Pairing: Chris and Lance
Words: abstinence; wing; discretion; kickass


It took Lance a while to realize that Chris didn't date.

It wasn't that Chris was exercising an unusual amount of discretion
or that he had a public reputation of abstinence to maintain like
Justin that was clouding the issue, it was just that Chris picked
up as often as any of them and took just as many girls back to the
hotel as the rest of them.

So, really, there was no reason to think that Chris wasn't taking
them back to his room and fucking them.  That was what the rest of
them were doing or, at least, what Lance was doing.  And he didn't
really think JC took his back to read poetry to them, or that Joey
cooked for his, no matter what the groupies sometimes seemed to
think about them.  Lance was fairly fortunate that his mostly just
wanted to hear him talk, although he was sick of the ones who
thought he was going to sing to them.

The really sad part was, Justin would do that.

Justin was infinitely charming, and that was how Lance first
noticed it.  They were in the limo, heading back to the hotel from
the club.  He hadn't picked up anyone that night and Justin
couldn't, so they were solo, but both Chris and Joey had a girl
tucked in close.  JC had made alternate arrangements.

Joey's was hanging on his every word.

Justin, on the other hand, was charming Chris' with easy smiles.

When they got back to the hotel, Lance was last in, and so saw the
girl who had come with Chris following Justin into his room and
Chris entering his own room alone.

Once he was paying attention, the pattern was obvious.  Lance
watched Chris closely the next few times they went out, and noticed
that nearly all of Chris' pick-ups actually went to Justin's room.

For a while, his theory was that Chris was pimping for Justin,
'helping' their public virgin keep his image by getting Justin
girls back to the hotel discreetly, but then he realized that they
all did it.  They all stole girls from Chris.  Oh, not so blatantly
as Justin.  But.  Chris would be dancing with a girl at a club and
Joey would flirt with her, because that was Joey's natural behavior
-- and Chris would drop the girl like a hot potato as soon as she
showed any sign of interest in Joey's attentions.  Joey, being
Joey, rarely went home with any of the girls he'd lured from Chris
-- it was unlikely Joey had even realized he'd made a conquest. 
Joey's nightly choice was influenced more by who was with him
*last*, not who was most attractive.  Five minutes after he'd
flirted with Chris' choice, Joey would already have forgotten her
and moved onto someone else.

And JC.  Same thing.

Except JC seemed to know that he was doing it, whereas Joey was
oblivious.  JC would dance with Chris' girls and then waltz off
with them, all smiles and slinky moves and that, as they said, was
that.

Lance didn't think he did it.  Didn't think he took girls away from
Chris.  He was functionally straight, because he was male and he
liked sex and there were girls everywhere, but he preferred men. 
Couldn't really have them, certainly not as easily as women, and
Lance understood the path of least resistance.  There was nothing
*wrong* about sex with girls.  It got him off, and that was what
casual sex was about anyway.

So it didn't really matter all that much to Lance who he took back
with him; on those nights he felt like getting laid, he generally
took the first girl who was willing and caught his eye.  There were
always plenty of attractive girls willing to sleep with Lance Bass.

Which, really, was as good a reason to prefer men as any, because
he got sick of the way women flung themselves at him, except really
it was people, and so what he was truly sick of was casual
pick-ups, of never staying anywhere long enough to know anyone, and
of no one from the outside who wasn't casual being able to handle
the pressure of always being on the fringe of their whirlwind
lives.

Chris never seemed upset when one of the other guys took one of his
girls, hardly even seemed to notice, which didn't give the girls
much incentive to stay with him.  And probably explained a lot. 
After all, why would a casual pick-up stay with funny-looking
Chris, who was dark, quiet and brooding, when Justin was shining at
her and making up nonsense ditties on the spot to win her over, or
when JC was dirty dancing with her, or Joey was wrapping a friendly
arm around her shoulder and smiling big like she was the only one
in the club?  Why indeed?

Not many did.

Lance noticed.  Noticed, and didn't understand why it happened or
rather what was up with Chris that he let it happen.  JC and Justin
might understand -- as much as they'd all gotten drunk or played
stupid games or just shot the bull, they were guys.  They didn't
talk much.  Lance knew he hadn't told the others the full truth
about his own sex life, and had felt compelled to exaggerate his
early sexual history to keep up with theirs.  Not that they'd
believed him anyway.

The only one in the group who knew everything about him was Joey,
because Joey was always there.  Similarly, JC and Justin probably
knew what was going on with Chris, because they shared a bus with
him.  And, for the same reason, Chris was probably okay with the
blatant way Justin picked off the girls Chris took back with him to
the hotel.

Probably.

It'd been a long time since Dani now, and girlfriends weren't the
same thing as casual pick-ups, but Lance wondered about that in
light of what he'd learned.  If the break-up had been even uglier
than it'd seemed, because Chris had closed down the exact same way
then as he did now when a girl left him for one of the other guys,
and it wasn't like Lance had been watching then to see if Dani came
out of Justin or JC's rooms in the morning.

He felt sick.

There wasn't much he could do about it, though.  Chris was, if not
happy about the situation, obviously used to it.  Lance couldn't
see himself confronting JC or Justin about what they were doing,
especially not if Chris knew and was complicit in their actions. 
And he probably was, at least with Justin, because it made so much
sense.  Justin couldn't just go out and get laid without there
being a lot of press, and he was as horny as the rest of them,
possibly more so.  And there really was no point in talking to
Joey, because Lance knew Joey and was sure that Joey's part in all
of this was coincidental at best.  He could no more ask Joey not to
be friendly than he could ask him not to breathe.  And telling
Joey, good-hearted Joey, would be the same as confronting the
others, because Joey would insist on trying to fix things if he
knew what Lance had seen.

All the time now, Lance was seeing Chris as this dark, serious,
watchful guy, waiting to get hurt, waiting for people to leave him. 
Intellectually, Lance knew this was true, knew that Chris was still
the funny, off-the-wall jokester who said weird stuff in interviews
and had even once claimed to be dating Lance.  Intellectually. 
Which wasn't the same thing at all.

He had to do something about it.  But the direct route to solving
the problem seemed out.

Really, the only thing for it was to date Chris himself.  The only
hard part about that plan was going to be convincing Chris.  Who,
as far as Lance knew, was straight.

Straight, except that he'd already claimed to be dating Lance, and
then there was the way Chris jumped on all of them, and hung on
them, and occasionally kissed them, or, in Lance's case, once
licked him from his neck up to his ear then smacked his lips
noisily and said, "Mmm, tasty!"

So there was hope.

There were, however, problems with Mission: Get Chris.  The first,
after, 'Is Chris straight?' being how to suggest the notion to him. 
There didn't seem to be an appropriate time for it -- their days
and nights were heavily scheduled, and what free time they had was
generally spent catching up on sleep, business, or getting laid. 
He didn't want to shoehorn the matter into a five-minute break in
the schedule, nor did he want to suddenly hit on Chris in a club. 
It would be too easy for Chris to laugh him off and not take him
seriously.  And while swapping Joey for Chris on the two-man bus
was an option, it left them in too close of quarters should Chris
react badly.  Lance didn't think Chris would lash out at him -- but
neither did he want to force Chris to spend time around him if
Chris felt the need to escape.  Chris could be volatile if he
sensed he was being caged.

In the end, Lance decided to play to his strengths and sent Chris
an email.  He was rather proud of the idea; it was appropriately
serious and impossible to joke away, while at the same time
providing a completely non-confrontational method of broaching the
matter to Chris.

Which only meant he should have known it was doomed to disaster.

Lance had sent the email just before their concert in San Jose. 
They'd gone directly from the concert venue to the buses, and after
getting as clean as he could, Lance had changed into sweats and
fallen into his bunk.  Joey had thrown a movie into the VCR.  Their
post-concert routines were familiar and soothing, and Lance had
gone to sleep almost immediately, lulled by the sound of "The Fifth
Element".

And woke up when someone settled themself down next to him on the
bunk, shifting the balance and making him roll into them.

Lance opened his eyes and saw a leg.  Pulled back and focussed on
Chris, who was perching on the side of the bunk and waving a piece
of paper at him.

"Bass, what the fuck?"

Lance yawned and rubbed his eyes.  "You got my email, huh?"

"Yeah, I got your email.  Wanna tell me what it means?"

"I thought it was pretty clear."  He was still sleepy.  His hair
was sticking up every which way, and he needed a real shower and a
toothbrush.  Chris, by contrast, looked neat and clean and
disgustingly good.  Lance wanted to put his head in Chris' lap and
go back to sleep.

He thought it was more likely though that Chris would shove him
away than pet his hair and let him go back to sleep, so he didn't.

Because Chris looked furious.  "This isn't funny," he said. 
"What'd you do, get together with Justin and decide this would be
a kickass way to yank my chain?  'Cause I gotta say, it definitely
is, because I'm gonna kick both your asses.  Starting with yours."

Lance shook his head.  "No.  Chris.  Justin didn't have anything to
do with his.  And it's not a joke.  I want it.  Mean it."  There
wasn't room enough to sit up, so he settled for staring at Chris. 
"I want you."

"Fuck."  Chris crumpled the paper in his hand.  He sat there for a
long moment.  "Fuck," he said again, not looking at Lance.  When he
did look up, it was with a pained smile.  "You know, I think, even
though I was completely pissed at you when I came in here, I could
almost take this better as a joke.  You know?"

Lance shook his head.  "It's not a joke."

"Yeah, I get that.  You really mean this, Bass?"

"Yeah."

"Fuck."  Chris stared at him, then reached out, a hand hovering
over Lance's face.  He didn't make contact, pulling back right
before he would have touched Lance's chin.  "Fuck."

He jumped down from the bunk, and Lance leaned forward.  "Chris?"

Chris gave him a tight smile.  "Sorry, Bass.  I'm gonna have to
think about this for a bit.  Wasn't really what I expected to hear. 
I mean, like, ever."

"Oh."  Lance considered that.  He hadn't really thought about
Chris' response in terms of Chris being confused or unsure.  He'd
kinda figured Chris would either laugh at him or refuse to talk to
him.  Intermediate responses hadn't occurred to him.  Neither had
he thought about Chris saying 'Yes'.  "If you don't want to, I
understand..."

"I didn't say that, Bass," Chris said hurriedly.  "Just... let me
get used to the idea, okay?"

"Okay, Chris.  Whatever you need."

Chris flashed that same tight smile at him and left.  The bus had
already stopped and started back down the road before Lance got up
from the bunk, and when he wandered to the front to get breakfast,
Chris had gone, leaving Joey in his place.

Joey gave him a quizzical look, and Lance shrugged.  He didn't know
what to tell Joey; even if Joey had had any idea what was going on,
Lance sure as hell didn't.

Chris pretty much avoided him thereafter, although it wasn't
difficult to do.  They were busy, after all, and it was tougher to
make time than to make time disappear.  All he had to do was stay
off Lance's bus, and Lance never saw him alone.  A few minutes here
and there in between this interview and that appearance, between
soundcheck and a quick bite to eat, while Lance was all the time
trying to get FreeLance and A Happy Place business done and
collapsing straight into bed at night.  There was very little time
to even think about Chris and how he was taking Lance's proposal,
but sometimes, when he had a moment, Lance would look at Chris,
catch his reflection in the mirror while they were being made-up,
or see him dancing on-stage and Chris would be looking back.  Lance
never knew what to make of Chris' expression at those times. 
Wasn't sure what to make of Chris at all.

The next time they got the chance to go out to a club, Lance went. 
Not so much because he wanted to go, as because he wanted to see
what Chris would do, if Chris would pick anyone up.

Chris didn't.  Or if he was thinking about it, Lance couldn't tell
who he was thinking of specifically.  Chris spent the same amount
of time dancing that he usually did, but he didn't single out any
one particular partner.

Lance never danced much himself, preferring to hang out in the VIP
area and chat with people.  He didn't try to pick anyone up that
night, and when it came time to leave, Chris had no one with him. 
Justin was alone in the limo as usual, and JC and Joey each had a
girl with them.  Justin stared at Chris for a second, then spent
the rest of the short ride back to the hotel looking out the
window.

He wasn't sure that this meant what he thought it meant, but he and
Chris were the last ones out of the elevator and, after the doors
closed behind everyone else, Chris followed him into his room.

It wasn't the best sex of his life, but it was damn good.  A far
sight better than sex with anonymous girls.  Chris didn't say
anything other than Lance's name -- his first name, which meant
more than it really should have -- and directions like "up",
"harder" and, after it was over and they were lying side by side,
breathing heavily, "Stop thinking so hard, Bass".

Lance snorted, turned on his side, wrapped a hand around Chris' arm
and went to sleep, because he couldn't stay awake any longer and he
wanted to know when Chris left.

Chris didn't leave.  He slept close, and Lance woke with Chris
half-under him, spiky dark hair pressed into his neck.  He laid
there for a few minute, watching Chris sleep, then reluctantly
shifted to look at the clock.  Time to get up.

He stroked Chris' bare arm.  "Chris."

"Muh?"

"It's 7 a.m.  Consider this your wake-up call."  Lance rarely used
hotel wake-up calls.  He didn't trust them and, in any case, didn't
really need them.  His anxieties were better than any alarm clock. 
On truly bad mornings, he'd wake up every few minutes until it
finally came around to time to get up.

"Hate you," Chris mumbled.

Which really wasn't anything different than Lance had heard over
the years; he'd been waking up the guys for a long long time, and
they'd all been much ruder than that, so he ignored it and got up. 
He went to shower, leaving Chris sleeping in the bed.

Chris acted completely normal, for Chris, the whole next day. 
Lance didn't know what to make of that.  Was Chris still thinking
about the email?  About their relationship?  Did Lance have a --
what?  A boyfriend now?  He had no idea.  Chris had still been
there when he got out of the shower that morning, but that meant
nothing.  They didn't do it so much anymore, but Lance had found
himself sleeping with each of the other guys before at one time or
another.  He still, sometimes, fell asleep with Joey in the bus
lounge if Joey had managed to cajole him into watching movies with
him instead of going straight to bed after a concert.  It didn't
mean anything.

Had Chris stayed because it didn't mean anything to him to spend
the night sleeping next to Lance, or because it did?

He couldn't tell from the way Chris was acting.  Lance watched him
through the morning interviews where Chris was about as weird as
usual, during soundcheck, where Chris ran about the stage
pretending to be a bird and flapping imaginary wings, but it wasn't
until they were penned up in the Quiet Room before the show that he
noticed any difference at all, and that was only Chris pausing in
his circuit of the room long enough to straighten Lance's collar,
his fingers brushing against the nape of Lance's neck and making
him shiver, before Chris was off again, moving restlessly on.

Normal, beyond normal, and there was no reason why he should even
look up from his laptop screen for that, but Lance did because he
couldn't help himself.  Chris wasn't paying attention to him, and
there really was no reason to consider Chris' action as anything
different than what he usually did, except JC was looking at Lance
now.  Speculatively.

After the concert and after they'd done the inevitable
talking-to-the-fans thing because they were in town for two days
and not getting right back on the bus again, they went back to the
hotel.  It was just after one a.m. when Lance got into his room. 
He had less than six hours, excluding shower time, to sleep before
it started all over again.  Lance didn't think about Chris, or
anything but getting clean and going to bed.

The next morning was interviews, spots for another local radio
station which ran over time, and a hurried lunch before they were
rushed into soundcheck and another round of meet-and-greets.

It was early evening before he had time to himself again.  Lance
didn't even bother getting out his laptop; the brief time they had
free before make-up on Concert Day Two was better spent in other
pursuits.  He stretched out on one of the couches and closed his
eyes.  JC had already done the same thing on another couch, while
wardrobe still had Joey, who had apparently mysteriously lost five
pounds between last night's concert and tonight's, and needed them
taken in.  Chris and Justin were racing up and down the hall
outside, but thankfully, he couldn't hear them.  Lance just wanted
a few minutes sleep.  The next day would be even worse; they were
playing in a different city, and they'd have to be on the road
tonight then start the cycle of interviews-soundcheck-concert all
over again before they'd really even had time to unpack at the
hotel the next morning.  But if tomorrow would be hell, it would
also be followed by a much longer bus ride the day after that and
some real time to rest.

For now... he sighed, curled his hands under his cheek, and slept.

He woke up later, not feeling a whole lot better.  Warmer, maybe. 
Someone had draped a blanket over him.  Muzzy-headed from his nap,
Lance couldn't quite figure out where that would have come from; he
knew their rider by heart and there weren't any blankets on it.  He
sat up, clutching it around him.  He felt cold and still very
tired.

He automatically surveyed the room for the others.  JC was asleep
on the other couch, not yet awake.  Joey was sitting in a chair,
reading a paper, open box of pop tarts at his elbow on the table
next to him, feet propped up on another chair.  Justin was nowhere
to be seen.  And Chris...

Chris sat down next to him on the couch.  "Shove over, Bass.  Some
of the rest of us might like to get some sleep too, y'know."

Still numb and not really processing fully, Lance moved over, and
Chris pulled his feet up, then laid down, head on Lance's thigh. 
Bemused, Lance looked down at him.

"Well?" Chris said petulantly.  "Aren't you going to cover me up?"

Lance let the blanket slide from his shoulders, and spread it out
over Chris.

Chris frowned.  "Hey, make with the petting already, Bass.  I wanna
be petted."

Obediently, Lance ran his hand over Chris' hair, carding through
it.  Chris sighed, closed his eyes and, apparently, settled down
for a nice comfy nap.

Lance wasn't sure what had just happened here, but whatever it was,
he thought maybe he liked it.  He wasn't entirely awake yet, and it
was kinda soothing to pet Chris and stare at the opposite wall and
just let his thoughts drift.  JC was snoring a little, not at all
musically.

Justin came in at one point, did a double-take, and walked back
out.  Twenty minutes later, there was a polite knock on the door,
and then they were scrambling to get into make-up, and from there
it was the usual controlled chaos of backstage.

Chris didn't say anything about the nap or the petting, and so
Lance let it slip, because it was, after all, Concert Day Two, and
he needed to keep his mind on the choreography, and not on what it
had felt like to hold Chris two nights ago, to have him curled up
against him, warm and solid.

When he made it out to the bus that night, Lance got cleaned up,
then went back out to the lounge, because he was tired and he
needed to sleep, but he thought maybe he needed to sleep with
someone more than he needed to sleep alone.

Joey was watching "Fried Green Tomatoes", which mystified Lance
enough for him to stare at Joey until Joey explained with a single
succinct, "Lesbians".

"Ah," Lance said, and sprawled out on the couch.  Joey wrapped an
arm around him.  Lance slumped down, closed his eyes, and went to
sleep.  It wasn't the most comfortable of positions, but he could
feel Joey's regular breathing against him, and that was really all
he'd wanted.  Okay, not all he'd wanted, but enough of what he
wanted to let him get to sleep.

He woke up later, alone on the couch.  Joey had gone to sleep in
his own bunk, and had swung Lance's feet up onto the couch and
covered him up with a blanket before he'd left.  Had probably been
the one who'd covered him up in the Quiet Room, too; Joey was
always looking out for Lance.

The couch wasn't all that comfortable, certainly not as comfortable
as his bunk, and without Joey there, wasn't very inviting either. 
Lance yawned, got up, and made his way back to climb into his own
bunk.

He didn't want to sleep alone, but that was something that wouldn't
change no matter what decision Chris made; the bus bunks were too
narrow.  Lance felt lonely, and wrapped the blankets extra-tight
around himself.  He was going to be a zombie in the morning; he
desperately needed to sleep, not to think about Chris.

Tired, tired, tired, and Hell Day Three wasn't over until he was
back on the bus.  Straight to his bunk because he was so exhausted
he could sleep anywhere so long as it was flat, and he wasn't
actually feeling all that picky about the flat part.  Two days
before they had to perform again, but the bus ride would be his
only break, because he had business commitments to fit in between
concerts, and there was no such thing as a break, not really.  Just
a temporary slowdown in the rhythm, and Lance had the worst rhythm
of all them.

They got into the next city mid-afternoon, which left the day
mostly free and meant everyone would be going out that night to
relieve the stress the schedule put on them.

Chris still hadn't spoken, and Lance didn't know what that meant,
whether that was a good or a bad sign.  Chris moved fast and
usually made even important decisions quickly, but that was because
he spent a lot of time weighing them over long before they ever
came up, not because he was given to making snap decisions.  For
him to spend this long making up his mind probably meant Lance had
thrown him for a loop, but it might mean he was hoping Lance would
just forget about it.

Lance was pretty sure, though, that Chris knew Lance never forgot
about or gave up on anything once he'd determined he was going to
do it.

The scene at the club that night was pretty average, and Lance was
a little surprised when only Joey found someone to take back to the
hotel with him.  Joey had actually excused himself early with a big
smile on his face and a brunette with large breasts on his arm.  He
was probably going to get laid and come back for a second round,
Lance figured.  Joey had his own ways of dealing with stress.

So he, Chris, Justin and JC were alone in the limo on the way back
to the hotel, and that was just strange.  Strange bordering on
creepy, because Justin was smiling at him and joking with him, and
Lance was fairly sure he was being flirted with.  Might have even
found it charming, except he knew the act forward and backward, and
an act wasn't the kind of thing that charmed him in the slightest.

"Then I said, 'whoa, hold your horses', because y'know, I don't
*do* that kind of thing, and the manager just *stared* at me.  And,
y'know, I hadn't even seen this guy, but there he was, and there I
am, shirt off in the elevator doorway and this girl hanging on me,
and *God* was I ever glad to see him.  I practically jumped on him. 
You woulda thought was trying to jump his bones though, the way he
screeched and hollered and carried on, but y'know, I was really
really glad to get away from *her*.  Last time I ever got in an
elevator without getting it checked out first, I tell you."

"Uh huh," Lance said vaguely, because he was thinking. 
Remembering.  JC had tried to get him out on the dance floor
earlier.  Not once, not even twice, but three times.  Lance hadn't
gone, because it wasn't really his thing, but, as enthusiastic as
JC could be about sharing his love of music and dancing with his
friends, he wasn't usually *that* persistent.

And Chris was sitting alone on one of the seats, staring out the
window, not even looking at Lance.

"Lance?  Lance, are you even *listening* to me?" Justin asked,
sounding *teasing*, of all things, not pissed that Lance was
ignoring him.

All of a sudden, things clicked into place and he had to be the
positively slowest member of the group when it came to realizing
things about people, but he knew what JC and Justin were doing. 
What Chris was doing.  Didn't know whether to hate JC and Justin,
whether they were hurting Chris all unknowing or engaging in this
bizarre behavior in a misguided effort to protect him.  Couldn't
say, because he didn't understand them that well, and didn't really
want to.

"No, I'm not," Lance said flatly, and awkwardly moved across the
gap to slide into the seat next to Chris.  Laced his fingers
through Chris', because he really did understand this much at
least, and said "Hi."

"Hi," Chris said back.  He closed his fingers around Lance's.

When they got back to the hotel, Lance had to let go of Chris'
hand, but he followed Chris to his room.  "I'm not like them," he
said when the door closed behind them, and Chris didn't even
pretend not know who Lance meant, all the girls who'd flocked to
Chris then left him as soon as another member of NSYNC had flashed
a smile their way.  "You're my first choice; I'm not settling for
you because I think I can't get anything better.  I *know* I can't
get anything better, because you're who I want.  You."

"I get that now, Bass," Chris said, but his eyes were sad.

"I mean it."

Chris touched his face and said, "Lance," and that was enough.  Had
to be enough, because Chris didn't say anything else, just slid his
hands under Lance's shirt, and Lance thought maybe he'd just have
to prove it to Chris the hard way, by sticking around.

He would, too.  Because Lance didn't give up easily or ever on the
things that meant something to him.