It all started the day that Lance quit drinking.

“No, thanks, man. Just a Coke,” he told the bartender, and there was silence for a good 25 foot radius around him.

“What?” Joey asked. Similar questions fell from the mouths of everyone else pressed against the bar.

“Just a Coke,” Lance repeated, though his cheeks were as red as the cherry in Justin’s whiskey sour.

“What’s wrong with Lance?” JC asked, but Chris just shrugged and stole the napkin that was stuck to the bottom of JC’s glass to wipe the sweat off of his forehead.

“Probably just realized that he’s not 21 anymore and the whole ‘drink-till-you-puke’ thing isn’t worth it.”

JC’s forehead furrowed with tiny little creases. “But man, this is Lance.”

Chris just shrugged and went back to dancing.

**

Three days later, Lance still hadn’t had a drop of alcohol and he made an even bigger announcement.

“None?” Joey asked, stunned still. Chris stood beside him, not moving at all. His mouth was dropped open in a little ‘o’.

“No. I’m just. I don’t expect you guys to understand. I just thought you should know.” He stormed out of the quiet room with a whirl of the curtains, nearly knocking over Justin, who was just coming in.

“What’d I miss?” He asked, rubbing his chest where Lance had pushed him.

Chris began to snicker, then laugh, until he was rolling off the couch uncontrollably. Joey grabbed him by the back of the T-shirt and hauled him back to the couch.

“Lance isn’t gonna have sex anymore,” Joey said, barely able to keep himself from laughing. He felt a little bad about it, but. Funny is as funny was and Lance celibate was pretty damn funny.

“What?” Justin asked, looking completely confused.

Joey sucked in a huge breath and held it until he could deliver the next words without laughing. “He’s born again.”

He held the laughter until Justin’s confusion fell into giggles, and the three laughed like hyenas until it was time to go on.

**

“Why?” Chris demanded. They were all stuck in one bus because of a mob of rowdy people blocking the exit of the stadium. Usually they were gone before the house lights went up, but someone, who may or may not have been named JC, had forgotten a very important hat in the toy room and wouldn’t let them leave until he was sure that it hadn’t been left behind.

“Why what?” Lance asked, peeling a banana.

“Why the sudden interest in religion?”

Lance shrugged and took a huge bite. Chris winced, as he always did around bananas, because he’d never gotten over the 10 year old boy image of someone taking a bite of his you-know-what.

“So, you’re just going to be the good little Baptist you’ve always claimed to be?” Chris said with a smirk.

Lance shook his head. “No. I’m not, like, adhering to any particular church at the moment. But I found this website about how to live the way God wants you to, and it just made sense, is all. So I’m giving it a try.”

He looked so damned serious about it, and Chris just couldn’t figure it out. He’d never been the kind of guy who’d put much stock in blind faith and archaic rules of living. “So, you’re just letting a website deity tell you how to live from now on?”

Lance finished the banana and wiped his hands on a napkin. He threw it and the empty yellow peel away. “I don’t expect you to understand,” he said. “But it’s just something I feel I have to do.”

He left Chris alone in the back of the bus, with more questions than he’d had at the beginning of the conversation and no obvious answers to grasp.

**

Saturday nights were never the same, because Lance refused to go out with them on account of having church early the next morning. Any church, didn’t matter the religion, except Unitarian because they had somehow misheard the message, according to Lance’s internet epistle on the Lord. None of the guys had been on a schedule that revolved around a seven-day calendar, well. Since school. So suddenly having one was a big adjustment for everyone.

But it wasn’t just Sundays that Lance got up. He set his alarm for seven every morning, which was fine as long as he was going to go to all of the radio interviews. Even if it pissed off most of the DJs in America. They usually wanted the other blond one.

He also started making huge charitable donations, and getting screaming phone calls from his accountant, who insisted that Lance wasn’t supposed to write checks for over $5,000 without first consulting with him for tax purposes. Chris made the mistake of answering Lance’s cell on one such occasion and it was a good five minutes before he finally got the guy to stop yelling about some donation to the orphans of Djibouti and tell him that Lance wasn’t available, could he please spell Djibouti so Chris could write down the message?

It was like living in the middle of Se7en, not knowing what was going to come next.

**

Typically, their backstage rider was filled with snacks and beverages, along with mountains of water and deli stuff. They rolled into Kansas City to find nothing but water.

“Where’s our stuff?” Justin asked, looking around. No towels, no rug, no soft lighting. “These guys are so screwed.” He spun on his heel and stalked for the door, presumably to rip some poor venue manager a new one. JC stood at the back of the room and ironed his pants, wearing only boxers and socks. He had some issues with wardrobe girl’s creases. He shrugged when Justin passed him, not knowing what was going on.

“I cut the rider,” Lance said, turning a page of the-- was that a Bible? -- without looking up. Justin stopped gunning for blood and turned slowly. There was fire in his eyes, and something that just read ‘pain is coming’.

“You what?” Justin’s voice was measured and even, and not nice sounding at all.

JC stopped ironing his pants and looked up, somehow knowing that this was going to be a show worth watching.

“We don’t need all of that stuff. It’s gluttonous.”

Justin looked to JC, who held up his hands in a clear ‘do-not-get-me-involved’ gesture. Justin closed in on Lance like a wolf approaching a lamb. Except Lance didn’t look scared, he just stared up at Justin with vague annoyance.

“You don’t get to say whether or not my food is gluttonous. I barely eat ANY CARBS AT ALL!”

Lance pursed his lips, glanced at JC, and laughed with his eyes. There was practically steam coming out of Justin’s ears. JC sighed and put on his pants.

“Justin, Lance said gluttonous, not glutinous. As in, too much. And maybe he’s right.” Lance looked over to him, smug. Justin was about to lunge, so JC stuck himself in between the two and slowly nudged Justin away. “But Lance, seriously? You have to let the rest of us make our own sacrifices when it comes to this stuff. So I’m gonna go fix the rider, and from now on, you can’t be messing with our food. All right?”

Lance closed the Bible. “Fine. When you’re ready to accept will of God, we’ll revisit this.” He left, presumably to pray for their gluttonous souls. JC shook his head, wondering when Billy Graham had descended upon them.

“Justin?”

“He’s pissing me off, man, all this holier than thou shit.” He sat down on the weight bench in the corner, ducking under the bar to recline on the bench. With puffs of breath he began to lift.

JC took that as a good sign, and went to find some Pop Tarts to mend bridges.

**

For a while it seemed like JC was the only one who really made an effort to understand Lance’s new-found relationship with God. It gave Lance a sense of comfort to know that one of his friends appreciated his will to resist temptation in the material world in order to find love in the spiritual realm.

That lasted until Lance came to them with suggestions for the show.

“I just think we could make it less sexual. Change the dancing around a little bit. Get rid of the Digital Getdown stuff, and some of Space Cowboy. Maybe sit while we sing them?”

JC narrowed his eyes. “They’re up-tempo. We have to dance them.”

Lance sighed. “We at least can’t we clean them up a bit? Make them a little less… suggestive?”

“We can’t change the choreography now, Lance.” Joey sat on the sofa, one foot resting on the other knee, leg jiggling nervously. “The tour’s half over, and it’s all set to the music.”

Lance plunked into a folding chair in the middle of the stage, completely dejected. He mumbled something under his breath.

“What?” JC asked, stepping closer.

“I said,” Lance said, through clenched teeth, “that if we were really serious about sending positive messages, we’d change the lyrics to something a little more appropriate.”

JC blinked. He looked at Joey, who wasn’t jiggling anymore and studiously avoiding JC’s stare. “You want me to change my songs?”

Lance shrugged, but he at least looked JC in the eye. “You could fix them up a little to make them more… appropriate.”

JC nodded. He bit on his lip, and Lance looked at him like he might have finally gotten through. JC, after all, understood Lance’s quest to make the world a better place. But Lance wasn’t ready for the very calm, very clear, “You’ve got to be out of your fucking mind.”

Lance shrugged and picked up his stuff. “I shouldn’t have expected you to understand.”

“Understand? You call my songs explicit and you expect me to understand?”

“Inappropriate.” Lance folded up the chair and tucked it under his arm.

JC narrowed his gaze. “What?”

“Your songs aren’t explicit. They’re just inappropriate. And not all the songs, for the record. Just parts.”

JC looked over at Joey. “Get him out of here,” he said. “Before I do something really inappropriate.”

Joey tugged on Lance’s arm and pulled him away, leaving JC seething on the stage.

**

Chris poked Joey with his foot one afternoon as they waited for the cue to come onstage. Rosie had visited the dressing room earlier and left JC and Justin playing with Koosh ball launchers. Lance was reading something that could probably be summed up in two words: Yay, God!

“Do you think we need to, like, get him an exorcism?”

“I think those are only when people are filled with the power of the devil. Lance is filled with Jesus,” Joey commented, eating a celery stick loaded with onion dip.

“How about a psych evaluation?”

Joey just shrugged.

“Well, we’ve got to do something! He’s giving away all his money, and last night, he kept me up on the bus ‘cause he was praying so loud. We need, like, power of attorney or something. Declare him incompetent.”

Joey shrugged again and went for more dip. “He’s just going through a phase. And why were you sleeping on our bus anyway?”

Chris smiled wickedly and stole some carrots of his own. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

**

Chris was still on the bus that night, but he’d brought a surprise. Porn.

“Ohh, ohhh, ohhhh,” said the big-boobed girl on screen.

Chris hummed his approval. “Fuck, she’s hot.”

Joey, sitting on the opposite couch, smiled like the Cheshire cat, slow and sneaky. “Fuck, yeah. Oh! Is that? Twins? You got twin porn, you dawg!”

Chris smiled and turned his attention back to the screen and the hot lesbian action going on there. “Hey, Lance! You’re missing the good stuff!”

“No thank you,” came the reply. Chris turned the volume louder, just in time with twin #1’s orgasm. From the back, Lance called “Could y’all turn that down a little please?”

“No! Come watch it with us!” Chris turned it up even louder, watching with glee as a bright purple dildo appeared on screen.

Joey glanced back at the door to the bunks. It didn’t move. “I think your grand plan failed.”

“Lance! Come watch porn! You love lesbian porn!” He was about to crow with success when the door opened, but one look at Lance’s face proved he was wrong.

“I wish you would just stop all of this. Why can’t you just respect my desire to walk with the Lord?” Lance grabbed the remote from Chris’ hand and shutting off the writhing bodies on screen. From the front of the bus came a very garbled “thank you.”

“Why can’t you just be normal?” Chris asked, getting up on his knees on the sofa. “Seriously, just. Sit here and watch this with us and, fuck. Be a normal human!”

“I don’t need smut to find satisfaction,” Lance said, squeezing the remote to death. “I’ve got the Lord to fulfill those needs.”

“Then go jerk off to the Lord,” Chris snapped, ignoring the horrified look on Lance’s face. He got up and turned the TV on manually, watching with glee as the girls reappeared just where he’d left them. “I’m gonna enjoy my sinful video.”

Lance stormed into the back room and began to pray, loudly. Joey stared over at Chris. “Great plan, dumbass.”

“Shut up,” Chris replied, and turned up the volume one more time.

**

They all found pamphlets on their pillows a few days later. Chris’ said “Jesus Saves.” Joey’s said “The Path to Righteousness is Easy to Follow.” Justin and JC both got one on how to live a Godly life.

“Now can I have him committed?” Chris asked, studying the chart of evil on the inside over of the tri-fold flier. Apparently popular music was worse than unwed mothers, but not as bad as Democrats.

Joey still protested, but not quite as strongly as the last time.

**

Phillip showed up on a Thursday, along with a box of books about God and T-shirts for all the guys that said “God Rocks!”

“Thanks,” Justin said, holding his up. It was at least three sizes too big.

“I thought the baggy look was in,” Phillip said, apologetically.

“No, no, it is. It’s cool man, thanks.” He headed back to the quiet room, where JC was resting, shirt balled under his head like a pillow. “Hey C?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you stoned yet?” The quiet room had the lingering smell of pot, a haze in the air. JC smiled languidly.

“Not quite yet. Want some?”

“In a sec. Who is that guy?” Justin tossed the shirt in the laundry bag, hoping it would get shrunk in the wash. A stupid thought, he realized, because he would never ever wear it. Ever. Not even to bed.

“Some friend of Lance’s. Like, a spirit guide, only I don’t think the scary Christian people call them that.”

“Oh.” Justin stared at JC, who didn’t seem disturbed by this. “So now we’ve got two scary Christian people traveling with us?”

“Mmm. Haven’t you heard? God Rocks!” He tossed the shirt from under his head at Justin before Justin could react. The thing even tasted like cheap cotton.

“Fuck. Give me the joint,” Justin said, grabbing for the ash tray and lighter. The world was just getting weirder and weirder.

**

Philip stuck around for a while, holding morning prayer sessions for anyone on the crew who wanted to attend and generally being Lance’s shadow. Lance seemed happier with him around, at least, and was more likely to smile and walk away from things he found sacrilegious than stay and confront them.

“What’s worse?” Chris asked JC as they stood for wardrobe refitting. “Lance yelling at us for swearing or Lance praying for our immortal souls?”

“He’s not praying for our souls,” JC said. He was absolutely paralyzed, because the wardrobe ladies had pins.

“He is! I heard him.”

“I heard that Philip guy used to be in prison,” said Kathy as she fixed the tear in the hem of Chris’ pants. “That he found Jesus from his cellmate and devoted his life to God after he got out.”

“Really?” asked the other girl, as she carefully pinned the shoulder of JC’s jacket where the Velcro had come unattached “I heard he saw God in the smoke of a camp fire when he was 12 and that God still speaks to him in dreams. He sometimes goes wandering in the desert like Jesus did.”

“I heard he was kidnapped by aliens and violated with anal probes,” Chris said. They looked at him like he was crazy. “What? It’s no more ridiculous than the other stuff.”

“Amen,” JC said, and they all laughed.

**

They had a background check done just in case, because. Prison? Couldn’t take too many chances.

“So, hey, funny story,” Chris said, jumping up the steps onto Lance and Joey’s bus. Lance and Philip looked up from their Bibles. “That guy,” Chris said. “Is an imposter

“Me?” Philip touched his chest, the picture of innocence. “What are you talking about?”

“There is no Philip Waters from Gaithersburg, Maryland. You-“ he declared pointing dramatically. “-don’t exist!”

Lance stood angrily. “What, you’re checking up on my friends, now?” He started to approach Chris, but Philip, or not-Philip, laid a hand on his arm.

“Lance, it’s OK. I’m sure Chris was just being a good friend.” Philip had this damned annoying soft voice. “My given name is Trevor Waters. My parents chose it for me. When I found the Lord, I chose to name myself after one of our great Christian brothers, and was baptized as Philip.”

“Oh.” Chris scratched his shoulder. “Does that mean we have to start calling you James?” he asked Lance. Lance looked to Trevor, who shrugged and answered for him,

“If Lance chooses that name when it comes time for his baptism. You’re lucky,” he said to Lance, “that your parents had the foresight to give you a Christian name.”

“My name means Christ,” Chris offered, inexplicably feeling left out. The fury had melted out of him, replaced with insane curiosity. This guy was a certifiable freak. Chris loved freaks. Even religious ones.

Trevor-Philip looked at him with all the seriousness of a dying man. “You’re so lucky,” he said, and Chris nodded proudly. Lance smiled at him, for the first time in a long, long while.

“Pray with us,” Philip said, and bowed his head. “Father, we bring you another brother in Christ…”

**

“We need to do something,” JC declared. He’d gathered the four guys, Steve, Trace, and a couple of others who were always around into a hotel room and locked the door.

“Is this gonna be like an intervention?” Trace asked. “Cause I’ve done one of those before, if you need, like, experience to lead it.”

“He’s not an alcoholic, fucker. He’s got religion.” Joey looked at Trace like he was the stupidest human alive.

Trace was used to that look, and just flipped Joey off.

“Look, we just want to get the old Lance back.” JC sighed, and flopped his legs over the arm of the chair.

“Have any of you thought of asking what brought about this sudden finding of God?” Steve sat on the floor, beer held loosely in his left hand while he played catch with Chris with his right.

“Like, why the sudden interest in Jesus?” Justin asked.

“Yeah.”

“Wait.” Joey snagged the Nerf ball out of the air and stared at Steve. “What do you know?”

“Me? Nothing. I just think you should ask him. You might be surprised what would turn a man to Jesus.”

Justin got up and in three steps was standing in front on Steve, one Puma sneaker on his groin. “Talk now,” he ordered.

Steve let out an ‘eep!’ and spilled it all.

“With a guy?” Trace’s lips curled in disgust.

“Yup. He swore me to secrecy, and I would have kept it, had Timberlake not threatened to squash my nuts.” He shoved Justin’s foot aside forcefully, and clamped his knees shut.

“Shit,” Chris breathed, stealing the ball from Joey and tossing it in the air. “No wonder Lance went all goofy for God.”

“So, all we have to do is convince him that God doesn’t hate him for being gay?” JC asked. “That sounds easy enough.”

**

This time, they went to JC’s collection in search of porn.

“Do you want ‘College Boys’ First Time’ or ‘Cheaper by the Dozen’?” He asked, holding up two video tapes without cases.

Chris blinked. “What’s the dozen one?”

JC cocked his head and stared at him. “What do you think?”

Chris’ eyes went wide and he picked up the college boy video. “Let’s stick with the easy one.”

They elected Joey and JC to be the ones to show Lance the video. Chris ran back to his bus, laughing.

They started the video at normal volume while Lance was in the shower. When Lance finally came out, wrapped in a towel, JC watched him out of the corner of his eye. It took about four seconds for him to realize what was on the TV.

“Hey, do you mind?” JC asked. “Chris gets annoyed with me watching this on his bus.”

“Um.” Lance looked to Joey. “I’m sure Joey doesn’t want to watch that,” he said, clearly hoping for an easy scapegoat. But Joey just turned around and smiled.

“Nah, it’s cool. I don’t find anything wrong with two men loving each other. Do you?”

Lance glanced back and forth between the two of them. JC wondered what he’d say now. There was no way, he knew, and that Lance would insult him to his face. “Um. No, I just. I don’t think that objectifying sex is good. It’s. Sacred.”

JC shrugged, and turned back to the TV. “Yeah, when you’re with someone, but better to watch this than to be out fornicating, right?”

There was a quiet ‘yeah,’ from the back of the room, and JC heard the scratch of the accordion door being pulled shut. He noticed, however, that the latch didn’t quite catch and Lance’s footsteps never echoed back away from the crack in the door.

**

They had three days off in a row, and Lance flew to Texas with Philip to attend a revival at some fairground near Corpus Christi.

“It’s not working!” Justin cried dramatically, falling down on a lounge chair at the hotel pool.

“He was totally into the porn the other night,” JC swore.

Joey nodded. “We need to show him that gay sex can be good too. That it’s not always gonna be that bad.” Once Steve had shared a few more details about the night he caught Lance in the back room of an Orlando club, they could all sympathize with him. Sympathize, but not willingly let him go over to the dark side. Or light side. The crazy-for-Jesus side.

“Guys, seriously. Show him more porn,” Justin said. “Anything to get him back.”

“I think we need more than porn,” Joey said grimly. JC nodded. Desperate times called for desperate measures.

**

Lance came back without Philip, and without explanation as to why. JC just raised an eyebrow. Chris was a bit disappointed. He’d started to like the little freaky guy.

Lance was also surprised to find JC on his bus again. “Um. You’re not going to watch any more of that video are you?” he asked.

“No, man. We’re done with that. Why, did you want to borrow it?”

“Oh. No. I mean, no thank you.” Lance picked up his Bible and began to read.

“Hey, where’s that passage about God being love?” JC slid into the bench seat across from Lance at the bus table. He hadn’t had a chance to run the plan by the rest of the guys, but he was sure it would work. They could thank him later.

“What? Um, there are a lot of them. Did you have a particularly passage in mind?” JC noted that the margins of Lance’s Bible were filled with out-of-date slang that his scary Christian friends used, like “Totally!” and “Right On!”

“Nah, just kinda thinking.” He fell silent for a few minutes, then said, “You know, Lance, your hair looks really good today.”

Lance looked up, surprised. “I didn’t even comb it.”

“No? Oh. Well, it looks really nice. All messed up and like. Freshly fucked.” JC smiled at him, but Lance frowned, a blush darting into his cheeks.

“That’s hardly a look I’d aspire to,” he said. He turned the page, and then another, clearly not reading what was in between.

“It looks good on you, though.” JC smiled a bit, and let his foot slip out of his flip-flops and wander up Lance’s leg. Lance’s eyebrows furrowed, like he was thinking, but JC’s message had to be clear when he reached the fly of Lance’s jeans and pressed with his toes.

“JC!” Lance gasped, squirming away, pushing JC’s foot out of his lap. “What are you doing?”

“Let me blow you,” JC whispered. “You’re so hot, Lance, please, you have no idea how much I want you.” It sounded so corny that JC nearly rolled his eyes, but managed to keep up the act, sliding out of the booth, falling to his knees in front of Lance. Lance pressed himself back into the corner of the booth. It wasn’t quite big enough for him to escape up and over the table. He was trapped.

“JC, no,” he pleaded, but his voice was hoarse. “It’s a sin,” he said, but the words were whispered.

“All good things are,” JC said. “I’ll stop before you come, if you want. It doesn’t count if you don’t come.” He made that one up on the spot and felt pretty good about it, himself. “Please, I just need to…” he grabbed at Lance’s zipper and yanked it down so quickly Lance couldn’t stop him. His hands closed over JC’s wrists, but it was too late. JC could feel he was hard.

“It’s OK,” JC whispered. “I’ll stop, just tell me when.” He fixed his knee right on top of Lance’s free foot, pinning it to the floor. He grabbed the other ankle and held it to the bench, just in case Lance decided his born again virginity was worth kicking for.

And oh, was he ever ready, JC thought, because as soon as JC’s lips closed over the top of Lance’s dick, a soft sigh fell from Lance’s lips. JC smiled. He should have done this a long time ago, he thought, and bobbed his head down, taking more in, using his tongue to rub against the veins of Lance’s dick.

“Oh, God,” Lance said, head banging loudly against the window. “Oh, God.” JC pulled off and kissed Lance’s dick a bit, warm soft skin that was hard, hard hard against his lips. He smiled when he glanced up and saw Lance’s eyes shut, little beads of sweat at his temples.

“JC,” Lance begged, thighs tensing, and JC knew what was coming, but he pretended that he couldn’t hear and sucked harder. “JC!” Lance cried louder, but it was too late, and even as JC pulled off, Lance was coming, completely on his own, squirting all over the thigh of his jeans. He moaned, and bit his lip until JC could see blood.

“Hey, hey,” he said, grabbing for napkins to clean things up. “It’s ok. You didn’t mean for it to happen, it’s OK. It’s my fault, not yours.”

“Sure,” Lance said, but he didn’t sound very enthusiastic about it.

“It felt good, right?” JC asked, tossing the wad of napkins into the trash. Lance smiled weakly at him and shifted so his legs were under the table again, tucking himself back in.

“Sure,” he said again. “I’m gonna go clean up.”

JC sat at the table and couldn’t help but think he’d just made things worse. Particularly when he heard the sound of prayer from the bathroom.

“Heavenly Father, forgive me for not being able to control my sinful urges, and JC for all of his deviant thoughts about me.”

**

When Justin heard about what went down, he sighed. His mom, on the other end of the phone, asked what was wrong.

“Have you ever just gotten that feeling that if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself?”

She laughed. “That’s your motto, Justin. You might as well have that tattooed on your backside.”

“I know,” he sighed. Life was so cruel when you were surrounded by idiots. “So listen, do you still have my first communion bible around there somewhere?”

**

“Hey, Lance,” Justin called, running to catch up with him in the long corridor backstage. Lance turned to him warily. Justin laughed. “Hey, relax man, I’m not gonna accost you in public.”

Lance fumed. “That’s not funny.”

“I’m just kidding.” Justin flashed Lance his million-watt smile, until Lance dropped the angry pitch of his shoulders and smiled back, just a little bit. “I was wondering if you wanted to go to church with me when we get to Memphis. It’s kinda nice to go someplace familiar, you know? Even if it’s not your kind of familiar. I thought you’d appreciate it more than the other guys, you know?”

“Um.” Justin could tell that Lance knew it was some kind of trap, he just couldn’t figure out what the trap was. “Sure, that sounds nice.”

“Cool. My mom said they’re running a summer schedule so the service isn’t until 10:30. So you can sleep in a little and we’ll still make it on time.” He smiled again, all genuine-like, and Lance seemed to mull over the idea before finally nodding.

“Cool!” Justin cried. “Alright, man, gotta go get booty shaking.” He shook his ass, just for effect, and Lance laughed. “See you at warm up?” he asked.

“Sure,” Lance said, and smiled again, only this time it was real and actually reached his eyes.

**

Justin’s church was completely whitewashed inside, with hard wooden benches that couldn’t be comfortable for more than ten minutes. That’s why there was so much singing, he explained. People had to keep getting up and down to keep their butts from going numb.

Lance knew a lot of the words to the songs without even looking into the hymnal, which shocked Justin because most of the time Lance couldn’t even remember the words to their own songs. Justin held the hymnal between them anyway, in case Lance did forget.

At the end of the service, the minister announced there was to be a baptism, and invited the parents and extended family to gather around the font. Justin couldn’t believe his luck when two thirty-something men and a baby stood up first.

“Heavenly father, we ask you to watch over David and Michael as they bring this child forth to the kingdom of God,” the preacher began, and Justin glanced over to Lance, who was watching with all the attention of a kid at the circus.

“Huh. Guess things have changed around here since we were kids,” Justin said. Lance just nodded and didn’t say a word.

**

“How about some brunch?” Justin asked as they trotted down the steps of the church

“Um. I usually go home and do Bible study on the passages from the service,” Lance said, loosening his tie.

“We could do that at the diner, right? There’s this great place by where my grandparents used to live that’s got the most amazing grits.”

Lance smiled at that. “I thought you didn’t eat carbs,” he said.

Justin blanked for a moment, then remembered his screaming fit earlier in the tour. “Smartass,” he said, but he wrapped his arm around Lance’s shoulder and led him to the car.

**

“Dude,” Chris said, when Justin loaded his duffle bag onto the bus as they left Memphis. “What in holy hell are you bringing with you?”

“Just stuff. New clothes. And don’t talk like that; Lance will get mad at you.”

“Oh, God, not you too.”

“No! Jeez, no. But seriously, he’ll never listen to you if all y'all do is try to get him mad at you.”

Chris scratched his head. “Does this mean you’re not gonna let me do the Footloose sermon anymore?”

Justin thought about Chris running around the Toy Room quoting “There is a time for everything! A time to weep, and a time to dance! It is our time to dance!”

“You’re not allowed to do the Footloose sermon anymore,” he said stoically. Chris stuck out his tongue and flipped him off.

“And no fake demon possessions either!” Justin yelled as Chris walked away, just to be on the safe side.

**

“Do you have, like, a list of things you can and can’t do?” Justin asked one day, as Lance poured over his study Bible looking for some particular passage.

“What?” he asked, hazy. Justin had found Lance was always like that when you ripped him away from God.

“Is there a master list somewhere? Cause some churches let you do stuff that others don’t, you know?” Justin picked at the plastic piece on the end of his shoelaces. It had cracked when Joey rolled over it with a golf cart three days ago and no one had gotten Justin a new pair of laces yet. It annoyed him.

“I think you just have to use your heart. And if you’re not sure about something, take it to God.” Lance smiled. “Do you want to talk about something in particular?”

“Nah, it’s cool. It’s just. There’s something I think is OK, but someone else I know doesn’t, right? So, do I assume he’s wrong and he’s the one sinning and going against the Lord’s plan? Or is it me? How do I know who’s right?”

“Is this just a hypothetical?” Lance asked, still not quite trusting Justin’s motives. Justin smiled.

“Yeah.” Sure. Lance probably though Justin was thinking of Trace.

“I’d pray about it,” Lance said seriously. “Do you want me to pray with you?”

Oh, that would be interesting, Justin thought. “Nah, let me see how I do on my own first,” he said. Dear God, he thought, please let Lance realize he’s crazy. Then, just to cover himself, he prayed for forgiveness for the person who hadn’t brought him new shoelaces.

**

Joey came to Justin a week later, all smiles. “Whatever you’re doing, it’s working,” he said. “I haven’t seen the Bible in three days.”

Justin laughed. “How fucking scary that that’s a good thing.”

“I know, right? Anyway, have you thought about where you’re gonna go with this?”

He had, but that wasn’t ready to be common knowledge yet. Everyone thought Lance was the master planner, but Justin knew better. “I’ve got a few things in mind,” he said vaguely.

Joey clapped him on the back and smiled. “Next time, you go first, and we skip JC.”

**

“So,” the interviewer said. “If you had to choose one person from the group to be your boyfriend, who would you pick?”

“JC!” Chris said. The others laughed. “His hair’s so pretty.”

JC looked a little taken aback, but smiled, uncomfortably. “Ok, man, whatever.”

Lance broke in, very seriously. “I’d pick Justin.”

“How come?” the interviewer pressed.

“Well, he and Britney showed they have really good morals, waiting for marriage. I’d want to date someone with really good morals.”

Justin had no idea where to go with that one, so he let out a whoop of “Ohhh! You guys have been DISSED,” and smiled at Lance as the rest of the room laughed and laughed. Lance smiled back at him, like there was no one else in the room at all.

**

Lance hadn’t really said more than six words to JC since the unfortunate blow job incident, and Justin figured that it should probably be fixed before serious damage was done to JC’s fragile ego, which could somehow withstand being placed on the Worst Dressed list for three years running but not a friend rejecting his blow job.

“Forgiveness,” Justin said, pointing to a page in the Bible. Lance rolled his eyes. “Hey, guess what Lance? You don’t get to be a selective Christian. You either follow the rules or don’t play the game.”

“It’s not a game,” Lance mumbled, crossing his arms. Justin seriously thought he was going to pout like a kid who didn’t want to eat his vegetables.

“No, you’re right, see, it’s much more important than a game. It’s life, and you need to forgive JC because his intentions were good even if his methods sucked.” He winced at the bad pun.

Lance just glared. “Justin, he practically orally raped me!”

“For which he’s very sorry!”

“But how the hell could that be chalked up to good intentions?” Lance asked, incredulously.

Justin sighed. “He thought that you were afraid of being gay, which is why you’d suddenly become Born Again. Somewhere in his messed up head it made sense to him that if you could experience truly good sex, you would see that it wasn’t a sin.”

“But that’s just. That’s just wrong.” Lance glanced down at the Bible. “Maybe I should have been a little bit clearer in explaining my motives.”

“Yeah, it probably would have helped. Why don’t you go talk to him now about it?” Justin suggested, sliding the book away from Lance, lest he be tempted to take it with him.

“OK.”

“You know, you’re a lot better like this.” Justin sat down, stretching his legs up on the chair across the room.

“Like what?” Lance packed up his backpack and slung it over his shoulders.

“Just, talking. Not preaching or stuff. You’d gotten a little crazy there for a while. This is better.”

Lance smiled at him, just a little bit. “Thanks. I think.”

“Hey, one more thing,” Justin called before Lance was out of earshot. “It was good, right? I mean, JC’s got a mouth like a vacuum, no lie, man.”

Lance blinked, and Justin let him absorb the new information there for a second, before blanking out his face again and saying “It was sinful.”

Justin smirked back at him. “Yeah, it was way good, I can tell.”

**

Things were a little bit better after that. Lance stopped preaching at all of them.

“Whatever happened to Philip?” Joey asked over breakfast. Their hotel had the most amazing buffet, all fruit and made-to-order waffles. Or, if you were Lance, tea without sugar and a bowl of cereal.

Lance looked up from his All-Bran. “He had some other people to work with.”

“So you’ve like, graduated to a full-fledged God-boy now?” Chris asked, mouth full of blueberry pancakes.

Lance glared at Chris across the table. “God bless him,” he mumbled under his breath. He took another bite of cereal.

Chris shrugged. “I can deal with being blessed,” he said. “But seriously, did you have to pass a test or something before he let you go out into the world on your own?”

Lance glared up at him some more. “I told him to stay in Texas,” he said, finally. “He was getting a little pushy about some stuff.”

“Like what?” Joey asked, uncharacteristically. Usually he kept his mouth shut about the whole finding God thing. Even Lance looked surprised.

“He thought there were too many negative influences in my life,” Lance said, then sipped his tea for a few seconds. “I disagreed.”

Joey finished chewing, swallowed, and smiled. Scary Christian guys had just slid back an important step in the race to claim Lance’s soul.

**

“Hey,” Justin said, sliding up next to Lance right before they went on stage. “Wanna come out dancing with me tonight?”

“No,” Lance replied, automatically. Justin sighed.

“Please? We won’t stay late, and none of the others will go. I hate going by myself. There’s no one around to force me to resist temptation.”

It was like using those key words on the SATs, Justin thought, even though he’d never taken them. Lance’s face changed complete and he nodded.

“Alright, but I’m only going to watch out for you.”

“Sure, man, absolutely, yeah. Hey, guys! Hackey!” Justin yelled, and it was time to go on.”

**

JC caught up with Justin by the elevators, waiting for Lance. “Hey, man, got a second?” he asked. Justin shrugged and took the few steps with JC around the corner, out of earshot of the bodyguards.

“I just. Are we gonna have to have an intervention for you, too?” he asked.

Justin laughed. “It’s not an intervention,” he reminded JC.

“Whatever. I just. I don’t think I could stand it if two of you just suddenly changed like that, you know?”

Justin nodded, and patted JC on the top of the head. “Don’t worry. I’m perfectly happy being a non-practicing spiritual person.”

JC grinned and bounced on the balls of his feet a bit. “So what’s with the Lance stuff, then?”

“He’s hot,” Justin said, because duh. Why wouldn’t someone take advantage of the chance to get Lance into bed? It might not have been his original intention but if Justin could help Lance put the crazy-internet-religion back online and get himself a boyfriend while he was at it, why not?

“But it’s like. Why would you do that to yourself? Like, you know you’re not gonna get any.”

Poor JC, who was still hurting from not being able to save Lance with the most amazing blowjob this side of the pearly gates.

“It’s Lance, man,” Justin explained vaguely. “Isn’t he worth it?” He’d hacked into Lance’s super-God website and found the list of steps to follow for finding a suitable mate. It didn’t say anything about necessarily having to be someone of the opposite sex, so Justin was running with the idea. He hoped that Lance wouldn’t mind he’d skipped the part about asking his father for permission to date. He didn’t think Jim Bass would find it as amusing as Justin did.

JC just shook his head doubtfully. “Sure, yeah, man, of course. And hey, if it doesn’t work out, you’ve always got Ms. Hand to fall back on.” He smirked, like there was no way that Justin would be able to succeed where he had failed. Oh, just wait, Justin thought, determination coursing through his body.

Lance arrived then, looking totally hot in a printed button down shirt and jeans. Thank God that God didn’t hate jeans. JC waved to them as the elevator closed, goofy grin on his face that assured Justin that JC didn’t believe he’d be able to do this at all.

Even more than Justin loved being right, he loved proving other people were wrong.

**

Justin was drunk. Very, very drunk. It was part of the plan, but maybe he was supposed to be a little bit more sober.

“You’re so pretty,” he said to Lance, trying to gently caress his face. He hit a little harder than expected and Lance winced.

“Thanks,” Lance replied dryly. He held Justin’s hands down in his lap.

“Don’t worry, though,” Justin said, throwing his legs onto Lance’s lap since Lance had his hands all tied up. “I’m not gonna try to blow you like JC did.”

“Thank God,” Lance said.

“I have morals,” Justin smiled, emphasis on the last word.

Lance pushed his legs back to the ground. “I know.”

“You should date me,” he said, giving up and just slumping against Lance’s shoulder. “I’m a good Christian. I can be good.”

“You can,” Lance promised, rubbing Justin’s stubbly head until the car got back to the hotel.

**

Justin woke up to find Lance sitting on the foot of his bed with a Bible. “Hey,” he said, wincing at the pounding in his head. “Sorry.”

“Do you always wake up with an apology on your lips?” Lance asked, handing Justin a cool washcloth. Justin pressed it against his eyes and fell back to the pillow.

“I thought you were going to help me resist temptation.”

“Yeah.” Lance rubbed his palm over the cover of the book. The black leather was getting rather worn. “I tried, man, but you were pretty darned determined to get that vodka down, you know?”

Justin grimaced. “I guess we all have our own ways from hiding from stuff we don’t want to deal with, right?”

Lance didn’t say anything at all.

**

“Zip-a-dee-do-da, zip-a-dee-ay. My, oh my, what a wonderful day.”

Chris stopped and stared at JC. “Why?”

JC shrugged. “I’ve just had it in my head all day long.”

Chris backed away slowly, right into Lance.

“Oh, hey! I was just looking for you. My mom said there’s this girl at her church who’s a huge fan, and she’s got the spirit of God, whatever that means. I figured you’d know. Anyway, I have her phone number.”

Lance took the slip of paper, read the number, and handed it back to Chris. “Thanks, but. I think I’m gonna be not dating for a while.”

Chris made a strange choking noise. “Wait, no sex but no dating either?”

Lance shrugged. “I just don’t feel like meeting anyone new right now. I’ve got too much stuff going on.”

He left, brushing past Justin on the way, who’d heard the whole thing from the doorway.

**

“Stop,” Justin commanded in the hotel corridor. Lance froze. “Turn around and get in here.”

Walking backwards, just to be a little bit obstinate, Lance backed into Justin’s room. Justin closed the door.

“Why did you tell Chris you weren’t dating anyone?”

Lance blinked. “Because I’m not.”

“The hell- heck-- you’re not. What do you think we’ve been doing for the past two weeks?” Justin eyed Lance, waiting for the light to dawn. There it went, as Lance’s eyebrows soared.

“You think we’ve been dating?”

Justin sat down in a chair and kicked his feet up. “We go out to meals. We go to church together. We watch movies and hang out. Yeah, that sounds like dating to me.”

Lance just sort of blinked and said “But I don’t date guys.”

Justin smiled up at him, all innocence. “God is love, man; you’ve been telling me that for weeks. Why won’t you just accept it?”

Lance sat down on the ottoman, pushing Justin’s feet out of the way. He looked mightily upset. “I really thought that you had understood.”

Justin knew that if they kept talking things would get bad. So, he leaned forward and took Lance’s face in his hands, squooshing his cheeks together for a second before kissing Lance’s surprised lips with just enough force to set off the ‘wow’ vibe in his head. When he opened his eyes up, a bit, Lance was staring at him, completely creepy looking this close.

“I do understand. I’m just waiting for you to figure it out. And dude, ok, for real, if you want to wait until we're married I can deal with it, but you've got to at least kiss me.”

Lance just kind of ‘hmmmm’ed and left in a bit of a haze. Justin felt quite successful and left to find JC and gloat about conquering the born-again virgin.

**

Joey had kind of avoided Lance for the greater part of his dive into the pool of ultra-conservative Christianity. It wasn’t that he took offense to Lance’s faith; he just really didn’t know what to talk to him about. Their conversations had always primarily revolved around sex and booze, breast size vs. ass size. Joey didn’t think Lance would appreciate that once he’d found Jesus.

Still, he tried to be supportive, and when he found Lance’s Bible on the bus, he carried it into the hotel, knowing Lance would probably go nuts without it or start highlighting the one left in the night table drawer or something. Page Six would have a field day with that one.

“Here,” he said, handing the Bible to Lance as they all hung out in the halls waiting for luggage to come up.

“Oh yeah,” Lance said, though he didn’t look very happy to be getting it back.

Joey puzzled over that. “You never go anywhere without it these days,” he offered, trying to get at the source of Lance’s sudden displeasure after so many months of God-loving cheerfulness.

“Yeah, but. I think I like, overindulged, you know? I need to like, step back for a bit. Cause the theories are good, but. It’s a little overwhelming.”

Joey nodded, and clasped Lance’s shoulder in a little gesture of support. “Whatever’s cool with you is cool with me, man, you know that.”

Lance smiled. “So, the other night you had a date with that lighting girl, right? How’d that go?”

Thank God, Joey thought, and launched into the story of Kaeley the double-jointed light tech.

**

Chris walked into sound check wearing yellow pants, which was the subject of much scrutiny, until JC arrived and took one look at him.

“Hey! You stole them from my wardrobe rack!” he yelled, and the entire arena began to laugh. JC looked around, not quite understanding what was going on, so he just smiled and picked up a microphone. Sometimes, JC knew, it was best not to ask.

They did their sound check and began the slew of questions from the audience.

“What kind of cars do you guys drive?” one girl asked.

Justin began to tap off all of his vehicles on his fingers, while JC started in on the new Mercedes convertible he’d bought that was so sweet. He couldn’t wait for the tour to end so he could get back home and drive it again.

“What about you, Lance?” the girl asked. “What kind of cars do you drive?”

“Lance gave all his cars to charity,” Chris piped up. “He takes public transportation.”

The arena tittered with laughter, and even Lance looked amused. “Actually, I just ordered a new truck, but I haven’t gotten to drive it yet.”

JC glanced over and realized that it was the first time Lance had actually bought more than socks and underwear for the duration of the tour. Thank you Jesus, he thought, then tried to figure out how to celebrate Lance’s return to normalcy before the end of the trip. But not with a blowjob this time. He’d learned his lesson about wasting good sex on the unappreciative.

**

“Hey,” Justin said, sliding into the table next to Lance on the bus. It was a tight squeeze in there, so their legs were pressed up against each other. “Wanna go to church with me in the morning?”

Lance sighed. “I think I’m gonna sleep in tomorrow.”

Justin’s eyebrows rose almost off of his head. “Yeah?”

“Mmmm.”

“What finally changed your mind?” Justin asked.

“I realized that I was hiding,” Lance said simply. “Plus, I really wanted some coffee.”

That might have been a little too easy, Justin thought, but he wasn’t gonna harp on the details for now. Instead, he laughed, and slid a hand over Lance’s on the table. “So, you’re OK with the boy thing? You don’t think you’re all sinful and shit?”

Lance smiled bravely. “Well, someone told me that it was OK to date a guy if he had morals.”

Justin grinned. “I so do, man, you have no idea.” He leaned in and kissed Lance, and this time Lance kissed back, even opening his mouth up for a little bit of tongue. It was so hot, Justin thought, because this was Lance who was all perfect and holy and here he was eating up Justin’s kisses like manna from heaven.

“This is so much better than JC’s version,” he panted, and Justin laughed. He filed the thought away because stuff like that was just perfect to bring up later when JC was being annoying. They kissed again, wildly, Justin tipping his head at an impossible angle just to get closer, to taste more. Lance was so hot.

He wouldn’t let Justin get a hand down his pants, though, which was a bit frustrating. Particularly when Justin’s hand was right there, so close, hovering at Lance’s belt, the final frontier.

“Not this second,” he said. “I may not be Born Again, but I’m still not into exhibitionism.”

Justin figured he could change that, after getting Lance to give up the scary internet Christians and all. But that was a conquest for another day.