Brave Author story, part one
Feb. 28th, 2011 11:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pensnestDammit. There's a little bit more to go on my Brave Author story, but my eyes are closing—convention weekends don't tend to allow for much sleep, especially in slightly crap hotels with manky mattresses and very noisy pipes—so I'm going to post the first part now while it's still, just, February, and hope to get the last scene done and the rest posted tomorrow.
"Tough cookies, Lance. Looks like you get to spend more time with your favorite Backstreet Boy." Chris was unrepentantly gleeful. He couldn't help it.
Lance growled. He was not happy with this development, not happy at all. If this stupid basketball game was meant to be about group rivalry and getting the fans to cheer for whichever band they loved, then why was he being swapped for AJ? And if it was all about being friends, why were they competing?
The whole thing was stupid. And worst of all, it had to be him, Lance, who was going to play on Backstreet's team. Couldn't they have sent Joey over, or JC?
"I can deal," he said, irritated.
"You're gonna have to be nice to Kevin Richardson," Chris said.
*
"Chris is right," Joey said. By now they were back at the hotel. Joey had found a box of popcorn—probably inveigled some innocent German girl into getting it for him—and was throwing kernels up into the air and trying to catch them in his mouth. He wasn't very good at it. "You are going to have to be nice to Kevin. Is that gonna be a problem?"
"He just—he gets on my nerves," Lance said. "He's always talking crap about us, saying we're the copycat group, and you know that's not true!"
"Yeah, and so do you, so why do you care?"
"Because—because he says it to the press!" Joey was the most tolerant guy alive, and Lance loved him for it, but even so. "He disses us. It's not right." Lance would have liked to say more, a lot more, and in terms his momma would not approve, but he couldn't quite bring himself to do that. He seethed instead. "We're just as good as Backstreet."
"Eh, we will be," said Joey. "Not yet, though. Don't forget they got a few years head start on us."
"Chris is way better at the high harmonies than Howie will ever be," Lance argued. "And JC's easily as good a singer as Brian. Better!" He'd say more, because he could surely make a case for Justin being a total professional even though he was the youngest of all of them, whereas Nick Carter was still such a kid.
"They sing different harmonies than us."
"Well, ours are better."
"Course they are," said Joey, with a huge grin.
"And no way is Kevin Richardson a real bass."
"Can't argue with that, Pez," Joey said, and Lance grimaced at the nickname. "But you know most of this stuff is just for publicity. Probably Lou's idea, get the fans riled up to support their favorite group. It's not real."
Lance thought privately that Lou was encouraging Nsync and Backstreet to dislike each other because it suited him to keep them competitive. "He wants us to be ambitious, and he wants them to keep trying to stay ahead of us."
"Of course he does. If you were managing us, wouldn't you?"
Lance grunted. If he were a manager, he'd be better at it than Lou Pearlman. Maybe he would, one day. When he knew more about how the business worked. At any rate he wouldn't need to play off his acts against one another and keep them feeling insecure. There had to be a better way.
Joey hauled himself off the bed and went to brush his teeth, and Lance lay back, thinking about the Backstreet Boys, about practice tomorrow and the game the day after, and how he was going to deal.
In truth, he thought most of them were decent guys. it was just Kevin Richardson who always looked at them—at him—stonily, who didn't make friendly overtures, who thought of Nsync as competition. Which they were, Lance reminded himself. But Kevin, with his scary green eyes, he—well. Whatever. He didn't frighten Lance, he just… just got on his nerves.
*
"So, you're Nsync's secret weapon, right?" Brian said with a grin, as the five of them walked into their dressing room to change after practice.
"What do you mean? He sucks!" said Nick, with his usual lack of brain-to-mouth filter. Lance hadn't needed to be around Nick much to figure out that Nick didn't think very hard before he spoke. Still, it stung, a bit.
"Nick!" Kevin reproved. Kevin did that, Lance realized, he kept his Boys in line, but he wasn't nearly as fierce as he'd seemed when Lance wasn't part of Kevin's team.
Nick's eyes went wide. "Well, I mean, he's—um. Sorry, Lance. I didn't—I just meant, you aren't very, uh…"
Lance took pity on Nick. "It's okay. I know I'm not much of a basketball player. I'm not really into it." He wasn't much for team sports, except to watch—he liked swimming, and horseback riding. Though actually, the only one in his group who was any good at basketball was Justin. Chris was the only one of them who stood a chance against Justin one on one, but that was because Chris could be insanely competitive if he was in the mood, and didn't mind cheating.
It was actually possible, Lance thought, that the diktat to swap him for AJ was meant to make the game a bit less of a formality.
"They probably want to even things up a bit," Kevin said, unexpectedly echoing Lance's thoughts. "It's not like group integration was a concern before."
"If they really wanted to sabotage you, they'd have swapped me for Brian," Lance said. Brian was surprisingly good at the game. Lance was used to thinking of tall people as the ones who were good at basketball, people like Justin. Not people like Joey and JC, though, because neither of them was much better than Lance. He hauled off his singlet and poked through his stuff for his T-shirt.
"Aren't you going to shower?" Nick asked.
Much to his own annoyance, Lance felt heat rising in his cheeks. No, he had not been planning to shower with these guys. Much safer to go back to their hotel, even if—
"The showers are hotter here," Howie said, with a friendly smile.
Yeah, Lance thought, and they'll have naked guys in them. "I'll, um, yeah," he said, and fumbled with his clothes, undressing slowly while the Boys bounded off to the showers. Shrieks echoed through the room and there were loud accusations in Brian's voice and Nick's.
"Don't mind them," Kevin said. "I don't think they grew up yet, but they're harmless."
"No, it's okay," Lance said. "Actually, they remind me of my guys. Chris and Justin are exactly the same." Chris would undoubtedly be harassing Justin with threats of what he might do with the soap, and messing with the temperature controls. And Justin would be giggling and fleeing and trying to fight back, exactly like it sounded Nick was doing.
"You would not believe the stuff they get up to. Or what they get the rest of us doing, sometimes."
Lance grinned suddenly. "I guess I would, though. Chris is kinda…"
"Don't tell me," Kevin said, dryly. "Although in my experience, not very subtle."
"Mm," said Lance. "Can't really argue with that." It didn't even feel particularly disloyal, not when Kevin was rolling his eyes at the noises coming from the shower area.
It quieted down. ""Sounds like Howie stopped the riot. Might be safe to go in there now." He picked up his towel and shampoo bottle and strode towards the showers. Lance sneaked a look, because he wasn't dead. Kevin had the most perfect dimples in his lower back. Which Lance had better stop thinking about.
He grabbed his own stuff and hurried towards the showers.
Nick and Brian were snapping towels at one another, but they seemed to be done, and Howie was drying his hair, carefully out of range. Lance kept a cautious distance from Brian, and made it safely into the hot water. When he risked a glance behind him, the others had disappeared.
"You don't need to be afraid of them," Kevin said.
"I'm not afraid of them."
"You don't need to be afraid of yourself, either," Kevin said, gently.
"I—I—"
"You can look all you want. No harm in looking."
Lance didn't think he could blame his blush on the hot water. He might never stop being confused.
Still… he looked. Kevin's back, the muscles moving below the skin as he lifted his arms to shampoo his hair. Water trickling down over his ass and thighs. Kevin's soapy hands sliding across his beautifully proportioned chest, and belly, and—okay, maybe he shouldn't watch that part. Except for how Kevin's eyes were on him like a challenge, and he really really really wanted to watch that part.
"My turn now," Kevin said.
* * *
Game night, and Lance couldn't help the nerves. He knew it was stupid, this whole thing was stupid even if it was for charity, somehow this stupid basketball game had been loaded with all kinds of guff about inter-band rivalry at the same time as it was supposed to be about co-operation. What did it matter who won a stupid basketball game?
That did not stop him wanting his team to win. Though it was difficult to tell which was supposed to be his team.
"So, Lance, give us the inside dope," Brian suggested with a wide, friendly smile. "What's the best way to take down the other team?"
"Brian, that's not fair," Kevin said.
"But AJ's gonna be telling them all about us," Nick interrupted. "He's gonna want Nsync to win, just so's he can say it's because he was with them, and we lost 'cause he wasn't with us."
"Yeah," said Howie. "AJ's going to spill all our secrets."
"So, watcha got?" Brian asked again.
Lance looked at four pairs of eager eyes. "Hm. Um. If you want to distract Justin, put Nick up against him. Justin'll be so determined to beat Nick, he won't notice if he's actually making it work for his team or not," he said, and, strangely, felt less like a traitor than he'd expected to.
"Be a bit foolish to put anyone but Nick or Kevin up against Justin, anyway," Brian said, nodding. "What about Chris?"
"I… don't think you'll be able to do anything about Chris. He's kinda unpredictable." If Chris was feeling competitive, he'd fight like a tiger; if he wasn't, pretty much anything could happen. But if Chris had mischief in his mind, Lance did not think there was anything in this world that could distract him from it. "If you wanna distract Joey, get a bunch of girls in really tiny shorts to sit courtside and smile at him."
"Hey," said Nick, "that'll work on AJ too, right?"
"Nah," said Howie. "AJ will spend the first couple of minutes deciding which two he's going to bring back to the hotel, and then he'll forget about them."
"Oh, man." Lance began to laugh. "You mean, AJ's actually worse than Joey?"
"I think AJ will be showing off," Howie said. "And what about JC? Will the girls work on JC, too?"
"I don't think they'll distract him," Lance said, thoughtfully. "Uh, you should put Howie onto JC, or maybe me. He'll feel guilty because he's taller than Howie, or because he knows I'm not exactly comfortable with this whole deal, and he won't play hard. It'd feel mean," said Lance. This did feel a bit treacherous, what with JC being such a sweetheart, but hey. They were here to win this, right?
They did win. Lance was quite grateful to realize that his sneaky bits of advice hadn't really made a lot of difference. With Chris being in a crazy mood rather than a competitive one, it had been a foregone conclusion, but also a lot of fun. And no matter how much he tried to argue himself out of it, Lance couldn't help but be a little bit pleased that he was on the winning side. He'd be using it to squash Justin for weeks.
Brian, Nick and Howie went straight into the showers again without apparently giving a moment's consideration to the fact that Kevin and Lance were hanging back. Why should they, anyway? They weren't feeling prickled all over with anticipation, with the breathless hope that Kevin would, that they'd, that he could look at Kevin again, naked, soaping himself, and Kevin would look back.
Every muscle of Lance's body felt tight, and he had to keep his towel casually but carefully dangling in front of his groin, because his dick was thinking even harder about the possibilities than the rest of him was. But he made it to the showers without any of the Boys noticing, and didn't so much as glance sideways at Kevin until he could hear the others' voices echoing from the locker area back around the corner.
A tiny smile flickered on Kevin's mouth, and his eyebrows twitched a fraction, his face really wasn't stony at all, he just didn't telegraph things. Lance looked back at him, steadily, lifting his chin. Lance's right hand, white with lather, slid straight down and gripped his cock, a hot, slithery grasp and slide mirrored by the other man. Kevin's spare hand smoothed over his chest, his nipples, and Lance matched it. The hot water pattered down, and there was a burst of singing from the other Boys, and Lance's breath caught in his throat as he watched Kevin's cock and jerked himself off hard and fast. He clamped his mouth shut over the groan that wanted to escape as he came, and saw Kevin's face distort with the same effort as Kevin's cock spurted all over his hand.
Neither of them spoke. They washed quickly, and turned off the water, dried, dressed, and it was like it never happened. Except Lance would be jerking off in bathrooms for weeks with the memory of Kevin's orgasm in his mind.
* * *
"Tough cookies, Lance. Looks like you get to spend more time with your favorite Backstreet Boy." Chris was unrepentantly gleeful. He couldn't help it.
Lance growled. He was not happy with this development, not happy at all. If this stupid basketball game was meant to be about group rivalry and getting the fans to cheer for whichever band they loved, then why was he being swapped for AJ? And if it was all about being friends, why were they competing?
The whole thing was stupid. And worst of all, it had to be him, Lance, who was going to play on Backstreet's team. Couldn't they have sent Joey over, or JC?
"I can deal," he said, irritated.
"You're gonna have to be nice to Kevin Richardson," Chris said.
*
"Chris is right," Joey said. By now they were back at the hotel. Joey had found a box of popcorn—probably inveigled some innocent German girl into getting it for him—and was throwing kernels up into the air and trying to catch them in his mouth. He wasn't very good at it. "You are going to have to be nice to Kevin. Is that gonna be a problem?"
"He just—he gets on my nerves," Lance said. "He's always talking crap about us, saying we're the copycat group, and you know that's not true!"
"Yeah, and so do you, so why do you care?"
"Because—because he says it to the press!" Joey was the most tolerant guy alive, and Lance loved him for it, but even so. "He disses us. It's not right." Lance would have liked to say more, a lot more, and in terms his momma would not approve, but he couldn't quite bring himself to do that. He seethed instead. "We're just as good as Backstreet."
"Eh, we will be," said Joey. "Not yet, though. Don't forget they got a few years head start on us."
"Chris is way better at the high harmonies than Howie will ever be," Lance argued. "And JC's easily as good a singer as Brian. Better!" He'd say more, because he could surely make a case for Justin being a total professional even though he was the youngest of all of them, whereas Nick Carter was still such a kid.
"They sing different harmonies than us."
"Well, ours are better."
"Course they are," said Joey, with a huge grin.
"And no way is Kevin Richardson a real bass."
"Can't argue with that, Pez," Joey said, and Lance grimaced at the nickname. "But you know most of this stuff is just for publicity. Probably Lou's idea, get the fans riled up to support their favorite group. It's not real."
Lance thought privately that Lou was encouraging Nsync and Backstreet to dislike each other because it suited him to keep them competitive. "He wants us to be ambitious, and he wants them to keep trying to stay ahead of us."
"Of course he does. If you were managing us, wouldn't you?"
Lance grunted. If he were a manager, he'd be better at it than Lou Pearlman. Maybe he would, one day. When he knew more about how the business worked. At any rate he wouldn't need to play off his acts against one another and keep them feeling insecure. There had to be a better way.
Joey hauled himself off the bed and went to brush his teeth, and Lance lay back, thinking about the Backstreet Boys, about practice tomorrow and the game the day after, and how he was going to deal.
In truth, he thought most of them were decent guys. it was just Kevin Richardson who always looked at them—at him—stonily, who didn't make friendly overtures, who thought of Nsync as competition. Which they were, Lance reminded himself. But Kevin, with his scary green eyes, he—well. Whatever. He didn't frighten Lance, he just… just got on his nerves.
*
"So, you're Nsync's secret weapon, right?" Brian said with a grin, as the five of them walked into their dressing room to change after practice.
"What do you mean? He sucks!" said Nick, with his usual lack of brain-to-mouth filter. Lance hadn't needed to be around Nick much to figure out that Nick didn't think very hard before he spoke. Still, it stung, a bit.
"Nick!" Kevin reproved. Kevin did that, Lance realized, he kept his Boys in line, but he wasn't nearly as fierce as he'd seemed when Lance wasn't part of Kevin's team.
Nick's eyes went wide. "Well, I mean, he's—um. Sorry, Lance. I didn't—I just meant, you aren't very, uh…"
Lance took pity on Nick. "It's okay. I know I'm not much of a basketball player. I'm not really into it." He wasn't much for team sports, except to watch—he liked swimming, and horseback riding. Though actually, the only one in his group who was any good at basketball was Justin. Chris was the only one of them who stood a chance against Justin one on one, but that was because Chris could be insanely competitive if he was in the mood, and didn't mind cheating.
It was actually possible, Lance thought, that the diktat to swap him for AJ was meant to make the game a bit less of a formality.
"They probably want to even things up a bit," Kevin said, unexpectedly echoing Lance's thoughts. "It's not like group integration was a concern before."
"If they really wanted to sabotage you, they'd have swapped me for Brian," Lance said. Brian was surprisingly good at the game. Lance was used to thinking of tall people as the ones who were good at basketball, people like Justin. Not people like Joey and JC, though, because neither of them was much better than Lance. He hauled off his singlet and poked through his stuff for his T-shirt.
"Aren't you going to shower?" Nick asked.
Much to his own annoyance, Lance felt heat rising in his cheeks. No, he had not been planning to shower with these guys. Much safer to go back to their hotel, even if—
"The showers are hotter here," Howie said, with a friendly smile.
Yeah, Lance thought, and they'll have naked guys in them. "I'll, um, yeah," he said, and fumbled with his clothes, undressing slowly while the Boys bounded off to the showers. Shrieks echoed through the room and there were loud accusations in Brian's voice and Nick's.
"Don't mind them," Kevin said. "I don't think they grew up yet, but they're harmless."
"No, it's okay," Lance said. "Actually, they remind me of my guys. Chris and Justin are exactly the same." Chris would undoubtedly be harassing Justin with threats of what he might do with the soap, and messing with the temperature controls. And Justin would be giggling and fleeing and trying to fight back, exactly like it sounded Nick was doing.
"You would not believe the stuff they get up to. Or what they get the rest of us doing, sometimes."
Lance grinned suddenly. "I guess I would, though. Chris is kinda…"
"Don't tell me," Kevin said, dryly. "Although in my experience, not very subtle."
"Mm," said Lance. "Can't really argue with that." It didn't even feel particularly disloyal, not when Kevin was rolling his eyes at the noises coming from the shower area.
It quieted down. ""Sounds like Howie stopped the riot. Might be safe to go in there now." He picked up his towel and shampoo bottle and strode towards the showers. Lance sneaked a look, because he wasn't dead. Kevin had the most perfect dimples in his lower back. Which Lance had better stop thinking about.
He grabbed his own stuff and hurried towards the showers.
Nick and Brian were snapping towels at one another, but they seemed to be done, and Howie was drying his hair, carefully out of range. Lance kept a cautious distance from Brian, and made it safely into the hot water. When he risked a glance behind him, the others had disappeared.
"You don't need to be afraid of them," Kevin said.
"I'm not afraid of them."
"You don't need to be afraid of yourself, either," Kevin said, gently.
"I—I—"
"You can look all you want. No harm in looking."
Lance didn't think he could blame his blush on the hot water. He might never stop being confused.
Still… he looked. Kevin's back, the muscles moving below the skin as he lifted his arms to shampoo his hair. Water trickling down over his ass and thighs. Kevin's soapy hands sliding across his beautifully proportioned chest, and belly, and—okay, maybe he shouldn't watch that part. Except for how Kevin's eyes were on him like a challenge, and he really really really wanted to watch that part.
"My turn now," Kevin said.
* * *
Game night, and Lance couldn't help the nerves. He knew it was stupid, this whole thing was stupid even if it was for charity, somehow this stupid basketball game had been loaded with all kinds of guff about inter-band rivalry at the same time as it was supposed to be about co-operation. What did it matter who won a stupid basketball game?
That did not stop him wanting his team to win. Though it was difficult to tell which was supposed to be his team.
"So, Lance, give us the inside dope," Brian suggested with a wide, friendly smile. "What's the best way to take down the other team?"
"Brian, that's not fair," Kevin said.
"But AJ's gonna be telling them all about us," Nick interrupted. "He's gonna want Nsync to win, just so's he can say it's because he was with them, and we lost 'cause he wasn't with us."
"Yeah," said Howie. "AJ's going to spill all our secrets."
"So, watcha got?" Brian asked again.
Lance looked at four pairs of eager eyes. "Hm. Um. If you want to distract Justin, put Nick up against him. Justin'll be so determined to beat Nick, he won't notice if he's actually making it work for his team or not," he said, and, strangely, felt less like a traitor than he'd expected to.
"Be a bit foolish to put anyone but Nick or Kevin up against Justin, anyway," Brian said, nodding. "What about Chris?"
"I… don't think you'll be able to do anything about Chris. He's kinda unpredictable." If Chris was feeling competitive, he'd fight like a tiger; if he wasn't, pretty much anything could happen. But if Chris had mischief in his mind, Lance did not think there was anything in this world that could distract him from it. "If you wanna distract Joey, get a bunch of girls in really tiny shorts to sit courtside and smile at him."
"Hey," said Nick, "that'll work on AJ too, right?"
"Nah," said Howie. "AJ will spend the first couple of minutes deciding which two he's going to bring back to the hotel, and then he'll forget about them."
"Oh, man." Lance began to laugh. "You mean, AJ's actually worse than Joey?"
"I think AJ will be showing off," Howie said. "And what about JC? Will the girls work on JC, too?"
"I don't think they'll distract him," Lance said, thoughtfully. "Uh, you should put Howie onto JC, or maybe me. He'll feel guilty because he's taller than Howie, or because he knows I'm not exactly comfortable with this whole deal, and he won't play hard. It'd feel mean," said Lance. This did feel a bit treacherous, what with JC being such a sweetheart, but hey. They were here to win this, right?
They did win. Lance was quite grateful to realize that his sneaky bits of advice hadn't really made a lot of difference. With Chris being in a crazy mood rather than a competitive one, it had been a foregone conclusion, but also a lot of fun. And no matter how much he tried to argue himself out of it, Lance couldn't help but be a little bit pleased that he was on the winning side. He'd be using it to squash Justin for weeks.
Brian, Nick and Howie went straight into the showers again without apparently giving a moment's consideration to the fact that Kevin and Lance were hanging back. Why should they, anyway? They weren't feeling prickled all over with anticipation, with the breathless hope that Kevin would, that they'd, that he could look at Kevin again, naked, soaping himself, and Kevin would look back.
Every muscle of Lance's body felt tight, and he had to keep his towel casually but carefully dangling in front of his groin, because his dick was thinking even harder about the possibilities than the rest of him was. But he made it to the showers without any of the Boys noticing, and didn't so much as glance sideways at Kevin until he could hear the others' voices echoing from the locker area back around the corner.
A tiny smile flickered on Kevin's mouth, and his eyebrows twitched a fraction, his face really wasn't stony at all, he just didn't telegraph things. Lance looked back at him, steadily, lifting his chin. Lance's right hand, white with lather, slid straight down and gripped his cock, a hot, slithery grasp and slide mirrored by the other man. Kevin's spare hand smoothed over his chest, his nipples, and Lance matched it. The hot water pattered down, and there was a burst of singing from the other Boys, and Lance's breath caught in his throat as he watched Kevin's cock and jerked himself off hard and fast. He clamped his mouth shut over the groan that wanted to escape as he came, and saw Kevin's face distort with the same effort as Kevin's cock spurted all over his hand.
Neither of them spoke. They washed quickly, and turned off the water, dried, dressed, and it was like it never happened. Except Lance would be jerking off in bathrooms for weeks with the memory of Kevin's orgasm in his mind.
* * *
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-03-02 02:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-06 02:34 pm (UTC)And Lance, oh, honey. He must have been so afraid to look back then, and Kevin telling him he could, that it was all right, made me smile a lot. You got into his head so well.
This is like, the sweetest story ever.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-11 10:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-11 10:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-16 12:49 am (UTC)But now I've come to a conclusion. It's either A, you write Lance so well I love it no matter WHO you slash him with, or B, you have sekrit mindbending powers when it comes to me and your fic.
Probably C, both.