"Because down is the new up", a ficlet, yes yes
Because Down Is the New Up
by sakesushimaki
:: Karma Police ::
They somehow survived the day of the election.
There was a lot of food, a substantial amount of pot and nine bottles of beer. One stellar hand job and no TV-most importantly, no TV.
Brian threw a chop stick in Justin’s general direction, the other end of the rug.
“F-fucker,” Justin puffed through the smoke escaping his mouth and nose.
Brian rubbed a palm over his face; he did that a lot of late. He’d read that it took doing something 21 to 30 times for it to become a habit. He’d reached that number by noon.
They voted Bush into the White House, twice, so why should people suddenly be reasonable?
“Are there any cookies left?” Brian wondered.
“How the hell should I know?” came from the far-away end of the itchy rug. “You hogged them.”
“Lies.”
The tunes of Karma Police filled the silent space. The itch seemed to gain intensity, and Brian started moving. He ended up performing a full 180-degree turn, which required a lot more effort than expected. But his reward was a halfway comfortable position on his stomach, propped on his elbows. Also, the maneuver brought him at least half a meter closer to Justin.
Justin, though, seemed rather unimpressed with Brian’s triumph and only granted him a quick glance before stubbing out his joint.
Brian extended his arm to slip half his palm under the denim covering Justin’s leg. His fingers reached up to Justin’s calf, moving through soft hair.
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing.” Brian didn’t have a plan-in general.
He watched the rise and fall of Justin’s chest, pondering the air quality in the room. His eyes shifted to the opened jeans button, the one Justin loosened somewhere between the fifth serving of Phanaeng Curry and Hawaiian Pizza. Definitely before the cookies, because Brian may or may not have eaten those by himself.
A little of Justin’s pubic hair peaked out from where his pants were split open. Justin had come to appreciate the no-underwear policy that was custom at la casa de Kinney at times of lazing around. Brian wondered if Justin had to ponder the benefits of not wearing underwear 21 times before he stopped thinking about it.
Putting the analysis off for later, Brian yanked his hand out from inside the pant leg and gripped Justin’s ankle.
“Uh?”
Brian reached for the second ankle and pulled, Justin’s sliding body making an electro-static crackle against the rug.
“Nuuuhhh,” Justin protested weakly.
“Shut up.” Brian tugged him into the right position by the jeans’ waistband.
Justin mumbled something, but a clumsy hand petting the side of Brian’s face discredited what might’ve been a protest. From his position between Justin’s legs, Brian reached one arm under Justin, around his waist. Justin lay pliant under him, mellow after too much food and pot.
Bending down, Brian pressed his lips to just below the hem of the black shirt that had ridden up to Justin’s navel. One good thing about Justin’s liaison with fiddledweeb? He wore more black now. He laid off most of the pretentious attitude, but kept the shirts (aside from the turtlenecks). And he looked good in black. Very good.
Brian licked the skin surrounding Justin’s belly button, pulling him in, and started following roughly the trail of hair. He couldn’t help his current obsession with this particular area of Justin’s body; there weren’t too many blonde pleasure trails out there, as he found out.
Brian sunk his fingers into the jeans’ waistband and pulled them down. He began brushing his lips up and down the filling cock, mouthing the flesh, enjoying the smooth skin against his lips, tongue and nose. Justin’s fingers in his hair felt so fucking great, he felt pathetic and needy. You never know how much you miss certain kinds of contact until they’re gone. Or get considerably less frequent.
He’d been noticing the change in Justin; how could he not. He knew he hadn’t much time left, he felt it. So what he did was, he pulled Justin closer, breathed his scent in deeper, kissed and licked him slower.
At least, he would make it last.
::
Sometime later, it was dark out, Brian found himself fiddling around with the remote control-just because it was there. One thing lead to another and since the universe had cruel fun getting back at Brian, the TV flickered on just as they were pronouncing the turnouts.
“There’s no doubt that recent developments in Police Chief Stockwell’s campaign have played a significant part in his-”
The high-definition face of the sleazy anchor man was switched off, the remote tossed aside.
The recent developments had consisted of one turn in Jim’s attitude towards the ”fine folks of the GLBT community”, sprucing up his poster face and image, as well as a set of new TV spots. Turns out, the combo of Basketball-playing dad and responsible pro-citizen man reached the target group with a moth-to-light dynamic.
Stockwell won. It had just become reality.
A few weeks ago, Brian had still had a choice: it was doing the right thing versus money and success. And he went for the latter. He figured, at least with the money he could buy himself a new conscience. When two days before the election the polls were clearly in Stockwell’s favor, Brian went to receive his check. With a couple of handshakes and slaps to the shoulder, he was thanked for his great work and left the building as quickly as possible. He avoided mirrors and other reflecting surfaces for the rest of the day and cancelled Woody’s due to a fake headache.
The stereo had long ago played through the album and was blinking its stand-by.
“How long till the next elections?” The rhetorical question cut through the silence. Yeah, the next four years were going to be a bitch.
Brian spent the next half hour watching Justin surrender completely to his mood. The aloofness, the little eye contact, the hint of frustration in everything-it all seemed to accumulate. Brian knew what that was about.
Justin left in another twenty minutes, mumbling something that didn’t even attempt to sound like a real reason for his leaving.
Brian knew what that was about, too.
:: House of Cards ::
Justin wasn’t going to let him ruin his education, his chance on a career. He refused to one day look back and think “Had I just…” and “What if…”. He had a couple too many “What if” issues to deal with already. Unfortunately, his refusal to have his education ended also implied having to apologize to him, fucking Stockwell, officially.
The walls were ugly. Cold, and a tasteless mix of grays and browns, swirled together in what can only be an attempt at one of those sponge techniques everyone and their grandmother’s dog have become so fond of. You’d think they would opt for neutral and simple for official buildings, not for dabbed bad taste.
He focused on the plain gray floor and concentrated on not physically abusing the trash can. Justin had been angry a lot lately. It were Justin’s very own stages of fury. Most of the time, though, he felt consumed by a deep frustration that morphed into steady anger. It was the kind of anger he felt now, sitting here, waiting to be let into Stockwell’s office, to ask pardon from a man he hated, for something that had been the right thing. It was the kind of anger that made it unbearable to be in the same room with Brian sometimes, that made him walk out of the loft two weeks now ago and not go back since.
Brian was, after all, the guy who helped. And even though Brian regretted it now, Justin was unable to get over that very fact. He wanted to, god knows he tried.
“Mr. Taylor?” The secretary peeked around the corner. “Mayor Stockwell will see you now.”
Justin stood and hoped he could fight the nausea.
::
Two hours later, Justin stood leaning against the diner counter, biting his fingernails. The coffee in the pots next to him had gone cold as the customers stayed out.
Conventional education was overrated anyway. He wouldn’t be the first artist without degree to become famous and give the meritocratic society the finger while taking the world in stride. Besides, academic failure would give an awesome edge to his bio.
Stockwell turned out to be more of an asshole than he’d expected. Apparently, he found it appropriate to inform Justin of his “revitalization plans” for Liberty Avenue: senior centers, kindergardens, pre-schools.
“Don’t worry, there’ll still be some places for your people.” Your people. Five minutes in, and Justin’s lower lip was already bitten raw. “In fact, I’m in talks with two former establishment owners from the Liberty area, who are inclined to reopen their businesses just outside the city.”
For someone who’s never been outside of Pennsylvania, Stockwell sure knew a lot about the mechanisms of Apartheid. How could this conversation even be real? Justin had thought it to be strange, to say the least, that he got the appointment; simply by calling in even. But then he didn’t have an idea how much Stockwell would be enjoying this.
It took three more “your people’s” and three speech start-offs with “I accept your choice of lifestyle,…” before Justin finally tasted blood. He left without the required apology.
The door bell jingled and Justin watched Brian walk into the diner with a nod. He hadn’t been here in a long time, Justin knew that. He avoided Liberty Avenue. Not that there was much to do here anymore, but still. It’s true what they say about common enemies-they do unite people in their hate for them.
The enemy, namely, Brian, looked… strange. It wasn’t that he didn’t look good; it was something about his aura that was all wrong. Justin would shake the thought off later, but he could swear Brian was just a bit see-through.
Justin drained the cold coffee and started a new, caffeinated pot. He pressed his luck and counted on the second customer not to notice the difference in his refill. He plopped down across from Brian. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
“Someone’s gotta do something.”
A sneer. “Like who?”
“Like us.”
“What?” Brian frowned into his coffee as Justin stared him down.
“You and me.”
“You already did something. And I’m not in the mood to participate in one of your Vendetta poster projects. Not that it would ever get us anywhere.”
“Let’s go to Deekins’ people. Who were his influential supporters? Let’s talk to them.”
“Justin, it’s o-”
“Well, we can’t let it be over.” Justin didn’t need to look to know Brian’s fingers were playing with the fork. “You brought him to the top, we tear him down.”
And that was that.
:: All I Need ::
It all happened quickly. Brian was still in a state of shock. Their spot went on the air and people became curious. Investigation decided to reevaluate the case, first, due to public pressure and later, orders from higher authority than the mayor’s.
Oddly enough, the designated replacement for Stockwell seemed to be implicated in the whole Rickert affair as well, and so it was up to the city council to elect Pittsburgh’s new mayor. A mayoress, in fact, as Debbie would say later.
In the end, it was Brian and Justin again. The lines had started to blur sometime during their revolt and it felt right. It felt as right as seeing Jim taken away in hand cuffs; amazing. Justin was brilliant, ambitious, passionate, and all the other adjectives Brian wished he were. Well, it’s not like he wasn’t brilliant and ambitious himself, but it was hard to keep up with someone who did right things, fought for them, by default.
Justin broached the subject one afternoon, and it didn’t come as a surprise. Brian knew the leaving part was still eating him, but he wasn’t going to watch Justin struggle formulating an explanation, or worse, an apology, so he cut him off. “I understand.” He did. And he actually felt inclined to add the rest, the whole truth. “For what it’s worth: I would’ve walked away from me too, if I could.”
The council’s decision was announced in the same time slot as Stockwell’s victory not five weeks prior, and Brian found himself watching it from the same position on the itchy rug. Things were different this time, though. There was no pot, no junk food-except for that bag of Cheetos Justin had smuggled in-and no sloppy hand job. There was scale-tipping fucking, the right kind of deliriousness, and there was Justin.
And this time, he stayed.
::
When a couple of hours later Justin was asked to get down the third strainer from Debbie’s closet upstairs-“You know where it is, honey”-Brian followed for some reason. He commented on Justin’s closet-climbing technique and decided not to wonder why Debbie stored kitchen utensils in her bedroom.
Somehow Justin managed to miss his last improv foothold, topple over, and knock Brian down as well. They ignored Debbie’s comment from downstairs and found the situation to be the funniest thing ever. They lay on the floor, laughing and nudging each other to stop.
Justin got up first, groaning, and plucked some carpet pills from his hair. He went to the door and switched off the light, turning back to Brian. Waving the strainer, he asked, “You comin’?”
Brian was studying him standing in the illuminated hallway when he heard Vic and Rodney laugh in the kitchen. Vic had told him that Brian had lost his way there for a while, and now, Brian had to agree.
He tugged his shirt back into place and got up.
Brian figured he could stick to Justin for directions.