FAN FICTION POST: "Precious", prologue (Queer As Folk)
Yes, I couldn't resist. I did it. I wrote QAF. I have several ideas for stories for this fandom to write at the moment, but since it seems pretty much every Queer As Folk fanfic author has to have their own version of some kind of continuation of the series, I thought I might as well initiate myself into the fandom with my own post-series fic that is hopefully not too much like many that have come before it. Because I am allergic to fluff, you can expect mine to be more realistic than the perfect happy ending people typically like to make up just to make themselves feel better after watching the final episode. But I'm concerned that the tone set up in the prologue and first couple parts is going to turn people off thinking this is nothing but a flat-out depressing, angsty deathfic. But there will be some hope and optimism in there somewhere, I promise. Haha. That's just all I can tell you without giving away my entire story.
This post is just the prologue, but once I start posting chapters (I have almost two already written) the length of them may lead you to believe this is going to end up being somewhat of a book. But I would actually be very surprised if it got to be more than six chapters. Whether that's a good or bad thing, just know that's the kind of length we're looking at. :)
Title: Precious
Author: me
Rating: R
Characters/Pairings: Brian/Justin
Summary: Too many times it has taken some kind of tragedy to bring Justin and Brian closer together.
P r e c i o u s
|p r o l o g u e|
You will always be young and you will always be beautiful.
Michael surely never imagined that the night he dragged Brian out to the ruins of what was Babylon and said those words again, what immediately came into his head was not Michael saving him that time on his 30th birthday, but what happened the following night. It was the thought of that silk scarf that did it. It means so many different things to him now.
He still has it folded up and hidden in a corner of a drawer in his loft. It is kept underneath some pants he never wears anymore and even Justin never knew he’s held onto it after all this time. Sometimes even Brian forgets it’s there.
But then sometimes something will happen to remind him of it. Michael will say those words again and he remembers, with an image flashing through his head, what the scarf looked like before hell happened. For now it is hard to remember there was a time before all of that happened, and he only knows it as it is now, stained with red, the violent color of both love and pain. For they’re the same thing, and will always become inseparably part of each other in one way or another - at least that was what he learned that night. It is a reminder of those dark days when he wore it against his skin all the time while taking shot after shot or hit after hit to numb himself, seeing Justin only far away from him through a thick pane of glass as he slept, because he could not let himself forget why it happened and could not, could not stop punishing himself as if that would somehow make things any better.
You try to make something good out of something bad. Sometimes it does not work out that way. Brian heard what Michael said loud and clear - No, you are! Don’t you know that you still have your powers! - and thought maybe he owed something to the people he almost hurt. Cause I’m the one who’ll get the call that the cleaning lady found you hanging from the rafters with a fucking boner.
But not just Michael. Poor Lindsay had no idea what he intended when he bought that scarf in the store with her, when they were talking about Justin being emotionally fifteen years his senior, or whatever number she said. Justin, he thought idly the next morning. Well, Christ. What would the little fuck do without me? And then another, more serious thought came, barely surfacing from his subconscious, not quite put into organized words. But it somehow translated into I need to pick a good tie to wear to a fucking prom.
Or no. Not a tie.
Michael had almost taken the scarf and thrown it away, but Brian told him tiredly, “No. Jesus, I’ll find a good use for it. And I mean a good use, Mikey, I promise.”
You try to make something good out of something bad. Replace bad memories with good ones. But somehow they all end up mixing together anyway. The blood red with the clean white. The image of Justin looking like a prince in his tux and smiling in that way of his that Brian would never admit makes his insides feel like they’re melting, forever blended with the image of him lying motionless on the pavement. And no matter how much you want to be close to somebody, the loss accompanied with all of that is too much. So you keep a pane of glass in between you and him, watching him stir in his sleep from the nightmares and trying not to reach out to him with your heart because he might feel the touch and know. Or you throw him out of your life before he can throw you out of his. And you take comfort in pretending that this way you are in control of your pain and nothing can touch you.
So every once in a while when Justin calls, Brian doesn’t pick up, and just lets his voice break the silence in his loft for a few seconds as he leaves a message on the machine. Each time the message is shorter than before. And sometimes he doesn’t leave a message at all. And then it is completely silent again, no ringing attacking Brian’s ears and no more of the sound of Justin’s voice, so familiar to him it seems it could be coming from somewhere inside of him instead of from an external source, making his stomach feel like it’s dropping during a roller coaster ride like it always does when it’s been a while since he last heard it. And then Brian takes a deep drag on a cigarette and his thoughts linger for a moment on a corner of one of his drawers he never looks in, a part of his soul that is hardly ever visited and very sensitive to the touch, something hidden in the dark.
Continue to part 1....
This post is just the prologue, but once I start posting chapters (I have almost two already written) the length of them may lead you to believe this is going to end up being somewhat of a book. But I would actually be very surprised if it got to be more than six chapters. Whether that's a good or bad thing, just know that's the kind of length we're looking at. :)
Title: Precious
Author: me
Rating: R
Characters/Pairings: Brian/Justin
Summary: Too many times it has taken some kind of tragedy to bring Justin and Brian closer together.
P r e c i o u s
|p r o l o g u e|
You will always be young and you will always be beautiful.
Michael surely never imagined that the night he dragged Brian out to the ruins of what was Babylon and said those words again, what immediately came into his head was not Michael saving him that time on his 30th birthday, but what happened the following night. It was the thought of that silk scarf that did it. It means so many different things to him now.
He still has it folded up and hidden in a corner of a drawer in his loft. It is kept underneath some pants he never wears anymore and even Justin never knew he’s held onto it after all this time. Sometimes even Brian forgets it’s there.
But then sometimes something will happen to remind him of it. Michael will say those words again and he remembers, with an image flashing through his head, what the scarf looked like before hell happened. For now it is hard to remember there was a time before all of that happened, and he only knows it as it is now, stained with red, the violent color of both love and pain. For they’re the same thing, and will always become inseparably part of each other in one way or another - at least that was what he learned that night. It is a reminder of those dark days when he wore it against his skin all the time while taking shot after shot or hit after hit to numb himself, seeing Justin only far away from him through a thick pane of glass as he slept, because he could not let himself forget why it happened and could not, could not stop punishing himself as if that would somehow make things any better.
You try to make something good out of something bad. Sometimes it does not work out that way. Brian heard what Michael said loud and clear - No, you are! Don’t you know that you still have your powers! - and thought maybe he owed something to the people he almost hurt. Cause I’m the one who’ll get the call that the cleaning lady found you hanging from the rafters with a fucking boner.
But not just Michael. Poor Lindsay had no idea what he intended when he bought that scarf in the store with her, when they were talking about Justin being emotionally fifteen years his senior, or whatever number she said. Justin, he thought idly the next morning. Well, Christ. What would the little fuck do without me? And then another, more serious thought came, barely surfacing from his subconscious, not quite put into organized words. But it somehow translated into I need to pick a good tie to wear to a fucking prom.
Or no. Not a tie.
Michael had almost taken the scarf and thrown it away, but Brian told him tiredly, “No. Jesus, I’ll find a good use for it. And I mean a good use, Mikey, I promise.”
You try to make something good out of something bad. Replace bad memories with good ones. But somehow they all end up mixing together anyway. The blood red with the clean white. The image of Justin looking like a prince in his tux and smiling in that way of his that Brian would never admit makes his insides feel like they’re melting, forever blended with the image of him lying motionless on the pavement. And no matter how much you want to be close to somebody, the loss accompanied with all of that is too much. So you keep a pane of glass in between you and him, watching him stir in his sleep from the nightmares and trying not to reach out to him with your heart because he might feel the touch and know. Or you throw him out of your life before he can throw you out of his. And you take comfort in pretending that this way you are in control of your pain and nothing can touch you.
So every once in a while when Justin calls, Brian doesn’t pick up, and just lets his voice break the silence in his loft for a few seconds as he leaves a message on the machine. Each time the message is shorter than before. And sometimes he doesn’t leave a message at all. And then it is completely silent again, no ringing attacking Brian’s ears and no more of the sound of Justin’s voice, so familiar to him it seems it could be coming from somewhere inside of him instead of from an external source, making his stomach feel like it’s dropping during a roller coaster ride like it always does when it’s been a while since he last heard it. And then Brian takes a deep drag on a cigarette and his thoughts linger for a moment on a corner of one of his drawers he never looks in, a part of his soul that is hardly ever visited and very sensitive to the touch, something hidden in the dark.
Continue to part 1....