Compromise - Jane!fic
Compromise - Jane!fic
Brian and Justin slid into either side of the booth, Brian next to Michael, and Justin next to Emmett. “Hey,” Justin greeted them. “Crowded in here,” he observed, noting the line at the front of the diner.
Michael nodded emphatically. “Yeah, we’ve been waiting ten minutes just for coffee.”
“Good thing I stopped for latte, then,” Brian said, raising his Starbucks cup.
Justin rolled his eyes. “Which is why we’re late.”
“Good things come to those who wait.”
“Please,” Emmett interrupted. “You’ve never waited to come in your life.”
“Justin! Oh, my god, thank god you’re here!” Kiki called, interrupting Brian’s surely witty return. She hurried over to the table. “Deb’s out, we can’t find a replacement, and I’m fine mostly, but then there was this rush, I know it’s a lot to ask, but can you PLEEEEEEEASE help out for five minutes? You’ll probably get breakfast that much quicker, anyway. And all my tips.”
Justin grinned. He hadn’t worked the diner in months, but Deb corralled him from time to time. The tips were okay, as always, but the brownie points he built up with Deb were better. And Kiki would be sure to give them faster service in the future. Not that that was ever an issue. Besides, it would be rude to refuse. He glanced over at Brian, who shrugged.
“Get me coffee and I’ll give you ten bucks,” Michael put in.
“Oh, me too!” Emmett added. Then he squeezed his arm before Justin moved away. “You are so good! That’s why we love you.”
“That’s why YOU love him,” Brian snorted, raising an eyebrow. “I love him for entirely different reasons.” Then he took a sip of his coffee.
Justin barely paused in mid-step as he walked away.
Brian looked up, saw Emmett’s mouth gaping open (well, nothing new THERE, he thought to himself). Michael was concealing a half-grin. “What?” he asked them, his brows meeting as his forehead creased into a frown.
“You said you love Justin.”
“So?”
“So?!!” Emmett whispered so he wouldn’t shout the word across the diner. He leaned forward. “That’s huge! You! You actually said you have an attachment to a guy you’re fu… uh, screw… oh, well, it’s huge.”
Brian rolled his eyes. “There’s plenty between me and Justin that is more huge than that.” He smirked. “And more entertaining.”
“So when’d you finally tell him?” Michael asked, out of pure curiosity. He ignored the slight clawing in his guts. He was over it. Really. Besides, Brian had loved him first.
“None of your business,” Brian returned, but Michael noticed a slight hesitation, and the way Brian’s eyes had shifted ever so slightly onto the diner floor, following the back of the man walking toward a far table with an order pad. Who wasn’t bringing them coffee immediately. Michael noticed Justin seemed less than relaxed. He usually joked with customers; in fact, the kid was holding himself a bit stiffly. As he turned from taking the order, he shot a quick, baffled look at Brian’s back. Michael started laughing. “Oh, my god, you are so stupid.”
“What? Why?” Emmett asked. He hated missing anything.
“That was the first time he’s said it.”
Emmett’s mouth dropped open again.
“For fuck’s sake, you people really need to find another way to amuse yourselves.” Brian revealed nothing. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to use the bathroom. Unless you’re bored and would like to amuse yourself watching me some more? But of course, that goes without saying…” He sauntered away.
Behind him, Emmett leaned forward, not stopping his grin. “Justin must be ecstatic!”
Michael shook his head, laughing slightly. “What, are you kidding? He’s going to kill him.”
Justin didn’t say anything. Not after the breakfast rush, not on sitting back down with his breakfast, which he brought to the table along with everyone else’s. Not on the way back to the loft. Not as he flopped down in front of the t.v. and surfed relentlessly through the channels. Brian sat at the computer and tried to ignore him. But when Justin paused for the third time on Joel Osteen and the self-empowerment crusade, Brian finally sighed, got up, and walked over to the couch. He sat, and stared.
Justin didn’t even glance at him. Uh oh. “Justin.”
“What.”
“What’s the problem.”
“Why do you think I have a problem.”
“Because whenever you’re preoccupied by something, you stare at really stupid t.v. without watching it.”
“How do you know I’m not watching.”
On the television, Joel Osteen told his audience… uh, congregation, “Wives, God wants you to look good for your husband!”
“So you think god wants you to look good for me.”
Justin snorted. “Maybe he’s talking to you.”
Brian bit his lip, and shifted back on the couch. He studied Justin, who had turned back to watch the television. Damn it.
When had this started? Well, truthfully, he hadn’t minded Justin’s new ease with Brian’s conservative approach to linguistic expression… he seemed to have adopted Brian’s own belief that lingual abilities sufficed.
But funny thing. As soon as Justin lost his seeming need to communicate a verbal stream of consciousness, Brian found himself wondering a lot more about what was going on in that brain of his. Well, sure, Brian could read Justin, and most of the time he didn’t HAVE to read him, one of the many reasons he didn’t mind him sticking around so much. But then there were times, like now, when he fought to not care. He had to fight to hold his tongue, to not ask.
He was starting to understand exactly what Justin had found so frustrating about Brian’s close-mouthed style. That was a weird feeling.
He watched Justin’s profile, noting the moment Justin’s eyes shifted over to check Brian’s position, and finally felt something relax inside himself. Yup, he had been right, Justin was struggling with something, something to do with Brian. Thank god.
To be honest, Justin’s growing self-assurance threw Brian off. They had a fairly well defined relationship; Brian was top, Justin bottom. Right? Right.
Only Justin was growing out of that. And Brian was… what? Where did that put him?
For instance, right now. Justin turned away from the television, and employed a classic Kinney avoidance tactic. “So, baby? Strip for your man. Let him see how good you look.”
Fuck, straight to his dick. And Brian couldn’t decide if he should put the little… well, ex-twat into his place, or just give in.
Things had changed. Back in the day, he would have told Justin to get fucked. And then he would have stripped HIM, forced him face down on the couch, and fucked him. Hard.
Now, Brian wanted to give in to that sultry look, that husky tone, shit. He wanted to give in more than he wanted to assure his unquestioned, dominant position.
Last week had been the first time he had really seen what was going on, what had been going on for a while. In fact, the look Justin was giving him now was very much like the one that had started that scene last week, the scene that had made Brian realize it wasn’t so much a turning of the tables, but merely his own realization of the gradual shift in their relationship. He hadn’t realized that things had changed so drastically. And it wasn’t that he wasn’t paying attention; it was that he hadn’t *minded* the change in the status quo. It had felt right.
But hell, when had he ever really thought while in bed with Justin? he didn’t need to think, that was the point. Well, one of the points. He had taken out the silk ties earlier, before Justin had gotten home. Brian loved to take those out from time to time, the blindfold sometimes, that black silk such a gorgeous contrast to the blonde hair - or the other four, black against the pale skin… a favorite treat, tying his partner down, so that he couldn’t move to respond, and then fucking that prone body hard, or slow, any way he wanted. Such a turn-on, complete control. After kissing intensely for fuck, what? Five minutes? Half hour? Enough to work up a slight sweat, Brian keeping it slow, anticipating… He’d reached over the bed and picked up the restraints he had set aside earlier that evening, and turned back to the smaller man. Justin had lifted his eyebrows, took in Brian’s grin, and then returned the look with a similar one, leaning into Brian’s body and plucking the silk ties out of his hands. “You read my mind…” Justin murmured against the other man’s lips, grabbing Brian’s wrists and bending him back, hands trapped in Justin’s. Brian found himself flat on his back, pinned.
Any thoughts about struggling were overwhelmed and blotted out by a huge surge of desire that surged upward through his thighs, ripping across his gut, taking him completely by surprise, the desire weakening any control over his own muscles, making him give in without a struggle. By the time the wave had passed, the ties firmly held him, immobile. Another wave had risen up through him as Justin knelt at his side, looked at the body splayed before him, and ran a finger down Brian’s side, tracing a hip. “I like you like this,” Justin had said, and no smile graced his lips as his eyes moved up Brian’s chest, over his face, to meet his gaze, and Brian saw that look on Justin’s face, the one that told him the other man was in charge of him from this point out. Shit, and there it had been again, this time rising up in the region of his stomach and slamming straight into his dick. Justin’s eyes shifted downward, then back up as Brian swallowed audibly into a suddenly dry throat. Justin smirked, and not in a way that gave Brian any sense of comfort. His partner had taken the upper hand, and that hand was held above him; he was not going to touch. He was going to be touched. Fuck. He felt a bead of liquid run out of his dick, tickle the base on the way down.
“It’s the all or nothing in you, you know,” Justin said, his index finger continuing its lazy exploration of his side, the firm muscles at his abdomen. “It’s either command or be commanded. There’s no half way for you. And you know that. I know that. This scares you, doesn’t it? The thrill, the forbiddenness of surrender. If you’re not completely on top at all times, then you’re completely subjected. But you know what really fucks you up, Brian?” Justin had leaned down, his tongue tracing Brian’s left nipple lightly. Brian jerked, deeply inhaled so his chest rose to Justin’s mouth. Justin pulled back, looked up, but Brian refused to to answer.
“Look at me!” Justin’s voice, so sharp and commanding, jerked Brian’s gaze back to his eyes, and Justin smiled, a predatory expression. Brian refused to look away, knowing his defiant look was a sham; he had already been taken. The worst thing, though, was that he should mind this, and he didn’t. He should be amused, and all he felt was desire so strong he had to keep dragging in gulpfuls of air, to stop himself from moaning, from giving himself completely away.
Justin’s voice, amused. “You know, don’t you? You want to surrender, you want to just relax into someone, into something bigger than yourself. But you can’t, because it’s too frightening. You want me…” Justin straddled Brian’s hips, and Brian had to force himself not to move, not to surge upward, to rub his cock against the body above him. “You want this, for me to take possession of you, it’s your deepest secret, you’ve wanted it all along, the forbidden thing, surrender, not of the body, but of your whole self…”
Brian had been expecting Justin to fuck him then, to let his legs free, to lift them over his shoulders and sink deep into Brian’s ass, and if Brian had been forced to the truth, he would have admitted that he wasn’t sure that those waves of desire crashing through him would be satisfied by anything else.
But Justin hadn’t meant that kind of possession, and that was the moment Brian had realized exactly what was going on, not just in that moment, but in their whole relationship, as Justin reached down to roll a condom on Brian’s impossibly hard penis, before he impaled himself, moving slowly and deliberately, in complete control of their contact, so elemental and primitive. Brian had been able to flex and relax his muscles, but with all four extremities tied down Justin had been fully in charge of everything else. Brian had been wrong all along, being penetrated was not the same as being in control, topping did not, after all, mean he was in charge, because he had been penetrating Justin right then but somewhere along the line he had moved out of the power position.
His orgasm had been overwhelming.
Remembering that, Brian almost gave into Justin’s command for him to strip.
Almost.
He shook his head. Justin huffed his breath out, twisted his lips, and turned back to the t.v. screen.
“My, we give up easily.”
Justin snorted a laugh, and turned back. “Are you playing for my attention? Just like the little woman.”
Wow, Justin was truly worked up about something. “We all have a little girl in us.” Brian wiggled his bare foot under Justin’s thigh.
Justin stared at him. “We all… What? Brian Kinney? Where’d he go? Who are you?”
“Who do you want me to be?”
“Brian. You are freaking me out.”
“You were freaked out before I started this.” Brian worked his foot further in, brushing up against Justin’s junk. Justin shifted his thigh, opening the space for Brian’s better access. Brian decided he liked Justin in cargoes. They were loose. Jeans were too tight. He could shift this material with his toes.
“I just… I’m thinking about something. It’s not your problem.”
“The L word.”
“You know I’m not into shows about lesbians.”
Brian raised an eyebrow, and waited. Justin took a deep breath. “Okay, well, it’s your own fault, you asked. I don’t really like to pull you into these things because I don’t want to upset you, and don’t give me that, you get upset that I’m upset, but I’m not really upset because in the end I figure it all out just fine, so any upset I go through doesn’t need to affect you. And it doesn’t usually seem to affect you whether it does or not, so I just might get more upset about it because you seem to think my problems really aren’t problems. Even though I know it’s just that you realize they aren’t YOUR problems.”
Well, shit, Brian thought, this is why he preferred the tacit Justin. One prod, and all this verbal diarrhea. He’d figured those mental puzzles hadn’t disappeared, they had just come under better management. Well, he had asked.
“…And if it really turns out to be a big deal that affected you I’d tell you. It’s just… well, so, I know you love me so your actually saying it is not that big a deal…”
Brian’s other eyebrow shot up to join the first.
“Well, then, if it is that big a deal,” Justin continued without pause, “why’d you do it in front of everyone? I had to pretend that it really wasn’t a… oh.” He stopped, and stared at Brian, and then started to laugh.
Brian waited.
“You’re such a shit,” Justin told him, moving across the couch, leaning into Brian’s chest, putting his arms around Brian’s neck.
Brian own arms encircled Justin’s back. “Yup, that’s right, I tell my man I love him, he calls me a shit.”
“Brian!” Justin sat back, and swatted him with the back of his hand. His eyes misted over.
“Oh, god, tears, now?”
“Yeah, well, you only said it in front of everyone else so I wouldn’t make a big deal out of it, but hah, you don’t get to be in charge, not when it concerns me. Us.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Brian answered, his tone wry. He knew that. He knew for sure when he found himself tied down, silently agreeing that this was a surrender of more than his body. The twink… his partner had been right. He always prided himself on recognizing reality, on not romanticizing the hard cold facts. And this was his hard cold reality. It was better that he just acknowledge it, and move on. So he was fucked. What else was new?
“You never cease to amaze me,” Justin told him, leaning forward and kissing him hard.
Thank god, Brian thought, his mouth opening to the engagement, this will shut him up.
Brian and Justin slid into either side of the booth, Brian next to Michael, and Justin next to Emmett. “Hey,” Justin greeted them. “Crowded in here,” he observed, noting the line at the front of the diner.
Michael nodded emphatically. “Yeah, we’ve been waiting ten minutes just for coffee.”
“Good thing I stopped for latte, then,” Brian said, raising his Starbucks cup.
Justin rolled his eyes. “Which is why we’re late.”
“Good things come to those who wait.”
“Please,” Emmett interrupted. “You’ve never waited to come in your life.”
“Justin! Oh, my god, thank god you’re here!” Kiki called, interrupting Brian’s surely witty return. She hurried over to the table. “Deb’s out, we can’t find a replacement, and I’m fine mostly, but then there was this rush, I know it’s a lot to ask, but can you PLEEEEEEEASE help out for five minutes? You’ll probably get breakfast that much quicker, anyway. And all my tips.”
Justin grinned. He hadn’t worked the diner in months, but Deb corralled him from time to time. The tips were okay, as always, but the brownie points he built up with Deb were better. And Kiki would be sure to give them faster service in the future. Not that that was ever an issue. Besides, it would be rude to refuse. He glanced over at Brian, who shrugged.
“Get me coffee and I’ll give you ten bucks,” Michael put in.
“Oh, me too!” Emmett added. Then he squeezed his arm before Justin moved away. “You are so good! That’s why we love you.”
“That’s why YOU love him,” Brian snorted, raising an eyebrow. “I love him for entirely different reasons.” Then he took a sip of his coffee.
Justin barely paused in mid-step as he walked away.
Brian looked up, saw Emmett’s mouth gaping open (well, nothing new THERE, he thought to himself). Michael was concealing a half-grin. “What?” he asked them, his brows meeting as his forehead creased into a frown.
“You said you love Justin.”
“So?”
“So?!!” Emmett whispered so he wouldn’t shout the word across the diner. He leaned forward. “That’s huge! You! You actually said you have an attachment to a guy you’re fu… uh, screw… oh, well, it’s huge.”
Brian rolled his eyes. “There’s plenty between me and Justin that is more huge than that.” He smirked. “And more entertaining.”
“So when’d you finally tell him?” Michael asked, out of pure curiosity. He ignored the slight clawing in his guts. He was over it. Really. Besides, Brian had loved him first.
“None of your business,” Brian returned, but Michael noticed a slight hesitation, and the way Brian’s eyes had shifted ever so slightly onto the diner floor, following the back of the man walking toward a far table with an order pad. Who wasn’t bringing them coffee immediately. Michael noticed Justin seemed less than relaxed. He usually joked with customers; in fact, the kid was holding himself a bit stiffly. As he turned from taking the order, he shot a quick, baffled look at Brian’s back. Michael started laughing. “Oh, my god, you are so stupid.”
“What? Why?” Emmett asked. He hated missing anything.
“That was the first time he’s said it.”
Emmett’s mouth dropped open again.
“For fuck’s sake, you people really need to find another way to amuse yourselves.” Brian revealed nothing. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to use the bathroom. Unless you’re bored and would like to amuse yourself watching me some more? But of course, that goes without saying…” He sauntered away.
Behind him, Emmett leaned forward, not stopping his grin. “Justin must be ecstatic!”
Michael shook his head, laughing slightly. “What, are you kidding? He’s going to kill him.”
Justin didn’t say anything. Not after the breakfast rush, not on sitting back down with his breakfast, which he brought to the table along with everyone else’s. Not on the way back to the loft. Not as he flopped down in front of the t.v. and surfed relentlessly through the channels. Brian sat at the computer and tried to ignore him. But when Justin paused for the third time on Joel Osteen and the self-empowerment crusade, Brian finally sighed, got up, and walked over to the couch. He sat, and stared.
Justin didn’t even glance at him. Uh oh. “Justin.”
“What.”
“What’s the problem.”
“Why do you think I have a problem.”
“Because whenever you’re preoccupied by something, you stare at really stupid t.v. without watching it.”
“How do you know I’m not watching.”
On the television, Joel Osteen told his audience… uh, congregation, “Wives, God wants you to look good for your husband!”
“So you think god wants you to look good for me.”
Justin snorted. “Maybe he’s talking to you.”
Brian bit his lip, and shifted back on the couch. He studied Justin, who had turned back to watch the television. Damn it.
When had this started? Well, truthfully, he hadn’t minded Justin’s new ease with Brian’s conservative approach to linguistic expression… he seemed to have adopted Brian’s own belief that lingual abilities sufficed.
But funny thing. As soon as Justin lost his seeming need to communicate a verbal stream of consciousness, Brian found himself wondering a lot more about what was going on in that brain of his. Well, sure, Brian could read Justin, and most of the time he didn’t HAVE to read him, one of the many reasons he didn’t mind him sticking around so much. But then there were times, like now, when he fought to not care. He had to fight to hold his tongue, to not ask.
He was starting to understand exactly what Justin had found so frustrating about Brian’s close-mouthed style. That was a weird feeling.
He watched Justin’s profile, noting the moment Justin’s eyes shifted over to check Brian’s position, and finally felt something relax inside himself. Yup, he had been right, Justin was struggling with something, something to do with Brian. Thank god.
To be honest, Justin’s growing self-assurance threw Brian off. They had a fairly well defined relationship; Brian was top, Justin bottom. Right? Right.
Only Justin was growing out of that. And Brian was… what? Where did that put him?
For instance, right now. Justin turned away from the television, and employed a classic Kinney avoidance tactic. “So, baby? Strip for your man. Let him see how good you look.”
Fuck, straight to his dick. And Brian couldn’t decide if he should put the little… well, ex-twat into his place, or just give in.
Things had changed. Back in the day, he would have told Justin to get fucked. And then he would have stripped HIM, forced him face down on the couch, and fucked him. Hard.
Now, Brian wanted to give in to that sultry look, that husky tone, shit. He wanted to give in more than he wanted to assure his unquestioned, dominant position.
Last week had been the first time he had really seen what was going on, what had been going on for a while. In fact, the look Justin was giving him now was very much like the one that had started that scene last week, the scene that had made Brian realize it wasn’t so much a turning of the tables, but merely his own realization of the gradual shift in their relationship. He hadn’t realized that things had changed so drastically. And it wasn’t that he wasn’t paying attention; it was that he hadn’t *minded* the change in the status quo. It had felt right.
But hell, when had he ever really thought while in bed with Justin? he didn’t need to think, that was the point. Well, one of the points. He had taken out the silk ties earlier, before Justin had gotten home. Brian loved to take those out from time to time, the blindfold sometimes, that black silk such a gorgeous contrast to the blonde hair - or the other four, black against the pale skin… a favorite treat, tying his partner down, so that he couldn’t move to respond, and then fucking that prone body hard, or slow, any way he wanted. Such a turn-on, complete control. After kissing intensely for fuck, what? Five minutes? Half hour? Enough to work up a slight sweat, Brian keeping it slow, anticipating… He’d reached over the bed and picked up the restraints he had set aside earlier that evening, and turned back to the smaller man. Justin had lifted his eyebrows, took in Brian’s grin, and then returned the look with a similar one, leaning into Brian’s body and plucking the silk ties out of his hands. “You read my mind…” Justin murmured against the other man’s lips, grabbing Brian’s wrists and bending him back, hands trapped in Justin’s. Brian found himself flat on his back, pinned.
Any thoughts about struggling were overwhelmed and blotted out by a huge surge of desire that surged upward through his thighs, ripping across his gut, taking him completely by surprise, the desire weakening any control over his own muscles, making him give in without a struggle. By the time the wave had passed, the ties firmly held him, immobile. Another wave had risen up through him as Justin knelt at his side, looked at the body splayed before him, and ran a finger down Brian’s side, tracing a hip. “I like you like this,” Justin had said, and no smile graced his lips as his eyes moved up Brian’s chest, over his face, to meet his gaze, and Brian saw that look on Justin’s face, the one that told him the other man was in charge of him from this point out. Shit, and there it had been again, this time rising up in the region of his stomach and slamming straight into his dick. Justin’s eyes shifted downward, then back up as Brian swallowed audibly into a suddenly dry throat. Justin smirked, and not in a way that gave Brian any sense of comfort. His partner had taken the upper hand, and that hand was held above him; he was not going to touch. He was going to be touched. Fuck. He felt a bead of liquid run out of his dick, tickle the base on the way down.
“It’s the all or nothing in you, you know,” Justin said, his index finger continuing its lazy exploration of his side, the firm muscles at his abdomen. “It’s either command or be commanded. There’s no half way for you. And you know that. I know that. This scares you, doesn’t it? The thrill, the forbiddenness of surrender. If you’re not completely on top at all times, then you’re completely subjected. But you know what really fucks you up, Brian?” Justin had leaned down, his tongue tracing Brian’s left nipple lightly. Brian jerked, deeply inhaled so his chest rose to Justin’s mouth. Justin pulled back, looked up, but Brian refused to to answer.
“Look at me!” Justin’s voice, so sharp and commanding, jerked Brian’s gaze back to his eyes, and Justin smiled, a predatory expression. Brian refused to look away, knowing his defiant look was a sham; he had already been taken. The worst thing, though, was that he should mind this, and he didn’t. He should be amused, and all he felt was desire so strong he had to keep dragging in gulpfuls of air, to stop himself from moaning, from giving himself completely away.
Justin’s voice, amused. “You know, don’t you? You want to surrender, you want to just relax into someone, into something bigger than yourself. But you can’t, because it’s too frightening. You want me…” Justin straddled Brian’s hips, and Brian had to force himself not to move, not to surge upward, to rub his cock against the body above him. “You want this, for me to take possession of you, it’s your deepest secret, you’ve wanted it all along, the forbidden thing, surrender, not of the body, but of your whole self…”
Brian had been expecting Justin to fuck him then, to let his legs free, to lift them over his shoulders and sink deep into Brian’s ass, and if Brian had been forced to the truth, he would have admitted that he wasn’t sure that those waves of desire crashing through him would be satisfied by anything else.
But Justin hadn’t meant that kind of possession, and that was the moment Brian had realized exactly what was going on, not just in that moment, but in their whole relationship, as Justin reached down to roll a condom on Brian’s impossibly hard penis, before he impaled himself, moving slowly and deliberately, in complete control of their contact, so elemental and primitive. Brian had been able to flex and relax his muscles, but with all four extremities tied down Justin had been fully in charge of everything else. Brian had been wrong all along, being penetrated was not the same as being in control, topping did not, after all, mean he was in charge, because he had been penetrating Justin right then but somewhere along the line he had moved out of the power position.
His orgasm had been overwhelming.
Remembering that, Brian almost gave into Justin’s command for him to strip.
Almost.
He shook his head. Justin huffed his breath out, twisted his lips, and turned back to the t.v. screen.
“My, we give up easily.”
Justin snorted a laugh, and turned back. “Are you playing for my attention? Just like the little woman.”
Wow, Justin was truly worked up about something. “We all have a little girl in us.” Brian wiggled his bare foot under Justin’s thigh.
Justin stared at him. “We all… What? Brian Kinney? Where’d he go? Who are you?”
“Who do you want me to be?”
“Brian. You are freaking me out.”
“You were freaked out before I started this.” Brian worked his foot further in, brushing up against Justin’s junk. Justin shifted his thigh, opening the space for Brian’s better access. Brian decided he liked Justin in cargoes. They were loose. Jeans were too tight. He could shift this material with his toes.
“I just… I’m thinking about something. It’s not your problem.”
“The L word.”
“You know I’m not into shows about lesbians.”
Brian raised an eyebrow, and waited. Justin took a deep breath. “Okay, well, it’s your own fault, you asked. I don’t really like to pull you into these things because I don’t want to upset you, and don’t give me that, you get upset that I’m upset, but I’m not really upset because in the end I figure it all out just fine, so any upset I go through doesn’t need to affect you. And it doesn’t usually seem to affect you whether it does or not, so I just might get more upset about it because you seem to think my problems really aren’t problems. Even though I know it’s just that you realize they aren’t YOUR problems.”
Well, shit, Brian thought, this is why he preferred the tacit Justin. One prod, and all this verbal diarrhea. He’d figured those mental puzzles hadn’t disappeared, they had just come under better management. Well, he had asked.
“…And if it really turns out to be a big deal that affected you I’d tell you. It’s just… well, so, I know you love me so your actually saying it is not that big a deal…”
Brian’s other eyebrow shot up to join the first.
“Well, then, if it is that big a deal,” Justin continued without pause, “why’d you do it in front of everyone? I had to pretend that it really wasn’t a… oh.” He stopped, and stared at Brian, and then started to laugh.
Brian waited.
“You’re such a shit,” Justin told him, moving across the couch, leaning into Brian’s chest, putting his arms around Brian’s neck.
Brian own arms encircled Justin’s back. “Yup, that’s right, I tell my man I love him, he calls me a shit.”
“Brian!” Justin sat back, and swatted him with the back of his hand. His eyes misted over.
“Oh, god, tears, now?”
“Yeah, well, you only said it in front of everyone else so I wouldn’t make a big deal out of it, but hah, you don’t get to be in charge, not when it concerns me. Us.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Brian answered, his tone wry. He knew that. He knew for sure when he found himself tied down, silently agreeing that this was a surrender of more than his body. The twink… his partner had been right. He always prided himself on recognizing reality, on not romanticizing the hard cold facts. And this was his hard cold reality. It was better that he just acknowledge it, and move on. So he was fucked. What else was new?
“You never cease to amaze me,” Justin told him, leaning forward and kissing him hard.
Thank god, Brian thought, his mouth opening to the engagement, this will shut him up.