by Zoicite

Chris is asleep when Justin calls, burrowed beneath pillows and tangled in blankets and sheets. He thinks maybe he can ignore it, the shrill ringing of the telephone, but he screens his phone calls, and Justin knows, so he doesn’t give up. Justin is persistent, but Chris is just as stubborn, if not more so, and he lasts until Justin begins chanting, “Pickuppickuppickuppickup,” before he sighs and curses a little and kicks his legs to untangle himself, reaching for the phone. “Finally, god Chris, this so isn’t funny. What the hell did you do to me?” Justin sounds panicked and Chris is a little worried. Justin shouldn’t be panicked, Chris thinks, Justin should be fucking passed out, or at least hung over or something. Chris was passed out, and he’s certainly hung over, so there’s no excuse for Justin sounding so human. “You did something else. It’s a joke, right. It’s just glitter or something? Tell me, Chris.” Justin’s breath catches and Chris thinks he might be about to cry. He starts making a real effort to extract himself from his bed. “Hey, hey. Justin. I’ll be right over.” When Justin opens the door and Chris goes to hug him, Justin yelps and jumps out of reach. That’s not at all normal, so Chris takes the necessary precautions, eyeing Justin warily and edging through the front door and into the hall. “So what’s going on?” “Stop. You know what’s going on.” This could continue for a while, Chris thinks with a sigh, but then notices the hand prints. They are shiny and gold and on the mirror, and when Chris moves forward for a closer look he sees that they are on the phone too. Chris reaches out to touch and the gold crumbles away, platy and glittery in the sunlight from the large windows. “What the hell have you been doing in here?” He asks, turning, and Justin has the gold platy substance in his hair, on his clothes, even on his upper arms. Chris goes to pluck it off Justin’s skin but Justin flinches and pulls back. “Chris,“ and Chris can tell that Justin is about to tell him that he knows what Justin’s been doing, but Chris really has no idea and he doesn’t feel like hearing Justin say it again so he holds up his hand and Justin’s mouth snaps shut. Chris follows a foily gold hand print into the kitchen where there’s dust and flakes of gold on the fridge, on the counter, and on a couple of discarded slices of bread near the toaster. “Watch,” Justin says and Chris does. He watches as Justin’s fingers touch the wood and he watches as the gold foil seems to crystallize around Justin’s fingertips, coating the table top in a gold film. It’s like watching ice crystallize on time lapse film only it’s not ice, it’s gold foily stuff and it’s on the counter. Chris’s mouth drops open and without thinking he grabs Justin’s hand. Justin protests but it’s too late and Chris is gripping Justin and he feels a pulling, tightening sensation on his palm and the gold foil is on his hand now, thin and tight and it vaguely reminds Chris of drying glue. He let glue dry on his hand all the time when he was younger. It felt just like this. And when he pulled it off in front of his sisters and told them that he was pulling off his skin, they ran away screaming. Chris opens and closes his own hand and the gold is malleable, he can still move and when he opens his palm again it has cracked a little along the creases and he can chip it off with a fingernail. “You, um. This isn’t some kind of joke is it?” Justin asks and his voice is small and frightened. It’s the voice Justin used when he was homesick in Europe, when he did something wrong, and when he was just scared. Chris thought Justin had grown out of it, this childlike whisper. Justin is an adult now. He is mature, and his head is shaved and he has tattoos, and a famous girlfriend - sort of - and he isn’t afraid of anything. “I think we should call the guys,” Chris says finally and Justin nods. Justin sits patiently on the couch until the guys arrive. He thinks it probably wasn’t the best idea to call Chris, they’ve been weird lately, but he was panicked and it was mostly reflex that made him dial those numbers. And Chris came, so that’s good, right? It’s nuts, he thinks. It’s not happening, it can’t be happening. There must be some sort of explanation. Shit like this just doesn’t happen. He has himself mostly convinced that it’s a dream when JC, Joey, and Lance finally arrive. “You look good. What is this? Glitter?” JC asks as he steps behind Justin and fingers the gold in his hair. Justin just shrugs, unwilling to commit to anything right away. “Our golden boy has something to tell us,” Chris states and Justin rolls his eyes. It’s just great that Chris can keep his fucking sense of humor during all of this. Just great. JC sits on the arm of the couch beside Justin and continues to finger his hair. Justin opens his mouth to speak but Chris cuts him off saying, “Justin’s got the golden touch,” and when Justin elbows him again Chris ignores it. Justin pouts a little until he realizes he’s doing it. “I could have told them myself,” he says and JC picks a flake of gold off his lip. This isn’t fair, he thinks, it’s on the tip of his tongue. Something’s fucked up and it’s just not fair. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Joey asks, craning his neck to look at Justin. “Looks to me like he’s just been playing in some glitter.” “Everything I touch turns gold,” Justin mumbles, looking at his hands. Lance rolls his eyes. “God, this is all really going to your head, isn’t it Justin. We get it, you’re hot, you’re the big star, you’re golden.” He waves his hands in the air for emphasis, “Whatever.” Lance can be a bastard when he’s hung over, Justin knows, so he pretends the comment doesn’t hurt as much as it does. They all think that sometimes. It’s like a reflex. It’s like they watch too much MTV. They know him, Justin knows they do, and they love him, but sometimes even his best friends believe the image just a little, just for a second. It hurts. Chris grunts and he looks like he’s tempted to punch Lance. He won’t. Lance is sick, but Justin feels a little better to know that Chris is ready to stand up for him. Instead Chris tells Lance to “shut up and watch” and then motions for Justin to touch something. Justin reaches out and places his hand on the coffee table. It’s pretty fucked up, he thinks again as he watches the gold crystallize. JC is arguing with Justin about the benefits of these new developments, something about shiny pants, when Lance returns from the kitchen, frowning at his cell phone. “What did Johnny say?” Chris asks. “What’s the word from PR?” Lance clears his throat, “They say that we should just deal with it.” “Just deal with it?” Justin exclaims and his mouth continues to open and close, but nothing else comes out. “Yeah.” “What’s that supposed to mean?” Joey asks. “Well,” Lance collapses onto the couch, still clutching his cell phone as though if he holds it tightly enough, if he hugs it, he can squeeze something more useful out of it. “Basically they just sounded annoyed. I don’t know if they thought I was kidding or what. Johnny said that we’re on break for awhile, so there’s nothing to worry about,” Lance shrugs. “What about PR?” “First they thought I was calling to tell them that Justin had gotten arrested or something. They don’t want an episode like ‘that Carter kid’ got himself into. I assured them that nothing of the sort had happened and they sounded relieved. After that it sort of seemed like they stopped listening to me. I was told that ‘it’s not a big deal. Tell him to lay low until it’s over and not worry about it.’” “Lay low? Don’t worry about it? Do they not understand that I. Can’t. Touch. Anything?” JC reaches out and touches Justin’s shoulder. He’s trying to be soothing, but Justin’s worked up and he shrugs JC off. “It really could be worse,” Joey says, shrugging. “We are on break. So we don’t have to worry about that. And even if we weren’t, it’s not like it wouldn’t be easy to hide. It’s not like you turned into a girl or something, J.” Justin sniffs and shrugs. Joey isn’t helping him. “These things are never permanent,” JC says matter of fact, as though he knows all kinds of incidents where people have started turning things platinum and copper just by touching them. “We’ll just stick around and help you.” “We’re going to spend our break baby-sitting Justin?” Chris asks. “I don’t need you guys to stay here,” Justin says indignantly. “Too bad,” Chris says, brushing gold glitter off of his pants as he stands up. “You’re stuck with us.” At first JC stays, catering to Justin, feeding him, picking gold flakes off of Justin’s skin. It’s really fucking annoying. “C,” Justin says, following JC around his house. “C, come on, don’t. You don’t need to clean up after me.” JC shrugs and says, “I want to.” And Justin throws up his hands in defeat, stomping out of the room. “Jayce is driving me mad!” Justin whispers loudly into the phone later. “Mmph,” Chris agrees. “He spends all morning following me around and cleaning things off after I touch them and all afternoon begging me to touch his hair or his clothes to make him ‘sparkly’. I can’t take it, Chris, and I know things are - We’ve been weird. I know that, but you have to get him out of here.” Chris says something that doesn’t sound like English, but Justin figures it probably is, and even if it isn’t it sounds a lot like agreement. Justin thanks him profusely and hangs up the phone. JC’s picking gold flakes off the telephone when Chris arrives, carefully dropping them into a zip-lock bag. “Hey,” he mumbles, looking up at Chris briefly before going back to the task at hand. Chris thinks JC looks like one of those live-in maids. He briefly wonders if Justin has a ruffly apron, or a feather duster lying around, but then figures he must not because if he did, surely JC would be using them. “What’s up, C?” Chris asks, patting him on the back and looking over his shoulder at the phone. “Justin keeps touching things. Every time I turn around he’s touched something else.” “Well, yeah,” Chris says. It has been awhile since Chris shared a room with JC. He’d forgotten how picky JC is about the cleanliness of his living quarters. Chris used to deliberately leave things around the hotel room just so that he could laugh as JC followed him around picking up after him. The amusement is always temporary though. It soon becomes incredibly obnoxious and Chris makes sure not to leave anything lying out so that he doesn’t have to see JC frown disapprovingly and pick it up. He has a feeling that’s exactly what JC had intended in the first place. JC finishes cleaning off the phone and walks into the living room, surveying things to see what other damage Justin has done. “So where is the infant?” Chris asks, following closely behind JC. “Britney,” JC says making a motion by his ear like a telephone. Justin and Britney broke up months ago, but recently they’ve begun seeing each other again, off and on. Chris is pretty sure it won’t work out. “You must be pretty sick of taking care of J.” Chris muses, looking at a picture of the five of them atop the mantelpiece. It’s a recent picture. Taken during the filming of the video for "Girlfriend". They all look happy. “Not really,” JC says. “It’s okay, Jayce. He can be a pain in the ass. We all know it.” JC is looking at Chris now like Chris is the pain in the ass. “Really, it’s no problem, I –“ “You’ve done your share, C. There are four of us. You don’t have to shoulder this burden on your own.” Chris says, pushing JC away from the crusty gold lampshade he was attempting to clean. “I have no life. I can sacrifice my break for a few days. You need time off. Have you been sleeping?” JC lets himself be pushed down to the couch. “I am kind of tired,” he says, fingering the skin beneath his eyes. “Right. So you get your stuff and go home and sleep and I’ll stay here and hand feed Golden Boy.” “Are you sure –“ “Positive.” “But you. What about what you said about not –“ “I’m fucking sure, C. Come on, get up.” Chris pulls JC out of the seat he pushed him into moments before. JC leaves, but not before declaring that he’ll be back the next morning to “check up on things”, and Justin comes downstairs, chewing on his lips and being mostly careful not to touch anything. Chris stares at the gold flecks adorning the crotch of Justin’s jeans. His first thought is that the poor kid can’t even adjust himself without everyone knowing it. His second is that it looks really fucking good, the gold and the, and maybe Chris wasn’t the best applicant for this position. “Brit’s gonna drop by,” Justin says and Chris makes like he isn’t staring at Justin’s dick. “JC gone?” “Yeah.” Justin reaches out to grip Chris’s arm, stopping himself moments before he makes contact. “Thanks, man,” he mumbles, smiling weakly. “You can only take so much, ya know?” Chris does. “Where’s JC?” Lance asks when he drops by, dumping the groceries he’s brought on the counter. He begins pulling bread and cold cuts and potato chips out of the bags. “JC’s been replaced,” Justin says, grinning at Chris. He sits on a stool at the counter and watches Lance and Chris make sandwiches, careful not to touch anything. Britney arrives during the sandwich making process and Justin rushes out of the kitchen to show her his new talent. “So you kicked Jayce out?” Lance asks, spreading mayonnaise on a slice of bread. “Yeah, he was driving Justin nuts,” Chris replies, shoving some potato chips into his mouth. A small shriek is heard from the living room. “You’re going to stay here instead?” “Yeah, I guess.” “Right. Good idea. You never drive anyone nuts.” Lance cuts the first sandwich in half, picking up the chips that Chris throws at him in retaliation and popping them into his mouth. “Seriously, do you think this is a good idea?” “Fuck you, Lance.” “It’s just, you’ve sort of been freaking about the whole Justin thing for awhile and –“ “Jesus,” Chris hisses, “his fucking girlfriend is out there. Just, fuck. Shut up. It’ll be fine.” Lance looks less than convinced. “Maybe it’s an electrolyte imbalance,” Britney suggests as she walks back into the kitchen, her shoes clicking on the tile. Justin follows her, shaking his head and rolling his eyes. “You should eat more bananas,” she says, grabbing a stool beside Lance. Chris and Lance exchange a look over the food on the counter. Britney always thinks that every problem is caused by an electrolyte imbalance. A pain in her calf? Electrolyte imbalance. Oh, Britney’s finger hurts? She must have an electrolyte imbalance. Chris thinks she just has a banana fetish. “Hey, Brit, since you’re here, you get to feed Justin!” Chris tries to say it with as much enthusiasm as he can muster because that way it’s a reward and everyone wants a reward, so of course Britney would love to feed Justin. Britney’s laugh sounds thin and metallic but she scrunches up her face prettily and somehow that makes it more sincere. “I would, but I have to go. I have a photo shoot that I’m already late for.” Justin jumps up to escort her to the door. “Just look at him!” she coos, “Such a gentleman. I can see myself out.” She kisses Justin chastely on the lips, then on the cheek, smudging off the lipstick with her thumb. It reminds Chris of his mother, which is sort of gross when he thinks about it. “You sit here and let them feed you. And don’t forget what I said about the bananas.” “I’ll call you tonight,” Justin says sitting back down. She nods, waves to Lance and Chris and then she’s heading out, her heels clicking across the front hall, echoing just a little. They listen quietly as the front door shuts behind her. “She took that well,” Lance observes, setting the finished sandwiches in front of Chris and Justin. “Yeah,” Justin answers. “She’s really freaked out.” Chris starts eating, savoring the Bass Classic before him. No one makes a sandwich like Lance. Not even Joey, who makes a darn good sandwich. Chris doesn’t understand it. He’s watched Lance make sandwiches dozens of times and he knows that Lance doesn’t have any special ingredients. Just normal sandwich stuff. Yet, a sandwich made by Lance tastes ten times better than a sandwich made by anyone else. Justin clears his throat and Lance and Chris look up from their food to see Justin staring pointedly at his lunch and raising his hands with a shrug. Chris groans and puts aside his sandwich, scooting over a couple stools to sit beside Justin, who flashes him a winning smile. “Thanks, man,” he says, laughing as Chris transforms half of his sandwich into an airplane and sends it zooming toward Justin’s obediently open mouth. Justin’s lips brush his fingers, soft and wet, and Chris flinches a little before he can stop himself. Lance raises his eyebrow and smirks. “Mmm, Nance, dis is gweat,” Justin attempts to say, and Lance turns from Chris and frowns at him. It’s against Lance’s Laws of Table Etiquette to speak with a full mouth. Lance must realize that it is also not in his coffee table book on proper dining to be fed flying sandwiches by men with ugly beard horns. Instead of reprimanding Justin as is expected, he simply says, “You’re welcome, J.” Sometimes certain circumstances, such as touching diseases, call for special allowances to the afflicted. There is room for amendments. After all, the book is unreleased. Britney calls, hysterical and in tears and clearly not taking any of this well at all. By the time Justin gets off the phone he’s sullen and is basically throwing himself his own little pity party. Chris is weak, he feels helpless when people aren’t happy, and so when Justin mentions something about a bath, Chris doesn’t think anything of it. In retrospect, he figures that he should have known that a sentence beginning with “Right, so I was wondering if, I want to take a bath, and JC…” would never lead to something Chris would normally agree to. But Justin is sad, and pathetic, and pleading with his eyes, big and blue – perfect – and as far as Chris knows, no one has ever been able to resist that look. Chris plans to start trying. Tomorrow. “Fine,” Chris mumbles, following as Justin leads him to the bathroom. Chris turns on the shower and slaps Justin’s hand away when he reaches for the curtain saying, “I want a bath.” There’s no way Chris is sitting there sponging Justin as he lounges about in a bathtub. Next he’ll be feeding him grapes while fanning him with giant leaves on a gold encrusted divan. As appealing as the image may be, not gonna happen. He thinks he should probably talk to JC about this. They leave their boxers on, though Justin protests, because really, what’s the point of showering with your clothes on. But Chris threatens to leave, threatens to reinstate the reign of JC, and Justin’s pretty quiet after that. The shower is clinical, easy, because Chris can separate circumstances. He can. This is a clinical shower and he is clinically helping his best friend. “So JC’s been bathing you?” Justin’s skin is a pale bronze. Not golden, not perfect. Pale bronze. “Yeah, bubble baths,” Justin says and Chris really can’t believe he just said that with a straight face. Justin’s back is dotted with the faintest splattering of freckles. His hand slips, and all of his attempts not to come in physical contact with Justin are futile as his fingertips slide over the smooth expanse of Justin’s back. And there it is. Because Justin fucking is perfect and Chris is aroused. He stops scrubbing for a minute, because really it’s just wrong. Justin has no fucking clue and there is clinical bathing taking place. No thoughts of freckles or tasting are allowed. At all. Next is arms. And arm pits. Chris is in a zone now. He’s in a non-thinking zone. In fact, he’s thinking about Lance. Lance’s mother even. It doesn’t get much less sexy than that. He’s still a little hard. Fuck. “Done.” Chris announces, standing up in the shower and Justin raises an eyebrow. Chris quirks a brow back. “you, um, missed a spot,” Justin points out and Chris notes that at least he has the decency to blush. “No way, J,” Chris says. “Not doing it.” He throws the poof at Justin for emphasis. “Come on!” Justin whines. “What was the point of even taking a shower?” “No. Just, squirt some soap in your boxers and shake around or something. Put those hips to good use.” Even as Chris is saying it, he knows what he has to do and he reaches down to pick up the shower poof. He squints at Justin a little, but Justin just looks back, wide eyes innocent, and Chris shoves his hand down the back of Justin’s wet boxers. He blinks, because really it’s not sexy at all, and then he moves around to the front and still, not so bad. Clinical showering. He’s not touching his best friend there. Chris is okay with denial. “There,” he says, jumping out of the shower, “You’re on your own.” He wraps a towel around himself and dashes out of the bathroom, ignoring Justin’s grumbling about the fact that his ass is soapy and he’s pretty sure his feet haven’t been washed. Chris is almost to the safety of the guest room, his hand already moving toward the front of his shorts, when he hears the front door slam. He thinks that maybe getting dressed would be a good idea, but figures it’s either one of the guys or Britney, and none of them would be particularly affected by seeing him in wet boxers and a towel so he peaks his head around the stairs. “Chris!” Joey calls when he sees him, and he tries to wave Chris down while holding a rather large box in his arms. Chris is about to go down when he hears a noise behind him and sees Justin’s head popping out of the bathroom, wearing an evil grin. shit. Chris knows that look, knows that he has to act fast, and he races down the stairs, seconds before a damp Justin, in new dry boxers, comes racing after him. Chris hits the bottom of the stairs and skids across the front hall, barely missing Joey His towel slips off his shoulders and he jumps into the living room, tripping over a coffee table. “Hey,” Joey yells, and Chris hears things falling and muffled shouts and scrambling, and he’s surprised that Justin wasn’t able to maneuver around Joey, being lithe and nimble and Justin. He picks himself up from the floor and struts back into the hall, clearly triumphant in his victorious evasion. Joey and Justin are both on the ground along with the box Joey had been carrying. Chris picks up the box as Justin and Joey climb to their feet. Joey has gold handprints all over his T-shirt and he looks down and grins. “Justin Timberlake felt me up. I have proof. Too bad we have to keep this on the d-l. I could sell this puppy on e-bay.” Chris decides it’s not the time to mention that he’s done way more touching of the Timberlake in the last ten minutes than Joey has in his entire life. “You could always sell it to JC,” Justin suggests. “So, what’s up Joe?” Chris asks, weighing the box in his hands. “What do you have in here?” “Gloves,” Joey says, grinning. “Gloves,” Chris repeats, ignoring the strange looks that Joey is giving them both now. “Yep,” Joey says, smacking his lips together and nodding. “So. Why are you all wet? And in your underwear.” Chris isn’t quite sure why Joey is looking so pointedly at him, and fuck, none of his friends have any fucking faith. Justin eyes the box curiously. They both ignore Joey’s questions. “So, why gloves?” he asks, skeptical. “I don’t know why we didn’t think of it before,” Joey says. “I was changing Brianna’s diaper and I thought ‘Shit, I wish I had some gloves right about now’ and then it was like a light bulb went off in my head.” Justin and Chris look at one another. It is always wise to proceed with caution in matters concerning light bulbs and Joey’s head. “Justin has a touching disease,” Joey says and Justin snorts. Joey continues, “He can’t touch anything without making a mess. But. If he wears gloves, the gold is contained on the inside of the glove and Justin can touch whatever he wants. He can go out in public even.” Justin’s face lights up and he wraps his arms around Joey, “You’re a genius, Joe!” Chris begins ripping open the box and Joey releases himself from Justin’s grip and goes over to help. Inside are numerous pairs of soft black leather gloves. They are really very nice, expensive looking. Chris wonders where Joey got them. He opens a pair, fingering them, and the leather is soft and supple. Justin holds out his hands and Chris slips the gloves on carefully. “Hey,” Justin says, opening and closing his hand. “These are nice.” “Only the best for our golden boy,” Joey says, scrubbing Justin’s short curls with his knuckles. “You couldn’t have thought of this an hour ago?” Chris asks bitterly and Justin takes the renewed use of his hands as the perfect opportunity to tackle Chris. It was weird for a few months before Justin sucked it up and called Lance. Justin noticed that Chris was avoiding him a few weeks before the end of the tour, and figured it was just because they’d been spending so much time together or something. But then they were on break, and Chris was still avoiding him. He didn’t drop by unannounced, he didn’t ask Justin to go riding with him, he rarely even called. Justin missed his best friend, so he called Lance. “What the fuck is Chris’s problem?” he’d said into the phone, skipping the hello’s. “Justin,” Lance had said, and Justin could tell that he was wiping a hand over his face and frowning. Fucking typical Lance. He and Joey came over, sat Justin down in the living room like they were his fucking parents or something. They sat in awkward silence before Joey finally said, “Chris wants you, J.” “Joe,” Lance said, looking at Justin. “We aren’t supposed to tell you. He doesn’t want to ruin your friendship or something, but that’s, you know, that’s why he’s acting like a freak.” Justin’s had a lot of time to process. It was a little weird to think about at first, Chris wanting him, but Lance said he wasn’t going to do anything about it and Justin thought it was pretty clear that Lance was telling the truth. He thinks he sort of wants Chris to do something about it sometimes. He thinks it when he sees Chris’s eyes on him. Justin is used to having eyes on him, but he’s not used to Chris’s. It feels different when Chris looks at him. Justin’s with Britney, sort of, but it’s not real. They are friends, Justin wants them to stay friends, but Britney is all sorts of torn up about their break up. Too sad to lip sync, Justin thinks. They both know that they are better as friends. It’s just that Justin did the dumping, Britney was the dumped. That’s all, Britney knows they shouldn’t be together, Justin knows she does. So they’re dating a little again. Justin’s mostly just waiting for Britney to dump him. He smooths the gloves over the backs of his hands and then looks at them, spreading his fingers out and then curling them in toward himself. Justin does a lot of waiting. He thinks maybe it’s time he moves things along. Chris read a book once. Or he started it, and it wasn’t the only book he ever read, but it was certainly the longest. He bought it at an airport, and he doesn’t even remember the title, but it was about witches and New Orleans and supernatural shit. It was pretty cool at first, and he was all gung-ho about reading a book that was over a thousand pages long. He gave up a few hundred pages in and left the stupid thing on a seat in a different airport somewhere, but not before scribbling a message on the inside to the poor hapless soul that should be fool enough to pick it up after him. Before it started sucking, there was a guy who had some strange paranormal thing. He saw stuff when he touched things, and it was annoying so he started wearing black leather gloves to stop the visions. Then he met some chick on a boat and they had really fucking hot sex with the gloves on. It’s really mostly the only thing that Chris remembers from the book, the scrape of leather against naked skin. He's really trying hard not to think about it now. Things mostly go back to normal. Justin can do things for himself again, though Chris suspects that he could probably have done them without the gloves and just liked having his friends wait on him. And the gloves don’t even seem to slow Justin down. He instantly seems back to normal. He isn’t an invalid any longer and they start going out. Chris is delighted that the old Justin seems to be back. Wrestling is two-sided again. Video-game marathons can and do resume, once the gold crust is picked out of the cracks in the controllers, and Justin can feed himself and they all agree that Joey is a genius. Lance is bitter and disgusted that none of them thought of it before. “Gloves should not have taken a week,” Lance says despairingly. Chris could probably go home. He isn’t really needed anymore, but he has nothing to do at home really. Dani has his dog so he doesn’t even have that to rush home to. Besides, Justin wants him there. When Justin wakes up to find Chris lounging on his couch eating potato chips at 9am and he grips his hair and says “Why are you still here,” it’s because he’s frustrated with the touching disease situation. Not because he wants Chris to leave. “What the hell is this supposed to fucking mean?” Justin moans, fisting his gloved hands and shaking them at the computer screen. It has to mean something, it always means something and all he can find is this fucking King Midas legend. Justin refuses to believe that’s it. That is not it. “J?” Chris walks into the room then, carrying a stack of clean clothes. Justin looks at him and blinks a little. Chris is doing his fucking laundry. “You don’t need to stay here anymore, Chris. Seriously, I’m fine,” Justin wants Chris there, but not doing his laundry. That’s fucking messed up. “Do you think I’m like this greedy King Midas bastard?” “No,” Chris says, “of course not.” Justin thinks that he really wants Chris to stay. They go out most nights, and Chris usually gets pretty drunk. “Maybe you shouldn’t get so wasted if you don’t want anything to happen,” JC suggests at some bar in downtown Orlando, and Chris flips him off. Sometimes it’s just Chris and Justin at the clubs, and sometimes they all go, and it’s fun, and it keeps Chris’s mind off the things that he is not at all thinking about. Things like people. And gloves. Perfect people wearing leather gloves. This time it’s all of them, and several rum and cokes into the night Chris is at the bar watching Justin pulse with the music. His nonexistent hips swivel and his bare arms are flung over his head, gloved fingers curling slightly. Justin purses his lips and appears to be in deep concentration, although Chris knows that Justin can move like that in his sleep. He isn’t fooled. No one is. When Lance sits beside Chris at the bar and yells something over the crowd, Chris waves his hand in front of Lance’s face in dismissal. Lance glares for a few moments before stalking off but Chris hardly notices. Justin comes over then. He watches Lance walk off before turning to Chris, taking his drink, and Chris almost shudders at the light scrape of cloth on his skin. He’s drunk, more so than he has been in a long time, and he’s going fucking nuts with this leather thing. He knows, and as soon as Justin leaves, Chris downs his drink and heads off to apologize to Lance. “Hey,” he says, when he finally finds Lance ensconced in a corner booth with JC. Lance nods. “Sorry about, you know,” Chris repeats the hand gesture he had made at Lance earlier as he pushes onto the bench beside JC. “I’m pretty far gone.” It doesn’t sound like much of an apology to him. But then, his ears are ringing and he can hardly hear himself think. It doesn’t really sound like English to him either, so the apology was probably fine. Lance looks to Chris like he understands and Chris reaches across the table and pats Lance on the shoulder, scrunching up his nose and nodding. He hopes it looks like a positive, friendly gesture, but he suspects it might just look funny, because JC is laughing at him. Lance says something inaudible. It’s always a problem hearing Lance in a club. Chris has become somewhat skilled, though not nearly as much so as Joey, at reading Lance’s lips, and he thinks that Lance says “More problems. Mouseketeers are punks.” Chris is inclined to agree. A waitress is coming over to bring them drinks and Chris slips away, back toward the bar, toward Justin. He’s almost there when he feels a hand on his shoulder and a voice in his ear says “There you are, I’ve been looking all over for you.” It’s Joey, and he’s smiling and leading Chris to another booth. It all seems pretty suspicious really, but Chris follows, slipping clumsily across the dingy red plastic of the bench. “Maybe you should go home,” Joey says, and fuck, he gets right to the point. “I’m not good enough to go clubbing with you now?” Chris asks, sneering a little, and he knows that’s not what Joey meant. “Fuck, Chris, if you’re gonna fucking do something about it, then fine, do it. But you can’t fucking tell us to watch out for you, tell us to stop you when we see it coming and then flip out when we do.” “We’re fine,” Chris says, “everything’s great. Justin’s great. He’s golden. yo.” Chris adds the last part as an afterthought, and then laughs, because it sounds ridiculous coming out of his mouth. “Right,” Joey sighs. “Just don’t come bitching to me when you break down and beg him to fuck you and he freaks.” Chris frowns and Joey adds, “Not that he would freak.” “You’re so supportive,” Chris starts, but that’s where the conversation ends, because Justin has found him and he’s slipping in the booth next to Chris and slipping an arm around Chris’s shoulder, his hand brushing against the back of Chris’s neck. He’s drunk, but he doesn’t look nearly as drunk as Chris feels. “So,” Justin shouts over the din, and he’s sweaty and breathing heavily on Chris’s skin and Joey is laughing, and it sounds mocking and bitter. Chris thinks that mouseketeers really are punks. A wave of nausea rolls through Chris then, and the club is spinning and he’s reeling. That’s about where the night ends. “Mouseketeers are punks,” Chris murmurs the next morning from beneath a pile of blankets. “So you keep saying.” Justin’s voice emerges from somewhere close by. Chris frowns, patting around beneath the heap until he lands on a head of short curls. Fuck, what the fuck did he fucking do? He is going to kill Joey. “What are you doing?” Chris asks. “Trying to sleep,” Justin mumbles. “What are you doing?” “Trying to piece together how I ended up in bed with you,” Chris says, pulling Justin’s hair a little. “Ow,” Justin whines, swatting at Chris. “You threw up,” Justin informs him. “A lot.” “Oh,” Chris says. He doesn’t really want to admit it, but he’d hoped it was a better story. “Yeah,” Justin says. “Sorry.” “Mmph,” Justin mumbles into the sheets. “So we had a sleepover?” Chris asks, throwing an arm over Justin’s waist and shaking a little, and he can feel Justin nodding against the pillow. “I was afraid you’d throw up again and drown in your sleep or something,” Justin says, shifting to face Chris. Chris doesn’t really have anything to say to that, because, well, it’s sort of gross, but really thoughtful of Justin at the same time. Good thing Chris has friends that look out for him. Chris snuggles in then, fully intending to fall back to sleep for maybe the rest of the day. Justin throws an arm around Chris and then grimaces. “What?” Chris asks. “Do I have puke on me or something?” “The gloves. They suck,” Justin explains as he climbs out of bed and heads toward the wastebasket by the door. “Suck! They’ve enabled you to be human! They hide your monstrousness.” Chris sits up in bed to watch Justin, the sheets bunching up around his stomach. “Shut up,” Justin mumbles irritably, pulling off one glove and tossing it into the basket. Gold flakes out of the glove and Justin shakes his hand around, trying to rid himself of the pile of plates and flakes that had accumulated in the glove. “This is the most uncomfortable thing ever. It’s fine for about half an hour and then it just itches and hurts and chafes and my fuckin’ hands, man.” Justin forcefully shoots the second glove into the basket. “There goes your career as a hand model,” Chris retorts, covering his eyes because Justin’s next order of business seems to be to turn on every light and open the shades, “So I guess we’re getting up now?” “I’ve gotta call Brit,” Justin says, placing his hands on his hips. He looks at Chris for a second, and Chris tries to hold his gaze without looking too much like he’s about to hurl or split in two from the headache he’s ignoring. Finally Justin shrugs and leaves. Chris watches the gold handprints on the back of his shorts move as he walks. “Go home!” Justin yells when Chris manages to explode pasta sauce all over Justin’s clean white kitchen. Chris shrieks when it happens and he has sauce in his hair. He’s probably burnt a little, but it’s the third time he’s exploded something in the kitchen in the last two days. Justin doesn’t understand how that’s even possible. He’s about to start laughing, help Chris clean up, when Chris says, “I think I might go home.” “Justin, the gloves freak me out,” Britney says into the phone. It’s the lamest thing Justin’s ever heard. He can’t really believe that they pretended to get back together just so she could come up with this lame ass excuse to break up with him. “Brit,” he says, but he knows he’s not going to argue too much. “I just think…I have needs, Justin,” Britney sighs. “I know.” “I’m glad we tried again, baby, I’m really glad we did. But I’m going to be on tour, and you need to get this thing worked out, and I just maybe think it’s best if –“ “No, Brit,” Justin says, sniffling a little for effect. “I think you’re right.” “The gloves really freak me out,” Britney says. Chris finds a pair of black gloves in the backpack of stuff he brings home with him. He doesn’t remember putting them there, so he calls Joey. “What are you trying to pull, you hypocritical bastard?” he asks, eyeing the gloves from across his bedroom. “What?” Joey asks, big and stupid and confused, and Briahna’s crying in the background. Chris says, “never mind” and hangs up the phone. Chris thinks that if he were perfect, if he was golden, it would work. But then, Chris would be Britney. Chris isn’t Britney. He’s small, dark, and he has beard horns. Perfect isn’t Chris’ life. Also, it turns out that Britney is an ass. Lance is there when Justin drops by, distraught. Chris has been ignoring Justin for two days, because Justin kicked him out, but Lance lets him in anyway. “Britney. She’s freaked out about the touching disease thing. She wants to know what caused it and I don’t know what I can tell her.” Justin shakes his head. “I mean, we had it analyzed and it’s real and all and I told her that, but other than that…. What are we supposed to do? It’s not like I can just go to a doctor and be all “Dude, what’s goin’ on? Ya know?” Lance nods and Chris just waits for Justin to continue. “So then I’m like, ‘hey. Joey got me these gloves.’ so it’s not like I’m totally out of commission anymore, right?” Chris bursts out laughing and Lance shoots him a look. They don’t get to see a horny helpless Justin often and it’s even rarer that he’ll admit that he’s horny. And helpless. And horny. “Well, she’s all upset because she has this leather thing. She’ll wear it. She wears it all the freakin’ time. But she hates it. Says it freaks her out. In fact, she thinks the idea of being ‘intimate’ with me while I’m wearing these fucking gloves is worse than getting gold everywhere.” Justin throws up his hands. Britney clearly has not read the same books as Chris. “Maybe if the gloves were pink.” “Ugh,” Lance says and two heads turn to stare at him. “Lance, you live in a pink house,” Chris says as he rubs his temples. “It’s not pink. It’s salmon,” Lance mumbles. “It doesn’t matter. You should never paint your house any color that could even be accused of being pink.” “Fuck, it’s fucking salmon. That’s practically orange.” “I hear orange is the new pink.” “So anyway, it’s over,” Justin interrupts, grinning at Chris. “Again.” The afternoon turns out to be great fun. Lance is pissed because of his fucking salmon house, Chris is horny and filled with unrequited lust, and Justin is jilted, but really not too upset about the whole thing. Chris always thought Britney was a little flaky. Too perfect. Justin listens to the phone ring and thinks his life has pretty much gone to hell since it all started. He marks the days off on the calendar and he can’t believe it’s only been two weeks since it all began. It’s been the longest two weeks of his life. Longer than the week and half he sat by the phone and waited to hear back from the Mickey Mouse Club. Longer than the years they spent in Europe waiting to be sent home. Justin’s uncomfortable all the fucking time. The gloves chafe his fucking hands, and he can’t go anywhere without them. His album is on hold again. It’s going to be great. It’s going to be a fantastic album, if he just stops hitting so many fucking road blocks. He’s been approached to do ads for Isotoner, their new line of driving gloves, and Johnny tells Justin that he’s already agreed. Justin isn’t sure how that happened, he doesn’t want to do commercials for gloves, but Johnny rats Joey out. Apparently Joey signed Justin away for a box of nice black gloves. Justin sighs and agrees to do the commercial. Things with Chris were getting better. They were. Chris was there, and it was like they were best friends again, and then Justin opened his big mouth, and now Chris is mad and avoiding and Justin isn’t really sure why. “Fuck,” he says and hangs up the phone. “When did you become so fucking delusional?” Lance asks, leaning against Chris’s counter while Chris tosses some popcorn into the microwave. Chris has been hanging out with Lance a lot since he started avoiding Justin. It’s just making him realize why Justin was his best friend in the first place. “When did you become so fucking – you know what, Lance? Just shut the fuck up, okay?” Chris slams the microwave door shut hard and starts stabbing at the numbers. He sets it for too long, just long enough to burn the popcorn a little. Lance hates burnt popcorn, and Chris loves it, so he feels a little better. “Chris “ “No, really, I ask you over here to watch a fucking movie with me and all you can do is bitch. Should have invited JC.” “You should have invited Justin.” “Yeah, well, I don’t know if you noticed, but I’m avoiding him.” “Really? I had no idea. Seriously, Chris, you used to know Justin. Now you only acknowledge this idealized version your fucked up head cooked up sometime last year.” “Maybe I should see someone.” Lance snorts. “So the gold is definitely real,” Lance says, changing the subject because he knows he won’t get anywhere. “Joey and I took it to that place. That appraiser’s place that JC’s friend suggested for a second opinion. JC was supposed to go, but apparently he ‘forgot’, so I took a break from packing and went. And again, pure gold.” “Yeah,” Chris says, staring at the popcorn circling inside the microwave. “It’s really fucking weird. And also, you’d think JC was the one getting ready to leave the country or something. He’s already orbiting. He didn’t even remember that he said he would go for the second opinion” Lance says, moving to stand beside Chris and look in the microwave. “Hey, are you burning that?” Chris doesn’t really leave his house at all for a week. He stays in and watches television and masturbates, mostly. He has to throw the gloves away after the third day. Lance leaves for space training in Russia and Chris is avoiding Justin, so he spends a lot of time talking to Joey and JC on the phone, bitching at them about Days of Our Lives and the stupid fucking ‘Who’s the Daddy’ crap. Until JC starts bitching right back, swearing like a sailor and cursing Chris for not being there for Justin after the whole Britney thing. Then Chris pretty much just sticks to Joey. Chris used to know that Justin isn’t perfect. He’s pretty sure he did. Justin used to be a big nerd kid until Chris took him under his wing, so Chris was pretty much aware. He still does know. Justin is still just Justin. And it’s not the gold that has Chris fucked up, it’s not even the gloves. It’s what came before. Chris wants Justin, his best friend, his young friend, and it’s not worth taking the risk. He thinks maybe it’s a sign. The touching, the gold. It doesn’t make sense so he goes to church, a Catholic Church, and he thinks long and hard about the whole thing, because shit like that always works in movies. He sits in the pew and waits for a divine answer, but all he hears is the couple with the baby that keeps screeching in the back. Justin crosses out another day on the calendar. Day twenty. Touching Disease? Check. Management said to lay low and wait until it blew over. Twenty days and nothing but a stupid glove promotion. So much for laying low. Justin does a lot of waiting. He thinks that maybe it’s time he moves things along. “So, I’m not going to let you do this,” Justin states when Chris opens his front door. He quickly edges around Chris and into the house. “Hey, I didn’t say you could come in.” Chris stands beside the door and points outside, trying to shoo Justin back out. “You’re acting like a freak,” Justin says, “And I know you’re not fucking mad at me, man, right? So what the hell is your problem? Is this because I told you to go home?” “I can ignore you even though you’re here,” Chris says, stubborn, and looking everywhere but at Justin. “Fine, you ass. I’m just going to sit here until you talk to me.” Chris watches television and pretends that Justin isn’t sitting beside him on the couch. It’s hard, he can even smell Justin, but it lasts for two hours before Chris gets up and heads to the kitchen to get them both drinks. He returns to the living room bearing Cokes and Justin is smirking at him, his gloved hands folded across his chest. His legs are spread and Chris stands between them and hands Justin his soda. The gloves brush Chris’s wrist as Justin reaches up, slowly, the scratch of leather across skin. Justin is still smirking and Chris’s mind starts to race. He thinks, fuck, that’s intentional, and fuck, he knows, and fuck, he’s perfect, and then he says “Just. Let me –“ and he drops his soda on the ground, unopened, and he’s kneeling between Justin’s spread thighs, his hands on Justin’s pants. Justin’s eyes are wide and he says “Chris,“ before stopping short, putting his soda down and saying, “oh. Oh.” It’s enough for Chris and he unbuttons Justin’s jeans, and Justin is murmuring now. “Oh god,” he says and he lifts his hips so that Chris can pull the jeans down. And Justin tastes so good, so perfect, and he practically sings through it all, beautiful whimpers and moans. And when Chris presses his fingers, presses them to that wonderful spot right behind Justin’s balls, Justin cries out, music, and it’s over. Too soon Chris is licking his lips and he pushes back away from Justin, landing on his ass on the hardwood floor. “Fuck,” Justin sighs, body limp on the couch. Chris jumps up and wipes the back of his hand across his mouth, moves away and watches Justin. Justin is sweating a little, his forehead and his fledgling curls shining in the afternoon sun. His hands curl against the dark cushions of the couch, and his perfect fucking cock, loose against his thigh, wet, wet with Chris. Shit. He watches until Justin’s eyes focus, until Justin looks back at him and says, “Fuck, Chris, don’t.” “I didn’t.” Chris says, and he’s looking anywhere but at Justin now. He picks up the soda can and places it on the coffee table, and he can taste Justin in his mouth, and fuck, the other guys aren’t there. Chris wasn’t supposed to. “Don’t freak, man. Chris. Come on.” Justin is sitting up, buttoning his pants. “I have to go,” Chris says, looking around the room. “Right, I’m going to go home, I think. I’ll talk to you later, J.” He makes it half way to the street and stops in the middle of the lawn. “Fuck,” he says to the grass, “my fucking house. Fuck.” And he turns and looks back, but there’s no way he’s walking back in there. He slips around back, through the kitchen. He can hear the TV on still, Justin talking in rushed worried tones, and he thinks he’s probably on the phone, and then Chris is upstairs, safe, fucked. Totally utterly fucked. “Chris is a fucking freak,” Justin says to Joey when Joey picks up. Justin can’t believe it. He’s been waiting. He’s been waiting for what just happened for months, and Chris finally. And it was good. And he’s pretty sure he wants more. He wants Chris. He has for a long time. And he’s been waiting. Justin’s sick of waiting. “Are you at Chris’s? The caller ID says you’re Chris,” Joey says. “Yes, I’m at Chris’s and he just left and fucking said that he was going home. What the fuck does that mean? Pennsylvania? He went back to Pennsylvania?” Justin rubs a gloved hand over his face and sighs. He looks out the window, but Chris’s car is still parked in the driveway. “He’s walking to Pennsylvania, Joey.” “Justin,” Joey sighs. “Justin, calm down. What happened?” “That bastard just gave me the best blowjob I’ve ever fucking had, better than anything, man, and then he fucking ran off to Pennsylvania.” Justin’s pacing now. He knocks the still unopened soda can off the coffee table, watches it roll beneath the couch. “Fuck,” Joey says. “fuck.” “Yeah.” Fuck. Justin doesn’t know what to do once the phone is hung up, so he picks up the sodas, and leaves. He looks up and down the street, but there’s no sign of Chris. Fuck. “Chris.” Joey says when Chris accidentally picks up his phone after the second ring. “Joe.” Chris sighs, rubbing a hand over his face. “You’re the most fucked up fucker I’ve ever fucking met.” “Nice language, ass,” Chris retorts. “Do you kiss your daughter with that mouth?” “I’m sending JC over.” Joey hangs up the phone. Chris spends most of the afternoon picking up, because he knows that he’ll have to watch JC do it otherwise. He doesn’t really understand what “I’m sending JC over,” is supposed to mean anyway. He wishes he’d had time to say “oooh, scary,” or something equally as cool before Joey could hang up. JC shows up around dinnertime, carrying pizza boxes. “Hey,” he says when Chris opens the door for him. “What?” Chris asks, letting JC in. “Joey said that I had to come over and talk some sense into you.” JC sets the pizza on the counter. Chris peaks into the box, and it’s just as he suspected. Pizza full of pineapple and fruit and weird meat. Chris hopes he can choke it down. “Sorry about that phone call the other day,” JC says, watching Chris. “I didn’t know that J wanted Britney to break up with him. The other box is pepperoni.” Chris nods. They eat their pizza in relative silence, and it’s kind of unnerving having JC staring at him from across the kitchen table. Chris is ready to confess it all by the time he’s finished his second slice. “I blew Justin,” he says quickly. JC looks like a deer caught in headlights, and he drops his slice back onto the table, half missing his plate. Chris thought that Joey would have told JC. “You did?” JC asks. “When?” Chris shrugs, “three days ago.” “And then what?” “And then I ran away,” Chris finishes. “Chris. What did he say?” JC picks a piece of pineapple off his pizza and pops it into his mouth. “I don’t know. I ran away without listening to him. I’ve been avoiding his phone calls ever since.” “You’re an idiot. He’s calling you? Why hasn’t he called me?” “Maybe he thinks you’ll try to meddle,” Chris suggests and JC just grins. “Look,” Justin says, walking into Chris’ living room and setting down his bags. Chris really needs to change the locks. Chris is trying to avoid everyone and Justin won’t let him because the kid is fucking insane. Chris can’t help but be a little proud. If he wasn’t the fucked up one suddenly, if Justin was avoiding him, he’d do the same thing. “I don’t know what your problem is, but fine man, okay? We’ll pretend like nothing happened and you can go back to being the tolerable freak you’ve been of late rather than this unmanageable asshole. Okay?” Chris grunts and looks at Justin’s hands. “No change?” he asks, because there’s really not much point in avoiding Justin if he’s going to insist on using all of Chris’s tactics. “No,” Justin sighs. “You wouldn’t believe my fucking gold collection, man. We’re all gonna be blingin’ big time when this finally blows over.” Turns out Justin dropped by to tell Chris about a promotional gig he’s doing with Isotoner or some glove company or something. “No shit,” Chris laughs. “Fuck, Justin, that’s great. You’re so golden.” Justin laughs too, reaching out to set a hand lightly on Chris’s arm. “Hey,” Justin says. “We’re cool, right?” “Sure,” Chris agrees but moves away, away from the brush of leather that’s making the hairs on his arm stand on end. “What’s that?” he asks, pointing at Justin’s bags. “I’m going to stay here for a while,” Justin says. “I’m still an invalid and I’m lonely. You’re going to keep me company.” “Oh,” Chris says, kicking Justin’s bag. Chris really should have changed the locks. “You can blow me again,” Justin says in the middle of a rousing match of Trivial Pursuit. “you know, if you want to.” “Cool, thanks,” Chris says, landing on a roll again square for the fourth time in a row. “I mean, I liked it. It was good.” “Of course it was good. I’m the master,” Chris says and he thinks he’s doing a pretty good job of appearing unaffected. “History.” Justin plucks a card from the box and reads the question silently before looking at Chris again. “I could do it for you. I would.” “Justin,” Chris says, because fuck, the kid is offering to blow him. Blow him with those lips. Chris thinks he deserves a medal for the shit he puts up with. “History, Justin.” Justin sighs, “I just don’t get it. I mean, I have a fucking touching disease or whatever, right? You’re just terminally fucked up. We can at least get some fucking sex out of the deal.” “I’ve sworn off sex,” Chris says. “I’ve found God.” Justin snorts. Justin doesn’t want to sell driving gloves. And it was Joey that purchased all the stupid gloves in the first place, so why doesn’t Joey do the campaign? Justin wants to make music. Justin wants to record and sing and dance and Justin wants Chris. He doesn’t seem to be getting anything he wants. He’s pretty sure he hasn’t gotten a thing he’s wanted since he woke up turning everything gold. At least he gets to ride a kickin’ motorcycle in the commercial. Chris is jealous, he can tell. He spends most of the evening on the phone with Britney, trying to figure out what it all means. Justin spends a lot of time trying to figure out what it means, and he always comes up empty. It’s been weeks. People are asking how his album is going and the damn thing is still on hold, and he’s busy making glove commercials, so he says it’s going well, it’s a big secret, all of it. Break-ups with Britney go much better when she’s the one doing the dumping, and Justin finds that after a week or two they are friends again. She wants to help him and he tells her everything, about Chris, about it all. He expects yelling or crying or something, because a lot of things with Britney end up that way, but instead she tells him that she thinks Chris is the answer. She watches too many movies, Justin knows she does, because she gets bored on tour a lot. But her theory sounds pretty cool when she explains it all, and together they come up with a plan. Justin knows it’ll work. He touches his hair a little, gets it gold. His jeans are worn and tight in all the right places. His shirt, white and encrusted in gold flakes. It’ll work. “Right,” Justin says, sitting beside Chris on the couch. Chris looks away from the TV for a second, nodding at Justin, then does a double take and stares. Justin tries not to grin. It’ll work. “I was wondering, if, I need a bath, and –“ “Uh uh,” Chris says, inching away from Justin, up onto the arm of the couch. “No way, J.” “Chris,” Justin sighs. He doesn’t know what to say so he pouts a little and says, “I’m dirty.” Chris busts out laughing, falling back onto the couch cushion. Justin frowns. “I’m sick of this.” Justin knows he’s going to have to be direct. He swings a leg over Chris, straddling the smaller man. “I want you,” Justin says, low. “I want you, and I know you want me. Joey told me, Chris. Okay? I know. And I want you. Stop acting like a big freak. I’m sick of it. All of this. I need something good in my life right now, and you’re it, so just shut up and let me do this.” “Um,” Chris manages, but Justin doesn’t want him to talk. He wants Chris to just shut up already, so he leans in and licks at Chris’s lips, bites a little, and nuzzles his cheek against Chris’s facial hair. Chris opens his mouth again, and Justin silences him with his own, slips his tongue inside and it’s warm and wet, and Chris still isn’t responding, but Justin thinks it won’t take much longer. Justin runs a gloved hand across Chris’ cheek and Chris gasps. It’ll work. JC told him to go for it. Joey told him that Justin wanted it too. Lance said that he was being stupid. And Justin wants him. Chris still doesn’t think it’s a good idea. Chris doesn’t think it’s a good idea when Justin is straddling him. He doesn’t think it’s a good idea when Justin says his name and unzips his pants. He doesn’t think it’s a good idea when Justin’s hand slips under his shirt and runs across his chest, or when Justin looks up at him and grins crookedly, gold sparkling in his hair, on his cheek. Chris starts to think it’s maybe not such a bad idea around the same time that lips meet his cock. Chris stops thinking all together when gloved fingers slide over his skin. Perfect. Golden. Perfect. It’s morning when Chris starts thinking again. Afterward, he’d pulled off Justin’s glove, moved Justin’s hand to his face, and he felt it, the tightening of the gold on his cheek. Justin’s eyes had been so wide, his lips parted, and then he’d kissed Chris, his hand moving slowly over Chris’s face. And the gold clung to his neck, it was in his hair, on his shoulders. It was there still when Chris woke up. It surprised him when he stumbled into the bathroom, saw the gold speckling his dark hair. Maybe it could work. Justin and gold and perfection. It could work for Chris. It had never worked before, but this time might be different. Chris takes a shower and after, with the gold gone, washed from his skin, he remembers the times before. He stares at the gold plates collected around the drain. It never works. And Justin is his best friend. It can’t happen again. It’s gone. Justin touches the back of the glove delicately, runs his fingers over the leather, and nothing happens. It’s gone. “Britney was right,” Justin says aloud. He turns to look for Chris then, but Chris isn’t in the bed, and Justin can hear the shower running. “It’s gone. I’ve lost my touch.” Justin laughs a little, and touches things just because he can. He pulls on his boxers, runs his hands over his ass, and smiles. Justin is awake. More awake than he’s probably ever been so early, and he thinks he should tell someone. His mom, maybe. But first Britney. It was her idea after all, and she was right. Britney is smarter than she gives herself credit for. He sees his day planner on the bedside table, and it’s day twenty-nine. No more counting, he thinks, and he reaches for the planner. He watches the gold crystallize on the brown leather when he picks it up. “Justin,” Chris says, walking out of the bathroom with a towel slung over his head. Justin is in bed still, staring at his hands. No gloves, just hands, like he’s never seen them before. “Still got it,” Justin says, smiling sadly at Chris. “J?” “It was gone, Chris,” Justin says, turning back to his hands. “It was.” Justin curls his fingers, watches them move, and then he reaches out and touches the table beside the bed. They both watch the gold foil, flaky and delicate, but definitely there. “Wow, um,” Chris isn’t sure what he should say, “are you sure?” “Yeah,” Justin says. “I don’t understand. Britney says maybe I’m looking for someone. She says maybe it’s you.” Fuck. Chris sighs. Justin has even told Britney about them already. “I’m such an ass.” “What?” “I don’t think we should, J.” “Oh.” Justin folds his hands together, rubs his fingertips over the flesh of his palms and frowns at the mess he leaves behind. “I just think, what if it goes wrong, y’know? I mean, you still have Brit, but Dani really hurt for me, and I don’t want –“ “So then I’m King Midas? Or it means nothing? It’ll just go away eventually? These things don’t mean nothing, Chris.” “It does if it’s some sort of genetic fluke.” “It’s not. It’s not a genetic fluke. That’s just stupid.” Chris watches as Justin balls his hands into fists. “You told me I’m not like that Midas guy.” “You aren’t.” “I would turn my daughter into gold if I had one? I couldn’t eat because of it. I would starve? Someone is trying to tell me I’m greedy?” “You could have used a fork,” Chris says weakly. Justin picks up the discarded gloves, scrunches up his forehead and stares at Chris in disbelief. Justin wishes he’d known his best friend would turn out to be an asshole before he fucked him. He calls Britney, and his mom, and then JC too. And after he’s run out of people to call, he calls his mom again, mostly because he doesn’t want to leave the guest room he’s hiding in. He can hear Chris banging around downstairs. His mom has to run some errands, so Justin hangs up and calls Britney. Again. “Honey,” Britney says, “You have to go talk to him.” “He’s a freak, Brit." “Justin.” Justin can tell she’s smiling. “He’s just scared. You know that.” “He’s a freak,” Justin says again. “He wants all of you and he’s afraid he can’t have it.” Justin nods even though he knows Britney can’t see him. Of course Chris does. He wants all of Chris too. Of course. That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? That’s why he’s been waiting for months. “He can have me. He’s had me.” “No. Justin. He’s afraid he’ll lose you. As a friend.” That’s just stupid, Justin thinks. “He won’t be with me because he doesn’t want to break up?” Justin isn’t going to hate Chris if something goes wrong. Look at Britney. And what about what Justin wants, anyway? Chris has already hurt him. He’s been hiding in a guest room all day for Christ’s sake. Chris is being a selfish greedy prick and - “Oh.” Chris spends most of the morning on the couch, thinking. Relationships don’t work for him, and he knows that this one will be no exception. Justin is his best friend, he’s put up with Chris for years, but Chris is afraid that if he tries something more, it’ll backfire, it’ll be the same as the relationships that came before. So he has to ask Justin to leave. As soon as Justin comes out of hiding, he’s going to ask him to leave. Because it’s weird now, but the weirdness will blow over, and they’ll be able to go back to the way things were with no permanent damage. But if Justin stays, things might become irreversible, and Chris can’t let that happen. “It’s you, Chris,” Justin says when he walks into the living room. Chris is drinking beer and watching cartoons. Mostly he’s been wondering when Justin would show up. Justin has to go home. He can’t stay. “What’s me?” Chris asks, looking up. Justin is still mostly undressed. He’s pulled on jeans, but that’s pretty much it. Jeans and black leather gloves. Chris looks away quickly. Not going to happen again. “You’re Midas. I figured it out.” “Oh, you did, did you?” Justin has a plate of gold stuck to his cheek. Not going to happen again. “Yes. I was re-evaluating, because if someone is trying to tell me that I’m a selfish greedy bastard, then I want to know about it, I want to change it, ya know?” “Sure, J. But you aren’t.” Chris figures he doesn’t know much at this point, but he does know that. And he knows that he’s not going to lose Justin. “Right. I know. You are.” Justin sits beside Chris on the couch, and Chris wants to move away. It’s all too tempting. It’s Justin. “How?” he asks, his voice a little higher than normal. He doesn’t really see what Justin is getting at here. “You want me, right? Like really, like love and shit,” Justin starts and Chris thinks, woah, love and shit, but he doesn’t say anything, just fidgets in his seat and listens. “But you don’t want to fuck up our great wonderful friendship, and you think that if we get together it will. And you think that it’ll be good, but it’ll all go to shit in the end. So instead you’re ignoring it all and pushing me away and basically being a selfish bastard that can’t deal with change or commitment.” Chris sighs. It sounds pretty shitty when Justin says it. Justin places a hand on Chris’s thigh, leans in and kisses Chris’s neck. Chris lets him. “Chris,” Justin says, and he’s using the same voice he used last night, the one that had Chris practically coming in his pants, and Chris moans a protest low in his throat but doesn’t dare move away. Justin’s hand moves down, runs over the waistband of the sweatpants Chris is lounging in, and then up underneath his shirt. Chris shivers when the leather touches a nipple, but it’s gone just as quickly, and then Justin is pushing his sweatpants down. It can work, Chris thinks. Justin’s right and it feels so right, and fuck his relationship fears, it’s stupid. This is Justin and it can work, and it’s perfect. Chris won’t fuck it up this time. It’s Justin. Justin kisses the tip of Chris’s cock, and then looks up at Chris, smiling a little, and Chris has to try his hardest not to laugh. It’ll work, he thinks as Justin stares at him, but it’ll work better if Justin gets moving. Justin keeps staring and Chris is about to say something when Justin grins, and pulls off one of his gloves. “J,” Chris says, and then he squints his eyes shut, because Justin is about to touch him, and it feels okay on his face, the tightening and pulling, but he can’t say he’s ever wanted a gold coated cock. He flinches a little when he feels Justin’s fingers dance over his sensitive skin, and then Justin’s hand encircles him. “Oh, thank you,” Justin breaths, when nothing happens. “I knew it would work.” Chris opens his eyes and thinks he took quite the chance, but Justin’s hand is on him then and he’s moving, thrusting up against Justin, and he doesn’t have time to think much at all. Justin is kissing him, and it’s so good, so perfect. Justin has both gloves off now, and he’s touching Chris, all over, and it’s better than before. Better than anything he’s ever read in any novel. It’s real, and it’s Justin, and there’s nothing between them. He squints his eyes shut and then he’s coming, and the world is bright and golden behind his eyelids. Justin is staring at his hands when Chris comes back. Chris takes one of Justin’s hands, running his own fingers over Justin’s palms. “So you’re saying this gold thing, this was all someone’s fucked up idea to get us together, like instead of calling us up and saying ‘hey, fuckheads, start screwing like rabbits,’ or something?” Chris asks, pushing Justin off of him, back onto the couch. He reaches for the button on Justin’s jeans, and Justin moves to help him, his fingers brushing over Chris’ hands. “Yeah, I guess,” Justin says, grunting a little as Chris lifts his hips and guides his jeans down. “And as long as we keep having hot sex, the touching disease is gone?” “Well, it’s not about the sex, really, but yeah.” Justin rolls his eyes. “And this isn’t really up to me at all, so if it all goes to hell and we end up hating each other, it’s not my fault. It’s out of my hands.” Chris palms Justin’s cock through his boxers. “That won’t happen,” Justin murmurs, “but yes.” Chris kisses Justin slowly, savoring, and Justin’s fingers slide softly over Chris’s closed eyelids, brush against Chris’s cheek, and then they move up into Chris’s hair, tangling in the short strands. “So then where do I send the Thank You card?” Chris asks against Justin’s lips. Justin laughs open mouthed, happy, and golden. Back/Feedback