Boys Just Wanna Have Fun
Anger begins with folly and
ends with regret.
“Lance?”
“Yeah?”
“No bull-fighting this time. Okay?”
Lance sighed forlornly. JC tried not to let that make him feel bad. He needed to be firm, to remain vigilant, otherwise Lance would think he wasn’t paying attention, and the next thing JC knew, there would be rock-climbing gear all over the bus, and informational pamphlets about hang-gliding spilling out of Lance’s bunk. JC would find himself tripping out of the lounge, bungee cords tangled around his ankles. Sometimes, Lance’s risk-taking activities meant as much danger for those around him as for himself.
“JC, I told you, Danielle made me do that. I didn’t mean to.” He shrugged. “It just kinda…happened.” Lance sounded sincere enough, JC thought, but he was looking right at JC, eyes big and wide, “trust me, baby” written all over his face. JC wasn’t buying it.
“Right. You accidentally
fought a bull when you guys were in
Lance’s sigh was more exasperated this time, less full of hurt feelings. It made JC feel better, really. He didn’t want Lance to be hurt. That was the whole point. He continued packing, pretending that Lance wasn’t glaring at him over his neat stack of tee-shirts. He didn’t want to start what promised to be a great trip off on the wrong foot, but he wanted to be clear. Lance’s thrill-seeking behavior was not going to enliven this vacation, not if JC had anything to say about it.
It was a spur of the moment thing,
this
Since Diane seemed to encourage Lance’s adventuresome side
instead of trying to curb it, JC was happy to leave family behind. Between security and the rest of the guys,
maybe they could prevail upon Lance to keep the death-defying feats to a
minimum while they were relaxing in the sun.
Although Chris and Justin and Joey actually tended to egg him on,
agreeing that, yes, cliff-diving off
JC suspected that oftentimes Lance allowed people that were possibly not completely sane to influence him. However, the two of them had hashed out both the bullfight and JC’s issues with Lance’s addiction to adrenalin more than once, and they were making progress. That Lance pretty much considered JC to be a paranoid scaredy-cat and JC thought Lance was an insane freak heedless of both his own safety and JC’s feelings, was actually an improvement of sorts.
JC smiled sweetly at Lance as he mentally calculated how many pairs of underwear he might need for a five day vacation. Ten seemed like a good, round number. He’d probably spend most of the time in his bathing suit, or naked, anyway.
Lance smiled back at him and leaned
over the open suitcases on the bed to kiss JC reassuringly. “JC.
It’s all good. I have no plans to
fight any bulls in
“Okay.”
*****
After three days of non-stop fun in
the sun, JC was ready for a nap. In a
room with air-conditioning and without sand. He wasn’t sure he would ever get all the sand
out of his various cracks and crevices, no matter how much time he spent in the
shower. It brought back fond memories of
that one time in
JC woke up to the sound of hysterical laughter echoing in the hotel hallway. Justin’s incredibly annoying donkey-bray was interwoven with Chris’s maniacal hooting. JC closed his eyes again optimistically, but to no avail. The sound penetrated deep into his consciousness, preventing the slow drift back to sleep that he wanted.
The door banged open and Chris fell into the room. JC opened his eyes indignantly. If Lance had been indiscriminately passing out their room key to any yahoo who asked for it, JC was going to have to explain to him in no uncertain terms just how wrong that was.
“Wake up, Chasez. Wait until you hear what your boyfriend did today.” While the temptation to close his eyes again was almost overwhelming, JC knew the rocking motion caused by Chris jumping on the bed would be worse with his eyes shut, so he fixed Chris with what he hoped was an intimidating glare instead. Not very succesfully, though, if Chris’s snort of laughter was any indication.
“Right. So, Lance. He went parasailing. Can you believe that? He was so high up in the air, I could hardly see the crazy fucker.” Chris’s voice was vibrating with excitement. “The boat had to go extra fast to get him up that far, too. It was so damn cool! Never in a million years would I do that! Never!”
Chris shuddered, the idea of being high up in the stratosphere tethered at the end of a rope attached to a small, speeding boat piloted by crazy, possibly drunk people apparently enough to actually shut him up for a second. A brief second, because he started right back up again, bouncing the bed at a tempo that kept time with the pounding behind JC’s right eye.
“I think he paid extra to get them to go real fast, and then Joey had to pay them again to make them go slow again so Lance could get back down.” Chris shook his head like he was torn between admiration and horror. JC knew the feeling. “Crazy fucker, that Bass. He was at least three miles up in the air,” Chris crowed.
Even taking into account Chris’s propensity toward hyperbole, JC figured that Lance had been pretty damn high up in the fucking air. His lips tightened as Chris babbled on, his eyes bright with delight. He catapulted off the bed, careening around the room in some kind of demented interpretive dance that JC assumed was supposed to represent Lance’s incredible parasailing prowess. Before JC could annihilate him with a few well-chosen words, which he hadn’t thought of yet, the door opened again.
It was Justin. “Where’d you go? I thought you were right behind me, asshole.” He tugged at Chris’s arm without any noticeable effect. A lesser man would have flown across the room from the momentum of Chris’s hopping around, but Justin just held on with both hands as he dragged Chris toward the door. “I’m hungry. Let’s go eat something before dinner. And stop bothering JC.”
JC shot Justin a grateful look as he watched him pull a still-dancing Chris out into the hallway. “Lance and Joe are still at the beach bar,” he tossed over his shoulder as he hauled Chris away with him.
“Hey, get your hands off my ass, Timberlake, you perv,” JC heard as their voices faded away in the distance.
JC took a deep breath. He didn’t know if he was glad he had stayed behind to nap, or not. On the one hand, he hadn’t had to watch Lance parasail ten miles above the safety of the beach. On the other hand, he hadn’t been there to prevent all that dare-devilry in the first place. Of course, the idea that he could exercise any kind of restraining influence over Lance’s behavior was…wait, that was it! Restraints! Why hadn’t he thought of that before?
Fifteen minutes later, he was startled out of a delightful daydream featuring Lance and silk scarves in a variety of patterns and colors. JC was momentarily grateful for the interruption, because in his head, he was having some difficulty getting the knots tied exactly the way he wanted them, and Lance was trying to tell him how to do it right, thus ruining his sexy vibe. Just as he was envisioning wrapping a particularly bright fuchsia scarf around Lance’s mouth to gag him, the man himself came into room, Joey hard on his heels.
JC blushed as Joey backed out the door, his hands held up in front of him as if to ward off something frightening. “Uh, I’ll catch you later, man.” He gave Lance a quick thumbs up and a “way to go, dude,” before hurrying down the hall, yelling for Chris and Justin to come hear what that freak Chasez was getting up to now.
Closing the door on Joey’s chortles, Lance turned around and eyed JC appreciatively. JC felt heat creep up his body as Lance’s gaze traveled from his feet, planted flat on the bed, to his thighs, spread wide as he held his balls in one hand and his fast-deflating dick in the other. JC’s breath caught in his throat as a slow smile spread across Lance’s face.
*****
JC shook off his red silk boxers, the ones around his left ankle, flinging them across the room. His black boxer-briefs were still tied around his right ankle, the knot proving to be too much for him to deal with in his present state. Lance was taking a shower, the bastard, leaving JC to disentangle himself as best he could. At least Lance had released him from the pink thong that had held his wrists together behind his back before he disappeared into the bathroom.
JC flopped back onto the pillows, too worn out to worry about still being practically hog-tied. When Lance got out of the shower, maybe JC could prevail upon his good nature and convince him to unite the last of the restraints. As JC started to drift off into a comfortable, sated doze, he marveled at how Lance had so deftly turned the tables on him. He shivered as he recollected the gleam in Lance’s eyes when JC said something about tying him to the bed to keep him from performing any more intrepid stunts. How JC had ended up on his stomach, his feet tied to the bed frame with his own boxers and his hands bound securely behind him with the pink thong that he was sure no one even knew he owned, was beyond him. He smiled. Lance was a very special boyfriend.
*****
Justin came barging in again while Lance was down in the hotel gift shop, stocking up on aloe for his perpetually sunburned cheeks, plus candy. JC hoped he looked for scarves while he was down there, too. JC himself was ready to go shopping for new underwear, because he didn’t think he could wear his black boxer-briefs ever again, not after what Lance had done with them. JC flushed warm with the memory of Lance’s hands on him, gripping his hips, while he came helplessly against the mattress, hands secured at the small of his back. He still wasn’t sure how Lance had managed to tie that many knots in the thick, black cloth.
Justin looked around, his eyes lighting on the discarded underwear flung haphazardly around the room. He opened his mouth to speak, seemingly thought better of it, and closed it again. He stared at JC, taking in his unclothed state. “I don’t want to know, do I?”
JC shook his head. “Probably not,” he agreed. He had already been thinking about tossing out some of his previously worn underwear, and buying all new. This might be as good a time as any to start doing that on a regular basis. There was something gross about digging around in his suitcase and not being able to tell the clean underwear from the dirty. The various styles and colors currently decorating the hotel room were definitely dirty. Or at least well-used. Uneasily, JC eyed the gray briefs hanging from the bedside lamp, the ones that Lance had used to clean JC off with before he had smiled and disappeared into the bathroom.
“Where’s Lance? You guys want to go get dinner soon? I’m starving, man.”
“Gift shop.”
Justin shook his head admiringly. “You should have seen him this afternoon, C. I really think he’s completely fearless. It was awesome. I mean, there were a lot of people parasailing, but you know Lance, man, he does shit like that with flair. He’s got style, you know?”
JC did know, and part of him was sorry that he had missed seeing Lance’s performance this afternoon. It must have been something pretty special to have impressed Justin this much. JC narrowed his eyes, suddenly wondering just exactly how much more special than Chris had already described things it had been. He eyed Justin speculatively, considering how hard it would be to get information out of him. Maybe Lance had done something so spectacularly stupid that he had sworn the other guys to secrecy. It wouldn’t be the first time. Maybe the hot sex this afternoon had been an attempt at distraction. If so, it had been highly successful, JC had to admit.
He rubbed absently at the red chafe marks on his right wrist. The skin burned where he touched it, and he remembered pulling on the thong binding his wrists, fingers spread in mute appeal. His voice shook a little as he demanded, “Justin. What did he do?”
Justin caved instantly. “He let go.” He clapped a hand over his mouth and looked at JC with wild eyes.
“Of what?” JC was puzzled.
“Of the line. He unhooked…shit. Joey’s gonna kill me.” He groaned as he sank down onto the edge of the bed, his head in his hands.
JC stood stock-still in the center of the room, clutching underwear to his chest. The enormity of what Justin had let slip was enough to take his breath away. Gradually, however, Justin’s last words penetrated the red haze swirling around in his brain. “Joey?”
“He made me promise not to tell you. He knew you’d have a cow, man.” Justin clutched his curls despairingly. “I am so dead.”
JC ignored Justin whining about his impending messy and painful death at Joey’s hands. Joey wouldn’t really do it, more was the pity. He needed to get dressed before Lance came back from the gift shop. There was no way they were having the discussion Lance’s reckless behavior deserved while JC was naked. This was a discussion that required clothing.
“Get out.” JC stuffed the underwear he was holding into the trash can beside the desk.
Justin raised his head. “What?”
“Get. Out.” He picked up the phone and punched in some numbers. “Lonnie, it’s JC, man. Who can you send to the store for me? Wait, what? I need some underwear. Why? But…okay, man, whatever.”
He hung up impatiently, then went back over to the trash and fished out the cleanest of his boxers. He looked up, squinting at Justin. “You still here?” He picked up the phone again and dialed some more numbers. “Joey? Yeah, J’s in here, telling me all about the afternoon at the beach. Sounds pretty wild.” He held the phone away from his ear as Joey squawked loudly. “Whatever, dude.”
He hung up and looked back at Justin who was staring at him in betrayed indignation.
“You suck,” he snapped as he left the room, quickly looking both ways as he slunk out into the hallway.
JC glared at his underwear. Lance had a lot to answer for.
*****
When Lance got back from the gift shop, JC was waiting for him, armed with the knowledge that Lance was even more of a psycho than JC had previously suspected. It occurred to him that Justin may have been exaggerating things a bit, but he dismissed that possibility pretty damn quick. JC knew his Lance, and unfortunately, untying himself from the boat so that he could drift freely above the Gulf sounded just exactly like the sort of thing he would do. He liked his heroics unfettered. While Justin’s version of events didn’t quite jive with Chris’s account, JC had no doubt that the truth was a hair-raising combo of the two.
Lance strolled in, looking calm and refreshed. Well, who wouldn’t look good after a big ol’ hit of adrenalin, followed by a celebratory beer with Joey and then incredibly hot sex where they got to be all toppy and bossy? JC could appreciate Lance’s needs, really he could, but he himself didn’t need to risk his life in order to get hard, he got all the adrenalin he required from performing, thank you very much. He didn’t see why Lance couldn’t do the same.
Lance tossed a giant bag of M&M’s at him. “Here, I got you a deal- they were cheaper than the ones in the mini-bar.” Momentarily distracted, JC wondered how much cheaper. Then, shaking himself, he returned his focus to the matter at hand.
“So. Tell me about your afternoon. Did you have fun?” He kept his voice deceptively calm. Lance was totally lulled into a false sense of security.
“Oh, babe, it was so cool. Just amazing. It was kinda like flying, only….” Too late, Lance sensed the trap. “I mean, it was okay. I told the boat guys to go real slow. I was probably only about ten feet in the air.” He blinked innocently at JC. JC pinned him with his best glare. Lance shut up, then said airily, “When are we meeting the guys for dinner?”
“I don’t know.” JC flapped a hand dismissively. “Seriously. Did you enjoy yourself?”
“Why, JC?” Why do you want to know, if it’s just going to upset you?” Lance abandoned the innocent act and looked kind of pissed off. JC didn’t care.
“Because I want to know just how stupid you are,” he replied flatly.
Lance went perfectly still. Neither of them said anything for a minute, then JC bit out, “I hate this.”
Lance watched JC from across the room, arms folded across his chest. “What do you hate, JC?”
“I hate never knowing what you’re going to do next. Worrying about you, feeling like this. It’s too hard.” There was an icy feeling in his chest as he looked at Lance.
“Then stop it.” Lance sounded as exasperated as JC felt about having this same argument yet again.
“I can’t!” JC shot at him. “You keep doing things!”
“So what!? It’s my fucking life, JC. My life. I can do whatever I want to with it.” Lance scowled at JC. “I can.”
“Your life? Don’t I have anything to do with it?” The icy sensation in JC’s chest was spreading, creeping down, making his finger tingle. He thought maybe he was having a heart attack.
“Yes, of course you do.” Lance snapped impatiently. He turned away, staring at the dreadful painting of a garishly colored sombrero on the wall next to JC’s head.
“You don’t act like you think so,” JC accused.
“Why, because I don’t let your fear control me? Why the hell should I, JC?” Lance’s eyes flashed with anger. He started pacing between the bed and the desk. It was a small space, which probably frustrated his need for action.
“It’s not fear, it’s common sense!” JC yelled. “Man, I don’t know why you can’t see that!”
“I have plenty of common sense, JC!” Lance shouted back at him. “God! You make me so fucking crazy sometimes!” He stopped the furious pacing that was threatening to distract JC from his anger. Lance’s ass looked fantastic when he paced. Regrettably, he marched his ass over to the door and JC was afforded a perfect view of it disappearing out into the hallway.
“Goddammit, Lance!” JC hollered after his retreating boyfriend.
“Goddammit,” he repeated softly when there was no answer.
*****
“Are they gonna do this all through dinner?” Justin whispered in a very loud voice, stealing a glance at JC and Lance. He was sitting snuggly between Joey and Chris, across the table from the other two. He probably thought he was safe over there. At least he wasn’t pretending to be oblivious to the obvious tension the way Joey and Chris were. They weren’t pretending hard enough, however, that they would sit anywhere close to JC and Lance. They had made it very clear that they preferred to deal with this across the wide expanse of the restaurant table, and from behind a very large, ornate floral arrangement that Joey grabbed from a nearby table and plunked down in the middle of their table, replacing their own somewhat puny centerpiece. Then and only then did they proceed to behave as if everything was just fine.
JC mentally added the names “Fatone, Joey” and “Kirkpatrick, Chris” to his shit list, Joey coming alphabetically right before “Fatone, Steve,” who had a permanent spot there, just because.
Lance was a glowering, furious presence at his side. He had been thwarted in his attempts to sit anywhere at the table other than next to JC by Joey doing his best impression of an immovable object, and that had added to his anger. He was a big ball of icy rage beside JC.
JC wasn’t sure what they were so afraid of over there on the losers’ side of the table. It wasn’t as if he and Lance were going to become violent in the middle of a meal. That was Chris’s specialty. No matter how tempted JC might have been, he wasn’t going to throw food at Lance’s angry face. Or even at Chris’s laughing one.
Also, Lance seldom indulged in physical displays of temper. That made them all the more impressive when he did, and JC found himself remembering one especially inspiring time when Lance had thrown a bottle of water at the wall when he couldn’t get a dance step down perfectly. It had made JC want to hump him against the mirror, and he had indeed done so after everyone left the studio that day.
Anyway, Justin and Joey weren’t laughing. Justin looked upset, guilt in every furtive glance he sent their way. Joey had dropped the oblivious act and was starting to look grim and thoughtful, the way he did when he wanted to bang heads together to knock some sense into people, but you also knew he wouldn’t because Joey didn’t like violence, in practice anyway.
In theory, Joey was totally willing to metaphorically kick someone’s ass if he thought they were being stupid. The way he was watching them from his vantage point behind the birds of paradise, JC knew it wouldn’t be long before Joey’s desire for peace and harmony, coupled with his deep-seated need to make sure Lance was happy at all times, asserted itself in the form of bullying and brow-beating them until they made up. If harassing them didn’t work, Joey wasn’t above tossing JC over his shoulder and twirling him around until he agreed to anything. Joey had the uncanny ability to know exactly when JC was on the verge of hurling and setting him gently back on the ground right before he reached that point, sending him on his way with a swat on the ass and a growled admonition to “fix it, C.”
That wasn’t something JC wanted to happen immediately following dinner, so he kept his eyes on his plate, hoping Joey would focus on Lance. Lance was the problem here, after all, so that was only fair. Lance’s blithe disregard for both common sense and JC’s feelings were going to ruin everything if he wasn’t careful. At that thought, JC decided he wasn’t hungry anymore, and pushed his plate away. He looked up to find three pairs of eyes fastened on him. He frowned across the table and they all quickly looked away. Huh. They needed to be giving Lance the evil eye, not him. He opened his mouth to tell them that, but Lance beat him to it.
“Quit staring,” he commanded. “Just knock it off.” He gave Joey an extra-ferocious glare. “It’s none of your business. We’ll work it out, or we won’t. Leave it alone.”
Justin coughed uncomfortably. Chris cocked his head at the two of them. “Nice speech, Bass. Too bad it’s a crock of shit,” he added dryly.
Lance looked at him, obviously deeply offended that his eloquence had gone unappreciated. “Excuse me?”
“Pure, unadulterated bullshit. Of course it’s our business. This was supposed to be a fun, relaxing get-away. It’s hard to relax with you two acting like five-year olds.” He paused, then said with a grin, “That’s supposed to be me and J’s job.” Justin elbowed him perfunctorily.
Lance snorted. “Well, you haven’t exactly let us stop you, dude.”
“Hey,” Justin grumbled. “Chris and I aren’t the ones causing all the drama, asshole.”
“Well, you sure didn’t help any,” muttered JC. Lance glanced sideways sharply at him and some of his rigidity seemed to leave him. JC felt something inside him ease a bit. He just wanted to make up with Lance. This was all so stupid. They were all stupid, and he hoped they were all sorry. He knew he was. He had overreacted the way Lance was always accusing him of doing. Suddenly he just wanted to tell him that. Abruptly he shoved his chair back and grabbed Lance’s arm. “C’mon.”
Lance shook his hand away. “Fuck off, JC.” They glared at one another until Joey cleared his throat.
“Fine.” JC turned away and walked out of the restaurant, aware of three pairs of eyes following him, and one pair which wasn’t. Lonnie accompanied him, leaving Eric and Big Mike with the others. He maintained a sympathetic silence during the short walk back to their hotel. But after he had checked to make sure there weren’t any teenage girls waiting to ambush JC in his bathroom, Lonnie spoke. “JC. Did he get hurt today?”
JC looked at the floor. “No.” But that so wasn’t the point.
“Goodnight, man.” Lonnie started to walk away, then he turned back. “We can go shopping for underwear tomorrow, if you still want to.” He winked and walked down the hall towards his own room, leaving JC standing alone in the middle of his empty room.
*****
JC didn’t have much time to brood over Lance’s perfidy. Ten minutes later, the door burst open and his infuriating boyfriend was back, looking like a thundercloud. He didn’t waste any time getting to the point. “Just what exactly is it that you think I did out there, JC?” Hs eyes narrowed suspiciously. “What did those fuckers tell you?”
“Chris said you paid them to go, um, well, real fast.” Lance blinked.
“Well, of course I had to pay them, JC. They don’t do it for free, it’s how they make a living.”
“No, like, extra, to go really fast, so you could go, um, higher.” Lance was staring at him like he had an extra head. Maybe he did. “And then Joey had to pay them again, so they’d let you down.” JC was struck by how ridiculous that sounded. “Chris said!” he declared defensively. That didn’t really help.
“Are you even listening to yourself, JC?” Lance demanded.
Unfortunately, he was. “Well, J said you let go. What about that?” JC went on the offensive again. That sounded more like something Lance would actually do.
Apparently, it was. Lance turned pink. “Oh, well, if you’re going to get technical about it, it’s possible that I tried to- but I was all trussed up like a roped steer. I couldn’t get it loose.” He added in a muffled voice, “At first.”
A roped steer? JC didn’t trust Lance when he started in with
the folksy Southern sayings. A roped
steer sounded like it was from
“You tried?”
“Yeah, but just for a minute. It seemed like it might be …fun,” Lance shrugged.
“Fun.” JC shook his head.
“Yes, JC, fun. I realize that’s an alien concept to you, but that’s the whole point here. You seem to think there’s more to it than that, like I have some neurotic need to prove something.” Huh. That’s exactly what JC thought. Lance shook his head. “Dude, I just want to have fun.”
Instantly, Cindi Lauper’s voice filled JC’s head. Fun. Maybe that was an idea he could get behind. He sighed. “Dude. I- okay, yeah.”
“Stop freaking out then.” Lance didn’t seem so mad anymore. He was watching JC fondly.
“So, was it? Fun, I mean?” JC stared meaningfully at Lance. No way was Lance going to convince his that he hadn’t been at least partly successful in his twisted quest for fun.
“Well, yeah. Until the boat guys had collective heart attacks and yelled at me about their liability insurance premiums and violating the signed agreement and putting my name on some kind of Mexico-wide blacklist.” He grinned like a shark. “Yeah, I had fun.” His smile became even more predatory as he looked at JC. His eyes gleamed as he studied him thoughtfully and said, “I could go for some fun right now."
He advanced on JC, shedding his pants, shoes and shirt along the way. JC was ready for him. It wasn’t gonna go all Lance’s way this time, no sir.
“Uh uh, it’s my turn to have fun,” JC purred in a deceptively soft voice. Before Lance even knew what happened, he was face down over JC’s lap, his boxers down around his knees. As JC raised his hand, he felt Lance tense in anticipation. JC chuckled. “What’s the matter, baby? I thought you got off on living dangerously?”
The End
Author’s notes: Thanks to Ashley for kicking ideas around and helping me with the plot, what there is of one. Thanks and smooches to silveryscrape for the beta.
This is part of the Fortune Five challenge, a lovely idea coming at an ideal time.