Right Now
“Lance. We have to have sex.”
Lance looked up from the stock reports to see Justin standing in the doorway, his fists clenched.
“Right now,” Justin added, his shoulders broadening.
“I see,” Lance said, and picked up his coffee mug. It left a brown circle on an advertisement for used cars, and made a slight sticking sound as he lifted it. He took a sip, and placed it carefully back on the table, out of reach of the newsprint. Then he turned back to his stocks, scanning the tiny print without bending his neck.
Justin made a sound of despair through his nose.
“Lance!”
“Mm-hm,” Lance said, cracking his be-socked toes inside his shoes and rolling one ankle.
“You’re not listening!”
“Sure I am.” He rustled the newsprint to straighten the pages as he turned to the next section. “I always listen to you, Justin. What you have to say is very important to me. I value your thoughts and – ” The newspaper was removed from the table and flung to the floor. Lance looked up, and one of his eyebrows used the forward momentum to travel higher. “That was rude.”
“Lance, listen,” Justin begged.
Lance leaned back and folded his hands on the table, thumbs crossed. “I am ready to listen to you, Justin. My ears are available.”
“Oh my god,” Justin said to himself, his eyes bugging. “Do you hear yourself? Seriously. You have to stop saying shit like that.”
Lance smiled, serenely, and nodded for Justin to continue.
Justin shook his head, rubbed one hand over his short hair, and sighed. “Okay. Look. You’ve been spending a lot of time with JC and going to that counselor for talking to people – ”
“The Betterment of Communication.”
“Right, the…whatever. But, dude, what the fuck? What happened to Lance?” He pushed two of his fingers into Lance’s shoulder on the last word. Lance looked confused.
“I hear the words that you are telling me, Justin, and I value them. But I need you to be more specific, because I’m afraid that I don’t understand what it is that you’re trying to tell me with these words that you’re using.”
“Stop talking like that!” Justin yelled, his fists balling. He uncurled his fingers with effort, and grabbed Lance’s head so that his fingers splayed over the ears on each side.
“Justin?” Lance asked, his brow creasing delicately and his cartoon baby green eyes widening.
Justin shut him up the only way he knew would work – pulled his head in close and bruised those lips with his own, feeling the skin pull under his hands as Lance jerked into the contact. Justin doubled his effort and added his ace cards – tongue and just a little teeth and he knew it would taste like coffee and age.
Justin pulled Lance away from him by handfuls of hair and scrutinized his face.
“What?” Lance asked tranquilly.
“Say something,” Justin said, one of his eyes going half-closed to examine him closer.
“Words should not be wasted just from your desire to hear – ”
“Argh!” Justin yelled, and straightened, shoving the head away from him. Lance wobbled back into proper posture like an indestructible child’s toy.
“Justin, please, calm down.” Lance sounded far too passive, considering that Justin was yanking off the other man’s shoes with a ferocity to bring his feet off at the same time. “There’s no need to – hey! Justin!”
Justin looked up hopefully, his hands pausing on Lance’s belt buckle, half undone. “Yes?”
“Honestly, if you seriously expect that I’m to incur – ”
Justin’s growl cut through the kitchen, and he quickened his hands, jerking Lance around to get the belt off. The older man simply lifted his arms to get out of the way and smiled down at Justin, a peacefully bemused expression on his face. “Is this absolutely necessary?”
“Mmph,” Justin insisted into Lance’s mouth, his fingers working at the sensible, white button-down shirt that Lance had somehow managed to keep stain-free not only from his coffee, but from newsprint and strawberry jam and chocolate éclairs, and Justin knew there was something not right about that. Not right at all.
“I see,” Lance said when Justin gave him possession of his tongue back. “Oh, dear, it’s imperative that you be careful with that…” But he let Justin pull the shirt down one arm and then the other, and didn’t say anything else when he saw it crumple in a heap on the tiled floor.
Justin raised one challenging eyebrow at him.
Lance looked back at him, oblivious. “The accrual of Egyptian cotton – oof!” Justin’s tackle sent both of them sliding backwards off of his chair, landing painfully amid a pile of shed footwear and clothing. Lance shifted his belt out of the way and looked up disdainfully at the young man straddling him.
Justin was staring at his chest.
“Would you care to inform me of the meaning of this?” Lance watched him blink, and shake himself a little.
Refocused, Justin glared at him. “The meaning of this, Lance, is that we’re all tired of your ‘proper English’ bullshit. We all agreed. Someone had to do something.”
“If Christopher and Joseph have a problem – ”
“Okay, see, that’s it. Stop right there.” Justin put his rather large hand over Lance’s mouth. “Stop talking. In general, okay? Until we fix this?”
“One question?” Lance mumbled around the fingers.
Justin glowered at him and lifted the hand. “One question.”
“How do you propose to rid me of this so-called affliction?”
The glower faded into a genuine feral grin. “I was planning to screw you stupid.”
Lance quirked his lips. “You thought it would work?”
“Well something’s got to!” Justin said, sliding backward and moving his hands to Lance’s waistband. “You don’t want to know what Chris wanted to do. Trust me. And I said one question.”
“Hmm,” Lance said, watching the busy fingers at his fly. “What about JC?”
“Have you forgotten how to count?” Justin wondered aloud. “It might explain your shit choreography lately…”
“Justin, be serious for a moment.”
The pants were off. Lance was doomed.
Justin leaned forward, his hands still trapped between them, until his face was no more than six inches away from Lance’s nose. He stared at the man below him for measured seconds, and Lance began to get a little nervous before Justin finally said: “No.”
“No?” Lance asked meekly.
“Ha!” Justin reveled, and inched forward again, his hands creeping up the flesh in front of him. “Emotion!” He flicked his wrist.
Lance went bug-eyed. “Shit.”
Justin’s grin grew three-fold, and he sat up. “What’d you just say?”
“Do that again,” Lance commanded, his hips reinforcing his insistent tone.
“Hmm.” Justin considered. “What about if I did this instead?”
Lance went rigid, his limbs splaying out like he was being quartered, and yowled. They banged against the kitchen table, and Justin heard the coffee mug slip off and shatter.
“Kill you,” Lance panted, his fingers scrabbling in his discarded clothing. “Again!”
“Threats will get you nowhere,” Justin decided. The lag time allowed Lance to come under control of his own body again, and he used the temporary respite to yank Justin down to eye level.
Justin froze.
“Clothes. Off. Now.”
There was another heartbeat of inactivity before Lance punctuated his severity with a growl. Justin flew into action, sliding all the way off of the other man awkwardly and scrambling for his boot laces at the same time. Lance sat up to watch, giving a sound of approval at the speed. Justin nearly had his shirt off, under Lance’s fiery gaze, when he paused and looked accusingly at him.
“You’re back to normal.”
Lance grinned and tugged on the ratty, paint stained tee shirt until it slid all the way off one arm. “I wasn’t ever not normal.”
Justin stared at him. “But. You…and JC!” The protest matched his well-abused lower lip.
“Hmm,” Lance agreed, tugging at the offending pants. “Me and JC. You think JC would ever take speech therapy? Come on.”
Justin’s staring eyes narrowed to dangerous slits. “You’re dead, Bass.”
“Dead later,” Lance protested, pulling Justin closer. “Didn’t you say something about ‘right now’?”