Queer
You choke behind a smile
A fake behind the fear
The queerest of the queer
Lance doesn't believe in using cliches, but if he did, he'd be remarking on the fact that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Right now, he still feels like that sad kid he used to be: speechless, glued to the spot and unable to fight back when the other kids picked on him, bullied him, called him a fag.
He lost count of the number of times he ran home to his mom: crying, bruised and scratched. Lance remembers how she'd hold him and tell him that it didn't matter what anyone said, that she knew how special he was and that was all that was important. Then she'd treat his grazes and cuts with antiseptic and gauze.
He always thought that was pointless, because the deepest wounds aren't the ones that someone can see, or touch. The physical ones that mar the skin will heal, but the ones that lie under the surface are always there, like some itch that can't be scratched.
JC is an itch that can't be scratched, too.
Lance didn't intend to fall in love with JC, but apparently, even with the best of intentions he was doomed to fail. Now all he can do is wonder how it all went so wrong, trying to pinpoint when exactly it was that he started to lose his mind.
It's like he's obsessed, consumed somehow and he just can't hold on, can't maintain control and that is just so out of character for Lance that it scares him. Scares him that he's losing focus. He always used to be the one in interviews who was so on the ball that he could leap in immediately when one of the others said the wrong thing or got stuck.
Not anymore.
Instead of being focused on whoever's being asked a question, he finds himself staring at JC's lips. Lance imagines exactly how they'd taste: warm and sweet and addictive. He wonders how JC'd react if Lance were to hold him close and make him see and feel what it does to Lance to be around him.
Lance thinks if they made self-torture an Olympic sport, he'd win the gold medal.
This is what he pays me for
I'll show you how it's done
You learn to love the pain you feel
Like father like son
JC doesn't even notice that there's something wrong with Lance and Lance thinks that that burns the worst of all. The fact that he's not even aware that Lance is falling apart little by little.
But JC being unaware of what's right in front of him is nothing new. It seems to have got so much worse lately though, and that's because of Bobbie.
Lance doesn't want to hate Bobbie, but he does.
It makes him feel like a jealous schoolgirl, but he really can't help himself. Can't help it because every time they all go out together, she's there, latched onto JC, staking her claim. Lance knows that it's not intentional or anything. He knows she's not being vindictive or manipulative by commandeering JC's attention. Not that he could really blame her if she was, because he knows if he was in her shoes that's exactly what he'd be doing.
Lance hates that he seems to have no self-control, but obsession will do that to a person.
Every time Bobbie touches JC, Lance flinches just as if his skin is being burned. It's like this physical reaction to having to watch Bobbie's hands on JC's body. The child in him is screaming silently that it's not fair. Why should she get to feel JC's warmth and ghost her fingers over his skin when Lance can't?
JC used to spend more time with him. They'd just sit talking and JC would lie with his head on Lance's shoulder, his fingers drawing small circles on Lance's thigh. It was absolute fucking torture for Lance to feel JC touching him like that and knowing that was as far as it could go. But not having that contact at all is worse.
It rarely happens anymore, because JC and Bobbie have gotten so serious that she's always around. And when she's not, JC's talking about her.
It makes Lance feel nauseous, bitter taste of bile in the back of his throat at the mere mention of her name and he wonders if JC even notices the fact that Lance never smiles anymore.
The queerest of the queer
Hide inside your head
The blindest of the blind
The deadest of the dead
You're hungry cause you starve
While holding back the tears
Choking on your smile
A fake behind the fear
The queerest of the queer
Lance knows that Joey suspects something's up. He can only assume that's why Joey's been insisting on dragging him out to clubs every night he can.
He doubts otherwise that Joey would be seen dead in clubs like 'Boylicious' and 'Manpower'.
When he politely rejects the fourth guy in a row offering to buy him a drink, Lance's suspicions kick in, and after he sees Joey talking to yet another cute guy and gesturing in his direction, he puts two and two together.
Joey is, of course, playing matchmaker. Lance knows Joey wants him to pick up guys so he can forget all about how much in love with JC he is. Lance thinks the whole situation and the way Joey's acting would be rather sweet, if he weren't so desperately sick with sadness.
I know what's good for you
You can touch me if you want
I know you're dying to
You can touch me if you want
I know what's good for you
You can touch me if you want
But you can't stop
But Lance does need to forget.
He convinces himself that if he forgets, then he won't feel, and if he doesn't feel then he won't hurt. He's so sick of hurting.
He knows he's taking risks by doing this. He could just as easily stay at the hotel where it's comfortable, sip elegantly from a glass half-full of 10year old-aged bourbon and spend good money for someone 'discreet' to help him burn the image of JC out of his brain.
But he knows that wouldn't work. It's too civilised and constructive. Reasonable and somehow too clean. Lance doesn't want clean.
Lance wants this. This... is perfect. Dark, seedy backroom. Dark enough so that there won't be unwarranted attention. Combined smell of cigarette smoke, sweat, amyl nitrate and alcohol invading his senses and the harsh, acrid tang of ketamine at the back of his throat. Through the thin material of his pants, he can feel his knees being punished by the roughness and unevenness of the floor he's kneeling on.
It's making him forget. Every time this stranger roughly thrusts his hips forward, fucking Lance's mouth, every time he feels his throat muscles flex and relax around the size of the guy's cock and every moan he can hear from above him: all these things are permeating his brain. He feels wrong, used. Sluttish. But for now, at least, it's working. The roughness of what he's doing, the fact that it's so cheap and wrong, is what's making him forget all about JC and how soft and smooth his skin would feel under Lance's fingers.