Couch Potatoes 7: Joey and Lance Lance stretched and yawned again. "You might have, like, brought your phone."
"You didn't bring yours, Bass."
"I have just cause," he said, but he had a minor problem keeping a straight face. Joey most likely didn't even try. It was just after nightfall, and the sky was still technicolor-garish, but the neighbourhood had fallen quiet, and their laughter rang loud in the dark garden.
"I guess you could call it just cause," Joey said, still snickering. "Well, if you're you and use words like that. Accidents happen. And a guy's gotta throw his phone into the toilet at least once in his life."
"We could break in," Lance said. He twisted around and squinted through the window behind him. Chris' house was quiet and dark, rather like Chris' garden. "Only I don't feel like getting arrested tonight."
Joey sat up straight and intoned, in a fairly passable imitation of Peter Jennings, "NSYNC's Lance Bass and Joey Fatone, better known as 'the other guys'--" Lance smacked him on the ear and Joey batted him away, "--quit it, I'm on the air, dude! --were arrested last night in Orlando, apparently at the scene of a burglary in process. According to a source in the Orlando PD, Bass and Fatone were caught attempting to climb through a back porch window to the residence of band mate Chris Kirkpat--"
"NSYNC's Joey Fatone was killed last night in a freak couch accident--"
"I'll give you freaky couch accidents, Bass," Joey growled, and there was a brief scuffle, from which Lance emerged victorious, because Joey, frankly, had nothing on his scuffle technique.
"Fact remains, though," Lance said, "we're locked out."
"Well, this couch is comfy, it's a beautiful summer night, you have lovely company. We can camp out in style." Joey lifted his feet and rested them on Lance's knees. Lance pushed them down. "Hey, you won't even carry me when I'm weary? What kind of friend are you, anyway?"
"The kind with four hundred dollar pants, moron," Lance said. "Take off your shoes if you're gonna play footsie."
Joey didn't, though, just leaned back and stifled a yawn. Lance echoed him.
"This couch is, like, not made for two guys to sleep on," Joey pointed out.
"Sure it works. I've slept on it," Lance said without thinking, and Joey blinked and said,
"With who?" That figured - Joey would naturally pick up on the bit that Lance would rather not talk about.
"My spine was like a pretzel in the morning, of course," he said, trying to cut off Joey's train of thought with nonsense. "My chiropractor wanted to hang me upside down with weights attached to my ears, but that didn't work out. Good thing I don't have my ears pierced, though, because--"
"With who?" Joey repeated, because he was stubborn like that. And curious. And had a one-track mind.
"No one," Lance said, childishly. He'd been childish about the whole thing then, too.
"Right, right," Joey said. He was grinning. Of course. "So, was this, like, sleeping or sleeping sleeping? And hang on, hang on--"
"Drop it, Joey," Lance tried, but it wasn't gonna be dropped, no way.
"We're talking a guy, though?" and that sounded less obnoxious than Lance had anticipated. No frat-boy innuendo. He glanced at Joey under lowered eyelids. Joey looked, well, genuinely interested.
"Yeah," he said. He hadn't talked about it with anyone. Maybe the best place to talk about it would be right on the scene of the crime. "It's nothing, really. Or if it's not nothing, it's, like, nothing's cousin. Second cousin, once removed."
"You're babbling, man, you sound like JC," Joey said and Lance couldn't stop himself from flinching. Oops.
"It was stupid," he said. "We were drunk and. Yeah."
"Wait, who?" Joey said, but Lance saw the lightbulb go on. "No, really? JC?"
Lance nodded.
"Huh."
They sat quietly for a while. Lance tried to figure out if this was an uncomfortable silence or not. He settled on "pensive" with an option on "slightly awkward".
"So this was last year, right. That was what you weren't talking about?"
Lance nodded.
"That was kinda. Well, I'd say stupid, but what can you do. A guy who drops phones in toilets can't really be held responsible."
"It wasn't funny," Lance said. Okay, tonight was gonna be Confession Night. "We haven't talked about it."
"That's mature," Joey said.
"Yeah," Lance said.
This time, the silence was definitely tense.
Lance yawned.
Joey yawned.
"I gave Chris a blowjob once," Joey said suddenly, and Lance flinched again, for good measure.
"You what?"
"It was kind of a joke, though."
"But. But--" He took a deep breath. "But why?"
"Same as you, I guess. Drunk, bored, got horny. Chris is laid back about shit like that."
"JC isn't."
"Figures. I didn't think he had it in him."
"Have what in him?"
"Casual sex." Lance didn't say anything, but Joey poked him in the side. "What is it, man?"
"It wasn't casual. Um. For him, I guess."
A beat, and then Joey said, "Maybe it's the couch."
"What?"
"It's couch karma."
Lance laughed, but it petered out because Joey wasn't laughing. "Couch karma."
"Yeah. Sexy couch karma. Only Chris and me used up all the good sexy couch karma, so you and JC got the bad kind, and thus--"
"If there's a sexy couch karma here, I'm not feeling it," Lance said and crossed his arms. He looked at his feet. The couch was a big, sturdy one, and there was a gap the size of Lou Pearlman between them. It was almost completely dark. He was trying hard to not feel the sexy couch karma.
"I don't know," Joey said. "I am."
"Don't," Lance said.
"I'm laid back about sex," Joey said. "I can do casual."
"Don't," Lance said.
"Why?" Joey said, and managed to look hurt. Lance had seen the same expression on him a million times in bars and at parties. Joey's I'm-dealing-with-cruel-rejection face.
"Because," Lance said, but Joey was scrunching up his face and poking out his lower lip and this really wasn't serious. A none-too-subtle pass, a quick rejection, a joke, moving on. Easy. Style over substance, glossy finish and a bar code in the corner.
He looked at his watch. One fifteen, am. ETA for Chris: nine thirty, am.
"Who do you think would win, Superman or JC?" Joey said, out of the blue.
"Shut up," Lance said, but he laughed.
"I'm fighting the sexy couch karma, man." He tapped his knee, tap tap tap.
Lance fought the urge to mimick him. Instead he counted leaves on the oak next to the porch and fought the sexy couch karma in silence.
"Jesus Christ," Joey said. "Fuck this. Excuse me," and he crawled across the Lou-Pearlman-distance between them and kissed Lance. "Sorry," he said afterwards.
"I didn't throw my phone in the toilet on purpose," Lance said. He didn't back off when Joey kissed him again, but he said, "There are plenty of willing people in the world if you're horny, Joey."
Joey backed off and sat in his corner again. "I didn't. Fuck, nevermind."
"What?"
"I have to say, this is such a flashback to high school that it ain't even funny."
He had a point. Lance couldn't remember being quite this awkward since he turned sixteen. Sex with JC had been, far as he remembered, pretty fucking good. The morning after with hangovers and regrets was another thing, of course.
"I didn't mind," he said. "It's not that. It's just. We're friends, and."
"Potential for embarrassment," Joey said. He was smiling a little apologetically; a patented Joey smile. "And I'm not horny. I just really would like to make out with you on this stinky couch."
"I guess we are in high school, then," Lance said, but he moved closer. It was weird to kiss Joey like this, completely sober and still uncomfortable. They'd known each other for years, and had kissed maybe three times before, always at some party, always under the influence, and it had never lead anywhere. Sometimes Lance thought he regretted that, but most of the time he was just relieved.
No more of that, then, because this was leading somewhere, very slowly, but he could feel the first sparks, the point where the awkwardness finally broke and was replaced with enthusiasm.
Joey's hand rested lightly on his shoulder. Lance slid down a little and Joey loomed over him, big and solid in the darkness.
"I guess we fit on the couch after all," he said, and Lance scooted back and lay flat.
"I guess we do," he said.
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