NOTES: Joan Osborne song is Poison Apples (Hallelujah) written by Joan Osborne, Rick Hyman and Jeff Chertoff. Title again thanks to a great song by The Holy Childhood. Thanks to everyone who wrote and liked the first story! Thanks to Lily again. :)


I BETTER BE CAREFUL OR I’LL BE UNDERSTOOD BY EVERYBODY


Lance started fucking JC because it was easier than trying to understand why he could still love Justin after everything. JC's a slut. He's easy to get in bed, easy to ignore when bored with him, easy to only think about as lips, fingers, cock and ass at night.

Lance has another day of promo and rehearsal and touring and buses. He wakes up at five a.m. in a bunk with JC. There's no reason to be up now but he pushes JC aside and walks to the TV. He fiddles with the Playstation but doesn't turn anything on. He could eat. He should shower because he smells of sweat and make-up remover and JC. Instead he stares out the window at passing empty landscape.

Up on a hill covered with yellowed grass stands a large white house. The windows look as big as doors on a church. He turns his head to try and see inside the windows, to see if someone still lives there and whether they are up now. The bus is moving fast and the farmhouse is behind a bend before he gets any kind of view. He toys with making the bus driver turn around and stop. He wonders where he is and if maybe he could buy the house on the lonely hill - nothing to see but cars on the highway and barren fields. He could live there forever, he thinks.

The wheels thump against the pavement, a sound like slapping, in a rhythm that matches Lance's heartbeat. He wonders which state they're in and how long it would take him to be recognized if he asked the driver to pull off at a truck stop. He's not hungry but he wants to smell eggs and sausage and toast, wants to pour syrup on a stack of pancakes and hear an old waitress call him "honey". JC says it in bed, when he talks, calls Lance "honey" over and over again, and Lance thinks it's because it's easier than trying to remember somebody's name.

Lance goes to the couch and curls up there facing the inside of the bus. There's a blanket on the floor that he thinks is Joey's, so he pulls it up onto the couch with him and tries to forget. He wonders if JC is still fucking Chris. Lance remembers sharing hotel rooms with Chris and hearing soft knocks on the door as the sun was rising. He wonders if JC is climbing into bed with Chris now, and he wants pancakes.

A door opens and closes down the hall, and Lance pretends to be asleep when Justin walks into the room. Justin's footfalls stop. Lance can hear Justin start walking again and hears Justin's soft exclamation of something. Justin settles down next to him and tucks the blanket tighter around Lance. Lance almost stops pretending to be asleep but then Justin leans over toward him. Behind his eyes Lance can see the shifts of light as the bus rolls on. Justin smells like stale cigarettes and alcohol, and it's rushing towards Lance so he knows Justin is leaning close to him. Then Justin kisses his forehead, softly.

Lance thinks about pretending to wake up then but instead he falls asleep with Justin's arms wrapped around him.

He wakes up on the couch, still wrapped up in the blanket. Everyone is awake, sitting around with bowls of cereal and Lance can hear them chewing and talking softly. He opens his eyes all the way and sees Justin is sitting across from him on the floor. Justin smiles sweetly, like he only smiles when it's just the five of them.

When they weren't so famous they always needed bodyguards Justin would always smile like that, mostly at Lance. He wore that smile right before he first kissed Lance. Right before saying, "This is what I want, dude." Even now, the "dude" part makes Lance grin.

Lance smiles back and sits up, watching them. Joey sees that Lance is awake and dribbles milk down his chin when he smacks Justin's arm. "Dude, tell the story again."

"I -- I just told it, man."

Chris giggles. "Last night, Justin slept with Britney."

"How is that news?" Lance tries to keep smiling.

"And one of her dancers!" Chris bounces up and down.

Lance feels the bus rumble on. He squints at Justin and he can't be sure, but he thinks Justin's face is red. Lance shifts his glance over to JC, but he's setting up the Playstation with Joey. Chris drinks the rest of the milk from his bowl and when Lance looks at Justin again, he's sure that Justin is blushing.

Lance rubs his head. He gets his own bowl and watches the other four. Justin's sheepish mood has passed and he's reaching for the Playstation, harassing JC to put on some Outkast in the CD player. JC is rubbing his arms, avoiding Lance's gaze and turned away from Chris. Lance stares at JC staring out at window for a moment and Lance shakes his head. Joey just grins and plays against Justin, not oblivious, but mostly uncaring.

The hangers-on and the management think they know what it's like, but it's only the five of them who have any real idea. Everyone else can get out of the limo or the bus and slink away. The five of them are the ones on the line, stuck in plush seats while people beat on the windows, out for blood. Lance knows the face he needs to wear, and he says the lines and smiles on demand. He's knows, too, that he's not that good an actor. These four can always see through him.

The bus rumbles on. Lance naps on the couch while the usual shit eddies on around him. They're about to arrive wherever and everyone sits by the idle TV. They're talking about nothing when Justin looks up at him. Their eyes meet and Justin says, out of nowhere, "I'm sorry."

Lance doesn't look away. "For what?"

"I'm an asshole."

Lance wants to look at his watch, at his shoelaces, out the window, but he does not, and he remains silent.

Justin leans forward. "I said, I'm an asshole."

"And it was worth repeating."

"I guess it was." Justin's fingers graze Lance's knee and Lance pulls his legs up onto the couch with him. "But I am, Lance."

"An asshole?"

"Sorry. Sorry that I'm not who you think I am."

Lance looks past Justin's shoulder and watches JC check himself out in the mirror. JC smoothes his eyebrows and catches Lance's eye in the mirror, then winks at him. Lance places his right hand on Justin's shoulder and stands. "Justin, I know exactly who you are."

Then there's people and rehearsal and sound check. A show and dancing and pyro. Justin smiles at everyone and does his star act. Once in a while he catches Lance's eye and smiles the real smile. Lance looks away each time. Lance used to have faith. In religion and sometimes even in Justin. Now he fakes it. Losing faith in Justin hurt worse than sitting in church and wondering if any of the things that the drawling preacher said were true.

So he looks away. And after the show, he squats in front of JC and takes JC's cock in his mouth. Different from Justin's, and he closes his eyes and just licks and sucks. He takes JC's cock deeper and deeper down his throat, breathing through his nose. He pushes his finger into JC with the same rhythm. JC's all skin and bones, no muscle, no meat. Lance likes the tease of hair on JC's stomach and running down below, but he knows a tease is all that it is. JC thrusts into his mouth and grabs Lance's short hair. Lance swallows everything, even licking his lips as JC tucks himself in languidly and zips up his leather pants. The only thing Lance has faith in anymore is the five of them in the limo.

They walk out of the dressing room to go wherever it is they are going now. Justin looks at Lance and bites his lip. Then he sneers at Lance and says, "You two done? We're going to this thing."

JC grins, and claps Lance on the shoulder. "We're done, Jup. You want your turn?"

Lance looks down. "Shut up, dude." He says it quietly, without emphasis. He wishes he still believed in something pure. He'd like to still think there were rainbows and good luck in four leaf clovers, but he sees a shooting star when he's climbing on the bus, and he doesn't make a wish.

Inside, Lance sits next to Chris. They eat Twizzlers from the same bag and Lance even laughs when Chris throws one at Joey. It's the same as it always is, jokes and Playstation and the hollow ache in Lances heart, and he only thinks once about the weight of Justin's hands on his neck.

Later, Lance climbs into his bunk without removing his makeup. He can't get comfortable because the bed is either too small or too big; golden makeup smears across his pillow and he feels like the Princess in the fairy tale. The mattress isn't right and the blankets aren't right and his bed is always cold. Justin's not in his bunk, Lance knows, and when he can't breathe anymore, Lance gets up to look for him. He finds Justin masturbating in the lounge, talking dirty to Britney, so he walks back to the bunk. He's almost asleep when he hears Justin outside his bunk, slurring and mumbling. Justin says, "I said I was an asshole. At least I don't lie to you, fucker."

Bus, sound check, press, promos, performance all ticked off for two days. Justin is Justin, JC is JC and everything is the same. Justin doesn't try to apologize anymore and he saves his smiles for the stage. Lance fakes everything but the time alone with the guys and the way he comes when he and JC fuck.

He blinks and looks around. They've ended up in a cheesy bar in Miami in a hotel. It's three am and the bar should close, but that's not the way things work when the whole entourage is around. They're the only people in the bar, but it's small enough it still seems crowded. The waiters have stupid smiles.

Chris watches JC and then shakes his head. Lance doesn't understand how Chris can be so old, in a way, and so naïve. Chris believes in love and hope. It's taken him forever to realize how rare that is, after Dani and JC. JC will fuck anything. Pussy or cock and all he cares about is coming and writing songs as shallow as he sometimes truly seems to be. Lance watches JC smile first at his fizzy girly drink and then at the waiter with the broad shoulders. Joey is slightly more discriminating, he only wants pussy.

Lance tells himself he is different from JC and Joey. But he catches himself watching the waiter JC watched earlier. Lance sighs. He looks around for Justin and finds the golden boy walking to the karaoke stage. The crew and the leeches have all sung songs and Chris did a hilarious cover of Metallica's Unforgiven. That was an hour ago, though, and Lance wonders how much Justin has had to drink. One of the leeches glares at Justin as if to say, don't waste the magic voice on this. Justin ignores him.

Justin picks a song Lance doesn't recognize. Chris sits next to Lance and hits him on the shoulder. "It's that Joan Osborne thing." Lance looks at his drink and wonders why Justin is listening to Joan Osborne instead of his usual diet of r&b and rap. Justin is singing and Lance finds it suddenly moving. He's not listening to the words. But Lance remembers that there is more to them than the limo and people wanting them. There's the sheer beauty of Justin's voice. And all of them together, really, but right now, he hears Justin for the first time, he thinks, in years.

He looks up and Justin is singing to him. Not with every line, but more often than not, Justin looks at Lance and concentrates as he sings. Lance finally hears the words. Justin sings, with more feeling than Lance thinks he deserves, 'I gave you away so easily. It makes me wonder why.' Earlier JC sang something, vamping it up on the small red stage with velvet curtains. JC gestured wide and practically humped the stage like it was another arena. Justin just stands there and looks at Lance and sings. Lance can't quite breathe.

He hears Justin. Singing, 'Moving through you every night/ The lovely girls in dressed tight/ The angels dancing on a pin/ The people we are downing in/ Like a needle going in/ Into the shining city skin/ Oh I recall the moment when you ruined me for other men ...' People, even all these people who hear Justin every night are transfixed. At the last line, there's a nervous titter in the crowd. Justin smiles to make it seem like he's joking, but Lance thinks he means it. For a moment, Lance believes. He'd forgotten Justin's voice could do that to him.

And then Justin's finished and the air is still crackling when he steps off the stage, but the moment is gone. JC leaves with the waiter and Chris wipes his nose on the back of his hand. Joey says something to him, something that Lance can't hear, and then Chris laughs. They leave, too, and Lance thanks God for Joey.

Lance waits for the room to be flooded with light, to be so bright that he can't see, but its so dark that he can't see and he thinks Justin has left. There are half-finished drinks all over the table and Lance downs them all, one after the other, not stopping except to swallow. He shudders when he's done, and then he hears Justin breathing.

"I couldn't say it."

Lance turns and sees Justin sitting on the floor. "But you did."

"In a fucking song. I couldn't say it. I still can't say it."

Lance twists the buttons on his jacket. "You meant it?"

Justin sniffles so softly that Lance wonders if he made the sound up. "Can't say it, dude."

Lance crosses the room and sinks to the floor across from Justin. They sit quiet for so long that Lance wonders if Justin's fallen asleep, and then Justin's fingers graze Lance's face. Their lips meet and for once, Justin doesn't come at Lance with nothing but tongue. Their lips meet and then they part slowly and it's a kiss that says what Justin couldn't.

They go upstairs together. Clothes are shed and there is more kissing, but there is no sex. They curl up in the same bed but don't fuck, and when Lance sleeps, he dreams of the white farmhouse. And when Lance wakes, Justin is still by his side.

THE END

Onto the sequel, Fat Tuesday Everyday!



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