AFTERMATH (SCENES FROM A POSSIBLE FUTURE: 2)

by Ian McDuff

'Hon?'

James was in the sunroom, singing softly to The Terrors. It was naptime, after all.

Josh poked his head around the door, and just stood at gaze, listening. That smooth, sweet bass soothed him as much as it soothed The Terrors. James was singing the old songs, the songs of his magnolia-drenched, dogwood-and-honeysuckle Dixie childhood.

The Terrors were drifting off. Well, why not (and thank God, for that matter). Josh too could listen to his spouse all day and float peaceably.

The Terrors were out like lights, now. Without moving, James said softly, 'Hey, love. Check the monitor and we'll slip out.'

'How do you always know?' Josh asked, for the thousandth time, when they were in the hallway.

James just smiled. 'Well, see now, when two people have a connection....' Josh dropped a light kiss on the top of his head. 'I just ... always know. When you're near. And don't you tell me you don't do the same damn thing.'

'I don't, always. When I'm deep in the music....' Josh looked uncomfortable.

'Sugarpie, that's one rival I've never been jealous of.' James grinned that crooked grin that always, always, no matter how the years piled on, made Josh's heart race. 'How was your time with the bitch Muse?'

Josh just grinned, sappily. 'Dumped her. Oh, I was all set at the keyboard, waiting for Inspiration To Strike –' James giggled – 'when the phone started.'

'Ouch.'

'No, it was all good. Our parents are still fighting over us.'

James sighed. 'It was simpler when they were pitching fits about our bein' together.'

'Hey, I'll take the acceptance any day. Besides, it's really The Terrors they're fighting over.'

'Grandparent-hunger. I know.'

Josh thought back to that time, five years before. When his husband 'got holt' of an idea, it was katy-bar-the-door. James had spent months online, and then, suddenly, they were in Roanoke, Virginia, and Asheville, North Carolina, signing papers. Only James would have thought to resolve their need to parent, to reconcile their feelings about adoption and about blood-kin in the most Southern of senses, by delving into the complex web of genealogy to the point they were able to find two orphaned babies who were related, however distantly, to both of them, through that great, unacknowledged lattice of kinship that covered the South from Mississippi to Maryland. And in the mountain upcountry, they had found them sons who shared the blood of James's parents and Josh's birth-family. They'd called them 'the pick of the litter' at first, these two adorable boys out of all those who shared their shared ancestry and even, in the mysterious way of genetics, a trace of both their features (and Josh still marveled at that: it had gone far to restore his tattered faith, to think that somehow, from before they were conceived, he and James had shared a unity, and to think, too, that all along, Divine Providence had been bringing them – and The Terrors – together, as Something Meant to Be). By the time James Scott Custis Bass-Chasez and Joshua Lance Lee Bass-Chasez were two, however (and they shared a birthday, as well), they had become known simply to everyone – except their doting grandparents – as The Terrors, a name that had not lost its applicability since. James had been known to suggest that if they'd known how the boys were going to turn out, they'd have named them Chris and Justin; though if truth be told, both Scotty and JL were remarkably well-behaved now, thanks to firm, loving discipline, to their only sane godfather, the Major, and to James's refusal to let Josh spoil them rotten....

James was grinning at him now. 'Sugarpie, I b'lieve I was still talkin'.' Josh blushed, caught dead to rights whilst zoning out.

James tried not to laugh. 'As I was sayin'.... Who-all called other'n the Folks?'

'Brit and Juju. They're in town. Want to get together with us, Joe and Kel, Chris and Dani....' His voice trailed off. James nodded.

'I'm glad too. I thank the Good Lord ever' day those two worked it out. Second most meant-to-be couple I ever saw, Dani and Chris are.'

'Mmmm? Who's the first?'

James shut him up the best way they knew how, with a kiss that loosened Josh's knees and made him sag against the wall.

'Now stop foolin' around, sugarpie. When and where?'

'Huh? Oh. Uh....' It always took Josh a while to get his bearings again after James did that. 'Next Tuesday. Mama Fatone is booked to take care of the kids.'

James just looked at him. 'My God, we can't do that to that poor woman.'

'Hey! I'm more worried about The Terrors. They'll come back fifty pounds heavier and with their cheeks pulled out to HERE from pinching.'

'Tony seems to survive his Grammy. I just ... Lord help her, dealin' with Tony and Joe-Three and Brianna, Alan and Danielle, Lynette and Randy, and The Terrors. Still and all, she wants to do it, it's her funeral. Tuesday it is.'

'I bet you they want to do another CD, maybe a tour.'

'Hell they think we are, Steely Dan? The Eagles?' James was chuckling, though.

'At least we didn't name our group after a dildo or a bird.'

'I don't see how we could tour....'

'Actually, it would solve a problem, if we did a brief one. The fans still want us, you know.'

'Different group of fans, partly, but yeah, I know. You're thinking that we let the Folks have a month each with The Terrors in summer?'

'It gets 'em off our ass, babe, and maybe afterwards they won't bug us quite so enthusiastically to Let Them Have Their Grandbabies For a While, Damn It.'

'Mmm-hmmm. And we could have more time....'

'I never thought I'd look back to our closet days with nostalgia, or that we'd end up having more ... playtime ... on tour than at home....' Josh was relishing this: with every word, he feather-touched James, here, there, there ... and as his voice trailed off he got his revenge for earlier, thrusting his tongue into James's ear and getting seriously off on the way that James, as always, as every single time, responded as if to an electric shock, his whole body going taut in ecstasy.

He relented, grinning, contenting himself with suckling and nibbling at James's earlobe: enough even then to keep James writhing, but enough of a backing-off to let James re-ascend to some coherency.

'God,' James breathed. 'We are definitely going back on the road.'

'Don't you want to know who else called?'

'Huh?' James, too, had his less than lucid moments when the hormones surged. 'Oh. 'Kay.'

'The Log Cabin Republicans want us at a fundraiser.'

James thought back to the madness attendant upon their coming out publicly. They'd finally won a Grammy. And that meant, well.... They'd hugged on stage, but that was nothing: all five of them were hugging and giggling and going wild with glee. They'd toyed with the idea of some gesture if ever they won the elusive Grail, but – when they've just handed you your first Grammy, it's all you can do to remember who you have to thank. Afterwards, though – with the guys having immediately asked them, on the way offstage, 'Weren't you planning to, like, DO something?' – afterwards, once the immediate musical and we're-so-grateful questions were over, the standard interview question had come up.

'JC, Lance, we know about Justin, Chris, and Joey, what about you two? Seeing anyone?'

They'd grinned and answered, in unison, 'Yep.'

'JC, we noticed Bobbie wasn't with you tonight –.' And Josh had smirked, nodded, and said,

'Yeah, well, I don't think my husband would have approved.'

Whereupon James had taken his hand and grinned, 'I wouldn't have fussed, sugarpie.'

The interviewer, who'd been warned that these guys were smartasses, guffawed. 'C'mon, seriously, though.'

'We're dead serious,' Josh had said sternly, and then had laid a liplock on James that caused the rest of the world to fade to black around them. When they noticed things again, it was the dead silence that got their attention. 'What?' James had said. 'We are married, I'd think we could do that in public.'

The talking head had found her voice and stuttered, 'M- married? Really?' At which point Brit, who was there with Justin, had gotten between them, clasped their joined hands in hers, and said sharply, 'They'd damn well better be really married after what Justy and I spent on their weddin' gift, darlin'.'

Needless to say, that had ignited a firestorm that raged in the media for months – until they'd gone to the White House. They'd been invited, before the news had broken, all five of them plus Brit, for the Easter Egg Roll on the White House lawn, and the White House staff had panicked after the Grammys; but to his eternal credit, W (backed firmly by Laura) had insisted that things go forward as planned.

At the photo op, the President had fielded questions gracefully, with no more than his usual quota of verbal gaffes.

'Mr President! How do you feel about Lance and JC and their relationship?'

'I'm their President, not their parent or preacher. They're both fine young men and have clear consciences. Just glad this isn't three years ago, or I'd have two inconsolable daughters, y'know?'

The whole Bush clan being there, that line was met with a swift, grinning response from George Senior: 'Leave my granddaughters out of this!'

'Does this mean you approve of gay marriage, Mr President?'

'It means I approve of all these guys, and I like them, and their private life is their businesses, uh, are their business ... anyway, I'm the president of all the people. Don't have to agree, may not have any business disagreeing, y'know, but it's their own business, big time.'

'Did you talk about gay rights with them?'

'Nope. Talked about important stuff – uh, not that that's not an important issue – but Lance and I talked about country music and guns and hunting.'

'What about JC?'

'Well, now there we do have a problem. We don't agree on a very important issue. As president, of course, I'm neutral on it, but I'll say again, as ex-owner of the Rangers: JC, if you think the Baltimore Orioles are gonna beat Texas now that we have A-Rod, you're crazy.'

'Don't look at me,' his father interjected, 'I'm just a broken-down first-baseman who roots for the Astros.'

'Mr President! What do you think about Eminem's new single that says Lance and JC should be "Shepardized"?'

Justin, who could not stand not being the center of attention for another minute, burst out: 'Screw dat punk!'

At which point salty old Barbara Bush, characteristically, chimed in: 'I suspect he'd like that ... probably a closet case to be spewing all that hatred.'

'Bar –'

'Mom –'

'Hush, George. There's a question unanswered,' she smiled, eyes twinkling.

W looked at the cameras, seriously. 'That government, Jefferson said, is best that governs least. Conservatism means keeping the government out of your business – and out of your business. We're not in the morals bidness after all: that would be the Taliban. That said, incitement to violence and that sort of hatred is just wrong. It's un-American, and no one who hasn't gotten that fact doesn't deserve to be called a conservative. Or does ... or ... you know what I mean.'

That had taken the heat off the boys and put it all on W for a while. All five of the 'N Sync-ers, though, and Brit, had been grateful, and showed it, by campaigning whole-heartedly – even those die-hard Dems Justin and Chris – for W's second term, which he won handily, the primary fight against Quayle and Buchanan being tougher than the walk-away election he faced against Dick Gephardt, and by helping get George P. (whom Josh and James both found utterly dreamy, a fact they laughed about together) into Congress from Florida.

'You're dreaming about George P.'s ass again, aren't you, James?'

'Oh shut up. Log Cabin Republicans it is. We owe them that much. What else?'

'There was a conference call from our fan club. There's a LanceJC-Con at Delta State this year – three guesses who chose that site, and 'Tosca' and 'Turandot' don't count – "can we be there for our longtime fans and supporters?'"'

'Of course we can.' James sighed. 'I love them-all to death, they were out there smoothing the way for us before ever we came out, but ... I never thought I'd miss the closet, but it was quieter and private....'

'Like it or not, love, we're poster boys, spotlight and all.' Josh smirked. 'Don't you like being "the Gay Power Couple of the Millennium?"'

'I'd as soon Nicky and Howie shouldered half the burden. Which I will point out tomorrow night when we go over there for dinner.'

'Well, look at it this way: better us than David Geffen and Keanu.'

'Oh you son of a –'

'Daddy!' They whirled and looked at the monitor. JL, his emerald eyes shut, was still asleep on the screen, dark poll buried in his blanky; but tow-headed, blue-steel-eyed Scotty was sitting up and waving at the monitor cam.

'Back to real life,' James grinned.

'Why couldn't they both have MY sleeping genes,' Josh groused. But he was grinning, too: 'real life.' It sounded ... good.