Tethered
by Velma
Lance Bass is bored.
It doesn’t happen very often, and really, if it did, he thinks someone should take him out back, wherever that is, and shoot him. Because his life is not generally the stuff of boredom.
He’s in Vegas. That alone tells him how desperate things are. Because if you can be in Vegas and not be entertained, if not by the gambling or shows, then by the swarms of people, you’re in a pretty sorry state. Which. He is.
JC’s in town, too, for the radio awards or some shit and there was a time when he kept better track of all that but this isn’t his gig. He came out because C said to, that there’d be some hot parties and Lance is, in fact, all about the hot parties. Except that he’s been to a few already tonight and they’re not doing a damn thing for him.
“You’re pathetic,” Chris says into the phone and Lance rolls his eyes. “Don’t roll your eyes at me, asshole.”
“How did you…”
“It’s a Pavlovian response to pretty much everything I say. Has been for about five years or so. Jerk.”
Lance sighs and rubs his eyes. “Really, I don’t think a guy who’s been a hermit for the past several months has any right to call me pathetic, Chris.”
Chris grunts and there’s a click. Lance clears his throat and realizes Chris has taken another call. Which *so* figures and it’s just like Chris to put him on hold when he’s clearly having some sort of existential crisis. He doesn’t get bored. He survived months in Russia with Freddy being the only person he could really talk to, and Freddy wasn’t there to talk.
Lance buffs his nails on his pants as he waits, mentally thinking of all the things he could be doing, distracted momentarily by a guy with a tight, tight ass that walks past. Apparently he’s distracted for more than a moment because when he comes back to earth Chris has become impatient enough to go high-pitched in his ear.
“I’m here, I’m here, Jesus, Kirkpatrick, do, like, dogs start barking when you do that?” He has to hold the phone a good six inches from his head.
“Had to get your attention somehow,” Chris grumbles, then cheers up immediately. “Dude, no more boredom for you.”
“What?”
“I have set you up so good, Bass, you’re going to be owing me for years. I mean, we are talking some primo hot body and he’s headed up to your suite as we speak.”
Lance thinks briefly to ask Chris just exactly how he knows his hotel room but this same guy walks past again and it’s not quite as important. “I don’t know, man,” he says, smiling as the guy looks over. “There’s already another distraction presenting itself.”
“No, seriously,” Chris says. “This’ll be good for you, I swear. Have I done you wrong yet?”
Lance opens his mouth to rebut and shuts it again, because no, actually, Chris is usually pretty perceptive about a lot of things and he’s never actually set Lance up on a blind date from hell. Unlike Joey, who, when scoping dick for Lance, only seems to have eyes for transvestites, and if Lance wanted fake breasts that much he’d hang out with the Hilton sisters more often.
“Okay,” Lance sighs. “Okay, Chris, but if this is a dud and I’m bored again in a half hour while suffering from awful sex, your ass is mine.”
“You always say that,” Chris says, “and yet as fine as it is you’ve never hit this shit, Bass.”
“Get back to me when you’re gay,” Lance says, and snaps his phone shut. He puts it away and pats his pants, finds some breath spray. Hotel room it is.
The thing of it is, the really odd thing of it is, that when he gets on the elevator Nick Carter’s leaning against the back wall, looking almost as bored as he is and his eyes only widen a little in surprise when he sees Lance.
“Hey, Carter,” Lance nods casually, leaning against the mirror on the other side of the elevator like this is an every day thing, even though he doesn’t even really know Nick all that well. JC does. Lance thought for a millisecond once that those two might have had something at one point, if only because JC told him all about Nick’s nipple rings with such fascination and detail that Lance could only think something was up.
Which it’s not. JC’s just nuts in all kinds of ways, including a fascination with tattoos and piercings that extends to other people’s bodies, just not his own. Apparently he offered to hold Nick’s hand during the process, even, or so Chris told him. Chris knows an awful lot of what everyone else is doing, what with being a recluse and all.
“So. You’re in Vegas.” Lance looks over and waits expectantly but Nick is just watching him. Looking amused. “Care to share with the class, Carter?”
Nick doesn’t say anything and they ride in somewhat awkward silence. Lance wishes he’d had more to drink. The elevator pings, though, and he lets out a sigh of relief as he steps out, because he’s usually pretty good in any situation but there’s something about Nick Carter that’s just fucking unnerving.
It takes him a few steps to realize that Nick’s behind him. And really he wouldn’t have noticed but for the hairs standing up on the back of his neck. It has to be Nick, because no one was in the hallway when he stepped out and no one else was in the elevator and of all the gin joints, man, of all of them.
Lance sighs and fingers his key card. He slides it in the door and turns when he sees the light go from red to green. Nick’s leaning against the wall behind him, looking a little smug.
“Is there something I can help you with?” Lance asks. Really, this is getting ridiculous.
“I think that’s my line,” Nick says, pushing past him and into the room.
“Carter,” Lance manages, his voice rising because, really, this is beyond nervy and he has a booty call, and… “Oh he is so fucking dead.”
“I assume you mean Chris,” Nick smiles at him over the top of the fridge. “So I take it he didn’t tell you I was coming.” He takes out a couple Amstels and offers one to Lance, who takes it grudgingly.
“No, he damn well didn’t, and I was promised sex,” Lance grumbles, and really it’s not that he’s usually this slutty or rude. It’s just that nothing seems to be working out like he wants it to lately. And he can’t even say that to anyone because they would, rightly so, look at him like he was certifiable and he’d end up feeling even shittier than he does already.
Nick spits out his beer, choking. “He did what?”
For what feels like the first time all day, Lance smiles genuinely. “So I take it that wasn’t part of what you were coming up here for.”
“He said you were lonely and needed a buddy and I know how much that can suck. Room full of people-“
“And no one around. JC wrote a song about that.”
Nick rolls his eyes. “Not the same thing, Bass, and you know it.”
“So you’re familiar with that song, huh?” Lance smirks.
Nick sighs and rolls the beer bottle between his fingers. “Are you always this hard to get to know?”
“Only to people I’ll be seeing again the next morning,” Lance says and there’s no hiding the bitterness there. He hates being this emotionally raw and trust Chris to send him someone who’s been in the business long enough, been in the same kinds of situations and known the same kind of fraternal love, to see right through his bullshit.
“Well, you know. You want to party or whatever, I’m happy to be your wingman. Or you want to hang out here and plot ways to get back at Kirkpatrick for setting us both up for that, I’m game there, as well.”
Lance peels at the label of his bottle and wonders idly why Nick Carter has to be so damned nice. Childhood like his, mother like that, he has every right to be an obnoxious asshole. Then Lance thinks about the other four guys who were sort of fundamental during his growing years and sighs, because it’s kind of hard to be a total dick when you’ve got a built-in family system comprised of guys with no qualms about smacking your ass down. “You want to just hang, maybe?”
Nick nods and takes Lance’s empty out of his hand, sets it on the counter and grabs them two fresh ones. He settles in next to Lance, head back against the mattress and Lance can’t help but look at him. His eyes are closed, so Lance figures it’s safe, and Nick’s really grown into himself. In all the best kinds of ways.
Nick’s lips turn up into a smile. “You checking me out, Bass?”
Lance blushes even though Nick can’t see it, but then again Nick shouldn’t be able to tell he’s staring. Maybe he’s got ESP or something.
“Nope,” Lance says. “You just. Had lint.” He reaches over and brushes his fingers over Nick’s shoulder, and he has to admit that was pretty unintentionally smooth, because it sounded halfway credible and he gets to cop a feel.
“You are so totally hitting on me,” Nick’s smile spreads into a grin and it makes Lance feel warm it’s so real and so the opposite of what he expects. “It’s all good. I know I’m hot.” He stretches and his shirt rucks up and Lance has to admit he is. Bigger than Lance usually goes for, but beautiful all the same as much because he fits his skin as anything else.
Which brings Lance back to the present.
“How’d you do it?” Lance draws his knees up to his chest and rests his cheek against them.
Nick cracks one eye open and looks a little confused. “Um.”
“I mean, shit, Nick. You were sort of on the fast track to no man’s land for a while there.”
Nick nods, seems to consider that for a bit, then shrugs. “Life’s too short, man. I wised up and got a clue. I did my solo gig, which was awesome in pretty much every way. Figured out who I was apart from the fellas.” He takes a pull off his bottle, then arches an eyebrow at Lance. “Which was, I thought, what you did off in cosmonaut training. I mean, earth to Bass, this is mission control, you’re not doing so badly yourself.”
Which is all completely and totally true, and Lance knows it, and usually, he feels it. He did a whole lot of soul-searching and a whole lot of changing when he was in Russia. He’s been doing it ever since he got back but he still isn’t sure he’s found the right rhythm yet. He has vague ideas of what he wants to do, and he’s made some good headway, but. But. Hocking Jean Jewels isn’t part of his big life plans, and as much as he adores Wendy, he wishes she was doing more to help his career than vice versa.
Nick’s waiting him out and he hates that he can’t just blow him off. Because it doesn’t matter that they aren’t tight, that they’ve never actually spent much time around each other. He can’t offer Nick a fake smile and a drink and get him out the door, because Nick would see through all that crap. Nick’s a product of an environment not that dramatically different from his own. When you grow up in the industry and have four other guys living on top of you your bullshit detector becomes pretty finely tuned and Lance has the sense he can’t hide from Nick the way he can with most of the people that drop in and out of his life.
He sighs and picks at the label of his bottle, sets the empty aside and it barely registers that Nick replaces it with a fresh one. “It’s so stupid, you know? I mean, Christ. I annoy myself with this shit. Because I lead a charmed life and I go to all these fabulous parties and meet all these famous faces and -”
“Everyone has their moods,” Nick interjects, and when Lance looks over at him there’s no pity in there, nor annoyance, just some sort of understanding and Lance is grateful for that, at least. “I mean, I don’t think you ever figure it out, really. At least not until this whole thing is over. And by ‘thing’ I mean the life gig.”
“You’ve been hanging out with JC too much,” Lance says. Nick laughs, and the sound warms the room. Lance finds himself smiling, too, and it’s not just the alcohol easing tension. “Seriously, though, I guess I kind of figured things would just sort of fall into place. I mean, I fell on my face with the space stuff. I got certified, but it’s not like it was some sort of victory. I was a laughingstock for a long time.”
Nick’s quiet for a minute, contemplating the ceiling, which must be all kinds of fascinating because he can’t seem to look anywhere but. “I think if you fall on your face doing what makes you happy, that’s not really a failure at all.” It sounds like he knows what he’s talking about.
Lance rests his head back against the mattress and sighs. Because, duh, of course Nick does. “It took a lot of balls to do the solo thing,” he says quietly.
Nick shrugs. “I needed to do it, and I was happier doing it than I’ve been in a long time. It put everything else into perspective. Which doesn’t mean I wasn’t disappointed as hell when it didn’t do as well as I wanted, but ultimately that record wasn’t about anyone else. It was about me. I own it. All of it, the good and the bad, and that means something.”
Lance thinks maybe this conversation is a bit too deep for his comfort, wonders further why it surprises him that the two of them are even having it. “It sucks to be underestimated,” he says finally, and Nick nods.
“Tell me about it.”
Lance thinks about it, all the assumptions made about him, all the assumptions he makes about the people around him, and feels like a chump. He’s never really taken the time to get to know Nick, but it’s readily apparent that Nick’s given him more credit than is due. He feels like sort of an ass, because he likes him a lot more than he’s ever thought he would, when they’ve brushed elbows at parties or awards show.
He likes him more than he did back in Germany, when he watched Nick latch onto Justin, and make quick friends with Chris. He remembers how jealous he was then, and it’s strange how those feelings last even when the reasons for them have long since disappeared.
“You got quiet,” Nick says. Lance looks over with a start, blushing softly.
“Sorry, just thinking.”
“Something gnawing at your brain?” It sounds like something Chris would say, and it strikes Lance that the two of them are a lot of like, except Nick doesn’t have Chris’s biting humor, just an easy sort of simplicity. He lets things roll off him. Lance envies that because he can never seem to back down, even if the fight’s not worth it.
“I’m just thinking we should probably hang out more often. I think you’d be good for me,” Lance says and doesn’t realize how sort of ridiculous and needy it sounds until after the words have already left his mouth. He’s blushing again. What a moron.
Nick slides a little closer, his leg brushing against Lance’s. It’s a strange kind of thrill, maybe because it’s been a long time since he’s been in contact with someone he feels something more than just basic attraction towards. He thinks of Jesse for a minute and pushes him out of his mind. Lance doesn’t do friends with benefits well, although apparently he’s the only one surprised by that.
“I think I wouldn’t mind that in the least,” Nick says, slow, sweet smile. Lance’s eyes drift to Nick’s lips, which smile even wider and then there’s tongue and Lance has to look away. He wipes his hands on his pants and nods.
“Right. Well, good then. We’ll go shoot pool or something.”
Nick’s hand folds over his, surprisingly smooth and Lance’s breath catches in his throat. “It’s a plan.”
They sit there for what feels like forever, slouched together on the floor, hands intertwined. Lance blinks once and the next minute he’s waking up, head on Nick’s shoulder and Christ this is not at all embarrassing. He coughs and pulls away a little. Nick’s watching him with sparkling eyes.
“Sorry,” Lance mumbles. Nick shakes his head and gets to his feet, pulling Lance with him.
“No worries, man. Although it’s the first time I’ve shown up for a booty call and had someone fall asleep on me before sex.”
“You said…” Lance trails off.
Nick shrugs. “You looked like you need to talk more than get off. But there’s no reason we can’t do both.”
Lance thinks it’s the best offer he’s heard in a long time. Of course, he yawns as he thinks it. Nick’s eyes crinkle into a smile. He’s one of those people with ridiculously expressive faces. It’s a refreshing change.
“I think maybe tonight’s out,” Lance says. Nick nods and starts to clean up. Lance watches him for a moment before crossing to him, hand on his back and wow, those are some broad shoulders. “I didn’t mean you had to go. You could, I don’t know. You could spend the night, maybe. We could see what the morning brings.”
Nick’s more than amenable. Lance watches, fascinated, as Nick sheds his clothes, strips down to his boxers and he’s completely unselfconscious. Lance has worked his ass off for his body and he shows it off at pretty much every opportunity, but that’s as much because he’s still insecure about it as anything else. He enjoys the attention. This is something completely different and again he’s struck by how at home Nick is with himself.
He thinks maybe he could learn a thing or two from Carter.
He strips himself, gets the light, and slides in under the covers, unable to contain the small noise of surprise when Nick tugs him close and wraps around him. Freddy’s maybe the only other guy he’s been with who’s built like Nick is, and this is still completely different. Freddy rolled away after sex, and this is. Well. This is surprisingly intimate.
Lance only hesitates a moment before he reaches an arm over Nick’s waist, closes his eyes, and just breathes him in. He feels soft lips against his, the briefest of touches, before Nick settles. Anchors, and for once Lance thinks it feels nice to be held to the earth. Tethered.
It’s a strange sort of peace, unexpected and easy. Kind of like Nick. Suddenly there are all sorts of possibilities, the thoughts of which entertain Lance as he feels himself start to drift. Chris is still a dead man, for sure.
But Lance suddenly feels like boredom is the least of his concerns.
-fin-