Change
Copyright © 2001 Em

Nobody knew exactly when the change had occurred in Lance. No one knew when it was that he had stopped being the quietly affectionate boy who would cling to shoulders and elbows and waists and knees. Or the one who could drop into their laps, small and pretty and lean, looking up at them with the big eyes that always made him seem younger than he really was; more naive, more vulnerable. No one could tell the precise moment that Lance's slender hands, still attached to delicate wrists, had suddenly given way to the smooth curve and cut of muscle in his biceps, to newly broad shoulders and a waist that almost dipped into a V. Nobody was certain if one day Lance had been the type to leave books of Superman stickers in Joey's bunk or Word-A-Day calendars on JC's duffel bag "just because," and by the next he had simply started nodding to them in the halls instead.

It had just happened.

Joey thought that it happened after Lance collapsed; when everyone had huddled and hovered around him, giving him surreptitious glances at every movement and murmur, and for months afterward had silently worried about the repeat possibility of overwork. Lance had been just as sick with worry as the rest of them, Joey knew, but he also hated being made to feel vulnerable and delicate, as though he were somehow breakable; because Joey also knew that Lance got that enough just based on how he looked. When Lance sprained his ankle JC had offered to hold him up and Lance had said, "I'm fine, it's okay," his forehead wrinkled with pain, so JC left him alone and Lance was fine. Joey thought that was the beginning of the change, right then.

Justin thought that it happened after Danielle, back when Lance was still newly infatuated and excited about the whole thing, even if he was supposed to keep it under wraps, because he hadn't had many opportunities to date since the group started and he still believed that it could work. Lance had still believed, then, that his public and private lives did not have to be wedded; and so when it inevitably fell apart, when the press blew the story and the media and fans bore down alike, and Danielle grew rude and resentful under the pressure, Lance had ended it, looking too much like he'd learned a hard lesson. "I could've loved her, J, I don't know," he had said when Justin asked, trailing his fingers through the hair at the base of Lance's neck. "But now I just think I won't get a chance to try again 'til this is all over." And Justin, who had Britney, and knew with the certainty of a Southern-bred child that marriage by twenty was not only desired but expected, thought that something had died in Lance, with those words.

JC thought that it happened during the lawsuit, when they'd all turned to each other because they were the only sure things in their lives; but Lance still liked the time to himself, still wanted to mull over details when the others were taking time out to distract themselves. JC knew that while Joey was stunned, Chris was hurt, though unsurprised, and he and Justin were simply weary, Lance was furious. He lived with a quiet fury that manifested itself during group meetings and hummed beneath the surface when they addressed the issue in the press, and when he said, "I just want Lou to get what he deserves," one day during a quiet together moment, JC distinctly remembered wondering if they'd forever lost the Lance they knew and were giving birth to a new one.

Chris, though, didn't see the change as so much immediate as the realization that the change had occurred itself. He supposed that a lot of things were responsible; Danielle, the lawsuit -- any number of things. Once during a frenetic game of basketball backstage on the lot, Lance sank a chance three-pointer and turned to Chris, wiping at his forehead with the back of his wrist. His shirt rode up and his shorts rode low, revealing a pale sliver of what used to be a slight roll at his waist, but now showed a definite hint and dip of muscle that Chris didn't remember ever being there before. He figured he hadn't noticed because they no longer shared a bus. "Did you see that?" Lance asked him of the shot, with none of the surprised glee that Chris had come to expect from him only a few years past. "Not too bad for a girl, huh?" Lance went on, raising his eyebrows, and spun to return to blocking Joey; and Chris had thought that the change had definitely been graduate, and that he might have had a thing or two to do with it.

"So," Lance asked Chris when he called to wish Lance a merry Christmas. "Did you make any New Year's resolutions this year?"

Chris rolled his eyes and leaned back in his chair, jiggling his leg up against the bottom of the computer desk. "Have I ever been the type to make New Year's resolutions, Lance?" he asked in response.

"'Predictable' isn't exactly how I'd describe you," Lance said. "So, did you?"

"Did you?"

Lance sighed on his end. "Yes, I did, as a matter of fact. I, uh..." he paused. "I resolve to, um. Let you guys know how I feel about you more this year. 'Cause--" he paused again, his voice lowering. "I know I'm not always very good at it."

Chris nodded slowly, with appreciation. "Should be interesting," he said. "You can tell Justin off for all the times he cuts you off in interviews."

"I was kinda thinking of positive things, actually," Lance answered, laughing. "But I'm sure I can work somethin' in there for constructive comments, too. Sooo," he went on. "Did you make any?"

"Well, I just decided," Chris said. "I resolve to go on tangents no more than three times per conversation this year."

"Oh, but I like that about you," Lance said. "Makes being around you fun."

"Was telling me that a part of your resolution?"

"Maybe," Lance replied. "Anything else?"

"I resolve to fill this huge, gaping, achy void in my gut Dani left behind if it kills me," Chris went on.

"Oh, Chris," Lance sighed softly. "I didn't--"

"What?" Chris said. "You asked."

"I did," Lance said. "I'm. That's. Okay." He cleared his throat. "Do you, um. You know, have anything else?"

"No, I'm thinking that'll take up pretty much all my time."

"Right." Lance sighed again. "I'm sorry I asked."

"No," Chris told him. "I'm sorta glad you did. I mean," he shrugged. "Now I guess I have a goal, right?"

"I love you, Chris," Lance said. "I want you to know that."

"Yeah," Chris said. "So once you've done your resolution thing, do you drop me off the list, or do you have to keep it up all year?"

There was a momentary silence, and Chris suspected that Lance had hung up on him. Then "New Year's resolutions are supposed to be forever, Chris," Lance said. "Merry Christmas." And then he did hang up.

"What do you mean, I talked too much back there?" Justin demanded quietly, touching Lance's elbow to bring his attention back to him. "The guy asked me a queston. What, I should've delegated?"

"The guy asked the group a question," Lance replied, and exchanged glances with Chris. Justin shot a distressed look Chris's way, and Chris widened his eyes and shrugged the shrug of a conspirator. "It was only a suggestion, Justin," Lance went on, his face calm and impassive though Justin got the distinct feeling that he was stifling a smile. "You don't have to be so defensive."

"I'm not being defensive," Justin told him, and he wasn't; just felt put on the spot and singled out a bit, and not in the good, comfortable way he usually felt when they were out in public. "You don't have to be so amused," he added.

Lance's face sobered somewhat. "No, you're right," he said. "I'm awful." He glanced around him as they stepped out into the studio lot. "What're you doin' after this?" he asked.

Justin shrugged. "Probably go work out in the hotel gym," he said. "Why?"

Lance tilted his head. "Can I come?"

Justin studied Lance for a moment, standing outside their vans. There had been a time when Lance would have asked to tag along for something or other that Justin normally did himself, but that had been a long time ago, it seemed. Now Lance had plenty of things that he normally did himself, and the others never had qualms about inviting themselves along if they so desired, in a way that Lance had never acted upon. "I thought you didn't like working out," Justin said simply. Lance didn't. He hated working out, Justin knew, balefully lowering his head after throwing on a tank and cutoff sweats, sighing, "it's time for me to go do the Devil's work now," and leaving dramatically as he did.

"I like being with you more than I hate working out," Lance whispered loudly in response, leaning in close for effect.

Justin grinned and batted him away. "So you don't mind if I talk over you too much, then," he confirmed.

"In the gym," Lance said, "you can talk all you want."

"Spot me?" Justin asked Lance once he'd finished with the leg press and Lance had draped himself, panting, over the console of the treadmill.

"Sure thing," Lance said, and "gimme a minute," and Justin made his way over to the bench press while Lance gently extracted himself from the console.

They didn't say much while Justin pressed, Lance attentively positioned about Justin's head, extended fingers cautious. Lance's fragrance was slightly heady, but unoffensive, the hot scent of sweat that hadn't begun to smell yet, and Justin knew that he probably smelled the same way. He inhaled Lance deeply on the descent of every press and tried not to think of how unsatisfying it would be to work out alone next time.

He only jolted slightly when Lance reached down suddenly, inching Justin's shirt up over his stomach while he remained up near Justin's head, still spotting, if somewhat absently now. His hand brushed over Justin's tightly clenched abdominals, his light touch only vaguely erotic. "Did it take you long," Lance asked, "to get these?" His fingers followed the ridges beneath them.

Justin had long since lost count of how many presses he'd done. "I don't know," he admitted. "What's long to you?"

"Good point," Lance conceded. "I just meant that, like. I don't ever remember you without 'em, so." He lifted his hand away. "I used to envy you that so much."

Justin had known. "But you don't anymore," he suggested. He dropped the bar back into its cradle and sat up to look Lance in the face. "You're doin' just fine on your own now. What made the difference?"

Lance smiled at him. "I finally stopped worrying about how I wasn't like you and spent more time trying to be me."

Justin grinned back. "Well, I'm glad you figured it out, then. Smartest thing you ever did," he added, winking.

"Probably was," Lance agreed, and reached out again to rub Justin's stomach gently. "I wanted to thank you for showing me how it was done."

"Hey, can I hang out in the the booth with you on this?" Lance asked JC in the studio when Justin was laying down his vocals. Lance looked tired and a bit wan, bags under his eyes because he'd been shooting for his film all day and had only gotten two hours of sleep. Technically, JC thought Lance was supposed to be napping even now.

"Oh, sure you can," JC said, smiling easily, and led the way inside. "You don't wanna get some rest, though?" he asked over his shoulder.

Lance shrugged. "I woke up, couldn't get back to sleep." He rubbed at his eyes as he spoke. "Besides, if I sleep when you're recording, I never get to see you." Sitting down next to JC at the mixing board, he bumped him with his shoulder. "So, how are you doing?"

"I'm good," JC answered. "The recording's just going really well, you know? I'm startin' to get really excited about everything."

"Startin' to get excited?" Lance grinned. "You were excited from 'go'; shut up."

"No, but I mean --" JC threw out his hands. "Really excited. Like, all that stuff we were like, 'oh, is this gonna work? Can we make this happen?' It's all coming together right here," he gestured at the board, "and it's just." He turned to Lance, excitement brimming from his entire body, and Lance gave him an answering smile. "We thought this was gonna be something special, you know? And it's-- that doesn't even begin to cover it. This is--" JC couldn't summon the words. "This is huge."

"You're just so beautiful when you're excited," Lance blurted, and looked away, as if he were startled at his own admission. JC blinked and felt himself begin to blush, as bashful and simultaneously receptive to such a compliment as Lance himself. When Lance looked back JC regarded him with wide eyes, face serene.

"Thank you," JC said, and Lance leaned in swiftly, dusting a kiss against JC's cheek right next to his mouth. JC turned his head slightly by reflex, thinking he might capture Lance's lips with his own, but Lance was already pulling away, and JC's motion didn't look like what it was.

"I, um." Lance started. "Just." There seemed to be nothing more to say.

JC nodded smiled again, licking his lips moist, and lowered his gaze to where his hand lay on the mixing board. They sat still, suspended in the moment, until JC cleared his throat and leaned into the mic. "Uh, Justin?" he called. "We're ready for you now."

"Sometimes I just miss being around you when you're producin', you know?" Lance said to him as he set up one of Justin's re-takes.

"I miss you a lot, too," JC admitted, frowning into the controls. It had been such a long time since they'd been able to record together, really together as a group, when every member was present even when they weren't laying down vocals that day. They hadn't even been producing back then, but they were ever-present, always around each other. JC tried to think of the last time he'd sat with Lance in the production booth, and couldn't. "But I mean, you have so much you're doing now--"

"I know," Lance said. "I've got other things, and I'm real busy -- and I like being busy -- but you know, you were here first, before all that, and--" he glanced out into the recording booth. "I think Justin's ready."

JC followed his gaze and saw that Lance was right.

"So this is nice," Lance finished, before JC could tell Justin take it from the sixteenth bar.

Afterwards, JC got up and stood over Lance where he napped, curled up in a chair in the corner of the booth, the two hours of sleep not enough and the exhaustion finally catching up to him. JC had always thought that Lance looked younger when he slept, but today he thought Lance looked even more like he'd used to, despite the newly brown hair and the sideburns and stubble that hadn't been there before; he still seemed prettier somehow, more touchable. He trailed his hand over Lance's cheek and Lance didn't turn his head into the touch.

Lance was bigger now, it seemed; working out had given him an undefinable broadness that didn't change his clothes size but instead altered his very frame. It didn't stop him, however, from sliding easily underneath Joey's arm in the bus lounge the way he'd always used to, before the change.

Joey moved the receiver of his cell away from his mouth and glanced down at Lance. "Hey, what's up?" he asked.

Lance shook his head. "Nothing," he answered. He gestured to the phone. "What about you?"

"Oh," Joey leaned in to Lance and whispered. "Singing Brianna lullabies."

Lance's smile was beatific. "Tell her I said hi," he said softly, and rested his head against Joey's shoulder when Joey started singing again, quietly. He still fit small and snug against Joey's side, their hips aligned the way they sat, and after a while he wriggled his hands up and slid them around Joey's waist, tucking them up under Joey's shirt.

Joey was off the phone, Brianna long asleep, before he realized that he was stroking the fingers of his free hand up and down Lance's arm. "What's this all about?" he asked, though he didn't much care; this was comfortable, familiar, and he didn't want to risk Lance getting up and ending it just yet.

"You're gonna be the best dad ever," Lance murmured against him, sounding groggy, and Joey, who felt bad enough about touring and being away from home during his daughter's pivotal first months of life, felt his heart warm a little. He wondered if the lullabies had had any effect on Lance.

"Aw, you're my friend; you have to say that," he told Lance, squeezing him a little closer.

Lance lifted his head and searched out Joey's face. "No," he said seriously. "I don't. I have total faith in you. And I wanna make sure you know that, you know?"

"Okay," Joey said, an unsure smile starting on his face. "Thanks man. I mean, really."

"When people ask you what you do outside the group," Lance went on. "You tell them Brianna's your best production." He squeezed Joey once when Joey beamed at him and disentangled himself from his grip. "I'm goin' to bed. You sing a kickass lullaby, Fatone."

"If you were a little cuter, I'd sing 'em to you every night, too," Joey called after him, and listened to Lance's laughter fade in the aisle.

"Here," Lance said, dumping Chris's jacket unceremoniously into his lap. Chris squawked in protest, shaking off the jacket in an attempt to salvage the remains of his game, then paused it and turned to glare.

"What the fuck, Lance? You better need a kidney or something, or you will when I'm done with you."

"Save it," Lance said calmly, waving his hand at the television. "Come on; we're goin' for a drive." Chris sat tight, simply staring, until Lance sighed and dropped his hand, rolling his eyes. "Please, Chris?" he said, in the tone of a child being forced to be gracious. "Would you please come out with me for a drive?"

"I don't like your attitude, young man," Chris muttered as he saved his game, and unfolded his legs as he stood, pulling his jacket from the floor.

"So where are you taking me?" he asked later, when half an hour had passed Lance hadn't yet said a word from the driver's seat of his 4-Runner.

"To the woods to kill you and hide your body," Lance answered casually, not taking his eyes off the road.

"Oh, and here I just managed to convince myself that you weren't a sociopath planning my gruesome death. Good to know."

"It's always the quiet ones, Chris," Lance said, and glanced at him. "Always."

Another ten minutes, and Chris tried again. "You're kidding about this whole killing me thing, right?"

That earned him another glance. "Do I look serious, Chris?" Lance said, and if he looked anything, serious was probably it. "Look; Mike and Dré are meeting us there, all right? I can't believe you seriously think I'd drag you off and kill you."

"I didn't," Chris said, deliberately abrupt, and Lance smiled, facing forward once more. "Am I gonna like this, whatever it is?"

"Want me to be honest?" Lance asked, then went on without waiting for a response. "Probably not a lot."

"Yeah, okay-- you know what? There's a gym at the hotel, Lance," Chris said, when Lance pulled up in back of the derelict little building. "You drove us an hour out of the way for this, and I'm just sayin'--"

"There's somethin' to be said for doing something different," Lance said simply.

"Yeah, if by 'different' you don't mean 'something we could do at the hotel'," Chris argued, just to be contrary. "'Different' means like, skeet shooting, or, like, bottomless go-go dancing, or--"

"'K, shut up for three seconds," Lance told him, grabbing his hand and tugging him inside behind him.

"So what was so special about this place?" Chris spoke up again, as he trailed Lance to a far corner room of the weight area.

"It was just out of the way," Lance said. "I know somebody who recommended it." He stopped inside the room and stepped aside so that Chris could pass him. "Here it is," he declared, making a sweeping gesture.

Chris eyed the boxing paraphernalia dubiously. He was obviously missing a point here. "Okay," he said slowly. "Here what is?"

Lance gestured again. "Go wild," he said. "Beat shit up to your heart's content. Come on." He tugged Chris in again, right up to the body-sized punching bag, and stared at him expectantly.

Chris shook his head, watching both Lance and the bag, and flexed the fingers of his left hand unconsciously, their range of motion still restricted due to soreness and the cast around his still-bruised knuckles. "I don't get it," he said dully. "I mean, what. Is this like, a joke?" He looked up at Lance. "I mean, what're you. You're trying to say something here?"

Lance tsk-ed and tossed his head in frustration. "No. Yes. Look." He placed a hand on his chest. "This is me telling you how I feel, okay? Lemme go first, and show you how it's done, all right?" And Lance reared back and slammed his fist into the bag with a satisfying whump, reaching out to steady it when it swung back lazily. "That," he grunted, "is for me seeing you hurt so bad over Dani." He punched it again, this time with his left hand. "That is for me not knowing what to say about it." Another punch. "That is for us not being able to get your song on the album." Another. "That's for you freaking me the--" another "--fuck out with your--" another "--fucking punching the--" another "--"fucking bus, I don't know what the--" another "--fuck you were thinking, but you--"

"Lance--" Chris said.

"--don't seem to realize we fucking--" another "--care, and it fucking--" another "--kills me to see you--"

"Lance," Chris cried, reaching out and pulling at Lance's arm, tearing him away forcibly, if weakly, because the angle was all wrong and Lance's bicep was bunched tight and furious under his hand. Morbidly, Chris thought that this was what it would be like if Lance ever did decide to drag him into the woods and kill him. Chris wouldn't stand a chance.

"So you punch it," Lance said vehemently, as if Chris hadn't said anything, although he stopped hitting the bag and whirled on Chris, his eyes blazing intesely. He panted from his exertions and the bag still swung, wounded, in small circles where it hung. "You punch it and get some of that... I don't know, just ugliness, out and just let it go, because I." he swallowed hard and sighed, deflated. "Because you. Mean, um. the most. to me."

Chris allowed his hand to drop from Lance's arm, because once Lance had said it it sort of felt as though Chris had always known. He'd seen Lance go to work out with Justin more than once, had seen Lance with his head attentively tilted to JC's in the production booth long after his vocals had been laid down for the day, had seen Lance cuddling with Joey during free seconds, between numbers, in the peaceful moments in the Quiet Room before shows. Lance had had yet to demonstrate his allegiance to Chris tangibly, and yet somehow, still, Chris felt that he had known, even then.

"When'd you figure that one out?" he asked, not unkindly, and Lance half laughed at the flippancy of his tone.

"Um, I don't think I did until I said it."

"What would you say if I said I knew it all along?" Chris asked him, extending his hand to Lance's arm again, though this time he trailed over it curiously with a finger.

"I think I'd ask you what you were gonna do about it," Lance answered, his gaze on Chris's questing fingers.

"I'd probably say 'me too', Chris said, and "okay," he added, pulling back a little. "Just to be sure, we are talking about hooking up, right? I mean, this isn't me talking about hooking up and you talking about, like, going to see the roller-derby or something later--"

Lance cast a glance at the door instinctively then, and kissed him, his thumbs brushing over Chris's cheeks, tenderness belying an urgency just underneath, and murmured things like "finally" and "so much" against Chris's mouth.

Chris just let him talk, his hands grasping the firmness of Lance's waist, and after that he felt a lot better about punching the bag and letting a few demons loose with the blows.

"You know, you've changed," he told Lance when they were back on the road again. His bum hand was on Lance's thigh, stroking a path from Lance's hip to his knee and back again. "You're like this whole other version of you these days. You're like, Lance Version Two."

Lance smiled at that. "What, do I have more features or somethin'?" he asked.

"Or less," Chris said. "Either. Whatever. The point is, I can't really see Version One of you doing anything like this."

"Well, I can tell you Version One of me probably thought you were just as great as Version Two does," Lance said.

"No," Chris argued. "No, see, 'cause Version One, I gave a real hard time, and sometimes I thought Version Two kinda hated me for it."

Lance risked a glance Chris's way. "No version hated you."

"Okay," Chris said, and weakly squeezed the muscle beneath his hand. "But. Oh, wait. No, you're like, Version Three, 'cause, see, Version Two was kinda withdrawn a bit, and then you made the New Year's resolution and started being more the way you used to, only different, so it was like that was Version Three, and Version Two wouldn't've taken me out to that gym, which is why I thought you--"

"Okay, I so have a headache right now," Lance said sharply.

"Where'd you two head off to?" Justin wanted to know when they returned to the suite, having co-opted the Playstation in Chris's absence. "I lost my Playstation partner and my workout partner in one fell swoop. That's cold, you know."

"Sorry, J," Chris told him. "I had to go get exorcised."

Justin turned to him and raised his eyebrows. "Lance didn't steal your soul or something, did he?" he asked.

"Nah," Chris replied, heading for his room. "You're thinking of Version Two -- Version Three would never do anything like that," he said, ignoring Justin's questioning response when Lance followed him inside.

-The End-

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