Lake 
     by Julad

     Justin is sixteen.  He'll fuck anything, let anybody fuck him, do anything
     to get off, anywhere, anytime.  He's got a huge big-brother crush on JC,
     and sneers at him every opportunity he gets.

     Chris is prickly, the kind of cat you don't touch without getting clawed,
     except if nobody touches it for long enough, it'll crawl into a lap and
     butt its face in a chest until it gets petted and rubbed and loved.  He
     crawls into JC's lap, mostly, or Joey's.

     Joey's just plain good-natured; he does what the others want. He's the one
     who'll throw Justin across the table and hammer his twitching ass till he
     mellows the fuck out.  A few drinks and he'll let somebody blow him.  A lot
     of drinks, on a really good night, and he'll give the most enthusiastic
     head on earth, pausing to swallow beer or whisky or tequila, and laugh the
     whole time.

     JC's the glue guy, the lubricant guy.  He just does what it takes to keep
     them all sweet on one another.  When somebody's down, he romances them.
     When somebody lashes out, they come out of JC's room in the morning and
     apologise.

     Lance watches them all interact, sometimes joining in the laughter and
     sometimes adding to the catcalls, but his eyes are always level and still
     as the surface of a lake, hiding everything but the fact that there's
     something underneath. 

     *****

     He honestly thought it would be JC first, but Joey surprised him--came home
     from a party early, crooning Sweet Child O Mine like he was rescuing an old
     torch song from Axl's chainsaw abuses.  Lance was stressing over his
     schoolwork, and Joey scooped him up and spread him out on the bed and
     kissed every inch of his body, and then didn't take his lips from Lance's
     mouth for the rest of the night.

     Chris was next--Lance hadn't expected that either.  The whole rehearsal
     thing was starting to bite, and Chris was in a vile mood and Lance was way
     too pissed off at him to hide how pissed off he was, and next thing he knew
     he had an armful of Chris, who was suddenly sweet, and pliant.

     Justin marched into Lance's room a week later and stamped his foot and
     said, "Jesus, are you *ever* gonna fuck me?"

     And on a really good day, a day when the sun was shining and the record was
     selling and his marks came back and they were great, JC drew him aside and
     kissed him long and hard on the mouth and whispered, "come on, Gorgeous,
     let's do it."

     "Did Lance's arrival change the dynamics of the band?" some hack always
     asks.  

     "Yeah." "Nah." "Maybe." "Kinda." "Um, don't know."

     Lance watches the people who watch them all interact, and his eyes are
     always level and still as the surface of a lake, hiding everything but the
     fact that there's something underneath.

     end.