Chris looked at him, incredulous. "You can't honestly tell me you've never had it."
Lance shook his head. He was topping a sandwich -- it looked like slices of tomato and decidedly unappetizing green mush, to Chris -- with alfalfa sprouts, and not letting Chris come anywhere near him. "I honestly have never had it."
"Liar," Chris said.
"I haven't," Lance insisted, and put the top on the sandwich. "You want some?"
"No way, man," Chris said, backing out of the doorway of the kitchen. "That stuff looks like puke."
"It's good," Lance said.
"I bet it's not." Chris wrinkled his nose. "And I'm not gonna believe someone who's never even had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Is there something wrong with you?"
Lance grinned. "Never had any reason to have it."
"But it's the staple of every kid's elementary school life!"
"Not mine."
Chris snorted. "You're fucked, man."
Lance took a bite of his sandwich, chewing slowly as Chris watched in horror. "It's avocado," he said, after he swallowed.
"What is?" Chris asked.
"The green stuff."
Chris clapped a hand over his mouth. "Oh, ew. That's so disgusting, dude. How can you eat that?"
"It's good," Lance repeated, shrugging.
"Liar," Chris said.
Lance licked avocado off his fingers, looking pointedly at Chris as he did so. "It's probably better than your food."
"No, man," Chris said, swallowing thickly. "That's. ew. You want me to make you a sandwich?"
"I have one," Lance said, and took another bite. The avocado was dripping out the back again, over the knuckles of his pinky finger. "And it's good," he added, drawing out the 'o' sound.
"Ew, ew, ew," Chris said, and all but ran back into the lounge of the bus.
"It's good, I'm telling you, man," Lance called out, but didn't follow.
"You will not eat that in my presence," Chris said, and covered his face with a pillow off the couch, in case Lance decided he would.
"Lance, baby," Chris drawled, emerging from the stall bathroom, disposable razor in hand.
"Yes'm," Lance said, and drew back the curtain on his bunk.
Chris tossed the razor inside the bunk, where it hit the wall and landed next to Lance. "The first rule of using my razor is you have to tell me when you're gonna do it."
"I thought it was not to talk about it."
Chris stared down at him. "Fuck you. The second rule is to rinse it when you're done."
Lance smiled thinly. "Maybe it was you who didn't rinse it."
Chris matched his smile, cocking his head to the side and down, a little. "Unless my face had an encounter with a pigmentation change I wasn't aware of, it was you."
"Ah."
"Yeah," Chris said. "The third rule is if you dull the fucking blade, you replace it."
"I didn't know where they were."
"Try the counter," Chris said.
"Right." Lance batted his eyelashes up at Chris. "Why, thank you for this informative seminar," he said. "I'll keep it in mind," and slapped Chris' ass as he walked away.
Sometimes it was okay, though, when Lance would get sick of business correspondence, and stop pretending he wasn't watching TV with Chris, and actually went and watched TV with Chris, curled up against Chris' shoulder on the couch.
"Off," Chris said, the first time, elbowing Lance in the stomach.
"Ow," Lance said, but didn't move.
"There's enough room," Chris said.
"I know," Lance replied, and ended up falling asleep on Chris' shoulder just before the climax of the movie, so Chris had to turn the sound down so that it was a dull roar, and couldn't actually tell what was going on.
He usually woke up just as the closing credits started, mumbling, "Sorry, man," and moved to the other end of the couch.
Chris didn't really mind any more.
It was unbearable when Lance got into one of his moods, and absolutely had to be on the phone with all his big contacts, either simultaneously or consecutively, depending on how well he thought he could multi-task. It was annoying when his phone batteries would die, and he would bitch about having to plug it in and not be able to wander around. It was annoying when he was talking to someone, "really important, so can you please turn that off, Chris?" and Chris would be forced to sit in silence in front of the TV until Lance hung up. It was annoying when Lance started to pace, especially when Chris got so fed up he'd lie in his bunk and try to sleep through Lance's mood.
It was especially bad when they were passing through the flat states that all looked the same, until all the road signs would blur together and location would lose all meaning, except for Lance's business voice droning in the background, and Chris prayed for a power surge.
But it could have been a lot worse.
"D'you think they have phone sex a lot?" Chris asked, scooping peanut butter out of the jar with his finger.
"I bet JC does," Lance said, eyeing the jar, precariously perched between Chris' legs. "I hope your fingers are clean."
"And if they're not," Chris said, and scraped peanut butter off his knuckles with his teeth. "Get your own damn food. I bet they're noisy."
"I bet they're dirty."
"Hey, no. JC keeps it clean, man. I'd know."
"I bet they're dirty," Lance repeated.
"Lia-- oh," Chris said, loudly.
"Joey was pretty bad," Lance said.
"No kidding." Chris licked his fingers clean. "You want some?"
"For the last time, I don't want your fucking peanut butter crap."
Chris rolled his eyes and sighed emphatically. "Gee, Lance, I'm just trying to housebreak you."
Sometimes, though, Chris didn't think it could get much better, because Lance could slide into Chris' bunk in the morning and wrap his legs around Chris' waist, and had no objections to getting fucked loudly and rudely as the sun came up through the cracked blinds of the bus.
The best part, Chris thought, was when Lance could then wander into the kitchen, naked, without a word of protest. And Chris could follow to offer breakfast, and Lance would still refuse, insisting he'd really like some fried bananas that morning, and none of Chris' disgusting concoctions.