My apologies for taking so long with this one. Life got in the way of fantasy and my figurative Muse dumped me. Special thanks to Izzy and Frithjof for beta! Thanks for support and encouragement also go to: Summy, Kor, Tazy, Sascha, Rob&Dan, Arik, JT Poole, and Ryan.
If anyone is interested in what's been going on in my life since I posted chapter 31: I came out to most of my family, changed majors at the uni, finally met my best friend in person, moved house, got a summer job, got a new apartment, got a tan, wrote about 20 poems, wrote about 300k of my first BtVS fic, saw Bruce Springsteen live in Helsinki, and had my laptop fixed twice.
Disclaimer: This story is not meant to imply anything about the true sexuality or personal lives of the celebrities mentioned. Adult (m/m) content, probably foul language, don't be illegal, stuff like that. Any likeness to people personally known to me is either purely coincidental and unintended, or devoid of malevolence.
NEEDING YOU CHAPTER 32 By Neqs
"Everything's falling apart."
Marshall looked up from his paper to Lance, who was curled in the opposite corner of the sofa.
"Is that supposed to be news to me? The world's always falling apart. Maybe it's doing it a little more than usual right now, but we're not at World War III yet. Or were you referring to the division of income that's making the lives of people who don't have six figure wages increasingly harder?"
"Well that too, but I was actually referring to us, to me. I used to dream about coming out, you know. It was like the Holy Grail of sorts, it was going to change everything for the better. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad we did it, but it didn't just magically take away all my problems. It created a few new ones, but nothing I can't handle. What's really bugging me is...what next?"
"What do mean?"
"I feel like I'm drifting, like I'm without purpose. I know it's silly, but I feel like I should be doing something, striving for something, dreaming about something. Instead, I just...am. So what happens now?"
"What do you want to happen?"
"'And they lived happily ever after...'"
"James, I love you, so don't give me that crap. It's horrible how far removed the fairytales they tell to kids really are from reality. 'Happy ever after' is the easy way out for storytellers. We live from day to day, conscious of every week, month, and year. We have to make it happen and roll with the punches, and work for the happiness we get. There are always bad times to balance the good times, and we don't always have the power to influence whether there's more good or bad stuff."
Pause.
"Is this about the wedding?" Lance asked. Marshall sighed and laid his head in Lance's lap.
"It's all just too much sometimes. The guest list is a mile long, and we still haven't picked the flowers or menus or tuxes or Best Men or a million other things, even though your mother, who I'm actually really fond of, has been running us ragged for the last ten days. There's some great exposé about the wedding in the tabloids every day! I'm just a bit tired," he said, giving Lance his best puppy dog look.
Lance smiled indulgently down at his lover. "I know, Em, things have been crazy lately. Why don't I go run you a bath? Strawberry okay?" Marshall groaned gratefully, already expecting the blissful relaxation that only a hot bath could provide. Well, a hot bath and good sex, but a bath just smelled better. And was much more hygienic.
"Make it green apple, please, with lots of bubbles?" he asked fluttering his eyelashes pleadingly at Lance before letting him up from the sofa. Lance pretended to frown at him, but his eyes were laughing.
"One extra-bubbly green apple scented bath coming up! Won't take but a minute."
"Thanks."
Marshall watched as Lance disappeared around the corner, and sighed in contentment and lazy anticipation. The bath would help him relax, and it shouldn't be hard at all to persuade Lance to share it with him. Because, sex in a hot bath with the man he loved? Heaven.
Lance pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. He inhaled slowly through his nose, stifling an urge to scream. He settled for groaning with his mouth closed, making a noise in his throat that was reminiscent of a sick cat. Or maybe it was an upset, pregnant cat, he really couldn't remember - anyway, the feline was plain miserable and so was Lance.
He loved his mother, he truly did. He loved his sister, and his friends, and his friends' mothers. But he didn't love the experience of being caught in the crossfire of their plans for his wedding. At first he'd been glad of their help, but that had faded when they just plain took over the whole thing. Somehow he'd lost all control over his own wedding. And the people who were running the show were running him ragged. Marshall seemed no better off.
And that was why James Lance Bass of Nsync was pacing the length of the apartment he and Marshall were sharing, muttering under his breath and slowly losing his mind, when Dre knocked on the door and walked right in. He looked at Lance.
"You okay, kid? You look wound tight." Lance tried for a snort, but it came out more like a hysterical giggle. Perfect. Not only was he going insane, he was also turning into a person who giggled. Lance took two steps and flopped down on the sofa. He hid his face in his hands, beyond caring how ridiculous he must look. He was surprised when he didn't hear the sound of the door closing after Dre, but instead found the producer taking a seat next to him.
"I'll take that as a 'no,' then," Dre said with a mild frown. "Want to talk about it?"
"I, no, yes, argh!" Lance muttered into his hands. "It's all such a big fucking mess, you know? I'm sorry about freaking out in front of you," he added, looking up at Dre, his normally smiling face tired and drawn. Dre turned to face him, resting his forearm on the back of the couch.
"That's all right, we all need freak out sometimes. I guess the whole wedding thing's running you two ragged?"
Lance barked in laughter, rubbing his face with his hands. This time, there was a glimmer of his usual good humor in his eyes when he looked up.
"You could say that. We're going crazy, and it shows." He was silent for a minute. Dre didn't feel the need to say anything. "Your acceptance means a lot to me and Em. Especially since my father won't even acknowledge my existence... Well, I know Em doesn't see you as a father figure, but he looks up to you so much. And I really appreciate the way you're stood by him in this publicity circus."
"I'm not his father, but I'm his brother, and as a big brother, it's my job to look after him. We're the family he's chosen for himself, and that makes us even closer. Oh, he might bitch and rant and do crazy stuff, but he's a good man underneath his bluster. He's not the guy he was a few years back, before he came to his senses and cleaned up his act. He's also not the guy he was when you met him about a year ago. He's happier and more grounded, thanks to you." Dre smiled at Lance. "You're probably wondering where I'm going with all this sappy crap. Well, this means that you're my baby brother too. Welcome to the family, kid."
Lance blinked rapidly, a slow, wide smile curving his lips. "I...wow. That's so great. I'm speechless," he said with a little self-deprecating laugh. He leaned back on the couch, totally at ease for the first time since he'd last seen Marshall. "You really made my day, you know. I was such a mess..."
Dre smiled at him, letting his guard down in a way he only did when he was with close friends or family. He let his arm drop from the back of the couch to rest on Lance's shoulders. Lance was slightly startled, but moved so that he could rest his head on Dre's arm.
"You do realize that if anyone were to see us right now, they'd think that we're lovers?" Lance asked with a droll smile. Dre raised an eyebrow and chuckled.
"Well, they'd be wrong. You're a nice guy and not ugly at all, but I'm not attracted to men. Besides, you're with Marshall, and I'd never steal his boy-toy," he said with a smirk on his face and a twinkle in his eye. Lance laughed and mock-punched him, curling closer to the larger man.
Dre was like a calm oasis of sanity in the chaos that was wedding preparations. The position they were in, sitting close together on the sofa might have looked very bad to a stranger. It should have looked completely innocent to anyone who knew them. Unfortunately, Marshall wasn't in a state of mind you could call reasonable.
"What the fucking hell is going on here?!"
The angry roar and the sound of the door crashing into the wall caused Lance to jump and swivel to face his furious fiancé.
Marshall was...wow. "Wow" was the first thing that came to Lance's mind when he saw Marshall standing in the doorway, his face suffused red, eyes shooting blue fire, and powerful body trembling with rage. The next thing that occurred to him was that this was not the time for lust. Marshall looked extremely upset, his fists clenching and unclenching at his side like he was on the verge of attacking someone.
"Em, what-" Dre started to rise from the sofa, and Marshall's eyes narrowed dangerously. He took a step towards them, and Lance jumped up from his seat to stand between them.
"Stop! What the hell is wrong with you, Em? You know damn well that neither Dre or I would ever do anything to hurt you!"
For a long moment Marshall just stood there, his jaw working silently. Then his anger seemed to bleed out of him, causing his shoulders to slump. Slowly, Lance made his way to his lover, carefully pulling him into his embrace.
"I...fuck. Yeah," Marshall muttered into Lance's neck, his body relaxing against his lover's.
"It's okay, love. We're stressed out and that's why our emotions are all over the place. Actually, that's what Dre was doing: giving me a pep talk and talking some sense into me after I panicked about the wedding," Lance said gently.
Marshall groaned. "Please, not the W-word. It makes me want to vomit," he said, squeezing his eyes shut. "And it's all your fault!" He yipped and his eyes shot open when Lance thumped him.
"How the fuck is it MY fault? You're the one who proposed, you het-spirited, macho bastard!" Lance spit out, glaring at Marshall, who glared back just as furiously.
"Who are you calling het-spirited, bitch?" Marshall growled, and Lance jumped forward, going for the eyes. Bloodshed was narrowly avoided, thanks to Dre, who risked his health by stepping between them and laying a large hand on each man's heaving chest.
"Guys! Calm the fuck down. God, you are such drama queens." Then Dre was backing down, palms raised in front of him, trying to stave off a suddenly united pair of fuming, overwrought celebrities.
Well, at least I got them to agree on something, he thought, and Lance and Marshall must have realized it too, because they stopped in their tracks and looked at each other. Something in the room seemed to shift, and Lance was the first to smile. Dre relaxed when Marshall did, blue eyes reflecting the warmth in Lance's green ones.
Dre was a brave man. Brave, he told himself, was a much nicer word than stupid. He demonstrated his bravery by interrupting the Moment the lovers were having before they could drift into la-la land and forget the issue at hand...until the next time something triggered their strung nerves.
"Lance, Marshall. This little tiff was just a symptom of a bigger problem, one you can't keep ignoring. Can't you see what it's doing to your - I can't believe I'm saying this - relationship?"
The pair's ardor cooled again, but they held hands when they sat down on the sofa. Dre seated himself opposite to them
"So why don't you tell us what our problem is," Marshall asked calmly, but with a hint of belligerence. Lance squeezed his hand in his, but turned his eyes to Dre, who just raised his eyebrow, not in the least intimidated.
"Your problem is the wedding. You wanted to make your love official by having this special celebration witnessed by your friends and family. Well, this special celebration is turning into a special pain in the ass. I now understand why so many couples break up over the wedding preparations. Can't you see what this is doing to you, what you're doing to yourselves and to each other? Is it really worth it?"
Lance opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He turned to face Marshall, who was similarly struck dumb by Dre's insight into their relationship and his passionate words.
"I...fuck it," Marshall said, shaking his head slowly. "James, I love you. But I don't want to marry you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, yes. I want to be with you and you only, yes. I want to be married to you, yes. But this prolonged torture session called 'getting married' is killing us. I don't have fun anymore; we don't have fun anymore." He looked at Lance, who squeezed his hand again and smiled reassuringly.
"I guess getting married is the adult thing to do, but being a responsible adult doesn't mean that you're not supposed to have fun. It means that you understand that limitations on your fun, and the consequences of it, and take responsibility," Lance said seriously.
"So now you've decided that the state of things needs changing, good. Now you need to think about a few things: what you want to do, what you need to do, and what you feel you should do. The three can be very different." Dre sat back. "Again, these are just suggestions. It's your life. I'm just trying to help you, but even with the best of intentions, helpful people can be a bitch."
Realization dawned, together with acceptance. Lance turned to his fiancé.
"Em... I don't want to marry you either. Not like this, anyway. This whole wedding circus has got to stop; either it ends or we split."
"What!?" Marshall yelped. "If you think we're splitting up, James Lance Bass, you are wrong!"
"Uh...I meant that we'd split, full stop. As in getting the hell out. Together," Lance specified gently.
"...oh. Well, that sounds more like it!"
"But can we really do that?" Lance asked seriously. "I mean... everybody's worked their butts off to make this happen. My mom, Stacy, all the guys' moms, the guys, your guys... and all the guests!"
"Too bad. So, yeah, they've worked hard, but did we ask them to? They've been having the time of their lives, especially Joshtin." Marshall smirked at the affectionate appellation, and then his eyes widened and his smirk widened into a devilish grin. "You thinking what I'm thinking?"
Lance grinned back just as evilly. "It's horrible, and I love it! Let's do it."
Justin was getting irritated.
"Lance, wake the fuck up! And turn on your cell phone! Marshall, kick him for me, and that was K-I-C-K, not K-I-S-S!"
"Justin, sweetie, you know you have the key, right?" JC asked delicately. He pulled his hat lower. It was too early. The sun was all bright and shining and...yeah, the sun was shining. It was very pretty, in spite of being a little painful on the eyes. He started finding rhymes for "ray." Stray, okay, pay, day, may, hey, hay - wait, no country. Gray, decay? Too...unpretty. Whey - um, no. Gay, now there was an interesting idea...
"Jace, you coming in or not?" Justin asked his lover, who had a far-away look in his eyes and the cutest look of intense concentration on his fashionably scruffy face.
"Hmm? Yeah," JC hummed distractedly. Justin rolled his eyes and closed the door behind them, as loudly as he could.
"Rise and shine, lovebirds! Only seven days until the wedding and you're already late for your appointment with the tailor. Which means that you'll be equally late for your lunch meeting with the caterers," Justin hollered. JC just gave him a sideways glance, his eyes crinkling with a smile, and hummed under his breath. Despite his impatience, Justin had to kiss him. It crossed his mind that it would serve Lance and Marshall right if they crawled out of their bedroom only to find JC and him screwing on their dinner table. Or the couch, and the carpet was starting to look pretty damn great...
"Wanna?" he breathed into JC's mouth, nibbling his lip. JC purred and ground his hips against Justin's. As clothes started flying in all directions, Justin hoped that Lance and Marshall either waited for them to finish before opening the bedroom door, or that they'd at least have the decency to close it again and let them fuck in peace.
Half an hour later, Justin raised his head to look at the bedroom door.
"Do you think they died of shock?"
"Envy, maybe," JC said. His hair was tousled beyond what was fashionable, and even though the just-had-wild-sex-on-the-floor look might go over well at night, it was morning. Which reminded him...
"I'm starting to think they're not even there. I mean, if that didn't wake them..." Justin squinted. "Is there something taped to the door? Like a piece of paper or something?"
"Hmm. Looks like a note." JC rose from his sprawl with the limber grace of a cat, and Justin leered but followed when his curiosity got the better of him.
"Oh dear."
"What? What does it say?"
"They're...gone."
"What do you mean, gone?"
"In the 'but the truth remains, you're GONE' way. Although it's not really the same, because..."
"The wedding is in a week and the fuckers are eloping? But the place, and the flowers, and the band, the food, the flowers, the guests...oh God, the guests! I'm going to hunt them down and drag them here even if it makes this a shotgun wedding."
"...and they say that it's a shame for all the preparations go to waste, so we should get married in their stead."
"WHAT??" Justin snatched the note from JC. He read it once, his face screwed in angry lines. He read it again, and blinked rapidly, then smiled. "So...what do you think?"
"Well, considering the fact you haven't even proposed to me-"
"Excuse me, but I think you should be doing the proposing. I'm younger, after all."
"But, but... I have longer hair! And, I'm prettier."
"Whoa! Hold it right there. This could get real ugly real quick. Why don't we both propose to each other... and neither of us will wear black at the wedding. In fact, we can put it in the invitations that guests are forbidden to have outfits that are more than forty per cent black..."
"Baby, the wedding is in seven days so I think the invitations have been sent ages ago," JC reminded him, sending Justin scrambling for his clothes.
"Seven days! Come on, Jace, we've gotta run! The tailor will need to work miracles, and the card people are going to kill us, or bless us for making them millionaires, or maybe we could do that invitations electronically..."
JC's pointed cough made him turn his head back, but he still kept pulling on his pants.
"What?"
"Aren't you forgetting something?" Justin blinked and frowned.
"We can see about the flowers and the band tomorrow, but we really need to call Diane and all the other mothers as soon as we can."
"No, I meant something that you usually do before you start the wedding preparations. Something starting with 'will you...'"
"Oh, that. Jace, babe, will you marry me?" he asked as he finished pulling on his shirt.
JC beamed at him. "Yes!" Then he, too, started getting dressed.
"Um, JC?" Justin asked tentatively.
"Hmm, yeah?" he asked, preoccupied with buttons.
"Ask me already!" Justin whined.
JC just smiled and hummed as he combed his fingers through his hair and headed out of the door.
"JC!"
THE END
(Epilogue with more wedding stuff to follow.)