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The popcorn bowl is halfway to empty and the Grinch has just ascended Mount Crumpit with a sleighful of stolen toys when Chris sees some movement in his periphery. He turns his head just in time to see Lance, quick and subtle, dabbing at his eyes with the edge of his sleeve.
“Are you -- are you crying?”
“No! What? No.” Lance says, sniffling and pushing his sleeve back up.
“Yes, you are.” Chris leans forward and grabs Lance by the chin, forcibly turning his face to one side. “You are! Look at you.”
“Hands off!” Lance says, just as another tear rolls down his cheek. Chris tries to chase it with his thumb, but Lance jerks his head away, scowling. “Ugh. Look. Can’t we just pretend this never happened? Please?”
“Um, are you just now meeting me for the first time? Of course we can’t.” Lance is staring straight ahead again, stone-faced, all business. “You know there’s no reason to be sad, right? The Who-villagers all get their presents back, babe. The Grinch eats ass and his heart becomes dangerously enlarged and yadda, yadda, yadda. Happy ending.”
“Yep,” says Lance, drawing out the word, making the ‘p’ sound pop. “I know.” Then he lets his head fall back against the couch cushions, rolls his eyes and mutters something that almost sounds like, “That’s the fucking problem.”
“Wait. What?”
He shakes his head. “Nothing. Nevermind.”
“Tell me!”
“...”
“I’ve got all night, Lance.”
Lance is quiet for a long time, his lips pressed into a thin, firm line. Chris knows that face. It means he’s either constipated, or he’s ramping up to something.
Finally, he sighs, and the sigh turns into an inhale, and the inhale turns into words. A lot of them.
“It’s just...” Another sigh. “This is where he almost beats them! Those smiling morons wrecked his life, and then they have the nerve to sing and dance and enjoy the holiday season? No! Fuck them! He was this close to getting his revenge and -- and -- gah!”
He’s breathing hard when he finishes, and his right eye is twitching. Chris’s own eyes are as wide as dinner plates.
“Jesus. Is it too late to go back in time and not ask?”
Lance, still panting a little, just glares.
“Babe, do you…identify with the Grinch?”
A pause. A long one. “...no.”
“You do! Oh, my God!”
“Please, stop.”
Chris doubles over in hysterics. He nearly falls off the couch. “This is fantastic! You’re such a freak! I love you so fucking much!”
Lance nudges Chris with a socked foot until Chris loses his balance and hits the floor. “Well, I didn’t realize this would be a test of our love,” he says, deadpan. “But I’m glad we both passed, I guess.”
On the ground, flat on his back, Chris is still laughing. “Aw, baby, our love has survived weirder shit than this. Remember that weekend with JC in the Poconos?”
Lance just shakes his head, grumbling.
“Hey,” Chris has a sobering thought. “Wait a sec. Does this make me a Grinchfucker?”
“A what?”
“It does, doesn’t it? I’m not sure I like that.”
“I beg you to shut up.”
“Do I have to put it in my Twitter bio? ‘Cos I definitely don’t like that.”
Lance’s eye twitches again -- a warning sign -- and the next thing Chris knows, he’s being pelted by a barrage of throw pillows. “Oh, my God! You’re not a Grinchfucker! You’re just a plain, old, regular fucker and I command you to shut up right--” Here comes the cream-colored pillow. “--The fuck--” And the eggshell one. Lance’s favorite. “--Now!” Last is the blue felted pillow with the ‘Live, Laugh, Love’ stitched on it. A gift from Lance’s mom. That one really packs a wallop.
Chris isn’t stupid. He knows not to budge from under the pillow pile until things have gotten good and quiet. When he does, he sees that Lance has retreated to the farthest corner of the couch, curled up and pouting.
Chris crawls over and rests his chin on Lance’s knee. “C’mon, sugar, don’t be like that.”
Lance fiddles with the hem of his sweatpants, ignoring him.
“What, you think you’re the only one with controversial Christmas opinions? Well, you’re not. We’ve all got ‘em.”
“Oh, yeah?” There, that gets his attention. “What’s one of yours, then?”
Chris shrugs. The ink on their marriage certificate is set and dried; it’s not like Lance can return him now. “Well, I mean. I always kind of wondered why Scrooge and Bob Cratchit never...y’know.” And then he makes the finger-in-hole hand gesture, because subtlety? Who has time for that shit?
Lance closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. He isn’t amused.
“After!” Chris amends in a rush. “After he turns good! Not before! ‘Cos that’d just be like, ‘grr, I’m not gonna pay you a livable wage and also, here, wear this ball gag’. Not romantic at all. After.”
“That -- that doesn’t make it any better, Chris.”
“Sure, it does! Think about it: narratively, it makes total sense for them to --”
“No, it doesn’t, Chris, God.”
Chris just raises his voice and shouts right over him. “For them to have a nice, cordial celebration fuck -- I know you don't want to hear this, Lance, but trust me, I'm making a damn good point over here. They should fuck. Like maybe right after Scrooge raises his salary? Right there in the office? You know, like a business handshake, except -- more?”
“Bob Cratchit would never do that, Chris.” Lance’s tone is steely. Firm. He isn't amused. “Bob Cratchit is a married man.”
“Yeah, well, so am I, but --”
“I’d be very careful how I ended that sentence if I were you, buddy boy.”
“Oh, what, like you wouldn’t fuck Michael Caine? All cute and smiley in his floppy, little nightcap? You would. I know you would. He’s a very attractive man, Lance.”
“Wait a second. Michael Caine? Michael Caine? Chris, are you talking specifically about the Muppet Christmas Carol?”
“Um…” The second he hesitates, Chris knows he’s fucked. Lance can sniff out weakness like a bloodhound.
“Dear. Sweet. Jesus,” Lance says, and he looks and sounds so much like his mother in that moment, Chris can almost imagine him in Laura Ashley and pearls, demanding to speak to a manager. “You are never allowed to mock me again. At least I’m not sitting there sexualizing fucking muppets.”
“Okay, excuse me, but I am not sexualizing the Muppets. I’m sexualizing a human actor who once happened to co-star with the Muppets. Big difference.”
“Oh, yeah, you’re right, Chris. That’s so much better.”
“You don’t think so?”
“I do not.”
“Well, then, if that’s how you feel, let’s really get into it, because honestly? I think some of the Muppets are asking for it.”
“I’m not hearing this.”
“Not all of them. Not any of the cuter, fuzzier ones. But, like, Sam the Eagle?”
“No, Chris. No.”
“Those eyebrows? That strong, stoic bearing? I mean, right? Come to mama.”
Lance is a still water; he runs quiet and he runs deep. Cavernous, at times. But when he erupts, he erupts like a fucking geyser.
Now, bereft of any more pillows to throw, he launches his entire body off the couch and onto his laughing husband. The next two minutes are a blur of pinching and wiggling and shouts of, “Shut up, shut up, I can’t believe I married you, shut up!”
In the aftermath, they’re both panting hard and there’s popcorn everywhere. Chris picks a kernel out of his hair, rights the overturned bowl and tosses it in. “Oof, sorry. Gimme a minute and I’ll get this all hoovered up.”
“Damn straight, you will. It’s the least you can do, after putting those images in my head.”
“I know, I know.” Still lying on the floor, they turn to face each other. “You’re always so hard on me, babe.”
“You love it.”
“Heh. Guilty as charged.” Onscreen, Cindy Lou Who looks up at Jim Carrey with an expression of love and childlike wonder. On the floor, Chris leans over and kisses the tip of Lance’s nose. “Y’know, you’re a mean one, Mr. Bass.”
Lance throws a leg over Chris’s waist, rolling them both until he’s the one on top. He smiles down at Chris. “And don’t you forget it.”