|| last chance ||

Sometimes JC sees his life as a series of moments. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of points in time where, for the span of a breath, the sweep of a hand across the face of a clock, something- some thing—happened. Not just happened, but happened to him.

The very first time he’d ever got drunk, there had been a split-second moment where he felt an overwhelming sense of love for everyone and everything, a sudden giddy rush unraveling wildly through him. Then had come another moment, a few short hours later, when it had became horribly apparent, in screaming technicolour, that drinking was a very bad, no good, terrible, terrible thing.

The moment Chris had smiled at the four of them, huddled close, all stupid-tired and aching from long, endless days spent dancing and singing the same songs over and over. "I think," he’d said around a crazy grin, dark eyes shining with something hot and fierce, "I think this is gonna work out."

The first gold record. The first number one song. The first sold-out show. So many picture perfect Kodak moments, captured in tiny freezeframes inside his head.

He doesn’t remember falling in love with Lance the very first moment he saw him, because it didn’t happen that way.

He didn’t fall in love with Lance until it was a moment too late.

*

‘I didn’t want all this, you know." It’s spoken quietly at his elbow, and JC looks up from the cd he’s holding. Lance stands there, a drink in hand and a half-smile on his lips. "This," he says, gesturing at the room, the liquid in the glass tilting and swirling with the sudden movement. "So much fuss, y’know?"

"Yeah." JC watches him lick spilled droplets of --whatever it is he’s drinking-- from his fingers, a series of tiny, hypnotic flickers of pink tongue from behind sharp white teeth. "yeah, it was. Well, Joey thought. You know how he gets, man."

Lance nods, and leans conspiratorially close. Close enough for JC to figure out it’s whiskey he’s drinking, because he can smell it when Lance whispers, "bull in a china shop," against his ear. Warm, moist breath, and those same sharp little teeth nipping at the lobe, the barest of brushes, there and gone in a moment. Then he’s moved back and away, raising his glass in mock-salute as he grins, and JC thinks that maybe he only just imagined it.

*

The long months apart melt away like spun-sugar with the first touch, the first breath, the first taste of Lance's skin across his tongue. Salt and musk and bitterness, and JC breathes it in, lets it fill him up until his head is spinning with threads of blueblack fire. "I dreamed of you," he whispers against Lance's throat, "so many times. It was you." His heels are skittering across the carpet as Lance’s hands curl around his hips, pulling him closer, the unforgiving angles of the stairs skidding roughly across his spine, but JC hardly feels it, drawing in a breath, because he needs to tell Lance this, needs to let him know. "We were dancing and the stars-- all around us. Spinning around and around and the stars all around us. And--" Lance does something then, something slick and wet and obscene with his tongue and his fingers, sliding, skating down across his chest, over his belly, and JC's drawing in pure heat from the air around them, swallowing it down, not enough, not nearly enough, "--and, god, Lance. All around us, and you. You." He's shivering, murmuring nonsense words, and there's no need, none at all, because Lance knows, he’s always known, but JC won’t stop, couldn’t stop, not even if he wanted to. Lance's mouth is on him, his mouth, oh god, then his fingers again, a silkyslow glide, twisting gently, slickly, wrapping around him. JC doesn't even have time to wonder how or when this happened, what moment he let his guard slip so badly, because there's heat pulsing through him, red-gold and fierce, his world narrowed to shutterblink moments of Lance's tongue and Lance's teeth, his fingers, those fingers-- and he's arching upward, his body curling in helpless pleasure.

"Shhh," Lance croons softly against his belly, tongue lapping gently as JC shudders through tiny aftershocks, "shh, it’s okay, it’s okay," over and over, but it’s not, JC thinks, it’s not okay, and maybe it never was. Now it’s nothing but awkward and uncomfortable, his clothes twisted around him, bare skin chilled and throbbing all over with a dullbruise ache. Barely one touch and he came apart, crumbled like dust, shattered into a thousand pieces, and how could he have let this happen again?

He sits up, starts clumsily refastening zippers and buttons, fingers smoothing nervously over crumpled silk and cotton, and he’s careful, so very careful not to look at Lance. "So, in my head," he says finally, when the silence between them has stretched out into something thin and fragile and shimmering, "in my head, this is the part where you turn around and tell me you’re not really going."

Lance makes a small, soft sound, and JC’s fingers freeze for a moment, suddenly too thick, too slow, too clumsy. They’re shaking, too, when Lance’s hand wraps around them as he starts to speak. "No," he says softly, "this isn’t where I tell you that. I can’t." He lifts JC’s hand to his mouth, kisses his fingertips. "I still have to go. I have to do this."

"I know." JC draws his knees up to his chest. "I do know that, but." He shrugs, a tiny, helpless movement. "I know."

Knowing doesn’t change anything. Knowing doesn’t stop time in its tracks, or make this any easier.

"JC—"

"No." JC shakes his head. "Don’t say things we both know aren’t true. Don’t do that, Lance."

"Dreamer boy." Lance’s fingers trail over the back of his neck, through his hair, warm and gentle, and he’s missed this, god, he’s missed this so very much. "Always after the happy ending."

JC steals a glance at him then, and Lance is smiling back at him, big and bright, and that’s something he’s missed, too. "And you," he says, smiling back, "the boy with the stars in his eyes."

"Yeah." Lance curls an arm round his shoulders, pulling him close, warm, solid heat, and they fit. Even after all this time, they somehow still fit. "Stars in my eyes, and you in my heart."

And here it is, another moment, just one of many, one of the hundreds, maybe thousands, that have gone before, and JC can feel the all-too familiar sensation of it slipping through his fingertips. There’s still enough whiskey lying in his veins to let himself believe that maybe this time it’ll be different. That maybe this time he’ll find the words and ask Lance to stay, and the answer will be yes.

He can let himself believe that. But only for a moment.

*

notes: I wrote the last scene first, (whilst listening to Duran Duran's Last Chance On the Stairway-- hence the title) and I wrote it all without really knowing what the hell it was about, or what was happening. Then I had to go back and try and figure out a beginning and a middle, and well, a plot. And, uh-- it still hasn't happened. This is pretty much just the bare bones, and maybe one day it'll get fleshed out properly.

....or not.

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