Lance lay across the bed, with the covers pulled over his head in an attempt to hide the smirk currently gracing his lips. JC thought that Lance was sleeping, though how he believed that anyone could sleep over the constant mutterings and curses coming from him over the last twenty minutes was beyond Lance. Still, Lance was enjoying himself far too much to complain. JC was slowly being driven around the bend and Lance was totally - gleefully - to blame.
When it became clear that JC was trying to crawl beneath the bed, Lance turned over with a disgruntled moan, figuring no one would be able to sleep through something like that.
"JC, what are you doing?"
Silence greeted Lance's question, followed quickly by shuffling noises and then a loud thump. It didn't take JC's bellowed 'Fuck - ow' for Lance to know that his boyfriend's head had connected with the box spring; he'd been able to feel the hit through the mattress. It was all Lance could do not to laugh out loud at the sight that greeted him when JC semi-recovered from the bump and finished crawling out. His dust- streaked hair was standing up in tufts, his nose had a large dirt smudge on the tip, and his forehead was sporting a good sized goose egg. Lance almost felt sorry for him. Almost.
"What did you lose now?" he asked, exasperation dripping from each word.
JC winced as he brought his hand up to finger the lump on his head. "My wallet. It was right there on the chest." JC pointed to the substantial piece of furniture across the room. "Remember last night when we went to bed, I took off my watch and jewelry and put them on top, then I took out my wallet and put it right next to them. You were standing right there." JC's voice took on a desperate tone. "You watched me put it up there, and now," JC stared at the chest as if he were willing it to produce the missing item. "It's just - gone."
Lance sat up, the covers pooling at his waist, and ran his hands sharply through his hair. "I don't know what we're going to do with you, babe. This is like the fifth thing you've misplaced this week."
"I didn't misplace it. It was right there." JC tugged at his lower lip, refusing to meet Lance's eyes as he did. "I think we should call an exterminator. We must have mice or something, because I know it was there when we went to bed. I know it."
"Sweetie, you said the same thing about the car keys, your passport, and your cell phone. The flowers you bought for your mom that just, poof." Lance snapped his fingers. "Disappeared from the kitchen counter last week, not to mention the chicken you put in the cupboard instead of the freezer." Lance sighed. "I still haven't been able to get the smell completely out of there."
"And don't start that someone's playing tricks on you thing, JC," Lance scolded when JC went to speak. "No one else was here."
"You were here last night," JC replied, peeking up at Lance out of the corner of his eye.
Lance allowed his eyes to widen. "You're right. I must have taken it then." His smile sly, he lifted the corner of the sheets. "Would you like to search me and see if you can find it?"
In a huff, JC rose from the floor and over to the chest, slamming the doors shut with enough force to have them bounce back and almost clip him in the chin. "I'm going to be late to pick up my mom, and you know how she hates that. Could you please get up and help me find it?"
"Just take some money out of the house fund and go, we'll find it when you come back."
"You know that I can't do that. My whole life is in that wallet." JC began to tick off items on his fingers. "My license, my credit cards, the thing from the dentist with my appointment on it, my money, the key card to let me in the gate, my - "
"Okay, okay." Lance slid unabashedly naked from the bed and stretched. When he turned, JC was staring at him. "You sure you don't want to search me?" One elegantly arched eyebrow wiggled. "I mean if you're already going to be late, it might as well be for something fun."
"Lance," JC whined.
"Fine, let me just put some pants on and I'll help you find whatever it is you've misplaced this time."
Lance found the wallet in the refrigerator, wedged between the milk and orange juice - exactly where he'd put it the night before when JC fell asleep - and was immediately JC's hero. He showered with thoughts of his next prank swimming through his head, and was stretched out on the couch primed and ready when JC came back from breakfast with his mom.
Literally with his mom.
JC's eyes went wide when he walked from the kitchen into the family room and saw Lance and the items he had spread out on the coffee table beside him. He opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, but the only thing that came out was one small squeak. He quickly backtracked into the kitchen, almost bowling over his mom in the process. Lance barely had time for one quick chuckle before JC was back, his face beet red, fuming. "What were you thinking?" he demanded. "I told you that my mom was coming back with me!"
"You did not." Pretending outrage, Lance got right up in JC's face. "You said that you were taking her back to the hotel when you were done. That she and your aunt were spending the day shopping, so you were sure you'd be back early so we could play. That's," Lance yelled. "What you said."
"Keep your voice down," JC hissed, his eyes shooting to the kitchen door, behind which sat both his mother and his aunt. "They'll hear you."
"Keep my voice down. Keep my voice down! I'm naked here, JC, in case you didn't notice, and your mother almost just walked in here and saw me, all because you can't seem to keep a fucking thing straight lately."
"This isn't my fault," JC protested. "I told you - "
"That you'd be back in a couple of hours, and I should be - "
"Dressed and ready because I was bringing them back with me."
"Did not!"
"Did, too."
"Did-"
"Joshua," JC's mouth snapped shut at the sound of his mother's voice. "Do I need to come in there and get between the two of you like I used to have to with you and your sister?"
Lance let his eyes travel down his body and back up again before he grinned evilly at JC. "He's picking on me, Mrs. C, maybe you should."
Those few words and the creak of the kitchen door had JC springing into action. Before Lance knew what'd hit him, his arms were full of lube, condoms, and various toys and he was being unceremoniously shoved towards the stairs. "Get your ass upstairs and put some clothes on," JC panted, as he bent to pick up the handcuff's Lance deliberately dropped.
"Fine," Lance snatched the handcuffs from JC's hand, and waited - because after all timing was everything - until he could just see JC's mom walk into the room before stomping up the stairs, calling over his shoulder as he did, "But don't even think about asking me to take them off again later, because you're not getting anywhere near this ass again." Lance tossed everything he was holding back down the stairs. "Ever."
JC could not believe that his life had come to this. Not only was he completely losing his mind, but his boyfriend - his normal, calm, levelheaded boyfriend - had decided to completely turn into a diva for no reason at all.
Okay, so maybe there'd been that little mix-up thing with his mom and aunt coming over, but that had been days ago - days - and Lance had still been stomping around the house, pouting - and not letting JC anywhere near him - like he was a two year old when JC had left for meetings in New York.
He'd been there for four days, and not once had Lance called. Oh, they'd talked - in five minute increments and only when JC had picked up the phone- but Lance had reached out not once, and JC had just about had it.
There'd been plenty of time to think between endless meetings with record execs, and though there were still little twinges of doubt plaguing him, JC was pretty sure that Lance was the one behind his recent bouts of absentmindedness. To prove this, he'd enlisted the help of Joey who - despite being Lance's best friend - was also the worse liar in the world, which meant that Lance would get the message JC had asked Joey to give him, because Joey would never be able to tell JC he had if he hadn't.
It made perfect sense really, if you lived in JC's head.
You see, JC knew that he had told Lance what time his flight was arriving back in Orlando; he knew that he'd asked Lance to be there to pick him up. They'd talked about it both before he'd left and during the trip, and JC had made sure to text and email the information to him. Still, things being what they were, JC was pretty sure that not only would Lance not be at the airport, he'd deny ever having any knowledge of the event. Which is where Joey came in.
Joey had been in New York during two of JC's four days there, and so, when JC had finally smartened up and gotten with the program, he'd specifically asked Joey to make sure he told Lance his flight time, number, and day he arrived back in Orlando, and to make Lance write it down. He'd then made Joey swear to call him as soon as the deed was done. Joey had, with JC making him go play by play through what he'd had Lance do, and as Joey had done it all without a stutter, JC was sure he was telling the truth.
Joey now thought JC was insane, but that was okay. JC no longer believed himself to be and that was far more important that what Joey thought.
As for how JC knew this, well he was at the airport in Orlando at the exact time and location he'd given to Joey to give to Lance, and Lance wasn't there. Proof-positive to JC that he wasn't losing his mind, and that he was going to have to teach Lance that there was a price to pay for sweet revenge.
Lance waited in his office, certain that any second now the phone was going to ring and JC was going to be on the other end - fuming. He knew JC's flight had been on time, he'd checked online with the information that JC had given him. It was neatly stacked on top of the two emails JC had sent him and the note that Joey had made him write to himself. They would of course be neatly shredded before JC ever stepped foot in the door.
Concern began to settle in when an hour after the arrival of JC's flight no call had come through, and Lance found himself calling the hotel first to make sure JC had checked out as planned, and then JC's cell phone which immediately went into voicemail. Two hours after that, when the airline would give him no information as to whether JC had ever gotten on the flight, Lance was calling everyone he could think of to see if they'd heard from JC, frantic.
He should have stopped his stupid game before JC left for New York. Yes, it had been fun at first, but now, when he couldn't find JC and no one had heard from him, it seemed beyond moronic that he'd let his childish need for revenge come to this. JC could have gotten off the plane and been abducted and - the door behind Lance opened and in walked the man he'd been picturing tossed in the back of a van.
"JC! Where have you been? Your plane got in hours ago. I've been going crazy trying to find you."
Lance had one brief second to think, uh oh , before JC was moving past him and eyeballing the pile on papers his desk.
"So, you did know when I was coming in?" JC mused. "That's funny, cause Tyler and I looked around the airport for you before we headed out, but we didn't see you anywhere."
Lance immediately went on the defensive. "You were with Tyler? All this time I've been worried sick and you were farting around with your brother and couldn't be bothered to call." Lance threw JC a look of disgust before he resumed his seat in front of the computer and turned his back. "I don't think we have anything else to say to each other JC." Lance began adding numbers that had absolutely no meaning to the movie budget report he'd been working on while waiting for JC's flight to get in.
In his worry over where JC had disappeared to, he'd neglected to save the document, something that hit him like a sucker punch to the gut when JC reached around him and quite calmly turned the computer off.
The low growl that emitted from Lance would have had any number of assistants backing away in fear, but JC merely lifted an eyebrow as he explained, "That was for the neurologist's appointment I made because I was afraid I had a brain tumor." He smiled serenely as he tipped over the near full coffee mug onto a neat stack of contracts. "That was for the entire day it took me to go to the Passport Agency in Miami to get a new passport when I lost mine. And this," JC picked up the first Moonman the group had ever received and neatly snapped the flag off before tossing it at Lance's feet, "is for lying naked on the couch, with half of our collection of sex toys on the coffee table when you knew," JC's voice rose on each word, "that my mom and aunt were coming over." With a single finger JC stopped Lance from speaking. "Don't even try and defend yourself, Lance, cause I don't want to hear it. You have been the world's biggest ass, and you have nothing to say that I care to listen to."
JC's exit from the room would have made a diva proud, and Lance found his lips twitching as he watched him go. That was until he glanced at his desk and the destruction that JC had created. And really wasn't it some sort of sick justice that he could hear his mother telling him, Two wrongs don't make a right, Lance, at just this moment? Because as much as JC was wrong to do what he'd just done, Lance had known that lying naked in wait for JC on that day had been taking things just a little too far.
It seemed that maybe he'd never quite learned when to know enough was enough. Still, knowing that didn't make the crow he knew he was going to have to eat any easier to swallow. Especially when he walked into their bedroom to find JC tossing all of his freshly pressed clothing out of the closet and on to the floor.
"What in God's name are you doing?" he demanded, and then yowled indignantly when his favorite Armani sailed across the room and hit him right in the face. "JC, that's enough," Lance ordered, using his hands to shield his face from flying hangers as he hurried across the room and wrapped his arms around JC from behind. "Stop," he growled, when JC tried to wriggle free. The floor was slippery with cloth and Lance barely had time to gasp - "Shit," before his feet were out from under him and he landed flat on his back, JC on top of him, breathless on the floor.
If he didn't die first, he was going to kill JC as soon as he got his breath back, and he would gladly spend however long required in jail for it, though he was fairly certain no jury would ever, once they heard his side of the story, convict him. He tried to speak, but between JC's weight and the whole no air in his lungs thing, nothing came out but a small squeak. One that JC didn't hear because he was too busy laughing like the lunatic he was.
Using what strength he had, Lance gave his soon-to-be ex-boyfriend a shove, and was enormously pleased to hear a loud thunk followed by an even louder, "Ow," for his efforts.
Lance made it to his knees, where he began to take inventory of his various body parts in an attempt to assure himself that nothing had been permanently damaged in the fall. His ribs twinged a bit from JC's elbow making contact with them, but other than that everything seemed to be in working order. That was until a pillow hit him upside the head hard enough to make his ears ring. He was momentarily stunned, allowing JC to get one more shot in, and then it was every man for himself.
The room was a shambles, and Lance was pretty sure that he was going to be sporting a black eye for the next week or so, but if the way that JC was currently draped across his chest purring was any indication, he thought that just maybe the worse of the storm was over. Somewhere in the last hour they'd taken a detour from fighting and headed straight into some serious making up. Lance was in no way going to complain about the change.
He ran a hand down JC's back, enjoying the feel of the warm skin beneath his fingers, and felt his body stir. There was something about this man, and it wasn't just the way that he raised his head and grinned down at Lance, more than ready for another go, that would always keep him coming back for more. Lance had never been able to pinpoint what that something was, and despite the chaos that was plain and simply JC, and the charade they were still forced to live for the public, he would forever be thankful for it. JC was more often a trial than a gift, but he was Lance's as nothing had ever been before or would be again.
Which was why, when Lance rolled them over to begin the making up process over again, he could do nothing more than laugh when JC haltingly confessed, "Uh babe, just one thing. On the way home, I kind of called your mom and told her that I'd found some lingerie in your dresser."