Justin and JC bounced onto the bus, filled with post-show exuberance. They were like this most every night - filled to overflowing with energy. Chris - who could change into street clothes faster than anyone who insisted on being made breakfast because his back hurt too much to lean over the hot pot had a right too - would inevitably be waiting for them. They'd wrestle, and laugh, and then JC would crash, and Justin and Chris would fool around on the Playstation for another hour before one of them pulled the Designated Mature Person act and they went to bed.
Only, for some reason, when they bounced inside the floor was covered with bits of glass shards. Chris stood in the middle of it, glass all around him, peppering his shirt.
"Holy fuck!" Justin cried.
"Don't move," JC said, and ran to the other bus to borrow a vacuum from Lance.
It was until they'd gotten rid of the glass on the floor, and carefully stripped Chris of his clothing and were slowly picking shards out of his hair that Joey asked, "what happened, man?"
Chris sighed. "The disco ball came down."
Justin blinked. "The disco ball?"
"The disco ball. I was - ow! Fuck, C!"
"Sorry," JC replied, and opened the third tube of Neosporin.
"Why," Lance asked, "would you hang a disco ball on the bus?"
"For a disco party," Chris replied. "Duh."
"We're having a disco party?" JC asked.
"We were," Chris said.
"Cool! I knew I'd find a use for the Saturday Night Fever costume I bought off e-bay!"
Chris winced, but it might have been because Lance pulled out some hair along with the glass.
"Why were we having a disco party?" Justin asked.
"Because," Chris said, "what else are you going to do with a disco ball?"
"Hold up," Joey said, "why did you buy it in the first place?"
Chris blinked owlishly at him. "To have a disco party," he said.
Joey threw up his hands.
"Circular logic," Lance said, "will get you nowhere."
"What's wrong with a disco party?" JC asked.
Nothing's wrong with one," Joey said, "as long as you don't break the disco ball and end up with glass shards all over yourself and the bus that you and two of your best friends have to live on."
"Well," Chris said, "that wasn't part of the plan."
"Ah," Lance replied as if everything made perfect sense, "you had a plan."
"Yes. And it was a very good plan, too."
"Dare we ask what this plan involved?" Joey stage whispered to Lance.
"Dare away," Lance whispered back.
"What did this plan involve?" Joey asked.
Chris scowled.
"No, seriously," JC said, "I wanna know." And since JC, at least, was sincere, Chris said, "I don't think we do enough, like. Celebrating."
"Celebrating?" Joey asked. Now he was confused again.
Chris clarified. "Celebrating. The. Special times we share, or something. Shit like that."
Justin pretended to swoon. "Ow!" he cried, and grabbed his right hand. "Motherfucker!"
"Let me see," Chris said, pulling away from Joey, Lance, and JC. "Hm." He grabbed Justin's discarded tweezers, and pulled out a long sliver. Then he carefully dabbed a Band-Aid with Neosporin, wrapped it around Justin's thumb, and kissed it gently.
"All better?"
"Um," Justin said. "Y-yeah. Thanks."
"Cool," Chris replied. Then he turned to Joey and Lance, who were blatantly staring. "Would you guys please finish getting this crap out of my hair?"
Lance gave a long-suffering groan, and they went back to work.
"This would be easier," Joey commented, "if you'd just shave your head like Justin."
"Yeah," Chris replied, "'cause I really wanna imbed the glass in my scalp by running over it with a razor."
"So why do we need to celebrate more?" Justin asked to break up the tension.
"Come on now," JC said, "isn't it obvious?"
"No?" Lance ventured.
"We're just. Taking each other for granted," JC said. "You guys go off to your bus every night, and Justin, Chris and I just. Have our routine, you know? Burn off steam, sleep, wake up, do it again. It's not healthy. And with everything we got going for us it's. It's a time to celebrate."
"Plus," Chris said in the ensuing silence, "a disco party is fucking awesome."
"I wouldn't know," Justin said. "Some of us were too young to actually experience the horror of the 70s."
"You're lucky I got three other people restraining my head," Chris said, "or you'd so be getting an ass-whoopin' right now."
"Whatever," Justin said, "you couldn't lay a finger on my ass, Kirkpatrick, and everyone knows it."
"If you wanna make things right, you got to..." Chris trailed off, as Justin's words sank into his brain.
"I got to what?" Justin teased.
"If you wanna make things right. Um. Nevermind. Just. Keep your ass away from me."
"Yeah, that's what I thought. You ain't no match for the Timberlake booty."
Joey and Lance's eyes met across the top of Chris' head. "Tell us more about your plan," Joey said.
Chris' eyes lit up. "See, I'm talkin' about the future, y'all. When this thing is over, and we're not a group -"
"When what?" JC asked, suddenly concerned.
"C, man, don't nobody last forever 'cept U2 and the Stones," Justin said wisely.
"Yeah, but."
"But nothing," Chris said firmly. "Don't start that crap again. Y'all argue all the time. 'Is this the beginning or beginning of the end' - that ain't no question. Whether we'll break-up some day is. Moot. The point is, that we'll remember the fun stuff. The cool stuff. But the nights on the bus, doing our usual roll around on the floor until we're so tired we have to sleep stuff? That'll all blend together."
"Dude," Joey said, "what kind of bus do you guys have, and where can I get me one?"
Lance smacked him.
"So," Justin said slowly, trying to wrap his mind around the weirdness that was Chris-logic, "you were gonna help us remember by throwing a disco party?"
"Exactly!" Chris crowed, happy that someone understood him.
"Are y'all in the Twilight Zone, or something?" Lance asked.
"I think," JC said, ignoring him, "that is the most beautiful thing anyone has ever done for me." And he threw his arms around Chris.
"Ow!" they cried in unison, "Fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK!"
"Come on, Lance," Joey said. "Let's finish this up and leave the freaks alone."
"Ooooh," Lance said, "you mean, we could sleep on a bus where it's okay to walk around barefoot?"
"Not only that," Joey said, "but we can listen to music written before the 70's or after the 80's."
"You mean good music?" Lance asked.
"You're just jealous," Chris said, "because you love me."
"Yeah," Joey said, "that's it exactly, Kirkpatrick." And then he gave Chris a big, smacking kiss on the cheek.
"Well," Chris said, slightly mollified, "maybe next week we can throw a sock hop on the glass-less bus."
"That," JC said, "would rock, man."
"What's a sock hop?" Justin asked.
"Oh, man!" Chris said, and launched into a diatribe on the ignorance of youth. Joey met Lance's eyes again, over the top of Chris' head, and smiled. "Party on," he murmured.