You rhapsodize about
beauty
And my eyes glaze
Everything I love is ugly
I mean really, you
would be amazed
But please do me a favor
It's the least that you can
do
Please don't treat me
Like something that has happened to
you.
~Ani Difranco, "Adam and Eve"~
Lance pressed his face against the
smooth wood paneling of the door. It was cool and hard against his face, against
his body, and he could feel the doorknob digging into the soft flesh of his
stomach. He didn't care. Right now he just wanted to be close to JC, in some
capacity, even if he wasn't wanted.
Because JC sometimes got into these
moods, where he would shut himself into his bedroom for days and just
play, and write, and sing. He only came out to eat, but even that was rare, and
when Lance tried to touch him he always shied away, like he was afraid Lance
would corrupt him and his artistic soul, or something. His eyes would glare
contemptuously at Lance, so business-minded, so uncreative, over the breakfast
table.
Because Lance only managed
artists, and even if he could sing-when given the fucking chance-and
dance-reasonably well-the only things he wrote lately were contracts, and JC
just hated that.
He'd called Lance sterile once, a
motherfucking sterile-minded bastard, during a fight. But at the same time he
called Justin, who was writing almost as much as him, a fucking talentless hack,
because Justin got all the attention and all the adulation, and his songs were
possibly better than JC's, if purely from a marketing point of view.
But when JC was in moods like this,
he wasn't writing album stuff. It was just him and his stupid acoustic guitar,
writing things that were melancholy, sometimes angry; songs all for himself.
Sometimes he played songs that other people wrote, his gorgeous voice flowing
through them like some sweet but acidic liquid, like vodka and orange
juice.
Lance can see it in his head, JC's
long fingers moving delicately over the strings of the guitar, his hands
stroking the smooth wood, sweet lips mouthing the words to some poetic
chick-rock song. JC likes Lilith Fair types, for no reason that Lance can think
of, and sometimes he sings them for Lance. He likes songs that have
meaning, he says, not that vapid shit that's on the radios
nowadays.
Yeah, never mind that they're
the vapid shit on the radio.
Right now, Lance can hear JC's voice
moving through an Ani Difranco song, sounding like he's trying to attack it with
his vocal cords. It is absolutely the wrong time to knock, but Lance just. Can't
take it anymore. Its been three days, and he's going to go fucking insane
if he doesn't see JC right fucking now.
Fuck this artist shit. Just, fuck
it.
He pounds on the door while his head
is still leaning against it, so he nearly falls into the room when JC pulls the
door violently open, eyes blazing. "Fucking what?" he snarls, and Lance
doesn't even know whether to be pissed off or not, because all he wants to do is
see his fucking boyfriend, right? Without getting yelled at or having something
thrown at him or any of that other temperamental artist bullshit. Because
it has been going on forever, and at some point everything has to
stop.
He takes a deep breath before he
looks up at JC. Because he has seen those eyes angry before, has seen them
hateful and dark and mean, and its not anything he's looking forward to.
And when he looks up its that same look, that same look he sees everytime he
tries to talk to JC lately, that 'you are beneath me'
look.
"What?" JC snaps again, and Lance
shoves him, shoves him right against the fucking door and kisses him, lips harsh
and wet against JC's chapped ones. They haven't kissed in almost a week, and
Lance has been going crazy, both of them sleeping in separate rooms and never
even touching, all because every once in awhile JC gets it into his head to be a
fucking bitch artist.
Its Lance who pulls away first,
because Jayce is kissing him like he's fucking starved for it, and
grinding against his thigh and flipping them around and pressing him, ooh,
pressing him none too gently into the door, hand slipping down into the back of
Lance's pants. When Lance pulls back he whimpers, Joshua fucking Chasez
whimpers and pulls him close again and teases the edges of Lance's mouth
with his tongue.
"What?" JC says yet again, but this
time its different, softer, because JC is still trying to kiss him, still
rubbing himself needily against Lance's thigh, and Lance just sighs and pulls
him close again, hugging JC against him like he hasn't been able to do
lately.
"When the fuck are you going to get
that you need me, Jayce?" he asks, burying his face in JC's too-long
hair. JC stiffens and sighs against him, but brings his arms up to hesitantly
wrap around Lance's back.
"I do need you," JC says
unconvincingly, and Lance makes a frustrated, disbelieving laughing sound, and
JC pulls him in closer, tighter, almost wrapping his skinny body entirely around
Lance. "No, I know, I do, its like." He pauses, and Lance can feel him breathing
into Lance's ear. "You're like, my muse, or something. I just-can't be around
you, sometimes. Because of it. It's too much. "
"Yeah, well you're a fucker about
it," Lance whispers, and tries not to be touched by it.
Its too late, though, because JC is
already touching him. He's wrapped so tightly around Lance that he knows that he
won't be able to get free, even if he wanted to. And he knows that JC will pull
this shit again, and again, and again, until something finally breaks, but until
then, Lance has JC curled around him like an octopus. And he doesn't entirely
want to get free.
THE END