solafiamma | (Belated) Lamb's Day Story

My flufforic submission to the Lambs Day 2006 Southern Comfort Challenge . Many thanks to

madame_d for the betas.

The Frog Prince (Sort of)
by Sola Fiamma

Once upon a time in a parallel universe, which wasn't exactly a parallel universe so much as it was a convenient device for the author, a young man sat by a hotel swimming pool, by turns scribbling frantically into a notebook and chewing thoughtfully on his finger in a most delightful way. Or so thought the frog, at least, who squatted under the jacaranda bush a few feet away, watching in rapt attention and heaving a little froggy sigh of would-that-‘twere-me every time the finger slipped into the young man's mouth.

The frog, as you may have gathered, was no ordinary frog, oh, no indeed, and not just because he was a parallel universe frog, either, or a frog capable of having lascivious thoughts about young men who suck their fingers, although he was both of those things. This was an enchanted frog. Because, yes, in this parallel universe, such enchantments, although rare, were very much possible. A long time ago - or a good two years ago, at any rate, but it seemed much, much longer, as one might imagine, life as a frog being what it is - this frog had been human. He'd been a very nice looking human, too, if he did say so himself, with charming green eyes, some decent biceps, and a rather splendid ass.

Unfortunately, his many charms notwithstanding, Lance (for such had been the frog prince's human name; his frog one was something unpronounceable that sounded like a cross between someone clearing their throat and a cat choking on a fur ball) had managed one night when he was dining out to seriously piss off a snooty waiter. It had been sheer bad luck that this waiter turned out to be no ordinary waiter, either--but was, in fact, a down on his luck fairy (oh, shut up) trying to pick up a few extra bucks slinging high-priced hash in swanky eateries and turning the odd trick on the side. When Lance had ignored his not very subtle invitation to an evening of fey debauchery, the waiter had become very shirty and had served him boiled tripe with cabbage instead of the burger and fries he'd ordered. This, of course, had led to an unpleasant scene culminating in Lance storming off without leaving a tip and the fairy waiter racing after him uttering imprecations and waving a napkin dramatically and, in the so not good sense of the word, bewitchingly.

Before he'd even made it to the parking lot, Lance had realized that he was never going to be able to reach the steering wheel of his car. His arms, once shapely, tanned and golden, had turned a bilious shade of green and were much, much shorter than before, so short, in fact, that he wasn't even sure he'd be able to reach his dick when he needed to pee, if he even had a dick still, which he wasn't at all sure of. It had taken him ten minutes of hopping about and ribbiting to realize that the waiter, now rolling around on the restaurant steps howling with laughter, had changed him into a frog.

"You fucker!" Lance had yelled. Except, of course, it had come out more like "ribbetyspltchtcka" which didn't have nearly the same impact. At this, the waiter laughed even harder, and Lance would have hopped away in a snit if he hadn't realized that this shithead was the only thing standing between him and a life of webbed feet and bugs for dinner.

Squinching his little frog face into as close an approximation of apology as he could muster, Lance had hopped over and tapped the waiter's foot with one hand. Or foot. Whatever they were called on frogs.

"Hee hee," the waiter had snickered in a less than forgiving tone. "What? You don't like being short? Is that it? Maybe you should have a little think about that next time you decide to stiff some poor hard-working slob for the tip. Asshole."

"Ribbit," Lance had croaked meekly in return. Or at least he’d hoped it was meekly.

"Forget it. A frog you are and a frog you'll stay until the day you die. Or until a famous boybander kisses you on your slimy frog lips, whichever comes first. Bwahaha!! Now screw off. Table 18's about to leave and I totally kissed that old bitch's ass. Serious tippage had better ensue, or she's gonna be shitting out her ears for the next decade. If she makes it that long. Oh, hey. Don't look so sad. It's not all bad. I've made you, like, a prince in frog land. Those little she-frogs are gonna be all over you like maggots on bowl of bad pork." And with that parting shot, he had disappeared back into the restaurant.

Lance had hung around for a couple of weeks, nibbling on the occasional fly and whimpering pathetically in frog-speak whenever the waiter went on or off shift, but to no avail. The very sight of poor, green amphibious Lance had been enough to send the waiter off into paroxysms of hilarity, until finally Lance had hopped away defiantly, his little frog head held high and determination burning hot in his little frog heart.

For the past couple of years, he had spent his time hopping from one high end hotel to another, arduous journeys that sometimes took him entire weeks or months to complete, depending on how many roads he had to cross, whether or not he was able to hitch rides on the bumpers of BMWs or limousines and how successful he was in fending off the advances of the amorous girl frogs. He was unwavering, though. Maybe he couldn't make the waiter change his mind, but there was no way on God's green earth he was going to live out the remainder of his days as a warty old bug-eyed frog. How hard could it be, after all, to find a boybander willing to kiss him?

From fancy hotel to fancy hotel Lance had bounded, lingering for a few days by the front entrance or hanging about the pool, flirting with all manner of pretty young men with kohl-ringed eyes and guitar cases, and trying to look beguiling and mysterious. To no avail. As the weeks and months passed, his poor little webbed feet had grown sore and bruised, and he'd become heartily sick of the taste of bugs (well, most of them, anyway), yet still he'd persevered. What choice did he have? .Okay, he had choices, we all have choices; he might have decided to embrace his froggy existence and just get on with it, but, seriously, bugs for dinner, dude. What kind of choice is that?

At one point, he'd thought his luck had finally turned when a group of young men pursued by a horde of screaming groupies had checked into the hotel he'd currently been haunting - the Beverly Hilton possibly, but it was pretty hard to tell because the sign was so high up and his frog eyes weren't so good at the whole reading thing, he'd discovered. One of the young men had spotted him on his perch by the potted plant just outside the front doors - carefully out of the doorman's line of sight, because doormen, it seemed, had no great love of frogs on their doorsteps and could get quite vicious with brooms and luggage carts if provoked. The young man had yelled to his friends, "Hey, yeah, oh, shit, man. I think it's an iguana," and tottered drunkenly toward Lance, waving a drumstick and calling, "Here, kitty, kitty. Iguana. Mouse."

Giddy with joy, Lance had edged a little closer, but not too close because the guy was obviously drunk or stoned and none too steady on his feet. He'd blinked coyly and tried to make himself look cute and appealing, like something a drunken drummer might want to kiss.

"Oh, fuck. It's a FROG. Cool! You know what?" the drummer had called back to the rest of his band, who were already pushing their way into the lobby. "We could totally use this guy! I could, like, keep him in a jar and then at the end of the show, I could pick him up on the end of my stick and, like, hurl him into the audience! And then we could ask them to throw him back, and that could go on for, like, a while, right? And then one of us could eat him! They're supposed to taste good, right?"

Lance had frozen in horror, his frog heart pounding in his poor little frog chest as the guy reached for him, but in the nick of time one of the other band members had come out and dragged his drunken friend into the lobby.

It had been a very near thing, though, and Lance had been far more cautious about whom he approached after this. Which meant that for a good long while he hadn't been able to bring himself to approach anybody. Instead, he'd chummed around with a couple of tree frogs who were slumming it on the ground to get back at their parents for attempting to impose unreasonable curfews. It hadn't been too bad at first; it was interesting, even, because the tree frogs taught him a fair bit about catching insects more efficiently. Plus his understanding of frog talk improved immensely in their company. After a while, though, he'd grown bored and had begun to yearn yet again for his own kind, and once more he'd ventured back to his life of hotel hopping.

A couple of weeks ago, after having been savaged by a Chihuahua, stepped on by six members of a boy scout troop, and almost run over by a Coke truck, he'd dragged himself exhaustedly onto the patio of the Four Seasons Hotel and collapsed in a quivering heap next to a palm tree. He'd remained there, watching the swimmers and munching on flies, and trying to come up with a better plan. For a few crazy minutes, he'd even considered heading off again in search of a stadium or concert hall, but the very idea of braving several thousand stamping, trampling feet made him feel queasy and weak.

And then, this afternoon, as Lance was contemplating ending it all by foregoing his customary frolics in the heavily chlorinated puddles around the pool and allowing the sun do its deadly job, he'd seen him: the boybander of boybanders, Justin Timberlake. Sitting not ten feet away, brow knotted in concentration as he wrote feverishly in a little notebook. He looked even hotter in person than he did on TV, Lance observed. Shirtless. Oh, my. Those ripped abs. Light sheen of sweat giving his skin a polished, silky, butterscotchy look that made Lance want to flick out his tongue and steal a little taste.

The idea of Justin Timberlake being hard up enough to want to kiss a frog, even a frog prince, seemed pretty remote, but Lance was running out of options. He hopped a little closer and croaked a greeting. If Justin had been a girl frog, he'd have shot out of his deck chair like a stone from a slingshot straight into Lance's slimy arms. As it was, he didn't even notice; he just went on writing in his notebook with no apparent inkling that a frog's destiny was hanging in the balance.

Lance was about to attempt his greeting at a higher volume, but he was interrupted mid-vocalization by an ear-piercing shriek and the sudden appearance of three pairs of boisterous feet. Dodging back under the jacaranda bush, Lance cursed his luck These were Justin’s bandmates, if memory served him: JC, Chris and Joey, the other three members of the pop phenomenon NSyc. No doubt they’d come to summon Justin away to fulfill his boybandery obligations, which meant Lance had missed his window of opportunity for achieving lip contact. Not that Lance actually had lips, per se, but whatever. His opportunity was about to vanish before his eyes and there wasn’t a thing he could do to stop it. If frogs could cry, he would have wept. As it was, all he could do was look on in furious resentment as Justin’s friends milled around talking about shooting videos, rehearsal schedules and would Brad and Jennifer last for ever.

And then it happened, one of those crazy moments that change the course of history. Just as Lance was deciding it might be a good time to start hunting up some spiders and maybe a tasty worm or two for dinner, one of the band members -- the short, obnoxious one with the high pitched voice and a penchant for screaming – upended his glass of iced tea all over Justin’s bare back. With a howl of outrage, Justin flung up his arms and leapt from his seat. Unfortunately, the whole flinging up of the arms, aesthetically pleasing as it may have been to the casual observer, managed to dislodge the notebook from Justin’s fingers send it flying on an unerring trajectory from the palm of his hand straight to the bottom of the swimming pool.

“Fuck!” bellowed Justin. “You fucking ass! My song! Oh, shit! My song!” He started staggering about trying to yank off his left shoe and moaning, “My song, oh no, my song, get the notebook, Chris, you fucking shit.” Chris was too busy giggling shrilly and trying to push JC into the pool to be any help at all.

Lance couldn’t understand why Justin didn’t just jump in and get the book himself, until he noticed that the shoe Justin was trying to wrench off his foot was an adidas Microspacer. Definitely not the kind of shoe you’d want to risk in a public swimming pool.

But!

Lance’s eyes bugged out even further than usual as he realized that this was his chance. With the greatest leap of his frog life, he launched himself past Joey settling himself on the deck chair Justin had just vacated, past Justin still wrestling with his footwear, and past Chris and JC and into the pool. Down, down, down he swam, all four legs kicking and straining heroically, his little heart pounding with excitement, trying desperately to reach his prize before any of the humans made it into the pool.

When he surfaced, the notebook gripped fiercely in his little frog jaws, Lance saw that he hadn’t needed to worry about racing. All four of the boybanders were standing at the edge of the pool, gazing at him in wonderment like he was. Well. Like he was a frog who fetched notebooks when a person dropped them, he supposed. Bounding out of the pool, he hopped over to Justin and deposited the sodden notebook gently between his feet.

“Um,” said Justin.

“Uh,” said Joey.

“Oh, hey, whoa,” said JC.

“Well, fuck me rigid,” said Chris.

Not likely, thought Lance.

“Did you see that, dude?” Justin poked Chris in the ribs, but Chris’s attention was still firmly on Lance. “You guys saw that, right? Right? This little guy totally saved my song! Like, on purpose! He’s fucking amazing, yo.”

He squatted down and held out a hand to Lance, who, not sure whether he was supposed to shake it or kiss it, decided he might as well go for broke and hopped onto Justin’s warm and spacious palm.

“Oh, shit,” Joey said, backing up. “I’m not sure that’s a such a good idea, J. That’s one weird frog. Maybe it’s, I dunno, sick or something”

“I think it’s a Three Mile Island frog!” Chris said. “A nuclear disaster frog! Look at those freaky eyes, man. Joey’s right. Your hand’s gonna be radioactive. We should amputate it right now!”

“Oh, he’s fine,” JC reassured Justin. “He must be one smart frog, though. And I think he likes you. Check out the way he’s looking at you, cat.”

Lance flicked his tongue out to give Justin’s fingers a winsome lick and stared into his eyes in what he hoped would be recognized as rapture. If he’d had eyelashes, he would have batted them, but his froggy face was entirely hairless, so he had to settle for blinking rapidly and meaningfully instead. Apparently that was enough because he was rewarded immediately by an adoring expression on Justin’s face and a gentle tap of Justin’s finger on his lumpy frog brow.

“He’s awesome! I’m keeping him. Dude, I love this guy!”

They tried to talk him out of it. Joey pointed out that frogs were grubby and gross and reminded Justin how much he hated germs. Both Lance and Justin turned to glare at him and then went back to gazing into one another’s eyes.

JC said that frogs were wild creatures and needed to be with their frog kin to be truly happy. Lance snuggled more deeply into Justin’s palm and tried to purr.

Chris went on and on (and on) about mutated amphibians, the dire effects of radiation on dicks and crazed frogs murdering boybanders in their sleep. “Ninja frog,” he yelled. “We’re giving sanctuary to a ninja frog! How suicidal is that?”

At that point, Joey and JC broke into a chorus of “Everybody was kung fu fighting,” and Justin took advantage of the distraction to carry Lance, cuddled against his chest, away from the pool and into the hotel.

***

For the next year, Lance went everywhere with Justin – touring with the band from coast to coast, visiting the family in Florida for the holidays, auditioning bass singers, checking out real estate in Los Angeles, flying to Switzerland to ski and stock up on chocolate.

In an ironic little twist, Justin named him Prince, after the artist formerly known as, because he said Lance filled him with the same optimism he got when he listened to “Let’s Go Crazy.” He treated him like a prince, too, ordering a special terrarium to be custom built for his living quarters: multilevel, spacious and deliciously humid. Wearing thick rubber gloves, Justin changed the soil himself once a week, and he tended the plants like a born gardener. He even managed to find a mail order company that specialized in the delivery of fresh bugs and worms, so Lance never knew a moment of hunger.

Almost every day, rain or shine, as long as the temperature wasn’t too low, Justin carried him outside for at least a half hour of fresh air and sunshine. For the first few weeks, Justin kept a firm hold on him, worried that Lance would try to hop his way to freedom, but as time passed and Lance showed no inclination to escape, Justin would set him on the ground and let him wander at will. Lance never strayed far.

As a frog’s life went, it was pretty damned good, and there were days when Lance completely forgot that he was here for a reason. But then Justin would smile a certain smile or laugh a certain laugh, and Lance would think how good it would feel to slip an arm around his waist or a hand down his pants, and the reality of his situation would come crashing back.

As affectionate as Justin was, though, he was never quite affectionate enough. He was always stroking Lance’s head and back with his fingers, scratching his frog belly and even, on a couple of memorable occasions touching noses with him. He cuddled Lance, held him on his lap at the movies, gave him full body sponge downs with the wet cloths he carried around in a baggie specifically for that purpose and even took him into the shower from time to time. Never, though, not even once, did Justin ever kiss him, no matter how endearingly Lance burrowed into his neck or how many dropped pencils, stray socks or missing roach clips Lance retrieved. However much Justin didn’t appear to mind grubbying up his hands petting a lowly frog, his lips, it seemed, were not going to be part of the deal.

It made Lance sad, but there was nothing to be done. There were other boybanders out there in the world, of course there were, but this was the boybander for him, he felt it in the depths of his little frog guts, in every fibre of his little frog being. All he could do was wait. And hope. And do his best to look alluring.

***

The first concert of their new tour had been fantastic, apparently, in spite of the continuing lack of a bass singer in the band. Justin, Joey, JC and Chris had come back to the hotel whooping and howling and re-enacting the highlights as Lance looked on in mute appreciation.

“Dude, it was awesome!” Justin told him, all pink-cheeked and sparkly-eyed. “Best crowd ever! I thought they’d never stop clapping! You would have loved it, Prince.” (They didn’t take Lance to the concerts. The first and only time he’d gone, the noise had almost sent him into cardiac arrest, and as it was it had taken him three full days to be able to move without tipping over.) “And the special effects? Blew their fuckin’ socks off!”

“Let’s celebrate!” Joey said, reaching for the phone. “I’ll get them to send us up a keg and some shooters.”

“Hey, it’s Prince’s anniversary with us, too,” Justin said, picking Lance up and setting him on his shoulder. “A year ago today that he dove into that pool and rescued my song. The song that’s a fuckin’ HUGE ASS HIT, right now, let me add. Tell them to send us up something green to drink and we’ll get wasted in Prince’s honour.”

Chris made a retching sound and threw a cushion at Joey. “Tell them if they send up crème de menthe, I’m setting this room on fire.”

After protracted negotiations with the hotel bar by way of the room service staff, a waiter delivered a bottle of melon liqueur, a bottle of Southern Comfort, a bottle of sweet and sour mix, a bucket of ice and a cocktail napkin with a recipe for something called a Jolly Green Rancher.

“See? It’s perfect,” Joey said. “A Jolly Green Rancher to toast your jolly green buddy.”

“His jolly green boyfriend!” Chris hooted. “Those two are, like, inseparable. I keep expecting to read the wedding announcement in the tabloids. Justin Timberfroglover to wed web footed significant other in private underwater ceremony. Details on page 6.”

“Fuck you, Kirkpatrick. You’re just jealous because my pets don’t pee all over the bus and poop on my clean laundry like your dog.”

“My dog might shit on my laundry, but at least he doesn’t stare at me with buggy green eyes when I take a leak.”

Oops. Lance hadn’t realized that anyone else had noticed that. Nonchalantly, he studied the webbing between his fingers (or toes, whatever), peering at Justin out of the corner of his eye.

“Well, my frog doesn’t chew holes in my favourite underwear,” Justin said, accepting a cheerfully bright green drink from Joey and taking a cautious sip.

“I’m pretty sure he would if he could. Here, give me one of those, Joe. C can wait. He smoked enough shit already to keep him happy for the next week.”

“Oh, well. Um. Yeah, whatever,” JC said agreeably. “Hey, you know what I was thinking? Prince would look cute in a dress, you know? We should stop at a Toys R Us and buy him one of those little doll outfits, and maybe even a little bonnet. Wouldn’t that be trippy?”

Before Lance had a chance to register his disgust by hawking up some partially digested worm entrails, Justin scooped him up and held him protectively to his chest.

“He’s not wearing a dress, asshole! Don’t even think about it! And he does not look at me funny when I pee. That’s just gross, man. He’s a frog, yo. Treat him with some respect.”

Justin carried Lance over to the couch and set him on his knee. “Don’t worry, buddy,” he whispered. “They’re just idiots. And you know what? Maybe I won’t marry you, but I sure do love you, little frog.”

There was a look of such sadness and longing in Justin’s eyes as he said this, and Lance knew that if only Justin were as good at reading frog body language as he was at cleaning out a terrarium, he’d see that same look of longing mirrored in Lance’s bulbous eyes. The futility of the situation made him want to weep. Justin apparently felt the same way, because he called for another Jolly Green Rancher, and then another, and another, until he was more shit-faced than Lance had ever seen him.

“Oh, froggy, froggy,” Justin murmured drunkenly to him, while Chris and Joey arm-wrestled over who was going to get to drink the last few drops of Southern Comfort remaining in the bottle and Joey watched women’s volleyball on the Sports Network. “Dear little froggy prince. My little Prince. Oh, wait. How very rude of me! Maybe you want a drink, too! Did you want a drink, little froggy? Here you go,” he said, dipping his finger into his glass and holding it to Lance’s mouth. Have some. S’good. You’ll like it.”

It smelled godawful to Lance and very much not at all what a frog should be ingesting, but he never missed an opportunity to get his tongue onto Justin, so he obligingly licked the sticky liquid off the finger and did it again when Justin repeated the process. After a few fingerfuls, though, he started to feel a bit funny. Dizzy. Not to mention a tad reckless and impetuous. A little bit of Southern Comfort, it would appear, went an awfully long way in a tiny little frog’s body. Suddenly, things that he’d thought impossible just an hour ago didn’t seem so impossible now. Miracles? Well, why not? They had to happen to someone, right? Might as well be him as anyone else.

He eyed Justin’s glass, still three quarters full of the Jolly Green concoction. Maybe. Just maybe. Justin had been drinking Jolly Green Ranchers for the last couple of hours. He seemed quite fond of the taste. What if, what if…what if Lance tasted like a Jolly Green Rancher? Well, it was obvious, wasn’t it? If Lance tasted like a Jolly Green Rancher, Justin would want to taste him. Yes, he would, he’d want to lick him clean. And maybe, in the course of the licking, if Lance angled his head just so, Justin’s tongue would slip into Lance’s mouth, and presto! change-o! Kissing would happen! The logic was irrefutable.

With one bound, Lance was sitting in Justin’s glass, immersed in sickly sweet green liquid and half melted ice cubes.

“Hey!” Justin yelled. “Prince! What the fuck! You’re going to drown!”

Chris and JC looked up from their wrestling to see what the commotion was about, and even Joey tore his gaze from the bouncing boobage on the TV screen to watch the drama unfold.

“Dude, he’s a frog, he’s not going to drown,” Joey said reasonably, his eyes already straying back to the TV.

“What the fuck would you know? He’s drunk, goddammit. Maybe drunk frogs drown!” Justin was fishing around in the glass with two fingers, trying to give Lance a boost out, but Lance kept slipping off of his fingers with a little splash.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Chris walked over, snatched the glass out of Justin’s hand and emptied it out onto the coffee table. “There. He’s fine. See?”

Oh, sure, thought Lance, who’d almost been concussed by a blow to the head from one of the ice cubes. He staggered awkwardly toward Justin’s hand and crawled onto the outstretched palm, his little frog system reeling from the sudden ingestion of so much alcohol. That had maybe not been the best idea of his frog life, he thought blearily.

Justin was frantic with worry, dabbing at Lance’s wobbly body with the edge of his t-shirt, trying to wipe him clean. “Prince, oh my god, Prince, what were you thinking? Are you okay? Oh, god, I think he’s dying!”

Lance peered up at him out of slitted eyes, waiting for the kiss that would surely come, but Justin’s mouth stayed infuriatingly a good foot and a half away as he fussed and fretted. There wasn’t a frog tongue in the world long enough to reach those lips.

It was past enduring. To have come this far, to have almost drowned in one of the foulest drinks ever formulated by bartenders anywhere, and still to remain unkissed by the boybander who had stolen his little frog heart – Lance could take no more. With a mighty push, he hauled his lethargic body up, gathered his strength and lunged, tongue first, towards Justin’s mouth.

“What the—!” Justin whipped his head back and Lance slammed into his chin instead, falling back into Justin’s palm. Undaunted, he leapt again. And again. And Justin dodged again. And again.

Chris was squealing with laughter, pointing and slapping his thighs and rolling on the floor with glee, and Joey kept glancing over, snickering, and then returning his attention to the volleyball game. JC just watched, an oddly intense expression on his face.

“C, help me! He’s lost it!” Justin yelled as Lance bounced toward his face again. “Prince’s freaking right the fuck out!”

“Um, no, dude, I don’t think so,” JC said. “I think Prince’s trying to. Uh. Kiss you. Like, you know. With tongue.”

At this, Chris stopped rolling around on the floor and crawled over on his knees to get a better look.

“Oh, fuck me. He’s right! C’s right! The little bastard is trying to kiss you!”

Justin glared at him. “Shut up! You’re not helping! He’s fucking gone insane, and you guys are making stupid jokes!”

“No, really, J,” Chris said. “Look at him! Just look at him! He’s even trying to pucker his lips!”

That was his cue. As Justin stared at him, Lance focused every muscle in his body into forming his mouth into a pucker. He was pretty sure that he probably looked more like an iguana trying to hold back a fart, but Justin’s brow wrinkled in confusion and he lifted Lance a little nearer to his face to study him more closely.

“Prince?” he said in a shaky voice.

“Kiss him!” Chris squealed.

“Kiss him!” Joey bellowed.

“I really think you’d better kiss him, dude,” said JC.

“Sha la la la la la, don’t be shy, go on and kiss de frog,” they all sang.

“You guys think you’re so fucking funny,” Justin said. “What if he did want a kiss? You think I wouldn’t do it? ‘Cause I’d totally do it! Whatever, it’s just a kiss, right? I’d say he’s fucking earned one by now.”

And so saying, Justin looked into Lance’s eyes and bent his head slowly, slowly toward him, and the room grew strangely silent and still, and Lance’s heart pounded like a pile driver in his froggy chest. He forgot about trying to pucker, he forgot about trying to look enticing, he forgot about everything except those blue, blue eyes and that sweet mouth coming closer, closer and those lickable lips finally, for the first time, grazing his own.

There was a sound like popcorn popping, a flash of white light and a brief whiff of something that smelled a lot like old socks, and then suddenly Lance was Lance again, his frog body replaced by his very human, very naked body, perched rather awkwardly in Justin’s lap.

For a full minute, other than the odd gasp of shock, no one said anything. Lance looked at Justin, then at Chris, Joey and JC who stared back, open-mouthed and big-eyed. He looked back at Justin, who was trying to figure out where he might safely put his hands.

“So,” Lance said. “I. Um. I’d like to audition for the group when. Uh. I have some clothes on. If that would. Um. Be okay.”

Justin touched his cheek, a delicate touch, tentative, as though he were afraid Lance might flip back into frog state at any second.

“Chris? Joey? C? Would you mind leaving us alone for a bit?” Justin ran his hand lightly down Lance’s back. “I think. I’m thinking maybe a private audition to start?” He raised an eyebrow at Lance and squeezed his ass questioningly. “How about you?”

***

And that, boys and girls, is how, in one parallel universe, NSyc gained their bass singer and came to be known as NSync, and how the utter disarray of cosmic forces was avoided due to the healing power of a good old-fashioned booze up featuring unsightly cocktails. The morals of this tale, for those of you who prefer your tales cautionary and instructive, are fivefold, and the wise reader would do well to etch them indelibly into memory:

1. Don’t forget to tip.
2. Try not to live in parallel universes.
3. If you do happen to discover yourself living in a parallel universe, definitely don’t forget to tip.
4. If you do forget to tip, kiss frogs. Just. You know. In case.
5. Drink green things.

The End