JC leaned against the doorframe and watched Lance as he worked. He did this in every hotel room, almost from the moment they moved in. First thing he would do was set up his laptop in the corner of the desk--plugging into the ethernet port if they had one--and a pile of papers went on the other. A large pile.
JC'd looked through them once when Lance was showering; there were contracts upon contracts, performance notes, bios and pics, legal papers...the calculator he lugged around to do percentages and commissions and residuals was almost more useful as a paperweight than anything. He'd tried to convince Lance time and again that those were things best left to his lawyer and accountant, but he was stubborn about it.
It was his business, and he was going to oversee every part of it if it killed him. JC knew that resolve would waver as they got more heavily into touring, as they exhaustion began to catch up with him and he began to realize that that was what support staff was for, but JC wanted his lover back now. Not three weeks from now. Especially not when he was already starting to burn out.
"Time for a break," he said aloud, walking into the room. Lance looked up from his computer and frowned a little.
"I'm kinda in the middle of something, Jace," he said, gesturing at the desk. "Can it wait a bit?"
"No," he said, crossing his arms over his chest firmly. "I miss you, Lance. Sometimes I think they only way I'm going to get any of your time is to slip you into a straightjacket and tie you to the damn bed. I don't want things to be like that between us, do you?"
"Just another hour or so," he persisted. "Then I'll be done. Then we can spend some time together. Okay?"
JC shook his head. "I know you, remember? One hour will become two...or three...and then you'll be too damn tired to do anything but roll over and go to sleep. I'm not asking you to stop...I just want a break. I just want a little time for me."
"Jace..." he began, sighing.
"Don't make me pout. You know I will."
"All right...fifteen minutes," he said, closing the laptop and turning his body towards where JC stood. "Then I really need to get back to what I'm doing here. You know I don't get much time to work on things these days."
"Lance," said JC, laying his hands on his lover's shoulders and looking into his eyes. "Don't you miss us, too? Don't you ever want to spend your free time with me?"
"Of course I do, baby," he said, softening a bit. "But there's just so much to do. And we do see each other all the time, Jace...it's not like I go anywhere."
"But you do. You go off into your little Lance-world and I don't see you again for hours, even though we're in the same room we may as well be in different hotels." JC broke away and sat down on the edge of your bed.
"Jace, that's not fair," protested Lance. "I don't ignore you. And what about when we're not on tour and you go into the studio and I don't see you all day?"
"That's not every day," said JC, shaking his head sadly. "I don't want to spend our time fighting, Lance, I just want to hold you and touch you and...just be with you again."
They'd been together almost three years now, long enough for that first blush of young lust to wear off. It want nice to be comfortable enough with one another that they didn't have to be all over one another--not like Joey and his new girlfriend who spent their evenings in liplock, even when the rest of the guys were around--but he missed sneaking off into the dressing room, or the shower, or that one time in the handicapped stall of a public washroom. He missed that time when they couldn't keep their hands off one another, when they spent every moment they could in each other's arms, before the real world intruded on their romance. He wanted that again, even if only once in a while.
"I love you," he added, when Lance was silent for a long while. "Very much."
Lance nodded. "Me too, Jace." He sat down on the edge of the bed, taking JC's hand into his own and stroking the back of it with his thumb. "I'm sorry if I take us for granted sometimes."
JC shook his head. "Let's just...let's not talk about that right now. I just want fifteen minutes of your time, and then you can do your stuff, okay?"
Lance glanced back at the desk. "I can quit for the night, if you want," he said, but it was a bit reluctantly. "I can get up early and finish...maybe..."
JC shook his head again. "I don't want you to do that," he said. "Listen, we have a day off coming up, in Minneapolis. Why don't we plan to spend that together, just us, okay? I think I can wait that long..."
Lance kissed him softly. "It's a date," he said.
JC wrapped his arms around his lover and lowered him onto the bed. "Now I'm going to get my fifteen minutes worth," he said, grinning.
Lance laughed and kissed him again.