“Does he remember yet?”

Lance wasn’t even fully awake yet and already he could hear them, their endless, hushed stream of chatter.  He might have been inclined to sit up, open his eyes, look at them, but his mouth tasted of bad memories; blood and plastic and fear.  For a while he considered it, but they would be there, these overwhelming strangers.  They were always there. 

Lulled by the beeps that chirped steadily at his bedside, he let the dark, sweet pull of unconsciousness swallow him back down. 

***

“Lance?  Good morning, sunshine.”

Every day, it was the same.  This young man with a scruffy beard and earnest blue eyes would say hello and ask if he wanted anything to eat.  His name was Justin, and when he took off his baseball cap, his hair was a mess of dark-gold curls, flattened to his head. 

“Hungry?” he asked, peering intrusively down at Lance.  He frowned, obviously unhappy with what he saw.

Lance opened his mouth and coughed, then shook his head.  Everything would be so much easier if his head didn’t hurt so much.

“He’ll eat when he’s hungry.”  That was JC, Justin’s friend, who was dressed today as a soldier-cum-drum major, his faded army uniform adorned with an odd assortment of braiding and gold medallions.  Aside from the bad clothing, JC had a nice voice and even nicer smile.  He was also the most unnerving of them all because he preferred the hands-on approach. 

Today was no exception.  Lance glanced nervously up at his IV, which JC was fiddling with in a frighteningly random manner.  “Thirsty?” JC asked suddenly, and abandoned Lance’s IV.  He then fixed his attention on the mess of tubes and wires and began to untangle them all, following their twisted path and always ending up on the bare skin of Lance’s arm, shoulder, chest. 

“No,” Lance replied.  He was suddenly, for the first time since the accident, aware of his body in a sense other than his injuries.  Nurses existed for a reason, and JC was no nurse.  Nonplussed, he batted JC’s hands away.  “Can you please stop it?” 

Another thing he’d come to expect was that Justin’s and JC’s friend Joey would be sitting in the vinyl-cushioned chair next to the bed.  Sure enough, when he rolled his head to the side, there was Joey, who gave a little wave.  “Morning,” he said.  “Lookin’ good, baby.”

Lance sighed at the blatant lie.  He really wanted out of bed.  If he stayed, he was afraid he’d be absorbed into the void lurking at the back of his head, where everyone else saw a jagged line of stitches.  “I know I’m hideous,” he muttered.  “Please, just get me out of here?” 

“I’ll ask,” Joey said, “but don’t get your hopes up.”  He disappeared into the hall and after several minutes of negotiations with the nurse, came back with somewhat good news.  “No can do,” he said.  “But how about a shower?  With someone to spot you, of course.” 

“I can walk!”  He didn’t even know these people, and he was supposed to shower in front of them?  His skin crawled with the frustration of needing, wanting something and not knowing what. 

“You might get dizzy,” Joey argued.  “I guess I could see if-“

“-forget it,” Lance interrupted, on a sigh.  “Justin, would you mind?” 

***

“Are you sure you don’t remember this face?” 

Chris, the fourth one, cocked his head at Lance and sighed in exaggerated frustration.  Chris’ eyes were sharp but his hands were soft, and he told unflattering stories about the other three when they weren’t in the room.  Lance liked him.

“I don’t know how I could possibly have forgotten, if y’all pestered me before as much as you do, now.” 

“I did,” Chris said matter-of-factly.  “It’s because you owe me money.” 

“I-“  Even though Chris was probably kidding, Lance was taken aback.  “Do I have a job?” 

“Baby, being you is your job.” 

“Oh.  Too bad, then.” 

“Yeah,” Chris said thoughtfully.  “Too bad.” 

***

“I need to go,” he said.  It felt like the millionth time, but everyone looked so surprised that it must have just been another thing he’d forgotten. 

“Where to?” Joey asked. 

“…I don’t know.”

It was pretty much a moot point after that.

***

Everyone assumed he would stay with Joey until things went back to normal, whatever that was supposed to be.  Lance was fine with it; he would’ve preferred to see Justin’s and JC’s handsome faces first thing in the morning--maybe a glimpse of JC coming out of the shower—but he supposed Joey was the best person for the job since it was so much easier to relax around Joey than the others. 

As it turned out, the others were a constant presence in Joey’s posh apartment, so much that Lance began retreating to his bedroom, a spacious room done in creams and tans, café latte and mocha that made him certain he’d loved this room even before the accident.  The room belonged to him, he knew immediately, walking inside had been like the snap of a puzzle fitting into its place.    

“So, amnesia,” Chris was always saying, sounding vaguely suspicious but never voicing a specific doubt. 

“I guess so,” Lance would reply, annoyed.  Every night he dreamed a montage of glitter and applause, and woke to an almost eerie stillness in his head; tranquil waters that stretched, untouched, into the horizon.  The sterility of it bothered him, and it was starkly at odds with the rich, enormous life his friends described to him.  If he had fame and success, had traveled and loved and lived, then he shouldn’t feel so small and disconnected from that fortune. 

“Is it because there’s something you don’t want to remember?” JC asked one evening, in the middle of a poker game.  The question tore out of him raw and urgent, as though he’d been holding it inside for too long.  “Just tell me, please.  Is it…are you traumatized?”

“You’d know better than me,” Lance shrugged.  “Am I?” 

“He’s not traumatized,” Justin said firmly.  “JC, don’t.  It’s a medical condition.” 

“Psychological conditions are medical,” Chris pointed out.  He fanned out his cards with a flick of wrist, and then tapped them into a tidy stack.  “Maybe it’s both.” 

“It’s time for your meds,” Joey said.  He squeezed Lance’s shoulder, one warm, localized spot that reminded Lance how cold he felt all over.  He kept his hand there and even added another, rubbing until the warmth started to spread.  “Want me to get you some water?”

It wasn’t what he wanted, but it was close enough. 

***

“Hi.”  JC stuck his head into Lance’s bedroom and gave a little wave.  Lance shifted over on the bed and motioned him in, at which JC smiled shyly and rushed into the room.  Of all the guys, Lance was wariest of JC.  There was a need that he saw when JC looked at him; a need he wasn’t certain he could fill, but if JC was his friend—and they said he was—then Lance was willing to try. 

“Chris is coming over later,” JC said.  “And Justin.”  He paused, then softly touched the hollow of Lance’s throat as though he had every right.  “They’re bringing movies.  Your favorite movie.” 

“The Princess Bride?” 

“Yes!”  JC beamed.  “You remember?”

“I remember my favorite movie,” Lance said gently.  JC’s soft touch was still slithering beneath under his skin; a cool thread of sensation that couldn’t seem to rest.  Finally, he rubbed at his neck and cleared his throat.   “I’m sorry, I just…” 

JC’s shoulders sagged, but he waved away Lance’s apology.  “You will,” he said with an intensity that made Lance wonder how much he didn’t know about himself and these four men with whom he had apparently built an entire life.  For a moment, Lance studied JC.  He tried to see beyond the strangely luminous blue of his eyes and the wet, red tint of his mouth but it seemed there was nothing beyond that; just that bottomless, irresistible hunger that made Lance draw back suddenly, his pulse thumping wildly against the spot that JC had just touched. 

“JC,” he said lowly, glancing toward the half-closed door and the sounds of Joey moving around in the kitchen. 

“Let’s just talk,” JC said quickly, and just as quickly he was back to being the same handsome, badly-dressed boy that Lance had first seen in the hospital room.  “Before the other guys get here.  Look, I have something for you.”  JC reached into his pocket and brought out a wallet that he held out for Lance. 

Lance took the wallet.  It belonged to him; he could tell that just by holding it in his hand. 

“Go ahead,” JC urged, so Lance opened the wallet and looked inside.  There were a few pictures sheathed in the clear plastic sleeves.  His parents, niece…he flipped through the family pictures until he saw his own face smiling next to Joey.

“So this is my life,” he muttered, and slid his fingers over the sharp edge of a gleaming credit card.  There was a whole row of them, shiny gold and silver rectangles that represented a life of which he had no memory. 

“Part of it,” JC agreed.  “Just your money and stuff.  Joe’s got your keys.  Do you remember your houses?”

Lance squeezed his eyes shut and reached for the memory.  He was surprised to find it right there, waiting for him.  He could even picture his key ring and the tangle of keys.  With that memory brought a little bit of freedom, and the knot of tension he’d been carrying in his chest began to slowly unravel.  “I do,” he said, incredulous; hopeful.  “I remember.”   He opened his eyes and—was JC sitting closer than he had been before?—tucked the wallet into his back pocket.  At least he could pay for things now when he and Joey went out.  He could even go out on his own if he wanted to, walk around the city and…do what?  In his mind, he was already planning to go back to where the trees grew tall and green; a warmer climate with all the solitude he needed.  This was all fine, but he needed to get back to his real life, whatever that happened to be.

“Joey was afraid you might leave if we gave them to you,” JC said lazily, but his eye held a knowing gleam. 

“No, I.  It’ll just be nice to have them,” Lance said, feeling hopelessly caught in this moment; in this unfamiliar life.

“Okay,” JC said, then fell back onto the bed.  “You going to change before they get here?” 

Lance looked down at the baggy sweatshirt and jeans that belonged to Joey.  He looked like a slob, and Justin would inevitably arrive with hip-hugging jeans and a t-shirt that showed off his sculpted arms.  It wasn’t like Lance had a crush or anything pathetic like that, but attention from Justin was like a shot of warm honey, and Lance was learning to accept everything they gave him.  Sometimes he even enjoyed it.  So he would change, and maybe Justin would rub his back or squeeze his shoulders like he’d done the last time he came over.

“Yeah,” Lance said.  “I was going to change.”   When JC smiled, Lance smiled back because maybe it was that easy; maybe this was what his life was like, just a series of interactions with Chris, Joey, Justin and JC, punctuated every now and then by the old and familiar.

“Let me.”  JC was at the closet before Lance could even swing his feet over the edge of the mattress.  “Wear this,” he said thoughtfully, and handed Lance an almost-sheer white button down shirt. 

“To watch movies?  I don’t think so.  Besides, you can see right through it.” 

“That’s the point,” JC argued.  He removed it from the hanger and dangled it in front of Lance.  “You love this shirt.  You have five of these.” 

Lance really doubted that, but he pulled the sweatshirt over his head and threw it on the bed.  “Sometimes I wonder if y’all are taking advantage of me,” he said, skeptical.  “You could tell me anything, you know.” 

“I know.”  JC smiled without showing his teeth, and it shouldn’t have been threatening, it wasn’t threatening, but Lance’s body broke out in goose bumps regardless.  After he slid his arms into the smooth, sleek fabric and fastened the buttons, he turned away from JC and toward the mirror.  It was as appalling as it was appealing, because his nipples, he could see them right through the fabric. 

“That’s what people will like,” JC said, standing behind him.  He was looking at the exposed v of skin where Lance’s top button was undone, but Lance assumed he was talking about the nipples, which were uncomfortably noticeable beneath the white fabric.  “And then those jeans I put on the bed.”  JC wasn’t half as subtle as he probably thought he was, and Lance had recognized his own suspicious nature days ago.

“Are we going somewhere?” he asked. 

JC shrugged sheepishly.  “Do you want to go somewhere?” he asked.  “I just thought…you have your ID now, and everybody’s coming over.  We could go out, shake it up a bit.”  He nudged Lance’s hips with his own, playfully convincing.  “You haven’t seen Justin dance yet.” 

“I’ve seen Justin dance,” Lance muttered.  The material did feel wonderful against his skin…  “You made me watch all your videos, remember?” 

“Our videos,” JC corrected, and for once, Lance didn’t argue. 

***

Lance liked the privacy of the hired car.  They were separated from the driver by a solid piece of tinted glass, and quarters were tight enough that Lance was wedged comfortably between Chris and Joey.  JC was restless, looking out the window and fidgeting in his seat until Justin yelled at him to stop.   “I can’t help it,” JC sulked, his fingertips pressed to the glass.  “I want to be out there, to move, to-“ he stopped abruptly and took a few deep breaths.

Lance wondered vaguely if JC had taken something before they left, because he’d been overexcited ever since nightfall.  It was odd that no one else, usually so quick to tease, had mentioned the high color on JC’s cheeks or the way his erection filled out the front of his pants.  Seeing him like that embarrassed and excited Lance all at once, but Chris just muttered, “He’s fucking impossible,” more amused than anything, and left it at that. 

Joey seemed content to take Lance under his wing, and when they arrived at the club he wrapped one hand around Lance’s forearm to guide him through the crowd.  It helped keep Lance grounded, but was unnecessary because of the way everyone moved aside for their group.  Not for Justin, as Lance would have expected…but for JC. 

The bouncers moved back and motioned them through, eyes fixed warily on JC the entire time.  It was the same suspicious way Lance had reacted to him earlier that afternoon, but as JC made his way into the writhing sea of bodies, Lance couldn’t think of anything better than Joey’s hand on his arm and the way JC was gliding toward the bar like he owned the place.

Lance had no memory of ever setting foot in a place like this.  Still, it felt like home when Joey dragged him out onto the dance floor, and his legs knew just what to do.  Joey spun him out and around, never quite letting go until Lance surrendered to a rhythm that became indistinguishable from his own pulse.  He shut his eyes and moved, always aware of the press of Joey at his back and the occasional sound of his laughter.  Eventually, he gave up on keeping any kind of personal space. 

When Joey passed Lance a drink, he didn’t even question it; just tipped the cool, sweet liquid into his throat and shuddered through the burn.  Another drink after which Joey magically made the empty glasses disappear, and then they were back on the floor, laughing at the way he clung to Joey for support. 

They danced until Justin suddenly appeared, JC fastened loosely to his back.  They moved together as one, as natural as they were practiced, and this had to be why the world loved them.  Lance’s feet slowed as he watched them with reluctant, wistful admiration.  His head was light enough to float, so when Justin pulled him in, Lance readily followed.

***

Waking up was almost as agonizing as it had been in the hospital.  After several minutes of lying perfectly still to lessen the ache in his head, Lance climbed gingerly out of bed and stumbled into the hall.  Last night had been the first time he’d exerted himself since the accident, and it didn’t help that he hadn’t seemed able to refuse any of the sweet, dry drinks that JC had happily brought to him, one after another.  The drapes were still closed, but light bled from around the edges.  It was well past noon.   

“Shhh,” he heard Joey say from the kitchen.  “If you’re quiet, I’ll put peanut butter on your celery.” 

“Raisins!” a young, girlish demanded.  “Raisins, daddy!” 

Joey hushed her again just as Lance walked in the room.  The dishwasher was humming quietly, but other than that the apartment was peaceful and softly lit.  Squinting blearily, Lance mumbled a good morning to Joey, who looked clean and fresh and exactly the opposite of what Lance felt.

“Unca’ Lance!” 

Lance flinched, taken aback by the small, round face smiling at him from the other side of the counter.  He didn’t need to ask to know she belonged to Joey. “Hiiiii,” she trilled in a pitch that could have broken glass. 

“Hi,” Lance returned cautiously.  Joey laughed a bit right before he pressed a cool bottle of water into Lance’s hand; a hollow, joyless sound that was completely unlike what Lance knew of Joey so far. 

“Sit,” Joey instructed, so Lance sat next to the girl at the counter.  Briahna, he thought Joey had said, and she was three years old, which meant she grabbed at the aspirin bottle that Joey slid across the counter, toward Lance.  He plucked it from her hand and prayed she wouldn’t cry.  He didn’t think his head could take it. 

“This is Bri,” Joey said.  He pointed at the girl, who giggled behind her hands.  The things Lance felt when he looked at her were surprising; so many things, all for someone else’s child.  He felt love and pride, which he could explain, and hurt, which he could not.  Right now, it was all he could do to swallow around the nausea and shake two aspirin into the palm of his hand. 

“Hi, baby,” he said when he had taken a long swallow of water, aware the entire time of Joey’s scrutiny.  “How are you?” 

“Fine.”  She put her celery on the counter and looked at it for a second.  “These are ants,” she said, then bent her curly head to slurp one of the raisins off of the snack.  “Mmm,” she said.  She grinned messily at Lance while Joey replaced the raisins.  “Eat a ant!” she commanded, and Lance’s stomach rolled.   

Joey just leaned forward on his elbows.  “I think Uncle Lance may have partied a little too hard last night,” he said lightly, smiling toward Lance but not at him.    

Lance groaned.  “Why didn’t you tell me I’m a lightweight?”

“Because you’re not.  You just overdid it, man.”  When Joey shrugged in an odd, stiff way, Lance had a flash of Joey taking JC aside, gesturing angrily toward Lance before JC had returned and swallowed up everything else.  It was all so hard to remember, not unlike his recent attempts at bringing the past into focus.  After a moment, he gave up.  With his eyes shut, he rested his head on the cool, smooth surface of Joey’s counter and listened to the crunch of Bri’s celery. 

“C’mon.”  Joey approached from behind and rubbed soft circles on the back of his neck as he led Lance toward the blue bathroom that was done in seashore blues and golds.  It wasn’t Joey’s job, but Lance let Joey do it anyhow; just sat on the edge of the tub and did nothing while Joey ran the bath. 

A vague tendril of guilt tickled at the edges of his mind as he watched Joey take two thick towels from the closet.  Lance wished he could remember more about last night, but he there wasn’t much after JC and Justin had swept him up into their whirlwind of suggestive dancing and wandering hands.  All Lance had known at the time was that he’d felt like a star for the first time in his life, and how in that dark and smoky club, it hadn’t mattered that he had no memory of these men who liked him enough to keep him so close.

But they weren’t here now.  Lance sighed and scrubbed at his hair.  “Thanks, Joe.  You don’t have to do this.”  His voice was only half-audible beneath the rush of water.

“It’s nothing you haven’t done for me before.”  This time, Joey’s smile was soft and unguarded. 

“Yeah?”  Lance returned the smile, cheered by the rare bit of information about his former self.  He liked the idea that he’d done this for Joey, and maybe for the others.

“Yeah.  Now get in there and soak until that aspirin kicks in.  I’ll try to hold off Bri for a few hours.”  Joey patted Lance’s shoulder and shut the door behind him when he left. 

***

It was just the three of them for the rest of the day.  When Lance asked what everyone was up to, Joey claimed that Justin and JC had some business in LA to take care of.  It wasn’t a lie, exactly, but Lance knew it wasn’t the whole truth.  The previous night, he’d overheard Justin and Chris arguing over who would take JC with them.  They’d done rock, paper scissors until Justin had wailed in outrage.

“This is bullshit!” he’d moaned.  “I’ve got so much shit to do, and mom can’t stand to be around him anymore.  He creeps everybody out.” 

“Imagine that,” Chris had said happily.  “But I’ve got shit to do, too.  He’s all yours.”

Lance had swallowed against the taste of blood and plastic and gone to lie down.

***

“Why do you guys have to take care of JC?” Lance asked later that evening, while Briahna was falling asleep in front of the TV.  “Is something wrong with him?” 

Joey lifted his tousled head from the end of the couch.  “Huh?” 

“JC,” Lance said firmly.  “I heard Chris and Justin talking about who was going to take JC.  I mean, is he…”  Lance wasn’t sure.  The wildness he saw in JC’s eyes made him think drugs, but at times he was subdued; lost someplace in his head, so maybe depression, or worse. 

“C’s fine,” Joey said quickly, peering at Lance with his usual concern.  Joey’s constant worrying had faded over the past weeks, but was still present.   

“Then why do…never mind.  Did y’all fight over who had to take me?” he said, only half-joking. 

“What?  No!”

Lance slumped down on the Joey’s faded couch; already regretting the question.  But Joey couldn’t blame him for asking, because like JC, Lance hadn’t been out of the house unaccompanied since he got out of the hospital.  And Chris and Justin weren’t the only people Lance had overheard.  At some point in nearly every day, he’d heard Joey on the phone, his voice lowered for Lance’s benefit. 

Not yet, he would say, every single time.  I don’t know, baby.  Maybe soon.  You can’t rush these things.

It was Kelly that Joey was speaking to in that pleading, defensive tone, and Lance still couldn’t figure out why everyone seemed to think it was normal for Joey to stay with Lance for so long while his wife waited indefinitely. 

“Lance,” Joey said, exasperated.  “There was never any question of where you would stay while you recovered.  I want you here, and if you had your memory you’d want to be here, too.” 

“Would I?”  That’s what everyone had been telling Lance all along.  Even the people who were supposed to be his parents seemed tired of him questioning their judgment.  Of course you’re welcome at home, his mama said every time he asked. We just thought you’d want to be with Joey.  But if Joey was supposed to be helping Lance regain his memory, he wasn’t doing a very good job of it.  He was set on Lance remembering on his own without any help, which made Lance feel as though he was blindfolded and stumbling through most days. 

What he needed, he decided, was some time alone, away from Joey’s stifling coddling and JC’s peculiar interest.    

***

It was surprisingly easy to leave.  He just waited until Joey was in the shower and called a cab, taking one suitcase and the keys that he’d found on Joey’s dresser.  Once Lance was out of the building, it was just a matter of deciding where to go.

***

He didn’t make it home, but he made it far enough that he felt effectively independent, and that was the important thing.  The hotel he chose happily accepted his credit card and he spent his days wandering the city and trying to trigger his brain into remembering something, anything that didn’t have to do with New York. 

Every time he returned to the hotel room, the white sheets were neatly turned down.  All that sterility was unsettling, so after a couple weeks Lance went out and replaced them with warm neutrals, tans and creams that made it feel more like home.  That night, he was just starting to think about bedtime when he walked into the bedroom and found JC perched on the window seat, looking out at the city. 

“Hi, Lance,” JC said, without turning away from the window.  He spoke without an ounce of apology, as though it had only been a few minutes instead of a few weeks since they’d spoken.  “We’ve been looking for you.” 

JC prowled to the French doors that led to the balcony and opened them, letting the late summer scent of crepe myrtle and jasmine drift in with the humid breeze.  He was a dark silhouette shaded in midnight purples against the glow of streetlights.  Lance was struck speechless; torn between fear and outrage. 

“It’s funny that you picked this town,” JC mused, with a curious glance over his shoulder at Lance.  “I mean, it’s such a cliché.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“No, no, it’s a good thing,” JC said soothingly, and made a sound halfway between a purr and a growl.  “It’s just that, subconsciously, you know, I think you wanted us to find you.” 

Lance doubted that.  There was a reason he’d refused to answer his phone and had paid cash for everything.  “I didn’t.  JC, I think I need to do this on my own.”  It was true, but there was no denying the indescribable stirring he felt when he looked at JC, framed in the wide doorway and half out into the night.    

“Mmm, maybe,” JC said in a faraway tone.  “Lance, come here.” 

It was a terrible idea, but Lance found himself obeying anyhow, convinced that there was nowhere on earth more welcoming than that dark balcony.  He stood facing the city, breathing in the hot summer night, tasting the city’s secrets.  Behind him, JC wrapped his arms around Lance’s waist.  “It’s all right.”  JC spoke softly into his ear.  “I know you don’t understand how we are, but you and me have always had a connection, Lance.”

“Will you tell me?” 

Joey had prohibited this very type of conversation, but Joey wasn’t here, and JC seemed more than willing to drape himself over Lance and spill any secret Lance wanted to hear. 

“Yeah.  Lance.”  JC inhaled deeply and pressed himself closer to Lance.  “Like I was saying, you and me, we see things the same.  But you and Joey go way back.  It fucks with his head when you act like he’s a stranger, man.” 

Lance curled his fingers around the wrought-iron railing and braced himself against the heavy weight at his back.  JC’s voice was a raw slide of velvet that enveloped Lance’s senses and fogged his better judgment until he no longer cared about getting answers.  He tipped his head back, letting his eyes sag shut against the relentless glare of the moon.

“JC-“ he choked, and his plea was joined by a startled warning from inside the hotel room.  “JC!”

Suddenly, JC was all the way across the balcony, shuffling his feet guiltily and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.  “Chris,” he began, but Chris interrupted, pacing the length of the room with a barely subdued fury.  

“Jesus Christ, JC!” he shouted.  “What the fuck?” he seethed, his eyes narrowing in on JC with a meaning that was for JC alone. 

JC obviously caught the meaning, because his face turned miserable and longing, his body poised with tension, as though he were about to leap from the balcony.  “I wasn’t,” he sulked. 

“He didn’t tell me anything,” Lance assured Chris. 

“I bet he didn’t.”  Chris herded them inside and shut the doors tightly behind him.  “The fucking two of you, man.  I can’t think of a worse pair to be off doing who-knows-what.”  He turned on Lance.  “Okay, you are going to call Joey right now and let him know that you’re all right.  You might not remember us, but we’re still fucking entitled to know if you’re dead or alive.” 

Lance raised an eyebrow.  “Don’t you think you’re being a little melodramatic?”    

“Don’t you think you’re being a little stupid?” 

“Guys,” JC said, prowling restlessly around the room.  His skin was luminous in the moonlight, and he shimmered with unspent energy.  “I want- I want to go out.  Not Bourbon street,” he said, and dragged the edge of his palm across his mouth.  “I know some places, I want, I-“

It was the same way he’d gotten last time they’d gone out; charged with adrenaline and a ferocity that reminded Lance of why he’d been trying to keep JC at arm’s length. 

“Look, I’m tired,” Lance started to say.

“Go,” Chris said.  He stepped between Lance and JC.  “I’ll stay with Lance.”   

JC walked out without looking back.

***

The room was uncomfortably muggy when Lance awakened.  Someone had left the patio doors open while they slept and he was as wilted as the damp sheets that he’d kicked to the foot of the bed. 

Like every other morning since the accident, it took a few seconds for everything to come back to him, and when it did, he groaned out loud. 

“What’s wrong?”  JC was sitting in the window seat again—or, still?—and reading a book. 

Lance shook his head and drew his knees up to his chin.  He preferred not to talk about how it felt to wake up every day and find nothing but a void and too-new memories that he didn’t trust.   “Nothing.  Did you have fun last night?”  He glanced across the room at where Chris was crashed out on the couch. 

JC nodded slowly.  “I always have fun.  Look, I was just reading this, uh.  This.”  He waved the book and then opened it to a page near the back.  “Joey is mad at me,” he read, right before Lance lunged across the bed and snatched the notebook from his hand.

“That’s private!” Lance snapped, and hugged it to his chest.  The doctor had advised him to write things down until he remembered them on his own.

The part JC had read was from a section where Lance had begun to write the few memories that had chosen to wander back to him on their own.  It was only a few random phrases--I love Briahna, I want to live in the south--but they were his true memories and he clung to them.  Joey is mad at me.  It was something that kept coming back to him no matter how much hospitality Joey showed him, no matter how much care he showed.  Lance had finally jotted the ideas in tiny, guilty print in the back of the book; small but real enough to satisfy his sense of order. 

“Where’s all this coming from?”  JC seemed affronted, as though he had been personally wronged. 

Lance pushed himself up off the bed and fled for the bathroom.  He didn’t know how to answer JC’s questions; he only wrote down his feelings as he experienced them.  Some of those feelings were too personal to consult his friends about, and who had made them his keepers, anyhow?  Even if what they said was true and he was part of this group, he was still an individual entitled to a life of his own.  He turned on the shower to drown out JC’s and Chris’ muffled discussion from the other room.  It was probably about him.

It was always about him.

***

“Why can’t you talk to us about this stuff?” 

When Lance emerged from the bathroom, JC had worked himself into a state of righteous indignation.  Chris was wisely silent. 

“I don’t know.  Why would I?” 

“We’re your friends!  Your brothers; that’s what you always say.”  JC crawled into Lance’s empty bed and gathered the blankets into his arms.  “I miss you.  Joey misses you,” he added, as though that would hold more weight. 

“I…” If what JC was saying were true, and it probably was, then he was hurting everyone by running away.   He looked from JC’s accusing glare to Chris’ carefully indifferent expression, feeling his determination wither as quickly as it had sprung up when he’d made up his mind to leave.  “I thought I should give you guys a break,” he said helplessly.  “I need to stop being so dependent on the four of you.” 

“No you don’t,” Chris muttered, while JC huffed angrily into the bed covers.    

After that, there wasn’t any question as to whether or not he lost the argument. 

*** 

 When he came back, JC was in a dead sleep, face smashed into one of the pillows, completely motionless. It seemed like the perfect opportunity for Lance to finally talk to Chris, who managed to always be right in the thick of things without pushing Lance too hard.  He just wasn’t certain about how to approach Chris, so he waited until they were in the middle of watching a cartoon and said, “You know what’s going on.”

”I’m dumber than I look,” Chris replied without taking his eyes off the television.

Lance raised an eyebrow at Chris’ “Got Beer?” t-shirt.  

“Usually,” Chris said quickly.   

“Right.  But, something’s not normal,” Lance insisted. 

“We haven’t known normal in years.”  Chris always made light of everything, but Lance had seen—and could still see—a flicker of intensity that was impossible to repress.  “Besides, you’re not one to talk.  Amnesia is not normal.”

“Tell me why JC needs a keeper.”

“Isn’t it obvious?  Did you see the pants he wore yesterday?  The man needs constant supervision.” 

“Forget it, then.”  Lance shrugged and moved as if to leave.  “I’ll just ask Joey.” 

“Lance,” Chris said, and finally turned toward him.  “I say this with love, but you need to chill the fuck out, dude.  Wait for your memories, make new ones, I don’t care.  But you’re stuck with the four of us because…”

“Because of the stuff you won’t tell me about,” Lance said coldly. 

“Exactly,” Chris said, and slapped Lance’s thigh soundly.  “That’s exactly it.  Thanks for understanding, man.” 

“No, I…” Lance started, but Chris was already flipping intently through channels with the remote control. 

***

Lance didn’t know exactly what he’d expected when he returned to Joey’s apartment with his suitcase and a sheepish smile, but judging by the way Joey had always treated him, he assumed that his reception would be one of warmth and relief.  He definitely hadn’t expected Joey to avoid him completely, or to refuse him even a glimpse of eye contact. 

“I didn’t figure him for the grudge type,” Lance complained to Justin the next day while Joey was out of the apartment.  It was completely obvious that he was fishing for information; for a denial from Justin or a solution that would bring Joey around.   

“He’s not,” Justin said.  “This isn’t a grudge; it’s just his reaction to you being gone.  He thought-“  Justin shrugged and threw the remote onto the sofa.  “He’ll get over it.  Want to go get something to eat?” 

“Without my keepers?” Lance asked, annoyed.  It was well past noon, but there had been no sound or movement from the guest room where Chris and JC were sleeping. 

“I can do that,” Justin replied.   He could indeed do it, and in a far less smothering manner than the other three.  Lance thought it probably had something to do with the wary, fascinated way that Justin watched JC, leaving little room for anything else.  “C’mon.  Let me just tell ‘em where we’re going.” 

Justin went into the guest room and after a minute, Lance could hear JC’s sleepy voice drifting out.  Justin interrupted in raised, agitated tones, and Lance was just about to intrude, when the door was flung shut.  Up until then they’d all been pretty open-door, even in the bathroom.  Lance stared at the door until it opened and Justin hurried out, making straight for the kitchen.

“We can leave in a minute,” he said apologetically, without a trace of the anger from two minutes ago.  “They’re still sleeping.”  He poured a tall glass of orange juice and left the carton on the counter. 

“It didn’t sound like they were asleep.”

“Chris isn’t feeling good,” Justin said.  He carefully carried the full glass to the closed door and held up one finger.  “Just wait here.”  Through the crack of open door, Lance saw Chris lying in bed with JC, death pale against Joey’s blue sheets.  JC took the glass from Chris and helped steady it while Chris drank, not stopping until half the glass was empty.  Lance frowned at Chris’ glassy, shadowed eyes, but Justin coaxed him out of the doorway and led him down the hall.

“Ready?  Don’t worry about Chris.  He’s just kind of…” 

“Yeah,” Lance said dryly.  “He must’ve caught that bug you had yesterday.”

***

Joey didn’t get back until that evening, his arms piled with shopping bags.  Lance determinedly followed him into the bedroom and when Joey continued to ignore him, sat on the bed and sighed. 

“Are you ever going to start talking to me again?” he demanded. 

Joey busied himself with snipping the tags from a new shirt. 

“The other guys aren’t pissed off.” 

“Good for them,” Joey said tightly, and the way he wouldn’t look at Lance had gone beyond rude to outright offensive. 

“So, that’s it?” Lance asked, incredulous.  Joey had always seemed as though he cared more than the rest of them, but here he was, turning his back at the slightest transgression.  And the back-turning was literal; Lance hadn’t caught more than a glimpse of Joey since he’d returned. 

“What do you want me to say?” Joey asked, his voice high and angry.  “You have the right to make your own decisions, but it’s hard to see you like this, okay?” 

“Like what?”

“Acting like our entire friendship never existed!  We have this whole history, and do you know how hard it is to see you acting like I’m just some guy you met on the street?  I’m not trying to smother you-“ Lance cringed at Joey’s use of his own words, which he must have overheard at some point. “-but I miss the way we used to be.  And you look at the other guys the way you used to look at me, and it’s not fucking fair-”  His voice broke, and he didn’t try to finish. 

Lance’s stomach bottomed out.  Joey hadn’t been giving Lance the cold shoulder.  He’d been hiding his hurt so he wouldn’t have to explain himself the way that Lance had just cornered him into doing.

“I didn’t know,” Lance said, even though it ought to have been obvious all along.  Why else would he have his own bedroom in Joey’s house?  He was Bri’s godfather; Joey had put his life, his marriage, everything on hold for Lance, and Lance had dismissed it all.  Numbly, he got to his feet and went to Joey, who was standing at the closet and staring at the mess inside. 

“I’m sorry.”

Joey’s broad shoulders rose and fell in a mild shrug.  He was completely closed off, and Lance was the one who had made him that way.  If that wasn’t bad enough, Joey sniffed loudly and wiped his face while Lance stood there helplessly, horrified that it had come to this. 

“I made a mistake,” Lance said.  “No one told me…”  But Chris had tried to tell him.    

“There’s nothing to tell.”  Joey sniffed again, then took a deep breath, and when he spoke again his tone was questionably normal.  “Can you just hand me that bag on the bed?” 

The bag was filled with t-shirts and underwear.  Lance handed it over after he peeked inside, the whole time searching for the right thing to say.  “What’s all this?”

“Just some shopping…I’m probably not going back to the house for a while.” 

“Even now?”  Lance sat down on the bed, stunned by Joey’s capacity for forgiveness. 

Joey shrugged as he carried the packages to his dresser.  “What am I supposed to do?  I can’t make you remember us, but that doesn’t change the situation.” 

And that was the heart of everything that was happening, Lance thought, disgusted with all five of them.  The situation.  As far as Lance could see, the situation was five men whom shared too many secrets to let one another go, and two in particular with more between them the rest.

“There are some things I do remember,” Lance said carefully.  These were the things that went into the back of his notebook.  And Joey caved so easily, just rolled onto the bed as though Lance hadn’t just brought him to tears.  While he kicked his shoes onto the floor, Lance looked down at this man who was supposed to be his best friend, and felt the startling, transforming shift of sudden epiphany. 

“What’s that?” Joey asked. 

It was a risk, but one that Lance wanted to take.  He owed it to Joey.  Slowly, searching Joey’s face for disapproval, Lance bent and kissed him first on the cheek, a peace offering, and then full on the mouth. 

Joey didn’t move.  Lance moved his mouth carefully over Joey’s, pressing hopeful kisses onto Joey’s dry lips until they were smooth and damp and opening for more.  It was only a minute before his careful kisses of apology and gratitude collided with the hungry way Joey rose up to meet him, and then a disappointment, the way Joey kept it tightly reigned in, breathing, kissing, holding, but doing nothing further and finally wrenching away from Lance though it hurt him. 

“We don’t do this,” Joey said, looking up at the ceiling, not at Lance.  His lips were pink and swollen inside the dark frame of his beard.  The beard had been so soft, so much nicer than Lance had expected it to be.  Lance wanted to touch it again, and it felt as though he were allowed, so he did.  He had done this before; of that he was positive. 

Slowly, he traced a path in the soft, smooth hair on Joey’s face.  “I’ve done this,” he said with certainty. 

“No.  Never.”  Joey shook his head and looked so unhappy that Lance dropped his hand to the bed between them. 

“I don’t understand.” 

“You’re remembering all the wrong things,” Joey said, and he’d never looked at Lance in that sideways, half-reluctant way before, the way that said he could hardly bear to look at him at all. “You remember your feelings, but for you to remember your feelings is like…” he made a disgusted face that twisted something in Lance’s chest, and then shrugged.  “It’s pointless.  Because you don’t live your life that way.” 

“What way?” 

“I dunno…”  Joey moved to leave and Lance stopped him with a hand on his wide, warm thigh. 

“No, please,” he begged.  There was a dizzying pulse at the base of his head, but he needed to know. 

“Honestly,” Joey finished bitterly.  “You’re not honest.”  He pulled Lance to him so hard that Lance was weightless for one fleeting moment, and then crushed under the weight of Joey’s protection.  It was so good to be bent and pressed to Joey’s chest that Lance felt humbled and freed all at once, even with the knowledge that one of them was a blatant, shameless liar. 

***

It didn’t last long.  As much as Joey wanted Lance close, he also possessed a very obvious fear of keeping him near for too long, so within a few minutes he was up and bustling around his room again while Lance watched from the bed, wilted with exhaustion.  He dozed off and on for a few hours in Joey’s bed and used his half-awake musings to consider the way that Joey’s rejection, while completely clear, hadn’t felt like a rejection at all. 

Finally, when the evening light had waned enough that Joey had to turn on the corner lamp, Lance stretched and rubbed his tired, burning eyes.  “Joe,” he said firmly, determined more than ever to find his place here.  For the first time, he thought he might have found it, and Joey’s denial didn’t deter him in the slightest.  However he used to operate, Lance now only knew one way of feeling his way through this life, and that was based on truths.  One truth was the way Joey looked at him.  “Joe,” he repeated, and waited until Joey turned around.  “Please,” he said softly, in wonderment of the way his voice sounded like someone else.  Like that other, old Lance, perhaps.   

“Lance.”  Joey paused where he was standing and pretending to straighten his dresser.  “We don’t…”

“I’ve wanted you a long time.” 

Joey laughed and shifted where he stood.  His pants were bunched and baggy in the crease of his hips, on either side of his zipper.  Lance wanted to slide his hands inside.  “You’ve been looking at JC since you woke up at the hospital,” Joey said quietly.

“I’ve wanted you longer than that, haven’t I?”

“No.” 

“Then why am I even here?” 

Lance supposed he should be glad that Joey had wandered over to the bed to stare down at Lance as though this was a life or death decision, but he wasn’t.  He knew, instinctively, that Joey ought to be much easier than this—that he had at one time been easier.  Something else was at stake; something other than Joey’s convenient marriage and their old, old friendship.  

“Because you belong here.”  Joey sounded more certain of that than of his insistence that they were not meant to do this thing, this inevitable act.  Lance was about to say so, but by the time he opened his mouth, Joey was already kissing him, pressing him into the bed and not leaving room for any reply. 

This thing between them was so long-denied it felt like something was breaking.  Lance had the terrible feeling it might be Joey’s heart.  His hands seemed determined to touch every part of Lance as quickly as possible, and they traveled from hair to neck to belly, returning always to Lance’s face, where they held him for long, searching kisses.  “You’re such an asshole,” Joey declared finally, and sucked hard at the base of Lance’s neck.  As pain bloomed like bruised petals beneath his skin, it didn’t occur to him to argue. 

Joey favored long kisses with intermittent breaks for air, and Lance fell into the rhythm, taking Joey’s tongue into his mouth and then listening, as they breathed together, for the words that Joey couldn’t contain.  The words were a stirring combination of grateful endearments and fond insults; if Lance hadn’t already been struck speechless by Joey’s body against his own, the words would have done it, because it was a greater lesson in their history than anything he’d been told since the accident. 

Lance didn’t know what sex had been like before the accident, but he had a vague impression that this was new, this prolonged foreplay, if it could even be called that.  Sex seemed agonizingly far away, so Lance lived for the moment when every few seconds, Joey would move over him just right.   “You like that?  God, that’s hot,” Joey said when Lance gasped and shuddered through yet another pass of Joey’s thigh against his cock. 

Lance knew what this was.  Some unnamed memory deep inside told him that this was just a spell, that the wrong move would end this with a hollow apology and a brittle truce, so he let Joey peel the clothes from both of them until they were twined naked together on the bed.

“You,” Joey said, drawing Lance’s hand down between his legs, and Lance had forgotten so many things, but this he remembered, the way his hand fit around Joey’s balls, cradling them in his palm while he worked slick fingers inside slowly, slowly, because Joey was taking so long to open to him.

He remembered the way Joey’s body held him, then clung to him, and the mindless “Yeah, yeah,” when they moved together too perfectly for too long.  And he was positive he remembered the desperate heave of Joey’s belly against his fist right before he came.  Then, he kissed Lance like a dying man and buried his face in Lance’s neck, apparently out of words for the time being. 

***

“Joey.  Joey.”

Still reveling in the sleepy afterglow, they both ignored the voice at the door, but the knocks just grew more insistent.  “I’m very fucking sorry to interrupt you after nine years of built up tension,” Chris said loudly from outside the room.  “But I really need to talk to Joey.” 

“Fuck.”  Slowly, Joey disentangled himself from Lance and rolled onto the other side of the bed.  “Just a minute,” he growled.  He kissed Lance one more time, a quick press of warmth to his mouth before pulling back and walking naked to the bathroom.  When Lance heard the water start, he slipped out the door past a smirking Chris, who slapped him on the ass so hard that it stung.   

“For being such a sexy thing!” Chris called after him, and for once, Lance wasn’t perplexed in the slightest.  He was starting to get it.

Lance finished buttoning his pants in the kitchen, where he adjusted his clothes and poured himself some coffee.  A moment alone was exactly what he needed.  His skin still felt hot and flushed, and his heart thundered out of control when he thought about what he’d just done.  With Joey.  Finally.   He blew on his coffee and tried to calm down, and was eventually struck by the unusual silence from the rest of the apartment.  There was no telling what JC and Justin were up to, but it was bound to be more settling than standing in the kitchen with his own jittery thoughts that endlessly returned to Joey, Joey, Joey. 

As it turned out, he was wrong. 

Lance didn’t remember a lot about his former life, but he still possessed his fundamental beliefs, and Lance was a believer in the truest sense of the word.  He believed in God and Satan; in angels and demons, so when he looked into Joey’s dim guest room and saw it, the half-concealed slick of blood where JC’s mouth was bent to Justin’s neck, it made sense; a bleak, cutting epiphany.  Lance watched, as bound to the scene as Justin, and watched until Justin made a soft, sleepy sound, which startled him into retreat. 

***

“So, I’m a total shit,” Lance said flatly, staring out the window at the setting sun.  He liked the way the colors spread behind the tall skyscrapers and reflected like liquid gold on every surface.  He also liked feeling as though he finally had the upper hand. 

“What?”  Joey looked up from the script he was reading.  

“I’m a total shit,” Lance informed him.  “Just going from everything you’ve told me, of course.  A liar, and all that.  But at least I don’t drink my friends’ blood.”   Joey’s shock brought a small twist of satisfaction. 

“Lance, wait.  It’s not-“

“Oh, no.  Please don’t.”  Lance snorted at Joey’s stricken expression.  “I really hope you’re not about to tell me that it’s not what I think it is.  I saw it.  Fuck, I saw it.” 

Joey nodded.  “Okay, okay.  Fine.”  He put down the script and put it on the bedside table.  “Tell me what you saw.  Are you okay?  Are you freaked out?” 

Lance crawled onto the bed with Joey and thought about what he’d seen.  It had been a full day since he’d seen it, and had been so surreal that if Joey had denied it, Lance might have been willing to dismiss what he’d seen as a brain-injury-related phenomenon.  But Joey hadn’t denied it.  JC’s fangs, Justin’s unusual quiescence and everything he’d seen pass between them had all been real. 

“I’m not freaked out,” he began.  “But I probably should be.  I saw Justin, and JC was…you know.” He grimaced.   It turned his stomach to think about it, though at the time it had been no more disgusting than a nursing child or a lover’s kiss. 

“I know.”  Joey slid his hand into Lance’s hair, where he massaged gently, sweeping his thumb along Lance’s temple.  It felt wonderful, and Lance could suddenly breathe.

 “You’re taking this pretty well.”

“Am I?  How did I take it when I found out, before?”

Joey snorted lightly.  “You didn’t believe it for the longest time.  After that, you just got kind of quiet.”

Lance looked at Joey, at the soft flesh of his mouth and the way it twisted with amusement when he caught Lance looking.  “Kind of how you are, now,” Joey added. 

“Mmm.”  What were you supposed to say when you found out your friend was a…whatever JC was.  “How long has he been like that?”

“About six months, now.”  Joey pressed a kiss to Lance’s forehead, a chaste act, but down lower he had hooked his leg around Lance’s, a warm press of thigh holding Lance against the bed.  “It’s why we keep an eye on him.  He’s pretty much the same, only at night he gets kind of restless.  And other things,” he added distractedly.

“Dangerous?”  Lance tipped his head back, less concerned with the conversation than with the growing heat between them, and knowing it should be the other way around.  It all sounded so familiar, though; like an old song that had him humming along without knowing the words.

Joey made a noncommittal sound right before taking his mouth in a deep kiss that almost made Lance forget what they were talking about.  “Not how you think,” Joey said when he broke away.  “Fuck, Lance.”  His leg tightened and he exhaled loudly, his breath warm and damp against Lance’s neck. 

“Yeah, um, about JC,” Lance said.  His fingers found the loops on the back of Joey’s jeans and he tugged gently.   “Did you ever let him do that to you?”  A part of him found it exciting; the idea of Joey doing that for JC.

Joey gave a little cough. 

Lance closed his eyes for a moment.  In his mind, he pictured the way JC’s jeans had been hanging open at the crotch, Justin’s hand moving as molasses-slow as the rhythmic flex of JC’s jaw.  

“Did you?” he asked again, this time tapping at Joey’s belt in encouragement.

“We all do,” Joey said quietly.  “Even you.” 

“I let him bite me?”  Lance mulled that over.  It hadn’t occurred to him, but that didn’t mean he was surprised.  It was easy to see how he could let JC come to him for that, to offer his neck and maybe something more. 

“Yeah.  You used to, before.  Sometimes he gets so wound up, you know?” 

Lance wasn’t sure whether it was from Joey’s close contact, from their conversation, or from what he’d seen earlier, but his dick had been firming up the whole time they’d been talking.  “I noticed.” he replied shakily, then pressed his face into Joey’s shoulder and just breathed for a while.  Sometimes the other guys teased Joey about being a slob, but they were so wrong.  Everything about Joey was clean and expensive, from his cologne to his clothes to the shampoo scent that was stronger when Lance lifted his face into Joey’s thick, perfectly-trimmed hair.  His mouth may have been crude at times, his humor questionable, but Joey’s body was smooth, solid, and well-kept.  In response to his thoughts, Lance’s hands curled into Joey’s biceps and urged him closer. 

***

He’d been drawn south all along.  It had hurt to come back to New York, but under Chris’ and JC’s cold accusation Lance hadn’t felt as though there were any choice.  Now, he felt the pull in every little part of him, drawing him back south, down to a place where the outdoors gave shelter and indoors was an escape.  The uncertainty that had quivered in his chest since the accident had finally settled, and he knew it was time. 

“I want to go to the house,” he told Joey when they finally dragged themselves out of bed.  “The one in Mississippi, the one with the big yard and the lake.”  He hadn’t been able to find it before, but he could picture it perfectly.

Joey didn’t seem at all surprised.  “Why?” he asked.  His lips were pressed tightly together, so unlike the normal, yielding Joey that a shiver of apprehension crawled its way up Lance’s spine. 

“I don’t know why,” he admitted.  “What’s wrong?” 

“Nothing,” Joey said grimly.  “It’s not your fault.” 

“I want the other guys to come, too,” Lance added, watching Joey’s face carefully. 

“They will.”

“We should probably ask them, first.”

“They- I already know they will.  We all planned to go.”  Joey turned away. 

Lance frowned.  “But you didn’t want to?”

Joey just shook his head and opened his arms.  “C’mere,” he said, and Lance went.  It was reckless but too easy to let all his questions fall away under the tight press of Joey’s embrace. 

***

JC went charmingly, uncommonly shy when Lance approached him about what he’d seen. 

“I’m, uh, glad you’re cool with it,” he said, with a safe four foot distance between them, and then there was a devastating silence. 

Until Chris started laughing. 

“I’m sorry, C,” he said, falling back on the couch and chuckling meanly.  “But—glad he’s cool with it? For the past two months you’ve been nothing but, ‘Let me tell Lance, he won’t care! He’ll cut a fucking vein open as soon as he knows!’”

“I didn’t!” JC protested, darting a horrified glance at Lance.  “You fucker!” he shouted, and jumped on top of Chris. 

“Don’t get him like this,” Justin advised.  He was sprawled lazily across Joey’s leather recliner, and Lance wouldn’t have thought anything of it yesterday.  Today, he recognized Justin’s pallor and lethargy for what it was. 

“Like what?  He just got some; he’s a pussycat, right, JC?”  Chris combed his fingers through JC’s hair until he settled on Chris’ lap, getting one last scowl in before he succumbed. 

“I don’t mind,” Lance said.  He turned his beer bottle around and around in his hands, embarrassed about what the others might think.  It was a ridiculous thing to worry about; after all, JC had been feeding off the rest of them for months, now.  But admitting he wanted it was too much like admitting that he wanted the other thing, and he wasn’t even sure the other was part of the package.  “You can, JC.  If you want.” 

Justin snorted.  “If he wants.” 

“Thank you,” JC said softly.  Chris’ petting seemed to be effectively calming him, even though it was past dark and he would normally be climbing the walls. 

“Hmm…so, what’d you see, exactly?” Chris asked, a wicked glint in his eye. 

It was too bad that Joey had run out to pick up dinner.  He’d thought it was best for Lance to tell JC alone, but Lance had the sneaking suspicion that Joey had been wisely avoiding this conversation altogether.  Even worse, he could feel his cheeks pinking up like some kind of blushing maiden even though he’d spent the better part of the day in bed with Joey. 

“Joey’s back!”  Justin perked up at the sight of the food, which Joey carried through the door in a precariously balanced armload.  Everyone abandoned their places, and Lance shot Chris a smug smile. 

***

“If you’re going to let him feed from you, there are some things you should know,” Justin said.  He bit off the corner of a tortilla chip and chewed thoughtfully.  “Like, if he’s super hungry or riled up, don’t even bother.  Let Chris take him if he’s that bad off, or you’ll regret it.” 

Joey nodded in agreement.  His hand squeezed Lance’s thigh encouragingly, and Lance’s stomach fluttered faintly just from the simple touch.  

“What about Chris?” Lance asked, remembering how he’d looked nearly dead lying in bed, and Justin’s anger. 

“He can take it.  I think he likes it,” Justin said slyly, and pointed his chip at Chris.  “He likes it rough.”  He waved the chip gleefully until Chris snatched it out of his hand. 

JC frowned.  “I’m not…” 

“…no, no, you’re good.”  Chris assured him, and threw the chip at Justin’s head.  It came to rest at a jaunty angle in his unruly curls, which made Joey laugh so hard that he snorted beer out of his nose.  It was pretty disgusting.  Lance handed him a napkin.

“Also,” Justin continued, as though nothing had happened, “he likes it if you’ve eaten something sweet.”

“And if you jerk him off,” Chris added. 

“Um.  That’s not, no.”  JC shook his head.  “You don’t have to do that.” 

That, Lance hadn’t expected.  “Justin does it.”

“Not always,” Justin said, half-drunk from blood loss and tequila.  “But usually.  It’s nicer that way.  You kiss him first, calm him down, and then…you know.  He’d probably come in his pants, anyhow, while he’s doing it.  You might as well do it the right way.” 

“Yeah.  I thought you had a girlfriend,” Lance said.

“I do!  I mean, I’m totally straight,” Justin explained, while Chris rolled his eyes and made rude gestures in the background.  “But JC needs this, you know?  And the touching just goes along with it.”

“Only if you want,” JC added.  “Lance, you don’t have to.” 

Lance nodded and leaned back into Joey’s support.  He knew he didn’t have to, but was curious about how things had been before the accident.  “Did I used to?”

JC tipped his head to the left and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.  “Yeah,” he said, and his voice had gone low and hoarse.  He drew his knees up to his chin and bent his head to press his mouth to them.  “You let me feed on you,” he mumbled.  “You did all of it.” When he lifted his mouth, there was a dark circle of moisture on his knee. 

“Already, C?” Chris’ laughter was tempered by genuine surprise. 

“I know; sorry, sorry,” JC said, only somewhat sheepish.  “But y’all won’t stop talking about it, and it’s driving me kind of crazy!”  His eyes shone with hunger and light, and Lance could see the tension in every line of his body. 

“I’m not up for it,” Justin said quickly. 

Chris stood up and reached for JC’s hand.

“No fucking way.” Justin protested.  “Yesterday was too much for you.” 

“I’m good for it.” 

“Not this soon, you’re not.”  Justin glared at JC until he reluctantly dropped Chris’ hand. 

“He’s right, Chris,.” Joey said.  “Lance, you wanted to try, right?”  Lance leaned back to read Joey’s face, which he found open and questioning, with no trace of apprehension.  “I’ll stay with you,” Joey added.

JC shifted from foot to foot.  When he wiped his mouth again, Lance saw the glint of fang despite JC’s vain attempts to hide it. 

Lance got to his feet. 

*** 

“How do you want to do this?” Joey asked, once he’d drawn Lance’s curtains and shut the door.  It was almost completely dark, but Lance didn’t mind.  He liked the shadows and the way it made them all speak in whispers, moving slowly, taking care as though the darkness were something that could be broken. 

“How do you usually do it?”

JC sighed near Lance’s ear.  “Different ways.  You saw me and Justin, right?  That’s how Joey does it, too.” 

“What about Chris?”

Joey ran his fingers down Lance’s back; a light stroke of assurance.  “You know Chris,” he said.  “He doesn’t do things halfway.” 

“Me and Chris do it in bed,” JC said wistfully.  “But you can- maybe you wanna sit here?”  He touched the edge of Lance’s bed and pulled lightly at Lance’s arm.  His hand was warm against Lance’s skin, which wasn’t the way it ought to have been, at all. 

“You’re warm,” he said.  “Not really what I expected.” 

JC slid his hand up to Lance’s neck.  “No, I know.  I’m alive, man.  I mean, whatever I am, it’s not less.  It’s more.” 

“More?”  Lance could feel his pulse jumping against JC’s thumb, and the quickening of JC’s breath in response. 

“More everything, Lance.  I don’t know how to, uh.  Can we, can I…”  Lance flinched when JC pressed his mouth flat to the skin of his neck, but when he didn’t do anything further, Lance took a shaky breath and looked to Joey for direction. 

“He’s not really good for conversation right before,” Joey said, and sat on the other side of JC.  “It’s kind of mean to make him wait, dude.  Let him start, okay?  Slow, JC,” he directed, and his hand moved to JC’s cheek, a gentle reminder to go easy. 

Lance braced himself and tried to breathe.  It was so much harder than it had sounded when the guys talked about it, the tremendous amount of trust involved in tipping back his head to expose his throat.  But it was safe, he told himself, because Chris did this alone with JC, probably naked, probably fucking, so there was no reason to be lightheaded with terror over this laid back, fully chaperoned transaction. 

He could feel every bit of JC’s lips where they slid across his skin, slowly opening, guided by slick, hot tongue and behind it all, the hard line of teeth that pressed down and down until he realized that the sharpest points had already pierced him. 

Lance gasped when JC began the slow, languorous suction, moaning deep in his chest as he coaxed the blood up into his mouth.  He could feel JC’s nose pressed to his neck, the desperate, hot breath and JC’s hands holding him in place.  It was pointless; Lance couldn’t have moved if he wanted to.  Between the disorientation of the darkness and the place on his neck where he felt unbearably spread open, all he could do was clutch right back at JC and cling to Joey’s occasional soft encouragement. 

He was doing fine, Joey kept saying, and Lance’s body gradually relaxed enough to inventory everything else that was going on, like the hot trickles down his collarbone and the indiscreet movement at JC’s waist.  Forcing his eyes open, Lance saw that Joey, leaning over JC’s shoulder, had opened JC’s pants.  The curve of his hand around JC’s erection was barely visible, especially since things had gone pleasantly blurry around the edges, but even through half-lidded eyes the rhythm was clear, the flex of Joey’s hand in time with JC’s steady suction. 

The groan that rumbled out of his own throat caught Lance by surprise.  JC was so warm and getting even warmer, Lance marveled, the heat growing and becoming even more alive, if that were possible.  It probably had something to do with Joey’s hand and the way JC’s suction stuttered with soft whimpers every now and then, because when Joey’s lips covered Lance’s own—his mouth had been hanging open, he realized—Joey shared that same heat.  Lance reached for it, longed for it, fell into it.  Even with his eyes shut he knew what was happening.  The bed shook with motion and the trickles became streams as JC’s body tightened, tightened, and then shuddered and bucked against Lance, with JC wheezing through his nose and gulping down what had to be the very last bit Lance had to offer. 

“Here’s a towel,” Joey murmured.  When JC withdrew his teeth and pressed the cloth to Lance’s neck, he kept his head bent to Lance’s. 

“You smell like Joey,” JC whispered.  “Everywhere.” 

Someone’s hands were massaging Lance through his jeans.  He was so close, trembling on the edge, and didn’t know when he’d gotten that way.

“Especially here,” JC added, and licked at the corner of Lance’s mouth.  It probably wasn’t what JC meant, but Lance had a flash from earlier, of lying between Joey’s legs, and there was no way that JC’s senses were that heightened but oh God, if they were…Lance made an incoherent sound and arched into the hands that had brought him to this place where all the unreal heat from JC and Joey had settled in his groin, where it gathered and pulsed until it was all one white rush of pleasure with JC’s voice in his ear.

***

***

The porch on Lance’s house had wide steps, and even though there were plenty of well-cushioned chairs, he liked to sit on the steps and look at the landscape that he had honestly expected to remember.  From his porch, a full palette of green rippled from east to west; the bright jade of the morning grass to the deep olive beneath the clustered yellow poplars.

They had all come to Mississippi with him; Joey, growing more brooding by the moment and JC, nearly unable to suppress his excitement.  Chris and Justin were a bit more even-tempered.  They talked about music, cooked, and coaxed the others into playing volleyball out back.  Lance enjoyed all that, but preferred to sit on his quiet, sheltered porch. 

“I can’t believe you like it here.”  Lance let the screen door slam shut behind him and took the seat across from JC, who looked up with a curious expression.

“Why?”

Lance shrugged.  “You seem to need more excitement.  Plus, all the sun, or- doesn’t that…”

“The sun isn’t so bad,” JC said.  It was a breezy day, and his hair fluttered like a nervous sparrow’s wings around his face, but he made no move to fix it.  “I like the woods at night, and you guys are all here.”    

“Just making sure.”  Lance tapped his fingers on his notebook, glad he’d caught JC alone.  There were so many things he still wanted to ask, and JC seemed willing to give him things that the other guys were not.  He opened his notebook to the last page, which was now filled from top to bottom in his own handwriting, fragments of memories that he’d managed to capture.  The words JC had read were still there.  Joey is mad at me, in dark, unhesitating pencil. 

Casually, he slid it across the table until JC put his hand flat on the scrawled lines. 

“Tell me what this is about, JC.  Did we fight?  Were we still friends?”   

“Of course you were!”  The wind swept through the rest of the pages; Lance watched them curl and scrape at JC’s hands until he shut the book.   “You didn’t fight, not really.  I hope you know Joey’s going to kick my ass for telling you.” 

Lance raised an eyebrow to that. 

“Fine, fuck.  Okay,” JC huffed.  “Before you got hurt, we were all planning on coming down here and I was going to…”  He gestured vaguely toward his mouth and shrugged. 

“Going to…” 

“You wanted to be like me,” JC said sullenly.  “You wanted to, and we were all going to do it together.”

Lance felt as though the wind had been knocked out of him with a wrecking ball. 

“Well, not all of us.  You wanted it for sure, and Justin suddenly came around and said he did, too.  I don’t know why…” JC trailed off.  “But Joey said no, he didn’t want, he couldn’t.  And that’s why he was mad, or whatever.  He would never tell you what to do, but you know Joey.” 

“Yeah.”  If JC noticed how Lance’s voice shook, he didn’t say.  “What about Chris?” 

“Oh, Chris.”  JC made another complicated, indecipherable gesture.  “Who knows?  Nobody knows what he thinks about it, and he won’t say.  I thought he’d take Joey’s side, but-“  With every word, his voice rose in frustration, and finally he slumped down into his chair, defeated, with a low growl that raised the hairs on the back of Lance’s neck. 

“He’s…”

“Yeah,” JC agreed on a sigh, without hearing the rest.  “He is.”

“JC,” Lance said uncomfortably, “why do you let him—Chris—do it?  I mean, when it’s not safe.”

JC stared out into the trees.  Lance almost repeated himself, but JC’s fingers had begun tapping nervously at his shadowed jaw, and he took a long time to think before replying, faintly, “He’s the only one who gets anything out of it.”

It was tempting to ask exactly what JC thought Chris got out of it—after all,  Lance had gotten an orgasm out of it, so it had to be more than that—but Lance felt a surge of sympathy for JC.  No one really understood what it was like for him, and he took what they gave without asking for more.  Even as they sat together, Lance could feel JC’s desire to sway him, but he said nothing more and instead fell into a light doze right there in the morning shade.

***

“Are you gonna do it?” 

“Hmm?”  Lance opened one eye, made out the blurry shape of Justin’s head, and then went back to sunbathing. 

“So, are you-“

“-I know what you’re asking, Justin, and please fuck off.” 

“Whoo, sounding more and more like your old self every day!” Justin snorted.  He unceremoniously dumped his backpack on the dock and sat down.  “Whatever, man.  Joe’ll be here in a minute.”  The scent of coconut was in the air, so Lance leaned up on one elbow to watch Justin slather his long, lean body with tanning lotion. 

When he glanced up at Justin’s face, he was met with a smirk.  “Seriously, please?” Justin said, and it couldn’t have been a coincidence the way he arched his back and slid one slippery hand across his lower belly.  “We had a plan, and nobody knows what’s going on, now.”

“Bastard,” Lance muttered, and flopped back down onto his back.  “Why does it have to be up to me?” 

“I’ve already decided.  C doesn’t like being the only one.” 

“That’s your reason?”

“Not my only reason,” Justin said quickly.  “Here comes Joe; let’s talk about it later.” 

Lance exhaled with the sun on his chest and waited for Joey’s footsteps, which sounded heavily on the dock and then stopped right near his ear. 

“You’re looking a little pink.”  With one hand shading his eyes from the sun, Lance looked up at Joey, whose swimming trunks were dotted with tiny palm trees.  They billowed out around his pale thighs and for a moment Lance thought he might be able to see all the way up, but when he tipped his head to the side there was only shadow and Joey’s laughter.  

He ignored it and buried his sheepish face in his arms.  “Uh, if I’m burning, there’s sunscreen in Justin’s backpack.”

“My mom warned me not to rub lotion on guys who try to look up my shorts,” Joey retorted, but he had already knelt to unzip the bag.

“Come closer and I’ll do more than that.” It was an idle threat.  Lance was warm and contented, and even the dribble of cold lotion on his chest wasn’t enough to make him move.  The firm press of Joey’s hands made desire roll through Lance’s belly, but when he blinked up at Joey’s face, it was something else entirely, far more than wanting Joey’s hands.  He wasn’t certain he could have it, because the thing he wanted had been unattainable for the old, lying Lance. 

Joey’s hand was warm and damp with sunscreen when Lance captured it with his own, trapped it against the trembling curve of his own belly.  “Why does it feel like I don’t really have you?”

Joey looked down at their joined hands.  “You’ve got me,” he replied, but his face was guarded and a note of disbelief hung in the air. 

“But?”

Joey’s fingertips brushed the fine hair beneath Lance’s belly button, a gentle, stalling motion that Lance didn’t want to end.  “But you never really wanted this before,” Joey finally said. 

“I only came here to remember,” Lance said.  It was suddenly very hard to breathe.  “I-“

“You talked to JC.”  Joey’s hand slid away like a wilting leaf. 

“I’m not going to do it,” Lance said firmly, and levered himself into a sitting position.  “Joe, I know what I want, and that’s not it.”

“You wanted it before!  Believe me, nothing could have stopped you.  You wanted it, you want it.  You’re not yourself.”

“Then who am I?”  He was someone Joey wouldn’t even look at.  “I know what I want, and even if I remembered everything five minutes from now, things have changed.  We can’t go back to how we used to be.  We’re, I mean, I thought we were…more than that, now.” 

Joey snorted and looked off across the lake while Lance studied his profile.  His mouth was unsmiling and there were shadows beneath his eyes as though he were the one instead of JC who had forgotten how to sleep.  “Lance…fuck.  There’s a good chance you’ll hate me when you do start to remember.”

“Never,” Lance said.  He was suddenly, jarringly unsure of where they stood, but when he leaned in for a kiss, Joey accepted him eagerly, easily, and Lance clung to Joey’s shoulders, dizzy with the heat.  With the soft slide of his tongue against Joey’s he tried to convey his sincerity, and when the kissed changed to a crush of lips and teeth, Joey seemed to understand what that meant, too. 

***

***

Justin had been on the phone with his agent for over an hour.  Lance was fascinated by his focus, the way he wrote everything down with ferocious intensity and spoke in precise business lingo.  He’d never seen this side of Justin, but equally fascinating was the test of JC’s will-power across the room, so Lance split his attention between watching them both. 

Chris had fallen asleep on the sofa, head tipped all the way back, shoulder to shoulder with JC, who was trying valiantly to ignore the vulnerable expanse of throat where the pale stubbled skin was stretched tight across his adam’s apple.  It was cruel and amusing all at once to see JC gnaw nervously at his fingernails while darting the occasional glance at his sleeping friend. 

Lance was pretty sure JC hadn’t fed for a couple days, so it was impressive the way he held himself together and shut his eyes, squirming with the effort it took to deny himself what he wanted.  After a few minutes, Chris stirred, and Lance couldn’t look away from the way JC drew Chris into him and how Chris responded, the blatant invitation in the subtle twist of his neck. 

“Do it,” Chris murmured.  The sound carried to Lance and went straight through him.  He shivered along with JC, especially when Chris prodded JC’s bottom lip with his finger until JC’s mouth parted ever so slightly.  Lazily, he slid the tip of his finger inside and felt along the edges of JC’s teeth.   

He reminded Lance of a lion tamer, the way he placed so much trust in his ability to keep JC in check, and he continued his daring game when he twitched the fleshy pad of his finger against the sharp point of JC’s incisor.  JC’s tongue immediately snaked out to catch the dark, gleaming drops that leaked steadily into his mouth. 

Lance sucked in a stunned breath, shaken and drawn by the display.  JC watched Chris with ravenous eyes, gently taking only as much as Chris would give, until Chris wiped a smear of crimson across JC’s lips and withdrew his finger.  When Chris rose, JC followed him from the room while Justin frowned into his phone and said,

“I can’t promise anything.  My schedule is…subject to change, these days.”   

***

***

It had been the absolute truth when Lance had told Joey he wasn’t going to do it.  It was the truth, but that didn’t stop Lance from thinking about it, about who might allow JC to change them and what things might be like after that.  Curiosity was what brought Lance to the door of the guest room where JC had taken Chris.  Chris was always more pliant and loose-lipped with JC in his bed.

The door was half-open, so Lance let himself in and when his eyes adjusted to the dark, he saw JC hunched on the corner of the bed, his bare shoulders shaking with every ragged, sobbing breath. 

“What’s wrong?” Lance asked, already cold with dread.  He stepped toward the bed and in the sliver of light from the bathroom, saw that JC was still capable of shedding real, human tears.

“I didn’t, couldn’t,” JC choked out. “Chris.  I, oh my god, Lance.”  He ducked his head into his hands and it was then that Lance saw that his hands were dark with blood.  It didn’t stop there.  The sheets bore the same stains, and it all led to the shape half-buried by blankets. 

“Is that- what happened?” 

JC just shook his head.   

The smell of blood may have appealed to JC, but Lance’s legs went wobbly when he caught the scent, and by the time Joey rushed into the room, everything was already safely blurred around the edges.  “What the fuck did you do?” Joey bellowed, while JC cried inconsolably.  Lance was afraid to venture past the doorway, but Joey was fearless; he rushed in and stripped the sheets off the motionless shape--off of Chris--and his frantic, endless exclamations of holyfuckJCwhatdidyouDO? dizzied Lance’s head as much as the scent of copper. 

The shock was in the sheer ugliness of it.  Lance had never been repulsed, not even when JC had been new to it and overfed, vomiting up blood all over Jesse’s orange Abercrombie t-shirt that Lance had acquired during their breakup.  It had become a running joke, but a bloody breakup t-shirt was nothing like a corpse. 

“He’s not dead,” Lance said.

“He’s dying,” Joey argued.  Justin hovered near the doorway, his face crumpled with grief.    

Chris was dying; Lance knew it as certainly as he knew it didn’t have to be that way.  “JC can still save him.  Change him.”  He pulled the knowledge up from a sudden wellspring that tasted of blood and plastic and memories. 

Joey jerked his gaze up to JC’s face.  “Is that true?” 

It was true.  JC had always confided the dark secrets he’d learned to Lance, because Lance was the only one who had wanted to hear them.  From the beginning, Lance had been fascinated by JC’s new place in the world and the ancient forces that had brought him there.  But JC didn’t answer Joey, just shook his head and clenched his fists. 

“Tell us, JC!” Joey demanded.  “Can you do it?” 

“I can’t!” JC burst out.  “It isn’t my choice!  He didn’t say…he might not want to be…” 

“Fuck his choice!”   Lance grabbed JC’s arm and shoved him toward Chris.  “What, you think he’d rather die?”   

JC looked Chris over briefly, and then hunched back into himself, mumbling, “I have no idea what he thinks about it.  No idea.  If I knew, I could, but he’s so…I just don’t know.  He always just let me, we never had to talk about it,” he agonized softly. 

“It’s too late.”  Lance tried to gentle his tone for JC, but Chris looked so pale, and there was no way he was still alive.  If it happened, it had to be soon.  “You’d rather him die?” 

Justin made a choked sound from the doorway. 

“No!”  JC’s eyes flashed at him angrily, but he began moving slowly toward JC, and Lance could finally breathe again.  “I’ll do it, I’ll do it,” he asked, sounding half-crazed as he buried his face in Chris’ neck and sobbed softly through some quiet rambling.  “I’ll do it,” he said again, his eyes drooping shut.  “Just go.” 

***

They stayed up half the night consoling JC, who had fled the room to Justin’s as soon as he finished his task.  “He’ll never forgive me,” he mumbled wetly into Joey’s neck.  “I hate this so much, I hate-“

“Don’t say that!” Justin interrupted.  “You don’t fucking hate it; you love it, and so did he.  It’s not your fault.  It’s not anybody’s fault.” 

“It’s someone’s fault,” JC argued. 

Justin flopped down on the bed and rubbed roughly at JC’s back, his face thoughtful.  “No, it’s like an earthquake or a snakebite, C.  It’s nature.  It just is.” 

Lance hadn’t thought of it that way.  Maybe that was why they’d rallied around JC when he’d come to them with his peculiar appetite and the unbelievable story that went along with it.  “I think he wanted it,” he said quietly.  “Chris.” 

“What?” 

“I do.  He was reckless, and I think it was intentional.  He had a way of getting you riled up, JC.”   It was something Chris had always done, especially with JC. 

“That’s true,” Joey muttered, still holding JC close, hand buried in the damp curls.   

“Yeah, yeah, they’re right,” Justin coaxed.  He patted JC’s back and then Joey’s, and stared down at JC’s hidden face for a long time.  “Let’s get you cleaned up,” he finally said, and tugged at JC’s shoulder.  “We’ll change the sheets and you can sleep in here.  We’ll wait for Chris, okay?” 

Somewhat appeased, JC pried himself out of Joey’s lap and wiping futilely at his stained skin, followed Justin to the bathroom.

***

The master bedroom was upstairs on the shady side of the house.  Joey had been reluctant to share it at first, but after the first few days he’d dragged his suitcase into the room for good.  When the polished wheels rolled across the hardwood floor, the sound had been as smooth as the skin on the back of his shoulder where Lance kissed him that night, brimming with gratitude.

That night seemed like a very long time ago.  Lance trailed behind Joey when they took the stairs to bed, and was careful not to meet his eyes as they brushed their teeth.  Joey still wore JC’s stains, so Lance sat on the bed and watched through the open doorway as Joey undressed and showered, looking so much like the Joey he’d known for ten years that it was impossible to believe he’d allowed this to happen.

It shouldn’t have happened, of course.  Lance averted his eyes when Joey stepped naked out of the shower.  As he studied the pattern of the bedspread, he tried to ignore the fragile sprouts of panic that had taken root in his chest.  He’d made a tremendous mistake.  His feelings for Joey were old, familiar secrets that he’d never intended to share with anyone, especially not Joey. 

The things he’d said…Lance’s cheeks burned at the memory of how hard he’d pushed, and how Joey’s generous nature had overcome his initial—and completely justified—reluctance.  And now he’d put them in a position where Joey found it perfectly acceptable to climb naked into the bed where Lance was sitting.

His blood ran hot and quick with giddy terror at Joey’s closeness, at the knowledge of who they were to one another and what he ought to do immediately, which was put a stop to this before someone got hurt. 

Instead, he took off his clothes and got into bed.  Some things were easier to say in the darkness. 

The sheets were cool against his back, and he stretched out between them, trying not to turn toward Joey’s warmth.  It didn’t matter; Joey rolled toward him and Lance shut his eyes against the shivery effect of Joey’s warm breath, right there beneath his ear. 

“Joey,” Lance said, a weak protest, but it was too easy to let it happen, Joey’s mouth trailing wetly down his neck until the heat spread to every part of Lance’s body.  When Joey’s arms came around him, Lance pressed his face into the clean scent of ocean-pine that clung to shower-damp skin. 

“I remember,” he said softly. 

The kisses stopped, the arms around him suddenly tense.

“What?” 

“I remember,” he repeated, his heart thumping madly in his chest, so hard that Joey had to feel it, too.   

For a moment, they lay perfectly still, and then a wave of relief washed over him when Joey’s only response was to fiercely tighten his hold.  Lance clung just as tightly, and for a short while there was nothing bet