Chris, Lance reflected, had way too much energy for having spent fifteen fucking hours in a fucking dance studio with fucking Wade leaping around and yelling that they were off beat or not animated enough or not feeling it or whatever bug he had up his ass at any given time. Maybe Chris had been replaced by evil robot Chris. Maybe all of his bandmates had been replaced by evil robot versions of themselves. That would explain why Chris, fucking Chris with his bad knees and his rapidly-approaching-thirty body, was sitting next to where Lance was lying on the floor (quietly dying) and actually, God help him, bouncing.

"Chris," Lance said, opening one eye to glare balefully up at his far-too-cheerful bandmate, "if you don't go away and let me enjoy this damn five-minute break in peace, I'm going to skin you, and then we're going to have to find another countertenor. How the hell do you have enough energy to sit there and bounce?"

"Methylphenidate," Chris said solemnly, and Lance had to laugh. Chris on Ritalin was still Chris, still had all of the qualities that made Chris Chris; he was just manic when he wanted to be now, instead of all the time. "And the secret fantasy of skinning Wade and using him as a throw rug. Whose idea was all of this, anyway?"

"At least half of it was yours," Lance said, uncharitably. He was watching Justin and JC across the room. They were both laughing, and as Lance glared daggers of hatred, Justin locked his hands together and lifted them high over his head, rotating his shoulders and executing a quick move that looked like a cross between a spin and a shimmy. JC laughed and caught Justin's wrists, sliding behind him and matching Justin's footwork, hands running down Justin's bare arms. JC rose on his toes slightly to whisper something in Justin's ear, and Justin grinned again, teeth flashing quickly and then disappearing, as he turned his head just enough to murmur a reply.

Lance sighed. It was good that JC and Justin were happy. Really, it was. He was glad for his friends, who were clearly getting laid on a regular basis. Even though Justin had a girlfriend, and Lance really didn't want to know any of those details. At all. It was hard enough knowing what he could and couldn't say around Britney as it were. Really, he was happy for them, and the fact that he could feel his back teeth starting to grit together every time JC and Justin pulled some shit like this in public or semi-public was only coincidence.

"You look wiped, man," Chris said, stretching his legs out in front of him in a V and reaching over to grab one ankle. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Chris," Lance said. "It's two weeks away from the next tour. We've been in this studio since eight AM. It is now eleven PM. I have spent the intervening fifteen hours, minus a half-hour break for both lunch and dinner, being once more humiliatingly reminded of the fact that I am an international pop star who just can't dance. Can you do me a favor and at least pretend that you don't know that I'm the reason we're still here? And maybe leave me alone for just long enough that I can spend the two minutes before Wade starts to torment us again pretending that I'm really an accountant from Biloxi who has never once in his entire life heard the words 'once more, with rhythm this time, Bass,' shouted at him?"

He expected a snide remark from Chris, but maybe the Ritalin was providing some therapeutic benefits other than making Chris less likely to swing from the chandeliers, because all he did was hum thoughtfully. "You're not that bad anymore," he said, after a minute.

"Thanks," Lance snapped out, beginning to resign himself to the fact that Wade was going to call them back any second and he still hadn't had a moment to himself.

"No, really. No offense, man, but you used to hardcore suck at dancing. You don't now, not anymore. And it's not you who's keeping us here, it's the fact that Wade is a sadistic fucker who probably has a small penis --"

"I'm so glad that you phrased that as speculation and not personal knowledge --"

"--and we all keep fucking up the choreography. It has nothing to do with your alleged suckitude, it has to do with the fact that this tour was choreographed by a sadist. You're doing fine, really."

Lance banged the back of his head against the studio floor once, experimentally. Maybe if he knocked himself out, they'd all get to go home and get some sleep. "You aren't the one that Wade's been abusing all night. 'Stop counting, Bass! I can see your lips moving, Bass! Stop looking like you're doing your taxes, Bass! This is supposed to be fun, Bass!'" There was nothing in the world that could make Lance revert to the two-year-old whiny stage than a dance rehearsal; he heard it in his own voice and banged the back of his head against the floor again to see if that would make him stop.

"Lance." Lance opened his eyes reluctantly to see Chris peering back at him, suddenly serious. "You'd be fine with the routines if you just relaxed, you know."

"I know." Lance sighed. "I just can't seem to let go of it. The music starts up and all I can think of is not messing up the next step."

"Hm." Chris studied Lance for a minute longer, and then bounded to his feet. He left without another word, and Lance suppressed a wave of irritation -- he'd wanted Chris to leave him alone, after all. He was virtually certain that being upset when you got what you wanted meant that you had some kind of deep-seated psychological disorder. Or that you were Justin Timberlake. Still, he watched as Chris crossed the studio and slid his arms around Justin from the front to match JC, who was still behind Justin as they swayed. They stayed like that for a minute, a Justin sandwich between Chris and JC, and Lance could see that they were talking but not hear any of the words.

Chris, Lance noted sourly, had no problem dancing. Neither did Justin, who'd probably been born with extra joints in his hips to get them to do that swivel thing. Neither did JC, who could be the most spastic thing in the world until the music started and then all of a sudden he was grace on two legs. Neither did Joey, who thankfully had gone to get a drink of water and therefore wasn't still in the studio tormenting Lance with his lack of suck at dancing. No, it was just him.

Apparently, something had been decided, because Chris slipped away from JC and Justin with the same smoothness he showed when he danced, cornering Wade next. Wade's expression went through seven or eight permutations as Chris talked to him, before settling on "carefully neutral." He crossed the room and picked up his gym bag, slinging it over his shoulder and walking out of the studio without looking back.

As they finally untangled themselves from each other, JC drifted over to Chris; Justin wandered over to Lance, sitting down on the floor next to Lance's head and looking down at him.

"Hey," Justin said, casually.

"This is some sort of grand nefarious plan of Chris's, isn't it," Lance said, closing his eyes again. The floor was blessedly cool, and the knots in Lance's shoulders were just starting to unwind, and he didn't really want to have a conversation with Justin right about then.

Justin slid his hands under Lance's neck, strong fingers working at the knots at the base of Lance's skull, and Lance stifled the moan that Justin's fingers were trying to coax out of him. "Nah," Justin said. "Chris told Wade that his knees were dying again and if we wanted any chance of having him actually moving tomorrow instead of sprawled out on the floor whining like a four-year-old, Chris needed to go home, take a hot bath, and break out the Tiger Balm. Wade didn't want to put up with the whining, so he called it quits for the night. JC and I might go out clubbing, do you want to come with us?"

"Clubbing? Are you insane? We've been dancing since eight in the morning. Don't you want to go home and sleep?"

"Nah. I've been drinking coffee all day, I'm wired. Besides, this isn't really dancing, it's choreography. Totally different animal."

Forget killing Chris. Lance was feeling relatively charitable towards Chris, who had, after all, gotten them out of the studio. Or at least gotten Wade out of the studio. Fucking Justin and his boundless well of enthusiasm and his casual unthinking goddamn perfection. Justin had never had to spend an entire day counting off steps under his breath to make sure that he didn't fuck up a routine. Justin had probably been born knowing the choreography for this damn tour.

NSYNC's Justin Timberlake Falls To Death From Dance Studio Window. It had a nice ring to it. Justin hit a particularly tense knot at the base of Lance's neck, though, and Lance stopped plotting Justin's untimely demise long enough to suppress another whimper. He could hear footsteps on the studio floor next to him, and he cracked one eye open long enough to see Chris peering down at him. "See you tomorrow, Lance," Chris said, and shouldered both gym bags.

Lance lifted a hand to wave listlessly at Chris, and then glanced back at Justin. "I think I'll pass on the club thing, Justin," he said. JC was rummaging through his bag, across the room, and pulled out a CD folder. "I'm just going to head on home, take a shower, and get some sleep before having to be back here at the crack of dawn. If I can manage to get off this floor."

You'd think that after years, Justin would have figured out that the kicked-puppy look didn't work on Lance anymore. "Come on, Lance. You never go out clubbing with us. I miss dancing with you."

"You've been dancing with me every day this week." Reluctantly, Lance detached himself from Justin's fingers and struggled to a sitting position. "And I'm really wiped."

JC hit a few buttons on the stereo, and the music started again. It wasn't Celebrity, not anymore; it was one of the hundreds of cryptically-labeled mix CDs that seemed to follow them all around like lost children. It took Lance a few seconds before he realized that it was Bush. JC adjusted the volume until it was just soft enough that they wouldn't have to shout, and crossed the studio floor, holding out a hand to Lance. "What Justin is trying to say," JC said, and Lance blinked, because this was a JC that he didn't quite recognize, dark and sensual, "is that we want you to dance with us."

"Um." Lance blinked a few times. Gavin Rosdale's voice filled the studio. You have broken at me, broken me. All your mental armor drags me down. Nothing hurts like your mouth. Lance blinked again. "I don't, um. Really like dancing."

"You don't like choreography," Justin corrected, and Lance had to swallow heavily. Justin had pulled up one knee, resting one arm on it; the other arm was reaching behind him to prop him up on the floor as he sprawled gracefully. The look on his face was one that Lance would have paid a great deal of money to be on the receiving end of, two years ago. JC took another step forward and reached down to curl his fingers around Lance's wrist. Justin smiled a little more. "You've never really learned how to dance."

Your loaded smiles, pretty just desserts. Wish it all for you, so much it never hurts.

"C," Lance said. "Josh. What are you doing?" Justin was okay, Justin being predatory was close enough to normal that he could deal, but JC wasn't supposed to look at him like this, with eyes like liquid fire, swaying slightly in place to the music.

"Getting you off the floor. Come on. Dance with us."

You have soul machine stone at me. All your mental armor drags me down. We can't breathe when you come around. All your mental armor drags me down. Nothing hurts like your mouth.

It should have been ludicrous, the way JC was looking at him. It wasn't. It was setting off little explosions in the pit of his stomach, and it didn't matter that he hadn't seriously thought about any of his bandmates like that in years. For the first time, staring down that look from JC, he could almost understand why JC seemed to be the one in control of his and Justin's relationship. He let himself be dragged to his feet, and JC was there right up against him, fingers linked together behind Lance's neck.

Lance felt like his brain was slipping gears. He cleared his throat. "JC, I really, uh --"

"Shh." JC's eyes were steady on Lance's face as he swayed to the beat. Lance was sure that he'd fallen into some sort of bizarre parallel universe. Justin was just sitting on the floor watching, a little smile on his face, and Lance was virtually certain that no matter what fucked-up relationship rules JC and Justin were using, watching your semi-kinda-almost boyfriend hitting on one of your bandmates should have rated at least a spark of jealousy. Except it wasn't JC hitting on him, not really. It was just JC and his weird thing about touch and music and Lance really should have been used to it by then.

We've been missing long before, never found our way home. We've been missing long before where we'll find our way. You gave me this, made me give.

Lance felt like an idiot, standing motionless in front of someone who was dancing against him. "JC," he tried again, pulling back slightly.

JC sighed. "Lance. Just relax. All we want to do is dance with you." He looked down at Justin; Justin rolled smoothly to his feet and slipped in behind Lance, all heat and energy pressed up against Lance's back and oh god his hands were on Lance's hips.

"You know why you think that you can't dance, Lance?" Justin's voice was low, and Lance could feel the soft puffs of breath against his neck.

"Because I can't?" he snapped.

JC was the one to answer. "Because you're too worried about how much you can't dance to listen to the music."

Justin lifted one of his hands from Lance's hips and rested it lightly over Lance's eyes. "Close your eyes. We got you, baby. There's nobody here but us, and we're not going to let you go."

With his eyes closed, Lance was all too aware of Justin up against his back, JC up against his chest. He didn't know what to do with his hands; Justin solved the problem for him by sliding his own hands down Lance's arms, wrapping both of their arms around JC's waist. Trapped, there was nothing that Lance could do to free himself -- and, if he was going to be honest with himself, he had to admit that he didn't really want to. He should, but he didn't.

"You see," Justin said in his ear, "there's a difference between dancing and choreography. Choreography is when someone else tells you what steps you need to take. Dancing is when your body tells you what steps it wants to take."

He always forgot how thin JC really was. Hard to forget when his fingers were resting in the small of JC's back. "Guys, I --"

"Lance." There was finality in JC's voice. "You think too much."

And then JC's knee was between his own, and Justin's feet were bracing his, and Gavin was singing mouth, mouth, mouth, mouth, over and over again. His eyes were still closed, not because Justin had closed them for him but because if he kept his eyes shut, he wouldn't have to think about the way that JC's fingers were stroking the nape of his neck, the way that Justin's hands curled around his arms. JC was humming, unsurprisingly. JC was usually humming.

Lance had been clubbing with the rest of them, of course. He'd danced with any number of club girls, all of whom had probably been using him to get closer to Justin. This was nothing like dancing with girls. Girls respected your space, even when they were trying to get into your pants. JC and Justin weren't trying to get into his pants, but it felt like they were trying to suck up all of Lance's air, take up all of his space, crawl inside his skin and make themselves at home. It was oddly intimate. More so than sharing a bus and a band and all of your life's dreams with someone.

And -- "C."

"Hmm?"

"My hips are moving."

JC's fingers stroked a line down the vertebrae in Lance's neck, and Lance shivered. "Mmm. Yeah, they are."

"I didn't tell them to move." It sounded pathetic, even in his own ears.

Justin's hands slid down Lance's arms, letting his fingers curl around the hips in question. He wasn't directing Lance's movement, just moving with him. "They're smarter than you are, that's all," he murmurred.

"Justin, my hips don't move. Yours do."

"Yours are moving right now," JC pointed out. The final repetition of "mouth" faded out, to be replaced by some Radiohead track that Lance didn't know by name.

"Lance." There was amusment in Justin's voice, and Lance knew that if he opened his eyes and looked in the mirror, Justin would be giving him that smirk that Lance hated so much. So he didn't. "Lance, baby, you really just need to shut the hell up."

Lance closed his mouth. JC's knee slid higher in between Lance's. Behind him, Justin kissed JC's fingers on Lance's neck, sliding JC's thumb into his mouth, and Lance --

I want to, I want to be someone else or I'll explode

--Lance realized that he was whimpering.

JC was hard against Lance's hip. This shouldn't happen. Lance shouldn't have been in a dance studio that smelled like faintly stale sweat, pressed in between two of his bandmates writhing against him, with the music reaching inside his mind and rumbling against his throat, and Justin shouldn't have been sucking JC's fingers behind Lance's neck, and Lance shouldn't have been getting hard himself. And Justin really shouldn't have been slipping the tips of his fingers beneath Lance's sweatpants, just rubbing along the curve of Lance's hip, fingernails nipping over the faint ridge of bone.

Lance shouldn't have wanted to slide his hands under JC's shirt and rub his fingers against JC's bare spine, either. But he did it anyway.

You want me? Fucking well come and find me. I'll be waiting with a gun and a pack of sandwiches and nothing, nothing, nothing.

"Mmmm," JC hummed. "I like your hands." Lance almost opened his eyes at that, looking to see what expression was on JC's face, to see whether or not JC was mocking him. But it was in JC's voice, really, and opening his eyes would have made it a little bit too real. And JC's breath was on his collarbone, warm and feathery, before being followed by JC's mouth.

Lance was hardly a virgin. He'd be willing to bet that there was barely an inch of his body that hadn't had a man's lips on it at least once. But this was JC, and that was Justin behind him and those were JC's lips suckling at his skin, and Justin's palms cupping his hipbones, and --

"Oh, man, C," Justin said, exhaling on a laugh. "Make him squirm like that again." It could have been snide, but it wasn't; it was full of wonder and delight, like getting Lance to shiver really was the high point of Justin's night. Lance was having problems hearing anything but the bass line of the song and his own heartbeat in his ears.

"It's your turn," JC said, mouth wet against the base of Lance's neck, and Lance stifled another moan, his fingers clutching against JC's back.

This really shouldn't be happening.

Justin set his lips against Lance's ear. His voice was soft and rhythmic and hypnotic, twining in against the pulsating beat of the song. "You see, Lance? This is the way dancing is supposed to be. Pressed up against someone and rocking to the music. Your hips tucked up against his hips, your arms wrapped around his body. His arms wrapped around yours. It's like you're fucking, except it's vertical. All you gotta do is listen to the music, the music, let it slide under your skin and wrap around your bones. You can hear it, I know you can. You can feel it. I can feel you letting go." Justin's fingers dipped lower, ran along the crease between Lance's body and his upper thigh. "Let go of it, Lance. You think too much. Just dance."

Radiohead gave way to Rob D, that song from the Matrix, and okay, maybe Justin did have a point, maybe he was thinking too much, because he was trying to remember where in the movie that song had played. He twitched again under Justin's hands and tried to pull away, just a little, but he was trapped between Justin and JC. Justin seemed to sense Lance's hesitation; he let his hands go still, simply resting them against Lance's hips. JC lifted his mouth from Lance's skin, sighing softly, and just rested his chin on Lance's shoulder.

And they danced. Rob D slid into some Concrete Blonde song that Lance didn't know, Concrete Blonde to something that Lance thought might have been the Cowboy Junkies, Cowboy Junkies to the Cure, and Lance knew that one from all the nights of JC on the bus, late at night, harmonizing sometimes I dream, Charlotte sometimes. Somewhere along the line, JC's hands had slipped from Lance's neck to curve around his hips from the other side, sliding past Justin's hands to cup Lance's ass, and it shouldn't have felt that good, but it did. "Stop thinking so loudly," JC whispered, and Lance let himself slip back into sometimes I dream where all the other people dance.

The next time that Lance pulled himself out of the half-trance he was slipping into, he realized that his head was tilted back, resting against Justin's shoulder, and JC was nuzzling his throat. "So hot," Justin was breathing into his ear, "so fucking hot," and Thom Yorke was singing we're not scaremongering, this is really happening and what was really happening was that JC was grinding up against him and Justin had his hand on Lance's cock and then JC and Justin were kissing over his shoulder and. No. He wasn't going to play this game, not like that.

He wormed his hands in between him and JC and shoved, harder than JC really deserved and he'd feel guilty about that later, before twisting away from Justin. "Okay," he said, and could hear the ragged edge to his voice. "That's enough. I'm not going to be some kind of -- kinky sex toy that y'all share because you're feeling sorry for me."

JC stumbled backwards; Justin dropped his hands, straightening up and staring at Lance in the studio mirrors. "Lance --" he said.

Lance backed up, step by step, until his ankle brushed against his gym bag in the corner. His eyes darted in between Justin and JC, and he fought to keep his voice even. "Look, I don't care what the two of you do, but you're not going to turn this into a pity fuck." Because it would have been a pity fuck, it would have been JC and Justin the two golden boys taking pity on one James Lance Bass, and he wouldn't let it happen like that.

JC's eyes were wide. "Lance, no, it's not like that --" But Lance bent down and picked up his bag, quickly, before he could change his mind, and hit the studio door at a speed just below a run. He blazed by Chris in the hallway -- Chris, why the fuck was Chris there, watching with an expression that said he'd seen the whole thing and wasn't that just fantastic -- and took the stairs two at a time down to ground level.

"Lance!" Justin was yelling after him. "Bass, you fuck, did you stop to think that it might have nothing to do with pity at all, that it might possibly be because we want you, and if you're going to storm off like a fucking diva you're saying that you don't want us --" And then Chris was there, in the rear-view mirror as Lance yanked the seatbelt around him and fastened it, with one hand on Justin's chest keeping him from going any further. Chris's shirt whipped in the wind as he said something to Justin, and Justin's shoulders slumped. Lance resolutely did not look as Chris pulled Justin into a hug.

It took Lance a very, very long time to get to sleep that night.

Track Listing

1. Mouth (Stingray Mix) - Bush
2. Talk Show Host - Radiohead
3. Clubbed2Death - Rob D
4. Darkening of the Light - Concrete Blonde
5. Blue Guitar - Cowboy Junkies
6. Charlotte Sometimes - The Cure
7. Roads - Portishead
8. Crushed - Front 242
9. Idioteque - Radiohead
10. Want - Recoil
11. Drive - Melissa Ferrick
12. Venus in Furs - Velvet Underground
13. Mr. Bitterness - Soul Coughing
14. Bachleorette - Bjork
15. Flower - Liz Phair

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