Fate's Given Grace: Chapter 1 (Brian/Justin; PG-13)
Title: Fate’s Given Grace, Act I - Chapter 1
Author: Etharei
Fandom: Queer as Folk (US)
Timeline: post-513 (future)
Rating: PG-13
Betas: Many grateful smooches to shadownyc and beathen.
Disclaimer: Queer as Folk and all the characters and situations featured therein are the property of Showtime, Cowlip Productions and their affiliates. I’m only borrowing them for purely non-profit, recreational purposes, and promise to replenish the condom and lube supply when I’m done.
Chapter Summary: Even when it's not their story, it is. Justin takes care of Grace, has a phone conversation with Brian, and Brian muses on the future.
Author’s Note: Just to avoid confusion, I'd like to make it clear that, in terms of time, this chapter does not follow on from the Prologue. Please treat the Prologue as a sort of 'slice of life' of Justin at this stage of the story; the story proper commences from here.
CHAPTER 1
Look, new footprints on the sand.
"The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once."
- Albert Einstein
The key to functioning well with the person one is sharing a living space with is to pay attention to the finer details and subtle clues. So when Justin returns to an apartment that looked like the loft during one of Gus’ long visits, he’d smile and put their next meal on the table (since eating, naturally, comes second place to their art, and therefore occurred only when their bodies had gagged and stashed away their muses in order to not starve to death), and listen attentively as Grace launches into a colorful account of her day.
Conversely, when he comes home and finds the apartment as neat and tidy as a nun’s cell (or, to continue the simile, Brian’s loft after Gus goes back to Toronto), he abandons the take-out boxes on the floor and knocks gently on Grace’s shut door. "Grace?"
"Fuck off."
Justin nods and goes to retrieve the food, estimating from the annoyed tone of his apartment-mate’s voice that she’d be out in an hour, at the most. If her voice sounded tired, she would need a couple of hours, maybe more, and sobbing meant that he probably won’t see until the next day, or at least until need drives her out of her room. He doesn’t like prying, doesn’t feel entitled to it with the well-used condition of the lock on his door, so he gives her as much time as she needs, on the understanding that on his third trip to her door she’d at least open it to prove that she’s alive and in one piece.
"Grace!" No answer. Starting to feel a little frantic, he thought back to the last time he’d heard any movement from the other side of that door. About an hour ago. Shit. "GRACE!" He pounded on the wood so hard that his hand stung and there was a faint crack from somewhere around the hinges.
"GRACE, OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR OR I’M TAKING A CHAIR AND BUSTING IT DOWN!"
Just as he finished yelling, the click of the lock sounded, and the door slowly opened to reveal Grace with disheveled hair and mascara trailing down her face. "Fuck, I’m here, what’s gotten up your ass?"
Justin stared at her. "Don’t scare me like that. Do you know how many times a day I hear that someone’s OD’ed or slit their wrist or… I don’t know, eaten glass?"
She blinked. "Shit, Justin. I’m upset, not suicidal."
"Yeah, well, so sorry for caring."
Another blink, then she smiled and patted his cheek. "You’re such a sweetheart, you know that?" She leaned against the doorframe, grinning despite herself. "Tell you what, knock me up three times, and if you don’t see my face by the third time you can queen out and go all Indiana Justin on me."
He blinked. Then his face scrunched up into a disgusted expression and, mature young man as he always claimed to be, stuck his tongue out at her.
She appears at the table after fifteen minutes. “Jared and I were hanging out at the Egg and Anchor when this woman came along and asked if he was Jared Arsenios, from Harmodius. He said he was. Then she smiled at me and asked if I was his girlfriend.”
“What did he say?” But Justin’s face had already darkened; he’d had the front-row seat to the Jared-Grace epic tragedy for four years.
“He just smiled that really smooth smile of his and said, “’No, she’s just a groupie.’” And the look that woman gave me left no doubt about what sort of groupie she thought I was. Then he said, “Run along now, babe. I’ll see you tonight.” He fucking patted my ass when I left the table!”
“The fucker!” Justin breathes disbelievingly.
“Yeah.”
That is pretty much the extent of conversation as they sit down for dinner. Justin, ever the sensitive soul, does the dishes even though he’d done it three days in a row now. The food improves Grace’s mood just a little; they sit in front of the television, keeping up a good pretense of actually watching it, Grace’s head on Justin’s lap. He passes her a lit cigarette. They’re silent for a good long while. Looking down at the tangled nest of her blonde hair, something in Justin softens, bends. Tick, tick- hold.
“When I was seventeen,” he begins.
Grace’s head whips around, because never, in three years of living together, had he voluntarily referred to something prior to the day she first saw him, hauling that black duffel bag and taped boxes up to the apartment above hers. She feels like hyperventilating, but doesn’t because that might make him stop.
Justin’s eyes are focused on a corner of the television set. “The first guy I ever had sex with told me that I was nothing more than a fuck, and that queers shouldn’t do love.”
“Shit,” she says. After a moment’s thought, she ventures, “Is that why you’re- why you don’t hook up with guys a lot?”
He chuckles. “No.” After a moment, “Yes. It’s complicated.”
It’s his typical dead end answer, but for once she feels that he does mean it, and isn’t just getting her to stop questioning him further. But now he’s let her into forbidden territory, she can’t help but push a little, and she turns so that she’s lying on her back and grins up at him. “So, was he hot?”
Luckily that seems to be an OK question to ask, because she sees that lighting-up-the-room smile of his that comes out so rarely, she must have seen it a grand total of five times in their years together. This guy must’ve been something. “He was the hottest man I’d ever laid eyes on.” Justin bites his lip. “Still is, really.”
“Wow.” This explains a lot of things, Grace thinks. And considering the guys that Justin turns down regularly, his statement is pretty impressive. “Now I really want to know what he looks like.”
Justin nods and goes silent, so Grace returns to her pit of misery. Or tries to, but damn it, it turns out her roommate’s distraction tactic has worked, because most of the depression’s gone and she can’t really work up the energy and conviction to call it back. The nice buzz from the cigarette helps, too. (She really, really hopes that this would be the last straw, that the agony of the past few hours has been enough to burn out this streak of crazy she’d been harboring for years when it comes to Jared, but she’d fallen deeper into her self-made Hell before and still emerged with smiles for him.)
Then Justin taps her on the shoulder. “Come on.” He stands up and goes to his room. She follows, but stops at the door, looking warily at the threshold that she’d never before crossed since he moved in with her. He turns on the light and walks over to where a couple of covered canvases are leaning against the wall; the tarp looks dusty, so Grace assumes that they’re old pieces he’d decided not to sell. She takes the chance to glance around his room. It’s the same size as hers, but significantly more cluttered because of his art stuff. (She remembers the days before he got his own studio; the dining table still has acrylic paint streaks on it.) A narrow bed, a battered desk he refuses to replace even though his bank account has grown so large that she’s asked him to put his monthly statements where she won’t accidentally come across them because they make her feel damn depressed. The bookshelf squashed against one wall is quite new, though- very sturdy with high shelves and made of beech wood with a wengé finish. When it arrived she thought the delivery guy had gotten the address wrong; she didn’t think Justin even knew where to shop for top-of-the-line stuff like that. It holds his books and sketchbooks now, as well as various other little bits and pieces he’s picked up around the City. Anything that he’s using or finds particularly inspiring is on the desk, which also holds a handful of photo frames, but the desk is against the wall with the door, so she couldn’t see the photos.
He comes out again, holding out a covered canvas to her. She reaches for it, and hesitates.
"It’s OK. You need it."
Grace suddenly hates this, him feeling that his zealously-guarded privacy is worth compromising because of her unhealthy obsession, she takes the boards, and pulls off the cover.
Her breath catches in her throat. What she’d assumed was canvas turns out to be stretched paper, with a stiff board backing. On the paper was a pencil and charcoal drawing of a man, with so much detail that she could make out the flecks in his irises and the individual strands of his hair. The man is reclining across a bed, his body beautiful and long and unashamedly exposed. His gaze is directed at something just to the right of the artist’s point-of-view, but it’s almost as if his head is about to turn, to look out of the painting. Grace blushes a little to see that his cock is half-erect, which is weird because she’s certainly seen enough of those in her life. But this feels… intimate, like a scene that she has no right intruding in, and after a moment she quickly gives it back to Justin, who covers it back up with a care and reverence that leaves no doubt in her mind.
Fuck, Justin must have been in love with this man.
And now she feels a little ashamed of herself, because the usually self-assured artist has a look on his face that she’s only seen in late nights when he thinks that she can’t see him behind his sketchbook- uncertainty, and a trace of vulnerability. Clearing her throat, she says, "I’ve never seen you use charcoal. When did you draw that?"
"Just last year. When you were in that production of Medea and you practically lived at Jared’s for two months."
"Ah." She’d been so caught up in her show and love life that Justin could have set up a dance club in their apartment and she’d probably only have commented 'Isn’t it a little dark in here?'. "It’s amazing. Unbelievable. I know I always say that about your work, but that one is- there are no words. Actually, words should be banned when it comes to describing something like that." More than that, she’s sure that people would probably pay a hundred thousand dollars to own such a piece. Then again, a Justin Taylor original can fetch something close to that these days.
She blinks. "Wait a minute. Are you telling me that last year, last year, you drew a picture so life-like that I’m half-expecting him to get up and walk out of the paper, of the man who fucked you nearly TEN YEARS AGO?!" Her voice rises progressively higher as she spoke.
Justin shrugs in that maddeningly nonchalant way he has. "I have good visual memory? Don’t you remember what your first guy looked like? Girls are supposed to be more sensitive about these things than guys." He seems to think about it, then adds, "And it’s more, like, nine years."
Grace waves her hand dismissively and glares suspiciously at him, smoke trailing out of her mouth, making her look like a humanoid dragon. "I knew it. All this time I’ve been living with an obsessive stalker madman."
He grins at her. "Hah, like you’re one to talk."
Grace frowns. "Seriously, Justin, hasn’t anyone told you yet that you might have some issues here?"
"You wouldn’t believe it," he continues on grinning. "But, the way I see things, obsession is the fuel for inspiration. Otherwise where does all the passion for our art come from?"
Grace considers this. "I always wondered why we get along so well."
#
The next day, Grace finds herself glancing at her cell phone every five minutes. Justin had placed the little device on the dusty top of the fridge. He’s concentrating on the work he’s doing on his computer, which he’d brought out of his room and set up on the wobbly coffee table so he could “keep her company”, but she knows that if she makes a move towards the fridge, those deceptively innocent eyes of his would snap around and glare daggers at her.
"Grace."
Shit. He hadn’t even turned around, and she hadn’t been aware of moving. Grace sits back further, so that most of her back is in contact with the faded cushion of the sofa. She plants her gaze on the page of script in her hands. The words sit there, unchanged from the last time she’d looked at them, reminding her that she has to be able to recite them by tomorrow night.
After a few minutes, Justin sighs. "All right, let’s go out."
"Where to?"
"Anywhere."
Leaving the building feels like walking into a fridge. At least, if a fridge had cars and smog and six million people in it. They head down the street slowly, avoiding the piles of snow randomly heaped on buildings, cars, plants. The seedy sunlight seeps rather than shines through the brittle air, chilling shards of which sneak coldness through multiple weaves of fabric thread. Grace savors it, thinks Justin is a genius for coming up with the idea of stepping outside, and the part of her that perpetually exists on a stage automatically logs the experience away to be used at a later time; that’s her art, re-living for herself and her audience the cold numbness on her bare skin and just numbness beneath it, despite a thin layer of protective cotton warmth, when she’s sweating under a lone stage spotlight.
Their area of Chelsea, despite being in Manhattan, is deceptively quiet at the odd hour between late breakfast and early lunch, and it’s easy to imagine that it’s not part of a huge metropolis; just another corner of town, just like home if one can ignore the street-names and the echoes of traffic from further off. No Man’s Land, in the sense that it seems to belong to Every Man these days; they pass a Chinese hawker selling hot dogs to a man in a suit with a sturdy face that hints at generations spent under vicious Russian winters, next to a vivacious woman whose thick coat affords glimpses of bright tropical colors under the Caribbean sky.
She sees Justin’s head swivel this way and that, knows that he’s storing away his own memory, some of which will make it onto canvas and the walls of the City’s most prestigious galleries, and others are to be taken away into that secret phantom place he names home that comes calling in the middle of the night and one weekend a month.
"Oh shit," he suddenly exclaims.
"What?" Grace follows his line of sight, and sees Jared waving at them from the other side of the street. "Shit. Keep walking."
The absence of return waves probably tells Jared that they’re not quite as pleased to see him as he appears to be at seeing him, so the fool man pretty much runs across the road. "Grace!" he says excitedly. "A studio wants to audition us! This could be it!"
"Good for you," Grace says coolly. "Excuse me for not jumping for joy or lifting my skirt up for you right now, my groupie charms are taking a day off."
"Gracie." Jared blinks, his expression that of a kicked puppy. Fortunately it only annoys Grace further. "What I said- that was just for the look, you know?"
She narrows steely blue eyes at him. "Oh yeah, telling a middle-aged woman that you hang out with a whore definitely makes you look like rock star material. Well I’m sorry if I’m just a little bit pissed that you think of me that way."
"What the fuck? I never called you a whore."
"You said ‘groupie’, Jared, with a look on your face that guys get when they’re telling people they’ve gotten into a girl’s pants. And the way she looked at me!"
"What was I supposed to say? I thought you understood that I can’t-" he waves his hand in frustration. "I don’t do the girlfriend thing."
"Yes, I know." She grits her teeth, taking deep breaths to calm down. "I do know, and I’ve put up with that for two fucking years, Jared. Don’t I get some respect for that? You could have just said that I was a friend, or a fucking distant cousin!"
"I didn’t have time to think, all right! I didn’t know you’d be so angry about it. You never cared what people thought of you."
"I don’t care about her." Grace jabbed a finger into Jared’s chest. "But you were the one who said it, and I’m afraid I do care a little about what you think of me."
"Well, it turns out that it’s a good thing that I said what I did. She gave me her card and told me the usual stuff about her company being interested in a deal for one album, I told her that the band’s agent will be in touch with her, blah blah blah, and then she told me that it’s a good thing I’m single, because hot singers who are available sell better."
Ahem.
Two sets of fiery eyes jerk towards Justin, clearly having forgotten that he was standing there. "You know, I think I’ll leave you two to figure this out." He’s already walking backwards, and throws a "See you at home, Grace," over his shoulder before walking briskly back to their building.
Justin takes the stairs up to the third floor, gets into their apartment and locks the door behind him before dropping down onto the couch with a relieved sigh. He hopes that Jared and Grace would be able to go for at least a week before the next round, because it’s hard to get anything done in the apartment when Grace is there and in a bad mood. He’s mentally listing the advantages and disadvantages of going back out to buy food for their barren refrigerator when his cell phone rings.
"Justin Taylor," he answers automatically.
"A client thinks that I’m fucking Cynthia," says a voice that immediately causes Justin’s face to break out into huge smile. "I feel violated."
"Why, Mr. Kinney," Justin says, happily stretching out on the couch. "I’ve always known you were a man of great versatility, but in our meeting last month I received the impression that your tastes lie not with the gentler sex."
"You are very perceptive, Mr. Taylor," Brian replies. "And completely correct. Though I am willing to negotiate on the gentle sex bit. In fact, we should have another meeting, so that I may reinforce those impressions of yours."
"Hmmm, I would enjoy another demonstration of your versatility," Justin purrs. "Are you at your office?"
"I am, though I’m expecting my accountant in ten minutes."
"I can do a lot in ten minutes."
"I remember."
Justin grins, shifting to accommodate the hard-on in his jeans. "However, as I am currently not at hand- so to speak- I am curious to know about that allegation concerning Cynthia and yourself."
"And just when things were getting interesting." He can practically see Brian smirking. "We made a sales pitch to the representatives of this potential new client this morning. Bagged them, of course. The guy in charge of the group is a middle-aged breeder who spent the entire time staring at Cynthia’s ass. She ignored him, of course. When I showed them out, the guy nudged me in the rib and said, 'Your assistant’s a real piece of work'. Cynthia was standing right there, within earshot, and I thought she was going to drive her six-inch heels into his balls."
He winces. "And what did you say?"
"I said, 'I find blonds very inspiring to have around.'"
Justin bursts out laughing. "I knew it! You turn into a soft-hearted romantic the moment I’m not around!"
Brian goes on, pointedly ignoring him. "Ted started giggling like a fifteen-year-old, but the important thing was that Cynthia was smiling. The guy winked, probably thought it was some sort of lovers' in-joke, and walked out with his balls intact."
"That was lucky. Good thinking."
"I think I’m going to pay for it, though. Cynthia’s been walking around with a glint in her eyes. I’ll probably come into the office tomorrow with pictures of you plastered all over the walls."
There’s a moment of silence. It’s not uncomfortable, not exactly, not after four years, but nevertheless Justin feels a longing to touch Brian. Nothing sexual, despite being half-hard; he just wants to touch him, any part of him. "Grace had another fight with Jared last night."
"Again?" Brian says, mildly incredulous. Justin knows that he normally wouldn’t give two cents about people he’d never even met- the first year, he just tolerated Justin’s accounts of his apartment-mate, and probably only because he wanted to know what kind of a person Justin is living with- but after three years of listening to a running commentary of the Jared-and-Grace saga, Justin suspects that Brian’s become as fascinated with the couple as he is himself.
"Yeah. He found us when we were walking around, though, and I left them on the street to either make out or claw each other’s throats out once and for all. Just got back to the apartment."
"What was it about this time?"
Justin nibbles on his lower lip for a few seconds. "This woman approached Jared the other day, told him that a record company is interested in his band."
He doesn’t think Brian will get it, but he pauses, and surprisingly Brian finishes the explanation. “Don’t tell me- musicians sell better if they’re single and available."
"Yeah."
"Fuck."
He can’t think of a better expression, himself. "I know."
"I mean, I’ve heard about the whole ‘your life passing before your eyes’ thing, but other people re-enacting it- weird is not exactly the right word, but it’s close."
"Karma for the new millennium?"
"Hey, I’m the ad-man here. You’re the successful new star artist of New York City."
"Shut up. And it is weird. Gives me the creeps whenever I think about it too much," Justin continues on. "Though watching Brian-and-Justin Redux has given me a new appreciation of what it must’ve been like for Daphne. I think I’ll send her another bouquet of roses."
"It’s not exactly the same."
“Of course not. But it’s still like watching a hetero version of the two of us,” He yawns, sinking further into the couch. "Oh, I showed her a sketch of you. She was really depressed and I wanted her to think of something other than Jared."
“Oh? What happened to the ‘secret boyfriend in another state’ agreement?”
Justin snorts. "You know that I only agreed to that because you were being your usual stubborn self."
The ringing of the phone at an unholy hour pulled a very reluctant Brian out of sleep. He angrily picked it up before he could remember to check the caller ID first.
“Unless you plan on sleeping in your car in the middle of the countryside after this, asshole, you better give up the idea that you can get away from me,” came Justin’s cheerful voice. “And even then I only need to call Debbie about the dangers of potential carbon monoxide poisoning and mosquitoes carrying the West Nile virus.”
Brian sighed. “I could just disconnect my phone.”
“Send me a video of Lindsay’s next visit there, ‘cause I imagine she’s going to be really pi-issed.”
“Change the phone numbers of everyone we know?”
“Right, you’re going to convince Michael, Ben, Hunter, Ted, Blake, Emmett, Carl, Debbie, Cynthia, my mom and my sister to all change their numbers? And don’t forget all the phones at Kinnetik and Liberty Diner. Oh, and pretty much every fag who goes to Babylon.”
“Fuck.”
“Hey, you’re the one who had to be a big, rich, successful businessman. Hmmm, and Alex on the floor below the loft owes me a favor, too.”
“Christ, you just want to turn me into a hermit, don’t you?” A pause. “And what sort of favor?”
“Yeah, that’s been my diabolical plan all along. And don’t get your panties in a knot, I just advised him on paint brands when he was renovating his living room.”
Brian realized that his lips had curved up into a smile all on their own accord. Oh well, he’s too tired to care, it’s- “Fuck, what time is it?”
“Four in the morning. I was up all night painting, then figured I might as well wait for you to be in bed.”
“Justin,” Brian said with consternation.
“It’s fine, Brian, I’ll sleep after this. My interview is at 6, anyway.”
Brian yawned, adjusted a pillow and leaned back to rest against it. “Job interview?”
“Yeah. Psyche’s Slippers, a gallery about twenty blocks from the apartment. I’m looking into a couple of other galleries in the area, but that’s the closest one and I like the owner’s tastes.”
“That’s good. I’d wish you luck, but…”
Justin chuckled. “I don’t need it, I know.” His tone turned serious. “I mean it, Brian. I won’t make promises, I know you don’t want to hear them and I’m the one who always breaks them anyway-”
“Justin-”
“Let me finish.” Brian’s eyebrows went up at the authoritative note in Justin’s voice, and his dick twitched, much to his embarrassment. “I’m not asking you to wait around for me to come back. I’m not even asking you to call, or e-mail, or visit me. Just don’t push me away. Do you think you can handle that much?”
Brian was silent for a moment. “It’s not that I’m pushing you away,” he finally said, slowly and carefully. “I just don’t want your head to be back here when it should be there. And you should be there with nothing holding you back.”
“You stubborn shit.” Justin sighed heavily. “I have a proposition.”
“Envision me raising my eyebrow in a questioning manner.”
“When I’m here, I’m Justin Taylor, aspiring artist from Pittsburgh. Nothing else. I will not talk about or allude to my family, my friends, or my boyfriend. All my concentration will be on my art, my work and my life here. I’ll succeed on just my name and my work.”
“I never thought I’d one day be someone’s secret affair,” Brian commented, ignoring the uneasiness rolling in his gut.
“But in return,” Justin pushed on. “I expect you to be there every time I come home. Don’t schedule meetings in other cities when you know I’m coming, because I’ll fucking follow you even if I have to hitch-hike the whole way. I’ll come back as often as I can, we’ll fuck, we’ll spend time together, and you will admit that you hate us being apart like this.”
“What the fuck, Justin? What’s gotten into you?”
Justin laughed mirthlessly. “You know, I’d forgotten about him, too.”
The trains of thought in the foggy mires of Brian’s still-groggy mind were, at this point, a smoking derailed heap of metaphorical metal. “Who?”
“That kid who told his father, outside Babylon, that he was never going home again.”
“Your dad was an asshole, Justin. No parent should ever force their kid to make a decision like that.”
“But he did. And I chose, Brian. Do you remember what I chose, what I yelled at my own fucking father?”
“Yeah, well,” Brian chewed on his lower lip. But maybe some things needed to be said; it’s only been almost five years. “Maybe you shouldn’t have. If he hadn’t backed you into a corner, if you weren’t scared shitless to go with him anyway because he’d just beaten me into the ground-”
“You think that,” Justin interrupted, “because you weren’t there all the times before, all the times he yelled at me, ordered me not to see you. I might have been a scared kid, Brian, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t know what I was doing.” His voice grew quieter. “It’s always been you.”
Brian suspected that that was what had scared him the most. His eyes drifted up to a ceiling beam. “And look where that got you.”
“Yes.” Justin’s voice was gentler, but no less firm. “New York, with success and fame, every artist’s lifelong dream, within my reach. Something I probably would never have gotten if it were up to my parents. But that’s not the point. Don’t you get it now, Mr. Kinney?”
“Justin, it’s fucking four a.m.-“
“I don’t get off on ‘easy’, Brian.” Justin drew out each word. “That kid outside Babylon didn’t want ‘easy’, he wanted you. I never stopped wanting you, but I forgot about him in all the shit that happened after. New York has brought him back.” A pause, and when Justin spoke again, his voice was so close to the phone that he’s almost there next to Brian, brushing back unruly hair and kissing him on the temple. “So you better watch out, ‘cause I’m onto you.”
Brian felt strangely warm in the cool still air of the loft, and he thought that he caught a whiff of Justin’s scent still floating about the place. “I always thought that you had a sadistic streak in you,” he commented dryly. “And-”
“What?”
“Tell that kid that this time he might not have to work so hard.” The problem with phones, he decided, was that there wasn’t an option of looking away, and simply hanging up felt a little juvenile even for him.
Justin was quiet for a moment, acknowledging the unspoken message, and Brian wondered if it’s lesbianic that he can hear the young man’s smile through the silence. Then Justin purred, “Oh, but he enjoys working hard. Especially on his back. Or his hands and knees.”
“Anyway, I only told her that you took my virginity, and then informed me the next night that it meant nothing, that I was only a fuck.”
“A very inspiring story, I’m sure.”
“If thy friend is heart-sick, seek to distract them with tales of greater woe.” Justin stretches, purposefully letting out a moan as he does so. “And so what if I neglected to mention that I got you to fuck me again. And again.”
“If you’re going to say ‘And again’ for every time we’ve fucked, we’ll still be at this come next month.”
He ponders this. “I’d much rather have you actually fuck me, and me coming, if it’s all right with you.”
“I’ll think about it.” After a moment, Brian adds, “Though it is very important to keep track of all our fucks. For posterity and all that shit. Maybe I could tell Ted to create some sort of cataloguing system for them.”
Justin guffaws. “I’d love to see the look on his face if you ever ask him to do something like that.”
Knock, knock.
Brian identifies the vaguely humanoid blob on the other side of the rippled glass door of his office as Ted, so he sighs and reluctantly says, “That’s Theodore.”
“Aw,” Justin whines. “I guess I’ll just lie here on the couch, then, all alone in my apartment.” His voice, all laziness and subdued heat, causes Brian to swallow. “Half-hard from hearing your voice. Without even my second favorite object to put up my ass.”
“Come in!” Brian barks when Ted knocks a second time, adjusting his tie. “Well, it’s your fault for leaving it at the house.”
“Mmhmm.” Shit, from the sound of movement and rustling fabric he can practically see Justin slowly trailing a hand down his body, into his pants, taking hold of himself and languorously jerking off. “I can’t remember the last room we used it in. Was it in my studio, or your office?”
“I believe it was the latter, when we spent that lovely evening looking over a few papers.” Well, to be specific he’d been looking over Justin’s shoulder at the papers, which had slid back and forth on the desk as Brian pounded into Justin’s sweet slick ass, both of them bent over Brian’s desk with most of their clothes still on. That had been a hot fuck. He looks up before he gets too hard from thinking about all the things they’d done on this desk, and meets Ted’s very amused eyes. “Anyway, the voice of corporate America calls.”
“Say ‘hi’ to Ted for me,” says the smug little fucker. “Later.”
“Later.” I click my cell phone shut. “Justin sends his love and greetings.”
“Tell him later that I said ‘hi’, too.” Ted takes a seat and starts handing me several folders. “How is he doing?”
“He’s fabulous,” I reply shortly, taking out my pen and frowning at my empty coffee mug.
“You must be looking forward to this weekend, then.”
“Is that something you came up with all by yourself, or did you deduce it from the fact that I’m letting you handle all the client pitches from Friday to Tuesday?”
“And here I thought that it was a sign of your trust and growing confidence in my abilities,” Ted returns. The corners of Brian’s lips twitch, but his face remains on a displeased downturn as he continues to glare at his mug.
“It’s after three and my coffee cup is still filled with the latte from lunch,” he says, a little disbelievingly.
Shaking his head, Ted grabs the cup, gets up, walks to the door, sticks his head out, and says, “Marcia, you haven’t gotten Mr. Kinney his double-shot yet.” There’s a muffled exclamation from the woman sitting behind the desk outside his office. Ted returns, cup-less, to the desk. “I told Cynthia that this one wasn’t going to last very long. She’s terrified of you.”
“Guess I still have the magic touch, then,” Brian says, rubbing his forehead. “So, what are your predictions on the next quarter?”
Brian manages to wrap up work before dinnertime, and grabs a tuna wrap at the diner on his way to Babylon. He has a few informal meetings with his head of security and head bartender, watches the dance floor for half an hour, then retreats to his office upstairs, where he pulls open the top drawer and gazes speculatively at the half-full bottle of Tylenol that rolls out.
No Ted tonight; technically his accountant didn’t have to be at Babylon at all, but the man comes in at least four nights a week. Brian suspects he does so to keep the boss company, and feels a little disgusted with himself because he doesn’t mind, has come to appreciate having someone to talk to.
These days he doesn’t know, exactly, what he’s doing. In the past he’d always had one goal- to be a big, fat, fucking success in his business. Now that the classification pretty much fits him like his tailored Armani suits, he doesn’t feel any less driven, any less on track. Except that he has no idea where the tracks lead to. Or, rather, he does have an idea, but has trouble comprehending how and when he’d set the destination. He doesn’t even know if he truly believes that he’ll get there, but then, he can’t honestly say that he’d never ever doubted he’d get to where he is now.
But there it is, boys and girls. At some point, he’d gotten it into his head that he will have a future with a certain blond twink he’d picked up under a streetlamp. (Two rings and a house in the country should have been a signal, but he’d been in a weird place, then, where his mind had collated a swinging bat in with an exploding pipe bomb, and there wasn’t time for thought, wasn’t time for anything at all.) During the first year of their separation he hadn’t thought about it, had become pretty creative in not allowing himself to think about it, but that kid, his kid, always had a way of blindsiding him, of slipping under the radar. Almost four years and he’s still around, and Brian has to smile because he’s pretty sure that the same thought had been running through his head four years ago.
So, yes, he’s still working, still partying, still being him, only now it’s not just to prove that he can be better than his parents, or as a fuck-you to all the fag-hating heteros out there, or for his own ambitions. No, somehow he’s doing it for a future he can’t quite bring himself to fully comprehend, with a person he still doesn’t believe will stay around.
He’s about to grab the rattling bottle of pills when his cell phone vibrates and plays out the teeny ringtone he’d assigned to Justin’s number.
He smiles and flips it open. "Isn’t it past your bedtime, dear?"
<< Prologue | Chapter 2 >>
Lost? Check out the Chapter List and Summaries
Author: Etharei
Fandom: Queer as Folk (US)
Timeline: post-513 (future)
Rating: PG-13
Betas: Many grateful smooches to shadownyc and beathen.
Disclaimer: Queer as Folk and all the characters and situations featured therein are the property of Showtime, Cowlip Productions and their affiliates. I’m only borrowing them for purely non-profit, recreational purposes, and promise to replenish the condom and lube supply when I’m done.
Chapter Summary: Even when it's not their story, it is. Justin takes care of Grace, has a phone conversation with Brian, and Brian muses on the future.
Author’s Note: Just to avoid confusion, I'd like to make it clear that, in terms of time, this chapter does not follow on from the Prologue. Please treat the Prologue as a sort of 'slice of life' of Justin at this stage of the story; the story proper commences from here.
CHAPTER 1
Look, new footprints on the sand.
"The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once."
- Albert Einstein
The key to functioning well with the person one is sharing a living space with is to pay attention to the finer details and subtle clues. So when Justin returns to an apartment that looked like the loft during one of Gus’ long visits, he’d smile and put their next meal on the table (since eating, naturally, comes second place to their art, and therefore occurred only when their bodies had gagged and stashed away their muses in order to not starve to death), and listen attentively as Grace launches into a colorful account of her day.
Conversely, when he comes home and finds the apartment as neat and tidy as a nun’s cell (or, to continue the simile, Brian’s loft after Gus goes back to Toronto), he abandons the take-out boxes on the floor and knocks gently on Grace’s shut door. "Grace?"
"Fuck off."
Justin nods and goes to retrieve the food, estimating from the annoyed tone of his apartment-mate’s voice that she’d be out in an hour, at the most. If her voice sounded tired, she would need a couple of hours, maybe more, and sobbing meant that he probably won’t see until the next day, or at least until need drives her out of her room. He doesn’t like prying, doesn’t feel entitled to it with the well-used condition of the lock on his door, so he gives her as much time as she needs, on the understanding that on his third trip to her door she’d at least open it to prove that she’s alive and in one piece.
"Grace!" No answer. Starting to feel a little frantic, he thought back to the last time he’d heard any movement from the other side of that door. About an hour ago. Shit. "GRACE!" He pounded on the wood so hard that his hand stung and there was a faint crack from somewhere around the hinges.
"GRACE, OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR OR I’M TAKING A CHAIR AND BUSTING IT DOWN!"
Just as he finished yelling, the click of the lock sounded, and the door slowly opened to reveal Grace with disheveled hair and mascara trailing down her face. "Fuck, I’m here, what’s gotten up your ass?"
Justin stared at her. "Don’t scare me like that. Do you know how many times a day I hear that someone’s OD’ed or slit their wrist or… I don’t know, eaten glass?"
She blinked. "Shit, Justin. I’m upset, not suicidal."
"Yeah, well, so sorry for caring."
Another blink, then she smiled and patted his cheek. "You’re such a sweetheart, you know that?" She leaned against the doorframe, grinning despite herself. "Tell you what, knock me up three times, and if you don’t see my face by the third time you can queen out and go all Indiana Justin on me."
He blinked. Then his face scrunched up into a disgusted expression and, mature young man as he always claimed to be, stuck his tongue out at her.
She appears at the table after fifteen minutes. “Jared and I were hanging out at the Egg and Anchor when this woman came along and asked if he was Jared Arsenios, from Harmodius. He said he was. Then she smiled at me and asked if I was his girlfriend.”
“What did he say?” But Justin’s face had already darkened; he’d had the front-row seat to the Jared-Grace epic tragedy for four years.
“He just smiled that really smooth smile of his and said, “’No, she’s just a groupie.’” And the look that woman gave me left no doubt about what sort of groupie she thought I was. Then he said, “Run along now, babe. I’ll see you tonight.” He fucking patted my ass when I left the table!”
“The fucker!” Justin breathes disbelievingly.
“Yeah.”
That is pretty much the extent of conversation as they sit down for dinner. Justin, ever the sensitive soul, does the dishes even though he’d done it three days in a row now. The food improves Grace’s mood just a little; they sit in front of the television, keeping up a good pretense of actually watching it, Grace’s head on Justin’s lap. He passes her a lit cigarette. They’re silent for a good long while. Looking down at the tangled nest of her blonde hair, something in Justin softens, bends. Tick, tick- hold.
“When I was seventeen,” he begins.
Grace’s head whips around, because never, in three years of living together, had he voluntarily referred to something prior to the day she first saw him, hauling that black duffel bag and taped boxes up to the apartment above hers. She feels like hyperventilating, but doesn’t because that might make him stop.
Justin’s eyes are focused on a corner of the television set. “The first guy I ever had sex with told me that I was nothing more than a fuck, and that queers shouldn’t do love.”
“Shit,” she says. After a moment’s thought, she ventures, “Is that why you’re- why you don’t hook up with guys a lot?”
He chuckles. “No.” After a moment, “Yes. It’s complicated.”
It’s his typical dead end answer, but for once she feels that he does mean it, and isn’t just getting her to stop questioning him further. But now he’s let her into forbidden territory, she can’t help but push a little, and she turns so that she’s lying on her back and grins up at him. “So, was he hot?”
Luckily that seems to be an OK question to ask, because she sees that lighting-up-the-room smile of his that comes out so rarely, she must have seen it a grand total of five times in their years together. This guy must’ve been something. “He was the hottest man I’d ever laid eyes on.” Justin bites his lip. “Still is, really.”
“Wow.” This explains a lot of things, Grace thinks. And considering the guys that Justin turns down regularly, his statement is pretty impressive. “Now I really want to know what he looks like.”
Justin nods and goes silent, so Grace returns to her pit of misery. Or tries to, but damn it, it turns out her roommate’s distraction tactic has worked, because most of the depression’s gone and she can’t really work up the energy and conviction to call it back. The nice buzz from the cigarette helps, too. (She really, really hopes that this would be the last straw, that the agony of the past few hours has been enough to burn out this streak of crazy she’d been harboring for years when it comes to Jared, but she’d fallen deeper into her self-made Hell before and still emerged with smiles for him.)
Then Justin taps her on the shoulder. “Come on.” He stands up and goes to his room. She follows, but stops at the door, looking warily at the threshold that she’d never before crossed since he moved in with her. He turns on the light and walks over to where a couple of covered canvases are leaning against the wall; the tarp looks dusty, so Grace assumes that they’re old pieces he’d decided not to sell. She takes the chance to glance around his room. It’s the same size as hers, but significantly more cluttered because of his art stuff. (She remembers the days before he got his own studio; the dining table still has acrylic paint streaks on it.) A narrow bed, a battered desk he refuses to replace even though his bank account has grown so large that she’s asked him to put his monthly statements where she won’t accidentally come across them because they make her feel damn depressed. The bookshelf squashed against one wall is quite new, though- very sturdy with high shelves and made of beech wood with a wengé finish. When it arrived she thought the delivery guy had gotten the address wrong; she didn’t think Justin even knew where to shop for top-of-the-line stuff like that. It holds his books and sketchbooks now, as well as various other little bits and pieces he’s picked up around the City. Anything that he’s using or finds particularly inspiring is on the desk, which also holds a handful of photo frames, but the desk is against the wall with the door, so she couldn’t see the photos.
He comes out again, holding out a covered canvas to her. She reaches for it, and hesitates.
"It’s OK. You need it."
Grace suddenly hates this, him feeling that his zealously-guarded privacy is worth compromising because of her unhealthy obsession, she takes the boards, and pulls off the cover.
Her breath catches in her throat. What she’d assumed was canvas turns out to be stretched paper, with a stiff board backing. On the paper was a pencil and charcoal drawing of a man, with so much detail that she could make out the flecks in his irises and the individual strands of his hair. The man is reclining across a bed, his body beautiful and long and unashamedly exposed. His gaze is directed at something just to the right of the artist’s point-of-view, but it’s almost as if his head is about to turn, to look out of the painting. Grace blushes a little to see that his cock is half-erect, which is weird because she’s certainly seen enough of those in her life. But this feels… intimate, like a scene that she has no right intruding in, and after a moment she quickly gives it back to Justin, who covers it back up with a care and reverence that leaves no doubt in her mind.
Fuck, Justin must have been in love with this man.
And now she feels a little ashamed of herself, because the usually self-assured artist has a look on his face that she’s only seen in late nights when he thinks that she can’t see him behind his sketchbook- uncertainty, and a trace of vulnerability. Clearing her throat, she says, "I’ve never seen you use charcoal. When did you draw that?"
"Just last year. When you were in that production of Medea and you practically lived at Jared’s for two months."
"Ah." She’d been so caught up in her show and love life that Justin could have set up a dance club in their apartment and she’d probably only have commented 'Isn’t it a little dark in here?'. "It’s amazing. Unbelievable. I know I always say that about your work, but that one is- there are no words. Actually, words should be banned when it comes to describing something like that." More than that, she’s sure that people would probably pay a hundred thousand dollars to own such a piece. Then again, a Justin Taylor original can fetch something close to that these days.
She blinks. "Wait a minute. Are you telling me that last year, last year, you drew a picture so life-like that I’m half-expecting him to get up and walk out of the paper, of the man who fucked you nearly TEN YEARS AGO?!" Her voice rises progressively higher as she spoke.
Justin shrugs in that maddeningly nonchalant way he has. "I have good visual memory? Don’t you remember what your first guy looked like? Girls are supposed to be more sensitive about these things than guys." He seems to think about it, then adds, "And it’s more, like, nine years."
Grace waves her hand dismissively and glares suspiciously at him, smoke trailing out of her mouth, making her look like a humanoid dragon. "I knew it. All this time I’ve been living with an obsessive stalker madman."
He grins at her. "Hah, like you’re one to talk."
Grace frowns. "Seriously, Justin, hasn’t anyone told you yet that you might have some issues here?"
"You wouldn’t believe it," he continues on grinning. "But, the way I see things, obsession is the fuel for inspiration. Otherwise where does all the passion for our art come from?"
Grace considers this. "I always wondered why we get along so well."
#
The next day, Grace finds herself glancing at her cell phone every five minutes. Justin had placed the little device on the dusty top of the fridge. He’s concentrating on the work he’s doing on his computer, which he’d brought out of his room and set up on the wobbly coffee table so he could “keep her company”, but she knows that if she makes a move towards the fridge, those deceptively innocent eyes of his would snap around and glare daggers at her.
"Grace."
Shit. He hadn’t even turned around, and she hadn’t been aware of moving. Grace sits back further, so that most of her back is in contact with the faded cushion of the sofa. She plants her gaze on the page of script in her hands. The words sit there, unchanged from the last time she’d looked at them, reminding her that she has to be able to recite them by tomorrow night.
After a few minutes, Justin sighs. "All right, let’s go out."
"Where to?"
"Anywhere."
Leaving the building feels like walking into a fridge. At least, if a fridge had cars and smog and six million people in it. They head down the street slowly, avoiding the piles of snow randomly heaped on buildings, cars, plants. The seedy sunlight seeps rather than shines through the brittle air, chilling shards of which sneak coldness through multiple weaves of fabric thread. Grace savors it, thinks Justin is a genius for coming up with the idea of stepping outside, and the part of her that perpetually exists on a stage automatically logs the experience away to be used at a later time; that’s her art, re-living for herself and her audience the cold numbness on her bare skin and just numbness beneath it, despite a thin layer of protective cotton warmth, when she’s sweating under a lone stage spotlight.
Their area of Chelsea, despite being in Manhattan, is deceptively quiet at the odd hour between late breakfast and early lunch, and it’s easy to imagine that it’s not part of a huge metropolis; just another corner of town, just like home if one can ignore the street-names and the echoes of traffic from further off. No Man’s Land, in the sense that it seems to belong to Every Man these days; they pass a Chinese hawker selling hot dogs to a man in a suit with a sturdy face that hints at generations spent under vicious Russian winters, next to a vivacious woman whose thick coat affords glimpses of bright tropical colors under the Caribbean sky.
She sees Justin’s head swivel this way and that, knows that he’s storing away his own memory, some of which will make it onto canvas and the walls of the City’s most prestigious galleries, and others are to be taken away into that secret phantom place he names home that comes calling in the middle of the night and one weekend a month.
"Oh shit," he suddenly exclaims.
"What?" Grace follows his line of sight, and sees Jared waving at them from the other side of the street. "Shit. Keep walking."
The absence of return waves probably tells Jared that they’re not quite as pleased to see him as he appears to be at seeing him, so the fool man pretty much runs across the road. "Grace!" he says excitedly. "A studio wants to audition us! This could be it!"
"Good for you," Grace says coolly. "Excuse me for not jumping for joy or lifting my skirt up for you right now, my groupie charms are taking a day off."
"Gracie." Jared blinks, his expression that of a kicked puppy. Fortunately it only annoys Grace further. "What I said- that was just for the look, you know?"
She narrows steely blue eyes at him. "Oh yeah, telling a middle-aged woman that you hang out with a whore definitely makes you look like rock star material. Well I’m sorry if I’m just a little bit pissed that you think of me that way."
"What the fuck? I never called you a whore."
"You said ‘groupie’, Jared, with a look on your face that guys get when they’re telling people they’ve gotten into a girl’s pants. And the way she looked at me!"
"What was I supposed to say? I thought you understood that I can’t-" he waves his hand in frustration. "I don’t do the girlfriend thing."
"Yes, I know." She grits her teeth, taking deep breaths to calm down. "I do know, and I’ve put up with that for two fucking years, Jared. Don’t I get some respect for that? You could have just said that I was a friend, or a fucking distant cousin!"
"I didn’t have time to think, all right! I didn’t know you’d be so angry about it. You never cared what people thought of you."
"I don’t care about her." Grace jabbed a finger into Jared’s chest. "But you were the one who said it, and I’m afraid I do care a little about what you think of me."
"Well, it turns out that it’s a good thing that I said what I did. She gave me her card and told me the usual stuff about her company being interested in a deal for one album, I told her that the band’s agent will be in touch with her, blah blah blah, and then she told me that it’s a good thing I’m single, because hot singers who are available sell better."
Ahem.
Two sets of fiery eyes jerk towards Justin, clearly having forgotten that he was standing there. "You know, I think I’ll leave you two to figure this out." He’s already walking backwards, and throws a "See you at home, Grace," over his shoulder before walking briskly back to their building.
Justin takes the stairs up to the third floor, gets into their apartment and locks the door behind him before dropping down onto the couch with a relieved sigh. He hopes that Jared and Grace would be able to go for at least a week before the next round, because it’s hard to get anything done in the apartment when Grace is there and in a bad mood. He’s mentally listing the advantages and disadvantages of going back out to buy food for their barren refrigerator when his cell phone rings.
"Justin Taylor," he answers automatically.
"A client thinks that I’m fucking Cynthia," says a voice that immediately causes Justin’s face to break out into huge smile. "I feel violated."
"Why, Mr. Kinney," Justin says, happily stretching out on the couch. "I’ve always known you were a man of great versatility, but in our meeting last month I received the impression that your tastes lie not with the gentler sex."
"You are very perceptive, Mr. Taylor," Brian replies. "And completely correct. Though I am willing to negotiate on the gentle sex bit. In fact, we should have another meeting, so that I may reinforce those impressions of yours."
"Hmmm, I would enjoy another demonstration of your versatility," Justin purrs. "Are you at your office?"
"I am, though I’m expecting my accountant in ten minutes."
"I can do a lot in ten minutes."
"I remember."
Justin grins, shifting to accommodate the hard-on in his jeans. "However, as I am currently not at hand- so to speak- I am curious to know about that allegation concerning Cynthia and yourself."
"And just when things were getting interesting." He can practically see Brian smirking. "We made a sales pitch to the representatives of this potential new client this morning. Bagged them, of course. The guy in charge of the group is a middle-aged breeder who spent the entire time staring at Cynthia’s ass. She ignored him, of course. When I showed them out, the guy nudged me in the rib and said, 'Your assistant’s a real piece of work'. Cynthia was standing right there, within earshot, and I thought she was going to drive her six-inch heels into his balls."
He winces. "And what did you say?"
"I said, 'I find blonds very inspiring to have around.'"
Justin bursts out laughing. "I knew it! You turn into a soft-hearted romantic the moment I’m not around!"
Brian goes on, pointedly ignoring him. "Ted started giggling like a fifteen-year-old, but the important thing was that Cynthia was smiling. The guy winked, probably thought it was some sort of lovers' in-joke, and walked out with his balls intact."
"That was lucky. Good thinking."
"I think I’m going to pay for it, though. Cynthia’s been walking around with a glint in her eyes. I’ll probably come into the office tomorrow with pictures of you plastered all over the walls."
There’s a moment of silence. It’s not uncomfortable, not exactly, not after four years, but nevertheless Justin feels a longing to touch Brian. Nothing sexual, despite being half-hard; he just wants to touch him, any part of him. "Grace had another fight with Jared last night."
"Again?" Brian says, mildly incredulous. Justin knows that he normally wouldn’t give two cents about people he’d never even met- the first year, he just tolerated Justin’s accounts of his apartment-mate, and probably only because he wanted to know what kind of a person Justin is living with- but after three years of listening to a running commentary of the Jared-and-Grace saga, Justin suspects that Brian’s become as fascinated with the couple as he is himself.
"Yeah. He found us when we were walking around, though, and I left them on the street to either make out or claw each other’s throats out once and for all. Just got back to the apartment."
"What was it about this time?"
Justin nibbles on his lower lip for a few seconds. "This woman approached Jared the other day, told him that a record company is interested in his band."
He doesn’t think Brian will get it, but he pauses, and surprisingly Brian finishes the explanation. “Don’t tell me- musicians sell better if they’re single and available."
"Yeah."
"Fuck."
He can’t think of a better expression, himself. "I know."
"I mean, I’ve heard about the whole ‘your life passing before your eyes’ thing, but other people re-enacting it- weird is not exactly the right word, but it’s close."
"Karma for the new millennium?"
"Hey, I’m the ad-man here. You’re the successful new star artist of New York City."
"Shut up. And it is weird. Gives me the creeps whenever I think about it too much," Justin continues on. "Though watching Brian-and-Justin Redux has given me a new appreciation of what it must’ve been like for Daphne. I think I’ll send her another bouquet of roses."
"It’s not exactly the same."
“Of course not. But it’s still like watching a hetero version of the two of us,” He yawns, sinking further into the couch. "Oh, I showed her a sketch of you. She was really depressed and I wanted her to think of something other than Jared."
“Oh? What happened to the ‘secret boyfriend in another state’ agreement?”
Justin snorts. "You know that I only agreed to that because you were being your usual stubborn self."
The ringing of the phone at an unholy hour pulled a very reluctant Brian out of sleep. He angrily picked it up before he could remember to check the caller ID first.
“Unless you plan on sleeping in your car in the middle of the countryside after this, asshole, you better give up the idea that you can get away from me,” came Justin’s cheerful voice. “And even then I only need to call Debbie about the dangers of potential carbon monoxide poisoning and mosquitoes carrying the West Nile virus.”
Brian sighed. “I could just disconnect my phone.”
“Send me a video of Lindsay’s next visit there, ‘cause I imagine she’s going to be really pi-issed.”
“Change the phone numbers of everyone we know?”
“Right, you’re going to convince Michael, Ben, Hunter, Ted, Blake, Emmett, Carl, Debbie, Cynthia, my mom and my sister to all change their numbers? And don’t forget all the phones at Kinnetik and Liberty Diner. Oh, and pretty much every fag who goes to Babylon.”
“Fuck.”
“Hey, you’re the one who had to be a big, rich, successful businessman. Hmmm, and Alex on the floor below the loft owes me a favor, too.”
“Christ, you just want to turn me into a hermit, don’t you?” A pause. “And what sort of favor?”
“Yeah, that’s been my diabolical plan all along. And don’t get your panties in a knot, I just advised him on paint brands when he was renovating his living room.”
Brian realized that his lips had curved up into a smile all on their own accord. Oh well, he’s too tired to care, it’s- “Fuck, what time is it?”
“Four in the morning. I was up all night painting, then figured I might as well wait for you to be in bed.”
“Justin,” Brian said with consternation.
“It’s fine, Brian, I’ll sleep after this. My interview is at 6, anyway.”
Brian yawned, adjusted a pillow and leaned back to rest against it. “Job interview?”
“Yeah. Psyche’s Slippers, a gallery about twenty blocks from the apartment. I’m looking into a couple of other galleries in the area, but that’s the closest one and I like the owner’s tastes.”
“That’s good. I’d wish you luck, but…”
Justin chuckled. “I don’t need it, I know.” His tone turned serious. “I mean it, Brian. I won’t make promises, I know you don’t want to hear them and I’m the one who always breaks them anyway-”
“Justin-”
“Let me finish.” Brian’s eyebrows went up at the authoritative note in Justin’s voice, and his dick twitched, much to his embarrassment. “I’m not asking you to wait around for me to come back. I’m not even asking you to call, or e-mail, or visit me. Just don’t push me away. Do you think you can handle that much?”
Brian was silent for a moment. “It’s not that I’m pushing you away,” he finally said, slowly and carefully. “I just don’t want your head to be back here when it should be there. And you should be there with nothing holding you back.”
“You stubborn shit.” Justin sighed heavily. “I have a proposition.”
“Envision me raising my eyebrow in a questioning manner.”
“When I’m here, I’m Justin Taylor, aspiring artist from Pittsburgh. Nothing else. I will not talk about or allude to my family, my friends, or my boyfriend. All my concentration will be on my art, my work and my life here. I’ll succeed on just my name and my work.”
“I never thought I’d one day be someone’s secret affair,” Brian commented, ignoring the uneasiness rolling in his gut.
“But in return,” Justin pushed on. “I expect you to be there every time I come home. Don’t schedule meetings in other cities when you know I’m coming, because I’ll fucking follow you even if I have to hitch-hike the whole way. I’ll come back as often as I can, we’ll fuck, we’ll spend time together, and you will admit that you hate us being apart like this.”
“What the fuck, Justin? What’s gotten into you?”
Justin laughed mirthlessly. “You know, I’d forgotten about him, too.”
The trains of thought in the foggy mires of Brian’s still-groggy mind were, at this point, a smoking derailed heap of metaphorical metal. “Who?”
“That kid who told his father, outside Babylon, that he was never going home again.”
“Your dad was an asshole, Justin. No parent should ever force their kid to make a decision like that.”
“But he did. And I chose, Brian. Do you remember what I chose, what I yelled at my own fucking father?”
“Yeah, well,” Brian chewed on his lower lip. But maybe some things needed to be said; it’s only been almost five years. “Maybe you shouldn’t have. If he hadn’t backed you into a corner, if you weren’t scared shitless to go with him anyway because he’d just beaten me into the ground-”
“You think that,” Justin interrupted, “because you weren’t there all the times before, all the times he yelled at me, ordered me not to see you. I might have been a scared kid, Brian, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t know what I was doing.” His voice grew quieter. “It’s always been you.”
Brian suspected that that was what had scared him the most. His eyes drifted up to a ceiling beam. “And look where that got you.”
“Yes.” Justin’s voice was gentler, but no less firm. “New York, with success and fame, every artist’s lifelong dream, within my reach. Something I probably would never have gotten if it were up to my parents. But that’s not the point. Don’t you get it now, Mr. Kinney?”
“Justin, it’s fucking four a.m.-“
“I don’t get off on ‘easy’, Brian.” Justin drew out each word. “That kid outside Babylon didn’t want ‘easy’, he wanted you. I never stopped wanting you, but I forgot about him in all the shit that happened after. New York has brought him back.” A pause, and when Justin spoke again, his voice was so close to the phone that he’s almost there next to Brian, brushing back unruly hair and kissing him on the temple. “So you better watch out, ‘cause I’m onto you.”
Brian felt strangely warm in the cool still air of the loft, and he thought that he caught a whiff of Justin’s scent still floating about the place. “I always thought that you had a sadistic streak in you,” he commented dryly. “And-”
“What?”
“Tell that kid that this time he might not have to work so hard.” The problem with phones, he decided, was that there wasn’t an option of looking away, and simply hanging up felt a little juvenile even for him.
Justin was quiet for a moment, acknowledging the unspoken message, and Brian wondered if it’s lesbianic that he can hear the young man’s smile through the silence. Then Justin purred, “Oh, but he enjoys working hard. Especially on his back. Or his hands and knees.”
“Anyway, I only told her that you took my virginity, and then informed me the next night that it meant nothing, that I was only a fuck.”
“A very inspiring story, I’m sure.”
“If thy friend is heart-sick, seek to distract them with tales of greater woe.” Justin stretches, purposefully letting out a moan as he does so. “And so what if I neglected to mention that I got you to fuck me again. And again.”
“If you’re going to say ‘And again’ for every time we’ve fucked, we’ll still be at this come next month.”
He ponders this. “I’d much rather have you actually fuck me, and me coming, if it’s all right with you.”
“I’ll think about it.” After a moment, Brian adds, “Though it is very important to keep track of all our fucks. For posterity and all that shit. Maybe I could tell Ted to create some sort of cataloguing system for them.”
Justin guffaws. “I’d love to see the look on his face if you ever ask him to do something like that.”
Knock, knock.
Brian identifies the vaguely humanoid blob on the other side of the rippled glass door of his office as Ted, so he sighs and reluctantly says, “That’s Theodore.”
“Aw,” Justin whines. “I guess I’ll just lie here on the couch, then, all alone in my apartment.” His voice, all laziness and subdued heat, causes Brian to swallow. “Half-hard from hearing your voice. Without even my second favorite object to put up my ass.”
“Come in!” Brian barks when Ted knocks a second time, adjusting his tie. “Well, it’s your fault for leaving it at the house.”
“Mmhmm.” Shit, from the sound of movement and rustling fabric he can practically see Justin slowly trailing a hand down his body, into his pants, taking hold of himself and languorously jerking off. “I can’t remember the last room we used it in. Was it in my studio, or your office?”
“I believe it was the latter, when we spent that lovely evening looking over a few papers.” Well, to be specific he’d been looking over Justin’s shoulder at the papers, which had slid back and forth on the desk as Brian pounded into Justin’s sweet slick ass, both of them bent over Brian’s desk with most of their clothes still on. That had been a hot fuck. He looks up before he gets too hard from thinking about all the things they’d done on this desk, and meets Ted’s very amused eyes. “Anyway, the voice of corporate America calls.”
“Say ‘hi’ to Ted for me,” says the smug little fucker. “Later.”
“Later.” I click my cell phone shut. “Justin sends his love and greetings.”
“Tell him later that I said ‘hi’, too.” Ted takes a seat and starts handing me several folders. “How is he doing?”
“He’s fabulous,” I reply shortly, taking out my pen and frowning at my empty coffee mug.
“You must be looking forward to this weekend, then.”
“Is that something you came up with all by yourself, or did you deduce it from the fact that I’m letting you handle all the client pitches from Friday to Tuesday?”
“And here I thought that it was a sign of your trust and growing confidence in my abilities,” Ted returns. The corners of Brian’s lips twitch, but his face remains on a displeased downturn as he continues to glare at his mug.
“It’s after three and my coffee cup is still filled with the latte from lunch,” he says, a little disbelievingly.
Shaking his head, Ted grabs the cup, gets up, walks to the door, sticks his head out, and says, “Marcia, you haven’t gotten Mr. Kinney his double-shot yet.” There’s a muffled exclamation from the woman sitting behind the desk outside his office. Ted returns, cup-less, to the desk. “I told Cynthia that this one wasn’t going to last very long. She’s terrified of you.”
“Guess I still have the magic touch, then,” Brian says, rubbing his forehead. “So, what are your predictions on the next quarter?”
Brian manages to wrap up work before dinnertime, and grabs a tuna wrap at the diner on his way to Babylon. He has a few informal meetings with his head of security and head bartender, watches the dance floor for half an hour, then retreats to his office upstairs, where he pulls open the top drawer and gazes speculatively at the half-full bottle of Tylenol that rolls out.
No Ted tonight; technically his accountant didn’t have to be at Babylon at all, but the man comes in at least four nights a week. Brian suspects he does so to keep the boss company, and feels a little disgusted with himself because he doesn’t mind, has come to appreciate having someone to talk to.
These days he doesn’t know, exactly, what he’s doing. In the past he’d always had one goal- to be a big, fat, fucking success in his business. Now that the classification pretty much fits him like his tailored Armani suits, he doesn’t feel any less driven, any less on track. Except that he has no idea where the tracks lead to. Or, rather, he does have an idea, but has trouble comprehending how and when he’d set the destination. He doesn’t even know if he truly believes that he’ll get there, but then, he can’t honestly say that he’d never ever doubted he’d get to where he is now.
But there it is, boys and girls. At some point, he’d gotten it into his head that he will have a future with a certain blond twink he’d picked up under a streetlamp. (Two rings and a house in the country should have been a signal, but he’d been in a weird place, then, where his mind had collated a swinging bat in with an exploding pipe bomb, and there wasn’t time for thought, wasn’t time for anything at all.) During the first year of their separation he hadn’t thought about it, had become pretty creative in not allowing himself to think about it, but that kid, his kid, always had a way of blindsiding him, of slipping under the radar. Almost four years and he’s still around, and Brian has to smile because he’s pretty sure that the same thought had been running through his head four years ago.
So, yes, he’s still working, still partying, still being him, only now it’s not just to prove that he can be better than his parents, or as a fuck-you to all the fag-hating heteros out there, or for his own ambitions. No, somehow he’s doing it for a future he can’t quite bring himself to fully comprehend, with a person he still doesn’t believe will stay around.
He’s about to grab the rattling bottle of pills when his cell phone vibrates and plays out the teeny ringtone he’d assigned to Justin’s number.
He smiles and flips it open. "Isn’t it past your bedtime, dear?"
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