Inferno - 10-12 - Jane!fic
Inferno Ch 10-12
X
Justin emerged slowly into consciousness, feeling the heaviness of his limbs, the blood stirring through his body, the beating of his heart, still slow with sleep. He became aware of his right arm resting across Brian’s waist, his chest against Brian’s back, nose tucked up under his shoulder blade. Leg curled against the back of Brian’s thighs. Brian’s ass against his pelvis.
Justin breathed the familiar scent, unwilling to let go of the comfortable unconsciousness sleep afforded. He opened his eyes to the corded muscle in front of him, the smooth skin. Reached out with his tongue, tasted the salt from sweat long dry. They hadn’t showered, just passed out in the early morning, the first light of day bringing a glow into the room, finally exhausted after… After. His stomach fluttered at the memories - Brian gentle, rough, all lips and hands and cock… Justin felt his chest flush, the blood surging downward. Felt himself grow hard against the soft skin of Brian’s thighs. Licked his back again. He brushed his lips in the area between Brian’s shoulder blades; he loved the way Brian’s skin felt against his lips, when he had it all to himself, before Brian woke up, when he could lose himself in the sensation of a simple slide across his mouth, those sensitive nerves in his lips tingling over the smooth, salty surface.
His hips flexed forward almost unconsciously as the lower part of his body signaled a need for closer contact with the man he was lying against. The fingers of his right hand uncurled, tips caressing the skin at Brian’s belly, then moved to the crease of hip and thigh, and lower, touching pubic hair, brushing up against the other man’s hardening length. “Brian?” Justin whispered, raising his head slightly. But Brian’s breath remained even with sleep. Justin rested his head back down against his left arm, and shifted to rub his aching shaft against Brian’s thigh, moving up into the space between his legs, pressing against Brian’s scrotum, fitting the tip of his penis into the small space allowed by the relaxed muscles. Not really thinking, just letting the sensations take over, the nerves shivering down his legs and curling his toes before racing back up his thighs. He pressed his body against Brian’s back side. His hand curled around Brian’s penis, completely hard now, and he felt the gasp as much as he heard it, the back beneath his chest expanding with the sudden intake of air, the hard thrust against his palm, Brian suddenly rising to awareness. Justin took his hand away, brought it to his mouth to lick the surface of his palm, bringing it back to Brian’s cock, which slipped easily against the skin, back and forth, Brian’s hips rocking forward into Justin’s grip. Brian opened his legs slightly, and Justin slipped all the way between them, rubbing himself against the smooth, warm skin there, laying his forehead on Brian’s back, feeling a gathering tension build, centered at the point of contact, spiraling out. Brian reached down, pressing his hand lightly where Justin thrust against him. His fingers moved to apply pressure just beneath the tip of Justin’s cock, holding it down but not immobile onto his firm leg. The urgency became mindless, sensation gathering under that sure touch. Barely aware of Brian’s own ragged gasps, Justin came with a sharp intake of air, holding his breath as his body stiffened, and the orgasm roared through him. He barely registered the throb in his palm, as Brian climaxed a mere moment later.
He breathed. Lay there, the heaviness in his limbs a pleasant, satisfied weight. Then Brian moved, turning onto his back. Justin shifted onto Brian’s chest, and Brian folded his arms around Justin’s back. His face sought the warm comfort of the space between Brian’s throat and shoulder, where he could feel the pulse beating through his lover. One of his favorite places to be.
“Good morning,” Brian whispered, after Justin had settled against him, entwining their legs.
Justin lifted his head, saw the gleam in Brian’s eyes. He chuffed a laugh, then dropped his head back down to Brian’s shoulder, turned to the side so he could see Brian’s face. “Good morning,” he whispered back.
They lay against one another, wrapped in each other’s presence, the scent. Just rested there for a long time.
Finally, Brian said, his voice still low, “Does it bother you? That I’m not much of a bottom.”
Justin propped himself up on an elbow, slid his weight off to the side. He looked down, where Brian watched him from the pillow. “Good thing I am.”
“Seriously.”
Seriously. Justin had been hoping they could avoid serious for another hour or two. He shook his head. “No, it doesn’t bother me. I figure you just don’t like to do it.”
“I don’t. Not really.”
“Is it a control thing?” He wasn’t accusing, and was glad his voice was even. Just curious. Yup. Just curious.
“Never thought about it much.” Brian reached up, fingered a strand of Justin’s hair. “I just don’t like the way it feels. Never did much for my dick. Or my ass, for that matter.”
“You did it for me, once.”
“I had an itch. It happens. Maybe will again. Probably.”
“Hopefully I’ll be around for that.”
“Yeah, ten years from now.”
Justin bit his lip, looked at Brian’s throat.
“Do you want to? I mean, did you want to fuck me when you woke up?”
Oh, thank god we’re not going there, Justin thought. He was not ready to deal with the implications of this afternoon, let alone their future together. Instead, he considered the question he had just been asked, and smiled softly as he responded. “My dick did exactly what it wanted to do with you. It’s creative like that. I know you aren’t into being penetrated.”
Something flickered in Brian’s eyes, and he looked quickly away.
“What? Brian, what?”
Brian bit down on his lips, then looked back. He raised himself into a sitting position, and Justin’s head ended up in his lap, looking up at him. “That whole bet thing… it was a shitty thing to do to you.”
“Yeah, it was,” Justin agreed. He felt too languid to care much at the moment. But he stored Brian’s words away, for examination later.
Again, Brian changed the subject. Touch and go. Probably the best policy right now. “You thinking about breakfast? I’d kill for coffee.”
“Oh, um… there’s a room service menu around here somewhere. Or we could go out…”
Brian placed his hand on the top of Justin’s head, holding him down as his bed partner sought to rise. “Hey, hold on there sparky, where you going?”
“I thought you wanted coffee,” Justin answered, almost laughing as he felt Brian becoming hard against his cheek.
“Yeah, but I didn’t say right this second.” He shifted, taking Justin with him, but rotating his body so Justin’s head remained at his pelvis, while he moved down Justin’s body. “I’m thinking about breakfast first myself…” And he took Justin into his mouth.
XI
“Mom!” Justin called, after using his key to open the door to her condo. “Hey, Mom, you home… uh. Hello.” He stopped in the living room, eyeing a man he had never seen before. Young man. Yup, pretty young, okay REALLY young. Probably not even 30. Way too flushed in the cheekbones. Lips way too red and… shiny. He had moved quickly across the couch, three feet away from Jennifer, who was rolling her eyes at him. Rolling her eyes at the man, young man, not at Justin, with a look of easy familiarity, an intimacy that Justin knew.
Er.
“Hi, honey. This is John. John, this is my son, Justin.”
“Hey.”
Justin gaped at him.
“Is that wine?” Jennifer asked pointedly, standing up and gesturing at the bottle Justin clutched in his left hand.
“Uh, yeah,” Justin answered, staring down at the bottle. “Um, it’s the one we started, a couple weeks ago…”
“Oh, good! Is there enough for three?” Jennifer’s smile was bright. Nope, not uncomfortable at all, even though her mouth was also swollen and there was a sparkle in her eyes that Justin did NOT want to see. It was the same sparkle he had seen in Brian’s sometimes, when Justin caught him looking at him. Back when things were good. And that final morning in New York, right before they left. One week ago tomorrow. He hadn’t spoken to Brian since.
“No, no, I gotta go anyway,” John made haste to interject.
Jennifer took the wine from Justin’s slack hand, and kissed him on the forehead. She turned back to John. “Oh. Really?” She walked over to where he stood, and kissed him. Justin’s eyes grew wide. No kiss on the forehead for that guy. John’s hands came up to Jennifer’s hips, but then he stiffened, and put her slightly away from him.
“Um, yeah.” John stepped away, squeezed Jennifer one more time at the waist. “Dinner, tonight? Pick you up at eight?”
“You better believe it.”
“Nice to meet you, Justin.”
“Uh… nice to um, meet you too, John,” Justin returned, watching the guy walk out the door. Shit, and he was hot, too. Dark, tall, a little bulkier than necessary… well, fuck. That’s just great, Justin thought, he and his mother had the same taste in men. And now he had to process THAT little piece of information.
“Oh, great, I loved this wine,” Jennifer was saying, as she moved into her kitchen, and took two wine glasses down from the shelf.
“Um. Mom?” Justin began, unsure of where to start.
“I’m really sorry John couldn’t stay! Well, he had to go home and clean up, he’s taking me to this cute little restaurant that was just reviewed in the paper, it sounds just divine…”
“Um. Mom?”
Jennifer poured generous amounts into both glasses. “Such a great guy! And he has his own company, can you believe it? I sold him a house.”
Justin took the glass as if it were a life line, gulped at the wine, picked up the bottle, and refilled his glass.
“Okay,” Jennifer sighed. “So I guess you weren’t expecting to walk in on me kissing a man…”
Justin choked. He made sure to swallow the rest of the wine in his mouth down the right pipe, before setting down his glass. “I wasn’t even going to GO there…”
“You must have figured I’d be dating at some point.”
“Well, sure! Sure, I thought, okay, she’s going to be… dating. But men your own age! This… boy… he’s gotta be what, 30?!”
“Well not yet,” Jennifer replied with a giggle, “But I’ll be happy to tell him you thought so.”
“Well, it’s not right. You’re like, my mother! He’s like, my age! Ew! ick, ick ick!!!”
Jennifer burst out laughing. “Oh, my god, Justin, you absolutely cannot be having problems because I’m dating a younger man! And he’s 10 years older than you are!”
“It’s not right,” Justin repeated. “He’s like… a kid! To you!”
Jennifer continued to giggle as she watched her son’s face turning red. “Excuse me while I can’t take this very seriously, coming from you! I’m only 15… okay, maybe 16 years older than John. And it’s very different for a woman in her 40s to be dating a man who has been through college and runs his own business, as opposed to a 17-year old virgin and a 29-year old who’s had sex with the entire city.”
“MOM!” Justin didn’t know which part of that he was objecting to. Especially since, technically, it was true.
“Oh, c’mon, you know I like Brian…” Jennifer moved back into the living room and sat on the couch, waiting until Justin sat in the chair at an angle to it. “Speaking of Brian, how was New York?”
“Well, actually… hey, wait a minute, how long have you been dating this John person?”
“John, Justin. His name is John. My god, you really are my son.” Jennifer took a sip of the wine. “I don’t know, a month?”
“And you gave me that lovely advice about marriage and faith while you were rapidly going stupid with... whatever was going on.” He stood to move back into the kitchen, and retrieved the bottle. “It was one of the reasons I went. I didn’t realize that advice was being filtered through Sunshine Mary.” He refilled both of their glasses, and put the empty bottle down on the coffee table, slumping back in the chair.
Jennifer looked at him seriously. “Was there a problem in New York?”
He decided to go along with her changing the subject; he had come over for… whatever. Mommy love. Not two hours ago, over his third drink at Woody’s, he had been brooding about Brian, knowing the clock was ticking, still torn over whether he should trust his head or his heart. Or if his head and his heart were plotting against him, and neither one wanted to go back to Brian. Or both did. But if his head and heart were in collusion against him, what part of him was doing the thinking? Need he ask.
Of all the fucked up clichés, this was the worst. Head, heart, dick. He had no idea if he could trust himself, if he was being self-loving, or self-loathing. To say nothing of how he felt about Brian! Which he didn’t know. Alcohol was not helping. You’d think it would.
So he came looking for the one unconditional love in his life. And found a woman stupid with lust about to fuck a guy Justin himself found attractive, right there on the couch in front of him. Well, shit. Maybe he should tell her the real story then. As opposed to the other version he’d planned, the sanitized version. And maybe he shouldn’t have just had drink number five. Oh well.
“Okay,” he started, running a hand through his hair. “I only went to New York because you made me think about… commitment. And okay, because I wanted to. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to scream at him about how he’d ripped my heart out and stomped on it, but I couldn’t, because I know the deal with Brian, and I couldn’t expect him to change. I fell in love with him as he was…”
“No, you didn’t,” Jennifer interrupted.
“What?”
“You didn’t fall in love with the guy who hurt you, the one who ignored your feelings, or went after other men in front of you. You fell in love with the one who cared for you. Who had a look that was just for you. Who took you in whenever you needed him, bought you things not because he had to, but because he wanted to. Who held you at night, and made love to you. And it isn’t wrong to ask the man you love to show that other, cruel side of himself to the door. The thing that’s hard, is that you can’t ask him to do that just for you. But maybe with the threat of losing you… Maybe he’ll want to do it for himself.”
Justin’s mouth dropped open. “Uh…”
“You’re oversimplifying, that’s what I was trying to tell you. Why do you think I left your father? Now that was very simple. Your father started acting as if I didn’t exist. If he really loved me, he would have made more of an effort with you, because he loved me, and I needed him to pay attention to my needs, not just his own. But my feelings had stopped existing for Craig, he’d closed himself off from me. Why stay in a relationship that doesn’t exist anymore?”
“Uh…” Justin had gone somewhat pale, and he leaned over, his arms around his waist.
“Are you all right?” Jennifer leaned forward, put her wine glass on the table.
“No… I’m fine…” Justin took a moment to breath. Took a deep breath in. Breathed out. Better. He looked up at his mother’s face, full of concern. “I fucked a guy in front of him.”
“What?” Shocked. Jennifer sat back, waiting.
“Brian was great. Really. I pretty much freaked out on him the entire time. Couldn’t stop yelling at him, pretty much. Nitpicking over stupid stuff. Cake.”
“Cake.”
“He always takes bites of my dessert, he never gets his own.”
Jennifer snorted. “Well, if I didn’t know you were in a real relationship before, that would be the sign proving me wrong.”
“What?”
“It’s the little things. Not the big ones. Toothpaste squeezed from the wrong end. Who holds the remote. Taking food without permission.”
“Yeah, well, fucking a guy at a club in front of him was a much bigger deal than taking a bite of my cake. He left me flat, went back to the hotel.”
“Can’t say I blame him. So, I assume that was the end of your weekend?”
“No, actually…” He smiled slightly, remembering the rest of it.
“So. It got better.” Jennifer was quiet for a moment. “How’d you leave it?”
“I told him I’d call him.”
“Have you?”
“Not yet.”
“Send him a set of mixed signals, then ignore him for a week.”
“You make it sound so harsh…”
“No, not harsh. True. You’re confused. You thought you knew you wanted to go on with life without him, now you don’t.”
“What should I do?”
Jennifer snorted again. “You expect me to get in the middle of you and Brian? No. I tried that once. You two are a force of nature, no room for interference from me.”
“And he’s got a kickass job offer in New York.” No need to tell his mother the details.
“New York.”
“Yup. He wants me to go with him.”
“What do you want?”
“I don’t know what I want, that’s the problem. I was so angry at him, and it wasn’t just the non-exclusive nature of our relationship, it was a whole shitload of anger over stuff that I thought I’d put behind me, I mean, all the way back to when I was bashed and he didn’t come to see me once in the hospital. You think if he cared about me at all he would have…”
“He was there.” Jennifer interrupted.
Justin became very still. Then, “What?” Whispered.
“He was there. Every night. He would go to the hospital after hours, and watch you sleep. He usually looked completely drugged, blank. Just watching. Not even blinking. I saw him once, and asked the night nurse. She told me he was there, every night.”
“Why doesn’t he tell me these things? He knows I was pissed about that. Hurt, anyway. Now I’m just pissed that I was hurt. And he could have just taken that away.”
Jennifer studied Justin’s face, saw the anger that still resided there, so close to the surface. “I don’t know what to tell you. He keeps things to himself.”
“Yeah, well, he has to stop doing that to me.” Justin stood abruptly. “I don’t want to keep you from your, uh, date.”
Jennifer burst into laughter again. “Oh, honey, you can tell me that you went to New York with one man and had sex with a total stranger to spite the first, whom you then seduced, but you can’t listen to your mother looking forward to getting laid?”
____
“Ew. Ew. Ew.” Justin kept repeating the sound as he pushed his way into Michael’s comic shop.
He glanced over at the latest issue of Rage - Zephyr kneeling in the burnt out hulk of a building - before he tuned into the conversation between Michael and the man leaning against the counter. Michael was leaning back against the wall behind it.
“I’m really flattered, it’s just…”
“Come on. One beer. Won’t kill you.” The guy was hot. Light brown hair, boyish features, compact body. Light blue eyes, full lips.
“Hey, Michael.”
“Oh, Justin! Well, thanks for the offer, but my business associate is here, we got some work to get to, if you’ll excuse me, come again…”
The guy shrugged and turned away to exit.
“Business associate?” Justin asked, as Michael came around the counter, turned the “Open” sign to “Closed,” and locked the door. “He was pretty cute.”
“Yeah, well.” Michael glanced at the cover of the Rage comic. “Not ready. Can’t even think about a day when I might be. You know?”
“I guess I can imagine,” Justin answered. “So? How’d you like to go out for that beer with your business associate?”
“Sure, just, give me a minute to get the receipts in order…” Michael opened the cash drawer, and started counting out bills, lining them up on the counter. “Haven’t seen you recently.”
“I’ve had a lot of thinking to do. Thought it would go better alone.”
“Has it?”
“Not really.”
Michael paused, screwed up his forehead, wrote down a number. Then he picked up a wad of tens, started counting them. “Have you talked to Brian?”
Justin wondered if Michael was even listening to him. “Not since we fucked in the airplane’s bathroom, and I told him I’d call him when I was ready.”
“Mile high club, huh?” Michael didn’t even pause in counting bills.
Holy shit. Justin hadn’t thought he could do that, both think AND function. “Uh… no, just seeing if you were actually listening.”
Michael did look up then. “Oh. So. What really happened, then? Or, never mind. I shouldn’t ask.”
“Yeah, right, since when?” Justin scoffed, gaining a reluctant grin of acquiescence from the other man. “It went… weird. I was pretty upset. I’d been so sure I never wanted to touch him again, but there was Brian, pouring on the charm…”
“So you did sleep with him?”
“It’s not all about sex, Michael.”
“Oh, hey, I know that. But, come on. You gotta admit, a lot of it is.” Michael paused, waiting.
“Well, okay. Maybe some of it’s sex.” Justin couldn’t suppress the grin, the shiver at the memory of that last Sunday morning, in bed until they had to leave to catch the plane in the afternoon.
“That good.”
“You know how persuasive Brian can be when he wants to.”
“Oh hey, I know! Right before you left, I went over to Brian’s and he was all missing you, not that he’d say that, of course, but then he started in on maybe what if he and I could get together… how great that would be… and he had that look in his eyes, you know the one he gets where you just want to pet him…” Michael stopped, realized what he had just said, and jerked his gaze up from the quarters he had begun to dig out of the cash register, to Justin’s frozen stare. “He didn’t really mean it! I mean… Fuck. He was missing you. He was only thinking of you, he didn’t really want a relationship with me. Really! It really had nothing to do with me.”
Justin started laughing. Hard.
XII
Brian waited. And waited.
And went to work. And met with his attorneys, going over the details of the Kinnetik deal, for which he had to figure out an answer within the week. Well, he had to wait for his answer, before he could answer.
Tick tick tick, time’s running out.
He waited. And went to the gym. And saw Gus a couple of times. Normal life. Trapped in its structure. Waiting.
Yeah, normal life. But tingeing the entire experience of moving through his days was the realization, if Justin says no in the end, that this was it, his life, only no hope, no maybes, just this, and nothing more. A wasteland to wander through. He supposed it would get easier. But he didn’t really believe that.
He avoided Woody’s. Instead, he worked at night. And watched mindless reality television. Found himself actually rooting for a contestant on “America’s Next Top Model.” The other girls had ganged up on his contestant because she wouldn’t eat anything, and he could relate. But hearing himself yell, “Get off her back, you fat jealous wannabes!” made him realize he was in serious trouble, and if this was it, life as he had known it was officially over. He turned off the t.v., and surfed a few porn sites. That helped, it surely did. Until he found himself clicking open his collection of naked!Justin pics instead.
Saturday, he went to the gym. Went by Lindsay’s, found out she had indeed accepted the job offer on Long Island (oh, Jesus, he’d HAVE to get to New York now, Gus raised on Long Island? Someone had to create a safe zone for the kid in Manhattan…), came home, took a shower, sat in front of the television. His cell phone lay on the coffee table. Mocking him.
Fuck it. He reached for the thing to give Justin a call, fuck his “I’ll call you,” he hadn’t, had he? But then he drew his hand back. Nope, no, gotta respect his, whatdayacallem, “boundaries,” as he’d begun to refer to them. Justin’s boundaries. Good god, you’d think he’d cut Brian a break, after all, Brian had turned off the high voltage electrical fence around his own self for the guy. But no, Justin’s BOUNDARIES needed to be respected.
“I am so fucked,” Brian muttered to himself, and stood to make his way to the kitchen, to see if he actually might be tempted by the take out menus, when there was a knock at the door.
Brian walked over, pulled it open. Justin stood there, looking at him.
“You could have used your key,” Brian said, standing back.
Justin walked in, shrugging off his coat. “I used it for the downstairs door. I didn’t want to invade your space if you weren’t around.”
“Justin…”
“Michael told me you proposed you and him. Just before we went to New York.”
Oh well fuck. Mikey and his complete inability to keep his fucking mouth shut. Brian felt, literally felt his muscles bunch up, his body physically taking up a defensive posture. Justin leaned back against the beam in the middle of the loft’s floor, and folded his arms over his chest. Not good. Fuck.
“Um…”
“He also said that you were really thinking about me.”
“He said that.” Shit! That did not come out the way he wanted it to. How to fix this one? Um, no clue. Wait, Brian, just wait, wait and see what happens. Obviously, Justin had a reason for being here, and nothing Brian said was going to make a difference.
Justin raised an eyebrow, watching Brian’s face go carefully blank, the granite mask descend. “Not going to say anything about it? You’d let me think you’re really interested in starting up a romantic relationship with Michael? As if I mean nothing? So easy to put me behind you?”
Shit! Brian pushed off the bar counter, and stalked across the room, realized he was going toward the bar area, and stopped. He whirled around, stared back at Justin, who was merely watching him. Not a clue of how to proceed. “No. Not easy at all. But I can do it if I have to.”
“You’re a total shit, you know that?” Justin’s tone was almost conversational. “You think that I don’t KNOW that you were reaching to an old comfort because you were hurting over the break between us?”
Brian bit his lips.
“Say something!” Justin demanded.
“I don’t know what to say,” Brian bit back. “You’ve already made up your mind, obviously, so just tell me what you’ve decided and go. Or stay. I don’t care.” Brian folded his arms over his chest. Bullshit. This was all bullshit. Cut to the chase, sonny boy.
But Justin laughed at him, knowing that pose far too well. “Oh, no, no, no. You don’t get off that easy. You keep making me do all the work for you, you can do some of this. And you do so care.”
“What, torture myself, when an end has already been decided and there’s nothing I can do about it?”
“Yeah. It’s called communicating. The end is not the whole point, it’s what gets conveyed in the process.”
Brian took a deep breath, scrubbed his hands over his face, and moved to the stool at the bar area. “Fine.” He sat, and violently pulled out the stool next to him. “Sit.”
Justin walked over to the stool and sat on it. They paused, three feet from each other, the space seeming much wider. “So. Michael. What happened?”
Brian looked away.
“Brian.”
That voice, calling him back to himself. Damnation. “Yeah, okay. It hurt. Your leaving. Even if I totally deserved it. I don’t deserve you, you think I don’t know that? So I had a little fantasy with myself of something not like that, some little bit of something easy, not complicated. It was just a fantasy, I should have kept my big mouth shut, only…”
“Only what?”
“I was lonely.” There. Truth. Pretty fucking pathetic. He felt as if he had just opened his guts and handed Justin a knife, and made a sign, “cut here.”
Justin smiled, though, and reached out to touch Brian’s knee. “I know.”
“You know.”
“Yup. You know, I heard Michael say that, and I realized, okay. He gets it. Brian wants somebody, he’s ready for that. Even if it’s not me. And, of course, it would be Michael you showed that to, since obviously it couldn’t have been me, since I’d told you to fuck off.”
Brian watched him, not really sure what the hell Justin was saying. “Is that my answer? What the fuck are you saying? You want me to traipse off into fairy tale land with Michael?”
Brian had never heard the raspberry sound used quite so eloquently. Justin licked the spit from his lips, then said, “No. You know I don’t want that. And I know that you don’t either. And neither does Michael. I’m just saying, it makes sense that you confided in someone you feel safe with, wanting to open yourself up to someone else.” Justin stopped, realized from the blank stare that Brian still didn’t get it. “He let me know, in so many words, that there’s space for me in your heart. That’s what I mean.”
“Space…” Brian repeated, slowly. Justin saw the second he got it. His lips twitched upward slightly, but he fought to keep his features still. Damn, Justin thought. He just won’t allow himself to hope until he knows. The history of crushed expectations behind that single schooling of Brian’s features made Justin realize, if he were ever going to forget, exactly how much work he was in for. But he was in for it. He was.
Was it worth it? He didn’t know. He really didn’t, and it would take years to find out. The question was, was he willing to take the risk? Was there enough promise for the future? On his walk over here, he realized that he still wasn’t sure. There were no guarantees. But there was space, he knew. There was space in Brian Kinney’s heart, space for him. So yeah, he’d take the risk. He and Brian had always been a gamble, all along, a gamble nobody’s bets were on. Nobody’s, except Justin’s. Not even Brian’s, for a very long time. But he knew now, Brian had shifted his stake, and he was willing to throw in with Justin. And Justin was damned if he was going to lose the most important bet of his life.
Well, plus the fact that he loved the guy. He sighed, and watched Brian continue to watch him. “Yeah, space,” he answered. “But that means you tell me shit. That means you don’t stalk outside my hospital room watching me while I sleep at night. That means you don’t throw me out when you get sick.”
“I don’t… you mean, I don’t repeat those things. In the future.” The left corner of his mouth twitched upward.
Justin looked away, needing to finish before he allowed the dawning look in Brian’s eyes to distract him from what he had to say. “It means, in the future, we don’t do that stuff to each other. I realized, coming over here, that you must have felt the same way I felt, when you heard about Babylon blowing up, that I did about you when I found out about the cancer. Sick with fear of losing you. And I realized my throwing you away from me was the same as you tossing me out of the loft. So…” Justin looked back at him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think… I was really angry at you for doing that to me, but I kinda understand now. I thought I’d never do that to you, if I were the one with cancer, because I loved you more than you loved me. Or something like that. But I was wrong. When I was in that position, where you were freaked out like I’d been, and you did the wrong thing the same way I’d done the wrong thing by not telling you I knew… I totally freaked out on you too, and probably hurt you just as bad.”
“Okay.” Brian watched him, but his eyes were sparkling, and he could barely suppress the smile that tugged at both sides of his mouth, now.
“Aren’t you kind of pissed off at me? For doing that to you?”
“Well,” Brian returned, pushing off of the stool and standing, moving over to where Justin sat, placing one finger on his jean-covered thigh, “From what you’ve said, we’re even. So I figure, we start from even.”
“It’s not that simple!” Justin tried not to get distracted by Brian’s hands, on his shoulders, pulling him off the stool to stand, skimming down his back, settling on the top of his butt, pulling his hips up flush against Brian’s pelvis. Justin stared at Brian’s neck.
“Justin.”
He looked up.
“It’s this simple. Yes or no?”
Justin reached up, cupped his cheek. “Yes, Brian,” he said, sliding his hand behind Brian’s neck. “Yes.” Pulling him down, kissing him softly. Lips, just touching. A soft sliding, bare brush, a tingle of nerve endings, Justin’s tongue first to sweep over that full underlip that teased at him, Brian’s tongue finally moving out to touch softly against his, lips pressing more urgently. Justin felt Brian’s hands slide into his back pocket, pull him against his body, flush. Kissing him, more deeply now. Justin pulled away, looked up at Brian’s face. Brian grinned down at him, and Justin returned it with a full fledged smile, feeling something… joy? Filling him. Yup. This was where he wanted to be, right or wrong. He’d find out, wouldn’t he? In the days, months, years to come. Starting from even, starting from this moment, with Brian, who was walking him backwards, up the steps, his calves hitting the bed, laying down on his back. Brian’s lips on his again, down his neck. Brian’s forearm moved around Justin’s waist, and he pulled him on his side, facing him. “Hey.”
“Hey,” Justin answered, moving his head forward so the tips of their noses touched. “It’s nice to be home.”
“You want it to stay home?”
Justin pulled back. “I figured… you’d want me to move in with you.”
“Here? or in New York?”
Justin smiled again. “I meant ‘home,’ as in, wherever you are.”
“Oh. That.” Brian moved his hand under Justin’s shirt, teased the skin at his waist.
“Yes, that. But since you brought it up… you have to take the offer. You know you do.”
“Do you want me to?” Those beautiful, long fingers, moving up his stomach, over his ribs.
“Yeah, I want you to.”
“And you…?”
“I told you. Home is where you are.” Justin dropped his hand onto Brian’s forearm, feeling the familiar skin, soft, warm, under his fingertips. He ran his fingers lightly down to the top of Brian’s hand, which moved out from under his shirt, to twine his fingers around Justin’s. “Besides, it’s New York. I’m an artist. It makes sense for me to live there anyway.”
“Mmmm…” Brian agreed. “However….” He rubbed his thumb over Justin’s index finger knuckle, pulled his hand up, kissed the palm. Justin shivered.
“However… what? Brian?” he prodded, trying not to get distracted by the sensation as Brian’s tongue licked a path to his wrist, teeth biting lightly on the tender skin there.
“If you want to be all domestic…”
Justin felt a brief flare of panic at those words in Brian’s mouth, and he stiffened slightly.
“…it should be sanctioned, don’t you think?”
Justin’s heart could have stopped beating in that moment; he wouldn’t have noticed. Even Brian’s sucking on the base of his middle finger didn’t distract him. “Um… what?” Whispered.
Brian pulled Justin’s hand against his chest, so it lay flat. “Sirius has domestic partnership benefits. Progressive, aren’t they? They were also almost falling over themselves to tell me that not a week before our little visit, a judge in New York declared the ban on gay civil unions unconstitutional.”
“Yeah… I know… but.”
Brian waited. “But…?”
Justin blinked. “Um, I just figured you’d interrupt me with something before I could finish. Like how Bloomberg’s appealing and they’ll overrule the judge anyway and nothing will change.”
“Hm. Well, maybe not. It’ll be nice to be somewhere things are more relaxed about our issues, anyway.”
Our issues. “Yeah,” Justin agreed, as his eyes began to shine.
“Well, the Sirius thing is just a formality so you can legally pull the plug on me and take my retirement fund, and I won’t have to worry about affording your medications the next time you cough out a lung… oh Christ,” Brian groaned, moving his hand to swipe at the corner of Justin’s leaking eye.
“Is that, like, a proposal?” Justin asked.
“Um…”
“Fine.” Justin laughed slightly. “Brian, would you like to join with me in your company’s domestic arrangements?”
“Yeah. Maybe I can do that,” Brian replied. “I’m afraid you’re not going to get much of a honeymoon, Sunshine, I’m going to be killing myself with work. You do understand that?”
“I’ll be too busy enjoying living off your wealth to mind a lost vacation.” Justin’s hand drifted down to Brian’s hip, traced a lazy pattern against his leg, drifting from the outside of the thigh, over the top, inner thigh, up the leg. “Besides, you’ll take me to Florence when I talk you into it. We’ll go see David.”
“David?”
“The statue,” Justin laughed. “I always wanted to see it.”
“We’ll find time for a vacation. One day. When you aren’t in school. Lots of good art schools in New York. Places to finally get your degree.”
“Yeah…” Justin hesitated. Trailed a finger up Brian’s cock, fully aroused.
Brian hissed his breath in, but didn’t miss the hesitation. “Yeah? Yeah… what?”
“I just thought… I really wish I hadn’t fucked that trick in New York,” he said.
Of all the times to bring that up. “Not a big deal,” Brian answered, taking his hand, pressing it fully against his arousal, rotating his hips to maximize the sensation.
“Yeah, it was… are you still not with anyone else?”
“No. Just you since Babylon.” Brian was rapidly losing his interest in the discussion. they could talk about all that after, after when he wasn’t unzipping Justin’s pullover, pulling it off him, the t-shirt following, and unsnapping the fastening at the top of Justin’s jeans.
“I was thinking…”
“Oh, god,” Brian moaned, not sure if that was in response to Justin’s “thinking” or due to the fact that his lover’s hand had found its way to the bare skin at the top of his cock, after Brian practically destroyed his pants in kicking them off.
“I was thinking… um…”
“You said that.” Both naked, Brian rolled Justin onto his back. Justin’s legs fell apart, and Brian settled himself between them, his hand moving to the outside of Justin’s thigh.
“I just… I don’t know how you’re going to react.”
“I’ll consider what you have to say, and then, god help us, we’ll communicate. Just tell me, so we can get to the make up sex, my dick’s going to stage a coup if we don’t, like, right now.”
“Okay, fine. I want you… all of you, Brian. No barriers. I want to feel all of you. Even if it’s just once.”
Brian became very still. He raised himself up on his forearms, and looked down into Justin’s face. “Six months? We’d have to wait six months, and get tested now, then three months, then at six.”
“I know.” He hadn’t shot the idea down out of hand. Justin felt a stirring in his stomach, at the idea of being able to have Brian, no condoms, just them.
“The things you make me do…” Brian ran his hands through Justin’s hair, bit his lips, then stared down. “I can’t guarantee I can do that.”
“I know. But I know you’d tell me if you didn’t.” Justin pressed his lithe body up against the more muscular one of his partner, feeling the heat and hard length of Brian against him. “It’s a lot to ask… but it’s a lot to look forward to… just me… and you… and nothing between us, just skin on skin, inside, inside me, bare…” Feeling the increase in Brian’s heart rate.
“Six months…” Brian breathed into Justin’s ear, licking at the lobe, then biting down on it. “All I can do is try…” He kissed his neck, up his jawline, took his mouth as he rolled Justin’s body beneath his.
“That’s all I ask,” Justin answered, and closed his eyes as he gave himself over to the sensations sweeping through his body, the promise sweeping through his heart.
X
Justin emerged slowly into consciousness, feeling the heaviness of his limbs, the blood stirring through his body, the beating of his heart, still slow with sleep. He became aware of his right arm resting across Brian’s waist, his chest against Brian’s back, nose tucked up under his shoulder blade. Leg curled against the back of Brian’s thighs. Brian’s ass against his pelvis.
Justin breathed the familiar scent, unwilling to let go of the comfortable unconsciousness sleep afforded. He opened his eyes to the corded muscle in front of him, the smooth skin. Reached out with his tongue, tasted the salt from sweat long dry. They hadn’t showered, just passed out in the early morning, the first light of day bringing a glow into the room, finally exhausted after… After. His stomach fluttered at the memories - Brian gentle, rough, all lips and hands and cock… Justin felt his chest flush, the blood surging downward. Felt himself grow hard against the soft skin of Brian’s thighs. Licked his back again. He brushed his lips in the area between Brian’s shoulder blades; he loved the way Brian’s skin felt against his lips, when he had it all to himself, before Brian woke up, when he could lose himself in the sensation of a simple slide across his mouth, those sensitive nerves in his lips tingling over the smooth, salty surface.
His hips flexed forward almost unconsciously as the lower part of his body signaled a need for closer contact with the man he was lying against. The fingers of his right hand uncurled, tips caressing the skin at Brian’s belly, then moved to the crease of hip and thigh, and lower, touching pubic hair, brushing up against the other man’s hardening length. “Brian?” Justin whispered, raising his head slightly. But Brian’s breath remained even with sleep. Justin rested his head back down against his left arm, and shifted to rub his aching shaft against Brian’s thigh, moving up into the space between his legs, pressing against Brian’s scrotum, fitting the tip of his penis into the small space allowed by the relaxed muscles. Not really thinking, just letting the sensations take over, the nerves shivering down his legs and curling his toes before racing back up his thighs. He pressed his body against Brian’s back side. His hand curled around Brian’s penis, completely hard now, and he felt the gasp as much as he heard it, the back beneath his chest expanding with the sudden intake of air, the hard thrust against his palm, Brian suddenly rising to awareness. Justin took his hand away, brought it to his mouth to lick the surface of his palm, bringing it back to Brian’s cock, which slipped easily against the skin, back and forth, Brian’s hips rocking forward into Justin’s grip. Brian opened his legs slightly, and Justin slipped all the way between them, rubbing himself against the smooth, warm skin there, laying his forehead on Brian’s back, feeling a gathering tension build, centered at the point of contact, spiraling out. Brian reached down, pressing his hand lightly where Justin thrust against him. His fingers moved to apply pressure just beneath the tip of Justin’s cock, holding it down but not immobile onto his firm leg. The urgency became mindless, sensation gathering under that sure touch. Barely aware of Brian’s own ragged gasps, Justin came with a sharp intake of air, holding his breath as his body stiffened, and the orgasm roared through him. He barely registered the throb in his palm, as Brian climaxed a mere moment later.
He breathed. Lay there, the heaviness in his limbs a pleasant, satisfied weight. Then Brian moved, turning onto his back. Justin shifted onto Brian’s chest, and Brian folded his arms around Justin’s back. His face sought the warm comfort of the space between Brian’s throat and shoulder, where he could feel the pulse beating through his lover. One of his favorite places to be.
“Good morning,” Brian whispered, after Justin had settled against him, entwining their legs.
Justin lifted his head, saw the gleam in Brian’s eyes. He chuffed a laugh, then dropped his head back down to Brian’s shoulder, turned to the side so he could see Brian’s face. “Good morning,” he whispered back.
They lay against one another, wrapped in each other’s presence, the scent. Just rested there for a long time.
Finally, Brian said, his voice still low, “Does it bother you? That I’m not much of a bottom.”
Justin propped himself up on an elbow, slid his weight off to the side. He looked down, where Brian watched him from the pillow. “Good thing I am.”
“Seriously.”
Seriously. Justin had been hoping they could avoid serious for another hour or two. He shook his head. “No, it doesn’t bother me. I figure you just don’t like to do it.”
“I don’t. Not really.”
“Is it a control thing?” He wasn’t accusing, and was glad his voice was even. Just curious. Yup. Just curious.
“Never thought about it much.” Brian reached up, fingered a strand of Justin’s hair. “I just don’t like the way it feels. Never did much for my dick. Or my ass, for that matter.”
“You did it for me, once.”
“I had an itch. It happens. Maybe will again. Probably.”
“Hopefully I’ll be around for that.”
“Yeah, ten years from now.”
Justin bit his lip, looked at Brian’s throat.
“Do you want to? I mean, did you want to fuck me when you woke up?”
Oh, thank god we’re not going there, Justin thought. He was not ready to deal with the implications of this afternoon, let alone their future together. Instead, he considered the question he had just been asked, and smiled softly as he responded. “My dick did exactly what it wanted to do with you. It’s creative like that. I know you aren’t into being penetrated.”
Something flickered in Brian’s eyes, and he looked quickly away.
“What? Brian, what?”
Brian bit down on his lips, then looked back. He raised himself into a sitting position, and Justin’s head ended up in his lap, looking up at him. “That whole bet thing… it was a shitty thing to do to you.”
“Yeah, it was,” Justin agreed. He felt too languid to care much at the moment. But he stored Brian’s words away, for examination later.
Again, Brian changed the subject. Touch and go. Probably the best policy right now. “You thinking about breakfast? I’d kill for coffee.”
“Oh, um… there’s a room service menu around here somewhere. Or we could go out…”
Brian placed his hand on the top of Justin’s head, holding him down as his bed partner sought to rise. “Hey, hold on there sparky, where you going?”
“I thought you wanted coffee,” Justin answered, almost laughing as he felt Brian becoming hard against his cheek.
“Yeah, but I didn’t say right this second.” He shifted, taking Justin with him, but rotating his body so Justin’s head remained at his pelvis, while he moved down Justin’s body. “I’m thinking about breakfast first myself…” And he took Justin into his mouth.
XI
“Mom!” Justin called, after using his key to open the door to her condo. “Hey, Mom, you home… uh. Hello.” He stopped in the living room, eyeing a man he had never seen before. Young man. Yup, pretty young, okay REALLY young. Probably not even 30. Way too flushed in the cheekbones. Lips way too red and… shiny. He had moved quickly across the couch, three feet away from Jennifer, who was rolling her eyes at him. Rolling her eyes at the man, young man, not at Justin, with a look of easy familiarity, an intimacy that Justin knew.
Er.
“Hi, honey. This is John. John, this is my son, Justin.”
“Hey.”
Justin gaped at him.
“Is that wine?” Jennifer asked pointedly, standing up and gesturing at the bottle Justin clutched in his left hand.
“Uh, yeah,” Justin answered, staring down at the bottle. “Um, it’s the one we started, a couple weeks ago…”
“Oh, good! Is there enough for three?” Jennifer’s smile was bright. Nope, not uncomfortable at all, even though her mouth was also swollen and there was a sparkle in her eyes that Justin did NOT want to see. It was the same sparkle he had seen in Brian’s sometimes, when Justin caught him looking at him. Back when things were good. And that final morning in New York, right before they left. One week ago tomorrow. He hadn’t spoken to Brian since.
“No, no, I gotta go anyway,” John made haste to interject.
Jennifer took the wine from Justin’s slack hand, and kissed him on the forehead. She turned back to John. “Oh. Really?” She walked over to where he stood, and kissed him. Justin’s eyes grew wide. No kiss on the forehead for that guy. John’s hands came up to Jennifer’s hips, but then he stiffened, and put her slightly away from him.
“Um, yeah.” John stepped away, squeezed Jennifer one more time at the waist. “Dinner, tonight? Pick you up at eight?”
“You better believe it.”
“Nice to meet you, Justin.”
“Uh… nice to um, meet you too, John,” Justin returned, watching the guy walk out the door. Shit, and he was hot, too. Dark, tall, a little bulkier than necessary… well, fuck. That’s just great, Justin thought, he and his mother had the same taste in men. And now he had to process THAT little piece of information.
“Oh, great, I loved this wine,” Jennifer was saying, as she moved into her kitchen, and took two wine glasses down from the shelf.
“Um. Mom?” Justin began, unsure of where to start.
“I’m really sorry John couldn’t stay! Well, he had to go home and clean up, he’s taking me to this cute little restaurant that was just reviewed in the paper, it sounds just divine…”
“Um. Mom?”
Jennifer poured generous amounts into both glasses. “Such a great guy! And he has his own company, can you believe it? I sold him a house.”
Justin took the glass as if it were a life line, gulped at the wine, picked up the bottle, and refilled his glass.
“Okay,” Jennifer sighed. “So I guess you weren’t expecting to walk in on me kissing a man…”
Justin choked. He made sure to swallow the rest of the wine in his mouth down the right pipe, before setting down his glass. “I wasn’t even going to GO there…”
“You must have figured I’d be dating at some point.”
“Well, sure! Sure, I thought, okay, she’s going to be… dating. But men your own age! This… boy… he’s gotta be what, 30?!”
“Well not yet,” Jennifer replied with a giggle, “But I’ll be happy to tell him you thought so.”
“Well, it’s not right. You’re like, my mother! He’s like, my age! Ew! ick, ick ick!!!”
Jennifer burst out laughing. “Oh, my god, Justin, you absolutely cannot be having problems because I’m dating a younger man! And he’s 10 years older than you are!”
“It’s not right,” Justin repeated. “He’s like… a kid! To you!”
Jennifer continued to giggle as she watched her son’s face turning red. “Excuse me while I can’t take this very seriously, coming from you! I’m only 15… okay, maybe 16 years older than John. And it’s very different for a woman in her 40s to be dating a man who has been through college and runs his own business, as opposed to a 17-year old virgin and a 29-year old who’s had sex with the entire city.”
“MOM!” Justin didn’t know which part of that he was objecting to. Especially since, technically, it was true.
“Oh, c’mon, you know I like Brian…” Jennifer moved back into the living room and sat on the couch, waiting until Justin sat in the chair at an angle to it. “Speaking of Brian, how was New York?”
“Well, actually… hey, wait a minute, how long have you been dating this John person?”
“John, Justin. His name is John. My god, you really are my son.” Jennifer took a sip of the wine. “I don’t know, a month?”
“And you gave me that lovely advice about marriage and faith while you were rapidly going stupid with... whatever was going on.” He stood to move back into the kitchen, and retrieved the bottle. “It was one of the reasons I went. I didn’t realize that advice was being filtered through Sunshine Mary.” He refilled both of their glasses, and put the empty bottle down on the coffee table, slumping back in the chair.
Jennifer looked at him seriously. “Was there a problem in New York?”
He decided to go along with her changing the subject; he had come over for… whatever. Mommy love. Not two hours ago, over his third drink at Woody’s, he had been brooding about Brian, knowing the clock was ticking, still torn over whether he should trust his head or his heart. Or if his head and his heart were plotting against him, and neither one wanted to go back to Brian. Or both did. But if his head and heart were in collusion against him, what part of him was doing the thinking? Need he ask.
Of all the fucked up clichés, this was the worst. Head, heart, dick. He had no idea if he could trust himself, if he was being self-loving, or self-loathing. To say nothing of how he felt about Brian! Which he didn’t know. Alcohol was not helping. You’d think it would.
So he came looking for the one unconditional love in his life. And found a woman stupid with lust about to fuck a guy Justin himself found attractive, right there on the couch in front of him. Well, shit. Maybe he should tell her the real story then. As opposed to the other version he’d planned, the sanitized version. And maybe he shouldn’t have just had drink number five. Oh well.
“Okay,” he started, running a hand through his hair. “I only went to New York because you made me think about… commitment. And okay, because I wanted to. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to scream at him about how he’d ripped my heart out and stomped on it, but I couldn’t, because I know the deal with Brian, and I couldn’t expect him to change. I fell in love with him as he was…”
“No, you didn’t,” Jennifer interrupted.
“What?”
“You didn’t fall in love with the guy who hurt you, the one who ignored your feelings, or went after other men in front of you. You fell in love with the one who cared for you. Who had a look that was just for you. Who took you in whenever you needed him, bought you things not because he had to, but because he wanted to. Who held you at night, and made love to you. And it isn’t wrong to ask the man you love to show that other, cruel side of himself to the door. The thing that’s hard, is that you can’t ask him to do that just for you. But maybe with the threat of losing you… Maybe he’ll want to do it for himself.”
Justin’s mouth dropped open. “Uh…”
“You’re oversimplifying, that’s what I was trying to tell you. Why do you think I left your father? Now that was very simple. Your father started acting as if I didn’t exist. If he really loved me, he would have made more of an effort with you, because he loved me, and I needed him to pay attention to my needs, not just his own. But my feelings had stopped existing for Craig, he’d closed himself off from me. Why stay in a relationship that doesn’t exist anymore?”
“Uh…” Justin had gone somewhat pale, and he leaned over, his arms around his waist.
“Are you all right?” Jennifer leaned forward, put her wine glass on the table.
“No… I’m fine…” Justin took a moment to breath. Took a deep breath in. Breathed out. Better. He looked up at his mother’s face, full of concern. “I fucked a guy in front of him.”
“What?” Shocked. Jennifer sat back, waiting.
“Brian was great. Really. I pretty much freaked out on him the entire time. Couldn’t stop yelling at him, pretty much. Nitpicking over stupid stuff. Cake.”
“Cake.”
“He always takes bites of my dessert, he never gets his own.”
Jennifer snorted. “Well, if I didn’t know you were in a real relationship before, that would be the sign proving me wrong.”
“What?”
“It’s the little things. Not the big ones. Toothpaste squeezed from the wrong end. Who holds the remote. Taking food without permission.”
“Yeah, well, fucking a guy at a club in front of him was a much bigger deal than taking a bite of my cake. He left me flat, went back to the hotel.”
“Can’t say I blame him. So, I assume that was the end of your weekend?”
“No, actually…” He smiled slightly, remembering the rest of it.
“So. It got better.” Jennifer was quiet for a moment. “How’d you leave it?”
“I told him I’d call him.”
“Have you?”
“Not yet.”
“Send him a set of mixed signals, then ignore him for a week.”
“You make it sound so harsh…”
“No, not harsh. True. You’re confused. You thought you knew you wanted to go on with life without him, now you don’t.”
“What should I do?”
Jennifer snorted again. “You expect me to get in the middle of you and Brian? No. I tried that once. You two are a force of nature, no room for interference from me.”
“And he’s got a kickass job offer in New York.” No need to tell his mother the details.
“New York.”
“Yup. He wants me to go with him.”
“What do you want?”
“I don’t know what I want, that’s the problem. I was so angry at him, and it wasn’t just the non-exclusive nature of our relationship, it was a whole shitload of anger over stuff that I thought I’d put behind me, I mean, all the way back to when I was bashed and he didn’t come to see me once in the hospital. You think if he cared about me at all he would have…”
“He was there.” Jennifer interrupted.
Justin became very still. Then, “What?” Whispered.
“He was there. Every night. He would go to the hospital after hours, and watch you sleep. He usually looked completely drugged, blank. Just watching. Not even blinking. I saw him once, and asked the night nurse. She told me he was there, every night.”
“Why doesn’t he tell me these things? He knows I was pissed about that. Hurt, anyway. Now I’m just pissed that I was hurt. And he could have just taken that away.”
Jennifer studied Justin’s face, saw the anger that still resided there, so close to the surface. “I don’t know what to tell you. He keeps things to himself.”
“Yeah, well, he has to stop doing that to me.” Justin stood abruptly. “I don’t want to keep you from your, uh, date.”
Jennifer burst into laughter again. “Oh, honey, you can tell me that you went to New York with one man and had sex with a total stranger to spite the first, whom you then seduced, but you can’t listen to your mother looking forward to getting laid?”
____
“Ew. Ew. Ew.” Justin kept repeating the sound as he pushed his way into Michael’s comic shop.
He glanced over at the latest issue of Rage - Zephyr kneeling in the burnt out hulk of a building - before he tuned into the conversation between Michael and the man leaning against the counter. Michael was leaning back against the wall behind it.
“I’m really flattered, it’s just…”
“Come on. One beer. Won’t kill you.” The guy was hot. Light brown hair, boyish features, compact body. Light blue eyes, full lips.
“Hey, Michael.”
“Oh, Justin! Well, thanks for the offer, but my business associate is here, we got some work to get to, if you’ll excuse me, come again…”
The guy shrugged and turned away to exit.
“Business associate?” Justin asked, as Michael came around the counter, turned the “Open” sign to “Closed,” and locked the door. “He was pretty cute.”
“Yeah, well.” Michael glanced at the cover of the Rage comic. “Not ready. Can’t even think about a day when I might be. You know?”
“I guess I can imagine,” Justin answered. “So? How’d you like to go out for that beer with your business associate?”
“Sure, just, give me a minute to get the receipts in order…” Michael opened the cash drawer, and started counting out bills, lining them up on the counter. “Haven’t seen you recently.”
“I’ve had a lot of thinking to do. Thought it would go better alone.”
“Has it?”
“Not really.”
Michael paused, screwed up his forehead, wrote down a number. Then he picked up a wad of tens, started counting them. “Have you talked to Brian?”
Justin wondered if Michael was even listening to him. “Not since we fucked in the airplane’s bathroom, and I told him I’d call him when I was ready.”
“Mile high club, huh?” Michael didn’t even pause in counting bills.
Holy shit. Justin hadn’t thought he could do that, both think AND function. “Uh… no, just seeing if you were actually listening.”
Michael did look up then. “Oh. So. What really happened, then? Or, never mind. I shouldn’t ask.”
“Yeah, right, since when?” Justin scoffed, gaining a reluctant grin of acquiescence from the other man. “It went… weird. I was pretty upset. I’d been so sure I never wanted to touch him again, but there was Brian, pouring on the charm…”
“So you did sleep with him?”
“It’s not all about sex, Michael.”
“Oh, hey, I know that. But, come on. You gotta admit, a lot of it is.” Michael paused, waiting.
“Well, okay. Maybe some of it’s sex.” Justin couldn’t suppress the grin, the shiver at the memory of that last Sunday morning, in bed until they had to leave to catch the plane in the afternoon.
“That good.”
“You know how persuasive Brian can be when he wants to.”
“Oh hey, I know! Right before you left, I went over to Brian’s and he was all missing you, not that he’d say that, of course, but then he started in on maybe what if he and I could get together… how great that would be… and he had that look in his eyes, you know the one he gets where you just want to pet him…” Michael stopped, realized what he had just said, and jerked his gaze up from the quarters he had begun to dig out of the cash register, to Justin’s frozen stare. “He didn’t really mean it! I mean… Fuck. He was missing you. He was only thinking of you, he didn’t really want a relationship with me. Really! It really had nothing to do with me.”
Justin started laughing. Hard.
XII
Brian waited. And waited.
And went to work. And met with his attorneys, going over the details of the Kinnetik deal, for which he had to figure out an answer within the week. Well, he had to wait for his answer, before he could answer.
Tick tick tick, time’s running out.
He waited. And went to the gym. And saw Gus a couple of times. Normal life. Trapped in its structure. Waiting.
Yeah, normal life. But tingeing the entire experience of moving through his days was the realization, if Justin says no in the end, that this was it, his life, only no hope, no maybes, just this, and nothing more. A wasteland to wander through. He supposed it would get easier. But he didn’t really believe that.
He avoided Woody’s. Instead, he worked at night. And watched mindless reality television. Found himself actually rooting for a contestant on “America’s Next Top Model.” The other girls had ganged up on his contestant because she wouldn’t eat anything, and he could relate. But hearing himself yell, “Get off her back, you fat jealous wannabes!” made him realize he was in serious trouble, and if this was it, life as he had known it was officially over. He turned off the t.v., and surfed a few porn sites. That helped, it surely did. Until he found himself clicking open his collection of naked!Justin pics instead.
Saturday, he went to the gym. Went by Lindsay’s, found out she had indeed accepted the job offer on Long Island (oh, Jesus, he’d HAVE to get to New York now, Gus raised on Long Island? Someone had to create a safe zone for the kid in Manhattan…), came home, took a shower, sat in front of the television. His cell phone lay on the coffee table. Mocking him.
Fuck it. He reached for the thing to give Justin a call, fuck his “I’ll call you,” he hadn’t, had he? But then he drew his hand back. Nope, no, gotta respect his, whatdayacallem, “boundaries,” as he’d begun to refer to them. Justin’s boundaries. Good god, you’d think he’d cut Brian a break, after all, Brian had turned off the high voltage electrical fence around his own self for the guy. But no, Justin’s BOUNDARIES needed to be respected.
“I am so fucked,” Brian muttered to himself, and stood to make his way to the kitchen, to see if he actually might be tempted by the take out menus, when there was a knock at the door.
Brian walked over, pulled it open. Justin stood there, looking at him.
“You could have used your key,” Brian said, standing back.
Justin walked in, shrugging off his coat. “I used it for the downstairs door. I didn’t want to invade your space if you weren’t around.”
“Justin…”
“Michael told me you proposed you and him. Just before we went to New York.”
Oh well fuck. Mikey and his complete inability to keep his fucking mouth shut. Brian felt, literally felt his muscles bunch up, his body physically taking up a defensive posture. Justin leaned back against the beam in the middle of the loft’s floor, and folded his arms over his chest. Not good. Fuck.
“Um…”
“He also said that you were really thinking about me.”
“He said that.” Shit! That did not come out the way he wanted it to. How to fix this one? Um, no clue. Wait, Brian, just wait, wait and see what happens. Obviously, Justin had a reason for being here, and nothing Brian said was going to make a difference.
Justin raised an eyebrow, watching Brian’s face go carefully blank, the granite mask descend. “Not going to say anything about it? You’d let me think you’re really interested in starting up a romantic relationship with Michael? As if I mean nothing? So easy to put me behind you?”
Shit! Brian pushed off the bar counter, and stalked across the room, realized he was going toward the bar area, and stopped. He whirled around, stared back at Justin, who was merely watching him. Not a clue of how to proceed. “No. Not easy at all. But I can do it if I have to.”
“You’re a total shit, you know that?” Justin’s tone was almost conversational. “You think that I don’t KNOW that you were reaching to an old comfort because you were hurting over the break between us?”
Brian bit his lips.
“Say something!” Justin demanded.
“I don’t know what to say,” Brian bit back. “You’ve already made up your mind, obviously, so just tell me what you’ve decided and go. Or stay. I don’t care.” Brian folded his arms over his chest. Bullshit. This was all bullshit. Cut to the chase, sonny boy.
But Justin laughed at him, knowing that pose far too well. “Oh, no, no, no. You don’t get off that easy. You keep making me do all the work for you, you can do some of this. And you do so care.”
“What, torture myself, when an end has already been decided and there’s nothing I can do about it?”
“Yeah. It’s called communicating. The end is not the whole point, it’s what gets conveyed in the process.”
Brian took a deep breath, scrubbed his hands over his face, and moved to the stool at the bar area. “Fine.” He sat, and violently pulled out the stool next to him. “Sit.”
Justin walked over to the stool and sat on it. They paused, three feet from each other, the space seeming much wider. “So. Michael. What happened?”
Brian looked away.
“Brian.”
That voice, calling him back to himself. Damnation. “Yeah, okay. It hurt. Your leaving. Even if I totally deserved it. I don’t deserve you, you think I don’t know that? So I had a little fantasy with myself of something not like that, some little bit of something easy, not complicated. It was just a fantasy, I should have kept my big mouth shut, only…”
“Only what?”
“I was lonely.” There. Truth. Pretty fucking pathetic. He felt as if he had just opened his guts and handed Justin a knife, and made a sign, “cut here.”
Justin smiled, though, and reached out to touch Brian’s knee. “I know.”
“You know.”
“Yup. You know, I heard Michael say that, and I realized, okay. He gets it. Brian wants somebody, he’s ready for that. Even if it’s not me. And, of course, it would be Michael you showed that to, since obviously it couldn’t have been me, since I’d told you to fuck off.”
Brian watched him, not really sure what the hell Justin was saying. “Is that my answer? What the fuck are you saying? You want me to traipse off into fairy tale land with Michael?”
Brian had never heard the raspberry sound used quite so eloquently. Justin licked the spit from his lips, then said, “No. You know I don’t want that. And I know that you don’t either. And neither does Michael. I’m just saying, it makes sense that you confided in someone you feel safe with, wanting to open yourself up to someone else.” Justin stopped, realized from the blank stare that Brian still didn’t get it. “He let me know, in so many words, that there’s space for me in your heart. That’s what I mean.”
“Space…” Brian repeated, slowly. Justin saw the second he got it. His lips twitched upward slightly, but he fought to keep his features still. Damn, Justin thought. He just won’t allow himself to hope until he knows. The history of crushed expectations behind that single schooling of Brian’s features made Justin realize, if he were ever going to forget, exactly how much work he was in for. But he was in for it. He was.
Was it worth it? He didn’t know. He really didn’t, and it would take years to find out. The question was, was he willing to take the risk? Was there enough promise for the future? On his walk over here, he realized that he still wasn’t sure. There were no guarantees. But there was space, he knew. There was space in Brian Kinney’s heart, space for him. So yeah, he’d take the risk. He and Brian had always been a gamble, all along, a gamble nobody’s bets were on. Nobody’s, except Justin’s. Not even Brian’s, for a very long time. But he knew now, Brian had shifted his stake, and he was willing to throw in with Justin. And Justin was damned if he was going to lose the most important bet of his life.
Well, plus the fact that he loved the guy. He sighed, and watched Brian continue to watch him. “Yeah, space,” he answered. “But that means you tell me shit. That means you don’t stalk outside my hospital room watching me while I sleep at night. That means you don’t throw me out when you get sick.”
“I don’t… you mean, I don’t repeat those things. In the future.” The left corner of his mouth twitched upward.
Justin looked away, needing to finish before he allowed the dawning look in Brian’s eyes to distract him from what he had to say. “It means, in the future, we don’t do that stuff to each other. I realized, coming over here, that you must have felt the same way I felt, when you heard about Babylon blowing up, that I did about you when I found out about the cancer. Sick with fear of losing you. And I realized my throwing you away from me was the same as you tossing me out of the loft. So…” Justin looked back at him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think… I was really angry at you for doing that to me, but I kinda understand now. I thought I’d never do that to you, if I were the one with cancer, because I loved you more than you loved me. Or something like that. But I was wrong. When I was in that position, where you were freaked out like I’d been, and you did the wrong thing the same way I’d done the wrong thing by not telling you I knew… I totally freaked out on you too, and probably hurt you just as bad.”
“Okay.” Brian watched him, but his eyes were sparkling, and he could barely suppress the smile that tugged at both sides of his mouth, now.
“Aren’t you kind of pissed off at me? For doing that to you?”
“Well,” Brian returned, pushing off of the stool and standing, moving over to where Justin sat, placing one finger on his jean-covered thigh, “From what you’ve said, we’re even. So I figure, we start from even.”
“It’s not that simple!” Justin tried not to get distracted by Brian’s hands, on his shoulders, pulling him off the stool to stand, skimming down his back, settling on the top of his butt, pulling his hips up flush against Brian’s pelvis. Justin stared at Brian’s neck.
“Justin.”
He looked up.
“It’s this simple. Yes or no?”
Justin reached up, cupped his cheek. “Yes, Brian,” he said, sliding his hand behind Brian’s neck. “Yes.” Pulling him down, kissing him softly. Lips, just touching. A soft sliding, bare brush, a tingle of nerve endings, Justin’s tongue first to sweep over that full underlip that teased at him, Brian’s tongue finally moving out to touch softly against his, lips pressing more urgently. Justin felt Brian’s hands slide into his back pocket, pull him against his body, flush. Kissing him, more deeply now. Justin pulled away, looked up at Brian’s face. Brian grinned down at him, and Justin returned it with a full fledged smile, feeling something… joy? Filling him. Yup. This was where he wanted to be, right or wrong. He’d find out, wouldn’t he? In the days, months, years to come. Starting from even, starting from this moment, with Brian, who was walking him backwards, up the steps, his calves hitting the bed, laying down on his back. Brian’s lips on his again, down his neck. Brian’s forearm moved around Justin’s waist, and he pulled him on his side, facing him. “Hey.”
“Hey,” Justin answered, moving his head forward so the tips of their noses touched. “It’s nice to be home.”
“You want it to stay home?”
Justin pulled back. “I figured… you’d want me to move in with you.”
“Here? or in New York?”
Justin smiled again. “I meant ‘home,’ as in, wherever you are.”
“Oh. That.” Brian moved his hand under Justin’s shirt, teased the skin at his waist.
“Yes, that. But since you brought it up… you have to take the offer. You know you do.”
“Do you want me to?” Those beautiful, long fingers, moving up his stomach, over his ribs.
“Yeah, I want you to.”
“And you…?”
“I told you. Home is where you are.” Justin dropped his hand onto Brian’s forearm, feeling the familiar skin, soft, warm, under his fingertips. He ran his fingers lightly down to the top of Brian’s hand, which moved out from under his shirt, to twine his fingers around Justin’s. “Besides, it’s New York. I’m an artist. It makes sense for me to live there anyway.”
“Mmmm…” Brian agreed. “However….” He rubbed his thumb over Justin’s index finger knuckle, pulled his hand up, kissed the palm. Justin shivered.
“However… what? Brian?” he prodded, trying not to get distracted by the sensation as Brian’s tongue licked a path to his wrist, teeth biting lightly on the tender skin there.
“If you want to be all domestic…”
Justin felt a brief flare of panic at those words in Brian’s mouth, and he stiffened slightly.
“…it should be sanctioned, don’t you think?”
Justin’s heart could have stopped beating in that moment; he wouldn’t have noticed. Even Brian’s sucking on the base of his middle finger didn’t distract him. “Um… what?” Whispered.
Brian pulled Justin’s hand against his chest, so it lay flat. “Sirius has domestic partnership benefits. Progressive, aren’t they? They were also almost falling over themselves to tell me that not a week before our little visit, a judge in New York declared the ban on gay civil unions unconstitutional.”
“Yeah… I know… but.”
Brian waited. “But…?”
Justin blinked. “Um, I just figured you’d interrupt me with something before I could finish. Like how Bloomberg’s appealing and they’ll overrule the judge anyway and nothing will change.”
“Hm. Well, maybe not. It’ll be nice to be somewhere things are more relaxed about our issues, anyway.”
Our issues. “Yeah,” Justin agreed, as his eyes began to shine.
“Well, the Sirius thing is just a formality so you can legally pull the plug on me and take my retirement fund, and I won’t have to worry about affording your medications the next time you cough out a lung… oh Christ,” Brian groaned, moving his hand to swipe at the corner of Justin’s leaking eye.
“Is that, like, a proposal?” Justin asked.
“Um…”
“Fine.” Justin laughed slightly. “Brian, would you like to join with me in your company’s domestic arrangements?”
“Yeah. Maybe I can do that,” Brian replied. “I’m afraid you’re not going to get much of a honeymoon, Sunshine, I’m going to be killing myself with work. You do understand that?”
“I’ll be too busy enjoying living off your wealth to mind a lost vacation.” Justin’s hand drifted down to Brian’s hip, traced a lazy pattern against his leg, drifting from the outside of the thigh, over the top, inner thigh, up the leg. “Besides, you’ll take me to Florence when I talk you into it. We’ll go see David.”
“David?”
“The statue,” Justin laughed. “I always wanted to see it.”
“We’ll find time for a vacation. One day. When you aren’t in school. Lots of good art schools in New York. Places to finally get your degree.”
“Yeah…” Justin hesitated. Trailed a finger up Brian’s cock, fully aroused.
Brian hissed his breath in, but didn’t miss the hesitation. “Yeah? Yeah… what?”
“I just thought… I really wish I hadn’t fucked that trick in New York,” he said.
Of all the times to bring that up. “Not a big deal,” Brian answered, taking his hand, pressing it fully against his arousal, rotating his hips to maximize the sensation.
“Yeah, it was… are you still not with anyone else?”
“No. Just you since Babylon.” Brian was rapidly losing his interest in the discussion. they could talk about all that after, after when he wasn’t unzipping Justin’s pullover, pulling it off him, the t-shirt following, and unsnapping the fastening at the top of Justin’s jeans.
“I was thinking…”
“Oh, god,” Brian moaned, not sure if that was in response to Justin’s “thinking” or due to the fact that his lover’s hand had found its way to the bare skin at the top of his cock, after Brian practically destroyed his pants in kicking them off.
“I was thinking… um…”
“You said that.” Both naked, Brian rolled Justin onto his back. Justin’s legs fell apart, and Brian settled himself between them, his hand moving to the outside of Justin’s thigh.
“I just… I don’t know how you’re going to react.”
“I’ll consider what you have to say, and then, god help us, we’ll communicate. Just tell me, so we can get to the make up sex, my dick’s going to stage a coup if we don’t, like, right now.”
“Okay, fine. I want you… all of you, Brian. No barriers. I want to feel all of you. Even if it’s just once.”
Brian became very still. He raised himself up on his forearms, and looked down into Justin’s face. “Six months? We’d have to wait six months, and get tested now, then three months, then at six.”
“I know.” He hadn’t shot the idea down out of hand. Justin felt a stirring in his stomach, at the idea of being able to have Brian, no condoms, just them.
“The things you make me do…” Brian ran his hands through Justin’s hair, bit his lips, then stared down. “I can’t guarantee I can do that.”
“I know. But I know you’d tell me if you didn’t.” Justin pressed his lithe body up against the more muscular one of his partner, feeling the heat and hard length of Brian against him. “It’s a lot to ask… but it’s a lot to look forward to… just me… and you… and nothing between us, just skin on skin, inside, inside me, bare…” Feeling the increase in Brian’s heart rate.
“Six months…” Brian breathed into Justin’s ear, licking at the lobe, then biting down on it. “All I can do is try…” He kissed his neck, up his jawline, took his mouth as he rolled Justin’s body beneath his.
“That’s all I ask,” Justin answered, and closed his eyes as he gave himself over to the sensations sweeping through his body, the promise sweeping through his heart.