Antimatter
by Synchronik

hhhelen8: Dude, you should so write this lamb thing.

Synchronik: Yeah, but. Justin and Lance.
That's, like, matter and antimatter.

hhhelen8: But. Lambs!

Justin lived his life by three basic principles. He wasn't entirely sure what they were, but he knew they were three of them and if he were forced to articulate them they would probably have been something like: 1) Justin Timberlake is a basketball god who, had he not been destined for fame as an entertainer, would surely have ended up playing professionally, at least for a minor team with an outside shot like the Cavaliers or something, 2) Chris is cool, 3) Lance is the Man, not in the cool "you da man" way, but in a "fight the man" way, representing all that is uncool and uptight, even when Lance himself is being cool and un-uptight.

These things were like the beginning of the Constitution -- self evident, or whatever. Unquestionable by any thinking person. True.

He went over to Lance's for breakfast because Lance, being the Man, always had a full refrigerator and could usually be counted on to cook something. He liked Chris' better, because it wasn't clean all the time, and Chris didn't make disapproving faces at you when you accidentally knocked over your juice or whatever, but all Chris ever had in his fridge was beer and left over pizza and you just couldn't eat that shit for breakfast all the time. Joey's kitchen was no better, not for breakfast stuff, although he was a sure bet for dinners, and JC was JC and Justin did not feel like a fricken kelp shake for breakfast. Lance always had stuff like eggs and two different kinds of toast. And stuff was never rotting in his fridge.

He went in the back, clicking off the alarm by the laundry room door, and shucking his shoes. Lance didn't like for people to wear shoes in the house, even in the kitchen, because "it tracks stuff in." He was so uptight, he reminded Justin of his Great Aunt Bernice, who still had plastic covers on her twenty-year-old furniture.

They were there when Justin came around the corner, Lance and the guy, a dark haired guy Lance had pressed up against the counter. Justin didn't recognize him. He recognized the position though, the way the guy was kind of hanging onto Lance like he would fall if Lance let him go, his arms draped over Lance's shoulders. They were kissing, one of Lance's hands up under the guy's shirt, the other cupping the guy's ass, and there were sounds. Sounds Justin didn't typically associate with Lance. Moaning. Sexy moans. Justin didn't usually think of Lance as sexy, because he was Lance, and because people like Lance just weren't. People like Lance were reliable and did things like get their oil changed every 3000 miles and flossed. They didn't cause moaning.

This guy apparently hadn't figured that out, though, because he was kind of moaning low in his throat and trying to climb Lance like a tree, one leg hooked around Lance's waist. Lance was making him work for it, too, pulling away, smiling, teasing him. The guy laughed a bit, but he sounded frustrated, and his hips worked against Lance's. The next time Lance pulled away smiling his toothy smile, Justin took the opportunity.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey," Lance said, but he didn't look away from the guy for a long second, and when he did his eyes were still bright with lust, and flashed at Justin. "You come for breakfast?"

"Um, yeah," Justin said.

Lance turned, let go of the guy, who Justin could see was small and sharp looking and reminded him of Chris. "This is Andrew," Lance said. Andrew smiled and leaned forward.

"Hi," he said, smiling, and he was way better looking than Chris, Justin realized. He was like Chris on good looking steroids with his dark glittering eyes and white white teeth, his dark hair flopping becomingly into his eyes. He kept one hand on Lance, like he didn't want to let go. Of Lance. "Pleasure, man."

"Yeah." Justin shook his hand. It was warm, maybe from Lance's skin. Justin flinched.

"Andrew's a model," Lance said, rooting through the cupboards for his omelet pan.

"Aren't you a little short?" Justin asked, before he realized he was being rude. But seriously, the guy was shorter than Lance. He had to be too short.

"Tall enough for magazine work," the guy said, laughing. "Hey, Lance, I'm gonna take off, okay?"

Lance pulled himself away from the cupboards. "You sure?" he asked. He hooked a finger in the guy's belt loops and tugged him in, until they were hip to hip. Justin rolled his eyes and tried to look elsewhere. It was like watching your mom make out or something. "I make a mean omelet."

"He does," Justin said, hoping the guy would leave. "Really." The guy squinted at him and shook his head.

"No, I gotta," he told Lance, slinging his arms around Lance's neck and reclining into him. Lance slipped his hands around the guy's waist and ran them up under his shirt. The guy was in shape, Justin noticed. Nice definition. "Talk to you later," he purred. Justin focused his eyes at the ceiling while they kissed again.

"So," he said, after the door had shut behind the guy. "What was that?"

"What?" Lance was stirring eggs with a whisk. He was sooo Martha Stewart. Without the guy hung over him like a cape, he was just Lance again. Normal, boring, egg-making Lance.

"That guy."

"Andrew."

"Yeah, Andrew," Justin said. "What was that about?"

"Um, I had sex with him?" Lance poured egg into the pan, swirling it carefully. "You knew I was gay, right?"

"Oh, fuck off," Justin said. "Seriously."

"Seriously, I had sex with him."

"Right. Which is what I had the question about." He shook his head at Lance, who was holding up a green pepper. "No, just cheese and ham, man."

Lance tossed the green pepper back into the vegetable bin, and pulled the cheese out of the compartment on the door shelf. "You saw him, right?"

"I saw you with your tongue down his throat, if that's what you mean. Sheesh."

"Okay, you're being kind of jerky for someone who just interfered with my early morning action."

"Whatever, man." Justin shrugged. "Do you have toast?"

"White or wheat?"

"Dude," he said to Chris that afternoon on the golf course. "Lance has sex."

"Please. I'm trying to golf, here." Chris tugged the brim of his cap and squinted down the fairway.

"Yeah," Justin said. He'd known it was hopeless to try to talk to Chris about it.

JC nodded. "I think it's great."

Justin blinked. "You think it's great that Lance is having sex with random models in his kitchen?"

JC smiled. "No, but you know. He has to explore his sexuality, and I think it's really great that he's getting so much more comfor--"

"Yeah, great," Justin said. "Do you want to go get a sandwich or something?"

"Oh, sure!" JC said.

Joey laughed. He hadn't expected that. Chris he'd expected to laugh, but Joey had rocked back in his chair and laughed hard, holding his stomach. Tears leaked out of the corners of his eyes.

"I knew it," he said, when he finally caught his breath. "I knew it."

"Dude, we all knew Lance was gay, man. He told me when he was, like, fifteen or something."

"When did you start liking him?" Joey asked. His eyes crinkled in amusement.

Justin rolled his eyes. "Please. I'm just saying it's a little weird. I mean. People. Having sex with Lance."

"Uh huh," Joey said. He pressed his hand over his mouth.

"Shut up. Jeez. I don't like him, okay?"

"Sure," Joey said.

"It just caught me by surprise is all, man. Like, --"

"Like you like him," Joey said.

"I don't like him," Justin repeated. "Listen to me."

"It's okay," Joey said. He leaned in, his elbows on his knees. "I liked him, too, you know?"

"You?" Justin sat back. Joey. Joey, who had a different girl or two every night, who'd slept with more people than Justin could even count, had liked Lance. "When?"

Joey shrugged. "A while ago. Right after the first album, you know. Before we found out about Lou."

"Wait, when?" Justin asked. "Before Lou?" Joey nodded. Justin stared at him. Lance before the lawsuit. Pale, platinum blond, sickly Lance, who still wore button down shirts on his days off. Joey had liked that Lance.

"Why?" Justin asked him.

Joey shrugged again. "He's sexy."

He is not!" Justin declared. "And he especially wasn't then."

"I'm tellin' ya, man," Joey said, shaking his head. "He's sexy. He has a vibe."

"Oh, please. Lance has a vibe. Lance has a vibe like, I dunno, like this phone has a vibe!" He pulled his cell phone out of its holster. Joey looked at it.

"Do you have any idea how funny it would been if it had started vibrating right then?" he asked Justin. Justin giggled.

"I think it's on vibrate, too," he said. Joey laughed.

He still kept going over to Lance's when Chris was too tired or crabby to go out to breakfast with him, because Lance hadn't said he couldn't. Lance still made good omelets and he'd gotten a waffle iron for Christmas. Justin had given it to him.

"You're out of orange juice," he told Lance.

"You know where the glasses are, right?" Lance yanked the carton out of his hand. Justin sat down at Lance's kitchen island, resting his chin in his hands. Lance's island was the coolest part of the kitchen; it was made of hard light colored wood and doubled as a chopping block and had about six hundred drawers that had weird shaped utensils in them when Justin opened them to look. Justin had seen Joey use it once when he was making eggplant parmesan for them all. Lance never made things that needed chopping.

"I finished it," Justin said.

"And I'm supposed to believe that you only do that when the carton's almost empty."

Justin shrugged. Lance studied the side of the pancake mix box, his hair peaked up on his forehead and tangled. His tanktop was stretched out from sleep and Justin could see the pale skin over his ribs, the slight curve of his pectoral muscle, the bare hint of color at the edge of his nipple.

"So how's Andrew?" Justin asked.

"Hmm?" Lance said, pulling a mixing bowl out of the cupboard, still studying the side of the box. "Andrew?"

"You know, Andrew. I'm-gonna-fuck-you-in-the-kitchen Andrew? How's he?"

"Oh." Lance poured water into a glass measuring cup, eyed it, dumped some out and eyed it again. "He's fine."

"So, he's your boyfriend, then." Justin opened one of the drawers and shut it with a satisfying snick. He opened it again. It had some sort of skewer in it, shiny and dangerous looking.

Lance snorted. "Yeah, right," he said. He pushed the bowl at Justin and handed him a whisk. "Here, stir this."

"What? You got rid of him?"

"What?" Lance said, hefting the weight of the waffle iron onto the island. "You've never had a one night stand?"

"Whatever," Justin said. "You just seemed to like him. You invited him to stay for breakfast."

"I'm polite," Lance said. "I'm not in love."

"Okay, whatever." Justin swirled the whisk in the creamy batter and began to stir.

Lance had sex again not long after that with a tall blond guy who resembled Nick Carter. Justin wasn't sure if Lance realized that all the people he had sex with looked like famous people or if he, Justin, just didn't know any normal people to compare them to.

He knew because Lance came over to him at the club and said "you see that guy over there?" and pointed to the tall blond Carteresque guy.

Justin nodded. "Yeah."

"That's Steve," Lance said. "He'll be at breakfast tomorrow if you come."

"He's coming over for breakfast?" Justin asked, and didn't catch a clue until Lance patted him on the cheek and walked away.

Justin didn't go over for breakfast the next morning.

He went to Joey's instead. Joey didn't have food at his house, ever, but he would get dressed and go to the IHOP down the street if Justin paid.

"So," Justin said after their pancakes arrived. Joey looked up, his fork dripping blueberry syrup.

"Huh?" he said.

"Lance has sex."

"Yeah, you mentioned that," Joey said. "And JC has arms. And I like to sing. I'm not seeing your point, J."

"There's no point. It's just. Weird. To think about."

"Why are you thinking about it?" Joey tilted his head to the side.

"I'm not."

"And yet, you keep bringing it up," Joey said.

"Eat your pancakes," Justin said, and made a mental note to not tell Joey anything, ever again.

Justin went over to Lance's the next morning, but Lance wasn't in the kitchen. Justin walked through the downstairs carefully, afraid that maybe Lance was having sex in the living room or something, but he wasn't anywhere. Justin went upstairs, listening so hard for tell tale sounds that he thought he might be able to hear the blood rushing through his brain. It would be just his luck to come across Lance in the middle of some freaky bondage scene. He shuddered at the thought.

He eased Lance's bedroom door open and peeked in, ready to yank it shut at the first flash of nudity, but there was nothing really to see, just Lance, asleep on his side under a neatly pulled up comforter, his hand up by his open mouth. He was alone.

"Lance," Justin whispered, coming up next to the bed. Lance's eyelids moved. He was a light sleeper. "Lance," he whispered again.

"uuuhh," Lance said.

"Lance, hey." Justin poked at Lance's comforter.

"What. What the hell are you doin' 'n my room, Justin?" Lance didn't move while he spoke, as if by lying still he could pretend that he was still unconscious.

"I came over for breakfast."

"Sleepin' Justin," Lance mumbled, but he was up. He couldn't ever go back to sleep right away, Justin knew from years of close quarters.

"Okay," Justin said. He sat down on the edge of the bed. There wasn't much light in the bedroom because of the blinds and Lance was nothing but a pile of bluish shadows, his face, his hand, his shoulder under the blanket. He looked like a painting.

"Oh, you fucker," Lance said finally, pushing back the blanket. He had on a t-shirt and boxers. "I hate you."

"I brought eggs in case you didn't have any," Justin said, stepping back so that Lance could get up and brush his teeth.

"Don't think I can't kill you and hide your body," Lance snapped.

"And orange juice," Justin told him.

"Do you really think Lance is sexy?" Justin asked Joey at rehearsal that afternoon. Lance was up front practicing with Robin, Wade's assistant. She was little and black and cute as a button and Lance just adored her. He made up reasons for extra help, tripping over his own feet, pretending not to understand routines. It was pretty pathetic, Justin thought. It wasn't like he even wanted to sleep with her.

Joey smirked at him for a second, but Justin didn't look away, so Joey turned an appraising gaze at Lance. "Sure," he said slowly.

Justin shook his head. "Man," he said.

"Okay, he's not like JC, you know, or you," Joey said. "It's." He squinted at Lance, who'd stopped dancing and was leaning against the mirrors. He was smiling the wide toothy grin that meant he was having a good time. Lance looked best when he didn't smile, Justin thought. Secretive was a good look for him. Or mad. "It's like a secret with him," Joey explained, and Justin flinched at the coincidence. "You don't notice it at first. And then, one day, you look at him and you realize it and he's sexy."

"Who's sexy?" JC asked, rubbing a towel over his hair.

"Justin thinks Lance is sexy," Joey said. Justin swatted him.

"Lance is sexy," JC said. He slung the towel around his neck. His hair was sticking up like that Greek mythology chick's, the one with the snakes for hair, but on JC it looked like he was some sort of deranged angel. "He has a sexy vibe."

"A vibe," Justin said. Sometimes JC was too incredibly corny to believe. He couldn't believe he was friends with people who still believed in vibes.

"Uh huh." JC nodded earnestly. "A sexy vibe."

"A vibe," Justin repeated. Unbelievable. Joey winked at him.

"Wait, what's that I see?" Joey squinted at JC. "Oh! My god! A dorky vibe!" He grabbed JC's towel and started rolling it into a whip. JC bolted across the room.

"Joey, no!" he shouted, holding onto the door handle.

"Why did we let him in the band?" Justin asked, rolling his eyes.

"His sexy vibe," Joey told him.

They were in rehearsal for the next spate of awards shows, so he saw Lance almost every day and he came to the conclusion that JC was totally insane (not that that was, like, any sort of surprise) if he thought Lance had a vibe. Lance didn't have a vibe. Lance had a Palm Pilot.

He spent a lot of time looking at it, too, Justin noticed, tapping things into it during breaks, then calling people on his cell phone and tapping other things into it. He squinted at it a lot because he didn't bring his glasses to rehearsals, and he sighed at it a lot, like it was causing him problems that he was only causing himself. He reminded Justin of the lawyers he saw on TV, only dressed in more comfortable clothes.

"What are you doing?" he asked, finally, while Wade and the other choreographer worked out something in front of the mirrors.

Lance sighed. "I've got to get through, like, a billion e-mails, and production is starting on the war movie thing, so, hey! Justin!"

Justin stood, holding the Palm up and out of Lance's reach, grinning. Lance was so easy. Lance groped for the device, one of his hands flat against Justin's rib cage. "You should take a break," Justin said.

"God dammit, Justin," Lance said. "Give it back." He reached for it again, and his face was near Justin's, his mouth open, his breath hot on Justin's lips. Justin spun away, so that Lance was at his back.

"Hey, does this have games on it?" he asked, tapping at the screen.

"Don't touch it!" Lance said. He was lunging against Justin, swatting at his arms. His body pulsed against Justin's back. "Don't touch the screen, you ass."

"Okay, okay." Justin stood up straight, holding one hand up to get Lance off of him. That was another reason Lance was the Man; he so couldn't take a joke. Lance stepped back, panting a little. "Does it have games on it?"

"Yeah," Lance said. He was flushed from the exertion. His chest heaved under Justin's palm, and Justin looked down at it, not sure when it had landed there. His forefinger rested against the hot bare skin of Lance's throat.

"Can I play them?" Justin asked.

"Oh, no way."

"C'mon. Just one game. Tetris, even."

"No."

"Laaaance, please."

Lance lunged, suddenly and abruptly, and snatched the Palm away. On his way back to the couch, he smirked over his shoulder at Justin, his eyes sparkling.

"I thought you didn't like him," Joey murmured, slinging an arm over Justin's shoulders.

"Man, if that's what you do to chicks you like, I don't know how you score," Justin said.

"Any way I want," Joey said, and swatted him on the ass.

Chris said it would be a "night of fun, man. A night to remember!" but Justin didn't know why he bothered to believe Chris because ever since he'd broken up with Dani, his Nights of Fun had usually ended up with him puking in the parking lot and then crashing over at Justin's house. He was getting better -- last time, he'd only puked once and that might have been because of bad Mexican food -- but it still wasn't fun by any stretch of the imagination.

He'd gone, though, because everyone was going and if he didn't it would ruin the mood, and he didn't have anything else planned anyway. And the club was fun, at first, loud and crowded, but not too crowded, and filled with admiring fans, but the cool kind, the kind that gave them enough distance to relax. No mob scene. And the DJ was hot, and Chris wasn't drinking anything but beer (not that he couldn't throw up on beer, but it was less likely, at least), and everyone was having a Night of Fun, and then Justin saw Lance pick up a guy.

He was really good at it, which kind of surprised Justin. He'd noticed that Lance kept looking past him to the far side of the VIP room and then looking away, but he'd thought it was just Lance looking where his eyes usually went and then trying to pretend he wasn't looking at Justin. Justin was used to people pretending not to look at him. After about a half an hour, though, Lance got up and went to that side of the VIP room and started talking to some guy in a tank top with really ripped arms. Justin watched while Lance made the transition from introduction through casual conversation and right into the standing too close phase without even batting an eye. The guy was the same height as Lance, but he kept smiling and looking down, and it made Lance, who was also smiling, seem taller.

"Oh, please," Justin said, when Lance put his hand on the wall next to the guy's head. "That's so. God!" He turned to show Chris, but Chris was talking to their incredibly hot twenty-two-year-old waitress, so there was no point. "Fuck this," he said, and slid out of the booth.

He stomped out of the VIP room, one of the bodyguards right behind him. He wasn't sure what he'd planned on doing once he'd gotten out of there, since the only thing not in the VIP room was the dance floor, but then some guy brushed by him in the crowd, murmuring "excuse me" and running his hand over Justin's arm as he tried to get by.

"Hey," Justin said. The guy turned around. Blond. Not as tall as Justin. Dark eyes. Cute. "Wanna go to VIP with me?" Justin asked. The guy narrowed his eyes, his smile drawing slowly across his face. He had nice teeth.

"Yeah, sure," he said.

"Great," Justin grabbed him by the wrist and took him into the lounge.

Lance had his guy pressed up against the wall and was kissing him slowly, making him squirm for it. He held the guys wrists down at his sides.

"I'm--" Justin's guy said, and Justin kissed him. He was a good kisser, not too sloppy, not too stunned to be kissing Justin Timberlake that he forgot was he was doing. And he was the perfect height, too. That had been the tough part about going out with Britney, Justin remembered, as the guy's tongue touched his. Even in heels she was pretty short. Sometimes, he neck hurt if they'd been kissing for a while. Past his guy's head, he could see that Lance had let the other kid's wrists loose and the kid had wrapped his arms around Lance's neck. It looked the same as it had when Justin had walked in on Lance in his kitchen, and he wondered what Lance did that made guys cling to him like that, like they'd die if he left.

The guy he was kissing pulled away a little. "You're so hot," he murmured into Justin's ear, and then licked at the sensitive skin right under Justin's earlobe.

"Yeah, you too." Justin put his hands on the guy's waist. He was hot, in shape, cute, but Lance's guy was built kind of like JC, smaller, tighter, and had his eyes squeezed shut and his body pressed against Lance's. Justin could see that Lance had slid one hand down into the back pocket of the kid's jeans and was cupping his ass.

Justin slipped his hands over his guy's waist, down along his hips. The guy came closer still, kissing at his neck, his breath steamy on Justin's skin. He pressed himself against Justin's thigh. He was hard, and when his leg brushed Justin's groin, Justin realized he was hard, too. Of course he was. He was hot, and he was kissing this hot guy that was desperate to fuck him, why shouldn't he be hard? Why shouldn't he when he was --

Lance's guy had hopped onto a bar stool somehow and Lance was between his thighs, his hands on the kid's ass, holding him firmly. Their hips ground together.

"Do you wanna go somewhere?" the guy whispered in his ear, his hands on Justin's back.

Justin didn't. The guy was hot enough, and a good enough kisser, and seemed like the type of guy who knew how to keep him mouth shut, but Justin didn't want to go somewhere and fuck this guy, or even let him suck his dick. He didn't feel like it.

Lance and the kid had moved a little, until they were in the dark corner on the far side of the bar, but Justin could still see them twined around each other, moving slightly, like they were being washed over by gentle waves.

"Sure," he told the guy. "Let's go."

He came back from the parking lot feeling better, until he realized Lance was sitting at the table, the kid he'd been practically fucking sitting so close to him he might as well have been in Lance's lap.

Chris took one look at him and laughed. "Oh, classy, Timberlake!" He slapped Justin on the shoulder.

"What?" Justin rolled his eyes. Like Chris hadn't ever gotten a blowjob at a club before. And the guy had been good at it, not even flinching when Justin had come, hard. He hadn't even asked for Justin's number. Chris would be lucky to meet someone as perfect as that. "Whatever."

"Whatever," Lance said, smiling down at the table, shaking his head. His guy was kind of nuzzling his neck, so the smiling could have been that, but it didn't look like that kind of smiling. It looked like the "I can't believe you did that" smile Lance had sometimes when Justin bitched about things.

"Shut up," Justin said.

Lance lifted his eyes. Then he turned to the guy and whispered something. Justin knew he was in trouble when the guy got up and went to the bar.

"What the hell," Lance said. His voice was low. Justin was surprised by how well it carried in the noise of the club.

"What? I don't see why I have to explain myself." Justin leaned back against the leather cushion of the booth and crossed his arms over his chest. He wished he'd brought the blowjob guy back into VIP, but it had seemed so easy to just kiss him and send him on his way outside the car. Justin hadn't thought it might be good to have him hanging around.

"Why are you being such an ass?" Lance asked.

"Yeah, let me know how this goes," Chris said, slapping his hand on the table and leaving. Justin scowled at his back.

"Oh, I'm an ass --" he said to Lance.

Lance leaned in close. "You just fucked a guy in the parking lot, Justin, so --"

"I didn't have sex with him!" He felt like an idiot, having this whispered fight with Lance, his sleeve getting soaked by the puddle of beer on the table, but it seemed important. Desperately. "And fuck you, Lance! You're going home with that guy, you were making out with that guy and I bet you don't even know his name!"

"Brian," Lance said. "You're being a fucking punk. I don't know what your deal is, Justin--"

"Oh, whatever! You don't know anything about that guy. He could sell your fucking night of passion to the National Enquirer for all you know."

Lance narrowed his eyes. "Who just blew you?" he asked.

"What the --"

"It's a simple question, Justin," Lance said. He took a sip of his drink. He took a fucking sip of his drink. Justin had never wanted to punch someone so bad in his entire life. "What was his name?"

In an effort to avoid slamming his fist Lance's smug pretty face, Justin got up and walked off. He ended up punching a wall instead, while Lonnie looked on disapprovingly.

He didn't see Lance again until they were all leaving. The guy -- Brian -- wasn't with him because of the photographers, but he was in the limo. He sat with Lance's arm around him and smiled pleasantly at Justin. Justin did not smile back.

Justin brought donuts. He thought Lance might need some sweetening up.

Lance was already awake, scrambling eggs. "Oh, no," he said, glancing over his shoulder as Justin walked in. "Guess again, Justin."

"What?" Justin set the box of donuts on the table and popped it open. "Jelly, man. You love the jelly."

"Yeah, what I'm not loving so much right now is you."

"You're making eggs, though," Justin pointed out. Eggs were his favorite, as long as he could watch them being made and not have to worry about what was put in them. He had a fear of cutting into his eggs and finding half a cockroach or something. It was like Chris' phobias. But Lance never put anything bad in the eggs, not even onions.

"Not for you, I'm not."

"What?"

"Sorry." Lance shrugged. He didn't seem sorry at all. "You can't be a bitch and have eggs, too."

"Oh, man." Justin got up and put his hands on Lance's shoulders. "Look. I'm sorry, okay? Really."

Lance shrugged again. "Don't care. No eggs for you."

"Lance, Lance," Justin said. He slid his arms around Lance's waist. Lance was in his t-shirt and still smelled faintly of smoke and cologne from the club. Justin pulled him close, ducked his nose to Lance's hair, rocked him faintly. "C'mon, Lance," he whispered. "Give me some eggs."

"Fuck off," Lance said, but he didn't try to pull away.

"Where's that guy?" Justin asked. Lance stiffened in his grip. "I sent him home."

"Oh yeah?" Justin murmured. The skin behind Lance's ear was very soft, he noticed, feeling it on his lips. Lance pulled away.

"Yeah," he said, and then he didn't say anything else until the eggs were on plates. "You have to tell me what's going on with you," he said.

"Nothin'," Justin said. "These are really good." He pointed with his fork.

"Thanks. No, seriously. You have to tell me why you're following me around all the time."

"I'm not following you around."

"Justin." Lance set his fork down gently. "You totally are. You're starting to interfere with my action."

Justin rolled his eyes. "I have not interfered with your action, Lance. Please," he said. "Have I?"

Lance shrugged, sipped his coffee. "It's kind of hard to get action when you're, um, hanging all over me like a jealous boyfriend."

"I'm not! What!" Justin pushed back, ready to get mad again, but Lance held his hands up.

"You kind of are," he said. "I mean, that thing at the club, what was that about?"

Justin shrugged. "It's not. I'm not. Okay, I've been hanging out with you a lot. But not like a boyfriend or anything."

Lance smiled. "J, I know that. But the guys that I see, they don't know that."

Justin nodded. It was a point. He guessed. And it wasn't like Lance could just go out to a club and pick up anybody he wanted. "Okay," he said. "I can see how. Yeah. I'm sorry. I won't."

"Okay," Lance said. "You want toast or something?"

"Okay," Justin said. He wasn't entirely sure what he'd promised not to do, but that wasn't the important thing, he supposed.

"Hey," he said to Chris. He glanced over at Lance, who was tying his shoes and didn't look up.

Chris held his hand up. "Dude, if this is about Lance having sex, please. I'll have sex with him if you promise never to tell me about it again."

"No, shut up." Justin bopped him on the head. "Lance and I are having sex."

"What?"

Justin shoved his hands in his pockets and looked at the floor, biting his lip to keep from smiling. "Lance and I are doin' it."

"Lance!" Chris shouted. Lance looked up. "Are you fucking Justin?"

Joey and JC and the three choreography assistants turned around, dumbstruck. Lance's face remained completely bland and expressionless. "You told him?" he asked Justin. Justin nodded, unable to open his mouth. "It's true," he said to Chris. "Justin's my love slave."

"Oh, oh," Chris gasped. "Fuck." He fell on the floor, clutching at his stomach. "You fuckers!"

"What?" Justin said. "It's true!" But he couldn't stop himself. Tears squirted out of the corners of his eyes.

Joey was sitting on the floor, too, hand clapped over his mouth. "Oh right!" he gasped. "Like you and Lance."

"Hey," Justin protested. "It could happen." It had seemed funny when he'd thought of it, and he'd known that Lance would go along with it, because Lance caught on fast, but it wasn't this funny. It wasn't like he was Lance, who had hidden sexiness. He was Justin Timberlake. All his sexiness was right up front. JC was giggling helplessly, holding his sides. "I'm way hotter than the guys he usually does," Justin said, speaking loud to be heard over their laughter.

Chris was wheezing for breath. Justin nudged him with his foot. "Lance probably does really want me and just doesn't realize it."

"Oh, I do, baby," Lance said. He pushed himself up off the floor and grabbed Justin's hands. "I want you so bad," he said. Joey, who'd been getting himself under control, let out a bark of laughter. Lance's hands slipped around Justin's waist and tugged him close. "I never stop thinking about you," he murmured.

Justin's stomach did a strange flip flop. Lance's face was close to his, his eyes focused on Justin's.

"I can't live without you," he said, and Justin felt himself shaking, hoping. Lance was going to kiss him. Lance was going to lean in right here in the studio in front of all these people and kiss him. And he wanted him to.

"Quit it!" JC gasped. Justin flicked his eyes away from Lance's, then back. "Quit it, quit it, quit it!"

"Oh, Justin," Lance whispered. Justin closed his eyes and felt it then, the affectionate smooch on his nose. His face burned. "You're so hot," Lance whispered like he was reading his mind, and released him.

"Young love," Chris howled.

Justin smiled at them, tried to chuckle. "I need water," he said. He guzzled a half a bottle in the hallway, wiping his mouth on the tail of his shirt. Lance's hands had been on him, on his shirt. On his waist. They'd felt different somehow, and Justin tried not to think of it, how possessive they'd been, how they'd feel if Lance slipped them under his shirt, if Lance touched his bare skin. "Lance," he said to himself, and it sounded different, too, like it meant something more than just Lance, the guy he'd known for forever, whose first purchase had been an SUV, like he was some kind of soccer mom.

"Hey," Lance himself said, holding the dance studio door open with one perfect hand. "You coming back?"

"Um." Justin found himself staring at Lance's green eyes, at the strange leonine curve of his cheek, at his mouth.

"Your boyfriend misses you!" Joey called from inside, and there were giggles. Justin sighed.

"Yeah," he said. "I'm coming."

He went over to JC's because JC was a strange sort of combination of pack rat and anal retentive freak and had all of the old tapes in alphabetical order in his attic.

"Yeah, sure," JC said, letting him in. He had on a t-shirt and silk bikini underwear. There was paint splattered from his neck to his thighs.

"Jesus, C," Justin said, shaking his head. "You always answer the door like that?"

JC looked down at himself, and shrugged. "I checked through the peep hole first," he said.

He took Justin up to the attic and pointed at the shelves. "Okay, so that's Florida, and this shelf here is Germany, and from here on," he waved his hand at a huge bookshelf, "is after we came back. Did you want something specific, because I probly know where it is."

Justin shook his head. "Is it okay if I borrow some of these?" His hands were getting sweaty with anticipation. He shoved them into his jeans pockets.

"Uh huh," JC said. "They're numbered. Just leave spaces where they were."

"They're numbered."

JC nodded, oblivious to his own dorkiness as always. "So why do you want to look at the old appearances?"

"Um." Justin swallowed. He hadn't asked him mother for them, because she kept them all in a jumble in the storage room and would have demanded an explanation for being forced to get them out and sort through them, but he hadn't thought JC would want a reason, too. It just didn't seem JC-like to him. "I. Um. I'm just. Having. I'm having."

JC patted his shoulder. "Man, I get it. You're just feeling all nostalgic."

"Yes!" Justin said, nodding. God bless JC Chasez. "Yeah. Just missing the good old days. Heh." He chuckled, feeling like an idiot.

JC rubbed his shoulder. "That's sweet, man. Is it cool that I leave you here? I'm painting."

"Yeah, sure," Justin said. Something occurred to him. "Hey," he called, before JC headed down the stairs. JC turned. "Do you paint naked?"

JC's face flushed a violent shade of red. "Let yourself out," he said.

He slid the first tape into the VCR and sat back on his heels, remote in hand. It was an Orlando tape, one of the very first ones from JC's collection, and in it they all seemed impossibly young. Neither Chris nor Joey had facial hair, and Lance was still a brunette. He, Justin, was still shorter than everyone but Chris. It was weird seeing everyone like that, looking so different from the way they looked now, but that was the point of the whole experiment. To see everyone, Lance, looking weird.

And he did. He had short brown hair, and he was still wearing his clothes from Mississippi, like those brown corduroy pants that looked awful and button down shirts that were all the way buttoned up. To the neck. Justin shook his head. The boy was a fashion catastrophe back then. Not like now, when even the ugly stuff he wore looked good. Like that multicolored shirt he'd had on the other night, that would have looked like the sixties threw up on him, except that it was tight through the shoulders and snug around the waist, and Lance had a strong V shape and had --

Justin blinked and refocused on the Old Lance, who was drawling something stupid into the camera. It helped, a little.

Justin went to bed six hours later, dizzy and fatigued, his eyes aching from watching too much TV. He wanted to think it worked, all the staring at Albino Lance, and Lance the Pale Skinny Bad Dancer, and Lance the Lousy Dresser, and Lance the Incredible Dork, but that night he dreamed of Lance, Lance with platinum blond hair in a button down shirt and brown corduroys and woke up hard.

He may have whispered Lance's name when he came.

Lance was still asleep when he got there, maybe because he was so early, but he couldn't sleep anymore after that dream so he'd gotten up and showered and put on sweats and went to Lance's. Lance always slept on his side, and he always had the blankets pulled up, which was kind of annoying because Justin wanted to see him, the indentation of his waist, his thighs. He wanted to touch Lance. He couldn't think of an excuse to pull back the blankets, though, besides "you looked hot," which didn't sound convincing even to himself, so he just went back downstairs and started making breakfast.

Lance came down just as he was finishing the eggs. He never combed his hair before making Justin breakfast, and this morning Justin found that unbearably endearing. He could feel his heart against his ribcage. He stirred the eggs so vigorously that some of them slopped out of the pan and onto the stove. Lance blinked at him.

"What are you doing to my kitchen?" he asked.

"What? Nothing!" Justin turned off the fire. He couldn't bring himself to actually look at Lance. It was though he'd spent so much time looking at him yesterday, that Lance was imprinted on the backs of his eyelids forever. He scraped half of the eggs onto a plate for Lance and pushed it across the island.

"When did you learn to cook?"

"Just making a friend breakfast, man. Jeez."

"Hmm," Lance said.

The eggs were okay, but not as good as the ones Lance usually made, and Justin ate his morosely, wondering what that might mean. It just didn't seem possible that this was it, that he could somehow suddenly be in love with Lance, who had a stupid Palm Pilot and read the paper, like, everyday, and knew at least theoretically how to do his taxes. Lance, who was the Man, in the uncool driving a Buick way of being the Man. Lance.

"Okay, look," Lance said, after Justin had taken his plate away. He had a cup of coffee in front of him and reminded Justin of his stepdad, who liked to make important announcements by clearing his throat first. "You have to tell me what's going on."

"You weren't up," Justin said. "So I made breakfast."

Lance stared at him in a way that told Justin he was clearly not believed, but he stared right back, unblinking, until Lance sighed and looked away. "Next time, wake me up," he said.

"They weren't that bad," Justin protested, and knew that Lance had let him off the hook.

He wanted to tell Chris because he had the feeling that Chris might provide the best plan of action, but that meant actually telling Chris and that involved Chris laughing. A lot. And maybe making jokes. And maybe walking into the studio and saying to Lance "so Timberlake wants to boink you," and Justin didn't think he could face that. Sometimes, having Chris for a best friend really sucked.

He thought for a second about telling JC, who certainly would not laugh. JC would probably smile benignly and give him some aromatherapy candles, though, and tell him that he was glad Justin had decided to broaden his horizons, and frankly, Justin thought that kind of support would make him freak out even more. This was a big deal. He needed someone who wouldn't encourage him too much.

Telling Joey had two advantages: he wouldn't laugh for too long and, if Justin played his cards right, Joey might tell Lance and then he, Justin, wouldn't have to. It was a long shot that felt a little like passing a note in fifth grade -- I like you, do you like me? -- but he was already in love with Lance, Lance, so further humiliation didn't seem like a barrier, really.

Joey surprised him by slamming his hand down on the table. "I knew it!" he shouted happily. "I knew it, I knew it, I knew it! I told him so!"

Justin smiled, letting Joey have his moment. Joey'd already told him. Lance already knew. It was almost too good to be true. "Yeah," he said. "What'd he say?"

"He laughed."

"What?"

Joey shook his head. "He laughed and said 'Joey, c'mon,'" he said, his voice deepening in a horrible imitation of Lance's.

"What? Why?" Justin pushed his face into his hands. Lance was the one person he thought he could count on not laughing. Showed how much he knew.

"Please, Justin." Joey patted his arm. "You toilet papered his house."

"That was a joke."

"He's not your type," Joey said. He'd started rubbing Justin's shoulders, the way he did when Justin was pitching a fit. "You know that."

"Fuck my type," Justin muttered.

"Besides, honey, everyone knows you're in love with Chris."

"That was three years ago!" He smacked his palm on the table. "Everyone knows that was three years ago. Chris knows that was three years ago!"

Joey hooked one arm around his shoulders. "Yeah," he said.

"I'm totally fucked," Justin muttered. Joey stroked his arm.

After a minute, Joey said, "it's totally understandable."

"What is?" Justin asked. He didn't feel like crying, but he did feel mopey and pouty and just generally in need of being humored, and he was glad again that he'd picked Joey. Joey was good at that.

"Having a crush on Lance."

"I do not have a crush on Lance."

"I had a crush on Lance," Joey said. "I think it was the accent. He's got a great accent."

"I don't have a crush on him. Crushes are stupid."

"Well, I bet he's awesome in bed," Joey said, squeezing his shoulder. "I always thought he would be, when I liked him."

"He is not," Justin declared. Joey wasn't humoring him, he was treating him like some frickin' fourteen year old girl with a teen magazine and flavored lip gloss. "Lance is not good in bed. I am. I'm good in bed. Lance is ... Lance."

Joey grabbed Justin's chin in one hand and turned his head. "Look, J, if he's such a dork, what are you doing here?"

"Fuck," Justin said.

"Yup." Joey nodded.

Lance was easy enough to get alone. "Hey," he said, while they were on lunch break. "C'mere for a sec."

"Hmm?" Lance came over, a sandwich in one hand. Turkey with mayo. That was Lance's favorite sandwich. He didn't like lettuce.

"Um. I. Can I tell you something?"

Lance nodded, swallowing. "Yeah, course."

"Okay. This. This is weird." Justin squeezed his eyes shut tight and opened them again. Lance was still looking at him, eyebrows raised. "I'm just gonna say it, okay?"

"Okay," Lance said. He set his sandwich on a napkin. "Everything cool?"

"Oh, yeah. Yeah. Sure. Fine. Just. I'm in love with you."

He was glad that Lance clapped a hand over his mouth before laughing: he got the feeling there was spitting. And crumbs. "Oh, Justin!" he gasped. "Justin!"

Justin didn't say anything back. There wasn't anything to say. He'd kind of expected this actually. It would have been the way he'd reacted a month ago if someone had told him he'd be in love with Lance. He'd have laughed his ass off. It wasn't exactly an encouraging thought.

"God, man," Lance said, patting his arm. Tears were still budding in the corners of his eyes. "You crack me up."

"No," Justin said. "I mean it."

"Sure, baby." Lance gave him a one-armed hug. "Next time, just toilet paper my house again, okay?" He picked up his sandwich and took another bite. "God," he said. "Wait until Joey hears."

Joey heard at the same time as everyone else did, when Lance swept him up in his arms and declared "Justin's in love with me" loud enough that the people in China could hear. For a second, Justin thought about playing along with it just so he could have the dizzying feeling of Lance swinging him around by the waist, but he wanted kisses, too, real ones, not the goofy smooches Lance was planting on his face, making "mwah!" noises for each one.

"Yeah," he said, struggling free, laughing a little. Joey was watching him, smiling. "I, um. I'm having dinner with my mom, so I gotta go," he said.

"You sure, honey?" Lance asked. His eyes actually sparkled.

"I'm sure. So, bye." He pulled away from Lance's hand. "See ya."

He end up not going to his mom's, just because she would know that he was upset and he'd end up explaining the whole thing, so he just drove around, not wanting to go anywhere anyone could find him. It wasn't that complicated of a situation: he loved Lance, Lance thought he was a joke. The perfect romance.

He stopped and had dinner at a drive-in, getting it for free when he signed a placemat for the waitress and talked to one of her friends on her cell. "If you wanted to go out with someone," he asked her, handing her back the phone, "and that person thought it was funny, like, you were making a joke, what would you do?"

The waitress shrugged. "Like that'd ever happen to you," she said.

"No, but what would you do?" he asked.

She thought about it for a second, chewing her gum slowly. "I dunno," she said finally. "Convince him, I guess. Did you want something else? A shake or something?"

"No. Thanks, though." He smiled at her. She blushed. Justin felt a little bit better after that.

Lance was at his house when he pulled into the driveway, sitting in his car with a pizza in the passenger seat.

"Why aren't you inside?" he asked, leaning in Lance's window.

"I wasn't sure you wanted me to come in," he said. "You hungry?"

He wasn't, really, because the girl at the drive-in had given him extra fries, but Lance was here. At his house. "Starving," he said.

Lance handed the pizza to Justin and got out of the car. "I thought I might have hurt your feelings, or whatever. Earlier."

"Oh, hey."

"And I didn't mean to."

"No, it's cool," Justin said. He peeked inside the box. Pepperoni. "Come in."

Lance had brought movies, too, and beer, and didn't try to apologize again. The movies were Jackie Chan, which they didn't get to watch often on the busses, because they made Chris hyper and last time he'd kicked JC in the head. It was nice watching them with Lance, though, feeling his serene presence at the end of the couch even when Justin wasn't looking at him. When the beer was gone, Justin got up and brought back glasses of sweet tea. He sat closer. Lance, preoccupied with what was happening on Justin's big screen, lifted his arm to the back of the couch. Justin sat beneath it, relaxing when Lance curved his hand over Justin's shoulder, rubbing affectionately. He tipped his head until Lance's shoulder was under his cheek. Lance smelled good. Lance always smelled good.

It wasn't unusual, this, Lance's arm, his cheek. The only thing that was unusual was the speed of his heart.

He sat through three more fight scenes, wondering how he could get to the next step, get Lance's hands on him in a different way. Maybe if he moved to the side, or if he leaned in closer, or if he put his hand on Lance's thigh, or something, but he couldn't think of anything that didn't seem like too much.

Lance said something, and Justin tipped his head back, drawn by the dark sound of Lance's voice. Up close Lance was hypnotizing, the move of his mouth, his dark blond eyelashes. Justin licked his lips.

"Um, what are you doing?" Lance asked. He was close, so close. Justin tried to lean without actually moving.

"What?" he said. His voice was barely a whisper, but Lance must have heard something, because he pulled back, his hand coming off of Justin's shoulder.

"You're acting like a girl," he said.

Justin sat back. He felt like a fucking girl. "Well, maybe you should just kiss me, then, and not get all analytical about it. Shit."

Lance shook his head. "Why? You want me to kiss you?"

"Jeez!" Justin pushed himself up off the couch. "How many times do I have to frickin' tell you? I'm in love with you! I love you!"

Lance stared at him. "I thought you loved Chris?"

"That was three years ago! God! Don't you guys pay attention to anything?"

"Oh." Lance folded his hands in his lap. "Okay. Okay."

"God. God!" He felt like punching something. Hard. Maybe Lance. "What do I have to fucking do? Dammit!"

"Justin," Lance said, reaching for his hand. Justin jerked it away. "Justin, come on. Sit down, okay?" He tugged on the hem of Justin's shirt. Justin thought for a second about jerking that away, too, but it was Lance and he looked worried, really worried, not the bored worried expression Lance often used.

"I told you," he said. He wasn't gonna sit down, though. Lance could forget about that.

Lance apparently did. He stood up. "All right," he said. He ran his hand down Justin's arm once. "I'm gonna go then, okay? And I'll talk to you tomorrow."

"Fine," Justin snapped. "Leave. Go. Fuck off. See ya."

Lance's eyes flashed at him. "What would you like me to do, then?" he asked. He sounded slow and deadly, and Justin felt bad, awful. It wasn't Lance's fault that he couldn't believe it, not when Justin could hardly believe it himself. Lance, who only read the sports page because that's what guys were supposed to do. How likely was it, when you thought about it from Lance's point of view? Justin sighed.

"I would like you to stay and watch the last movie with me," Justin said. He'd wanted to declare it clearly, but it came out kind of mumbled. For a second Justin thought he might have to say it again, just so Lance could hear it. Lance paused, one hand on his jacket.

"I dunno, Justin," he said. Justin forced himself to meet Lance's eyes. He brushed a finger along Lance's sleeve. "Fine," Lance said. "Okay."

They sat back down on the couch and Justin cued up the movie, but it was horrible, awkward and stupid. Lance sat up straight like there was going to be a posture exam and Justin was afraid to touch him. Lance might get the wrong idea, or worse, the right one, and then they'd be back to arguing about whether or not he should leave, so Justin hunched close, but not too close, and concentrated on feeling Lance's body heat in the three inches of impenetrable open space between them.

He was about to give up and tell Lance to forget the whole thing and just go home when Lance yawned and stretched and slid his arm around Justin's shoulders.

"Okay?" he said. Justin nodded. He folded his legs up and slumped against Lance. He wanted to do this forever. Lance's chest rose and fell with his breath, shook slightly when he chuckled. His hand rubbed a lazy circle on Justin's shoulder. Justin closed his eyes, and breathed him in.

He woke up while Lance was trying to ease out from under him, one arm under Justin's shoulders, lowering him gently to the couch, his face close and tender with affection. "Hey," he murmured when he saw that Justin's eyes were open.

"Hey," Justin said back. He sank gently to the cushions under Lance's guidance, gazing up into his face, and when he felt Lance's hand begin to slip from his back he lifted his own arm and put it around Lance's neck, pulling their lips together. The kiss was heavy and sweet (like cream, Justin thought disjointedly), their mouths barely moving, and when it was over, Lance patted his cheek and covered him up with the multicolored afghan his Gramma had made him when they went to Europe. Justin listened until he heard the soft purr of Lance's car fade in the distance, and then he fell asleep.

He waited until eight to go over the next morning, although he'd woken up at six-thirty and was starving. He gnawed on cold pizza, and took the longest shower of his life, and started the dishwasher, and listened to a cd all the way through, and then got in a car and drove over to Lance's.

Lance was in the kitchen, sipping coffee and looking out at his pool.

"What's for breakfast?" Justin asked. He tossed his jacket on the back of one of the chairs. He was casual. He was calm. He was so casual and calm he might even be called cool. Lance glanced over at him.

"I didn't know what you wanted," he said.

Justin took a breath. "What if I said I wanted you?" he asked. Lance rolled his eyes at the obvious cheesiness, but he was smiling, too. Justin inched up to him, one hand barely touching his arm. Lance set the coffee cup down. His expression changed, became serious.

"Justin," he said, but Justin didn't want to hear anything that sounded like that, so he kissed him instead, moved in so that their bodies were almost touching and kissed him, one hand on his arm just above the elbow, one hand on his cheek, and didn't realize he was nervous until Lance opened his mouth and kissed him back.

Lance made him waffles for breakfast.

First, he took Justin upstairs and undressed him and kissed him and touched him until Justin ached and arched on the bed. Justin was a little surprised by that, because it wasn't like there were mirrors on the ceiling, or velvet lined handcuffs, or strange body gels that heated up when you blew on them. Lance didn't try to spank him or anything. It was just Lance, lying over him, kissing him, looking at him, and sometime toward the end when they were both sweaty and desperate, and Justin's legs ached from being open for so long, Lance lifted his head, his wet hair falling across his forehead, and whispered "justin" against his mouth, and that was enough.

The waffles had chocolate chips in them, which normally Lance didn't like to do because the chocolate sometimes got stuck on the waffle iron and made it harder to clean. Justin was especially grateful; it made it seem like a special occasion. But Lance read the paper while they ate, like he always did, handing the sports section over without comment. And when Justin was only half done with his waffles (mostly because he was distracted by the way the sunlight from the windows slanted through Lance's hair), Lance looked at his watch (and when had he put his watch on, anyway) and said, "we'd better get going, J." Justin felt a little let down.

Then he remembered Adam or Andrew or whoever the guy had been clinging to Lance the morning after in the very same kitchen, and felt even worse.

They were the first ones in the studio, although the lights were on, and someone had put the new Madonna on the stereo. Probably JC.

Justin shed his jacket and wandered to the mirror, looking at the reflection of his shoes. He didn't want to look at the reflection of Lance because that seemed kind of pathetic and girly, and he was already depressed enough. So it was a surprise when he felt Lance's hand on his shoulder.

"You okay?" Lance asked.

"Yeah," Justin said.

"Buyer's remorse?"

Justin lifted his eyes to Lance's in the reflection. "No." Lance looked at him. "Maybe," he admitted.

"It's okay," Lance said, smiling. "I'll still make you breakfast."

Justin coughed out a laugh. "Yeah?" he said. He would be happy about this, he would. It was okay.

"Sure," Lance said. He rubbed his hand over Justin's shoulders, gently. "And I won't tell anyone. The guys won't know."

"No, they can. If you want. I mean. I don't care. I might tell Chris anyway."

"Okay," Lance said. "Can I tell you something?"

Justin nodded. It was easier, somehow, to hear this while looking in the mirror. He wouldn't have to turn around to get away.

Lance sighed. "Just don't freak out, okay?" he said. Justin nodded again. "I really wanted this," Lance said. "A lot. You. I really wanted you. And, um. I kind of still do. So it may. I might be a little weird. For a while. But I'm fine," he declared meeting Justin's reflected gaze. "I'm fine. You don't have to worry about me, okay?"

Justin rolled his eyes. "I can't fucking believe you," he said, turning around. He grabbed Lance's shoulders and spun him until his back was against the mirror. "No one fucking listens to me around here. I. Am. In. Love. With. You."

"Justin," Lance said. "I --"

"Shut the fuck up!" Justin shouted, and kissed him hard, pressing him up against the mirror. Lance's hands fluttered against his back for a second, then settled, pulled him in.

"So how are the two lovebirds this --" Justin heard Chris choke. He smiled into Lance's kiss.

"I told you so!" Joey crowed. "I told you! You owe me a billion dollars, Kirkpatrick!'

"Fuckers!" Chris declared. Justin turned, folding Lance's hand in his. "You!" Chris pointed at him, "you I can believe, but Lance! Lance! Why hast thou forsaken me, Lance?"

Lance shrugged, smiling up at Justin. Justin smiled back, feeling like a total idiot. Happy idiot, but still an idiot. "You shoulda cut me in on the action," Lance said.

"Oh, you fuckers," Chris said again, opening his wallet. "I don't have a billion dollars," he told Joey. "How about twenty?"

"Close enough," Joey said, snapping the money out of Chris' hand.

"Told you he was sexy," he said to Justin, later, swiping a towel over his head. Justin pressed the water bottle to his forehead and watched Lance chatting up Robin. Even sweaty and flushed, Lance was sexy. He wanted to lick him, up and down. Maybe after he showered.

"Who's sexy?" JC asked, coming over for water.

"You," Joey said. He grabbed JC's ass and squeezed, hard. JC yelped and bounced away. Lance glanced over at them, meeting Justin's eyes for just a second.

"He has a vibe," Justin admitted. Joey laughed.