*****

“I’m on a quest,” Chris insisted staunchly, trying to maintain his dignity in spite of the way JC’s mouth twitched up on one side. He pulled his shirt over his head and flung it aside, emerging just in time to see JC unzipping his jeans, which happened to be Chris's favorite pair. They were the sweetest pair of nut-huggers, and did JC ever wear them well.

“A quest for fun?” JC asked, the twitch becoming more pronounced. His jeans slid easily down his hips and he stepped out of them neatly.

“Fuck off,” Chris said, glaring as he yanked his cargo shorts down and off in one jerky motion.

“Like, are you gonna need plastic surgery to remove the fucking smile from your face?” Now JC’s eyes were all crinkly and Chris had to resist the urge to go find his nine-iron and smite him, right over his stupid, curly head. If his golf clubs hadn’t been all the way out in the garage, he definitely would have gone for them.

JC sat down on the edge of the bed and kind of shimmied out of his black silk boxers. Chris watched, fascinated, then reluctantly tore his eyes away from the sight of JC sprawled naked on his bed, so that he could finished getting himself naked.

“Hey, man, quoting bad Chevy Chase movies at me is not gonna get you laid,” Chris said warningly, which was a total lie. Nothing was keeping JC from getting laid right this second. Also, Vacation was not a bad movie. It was a classic. “Just so you know, in case you wanna change your tactics.”

JC smiled. Chris’s stomach did a slow, lazy flip. It was that kind of smile.

“Um, you do want to change your tactics, don’t you?” Chris grinned in what he knew was a winning manner, fluttering his eyelashes up at JC as he climbed on the bed and scooted forward on his knees.

JC’s composure finally broke, which Chris had known all along it would. “You’re such a freak,” JC giggled. “A quest.” He turned his face into the pillow and snorted with amusement.

“Well, what else would you call it, asshole?” Chris said, straddling JC and resting comfortably back on his thighs.

“Tilting at windmills? The dumbest thing I’ve ever heard of?” JC said, looking up at Chris curiously. There was something else on his face, in his eyes, something that maybe had always been there, but Chris had never been able to figure out what it was. He'd never thought it was what he was looking for, though. Or maybe he'd just tried so hard not to hope that he wouldn't have been able to recognize it if it was. “Unnecessary?” JC murmured.

Chris frowned down at JC. “I’m gonna find what I’m looking for, C. You mark my words. I’m gonna find it and then we’ll see who’s laughing.”

“He who laughs last, laughs best,” JC intoned seriously, like he'd thought of that all by himself.

Chris had to kiss him stupid just to shut him up.

*

JC didn’t stay over. He said what was the point of having houses in two different states if he didn’t spend the night in the Orlando one once in a while? Chris had the feeling there was more to it than that, but as he stood in the doorway, wrapped in a sheet like the heroine of some lame PG-rated chick flick, watching JC drive away, all he knew was that sex made a very poor substitute for love, except when it didn’t.

He wandered back upstairs, only tripping on the sheet two or three times before making it safely to his bedroom. He curled up in the warm spot left by JC and fell asleep.

Chris woke up gasping for breath. He blinked and shook his head, but the image stayed with him. The image of the unicorn, with its pure white hair gleaming in the moonlight and its pearly horn standing out from the middle of its forehead, shimmered behind his eyes before it faded into the darkness of his dream.

What the fuck?

This was the third night in a row that Chris had dreamed of the unicorn. It didn’t do much in the dream, just stood around and snorted at him, puffs of breath like white vapor in the cool night air, while it pawed at the ground. Chris thought the way his – or maybe her...he wasn’t certain about that and he sure as hell wasn’t about to circle around behind the fucker to look for gender-defining unicorn parts.

Anyway, the way the unicorn’s tail swished looked kind of menacing to Chris and he decided it would be prudent to keep his distance. He didn’t want the thing to kick him, or worse yet, shit on his shoes. He’d been around his fair share of horses in his life, or at least that one time he had, when they'd made the video for For the Girl Who Eats Everything, and he knew they had a nasty habit of shitting on people’s shoes.

And what was a unicorn except a horse with a weird growth on its head, anyway?

So, yeah, the unicorn didn’t do a whole lot in the dream, but then neither did Chris. He was just kind of standing there in some sort of forest clearing, in the middle of the night, letting a unicorn blow snot all over him while he kept a wary eye on its pointy-looking horn.

Every night it was the same – the unicorn pawed the ground, looked Chris in the eye, and then Chris woke up.

So, really, what the fuck?

*

“I’m bored, JC. Entertain me.” Chris wiggled around on his ass until his legs were over the back of the couch and his head was hanging up-side-down off the front of the cushion. The blood rushed to his head, making his face feel like it might pop.

JC peered quizzically over at him from behind his laptop screen. “The game is on in fifteen minutes, Chris.” JC wiggled his toes thoughtfully. Chris didn’t know why JC was still in Florida, but he wasn’t complaining. JC didn’t usually hang around this long, so Chris wasn’t saying a word.

Chris swiveled his head around to stare at JC. He was going to end up with rug burn on his forehead, he just knew it. “What’re you doing over there, anyway?” Fifteen minutes was a long damn time to have nothing to do.

“Just surfing the net, nothing special, you know, just, um, stuff,” JC said brightly. Chris was immediately on the alert. He thought about doing a backwards somersault off the couch, sure he could bound gracefully to his feet, but the coffee table was kind of in the way and if he broke any of the weird looking knickknacks JC had scattered around on it, he would be looking forward to his own funeral.

Not to mention there was no reason to sacrifice the bowls of chips and dip that were waiting for the football game to start.

So he scooted around again until he was upright and moseyed over to where JC was ensconced in the over-sized armchair, ready to totally violate both JC's privacy and common computer etiquette by looking over his shoulder at whatever he was doing online.

JC always found the best porn sites. It was one of the things Chris liked best about him.

But it wasn’t a porn site at all. JC made a half-hearted attempt to close what he was looking at, but Chris was too fast for him, grabbing his wrist and twisting it until JC moved his hand away from the mouse.

“Ow, fucker.” He swatted at Chris ineffectually.

Magical Artifacts? Good Luck Spells? Make Your Wishes Come True? What the heck?

“What the heck is this, JC?” Chris leaned over the back of the chair, digging his chin into JC’s shoulder, squinting at the computer screen.

“Nothing,” JC mumbled. “Just, you know, I thought, I could help. You know, with your quest. If you really want to find your one true love, well, this might be one way to do it.” His shoulder was tense under Chris’s chin and he kept his face turned away. The tips of his ears were red.

Chris didn’t answer him, just gazed in fascinated doubt at the lurid images of shiny crystals and bottles of differently colored powder, at the coins and talismans on the screen. Hmm. Was that a dead mouse for sale? This could be kind of awesome.

He’d have to give this some thought. On the one hand, JC was practically certifiable, and any website he found was probably marketed directly to the crazies, and Chris wasn’t crazy. No matter what Lance said. So anything he might buy from such a site would probably already be cursed before Chris’s MasterCard number could even be auto-filled in.

On the other hand, it was possibly legitimate. Or at least not too dangerous. There might be something there he could use. Chris carefully didn’t think about why JC was trying to help him find his one true love. That sort of thinking never brought about any enlightenment, in Chris’s experience.

The TV caught his attention then, the NFL’s familiar theme music blaring out in JC’s living room. Chris detached himself from JC and went back to the couch and the food. He popped open a can of beer and said, “Game’s starting. I hope you’re ready to lose your shirt, C. The Steelers are gonna beat the crap out of the Redskins.”

JC snorted. “In your dreams, little man. In your dreams.” His face was still tinged with pink, but Chris manfully forbore teasing him about the magic website. He’d have plenty of things to rag on JC about as the afternoon wore on and the Steelers kicked some Redskin ass.

*

Chris waited until he heard the sound of the shower running. At JC’s current hair’s length, Chris estimated he had almost an hour before JC would be out of the bathroom.

That should give him plenty of time. JC might have found the freaky websites just for Chris, but that didn't mean Chris was going to give JC the satisfaction of knowing he was interested.

JC usually left his laptop on the floor next to his bed. That way he could surf porn sites or illegally download music or price airline tickets to exotic locales or whatever the hell it was he did at night before he fell asleep, before he carefully dropped his laptop on the floor as he drifted off. Chris tiptoed into JC’s bedroom, one ear on the shower and one eye looking for the computer.

It was sticking halfway out from under the bed and Chris almost tripped over it. He clutched at his chest, trying to keep his heart from leaping out of his throat in fear. It was a stupid place to keep a computer, but JC wouldn’t care it was his own fault if Chris broke it.

Chris shivered in fear. If he broke it, they’d never find his body.

Once he was sure he wasn’t having a heart attack, he quickly lowered himself to the floor, wincing as his knee creaked ominously and loudly. Quietly he raised the lid, opened Firefox and hit the history drop down menu.

Bingo. The Magic Wishing Well. Chris clicked on it.

And wow, there were lists of artifacts guaranteed to bring the buyer good luck, good crop yields, job promotions, and yes, their one true love. There were spell books for sale, cursed objects, jewelry, and a list of links for other websites selling similar objects.

And there was a whole page of free sample incantations, based on the premise that if you tried one and it worked the way you wanted it to, you’d be back to buy a whole book of spells.

Chris quickly scanned the list. Rid Your Dog of Fleas in Just One Day. Get the Promotion Before Your Co-Worker Does. Grow Bigger Tomatoes Than Your Neighbor. Bake the Perfect Chocolate Cake. Find Your One True Love.

Find Your One True Love. Chris sat cross-legged on the floor of JC’s bedroom, the ugly-ass blue shag carpeting making him want to sneeze, and stared. Find Your One True Love.

He heard the shower turn off and he quick grabbed a pen from JC’s nightstand. The freak always kept a pen next to the bed, in case he had some amazing dream and wanted to record the details for all posterity, or possibly a song, when he woke up. Personally, after JC had recounted the details of the dream with the octopus and the dildo to Chris one horrifying morning, he never wanted to know about JC’s dreams ever again. It would be a kindness to everyone JC knew if Chris hid his pen, but Chris figured he’d just get another one.

It was a good thing, Chris thought, that he'd never told JC about his unicorn dream. It would have probably ended up on David Archuleta's CD.

He wrote the url of the website on his inner forearm, careful not to get it too mixed up with the tattoo that covered most of his arm, and tugged his sleeve down to cover it. He closed Firefox, closed the laptop, and got to his feet. He looked at the pen in his hand, then shrugged and pocketed it as he tiptoed out of JC's bedroom.

It couldn’t hurt.

*

The stupid dream was back, only this time the unicorn actually did more than just sneeze. It tossed his head and made a sort of whinnying sound, as if it was trying to tell Chris something. It kept looking over its left shoulder and stamping its foot. Chris tilted his head to one side and said, “What is it, boy? Er, girl?”

Then he smacked himself on the forehead, which hurt more than Chris thought a dream should. This wasn’t Lassie, for chrissakes, and Chris wasn't Timmy. There was no one trapped in a well, at least Chris hoped there wasn’t. Justin would never forgive him if there was a kid trapped in a well and Chris didn’t save it. People would be sure to ask Justin about it in interviews or something.

Chris looked down at himself and for the first time he noticed that he was wearing a robe of some sort. Not his usual ratty blue terrycloth robe that he wore when he got out of the shower, and not his ratty yellow terrycloth robe that he wore when he got out of the pool.

No, this one was kind of silky and dark blue and it seemed to have soft fur trim around the collar. There was fruit on it, a shiny-looking red apple embroidered on the right sleeve, a bright yellow banana on the left sleeve, and a bunch of rich-looking purple grapes across his chest.

The unicorn’s eyes gleamed, no doubt with amusement at Chris’s attire, although Chris hoped it wasn’t feeling hungry for fruit and thinking Chris looked like dessert rather than a giant tool, but it thankfully didn’t come any closer. Chris stared at it, shook his head in bewilderment, and woke up.

Armed with a large cup of hot coffee, he sat himself down at his kitchen table and decided it was about time to investigate this whole recurring dream thing. He fired up his laptop, opened Google, and typed in unicorn.

Even though Wikipedia was often full of shit, that’s where he went first. Apparently unicorns were fierce yet good, selfless yet solitary, but always mysteriously beautiful.

Hmm. That sounded a lot like JC, actually. Chris firmly put that thought aside and kept reading.

The unicorn can be captured only by unfair means and is tamable only by a virgin maiden, or a maiden pure of heart.

A virgin maiden? A unicorn was annoying him in his sleep every night because it thought he was a virgin maiden? There was so much wrong there, Chris wasn't even sure where to start. He wasn’t so much with the pure of heart, either. The word pure hadn’t applied to hardly anything about Chris since he’d learned to talk, and even then it was probably only the Ivory soap his mom used when she gave him a bath.

The pagan interpretation focuses on the medieval lore of beguiled lovers.

Chris had no idea what that meant and he had to stop and look up beguiled in the dictionary to see if it applied to him.

Beguile: to influence by trickery or flattery, mislead, delude, to take away from by cheating or deceiving, to charm or divert, to pass the time pleasantly.

It did.

All this research wasn't helping him at all. Chris still had no idea what the hell the recurring unicorn dream was trying to tell him. He wracked his brain for someone to ask, but he came up empty. Because, really, nothing says crazy like a recurring unicorn dream, complete with fruit-covered silken robes.

Lance would laugh at him and then get annoyed and say that he was done being the brunt of Chris’s jokes.

Joey would laugh at him and hand the phone to Briahna so she could laugh at her crazy Uncle Chris.

Justin would laugh at him and then tell him he couldn't talk because he had to go record a CD or film a movie or design some jeans or sponsor a golf tournament or host an awards show or marry his girlfriend or something. Chris sometimes wondered when Justin was going to drop dead from exhaustion. Probably in the middle of hosting Saturday Night Live.

All his other friends would look at him funny, and Chris would rather be laughed at than looked at in bewilderment by people who purported to know him but really didn’t.

His mother would mock him for the rest of his life. So would his sisters or any other member of his ungrateful family.

He sighed, looked at Google again, and typed in recurring dreams.

*

“Do you think I’m pure of heart?” Chris blurted out the next time he saw JC. He didn’t mean to, it just came out of his mouth before he could stop it.

“Maybe, although you’ve been spending an awful lot of time in LA lately, man. It can’t last.” JC smiled indulgently at Chris across the rack of shirts at the Dolce and Gabbana store in Beverly Hills. JC was always dragging him to Beverly Hills to shop. Chris much preferred Target or Hot Topic, but he never told JC no when he asked.

JC grabbed a white shirt with little white flowers embroidered on the fabric and tiny white buttons on the cuffs. He was going through another white phase. Chris didn’t mind. He thought JC looked good in white.

Chris glared. “Ha ha, C. Very helpful.” He fingered the silky fabric of a bright orange plaid shirt. “I just – there’s this unicorn, man.”

“Really? That’s awesome, dude.” JC looked at him with shining eyes, and Chris felt a kind of warm with pleasure. JC didn’t ask for details, or laugh, or tell him he wasn’t funny. He just kind of…glowed with pleasure without knowing anything about it other than that Chris said he had a unicorn.

"I mean, no, JC, it's not real. It's - I dream about it. At night. Every night." Chris trailed off, putting down the orange shirt and picking up a pink one. "Don't you like pink anymore, man?" He waved the shirt at JC.

JC smiled at him. "Of course, I still like pink, dude. I just don't feel pink right now. My aura -" he broke off, probably remembering how much shit Chris usually gave him for having an aura, must less talking about it. He stared at the shirt in Chris's hands.

But Chris had no shit to give him. Hell, Chris didn't have any room to talk at all. He had a unicorn, and he wanted to discuss it.

He handed the pink shirt to JC. "I like this one." He paused, then added, "I Googled unicorns." JC smiled encouragingly when Chris didn't say anything else. Then, "Do you think I'm beguiling?" He clapped a hand over his mouth and stared at JC with wide eyes. He couldn't believe that sentence had even left his mouth. There wasn't normally much of a filter between his brain and his mouth, but still. This was ridiculous. Beguiling. Jesus.

JC's eyes twinkled at him. "Yes. By all definitions of the word."

He probably knew all the definitions without even having to look them up, too. Fucker. JC fancied himself a word-smith.

Carefully folding the pink shirt up in his hands, JC asked, "What's this all about, Chris? I mean, unicorns? Really, man?"

Chris sighed. "Well, you know how I've been - um, you know, I mean - that whole one true love quest thing?" Chris rifled carelessly through the rest of the shirts on the rack. A salesgirl wearing shoes with five-inch spike heels, a tight black dress, and glasses with severe black frames frowned at him. He frowned back.

"Mmhmm. Did you look at that website I showed you? Did you find anything useful?" Chris could absolutely not interpret the tone of JC's voice. In all the years he'd known him, he could count the number of times that had happened on one hand. JC didn’t look up at him, either, just kind of kept fondling the shirt he had in his hand.

"No, duh. They sell dead frogs on that site JC. I'm not buying anything off of there." No, they really didn't sell dead frogs, and yes, he had ordered something, which hadn't yet arrived, but he wasn't about to tell JC that. Manband and Gone Country hadn't stripped him of all his dignity, thank you very much.

JC huffed a bit, but didn't say anything. He picked up his stack of shirts, which had gotten really tall, and walked over to the register. It couldn't quite be considered stalking, because JC didn't really stalk, but there was a definite edge to the way he moved.

Chris had no idea what he'd done wrong now.

*

Chris had actually bought several things from The Magical Wishing Well, but he decided that was going to be his little secret. It made him pretty nervous if the truth be told. He wasn't sure what he thought he was doing, messing around with this stuff, but since JC was the one who'd shown him the website in the first place, so he could blame JC when it all went horribly wrong, and that was good enough for Chris.

The Witch Doctor Spell Kits made him especially nervous, with their adamant instructions to use them only once!!! And then discard them immediately!!! He ordered the Witch Doctor Love Spell kit, but he wasn't sure he was going to use it. The words extremely powerful followed by more exclamation points than Lance used in his Dancing With the Stars blogs made him stick it at the back of his sock drawer once he'd unwrapped it and then try to forget all about it.

There was something that looked like the owl pellets he remembered dissecting in his fifth grade science class, but he wasn't about to buy one of those. The amount of trouble he'd gotten into when he'd snuck a few of the little tiny half-digested mouse bones into Samantha Wilkins's lunch had made him a legend at his elementary school, but he wasn’t looking to relive his glory days.

There were directions for a simple love spell on the website that didn't require him to buy anything and didn't come with dire warnings, so Chris thought he might try his hand at that. It looked pretty easy, the same kind of flour, salt and water dough that he remembered making Christmas ornaments out of in grade school, only this time he was going to form it into a charm to hang from a strip of leather around his neck.

However, he was supposed to write the name of his one true love on a piece of paper, burn it, and add the ashes to the dough. They hadn't done that in the third grade, although thinking back, Chris wouldn't have been surprised to find out his teacher had included the ashes of the custodian's name in her salt dough Christmas tree. Miss Lewis was the only one of Chris's teachers who didn't yell at him when he spilled his juice at snack time.

In all his talk about his quest for his one true love, Chris had kind of neglected to tell JC that he already knew the name of his one true love. That was a piece of information he was keeping to himself, mostly out of fear. His mother would kick his ass if she knew, but Chris had more faith in sketchy magic spells than he did in his own lovability. In fact, his mother would probably try to blame Justin, but that was just dumb. It was no one’s fault, it was just the way he was wired. It had nothing to do with Chris’s complete and total inability to form a lasting romantic relationship of any sort in his entire life.

Nothing.

He wrote the name carefully in neat block letters on a piece of paper, making sure he spelled it right. It wouldn't do to end up with the wrong one true love, and it was a name that seemed to confuse people sometimes. Then he stood and watched the paper burn in the marble ashtray Lance had gotten him for Christmas the year Chris seemed to be holding a cigar in every picture of himself that turned up on the internet.

It was unfortunate that JC happened to show up at Chris's house when every surface in the kitchen was covered in a fine dusting of flour, including Chris's face, and there was salt everywhere.

"Dude, what's with the salt? Trying to keep out demons?" JC looked around the kitchen in amusement.

"Demons? What the fuck are you talking about, JC? Also, what the fuck are you doing in Orlando again?" Chris thought JC was still safely in LA, otherwise he would have waited to do this another time. Chris had come home a week ago, and it never occurred to him that JC was leaving LA anytime soon.

"My house here needs some attention," JC said loftily, not meeting Chris's eye.

"Right, because you don't pay plenty of people to look after it for you," Chris retorted. "Okay, you don't pay them a lot, but you do pay them."

"They don't have any complaints," JC said dismissively. "And that's beside the point," he added, waving his hands at the mess in Chris's kitchen. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Making Christmas ornaments," was the only answer Chris think of, which was how he ended up with a set of five Christmas trees and five candy canes, painted with food coloring and baked in his oven, each one containing a hole with a string tied through it so he could hang it from his tree, and each one speckled through with flecks of dark gray ashes.

The Witch Doctor dolls were starting to look pretty good.

*

There was one more thing Chris bought from the Magic Wishing Well. He mostly bought it because it was shiny, but also because of the whole recurring unicorn dream thing. It was an amulet, a black stone oval, polished to a flat surface, with a small silver unicorn on it. It hung from a thin silver chain.

The amulet came with instructions printed on a tiny, folded up piece of paper, English on the front and Chinese, or maybe Japanese on the back. Chris wasn't really up on his Asian languages. The directions read just like the directions that came with his very first VCR, as if they'd been translated from Japanese into English by someone who only spoke Russian.

Wear amulet this around your neck at all of the times. At nighttimes before going into bed, hold it slight tightness in your left hand and say loud out three times, "My true love waits for me." Rub then the unicorn times three with your right hand and keep with it next to your heart at sleeping.

And if that wasn't the cheesiest thing Chris had ever heard, he didn't know what was. It was right up there with you cheated, girl, my heart bleeded, girl or break down your walls with my army of love. If anyone knew from cheesy, it was Chris. He'd been surrounded by it for years.

It took him a week, but Chris finally psyched himself up to attempt the spell. He was going to have to fortify said psyche with half a bottle of Jack before he could bring himself to say "my true love waits for me" once, let alone three times, but the unicorn dream was beginning to drive him completely 'round the bend, so he figured what the fuck, it couldn't hurt.

Once he decided to give it a try, he had to figure out a way to get JC to go away. JC didn't seem to be in any hurry to go back to LA and he kept dropping in unannounced, waving cheerfully at the guards at the gate of Chris's community, walking into Chris's living room, making himself at home, taking over the biggest guest room if he didn't feel like driving back to Winter Park at night.

The very last thing Chris needed was for JC to suddenly appear in the middle of the spell and interrupt him. Chris had no idea what would happen if he only said my true love waits for me twice instead of three times, but he had no desire to find out. It would probably be horrific. The only thing worse would be if JC not only interrupted him, but actually heard him saying the incantation. JC would never let Chris live that down.

"Don't you have a dance show to judge? Isn't Lil Mama waiting for you somewhere in LA?" Chris snapped at him as they lounged around Chris's pool, smoking Chris's best weed, the stuff he'd been saving for a special occasion, and watching the stars. There weren't a lot of them to see, too much light pollution from the theme parks, but the bud whose existence and hiding place JC had cajoled him into revealing made what few stars there were twinkle happily.

"Nah, we don't start again until next month," JC said lazily. "I've missed Orlando, man. I think I'll hang here a while longer."

Terrific.

But not only did the excellent weed make JC gratifyingly horny, it also made him mellow and sleepy enough to head on up to the guest room when Chris suggested it after the most amazing weed-fueled sex Chris had ever had in a swimming pool. Pot made JC pliant and it made Chris aggressive and they always had the best sex when they smoked up. It also made it easier for Chris to not think about what the hell he was doing, or why he didn’t just say something.

After he made sure JC was passed out in the middle of the bed, carefully sliding his flip flops off his feet and covering him with the cashmere throw Chris knew he harbored a not-so-secret hard on for, Chris slipped into his own room and quietly shut the door.

He dug out the bottle of Jack he kept in his closet in case of bedroom-related emergencies and started drinking. It wasn’t going to take much, what with all the pot. Dragging the amulet out from under his t-shirt, he untangled it from the necklace of small silver balls that he still wore around his neck, even after all these years. JC had given him that when No Strings went platinum, about five minutes after it was released, and Chris just sort of never took it off.

Chris took a deep breath, and then a deep drink of Jack, and then another deep breath. He stripped down to his boxers and brushed his teeth, forgetting, as always, just how foul Jack Daniels and Crest Mint toothpaste were when you mixed them. After settling in bed, snuggling down under the covers on his side, his pillow fluffed just right, he wrapped his left hand around the amulet, stroked the unicorn with the thumb of his right hand, and, feeling like the biggest tool on the planet, said, "My true love waits for me," three times. Pressing the necklace against his chest, close to his heart, and resisting the urge to stroke what he really wanted to rub, he drifted off to sleep, stupid hope creeping in around the edges of his consciousness.

*

The dream started the same way it always did. Chris stood in the middle of the forest clearing, the night air warm on his face. The unicorn stood across from him, and if unicorns could smirk, this one certainly would be. It tossed its head, whinnying and snorting, and Chris took a step backwards.

The only reason he didn't trip and fall on his ass was because there was a tree right behind him. He looked down at himself with consternation, trying to figure out what it was that was tangled around his knees and seemed to have a death grip on his ankles.

What the fuck? No, really, what the fuck?

He was back in the long dark blue robe-like thing. It was hooded, with spotted black and white fur trimming the edges. The embroidered fruit shined in the moonlight. It flapped when he tried to take a step, and what the hell were those things on his feet? Where those heels? He lifted the robe up and stared down at his feet. Buckles. There were shiny brass buckles on his shoes. The whole thing was like NSYNC meets Medieval chic. They'd had a couple of costume designers back in the day that could easily have come up with this outfit. Maybe the dream had transported him to a Renaissance Faire, or something.

There was a flurry of noise up in the tree tops that spanned the clearing they were in, and then Chris heard the flutter of wings as dozens of white birds lifted off and flew away, covering the sky and looking like a fluffy, moving cloud over the forest. The unicorn pawed the ground, tossing its head. It seemed more agitated than it usually did.

Chris didn't blame it in the least. His robe was making him agitated and if the unicorn had any taste at all, it was probably equally offended by it.

But apparently it wasn't the tacky wizard costume that was upsetting the unicorn. Chris heard the sound of distant hoof beats coming closer and closer, and he looked around to see which tree would do the best job of concealing his presence. He didn't have the slightest idea what the fuck was going on, the dream had never shown him any of this before, but hiding seemed like a safe bet and an excellent plan.

The unicorn must have had the same thought, because when Chris turned to look at it from his place behind a large tree trunk, it was gone, leaving behind only a slight shimmer on the night air.

And then a huge black horse thundered into the clearing and stopped, raising up on its hind legs and neighing loudly. Chris stared. It was the biggest horse he'd ever seen. When it stopped pawing the air and finally settled down, Chris found himself sputtering in indignation. Seated on the black horse's back was fucking Lance.

Chris stepped out from behind the tree. "What the fuck, Bass? What the hell is going on here?" he squawked.

"Do I know you, good sir?" asked Lance in a kind of fake-sounding British accent. It was actually kind of a cross between a British accent and a Mississippi accent, and it made Lance sound like a total tool. He, too, was dressed in robes, only his were the green of leaves in springtime, and they matched his eyes, making the fair skin of his face - and whoa, what the hell was it about this place, or rather, this dream, that had Chris thinking like a damn poet?

Chris rolled his eyes. "Yes, you ass. What the fuck is this place?" Lance frowned at Chris and Chris frowned right back at him. "Don't give me that look, Bass. That quit working on me when we were in Germany a million years ago and you wanted the last of my chocolate bar." Chris shook out his robes indignantly. The fur trim was tickling his nose and making him want to sneeze.

Lance seemed to be having trouble controlling his horse. Chris didn't trust horses, what with that whole shitting on his shoes thing, and he took a step back. "Horse a little too big for you, dude?" he snickered.

Lance drew himself up to his full height and said with a sneer, in his fake British accent, "Who are you and why are you here? What do you want with Melinda?"

Chris jumped and peered carefully around the clearing, but he and Lance were the only ones there. "Melinda's here? Where?" He half expected his old nemesis to come out of the bushes any minutes, waving her hands around and thrusting a sheaf of papers with his schedule for the next three years at him, telling him to pay attention and bitching at him about his wardrobe. He looked for a place to duck and cover.

Lance waved his hand vaguely to his left. "The unicorn is called Melinda. She feels some affection for Rafe, here," he said, patting his horse proudly on the neck, "And being shy, does not usually linger long in his presence."

Chris gaped at Lance. He knew it was a particularly unattractive expression, Justin had made sure to tell him that early in their acquaintance, but he just couldn't help himself. Melinda. A unicorn named Melinda. No wonder it seemed to be smirking at him whenever he encountered it. Her. Whatever. "Melinda hasn't been shy a day in her life," Chris snorted.

Lance looked at him, a puzzled expression on his face. "You know Melinda, sir?"

Okay, never let it be said that Chris did not have an active fantasy life. But even with all the strippers, the porn stars, Britney in her school girl uniform, snakes - also having to do with Britney, he suspected - even with all the things he never really let himself think about, never in his wildest dreams had Chris ever imagined Lance calling him "Sir." Not in any circumstances, and certainly not in the same sentence as the name Melinda.

It was probably the most surreal moment of his life, up to and including the whole encountering a unicorn named Melinda thing. And that was saying something. He wasn't sure he could recover from the images in his head the whole thing conjured up. Sir. Lance in leather, kneeling, hands bound behind his -

"Good sir," Lance was saying. "Do you do well? Are you ill? You look a bit discomfited." Lance frowned. "Do you wish to visit the healer?"

Chris shook himself. "Uh, no, man, I'm fine. Just peachy, really. Say, listen. You wouldn't happen to know what the hell I'm doing here, would you?" Chris was still positive this was a dream, but it actually felt more real than his dreams usually did. Also, he'd just cast a spell, or recited an incantation, or done something of the sort before he fell asleep. He was beginning to worry a little bit.

"To my sorrow, no, sir, I do not. I wish to be of assistance, though, so tell me how else I may help a friend of Melinda's." Lance was wearing his earnest look now, the one that made him look like he was five years old. His horse shifted restlessly. "Patience, Rafe. We must render what assistance we can to this stranger who knows Melinda."

He kept saying that, and Chris had the uneasy feeling it was pretty important. He really should tell Lance that the Melinda he knew was a person, not a unicorn, but he was afraid Lance would change his mind about his offer to help. Although, Chris had been exchanging speaking looks with the unicorn every night in his dream, so maybe that counted as being acquainted. He thought a bit and then cocked his head up at Lance. "I could eat."

Lance looked startled for a moment, and then smiled. "Of course, good sir. My manners have gone begging. Please, come with me." He tugged on the reins and chivvied Rafe over to a fallen log, then reached a hand down to Chris, who took it with some trepidation. He stepped up onto the log and somehow or another, Lance managed to get Chris settled behind him, and together they trotted off into the dark forest.

The trees grew thicker and taller as they made their way deeper into the woods. It seemed quiet, but Chris really had no idea how much noise a forest was supposed to make, especially at night. It wasn't like he'd spent a lot of time hanging out in the big scary woods during the course of his life. One viewing of Snow White when his sisters were young had cured him of any desire to be a forest ranger or a bear trapper or anything.

The moon was full, moonlight shining down through the tree branches, illuminating the forest floor and lighting Rafe's way.

And no real surprise, Lance took Chris right to Joey, who was moving around a crackling fire, in the middle of which stood a large, black pot. Joey was singing loudly and lewdly as he stirred whatever was in the pot with a big wooden stick, pausing to toss a handful of what looked like salt into it. It smelled rich and delicious and Chris was startled to realize how hungry he was. He'd eaten practically a whole pizza before he went to bed, he really should be stuffed to the gills, not salivating over Joey's beef stew. Apparently pizza didn't count here.

"What ho, Joe," Lance hailed, and Joey turned away from the fire to wave a greeting. He stopped and stared when he saw that Lance had someone with him. "The day has been kind and we have a guest." Joey nodded but made no move to welcome Chris. "He claims friendship with Melinda."

Joey's face brightened and he dropped the stick into the stew pot and strode over to them, patting Rafe on the neck and murmuring something in his ear. Chris caught the words look out for the ladies and Melinda's a clever one. Rafe's tail swished back and forth a couple of times and Joey laughed happily.

He turned to Chris and said, "Welcome, stranger. Will you eat with us?"

Chris was trying to get down off Lance's horse without falling on his head and making a complete ass of himself, but it was proving difficult. Lance tried to help, saying, "Wait for me, good sir, that I may be of some assistance" but by that time, Chris was already gracelessly on the ground. He steadied himself with a hand on Rafe's flank then smiled at Joey. "When do we eat?"

"Soon, soon. It is almost ready. Do you enjoy beef stew, weary traveler?" Joey's smile was as big as it used to get when he made macaroni and cheese on the bus and Justin actually ate it without complaining about the calories.

"Yeah, sounds great." Chris hesitated. "Is there someplace where I could...wash up?" His bladder was full, he really shouldn't have had that third beer before bedtime, and he needed to find a bush. Apparently beer did count in this dream, or place, or whatever it was.

Lance smiled knowingly and pointed to a large oak tree. "Past that tree there runs a stream. It is peaceful and undisturbed there, you'll find. We shall dine whence you return."

Chris nodded his thanks and headed toward the huge, sprawling tree. Sure enough, there was a small creek bubbling merrily along about five feet away from the tree, moonlight dancing on its surface. On the other side of the creek was a large bolder, and sitting right smack on top of it, his feet dangling in the water, was JC.

Chris stopped dead in his tracks. He considered his choices. He could go back to Lance and Joey and pretend he hadn't seen anything and eat some beef stew. He could go back to them and tell them he'd changed his mind and really needed to leave. Or he could go say hi to JC. If this was only a dream, it shouldn't matter what he did. His heart pounded in his chest and his palms were sweaty.

He moved toward JC and not being a super-stealthy forest tracker, the rustling, okay, crashing noise he made caught JC's attention. He turned his head and spotted Chris. His smile was soft and warm and so very welcoming. "Chris," he said with delight.

"JC, what the are you doing here?" Chris asked. He held his breath, almost afraid of the answer.

"Waiting for you," JC said simply.

*

"Why didn't you say something? Years ago, JC. It would have been nice. I thought- " Chris broke off. He'd thought they were just screwing around, is what he'd thought. He focused on his left hand, watching his fingers pick at a hangnail on his thumb. He hadn’t thought he could have more than that.

"You thought you needed some kind of spell, dude? Like, you couldn't have just told me or something? JC murmured indignantly into Chris's neck. He was sprawled over Chris, come still sticky between them.

Chris pulled his eyes away from his thumb, uncurling his fingers over JC's shoulder, smoothing his palm down his side. He rested his hand in the small of JC's back, his fingers curving over his ass. "I was scared," he admitted, his voice small. "Like, that you would mock me or something." They lay quietly in Chris's bed, just breathing, and then JC laughed. "What?” Chris asked. “Does the mocking start now?"

JC shook his head, smiling. "Melinda. I can't believe the unicorn's name was fucking Melinda."

"Dude, you got to ride her," Chris said. They were both silent for a moment as they contemplated the wrongness of that sentence. "I mean, you got to ride the unicorn. How cool is that?" Chris said hastily.

"I almost lost an eye," JC retorted. "That horn was sharp as hell." He started sucking on Chris's neck, and Chris forgot all about the unicorn until JC pulled back and said, "She just showed up at my house, man. In the middle of the night. Freaked me right out, you know? She's not much of a conversationalist, let me tell you. I had no fucking idea what she wanted. I just hung on for the ride."

Chris wiggled under JC in an effort to get him to start sucking on his neck again. He slid both hands down over JC's ass and squeezed. JC moaned gratifyingly and Chris said, "Well, it was nice of Lance and Joey to feed us before Melinda brought us home. Although I think Joey's made better stew on the bus." He wiggled again, pushing his hips up against JC’s.

"Mmm, so impatient," JC murmured.

"Yep, that's me. Shouldn't really come as much of a surprise, dude. It’s not like we haven’t done this before."

"You know, Chris, I knew how I felt. I just didn't know how you felt, until I found myself in an enchanted forest with a unicorn named Melinda being told by Lance - in a really bad British accent, by the way - that I was your true love and I was supposed to wait there for you." JC paused thoughtfully. "I was a little freaked out at first, but then Joey said you were trying really hard - without having to actually talk to me personally - to get me to fall in love with you, so I figured if I just waited like they said, there would be a happy ending." JC kissed Chris, long and slow and sweet, and Chris was almost distracted enough to let it go. Almost.

"A happy ending? I'm not Snow White, JC." Chris protested when he’d caught his breath.

"You could have fooled me, princess," JC snickered. Chris tried to elbow him in the ribs, but JC pretty much had him pinned to the bed. "No, really, it was like a fairy tale, it had to have a happy ending. I don’t really think you’re a princess, though, man. Not even with the fancy robe and the high heels."

"Damn straight," Chris said, somewhat placated by the way JC was jerking him off. JC smiled, and it was a grin so full of love and affection that Chris came right on the spot without any warning.

"You fucker," he panted, and the sound of JC's laughter was the sound of a quest fulfilled at last.

*****

comment

Home    Popslash