“...Lance. Hey. I was just thinking about you. And that time, with the asshole who stole your jeans? Remember that time? God, you’re such a bonehead. Called me up, in the middle of the damn night, all ‘Joe, please come pick me up’ because the bastard had also taken everything. You were in Georgia. I never asked, man. I just drove there and picked your ass up from that dinky bathroom. Because, dude, we do shit like that for each other. You’re my best friend, man. So I was just thinking that maybe I’d call and ask you to stop by. Quick as possible, if you can. Tonight? I’m in Orlando. I’ll be home. Just come, all right? No questions. Just come...”
~~~
Joey sounded hungry on the message. Lance wasn’t sure why he knew that, but he did. Joey sounded downright starved, so Lance picked up a box of Krispy Kreme donuts and two Big Mac meals, up-sized. It’d been a long, boring drive from Mississippi. He’d contemplated the plane for three seconds before thinking, fuck it. It’d given him time to think.
Joey’s house looked empty. The blinds were shut. A stack of papers peppered the stoop, tossed carelessly by the newspaper man. Lance collected them with his empty hand, a tedious balancing game which nearly sent the donuts into the bushes. When he rang the bell, Joey didn’t answer. Searching for his keys really did sent the donuts into the bushes, but he got the door open and managed to get his haul into the house with little trouble. The house alarm chirped at him once. It wasn’t set, he noticed.
“Joey!”
The house was eerily quiet. The sink was free of dishes, but the garbage was overflowing. He opened the fridge; it was beyond empty. Even the jar of pickles they’d figured would outlive Joe was gone. The empty jar, Lance saw, was sorted with the recyclables. But wow, did the kitchen stink. Lance left the food on the counter, ignoring the newspapers when they scattered onto the tile.
“Joey? Hey! You home?”
Lance looked into the living room then the dining room, but they were both empty. Meticulously clean, too, which signalled something amiss. Joey’s cleaning lady usually couldn’t keep up with him, and he didn’t even bother to make her try. He wasn’t messy, Joey said every time Lance commented, he was comfortable. The family room was immaculate, so something was seriously up. Not bad, just weird, Lance thought, like Joey had been replaced by a tidy pod person.
The theatre was empty except for the four DVDs of Star Wars stacked on top of the player. Lance pressed eject. The bootleg copy of Episode Two was inside; he’d gotten it for Joey over in Russia, complete with subtitles. Joey had loved the movie, despite Lance’s claim that it blew harder than he did, so he’d Fed-Exed it over.
Lance walked upstairs and nearly jumped out of his skin when Joey said, “hey.”
“Sweet Jumping Jesus!” Lance’s heart pattered against his hand. It would climb out of his chest if it could, he thought, and slumped against the wall. It was only luck his shorts weren’t soiled. He’d held it in for the drive. “God, Joey. Warn a guy.”
“Sorry.”
Lance turned around, but Joey wasn’t in the hall. His voice was close, though, like he was on the other side of the wall, like that was all that separated them, but when Lance stepped forward, Joey said, “don’t. Stay there for a second, all right?”
“Sure,” Lance said. “Any reason why?”
“Yeah.”
“Care to expand?”
“You’re so damn nosy, man. Just hold your horses, okay?”
“Mind if I take a piss first them come back and humour you?”
“By all means. Use the downstairs one.”
“Yes, sir,” Lance said. He went downstairs, did his thing, then came out, wiping his hands dry on his jeans. The whole house smelled strange, he noticed, like Justin’s socks, only worse, more pungent. Joey seriously need to open a window (or seven) and air the place out. “Can I come back?”
“Shut up.”
Lance sat on the top step and twiddled his thumbs. He bumped his head on the wall and got a thump in response, so Joey was definitely on the other side. The whole thing was freakishly weird, but Joey was prone to acting oddly, and Lance was prone to acting like he didn’t notice.
“Promise you won’t scream or anything?” Joey finally said.
Lance smirked. “I’m not a screamer.”
“Just promise, okay?”
“I promise. No screaming.”
“Then you can turn around,” Joey said.
Lance twisted on the stairs, shifting his leg so it folded over the other. Still no Joey, but a shadow had cast across the carpet. It looked bigger than it normally did. Joey was susceptible to sudden ballooning. He’d been pretty slim when Lance came back from Russia, but after Rent, he gained most of the weight back, and then some, apparently.
“Listen, Joey. I think we both know you’re going to turn into your dad someday. I wasn’t expecting you to freak out until you hit thirty, at the earliest,” Lance said. He smiled and shook his head. So he was fat? So what? They could diet together. It would be fun. “Come on, it’s fine. This talking through walls thing is getting old.”
“Don’t scream,” Joey said again and stepped into the hall. And in Lance’s defence, he didn’t scream, just like he promised. Rather, he spoke very, very loudly, in something more like a yell. That was exactly what he did.
“Jesus H. Christ on a fucking pogo stick!”
“Stop screaming at me!”
“What the fuck did you to yourself!”
“I didn’t do anything!”
Joey sounded hysterical. Or Lance thought it was Joey. A ... thing with Joey’s voice, a very hairy ... thing. A very fucking hairy thing with Joey’s voice, and god. Lance scrubbed a hand over his eyes. It was still there when he pulled it away, watching him. Brown eyes, Lance thought. Okay. The ... thing had brown eyes like Joey had brown eyes. And the ... thing had Joey’s voice. Lance was smart. This ... thing was obviously Joey. Obviously.
“I just woke up like this,” Joey mumbled. He paced up and down the hall as Lance stared at him, gaping. His mama always told him not to stare at people different from himself, but so long as he had eyes, he would stare at Joey. “Like, what the hell, you know? And it’s so goddamn itchy, Lance, you have no idea.”
“Have you been to a doctor?” Lance finally asked.
“No.” Joey scratched at his arm. “I haven’t been anywhere, man. And I’m starving like you wouldn’t believe, dude.”
Lance narrowed his eyes.
“Two weeks or something, all right? I was hoping it would go away.” Joey sighed. The hair under his nose ruffled and parted at the sudden breath. “Listen, give me a break, all right? I’m freaked out. Look at my hand.” He held it out. It shook crazily, like he was suffering from some horrible disease, but he sounded okay. Just hungry, and a lot scared.
“I brought food,” Lance said quietly.
“Oh, thank fucking god,” Joey replied.
~~~
Joey ate like he always did. Lance wasn’t sure why he was surprised. It wasn’t like he really thought Joey was going to get down on the floor and eat of out of a dog dish, even if he looked the part. He still was messy and piggish, but that was Joey in a nutshell. Joey the Man, anyway. Joey the Thing was an unknown entity.
“Have you tried shaving?”
Joey looked up. “I’m not a moron, bonehead.”
“Listen, I’m just trying to help.”
“You brought me food. I knew you would. Your work here is done, so will you just let me eat in peace? Jesus, man.” Lance was sure, if Joey had fangs (and he didn’t, because Lance had spent a good few minutes looking), he would have bared them. Instead, he chomped on his burger then took Lance’s, stuffing it into his mouth.
“Nair?”
“Fuck you,” Joey said. He spat bits of burger all over the table.
“Fuck you more,” Lance snapped.
~~~
They made up after Joey had finished the two Big Mac meals, and most of the donuts. He left the sprinkled ones for Lance, since Lance knew Joey knew they were his favourite. It was a peace offering, which Lance accepted by taking the donut from him, letting their hands touch. The hair was silky; it tickled. And it was really fucking strange.
“You okay about this?” Lance asked quietly.
Joey shook his head.
“You want me to do anything?”
“Get me some Nair.”
~~~
Lance went to the store and got all the hair removal products he could find. Creams, waxes (hot and cold), and a pair of tweezers. Also, a home electrolysis kit, complete with moustached woman on the front box. He got some groceries, too, since Joey was incredibly hungry. Lance thought it was less that he’d turned into a dog overnight and more the fact he hadn’t eaten in three days, since he’d been too scared to leave the house. That was why he called; he was afraid of starving to death. And rightfully so, Lance thought, as he bought Corn Flakes and Wonder Bread. He bought a lot of junk food, too. Joey deserved it.
Joey was where he left him, sitting in the home theatre, watching the rest of Episode Two. He was lounged across the couch like – Lance seriously hated to even think it – a dog, wearing just a pair of smiley face boxers. He said everything else made him itch.
“I got you some twinkies,” Lance said. He held them out like a peace offering.
“Thanks,” Joey said. The plastic crinkled in his hand as he opened it. He chewed it unenthusiastically, sighing every so often. Lance sat down on the other leather couch and watched the movie for a while. There wasn’t much more to say. Joey had turned into a really hairy ... thing. Lance thought he was taking it pretty well, considering.
“I can call a doctor,” Lance said. “A guy who is, like, you know. Quiet.”
“The guy who dealt with your thing?”
“Yeah. He’s cool,” Lance said. They were both talking in low whispers, like the walls had ears or something. It was strange, but Lance didn’t stop. “Like, maybe your thyroid is acting up, or your testosterone is wildly out of control. You’ve always been pretty, um, hirsute.”
“Not this bad,” Joey mumbled.
“Yeah.” Lance scratched at his nose. “So, you wanna try some of this shit?”
~~~
Joey was a freak of nature. It didn’t make any sense at all, and to Lance’s logically programmed brain, that meant leaving the room and counting to ten or risk upsetting Joey, who was putting on a brave front, but he’d had two weeks to simmer and was obviously quite traumatised by the whole damn affair. Lance couldn’t blame him. He was so fucking hairy.
The fourth time he came back, he sat on the edge of the tub and rubbed his hands together. Joey looked up at him. His eyes were a bit watery, but thank god, he hadn’t cried. Joey wasn’t a crier. Justin and JC, sometimes; Chris, only when he was convinced he had fucked up either himself or one of them beyond repair (like the whole lawsuit shenanigan, or when Dani dumped him, or when Busta died, or when Joey ripped up his leg because Chris had been yelling at him to get the fuck onstage already so they could all go home and sleep). But him and Joey, no way did they cry unless something was seriously horrible. And this wasn’t at all. Mostly.
“I don’t get why it grows back so fast,” Lance finally said.
“Me neither.” The patch that Joey had zapped off was covered in short fuzz, like the skin of a peach. When they watched it, it didn’t change, but the minute they looked away, it seemed to sprout like grass on steroids. “I guess I’m stuck this way.”
“I can call the doctor,” Lance said. He poked at Joey’s wrist with his finger. The skin beneath the hair felt warm, like it was working extra hard to disfigure Joey. Which seriously sucked, Lance decided. Joey was the last guy who deserved to be horribly deformed.
“I guess.”
“He won’t tell anybody,” Lance said.
“Yeah,” Joey said.
~~~
The doctor couldn’t explain it. He took a bunch of blood, sent it off to be looked at ASAP, and nothing was abnormal. Not a damn fucking thing. Joey took it pretty well, considering. He just lay back down on his leather couch and started watching Return of the Jedi (his favourite, Lance noted, and hoped it would lift his spirits). Lance paid the doctor off and made him sign another confidentiality agreement (or ten) just for fun, but what he really wanted to do was beat himself over the head with a lead pipe.
“It’s not so bad,” Lance said.
“Fuck off,” Joey mumbled. He reached over and pumped up the volume until Lance’s teeth started to shake. He pulled his lips over them and pinched a forced smile before turning on his heel and going to sit in the other room. If Joey was going to be like that about Lance trying to help, then he was going to sit by himself and not even try to cheer him up.
~~~
Joey was just a well of good news. After waking up on the couch with a crick in his neck, Lance watched Joey slink around the room until he sat down and sighed deeply. Men, Lance thought, and rolled his eyes. It was a good thing he was born with patience, or he’d never survive as a gay man. Radio silence sucked, but at least he didn’t have to interpret women-speak. Every time Chris got dumped for not getting it, Lance thanked his lucky stars.
But his patience was not infinite, and after fifteen minutes of Joey looking at him and waiting for him to ask, Lance threw up his arms and said, “what in God’s name is it now? Sweet mother of pearl! Spit it out.” He hated Joey’s look of suffering. It made him feel guilty for no reason, and helpless, too, which was a feeling Lance hated more than anything else.
“I think I have a time limit,” Joey said.
Lance looked at him blankly.
“There’s this rose, all right? I think, you know, I maybe fucked up pretty badly here,” Joey mumbled.
Lance pinched his eyelids together and just refused to have this conversation. Joey was accident prone, he knew this, and he had some of the shittiest luck in the world, Lance also knew this, but it was exhausting to think about the dearth of crap that happened to Joey, who was the epitome of a good guy.
Joey continued on, unfazed. “This chick was, like, take this flower, right? And I’m, like, sorry, can’t. And this chick, she wasn’t a looker, but I’m not picky, you know. It was just. There was this other chick, with this huge rack, and like, first dibs, you know? I wasn’t smiting the chick with a rose.”
“Spiting,” Lance said. Joey glared at him. “Sorry. Go on.”
“And I, you know, fuck this slightly more hotter chick in the back of the car, right? And her tits, man. They were a handful. And I go home, and I wake up, hairy as hell, and the rose is on my pillow. I swear, man, I didn’t take it from the slightly less hotter chick. I never, like, boned her, and I only saw her that once. So I think I have a time limit,” Joey repeated. He scrubbed a hand through the longer hair on his head then scratched down his neck and across his chest, and then just all over. He was always scratching.
Lance seriously fucking hoped he didn’t have fleas.
“Dude?”
Lance looked at him.
“I suck,” Joey said. It sounded like an apology.
“You seriously do,” Lance agreed. It meant he accepted it.
~~~
The Rose wasn’t really a rose. It looked like one. It pricked Lance’s thumb when he picked it up. A drop of blood lifted from his skin, and he sucked it into his mouth. It smelled like a rose; he felt his chest seize up at the first snort. But it wasn’t a rose. The petal were on so tightly that Lance couldn’t pull a single one off; it was like steel, almost, in the strength of it.
“I’m seriously screwed,” Joey said.
“Looks that way,” Lance replied. He thumped the head of the flower against the bedside table then squinted it again. He sneezed. There was one petal on the table-top, and it’d broken the scissors he took to it when he tried to cut it up. Joey looked more morose by the second. “What’s the moral of this story?”
“Chicks suck.”
“Amen,” Lance said. He put the Rose down. He didn’t want to touch it again.
~~~
It was too much to think about, so they didn’t. They shared a pipe of weed, and ate pizza that Lance picked up, and watched Willow and all three Indiana Jones movies in celebration of the wonder that used to be Lucas Films. Lance let Joey rant about the state of the current Star Wars franchise until he was blue in the face (not literally, of course. Lance couldn’t even be sure Joey was still Joey under all the hair). He was afraid Joey would get weepy, but the weed just made him relax. When he fell sleep, Lance wasn’t even surprised. He probably hadn’t slept in weeks.
Lance vacuumed the house. Dark hair seemed to blanket the place. There were huge balls of it in Joey’s bedroom, and the mattress was covered in enough to make a carpet. Lance’s eyes watered as he sucked it all up. He made a mental note to get some Claritin.
When the house started to stink like burning hair (and he knew the smell well from when Stacy used to brush her hair everywhere when she was fifteen), he stopped and opened up Joey’s laptop instead. After three hours of searching, there were still no answers, except there was a family in Mexico who were covered in hair and who lived in the mountains and were shunned by common folk. He decided not to tell Joey about that particular discovery.
Lance made up the bed in the guest room and stripped off his clothes, tossing them all into the laundry machine. His eyes itched, and he rubbed at them, pulling tears. Definitely some Claritin, Lance thought, as he splashed his face with cold water.
He covered Joey with a blanket and tucked him in. Joey sighed in his sleep and scratched his fingers across his belly, the scritch scritch scritch of his nails loud and steady. Tugging his hand away, Lance fished his keys from his pocket and used the penlight to look at Joey’s hair. No fleas, he noted, and no lice, but some pretty bad dandruff. The skin underneath was pale. That answered that, he guessed. He turned off the light and let Joey sleep.
~~~
Lance woke up early to get to the Walmart before the morning rush. He bought ten bottles of Head and Shoulders, four hair-dryers, an extension cord with handy extra outlets and two boxes of antihistamines. He got out of the store only having to give three autographs and to listen to one rant about how spoiled pop stars shouldn’t even be considered for space flight. Lance thanked her for her opinion, then thought about shooting himself in the head.
Joey was up and scratching by the time Lance got back. Fresh air made Lance realise one thing: Joey stunk. Bad. He smelled like a pack of dogs and Justin’s athlete’s-foot-infected socks JC’s bad cooking and Chris’s sweaty armpits, all rolled into one. Lance had hoped Joey’s hair would magically fall out overnight, but it was still there, plentiful and grotesque. Luck was still not on Joey’s side.
“Are you going to tell the guys?” Lance asked as he fried eggs.
“We start recording next week,” Joey said. “They’ll probably notice, bonehead.”
“You know what I meant.”
“I was planning on holing up in my house and nobody ever knowing, until I ran out of food, so I don’t know. I guess. If I have to,” Joey mumbled. The scratch of the salt and pepper shakers as he moved them around table was beyond aggravating. One pointed look from Lance was enough to make him stop.
“I think they’ll be all right.”
“Uh huh,” Joey said. Sarcasm coming from Joey was a rare and beautiful thing, usually. Right then, it was just a relief. It meant Joey wasn’t moping anymore. “Right. I’ve turned into, like, a fucking dog, man. We thought I was unpopular before? I’m going to start losing us fans.”
“I doubt it,” Lance said, slipping two eggs onto a plate to go with the extra crispy bacon he’d cooked. He plucked the toast from the toaster and plopped it all down in front of Joey. “Listen, the time limit thing, I don’t believe it. We need a second opinion.”
“On what? Dude, I’m a fucking Sasquatch.”
“I still think it’s your testosterone,” Lance replied.
“I don’t think so,” Joey replied. He had egg on his lips, already tangled into his hair. Lance plucked a napkin from the holder and handed it to him. With a growl, Joey scrubbed at his face until Lance nodded. “I think I scorned an ugly chick, and now she’s taken revenge for ugly chicks everywhere, despite the fact I like ugly chicks.”
“There are so many things wrong with that statement, I don’t even know where to begin.” Lance sat down at the table and brushed the tumbleweed of hair rolling past to the ground. The dark fur was already all over his pants. Joey desperately needed to be combed. “Anyway, shit like that, god, it doesn’t happen in the real world. Your thyroid is just about to explode.”
“What about that time Justin grew a tail?” Joey asked.
Lance looked up. “That never happened, idiot.”
“I know, bonehead. But we thought he had.”
“We, as in you and Justin, which is why you’re both never doing LSD together again.”
“But, like, we believed it. So it shouldn’t be so hard to believe I’ve been hexed by an angry chick and turned into a hideous man-beast,” Joey said.
“Except, you know, I’m not doing LSD, and Justin never actually had a tail. You just got back and front confused,” Lance replied. Joey’s circular reasoning was infamous for never making sense, but Joey just waved him off, like he was right, when he was not at all. “My point, Fatone, is that shit like this doesn’t happen in the real world.”
“Well, it’s happened to me,” Joey snapped.
Lance ignored him and ate his hair-covered eggs. His eyes watered.
~~~
“You smell horrible,” Lance finally said. “And you’re getting hair everywhere.”
“You know, intellectually, I know you’re a nice guy, but I’m totally not feeling it right now,” Joey replied, but he got up from the couch and followed Lance to the bathroom. It was bright and spacious, facing the private backyard. Lance had already cracked open the windows.
“Sorry, but you’re gross,” Lance said and pointed to the stool. “Sit.”
“I did take a shower, like, last week, you know, but dude, you think I stink dry? When I’m wet, it’s enough to raise the dead.” Joey scratched over his chest vigorously with two hands. His nails scraped like sandpaper over wood. “You think maybe we should be drunk for this?”
“Already thought of that. Look in the cooler,” Lance said. He would have gotten them himself, but he was too busy spraying the bathroom with air freshener. When he sat down behind Joey, he accepted the beer he offered and sucked half the bottle back. His eyes prickled, but from the beer or the stench, he didn’t know.
The job, as Lance detailed it, involved first, spritzing Joey with water and rubbing him down with Head and Shoulders. Second, wait for five minutes until his skin started to tingle and burn. Third, hose him down in the tub with his Swedish-made massager shower head. Fourth, towel dry him. Fifth, blow him dry. (They shared a good laugh at that one). Six, splash him with wonderfully fragrant body spray.
“I feel intensely close to you right now,” Joey said as Lance rubbed shampoo into his back. Joey was responsible for the front, since Lance was pretty sure he still had a dick, and Joey’s cock had always been way off-limits. “Like, so close. You’re a good friend, man.”
Joey patted his knee. He was already drenched, so Lance didn’t much mind.
“Remember this,” Lance said ominously, but laughed when Joey leaned back and slathered him with orange goo. It was soothing, almost, to run his fingers through the thick hair and massage the soap into Joey’s skin. They hadn’t spent much time together since Lance came back from Russia and Joey ended his run on Rent. It was nice bonding time.
“Is it supposed to burn like this?” Joey asked when they were waiting. He wanted to scratch, Lance could tell by the way his fingers wiggled, but he was being good if not whiny. Lance supposed he had a right to be a suck about it. “And god! It’s in my eye.”
“That means it’s done. Into the tub,” Lance said and led him to it, but they were both pretty slippery. The resulting tangle of limbs as they tripped sucked pretty hard, and Lance was sure Joey had crushed his balls in the fall, but they disentangled. Joey slipped as he got in the tub; Lance held onto the towel rack but fell too when it ripped from the wall.
“What was that?” Joey asked. His eyes were pinched shut.
“Um. Nothing,” Lance said. He could fit his fist into the holes it left. He only hoped Joey realised just how much Joey owed him and didn’t get too mad when he realised Lance had killed his wall. “Okay. Tell me if this is too hot.”
“Fuck!” Joey howled and knocked his head against the side of the tub. He slumped, but the way he carried on assured Lance that he was fine. A little more cold water, and he stopped struggling, though he looked more and more like a drowned dog with each passing minute. In all the excitement, Lance didn’t even notice the tub was overflowing until he slipped again.
“Damn it, Joe. The drain is clogged,” Lance said. Blindly, he reached his hand into the pool of scalding water and poked his finger at the blockage. It didn’t budge. Shuddering, he pinched as much as he could grab and pulled. The water started to sink.
Towel drying was better. Or that was what Lance told himself. It would have been fine, except all the questions Lance had about Joey’s dick were suddenly answered. A nice human cock, the only thing left smooth on Joey’s entire body (since all those years of wanking had caught up to him, and he had seriously hairy palms), but Joey got defensive when he caught Lance staring.
“It’s normally a lot bigger.”
“Your dick shrunk?” Lance asked. He couldn’t keep the horror from his voice.
“No. It just looked like more when I wasn’t, you know, a hairy man-beast.” Joey cupped himself then grabbed for a towel. Lance gave it and promised to go easier on the vigorous rubbing, since Joey so obviously hadn’t gotten any for the full two weeks. According to Joey himself, he hadn’t even jerked off.
“Dude,” Lance said.
“Freaked out,” Joey reminded him. “Just, can we finish this before I start bawling like a baby, man? I mean, I appreciate your help, buddy, but I’m feeling incredibly grotesque here.”
“Sure, no problem. Grab two of the blow-dryers, will you?”
It worked wonderfully for a few minutes. Joey was a big tangle of knots, which Lance was not looking forward to combing, but his hair was so short that it dried quickly, and he smelled much better. So it was great, until the one in Lance’s hand sparked and the whole house went dark, suddenly, finally. Lance shouted,
“Oh my mother-loving god!”
He went to find the fuse box.
~~~
They settled into a pattern after that. No longer quite so odorous, Lance could stand being in the same room with Joey for hours on end, and Joey had agreed to do half of the vacuuming, which Lance seriously hated. It was why he had several cleaning people, all of whom were men, because some of them were the naked kind.
Lance moved in temporarily and had stuff shipped over from various locales across the globe. He’d been in a transitional period, anyway. Everyone had moved while he was in Russia, which resulted in him having no friends living even remotely close to either of his houses. He’d started to feel sucky about it, so living with Joey was just better for everyone.
So it was great, until the second petal fell off. When Joey hadn’t come down for breakfast, Lance went up to bring it to him (his moods were weird, and if he wanted to sleep for the whole day, Lance was going to let him, but his mama always told him to feed people until they were happy. It conflicted with his beliefs, but Joey liked food). He was sitting there, hunched over, staring at the Rose. He rubbed the petal between his thumb and forefinger, brushing it over his lower lip. Lance thumped his head softly against the door jamb.
Two gone, he thought, two gone, and then. Lance just didn’t know.
~~~
After their bath the next day, and Lance only said their bath because he’d realised he got just as wet as Joey, they watched all the movies about hairy people that Lance could find, including Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, Teen Wolf (which they’d both seen too many times already) and the complete run of the Beauty and the Beast television show, which Lance had nabbed from ebay for far too much. He tried to stay away from movies where the hairy guy maimed, mutilated and killed. Joey didn’t need ideas put into his head, and Lance didn’t want to have nightmares.
“I don’t think I’m a werewolf,” Joey said as Lance sat behind him and combed his back. Lance should have been more repulsed, but it was all right. It was like brushing a talking dog. Somehow, that idea currently exemplified normalcy. “I don’t howl at the moon or anything.”
“Thank god.” Lance pulled at a stubborn knot, and Joey smacked at his hands.
“Ow, dude. Gentle.”
“Sorry.” Lance sprayed the patch with some de-tangling crap. “So you’re convinced this is Pseudo Ugly Chick’s revenge?” They’d started calling her that since Joey still maintained she wasn’t that unattractive at all. Nice hips, nice tits, Joey really didn’t need much. Plus, the Rose seemed to be a bit sensitive. They were treading dangerous ground as it was.
“Obviously, it is. And I have to fall in love before the last petal falls. Disney would not lie to me, man,” Joey said, so serious that Lance thought for a second that he wasn’t joking, but the snort gave him away. “Your face! Dude!” Turning back to look at Lance, Joey laughed, teeth white and pearly underneath the umbrella of hair surrounding his mouth. “But really. I think I have to, like, find someone to love me, and shit like that.”
“That sucks,” Lance said.
“It truly does,” Joey agreed.
~~~
The thing about Joey that Lance liked so much was that he had a similar outlook on sex. Mainly, why do it for anything other than fun, because true love and the like just didn’t exist. Joey had been burned at fourteen, by a girl he’d adored, who’d only dated him to de-virgin him in a whole bunch of ways. He’d been pretty wholesome until that incident. Lance had just been screwed over by so many men since he’d started exclusively seeing guys that he couldn’t imagine ever settling down. They sold his underwear on ebay, pissed in his houseplants just because he could afford to replace them a hundred times over, and expected him to pay for everything.
That left them with a problem. Compounded by Joey’s complete inability to fall in love (or so he claimed) was the fact that he refused to consider women. “No way, man,” he said, “I’m done with women. Nothing but grief, and well, you know. I can be flexible.”
The most awkward night of Lance’s life had been the one where Joey had asked to talk to him (privately) then confessed he sorta maybe found a guy (or nine) hot. Hot enough to fuck, he had been clear on that, and Lance had sat there, mortified. Joey was the straightest guy in the world. Lance’s understanding of the universe had blown up with Joey’s admission. It’d made him think about things, too, about possibilities he hadn’t let himself entertain. It was a wonder they were still friends, after that night.
To further his cause, Joey had made a small list of men he thought would love him back.
“You think C would, like, fall for me?” Joey asked.
Lance paled. “Joey,” he said and waved his hand around helplessly. He didn’t know the nice way to say that no, JC would probably not fall for him. At all. Ever. Unless he suddenly woke up as a thin, gorgeous supermodel. And the only thing Joey really had that JC wanted (at least some of the time) was a dick. A cut dick, which JC was currently iffy on. “Jayce is a bit.”
Joey looked at him expectantly.
Lance felt like he was kicking a puppy. “He’s shallow. I love him, but he’s so fucking shallow. Sorry.” He felt like a monster, especially when Joey dropped his eyes and turned away. Traditional hurt Joey posture, Lance thought, and rubbed his back. “Maybe try Kelly.”
“She does love me,” Joey muttered, “but I don’t love her. I’ve tried that already.”
The list Joey had was short, and they ruled out Chris quickly (straight, unfortunately, since he would have been perfect. He was so hairy that he didn’t seem to notice other people. He’d taken to dating earthy girls, recently) and Justin just as soon (also straight. Plus, he was still pining and slutty over the Britney thing and, like JC, could be pretty shallow).
Kevin, Lance’s ex, who Joey had always liked a lot, even though he was a boring ad exec, got knocked off the list when Lance said the reason they’d broken up was because he’d decided he wasn’t gay after all. Lance was still pissed about that.
The list also included Howie, who Lance had dated briefly but so wasn’t Joey’s style at all and was almost married to Nick anyway, in a strangely platonic way (which was why he and Lance never stood a chance: Lance hated anything remotely triangular), and a bunch of guys who had been in Rent with Joey, and Joey’s childhood friend, Richie. And the chatty guy who cleaned Joey’s pool, since the only reason Joey had ever hired him was because he looked good in swim trunks (a piece of information that had also scarred Lance for life).
They were all ruled out because, according to Joey, they had seen the real him and that was never a good thing. Joey spent half the day bitterly regretting everything he’d ever done in his life, until he snapped out of it and grabbed his laptop. The problem was that Joey had a sea of acquaintances but didn’t have many close friends, and the ones he did have were all married or straight or too close to truly fall for him. So Joey turned to the internet.
“Guys are assholes,” Lance said.
“You’re not,” Joey replied. Lance knew he was busy typing at the computer, creating a profile on Gay.com. Lance tried to stop him, but he was determined and took the laptop into the bathroom, locking Lance out. It wouldn’t hurt, Lance decided, and let him be.
~~~
“Holy shit!” Chris slapped a hand to his forehead then danced about in place as if overloaded by information. He approached Joey and tugged on a tuft of hair then jumped back. “Fuck me gently with a chainsaw, dude! Sheeeeee-it!”
Lance frowned. “Chris.”
“Holy fuck! Holy fuck! Holy! Fuck!” Chris shouted, loudly, in Joey’s face, then collapsed on the couch. “Okay, I’m done, but dude. Who the hell did you piss off? And please give me her name so I can avoid her for the rest of my life. Shit.”
“A pseudo ugly chick, man,” Joey said and sat on the other end of the couch. He and Chris stared at each other. Chris poked at him once, and Joey let him. It’d been a challenge to even get Joey into JC’s basement to start recording vocals. He’d almost insisted he ride over in the trunk, but Lance talked him down to lying down in the back, with a blanket thrown over him. It was good that Chris was acting as normally as Chris ever acted.
“Dude,” Chris said, petting Joey’s arm, “chicks suck.”
“Don’t I know it?” Joey replied.
~~~
JC and Justin responded much like Lance feared. They stared, and didn’t say much, and huddled together at one end of the recording booth while Joey and Chris stayed on the other. It was like a fucking elementary school dance. Lance spent a lot of time in the bathroom, wishing he’d had the foresight to bring a mickey of gin. By the time he returned, JC was talking to Joey, but his eyes were wide. Lance turned around and left again.
Justin followed him to JC’s fridge and pulled himself up onto the counter. Lance poured some juice, drank it, then poured another glass and drank that, too. Justin sighed. Lance got a banana and ate it. Justin looked at him pointedly. Lance seriously fucking hated men.
“What is it?” Lance finally asked.
“Is this a joke?”
“No, Justin,” Lance said flatly.
Lance stood on his tip-toes and fished around in the cupboard above JC’s fridge until he found the package of Oreos JC kept hidden. They were probably months old, but Lance started shovelling them in anyway. His mama had said he needed to put on weight. It was either that or start drinking, and JC always stocked shitty booze.
“Has he seen a doctor?”
“You know, Justin. Contrary to popular belief, I’m not an idiot.” Lance opened the fridge to get some milk. The cookies were way beyond stale and scrapping the inside of his mouth. “Yes. He has. The story happened exactly the way he tells it.”
“So this is some modern fairy tale?”
“Evidently.”
“But what about photo shoots?”
“Shoot me, please,” Lance replied.
~~~
When Chris suggested they use Wade as a stand-in for Joey on the publicity shots they had scheduled, he got kidney-punched by Justin and purple-nurpled by Joey. It didn’t stop him from laughing though, and Lance seriously regretted that Chris had never developed a taste for dick. He would have been perfect. Instead, they just postponed the photos until Joey managed to get somebody to fall in love with him. Knowing Joey’s luck, Lance didn’t expect that to happen any time soon. It was depressing to think about.
That night, when they got home, another petal had fallen. Lance stared at it then put it in his pocket before Joey could notice.
~~~
The only time Joey left the house was to go over to JC’s house to record. Every other waking hour he spent watching television, lying on his couch and staring at the screen, or compulsively checking his email and Gay.com profile. Lance had never seen him so depressed, so he arranged for Brianna to come over to visit. Lance never claimed to be a genius.
“Woof,” Brianna said when she saw Joey. Lance had picked her up from Kelly’s house. Joey had desperately begged Lance not to tell Kelly what had happened, so Lance made up some excuse about how Joey was busy doing something highly important but secretive. If Lance told her, he would have to kill her. She slammed the door in his face. He didn’t blame her.
“That’s daddy,” Lance said, holding her. He was inching closer to Joey, who was pressed into a corner, looking terrified. He hadn’t seen her for a month. Usually, he was a bit more welcoming. Lance was determined, though. “That’s not a puppy, bug. It’s daddy.”
She scrunched up her face then shrieked, “Woof! Woof! Woof!” And waved her hands around, clapping merrily. She blew bubbles on his cheek and bounced excitedly. Desperately, Lance held onto her. She’d gotten significantly bigger and more wiggly during the time he was in Russia.
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Joe. Say hello to her,” Lance hissed.
“She thinks I’m a dog, bonehead.”
“Well, she’s going to keep thinking you’re a dog if you don’t even try to convince her otherwise,” Lance said. The air whistled out through his teeth. Brianna was lurching in his arms, wriggling to be put down. She had grown so big. “Talk to her. Or better yet, take her.”
The fatal mistake, Lance would think later. He held her out to Joey, and she started to scream, piercing shrieks of unmistakable fear. Joey exited the room, leaving Lance with a babbling, screeching little girl. He rocked her and sang to her until she settled down. Plan B, he thought grimly, and put Brianna down for a nap before he went to find Joey.
“Go away,” Joey murmured. He was sitting in the bathtub where he spent a fair amount of time these days. Lance climbed in with him since he felt just as home there. Controlling Joey’s dandruff problems made the bathroom the most popular place in the house. They kept alcohol under the sink. “I’m not gonna terrorise my little girl, Lance.”
Lance pinched his eyes shut. He was going to cry, he knew it, and he hadn’t cried once. Neither of them had. With each passing day, it was a wonder, Lance thought, it was a big fucking wonder. Weakly, he patted Joey’s shoulder then snuffled into his hair. When he did that, he could see the pale skin of Joey’s neck.
“I think I’ve been pretty good about this,” Joey said. “The hair thing. I’ve taken C and J’s stares and questions and everything. I’ve tolerated Chris’s jokes, which, between you and me, are about the only good thing since he’s always been an ass like that. And then there’s the whole putting my best friend out thing when I know he has better stuff to do than babysit a freakishly ugly freak.”
“You have been good,” Lance agreed, “and I’m not put out.”
“Dude, I know when you’re put out.”
“I’m not put out,” Lance repeated. Joey sighed. “No, seriously, Joe! I’m not!”
“Yes, you are –”
“Jesus jumping Christ! I’m not fucking put out, all right!”
Lance knew he was shouting and that shouting often woke up baby girls, but he was freaking out with the insinuation that he somehow didn’t want to be there when he did. Of course he did. He was Joey Fatone’s best fucking friend in the whole goddamned world. There was no place else to be.
“Okay, you’re not put out,” Joey said.
“Damn straight, I’m not,” Lance agreed. He crossed his arms and didn’t say anything else.
~~~
When Lance was bargaining for Brianna, he’d said they’d keep her for a week so Kelly could go to the Barbados and relax with her friends. On Joey’s buck, of course, though Lance didn’t tell him that and ended up paying for most of it. The rest he stole out of Joey’s wallet, all thirty bucks. So he had a problem.
Joey wouldn’t go near her, and she wouldn’t go near him. Lance loved her a whole heck of a lot, but she wasn’t his child. She thought Joey was a monstrous scary thing that slightly resembled a puppy, so Lance was going to have to work with that because it was all this fucking awful situation was giving him.
“Joey, do you trust me?” Lance asked.
Joey looked up blearily from the couch. “Dude, what planet are you living on?”
“Then when Brianna wakes up from her nap, I want you on your hands and knees,” Lance said. He was using his no-nonsense voice, and though it was a hesitant sort of movement, Joey nodded. When Brianna started singing into her baby monitor (she was Joey’s through and through and already had a set of pipes that would make the Fatone family proud), Lance grabbed her and brought her to Joey.
“Your daddy got you a puppy,” Lance said. He didn’t know how to talk to babies, so he hoped she was smart enough to get it. He barked for her then pointed to Joey, who was on the ground, hunched over, a pained smile on his face. “His name is. Um. Phattie.”
One look at Joey’s face and Lance knew he was getting severely beaten later.
“See, bug? He’s a big, slobbery puppy dog. See?” Lance petted Joey’s back, ruffling his fluffy hair. “Nice doggie,” Lance added, and scrubbed his fingers behind Joey’s ears. Joey bared his teeth but took it, remaining completely still. Brianna watched him with huge eyes. “Phattie, the nice, gentle puppy. See? Woof.”
“Woof,” Brianna said then reached for him. Her little hand patted over Joey’s back, and when Lance thought she could handle it, he put her down on the ground. She could barely reach Joey, so Joey crouched down further. “Woof!” She clapped happily then tried to climb on his back.
Joey was pretty good about it, Lance thought. He played with her for over an hour then napped with her when they wore themselves out. She helpfully tried to feed him dirt from the houseplants, which he declined with a quiet bark. She fed him cookies instead when Lance brought out a plate of Arrowroots. Lance held her on Joey’s back, and they took a trip through the house, all three of them barking each time Brianna demanded it.
When Brianna was in bed, Lance came down and prepared to be hurt, badly. It wasn’t the best idea. It wasn’t even a good idea, but Lance had always been full of good intentions, if nothing else. This was definitely a case of nothing else.
“Phattie, Bass?” Joey asked.
“She won’t remember tomorrow. We’ll rename you, if you want.”
“Oh, I want. Bonehead,” Joey added. He shoved over, an obvious invitation, so Lance sat down. Joey was starting to smell a bit rank again. Maybe tomorrow, Lance thought, he and Brianna could bathe Joey. It would be buckets of fun. Lance smiled at his knees.
“But good idea, man,” Joey continued.
“Seriously?”
Joey laughed. “Seriously. I couldn’t live knowing I scared her, and she’s just a baby. How’s she gonna know it’s me, you know? I barely know it’s me. You didn’t even think it was me, when you first saw me. And don’t you dare disagree, Bass.”
“I was a little suspicious,” Lance said.
“I know,” Joey said.
They sat and watched television for a while until nothing but news was on. Lance was willing to stay up longer, but Joey didn’t want to know what was going in the world when he couldn’t go out and see it for himself. Lance could understand that, he guessed, though it made him unbearably sad to think about. Joey was a social creature. Lance understood that more.
They crept upstairs and checked on Brianna together. Joey pulled her thumb out of her mouth, worrying for her teeth, but Lance poked at him. When she put it back in, he let her. God, she was sweet, Lance thought and stroked over her brow. Looked like Joey an awful lot and was just as loving. Joey just didn’t love the right people and was scared that he couldn’t tell the difference.
Lance followed Joey into his room to grab the jeans he had left hanging in the shower the last time they scrubbed down. When he came out of the bathroom, Joey was sitting on the bed, the Rose in his hand. Another petal had fallen, a dark blood red. Lance still had the one he stole, tucked into his wallet.
“It’s not giving me enough time,” Joey muttered.
“We’ll find an answer,” Lance said. Joey nodded but didn’t look like he believed a word of it. Lance didn’t blame him. It looked bad, all of it. He squeezed Joey’s shoulder on the way out and slept, fitfully, only after hours of trying.
~~~
Brianna went home and another petal fell. Joey spent so much time online, chatting, that Lance had to make sure he ate and bathed. The eating wasn’t too hard, since Joey was an unconscious eater if food was around, which was why he was so meaty. The bathing wasn’t quite as fun anymore, but it had to be done. Joey got cranky and angry and smacked at Lance’s hands when they pushed too hard, but Lance ignored him. After years of looking out for the other guys in the least obvious way possible, he could manipulate Joey into doing exactly what he wanted if he showed enough patience. Joey always gave in, eventually.
They recorded a bit more in JC’s basement, though Joey’s heart wasn’t in it. He’d made several vague remarks about quitting if the hair didn’t go away, which they all tried hard to ignore. They wouldn’t let him. They would just adapt, again, like they always did. They told him this, in a cloud of nattering, all four of them worked up into a tizzy.
“I just don’t want to be the ugly one,” Joey finally blurted out.
“Fear not, Joseph,” Chris said, whacking him on the back, “that’s why I’m in the group.”
It wasn’t supposed to be surprising, then, when Chris showed up with a pizza and Joey’s favourite beer and told Lance to buzz off. Lance followed him into the theatre anyway and proceeded to watch Chris flirt with Joey until Joey, eventually, heaved himself up and ate pizza. Chris flirting with Joey. Lance thought he’d seen everything.
“What are you doing?” Lance asked, tugging Chris aside when he came out of the bathroom.
“What you don’t have the balls to,” Chris replied.
Lance looked away.
“He’s so depressed, man, I can’t stand it,” Chris continued, a little less harshly. He even touched a finger to Lance’s wrist until he looked back. “And I love him already, so I’ll give it a go. Not much to lose, you know? He’s already feeling down on himself, and the hair ain’t that bad.”
So Lance let Chris continue, even though he didn’t think it was a good idea. Chris was a thinker and a feeler and pretended he was neither, so his schemes never really worked out. Chris didn’t understand his brain any more than he understood his heart. Plus, he was straight, seriously straight. Lance just hoped it didn’t get Joey’s hopes up too much.
And on the off chance it did work, Lance thought, watching Chris woo Joey with sloppy skill, Lance almost pitied Joey. To have to put up with Chris Kirkpatrick for the rest of his life, around the clock, on holidays and every day in between, Lance didn’t think he could do it. Stupid fairytales, Lance thought, they were so fucking ... stupid.
~~~
Chris and Joey slept together three days later. Lance only knew because the next morning, he went in to check on the Rose and found them in bed together. Naked. Even after rubbing his eyes, they were still naked. Joey was folded over Chris like a big blanket, and Chris was still and peaceful. But Joey was still hairy; the Rose, still wilting. Another petal had fallen.
Lance drank his coffee and read the paper. He looked up when Chris came into the kitchen. Chris smiled at him weakly then rooted around in Joey’s cupboards until he found a bag of chips. At the offer of sharing, Lance declined, and Chris shrugged. “Your loss,” he said.
“Is he awake?” Lance asked quietly.
“Yeah.” Chris crunched on a chip then licked his fingers. “Not a happy camper, I can tell you, but fuck, we tried. I mean, it wasn’t bad, the sex, but it was ... different. Yeah, we’ll go with that,” Chris said. The fact he was quiet spoke more that his words could.
Lance nodded. It was nice of him to give it a go.
“You’re a good guy, Kirkpatrick,” Lance said.
Chris looked out the window. “So they tell me.”
~~~
Chris didn’t fuck off, like Lance expected him to since he usually did when things seemed impossible. Instead, he helped Joey redefine his internet search. Lance tried not to listen to them. He was, despite it all, pretty vanilla.
“You need to get the crowd into really hairy things, man or beast,” Chris was saying. Loudly. Like he wanted Lance to hear, when Lance was entirely sure he was better off in the dark. “I mean, you gotta market yourself, Joe. You’re dynamite in the sack, and you have a sparkling personality. Shit like that counts, even for perverts.”
“I’m not sure I’m into that,” Joey said slowly. The fact he was even humouring Chris was impressive. Lance would have run from the room screaming. In fact, he was still thinking about it, even though he wasn’t really listening.
“Joe,” Chris said, “you’re running out of time.”
Lance hissed in a sharp breath.
“Oh, fuck off, Lance. Dancing around it ain’t gonna change a fucking thing.”
“Dwelling isn’t going to change anything, either.”
“It’s better than sitting on your ass.”
“Fuck you,” Lance said. That, he thought, was why he only liked Chris most of the time. He folded up his paper and left the room. He couldn’t stay there while they searched high and low for somebody who they probably weren’t even going to find in time. The petals were falling off faster, and nobody had stepped up to the plate. Those people online, they wouldn’t understand Joey. Lance had seen his e-mails and his chats. They didn’t come close to expressing how wonderful Joey was, and even Chris, who knew, hadn’t changed anything.
“Fuck,” Lance said. He thumped his fists against the wall then pressed his brow to them, eyes pinched shut. “Fuck.”
~~~
Joey climbed into bed with him the same night. Lance only noticed because it changed from freezing cold to roasting hot in a matter of seconds. His body went rigid before he could stop himself, and Joey chuckled in his ear.
“I’m not macking on you, bonehead,” Joey said. His arm was heavy across Lance’s waist. The heat radiating from him was enough to warm Lance to his toes. It wasn’t really that cold, it never was in Florida, but the winter chill had settled, and they kept the house cool because Joey was always sweating, and when he sweated, he smelled.
“No?” Lance said. He coughed to clear his throat when the word caught.
“Nah. You seemed sad, man, and I’m pretty sad myself, and lonely and shit. I mean, Chris is awesome, but he kind of fucked me up, too,” Joey said.
Ah, Lance thought, and it all made sense. They used to do this, in Germany, when they were new best friends and still learning everything. They’d share a bed and talk about things guys weren’t supposed to talk about. It’d cemented a very strong bond between them, early on.
“I wish it had of worked,” Lance said quietly. He rubbed his cheek against the pillow and pulled at a loose thread in the dark. Behind him, Joey hooked his chin over Lance’s shoulder. His breath was as hot as his body. “Was the sex not good?”
“Oh, Bass. One track mind, man.” Joey smiled against his ear. “It was good, actually. I think he’s a bit more scarred from that, actually. It was hot. We both suck at blowjobs, so it was funny, too. We kinda just stuck to what we knew: handjobs. But it’s just. It’s Chris, man. It’s just Chris.”
“Would have driven you nuts someday, huh?”
“Exactly.”
Lance laughed, though his eyes were hot around the rims.
“I didn’t really think anything was gonna happen,” Joey admitted. “I mostly only slept with him because he made me feel sexy for a little while, you know? I’m never going to admit Chris Kirkpatrick made me feel sexy again, but there you go.”
“He wasn’t right for you, anyway,” Lance mumbled. Joey was so soft, like a pillow, and better than any blanket Lance had ever found. When they were recording in JC’s freezing studio, Joey had taken to draping himself over Lance’s back. They’d all noticed the hotter the room was, the stinkier Joey got, so they’d all agreed to pump the air conditioning. Joey never hesitated to warm Lance up when he started shivering.
“I know.”
Lance closed his eyes. “Did the internet pervert stuff work out?”
“Nah,” Joey said. “Seriously not my thing. I’m pretty open-minded, but I didn’t need someone who was with me cuz I resembled their beloved house pet. I didn’t think the Rose would like that, either, since it seems like it’s picky. So no internet pervert stuff.”
“Good. Because it was so fucking creepy he even suggested it.”
“Well, I think he thought he was saving some poor animal from an internet pervert and helping me at the same time. That’s Chris for you, I guess.”
“I guess,” Lance agreed.
He felt so toasty warm, protected, something he never felt these days. He didn’t like to talk about it, but Russia had left him feeling raw and useless. He would have been slower to come to Joey’s aid, if he hadn’t felt like nothing when Joey called. Which maybe said something bad about him, but Lance didn’t want to think about that. He was there now. That was what mattered.
~~~
He was sad, Lance realised a few days later. Lance hadn’t noticed he was truly unhappy until Joey said something. Lance had been sad since they broke his heart and told him he wasn’t going to space, probably not ever. But this was a different type of melancholy. Deeper, if that was at all possible, bone deep. That was the sadness Joey had seen.
Thinking about Joey being so out of place in the world, feeling so down on himself, that made Lance more sad than he could have imagined a month and a half ago. And Joey was obviously well beyond that, and now Chris was depressed, too. It was a vicious cycle.
Lance really needed to get drunk, and how. But more, he needed to get Joey out of the house and had just the way to do it. It was ingenious, if he said so himself. It kept him busy for a day, getting everything together, and when James Lance Bass was useful, James Lance Bass was happy. His mama always used to say that. He called her up and talked to her a while, when he thought of it.
“Come on,” Lance said.
“Eh, fuck off,” Joey muttered. He wasn’t in the greatest of spirits. Two petals had fallen off the night before, and the Rose was starting to look really sparse. Joey had spent the whole day and day just watching Disney’s Beauty and the Beast over and over again. Lance wasn’t sure why, but maybe, he thought, it offered comfort. Right now, with how things stood, Lance couldn’t imagine Joey got much consolation from anything.
“Please come with me? You’ll like it.”
“Dude,” Joey said.
“Joe. Please,” Lance repeated.
“The things I do for you,” Joey mumbled, but he got up.
~~~
“Dude, you are a fucking mastermind,” Joey said.
Lance grinned happily and accepted the wet kisses Joey left all over his forehead.
“Christ, I’m excited. And Jesus, man. You look great. Very authentic. But hell, I guess I do, too,” Joey said cheerfully as he buckled himself in. They had a long drive to Ft. Lauderdale, and they were already running late. It’d taken Lance longer than expected to convince Joey to get into the costume, which consisted of one very polished gold belt slung over his shoulder.
“I don’t think I’d mind falling for someone who had a Chewbacca fetish,” Joey said thoughtfully, tapping his finger against his chin. Lance laughed. “No, seriously. I like geeks. Hell, I’m friends with you, bonehead.” Joey punched his shoulder. His smile was infectious.
Lance’s grin widened. He felt positively giddy, for the first time since god knows when.
~~~
They got into the Star Wars convention without much trouble, though Lance’s instinct to flee flared to life the minute he saw what his brilliant idea involved. Geeks, hundreds of them, geekier than fourteen Joeys combined, all dressed in costume and talking about nothing but Star Wars. Lance liked the movies, he did, but there was something about that level of obsession that gave him the willies in the worst way.
On the plus side, Joey made a really convincing Wookie. Lance was an all right Han Solo, he supposed, but Joey shined. Joey kept close, since he was a bit shy about being out in public without any clothes on (hence, the reluctance to get into costume in the first place, but with all the hair, it wasn’t like anyone could see anything), but he finally seemed to be among his brethren. He and some half-assed Wookie (who Lance suspected did indeed have a Chewbacca fetish, from the way he hung off Joey’s every word and admired Joey’s well-manicured pelt) chatted it up, all friendly, while Lance roamed. He got into an argument with another Han Solo, who felt Episode II had sucked solely because Nsync had attached their slimy name to it.
“We weren’t even in it!”
“You ruined it!”
“Cry me a fucking river!” Lance shouted.
“You’re all a bunch of fags,” Han Solo said, and if Princess Leia hadn’t stepped in, Lance would have torn Han Solo to pieces with his fucking teeth. As it was, Lance called him a homophobic asshole with a shitty costume to boot, then let security drag him off and ban him for the rest of the night. He didn’t even have a chance to say goodbye to Joey.
~~~
Lance was half-consciously watching ads for 900-numbers when Joey came in through the connecting door. It was pretty late, Lance thought, though he didn’t know for sure. There was something about half naked women that disoriented him and not in the good way.
Joey sat down. The light came and went as the television flickered between scenes. Rolling his head, Lance looked at him. The same nose, he thought, under all that hair, and the same warm eyes, even when he was shut off. Joey was the type of guy to be nice to everyone and give everyone a chance, and that had always extended to who he took to bed. Unlike JC and Justin, or even Chris, Joey had always fucked around based on personality first. Lance had always admired that, even when he was taking home models and pro-athletes.
He didn’t like to think about it, but Lance had a mean crush on Joey back when Lance himself was considered to be pseudo ugly. He’d never thought it would matter to Joey that he looked so funny. It probably wouldn’t have, Lance realised. Joey was the type of guy who didn’t care about dumb things like that.
“You all right?” Lance asked quietly.
“He thought it was a costume,” Joey said. He kept his eyes on the television. Warped images of half naked chicks caught in the darkness of his gaze. “When it wasn’t.” Joey lifted his hand and held it out. It did look like a mitt, but Lance knew as well as anyone how painfully real the whole stupid situation was. “Well, no loss, right?”
“Was he mean?”
“No. Just disgusted. Funny how it doesn’t feel much different.”
Lance closed his eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“Gotta get used to it, right? No big deal.”
“There’s still time,” Lance said.
“You keep telling yourself that, Lance,” Joey said.
When Lance opened his eyes, Joey was gone.
~~~
The next day, Joey decided just to have fun and fuck trying to find someone to love him. Lance wondered if not just telling the world that Joey Fatone needed help wasn’t the only option left. Joey hadn’t mentioned it, and Lance hadn’t either, but there were thousands of girls out there who loved him already, in their own unique way. He didn’t say anything, though. Somehow, he didn’t think that would work in the way the Rose wanted.
Besides, Joey deserved to have some fun, which, unfortunately, meant Lance had to spend the next two days amongst Star Wars dorks, dressed like a relic from the seventies.
Joey went to discussion panels, and got Mark Hamill’s autograph, and spent seven hundred dollars on action figures from the Empire Strikes Back era. The golden days, the seller bemoaned, which set Joey off on how Jedi really was better than Empire, even despite the Ewoks. He made Lance carry it all, since Lance, according to Joey, was being such a bitch about the convention.
“I brought you here, didn’t I?” Lance said. He wasn’t being a bitch. He just hadn’t gotten much sleep, what with being all worried and shit for Joey’s fucking well-being, which Lance wasn’t going to tell him, but still. “And you really need this crap?”
“Did you really need all those goddamned beanie babies you dragged around for two years? Which, by the way, are currently worth shit, and I know you still sleep with that crazy assed camel one under your pillow when we’re on tour.”
“Shut up,” Lance hissed. There was a crowd of Boba Fetts, looking at them.
“I’m just saying,” Joey said.
“Right, but, like, shut up.”
“You’re red as hell, man,” Joey whispered but let the beanie baby thing drop, which Lance seriously appreciated because he didn’t need shit like that getting out. So he held Joey’s crappy merchandise, and followed him around, and let Joey buy him dinner because Lance felt he was owed it. The plates looked like two-dimensional Millennium Falcons. Joey made him move all the food to napkins, so he could save them.
“You are an unbelievable dork,” Lance said.
“Takes one to know one, bonehead.”
“I hate you,” Lance muttered, but smiled when he said it. Joey grinned back.
~~~
Chris had been left on Rose duty, since Lance didn’t want to bring the thing with them, but wanted to know, too, if they got into trouble. When he and Joey returned to Lance’s room, slightly tipsy from too much import beer, there was a message saying two more petals had fallen off and four were left and that Chris had a cousin who was into hairy guys. Lance erased the voice-mail without letting Joey listen.
Lance was grateful to get out of the tight Han Solo pants and walked around in nothing but a shirt until Joey told him he looked like a dork. So he walked around buck, to make Joey jealous. They were all jealous of his dick, since they were average, and he wasn’t at all in the best way. Lance took every opportunity to flaunt it, but Joey didn’t even look. Joey was naked all the time these days, albeit covered with hair, so Lance thought maybe he was just desensitised. Lance put on a robe and sat down.
“What do you want to watch?” He asked.
“Whatever,” Joey said.
“I’ll pick something boring,” Lance said, poking at his shoulder.
“Anything, Lance. I don’t care.”
“Okay,” Lance said and popped in Jedi, just for Joey, and Joey smiled at him. Lance sprawled back on the couch and put his feet in Joey’s lap. His back hurt from all the standing in stiff boots he’d done. Thankfully, tomorrow was the last day of the Con. Lance didn’t know how much longer he could survive and still stay cool.
Lance dozed, half paying attention, half not, and when the credits rolled, he jolted out of sleep, suddenly wide awake. If Joey had moved at all, Lance couldn’t tell. He pulled his feet out of Joey’s lap and sat up. He wanted to ask if Joey was all right, but it wouldn’t leave his mouth.
“Joe?” He ventured quietly.
“Yeah?”
Lance reached out his hand, touching it to the matted hair on Joey’s face, and when he pulled it back, his fingers were covered in tears. Still warm, he thought, it’d been such a good day. Not good, as in no more hair, but good as in Joey had smiled and laughed, and it’d been normal, with them fighting like an old married couple and fondly calling each other names. It’d felt so fucking normal, finally.
“It’ll work out,” Lance said. He felt the desperation curl around his spine.
Joey bowed his head, and his shoulders rolled forward. His body started to shake a moment before Lance heard it. The crying. His own eyes prickled with sympathy, and he didn’t know what to do. Cry with him, maybe, or. Or, Lance thought, and unknotted the robe around his waist. It fell open, and he put one bare leg over Joey’s thighs and pulled himself over him.
“Don’t cry,” Lance whispered. He was afraid to touch him, but not for the reasons Joey probably thought. Joey sobbed harder, and Lance put his fingers on Joey’s face, trying to hold the tears, but they kept coming, like a flood. “Oh, please don’t cry.”
“I can’t stop,” Joey said. It came out painfully, held on gasps of air.
“Yes, you can. Just touch me, okay? It’ll work out. Just touch me back, okay?”
Lance took Joey’s hand and put them on his hips. Warm, he thought, and leaned into Joey and his hairy body. It didn’t feel weird; it wasn’t weird.
“Joey, come on,” Lance whispered and kissed him, just put his mouth right there and kissed him, but the lips under his stayed slack.
“Please, Joe.”
He moved against him, naked, and offered himself. Lance was hard. He only had to think of Joey for that. He’d always just had to think of that. Always and forever, amen, Lance thought, amen.
~~~
They skipped out on the Con the next day and returned to Orlando, broken. Joey was still hairy, and Lance was trying to remain positive, but he loved Joey. He knew he loved Joey. He was his best fucking friend in the whole world, and the first guy Lance had come out to, and the first fantasy boyfriend Lance had let himself jerk off to, and he loved him more than anything else. And it hadn’t fucking worked.
Even with the hair still there, the day after, Lance had sex with Joey again. Partly, to make it look less like a pity fuck, since Joey hadn’t even wanted to look at him when they woke up. Mostly, though, because it’d been good. Really good, even though Joey was bad at blowjobs. It’d been them, together, and that made everything great. Plus, Joey knew how to handle a cock in his hand like a pro, and Lance had come suddenly, like he was sixteen again.
So Lance was in a foul mood but also a really good one.
Chris met them at the door with another two petals sitting in the palm of his hand. Joey looked at them then mumbled about bed. He dropped the gold Chewbacca belt on the stairs and disappeared. Chris looked at the rose petals then right at Lance. When he curled his fingers into a fist, Lance stepped back, but Chris didn’t punch him.
“Why won’t you just admit it?”
“I did, Chris,” Lance said. “It didn’t change a damn thing.”
Lance turned around and took the bags inside. Chris followed him and tripped over the luggage when Lance dropped it suddenly but wasn’t deterred. He cornered Lance in the kitchen, pulling at his elbow until he turned around. Lance sighed.
“What do you mean?”
“Look at him,” Lance said. “I mean it’s all the same. He’s still hairy.”
“But you–.”
“Yes. I let him touch me, and I touched him, and we made fucking love. Fucking love, Chris, and you know I don’t do that.” Lance swiped at his eyes. They were leaking again. “Fuck. He didn’t deserve this, you know? I deserved it. Jayce deserved it. Hell, even Justin. Even you. But not him. God, I need a drink.”
“It’s too early.”
“Fuck you,” Lance said.
Chris let go of his arm and rolled his eyes, getting him a glass of juice instead. “God, you’re a surly bastard when you’re disappointed. Glad we let Justin deal with you after your space dreams turned to shit. I sure as fuck wasn’t going to volunteer for the job.”
“What part of fuck you are you not understanding?” But he took the juice anyway, when Chris offered it. His mouth felt dry like cotton.
“Just don’t take this crap out on me, all right?”
Lance sighed. “Sorry.”
“You’re an insincere bastard too, but apology accepted.”
Brusquely, Chris hugged him, and Lance snuffled against his neck. He felt miserable.
“There’s no time,” Lance murmured.
Chris clicked his tongue against his teeth. “Bass, there never is.”
~~~
When the next petal fell, Joey laughed.
“Do you think tape would work?” He asked, blowing it from his hand so it fluttered to the ground like a broken butterfly.
“No,” Lance said and took his palm and kissed it. They did it right then, Lance spread out under him, hands buried in the hair that covered Joey’s body. It wasn’t weird. For all the jokes, it wasn’t weird. Joey was just softer, and Lance was just more ticklish. But Joey kissed him like a man, and held him down like a man, and sucked him like a man.
They fell asleep, and when they woke, it was late afternoon. Lance got out of bed and went to stand by the window, opening it with one hand to let the sun in. Joey didn’t protest, but then, he’d given up. Joey Fatone, the most stubborn bastard alive, had given up. Lance felt it all over his skin like a tattoo. Defeat felt just as wrong on Joey as it had on himself.
“I don’t blame you,” Joey said.
Lance pinched his lips between his teeth.
“I’m pretty ugly. I understand.”
“You’re not ugly,” Lance whispered. His breath clung to the glass, expanding like a sun going super nova then disappearing. That’s what it felt like, anyway, in that place he called his heart. By dusk, the last petal would be gone. A fucking hour, if that. “I’m not like that.”
“I know you –”
“I’m not like that!” Lance shouted. The words burst forth so fast he couldn’t stop them. “Not with you. It’s not me, that you’re still.” Lance swallowed. His throat felt raw. “It’s not me, Joey, that didn’t change things.”
“Are you saying it’s me?”
“No,” Lance said.
“It’s one of us.”
“It isn’t me,” Lance repeated. He turned around and grabbed for a pair of pants. They were his, without a doubt, because Joey had stopped wearing clothes around the house a long time ago, back when it was all funny and ha-ha and dandruff was their biggest concern.
“Are you leaving?”
“I’m just going to get something to eat. I’m not going anywhere.”
“You can go.”
“Fuck you,” Lance said. He wanted Joey to look somewhere else instead of looking at him, like he’d done something wrong. He hadn’t. Lance felt it in his bones, the conviction that he was right. He’d never felt that way about space, that sure of it all, but then, he obviously didn’t know much at all. “Do you want me to go?”
“I don’t want you to stay here if you don’t want to,” Joey said. He stood up, and god, he was tall. Lance had always thought that. Tall enough to sweep him off his feet. It’d been a dumb fantasy, anyway. “It was an easy solution, Lance. All you had to do–”
“It isn’t fucking me!” Lance shouted and shoved him. Honest to god, pushed at him and hoped to hell it hurt because Joey was fucking ripping him apart from the inside. Joey tried to grab him, but Lance hit him, hard, under the arm. One of them was the monster, Lance thought as Joey stumbled back, holding his ribs, but it probably wasn’t Joey.
~~~
He’d already left the room when he heard it, the thump, like someone had fallen, and though he’d been in such a hurry to grab his things and leave, he rushed back and found him, Joey, on the floor, crumpled in a heap. Not moving. Not ... anything.
“Joey,” Lance said quietly. “Joe?”
Lance looked to the table, where the last petal hung by a thread. Any second, he thought, and his heart sped up. He looked back to Joey then knelt beside him, hand on his chest and no ... no heartbeat. “No, Joe,” Lance said, putting his ear there, listening to ... silence. “Joey!”
He felt numb and raw, all at once, and he didn’t know CPR. They had been scheduled to go to a class for it, but they’d skipped out to go to a nudie bar, to get drunk and have fun. Half the night upstairs, with the ladies, and half the night down, with the men. It’d been a good time.
“What do you want?” Lance asked the Rose. “What do you fucking want from me? I love him, all right? You know I do!” He pressed at Joey’s chest, like he’d seen them do on tv, but something snapped, a bone probably, and he stopped. “God! What am I missing here?”
He put his mouth over Joey’s and breathed into him, great heaving puffs of air. Joey’s chest lifted, but the heart under Lance’s hand stayed still. “Fuck!” Lance shouted. “My phone. Where’s my fucking phone?” But he’d left it in the car. He knew the minute he asked. They’d phoned Brianna on the drive back and sang to her. She’d recognised him, Joey’s voice, and Joey had gotten a bit misty, he’d been so happy.
“Joe, Joey, please.” Lance breathed into him again, and tried to count, to three, to four, to fucking five, but he didn’t know mouth-to-mouth either. “God, please. This isn’t how it works. We fall in love, and things work out. That’s how the story works. I promised him. Oh god, Joe. Don’t leave me, please. I promise, I promise this’ll work. I love you. I love you so much.”
The fur was soft against his hands, and he put his cheek against it. In his confusion, he must have knocked the Rose to the ground because it was there. He grabbed it. The thorns cut deep into his hand, and the blood oozed out between his fingers. He clutched it to his heart. “He has a baby, please don’t take him,” Lance whispered, “take me instead. I deserve it. Take me.”
He watched as the last petal fell and touched the ground.
~~~
When Lance woke, he was in bed. His hand twinged with pain, and he looked down to where it was bandaged. There was a strange noise that he couldn’t place. His eyes were bleary like he’d cried himself to sleep. He had, he thought suddenly, and sat straight up.
“Relax,” Joey said. “It’s fine.”
“It was all a dream?”
“No, Dorothy.”
Joey smiled and turned off the vacuum. The silence hit Lance’s ears as hard as the noise had, and he held out a hand until Joey took it. Skin, Lance thought, and thumbed the smooth inner flesh of Joey’s wrist. The quiver of his pulse pumped in his veins.
“Your heart. It. I think it stopped.”
“I don’t remember that. I just remember yelling at you, and I’m sorry. I was just–”
“Scared. I know. It’s okay. I nearly shit my pants there, at the end. I hope someone out there is having a good laugh because that was a completely unnecessary ending,” Lance said and kissed Joey’s hand. He still had his watch tan. Lance was glad as hell to see it. “I learned my lesson, though.”
Joey sat on the bed. “What’s that?”
“I’m not entirely sure, but I learned it. I’m a changed man. I swear.”
Lance put his hand on Joey’s back then laid his cheek upon the spot his palm had touched. He could feel the heartbeat, and Joey’s skin was warm. The arch of his shoulder blade lifted, and Lance kissed it. He felt a strange desperation in him, like he couldn’t let Joey go any further than this, right here, for the rest of his life. There was a feeling of forever in him.
“I broke your rib,” Lance muttered, running his fingers over Joey’s chest, pressing lightly, trying to find it, but Joey didn’t move, barely even breathed. “I thought I did. I was trying to save your life, and fuck.” His eyes misted and he pinched them shut, holding his face to Joey’s back. “If you ever die on me again, I will kill you.”
“Don’t plan on it,” Joey murmured. It rippled through him, and Lance could feel it. “And I’m fine. The Rose probably thought it owed me or something, which was nice. I guess. In a really humbling and cruel way. I’m going to need therapy, I think.”
“Me too,” Lance said. He made a mental note.
Joey leaned back, and they shifted on the bed until they were tangled under the covers. Lance touched his belly cautiously. It was strange but nice, he decided. He could probably lie in bed all day, with Joey, and never feel like he was missing anything. Romantic, Lance decided.
“I guess this means I’m stuck with you,” Lance said.
“You’ve only been wanting to jump me for, like, six years.”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Lance said, but he smiled. “Five years.”
“And the next time I come out to you, and make a huge production about it, and totally rethink everything I thought I believed about myself, keep in mind I’m probably doing that because it’s you I want.” Joey looked up, his eyes twinkling happily. “Betcha didn’t know that, did you, bonehead?”
“No,” Lance said. “You could have been more obvious, bonehead.”
Joey grinned. “Well, it all worked out. Happily ever after and all that shit.”
“You think so?” Lance asked. The Rose hadn’t disappeared. It was back on the night stand, just a stem, circled by the few petals they’d left lying around. Lance still had a bunch in the pocket of his jeans, like hiding them could have changed everything. Lance still didn’t understand what he’d done to get it all to work. He’d been promising so much there at the end.
“Yep. Disney says so, man. Besides, I gotta show you something cool.”
Lance kept his hand on Joey as he leaned over to the table and picked up one of the petals. Lance looked at it. It seemed surreal now, to think about it. Joey held it between his thumbs and forefingers and ripped it neatly down the middle. A rose, Lance thought, just a fucking rose. And couldn’t help but laugh at it all, pressing his face into Joey’s neck.
“Now that’s a happy ending.”
Joey grinned at him and said, “I know. Now kiss me, bonehead, and take me to bed.”
And fuck, did Lance ever.
Fin.