Honeybee 2/5 (popslash, Lance/Nick)

[marythefan]

They're going out to get dinner at a restaurant, because Nick is going to show Lance how dinner is done. At least, that's what the message on Lance's voicemail said when Nick left a time he'd be picking Lance up, along with instructions to dress like they were going to a decent restaurant, Bass, none of that crazy sparkly denim and velvet stuff that Fatone or Chasez seem to think is appropriate dinnerwear.

Lance thinks about the promo shots for Never Gone and tells himself Nick would have specified if Lance should actually dress up. Then he spends 45 minutes trying on shirts before he tells himself to stop being such a damn girl. He thinks about how Kathy would agree with him, not about how Shannon would punch him in the arm for the thought. He goes with a pair of nice pants and a summer-weight sweater because he always seems to freeze to death in public places in the middle of summer, when people jack up the air conditioning so high that they'd have the heat on, if it was that cold outside.

It hits him, when he opens his front door to Nick standing there wearing a blazer and a button-down over his jeans, hair combed and still a little bit damp, that this is Nick Carter taking him on a date.

This is Nick Carter taking him on a date in the middle of L.A.

"Is this a date?" Lance asks, as Nick opens the passenger door of the car for him. He looks up at Nick once he's slid into the seat. "This is a date, isn't it?"

Nick rolls his eyes and shuts the door.

"Dude, you're totally taking me out, aren't you?" Lance says as Nick pulls through the open gates at the foot of the driveway.

He looks down at his hands and pokes at a ragged cuticle, making a mental note to check on his next manicure appointment. Nick turns on the radio.

Lance is still not entirely convinced Ashton Kutcher isn't going to show up and tell him he's been punk'd, because, come on - Nick Carter, taking him on a date? Nick's not even his type. Nick is blond and given to brooding and, oh yeah, Lance tells himself brutally, stabbing at the offending cuticle, Nick is also in the closet about sucking dick, which makes him more surely Not Lance's Type than anything else could. Lance knows better than almost anybody on the entire planet how impossible it is to be in any kind of a relationship with someone who's out when you're in the closet, and he remembers hearing about how upset Nick got over Jane asking him if he was gay, even though Nick was at least gay enough for Howie, for a while. Lance has his suspicions about Tommy Lee, too.

He pokes at the idea of how he would have reacted if his mom had asked him the question in, say, 2001, instead of 2006 and actually flinches. Nick looks over questioningly, and Lance shakes his head, folding his fingers together to stop himself from any kind of nervous twitching at the thought that this could turn into a thing - not just a one-time thing or a five-time thing or a movie-night thing, but something that's going to last long enough that he could become somebody Nick will have to explain. This is Nick Carter, after all. Lance supposes there are plenty of girls out there, in their mid-20s or so, who had Nick Carter posters and Nick Carter T-shirts and Nick Carter underwear, or something, who would think this is a dream date, but Lance sort of thinks this might be like waking up and realizing you're going on a date with your eighth-grade physical-science lab partner who spent all his time knocking shit over while you were just trying to eke out a passing grade and who was the reigning champion of the school cafeteria burping contest. Fuckin' Barry Holt, Lance thinks and makes a face.

"Are you gonna be weird all night, man?" Nick asks.

He makes an abortive move, one hand reaching over toward Lance before he raises it to tug at his own collar, and Lance looks down at his fingers, white-knuckled in his lap.

"So, this is a date, isn't it?" he says as they turn onto Sunset.

Nick coasts to a stop at a light and turns to look at him through narrowed eyes.

"You can think of it as a booty call if you really want," he says. "Princess."

"Oh, fuck you, Carter," Lance says, slouching down in his seat. "See if you get past second base tonight."

Nick lets Lance open his own car door after he parks, standing on the driver's side until Lance pushes the passenger door closed and Nick can click the locks. Lance can't help thinking it's a deliberate oversight, and he can't figure out if he feels slighted or relieved. He scans up and down the sidewalk as they make their way to the restaurant, spots a couple of familiar faces loitering, although they seem to be focusing their attention somewhere on the other side of the street.

"Cameras at seven o'clock," he murmurs to Nick, who tosses a look back over his shoulder and shrugs.

"Not something you can really get away from," he says, taking Lance's elbow and steering him toward a wall of glass doors leading into a hotel lobby.

"Nick," Lance says warningly, tensing against the touch, old instincts clicking back into place. "All those cameras might be down the street right now, but everybody's got a cellphone camera these days."

"So, what?" Nick says, pausing, one hand still on Lance's elbow, one on a door handle. "You don't want to be seen, now? Lance Bass doesn't want to be seen?"

"Oh, so you're OK with us being seen together?" Lance says, pushing inside the door, shivering in the sudden blast of chilled air. "You're OK being seen on a date together, or something?"

"I told you, if there's such a problem with it, don't think of it as a damn date, then," Nick says, shoving his hands in his pockets, mouth thinning as he presses his lips together. He stares out the glass doors, back to the street outside.

"OK, this is a bad idea," Lance says.

"No, look, I'm sorry, OK?" Nick says, turning back to him. "We were going to have a nice dinner, can we just ... can we just have dinner? Please? OK?"

"Nick ..."

"Lance. Please. Just let me buy you dinner, OK?"

Lance fights the nervous urge to rub his knuckles along the side seam of his pants, an adolescent habit he thought boyband bootcamp long since trained out of him. Nick's got a little furrow between pinched-together eyebrows, and Lance's traitorous fingers twitch, wanting to smooth it out against his better judgement. He curls them inside the cuffs of his sweater, trying to stay warm.

"OK," he says, hoping his words are enough. "All right."

They're early, and Lance orders a screwdriver at the bar while they wait for their table, lounging with studied casualness and looking around to assess the rest of the clientele. Beside him, close but not too close, Nick's making ring patterns with the bottom of his beer bottle on the bar's polished wood surface.

"Didn't this used to be Justin's place?" he asks, looking around.

Huh, Lance thinks, giving the restaurant another quick scan. He hadn't even thought about it until Nick said something. Now he wonders what that's about, of course - Nick's decision to come here, to what used to be Chi, of all the places they could go to dinner in L.A.

He keeps expecting questions about Justin, but they never come. Nick doesn't seem to wonder about Justin, the way he seems to wonder - from the couple of questions he's asked - about Jesse, the way Lance wonders about Howie. Lance is pretty sure Nick's seen the picture of Jesse that Lance still keeps - in his office, not enshrined in the bedroom or anything, because he's not that pathetic or creepy, but still somewhere that it doesn't look like he's ashamed to have it. The pictures of Justin are NSYNC pictures, of course, either official shots on Lance's brag wall or as part of the few candids he displays, but still. There's really no escaping Justin, is there?

Maybe it's not that Nick doesn't wonder, it's just that he won't ask. If he did ask, Lance could tell him there's nothing to wonder about - although he doesn't know if he'd admit that's almost entirely due to Justin. He never pined for Justin, exactly, because to pine, he'd have to imagine, at least a little bit, what it would be like to have him, and Lance never really managed that. It's not like everyone isn't a little like that about Justin, anyway - God knows Chris and JC were both besotted with him, even if neither of them had any interest in fucking him - so Lance has always felt a little less dumb than some people probably think he should about all the time he spent thinking Justin hung the moon. That's just Justin, and Lance is pretty sure people who don't see it are missing some part of their genetic makeup, like red-green colorblindness, Justin-blindness.

Looking back, Lance can admit - now - that he'd never expected equal return on his investment. All he'd expected, really, had been some kind of honesty, and when he'd gotten bullshit excuses instead, yeah, it pissed him off. Justin was gone long before he actually walked out on NSYNC, and that was enough for Lance to cut Justin out of his own loop for a while, the same way he felt he and Joey had been cut out of the loop. But it also freed him - he can be honest enough to admit that. Lance has never craved approval the way Justin does, only success, and if Justin was too damn afraid to deal NSYNC some kind of public coup de grace, well, Lance wasn't. If coming out killed the group, it killed the group - it's not like there was much left, at that point, anyway.

It took him a while to admit all that, though. And it's not what he wants to be thinking about on a ... is this a date?

If Nick wanted to know something about Lance and Justin, he could just come out and ask.

"Yeah," he finally says, realizing Nick's still waiting for an answer to a question that was never more than idle conversation. "Why?"

It comes out kind of belligerent, more brusque that it really should have been, and Lance cringes to himself, although he keeps his face blank. It's out there, now, and there's nothing to do but brazen it out.

"I was just asking," Nick says, and there's a little bit of an edge to his voice.

It's a relief to turn to the guy who's just appeared at Lance's elbow, eyebrows not even raised a little bit, asking them if they're ready to be shown to their table.

Lance looks around as they make the walk, checking out what's been done to the restaurant, using that cover to check out any reaction to their presence, wondering who recognizes him, who recognizes Nick, what people think about them being there together. A guy Lance recognizes but can't place tries to hold his gaze from a table in the corner, but Lance lets his eyes skate past, over the other three people at the table and beyond, deliberately nonchalant. He can feel the weight of speculation like a vise around the back of his neck, dogging his steps, familiar even after three years in the open.

"Are you OK?" Nick asks, once they sit down and he accepts a wine list.

Lance blinks at him, then waves a hand, taking a deep breath, trying to stretch out the knot that's formed between his shoulderblades.

"It's nothing," he says. "It's just ... everybody watching. Probably wondering what we're doing here together. I mean, it's not like we ever really spent much time together before this. Not like AJ and JC, or you and Chris. But you know. It's fine. Everything's good."

"Why is this such a problem for you?" Nick asks, fiddling with the edges of the tablecloth in his lap, not meeting Lance's eyes.

"It's not a problem for me," Lance says carefully, tilting his head and studying Nick.

"Then I don't ... what's going on?" Nick says, looking up. "You're being really weird tonight." He stretches out a hand across the tabletop.

"Nick, you have to stop it," Lance says, low, under his breath, pulling his own hand out from under the touch. "People are gonna know what's going on."

Lance catches movement out of the corner of his eye and looks over to spot their waiter, who must be pretty fresh off the bus because he looks kind of uncomfortable at Lance's tone, backing away from the table instead of rolling his eyes with the look Lance has seen on the faces of some other service people in L.A., the look that lets you know they think you're a fucking diva when you ask for a water refill. It's not like Lance can blame this guy, though. He'd probably be sick of it, too, if he had to put up with this kind of stuff, emotional drama from strangers you can't escape. He is sick of it. He wonders if this is what people mean when they say "sick and tired," this bone-deep weariness that comes from wondering what kind of headlines are going to be in the tabloids next week, on the Internet tomorrow. He thought he was done feeling like this.

"You know what? I think I'm just going to go," Nick says, pushing back his chair and standing up. "Clearly, you don't want to be here with me, so how about I just leave?"

Lance snaps his mouth shut and sits stone-faced as Nick stomps away. He's suddenly so angry he probably couldn't speak, anyway, and he takes a vicious stab at a roll with his fork, refusing to look around to see who's staring or shooting surreptitious glances his way. He always knew Nick was a douche, him and his whole stupid group. It's not like Lance can't find another fuckbuddy. L.A. is full of dumb pretty boys who'd be willing to fuck him. He knows that.

He's reaching in his pocket for his wallet because someone is going to have to pay for the drinks, at least, when he looks up like a bad dream and sees Reichen at the bar, and his face goes instantly hot.

Well, fuck, he thinks, frozen in place, because that's just the perfect cherry on top of this whole evening - Reichen seeing him like this, alone in a restaurant because somebody walked out on him.

Of course Jesse walked out on him, he remembers Reichen saying - nobody else would be able to put up with Lance, he was too high-maintenance, there was nothing else he could really expect. He remembers the unfairness of it and the ... the absolute hypocrisy of being called "high-maintenance" and "difficult" by Reichen, of all people. Most of all, he remembers the sting of wounded pride, and he can't let himself be seen like this, but he's not sure what to do.

He's still sitting there, mind running in circles like some damn hamster when Nick comes stomping back.

"Don't worry about the bill, Bass, it was my treat, I suppose," he says, looking pointedly at Lance's wallet still lying on the table.

The word "treat" sounds ugly, but Lance has other things to think about right now. Nick looks up from his billfold and sighs when he realizes Lance hasn't moved.

"What?" he says.

Lance can't stop himself from sketching a quick glance over at Reichen being seated, a couple of guys with him, so OK, it's not a date, he thinks, but Reichen's going to notice what's going on over here any minute, is going to see Nick and Lance arguing. Nick's pretty big and hard to miss, especially when he's in a temper.

Nick follows Lance's gaze. He stands there a minute, looking at Reichen's table.

"Oh," he says finally and looks back at Lance. "Um. Are you OK?"

"I'm fine," Lance says. "This town is too fucking small, but I'm fine."

He stares at the tablecloth. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Nick standing there, hands shoved in his pockets, shifting from foot to foot.

"Hey," Nick says after a minute of their weird stalemate of silence. "Let's get out of here."

Lance looks up at him, raising an eyebrow

"Yeah, no, come on," Nick says, reaching out to nudge Lance's shoulder. "Let's go."

He's got one hand on the back of Lance's chair, pulling it out from the table, and he reaches out with the other to grab Lance's hand, pulling him up. He's turning to go when Lance realizes they're going to have to walk right past Reichen's table to get out of the restaurant, and he stops in his tracks, jerking Nick to a halt.

"Are you crazy?" Lance hisses, low, getting right up into Nick's personal space so no one else will hear him. "I don't want to have to, like, talk to him, or look at him, or interact with him in any way. At all. I don't want him to see us."

Lance is pretty sure that any kind of interaction, even eye contact, is only going to end badly, and really, he's tired of sniping at people tonight. He can't quite read the expression that crosses Nick's face at his words, but then it's gone, and Nick nods. He looks around and manages to catch the eye of their waiter, who seems a little bit afraid to come back over to their table - the kid's really going to have to toughen up if he's going to stay alive in this town, Lance thinks. Nick steps away from Lance to lean into the guy, saying something low as he rifles through his billfold and discreetly hands over some cash. The waiter says something to Nick, sketching an arc in the air with one hand, and Nick nods, looking back at Lance. Lance almost misses the hand Nick holds out to him. He's too busy boggling, wondering where this suave guy came from and what he did with Nick Carter, the kid who had farting contests with Chris and AJ in Germany. He's like a grownup, or something.

"Come on, Lance," Nick murmurs, taking a couple of steps back to him, and then he's got one hand in the small of Lance's back and he's steering Lance toward a back corner of the restaurant.

They go through a swinging door, and oh, Lance thinks. They're in the kitchen. He's still feeling kind of blank as Nick takes his hand and leads him past a long table with a couple of guys chopping and measuring stuff. The smell of something garlicky and buttery, tomato-y and fabulous wafts from the direction of the grill, and Lance's stomach suddenly reminds him that they never got to the dinner part of dinner, tonight. Nick looks back and grins at him, and Lance shoves at his shoulder with his free hand. He doesn't let go when Nick tugs him along by their interlaced fingers.

They pass a blonde girl washing something leafy in a deep sink - she's smack in the middle of that mid-20s demographic Lance was thinking about earlier - and she looks up at them, distracted, before returning to her greens. The double-take is almost comical - you'd have to do a dozen takes to get it that perfect in a movie, Lance thinks - and she squeaks when she looks back at them, slapping a damp hand over her mouth, eyes wide as she looks from Nick to Lance to Nick, again.

"Oh my God," she says, behind her fingers, and it's about three octaves lower than she probably could have managed to hit a decade ago, but there's still enough volume to it that Lance looks back over his shoulder to see if anyone heard her. He turns back to see Nick grinning and putting a finger to his lips in a "quiet" gesture; he whispers "paparazzi" to her, and she nods, eyes big, and watches as Nick steers Lance around a corner and out of sight.

They've hit dry goods now, and Lance is suddenly hyperaware of the press of Nick's hand in the small of his back, through the thin weave of his sweater, the kind of steadiness and pressure and direction Lacey kept demanding from Lance when they were dancing partnered, when she was trying to make it look like she was relying on him to lead her, trying to make it look like she could rely on him. He comes to an abrupt halt, digging in his heels, and Nick stops with him, just short of the exit door, turning to look at him.

"What?" Nick says.

It's not sharp, not defensive, the way it was earlier. It's just ... curious, like their mini-intrigue has wiped away the memory of everything that went wrong earlier tonight.

Lance reaches out with his free hand, wanting to touch, to feel the weight and solidity of Nick under his fingers. He settles for tugging at Nick's sleeve a little bit, like he's trying to get Nick's attention, even though he already seems to have Nick's attention. It gives his hand something to do as he watches the rise and fall of Nick's chest as he breathes.

"Um. Thanks," he says, finally. "For ... you know." He slants a look up at Nick's face.

Nick shrugs and slides his fingers out of Lance's grasp, pulling both of his hands away from Lance and shoving them in his pockets again. Lance can't quite read the look on his face, but he seems almost ... embarrassed? Lance halfway expects him to scuff his damn toe on the ground and say "Aw, shucks."

"No," Lance says, stepping closer. "Really. Thank you."

He tilts Nick's chin down to kiss him, and Nick lifts one of his hands - God, those big hands, Lance thinks, distractedly - to cup Lance's cheek as their mouths meet. It's soft, brief, but Nick follows him when Lance tries to pull back, so Lance settles in and opens his mouth for Nick, tasting a lingering sharp hint of beer as he slides an arm around Nick and holds on. He slicks his tongue across Nick's lips, makes a shamelessly greedy sound when Nick tries to pull away, just far enough to suck in a breath, and Nick brings up his other hand to frame Lance's face. They stand there for a minute, trading small soft kisses, kisses that remind Lance of that lazy, sleepy night in front of the television, remind him why his stomach flipped over when he checked his voicemail and heard Nick's voice talking about dinner plans in the first place. He puts a hand on Nick's forearm, slides it up to bracelet Nick's wrist, tugging Nick's hand down to twist their fingers together.

When they pull apart, Nick rubs a thumb over Lance's cheekbone as he ducks his head and looks at Lance through his eyelashes and that fringe of bangs that falls across his eyes when his hair's this long. Lance's fingers itch to comb it back from his face, so he does, tucking a strand behind Nick's ear. Nick gives a little tug at the hair at the nape of Lance's neck before he steps back.

"Ready to go?" he asks, and when Lance nods, he turns around and takes a breath before pushing open the exit door.

"You are getting the most fabulous blowjob ever," Lance murmurs, low, as they slip out into the alley, into the steamy summer heat, and Nick giggles - actually giggles, in that high-pitched laugh of his.

He doesn't let go of Lance's hand until they step out onto the sidewalk, already looking around and trying to figure out how to get back to the car.

•••

"No, I know," Lance says, trying to keep the cellphone jammed between his shoulder and his ear as he shifts his grocery bags to one hand and digs in his pocket for his keys with the other. "I know. I just ... I don't know that they're taking me seriously on this, you know? I feel like maybe they think I won't be able to handle it, or somethin'."

"Do you know how many people they're looking at, at this point?" Neil asks in his ear as Lance rounds the corner of the house and spots Nick waiting for him, shoes off, feet in the pool as he leans back on his hands with his face turned up to the sun.

"Three, maybe four, seriously, is what I've heard," Lance says, jerking his chin in greeting as Nick turns his head at the sound of Lance's voice. "It's just. I don't know. They were talkin' about how they'd have to re-work some of it for my voice if they go with me for the part, so ..."

"Listen, it's a new show," Neil says. "They're going to be re-working stuff as they go along anyway. Everybody does. It's probably one reason they're talking about the initial San Francisco run before moving to New York. If the Castro isn't going to forgive you for working out your kinks in public, who is?"

"Especially for this show, right?" Lance says and laughs, grinning at Nick as he comes loping over, hand extended to take some of the bags from Lance.

"You know it," Neil says. "Listen, you have to let them know how hard you're willing to work for this. You're the guy who survived the Black Forest with bubble gum, string and a Swiss Army knife, right?"

"Yeah, but I think they're more worried about me bein' the guy who fell on his ass doing the West Coast Swing," Lance says.

"Whatever. You know Whitty wants to be able to use gay actors as much as he can. Don't sell yourself short, man."

"You should be talking to them, too," Lance says, fumbling with his keys as he tries to unlock the back patio door. "You know they'd jump all over the chance to have you as Michael. We could be boyfriends."

"Shut up," Neil says. "You know I'd be all over the chance to talk to them if I could fit it around my contract. It's not that I don't love Barney, and all, but God. Michael Tolliver ..."

His voice sounds kind of dreamy, and Lance grins again. Yeah, he knows. Just the idea of a supporting role has got Lance freaking out, and he almost can't believe the producers were willing to talk to him. He knows it's a long-shot, but he thinks maybe there are only two things he's wanted this much in his life before this - NSYNC and space.

"Think about it, dude," he tells Neil. "Use some of those Dr. Horrible superpowers and figure out a way. Listen, I gotta go. I'll let you know how it goes the next time I talk to Ken, OK?"

He snaps the phone shut after Neil's goodbye and holds up his remaining plastic bag to Nick.

"Dinner?" he says.

"You're not making tuna casserole or anything, are you?" Nick asks as he holds open the door and follows Lance into the kitchen. He sounds wary.

"What's wrong with tuna casserole?" Lance tries to stay deadpan, but Nick's struggle to stay polite is too obvious, and in the end, Lance ruins it by laughing. "Oh man, if you could have seen your face. You were tryin' so hard to find something to say."

He's not expecting it when Nick comes in low, knocking the breath and a small "uff" out of him, and he drops his plastic bags and flails as Nick hauls him over one shoulder in a fireman's carry. Nick makes a theatric grunting noise of effort, setting off Lance's laughter again, and Lance almost overbalances. He grabs the back of Nick's waistband to keep from tipping too far and falling on his head.

"Oh, my God, put me down," he says.

"Maybe dinner should wait," Nick says, squeezing his ass.

"It is possible for us to cook something without having sex, you know," Lance says.

He suddenly finds himself right-side-up, on his feet, looking into Nick's puzzled face.

"Why would we want to do that?"

Nick seems genuinely baffled, and Lance opens and closes his mouth a few times before Nick starts snickering. Lance jumps him, and he staggers, but he's apparently had plenty of practice flinging around other boys - and probably other Boys - because their fall is controlled enough that the only thing that gets whacked too hard as they go down is Lance's elbow on the marble of the kitchen island. He hits his funny bone, which probably serves him right, the numb tingle just distracting enough that Nick's able to roll on top of him after taking most of the force of the fall on his hip. He slides his hands up Lance's arms and pins his wrists to the floor as he straddles him.

"Hi," Lance says huskily, trying for seductive, and he wiggles.

This is a promising position, one they've been in before.

"It is possible for us to cook something without having sex, you know," Nick says.

"But why would we want to?" Lance tugs against the hands holding his down, so that Nick's fingers tighten on his wrists, and he raises one knee, pressing his thigh solidly against Nick's balls.

"Because you were going to make me dinner," Nick says, squirming, and Lance can feel him hardening, pressure that twists up his own hips, sharp, in response. "Stop that."

Nick drops his head to give Lance a peck on the nose before he clambers up, pulling himself on the edge of the counter. He reaches back down, but Lance leans back on his hands and studies him for a moment before finally holding out an answering hand.

He uses his body's momentum to carry him into Nick, pressing against him and claiming a real kiss once he's on his feet, slicking his tongue inside Nick's mouth. He pulls away, grinning, when Nick's hands come up to frame his face.

"I have to chop," he says.

"Tease," Nick says. "And anyway, don't try to tell me you can cook, Lance."

"I can cook!"

"South Beach TV dinners don't count," Nick says.

Lance waves a dismissive hand.

"Here," he says, digging in his pocket for a dog-eared index card. "There's a list of herbs and stuff, help me find everything."

He hands one of the grocery bags to Nick and starts poking through another.

"What ... is all this stuff?" Nick asks, pawing through the bag. "I don't even know what I'm looking at. Looking for. Whatever."

"Um. That's ... oregano," Lance says, peering into Nick's bag and digging around, pressing his cheek to Nick's shoulder to get a closer look. "And that's parsley. Here, this one's basil. See?"

He rubs one of the leaves between his fingers and holds them under Nick's nose. The scent fills his own head, sharp and familiar.

"That's not parsley," Nick says, squinting skeptically. He's absently rubbing one of the basil leaves, himself, knuckles bumping Lance's before he raises his fingers to his own nose.

"It's Italian parsley," Lance says. He hadn't believed it the first time, either. "For Italian garlic bread. You mix it all up in butter and spread it on the bread before you put it in the oven. That's why I got the minced garlic, so I don't have to chop that up, too."

Lance had to go shopping for this dinner because it's not like he's going to have this many carbs sitting around his kitchen if he can help it. "I've got pasta," Nick had said, as Lance contemplated his choices in the grocery aisle, but, "Not the right kind, I bet," Lance had said into his cellphone, pulling down the package of penne.

"What am I doing, while you're doing all this chopping?" Nick asks.

"Sauce."

Lance gestures at the tomatoes he's pulled out of his own bag. They're a little worse for wear after their sudden fall, but they're going to use them right away, anyway, right?

"That is not a jar of sauce," Nick says, still skeptical.

"Come on, Carter. You wanted proof I'd cook to get in your pants. Work with me, here. I mean, I could have opened up a can of Spaghetti-Os, and then where would we be?"

"In your pants, by now," Nick says, making a face that Lance doesn't really think is appropriate accompaniment to the idea of getting into his pants, for God's sake. "I wouldn't have wasted my time on Spaghetti-Os."

"So you're what, some kind of ... of freakin' connoisseur of canned pasta?" Lance rolls his eyes, hefting a knife.

"I know enough not to eat Spaghetti-Os," Nick says, examining the tomatoes, picking them up and running surprisingly gentle fingers over their surfaces as if he's learning the shape of each of them. It's a little bit distracting and Lance finds himself pausing over a pile of half-chopped parsley. "If you can't at least spring for Chef-Boy-Ar-Dee ... how cheap a date do you think I am?"

"Pretty cheap, if Spaghetti-Os will get me into your pants faster," Lance says and grins as Nick gives him the finger. He gestures at the tomatoes with his knife. "Peel those. And then find the garlic in one of those bags."

Tomatoes and garlic in just a drizzle of olive oil, something light, Joey had rhapsodized over the phone when Lance called him to confer on this recipe - between digging at Lance for details. Well, whining, really, in that wheedling Joey tone that usually pulled whatever information there was to be pulled out of Lance. He never had been any good at resisting Joe, particularly when he could picture the big brown eyes that went with the tone. Joey would know Lance could see them, too, even across the country from Orlando to L.A.

"You're cooking," he'd said. "Who is this new guy? He must be someone pretty good."

Lance remembers Nick's hand firm in the small of his back, the brush of Nick's thumb against his cheekbone at the restaurant two nights ago, and he can feel his face heating, his stomach hollowing out just a little. He sets down the knife, shaking out his hands nervously.

"Here," he tells Nick, gesturing at his piles of herbs. "Mush these up in the butter. Over there."

"You bought real butter?" Nick says, examining the package

"Somewhere, somehow, Joey Fatone would have a heart spasm if I tried to make his special, fabulous Italian bread with anything other than real butter," Lance says, wiping his fingers off on his jeans, and Nick laughs. "At least, that's what he told me when I called him for the recipe."

"You told Joey you were cooking me dinner?" Nick looks up from the bowl where he's trying to squash a stick of butter that hasn't really had time to warm up.

"Yes," Lance says baldly, boldly.

It's not true, of course. Lance had made his own face at the phone, knowing Joey could picture his expression just as well, and complained that he didn't need all his dates vetted, he could pick decent guys sometimes, you know. And, he'd continued, ignoring Joey's snort, it wasn't like that, anyway. He was just trying to do something a little bit nice, right? It's not like it was some kinda' relationship.

He's not entirely sure why he hadn't just told Joey that it was Nick he's cooking for. It's not like Joe would suspect it was anything other than a friendly gesture for a guy who was ... used to be? ... a colleague.

Lance looks down at the olive oil he's measuring into a saucepan, watching the small puddle creep across the bottom of the pot's surface. OK, no. Joey would suspect something, because really, when did Lance ever cook, unless it involved either a TV camera or the backyard and a grill and the chance to poke around at some kind of fire? Joey would suspect something immediately, even if it's not actually like that.

It's not actually like that, Lance tells himself, banging his wooden spoon kind of hard against the side of the pot to knock off a couple of clingy tomatoes. It can't be. Not the way Joey would think it is. Lance isn't dumb enough to get that invested in something that can't possibly last. Trying to be with Nick ... it'd be shutting the closet door after the horse was long gone. Lance couldn't do it even if he wanted to.

"Everything OK?" Nick asks, hovering at Lance's side.

Lance has a sudden sharp urge to elbow him out of the way, to push enough so Nick's not breathing down his neck. His grip tightens on the spoon, and his shoulders feel tense, and it's all he can do not to shrug off Nick's hand on his shoulder. He's had too many years of curbing the urge to shove off intrusive hands, though - photographers who want him to look a certain way and choreographers who want him to move a certain way and interviewers who want to be just a little too chummy. Instead, he slips out from under the touch to move to the cupboard that contains his haphazard jumble of spices.

"Red pepper," he tosses back over his shoulder by way of explanation, as he rummages.

It's one of the few ingredients he already had, even though he wonders how long it's been sitting around in there. It's dark inside the cupboard, right? Isn't that supposed to keep spices OK longer?

When he turns back around, Nick is poking gingerly at the tomato mixture with the spoon.

"Maybe you should have called Rocco, instead of Fatone," he says.

"Fuck off, Carter, my sauce will be stupendous."

"Yeah, I bet," Nick says, leering.

"Quit it. Stop poking at it. Go boil some water for the pasta or something." Lance nudges Nick out of the way.

He can't find his measuring spoons in the mess the counter has become, so he sprinkles red pepper flakes straight into the saucepan and hopes for the best.

"So," Nick says, casually, leaning on the counter and flicking at a plastic bag. "Were you talking to Neil?"

"Ye ... es?" Lance says, looking over at him.

"Are they still going around about Tales of the City?" Nick asks, looking up at him.

"Yeah," Lance says, playing with the heat under his saucepan before he looks over at Nick.

Nick nods, solemn, and goes back to playing with the plastic bag.

"You've been talking to Neil a lot lately," he says.

"Not that much." Lance says. "I mean, a little more than usual, because of these talks about the show ... Wait. What? Oh my God. Are you jealous? You're jealous, aren't you?"

He probably shouldn't laugh, but he can't help it, some of his earlier giddiness returning.

"What? No." Nick says, but he's scowling, still focused on his empty plastic bag. "I am not jealous."

"Hey," Lance says. He can't quite stop grinning, but he sets down his wooden spoon and nudges up against Nick's side. "Hey. Neil and I have been friends for a long time. Since ... since before both of us came out. And that's about twice as long as that amount of time would be for anybody else. So. You know."

"Yeah." Nick says. He still won't look at Lance, but he tilts his head toward him and nudges back with one hip.

"Believe me, I do not have anything goin' on with Neil Patrick Harris."

"No?"

"No. And if I did, I think Neil's boyfriend might have something to say about it. Everything's cool, Carter," Lance says, hooking his chin over Nick's shoulder and pressing a kiss to his temple. "Right?"

"Right."

"Right."

Everything's cool, Lance thinks. This can't possibly last, but that doesn't mean Lance can't enjoy it while he has it.

•••

Lance sits on the section of counter he's staked out and watches in terrified fascination as Nick slices and chops tomatoes, onions, peppers. This kitchen contains only the best - even if, OK, it's rarely used - and that knife is awfully sharp. Lance hopes Nick doesn't lose any fingers. Lance has plans for those fingers tonight.

"Is this Howie's influence, or what?" he asks.

"Don't be all like that."

"Like what?

"Like that, Lance. Anyway, this recipe is, like, Peruvian, or something."

"Impressive." Lance raises both an eyebrow and his empty glass in salute and reminder.

"Yeah, well, maybe if you guys had been willing to tour outside the U.S., you'd've had a little class, too," Nick says, grabbing the glass to refill it and his own with another round of Pisco sours.

"Hey, I did my time in Germany," Lance says, and he can't help making a face as he thinks back to sweaty vinyl bench seats in vans and mildew in the back corners of old auditoriums. "Anyway, you don't really think I'm going to eat that, do you?"

He accepts his drink and tugs at the front of Nick's T-shirt to pull him closer. He's suspicious of this whole ceviche enterprise, has been since Nick tugged him into the fish market, practically bouncing, but it's left Nick smelling spicy, like the cumin and cilantro and lime he's managed to get everywhere. His taste is sticky sweet tart grape when Lance slicks a tongue into his mouth.

"What do you mean?" Nick asks when he pulls back. He sounds a little breathless.

"It's raw," Lance says. "Raw fish."

"It's not raw. What do you mean 'raw?' It's just not ... cooked." Nick squints at him like he's nuts. "And you eat sushi, anyway."

"I don't sleep with the sushi chef." Lance isn't about to eat raw fish prepared by any of the people he's slept with. Culinary skills weren't the talents he was looking for, in any of them. "And it's not like I like sushi."

"What?" Nick looks perplexed, but it doesn't stop one of his hands from sliding up the leg Lance wraps around his waist.

He pushes up Lance's shorts and smoothes his fingers absently along the muscles of Lance's thigh, fingertips calloused from his attempts at the guitar and the pull of rope on the boat. He's still radiating heat from their day out at the marina, and Lance has to fight the urge to wiggle and press even closer to the solid body against his.

"I don't like sushi," he says. "You know that."

"You told me you didn't like sushi because you didn't like the rice," Nick says.

"Well. You know. That's what I say. Because you're supposed to like sushi. I can't just say it's because it's raw fish."

"That's dumb." Nick kisses him again, quick, before disentangling himself to go back to his dinner preparations, even though Lance isn't sure what the rush is - it's not like anything's going to burn.

You're dumb, he would have said in response to Joey, or to Justin, or to Jesse, but Nick's not any of them. Instead Lance just sits there, slouched and sleepy, dopey with the exhaustion of a day of sun and sand and salt water, bumping his bare heels in a soft ratta-tat against the wood of his cabinets and humming to himself as Nick dices onions. He breaks off as he realizes he's picked up the song Nick's been singing snatches of under his breath for weeks now.

"So, who got the song?" he asks.

"What?"

"The song you and Leslie were writing. Who's going to record it?"

"Eh, I let her have it," Nick says, waving a hand and flinging a bit of onion across the kitchen. "It's just going to be that much longer 'til my album, anyway, so ..."

"Wait. What? You're putting off the album? When did you decide this?"

"This week," Nick says, studying the tip of his knife as he digs it into the cutting board. "We're going to go ahead on another group album this year. I'm gonna wait on mine."

"Oh."

It's not like Lance hadn't known that was a possibility. Just last week he'd told Nick that JC's second album was likely to come out before Nick finished his - but it's not like Lance had been serious.

"No, it's good," Nick says, sliding a look Lance's way out of the corner of his eye before he goes back to his onion, reducing it to slivers. "I'm not really at ... the right place right now. I think working with the other guys is a good idea. A better idea. Than putting out something by myself, right now, I mean. What?"

Lance gestures at the onion, and Nick looks down and laughs before pushing the mangled pieces off the cutting board and into the garbage disposal.

"So, it's good, then?" Lance asks.

"Yeah, it's good. Right?" Nick says, looking over at him.

"Well, yeah," Lance says slowly. "If it's ... what you want to do?"

"Yeah," Nick says, and he sounds ... relieved? "Yeah, I think it really is."

Lance feels like he just missed half of their conversation, but Nick's too busy pulling the Tupperware container of fish out of the refrigerator and draining the lemon juice for Lance to try getting more information out of him right now.

"I can't believe you even tried eating this in the first place," Lance says.

"Kevin made us," Nick admits. "Plus, AJ dared me."

"He'd have to, wouldn't he?"

Lance waits until Nick looks his way, then licks the rim of his glass, running his tongue around the edge slowly. He grins when Nick bangs open a cabinet door a little harder than necessary.

"I thought you'd like it," Nick says.

Lance tilts his head at the edge of frustration sliding underneath the words.

"I'd have been happy with, you know. Popcorn?" Lance tries hard to keep a straight face.

"Anyway," Nick says, turning back to the chopping block and tossing peppers recklessly in with the fish, "you're already drinking raw egg whites in there."

"I'm counting on the alcohol to kill the salmonella."

"Where'd you put the ... things?" Nick asks, waving the knife around.

"Put that down. No. Put it down," Lance says warily before he slips off the counter and pads toward Nick, tile cool under his bare feet. "They're up there, in the cupboard over the stove."

He takes the glass bowls when Nick turns to him, setting them on the counter before he reaches up to push Nick's hair back off his forehead.

"Hi," Nick says.

"Hi," he says and leans up for another quick kiss. "Things don't have to be all fancy, you know."

"It's not fancy, though," Nick says, flailing his hands around as if he's trying to figure out what to do with them. They seem to want to rest on Lance's hips, but it's like Nick keeps remembering at the last minute that they're a little bit messy. "Normal people eat it all the time. Well, normal Peruvian people."

"Normal people?"

"Here, just ... try one of the shrimp," Nick says, half-turning to fish one out of the plastic container. He holds it out and Lance can't help arching an eyebrow in suspicion. "No, come on. The shrimp was cooked, ahead of time."

It's tangy on Lance's tongue.

•••

Nick finds Lance staring out the double doors of the breakfast nook, blankly watching the abstract patter of raindrops hitting the swimming pool, and almost immediately starts banging pots around. Lance has been making dry old broiled cheese sandwiches for too long, he says. They need to make some good, old-fashioned, butter-slathered, frying-pan-style sandwiches, he says.

"You're kidding me," he says, digging around in the pantry before finally pulling down a loaf of bread.

"What?" Lance pulls out of his funk enough to get vaguely offended. It's perfectly good bread.

"You can't make grilled cheese sandwiches with rye bread, dawg."

For some ungodly reason, Lance feels compelled to tell him about the time they'd all gone to see the Rocky Horror Picture Show, in the post-Germany Orlando days, when they'd briefly found themselves back in obscurity and all they could find for toast was a loaf of JC's pumpernickel.

"Frickin' yuppies," Nick says absently, halfway in the refrigerator. "Hey, is this some of that butter left from when you made Italian bread?"

He tries to coat the maligned rye, making a face at it when the cold butter clumps and rips the bread, and Lance hipchecks him, reaching for the stick.

"Give me that. No, stop it. Give it here," he says, batting Nick's hands away.

He sets the microwave for 40 seconds and turns back to find Nick propped against the counter, studying him. His gaze seems a little far away.

"What?" Lance asks, suspicious. He looks down at himself, rubbing a hand across the front of his T-shirt.

"So, did you dress up?" Nick asks and grins. "You'd'a looked real pretty as Janet."

"Oh my God, Carter, you're not gettin' me in a slip, you freak. Forget it."

"Come on, Bass. I promise not to post any pictures on the Internet. Your mama will never find out." Nick reaches to slip two fingers through a front belt loop on Lance's jeans, tugging him closer. "I'll even let you make me a man."

He wiggles his eyebrows; Lance suspects it's supposed to be seductive.

"Quit it," he says, reaching up to poke Nick in the forehead, trying to control the grin that threatens to quirk the corners of his mouth. "And don't mention my mama when you're tryin' to sex me up, dumbass. That's just wrong."

"OK, no, I promise," Nick says, nodding his head, eyes big and guileless as he slides a hand around Lance's waist to grab his ass.

The microwave dings.

"Shit," Lance says when he opens the door and surveys the puddle of melted butter. "I was supposed to keep an eye on that."

"Here, give it," Nick says, waving a hand at him.

Lance makes dramatic faces as he gingerly picks up the remains of the stick. It's mushy on the outside, still hard on the inside, but Nick scrapes off the soft outer layer and starts liberally slathering it on some new pieces of rye.

"I'd like some bread with my butter, please," Lance says, doing mental calculations and wincing internally.

Salad for dinner, then. With lo-fat dressing. He wrinkles his nose at the melted butter on his fingers and wipes his hand on the seat of his jeans. Nick rolls his eyes.

"Seriously, have you ever had a grilled-cheese sandwich without enough butter?" he asks, poking at the bread slices. "Oh, yeah, I forgot. That's how you eat them all the time."

"Shut up," Lance says, crossing his arms over his chest.

"You would've, though, you know?" Nick says. The buttered bread makes a soft hissing sound as he drops it into the heated pan.

"Would've what?"

"Looked pretty," Nick says, studiously arranging bread slices. His cheeks look a little pink. "I just mean ... considering how pretty you were, and all."

Lance makes a face. He doesn't see pretty when he goes back and looks at pictures of his painfully pale platinum-blond phase, he just sees vulnerable. He hates looking at that kid, the boy who didn't manage to show any of the steel inside.

"Oh, you can talk about other people being pretty," he says. "With the way you looked? I've seen that video of you and the rain and your mouth ..."

He needs to shut up, now. Nick doesn't need to know how many times Lance watched the "Quit Playing Games" video back in the day, watched Nick and his candy mouth and jailbait eyes with silky wet hair falling over them, watched and wondered what it would be like to be able to make Nick make those faces he was making. There were guilty days when Lance had half-suspected the whole reason Kevin was pissed off wasn't because Lou'd gone behind the backs of the Boys to put together NSYNC, but because he'd had some idea of what Lance wanted to do to Nick after watching that video.

Nick ... Nick had looked kind of vulnerable, too, but he'd been pretty, in a way Lance hadn't been, in a way that even Justin - with his compact strength and rangy body - hadn't been. And Lance thinks there's some ways Nick hasn't lost that vulnerability even as he's gotten older and bigger and broader.

"I don't believe it," Nick says, rummaging in the refrigerator agin. "You don't have any regular white bread, but you've got these processed, individually wrapped slices of stuff that's probably not even cheese, really."

"That's what you're supposed to make grilled-cheese sandwiches with," Lance says, as offended on behalf of his cheap cheese as he was on behalf of his fancy bread.

"I know," Nick says, as he peels cellophane off the slices before squaring them up with the sandwiches in the pan. He uses extra cheese. "I just figured you'd have some kind of fancy expensive stuff."

"Dude, I can buy cheap stuff. I'm not Justin."

Nick snorts as he squashes the sandwiches with a spatula.

"You know, I can feel my arteries hardening already," Lance says, crossing his arms back over his chest and lounging against the refrigerator door.

His stomach rumbles, belying the disdain in his words, and Nick smirks at the sound.

"Fat-filled," he says, waving the frying pan around, blissfully oblivious as he almost loses one of the sandwiches over the edge. Lance twitches. "Cheese-stuffed," Nick continues. "It's not, you know, fried peanut butter and banana, or anything, Elvis, but I suppose it'll be good enough. And maybe you'll put something back on those hips for me to hold on to." He leers.

"Pickles," Lance says suddenly, pushing himself off the refrigerator door so he can open it.

"Dawg ..." Nick raises an eyebrow, setting the pan back on the stove with a clatter. "Even if that was possible, believe me, that's not the kind of weight I meant."

"What, you wouldn't do right by me, Carter?" Lance says, looking back over his shoulder. "I'm offended."

"You mean I'd be able to make an honest man of you?"

Nick quirks an eyebrow, but something in his eyes, something in his voice leaves a breathless, hollow place in Lance's chest.

Oh, he thinks. Shit.

"Are you calling me easy again?" he finds himself saying out loud, lightly, on autopilot.

"Well, Janet, you know what they say about you ..."

"Shut up," Lance says, grinning despite himself, and he turns back into the refrigerator, shifting around jars. "As I was saying, Rocky ... pickle slices. You have to pull the sandwiches apart and put the pickle slices in them and then mash them back together while the cheese is still gooey."

He sets the jar on the counter triumphantly. If there's food he's got 10 different kinds of, it's pickles. Lance approves, deeply, of anything with "0 calories" listed on the nutritional information section of the label.

"I don't know if that's a good idea," Nick says, flipping the sandwiches, fumbling and almost losing one over the edge of the pan. "That sounds kind of ... Um."

"You have to have pickle slices." Lance is pretty sure of this. "I mean, you really should have bacon, but you know. No bacon, so ... pickles. What? My mom used to do it. With tomato soup. Campbell's. It was one of my favorite lunches when I was, like, six. And sometimes, when tomatoes were in season, she'd slice one up and put it in there instead of pickles."

"That's kind of ... what's that word when you do something you're already doing, anyway?" Nick says. He sounds distracted. "I mean, if you're already having tomato soup, why'd you need tomatoes in your sandwich?"

"Well, what about Mexican food? You have tomatoes on that, but salsa on top, too, or to go with it, which is basically more tomatoes. Right?"

Lance isn't sure Nick's really paying attention to this conversation, again, because he's blinking and sort of smiling, and Lance has the horrible suspicion that Nick's thinking of 6-year-old Lance. Lance remembers being 6 years old - grilled cheese with pickles and red Kool-Aid and Dukes of Hazzard pajamas, and he was kind of a dork. The idea that Nick is picturing 6-year-old Lance with his grilled-cheese sandwiches is only slightly less horrifying than the idea of Nick picturing 19-year-old Lance in a slip, and Lance can only hope he's managed to make himself sound cooler than he actually was. He wonders what 6 years old was like for Nick and whether any of the other Carter children were old enough to distract Jane's attention for a little while, and whether it would be a good thing or a bad thing if they were.

That's something he definitely doesn't want to think about, and he'd a lot rather Nick think about him now, anyway, and so he distracts them both by reaching out and tugging on the belt loops of Nick's jeans, lining up their hips as he pulls Nick closer. Nick seems pretty willing to be distracted right up until he whirls around to rescue the sandwiches.

"You have to stop doing that," he says.

Lance presses up against him from behind, leaning his forehead against the back of Nick's shoulder and snaking hands around Nick's hips to toy with the button on his jeans.

"You really want me to stop?" he murmurs against Nick's shoulder, lips moving against soft cotton, warmed by the heat of Nick's body.

"I can't ... you're ... oh, man," Nick says. "They're burning. The sandwiches."

Lance pulls back so Nick can rescue the sandwiches from the frying pan.

"You are a fucking tease," Nick says.

"Not if I put out," Lance says. He smirks.

"Oh, so you're going to go the distance?" Nick asks, advancing on him, spatula in hand.

"But first," Lance says, holding up a finger as he dodges around the central island counter, "pickles. No. Really."

He opens the jar, and Nick huffs before turning to get the plate of sandwiches. Runny cheese stretches between two pieces of bread as he pulls one apart before letting it drop back on the plate.

"Ow! Fuck!" He sucks his fingers into his mouth for a minute, then pulls them out to wave his hand around in the air. "It's fine," he says, abashed, as Lance reaches out, and he pulls his hand away. "Just. Ow. Stings. That's hot."

"Give me ... no, stop it. Give it here," Lance says and grabs at the hand. "Let me see."

Nick's fingertips are pink, and they're hot and slick against Lance's lips, salty and rich, and he figures he's already in for a pound, anyway. He flicks out a tongue as he presses a light kiss to warm flesh. Nick runs his thumb over Lance's lower lip, cupping his jaw in a big palm.

"There'll be other parts," he says, low. "You know that, right?"

"It's fine," Lance says, pulling away.

It's not something he really wants to think about. He'd wanted the role of Jon Fielding, but it didn't work out, so it's time to set his sights on something else. He feels the light brush of fingers against the back of his neck before Nick goes back to the sandwiches, and he focuses on the pickles.

•••