A [chris challenge] fic.

Fool For Lesser Things
By: Rhys

I had second thoughts at the start
I said to myself
Hold onto your heart
- "The Longest Time," Billy Joel

~~~

"Guys, seriously, I’m okay," Joey said when Lance and Chris showed up on his doorstep, bearing booze and pizza. Lance looked over at Chris, who shook his head. They’d talked over the game plan in the car, agreeing that whatever Joey said was bullshit. Admittedly, Joey looked all right, but there was no telling with him. Sometimes, Lance really wished there was.

"We bring you love," Chris replied, pushing his way inside.

Apologetically, Lance made a face at Joey, and Joey sighed massively, stepping back. Inside, the house was sparkling clean, which meant Joey was lying through his teeth. Joey was a slob through and through, as much Phyllis’s fault for always giving in and cleaning room for him as Joey’s own. The fact everything seemed to be unpacked spoke volumes. Joey was broken.

"It’s not even six!" Joey exclaimed when Chris started mixing drinks on his counter. Lance was just glad they’d brought ice cubes. Joey’s fridge was abnormally bare, which only furthered Lance’s concern. Joey was obviously starving himself in his grief. "I haven’t eaten yet!"

"Duh," Chris said, "pizza, Joe. We’re here for you, buddy. Don’t worry at all."

Suddenly overwhelmed with emotion, Lance wrapped his arms around Joey and squeezed. Joey snorted a little in surprise then patted Lance’s forearms. Poor, poor Joey, Lance thought. A little booze and clubbing would help, though. Lance firmly believed in this plan.

"It was a mutual thing. I’m really okay," Joey insisted as Chris pushed a drink at him. Lance willed Joey to give in, to just take the damn thing. They had a Plan B, and it wasn’t nearly as sensitive. It involved Chris holding Joey down while Lance poured tequila in Joey’s mouth.

"It’s all right if you feel angry, Joey," Lance said, eyeing at the drink, nodding at it.

"Are you both deaf? I’m fine." Joey reached over and shoved the glass back in Chris’s direction, splashing the tequila all over the counter. "It was the best break up ever. Sometimes, shit just doesn’t work out like you want, and being adults, we accept that. We’re still friends."

"You don’t have to pretend with us," Chris added, inching the glass a little closer.

"I’m not pretending. I’m not even mad. She wants to be happy, and I want to be happy, and it’s not like we won’t be not happier as best friends," Joey said. It was the type of logic that twist Lance’s brains around, and it stunned both him and Chris for a good minute. They were distracted, though, when Joey reached for the drink and drained it in one gulp. He slapped the glass back down on the counter so hard Lance felt his fillings jiggle in his teeth. "All right?"

"It’s the first step," Chris said.

Solemnly, Lance nodded.

Joey sighed.

That was about the last thing Lance clearly remembered. That and, perhaps, the pizza, which was topped with half a cow and an entire pig, at least. Lance put on ten pounds just thinking about all the crap Chris had insisted Joey would like. Lance didn’t remember the booze with any sort of detail, just that it had tasted fantastic and that there had been too much of it.

The rest of it was like a blur of noise, colour and the heat of his best friends. Well, his number one best friend, and Chris, who was tied for number two with JC and Justin. They squeezed into a cab together to get to the club, even though it was a stupid idea. Vaguely, Lance recalled them heading straight for the dance floor, into a mass of women, without bodyguards.

If Joey had stopped protesting that he was a-okay, Lance couldn’t remember. How long they danced, ditto. There was a hot guy in the bathroom, that Lance remembered, but he also remembered that the guy had said something like, "Bass, if you’re looking at me, you must be drunk. Let’s find Joe and save him from all the evil girls." In retrospect, the hot guy was Chris.

By the time Lance started sobering up and realising what he was doing, it was too late. Somehow, they’d gotten back to Joey’s house. Somehow, Lance had lost his pants. Somehow, they’d ended up in Joey’s bedroom. And when Lance said they, he definitely meant three.

~~~

Lance woke up with a splitting headache and a terrifying and immediate need to pee. Lance darted out of the bed, ran straight into the wall and ended up on the ground. When he managed to sit up, he realised he wasn’t at home. He was in Joey’s mostly empty bedroom, complete with Joey in the bed, one lone sheet wrapped around his knee and otherwise entirely naked.

Fuck, Lance thought, fuckfuckfuck

Limping, Lance crossed the room and ducked into the bathroom, peeing with the door open. Joey had rolled on his back by the time Lance came out, and Lance tripped over his own feet, eyes fixed on Joey’s half-hard cock. Blindly, Lance hunted for his underwear before he was forced to give up and steal a pair of Joey’s. Desperate times called for desperate measures, and if Lance’s shitty memory was any indication, sharing underwear was the least of their problems.

Lance wobbled downstairs, desperate for juice and toast if his unsteady stomach could handle it. Chris was just closing the front door when Lance got down, armed with three bags of McDonald’s. Lance crooked an eyebrow, and Chris rolled his eyes. They clearly sucked a lot, both as friends and as schemers, and Chris looked about as guilty as Lance felt.

Lance didn’t make a habit of sleeping his band-mates, no matter how much he might have wanted to. It was like a rule he’d made for himself years ago when he’d been horny and desperate for love. He’d been insanely drunk with them before, and never once in eight years had any of them fucked him. One of them finally had, if the pleasant tinge in Lance’s ass was any indication.

"You remember anything?" Chris asked.

"Not much," Lance admitted.

Chris sighed. "Tell me again whose harebrained idea this was?"

"Mine," Lance said blandly. Another one of his grand schemes gone to shit. Story of his life, really, and Lance was only slightly bitter about it all. Chris’s plan would have been just as dumb, anyway, and Chris was the one who had insisted on tequila, which made people horny.

"We okay, though?"

"Yeah, fine." Lance reached for an Egg McMuffin, the neat little package of egg and sausage warm beneath his fingers. His stomach rumbled loudly, like the roar of a coming storm. Restlessly, Lance shifted in his chair. "Um, were you the one who fucked me or was that Joey?"

"Both," Chris said, wincing. He scrubbed a hand through his messy hair then bit into a hash brown. Pieces of potato stuck to his lips as he swallowed before talking again. "I think, anyway. I remember you begging for it, and me having the intention to fuck you. I also remember Joey wanting to go first, and after that, not so much. If I didn’t, well, sucks to be me, I guess."

Lance pressed his lips tightly together. There was something about that comment that made saying, "maybe next time," seem like a good idea. Silence grew between them, long with awkward embarrassment. Lance munched on his Egg McMuffin, hoping the discomfort would pass soon, and that was when Joey came stomping into the kitchen, shaking the house.

"You fucks!" Joey shouted, throwing his hands up in the air. Immediately, Lance wished he’d bothered to look for his pants and had put them on. He felt very naked, very exposed, and his ass was a constant tickle in his brain, reminding him why exactly that was. "I was fine! I was all right, and you both ... my fucking GOD, why are you still here? Get out! Get the hell out!"

"Joey," Lance said.

"No, no. Don’t you even start." Joey pointed his finger at Lance, eyes furious with unspoken accusations. Lance looked down. "Both of you. I am so pissed that I can’t even find the words to rationally discuss just how badly you have fucked up. Argh!" Joey threaded his fingers through his hair then clenched his fists, making the strangest face Lance had even seen, which said a lot. Joey had been born wearing a funny expression. Phyllis had the pictures to prove it.

"We were just trying to help," Chris muttered. "Here," he shoved the grease-stained bags of McDonald’s at Joey, "I bought you breakfast."

"You, you," Joey spluttered, yanking on his hair.

It had to hurt, Lance thought, doing that.

"That wasn’t part of the plan," Lance said quietly, "the sex."

Joey stopped trying to scalp himself and dropped his arms. "It wasn’t?"

Lance shook his head.

"Oh," Joey said.

Chris nodded.

"Oh," Joey said again, "sorry."

That awkward silence found them again, and the three of them sat there, eating lukewarm McDonald’s for breakfast, Chris dressed in clothes that were so obviously not his, Lance wearing only Joey’s underwear, and Joey in a robe, his hair sticking out in every possible direction like he’d stuck his fingers in an electrical socket. Knowing Joey, that wasn’t a new look for him.

~~~

Lance got the sense that someone wanted to talk about last night. Lance, in fact, was probably that someone, but nobody was responding to his subtle hints as he casually dropped them throughout the day, unwilling to admit defeat and go home. Maybe he just took sex more seriously, which was so fucking unlikely, but neither Chris or Joey were budging on the matter. They wanted to watch tv and fight over whether or not to watch baseball since Jeopardy was on.

"Oh, before I forget," Chris said, squinting at the television. Lance knew he couldn’t even see which inning the game was in, but Lance also knew if Chris admitted that, Joey would immediately win his television bid. As it was, Lance was putting his money on Joey anyway. "Justin sends his love. He really wanted to help with the recovery mission, but you know, tour."

Joey chuckled. "That kid is a big ball of love, isn’t he?"

"He’s sensitive," Chris said, lisping it.

Joey wiggled with laughter against Lance’s side. That’s nice, Lance thought, smiling.

"JC sent flowers," Lance added, "but someone," Lance turned his eyes on Chris, glaring until Chris started sheepishly squirming, "forgot them at my house on the coffee table. They’re probably dead by now, but if C asks, you loved the daisies and the, um." Lance snapped his fingers a few times. "The baby’s breath!"

"Man, it’s like I died. You guys are really fucked up, you know that? Seriously, though, we work so much better as friends. Less fighting, you know, and Bri prefers it, I think, when her parents aren’t screaming at each other. I’m totally fine," Joey said for the fourteenth time that day, at least. It had become his anthem, his positive affirmation. Lance patted his knee in support.

Chris got up to run to the bathroom after that, and it was his fatal mistake. Joey switched to Jeopardy then hid the remote in his Fellowship of the Ring Collector’s Edition. It vanished into the shadows of the box. There was still the matter of manual channel-changing, but Chris was lazy by his very nature. Sure enough, when Chris realised the ruse, he accepted Jeopardy.

"Okay," Lance finally said as Alex Trebek bid farewell, all three contestants looking dejected after blowing the final Jeopardy question. Lance was sandwiched snugly between Chris and Joey, sunk deep into Joey’s plush couch, the three of them lined up like birds on a wire. "I’m sorry if we’re not talking about it, but I have to know. Joey, did you fuck me last night?"

Joey’s bottom lip curled in a helpless frown. "Did I? I don’t really remember, man."

"Dude, we fought over who was going to go first. Your scissors trumped my paper," Chris said, straightening his back so he could glare at Joey over Lance’s head. Lance sunk deeper into the cushions, his nose pressing up to Chris’s armpit. Thank god for Old Spice.

"I don’t think it was me," Joey said. "I would have remembered something like that."

"One of you did." Lance poked them each on the knee, irritated. "I’m still feeling it."

"Shit." Chris’s eyes widened. "That’s. Man oh man, that’s fucking hot. Really?"

Lance felt a sudden wave of bashfulness rush over him. They were both looking at him with wide eyes, grins plastered on their faces. It was a little intense. Lance could also tell a hard-on from a mile away. It was his specialised skill, and both Chris and Joey were packing it. Oh my god, Lance thought as realisation struck him like a tongue against the balls, we’re gonna do it again.

"If you feel really open," Joey said slowly, his breath warm like Mississippi air in Lance’s ear, "then it’s gotta be me who did it." Joey energetically pumped his fist through the air a few times, and Lance found himself tipping in Joey’s direction. "Baby, the Fat One strikes again."

Swiftly, Joey grabbed himself through his sweats and lifted his crotch. Lance felt drool begin to pool at the corners of his mouth. Joey, cock. Lance was not ashamed to admit he’d, at one point in his young life, lusted relentlessly over Joey. It was almost the official theme of the time Lance had spent in Europe with the guys. Joey, cock and secret scenarios that involved necking in the backseat of Lance’s father’s Monte Carlo. Lance wanted to go down on Joey and remember it so badly. Just thinking about it made Lance dizzier than any drink ever could.

Chris was still talking when Lance’s brain stopped seizing in his head, saying, "pencil dick over there? No way. Me, man, I got the thickness and the skills to make Lance feel it a day later. He’s walking funny? It’s because I fucked him so good. Hey, if nothing else, Fatone, I’ve been more friendly with the manly bits in recent years. I got more practice under my belt."

Chris had his cock out, Lance noticed suddenly, waving it around. It was thick, Lance knew, thicker than Joey but not as thick as Lance, and Chris also had the foreskin going for him, which was such a treat for Lance and Joey both. A dick was a dick was a dick, but Lance did like to spice it up sometimes. Big, small, cut, uncut. All good, in Lance’s book, if it was a cock.

If Europe had been all about Lance drooling over Joey, the official theme of the Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now tour had been lusting after Chris, who was way too old for Lance and way too rough for Lance and way too everything for Lance. He was as close to a bad boy as they were allowed to have in the group. It was part of Lance’s rebellious phase, when he’d started realising Lou was full of shit and that he could too have sex with guys if he wanted.

Justin and JC both had their times, too, but it was all water under the bridge, and Joey and Chris were still fighting over whose cock was better. Lance had his dick out before he could think about it, stroking his fingers up and down his shaft, collecting his pre-come with his palm. Somehow, Joey and Chris bickering like old ladies over their dicks was the hottest thing ever.

"Shit." Joey whistled, and his tongue came out of his mouth to lick across Lance’s jaw.

"Shit," Chris agreed, sliding a quick hand up the length of Lance’s thigh, tangling with Lance’s fingers and circling his cock. "You know what? It just doesn’t matter. This," Chris opened his mouth and scrapped his teeth lightly over Lance’s shoulder, "this is a fantastic cock."

"It is," Lance said, spreading his legs impossibly wide, offering his dick. "It sure is fine."

~~~

After that sober night of sex, all the gloves were off. Even though Lance knew the right thing to do was to apologise and walk away, they kept hanging around and fucking each other. Lance didn’t have time to worry about the fact that Joey had just broken up with his fiancee and the mother of his child or that Chris kept taking private timeouts for himself in the bathroom.

Three days later, Lance still found himself thinking about being bent over the back of the couch, Chris and Joey battling to prove their prowess. Lance had accidentally referred to himself as a power bottom once within earshot of some guy who had worked for Rolling Stone, but it was also the good honest truth. Chris and Joey had stripped him of that control, had focussed so heartily on getting him off, that Lance hadn’t even fought against being put into such a powerless position. It was impossible to pick who did it better, fucking. It was like cutting off your nose to spite your face. If both of them wanted to do it and do it well, who was he to complain about it?

Still, Lance needed a breather, and Chris and Joey had gladly left for few hours, so Lance was home alone at Joey’s place when the phone rang. He was trying to make potato salad, except he’d forgotten to boil the potatoes before chopping everything up and mixing in the mayonnaise. In spite of his slimy hands, Lance still picked up, using his fingertips. "Hello?"

"Lance, sweetie. How are you?" Phyllis asked, sounding delighted as usual. Phyllis always sounded happy about everything, even when she was shouting over the phone at Joey to keep his new bedroom clean and save his housekeeper the truly backbreaking work.

"Oh, I’m fantastic," Lance said, holding the phone between his ear and his shoulder, scrubbing at his hands under a light flow of water from the tap. Lance was going to get Chinese and give up. The potato salad was just not recoverable. "How are you doing? How’s Joe?"

"We’re great, Lance, don’t worry about us. Is my son around?"

Phyllis and Joe knew all about Joey’s interest in guys. Joey had dated Billy for almost two years, but Lance was ready to fudge the truth. There was no good way to tell a mother her son had gone out to buy condoms with one of the men he was screwing on a pretty regular basis, and if there was, Lance didn’t know it. "He’s out right now at the store buying important things."

Phyllis chuckled warmly. "All right, Lance, I won’t push. Tell me, though, how is he doing? I know he swears up and down that he’s fine about the break up with Kelly, but I don’t believe a word of it. Is he eating? Is he sleeping well?" The intensity of her motherly love made Lance squirm nervously. The truth was Joey was eating crap, and they’d all forgone sleep for sex.

"I think he’s okay," Lance said slowly, "and if he’s not, he’s putting up a brave front."

"You’ll watch out for him, won’t you?" Phyllis’s voice was tinged deep with earnest hope. Talk about a guilt trip. Lance was feeling more guilty than he ever had in his life, including all the months he had spent lying to the guys about who exactly he’d been taking to bed.

"Of course," Lance promised, a sickening swirl twisting in his belly. "I always do."

"I know, sweetie. Take care, all right? Say hi to your mother and father for me."

"I will," Lance said, "bye."

~~~

By the time Joey and Chris came back, Lance had already packed his bag and talked himself out of whatever it was they were doing. Joey was so obviously on the rebound, and Chris was so obviously desperate to get laid, and Lance was so obviously delusional. Eight years of nothing did not lead up to a week of everything. One of them, maybe, but two was impossible. Wet dreams did not come true, and Lance wasn’t even going to humour the idea any longer.

"But we just spent forty dollars on condoms," Joey said as Lance dragged his huge suitcase down the stairs. Originally, he’d only packed for overnight, thinking he and Chris would get Joey blissfully drunk, make him cleanse his tear ducts and leave victorious the next day.

"And thirty dollars on lube," Chris added, holding up a variety of lubricants. "We even listened to you when you said you didn’t like Astroglide, even though me and Joe love it. Look." Chris waved around a bottle of Wet! It still wasn’t Lance’s lube of choice, but they were getting closer. "C’mon, man. Did Joey pee on the toilet seat or something? Do I snore too much?"

"I’m being realistic," Lance said, gritting it out through his teeth.

"Jesus Christ, Lance, why?" Joey shook the box of condoms he was holding for emphasis.

"Joe’s right." Chris crossed his arms over his chest, leaning back against the wall. He still had all the lube in the world clutched between his short fingers. "You’re an idiot, Bass."

"I’m still leaving," Lance said, trying to get around Joey and to the door. Joey stepped in front of him and shook his head. Lance tried the other way, but Chris blocked his path. The two of them wore matching glares. Lance sighed deeply. "Okay, intimidating me isn’t going to work, guys. Just let me go, and if you two want to keep going, you have my blessing."

Joey and Chris exchanged looks, communicating silently through raised eyebrows and twitching lips. They probably realised how fucking bad he was lying. In his heart of hearts, Lance hoped this was the end for them, too. It wasn’t fair otherwise, pseudo-blessing or not.

"Joey and I have decided you’re not going anywhere. Two against one, you lose. Them’s the breaks, Bass. In a fair world, you’d have a choice, but this is ultimately Joey’s dictatorship, seeing as he owns the place. Sorry, man, but unpack your bags. Upstairs you go," Chris said, waving towards the stairs. Lance spluttered, and Chris zipped fingers across his lips. "Zip."

"But I ..."

"Zip it," Joey said.

"For fuck’s sake, guys ..."

"Zip it good," Chris added then started humming.

"Devo," Joey said, "cool, man."

Chris slapped Joey’s ass then shoved his hand into Joey’s back pocket. "Upstairs, Bass."

"I hate you both," Lance said, but he went and dumped his clothes back into the drawer Joey had told him he could use. Chris’s stuff, on the other hand, was shoved into the corner near the window. When Lance came down, Chris and Joey were kissing on the couch. There were flashes of pink tongue being exchanged between them. Lance started pulling at his shirt.

Chris was nearly swallowed into the cushions, his legs spread wide, Joey fitted between them. That solved the issue of where Lance was to insert himself. Lance had been involved in threesomes before, but they had been with perfect strangers who wouldn’t get offended if he settled in the middle every time. Without hesitation, Lance slid his palms up Joey’s back, under his tee-shirt. Lance was already insanely hard. His dick fit snugly against the round of Joey’s ass.

They were an un-choreographed, undulating twist of half-naked men, narrowly fitting on Joey’s overlarge sofa. Lance busied himself with getting Joey’s shirt off then Chris’s jeans, yanking with all his weight to get them down. Chris’s white boxer briefs came off much easier.

Lance slithered out of all his clothes, but only managed to get Joey’s jeans to the thighs before their writhing hit a fevered pitched. Desperate to touch something, Lance put his hands on Chris’s knees and forced Chris’s legs wider as Joey thrust against Chris’s dick. Lance’s cock was desperate to get inside Joey, slicking up and down the valley between Joey’s legs. There was no time, not a single extra second to ask Joey if he could or to find a condom and lube. There was them, breathing heavily together, and then Lance came, the pleasure pulsing out of him.

Blindly, Lance slid his hand between Joey and Chris as they ground crazily against each other. In the palm of his hand, Lance gripped their dicks as best he could, helping them out. Joey came first, shuddering out his orgasm, still rocking against Chris, under Lance. His own hand joined the melee, and together they worked Chris’s dick until Chris’s legs straightened out. Chris got stiff as a board when he came. It was very quirky, very Chris. Lance thought it was cute.

"Everyone off," Chris gasped, "I can’t breathe."

Lance rolled onto the floor, landing on his ass. He panted like a dog, unable to catch his breath. Sweat beaded all over him, dripping down his face and clinging to his eyelashes. Joey went to sit in the recliner, rubbing at his belly then wiping his fingers on the armrest.

"I could really go for some take out," Chris muttered. "Not it."

"Not it," Lance added quickly. His heart was racing in his chest. He put a hand over it.

Joey grumbled. "You know I’m slow after sex. That’s fucking unfair, guys."

"Sorry, Joe. Them’s the rules." Chris dropped a leg off the couch and poked Lance in the side. Lance grabbed for his toes, but the foot was gone before Lance could get a firm grip. "You can pick, though, except no Mexican. I don’t want you two farting all night and keeping me up."

"I thought you all had come over to take care of me," Joey said, but he was already off the chair, stalking towards to phone, bare-assed naked. White blobs of come clung like drops of morning dew to the dark hair between his bellybutton and his cock. It was insanely sexy, Lance thought, feeling his dick twitch again.

"Your mom wants you to eat." Lance sat up. "I meant to tell you she phoned earlier."

Joey narrowed his eyes for a moment then nodded. "All right. If my mom says so."

"No Thai either," Chris said, scratching at his balls. "It gives me heartburn."

~~~

Lance spent some time at his own place, dealing with Free Lance and Happy Place business. Just because he had nothing pressing to do didn’t mean there wasn’t still stuff to be done. They were in a strange sort of limbo, with a three-quarters-recorded album waiting to be finished while JC and Justin traipsed around on two different continents, touring.

Lance did a little Christmas shopping online then browsed eBay, looking for Dr. Seuss crap he didn’t already own. When the phone rang, he answered it, but there wasn’t much going on. For a good hour, he rolled around the room in his leather chair just for kicks. Email, answered. Porn sites, skipped over entirely. Fan sites, laughed at. Lance took a nice long nap.

Louise, Lance’s housekeeper, came around in the late afternoon and started tiding up. Lance helped, gladly vacuuming the top floor, weaving in and out of the rooms. Swallowed by the roar of the vacuum, Lance warbled happily, singing Garth Brooks and messing up the lyrics.

Lance sent Louise home, finishing the dusting for her. He turned on the radio, some Top 40 station, randomly chiming in when he recognised a song. They played "Girlfriend," and he tried to sing lead, but the sad reality was he only knew his parts. He crooned to the feather duster.

"I’m not even going to ask, man," Joey said, laughing and looming in the doorway.

"I’m dusting," Lance said smugly, waving the puff of pink feathers in Joey’s face. Joey sneezed on Lance’s hand, and Lance laughed, pushing at Joey’s head then turning away from him. "Ew, gross, Joe. Cover your mouth, dork. Didn’t your momma teach you any manners?"

"Sorry, man." Joey patted Lance dry with gentle taps of his fingers. "I’m on a mission."

Standing on his tiptoes, Lance resumed his housework and wiped the duster over the top of his entertainment unit for the first time in at least forever. "Oh, yeah?"

"Chris was convinced you’d flown the coop, already on your way to San Francisco to bang as many hot guys as you possibly could to get his supreme sexiness out of your system." Joey plopped down on the couch and put his feet up on the coffee table. "I said, no way, man."

"If y’all hadn’t put me under house arrest." Lance let his voice trail off, looking over his shoulder to grin widely at Joey. Joey grinned back, the blinding type of smile that had first commandeered Lance’s heart back in Germany. "I’m not going anywhere for the time being."

"I told him, man." Joey shrugged. "You know Chris."

"I do at that.’

Lance strained to reach the back of the entertainment unit, huffing and puffing with the exertion. If only god had given him an extra couple inches. Joey plucked the feather duster out of Lance’s hands and finished the job, stretching enough that his belly peeked out from beneath his shirt. Lance fitted his palm against Joey’s warm skin, ruffling the dark hairs with his fingers.

"Bonehead," Joey said fondly and wrapped his arms around Lance’s head, dragging Lance to his chest. They rocked back and forth a few times before Joey scuffed his knuckles against Lance’s skull. "You’re such a freak, man. You pick housework over us. That’s cold."

Lance scrunched up his nose then sighed against Joey’s neck. "What are we doing, Joe?"

"We’re having fun," Joey replied without hesitation. "We’re having shitloads of fun."

"Is that all?"

Joey scrubbed his knuckles over Lance’s head again. "Who knows, man? Don’t sweat it, any which way. No point in letting yourself bug out over whatever’s going on." Joey knocked on Lance’s skull really hard. "You ever been laid as good as me and Chris have been doing?"

"No," Lance admitted. It was the good honest truth, too.

"Then what’s the problem?"

There were problems. There were truckloads of terrifying problems, but Joey tipped Lance’s head back with two fingers to the chin and kissed him thoroughly, making Lance forget about every single one of them. When Lance’s knees started to bend, his dick impossibly hard against the ragged zipper of his jeans, Lance put a hand on Joey’s chest and pushed him back.

"Not without Chris," Lance said.

"Then let’s go get him," Joey agreed, and led Lance by the belt loops back to Joey’s house, all two and a half blocks away.

~~~

Joey’s new house had a pool that had been put in before Joey bought the place, so it wasn’t exactly up to snuff with the old pool, which now unofficially belonged to Kelly, who lived two and a half blocks in the other direction away from Lance and five blocks away from Joey. There wasn’t a slide, and it wasn’t the rounded shape that Joey enjoyed so much, and the diving board wasn’t bouncy enough. Still, a pool was a pool, and Lance didn’t see the problem.

"I vote the hottest of us has to do all his swimming in the buff," Chris said, padding across the deck wearing huge shorts with happy faces all over them. Lance watched him from his laid out position on the deck chair where he was sunning. Irritated, Lance batted blindly at Chris when he starting drumming on Lance’s ass with his fingers. "What do you think, Bass?"

"I think you better be talking about Joey," Lance mumbled, closing his eyes again. It was blessedly warm for early December, and Lance just wanted to tan in peace.

"Sure," Chris said, but his hands were already hooked in Lance’s briefs and pulling them down. Too lazy to fight, Lance lifted up his hips then, settling again, raised his legs. "If I keep my hand on your ass, you think you’ll get a tan around it? That would be nice. You agree, Joe?"

"Huh? Yeah, whatever." Joey was in the middle of circling the pool for the fifth time, carrying a measuring tape and looking perplexed. He kept shaking his head, which made Lance nervous. Joey was going to blow up when they least expected it. Lance knew Joey too well not to realise a meltdown was on the horizon. "Maybe I’ll just rip it out and put in a new round one."

"Joe, there are children starving in Ethiopia. Do you really want to waste your money on digging up a perfectly good pool when you can help a poor orphan?" Chris started banging on Lance’s ass cheeks like they were bongos, one side then the other. "I like this pool, man."

Lance’s ass jiggled uncomfortably as Chris drummed on it. There was only so much energy in Lance’s body. Instead of wasting it on making Chris stop, Lance offered it to Joey. "As much as it pains me to admit it, he’s right. There’s nothing wrong with the pool. It’s good."

"It’s rectangular," Joey said blandly.

Chris slapped Lance one last time, so hard that Lance felt it all over, most embarrassingly in his cock, but he knew was safe from Chris’s affection for a while. Lance couldn’t even pity Joey when he heard the splash and the angry shouting as Joey erupted, calling Chris names like, "you big fat loser head" and "you inbred moron freak," but names didn’t work on Chris, especially not the names Joey called people when he was pissed off. Lance tried not to laugh.

Gleefully, Chris trilled in his throat. "C’mon, Joe, tell me how you really feel!"

"You short small-dicked idiot face!"

They stomped over the deck like a herd of elephants, shaking Lance in his chair. There was a spray of water each time they passed within arm’s reach. If Lance didn’t know better, he’d swear it was raining. For two guys who claimed proudly to be out of shape, they chased each other around for ten minutes. By the time they came to a gasping stop, Lance hoped Joey wasn’t mad anymore. The trick with Joey was diverting his attention and forcing him not to dwell.

"You guys done showing off?" Lance asked, putting on his best drawl and matching grin. They were wheezing in unison, Chris perched on the end of Lance’s recliner, Joey draped loosely in one of the patio chairs. Weakly, they nodded together. "Good. You’ll bring the house down."

"So sorry, sir," Chris lisped, smacking Lance’s ass again. Lance hadn’t been expecting it, and the echo of the slap was shockingly loud in his ear. Nearly three inches, Lance jumped off the recliner then put his head in his hands. "Wow, I left a hand print this time. Look at this, Joe."

Joey whistled. "Sweet, man." Definitely not angry anymore, from the tone of his voice.

Lance knew something was up when they started whispering like girls to each other, hiding behind the shield of their hands. A smart man would have headed for the bathroom, where there was a lock on the door and plenty of protection, but the recliner was too damn comfortable, and Lance’s legs felt like they were made of iron, weighted down to the earth.

Lance was just getting settled again, letting the sun pleasantly warm his skin, when Joey straddled Lance across the lower back and pushed the wind from Lance’s lungs. In perfect harmony, Chris and Joey broke into a loud rendition of "Bang the Drum All Day" as Joey drummed the beat on Lance’s ass. Lance rued the day Joey discovered he had rhythmical talent.

"Guys, c’mon," Lance moaned, trying to get up, but Joey was heavier than he looked. Lance’s ass cheeks were getting numb fast, and Chris had his own beat going, stomping his feet against the deck. Joey’s neighbours were going to call the cops, Lance just knew it. "Guys!"

Chris and Joey kept on singing, each slap of Joey’s hands against Lance’s ass entirely with the beat. When Chris started beat-boxing badly, Lance couldn’t stop himself. The laughter came fast from his belly, spilling warmly onto his arms. By the time they were finished, Lance had tears streaking down his cheeks, shaking with laughter. He could not feel his ass at all.

Joey and Chris collapsed against him, chuckling in his ears, and Lance did his best to roll over. One look at his dick, thickly arched against his belly, set them both into peals of laughter, but instead of the blowjob Lance desperately wanted, they grabbed him by the hands and feet and tossed him like a sack of potatoes into the pool. Lance broke the surface of the water, laughing.

~~~

Lance’s ass was insanely tender for the entire next day. He spent the day on his belly, reclined across one of the couches in Joey’s makeshift home theatre, watching movies. Joey came and went, rearranging chairs and talking on the phone to the people who were going to build his theatre, shamelessly begging them to come sooner. Chris’s thighs were Lance’s pillow.

"Was he always this neurotic?" Chris asked, combing his fingers through Lance’s hair. They were in a calm moment. Chris had already stuck his pinkies up Lance’s nostrils, put green m&ms in Lance’s ear and plucked various hairs from Lance’s chin. "He’s freaking me out."

Eyes closed, Lance tipped his head against Chris’s palm, urging him leftwards. It had to be done subtly, or Chris would want to see if he could fit his entire fist into Lance’s mouth. "Should we get him drunk again? That worked last time. Give or take," Lance amended.

"He needs to leave this house, is what he needs. It’s driving him bonkers, Bass."

"True," Lance admitted. In the hall, he could hear the echo of Joey’s voice. It wasn’t quite yelling, not to normal people, but with Joey, it was about as close as he came to yelling at strangers. Real yelling, Lance knew, was reserved for the four of them, and Steve. When Joey started offering the home theatre people bribes, Lance frowned. "We have to do something."

"England," Chris said. "We can visit J, get him to comp us some tickets, hang out."

"You’re actually volunteering to get on a transatlantic flight?"

"Yes," Chris said firmly, lifting his chin. The line of his jaw was clenched tight.

"Okay." Lance sat up and winced when his ass touched the seat cushions, ignoring Chris’s delighted grin. Using Chris’s thigh, Lance pushed himself to a stand. "I’ll get plane tickets and book some hotel rooms, and you phone Justin to tell him we’re coming. Then I’ll call C to assure him we’re coming to visit him, too, fairness and all."

"C’s gonna make us buy tickets, man. You know he’s a cheap bastard."

"I think we can afford it." Lance smirked. Chris shrugged then reached to grab his phone off the table. Usually Chris kept it in his front pocket, but it, along with his car keys and his cock, had been poking into Lance’s cheek as he rested on Chris’s thighs, so Lance had made Chris move as many things out of his pocket as he possibly could. "Meet back here in fifteen minutes?"

"Aye, aye, sir!" Chris slapped a quick salute against his forehead.

Laughing, Lance headed towards the kitchen. At the table, Lance plugged in his laptop then connected to the internet via satellite for Justin’s concert dates. Sheffield seemed the most likely, so Lance headed to Expedia to check out their affordable, convenient flights. Ten minutes later, Lance had booked three first class seats on British Airways and four nights accommodation at a posh five star hotel that had a pool. Lance was especially careful to make sure it was round.

With five minutes to spare, Lance found JC’s number in his address book and phoned. After nine rings, JC picked up, sounding groggy and confused. Napping, probably. It wasn’t even five in the afternoon yet, and JC’s show didn’t start until nine. That gave JC ample time to sleep.

"Eh?"

"Mr. Chasez, is your refrigerator running?"

JC yawned loudly then chuckled under his breath. "Hey, Lance. What’s up, man?"

"We’re coming to visit the week before Christmas."

JC smacked his lips then yawned again. "We, man?"

"Chris, Joey and I. Joey’s a little down, due to the whole Kelly thing, though if you ask him, he’ll say he’s fine. Chris and I are continuing our badly plotted scheme to cheer him up. He really liked the flowers, by the way," Lance said. Out of sheer guilt, Lance had pressed the dry flowers in between pages of his leather-bound bible. They had been dead on his coffee table for a week before that, arcing pathetically out of the vase, all the petals browned and withered.

"I’m on the east coast that week. If you guys drive up, I’m sure that’ll save you some dough, and Joey likes road trips," JC said, his voice low and rough. Lance knew JC wasn’t going to be conscious much longer. The chance of him even remembering they had this conversation was slim. Lance would likely get a call from JC tomorrow, asking Lance if he’d dreamed it all.

"Can you comp us tickets?"

"Man, you’re hitting me where it hurts." JC yawned again, and this time Lance could hear the crack of his jaw followed by a series of scratching sounds. "I guess, you know, since you cats are gonna be visiting me out of the goodness of your hearts. I’ll get them for you."

"All right, thanks. I’ll phone when we have better plans," Lance said, looking up to see Chris hovering in the doorway, pointing at his chunky wristwatch, rolling his eyes. Lance waved him away. "Take care of yourself, okay? I’ll let you get back to sleep. Break a leg tonight, C."

"Hey, man, don’t go saying shit like that. Fate doesn’t like to be tempted."

"Good luck, then. Sheesh."

JC laughed, high and quirky, in Lance’s ear. Lance turned off his phone and unplugged his laptop, folding down the lid. When he walked past Chris, a hand came down hard on his ass, and Lance jumped, nearly knocking Joey’s original Superman movie poster off the wall.

"You know," Lance said, turning around and continuing to walk backwards down the hall. He kept his hands out in front of him in warning, but Chris merely grabbed his fingers, grinning wide. "I’m not actually into spanking, which y’all don’t seem to be understanding."

"Oh yeah? This," Chris slipped a quick hand between Lance’s legs, "says otherwise."

"I’m twenty-four," Lance protested, laughing. "At the prime of my life. I’m always hard."

"I remember those days," Chris said, moving his hand from Lance’s crotch to press against his forehead. Chris sighed dramatically, still following Lance down the hall, fingers twisted with Lance’s left hand. "Actually, technically, you’re also over the hill, Bass. Admit it, spanking turns your crank. Ha! C’mon, let me bend that big ol’ ass over my knee."

Lance was laughing too hard to reply, shaking his head instead. Chris backed off for a moment. Always too trusting, Lance let his guard down and relaxed. When Joey grabbed him around the waist and yanked him back, Lance started laughing again. The problem with Joey, really, was Steve, who had tormented his baby brother as a child. When Joey clamped his fingers around Lance’s wrist, pulling his arms up, Lance knew he didn’t have a hope in hell of escaping.

"You’ve been waiting for this, haven’t you?" Chris hooked his fingers into the waist of Lance’s jeans and pulling his crotch forward. So lewd, Lance thought, swallowing rapidly. Joey didn’t have curtains in his dining room yet. If anyone looked in, they’d see them, framed by open French doors and the glow of neon lights from the hallway. "Hm, Bass. You want it?"

Lance twitched, gritting his teeth as Chris tugged down his zipper teasingly slow. He shook his head. Whether or not he liked being spanked wasn’t even the issue. The tender flesh of his ass was. There had been a time, many millions of years ago it seemed, when Lance had only been able to bottom once a week, it left him so delightfully sore. If only it wasn’t so damn hot. Sometimes, Lance wondered why he had a brain at all when his cock did all the thinking.

"He’s gonna blow you, bonehead," Joey whispered in Lance’s ear, running his free hand up Lance’s chest, lifting his shirt. Joey pinched one nipple then the other, and Lance was nodding so hard that he wondered if his head wasn’t going to pop off his neck. "Mm, good choice, man."

"Oh, sweet lord," Lance murmured, his knees buckling. Chris was superb at head, so fucking talented that it made Lance’s toes curl. He wasn’t afraid of deep-throating, and he always did it first off, quick and fast. Under his shirt, Joey rubbed his palm in circles over Lance’s nipples.

Lance realised right then that he’d been ruined. Forevermore, Lance would never be able to settle for one guy fucking him on a daily basis when two was just so much better. How Lance would ever tell his mother this, he didn’t know, but Lance figured he was so alternative anyway that it wouldn’t much matter. When Chris dragged his tongue up the length of Lance’s cock just as Joey’s mouth came down firm on his neck, Lance knew it just didn’t matter at all.

~~~

Lance had worried it would take some fast talking, mostly done by Chris’s big mouth, to get Joey to agree to uproot and head overseas, but it was surprisingly easy. Enough booze in him, and Joey would agree to anything. It was a little cruel to make him fly with a hangover, but he slept most of the way. Chris, on the other hand, was annoyingly awake and doped to the gills.

"So I says to the guy, I says, things," Chris mumbled, his head rolling against Lance’s shoulder, one pathetic finger pointing at nothing Lance could see. "Then he’s all, I’m gonna get you, and I’m all, yeah, you think? And we dated for, like, three weeks, and then he wrecked my car."

Lance glanced over enviously at Joey, who was spread out across two seats, sleeping.

"Then, this other guy. Him, you didn’t know either, but trust me. This guy, he’s all, man, you crazy, and I’m all, that’s my thing, shut up. But he still dumped my ass, which, I so got over. Cuz, fuck him, you know? Guys sucking fuck," Chris paused then lifted a hand to his face, giggling, "sucking fuck! I so funny, man. Eh, fuck ‘em, I say. I, me, I, good guy, you know."

"Oh, please go to sleep," Lance said, checking his watch. There was no way Lance could handle five more hours of this. Chris, noting he’d lost Lance’s attention, grabbed Lance by the wrist and squinted at his watch. "I know it’s not good to mix booze with the meds, but I’m going to get you a screwdriver. A little vodka never killed anyone. Okay, maybe it did, but not you."

"Okay. But then, this dude, and his wiener, like, the size of my arm. And he’s all, hey, you, and me, I’m all, wassup. But no love, man, none, and it’s, just. You know?" Chris huffed sadly against Lance’s shoulder, his eyes wet and glossy. If there was a god, Chris was not going to cry.

After a little booze, Chris was still awake and chattering about his tragic and sordid romantic history with men. Lance gathered Chris under his arm, securing Chris’s head firmly in the arc of his armpit, then picked up a magazine and tried to read. When Chris wouldn’t stop talking, Lance folded his palm over Chris’s mouth and continued with the letters to the editor.

After a while, Chris settled down, though Lance knew he was still making noise, singing softly against Lance’s palm and leaving it damp with spit. Finally, Chris slumped and started snoring softly, his breathing steady and strong, his eyelids flickering with each exhale. Joey was still out cold, one leg sticking out into the aisle. The flight attendant worked around him.

By the time they landed in England, Lance was ready to leave them both on the plane. They exited first, Joey grumbling sleepily and looking positively sour, Chris leaning on Lance for support due to a lack of feeling in his legs. It wasn’t yet three in the morning, and England was blissfully asleep which allowed Justin to meet them, flanked by Eric. Thank god for small favours. Lance had seen way too many documentaries about the Beatles. There was a reason he had always talked the others out of touring Britain once Lance had been in a position to do so.

"Shit, man. What did you do to them?" Justin asked, laughing. He looked tired, Lance thought, worn around the eyes and the mouth, where Justin always showed exhaustion first. Despite his ragged appearance, Justin took Chris’s weight onto his shoulders, hauling Chris’s lax arm across them and holding him upright. Justin made a face. "God, seriously, is he all right?"

"He’s fine. Wasted and stoned, that’s all. You know how he gets on flights," Lance said, putting his hand on Chris’s forehead. He didn’t feel clammy, and when Chris blinked, his pupils didn’t look too gigantic. Lance figured that meant Chris was just fine. "And Joey’s hung over."

"I hate my life," Joey said groggily, rubbing a loosely balled fist over his eyes.

Justin lifted his eyebrows, but Lance shook his head before any words could be exchanged. It was better just to let sleeping dogs lie when it came to Joey these days. Otherwise, he spiralled into self-pity and that was never a good look on anyone, especially not a man with Fatone genes.

"You didn’t have to meet us," Lance said as they walked to the baggage claim, Joey trailing three steps behind, always in the corner of Lance’s eye. Chris shuffled along with Justin, their arms linked like they were bosom buddies or something. "Didn’t you have a show tonight?"

"I wouldn’t have been in bed anyway. You know how I get, all antsy and shit. This is the most excitement I’ve had all week, other than the concerts and watching Trace fall down the stairs that one time. You should have seen him go, man. I mean, he’s all right, which is why I’m laughing about it, but like a fucking sack of potatoes right down the fucking stairs," Justin said.

"I like potatoes," Chris murmured, tripping over his own feet. "Mm, mm, good taters."

Justin smirked. "Y’all have some stories to tell, don’t you?"

"Oh, lord," Lance said, "you have no idea."

~~~

They, through sheer luck, ended up at the same hotel Justin and his camp had invaded. There were fans waiting outside when they pulled up, and Lance nearly started hyperventilating. He really needed therapy or something for his Beatles-related phobia. It was nearly crippling, both to his pride and their careers as Nsync. Of course, it wasn’t like anyone knew him as anything other than that loser boyband guy who tried to go to space then failed miserably.

"They ain’t that bad," Justin said, shaking his head. Chris drooled on his shoulder, unconscious, but Justin hardly seemed to notice. Joey sat up front with the driver, staring sullenly out the window and not talking at all. "They’re a little more zealous, maybe, but hey, that’s the pop star life, right? I’m happy. And really, the space thing is old news. No worries."

Lance remained unconvinced after the sprint from car to door, the shriek of girls sending chills down Lance’s spine. Sometimes, Lance had the crazy urge to shout "I’m gay, you idiots!" at random groups of screaming fans, just to get it out there. At least it was flattering, to have women ready to bear his children on whim or give him a blowjob. There was that perk, anyway.

They got to their rooms. Joey mumbled something about going to sleep, and Lance tried to grab him before he brushed by, to maybe tug him out of Justin’s sight and give him a kiss, but Joey didn’t look like he was in the mood for Lance’s sappy tendencies, so Lance didn’t bother him with it. Instead, Lance and Justin dragged Chris to Chris’s bed and undressed him.

"Whoa," Justin said, spreading his fingers on Chris’s chest, "who’s Chris been fucking? Jeez." Justin squinted at the array of lovebites and hickeys that marred his skin. Lance forced himself not to blush, though he could feel the heat pooling at the tips of his ears. "Fuck. He hasn’t mentioned seeing anyone, and I know he doesn’t let people mark him if it’s not serious."

"Uh," Lance said, smooth as always. Justin lifted an eyebrow. "I dunno?"

"Oh, yeah, real convincing, Lance. C’mon, spill." Justin wore the look of a teenaged predator out for blood and ruthless gossip. He elbowed Lance a few times in the ribs as he tugged off Chris’s boots with his other hand. "Who’s Chris fucking? Someone hot, I hope."

"Some people would say so, I suppose," Lance said slowly.

Justin opened his mouth then slammed it shut again when Chris put his hand on Lance’s knee and said, quite seriously, "I fucking love you, man" then reached for Lance’s dick. It would figure Chris would wake up at the worst moment in all of history. It was just like him to do it.

"Fuck," Justin said, clapping, "you fucking dog, Lance. You and Chris? No way!"

"Uh." Lance pushed Chris’s hand away from his groin. Much to Lance’s horror, he was already hard. If Justin noticed, he didn’t say anything, but Lance still hunched over as he fought off Chris’s stoned advances. Lance coughed to clear his throat then added, "and Joey, too."

Justin tipped his head. "Joey Fatone?"

"Surprise," Lance said, spreading his hands in front of him. "Really, it’s just a thing."

"Kinky, dude." Justin stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Seriously, the three of you?"

"Seriously," Lance said, a little helplessly. Chris had passed out again, snoring with his head hanging off the side of the bed. Gently, Lance moved him back to the pillow and covered him up. It’d be a little strange, sleeping alone later, but Chris was akin to a corpse, and Joey was, well, he wasn’t very happy right then. Lance respected his need for space. "You up for a drink?"

Justin grinned. "I think I need one, man. You paying?"

"Whatever," Lance said, rolling his eyes. How they’d all grown up to be such cheap bastards, he didn’t know. Justin was probably broke, now that Lance thought about it, forced into bankruptcy by too many shoes, cars and houses, but probably just the mountain of shoes. Lance stole Joey’s bank statements every month, watching out for his reckless spending habits.

Lance’s room had a mini-bar stocked with overpriced booze and juice, so Lance mixed a couple drinks, randomly adding splashes of liquor to each glass then topping them off with orange juice. They sat on the couch together, Justin’s long legs crossed, Lance sprawled out. Despite not having slept for twenty-four hours, Lance didn’t feel all that tired.

Justin sipped at his drink, holding it with two hands. "Joey’s pretty fucked up, huh?"

"It comes and goes, really. Most of the time, I think he’s all right, but you know me when it comes to stuff like this." Justin nodded, a wriggle of perplexity forming between his eyebrows, and Lance sighed. "Yeah. I keep saying to myself, to step back and let him mourn in peace, but."

"Yeah." Justin nodded. "I mean, you’re grown men. I trust y’all not to fuck up the group."

"Your faith is appreciated," Lance said wryly, but he also meant it. It was a slippery slope, this intra-band loving, which was probably why Lance had never attempted it before. Of course, in his wildest dreams, he would have restricted his attempt to one of his band-mates. Then again, his mama had always said, that when he did something, he did it big and bold. Lance had come out the same way, bursting out of the closet instead of meekly tip-toeing from it.

"I can’t believe you’re having sex with Chris," Justin said suddenly then scrubbed his hand over his forehead as if trying to scratch the picture from his brain. "Chris, man. Chris Kirkpatrick. Joey, I can maybe understand, but Chris Kirkpatrick. He’s so ... he’s a dirty pig!"

Lance snorted so hard he wondered if he hadn’t snorted off the lining in his nose. "Have you met Joey? The two of them, I swear. It’s like dating a couple of thirteen-year-olds sometimes."

Justin made a terrible face.

"Yeah. That sounded about as perverted in my head," Lance said, laughing.

~~~

Lance woke up to Joey and Chris crawling into his bed at ass o’clock in the morning. Way too early to wake up, but it didn’t look like either one of them planned to pull him from the warm embrace of his covers. Lance rolled onto Joey, burying his face in the heat of Joey’s throat, and Chris came up behind him, hooking their legs together like a zipper, his weight heavy on Lance’s back. When Lance woke up again at a more respectable hour, they were still like that.

They did some tourist stuff in Sheffield, walking around in hats and sunglasses. It was a little chilly, so Lance bought a new leather coat, some knitted mittens and a plaid scarf. Chris made them check in every record store and didn’t buy a damned thing. Joey just wanted dinner.

"I’m gonna tell Justin," Chris said, sipping at a bowl of piping hot soup, "about us."

Joey hemmed and hawed, trying to fish the carrots out of his own soup. "Hm, I guess."

"He’ll know, man. Kid has a sixth sense about these things. It might take him a while, but he’ll clue in eventually. I would’ve told him last night, but um," Chris made vague gestures to his head, "a little unsure about how I even got to England. Last thing I remember is stopping for donuts at the Krispy Creme, and Lance being a pissy bitch about me having coffee."

Joey smiled suddenly, his first real one that morning, and Lance, who was trying to think of the best way to break the news that Justin already knew, felt a weight lift from his shoulders. Joey flicked a carrot at Chris’s head, getting him dead centre. "You were pretty fucked up, man."

"Talking shit, huh? I figured I would. What was it this time? Lemme guess. My long and sordid relationship history when it comes to guys, or oh, my continuing fear that I’m gonna wake up with no money, like MC Hammer. That’s a favourite of mine," Chris said, nodding.

Lance smiled into his soup, stirring it with his spoon to cool it down. "The former."

"Shit, man. I have to apologise for that, then." Under the table, Chris groped for Lance’s knee, and when his hand settled on Lance’s thigh instead, Chris squeezed it. Lance really, really wanted to kiss him. Chris was so charming when he was goofily apologetic. "Still, man, that was no reason to exile Joe or me to our own rooms. I woke up humping the fucking pillow."

Joey snorted then grappled for a napkin, pressing it to his nose. "Shit, man. Me too."

"Y’all are losers," Lance said, laughing. "I didn’t even miss you guys."

"Uh huh, dude." Chris rolled his eyes, elbowing Joey. "Whatever, you big fat liar."

"Oh, Joey, oh Chris, I’m just gonna snuggle with you all night long," Joey said, in a high falsetto, and only by the exclusion of his own name did Lance even know Joey was attempting to make fun of him. Lance cleared his throat, and Joey laughed loudly. "That’s you as a girl, man."

"Or when he’s about to come," Chris said, then started doing his own falsetto. "Oh! Ooh, ooh, yeah, that’s how I like it. Ooooooh. Ooooh!" Chris started writhing in his seat, shivering and shuddering, as Joey made vague handjob motions with his fist, barely hidden by the tablecloth from the view of the other patrons. Lance could feel the heat of his blush in his toes. "Oh, yeah, oh, yeah. Ooooooooooh, yeaaaaaaaaah." Chris bucked a couple times then went lax.

Joey started clapping. "Bravo, bravo."

"I don’t sound like that," Lance hissed, trying to see who all was paying attention, but they really were losers in England. Nobody was paying them the slightest attention. Under the table, he kicked at both of their feet, trying to get them to stop laughing. "Y’all shut up, okay?"

"Or Joey," Chris said, unperturbed by Lance’s begging. Loudly enough that the entire restaurant stopped at the sudden noise, Chris groaned deep and full from his belly, and Joey hid his face with his hand, laughing. Lance laughed a little, too. Joey did kind of sound like that.

They ate the rest of dinner in amiable peace, except Chris kept grabbing around, going for Lance’s dick and squeezing for no apparent reason. Lance knew he was doing the same thing to Joey. Every once in a while, Joey would sit up straight and spread his mouth in a wide grin.

Later, after they’d paid the bill, they stepped out into the crisp English air and started the short walk back to the hotel to get ready for Justin’s show. Joey walked on up ahead, and it was only a matter of time before he started dancing down the street, twirling and tapping over the sidewalk. Lance laughed as Joey started shimmying against a lamppost, totally sexing it up.

"I didn’t want to say anything around Joe," Chris said, hot and wet like an Orlando summer in Lance’s ear, with one hand tucked shallow in Lance’s leather pocket, "but this kinda feels a little bit like some warped threesome English honeymoon, you know?"

Lance looked at him for a moment, seeing the rosy pink of cold on Chris’s cheek, then nodded. "I know," Lance confessed, shifting his eyes to watch Joey frolic merrily with an unsuspecting mailbox. When he looked back, Chris was positively beaming. Lance grinned.

~~~

Justin’s show kicked ass. Their initial seats were front row, off to the left. They spent half the show there when Justin made a big point of introducing them. Turned out they did have English fans after all. Eric pulled them back to VIP, where they watched the rest of the show.

Before the encore had ended, they were moved to Justin’s tour bus, where they started eating his food. Well, Lance and Joey started eating his food. Chris set to snooping, looking in every nook and cranny, hunting for something, Lance didn’t know. Chris found a shitload of condoms, and started tossing them at Joey’s head. Figured Chris would think of that use first.

Justin was ushered in with a roar of girls screaming at his back, dripping sweat from every bit of his body and smelling like ages old road-kill. Justin was already naked three steps away from the door, dropping everything on the ground and stepping over all the condoms.

"Great show, kid," Chris said, flinging a condom at Justin as he passed.

"Hey, thanks," Justin said, disappearing into the bathroom. Immediately, the shower turned on. Justin shouted over it and, when the bus started rolling, the roar of the engine. "I completely fucked up on Rock Your Body, you might’ve noticed, and I fucking forgot the words in Last Night, which is so shitty, but I thought it was all right. Better than last night, anyway. Can someone make me a peanut butter and jam sandwich, please? I’m so fucking hungry."

"I’m gonna go tell him about us," Chris whispered out of the corner of his mouth, widening his eyes and grinning like a loon when Joey made a face, and Lance sighed deeply. It would have been an opportune time to tell Chris that Justin did indeed know, but Chris seemed to have his heart set on doing it. "It’s gonna scar him for life. I’m so excited. I’ll be right back."

Lance stood up to make Justin his sandwich, swaying unsteadily as the bus lurched and shuddered. Joey stood behind him, hands on Lance’s hips and opening his mouth when Lance reached back to offer a blob of peanut butter and jelly from the tip of his finger. They kissed, Joey’s mouth a sticky sweet mess of deliciousness, then Lance made sandwiches for all of them.

Justin laughed suddenly, loud and bright, and Chris came storming out of the tiny bathroom. "You," Chris pointed at Lance, "should have told me he already knew before I went in there. I just wasted the best speech of my life about casual fucking on some jerk," Chris lifted his voice on the last word, and Justin just laughed harder, "who’s never gonna appreciate it."

"It wasn’t that good of a speech." Justin grabbed a sandwich from the counter, wearing only a towel, and went to sit down on the couch. He nodded his thanks to Lance, and Lance nodded back. "But it was priceless, so thanks, Lance, for not stopping him. Dork," Justin added, kicking at Chris’s leg as he plopped down beside Justin, double-fisting with two sandwiches.

"I just didn’t want you to feel left out," Chris muttered grumpily, taking a bite from one sandwich then taking a bite from the other, chewing them all together. Freak, Lance thought, but didn’t say it as he sat across from Chris, shifting over so Joey could settle. "I was being nice."

Justin shook with laughter, his face bright with a wide smile. One look at Joey, and they both burst out into belly-deep chuckles. Helpless, Lance started laughing with them, feeling the giggles rise up his throat and only his tongue, warm with happiness. In time, Chris joined in, and it was perfect, Lance realised, it was all so fucking wonderfully perfect, them together.

~~~

"England makes me horny," Chris announced the night before they were set to leave. Justin had moved onto the next city, leaving them half of his condoms and a bottle of lube with a red bow tied on it. The note hung from the loop said "fuck on, my brothers" in Justin’s scrawl.

"You’re always horny," Joey mumbled lazily, scrubbing a hand over his belly.

"Hornier. Like, I’m so horny that I could go for getting fucked. Like, in the ass," Chris added, like they were all damned fools and no one was getting it. Still, Lance couldn’t help himself from fucking around with Chris and raised an eyebrow over his newspaper, smirk hidden by the front section. In answer, Chris wiggled his butt and climbed over Joey, sitting down on his crotch and starting to slowly grind. Joey groaned. "Like, maybe you could sandwich me."

"I suppose maybe we could," Lance said slowly as Joey said, "yes, yes, yes," from underneath the leisurely groove of Chris’s hips. It was so fucking hot to watch Chris and Joey all over each other, the way Joey slid a big hand up the back of Chris’s shirt, the way Chris arched.

"Get over here, Bass."

At Chris’s command, Lance folded up his newspaper and undressed where he stood, making it easier for everyone involved if he just jumped in naked and ready. Plus, he liked to show off his cock, to know they saw it, the way it rose from his body, heavy and ready for sex. Lance hated knowing everyone was looking at him when he was onstage, but here, in this context of privacy, he absolutely loved it. It was one of his favourite things about sex, being watched.

Chris kissed down Joey’s chest, biting at Joey’s pale skin and leaving light marks. Lance couldn’t stop himself from doing the same to Chris’s back, suckling the blood to the skin and holding it there, but there was so much more of him to taste. Lance licked his way to Chris’s ass, cupping Chris’s cheeks in his hands and spreading them. There, Lance tongued him deeply.

"Fuck," Chris moaned, dropping his shoulders and lifting his ass. Lance smiled but didn’t say anything. Couldn’t, really, without pulling his tongue away, which wasn’t something he was willing to do. Faintly, Lance heard Joey saying, "what? What’s he doing?" Then, a murmur later, "no fucking way" and "do me next." Happily, Lance spread Joey’s legs and alternated between rimming him and rimming Chris as the two of them kissed wetly up above.

Someone said, "okay, switch," but Lance was too pleasure stupid to really care who it came from. Gladly, Lance went to the bottom of the pile, legs already spread, eager to be fucked. Chris slid in without preparation, his own cock slick enough with sloppy lube that Lance didn’t need it. Face to face, Lance could see the pink tip of Chris’s tongue caught between his teeth.

Lance opened his mouth, and Chris kissed him, swiping his tongue into Lance’s mouth. Kissing had always left Lance unbearably aroused, stiffening his cock as much as a hand could, and Chris knew it. The things they had learned about each other, doing what they were doing. The things that were still left to be discovered. Lance lifted his head and kissed Chris back.

"Oh, shit. Slow, Joe, slow," Chris said into Lance’s mouth, lips parting widely.

"Sorry, sorry." Joey whistled, and Lance could feel him jostling Chris around a bit, lifting his hips up so that he slipped a little out of Lance. Not fair, Lance thought, trying to get that inch of Chris’s cock back into him. "You’re tighter than Lance, man. You sure you can take me?"

"Your cock is just not as big as you want it to be, Joe." Chris bit a little at Lance’s lips, like he didn’t realise they weren’t his own, then licked across them, dulling the hurt. "Yeah, yeah, it’s good. It’s just been a while, and this is a fucking terrible angle. Lance’s ass, man."

Joey made some noise of agreement, but it was too muffled by Chris’s elbows at Lance’s ears for Lance to hear it clearly. He wanted to see Joey, but Chris was over him completely, blocking out the light and everything else. Lance could feel them moving around and Joey’s dick prodding a few times at his ass. Lance thought about taking them both at once, and nearly died.

"Ooh, okay. That’s it." Chris closed his eyes and made a face. Lance nearly went cross-eyed, watching him. His eyes snapped open suddenly, and he groaned into Lance’s mouth, letting it melt into a kiss. This time when Chris bit at him, he meant to do it, and Lance let him.

It was awkward, the three of them, trying to fuck in a chain. From the bottom, Lance was trying to control the movement, but he got the sense, that from the top, Joey was trying to do the same thing. Joey was a top in action only, and Lance refused, absolutely refused, to let it go on a matter of principle. They kept up the weird jerk-pause-groan pace until Chris finally stopped them.

"Okay," Chris said grimly, "don’t make me count time. We dance together for a living, and kids, being the meat in this Joey-Lance sandwich isn’t exactly fun yet when it fucking well should be. I’m gonna control everything, all right? Age before beauty, you handsome fucks."

Chris started guiding them, not using words but the whole of his body, his hips and his hands, and Lance came without expecting it, his cock caught between his belly and Chris’s and nothing else. Every thrust of Joey into Chris, Lance could feel it amplified and echoed in him. Desperately, he grappled at the sheets, needing to hold onto something, and moaned and groaned, and maybe his voice was strangely high-pitched for a bass in bed, but it was just so damn good.

Even after Lance came, he was still hard, and Chris seemed to hold out longer than usual, as if the cock in his ass somehow cancelled out the cock in Lance’s ass. Lance let himself be kissed all over, not only his mouth but his eyelids, and his throat, and his forehead. When Chris’s hand circled his dick and started milking it, Lance nearly threw up. It was almost too much.

Never, ever had Lance come so closely together, not even when he was fourteen and jerking off three times a day just to get rid of his hard-on. But he came, spurting into the mess he’d already left on his belly, clenching so tightly around Chris that it pulled Chris over the edge. Joey was last, taking another minute or two before groaning so loudly that Lance started giggling.

"Shut up, Bass," Joey said, appearing over Chris’s shoulder and biting at Lance’s nose.

Lance only laughed harder.

~~~

Back home, life went on. They had another week before embarking on the road trip to see JC’s show, so Lance spent it lounging around with his boyfriends. There were other things he could have been doing, group promo stuff that Johnny seemed desperate to have someone, anyone, jump on, but Lance considered this something of a much needed vacation. It was either this or fuck anonymous guys in Aruba, and Lance much preferred what he had.

That was, until Joey got the divorce and custody papers.

Lance came home from his own house, where he’d answered a few emails and brought in the newspapers, to find Chris sitting on Joey’s couch, staring at his hands. Chris looked up briefly, and there it was in his eyes, bleak and helpless, whatever it was that was bothering him.

"Where’s Joey?" Lance asked, setting down the subs he’d picked up from Subway for dinner. It was his night for cooking. Seeing as he didn’t, the subs had seemed like a brilliant idea. Saved them all a severe case of food poisoning, which had happened the last time Lance cooked.

"Upstairs. I don’t think I’d talk to him right now, Bass. He got the papers today, and he’s ... well, he’s not taking it too well." Chris shrugged then tucked his hands under his armpits. "Maybe you should talk to him, seeing as you’re his best friend and all. He fucking yelled at me."

"He’s just angry," Lance said.

Chris rolled his eyes. "Duh."

Lance climbed the stairs with a terrible sense of trepidation weighing down his legs. This was not going to end well. Lance could feel it deep down in his bones that this was going to end horribly, mostly because Lance could not deal with extreme emotion. It made him terribly uncomfortable, and coming from Joey, it would only be that much worse. Lance was terrified.

Each step down the hall brought him closer to a small but growing sound, which Lance recognised almost immediately. He knew Joey, after all, better than he knew anyone else in the world. Pushing open the door, Lance found Joey exactly where he thought he would be, sitting on the edge of the bed and hunched over, crying into his hand as the other clutched the papers.

"Joey?"

"Go away," Joey choked out, turning his head to the wall. "Fuck off, Lance. Okay?"

"Joey, you knew it was going to happen," Lance said softly, which was the worst fucking thing in the world he could have said. Lance realised that the moment it left his lips, watching Joey’s face darken, seeing him stand up. Oh boy, Lance thought, I have fucked everything up.

"It’s over," Joey said mildly, though the tears kept rolling down his cheeks. Lance watched the trickle of each one over Joey’s tanned skin, morbidly fascinated. Joey got teary a lot, some sensitivity in him that had been instilled in him by his equally sensitive father, but rarely did it look so raw, like he’d been ripped apart from the inside. "Me and Kelly, and this thing, this fucking thing, you and me and Chris are doing. It’s over, all right? Get out of my house."

"Joe," Lance said, "don’t do this right now. You’re not thinking straight."

"And who’s fault is that, Lance? Who came in here, into my house and my life, and totally fucked me up? Who couldn’t just leave me to get over it on my own instead of," Joey swiped an angry hand over his flowing tears, "instead of not letting me deal? Who, Lance?"

"We didn’t," Lance said then stopped. "Nobody meant any harm, Joey."

"Then go away and accept that I don’t want to do this with you."

In Lance’s head, somewhere, he realised he was being dumped, except that was impossible. Casual fucking, just for fun, Lance had been told all of this, but somehow, his ears just hadn’t listened, and Lance was being dumped, just like that, when yesterday everything had been so damned perfect. When yesterday, the three of them had sat on the couch, laughing.

Chris was standing at the bottom of the stairs, trying to look casual and failing miserably. Later, Lance thought, grabbing his keys off the table in the hallway, later I’ll come back for all my shit, when Joey isn’t here. He felt terribly numb, and upset, and angry, too. At Joey for dumping him, but also at Kelly for calling off the wedding, and at the two of them for not realising sooner they weren’t going to work together, and the legal system with its ill-timed papers, and Chris for the crushed expression on his face, and at himself for letting it get this far.

"It’s over, Chris," Lance said. He jiggled his keys a little. "Can I give you a ride home?"

"Will you come in for a drink?"

"Yes," Lance said.

~~~

There was no pretense about the fact they were going to have sex. Lance stepped into Chris’s house, stale from lack of use with a sour scent in the air like Chris had left food out, full well knowing he wasn’t there for a drink at all. Chris made him one anyway, a vodka and tonic which was extremely heavy on the vodka, and they drank standing across from each other, eyes caught in a quiet, pointed look. They were going to have sex without Joey, and Lance knew it.

It was, perhaps, the worst sex of Lance’s life. It was just awful. Until then, Lance had believed sex was sex, and because of that, it couldn’t be downright terrible. There was always the novelty value, Lance thought, but Chris had single-handedly killed that idealistic notion. Afterwards, Lance didn’t feel any better. In fact, Lance felt about a thousand times worse.

It wasn’t the same without Joey. It just didn’t work without Joey.

Chris seemed to agree. They lay in bed for a long time, not speaking and staring at the ceiling until Chris finally said, "well, that really sucked," and Lance nodded. He wanted to leave, to get the hell out of Chris’s house and not come back for at least a week, until he got over it all. Maybe longer, Lance admitted to himself. A week, right then, was looking horribly idealistic.

Chris walked him to the door. They didn’t touch at all. Worse, Chris wouldn’t even meet his eyes. When Lance went in for a hug, just on the principle of the thing, Chris shook his head. "Sorry, Bass, but ... just sorry, man. Gimme a little while to, like, get over myself, all right?"

"Don’t make this weird," was all Lance said back to him, but it already was.

Lance felt all right to drive, like the bad sex had forced all the alcohol out of him, but it would just be his luck that the cops pulled him over and got him for drunk driving. Instead, he pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and tried to think of someone to call. Anyone to call. Lance had friends in Orlando, didn’t he? Lance closed his eyes and thought about it a long time before he sighed to himself and called a cab. I should have just left a month ago, Lance thought.

It was too fucking late now.

~~~

Having nothing better to do, Lance decided to finish cleaning out his attic, which he’d started before they left for England. Joey and Chris had insisted on helping, which made the job that much longer. His mom had recently decided that holding onto Lance’s junk was no longer in her contract as a mother and had shipped over all the boxes he’d left in his parents’s attic.

The mess was as they’d left it, worse than it had been before Joey and Chris started making fun of everything they pulled out of Lance’s boxes. Chris had managed to find an old pair of jeans shorts Lance had worn in his freshman year of high school. Chris had also managed to get into the shorts, sucking in to zip them up but zipping them up nonetheless if you counted the fact that his cock and balls had been forced out the bottom of the legs, just hanging there.

"That’s fucking obscene," Joey had said, elbowing Lance a few times in the ribs like Lance was blind or something. Looking at them, Lance hadn’t been able to figure why he ever thought they were a good idea or why he’d even been surprised when the boys on his street beat him up regularly. Those shorts had been a serious lapse in good judgment. They were so small.

The shorts still smelled like Chris, who had insisted on wearing them for the rest of the day. Lance brought them to his nose and exhaled, knowing he was acting like a big pervert, but he couldn’t help himself. He’d been dumped twice in the last twenty-four hours. It stung a little.

Lance thought about getting drunk then decided against it. That had been the start of all his problems, and he knew, if he drank right then, he’d end up streaking down the street in his birthday suit and end up tastefully blurred out square on the front page of the Orlando Sentinel.

Lance thought about sleeping but knew he couldn’t. It wasn’t quite late enough, and the bad sex with Chris hadn’t tired him out at all. Joey, he couldn’t phone, even though he was the guy Lance used went to when he got dumped. Joey made everything better, and it shook Lance’s world to realise, this time, Joey had made everything worse. Him, too. Lance’s wasn’t entirely faultless.

Chris, no, and JC neither, thanks to him never actually being told. It was better that way, Lance thought. Things looked pretty bad, and JC worried about stuff like that, them fighting in ways that implied sides had to be taken. It hadn’t ever been this messy. Even Lance didn’t know what side to pick. How he’d ... how they’d fucked up this badly, Lance couldn’t even guess.

Still, Lance was losing it in a way that made him feel helpless, and if there was one thing Lance wasn’t, it was helpless. So, against his better judgement, he called Justin. If Lance beat Chris to the punch, he’d feel bad forever, seeing as Chris had dibs on his own best friend, but Lance didn’t care at all. In that moment, he just wanted someone to tell him things would be fine.

"‘ello?"

"Justin?"

"Uh huh." Justin murmured a little, in that sleep way he had, where he was almost talking but wasn’t quite getting the words. Back in the day, Lance and Chris had looked forward to fucking with Justin when he was fresh out of bed. "Lance, ‘zat you, man? Wassup?"

"I have completely fucked up the group," Lance said. "In fact, I think I have to quit."

Justin didn’t say anything for three heartbeats before a confused, "you’re doin’ coke?"

"No," Lance said. "How’d you get that from that? Joey and Chris and I, we broke up."

"Already? You guys were, like, tight, like, three days ago. Sure it’s not coke?"

"I hope you know I’m not going to be the first one into rehab. If you and Chris have some sort of stupid pool going, put your money on someone else. Hell, just knowing that is incentive enough to go clean and sober my whole life," Lance said sharply. Still, he felt a little better just knowing that, if nothing else, Justin was still stupid in the mornings. The more things changed, the more they stayed the same. In that moment, it was a very comforting cliche.

"Chris hasn’t said anything," Justin finally said, after letting the truth about Lance’s fabled coke addiction settle into his head. "Or did this just happen? Because if so, man, if you’re calling to make me pick sides, you’re all dorks, and I’m siding with C. All right?"

"That’s not why I called," Lance mumbled.

"Y’all have done worse to each other, Lance."

Lance brought his old shorts to his nose again, inhaling sharply. Along the seam, Lance thought he could smell Joey, too. Joey had spent a lot of time grabbing Chris’s by the hips and pulling Chris’s ass flush against his crotch. Lance closed his eyes. "Have we? I can’t remember."

"Yep. Remember that time, like, four years ago, when Chris took home the girl Joey was after and the guy you were after, and somehow, it turned into this huge thing, where you both hated Chris for being such a prick, but you pointed out that Joey got laid all the time, so you had every right to be more pissed off because you never got laid? Then Joey wasn’t talking to you?"

Lance was only glad that Justin couldn’t see his face. Unfortunately, he remembered that, though Lance wished he didn’t. In retrospect, it seemed like they’d all made mountains out of mole-hills, but they’d been in the middle of the lawsuit and an unending tour. Lance had just been so furious with Chris and Joey both that he had fantasised a lot about breaking their legs.

"That’s on a completely different level," Lance finally said. "It doesn’t count."

"To C and I, it all counts. So your fucking good time has come to an end? So what?"

Lance flattened the shorts out on his knee with his fingers, making sure each edge laid flat on his skin. Idly, he wondered if he still fit into them. If Chris could get them on, probably. "It’s not that simple, Justin," Lance said quietly. "It’s ... bigger, somehow, this time."

"You and Chris are full of crap, you know? Casual fucking, he says. It’s just a thing, you say. Bull-fucking-shit." Justin’s voice had an angry tone to it that Justin could only manage when he was wide awake and deathly tired of the subject matter. Lance didn’t blame him, having to deal with his whining across the Atlantic seaboard at five in the morning English time. "Listen, you’re not fucking worried about the group. You know the group is fine. You’re worried about the fact that you love Joey, and you love Chris, and you think they don’t love you anymore."

"Your careless use of the word ‘love’ is pissing me off, Justin."

Justin growled, literally growled, into the phone. "Fuck you, Lance. This is what you want to hear, right, you big drama queen? You’re desperately, madly in love with Chris, which still blows my fucking mind, and Joey, which should have happened a long time before now."

"So what do you propose I do? Tell me, O wise one, what the fuck am I supposed to do?"

"Fucking fight for them, Lance. You’ve got balls. Use them." Justin was getting riled up, Lance could tell from the vehemence of his voice, and Lance felt the same sort of urgency coursing through him. It was exhilarating. "For fuck’s sake, you’re the guy who once kept a fucking Risk game going with Chris for two weeks just to avoid losing. Two fucking weeks."

"Fine," Lance said, gritting it out through his teeth. "Fine, Timberlake. All right."

"So get to it and lemme go back to sleep, you fuck! Some of us have to work for a living, you know."

"Okay!" Lance hung up the phone without saying goodbye.

~~~

Somewhere in Lance’s brain, he knew he’d just been played by the infamous Timberlake mind-fuck, but he also had to admit, however unwillingly, that Justin did have a point. It wasn’t in Lance’s genetic makeup to give up so easily, and like hell he was going to start that now.

Lance did let things lie for a day or two to make himself look better. Knowing his luck, Justin had ratted him out to Chris, but Lance wasn’t going to let the potential for getting ridiculed by Chris get him down. Lance did what Lance did best: plot terrible schemes to get them back.

At least Lance was aware of how awful his ideas were. First off the list was anything involving booze, because that was just a stupid idea, and Lance could admit that. Next off the list involved presents. While Chris could always be swayed by presents, Joey was too frivolous with his money to be inspired by expensive and lavish gifts. Sex as a means of reconciliation was also off. After that debacle with Chris, Lance was a little nervous about trying sex with Chris again, which was obviously something he’d have to get over in the long run, but it’d just been so bad.

There was also still the matter of JC, who kept leaving excited messages on Lance’s cell phone about how they were coming to visit and how he’d gotten them good seats and how he’d recorded a couple more demos for the new album which they simply had to hear. At the rate they were going, they were going to have to release a double album, and that was cool to think about.

So the plan: they owed it to JC to go on the road trip and see him in concert. More than that, they owed it to themselves to make everything normal again, but Lance would make it clear, in no uncertain terms, that he liked what they had together as a threesome. Not just the sex, but also the fun and the happiness . While there would be no mention of being in love with either of them, Lance would heavily imply this was the case, for him at least. So he would wait for Joey to feel better, even it took years, because Lance was just that emotionally invested in it all.

Lance looked over what he’d written down in his Palm Pilot.

It was a good scheme, if he did say so himself.

Finally ready for bed, Lance turned off his Palm Pilot and went to get some sleep.

~~~

"You’re on crack, Bass," Chris said when Lance turned up, raring and ready to go.

"Where are your bags?" Lance asked, ignoring him and making a big of show of looking around for a suitcase that Chris had obviously not packed at all. Briskly, Lance clapped his hands together. Wade used to do that all the time, and it had driven Chris nuts. "Let’s go, Chris."

Chris grumbled but didn’t move, so Lance started clapping harder and faster. It was enough to get Chris moving, but Lance didn’t trust Chris not to chicken out, so he followed him upstairs like some weird one-man audience in a one-man concert. Quickly, his hands went numb.

"God, will you fucking cut it out? I’m packing, I’m packing. Look at me go. Just stop with the goddamn clapping, all right?" Chris started picking up clothes from the floor and sniffing at them. Watching Chris smell his clothes gave Lance a hard-on. "You’re crazy, Bass."

"I have a plan," Lance replied, shrugging. Out of sight, Lance casually adjusted his cock.

Chris glanced over his shoulder. "You’re presuming a lot to think I want in on it."

"Don’t you?"

Chris stuffed the last of his clothes into a suitcase, motioning Lance over to sit on it as he zipped it up, before speaking again. "I guess, but just know I have reservations about it all. I don’t think ... it’s just." Chris tugged at the zipper, eyes dropped low. "It’s just ... Joey, okay?"

Lance didn’t get up off the suitcase once it was closed. "Yeah, and ...?"

"I don’t think he wants me in on it," Chris said, crossing his arms then shrugging lightly.

Lance got up and walked over to Chris, stopping right in front of him. It’d been only a few days since everything had happened, but it felt like forever to Lance, who tried to swallow down the uneasiness in his belly. He put his hands on Chris’s shoulders and said, in words and a tone that Chris would both appreciate and listen to, "don’t pussy out on me, Chris. If Joe was here only for me, don’t you think it would have happened already?"

Chris made a face, but he nodded anyway. "I guess you have a point, man."

"I am completely right," Lance said seriously, then leaned in to kiss Chris on the lips. It was a brief kiss, slightly open-mouthed with a hint of tongue, but Lance could practically feel their connection reestablish itself. He and Chris didn’t kiss enough. That would have to change.

"Oh, fine. You’re completely right. I’m in, okay?"

Lance smiled. "Thank you."

Chris nodded again then wrapped his arms around Lance’s waist, cinching him tightly. They swayed for a few moments, back and forth in a strangely soothing pattern, before Chris slapped Lance hard on the ass and pulled his head back, smiling. "I’m so sorry for the bad sex."

"Me too," Lance mumbled. He put his face against Chris’s neck and inhaled deeply.

Chris laughed lowly in Lance’s ear. "Missed me that much, huh?"

"You have no idea," Lance replied, grinning.

~~~

Joey was a little more unwilling to embark on a road trip with his freshly-ex-boyfriends, but Lance had counted on that. Joey had a weakness, and that weakness’s name was JC. Joey could not deny JC anything, so Lance got him on the phone and pushed him at Joey. It was a bit tense for a moment, Joey only curtly nodding his head before, finally, he started grinning.

"All right, C! Jeez!" Joey laughed heartily at something JC said in response, Lance thought, then turned his eyes on Lance and Chris, ping-ponging between them before nodding. "Yeah, we’ll be there tonight probably. You want me to bring anything?" Joey paused then laughed again. "Anything but that, you big perv! Pick something else." Joey smiled. "Okay, bye."

"Ooh, that was underhanded, Bass," Chris murmured as Joey walked over.

"Desperate times," Lance replied, shrugging.

"I’m still pissed at both of you, but I’ll go on this damn road trip with you if only because C’s looking forward to us being there, all right? Don’t try any funny stuff," Joey said, pointing a finger at Lance, who nodded. Out of the corner of his eye, Lance could see the blur of motion as Chris bobbed his head in agreement. "And guys, I will get over this, okay? We’ll be fine."

Chris was still nodding as he said, "we know, man. Our fault, we accept that. It’s cool."

"It’s cool," Lance repeated.

Joey nodded briefly then took to the stairs, jumping up them three at a time. Chris and Lance waited in the foyer, poking at each other, bumping shoulders. Lance tried to keep from smiling, but he couldn’t, and Chris matched every grin he gave. By the time Joey came stampeding down the stairs, Lance actually felt pretty confident about his scheme working out.

There was, Lance thought, a first time for everything.

~~~

Lance drove with Joey in shotgun and Chris in the back, strumming at his guitar and singing "Woodstock" every half an hour. They simmered in the type of quiet that Lance couldn’t exactly label as awkward, because it wasn’t, but it felt strange to drive with only Chris’s soft, high singing in the back and the faint murmur of Joey’s voice as he came in and out of the songs.

They got into Boston a little after ten and checked into the hotel, trying to find out if JC was in yet. The man at the desk wouldn’t tell him anything, adamant that he couldn’t release information like that to the general public. Lance pointed out he wasn’t the general public, but it was a no go. They got their rooms under assigned names and parted ways to get settled before gathering for a very late dinner. Lance took a long shower then got dressed and brushed his teeth.

There was an insistent knock on the door. When Lance opened it, JC was standing there, grinning. He tumbled inside, and they took a good long while hugging. Back in the day, when Lance had been head over heels in love with JC for the duration of the No Strings tour, JC had totally known about it and been cool enough to offer Lance some gratuitous peeps in the shower or a lingering hand on Lance’s lower back during photo shoots. For Lance, it had been enough.

"Okay." JC draped an arm over Lance’s shoulder and folded his hand into the crook of Lance’s elbow. To most people, it looked like a friendly gesture, but Lance knew it as a move JC made when he thought the person he was talking to was going to run away. "Are you going to tell me what’s going on with you cats? Both Chris and Joe are playing like nothing’s happening."

Quickly, Lance gave JC the whole run down of the situation, including every sordid little detail and not stopping at his and Chris’s bout of bad sex. JC listened, and nodded, and frowned. Sometimes, Lance wondered if they were all brain-damaged somehow, like maybe Lou spent all of Germany lead-poisoning them or depriving them of oxygen while they innocently slept.

"That sucks, man."

Lance nodded glumly.

"Man, that sex must’ve been hot as hell, though."

Coyly, Lance smiled. His grin bloomed into full-on laughter when JC started to raise and lower his eyebrows, leering like those lecherous old men who always tried to get into Lance’s pants. The greatest travesty in the world, Lance decided, was JC’s rigid straightness. Him and Justin both. JC leaned into him, laughing in his ear, and Lance felt a little better about everything.

"Chin up, man. Those cats know they’ve got a good thing with you."

"It’s not really that simple," Lance said.

JC grinned and knocked his knuckles on Lance’s head. "Then make it that simple, dork."

~~~

JC’s show rocked. Lance always marvelled at how different JC was on stage. Sometimes, Lance didn’t even recognise him as the man he’d spent the last eight years with. The change was beyond radical, but then Lance thought the same could be applied to him. Lance loved being the centre of attention, totally got off on it, but being up on stage, in front of people, freaked him out.

Lance called Justin in the middle of JC’s set so he could listen. Lance didn’t say hello, didn’t even tell Justin what he was listening to, but when the concert was over, Justin was still on the line, humming and beat-boxing to the beat of One Night Stand, totally in his own world.

"J?"

"Hey, man. I guess you made it to C’s show after all. How’s the, you know, situation?"

Lance caught Justin up as they were led backstage by Tiny and some bodyguard Lance didn’t recognise. Chris kept yelling random things at Justin then insisting they’d talked for hours that morning and didn’t have anything left to say to each other. Lance didn’t point out the fallacy in Chris’s statement, repeating whatever Justin said in response until it gave him a headache.

"Hey, Joe." Lance covered the mouthpiece with his hand. "You want to talk to Justin?"

"Sure." Joey held out his hand, fingers spread like the arc of a fan. "Pass him over."

Lance watched Joey as he talked to Justin, smiling to himself when Joey’s eyes crinkled with a smile. Joey wasn’t quite happy, Lance could tell that much by looking him, but he seemed back on better footing than he’d been a week ago, which was a relief. Joey was a great guy, one of the best Lance knew, and more than anything, Lance didn’t ever want to see Joey unhappy.

Chris came up behind him, and Lance knew it was him by the sound of his breath. It was just that simple. When Chris spoke, it was warm in Lance’s ear, so close that if Lance moved at all, they’d be touching. "So what’s the next step in this ill laid plan of yours, Boy Wonder?"

"We make Joey remember why we’re his best friends, and it isn’t for his big cock."

Chris chuckled. "But that’s a perk, right?"

"Definitely a perk," Lance agreed, nodding. "We can tell him that later."

When Joey looked over, Lance grinned and made a face before rolling his eyes. Lance didn’t even want to know what Chris was doing behind him, just that it was probably somehow making fun of him. The more things changed, Lance thought, and smiled happily to himself.

~~~

At JC’s insistence, they went out for karaoke. It turned out that Tyler was also in town, though Lance hadn’t actually seen him, and the Chasez brothers had this unbreakable tradition that even Lance’s shameless begging and logic couldn’t override. Pity, too, because Lance really hated Karaoke, and he honestly did think JC should have been worried about overusing his voice.

"This no-drinking part of your plan sucks, man," Chris murmured when JC and Tyler, who’d come in wearing an ‘I heart JC’ headband much to JC’s chagrin, scrambled up on stage to belt out Bohemian Rhapsody. "But I put your name down to sing, so I feel much better about it."

Lance was too slow to punch Chris in the balls like he deserved as Chris slid quick under the table and reappeared on the other side, grinning. Joey, who’d been staring into his coke, looked up at Chris and raised his eyebrows. Like girls, they whispered behind their hands before Joey laughed, loud and quick, like the snap of bright lightning in an otherwise peaceful storm.

Bitterly, Lance regretted the sobriety clause in his scheme as Chris and Joey dragged him onstage when his name was announced. JC and Tyler were blocking all escape routes, and Lance could see Tiny hovering by the entrance. Tiny merely waved and shook his head when Lance tried to get him to swoop in for the rescue. Onstage, Lance could hardly see for all the lights.

Lance didn’t even know which song Chris picked, and Lance didn’t really care. His palms were sweaty, and his knees were buckling, and he honestly thought he was going to faint. Lance clutched the microphone like it was the only thing keeping him alive as the music started up.

When the words started popping up on the screen, Lance’s heart stopped for a moment before he heard, somewhere in the haze of his solo-stage fright, Joey yelling, "sing, bonehead!" Lance opened his mouth and, embarrassingly meek, started singing. He didn’t move a muscle.

Levon, Lance realised suddenly. At least Chris had thrown him a fucking bone, though Lance was still going to kill him slowly with very sharp objects. Levon, he could sing that and he was, sorta. Lance, after all, owned every Elton John album known to mankind. They’d all been gifts from people to welcome him out of the closet, but still. He liked them. He listened to them.

Lance started to sing a little bit louder, dropping his voice back where it belonged. The song was almost out of his register, which Chris had to have known, but it was just there enough that Lance’s voice didn’t break on any of the high notes. The roar of blood through his ears started to recede, and he started being able to hear the audience, and they were ... not booing.

Okay, I can do this, Lance thought, and started singing even louder until boom, there they were, his balls to the rescue. His eyes came back into focus, and he watched the words, belting them out. Lance even threw in a couple shimmies and wiggles of his hips, sashaying on stage.

"Woo! Take it off, baby!" Chris’s voice cut like a knife through the backing track.

Without missing a beat, Lance lifted his hand and proudly flipped up his middle finger.

The roar of applause in response was nearly deafening, and that seemed to be the death knell for any sense of modesty Lance felt alone up on stage. He danced around and wailed out the song and ended it all down on his knees, feeling like a star and hard as a fucking rock. Lance only hoped his hard-on was hidden somewhere in the folds of his black leather pants.

Giddy and warm, Lance stumbled back to the table. Joey grabbed him by the head and hauled him in for a hug, squeezing with all his might. It was the first time in a week that Joey had touched him, and god, Lance missed it, missed him. Over and over again, Joey was saying, "did you hear this guy? Did you hear him? Did you hear him sing his fucking nuts off up there?"

When Lance looked over at Chris, Chris grinned and gave him a thumbs up, and Lance grinned back. Right then, Lance knew that it wasn’t about the singing at all and that Chris was a smart motherfucker. Sometimes, Lance loved these guys, all of them, so much it hurt inside to think about them not being there in all ways in his life, but especially as friends.

~~~

They had a great time with JC, though Lance never managed to corner Joey long enough to force the plan into the next step where they actually talked about what happened. Lance could wait, though. It was enough that Joey and Chris kept shooting spit-balls at each other and that Joey was back to touching everybody who looked like they needed it and even those who didn’t.

On the trip home, though, Lance and Chris both agreed that the time was ripe to push the scheme to the next level. Chris even admitted that Lance’s plan actually didn’t suck this time around, which made Lance feel better about it. Now, in most people’s worlds, hearing that Chris thought it was a good idea was usually a warning that everything was headed to disaster, but this scenario seemed impervious to stupidity. Stupidity, Lance believed, had already been involved.

"We have to tell him," Chris said when they stopped for gas and Joey ran into pay, "about us and the bad sex, right?" Chris pressed his lips into a line then puffed out his cheeks, his eyes widening. Lance nodded, and Chris deflated. "I know, dude. I feel really fucking guilty about it."

Lance nodded again. Inside the little gas station store, he could see Joey gathering things in his arms, mouth moving a mile a minute. The attendant was laughing with him, if the split of his smile was any indication. "Me too, but we did it, and we can’t undo it. At least it was awful."

Chris covered his face with his hand and shook his head. "I can’t believe I went limp."

"It happens," Lance said, shrugging. It hadn’t ever to him, but Lance knew when to keep his mouth shut. There were things Lance kidded himself about and there were things he didn’t. Erectile dysfunction fell firmly into the latter category. Someday, stress would kill Lance’s dick.

"That’s gotta count for something, right? I mean, I went soft, and you kinda got yourself off. That’s pretty pathetic." Chris had his head turned to the window, away from Lance’s eyes. Softly, Lance patted Chris on the shoulder. "You know, if this doesn’t work, I think I’m gonna be heartbroken. I went into this knowing I was the odd guy out and that you both were probably gonna dump my ass once you realised that, but I kinda, you know, came to believe I did."

"I went into this not wanting to admit this was everything I ever wanted," Lance admitted.

Chris looked over at him. "Set your sights pretty low, huh?"

"No, Chris." Lance sighed. "I just think I set my sights too damn high, is all."

Chris nodded like he understood, and Lance thought maybe he did.

~~~

"Okay. Let’s get this over with," Joey said when they were in Kentucky. Snow in the north had slowed them down, so they ended up stopping at some shit-bag motel. Lance had wanted to wait until they found a four star hotel, but he was outvoted. The place wasn’t bad, Lance supposed, if you were staying there for free and blind. Otherwise, it was a total shit-bag.

Poker face, Lance thought, and tried not to even so much as blink. Beside him, Chris looked away from the tv briefly before turning back, the images on the screen reflecting on his glasses. Casually, Lance shrugged and said, "I don’t know what you’re talking about, Joey."

"Bullshit. I’m tired of this tension, guys. I feel it, okay? And I’m sick of it. I just want things to go back to normal." Joey looked so earnest and hopeful that Lance prayed he was right about Joey, that he knew Joey even half as well as he thought he did. "So talk to me, Lance."

Chris grinned, the gleam of the television flashing on his teeth. "Yeah, go on, Lance."

Lance sighed. "Okay. We, as in Chris and myself, aren’t happy with how things ended."

Joey opened his mouth, and Lance lifted up his hand just as quickly. Properly chastised, Joey bowed his head and gestured extravagantly at Lance to continue with a few quick rolls of his hand.

"The way we figure it is, had this happened at any other time, it might have actually worked, but it happened now, so it didn’t." Lance took a breath. "But it would have, Joey. I don’t know why, because me and you wouldn’t have worked, and me and Chris," they shared a pained look between them, "no, and I’d put all my money down on you and Chris not working either."

"Guys," Joey said helplessly then stopped, scrubbing a hand over his mouth.

"Joey." Chris turned away from the tv, tucking one leg under his knee. "We just want to give it another go. Not now," Chris hastened to add, "but someday, where you’re not hurting so deep. I mean, if you really didn’t like what he had together, that’s all right, too. But we had fun, man, and we loved each other good. Better than anybody’s done with me in a damn long time."

"I don’t know when I’m going to get over this." Joey dropped his head and brought a fist to his chest, holding it there. Lance wanted to touch him, to offer him that much, but Joey didn’t like being touched when he felt raw. Looking at him and the wet glint in his eyes, Lance knew Joey felt stripped to the bone. "I don’t ever want to feel like that again. Kelly fucking tore my heart out. I wasn’t fucking ready to let go, but she was, and I. Never again, guys. I can’t do it."

"That isn’t gonna happen with us," Chris said quietly, eyes fixed firmly on his toes.

"Guys, this is." Joey stopped then started again. "What we’re doing, shit like this." Joey swiped his hands across his face, drying his cheeks, and when he spoke a third time, his voice was soft and sad and the worst sound Lance had ever heard. "I don’t wanna hate you, too."

Inexplicably, Lance felt his own eyes prickle with tears. He brought a hand to his face, pressing the edge of it against his eyelids, fighting them. The wetness simply slicked over his fingers, dampening his skin. Lance hadn’t cried since Russia. There had been no need for it, really, until that very moment. Joey was in pain, and Lance couldn’t do anything to help him.

"See, Joe, look what you’ve gone and done. Now Lance is crying, too."

Somewhere close, Joey snorted. "Fuck off, Kirkpatrick."

"Hey, you," Chris whispered warmly in Lance’s ear, hugging him from behind, and there was Joey, snug as bug around Lance from the front. Lance didn’t want to open his eyes, didn’t like have anybody see him cry, even guys he knew already had, but he did anyway. Tears clung like stars to his eyelashes and made everything glow. "I love you both, all right? So stop crying."

"Me too," Lance said, sniffling.

Joey didn’t say anything, and Lance really didn’t blame him. They were fools to believe in whatever they were. There was a chance in hell it would work. They were too complicated, too alternative. How would Lance ever explain to his momma that he’d fallen for two guys?

Finally, Joey’s nose nuzzled at the dip of Lance’s temple. "Me three. It’s so dumb, but I do, even knowing I shouldn’t. Wait for me, guys? I’ll catch up, I swear."

Joey squeezed Lance tighter, and Chris matched it on the other side, and Lance had never felt so protected in his whole life. It was so sappy, and Lance would be embarrassed for days that it had come to this, but it felt so right Lance didn’t care about the fact that his nose was running and leaving strings of snot all over Joey’s shirt. Sometimes, a guy just had to bawl his eyes out.

~~~

It wasn’t until the next morning, when they were back in Orlando and helping Chris bring his bag inside, that they told Joey about the bad sex. Even then, it took a lot of pointed looks and well-timed elbowing to get either of them to open their mouths. Finally, Chris just blurted it out.

"Oh," Joey said and sat down on the bed, putting his hands on his knees and staring down at them. It was, perhaps, a better reaction than Lance had been expecting. At least he was taking the time to think about it. "And you guys did this, like, right after ... right after I dumped you?"

Sadly, Chris nodded. He was having problems, Lance noticed, meeting Joey’s eyes, and Lance couldn’t blame him. "Just once, and that, Joe. Man, it was so awful. I’m not sure that, you know, me and Lance are ever gonna be able to do it again, even with you there. It was ..."

"Awful," Lance said, bobbing his head. Behind his back, he had his fingers crossed. It never hurt to call on luck, even though Lance was extremely unlucky by his very nature. He’d used up a lifetime of luck when he landed the Nsync gig, which was completely worth it.

Joey pursed his lips together for a moment then asked, "how bad?"

Chris dropped his head and stared at his feet. "I went limp, man. A fucking wet noddle."

"And I had to bring myself off. I wouldn’t have bothered, but Chris took it pretty hard."

Joey made a weird choked sound, something between a cough and a laugh.

When Lance looked over at him, Joey was grinning as bright as a sunny day.

"Not literally, I guess. Huh, Chris?"

"That’s never happened to me before." Chris responded by trying to grab Joey by the scruff of his neck and shake him a little, but Joey just poked him in the stomach until he stopped. "No, man, I swear, never. I’m so virile that I still get hard when the wind blows the wrong way."

"Uh huh, limp dick." Joey grabbed his Chris into a headlock then started scraping his knuckles over Chris’s scalp. Behind his hand, Lance smiled. "Whatever you say, man. At least I know what to get you for Christmas: a big box of Viagra personally delivered to your door."

They clowned around for a while before it became obvious, if they kept going, they were going to be right back at the beginning. Chris waved from his door as Lance pulled out of the driveway, careful not to catch Joey on any trees as he hung out the window, shouting obscenities.

At Joey’s house, Lance pulled into the driveway without any intention of coming inside. If nothing else, he was bone-tired from all the travelling and the emotion. Lance didn’t do either of them easy, despite the fact that his life was all about travelling and emotion. The car idled for a few minutes before either of them spoke. It was Joey who opened his mouth first.

"We okay, man?"

"Yeah. We’re good." Lance reached over and squeezed Joey’s knee, and Joey smiled. It took every ounce of strength Lance had to smile back. "I think I’m going to take a nice long vacation after Christmas, though. Aruba sounds good. A little sun, a little surf. It’ll be nice."

"Hey, you need it, man. You’re a little stressed out. I’m kinda worried about you, man." Joey jiggled his keys in his hand, keeping his eyes down. It was annoying, but Lance didn’t ask him to stop. Joey stopped anyway. "Tell me the truth, Lance. The sex you had with Chris, it really was bad, right? I mean, you aren’t just lying to me to make me feel better, right?"

"Nobody’s lying," Lance said quietly. "It was awful. It just didn’t feel right without you."

"Okay." Joey leaned and gave Lance a kiss on the cheek, leaving a smudge of spit on Lance’s cheek that rapidly cooled when Joey pulled back. "Say hi and Merry Christmas to your parents from me, all right? And have fun in Aruba, man. Gimme a call if you get bored of all those handsome young cabana boys walking around getting you hot and horny, all right?"

"I will," Lance promised, popping the trunk so Joey could grab his suitcase.

In the rearview mirror, Lance watched Joey drag his stuff out of the trunk then rolled down his window when Joey walked up. They looked at each other for a while, unspeaking. Eventually, Joey lifted his hand and touched Lance’s face. "I don’t think it’ll take very long."

"Don’t rush yourself."

"Whatever, bonehead. When have I ever slowed down for anything?"

Lance smiled. "Good point. I’ll see you later, all right?"

"‘Night, dude."

By the time Lance pulled out of Joey’s driveway, he felt infinitely better about it all.

~~~

Aruba was hot and beautiful, and Lance was bored out of his mind. He’d rented a little cottage on a private beach for a whole month. After two weeks, Lance honestly had nothing left to do. As far as Lance knew, he was free to have sex with as many cabana boys that he wanted, but it just felt wrong even thinking about it, so Lance spent a lot of time with his bottle of lotion, stroking his cock and finger-fucking himself. It practically became his sidekick, which was sad.

Lance tried Joey a few times, but there was no answer. Chris picked up twice but trying to talk to him on the phone was a difficult task, and Lance was getting a headache from all the random bursts of cuss words Chris was levelling at the television. Football season always made Chris into a crazily high strung, extremely loud fan. The sooner the Superbowl came, the better.

Lance wrote a few postcards, watched a few movies. It was a vacation, so he purposely didn’t do any actual work, though the urge to open up Excel and make a spreadsheet was strong. Lance played solitaire on the kitchen table and on his laptop. He swam. He surfed. He slept.

On the fifteenth day, Lance woke up and immediately pulled on his swim trunks. The fashion gurus in the area dictated speedos, but Lance wasn’t letting that ship sail. Instead, he wore a swimsuit that resembled a spandex version of boxer-briefs, slung low enough that he could show off his groin muscles and cut high enough that he could flash his thighs.

Lance slathered a sesame seed bagel with cream cheese, grabbed an orange Gatorade then trekked down to the beach to read the New York Times, which he paid an arm and a leg to have delivered to him before ten, which was about as late as he could sleep in these days. Lance took a moment to admire the rolling surf and the clear blue sky before settling down into a chair to read, sunglasses perched on the end of his nose. Same old, same old, Lance thought miserably.

"Does Meester Bass want sexy massage?"

Slowly, Lance turned his head to see Chris standing ankle-deep in the sand, smiling. Chris had stripped down to his smiley-face swim shorts, a visor holding the soft wisps of his hair from his face. Without another word, Chris plopped down into the sand, sending a cloud of dirt over Lance’s unprotected cream-cheese-covered bagel. Lance hadn’t been that hungry anyway.

"What are you doing here?"

Chris shrugged. "It was boring back in Orlando. Figured you had satellite, so I wouldn’t miss the Superbowl if I got on a plane. ‘Sides, with what you’re paying for this place, it seems a mighty big waste for one guy all on his lonesome, if you ask me. You gonna eat that bagel?"

"It’s covered in sand," Lance said, but he handed it over anyway.

"Whatever.” Chris shrugged, but he ran a finger across the top of the cream cheese anyway, taking most of it off. Chris then wiped his finger on his shorts and took a big chomp of bagel. Lance was vaguely sickened by the sight. “It’s not like I didn’t spend my childhood eating dirt.”

"You sure you want this bonehead hanging around constantly? Cuz, man." Joey smiled, looking so much better than he had a month ago, wearing well-worn jeans and a bright Hawaiian shirt, unbuttoned and billowing open in the breeze. Joey ambled down to sit on the other side of Lance, reaching for Lance’s orange Gatorade. "If this is going to work, locking him out of the house when we want peace and quiet isn’t going to be an option anymore. And hey, man, share."

Chris ripped the bagel in two and passed a half over to Joey. Lance’s stomach lurched, but he supposed it was better than wasting it, somehow. "So me and Joe have decided we’re both sick and tired of waiting for a good thing when it’s right fucking there in front of us. See, I formed me a plan in which I had a little talk with Kelly then Kelly had a little talk with Joey."

"And I had a little talk with Chris, so here we are, having a little talk with you." Joey had cream cheese and sand all over his lips. Idly, Lance lifted his hand and wiped them clean. "Hey, thanks, man. So, what do you say, Lance? Will you let us stay? We brought booze and lots of it."

Lance smiled, sun warm on his cheeks. "Hm, I guess you can stay. Heck, I’ll even pay."

"See, that’s why we like you, Bass. You’re our sugar daddy." Chris looked around then leaned over and gave Lance a brief kiss on the lips. It was enough to send shots of heat straight into Lance’s dick. It started filling out his swim trunks. "Ah, Lance. The more things change."

"The more they stay exactly the fucking same," Joey finished, sneaking a hand against Lance’s crotch and giving his cock one teasingly deliberate rub. "We noticed the bed is big enough to sleep three. What say we go and test it out, hm?" Joey squeezed Lance’s cock again.

Lance swallowed the lump in his throat and muttered, "my momma didn’t raise no fool."

Chris and Joey tackled him to the sand, laughing.

Fin.