Cage
Copyright © 2001 Em

Your family never was the kind who drank a lot beyond social gatherings, and you remember your parents being okay with you and your sister having a small glass of wine with dinner for Easter, sometimes Christmas. Always at weddings. Sometimes your dad would let you finish off a beer he'd drunk most of while he was watching football on TV, even when you were little, because it was almost your bedtime anyway, and it was just a tiny bit. You really liked the taste of beer, even then.

Outside of that, you remember that your dad would have a shot of brandy after a stressful day at the lab; he'd come home and complain to your mother about it while you and Stacy watched TV or played or something, and then pour himself a sliver of auburn drink and chase it down with a grimace. And he visibly loosened up after that, you noticed. It always worked.

You keep that in mind years later, when you hobble home one day before anyone else has gotten off of school or work, skipping your afternoon classes to nurse a scraped knee and bruised pride.

You don't understand, at the time, how the guys in your class can throw around the "fag" epithet so easily without taking offense, but when they're seriously threatened with the fact, they turn so ugly. It isn't as though Darren being gay is a threat to their manhood. He's your best friend, for God's sake, and that didn't make you gay. He'd even kissed you, when he first told you, because you were feeling silly and joking around, and you hadn't felt anything; not like when you kiss your girlfriend Mandy, not at all. So you aren't gay, and he is, and that's fine; but the frat boys, the older brothers of your friends in town on holiday don't seem to think so, and so you've spent the afternoon tripping over yourselves running home before Brad Hornung and his fucking stupid friends can run you over with their beat-up car.

You figure you deserve a shot to take the edge off, and you pour yourself a sliver of brandy with shaking hands, ice it down, and sip at it. You grimace at the strong, burning taste, then pause at the warmth of it sliding down your throat, heating your insides smoothly. You nurse it while you pick at the overhang of skin on the scraped part of your knee, peeling it away gingerly with a wince, because that skin's just going to dry and fall off later anyway.

You feel pretty relaxed, after. You think your dad was on to something.

You're a social drinker by the time you join the group, and that, blessedly, gives you cool points with the guys, because Lord knows that you don't have many with everything else you do. You can't go out to drink, of course, but after your mom and Justin's mom go to bed, sometimes you stay up and finish a six-pack with the others. They respect that you can handle it without going all wide-eyed at the sight of alcohol, and that's nice. You still haven't ever been drunk before, though; you've drunk until you knew you were nearing that point, when you felt flushed and giddy and on the brink of giving up that little thread of control, but you haven't gotten the nerve to take that extra drink to bump you over just yet.

It happens, finally, when you go to Europe, when you start to wonder if maybe you were more gay than you'd thought. It isn't that you mind, really, that you find men hot, because you thought you'd dealt with all of that when Darren came out, but that was before it was you there, having dreams about the preppy waiter at some restaurant, or that sweaty, sleek dancer who'd mistaken you for a German native and given you a pick-up line that only Chris had managed to decipher. You don't know how Darren had dealt with it back home, and dealt so well. But you do find that if you drink enough, it isn't so uncomfortable to feel that clench of attraction in the pit of your stomach anymore.

The first time, you get sick. Really, really sick, like you haven't spent the past couple of years nursing beers like a veteran. You think it might be the vodka you tried, or the rum, but Chris swears it's the sambuca that knocked you out. He talks the whole time that you throw up, rubbing your back almost absently in the bathroom of the suite you share. "You'll be okay," he says reassuringly. "You're all right, you know, Lance? We'll just take it easy on the shots next time and see how it goes."

There won't be a next time, you think, if you puke up your liver the way you fear you might.

But the next week a really cute guy named Karl wants to dance with you, and after you finish an extra beer, you kinda want to dance with him, too.

You're a lot of fun when you drink, you know. You can be pretty outgoing on a good day, but when you're drunk you're downright chatty; you get loud and flamboyantly gay, flamboyantly everything, really. You get horny. You want to dance more. You want to drink more. You just want more. 'More' is the key word for you, when you're drunk.

You love it, the feeling it gives you, the freedom. Most of the time when you're sober you spend time wondering how you look to others, wondering what they think about you, what kind of impression you're making. You feel like a walking advertisement not only for yourself, but for the group, for your family. You can't dance, you think, not because you really have no skill for it, but because you're so damn worried that you'll fuck it up that you do. You come out to the guys, and realize that you're so worried that people will think you're gay that you don't know how much female interaction is too much, or not enough. You don't know what to do so that people won't speculate.

Drunk, none of that really matters. Gender, it turns out, doesn't really matter, when you've been drinking. You're still interested in women, but not that much; but it doesn't stop you from asking groupies up to your room, just to see if they'll say yes. And if they do, you're not picky enough to turn down a blow job if you can get it.

Joey is the most fun to drink with, because sober he likes all the things you like drunk; a crowded dance floor, loud music, and a good drink in his hand. Joey's a lot of fun, period, when he's not ditching you to dance with some girl. You dance with them, too, but you'd never choose them over the chance to spend time with a friend.

JC is better for that, for spending time with you when you go out. The thing is that JC isn't any fun when he drinks; he gets silly, arrogant, belligerent sometimes, pulls rank. JC can't hold his liquor well, you guess. It's pretty funny, as long as he's not in the mood to complain to you about something. But then again, most things are funny to you when you drink.

The other guys don't spend much time with you when you drink. You don't know why.

You think the thing with JC starts soon after he takes up drinking with you; when he starts confiding in you, starts telling you things about Bobbi that he doesn't tell other people, and you start to hate her for reasons that nobody else understands. JC has a lot of love to give, that you think he's holding back from Bobbi, but you can sense that it's spilling out over on to you. You think he has a romanticized ideal of his soulmate in his head, and you get the feeling that while you're not it, you'll do for now. You have one, too, and JC isn't it, either. But he'll do for now. In a way, you guess, you're perfect for each other.

You've never been with a man, had sex with one; not yet. You want JC to be your first, because you love him and he's your friend, and you're already on your way there anyway. You don't think you're in love with him, but you want him to be your first because you don't want it to be just some guy you met at a club who wanted to get into Lance Bass's pants. You want it to be a friend at least, someone who will care about you and someone you know you won't regret.

It hurts at first, but not as much as you thought it would, and then it starts to feel good, better than you thought it would. You come twice before he does, like you're some girl, and afterwards he doesn't just get up and leave; he stays and holds you and tells you he hopes it was worth waiting for, and you're so glad it was him.

The drinking together, though, is a bad idea, really, and one night you're being too loud outside of a club and you run into a plain-clothes officer who immediately has a problem with you. You find the situation hilarious, but deep inside you know you should be worried or scared or something. JC gets mad that she's asking you questions, and starts to get in her face, and it's all you both can do to get out of there with a stern gaze and nothing else.

You don't drink together anymore, and the rest kind of fades away after that, too. JC tries to give Bobbi another shot. You try to tell yourself you're not jealous. You wish them well.

"Dude, Lance," Joey tells you one night when he catches up with you at the bar after he's been dancing for a while. "Wanna tear yourself away from that and come out with me on the floor?"

"Um..." you look over at Marcella, this great girl you met tonight that you're doing sex shots with, and hesitate. This kinda beats the dance floor, you think; Marcella's pretty. So's her friend James, who you laughed at for five minutes because he has your name. "Maybe in a bit, okay?" you offer.

Joey stares hard at you for a moment, still breathing hard, his face shining with sweat. Then he grabs your shoulder and licks a long path up the side of your neck, sprinkles it with salt, takes the last shot on your line, and licks you again. "Don't take too long, okay?" he tells you.

Sex shots with Joey beat sex shots with anyone, you learn.

Joey thinks you drink too much. He's told you. Well, asked you. "Don't you think you maybe drink a bit much?" he says, usually when you're in a vulnerable position, like, under him. You're usually drunk when he says this, too, because you usually get back to the hotel in the mood to screw after a night of clubbing. So you're not really in any position to argue, even if you don't think you do drink too much.

He's being a jerk about it, you think. It's not like Joey doesn't drink a lot. Joey fucking binge drinks, going out three nights a row and coming back at five in the morning every time, even when you have early morning interviews. He gets up and his face is bloated and pasty with enormous bags under his eyes that makeup can't cover. That's fucked up, you think; that he can't seem to handle the partying at all. You look healthy every morning, as long as you get your four hours, and sometimes -- sometimes -- a beer in the morning if you're hungover. Your skin glows. You blush rosily. Obviously you're doing something right. Obviously he's not.

One morning on the bus when you go to get your beer, there's a strip of paper taped to the fridge that wasn't there before.

"Have you ever had a drink first thing in the morning to steady your nerves or to get rid of a hangover (Eye opener)?"

You stare at it for a while and glance down the aisle where your best friend and sometimes-lover is supposedly asleep and wonder, for a moment, when he got the balls and the time to put this up. Then you take it down carefully, making sure the tape doesn't tear, and rip it in to tiny shreds, and throw it out. And then you grab two beers instead of one, because fuck him. And you're not hungover, anyway.

The thing that sucks about drinking a lot at parties and clubs is that you find you black out sometimes, and do things you're not sure you'd do if you were sober. You've usually got a bit of a buzz going these days, not that there's anything wrong with that, because you're fully in control of your faculties. But the blacking out can be scary.

One time you come to on your knees with some guy's dick in your mouth -- you have no idea who -- and when he comes you pull back so quickly that you bang the back of your head on the bathroom sink, and he gets your cheek a little. Drips on your shirt. "Fuckin' amateur," he mutters, zipping up as you cough and try not to gag, and you wonder for a moment if he's going to talk, if he even knows who you are; but then you figure he has nothing to gain by telling the world that Lance Bass gives the worst head on the planet, and you feel a little better. You still throw up so hard, though, once he leaves, that Lonnie has to help you out of the bathroom afterwards, and you take it easy for the next couple of nights.

Then there's the time when you wake up alone in your hotel bed but feel sore; you ache in that way that lets you know you've had sex and it probably wasn't good, but it's more than that, you actually really hurt. There's a quarter-sized bruise high up on your bicep that's tender when you touch it, and you frown, because you don't like that you don't remember this. At all. You're stopping with the JD early in the evening from now on, you decide.

Rolling onto your side hurts, getting up hurts, going to the bathroom hurts, showering hurts, and when you get on the bus the note on the fridge says

"Have you ever felt bad or Guilty about your drinking?"

and you leave it, and the beer inside, where it is.

Two hours later, rehearsing at the stadium, your body's feeling better; but you jog back to the bus with Lonnie and grab a beer anyway, because your head's killing you.

You're not unaware of the possibility that you might drink too much. You know you might. You just don't think you do, is all.

"Have people Annoyed you by criticizing your drinking?"

the note on the fridge says.

You carefully peel the note off of the fridge and stalk over to Joey's bunk, throwing the curtain open. "Yes," you say, slamming the paper down on his forehead hard, so that the tape sticks, and close the curtain again when he yells.

You have two beers before you eat that day, and don't talk to Joey unless you absolutely have to.

You've always told yourself that you didn't have a problem as long as you could do your job and remember the important things and people in life. Everything else is a fair casualty in the name of keeping sane and having fun, as far as you're concerned.

So when you come to and Joey's over you and inside of you, your ankles crossed behind his head and your fingers threading through his hair, and you don't remember how you got that way, you start to panic.

You shudder and moan when you come because that's what your body does, not because it feels good, and you hope that Joey doesn't note the difference.

You don't know what to do now, though, and that scares the shit out of you.

When you wake up later in the morning on the bus, you have a really bad tension headache and a bit of a hangover because you didn't drink anything before you went to bed. You ignore it for as long as you can, but finally, in the kitchenette, you get out three Advil to take instead of a beer, looking at them in your hand and sighing.

"'Morning," Joey says, shuffling into the kitchenette behind you, and your bodies brush, him touching your shoulder affectionately. Your headache, you swear, gets worse when he touches you, and you just nod at him instead of saying anything, reaching for the fridge to get a bottled water to down the Advil with.

"Have you ever felt you should Cut down on your drinking?"

the fridge says, and you want to throw up because it's just, finally, too much, and it's not fair, and suddenly you hate Joey more than anything.

"Fuck!" you explode, and yank the door open violently, and slam it. You kick the bottom of the fridge and the magnets tumble down off of the top, and you hit it with your forehead and whimper when the pain shoots right through you. You bang it with your clenched fist, and then your open palm, and kick it again, and struggle when Joey's arms come around you from behind.

"Fuck you!" you tell him, blinking back tears because your whole fucking face hurts, and how the fuck did you think three Advil would take care of that? You turn around and punch him in the chest as hard as you can, and in the arm. "Fuck you-- you don't think I-- lemme go," you say, "just let me the fuck go," pressing one hand against your right eye because you're pretty sure that if you don't, it will come right out of your head.

"Lance," he's saying, over and over again quietly; you know, even though it seems loud to you. "Lance, look at me. Lance, calm down. Lance, I'm here." Just a bunch of things, over and over.

You're not getting away anyway, you know, because even though you work out Joey's stronger than you and has the advantage of not feeling like his head's going to explode, so you stop struggling and sort of stagger back, and he lets you. You slide down the wall by the fridge, and sobbing hurts, you feel like shit, and you wish you'd taken the Advil before you pulled this, because you're going to die right here, you just know you are. You're going to throw up and pass out and simply die. "Why're you doing this," you ask him, and wipe a hand under your nose, because it's running. You feel gross.

"Because I care about you," he says gently, squatting by you, and his eyes are sad and full of warmth and what you know is love for you, but also pity, and you don't want that.

"I hate you," you tell him, and squeeze your eyes around fresh tears.

You can hear Steve make his way sleepily up the aisle, and you can't think of more ways your morning could get worse. "What's goin' on up here--" he starts, but Joey cuts him off.

"Nothin' you need to see, Steve," Joey says tersely, not taking his eyes off of you. "Go back to the lounge and I'll catch up with you."

"Wha--"

"Go, Steve," Joey orders. "Get outta here." When you can't hear Steve's footfalls anymore, Joey puts his hand on your knee where you've pulled it up to your chest. "You hate me? Then hate me," he tells you. "Because I'm not stopping."

You hate him so much. "I think," you say. "Um. That I have, um." You swallow, not sure why your throat's so sore. "A problem. I mean. I'm pretty sure."

Joey nods, his face compassionate. "Okay," he says, cups your face in his hands, wipes at your cheeks a little. "Are you gonna be okay? You want that Advil?"

You sort of sob and laugh at the same time. "I don't think they'll help," you say.

Joey pats your shoulder and kneads it a bit as he rises to his feet. "Try 'em, and we'll see," he says, getting the bottle out of the cupboard for new pills. He gets the water out of the fridge for you, too, and kneels beside you while you take them. For a second you think you might puke them up, but they stay down, and you throw your arms around Joey's neck when you finish the water, burying your face in his neck.

"I just didn't ever wanna forget being with you," you wail into his skin, babbling, you know, and you know he won't know what you mean, and a half-hour of sobriety has made you into a girl, apparently, because you can't stop crying no matter what you do.

"It's okay," Joey says, patting your back and holding you close, and you think that maybe you won't die after all. Maybe.

Joey's your shadow for the next few days, because he wants you to be careful, and because he doesn't know if he can trust you yet; and you understand, because you don't know if you can trust yourself yet, but it still hurts. You made a game of it on the bus, pouring out all the beer and liquor, and you turned down the drinks offered throughout the day on your own even though your hands were shaking pretty badly at that point. Joey turned down the drinks, too, saying he was becoming a Mormon, and that got a laugh, but he was supporting you, and that made it a little bit easier to say no yourself.

Your headache doesn't go completely away for a while, still a nagging behind your eyes, but it's not incapacitating anymore. What's hard is performing, because you do still feel like shit, whether just shakiness or nausea or the headache affecting your concentration. It's not the same as working through a cold because there are things you can take for that to make it easier, and a good night's sleep makes a lot of difference. Now you can barely sleep, but you're still tired all the time. And there's nothing you can take to make withdrawal go away. So yeah, you spend a lot of time feeling like shit, and there's not a whole lot you can do about it.

The guys understand when you get pissy with them; Joey volunteered to tell them what you were trying to do, but you thought it was your job to do, even though you would almost rather die, and you're not used to this admitting-you-were-wrong thing. But you do manage to suck it up and tell them you're trying not to drink anymore, and instead of exchanging smirks and "I told you so"'s, they smile warmly and hug you and tell you how happy they are. You hadn't thought people thought it was that bad. You don't know how to feel about that.

You're trying it on your own first, you decided, because you think you can do it, hopefully, as long as you have Joey and the others. You definitely don't want to go into rehab because there's no way you can keep that on the downlow, and *nsync members going into rehab pretty much guarantees the end of *nsync. And now that the other guys are in on it, too, you develop three more shadows, so you definitely think that it's possible. "I feel like it's our fault, too, you know?" Chris told you once. "I felt like I was your fucking enabler, every time we let you order in Mike's Hard or drink at parties." He hugged you then, and said, "Anything you think I can do for you, man, you let me know, all right? I'll sit on you if I have to, but you're not touching a drink on my watch."

You find you don't even mind the extra shadows very much.

-The End-

Author's Notes: Joey's little notes were taken from Alcoholism FAQ.
Not really anything I can say about this story. Just... yeah.

[back]