What You Wanted All Along

What you wanted all along.
by Helen
Chris knew first, or, rather, Justin knew first, but Chris found out first. And then Lance, although Joey never finds out exactly when Justin told Lance. JC knew all along, of course, and Joey might not have ever found out, except that Toronto is a fucking mob scene with the fans, and they all end up having to stay inside for four days straight and by the time Joey flops down in Justin's hotel room, shoves Lance's legs over and says to Chris
"I'm so—I wanna have sex. now," they're on their fourth shared sixpack.
Chris laughs. "Aren't there girls down there?"
"Yeah, but I don't feel like going to the effort."
"The effort where you get on the elevator and point at one of them?" Lance says, not moving his head from watching the television.
"Yeah."
"You're so fucking lazy, man," Chris says. "I think you're my hero."
"Shit," Justin says, distractedly, "Why don't you just fuck JC?"
Joey laughs, startled. No one else does. "What?"
"JC," Justin says, and takes a drink. "He'll let you fuck him, no problem."
"Why would he do that?"
"He lets us."
"I don't—" Joey begins, confused. He's pretty sure they haven't had quite as much to drink as this conversation would indicate.
"Where have you been, man?" Lance says.
"You've all. You're—" Joey shakes his head and begins to laugh "Oh that's hilarious, man. That's..phew, you had me, right there."
Justin shrugs. "I'm not kidding, Joe."
"Yeah, right."
"He's been sucking my dick since I was sixteen." Justin finally turns to look at him and he looks, in this moment, peculiarly alien, golden, more like a pin-up than like the guy that Joey knows too well, and then Justin blinks and he's Justin again, and he's telling the truth.
"the rest of you?" he asks. His voice sounds strange.
"It's only once in a while," Chris says.
"Speak for yourself," Lance mumbles.
"It's not like he minds," Justin says, turning away again.
"I don't—"
"Wait a few days and he'll crawl right in bed with you without you even having to ask," Lance says. Chris laughs shortly, shaking his head.
"Fuck. I don't believe you."
"Why don't you go ask him yourself, then," Justin says.
"I will," Joey says.

He knocks on JC's door, hard, and there is no answer for a long moment, while he realizes that it's nearly two in the morning. He has almost decided to leave when JC opens the door, blinking in the light of the hallway, "Joey," he says, and Joey doesn't know what to say. "Is something wrong?" JC asks.
"Justin said—" Joey stops. "This is so fucking stupid. I'm sorry. Go back to sleep, Josh."
JC shrugs. "Okay." he turns around.
"They said you've been. sleeping with them. with all of them," Joey says abruptly.
"Well, not at once," JC says, turning back.
"It's true?"
"yeah."
"But. why?"
"Why do you sleep with all those girls?"
"You sleep with girls too."
"And sometimes I sleep with the guys. If they want to."
"Why didn't I know?"
"We just—I thought. Chris walked in on us once. And Lance—he and Justin got drunk and wanted to—so. It just never came up with you."
"But if it had, you'd sleep with me."
"Sure," JC says, easily.
"Oh," Joey says. JC looks at him for a moment, and then says, slowly
"Did you want to?"
"What—now?"
"Yeah."
"No. I. I have to go—"

Holy Shit, he thinks in his room. Holy fucking Shit, because this is a big deal, no matter how weirdly blase the others are about it. He's always known, although peripherally, that Lance is pretty indiscriminate about who he fucks, and he has always assumed that there is a good reason that all of them have to attend the quarterly meetings on what is not acceptable in the way of public behavior, which always include at least a passing reference to homosexuality, but he's never really paid that much attention to what the other guys in the band are doing, and the fact that at their last meeting, Julia sighed and said "remember, please alert me if you're planning to date any guys, because it makes my job a hell of a lot easier," seems miles from everyone fucking JC.
"What if we don't?" Chris had asked sweetly.
"I'll break your arms," she had said, and they all laughed.
Holy Shit, he thinks again. JC.
JC, who realized that he was doing everything by ear the first month they were together, and quietly taught him how to read music. He used to worry that he was never going to really get to know JC, because Justin and Chris were so much more immediate and demanding of his attention, and Lance was sort of nervous and needy the first year. But that was stupid, of course, because he came to know JC, and all the funny little quiet bits of his personality, the way he held his lips together when he asked you to give an honest criticism of a song, and his unfailingly ridiculous clothing. He'd thought he knew him, anyhow.

Lance corners him after breakfast the next morning.
"Joey."
"Lance."
"Look, about that JC thing."
"What about it?"
"You just seemed pretty shocked, and I—look, we wouldn't ever force him or anything."
"I know."
"Because I thought maybe that was what it sounded like, like some big gang bang or something." The words 'gang-bang' sound oddly genteel with Lance's accent. Joey crosses his arms and leans back against the wall.
"It's not like that," Lance says, "it's just. it's nice sometimes.
"He doesn't mind?"
"JC's stubborn as a pig; if he didn't want to, you think we could make him? Besides, why would we bother?"
"I don't know."
"Did you talk to him about it?"
Joey sighs. "Yeah. He offered to sleep with me."
"well. see? You gonna do it?"
"I—"
"You won't regret it," Lance says grinning suddenly, a strangely vulpine grin, "I'll tell you that."

They fly out of Toronto the next morning, and he and JC end up sitting together, six rows away from the other guys. He hasn't really spoken with JC since the other night, and he expects it to be weird, but JC puts his bag under the seat, slaps down a folder on the tray table, and says
"I'm getting drunk and doing this Make a Wish Foundation stuff, okay?"
"Okay."
JC flags down the flight attendant and orders a bloody mary. "Orange juice is fine," Joey says, when it's his turn.
"No, you want something," JC says. "This stuff is depressing as hell."
"I'll be okay."
"Fine," JC says.
Half an hour later, he wishes he had a drink, even though drinking on planes makes him feel sick.
"God, I'm never having children," he mutters.
"yeah," JC says. "Oh, fuck, this one has lymphoma."
"Why are you doing this in advance—you can just show up, right?"
"It's better to be prepared." JC flips over another picture and winces. "They're always so sick."
"This sucks," Joey says. They do the occasional hospital performance, but it's not as up-close and personal as this. "Frederika has a congenital heart defect that will not allow her heart to grow normally," the next sheet says. "Oh, man," he says.
"Yup," JC says, and lets Joey have the rest of his drink. After that, they talk about hockey, and it's entirely normal, even the part where JC leans over and says in an exaggerated whisper
"Five bucks says Justin makes it with that flight attendant in the bathroom."
From his seat, he can see the flight attendant in question, leaning solicitously over Justin,
"No thanks," he says, and JC snickers. Then it seems weird. JC falls asleep doing the crossword, slumped heavily against Joey's shoulder. He's warm.

Two nights later, he asks Justin
"Why didn't someone tell me before?"
Justin knows exactly what he's talking about. "We thought you knew."
"But—"
"We thought, y'know, you weren't into it. Like maybe you disapproved or something. so—"
"Oh, Jesus."
"But now you know."
"Great."
"Look, Joey, it can be just like it was before," Justin says, but, of course, it isn't anything like it was before, because now he sees things that he can't believe he didn't see before, and he wonders if, despite what they've said, the others are acting differently now that they know he knows. He notices when they're at some party for someone or another and Lance quirks his head at JC and they disappear for twenty minutes, and when they reappear, Lance is flushed and serene, and JC's hair and the collar of his shirt are rumpled, and some buttons are missing from the shirt. He meets up with JC one morning coming out of Chris' room, and JC gives him a sleepy hello, and when he turns away, Joey can see a dark mouth mark on the back of his neck. He notices maybe most of all how Justin touches JC sometimes, a proprietary hand on the back of his neck.
He wonders what it's like.
And all that is a lie of omission, because what he really notices is JC: JC's slinky efficient walk, and JC's smile, and he tries not to think of it, because it seems like he shouldn't, like it's wrong, and not Bible-wrong, but just as though he shouldn't, as though it makes the friendship he harboured towards JC into something else, something less.
By the time he's jerking off over it, he has to admit it's a problem.

He has had experience with unattainable people before, mostly in tenth grade, which was a pretty bad year overall, but it's been a while since he hasn't been able to have pretty much anyone he wants, so it is an unfamiliar feeling when JC sits down next to him at breakfast, smiles, leans across him to get the milk and he doesn't do anything. Especially since he knows he could.
But, hey, it's not a crime to look, so he does, because he can't help it, and one night, after a performance, can't help bending down and kissing him, in the small corridor on the bus between the bathroom and the bunks. The others are watching television, and he's just stepped back to get a sweatshirt and JC's there, and he slides his hand into JC's hair and bends down and kisses him. JC presses up against him, mouth slick and soft, and Joey pulls back first. "JC—"
"What?"
"Nothing. I'm gonna go, um," Joey says.

It happens again three days later, JC jostling him the dark as they wait for the cue to go onstage, JC's hand on his arm, and then on his shoulder, pulling him down, and he thinks JC's just going to warn him about the timing change they're using in Just Got Paid, which he does nearly every night since Joey screwed it up in Saint Louis. He turns his head towards JC, and then JC's mouth is on his, fleetingly, tongue flicking against his lips.
It isn't as though he hasn't had sex with guys before, but, then again, a blowjob given and received after a performance when he is too whacked out on adrenaline to register that it isn't such a great idea isn't the same as going over to Josh's room and knocking on the door and. asking.
So he has a few fantasies about it. That's okay, that's normal, that's cool, he's even done it before. He had a dream once in Germany where Chris went down on him. No big. Meaningless.
JC kisses him again in Washington, sliding into the elevator with him when they're riding down to meet the others in the lobby, putting a hand on a railing next to Joey's hip, grinning at him and kissing him for a long breathless moment before the elevator stops at the next floor, and more people get on.
He waits two weeks for the fourth kiss, and when it comes it's hard and hot, JC's tongue in his mouth, one hand snaking up underneath his t-shirt, fingernails scraping softly across the small of his back, and when JC pulls back, Joey doesn't let go of his hip.
"You could come over tonight," JC says.
"Okay," he says.

"You're pretty nervous," JC says that night, kissing him on the cheek. It's not exactly as though he expected things to be different, but it's a little unnerving how normal it seems. JC's wearing jeans and a t-shirt that says "Sherwin-Williams paints" and he's set up his keyboard on the the table in his room, which is also littered with cds and clothes and the packets of airline peanuts JC tends to hoard.
"Why would I be nervous?" he says, trying to make a joke.
"I don't know," JC says. "Do you want a blow job?"
"Do I—"
"You don't have to do this," JC says. "If you don't—"
"You're just. it's a little fast.
"okay."
JC blinks, and then wraps his arms around Joey's neck and kisses him, and Joey lets everything go automatic for a little bit, rubs his hands down JC's back, and it's been a while since he was with a guy, especially sober, and he's forgotten how strong they are, and when JC pulls him towards the bed he almost stumbles, has to step back to regain his balance.
"Take off your shirt," JC says, and strips off his own. Joey pulls his own shirt off over his head.
"You're—" he says.
"What?" JC says, tugging his pants down.
You're beautiful, he was going to say, because he always says it, because girls love it, and it always eases over the moment when the girl stops being the one he picked up in front of all her friends, and starts being alone with him, without clothes, but it doesn't seem quite appropriate here, seems sort of hokey all of a sudden,
"Nothing," he says, and sits down on the bed.
"Nothin?" JC says, and slides into his lap, pushing him backwards and kissing him aggressively and fumbling with his pants
"Let me, just—" Joey says, and stands up to pull off the rest of his clothes. When he turns back to the bed, JC is climbing in under the covers, shivering a little.
Soon, though, it's too warm under the blankets, and they slide down his back, bunching at his waist, and JC hooks one leg around him and writhes against Joey's fingers and mouth and when Joey pulls back JC looks at him gravely for a moment before ducking his head and swiping at one of Joey's nipples. "I want to, um," he says, pushing at Joey's shoulders, and Joey rolls sideways, and JC ends up leaning over him, face flushed, and it's still a little weird, because Joey has always found sex with strangers oddly satisfying, because he doesn't have to worry about looking at them when they know what kinds of noises he makes, and what he likes, but then again, there's JC, who slides down his body and kisses his stomach and slides his mouth over his cock.
"You're beautiful," Joey says.

"So," he says the next morning, pulling his shirt over his head.
"So," JC says.
"Um."
"I had a nice time," he says awkwardly, feeling like an idiot.
"well, god, I hope so."
"okay, then," he says, by the door, holding his shoes.
"okay," JC says.

Three days later, they go to a club, and Lance and Justin and Chris all pick up girls in the first fifteen seconds, and Joey's pretty sure Lance fucks his in the bathroom, and he and JC sit in the balcony and drink and make snarky comments, and it's almost like a date, especially when JC lolls against the wall outside Joey's room while he's unlocking the door and says
"Can I come in?"
"Of course," Joey says.

JC has a sweet spot on his jaw beneath his ear that makes him cry out and squirm anxiously, every time, and he is breathless and pliant after a show and hot and eager in the afternoon even if he has to be woken from a nap, and it's a whole new thing to sneak into a movie with JC, wearing sweatshirts that are too large and caps low over their eyes, eat dinner someplace, come back and make out on JC's bed until he thinks he'll die if they don't fuck right then, to take a bath together, JC sleak as a seal against him, to wake up to JC putting his cold feet on his legs, laughing, sliding his fingers into the waistband of his boxers, wanting him, and once they even sneak up to the top of the hotel and look at the stars and put their cold hands on each others' necks and fool around, and it is perfect, except for the fact that Lance and Chris and Justin are still fucking him.
There is never a good time to bring it up. He thinks about it all the time, can't help thinking about it, because it isn't as though JC's going to any trouble to hide it, and he can't decide if that's worse or better, except he knows he hates it when he sees JC going into Justin's hotel room one night. Lance leaves marks sometimes, and he hates that too.

"Do you want to fuck me?" he asks one night, brushing a kiss across JC's stomach, squeezing his hip.
"If you want."
"No. I mean." he pushes himself up so he can see JC's eyes "—do you fuck any of the others?"
JC snorts. "um, yeah. no."
"Well, why not?"
"They don't want to."
"I want to."
"Okay," JC says.

He tries. Lots of ways, he tries, he does his best, tries being nice, he's always nice, tries catching JC before performances and kissing him, lots of lip, not too much tongue, the way he thinks he might like it, although JC rarely puts forth a preference, tries buying him a sweater on his birthday, a really nice one, taking him to dinner with his mom when she visits, hangs out with him, goes with him to visit those terminally ill children, which is awful, rubs his back when he's nervous, makes him laugh when he's stuck on a song, and when that doesn't work, tries fucking it into him, asking for it all the time, asking JC to come over after performances, asking JC for a blowjob during the intermission of a performance, in the middle of a movie, in a fucking parking lot, at the end just trying to make him say no, but JC never does, never says no, never even seems minorly inconvenienced by it.
He's always had the opposite problem, girls convinced that one date, or one fuck, or one kiss means some kind of lifetime commitment, and he's gotten good at that, the callous goodbye, the it-was-sweet,-but-see-you-later grin, knows all about that side, and it hasn't prepared him at all for sitting in his bed in the morning and watching JC shrug his t-shirt over his head, grin sideways at him, and walk out the door.

"What," he says one morning eating with Lance and Justin, because Lance is watching him. Justin looks down at his plate.
"Joey. um." Lance wrinkles his nose uncomfortably. "I don't like to say anything. It's just. You know I think JC's great, right? We wouldn't even have the band without him, and he's. y'know, a great person. But. he's. Joey, he's kind of a slut."
"And," Joey says.
"So I know you like pretending he's your little boyfriend and all, and that's cool with me, but you can't—"
"It's not like. Jesus, when we first started fucking I had the biggest crush on him," Justin says. "Felt like I was having a heart attack every time I saw him."
"So then what happened."
"He started fucking Chris. and, like, fifteen other people."
"You guys—"
"Joey, we're just—"
"You don't fucking know what's going on between us, so don't even try to—" he shoves his chair back from the table and stands up. "Stay the fuck out of it," he says, and leaves.

"I love you," he says to JC that afternoon, and JC looks surprised and pleased, and wants to have sex.

"Chris."
"What?"
"About JC."
"What about him?"
"Nothing."
"S'like that, then. with you two."
"I don't know."
"I won't fuck him anymore."
"Chris—"
"That's what you wanted, right? Don't act like it's not."
Joey nods.
"It's not a big deal."
He thinks he'll feel better when Chris stops sleeping with JC, but he feels worse, because it's not at JC's instigation, after all. If he asked the right way, Lance and Justin would probably leave JC alone as well, and he'd have him all to himself, but he can't bring himself to ask, to see Lance's mocking grin. Also, he half expects JC to stop anyway, by himself, and he wants to give him time.

"I love you," he says, and JC curls into him, running a hand across his hair
"love you, too, Joe," he says, dropping a drowsy kiss in his chest, "we'll go again later, okay?"
"mm," Joey says, content, and they doze the afternoon away, and he falls asleep somewhere in there, because when he wakes up, it's dark and JC is moving silently around the room, putting on a t-shirt and pair of loose shorts,
"Hey—"
"Hey," JC says "I didn't mean to wake you up."
"s'okay. are you going someplace?"
"Lance asked me to come by tonight."
"What for?"
"What do you think?"
"Oh," Joey says.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"No, what?"
"You don't expect me to be happy because you're skipping off to Lance."
"Joey."
Joey turns over and faces the wall, wishing JC would just go. There's silence behind him.
"Oh, what," JC says softly. "you tell me you love me and all of a sudden you want to stop doing—"
"Just because I want you to stop sucking so much dick—"
"Unless it's your dick," JC says tightly. "Screw you. What gives you the right, anyhow?
"I love you," Joey says, rolling over and sitting up. "I'm in love with you—"
"Joey—"
"Forget it."
"Do you want me to stay here?"
"Really?"
"Lance can wait," JC says, "and ....y'know, if you wanna—"
"Never mind. Just. Go on."
"You don't mind?"
"Do whatever you want."
JC looks at him and then nods and starts to leave, turning at the door and saying, resentfully
"I can't be with you all the time."
"Why not?"
"Because it's not fair."
"I don't give a fuck if it's fair. They're assholes, JC."
"Why? Because they fuck me too? What the hell is this jealousy thing, anyway, Joe?"
"I love you."
"Yeah, you love me, and Chris misses Dani, and Lance likes it a little rough and Justin likes to talk dirty and the only goddamn difference is that they don't fucking waste my time with this foreplay bullshit. You wanna fuck me, fine. I like you Joey, I like it when you fuck me—"
"Get out," Joey says. "Just go—"
"Oh, don't—"
"They laugh at you," Joey says painfully. "They. Lance thinks you're a slut."
"So?"
"So that doesn't bother you?"
"Lance is full of shit—he fucks plenty of people himself. You fuck plenty of people, Joey."
"Well. yeah. but they're no one I know, they're not my friends—"
"Oh, and I'm the fucked up one, because I sleep with my friends," JC says, and slams the door behind him.

But the next day JC sits down at breakfast next to him and mutters
"Sorry," and what can he say?
"It's okay," he says.
"I'm buying my mom a birthday present this afternoon," JC says, around a mouthful of toast. "Do you want to come?"
"Sure," he says.
"Great."

He is looking for JC to ask when he wants to leave when he hears voices coming from Justin's hotel room. His door is slightly ajar, and Joey starts to open it further when he hears Justin saying,
"We haven't done this lately." There's a rustle of fabric, and Joey can't take his hand off the doorknob. From where he's standing, he can see the mirror over the dresser, which, in turn, reflects Justin and JC standing close together, Justin leaning against the back of the couch, tracing his fingers down JC's arm.
"Been busy," JC says.
"Yeah, with Joey."
JC laughs quietly. "yeah. He likes it slow."
"huh. wouldn't have thought that."
"Likes getting me off."
"Is that a hint?"
"What? No—I have stuff to do this afternoon, Just."
"Okay, then," Justin says, and slides a hand around JC's neck, thumb grazing the base of his ear, and then moves it down to his shoulder and squeezes gently, and pushes down, and JC's knees fold gracefully, one hand going to the buttons of Justin's pants, and Joey jerks back out of the doorway, breathing hard.
He leaves a note on JC's door about some unavoidable errand, and he means to go out, go for a run, or go to a bar, or something, but he ends up finding Lance and blurting out
"Why do you fuck him, anyway? Why not a girl?"
"If you meet a girl who gives head like JC, you will introduce me to her, right?" Lance says, lifting one eyebrow.
"That's why?"
"No one gives it up like JC—you know that. And you have to be so fucking careful with girls, or else they're freaking out and crying on you. You heard about that girl a couple months ago, right?"
"No."
"Jesus, what a fucking mess that was. She was all upset, and crying and shit, and eventually Justin had to fuck her just to get her to shut up."
"What did you do?"
"Nothing," Lance says, irritated, and then he has to do some FreeLance thing, so Joey goes and waits in JC's room, and maybe he looks a little funny or something, because when JC gets back, he asks, almost immediately,
"Is something wrong?"
"No—I don't really want to talk about it. Can we just have sex?" he says, wanting suddenly to hold JC, to touch him.
"Sure, okay."
And it is fucking beautiful and amazing, JC's arms slung loosely around his neck, their straining bodies pressed closely together, JC moaning and mouthing his shoulder, and when they're finished he falls asleep, one hand still clasped with Joey's.

"Can you hold on for a minute," Joey asks in the morning, after they're dressed.
"Sure."
"Um. Have a seat," Joey says, and JC sits down on the bed. Joey crouches down in front of him, puts a careful hand on JC's knee.
"I want to be with you, okay?"
"We can—"
"Don't even pretend you don't know what I�m talking about," Joey says. "Just." He touches JC's cheek, rubs his thumb along his cheekbone, "It's not. I don't just wanna have sex with you anymore, you know that, right?"
"I—"
"I just. I can't. Not if you're gonna keep on with Justin and—"
"Joey," JC says.
There's a long silence, and Joey finally says, "Forget it, I shouldn't have asked."
"I don't mean to—"
"That's. you can't change how you feel, I guess," Joey says, and starts to wonder if he can get through this without starting to cry.
JC doesn't say anything, knits his lips together, looks down at his hands. Joey sits down on the bed next to him.
Eventually, JC's cell phone rings, and he has to take it.

"Lance."
"You and JC have a fight or something?"
"No."
"He came over last night, wanted a fuck."
"Oh."
"It just surprised me—you were keeping him pretty busy for a while there."
"I'm not any more."
"Fine."

Then they have two performances in a row, and then a day on a plane, another performance, two interviews, a photoshoot, an appearance for an AIDs charity, fifteen hours on a bus and another performance. Everyone sleeps a lot. Joey has unpleasant dreams. Someone in one of the audiences has a giant sign that says "JC is cute" which seems like a strangely lukewarm statement to spraypaint in giant letters on a day-glo piece of posterboard. But, then again, JC is cute. Chris catches a cold and won't admit it. Joey wishes he had a cold. He wishes he'd have a full on collapse and they'd send him to a hospital, all white walls and six month old Reader's Digests and golf tournaments and instant mashed potatoes. That sounds fucking fantastic. Performance. Some talk show thing. Performance. Bus, plane, taxi, hotel, performance.
Then they're back in Orlando for a week, and it rains for the entire time, and he spends a lot of it at a basketball court down the street from his house, where no one plays anymore because there's a much nicer one three blocks over. The tarmac is cracked and grayish, and the high chain link fence around the court is rusty. He's a terrible basketball player, but that's partly because all he ever does is practice his freethrow. On Thursday, JC comes by.
"Hey," he says, tugging the gate open and stepping inside.
"Hey," Joey says, bouncing the ball.
"We haven't hung out much lately," JC says.
"We went to the movies yesterday," Joey says "and we went out to that club."
"I—kind of meant—"
"I know what you meant."
"Oh."
Joey shoots the basketball and it goes through the hoop, bouncing back towards him.
"This isn't about that foreplay thing, is it?"
"No, Josh—"
"—because. I was just. It was late, Joey, and I was—"
"You don't have to—"
"No. I like it with you, Joey. It's—I thought tonight you'd like to, maybe—"
"Why?"
"What?"
"Do you want to?"
"Of course—I wouldn't ask you if I didn't—"
"No, I mean, do you want me?" He drops the basketball and backs JC into the fence "You want me to come over to your place tonight and touch you and kiss you and fuck you—you want me to do that to you, want my dick and my mouth—"
"yeah."
"Tell me, then."
"I want you," JC says hesitantly, and when Joey doesn't say anything, he continues, slowly "I want you to fuck me. um. Joey," he says, and puts a tentative hand on Joey's chest, smiles up at him.
"I don't believe you," Joey says, stepping back.
"Wait—"
"I don't fucking believe you, and I'm not going—we're not going to do this anymore. don't ask me again."
"Joey—" JC catches his arm and he jerks himself out of JC's grasp.
"Don't. don't fucking touch me. Don't sit next to me, don't fall asleep next to me on the bus, don't borrow my clothes—just. don't—"

He doesn't look back.
Okay, yes he does, looks surreptitiously over his shoulder as he turns the corner, and JC is still there, leaning against the fence, head bent. He doesn't see him for the rest of the week.

On the bus, though, the first night, while Justin is sleeping and Lance and Chris are arguing over the directions on the Stovetop Stuffing box, JC sits down next to him.
"Are you mad?"
"What kind of fucked up question is that?"
"I'm sorry," JC says.
"Yeah."
"This isn't—" JC shakes his head, and Joey finally looks at him. JC is a little flushed, mouth pensive, and Joey begins to feel the hard knot inside him unravel, and he thinks JC is maybe going to apologize for real, to say something really romantic, to tell Joey that his is the only dick he wants to suck.
"I just. The band."
"Oh," Joey says dully. "I'm not gonna leave the band, Josh."
"No?"
"Of course not."
"Okay."
"Joey, please tell this idiot that following the directions will make it all nasty," Chris says, from the kitchen.
He wonders if, once this is over, he can get a job on a television series. Nothing big, maybe a detective show or something, just where he shows up and plays the same role every day, and it'll be just like his life now, except without all the fucking jet lag.

"So. You ever gonna talk to JC again?" Lance asks him one night, handing him a beer and sliding into the booth next to him. The strobe lights flicker overhead, but they don't obscure Lance's I-mean-well expression.
"Yeah," he says sourly. It's good beer, which is a surprise, because Lance usually gets Miller Genuine Draft or something.
"When?"
"When I fucking feel like it, Lance. Jesus."
Lance sighs. "You know, I told you—"
"Yeah, I know."
"He's just—"
"Shut the fuck up."
"I'm just trying to help, you don't have to be so—"
"Am I fucking up the shows, Lance?"
"No."
"Screwing up interviews, looking bad at photoshoots?"
"No."
"Then leave me the fuck alone."
"Fine."
"Great."
They drink in silence, and watch while Justin gets into a shoving match on the floor with some guy who backs down pretty quickly.
"You can do better, Joey."
"What?"
"You know. Find someone who won't fuck around on you."
"Well, chronologically speaking, he was fucking around on you."
"Yeah, but I don't give a shit," Lance says, and leans back.

Chris doesn't say anything, but he starts throwing Playstation games.
"Would you stop that?" he finally has to say.
"What?"
"With the—you can kick my ass at this game, man."
"So?"
"So cut it out, because you're pissin' me off."
Chris kills his character in the first eighteen seconds of the next game.

Justin's next, sitting down on his bunk and saying
"He misses you."
"Oh."
"Joey."
"What?"
"Can't you just—"
"What? Fuck him?"
"You did before."
"I'm not going to do that," Joey says, wondering what he can say to make Justin go away and let him sleep. "I won't, not anymore."
"He makes you happy."
"No—"
"I could talk to Lance," Justin says hesitantly. "We could—"
"Never mind."
"It's not a big deal."
"But—"
"Don't bother, I said."
"What the fuck is your problem, man? You don't want him to—"
"It doesn't matter what you do." Joey shrugged. "He wants to fuck you. You don't fuck him, he'll find someone else."
"Fine," Justin says, obviously offended. He's always hated people not appreciating his gifts, and it doesn't happen to him very often.
Oh, what, he wants to say, wants to make some nasty comment about it, about how JC must not be performing up to par for them lately for them to go to all this trouble, but the words stick in his throat, and as many times as he thinks the hateful words to himself, slut, whore, he can't bring himself to say them.

It only takes him a month to stop fantasizing about JC coming to him, coming through the door of his hotel room one night and saying impossible things, impossible, Joey-you're-the-only-one type things that Joey is embarrassed about the next day. Too many comic books, he thinks, ruefully. Late at night, though, they seem perfect, just the way he forgets all the other imperfect things about JC: the way he sometimes only seems to be listening, his impossibly picky eating, the priggish way he answers interview question sometimes that makes Joey feel like hitting him with a big foam bat or something. The way his pants for Bye Bye Bye are just a little too large, so they fall down a little and he has to hitch at them when they dance, and how, backstage, shirtless, Joey can see that the pants fall nearly below the smooth hollows of his hips.

They're good guys, they're his friends, but they have short attention spans. When he bucks up and starts fucking pretty pale girls with short hair, they stop being careful around him. He walks in on Justin fucking JC after a performance once, JC sprawled languidly across a table, make-up and towels and bottles of water shoved carelessly aside. Once, changing backstage, he sees raw looking patches on JC's back, turns away, doesn't want to know. But Chris says
"What the fuck is that on your back, man?"
"Rug burn," Lance says for him, chuckling slightly.
Chris is probably fucking him again, too. He thinks he is, although he doesn't know. He wonders sometimes how JC is doing, but it seems like a bad idea to ask, so they go to clubs together, and JC seems happy enough, cheerful, but not so cheerful that it's suspicious. He and JC have a Woody Allen marathon when they drive through Utah, Nevada and Arizona, which is fun, partly because Justin loathes Woody Allen. Even when the others give up in disgust and go in the back, he and JC throw popcorn at each other and do their Woody Allen imitations. By New Mexico they agree that they aren't too fond of Woody Allen either, and let Chris get Hong Kong action movies, even though it means he'll be mock kicking them for days, and sometimes he hits them by mistake and it hurts.
When JC wants to know what a good rhyme for girl is, and Justin says "hurl" and Lance says "churl," he says "unfurl," which JC says is pretty good.

The tour ends, they record the new album, he gets a solo, Justin breaks his wrist in a car accident a week before the album goes on sale, which is terrible, but great publicity, they choreograph the new songs, and then it's time for a new tour, and they're still big, but not quite as big. The venues are a little smaller and there aren't quite as many exploding things in the stage show, and he sort of likes it, to tell you the truth. The songs are better, even though they still perform the old ones, and they've done It's Gonna Be Me so many times by now that he's passed beyond being sick to death of it and its familiarity is comforting. They slide into the choreography so effortlessly, so perfectly, every time, and he has, occasionally, startling moments of clarity when he looks out at the audience, his right field of vision cut off by JC's shoulder, and thinks 'here's my life, right here,' and he's content.
He used to have all sorts of funny ideas about what it was like to be a grown-up, used to ask people, and they never gave good answers, always things about paying bills or buying booze or responsibility, but what he's learned is that it's pretty much about learning to make compromises. You learn to pretend that what you have is what you wanted all along, or at least that things worked out the way they would have anyway, that there was nothing you could have done to change them.
He and Chris have gotten into the habit of having a drink together on the days when they don't have shows. They don't even need to talk much anymore, although they do, sometimes. In Austin, Chris tells him that Dani's pregnant.
"whoa. wow. you. congratulations?" he says.
"yeah, I guess. yeah," Chris says, nodding.
"And after all those safe sex lectures you gave Justin and Lance—"
"Why do you think I haven't told them yet?" Chris says, finishing his beer.

When they get back to the hotel, Chris disappears into his room to call Dani, and Joey continues down the hallway and around the corner, fishing a keycard out of his pocket.
"Hey."
"Hi," JC says. It's dark in the room except for a table lamp which throws JC's shadow onto the opposite wall. He's barefoot, wearing only a pair of pajama bottoms. Joey takes off his jacket, and starts to unbutton his shirt, JC watches him, smiling slightly, eyes wide and shining,
"C'mere," Joey says softly, and JC comes, tugs Joey's shirt down off his shoulders, kisses his sternum, turns his face up for Joey to kiss, pulls Joey backwards towards the bed, moans when Joey kisses his throat,
"You're my favorite," JC sighs when Joey lowers him to the bed, and hand between his shoulderblades, and JC reaches for him, pulls him down,
"Shh," Joey says, kisses his collarbone. There are sirens outside, but they're far away,
"love you," JC says faintly. He says that a lot, lately. Joey cups his cheek and covers his mouth with a kiss, because he doesn't believe a fucking word of it.
(end)

a few notes on this story.

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