it, stripping right down to the skin by habit....

Except.

OK, it was all fine until he got to the naked part. That wasn't reasonable, mainly because sleeping naked wasn't really a habit when he was outside his own house. He'd spent too many years with people randomly wandering in and out of his room to sleep naked anymore--not that he cared if anyone got an eyeful, but with people like Britney sometimes passing through the connecting doors instead of using the hall, people who saw Justin naked on a regular basis, well. Chris was sparing people like her the thrill and joy of comparing his bare ass to Justin's inferior one. It wasn't fair to her--them--since they'd never get their hands on his manly delights.

Also.

This was kind of the most important thing, the thing he'd only thought about once since he'd come awake and had then kind of shoved out of his mind until he was more awake--no matter which way you cut it, he'd gone to sleep alone. Couch or no couch, drunk or not drunk, naked or not naked--alone was indisputable.

And yet, he hadn't woken up that way.

In fact, he'd woken up all wrapped around someone...a soft-skinned, pleasantly scented, warm, comfortable, familiar someone. A young, male, stubborn, sarcastic, unfunny someone.

A similarly naked someone.

Lance.

"Shit," Chris whispered. "Oh boy, shit and triple fuck."

At the sound of his voice, Lance stirred slightly, hummed deep in his throat, and then he opened his eyes. At close range, naked range, they were more unsettling than usual. Chris felt the sudden and desperate desire to hide. Well, more to flee, to run screaming from the room, which was not a very stealthy maneuver and not really conducive to hiding, but still.

"Good morning," Lance said, and his voice was raspy around the edges. It made Chris' stomach clench.

"I'm naked," he said. It wasn't at all what he'd meant to say. However, it was better than "Get your fucking hands off me, you fucking freak!" which was the other reaction floating around in his brain, the one Lance didn't deserve since he'd never shown signs of wanting to put his hands on Chris anyway. Chris'd been the one with the whole. Lance problem.

Dammit.

Lance yawned. He had obviously gotten up fairly recently and brushed his teeth. Unless his breath naturally smelled like mint in the morning, which Chris could almost see as possible considering the color of Lance's eyes and the cool way he'd learned to smile, except he'd known Lance for years and had encountered Lance's morning breath before.

"So you are," Lance said when he'd unscrunched his face, and he ran a hand down Chris' side, over the sheets and quilt to the top of Chris' thigh, which was bare. Then he smiled. "I'm naked too."

Chris sucked in a breath through his teeth and shook his head, shuddered. Felt. Something.

Oh, fuck.

"No you are not," he said, a little weakly. "You are not naked, you are in your pajamas, and I am across town in my own bed, and. My ass. Definitely is not sore."

The room was fairly dim. Lance had that thing with the being disturbed by light when he was trying to sleep, which he'd developed only because Chris had used to leave a TV on all night and Lance'd woken up to find like, lions eating zebras on the Discovery channel, and his mind had been warped. His young, impressionable mind. Chris'd already been a warped grown-up then. He felt like a warped grown-up now too, what with the whole being in bed with Lance thing.

Except the smile he got when he mentioned his ass was very, very adult, and he suddenly felt like the young one, the freshly debauched virginal one. It didn't help when Lance's hand slipped up beneath the covers and slid over Chris' ass, awakening pleasure and soreness and memories that were definitely unwelcome at the moment.

"Well, if you're...not sore," Lance said, Lance fucking purred, "I could. Again."

And just like that, Chris was scrambling backwards, falling on the floor with a thump and what might have been a stifled "eep!" if he'd been a little less cool than he was.

Or if his ass had actually hurt. Which it didn't.

He rolled under the bed and listened to Lance laugh, winced when the bed creaked a little and then he was leaning over the edge, pulling up the sheet to look at Chris and laugh harder.

"Oh my God," he gasped, and the accent was so strong for a second that Chris' lips twitched and he almost commented, but then his fucking dick twitched and Lance stopped laughing, and there was a heavy silence in the room. Chris felt around for something to cover himself with but there was nothing under Lance's bed, no clothes, not even a stray sock, not even a stray book. The lack of clutter was really kind of pathetic.

"Come out from under there," Lance finally said. He wasn't laughing out loud but it was bubbling in his voice; he sounded virtually merry, which was scary. Lance was never merry, unless pyrotechnics were involved.

"I'm not coming out," Chris said. He was very sure. There were many layers to that statement, and he was very, very sure.

"Come out, come out," Lance crooned, and it was unfair that he could do things like that with his voice, things that interested Chris, things that had made Chris uncomfortable since he'd first met Lance, the skinny little blond kid who had no rhythm but. Had other things.

"I'm not--" Chris started to say, but then he heard a thud and Justin's voice in the hallway, loud and cranky--"Godammit! Pants! I nearly fell to my death!"

Lance was laughing again, just hysterical, practically shaking the bed and making Chris very, very nervous. He closed his eyes and started to pray that Justin, sleepy-sleepy no cereal no shower Justin, would forget the pants and wander down for breakfast--

But then Justin was banging on the door, and Lance got off the bed and opened it. He was still laughing. He was also still naked. Chris hoped that Justin strangled him with the pants.

"Where's Chris?" Justin demanded. "He wasn't even drinking last night and his clothes are still scattered across the house!"

"Chris is under the bed," Lance said, and Chris growled. Hopefully, Justin would think that Lance was lying, although the laughing was suspicious since Lance wasn't JC and didn't laugh in empty rooms.

"Fucker," Justin said, and Chris just barely had time enough to roll onto his stomach and feign sleep before Justin was half under the bed with him, his pants in a tight fist. "I'm going to kick your ass," he said while Chris opened his eyes and blinked slowly. He'd just opened his mouth to say something, anything, when Lance dropped to the floor too, still laughing, and met his gaze.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," he said--he fucking snickered. "Chris' ass is feeling a little...sensitive...this morning."

Justin's head whipped around. "No kidding?" he said, and he'd gone from normal cranky morning Justin to unbelieving in maybe half a second--Chris took one deep breath, two, and then just. Went limp. And tried to not notice that Justin's reaction, while incredulous, was not precisely incredulous enough. Or in the right way. Whatever.

"No kidding," Lance said.

Justin stared. "Well, wow, Lance. Never thought he'd actually make that move."

Chris, limp still, prepared to be struck down by God because Justin, he'd just assumed there had been sex. And sure, Chris was naked and hiding and Lance was naked and amused, but that didn't mean there weren't other, more reasonable options. After all, Lance and Chris had been naked together in the same room before without it resulting in sex, so.

"Well, I didn't make a move. It was definitely all him." There was something in Lance's voice that sent a tingle of memory through Chris, who was beginning to remember--well yeah, OK, so remembering wasn't the hard part, that was accepting--that he kind of. Had made a move. And hadn't been drunk, so he couldn't even use that as an excuse. And now he was in morning-after Hell because he wasn't supposed to have slept with Lance. He was supposed to keep Lance away from scary older men--Lance's mom had made him promise.

Now God and Lance's mom were punishing him for corrupting not only Lance but both of their baby bandmates. It was obvious.

Not that he'd ever really wanted to corrupt Justin, except that he had. But it had never been like, Chris-sexual. Justin was mature, had always been very adult in his attitudes if still a kid in knowledge, but he was like, Chris' best friend. That made him kind of off-limits, sexually, because. Well, because--OK, just because.

And Chris was regretting the fact that he hadn't formed an equally close friendship with Lance because look where he was now. Trapped under a bed, naked, being discussed in a sexual manner by two guys who were like, decades younger than he was himself.

Dammit.

"Hey--why doesn't he look happier about it?" Justin asked, and he sounded maybe a little...suspicious. Chris wanted to fucking thank him for noticing, but Lance said, "He woke up kinda...weird, actually," and Justin said, "He was born weird," and then they both laughed and Chris just growled. Also, he gave up on feeling bad for destroying their innocent minds because they were both evil. Thoroughly, thoroughly evil.

And they were having a nice chuckle, so Chris edged out from under the bed, on the opposite side. His pants hit him in the chest, thrown over the bed by a cackling Justin, so he stood and slipped them on. Then he went to Lance's walk-in closet. He needed socks. His feet were cold. Also, he needed the gun he knew Lance kept in there, because it was time to just shoot himself in the groin and get it all over with.

Or to shoot the giggling fucking kids on the floor. Either way, problems solved.

"What's so funny?" JC said from the hallway. Chris banged his head on the wall in the closet--hadn't anybody gone to their own home last night? Who next? Dani? Carson Daly? Ooh, better yet, Lance's mom!

Chris stalked out of the closet, socks in hand. He'd forgotten about the gun so he settled for hitting himself hard on the head, then sat down in a chair to put on his stolen socks.

And he didn't even wince as his ass met the cushion.

"Chrith caumeth oset," Justin mumbled, sending himself back off into peals of delighted laughter. Chris scowled because they'd been together so long that he could translate drunken-Justin, sleeptalking-Justin, and hysterical-mumble-Justin easy as pie, and knew that JC could do it too.

And JC did. "What's so funny about Chris coming out of the closet?" he said, completely clueless, and Chris closed his eyes. Lovely, dense boy. Jesus. "I mean, he's getting dressed, that's--"

Then he stopped, and Chris, already despairing, opened his eyes. JC's hands had risen; he was pressing his fingertips to his lips and smiling. He met Chris' gaze, then whooped and danced into the room.

Chris groaned and dropped his head into his hands. He had one sock on and the other foot was bare, and he wasn't wearing a shirt, and now that he looked he could see fucking bruises on his wrists; they looked like hickeys, and he was absolutely too old for this shit.

"I," he declared with as much dignity as he could muster, "am going home now. I will not be talking to any of you for approximately three months. In that time, I hope that you all shrivel up, wither away, and forget this ever happened."

The other guys were distracted enough that when he rose from the chair and sailed from the room, they couldn't scramble and catch him. However, there was one player still missing in this farce that had become his life and he, of course, was waiting at the door. Chris ducked, faked, darted--and ended up over Joey's shoulder.

Joey, he realized from that height, was big. He was dangling over Joe's back and the floor was still farther away than it was when he was standing on his own.

Dammit.

"Don't let him out," Justin gasped, and Joe shrugged; Chris felt it right in his ribcage. Then the floor started moving and he groaned as he realized that Joe was going to just dump him back on the bed, a sack of potatoes, of flour, of boneless, confused, elderly boyband member.

"I hate you all," he said matter-of-factly, but no one was paying attention to him. Well, Joe was, but only enough to keep Chris pinned to the bed with one hand on his stomach.

"What's up?" Joe said, and JC started talking about true love and Justin said something about bum'in' an' grin'in'--somewhere along this long road to fame, Chris feared that Justin had lost his control of his consonants--and Chris himself was saying, "I hate you," over and over again.

Lance held up a hand and everyone fell silent but Chris, who just stared at him and said, "I really, really hate you." Lance nodded, but he was looking at Joey.

"He seduced me," Lance said calmly and Chris gulped because if there was anyone in the world more likely to kick Chris' ass for corrupting Lance than his mom, it was Joey. Who was big. And who had wrestled with Chris for so long that he knew all of Chris' devious and not-so-devious tricks and would therefore be able to seriously beat him.

But Joey just said, "Oh, hey, cool," and took his hand off Chris' chest. "But weren't you going to seduce him?"

Uh.

Chris could've escaped then, most likely, but instead he frowned at the guys, watched them all staring at Lance without like, pity or whatever, and thought--the fuck?

Which meant, OK, time for a review:

Lance had not been screaming upset by naked-Chris in the bed.

Lance had just told Justin that they'd slept together pretty much, just come right out and made a joke with no problem.

Justin had not seemed surprised--well, yeah, surprised, but not bad surprised.

JC had danced when he found out.

And now Joey--"But weren't you going to seduce him?"

Something was wrong here, but maybe not the something he'd been expecting and freaking out about. So he tuned back in and scowled and said, "Hey, wait a minute here. You're not all fucked up by this?"

No one was listening, again. Chris wanted to jump up and shout, "Hey! I got you all together and I could take you all apart! Bare hands! Not kidding!" but he'd tried that before and found it to be pretty ineffective.

Lance said, "I didn't even have to--it was like a part of him knew I was planning it, you know?" and Justin said, "Swear to God, he's psychic--I told you guys!" and JC was still dancing.

Joey looked down at Chris and said, "Hey, what am I thinking?" and Chris automatically snapped, "Get your mind out of the gutter, you ass," and Joey got an awestruck look on his face.

Fortunately, Chris knew him well enough to detect fake-awe. Otherwise he'd have been scared. As it was, he had to struggle to not be amused.

Damned sense of humor.

"He isn't psychic," Lance said, and he looked away from Joey to smile at Chris, whose breath got caught in the back of his throat. Lance was still naked and now he was smiling, and life was decidedly unfair. "He's just got...good instincts."

"And a major freak-out going on," Chris said, because now everyone was finally paying attention to him. "Like, major. I thought that this would be the end of the fucking world and you're all amused?"

"If you'd thought the consequences were going to be that bad," Lance said, "you wouldn't have done it."

"Maybe I was drunk and stupid--"

"I won't argue the stupid," Justin said under his breath.

"Except there was no alcohol involved last night," JC added.

"I just think you're always drunk and stupid," Joe finished.

Chris glared at the three of them, three fucking Stooges, then pointed at the door. "Out," he said, dead serious. "Get out. The last J in this room is going to get his ass kicked."

"Did he say 'kicked', or 'kissed'?" Justin asked no one, and then he darted out of the way, laughing, when Chris shot off the bed and tried to kill him. Joe, who'd caught Chris around the waist, dumped him back on the bed and then pulled a giggling Justin and a smiling JC out the door.

Smart man, Joe.

Except now Chris was alone again with Lance, a non-freaked out Lance who had apparently planned on seducing him and who had left bruises on Chris' wrists, a Lance who seemed abruptly dangerous, and he wanted to call Joe back in to protect him.

But Lance was still smiling, still naked, and Chris was speechless.

Which turned out to be all right because Lance wasn't speechless. He said, "I know you're panicking for some truly bizarre reason, but I'm...glad it happened," and Chris swallowed, stared. Lance leaned in, until his toothpaste breath was washing over Chris' stubbly face. "And I want it to happen again." He kissed Chris' cheek, caught him on the corner of his mouth, his jaw, below his ear. Tenderly.

Chris felt something inside him unfurl, felt some tense tight place loosen, and he sighed. Held out a hand to Lance and felt it caught in a firm grip, no-nonsense, perfectly comfortable.

And he found his voice again. Kind of. Well, enough to say "OK," faintly, and mean it.

Which meant that Lance knew he was. Kind of cool now. And that it was safe, he could crawl onto the bed again. Which he did. And Chris let himself be wrapped up in Lance, hand in hand still, and made himself be calm.

It was surprisingly easy, now that he knew the world wasn't going to end.

"Next time we wake up together, it's going to be less of a...spectacle, right?" Lance said, and Chris snorted weakly.

"It's always a spectacle when you go to bed with me," he said. But it sounded wrong. "Or, um. Spectacular. Whatever."

Lance opened his mouth to say something Chris was pretty sure would be cutting but perfectly true when there was another thud from the hallway, and a muffled yelp. Then, "Dammit, Chris!" Justin shouted. "I almost hung myself on your shirt!"

"Well, try harder next time!" Chris shouted back, and then Lance's mouth was covering his own, Lance was kissing him through shudders of laughter, and he. Forgot about the whole clothes thing. About the three morons tittering in the hallway. About Lance's mom. And he curled himself around Lance again, tight, prepared this time for the spectacular.

~end~