Fic: The Clintonian Defense | popslash | chris/lance-ish
The Clintonian Defense
Fandom: Popslash
Pairing: Chris/Lance
Rating: Adultish
Comments: Written for TrickyFish Day, even though it is late late late! rikes suggested I write about mechanical bulls. Um, sort of? turps33 wanted dueling eyebrows, and, well. There's no overt mention of it, but you KNOW it's happening because it's Chris and Lance, and that's just how they roll. All of which is to say, I ignored your prompts and wrote whatever the fuck came out, because yes.
Chris respects Lance's word the first time Lance tells him he's not gay, he just happens to think that maybe Lance has a different definition of gay. A Clintonian definition, even, because as far as Chris can tell, Lance is definitely, one hundred percent gay. And not just because of his hair or his clothes or his ability to impersonate Ellen Degeneres, but for other, non-stereotypical reasons, too, like the part where he fucks guys, or at least really really wants to judging from the way Lance stares at their asses. This is what Chris tells JC on the drive over to the Compound while he's idly flipping through JC's CD book trying to find something that doesn't suck. An almost impossible task, he thinks, and nearly puts in the O-Town CD he brought along with plans to turn it into a coaster during the parts of the group meeting involving boring money talk.
Having a craft project has saved him from having to pay attention to the boring details more times than Chris can count.
"Wait," JC says after a long minute of fighting with Chris over the radio and losing, because if Chris wants to listen to 'Liquid Dreams' he's gonna fucking listen to it, and also, because Chris has two hands and JC also has two hands, but has to use at least one of his for driving. "Wait, you're saying Lance is gay? How do you even figure that? He's has, like. Girlfriends, sometimes. He's a Baptist! He goes to church every Sunday!"
Chris frowns at JC. "Wow, C. Way to be homophobic and heteronormative and stereotyping and shit. Because seriously, no gay boys were ever Baptists. The gays hate Jesus. Or maybe they just want to fuck him-in hell, where they will burn for all eternity along with Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein."
"Saddam Hussein isn't dead and-that's not. I didn't mean it like that! I just, and hang on, because you were the one who. I mean, how can you just go around saying, saying Lance is gay or whatever when you haven’t. I mean. Unless you have? Because um, at the end of the day, there's nothing wrong with it and it's, you know, people are born how they're born and it's all natural and things like that so-"
"If you shut up right now, I will never mention this again. How's that."
JC lets out a loud breath and nods gratefully. "Yeah, okay. Yeah, thanks. So um. What do you think about my idea for 'Space Cowboy'?"
"I think that if Lance isn't already gay, giant space bulls and neon-colored chaps will probably do the trick," Chris says.
"Um. Is that a no?"
*
Telling Justin doesn't go quite as well as telling JC. Probably, things would've gone better if he hadn't waited to voice his suspicions in a strip club while watching Justin get his fourth lap dance of the night and simultaneously taking his seventh-eighth?-whatever, a lot of shots of tequila. The point is, that probably it was the wrong place and time, but the naked ladies immediately reminded Chris of how Lance probably doesn't even enjoy going to strip clubs with them because he's totally gay, and that's just sad because naked ladies can be really fun. Especially when feathers and whipped cream and tequila are involved.
"What?!" Justin shrieks when Chris explains his reasoning. "Goddamnit, Chris, I told you like a million years ago that I'm not gay! Why does everyone keep saying that? I'm dating Britney Spears and we totally have sex all the time and I go down on her and I love it, yum! And-look, I have a hardon right now from this stripper, you can feel it if you want and-"
"Hey now, that's really okay!" Chris says, and wrenches his wrist away from Justin's grasping fingers. Justin makes a last ditch effort to get Chris to feel his non-gay proof and falls off his chair onto the floor, where he lies for a moment looking stunned before he says, "Seriously. I totally am not gay and I just, you know. It's bad enough getting that from the gossip rags, but when your own friends-your best friends, by which I mean my best friend, because you're probably not your own best friend but you know what I mean because, because-"
"There is probably decades' worth of dried jizz on that floor, J," Chris interrupts, "so probably we should get you home where you can disinfect. And I didn't say you were gay, fuckwad. I was talking about Lance."
"Lance?" Justin says, scrambling up from the floor and digging in his front pocket until he finds his travel bottle of plumeria-scented anti-bacterial hand wash. Justin pours a small pool into his hands and rubs them together, rubs a head over the back of his neck and cringes when he gets to his curls. "Yeah, Lance is totally gay. And fuck. I think I'm gonna have to shave my head. Millions of jizz bacteria are probably infiltrating my hair right now."
"That's exactly what you should tell the teenies when they ask you why you did it at the next meet and greet."
*
It goes a little better with Joey. They're testing out the space bulls that JC demanded they get and Chris reluctantly backed him up on, mostly because he wanted to see Lance have to ride a giant mechanical bull while wearing fluorescent chaps, and he's trying really hard not to think about that particular desire, because it turns out that Lance looks really good riding a giant mechanical space bull. Well. He looks better than JC, who acts like he's trying to hump the thing into submission and judging from the way he's been walking lately, failing miserably at it.
"So," Chris says, dropping into the seat next to Joey to watch the bulls get rolled out on stage, "I heard that Lance is gay."
"Oh good, he told you! Because you know, it's really hard being the only one who knows. I mean, I don't think he would've even told me except for that I sort of, you know, caught him at it, if you know what I mean."
"You caught-no, I have no idea what you mean."
"I caught him fucking another guy," Joey says.
"You caught him fucking another guy?"
"Well, his dick wasn't in the guy's ass, but like, that's pretty much where they were heading, if you catch my drift."
"So Lance is gay?"
"Isn't that what you said?
"Well, I meant Lance is gay as in the sky is blue. It's not something you really need proof for, it just is."
"Oh." Joey clears his throat and stares at his hands for a minute. "Can we sort of pretend like I didn't say the thing about Lance's dick near anyone's ass? Because I was probably not supposed to tell."
"Well, it could've been a girl's ass," Chris says.
Joey makes a face. "Lance wouldn't fuck a girl in the vagina, much less the ass. He's totally-oh. Right." He coughs. "It totally could've been a girl. A really muscular girl with a beard."
"So what you're saying is, Lance isn't gay, he just likes bearded ladies. I'm glad we cleared that up, Joe."
*
It's been over a year since the last time Chris asked Lance if he was gay and Chris figures that this time, maybe asking is overrated. Maybe, he thinks, even though the sky is blue like Lance is gay-maybe Lance just needs proof. Maybe Lance is under the mistaken assumption that dicks and asses do need to meet for it to count as real sex, because Lance did like Bill Clinton an awful lot and defended him during that whole impeachment trial, saying things like, "Who keeps a come-stained dress, anyway? It was a totally a setup and I know a lot of high schoolers who define sex as intercourse! Blowjobs SO don't count."
Chris has never actually had gay sex. Well, he's had gay blowjobs and gay handjobs and quite a lot of gay rubbing, actually, but the actual penetration thing, not so much. This is what he tells Lance once he has him alone on the bus.
"Because, see, it's just a really heteronormative way of looking at things and I know you don't hate lesbians, Lance. I know Rosie is like, totally one of your favorite people and would you say to her, 'Rosie, I know you think you're gay but actually women can't be gay because they can't have real sex with penetration, so actually, you're straight'?"
Lance just stares at him. "I'm pretty sure lesbians can do penetration, Chris."
"With strap ons! But that's totally not the-okay, look, you're completely ignoring my point, which is, you know. That just because you haven't had any dick-to-ass contact doesn't mean you're not gay! Blowjobs totally count, dude. I should know. I'm like, at least forty percent gay, so take it from me, the second gayest person in the band: blowjobs totally count!"
"Maybe I should ask JC his opinion, as the first gayest person in the band."
"It doesn't count as gay if it's an alien life form or via chatroom."
"Chris." Lance sighs and gives him a look. "Did you ever think maybe I'm just not ready to make that claim yet? Maybe it's not the ratio of dicks to asses-"
"Dick-to-ass contact, fuckwad."
"Whatever it is, maybe I'm just not." Lance won't meet his eyes, stares at his hands, the floor of the bus, out the window. Chris frowns and scoots closer to Lance on the couch, touches him on the shoulder once, gently, before Lance jerks away. "Maybe I'm just not ready."
"Oh," Chris says, and feels like a complete jerk. A total asshole. Of course Lance is conflicted. He's just a kid still, younger than Chris was when he started the group, just a kid with some really religious parents in a profession that's not exactly gay-adjacent, and just, yeah. Chris is a fucking asshole and his entire argument about Clintonian politics and lipstick parties and how you can still get gonorrhea from blowjobs totally proves his point-all his prepared arguments of how he'd force Lance into admitting he's gay through laughter and superior intellect fall away and he just sees Lance: a scared kid who's still trying to figure things out and yes, Chris is officially and completely an asshole. He lays a hand on Lance's shoulder and squeezes once, brushes his fingers along Lance's jaw. Lance stares out the window and doesn't say anything.
"Hey, kid. It's, I was just fucking around, okay? You just, you know what? You be whoever you want to be, as long as you're happy, you know? And when you're ready to. When you're ready, I'll still be here."
Lance takes a deep breath and nods. "Yeah?"
"Yeah."
"Okay. Um. As long as we never talk about Rosie O'Donnell having sex again."
Chris grins. He's still an asshole, but at least Lance knows where he stands now. At least Lance knows there's one person, that he has a friend, no matter what. "I think that's something the entire world can agree on."
(And three years later Lance came out to Chris and they had lots and lots of sex and dicks were in asses and not even the Clintons could be in denial when up against that much hard evidence. Get it? HARD.)
Ahem. The end.
Fandom: Popslash
Pairing: Chris/Lance
Rating: Adultish
Comments: Written for TrickyFish Day, even though it is late late late! rikes suggested I write about mechanical bulls. Um, sort of? turps33 wanted dueling eyebrows, and, well. There's no overt mention of it, but you KNOW it's happening because it's Chris and Lance, and that's just how they roll. All of which is to say, I ignored your prompts and wrote whatever the fuck came out, because yes.
Chris respects Lance's word the first time Lance tells him he's not gay, he just happens to think that maybe Lance has a different definition of gay. A Clintonian definition, even, because as far as Chris can tell, Lance is definitely, one hundred percent gay. And not just because of his hair or his clothes or his ability to impersonate Ellen Degeneres, but for other, non-stereotypical reasons, too, like the part where he fucks guys, or at least really really wants to judging from the way Lance stares at their asses. This is what Chris tells JC on the drive over to the Compound while he's idly flipping through JC's CD book trying to find something that doesn't suck. An almost impossible task, he thinks, and nearly puts in the O-Town CD he brought along with plans to turn it into a coaster during the parts of the group meeting involving boring money talk.
Having a craft project has saved him from having to pay attention to the boring details more times than Chris can count.
"Wait," JC says after a long minute of fighting with Chris over the radio and losing, because if Chris wants to listen to 'Liquid Dreams' he's gonna fucking listen to it, and also, because Chris has two hands and JC also has two hands, but has to use at least one of his for driving. "Wait, you're saying Lance is gay? How do you even figure that? He's has, like. Girlfriends, sometimes. He's a Baptist! He goes to church every Sunday!"
Chris frowns at JC. "Wow, C. Way to be homophobic and heteronormative and stereotyping and shit. Because seriously, no gay boys were ever Baptists. The gays hate Jesus. Or maybe they just want to fuck him-in hell, where they will burn for all eternity along with Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein."
"Saddam Hussein isn't dead and-that's not. I didn't mean it like that! I just, and hang on, because you were the one who. I mean, how can you just go around saying, saying Lance is gay or whatever when you haven’t. I mean. Unless you have? Because um, at the end of the day, there's nothing wrong with it and it's, you know, people are born how they're born and it's all natural and things like that so-"
"If you shut up right now, I will never mention this again. How's that."
JC lets out a loud breath and nods gratefully. "Yeah, okay. Yeah, thanks. So um. What do you think about my idea for 'Space Cowboy'?"
"I think that if Lance isn't already gay, giant space bulls and neon-colored chaps will probably do the trick," Chris says.
"Um. Is that a no?"
*
Telling Justin doesn't go quite as well as telling JC. Probably, things would've gone better if he hadn't waited to voice his suspicions in a strip club while watching Justin get his fourth lap dance of the night and simultaneously taking his seventh-eighth?-whatever, a lot of shots of tequila. The point is, that probably it was the wrong place and time, but the naked ladies immediately reminded Chris of how Lance probably doesn't even enjoy going to strip clubs with them because he's totally gay, and that's just sad because naked ladies can be really fun. Especially when feathers and whipped cream and tequila are involved.
"What?!" Justin shrieks when Chris explains his reasoning. "Goddamnit, Chris, I told you like a million years ago that I'm not gay! Why does everyone keep saying that? I'm dating Britney Spears and we totally have sex all the time and I go down on her and I love it, yum! And-look, I have a hardon right now from this stripper, you can feel it if you want and-"
"Hey now, that's really okay!" Chris says, and wrenches his wrist away from Justin's grasping fingers. Justin makes a last ditch effort to get Chris to feel his non-gay proof and falls off his chair onto the floor, where he lies for a moment looking stunned before he says, "Seriously. I totally am not gay and I just, you know. It's bad enough getting that from the gossip rags, but when your own friends-your best friends, by which I mean my best friend, because you're probably not your own best friend but you know what I mean because, because-"
"There is probably decades' worth of dried jizz on that floor, J," Chris interrupts, "so probably we should get you home where you can disinfect. And I didn't say you were gay, fuckwad. I was talking about Lance."
"Lance?" Justin says, scrambling up from the floor and digging in his front pocket until he finds his travel bottle of plumeria-scented anti-bacterial hand wash. Justin pours a small pool into his hands and rubs them together, rubs a head over the back of his neck and cringes when he gets to his curls. "Yeah, Lance is totally gay. And fuck. I think I'm gonna have to shave my head. Millions of jizz bacteria are probably infiltrating my hair right now."
"That's exactly what you should tell the teenies when they ask you why you did it at the next meet and greet."
*
It goes a little better with Joey. They're testing out the space bulls that JC demanded they get and Chris reluctantly backed him up on, mostly because he wanted to see Lance have to ride a giant mechanical bull while wearing fluorescent chaps, and he's trying really hard not to think about that particular desire, because it turns out that Lance looks really good riding a giant mechanical space bull. Well. He looks better than JC, who acts like he's trying to hump the thing into submission and judging from the way he's been walking lately, failing miserably at it.
"So," Chris says, dropping into the seat next to Joey to watch the bulls get rolled out on stage, "I heard that Lance is gay."
"Oh good, he told you! Because you know, it's really hard being the only one who knows. I mean, I don't think he would've even told me except for that I sort of, you know, caught him at it, if you know what I mean."
"You caught-no, I have no idea what you mean."
"I caught him fucking another guy," Joey says.
"You caught him fucking another guy?"
"Well, his dick wasn't in the guy's ass, but like, that's pretty much where they were heading, if you catch my drift."
"So Lance is gay?"
"Isn't that what you said?
"Well, I meant Lance is gay as in the sky is blue. It's not something you really need proof for, it just is."
"Oh." Joey clears his throat and stares at his hands for a minute. "Can we sort of pretend like I didn't say the thing about Lance's dick near anyone's ass? Because I was probably not supposed to tell."
"Well, it could've been a girl's ass," Chris says.
Joey makes a face. "Lance wouldn't fuck a girl in the vagina, much less the ass. He's totally-oh. Right." He coughs. "It totally could've been a girl. A really muscular girl with a beard."
"So what you're saying is, Lance isn't gay, he just likes bearded ladies. I'm glad we cleared that up, Joe."
*
It's been over a year since the last time Chris asked Lance if he was gay and Chris figures that this time, maybe asking is overrated. Maybe, he thinks, even though the sky is blue like Lance is gay-maybe Lance just needs proof. Maybe Lance is under the mistaken assumption that dicks and asses do need to meet for it to count as real sex, because Lance did like Bill Clinton an awful lot and defended him during that whole impeachment trial, saying things like, "Who keeps a come-stained dress, anyway? It was a totally a setup and I know a lot of high schoolers who define sex as intercourse! Blowjobs SO don't count."
Chris has never actually had gay sex. Well, he's had gay blowjobs and gay handjobs and quite a lot of gay rubbing, actually, but the actual penetration thing, not so much. This is what he tells Lance once he has him alone on the bus.
"Because, see, it's just a really heteronormative way of looking at things and I know you don't hate lesbians, Lance. I know Rosie is like, totally one of your favorite people and would you say to her, 'Rosie, I know you think you're gay but actually women can't be gay because they can't have real sex with penetration, so actually, you're straight'?"
Lance just stares at him. "I'm pretty sure lesbians can do penetration, Chris."
"With strap ons! But that's totally not the-okay, look, you're completely ignoring my point, which is, you know. That just because you haven't had any dick-to-ass contact doesn't mean you're not gay! Blowjobs totally count, dude. I should know. I'm like, at least forty percent gay, so take it from me, the second gayest person in the band: blowjobs totally count!"
"Maybe I should ask JC his opinion, as the first gayest person in the band."
"It doesn't count as gay if it's an alien life form or via chatroom."
"Chris." Lance sighs and gives him a look. "Did you ever think maybe I'm just not ready to make that claim yet? Maybe it's not the ratio of dicks to asses-"
"Dick-to-ass contact, fuckwad."
"Whatever it is, maybe I'm just not." Lance won't meet his eyes, stares at his hands, the floor of the bus, out the window. Chris frowns and scoots closer to Lance on the couch, touches him on the shoulder once, gently, before Lance jerks away. "Maybe I'm just not ready."
"Oh," Chris says, and feels like a complete jerk. A total asshole. Of course Lance is conflicted. He's just a kid still, younger than Chris was when he started the group, just a kid with some really religious parents in a profession that's not exactly gay-adjacent, and just, yeah. Chris is a fucking asshole and his entire argument about Clintonian politics and lipstick parties and how you can still get gonorrhea from blowjobs totally proves his point-all his prepared arguments of how he'd force Lance into admitting he's gay through laughter and superior intellect fall away and he just sees Lance: a scared kid who's still trying to figure things out and yes, Chris is officially and completely an asshole. He lays a hand on Lance's shoulder and squeezes once, brushes his fingers along Lance's jaw. Lance stares out the window and doesn't say anything.
"Hey, kid. It's, I was just fucking around, okay? You just, you know what? You be whoever you want to be, as long as you're happy, you know? And when you're ready to. When you're ready, I'll still be here."
Lance takes a deep breath and nods. "Yeah?"
"Yeah."
"Okay. Um. As long as we never talk about Rosie O'Donnell having sex again."
Chris grins. He's still an asshole, but at least Lance knows where he stands now. At least Lance knows there's one person, that he has a friend, no matter what. "I think that's something the entire world can agree on."
(And three years later Lance came out to Chris and they had lots and lots of sex and dicks were in asses and not even the Clintons could be in denial when up against that much hard evidence. Get it? HARD.)
Ahem. The end.