Chris looked around at the guys as they stood out on the balcony of the castle they were touring. "You know, all we need are some innocent, sweet young things in long flowing gowns and we could be back in the Middle Ages." Lance batted his eyes at Chris. "What? I'm not sweet and innocent?" Chris swatted him. "Fuck, no, Bass." Joey choked up. "Lance? Sweet and innocent? Hell, no!" Lance got a pissy look. "Some knight-in-shining-armor you are." Joey looked thoughtful. "If I agree to be a knight, do I get to rescue a fair damsel in distress?" "Yes," Lance said, then looked evil. "Hey, JC." Joey swatted him. "Fucker." "Yep." Lance looked obscenely self-satisfied. JC wandered over. "What?" "Joey wants your bod," Chris said, because he couldn't be left out of anything. Joey got all red. JC looked him over. "Okay." "Okay?" Joey said [and yeah, I'm borrowing from Matthew Time here], "Woohoo!" and ran off with JC to get laid. Lance looked sour. "That didn't go the way I thought it would." Chris nudged him. "Faint heart never won fair maiden. Go catch Timberlake before he jumps off a battlement or something." Lance was about to make a snarky comment when he looked over and realized that Justin was indeed hanging over the edge of the castle balcony. "Shit! Justin!" Chris snickered and rubbed his hands together. "My work here is done. Who says there aren't such things as fairy godfathers?"
"That song's going nowhere." JC looked up from the piano he was leaning over. He'd been banging on keys ever since nine that morning and looked to keep it up until well after nine that night, going by how it was already afternoon. "That's a really mean thing to say." "Still true," Chris said, leaning on the piano, holding a can of Mountain Dew. "You aren't even trying." He looked down at the paper, blank except for a few cross-outs, and at the piano keys, that he'd been touching, hoping for some sort of inspiration. JC knew he wanted the music to say, he just didn't know how to get it to say it. "That's even meaner. I am trying." Chris shrugged. "Why? It's a beautiful day. Not getting any longer, y'know." JC looked at him. "Also, and I'm not saying this is in any way related, there happens to be a bathtub upstairs big enough for both of us with room left over, and I'm naked under my clothes." He laid down his pencil. "Most people are, Chris." Chris grinned at him. "Yeah, well, it sounds better that way."
He saw him on the way back from the London art museum, while he was standing outside with Dre, waiting for the car to be brought around, and thought, "Ooh, pretty." JC liked pretty things, maybe more than a man should.
But it wasn't the pretty that held his attention so much as the way the pretty young man had walked out of a wall. Lance would have said it was a neat trick, and never thought it was anything more than that -- a neat trick. JC knew what he'd seen; the problem with being a liar was that you lost the ability to distinguish truth. Their entire lives were a lie, a pretense constructed to sell records, but JC didn't think that made truth any less important. More, maybe.
The young man stared directly at JC. He looked like a typical English school student, long jacket, scarf, school tie, and badge. He had thick wavy black hair, perfectly brushed and parted.
JC stared back, but then Dre's arm around his waist tugged, and JC had to follow.
The young man smirked at him, nodded, and walked off.
JC let himself be tugged toward the car and pushed inside. Interesting. Almost magical, except the pretty young man had been so normal.
But there was magic in the everyday, too. JC believed.
Chris realized Lance was a robot when he put salt in Lance's coffee as a practical joke and Lance drank it anyway, without so much as a flicker of an eyelash to indicate that he'd tasted anything different about it.
When confronted, Lance denied the accusation.
"I'm not a robot," Lance said, pressing against Chris. "I just like a bit of tang in with all the sweet." And bent his head to lick Chris' neck.
Chris shivered.
Justin eyes Chris doubtfully. "You sure this'll work? Lance is, like, cunning and stuff."
"No, this is a great plan." Chris handed Justin the note. "Lance'll love it. You'll see."
Justin did, nervous. What if Lance laughed?
Lance snorted as he read the note. "'Do you love me? Do you want to make hot monkey love with me?'"
Okay, the plan was really, really stupid.
Lance drew an X through the boxes marked 'Yes'.
Justin's mouth fell open. Chris' stupid plan had actually worked!
"Hey, J?"
"Yeah?"
"When you give the note back, ask Chris why he waited so long."