Challenge Five starts in two days. It is a quarter past noon. Lance has driven himself to Chris' house, because he "lives right down the street from me" and they are going to watch a movie or something. Chris has pizza. Pizza is good. Lance takes off his shirt in eagerness to show Chris his new tatoo. Chris thinks Lance is reckless, and struggles against the desire to make barbed comments, because really, Germany's over, and he clearly no longer not-likes Lance. He no longer not-likes Lance at all, so much that Chris might as well like him a lot. Too late. They take their pizzas and sodas and move from the kitchen to the lounge. Lance sits on an armchair, rocks on it, asks: "What do you want to see?" Chris goes to the DVD player, sticks in his choice and presses play. "The Lord of the Rings." He sits on the couch. "Sheer coolness!" says Lance. "What?" Chris asks, with a dubious face. "Sheer coolness!" exclaims Lance again. "Who'd you hear say that?" "Well, don't you think so?" "Well, yeah." Chris says, like 'Duh.' Oblivious to the eye-roll in Chris' voice, Lance continues: "Aragorn and Boromir, man. They have, like, swords and stuff." "You watch this a lot?" "Well, I don't really have time to watch my dvds, Chris. I haven't seen this since the movie came out." "You've seen the Two Towers, right?" "Of course!" "How many times?" "Once. You?" "Seven. I got to wear disguises and shit. Okay, it was an ugly hat. No bodyguards, just me, my scruffy blending secret agent jeans, and the ugly hat." "Whoa. So you're, like, a fan." On screen, Gandalf and Frodo greet each other happily. "Yeah--" "Chris?" Lance interrupts. "Could you tell me about it later? I'd like to concentrate on the movie..." Chris shuts up. They watch the movie. Less than half-way through, after they finish their pizza slices, Lance switches over to the couch because "it's facing the screen directly" and Chris makes room while making sure not to move too eagerly. When the movie is done, they move on to the Extra Features. Chris stretches and puts his arms atop the couch. His left hand rests near Lance's left shoulder. The plates and soda cans have been cleared from the low-lying coffee table to make room for their feet. In an uncharacteristing move, Lance yawns and leans into Chris' shoulder. Surely this was no complex move meant to lure him, Chris thinks. Lure him into what? Lance is just sleepy, he asserts to himself, and says pertly: "You know, that just ain't right." "What?" Lance mumbles, as he is feeling a bit like snoozing and Chris' shoulder is soft enough and right *right there*. "Legolas. Legolas and Gimli." "What?" Lance mumbles again. "Well, haven't you read the books?" Chris asks. "No." "In the books, they're totally friends. Amigos. Compadres." "It's only the first movie." "I've seen the second, remember?" "Yeah, seven times. How you could waste so much time, I have no idea." "Hey, Mr. Busy Pants. It wasn't a waste of my time. It wasn't like seeing the same thing over and over because each time I came back to it, I'd spot something that I'd missed before, or felt something more than the last time and it just- it's fun. It felt good, coming back to something good. You know?" Lance blinks at that, and raises his face from Chris' shoulder, wondering if he'd imagined the very real feeling of Chris nuzzling the top of his head. "What?" Lance asks, just a little shakily. "The first time they saw each other, they wanted to rip the other's guts out. Gimli was pissed off at Legolas because Legolas' dad was mean to the dwarves and Legolas was pissed off at Gimli 'cause the dwarves were bad to the earth and stuff." Chris' voice was overly loud and his gestures were wide and broad. Lance thought he looked like a hobbit, and shook his head to shake the thought away. Chris took this for encouragement, and continued. "They were always on each other's nerves." A look was shared between them, which was not over-meaningful at all. "But they ended up being close." Onscreen, the blond elf and the short and swarthy reddish brunette dwarf with braided beard were exchanging words. "Chris, are you saying that I'm an elf?" "What?" Chris asked quickly. "And you're the short, hairy ornery man who breathes much too loudly?" "John Rhys-Davies is six feet tall in real life, buddy." Chris poked Lance's chest in emphasis. "You were talking about a movie." "I'm talking about the *book*," Chris says emphatically. "In the books, they go off to Fangorn Forest together, and they visit the Glittering Caves." "I heard you got a girl," Lance says forthrightly, because he doesn't want fantasy to blur his vision of reality. It takes a beat for Chris to stop his exposition. "I have a girl in *mind*," he admits as forthrightly, as if to point out the difference. "Well, if she's in mind, then what am I?" "You're the *guy* in mind," Chris answers, with squinted eyes. It looks like he's trying to see into Lance's brain. "What's she like and where's she from, " Lance is careful to keep his voice totally neutral. "She's really cool. Dallas, Texas." "God, don't tell me she's a cheerleader." "Okay, I won't. But I'm not God, Lance. You can call me Big Daddy." "And you're not serious, either. You just wanna have some fun." "Yuw wanna be seee-rious vid me, Lence?" Chris is using his Dexter voice. "Yuw dewn't vanna hev sum fuuun?" "Chris, I seriously wanna have some fun with you." He puts both hands on each of Chris' shoulders with an earnestness that is freaking Chris out just a bit. "It won't be fun for me unless you're serious." Then Lance gets the expression on his face that broadcasts his desire to possibly bite his tongue off for running away from his brain. "Even though we didn't like each other at first," Chris begins. "You didn't like me," Lance interrupts. "I think we might go on a few adventures together, just the two of us, and I think we should at least try it because it could be amazing. Glittering Caves. Fangorn Forest." Chris makes with the gestures, which look to be the bastard children of Vanna White's and a hokey used car salesman's. To shut him up, and to make up his own mind, Lance kisses Chris quickly. -- It is silent. The make-out session lasted longer than the Extra Features. Lance wants Chris to play it again, so they get to watch it this time. Chris reaches for the remote control but decides to get up and play the extended DVD again instead. Because that translates to extended makeout session. "I'm not an elf, and you're not a dwarf," Lance points out. Chris counters: "They call them metaphors, and there is hope yet for the race of men."