It started in Quebec City, because, as Joey had said, nothing had ever started there before. Not that Joey knew anything about that, but Justin was much more prepared to listen to him than Lance, even when Lance said, "um, Montcalm and Wolfe?", because he was like that.
Justin knew it was Quebec, though, because he was standing on the citadel with a crumpled pamphlet in his hand, reading "Bienvenue aux plaines d'Abraham", when Chris kissed him. It was a fairly horrible place for a first kiss to happen, and Chris probably knew it. There was a strong breeze coming up off the river, even though it was the middle of May, and it was freezing.
"It was supposed to be warmer," was what Lance had said, because Quebec had been his idea in the first place, and he was supposed to know those things. As it was, all he had was a thin, red wind-breaker that was doing nothing to keep off the wind, and he had had to stop at a sidewalk kiosk and buy one of those horrible knitted hats just to stay warm. It was bright blue with a white fleur-de-lis on the front (or what Justin guessed was supposed to be the front) with the words "vive la Québec!" underneath.
And neither the citadel nor the plain provided much in the way of interest, since all that remained of the citadel was a crumbling wall, and all that remained of the plain was, well, a big field of grass (though that was probably all it ever was.) Even though it was overcast, it was crawling with tourists with loud voices, trailing along small children and big dogs, and Justin was beginning to think it was a fairly large waste of time to have walked all the way from the new city into the old, for a patch of empty land.
"I guess it's kind of nice," Joey said, but that was probably more to humour JC than anything. JC was bouncing excitedly on the balls of his feet on the wall, and he'd only stopped jumping around because Joey told him he'd fall off the citadel and what would they do then?
"You could say that," Chris said, and Justin could tell that Chris most certainly would not say that.
"It's got a nice view, anyway," Joey said.
"Doesn't it?" JC said. "Joey, man, come with me. I wanna see it." He gestured vaguely down at the plain and said in an awed sort of voice, "They, like, fought a war here, man. Isn't it cool?"
"Wolfe and Montcalm," Lance said, but JC was too busy dragging Joey down off the citadel to hear. "And it wasn't a war." It was a battle, but Lance didn't want to say it in case one of them thought he was going to be mean about it, but Justin knew because he'd read the pamphlet even though it was in French, and he didn't understand any of it. But the dates, those he could read, and he knew wars lasted longer than a day.
"Yeah," he said eventually, because he didn't want Lance to think he was an unappreciative audience.
"Yeah," Lance said. "It was a farm or something. Yeah." He paused, and took a long look at Chris, who was standing a long way down the wall, at the edge of the citadel by the cliff, yelling obliviously into the wind. "So," Lance said, "I'm gonna go catch up with them." Justin shrugged, and that was when it happened.
One minute Chris was saying, "J, come here, I gotta show you this," and peering over the edge of the wall, and the next, his hand was on Justin's waist and he was pressing his mouth feverishly against Justin's. Justin wanted to say, "hey, what the fuck," but just as soon as it happened, Chris stopped and said, "you can't even see across the river 'cause of the fog."
Justin said, "yeah," instead. And that was pretty much that.
The club was just inside the wall of the old city, with a blinking neon sign outside, and it really pretty much sucked. It was all chrome inside, which made it slick and shiny and oppressive and hard to dance, and it reeked of cigarettes and vomit, and there wasn't anywhere to go. Everything was a jumble of sweaty, unpleasant French people who just seemed to know he was American, whose intentions all seemed to be to make sure that he had the worst time possible.
Justin'd spent the better part of the evening sitting in one of the booths as far from the dance floor as possible, and would not move, no matter how much Lance bitched at him to "get off his fucking ass and dance," because that was apparently why they were there. Justin didn't see it that way at all, as he was only there because JC had said he wanted a taste of the Quebec nightlife and Joey wouldn't go with him.
The worst part, though, was that Chris hadn't come, either, because he said he was tired after being on a plane for so long. It was a lie, obviously, since they'd just flown from Orlando to Toronto in a few hours, and from Toronto to Quebec in just over an hour, and even Chris had to be in flight longer than that to be bothered. And they said Lance was the biggest liar.
So Justin had pretty much given up flirting with the French girls, because they couldn't speak English anyway, or if they did, they didn't understand his accent -- what accent, he didn't know -- and drank rye and coke because JC had told him, "it's Canadian Club. It's Canadian, so you gotta drink it, man." It tasted just like every other rye and coke he'd ever had, which was, admittedly, not that much, but still. It wasn't even enough to get drunk, but just enough to pass the time, and the glass was a good gesturing device for when he wanted to bitch at JC about how all French music sucked, or about how Lance was off blowing the third guy of the night, and just how stupid did he get.
JC stopped coming by to check on him after he spilled some of his drink on JC's new sequined pants.
Chris' door was open when they got back to the hotel, because they always left their doors open when they were still up. It made for easier access, since they were always wandering in and out and back again, and keys were just too inconvenient. It'd started in Germany when they weren't allowed keys to one another's rooms, probably because Lou was afraid of what they might do, and closing the door meant you'd have to sneak down to the front desk and try to con the extra key out of the hotel guy, or knock, either of which usually meant you'd get caught and yelled at. It stuck around now because really, it was habit, and it was convenient, and no one really cared, because they always rented out the whole floor anyway. Lance had tried closing his door, once, a few months ago, which only resulted in Joey getting the spare key and yelling at him, asking just what the fuck he was doing. He hadn't tried it since. Joey was very protective of Germany-based rituals.
So Justin went straight in, because it was only just after two or something, and the fluorescent hotel light was refracting out the crack of the door. Chris was on the bed, fully dressed, pretending to watch MusiquePlus with his eyes closed. Predictable, because Chris would always turn on the TV to something he had no intention of watching (usually football, but Justin wasn't even sure they had football in Canada) and then fall asleep or leave the room, and wake up or come back just as someone changed the channel so he could yell at them, not because he cared, but because it was something to do.
"Yo," Justin said, because he wasn't actually sure if Chris was asleep or not.
"Yeah," Chris mumbled, and that seemed answer enough. Justin hopped onto the bed, bouncing the mattress hard enough under his weight that Chris had to sit up to keep his balance. "'Sup," Chris said.
"Nothin'," Justin said. "I'm not tired yet."
"Yeah?" Chris asked, and rubbed at the corner of one eye. "How was the club?"
"Sucked," Justin said. "Lance thought it'd be okay to blow all these French guys 'cause they don't know who he is, and dude, no."
Chris smirked. "I wouldn't assume that," he said.
"Yeah, you wouldn't," Justin said. And Chris didn't say anything, but he was looking at Justin, and Justin thought, fuck, he's gonna kiss me. It was sort of like before, on the plain, weird in a really not-at-all sort of way, and it made Justin feel, not uncomfortable, but apprehensive. But then it had pretty much passed, and Chris hadn't done anything, so Justin did.
When Justin kissed him, Chris made a startled sort of noise in the back of his throat, but his mouth fell open against Justin's, and, and, and-- Chris was kissing him, hard and hungry, and Justin could feel his heart hammering against his ribcage, and not in the good way it was supposed to.
Chris had a hot mouth and a wicked tongue, and he kissed Justin like he'd been waiting his whole life to do it; and Justin kissed back very softly, fingers grasping awkwardly at Chris' shoulders, like he'd never even considered it before, ever, and he pretty much hadn't. Chris' hands flickered at his waist, curling around Justin, pulling Justin in like he wanted nothing more than to melt right into him, and that, that was kind of weird and way too much. Justin pushed him away roughly, the heel of his hand against Chris' collarbone.
"Hey, what," Chris said, and looked up at him.
"I can't," Justin said, and he felt stupid, really fucking stupid, like what the hell did he think Chris was going to do.
"You can't," Chris repeated, disbelievingly, a question. Justin shook his head, because what was he supposed to say, and Chris said, "Fine. Tell me when you can."
Justin slammed the door when he left.
He was going to blame it on the weather, or just on Quebec in general, or something, because Justin didn't suppose dealing with bad-tempered French people all the time inclined you to be in too good a mood. But it was still kind of off, when Joey said, "No, C. We are not going to a bee museum," because Joey was always willing to put up with JC's shit.
"Joey--" JC started.
"A bee museum, Jayce. Bees. Bees. In a museum."
"C'mon, Joe, it'll be fun," Chris said.
"Fun?" Joey asked. "Fun? Since when did bees become fun?"
"Not just bees," Lance said, "but dead bees."
"You're shitting me," Joey said, just as Chris said, "It's like that Simpsons episode."
JC looked aghast. "It is not like that Simpsons episode," he said.
"It is," Chris said. "It so is. You know, the one with the sugar pile." Justin smirked, because it was just like Chris to relate everything back to the Simpsons.
Lance looked at him. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"And they're like, bees means honey! And stuff."
"Chris," Joey said, "shut up."
"And they're all, hmmm."
"Fine," said Joey.
"And it starts raining! And it's all melting!"
"Okay, really. Shut up."
"And the English guy!"
"Okay," Joey repeated. "I'll fucking go."
"And he's all crying!"
JC touched Chris' shoulder. "Dude, it's okay. We get it," he said, and Chris looked up.
"So we're going?" he said.
"Yes," Lance said.
"To the bee-mobile," Chris announced.
When Justin said, "You mean your Chevy?", Chris didn't even look at him.
The Chevy turned out not to be a Chevy at all, but a pea-green Buick Royale chosen by JC from the rental place, because he was pretty sure Royale was a French word. Lance got to drive because he always drove and JC got shotgun because he always got shotgun, and Justin got stuck in the tiny sliver of seat in the back between Joey and Chris, because they were all inconsiderate bastards who liked to give the seat with the least amount of leg room to the one who needed the most.
The bee museum turned out not to be in the city at all, either, but some half-hour drive outside of it, in what would have counted as the boonies had they been anywhere but Canada. As it was, it seemed like they were so far from anywhere that Justin could see the fucking tundra on the side of the highway.
The drive, like most of Quebec was turning out to be, was pretty damn unpleasant. JC sang along loudly and badly to French radio, making up words as he went along, because it's not like anyone actually knew any French lyrics. Lance seemed intent on not getting a ticket for driving without a license (because, well, that was what he was doing) and wouldn't even talk to them for fear he might take his eyes off the road. Joey wouldn't talk, either, because he was still pretty nonplussed about the whole bee museum thing, which did, of course, make sense. Being a bee museum and all.
And Chris, Chris pretty much just sucked, because he was kinda pissed, or it really looked like it. He was glowering at Justin's reflection in the window, but he did that a lot anyway, so maybe Justin wouldn't have been able to tell if he was fucking with him or not, had it not been for the clear inch of space between his thigh and Chris', because Chris seemed very intent on not touching him at all. And Chris definitely did not do a lot of that.
The museum turned out to be just what it sounded like, except maybe even shittier. The building looked like a run-down shack that had bought out other run-down shacks to expand, and the only thing keeping them together was the big plywood sign on the roof that said "Musée des abeilles" in yellow and black, painted on white. There was an old man at the admission booth (which was a different run-down shack) who didn't speak English, and JC ended up speaking very loudly and very slowly and gesturing with his hands so the guy would understand what he was saying.
"Jayce," Lance said, "I don't think that's really helping."
"Sure it is," JC said, and brandished five ticket stubs and a crisp Canadian ten-dollar bill in change at Lance in triumph, having entirely missed the point.
Admission got them a slide show about bees, narrated by a different old guy who could actually speak English, this time, but with a very heavy accent. It was all about honeycombs and the queen bee and how bees fucked, and it was pretty bad, especially when they got to the part about the male bees' dicks getting ripped off after sex, and when it was finally over, Joey had to pat his crotch reassuringly.
"That was not worth my five bucks," Justin said.
"It's actually only, like, three bucks in real money," Lance said.
"You'd know," Chris said.
"I would," Lance agreed.
There turned out to be an actual beehive behind the museum, which was pretty boring, because all the bees were inside and you couldn't see any of them, except for the sporadic few that would come out and buzz around at the mesh separating the hives from them.
"Dude," Chris said, "now I finally get that episode. 'Cause if I had to watch these things all the time, damn, it sucks."
"Yeah," Justin said, but Chris wasn't even paying attention to him.
They all piled back into the car, after they'd dragged JC out of the gift shop -- which sold, unsurprisingly, honey and honey bi-products and honey-flavoured things that really shouldn't taste like honey at all -- with only six different jars of honey, without actually getting to tell them the difference, much to Justin's relief.
JC spotted the waterfall just as Lance was tearing out of the parking lot.
"No, no, no. No way, man," Lance said immediately.
"But look!" JC said, and tapped on the windshield. Lance rolled his eyes and stopped the car halfway onto the highway. The waterfall didn't actually look that bad, as far as waterfalls went. It wasn't too high, and it fell perpendicular to the road and turned into a river parallel to it, and there was a long, raised pier along the cliff from where it fell.
"You can, like, go under it!" JC exclaimed.
"You've been under waterfalls before, fuckwit," Chris said.
"Not like this," JC insisted.
"I've seen you."
"But we've never even been to Quebec before," JC said.
"Fine," Lance said, and cut straight across the highway to park on the grassy shoulder on the other side.
So it was actually a hydro outpost, and they probably technically weren't even supposed to be there, but that was fine, because it wasn't like they were gonna get electrocuted or anything, right? Justin thought it sucked, of course, because everything sucked when Chris wasn't talking to him, and it didn't really matter how soothing the sound of the waterfall was -- according to JC -- or how pretty the rainbows were -- according to Lance. So Justin just sat down on the edge of the wooden pier, letting his feet dangle off the side, leaning against the safety railing, and stayed there until his ass got soaked from the spray and didn't move, not even then.
Joey had stayed in the car, stretched out on the mustard-yellow backseat, and Justin was beginning to wish he'd joined him.
Okay, so maybe it really was all Justin's fault, because if he hadn't tried kissing Chris, it'd be fine. Because, it was fine after Chris kissed him, but not now, because apparently Justin had done something stupid and didn't know how to make it right again. Come to think of it, he rarely knew how to make things right again, unless he asked Chris. Convenient, that.
Justin really had no idea how long he'd been sitting there when JC came bounding down the pier, mostly likely right out from behind the waterfall, because he was completely soaked from head to toe. JC reached down and wrapped his arms around Justin, looped under his armpits, and dragged him up. Justin would have yelled, had he not already been wet anyway, and just stood up to make it easier. "What?" he asked.
"We're leaving," JC said, a little breathlessly, and grabbed Justin's hand, to drag him off down the pier at a run. Justin didn't look back to make sure Chris and Lance were following, because he could hear Chris' high-pitched laughter, and he didn't even need to check to make sure that Chris wasn't looking anywhere near him. Which sucked pretty badly.
He fell asleep some time between the bee museum and the hotel, and woke up with the taste of hard water in the back of his throat and his cheek pressed to what seemed to be, for all intents and purposes, Chris' shoulder. It took him a while to get his bearings, because he couldn't remember the last time he'd actually fallen asleep in a car, a Buick least of all, and even though he used to fall asleep on Chris all the time, it felt weird, because Chris was tense and his touch was not at all welcoming and oh, right, that.
He sat up jerkily and found he had a sore neck, and that they were stuck in traffic on the highway into the city. JC was drumming a beat on the dashboard and Lance was drumming another one in counterpoint on the steering wheel, and Joey was randomly kicking the back of Lance's chair, just because he could. Chris, on the other hand, seemed intent on stuffing himself into as small a space as humanly possible, crammed up against the side of the car. The whole car smelled of wet popstar and diluted cologne, and it was really gross and stuffy.
"Can someone open a window?" Justin asked.
"No," Lance said irritably.
"Why not?" Justin asked.
"Because," Lance said, "it's cold."
"It fucking reeks in here," Justin said.
Chris turned his head slightly, just enough to look at Justin out of the corner of his eye, and Justin inexplicably felt his mouth go dry. But then Chris said, "live with it, J. You're not gonna always get what you want," and it passed, because it looked like Chris was still going to be like that.
"Fine," Justin said, because if he hadn't, it would've just made Chris even worse.
Justin had what JC called a stock fantasy, when Justin still told him things like that. It was the same fantasy, recycled for every damn crush he'd had his entire life, always the same, the same place, the same time, the same details. JC was the only person who knew about it, or he was supposed to be, because Justin had threatened him with castration if he told anyone, because Justin was only fifteen at the time and would have died if someone like Lance knew about it.
The fantasy itself, though, it wasn't really anything much. All it was, was that he'd be staying up one night to listen to the rain with the window open, letting the drops catch on the window sill, and whoever the latest crush was, would come in and sit next to him, and maybe he'd touch her hand and she'd tip her head over to rest on his shoulder. He thought it was pretty cool, because it was romantic and shit, and then maybe he'd take her hand and kiss her knuckles, or something, but it never really got any further than that. That wasn't important, because all that really mattered was the companionship.
It had actually happened, once, with Britney. He'd fallen asleep with her, but he woke up in the middle of the night, because it didn't feel right and he didn't know why, and he went to sleep in the spare room down the hallway. It had started raining at some point during the night, and instead of sleeping, he'd just sat by the window and watched the raindrops cling to the leaves on the elm tree outside. She'd come by, five minutes, half an hour, a couple hours later, he didn't know, and she sat with him. But it wasn't right, because she wanted to talk, and you weren't supposed to talk, because it wasn't about that.
He broke up with her the next week.
It felt weird to think about it, after that, even though it was his thing, the calming thing, because it had always been there.
But now, now it was even worse, because just before he fell asleep, he found himself playing out the fucking thing, not with Britney and not with some dancer or some random crush or just anybody, but with Chris. And it was bad because it worked and it felt and it was right, but Chris wouldn't even look at him, and it was his own fault, because he was a stupid fucking moron and didn't know what to do about it.
Morning found Justin jerking off in the bathroom while Lance pounded on the door and told him he had to get the fuck out and go to breakfast, and Justin thought, yeah, he was pretty screwed.
The boardwalk was Justin's idea, for once, which explained why none of the rest of them wanted to come, being the inconsiderate bastards they were. Not that he was expecting anything different, but hey, at least Lance could have humoured him or something.
He said, "Okay, fine, fuck you," and left the hotel wearing a trashy old Montreal Expos hat, with a pair of sunglasses hooked onto the collar of his shirt and a creased map of the city tucked in his back pocket of his shorts.
He only got lost twice, winding up back at the plains of fucking Abraham once and somewhere down in the lower city the second time, and eventually found the way, because some rude English-speaking person had pointed out that if he looked for the towers on "le shadow frontnack" he'd get there. "Yeah, thanks," he'd said, and thought there was probably something to being virtually unknown.
The boardwalk wasn't actually a boardwalk, he found out. Well, it was, for a while, but then it twisted and turned into a long, slow descent of wooden steps into the lower city -- six hundred and something steps, he was pretty sure he read in the guide pamphlet JC had given him.
The walk was pretty dull, and it wasn't like he really needed it, but it was sunny and warm and actually nice out for once, so he might as well enjoy it while he could. Fucking Quebec. The boardwalk was built right against the side of the cliff, which was all white rock and what Lance called "Canadian shield", though only he knew what that actually meant. The drop between the slats of wood looked pretty far, so he thought, yeah, maybe he'd stop looking down there now. Chris would have hated it.
But he could see clear across the river and right into -- Levy? Levis? -- Levis, and that was pretty cool.
He didn't make it halfway down before he turned back.
It was a pretty shitty ultimatum, he thought, later, as far as ultimatums went, though that was probably the whole point of them, anyway. But this, there wasn't even, like, an ounce of fairness in this one, because the choice seemed to be either to get groped by Chris on a semi-regular basis (which, okay, might not have been all that bad) or never to talk to Chris again, ever. And that was so not fair, because he'd gone the better part of six years being friends with Chris without any groping, and now that Chris wanted there to be some and Justin didn't, it was pretty much looking like the end of them.
And so maybe Justin wanted to get groped, and kissed, and whatever, just a little, but it was still fucking weird, because it was Chris. Not that Chris was a bad thing, but. but. Chris was, like, his best friend and he wasn't supposed to spring shit like that on Justin, not suddenly, not after going so long without even hinting at it. Because, really, it was overwhelming and just so not fair, on so many levels.
It ended in the new city, because, as Joey had said, nothing had ever ended there before. Not that Joey knew anything about that, but Justin was much more prepared to listen to him than Lance, even when Lance said, "um, the Summit of the Americas?" and then, "fuck, Joey, you should stop saying shit like that when you just don't know," because he was like that.
Justin knew it was the new city, though, because he was bouncing on the balls of his feet outside Chris' door, on the fifteenth floor of the Quebec City Radisson hotel, and they just didn't have buildings like that in the old city. The door was open a crack, as usual, and any other time Chris would have come out by now and told him to knock it the fuck off and just come in.
But it wasn't any other time, it was this time, and since Justin was pretty smart, he'd actually figured out what he was supposed to do, and now he just had to do it.
He pushed the door open, finally, and stepped cautiously inside, and when Chris didn't tell him to get the hell out before he ripped his balls off, he figured he was in the clear, for now.
"Chris," he said, and his voice came out a lot weaker than he'd intended. Chris was sprawled out on one of the hotel armchairs, wearing his glasses and reading a second-hand copy of "The Little Prince", which Justin guessed he'd probably picked up while Justin wasn't around -- which probably could have been any time lately, really.
"Yeah," Chris said, and looked up. "Oh," he said.
"Chris," Justin repeated, and then he didn't even think about it. Didn't even think about covering the distance between them, but just did it, and knelt down and touched Chris' knee and said, "Dude, I'm stupid, sorry."
Chris just looked down at him, and for a minute, Justin was pretty sure he'd said or done the wrong thing and now Chris was never going to talk to him again because he was stupid and had fucked everything up by kissing Chris without even thinking about why he would.
But then Chris smiled, and reached out to touch Justin's cheek with the back of one hand. He twisted around so that he could lean forward, and put his mouth so close to Justin's that Justin could feel Chris' breath on his lips when he said, "Yeah, okay."
And Chris kissed him, and that was pretty much that.