Originally written for ianmcduff's [Smart Boys In Glasses] Challenge, and follows on from the [prologue], and part [1]...


‘… all excavation, therefore, is destruction…’

Lance’s voice carries easily across the tent to where JC is pushed close against Justin’s excitedly nudging elbow by the press of strangers all around them, and the sound of it dominates the afternoon air, inflected with enthusiasm, steady with authority, tempered by intellectual stimuli that JC doesn’t even pretend to understand. He sits quietly, enveloped by the rapt silence that doesn’t quite touch him, trying to listen to Lance’s speech, to focus upon what it is that he’s telling them all, failing miserably due to the constant diversions that Justin’s elbow against his ribs constantly creates and the overwhelming sense of suffocation because of the proximity of strangers.

‘… so why do we excavate?’

There is a vague moment of silence, and JC’s eyes flicker up, curious as to the abrupt lull. He idly rubs the sort spot against his ribcage that Justin’s frequent, overexcited nudging has caused, glances surreptiously around, finally settling his gaze back towards the front of the tent. Everyone else is intent in their own focus upon Lance, their faces all but glowing in rapture at his words and JC cannot stop the small sigh of boredom from escaping lips parted absently. He doesn’t understand this fascination that they seem to share, that he seems to be excluded from, thinks of it as some kind of voodoo. As an image of Lance, Chris and Joe in Shaman outfits flickers through his mind, JC splutters a soft laugh into the palm of one quick moving hand…

‘C!’ Justin hisses as JC struggles to catch the laugh, a few of their close companions throwing curious glances in their direction as he does so.

JC’s laughter dies, his smile twitches with rueful embarrassment and he drops his head to fixedly stare at the table once more. ‘Sorry.’ He whispers, shuffles a little closer to where Justin is sitting, sprawled upon his chair, feels inadequate and out of his depth completely.

‘We excavate for several reasons -,’ Lance’s voice sounds through the stillness once more, its tone obtusely harsher than before, and JC lifts his gaze, looks towards the site director, finds himself being stared at from hard, unreadable eyes.

Blanching beneath the gaze, JC remembers Chris’ warning, automatically looks away as he realises that his disinterest, his boredom is probably glaringly apparent to the speaker. His eyes drift across, stop, return to Chris’ face as he stands unobtrusively to one side of the tent, arms folded, eyes flickering from one sincerely interested face to the next, and JC allows himself to watch for a moment, allows the drone of Lance’s words to settle into the back of his mind once more…

The smattering of sudden applause jolts JC from his dazed reflections about the way in which Chris’ beard horns cause intricate shadows against the canvas wall of the marquee beside him, and he blinks, straightens his back, glances nervously around.

‘Wow, that was…’ Justin’s voice is slack with awe and words seem to have failed him as he grins, slowly, towards JC. ‘Don’t you think so, C?’

‘Uh, yeah,’ he says quickly, ‘sure. It was… uh…’

‘I know!’ Justin slides from his seat, shakes his shoulders, gently pushes JC’s head with the heel of one hand. ‘C’mon, C – let’s go figure out where we’re gonna sleep tonight, huh?’

JC rises to his feet, a perplexed frown narrowing his eyes, opening his mouth to laugh at Justin’s statement, to say that they’ll be sleeping in beds inside the house that he walked past to reach the marquee – it can’t all be dilapidated, he thinks, as he turns to follow Justin – but the sound of his name being called, stops him.

‘Hold on -,’ he says to Justin, touches his hand to his elbow to divert his attention from the rush and flow of people out into the late afternoon air. ‘Just wait a minute, huh?’

‘Uh…’ Justin cants a glance over JC’s shoulder, arches a wary eyebrow, shakes his head. ‘I’ll, uh, go scout out a pitch, C. Don’t… uh… be long, huh?’

‘A pitch?’ JC frowns, the strangeness of Justin’s statement causing him to ignore the wary glance that his friend had cast across his shoulder, to neglect to twist his head and see who called his name. ‘Justin, what’re you -,’

‘Chasez!’

‘See ya later, C!’ Justin throws him a sunny smile, hurries out after the others, already calling Britney’s name and reaching out a hand to catch hold of her elbow as he goes.

JC sighs.

‘Jesus, man, am I not speaking a language you understand, or somethin’?’

Instinctively, JC turns his head, peers curiously at Chris who has battled his way against the tide of grunts to reach him, and for a moment, maybe two, he doesn’t understand what it is that the other man is saying to him. His mind lingers upon Justin’s strange statement, wonders what he means by “a pitch” when surely it should be “a room”, and he realises Chris is watching him curiously, a small smile playing about his mouth, understands what he has said in a rush, and flushes, feels vaguely humiliated.

‘Because, I know I told you to pay attention to what Lance had to say just now!’

‘I…’ JC tilts his gaze away. ‘Yeah.’ He says. ‘You did.’

‘So…?’

He rolls his shoulders into a shrug. ‘Guess I’m just… it just seems like… I…’

‘It’s all too much to take in?’

‘Yeah.’ He looks back at Chris, thinks that he can see a shadow of understanding in his eyes, before he blinks, and it’s gone.

‘There’s a lot to know, JC -,’ Chris tells him, folds his arms across his chest and stares at him. ‘This is a big site. An important site. We can’t afford to fuck anything up here.’

‘No,’ he says quickly, ‘I understand that.’

‘So, what then?’

There is something cruel about the thin twist of Chris’ mouth, JC thinks as they watch one another, the marquee continuing to slowly empty around them.

‘You think you’re too good to listen to Professor Bass?’

Astonishment causes JC’s eyes to widen. ‘What? No! No, of course not!’

‘Then you think you know everything there is about excavation techniques?’

‘No, I -,’ JC hesitates, bites down hard against the tip of his tongue in his confusion. Realising that Chris will find out eventually, anyway, he shifts miserably beneath the constant stare. ‘Actually,’ he says quietly, ‘I don’t know anything about it. At all.’

‘Huh.’

JC frowns at the flat tone to Chris’ voice, wonders how long the journey back to the airport will take with the minibus carrying just him and his bags, feels an odd flicker of something that he thinks might be disappointment go through him.

‘You’re a virgin, then.’

His eyes widen again, confusion and horror at the implications flowing smoothly through him. ‘What? I… uh… what? I am… I’m not… that is… uh…’

Chris cackles – there can be, JC decides as his face floods with embarrassed, mortified heat, no other word to describe the sound that exits the man standing in front of him – and twists around, lifting his arms and his voice to gain the attention of those who linger around the table furthest from where they are standing. ‘Hey! Guys! We’ve got ourselves a virgin!’

‘Seriously?’ Joe calls back, sounding intrigued. Beside him, JC can see the scathing rise of Lance’s eyebrow, the slight frown as he rustles the sheaf of papers that he and Joe had been rifling through, before – to the embarrassed volunteer’s relief – he twists his attention away once more.

‘Oh, yeah!’ Chris cackles again, rubs his hands together in malicious glee, beams widely at JC. ‘A regular little virgin grunt…’ The wide smile becomes a lascivious leer. ‘My favourite kind!’

‘But… I’m…’

Flustered, JC feels rooted to the spot, as though he can do nothing but stand and helplessly watch as Joe meanders slowly along the middle aisle of the marquee towards him. He swings his gaze frantically between Chris’ laugh and Joe’s curiosity, hates the fact that he isn’t like Justin, cannot grin easily, throw a cutting comment into the arena of their mockery and divert the attention away from him.

He doesn’t know what to do.

‘You have no digging experience whatsoever?’ Joe asks, looks concerned as he reaches them, peers at JC.

‘I… uh…’

‘Don’t worry, man -,’ Chris claps a hand down against the curve of JC’s shoulder, the strength behind it almost rocking him upon his feet. ‘I’m sure Joe’ll go easy on you… break you in nice and gentle… Won’t you, Joe?’

‘You’ve never excavated?’

‘Dude, like I said – he’s a total virgin!’

JC watches, silent and confused, as Joe rolls his eyes, stretches out a hand to push Chris back and slightly away. He doesn’t understand why his lack of archaeological experience should be such a source of humour for the deputy director of the site – nor why Chris seems to have targeted him out as a potential source of continuous amusement.

‘Go away, Kirkpatrick -,’ Joe says, his voice abrupt and hard even as he continues to look at JC. ‘I can sort this one out by myself, okay?’

For a moment, Chris looks as though he’s about to object to Joe’s demand. His eyes narrow as he stares at JC, then back at Joe, before he rolls his shoulders into a shrug and strolls back through the marquee towards Lance, obscenely lewd sounds drifting back over his shoulder interspersed with quiet snorts of laughter.

Joe sighs, rubs at the bridge of his nose with forefinger and thumb, closes his eyes and breathes deeply. When he opens his eyes to look back at JC again, he seems resigned, despite the glimmer of hope shining out of his eyes. ‘You’ve never excavated?’

‘No.’ JC says, then frowns. ‘Is that a problem?’

‘… putting it mildly…’ Joe mumbles, almost to himself.

‘Because, see, I thought – that is, Justin said that this is a training excavation…’

‘Yeah.’ Joe sinks back against one of the tables behind him. ‘It is.’

‘So… what’s the problem with my…’ JC hesitates, almost cannot bring himself to use the same words that Chris had, then decides that if he has to spend time in the company of these people, he’s going to have to at least try to fit in with them a little. ‘With my being a virgin?’

Joe’s mouth quivers into a weary smile. ‘When we drew up the lists for the teams, we thought that – given your age – you would have prior experience in the field.’

‘Oh?’

‘So Lance thought you’d be suited to my team.’

JC frowns, still not understanding what it is that Joe is trying to tell him. ‘And…?’

‘And everyone on my team has at least three seasons of trench work behind them, JC.’

His heart sinks, his frown droops slackly in comprehension, and he feels distinctly nauseous. ‘Oh.’ He says, then; ‘I’m the only one, then?’

‘On my team?’

JC nods his head, silently, cannot stop himself from casting his gaze towards the opposite end of the tent where Chris is standing with Lance, a malicious little smirk playing about his mouth as they confer over the paperwork.

‘Yeah.’ Joe says, sighs heavily. ‘You are. There’s only really you and your boyfriend who are virgins this season from the looks of things.’

‘Justin’s not -,’ JC begins, absently, still watching Chris until Joe’s hands fly up and he looks almost panicked.

‘Whoa! Straight guy, here!’ he insists, waving his arms about and drawing the attention of the others back towards them. JC stares at him blankly. ‘I really don’t wanna know about what you and Justin get up to in that tent of yours, man!’

JC narrows his eyes, able to focus upon only one word in the entirety of Joe’s rushed statement. ‘Tent?’

‘Not that you’ll probably be able to… y’know… do anything whilst you’re here -,’ Joe babbles, staring fixedly at JC’s glare. ‘I mean, the walls of those things? Pretty fuckin’ thin, if I remember right from when me and Kel were… uh… so… uh… you won’t be able to… y’know…’

‘Tent?’ JC repeats himself, cutting through Joe’s panic stricken words, feeling a slow surge of anger go through him as he does.

‘Um.’ Joe pauses, looks at him curiously. ‘Yes?’

His jaw spasms into a set line of irritation and he finds himself suddenly able to move, to stalk the length of the marquee towards the exit that he knows Justin disappeared out of only a short while before.

‘Hey! JC!’ Joe’s call sounds confused, but it doesn’t still the motion of JC’s stride. ‘Where’re you going? We have to sort this out!’

‘Later!’ he shouts back, twisting his head to do so. ‘I have to find Justin!’

He finds him on the large expanse of grass beyond the house, surrounded by a cacophony of movement as the other grunts unfurl and erect what JC suddenly realises with a furious lurch of his stomach, are tents. Justin is standing with Britney, to one side of the patch of grass, holding a set of metal pegs in one hand and waving the other through the air, cutting swathes of explanation as he tries to make her laugh, and JC arches an eyebrow as he stalks towards them, neatly managing to avoid tripping over the guidelines of other peoples tents, seeing that it is Britney who wields the mallet to secure the tent to the ground.

‘Justin.’

At the sound of JC’s voice, Justin turns and smiles broadly at him. ‘Oh, hey, C!’ Quickly, he indicates Britney, methodically working to put the tent together and up. ‘We were just talkin’ about you!’

‘Really.’

‘Yeah -,’

Britney glances up from her work, smiles sweetly at JC. ‘Doctor Kirkpatrick didn’t give you too much of a hard time, did he?’ she asks. ‘He’s a bit intimidating at first, I know, but once you get to know him, he’s -,’

‘An absolute sweetheart?’ JC suggests coldly, still staring at Justin. He knows that he shouldn’t be taking his ire out on Britney, knows that none of this is her fault – but he seems incapable of removing the harsh tone to his voice, the drawl of sarcasm when he speaks to her.

‘Well, no -,’ she laughs, a pretty little giggle that causes a small smile of admiration to curve Justin’s mouth and JC’s back teeth to grind together impatiently. ‘I wouldn’t say that… not about Doctor Kirkpatrick… but he’s okay. When you get to know him.’

‘Chris was fine.’ JC says shortly, ignores the astonishment that he can see sparkle in Britney’s eyes.

‘Then what’s the problem, C?’

‘Tents.’ He says.

Comprehension dawns in Justin’s eyes and he takes a nervous step backwards. ‘Ah.’

‘You did not mention the word ”tents” to me, Justin, when you started going on about how great a favour I’d be doing you by coming all the way over here!’ He pauses, draws a steadying breath, tries to slow the panic that he can feel slewing through him. ‘This was not a part of the deal, Justin.’

‘I know, C, but – really – would you have agreed to come, if I’d told you we’d be expected to camp?’

‘You don’t like camping?’ Britney asks, sounding curious.

‘You know I would have said ”no”!’ JC snaps, hearing his voice rise with shuddery fright, yet unable to do anything to prevent the onslaught of the panic attack. He glares furiously at Justin, manages to lower his voice to a breathy whisper. ‘You know how difficult even coming here in the first place was for me, Justin – yet you lied to get me here.’

‘JC -,’

‘Some friend you are…’

‘JC, c’mon!’ Justin cries pleadingly, but JC doesn’t stay to listen to what he perceives will be insults about his neuroses, well-meaning words of how he has to pull himself together, be a man, find his place in society…

He’s heard them all before.

Unsteady breaths filling his lungs, JC stalks away, manoeuvres himself through the field of brightly coloured nylon fabric and past people who seem unaffected by the idea of sleeping in the open, nothing but a thin cover of manmade material between them and the elements, no locks to keep unwelcome visitors out. He can hear Justin’s voice behind him, calling him back, but JC doesn’t stop moving, needs to find somewhere to sit and think, to contemplate what it is that he’s going to do now. Anger writhes through him, making him dizzy and nauseous, and he stumbles against the concrete and stone step of a platform against the back of the house.

Pain rises through his foot and into his ankle, and JC curses, twists and sits heavily, only briefly wondering at the presence of the stainless steel kitchen sink with taps and a drain that occupies the platform, buckets and a hose pipe draped about the legs of its innocuous stand.

‘Justin says you have a phobia.’

He glances up, rubs a hand across his face at the gentle sound of Britney’s voice, doesn’t correct her. He supposes that, in part, the statement is correct and his underlying, belly clenching fear is a phobia.

Of sorts.

‘Can I sit down?’

JC shrugs a shoulder, indicates with the roll of one wrist that Britney can do as she pleases, bows his head to stare resolutely, miserably at the ground as she settles beside him. ‘What else did he say?’

‘That you’re only here because of him.’

He snorts out a choke of bitter laughter. ‘Yeah.’ He says. ‘More fool me…’

‘I think it’s sweet!’ She says, rubbing a soothing path along the taut line of his back. ‘Coming all this way just for the man you love…’

A frown sweeps across JC’s face, accompanying thoughts of correcting the girl sitting beside him, trying to be helpful when all he’s done is be rude to her – but then he thinks better of it, decides that it’s pointless to try and correct the mistake. At the end of the day, he thinks wryly, he does love Justin… just not in the way that Britney and Chris seem to think that he does.

‘I wish I could find someone who’d do that for me…’ Britney says, and her voice is wistful and incredibly young. JC tilts his head, takes in the melancholy look that has settled about her face and instantly hates himself for having been so rude to her. He smiles a little as she blinks and turns a wide grin in his direction. ‘You really hate sleeping in tents, that much?’

‘Yep.’

‘And Justin didn’t tell you that you’d have to?’

Bitterness colours JC’s smile once more. ‘Justin… has a habit of not telling me everything, if he thinks I won’t agree to do something that he wants me to.’

‘Well, that’s hardly fair!’ she says, and JC finds himself agreeing with her. Britney pats him on the back, shuffles to her feet once more. ‘Let me go talk to Wade -,’ she says. ‘He has some influence over Professor Bass. Maybe they can think of somewhere else for you to sleep…’

‘What about the house?’ JC jerks a hand over his shoulder, indicates the large brick building that dominates the area. ‘It can’t all be inhospitable, surely…’

Britney smiles vaguely. ‘We’re not allowed inside the house,’

‘What? Not at all?’

‘No.’

‘Then…’ he frowns in confusion. ‘Where do we bathe?’

Britney’s smile is faint but discernible as she lifts her eyes from JC’s, looks past him towards the steel sink placed in the open, attached to pipes that jut through the wall of the building, the buckets, the hose…

JC stares at the set-up for a long moment, feels as though he is going to be sick, hates the fact that he has no food in his stomach to physically do so. ‘You have got to be kidding me!’ he whispers as he turns to look back at Britney.

‘No,’ she says, then: ‘Sorry.’

Misery coursing through him to replace the venomous anger that he’d felt towards Justin, JC covers his face with his hands and breathes deeply, feels the harsh thump of his heart rate settle a little as he listens to the scuff of Britney’s booted feet traipse away to enquire about alternative sleeping arrangements for him, and silently plots acts of vengeance against Justin for having convinced him to go against his instincts in the first place…