Age of Consent

A mind reading, well-mannered ninja

It wasn’t that Chris didn’t appreciate Lance at first, because of course from the moment the kid had opened his mouth everyone did. It wasn’t like they had a choice. Something about that smooth voice coming out of that boy-child was a little like mind control; like subliminal messages or drugs or something. They were all powerless to resist him.

But aside from the voice, nobody knew much about Lance, and he seemed to prefer it that way. He didn’t say much or let anyone too close. Chris thought at first that he might be shy, and it wasn’t a giant stretch to assume he was. After all, he was a girly-looking Mississippi albino with a bowl haircut and impeccable manners.

But from the beginning, the kid seemed to have absolutely no fear at all, and in Chris’ mind this didn’t make sense. He was young and small, with narrow shoulders and wider hips than most boys and giant strange green eyes, and Chris could see the danger of all these things in combination right away. Any fearlessness, Chris assumed, was due to Lance being too naïve to know any better. Right. Lance was a country bumpkin who turned into an overnight pop sensation, and he didn’t know any better than to trust anyone with a kind smile.

But in Germany, an ocean away from home, Chris developed a healthy respect for Lance.

Lance, it turned out, was a lot tougher than anyone suspected. He had a steely stubborn streak, a devious sense of humor, and, once he opened up a little, proved able to win most any argument using only cunning, guile, and subtle suggestion. He was a force unto himself, which brought Chris back to the whole mind control angle, or ESP, or psychological programming. Lance was like a cult. They’d all need to be deprogrammed. Chris imagined Justin’s clear blue eyes turning into rotating spirals like a cartoon zombie.

Lance was the smoothest girly-looking Mississippi albino in the world.

Chris began to fear him, actually, and he’d lived through so much already he didn’t think he could be frightened ever again. Especially not of some kid with a bowl haircut. Good God. At least Chris had the presence of mind to be embarrassed by the whole thing.

One afternoon in the van on the way to a rehearsal, apropos of nothing, Lance looked Chris straight in the eye. "You only fear that which you do not understand."

Chris nearly wet himself. Lance was a mind reading, well-mannered ninja with very little coordination to speak of. Those were the worst kind, really.

Lance’s face suddenly brightened and he barked with laughter. "Dude!" He slapped his thigh and pointed at Chris. "Your face!"

Lance was a stealthy, worthy co-conspirator; and Chris was a dork.

"You and me goin’ fishin’ in the dark, lyin’ on our backs and countin’ the stars, where the cool grass grows!"

Lance was alarmingly alert in the morning, and a giant chicken-fried dork. Chris knew both of these things without question and still loved him nearly most of all, but Lance’s behavior in the early morning was unbearable. He was quick and sharp and had a silly, sarcastic, smart sense of humor that Chris could appreciate on an almost intellectual level, but that didn’t change the fact that he wanted to kill him when they had to share a room.

"Hey, Chris. Ever gone night fishin’?" Lance was suddenly kneeling over him, loud and close and very warm, and Chris knew there was no hope of falling back to sleep now - even if Lance were to suddenly disappear, silent and missing and gone.

"I hate you," Chris growled, voice scratchy and thick with sleep.

Lance smirked down at him, eyes wide. "I think you’re lying, dude. You don’t hate me at all," he said in that low, liquid sex voice, and Chris’ dick, thick and heavy with morning wood, stood up even taller. ‘Look what I can do,’ it boasted. Chris’ rolled his eyes before he scowled in the direction of his pelvis. Stupid sex organ. It couldn’t tell the difference between a seventeen-year-old Mississippi albino and some similarly hot guy of legal age.

Thankfully, while Lance undoubtedly noticed the action in Chris’ pajamas, he chose not to comment. "Get up. I’m hungry."

"So go eat," Chris countered. "Leave me alone, asshole."

Lance peeled the blankets off Chris’ bed in one foul swoop, and shit, it was cold. Chris shivered in his sleep pants, every visible inch of skin prickling with goose flesh. Lance totally sucked, he thought, and while his brain hadn’t kicked in yet, his dick was very excited about Lance sucking. On a purely hypothetical level.

"Get up, Chris. Get up," Lance was murmuring low in his ear.

Chris jerked off in the shower.

After a show it was always the same. JC would curl up on the nearest soft surface, often Joey’s lap, and fall asleep for at least an hour. Justin would go back to the hotel and play video games until two in the morning. Joey would wait until JC was asleep, ease his way out from under his pliant form, and drag Chris to a club. And Lance would go back to the room he shared with Chris and read or do homework or sleep.

It was nights like these that put things into perspective for Chris. Lance, despite his ninja-like attributes, was still a child who was testing his boundaries away from home or playing Chris like a green tambourine. The fact remained that he was seventeen, and Chris was grateful for this technicality.

Sometimes at the clubs he would hook up - usually with blond boys with wide, pale eyes. He’d suck them off in the stall of a dingy, poorly lit bathroom, tugging roughly at his own cock all the while, the other boy’s gasps and cries too high and sweet in his ears. Afterward, he’d push the sick feeling in his stomach away. Plenty of guys had blond hair and pale eyes. Maybe that was his type, or something.

He lived his life with a sort of scientific precision. His head was a portfolio of charts and graphs, of statistics, technicalities, and coincidences.

Chris would stumble back to the hotel alone when Joey got lucky, which was often. He’d fumble with his room key and eventually get himself into the room he shared with Lance, peel off his smoky club clothes, and make himself throw up in the toilet. Sleep never came easy. Not with the boy in the next bed who sometimes mumbled low in his sleep, sometimes breathed slow and even.

Diane Bass was wrong, Chris thought. She somehow thought that ordering Lance to room with the oldest member of the group was going to guarantee some sort of safety for her son. It’s not like it wasn’t true. Chris was loyal to the people who earned it and would fight to the death for the other guys already, but thinking that Lance was somehow safe staying with Chris was ironic. Maybe. He thought. Alanis Morissette had really fucked with his understanding of the concept.

Lance was like a predator or something - craftily asserting himself, sexual without realizing it most of the time, and using it to his best advantage when he did.

Chris was doomed. Since the morning Chris had woken up with Lance in his face, he’d been caught in his tractor beam. The younger boy would often cast a sexy smirk in his direction, across crowded rooms where anyone could catch him, or brush him with lingering touches for no apparent reason. Chris seemed to spend every moment in a state of almost pained arousal. His constant boner was becoming something of a joke.

Chris didn’t find it funny at all, especially the third time he’d bought hand lotion in a month. He pondered the possibility of getting carpal tunnel from too much jerking off. He still went out with Joey most nights they were free, but hooking up with random pale-eyed blond boys was losing its luster.

This Lance situation was getting totally out of hand, and God. He put more lotion on the shopping list.

More often than not, though, when the two of them were alone, Lance was subdued - almost timid, even. He’d work on homework or watch TV, sometimes shooting Chris shy glances from beneath his eyelashes. These moments made Chris feel pretty, in a totally macho-dude sort of way.

He began to get his bearings, gradually, on evenings like these. He suspected Lance maybe wanted him, because he made it obvious when they were in public, but he was too shy to act on anything when they were alone. Unless, of course, Chris was getting played, which wasn’t out of the question either. This was Lance, after all, and the kid was wily. And a ninja.

So Chris was either being crushed on by a boy too shy to actually do anything, or he was getting played. Either way, he was actually relieved. He found he could breathe in and out without hyperventilating. Deeply, even. His boner even took an afternoon off, here and there. He cut down, ever so slightly, on the hand lotion purchases. Lance’s danger lie in the possibility, Chris thought. The immanence and the danger, too. But it didn’t seem as immanent anymore.

Until the day Lance woke him up by leaning over his sleeping form, blowing softly on his face. Chris was dreaming he was a dog - like a terrier, or something else small but hella fierce. He stuck his head out the car window, speeding down the highway. His ears flapped. The air smelled curiously minty fresh.

When his eyes fluttered open, Lance was smiling down at him.

"It’s my birthday next Tuesday," he said. His pink tongue snuck out to wet his lower lip. "Guess what I want?"

"A chemistry set?"

Lance made a disgusted face at Chris’ morning breath. "No, idiot. You."

Holy shit.

It’s not that he didn’t believe him. Lance had never actually lied to anyone, Chris thought. He was still a dorky sweet Southern boy who obeyed his Momma. Sure, sometimes he stretched the truth a little to play a joke or exaggerated to prove a point, but that wasn’t lying, really.

If Lance said his birthday was on Tuesday, then his birthday was on Tuesday and Chris did the only thing one did in situations such as these.

He bought him a gift.

It wasn’t much, at all – just chocolates and some other snacks, because he’d spent most of his stipend on hand lotion. But it was all he could afford and that had always been enough at home. It was the thought that counted, he thought.

He used Joey and JC’s room because Lance was doing his homework in the one they shared, and Justin and Lynn were nowhere to be found. He’d borrowed JC’s key. JC had gone to some crazy little coffeehouse for spoken word night. Chris imagined him clapping politely and drinking tea from a tiny little cup with his pinky sticking out.

Joey walked in when he was wrapping his bounty in newspaper on the bed nearest the door. He checked the number on the door, as if he was unsure if he’d come in the right room.

"Whatcha doin’, man?"

"Wrapping Lance’s present," Chris explained. Joey’s eyebrows were furrowed. Maybe he needed to speak slower. Or use small words. Joey hummed and continued to stand in the entrance, holding the door open. Anyone could walk by and see their birthday present. "Would you close the door? He could, like, walk by or something."

Joey shut the door and crossed the room to lean against the rickety dresser. He crossed his arms. "Present? What for?"

Dear God. Chris wanted to shake him. "His. Birth. Day," he said, enunciating especially clearly.

Joey blinked. "Are you sure?" He looked skeptical.

"He said it’s on Tuesday." Chris went back to his battle with the curly ribbon. He couldn’t make it curl at all. Stupid ribbon. Stupid scissors. He was about ready to ask Joey to do it for him, but he wouldn’t let himself.

"Don’t you think Diane would be coming? For his birthday?" Joey cracked his knuckles, looking thoughtful all the while. Each tiny, grinding click made sick shivers race up Chris’ spine and back down again.

"Dude, your knuckles are going to swell from doing that."

Mercifully, the popping stopped. "And anyway, I thought he said his birthday was in May."

Chris shrugged. He was never good with dates or anything else involving numbers, really; and higher thinking and scissors were not a good combination. He set them aside. "You think?"

Joey looked uncertain, then. "Well." He kicked at the foot board of the other bed with his ratty sneaker. "I don’t know."

"Okay, then." Chris gave him a level stare. "I decree that Lance Bass’ birthday is on Tuesday. You should get him something."

Joey grinned. "Totally! Porn!"

Chris could actually get behind that idea, because maybe if Lance had porn he might not want Chris anymore. He was aware that he had an appeal, certainly, but Chris knew he couldn’t compete with airbrushed porn.

As it was, he was just an aging, chronic masturbater with petal-soft hands.

Chris started to take Tuesday seriously, on the off chance that something actually happened. Like maybe being hit over the head with something hard and losing all common sense, or Lance exerting some sort of mind control over him, or something else equally ludicrous but nonetheless not an absolute impossibility. He bought lube, real lube, and new condoms, because he was pretty sure the ones he had were, like, expired or something. Not that he expected to really need anything. But one could never be too cautious. Especially considering Lance and his whole ninja thing.

At the drug store, Chris picked up a birthday card, too, with clowns and puppies on it. BECAUSE YOU’RE 4, it read in puffy letters across the top. ‘It doesn’t matter how old you are, I’m not sleeping with you. Happy birthday. Love, Chris,’ he wrote, under the rhymey verse about puppies and clowns and "EVEN MORE! YOU’RE 4!"

He taped the envelope to the newsprint package and bent to slide it under his bed.

The unmistakable sound of the doorknob and the scruff of door against carpet signaled Lance’s arrival.

"Hey." Lance kicked off his shoes and fished his wallet from his back pocket. "What’s up?"

"Nothing," Chris muttered, scowling.

"It’s Monday." Lance tumbled onto the opposite bed, all pale arms and slim legs and easy grace.

"Is that supposed to mean something to me?" Chris feigned ignorance. Poorly.

"T-minus ten hours until my birthday." Chris stomach leapt at the reminder. "I saw you put a package under your bed." Lance crooked an eyebrow at him. "You shouldn’t have. I only want one thing for my birthday, Chris," he said, in a creepy sort of Hannibal Lecter voice. "I only want you, baby." He crawled as close as possible to the edge of his bed and reached a finger out, tracing a line down Chris’ arm.

God damn, but the boy had some serious moves. Chris barely suppressed a shiver.

"And there’s no reason to say no to me any more."

Chris opened his mouth to object.

No sound came out, save his own ragged breath.

Chris and Joey told the other guys about Lance’s birthday that afternoon. Chris was nothing if not a procrastinator. Justin, Chris noticed, looked especially dubious, but handed over the suggested donation for beer and birthday cake anyway.

"Beer and birthday cake?" JC pulled a face when they cornered him for money. "Couldn’t you guys get some milk, or something?"

Chris slapped JC’s shoulder, a manly sort of slap that never seemed to slap any sort of manliness into JC. "Beer goes with everything but toothpaste, my man. It’s all good. Trust me."

JC begrudgingly handed over five marks.

Cheap bastard, Chris thought.

Chris was able to find a cake for a mere pittance. Of course it said HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SPORT and had hotwheels race cars on it, but because JC was a cheap bastard it was really all he could afford. When all else failed, Chris thought, blame JC.

Monday night, Joey and Chris went out, even though they had only had an interview that afternoon and not an actual show. Chris felt like he needed it. Lance’s shy glances from beneath his eyelashes had morphed, within the past twenty-four hours, into near constant ravenous stares and a rather disconcerting smirk.

Chris needed alcohol. And maybe to hook up, but definitely not with a blond, pale-eyed boy.

He nursed his beer and watched Joey dance with two girls at once, one rubbing and grinding against his back and another one wrapped around his front, like a Joey girl sex sandwich.

Chris watched but he felt nothing, like he wasn’t seeing anything, like he wasn’t even there. Instead he focused on the feel of desperation rushing through his veins, and apprehension, and a little bit of dread.

He got up to go to the bathroom. Someone in there was getting some, and Chris pressed his face against the cool wall of the adjoining stall and listened to the pants and moans and felt like an even dirtier old man than usual. He grew hard, of course, because he wasn’t that old yet, and he was hornier than hell lately, thanks to Lance and his fucking ninja-like seduction techniques. He pressed his erection, hard, against the toilet paper dispenser, and rocked his hips just enough to start the familiar tingle in his balls.

"Oh, fuck," one of them grunted. "Oh. Oh."

"Oh," Chris whispered moments later, pulsing in his jeans.

He couldn’t bring himself to feel any more pathetic than he already did.

He waited a few minutes until the guys in the next stall were zipped up and had left, then tried to wipe up with toilet paper. His boxers were soaked and sticky and his skin felt clammy and flushed. He splashed water on his face and debated going back to the hotel to face Lance or going back out to the bar in his messy pants.

Ordinarily, spending time in sticky pants was not an appealing option, but with a beautiful boy on the cusp of adulthood back at the hotel, his sticky pants were suddenly much less uncomfortable. He washed his hands and dried them on his jeans before pulling the door open.

And almost walking right into Lance.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

Lance searched his face with wide strange eyes, but said nothing.

"Lance."

He just opened his mouth and closed it again.

"Oh, shit." Chris took him by the arm and led him out of the club. They walked for a while, their shoes and the cold evening wind the only sound. He tried again. "Lance."

He jerked his head at the sound of his name.

"Hey." Chris stopped and grabbed Lance’s shoulder. "Hey. What’s wrong?"

"Nothing," he mumbled.

"Why were you there? Were you alone?"

He nodded.

"You shouldn’t go out by yourself. What were you thinking?"

"I. I’m legal. I’m."

Chris checked his watch in the amber glow of the street lamp. 12:42. "So?"

"So. You guys were out. C was sleeping. Justin was with Lynn. I knew where you guys went, so I thought I’d. I thought I’d find you."

"And?" Chris was cold, so cold he couldn’t feel his ears, and he tugged Lance around and started walking again.

"And what?"

"I thought you were fucked up, man. Did you take anything from anyone? A drink? A cigarette?"

"No. The lights. The noise, and the smell. All the smoke. And the people, and the dancing, Chris. So. I had to pee, so I was going to find you guys and go to the bathroom. I saw Joey with some girls, but I didn’t find you, and I really had to pee, Chris."

"Okay." Chris wrapped his arm around Lance’s narrow shoulders. "It’s okay. Just. Go with us, next time. Don’t go alone again."

"’Kay." Lance was shivering, now. Chris shrugged his coat off and handed it to him, even though he was wearing a thin shirt himself. "Thanks," Lance whispered.

"It’s okay."

The hotel was dark by the time they got back, and quiet, and Chris’ small feet sounded in the hallway like they were twice their size. He got the two of them in their room and shoved Lance toward his bed because his eyes were huge and getting that glazed look again, and Chris didn’t know what to do with him.

Chris locked himself in the bathroom, stripped his sticky clothes off, and sat down on the edge of the bathtub.

It was after midnight. Lance wasn’t a kid anymore.

When he let himself out of the bathroom twenty minutes later wrapped in a towel - for his own protection, he thought, Lance was asleep, sprawled atop the comforter, still dressed. Still wearing his shoes.

Chris slipped on his pajama bottoms and a T-shirt and sat on his own bed to watch him. Still a boy, he thought, listening to the even rasp of Lance’s breath, watching his pale, thin eyelids twitch, trapped in dreams. Still a boy, he thought again, remembering Lance’s wide eyes at the club.

He was still a boy. But now Lance was a man, too.

There was sudden movement on the bed. Lance was turning over and whimpering, high, in his sleep. "Chris," he mumbled. "Chriiis. Chris." His hands seemed to scratch and fend off would-be attackers.

"Hey." Chris stood over him, clutching his shoulders, shaking him awake. "Hey. Lance."

The pale, thin eyelids fluttered open, and for a second he thought he saw a little bit of terror in Lance’s eyes before recognition took over. "Hey," Chris said again. "I think you were having a nightmare."

Lance said nothing, just nodded, a little, and blinked.

"Put your pajamas on."

Lance stood up, an automaton, and crossed the room to his dresser, where Chris knew all of his things were folded with sharp creases and organized according to seasonal appropriateness. Chris preferred to live out of his suitcase on the floor, items not so much folded as they were stuffed inside with no organizational system to speak of. He watched Lance strip to his briefs and put on his pajamas, folding his club clothes and hanging them over a chair to be aired out.

When he was dressed, Lance turned around and faced Chris, his face apprehensive and not manly at all.

"You want to sleep with me?"

The boy blushed.

"Come on, then. Climb in." He lifted the covers for Lance to climb in, then turned his back and willed him to fall asleep.

When he woke up in the morning it was warm in bed, and an arm was thrown over his waist, a leg thrown over his legs. A face buried in his shoulder. Lance. Chris could smell him, and feel the warmth radiate from him, and it was so sweet and so comfortable and it felt so good. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d woken up with someone else still in his bed.

His eyes surveyed the long, pale arm that his fingers and tongue longed to trace. The scent of last night’s club and warm boy in the morning was so – right, Chris thought. So perfect. If he bent his head a little he could nuzzle at Lance’s ear.

Jesus. It was right, he thought. It was finally okay to want this boy, this man. It was still wrong, he thought, with the group and Lance’s mom, whom Chris found to be very nice and at the same time very scary, but it wasn’t wrong in an illegal sort of way. Not anymore. Just to touch him, Chris thought. Just once. Please.

His free arm reached, reached. Just a little further. Traced a shaking finger down an arm so warm he thought of cinders.

Lance sighed, snuffling a little against his shoulder, still asleep.

No harm, Chris thought. No foul, and he did it again, brushing his finger up and down the inside of Lance’s forearm, touching the delicate skin there, feeling muscle and bone below, hundreds of tiny bones in his wrist, so frail and yet so unbreakable.

He pressed a kiss to Lance’s brow so soft he knew that if Lance remembered anything, he’d think it was a dream.

"Chris." A whisper so soft he, himself, thought he might be dreaming. "Chris. Please."

Oh. Oh. God, he thought.

"Please. Chris. Please." Suddenly Chris was aware of Lance’s cock, hard and heavy against his thigh, and it was warm in that bed, suddenly, so warm that Chris felt tiny fires beneath his skin.

He turned, then, into Lance’s arms and groaned. He kissed him with gentleness that he didn’t think he was capable of, but Lance was so fragile in his heart, hundreds of tiny bones and thin skin and wide green eyes, that he was terrified of hurting this boy, and he’d never been frightened of hurting anyone. Not ever, not like this.

And Lance kissed him back, fast, eager kisses to the side of his mouth and then a quick shy slide of tongue, asking permission, and Chris opened to him. Their tongues licked together, gliding and ghosting and tangling, and Chris felt it in his cock and felt the flush sweep up his chest and across his shoulders.

Chris slid his hands to Lance’s waist. His fingers itched to touch every inch of alabaster they could reach, slipped under the hem of his T-shirt and touched his warm belly, felt it tremble under the weight of his fingers. Then he couldn’t touch Lance enough, and he couldn’t be touched enough himself, and fingers were scrabbling, pulling shirts over heads and then palming every inch of available skin.

The light came in through the half-closed blinds and cast the room in an early morning glow, and the dust he could see in the beams of light were like stars or fireflies, and it made the morning that much more like a dream.

"Chris," Lance whispered, in between kisses, "Chris. Can I touch you?"

Chris opened his eyes, blinking, and looked up at hopeful, uncertain green ones. "Yeah," he said, and while his voice sounded steady his stomach felt like he was falling.

Lance pressed two fingers against his shaft, erect and leaking a damp circle on the front of his pajamas, and stroked him through the fabric. Chris shuddered, his eyes falling closed while his hand reached out to touch Lance, too. He wrapped his palm around Lance’s erection and gave a quick, light squeeze, which made him groan. "Take off your pants," Lance mumbled against his lips, and Chris thought that voice had never sounded more like sex than it did that second, and God. He almost came right there.

They shoved their pants down and off together, at the same time, and then turned to face each other again, The hair on Chris’ chest rubbing against Lance’s smooth one, their cocks bumping together. "Oh," Lance murmured.

Chris pressed his lips over Lance’s, sealing any sound, and flipped him over onto his back. He licked and kissed the other boy’s neck and nibbled at his collarbones and teased his nipples into sharp points with his lips and teeth and tongue. Lance was quiet, only letting out tiny whimpers and gasps, but he arched his back and clenched a hand in Chris’ hair, and Chris felt powerful and a little sacred because he knew Lance had never done this before.

He licked a stripe down Lance’s belly, dipping into his bellybutton and moistening the line of hair below with his tongue before taking the head of Lance’s cock in his mouth, tasting salt and boy skin, and. Oh.

"Oh," Lance moaned, and Chris opened his eyes to look up at him: eyes closed, face and chest flushed, mouth open, panting. His teeth bit down on his lower lip. He was beautiful. Enraptured.

Chris slid his tongue down Lance’s length and back up again before taking the whole of him in his mouth, lips stretching wide around him.

Lance’s breathing grew louder, quicker, more shallow.

Chris bobbed his head only once or twice, up and down the shaft, before Lance came, quietly, covering his mouth with his hand, and Chris swallowed it all.

Lance pushed up onto his elbows and regarded Chris with very wide eyes. "Chris," he breathed, still gasping, a little, "Chris."

Chris smiled a small half smile before Lance pulled him up and kissed him, hard, not even seeming to mind the taste of himself on Chris’ tongue. He took Chris’ dick in his hand, then, tentatively, and ran a slow finger up and down, and watched as Chris twisted his hips and thrust into his hand. Lance wrapped around him, making a fist with his hand. Chris’ cock was slick and felt heavy and solid and smooth in Lance’s grip. A few strokes and Chris gasped and came, fast and hot, all over his belly and Lance’s hand.

They were both panting and shivering and cold, suddenly, even as sweat dripped from Chris’ brow.

If Lance wasn’t a man before, Chris may have just made him into one.

Lance was very gracious about the birthday celebration. A bit shy and overwhelmed at first, Chris thought, but grinning big and toothy over his cake and birthday beer and the gifts from all the guys. Justin, they all noted, bought him a calendar, even though it was the middle of April and Lance already had a calendar and a date book and some planner thing that made him seem like a businessman.

Lance shot Justin a glare when he thought no one was looking. Chris didn’t even bother to puzzle it out. Perhaps getting good and sexed up by a newly legal blond boy with pale eyes was making him relaxed in his old age.

Even if the hand-written message in his card about never sleeping with him, ever, made Lance laugh hysterically and Chris blush to the tips of his ears. He’d had to take a time-out in the bathroom.

That night, the two of them locked the door and pored over the porn from Joey, who had bought a German skin magazine with plenty of informative articles they could barely understand and a very impressive centerfold which really needed no translation.

Later, Lance went down on Chris. He was careful and conscientious and only scraped Chris with his teeth once, and swallowed and everything, and Chris felt a crazy sense of pride. He let Lance stick a finger up his ass, too, to the second knuckle, and while it felt great and he would have let him fuck him, Lance looked a little shell-shocked so he didn’t press it at all.

Later still, when they were both sated and a still panting and curled in a knot, Chris stayed in Lance’s bed and stroked his peroxide hair until he fell asleep.

The other bed remained untouched.

"Happy birthday, baby," Chris whispered. He thought Lance’s lips curved up, just a little, in his sleep.

Three weeks later, they were still sleeping together, and buying each other things, and Chris thought that maybe this was the best thing that had ever happened to him in his miserable life. He didn’t go clubbing with Joey anymore unless Lance tagged along. Now and again he hooked up in the bathroom with a blond boy with pale eyes, but it was always the one he went home with, and he thought this might be a little like love.

With the turn of a calendar page, it was May. Lynn went back home, and Justin suddenly expected Chris to room with him, and Chris didn’t understand at all why Lance would need the single room unless something was wrong.

"Duh, Diane’s flying in tomorrow," Justin told him, like he was an idiot, which he never actually said he wasn’t, but he didn’t understand why Lance wouldn’t mention it. Being as they were boyfriends, now. At least Chris thought they were. He spent the afternoon pouting, which was completely unlike him and a pretty good indication that this was indeed love. Lance seemed to be avoiding him, which pissed him off that much more, and God. This was why he didn’t get involved. Bathroom hookups were so much more his speed.

"Dude, are you ten?" Justin was poking through Chris’ suitcase later that night when he was in the bathroom brushing his teeth.

"Uh," Chris asked, around a mouth full of toothpaste foam.

"What the hell is this," Justin asked, holding up a brown stuffed dog with a wrinkled forehead and long, droopy ears that Lance had bought for him two weeks ago. It had reminded him of the puppies on his birthday card.

Chris just flipped him off and went back to brushing.

"No, dude. What is it?"

Chris spit in the sink and snatched the dog from Justin’s hand. "It’s mine, pipsqueak. Drop it."

Justin slammed the bathroom door, muttering about grumpy old men. Chris made a mental note to pummel him at a later date.

He’d just curled up with his puppy when somebody knocked on the door, so quietly that Chris wasn’t sure he’d heard anything at all. "Chris."

He padded across the carpet and opened the door. Lance was standing in the hall, looking so apologetic that Chris had forgiven him already, for whatever he thought he’d done.

"I’m sorry you had to move," he whispered, once Chris had closed the door and they were standing in the hallway. "I guess you probably heard about my mom."

"Why didn’t you say anything?"

"Chris." Lance tugged on Chris’ pajama shirt. "Come to my room."

He felt a little like a lamb being led to the slaughter, or something. He tried to remember that Lance was a giant chicken-fried dork, and a girly looking Mississippi albino, but all he could really think about was that Lance was a ninja, and his boyfriend, whom he maybe loved.

Chris thought maybe he was about to be dumped. Maybe for someone younger, or taller, who didn’t have pointy ears. Lance pulled him into his room, although Chris suddenly didn’t want to go in there at all and planted his feet.

"What’s wrong," Lance asked, once he’d succeeded in yanking Chris into the room and shutting the door behind him. Chris was lying sprawled across the floor because Lance had yanked him pretty hard, and balance was a fickle creature this late at night when they’d practiced most of the day.

"You’re avoiding me," Chris mumbled into the carpet. "I figure something’s up."

Lance blinked. "You think I’m gonna break up with you or something?" He rolled his eyes. "Chris." He blinked. And swallowed. "It’s not like that. I just wanted to tell you something. Before Momma gets here."

"Oh," Chris replied. That was certainly reasonable. Maybe Lance wanted to come out to his mom or something. "Okay."

"Do you remember my birthday?"

"Yeah."

"Uh. Um." Lance seemed quite taken with his toes. "My birthday’s on Thursday."

"What?" Midnight be damned. This was crazy talk, and Chris could make a screeching, rather feminine noise at an ungodly hour, he felt, given the situation.

"Uh. Before. I wasn’t exactly telling the truth."

"Wait. Thirty seconds ago? Or a month ago?"

"A month ago." Lance gingerly sat down beside him, as if he were afraid Chris might punch him or something. Truth be told, it had crossed Chris’ mind, but he didn’t really think that punching his band mate, his boyfriend, was really the answer to this particular problem. He couldn’t quite wrap his mind around what Lance was telling him. It all seemed murky and strange and like he was watching the whole thing, instead of living it.

"Say something," Lance whispered, laying a tentative hand on his arm.

"You’re. Seventeen." He looked over at Lance, at the strange green eyes and the narrow nose and the god-awful peroxide hairdo, and he didn’t feel any different, really, which was strange, he thought. He wondered if he was a child molester.

"Until Thursday, yeah." Again, Lance seemed especially intrigued by his toes. "I. I couldn’t wait for you any longer, baby. It seems stupid, now, but. I couldn’t stand that you looked at me like a kid. God." He sniffled. "God. Chris. I love you. I’m sorry I lied. Please. Don’t be mad."

He couldn’t be mad, looking at the scared boy sitting next to him, but he was, in a way, because Lance had lied, and there was no reason, and he hated lying. "I am mad. I bought you that stupid cake. And that stupid card." A thought occurred to him. "And Justin knew!" Now he wanted to punch something, but not Lance. "But. Why did you lie? I would have waited, Lance. I would have waited for you. I did. You didn’t need to lie. I was waiting."

Lance’s mouth crooked, a little, at the corners. "I couldn’t wait any more, Chris. And I’m glad I didn’t."

"Oh." Chris couldn’t think of anything more to say, really. He felt a little disgusting, sexing up a kid the way he’d done, but not as disgusting as he might have otherwise. And Lance didn’t dump him, and Lance loved him, maybe, at least he said so, and this really was the best-case scenario. Considering all the other scenarios he’d come up with during the course of the day.

"Are you really mad?" Lance peered at him under his teary eyelashes.

Chris put his arm around his boy’s shoulders. "Not really. A little, I guess."

"I meant what I said, before. I love you."

He couldn’t suppress his grin. "I love you, too. Kiddo."

"Funny, asshole."

"You want to hear funny? I’m not sleeping with you again until you’re legal. And you provide proof. Like your birth certificate. Or your passport. Or maybe I’ll make you wait until you’re twenty-one, even."

"Please, Chris. Thursday. Mom leaves that morning."

He ducked his head. "Okay, fine. Thursday."

Fin.