a little payback
by Helen

Chris touched JC all the time, but no one seemed to notice except him. Because he was new, Justin thought, it was only because he was new that he noticed Chris' hand on JC's thigh, stroking a little, when they were sitting on the worn out couches in a common area, watching a boxing match on a staticky black and white television, or Chris' hand on the back of JC's neck when they were all leaning over maps of the western quadrant, Lance and Joey arguing snappishly about security measures.

All of them being Lance and Joey, Chris and JC, and himself. He wasn't sure exactly why he was included, because The Project didn't exactly seem like the type of organization where, JC and Chris to the contrary, if you were sleeping with someone, you were automatically included in executive meetings. Or not sleeping with someone, he thought, watching Joey slam his hand down on the map and shake his head angrily. His primary function at these meetings seemed to be for Lance to grill him for ten minutes about whether he was capable of hacking into some database or another, and how long it might take, and whether he could do it without being detected, and whether he was lying about that or not, and after that, Lance would glare at him for a minute, and then nod and ignore him for the rest of the meeting.

He'd only been there a month, and he still didn't have boots, because they didn't have any his size, so he was still wearing worn sneakers, and occasionally getting lost, because all the hallways looked the same, and he hadn't really made any friends, and he couldn't remember a time when he hadn't wished that Joey would show up to see him, the way Chris did one day, in the long low room where most of the computers were, where he and JC spent most of their time. JC's head twitched a little before Justin noticed anything, and then he saw Chris, soaking wet, eyes wild, in the doorway.

"I gotta go," JC murmured, already on his feet, handing the bomb model they'd been working on to Justin. They were kissing before the door closed, Chris' hands in JC's hair. Once when he was lost, he'd seen them making out in a hallway, Chris holding JC tightly against the wall, JC's arms around his neck, Chris' hand in JC's pants.

Joey never touched him like that. Joey didn't touch him much at all, except at night, because the bed was small, and during the day a little, and once, early on, the first week, at breakfast, when some guy had given him an ugly grin and said

"hey, sugar—"

Joey was behind him so fast he almost stumbled at the hand lightly on his hip, Joey saying

"morning," very mildly, right above Justin's ear, almost as if the words were meant for him. When he looked again, the guy was gone, fading away into the line at the counter. Joey lifted the hand from his hip, and jerked his chin in the direction of a table, where Chris was stealing food from JC's plate, and Lance was reading a thick stack of papers in a folder, occasionally handing one across to JC.

"This is Justin," Joey said, when Justin set his tray tentatively down. Lance nodded at him, and Chris' eyes skated briefly across him before he raised his eyebrows at Joey.

"We've met," JC said, smiling at him. JC had been the one who'd said

"You know something about computers, you said?" sitting him down in front of the console.

Tonight, he thought that meant, the soft hand on his hip, the seat at the table. More things he would have to pay for one way or another, and he tried not to tense up when Joey yanked his shirt over his head at night, because that wasn't fair, that wasn't holding up his end of the bargain. When he got in later than Joey, he'd undress quickly, feeling exposed in the thin moonlight that filtered in through the blinds, wondering if Joey were watching him. After the late night chill of the corridor, the bed was amazingly warm, and at first, he'd lie awake, waiting for Joey to reach for him, peel down his underwear, roll him over on his back, demand a little payback, and as the weeks went by and nothing happened, the quiver in his stomach at Joey's hand on his side resolved from nervousness into anticipation. Imagining Joey's fingers tracing his stomach, Joey saying "I think this has gone on long enough," in his ear, made him want it fiercely, but Joey never said anything of the kind. He let Justin touch him during the day, but he rarely touched him back.

One afternoon, high winds and heavy rains flooded the lower halls of the compound, and threatened the buildings above ground, and they all ended up waiting it out in a watertight bunker. Chris was sitting against the wall when he got there, JC lolling sleepily between his legs, head on his shoulder. Joey was standing near the wall, arms crossed, and Justin slipped in behind him, putting one hand over his shoulder. Joey let him, didn't move away when Justin pressed in close to him, putting his chin on Joey's shoulder.

He liked JC, who was always nice to him, if occasionally a little distant, who never got annoyed with him when he leaned over his shoulder and pointed out the coding mistake he was making.

Chris made him kind of nervous, though.

Joey laughed when he said that.

"Chris makes everyone nervous," he said.