coping like this

Coping Like This
by Molly
irreelle@mac.com
April 2001

***

To Lance, Chris was a little like the pig he once raised for the 4-H club back home.

Not that he'd raised Chris, or anything, but he thought if the time ever came for Chris to be sent off to slaughter (or something of the sort), he might feel a little like he had when he was seven and finally understood that this was the last time he'd ever be seeing Crawdad.

A little like his heart was being ripped right out. Though, he'd never had fantasies about the pig.

***

Sometimes it hurt a little too much. Back when Chris had been with Dani, it had been routine. Then they'd broken up and Lance couldn't help but let himself wonder some, just some, about Chris maybe stumbling through the bus drunk and falling into the right-hand bunk instead of the left, or about he and Chris, watching movies until Chris maybe laid a hand on his knee, and Lance would lay his hand on Chris's, and from there it would turn into the kind of cheesy romance movie Lance never admitted to crying at, sometimes.

But that never happened. Instead, what happened was that Chris dated girls. Chris went to clubs and had a few too many drinks, not so many he was really drunk, but enough so that when he got pretty cozy, pretty publicly, with whatever girl was the chosen for the night, everyone would laugh it off to the alcohol and Chris being Chris, always making people laugh.

Except Lance. Lance just wondered if maybe bringing back prohibition was such a bad idea, after all.

***

"He acts like Justin," Lance said, watching Chris fit himself against the latest girl.

"Or Joey." JC grinned. "He'll settle. He's gotta keep his mind off Dani somehow."

Lance gulped back the last of his beer. "Picks a hell of a way to do it."

***

JC was right. Chris settled. The girls weren't so frequent, or obvious, and Chris actually saw one of them three times running when they were in New York for several days.

They got their time off and Lance did his own thing and stayed the hell away from Chris. He had his own projects; he didn't need to wonder about Chris all the time. And so he kept the company running, and schmoozed with celebrities, and every once in awhile they had to do an appearance, so he sucked it up and learned to deal with Chris, being Chris, which wasn't being with him.

But then he found out why Chris wasn't so into the girls anymore.

Chris was sort of into the boys, too. Lance had to get someone to come replace the glass in one of his temporary apartment's windows; he gave Lance a funny look and a glance to the bandage on his hand, but didn't say anything.

***

He really did hear it through the grapevine. There was a story, a tiny one, in a tiny stupid tabloid, claiming that Chris had been seen kissing some guy in some club. Then management went to work on spin control, and it was taken care of, but Lance asked Joey, trying to be casual, if it had been true.

Joey just shrugged and kept sorting through proofs from the latest photo shoot. "Probably, knowing Chris."

"Knowing Chris?"

"Yeah. Wouldn't surprise me. He's always been really careful about being seen, though. Management asked him to keep it under wraps, I think."

"Oh."

Then Chris showed up to see the proofs, and he was all in black, wrapped in a leather jacket, and there was a hint of gray t-shirt peeking through. He looked good. Lance gritted his teeth and went home and destroyed a window. Or two.

JC asked about the bandage the next day. "Cooking accident," he said shortly.

"Since when do you cook?" Chris reached and poked him lightly. "You're hell in a kitchen."

"Yeah, well," Lance said, and two days later he took the gauze off and it wasn't really so noticeable. No one said anything about it, after that.

***

He worked out a lot. He lost weight, but gained it all back in muscle. He learned how to not punch like a girl, and the bags soon became his favorite part of the gym.

He couldn't really stay away from Chris, not with appearances and interviews and everything. So he shoved it away and clamped down on his feelings, and nobody ever knew a thing. And maybe that was the bad idea; maybe if Chris knew, he would have done something. Maybe.

Maybe if Chris knew, Lance wouldn't have walked into JC's dressing room when they were shooting the video for Janet, and he wouldn't have seen JC, backed up against the wall, with Chris's hands clenched in his hair and Chris's lips wandering over his neck, which was really all Chris could reach because JC's head was sort of arched back, and his eyes were closed, and there were things happening with hips and legs that Lance didn't see. He didn't, didn't want to, refused to see, and he backed up and the door slammed when he closed it and he heard JC say, "Fuck! Who was that?" and hurried away.

Five minutes later, Chris and JC showed up and the hairdresser almost threw a fit when she saw what JC had done to his carefully styled hair. JC mumbled something; Lance stared hard at Chris, who frowned and then looked like he understood.

Lance thought, good. The horny little fuck should understand, finally. Carla eventually sighed and ran some kind of goop through JC's hair, leaving it mostly disheveled. While they filmed, Lance couldn't let himself look at JC because of the reminder.

But then, it was all reminder. Lance sang his lines and he knew he was being more distant than he was supposed to, but he heard the words and all he could do was get angry. This wasn't the way love goes, he thought, watching Chris stroke his beard as he sang. This wasn't how it was supposed to go at all.

He got pretty drunk that night and found a girl more than happy to go home with him. Her name was Christine; he didn't let her stay the night, and in the morning, he threw up for a long time.

***

So now he wasn't talking much to JC or Chris, though only Chris seemed to know it. JC was all wrapped up in himself, writing songs and getting excited about recording.

But Chris knew. Chris was careful around him, like he never knew what to say; Lance solved that problem by not responding very often. Joey noticed, tried to talk to him, but Lance just brushed it off and said nothing was wrong.

A few weeks later, they got a copy of the final video edit and watched it together. Lance got to Joey's early and curled up in the corner of the sofa with his laptop while Joey did situps, and then Justin showed up and everything got loud while he and Joey horsed around so Lance just concentrated harder on the numbers.

And suddenly Lance realized that everyone was there, and the warm body that had, at some point, fallen next to him was Chris, who smiled tentatively when he looked over. Lance just closed the laptop and said, "Let's put it on, already," to Joey.

They laughed a lot, as usual. At Justin's pillar-writhing, at Joey's careful relaxation. At JC's hair, but Lance didn't laugh at that. But when it was Lance, with the newspaper, everyone got quiet. And then Joey started snickering and pointed at Chris. "Get ready for the bottom, man. Lance just secured a place in the top three."

"Aw, fuck!" Chris whined. But a minute later he looked over at Lance, while everyone else was laughing at the screen, and said quietly, "Hey. You look good pissed off."

Lance glanced over sharply, but Chris had already turned his head away. Fuck.

***

It happened because they were drunk. Or, it happened when they were drunk, and *because* they were getting drunker. Sitting around at Joey's, drinking had turned to more drinking, which had turned into everyone laughing and feeling good, and then cards had come out and become a stupid drinking game.

And eventually, cards required too much coordination, so when JC said, "I'm sick of being the asshole. We haven't done I Never in a long time," it just sort of started. But only after Joey griped, "Maybe 'cause it's a fucking college girl game?" and Chris shoved him and said he thought it was a good idea.

It took forever, because they'd all done their fucked up shit, and finally, on Justin's turn, he looked around blearily and said, "Okay, got one. I've never kissed any of you guys."

Lance watched as Justin promptly took a long sip of beer, revealing the lie, and then he realized, slowly and dully, caught in the time lag of comprehension filtering through alcohol before it could hit the brain, that everyone else had drunk, too, and they were all staring at him.

"Fuck," Joey said, laughing. "Never, Lance?"

JC started giggling and fell over on his side, and Lance just stared. "No, I-- Who did you-- When--" and then he stopped because it was useless trying to form a sentence right then.

Joey shrugged. "Chris. Before the band."

"JC," Justin piped in with a leer. "MMC was all sorts of fucked up, sometimes."

"You were twelve!" Lance said slowly. "And he was--"

"Good." Justin tipped over and his head landed on JC's leg, and they both just laughed. "We've got to fix this. I mean, Lance can't-- he's never-- fuck, I lost my words." And he just laughed harder.

"Lance, man, he's right," Joey agreed. Chris was being pretty quiet, sitting against the sofa with his head dropped back on the cushions. "You gotta get kissed."

Lance said, "I don't think," and then Chris proved he hadn't passed out by jerking his head up and saying, "I'll do it," in an excited voice.

"Wait, wait. Why you? I could do it," Joey protested.

"I'm the best kisser," Chris said simply. "Go on, deny it."

"Justin said JC was--"

"JC isn't that good, I promise." Chris grinned nastily. "I'm the best. And Lancey here deserves the best. Doncha, Lance?"

"Um," Lance mumbled. Chris's skin was a little shiny from drunken exertion, just the slightest movement wringing protest from his body. He thought about touching that shiny neck, knew the heat would be amazing underneath the clammy coolness of sweat. "The best, uh, yeah."

"'Kay, then. Settled." Chris stuck his tongue out at Joey, who huffed, and then Chris crawled around Joey to where Lance was sitting on his other side, all of them against the sofa. He tugged on Lance's drawn-up knees, carefully arranged Lance's legs to stick straight out, and then tossed one leg over Lance's lap, inching closer until he was pressed snugly against Lance. "Fuckin' corrupting you, man."

"Mm-hmm," Lance got out. Chris was even shinier up close; he sparkled and his eyes glinted and Lance was afraid, for a second, of falling into those eyes and never finding his way out. He almost jerked away, freaked out, but Chris touched his face, fingers running over the softness of Lance's cheeks and tilting his head.

Chris didn't kiss him right way, the tease. He touched his lips to Lance's cheek first, nuzzled a little and his beard was scratchy, but just soft enough to feel good. He kept easing his way closer, and when he found the corner of Lance's mouth, he licked at it.

And Lance just lost it. His hands came up, he heard Justin say, "Whoa," about something in the background and JC was still laughing, and Lance just clutched Chris's head and from there it was good. Chris had soft, bite-able lips, and a strong, thick tongue that swept its way into Lance's mouth and fuck, he was right, no one could possibly kiss better than this. Lance moaned, curled his fingers into hair and didn't care if he was hurting Chris. He just wanted, needed more, and he wasn't sure when Chris started grinding down against him and groaning but it felt good and he couldn't stop.

But Chris ripped away, gasping, and he stared lazily at Lance for a moment before leaning in to swipe his tongue across Lance's ear. "You look so fucking good," he whispered, then moved away and fell over against Joey as he tried to climb off Lance.

Lance slowly lowered himself to lie down, unable to focus on the rest of them, joking and laughing and wrestling. He closed his eyes and thought, fuck prohibition, Chris should be drunk all the time. And so should he.

***

He woke up drooling into Joey's carpet, and when he sat up, he saw Joey curled up in one corner of the sofa, watching cartoons and drinking coffee. "Ow, ow, ow," he groaned. "Turn the lights off, will you?"

"It's the sun."

"Well turn it the fuck off."

Joey went and got him some coffee, and told him everyone else had left because Busta had a vet appointment so Chris drove JC and Justin home.

Lance closed his eyes and went back to sleep.

***

Chris got him into a headlock and knuckled his head the next time Lance saw him and everything was normal again. Like it had been with Dani; things didn't hurt so much.

Even when Chris was with random girls, Lance just shrugged it off. Because sometimes they would get drunk and Chris would give him sloppy kisses that got him through days at a time, and Lance didnšt want to question it because when he'd been mad, Chris hadn't kissed him.

Kisses in corners of the darker clubs, in passing in the bathrooms, after long nights of just hanging out at Joey's or JC's. Once in a cab, on the way back to the hotel in LA; not so safe, but Lance couldn't bring himself to give a shit about what the cabbie saw or who he told.

When they started rehearsals for the tour, it changed. They weren't supposed to drink much, if at all, because it was hard enough to stay hydrated, and Lance thought ruefully that okay, it would have to be over for awhile. And for three days, that lasted, until Chris followed him into the bathroom after they were all let go for the day and pushed him against the wall and dragged his head down and tried to eat him from the inside out.

And Lance was more than happy to oblige, because he loved Chris like this, sweaty and stinking and sober as all hell, even if the adrenaline might be playing a role. Images of JC, against the wall, flashed into his mind, and he grabbed Chris's shoulders and shoved off. They hit the stall door, and Chris slammed into the toilet and sat hard, and Lance fell into his lap, grasping at his hair and kissing hard.

Chris held his hips, pulling him into a taut, thrusting rhythm, and finally twisted his head away, laughing. "I'm gonna fall in, here."

"So?" Lance growled, deep and throaty.

"So I bet you fifty bucks I make it back to my place before you." And Chris smirked at him and licked under his chin, and Lance shuddered before struggling to his feet.

He won. But only because Chris got pulled over for speeding. Lance couldn't complain; later Chris said it was the only ticket he'd never even wanted to contest.

**end**