Pairing: Chris and Lance
Words: courteous; jackass; good-natured; pyro


It's been two weeks since the law was passed.

Already Britney and the latest American Idol winner have done
commercials displaying their new tattoos.  The American Idol --
Chris can't be assed to remember their names -- has his on his
forehead.  It's one of the highly hip ultraviolet ones that only
show in the right light.  Britney's got hers on her hand -- the
other government approved location -- and it's the kind that shows
in all types of light.  In designer colors.

The end is near.  The American people are being barcoded.  By the
end of the year, they expect to have 90% of the population striped. 
In January, the law requiring everyone drawing a paycheck, everyone
getting an education, everyone with a driver's license, driver's
permit or state identification card to have one.

Chris is hiding.

Lance doesn't know where Chris is.  No matter how many times they
ask him.  He doesn't know.  He wants to know, more than anything. 
But he can't find Chris, which is the point.  He also isn't good at
hiding, like Chris.  So they talk to him and people keep asking
where he's got his tattoo.  And he doesn't yet.  He's tempted to
say it's on his ass and would they like to see?  But no.  Instead
he just keeps looking.  For Chris.

Chris' hiding place isn't all that great.  He knows they'll get him
eventually.  They'll get everyone, which is why he didn't pick any
place obvious like Montana.  There'll probably be posses or
something there to get all the separatists and bomb shelter people.

But it's lonely on his own.  He's got the angels and the father for
company, although the father doesn't know who he is and, Chris
hopes, has never fully seen his face even.

The notes he sends are as anonymous as he can easily manage. 
People are used to him taking off and the government hasn't gone to
a militant stance on striping yet.  It's safe still.  Sort of.

They don't say much.  His mom's says only that he's decided to join
the gypsies and not to worry because he knows how to look both ways
before crossing the street.

He should maybe be concerned about her safety and the girls' safety
too, but he's not entirely convinced of his own sanity and whether
hiding is the right thing to do.

The notes to the guys are a little more detailed.  Nothing that
would mean anything to someone who wasn't them, hadn't shared the
same experiences, but enough to find him if they really wanted to.

Chris isn't sure whether he wants them to.

Whether he wants to be right.  Or wrong.

Lance is deplorably slow.  He knows the clue is somewhere in the
single page he received from Chris, but he doesn't find it for
weeks.  The incident it's referring to just got pushed to the back
of his brain.  It just hits him one night as he's laying down to
sleep, what the reference to Munich days and sleepless nights
means.  Then he has to ponder whether Chris means the church *in*
Munich, but no.  Because they don't play hockey in Munich.  He
eventually falls asleep, and wakes up with the answer an hour
later.  He packs quickly and starts driving.  After a quick drive
by his bank ATM to withdraw every bit of cash he can.

Chris spends a lot of time reading.  The church has a huge library,
not all of it strictly religious in the sense that Chris is used
to.

But he doesn't think of the kinds of churches he's used to as safe. 
He thinks of Joey as safe, and of Catholic churches, large stone
ones, with their centuries long traditions of charity and penance.

Chris suspects that the father is a Jesuit, but he hasn't asked. 
They still haven't spoken, even though Chris has effectively moved
into a room upstairs.  They pass each other with silent nods, Chris
sticking to the shadows.

He hasn't had answers to his messages.  He finds that he'd hoped
for answers.

Lance has been best friends with Joey for ages.  He kneels and
crosses himself at the front of the long aisle.  How he thought it
would be easy to find Chris here, he doesn't know.  He'd had
thoughts of asking.  He can't ask.  Chris is hiding.  You can't
just *ask* about people who are hiding.  Lance takes a place in one
of the pews and stares at a statue of the Virgin looking wise and
kind.  The sun is setting behind stained glass windows.  A red beam
falls on the crucifix.  Lance thinks it's prophetic.

The priest comes into the room where Chris is reading a in-depth
study of Revelations and what the Middle Ages thought it meant and
clears his throat.

Chris looks up, startled.

The priest gives him a small smile for his surprise.  "There's
someone here.  If you go to the corridor just off the choir stalls,
you'll be able to see them without being seen."

"How..." Chris begins, and then coughs, because his voice is rusty
from disuse, "how do you know they're here to see me?"

The priest shakes his head and shrugs, as if to say that there are
some things that are simply evident.

Chris puts a bookmark in the book and cautiously goes round to the
corridor.

His breath catches.  It's Lance.

Lance dips his head over his folded hands and, once again, asks for
guidance.  He's so lost and so damn scared.  He's just not sure
what to feel about this whole time.  It's tumultuous and logical,
but it feels wrong.  Lance wants someone to talk to.

Chris looks around, making sure there's no one else there and then
steals out, quietly as has become his habit and walks toward Lance.

"Hey."

Lance startles.   "Oh, my.  You scared me... Chris!" he
whisper-shouts.  He starts to his feet and moves toward Chris.  He
stills with one pew still between them.  "Chris, thank God."  It
feels-- tense.  Like he both should and shouldn't be here.

Chris moves toward Lance with quick little steps and hugs Lance. 
"Are you here by yourself?"

Lance hugs Chris back.  "Yeah.  I didn't even think to ask the
other guys."

Chris doesn't let go.  "Good."  He knows it sounds strange, but
then, he's strange these days.  "Dunno if they'd want to come or if
it'd be safe or anything else.  Not sure of much these days."

"Me either."  Lance holds Chris tighter.  The others don't seem to
doubt the way Lance does.  They don't seem to question.  Even JC,
who is nearly in a panic over the needle aspect of the whole thing. 
And Justin's already got his tattoo.  'What's one more?' he'd said. 
Lance didn't have an answer.

"You wanna come back?  In the back?"  Chris is agoraphobic these
days, in the same way he'd once been afraid of heights.  It's not
that he's afraid of open spaces, but that they afflict him with a
deep panic at the thought of being seen, being caught, being
dragged in.

Not that anyone is being forced to get their barcodes, their
government-approved identification.  The Number of the Beast is
completely voluntary.  For now.

"Sure."

Chris notes the tiredness in Lance's eyes and the creases in his
clothes.  He looks at everything these days, with nervous eyes that
see everything and see anything human as danger.

"I live upstairs.  The priest here -- we don't talk, but he
tolerates me.  I spend most of my time reading.  Do you want to go
there or where I sleep?"

"Either is fine.  I, uh.  I brought some stuff.  Some stuff for
you, too.  Clothes and some other stuff."

"Did you drive here?" Chris asks suspiciously.  "Plane tickets? 
Anything anyone could use to track you?"

"I drove.  I paid cash for the gas, bought it in my neighborhood
and then at automated pumps.  Took money out of the ATM closest to
my house.  Other than that, I just drove.  Didn't tell anyone I was
leaving.  I didn't know I was leaving.  I just figured it out
about..." Lance looks at his watch, "eighteen hours ago."

"Your car?" Chris demands.  He should be more courteous to the
first friendly face he's seen since he left, but he's scared.

"My dad's.  The one he bought for scrap and never got around to
repairing?  I've been fixing it.  Best I could do."

Chris nods.  "Leave the keys in it.  Under the sun visor.  Maybe
someone'll steal it."  They might need it to run, but Chris figures
if it gets to the point where he has to run away from here, that
it'll be too late anyway.  The view outside the church's doors is
not the post-apocalyptic martial law police state of his
imagination, but if he's insane and that never happens, then they
certainly won't need a broken down junker to get away from here.

"I'll go get the bags then?" Lance offers.  It seems like he's
staying.  He hopes.

"If you want to."  Chris lets go of Lance at last, reluctantly. 
"You're staying, right?"

"I want to.  I'm scared."

Chris hugs him again.  "Me, too.  Get your stuff."

Lance sniffles and goes out.  He packed every piece of luggage he
owns that can be carried by hand.  He doesn't own nearly as much as
you'd think.  Still, he comes back in with three huge duffles and
two rolling suit cases.  "Um.  I didn't know.  If I was going
back."

Chris raises his eyebrows.  "Yeah.  I'm still not sure I'm not
going crazy.  C'mon."

He leads Lance upstairs.  The room he's chosen is a carpeted room
without much furniture.  He isn't sure what it was used for.  He
doesn't know whether Catholics have Sunday School, and even if they
did, where are all the little chairs?

"This is where I'm sleeping."  He sets down the bags that he'd
helped carry up the winding back stairs.  "I, ah.  I've been
sleeping here, but there's another place where I've got my
important stuff.  Y'know.  A secret hiding place like an Anne
Frank.  It's up in the attics.  I figured if I had a place where I
was obviously living that I could maybe trick people into thinking
I was out or something when they were looking for me.  I dunno."

Lance nods and looks at Chris.  "I'm lost and I don't understand
what's going on, but it feels scary and wrong.  I want to stay with
you."

"Stay," Chris says.  He can't make it any clearer than that.  He
wants to sit down -- wants both of them to sit down and talk -- but
he stays on his feet, shifting restlessly, because if he sits,
Lance might go away.

Lance nods.  "Stay.  I'll stay.  I can just stay, can't I?  I don't
have to go back.  I don't have to find an excuse.  I can just...
vanish.  Stop being famous.  Stay with you."  It's a revelation. 
Lance sits on the floor in front of one of the windows.  "Wow."

Chris comes and sits very close to Lance, almost on his feet, back
to the window.  "Yes.  But.  Um.  You should know -- I'm scared,
but I'm also not sure I'm right.  I ran because it felt like the
right thing to do, but I'm still expecting that maybe in a year or
so, nothing will have happened and life will have gone on and I'll
come out of hiding and everyone will think I was in rehab or
something."

"Can we say we were in fat camp?"

"I can.  You'd get laughed at."

"We have to go back *really* fat, though.  Seriously."

Chris chuckles, just a little.  It feels painful.  He hasn't
laughed in a long time.  "Yeah, well, that's why I didn't tell my
mom to run, too.  'Cause I didn't want to scare her out of her mind
if I'm wrong.  Not that I know what I'm going to do to save her and
the girls if I'm right."

"My parents said they wouldn't worry about it because they'd be
dead before the government got around to enforcing it."

"They did?  You talked with them about this?"

"Not about running away, but when the idea first came up."

"No, I mean..." Chris shakes his head.  "I didn't talk to anyone
about the striping or what I thought it meant or anything.  I just
kept watching until I couldn't take it anymore," until he was
antsing in his pants as bad as any bus fever had ever been, "and
then I took off.  Started driving and kept driving.  Y'know.  Drive
til you pass out, then sleep til you can't, then drive again.  And
somewhere in the nightmare, I ended up here.  And I think maybe I
knew what I was doing.  If I'm right."

"I think you're probably right."  Lance sighs and pulls Chris
closer.  "I'm afraid you're right."

Chris edges himself nearly into Lance's arms.  "Before I have a
chance to mess you up and give you ideas about what I think, what
do you think's going on?"

"I think we're being marked and branded.  Reduced to numbers." 
Lance looks into the distance and settles Chris against him. 
"We're being made chattel, and I want to know who's supposed to own
us.  And I want to know why we're supposed to be marked on the
*forehead*."  He shivers and looks at a Bible on a shelf across the
room.  "I want to know how we would know Him if He came.  And maybe
it's fanciful and all, but it's something I wonder.  And I wonder
if we didn't already miss it."

Chris nods, letting his head rest against Lance's chest.  "Yeah,"
he says, letting his breath out in a sigh.  "That's what I think,
too.  Forehead and hand.  That's the Number of the Beast all right. 
And you're right about the other part, too.  Rapture first, then
the number.  And I've been doing some thinking and some reading
about that, too.  I think it's real.  It has to be if the rest of
it is.  And I think maybe one of two things happened there.  Either
we've all been lied to about what the Rapture is supposed to be --
or mistaken -- or there's just no good people left in the world. 
Maybe it happened, but nobody noticed, because it was just a couple
of Catholics right after confession, half a congregation during
prayers and some living saints.  Maybe all of us these days are so
worldly -- even the people who're really really Christian -- that
nearly nobody got taken.  I mean, c'mon.  Take your parents. 
They're good people, they go to church.  But by the real true
standards set in the Bible, they're just Sunday Christians.  They
haven't given all their possessions to the poor.  They're very
clearly rich or at least well-off.  And so on."

"Does that mean that our souls go to hell?  And how many years do
we have left of the thousand?"

Chris shakes his head.  "Dunno and dunno.  I'm waiting and seeing,
but if I'm really right," he shivers, "then I'm thinking that the
best thing to do is fight on the doomed side.  'Cause anyone who
signs up on the side of God is going to get very dead.  But if I'm
right, it's the only way that's worth it.  It's just..."  He
shivers again.  "It's so hard to tell what's evil.  Barcoding
people -- it's just the natural next step in the process.  From
social security numbers to UPCs to them.  It makes sense.  And if
the Rapture did happen and if I'm right about why we're all still
here, then we're all so deeply invested in, well, sin, that I don't
know if it's possible for us to change."

"I wish we could say we were just doing what we were told, and
still be saved."  Lance sighs.  "And I can't change everything
about myself that is Biblically wrong, Chris.  I wouldn't be me any
more, and I've always thought God wanted me to love myself."

Chris shakes his head, a small rueful smile on his face.  "Nope. 
Didn't read anything about that.  Love your neighbor, that I read. 
Love the jerk who cuts you off in traffic, love Lou Perlman, love
Britney even.  Love God more.  That I read.  Love yourself I didn't
read anything about."

"That's not fair."

"Fair?  What's fair gotta do with it?"

Lance shakes his head and curls around Chris.  "Why would God make
me... this way.  If I'm not meant to be?"

"What way?  Oh!  You mean gay?  I don't think that's a problem. 
I'm pretty sure we're on the New Testament set of rules,
specifically the Gospel.  Not the letters to the church.  As far as
the Gospels go, those are pretty much the only two.  The various
Gospels put it different ways, but in the end, that's what it boils
down to."

"What?"

Chris tilts his head back, looking at Lance quizzically.  "To what
I said before.  Love everybody, love God."

"Oh.  Well, I'm part of everybody, aren't I?"

"Nope.  It's actually pretty logical when you think about it.  Most
of the rest of the parables and stuff are extensions of the first
rule.  Like, why would you want to be rich if you loved everyone
else more than yourself?  You wouldn't.  You'd give away everything
you had to other people -- 'cause you'd care more about making sure
everybody got fed and had places to sleep and stuff than that you
had a really nice house or were really comfortable or that you had
a cool necklace.  And since there's always people who are poor and
needy, you're never gonna have a reason to keep money for
yourself."

"So I just have to trust the rest of the world enough to believe
that they'll love me while I'm busy loving them?"

"Or do without love altogether and trust in God to reward us later. 
I think the way it goes is, 'I come to bring not peace, but a
sword.'  Christianity wasn't meant to be sweet or easy or good.  It
was meant to be difficult.  It was meant to be a hard choice, and
one without any reward here.  Instead it's just words.  Like Santa
Claus.  'He sees you when you're sleeping, he knows when you're
awake, he knows if you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness
sake'.  We're good for presents.  Only we're not really good. 
We're little brats all year round, then it gets to be Christmas and
we pretend to be good to get presents -- and throw temper tantrums
after we get them when they aren't what we want.  It's fake good. 
And that's what we've all been about God."

"So what do we do?"

Chris shrugs.  "I don't know.  I think I know what's happening. 
Sort of.  I'm not even sure about that.  And if that's right, then
I think I know maybe where we all went wrong.  But I don't know
what to do right here and now."

Lance sighs.  "I know what I need to do.  I need to take a nap. 
And..." he sniffs and makes a face, "a shower."

"I'm not offended by your stench if you wanna just curl up and go
to sleep," Chris says in good-natured tones that don't fit the
jackass he used to be.  Can be.  Used to be.  He's not sure which
it is yet.  He's in transition.

"I drove for so long, I didn't even notice."

"S'okay.  You can sleep now."

Lance lays his head on Chris's shoulder.  "Maybe just sit a couple
minutes.  And then I should get all this out of the way."

Chris shifts to accommodate Lance, to cuddle instead of being
cuddled.  "I'm sorry, but you can't burn your clothes, you pyro. 
No matter how much you want to."

"Give it to Goodwill or something," Lance suggests.

"You're really unclear on the whole concept of never leaving the
building and never letting anyone know we're here, aren't you?"

"How does that keep us from burning in the lake of fire?"

"It doesn't.  But neither does letting everyone know we're here. 
Going to Goodwill would be a mistake at this point.  I think." 
Chris raises his hand to scrub at his eyes and then lets it fall
because holding Lance is more important.  "Sleep first.  We'll talk
about it after you're awake.  Maybe you're right."  'Cause hiding
the talent and burying it in a hole is bad.  The parable didn't say
whether losing it was good, bad or what though.

"Chris?"

"Yeah?"

"I think I need to lay down."  Lance releases Chris and lies on the
floor, curled on his side.

Chris gets the pile of folded coats he uses for a pillow and gently
lifts Lance's head to put it underneath.  Then he drapes part of
the discarded velvet curtains he'd found in the attic over Lance. 
They're stained and faded, which is probably why they were put
away.

Lance looks at Chris.  "Leave me a note if you leave?"

Chris grimaces.  "If I went anywhere, I'd still be here.  In the
church.  Don't worry about that.  But I'm going to stay right
here."

"Okay."

When Lance closes his eyes again, Chris quietly moves to get the
Gideon Bible he'd picked up at a motel along the way here.  He
moves just as quietly to sit under the window in the light, where
he can see Lance if Lance wakes.

Opening the book again, he begins rereading the already worn pages,
studying them more intently than he'd ever studied anything in
school or after, trying to find answers.