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Rainee > Fiction > All I Ever Needed
I can tell he's been crying, when I finally come in. He's trying to act like he hasn't. I always know, because he tries to act like he's asleep with his face turned to the wall. But he never sleeps with his face to the wall, and he never, ever goes to bed before midnight. So when I come in and he's not only asleep before me, but facing the wall, he's upset about something and has been crying.
I've explained that to him, but he still does it. I tell him he subconsciously wants me to ask what's wrong. He tells me he subconsciously wants me to leave him the hell alone. I think I'm closer to the mark.
So just like always, I sit down on the bed behind him and reach over to push his hair out of his face. "Lance..."
He stirs a little, pretending that he's just waking up, and looks up at me with bleary eyes. "Hey, you," he rumbles, in that slayingly sexy guttural growl he only has when he's upset, sleepy, or turned on.
I lean over him, propping my left arm up on the other side of his hips. "You're in bed early."
"Long day."
I tilt his face up. "Your eyes are all red, shorty."
He always giggles when I call him that. Tonight, he doesn't. "I was asleep."
"You were crying."
"Go the hell away, J."
I wince. He only reverts to old, congenial nicknames when he's genuinely perturbed with me. But, just like always, my desire to see him happy is much stronger than my desire to avoid his wrath. Having eliminated the "actually do what he wants me to" option, I go with my only other choice, which is to kick off my shoes and slip under the covers, cuddling up behind him.
He pretends to try and squirm away. He's not really trying; if he wanted to, he could, but he doesn't manage to get more than an inch away. I wrap my arms around his waist and pull him back. "What's the matter?"
Lance sighs fitfully. "Justin..." And, God, I still love the way my name sounds coming off his lips. "I just... I don't want to talk about it." A pause. "I don't want to think about it anymore."
"Alright." He does, of course. Otherwise he wouldn't have been pretending to pretend he hadn't been crying in the first place. But he'll open up with time. For now, I just nuzzle the back of his neck a little, with one little kiss, and content myself with hearing him breathe.
It takes about ten minutes -- I'm almost asleep, but I can't let him win that easily -- before he starts talking again. "Y'all just don't need me anymore."
That's enough to wake me up. "The hell are you talking about?"
He takes a deep breath. "Early on... none of us could make it on our own, y'know? This... group... was all we had. Even when it wasn't much to have." Laughter comes to his voice with the last sentence, but then fades. "But now, I mean... if it all falls apart, I don't have anything to do with myself."
This is such a load of shit. But I'll wait until he gets it all out to tell him so.
"You and C have your own stuff, and Joey can always act -- hell, it'd be better for him to just dump us and act anyway. And Chris, shit, he'll mop floors at Taco Bell if he has to, but he'll be alright." He swallows; his voice gets higher. "It's not that any of us would leave, but... I know you could. Any one of you could. None of us need each other anymore." His voice quiets. "Or... you don't. But I still need you. I -- if this all ended tomorrow... I wouldn't have anything to do. I've got my ideas, but... none of them ever come to anything."
I know exactly what I want to say, but it will take a while to piece the words together. I crack a joke to stall. "You can be my tour groupie."
He sighs. I continue. "Come on, it'd be cool. You get VIP seats to all the shows, sneak backstage when nobody's looking, just wait around for me to get through bein' pretty, then we can sneak back to the hotel and make room service get us condoms..."
He laughs -- I am so good -- but chokes it back. "Whatever."
"Or else I have a better idea."
His voice is relaxing some, I can tell. "Try me."
I can't help cuddling closer to him. "We keep on doing exactly what we're doing. Because there's absolutely no reason for anything to change."
Lance starts to protest; I move a finger to his lips by instinct. "And if it does... if it all falls apart tomorrow. You know what will happen then?"
"What?" It's barely a whisper.
"Joey will act, and Chris will find something to do, and JC will keep singing..." My hands rest on his stomach and slide up his chest almost without my direction. "And so will I. I'll write, and record albums, and tour, and perform, and do appearances, and run in all the crazy circles we always do..." I cuddle him closer; funny how my body always takes over for me when I'm next to him like this. "And right when I think I'm ready to break, I'll finally wrestle an empty day out of somebody and come home. And you'll be waiting for me."
I can feel him smile.
"And we'll talk, and laugh, and go out and eat, and cuddle, and have enough sex in one night to make up for all the months I've been gone, and talk some more, and then the next morning when I wake up, right before I have to leave you and do it all over again, I can look down in my arms and see you... see the love of my life, the most beautiful man in the world, the rock I stand on, the shoulder I cry on, laying right there beside me, and know that whenever it gets to be too much, you'll still be right there waiting for me--" I have to remind myself to take a breath. "--and it will be the most beautiful feeling I ever felt, because I need you, Lance; I need to see you and feel you and be with you and love you and know you love me, and I need it like I've never needed anyone or anything else in this world."
It might be the longest sentence I've ever composed that wasn't an excuse for something my mother caught me doing. I press my face to the side of his neck. "And I need you to stay. And I need you to be happy."
He presses his hand over mine on his chest. "I am."
There's a long silence as we both relax significantly. It finally occurs to me that I'm fully dressed in a hotel bed. "Back soon, baby..." I stand up and quickly work out of the jeans and denim jacket, down to my t-shirt and shorts. By the time I finish this and slip back into the bed, he's undressed as well, all the way down to those damn silk boxers he only wears when he knows we'll be in the same bed that night.
I know he only wears them on those nights because I've seen his suitcases; he only has two or three pair every time we go on tour, plus he always complained about dancing in them before he discovered boxer-briefs. And I know from watching that he usually sleeps in T-shirts; he just doesn't when we're together, because he knows how much I love his chest -- it's toned, but not overtly chiseled, just soft and undulating and pliable, and as warm and gentle as he is, and I'm damned if I can keep my hands off him.
I've pointed that out to him, but he still says he doesn't do it on purpose. I tell him he subconsciously wants me to touch him.
He never tries to argue with that one.