Date: Thu, 08 May 2003 23:03:59 -0400
From: Writer Boy <writerboy69@hotmail.com>
Subject: rebound - part 37

Obligatory warnings and disclaimers:

1) If reading this is in any way illegal where you are or at your age, or
you don't want to read about male/male relationships, go away. You
shouldn't be here.

2) I don't know any of the celebrities in this story, and this story in no
way is meant to imply anything about their sexualities, personalities, or
anything else.  This is a work of pure fiction.

Questions and commentary can be sent to "writerboy69@hotmail.com". I enjoy
constructive criticism, praise, and rational discussion. I do not enjoy
flames, and will not tolerate them.

That said, we now continue.

***

"The way I see you?" I asked. "What does that mean?"

He sighed uncomfortably, the same way he had at the doctor's office, and
then stood up. I waited, unsure of whether I should stand, too, and watched
as Justin walked over to the garbage can and threw the rest of his ice
cream away. He stood with his back to me, looking down at his hands.

"Justin, if I'm hurting you," I began, wanting to ask him about it, wanting
to help. He turned, and his eyes were serious, searching for mine from
under the brim of his cap.  He'd taken his sunglasses off, but kept the
baseball cap on. It didn't really seem to matter, since there was no one
else at the ice cream stand and Tiny was right nearby, but someone could
pop up any time.

"You're not hurting me!" he said sharply. I frowned and he hurried back to
the table and sat down next to me. I wanted to reach out to him, but
couldn't, and he knew it. "I didn't want to talk about this here. I wanted
to wait until we could be better, until, I don't know, at least until we
could hold hands and hold each other and I could reassure you and
everything else I'm supposed to be doing. I wanted to wait until there was
a good time, until it was the right time to talk about this."

"Then we can wait," I said simply, licking my cone again. It was almost
gone.

"No," Justin said, shaking his head. "We can't wait anymore. I keep waiting
for the right time, and there never is one, and I don't want you to think
the whole time that you're doing something wrong, because you're not."

Every word out of his mouth seemed in direct disagreement with the previous
one. I felt completely lost, and hoped that he knew where this was going,
since I didn't. First he said I was hurting him, then I wasn't, then it
wasn't the right time to talk about it, and then there was no better
time. I wanted to settle him, to rest one of my hands over his as he
fidgeted in the middle of the table, the fingers on one hand drumming
absently while the other, balled into a fist, thumped out a counter beat. I
waited, seeing the tension in his jaw, the way he clenched his teeth and
pursed his lips and tried to look anywhere except at me.

"None of this makes sense to me," I said quietly. "I don't understand what
you're trying to tell me."

"I know," he sighed, turning to me. His mouth was turned down a little,
matching his drooping eyebrows, and his bottom lip was pushing out in that
pouty, almost trembling way that made me want to grab him and kiss him and
do whatever else was needed to cheer him up and bring his smile back. "None
of this is coming out the right way. I'm not saying this right, and I don't
want to make anything worse."

"Then stop and think about it, Justin," I said, as if it was the simplest
thing in the world.  Justin smiled at me finally, his eyebrows perking as
his face lit up.

"You're right," he said. "I'm making this a lot harder than it needs to be.
What I'm trying to say, and what I was trying to say in the doctor's office
this morning, it's just kind of hard. I don't want to upset you, but I just
keep making you think you're doing something wrong, and you're not. You're
doing exactly what you should. You comfort me, and you take care of me, and
you show me how you feel. It's not you that's the problem. It's me."

"This is starting to sound suspiciously like a breakup talk," I said
evenly.

"It's not," Justin said quickly, smiling. "It's just, I'm not sure why, I
mean, how do you see me? Don't think about it, just answer."

I finished chewing up a piece of my cone and swallowing.

"Well, you're cute, verging right on full out handsome," I said, grinning.
"You're bright, and funny, and smart. You're graceful, too, probably from
all that dancing.  You have a lot of talent, and also a lot of heart."

I paused, but his expression hadn't changed.

"OK, and you're great in bed," I added, shrugging.

"That's all?" he asked skeptically, and I wondered if I left anything out
that should have been there. "You only listed good things, and, you know,
I'm really close to perfect, but I'm not completely. Please, Chris, I want
you to be honest with me."

"If we get in a fight at an ice cream stand over this," I began, and he
held up a hand.

"We're not going to get in a fight, I promise," he said, shaking his head.
His face was very serious, and I could tell that this was something
important to him.  "Tell me the rest."

"OK," I said, resigned. "You're stubborn sometimes, and you don't always
react well when you don't get your way, but I do the same thing. It's not
like you're the only one.  You're also dealing with a lot of stress, and a
lot of issues with who you are and the way you are, but I think you're
doing a really good job with them. You just need a little extra support,
which isn't a bad thing."

"But that's what's bothering me," Justin said, looking down.

"Needing support?" I asked. "It's natural, Justin. People need help
sometimes. No one should have the shoulder all their burdens alone,
especially not when they have people around them who care about them and
want to help."

"It's not the needing support," he said, turning back to look at me. "It's,
I don't want you to think I'm too needy."

"I never said you were too needy," I said, wondering if he had overheard me
on the phone last night. I hadn't come right out and said he was needy, but
if you only caught parts of the conversation, it could have sounded like
it.

"I know," he said, shaking his head. "It's not something you said. I'm
worried about everything that's happened to us, because I need you. I know
you know it, and you're about to say it's ok, but I just, I feel like the
only time you see me is when I need you. I don't want you to always think
about that when you look at me. I don't want that to be the only reason you
love me, because you think I need someone and you're willing to volunteer."

I wasn't sure what to say to that, but Justin interpreted my silence as
confusion or something, and kept going.

"I mean, since we landed here, I feel like all I do is cry, and hang on
you," he said, shaking his head. "That's why I wanted to talk to Lance
myself this morning, and that's why I didn't want to tell you what was
wrong at the doctor's. I don't want to be weak in front of you so much. I
feel like I've just been, I don't know, this big drain or something, and
that's why I took you out to eat, and gave you that watch, and why I
thought maybe you wanted to come get ice cream. It's not just because I
love you, but because, I don't know, I want to balance things. I want to
give you something happy to think about when you think about me, not just
this little kid who latches onto you and cries and needs to be hugged and
comforted all the time."

Despite the setting, and the fact that anyone could walk by at any second,
Justin reached over and took my hand, holding it tightly for a second. I
could tell that saying all that had been hard for him, and I could read in
his eyes that he was afraid, honestly scared, that I really did see him
that way.

"I want you to need me, too," he said quietly, letting go of my hand. I
grabbed his hand before he could, and he looked at me, wide eyed.

"Hey," I said, a little sharp to get his attention. Self pity didn't look
good on him at all. "I do need you."

He looked at our hands, swallowing, and squeezed mine tightly before he let
go again. I understood. We needed to be close, but we were in public, and
pushing it already.

"Justin, I need you to keep me from withdrawing again," I said, shaking my
head. "I need you to be yourself, to smile and laugh and everything else,
because it reminds me that it's ok to be happy. I need you to not let me
dwell on things, or close myself off. You're changing me, Justin, and if
you can't see it, I don't know how to explain it, but I need you, too."

"It's not the same way I need you, though," he said, shaking his head.

"It doesn't have to be, babe," I said, shaking my head. He still looked
serious, but he was hanging on my words, and I wondered again what kind of
relationship he and JC had.  Justin wanted to be away from JC, to be a
different person, then was he worried about me thinking he was too needy
because JC thought he was? "Being equals in a relationship doesn't mean we
have to feel the same things at the same time. That's not what it's all
about. It doesn't mean we have to agree on everything, especially since God
knows you and I don't. It's about the way we treat each other and the way
we see each other, and I don't see you as weak. Maybe you need to lean on
me sometimes, but you're strong in so many other ways, and you're there
when I need to lean on you."

Justin swallowed, looking at his hands again. When he looked up at me, he
was still a little unsettled, but his face was smoothing out. He still
seemed a little troubled, though.

"What's wrong?" I asked, waiting.

"This was all really stupid, wasn't it?" he asked, fidgeting. His hands
were tapping out a rhythm on the tabletop again. "This was just some stupid
little kid thing that was bothering me and it wasn't bothering you at all."

"It doesn't matter," I said, shaking my head. "It wasn't stupid if it was
bothering you.  Equals, Justin, like I just said. If anything is upsetting
either of us, then we listen to each other, and that's that. Now, do you
want to go home?"

"Yeah, I do," he answered, smiling finally.

Justin surprised me by asking Tiny if he would mind driving, and then
climbing into the back of the car with me. As I worried about him not
wearing a seatbelt and whether or not Tiny had signed one of those
agreements (I assumed he had, since Justin didn't care), Justin slid across
the seat and nuzzled against me, laying his head on my shoulder and
wrapping his arms around me. I wondered if he needed anything, but he
seemed only to want me to hold him close. As we drove away I wrapped my
arms around him, and paid close attention as he pointed things out, his
lips right up near my ear, almost kissing me as he whispered.

We were stuck in the lunch hour rush, so our path through the city was
extremely slow, and I realized that Justin had a story about every single
place we went past. That was the spot where he had gotten the first tank of
gas in his car the day he bought it. Over there was a restaurant where he
and Joey had lunch the day before Kelly went into labor, and in that store
he'd spent an entire afternoon trying to convince Lance to buy an outfit
that Justin thought was perfect for him and Lance thought was just a little
bit too flashy. In the end Justin had lost the argument, but ended up
buying the outfit for himself and letting Lance borrow it when his
girlfriend complemented it on Justin. Justin was trying to show me his
world again, trying to help me feel connected to his background and the
people he knew and loved, and I was doing my best to pay attention when his
phone rang.

Justin sighed as we both looked at his hip.

"Maybe I shouldn't answer," he said, rolling his eyes.

"It could be important," I said, even though I didn't want him to answer
it, either. It could be a harmless business call, but it seemed extremely
likely that it was, instead, so sort of horrible news, or maybe a call from
his mother. Wait, weren't those the same thing?

"You're probably right," Justin sighed, pulling the phone off of his belt.
He glanced at the screen and his eyes bulged, his face going pale. Damn, I
was right. "It's JC."

I tensed a little, almost as a reflex, and felt Justin tense as well. I
reached for his hand, wanting to ask if he was ok, and if he wanted to talk
to JC, but Justin was already opening the phone. I guess he was fine.

"Hello?" he asked cautiously, looking out the car window. "It's, uh, nice
to talk to you, too. Yeah, Chris is with me. We're kind of stuck in
traffic. We're moving, but it's really slow. Yeah, it's just like that
time, actually. I forgot about that."

Justin laughed, and I could just hear the faintest sound of JC's voice as
he reminded Justin of some long ago stuck in traffic story that the two of
them had shared. If his smile was any indication, the conversation wasn't
bothering him any, but I had to guess since he was looking away from me. I
shifted, moving away from him a little, not wanting to intrude, and his
head snapped toward me. I don't know what he saw in my face, but he reached
out and took my hand, holding it to his chest.

"No, we were at the doctor's office," Justin said. He focused on me again,
his eyes narrowing. "Was there something you needed? No, no, I'm not mad
you called.  Chris and I were just, you know, in the middle of something,
that's all. We're, well, um, maybe twenty minutes? Yeah, ok. That would be
fine, I guess. OK. OK, sure, I'll tell him. Yeah.  Bye, JC."

Justin clicked the phone closed and snapped it back onto his belt, one
handed, because he was still holding my hand with his free one. He raised
it to his mouth and kissed the back of my hand, watching me, and my eyes
met his over my knuckles. He kept lightly kissing my hand, waiting for me
to speak, but I was waiting for him. It wasn't exactly jealousy that I felt
when Justin got along with JC, when they talked and he was ok.  Instead it
was just that sense that they connected on entirely different levels, that
there was an entire relationship there that I wasn't part of and couldn't
hope to be. I wasn't envious. I just wasn't included.

"Justin, what are you doing?" I asked finally as I felt the soft press of
his mouth on my hand again. Justin's lips, always soft, had started out a
little dry, but now there was just a little hint of wetness creeping
through as he turned my hand lightly to the left and the right, kissing it
over and over. He was still watching me, but he was smiling now.

"Reassuring you," he answered. I blushed, but he kept kissing my hand,
turning it now and gently rolling my fingers open so that he could nuzzle
my palm. I felt a shiver go through me as nerve endings I didn't even
realize I had melted under his lips. "When I talk to JC, I'm still thinking
about you."

"Justin," I sighed, unsure of what to say. He blew lightly across my palm,
and I shivered again, my fingers curling involuntarily as his mouth kept
them from closing.

"You don't have to say anything," he said, still watching me. "I know how
you feel, and it's ok. I'd be worried about us if you didn't feel that way,
at least a little."

I pulled my hand away from him and caressed the side of his face with it,
letting his chin rest in my palm as he nuzzled against me. My fingers slid
along the ridge of his cheekbone, tracing his contours. He closed his eyes,
and I ran my thumb over his eyebrow and around the edge of his eyelid. I
smoothed it back across his temple and into his hair, and he kept his eyes
closed, leaning into me, trusting me completely as I trailed along the top
edge of his ear and then around to his earlobe. He sighed, and then those
bright blue eyes slowly, languidly opened and fixed on my green ones as he
took my hand again and held it between both of his.

"JC wants to talk," Justin said carefully. I gave a little nodding shrug
sort of gesture.

"Are you going to meet him somewhere?" I asked. "I can take a cab back to
Joey's, or I can wait in the car or something."

"No," Justin said, shaking his head. "I wouldn't make you do that, not with
my friends.  There are already too many places where I can't take you for
me to invent more. You misunderstood me, though. He wants to talk to both
of us."

"Why?" I asked, surprised. "What does he want to talk to us about?"

"I have no idea," Justin answered, shrugging. "He's going to meet us at
Joey's though, so I guess we'll find out soon."

We were holding hands as the car pulled up at Joey's, and sure enough there
was an extra car by the garage. I remembered JC's Jaguar from Johnny's
house yesterday, and mentally compared it in my head to my Jetta, which
Michelle and Pete referred to as my lunchbox. I blinked, reminding myself
that I needed to stop comparing the two of us, since Justin allegedly
wasn't. As I followed him out of the car, though, listening to him tell
Tiny that we wouldn't need him for the rest of the day, I wondered if
Justin really was telling the truth when he said that he didn't weigh JC
and I against each other. How could he not? Wasn't it part of human nature?
How could he look back and forth between JC and I and not run down our
differences?

We walked into the house, nodding to the bodyguard on duty, and I wondered
where everyone else would be, or if we should just wander the house looking
for them. Kitchen?  It was just past midday, and Bri would have eaten
already. Pool? Maybe JC and Joey, because Bri would be down for her
nap. They could be in the rec room watching television or something, but it
was hard to make a guess. Lance's car was gone, so at least we wouldn't be
dealing with a rehash of the morning or spending a tense afternoon dancing
around each other and pretending nothing was wrong. Instead we could spend
a tense afternoon dancing around JC, as soon as we could figure out where
he was.

"Do you know where JC and Joey are?" Justin asked the bodyguard. God was I
stupid.  Either that, or just nervous, and not thinking straight. Justin
was still holding my hand, and I tried to focus on that.

"They're out back," he said, gesturing. "Joey has some kind of new toy or
something."

Justin and I looked at each other, trying to figure out what it could be
now. These guys played on a whole different level from normal people. As we
approached the backyard I could hear Joey and JC arguing about something,
not angrily. JC was reading directions of some sort, and trying to explain
to Joey that he was doing something wrong, while Joey was insisting that it
was right, and that he knew exactly what he was doing.

"This is such a bad idea," JC said, resigned to something. We had gone out
one of the side doors, and were walking around the house, enjoying the
sunshine and the breeze.

"Look, it's going to work," Joey said excitedly. "Come get behind this with
me."

Justin and I looked at each other, baffled, and both jumped as we heard a
loud bang.

"Was that an explosion?" I blurted as the two of us charged around the side
of the house, our feet clattering over the tiles in the walkway.

Obviously Kelly had to be at work for the day, because there's no way this
would have happened if she had been home. The patio furniture was all
pushed off to the sides of the main area, hastily moved to clear a
space. In the center was a large black scorch mark, and tiny black pieces
of smoking paper were floating down to the ground.  There were pieces of
varying sizes all over the patio, mixed in with tiny pieces of metal and
plastic and other stuff I couldn't identify. On the far right side of the
patio the big rectangular table was turned up on its side, and as Justin
and I tried to take in the whole scene Joey and JC's faces, eyes wide,
appeared above it as their fingers curled over the top, both of their
mouths hanging open as they stared at the scorch mark. They looked so much
like Calvin and Hobbes, or Bart and Milhouse, that I almost burst out
laughing.  Beside me, Justin was equally speechless.

"I told you that was wrong," JC said, waving a piece of paper at Joey. Joey
was about to say something but caught Justin and I out of the corner of his
eye, and nudged JC, standing. JC stood with him, both of them smiling
slightly at us.

"Uh, hi guys," Joey said, as if this was perfectly normal. "What's going
on?"

"Maybe we should ask you the same question," I said carefully, waving a
falling piece of ash away from me.

"What the hell are you guys doing?" Justin blurted, using his free hand to
brush a piece of burning paper off of his shoulder.

"None of this was my fault," JC said quickly, holding up that paper again.
"I told him he wasn't following the directions."

JC was dressed pretty casually today, in jeans and a plain sleeveless top,
but did he always have to have his arms out like that? Did he have some
kind of aversion to covering himself, or did he just enjoy showing off his
tanned, round shoulders in the sunshine? I fought with an urge to roll my
own sleeves up, and again with the impulse to stop comparing myself to
him. I tried to think about what Michelle had said, about how it was kind
of all in my head, but there really didn't seem to be a way to stop it. JC
was just so damned perfect, and in my head all my own flaws were just
emphasized when you stood me next to someone so flawless.

"Where's Bri?" I asked, hoping she wasn't witnessing this. I didn't know
for sure what this was, but generally children and explosions were a bad
combination.

"She's at my mother's for the day," Joey said, surveying the damage as he
walked over to Justin and I. JC followed, his eyes darting back and forth
between the scorched wreckage and the instruction sheet in his hand. He was
wearing a pair of sandals, and I realized that he had been almost every
time I'd seen him. His feet were tanned, too, and also appeared to be
flawless. No hairy hobbit toes or ugly fungal nails or anything, damn
it. "See, I bought this rocket kit last time I was at the store, because I
thought she'd like it. You know, I thought it would be kind of cool. Kelly
didn't think it was, you know, age appropriate or something."

"I'd like to point out that it wasn't just Kelly," JC said, holding up his
free hand. "There's an age limit on the box, and it has big red letters
that say 'Adult Supervision Required'."

"And yet, nobody's here supervising you," Justin said, snickering.

"Anyway," Joey interjected firmly, throwing a mock scowl at JC and then
another at Justin. "I thought that since Kelly wasn't here, and JC came
over, and I just kinda really wanted to play with it."

He was looking down at his shoes like a little kid, very similar to the way
Bri had looked yesterday night when she knocked over a plant in the hallway
with the ball she wasn't supposed to be playing with in the house.

"I told him to follow the directions," JC said, mirroring Joey's posture.

"And what?" I asked, looking back and forth between the two of them. "I'm
not going to yell at you. It's your house. Burn it to the ground if you
want to."

Justin snickered as JC and Joey both looked up at me.

"I'm gonna go look for something to clean this up with," Joey said,
giggling as well as he walked into the house. JC, Justin, and I all looked
at each other awkwardly for a second before JC turned and started folding
the instructions back up.

"I guess Joey won't be needing these anymore," he said, chuckling.

"It didn't really sound like he was using them, anyway," Justin said,
glancing at me. We waited for JC to say something, since he was the one who
had called and asked to talk to us, but instead he started putting the
furniture back.

"Let me help with that," I said, taking the other end of a small table from
him. Joey had enough patio furniture to seat a banquet, so I knew that this
would keep us going for a while, and wondered how the two of them had moved
it all. The fact that much of it was laying on its side in the grass
implied that they had just kind of shoved it all out of the way in their
zeal to play with Joey's new toy. I bet most of the zeal came from Joey's
end.

"Thanks," JC said, meeting my eyes over the tabletop as Justin reached for
a pair of chairs and followed us toward the end of the patio. I had a vague
idea of where everything went. "Why don't you guys, um, do you want to sit
down?"

"Sure," Justin said, looking at me. I nodded, and took the other chair from
him as JC walked back to grab another one. Justin and I sat at the table,
watching JC walk back, carrying the chair with both hands rather than just
scraping it across the patio.

"You said on the phone that you were at the doctor's this morning," JC
said, sitting down. "Are you both ok?"

"It was for my hand," Justin said, glancing down at it.

"Can I see it?" JC asked, holding out his hand. "Chris told me about it on
the phone."

Justin stretched his hand out, and JC took it, turning it over as Justin
opened his fingers. I watched quietly as JC looked at the stitching, his
mouth pursing a little.

"Does it hurt?" he asked, glancing up at Justin. I remembered the way
Justin had played with my hand in the car, and suddenly seeing the two of
them like that just seemed to intimate, too close. I couldn't think of
anything to do to stop them, though, without sounding like a totally
jealous bitch, and maybe JC was just being a concerned friend.

"Not anymore, but it did," Justin said, pulling his hand away. "It hurt a
lot when I did it. I had to go to the hospital and everything."

"You've always been touchy about your hands," JC said, nodding. "Are you
ok?"

"Yeah," Justin said, looking away. He smiled at me, and reached down to
take my hand under the table. "Chris took care of me."

"I'm glad," JC said, smiling at me. "You've always needed someone to take
care of you.  I'm glad you found Chris, and that you're happy."

Neither of us really knew how to answer that, but Justin gave it a try.

"Is that why you wanted to talk to us?" he asked, cocking his head to the
side. He squeezed my hand tightly. "I mean, I think it's great that you're
happy for us, but, I don't know."

Justin's voice trailed off.

"I'm sorry," JC said quickly. "I didn't mean to confuse you. I told you,
Justin, I really am happy that you're happy. I never wanted to cause you
any pain, but I know that I did."

Justin swallowed, and JC looked away, his face a little strained. This was
getting more and more uncomfortable, but without knowing where he was going
I didn't know how to head it off.

"There's no point in getting back into that again," Justin said, still
holding my hand. His voice was shaking a little, and he leaned into
me. "You did hurt me. You know you did, and nothing will change that."

"I know," JC said, looking down.

When he looked up at us again, his eyes looked a little watery, and I
wondered if he was going to burst into tears and beg Justin to take him
back. I don't know where the thought came from, but as soon as it popped
into my head I realized that I didn't want it to be true. I'd just started
to admit to myself that I needed Justin, and I didn't want JC to swoop in
now, not while our relationship was still vulnerable. I looked at JC,
waiting, mentally pleading with him to please give Justin and I this
chance. Please, JC, please let him go. I could tell he was struggling, and
beside me Justin was trembling a little, too. There was so much emotion
left between them, so much just under the surface, and I prayed that I
wasn't about to get swept away in it.

"I'm with Chris now," Justin said. "And I'm happy with him. I love him,
JC."

JC nodded.

"I know," he said again. "I can see the way you look at him, because it's
the way you used to look at me. I know that I fucked up, that everything
that happened between us is my fault, and I know that I can't take that
away. I never meant to do that to you, and I did mean it when I said I
wanted you to be happy. If you're happy with Chris, then I want what's best
for you, and that's all."

"So you came over to apologize?" Justin said. "You already have, JC, and
it's not going to change anything. I'm not going to take you back."

"That's not what I'm asking you to do," he said quickly. I mentally
breathed a sigh of relief. "I didn't come over to ask you to take me
back. I came over because I've been doing a lot of thinking over the past
few days, and especially last night.  That's why I wanted to talk to you
today."

"You asked to talk to both of us," I pointed out, finally jumping in.

"It was something you said that really got me thinking last night," he
said, nodding at me.  "One of the things you told me yesterday."

"What did you say to JC?" Justin asked me, surprised.

"He said that you wanted us to still be friends," JC said, and I nodded. "I
mean, I know you said it, too, but Chris pointed out how happy we were
yesterday, and how well we were getting along, and it got me thinking. I do
miss you, and yesterday, well, even if it wasn't the way things used to be,
yesterday was nice."

"Yeah, it was," Justin agreed. He smiled at me, and I mentally
congratulated myself.  Talking to JC had been a smart move after all, if it
was responsible for getting him over here and talking to Justin again.

"And that's why I want you to come back home," JC said, giving us a small
smile. "I want you to move back into our house, and Chris to come with
you."

***

To be continued.