Halloween fic: "If I Were Brian Kinney, I'd ..."
Hi everyone - Apologies to everyone who commented on the drabble - hope to get to respond to those in the next day or so.
Meanwhile, as promised, my 2012 Halloween fic. This is the 10th year that I've written a BJ Halloween fic - a fact that I find both surprising and a little scary.
To celebrate, however, this fic is a little more about the fun and silly side of Halloween, than about the truly scary - well, except for poor Justin maybe. But payback's a bitch, and I bet he'll have fun plotting and planning his revenge. *g*
As always, it's for Adults Only and by clicking on any of the links provided, you are asserting that you fall into that category.
My previous Halloween stories are here: BJ Halloween Tales Index
So ... here is this year's effort ...
"If I Were Brian Kinney, I'd ..."
It happened that year that Halloween was on a Sunday.
For most of the ‘boys’ it had started very early because Brian, never slow to recognize an opportunity, had declared that Babylon would have a double-trouble Halloween - both Saturday and Sunday being turned into horror-themed party nights to celebrate (and cash in on) the High Homo Holiday. This being the case, Deb had decreed that Sunday evening pre-Babylon would be dinner at her house. Everyone could come in costume and then head out to party later.
Predictably, Brian scoffed at the whole idea.
He was tempted for a moment when he realized Linds and Mel planned on going and taking the kids, but having been inveigled in a weak moment into a promise that he and Justin would take Gus trick or treating (JR was still a little too young) he’d spent nearly an hour walking the munchers’ neighborhood and putting up with wall to wall shrieking rug rats. By the time they got back from that, both the Gus and Brian were cranky and over-tired. Mel and Linds planned to bundle the kids into their PJs and take their sleeping bags to Debbie’s; that way they could be tucked into bed just about on time. Brian had considered agreeing to meet them there so he could spend more time with his Sonnyboy, but watching how Gus’s eyelids were drooping, he realized that Gus would be asleep before too long. So he let everyone know that he had done his fatherly duty and was family-ed out, and despite Mel’s predictably snarky comments, he and Justin helped the girls get everything packed into their car, waved them off and then made their escape back to the loft.
Justin, mindful of how well Brian had restrained himself from even the mildest snarky comment the whole time they had tramped the streets (okay, the munchers’ street - about two blocks of it) with Gus, thought that his partner deserved a reward and some relaxation before they decided whether they were going to brave the maddened hordes at Babylon again or not.
Well, he’d just about restrained himself. There had been that incident just as they were leaving the munchers’ after waving the girls goodbye when this kid in the creepiest goblin costume Justin had ever seen had popped up just out of nowhere and Brian had pretty much tripped over him. He’d done a bit of cursing then, especially when he’d found the scuff mark on his Gucci loafers. The kid hadn’t said anything; he’d just given Brian the evil eye and then kind of scuttled away, laughing weirdly. For some reason, the encounter was something Justin would prefer to forget had ever happened; it had been strangely unsettling.
But before that Brian’s behavior had been above reproach, although Justin could tell how hard he was biting his tongue at times. He definitely deserved a calculated dose of positive reinforcement, and Justin was only too happy to supply it - just the thought had him salivating, and a suspicious bulge tenting his jeans. His only stipulation was that they had to stop at the supermarket on the way home to stock up on ice-cream; Justin had plans that definitely involved soft creamy substances, and the ice-cream would play into those nicely. Plus, as usual, there was practically no other food in the house, and since they weren’t going to Deb’s, Justin knew if he wanted food he was going to have to organize it for himself - left to Brian they would starve on Brian’s idea of a high protein diet.
Brian wasn’t happy about the prospect of trawling the supermarket on Saturday night, but Justin bribed him with promises of ice-cream kisses and a decidedly adult twist on bobbing for apples so he surrendered himself to the inevitable, comforted in the knowledge that the place would be quiet, because most people would be up to their reddened eyeballs in Halloween bullshit - including all the screaming rug rats, posturing teenage boys, shrieking teenage girls and seemingly sex-starved women who made supermarket visits into Brian’s idea of Hell.
He was right about that, the market was just about deserted; which somehow made his own subsequent behavior even more noticeable, and therefore somehow scarier. Justin couldn’t even blame it on some sort of psychological allergy to the crowds.
***
Meanwhile at Deb’s place, as they settled down to eat enormous plates of ziti washed down with equally large glasses of red wine, the party games were just about to commence. Trouble was, they couldn’t agree on a game to play; at least until Emmett had his bright idea.
Deb and Mikey, of course, had been bitching about how ‘fucking Brian’ couldn’t even be bothered to join them.
Then Michael said something about “if I were Brian, I’d …” and his words fell into an immense ringing silence; like the aftermath of a loud peal of thunderous bells.
For just a fraction of a moment, everyone experienced a sense of eerie expectation and the hairs on the backs of their necks stirred uneasily.
Then the silence was broken by Emmett’s excited squeals.
“I’ve thought of a game!” he gushed. “It’ll be fun. We all have to start a sentence with “If I were Brian Kinney, I’d …” and then go on to say what how we think Brian should change his lifestyle.”
Everyone looked a little dubious, but Emmett was on a roll. “Go on, Teddy,” he urged. “You start. I mean, you’ve almost done the ‘if I were Brian’ thing anyway.”
There was silence while people tried to make sense of this, and Emmett went on, “You know, when he let you use …”
Ted, embarrassed just by the thought of that memory, certainly didn’t want it being discussed, so he said quickly, “If I were Brian Kinney, I’d …”
He hesitated for a moment and then his eye fell on the expensive bottles of wine Brian had had delivered to get himself off the hook a little with Deb for not showing up.
Somehow the thought of pinot noir that had cost over a hundred bucks per bottle being swilled down by this lot who had neither palate nor appreciation for a decent wine and would have been just as happy with a cask of generic house red, sent shivers of horror into his accountant’s heart. “If I were Brian Kinney,” he said firmly, “I’d stop spending a fortune on everything under the sun just for the sake of the labels and just buy the no-name brands when no one is going to notice any damned difference.”
His hearers sat for a moment in stunned silence and then started to laugh. Just the thought of Brian pushing a trolley laden with no-name brands and special offers seemed simply hilarious. The more they tried to stop laughing, the funnier it seemed.
“My turn! My turn!” Emmett insisted, inspired by the reaction to Ted’s efforts. He took a deep breath before saying in his best diva voice, “If I were Brian Kinney I would buy something fabulously colorful to wear for a change.”
Again, there was silence for a moment. Emmett was a little disappointed.
“Well, he nearly always wears black,” he pointed out. “Or white. Boring stuff. And with his coloring he could carry off some really bright colors - cerise maybe, or chartreuse, or even watermelon.”
That was when the laughter started. Brian Kinney wearing a color called “chartreuse”. Or “cerise”. Let alone “watermelon”. It was even funnier than the whole no-name brand thing.
*****
The first part of their visit to the supermarket went smoothly - well, as smoothly as it was ever going to go with Brian bitching about the whole experience as usual. But after about ten minutes, the bitching stopped. Or at least, it took a different turn.
“What the fuck are you buying that for?” Brian suddenly exclaimed, as Justin put a tub of Brian’s favorite high-end, made-with-real-vanilla-you-can-see-the-little-black-dots ice-cream in the trolley. As Justin watched bemused, he snatched it out, saying, “It’s about four times as much as the generic brand, and if you’re just going to lick it off my balls it doesn’t fucking matter what it tastes like.”
Justin rather felt that it did matter; but that wasn’t the point. Who the fuck was this guy and what had he done with Brian?
But he didn’t want to make a scene in the middle of the supermarket, so he shut his mouth (which he noticed was gaping open rather unattractively) and followed Brian down the aisle as he proceeded to remove from the trolley all the top end premium products that were all he’d normally allow to sully the empty purity of his cupboards and replace them with the cheapest substitutes he could find - generic brands, two-for-one offers and the like.
It was a joke, of course. It had to be Brian fucking with his head, and Justin was determined not to give him the satisfaction of queening out over it.
But that resolution was tested severely, when Brian’s eye seemed to be caught by the clothing racks in the middle of the store, and he hurried over to them. When Justin caught up with him he was studying a rack of brightly colored shirts, holding them up against himself and apparently complaining because they didn’t have his size. Then he saw the jackets.
Before Justin’s horrified gaze his partner completely lost his mind, slewing off his precious Hugo Boss leather coat and tossing it carelessly in the trolley to replace it with a pinkish-red faux linen jacket that even Emmett would have thought twice about wearing.
“Brian, what the fuck are you doing?” Justin said, grabbing his arm. “Stop fucking about and put it back. If you get anything on it they’ll make you pay for it.”
“Of course I’m going to pay for it,” Brian returned waspishly. “I just want to wear it now. I’m sick of fucking black and white and boring shit. I want to wear something bright for once. Sue me.”
Justin ran his hands through his hair, combing the blond locks back from his suddenly feverish brow as he tried to work out how to handle this. Either Brian was seriously fucking with him just because he was pissed about Justin insisting on this supermarket stop, or there was something really wrong with him. The problem was … this was Brian he was dealing with. If there was something wrong, Brian would never admit it. So the best thing to do was probably do his best to ignore whatever other shit Brian came up with, and just try to get him back to the loft. Once they were there, Justin could distract him with sex and get to the bottom, as it were, of whatever it was that was going on in his partner’s fiendishly complicated, and at the moment apparently slightly demented, mind.
*****
Mel, of course, was pissed that Brian was the center of fucking attention even when he wasn’t there. She hadn’t wanted Brian to be the one to take Gus trick or treating but Lindsay had suggested it and Gus had been so excited that Mel had felt rail-roaded into agreeing. So Brian had had all the fun of the holiday and she had been left dealing with a tired and cranky little boy who had had too much sugar and too much excitement. Fucking typical! And Brian couldn’t even be bothered to come to dinner, so Gus had been weepy as well because he wanted his Daddy and his fucking Dus.
“If I were Brian Kinney,” she snapped, “I’d have a little bit more consideration for Gus’s mothers.”
“And if I were Brian,” her wife said, trying yet again to make it gently clear to Melanie that Brian was always going to be part of Gus’s life and she should really just accept that and stop being so territorial about their son, “I’d try to spend more time with my son; and not just on special occasions.”
*****
Okay, so now Justin knew there was actually something wrong. Brian was buying fucking flowers. From the supermarket. For Melanie, apparently.
And insisting that they should put all the other shit back, because they were going over to Deb’s so that he could give Mel the flowers and say a proper goodnight to his Sonnyboy.
*****
Deb’s voice and Ben’s cut across each other as they both leapt in to try to diffuse some of the tension between Linds and her not at all happy partner.
“If I were Brian, I’d take up yoga, or perhaps meditation,” Ben said. “He really needs to learn to relax both his body and his mind.”
There were snorts from various people who knew what Brian’s ideas of relaxation were. Ted trying to imagine Brian doing yoga, remembered a book he’d once seen on tantric sex and nearly choked on a bite of cheesecake. Emmett figured that the closest Brian would come to meditating was pondering on what position he was going to fuck Justin in next.
“Well,” said Deb decidedly, repeating what she’d tried to say before Ben had spoken, “if I were fucking Brian I’d eat a little more real food. He’s always been too fucking skinny.”
An image of a “plumped up” Brian floated through Emmett’s mind and he grinned. Ted, catching the grin, and knowing what probably caused it, started to laugh. Suddenly they were all laughing as they imagined a sort of Michelin-man balloon Brian sitting down to dinner with them and devouring huge plates of food.
*****
Justin supposed it was lucky that Brian’s brilliant idea that it would be wonderful to try some form of meditation right there and then had been so short-lived. He’d found a quiet corner and sat down, trying to contort his legs into what was apparently the ‘lotus’ position, then he’d remembered reading somewhere that standing on your head was a good way to meditate, and had tried flipping himself into that position. Just as Justin decided that he really did need to intervene before his lunatic partner did himself a serious mischief, a thought struck him.
He knew Brian. He knew that no matter what was going on in the man’s head, tomorrow he would likely deny that any of this had happened.
Quickly Justin slipped his cell phone out of his pocket and snapped a photo. He took a quick look at it. It showed his partner, wearing a bright red-pink jacket trying to stand on his head, while in the background there was a trolley full of generic brand crap and a bunch of slightly wilted flowers.
Brian might be able to deny responsibility for the trolley and its contents, but with photographic evidence he could hardly argue that about the headstand and that dreadful jacket.
Huh!
Just as he was putting the phone back in his pocket, Brian suddenly jumped up.
“I’m fucking starving!” he announced, and to Justin’s absolute bewilderment, headed off to start loading the trolley with stuff that Brian, his Brian, wouldn’t consider eating if it was the only food left in Pittsburgh. Packets of hot dogs joined frozen pizza, closely followed by boil in the bag pasta and a huge leg of pork; potatoes, corn and cauliflower with pre-made cheese sauce seemed to complete the ‘meal’ and Brian was haring off to the check out.
Justin made to follow thinking that at least they would be able to get out of there and back to the loft where he could try to work out what the fuck was going on, when Brian turned on him suddenly.
“What the fuck are you following me around for? Haven’t you got a fucking home of your own to go to? I don’t need some blond stalker trailing after me. I have to get the fuck out of here and go meet my hot young stud of a lover.”
*****
While they were all still chuckling over the whole idea of bloated Brian, Hunter saw his chance and took it. “If I were Brian Kinney,” he announced with relish, “I’d dump that dumb blond kid and come looking for someone who could really give me what I need.”
Debbie, who was closest, clipped him round the ear.
Lindsay and Mel regrettably encouraged him by giggling. Em patted his hand, “Sorry, honey,” he said, “I think that boat has sailed off into the sunset a long time ago now.”
Ben gave him a serious look, indicating measured and calm parental disapproval, and Michael sighed.
“If I were Brian Kinney,” he said, “I’d think it was fucking time to grow up and settle down a bit. If he wants Justin, then he should just … let that happen, you know?”
The people sitting around the table, who, at heart, in one way or another, really were Brian’s friends, sighed and nodded.
“Yep”, “Yeah”, “Yes”, they said. “It would be good,” they summed up one after another, “if he could just let himself be happy.”
But by then it was getting late, and it was time to collect the kids and go home, or to spend some time primping and getting into costume ready for a night celebrating Halloween as only gay men can, at Babylon.
*****
Okay!
Enough was enough.
Justin was angry now, not just worried.
He opened his mouth to rip his partner a new one, when Brian suddenly stopped in the middle of the store.
“Whatever,” he said, sounding a little … lost. “Let’s just … go home.”
Justin stared at him.
Brian turned to look at him and suddenly his face softened into a rare, genuine smile.
He drew Justin against him.
“I want to celebrate Halloween by scaring myself silly with stories about love and marriage and fucking white picket fences,” he said softly, almost tenderly.
Justin stared into those amazing hazel eyes and wondered what this incredibly aggravating, absolutely fascinating and completely crazy partner of his was trying to tell him this time.
“I can face it all,” Brian went on. “All that really scary stuff …”
He paused and rested his forehead for a moment against Justin’s. “As long as I have you to protect me,” he finished quietly.
Justin heard what he was being told then, loud and clear, and gave him a quick hug before turning away, threatened by yet another allergy attack.
“Let’s just get rid of all this stuff and go,” he said.
Brian nodded. “Okay.”
Justin was about to head off to replace everything on the shelves, but Brian laughed. “Just fucking dump it. Let them deal with it. They’ve got nothing else to do. The place is like a morgue.”
Justin was going to argue, but thought better of it. He snatched Brian’s precious Hugo Boss coat from the trolley and headed after his partner to remind him that he still had to pay for the jacket he was wearing. But Brian, with an absent-minded shrug, was already shucking it off, and seemed happy to reclaim his black leather.
So after a quick Ben and Jerry’s detour, during which Justin insisted Brian wait for him in the car, they went home and celebrated Halloween with grunts and screams and the occasional howl of pleasure. They even found time for a somewhat cryptic, but still meaningful, talk in which homes and futures and love and all sorts of other really scary things were mentioned and even, in a non-defined, unconventional way, committed to.
Justin thought it was probably the best night of his life, and maybe Brian did too. He didn’t do a lot of kicking and screaming, anyway.
*****
A grumpy goblin fumed a bit as Halloween drew to its end and he prepared to depart back to where he’d come from; a happy ending wasn’t what he’d had in mind. But then he figured … well, the blond one had the photo, and maybe there’d be a slip up and other people would get to see it. In any case, he’d had a pretty good laugh out of the whole thing. Plus, there was always next year.
*****
Next day, Justin and Emmett caught up for coffee.
Emmett thought he should warn little Sunshine about the shenanigans the night before in case someone made some sort of crack about it later. He suspected that, while Brian might find it vaguely flattering, he might also be extremely pissed that they’d dared to take his name in vain.
“So I just had this idea for a party game,” he said. “We all had to say what we’d do if we were Brian. It was just us being silly, you know, honey. But some of it was really funny. I mean, Ted started it when he said …”
*****
Justin spent a long time trying to work it all out. It was really kind of creepy. And it couldn’t just be fucking coincidence.
Then, on impulse, he took another look at the photo on his phone.
A close look.
And right in the corner, peeping out from behind some shelves, there was a creepy little green face that he’d seen before - outside the Munchers’ gate.
He gave a shudder and deleted the photo.
He really didn’t want any reminders of what had happened.
He couldn’t quite believe that Brian had had some kind of trick played on him by a pissed off real life goblin, but he figured it was better to be sure than sorry and to get rid of any link to the creature.
He didn’t even know if that would do any good or if the goblin would turn up again next year to torment them.
But one thing he did know …
There were a few people he knew who had some serious pay-back coming. Brian seemed to have forgotten the whole supermarket episode, although something between them had shifted and Brian seemed more … relaxed, more openly affectionate, more confident in their relationship somehow. And he’d made it clear this morning that he hadn’t forgotten what they’d talked about last night, and that he had no intention of going back on it either (which had been Justin’s biggest fear, waking up beside him, because he wasn’t sure he could have dealt with Brian doing either of those very Brian things). So things with Brian were good; better than good.
But Justin didn’t think he would ever forget how it had felt to watch his partner apparently unraveling right before his eyes. Not to mention those hurtful words that had seemed to propel them both back to the very first months of their relationship. Although even back in those days, Brian had never flat out said that he didn’t want to be with Justin because he had someone better waiting for him; ‘someone different’ was all he’d said back then. So to hear him say it now had hurt, no matter that the hurt had been quickly soothed over. At that moment it had been really painful.
So, Hell yes … payback was definitely in order, but there was no hurry.
He’d just watch and wait for his opportunity to make a few people suffer a little.
Their friends were always under-estimating him. They thought Brian was the tough one.
But annoyed goblins had nothing on a seriously pissed off ex-twink whose partner had been jerked around like a puppet because their bonehead friends couldn’t think of any other way to amuse themselves. Justin could picture them all sitting around trying to make a joke out of the man they all envied a little because they secretly knew that none of them would ever come close to being as brilliant and brave and totally fucking hot as Brian.
So maybe Emmett would find a “moth hole” in a favorite sweater. A tiny one; not anywhere noticeable, just enough to make it a little less perfect. And Ted … there might be a spreadsheet where the formulas suddenly didn’t seem to work any more. Nothing that couldn’t be fixed, just something that would be truly annoying to have to rework.
As for the others … Justin was sure he could come up with something. After all, he was the clever devil of the family and it was his job to protect Brian; Brian had told him so, just last night.
He planned on taking his role as protector very seriously.
Next Halloween that fucking goblin had better watch out for himself.
Happy Halloween, everybody!
.
Meanwhile, as promised, my 2012 Halloween fic. This is the 10th year that I've written a BJ Halloween fic - a fact that I find both surprising and a little scary.
To celebrate, however, this fic is a little more about the fun and silly side of Halloween, than about the truly scary - well, except for poor Justin maybe. But payback's a bitch, and I bet he'll have fun plotting and planning his revenge. *g*
As always, it's for Adults Only and by clicking on any of the links provided, you are asserting that you fall into that category.
My previous Halloween stories are here: BJ Halloween Tales Index
So ... here is this year's effort ...
"If I Were Brian Kinney, I'd ..."
It happened that year that Halloween was on a Sunday.
For most of the ‘boys’ it had started very early because Brian, never slow to recognize an opportunity, had declared that Babylon would have a double-trouble Halloween - both Saturday and Sunday being turned into horror-themed party nights to celebrate (and cash in on) the High Homo Holiday. This being the case, Deb had decreed that Sunday evening pre-Babylon would be dinner at her house. Everyone could come in costume and then head out to party later.
Predictably, Brian scoffed at the whole idea.
He was tempted for a moment when he realized Linds and Mel planned on going and taking the kids, but having been inveigled in a weak moment into a promise that he and Justin would take Gus trick or treating (JR was still a little too young) he’d spent nearly an hour walking the munchers’ neighborhood and putting up with wall to wall shrieking rug rats. By the time they got back from that, both the Gus and Brian were cranky and over-tired. Mel and Linds planned to bundle the kids into their PJs and take their sleeping bags to Debbie’s; that way they could be tucked into bed just about on time. Brian had considered agreeing to meet them there so he could spend more time with his Sonnyboy, but watching how Gus’s eyelids were drooping, he realized that Gus would be asleep before too long. So he let everyone know that he had done his fatherly duty and was family-ed out, and despite Mel’s predictably snarky comments, he and Justin helped the girls get everything packed into their car, waved them off and then made their escape back to the loft.
Justin, mindful of how well Brian had restrained himself from even the mildest snarky comment the whole time they had tramped the streets (okay, the munchers’ street - about two blocks of it) with Gus, thought that his partner deserved a reward and some relaxation before they decided whether they were going to brave the maddened hordes at Babylon again or not.
Well, he’d just about restrained himself. There had been that incident just as they were leaving the munchers’ after waving the girls goodbye when this kid in the creepiest goblin costume Justin had ever seen had popped up just out of nowhere and Brian had pretty much tripped over him. He’d done a bit of cursing then, especially when he’d found the scuff mark on his Gucci loafers. The kid hadn’t said anything; he’d just given Brian the evil eye and then kind of scuttled away, laughing weirdly. For some reason, the encounter was something Justin would prefer to forget had ever happened; it had been strangely unsettling.
But before that Brian’s behavior had been above reproach, although Justin could tell how hard he was biting his tongue at times. He definitely deserved a calculated dose of positive reinforcement, and Justin was only too happy to supply it - just the thought had him salivating, and a suspicious bulge tenting his jeans. His only stipulation was that they had to stop at the supermarket on the way home to stock up on ice-cream; Justin had plans that definitely involved soft creamy substances, and the ice-cream would play into those nicely. Plus, as usual, there was practically no other food in the house, and since they weren’t going to Deb’s, Justin knew if he wanted food he was going to have to organize it for himself - left to Brian they would starve on Brian’s idea of a high protein diet.
Brian wasn’t happy about the prospect of trawling the supermarket on Saturday night, but Justin bribed him with promises of ice-cream kisses and a decidedly adult twist on bobbing for apples so he surrendered himself to the inevitable, comforted in the knowledge that the place would be quiet, because most people would be up to their reddened eyeballs in Halloween bullshit - including all the screaming rug rats, posturing teenage boys, shrieking teenage girls and seemingly sex-starved women who made supermarket visits into Brian’s idea of Hell.
He was right about that, the market was just about deserted; which somehow made his own subsequent behavior even more noticeable, and therefore somehow scarier. Justin couldn’t even blame it on some sort of psychological allergy to the crowds.
***
Meanwhile at Deb’s place, as they settled down to eat enormous plates of ziti washed down with equally large glasses of red wine, the party games were just about to commence. Trouble was, they couldn’t agree on a game to play; at least until Emmett had his bright idea.
Deb and Mikey, of course, had been bitching about how ‘fucking Brian’ couldn’t even be bothered to join them.
Then Michael said something about “if I were Brian, I’d …” and his words fell into an immense ringing silence; like the aftermath of a loud peal of thunderous bells.
For just a fraction of a moment, everyone experienced a sense of eerie expectation and the hairs on the backs of their necks stirred uneasily.
Then the silence was broken by Emmett’s excited squeals.
“I’ve thought of a game!” he gushed. “It’ll be fun. We all have to start a sentence with “If I were Brian Kinney, I’d …” and then go on to say what how we think Brian should change his lifestyle.”
Everyone looked a little dubious, but Emmett was on a roll. “Go on, Teddy,” he urged. “You start. I mean, you’ve almost done the ‘if I were Brian’ thing anyway.”
There was silence while people tried to make sense of this, and Emmett went on, “You know, when he let you use …”
Ted, embarrassed just by the thought of that memory, certainly didn’t want it being discussed, so he said quickly, “If I were Brian Kinney, I’d …”
He hesitated for a moment and then his eye fell on the expensive bottles of wine Brian had had delivered to get himself off the hook a little with Deb for not showing up.
Somehow the thought of pinot noir that had cost over a hundred bucks per bottle being swilled down by this lot who had neither palate nor appreciation for a decent wine and would have been just as happy with a cask of generic house red, sent shivers of horror into his accountant’s heart. “If I were Brian Kinney,” he said firmly, “I’d stop spending a fortune on everything under the sun just for the sake of the labels and just buy the no-name brands when no one is going to notice any damned difference.”
His hearers sat for a moment in stunned silence and then started to laugh. Just the thought of Brian pushing a trolley laden with no-name brands and special offers seemed simply hilarious. The more they tried to stop laughing, the funnier it seemed.
“My turn! My turn!” Emmett insisted, inspired by the reaction to Ted’s efforts. He took a deep breath before saying in his best diva voice, “If I were Brian Kinney I would buy something fabulously colorful to wear for a change.”
Again, there was silence for a moment. Emmett was a little disappointed.
“Well, he nearly always wears black,” he pointed out. “Or white. Boring stuff. And with his coloring he could carry off some really bright colors - cerise maybe, or chartreuse, or even watermelon.”
That was when the laughter started. Brian Kinney wearing a color called “chartreuse”. Or “cerise”. Let alone “watermelon”. It was even funnier than the whole no-name brand thing.
*****
The first part of their visit to the supermarket went smoothly - well, as smoothly as it was ever going to go with Brian bitching about the whole experience as usual. But after about ten minutes, the bitching stopped. Or at least, it took a different turn.
“What the fuck are you buying that for?” Brian suddenly exclaimed, as Justin put a tub of Brian’s favorite high-end, made-with-real-vanilla-you-can-see-the-little-black-dots ice-cream in the trolley. As Justin watched bemused, he snatched it out, saying, “It’s about four times as much as the generic brand, and if you’re just going to lick it off my balls it doesn’t fucking matter what it tastes like.”
Justin rather felt that it did matter; but that wasn’t the point. Who the fuck was this guy and what had he done with Brian?
But he didn’t want to make a scene in the middle of the supermarket, so he shut his mouth (which he noticed was gaping open rather unattractively) and followed Brian down the aisle as he proceeded to remove from the trolley all the top end premium products that were all he’d normally allow to sully the empty purity of his cupboards and replace them with the cheapest substitutes he could find - generic brands, two-for-one offers and the like.
It was a joke, of course. It had to be Brian fucking with his head, and Justin was determined not to give him the satisfaction of queening out over it.
But that resolution was tested severely, when Brian’s eye seemed to be caught by the clothing racks in the middle of the store, and he hurried over to them. When Justin caught up with him he was studying a rack of brightly colored shirts, holding them up against himself and apparently complaining because they didn’t have his size. Then he saw the jackets.
Before Justin’s horrified gaze his partner completely lost his mind, slewing off his precious Hugo Boss leather coat and tossing it carelessly in the trolley to replace it with a pinkish-red faux linen jacket that even Emmett would have thought twice about wearing.
“Brian, what the fuck are you doing?” Justin said, grabbing his arm. “Stop fucking about and put it back. If you get anything on it they’ll make you pay for it.”
“Of course I’m going to pay for it,” Brian returned waspishly. “I just want to wear it now. I’m sick of fucking black and white and boring shit. I want to wear something bright for once. Sue me.”
Justin ran his hands through his hair, combing the blond locks back from his suddenly feverish brow as he tried to work out how to handle this. Either Brian was seriously fucking with him just because he was pissed about Justin insisting on this supermarket stop, or there was something really wrong with him. The problem was … this was Brian he was dealing with. If there was something wrong, Brian would never admit it. So the best thing to do was probably do his best to ignore whatever other shit Brian came up with, and just try to get him back to the loft. Once they were there, Justin could distract him with sex and get to the bottom, as it were, of whatever it was that was going on in his partner’s fiendishly complicated, and at the moment apparently slightly demented, mind.
*****
Mel, of course, was pissed that Brian was the center of fucking attention even when he wasn’t there. She hadn’t wanted Brian to be the one to take Gus trick or treating but Lindsay had suggested it and Gus had been so excited that Mel had felt rail-roaded into agreeing. So Brian had had all the fun of the holiday and she had been left dealing with a tired and cranky little boy who had had too much sugar and too much excitement. Fucking typical! And Brian couldn’t even be bothered to come to dinner, so Gus had been weepy as well because he wanted his Daddy and his fucking Dus.
“If I were Brian Kinney,” she snapped, “I’d have a little bit more consideration for Gus’s mothers.”
“And if I were Brian,” her wife said, trying yet again to make it gently clear to Melanie that Brian was always going to be part of Gus’s life and she should really just accept that and stop being so territorial about their son, “I’d try to spend more time with my son; and not just on special occasions.”
*****
Okay, so now Justin knew there was actually something wrong. Brian was buying fucking flowers. From the supermarket. For Melanie, apparently.
And insisting that they should put all the other shit back, because they were going over to Deb’s so that he could give Mel the flowers and say a proper goodnight to his Sonnyboy.
*****
Deb’s voice and Ben’s cut across each other as they both leapt in to try to diffuse some of the tension between Linds and her not at all happy partner.
“If I were Brian, I’d take up yoga, or perhaps meditation,” Ben said. “He really needs to learn to relax both his body and his mind.”
There were snorts from various people who knew what Brian’s ideas of relaxation were. Ted trying to imagine Brian doing yoga, remembered a book he’d once seen on tantric sex and nearly choked on a bite of cheesecake. Emmett figured that the closest Brian would come to meditating was pondering on what position he was going to fuck Justin in next.
“Well,” said Deb decidedly, repeating what she’d tried to say before Ben had spoken, “if I were fucking Brian I’d eat a little more real food. He’s always been too fucking skinny.”
An image of a “plumped up” Brian floated through Emmett’s mind and he grinned. Ted, catching the grin, and knowing what probably caused it, started to laugh. Suddenly they were all laughing as they imagined a sort of Michelin-man balloon Brian sitting down to dinner with them and devouring huge plates of food.
*****
Justin supposed it was lucky that Brian’s brilliant idea that it would be wonderful to try some form of meditation right there and then had been so short-lived. He’d found a quiet corner and sat down, trying to contort his legs into what was apparently the ‘lotus’ position, then he’d remembered reading somewhere that standing on your head was a good way to meditate, and had tried flipping himself into that position. Just as Justin decided that he really did need to intervene before his lunatic partner did himself a serious mischief, a thought struck him.
He knew Brian. He knew that no matter what was going on in the man’s head, tomorrow he would likely deny that any of this had happened.
Quickly Justin slipped his cell phone out of his pocket and snapped a photo. He took a quick look at it. It showed his partner, wearing a bright red-pink jacket trying to stand on his head, while in the background there was a trolley full of generic brand crap and a bunch of slightly wilted flowers.
Brian might be able to deny responsibility for the trolley and its contents, but with photographic evidence he could hardly argue that about the headstand and that dreadful jacket.
Huh!
Just as he was putting the phone back in his pocket, Brian suddenly jumped up.
“I’m fucking starving!” he announced, and to Justin’s absolute bewilderment, headed off to start loading the trolley with stuff that Brian, his Brian, wouldn’t consider eating if it was the only food left in Pittsburgh. Packets of hot dogs joined frozen pizza, closely followed by boil in the bag pasta and a huge leg of pork; potatoes, corn and cauliflower with pre-made cheese sauce seemed to complete the ‘meal’ and Brian was haring off to the check out.
Justin made to follow thinking that at least they would be able to get out of there and back to the loft where he could try to work out what the fuck was going on, when Brian turned on him suddenly.
“What the fuck are you following me around for? Haven’t you got a fucking home of your own to go to? I don’t need some blond stalker trailing after me. I have to get the fuck out of here and go meet my hot young stud of a lover.”
*****
While they were all still chuckling over the whole idea of bloated Brian, Hunter saw his chance and took it. “If I were Brian Kinney,” he announced with relish, “I’d dump that dumb blond kid and come looking for someone who could really give me what I need.”
Debbie, who was closest, clipped him round the ear.
Lindsay and Mel regrettably encouraged him by giggling. Em patted his hand, “Sorry, honey,” he said, “I think that boat has sailed off into the sunset a long time ago now.”
Ben gave him a serious look, indicating measured and calm parental disapproval, and Michael sighed.
“If I were Brian Kinney,” he said, “I’d think it was fucking time to grow up and settle down a bit. If he wants Justin, then he should just … let that happen, you know?”
The people sitting around the table, who, at heart, in one way or another, really were Brian’s friends, sighed and nodded.
“Yep”, “Yeah”, “Yes”, they said. “It would be good,” they summed up one after another, “if he could just let himself be happy.”
But by then it was getting late, and it was time to collect the kids and go home, or to spend some time primping and getting into costume ready for a night celebrating Halloween as only gay men can, at Babylon.
*****
Okay!
Enough was enough.
Justin was angry now, not just worried.
He opened his mouth to rip his partner a new one, when Brian suddenly stopped in the middle of the store.
“Whatever,” he said, sounding a little … lost. “Let’s just … go home.”
Justin stared at him.
Brian turned to look at him and suddenly his face softened into a rare, genuine smile.
He drew Justin against him.
“I want to celebrate Halloween by scaring myself silly with stories about love and marriage and fucking white picket fences,” he said softly, almost tenderly.
Justin stared into those amazing hazel eyes and wondered what this incredibly aggravating, absolutely fascinating and completely crazy partner of his was trying to tell him this time.
“I can face it all,” Brian went on. “All that really scary stuff …”
He paused and rested his forehead for a moment against Justin’s. “As long as I have you to protect me,” he finished quietly.
Justin heard what he was being told then, loud and clear, and gave him a quick hug before turning away, threatened by yet another allergy attack.
“Let’s just get rid of all this stuff and go,” he said.
Brian nodded. “Okay.”
Justin was about to head off to replace everything on the shelves, but Brian laughed. “Just fucking dump it. Let them deal with it. They’ve got nothing else to do. The place is like a morgue.”
Justin was going to argue, but thought better of it. He snatched Brian’s precious Hugo Boss coat from the trolley and headed after his partner to remind him that he still had to pay for the jacket he was wearing. But Brian, with an absent-minded shrug, was already shucking it off, and seemed happy to reclaim his black leather.
So after a quick Ben and Jerry’s detour, during which Justin insisted Brian wait for him in the car, they went home and celebrated Halloween with grunts and screams and the occasional howl of pleasure. They even found time for a somewhat cryptic, but still meaningful, talk in which homes and futures and love and all sorts of other really scary things were mentioned and even, in a non-defined, unconventional way, committed to.
Justin thought it was probably the best night of his life, and maybe Brian did too. He didn’t do a lot of kicking and screaming, anyway.
*****
A grumpy goblin fumed a bit as Halloween drew to its end and he prepared to depart back to where he’d come from; a happy ending wasn’t what he’d had in mind. But then he figured … well, the blond one had the photo, and maybe there’d be a slip up and other people would get to see it. In any case, he’d had a pretty good laugh out of the whole thing. Plus, there was always next year.
*****
Next day, Justin and Emmett caught up for coffee.
Emmett thought he should warn little Sunshine about the shenanigans the night before in case someone made some sort of crack about it later. He suspected that, while Brian might find it vaguely flattering, he might also be extremely pissed that they’d dared to take his name in vain.
“So I just had this idea for a party game,” he said. “We all had to say what we’d do if we were Brian. It was just us being silly, you know, honey. But some of it was really funny. I mean, Ted started it when he said …”
*****
Justin spent a long time trying to work it all out. It was really kind of creepy. And it couldn’t just be fucking coincidence.
Then, on impulse, he took another look at the photo on his phone.
A close look.
And right in the corner, peeping out from behind some shelves, there was a creepy little green face that he’d seen before - outside the Munchers’ gate.
He gave a shudder and deleted the photo.
He really didn’t want any reminders of what had happened.
He couldn’t quite believe that Brian had had some kind of trick played on him by a pissed off real life goblin, but he figured it was better to be sure than sorry and to get rid of any link to the creature.
He didn’t even know if that would do any good or if the goblin would turn up again next year to torment them.
But one thing he did know …
There were a few people he knew who had some serious pay-back coming. Brian seemed to have forgotten the whole supermarket episode, although something between them had shifted and Brian seemed more … relaxed, more openly affectionate, more confident in their relationship somehow. And he’d made it clear this morning that he hadn’t forgotten what they’d talked about last night, and that he had no intention of going back on it either (which had been Justin’s biggest fear, waking up beside him, because he wasn’t sure he could have dealt with Brian doing either of those very Brian things). So things with Brian were good; better than good.
But Justin didn’t think he would ever forget how it had felt to watch his partner apparently unraveling right before his eyes. Not to mention those hurtful words that had seemed to propel them both back to the very first months of their relationship. Although even back in those days, Brian had never flat out said that he didn’t want to be with Justin because he had someone better waiting for him; ‘someone different’ was all he’d said back then. So to hear him say it now had hurt, no matter that the hurt had been quickly soothed over. At that moment it had been really painful.
So, Hell yes … payback was definitely in order, but there was no hurry.
He’d just watch and wait for his opportunity to make a few people suffer a little.
Their friends were always under-estimating him. They thought Brian was the tough one.
But annoyed goblins had nothing on a seriously pissed off ex-twink whose partner had been jerked around like a puppet because their bonehead friends couldn’t think of any other way to amuse themselves. Justin could picture them all sitting around trying to make a joke out of the man they all envied a little because they secretly knew that none of them would ever come close to being as brilliant and brave and totally fucking hot as Brian.
So maybe Emmett would find a “moth hole” in a favorite sweater. A tiny one; not anywhere noticeable, just enough to make it a little less perfect. And Ted … there might be a spreadsheet where the formulas suddenly didn’t seem to work any more. Nothing that couldn’t be fixed, just something that would be truly annoying to have to rework.
As for the others … Justin was sure he could come up with something. After all, he was the clever devil of the family and it was his job to protect Brian; Brian had told him so, just last night.
He planned on taking his role as protector very seriously.
Next Halloween that fucking goblin had better watch out for himself.
Happy Halloween, everybody!
.