FAN FICTION POST: "Precious", part 7 (Queer As Folk)
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.
Previous chapters: Prologue | I | II | III | IV | V | VI
Notes: The same goes for anything I write, but with this part in particular I hope you guys will not be shy about speaking your mind if you have any criticisms about it at all. There's some motivations for certain characters' actions in this part that I decided I didn't really want to explicitly explain (I can't believe how long it ended up being as it is - OMG!), and I just hope it makes sense to you.
p a r t | s e v e n
On Sunday, Michael comes along with Brian to see Lindsay and Melanie off at the airport. As they walk up near their gate and stop, Brian notices Gus frowning and looking downward as he stands silently at Lindsay’s side.
“What’s with all the pouting, little guy?” he asks.
“He doesn’t want to leave,” Lindsay says with a smile.
“Doesn’t want to leave Pittsburgh?” he asks in an exaggeratedly shocked voice, looking down at him, and Michael laughs. He pats him on the head and says, “Don’t be sad. We’ll all see each other again before you know it.”
He looks back up at Lindsay, who lets go of Gus’s hand and steps forward to hug him. “You better mean that,” she says in a threatening voice into his ear.
Brian smiles, letting go of her and stepping back to look at her face.
“I’m serious,” she says. “Are you going to call me?”
He nods.
She smiles up at him. “I feel like I have to ask you the same question I did last time I left.”
He smirks. “I’m fine. It’s not my sister who died. Hell, what am I saying? If Claire kicked the bucket I think I’d be more than fine.”
She hits him on the chest. “Don’t say that! Hey. You listen. I’m counting on you to do what you should do so that I don’t have to worry too much about Justin being alright...And so I don’t have to worry about you, either.”
“Believe me, I have no intention of making things harder than they already are for him right now.”
“Right now,” she echoes for emphasis. “What about later?”
“We’ve been friends since we were nineteen. You should know by now that having any kind of relationship with Brian Kinney is never always going to be a walk in the park.”
She crosses her arms and stares at him with a hard, unchanging face, which prompts him to continue, “But...Justin has been the exception to so many Brian Kinney rules that, well...who the fuck knows what’s ever going to happen?”
Her expression softens and then she puts a hand up to his face. “You love each other. If you want it to work...it can. I’m sure.”
He smiles and leans down to kiss her. Michael is finishing saying goodbye to JR and handing her back to Melanie. Brian turns to her and just says acknowledgingly, “Mel.”
Melanie smiles and reaches her hand out to shake his, but when he clasps it they just hold each other’s hands tightly for a brief second rather than actually moving them in a handshake, and she says, “Bye, Brian. Good to see you.”
Lindsay puts her hand on Gus’s back and says, “Okay, honey, you give your daddy a hug goodbye.”
Brian kneels on the floor in front of Gus and wraps him up in a big hug. “See you, son,” he says. Then, in a voice too quiet for any of the others to hear, he says, “I love you.”
On the drive back, Brian is very quiet, responding to anything Michael says only with short, inattentive answers. Michael keeps looking to the side at him as if trying to find something in his face.
“You okay?” he finally asks.
Brian looks over at him, seeming surprised. “Yeah. Of course I’m okay.”
Michael smiles and looks back forward. “It wouldn’t be hard to go up and see them. And I’m sure they’ll be back a lot more. Probably for Christmas soon. It’s not just going to be every six months, you know.”
Brian looks back at him with heavy eyelids, looking mildly irritated, like Michael is only prodding at a sore spot. “Yes. I know.”
Michael turns his gaze to the window, giving up.
The next day Brian stops by Jennifer’s house early in the afternoon, and she is the one who answers the door this time. She tells him Justin is out with Daphne but invites him inside for a cup of coffee. As Brian walks in, he notices the house still smells like flowers everywhere, but a lot of the vases now have crumbled, dead petals that have started to fall scattered around them on the tables they are placed on. The silence inside this house has started to feel more like a peaceful quiet than the morose and disturbing one that it has been.
One of the first things Brian says once they are sitting at the kitchen table is, “By the way, I’m sorry about what happened at the reception.”
Stirring her cream into her cup of coffee, Jennifer just shakes her head. “Don’t be silly. I’m tired of hearing about it over and over again. Especially when it could have been a lot worse. You could have gotten into a full-fledged fistfight during the eulogy instead of here, where hardly anybody even saw anything happen.”
Brian laughs softly. “Yeah, but...even if it wasn’t that much of an embarrassment...”
“It was her day,” she finishes for him quietly. “And it was inappropriate. I know. Yet after it happened, as Craig was trying to explain and excuse himself, he hardly seemed to realize that that was the reason to be ashamed...And besides, with some of the things he has been saying to me, especially about you being around and my apparent approval of it...I don’t think I blame you or care even if you did something to provoke him.” She takes a drink of her coffee and then adds, “And I guess in a way, I’m just tired of hearing the words ‘I’m sorry.’”
Brian nods. “That’s understandable.”
He looks around the kitchen and just now notices a lot of boxes sitting on the counter. He remembers how soon after his father died that his mother started getting rid of his things, and wonders what is in them. But Jennifer, seeing what he’s looking at, counters his assumptions about what they must be there for by saying, “Oh, I guess no one might have told you. Tucker is moving in with me.”
“Oh,” he says, taken aback. And fully aware as it comes out of his mouth that he has never said anything like this in response to the news of a couple moving in together, but even more surprised by the fact that he means it, he says, "That's great."
She nods. "Yeah, it's something we were talking about even before...you know, before it happened. And now it seems as good a time as ever."
“That probably makes Justin feel a little better about leaving again. He’s been worrying about you.”
“And I guess it’s a good thing he warmed up to him, huh?”
“Well, he more than owed it to you for warming up to me.”
She smiles. “It wasn’t as hard as you might think...Actually, I’m a little worried about him, too. Any time I bring up anything about him going back to New York he doesn't exactly indulge the subject. He’s comfortable being back here now, and I’m sure it’s a little scary to think about going back out there.”
Brian is quiet for a moment, tapping fingers against his mug. “But he has to go back sometime.”
“Of course,” she agrees. “That’s where his dreams are. You know...I never really thanked you.”
“For what?”
“For the fact that he’s there.”
He shrugs. “That’s not because of me.”
“Sure it is, in a way. You let him go free even though you wanted to keep him.”
Brian wonders if she realizes that she once showed him a good example of how that's done. "I need you to take him."
“I was overwhelmed with happiness when I found out you were going to get married, believe it or not,” she says. “But then after you called it off, Justin showed me that article that was written about him after he had his first opening, and...I can’t say it made me even more happy, because it was a very different kind of pride and happiness for him. But I knew he was making the right choice. And...I also felt a little sad for you.”
He looks at her with a small smile.
“I know he wouldn’t be the person he is today if it wasn’t for you,” Jennifer says.
“And I wouldn’t be the person I am if it wasn’t for him,” he says. “But whether or not he’s actually done a good job on me only time will tell.”
She laughs shortly. Then, as a new thought seems to come into her head, she says, “You know...as much as you might think I must have been thrilled to be getting free of that man four years ago, the truth is I was terrified of getting divorced. Of being alone. But as it turns out, I had nothing to be afraid of. Even after I've lost one of my children, I don't feel like I’m alone at all. I never could have known how much this other family Justin went off and made himself part of would become like my family, too. It didn't really hit me until I saw all of you here at the reception." She looks up from her coffee at Brian. "Even though things didn't work out the way you meant for them to with you and Justin, I guess I can't help but still think of you as a son-in-law."
Brian looks at her a while before responding. "Well...I would say the same except, as a rule, I guess nobody's supposed to like their in-laws." He smiles. "But I suppose for us, there can be an exception."
She smiles back warmly, and then lifts her mug to her mouth to finish off her coffee.
Before he leaves, Jennifer walks him to the door and says, “Well, I guess there’s never any telling when I might see you again. So...you take of yourself.”
He nods and says, “You, too.”
Then in all of a short second, as quickly as someone dips their toe into a pool to see if the water is warm, he puts his hand to her arm, leaning over, and they peck each other’s cheeks.
When he gets into his car, Brian calls Justin’s cellphone and gets his recorded voice saying, “Leave a message.” He says, “Hey, it’s me. Uh...I know you’re with Daphne right now, but call me tonight if you’re available, or some time tomorrow. I know you’re probably going back to New York soon, so...Well, anyway, I want to see you. Later.”
On Wednesday night, Michael and Brian are sitting at a booth at the diner as Michael is in an extensive conversation with Hunter on his phone.
“...Well, can’t you do your work at school and just use one of theirs?” he says. “...Oh, for Christ sake.”
Brian has been boredly looking around the diner for the whole five minutes Michael has been on the phone, and he now takes out his own phone and flips it open to look at the screen.
“...Okay,” Michael says. “I guess I’ll come meet you in about twenty minutes. Hopefully we can make it before the store closes. Bye.” He sighs, finally hanging up. “So much for us hanging out.”
“Got to babysit?” Brian says teasingly.
“I’ve got to go with Hunter to buy some ridiculously fancy kind of calculator he’s supposed to have for school and will probably only have to use for half the semester.”
Brian laughs. “Oh, the joys of parenthood.”
“So much for buying that new TV Ben and I wanted, too,” he adds with a laugh. He stares at Brian, who is still looking at something on his phone. “What do you keep checking that for?”
Brian looks up. “Nothing,” he says, flipping his phone shut.
As if Michael knows what it’s all about without him even telling him, he then asks, “When’s Justin going to be going back?”
The expression on Brian’s face seems to stay the same only with a lot of effort. “Don’t know.”
Brian doesn’t know when Justin might be going back to New York because he still has not heard back from him after two days of trying to get a hold of him. He has just been burying himself into whipping everything back into shape at Kinnetik that has suffered from things having to be run without him a lot lately, and spending the nights at Babylon with the guys. Everything is starting to feel a little like normal again, and for some reason that sort of disturbs him.
He doesn’t know what to make of it. Maybe Justin just isn’t checking his phone very regularly. He keeps thinking to himself that it can’t be anything more than that. Yet he doesn’t feel quite right about just going over to try to see him or calling him again.
Maybe it is because of what he said on his message he left. “I know you’re probably going back to New York soon.” The next time we see each other it could be goodbye. It could be there’s something he needs to tell him. But Brian doesn’t like thinking that. He must not have looked at his phone.
Michael stands up and says, “Well, I got to go. See you,” and kisses Brian on the head before walking out.
Later as Brian is leaving the diner and turning around the corner outside, he brushes shoulders with someone with a very familiar-looking blond head and turns to look back at him. Justin stops and turns around as well, looking very alarmed, like he has just been caught doing something wrong.
“Hey,” he says, his eyes staying on his face only for a second.
Brian gestures toward the diner. “Going in?”
Justin awkwardly looks behind him at the windows of the restaurant for a second as if he doesn’t already know what’s there. “Yeah.”
Brian goes back inside with him and Debbie immediately comes to their booth once she sees them sit down.
“Hi, Sunshine,” she says in her sweetest voice. “What can I get you?”
“I’ll just have some fries and a coke,” he says.
“Oh, the hell you will.” She grabs his wrist, feeling the bones sticking out just to emphasize her point. “Christ, haven’t you been eating anything in New York?”
“Instant noodles can be surprisingly filling,” he answers, pulling his arm out of her grasp.
“Fuck that. Whenever you leave I’m going to have to make you something to take back with you.”
Brian doesn’t miss him instantly frowning at that, but he recovers from it quickly enough to respond, “Really, Deb, that won’t be necessary. By the way, my mom wanted me to tell you she’s sorry she hasn’t brought you all your dishes back yet. She keeps meaning to.”
“Oh, don’t worry about it. I’ll swing by and get them sometime. So...That’ll be a very large order of fries,” she says, writing the order down. “It’s on the house anyway.”
Justin sighs, smiling. “Fine, if you insist.”
“Brian, you want another coffee or something?” she asks him, and he nods.
When she walks away, Justin says, “I thought I’d probably run into you at this time here, but I guess I just caught you.”
“I’d say your timing was perfect, as you literally ran into me,” Brian says.
He laughs. “Yeah...Where were you headed?”
“Home for the time being. I was supposed to go out with Mikey but he ditched me to go shopping with Hunter.”
After Debbie comes over with Justin’s drink and fills Brian’s coffee cup, they sit in a relaxed silence for a moment. Then Brian says, “How are you doing?”
Stirring the ice around in his glass with his straw, Justin shrugs. “Okay. I guess.”
With that out of the way, Brian hesitates to say it but has to. “I’ve been calling you.”
Justin’s stirring of his soda slows and then stops.
“I left you a message,” Brian says.
For a few seconds Justin won’t meet eyes with him. Then he looks up at him, opening his mouth as if to offer an explanation, but it seems for a moment like nothing can come out. Then instead of explaining, he just says in a small voice, “I’m sorry.”
Somehow it is the last thing Brian was expecting to hear, and he suddenly wishes he just hadn’t said anything.
“That’s okay,” he says. He takes a sip of coffee and then fills the uncomfortable silence by saying, “So, your mom and her beau are shacking up.”
“Yeah. Not as absolutely horrifying as it would have seemed to me a while ago. Probably is to you, though.”
“Naw, what do I care? They’re straight people, it’s what they do. In fact...I think it’s kind of nice.”
“‘Nice’?” Justin repeats, because he’s not sure if he’s ever even heard Brian use that word before. “You just think so because at least this way she won’t be living alone.”
Brian thinks about that a moment, and shrugs. “Yeah, that seems about right.”
Justin smiles for a second. After a moment of contemplation he agrees, “Yeah, it is nice.”
After they leave the diner, Justin goes back to the loft with him. Seeing some work Brian has left out on the table for a cosmetics company campaign, he says approvingly, “Nice to see you haven’t lost your touch,” and then Brian shows him some of the other work Kinnetik is doing right now on his computer. One of Brian’s high school yearbooks is lying open on the desk because a few nights ago he thought to get it out and find Tony Ficeli’s picture while he was smoking a joint by himself and wheeling idly around the loft in his swivel chair. Justin sees it and picks it up, saying, “Ooh, we have to look at your dorky club pictures.”
“Give me that,” Brian says, trying to snatch it out of his hand but missing.
“Hey,” he says when he opens up the front cover. “You don’t have any signatures in here. I thought you’d at least have more than Michael. I remember seeing only about five in his.”
“That’s because I didn’t want to remember any of those assholes.”
“Yet you’ve still got this.”
“Yeah, well, it’s good for a few laughs, as you unfortunately have discovered.”
After Justin looks through the book a while, commenting on all the ridiculous 80’s hairstyles, Brian leaves him at the desk and says, “I’m gonna hop in the shower a few minutes,” and Justin nods. When he comes back out of the bathroom ten minutes later changed into a beater and jeans, he finds Justin sitting at the other desk on the opposite side of the room where his own computer he used to use to draw on is, looking at something on the screen.
As Brian goes to the fridge for a beer, Justin says, “I can’t believe how much shit I did I still have saved on here. There’s even some stuff for Rage. Come look at this.”
He walks over behind Justin’s chair and looks at the screen to see a sketch of an extremely muscular woman sitting on a motorcycle and wearing a helmet with enormous, sharp spikes. “What the fuck is that?”
“Some hero Michael and I came up with when we were just messing around one day. Our super lesbian. I forget what her name was going to be.”
“Spike Dyke,” Brian suggests.
Justin laughs. “That’s good.”
“No, it’s not.”
“...Yeah, you’re right, it’s not,” he says, making Brian snicker. “And this character is shit. Good thing we didn’t try to use her.”
Brian crosses his arms, looking at it. “Well, even your shit is pretty high quality shit. Especially considering you probably have a lot less practice drawing female anatomy than male.”
He grins at him and says sarcastically, “Where would you get that idea?” Looking back at the computer, he says, “I’ve kind of missed being able to draw on this thing.”
“Take it back with you,” Brian says. “All it does is sit here.”
This is not exactly true, because although Brian has never found Spike Dyke before, on occasion he has gotten on that computer and looked through some of Justin’s art that is still saved on it. It has often bothered him to see it sitting there not even touched because Justin isn’t here. But he does not tell him this.
Justin looks at the computer in thought for a while. “I guess I could,” he says, but doesn’t sound very enthusiastic. Brian stares at him a moment but doesn’t say anything more about it.
They sit at the counter for a while drinking beers, both barefoot and relaxed and past the awkwardness that was there when they first met earlier, at least for now. They look through the yearbook, Brian seeming to have some story to tell that goes along with every picture in it and Justin often having a similar high school experience to recount. By the time they get to the middle of the book they have switched to taking shots of Jack Daniel’s, and every story they tell seems unusually entertaining.
“Look. Angela Cage,” Brian says, pointing to a picture of a very pretty girl with wavy red hair. “I went with her to prom.”
“You went to your prom?” Justin asks in disbelief.
“Only in junior year. I wasn’t really explicitly out yet. Angela was supposed to go with Mark Simmons, this dick who I gave a black eye once after he tripped Mikey in the locker room. So when he got caught sneaking some drinks during lunch and was banned from all extra-curricular activities and events, she dumped his ass and was so desperate for a date she decided to be the aggressor and asked me. So I thought what the hell, and asked if she’d be able to get a friend to go with Mikey. ‘Cause Debbie was pressuring him to go and he wouldn’t stop moaning about how he kind of wanted to go but didn’t know what we should do.”
“He probably just wanted you to ask him,” Justin says.
Brian laughs. “Of course he did...Well, Angela did get a date for him. But after a couple hours, playing the straight people’s game was getting boring and they weren’t having fun, either. So we snuck out while they were in the ladies’ room together and went out to Babylon instead.”
“No way.”
“Yeah, our first night we went. Babylon virgins, can you imagine?”
“Oh, I think I can,” Justin says. Then a dead silence comes over him for a moment, and he says, “Sounds almost as memorable as my prom night...How fucking ironic is that.”
Brian just looks at him for a while, and then Justin pours another shot which officially makes the number he’s had a lot in a short while, and after he downs it and slams the glass back on the counter, Brian’s hand comes down covering his and he says gently, “Hey. Take it easy.” But Justin is wearing one of those frightening expressions some people get after a few drinks, like they suddenly care about nothing.
From then on, the high school memories they tell progress to less amusing, more serious ones: a girl named Anna who Justin used to play with in kindergarten who he later heard nearly died from an eating disorder at age seventeen, an English teacher practically everyone at Brian’s school loved because he was so funny and easygoing who it turned out harassed two students. Once they have closed the yearbook and forgotten it, Brian feels like he has told Justin everything he remembers from that time so long ago, except for the story of Tony Ficeli.
By the time it is nearing midnight, any intention of not getting drunk has gone out the window, and they do not really notice it, but they have both started to speak at a lower volume. The night is fully formed; there are hardly any sounds of cars outside anymore like the sleeping city has finally passed from the REM stage into a deep, dark slumber; and Brian feels like the whole world is slowing down along with the thoughts in his head which are now diffused and watery instead of sharp. With every drink Justin has, he smiles or laughs at things less and less, or when he does laugh it sounds heavy and unnatural.
Finally their throats feel tired from all the loud talking and laughing from earlier, and they slip into a few minutes of silence. Brian goes over to the desk for a moment to take something out of the drawer and comes back to the counter, setting down a written check in front of Justin. “There, that’s for you.”
“What’s this?” Justin doesn’t even pick it up, like he doesn’t want to know what it is.
“It’s a check for five hundred dollars,” he answers as if Justin can’t figure out that much himself. “To help you out when you get back in New York. You've had to miss a lot of work.”
“I don’t need it,” he says, shaking his head.
“Shut up and take it. You can just add it to the list of expenses you already owe me.”
“No, I mean...I don't even know if I can just get right back into my life in New York right now."
"What are you talking about?” Brian says. “You have to be back in New York now. You have to finish getting ready for your show."
"The show. Yeah," he says carelessly.
Brian leans over on the counter with his arms crossed. "Didn't you say once that after something bad happens to you the best way to know you're still here is to create something?"
"Something like that," Justin says, sounding like it's strange for him to think he once said such a thing.
Brian stares forward, not breaking eye contact with him. "Well, you can't just stay here doing nothing. That's not going to make you feel any better. This is your time to be there. Just because you're really talented that doesn't mean you're going to get a dozen more chances at this kind of thing."
"I know,” Justin says, sounding frustrated, “but...Christ. I was so excited about this opening but now it's impossible to imagine actually enjoying it when the day comes. It's impossible to even imagine ever wanting to paint something again, or liking it so much there like I did again. I know that's only because all this just happened and I've got to wait and let time do its thing, but still...the thought of going back out there on my own right now is awful. I..." He stops a second, hesitating. "I've just gotten used to seeing everybody again. It's like I had no idea how much I really missed being here until I came back for so long. I've just been in New York neglecting to even stay in touch with everybody all that much. And now one of the people I should have come to see or at least talked to a lot more is dead."
Brian lets out a long breath, going around the counter to sit at the seat right next to him. "Look, it's not like you have to get right back into your routine,” he says, putting a hand on his upper back. “You don't have to go back to work just yet if you don't want to deal with shit like that right now. Just get back there, go to your opening, take it easy for a while. Things will start to fall back into place."
"And then everything will go back to exactly how it was before?" Justin says, suddenly sounding strangely bitter. He turns toward him in his seat so that Brian's hand slides a little down his back and then nudges his arm away from him with his elbow. It's just a light touch, almost like a natural and unintentional movement, but it feels to Brian like a slap.
He tries to ignore that, saying, "Not to sound like the insensitive prick I am, but...yes. Everything will go back to the way it was before, only Molly won't be there. With time, it won't be so impossible to imagine."
"I wasn't just talking about her," he says, fixing him with a meaningful look.
Brian looks at him not knowing what to say, because he doesn't know if he can go there yet. But Justin goes on anyway.
"I'm sorry," he says with a heavy sigh. "This is just too much to deal with all at the same time. Molly gone and...and you...Coming back here and seeing everybody, and even Mel and Linz and the kids being here...It almost made it feel like things have gone back to how they were. Everybody one big happy family like in the old days. But things have changed and I guess I just need to accept that. This isn't really my home anymore, is it? And you and I aren't..."
Brian cannot let him finish that, and everything comes out of his mouth without passing through the usual filter. “Look, I'll...what do you need me to do? I can..."
"What do I need you to do?" Justin says, and he laughs like he just told him a bad joke. "I need you to tell me you're too much of a fucking coward to make this work and it's over. Because I can't just kind of have you like this, it's worse than just being without you and knowing it."
Brian's stomach drops and he is suddenly speechless. Everything has moved completely past talking about Molly. It's them now.
"I mean...Jesus, why'd you come and get me at the airport?" Justin says. "It almost made me think..." He stops, shaking his head miserably, and puts his forehead into both of his hands. "God dammit. I shouldn't have had so much to drink."
"Justin," Brian says, grabbing his shoulders so his head rolls up to look at him. "I was going to say...I can come back with you to New York, or come stay there really soon after you go back, if that's what would make you feel better about it.”
"No." Justin pushes his hands off of him again, which again feels so violating and wrong, and stands up.
"I'm trying to tell you I'll come and see you more," Brian says, his voice raising. "So we can make it work."
"And I'm telling you I can’t believe it. Look, the only reason you've been acting almost like we're together again is because my sister just died. Just like the only reason we first became something actually resembling a real couple is because Chris Hobbs almost killed me. And you didn't ask me to move in again until after you got cancer. And you finally told me you loved me only because you had been afraid I was dead hours before. A relationship built entirely out of tragedies, can you think of anything more pitiful?"
"Got to make it out of something," Brian says quietly.
Justin shakes his head. "There's one thing I've finally learned about you over all these years. You don't change. It’s like you just can’t. You say these things like 'We're going to go away together sometime, just the two of us, but I just can't go right now.' Or 'I think I want to spend more time with my son from now on.' But it never happens. And then before you know it, Gus is gone. He's living in another country, and even though you may get to visit each other every once in a while, you're not going to get to see him grow up...And now I'm gone, too."
Brian’s face shows for a moment how much what he’s hearing is like a punch in the stomach, and he is rendered completely silent.
"...And I know you can't help the way you are, that it’s so hard for you to just open up to people,” Justin goes on. “It's just the way you're made up. And I've been having to tell myself that over and over again the whole five years I've known you. But it gets tiresome that you have to treat the people you care about the most like shit, because when we’ve been together you’ve always assumed that some day, even if not then, or soon, I was going to walk out on you. Because why would anyone actually want to love you...right?” he says as if expecting an answer from Brian, who only closes his eyes for a second. “But even if I understand why, that doesn't make things any easier for me." He takes a moment to collect himself, looking away from him, as if the strength it’s taking to say this is running out and he might start tearing up. But he takes in a deep breath and looks back up, straight into his face. "So if you can't tell me it's over, then....fine. I'm telling you."
Brian’s jaw seems to clench for a second and then he stands up in front of him, close enough that it’s almost like he’s trying to make him give up his ground and step back. "Well," he sighs, tossing his hands in the air a little. "I guess we’re pretty good at this by now. This is just old habit for us, isn't it? It's always you telling me. And yet you think I'm irrational for always being afraid you'll walk out on me any day."
They keep looking at each other a little challengingly like this for a few more seconds. Then Justin shakes his head, and he sounds only sad instead of angry as he whispers, "Fuck you," and turns away to walk off.
All in a second, the scared part of Brian that is usually hiding dormant deep inside of him comes out of the dark into completely open vulnerability and starts panicking. Before he is even conscious of doing it, he grabs Justin's arm before he gets far away and pulls him back around to face him. "I love you."
"Stop it," Justin says angrily, struggling to pull himself free from his grasp.
"I'm sorry. I still love you."
"It doesn't make any difference!” Justin yells. “It's too late to say that even if it's true."
"I’m not just going to watch you walk out that door and not do anything this time," Brian says in a low voice, pulling him even closer so his face is close to his.
"You have before, you can again."
"Yeah, and you always came back!" he says, shaking him a little. "And you know why that is, too. Even if you get everything you think you want - some perfect husband and your warm and cozy home with a white picket fence - you are never going to be completely happy out there. Because no matter where you go or who you're ever with, you're always going to belong to me."
"Shut up!” he shouts. “Let go of me."
But Brian is much physically stronger than him, and doesn’t seem able to release him. They struggle against each other desperately, Brian grabbing onto his clothes and Justin pushing at his chest with all his strength, until he is begging more than telling him, “Please let me go,” because he can feel he doesn’t have enough in him to resist for so long, not right now. Then finally he collapses into him like he did before, and when it happens it is like a dam breaking, all of the strength in both of them running out at the same time, and it’s him who pulls Brian’s head down to kiss him. Holding most of Justin’s weight, Brian doesn’t sink to the floor with him this time but picks him up and stumbles across the room with his legs wrapped around him and pushes him against the nearest pillar, mouth at his neck and hands going under his clothes to find the safety of what he knows so well.
By the time Brian carries him to the bed and falls onto him, their voices and any sensible thoughts going through their heads have been replaced with a loud silence blocking out any words, and soon the only sound is the hot breath and there is only their mouths close together, open and gasping, wordlessly saying things their voices cannot say. And for them this speaks so much more articulately about something words cannot describe than speaking can anyway, and this is what they know and understand, each other's bodies so familiar, the home they now crawl back into to hide, the only way they can speak in a way that will make each other understand. For it's how they always understood from the beginning, even without ever talking about it.
Because a few years ago it was them in this same bed and it was still very new instead of so familiar, and Brian was still saying "I don't believe in that shit" but already he said different things here with him, his fingers creeping in between Justin's knuckles where his hand grasped the sheets and then slowly interlacing their fingers together as easily as water seeps into cracks, some tongueless voice deep inside his dark and hidden places that even he himself did not hear whispering I love you as naturally and uncontrollably as came the next thrust, another breath.
Brian wakes up in the morning with a faint headache and a bad feeling in his stomach as he opens his eyes and sees the spot next to him in the bed is empty. He at once remembers details of last night, just pieces of the whole picture rather than a full reckoning of what happened: Justin’s dead-looking eyes while he was talking about the girl he knew named Anna, how light he felt when he was carrying him, and how after they came he stayed inside him for what seemed like a long time, as if they were both afraid to move, afraid of time moving forward and on, until finally they moved apart tiredly and ended up with their backs turned to each other.
He gets out of bed and on the way into the bathroom he can see that Justin is sitting in one of the chairs in front of the TV with only his pants on, just staring in the direction of the screen as if watching something on it even though the TV is off.
He goes to the sink and washes his face, noticing that it looks like Justin took a shower. What he does not know is that he has been up for quite a while, staring at Brian’s back as he was sleeping, sitting on the edge of the bed smoking a cigarette and occasionally wiping at his eyes, and getting in the shower only to sit at the bottom with his legs curled up against himself and just let the water run on him for twenty minutes.
When he comes back out of the bathroom, Justin has put his shirt on and is sitting at the counter now, rubbing at a spot on his upper back near his right shoulder. Brian wonders if he could have bruised him there slamming him against the pillar so hard. He goes around the counter and sits down across from him. Justin doesn’t even look up at him for a few seconds, like he is in a kind of daze.
“You okay?” Brian says.
Justin gives a small nod.
Brian goes to the fridge to get out some juice. “Well, that was kind of fucked up,” he says, in a way that almost sounds humorous.
Justin looks at him forlornly as he gets a glass out of a cabinet. “Brian...”
He shakes his head, holding a hand up to stop him. “No. I don’t need to hear it.”
“You don’t know what I was going to say.”
“I don’t want you to say anything. It doesn’t matter, okay? You’ve got enough on your mind without feeling bad about a drunk fuck.” He pours his glass of juice and puts it back away. “Are you hungry? You want anything?”
“No.” Justin keeps watching him, and sighs. “I can’t help it, I just feel shitty. It’s like in a messed up way I used you to feel better.”
“Obviously I didn’t do anything to stop you. Listen, it’s understandable, and I guess normal, for you to do things you wouldn’t necessarily usually do when you’re...going through something like this. So...let’s just blame it on the shitty state of the world rather than either of ourselves.”
“No excuses, no apologies, no regrets?” Justin says.
Brian shrugs. “If you will.”
Justin crosses his arms, looking down at the counter. “I guess you’re right,” he says after a while. Then he seems to reluctantly admit everything, like he wishes it were not true. “Back when I got attacked, you know, everyone was trying to support me and help me deal with that in whatever way they could. But all along you were the person I needed the most. You were the only one who could even come close to making me feel better just by being there. I don’t think I ever could have gotten through recovering from that without you...And the whole time I've been having to deal with Molly being gone, it's kind of been the same way." He looks up at him. "And you have been here, but it hasn't really been the same. I've had Brian my friend with me, but what I’ve really needed is Brian my...boyfriend, or whatever you want to call it. My...my Brian."
Brian looks down so he's not meeting eyes with him anymore. "I said you don't have to explain."
But he goes on, "I guess I just felt such a great need to be close to you like that again, now that I’m having to get through this.”
Brian shifts his weight from one foot to the other uncomfortably for a moment. Then it comes out very quickly, in one heavy breath. “I came to see you at the hospital.”
Justin looks up like he isn't even sure what he just heard. "...What?"
He speaks so softly it's like he's talking to a priest in a confessional. "After you got hurt, you thought I never came to see you. But I did. I came to check up on how you were doing every night while you were asleep. And watched you through the door."
Justin does not even move for a moment, or visibly react at all, like he’s having difficulty letting that sink in. “Why are you telling me this now?”
“...I don’t know. I guess it’s just the first time I’ve ever wanted to.”
“Well, it doesn’t change anything,” Justin says, and even though it was four years ago, all of the hurt he didn’t let show back then is suddenly revealing itself in his voice. “You should have come and talked to me.”
“I know.”
“I wanted to see you. You could have at least showed up once to say you were sorry so I could tell you it wasn't your fucking fault so you could stop beating yourself up over it, wearing that...that bloody thing around your neck like a scarlet letter and hating yourself.”
“You make it sound almost like I was the one who needed help getting through it.”
“Well, sometimes it kind of seemed that way.”
Brian slips into deep thought for a long moment, going quiet. He walks around the counter and then goes over to walk up the steps to the bed, sitting down on the edge of it by the dresser. He opens up the bottom drawer and Justin watches him look around underneath the folded clothes in one corner until he finally starts to pull something out of its dark hiding place, something that once shined brilliant white all over but now has spots of reddish brown.
Justin walks over to the bed as well and stands in front of him where he’s sitting as he wraps each end of the scarf around his hands, his eyes glazing over as if looking at something very far away as he touches it. He sits down next to him and says, “I still wish I could remember everything.”
Brian looks to the side at him. “You’ve never remembered anything more?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t know...I’ve heard all the details from other people so many times that sometimes it seems like I do remember. It’s like a story I can recite for memory. But...there aren’t any feelings accompanied with thinking back on it, like I wasn’t really there.”
“You said it was the best night of your life.”
“...I did?” he says, looking surprised.
Brian nods. “That was the last thing you said before...Well, except ‘Later,’ as you were walking off, but that was the last thing you said.”
“You never said anything about that before.”
“Well. I guess there’s a lot of things I never said to you,” he says quietly.
Justin stares down at the scarf for a while, stands up and starts pulling it out of his hands. “You should have gotten rid of this a long time ago. Just let me throw it away.”
Almost unconsciously, Brian’s grip on the other end tightens before he can take it, and he looks up at him.
“What the hell are you so afraid of?” Justin demands. “Just get rid of this thing and forget about it.”
“No,” he says. “I have to keep this.”
“Why?”
“I just have to,” Brian says, not knowing how to explain. “It’s...a reminder of something.”
“I know. I want you to let it go,” Justin says, trying to pull it away again, and they are in somewhat of a tug-of-war over it for a second before Justin just drops it and sighs.
“What if I told you to let go of what happened to your sister?” Brian asks him, making his face turn hard. He stands up and wraps the scarf around his neck. “What if it was me who got bashed in the head, and you sitting in that hospital with my blood all over you, and then having to wait three days to find out if I was going to live, and knowing if I didn’t it was because of you?”
Justin pulls the scarf off him. “I’m not saying it’s fucking easy to go through things like this. But I’m the one who almost died, and just lost somebody I loved, and of the two of us I’ll be the first to say there are maybe worse things.”
“Like what?”
“Like the shit you put yourself through,” he says, glancing down at the scarf in his hands. Then as he’s looking downward, something catches his eye in the open drawer, on the side where there aren’t any folded clothes but some books and other items. And on top...
Brian follows his gaze to what he’s looking at: a little velvet box. Inside of it they both know there are two rings. Justin looks at it a long time, but doesn’t touch it.
As if trying to find a way to explain, Brian says, “I actually didn’t hate it, you know. Pretending to be the romantic monogamous pair you always wanted to be. I don’t know if I could have done it for forever, but it was surprisingly painless to try it for a while. I figured...why not keep a souvenir?”
“Of our holiday from reality?” Justin crosses his arms, looking uncomfortable. “I guess that’s what our time together has always been. Living in the present from day to day. But the moment one of us started thinking about the future was when it was over. Marriage vows? Our country manor with stables? A palace for your prince? That was just a fairy tale. It couldn't have been our lives.”
"Our lives don't have to be a fairy tale," Brian says.
Justin looks downward, away from his face. “...Yeah.”
He walks away from him down the steps and Brian follows him as he sits down on the couch in front of where his shoes are sitting on the floor. As he starts to put them on, Brian sits next to him.
“I will take that check, if it’ll make you feel better,” Justin explains. “But I’m only going to use it if I end up really needing it.”
“Okay.”
“And I will pay you back if I do.”
“I know you will.”
He finishes putting on his shoes and sits up, looking at him. “I wish all this hadn’t happened this way...I shouldn’t have tried to make a decision about this right now. But I didn’t want to leave Pittsburgh again not even knowing what I can expect from you this time. I just need stability right now.”
Brian nods. “I know.”
They just look at each other sadly for a long moment, and then Justin stands up like he supposes he has no choice but to just leave like this, but Brian’s arms catch him around his hips as he tries to walk by. He just holds him in place there with his face against his waist like he cannot bear to look him in the eye. There are so many words screaming inside of him at this moment that he cannot say to Justin out loud because it would not be right to burden him with them, so all he can do is plead with him wordlessly with his arms around him.
Justin puts his arms around his shoulders and holds him against him, now breathing a little unsteadily. “I’m sorry...I love you, but I just don’t know if I can trust you.”
Brian pulls away a little to look up at him. “Don’t worry. No apologies.”
Justin takes in a shaky breath, leans down and kisses him, and then has to unwrap himself from Brian’s arms like they are stuck solidly in place. As he walks away, Brian just keeps staring forward at nothing, because he cannot watch him go out the door.
Two days later, looking for the remote for the television, Brian finds a tiny little mitten buried in between two cushions on his couch. When he calls Lindsay, she is so shocked to hear from him again so soon that she assumes something bad has happened and answers the phone saying, “Oh my God, what’s wrong?”
“One of Gus’s hands is cold,” he answers.
“Huh?”
“I just found his mitten in my couch.”
“Oh, good, we were looking for that! I forgot we were over there once; that’s the only place we didn’t check.”
“Daddy Rage saves the day again.”
“So what’s actually wrong?”
Brian pauses, thrown off by the question. “What are you talking about?”
“Come on. You wouldn’t call me about this instead of just sending us the mitten without a word unless you were taking advantage of a good excuse to call me.”
This makes Brian go quiet a moment, thinking about that and realizing it might actually be somewhat true. “Nothing is wrong. Besides just about...everything,” he admits.
He doesn’t tell her the whole detailed story, because he really doesn’t want to relive it, but that is the beauty of his and Lindsay’s friendship; she is able to read so much from his tone of voice as he only vaguely explains what happened that she basically keeps guessing until she gets the whole story right.
“Well, I can’t say I’m all that surprised,” she says. “After all, you’re not the only person in the world who turns to sex when they’re in pain.”
“I think with me, it’s more a case of not abstaining from sex just because I’m in pain.”
“However you want to think of it. Plus with the two of you, who were together for so long before, it must be as easy and natural as shaking hands.”
Brian thinks then about how a long time ago around the time he and Justin made up the rules of their arrangement, he started to realize how having sex with him was never much of a surprise anymore because they had done it so many times, but he didn’t really mind this as much as he would have expected. He usually thinks it keeps things interesting when he can’t always expect what someone is going to be like in bed. Sometimes it’s like a guessing game, spotting somebody in a crowd when on the hunt and trying to tell, Top or bottom? Wild and loud or more subdued? Dark, cigarette-smoker scent or sweet and soapy-smelling? After a while, there was no longer any of that excitement of surprise with Justin, but he found that to actually be dependable, sometimes preferable; making love to somebody so many times that you know every contour of their body as well as your own and can recognize their smell on the sheets even when they are gone, becoming used to the distinct way they make love, so much that if they suddenly start making love a different way or you smell and taste something unfamiliar on them, you know that they have been with somebody else. At age thirty-one, having this kind of closeness with someone was completely new to him. Justin was with Ethan for a while, but Brian has only ever known this with one person in his life.
Lindsay is right that it is no wonder it happened again so easily. In a strange way, it makes sense that nothing else in the world felt safer and more certain right then than that, knowing each other in that way again. There was no better way to momentarily escape the present.
“But what now?” Brian asks, and hears Lindsay sigh on the other line like she has no idea what the answer is. Usually Lindsay gives him advice that he just rejects, but if she isn’t even sure what to say this time, he knows he’s in deep shit.
“Now...you let him know you’re still there, even if not as his partner,” she says. “The last thing he needs is to feel regret for forcing you completely out of his life.”
“But Linz...maybe that’s what he wants.”
“What?”
“Or at least what he needs. I mean...doesn’t what just happened maybe prove that we’re just really bad at not being together when we stay close at all?”
She is silent for a moment. “...Yeah. Maybe.”
And that is it, he is afraid. Maybe that is it. He and Justin have dealt with a lot of problems together, but it seems like things have never been this fucked up before.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” Lindsay says. “Except you just have to give it time and see how he feels later.”
Brian wishes he could be optimistic, but he is not. After a long, disturbing stretch of silence, he says, “So I’ll try to remember to ship this mitten tomorrow.”
“Don’t bother; he has another pair to use. We’ll just get it next time we’re there.”
“Okay.”
“Give everyone my love.”
“Sure...Bye.”
For the next few days, Brian’s loft is hauntingly quiet. He cannot stop thinking about all the things Justin said and how they were all horribly true. He remembers at one moment the day they were fighting in his office after he told him he was going to Ibiza, and he shouted, “We’re not fucking married!” and left the room. And right afterwards, the terrible reality of it all was for a very brief moment lucidly clear to him: they were as bad as a fucking married couple carrying on like this. He was Jack shouting at Joan before storming out of the house to go to the bars, making sure she knew he was not going to be told what to do, not caring if his child heard the whole thing in the other room.
But the realization did not last in his mind long enough to stick, so that when he came back into the room and Justin, impossibly, tolerated it all and said, “I just want you to know that I love you,” Brian only looked at him and did not say what he should have.
He did not say anything at all.
Continue to part 8...
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.
Previous chapters: Prologue | I | II | III | IV | V | VI
Notes: The same goes for anything I write, but with this part in particular I hope you guys will not be shy about speaking your mind if you have any criticisms about it at all. There's some motivations for certain characters' actions in this part that I decided I didn't really want to explicitly explain (I can't believe how long it ended up being as it is - OMG!), and I just hope it makes sense to you.
p a r t | s e v e n
On Sunday, Michael comes along with Brian to see Lindsay and Melanie off at the airport. As they walk up near their gate and stop, Brian notices Gus frowning and looking downward as he stands silently at Lindsay’s side.
“What’s with all the pouting, little guy?” he asks.
“He doesn’t want to leave,” Lindsay says with a smile.
“Doesn’t want to leave Pittsburgh?” he asks in an exaggeratedly shocked voice, looking down at him, and Michael laughs. He pats him on the head and says, “Don’t be sad. We’ll all see each other again before you know it.”
He looks back up at Lindsay, who lets go of Gus’s hand and steps forward to hug him. “You better mean that,” she says in a threatening voice into his ear.
Brian smiles, letting go of her and stepping back to look at her face.
“I’m serious,” she says. “Are you going to call me?”
He nods.
She smiles up at him. “I feel like I have to ask you the same question I did last time I left.”
He smirks. “I’m fine. It’s not my sister who died. Hell, what am I saying? If Claire kicked the bucket I think I’d be more than fine.”
She hits him on the chest. “Don’t say that! Hey. You listen. I’m counting on you to do what you should do so that I don’t have to worry too much about Justin being alright...And so I don’t have to worry about you, either.”
“Believe me, I have no intention of making things harder than they already are for him right now.”
“Right now,” she echoes for emphasis. “What about later?”
“We’ve been friends since we were nineteen. You should know by now that having any kind of relationship with Brian Kinney is never always going to be a walk in the park.”
She crosses her arms and stares at him with a hard, unchanging face, which prompts him to continue, “But...Justin has been the exception to so many Brian Kinney rules that, well...who the fuck knows what’s ever going to happen?”
Her expression softens and then she puts a hand up to his face. “You love each other. If you want it to work...it can. I’m sure.”
He smiles and leans down to kiss her. Michael is finishing saying goodbye to JR and handing her back to Melanie. Brian turns to her and just says acknowledgingly, “Mel.”
Melanie smiles and reaches her hand out to shake his, but when he clasps it they just hold each other’s hands tightly for a brief second rather than actually moving them in a handshake, and she says, “Bye, Brian. Good to see you.”
Lindsay puts her hand on Gus’s back and says, “Okay, honey, you give your daddy a hug goodbye.”
Brian kneels on the floor in front of Gus and wraps him up in a big hug. “See you, son,” he says. Then, in a voice too quiet for any of the others to hear, he says, “I love you.”
On the drive back, Brian is very quiet, responding to anything Michael says only with short, inattentive answers. Michael keeps looking to the side at him as if trying to find something in his face.
“You okay?” he finally asks.
Brian looks over at him, seeming surprised. “Yeah. Of course I’m okay.”
Michael smiles and looks back forward. “It wouldn’t be hard to go up and see them. And I’m sure they’ll be back a lot more. Probably for Christmas soon. It’s not just going to be every six months, you know.”
Brian looks back at him with heavy eyelids, looking mildly irritated, like Michael is only prodding at a sore spot. “Yes. I know.”
Michael turns his gaze to the window, giving up.
The next day Brian stops by Jennifer’s house early in the afternoon, and she is the one who answers the door this time. She tells him Justin is out with Daphne but invites him inside for a cup of coffee. As Brian walks in, he notices the house still smells like flowers everywhere, but a lot of the vases now have crumbled, dead petals that have started to fall scattered around them on the tables they are placed on. The silence inside this house has started to feel more like a peaceful quiet than the morose and disturbing one that it has been.
One of the first things Brian says once they are sitting at the kitchen table is, “By the way, I’m sorry about what happened at the reception.”
Stirring her cream into her cup of coffee, Jennifer just shakes her head. “Don’t be silly. I’m tired of hearing about it over and over again. Especially when it could have been a lot worse. You could have gotten into a full-fledged fistfight during the eulogy instead of here, where hardly anybody even saw anything happen.”
Brian laughs softly. “Yeah, but...even if it wasn’t that much of an embarrassment...”
“It was her day,” she finishes for him quietly. “And it was inappropriate. I know. Yet after it happened, as Craig was trying to explain and excuse himself, he hardly seemed to realize that that was the reason to be ashamed...And besides, with some of the things he has been saying to me, especially about you being around and my apparent approval of it...I don’t think I blame you or care even if you did something to provoke him.” She takes a drink of her coffee and then adds, “And I guess in a way, I’m just tired of hearing the words ‘I’m sorry.’”
Brian nods. “That’s understandable.”
He looks around the kitchen and just now notices a lot of boxes sitting on the counter. He remembers how soon after his father died that his mother started getting rid of his things, and wonders what is in them. But Jennifer, seeing what he’s looking at, counters his assumptions about what they must be there for by saying, “Oh, I guess no one might have told you. Tucker is moving in with me.”
“Oh,” he says, taken aback. And fully aware as it comes out of his mouth that he has never said anything like this in response to the news of a couple moving in together, but even more surprised by the fact that he means it, he says, "That's great."
She nods. "Yeah, it's something we were talking about even before...you know, before it happened. And now it seems as good a time as ever."
“That probably makes Justin feel a little better about leaving again. He’s been worrying about you.”
“And I guess it’s a good thing he warmed up to him, huh?”
“Well, he more than owed it to you for warming up to me.”
She smiles. “It wasn’t as hard as you might think...Actually, I’m a little worried about him, too. Any time I bring up anything about him going back to New York he doesn't exactly indulge the subject. He’s comfortable being back here now, and I’m sure it’s a little scary to think about going back out there.”
Brian is quiet for a moment, tapping fingers against his mug. “But he has to go back sometime.”
“Of course,” she agrees. “That’s where his dreams are. You know...I never really thanked you.”
“For what?”
“For the fact that he’s there.”
He shrugs. “That’s not because of me.”
“Sure it is, in a way. You let him go free even though you wanted to keep him.”
Brian wonders if she realizes that she once showed him a good example of how that's done. "I need you to take him."
“I was overwhelmed with happiness when I found out you were going to get married, believe it or not,” she says. “But then after you called it off, Justin showed me that article that was written about him after he had his first opening, and...I can’t say it made me even more happy, because it was a very different kind of pride and happiness for him. But I knew he was making the right choice. And...I also felt a little sad for you.”
He looks at her with a small smile.
“I know he wouldn’t be the person he is today if it wasn’t for you,” Jennifer says.
“And I wouldn’t be the person I am if it wasn’t for him,” he says. “But whether or not he’s actually done a good job on me only time will tell.”
She laughs shortly. Then, as a new thought seems to come into her head, she says, “You know...as much as you might think I must have been thrilled to be getting free of that man four years ago, the truth is I was terrified of getting divorced. Of being alone. But as it turns out, I had nothing to be afraid of. Even after I've lost one of my children, I don't feel like I’m alone at all. I never could have known how much this other family Justin went off and made himself part of would become like my family, too. It didn't really hit me until I saw all of you here at the reception." She looks up from her coffee at Brian. "Even though things didn't work out the way you meant for them to with you and Justin, I guess I can't help but still think of you as a son-in-law."
Brian looks at her a while before responding. "Well...I would say the same except, as a rule, I guess nobody's supposed to like their in-laws." He smiles. "But I suppose for us, there can be an exception."
She smiles back warmly, and then lifts her mug to her mouth to finish off her coffee.
Before he leaves, Jennifer walks him to the door and says, “Well, I guess there’s never any telling when I might see you again. So...you take of yourself.”
He nods and says, “You, too.”
Then in all of a short second, as quickly as someone dips their toe into a pool to see if the water is warm, he puts his hand to her arm, leaning over, and they peck each other’s cheeks.
When he gets into his car, Brian calls Justin’s cellphone and gets his recorded voice saying, “Leave a message.” He says, “Hey, it’s me. Uh...I know you’re with Daphne right now, but call me tonight if you’re available, or some time tomorrow. I know you’re probably going back to New York soon, so...Well, anyway, I want to see you. Later.”
On Wednesday night, Michael and Brian are sitting at a booth at the diner as Michael is in an extensive conversation with Hunter on his phone.
“...Well, can’t you do your work at school and just use one of theirs?” he says. “...Oh, for Christ sake.”
Brian has been boredly looking around the diner for the whole five minutes Michael has been on the phone, and he now takes out his own phone and flips it open to look at the screen.
“...Okay,” Michael says. “I guess I’ll come meet you in about twenty minutes. Hopefully we can make it before the store closes. Bye.” He sighs, finally hanging up. “So much for us hanging out.”
“Got to babysit?” Brian says teasingly.
“I’ve got to go with Hunter to buy some ridiculously fancy kind of calculator he’s supposed to have for school and will probably only have to use for half the semester.”
Brian laughs. “Oh, the joys of parenthood.”
“So much for buying that new TV Ben and I wanted, too,” he adds with a laugh. He stares at Brian, who is still looking at something on his phone. “What do you keep checking that for?”
Brian looks up. “Nothing,” he says, flipping his phone shut.
As if Michael knows what it’s all about without him even telling him, he then asks, “When’s Justin going to be going back?”
The expression on Brian’s face seems to stay the same only with a lot of effort. “Don’t know.”
Brian doesn’t know when Justin might be going back to New York because he still has not heard back from him after two days of trying to get a hold of him. He has just been burying himself into whipping everything back into shape at Kinnetik that has suffered from things having to be run without him a lot lately, and spending the nights at Babylon with the guys. Everything is starting to feel a little like normal again, and for some reason that sort of disturbs him.
He doesn’t know what to make of it. Maybe Justin just isn’t checking his phone very regularly. He keeps thinking to himself that it can’t be anything more than that. Yet he doesn’t feel quite right about just going over to try to see him or calling him again.
Maybe it is because of what he said on his message he left. “I know you’re probably going back to New York soon.” The next time we see each other it could be goodbye. It could be there’s something he needs to tell him. But Brian doesn’t like thinking that. He must not have looked at his phone.
Michael stands up and says, “Well, I got to go. See you,” and kisses Brian on the head before walking out.
Later as Brian is leaving the diner and turning around the corner outside, he brushes shoulders with someone with a very familiar-looking blond head and turns to look back at him. Justin stops and turns around as well, looking very alarmed, like he has just been caught doing something wrong.
“Hey,” he says, his eyes staying on his face only for a second.
Brian gestures toward the diner. “Going in?”
Justin awkwardly looks behind him at the windows of the restaurant for a second as if he doesn’t already know what’s there. “Yeah.”
Brian goes back inside with him and Debbie immediately comes to their booth once she sees them sit down.
“Hi, Sunshine,” she says in her sweetest voice. “What can I get you?”
“I’ll just have some fries and a coke,” he says.
“Oh, the hell you will.” She grabs his wrist, feeling the bones sticking out just to emphasize her point. “Christ, haven’t you been eating anything in New York?”
“Instant noodles can be surprisingly filling,” he answers, pulling his arm out of her grasp.
“Fuck that. Whenever you leave I’m going to have to make you something to take back with you.”
Brian doesn’t miss him instantly frowning at that, but he recovers from it quickly enough to respond, “Really, Deb, that won’t be necessary. By the way, my mom wanted me to tell you she’s sorry she hasn’t brought you all your dishes back yet. She keeps meaning to.”
“Oh, don’t worry about it. I’ll swing by and get them sometime. So...That’ll be a very large order of fries,” she says, writing the order down. “It’s on the house anyway.”
Justin sighs, smiling. “Fine, if you insist.”
“Brian, you want another coffee or something?” she asks him, and he nods.
When she walks away, Justin says, “I thought I’d probably run into you at this time here, but I guess I just caught you.”
“I’d say your timing was perfect, as you literally ran into me,” Brian says.
He laughs. “Yeah...Where were you headed?”
“Home for the time being. I was supposed to go out with Mikey but he ditched me to go shopping with Hunter.”
After Debbie comes over with Justin’s drink and fills Brian’s coffee cup, they sit in a relaxed silence for a moment. Then Brian says, “How are you doing?”
Stirring the ice around in his glass with his straw, Justin shrugs. “Okay. I guess.”
With that out of the way, Brian hesitates to say it but has to. “I’ve been calling you.”
Justin’s stirring of his soda slows and then stops.
“I left you a message,” Brian says.
For a few seconds Justin won’t meet eyes with him. Then he looks up at him, opening his mouth as if to offer an explanation, but it seems for a moment like nothing can come out. Then instead of explaining, he just says in a small voice, “I’m sorry.”
Somehow it is the last thing Brian was expecting to hear, and he suddenly wishes he just hadn’t said anything.
“That’s okay,” he says. He takes a sip of coffee and then fills the uncomfortable silence by saying, “So, your mom and her beau are shacking up.”
“Yeah. Not as absolutely horrifying as it would have seemed to me a while ago. Probably is to you, though.”
“Naw, what do I care? They’re straight people, it’s what they do. In fact...I think it’s kind of nice.”
“‘Nice’?” Justin repeats, because he’s not sure if he’s ever even heard Brian use that word before. “You just think so because at least this way she won’t be living alone.”
Brian thinks about that a moment, and shrugs. “Yeah, that seems about right.”
Justin smiles for a second. After a moment of contemplation he agrees, “Yeah, it is nice.”
After they leave the diner, Justin goes back to the loft with him. Seeing some work Brian has left out on the table for a cosmetics company campaign, he says approvingly, “Nice to see you haven’t lost your touch,” and then Brian shows him some of the other work Kinnetik is doing right now on his computer. One of Brian’s high school yearbooks is lying open on the desk because a few nights ago he thought to get it out and find Tony Ficeli’s picture while he was smoking a joint by himself and wheeling idly around the loft in his swivel chair. Justin sees it and picks it up, saying, “Ooh, we have to look at your dorky club pictures.”
“Give me that,” Brian says, trying to snatch it out of his hand but missing.
“Hey,” he says when he opens up the front cover. “You don’t have any signatures in here. I thought you’d at least have more than Michael. I remember seeing only about five in his.”
“That’s because I didn’t want to remember any of those assholes.”
“Yet you’ve still got this.”
“Yeah, well, it’s good for a few laughs, as you unfortunately have discovered.”
After Justin looks through the book a while, commenting on all the ridiculous 80’s hairstyles, Brian leaves him at the desk and says, “I’m gonna hop in the shower a few minutes,” and Justin nods. When he comes back out of the bathroom ten minutes later changed into a beater and jeans, he finds Justin sitting at the other desk on the opposite side of the room where his own computer he used to use to draw on is, looking at something on the screen.
As Brian goes to the fridge for a beer, Justin says, “I can’t believe how much shit I did I still have saved on here. There’s even some stuff for Rage. Come look at this.”
He walks over behind Justin’s chair and looks at the screen to see a sketch of an extremely muscular woman sitting on a motorcycle and wearing a helmet with enormous, sharp spikes. “What the fuck is that?”
“Some hero Michael and I came up with when we were just messing around one day. Our super lesbian. I forget what her name was going to be.”
“Spike Dyke,” Brian suggests.
Justin laughs. “That’s good.”
“No, it’s not.”
“...Yeah, you’re right, it’s not,” he says, making Brian snicker. “And this character is shit. Good thing we didn’t try to use her.”
Brian crosses his arms, looking at it. “Well, even your shit is pretty high quality shit. Especially considering you probably have a lot less practice drawing female anatomy than male.”
He grins at him and says sarcastically, “Where would you get that idea?” Looking back at the computer, he says, “I’ve kind of missed being able to draw on this thing.”
“Take it back with you,” Brian says. “All it does is sit here.”
This is not exactly true, because although Brian has never found Spike Dyke before, on occasion he has gotten on that computer and looked through some of Justin’s art that is still saved on it. It has often bothered him to see it sitting there not even touched because Justin isn’t here. But he does not tell him this.
Justin looks at the computer in thought for a while. “I guess I could,” he says, but doesn’t sound very enthusiastic. Brian stares at him a moment but doesn’t say anything more about it.
They sit at the counter for a while drinking beers, both barefoot and relaxed and past the awkwardness that was there when they first met earlier, at least for now. They look through the yearbook, Brian seeming to have some story to tell that goes along with every picture in it and Justin often having a similar high school experience to recount. By the time they get to the middle of the book they have switched to taking shots of Jack Daniel’s, and every story they tell seems unusually entertaining.
“Look. Angela Cage,” Brian says, pointing to a picture of a very pretty girl with wavy red hair. “I went with her to prom.”
“You went to your prom?” Justin asks in disbelief.
“Only in junior year. I wasn’t really explicitly out yet. Angela was supposed to go with Mark Simmons, this dick who I gave a black eye once after he tripped Mikey in the locker room. So when he got caught sneaking some drinks during lunch and was banned from all extra-curricular activities and events, she dumped his ass and was so desperate for a date she decided to be the aggressor and asked me. So I thought what the hell, and asked if she’d be able to get a friend to go with Mikey. ‘Cause Debbie was pressuring him to go and he wouldn’t stop moaning about how he kind of wanted to go but didn’t know what we should do.”
“He probably just wanted you to ask him,” Justin says.
Brian laughs. “Of course he did...Well, Angela did get a date for him. But after a couple hours, playing the straight people’s game was getting boring and they weren’t having fun, either. So we snuck out while they were in the ladies’ room together and went out to Babylon instead.”
“No way.”
“Yeah, our first night we went. Babylon virgins, can you imagine?”
“Oh, I think I can,” Justin says. Then a dead silence comes over him for a moment, and he says, “Sounds almost as memorable as my prom night...How fucking ironic is that.”
Brian just looks at him for a while, and then Justin pours another shot which officially makes the number he’s had a lot in a short while, and after he downs it and slams the glass back on the counter, Brian’s hand comes down covering his and he says gently, “Hey. Take it easy.” But Justin is wearing one of those frightening expressions some people get after a few drinks, like they suddenly care about nothing.
From then on, the high school memories they tell progress to less amusing, more serious ones: a girl named Anna who Justin used to play with in kindergarten who he later heard nearly died from an eating disorder at age seventeen, an English teacher practically everyone at Brian’s school loved because he was so funny and easygoing who it turned out harassed two students. Once they have closed the yearbook and forgotten it, Brian feels like he has told Justin everything he remembers from that time so long ago, except for the story of Tony Ficeli.
By the time it is nearing midnight, any intention of not getting drunk has gone out the window, and they do not really notice it, but they have both started to speak at a lower volume. The night is fully formed; there are hardly any sounds of cars outside anymore like the sleeping city has finally passed from the REM stage into a deep, dark slumber; and Brian feels like the whole world is slowing down along with the thoughts in his head which are now diffused and watery instead of sharp. With every drink Justin has, he smiles or laughs at things less and less, or when he does laugh it sounds heavy and unnatural.
Finally their throats feel tired from all the loud talking and laughing from earlier, and they slip into a few minutes of silence. Brian goes over to the desk for a moment to take something out of the drawer and comes back to the counter, setting down a written check in front of Justin. “There, that’s for you.”
“What’s this?” Justin doesn’t even pick it up, like he doesn’t want to know what it is.
“It’s a check for five hundred dollars,” he answers as if Justin can’t figure out that much himself. “To help you out when you get back in New York. You've had to miss a lot of work.”
“I don’t need it,” he says, shaking his head.
“Shut up and take it. You can just add it to the list of expenses you already owe me.”
“No, I mean...I don't even know if I can just get right back into my life in New York right now."
"What are you talking about?” Brian says. “You have to be back in New York now. You have to finish getting ready for your show."
"The show. Yeah," he says carelessly.
Brian leans over on the counter with his arms crossed. "Didn't you say once that after something bad happens to you the best way to know you're still here is to create something?"
"Something like that," Justin says, sounding like it's strange for him to think he once said such a thing.
Brian stares forward, not breaking eye contact with him. "Well, you can't just stay here doing nothing. That's not going to make you feel any better. This is your time to be there. Just because you're really talented that doesn't mean you're going to get a dozen more chances at this kind of thing."
"I know,” Justin says, sounding frustrated, “but...Christ. I was so excited about this opening but now it's impossible to imagine actually enjoying it when the day comes. It's impossible to even imagine ever wanting to paint something again, or liking it so much there like I did again. I know that's only because all this just happened and I've got to wait and let time do its thing, but still...the thought of going back out there on my own right now is awful. I..." He stops a second, hesitating. "I've just gotten used to seeing everybody again. It's like I had no idea how much I really missed being here until I came back for so long. I've just been in New York neglecting to even stay in touch with everybody all that much. And now one of the people I should have come to see or at least talked to a lot more is dead."
Brian lets out a long breath, going around the counter to sit at the seat right next to him. "Look, it's not like you have to get right back into your routine,” he says, putting a hand on his upper back. “You don't have to go back to work just yet if you don't want to deal with shit like that right now. Just get back there, go to your opening, take it easy for a while. Things will start to fall back into place."
"And then everything will go back to exactly how it was before?" Justin says, suddenly sounding strangely bitter. He turns toward him in his seat so that Brian's hand slides a little down his back and then nudges his arm away from him with his elbow. It's just a light touch, almost like a natural and unintentional movement, but it feels to Brian like a slap.
He tries to ignore that, saying, "Not to sound like the insensitive prick I am, but...yes. Everything will go back to the way it was before, only Molly won't be there. With time, it won't be so impossible to imagine."
"I wasn't just talking about her," he says, fixing him with a meaningful look.
Brian looks at him not knowing what to say, because he doesn't know if he can go there yet. But Justin goes on anyway.
"I'm sorry," he says with a heavy sigh. "This is just too much to deal with all at the same time. Molly gone and...and you...Coming back here and seeing everybody, and even Mel and Linz and the kids being here...It almost made it feel like things have gone back to how they were. Everybody one big happy family like in the old days. But things have changed and I guess I just need to accept that. This isn't really my home anymore, is it? And you and I aren't..."
Brian cannot let him finish that, and everything comes out of his mouth without passing through the usual filter. “Look, I'll...what do you need me to do? I can..."
"What do I need you to do?" Justin says, and he laughs like he just told him a bad joke. "I need you to tell me you're too much of a fucking coward to make this work and it's over. Because I can't just kind of have you like this, it's worse than just being without you and knowing it."
Brian's stomach drops and he is suddenly speechless. Everything has moved completely past talking about Molly. It's them now.
"I mean...Jesus, why'd you come and get me at the airport?" Justin says. "It almost made me think..." He stops, shaking his head miserably, and puts his forehead into both of his hands. "God dammit. I shouldn't have had so much to drink."
"Justin," Brian says, grabbing his shoulders so his head rolls up to look at him. "I was going to say...I can come back with you to New York, or come stay there really soon after you go back, if that's what would make you feel better about it.”
"No." Justin pushes his hands off of him again, which again feels so violating and wrong, and stands up.
"I'm trying to tell you I'll come and see you more," Brian says, his voice raising. "So we can make it work."
"And I'm telling you I can’t believe it. Look, the only reason you've been acting almost like we're together again is because my sister just died. Just like the only reason we first became something actually resembling a real couple is because Chris Hobbs almost killed me. And you didn't ask me to move in again until after you got cancer. And you finally told me you loved me only because you had been afraid I was dead hours before. A relationship built entirely out of tragedies, can you think of anything more pitiful?"
"Got to make it out of something," Brian says quietly.
Justin shakes his head. "There's one thing I've finally learned about you over all these years. You don't change. It’s like you just can’t. You say these things like 'We're going to go away together sometime, just the two of us, but I just can't go right now.' Or 'I think I want to spend more time with my son from now on.' But it never happens. And then before you know it, Gus is gone. He's living in another country, and even though you may get to visit each other every once in a while, you're not going to get to see him grow up...And now I'm gone, too."
Brian’s face shows for a moment how much what he’s hearing is like a punch in the stomach, and he is rendered completely silent.
"...And I know you can't help the way you are, that it’s so hard for you to just open up to people,” Justin goes on. “It's just the way you're made up. And I've been having to tell myself that over and over again the whole five years I've known you. But it gets tiresome that you have to treat the people you care about the most like shit, because when we’ve been together you’ve always assumed that some day, even if not then, or soon, I was going to walk out on you. Because why would anyone actually want to love you...right?” he says as if expecting an answer from Brian, who only closes his eyes for a second. “But even if I understand why, that doesn't make things any easier for me." He takes a moment to collect himself, looking away from him, as if the strength it’s taking to say this is running out and he might start tearing up. But he takes in a deep breath and looks back up, straight into his face. "So if you can't tell me it's over, then....fine. I'm telling you."
Brian’s jaw seems to clench for a second and then he stands up in front of him, close enough that it’s almost like he’s trying to make him give up his ground and step back. "Well," he sighs, tossing his hands in the air a little. "I guess we’re pretty good at this by now. This is just old habit for us, isn't it? It's always you telling me. And yet you think I'm irrational for always being afraid you'll walk out on me any day."
They keep looking at each other a little challengingly like this for a few more seconds. Then Justin shakes his head, and he sounds only sad instead of angry as he whispers, "Fuck you," and turns away to walk off.
All in a second, the scared part of Brian that is usually hiding dormant deep inside of him comes out of the dark into completely open vulnerability and starts panicking. Before he is even conscious of doing it, he grabs Justin's arm before he gets far away and pulls him back around to face him. "I love you."
"Stop it," Justin says angrily, struggling to pull himself free from his grasp.
"I'm sorry. I still love you."
"It doesn't make any difference!” Justin yells. “It's too late to say that even if it's true."
"I’m not just going to watch you walk out that door and not do anything this time," Brian says in a low voice, pulling him even closer so his face is close to his.
"You have before, you can again."
"Yeah, and you always came back!" he says, shaking him a little. "And you know why that is, too. Even if you get everything you think you want - some perfect husband and your warm and cozy home with a white picket fence - you are never going to be completely happy out there. Because no matter where you go or who you're ever with, you're always going to belong to me."
"Shut up!” he shouts. “Let go of me."
But Brian is much physically stronger than him, and doesn’t seem able to release him. They struggle against each other desperately, Brian grabbing onto his clothes and Justin pushing at his chest with all his strength, until he is begging more than telling him, “Please let me go,” because he can feel he doesn’t have enough in him to resist for so long, not right now. Then finally he collapses into him like he did before, and when it happens it is like a dam breaking, all of the strength in both of them running out at the same time, and it’s him who pulls Brian’s head down to kiss him. Holding most of Justin’s weight, Brian doesn’t sink to the floor with him this time but picks him up and stumbles across the room with his legs wrapped around him and pushes him against the nearest pillar, mouth at his neck and hands going under his clothes to find the safety of what he knows so well.
By the time Brian carries him to the bed and falls onto him, their voices and any sensible thoughts going through their heads have been replaced with a loud silence blocking out any words, and soon the only sound is the hot breath and there is only their mouths close together, open and gasping, wordlessly saying things their voices cannot say. And for them this speaks so much more articulately about something words cannot describe than speaking can anyway, and this is what they know and understand, each other's bodies so familiar, the home they now crawl back into to hide, the only way they can speak in a way that will make each other understand. For it's how they always understood from the beginning, even without ever talking about it.
Because a few years ago it was them in this same bed and it was still very new instead of so familiar, and Brian was still saying "I don't believe in that shit" but already he said different things here with him, his fingers creeping in between Justin's knuckles where his hand grasped the sheets and then slowly interlacing their fingers together as easily as water seeps into cracks, some tongueless voice deep inside his dark and hidden places that even he himself did not hear whispering I love you as naturally and uncontrollably as came the next thrust, another breath.
Brian wakes up in the morning with a faint headache and a bad feeling in his stomach as he opens his eyes and sees the spot next to him in the bed is empty. He at once remembers details of last night, just pieces of the whole picture rather than a full reckoning of what happened: Justin’s dead-looking eyes while he was talking about the girl he knew named Anna, how light he felt when he was carrying him, and how after they came he stayed inside him for what seemed like a long time, as if they were both afraid to move, afraid of time moving forward and on, until finally they moved apart tiredly and ended up with their backs turned to each other.
He gets out of bed and on the way into the bathroom he can see that Justin is sitting in one of the chairs in front of the TV with only his pants on, just staring in the direction of the screen as if watching something on it even though the TV is off.
He goes to the sink and washes his face, noticing that it looks like Justin took a shower. What he does not know is that he has been up for quite a while, staring at Brian’s back as he was sleeping, sitting on the edge of the bed smoking a cigarette and occasionally wiping at his eyes, and getting in the shower only to sit at the bottom with his legs curled up against himself and just let the water run on him for twenty minutes.
When he comes back out of the bathroom, Justin has put his shirt on and is sitting at the counter now, rubbing at a spot on his upper back near his right shoulder. Brian wonders if he could have bruised him there slamming him against the pillar so hard. He goes around the counter and sits down across from him. Justin doesn’t even look up at him for a few seconds, like he is in a kind of daze.
“You okay?” Brian says.
Justin gives a small nod.
Brian goes to the fridge to get out some juice. “Well, that was kind of fucked up,” he says, in a way that almost sounds humorous.
Justin looks at him forlornly as he gets a glass out of a cabinet. “Brian...”
He shakes his head, holding a hand up to stop him. “No. I don’t need to hear it.”
“You don’t know what I was going to say.”
“I don’t want you to say anything. It doesn’t matter, okay? You’ve got enough on your mind without feeling bad about a drunk fuck.” He pours his glass of juice and puts it back away. “Are you hungry? You want anything?”
“No.” Justin keeps watching him, and sighs. “I can’t help it, I just feel shitty. It’s like in a messed up way I used you to feel better.”
“Obviously I didn’t do anything to stop you. Listen, it’s understandable, and I guess normal, for you to do things you wouldn’t necessarily usually do when you’re...going through something like this. So...let’s just blame it on the shitty state of the world rather than either of ourselves.”
“No excuses, no apologies, no regrets?” Justin says.
Brian shrugs. “If you will.”
Justin crosses his arms, looking down at the counter. “I guess you’re right,” he says after a while. Then he seems to reluctantly admit everything, like he wishes it were not true. “Back when I got attacked, you know, everyone was trying to support me and help me deal with that in whatever way they could. But all along you were the person I needed the most. You were the only one who could even come close to making me feel better just by being there. I don’t think I ever could have gotten through recovering from that without you...And the whole time I've been having to deal with Molly being gone, it's kind of been the same way." He looks up at him. "And you have been here, but it hasn't really been the same. I've had Brian my friend with me, but what I’ve really needed is Brian my...boyfriend, or whatever you want to call it. My...my Brian."
Brian looks down so he's not meeting eyes with him anymore. "I said you don't have to explain."
But he goes on, "I guess I just felt such a great need to be close to you like that again, now that I’m having to get through this.”
Brian shifts his weight from one foot to the other uncomfortably for a moment. Then it comes out very quickly, in one heavy breath. “I came to see you at the hospital.”
Justin looks up like he isn't even sure what he just heard. "...What?"
He speaks so softly it's like he's talking to a priest in a confessional. "After you got hurt, you thought I never came to see you. But I did. I came to check up on how you were doing every night while you were asleep. And watched you through the door."
Justin does not even move for a moment, or visibly react at all, like he’s having difficulty letting that sink in. “Why are you telling me this now?”
“...I don’t know. I guess it’s just the first time I’ve ever wanted to.”
“Well, it doesn’t change anything,” Justin says, and even though it was four years ago, all of the hurt he didn’t let show back then is suddenly revealing itself in his voice. “You should have come and talked to me.”
“I know.”
“I wanted to see you. You could have at least showed up once to say you were sorry so I could tell you it wasn't your fucking fault so you could stop beating yourself up over it, wearing that...that bloody thing around your neck like a scarlet letter and hating yourself.”
“You make it sound almost like I was the one who needed help getting through it.”
“Well, sometimes it kind of seemed that way.”
Brian slips into deep thought for a long moment, going quiet. He walks around the counter and then goes over to walk up the steps to the bed, sitting down on the edge of it by the dresser. He opens up the bottom drawer and Justin watches him look around underneath the folded clothes in one corner until he finally starts to pull something out of its dark hiding place, something that once shined brilliant white all over but now has spots of reddish brown.
Justin walks over to the bed as well and stands in front of him where he’s sitting as he wraps each end of the scarf around his hands, his eyes glazing over as if looking at something very far away as he touches it. He sits down next to him and says, “I still wish I could remember everything.”
Brian looks to the side at him. “You’ve never remembered anything more?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t know...I’ve heard all the details from other people so many times that sometimes it seems like I do remember. It’s like a story I can recite for memory. But...there aren’t any feelings accompanied with thinking back on it, like I wasn’t really there.”
“You said it was the best night of your life.”
“...I did?” he says, looking surprised.
Brian nods. “That was the last thing you said before...Well, except ‘Later,’ as you were walking off, but that was the last thing you said.”
“You never said anything about that before.”
“Well. I guess there’s a lot of things I never said to you,” he says quietly.
Justin stares down at the scarf for a while, stands up and starts pulling it out of his hands. “You should have gotten rid of this a long time ago. Just let me throw it away.”
Almost unconsciously, Brian’s grip on the other end tightens before he can take it, and he looks up at him.
“What the hell are you so afraid of?” Justin demands. “Just get rid of this thing and forget about it.”
“No,” he says. “I have to keep this.”
“Why?”
“I just have to,” Brian says, not knowing how to explain. “It’s...a reminder of something.”
“I know. I want you to let it go,” Justin says, trying to pull it away again, and they are in somewhat of a tug-of-war over it for a second before Justin just drops it and sighs.
“What if I told you to let go of what happened to your sister?” Brian asks him, making his face turn hard. He stands up and wraps the scarf around his neck. “What if it was me who got bashed in the head, and you sitting in that hospital with my blood all over you, and then having to wait three days to find out if I was going to live, and knowing if I didn’t it was because of you?”
Justin pulls the scarf off him. “I’m not saying it’s fucking easy to go through things like this. But I’m the one who almost died, and just lost somebody I loved, and of the two of us I’ll be the first to say there are maybe worse things.”
“Like what?”
“Like the shit you put yourself through,” he says, glancing down at the scarf in his hands. Then as he’s looking downward, something catches his eye in the open drawer, on the side where there aren’t any folded clothes but some books and other items. And on top...
Brian follows his gaze to what he’s looking at: a little velvet box. Inside of it they both know there are two rings. Justin looks at it a long time, but doesn’t touch it.
As if trying to find a way to explain, Brian says, “I actually didn’t hate it, you know. Pretending to be the romantic monogamous pair you always wanted to be. I don’t know if I could have done it for forever, but it was surprisingly painless to try it for a while. I figured...why not keep a souvenir?”
“Of our holiday from reality?” Justin crosses his arms, looking uncomfortable. “I guess that’s what our time together has always been. Living in the present from day to day. But the moment one of us started thinking about the future was when it was over. Marriage vows? Our country manor with stables? A palace for your prince? That was just a fairy tale. It couldn't have been our lives.”
"Our lives don't have to be a fairy tale," Brian says.
Justin looks downward, away from his face. “...Yeah.”
He walks away from him down the steps and Brian follows him as he sits down on the couch in front of where his shoes are sitting on the floor. As he starts to put them on, Brian sits next to him.
“I will take that check, if it’ll make you feel better,” Justin explains. “But I’m only going to use it if I end up really needing it.”
“Okay.”
“And I will pay you back if I do.”
“I know you will.”
He finishes putting on his shoes and sits up, looking at him. “I wish all this hadn’t happened this way...I shouldn’t have tried to make a decision about this right now. But I didn’t want to leave Pittsburgh again not even knowing what I can expect from you this time. I just need stability right now.”
Brian nods. “I know.”
They just look at each other sadly for a long moment, and then Justin stands up like he supposes he has no choice but to just leave like this, but Brian’s arms catch him around his hips as he tries to walk by. He just holds him in place there with his face against his waist like he cannot bear to look him in the eye. There are so many words screaming inside of him at this moment that he cannot say to Justin out loud because it would not be right to burden him with them, so all he can do is plead with him wordlessly with his arms around him.
Justin puts his arms around his shoulders and holds him against him, now breathing a little unsteadily. “I’m sorry...I love you, but I just don’t know if I can trust you.”
Brian pulls away a little to look up at him. “Don’t worry. No apologies.”
Justin takes in a shaky breath, leans down and kisses him, and then has to unwrap himself from Brian’s arms like they are stuck solidly in place. As he walks away, Brian just keeps staring forward at nothing, because he cannot watch him go out the door.
Two days later, looking for the remote for the television, Brian finds a tiny little mitten buried in between two cushions on his couch. When he calls Lindsay, she is so shocked to hear from him again so soon that she assumes something bad has happened and answers the phone saying, “Oh my God, what’s wrong?”
“One of Gus’s hands is cold,” he answers.
“Huh?”
“I just found his mitten in my couch.”
“Oh, good, we were looking for that! I forgot we were over there once; that’s the only place we didn’t check.”
“Daddy Rage saves the day again.”
“So what’s actually wrong?”
Brian pauses, thrown off by the question. “What are you talking about?”
“Come on. You wouldn’t call me about this instead of just sending us the mitten without a word unless you were taking advantage of a good excuse to call me.”
This makes Brian go quiet a moment, thinking about that and realizing it might actually be somewhat true. “Nothing is wrong. Besides just about...everything,” he admits.
He doesn’t tell her the whole detailed story, because he really doesn’t want to relive it, but that is the beauty of his and Lindsay’s friendship; she is able to read so much from his tone of voice as he only vaguely explains what happened that she basically keeps guessing until she gets the whole story right.
“Well, I can’t say I’m all that surprised,” she says. “After all, you’re not the only person in the world who turns to sex when they’re in pain.”
“I think with me, it’s more a case of not abstaining from sex just because I’m in pain.”
“However you want to think of it. Plus with the two of you, who were together for so long before, it must be as easy and natural as shaking hands.”
Brian thinks then about how a long time ago around the time he and Justin made up the rules of their arrangement, he started to realize how having sex with him was never much of a surprise anymore because they had done it so many times, but he didn’t really mind this as much as he would have expected. He usually thinks it keeps things interesting when he can’t always expect what someone is going to be like in bed. Sometimes it’s like a guessing game, spotting somebody in a crowd when on the hunt and trying to tell, Top or bottom? Wild and loud or more subdued? Dark, cigarette-smoker scent or sweet and soapy-smelling? After a while, there was no longer any of that excitement of surprise with Justin, but he found that to actually be dependable, sometimes preferable; making love to somebody so many times that you know every contour of their body as well as your own and can recognize their smell on the sheets even when they are gone, becoming used to the distinct way they make love, so much that if they suddenly start making love a different way or you smell and taste something unfamiliar on them, you know that they have been with somebody else. At age thirty-one, having this kind of closeness with someone was completely new to him. Justin was with Ethan for a while, but Brian has only ever known this with one person in his life.
Lindsay is right that it is no wonder it happened again so easily. In a strange way, it makes sense that nothing else in the world felt safer and more certain right then than that, knowing each other in that way again. There was no better way to momentarily escape the present.
“But what now?” Brian asks, and hears Lindsay sigh on the other line like she has no idea what the answer is. Usually Lindsay gives him advice that he just rejects, but if she isn’t even sure what to say this time, he knows he’s in deep shit.
“Now...you let him know you’re still there, even if not as his partner,” she says. “The last thing he needs is to feel regret for forcing you completely out of his life.”
“But Linz...maybe that’s what he wants.”
“What?”
“Or at least what he needs. I mean...doesn’t what just happened maybe prove that we’re just really bad at not being together when we stay close at all?”
She is silent for a moment. “...Yeah. Maybe.”
And that is it, he is afraid. Maybe that is it. He and Justin have dealt with a lot of problems together, but it seems like things have never been this fucked up before.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” Lindsay says. “Except you just have to give it time and see how he feels later.”
Brian wishes he could be optimistic, but he is not. After a long, disturbing stretch of silence, he says, “So I’ll try to remember to ship this mitten tomorrow.”
“Don’t bother; he has another pair to use. We’ll just get it next time we’re there.”
“Okay.”
“Give everyone my love.”
“Sure...Bye.”
For the next few days, Brian’s loft is hauntingly quiet. He cannot stop thinking about all the things Justin said and how they were all horribly true. He remembers at one moment the day they were fighting in his office after he told him he was going to Ibiza, and he shouted, “We’re not fucking married!” and left the room. And right afterwards, the terrible reality of it all was for a very brief moment lucidly clear to him: they were as bad as a fucking married couple carrying on like this. He was Jack shouting at Joan before storming out of the house to go to the bars, making sure she knew he was not going to be told what to do, not caring if his child heard the whole thing in the other room.
But the realization did not last in his mind long enough to stick, so that when he came back into the room and Justin, impossibly, tolerated it all and said, “I just want you to know that I love you,” Brian only looked at him and did not say what he should have.
He did not say anything at all.
Continue to part 8...