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1. You’re exactly as old as you feel. So if your back hurts, your neck has a crick in it, and looking in the mirror scares you, you’re probably Pretty Damn Old.
It was probably the call from Justin that did it.
Actually – it was definitely the call from Justin that did it.
“Chris, where the hell are you? …Chris. Chris. Chris, pick up. Seriously, man. Are you screening? …Okay, fine. Look, I just wanted to give you an early happy four-oh, man. I mean, it’s the big one, right? I was gonna ask if you wanted to party it up, but I figure now that you’re an old man, you should probably get to bed early. The walker’s in the mail. Just kidding, dawg, I swear. Really.“
He wasn’t kidding. When the bulky package arrived at the door, Chris probably should have laughed. Nine times out of ten, he would have found it hilarious. Nine times out of ten, he probably would have been the one actually sending the walker as a prank gift.
However, this was That Other Time. The time where the walker arrived about ten minutes after Chris had woken up, feeling sore as hell. Five minutes after feeling like his glasses weren’t actually doing a hell of a lot to help him read anymore. Three minutes after having his knee hurt like hell when he was getting down the stairs, only to find a stack of ‘Happy 40th’ birthday cards with their various messages promising him a future of erectile dysfunction and various other maladies.
For whatever reason, today was the day that Chris felt Pretty Damn Old.
It’s not like Chris normally felt that way. Or acted old. Or really did or felt anything that gave away a hint of maturity. It’s definitely not like he planned on aging, not exactly – he kind of assumed that he’d continue on, just as he always had, and at some point or another the world would end. Or something.
But now there was a walker sitting in his living room, and he had two choices – the mature option would be to accept the gift with a smile and give a call to Justin, thanking him for his consideration. They could laugh about it together.
The other option involved sending an ugly clown as a strip-o-gram to show up at Justin’s trailer on whatever-the-hell movie set he was on this week.
Nine times out of ten, he’d already be pulling up the database on his computer of horrifying stripper options that would guarantee at least one therapy visit and a threatening call from Justin’s mom.
But it was a day for exceptions.
“Fuck,” Chris announced to the walker, staring at it mournfully. “Okay. Turning forty is going to suck, isn’t it? Completely and totally suck.”
The walker didn’t answer back.
Forty.
A four followed by a zero and everything that it entailed.
Chris was pretty sure he could feel the pain lacing through his back already.
“I can be forty. I can. I mean, other people do it, right? They turn forty all the time. It’s not a big deal.”
The walker remained silent.
“I’m just getting older. Wiser, really,” he said thoughtfully. “More respectable. An elder in the boyband community. A paragon of adult virtue or… whatever.”
Again, no response.
“What the fuck do you mean by that?” He squinted at the walker. “I can totally do it. I can totally be forty. It’ll be fine. It’ll be perfectly, perfectly… fuck.” He flopped down on the couch. “I’m talking to inanimate objects. I’m so fucked.”
It sounded… horrible. Ominous. Absolutely and completely terrible.
“I can be forty,” Chris told himself. “I can do it. I am going to be the best, most respectable goddamn forty-year-old ever. It’ll be fine. Totally, totally fine.”
That, he knew, was an absolute lie.
********
2. Old age is the time to give up childish things. Even really, really attractive things.
Part of being a respectable forty-year-old, Chris decided, was to stop being in love with Lance.
It wasn’t that he was head-over-heels or anything – it was just that Lance was incredibly attractive and had an understated sense of humor that complimented Chris’s in-your-face lack of subtlety. He was freakishly organized and snarky and a lot of things that Chris wasn’t, which was… intriguing. Not to mention that he’d gone from the small-town hayseed child with platinum-dyed hair to some sort of sleek, well-built sex god overnight. Chris wasn’t totally sure when it happened. Lance hadn’t hidden away in a cocoon, unless N’sync counted, but one day he’d just… transformed.
Chris had a sneaking suspicion that the rest of the world had figured it out before him.
Nowadays, Lance was everywhere, his smiling face trailing all across magazine covers and twitter and the internet, looking all pretty and confident in his skin and all the things that Chris had ever wanted for him.
And Chris was pretty sure his own face with ‘I’m Bisexual!’ plastered across the bottom of magazines wouldn’t sell quite so many copies.
It’s not like he just woke up one day, totally in love with Lance. Just like Lance growing into himself, Chris’s crush had just kind of… happened. They’d done their dance for years (and not the Space Cowboy kind), and it started at some point between leaving Germany and the band falling apart.
Because maybe there was a moment or two on the NSA tour where they’d come stumbling off stage, glitter still smeared on their cheeks and sweat dripping down their bodies as they hugged and hi-fived and felt the adrenaline in their bodies… Maybe there was a moment where Chris would pull Lance into the sort of aggressive bear-hug he’d normally save for Justin, and instead of pulling back or stammering, Lance just sunk into it and ran his hands up Chris’s sweat-glazed arms, ruffling his hair and smiling at him with that damn suddenly-dangerous smile that made Chris suddenly understand why Lance’s face graced a million teenage walls.
And maybe there was a club or two where he’d go from grinding between two girls to having Lance’s hip bump into his, the whiskey suddenly sitting heavy in his stomach as he’d reach out, circling his fingers around Lance’s wrist and keeping him from moving away by holding keeping those fragile, delicate bones ensnared. And maybe they’d slow down into the music, bodies moving, until he got too uncomfortable and would laugh and pull away, maybe make a joke of it.
Maybe there were days in Chris’s pool with the other guys hanging out, the last bits of Celebrity done and just the waiting left, even as the threads were starting to unravel. Long days of getting calls from management by the poolside, his mouth murmuring the appropriate responses that wouldn’t get him yelled at (this time) while his eyes stayed glued to Lance’s lean figure diving into the pool, the way the water would travel in rivulets down his body as he burst out of the pool---
And sometimes there were the quiet moments before the show, where Lance would just smile and curling up and lean his head into Chris’s shoulder and Chris would suddenly feel right.
There were about a thousand different ways that Chris fell in love with Lance. But that kind of love, the crazy kind that seemed to itch in the back of his brain and make him want to say the stupidest possible thing whenever Lance was in the room… that was something he could leave behind. Grow out of. Or something.
Forty-year-old Chris could look back at his crush on Lance in the same way people look at their high school sweetheart – a relic from another time, something great in the moment, but that totally didn’t fit in with their current, mature lifestyle choices.
Joey, however, was less enthused about the plan, and Chris was getting pretty tired of listening to the guys burst into laughter at any of his perfectly logical and reasonable ideas.
“You’re kidding me, right? God, Chris, I’ve watched you two stare at each other for years, why the hell do you think you’re going to stop now?”
“Because I’m going to be forty, in case you didn’t notice, Joe.” Chris had actually wondered if Joey had forgotten – normally he’d be getting phone calls about clubs to take over or trips to take for his birthday. This year? Only radio silence. “Forty is way too old to have a stupid crush on stupid Lance, okay?” He was pretty sure that, since he wasn’t forty just yet, he was okay to sound like a petulant teenager for a little bit longer.
Suddenly, Joey was staring at him, his eyes wide. “Wait,” he said. “You mean, you two aren’t… y’know…?”
“We aren’t what?” Chris asked irritably.
“Y’know. Having some sort of epic and tragic love affair that you don’t talk to us about?”
This time, Joey had left him absolutely and completely dumbfounded. “We… wait, we what?”
“I just always assumed you guys were keeping it on the down-low, I guess. I mean, you two have been staring at each other like sad little puppydogs for years, it’s been absolutely disgusting.”
Chris rolled his eyes. “It’s not like that, Joe. Not at all. It’s just… chemistry. Unnecessary sexual tension. An ill-advised crush. We’ve resisted our natural urges for the good of the band – for the good of all of humanity, probably.”
“…You two just suck at getting together, then?”
“Shut up, Joe.”
They fell into silence for a moment. When Joey finally broken it, he sounded more tentative. “Are you okay, Chris? Like, really okay?”
Chris closed his eyes. “I’m fine,” he said calmly. “It’s just… time for a change.”
“Maybe this whole ‘growing up’ thing isn’t the change you need.”
“What else is there?” Chris snapped. “I’m just doing what needs to happen.”
There was another moment of silence.
“I’m coming out there,” Joey announced. “I’m gonna stay with you for a few days. It’ll be fun. Okay?”
“You don’t need to, I’m fine.”
Joey chuckled. “Doesn’t matter. Get prepared for a houseguest, Kirkpatrick.” He hung up.
********
3. Creative projects are key to maintaining energy and focusing a lifetime’s experience into something that can be shared with the world. Just no glitter (that means you, JC).
“You’re writing a book,” Lance said slowly, his voice sounding tinny through Chris’s cell.
“More like a pamphlet,” Chris explained. “A novelette. Novella? Novella, that’s it. Maybe more like a list. Or something.”
“About getting old,” Lance continued, his words still going at preschool speed, as if his brain was actually physically unable to process just how stupid that sounded.
Chris felt the urge to defend the dignity of his pet project. “Hey, unlike you prettyboys who still have your youth and your smooth skin and your hair—“
“You still have your hair.”
“But for how long? I mean, I could wake up bald any second now. Any. Second.” Chris sighed. Lance was still sounding like aliens had abducted him and replaced him with a pod-Chris. Which, honestly, wasn’t entirely an unreasonable thing, given that even Chris had to admit that his sudden preoccupation with age was just a teensy bit outside his normal behavior. “I just feel it’s important for me to collect, y’know. My wisdom. For future generations. So they can approach old age with dignity and poise and not like whatever crazy shit Joey and JC will probably do in a few years.”
“You’re writing about how to be dignified as you grow old?”
Chris really thought three straight minutes of laughter was more than a little excessive.
“No, no, I swear. No more laughing,” Lance said, though the tiniest chuckle seemed to be hiding in his voice. “Can I see it?”
“You want to see my list?”
“Of course.” Lance shrugged. “If it’s important to you, I probably shouldn’t laugh. Too much.”
Chris glowered. “Do you see why I can’t trust you with something as important and necessary as my collected experience and wisdom?”
It was impressive, Chris had to admit, that Lance managed to fight back the laughter.
“Please?” Lance finally said, after the struggling silence of his attempt to not laugh ended.
That was pretty much all it took.
Chris sighed, flipping open his laptop. “Fine. I’m emailing you my working draft. No laughing, Bass. Or else.”
“I’ll call you later,” Lance promised.
About twenty minutes after Chris clicked ‘send’ in his email, he got a text message from Lance. It was short and to the point, and made Chris wonder what it was about his decision to finally stop acting like a five year old that seemed to inspire panic in everyone around him.
‘I’m coming for a visit, Chris.’
There was no way he was going to let Joey with his crazy theories about puppydog stares and Lance be in the same house while Chris was most determinedly and totally Just Being Friends with Lance.
However, when he told Joey that he wanted to delay his visit because Lance was making his own house call, Joey had seemed just a little too accepting.
“Crazy,” Chris decided as he thumbed through his text messages. “They’re all crazy. Maybe they’re the ones that need help.”
The walker that Justin had given him, still leaning against his sofa in his living room and doing an adequate job of collecting dust, continued its habit of not responding.
********
4. Age ain’t nothing but a number. Unfortunately, it’s a pretty big number.
He probably could have waited. Technically, Lance was just over an hour away – his plane had gotten in, the car service was on its way, Lance had sent him one of his very crisp and short text messages informing him of his current location. Chris could have gone out and gotten some Thai food for the two of them, before uncorking a bottle of wine (with absolutely no nefarious intentions, of course).
But then he looked in the mirror and all of that went out of the window. A trip to the drug store and a brief stop at the local pizza place later, and he was set for the night. After all, he had to look his best to not be in love with Lance.
Twenty minutes later, he was hitting ‘2’ on his speed dial.
“Lance, I think I’ve got a grey hair.”
Only Lance could manage to roll his eyes in a way that completely conveyed itself over the phone. “Chris, we had this conversation three years ago when you got your first grey hair.”
“That was different. That was just a few scouts – this time the invading army is showing up.”
“Okay. You’ve got some grey coming in. You’ve said that you’re working on accepting growing older. So what?”
“So…” Chris glanced down at the brown-splattered tub, the smear of red that was mixed in. He was pretty sure that was from the head wound. “I may have slipped in my tub while dyeing my hair. And I may be bleeding. Um. Head injuries are supposed to bleed a lot, right?”
“Jesus, Chris! I’m going to hang up and--”
“Don’t call an ambulance,” Chris interrupted, forcing the panic down in his voice. “Look, it’s not that bad, I promise. You’re almost here, just come and see for yourself before you start doing things, okay? I’m fine. Really. I just could use a little help since I can’t totally see the back of my own head without some incredibly angled mirrors. And while it’s giving me some awesome redecorating ideas – if I weren’t growing too gracefully and respectably old for that kind of thing, that is – I could really just use your help. I just, y’know. Didn’t want you to be surprised. When you walk in on this.”
“Chris,” Lance said, with that perfect mingling of despair and amusement that Chris always took as a personal compliment, “I’m never surprised on the kind of things I walk in on when I come to your place. Ever.”
“Good. So just… get here soon.” Chris hung up before Lance could start talking his way into having a doctor make a late-night house call.
It’s not like he had a lot to do while waiting for Lance. He tried half-heartedly to swipe at the spilled dye on the bathroom floor, causing one of his fluffy white towels to take on a new, more interesting and marbled hue. He tried cleaning up a little of the blood, just to decrease the chances of having to watch a vein physically force itself out of Lance’s forehead. And he made a gin and tonic, because while he probably shouldn’t be drinking if he had a concussion, Lance would probably want a drink within about thirty-five seconds of seeing the bathroom carnage.
It turned out to be more like twenty.
Chris barely had a chance to get a ‘Oh, hi La—‘ out before, there he was, in his face and with his fingers probing the back of Chris’s head.
Before his vow to not be in love with Lance, he would have savored every second of the attention. Now, he was… well. Still savoring the attention. Rome wasn’t built in a day, after all. These things would take time.
He could feel the heat of the gaze burning into the back of his neck – Lance’s eerie, soul-searching, totally stupid and not-at-all sexy green eyes. Which made him feel incredibly aware of the fact that he was only covered by a somewhat-ratty towel wrapped around his waist.
“Jesus, Chris. You’ve dyed your hair a million times, and most of them on a bus, and pretty much never sober,” Lance murmured, and his fingers reached up to graze along the edge of Chris’s scalp, tracing through the line of brown that was trickling down his face. “How the hell did you manage to slip in the tub?”
It was just one instant. One little moment of weakness where he reached out, letting his fingertips graze against Lance’s.
But it was enough. The perfect little moment of skin-on-skin contact ended as Chris slammed backwards and Lance’s gaze immediately darted to meet his.
“I didn’t mean to,” Chris said, feeling incredibly stupid the second he said it.
But Lance just smiled a little, a tiny quirk at the edge of his mouth. Instead of retreating like Chris was half-expecting, he just reached out again, letting his fingers slide along the edge of the wound.
“Let’s get you cleaned up, Chris.”
As Lance gently wiped away the blood, all Chris could do was close his eyes and breathe in everything Lance. He’d be okay, the bathroom would be okay, because Lance could fix things. Lance could fix everything, even a broken old man named Chris.
He was definitely, totally not going to stay in love with Lance, he decided. Even if Lance was obviously the perfect person to care for him in his dotage.
He could do this.
********
5. The friendships that you make in your youth will sustain and revitalize you during your twilight years. Or drive you nuts.
“You’re not the first person who spent their youth singing and dancing bubblegum pop to grow old, you know. If you really need help,” Joey said, “I’ve got Jon Knight’s phone number if you want to talk to him.”
Joey had finally arrived for his own, self-proclaimed ‘Chris ReYouthification Program’ visit. So far, Chris was pretty much ready to chuck him in the pool and let him drown. Unfortunately, that didn’t seem like the activity of a venerable elder.
Chris glared at him. “I know you’ve been boyband two-timing us. Don’t you dare deny it, Fatone.”
Rather than fight him, Joey just offered a noncommittal shrug. “Hey, what can I say? I like to watch some well-coordinated hip thrusting. And it’s not like Justin’s mom wasn’t into it too—“
Chris’s hands flew up to his ears. “I don’t want to hear anything about Justin’s mom. Shut up, shut up, shut up—“
Joey shrugged. “Just sayin’.”
They were sitting at the edge of Chris’s pool, sunbaked skin somewhere in the range between tan and the burning threats of pink. Joey’s feet dangled in the water, ripples coiling around his calves, while Chris attempted very, very hard not to push him in. This time. For the sake of friendship, dignity in his elderly years, and his need for someone to bitch to about the Lance Issue.
“Lance saved my life the other day,” Chris said, after failing to find a reasonable way to change the conversation to his intended topic.
“He did?” Joey raised an eyebrow.
“I was bleeding. Dying, really, after a tragic household accident. Lance took care of me.”
“I’ll bet he did,” Joey sounded a little too amused. Chris was suddenly feeling incredibly suspicious of Lance’s habit of playing with his phone during his stay.
“But nothing happened,” Chris pointed out. “You know what happens when someone almost dies? Sex. Mad, passionate sex. And this case? I was almost naked, but all that happened was he patched up my head. Don’t say it,” he warned as Joey began to snicker. “Anyway. Obviously, I’m too mature and adult and he’s too Lance for anything to happen, so you can stop with your stupid theories. Okay?”
“So,” Joey said, a little too casually. “I take it your plan of not being in love with Lance isn’t going well.”
Chris fixed him with a withering glower. “It’s going fine, I just told you.”
“Mmmmhmm.”
“And I notice that you’re not even suggesting that we, say, use my fortieth birthday to go out and get drunk and dance with random girls until I forget about Lance. You’re derelict in your duty of being my wingman, Joe.”
Joey blinked. “I thought you were going to be old and respectable now that you’re forty? Clubbing doesn’t seem to fit in with that plan at all, Chris.”
“Fine then,” Chris grumbled, swinging his legs in the pool and sending water splashing up. “I’ll just sit at home and knit or something.”
“Fine,” Joey said, but for a second, Chris saw the hint of an amused smile on the corners of Joey’s lips.
“You’re up to something.”
“Nothing at all, Chris. Nothing at all.” He clapped Chris on the shoulder. “Let’s go inside before we burn. Your skin isn’t as young as it used to be.”
“Shut up, Fatone.”
********
6. Use your newfound retirement time to keep up on your correspondence. By staying in touch with the rest of the world, someone will keep you from being dead for weeks in your house and only being found when you start to smell.
The emails were starting to feel a little like an intervention.
‘Chris,
Just wanted you to know that you’re a vibrant and talented person, whatever your age. Stay strong.
-JC’
Or in JC’s case, a little like a Hallmark card. But it made him smile all the same, because JC just… always managed that.
The email from Joey wasn’t entirely unexpected. It wasn’t entirely suspicious to hear from both JC and Joey in a two day period, but it definitely had the faint air of a conspiracy.
‘hey chris, just wanted you to know that you’re fine as you are, you moron. love, joe’
Justin’s, however, sealed the deal that something was up. It also seemed a little more panicked.
‘Chris, u know the walker was a joke, rite? didn’t mean to fuck up your birthday, man. –j
Ps lance can be fuckin scary.’
Three phone calls later, Justin was assured that his gift was taken appropriately and a mime was dispatched to strip down in front of Justin’s place, which would probably do the job of really assuring him that everything was fine.
The mention of Lance, however, was enough to give Chris pause. He didn’t have any emails from Lance. Not a peep of concern over Chris’s new concentration on a New And Appropriate Lifestyle. But apparently, he’d sent out some threats.
This was definitely Lance’s handiwork – normally, he’d try a little harder to mask it. The fact that he didn’t mind that Chris knew – was that his version of an intervention email?
He was definitely and totally not going to remain in love with Lance. Even if Lance cared about him enough to freak out Justin.
But it’s not like he could leave it. Instead, he fired off a text message to Lance,
‘I see that you obviously are the one person to completely understand and support my life choices. Kudos, Bass, on appreciating that I age like a fine wine.’
He expected a snarky response – something about Chris and whine and wine, probably. Instead, he got a brief, stark message.
‘sometimes you need someone else to make the choices for you, Kirkpatrick.’
Chris stared at the message for a moment. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” he murmured.
********
7. Memories are what you make of them. Especially if you can block out the parts where you looked stupid.
He was pretty sure he’d travelled in time. Or hallucinated. Or hallucinated about traveling in time.
Joey and Lance’s phones had gone straight to voicemail when he called them. Other than a few brief ‘happy birthday!’ voicemails left from the guys and various other friends that morning, he’d been spending his 40th alone.
It was for the best, he decided. He would spend his birthday in quiet dignity – no clubbing, no party, just being an adult. But now he’d stumbled in through his kitchen door, a litany of curses escaping out under his breath as he swatted for the light switch, and then… there they were. Sitting.
It was actually kind of fucking eerie. Obviously, for his birthday he’d fallen through some sort of time portal. The proper thing to do would have probably been to start with ‘hi’. Instead, he went with—
“What the hell is this?” Dumbfounded, his index finger still hovered on the light switch, the illogical urge to flip it off and back on somewhere in the back of his brain, as if it would make the four mirages in front of him vanish back into the ether.
Instead, one of the maybe-not-hallucinations talked. “What do you mean?” JC said, his eyes just a little too-wide and smile just a little too casual, in what was totally one of JC’s attempts to maintain his innocence that never, ever worked. That was what convinced Chris that this was probably somewhere more along the lines of ‘prank’ than ‘bad acid trip’. Not that he could ever be sure when JC was involved, of course.
“It’s time for dinner,” Joey said. “What’d you bring us?”
Chris’s gaze swiveled over to him and he squinted slightly. “Nothing, given that I thought I had my alarm set some no wayward boybanders could break into my kitchen.”
“Your alarm is shit, then,” Justin chimed in, and it was hard not to stare, since Chris genuinely couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen that face in the same context of his kitchen. Had it been two years? Three? But Justin was just giving him that damn shit-eating grin. “Happy birthday, dumbass,” the kid added, which was enough.
“Fuckers,” Chris proclaimed. “You crazy ass motherfucking assholes, get over here.”
“That doesn’t sound very dignified of you in your old age,” Justin taunted. But he was getting out of his chair, the grin splitting wider across his face as he threw his still-too-damn-long limbs around Chris in a crushing hug. And then there was JC (still too skinny, Chris decided, he had to fix that one of these days), and Joey’s strong frame, and—
Lance. Who hadn’t said a word yet, but as Chris felt a light touch of fingertips entwining in his as he stood in the middle of the giant group-hug-slash-huddle, he knew exactly who was responsible for the pile of memories sitting in his kitchen.
He’d known Lance was the sneaky bastard. There was no way anyone else could manage this. It’d been at least a thousand years since all five of them had been in a room together, and a part of him had missed it and been aching for this moment, with Justin whooping and pounding on his back, with the low rumble of Joey’s laughter, the way JC pressed his forehead against Chris’s… And the way that Lance just knew that there was no better gift for Chris’s fortieth birthday. Lance always understood that kind of thing.
For a second, in the middle of the hug, Chris was able to gaze through the mass of boyband bodies to catch Lance’s gaze. Chris quirked an eyebrow, and based on the tiny grin dancing along Lance’s lips, he didn’t miss the, ‘Thank you, you bastard’ that Chris mouthed at him.
********
8. Getting to bed early will make you look more refreshed the next day. And hey, might as well die peacefully in your sleep.
“So,” Lance said conversationally, as if he were talking about the weather, or the news, or anything other than the fact that the remnants of twelve straight hours for former-boyband-bonding were littering Chris’s kitchen. “That was a nice party.”
It was more than ‘nice’. They’d stayed up all night, talking and reminiscing and catching up on the stupid, mundane details of each of their lives that never quite made it out over the phone. The stack of empty beer bottles on the kitchen table had grown higher, at some point Chris and Justin had ended up in a wrestling match on the floor and managed to take out a chair leg, and there were stacks of half-empty pizza boxes that were just sitting there on the counter, wasting away.
It had been exactly the kind of night that Chris had needed. And the whole time, he’d felt like that same, stupid kid he’d been when they’d been traveling nonstop around Germany, living the whirlwind life. When Justin had driven his elbow into Chris’s ribs, instead of just feeling pained and too old for that kind of shit, all he wanted to do was get vengeance. Which he did, thanks to a well-placed opportunity to break away and snatch the ice cube tray out of his fridge.
For the first time since that call from Justin, he didn’t feel old. He felt… amazing.
Not that he needed Lance to know that. Not yet.
“Definitely one hell of a party,” Chris agreed, trying to keep his tone even.
“It was good of Justin to come out.”
“I thought he was filming, so yeah. It was… surprising. I mean, who knew that all of you guys would just happen to show up at my house, on the same night, and decide to break into my kitchen simultaneously?”
“It’s probably some residual ESP from living in the buses and inhaling all those gasoline fumes on the road,” Lance said, his voice so leaden that for a second, Chris wasn’t entirely sure that Lance wasn’t serious about the ESP thing. It wasn’t totally out of the question that Lance had been hiding it all these—
Now he was starting to think like JC. Dammit.
But it did leave a few questions unanswered. “So,” Chris said. “Let’s say that, perhaps, it wasn’t some sort of learned boyband trait that would involve government dissection. Let’s say that, perhaps, some particularly evil – and sexy, definitely sexy—mastermind decided to round up all of his old buddies and drop the on the porch of his poor, ancient buddy Chris. Does this theory sound completely wacky and out of the question?”
“Completely? No.” Lance wrinkled his nose. “You really think Justin is sexy?”
“Justin? Actually plan something that involves a travel itinerary?” Chris waved it off. “Please. This has good ol’ Lance Fucking Bass stamped all over it. Or do I have to call the airport and sweet-talk the girl at the counter?”
“You seem to think a lot of yourself, to assume I’d spend my time planning a surprise reunion for your birthday just to make you forget this stupid ‘you’re old’ idea,” Lance said, his words even – but his eyes were suddenly sparkling, a heat lurking in them that made Chris’s heart rise into his throat.
Old Chris wanted to give up Lance. But Young Chris, the one who ran himself ragged trying to get a bunch of five guys a chance at fame… that Chris was never one to back down from a challenge. Even one with bewitching eyes. So he swallowed deeply and took a step forward, letting all the joy he’d felt the night before just wash over him and carry away all the stupid aches and pains and fear attached to the word ‘forty’.
“I don’t think it was just about that,” he said, keeping his voice steady.
Lance smirked. “It wasn’t?” he drawled, putting a little Mississippi into the words. “Then what was it about?”
That was just too much. “You were trying to seduce me!” Chris accused, thrusting out his index finger and poking Lance in the sternum. “A dastardly, well-executed plan of seduction! Right under my nose!”
Lance rolled his eyes. “I wasn’t even trying to be subtle, Chris.”
Chris squinted. “Not even a little?”
“Sorry. I mean, it makes it kind of hard to seduce someone if the seduce-ee doesn’t realize it, right?”
“I guess,” he admitted.
“You’re forty,” Lance said, and suddenly the fire in his eyes seemed to deflate a little. “It doesn’t just make you feel old, Chris. I just feel like… We’ve been wasting time, don’t you think?”
He’d gone through years of watching Lance blossom from the shy, nervous kid thrown into the high life, into this… this sexy creature of pure, unadulterated, self-assured Lanceness. Years that he could have spent with Lance, next to Lance, in deliciously delightful sexual positions with Lance… Yeah. Definitely time to reconsider things.
Chris was pretty sure spending even one more fucking day without Lance firmly entrenched in his life and his bed would be an absolute, criminal waste.
“You know what I wanted when I blew out my candles?” Chris said, letting his own voice drop an octave lower.
“What?” Lance asked, the amusement slowly dawning back into his eyes as Chris sauntered closer, trapping him against the counter, his arms on either side of Lance, blocking him in.
“You popping out of my cake. Naked.”
“Chris, I was already at the party. I couldn’t have been in both places.”
“Minor details,” Chris said, and then he leaned in and captured Lance’s lips with his own. Suddenly, it was all skin against skin, his fingers entwining with Lance’s as their hands desperately grasped together, his teeth glancing along Lance’s lower lip, the rumble of a groan escaping from his throat.
Happy birthday, indeed.
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9. Good books, good wine, and good company are the essence of an adult and dignified life. Although the ‘good wine’ part can be hell on ‘dignified’.
“So how’s your book of wisdom? Is it ready for when JC hits the big Four-Oh?” Lance’s warm breath tickled against the skin of Chris’s neck, sending a series of delightful shivers down his spine.
“Almost,” Chris said, his pencil still scratching away at the notes. “I’m not sure anyone’s ready for that.”
“Mmm,” Lance sleepily agreed, tugging on the quilt that was spread over them and pulling it up around his ribcage.
“Hey,” Chris said, turning on his side and poking Lance’s bare chest with his pencil. “If you’re getting cold. You tell me. I’ll fix it, I promise.” For good measure, he added a leer, letting his gaze sweep up and down Lance’s body.
Once upon a time, Lance would have blushed at the attention. He would have shied away slightly. Instead, he stretched out like a goddamn cat, letting the blanket fall back down towards his hips as he stretched up a hand to let his fingers ruffle through Chris’s dark, soft hair. “Gonna take advantage of me, old man?”
“I’ve got to get my action in before my bedtime,” Chris purred, refusing to be beaten by the fact that his companion was looking incredibly wanton at the moment.
“I think you’ll be staying up late tonight. I hope you can handle it.”
“Bring it,” Chris breathed.
As Lance rolled over on top of Chris, using Evil Sexy B astard Smile No. 3, Chris was pretty sure that this qualified as the best birthday in pretty much the entirety of human history.
“First,” Lance whispered in his ear, deep and husky and making pretty much all of Chris spring to attention. “We have to finish your list.”
“What?” Chris stuttered, his voice about an octave about what he expected.
And then there was Lance, pulling Chris’s list out of his hand and using him as a tabletop as he glanced down the scrawled suggestions. “Just one more,” he said, mostly to himself.
“Fine.” Chris snatched the pencil out of Lance’s hand, scribbling down a few quick words and dropping it back on the nightstand. “Now. Back to the matter at hand. Or, more accurately, the matter in my—“
“Not quite right,” Lance interrupted, and plucked the pencil back up. He lined something out and made a brief note before dropping the list onto the ground.
“Hey, what did you—“ Chris began, but Lance was pulling him back against him.
“Later,” Lance promised, and before the paper had even fluttered to the floor, Chris had it completely out of his mind.
It was only later, stumbling to the bathroom by the dim glow of the hallway light, that he felt the telltale crinkling below his feet. Picking it up, he squinted at it and smirked.
“I can live with that,” he said quietly, before letting it drift back to the ground. Maybe JC wouldn’t need exactly that advice, but really… it was the best advice Chris could possibly think of for enjoying his golden years.
10. If you’ve got an evil genius a fantastically sexy man by your side in your bed, you’ll be young forever.
--by Chris Kirkpatrick
--(edited by Lance Bass)
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