THE SIGN, PART 4 / 8

[kachelofen]

THE SIGN

PART FOUR

In the morning, Brian is awake and dressed when Justin wakes up. Justin is seriously starting to wonder when Brian sleeps because he always goes to sleep long after Justin does and no matter what time he wakes up, Brian is always already up, and even being convalescent doesn’t account for that. Justin doesn’t sleep that much anymore.

When Justin comes out of the shower, Brian has packed his suitcases and put them by the door. The breakfast has arrived and is set out on the table in the living area, where Brian usually works. Brian joins him there, coming in from the balcony, where he’s been smoking.

Justin tries to eat something, he really does, but he can feel Brian’s eyes on him when he’s not looking and they seem to be playing eye tag. Eventually, he puts his slice of toast down and looks at Brian until he looks back at Justin. So far, Brian has only been drinking coffee. He may have eaten something earlier, but it doesn’t look like it.

“What?” Brian asks, not unkindly.

“Will I see you again?” If Brian tells him he can see him in his dreams, Justin might actually throw the remainder of his orange juice over him.

“You’ve seen me for a week. Aren’t you sick of me yet?”

“Don’t do that. Don’t play games with me. And I will never be sick of you.” Justin thinks he may as well be honest now. He’s been careful and patient for these past few days and it didn’t get him anywhere. In a few hours, Brian will fly off to God-knows-where and Justin will have no idea if and when he’ll see him next. It’s a thought that’s pushing him close to a panic when he becomes aware of the dwindling amount of time that remains.

“Justin,” Brian says in a slightly scratchy voice and a tone that’s partway between admonishing and pleading. In the past it always leaned more towards a reprimand - when Brian was still telling him what to do, how to behave and how to feel. Now it sounds more beseeching and it works even better. Justin immediately feels that he's overstepped the mark and is making Brian’s life harder than it needs to be.

Justin is quiet for a little while before he realizes what’s happening. Old behavior patterns are hard to break. He’s back to tiptoeing around like he was in the beginning, when he had to fear that he'd get kicked out of the loft if he did or said something Brian didn’t like. But when he becomes aware of it, he thinks: ‘Fuck it!’ or rather: ‘Fuck you!’

“I’ll be in Pittsburgh for Thanksgiving,” he says, watching Brian’s reaction.

Brian rolls his shoulders uncomfortably before he replies, “I don’t do the family things anymore.”

Justin knows that because he’s been to every single Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, Labor Day, 4th of July and Pride dinner at Debbie’s for the past three years. He knows that Brian is never there anymore, but now he also knows that Brian hasn’t even bothered to find out if Justin is. It seems that Brian’s not just giving the impression that he’s stopped monitoring Justin from a distance, he actually has. Brian must have stopped even talking about Justin to any of his friends just like Brian has become a taboo subject for the rest of the family.

“Are you going to Pittsburgh today?”

“No, I’m going to Denver.”

“What’s in Denver?”

“Robertson’s Bakeware.”

“Yuk. They need a new name.”

“Indeed. That’s where I come in.” Brian smiles like he did in the past when they poked fun at his new accounts together. Then the smile dies and he looks back down at his coffee.

Justin is getting frustrated. He can just glimpse the old Brian underneath the veneer of indifference, but whenever the old one comes to the surface, the new Brian shuts everything down.

“If I call you, will you answer your cellphone?”

Brian stirs his coffee and shakes his head. “Probably not.”

“If I cut my wrists and end up in the hospital again, will you come?”

Brian’s head comes up sharply. “Justin,” he says again, this time warningly.

“Why does it have to be this way? Why can’t we be together? You’re miserable. I’m miserable. I want to be with you.”

“Well, you wouldn’t be miserable if you moved out of that place and found yourself a decent boyfriend.”

And just like that Justin feels like he’s seventeen years old again, pleading with Brian outside the loft on Fuller and being told to find himself a girl and get married. It made him cry then, now it makes him angry.

“Be everything I can be?” he sneers.

“Exactly.”

“I was - with you.”

This makes Brian get up and walk out onto the balcony. Justin contemplates throwing himself at the man and kissing the hell out of him. He has fond memories of doing the same at Vangard and of the reunion sex that followed not long after. This time he’s not even sure if sex would mean a reunion and as long as he can’t be certain of that, he won’t go that way, no matter what his dick tells him.

There are too many things Justin doesn’t know. He doesn’t know where Brian lives nowadays. Not at the loft, he knows that much. Not at the house. Maybe not even in Pittsburgh. He wasn’t kidding when he asked Brian to tell him at least which city he lives in now. For a long time, he was hoping that Brian was just working really hard, so that he could open a New York branch of Kinnetik and surprise Justin with it. But the last time Justin spoke to him, Ted just sighed and murmured “I wish!” and that was that. It was also more than a year ago. Ted doesn’t come to Debbie’s dinners any longer either, probably because he’s worried that they will ask him questions about Brian.

So, yeah, he can’t even say with certainty that Brian hasn’t got married and has 2.4 children now. Okay, so he admits that’s a terrible example, but it doesn’t alter the fact that he knows nothing about Brian’s life at the moment.

But what really gets to him is that he doesn’t know why. Why Brian disappeared from his life. Why, when he came back after two months, he gradually let everyone else in again - except Justin. And it’s killing him. The not knowing. The not being able to fix it. The endless questions in his head. Missing Brian. He thinks it would be more bearable if he knew why. Or if he'd done something terrible that Brian can’t forgive. But he didn’t.

Sometimes Justin plays mind games, wondering if someone has poisoned Brian’s mind against him, told him some lies to split them up. But apart from not being able to imagine who would do such a thing or what kind of a lie would be terrible enough for that, he also knows that he and Brian were in a place at the time where none of that could have harmed them. Brian would have told Justin about it and it would have been a non-starter.

Justin looks at Brian as he’s standing there, looking out over the city, smoking as if he has completely forgotten about him. Justin can’t bear that Brian can do that now. Brian never used to be able to just dismiss him, not even in the beginning, when he ignored Justin a lot but never completely forgot about him. Even then, whenever Justin was in the room, Brian would take notice, if only by pointedly not taking notice.

Justin gets up and walks onto the balcony, stopping beside Brian and touching his arm to make him turn. Brian flinches backwards and glares at him, but at least he’s facing him now.

“Why?”

“Why what?” is Brian’s predictable answer.

“Why did you break up with me?”

Brian just stares at him, his face expressionless. Justin wants to shake him or slap him or do something to get some sense into him. This is the first time that he’s even close enough to Brian to be able to ask the question and the fear that he might not get an answer is making him frantic.

“It’s better this way.”

“What? Why? Better for whom? Because it sure as fuck isn’t better for me!”

He wonders briefly if this is just one of those painful break-ups where one half of the couple can’t believe that the other has fallen out of love. But now that he’s here, with Brian, he knows that’s not true. It was possible to imagine that when he never saw Brian because with Brian action always speaks louder than words. But Justin has seen the way that Brian has looked at him all week. He knows - knows - that Brian still has feelings for him.

Brian stubs out his cigarette in the ashtray. “I’ve got to go,” he says and walks back into the room.

“No, you don’t! You said lunch time. It’s not even ten o’clock. Answer the fucking question!”

But Brian’s already on the phone to ask the porter to come and collect his baggage and Justin, having been brought up with manners, is silent during the short conversation. And then he doesn’t know what else to say.

Everything's futile. He can scream and shout and cry and nothing will entice Brian to answer his question. He can throw himself at Brian and Brian will just push him away - gently. That makes it even worse, that there’s not enough passion left for a blazing row. Justin’s anger and frustration tip over into an incredible sadness as he watches Brian gather the last of his things and open the door to the porter.

It’s obvious that the guy expected something else entirely, but he collects himself pretty quickly when he sees Justin and just picks up the suitcases as he’s asked to do. Brian turns in the doorway and gives Justin a barely there smile.

“Take care of yourself, Justin.”

Justin just glares at him. Brian is leaving early. Those two hours may not have made any difference, but they were rightfully his. Not knowing if he'll ever see Brian again, Justin feels cheated out of those precious moments.

And then he’s staring at the closed door. When he had started to reluctantly admit to himself that maybe Brian didn’t love him anymore, he felt that his life, even on his own, would be easier if only he could believe that Brian still loved him. Now he knows what bullshit that is. Knowing that Brian still has feelings for him doesn’t make going home and living without him again one iota easier.

He goes to sit on the bed. Brian was never like this before. He was belligerent sometimes or cold or even a little cruel but he's never been so… untouchable. It’s almost as if he isn’t just hiding his feelings, but as if he can switch them off at will. From being the master of deflection, he’s advanced to being the master of simply ignoring any and all things that he doesn’t want to deal with.

Justin doesn’t know what to do. The pain and the longing are so immediate and so strong that he has to squeeze his eyelids together tightly to prevent the tears from falling. He knows that Brian has every intention to never see him again. That this will be his life from now on. Forever. Justin presses the pads of his forefinger and thumb against his closed eyelids because squeezing them together doesn’t seem to do the trick. “What am I going to do?” he asks desperately into the empty room.

After what feels like a long time, he shakes himself, packs his duffle bag and walks out of the hotel to go home.

*

Owen Spencer knows he’s a selfish bastard. He grew up with parents who doted on their only child and had the money to prove it. Even when he came out, there wasn’t the slightest blip on the radar, which was no great surprise with his mother doing the PR work for an AIDS charity. He was a successful interior designer by the time he was in his mid-twenties. His good looks and easy charm have always assured his popularity and because he doesn’t have to deal with women, he can fuck anyone he fancies without having to make too much of an effort. Having an actual relationship just seems like too much hard work to him. Why bother with all that hassle when he can have his needs met without it?

But recently he's come to think that there’s something to be said for companionship. Justin isn’t the first guy living with him, but he’s certainly the most pleasant. Coming home to find him watching TV in the living area or doing anything anywhere in the place gives Owen a feeling of actually having a home instead of merely a place to live. It doesn’t hurt that Justin is happy to fuck most of the time as well - when he’s not in the throes of creation.

For the longest time, Owen has thought that Justin is just like his previous roomies, madly in love with him and only able to hide it better. There were occasional displays of affection that Owen tolerated at first and then anticipated with pleasure. And that was when it all went to shit. Because reciprocating those moments didn’t lead to them becoming more frequent. On the contrary, if anything, Justin withdrew whenever Owen said or did something that could be construed as affectionate.

So Owen stopped. He isn’t used to doing the chasing and he won’t. He can wait this out. Eventually, Justin will break down and tell him, or at least show him, how much he loves him and Owen fully intends to make him work for every scrap of affection on Owen’s part from now on. He doesn’t need Justin. He's Owen Spencer and there are plenty of other guys who are clamoring for his attention.

And then Brian turns up.

Owen has always known about Brian, from day one. Everybody who knows Justin knows about Brian, maybe not by name, but they know that there’s someone in his past whom he can’t get over. Justin doesn’t talk about it much, but there’s this aura of sadness that surrounds him like a cloud.

Hanging two paintings of the guy in his living area is Owen’s way of dealing with it. At first, it doesn’t bother him much. Why should he care that his roommate’s still hankering after his ex? The one that shows Brian in all his naked glory gets the most attention from visitors and clients. It’s blatantly erotic, the guy is every gay man’s wet dream and even Owen’s straight friends remark on the way the painting straddles the line between being lascivious and being a declaration of love to the subject - and somehow from the subject to the artist as well.

But over time, the other painting has come to disconcert Owen. It’s an abstract of vague shapes doing whatever the observer imagines them to be doing. It’s the emotions it evokes that make Owen uncomfortable. There’s love in that painting but also a sadness that‘s so intense that it borders on despair. And it's Brian. You have to know Justin to know that, but if you do, then there’s no other interpretation of the painting, even if you don’t know the title: ‘Loss’. It takes Owen nearly five months of looking at it and thinking about it before he works out what it is that he hates about it: it’s knowing that if he disappeared tomorrow, Justin would miss him, sure, but he'd never feel even a fraction of what’s portrayed in that painting, for Owen or anybody else.

So when Brian suddenly appears in his living room, looking twice as gorgeous, sexy and self-assured as he does in the painting, and asking for Justin’s stuff, Owen suddenly gets a feeling of impending doom. It’s okay to compete with a ghost, who'll never become real again, no matter how much Justin might wish it, but it’s an altogether different matter to suddenly have this ghost breathing, walking and talking - and be so damned irresistible while doing it. Owen never feared Brian before because he never thought Brian would turn up again. And he never thought about losing Justin before because he never realized how it would affect him.

So when he hears his roommate coming back to the apartment after nearly two weeks away, Owen realizes that he’s a little worried about what he just did. Justin will forgive him for not visiting him at the hospital and wherever else he was afterwards, but this might be asking too much.

“Stay here,” he hisses at the trick in his bed and throws on some sweatpants before shutting the door very carefully as he leaves the room.

Justin has left his duffle bag by the door and has made his way into the open-plan kitchen area, where he’s busying himself with making some coffee.

“Hi,” Justin says, smiling a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Did you just get up?”

“Uhm, kinda.”

Owen thinks that Justin looks pale and drawn, but he can’t bring himself to go over there to give him a hug like he wants, just like he couldn’t bring himself to visit him in the hospital. He has a mortal fear of getting sick that he can’t overcome for anyone.

“How are you?” he asks instead, giving his bedroom door a surreptitious glance. Maybe he can persuade Justin to take a rest in his bedroom because the trick's not going to stay quietly in his bedroom for hours until the coast is clear, is he?

“Tired.”

Thank you, God! “Maybe you should lie down.”

Owen has never felt this way before. He’s never made any secret of his tricking, not even with his parents, never mind other guys. He does what he does and he doesn’t owe anyone an explanation or an apology. Justin’s never shown any signs of having an issue with it either, but he’s just come home from hospital and Owen feels so goddamned callous about doing this while Justin was away.

“I will,” Justin says easily. “I might just vegetate on the couch for a bit.”

No! “Uhm, wouldn’t you be more comfortable in your room?”

Justin pulls a face that can only be described as cute, with his slight frown and his nose scrunched up. Then he smiles a soft smile. “Don’t worry. I’m no longer contagious - haven’t been for a while. You won’t catch anything.”

Justin’s always so calm and understanding. It’s infuriating Owen at times. You can’t even have a decent argument with the guy. Owen thinks that the only way he can salvage the situation is by playing heavily on his phobia and ordering Justin to go to his room so that he won’t contaminate the living room. It’ll give Owen a chance to sneak his visitor out on the quiet.

But then it’s too late anyway. He can hear his bedroom door open and if he wanted a reaction out of Justin, here it is. Justin’s looking past him at the other guy and he looks more stricken than Owen has ever seen him. Justin pales a little more, if that’s even possible, and then Owen thinks he can see tears filling his eyes.

“Hey, Sunshine,” the guy behind him says with a slight drawl. Jeez, he really has no shame. Can’t he see how upset Justin is? And Sunshine? Owen has never heard anybody call Justin Sunshine. He turns to look at Brian, who’s impeccably dressed in his suit and tie and looks back at Owen with a slight smirk.

And suddenly Owen knows that he’s been played. When Brian turned up an hour ago for ‘some more of Justin’s stuff’, Owen thought seducing him would go some ways to making himself feel better. It irked him that Brian was looking after Justin while he himself didn’t even know where he was. Yes, fucking Brian seemed like a good idea at the time. Only now Owen’s no longer sure if it was really him who did the seducing and he certainly didn’t do any of the fucking.

He turns back to the kitchen when he hears a slight noise, like a hiccup, just in time to see Justin rush past them into his bedroom, slamming and locking the door behind him. That’s certainly never happened before. He turns back to Brian, who's sauntered to the front door.

“You did that on purpose! You knew he was coming home and you set me up, you fucker!”

Brian turns briefly at the door. “You thought I fucked you because you’re hot? Get real!” And then Brian’s gone, leaving Owen with the mess he created and the strong desire to punch him if he ever sees him again.

Owen stands there for long moments, wondering what to do. He’s never been in this situation before, never felt the need to placate anybody. His reaction has always been to shrug and move on. But he doesn’t want to do that with Justin. He doesn’t want to move on. Owen thinks that he’s finally getting a handle on Justin, on how damaged he is by this guy who sets people up in his little games. This was so deliberate that the only explanation Owen can think of is that Brian must be jealous. And if he is, then that can only mean that Justin has given him a reason to be jealous. That’s good news, right?

Owen thinks he should let Justin stew for a little while and then maybe take him out to dinner tonight, after he’s coaxed him out of his bedroom. But just as he’s turning towards his own bedroom to have a shower, Justin comes out of his, his messenger bag slung over his shoulder.

Justin looks around the living room for a bit, picking up one of the books and depositing it in his bag.

“I’ll come back later for the rest of my stuff,” he says.

“Huh?”

Justin stops to look at him. “I’m going away for a bit. And I probably won’t come back. Thank you for all you’ve done for me.”

Justin seems so incredibly calm that Owen wants to shake him. “Why? Listen, Justin, I know fucking Brian may have been in bad taste, but it was just a fuck. It didn’t mean anything. He came on to me. He set the whole thing up. He knew you were going to come home, didn’t he?”

Justin smiles and it looks genuinely amused. “I know. It’s what he does. He doesn’t like me living here, so he found a way that I can’t.”

“He did it on purpose. Don’t let him come between us, Justin.”

Justin stops smiling and looks a little upset now. “I like you, Owen. I wouldn’t have moved in here if I didn’t, but there’s no us. We’re just roommates and friends. I thought that’s what you wanted.”

Owen is backpedalling frantically. “It is…but…” I want you here! But he can’t get the words out because he knows they won’t make any difference. The attitude of unconcern that Justin has shown him over the past year, was not, as Owen thought, a cover-up for his true feelings after all, it was just what it appeared to be: indifference. Owen can’t believe that he’s the one ending up in the position of jilted lover. That’s not right. The world has gone crazy.

Justin looks at Owen and recognizes the signs. What is it about him that makes even the toughest guys crack in the end? Although Justin’s always known that Owen isn't nearly as tough as he thinks he is. He has nothing on Brian.

And this is not about Owen. This is about the fact that Justin knows he'll no longer be able to look at Owen and not see him and Brian together. He doesn’t care who Owen sleeps with, he never did. That was never pretense on his part, no matter what other people thought. What Justin didn’t know was that Owen thought it as well. If Justin had known how Owen really feels, he would have behaved differently, would have been more careful.

No, this is about Brian. It’s always about Brian. Brian, who has decided that Justin shouldn’t live with Owen and made sure that he can’t. Justin knows that Owen is just an innocent bystander, who never stood a chance against the force that is Brian Kinney. Brian hasn’t changed. He still decides what’s best for people and forces them to see things his way, no matter the consequences. Owen is just collateral damage and Justin’s far too weary to fix this. He can’t focus on other people right now. All he wants is find somewhere quiet to think and decide what he wants to do and make plans. And sleep. A lot.

“I’m sorry,” he says. Then he goes and picks up his duffle bag and leaves the apartment where he has lived for the last year, knowing that this chapter of his life is over.

Brian takes a deep breath as he’s standing on the sidewalk, waiting for the cab he asked the doorman to call for him. He’s a little edgy because he half-expects Justin to come bursting out of the building and scream abuse at him. Not that Brian wouldn’t understand that. What he did, however necessary, was shitty even in his own books.

Owen was a good fuck - as Brian expected him to be. Apart from a blowjob from the bellhop at the hotel in one of the storerooms and fucking one of his clients on Wednesday, he hasn’t had sex all week. And Justin being so close all that time had him on a low but permanent arousal the whole time, so a good fuck was much needed and appreciated. But that’s not why he did it.

Brian went to the apartment under a pretext, fully intending to fuck the guy and have Justin walk in on them. He would have preferred to give Justin the full view, because then the impact would have been so much greater, but apparently they have rules about fucking in the living area. Never mind, it worked well enough anyway, judging by the expression on Justin’s face when he saw him.

Brian doesn’t spare a single thought for Owen. The guy had it coming. He should have treated Justin better and it’s not as if Owen didn’t know that Justin wouldn't look too kindly on Owen fucking Brian. Now Justin will see him for what he is. And not before time.

When Brian was talking to Justin this morning, he felt an impending panic. He knows that he can never see Justin again, but the more he thought about saying goodbye to him, the harder it seemed to become. So in the end, he left early, because every minute he stayed there brought him closer to breaking down and just grabbing Justin and kissing him to within an inch of his life. Justin made it clear enough that he wants Brian back and that just isn’t an option.

So Brian got the bellhop to store his suitcases for a couple of hours and went to put his plan into action. It went like this: he'd go and fuck Owen and either Justin would walk in on them, if the timing was right, or he'd find out about it later - Brian was quite willing to make sure of that himself if need be - and that would spell the end of Justin’s relationship with the guy. That was the first step.

Justin deserves someone better than Owen. He deserves to be happy and at the moment he’s settling. Brian has the suspicion that it’s in part because Justin is still waiting for Brian to come back. So now Justin will know that Brian won’t and what’s more, he will no longer want Brian to come back. Justin will be free to find someone new, someone who gives him what he needs and makes him happy. Step two.

Brian needs Justin to be happy. All this time he’s avoided gathering any information about Justin because at first he didn't want to hear how unhappy Justin was and then, as time went by, he assumed that Justin had moved on and Brian didn’t particularly want to hear about that either. But this situation is unacceptable. Brian cannot worry about Justin and this guy. It was hard enough not to think about Justin when Brian assumed he was happy.

So, unless Justin’s changed completely, this will be the end of that. Justin won’t forgive his boyfriend for fucking Brian. He won’t forgive Brian either, but that’s the last part of the plan. One, Justin will be free to find someone else, someone better than both Owen and Brian and, two, he won’t dream of trying to get back with Brian now.

Sometimes, Brian really hates himself for being so feeble. He barely managed to keep up his detachment all week and what he fears the most is that Justin will start pursuing him again. For over a year there were emails and phone calls and even letters and every single time it killed him inside to delete the emails unread and ignore the phone calls when all he wanted was to hear Justin’s voice - or even just hear him breathe, for fuck’s sake. Brian can't go through that again.

Now Justin won’t do any of that. Brian can disappear again and find some sort of equilibrium and carry on as before. He managed to give Justin an incentive to move on, prevented him from starting to stalk Brian again and got a good fuck all in one fell swoop. All in all, it was a win-win-win situation.

Brian just wishes that he felt better about it. He climbs into the cab and gives instructions to take him back to the hotel to collect his belongings and take him on to the airport, and he grits his teeth, thinking that with enough determination everything will go back to the way it was before Jennifer Taylor called him two Mondays ago.

PART FIVE: http://kachelofen.livejournal.com/20707.html#cutid1