Looking at his house through the limo’s grimy windows, he wants to cry or hit something. Possibly someone. It seems like a long way to walk, which could be the jetlag talking. The prospect of a shower and a cold beer is just enough, this time, just enough for him to fight his limbs into moving. Mechanically, he mutters a thank you to the driver and leaves fifty bucks on the back seat for a fifteen minute drive. Whatever; it doesn’t matter anymore.

From the driveway to the gate to the front steps, and Justin spares a moment to really resent himself for putting in those steps when he moved in. Dramatic, yeah, but there’s nobody here to impress and his legs want to fold under him, already. The key rattles in the lock, but he manages. He’s spent a lot of the last few months managing.

He drops his bag and his shoes in the foyer, pads barefoot to the kitchen. The house is hushed and empty, which his nerves thank it for. There were screaming girls at the terminal both leaving and coming back, a small mob outside the airport, and he’s had enough of noise and flashbulbs for one day.

It’s a strange thought, one that used to be foreign to him. Enough? Enough of the attention and the love? Enough of having his name screamed at him and people overjoyed just to have a few seconds of his time? There’s no such thing. Except, of course, when there is.

It occurs to Justin that he’s not making much sense.

Dead air and lingering heat hang heavy in every room he passes through, even when he gets to the kitchen and turns on the lights and the fan. It stirs the air without changing the fact that it’s thick around him, like batter in the bowl. He rubs the back of his neck where the sweat has dried, yawns, opens his fridge.

It’s empty. There’s not even the lone, inexplicable mustard bottle in there anymore. Justin lets himself sit on the floor and stares forlornly into the void of his fridge, feeling somehow betrayed. He’d wanted that beer, damn it. He’d been waiting it for hours. He knew he’d left some last time he’d been home (May? June? Something like that), and…

A distinctive metallic pop and fizzle rings out behind him. Justin twitches, then forces a tired smile and turns.

It’s Lance. Of course, it would be. Lance, looking distant and hot and infuriatingly amused, holding Justin’s beer in his hand. There’s a symbol there, but Justin doesn’t feel like chasing after it. He just sits there, feeling awful in some way he can’t define.

Lance has seen the sun and the gym and the tattoo parlor quite a bit lately. Next to him, Justin is gawky and too pale. The irony of that, unfortunately, fails to go right over Justin’s head.

Justin had liked being clueless. He’d liked it a lot.

“Hi,” he says, then shuts the fridge door.

Lance nods, weirdly formal as always. He looks comfortable in his skin, and Justin’s happy for him. Really. Then Lance twists the top of the beer off and pours it into the sink, and Justin stops being happy for him. If Justin wasn’t barefoot, and the flow of muscle in Lance’s arm wasn’t so fascinating in a sleep-deprived way, Justin would kick him,

Instead, Justin settles for scrubbing a hand over his face and protesting, “Hey, man. I was gonna drink that.”

“Justin,” Lance’s whiskey-dark voice is a shock after almost a month without hearing it in person, “it’s old. Besides, we’ve got an evil plot.”

“Oh.” Justin takes a moment to consider that. His thoughts keep scattering as his eyes skim Lance’s ankles, bone and dark ink. He’s glanced three times, and it still feels like a jolt. Lance? With tattoos? “No evil plots. I just got home.”

Lance looks at him, terrifyingly well-put-together under the fluorescent overheads. There’s not a single flaw to pick at, not a stitch out of place. Even his shirt is tolerable. No lace or anything. It’s strangely disconcerting, like JC in a suit. Next to this stranger-Lance, Justin knows he looks terrible, and that just makes it worse.

Maybe that’s the evil plot.

“Jup,” Lance sighs, “you’re not home.”

No. No, he’s not, and Lance would know. They’re the only ones who were young enough to get fucked up this way. Lance is the only other person who knows what it’s like, to head back to an old familiar house to find out that home has moved into a rickety van in Germany, an overpacked hotel room, wherever the other four parts of the whole happened to be.

It’s a hell of a thing to live with. A wonderful, lonely thing. Justin hasn’t been home in months, though he came back here a few weeks ago.

The beer bottle crashes into the recycling bin. Lance used to be so quiet, so careful. Now he wipes his hands on a dishtowel, where Justin would have used his jeans, and offers Justin a hand up off the floor. Justin takes it, because where the hell else is he supposed to go?

They stand for a moment, looking at each other in the unforgiving light. Lance’s fingers are easy and strong around Justin’s wrist, only holding as he studies Justin’s face. He nods, finally, and closes that last step.

Lance kisses like he talks, slow and easy and devastating as the Mississippi, sweeping everything like thought and will out of its way. He kisses, and Justin can feel himself start to drown, desperate under the steady heat of it.

Somehow, Justin knows he’s being forgiven. He knows he’s failed at something, maybe getting away, but as failures go, this is one of the best ones he’s had all year.

Lance lets him go, and Justin feels the catch-drag of his own breathing. Lance smiles, the old graceless smile. It’s comforting. Some things you just can’t get away from, because it’s better that you don’t.

Touching the corner of Justin’s mouth with his fingertips, Lance says, “C’mon, Jup. They’re waiting.”

For the first time in what feels like forever, Justin grins.
****
End