Dramafumanchick: grandma, stars, kansas

"Where are we?" Justin asked softly, staring out the window of their hotel room.

"Um." Lance put his pen down and thought for a moment. "Kansas. I think."

"Hm." Justin kept his eyes on the parking lot.

"Why?"

Justin shrugged and sighed, "I don’t know. I just… it feels so far from home, you know? Even when we were in Europe I felt closer. But this? I don't know. I feel really far away."

"We're not that far from Tennessee." Lance chuckled and set his notepad aside. The letter to his mother could wait. "And we'll be home in just a couple weeks."

"Home to Florida." Justin rolled his eyes.

Lance's shoulders raised again, "We're not too far from there either."

"Hm."

They sat in silence for a few minutes. The whole touring thing they were doing was new to them. They'd toured Europe, but that was a whole different playing field. This was home, their home country, and no one seemed to know who they were. Over the previous few weeks they'd been booed off stage and mistaken backstage for autograph seekers.

"Do you wanna go outside?" Justin asked, turning his head suddenly.

"Outside?" Lance choked on the word. "Are we allowed to?"

"Who cares?" Justin's small voice was laced with defiance, though Lance new better. Inside he was still a worried child just trying to rebel.

"I… sure. We can go outside. What… do you want to go to the bus?"

"No. There." Justin pointed out the window.

"The parking lot?" Lance's brow furrowed into a frown.

Justin sighed and rolled his eyes. "Across the street."

"What… what is it?"

"It's just a park thing." Justin stood up and went to his tattered suitcase. "Come on."

"Should we call…" Lance struggled for their security guards name, "Lonnie?"

"No. What do we need him for? We're just crossing the street."

"Well yeah, but…"

"Come on." Justin tucked a dark brown and blue quilt under his arm and dropped their room key in his pocket.

Lance bit his bottom lip and thought for a moment before standing up to follow Justin. They left the room silently, and in the darkness of shadows walked the length of the small parking lot to the street. For as far as they could see in either direction, there were no cars or lights.

"This place is freaky." Justin smiled over his shoulder.

"This is middle America." Lance said softly. He grew up in a small town so dark and narrow roads were nothing new to him. "Where are we going?"

"Right there. Relax. I just want to get away from the lights of the hotel."

"We shouldn't go far."

"We won't." Justin sighed, though he loved coming across as the fearless one when it came to Lance.

They walked for a few minutes over the spongy grass before Justin stopped and shook his blanket out. There were small holes near the edges and more than one patched area in the center. "What's this?" Lance tried not to laugh.

"It's my quilt."

"Where'd you get it?"

"My grandma made it for me when I was a kid."

Lance paused and smiled. "You still are a kid."

Justin sighed, but didn't respond. "You can really see the stars out here." He flopped down on his back and bent his knees up. "See? That's Orion." He pointed to the massive sky as if Lance would know just where to look.

"Where?" Lance sunk to his knees then looked in the same direction Justin was.

"There. Those three in a row." Justin smiled and kept his eyes on the constellation. "Isn't that cool? Look at all the stars you can see when there's no city lights. You know, it takes thousands of years for the stars light to reach Earth. The light we're seeing now was put out like, a bazillion years ago."

"Yeah. That's pretty cool." Lance rearranged himself so that he was laying on his back beside Justin. "There's the big dipper." He pointed, trying to sound like he knew what he was talking about.

"That's the little dipper. The big one is over here." He moved his hand to the side. "See?"

"Ah." Lance nodded then bit his lip.

They sat in silence for a minute, Justin naming off the star formations under his breath. "Hey. Do you think… I mean, we're stars kind of. Right?" Justin asked a short while later.

Lance jumped at the sound of his voice. "I guess." He answered softly.

"I think we are. I think we're bright ones… our light just hasn't reached the Earth yet. You know?"

"Yeah."

"But when it does…" Justin laughed.

"Watch out." Lance finished for him, then they laughed in unison. "I think you're right."

"I am." Justin nodded and placed his arms behind his head. He'd wait forever to see their starlight in the night sky. He just hoped it wouldn't take that long.