Legal disclaimer: not true. Fiction. Not meant to imply anything about anyone. Don't read if you're not old enough.
Author's notes: have fun.
-Eternally Yours, chapter twenty -
For a moment JC just stood and watched them. It was like watching a well rehearsed dance, only that the two dancers were decorated in crimson flowers of quickly drying blood whenever they met. Coming to his senses again, JC approached them, having to use all his strength to hold them apart.
"Enough!" His voice was sharp and loud. "What the hell's gotten into you, Lance?"
Green eyes were glowering. A cut on his cheek was in the process of closing up again, still a few drops of blood managed to run down his face. "Stay out of this, Josh," he answered. "This is between Justin and me..."
"Really?" Justin smiled back, getting to his feet. "I think you should tell JC about it... Come on, you're not like, embarrassed, are you?" he teased.
Lance started towards Justin, before JC pushed him back. "You stay where you are," he warned him. "Justin, what are you talking about?"
"Why don't you let Lance explain?" Justin told him, the smile getting wider, satisfaction dancing in his eyes. "After all I just saw them... Although they made such a cute couple... Lance and..." He waited until he had JC's undivided attention before he finished. "Chris."
Immediately JC turned to Lance. "You better explain yourselves right now. And you better not be telling me what I think you're going to."
"He was lying to you all the time," Justin said from behind them. "I saw him with the slayer last night, and tonight too."
"I didn't know he was the slayer at first," Lance protested, his voice low. "When I found out, I'd already..." He glared at Justin, with something close to despair in his eyes. "You freakin' little misfit, why couldn't you just let it go?"
"I should have expected that you had something to do with this too, Justin," JC sighed. "But Lance, you had to know what kind of danger you were putting yourself in? Chris would have killed you..." He paused, turning back to look at Lance. "Why didn't he kill you? I have never know Chris to back out of a hunt or a fight."
"Oh they weren't fighting." Justin's amused voice sounded again. "No, they were far too busy playing tonsil hockey for that..."
"God, I hate you!" Lance said, again pushed back by JC. Justin merely smiled innocently back.
"He hadn't told the slayer either, Josh. He didn't tell him that he's our kind."
JC seemed to understand what was going on, and Lance could very clearly see that he didn't like the situation. Blue eyes met his.
"Lance," JC asked. "Would you please enlighten me here... I can get the fact that you ran into Chris, and that you left the house without our permission... But please, please don't tell me that you...have feelings for him?"
"I..." Lance started, unsure of what to say. He was sure of his feelings, but JC was looking at him with a nearly begging look. But he couldn't lie about it.
"I love him," Lance said in the end. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean for it to happen." His words were heavy in the quiet house.
"God, Lance," JC said, shaking his head. "Do you have any idea what something like this means? Chris isn't like me. If he finds out who you really are, he'll kill you in an instant."
"No, he wouldn't!" Lance protested. "Thanks to the devil spawn over there, he already knows! And he couldn't kill me. He just...left." The pain, momentarily overridden by rage, was back, clawing its way through his body. "He left me."
Taking a look at Lance's face, JC stepped back, a look of sympathy on his own face. "I'm sorry, Lance, but I really think it was for the best. And with what's going on...you could have put us all in danger. Chris is here to kill Joey, don't forget that, and now when..."
"I know," Lance said, too calm for Justin's liking. The green eyes hadn't lost their glow. "Oh and by the way, Justin here felt the need to tell Chris all about you too. That the two of us are staying with you and Joey."
"You did what, Justin?" Now JC was staring at the younger man.
"I just said that he's staying with us!" Justin defended himself. "I didn't do anything wrong! Lance was the one who was all over the slayer, you haven't asked him what he was telling Chris!"
"That's because I know that Lance is too smart to tell him anything about us," JC replied, his words being followed by tears pooling in Justin's blue eyes.
"You always take his side! He was the one that did something wrong and now you're all blaming me! That isn't fair!"
"We're not blaming you," JC told him. "But you shouldn't have said anything, Justin. You should have come to us, and let Joey and me handle this."
"Handle what?" a voice asked and they all looked up to find Joey standing in the door.
The hallway fell silent again. "We have a problem, love," JC quietly told him. "Lance has been seeing Chris. Chris didn't know that Lance's a vampire before tonight, when Justin told him."
The tired look on Joey's face, was mixed with a thoughtful one. "I don't think Chris will be able to do that much about it. They all know who he is now... And now that the fighting within our own ranks has ended, they are turning to the council and the slayers."
"You sent them after him?" Lance's voice was filled with disbelief. "If they hurt him, I will..." His words stopped suddenly as he felt a force press him back against the wall.
"I didn't send anyone after anybody. But he's a slayer, Lance. It was unbelieveably foolish of you to do anything like this."
"Not any more foolish than you," Lance growled, after Joey let him go. "I didn't ask for this, remember? I never asked to be turned. If I hadn't, I would be with Chris now, and everything would have been fine."
"I'm sorry, but there's no way to change this," Joey answered. "I thought you would be more responsible than this, Lance. You of all should know how important it is to not tell anyone about us."
"I didn't tell either. Justin did."
This time Justin attacked, and was stopped by Joey. "I don't believe it!" Justin pouted. "He goes and put us all in danger and everyone's mad at me. I didn't do anything." A single tear escaped down his cheek. "I just wanted to... You love him more than me."
"What?" Joey spun around, staring at Justin. "Of course we don't."
"Yes, you do!" Now the tears were flowing down Justin's pale face, and he looked defeated. "You're both so proud of him because he does everything right, and I always get in trouble... You don't want me anymore. He's so perfect and I just wanted you to see that he's not any better than me, so you won't leave me..." By now his words got lost in the tears and Joey hugged him tightly to him.
"Justin, we could never leave you, don't even think such a thing." Joey was softly running his hand over Justin's back. "We love you so much, both JC and me."
"You do?" Justin's voice was broken and rusty, and Lance had never heard him sound so young. He almost felt sorry for him.
"Of course we do," Joey soothed him. "And there's nothing you could to to make us stop loving you either."
Then Lance noticed JC watching him.
"What?" he asked, his voice coming out a lot less colder than he had planned.
"I wish this hadn't happened," JC answered him. "How can I be mad, what am I to say to you? When Joey and I did just the same thing? But Chris and me... He is nothing like me, Lance. Don't hope for something that's not going to happen."
"You're wrong," Lance whispered. "I love him. He loves me. If Justin hadn't told him, everything would have been fine..."
"He would have found out sometime," JC gently told him, and Lance knew he was right. "You couldn't have hidden it from him forever."
Leaning against the wall, Lance ran a hand over his face, not surprised to find his palm wet. "I know, I know. But I just wanted the chance to pretend just a little longer, you know? That I'm not what I am, and he wasn't what he is...that everything was perfect for just a while..."
"Nothing's ever perfect," JC sighed. "There is always some pain built in somewhere."
Joey was still holding Justin in his arms, feeling the sobs quiet down to shaky breathing. He looked at Lance. "I know what you're thinking, Lance, and you can't do it. You're not to see Chris again. If you do, you're not only endangering us, you're also putting him in danger." The raw pain in the younger man's eyes made him cringe. "We ran into him the night you ran away from us downtown. He tried to kill JC. You may think that he loves you, but now that he knows who you really are... You are nothing but an enemy to him."
Lance looked like Joey had just hit him. Stumbling back, he turned and ran down to his own room, the door slamming shut after him.
"Did you have to be so cruel?" The question didn't surprise Joey. He turned to JC.
"Yes. You know Chris. And we can't risk the newfound peace in the society either. If this comes out, everything I accomplished tonight will be in vain. Vincenzo will have died for no reason. I can't let that happen."
"I know," JC replied softly. "But then again... When we met...I noticed a lot of changes in Chris... I honestly don't think he would have been able to kill me..."
"I can't take that chance, baby," Joey told him, still holding Justin who had curled into him like a small kitten. "I know that Lance is hurting now, and I hate to be the one to add more to it, but what am I supposed to do here? If he just gets over this..." He stopped when he saw JC's look. "Yeah, I know... But I am not telling him about that right now."
Hugging himself, JC looked out of the window. "Sometimes I wonder...if that isn't a punishment of some kind. We live forever. But most of us never find someone to share eternity with. Maybe they're right, when they say we're monsters...who only have the capacability to love once..."
"You know that's not true," Joey immediately replied. "We love each other, and Justin and Lance..."
"Yes," JC answered, still watching the dark outside. "But what you and I have... If one of us should fall, Joey, do you think the other one could ever find someone else to love like that again?" He turned to find that Joey wasn't looking back at him this time. He was threading his fingers through Justin's curly hair, hiding his face in the silken mass of golden locks. "You know I'm right," JC whispered. "If he really has fallen in love, he will feel that way forever...or until he..."
The silence fell like heavy rain over the dark hallway. JC's words weakened away, but they both knew that they were true. And the silence was weeping black tears of darkness, mixing with hidden tears from iriscent green eyes.
The moon was shining in through the windows of the large room. The pale light fell over gym apparats, making them seem like disconfigured ghosts. In the darkest corner a figure was curled up, knees pressed tightly to his chest, arms securely fastened around his knees again.
He had stopped crying, if not counting one or another stray tear. Now he was mostly feeling cold, and scared, even if he'd never admit it, not even to himself. He kept his eyes closed, because every time he opened them he saw the translucent thought-image of a tall man, with black, long hair, loosely gathered in a ponytail, moving around in the room. It was safer to keep his eyes closed.
It was no use in trying to convince himself that he was wrong, that he was alone. The shadowy image mixed with memories of glittering green eyes and a smile that had all his defenses crumbling at once.
"Jesus Christ!" Chris throught, feeling his fingernails drive themselves through the skin of his palms. "How could I have been so fucking stupid!?" The shadows with him offered no response, just continued their slow, gliding dance in the empty room.
--- "Blessed Are The Cheese Makers" (Monthy Python's Life Of Brian.)
-Sanity Is Just A State Of Mind- http://www.envy.nu/bluekat