Toronto Christmas 
     by Julad, mproved but edited somewhat.

     Words: Statuesque, pendulous, sheepskin, cloveoil.

     * * * * *


     Lance found himself irrationally looking forward to the Toronto trip.
     Three days alone with Joey, side-by-side in a city full of strangers and
     strangeness and wintery Christmas frenzy. They'd end up clinging to one
     another in the midst of it, he hoped; Santa Clauses and snow and
     loneliness and the intimacy of doing something the other guys weren't.
     Never mind that his schedule was full of pre-production bullshit from
     seven in the morning to ten at night, and that Lance would be up all night
     looking at the paperwork, and Joey wouldn't have half as much to do as
     Lance did, and would probably go off by himself-- that was just why
     looking forward to it was irrational.

     Still, they got off the plane together and shared a smile as they were
     shepherded to the waiting car, and that was something, wasn't it?

     It was bitter cold, and they barely warmed up anywhere before the doors
     were opened and the wind whipped in and iced them all over again.  Lance
     tried to huddle against Joey whenever they were outdoors, and Joey let
     him, but he didn't put his arms around him, which was what Lance,
     irrationally, wanted.

     "Four days to Christmas," Joey grumped at breakfast on the second day.
     "You feeling it?"

     Lance looked around the production office, with its stylish white-and-gold
     tinsel and a tree drooping under pendulous crystal ornaments, and the
     scent of clove oil and pine needles drifting from scattered green candles,
     and looked at Joey who was sitting two seats up on the other side of the
     crowded table, and said, glumly, "no."

     Joey was... not bored, Joey was never bored, but Joey's heart and mind
     were in Orlando, where it didn't snow eight inches overnight, and where
     Christmas was tacky and noisy and fun, and where he was at the centre of
     his own world rather than the edge of Lance's.

     Lance tried to keep him by his side, involve him in every decision, but
     Lance could feel all the adults around them watching him with prejudiced
     eyes, worst suspicions confirmed by the boy who couldn't make a decision
     without asking his friend, and the friend who kept shrugging and saying,
     "Lance, I don't *know*, okay?"  And it was made worse that Joey shone in
     all the wrong places, spilling great ideas to the wardrobe girls as he
     flirted, and suggesting subtle changes to the script which charmed the
     writers, and spending two hours with the casting agents looking at screen
     tests, and treating the whole thing as if it were art and not business.

     Lance loved that, but when he looked on Joey with doe-eyed adoration it
     didn't impress any of the people he needed to impress, so on the third day
     he told Joey to go Christmas shopping, and did nothing but feel cold in
     the opulent meeting room, and drink coffee and make unreasonably harsh
     budget demands, and snap things like, "he's had enough chances, get rid of
     him."  He rolled his eyes when the accountant couldn't find the catering
     quotes, and said, "no, *fine*, I'll talk to Roadshow if you can't *manage*
     it," about distribution deals.  They started listening to him by lunch,
     and by five they were finally treating him with something resembling
     respect.  It gave him a perverse pleasure, then, at eleven at night when
     the old guys were yawning and congratulating themselves on a good day's
     work, to page the secretary and order Chinese food for eight, and then
     offhandedly say, "Chinese okay for everyone?" as he opened the next
     folder.

     He told Joey about that, when he got back to the hotel at three, and Joey
     was up watching the news.  Joey laughed and said, "us pretty dancin' boys
     got *stamina*, baby!", and Lance finally collapsed on Joey's bed and let
     somebody see how exhausted he was. 

     "You did good," Joey said, coming over and sitting by him.  He touched
     Lance's hair, briefly, and it was their last night in Toronto and even
     though the trip was a success, nothing had happened the way Lance had
     wanted it to, and Joey was itching to go home, where they'd be just two of
     five, and what was between them would just be one dynamic of dozens.
     Lance missed Chris and JC and Justin more than he could have thought
     possible, but not wanting to share Joey with them made him feel more tired
     than ever.  

     "Hey," Joey said.  "What's wrong?"

     "I'm going to bed," Lance told him, and got up and left.

     He couldn't sleep, though; he already knew he would be awake all night and
     probably not sleep again until Christmas day, and was so cold inside that
     it made sense for him to open the balcony doors and step out into a night
     so frigid that the air knifed into his lungs, and his hand glued to the
     railing when he rested it there and didn't even hurt when he yanked it
     away again.

     He breathed in deeply and felt his miserable tears freeze on his face, and
     huddled into his jacket and resolved to count to ten and go back inside.

     On eight, he heard a door sliding, and Joey stepped out onto his balcony.
     He was wrapped in a long leather jacket which rippled around his legs,
     lighting up a cigarette and leaning on his elbows over the railing, face
     highlighted red and gold by gentle city lights.  Statuesque grace and a
     masculine impatience with... what?  Lance stood there, frozen, and studied
     him.  His own breath was coming out in thick white clouds, and the smoke
     from Joey's lips was indiscernible from the frosted air, and for the first
     time Lance asked himself what Joey was even doing here.

     He slipped back inside, and through their connecting door, and as he
     closed it he saw Joey turn through the glass to see him.  Joey dropped his
     cigarette and stepped quietly into the room. His jacket stopped moving,
     and his hair was still tousled, but abruptly still.

     "Joey," Lance said, not knowing how it would come out until it did.  He'd
     meant to sound tentative but he heard the word hoarse with longing and dry
     with desperation and rough with a thirst which plagued him with its
     constancy while only the intensity of it waxed and waned.

     "Hey," Joey said, and it was tentative, and hopeful, and sounded like Joey
     was telling himself not to be irrational.

     It was easy, then, for Lance to take the arms he wanted around himself,
     and put them there, and press his chapped lips to Joey's cold ones, and
     feel them warm as they parted and he delved into heat, and taste a
     questing tongue which warmed the rest of him so much that he shrugged out
     of his coat and dragged Joey out of his.  And he wasn't tired any more,
     and once they got naked and under the covers, Joey stopped looking
     impatient, and it was clumsy and noisy and eager and undignified, and it
     felt wonderful and made him laugh out loud.  It was really, Lance thought,
     stroking Joey's back as Joey slept sprawled next to him, child-like smile
     only half faded from his face, a lot like an Orlando Christmas.


     * * * * *

     On Christmas eve, the band had a party.  JC gave him a monogrammed
     briefcase, and Chris gave him a green Super-bomber Watergun, and Justin
     gave him a new set of skis and Lance hugged him, surprised, because he'd
     actually forgotten that his were lost in an airport somewhere in Germany
     last March.

     Joey gave him a massive brown-wrapped package with a smile, and Lance
     smiled back as he opened it.  It was a long jacket made of soft furry
     sheepskin, oversized and incredibly warm. 

     "Oooh, good for Europe!" JC said.

     "And Japan," Chris added.

     "Why can't we ever tour someplace that's fucking *warm*?" Justin asked the
     room, but he was three inches into a bottle of Southern Comfort, and only
     complaining philosophically.

     "It's perfect," Lance said, stroking it, and Joey nodded with a secret
     glimmer in his eyes.  In the pocket, when he tried it on and paraded it
     around the room, he found a little packet of Reese's.  Lance hugged
     himself happily and buried his nose into the fur, because even though it
     didn't smell like Joey yet, it wouldn't be long before it did.

     * * * * *
     end