Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2000 01:47:13 -0600
From: Lois Lane <loislane@marz.com>
Subject: Before They Were Rock Stars (1/1) M/M

Disclaimer: I don't know NSync personally, I don't know if they sleep with
other guys or each other, and I don't mean to imply that they do. I just
like to write about 'em doing fun stuff like that. Don't sue, ok? I'm poor.


*BEFORE THEY WERE ROCK STARS*
By Lois Lane


He was a scrawny kid when I first knew him, with a gap-toothed smile and
scorching blue eyes that regarded the world not as something he lived in,
but as something to conquer. He wasn't in Orlando for a day before we
crossed paths thanks to some mutual friends. He turned up where I usually
went to hang out after school, tagging along with a friend of mine who was
also a friend of his.

At first, I wasn't sure about the guy. He was hyper, a bundle of energy that
couldn't hold still, and intense about everything. He was a singer, Dale
told me, and had joined the Mouse Club cast a week or so before moving down
to Florida. Dale felt he had to act as tourguide, and part of his job he
said was to make sure this guy made some friends.

"Joe," he said, when he arrived at the Del Taco we frequented after classes
or, occasionally, during them. He gestured toward his companion, a tall and
remarkably skinny guy who smiled warily. "This is Josh."

I put out my hand, and he grasped it, firmly. At first I thought he might
have a few years on me - when I was thirteen I was pretty short, and
everyone towered over me - but up close I could see the youth in his face.
He couldn't have been much older, if not younger, than I was. "Hi," I said.

"Hey." Where I still sounded Brooklyn, he possessed a drawl I couldn't
place. Dale later told me it was Maryland, and I remembered my mother
telling me that my accent would probably fade with time. For a moment, I
felt compelled to assure Josh of the same, but didn't. "Nice to meet you."

Formalities over, Josh sat down at our booth and proceeded to inhale seven
tacos and a bean burrito, and I decided he was definitely cool. As the year
went on, and we hung out together just about every day, it amazed me that he
could eat so much and stay such a twig. Whereas my ass had started
approaching it's own zip code, according to my idiot brother.

Josh - he was known as JC on the Mouse Club, and it wasn't long before the
nickname caught on with our group and mutated into simply "C" when we felt
lazy - went to my high school along with Dale and a lot of the other
Mousers, and by junior year we considered each other close, if not best,
friends.

It sounds a little girly to call him my best friend but he was. It turned
out that he was a little older than me, so naturally I gravitated toward him
during every typical teenage boy crisis - and the not-so-typical ones. I
asked him about girls, and what to do if you liked them, and then what to do
if you didn't.

That problem came up when I was sixteen, and he was the first person I came
out to. He sat outside my house with the engine running in his 1990 Ford
Escort - why do I remember that - when I told my parents, and drove me to
the same Del Taco where we met, to sulk over milkshakes while my parents
tried to figure out where they went wrong.

He drove me back when they finally - mercifully - decided that they hadn't
gone wrong at all, and that I was the same kid they'd raised and I always
would be. Which is what JC had told me they'd do. That's when I figured out
that JC was almost usually always right, about everything.

Then the Mouse Club got cancelled, and one afternoon JC announced that he
was going to drive to Los Angeles and try to kickstart a music career. I
was, to say the least, a bit miffed.

"You're shitting me?" I asked, studying him, waiting for that lopsided grin
that would tell me he was only kidding and I could throw lettuce and packets
of hot sauce at him, for being an idiot. He didn't smile. He looked at the
other people in the restaurant with an expression I couldn't read, something
between sad and indifferent.

"You could come with me," he said, quietly, knowing the answer before I
could say it. I was not yet seventeen and still in school. He'd already
graduated, and his eighteenth birthday had passed. He was free to go, start
his life wherever he wanted, but there was no way I could go along. I was
stuck, left behind. I found myself missing him even though he was sitting in
front of me.

I rose, scowling. "Well, I'll see you around, then." I knew I was throwing a
fit, but I didn't care. It wasn't fair, that the one guy who really seemed
to comprehend me, who could look at me and know me for everything I was and
could be, was going away. I ignored his pleas for me to sit back down and
walked out of the Del Taco.

He left three days later, and that was the first time I was ever
heartbroken.

He was gone for almost two years. We sort of kept in touch. He sent me some
postcards, and then letters, and finally I got off my high horse and
answered them. We corresponded off and on while I finished high school,
turned eighteen and moved out of my parents' place. I couldn't help thinking
that these were milestones he should have been present for, in person, not
just in paper.

One night, sitting in my tiny apartment eating old Chinese food and watching
I Love Lucy reruns, someone knocked on my door. I opened it to a very damp,
very tired and very much despondent JC, holding a knapsack over his
shoulder. Words failed me, so I let him in. He was so wet he made squishy
noises when he walked.

As he dried off and changed clothes, he offered a Cliff Notes version of
what had made him come back. "You can't trust NOBODY, Joey," he raged,
wringing out his socks over the bathroom sink while I hovered in the
doorway. "The people in the Business - with a CAPITAL FUCKING B - will FUCK
YOU OVER if you're not careful."

"Geezus," I said, moving up to rub his bare shoulder, reassuringly. "Someone
burn you, C?"

He shrugged my hand off, and I retreated. He sighed and looked back at me.
"I'm sorry, Joe. Yeah... I got burned and... I just don't wanna talk about
it. I just wanna sleep. I been driving for, like, three days."

"Sure," I said. I fixed up the pull-out sofa for him, not mentioning that it
was actually where I'd been sleeping since I didn't actually own a bed. I
had a bedroom, but the only thing in it was a box of my Superman crap and
another box of CDs and tapes. I made a nest out of clothes and blankets and
slept on the floor, with the door closed, so he wouldn't know.

The next morning, we feasted on cornflakes and Cokes, and watched Sesame
Street in the living room. "I gotta figure out what I'm gonna do now," said
JC, spitting milk all over the place when he spoke. He snickered and covered
his mouth, and I laughed.

"God, eat much, Chasez?" I reached over and mopped his face with the hem of
my t-shirt, and he swatted my hand away. "Well... I could see if there's
anything going down at Universal." At the time, I worked as a werewolf, in
the Beetlejuice show. "You could be, like, a character or just work as a
server, or something."

"That'd be great, man. Thanks." JC slurped the rest of the milk from his
bowl. "Do you know if there's apartments to rent in this place?"

He was so transparent that I couldn't help but giggle. "Oh. Right, like
you're NOT going to stay here."

JC's eyes widened. "Really? You'd let me stay here?"

"Sure," I shrugged. "Half rent, half the other bills, all that shit. Why
not? It'll be cool. There's a bedroom, that's mine, and you can sleep out
here. Just warn me if you're bringin' any girls home 'cause I'll be sure to
NOT be here." I winked, and he flushed red. He was always easy, like that.

"Deal," he said, quietly. "Thanks, Joe. Really. I appreciate this, more than
you even know."

Of course, having JC living with me meant he eventually found out about my
sleeping arrangements one afternoon, when I wasn't around. I got home that
evening to the sound of grunting and curses coming from my bedroom, and
cautiously I crept up to the door, peeking inside. My jaw dropped, and I
barged in without thinking.

"What is this...?" I asked. JC jumped, startled, and whipped around to face
me. He offered a sheepish grin.

"Ta-daa," he said, meekly, waving his hand over a partially-constructed
futon in the middle of the room. "Supposed to be surprise but. Well.
Surprise."

"You dork." I pounced on him, putting him in a headlock that knocked us both
off-balance and onto the unsteady bed. "Ow!" I yelped. "Move your bony
little knee, you freak. I NEED that."

"YOU pushed me down!" he said, struggling out of my grasp and vaulting off
the futon. "You like it, though?"

I bounced a little, and the bed wobbled. I grinned up at him. "This is so
cool."

"Can't have you sleeping on the floor," he said. "I got a little money
saved, so. I went to Target and stocked up. Did you see the other stuff?"

He showed me around the apartment, that now looked more like someone
actually lived in it. Lamps, curtains, a small but nicer television, and a
goddamn throw-rug. Absolutely nothing matched, but somehow, it worked.
"Martha Stewart can go fuck herself," I muttered, happily. I ruffled JC's
hair. "Well done, young Jedi."

His cheeks pinked, and he batted at me. "Bah." He flopped down on the couch.
"How was your day?"

I sighed. "Lousy. Some kid threw ice cream at me. They kicked him out of the
park, but not before he could get it down the back of my shirt. Cold. Argh."
I sat beside him, kicking my legs up across his lap. He picked at the laces
on my sneakers. "But, good news - found you a job."

"Yeah?" JC tapped a beat on my shoe. "What?"

"It's not much," I said. "Server, Planet Hollywood. Seven bucks an hour, and
tips. So be your usual charming self and you could walk outta there with,
like, $20 a night." I chuckled and he thumped my leg. "Hey! Fine way to
treat me, your knight in shining armor."

"Some knight," he said, throwing my legs off of him and standing up. "But
thanks. When do they need me?"

"Tomorrow? Four to close?"

"No problem." He crossed the room and vanished into the bathroom, and I
heard the showed start. I settled back to watch TV, but it wasn't long
before I put it on mute. He was singing, the way he did every night when he
showered, old U2 songs and stuff he'd wrote but wouldn't admit it.

I put the TV on mute and closed my eyes to listen.

--

"I think we're gettin' a group together," said JC one night. We were
sprawled across the living room floor, deeply involved in a heated game of
Scrabble. "I was talkin' to this guy, Chris, and-"

"HA!" I shouted, cutting him off. "Check this out: verismilitude. Triple
fucking word score. I rock, you suck." I cackled with glee and counted up my
points. "Does your ass hurt?" I asked, batting my eyelashes at him. "From
the kicking?"

"I don't know HOW you do it," he moaned, frowning at his letters. "Like,
didn't you used to be the guy everyone called Dumb Joey in school?"

"It was all an act," I smirked. "I'm really the Whore of Mensa."

"Apparently." JC moved some of his letters around, then finally offered up a
word. "Using your V, I can make... 'vat'. Shit. That is pathetic."

"That's not pathetic. It's pitiful AND pathetic." I smiled. "So what's this
about a group?"

JC shrugged, still annoyed about losing. "It's nothing BIG or anything, but
this guy, Chris-"

"Chris who?" I busied myself arranging my new letters to spell out 'fist
fuck' and wondered just what degree of scarlet it would make JC turn if I
used it.

"Kirkpatrick," he replied. "Why?"

"I know that guy!" I looked up, surprised. "He works at Universal. He's,
like, this big, and he sings like Alvin and the Chipmunks. He's cool,
though," I added quickly. "He's starting a group?"

"Yeah. A musical group. Justin told me about it, that kid I was on Mouse
Club with? He's in it too."

"Need a fourth?" I gave him a cheesy grin. "I can sing."

"I know."

I blinked. "You know?"

 "I've heard you." He smiled, shyly. "In the shower. Elvis songs. Dude, you
have a *great* voice. Really, I don't know nobody with the range you have."

I wondered if I'd started blushing. "Wow. Thanks?"

"Don't sound so shocked. You can sing. And you know what? EVEN THOUGH you're
a lousy, stinking cheat at Scrabble, I'm going to tell Chris about you. We
could use a fourth voice, like a baritone or something."

"I do NOT cheat," I huffed. "But cool. Thanks. Sounds like fun, even if it,
you know, doesn't go nowhere."

"I think it might," said JC, with a shrug. "But we'll have to see." He
stood, suddenly, and stretched. "I want a Coke. You want anything?"

"Yeah." I hauled myself to my feet. "Don't worry about it, I'm gonna get
some of that pizza from yesterday."

I followed JC into the kitchen and was rummaging around in the fridge when
he poked me. "Joe?"

"What?"

"What's that?"

I took my head out of the refridgerator and saw JC pointing at something
hanging from the light fixture in the middle of the kitchen ceiling, over
our heads. I smiled. "That's mistletoe!" I said. "It's Christmas... baby,
please come home." I started singing, but JC talked over me.

"Where'd it come from?"

I stopped singing. "I hung it up. Thought it'd make the place more festive.
Didn't you see the wreath on the door?"

"No!" JC made a face. "Was I here?"

"No. You're NEVER here." I twirled my finger around my ear and laughed.
"You're always on Planet Chasez. Tell me, what color is the sky, there?"

He nudged me. "Stop it, you. Really, though. Mistletoe? In the kitchen?" His
eyes suddenly became narrow, mischevious. "Who you plannin' on kissing in
the kitchen, Josephine?"

I glowered. "Nobody in particular, Gidget."

"Gidget?!"

"Gidget." I snickered. "'Cause you're so perky!" I poked him in the nose.
"If you want, I'll take it down. If it's buggin' you that much."

"It's not bugging me." JC tilted his head to one side. "But I wonder, is it,
like, against the law not to kiss someone under the mistletoe? Because if it
is, I ain't about to break it and, like, get Santa all up in here readin' us
our rights, or something."

"JC, what kind of Christmas crack are you ON?" I closed the fridge door and
set the pizza box on the stove. "There's no law or nothin'. You don't have
to ki-" I caught myself before I said it. "You don't have to do nothing you
don't want to."

"Oh no," said JC, shaking his head. "I ain't fallin' for that. How do I know
you didn't hang that up in some kinda cahoots with Santa. Like a sting
operation or something?"

I rolled my eyes. "Oh, for the love of GOD," I said, and I grabbed JC's
shoulders, pulled him to me and planted a kiss directly on his lips. I
thought it was going to be quick, a way to shut him up, but it wasn't. The
moment our lips touched, I didn't want to pull away. I kept my mouth on his
for just a moment too long, long enough for him to start kissing me back.

My whole body felt like a localized hurricane, my head was complete
pandemonium. We stood there in the kitchen, my hands still on his shoulders
and his slowly coming up over my back. His lips parted slightly, and on
instinct I slipped my tongue between them, to meet his.

Good God, he was soft. Hugs and wrestling matches had only revealed his
angles, the sharp elbows and knees and bony hips that he liked to bump
against mine in jest or to make a point. But as my hands slid down across
his arms to his waist I felt how comfortable he was, mutable and yeilding. I
wanted to pull him around me like a blanket and get lost in it, in him.

I could taste the Snapple he'd been drinking, sugar-sweet on his tongue. I
licked at it, at his lips, drawing in his breath and letting it settle in my
lungs. I brought my hand up to the back of his neck, fingering the little
hairs their, tickling him so that he would laugh a little against my mouth,
sending shivers down my spine, little earthquakes.

Then as quickly as it had begun, the kiss ended. He backed away, and like a
deer caught in headlights he looked as if he wanted to bolt but couldn't. He
was rooted to the spot, staring at me as if he'd never seen me before. I bit
my lip, tangy with his flavor, and ducked my head, sheepishly.

"That was so not supposed to happen," I offered, quietly. "C, I-" I started
to apologise, but the idea made me frown. I was not sorry at all. I was
ecstatic. I wanted to scream out loud, dance in the streets, paint it on my
body and swing from the trees, and let everyone know that I'd kissed my best
friend, and it was *good*.

But the look on his face, the broken expression of a man whose body had
betrayed him, kept me quiet and shattered my thrill. I inhaled, sharply, as
my eyes suddenly became grainy and clouded. I was going to cry, and somehow,
that was too intimate a thing to share with someone I'd just kissed.

Wordlessly, I left the kitchen. I went into my room, closed the door and sat
down on the edge of the bed, staring at the floor, waiting.

He didn't follow, and that's when the tears finally came.

--

I heard the door open but didn't look up or open my eyes. I was still
sitting on my bed, head in my hands, fingers in my hair. My face had long
since dried, the embarrassment and frustration spent. I was calm, but tired,
when JC finally let himself quietly into my room, shutting the door behind
him.

"Joe?"

"Hey." I spoke to the floor.

"Joe, I'm sorry." The bed moved with his weight as he sat down, and I felt
his hand rubbing my back. "I'm really, really sorry I acted like that."

"Issok." I rubbed my eyes and opened them, but pretended to be fascinated by
carpet fibers. "Not your fault."

"Not yours, either." The rubbing stopped. "Joe, look at me."

I looked up and was surprised to see his eyes shrouded in pink, the
impossible blue they became when he was tired, sick or upset. "Hi," I said,
with a small smile.

JC smiled back. "Hi there."

"Look, C., I'm really fucking sorry. It was supposed to be a joke, not...
whatever."

"Joe, would you stop apologizing?" JC started massaging my back again.
"You're acting like you did something wrong. You didn't do anything wrong,
dude. All you did was kiss me."

"Yeah, but-"

"Takes two people to kiss, man," he said, softly. "I kissed you back. You
should know that, since you were there and all."

I stared at him. "That's right," I said, slowly. "You did. Did you... uh,
want to?"

He made a face. "No, you moron. What do you think?"

"Come on, man. No jokes, for a second." I didn't try to keep the nervous
edge out of my voice. "I mean, I didn't think you... you know."

"I didn't, really. At least for a while. Then when I was gone, in LA, I
messed around a little, with some people, and..." He sighed. "I figured out
a few things about myself that I wish to GOD I'd realised sooner. I don't
think I'd have left Orlando if I knew then what I know now." He snorted.
"Everything I needed to know, I learned too late. Maybe."

"What the hell are you talking about, man?" I poked him. "Speak English.
This is Dumb Joey, you're talking to. Use little words."

JC made a rude nose. "I SUCK at this shit, okay? I'm TRYING to say that I
hooked up with a guy in LA, he fucked me over, and I realised I had a good
thing back here. Of course, I didn't know that when I WAS here, because I
was under the mistaken impression that women were my thing. I still like
'em, but then again, I don't."

I gave him a look. "Are you gay, or what?"

"I'm..." JC paused, but only for a moment. "Yeah. I am. Gay. Yeah." He
exhaled. "I have never, ever said it out loud, before. I am the world's
worst gay man."

I snorted. "If your fashion sense has any bearing on it, yeah. You are. But
Christ, JC. How long were you going to sit on this little revelation before
you let someone in?"

"I guess however long it took me to find out if the one person I did let in
would actually, like, want to be." He shrugged. "I couldn't read you, Joe. I
mean, it's like a guy having a platonic girl friend. How's he supposed to
know if you'd be interested or not without, like, making an ass of himself?"

I nodded. "Okay, that's true. I guess I'm just a little... I mean, hello?!
World's biggest goddamn flirt on the PLANET, speaking, here." I slapped my
own chest and smirked. "I can't BELIEVE that of all people, you couldn't
read *me*."

"That is EXACTLY why I couldn't," he stated, firmly. "You flirt with
everything. Girls, guys, mailboxes, my shoes... Dude, I didn't want to,
like, act on your signals until I knew they were, you know, all about ME."

"Okay." I leaned forward, suddenly, with the intent to kiss him, and instead
our noses collided. "Aigh!" I said, reeling and rubbing my face. "That was,
like, not supposed to go like that."

JC laughed, his nose turning a delicate pink. "See what happens when you try
to be all 'smoove' and shit? Come here."

I obliged, as he took my face in his hands and brought his lips to mine,
carefully. This time, there was no hesitation, and his mouth opened almost
as soon as we connected. His tongue darted inside, sweeping across my teeth
and dancing gently with mine. I must have made a noise, or whimpered or
something, because he laughed, and I felt the same little tremors from
before.

JC lay backwards, pulling me down with him, squirming underneath me to find
a comfortable spot. With absolutely no grace at all we scooted toward the
middle of the bed, only vaguely aware of the creaks beneath us. The only
thing I was conscious of was his mouth, how warm and wet and absolutely
endless it was.

He shifted beneath me and I moved to allow him some freedom. I felt his
hands beneath my shirt, creeping across my back like hot little spiders,
ticking my spine with his fingers. They descended, then rose again, taking
my shirt with them, and we parted only long enough for him to pull it over
my head.

"Nice," he said, slipping his hands down my chest, tracing the spirals of
hair. For a second I wondered if he could feel how hard my heart was
beating, or the carbonation of my nerves. I knew he could feel me breathing
because I breathed inside him, all over him, sucking on his tongue and lower
lip. Did he know what he did to me? I could only hope I did half as much to
him.

With a growl I sat up and wrenched his shirt open, buttons flying
everywhere. He looked down and then back to me and laughed, breathlessly. "I
hope you can sew, boy," he muttered. "I liked that shirt."

"Shirt in the way." I didn't want to talk. "Gave its life. Good cause." I
wasted no more breath on speaking and dove in again, searching for his spicy
taste. I clutched at his hips with my knees, raining kisses down on his
mouth, his neck, the little dip just above his chest. I paused, tapping it
with my fingers. "What is this?" I asked.

He peered down at me. "What?"

"This." I swept my tongue over the area in question, and his body responded
like a heartbeat. "What's it called?"

"Don't... fucking... know." He closed his eyes and dropped his head back.
"But do that again."

I did, and JC put his hands against my shoulders in a gentle suggestion. I
paused over his heart, resting my ear against the frantic sound for a
moment. I closed my eyes and with my fingers traced little circles across
his chest, listening as his pulse quickened, then slowed.

Turning my head slightly, I placed a gentle kiss on his nipple and tried
hard not to laugh when his chest rumbled, his breath escaping in an almost
mournful cry. I lapped at it gently, his heartbeat buzzing against my lips.
"Joe..." His voice was barely audible, lost in a gasp. "Good God..."

"You ok, up there?" I asked, nibbling and grinning against his skin. He
responded with a squeak, and his hands went into my hair. I reached up to
grasp one of them, quickly, then sat up with a smile.

"Whaaa...?" His eyes flew open. "Why stop? Nooo."

I giggled. "Just a second! Geesh." I rolled off the bed, standing so I could
rid myself of the rest of my clothes. I kicked my jeans into the corner and
turned back toward the bed, and stopped. "Wow," I breathed.

"What?" JC had shut his eyes again, his chest heaving. He lay on the bed,
half-naked and magnificently damp with sweat, gnawing on his lower hip. His
track pants did nothing to hide his erection, so after procuring a condom
from the box in my dresser I vaulted back on the bed with a resounding thud.
I thought I felt something in the bedframe crack, but I didn't care.

"Hey there, remember me?" I snickered. I straddled him, below the knees, and
took hold of the waistband of his pants. With a quick tug I pulled them off,
and after some fancy maneuvering got them over his feet and tossed them
across the room. "Do you, like, wear shorts EVER?" I asked, giving his naked
crotch an appraising look.

"It's... a comfort thing..." he said, chuckling a little. I smirked and
moved up over him again, trailing little kisses along his ribs, following
the light, soft trail of fuzz from the center of his chest to his navel, and
below it. His hands were in my hair again, twisting it around his fingers. I
paused, and looked up at him.

"Let go of my ears, I know what I'm doing."

He let go, and I kept going, traveling further and further until he
twitched, suddenly, when my breath touched the hair at the base of his
belly. I knew he was close, with the first tentative lick along the
underside of his cock, he was so hard it had to hurt. It could be all over
for him the second I took him into my mouth, and as much as I wanted to, I
didn't want it to end so quickly.

Mercifully, apparently, neither did he. "Hold on, Joe," he yelped. "Wait.
Come here. Come up here, now." He tugged gently at my hair, and puzzled, I
obeyed, crawling up his body until our mouths met in a brief, but thorough,
kiss.

"What?" I asked, a little breathlessly. Our erections wrestled between us,
and the contact was making my heart beat that much faster, my breath that
much quicker. Someone had to do SOMETHING, or this was going to be one of
those First Times you couldn't recall without a blush of embarrassment.

"Just... got lonely, up here." He grinned. "You can... if you want to..."

"Okay..." I kissed him again, rested my forehead against his shoulder for a
moment, before sitting up. I reached across the bed for the nightstand,
where I kept a little bottle of Sylk - let him taunt me for having a
subscription to JANE Magazine ever again - that he usually pretended not to
see whenever he hung out in my room. I chucked it at his head, and he
laughed.

"I teased you so much about this," he said, tossing it back to me. "That and
that thing you think I don't know about, under your bed."

"That's it, buying a lock for my room." I looked down, then back at him with
what felt like a maniacal grin. I hunted down the condom, now tangled up in
the sheets, and tore it open, without looking away from him. His eyes
widened as I put it on him, slowly and methodically, like a sculptor molding
clay.

"Jesus..." he breathed. "Joe-"

Suddenly it was JC who made my heart thrash against my ribs and the air in
my throat escape in a single, guttural cry. He took over, shifting his body
and guiding my hips up and then down again, entering me slowly with
agonizing care. I didn't dare speak, I probably would have forgotten how to.
I could only breathe. But just barely.

JC spoke, but mainly in tongues, gibberish and sighs. He began to move,
stoically at first, with the natural rhythm of a dancer. Jesus H. Fucking
Christ, he moved inside me the same graceful way he crossed a stage, and I
felt airborne, weightless and free-falling out into nothing. When his
movement became more frantic, as he approached climax, I think I exited
Earth altogether.

And then, uncerimoniously, the bedframe snapped and collapsed the short
distance to the floor with a loud crash. JC stopped, and for a second I
thought he had the wind knocked out of him, but then he spoke. "Jesus," he
panted. "C-coitus i-interruptus, anyone?"

I barely heard him. "D-don't you fucking DARE stop..." I hissed.

He laughed, and all at once I came, with all the exploding lights and sirens
and fireworks and internal Armageddon that I thought sex was supposed to
have, but had never had before. I swear to fucking God, I saw stars.
Somewhere in the back of my mind I heard a shout, and felt a thousand
explosions, and knew JC had come too. I bent forward and somehow found his
mouth, and kissed the rest of his orgasm out of him.

After a moment, or hours, I didn't have a fucking clue, we became aware of
our sore muscles, sticky skin, and the bed's sorry state. JC looked at me,
eyes clear and sparkling, and brushed damp hair out of my eyes. He slipped
out of me, and I rolled over to nestle beside him. "Did we break the bed?"
he asked, in a soft, weary voice. I nodded, drawing designs in the sparse
hair on his chest.

"Yep," I said. I reached down and began to work the remnants of my climax
into his skin. "We broke it. Bet the neighbors downstairs are just thrilled
to get woke up at-" I peered at the clock on the nightstand. "3:12am."

JC flushed, sheepishly. "Meep." He rubbed his eyes and grimaced. "Good GOD,
I'm gonna hurt tomorrow."

"You?" I winked. "I'm thinking of calling in the understudy, 'cause I am so
not explaining why I can't do my usual backflip." I snorted. "Though half
the guys in the cast complain about it all the time, anyway."

JC laughed, laying back and looking at the ceiling. I rested my nose against
his shoulder, taking in his musky, slightly bitter scent, and the deodorant
that had yet to wear off. "Did you ever think we'd end up like this?" he
asked.

"Is this pillow talk?" I looked up and grinned, and clapped my hands. "Oooh.
Fun."

"Just answer the question, Blanche."

I frowned. "Honestly? No. 'Cause I thought you were straight, and that I was
an idiot for liking a straight guy."

"Heh. You're the only one who thought I was straight. My sister asked the
other day, When are you gonna bring home a boyfriend for me to torment?'" JC
rolled his eyes, then looked at me. "But you, know, *I* thought we might end
up like this."

"Really?"

"Well, maybe without the broken bed, though that's SO going to be a great
story, someday."

"Not one I'm going to, like, volunteer," I said. "At least not while sober."

"Well, who knows." JC put his arms around me. "Maybe someday we'll be on a
tour bus in middle-America, and we'll be some kick-ass singing group and
have hordes of fans all over the place, and we'll be sitting just like this
thinking back to our first time, and our broken bed."

"Pipe dreams," I sighed, burrowing against his chest. "Maybe we'll never get
out of Orlando."

"Maybe. But if I have to be stuck here - and don't stop me - I'm happy to be
stuck with you."

"God." I smacked him on the belly. "You're lucky I love you, man, because
nobody would let you get away with quoting Huey Lewis. You're hopelessly
uncool."

JC blinked at me. "Did I just hear you say you loved me?"

"No. You heard me say you're uncool. Don't go inventing stories."

"Heh." JC grinned. "You love me. Say it again. Come on."

I smiled. "Okay, fine - I love you. Happy?"

"Again!" He rolled onto his side, facing me. "One more time."

"IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou." I made a face. "This feels way one-sided."

JC kissed me, a slow, lazy kiss that I felt in my bones. "I -love- you, like
I always did and then some and then some more. Do you get it?"

"I get it." My voice vibrated a little. "And I am NOT going to get all
weepy-queeny on you. No. I'm not." I inhaled.

"Maybe I LIKE weepy queens?" he said, slyly.

"Shut up."

"Ah, no." JC nudged me with his elbow. "I like YOU, turkey." He rolled away
and stood, awkwardly. "I've gotta go get cleaned up or something, I feel
weird."

I snorted. "You're standing there trying to keep a used condom from falling
off," I said. "You LOOK weird."

He flipped me off. "See if YOU get any ever again." He waddled off to the
bathroom, and I lurched off the bed, kneeling beside it to inspect the
damage. One of the legs had cracked and buckled, but it wasn't anything that
couldn't be fixed.

"Hey!" JC shouted from the bathroom. "Think we should get a new bed?"

I smirked. "I'm thinking yeah. Neighbors would appreciate that."

"We can splurge. Just think about how we can freak out all the salesmen when
we test out matresses. The horror!"

I laughed. "Watch it end up on Before They Were Rock Stars, or something."

JC leaned into the room. "Hey, Rock Star. Come wash my back." He punctuated
his request with a leer before disappearing again, and I chuckled. Rising, I
started toward the bathroom, whistling tunelessly and kicking at our
clothes, strewn across the floor.

Pausing, I turned and looked back at the bed, the tangled sheets and the
broken leg, and smiled. I laughed. The scene was so ricidulous, yet so
comforting and one I knew I would never forget, not with time or with age.

Not a bad way to start the rest of my life, I thought, looking at the
collapsed bedframe. Not with a whimper, but a bang.

-- The End --

loislane@marz.com