coach potatoes 5: lance and chris "You'll catch your death," he says, loud enough to be heard over the roar of raindrops hitting the tin roof.
"The Mighty Kirkpatrick catches not death!" Chris hollers back and attempts a backflip that dies an ignominious death, due to slippery grass.
"The Mighty Kirkpatrick catches a fly," Lance mutters. Chris picks himself gamely off the grass and shakes himself off like a wet dog. He throws out his hands and gapes at the weeping sky.
"I used to love the rain, man. When I was a kid. Catching raindrops."
"We used to say it was the angels going to the toilet," Lance says. He'd almost forgotten that; a quick flash of memory dredged from some provincial, hazy childhood corner of his mind.
"Thanks for the visual, Bass," Chris says and comes back to the shelter of the porch. "And I'd just made my peace with God and everything."
Lance lets a grin slide onto his face, feels it grow to Chesire proportions. "After all, He gave you the ability to fall flat on your back."
Chris glares at him, a vision in FuWear and grass stains. "Nay-sayers are usually summarily executed," he tells Lance, "but maybe I'll let you go this time. There any more of that?"
Lance hands him a beer. The rain quiets a fraction, to a bearable level. Chris is dripping rainwater on the floor, and when he sits down, he insists on poking his wet, grass-covered feet under Lance's thigh. Lance lets him.
"Why are we out here again?" he asks after a while. Chris is chugging his beer with exaggerated moans of pleasure, and Lance has been pointedly avoiding the obvious associations. The circuits of his brains fire randomly this late at night, slow thoughts, rainy-day thoughts, and Chris' feet are warming up under his thigh.
"Well, it's better than getting broiled to a black crisp inside, don't you think?"
"'s not that hot--" Lance tries, but Chris claps a hand over his mouth, muffling the words, covering them with his own:
"It is, it is! It's disgustingly hot inside. Tell me this, oh Great Sage; why is it boiling hot inside when it's raining? Reason says that a cool summer rain would cool things down, doesn't it?"
"Mmmph," Lance says. Chris lifts his hand a fraction. "Humidity and stuff."
"Humidity and stuff!" Chris rolls his eyes and twists around, falls over in mock agony, his hard head landing painfully on Lance's thigh. "How sage!"
"Nut," Lance says under his breath, but Chris is still doing his wet dog impression, complete with drooling and snuffling, and doesn't hear. Lance bats ineffectually at his head. "You're getting me wet."
"Yup," Chris says.
"Okay," Lance says and finishes his beer. The rain has slowed to a drizzle, and the night is a quiet rustle of water on leaves, soft drops pit-pattering on the roof; quick, soft sounds of life happening around them.
"So, are you totally bummed out that we didn't go down to the Keys with the guys?" Chris says, flipping around and squinting up at Lance. The porch light falls in his eyes and turn his pupils into pinpricks.
Lance leans against the squeaky, sagging back and pretends to think hard. Chris is patting his thigh softly, tap tap tap tap.
"I think," Lance says, "that being wet here with you just possibly beats the sun, the beach and Justin and Joey making fart jokes."
"Yeah?" Chris says, and his fingers are tap tap tapping their way up along Lance's thigh. "Can I get that in writing? Three copies and fax one to my office, m'kay?"
"Sure," Lance says, because Chris' hand is creeping higher. The rain picks up again.
Chris stops tapping and gets up, but before Lance can protest, he's leaned in and kissed him, rain-wet, tasting of beer and smelling of grass and earth and summer.
"My people will call your people," he whispers. "We can do lunch."
Lance threads his hands into Chris' wild, spiky hair and doesn't answer. They'll do breakfast.
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