"Beyond Reproach" and "Delayed Re-entry"

[turlough]

My prompt table/list.

Claim: Nsync: Lance Bass
Title: Beyond Reproach
Author: Lily, at improvidence and lilysaid
Characters: Nsync, Professor Pearlman, sundry students and teachers
Prompt: 07 Love
Rating: explicit sex, kind of
Length: long/epic
Brief summary: Chris is an art student with a wild reputation and Lance is the president of the Baptist Student Union. This is the story about how two people from such widely different backgrounds can slowly come to know one another and in the end fall in love. A well-written, wonderfully atmospheric tale with great characterisations.

Lance looked straight ahead at the movie screen, trying to appear busy until he could hide how much Chris' acceptance of the gift had pleased him. At first he'd thought that just because he and Chris went head-to-head over every issue and liked to snark at one another on a regular basis, they couldn't be friends. Eventually, he'd realized that it was just another way of relating. He liked being able to coax out one of those elusive Kirkpatrick smiles, probably because of all the sunny, overeager people who were always trying to touch Lance with their phony joy.

A small part of Lance felt that maybe dark interior of JC's truck wasn't the best place to be, that it wasn't conducive to staying on the blameless, righteous path that he'd always kept to. It wasn't a part of himself that he was used to disregarding, but he found himself doing it more and more, as well as stifling the constant, low-level warning signals that always seemed to pop up when Chris was around.

It was just a matter of overcoming his upbringing, really. Lance had been taught his entire life that people like Chris were dangerous, that they were somehow less than everyone else. He wasn't, though. So, maybe he swore and drank and occasionally got in people's faces, but he was funny and quick, and Lance saw genuine, gentle qualities in Chris that pleased him.

And, the combined scent of turpentine and incense had really grown on Lance.

Link to the story: Beyond Reproach


Claim: Nsync: Lance Bass
Title: Delayed Re-entry
Author: Lily, at improvidence and lilysaid
Characters: Nsync
Prompt: 14 Loss
Rating: explicit sex
Length: medium
Brief summary: A story about what happened when Lance came back from space after the accident that almost prevented him from coming back at all. How the rest of Nsync coped when it happened, how they're doing now, and how they're helping Lance reconnect with something he was afraid he was losing forever. A beautifully written, very atmospheric GSF. (GSF = Group Slut Fic, that hardy perennial popslash category. Never very common, but stubbornly refusing to become extinct.)

Chris brought him back to the moment, his familiar voice brought low with concern. "Were you scared?"

No. Because scared didn't describe the terror of being disconnected from humanity, with the blackness of space looming, threatening to swallow him alive. He hadn't been scared. There was no name for what he'd been.

"I..." Lance shook his head. "Chris, it was..." He couldn't say, didn't want to hurt them any more than they'd been hurt, but then he didn't have to because Chris was right there, holding him tightly until the only thing he could do was give into instinct and burrow his face into the denim of Chris's well-worn jacket. He brought his arms up around Chris's waist, wanting and needing this anchor.

"Hell?" Chris asked, and Lance nodded jerkily, unable to trust his own speaking voice. "It was for us, too. We could hardly breathe." The next quiet statement gusted warmly over Lance's cheek, "So we learned to breathe for each other."

Link to the story: Delayed Re-entry