Rusty
by Helen
They all knew JC was gay from way back, so that wasn't the reason that they were all surprised when they walked in on him making out with Rusty in the dressing room.
"whoa, fuck, sorry," Chris said, and slammed the door shut, but not before they'd all seen: JC sitting on a dressing room table, Rusty's hand up under the back of his shirt. It wasn't that bad; they had all seen worse: the time, for instance, that Joey was doing some girl on the bus when Chris' mom was visiting, and thank god it was Chris' mom, because Lance's mom would have freaked. Instead, she only asked if they had people to buy them condoms, and bought them all two boxes anyway. ribbed. "Be safe, sugar," she said, and pinched Chris' cheek, and then Justin's.
"That was—that guy—," Joey said, snapping his fingers in the corridor outside the dressing room.
"Dave?" Chris said, "No. Randy—something."
"His name is Rusty," JC said, coming out of the room, Rusty behind him,
"Yeah, of course, hey, man," Chris said, and Rusty nodded, touched JC's shoulder, and went off down the corridor. Lance arched an eyebrow and leaned back against the wall, crossing his arms, and Justin stared at JC and couldn't remember when JC asked
"What did you guys want?"
"Wow," Chris said, because Rusty was one of their roadies, a tall man with curly, rust-colored hair that fell below his shoulders and was usually pulled back into a scraggly ponytail, and tattoos up one arm and across his back. When he took off his shirt during setup in Tulsa, when it was 105 at noon, they could see them all along one arm and across his back, old blurred blue tattoos, the design dense on his left shoulder and then fanning out, twisted shapes that thinned down his back until there were only delicate tendrils on his right shoulder, one curled around his waist, one thicker vine along his hip beneath his pants. They might have been snakes or mermaids or dragons, but it was impossible to tell unless you were close enough to touch them, and no one wanted to ask JC what the tattoos were. Rusty was big, too, but not in a worked out gym way; more in a lifting heavy things for hours and eating irregular greasy meals kind of way, which meant that he had huge shoulders, and sinewy forearms, and a little bit of a gut.
Chris thought it was cool. "Seriously, he's way better than those cracked-out investment bankers or whatever you keep on dating," he said. "Better than that asshole, Allen." Chris had hated Allen, who wore suits, and called JC 'baby', and took him out to nice restaurants, and smoked too much pot.
"Whatever makes you happy, I guess," Joey said dubiously.
Lance was disapproving, and made noises about 'dating the help' until Chris said "shut up, you loser," and punched him in the shoulder.
Justin thought Rusty was nice and all, and that the tattoo was pretty cool, but still. It was weird. It wasn't like he didn't understand that JC dated guys, but he'd kind of thought that meant that JC would date young famous attractive guys, he explained, paging through an issue of BOP. "Like, y'know, him—" he said, holding up a picture of a sleek, dark-eyed man with his shirt half-off, surrounded by candles.
"I like Rusty," JC said.
"Dude, we know," Chris said. "You're all dreamy and shit."
In the afternoon downtime, when they were waiting for the soundcheck, and set-up was halted until the sound guys fixed up the system, everyone sat around and waited and ate from the craft services table. Usually Chris was trying to set up a football pool or something, trying to get everyone in on the action, and Justin was talking to the band guys, so they'd never really noticed that JC had spent the last three weeks sitting next to Rusty, eating his sandwich.
Rusty liked the Eagles and drank Miller Genuine Draft out of the bottle and said stuff like "It's not really my kind of thing, all that hippity-hopping around the stage, but you work hard. I can respect that." and then he would smile at JC, all straight white teeth and crinkled fine lines around his eyes, and say "this one's got a hell of a set of pipes, though," and ruffle JC's hair, then let his hand slide down JC's back, and it was almost possible to ignore the fact that he kept his hand there, fingers wrapped gently around JC's waist.
Rusty was big enough that he and JC could go out and do stuff without security, which pissed Chris off to no end. There were pictures of them, even: JC at the movies, JC at some bar, Rusty watchful beside him, one hand on his shoulder. No one worried that he looked like JC's boyfriend.
"Because," Justin said, "you should be dating, like, this guy, or something." He held up a Tiger Beat picture in which a dimpled, clean cut guy was standing on a beach, knee deep in water, smiling engagingly at the camera. There was a picture of Justin on the opposite page.
"Rusty," Chris said, "is way cooler."
"I bet he's better in the sack, too," Joey said, who had gotten over his initial qualms by watching Rusty closely out of the corner of his eye, seeing him tug teasingly on the back of JC's shirt, and the way he smiled when JC turned. One long afternoon when the sound system wiring was fucked up, Rusty tried to teach JC how to punch, JC scuffling gamely with him on the arena floor, Rusty patiently fending him off, giving quiet instructions. JC leapt around like it was a new dance he was learning until Rusty shook his head and gave up.
"What, hey, what?" JC had said, bouncing like a kangaroo, fists held loosely up, "you afraid?"
Rusty had laughed, and picked him up, slinging him easily across his shoulders while JC giggled and struggled ineffectually. Joey lost track of them after that, although when JC had shown up later, Chris said.
"Dude, your mouth's all fucked up."
"No, it's not," JC said, wiping his hand across the back of it.
"Whatever," Chris said.
"I'm getting my own big scary boyfriend," Chris would say, pointing to Keith, who was forty-five and married with three kids, and probably went about three hundred pounds, "D'you think he'd think I'm cute?" Chris said, preening a little. "How'd you and Rusty hook up, anyway?"
"I got drunk and offered to blow him," JC said, with a deadpan smirk.
It wasn't like regular dating, like when Joey was in love with Nadia and spent all his time hunched in his bunk on the phone to her, or bitching about how shitty the signal was, and she'd meet up with them every few weeks and they'd go into the hotel room and not come out, or when Justin and Britney were really dating, before they gave up and started fake dating, when Justin spent a lot of time morosely watching Britney's videos on MTV, and talking on his cell phone with her, and trying to get Marion to let him admit that he wasn't a virgin.
JC and Rusty hung around each other during downtime, which there was a lot of, and Rusty sometimes stayed backstage during the show, smiling at JC when they burst into the dressing room at intermission, and tossing him a bottle of water. JC had them include beef jerky in the rider, because Rusty liked it. Once or twice, JC rode with Rusty in his truck when the new venue was only a few hours away.
One morning, they had to hold the bus until a taxi pulled up in the parking lot, JC tumbling out with his backpack, saying
"sorry, sorry," as he climbed onto the bus.
"Fuck, you reek," Chris said, when JC sidled by him.
"I didn't wanna hog up their showers," JC said, going to his bunk to get clothes.
"You don't have to rub it in—" Joey said later, when JC couldn't stop smiling.
"What?"
"Look at me," Chris said, pitching his voice slightly higher. "I'm JC. I got laid good and proper down at the EconoLodge Motor Inn."
"Hey," JC said.
"My boyfriend," Chris continued, "is so big and strong and—"
"Shut up," JC said, but he was smiling.
"I could take him," Justin said.
"Bullshit, you could not," Chris said. "He can lift one of those speakers—the big ones—by himself. He can probably pick JC up with one hand or something and—"
JC blushed. Chris cleared his throat. Joey and Justin looked down at the table. "yeah. let's change the subject."
"So, like, what do you and Rusty do?" Justin asked, sitting on the hotel bed watching while JC rummaged through his backpack.
JC shrugged. "Eat chicken wings. watch tv. talk about stuff."
"And do it," Chris said.
"Get your own sex life," JC said.
"Look, if you wanna bring him to. here—" Justin said, hesitating.
"No, y'know. It's. that would be weird," JC said.
"Oh," Justin said.
"I wish I had some chicken wings," Chris said dreamily.
Justin was late getting on the bus in Oklahoma City. The others were kneeling on the couch, glued to the opposite window of the bus.
"What's going on?" he asked.
"JC's saying goodbye to Rusty," Chris said distractedly.
"What—is he leaving?"
"His sister's boyfriend is stalking her or something," Joey said, "he has to go help her out." Justin went over and joined them at the window, pushing at Lance until he moved over far enough for Justin to see as well.
Rusty was standing by a beat up truck, talking to JC, who kept nodding, hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched.
"They've been talking for, like, a half an hour," Joey said. Rusty bent down and patted JC's face, and JC tipped his head back and
"whoa—" Chris said, because Rusty took JC's face in his hands and kissed him for a long, long time, JC swaying slowly into him, and when Rusty let him go, JC wrapped his arms around his shoulders and clung, burying his face in Rusty's chest. Rusty pulled him close and put his head down, mouth against JC's ear, whispering. And then he let go, and got in the truck and drove off.
JC raised his hand, and then dropped it after a while. He stood there for a long time, the dust of the parking lot whipping around his ankles, until the bus driver went out and tapped him on the shoulder, and JC turned around and nodded at him, followed him back to the bus.
"I'm going to bed," he said, while they all pretended that they hadn't been watching.
Chris sniffed slightly in the silence.
JC was kind of down after that. Not suicidally down, but down. He spent a lot of time staring at his notebook without writing anything, and when Joey got him drunk he bitched about how he was all fucked up and sad and he still couldn't come up with any good ideas, so it was a just a waste. Then he got drunk enough that he started saying things like "Rusty gave the best head ever," which embarrassed Joey, so he handed JC over to Chris, who appeared to enjoy hearing about the time Rusty had done him three times in one night.
After two weeks, Chris decided that the mourning period was over, and started pointing out other roadies and saying things like "How about Frank? Frank is kind of hot. or Tommy. He's cute." until JC said
"please stop cheering me up." Then he wrote a song about Rusty that got stuck in all their heads for three weeks, especially the verse about how trailer parks in Arizona glittered in the sun, "and remi-hind me of you," Chris would warble in the kitchen, while Lance said "Don't, you fucker, don't—" and clapped his hands over his ears. When Justin had broken up with Britney, JC had helped him get rid of all the stupid cards she'd sent him, and pictures of them holding hands, and then taken him out to Denny's when he couldn't sleep, but Rusty hadn't really given JC anything, and there were only one or two pictures of them together, that JC stuck in the back of one of his notebooks, but didn't really seem to want to throw away. He wasn't having any trouble sleeping, so Denny's was out. Soon enough, things went mostly back to normal, except that JC couldn't eat chicken wings anymore.
They were stuck in the hotel again,
"Forget it," Lonnie said, curtly, because the girls had been like jackals, lately, and Rick had actually dislocated his shoulder pushing the crowd off Lance. They didn't protest too much, but it was boring, and they'd already seen all the pay-per-view movies at the hotel. Lance and Chris were reasonably happy to go off and do business stuff, and Joey had a new girlfriend and was in the long-boring-telephone-conversations stage, so Justin went to JC's room and flopped down on the bed. JC was digging through his bag, looking for something. There was an copy of BOP on the bed, with several post-it notes sticking out of the pages. One of them said: "for the love of god, don't wear this shirt again." Justin laughed, and pulled the magazine towards him.
"Hey," JC said, smiling, pulling a sweatshirt over his head. "Who should I date now?"
Justin flipped the magazine open at random, shrugging. JC laughed, and sat down on the other bed, still looking at him. Justin shrugged again, and turned the page, paper crackling quietly as he smoothed out the Backstreet Boys centerfold.
"Me," he said softly. "I think you should date me."
JC inhaled sharply, surprised, but his voice was gentle when he spoke. "Justin—"
"Please," Justin said, scrambling up and rolling off the bed, ending up on his knees in the narrow space between the beds.
"Please," quietly, one cautious hand on JC's knee, sliding it up when JC didn't say anything.
"Justin," JC said again when Justin's hand reached the crease in his jeans at his thigh, and then they were kissing, Justin's mouth frantic against JC's, JC's hands gripping his shoulders tightly, skidding down Justin's back when he climbed up on the bed and pushed JC onto his back, pressed a series of urgent kisses against his neck. He slid a hand under JC's sweatshirt, over the bare skin above his hip, rocked a knee between JC's thighs and kissed him deeply until JC pulled back a little. He was flushed and his eyes were closed, but he didn't move his hand from the small of Justin's back, rubbing his fingers thoughtfully against the skin there before saying
"This is a bad idea."
"Everyone you date is a bad idea," Justin whispered.