It used to be that Lance would walk home after a long, tiring day and the closer he got, the lighter his step would become. Tonight, his feet felt like solid blocks of lead.
Once upon a time, he used to love coming home. Reaching the front steps, he would often stop and stare up at the house, windows glowing with warmth from within. Taking a minute, he would simply look, imagining JC inside the warm brick walls – perhaps in the kitchen making dinner, or better yet, in the den building a fire where they would sit and share a glass of wine and stories of their day.
Now, more often than not, when he stopped all he would see was cold, dark glass – echoing the cold, dark rooms within.
The home that he had loved so much was now just a house where two strangers lived; the connection that he and JC had shared was gone, or forgotten; Lance wasn’t sure which. All he knew was that six months ago their relationship had developed a crack that had widened into a chasm neither of them could, or would, cross.
A month ago he’d permanently moved his things into the guest room, and shortly after that JC had started leaving after dinner and not coming back. Last night it had all come to a climax with both of them accusing the other of things Lance had once thought them incapable of.
The fight had ended when he’d put his fist through the wall inches from JC’s head.
He flexed his fingers now, feeling the sting of torn and bruised skin, and remembered the look on JC’s face just before Lance had slammed out of the house.
It was over; they both knew it, and now all that was left was to say it, pack up and move out.
It was what he wanted; what they both needed, and clearly a decision long overdue. He’d been planning it all day, had even gone so far as to look for an apartment. Lance was good with this, he was; it was just that he hadn’t anticipated what it would be like to come here knowing it was for the final time.
Memories swamped him as he walked up the steps to the front door and at first he pushed them away, not wanting to remember, until his hand reached for the door latch, and then it all came flooding back.
October 1996
“The house was built in 1946 and though it’s been updated a couple of times since then, a lot of the hardware and stuff is original. Wait until you see it.” JC was practically bouncing as they turned the corner. “The front door has an opener that’s solid brass and all curvy like,” he motioned with his hands. “It has a latch instead of a handle and it’s…”
Lance tuned his boyfriend of six months out as he continued to ramble on about the house his great uncle had left him. He had a pathology exam the next day that he really should be studying for, but when JC had dropped by his apartment, so excited about finally getting the keys to the house and wanting Lance to come explore it with him, Lance hadn’t been able to say no.
So here he was, wasting – well, okay, maybe not wasting, because it wasn’t as if being with JC was any sort of hardship, especially as he was unbelievably cute when he was all excited like this, and – Lance chuckled at how quickly he’d lost track of his purpose when he started thinking about JC. It had been like that right from the beginning.
They’d met at a mutual friend’s house – before the start of the fall semester – and had immediately hit it off. They’d hung out quite a bit that night, had gone on their first official date two days later, and had been pretty much inseparable since.
Lance, in his second year of med school at Hopkins had been, before meeting JC, totally single- minded. Nothing and no one had gotten between him and his goal of becoming a doctor. Nothing, that was, until the dark haired, blue eyed – Lance glanced over at his still babbling lover – carpenter had walked into his life.
He still studied like a fiend, only now he knew that life and learning were so much more when you shared them with someone else. At twenty-four, he was in love for the first time and, if he were honest, equal parts scared and giddy over it.
“So, this is it.” Lance snapped back when JC tugged on his hand. “What do you think?”
Tilting his head back, Lance looked up at the three-story row house and silently groaned; the place was a wreck.
JC, being a smart man, took one look at Lance’s face and began to babble again.
“I know it looks bad, but really a lot of it is cosmetic. It needs painting and some new mortar, maybe a new front door if this one is rotted, and then it’ll look as good as new.”
Lance caught a glimpse of the room to the left of the door through a grimy window and thought, ‘Out here maybe, but not in there.’ No, Lance had a feeling that the inside was going to need quite a bit more than some paint to make it livable, though he didn’t say that.
“It…uhm,” Lance searched his mind for something positive to say, catching site of the door handle that JC had been going on about as he did. “Wow, JC, you were right,” he said as he reached out and grasped the cool surface like a lifeline. “This is great.”
Lance smiled at the memory, his hand on the handle that he and JC kept faithfully polished. Their relationship may have died from neglect, but they’d kept the house as lovingly as they had from the beginning.
At least they had until last night, when Lance had marred the pristine surface of the foyer with a single punch.
Standing out here reliving the past wasn’t going to change the present or make the hole in the wall go away. It was time to go in and face what he should have months ago, and the first step to that was to face the damage he’d left behind last night. He took a deep breath and stepped into the foyer.
The hole was gone.
JC heard the front door open, though he didn’t budge from where he was leaning against the counter. He was covered in plaster dust; tired, angry, and – he tilted his head and sniffed – he smelled. Right now would not be a good time for him to come face to face with Lance.
Not that Lance would want to talk to him. If tonight was like any of the other endless nights from the last two months, Lance would rifle through the mail on the hall table, take what was his and head up to his room on the second floor where he would wait until he heard JC close himself in the room they used to share before going back down to the kitchen to get himself something to eat. That right there was the main reason why JC had started going back to the shop after dinner and staying there.
It was like sharing a house with a stranger, only worse, because the stranger was someone that JC still loved.
He knew it was over. He wanted it to be. Loving someone – still – didn’t blind you to the fact that what you’d once shared was gone. It didn’t take away the realization that something needed to be done before those last remaining strains of good feeling turned completely bad; it just made knowing that hard.
Still, it needed to be done. Had to be done. For his sake, and for Lance’s, one of them needed to pack up and move out. All that needed to be decided now was which one. Not now though, he needed just a little more time to think through what he wanted to say and how, even if that had been the only thing he’d thought about all day.
He would finish his sandwich, sneak up the back stairs, shower, change, and then he’d seek out Lance and finish what the argument they’d had two months before had started.
Lance walked into the kitchen, his face set, and blew that plan right out the window.
“I’m moving out.”
JC didn’t so much as by a flicker of an eyelash betray what he was feeling, though on the inside he felt like he’d just taken a shot to the solar plexus. It was funny, because there was only one other time that he could remember hearing something that had made him feel like that, and it had been something Lance had said that had done it then, too.
“So, what do you think?”
They were in the kitchen, done with the grand tour – as JC had called it – of the brownstone and JC was nervously awaiting Lance’s reaction.
“It’s going to be beautiful when it’s done,” Lance answered, clearly picturing the house remodeled as JC had described it to him, “but it’s going to take a hell of a lot of work to get it there.”
JC shrugged, “I’m not afraid of a little work.”
“A little?” Lance’s eyes widened at that. “JC, it’s going to take,” Lance surveyed the ancient kitchen, “years.”
“Nine months. Tops,” JC smiled. “Less if I can con some of the crew into working on it after hours.”
Lance looked around the kitchen again and thought, ‘No way.’ This room alone would need to be completely gutted; the floors in every room stripped, sanded and refinished, though he thought that one or two would need to be replaced completely. The bathrooms were, Lord, worse than the kitchen, with rusted sinks and warped tile, and Lance had thought he’d caught the faint odor of bat shit when they’d been up on the third floor. There was serious work to be done and replacing sagging doors and rotted countertops was just the beginning. Nine months. No way.
“JC…”
“I know what I’m doing, Lance.” JC stopped him cold. “I didn’t spend six years in school twiddling my thumbs, you know.”
“Six years?”
“Well, yeah. That’s how long it takes to get your master’s. Six years.”
“You. But. I,” Lance managed to sputter before he lapsed into stunned silence.
“What?” JC grasped Lance by the shoulders. “Lance, you’re wigging me out here, what’s the matter?”
“You have a master’s degree.”
“Well, duh.”
“But,” Lance’s brow wrinkled. “You’re a carpenter.” Craftsman really, was how Lance thought of him, because he’d seen what JC could do with his hands and a piece of wood, but it had never occurred to him that JC was anything more than that. And truth be told, he’d been so busy with school that aside from a few general questions here and there about JC’s education, he’d never asked.
JC nodded, “Yeah. I like working with my hands, so I help with the building and stuff, but really, I’m an architect. One who specializes in restoration.”
“You do? You are?”
“Uh huh.” JC gently rubbed his fingers up and down the cords of Lance’s neck. “Baby, you’ve seen some of my plans.”
“I know, I just thought, you know that you wanted, but couldn’t and…”
“Lance, you’re not making any sense here. I told you that I’d gone to school.”
“Yeah, but I thought it was a trade school. I mean, when we met, Joey introduced you as his friend the carpenter and so I thought you’d gone to a tech college or something.”
“Nope.” JC kissed the furrow between Lance’s brows. “I went to the University of Maryland for six of the longest years of my life.”
Lance chuckled at that. JC liked to move and it didn’t take much to imagine how crazy it would have driven him to spend that much time in classrooms and lecture halls.
“But it was worth it, because I love what I do.”
Lance shook his head in disbelief. He couldn’t believe that he and JC had been dating all this time and he was only now learning this major thing about him. He felt like a dumb ass, and a not so great boyfriend all rolled into one.
“What?” JC asked, his voice loud in the too quiet house.
“I can’t believe I didn’t know all of that.”
Completely unfazed by it, JC shrugged. “It’s not like we’ve spent tons of time talking about college and stuff.”
“No, I know. Still, it’s something that I should have known.” Lance smiled softly, “I mean shouldn’t I know everything there is to know about the man I’m in love with?”
Lance watched JC retreat inside himself to somewhere he couldn’t reach. It had been this way for months now; whenever Lance had tried to talk about something that JC hadn’t wanted to hear, JC had shut off and left Lance standing in the cold.
He wasn’t sure why he’d thought this time would be any different, but a part of him had. It wasn’t as if he’d expected his telling JC that it was over to change anything between them; still, he’d thought he’d get more of a reaction than outright indifference.
God, he was tired. So, so tired; tired of feeling this way, of being scared, and of longing for something that he was never going to get. Even when he’d known there wasn’t any hope left, somewhere inside of him a tiny kernel of it had lingered, and tonight when he’d walked in here knowing it was done, wanting it to be, it had still shimmered in the back of his heart, a tiny beat that had whispered, ‘maybe he’ll ask you to stay.’
Obviously, that wasn’t going to happen and just as obviously, he was an idiot to be standing here waiting for it. The funny thing was he hadn’t realized how much he’d wanted it until the words, ‘I’m leaving,’ had come out of his mouth. Apparently, there was some truth to the saying, “be careful what you wish for,” because he’d wished to have this situation be over, and it looked like he was getting that wish.
Now, all that was left was to get on with it.
JC hadn’t realized how long he’d been standing there staring off into space until Lance moved. It wasn’t the movement itself that snapped him out of his journey into the past, but the direction of it. Lance was leaving the room, the house, and his life.
“Don’t.”
Lance froze, not sure if JC had really spoken or if it was his mind playing tricks on him.
“Don’t go.”
And, oh God, those words, those two precious words, except that neither of them knew what to do now that they’d been spoken.
“We can’t - eight years - how?” JC was at a loss. What did you say when you were trying to save your life except, “I’m sorry. I’m not sure I even know what for anymore, but I’m sorry.”
Lance shook his head, in denial of the words or what they made him feel he wasn’t sure. “It may be too late for that.”
“It’s never too late to tell someone that you know you fucked up. It’s never too late to accept responsibility for being in a place you never thought you’d see. I’m sorry that I helped to bring us here.”
“You should be.” Lance was angry, so unbelievably angry that it had taken JC this long to say something that might have saved them a month ago.
“Yeah, I should be, but so should you.” JC was past the point of worrying about tiptoeing around Lance’s feeling. He had nothing to lose by speaking freely. “I know that I let things get this far, but so did you, baby. I’m not in this relationship alone.”
“No, you’re not, but for the last month I’ve been.”
“You’re the one who moved out of our room.”
“You’re the one who didn’t stop me.” Lance shouted – loud enough that the words seemed to bounce off the walls and ceiling – becoming a living thing that slammed back into him and took his breath. “Fuck this, you know what, you don’t fucking have a clue, and I’m not going to give you one.”
“Lance.” JC touched his arm and had it flung into the counter for his effort.
“Don’t. Two months ago I needed something from you. I don’t need anything from you anymore.”
“It must be nice being you, Lance. To never have to take responsibility for anything.”
“I’ve done everything I could to fix this.”
JC laughed, he couldn’t help it. “You keep telling yourself that, baby.”
“What did you do? Not a fucking thing, that’s what. Did you ever once come and try to talk to me, to get me to come back? No. You took the fucking job that started everything.”
JC had had enough. “I took the fucking job so that you could continue to do what you love. Did it ever once occur to you that maybe I didn’t want to work for some asshole who spends a great portion of his life trying to degrade what I am, who I am? Of course it didn’t, because you’re not the one who has to worry about where the money’s going to come from to keep this place going. I am. I’m the one who carries that weight, Lance, and you know what, fuck you. I’m tired of having to explain what I do so that you can play doctor at a fucking clinic that pays you shit.”
JC sat heavily at their kitchen table. “Just go. I’m done.” He looked up then, his face completely devoid of emotion. “You win.”
Lance didn’t bother with a chair; he just let his legs go out from under him and stayed where he landed. “If this is the prize, then I’d rather lose.”
“I don’t know what you want from me anymore. I don’t know what to give you, or what to say to make things right.”
“We could have found another way.” Lance eased onto his back. “I couldn’t have taken some shifts at the hospital or -"
“The clinic is your dream; I wanted you to have that.”
“He’s a bigoted pig, JC. He stands against everything we believe in, and you’re working for him, in his house, every day.”
“It’s opening doors for me.”
Lance knew that, had in fact torn out the page with the small blurb about JC in Architectural Digest and folded it into his top drawer, but still. “This way? Is this how you wanted to do it, by selling out?”
“Yeah, well, it’s easy for you to sit in judgment of that Lance when you’ve never had to face making the choice, because I’ve been here taking care of you.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Maybe not, but neither is my having to choose between my dreams or having enough money for the bills. You may see it as selling out; I see it as we need to eat, and Senator Fitzgerald has money.” And he was willing to part with enough of it for JC to be able to sleep at night and do the kind of work he’d always wanted.
“Is it really that simple for you?”
“It has to be.”
“What about the promise we made that we’d never live a lie.”
JC thought of the cold bed he crawled into each night for the last month. “We promised a lot of things.”
Lance stared up at the ceiling and wondered aloud, “How did we end up like this?”
“If I knew that, we wouldn’t be here.”
“I think,” the floor was rough under his head and Lance shifted, reaching for one of the chair cushions, “that you took that job and we disappeared.”
“If I hadn’t taken that job, I would have disappeared.”
“Why didn’t you ever say that?”
“Why didn’t you see it? Why, for once, couldn’t you have picked up on something without me having to spell it out for you?”
“This isn’t all my fault.”
“No, it’s not, but it’s not all mine either, and for the last two months you’ve walked around here acting like the injured party, like you were the only fucking person hurt in this, and I’m tired of taking all the blame. We’re both to blame for where we sit right now, and we’re either going to accept that and fix it, or we’re not, but I’m not living in limbo anymore.”
“What happens now?”
They’d been quiet for so long that JC jumped at Lance’s question.
“I don’t know,” JC answered honestly. “I think maybe that’s something we need to work on figuring out,” JC paused, “together.”
Lance shifted so that he had a clear view of JC when he asked, “Is that what you want?”
“I want you to stay.” JC turned his head and their gazes locked. “Will you?”
Lance held JC’s gaze for a moment and then dropped his eyes to the brick he couldn’t seem to stop picking at with his thumb.
“I need to know where you’ve been all these nights, JC. If it’s – if you,” Lance sighed because he just couldn’t voice where his thoughts were heading, it would make it too real. “I need to know.”
JC rose, stepped over Lane to retrieve his keys from the hook by the back door and then turned back and held out a hand. “I think you need to come with me, there’s something that I need to show you.”
In the car, Lance hugged the door and wondered what he was doing there. If things had gone according to plan, he’d be almost finished with his packing by now and gearing up to leave the brownstone for the final time. Instead, he found himself seated beside an eerily silent JC, going God only knew where.
The glass of the window was cold on his forehead as he leaned on it and looked into his own eyes staring back at him. He wished that JC had just answered his question and told him flat out where he’d been spending his nights, though honestly Lance wasn’t entirely sure he really wanted to know,especially if he’d been spending them with someone else. Yet, even if that were true, he couldn’t picture JC being callous enough to take him to that person and rub his nose in it.
At least not the JC that he fell in love with, which led Lance back to the question he’d been asking himself for the last month. Where had they gone wrong?
They’d started out so strong, especially after they’d moved in together. JC had supported his desire to not go into private practice or take a job at the hospital and had urged him to go work at the inner city clinic where he’d volunteered all through med school. The pay had been shit, and still was, but JC had assured him that they’d be fine. Honestly, Lance had wanted it so much, he’d never stopped to think about what that would mean for JC.
Was that wrong? It wasn’t like he’d pushed JC in that direction; JC had offered, wanting Lance, as he’d said earlier, to have his dream, but what about JC’s dreams? Yes, he enjoyed being an architect, but what he loved more was working with his hands and building things. Custom things, like the cabinets that hung in the kitchen and bathrooms of their home, and the bed that JC now slept in alone.
It was funny, but the way that JC had surprised him with it was similar to what they were doing now; taking a ride that the why’s and where’s of Lance hadn’t known.
“Tell me where we’re going?”
“No.” JC glanced from the road to his boyfriend to make sure he still had his eyes closed. “It’s a surprise.”
“Where we’re going or what’s there?” Lance had been asking one question after another since JC had asked him to close his eyes once they’d gotten into the car.
“Uhm,” JC slowed to take a turn. “Both.”
“C’mon JC, give me a hint.”
“You’re going to like it.”
JC giggled at Lance’s groan. “That’s not a hint.”
“It’s the only one you’re gonna get, love.”
“No fair,” Lance pouted, though he settled back against the seat, willing to play along. JC had seemed so excited the entire night and whatever his surprise was, Lance didn’t want to spoil it by acting like a spoiled brat over not being in the know.
“Almost there.” JC touched Lance’s knee, and then confessed, “I’m nervous.”
Blindly Lance reached out, groping for and finding JC’s hand. “Why?”
“This is important. What I have to show you. To me, and I hope - to you.”
“It’s not going to hurt, right?” Lance asked, making JC laugh and squeeze his hand.
“No,” JC assured him, though he couldn’t help the, I hope not, that flitted through his mind as he looked over at Lance.
“Okay, good, because while I’m not opposed to being kinky every now and again, S"Yamp;"M really isn’t my thing.”
“Well damn, why didn’t you tell me that before?” JC sighed dramatically. “Now I have to call that dominatrix chick and tell her it’s a no go.”
“Ha, ha,” Lance smirked, until the car stopped and he had to ask, “You were kidding, right?”
“Yes, you nut.” JC shook his head, forgetting that Lance couldn’t see him. “Stay right there,” he ordered, “and no peeking.”
Lance did as he was told, though the temptation to open his eyes was fierce. Still, this was kind of fun, and not a little sexy, to be so completely at JC’s mercy.
He jumped a little when JC opened his door, having gotten lost in his thoughts as he waited for JC to help him out of the car. It was a bit disorienting, exiting the car by feeling alone, and Lance swayed a little when he finally got his feet under him.
“Whoa!” JC grabbed him around the waist to stead him. “You okay?”
Lance went to nod, but that made him dizzy, so he offered JC a breathy, “Yeah”, instead.
“Can you walk with me?”
“Uhm,” Lance groped blindly for JC’s hip and when he found it slid his arm around his back and held on for dear life. “I think so, let’s try.”
It was awkward at first, and they shuffled more than they actually walked, but within moments, JC was stopping again.
“I need to unlock the door.”
“K,” Lance agreed then wasn’t so sure he should have when JC released him and he was immediately disoriented again.
“JC, can I open my eyes now? Please.”
“One more sec, love, I promise. I just want to make sure you’re in the right,” JC grunted when what Lance assumed was the door he’d been unlocking opened, “spot before you see where we are.”
The smell of wood hit Lance the second JC helped him over the threshold and he knew exactly where they were.
“We’re at the shop.” He turned his head in JC’s direction. “Why?”
There was a smile in JC’s voice when he answered, “You’ll see.”
“When?” he asked, and then whined, “JaaaayCeeee,” when the answer – “soon” – wasn’t the one he wanted. Still, he allowed JC to maneuver him several more feet without protest; then when they stopped, patiently waited while JC moved him first in one direction and then another.
“Okay, I think this is good. You can, uh, open your eyes now.”
Lance did as he was told and immediately slammed then shut again. The light in the cavernous building was blinding. Cautiously, he opened them again, blinked several times to clear his vision and then simply stared at what was spread out in front of him.
“Oh.”
Before him stood the most gorgeous Plantation style poster bed that Lance had ever seen. A deep rich cherry, it stood regally amidst the clutter of the workshop, each post beautifully carved, and Lance’s fingers itched to touch and trace each curve. It was exactly the type of bed he’d dreamed of having one day, but that had been all he’d ever thought it be – at least for the foreseeable future – a dream.
Lance said not a word as he walked around the bed, running his hands over the curved wood, stopping to crouch so that he could dip his fingers into the carvings on the headboard that JC had painstakingly spent hours on. He slowly made his way around the four sides of the bed and it was only when he finally came to a stop back at the footboard that he noticed the other pieces. As beautiful as the bed was in its ornate-ness, so the armoire, chest, and night tables were in their simplicity. They gleamed in the harsh overhead lights and again Lance found his fingers itching to run over smooth, silky wood.
JC didn’t fidget as Lance took his time inspecting each piece – pulling out drawers, examining knobs, dancing his fingers over the gleaming wood – it was exactly what JC had known he would do and though Lance hadn’t said a word since his single, startled ‘oh’, JC was content to watch the play of emotions pass over his boyfriend’s expressive face.
When Lance finally stopped and turned to face him, it was JC who spoke first.
“I made them for you.” JC moved to Lance’s side. “I know that you’re going to tell me that you don’t have a place for all of this.”
“I don’t,” Lance whispered, wishing his and JC’s words weren’t true.
JC looked from Lance to the bed and back again. “You do if you move in with me.” He heard Lance’s sharp indrawn breath, and fearful that he was going to say no, quickly began to speak. “We’ve been dating for well over a year now and you spend most of your free time at the house anyway. I know that rooming with Joey and Chris drives you crazy. It’s noisy and you can never get any studying done, and I have all that space now that the house is finished and…” JC ran out of steam mid sentence. “You don’t want to,” he stated, not asked, in a voice gone suddenly flat.
“It’s a big commitment.”
JC nodded and then simply offered, “I love you.”
Which Lance knew to JC meant that the commitment had already been made. Still, he’d needed to be sure, and now that he was, well, the rest was easy.
“When can I move in?”
Lance was smiling at the memory when JC pulled into the lot of Chasez and Sons Construction. He blinked several times, thinking at first that he was still reliving the past, but when he closed and opened his eyes for the third time, the building was still there.
“What are we doing here, JC?”
“You wanted to know where I’ve been spending my nights.” JC unbuckled his seat belt and opened the car door. “I’m going to show you.”
They crossed the parking lot in silence, neither willing to break the uneasy truce that had settled about them by saying the wrong thing. It was a walk that JC had taken alone every night for the last month; it felt odd to have Lance beside him as he unlocked the main entrance, keyed off the alarm and flipped on the lights.
“Back here,” was all he said as he led Lance through the office area and into one of the smaller work rooms.
There was a small cot tucked into one corner, with the throw that JC’s grandmother had knit him for his birthday tossed over the end. Lance was surprised that he hadn’t noticed it missing from the house, but then again he’d been avoiding their bedroom like the plague, so he probably shouldn’t have been. It made him unbelievably sad to think about how far apart they were, and he honestly wasn’t sure as he stood staring at the rumpled cot, if they’d ever be able to find their way back again, and then he caught sight of what was in the opposite corner.
It was a little girl’s dream. A three story doll house, impeccably crafted down to the tiniest detail, sat center stage on a long worktable, its plans on one side, and miniature pieces of furniture in different stages of development on the other. Lance didn’t need to ask who it was for, nor did he miss the irony of JC sitting here night after night building their niece’s dream, while their own was falling apart.
“Why -” Lance began and then stopped, because there were a thousand whys in his head, and he couldn’t begin to understand which one came first.
“She’s my family, too,” JC snapped, misunderstanding the question.
“I know she is. I didn’t mean -” Again, Lance stopped. “I can’t – I don’t – how did we get here? I need to know how we got to a place where you’re spending every night on a cot in this warehouse and I’m looking to move out.”
“We looked, but we didn’t – or wouldn’t – see.” JC eased down onto the cot. It was the closest he’d been to Lance in far too long. “I needed something from you and I wanted you to see that, but you didn’t, so when this job came up and you needed me to see your point of view, I couldn’t. I knew that I should, but there was something in me – a really ugly something – that made me want to make you suffer the way I felt that I had.”
“I’ve spent so many nights lying here, looking at this ceiling trying to figure this thing out. I talked to my dad – I had to talk to someone, or I would have lost my mind -” JC defended when Lance glared at him. “He helped me work through all the shit I had clogging up my head.”
“It should have been me you were talking to, JC. Just like it should have been me you talked to before you -”
“Don’t start on the fucking job again, Lance. Just don’t. You don’t want to accept your part in my taking it, and until you do, you don’t have any say in it.”
“Don’t do that! Just fucking stop doing that!” Lance rose in a fury, kicking aside a box and sending it crashing into the wall. “It’s always what you want; ‘Just go to work at the clinic, Lance and let me worry about the other stuff. Don’t worry about where the money is coming from for the vacation, Lance, I’ll take care of it.’ And yeah, okay, I’m guilty of letting you. Okay, happy now? I let you take care of me, but I’m not taking all the fucking blame for it, because you wanted to, and I trusted you. When you said that I shouldn’t worry about it, I trusted that you meant it, JC. You pushed me to let you, and don’t you fucking sit there and try to tell me that you didn’t.”
“And because I needed you to need me, does that mean that you couldn’t see I needed something, too?” JC shot back.
“Every time I asked you, you told me that you were fine, and I believed you, because you said so, but also because that’s what you showed me, so that’s what I saw.”
“Yeah, well, you believed that I was nothing more than a carpenter for six months, too, because you never bothered to look past what you thought you saw.”
“That’s not fair.”
“No, maybe not, but this isn’t about being fair. I know you love being a doctor, Lance, and I know how hard you worked to get there. I know how much it means to you to be able to do what you do, and I know that the clinic is your dream. I guess maybe I was stupid enough to think that if I helped you to live that dream, you’d love me more for it.”
“Is that why you did all of this, so that you could get something? Well, you know what, JC, fuck you. All this time, I was so proud of how you supported me, of how my boyfriend was behind what I did when a lot of my friends’ weren’t and it was all just one big fucking lie.”
“It wasn’t a lie. I am behind what you do, Lance, but I wanted the same thing in return, and when I needed your support the most, when I looked to you to understand that this was something vital to me, you wouldn’t look past yourself to see it.”
“So, now I’m selfish, too? You know what, JC; I’m having a hard time figuring out here why is it that you don’t want me to leave.”
“Eight years of our lives, Lance, spent loving each other. Can you really just walk away from that?”
There wasn’t a single welcoming line in Lance’s body when JC walked over to him.
“Those eight years mean something to me; you mean everything.”
“If I meant so much to you, JC, you would have acknowledged me to Fitzgerald when you brought him into the house, our home, JC, instead of leading him to believe that I was nothing more than just a roommate.”
The hand that JC had been about to lay on Lance’s back fell limply to his side. God, what the fuck had he done?
“I’m sorry.” It was all he could offer, all he had.
“Yeah,” Lance spared him a brief look over his shoulder. “Me, too.”
There was so much hurt in that small room that JC thought he could almost reach out and touch it.
“I think,” Lance spoke into the quiet, “that we should go back to the house.”
Not home, he couldn’t call it home, because he wasn’t sure if that’s what it was for him any longer.
“Lance, I…” Again JC reached out, but Lance was already moving through the door. JC flipped off the light, catching sight of the bunk behind him as he did, and he wondered if he’d be coming back to spend another lonely night in this room, or worse, spend it watching Lance walk out their home and his life.
They passed the car ride home in complete silence, which suited Lance as he had a lot of thinking to do. Most of it centered on what he wanted to have happen next, and though he wasn’t entirely sure what all that encompassed, he knew one thing; he didn’t want to move anywhere. He was still mad enough but he knew that if he let the anger carry him that far all he’d have when it faded was regrets. JC was right; he couldn’t walk away from eight years, and he was also honest enough to admit that he didn’t really want to. No, he wasn’t going anywhere, except hopefully, sometime soon, back to the room that he and JC had once shared.
The trek to the back door was shrouded in darkness, but the kitchen glowed warm and welcoming when JC opened the door and they stepped in from the night.
Lance loved this house, what they’d built here together, both literally and figuratively.
“I want to stay,” he spoke quickly, before the door had fully closed behind them, fearful that if he didn’t, JC would think the opposite. “I mean if you still -”
“I do,” JC answered, not allowing Lance to finish. “We need to fix this. I want us to fix this, and we can’t do that if we’re both not here.”
Lance nodded, feeling lighter than he had in some time, though he knew that had a long way to go.
“I think maybe we should get some sleep,” he suggested. “It’s been a really long couple of days and we can talk more tomorrow when we’re both thinking a little clearer.”
Disappointment flickered briefly in JC’s eyes before he tightly reigned the emotion in. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. So, uhm…” JC gestured for Lance to go before him up the back stairs. “I’ll see you in the morning then,” he finished when they reached the second floor landing and the guestroom that Lance was sleeping in.
They stood awkwardly, the antique clock on the wall ticking the seconds as they passed by, until Lance couldn’t take it any longer and he reached out to open the door.
“Don’t,” JC blurted. “I -” he would have sworn that every drop of saliva in his mouth turned to dust when Lance turned back towards him. “I know that we’re not – we aren’t,” he stammered before taking a deep breath and letting what he wanted to say out. “I can’t do another night with you down here and me up there alone. And I know it’s too soon to ask, but I’m asking anyway. Please. Don’t go back in there. Sleep upstairs with me, no expectations, no pressure, just – I don’t want to sleep without you.”
Lance stood at the door of his room, the few items he’d gathered for the night ahead held against his chest and listened to JC move about in the room above him. It was a sound he was used to, though one he hadn’t heard in quite some time.
He could clearly remember the first night, how he’d lain in the bed behind him, certain that JC would come down any second to coax him back upstairs. Of course he hadn’t, and as the nights had passed, Lance had stopped listening for his footsteps on the stairs, and after a time, he’d ceased to listen for the sounds of JC coming home at all.
It seemed odd now to think about climbing those stairs to join JC in a room that had once been theirs, one that he now thought of as JC’s alone. It was odder still that the words that he had lain awake so many nights wishing for were the ones that JC had whispered to him in the hall, ‘I can’t go another night with you down here and me up there alone.’
He hadn’t even thought twice about what his answer would be, he’d just nodded and then told JC he’d be up in a minute, he just needed to grab his stuff. Now, here he stood, the stairs just a few steps in front of him and he couldn’t seem to make himself move forward, yet neither did he want to go back.
What he wanted was for time to slip back six months to the night that JC had told him about the project he’d been offered by Senator Fitzgerald and instead of demanding that JC not accept the contract, ask why it was so vital to him that he did.
“So, I got this really great offer for a job today.”
Lance looked up from the charts spread out over the desk in front of him and absently murmured, “Yeah?” before returning his attention to them.
“Yeah, it’s a complete renovation of this huge mansion in Georgetown.”
Lance paused in the notes he’d been jotting down. “That’s like an extra hour commute each way; on a really good day.”
JC shrugged, “Yeah, I know, but with the hours we usually put in, we should be able to beat the traffic both ways. Not to mention it’s incredible money, which will take the sting out of any traffic we do hit.”
“Since when has money been so important to you? I thought you were all about jobs that,” Lance made quote marks in the air, “inspired you.”
JC’s mouth tightened at the sarcasm behind Lance’s words, but the other man didn’t notice, as he had buried his nose back in the work in front of him immediately after the words had left his mouth.
“He wants me to do all of the custom work in the house, too. Cabinets, built ins, and depending on what he thinks of some of the furniture I’ve done, maybe even a full dining room set.” JC paused, but Lance didn’t look up. “For twenty.”
“Hmm.” Lance closed the folder he’d been working on, set it to the side and picked up another. “Who exactly is he?”
“Senator Fitzgerald,” JC answered and then snidely thought, ‘That got your attention didn’t it?’ when Lance’s head snapped up at the name.
“You’re not taking it.”
“And why would that be?” JC asked, reining in the temper that wanted to explode all over Lance.
“Gee, I don’t know,” Lance snidely replied, “He’s the most homophobic, bigoted asshole to hit Washington – ever?”
“I won’t really be working with him once the contract is signed, so I won’t have to deal with that. I’ll be working with his architect, Bill Towsend. I know Bill, he’s cool.”
“I don’t care if this Towsend is the greatest thing since sliced bread, Fitzgerald is against everything we are, and I don’t want you taking the job.”
JC’s eyes flashed fire, “And so what, that’s that? What I want doesn’t matter? You lay down the law and I’m just supposed to tuck my tail between my legs and say, yes, master?”
“Don’t be an ass, JC, you know that’s not what I meant.”
“No, I don’t know, because that’s exactly what it sounded like.”
“Fine, JC, think whatever you want. I don’t have time to play word games with you tonight, so you’re just going to have to hold off on signing that contract until we have more time to talk it over.”
Lance shook his head as the memory receded; had he really been that pompous of an ass? And how had he missed then the look of hurt that had passed over JC’s face, the one that if he closed his eyes, he could so clearly see now? He hadn’t seen it that night, nor all the days after when they’d argued over the Senator and his house. All he’d seen was that JC was being stubborn – and wrong. Except that he hadn’t been the only one, but that was something that Lance had conveniently overlooked – until now.
The thought that he needed to somehow tell JC that carried him up the stairs; the sight of JC standing by the bed, pulling down the sheets stopped him dead in his tracks. What were they doing? Where would this lead? Was it possible for them to fix things, and then move forward from the disaster of the last six months? And most importantly, could he enter this room, cross to the bed and slip under the covers to lie beside JC as he had so many times before? As his eyes met and locked with JC’s, Lance wasn’t sure he had the courage, but then JC was there, standing before him, and this time he saw what JC needed in his eyes, as he hadn’t so often before.
“I thought that maybe you wouldn’t come.”
“Me, too,” Lance confessed.
“Why did you?”
“I want my life back.” Lance fingered the piping edging along the pillow in his arms. “Our life,” he corrected. “I wanted our life back.”
He didn’t protest when JC reached out and covered his restless fingers, stilling them, instead he asked a question that was as equally important to Lance as JC’s had been to him. “Why did you stay?”
“Because this afternoon all I wanted was for this to end, and then you told me that you were leaving and I realized that what I really wanted was to find my way home again.”
“Have you?”
“Not all the way, no. But I think,” JC urged Lance under the covers and then slid in behind him, “that I’ve found a really good place to start.”