Well, dammit.

[pensnest]

Okay, it's actually a little bit past midnight here, but I am determined that we shall have something down for my Awesome August thingy (here on popsoundboard) before I go to bed. So.

This is an epilogue to a story I wrote, dear me, back in 2005. The story was called What You See May Not Be What You Get, and there are two alternate endings, but the epilogue will (I think) work whichever of the endings you pick. The original story is mostly sex, but I don't suppose anyone minds that, do you, now? My thanks to kiyoshi_chan for reminding me of its existence, and asking for more!


"We should do this more often," said JC, lazily. He was almost lying in his huge armchair, with Justin sitting on the floor propped against it, one long arm dangling over JC's legs. "It's been way too long since we all got together."

"At least this time it was a happy occasion," Lance said. They all fell quiet for a moment, thinking of Robin. Funerals weren't something you remembered with pleasure.

"And I have just the thing to help us all celebrate," said Chris, easing himself off the couch and heading for the door. A moment later he came back with pipe, papers and bag on a wooden tray, and they helped themselves to whatever they wanted. "Lance, man, how come you never figured out how to roll one of these things without it all falling apart?"

"Always had someone pretty around to roll it for me," Lance replied. He grinned at Chris, and Chris rolled his eyes and muttered something about spoilt brats, and handed him a carefully rolled joint.

A few minutes later everyone was blissfully relaxed. "Good shit," murmured JC.

"Man, I haven't done this in years," said Joey. "Remember that first time, back in, was it Germany?"

"I think it was just us three," said JC. "We didn't wanna corrupt the babies."

"Well, that's not true," said Lance, dreamily. "Chris was always trying to corrupt us. Who was it snuck me my first beer?"

"Damn, I thought for sure that was Joey," said Chris. He poked Joey's thigh with his foot. "What kind of a best friend are you, anyway?"

"One who was scared of Diane," Joey said, and giggled.

"My mom gave me my first beer," Justin stated. "She said she did'n' want me gettin' sick drunk because I did'n' know what it was like."

"And I gave you your first weed." Chris sounded very pleased with himself. "Same principle."

"Lots of firsts, back then," Justin murmured. "A lifetime ago, seems like."

"You always remember your first," JC said. "Mine was, well, I never actually knew her name, she was a fan."

"Seriously?" said Lance. "Your first time was with a groupie? I thought you'd had loads of practice before we got actual fans."

"Oh, yeah, no, I was fifteen," JC explained earnestly. "MMC fan."

Chris laughed. "The Mouse Club had groupies! I shoulda known. I thought the fans were all, oh please, sign my Cinderella notebook, and just into training bras."

"Goes to show, you're not so omnishi—omniscient. Hah. When was your first, then? How old were you?"

"Me? Seventeen, my first girl. Vickie... Vickie O'Connor, that was her name. Natural redhead. Wow, yeah. First guy, I was in college. We neither of us knew what we were doing, but it was hot anyway," said Chris. "How 'bout you, Joey?"

"Kelly was my first. High school sweethearts, so." Joey took a long, careful drag. "First and last. And you know, also the best. I mean, everything in between kinda fades out, but Kelly, wow."

"Britney was mine." Justin's voice was soft with the memory. "And then Wade. Man, those two. It hurt so much, back then, but from here and now it looks kinda inevitable."

"Lance? Your turn," said JC.

"Yeah," said Chris, "when was your first? I never really figured it out."

"You should know." Lance was lying on the couch now, with his head in Chris's lap and his feet across Joey's thighs. "Y'all were there."

"Dude, I'm sure I wasn't there," said Joey, after a moment of consideration. "JC, you weren't there, were you? Doesn't seem like the kind of thing Lance would have done in front of people."

"No, not me." JC sounded a little bit disappointed.

"Nah," said Lance. His eyes were shut, and there was a faint smile playing on his lips. "Justin was. First guy I ever fucked. And Chris fucked me. God. I was so scared y'all would see I didn't know what I was doing." He laughed. "Hey, and they said I couldn't act."

"That—that wasn't. It couldn't have been." Justin sounded scared, almost, like he didn't want to believe what Lance was saying. "Tell the truth, now. Everyone else did."

"Was the truth. After, you said you never did it before with two people, don't you remember? And I said, y'all had no idea. Didn't want you to know. Y'all seemed to be all convinced I was, like, some kind of sex god."

"God," Chris muttered.

"Yeah," said Lance. "I liked being a sex god."

"No wonder you were so—afterwards, you didn't want—I swear, I didn't know, I thought..."

"Hey," said Lance, sitting up. "Don't be that way about it. It was fantastic. Couldn't have had a better first time if I'd planned it, well, I never would have planned it, would I? You two were so sweet together, I never would have tried to mess with that. I guess maybe Joey's was almost as good, because Kelly's the real deal, but I got to have amazingly hot sex with two guys I loved, I got no complaints, trust me." He settled back down, and Chris petted his hair, and when Chris looked over at Justin they both had tears in their eyes, which tomorrow, they'd probably blame on the weed.

"We should have known," said Chris. "We should have known you better."

"We got it all wrong," Justin whispered. "All that planning, and we were just wrong."

"The way I remember it," said Lance, "it was pretty fucking right. But, you know. Feel free to make it up to me. Any time."