The door to the club, tucked away in a back alley, lit only by a single peanut bulb over the door which had even odds of being burned out on any given night, was unmarked. To find it, one already had to know that it was there, or know what the graffiti signified. It was open; this door was always open.

He pulled on the heavy steel handle and slipped inside. The door opened onto a stairwell; the stairwell smelled like something that one shouldn't think about too closely, and the usual piles of trash on the steps scattered beneath the breeze that came from when he opened the door. Two of the light bulbs over the stairs were out again, and one was buzzing soft fluorescent pulses as it cut in and out in a syncopated rhythm. His boots clicked on the steps as he went down first one flight, then two. He avoided the slag of broken concrete on the side of one step with the ease of long practice.

The hallway at the bottom of the stairs contained a ticket window with a grate pulled down halfway over it, through which a tiny, filthy office was visible. No one was sitting on the stool; there was a hand-lettered and water-stained sign in the window reading "Ring bell for service" and a buzzer next to the window. He ignored both window and buzzer and stepped over to the door at the end of the hallway. He had a key; he'd earned a key, one night four years ago, a night that they still talked about whenever he stepped through the door. A night that newcomers were told about in hushed and reverent terms.

When he unlocked the door and stepped through, it took his eyes a minute to adjust to the sudden lack of fluorescence. The door closed on the filth behind him, shutting it out with that particular anechoic hush that indicates high-quality soundproofing. His feet sank into the carpet beneath him. The walls were a deep russet, punctuated by elegant lamps at enough of an interval to light the way, but not so much as to drown the eyes with light. At the other end of the hallway, there was a table next to another door. This one was open, and he could hear the heavy bass beat muffled in the distance.

Karilyn was working the door; she glided across the hallway with that slow and graceful pace that always made him think that she should leave no sign of her passing behind her. "Chris," she said, with a smile, and brought her palms together at her chest to bow deeply to him. He returned both smile and bow. "We haven't seen you in so long."

"I've been busy," he said, and leaned against the wall. "How's the crowd tonight?"

"Enthusiastic. You shouldn't have any problem finding a willing partner." She led him back to the door, where she didn't have to ask him to unsling the leather bag from his shoulder and set it on the table; he'd been through the routine more times than he could count. Nobody was immune to the search on entrance, not guests, not members, not staff. There was too much at stake, and somethings were verboten for the common good. "Particularly since we've got some new members who have heard the stories."

Chris groaned and held out his arms at the shoulders. "There are always newbies who have heard the stories. I swear, one of these days I'm going to do something so batshit crazy that it'll at least change what everyone's talking about."

Kari ran her hands down Chris's sides, patted his waistband both front and back, and slid her fingers along the lines of his hips and down his legs. Her fingers were warm, but her touch was impersonal. The first time Chris had seen her, he'd questioned the wisdom of hiring a bouncer who barely stood five one in her stocking feet. The first time he'd seen her break the nose of someone who'd tried to smuggle in a camera and then assaulted her when she'd politely but firmly insisted that it get checked, he'd stopped questioning. "Your reputation precedes you, I'm afraid. This isn't a bad thing, you know." She slid her hands into the sides of his boots, and then, satisfied, rocked back to her feet and turned to his bag on the table.

"I know." He fished the cell phone out of his back pocket, flipped it to silent with a flick of his thumb, and leaned under the table to take out one of the plastic bins and drop the phone into it. He'd pick it up from the storage room on his way out. He didn't bother with getting a ticket. "You guys still got my locker back there?"

"Of course. It would take longer than six months for us to give away your space." She quirked an eyebrow at him, and then nodded at the bag. "May I?"

"Always." He knew that Kari didn't often ask for permission, but he'd earned her respect a while back, during that incident where he'd broken his hand and had to make up stories for the next few months. Kari was one of the people who treated everyone with courtesy, but saved her respect for where she felt that it belonged. She unzipped the bag and began lifting out its contents with reverent hands. "I didn't bring much tonight," he assured her. "It shouldn't take you long to go through it."

She chuckled. "You've never needed to bring much. How have you been? Other than busy."

"There isn't much other than busy to tell. It's been a long, long few months. I should be around for a while now, though. We're gonna stop moving for a bit, I think." He leaned one hip against the table and watched as she spread his toys out for inspection. "To which I say, thank God."

"Good." Kari was a professional; it only took her a few minutes to go through Chris's bag and satisfy herself that it contained no drugs, no prohibited weapons, and, most importantly, no recording equipment. "Does that mean that you're finally going to get a chance to bring your boy in? I think just about everyone here is dying of curiosity to see what you could do with someone you were familiar with."

He tried to ignore the fluttering deep inside his chest and simply shrugged. "This really isn't his type of scene; he's not into the display thing. And I don't believe in pushing if I don't have to. Don't want to take the chance, you know."

Kari made a small noise of sympathy and ran her hand along the bottom of the bag, then checked the side pockets. "I don't blame you. Well, we'll selfishly say that we're glad that you're going to be around for a while. You should come in Wednesday; Liz and Miri have a showcase scheduled for midnight that you might enjoy."

He raised an eyebrow. "If I can make it, I'll be here. And I'll check the schedule to see what else is planned. Hopefully without Steve seeing me and trying to talk me into doing one."

"We'd love to have you."

"I know." Chris had long ago accepted such statements at face value. "But I've been out of the loop for the past six months, and I haven't been practicing quite as much as I should. Not to mention not having someone that I've been working with regularly enough to be able to feel confident with. I wouldn't mind something light, but nothing on the level of what I was running before I left last time."

Kari finished stowing the last of Chris's gear back in his bag and nodded. "I know." She lifted the bag with both hands and presented it to him with a small and respectful nod of the head that was almost another bow.

He took it from her, slung it back over his shoulder, and leaned over to press a kiss against her hair. "If you see anyone who should know that I'm here come in, let them know that I'm probably going to be back in Four or Five, okay? I think I'm going to ease back into things tonight."

"Gladly." She stepped aside and indicated the door with a vague sweep of her hand. "If I'm off-duty when you leave, stick your head into the staff room and say goodbye."

"Of course." He grinned. "I couldn't leave without buying you a drink, anyway."

Her smile was quick and gentle. "It's good to have you home."

"It's good to be back," he muttered, and stepped through the door.

The club had an official name, but it only appeared on pay stubs, tax documents, and the occasional discreet flyer mailing. The people who talked about it but had never been there tended to call it the Red Right Hand, which was one of the ways that someone in the know could tell whether or not someone had ever been there. The guests, all carefully checked and vouched for by at least two other members, knew it as Forty-Two. Members just called it "the club", and everyone made the obligatory Anne Rice joke at least once.

Steve, the club's owner, had more money than God and was more than willing to spend it on quality. The club itself was a little larger than a football field, divided into room after room; some cavernous, some small enough to only fit three or four comfortably. There were a few bars, enough so that there was never much of a wait. There were salons, full of chairs and sofas, where you could go to have some downtime and catch up with an old friend. There was a kitchen staffed at all hours and supervised by a chef who'd gotten tired of the LA nightlife scene ten years back. The laundry facilities were larger than those of some major hotels. The tenants in the artist's studios upstairs considered the dirt-cheap rent more than enough incentive to live in the awful neighborhood and never questioned, those of them who weren't also members, the reason for the extra-large parking lot that always seemed to have anonymous cars sitting in it. The soundproofing was a living testament to the miracles of modern technology.

It wasn't Orlando's best-kept secret, but it came pretty darn close. "First names only" wasn't a watchword; it was a fact of life, given the number of political figures, celebrities, and quasi-celebrities who attended. Any given night, at least half of the patrons were wearing circumspect black domino masks. If you met a fellow member on the streets of Orlando or elsewhere, the two of you passed each other by, eyes meeting briefly in a flash of recognition and then sliding past, uncommented. Cameras were more forbidden than guns, and anyone who was gauche enough to make reference to the club outside of its doors to anyone other than another member or a guest who'd been carefully checked was politely but firmly asked never to return again. Naming names, or mentioning details, would get you blackballed completely, from the club and from the scene; Chris had once heard tell of someone, twenty years prior, who would never be allowed to set foot inside a single establishment of any repute again in his entire life.

Chris had been a member for nearly ten years, and he needed it more than he could ever possibly explain.

He'd never bothered with a mask, despite the fact that he probably should; he disliked the way it cut off his field of vision, restricted him to only what was in front of his face. One of the things he liked most about the club was the way that the murmurs of his name that arose as he stepped into the lounge were not for his celebrity -- or at least, not for the celebrity that he wore outside the club's doors. There was a moment of readjustment as he surveyed the small crowd of people mingling at the bar, on the couches, around the tables; it always took him a few minutes to settle more firmly into the mindset necessary to spend time at the club. It wasn't uncomfortable -- far from it; he had never once felt anything other than secure and relaxed there. It was like coming home and kicking off a pair of shoes that were a fraction of an inch too tight, and feeling the relief as you suddenly had room to move.

There were people he didn't recognize in the crowd, and that wasn't unexpected. He had been away for longer time periods in the past, but every time he returned, he found another ten or twelve eager novices who'd heard nothing but the stories and wanted to see if they were true. His friends made it a habit to keep the stories alive, and the staff didn't help either. He ignored the soft rustle of Chris Chris that's Chris yes that Chris the one I told you about and headed over to the bar.

The bartender -- a tall black man with a shaved head and biceps the size of tree trunks, wearing a headset mike and a pair of black leather pants and not much else -- had been grinning across the room at him from the moment he'd stepped in. He reached over the bar to slap Chris's hand. "M'man. Good to have you home. You here for business, or just playing catch-up?"

"Mike." Chris squeezed Mike's fingers. "Bit of both." He leaned one hip against the bar and scanned the crowd, raising a hand automatically as someone he only vaguely knew hailed him from across the room. "Where's the action tonight?"

Mike reached down a glass and poured a few cubes of ice into it with a smooth and practiced motion. "The pit's been taken over by a dance party that broke out a few hours ago and shows no sign of stopping, so if you're just looking for some pretty bodies, that's the place to go. Deb's got Eleven and I think there's something going on with chocolate sauce, pineapple, and ice cubes in Fourteen -- at least, the kitchen's been grumbling about the amount of pineapple we're going through tonight, and I just don't really feel the need to ask further. You should probably at least stop in the pit at some point tonight, 'cause there's this new kid who's been coming around for the past few months who's got your name written all over his sweet, sweet lips. Used to be Miri's boy, but he's a free agent now and he gets stars in his eyes when they tell the stories about you."

"Hmm." Chris could feel himself slipping back into headspace, a slow unfurling beating in his blood that told him, more than the conversation did, that he had probably waited longer than he should have to come back. "Miri have good things to say about him?"

"The best." Mike handed over the scotch on the rocks and smiled a thank-you as Chris dropped a twenty into the bowl on the side of the bar. "It wasn't working out for them, but it was mutual, at least, and they were smart enough to realize it before things got ugly."

Chris nodded. "I think I'm not really in the mood for star-struck adoring public tonight, though. I'll take a cruise around, see if anything strikes my eye. Kari's probably let everyone know that I'm back by now, right?" The headset mike was patched into the house system, which had more channels than Chris could imagine and meant that anyone could be informed of a developing situation -- or even just a juicy piece of gossip -- within seconds.

"Minute you turned your back on her." Mike grinned. "Jas says that you'd better stick around until he gets off-duty and can make your reacquaintance."

Chris laughed. "Well, you can tell him that if I'm not busy when he's off-shift, he can track me down and I'd be happy to oblige. Thanks for the drink, man."

"Anytime. Don't be a stranger this time, hey?"

"I'll do what I can." Chris turned around and sipped his drink, shifting the weight of his bag on his shoulder. He could still hear the faint thrumming bass from the pit. It was probably worth a look, at least; if nothing else, a half hour of dancing the way he wanted to would warm him up and loosen some of the knots in his arms and shoulders.

The pit was every dance club he'd ever been in, only more so. It was decorated in what Chris tended to think of as "post-apocalyptic chic"; concrete walls, bare steel girders, wire mesh accents, with broken-down and half-snowy television sets welded together and strewn liberally around the room. Some of them showed a montage of shots from the video camera system, quick three-second clips of bodies turning and writhing. Some of them showed nothing more than static; some flickered images of the stage, which was dark and untenanted tonight, the equipment empty and unused. Some rocked back and forth between video stills of grainy footage that Chris had never seen before; some showed music videos for bands he could only vaguely place. Unlike most clubs, the lighting was bright enough to read by. The patrons tended to be the kind of people who liked to watch.

The music inside was turned up just enough to thump inside the listener's breastbone, though not so loud as to make conversation impossible. Chris didn't recognize the artist, some wailing Eurotrash techno-diva who could have been singing in English or Japanese or Klingon for all that Chris could tell. He realized it passed the wiggle test when he found himself swaying slightly in place. The dance floor was crowded, but not unreasonably so, and there were more than the usual percentage of people who actually knew how to move out and showing off.

"Sir." The voice came from his elbow, and he turned to see a girl who couldn't be a day over twenty, looking terrified and exhilarated all at once, her eyes fixed firmly on the floor in front of him. She was wearing a halter top of chain mail and a black leather skirt, with a thick black leather collar around her throat and a handcuff locked around each wrist but not fastened to each other. Chris could see the red stripes along her upper thighs. "May I serve you by taking your bag?"

Chris had always had a fondness for the ones who were bold enough to approach him. He reached out a hand and tipped up her chin. Her eyes were green, and she bit her lip but took his touch as permission to look him in the eye. "What's your name?" he asked.

"Jessica," she said, softly. "My Mistress sent me to serve you, if I should please."

She had long black hair and Chris caught himself thinking that it would make a perfect handle. He scanned the room quickly and saw the woman, another one he vaguely recognized but couldn't put a name to, leaning against the bar and watching carefully. He nodded to her, then looked back at Jessica and weighed her, assessed her, with his eyes. "Thank you for your service," he said, carefully, fitting his mouth back around the rites and rituals. "You do your Mistress credit. I'm going to dance for a while; you may place my bag over at one of the tables."

She slid to her knees and bowed her head. Chris slid the strap over his shoulder and placed the bag and his drink in her waiting hands, then brushed his hands over her hair. "Thank you, sir," she said, clearly, and Chris turned his back on her and sketched a brief bow across the room to the woman standing at the bar and watching them both. He knew that he'd come back from the dance floor to find that his things were safe and his drink was untouched.

The music switched, one song blending into the other so deftly that only someone who was listening for it could have told the transition point. Chris slid his hands quickly through his hair, and then slipped through the small knots of people conversing at the edges of the dance floor. They parted for him, and he could feel eyes on him as he went. He let it slip away as the music reached into his arms and legs and encouraged him to lose himself in it, and was only vaguely aware of the shifting eddies of the crowd of bodies around him encompassing his motions, working around him, dancing with him without dancing right up on him.

The club was his favorite place to dance like this. No one respected personal space more than a crowd that steadily and ritually demolished personal space as a hobby. Two songs went by, and Chris could feel himself relaxing into it. The lights cast a soft shine of neon across everything, and the static hiss of the television sets was almost hypnotizing in its irregularity. After a few minutes he stopped subconsciously scanning the crowd for familiar faces and just let himself go, dancing without choreography, without wondering who was watching him.

There was a delight that he couldn't name in being able to dance as though no one was watching. Everyone was watching, of course; everyone always watched, here. But they were watching for aesthetic appreciation, not because they'd paid a hundred bucks to Ticketbastard. That made it okay. He relaxed more and more with every passing moment, and his vague half-plan of doing nothing more than wandering through the public salons and maybe taking some time with one of the other patrons, one he already knew, started to seem less and less like a necessity and more like an inadequacy.

An Asian boy with bleached blonde hair moved past him, hips sliding with the backbeat, and Chris caught his eye and queried wordlessly. They slid around each other, never and almost touching. He had the most beautiful hands Chris had seen in weeks. There was a thin metal chain around his neck, snug and tight against the hollow of his throat, and Chris wondered if this was the boy Mike had told him about. The music changed again, and Chris was ready. He looked a thank-you with his eyes and the boy dropped his eyes and smiled, then let the motion carry him away. Chris made a mental note to look him up later, if he saw the kid outside the pit and in one of the other rooms.

The music and the motion were dancing in his veins as he made his way back over to the table where Jessica had left his bag, and the minute he sat down, another body joined him. "You're in damn good shape, old man," Erik said, and slid the bottle of water across the table to Chris's hand.

"Watch who you're calling old man, old man," Chris said, and drained half the bottle with a single motion. "If you really feel like it, I could always demonstrate what 'damn good shape' looks like later."

Erik grinned at him. He played one side of the field exclusively, had for as long as Chris had known him, but that didn't mean Chris couldn't tease. "You here to play, or just to watch?"

"Play," Chris said. "God, you have no idea how much I need it."

Erik nodded. "You got anyone in mind for the night? Half the place is buzzing about you being here tonight; you know the dance party would break up in a second if you decided to take the stage."

It was why Chris had come, but no matter how many times he set foot inside the club, the fifteen minutes before making the call always made him nervous. His mouth made the decision for him before he could really think about it. He'd been planning to take one of the rooms down at the back of the hallway, after a snack and maybe a little more dancing, but the looks he was getting told him that if he tried, unless he made it a point to request privacy, he'd be interrupted twelve ways to Sunday before he even got started. "Yeah," he said. "I think I probably will. Don't know much about the current bunch, though. Anyone worth approaching?"

"Hey, I said, half the place is buzzing about you being here tonight, and half of them would strip down for you without asking. You've got your pick, man. Reach out your hand and you'd have four people kissing it."

Chris slid back in the booth and scanned the crowd. "Nobody here I've really worked with before. Saw a couple of people I know by reputation, but nobody really catches my eye. You know of anyone new and worth it? New to the club, not to the scene. I'm really fucking tired of novices."

"Here. Lemme give you a welcome-back present." Erik leaned back and lifted one of his hands, his eyes on a knot of people across the room. One boy, who looked to be in his late twenties, dressed in faded jeans and a ripped-mesh shirt with brownish hair shaved close to the head and smudges of eyeliner around his eyes, broke away and crossed the room quickly, dropping to his knees at Erik's side.

He looked like Justin, if you squinted sideways and didn't mind the height difference and the cheekbones. More like what Justin could possibly look like in another ten years. Chris shivered a little. Erik rubbed the back of the boy's neck, and he arched into it, his face blissful. "Chris, this is Matthew," Erik said. "I've been training him recently. He's my current pride and joy; I'd be happy to present him to you for the evening if you'd like."

"Matthew," Chris said, tasting the shape of the name in his mouth. Matthew didn't look up. "What's he into?"

Erik laughed. "You name it, man. I've never had a bottom who could handle more than he can. Not at all submissive, not in the least, but oh, can he ever take it. You look like you could use a good long workout; take him. He's yours for the night."

"Matthew," Chris said again, and the boy was well-trained enough to recognize when his name was the sound of someone trying to get his attention. He looked up through long lashes and fastened his eyes on Chris's mouth, not daring to look up further. "Would you consent to me, Matthew?"

"Yes, sir," Matthew said, barely audibly enough to be heard over the music. "It would be an honor."

Chris slid over to the edge of the booth and fitted a hand against Matthew's cheek. His skin was warm and soft. "Have you heard the stories, Matthew? Do you know what I'm about?"

Matthew's lips parted and he leaned into the touch, ever so slightly. "Yes, sir. I have. I do. And it would be an honor."

That was a decision. Chris let his hand drop, then knocked back the last of the bottle of water. "How long would you like to remember it afterwards, Matthew?"

Matthew breathed in sharply, then out slowly. "Sir -- two days, sir. So that I can still feel you tomorrow, sir."

Chris nodded. "Go and stand by the stage. I'll be along in a moment."

"Yes, sir." Matthew rose to his feet slowly, then took another breath and began making his way over to the steps.

Chris looked back at Erik. "He's beautiful."

Erik hid a smile. "I know. I've never pushed him far enough to safeword." Given what Chris knew about Erik's style, about how similar it was to his own, that was saying a great deal indeed. "Try not to break him too badly, all right? But enjoy yourself. You look like you need it."

"You have no idea," Chris murmured, and rose to his feet. "Thank you," he said, closing his hand briefly around Erik's bicep. "I appreciate it."

"My pleasure," Erik said. He leaned his elbow on the table and reached over to take the glass that had been sitting there since Chris had entered the pit. "I'll just stay here and watch the show."

A few people had noticed the byplay, and it passed through the crowd in a wave as Chris stood, gathered his bag, and crossed over to the bar. Beth was working the bar inside the pit, and she was already grinning when Chris stepped up. "May I take the stage?" he asked.

"By all means," she said, and gestured for him to go before clicking the button on the control pack at her waist. He wasn't close enough to hear what she said into her headset, but the lights came up on the stage and the music faded.

There was a brief rill of disappointment from the crowd as the DJ brought the music down, but it turned into soft satisfaction as Chris strode across the floor. Chris yes that Chris back from being gone Erik's boy Matthew God get Sharla in here can't wait to see him work again washed over him and he brought his eyes up to the DJ booth as he went, gesturing slightly. The music changed again, and Chris smiled, because whoever was in the booth tonight remembered his preferences. Apollo 440 slid into the background. The crowd began rearranging itself, subtle jockeying for position, as Chris came up beside Matthew.

"Do you consent to me, Matthew?" Chris asked, softly enough that only Matthew could hear.

Matthew was shivering, from anticipation or maybe from nerves. "Yes, sir."

"Do you know what I'm going to do to you, Matthew?"

"You're going to hurt me, sir."

"What do you want me to do to you, Matthew?"

"I want you to hurt me, sir."

Chris loved the ritual. It was in his blood, he thought sometimes. "What's your safeword, Matthew?"

Matthew licked his lips. "Vermont, sir."

Chris nodded. "All right." He rested his hand on Matthew's cheek again. "Thank you for what you are about to give me, Matthew."

Matthew twitched at the touch. "Thank you, sir. I promise I will serve you well, sir."

Chris nodded again. "Strip down to just your underwear. I want to see skin. Up on the stage, and against the cross."

"Yes, sir." Matthew took another deep breath and then climbed the stairs. Chris knew that every pair of eyes in the pit was on them, and knew what that was doing to Matthew. The stage lights came up, set to low, and Matthew took off his clothes and folded them neatly, placing them on one of the stools.

Tracy and Joaquim, two of the pit staff, converged on him just as he was taking his own deep breaths and preparing to follow. "Steve says that he was hoping you'd volunteer," Tracy said, and handed him two towels. "If you need anything, just signal. We'll keep things good down here."

Chris nodded. "I'm probably going to need some help taking care of him afterwards. I'll let you know."

Joaquim circled Chris's wrist briefly, and then stepped aside. "Do well, man."

"Planning on it."

The pit's lights dimmed as he climbed the stairs to the stage, and the lights on the stage rose even further. It was a sweet lighting design; there was nowhere Chris might stand and have light right in his eyes, but he knew that the audience could see every inch. It was a refreshing change from standing on stage and being unable to squint out past the third row. He knew he made an unprepossessing figure in his plain jeans (with the inset at the crotch, enough to give him free range of motion) and sleeveless black shirt, black leather armband so familiar against his left bicep that he only barely registered its presence. He was far from being the most attractive person in the room, and was certainly nowhere near the best-dressed. It didn't matter; everyone there could see it, even through the clothes. Matthew could see it; Chris could see him trembling, ever so slightly.

"Come here, Matthew," he said, and put his bag down on a stool next to the large St. Andrew's cross at center stage.

Matthew was at his side before he could even finish speaking, eyes downcast, hands clasped together at the small of his back. Chris wanted to lick the line of skin at his neck that trailed down to curve into his collarbone. He settled for pressing the tips of his fingers against the base of Matthew's neck, where the pulse thrummed. Matthew closed his eyes and breathed out, sharply.

Chris just held there for a minute, feeling the skin beneath his hands, feeling the energy that tensed and curled and unfurled beneath that skin. He trusted Erik, trusted Erik's assessment of Matthew's limits, but there were some things that he had to feel for himself. Matthew's pulse fluttered under his hand like a trapped bird, but there was a core of solid depth waiting there for Chris, iron determination. He could feel it. It reached out for him, circling his hands, begging him without words to do his very best. Or perhaps his very worst. He stood there for a long minute, then slid his hands down Matthew's chest. Yes, this was precisely what he needed. He reached inside of himself for the still small place where it all came from, and then nodded.

"Against the cross," he said. "With your back out."

Matthew breathed in and out and then nodded. "Yes, sir."

The crowd was beginning to buzz, and Chris closed his eyes for a minute to try to shut it out. There was respect there, and a desire to be unobtrusive, but he still needed to concentrate. Too many voices would ruin it. That was what the music was for, to block it out. "Do you want a blindfold?" he asked Matthew, opening his bag and running his hands through its contents. "Or do you prefer to see as much as you can?"

Matthew licked his lips. "Please, sir, if -- I'd like to see it. If it pleases you. Sir."

"Good," Chris said. "I like for you to know what's going on."

The first thing he took out of his bag were long strips of leather, curled around themselves into tight circles. Four strips; four limbs. Handcuffs were for amateurs, and he'd never liked the way that rope marks looked afterwards. The strips were soft against his hands. A soft ripple ran through the crowd as he sank to his knees beside Matthew; he knew that they recognized the position, spine straight, knees turned out, neck gracefully arched. It wasn't usual for someone on his end of the whip to kneel like that, but Chris had always found it comfortable. Comforting.

He began at Matthew's ankles, working up to the knees, binding flesh to wood. One circumference to start it off, with a length at the end to tuck underneath the rest of them, and then concentric circles around Matthew's legs. With each turn, he looped the leather back underneath itself. He didn't tie the ends; he knew that they would hold. He stopped after each few wrappings to run his hands along Matthew's calves, soothing and stroking the way he might calm a skittish horse. Matthew shivered again and flexed his fingers against the wood of the cross, waiting.

One leg, and then the other. He could tell that the room was filling up as word spread. Carefully, he tucked the leather down around itself, cinching tightly just above Matthew's knees, and then rose to his feet, a little less gracefully than he otherwise might have liked. His knees cracked once and then fell silent.

"Beautiful," he said, stroking one hand down Matthew's back, before arranging Matthew's arms the way he wanted them. He paid careful attention to the stretch and splay of muscle, knowing that this was going to be a long scene. Knowing that he didn't want to leave Matthew cramped and aching from the position, not when he was offering up this beautiful gift so freely. Matthew whimpered a little, and Chris knew that if he looked, Matthew's eyes would be glassing over. The process calmed him, the way it always did; it set him apart, put him where he needed to be, just studying the lines and the shift and play of muscle under tanned and lovely skin. He dug his fingertips into the knot he found under Matthew's left shoulderblade, and Matthew moaned lightly, letting his head fall back with the pleasure of it.

"Beautiful," Chris repeated, and worked his thumbs into Matthew's shoulderblades, massaging gently. He hit a particularly tense spot, and Matthew let slip another one of those soft moans. It was music to Chris's ears, and he let it wash over him. "Such beautiful skin. Such a beautiful body." It was relaxing Matthew and exciting him all at once, and Chris kept his hands gentle and soothing as they moved. "Are you ready for me, Matthew?"

Matthew's voice was breathless. "I'm ready, sir. I'm not worthy of your attention, but I hope to please you."

"You do," Chris breathed, and stood on his tiptoes to press a kiss against the back of Matthew's neck. Matthew shivered again, once, and it rippled through his body but could not go far against the restraints.

Start slowly. Chris chose his favorite flogger first, a soft thing with a good handle and sweet balance. It fell into his hands as though it had been made for him, which it had been. It had been a present, years before. He tucked its twin into his waistband and stretched his arms over his head, rising on tiptoe again. It felt good in his shoulders. He stepped behind the cross and held up the flogger in both hands, presenting it for Matthew's inspection ceremonially. Matthew took another breath and nodded, and Chris held it up for Matthew to kiss before walking back and taking up his place.

There was plenty of room on the stage, more than enough for Chris to swing the flogger once or twice, re-familiarizing himself with its weight and heft. He touched its hilt to his shoulder in meditative salute to the figure stretched out in front of him, and there was a collective indrawn breath from the crowd before Chris sent it whistling through the air. Its tongues tasted that tanned flesh in a quick one-two, forward, backward, X marks the spot. The crack of suede against skin sounded loudly across the stage. Matthew jumped and hissed at the touch, just a little kiss of pain before the main course.

The sound of it brought Chris slamming into the back of his own head. It was everything. It built him up and it broke him down and it centered him and set him flying all at once. He was out of practice; the stroke had been precise, but not precise enough. He didn't want to dishonor Erik's gift or Matthew's submission with sloppy work.

Concentrate. Chris closed his eyes for a minute and looked for the place of quiet inside himself, touched it, let it fill him. The noise of the crowd faded in his ears. He swung the flogger again in a circle, a figure-eight, speeding up slowly until the tails whistled in the empty air. He knew that Matthew could feel the tiny displacements of breeze against his back, knew that it would leave him wondering when the next strike would fall.

It was all in the wrist. It always had been. Chris swung again, and this time he connected, whoosh-slap of suede striking skin, and that one felt better. More precise. He sent the flogger dancing again, and the third set of lines landed exactly where he'd intended for them to land, overlapping the edges of the second with less than a quarter-inch to spare. Yes; that was it. It had been so long since he'd gotten the chance to work with someone like this, someone he wasn't simply trying to teach a lesson.

Third stroke gave way to fourth; fourth to fifth, and Chris picked up the pace. Easing into things had its place, but he needed, so badly. Matthew started to relax into it; his shoulders jerked with every touch of the lash, but Chris wasn't using enough force for it to do much more than sting and redden the flesh. The first few minutes were always there to get the blood moving.

One, two, harder and harder, and Chris picked up the rhythm, plucking the other flogger out of his waistband with his left hand. He closed his eyes and swung again, right hand, reaching out for the presence of Matthew with those senses that he couldn't explain in anything so clumsy as words. When you spent so long with so many people in such close quarters, you learned the prickling sense of other people's skin near to you. Once you learned to use that sense in other contexts, you could discard some of the usual safety precautions, like always keeping your eyes open and planning every movement you make well before you make it. He opened his eyes again just as the blow landed, and he had been right; he had found it. He was ready.

Right hand, left foot, left hand, right foot, and it wasn't a pattern; it was a dance, graceful and flowing, turning and twisting and striking and retreating. The edges of the flogger, spent of velocity, kissed his own back, his own shoulders, his own thighs as he whirled like a dervish. He let his eyes slip closed. Matthew's breathing was heavy in his ears, and he couldn't hear anything else but the hiss and crack of suede traveling through air. It built in his arms, the long slow burn of muscles straining to strike with precisely the right amount of force. He stepped, swung, struck. He'd always liked playing in spaces where he could move with it.

The music from the booth upstairs was hissing through his blood, but the music that Matthew was making was even more beautiful; soft breathy whimpers and the slam-thud of suede against skin. Crack, crack, crack-crack, each sound a syncopated beat in the music Chris was making, staccato impacts counterpointed with legato moans and the low swift susurration of the crowd. He was sweating like a racehorse after a few minutes of it, not from the exercise but from the concentration of it, from the need to reach out to the sense of his partner on the stage while blocking out the senses of the crowd. He tossed his head to shake a line of sweat out of his eyes as he turned again, twin lashes in endless motion. Concentration, focus, discipline. Those were the watchwords he had learned; they were the watchwords that he followed.

That was the last thing that he remembered thinking for a long and happy time, until the burn in his arms intruded on his conscious thought. Matthew was whimpering, flinching every time he heard the whistling through the air, waiting for the next strike. His skin was beautifully red. Chris could feel it snapping underneath his own skin, the tugging aching pulling need of it all. He let the steps of the pattern draw to a close, slowly, until he was running the edge of one of the floggers down Matthew's back, caressing the sensitized skin. He knew that if he stripped himself naked as well, his arms and shoulders and thighs would be just as red; the sting of his skin where the flogger had licked it was nothing short of exquisite. He could only imagine what Matthew was feeling.

Some kind soul, probably Tracy, had brought him a pitcher of water and a glass with a straw when he hadn't been looking. He drained half the pitcher in a single draught, then stowed the floggers back in his bag, plucking up another toy and tucking it in his waistband before picking up the glass and filling it. He brought it around the cross. Matthew's eyes were glassy; he wasn't entirely there. "Drink," Chris said, proffering the straw.

"Th -- thank you, sir," Matthew stammered, and bent his head to do so.

"Tell me how you're feeling," Chris said.

Matthew took a long hiccupping breath. "Sir. I'm -- it hurts, sir."

Chris nodded and leaned against the cross. His tone was conversational. "But not as badly as you thought it would, hmm?" Matthew looked uncertain for a moment. Chris smiled. "It's all right, answer honestly."

"No, sir. Not as much as I thought it would."

Chris replaced the glass on the table after taking another long sip himself. "You don't have any scars, Matthew. No marks on that skin. Is it just that you don't mark easily, or has no one ever taken you that far?"

Matthew swallowed. "A little of both, sir. I've been pretty far, but -- I heal quickly. I've never found anyone who -- who --"

"It's all right." Chris pressed the tips of his fingers against Matthew's lips. Matthew mouthed at them, instinctively, turning his head to nuzzle. It set off uncomfortable associations in Chris's head. His voice got a little sharper than it should have been. "How far do you want me to push you, Matthew?"

Matthew was silent for a long minute, and then took another deep breath. "Please, sir. I -- I want you to."

"How far, Matthew?"

The answer came more quickly, more readily. "As far as you want to take me."

"As far as I want to take you, what?"

"...As far as you want to take me, sir. I want you to."

Chris nodded, and then rested the palms of his hands against Matthew's cheeks, trapping his face there. "Look at me, Matthew."

Up close, Chris could see that Matthew's eyes were a pale shade of blue, and there were freckles dusted across his nose. He stroked Matthew's cheekbones with his thumbs. "I'm going to hurt you, Matthew," he said, keeping his voice even. Trying to swallow how much he wanted it. "I'm going to whip you until I make you scream, and then I'm going to whip you some more, and I do it not because I want to make you feel, but because it gives me pleasure to do so. Do you understand me?"

The crowd was growing restless; all they could see was Chris holding Matthew's face and talking to him. Chris shut them out. All he could see was the hesitation in Matthew's eyes, hesitation that smoothed over into acquiescence even as he watched. "Yes, sir." A half-beat pause, and then Matthew added, "Please, sir."

Chris nodded, and once more rose to his toes to brush his lips over Matthew's forehead. "You have my permission to scream," he said, and stepped back.

He pulled the cat-o-nine-tails from his belt and ran the edges of the braided leather, steel-tipped and vicious, through his fingers. They clicked and shifted against each other with soft chimes.

Now.

He turned sideways with his elbow pointed at Matthew and the cross and held the cat across his body, his arm lying easily against his chest. His joints cracked three times -- shoulder, elbow, wrist -- before the blow landed. Matthew's shoulders jerked, and he swallowed a cry. The marks from the steel caps, purpled and angry, formed a perfect half-circle. Chris studied them for a moment, and then realized what was missing. "Count them off," he said. "I want to hear you counting."

"Yes sir." Matthew's voice was strangled. "One, sir."

Chris drew his arm back again, and studied the canvas laid out before him with an eye for symmetry. He wanted to hurt as much as Matthew wanted to be hurt, but there was an aesthetic to keep in mind. He shifted his hand on the hilt of the cat, searching out the most comfortable holds with his fingertips, and let some of what he always kept penned up spill free.

It rose out of him to claw at his throat and urge him onward. He kept just enough presence of mind to pull back at the very last second, strike just that fraction of an inch less than it would take to draw blood. "Two, sir," Matthew gasped. The third blow was landing before he could even finish speaking.

One swing after another, lines adding onto lines, moving in a carefully crossed pattern. Each line flared red for just an instant before welting purple. Chris held onto the sound of Matthew's cries, the bitten-off numbers falling from Matthew's lips.

It wasn't enough; it was never enough to satisfy that part of him that wanted to tear and rend. It was too much to satisfy the part of him that kept him awake at night. He could feel the awareness of it, the need of it, sinking through his arms and chest and straight down into his groin; preternaturally, uncomfortably sexual. He wanted to push forward; he wanted to pull back. Wanted to keep going until he drew blood, wanted to pull back and tamp down that part of him that told him more, faster, harder.

He gave into it, just a little. Just enough. "Nine," Matthew said on a rising yell, and suddenly Chris saw Justin in the curve of Matthew's shoulders and the way he tossed his head.

Lance looks up from the cat-o-nine-tails that Chris has just placed in his hand and frowns. "I don't know -- I don't want to hurt him."

Justin is standing in the doorway, arms over his head, trussed to the bar there that no one has ever gotten an answer when they ask about. He's standing on the tips of his toes, and he's blindfolded, and there are fading bruises on his thighs and calves. Chris leans over and closes Lance's hand around the hilt of the cat. "Yes," he says. "You do. And he wants you to."

Lance isn't holding it right, isn't handling it with enough respect, isn't looking at Justin with the proper sense of wonder and amazement. Lance doesn't know where to reach inside of himself to find it, doesn't know how to let go and give in and embrace it.

Lance is scared.

Knowing that doesn't make it any easier when Lance shakes his head. "I don't know how."

Chris closes his eyes and reminds himself that not everyone knows the proper rituals; not everyone learned them at the other end, knew them as a set of rules that were no less strict for being unwritten. Reminds himself that this is what Justin wants, and this is what Justin needs, and this is what Lance wants and needs too. Reminds himself that he was the one to suggest this, to allow it, to permit it. Reminds himself that it's his responsibility to make Lance understand. It doesn't make it any easier to watch another pair of hands curling around his toys, his tools. Chris reaches over and closes his hands over Lance's, feeling the weight between them, feeling the way that Lance's pulse jumps and dances. "Concentration," he says. "Focus. Discipline. I'll show you how."

He takes the cat from Lance's hands, and the little flare of disappointment or possessiveness or uncertainty in Lance's eyes makes him strike harder than he otherwise might have. Later, he teaches Lance how to touch Justin when Justin is a boneless mess of tears and apologies, and he watches Lance rub his hands along Justin's shoulders, and tries not to think about what will happen when Lance takes Justin home.

"Twenty-five," Matthew sobbed, rising from deep within his chest, and Chris snapped back to his body, to the stage. The anger was sparkling through his blood; the bad kind of anger, the kind that rose as a red haze and covered everything. Matthew was limp and whimpering, held up only by the leather bindings lashing him to the cross. His back was a sea of roses and wine, stark in its lividity.

Chris looked at the single drop of blood that was welling up against Matthew's shoulder and felt sick to his stomach.

"Enough," he said, and dropped the cat-o-nine-tails on the floor, needing to get it out of his hand, away from him, as quickly as possible. He crossed the stage in two steps and pressed his hands against the nape of Matthew's neck. Matthew shuddered once. Chris stroked Matthew's skin, trying to find his focus, trying to remember his discipline. "Shh."

Matthew was trembling, little shakes that started in his spine and radiated outwards. "Th-- thank you, sir," he fought to say. "Thank you, sir, thank you sir thank you --"

"Shh," Chris repeated, and fought the urge to apologize. He moved around the cross to face Matthew directly, and slid his arms underneath Matthew's to wrap around Matthew's shoulderblades and rest his palms on Matthew's shoulders from behind. He breathed, slowly, fighting it back. The crowd, forgotten up until then, surged and hissed and then broke out in scattered applause. Chris rested his head on the other side of the cross from Matthew's and suddenly, violently, needed to be anywhere else but there.

Things didn't go badly wrong at the club often, but the reason that Chris kept coming back here, instead of any one of a number of other places that catered to the same audience, was the way that the staff had some kind of uncanny sixth sense about when they were needed and when it was something that top and bottom could deal with on their own. Tracy and Joaquim were on stage with him before he could even manage to compose himself enough to signal to them, and the lights cut down to "show's over" level. Tracy rubbed her hands over Matthew's shoulders and started undoing the bindings, slowly enough that Matthew wouldn't fall, talking to him the entire time; Joaquim took one look at the situation and put his own hands on Chris's biceps, turning him away and leading him off to the wings where the eyes of the rest of the club were no longer on him.

"Look at me, man," Joaquim said, his eyes steady on Chris's face. He lifted one hand with one finger out, held it right between his eyes, providing a focus. "Just look here, it's okay. Block it out. Block it all out. Just look here."

"Matthew," Chris said. "I have to see if he's all right --"

"Tracy's got him. He looks fine. Let it go, just let it go. We gotta make sure you're okay first." Joaquim squeezed Chris's arms reassuringly. His touch was solid, firm, something to hold on to. It made Chris's skin crawl to have hands on him, but he knew that he wouldn't be able to hold on without them. Chris noticed, with one part of his mind that was still thinking clearly, that Joaquim had matched his breathing to Chris's own far-too-rapid inhalations, and was slowing his own breaths down so slowly as to be nearly imperceptable, trusting that Chris would follow. It was an old trick that Chris had used himself, more than once.

Chris coughed once, then shivered suddenly and took a deep breath. He held it for long enough that spots started to shimmer in front of his eyes, then let it out slowly. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm okay. I'm okay. I'm not going to freak out, I promise."

Joaquim smiled, a quick flash of teeth. "Yeah, man, I know you ain't. You're too with it to lose your shit. Everyone gets a little too far into it every now and then; all you gotta do is be sure to come back out again. I'm gonna let you go now. You gonna fall over?"

Chris closed his eyes for a minute, facing his anger, facing the rage. It curled around him and settled again, back from that mysterious well from which it had arisen, and he opened his eyes again and nodded. "I'm good. I'm okay. Thanks."

"Welcome." Joaquim took his hands away, holding them there just a few inches above Chris's skin, ready to support him again if he needed it. Chris could feel his presence, lingering there, ready to hold him up. "Bad headspace?"

Chris licked his lips and then nodded. "Some shit I didn't realize I was carrying around with me." He glanced out to the stage, where he could see Tracy rubbing Matthew's shoulders with a presumably-damp towel and supporting him with a hand against his shoulder until he was ready to walk again. "God, I really laid into him."

Joaquim glanced over as well, and then shook his head. "Kid's solid. I've seen him take twice as bad and still not fall over. He gets off on it, don't worry. It's why he keeps coming back here."

Chris shook his head. "I don't mean just that. God, I've done more damage than that before, but never while I was so far gone." He blew out air through pursed lips. "Fuck, Jo, I broke the trust. I broke the fucking trust. It's a miracle you guys didn't have to come up there and get me down." He watched Tracy rubbing Matthew down and talking soothingly to him, and the shame rose in his chest. Before he could think better of it, he strode back out onto the stage, kneeling down next to where Tracy and Matthew were sitting on the floor.

Matthew struggled to try and kneel when he saw Chris, and Chris put a hand on his shoulder to keep him from having to move. "Shh," he said, and took the towel from Tracy. He watched carefully as he rubbed Matthew's arms and legs, and was relieved to find that Joaquim had been right; Matthew would be fine. He might not have even noticed. Part of him was glad for the saving of face; the rest of him knew that he would know it, and that was enough.

"Thank you, sir," Matthew said, and folded over to rest his head against Chris's thighs. Chris shut out his thoughts and tried his damnedest to see Matthew as Matthew, nothing more. No one more. He stroked the back of Matthew's neck, and after a long moment, Matthew pulled back up, smiling shakily.

"You did beautifully," Chris told him. "Go back to Erik, and tell him that I owe him a considerable debt."

Matthew nodded. Chris struggled to his feet and held down a hand to help Matthew up; Matthew was far steadier than Chris would have expected. There was another soft smattering of applause from those members of the crowd who hadn't stopped paying attention when the music had gone back up to full dance level.

Tracy came up behind Chris as they watched Matthew slide across the floor. "You're lucky nobody noticed that but us," she said, her voice low. "Dammit, Chris, you know better than that. I don't know when you checked out, but you weren't here at all for the second half of that, and you know the code. You know it cold."

"I know," he said. He could feel himself flushing; he felt like a rank amateur again for the first time in years. "Dammit, Tracy, I know. I don't know what the fuck happened there. I shouldn't have pushed myself, but it didn't feel like I was pushing. I can't believe I --"

"I don't want excuses." She put a hand on his wrist to soften the sting of her words, but she didn't pull her punches. "Go downstairs, go out to the main bar, get yourself a drink, and then go home and sleep it off. Come back tomorrow or Tuesday, when you've got your shit settled, and start slowly again. I don't think you should take on something that big until you've dealt with whatever this is."

It stung. It stung worse than the way that the flogger had, worse than any leather could have. He bit it back and gathered his toys, tossing them into his bag with a lack of care that showed him more deeply than anything else could have just how shaken he was. "Yeah. Yeah, I will."

Tracy nodded and stepped away without saying anything more. Chris zipped up his bag and left the stage, resisting the urge to look back over his shoulder. He could still feel the anger, sleeping underneath his skin, red and raw and aching. It clawed into him, digging its nails against him, making him want to set it free. The worst part was that even through the shame, even through the disappointment in himself, he still wanted to strike, to hurt, to find someone and let it all out. Whip, cane, crop; he didn't care. He needed.

It still burned when he slid out the door to the pit and up to the bar. Mike handed over another drink without needing to be asked for it -- gin and tonic, handful of ice, mostly gin with a little bit of tonic waved in its general direction -- then did him the favor of not asking, not saying anything. Chris knew that he knew. The entire damn staff knew, and probably had the minute Tracy and Joaquim had hit the stage. Chris slumped against the bar stool and knocked back half of the drink before he could catch his breath. The ice was cold against his teeth.

He should have known better. He should have known better; he should have known that he was too raw, too aching, to trust himself in anything less than a scene with someone whom he knew, whose reactions he could read. He'd told himself beforehand; he'd known, and he'd done it anyway, and it was his own damn fucking fault. He should have known better than to let himself let go. He should have known better than to take on anyone other than someone with whom he was intimately familiar, someone who his instincts knew how far he could push even if his mind didn't.

The problem was that there was currently only one person he knew that well, only one partner he could trust himself with when the need had built up in him so badly, and that person was halfway across Orlando and blissfully unaware of what Chris was thinking. And even then, Justin wasn't it, not entirely. He'd never been able to lose himself with Justin, never been able to forget for even so much as a minute what a responsibility he carried. When he hurt Justin, it was because Justin wanted to be hurt, not because Chris wanted to do the hurting. With Justin, it wasn't about what Chris needed; it was about what Justin needed, and Chris could give to him. What only Chris had been able to give to him, up until that night when Lance had opened a door and walked through it.

The tang of failure was sharper than the bite of the gin. Failure as Justin's friend; failure as Justin's Master. He'd failed Justin as a friend by letting the jealousy get to him; he'd failed Justin as his Master by letting it go until it got so bad. He was supposed to be the person who reined Justin in and kept him from pissing off the rest of the world. How could he do that if he couldn't even keep Justin from pissing him off?

How could he call himself responsible if he could lose his head so badly just because some kid reminded him a little bit too much of Justin? He'd let Lance wear his armband; he'd held Lance's hands as he learned the crop, the whip. He'd done it himself. He had no one but himself to blame for the way his chest seized every time the word "Master" fell from Justin's lips directed towards Lance and Chris had to catch himself from responding.

Chris had never collared Justin; had never needed to, had never risked it. The armband was collar enough, and more easily passed off as a fashion statement. Lance had; he'd buckled the collar around Justin's neck and Justin had arched his back and turned his head and looked up at Lance with that look, and that had been when Justin had gone from calling Lance "Sir" to calling him "Master". The fact that Chris had become "my Master", even in direct address, hadn't helped.

He drained the rest of his glass and put it back down on the bar, then dropped his head to rest it against the polished wood surface as well.

"Hey, man. You need a cab?" Mike didn't touch, but he was there at Chris's elbow, waiting.

Chris shook his head and closed his eyes. "No. Nah. I'm -- I'm okay. I'm just going to go home and take a shower --" cold shower, shut this down, shut all of it down, shut down the screaming crawling need, shut down the burn and the want and the way that despite all of it he was still hard and ready and his body was practically screaming for some sort of release "-- and get some sleep. Thanks."

"Anytime." Mike watched with worried eyes as Chris slid off the stool and made his way out the door.

The night was crisp and clear, just teetering on that hair's edge between cool and cold, and it cleared out his head a bit as he stepped out into it. He caught himself hoping someone would start something on the way to his car, that one of the denizens of the neighborhood would take offense to his hair or his pants or his outfit or something and give him an excuse to let it go.

He forced himself to drive five miles an hour under the speed limit the entire way home. When he got there and found JC's car sitting in his driveway, he briefly considered turning his car around and driving until he ran out of gas and just not coming back for a few weeks or months or years.

If JC was going to show up on precisely the wrong night, for whatever reason he had in mind, Chris was damn well going to make him work for it. He unlocked his front door and dropped the bag of his toys just inside the door, kicking off his shoes after it, and deliberately didn't call out for JC. Another drink, and then a shower, and then eight hours of sleep, in that order. He'd deal with the rest of it in the morning, once he'd calmed down.

Chris was nearly to the stairs when JC's voice, soft and sleepy, came from the dark living room. "Chris? Is that you?"

He turned around to see JC sitting up and peering over the back of one of the couches, blinking against the light from the hallway. It pissed him off, to see JC looking so peaceful. "Yeah," he said, shortly. JC smiled.

"Good. I came over to talk to you."

Chris could feel his hands curling into fists at his sides. "I'd hope so, considering that you're in my house. Look, C, whatever you want, can it wait? I've had a shit night and it's only getting worse."

"Actually, I think that's kind of what I want to talk to you about. I mean, I don't know for sure, but it probably is." JC stood and stretched, and the hem of his t-shirt rode up over his hipbones to reveal one tiny sliver of belly. Chris kicked himself for noticing, but he was so sensitized to it, so aware of skin and body, that it tugged at his eyes nevertheless.

He turned away from it, closing his eyes. "Not now, C. I'm filthy with sweat and all I want is a drink, a cold shower, and a few years of sleep. Now is not a good time."

JC moved like a cat when he wanted to, all silent grace. Chris jumped as a hand settled against the back of his neck. The burning arced through him, and he hissed, pulling away quickly before it could make things any worse. "What's wrong, Chris?" JC asked over his shoulder. "You know you can tell me anything."

No, he couldn't. He could tell JC just about anything. He'd spent so long not talking about it that the habit was ingrained; not only did he not want to talk about it, he couldn't talk about it, couldn't watch JC's eyes dim and lose respect inch by inch as he narrated. "It's not important."

"I'm not blind, Chris." It had been a while since he'd heard that particular level of snitty out of JC; it was firm and forceful and Chris knew with a sinking certainty that JC wouldn't take no for an answer. "I'm not blind, and I'm not stupid. You haven't said a word, but do you really think that I could watch you wearing this --" JC brushed his fingers lightly over the armband cinched around Chris's upper arm, and Chris hissed and pulled back again. Nobody got to touch but the ones that he let touch, dammit. "-- for as long as I've known you and not figure a few things out? Where were you tonight?"

"None of your fucking business." It slipped out before he could stop himself. "C, I know you're just trying to help, but this is my shit and I'm the one who has to deal with it, okay? If you're crashing, take the front bedroom." He caught himself hunching his shoulders over and growled softly under his breath.

"Listen to me, dammit, Chris." JC grabbed his shoulder again, and Chris held himself very, very still, breathing deeply to override the instinct. JC wormed his way around Chris's side, pressing against the wall of the hallway in order to reach him. Chris backed a step away and up one stair to leave himself a little bit of room. JC was standing between him and the door. "I can't stand here and say that I know what's going on, because you don't tell anyone anything, but I can tell that you're hurting over something and I'm not going to let that go by without letting you know that I love you and I want to help. You just have to let me."

"Do you have any idea," Chris said slowly, "how easy it would be for me to hurt you right now?"

JC met Chris's eyes and spread his hands. "If that's what you need to do."

The crazy thing was that Chris knew JC meant it. For a minute he was tempted, tempted to drive his fist into that perfect face, tempted to bite and scratch and rend and claw until he made JC bleed. The intensity of it scared him, and he turned on his heel and took the stairs just a fraction too fast before he could give into it. He was already pulling his shirt over his head when he stepped into the bathroom, needing to get the clothes off of him, needing to get the tide of anger out of him.

He turned the shower as cold as he could stand it and was shivering before he was even done soaping his hair. It helped a little; it cleared his head, enough so he could think. The first thing he had to do was get rid of JC; the second thing was to get some sleep, and then he'd deal with it in the morning. Not tonight. Too raw, too aching.

Of course, JC was sitting on his bed when he got out of the shower. "See, here's the thing," JC said, as though the pause in the conversation hadn't even happened. "When I first met you, you scared the shit out of me."

Chris paused in the doorway, holding the towel up around his waist, and then crossed the room to dig out a pair of sweatpants. "In case you didn't notice, this isn't the front bedroom."

JC ignored him. "And it wasn't like I thought you were going to haul off and punch me or anything, because I knew you had more control than that. And besides, you'd never hurt the people you love, at least not deliberately. I could just -- I don't know, feel it or something. You're so damn intense, sometimes it's like you just spill over onto everything else around you."

Chris closed his eyes. He really didn't need this right about now. "The one out the door, to your left. With the green walls and the tan carpet."

Something flared in JC's face in the low light, and then JC locked it away. "And I've watched you over the past seven years, watched you lock it away and cage it up and only let it out when you think it's okay and you can't live like that, Chris. You just can't. It'll kill you. You can't pen it up and only let it out when you think it's okay. You aren't giving it any kind of outlet, you aren't giving it any kind of channel, you're just holding all of it inside you until one of these days you're going to snap and I don't want to see that happen, all right? I don't know what the hell you get up to when you disappear, and I don't want to know what's going on with you and Justin and Lance --"

Chris turned, and the material in his hands was the only thing to keep him from lunging across the room. "That is none of your fucking business," he said, low and vicious.

"No." JC didn't move, didn't even raise his voice. "It's all of my fucking business. It's all of all of our fucking business, it's the only business there is. It's the business of being a friend. I don't want to know what you're up to, but you're playing with fire here, and I know enough about you to know that whatever the fuck is going on, you're the one who's making sure that Justin is okay and Lance is okay and nobody is making sure that you're okay. And Chris, I know enough about you to know that if you crack, there is nobody there to hold you up and nobody there to pick up the pieces and when I came here tonight I was just going to tell you that and then leave again. But something happened to you tonight, and now you're really not okay. And I'm not going anywhere until you tell me what it is and let me help you."

"Go home, JC."

"Not in a million fucking years."

Chris closed his eyes and held himself so very, very still. When he spoke, his voice was shaking. "Go home, JC."

The insides of his eyelids were soft and dark. His skin felt the way it used to after a scene, when the merest breath across his back used to be able to make him shudder and nearly come. His fingernails bit into his palms. There was a creak of bedsprings and he was trapped in his own fucking bedroom and there was no fucking way he wanted to deal with it. For half a second he thought that the sound of JC moving was the sound of him leaving, and then hands closed over his shoulders to hold onto him and pull him close.

Of course, he thought, with that one little corner of his brain that was still thinking, it's JC, he doesn't touch anyone else but when one of us is hurting he goes straight for us, but it wasn't enough to catch him in time. "Let go of me," he was growling, deep in his chest, "let go of me letgoofme," and every nerve in his body was on fire. It snapped through him, the need to get away, and he didn't even care if he hurt JC as he struggled. It washed over his vision, the haze of fear anger trapped away get away. He bit down hard and drove his elbow into JC's stomach and turned and pushed and pulled and JC just kept holding on.

Chris had the advantage of anger and experience, but JC had the reach and that strength he never showed until he had to. He held on until Chris stopped struggling, until Chris's hindbrain realized that he was well and truly trapped and continuing to fight would only hurt him worse. Chris didn't so much stop fighting as shudder to a standstill, his skin burning with the friction where JC had held him, his breath rough and angry in his ears. It took what felt like forever, but he reached for that shattered control with both hands and held on tightly, and eventually his muscles started to untense.

"Good," JC said. He was breathless, but Chris could still hear the control. Briefly, crazily, he wondered how much it took for JC to keep himself fighting back. Wondered if JC even had to worry about that. JC was close, too close, in his space and in his face and Chris had to slam back the urge to see him as a threat. "If I let you go, are you going to deck me?"

He couldn't meet JC's eyes. "No. Let me the fuck go."

"If I let you go, are you going to bolt right out of here?"

He'd been considering it, but he snarled anyway. "No. I said, let me the fuck go."

JC took a step backwards and loosened his grip, keeping his hands up and ready, holding them up in the universal sign for "letting you go now". "Okay," he said, evenly. "See, this is the shit that I mean."

The adrenalin left Chris's knees weak, and only made the shaking worse. He jerked back, putting another step between himself and JC. "You don't know anything about what's going on."

"Because you're not fucking telling me anything about what's going on!" It echoed between them, and then JC took a step forward. Chris backed up again. JC seemed to realize what he was doing and made a brief slashing gesture with his hands, irritated at himself. Chris snapped his head around to follow, to track it, and his hands came up to his chest and curled into fists without even thinking about it. "Dammit, Chris, I'm not going to fucking hurt you!"

"And I told you to go the fuck home, and you didn't, and god damn it, C, I've got it under control, will you just fuck off and let me fucking cope before I have to start worrying about fucking up with you, too?"

Chris's voice cracked on the last few words. JC stopped in his tracks and just looked at Chris, then his shoulders slumped and he took a deep breath. "Okay," he said, and took a step back, then another. "Okay. I'm going about this all wrong. I'm sorry."

He turned around, turned his back on Chris, and walked back over to sit down on the bed. With that presence gone, a little bit of space, Chris could breathe again. JC closed his eyes and wiggled backwards until he was propped up against the pillows and the headboard, sitting up, and patted the bed next to him. "C'mere."

Chris just watched him. JC sighed. "I said c'mere, Chris. However close you want to get. I just want to -- I don't know, pet your hair or something. Or you can just sit on the edge of the bed. I'll stay here, I won't move."

JC was wearing a sleeveless white t-shirt and a pair of pants made of some stuff that clung to his thighs. It disturbed Chris how much he wanted to bite the curve of JC's hipbone. He always came home from the club charged up if he hadn't gotten off, but the cold shower was supposed to fix that, make it so he could keep a hold on himself. It was all wrapped up in the violence, in the need, in the urges that he'd shut off before he'd found them an outlet. He didn't move. "I don't think that would be a good idea."

"Just come here, Chris." JC sounded tired. "Please."

It was the "please" that got him; it was the "please" that always got him. It took him a minute to put one foot in front of the other, but the second step followed naturally after the first, and the third after the second. He didn't dare get too close, but he sat down on the foot of the bed, never taking his eyes from JC's face, ready to bolt at a moment's notice.

JC sighed again and held out a hand. Chris just looked at it for a long moment, and then reached out to meet it, just fingertips brushing against fingertips. The contact sent a ripple of chills down his spine. "I love you," JC said. "You're one of the best friends I've ever had, and I see you tense and unhappy and upset, and I want to help you fix it. I might not know how to go about doing it, but please believe me, Chris, that's all I want. I want to help you fix it."

"I don't think it can be fixed." Chris pulled his hand back. "Not without fucking up a lot of other things. Not without fucking up a lot of things that would fuck up a lot of people, and I'm not okay with that."

JC looked like he was trying to fight the urge to reach out again. He balled his hands into fists, then relaxed them and spread them out over his thighs. Chris tensed at the movement. "Tell me about it?" It was a question, not a command. "I don't understand, and I want to understand."

"Justin is mine." Low and hot; Chris was startled at the vehemence in it, startled even more that he'd said it in the first place. "Justin's mine, and I can't just hand him over to someone else like that. Not without making sure that it's going to be okay." It was as though something snapped inside of him, and the words came rushing out. "Lance doesn't understand, he doesn't get it, not like I get it, and I made damn sure that Lance knew what he was doing, but there are some things that you just can't understand unless you've been there. There are some things that you shouldn't play with unless you know what you're doing, and I don't know whether or not Lance does. And I spent years making sure that Justin was okay, and I spent years taking care of him in ways that you just can't understand, and he was way too young when I started and I'm terrified that I did something wrong with him, made him do things because he wanted to make me happy or something, and I don't know if it's what he wants or what he thinks I want. And that still doesn't change the fact that I want to lay him out and make him bleed, and I don't even fucking know why I'm telling you this."

The shame rose to claw at his throat again. He hunched his shoulders over and waited for JC to say the words.

When they came, they weren't what he'd been expecting. JC just hummed thoughtfully, and then said, as slowly as though he were picking his words out even as he spoke, "Which bothers you most? The fact that someone else is touching Justin, or the fact that you like giving pain so much, or the fact that Lance is touching your property?"

Startled, Chris looked up. JC was just sitting there, waiting. He licked his lips. "People aren't property, JC."

JC shook his head. "No, they're not, not that way, but -- Look, Chris, this isn't my scene, okay? But I know a little bit of how it works. You can't move in the circles I move in without knowing some of it. You and Justin have an -- agreement, right? A contract. Something like that."

"A contract. Yeah."

JC nodded. "And it's -- what? He does what you tell him, and only what you tell him, and he gets the safety net out of it, and in exchange -- what? What do you get out of it?"

Golden skin spread out in front of him and shuddering, waiting, begging for it. "That's not how it works. I'm the one in charge of it. I'm the one who takes care of him."

JC shook his head. "That's how everything in the world works, Chris. You've got to get something out of it, because if you didn't, you wouldn't be doing it. What does Justin give you? What do you get from doing all of this, from taking care of him like that? Are you two sleeping together?"

"No." Chris jerked his head back and threw up his hands. "Not like that, it's not like that, I never fucking touched him like that, not once. Not -- that's not it, it wouldn't be right."

"Why?"

"Because --" Chris stopped short. If he only had time to think, if JC would only give him a little bit of space --

"Because it's not okay for you to want to do this?" JC's little gesture was vague, but it encompassed so much.

"Because --" Chris stopped again. He couldn't get a handle on what he was thinking. On what JC was making him think.

JC didn't give him time to think. "What bothers you most, Chris?" The question was soft, and JC never took his eyes from Chris's face.

"The fact that I fucking get off on hurting people, okay?"

It felt like a red flag thrown down in the center of the bed. It felt like running head-first into a roadblock. The nausea rose in Chris's throat again, and he brought his fist up to his mouth, pressing his knuckles against his lips and watching JC with startled eyes.

JC just tipped his head to one side; he didn't break eye contact, didn't so much as blink. "Have you ever once hurt someone like that who didn't ask you for it?"

Chris shuddered. "I --" He stopped, swallowed heavily, and then started again. "C, I --"

"I know you, Chris." JC lifted a hand as though to reach out again, and let it fall when Chris pulled back before he could even get close. He sighed. "Chris, I know you. You're crazy as a -- a really crazy thing, and you talk a big game about how even you don't know what you're going to do next sometimes, but out of everyone I know you've got the most self-control and you'd never once, not ever, hurt someone who didn't ask for it. You give. You give and give and give and you never take, not once. And you've got it all messed up in your head, like you're not supposed to want this, like you're not supposed to want to be able to lose control, and it's all tied up in this scene you play. And I'm not looking down on you for that. I'm not. It's not my scene and it's not my kink but if it's yours, that's fine. But you've got it all tied up in rules and reasons and stuff, and now you're trying to deal with something that doesn't fit those rules, and you're cracking from trying to hold onto it, because you don't have any other kind of outlet."

Slowly, Chris shook his head. JC was saying all the right things, or at least what JC thought were all the right things, but he didn't know. "That's not true, C."

The line of JC's jaw got even firmer. "What's not true?"

Chris took a deep breath. "The part about not hurting someone who didn't ask for it."

A minute of silence, and then JC nodded slowly. He kept his voice carefully neutral. "Tell me about it?"

Chris closed his eyes and tried to stay as dispassionate as he could. Tried to tell it without living it again. "It was -- a while ago. When I was first learning how to be on this side of the power balance. I was -- she was young, C, so damn young. And her owner swore to me that it was what she wanted, and I --" He broke off.

JC waited for another minute, and when Chris didn't say anything, asked. "What happened?"

Chris swallowed. "I didn't ask. God help me, I didn't ask first. She was cuffed to a chair and leaning over it, and God, her skin -- I didn't stop until I drew blood, and even then it was a struggle. And she never said anything, never told me to stop, never once safeworded. And when it was over, she was bleeding on the floor, and I remember thinking that someone was going to have to wear gloves to clean up -- it's amazing what goes through your head at a time like that, you know? -- and I -- I wanted, C, I wanted, it was like I couldn't even think anymore. I undid my pants and I fucked her, right there, over the back of the chair, and when it was all over she was screaming and she threw up and I --"

"Oh, baby," JC whispered, his eyes wide, and reached out for Chris's hand again. This time, Chris didn't flinch away. "Oh, baby, it wasn't your fault, you thought she wanted --"

"I should have asked!" Chris's fist struck the bed, and he took deep and shuddering breaths. "I should have paid more attention, I should have kept better control, I should have been able to keep my focus --"

"It doesn't have to be like that!" JC's voice cut across Chris's rising panic. His fingers tightened on Chris's, and he shook Chris's hand, roughly. "Listen to me. You listen to me. It wasn't rape. You walk the thinnest of lines on a regular basis, and you thought it was what she wanted. You can't read minds, you can't do anything other than follow the signals. You have a word, right? A word that stops it all. It might be your responsibility to listen to that word, but it's also her responsibility to say the word. And if she didn't, you couldn't know."

"I was a fucking animal. I didn't -- I shouldn't have let myself go like that, I shouldn't have let myself fuck her like that, not that rough, not that vicious. Control, you've got to keep control when you're having sex --"

JC shook their twined hands again. "Chris, no, it doesn't have to be like that. You listen to me, you fucking listen to me, Chris, I have had more sex in my life than any ten other people, and some of it has been so rough that I was bruised and aching and sore for two weeks afterwards, and I enjoyed every fucking minute of it and I swear to you, I fucking swear to you, it has not fucked me up. Rough is good, rough is fine, it just has to be in context."

Chris tried to pull his hand free of JC's, but JC had him in a death-grip. "That's not -- C, that's not the point, that's not the problem --"

"The problem," JC said, "is that you can't separate out the sex and the scene, and you've got things in your head that are fucked-up about the scene, and about wanting it, and you think that you can't so much as look at someone without their consent. You think you can't ever dare to let that control of yours slip, and that's what's making you lose your control. You're fucking cracking, Chris."

"I don't know how to fix it!" Chris blurted. He hated JC in that one instant. Hated JC for making him admit it.

"I do," JC said, and let go of Chris's hand.

The room was cold and Chris's knees and elbows were still shaky and all he could think about was getting away. Until JC crossed his arms in front of himself, clutched the hem of his shirt in both hands, and pulled it over his head.

"Wait," Chris said, quickly. "Wait, hold on, what the fuck -- C, what the fuck --"

"Shut up," JC said. "You think and you analyze and you control and it's what's tearing you up." He threw his shirt across the room, and it landed halfway on the dresser and then slid to the floor. Chris's mouth was dry and his fingers itched to touch. "You want me."

"That's not --" Chris stopped, hearing himself, and forced his voice down half an octave, back into his normal register. The iron railing of the bedpost was cold against the small of his back; he couldn't go back any further. "C, please, put your clothes back on."

"You want me." JC rose to his knees on the bed and took Chris's hand again, pulling it up to press it flat against his chest. He held his hand over Chris's. Chris could feel JC's heartbeat thrumming underneath his fingers. "You want me, and I want you. I have for a long time, Chris, and I never thought I had anything that you'd want to accept from me. Anything that I could give you. And I was really fucking wrong, and I'm sorry, and I'm going to fix that now."

Chris could feel his control cracking and cast for it with a desperate grip. "C, I can't. I'll hurt you."

"I'm stronger than I look, Chris." JC tipped his head to one side and his lips curved in a tiny bit of a smile. "You guys always forget that. Let it go, Chris. Let it go. I can take it."

"JC," Chris said. The panic was rising in his throat again. His fingers curled without him telling them to, curled against JC's chest, and he could feel fingernails biting into skin. "I don't want to hurt you."

"Shut up." JC slid his hand along Chris's arm, and before Chris realized what JC was doing, had unbuckled the armband that rested across Chris's left bicep. The strap of leather looked impossibly tiny in his hand. Chris hissed and made to lunge for it, but JC pressed a hand against Chris's shoulder -- and oh, he was stronger than he looked, Chris always forgot that, always -- and held Chris down as he reached behind him to place the leather on the nightstand. "You don't need this. This isn't what this is about."

"Then what the fuck is it about?"

JC brought the back of his hand up to touch Chris's cheek. "This is about reminding you that it's okay to be intense without getting lost in it."

"I'm not something to fix. I'm not some sort of project." But Chris's protest was lost against JC's lips as JC slid to kneel over Chris's crossed legs, ducking his head down to claim Chris's mouth, warm and solid and frantic.

Chris held frozen for a minute, then his fingers clenched once and curled around JC's shoulders. JC's mouth was solid, and he licked at Chris's lips until they parted and allowed his tongue inside. He could feel the tension, the tightness of JC beating against him, lust and concern all wrapped up into one package, and it threw off his instincts. He wasn't used to feeling that. He wasn't used to being next to that.

JC's fingers kneaded his biceps, and JC's tongue explored his mouth, and he was torn between the desire to kiss back and the desire to escape. His body knew what to do; his body knew what it wanted. He clutched at JC's hips and held on like he was drowning, and JC didn't let go.

He growled, deep in his throat, and shoved. JC went sprawling backwards, licking his lips and looking startled, and Chris thought fuck it and leaned over him again, settling his hips between JC's legs and his weight on JC's stomach. He planted his hands on either side of JC's head against the pillows, leaned over, and closed his teeth against JC's lips, expecting a protest. JC's hips rose to meet his.

"Fuck," Chris said, "fuck," and that was all it took for him to tilt over the edge. Dimly, he knew that he should stop, should ask, should remember, but JC was strong underneath him and it kept him from being able to think. He mouthed at JC's throat, bit JC's shoulder, and ground his hips against JC's. He could feel his heartbeat in his throat. JC made a muffled noise and wrapped one of his legs around Chris's thigh, sliding his heel up the back of Chris's leg and holding on tightly.

"You're still thinking," JC said, breathlessly, against Chris's skin. "Fuck, Chris, just let it go and fuck me." He did something with his thighs and spine and shoulders and Chris found himself falling sideways, until they were both on their sides with their legs tangled together. JC propped himself up on one elbow and slid the other hand around Chris's side, fingers worming their way under Chris's jeans to cup Chris's ass tightly. Chris whined on one single high note and bucked his hips, then dragged his hand across JC's chest and pinched roughly at one nipple.

Fuck it. Just fuck it. JC was there and JC was apparently willing and Chris was tired, so tired, of holding on. He fumbled down JC's chest and tried to figure out the damn fastening of JC's damn pants while he lowered his head and bit JC's nipple. JC rolled over backwards and planted his heels against the bed, letting his hips lift, and made a tiny moaning noise as Chris's teeth met with his skin between them. Chris growled; JC swatted Chris's hand away from his waist. "I've got it," he said. He kicked down his own pants, and Chris couldn't remember the last time that he hadn't undressed his partner, slowly and carefully with the anticipation of what was about to come -- or ordered his partner to undress himself. JC was hard beneath his clothes, and Chris closed his hand around JC's cock and jerked once.

"Fuck," JC hissed, and brought one leg up, let the other slide down, tilted his hips towards Chris's touch. He reached over and pulled at the hem of Chris's shirt, and Chris caught himself resenting every second that he had to let go of JC in order to let the fabric pull free over his head. He bent his head again and licked at JC's nipples, one after the other. JC threaded his fingers through Chris's hair and locked his hands behind the back of Chris's neck, holding on. Chris bit down again. The taste of JC against his tongue was like gold, and the sounds that JC was making were like platinum. "Yes, yes, God yes, touch me, fuck me --"

The last thing Chris caught himself consciously thinking was that he'd never imagined what JC would sound like in bed, but he should have realized. It had been so long since he'd been listening for moans and not for screams. JC's constant litany of yes, please, God, more tumbled through his ears, went straight to his dick, and he rolled over on top of JC, pinning him down to the bed, holding him down again.

That was the way that it was supposed to be. Chris in control, his partner lying back and accepting; Chris acting, his partner being acted upon. JC had different ideas. He shimmied his shoulders, already slippery with sweat, so Chris's hands slid off of them, and pushed himself back up on his elbows to lick the hollow of Chris's throat, then suck roughly. JC tugged hard on the waistband of Chris's pants and worked his hand between their bodies to flick open the button and pull down the zipper with a quick, smooth motion. "Fucking metal up against me," he broke off long enough to say. "Come on, come on --" and something inside of Chris, already unbalanced from the alien feel of the whole situation, broke open and broke free.

JC was the one who kept enough presence of mind to reach over and fumble, without looking, for the drawer of the nightstand. Chris pushed his hand aside and jerked open the drawer, nearly spilling half of it on the floor. He flipped JC over onto his stomach with one hard shove and JC went willingly, spreading his legs and clamping his thighs against Chris's knees where Chris was kneeling between his legs and struggling to open the condom with fingers that wouldn't obey his commands. He finally tore it open with his teeth, not even caring if it was a good idea or not, and then it was on and he didn't want to wait even long enough to find the lube.

"Gonna --" he managed, and JC just wrapped his fingers around the bars of the headboard, tipping his hips backwards and looking back over his shoulder. It was the look on JC's face that undid him, and he rested his hands on that beautiful, beautiful ass before sliding inside with nothing but spit to ease the way. JC hissed, and his face tensed up, but he hissed a soft "yes, yes, God, Chris, slow, just for a minute, just go slow for a minute --"

It was torture to take it slowly even for that minute. Chris's fingers flexed and he breathed deeply, easing inside of JC by fractions and heartbeats, and JC tossed his head against the pillow and reared back as Chris sank fully inside of him. There was a minute while the world seemed to wait, poised, and then JC rocked his hips and pushed back against Chris and that was enough of a signal.

It didn't last long enough. JC's skin was hot and his body was tight and he rocked against Chris like he was starving and Chris was a banquet. He muffled a cry against JC's skin and bit down, hard. JC cried out against the pillow and Chris wrapped his hands around JC's hips and let himself go.

Hot, slick, heavy and hard, pushing, and JC was everything to him for those endless minutes before he tipped over the edge and was coming before he could even stop to catch his breath. It did nothing but take the edge off, and he slid free of JC's body and flipped him over again. JC looked up at him, unfocused and needy, and Chris slid down JC's body to bite JC's thigh and then close his mouth over JC's cock. It had been years since he'd done that. Years since he'd even wanted to, but the sound that JC made as his cock slid down Chris's throat was enough reward. JC whimpered and tangled his fingers in Chris's hair, not pushing, just holding, and his hips rose to meet Chris's mouth. For the first time in years, Chris opened his mouth and closed his eyes, and when JC finally came with a tensing of his fingers, a rippling of his thighs, a shout of Chris's name, it was over too soon.

Chris pulled back after a minute and dragged the back of his hand over his mouth. JC sprawled out across the bed, limp and languid, looking dazed and well-used. Chris caught his breath and looked down at him, chest heaving, feeling the guilt starting to rise even as the tide receded. JC ran one of his heels up Chris's back and grinned. "Yeah," he said, and pulled, enough to tip Chris off-balance and send him sprawling over JC's chest. JC wrapped an arm around Chris's shoulders, buried his face against Chris's shoulder, and stretched, long and slow and liquid, underneath Chris's weight.

"Did I hurt you?" Chris asked. The need to know rose up in him, and he propped himself up on one elbow to look down at JC. JC grinned back at him. "Fuck, C, did I hurt you?"

JC shifted his hips a little, to settle Chris more comfortably over him. "Bruised a little, but nothing I won't recover from." He lifted his fingers to brush over his throat, where Chris had been sucking. "Did I mark?"

Chris caught himself squinting in the low light to check, and then made a little frustrated noise. He was starting to be able to think again, and the thought of how little control he'd kept over himself was sobering. "That's not what I mean. Did I hurt you?"

"Chris." JC nipped at the edge of Chris's lips. "Dude, I told you, I can take it. I don't care how rough you get, I'm not going to break. That was really fucking good sex, and now we're going to lie here and cuddle for a few minutes, and then I'm going to blow you, and maybe after that we'll have sex in the shower. And then sleep, because you're right, you really do need a good solid eight hours. And tomorrow we're going to do it all over again."

"Dammit, C," Chris said, and rolled over off of JC's chest to sprawl out on his back and watch the ceiling. "I'm still not your fucking project."

JC rolled over too, throwing an arm over Chris's chest. His palm brushed one of Chris's nipples, and Chris hissed, because even if everything had been coaxed into compliance and quiescence, it was still lurking there under his skin. JC didn't seem to notice, or if he did, didn't seem to care. "Nope," he agreed, far too readily. "But damn, that was good sex, and I'd be crazy to pass up the chance to do it again." He rested his head against Chris's shoulder and stifled a yawn. Against Chris's will, one of his hands rose to stroke JC's hair, and JC arched into the touch and purred like a cat being petted. "Just gimme a few minutes to catch my breath, okay?"

Chris felt as though he'd missed something, somewhere along the way. He shook his head. "I'm still a little unclear about what exactly all of this is."

"Oh, for God's sake, Chris." JC rolled his eyes and pushed himself off the bed; Chris felt a little better, a little more back on familiar ground. He was used to keeping an eye on people walking away from him. He watched JC's ass as JC padded across the room, and then blinked when JC went not for his clothes but for the bathroom. There was a brief sound of running water, and then JC's footsteps returning a minute later as he came back with a wet washcloth. "Will you at least pretend to hold off on the freaking out thing until tomorrow? As a personal favor to me?"

"I'm not --" Chris pushed himself up on one elbow and sighed. "C, man, I'm not freaking out." He ignored the fact that it was a blatant lie. "I just -- I'm not used to this, okay? I'm not used to casual hookups with people I, uh, already knew. I'm just not sure how I'm supposed to handle this."

JC's face softened. "Here. Just lie back." He nudged Chris's shoulder again, and Chris leaned back against the pillows. JC climbed over his thighs and ran the washcloth over him. It was blessedly cool. "You tired enough to sleep yet?"

"No," Chris admitted, honestly. He was beginning to think he'd never sleep again.

JC nodded. "Good." He ran his fingers along Chris's thighs. "When was the last time you slept with anyone?"

Chris pulled back, propped himself up on his elbows. "Dani," he said. JC winced. "And I really don't want to talk about that."

Dani had looked at him, the one time he'd hinted around the edges of it all, as though he were insane. He'd learned a long time ago that it was something you had to bring up gradually, ease into discussing, send out tiny feelers and check to see if the other person had any interest in even talking about it. He'd dropped the subject quickly when she'd given even his tentative inquiries such a cool reception, and the months he'd spent trying to stuff that part of him down where it couldn't be seen, except when Justin needed him, had taken their toll. She'd apologized for not being able to be Justin, when she left him. It still stung.

"Chris?" JC asked. He waited until Chris met his eyes, and then tipped his head to the side again. "I'm not Dani."

It was plain and unornamented, a simple declaration of fact. JC waited for a minute, as though looking for some confirmation in Chris's face, and whatever he was looking for, he seemed to find it. He nodded once and settled between Chris's thighs, and his breath feathered over Chris's stomach before he opened his mouth and licked, gently, at the head of Chris's cock.

Chris hissed and knotted his fingers in the sheets. His hips came up, involuntarily, and it slammed him in the back of the eyes again, the need crawling out of hiding and threatening to overwhelm him. So much of it, built up, just waiting for an outlet. "C," he said, trying to put a warning into it.

JC just smiled. He lapped at the head of Chris's cock like he was tasting a lollipop, or like a kitten confronted with a saucer of cream. Chris watched in detached fascination as JC's tongue, pink and rough, circled around him. Dimly, he was aware of the way his hips were sliding along the bed, the way his breath was catching in his throat. It felt like someone else's body.

JC seemed to sense that. He looked up, and all traces of the smile were gone from his face. Chris looked into those eyes and his breath caught in the back of his throat, and all of a sudden he slammed back into his own head. The shock of it was like cold water running down his spine, and he could feel JC, the solid mellow energy of JC, with those hyperacute senses that could tell him the presence of everyone else in the room.

"Look at me, Chris," JC said, and Chris couldn't tear his eyes away. JC licked his lips and then slid them back over Chris's cock, and all Chris could feel was warm and wet and need. It shot straight through him and he curled his toes, with his breath trapped behind his teeth and coming out as a hiss that was halfway to a moan.

It was something small and beautiful, or large and beautiful, the way that JC's mouth worked against him. There was no doubt JC knew what he was doing, but it was more than just that. JC was there, focused, every inch and line of his body radiating concentration. Chris shuddered against the sheets and untangled one of his hands to rest it against JC's cheek. He could feel the tiny clicks of JC's jaw beneath his palm, and the tiny flutter of JC's pulse beneath his fingertips.

So long, so long since anyone had done this for him and meant it like this, not as part of something else and something larger. JC took his own sweet time, letting it build, letting it recede. His throat closed over Chris's cock, and oh, breath control, breath control, Chris was ready to canonize every single vocal coach who'd ever taught them how to subside on just a few bits of air, because JC took Chris's entire length and held there, his tongue dancing in tiny patterns, until Chris thought he might scream.

It wasn't until JC pulled back that Chris realized he'd threaded both of his hands through JC's hair and was pulling, tugging, trying to control the speed and pace of it, trying for more, harder. "Dude," JC said, wrapping a hand around Chris's cock and flicking his tongue over the head, "don't be a dick while I'm blowing you," and Chris caught himself laughing even as he realized, because nothing could be further from what he was used to.

It was as though the laughter broke something loose inside of him, and he threw his head back and stopped even trying to control it. JC grinned back at him, like his laughter was contagious -- hell, his laughter probably was contagious -- and tongued his way down Chris's dick again, sucking, licking, demanding.

Chris hissed and surrendered to it, gave himself over to the way that JC's mouth felt. It was pure and perfect and every dirty thought he'd ever thought about JC, every dirty thought he'd ever felt guilty about harboring, and there JC was offering it all up to him. For a crazy second, he almost understood, almost got it, and then JC dug his fingernails into Chris's thigh and Chris twisted his fingers in the sheets again. Coming, coming, he was coming again, all tied up and twisted and undone, with JC's name on his lips and his mind full of nothing but hissing white static.

The enormity of it all was still sending those little tiny shocks through him when he managed to move again. JC pulled back and licked his lips, a secret smile on his face, and then slid along the bed to collapse next to Chris. "Yeah?" he asked.

Chris freed one hand to lift it, then let it drop back onto the bed. His body was complaining at him, trying to let him know of all the little tensions and all the spots he hadn't realized were tense before they suddenly weren't anymore, and his mind felt like it had been freed from its previous confines and was now just running around in circles chasing its own tail. "Fuck," he said in return.

JC studied him for a minute. "Yeah," he agreed. Chris got the crazy sense that they weren't talking about the same thing at all.

"Where the hell did you learn how to do that?" Chris asked, suddenly. JC laughed.

"Here and there, man. You know how it is." He rolled his shoulders against the covers, trying to ease some ache or another, and it turned into a stretch even as Chris watched. Stretching, for JC, had always been a process that took at least a full two minutes, accompanied by little noises of pleasure and contentment. Chris had long envied him. Once done, he sprawled limply out on his back, and with one arm, pulled Chris over to hold him tightly. Chris closed his eyes and went along with it. JC's fingers traced along Chris's spine, delicately, and Chris shivered. "You feeling better?"

"Yes. No. I don't know. Some. Not entirely, but some."

"Mmm." JC stifled a yawn. Chris was one of those people who could never fall asleep immediately after sex; an orgasm lit him up, got his blood moving, made everything in his body announce to him that it was very happy with this turn of events, thank you very much, and can we do that again now? JC seemed to sense it, and put the palm of his hand flat against Chris's back. "Sleep now. 'M tired."

"You're always tired, C," Chris said. Hesitantly, tentatively, he splayed his fingers along the curve of JC's belly, and the muscles leapt and danced under his hand. JC chuckled. "You sleep."

"Uh-uh." JC rolled over again, pressing Chris down against the bedclothes, then leaned over and flicked off the light. He returned before Chris could even really register the movement, arranging his arms and legs over Chris like Chris was nothing more than a designer body pillow. "We sleep. Otherwise you're going to get out of bed and stare out the window for a couple hours and talk yourself into a major freakout."

There was something to be said, Chris thought, for taking as a lover someone who knew, intimately, all of your bad habits. The something to be said was probably unprintable in most major media outlets. His brain clicked on again, rattling through a steadily-increasing list of all the reasons why this had been a spectacularly bad idea, and he felt his shoulders tensing again.

JC sighed. It was a fond and tolerant sound. "I said sleep, man." He fitted himself against Chris's body a little more comfortably -- comfortably for him, at least -- and tipped his head back to look Chris in the eye. "Sleep is where --" He nipped at Chris's jawline. "-- you close your eyes --" The corner of Chris's mouth. "and be unconscious for a while. No thinking."

The arch of Chris's cheekbone, the lobe of Chris's ear, the curve of Chris's neck; JC mouthed them all, lips sliding over skin. Chris tensed for a second, and then forced himself to relax. A yawn overtook him, without his permission, and he was forced to concede defeat even as the voice in the back of his head shrieked at him that mixing sex and work was a bad idea, mixing sex and friendship was even worse, and this was JC, dammit, who had been Off Limits since day one. "No thinking," he said, on a soft exhale.

JC's lips feathered over his closed eyelids, and then he settled against Chris's neck. "Promise me you'll sleep," he breathed. "No sneaking out of bed."

"Yeah, okay," Chris said.

"Promise."

"I promise, okay?" The words fell from his lips, and he nearly groaned with it. Some things you couldn't go back on, and a promise was one of them.

"Good." JC smiled again, his eyes shut, and he tucked himself against Chris with a hundred tiny shifts of position until he was settled. "You can yell at me in the morning," he mumbled, half-indistinct, and then his breathing slowed and evened out.

Chris expected to be lying awake there for a long time, staring into the darkness, but JC was warm and soft and Chris's body knew the feeling of how JC slept from countless nights falling asleep tangled up on couches and floors. He was asleep before he could even register the way it felt to be able to think without the need clawing at the inside of his veins, and if he dreamed, he didn't remember it.

He came to consciousness aware of three things: one, his shoulder and arm were stiff where JC had been using them for a pillow. Two, JC had managed to spread out to take up most of the bed and all available space. Like a gas, Chris thought, and then wondered where that analogy had come from. And three, he really had to pee.

He eased out from under JC's sleeping weight, and JC twitched, then turned over. "Ten more minutes," JC mumbled, and Chris watched his face for a long minute before pulling the covers that one of them had kicked off in the middle of the night up to tuck around JC's shoulders. He padded into the bathroom, reaching for the thin cotton house-robe he'd picked up in Japan years back and slinging it over his shoulders, not bothering to belt it. When he was finished taking care of morning business, he washed his hands, and his eyes in the reflection of the mirror were deep and heavy-set despite having gotten the best night's sleep he could remember for a long time.

The coffeemaker was on an automatic timer, but the timer was set for two hours from now. Chris was never up this early. He turned off the clock, set it brewing, and watched the play of early-morning light on the grass outside the window for a few minutes. There were three stale Danish in a box on the counter and he picked up one of them, throwing it on a paper towel and bringing it over to the island counter. He'd fucked up the coffee again; it was a new machine and he couldn't quite get the proper ratio of grounds to coffee. The end result was something that tasted like dishwater that had been introduced to a coffee bean once, in its misspent youth.

Thinking about coffee is a good way to avoid thinking about what you really shouldn't be thinking about, the voice in the back of his brain taunted him, and he dropped his head down to rest it against the counter. He'd needed the good night's sleep, but the morning brought with it a number of uncomfortable thoughts. Chief among them was the way that he'd thrown all his control to the wind last night, let JC push him into loosening those bonds that held him in check. It felt unreal, surreal; it felt like something he'd been caught up in, something that had happened to him, except he'd been far too much of a willing participant.

Weird vibes, JC would probably have termed it. So many things had been weird about the situation, from the way he'd already been off-balance, on-edge, to the way that JC had been so determined, so steadfast. Chris wondered if it was always weird to suddenly change and redefine a relationship so sharply, and then remembered the way that Lance's face had looked when he'd stumbled out of Justin's hotel room, vague and blurry around the edges. He probed at the thought, sharply, too see how much it still stung.

Chris rotated his shoulders and stretched his arms over his head. The skin on his back still felt over-sensitive where he'd caught himself with the flogger the night before, and that thought brought a number of tiny details chasing back to him: the way he'd left his bag strewn on the floor of the hallway without taking the time to care for his tools, the way Matthew's eyes had followed him, Tracy's blunt pity and understanding. He winced, and realized that he'd have to go back to the club, as soon as possible, to start cleaning up some of his mess. It spread out before him, and he realized just how badly he'd fucked up and how much he was going to have to do before he trusted himself again.

And JC. He was going to have to talk to JC, and make him realize that whatever had happened last night couldn't happen again. He knew better than to get involved with someone with whom he was already so intimate, already so connected. JC didn't fit the boxes, didn't have a predefined role that Chris could fit him in. Every time he tried, JC pulled him off-course and left him reeling. He couldn't afford that. He couldn't afford to let it happen, and no matter how -- well, not good, not precisely, but no matter how different it had been to have it be just sex, instead of sex as part of something else, something larger -- no matter how new it had been, if it left him feeling like this in the morning, he couldn't make it a regular practice.

Just as he was getting ready to go upstairs and find some clothes, then come back downstairs and empty out his bag, take care of his toys, JC came padding into the kitchen, wearing a pair of Chris's sweatpants that were short even on Chris; they barely brushed JC's calves, despite riding low on his hips. His eyes were sleepy and unfocused, and half of his hair was standing up. "Bed," he said. "Cold. Not fair."

Chris couldn't quite meet JC's eyes. "Morning," he said, looking down at his mug of coffee.

JC wandered by and slid one warm hand under the fabric of Chris's robe, stroking his back. "Mmm," he said. "Morning." He leaned over and brushed his lips against Chris's. He tasted of Chris's mint toothpaste, which layered on top of the lingering taste of coffee and nearly set Chris's teeth on edge. "Coffee?"

"It's ass, but there's a pot." Chris waved a hand over to the other counter. "Couple of Danish, too. They're stale. Forgot to go to the store this week."

"You live like a college student." The complete sentence indicated that JC was beginning to crawl up the pre-caffeine evolutionary ladder until he hit the spot where he could put nouns and verbs next to each other. Chris wondered what it said about him that he knew JC's morning routine about as well as he knew his own. He wondered why his fingers were drawn to the small of JC's back, the spot where spine dipped into ass, the spot that seemed to cry out for his tongue. He let his hand fall, and JC leaned one hip against Chris's thigh and nipped at Chris's earlobe.

In the puddle of sunlight creeping across the kitchen floor, Chris could see the marks across JC's skin. A faint dusting of bruises, fingerprint-perfect, making a tiny semicircle over JC's left hip. A reddened line down the center of JC's chest, probably a fingernail scrape. A wine-deep stain at the base of JC's throat. He winced, seeing the evidence. The damage was minor, but shouldn't have happened at all. Just another sign of Chris's lack of control.

JC stifled another yawn and slinked over to the coffeemaker. Automatically, Chris's morning-after manners kicked in, and he opened his mouth to let JC know where the mugs were, and then closed it again when he realized JC had been the one to unpack that box when Chris had moved in. JC scratched at his stomach and then linked his hands together behind his back, bending at the waist and stretching his arms upwards. He didn't move like a man who'd been well-fucked the night before, except in the way that JC always moved like that. "Dude, I told you, you gotta throw in an extra scoop."

It was all too normal. Chris set his mug back down on the counter with a sharp click. "I'm sorry for last night."

JC blinked a few times, and then shook his head. "I'm not."

"I shouldn't have gone off the deep end like that."

JC added two spoonsful of sugar to his coffee and brought it over with him, spoon still in the mug. "You were already off the deep end," he said, plain as that, and swiveled Chris's bar-chair around so that he could climb, with a wiggle of his hips and an unrivaled sense of balance, to sit straddling Chris's thighs. Automatically, Chris brought his hand up to the small of JC's back to support him, keep him from tipping over. The spot felt about as good as he'd imagined it would. "Knew that back when we were all running around like chickens without heads trying to see if this band thing would work out or not."

"You're failing to appreciate the point I'm trying to make."

"Nope," JC said. "I'm ignoring it. You of all people should know the difference by now."

Chris sighed. "This isn't something that you can make okay just by sitting on my lap."

JC's eyes were serious. "No, it's not. And I'm not trying to make it okay by sitting on your lap. We're gonna talk about it, and we're gonna work out a way to make it not weird, and we're gonna deal with all the stuff that's been shoveled into your head until it's mostly okay. Or at least until you can deal with it. And you're going to sit down and tell me all the things you haven't been telling me, and I'm going to have a lot of stupid questions to ask until I understand it all, and I'm going to have to figure out a way to not fuck up things with you and Justin. And we're going to yell at each other a lot, and you're going to walk out on me, at least once. Probably more than once. And we're going to argue for weeks about whether or not we're dating -- which, dude, we're totally not, so don't start freaking out. It'll take us a while." He drained half the mug of coffee and made a face, then set it aside and picked up Chris's hands in his own, set them on his hips. "But first, I want you to fuck me backwards over the kitchen counter. Like you did last night. Hard and fast and furious."

"C," Chris said, feeling helpless. He wasn't used to it. He wasn't sure how it made him feel. "We shouldn't --"

"Fuck shouldn't," JC said, and closed his fingers over Chris's, holding tightly. Chris tried to remember where the bad idea part of things had entered into the equation. With JC sliding his hands under Chris's robe again and kneading his muscles, the voice of reason was pretty well banished.

Sometimes his life felt like a dream. It wasn't a bad feeling, just an odd one. "You gotta promise you're not going to get weird on me," he muttered, and then let his hand rest on JC's erection underneath the thin material of the sweats. "That you're not going to walk off and make this weirder than it already is."

"I promise," JC said, face solemn but eyes dancing, and slid backwards until his weight was splayed across the counter. Chris looked at him for a minute, his hair glistening in the sunlight. He could see every minute of JC's predictions coming true, and in that minute, he didn't care in the least.

*

Four days later, Chris's cell phone rang. Someone, and that someone was in for a world of hurt as soon as he figured out who to blame, had programmed it to play 98 Degrees songs. The ringtone dragged him out of the half-doze he'd fallen into, and he rolled over and patted the nightstand with one hand before his fingers closed on the phone. The sunlight was just at that line between day and sunset, and it cast violet and grey shadows. Chris squinted at the caller ID, and then flipped it open. "Yeah," he mumbled.

Justin sounded hesitant. "Did I -- did I interrupt something this time?"

"Not really," Chris said. He sat up and ran a hand through his hair, wincing slightly, and made a mental note to shower after dinner. "Just sort of napping. What's up, J?"

Justin had called two days ago, to talk about random stuff, and he'd gotten snitty when Chris had said that he didn't have the time to talk. Chris had been a step away from driving over and dealing out punishment when JC had reached over and plucked the phone out of his hand.

"Justin, Chris is busy right now," JC had said. "He'll call you back later." JC had flipped the phone shut and tossed it back down on the table, and Chris hadn't been able to decide if he'd been grateful or irritated for the interruption.

"I have to --" Chris had said to JC, and JC had shaken his head and replied, "No, you don't. Not right now. Right now we're dealing with you; you can deal with Justin later."

The hardest thing over the past few days had been learning when to let go.

"I was calling to see if we were still on for golf tomorrow," Justin said, and Chris yanked himself back from the memory.

"Oh, man, is it Thursday already? Yeah. Yeah, I'll pick you up around eleven." Chris scratched at his stomach and absently noted the bruises. "Did you confirm the reservation?"

"Yeah, I did." Justin paused, and Chris wondered where he was and what he was doing. He came back after a minute, and the shift in his voice was subtle, but Chris had been listening for it for years. "And I wanted to ... apologize. For being disobedient when I called. I didn't -- I shouldn't have. I'm sorry."

Chris sighed. It wasn't as though he hadn't thought about Justin at all, but in a way, he'd almost been enjoying the break from having to constantly keep aware of it, constantly balance all of it to keep any of it from dropping. It took him a minute to cast about and find that mindset, but he knew he'd done it when he could almost hear Justin's little shivering gasp at the change in his voice. "Do you know what you did wrong?"

There was another pause. "Yes, my Master," Justin said, and Chris knew that he was alone, or at least somewhere private. "It was wrong of me to challenge you. But -- May I ask you a question, my Master?"

"Ask," Chris said.

"Are you and JC -- are the two of you --"

"Will there be a problem if we are?"

Justin was quiet for a long minute. "No, my Master," he finally said. "I was upset at first. But I -- I don't have the right to object. If you are."

JC had put down the phone and they'd gone back to watching stupid movies on HBO. Chris remembered the way that JC's thigh had felt underneath his cheek and the way JC had been petting him without seeming to notice what he was doing. "I'll see you tomorrow, and we can discuss it," he said. "And then you'll come home with me, and tell me what else you've been up to, and we'll see whether or not you can be trusted on your own for a while or if you've forgotten everything you've learned."

"Yes, my Master." There was a breathless quality to Justin's voice, even over the cell phone. "Thank you, sir. I'll be ready for you tomorrow."

"See that you are," Chris said, and then clicked right back out of it. It felt as easy as stripping off a shirt. "Love you, J."

"Love you too."

Chris flipped the phone shut and dropped it back on the nightstand, not really caring if he missed. He stretched, slow and steady, feeling one of his shoulders ready to pop. The hand that dug into his shoulderblade seemed to know precisely where to lean in order to relieve the pressure.

"He okay with things?" JC asked in his ear, and rested his chin on Chris's shoulder, the one he wasn't working his fingers against.

"Yeah, I think so," Chris said, absently. "He'll adapt, anyway. It'll be tough for a while, but."

"Hmm." JC kneaded Chris's shoulder. "You've gotta promise to tell me if I'm doing anything wrong. I don't want to screw things up for you and Justin the way that Lance did."

Chris pulled away and turned around on the bed, crossing his legs underneath himself, and frowned. "Lance didn't screw things up." The automatic defense leapt to his lips, because even when he was mad at Lance he was still honor-bound to defend him, and then he frowned a little more, because it was true, and he hadn't realized it until he caught himself saying it. "The problem isn't with Lance. It's with me."

JC hmmed again, and then crawled the two necessary steps over the bed to spread himself over Chris's lap. JC's incessant need to touch had desensitized Chris to the point where it didn't make him twitch and want to pull away, at least. He counted that a sign of progress and ran his fingers through JC's hair. "Not with you, I think. With the whole situation. You guys just have a really weird situation going on. You'll figure it out. We all will." JC butted the top of his head against Chris's chin when Chris stopped touching him, and Chris laughed a little and put his hand back. "You should talk to Lance about all of this."

"Yeah. I probably should." The thought of the conversation didn't make Chris's stomach turn, and that too was a definite sign of progress. He'd watched Lance grow into his confidence and start making his own decisions about Justin, and he'd stood back and watched and resented. It was well past the time that they should have started making decisions about Justin together. "Yeah. I will."

JC tipped his head back and mouthed the line of Chris's jaw. From where Chris was, he could see the marks dusting across JC's skin, telltales and traces of four days in which JC had led him up to that cliff inside his head over and over again, and proved to him each time that it was possible to let go without breaking. He was almost even starting to believe it. "I'll come back over after the weekend, okay?" JC said. "If, you know, you want me to and you're not busy with Justin or something. In which case, that's cool, just call me."

"I will." Chris brushed his fingertips over the smooth section of JC's knee, which he could just barely reach. JC twitched. "I think I'm going to head on over to the club tonight. Deal with some stuff. Make sure that I really am okay. I should, before -- before."

"Sounds good." JC stifled a yawn against Chris's chest. "I need a nap, though. Like, seriously."

"Yeah." Chris plucked the comforter from where they'd kicked it once again into a tangle at the foot of the bed. He made a mental note to change the damn sheets, which had needed it a few days ago and hadn't gotten any better in the interim. "Me too."

"You have to tell me what to do, as soon as you figure it all out," JC said, and stretched back out across the bed. He yawned again. "To make everything be as okay for all of us as it can be."

Chris paused in pulling the covers up over them both, and then shook his head and settled. JC rolled in against him and curled an arm over Chris's chest, and he had stopped being surprised at how natural it felt two whole days ago. "Just be yourself, C," he said. "I think that'll probably be good enough."

yeah and it's
hard not to go to that
place in my head
that'll stop me from ever leaving this room
and it's all so confusing
because i'm all worked up
because all my thoughts are tangled into one
panicked line of white noise

drown out the voices
drown out the noise
drown out the bitterness that I have stored
drown out my wanting
drown out the fear
you know that everything i've worked for
is just gonna
disappear
   -- Melissa Ferrick

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