Pairing: Lance and Chris
Words: Thursday's child; beckon; puff; clatter


Thursday's child has far to go.

That's the thought Chris clings to as he stands on the street
corner, rubbing his hands together for warmth and watching his
breath come out in white puffs in the cold air.

Not that he knows what day of the week he was born on.  His mother
died a long time ago, when Chris was still very young, bearing yet
another bastard daughter.

There may be worse fates than being born to a prostitute, and
ending up on the streets to starve or die in other unsavory ways.

Chris can't think of any though.

Lance clatters around the corner, shivering and frightened.  This
isn't where he wants to be.  This isn't how life is supposed to go. 
But here he is, trying to sell anything he's got.  And all he's got
is his ass.

Chris steps back as the kid comes barreling down his part of the
street.  The kid is holding his arms and he's clean, unbruised,
blonde, and dressed in light clothing.

Just ran away then.  Or thrown out, let go by whoever was keeping
him, or just fucking stupid.  Chris is leaning toward the latter,
because the kid really is too clean and too wide-eyed.  Naive.

It's really none of his business, and Chris can't afford to care
about someone else when he can barely care for himself, but he had
a mother.  No matter what she might have done to survive, she'd
been his mother and she'd loved him.  It'd left a stain of decency
on him that Chris couldn't quite get rid of.

"Hey, you.  C'mere."

Lance stops, looks at the guy.  Heavy leather pants, tight shirt,
big jacket and sunglasses.  He sniffs and drops his arms, changing
his body language to open.  "Yeah?  You want something?"  He walks
to the other man slowly.

Chris tugs the kid to him by grabbing onto his belt loop.  "Maybe. 
Maybe I'm just thinking you don't belong out here."

Lance lets himself sway toward the other man.  "Maybe you better
show me your money?"

Chris has a firm grip on the kid now.  "Maybe you better tell me
what someone as green as you is doing out here trying to make a
buck."

Lance starts pulling back.  "You said it, man.  I better get back
to it."  He hadn't expected this.  It wasn't supposed to be like
this.  It was supposed to be sex and money and that's it.  Not
being scared and cold and hungry.  Then again, he never expected to
run and end up here.

Chris holds him easily.  "The only kind of trick you're going to
get in this part of town is the kind that's going to make it hard
for you to sell your ass again anytime soon.  What're you doing
here?"

"I kept getting chased away from the other places."  Lance shrugs
awkwardly and recrosses his arms.

"That's 'cause you stick out.  You're practically screaming 'rape
and kill me', the way you look.  C'mon.  What're you running from?"

Lance's chin comes up.  "Doesn't matter.  Let me go.  I've got to
do something."

"You're not going to do anything but come back to my squat with
me," Chris says, resigned to being a do-gooder.

"Fuck that!  I'm new, but I'm not stupid!"  Lance jerks away and
runs down the street.  He might have to take anything the people
who hire him want, but that doesn't mean he has to sign up to get
it for free.

Chris sighs and lopes after him.  So much for making anything
tonight.  The vultures who'd normally be on the kid are watching
Chris to see what he's going to do.  If Chris turns away, one of
them'll have him.  Jimmy the pimp, maybe.  Or the drug dealer who
only speaks Spanish, only comes around once a week and who takes
the freshest and best looking of the hopeless and homeless with him
when he goes.  He catches up the kid easily.  "Look, I'll pay you
if you want.  Don't get your panties in a wad."

Lance sniffles.  "I don't have any panties."

"Jesus."  How new *is* this kid?  "C'mon.  Seriously.  You're safe
with me.  You're scared of all the wrong things, and you're gonna
have to get used to getting rolled if you stay out here.  It's just
something that happens."

"What's that?"

Now Chris is worrying that the kid is too good to be true, that
he's gonna end up knocking Chris out and taking everything Chris
has.  "Getting rolled.  When your john won't pay, and worse, beats
you up and takes not just what they paid you in advance, but
everything else you got paid."

"But you're not a john."

"If I'm paying you, I'm a john.  Period.  That's the way you should
think about it."

"You're not paying me."

Chris swears and digs in his pocket.  He's got a loose handful of
ones from singing uptown during the lunch hour.  It's not much, but
it's honest, which is important to the little part of him that
still gives a damn.  "Here.  It's not much, but you've been paid. 
Now c'mon."

Lance looks at the money and takes it.  "Okay."

Chris leads the kid off, silently bristling against the looks
thrown their way.  The kid's his now, at least for the next few
minutes, although it'll be the night, if Chris has his way, and
nobody's getting to him.

Lance walks along silently and thinks of what he can buy.  Bread
and milk and maybe some fruit.

Chris leads him by a circuitous route to the place he's squatting
in.  It's safe only as long as nobody knows about it, and he's
moved many, many times.  This particular place is a good one.  The
people moved out, but someone's still paying the electricity,
'cause it's still on.  He doesn't advertise the fact; keeps it dark
most of the time.

He crouches down, moves the board over the hole in the wall and
gestures the kid through, then follows him, putting the board back.

Lance looks around, just making sure no one else is there.  "So. 
What do you want?"  He looks at nothing.

Chris moves past him, to the 'kitchen' part of his squat.  He buys
cheap food in bulk, but not so much of it that he can't leave it
behind.  "I wanna know why you're on the street.  I wanna give you
some advice.  And I might as well feed you while I'm at it."

Lance frowns.  "If you're going to feed me, you can have your money
back."

Chris smiles a little.  Green, so green.  "Lesson one.  Look out
for number one.  You don't have to be fair to anyone and the only
thing that matters is making it to the next day.  That money might
be the difference between you eating and you not eating.  Probably
will be."

"I know that."

"Not well enough."  Chris hunkers down and starts putting something
together.  The kid looks pale and he grabs an apple out of the bag
and gives it to him.  "Here, chew on this while I get to making
something.  And start telling me what you're doing out here."

"Why should I?" Lance asks as he meticulously twists the stem off
the apple.

"I paid you, didn't I?  A couple of words ought to be easier for
you than taking it up the ass."  It's the other way around, as
Chris knows from experience.  Selling his body is easier than
selling what's inside of him, and the worst thing a john can make
him do is make him feel.  But Lance is so new, it's probably
exactly the opposite for him still.

Lance looks down.  "Okay."  He wouldn't know, actually.  So far,
it's been less.  Blowjobs and stuff.  Calling old guys 'daddy.'

"So.  What's the story?  You don't look like a runaway, and you
don't got enough bruises for someone who got thrown out."

"I found a place with a shower."

"So you got thrown out.  For what?"

"I didn't."

Chris gives Lance a hard look, spoiled by the perpetual twilight of
the room.  "Kid, you haven't been on the street very long at all. 
Anyone with eyes can see it.  Just looking at you, you're screaming
victim.  No one chooses this life 'cause they like it.  What are
you doing here?"

Chris looks determined.  Lance sighs.  "They're dead, okay?  I
didn't run away.  I didn't get kicked out.  They're dead."

Chris nods.  "Same here.  Been on the streets since my mother died. 
But she was a hooker.  I didn't have any family or anywhere to go. 
Kid like you has got to have someone."

"I did.  And they got killed."

"Everyone?"  Chris purses his lips.  "You gonna tell me you got the
mob after you or something?"  He hands the kid a sandwich.  Meat's
expensive and difficult to keep cold, but he's got some anyway.

Lance eats the core of his apple before starting on the sandwich. 
"I don't wanna talk about it."

"I wanna.  I wanna know how to get you out of here and back
somewhere you belong."

"Yeah?  Well, this is the safest place I've been in months."  Lance
shrugs.  "So, let it be."

"Here with me or here, as in on the street?"

"The street."

"That sucks."

"Sorta, yeah.  Are we gonna have sex?  If so, can we do it before
it gets any colder?"

"We're not gonna have sex," Chris says in a disgusted tone of
voice.  "There's nothing I'd rather do less."

Lance sighs in defeat.  "I know."

"Just eat.  Sleep if you want.  I won't kick you out.  But I sleep
with a knife.  Just so you know."

Lance shrugs.  "Okay.  Thanks."

"You're welcome."  Chris eats his own sandwich, depressed as hell. 
He's always know he can't save anyone, but it still bothers him
when he runs up against it.

~~~~

Lance leaves before Chris gets up.  There's a youth shelter uptown
that gives out breakfast on Thursdays.  He leaves Chris a note,
thanking him for his hospitality and his advice.

It's two weeks before he ends up back in Chris's area.  It's been
a hard two weeks.  Lance is limping, stiff.  He got rolled, just
like Chris said he would.  It was a lot worse than Lance expected
it to be.  Still, when he finds himself standing on Chris's corner,
he tries to pretend he didn't mean to come here.

"Kid," Chris says, nodding to him.  The kid isn't screaming
'victim' anymore.  His eyes are shadowed and his posture is
guarded.  It's everything the kid needed in order to survive and
it's everything Chris didn't want to see on him.

Lance looks at Chris blankly for a second before his brain
processes.  "Hi, Chris."

"Hey.  You gonna fall over or something?"

"Probably not.  Can I lean on your corner for a minute?"

"Sure."

Lance leans.  He leans for hours.  He leans while Chris does two
tricks and comes back.  He does a couple tricks of his own, though
his don't leave the corner by much.  There's a handy alleyway a few
yards down the street.  So when Chris comes back from his second
trip of the night, Lance is back to leaning on the corner.

"So you planning on coming home with me again?"

"Not planning on anything.  I just like you.  You're nice."

Chris laughs hoarsely.  It's a really shitty world when he's nice. 
"Come home with me.  At least it's mostly safe."

"Okay."  Lance looks at Chris.  "Thank you."

Chris shrugs.  "You'll probably put a knife in my back at some
point and take everything I've got.  It's a risk I'm willing to
take."

Lance laughs.  It's either laugh or cry.  "No, I won't."

"My loss."

Lance once again follows without a word.  This time, he buys them
sandwiches from a vendor they pass on the circuitous route to
Chris's place.

"Too expensive to do that all the time," Chris comments.  "You
don't got a safe place to stay?"

"Not a permanent one.  And maybe I felt like doing something nice
for you.  And me."

"No such thing as permanent.  And thanks."

Lance smiles.  At Chris's place, they both lay down to sleep. 
Lance has a couple blankets now, from a church.  He curls up on his
side, body pressed into a corner, and pulls them both over him.

It's kinda nice having company.  Chris doesn't hate it, even if
he's just passing time til the next bad thing happens.  Shit
happens.

"Chris?" Lance asks quietly.  "Does it always hurt as much as the
first time?"

"No.  Not usually.  Unless they're the kind that gets off on
hurting people."

"Good.  Thanks."

Chris doesn't say what he's thinking.  That the thing he hates most
is when it doesn't hurt.  When it's the johns who pay to blow him.

"I don't know how I would have kept doing it if it hurt like that
all the time," Lance adds after a moment.  It's strange.  People
always said he was quiet before.  And now he just wants to talk. 
Probably because he hasn't talked to anyone for weeks.

"Lube up first thing, before you start trolling.  They make little
packets of it you can put in your pockets.  Couple of places you
can get that for free, condoms, too.  Lubed condoms aren't all that
great, but they're better than nothing.  Save the non-lubed ones
for when you have to give blowjobs."

Lance blushes.

"And stay away from the twofers if you have a choice."  Not that
there's any such thing.

"Twofers?"

"When you get fucked by multiple guys.  Most of the time they lie
about it, though.  Tell you that it's just one and then they take
you somewhere or get you into the back of their van or whatever,
and it's a gangbang."

"Oh.  Okay."  Lance laughs, although it's strained.  "I need job
shadowing, man."

"Job shadowing?"

"Where you... well, it's the high school version of interning."

"No.  Definitely not."

"No?  You think it's better to have no idea what I'm doing and get
rolled on my first *real* trick?"

Chris sighs.  "Kid, it's not just learning the dangers.  Everybody
gets rolled sooner or later.  And you going out, like you were,
looking like fresh meat, it was gonna happen to you a lot.  No way
to wipe that off except by getting cold and used like everyone
else.  This isn't a job.  It's hell."

Lance pushes his palms to his eyes for a long time before asking,
"Then why do you do it?  You're smart.  You could move on, do
something else.  Why are you here?"

In the dark, it seems more safe.  But it's an illusion.  Just
because you can't see the things that're out to get you doesn't
mean that they can't see you.  Chris closes his mouth even as he
opens it.  The one thing he has left is his heart.

"There's something else you need to learn.  That if you have
something you want, something enough worth not dying that you do
this to avoid it, you don't tell anybody what it is.  When people
know what you value, they know how to control you.  Protect that."

"I think mine's too easy to guess."

"I don't know what it is."

"Yes, you do.  All I want is to not die."

"You'll get over that.  Or get a better reason."

"I don't have any other reasons left."

"Yeah, well, I'd be dead if I didn't have a reason."

Lance sighs.  "I don't like this.  But it's not so bad."

"Compared to what?"  Lots of people end up on the street, running
away from things they think are worse than this.  Most of them are
wrong.

"Being mutilated to death for being in the wrong place at the wrong
time."

Chris purses his lips.  "Okay, that's pretty bad."

Lance laughs without humor.

"Still, you gotta find something.  Revenge, maybe, especially if
you don't dare make a life."

"Why?  All I promised was not to die."

"All you promised who?"

"My family."

"Damn."

"That'll cover it, yeah."

"Sorry, kid."

"Thanks."

At least Chris can pretend he has a way out.  The kid doesn't even
have that.

Lance coughs and tries to keep his chest from exploding and his
intestines from falling out.  He doesn't talk any more after that. 
It just hurts too much to make himself cough.

Chris gets up quietly and shakes out his little bag of medications. 
It's one of the things he tries to keep with him.  He finds the
right ones by shape and brings them over to Lance along with a
bottled water.  The water is from a sink, not from the store, but
the bottle's handy.

"Here," Chris says, kneeling down next to Lance.

Lance looks at Chris in the dim light that filters in from the
streetlamps.  "What?"

"Cold medication.  You don't wanna get sick."

"Chris, I don't wanna take something from you."  Lance blinks. 
"I'm probably not sick like that, anyway, right?  Just talking too
much."  It feels so good to have someone try to take care of him
again.  Lance feels tears come to his eyes.  He hopes Chris doesn't
see, he doesn't want the other man feeling bad.

"Damnit, you moron.  It's not anything illegal.  I got it from a
grocery store, I swear.  Off the shelf and in labelled bottles with
the security wrap on."

"No, that's not what I meant," Lance says.  "It's that it's
*yours*.  We don't have much.  What if you get sick and really need
it?"

"Then I'll get more.  Just take it."

Lance takes it.  Once the pills are safely swallowed, he takes
Chris's hand, squeezing it briefly.  "Thank you."

Chris squeezes back.  "Get well.  Humor my delusion that I can do
some good even when it's damn well obvious I can't."

"Chris?  You're the best thing in my life and the best person I've
ever met."

Startled, Chris laughs.  "Me?  You know you're crazy, right?"

"I think I might be getting there," Lance admits.

"Yeah.  S'okay.  Lots of company."

Lance nods.  "Yeah.  Yeah, you're right."

"My thing," Chris says as he lies back down, knowing that
everything he's learned says this is the wrong thing to do but
doing it anyway, "is that I use whatever money I get for studio
time.  I do backup vocals when somebody wants someone with my weird
range, but mostly I cut demos."

"That's really cool," Lance says fervently.  "That's way cool.  I
loved singing before."

"You sing?"

"No, but I did before."

"What part?"

"Bass, mostly.  Baritone sometimes."

"Hah.  I sing tenor sometimes.  When I'm not singing soprano."

Lance shivers, pleasantly this time.  "That's so sexy."

"You wouldn't think so given the response I've gotten.  Best I've
done is #4 on the Australian charts."

Lance squeaks.  "You fucking rock!"

"Ah, doesn't mean jack shit.  It's like self-publishing a book. 
Means more to you than it does to anyone else."

Lance just squeaks again.

Chris laughs.  "You can come with the next time if you want.  See
how glamorous it really isn't."

Lance yawns.  "Cool."

"'Night."

"G'night, Chris.  Dream safe."

Chris thinks maybe he will.

~~~~

The studio Chris uses isn't much of a studio.  It's the bare
minimum of equipment, set up in the guy's basement.  But it's got
all the gear and as far as he can, what comes out sounds reasonably
professional, even if all Chris knows about production he taught
himself.

"You can watch from over there," he tells Lance, pointing him
toward a corner not completely taken up with equipment.

Lance sits quietly in the corner and prepares to watch.

Chris talks to the guy for a while.  Calling him an engineer would
be a stretch, but the guy knows what he's doing.  And then Chris
closes himself in the booth.  It takes up about half the basement.

Lance shivers when he hears Chris's voice.  He's probably just
dehydrated or something, but Chris sounds beautiful.  Almost
ethereal.  Lance closes his eyes and sinks into the sound, feeling
lifted above his life.

"Okay," the engineer says when Chris is done, "Not bad, but you're
rushing and sharp in places."

"Yeah, yeah," Chris says, frowning.  "I know.  Cue the music
again."

Lance listens to it all with an eager mind.  He memorizes it.  It's
so much easier to memorize now when nothing he doesn't need is in
his mind.

The second take is good.  Chris okays it.  He doesn't have a lot of
money to spend to keep trying.  He has to get it right in as few
takes as possible.

He leaves the booth and then he and Dave go over the take.  It's
good.  Better than Chris expected, actually.

"Yeah, I'll go with that one.  How long til it'll be ready?"

"Friday.  You want the usual?"

"No.  Gimme an extra set.  Gonna try sending this one out somewhere
else.  Play off the Australian thing.  Maybe that'll impress
someone."

The engineer snorts, but doesn't disagree.

Lance wipes his face on his sleeve, erasing the tears.  He watches
Chris as he and the guy go over the recording.

When Chris is satisfied by the tweaks, he comes over to Lance,
hands in his pockets.  "So what did you think?"

Lance looks up at Chris and wonders if his eyes show his adoration. 
"Beautiful.  Awesome."

Chris smiles a little.  "Thanks, kid."

Lance stares at Chris and nods vaguely.

"Catch you around, Dave," Chris says.

"You not having the kid sing?" the engineer asks.

Chris raises his eyebrows, but it's true that the guy's never seen
Chris bring anyone here before because Chris never has.  And it's
a reasonable assumption that the kid's here to sing.

"Nah.  He does, but he's not up to recording standards yet.  Don't
wanna waste the time."

Dave shrugs.  "Your call, but I don't have anyone else til tonight
and as long as you're not cutting the track, it doesn't cost me
anything."

Chris studies him, then looks at Lance.

Lance just keeps watching Chris, feeling sort of like his father's
retriever.

"So, kid, you wanna?"

"Anything you want."

"You any good at improvising?"  Chris doesn't have any sheet music
for his stuff.  He knows it too well for that.

"I was."

"Okay.  We can give it a go."  He turns to Dave.  "You got the one
that says M3 on it?"  For economy's sake, Chris has a bunch of
instrumental tracks pre-recorded.  He picks them up from other
people who record and don't want them.  Buys them as cheap as he
can get them and then makes up something to go along with it.  The
Ms are the 'maybe' ones.  The ones that he likes but don't quite go
with his voice.

"Yeah, lemme grab it."  Dave keeps all of Chris' stuff for him.

Chris nods toward the booth.  "C'mon, kid.  I'll go through it
once, then we can try it together."  He wouldn't lay down a real
track like that -- each voice would need to be recorded separately.

Lance follows Chris, clearing his throat lightly.

"Something you wanna say?"

"No, I just haven't sung in a while."

"Do some scales or whatever.  Dave's still gotta find the music." 
Chris puts his headphones on.

Lance flushes lightly but starts singing.  His voice is rusty, and
he has to remind himself to stand and breathe right.  But he's
surprised.  His voice sounds the same as ever.  How can there be
something that hasn't changed?  It's baffling.

Dave gives Chris the thumbs up.  Chris looks at Lance.  "Put your
headphones on and listen now."

When the kid quiets, Chris gives Dave a thumbs up and the music
starts.  He waits for the right spot, then starts singing.

Lance makes sure he's nowhere near a microphone and hums quietly
while trying to memorize the words.

Dave isn't recording, so Chris is loose.  What he's singing doesn't
exactly fit his voice.  There's places where the music demands that
he let his voice soar, but it just doesn't work without another
voice carrying the melody.  He sings the melody here, because the
kid needs to know how it goes.

When Chris finishes, Lance looks at him.  "I need to know where you
want me on melody."

"Caught that, huh?"  Chris is kinda impressed.  "Just follow for
now.  Sing the harmony if you can, the melody if you can't and if
I leave the melody line, you keep it.  Okay?"

"Okay."

Chris grins a little.  He doesn't think the kid can keep up, but
it's not like it much matters.  He gives Dave the high sign and the
music starts again.

Lance follows along as best he can.

The kid flubs the words all over the place, and some moments of
cacophony, when they're singing against each other, rather than
with each other.  But for a few brief bars they come together and
if it sounds as good on tape as it does to Chris, it's amazing.

Chris catches Dave's eye and he knows -- Dave hears it too.

Lance blushes brightly and keeps his eyes down.

"Not bad," Chris says.  "Let's try it again."

Lance nods silently and resolves to do better.

This take is smoother.  The kid still doesn't know the words, but
he's smoother about covering the fact.  And he's figured out what
he's supposed to be singing where.  It's not polished, but it's
good.

"Chris, man.  You sure you don't want this on tape?" Dave asks
after that runthrough.

"Nah.  Not yet.  You got some paper and something to write with?"

"Probably.  Why?"

"Wanna write down the words for the kid."

"Oh, yeah.  Sure.  Just a minute."

Lance thinks his face might catch on fire soon.  On the up side,
he's warm for the first time in ages.

When Dave heads upstairs to get some paper, Chris looks at Lance. 
"You're damn good.  Better than just someone who sings in the
shower and does Christmas carols."

Lance shrugs.  "I was in choir, show choir, madrigal singers,
concert chorale and community stuff."

"Better than that.  You took lessons."

Lance nods and studies his shoes.

Figures.  Dave comes back in, and Chris goes for the paper, writing
down the lyrics in a neat block print.  He doesn't need handwriting
issues screwing this up.

Lance is closed in the booth.  Chris looks at Dave, "Give us
another runthrough, then start recording."  He's gonna have to do
a lot of stuff he doesn't want to do to cover the cost of this, but
this is worth it.

Dave nods, not at all surprised.  "Yeah.  Got it.  You gonna want
to send this out, too?"

Chris hesitates.  His own stuff is easy.  He's got the rights to
the instrumentals, and it's just him on vocals.  But Lance is
another issue.  "Maybe.  Gotta work up the paperwork.  Next week
sometime?"  Also, he can't pay for that set.

"No problem.  You wanna get him cheap, I won't tell him we're
taping if you don't want."

"Nah.  Don't bother.  That's not the issue."

Dave doesn't ask questions.

Chris comes back in and hands the sheets of paper to Lance.  He's
written on one side of two pieces of paper, so Lance can see it all
at once.  "Here."

"Thanks."

"You gonna freak out if we put one of these on tape?"

"No."

"Good."

The next take is better.  Getting the words right makes a real
difference.

The take after that...

The thing about singing alone is that you don't get the rush you
get from singing with someone.  It's better than sex.

"Got that?" Chris asks Dave when they're done.

"Yep.  You want separate tracks now?"

"Yeah.  Me first."

A nod from Dave and Lance's mike is off.  Chris looks at Lance. 
"You can stay if you're quiet."

Lance nods.

It's distracting hearing himself as well as the kid in the
headphones, but he figures it'll probably be harder for the kid to
deal with, which is why he's doing the hard part.  The kid'll just
have him and the music to work with.  Easier.

He could do it right and do another one after that where he's just
singing to the kid and the music, but that'd be another track to
pay for, and Chris doesn't bother.

Lance does his track and Chris talks to the other man again.  Chris
goes upstairs to use the bathroom and Lance approaches the man. 
"How much will it cost for that song?"

"Two new tracks laid down, plus the master and how ever many sets
gotta be made.  Stuff this good, smart thing would be to do at
least four sets."  Dave names a sum.

Lance swallows hard and pays about three quarters of the amount. 
"Just charge Chris the rest, okay?  Tell him it's for a friend or
whatever you want, okay?"

Dave raises his eyebrows.  "Whatever you say, man."

Lance shrugs and picks up his coat.  "Ready?" he asks when Chris
returns.

"Yeah."  Chris turns to Dave.  "Pick up the sets tomorrow?"

Dave nods.  "Not a problem."

Chris puts his jacket back on and heads out.

Lance nods to Dave and follows Chris out.

"So, yeah.  You don't suck.  So we need to talk contracts.  It's
not like this shit makes any money, but there has to be paperwork
before anything can happen.  We can print out forms from the web at
the library.  There's a standard set I use for when I'm buying the
instrumental tracks.  I can find something that works better for
what you're doing."

What Chris isn't saying is that he thinks the kid'll back out on
him, because even being on the Australian charts means your name is
out there, and paperwork means proof that you exist.

Lance waits until they've walked about twenty blocks to ask, "You
don't have to put your real name on music stuff, right?  I mean,
people go by pseudonyms all the time."

"Dunno.  Probably.  You'd have a damn hard time cashing any checks,
not that this pays anything."

"I could change my name, legally, maybe.  But that means there's a
record of who I used to be."  Lance frowns.  "Maybe I need to go to
Canada and change my name."

"Eh, don't worry about it.  Pick a fake name.  It's not like this
is a paying gig.  Only me, you and Dave'll ever see it."

Lance laughs.  "True."

Chris gives him a wry smile.  "You should come with me sometimes. 
When I go singing out on the street.  We can practice the stuff
beforehand.  That's when I make it up anyway."

Lance smiles.  "I'm sorry I was so out of practice."

"You weren't."  After a minute, Chris adds, "You could get work,
real work, singing if you wanted.  People need your kind of voice
a lot more than they need mine."

Lance looks into the distance.  "It's too late."

"One of those things," Chris says, and doesn't ask.

"The first time I sold my ass it was too late to change my mind."

"Then why bother today?"

"For you.  And because maybe I'm wrong."

Chris nods.

Lance sighs.

"Now I just gotta pay for today."

"About that..."

"Yeah?"

"I paid for part of it."

Chris stops dead.  "You did?"

"Yeah."  Lance keeps walking.

Chris hurries to catch up with him.  "Thanks.  You didn't have to."

"No, but I should have done it.  I mean... I was part of the cost."

"Dunno about that, since I dragged you into it.  But I wasn't
looking forward to paying for it all either."

"I know."

Chris nods.  "Yeah.  I figure you do."

"I think I hate sex," Lance says, nearly an hour later.

"You ever done it before you got paid for it?"

"No."

"Same here.  Dunno if the job makes you that way or if starting off
getting paid for it is what makes it bad.  Haven't talked to enough
people."

Lance looks sideways at Chris.  "You ever do it just because you
wanted to?"

"Tried.  It wasn't anything I'd want to do again."

Lance shrugs.  He'd ask why, but even whores get to keep sex
secrets.

"I think it's kinda like drugs.  Dunno if you noticed Slick yet. 
He's only out there once in a while, but nasty as he looks, he's
clean.  The shit's gotta be some kinda good if people're willing to
pay for it, but he isn't gonna.  'Cause it's not good to you.  It's
money.  It's people crawling in their own vomit.  It's guys with
stinking breath and sunken chest and hairy asses fucking you up the
ass and calling you a fag the whole time for ten bucks 'cause
you're starving."

"Yeah.  I suppose you're right.  We're broken, then?  That's too
bad.  My parents wanted me to have kids, when..."  Lance shrugs. 
"Anyway.  They did."

"Eh.  Maybe it gets better.  You shouldn't ask me anyway.  I'm old
and bitter."

"You are not!"

"Kid, I was at least five years younger than you are when I sold my
ass for the first time, maybe younger than that even.  I've always
been old."

Lance sighs and wraps his arm around Chris's waist.  They're in a
neighborhood where it's more than safe to do so.  "That sucks."

"Yep."

Lance smiles at Chris.  "I like you, you know."

"I'm sorta fond of you, too."

Lance smiles and kisses Chris's cheek.  A car honks, the window
rolls down.  "You two work together?"

"What's it to you?" Chris asks.

"I'll pay."

Chris snorts.  He's not getting a cop vibe, but he's not convinced
yet either.  He glances sideways at Lance.

"Oh, yeah?" Lance says, and Chris knows he's game.

Some negotiation later, they're in the guy's car, the kid in the
back and Chris sitting up front.  The kid looks nervous, but then,
he always does.  He'd nodded though.

Lance watches as they pull up to a house.  This guy is either very
stupid or about to kill them.  You don't take hookers home.

Chris doesn't like the sight of a house either.  Motels, fine.  The
few times a guy has taken him to a house have been bad.  Like vans,
it's a key sign of a gangbang.  "Listen, it's extra for a party."

The guy looks over at Chris.  "It's just me.  Hotels are dirty, and
I want you both on my bed."

"Just saying, man."  Chris shrugs and gets out of the car.

Lance follows along.  The guy's bedroom is clean, pretty.  There
are shiny sheets on the bed.

"I just want to watch, first.  Both of you should shower first.  In
there."

So, they shower.  "Now what?" Lance asks when they're both clean
and back in the bedroom.

"Now you make out on the bed."

Chris draws Lance down on the bed with him.  The guy's standing up
and Chris pushes Lance down to lie flat on the bed,  He positions
himself on his side, so the guy can see over Lance to him and
starts kissing Lance.  The first one's testing, and after that,
it's hot and nasty, showing the guy a lot of tongue.

Lance rubs his hands over Chris again and again.  He makes it a
show and kisses Chris back.  That part feels real, though.  Lance
smiles at Chris.

Chris doesn't smile back, because this isn't romantic.  But his
eyes are less guarded when they're on Lance.  He fondles Lance to
make him hard, avoiding any dick contact, except for his own dick
plump against Lance's thigh.  That's for show, too.  Chris isn't
forgetting their audience.

Lance sighs and arches into Chris's hand.  "Yeah," he breathes.  He
looks over at the man.  He's jerking off.  And then he's getting
up.

"I wanna fuck you, kid.  And then have him do it."

Lance nods and holds up a condom.

Chris moves silently from the bed.

"No, you stay here."  He kneels on the bed.  "I want you to watch."

Lance reaches out for Chris, even as he turns onto his stomach.

Chris sits down, right next to Lance's head so the guy can see both
of him.  Probably into the fantasy of raping the kid while his
boyfriend watches.

Lance grits his teeth as the other guy starts trying to push into
him.  But Lance has done this enough now that it'll happen
eventually, whether he wants it or not.

Chris strokes Lance's jaw with a fingertip.  It's obvious to him
that Lance doesn't know any of the coping strategies Chris does. 
Like it's less painful if you push out with your muscles, and it's
over faster if you alternate that with squeezing.

Lance looks up at Chris as the guy starts fucking him.  It's not
too bad, actually.  The guy probably got them because he's got a
small dick and is too shy to get a boyfriend he doesn't have to
pay.

Chris is relieved when the tightness in Lance's face loosens.  He
stops stroking, and just keeps his hand where it is, silently
supporting the kid.

Lance grunts because, okay, this guy has pointy hips.

Chris winces when Lance makes a noise.  He hates it when the john
starts thinking he likes it.

"Moan for me."

Lance rolls his eyes where only Chris can see and starts moaning
softly.

Yeah.  Fucking humiliating.  Chris always comes silently when he
jerks off.  Making noise is for lying about it.

Lance stops making noise when the guy comes.  He pulls out and
moves back to his chair.

"Now you," he says to Chris.

Chris strokes Lance's cheek and gets up.  He gets a condom from his
jeans and puts it on.  It's the lubricated kind.  He runs his hands
up Lance thighs, spreading them further, touching his ass lightly
before running a finger down the line from the kid's spine to the
hole between them.

There's no sound of complaint from the chair, so Chris figures the
show must be good enough.  He fists his cock with his free hand,
then enters Lance slowly, like he's savoring it.  Then he pulls
back and slams into Lance fast and hard, earning him a yelp.

Chris silently apologizes to the kid, pulling him up at the hips,
forcing him to his knees so Chris can fuck him hard.  He hopes the
guy's eyes bulge out of their sockets.

Lance drops his head to the pillow, closing his eyes and turning
his face toward the chair.  His breath shudders as Chris's hips
slap against his again and again.  But Lance is hard, which almost
never happens.  He reaches down to get himself off, figuring the
guy might as well get a real show.

Getting off is as much of a skill as everything else he does. 
Chris times it with the man's panting breaths, appearing to bruise
Lance's hips with his hands as he comes, but faking that, too.

Lance comes along with Chris and then sags down to the mattress
with a faint moan, just for Chris's ears.

Chris pulls out and ties the condom off.  He could take the money
out of the guy's wallet right now, the guy's so out of it, but then
they'd probably have the cops after them as well as having to take
the bus back downtown.

So he gets dressed instead.

Lance gets up and uses the guy's bathroom to clean up quick before
getting dressed.

"I'll drive you back."  The man gets dressed and leads them out to
his car.

Chris doesn't say anything to Lance until the guy is long gone and
they're back at the place where his stuff is.  Even then, Chris
doesn't even ask the kid to come with him, but the kid follows him
anyway.  So it's in the dim shadows when Chris finally says,
"There's another way to make it hurt less.  Getting fucked."

"Yeah?"  Lance feels very strange.  He didn't mind doing it with
Chris.  And he wants to curl up and hold Chris now, like it was
real sex.

"Yeah."  Chris sits down on his sleeping bag.  "Push out with your
ass while they're going in.  Helps a little.  If you do that,
squeeze, and release and keep doing that, they get off faster."

Lance looks at Chris, crawls across the room to him, and kisses him
softly.

Chris doesn't rebuff him, but he doesn't know what's going on
either.  "You okay, kid?"

"Yeah."  Lance sits back on his heels.  "I liked it with you.  I
mean... not *liked* it, but it wasn't bad.  It was kinda nice to
have you touch me like that.  'Cause you're my friend."

"Good," Chris says, and means it.  It's good that Lance can still
feel safe and cared about.  It's why Chris'd tried to keep him from
selling himself in the first place.

"Thank you."

Chris gives the kid an irritable look.  "Well, c'mere."

"I'm right here," Lance says in confusion.

He sighs and opens his arms.  "Come *here*."

Lance does, stiffly hugging Chris.  Then he remembers how to hug
and melts against Chris's chest.

Chris holds him, petting him soothingly.  His hands feel strange,
touching someone he's not gonna have sex with.

Lance holds Chris the way his mother used to hold him.  He rubs
circles on Chris's back and rocks a tiny bit.

"Hey, hey.  It's all right."

"Yeah, it is."

Chris hums softly under his breath.

Lance harmonizes without realizing he's doing it.  He reaches up to
cradle the back of Chris's head and pull the other man closer.

Chris slumps down until they're half lying on the sleeping bag,
letting Lance as close as he wants to be.

Lance lays next to Chris with a sigh.  "Wanna just hang out here
tonight?  He paid us a lot.  We can just talk or something?"

"Sure.  Wasn't planning on going back out anyway.  I'm not much for
the after dark crowd this time of year."

"It pays well," Lance admits, "but it's not good."

"You can get better money by doing other stuff.  Giving blood
even."

"I'm not of age.  They won't take my blood without parental
permission."

"Guess not."

Lance is quiet for a while.  "Anything else requires proof of
identity.  And I'm scared."

"Yeah.  That part I got.  S'okay."

Lance rubs his hand across Chris's chest idly.  "Were you really
twelve the first time?"

"Eleven, I think.  Maybe ten."

Lance shudders.  "I'm so sorry."

"Eh.  No biggie."

"It is."

"Seriously, it isn't.  This is what I know.  The time I spent in
foster homes was worse."

Lance holds Chris tighter.

"You're more of a kid now than I ever was."

"I know.  That's why I'm sorry."

Chris gives him a puzzled look.  "Whatever you say."

Lance just nods.

When Chris falls asleep, Lance is still snuggled close to him.

Lance sleeps with Chris's heart beating against his ear.

~~~~

Chris mails off the finished tracks to the usual places. 
Whimsically, he sends one copy of the track with him and Lance off
to a local radio station.  He doesn't expect anything much to
happen with them, and he doesn't say anything more to the kid than
that he'd sent them.  Not even where he'd sent their track.

He doesn't think any more about it.

They work out the harmonies to another of the M tracks during the
lunch hour, and they're just playing when someone stops.

People stop to listen every so often.  Especially people waiting
for a bus.  But they don't usually squeal in a high-pitched voice
and go, "Ohmigod!  You sound just like that song!"

"What song?" Lance asks.

"The one!  On the radio.  Uh.  It goes like, 'The end of the day is
the end of existence, and the dawn of a day is the dawn of my
life.'"

Chris is torn between snickering at her singing, the way she's
mangled the words -- and outright shock.

Lance's mouth drops open and he just stares.

"Where'd you hear it?" Chris asks.

"Q105," she says, naming a local radio station that has ads on all
the busses.

"Holy fuck," Lance whispers.

Chris doesn't tell her it's their song, even though it is.  He
doesn't think she'd believe them.  Instead he grabs the hat with
their earnings and hauls Lance up.  They've got to get to Dave's.

Lance follows Chris in a fog.

Dave's busy when they come in.  The side door down to the basement
has an 'in session' sign on it.  But when Chris sticks his head in
anyway, Dave waves at him to come in.

Lance doesn't know.  He's thrilled.  Beyond thrilled for Chris. 
Amazed for himself.  Terrified.

Dave shoves a stack of papers at him.  Phone messages and letters
altogether in an unruly bundle.  "Come back in two hours," he says
and motions to them to leave.

Chris takes the papers and, lacking any better destination, takes
Lance to the library with them.

Getting a table to themselves is a simple matter of heading up to
the history section, and he spread the stuff out.

"I don't get this much mail in a month, kid," Chris says, before
trying to make heads and tails out of it.

"You get mail?"

"Yeah.  Couple things music related.  Dave's okay with it as long
as it's all business.  Kinda like renting a post office box, except
I don't need a key that I could lose and I don't have to worry
about what happens if I don't make a payment."  He doesn't 'cause
he lives to use Dave's studio and if he doesn't pay Dave, he
doesn't get to.

"Oh."

He shoves the phone messages at Lance.  "Here.  Try to figure out
Dave's handwriting."

Lance deciphers several calls from the local station, quoting them
back to Chris.

"You gotta be kidding," Chris says, shaking his head.  But that's
only until he opens the first manila envelope.  It's got a contract
in it.  All the manila envelopes have contracts in them, except
one.  That's got fan mail forwarded from the radio station.

"A-are those from different places?" Lance asks shakily.

"Yeah.  And they all want us.  Rights to our song and to anything
else we do.  Fuck."

Lance swallows hard and feels a little sick.  "Oh, my."

Chris goes to the standard white envelopes.  His mouth crooks up at
the corner when he reads the rejection letter.  "Just in time, too. 
Remember I said I had a song at number four on the Australian
charts?  The place I send stuff to so I can get it played over
there said they don't want any more of it, 'cause it isn't
commercial enough."  He hands the letter to Lance.

Lance looks at it, reads it, but doesn't really take it in. 
"They're idiots."

"Yeah, well, if I'd got this before you came in with me and
recorded that song--"  Chris leaves it there.  He wouldn't have
given up.  Probably.   It would have been a huge blow though.

Lance looks at the contracts.  "About that.  I'm totally happy this
happened.  And you have no idea how much I want to do some of the
things those contracts suggest."  He looks up.  "If they find me,
it won't be just me who dies.  If you're with me, they'll kill you,
too."

Chris' face tightens.  He's never been good about joy.  It's not an
emotion he's real familiar with.  But for a second, he'd imagined
he almost knew what it might feel like.  "Yeah.  Was nice thinking
about it.  We can toss it all in a dumpster on the way back to
Dave's."

"No.  I have an idea."  Lance takes a deep breath and lets it out
slowly.  "I have to go to the cops.  I'll have to testify.  And
then we can have this.  Until then... well, we can either go ahead
and sign them and then we'll be associated.  Or we can just... use
my money to record everything we possibly can while I'm doing the
police thing.  Then, if I make it, yay.  If I don't, you'll have
something to sign those contracts on, and you can find someone
else.  Or go on solo."

"Cops might decide to do that witness protection thing and send you
off to be a janitor in some midwestern town with one traffic
light."

"I'm already *in* witness protection.  I mean, this is as far from
my life before as I can get."

"Yeah, right.  They'd have given you a job.  Or a family. 
Whatever."  A thought crosses Chris' mind.  "Unless you're saying
that's what you're running from -- that you got tracked down
there."

"No.  My family just got all tortured to death.  That's all."

Chris nods.  All.  That's all.  That's a helluva lot of all.  "You
wanna keep running, you can.  I'm not going to stop you."

"I don't want to."

"Okay."  He can't help smiling, just a little.  "We can do it any
way you want to do it.  Whatever's best for you."

"I think you need to be safe for as long as you can."

"Kid, I've been in danger from the day I was born and the 'doctor'
was a guy with a kitchen knife.  I don't need anything."

Lance shakes his head.  "You do.  Go, book us some studio time. 
I'm going to the cops.  Can I come to your place when I'm done?"

Chris shakes his head because he knows Lance won't be coming back
once the cops catch on.  But the kid's never let Chris tell him
anything, and he's not gonna start now.  "Yeah, sure.  I'll do
that.  See you then."

~~~~~

It's three days before Lance gets back to Chris's place.  After
four in the morning, he knocks very lightly at the boards.

When there's no answer, he slides inside.  "Chris?"

There's no one there.  It's just a junk-filled room.  But there's
a torn piece of paper jammed in the window sill.

Lance's heart jumps into his throat and he's nearly crying by the
time he picks up the paper.

There's three scrawled letters on it.  KDC.

For a moment, Lance doesn't get it and he's sure Chris has
abandoned him, then he does get it.  Initials.  They're initials. 
K for Kid, D for Dave, C for Chris.  Chris is telling him to go
talk to Dave.

Lance shivers and heads for Dave's.

Dave's eyes widen when Lance comes through the door.  "Hey, man. 
Didn't expect to see you."

"Hi.  Where's Chris?"  It's dawn and Lance is freezing.  He just
wants Chris.

"New York."

"N-New York?"

"Yeah.  Left real early this morning, couple of hours ago.  Record
company's wining and dining him.  He left a number and some cash in
case you came looking for him."

"Is he coming back?" Lance whispers.

"Man, he didn't think *you* were."

Lance sniffles.  "Oh.  Um.  I can't leave.  The city."  He wipes
his watering eyes.  "So, um.  I'm going to go, then.  I'll be...
I'll be around, if he comes back."  He nods.  "Um.  Is it okay if
I check in here sometimes, to see if he's back, maybe?"

"Yeah, sure.  He's probably in the air by now.  But, man," Dave
shakes his head, "You gotta call him right away.   He doesn't hear
from you, then he definitely won't come back."

"Call him where?"

Dave points him at the phone.  "Come back in a couple of hours and
call the number.  Ask for him.  Leave a message if you have to."

Lance leaves, and walks around the city, dazed.  He can't believe
Chris just left, that Chris didn't wait for him.  Lance would have
waited for Chris forever. 

He does a couple of tricks, because he feels too empty and he
doesn't know what to do.  He thinks Dave said something about cash,
but he can't remember.  All he can think about is that he's been
abandoned.

Eventually, some time after noon, Lance finds his feet taking him
back to Dave's.  Because Dave is his last connection to Chris.

Dave sees him and points him toward the phone again immediately.

Lance pulls out the number and dials carefully.

A woman answers.  "Uptown Music."

"Hello, is Chris Kirkpatrick available?"

"Mr. Kirkpatrick is in a meeting.  Can I take a message?"

"Yes.  Could you please tell him that Lance called, and he can call
me back at this number?"

"Certainly."  She gives the impression of not even listening to the
number, much less bothering to write down the message.

Lance clears his throat, feeling like sobbing.  "Um.  Could you
write down that the 'Kid' called, ma'am?"

"The Kid?  Please hold, sir."

Lance holds.

Someone taps him on the shoulder and hands him the pink message
slip.  Chris stands up immediately.  "Phone.  Where's the phone,
please?"

He's pointed in the correct direction and hits the line indicated
on the note.  "Kid?"

"Chris?"

"Kid!"  Chris pulls the door shut behind him.  "You got my message. 
You okay?  'm sorry I left, but damn.  I didn't think you were
coming back.  And 'all expenses paid' sounded a helluva lot better
than doing the usual."

"Chris," Lance sobs.  "You left, I didn't know you'd leave."

"Hey, hey," Chris says, crooning into the phone.  "I didn't know,
okay?  I waited.  I swear I waited.  But you didn't come back and
you didn't come back, and yeah.  I wimped out.  I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry, Chris, I'm sorry.  I was just afraid they got you."

"Yeah, well.  If you weren't coming back..."  Chris doesn't finish
that thought.

"Yeah."

"So what's the story?  You okay?  You coming out here?"

"I can't leave the city.  But they're going to arrest the people
tonight."

"That easy, huh?"  Chris doesn't believe it's that simple for a
moment.  "So I'm coming back then.  Did you figure out my message? 
You know these guys here wanna do our song right?  They've got
contracts and everything.  You want me to sign something?  They're
offering a decent advance and a record deal.  One definitely, with
an optional follow-up."  His contract with Lance gives him the
right to sign without asking; he just has to pay the kid if and
when there's any profit.  But this is about their future.

"Yes, that's fine.  If you think it's okay.  It turns out that they
have all sorts of evidence on these people, but no witness to
concretely tie them to the crimes.  And I miss you, too."

"I think I don't have the experience to tell the difference between
crap and a good deal.  As far as I can tell, though, it doesn't
completely suck."  It's one of the best, actually, especially if
you count that not only did no one flinch when he told him his
background, but instead they started talking about the Jewel
factor.

"My last name is Bass.  My first name is really James," Lance says.

"Jamie the Kid."

Lance laughs.  "It's my dad's name.  Was my dad's name."

"You wanna wait and get them to write up a contract with your real
name on it?"

"No.  But if they need to know it, now you've got it."

"Got it.  I'll be back as soon as everything's set up here.  You
got enough money there?  I'm not sure how much I left you."

"It doesn't matter.  I inherited all my parents'."

"Oh."  Chris digests this.  "You, ah, rich or something?"

"Um.  Comfortable."

"You even wanna do this then?  You can start living your life now. 
Get to know real people.  Finish school.  That kind of thing."

"I want you."

"You're insane, but I like you anyway."

"I feel safe with you."

"Insane all right."  Chris closes his eyes.  "Tell Dave where
you're staying.  Get a hotel room or something.  A good one.  I'm
trying to talk these guys into cutting Dave in for a part of the
deal.  Using him as a producer or something that'll get him a piece
of the pie.  I'll be back soon."

"I'm not... I'll be where we usually are, Chris.  I want to hide. 
When you're back, then we can do something better."

"Kid," Chris starts, because he doesn't like the idea of Lance cold
and frightened when he himself is going be spending the night in an
expensive hotel room.  But then he shakes his head.  "Listen, if
this all gets taken care of tonight -- and I don't know that it
will -- I can come back tomorrow.  But it could be a couple of
days."

"That's fine.  It's okay.  Chris.  Chris, it's okay, really."

"No," Chris says, suddenly decisive.  "I'll tell them these are my
terms and if they don't like it, I'm going home.  I'm gonna fly out
first thing tomorrow morning, contract or no contract."

"Chris... if you do it, do it for you."

"I don't give a damn about me.  Never have."

"But I do."

"See you tomorrow, kid," Chris says, and hangs up.  When he heads
back into the conference room, he's grinning the same maniacal grin
that's scared a couple of pimps into heading the other way.

Lance hangs up with a sigh.  "Thanks, Dave.  I'll pay for the
call."

"Already paid for."

Lance swallows hard.  "We're gonna be all famous and shit, Dave."

"So I hear, man.  Congratulations."

"Dave, I'm an underage whore.  I'm not sure I can handle being
famous."

Dave shakes his head.  "Best experience you can get for the music
business.  Trust me on that."

Lance laughs at that and says goodbye to Dave.  On the way back to
Chris's place, he buys milk and cereal and hot dogs.

Chris is exhausted when he gets back to the hotel room.  He's been
on a plane most of the day, which by itself is bad enough.  But
he's been in an endless meetings ever since, and it's two in the
morning and his plane leaves at six.

He doesn't think he's gonna sleep.  He sits on the bed and dials
Dave's number.

"Yo.  Dave."

"Hey, man.  The kid was here today.  Gave him your stuff."

"Yeah, thanks.  He called.  We talked.  I'm coming back tomorrow. 
Flight gets in around noon.  Tell him if you see him."

"Sure thing."

"Thanks, man.  You're the best."

"You know it."

He only closes his eyes for a minute, and then the phone's ringing
and there's someone knocking on the door and he's gotta go home.

~~~~

Lance lays low and waits for Chris to return.

The plane can't get there fast enough for Chris.  Even having slept
through most of the expensive non-stop flight, it still takes too
long.  He suffers through every delay of landing, taxiing and
disembarked.

Out of habit, he follows the signs marked for public
transportation, although he's got enough ready cash to get to
Dave's, his first destination.

He doesn't even think about taking a cab until the bus is already
on its way downtown.  In New York, they'd met him with a limo.

"Hey, Dave," Chris says when he comes in.  "Heard from the kid?" 
He puts the manila envelope that's the only luggage he had on the
way there or back in the slot where Dave sticks his mail.

"No, man.  Not since he left."

Chris sighs.  "Figured as much.  See you later."

"Later, man."

That leaves Chris headed back downtown to the last place he'd been
squatting, hoping the kid is there and that Chris isn't gonna have
to grab him off the street.

Lance is curled on his side, covered in the new blankets he'd
bought on his way back here the first time.  He'd wanted to
surprise Chris.

The day Chris'd spent in New York seems like a bizarre dream as he
makes his way through the abandoned building.

It's all just as rundown and cold and hopeless as he left it.

And the kid's there, too.  Still running away, still not letting
Chris make things better for him.

Lance hears someone come in, and hopes it's Chris.  He doesn't
move, though.

Chris sits down on the floor a short distance away from Lance, just
out of Lance's reach.  He's making it clear he's not an immediate
threat, while simultaneously keeping himself from getting hit.

Not that he thinks the kid has learned reactions like those.  But
Chris is cautious for a reason.

"Hey, kid."

Lance opens his eyes and looks at Chris.  "Hi, Chris."

"Hey.  Came back anyway."

"I see that.  I missed you."

"I wasn't gone that long.  You've been gone longer just 'cause you
felt like it."

"It was before I really knew you.  You never asked me to stay.  And
I missed you then, too."

"Yeah, well, you have a history of not wanting my help."

Lance feels tired, even though he hasn't done anything all day.  He
just looks at Chris and waits for... something.

"So I need to get some sleep.  You gonna let me take you some place
with real beds or am I sleeping here?"

"Let's go."  Lance sits up and carefully folds the new blankets
into his bag.

Chris waits for Lance and then leads the way out.  When they're out
on the street, he says, "They gave in, by the way.  On everything
I asked for.  Made me think I should've asked for more."

"There'll be renegotiations," Lance says with a shrug.

"If you say so.  We've got a date for you, me and Dave to re-record
the song in a local studio before the end of the week.  Along with
the other stuff we've got ready.  They're gonna release the single
and start marketing it as an album."

Lance bumps Chris lightly with his hip.  "Cool, huh?"

"Seriously cool.  They wanna move fast on this.  Apparently we're
getting word of mouth up and down the West Coast.  They wanna have
something out for people to buy as soon as possible."

Lance nods.  It's all abstract right now.  It doesn't seem real. 
The whole last year doesn't seem real.

"They called us the male Jewel.  So get used to everyone knowing." 
It's only ten blocks from a really good hotel to the worst part of
town.  Cities suck.  He heads in and tells the man at the desk that
he wants a room.

The man raises an eyebrow at that, especially when Chris pays cash,
but the man doesn't say anything.  A cheaper, mid-range decent
place woulda told them to get the hell out, that they didn't put up
with hooking and that they had to have a credit card.  The really
good hotels only care about money.

Lance follows Chris all the way to their room before asking,
"Everyone knowing we're whores?"

"That part they're gonna leave up to people's imaginations.  But
nobody's gonna be denying it either.  Probably better that way."

"Oh.  I'm underage.  I hope I don't end up with a freaking social
worker.  That'd suck."

Chris waves a hand.  "Piffle.  I mentioned that.  First words out
of their mouth were legal emancipation.  Seems you can't work the
hours they want unless you're legally an adult.  I said yes for
you, 'cause you don't do what you've done and stay a kid."

"No."  Lance looks around.  "There's a jacuzzi bath in there."  He
points at the bathroom.

"'No' as in what?"

"No, not a kid."

Chris relaxes.  "Yeah.  C'mon, let's check out the bathing
facilities."

Lance looks at the tub, then at Chris.  Then back at the tub.  "I
wanna take a bath."

"Go for it."

"You wanna take a bath with me?"

Chris hesitates.

Lance starts taking off his clothes.

Chris' instincts tell him to leave, that being naked is
vulnerability.  His exhaustion is pulling him toward the bed.  

But he takes off his coat and flings it at a chair anyway.

Lance starts filling the tub once he's naked.  He makes the water
a little hotter than perfect, because it'll cool down.  "You want
bubbles?" he asks, finding a little bottle of them on the side of
the tub.

"Whatever."

Lance dumps them in with a shrug.

Clothes off, Chris feels self-conscious in a way he hasn't for a
long time.  He didn't have time in New York to clean up, and he's
still a mess, with lines of dirt and grey swaths of skin to show
how not clean he is.  With a john, he wouldn't have cared 'cause
they were only there to get off and everybody knew it.  But this is
different.  Chris is afraid of different.

Lance turns off the taps.  He's glad of the sound of the heating
fan.  He hates it when it's too quiet.  "I feel awkward," he says
to the water.  "Like you're going to judge me 'cause of the bruises
or something."

"I don't give a damn," Chris says, getting in.  Lance's doubt puts
him back on familiar ground.  "I'm filthy and I'm doing something
I never have before just by being here with you."

Lance smiles and follows Chris into the bath.  It's huge.  More
than big enough for two people.  It's closer to round than
rectangular, too.

The hot water relaxes him.  Chris leans back and soaks.

Lance ends up against Chris's side, his cheek pressed to Chris's
shoulder.  He's nearly dozing, it's so nice in the bath.

Chris wraps his arm around the kid to keep him from sinking under
the water.  "I remember stuff like this from a long time ago. 
Affection.  Being held and it being a good thing."  They're dim
memories, but he's never forgotten them.

Lance slides his arms around Chris under the bubbles.  "Me, too. 
I remember feeling safe."

"Can't have been all that long for you."

"No.  But I thought it was gone for good."

"Yeah.  I can see that."

Lance touches Chris softly.  "You know, you're the only guy I ever
touched because I wanted to."

Chris smiles wryly.  "Yeah, well, you probably touched girls before
you ended up on the run.  Me, I'm bisexual by profession."

"No, I never touched a girl," Lance says.

He doesn't say he's sorry, 'cause sorry is meaningless and he
didn't have anything to do with Lance being on the street, only
with trying to get him off it.  He doesn't assure the kid that
he'll have as many girls and boys as he wants once they're famous
-- and Chris thinks they will be famous now, if only for five
minutes -- because Chris himself isn't sure what attraction feels
like or anything but a jaded disgust at the thought.

Instead, Chris squeezes the kid's shoulder.

Lance sighs softly.  "It's sort of funny.  I was still young enough
that I was planning to wait for marriage before all this started. 
And now," he snorts.  "Now I'm in the bath with a man wondering if
this is how it feels to be aroused and mean it."

He's so tired, he tells the truth.  "The last thing I want is you
coming onto me, kid."

"I'm not, really.  I'm just wondering."

"I don't know any better than you do."

"That's why I didn't ask you.  I'm just wondering.  And I think we
should go to bed now."

"Yeah, okay.  I'm about to pass out.  Haven't gotten much sleep
lately."  He surges up out of the tub like a whale surfacing.

Lance opens the drain and follows Chris out of the bath with a
yawn.  The towels are on a heated rack.  Lance likes the warmth. 
He wonders if the bed is as warm and soft as it looks.

Chris dries off and drops the towel in the basket provided for them
in the bathroom.  He goes back into the main room and looks at the
pile of his clothes.  He tries to keep them relatively clean,
because while smelling bad doesn't deter most johns, it does have
an effect on other people, like librarians and the like.  And his
clothes are stiff with cold sweat.

Lance follows Chris.  "Let's call the laundry and tell them to come
get our clothes," he suggests.

"Sounds like a good idea," Chris agrees.

Lance makes the call and puts their laundry out in the little bag
while Chris turns down the big, fluffy bed.

Chris isn't comfortable sleeping naked.  He doesn't sleep with
johns.  He's defenseless in his sleep and he knows it.  He only
sleeps in safe places.  Nakedness is an extra vulnerability.

But he gets in the bed anyway.

Lance crawls into the other side of the bed.  There's more than two
feet of space between them.  "Good night, Chris," Lance says, at a
loss.

"Night, kid."

Lance can't sleep.  But he stays silent, not wanting to keep Chris
awake.  There are so many thoughts swirling through his head that
he can't focus on any of them.  He doesn't even try.  He just
listens to Chris breathe and feels safe because he's close enough
to hear it.

Chris falls asleep quickly.  He's simply too tired to stay awake
any longer.

Lance sleeps eventually, but only in fits and starts.  He's awake
when Chris starts to stir.  He thinks of ordering breakfast and
realizes that he has no idea what Chris *likes* to eat.

Chris is exhausted, but still aware of the kid, who's tossing and
turning.  "What's wrong?" he asks in a sleep-drugged voice.

Lance whispers. "Can't sleep.  Shh, it's okay."  And resolves to
hold completely still.

Chris sighs.  "C'mere."

Lance slides against Chris's side.  "I'm sorry," he says miserably.

Chris throws an arm over Lance, anchoring him.  "Don't care.  I'm
just fucking tired."

Lance nods and pats Chris's arm softly.  "I know."

"So go t'sleep or get up."

Lance nods and hugs Chris's arm tight once more before getting out
of bed.  He tucks the blankets around Chris firmly.

Chris goes back to sleep.

Lance knows Chris won't sleep with someone looking at him.  He goes
to the bathroom and runs another bath, climbing into it and closing
his eyes in the dark.

When he hears a door closing, Chris wakes, fully conscious all at
once.  He can't see the door to the room from the bed.  The
bathroom door is closed.  He can't help himself.  He gets out of
bed and checks the door to the hall.  Firmly shut and locked.  He
checks the bathroom.  The kid's in the tub.

Lance blinks in the small amount of light filtering through the
doorway.  "Chris?"

"Kid."

"Yeah, shh.  Go back to sleep, Chris."  Lance wonders if Chris is
sleepwalking or something.

"Heard a door close," Chris explains.  He yawns.

"Just me."

"Good."  He fumbles with pants he's not wearing before pissing into
the toilet.

Lance smiles a little and closes his eyes again.  The water
whooshes around him, keeping him warm.

Chris staggers back to bed, now that he's sure it's safe.

Lance stays in the tub, exchanging the cooling water for warm three
times.  He's tired, but he can't sleep.  Besides, the jacuzzi is
comfortable.

When Chris wakes up again, he feels better.  Less like he'll pass
out or throw up if he moves his head too quickly.  He checks the
door to the outside again.  Still locked.

He heads to the bathroom.  Kid's still there.  "You been in there
this whole time?"

"Huh?" Lance asks, blinking in the harsh overhead light Chris
flipped on.  "Um, yeah?"

"You okay?"

"As far as I know, yeah."

"Good.  Whenever you're ready to get out, we can see about getting
our clothes back, eating, and talk about what I signed."

"Okay."  Lance opens the drain with his toes and stands up.  He
feels shaky, which probably isn't strange since he's been sitting
in hot water for hours.  "I'm all pruned."

Chris hands him a towel.

Lance dries off quickly and wraps the towel around his waist. 
"I'll look for the clothes," he offers and heads to the door.

Chris grabs a robe from the back of the bathroom door and pulls it
on.

Their clothes are outside the door, neatly folded in the laundry
bag.  Lance takes his and hands Chris the bag silently.

"Thanks."  Chris gets dressed and looks for the room service menu.

Dressed, Lance peeks out the drapes.  He feels like he's still
squatting, still somewhere he's not supposed to be.

"Bacon and eggs good for you?"

"Sure."

Chris picks up the phone and orders.  Food and coffee, and tries
not to look at the prices.  His brain knows that money isn't
something he needs to worry about anymore, not in the sense of
whether he can afford food or a place to live.  But it's a
hard-wired reaction to think about dollars and cents.

Lance says, "Can you ask for orange juice?"  He flinches then, like
he shouldn't be asking, which is stupid.  Beyond stupid.  He turns
away in confusion.  Behind him, Chris orders the juice.

"It's gonna take time," Chris says when he puts the receiver down. 
"To adjust.  The money they're giving us as an advance is more
money than I'd ever thought of having."

"But I had it.  I mean.  My family.  We had money.  I never even
*saw* anyone who lives the way I've lived, before."

"Never seen a homeless person, much less a whore?"

"Yeah."  Lance laughs.  "I'd *called* people whores.  It was a
classification of people in my school.  Basically, girls who had
sex."

"Yeah, well, you know better now."

"Yes."  Lance shakes the odd mood off.  "So, what did you sign?"

"Three record deal.  Two guaranteed with an option for anyone to
back out on the third one.  They can back out if profits don't hit
a certain amount, and we can back out if they don't offer us the
amount we want.  Fifty thousand dollar advance, two thousand up
front in cash, the rest in a check.  We re-record the song we
already did, plus three more so they can have a choice for what to
put on the flip-side.  We get Dave to produce for us, we stay here
as long as you can't leave, but they get to pick the studio.  If
Dave says he can't work with it though, we have an option to pick
another studio.  We start working on the record immediately after
that.  Touring to support the album, if and when you can leave the
state.  Percentage of gross, not percentage of profit."

Lance nods.  "Okay.  The, uh, the trial is next month.  I'll have
to fly to Mississippi for it.  After that, it's just appeals. 
Unless they get off.  Then I might as well jump in traffic, but the
cops think it'll be okay."  He looks around the motel room.  "Are
we going to live here now?"

"Dunno.  I was thinking of this as a temporary thing.  Get you and
me off the street then think about stuff.  Get a place close to the
studio we'll be using.  Nothing much."

"But I can live... we can live in the same place?"

Chris frowns at him.  "Yeah.  I assumed we would."

"Oh.  Thank God."

"Why?  What's wrong?"

"I didn't know if we would.  And I want to."

"Okay."

Lance looks at Chris.  "You know I love you, right?"

Chris looks back at him steadily.  "I've been afraid for a while
now that you thought you were."

"I do love you.  You're my family now, in my heart.  Whether I
wanted it or not.  Whether you wanted it or not."  Lance smiles
sadly.  "I can't change that.  I don't want to.  But I think you
have the right to know it.  And I won't jump you, either," he adds
with a more real smile.

"It doesn't bother me that you like me and you wanna stay close to
me.  I care about you, too, kid.  I'm worried that you're gonna
think you've fallen in love with me."

Lance shrugs.  "Could happen.  I don't know what would be so
terrible about it, but I'll do my best not to let on if I do, if
you want."

"No," Chris says fiercely.  "Don't lie to me.  Not ever.  Even
about that."

Lance looks at Chris helplessly.

"What?"

"I'll do my best," Lance whispers.  If omission is a lie to
Chris... Lance lies all the time, then.

Chris sighs.  "Just don't pretend, okay?  If you do, I'll deal with
it.  Somehow."

"I won't pretend," Lance promises.  "I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry.  It's not your fault I'm fucked up."

"Any more than it's your fault that I am."

"Yeah, well.  If you're thinking of falling in love with me, you're
better off than I am."

"Or maybe I'm just more dependent than you are."

Chris gives him a grimace.  "I'm not.  But you knew that."

Lance looks at Chris.  Chris looks back.  Lance smiles a little. 
"You realize that you made it, right?"

"Not in my bones.  Not yet."

"You realize that you wouldn't leave me in the street and you
forced me to stop hiding?  That you're keeping me safe and giving
me back a life?"

Chris sits down, shaking his head.  "Nah.  Not really.  I wanted to
do a lot more than what I did.  What I did was what you let me do,
no more and no less.  You saved yourself."

Lance sits next to Chris and leans his head on the other man's
shoulder.  "I was afraid to let you take care of me.  I don't want
you to get hurt."

Chris puts his arm around Lance.  It feels more natural every time
he does it.  "Doesn't matter.  Never has.  You wanna know why
people didn't hassle me much?  Because there's nothing more
dangerous than someone with nothing to lose.  Worst thing about the
record deal is that I'm gonna have something to lose."

"Oh."

"I knew what I was getting into when I called you over the first
day.  Not all of it, but that it could kill me.  That I knew."

Lance snuggles against Chris.  There's just no other word for it. 
"What do we do now?"

"Eat.  Check out the studio we'll be recording in.  Get a place to
live.  Get a bank account and deposit our check.  Set up some sort
of savings thing and put enough of it away that we don't have to go
back to the streets if this all falls through tomorrow.  Get a car
if we need it.  Clothes and food once we have a place."

"So.  Studio first, to see the neighborhood?  And then a car to
look at places.  Clothes.  Set up the accounts so we can actually
sign for a place.  Then look at apartments."

"Yep.  And any paperwork you need to for your family's stuff."

"It's done until after the trial."

Chris nods.  "You'll be fine until then.  I... I don't know about
afterward.  You might want to live differently than I'm planning
to.  I want to have everything we need, but by the standards you
were used to before here, I want to live poor.  They gave us a lot
of money, but even living cheaply, it's only a couple of years
unless we make more money after that."

"If we live on the money I inherited -- all the stock was
liquidated -- we never have to work again.  As long as we don't
spend more than $15,000 a year.  I'll be getting social security by
the time the money runs out."

"And you'll be okay with that?  Both living poor and having me
around leeching off you, if it comes to that?"

"Yes."

"Okay, then."  Chris strokes Lance's arm and doesn't let go.

Lance nods.  "I have a will.  If they kill me, you get the money."

"Practical.  I should do something like that now that I have
something someone would want."

~~~~

Lance lies on the bed in nothing but his robe for the second time
this week.  He has a tendency  to take baths that are far too hot
for his body to handle, and then end up feeling sick.  But it gives
him time to think.  Like the apartment.  He knows that this isn't
at all what Chris had in mind.  Too expensive, for one thing.  But
it's in a wonderful location, close to their studio and close to a
grocery store.  Lance convinced him eventually.  It's not
luxurious, after all.  Just a one-bedroom, but not an economy.

They have decent clothes now, more than a week's worth of them. 
They have decent food and they go out sometimes.  Not very often,
but a few times a month.  Now that the trial is over (and the
record company had been thrilled about that free publicity),
they're free to live as quietly as they want without hiding.  Lance
likes it.

Chris puts the phone down and comes goes to find Lance.  "Done
talking with them.  Seems they have some ideas about what we should
do now what you don't have to stay here."

"How surprising," Lance says dryly, playing with one of the tassels
on his pillow.  The first luxury buy he made was a chenille pillow
with tassels.  It makes him think of home.

"They want us to finish the album in New York.  With Dave, but they
want him to work on some other projects for them."  Dave's drawing
a salary now and living exactly the same way he had before.  It
amuses Chris.  "They're still working out that part of it with him,
but it's only a matter of time.  They'll put us up while we're in
New York, but I get the impression we'll be living in somebody's
spare room and not in the hotel they had me in last time.  And they
want to work out tour plans."

Lance nods and tries not to feel sick.  "We gonna dance?"

"To our stuff?" Chris laughs, just a little.  Humor comes easier to
him these days.  "Doubt it."

"Good."

"Doesn't mean that they might not encourage us to write stuff that
*can* be danced to, though."

"You write.  I just sing."

"Yeah, so?"

"So they'd be encouraging you, not us."

Chris' forehead wrinkles.  "I don't get it."

"With the writing.  Not encouraging me, because I don't write."

"I still don't get it.  You don't write, but it's still our
decision.  You and me."

"Well, when you put it that way."  Lance rolls over and looks at
Chris.  "Can we get a pet?"

"Dunno."

"What will we tour in?"

Chris shrugs.  "Haven't got that far.  Only really need you, me,
some sound equipment and a backup tape."

"Did you tell them not to book us in Mississippi?"

"No.  Didn't know it'd be a problem."

"I'll call."  Lance doesn't look at Chris as he adds, "I don't want
to see anyone I know."

"Okay."

Lance smiles at Chris.  "You know that you're way too nice to me,
right?"

"No, I don't know that."

"Well, you are."

Chris' mouth turns up at one corner.  "I like having you around. 
You're good for me."

"Chris, love, I hate to say this, but you are perilously close to
Mary Poppins.  Practically perfect in every way," Lance says.  His
tone is joking, but his eyes are serious.

"Maybe I just don't feel like spoiling your good impression of me
with the truth."

Lance smiles more.  "The best part is that we already know the
truth about each other."

Chris shakes his head.  "You know some nasty things about me, but
it's not all of the truth.  I'm no Mary Poppins, that's for sure."

"Do you really need to know *how* my family was tortured to know
about me?"

"No.  But I don't know if you went to Sunday School or where, or
whether you helped old ladies across the street as a Boy Scout or
pushed them in.  That kind of thing."

"But you know me, right?"

"I don't know.  Do I?"

"I think you do.  I thought you did."

"I know how you are now.  What kind of person you are now.  I think
I don't know a whole lot about how you used to be, and I think
maybe you're going to become more like you were once you start
realizing you're safe."

"That scares me."

"Becoming who you were?"

"You not knowing who I am."

"Why?"

"Because I don't know who I am either."

"Yeah."  Chris nods.  He recognizes the feeling.  "You feel kinda
hollow inside, like there's nothing there you recognize.  And you
don't know what to fill it up with, so you just keep on going and
living anyway."

Lance nods.  "But... I kinda fill it with you.  With this life and
you."

"Same here.  Filled it with music before."

"Me?" Lance asks.  He sits up on the bed and reaches out to Chris.

Chris comes over and sits down next to him.  "Yeah.  You didn't
notice?"

"No.  I mean, yes.  I mean," Lance snorts at himself.  "I mean I'd
noticed you paying attention to me, same as me to you.  But I
didn't expect you to carry me that close to the parts of you that
matter."

"You're here.  And I made the choice to let you in when I got
myself involved in your life back at the beginning."

Lance hugs Chris close.  He's become a lot more dependent on
physical touch than he used to be.  Personally, he considers it the
greatest example of his new free will.  "Thanks."

Chris wraps his arms around the kid, patting him on the back. 
"Yeah, well, I didn't do all that much.  You were damned and
determined to get by all by yourself."

"But I knew.  When it all got really bad, I knew I could come talk
to you.  And then I could go on.  Because you'd listen and care." 
Lance's nose itches and his eyes water.

"I do."

Lance is quiet for a while, listening to nothing.  "You know, it
really bothers me that I missed the funerals.  And I kind of hate
myself, because part of me is glad."

"To not have to go?"

"Yeah.  Not to have watched them get put in the ground."  Lance
sniffs.  "So, uh.  There, now you know more about me."

Chris grabs a handful of tissue from the bedside table.  "Here,
blow."  He watches Lance do that, then says, "Thank you for telling
me.  But, y'know, it doesn't matter to me.  Not really.  Only thing
that'd bother me is if you wanted to leave.  And even then I'd
deal."

"It hurts more than I ever imagined anything could to let myself
know that they're really gone.  That there's no way I could
possibly have made a mistake.  They're really dead, and from now
until forever, when I cry for my mother, she's not going... not
going to come.  And my father will never say he's proud of me
again.  And I keep thinking that maybe I'll wake up and it won't be
real.  But I never do.  And the only thing that makes it okay when
I think of that is that you're here, and I'm not alone."  Lance
lets out a ragged sob.  "So, no.  I'm never leaving."

Chris pulls Lance closer to him and lies down, Lance across his
chest,  "S'okay.  I get it.  My mom... when she died, I didn't
really get it.  She was the center of my world and then she was
cold and still and the sister I was supposed to have was dead, too,
and the guy with the knife was bugging out."

Lance shivers.  "I'm sorry."  He feels like he's strangling on
grief.

"S'okay.  I know you don't get it, but after a while it's all just
pain and then that round of pain's over and you're waiting for the
next time."

Lance tries to choke back the tears he can feel trying to get out. 
He fails, and it hurts.  Chris holds him, though, and after a while
it doesn't hurt so much.  After longer, it all goes numb.  And
Chris is still there.

"You're okay, kid.  It's all right.  I'm right here.  Not going
anywhere."

Chris doesn't know, or maybe he does, that a big part of what Lance
is crying for is Chris.  Chris's past and future.  For both of them
being so fucking broken, but still functioning.  Because sometimes
you just need your mother, and neither of them has one.  It feels
like a failure, to not be strong as Chris.  It feels like an
admission of guilt.

Chris lets Lance cry himself out.  Lance doesn't cry.  Neither of
them do.  The kid's still young enough though that he needs to. 
"Ssh, I got you.  S'okay."

"I'm sorry," Lance whispers, when he's too tired to cry any more. 
"I didn't mean to."

"Don't apologize.  You didn't do anything wrong and crying's good
for you."

Lance nods and closes his eyes.  He drifts to sleep, and when he
wakes up, Chris is gone.  The note he left says something about a
song idea.  Lance wanders aimlessly through the apartment for a
while before his eyes fall on Chris's guitar.  Chris taught him to
play, over the last eight months.  Lance starts playing.  It's all
crap at first, and then it's not.  He turns on the little recorder
and puts in a 90 minute tape, just for fun.  He plays and sometimes
sings until the tape ends.

The doorbell rings with a pizza delivery Chris must have ordered
before he left Dave's, which means he'll be home soon.  Lance goes
to wash the tears off his face.

When Chris comes in, there's a pleasant pepperoni aroma wafting
through the air and some music playing.  The tape's poor quality,
but good stuff.  "Hey.  What's this?  I like it.  It's good."

Lance looks up.  "It's, um.  It's me."  He hits stop and then play. 
There's no reason to be self-conscious.  Really.  He tries to
convince his nerves of that.  "While you were out, I just... played
for a while."

"I like it.  A lot.  We should use it.  Not sure if I like it with
guitar though.  Piano maybe."

Lance smiles a little.  "We don't have a piano."  He stands up and
puts pizza on plates.  "What d'you want to drink?"

"Get me a Coke.  And no, we don't have a piano.  But it doesn't
mean it can't be done with one.  Still good stuff."

"Yeah?"

"Definitely.  We can use it on the album."

Lance laughs.  "I guess we're both the writers after all."

Chris gives him an incredulous look.  He has a piece of pizza
stuffed in his mouth that he has to chew and swallow before he can
answer.  "That's really bothering you?  'Cause, y'know.  I never
thought you weren't a part of this."

Lance shrugs.  "Not really.  Okay, yeah, a little.  It just feels
unfair that you have to do all the real work, and I just show up
and sing."

"*Real* work?  Kid, the real work is what we do in the studio. 
Making up the lyrics to go with the music -- I've been doing that
for years.  You make it easier, 'cause I don't have to plan for
just my voice.  I can finally use the things that've been running
around in my head."

"That's cool."

"I've never thought you weren't helping.  Ever."

"I know *you* didn't."

"Ah."

Lance hugs Chris.  "Thanks for making dinner."

Chris grins at him.  "Aren't I the best?"

"You are," Lance says, smiling and serious at the same time.

Chris rolls his eyes.  "You're just easy to please."

"So?"

Chris pushes the pizza lid back so he can grab another piece.  "So
I love you, Lance."

Lance drops his pizza.  Onto his plate, luckily, but still.  "You,
uh.  You do, huh?  Well, I love you, too."  He nods and tries not
to ask what Chris means or anything.  "Fuck it."  He hugs Chris
tight from behind.  "I love you."

Chris closes his hand over Lance's arm.  "Yeah.  Kinda figured you
did.  Good to hear it, though."

Lance rests his head between Chris's shoulder blades.  "Damn good
to hear it.  And, like, am I allowed to say it as often as I think
it?"

"Yeah.  You are.  You're allowed do pretty much anything you want
to do."

Lance sniggers.  "Oh, yeah?"

"Why, what do you wanna do?"

"Lounge around nekkid and try to seduce you?"

Chris' eyes hood slightly.  "You can lounge around naked.  I'm not
stopping you.  I dunno about seduction."

"Eh.  Never mind.  Too cold for lounging anyway.  Maybe I just
wanna cuddle way closer at night."

"You can do that.  I don't mind."  Chris' hand strokes Lance's
forearm.  "If I was gonna... it'd be with you.  No question.  But
that means if I screw it up, it's gonna be with you, too."

"Not like we haven't both dealt with screw ups before.  We'd live. 
We'd probably even be able to laugh about it, eventually."  Lance
kisses behind Chris's ear.

Chris shivers involuntarily.  "Just plain screwing up isn't what
I'm worried about."

"What're you worried about?" Lance asks, and steals a bite of
Chris's pizza.

"You only sold it for a couple of months.  I've been doing it for
years.  Sex is me acting and doing whatever's necessary to get the
other person off.  I don't want to have sex with anybody."

"Six.  And don't have sex.  We'll find something else."

Chris raises his eyebrows.  "Not sure how you'll manage that, but
okay."

Lance coos, "Well, we could *make love*."

Chris swings around and punches him.

Lance flinches back, falling on his ass.  Chris steps toward him
and Lance scrambles away, fast.

Chris sighs and kneels down, then sits down because that's the
least threatening position he can take, hands on his knees. 
"Sorry.  Didn't mean to scare you.  Just... don't."

Lance stays pushes up against the wall and looks at Chris.  "What'd
I do?" he asks in a small voice.

Chris keeps his hands on his knees.  "I don't know.  It wasn't what
you said.  It was more the way you said it.  Making it a joke. 
Like calling it something else makes it better.  Like you want the
act."

Lance shivers.  "I thought calling it something else would make it
easier."  He blinks.  "I won't do it again."

"No.  It doesn't make it easier.  It makes it worse."  Chris clears
his throat.  "I... I guess I owe you more of the truth.  The worst
of it, the absolute worst wasn't the ones who left bruises or
blood.  The worst of it was the ones who wanted to make me feel
something.  To pretend they were making love to me."

Lance nods.  "I understand that."

"So, yeah.  Sorry."

"You don't have to be sorry."  Lance cautiously crawls toward
Chris.

Chris sits and waits for Lance to come to him.  "I scared you and
I hit you.  I'm sorry for that."

"I'm sorry, too."  Lance lays down in front of Chris with his head
on the other man's thigh.

Chris cautiously strokes Lance's hair.  "For something, or just
because?"

"For not thinking."

"You weren't doing it as long.  Didn't warp you as much."

"I should still have thought."

"S'okay."

"You forgive me?"

"Yeah."

"Thank you."

"No problem.  For you, anytime."

Lance lets out his breath on a long sigh and closes his eyes.

Chris hums the tune of Lance's song, already beginning to think of
words to accent it.

Lance happily listens to Chris.  He's holding close the sheer
presence of the other man, glad not to have lost him.

~~~~

The people who made the decisions, the powers that be, had other
plans for their tour.  No van with just Chris and Lance and a
backup tape.  No, they ended up with a fleet of busses, a band and
a small army of people just to pamper them, dress them, make them
up and get them from place to place.

And fans and publicity.

A music video.

An appearance on MTV.  TRL.  The Food Network.

They're famous.  They're wealthy.  Everyone knows who they are. 
They can't go home again.  Not to the streets, not that they'd want
to.  And not to the little place they'd been sharing while they
were recording, because they need bodyguards to keep people away
from them.

Chris looks out the window of the hotel and turns back to Lance. 
"Any ideas?"

"Gated community?" Lance suggests, looking up from the real estate
section of the paper.

"Yeah, I guess."

"Well.  What else?  A doorman building?"

"Yeah, there's that.  I'd kinda like to live in the city, but I
dunno."

"Well.  We can sign a six month lease in either place, I think. 
Maybe try the city first?"

"Yeah.  At least then it's easy to get things delivered.  Even if
we can't leave the place."

"Okay.  I'll make appointments with the agents, then."

"Okay."

Lance feels settled.  It's strange, with all the chaos and movement
in their lives.  Lance just feels like he's finally got his footing
back again.  It's a good feeling.

Chris turns away from the window and comes over to Lance.  Wrapping
his arms around Lance's waist, he says, "Thanks."

Lance drops the paper and holds Chris back.  "You're welcome."

Chris sighs and snuggles his chin against Lance.  Touching Lance
has become a comfort.  Lance is the one constant thing in all the
world.

Lance kisses Chris's forehead.  "Love you."

"Yeah.  Love you, too."

"I know.  It makes me happy.  Uber happy, even."

"This is why you're not the song writer."

"Because I'm a big, giant dork?"

"Nope.  Because you're not someone who weaves lyrical melodies that
haunt people's dreams," Chris says, quoting a reviewer.  It's an
in-joke.

Lance chuckles.  "My mystical elf," he teases.

"Mystical elf-god," Chris corrects him, an answering chuckle in his
own voice.

"But mine," Lance insists, happily possessive.

"Yeah."  Chris' voice softens.  As close as they've been, as much
support as they've drawn from each other throughout the hell,
purgatory and heaven of fame, they've still never had sex.  But
they're closer than most people who have.

Lance rubs his cheek against Chris's.  "Mmm.  I like the beard."

"Makes me look dangerous."

"Makes you look more grown up."

"Eh, I can't help that my elven heritage keeps me looking
unnaturally youthful."

"I know.  It's a burden you must bear," Lance says seriously.

Chris' sides shake with laughter.  "Yeah."

Lance laughs.

"At least, y'know, you ran into an elven prince who could sweep you
away to his enchanted kingdom."  Chris flicks his fingers out to
indicate the room around them, but never lets go of Lance.

Lance nods seriously.  "I'm incredibly lucky."

"Yeah, well, you deserved a little luck after everything you went
through before I found you."

"So do you."

"But I'm the elven prince.  I'm the one who brings you back to my
kingdom."

"You did.  You just had to build the kingdom yourself."

"See?  A kingdom, all for you."

"For us, right?"

"Us, okay."

"Us," Lance repeats firmly.

"Okay, okay, us."

Lance kisses Chris lightly.  "Good."

Chris kisses him back, not lightly.

Lance smiles and keeps on kissing Chris.  It's nice, intimate,
non-sexual.

Chris reaches out and brushes the corner of Lance's mouth with his
thumb.  "Thanks."

"What for?" Lance asks.

"Staying.  Not pushing.  Being you."

"You're welcome."

Chris smiles at him and finds a place to sit.

Lance follows Chris.  "What's up with you tonight?" he asks,
kneeling next to Chris.

"Counting my blessings.  Thinking how far I've come and where I'm
going next."

"Where *are* you going?"

"Going to live in a nice apartment in the city with you."

"Yes.  You are."

Chris gives Lance a curious look.  "Why?  Were you worried?"

"Not really.  Just a little.  Kinda.  Not with the rational part of
me."

Chris reaches out for Lance's hand.  "I'm not going anywhere
without you.  I want to be with you."

"Me too.  I mean I want to be with you, not myself."  Lance grins.

"So there you go."  Chris folds his hand around Lance's.  "Why're
you worrying now?  Think that it's all over 'cause the touring's
done?"

"A little.  But I know something new is starting.  Right?"

"True."

Lance smiles.  "It's our anniversary, you know.  From the day I
came back and you let me in."

"No.  Hadn't thought about it."

Lance nods.  "I didn't think of it until this morning.  It's the
youth shelter on 5th's annual shoe giveaway.  I'd come from there
when I came to you."

"They have a fifth annual shoe giveaway every year?" Chris teases.

"Jerk."  Lance mock growls.  "Brat.  Love."

"Yep."

Lance sighs and curls up on Chris.  "This is what I wanted."

Chris shifts himself to hold Lance, making Lance comfortable on top
of him.  "This?  Just this?"

"Being safe enough to be with you like this and have both of us
comfortable and not worried."

"You've been safe ever since you decided to go to the cops.  Being
comfortable's nice though."

"Being with you, and you feeling both those things too."

"Mmm."  Chris thinks about it.  "Not sure what safety is.  I don't
exactly feel safe now either.  Or getting into a security apartment
wouldn't be so important.  It's more like I know I can take care of
myself."

"You can.  And me too."

"As much as you'll let me."

"Do you want me to let you more?"

"Nah.  It's not important anymore.  Not as important.  The dangers
are different."

"Yeah."  Lance shudders.  "Like publicity dating."

Chris grins.  "We're like brothers, really."

"Please tell me you didn't tell them that?"

"I think I did.  At least once or twice.  But they didn't believe
me, so it's all right."

"Good.  Speaking of the court of public opinion, my ass now sells
for a hell of a lot more than it went for on the street.  Tabloids
say you can buy it for $15,000 on eBay.  Two hours."

Chris' eyes darken.  "Don't joke about that."

Lance doesn't meet Chris's eyes.  "I'm not joking.  I checked.  The
sale was there."

"Fuckers."

"I notified the moderators.  Seems it was the fifth time the
auction ran.  Four people already paid."

Chris looks grim.  "Wonder if they got some poor bastard to be you
to pay up."

Lance shrugs.  "I don't know."  He sighs.  "I might have to issue
a statement so stupid people won't do shit like that."

"Dunno that it'd help.  Sometimes I think we should just come right
out and tell everybody everything, but even then, I don't think
they'd believe us."

Lance carefully says, "We could tell them that we're involved."

"Well, yeah.  That'd be a part of 'everything'."

"That we were hookers?"

"Yep.  And what it's like and that no sane person would go back. 
That we lucked out and we're here now and we're never going back."

"Do you want to?"

"Go back?  No way in hell."

"Tell them, silly."

"Depends, I guess.  I don't know what the consequences would be. 
But I'm for telling the truth and let the consequences handle
themselves."

"Sounds good to me.  We'll have to ask the company, though.  Time
it, PR wise."

"Yeah.  I don't wanna lose your future."

"Are you gonna ditch me?  No?  Then I can't lose my future."

"Yeah, well.  I never had anything to lose.  You lost a lot.  I
wanna make sure you're okay."

"You're what I've got to lose now, Chris.  I love you.  I'm maybe
a little obsessed.  I'm your biggest fan.  You're everything.  I
just wanna make you happy.  Everything I do, do it for you.  All
that jazz.  Do you get me?"

Chris turns Lance's face up to him and strokes his eyebrows and the
smooth space above his eyes.  "No.  Not really.  You don't need to
be anybody's fan.  Or worry about losing me.  You and me.  We're
together."

"Yeah.  We are."  Lance lifts up slowly and kisses Chris.

Chris kisses him back.

Lance moans softly, and that's how he knows when to stop.  Chris
doesn't like the sound, and Lance tries to keep from making any
noise.  When he loses control of his voice, he knows it's time to
pull away and cool things down.

"Ssh." Chris says, holding Lance when Lance tries to pull away.  He
places little kisses on Lance's face.  "S'okay.  You don't have to
go."

Lance touches Chris's hands.  "Chris..."

"Yeah?"

"Chris, I need to stop now."  Lance smiles a little dazedly.  "I'm
sorry."  He just gets really turned on by Chris.  And while Chris
is all about the silent jerking off in the shower or wherever...
Lance isn't.  Doesn't.  His dick hates him for that, sometimes.

"About that..."  Chris' hand drops to Lance's chest and then his
waist.  "Maybe you could stay."

"Are you sure?" Lance whispers.

"Yeah.  For this and right now.  Have to see about more."

Lance nods and tilts his face back up to Chris's.

Chris strokes Lance's cheek and kisses him again.

Lance lets himself get lost in their touching.  He doesn't worry
about always thinking of where his hands are, or what sounds he's
making.  He doesn't worry about making absolutely certain not to go
too far.

Chris flows with what Lance wants to do, part of him watchful to
make sure that he isn't feeling pressured, isn't acting, isn't
faking his responses.  It's difficult.  It makes everything he does
feel stilted and clumsy.  But real.  At least he has that.

Lance finally sighs and just leans against Chris's chest, breathing
slow and deep.  "I feel so good."

"Yeah?  Just like that?"

"Yeah.  What just like that?"

"I thought maybe you'd want more.  And it'd be harder."

Lance rubs his nose against Chris's.  "Well, yeah, eventually more
would be something I want.  But I'm happy, Chris, with anything we
can have right now."

"I've been expecting you to want more for a while.  Ever since you
first asked.  Like this.  But you didn't do anything, and I figured
since it's been so long you'd want more."

"I have to be honest.  If you, right now, wanted to have sex, I
would be for that.  I would enjoy that, probably.  But only if you
*wanted* it, too."  Lance's lips twitch into a slight smile. 
"Besides.  I've been with a lot of men.  You're the only one worth
waiting for."

"You're the only one worth doing this with."  Chris rubs his hand
over Lance's back as he thinks.  "This is good.  I don't know about
sex.  Not right now.  But this is okay."

"Shh, don't worry about it."

"Last time I took you up on that, you didn't mention it again til
now."

"Were you ready for me to mention it before now?" Lance asks.

"This?  Yeah.  More?  No."

"Do you need me to ask sometimes?  I'm just afraid of pushing you
too fast."  Lance really is afraid.  He still remembers Chris's
fist landing in his stomach.

"If you ask for what you want and don't dress it up.  And you stop
when I need you to."

Lance asks, "And what happens if I say or do something wrong?"

Chris sucks in his breath, suddenly tense.  "I don't know.  Depends
on what it is and if I see it coming or it sneaks up on me.  And
it's gonna be a long time 'til I stop watching everything I do."

"I just ask because I thought I meant what I said when you hit me."

Chris doesn't relax.  "You thought saying making love instead of
having sex would make everything all better in my head?"

"No, I thought they were different things.  I didn't know it was a
bad thing."

"They're just words.  A lie."

"I didn't know, though.  I had no idea."

Chris nods.  "Yeah.  Landmines in my head.  Didn't know I was going
to do that until you said it like that.  I knew the mine was there
-- I just wasn't expecting you to step on it."

Lance takes a deep breath and blows it out noisily.  "But it'll
only ever be like that once, right?  I mean... you won't do more if
I do something accidentally?"

"Yeah.  You wouldn't say it again.  And if you did say it again,"
Chris shakes his head, "that one I know about."

"What if I did something else?"

Chris' hands touch lightly now.  Releasing their grasp so Lance can
pull away.  "I don't know."

"Would you ever do more than hit me once?"

"I wouldn't hit you more than that unless you tried to hold me down
or hit back.  I might leave or start acting."

"That's okay.  I can handle that, just... I don't want to get hit." 
Lance sighs.  "Besides, I'd always stop if you said something."

"I don't want to hit you.  I don't need to.  But I act before I
think.  Only way to survive."  Chris smiles, crooked and sad.

"I know, that's why it's okay."

Chris lets his hands settle gradually back on Lance, increasing
their pressure incrementally as Lance continues to refuse to bolt. 
"Sorry.  I want to say I trust you."  He shrugs.  In his bones,
below the level of conscious thought, he only trusts himself.

"I know, baby.  It's survival instinct."

Chris nods.

"Like when someone touches me wrong, how I just go still.  I
understand."

"Yeah."

"Yeah."

"Maybe you should tell me what you want," Chris suggests.  "And
what you want to do about it."

"I want to... have sex with you and have it be more than just
fucking.  More than that, though, I just want to be with you for
always."

"Yeah.  Kinda what I figured."  Chris looks at the ceiling, trying
to read the right answers from the stucco.  "I don't want you to go
anywhere.  But I don't know how I feel about sex.  I don't know sex
without faking it and I don't know how to like it either."

Lance shrugs.  "I'll deal.  It's not a problem very often, anyway."

Chris looks down.  "It's a problem?"

"Chris.  I mean it's not like I'm wandering around with a permanent
case of blue balls."

"It's a problem?" Chris repeats, because that wasn't an answer.

"No.  Bad phrasing."

"Lance.  Just tell me how it is.  The truth.  How do you feel, what
do you need.  Not just for the future, but right now."

"Right now I just need to know what to do.  I need you to tell me
what to do."

"Right this moment?  Just lie here and talk to me.  But, see, I'm
okay with more.  Or I can be.  I wanna know what more is, so I can
maybe not freak out when we do it."

Lance heaves a put-upon sigh.  "So.  Wanna teach me to jerk off?"

"W-what?"  Chris is completely surprised.

"Um?"

"Are you trying to tell me you don't know how to jerk off?"

"Theoretically, I do."  Lance focuses his eyes on the top button of
Chris's shirt.  "I've done it to other people."

"You've never jerked yourself off?"

"No."

Chris tries to rearrange Lance so he can look at him, but Lance
won't let himself be moved.  "You've put your hand around your dick
right?  And it felt good?"

"Only when I was pissing or something."

"Jesus."

Lance laughs, a little bitterly.  "It was a sin."

Chris snorts, because sin's something he's never understood.  He's
listened to enough sermons -- free food often comes with a price --
but he doesn't get how it's sin to survive, or how it's a sin to
take what little pleasure you can from life when you're only taking
it from yourself.

"I was raised Southern Baptist," Lance says, as if it explains
everything.

"Do you still care?"

"No, but I feel like I should."

"So're sure you wanna do this now?"

"Do what?  We're not doing anything but talking," Lance says,
looking up at Chris.  "Right?"

Chris stares back at him, serious and intent.  "I could be into
talking you through jerking yourself off."

"Are you sure?" Lance whispers.

"Yeah."

Lance smiles shyly.

Chris takes that as the answer it is.  "Okay.  Move up higher.  Lie
on your back, with your head on my shoulder."

Lance bites his lip and shifts.  He laughs.  "Jesus.  I'm so
nervous."

"Just you and me.  I'm not even gonna touch you.  You're gonna do
it all yourself."

Lance looks at Chris.  "If you think I'm not gonna be thinking of
you... maybe we shouldn't.  Because you're all I'm gonna think
about."

Chris shakes his head.  "No.  You can think about me all you want. 
I'm gonna be right and here and I'm gonna talk you through it --
I'm just not gonna do it for you."

Lance nods.  "And this won't hurt you?"

"No.  Don't think so.  The part that screws me up the most is
having to feel stuff I don't.  That includes getting hard.  If I
help you, you can concentrate on you.  You don't need me to feel
anything other than what I do already."

So Lance nods again and kisses Chris quickly.  He follows Chris's
directions, and comes all over his hand.  It's shockingly good. 
Much, much better than sex with Johns.  Even better than sex with
Chris was, when the guy hired them together.

Chris smiles down at Lance.  Lance is loose and happy and sated. 
He thinks maybe this is the first time he's ever felt good about
getting someone else off.


Epilogue:

It's months later before they have anything like sex, with both of
them involved and active and getting off together.

But, alone together in the stillness of their apartment, lit only
by sunlight streaming through tall windows on hardwood floors, both
of them are happy.  Happier than the moment when, lights
glittering, brilliance sparkling off of jewelry and the beautiful
people and the reflected glow of all the stars, three Grammys had
been awarded to the best new artist, best record and best song of
the year -- the first duet Chris and Lance had ever sung together,
by Thursday's Child.