Something To Do "Boring," Chris said and made an obnoxious noise that was supposed to sound like a buzzer but sounded more like a chainsaw cutting into a nail.
"Fuck, you're loud," Justin muttered. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor. Chris was lying on the couch. The TV was broken.
"Shut UP in there!" JC yelled.
"We could, um. I don't know. Play cards?"
"Boring," said Chris. "You're not entertaining me, Timberlake."
"It's not my job to entertain you, Kirkpatrick," Justin said and got up to stretch his legs.
"How long til we're there?" Chris twisted and looked out. He was wearing a home-made t-shirt someone sent him; it was white with a big red maple leaf and the label LEGALISE CANADA.
"Couple hours at least," Justin said. The landscape outside was grey and sullen. Two, three, four more hours with a bored, hyperactive Chris and a sleeping JC. Yeah, something to look forward to. He considered the merits of calling a bus switch, but it seemed like too much work.
"We could ask the driver to let us ride on the roof."
"You're nuts."
"I could climb out the window," and there he went, opening the window. Justin didn't really think he'd climb out, but he was bored too, so he grabbed Chris by the waist and pulled him back. Wrestling was bound to get him through a few minutes.
Chris was a bitch to wrestle with, though, because he took it seriously - he absolutely refused to hold back. "You're bigger than me, you big hulk," he'd say if Justin complained.
"This is all--" Chris panted in his ear and somehow got him in a headlock, "--fun and games. until. JESUS! Someone loses an eye," and he had his legs around Justin's ankle and twisted and Justin lost his balance and they went down, both of them, in a pile of arms and legs and Justin had time to see the sharp edge of the table and think, oh shit before his face impacted with it.
There was a fuzzy patch where everything blinked in and out of existence and he heard Chris' voice somewhere far away, and then he had his hands clamped over his forehead.
"You didn't lose an eye, did you?" Chris was saying, "Hey, Justin, kid, come on, talk to me."
"Fuck," Justin muttered, because he couldn't think of anything more complex. Convoluted. Complicated, confusing. "Confusing," he added. Good, he still had the use of more than one syllable.
"You're alive!"
It felt like his head had been split in half. He imagined his face stuck on the table, the edge penetrating his frontal lobe like a wooden axe.
He moved, slowly, and it didn't feel that bad. He might survive.
"Um," he said. "Um, is it bleeding?"
Chris' hands on his shoulders, and he realised he had scrunched his eyes tightly shut. He opened them and closed them quickly again.
"I can't see, you've got your hands--" and Chris pulled at his hands, "--fuck. Oops."
"What? What?"
There was a little pause, and Justin put his hands back. There was definitely something sticky there. Maybe he'd need stitches.
"I'd like to add a little disclaimer here," Chris said. "It was not my intention to bring harm to, injure or in any way disfigure the Timberlake visage."
"Disfigure?" Finally, he got his eyes opened without any excess pain, and it really didn't feel bad. He looked at his hands. There was blood on them. "Jesus."
"It might just be a little cut," Chris said. He was kneeling on the floor. There was a little spot of blood on his cheek, as if he'd rubbed his face with a bloody hand. "Let me clean that up for you."
"Don't--" he said, but Chris was pushing his hands away and peering into his face, squinting a little.
"Does it hurt? How many faces do you see?"
"Just the one freak right in front of me, would you just--" Chris touched his forehead lightly. "Ow," Justin said. It didn't really hurt, though.
"Poor baby, all broken and bleeding," Chris mumbled and hummed, "blood on your face, you big disgrace," under his breath. "It's puny. Let me kiss it better," and before Justin could react, he'd leaned closer and put his lips to the wound.
Justin blinked.
"All better?"
There was a smudge of bright red on Chris' mouth now, like a lipstick trace. This was one of those moments, Justin thought. One of those moments they had sometimes - they could go somewhere if he let them. He stared at Chris' mouth, at the blood. It should probably be a little creepy; fluid exchange, wasn't that something they warned you about? He found himself wanting to--
He leaned in and opened his mouth and Chris' mouth tasted familiar and metallic.
He was getting a headache. Chris hadn't moved. Justin kissed him again, with a little more intent. A moment, this was definitely a moment. Curled up on the bus floor with a cut in his forehead and Chris' hands coming to rest lightly on his shoulders.
"Hmm," Chris said after a while. "Maybe there's some kind of first aid kit in the bathroom."
"Okay," Justin said, even though he was perfectly happy to sit here with blood on his face until they were...wherever they were going. But Chris held his hand and pulled him to his feet.
"You're not feeling dizzy or anything?" he asked when Justin sat down on the toilet seat.
"Nuhuh."
"Nausea? Seeing more freaks now?"
Justin got up and looked into the mirror. It was a tiny little cut, right in the middle of his right eyebrow. Kind of a letdown, actually. He'd been sort of expecting a loose flap of skin or something. Bone showing.
"Think it'll scar?" Chris asked. "Mar your pretty face."
Justin squinted at his own face, which looked sort of pale and uninteresting and not at all pretty. A big scar might look cool. This wasn't going to be it. Sometimes he thought about picking fights just to get a broken nose or a cut across his cheekbone; something. That was a little more psychotic than he liked, though.
"Nah," he said. Chris was making faces at him in the mirror.
The moment might have passed, Justin thought, but Chris caught him on the way out of the bathroom and pushed him, lightly, back against the sink and kissed him again.
"Something to do," he said. |
