The night before he’d purposely not set his alarm, he’d worn his favorite pajama pants, and right before he’d gotten in bed, he’d looked into the mirror and said, “Tomorrow you sleep until you wake up. No getting out of bed until *you’re* ready.” It would be his birthday, after all. When he was a child, his mother had been a firm believer in the birthday boy getting to do anything he wanted (within financial reason, of course) on the special day, and JC had managed to hang onto that mentality as he’d made his way into and through adulthood.

Instead of waking up on his own volition, though, at noon (or maybe later if he *really* felt like pampering himself), a hand had pulled the covers away from his head at nine-flipping-thirty, and a voice had said, “Rise and shine, sleepy head. You’re sleeping your birthday away, yo!”

 JC blinked his eyes open and saw a blurry Justin grinning down at him, one hand holding JC’s covers firmly out of his reach, the other holding a wrapped package. It was only the fact that Justin was holding a present that made JC refrain from growling a ‘fuck off’ or a ‘fuck you.’ Barely. Instead he just growled.

“I’m perfectly aware that I’m sleeping my birthday away,” JC said, maneuvering his body upright for a split second so that he could grab his sheets, before he fell back to the bed, cocooning himself in the fabric in the same motion. “It’s my birthday, I can do whatever I want to.”

Justin sighed. “But I made you breakfast, C. You aren’t going to let my lack of culinary expertise go to waste, are you? I made all your favorites, you know, and I even had my mom walk me through the eggs step by step so that I wouldn’t screw them up.”

JC closed his eyes again for a few moments, trying to pretend that Justin wasn’t there, that the younger man wasn’t doing his best Bambi impersonation. Even if JC wasn’t looking at him, he knew Justin and that pouty voice well enough to know the facial expression that went with it.

“Justin…” JC said, drawing the younger man’s name out, trying to voice as much of his annoyance in that word as was humanly possible.

“And I’m not going to let you spend all day in bed pouting,” Justin said, again taking a firm hold of the covers that JC had wrapped himself in and tugging. JC was prepared, though, and he held on tightly, the edges of the top sheet bunched in his two tightly clenched fists. Justin ended up raising him up off of the bed, too. JC growled again. Justin dropped him back on the bed, and JC could just picture the self-satisfied grin on his face as he watched JC’s body bouncing up and down.

Then, worse, Justin seemed to decide that this was a relatively amusing new game, and he clenched the sheets in his hand again, lifting JC up, *again.*

“Because, you know,” Justin said, dropping JC for the second time. “I know this maybe isn’t the best birthday for you, what with Lance being gone, and Joey not able to leave New York, and Chris…”

JC tried to roll away from Justin, but was stopped both by the sheets that he’d encased himself so firmly in, and by the fact that his muscles froze when Justin mentioned Chris’ name.

“So I’m trying to do my best to make up for that,” Justin continued. “Then, next year, when we’re all together again, you and I can reminisce about what a wonderful time we had on your twenty-sixth and make them all jealous.”

To JC it seemed as if an eternity had passed between when Justin had said Chris’ name and when he’d continued the sentence, but he knew that it hadn’t. It had just felt like time stopped, that’s all. Two months later, almost, and Chris’s name could still stop his world; when he thought that, he felt even more pathetic.

Tour sex. That was all it had been.

He looked up again and saw Justin watching him. The younger man’s head was tipped slightly to the side, lips slightly parted, waiting for JC to answer, to say something.

“Yeah,” he said slowly, responding to the last sentence that he’d heard Justin say. “We’ll make them all jealous.”

Unfortunately, amidst his thoughts of Chris, he’d loosened his grip on the sheets and he suddenly found himself without them again, Justin grinning widely at him.

“So get your lazy ass up, man! We got fun birthday type things to do.”

JC watched as Justin turned on his heel—JC’s present still in hand—and headed out the door of the bedroom, secure in the knowledge that JC would follow. For exactly three seconds JC thought about getting out of bed, locking his door, and then hiding under his blankets for the rest of the day, but then he thought that Justin was maybe right and that he would have a better birthday if he actually got out of bed.

Sighing, he kicked the covers all the way off of his body and kept kicking at them until there was a pile of tangled cloth down at the foot of the bed, before he looked at the clock. 9:47. He supposed he should be thankful. Justin could have woken him up at six (or whatever god-awful time he normally got up) so they could do Justin’s workout together.

JC shuddered and ran his fingers through his curly hair.

---

 

Lance called just as JC sat down at his square kitchen table holding the extra large cup of coffee that Justin had shoved into his hands as soon as JC had made it downstairs.

JC hated talking to Lance on the phone. The other man’s voice just didn’t sound the same coming through the telephone wires, especially now that Lance was in Russia. The static and crackling of long distance added a whole other dimension to the deep voice, making it sound even more foreign.

“Justin has my present for you,” Lance said as soon as JC had said hello, not even starting with a happy birthday or anything. “Don’t let him try to tell you it was his idea, because it wasn’t. It was all me.”

“Okay,” JC said, “I won’t let him tell me that.” It was then that he remembered that Justin had been holding a present for him upstairs. He looked around and saw that it was now sitting on the table next to him, a relatively small white box with a bright red, shimmery ribbon wrapped around it, next to a plate with bacon and eggs and pancakes. He hadn’t heard Justin put any of it down next to him, but he turned to Justin anyway, and caught his eye, smiling.

“Is this Lance’s present?” he asked.

Justin shook his head as Lance let out a squack in his ear. “He’d better not be giving it to you now. I gave him firm instructions that he wasn’t supposed to give it to you until tonight when you were properly inebriated.”

JC arched an eyebrow, then chuckled. “No, he didn’t try to give it to me. And I won’t let him until tonight.”

“And Joey and Chris got your cake for you,” Lance said, “so don’t let Justin try to take credit for that, either.”

Again, when he heard Chris’ name, the world seemed to stop. This time, unfortunately, he was far more awake, and he could actually feel his heart wrench slightly. It wasn’t fair, he thought. It was his birthday, a day that was supposed to be happy, and people kept mentioning Chris.

“Should I be worried?” JC asked, suddenly registering the rest of the sentence, that Joey and Chris had gone in together to get his cake. “I should be worried, shouldn’t I?”

Lance laughed, long and deep, and that sounded more normal, like if JC closed his eyes and wasn’t pressing a phone to his ear, Lance could almost be there in his kitchen with him.

“You have my full permission to retaliate on their birthdays,” Lance said, “although they’re probably hoping that you *will* retaliate, so that might not be much of a punishment.”

In a way, JC was surprised that Chris had even chipped in to get him anything for his birthday. They hadn’t exactly parted on the best of terms, after all. Waking up one day and realizing that what he’d been swearing up and down was tour sex-turned-hiatus sex was in fact more than that, was not exactly a tension-free situation. Especially when upon confessing that realization (because JC had *thought*, he’d *hoped* that possibly Chris felt the same way), the other man had decided to take a road trip across the country just so he wouldn’t have to be in the same city JC was. That was not a tension free situation.

Chris’ departure had rather blindsided JC. One day he’d woken up snuggled against Chris and two days later, Chris had been on a talk show detailing his plans. He hadn’t even had the decency to tell JC himself.

“I wish I could be there, C,” Lance said, drawing JC back to the present. “We’ll just have to have another celebration when I come back to the States, okay? We’ll close down whatever clubs you want, okay?”

JC smiled. “Yeah, man,” he said. “We’ll do that.”

“Well,” Lance continued, “I just wanted to wish you a happy birthday and to say that I was sorry I couldn’t be there.” He really did sound upset, and JC realized that it would be the first birthday since they’d met that Lance wouldn’t be there for. “I’ll be thinking about you tomorrow morning, tonight, whichever way you want to think about it, okay?”

That was one thing JC would never get used to, the time difference. ‘Tonight’ for him would be Lance’s ‘tomorrow morning’ and that was just wrong somehow. JC didn’t believe in doing the sort of partying that he was going to be doing that night in the morning.

“Thanks for calling,” he said, smiling sadly in Justin’s direction. “I wish you could be here, too.”

“Next year, man,” Lance said. “Next year we’ll all show Timberlake how to throw a real party.”

JC said a quick goodbye, then turned the phone off and set it on the table next to his coffee mug. He looked at the present next to him, then up at Justin again.

“Go on,” Justin said, raising a hand to cover his face. JC never understood why Justin was embarrassed when he gave gifts; JC always liked to see the expressions on people’s faces when they opened whatever he’d chosen to give them. He was a good gift giver, though. People always liked what he bought.

“I’ll just have you know,” Justin said suddenly as JC was untying the ribbon. “Joey and Lance called the good ‘n filthy presents first, so I was left to my own devices, and we all know that’s never a good thing.”

JC arched an eyebrow, but finished untying the ribbon, and opened the box. There was a jewel case, a clear one so that he could see the silver CD inside. It was obviously not store bought.

“Joey said I was the worst kind of egomaniac for giving this to you,” Justin continued. He’d lowered his hand from his face as soon as JC had opened the box, but his cheeks were bright red. “You know all of those songs that you submitted for my album, but the exec guy said they weren’t the sort of sound I was going for?”

JC nodded and looked back at the CD.

“I recorded them for you in my studio,” Justin said. He dropped his chin to his chest. “God, I am an ego maniac. ‘Hey, Justin, why don’t you give JC a present that’s all about you?’”

“No, no,” JC said, pulling the CD out of the box and holding the jewel case up so that he could see the front of the CD. “No, man, this is great. This is. Wow. You made my songs.” Grinning widely, he looked up at Justin again.

Justin ducked his head again, a pleased smile playing on his mouth.

JC looked back down at the CD again.

---

Birthday stuff, in Justin world, apparently meant doing whatever JC’s favorite things were. That was why they were at the Los Angeles Museum of Not Modern Art when Joey called.

JC and Justin were, of course, standing in an extremely quiet gallery where the average age of the patron was seventy-five, and even though he had his phone on vibrate and when he answered, he made sure to whisper his hello, it was all for naught, because Joey, Kelly, and Briahna all started singing ‘Happy Birthday’ as loudly as they could.

JC was the on the receiving end of many a glare when he was forced to pull the phone away from his ear due to the volume and the tinny voices echoed around the gallery, clearly understandable.

Justin pretended not to know him and in turn, JC glared at him.

At the end of the song, JC put the phone to his ear and said a quiet thank you.

“Why are we whispering?” Joey asked, sounding like he was doing a stage whisper.

“Because J and I are at the museum,” JC whispered back.

Joey laughed loudly at that. “He told me that he was going to do his best to make you feel like we were all there,” he said. “I guess this is the Chris portion of the day, huh? Justin already had his portion, I guess? He gave you his gift?”

Again, the world seemed to stop when JC heard Chris’ name. That was getting really old, he thought. He didn’t want to think about Chris or how the older man had willingly started going to art museums after they’d started having tour sex. He didn’t want to think about the fact that *that* had been one of the reasons he’d decided that maybe Chris was interested, too, because that was how it had worked with both Michelle and Dani. Chris had started willingly doing whatever the girls had wanted to do, and then, well, he’d wanted more. Dani had, too. Michelle had not.

Then he remembered that there had been more to Joey’s question. “Yeah,” he said, swallowing heavily, trying to force Chris out of his brain. “He gave me the CD. It’s great, Joe, have you heard it?”

“Nah,” Joey said. “I’ll get him to burn me a copy now that you have yours. It was such a Timberlake gift, though, man. So Justin.”

“I like it,” JC said. His voice rose slightly above the soft tone he had been using and he was fixed with more glares. “I heard you and Chris went in together on my cake,” he continued. “That Lance got something else filthy for me?”

“Yup,” Joey said, sounding smug. “The cake was my idea. Chris just realized that he couldn’t top my brilliance and begged to be in on it.”

JC’s heart dropped slightly. Chris hadn’t even been in on the planning of the cake, he’d begged to be able to ‘chip in.’ He hadn’t wanted to get JC anything, wanted so little to do with it that he’d begged to go in with Joey. There was not a new dampness in JC’s eyes. There wasn’t.

“I’m sorry I can’t be there, man,” Joey said. “If it were any other time but my opening week you know I’d be there in a second.”

“No,” JC said. “No, I understand, Joe. I’m so happy that you’re there doing that. You’re on Broadway. How can one little old birthday party compare to that?”

Joey laughed. “Little is not the word that I’d used to describe your party. J showed me the yes’s from the RSVP list. Your party is the place to be tonight.”

JC smiled and blushed slightly. “It should be a good time. Not as good as if you guys were there, but fun none the less.”

Justin pulled the phone away from JC’s ear and whispered to Joey, “You’re going to be so jealous of all the fun we’re having,” before handing the phone back to JC.

Joey was laughing when JC put the phone to his ear again. “Tell Justin I already am,” Joey said, then, “Man, I gotta go. I need to get to the theater to rework something that went wrong in last night’s show.”

“Thanks for calling,” JC said, smiling. “Say goodbye to Kelly and Brie for me, too, okay?”

“’kay,” Joey said. “Bye, man. Happy Birthday.”

“Bye,” JC said again. He pushed the off button on his phone and then walked over to where Justin was staring at a still life, trying to look interested.

---

The party had already started by the time Justin and JC made it to the Animation Museum. JC wasn’t sure how polite it was to be late to his own party, but they were just fashionably late, Justin said. All the stars were doing it. Apparently he was lying, though, because there were plenty of stars there already when they arrived. JC had barely stepped in the door when people started descending upon him, wanting to shake his hand, hug him, kiss him on the cheek, and wish him a happy birthday.

JC was infinitely grateful when Justin managed to battle his way through the crowd and hand JC some sort of mixed drink. He hadn’t wanted a big party, he really hadn’t, but when it had become obvious that Lance would be in Russia and Joey would be in New York and it would be just him and Justin, Justin had insisted that JC’s birthday be appropriately recognized.

JC hadn’t thought he’d need to plan any party at all. Three months before, one morning while Chris and JC had been lying in Chris’ bed, Chris had planned out a simple birthday party for him: five guys, Chris’ house, three of the guys kicked out the door at midnight, and then sex, sex, sex. Quality Chris and JC sex time, Chris had called it. The only way to celebrate JC’s step closer to the horrible age of thirty.

JC had liked the sound of that. Instead, though, Chris had left and hadn’t even had the decency to call and wish JC a happy birthday.

Instead, Justin had rented the Animation Museum and had sent invitations to every single person that they’d ever met in their business dealings.

“I know that they all can’t take the place of *us*,” Justin had said one day a month before, “but gosh darn-it, JC, you’re going to have fun. You’re going to forget our fuckers of friends who have ‘more important things to do.’ As if anything could be more important than getting drunk with you on your birthday.”

JC had smiled and agreed, more because he knew that Justin was being indignant on his behalf. Justin would have pouted for weeks if he’d been in JC’s shoes and the rest of the guys weren’t going to be there to celebrate *his* birthday with *him.*

In a way, JC had to admit that Justin’s method of making him forget was rather successful, what with there always being someone new to talk to and the fact that Justin never let him have an empty glass in his hand for more than five seconds.

That was the sort of thing Chris had done that night a week into the Celebrity tour when he was trying to convince JC that tour sex would be a Good Thing. Not that JC had actually needed much convincing; they’d had sex before, a few times, and it had been good. He liked sex, after all—what red blooded male didn’t?—and the prospect of getting regular sex from a source who wouldn’t run to the tabloids was even better. JC had accepted the drinks more because he could see that Chris needed to drink and JC didn’t want him getting drunk alone. There was something about solo drinking that JC just didn’t approve of.

“Sex,” Chris had said running one of his fingers up and down JC’s arm, “You and me, man. We both need it, neither of us are so lucky with the whole relationship thing right now, we’d never have to worry about going and searching for it…”

His fingers had started tracing the lines on JC’s palm.

“See, you and me, C? It won’t be messy. We both know that it’ll just be sex, no other relationship shit thrown in. It’ll be good, what we both need.”

JC had looked at him long and hard with slightly alcohol-blurred eyes and then had nodded. He hadn’t needed much convincing to agree, yet there had still been a voice in the back of his head that had tried to point out that the good tour sex that Chris had had with Michelle had, indeed, been messy and nasty and not good for either of them.

He’d agreed, though, because he’d trusted himself (and Chris) to keep whatever involvement they might have at a purely physical level. They hadn’t even intended to continue it past the end of the tour, they’d been agreement over that, but then they’d had that wrap up party and neither of them had felt like going home alone and they especially hadn’t felt like going home with anyone else, and well. Somehow Chris had woken up in JC’s bed and the end that they’d been planning hadn’t ever happened.

Until, of course, JC had realized that to him the tour sex turned hiatus sex had somehow become a relationship in his mind and he didn’t want Chris to go home with anyone else. Ever.

The end had sure come about fast enough then, quick and messy, and Chris couldn’t even be bothered to call him on his birthday. No, that might have led JC to think that possibly Chris did care about him or some shit like that.

Suddenly, JC was angry and the pureness of the emotion pulled him out his reverie. It was his birthday. He was surrounded by people who cared about him (or at least cared enough to be seen at his party). He had a friend who had worked his tail to the bone trying to give him a good birthday in place of one that might have been rather lonely. What had he done, though? He’d spent the whole day freezing up whenever anyone had mentioned Chris and he’d spent the last several hours staring at his cell phone just hoping for a call, a simple acknowledgement of his existence. It was sickening, that’s what it was. Sickening and ungrateful and he resolved not to think about Chris when he could think of much better things, like why the volume in the room had tamed to a dull roar and why Justin was currently leading him to a curtained off section of the room…

“It’s time for the rest of they guys’ contributions to the evening,” Justin drunkenly whispered in his ear. “It was *all* them so don’t blame me. I’m just the messenger.”

JC felt a small tendril of worry creep through the alcohol induce haze that he’d fallen into after his sixth mixed drink, and he stared at the burgundy curtain, not really wanting to know what was behind it. Except, of course, he did.

“Firstly,” Justin said, swaying slightly against JC, and raising his blue plastic beer cup in the direction of the curtain, “Lance knew that you’d never pick up anyone at your own birthday party, so he wanted to take care of that for you. He told me to make sure that you kept her with you the whole night.”

JC felt a blush rising in his cheeks, and he dipped his head, covering his face with one of his hands, the one that was holding his drink.

Justin made a big show of ducking into the curtained area and then emerging again, his arms wrapped around a plastic, inflatable, not-so-clad, life-size doll. He danced it over towards JC as the guests laughed appreciatively.

“I may have to steal her from you for a dance or two,” Justin said loudly, twirling the doll out of his arms and towards JC. JC was forced to lower his hand away from his face so that he would be on balance enough to catch it. Justin leaned in then to speak more quietly. “I believe that he also got you a case of your favorite wine or something. It should be delivered tomorrow.”

“And now,” Justin continued, just as loudly as before, easily commanding the attention of the guests, “because the rest of our fabulous band realized that that doll would only satisfy you so much, we have… your cake.”

JC groaned, all of his previous worry about Joey and Chris being in charge of his cake coming back. At the word ‘cake’ the curtains were pulled away and two museum employees removed the stand that the curtain had been hanging from.

With slow, hesitant steps, JC walked towards the cake, the blush in his cheeks rising as he saw a naked lady’s rear end pictured on the top, the lady’s hand holding a strategically placed rose. ‘Have a Nice Piece of Ass,’ the words on the cake read.

Worry suddenly gave away to amusement. It was so Joey, so… Chris, and he couldn’t help but laugh loudly, slapping a hand to his thigh.

“I will, Chris,” he murmured, as he studied the top of the cake intently. “I’ll have a nice piece and you only wish it was you.”

“I think my present was better,” Justin said, draping an arm across JC’s shoulders again. “I have taste unlike those other fuckers we call friends.”

JC laughed again, took the knife that one of the museum staff people handed him, and then began to cut the cake. 

---

When the limousine that Justin had rented to take them to and from the party pulled up in front of JC’s house, JC wasn’t so drunk that he didn’t notice Chris’ four runner parked in his driveway. He was also quite sure that the car hadn’t been there when he and Justin had left.

JC, feeling far too sober suddenly, immediately turned to look at Justin. The younger man just smiled back loosely, obviously intoxicated.

“Happy Birthday?” Justin’s voice was slurred and he raised the water bottle that was clutched in his hand in JC’s direction. “Happy birthday to you, man.”

JC looked back out the window of the limousine and saw that Chris’ car was still parked outside of JC’s garage, looking almost like it belonged there. JC opened his mouth to say, ‘J, you sure you don’t want to continue the party at your place?’ because as much as he’d wished that he’d hear from Chris that day, he didn’t want to face him. Not when he was drunk (he supposed he still was anyway, despite the fact that his head felt remarkably clear), not without the rest of the guys there with them, standing between them, to help ease the inevitable tension.

Unfortunately, though, the driver had already opened JC’s door and was waiting for him to step out and looking past the driver, past Chris’ car, he could see Chris looking out the living room window at him.

“Go on,” Justin said, waving at JC with his bottle of water again. “He wan’ed to come tonight, y’know, but he thought it might have dis’racted from your party, since he couln’a get up enough balls to come to you afore then.”

JC looked back at Justin again, arching an eyebrow. “What do you mean by that?”

“I mean,” Justin said, leaning in close to JC, “that Chris is an i-jiot. Go on.” Justin gave JC a shove, a weak shove, but it was enough to start propelling JC across the leather seat and out of the limousine.

“Happy birthday,” Justin continued. Then he laughed maniacally. “You’re so *old* now, man.”

“Thanks, J,” JC said sarcastically, but he could tell that Justin knew he really meant it, a thank you for everything.

The driver shut the door again and walked back to the driver’s door, climbing in and leaving JC alone outside of his house. He focused his eyes on the window from where Chris had been staring at him. It was empty now, dark and empty.

Slowly, putting one foot in front of the other, JC made his way along the driveway and then along the small, winding pathway that led to his front door. He wasn’t sure if he was expecting the door to be open or not when he got there, but it wasn’t. With a shaking hand he pulled the keys out of his jacket pocket, twisted the ring round until he found the correct key—the one with the yellow plastic identifier. He managed to actually stick the key in the keyhole on his first try.

The door opened; no one was standing there to greet him.

JC closed his eyes, took a single deep breath to calm himself, and then called, “Chris?”

“In here,” Chris said. His voice was soft and coming from the direction of the living room.

Again, JC forced himself to put one foot in front of the other and to walk in the direction of that voice, the one that he hadn’t heard in far too long, the one that still made his skin tingle. The living room was dark, but JC could see the dark figure that was the other man sitting on his couch. He didn’t turn on the lights.

“Happy birthday,” Chris said. He sounded numb to JC, no emotion in his voice whatsoever. No guilt, no anger, no…hope. The older man turned to look at him then. “Was your party good?”

Suddenly JC was angry again, all of the hesitancy with which he had been approaching Chris gone.

“Don’t,” he said, cutting the word off sharply. He felt a cutting slice of satisfaction when he saw Chris turn to him, eyes reflecting the pale light from the motion detector lights outside. “Don’t pretend that you can waltz out of my life and then just come back and ask me how my party was when you sure as hell know that I wanted you there to see for yourself!”

“Did you?” Chris asked. “Did you really want me there, JC?”

“Yes!” JC made himself take a deep breath, trying to restrain his urge to leap at Chris and strangle him, something like that. Kiss him. “Why are you here, Chris?”

“Because I.” Chris swallowed. JC could hear the hitch of his voice. “I. Goddammit, JC, it was supposed to be tour sex, okay? That was all it was supposed to be.”

JC’s fists clenched. “Do you think I don’t know that? Did you think that I’ve always harbored secret dreams of becoming Mrs. Christopher Kirkpatrick or something like that?”

“No,” Chris said shortly. “But JC, there’s a reason I don’t do relationships. That’s why we hooked up in the first place, remember? We had good sex together. I never wanted anything to change between us.”

“Neither did I,” JC growled, “but it did. I didn’t mean for it to happen, I told you that. The next day you were talking about this wonderful road trip you were going to take you, saying that you were going to be a leaf, blowing wherever the wind was going to take you.”

“Because I don’t do relationships,” Chris said again. He’d turned away from JC again, looking across the room at JC’s dark, empty fireplace. “I don’t do them, I’ve never wanted to, and to have you say that you wanted us to be an Us and for my brain to say, ‘yeah, that sounds good…’ Fuck, C, that’s not me. That’s not a me that I’m comfortable with.”

“So you ran away,” JC said. He willed himself not to take a step towards Chris. He was angry, dammit. Chris had no right to walk back into his life. He had no right to sound so pathetic. He had no right to make JC’s heart speed up with sudden hope.

Chris nodded. “Because I thought, maybe, if I surrounded myself with anonymity, maybe I’d forget that horrible, traitorous thought that made me want to wake up next to you every single morning. You know me, JC. Everything with Dani, and then I wanted more with Michelle and she didn’t, and. I’m no good at this.”

JC found that he’d unconsciously taken two more steps towards Chris, he was almost at the couch now. He made himself stop.

“What exactly are you saying?” JC asked. He’d meant the question to be harsh, to show Chris that he was not a man that could be played with. It came out of his mouth soft and hesitant and fuck it, hopeful.

“I’m saying it didn’t work,” Chris said. “I’m saying that I’m an idiot, just like Justin’s told me I’m an idiot every day for the last several months. He *told* me that there was more between us way before you said anything, and I’d denied it. A lot. I’d thought it would be okay because you and me, we were on the same wavelength. It was so good, the best tour turned hiatus sex I’d ever had, and then all of a sudden you were saying that it was more to you and. Fuck.” Chris stopped talking and took a deep breath. “What I’m trying to say is that I didn’t originally get you a birthday present because I wanted to give you me, but then I freaked and thought maybe you’d want to return me and then I wouldn’t have given you anything, so I bullied Joey into letting me in on his gift, but I still wanted to give you me, too.”

JC just stared at Chris. He felt his mouth open, felt his jaw working back and forth, up and down, but he couldn’t say anything, no words would come out.

“The receipt is in the bag,” Chris said softly. As JC watched, Chris stood up. His arms were crossed over his chest, defensively.

“I,” JC said. He wanted to go over to Chris and wrap his arms around him. He wanted to hug him tightly, to kiss his lips, but he couldn’t. “I’m not going back to hiatus sex,” he said. “I need—“

Chris nodded and JC could see him biting his lip. Slowly, Chris dropped his arms to his sides and started to make his way around JC, back towards the entrance to the living room. He stopped for an instant right by JC, and said, “You’re right. This is sudden and you need to think, I’m sure, but just so you know… I’m not offering hiatus sex or tour sex. I was wrong, JC. I was wrong and I was stupid and I can’t look at something good anymore without seeing taint creeping in around it, and I’m sorry.” He started walking again.

“Chris,” JC said softly, just as Chris was about ready to step out of the room.

“Yeah?” Chris didn’t turn around to look at him.

“We can talk tomorrow,” JC said, “but, um. You wouldn’t happen to be offering birthday sex, would you? I mean, you did give yourself to me for my birthday and all.” He held his breath as Chris turned around.

“I did,” Chris said slowly. His eyes were gleaming again.

“So…” JC prompted when Chris didn’t say anything else.

“So,” Chris said. “So, I think something can be arranged.

They were walking towards each other then, and JC couldn’t be sure whose arms went around whose waist first or who initiated the kiss, but it was good, better than JC had remembered.

After a minute or an hour, he pulled back from the kiss just enough so that his lips were resting lightly on Chris’ and said, “Happy birthday to me.”