This Christmas

Authors Note: The rather festive nature of this page is due to my taking a html class and learning tables. I haven't gone off the deep end - really.

He stood on the doorstep, a slender man in a battered leather jacket, an equally battered knapsack tossed over his shoulder, and listened to the sounds of celebration coming from inside. With little effort, he could pick out their individual voices, for they were ones he’d heard nightly in his dreams over the last five years. Each was as familiar to him as his own; all heard over the years through every emotion he could think of – anger, fear, happiness, grief and despair – raised in song and soft with love, though that was something he wouldn’t allow himself to think of now.

It had been five long years since he’d heard them in anything but memory, and he needed to savor this moment before he rang the bell and let fate sweep him into her fickle hands. He’d missed them – God, with an ache that had been a living thing, yet the distance that had been between them had been one of his making. Quite simply he’d checked out of his life, walked away from everything, his friends, life, and career; and while he had regrets, he knew as surely as he would draw his next breath that if he hadn’t done it, he’d be dead.

Somewhere along the way it had all become so unbearable and the load he’d carried had been too much for his mind to bear. Leaving had been the hardest thing he’d ever done, especially as he knew that with a single word any of them would have gladly shouldered the burden for him – except that what had haunted him hadn’t been tangible; not a burden that could be shared, but something lost deep within his heart.

What he’d needed to find had been something hidden within himself, and so he’d gone to his lawyer, signed whatever was necessary giving his parents control over all that was precious to him; and from there to the mall, where he bought the knapsack that was still his constant companion and set out on the road to nowhere.

Along the way, he’d picked up camping gear, and until the weather had turned bad he’d spent many memorable nights with only the stars and crickets for company. People had recognized him at first, but several weeks and a full beard later all that had changed. He’d grown his hair out, and had taken to wearing a battered Stetson over the mess when he figured out how well the hat had kept the rain off.

He made weekly calls to his mother on a cell phone that only she had the number for, but it wasn’t until he’d stumbled into helping at a youth center that he’d begun to find his center and the feeling that he’d finally woken up one morning and recognized as peace.

Rarely did he stay in one place for more than a week, but wherever he’d landed, he’d find himself at another shelter, center, or corner where kids – lonely, lost, confused –congregated.

He began filling his pack with what he felt were necessities of the street: warm socks and gloves, condoms, those shiny silver space blankets, thermal undershirts, zip bags with soap, deodorant, toothbrush and paste; anything and everything that he could think of that was small, warm, and easily packed.

At first he’d given them money, too, but he’d quickly learned that more likely than not it’d be used for drugs over food, and so had started filling another pack with high protein bars and shakes. The kids had laughed, but they’d taken them, and had – at least for that day – something in their stomachs other than what they’d dug out of a garbage can.

It had become a mission, one that had saved his life, and over the course of time he’d learned more from those young men and women that he had in all his years spent in the business. They didn’t know it, but over the last five years, he truly felt that they had given so much more to him then he would ever be able to return.

Now, he was home, standing outside the door to a house that he was no longer sure he’d be welcome in, listening to a celebration that he’d missed over the years, wanting to belong, but no longer sure where he fit, because he knew that no matter what, he could never go back to what he’d been before he left.

Would they open their hearts as easily as they’d open the door once he rang the bell, or would they be closed off, hurt that he’d walked away? He knew from his mother the little tidbits of their lives: who was married now, the babies they’d had, the loves they’d lost; and he knew that through her they knew what little he had told her of him and where he’d been.

They still asked about him, still kept in contact with his family, but they had each respected his wish that they not contact him, and he wondered now if after all this time he shouldn’t just turn around and go back the way he came, leaving them to the lives they’d built without him.

What would it prove to ring that bell, what would coming back after all this time give to anyone but him?

There were no easy answers and before he could make the decision to step forward or back, the door flung open and he found himself flat on his back in the grass, six plus feet of former Mouseketeer smothering him.

“You rotten, filthy son of a bitch, if you ever pull something like that again, I swear to God I will hunt you down like the dog you are and kill your ass.” Justin shook him hard, twice, bopping his head against the grass with each shake. “Don’t ever do that again, do you hear me?”

JC barely managed a nod before Joey was there, pulling Justin off. “Let me at him.” Joey hooked him under the arms and had him on his feet before he could blink, where he was shaken again for good measure before being enveloped in a hug that took his breath, one that smelled so familiar tears flooded his nose and throat.

“You’re such an ass,” Joey thumped him hard on the back, and the remaining air in his lungs left in a small squeak. “But God I missed you.” Joey let him go, but just as quickly hauled him back again to plant a warm, wet one dead on the lips. “Don’t you ever pull that shit again, or I’ll be joining Justin on that hunt, you hear me?”

JC managed to nod between sucking in big gulps of air and when he looked up, Chris was there, his arm around a hugely pregnant blonde, who was still one of the prettiest women he’d ever seen.

”Dani,” he whispered, and then he was bellowing in outrage as slaps rained over his head.

“You missed everything, asshole. The six million middle-of-the-night phone calls when Dani and I finally got our heads out of our asses and hooked up again. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing, and let me tell you,” he barely managed to duck in time when Chris swung at him again, “Justin is nowhere near as nice at two a.m. as you are, when I called to ask. God you’re an idiot,” Chris growled, and then there were smiles and wet kisses all over his face, along with one final thump on the back of his head for good measure. When Chris had finished with him, he found himself with his hands wrapped around a swollen belly, being kicked from within, and when he looked up into startling green eyes that still after all this time took his breath away, his were overflowing with tears.

He’d known that Lance would be the hardest; had known that here he’d broken more than friendship, even though the deeper feelings had never fully been expressed. It had been the thought of what might have been if he’d just had the courage to reach for it, that had been the hardest thing to leave, yet he’d known that taking that step forward in the state he’d been in would have led to a disaster that even leaving couldn’t fathom.

It had been the biggest risk of all, walking away from a love in the hope that someday he could walk back to it – whole, instead of the shadow he had once been.

JC took a step forward through a path that seconds before had been crowded with people. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, digging his hands deep into his pockets so that they wouldn’t reach out where they weren’t wanted.

This was a bad idea, he’d known it, but still he’d come, knowing they’d all be together for the annual Christmas celebration that had become a tradition their first year as a group. They did it always the week before Christmas, fitting it in no matter where they were, before leaving for their respective family celebrations.

The last year JC had been involved with it, it’d been at his house, where it should have been again this year. He’d known where they’d celebrated every year he’d been gone, had kept track of it in his head, and so had known that with him not being there for his turn, this year’s get-together would have defaulted to Lance.

It was a bad idea all around for him to show up unannounced, and yet here he was. He was more than willing to pay the price for his foolish hearts desire, knowing full well whatever it was, he deserved it.

When JC looked up to tell Lance just that, he found them alone, the door to the house behind them closed.

“I hated you for a long time,” Lance told him. “But eventually, I got over that. I lived my life and I think that you should know that I didn’t spend these last five years pining away, waiting for you.”

JC nodded, but remained silent. The floor was Lance’s now, and they both knew it.

“For a while I did; I waited, thinking you’d come back. I was so sure that there was no way you could walk away from what we’d both known was building between us. It obviously didn’t take long for me to realize that you could, and had.” Lance looked at him dead on. “I think you should know that I dated, and I found someone to love who loved me back the way that I deserved to be loved.”

“I’m glad,” JC answered, because he honestly was, despite each word hitting his heart like a dart, he truly was.

“I loved you,” Lance spoke matter-of-factly. “Then I hated you, and then I let you go.” Lance took a step forward and touched where JC had been afraid to. “I don’t know why you’re here, why you came back at a time in my life when I’m free from everything but the love it seems I still have for you.”

“Lance –”

“No.” Lance held JC in place with only fingertips against his face. “Not yet.” Lance fingered the faint scar under JC’s jaw that he’d gotten from a teenage boy who hadn’t wanted his help as he spoke. “I loved Jesse. I gave him everything I had, and for a long time that was enough; we made it work. He lived here, you should know that. I shared my life with him, all the little everyday things that make two people a unit, and he filled the hole that you left even when I truly believed that nothing ever could.”

Lance sighed and his hand dropped. “We made plans; we were going to travel the world first and then settle down, have a family; and one day, I don’t know, we woke up in a hotel room in this little town in France and realized that we had this great love for each other, but that it wasn’t the kind of love that would keep us a unit forever. It would stay steady, but it wouldn’t grow, not like what I feel for you has.” Again, when Lance looked at JC his eyes were solid, steady. “So, I need to know, JC, why you’re here. Because if you came back not willing to offer me what I have to give to you, then you need to turn around and go back to where you came from, because there isn’t anything for you here. Not now, not ever.”

For Lance, that said it all, now it was a matter of waiting to see if JC had the courage to take what was being offered to him; or not.

“There was never a moment when I was gone that you weren’t here,” JC touched his head, “and here,” then his heart. “I have never regretted anything more in my life than I regret leaving you, knowing what was there between us when I did. You’ll never know how sorry I am for that, because there aren’t words for me to tell you. What I hope you will know is that while I could have stayed and tried to give you what you needed, if I had, I’d have failed. I’d have failed, Lance, and taken you down with me, and that was something that I never would have been able to live with. I did the only thing that I felt I could; I left.” This time JC took the step, reached out, and ran his hand over Lance’s shoulder until he was cupping his neck. “I would have never come back if those things hadn’t changed. I love you too much to ever hurt you like that.”

JC stroked the side of Lance’s neck with his thumb. “I don’t expect you to believe me; I know that’s too much to ask and so I won’t. All I can do is stay and show you that I mean every word, that it’s not just this Christmas, but every one that comes after that I’ll be here for. Whatever it takes to prove to you that I’m sticking, that I love you, and want whatever you’re willing to give, that’s what I’ll do. For however long you need.”

“And if I tell you that all I need is for you to be my friend?”

“Then I’ll be your friend.” JC had nothing to lose, so he laid it all out there. “I won’t like it, and it’ll hurt, but five years ago, Lance, I wasn’t sure I could survive another day, and no matter how much it hurts, I know now that I can survive even that.”

Lance studied him as the twilight stretched out around them and then he nodded. “I won’t ask you to promise that’ll you never leave, because no one can truly promise that, but I will ask for as long as you’re able, you’ll stay.” Lance reached up, memorizing the lines that hadn’t been there the last time he’d touched JC’s face. “Can you give me that?”

In answer, JC bent, touching Lance’s mouth with his, certain that he could say so much more with his heart than he ever could with words. The kiss was as gentle as a mother to her newborn child, and carried as many wishes; for love and peace, faith and understanding; happiness and healing that they would always remember came from this moment – this Christmas.

Many thanks to Missy for the beta! Merry Christmas.

Feedback is greatly appreciated. *grin*