Coming Home
by Velma
It’s the sound of a piano that wakes Chris up, that has him smiling and up and out of bed and reaching for the ratty robe that lies pooled on the floor. He follows the sound down the stairs and into the living room, back toward the den. It’s the piano, and it’s lovely.
Lance is back.
**
JC went with Chris to get the piano, back when he’d finished the house and he was looking to fill it up with all the necessaries. He didn’t play, and JC, for that matter, wasn’t as good as he’d like to believe he was, but he knew more about them than Chris did.
Lance played. He’d started taking lessons when he was a little kid, and he was actually pretty damn accomplished. Chris liked to sit and watch those long, slim fingers fly over the keyboard. There wasn’t a whole lot prettier in the world.
It was his anniversary present, the piano.
JC grinned as they moved through the showroom, checking out their options. “Jesus, you two. It blow the mind, Chris. Like, who’d have thought of all of us you’d end up the happy, domestic couple? Crazy.”
Pretty insane, yeah, but Chris didn’t know any other way.
They’d been wrestling, Chris and Lance, across some cold hotel room floor in Germany. Breathless and smiling when they’d finally given up, draped across each other, Chris had said, “You know you can always ask me anything, right? Whatever you need, Lance, I’m here.”
Lance sat up and looked at him steadily. “So, hey,” Lance said. “You want to be my boyfriend?”
Chris blinked and sat up himself, scrubbing a hand through his hair. “Don’t we have to, like, date first?”
Lance tilted his head. “I thought maybe we could skip all that. But I guess maybe you’re more a traditionalist than I thought you were. Okay,” Lance said, “you can take me for a beer later. That counts, right? You’re buying, though.” He got up and went into the bathroom.
Chris stared after him, then started to laugh.
But they got the beers, and kissed afterward in a dark doorway, and that was that. Lance didn’t waste time going after what he wanted, and truth be told, Chris wasn’t much for games, either.
**
Chris pauses in the doorway, stepping over bags, and watches Lance, hunched over the keys, his fingers a little stiff but moving well all the same. It takes Chris a minute to realize what he’s playing. It’s America the Beautiful.
Chris starts to snicker, because only Lance could be that cheesy. To come back from Russia and serenade Chris with a patriotic hymn. “Nice, Bass. Very nice.”
“What?” Lance smiles over his shoulder. “You don’t like?”
”No, Chris says, moving forward and brushing his lips over Lance’s shoulder. “It’s perfect. Welcome home.”
**
Chris had a thing about lying in interviews. He didn’t believe in it. So he told the truth, but delivered in it such a fashion that everyone wrote him off as the crazy one he was. He’d said in an interview on Much once that he and Joey used to hang out, and then they didn’t, but they’d started to hang out again. Truth. There’d been a span of time when they’d hardly talked.
Joey, apparently never on the receiving end of a lecture from Stacy Bass, and thus not aware of how truly intimidating she could be, appointed himself Lance’s honorary big brother and protector. He came up to Chris after rehearsal one afternoon and told him if he ever did anything to hurt Lance he’d rip his balls off and feed them to his dogs.
Chris remarked that his balls were bigger than either of Joey’s tiny ass dogs, so that’d be a bit of a challenge, and things deteriorated from there. Chris had mostly been offended by the mere implication that he’d ever hurt Lance intentionally. His pride was hurt, too, so he sulked for a few months until Lance got tired of playing the middle man and told him to fix things.
He and Joey went out and got drunk and everything was fine. Chris admitted he’d have done the same thing if Joey had been putting the moves on Justin, which was true, and told Joey Lance couldn’t hope for a better friend. He was maybe laying it on a bit thick there at the end, but he had been an asshole and he felt pretty shitty about it.
**
“Long flight?” Chris murmurs, kissing along Lance’s jaw.
“Justin sends his best,” Lance laughs, swatting at him. “You’re interrupting.”
“Oh, God forbid I give you a proper welcoming,” Chris grins. Then he tries to sit behind Lance on the bench. Tries being the operative word because he’s too far back and it tips over, sending him flat on his back with Lance sprawled on top of him. Lance rolls over and stares down at him, amusement dancing in his eyes.
“Well, this is an interesting change of events.” Lance says, smoothing a hand up and under Chris’s robe.
Chris groans. “It’s been months, Lance. Months and if you’re just teasing me and I’m going to have to go on like this until fucking April I may well die right here and now.”
**
“Abstinence, Chris, I’ve been reading up on it,” Lance said. Chris stared at him in open-mouthed horror.
“You are never allowed to talk to read any of Justin’s stupid books again,” Chris muttered, hanging his head.
“No, seriously. It’s like. Extra focus. And I need all the focus I can get for this training. Besides, we’re going to be apart for weeks…”
“I was going to come visit,” Chris pouted. “And there’s Houston. I was going to visit you in Houston. And we were going to have sex. Lots of it. And you were going to wear your uniform and I was going to call you comrade.”
Lance rolled his eyes. “Distractions, and you know I can’t have them, Chris. One look at you and I’d forget everything I learned.”
“I think you’re just buttering me up.”
“Is it working?”
“Yeah,” Chris sighed. “Jesus Christ. I’m way too damn old for this. Months. You’re going to be gone for months and my dick’s going to shrivel up and die.”
Lance laughed. He was really mean.
So Chris didn’t go and see Lance, but that didn’t mean they weren’t in touch. Chris left him voicemails every day. Sometimes he sang, sometimes he read him really awful poetry or the latest letters in the Penthouse Forum. He shot off emails, and sent Lance packages once a week. Random crap, like mix CDs he burned and movies and clippings about what everyone was doing. He sent him a picture of himself with his shirt off once, too, which Lance claimed that he’d never gotten and that some customs guy in Russia was now using as jerk-off material, but Justin ended up teasing Chris about it later so Chris knew Lance carried it around with him.
They sent each other stupid email forwards and links to awful porn sites. There wasn’t a day that went by that they didn’t talk in some way.
Chris was doing the Miss Teen USA pageant while Lance was in Houston, and it pretty much killed him that Lance was so close but he couldn’t get near him. He called Lance up the night before the pageant and complained about how grossly unfair it was that he was a gay man and he still felt like a lecherous old bastard surrounded by all these teenagers in bikinis. Lance had been sympathetic until Chris told him he thought he’d be quite fetching in a two-piece. Lance had hung up then.
Lance also managed to sneak out a crew patch with JC, which JC gave to Chris the next weekend. Chris framed it and put it up on the wall, where it stayed, even after the mission went sour.
They talked more frequently then. Chris stayed up until stupid early in the morning so he could catch Lance’s call. It hurt him that Lance was so far away and that he couldn’t help him. But Lance was strong, and Chris had faith that he’d find a way. Chris was never more proud than when Lance told him he was going to finish out the training. He’d never been a quitter, no matter what anyone else said.
**
Lance touches the patch as they make their way back upstairs, his eyes clouding a little before Chris pulls his hand into his own.
“April, huh?” Chris says.
“Yeah,” Lance smiles, his gaze shifting from the frame to Chris’s face. “April. Looks like.”
“We’d better get started, then,” Chris pulls Lance into the bedroom. “We’ve got a lot of time to make up for.”
Lance doesn't rush, though, because it's not his style. Chris knows that, because Chris knows a whole hell of a lot about Lance that no one else does. Like he plays a mean piano, and he plays pool better than Justin, and he doesn't know what it means to give up.
Even if April doesn't materialize, even if Lance doesn't get to space, Chris knows he'll be okay. Because the one question he's never asked Chris is what happens when it's over. Chris knows he'll never need to.
-fin-for Jen