Pairing: JC and AJ
Words: juggle; conceited; howl; bountiful


In the beginning, it was perfect.  Drunkenly incoherent man seeks
incoherent man for episodes of meaningless sex, no relationship
desired.  Meet up at a club, a hotel, or arrange something over the
phone, and have sex until one or both was howling.  Afterward, the
drunkenly incoherent man would be semi-sober and forgetful, and the
permanently incoherent man would have nothing to say.  Inability to
commit to reality meshing with addictive self-destruction in a
perfect blend of silence and secrets.

Things don't stay perfect.

When AJ stops calling, JC doesn't think anything of it.  When he
finds out AJ is in rehab, he has nothing to say.  When AJ calls up
to carry out his 12-step assigned task of making amends and
apologize, JC hangs up on him.  It's over, and 'it' never really
existed to begin with.

Lance is the one who juggles their schedules, not him, and so when
JC ends up coming out of the recording studio as AJ is going in, it
isn't his fault.

AJ has things to say.  AJ is sober and eloquent.  JC is still
incoherent.  He lets AJ talk at him, then pushes past him and goes
out to his car.  It isn't wordless anymore, and JC doesn't know how
to communicate like that.  With people who aren't nearly linked to
him through a nearly psychic bond like Lance and Joey and Chris and
Justin are, JC has only two ways of getting his point across:
through music, and by saying nothing at all.

AJ isn't getting the point.

Things are awkward and uncomfortable.  JC is beginning to dread
public appearances, because AJ will show up.  AJ no longer tries to
talk to him, but he looks at JC, and JC doesn't know what he wants.

Chris is the only one with him these days; Joey and Justin have
other responsibilities, and Lance is in Russia.  Chris talks.  He
mentions AJ a lot, because Chris notices things.  Chris thinks AJ
is conceited and cocky, and probably just wants to start having sex
with JC again.

JC wishes that was all it was; he'd know how to deal with that.

He has dinner with AJ at AJ's house because it's easier to agree
than to make up the words needed to get out of it.  And because he
still wants AJ, and Chris is rarely wrong about what people are
thinking.

There isn't any alcohol with the dinner, and JC doesn't eat much of
the bountiful supply of food that AJ has provided.  AJ is mostly
quiet, and so JC is too; it's uncomfortable talking and knowing
that he's being incoherent to someone who is capable of more than
that and expecting more than that.

After dinner, AJ takes his hand, and JC reels himself in closer,
but AJ doesn't pull.  He talks, and JC surprises himself by
listening, a little.

AJ wants to try their relationship over again.

JC doesn't think it'll work.  It isn't perfect.  It isn't even
close.  He doesn't know what to say, or how to say it to someone
who's used to listening to people who make sense.

But AJ touches his wrist, and then his forearm and pulls JC in, and
it's not perfect, but it's sex, and that's something.