Timekeepers
Title: Timekeepers
By: Am (silent_kid@lycos.com)
For: Narkyologist via Make the Yuletide Gay
Disclaimer: Standard.
Rating: PG
Pairing: Lance/Joey (*N Sync)
Everything about them is timed. Joey realizes this when JC stops five minutes into a rehearsal, points at a metronome, and tells Joey to at least try to keep to the beat. Beats, seconds...it's all the same.
Time is counted in other ways, though, and he has his own way of keeping it. Joey has developed hairstyle-time. Justin cutting off his curls, that's when Joey stopped eating donuts. JC growing his hair out, that's when Joey started up again. Anyone could tell him that the two hairstyles happened at the same time, and he will insist that there were at least three days in which a Krispy Kreme did not cross his lips. Chris ditching the dreads, that was when Joey came out to his parents. He blames this on Lance because the whole hair thing started with him. You see, Joey fell in love with Lance the day before Lance dyed his brown hair blond.
They weren't doing anything special, really. Just lounging around Justin's mom's house. Someone made a comment about how the group needed a little more variety--too many brunettes. Chris said he thought a white guy with dreads should be variety enough. JC just started tugging at his bangs like he was trying to make them grow out. Then they all got real quiet and watched Justin do that boing thing with his curls until Joey hit him on the head with a pillow. That turned into a fight and when they finally stopped, four of them all panting and lying in a heap around each other, Joey realized that Lance had not moved. He was seated in the middle of them, thinking. He glanced up and smiled at their sweaty faces. "I think I'll go blond," he said. And that was it. Joey was in love.
He followed Lance around for about a year. Lance always gave him this real sweet smile. Southern boys always know how to seem grateful, even when they aren't quite sure what to be grateful for. Joey helped Lance with his dancing, but alright, if he was going to be completely honest, Lance usually ended up helping him, but he did it in such a way that Joey always felt like he'd done Lance a favor. He brought Lance Krispy Kremes, even during the three days when Joey didn't eat them, and he sat and watched Lance suck down the raspberry filling and just felt...happy.
"We should get a place together," Joey would say, and Lance would smile at him with his mouth full of sugar coated fried dough. "Yeah, maybe someplace in Floribama." Joey emphasised the word to show that he, unlike his heathen bandmates, cared enough to know that Floribama existed, even though he wasn't sure what the hell it was.
Sometimes Lance bought him stuff. Mainly clothes, but sometimes Superman necklaces. Once he got a hat that was straight out of trailer park U.S.A. Joey loved it. He wore it for two weeks until JC declared that he could not stand it anymore and took it away. Joey did not speak to him for a week. He added another week on after he found out that JC had thrown it out the bus window. What did pimp daddy know about fashion, anyway? It wasn't the fashion; it was the love. Lance offered to buy him another, but Joey knew it wouldn't be the same. When the hat went out the window, it was like Lance did too.
"But I'm right here," Lance had protested when Joey shared this theory.
"No you aren't." Joey had tried to go to sleep after that, but Lance squeezed up into the bunk with him. Joey shifted over to the wall and put his nose against it. "Go away," he said.
Lance cuddled up behind him. "What's your problem, Joe? If you've got something to say to me, just say it."
Joey mumbled to the wall. Lance grabbed his shoulder and forced him onto his back. "What?" he asked.
"I said I'm in love with you and now I don't even have your stupid hat."
Lance rolled his eyes. "You dick. You've got me."
Joey rubbed his eyes wearily. "But you're not in love with...oh."
Lance nodded. He leaned down and planted a kiss on Joey's nose before laying on top of his chest. "Yeah. And Joe? Since you made me swear, you're going to church with me tomorrow."
"Do I have to?"
"Oh, yeah." He raised an eyebrow mischieviously. "You and me are going to have a lot of atoning to do."
Joey smiled. "When did you know? That you loved me, I mean?"
Lance thought about it. "Oh, probably around the time you stopped shaving," he said.
The End.