Of course, it wasn't to say that they didn't ask the odd ignorant question, or say something embarassing or biased, or that they weren't curious. Sometimes Lance wouldn't think and say, "we're going to go out and pick up chicks, wanna come, Chris?" but it wasn't so bad as when Joey would point out a guy at a club and say, "wonder how he looks when he's just jerked off" or even "I'd wanna stick him if I swung that way, don't you think?" JC was the least ignorant of them all, but even he would tease Chris about checking out his ass, even after he'd pointed out that JC did nothing for his sex drive. Which, of course, might have been just why he did it.
Chris had noticed that Justin slipped up the least, for which he was eternally grateful. At some point, Justin had started giving him guy advice, for which he never asked, suggestions on which guys to pick up, which he never wanted, and random guys' phone numbers, which he promptly threw out. It didn't bother him, it was just.. odd. At some point, Justin had started asking him about his sexual activities, and had actually appeared interested when Chris had gone into detail - and asked for more details, when Chris started to get vague. Chris had done it dozens of times, talking about girls with Justin and anyone else, and while he wasn't uncomfortable talking about guys with him, he found it vaguely unsettling that a straight man would find the bedroom activities of a gay man, well, interesting.
The fact that Chris thought about Justin while he fucked guys he'd picked up might have also accounted for that unsettled feeling. It was almost like he was telling Justin all the things he'd like to do him, in not so many words, but not quite. Chris wasn't sure when it was that he'd started having feelings for his best friend - straight best friend, at that - but he'd readily accepted it, even if he hadn't admitted it to anybody but himself. Not that he ever intended on admitting it.
But even Justin's active interest in his sex life, and the other guys' joking hadn't really prepared Chris for the morning Justin walked into his hotel room just as his latest fuck was scrambling to get out. Justin shot the guy a dirty look, sat down on the couch, without greeting, and watched Chris get dressed. Chris had only a towel, and while Justin had seen him in less before, he couldn't help but feel slightly self-conscious as he rummaged through a suitcase to find a clean pair of boxers.
"What?" Chris had asked, having found decently clean underwear, and pulled them on. He dropped his towel and tugged on a pair of jeans, waiting for Justin to explain why he'd just randomly shown up.
"I heard you last night," Justin said, his voice with a touch of coldness in it.
"So?" Chris asked, all the while trying to find a suitable shirt. "You were in the room next door, right? I could have guessed you'd hear." He cocked an eyebrow at his friend. "Do you have a problem with it, all of a sudden? Not like I've never heard you fucking some random chick before."
"What was his name?" Justin asked, instead of answering the question.
"Justin -"
"I really hope that's what his name was, and you're not just trying to change the subject." And with that, Justin pulled himself off the couch and left Chris' hotel room, the door slamming behind him.
The shirt Chris had just found fell from his hands, because it didn't take long before he figured out what Justin was implying.
Justin wasn't entirely sure why he didn't like the idea of Chris thinking about him when he had sex. It wasn't because it was creepy - it wasn't, really, because he thought about Chris when he did any number of things, sex included, and that wasn't creepy, so. It wasn't because he didn't want Chris to think about him in a sexual way, because he did. It wasn't because he didn't want Chris to think about fucking him, because he wanted to fuck Chris senseless anyway. So he was all out of reasons as to why it was so bothersome.
When he was jerking off in the shower mere moments after his encounter with Chris, it occurred to him that it might be because Chris was thinking about fucking him, but he wasn't actually doing it. And, of course, there was nothing stopping Chris from doing so, not that Justin was aware of.
Except that Chris thought Justin was straight.
And that he was probably pissed at Justin.
And that he probably thought Justin was pissed at him.
And that he had no way of telling Justin might want to fuck him.
Justin breathed Chris' name as he came in the shower, and was vaguely aware of JC yelling at him to hurry the fuck up before he was late for breakfast.
Chris was ignoring Justin, and he was making it obvious. More than once JC had elbowed Justin in the ribs at breakfast and asked if they'd had a fight, and more than once Justin had told him they had not, and eventually JC had given up and eavesdropped on Lance and Joey's conversation about last night's wild fuck. Nobody really noticed when Chris left the hotel restaurant without speaking a word to any of them, after having finished breakfast with record speed. Except maybe Justin.
But Chris had made it to sound check on time, even though he hadn't come with the rest of them. He'd stared blankly out into the venue as he'd recited "one two three check four five six check seven check eight nine check check ten", but he'd hit all the notes in 'Digital Getdown', so nobody had much reason to complain. He'd turned down a run-through on 'Just Got Paid', but nobody was all that interested in doing it anyway, so they weren't disappointed. Except maybe Justin.
After sound check, Chris and Joey had gone back to the hotel and locked themselves in Joey's room for a Playstation marathon, and Lance had locked Justin in the room next door and made him listen. It had, at some point, occurred to Justin that he might actually talk to Lance rather than listen to Chris' laughter through the thin hotel walls, and had been about to say something when he realised that Lance had been talking to him for quite some time.
But Lance seemed well aware that Justin hadn't been listening, and was prepared to start over when his friend was showing signs of interest.
"Something's up with Chris," Lance said, as if perhaps Justin hadn't noticed. "He's been real quiet today. Y'all didn't have a fight or anything, do you?"
"No," Justin found himself saying, and it wasn't quite a lie, because they didn't have a fight. Not really. "I don't know. I might've, y'know, said something to piss him off, though." And that wasn't a lie, because he most certainly had said something of the sort. Or implied something, anyway.
"Really? What happened?"
"Doesn't matter," Justin said, because he didn't really feel like explaining, and because it wasn't the sort of thing he'd ever explain, especially not to Lance. "I don't want to talk about it."
"Fine," Lance replied offhandedly, and shrugged. "Just, y'know, don't let it affect tonight." He picked idly at the comforter on his bed before adding, "We're goin' clubbing tonight, after the concert. You wanna come?"
"Who's we?" Justin asked, cocking an eyebrow.
Lance just smiled smugly and shook his head. After a pause, he said, "Me'n Joey and JC. Maybe Chris. Maybe not. Y'know, us."
He was barely surprised when Justin turned him down. Barely.
Justin had sat in his hotel room for a good hour and a half after the concert before he decided that Chris had, indeed, gone clubbing. They hadn't, of course, spoken since that morning, and Justin was in a progressively worsening mood. Not that anybody had noticed, except Joey who'd smacked him upside the head and told him to stop acting like he'd just lost his best friend, and to "just fucking well apologise to him for that crack" and not much else.
So he'd been there an hour and a half and through three piss-water Coronas he'd fished out of the mini-bar before he heard voices in the hall and it dawned on him that all the clubs were probably letting out, because it was somewhere around 2 am. It was through the beginnings of a headache that he realised that those voices were outside his door and calling his name, and someone was actually pounding on the door, and it wasn't multiple voices, but just one.
Chris', which made all the difference in the world.
"What?" Justin's voice already sounded slightly drunk, even to his own ears, which was a bad sign - he'd never really been able to hold his alcohol well.
"Lemme come in," Chris said, from the other side of the door. If Justin sounded slightly drunk, then Chris was positively smashed. His voice was husky and a bit deeper than usual, and Justin wasn't entirely sure he wanted to talk to him, not in this state.
Nevertheless, Justin got up and drew back the deadbolt from the door, and since he wasn't sure he could make it back to the couch, he slid down the wall next to the door and sat. "It's open," he said.
When Chris came in, drunk as he was, he didn't trip over Justin, whose legs happened to be in the way; he actually seemed well aware of where Justin was, and after closing the door, he sat down next to him.
Justin wasn't sure if it was just the alcohol in his system, but he was pretty sure Chris had been crying. "Sup, man?" Justin asked cautiously, blinking owlishly at his friend. "Have fun clubbing?"
"Didn't go," Chris said simply, and started picking at the plastic-textured shag rug beneath him. "We need to talk, y'know. 'Cause it's no fun gettin' drunk by yourself." He sniffed Justin gingerly. "And I think you know that."
Justin barked a short laugh, but it wasn't really funny. "What d'you wanna talk about?" he asked, as if it wasn't obvious. But, to his alcohol-hazed mind, it wasn't really obvious.
"I dunno," Chris said, his voice thick. "How 'bout we just start talkin' and see where it goes."
For some reason, it occurred to Justin that Chris might not have come in to talk about that morning, and that maybe he hadn't been crying after all. However, if Chris was so drunk it didn't bother him, Justin most certainly was not. "Yeah, okay," Justin said, and hauled himself off the floor in search of another Corona. "Y'know, dude, 'm sorry 'bout this morning."
"Why?" Chris asked, and blinked at him; one eye was squinted closed as his gaze followed Justin. "'S not your fault 'm a horny bastard. I should be apologizing." He considered that a moment, then added, "But I'm not goin' to."
"Mmn," Justin mumbled into his beer. After drinking down almost half the bottle, he said, "'S good. 'Cause then I might have to. Too. Y'know. 'Cause I'm kinda horny too. But. Even though I don't, like, think about you when I fuck, it doesn't mean I don't. ever. think about you." By then, the better part of his fourth Corona was gone, and he was feeling positively ill. "Like, this morning, in th'shower -"
"Justin." Chris seemed suddenly.. sober. Or maybe not so much sober as he was not all that drunk.
"Wha?" he asked.
"You gonna sit there and suck on that bottle all night or d'you wanna come over here and suck on me?"
Justin's lips curved into a smile, and dropped the nearly-empty bottle. "I dunno. But I think I'd like that." But it wasn't him who got up; before he could react, Chris was on the couch next to him, one arm wrapped around his waist and his face nestled into the crook of Justin's neck.
Maybe Chris really was all that drunk.
Justin shifted against Chris, and turned his friend's face towards him. Chris' eyes were wet; if he hadn't been crying before, he certainly was now. Without a second thought, Justin pressed his lips to Chris', and after the barest hesitation, Chris was kissing him back, sucking on his lips, tongue in his mouth, leaving him breathless. It wasn't so much everything a Chris kiss was supposed to be, because Justin had no clue what it would be like and actually hadn't spent much time thinking about the actual kissing part, but he was not adverse to it. This was the sort of thing he dreamed about..
When they had to stop to catch their breath, Justin managed to gasp out, "Fuck, Chris, I want you bad," and he hoped Chris was drunk enough to want him back just now.
Beneath the haze that was his mind, something was yelling at Chris that what he was doing was wrong. He wasn't supposed to be taking advantage of his best friend while he was so obviously drunk. But in his own drunken state, he wasn't ready to listen to that.
So when Justin had said, "Fuck, Chris, I want you bad," Chris' hands were all over him, and suddenly they were wearing too many clothes, but that didn't last too long. Chris had somehow found Justin under him, and both of them sprawled the length of the couch, with Justin's legs wrapped around his waist and writhing in a maddeningly arousing fashion. Chris had licked Justin the length of his neck, from his collar bone to his ear just as Justin was stroking his cock almost rhythmically, and the younger man had shuddered beneath him.
"Chris," he'd mumbled into his neck, "I want you to fuck me. Now." And Chris had broken away long enough to dig a condom and almost finished tube of lubrication out of his disgarded pants, and then he was back and slipping a lubed finger into Justin, then another, and another, before Justin finally had to repeat himself. "Fuck," he'd growled, "just get in me before I come right now."
And since Chris didn't want that, he'd rolled on the condom and entered Justin slowly, because he wasn't sure that Justin had ever done it before. Justin hadn't lasted long after a steady rhythm had been established, and had come over Chris' stomach with his best friend's name tearing out of his throat as if he'd just had the best orgasm of his life. Chris came soon after, and that orgasm was like nothing he'd ever felt before, like every time he'd ever had sex all rolled into one, except this time it actually was with Justin.
And he'd slid out of his best friend, wiped himself off with somebody's shirt, and fallen asleep on Justin's chest, because it was far too early in the morning to get up.
Just before he fell asleep, something told him what he'd just done was wrong.
Sometime while Justin was sleeping, Chris had slipped away, and the only evidence last night had even occurred was a pounding headache and the fact that Justin was lying naked on the couch in his hotel room. Justin groaned, because he'd wanted to wake up with Chris and tell him how long he'd wanted him, how long he'd waited, how scared he'd been to tell him he loved him, how many times he'd dreamed of them. But that didn't happen, and that reduced the night before to little more than a one night stand with his best friend.
When Justin asked Chris about it after breakfast, away from the other guys, Chris had merely said, "Sometimes you don't always get what you want." Justin wasn't sure, but he thought he could hear the sound of his heart breaking.
And Chris hadn't really been prepared for that, either.