Written for DWNOGA 2005
Unless I Make It All So Clear
There were a million outlets for this, hard and shiny and panting for the opportunity. Glitter-dusted and gorgeous, each one there for the taking, a million wet mouths with tongues painting hunger trails, a million desire-driven eyes, a million strange faces focused and wanting, lips parted and ready to breathe any words, any words at all.
Lance wants them to record a new song for the Greatest Hits album. He thinks it's a good idea on a whole bunch of levels. He's been doing jack shit.
It's hard to be patient, because waiting patiently for an answer means he has time to formulate all the arguments for Justin to make the time, and his arguments are a lot stronger when he doesn't have a load of time to think them out. But Jive says no, first in that way that means maybe, show us it's a good idea and then in that way that means maybe, but probably not and finally in a way that leaves Lance cold in the pit of his stomach and the tips of his fingers, the way that says you don't mean anything anymore.
He goes out that night and drinks a lot, not because he wants to drown his sorrows, but because he can afford it and he doesn't have anything to do the next day. His friends cling to him; they don't know everything, although he bets they'd like to. He wouldn't mind confiding in them, but even all the vodka in Studio City can't slosh away the desire to not have to confide. He doesn't care; it's no skin off his teeth; he doesn't care.
There were a million hands to spill into, but no one’s hands fit around Lance so perfectly as the hands that Lance knew already. It was easier this way too, so easy, and he wanted him, of course he wanted him, no sane person wouldn’t want JC. Lance felt crazy, fuck, crazy with JC's hands on him and he got to touch too.
He gets the call from Joey. Chris had called him. Chris' mother had called Chris. Roy had called Chris' mother. The hospital had called Karen. Chris is calling Justin. Lance is drawing the lines between the branches of the phone tree in his head when Joey repeats his name.
"Lance, Lance, hey, come on. I'm flying in, I'm chartering into Van Nuys, it's the closest one, right?"
Lance doesn't know, and he knows Joey can get people to tell him. But wherever he's flying into, Lance will pick him up. And they'll go back to Lance's house and have coffee and sit in Lance's sunny living room until someone tells them it's okay to come to the hospital.
JC made a noise - not quite a groan; deeper, desperate - and Lance tightened his grip. JC always sounded so wrecked, so ripped open, and Lance knew what he needed, JC knew what Lance needed, just like this, right now, before the lights and the screams and the energy tore them apart.
JC is a mess of bruises and tubes. The machines around him are bleeping steadily and Lance knows from ER that what the doctor says should be more of a comfort than the electronic noises, but with each bleep, he sees Joey relax minutely.
Justin had visited earlier, a tight hug to each of them and fifteen minutes in Karen's chair by JC's side, just holding his limp hand and watching his face. Lance had sat in that chair for a bit too. Joey hadn't wanted to. Chris hasn't come by yet.
"The doctor says he should be awake tomorrow," Karen tells them. Tyler hadn't even lost consciousness; he'd have the scar across his forehead for the rest of his life though, unless JC paid to have it removed. "You can stay if you want."
Lance has never seen Karen look so incredibly tired. "Do you want us to stay?" he asks quietly. He wants to stay; he doesn't want to stay. This is so unbelievably fucked up. This is so fucking fucked.
"We'll call you," Roy says. "We'll call you when he's up. When he's."
Yeah. Lance can imagine.
So easy to go to someone else, anyone else, but who else, God, Lance wanted to kiss JC, he was so beautiful and slick beside him. In the dimmed light of the room, JC's torso tossed shadows onto the wall, fluctuating arcs and ripples, and Lance moved his hand, dragging it under the fabric of JC's shirt, the movement right there in his palm, like he controlled it. JC, so fucking graceful in everything he did.
Spinal damage means probably never walking again.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," steady and low, pushing up from JC’s chest where Lance’s hand was. "Yeah, god," and Lance answered with hot breath over JC's shoulder, bared to his teeth, raking the skin but not hard enough for anyone to tell, just enough to make JC move some more, twisting. "Yeah, god." God, this was hot, it always was.
It's not that Lance has nothing to do. Lance has plenty to do. The show, for instance, because it requires a lot of attention to detail, outlines and storyboards and things that Lance is pretty sure he can hire people to do. Except there's this itch inside him that tells him he needs to do something. He can do outlines. He can write. He likes the blinking cursor; it speaks to him of possibility.
And it's not like JC doesn't have a ton of people willing to help him out, willing to look out for him, fucking salivating to wipe his ass. JC's friends are a bunch of ass-kissers - Lance's current friends are a bunch of ass-kissers too, that's how he can tell who the ass-kissers are. But sometimes, it's nice, having people appreciate you. Even if they don't really know what to appreciate and why.
So it's interesting when Lance shows up at JC's house, because the ass-kissers are all there, and Lance has met most of them before. They smile so wide and Lance feels like laughing, because if there's anything he knows, it's the smile that makes JC smile back.
When everyone leaves, Lance feels like he should go too. Instead, he watches JC's shoulders, stiff and thin beneath the bulky folds of a sweatshirt. The wheelchair's handles stick out like broken, steel stubs of wings, but Lance has never seen JC look more earthbound.
One hand on JC's chest, one hand wrapped around him, and Lance's body burned wherever JC touched him. He pushed closer, wanted to kiss JC; JC's fingers twisted and slid, hot light, fire pressure, and he wanted to fuck JC forever.
On the phone, Joey starts laughing as soon as the word "nurse" leaves Lance's mouth.
"Oh, dude. Oh, dude! That's so fucking classic!"
"I guess." It's really not funny, and anyway, Joey's gone. Everyone's gone. There's no one in Los Angeles but the people who can't escape it; Las Vegas isn't singing for Lance anymore. He feels guilty for sleeping at night. "It's just until he becomes more mobile or whatever. Wheelchair-proofs his house. He can't wash himself right now."
Showers are like religious rites to JC and Joey's not laughing anymore. Good, though, Lance thinks, because the humor in this situation is going to be a long time coming.
"So his name is Francis-"
"His name?"
"Would you want a girl wiping your ass?" It's not quite like that, but -
"Yeah, yeah, I get it. I guess for C, I was picturing like this little Latina nurse or something, short skirts and the little hat, you know?"
"Because life is just a big porno."
"It should be! But I guess he's already done the little Latina, huh?"
Lance half-heartedly defends Eva. He still watches Desperate Housewives, but on Wednesdays on Tivo-delay, out of respect.
"But he's doing okay." Joey's voice only wavers a little; it's a statement and not a question. "Man, you know, when they said 'paralyzed', I had all these flashbacks, and I was like . . . I knew how he was going to feel when he woke up. I really did."
Lance remembers Joey's white face in the ambulance, terrified eyes and a grimace of more-than-pain. Lance had told him he was going to be fine, but Joey's face hadn't believed him.
"He's doing okay," he tells Joey now, and he wonders what Joey's face looks like.
JC's emotions are easy to read, if you know the language. Every time he visits, Lance sees determination waging battles in JC with each clench of his hands on the thin wheels of the chair. "I named it Shitty," JC had told him with bitter amusement, and Lance had stopped worrying for a split-second. He tries not to look at JC’s hands.
"Yeah, yeah, come on."
"Hey, give me a hand."
Lance wanders into the kitchen where JC is straining for the teabags. He stretches past JC's arms, grabs the box of Good Earth and tosses it into JC's lap. The edge of the box lands hard on JC's groin. Lance winces, but JC doesn't. He's looking up at Lance though, and his face tightens.
"I thought Francis fixed your kitchen up," Lance says lightly, going to the stove to set the water to boil.
"He did. Someone unfixed it." JC wheels himself over to the table and laces his fingers together, staring down at them. "They all try to be careful, but you know. It's easy to forget, I guess."
Lance hums assent. It's not easy to forget and they both know it. "They just want to see you, you know, make sure you're doing fine."
"I'm fine, God. I'm just, I'm sick of fucking visitors."
JC, always so social, always happy with people buzzing around him, always so grateful for the interaction of those who really know who he is. JC's never been an island.
"Then stop fucking them."
JC barks a harsh laugh. Lance turns the gas to high and sits down across from him. JC's fingers are turning white, locked together like that, and Lance steels himself, puts his hand over JC’s. There's some homeopathic theory about blood pressure and pain, but Lance had only skimmed the book on Amazon.
"Maybe you should just go to your folks' house," he suggests for the twentieth time. "Home, man, you think it'd be bad, but your mom -"
"You think I should? Go home, have Mom take care of me, have Tyler feel guilty? Guiltier than he does? Fuck, maybe he should."
"C-"
JC's eyes don't leave their hands. "I'm not going to fucking do it. I'm not a fucking invalid. I'm not going to make them go through this."
"They're your family."
"They don't need to deal with this."
"They want to help you. We all just want to help you." Lance's hand tightens on JC's and he half expects JC to pull away from the waves of patience Lance can feel pouring off of himself. He would. He's disgusted with himself; he sounds like every cliché ever written, but he doesn't know what to do.
"I'm getting the help I need. I'm doing this." JC looks up and his eyes are hard, his face flat. "I'm still putting the record out." His voice is toneless. "Fuck, I'm still going to fucking tour."
"But-"
"What?"
"That's a long time from now," Lance says helplessly. He tries to imagine it, JC singing, motionless on a stage. He tries to imagine the meet-and-greets, all the girls standing taller than JC, their pictures marred by their teary faces.
"You don't think I can do it?"
"I know you can do it," Lance is quick to say. He's not lying. JC can do anything, absolutely anything. "But just because you can-"
The kettle whistles shrilly. JC's eyes cut over to it, out of his reach and Lance bites back his words.
"You need this, huh? You want this," Lance whispered, watching JC move, listening to the rustle of the couch beneath them as he worked JC harder. "God, you’re so. You want this, I want you to, for me, can you want it? Want it, C, god," and JC’s shoulders rolled with every shudder down his spine.
The first time Francis had met Lance at the door, there had been that inevitable spark of recognition, well-guarded and instantly tamped down, but unmistakably there. Lance is used to it, of course - he loves it sometimes. Francis is a professional though. His smile today is welcoming, wide and unhurried. If Francis was ten years younger, Lance might wish he was a little less professional.
"He's upstairs," Lance is told today. "He's picking something to wear."
It had only taken JC a few weeks to get the hang of the mechanics of everything. Negotiating the bathroom had been the hardest part, but it was nothing that JC's upper arms couldn't take him through. He's still clumsy at times, though. Lance has seen him lever himself in and out of bed, a balancing act of strain and sweat, like learning new choreography - and that's an analogy Lance has never, ever used for JC before. It's difficult to watch JC's legs grow skinnier, despite the physical therapy, as his arms bulk up even more.
It's still JC in that chair. That’s never something Lance has trouble remembering. But the body. The body.
He goes upstairs to help with the clothing decision. He makes himself stay when JC starts struggling with the jeans, and he doesn't offer to help.
Everything was narrowed, a tunnel of being that centered on JC’s hand and the arch of JC's hips. JC's knees shook; Lance wanted to surround him, envelop him, absorb each breath.
JC's on his laptop more and more. There had been all these weeks when JC holed up in the studio, tweaking a track or laying down something new, and those had been good weeks. But he's quieter now, less inclined to move from the ground level of his house, and Lance doesn't know what he’s always looking at on the laptop, but it’s always perched on JC's thighs or on the little attachable table. Probably porn, Joey suggests, since . . . but that’s a sentence even Joey doesn’t want to finish.
It's funny, because before the accident, Lance hadn’t spent that much of his free time with JC, and it’s not like there’s any less time now. But Lance is over all the time, over at JC’s but not out with him, because JC never goes out anymore. But JC wants to adapt. JC doesn’t want to give up. JC wants to make everything work, because it can work, because where there's a will, there's a way. Lance tells himself this over and over as he drives past the turnoff to JC's house.
JC's back would be ugly today, hunched over and covered in an old t-shirt. His face would be lined. His legs would be limp and scrawny, and Joey would have a million jokes that would sound so terrible on Lance’s tongue. The chit-chat that he had always been so good at just seems to fill the air with a mockery of everything that Lance wants to say and just can't. JC's laugh would be like his back now.
Lance gets home and sits in his car, staring at the display on his cell phone. When he finally calls, JC doesn’t answer. He doesn’t, sometimes, but Lance has never called JC as much as he’s calling him now, so maybe that’s nothing new.
Lance feels sick all the time these days. He goes out to lunch and eats nothing; he lies in bed and looks at the ceiling. He sits funny, making his feet fall asleep on purpose, just to feel the pins and needles prickle along the tiny blood vessels, just to feel them.
He gets JC's voice mail.
"C, hey," he starts. He has no way to finish.
"god yes, god yes, Lance" JC's eyes were closed but he knew just when to lift off, just when Lance needed it, just what Lance needed. "Oh god," and it was together, it was just right, both of them together, knowing each other, right there, right there.
JC's chair is empty by the sliding-glass door.
Lance calls out sharply, no fear in his stomach, just some strange flash of a white sheet fluttering in the wind as it falls.
"Out here."
JC's arm waves and Lance doesn't hurry; he gets two beers from the fridge first. Outside, he pulls up another chaise and looks out at Los Angeles’s hazy night. He had looked at JC's face first.
"Got a meeting tomorrow," JC says, rolling the beer between his palms, his fingers curving to catch the bottle. "About the promo."
"And?"
"And we’ll see."
"Who's going with you?"
"Who’s going with me. No one's going with me. I'm going with me." JC sounds like everything's been pressed out of him, and Lance doesn't need to go to the meeting with JC to know what the label’s going to tell him.
The lights of the city seem very far away. Minutes pass before JC speaks again.
"I have never-" There should be anger in that pause, but there isn’t. "I've never been so fucking useless."
Lance has.
"Even . . . never. Everything's been - I can deal, I could deal. I matter, I can work. I could work. I’ve never been fucking useless."
Lance is.
"I feel like. I don't know. I can't even." JC's fists hit his legs, once, twice, and this is the part where Lance needs to reach out and catch JC's fists before they can damage the flaccid muscle. He needs to turn JC's hands up and press kisses into his palms; he needs to help JC let it all out, cry on Lance's shoulder; he needs to share that unerring conviction that this is not the end, that there is more to come, that nothing is hopeless when you have people who love you.
Lance has always been a half-step late though, and by the time he's turning, the air on the balcony feels thick and warm, like it's holding Lance in place, a solid sea. JC's telling him now, "Did you know, I can't even. It’s so." JC's wrist is pale, the bone delicate, and he chokes as he cups himself. Lance can’t look away from JC’s legs.
He knew how JC’s body would tense, hard and lean and graceful.
"I can't-"
He knew how JC’s thighs would tremble and spread.
"I can't-"
He loved JC's body, could never tell him how much, so fucking, fucking gorgeous, just like JC, an extension of JC, slim and beautiful soul, perfect, perfect, not strange but familiar.
"You can't feel this?"
"You know I can't."
"You can feel this," Lance tells him, and he's crouching by JC, holding him, his fingers curling beneath JC's icy hand. "You can feel this, you can feel me, you know me, I’m right here, goddammit C."
JC's eyes are closed, his lips tight, his face drawn. He looks like he wants to turn away; Lance knows he can't move, will not let him move. Lance moves his other hand slowly over JC's chest, measuring its rise and fall.
"JC," Lance says, and he says everything as he strokes JC slow and fierce, touching him everywhere and making him believe it. "JC."
JC hardens under Lance’s touch, just as slow as Lance is touching him. Lance strokes over JC's throat, over the fragile cords of his neck, moves over his face, thumb tracing the cheekbones, and JC is hard under Lance's other hand, hard, and his breath is hot on Lance’s face.
"Please," JC whispers. "Please, god, please."
Lance says everything, everything, every memory of JC and everything in JC’s future, and it's all in the urgent press of his hand and the kiss that comes rough and desperate against JC’s pleading lips.
JC finished the song, but he hadn't left the stage yet, and the crowd knew why. Every girl down there vibrated with energy, their bared arms pale and red from the lights, each girl was pushing back sweaty hair with eager hands, exuberant and intense focus on JC, JC by himself and alone on stage and loving it despite himself.
JC said something, something about special people, and he was going to do another song. His head bobbed the count and it was every performance JC had ever given because Lance could recognize everything and nothing.
He was out of his seat at three measures, pride and the beat rushing through his body. He had always known this was inside JC, just knew like the back of his hand, and it was confidential and personal, seeing it come alive.
JC jumped higher than anyone else.
A month after JC's second record comes out, Lance hears him draw in a sharp, sudden breath. Lance looks up from the paper; JC is staring down at his right toes, which are clenching against the rubber sole of his flip-flop.
It takes Lance thirty seconds to realize that his own feet are shooting with pain, pins and needles, prickling.
the end