He tried to laugh it off. They didn't need to know - why should they? It was his life, and his problem. But Carl had been a little too drunk, and that one punch went wild, and now JC had a huge, black-purple shiner on his left eye. His mouth had been swollen, too, but it went down over the weekend. He just stayed inside and let Carl cook him dinner and apologise for hitting him in the face. JC forgave him, but the shiner was still there on Monday, and that was a problem. He'd never had marks on his face before.
"Tell them you walked into a door. They'll buy that. You never watch where you're going," Carl said when JC brought up his worries. And JC laughed and said,
"I can't do that, it'd make me sound like an abused wife or something," and Carl patted him on the back and grinned and kissed him. JC kissed him back, even though his lip still hurt a little.
He told them he'd spilled cooking oil on the kitchen floor and slipped in it. Joey and Justin immediately staged a Rescue 911 reconstruction of events, and JC laughed along with them. Then Chris came in, ten minutes late, and demanded an explanation, and that's when things started veering into incoming traffic.
"That's one hell of a shiner, dude," Chris said and peered into JC's face. His eyes looked huge and Bambi-like in extreme close-up, and JC backed off a little.
"It's okay. It doesn't hurt anymore," JC said. Chris poked him around the eye, and, okay, so he was lying.
"You're lying," Chris said. "You're lying to cover someone's ass, you stupid fuck."
"What?" JC said, feeling his stomach drop about fifteen feet.
"What?" everyone else said, too. Chris looked furious, with narrowed eyes and his mouth a thin, white line.
"Who did this?" Chris said, still sounding reasonably calm, but JC knew about temper, did he ever, and there was a storm brewing right below the surface. He had to stop himself from shrinking back.
"Chris? What the fuck?" Joey was trying to get in between them, but Chris just smacked a hand in the middle of his chest and pushed him away, without so much as looking at him.
"Fuck off, Joe, I'm trying to talk to JC here." Chris was speeding up now; getting more obviously pissed off with every word. "Come on. Who did it?"
He wouldn't let JC look anywhere else, and JC felt sick when he said, "No one. It's none of your business." Chris looked like he might get violent at any time, and that felt almost normal. JC could handle violence.
But instead, Chris just stared at him with wild eyes, and then he said, "It's that boyfriend of yours. The one you never talk about-- Whatsisface - Mr. I'm So Aryan."
"Carl," Justin said, helpfully. JC flinched, he couldn't stop himself in time, and Chris just screamed at the room in general,
"The FUCKER!" and then twirled around and punched the wall so hard he left a mark in the plaster. He didn't even wince. "Okay, okay, you give me his address right now, okay?" and when JC hesitated, "RIGHT FUCKING NOW!"
Carl never called JC again. JC missed him.
He hadn't even noticed that he was withdrawing before Lance came over one night and called him on it.
"Haven't seen you around," he said. JC realised that he hadn't called anyone outside of business in two weeks.
"I've been busy," he lied. He'd been sitting in his favourite easy chair, missing Carl and wondering why his life was so fucked up when he had everything he wanted.
"Everyone's worried about you," Lance said. Yeah? Why don't they come over then? JC wanted to ask, but he didn't, because he didn't really want them to come here.
So he said, "Really? I'm fine," instead.
"Why don't you stay with me for a while," Lance said. He sounded very calm and patient, and JC thought it might actually be a good idea. Lance was so steady, like the Rock of Gibraltar or something. He was always the one with the right suggestion.
Of course he should have figured Lance would notice that he didn't sleep. He hadn't managed more than maybe two or three hours a night since Carl cleared out, and he was starting to feel like reality was cracking and rolling up around the edges. He drank a lot of herbal tea and read Agatha Christie mysteries until his eyeballs felt like boiled eggs.
Lance came downstairs and found him. "You should sleep," he said.
"I can't."
"Would you feel better if we talked a little?" Lance asked, but JC shook his head. He wouldn't know what to say.
"I just--" He didn't know what he wanted to say. "I miss--"
"Do you want to come to my room?"
He went, grateful.
Lance had a huge bed. Huge. He'd bought it from some Swedish company with umlauts in the name. It was handmade, with real horsehair in the mattress. Lance was quietly proud of his bed and JC had to admit that it was the most comfortable he'd experienced in a long time.
It was big enough to give them space to not touch each other at all, but Lance just pulled JC close and hugged him and stroked his back gently. "Don't worry," he whispered, "don't worry about a thing," and JC fell asleep like Lance's voice had hit a switch in his head.
The next day, JC called Chris and hung out with him for a while. Chris wasn't pissed or suspicious anymore, so JC could relax. Justin came over around three, and they played basketball and laughed a lot. Justin and Chris sprayed each other with water, and later, they both attacked JC and tickled him until he screamed.
When he said he was going home, Chris said, "Are you doing okay?"
"I'm fine," he said. "I'm staying with Lance. I'm sorry I was so--"
Chris punched him lightly in the shoulder and said, "Don't be sorry, just milk him for everything he's got, dude. Don't let the bastards grind you down."
"Are you up for another round?" Justin yelled from the back yard, and Chris waved at JC and ran off.
He tried to sleep in the guestroom, but he just tossed and turned, and ended up back in the sofa with a cup of tea and The Pale Horse instead. He couldn't concentrate on the plot, so when the tea was gone he went to Lance's room and stood in the doorway, hoping against all odds that Lance would wake up and notice him.
Lance didn't, of course, but when JC turned to leave, he stubbed his toe on the threshold, and the sound wasn't loud, but it echoed through the silent house.
"JC?" Lance said from the bed.
"I'm sorry," JC said quickly. "I was just-- I hit my toe."
"Come here." Lance didn't sound angry.
"You can sleep in here anytime," Lance told him that morning. "Maybe you just need to hear someone else, like, breathe, you know?"
"Yeah," JC said. That was probably it.
Lance slept like a baby every night. JC slept better than he had before, but he still kept waking up every hour, waking up and feeling Lance's arm heavy around his waist, and falling asleep again. Or waking up and feeling nothing at all and he would panic and turn around, and see that Lance had just rolled over. And he'd crawl closer and snuggle up against Lance's broad back, and then he'd fall asleep again.
It felt, actually, pretty much the same as it had with Carl, except JC didn't think Lance would push him out of bed so hard he fell on his ass on the floor if he woke him up with nightmare-restlessness. Lance might ask him to leave if he did that, though, and that was somehow worse.
He did wake Lance up eventually, because that was the problem with nightmares: they happened when you were asleep, and you couldn't really stop them from happening. As soon as he realised that it was a nightmare, just a nightmare, he bit his tongue and cut off the swelling of scream, but it was too late, too late, Lance was stirring and turning around, and his voice was more like the sound of a rock slide somewhere a couple of miles away, when he muttered, "What?"
JC wasn't sure what to do, but sometimes Carl had been appeased by an immediate show of loyalty and availability. So he pressed closer to Lance and rolled his hips just a little - not too overtly, because the point was to make it seem like it wasn't directly his own idea - and whispered, "I'm sorry I woke you, I'm sorry."
"Hey, that's okay." Lance was stroking his back now, and that was good, that meant everything was good in the land of Lance, and therefore also in the land of JC. "Were you having a nightmare or something?"
"Yeah," JC breathed, and tried to inch closer without making it obvious. His heart fluttered against his rib cage like a fly hitting a window.
"JC?" Lance said, a little confused, and JC felt disappointment burn in the back of his throat, but then Lance's hand cupped the back of his head, and Lance leaned over him and kissed him.
Having sex with Lance felt weirdly schizophrenic. He was built pretty much like Carl, but he didn't have the same reactions to things JC did, and it was just confusing. JC realised he had to learn the signals all over again, and he was afraid that Lance would get sick of his fumbling and just kick him out.
He didn't, though. He kissed JC for a long time, thoroughly, just roughly enough to make it feel good, but not roughly enough to make it hurt. Carl hadn't been so good at staying on the right side of pain, and it had been a challenge for JC to learn how to avoid getting hurt by the sex without making it look like he was pulling back. Lance seemed to know what he was doing, though, and it occurred to JC that maybe Carl had, hypothetically, been a complete idiot. Well, the joke was on JC then, because he hadn't seen that at all.
Lance licked his collar bone and stroked his chest, pinched a nipple lightly, and JC just lay back and gasped, trying to figure out whether Lance preferred it loud or quiet.
"Hey, baby, don't hold back. It's just us here," Lance told him, and that resolved the issue. JC stopped stifling his moans.
Lance fucked him, and did it well. Slowly and nastily, until JC lost all sense of time passing, and felt sweat break out all at once all over his skin and the room spinning and tilting, and it was pretty much like they described it in the sticky romance novels JC sometimes succumbed to reading when he was trying to avoid thinking about something he didn't want to think about. Lance whispered things in his ear, his voice breathy and soft and so quiet it was more like a voice inside JC's head; things like, "you feel so good, baby," and it didn't even sound cheesy or trite, because Lance's voice was made for saying things like that.
In the morning, Lance disappeared into the shower before JC had time to scan him for regrets or disgust or any other not-good emotion, and when he came back, damp-haired and clean and wrapped in just a towel, JC stepped into his arms, feeling both daring and desperate.
"Can I?" he whispered against Lance's neck. Lance touched his hair and kissed him.
"Sure," he said, and JC dropped to his knees and pulled the towel off.
Sucking cock was something JC was sure he was good at. He'd never got any complaints, and Carl had complained about just about everything else. He also liked doing it. It twisted the world around in a good way. He was in charge, he could make a guy groan and shake and come just when he wanted to, but still, he was the one on his knees, and the guy might grab his hair at any time and pull him off or maybe just hold him still and fuck his face. It was ... good. He came before Lance, all over the floor.
"This was maybe not such a great idea," Lance said when they were drinking coffee at the kitchen table. JC was glad he wasn't holding his mug. His hands were shaking. He looked down at the morning paper with dry, unblinking eyes. The words made no sense.
"You're not..." Lance was saying, very carefully, like he didn't really know what he meant, but would give it a shot anyway. "You have something wrong in-- no, not like that. I don't know. I think maybe you're taking this the wrong way."
"I'm not crazy," JC said. He thought he sounded pretty together, but Lance's look was sharp and a little suspicious. JC thought someone else, someone more prone to jumping to conclusions, Chris maybe, would have figured something out already. Lance was taking his time to think things through. He'd never lose his temper, JC realised. He just didn't. He'd be firm and just and sure of himself, and he'd never have to lose his temper.
"Of course you're not," Lance said. "I'm just thinking maybe I am. You just came out of a bad relationship. I should let you--"
"Please," JC said before he could stop himself. Begging was usually a bad idea.
But Lance took his hand and stroked it softly, and then he kissed him and whispered, "It's okay, baby," and that was all they said about that.
JC noticed that he'd stopped tensing up every time he thought he might have offended Lance. He thought he might not be such a doormat anymore. In fact, now that he realised that he had been a doormat with Carl, he figured he'd get better. Admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery and all that. Okay, so he'd had a problem. Lance took care of that.
"You don't have to ask permission before doing that, you know," Lance told him one day, in that throaty porn movie voice he got when he was feeling no pain at all. He was sprawled bonelessly in the couch. JC didn't say anything - he had his mouth full - but he patted Lance on the stomach to show he was listening.
"It's not like it's an inconvenience," Lance said, and his laughter was slow and languid, and after he'd come, he pulled JC up and into his lap, which was uncomfortable but felt right. Felt like home.
Nobody knew they were fucking. Lance wasn't all that enthusiastic about telling the other guys. "Chris'll kick my ass, I just know it," he said uncomfortably, and JC thought he was probably right. Chris was notoriously unforgiving about real or perceived trespasses against his 'brothers'. There was a reason for Carl's quick and hassle-free departure from JC's life. Chris with a mad grin and a baseball bat would scare anyone.
But they were in the studio again, working all the time, and there was really no way of hiding things for very long. Not when they didn't want to stay away from each other, not when they were still in that dizzy, free-falling first phase of the relationship, when it stung like a cut to not be close enough to touch. And when they did get caught, it just had to be in the most compromising situation possible. It would have been funny if it hadn't been so ... not funny.
JC could understand, vaguely, that it might look bad. To someone who didn't suck cock on a regular basis, it would look bad. So he was on his knees among the buckets and brooms of the cleaning supply closet, and Lance's hands were twisting his hair, and it was rough and sweet and very good, and Lance leaned back against a rickety shelf and groaned and thrust into JC's mouth, and that's when Chris opened the door.
"What the FUCK!" he yelled, and Lance let go of JC's hair, and JC jerked back and fell on his ass. He was dimly aware of a scuffle happening above his head, so he rolled away and got to his feet.
Chris was shaking Lance like a dog might shake a rat, only it was more like a rat shaking a dog, because Chris was going through a thin phase and looked about half Lance's size.
"What are you doing! What the fuck are you doing!" Chris shouted and before Lance really had time to defend himself, Chris punched him in the face.
Everyone else was there now, too, milling about in the tiny closet and outside in the hall, and JC saw Justin and Joey's confused, worried faces, and Chris' angry face and Lance's bleeding face, and he finally realised that he might have to do something. So he turned to Chris, who was going for Lance again, and yelled in his face, "SHUT UP!"
Everyone did shut up then, even Chris. JC looked around. He wasn't sure what to do now that he had everyone's attention. He looked at Lance, who was holding his nose, trying ineffectually to avoid getting blood on his shirt.
JC bit his lip and hit Chris. It felt good, he realised. It wasn't a very good punch - probably didn't hurt Chris half as much as it hurt him - but it made a point.
"Would you stop jumping to conclusions?" he said when Chris had calmed down a little. "I'm okay, Lance is okay, this was none of your business. And stop hitting people."
"But you--" Chris tried.
"It hurts like hell, too. How do you do it? I think I broke my hand on your stupid face."
"You--"
"I don't think I've ever punched anyone before."
Chris gave up and grinned, rubbing his jaw. "I could tell, dude. Christ, you need to take lessons or something. We can't let you outside with a left hook like a wet noodle."
"Is everyone ... uh. Is everyone okay in there?" the studio manager's hesitant voice called from outside in the hall.
"We're fine," Joey said reassuringly.
"I walked into a broom handle," Lance said, his voice thick and nasal.
Chris stopped grinning really quickly. "I'm not cool with this, guys," he said. "This isn't cool. It's not healthy."
That much was clear, but there really wasn't anything to say. JC didn't think they could explain things to him - mostly because things were a little fucked up, just a little, but enough to make it hard to explain. He knew Chris had taken psychology and was probably thinking about abuse patterns and abuser-victim dynamics or whateverthefuck it was called, but Chris didn't know about the good things and never would.
"Maybe we should stop," Lance said when they were alone again. His nose had stopped bleeding, but it looked red and swollen and painful. JC's hand throbbed dully. Chris had a head made of rock. "I mean, he's got a point. It's not ... healthy. Maybe."
"We talked about this," JC said, trying to sound reasonable when he really wanted to cling to Lance like a vine and hold him in place.
"I know."
"I love you." It was the first time he'd said it out loud like that, not just whispered under his breath at night when he was almost sure Lance was asleep.
Lance smiled patiently and didn't look surprised. "But it's not right," he just said.
"But--" and Lance touched his face, and pulled him close, and kissed him very carefully. And they didn't talk about it, but JC followed Lance home and stayed there.
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