QAF B/J Fic: "Layers 1/1"
Title: Layers
Author: Layla V
Timeline: All seasons, and post-513.
Rating: R
Written for: qaf_challenges's Icon Challenge with a Twist
Summary: Ted Schmidt deciphers the phenomenon that is Brian Kinney.
Warnings: Ted's narrative, with a focus on Brian, but B/J stays intact.
He tasted of cigarettes and sex, his lips softer than you’d imagined.
You blamed it on drugs and alcohol, and there certainly were plenty available at the Kinney loft on that fateful night-the day John-John’s plane went down all those years ago. He blamed it on drugs and alcohol.
Only trouble was, he was telling the truth.
That was the first time you tasted his lips, that one tiny, drunken and undoubtedly forgettable brush of lips that lasted perhaps a millionth of a second. Forgettable to him, at least. Brian Fucking Kinney. Sex God Extraordinaire. The most sought-after fag on Liberty Avenue. In Pittsburgh even. The one everyone wanted. The one who could score any trick he wanted on any night of the week.
The first time you almost nearly but not quite got the chance to step inside his swirling orbit of sex and heedless sensuality.
And the last.
It was easy to resent him.
He was the asshole who didn’t give a shit about anyone but himself. He got on your last fucking nerve with his know-it-all, smug, superior attitude. He could ream you out and pull you apart and bring you down to earth with a stone-cold smile and a heartless sneer fixed on his beautiful face. He could crucify you with words without even blinking and you couldn’t believe his audacity.
You wondered how he’d feel if life dealt him a particularly harsh hand one day and he was knocked down a few notches. You wondered how you’d feel if you were there to witness this event. You thought you’d probably feel pretty damn good. After all, you felt he deserved it for his hedonistic lifestyle and you deserved it for your lack thereof.
You never thought this wish would come to bite you in the ass.
He had one weakness, and that was ass. Blond boy ass, in particular.
Which was funny because he’d never gone for chicken in all the years you’d known him so it was hard to think of that pretty little blond twink as anything other than a teen stalker when he first showed up at the scene. And then refused to leave.
He followed him around like an eager puppy everywhere he went and caused you and your friends endless hours of mocking hilarity and laughs at the thought of Brian Kinney being stalked by jail-bait. He lived sex, breathed it, excelled at it, owned it, and obsessed over it with much self-possession, but this was the first time you’d seen him captivated with a 17-year old blond bombshell. Because you had to admit this whether you wanted to or not: the boy was beautiful indeed.
You liked to think the King’s reputation was at stake at the constant teen-baggage he carried around with him because he complained about it like it was some huge albatross around his neck but it only seemed to enhance it further. Brian Kinney was wanted by studs and young meat alike: this was the message the bombshell’s devotion seemed to send to the masses. And you thought some bastards had all the luck.
Then prom happened and an asshole student bashed the kid’s head with a baseball bat and everything changed.
Or perhaps nothing did.
Because Justin lived. And despite the fact that Brian had never visited him even once in the hospital when he was hurt, despite the fact that he’d been drugging and tricking as if nothing had happened, when Justin came out of rehab, he went straight after Brian like a moth goes to the flame.
Because like a moth is addicted to the sight of the bright, shiny flame, Justin was addicted to the sight and taste of Brian Kinney.
And you knew that would be his downfall.
He was all about the image.
Making ads was what he did for a living and he apparently did it better than anyone else you knew because he was the most successful sonofabitch you’d ever come across. But then selling sex to the ignorant slobbering masses with deep wallets and perpetual hard-ons couldn’t have been that big a deal. After all, ‘sex sells’ was a notion well-understood by the world at large and who better to sell it than Brian Kinney himself.
Despite your intense resentment of his exploits, in your most private moments, you wondered what it would be like to be Brian Kinney for just a day. After all, it was his looks that gave him his confidence and his confidence that made him such a successful stud, and all of it was wrapped up in his image.
Your attempts to emulate him ended in private ridicule and you were at least glad he hadn’t been there to laugh at you himself.
You didn’t think you could stand the humiliation.
But it was all well and good to ridicule him when the tide turned.
It was easy to laugh off the farce that was his relationship with Justin after the kid publicly humiliated and left him for greener pastures. That was the kind of brought-down-to-earth lesson you’d been waiting for. However, you doubted he felt anything other than mere relief for having finally rid of his teen stalker. After all that’s what Michael’s mantra had been for the last 2 years: Justin was just a trick that had overstayed his welcome. You had no reason to think otherwise.
Mel said she didn’t understand why Lindsay always took his side. Brian Kinney was, after all, a remorseless, self-gratifying, depraved asshole who was a bad influence for not only someone as young and impressionable as Justin - thank God the kid had finally woken up and moved on - but also for his own son - who was lucky to have two loving parents who wanted him and hadn’t given him up because they were too busy fucking nameless strangers in sex clubs every night.
You weren’t sure she was being completely forthright with her declarations - there were many things off with the picture she painted - but you agreed with her anyways. It was far more entertaining to rag on Brian Kinney than it was to pull for him, and she was upset enough with you anyways that you didn’t want to incur any more of her wrath. After all, (only) she knew you’d once again kept Brian Kinney as the executor of your living will and as always she failed to understand your reasons for doing something so stupid.
You weren’t sure you understood it yourself. But for whatever reason, he was still the only one amongst your circle of friends (if friend was indeed the right word for Brian Kinney) that you trusted with your life and death decisions. You’d once told him it was because he was a heartless bastard and he'd believed you.
What you never told him was that despite his heartlessness, he was still the strongest person you knew and would always be the first one to have the balls to make the right decision when it was crunch time.
The on-again/off-again Brian/Justin drama soon resumed its latest installment. The teen stalker was back again and this time the King didn’t seem to worry about who thought what of whom he was fucking with the nonstop PDAs the two of them indulged in at Woody’s and at Babylon and at the Diner and in the streets around Liberty Avenue. Justin seemed different this time, older, more confident, somehow surer of his place in Brian Kinney’s life.
You missed most of the hoopla, though, because you were stuck in a nightmare of your own this time.
He had no reason to save your ass from Stockwell after your porno kingdom was taken away from you by bigots and homophobes of the world. But he did.
But the downward spiral had begun and no help from the people around could get you out of the quicksand.
You sunk quickly.
He had no reason to offer you a job after you’d ruined your life with crystal and lost everything you’d owned either. But he did that as well.
While you were thrown shipwrecked and defenseless on the shores of obliteration, he’d apparently gone through a financial whirlwind of his own, but of course like the lucky fucking bastard he was, he’d survived it with aplomb.
He said it was logical for him to trust his fledgling business affairs with the same someone he trusted his personal financial affairs with. And you thought of the day John-John’s plane had gone down and you’d gone to the loft to discuss his books with him and had nearly almost but not quiet stepped inside his swirling orbit of sensuality.
Then you thought of five thousand dollars that had gone missing from a baby’s college fund and remembered tweaked out crystal queens and wasted weekends filled with drugs and debauchery that had taken you down into the depths of depravity.
And promised yourself that one day, when you didn’t hate yourself this much, when the time was right, and when you had enough courage to face your own pathetic past, you’ll sit down with him and tell him the whole truth.
His fledgling business had barely gotten off to a shaky start when he told you about the cancer.
You’d seen and experienced the worst in humanity in the last few months of your life but you’d never had anyone close to you be so deathly ill. Because he was not only ill but scared too, even if he denied it to his last choking breath, and that realization filled you with a fear you’d never felt before. Brian Kinney was afraid of this disease that was eating him from the inside. He was no longer perfect. He was flawed, human. Just like the rest of you.
The three times-a-week radiation schedule peaked him out and left him tired and listless and barely functioning. So each day at 12:15 noon you found yourself making your way into his office and getting him into his coat and ordering a cab for him so that he could go home and rest. He never protested and you didn’t know if it was a good thing or bad.
Justin was by his side constantly and you wondered how hard it must be to take care of a cranky and ill Brian Kinney. He was hard to take in his normal state. He must be a worst kind of hell to endure when sick.
Then you thought of baseball bats and drunken, drugged out sex binges and moths circling a bright, burning flame and realized everything went in circles.
Everything had its price. And those who dared to get everything -- paid it.
Brian recovered from cancer and with that resumed the unending drama that was the love-affair between Justin and him. Of course, you’d never say that to Brian. You’d like to live for a good ripe old age of 75 at least.
(Or maybe you would!)
L.A. happened. The breakup happened. The bombing happened. The wedding happened. Or did not happen-depending on the point of view of the person narrating. In the midst of it all, you worked closely with Brian and watched him work his ass off towards making Kinnetik the best fucking ad agency in Pittsburgh and you couldn’t help being proud. After all, you’d sweated it out towards reaching this point as well and for the first time in your life, you truly felt part of a creative team, rather than simply being a boring old accountant.
And you knew that despite all his proclamations of believing otherwise, Brian Kinney - for all practical purposes - was well and truly married to one Justin Taylor.
It didn’t even matter that Justin had gone to New York to pursue an art career. Brian spent as much time in New York as he did in the Pitts and that helped him both on the professional and personal fronts.
Your own on-again/off-again thing with Blake was off once again and you wondered if there would ever be a time you’d find peace in your own personal life.
Two years after they’d absconded to Canada to escape the bigots, the girls came back home, only to announce that they were splitting up.
Mel was in a fucking snit. Lindsay had apparently had sex with yet another man while in Toronto and they’d been having screaming matches ever since. In fact, from what it seemed like, they’d been having screaming matches ever since they’d gone to Canada. Working in Kinnetik and hovering around Brian, you’d known for a while that Lindsay had accused Mel of giving precedence to her career over her family life and not paying enough attention to the kids ever since they’d made the move. Which were all the reasons why they’d split in the past as well.
You also knew it was Brian (of all people) who’d tried to get it through Lindsay’s skull that since Mel had to do her degrees and law license all over again, that meant she had to give precedence to her career, and that Lindsay should cut her some fucking slack. After all, Lindsay was the one who’d agreed to leave everything behind and start anew in Canada, so she had to live with her decision.
But none of this seemed to work and upon returning, the girls got separate apartments, and made everyone around them - especially the kids - miserable with their antics.
If that weren’t enough, Mel got it into her head that she was sick and tired of Brian constantly trying to make contact with Gus and told him and Lindsay to keep him away from her kid or she’d sue for sole custody.
It was like the most unbelievably idiotic and dim-witted drama you’d ever witnessed in your entire life. There were tears and fights and yelling from Lindsay to Michael to Deb and it seemed it would never end. Justin came from New York and refused to leave Brian’s side until all this bullshit was resolved. But Mel wasn’t in the mood to listen to anyone. She wanted Brian to stay away and stay gone and she wanted it fucking now.
You went to see her to talk some sense into her and she blew up on you.
“I know he gave you a fucking job, Teddy!” She snapped. “But that doesn’t mean he has to own you. You should stand on your own fucking feet and maybe learn to think with your own brain, instead of saying everything Brian has indoctrinated you to believe.”
You had to laugh. “You want to hear what I think? I think you’re an ungrateful little bitch who wouldn’t know a good deed done to her if it came and bit her on her ass.”
Her mouth dropped open as she stared at you in shock. “What did you say?”
“What I’m saying is this.” You looked her in the eyes. “I think Brian made a hasty decision seven years ago when he signed away his parental rights for you.”
She was furious. “He signed away his rights because he never wanted Gus in the first---”
“NO!” You interrupted. “He signed away his rights because by doing that, he thought he was making the right decision for his son.” You hadn’t spent the last few years so close to Brian without realizing a few things about his own past and learning how much he loved (and supported) his son. “He signed away his rights because you and Lindsay were split up and he thought that maybe by giving you a chance to be a mother to his son and the opportunity to make your relationship with Lindsay work, you’d give his son the kind of love and attention he never got growing up from his family.”
She snorted. “Oh, how awful for poor Brian Kinney to be plagued with a statistic that happens to over a million kids across USA every year.”
“And how awful for Gus to be plagued with a mother who’s so easily forgotten the fact that if it weren’t for his father, she wouldn’t have any rights to him at all.” She tried to speak but you didn’t let her. “He’s never questioned your existence in Gus’s life, Mel. He’s encouraged it more than you’d ever know.” You look at her. “It’s time for you to get your head out of your ass and think of your son and decide whether the step you’re about to take will make him happy or will it destroy any chance of a prosperous future for him because you were too short-sighted to think of anything beyond your own petty wishes.”
You left her then.
She didn’t speak to you for six months after that.
But she also shut up about the suit.
And you thought you could finally breathe.
Lindsay and Mel didn’t get back together after that, but they at least became civil in their interactions. And that was good enough.
You were sitting in Woody’s one night, nursing a diet coke and shooting group gossip with Emmett when you felt his eyes on you. You turned to look at your friend and found him staring at you with a strange expression on his face.
“What?” you asked him.
Emmett twirled the straw in his Cosmo and looked at you. “You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”
You frowned. “Who?”
He stared at you without speaking and you felt your face getting hot for some reason.
“Who?” you repeated.
“You know who, Teddy.” Emmett spoke softly as if he didn’t want to hurt your feelings. He looked closely at you for a moment and then silently mouthed his name.
“What?” You stared at him incredulously and then shook your head.” “Bri-Brian?” you stammered. “Are you kidding? I’m not-I’m not in love with Brian.” You laughed. “That’s ridiculous.”
Emmett sighed. “Oh, Teddy.”
“What?” You looked at him. “WHAT?” You shook your head again. “He’s my friend, for God’s sake. A very good friend. He’s been great with me. But that doesn’t mean I’m in love with him.” You snorted. “Jesus! That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”
But Emmett kept twirling the straw in his Cosmo and staring at you with the same pitiful, gentle look in his eyes. And you didn’t know where to hide.
That night as you laid down in your bed, for the first time in your life, you felt this strange, bleak loneliness in your heart that you’d never been aware of in your life.
You’d loved and you’d lost and you’d gone through hell in your life. But you’d never thought you’d fall for the one person you felt was your nemesis.
Brian Kinney was beyond your orbit. He was sex personified. He was beautiful and ruthless and courageous and relentless and beyond your fucking reach.
He always had been and he always would be.
And that was the truth you had to live with.
And every time you saw them together, you thought they were beautiful. And you knew that was the way it was meant to be. Brian Kinney deserved to be with someone who challenged him, who took him head on without flinching, who completed him in every way possible.
That had been Justin Taylor from the first night he’d found himself standing under a street light in a smoke filled alley, and Brian Kinney had taken one look at him and been hooked.
He’d pulled Justin into his hazy swirling orbit of sex and sensuality and Justin had stayed there ever since. Unflinching and unafraid.
Always sure of his place in Brian’s heart.
Life went on. Brian Kinney learnt to hold on to his prince, while maintaining his control over his turf.
And if ever you thought of the day John-John’s plane had gone down and you’d found yourself in the midst of an orgy at Brian’s loft, you found yourself smiling.
Life was an orgy with Brian. Work was an orgy with Brian. He was sensual at everything he did and if he thought of you as a friend and trusted you with his business then you knew you were privileged.
You were honored to be his friend and his confidante. And you could love him from a distance, knowing he was happy and fulfilled in his life.
The King of his domain. Forever and beyond.
*******************
The End
Author: Layla V
Timeline: All seasons, and post-513.
Rating: R
Written for: qaf_challenges's Icon Challenge with a Twist
Summary: Ted Schmidt deciphers the phenomenon that is Brian Kinney.
Warnings: Ted's narrative, with a focus on Brian, but B/J stays intact.
He tasted of cigarettes and sex, his lips softer than you’d imagined.
You blamed it on drugs and alcohol, and there certainly were plenty available at the Kinney loft on that fateful night-the day John-John’s plane went down all those years ago. He blamed it on drugs and alcohol.
Only trouble was, he was telling the truth.
That was the first time you tasted his lips, that one tiny, drunken and undoubtedly forgettable brush of lips that lasted perhaps a millionth of a second. Forgettable to him, at least. Brian Fucking Kinney. Sex God Extraordinaire. The most sought-after fag on Liberty Avenue. In Pittsburgh even. The one everyone wanted. The one who could score any trick he wanted on any night of the week.
The first time you almost nearly but not quite got the chance to step inside his swirling orbit of sex and heedless sensuality.
And the last.
It was easy to resent him.
He was the asshole who didn’t give a shit about anyone but himself. He got on your last fucking nerve with his know-it-all, smug, superior attitude. He could ream you out and pull you apart and bring you down to earth with a stone-cold smile and a heartless sneer fixed on his beautiful face. He could crucify you with words without even blinking and you couldn’t believe his audacity.
You wondered how he’d feel if life dealt him a particularly harsh hand one day and he was knocked down a few notches. You wondered how you’d feel if you were there to witness this event. You thought you’d probably feel pretty damn good. After all, you felt he deserved it for his hedonistic lifestyle and you deserved it for your lack thereof.
You never thought this wish would come to bite you in the ass.
He had one weakness, and that was ass. Blond boy ass, in particular.
Which was funny because he’d never gone for chicken in all the years you’d known him so it was hard to think of that pretty little blond twink as anything other than a teen stalker when he first showed up at the scene. And then refused to leave.
He followed him around like an eager puppy everywhere he went and caused you and your friends endless hours of mocking hilarity and laughs at the thought of Brian Kinney being stalked by jail-bait. He lived sex, breathed it, excelled at it, owned it, and obsessed over it with much self-possession, but this was the first time you’d seen him captivated with a 17-year old blond bombshell. Because you had to admit this whether you wanted to or not: the boy was beautiful indeed.
You liked to think the King’s reputation was at stake at the constant teen-baggage he carried around with him because he complained about it like it was some huge albatross around his neck but it only seemed to enhance it further. Brian Kinney was wanted by studs and young meat alike: this was the message the bombshell’s devotion seemed to send to the masses. And you thought some bastards had all the luck.
Then prom happened and an asshole student bashed the kid’s head with a baseball bat and everything changed.
Or perhaps nothing did.
Because Justin lived. And despite the fact that Brian had never visited him even once in the hospital when he was hurt, despite the fact that he’d been drugging and tricking as if nothing had happened, when Justin came out of rehab, he went straight after Brian like a moth goes to the flame.
Because like a moth is addicted to the sight of the bright, shiny flame, Justin was addicted to the sight and taste of Brian Kinney.
And you knew that would be his downfall.
He was all about the image.
Making ads was what he did for a living and he apparently did it better than anyone else you knew because he was the most successful sonofabitch you’d ever come across. But then selling sex to the ignorant slobbering masses with deep wallets and perpetual hard-ons couldn’t have been that big a deal. After all, ‘sex sells’ was a notion well-understood by the world at large and who better to sell it than Brian Kinney himself.
Despite your intense resentment of his exploits, in your most private moments, you wondered what it would be like to be Brian Kinney for just a day. After all, it was his looks that gave him his confidence and his confidence that made him such a successful stud, and all of it was wrapped up in his image.
Your attempts to emulate him ended in private ridicule and you were at least glad he hadn’t been there to laugh at you himself.
You didn’t think you could stand the humiliation.
But it was all well and good to ridicule him when the tide turned.
It was easy to laugh off the farce that was his relationship with Justin after the kid publicly humiliated and left him for greener pastures. That was the kind of brought-down-to-earth lesson you’d been waiting for. However, you doubted he felt anything other than mere relief for having finally rid of his teen stalker. After all that’s what Michael’s mantra had been for the last 2 years: Justin was just a trick that had overstayed his welcome. You had no reason to think otherwise.
Mel said she didn’t understand why Lindsay always took his side. Brian Kinney was, after all, a remorseless, self-gratifying, depraved asshole who was a bad influence for not only someone as young and impressionable as Justin - thank God the kid had finally woken up and moved on - but also for his own son - who was lucky to have two loving parents who wanted him and hadn’t given him up because they were too busy fucking nameless strangers in sex clubs every night.
You weren’t sure she was being completely forthright with her declarations - there were many things off with the picture she painted - but you agreed with her anyways. It was far more entertaining to rag on Brian Kinney than it was to pull for him, and she was upset enough with you anyways that you didn’t want to incur any more of her wrath. After all, (only) she knew you’d once again kept Brian Kinney as the executor of your living will and as always she failed to understand your reasons for doing something so stupid.
You weren’t sure you understood it yourself. But for whatever reason, he was still the only one amongst your circle of friends (if friend was indeed the right word for Brian Kinney) that you trusted with your life and death decisions. You’d once told him it was because he was a heartless bastard and he'd believed you.
What you never told him was that despite his heartlessness, he was still the strongest person you knew and would always be the first one to have the balls to make the right decision when it was crunch time.
The on-again/off-again Brian/Justin drama soon resumed its latest installment. The teen stalker was back again and this time the King didn’t seem to worry about who thought what of whom he was fucking with the nonstop PDAs the two of them indulged in at Woody’s and at Babylon and at the Diner and in the streets around Liberty Avenue. Justin seemed different this time, older, more confident, somehow surer of his place in Brian Kinney’s life.
You missed most of the hoopla, though, because you were stuck in a nightmare of your own this time.
He had no reason to save your ass from Stockwell after your porno kingdom was taken away from you by bigots and homophobes of the world. But he did.
But the downward spiral had begun and no help from the people around could get you out of the quicksand.
You sunk quickly.
He had no reason to offer you a job after you’d ruined your life with crystal and lost everything you’d owned either. But he did that as well.
While you were thrown shipwrecked and defenseless on the shores of obliteration, he’d apparently gone through a financial whirlwind of his own, but of course like the lucky fucking bastard he was, he’d survived it with aplomb.
He said it was logical for him to trust his fledgling business affairs with the same someone he trusted his personal financial affairs with. And you thought of the day John-John’s plane had gone down and you’d gone to the loft to discuss his books with him and had nearly almost but not quiet stepped inside his swirling orbit of sensuality.
Then you thought of five thousand dollars that had gone missing from a baby’s college fund and remembered tweaked out crystal queens and wasted weekends filled with drugs and debauchery that had taken you down into the depths of depravity.
And promised yourself that one day, when you didn’t hate yourself this much, when the time was right, and when you had enough courage to face your own pathetic past, you’ll sit down with him and tell him the whole truth.
His fledgling business had barely gotten off to a shaky start when he told you about the cancer.
You’d seen and experienced the worst in humanity in the last few months of your life but you’d never had anyone close to you be so deathly ill. Because he was not only ill but scared too, even if he denied it to his last choking breath, and that realization filled you with a fear you’d never felt before. Brian Kinney was afraid of this disease that was eating him from the inside. He was no longer perfect. He was flawed, human. Just like the rest of you.
The three times-a-week radiation schedule peaked him out and left him tired and listless and barely functioning. So each day at 12:15 noon you found yourself making your way into his office and getting him into his coat and ordering a cab for him so that he could go home and rest. He never protested and you didn’t know if it was a good thing or bad.
Justin was by his side constantly and you wondered how hard it must be to take care of a cranky and ill Brian Kinney. He was hard to take in his normal state. He must be a worst kind of hell to endure when sick.
Then you thought of baseball bats and drunken, drugged out sex binges and moths circling a bright, burning flame and realized everything went in circles.
Everything had its price. And those who dared to get everything -- paid it.
Brian recovered from cancer and with that resumed the unending drama that was the love-affair between Justin and him. Of course, you’d never say that to Brian. You’d like to live for a good ripe old age of 75 at least.
(Or maybe you would!)
L.A. happened. The breakup happened. The bombing happened. The wedding happened. Or did not happen-depending on the point of view of the person narrating. In the midst of it all, you worked closely with Brian and watched him work his ass off towards making Kinnetik the best fucking ad agency in Pittsburgh and you couldn’t help being proud. After all, you’d sweated it out towards reaching this point as well and for the first time in your life, you truly felt part of a creative team, rather than simply being a boring old accountant.
And you knew that despite all his proclamations of believing otherwise, Brian Kinney - for all practical purposes - was well and truly married to one Justin Taylor.
It didn’t even matter that Justin had gone to New York to pursue an art career. Brian spent as much time in New York as he did in the Pitts and that helped him both on the professional and personal fronts.
Your own on-again/off-again thing with Blake was off once again and you wondered if there would ever be a time you’d find peace in your own personal life.
Two years after they’d absconded to Canada to escape the bigots, the girls came back home, only to announce that they were splitting up.
Mel was in a fucking snit. Lindsay had apparently had sex with yet another man while in Toronto and they’d been having screaming matches ever since. In fact, from what it seemed like, they’d been having screaming matches ever since they’d gone to Canada. Working in Kinnetik and hovering around Brian, you’d known for a while that Lindsay had accused Mel of giving precedence to her career over her family life and not paying enough attention to the kids ever since they’d made the move. Which were all the reasons why they’d split in the past as well.
You also knew it was Brian (of all people) who’d tried to get it through Lindsay’s skull that since Mel had to do her degrees and law license all over again, that meant she had to give precedence to her career, and that Lindsay should cut her some fucking slack. After all, Lindsay was the one who’d agreed to leave everything behind and start anew in Canada, so she had to live with her decision.
But none of this seemed to work and upon returning, the girls got separate apartments, and made everyone around them - especially the kids - miserable with their antics.
If that weren’t enough, Mel got it into her head that she was sick and tired of Brian constantly trying to make contact with Gus and told him and Lindsay to keep him away from her kid or she’d sue for sole custody.
It was like the most unbelievably idiotic and dim-witted drama you’d ever witnessed in your entire life. There were tears and fights and yelling from Lindsay to Michael to Deb and it seemed it would never end. Justin came from New York and refused to leave Brian’s side until all this bullshit was resolved. But Mel wasn’t in the mood to listen to anyone. She wanted Brian to stay away and stay gone and she wanted it fucking now.
You went to see her to talk some sense into her and she blew up on you.
“I know he gave you a fucking job, Teddy!” She snapped. “But that doesn’t mean he has to own you. You should stand on your own fucking feet and maybe learn to think with your own brain, instead of saying everything Brian has indoctrinated you to believe.”
You had to laugh. “You want to hear what I think? I think you’re an ungrateful little bitch who wouldn’t know a good deed done to her if it came and bit her on her ass.”
Her mouth dropped open as she stared at you in shock. “What did you say?”
“What I’m saying is this.” You looked her in the eyes. “I think Brian made a hasty decision seven years ago when he signed away his parental rights for you.”
She was furious. “He signed away his rights because he never wanted Gus in the first---”
“NO!” You interrupted. “He signed away his rights because by doing that, he thought he was making the right decision for his son.” You hadn’t spent the last few years so close to Brian without realizing a few things about his own past and learning how much he loved (and supported) his son. “He signed away his rights because you and Lindsay were split up and he thought that maybe by giving you a chance to be a mother to his son and the opportunity to make your relationship with Lindsay work, you’d give his son the kind of love and attention he never got growing up from his family.”
She snorted. “Oh, how awful for poor Brian Kinney to be plagued with a statistic that happens to over a million kids across USA every year.”
“And how awful for Gus to be plagued with a mother who’s so easily forgotten the fact that if it weren’t for his father, she wouldn’t have any rights to him at all.” She tried to speak but you didn’t let her. “He’s never questioned your existence in Gus’s life, Mel. He’s encouraged it more than you’d ever know.” You look at her. “It’s time for you to get your head out of your ass and think of your son and decide whether the step you’re about to take will make him happy or will it destroy any chance of a prosperous future for him because you were too short-sighted to think of anything beyond your own petty wishes.”
You left her then.
She didn’t speak to you for six months after that.
But she also shut up about the suit.
And you thought you could finally breathe.
Lindsay and Mel didn’t get back together after that, but they at least became civil in their interactions. And that was good enough.
You were sitting in Woody’s one night, nursing a diet coke and shooting group gossip with Emmett when you felt his eyes on you. You turned to look at your friend and found him staring at you with a strange expression on his face.
“What?” you asked him.
Emmett twirled the straw in his Cosmo and looked at you. “You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”
You frowned. “Who?”
He stared at you without speaking and you felt your face getting hot for some reason.
“Who?” you repeated.
“You know who, Teddy.” Emmett spoke softly as if he didn’t want to hurt your feelings. He looked closely at you for a moment and then silently mouthed his name.
“What?” You stared at him incredulously and then shook your head.” “Bri-Brian?” you stammered. “Are you kidding? I’m not-I’m not in love with Brian.” You laughed. “That’s ridiculous.”
Emmett sighed. “Oh, Teddy.”
“What?” You looked at him. “WHAT?” You shook your head again. “He’s my friend, for God’s sake. A very good friend. He’s been great with me. But that doesn’t mean I’m in love with him.” You snorted. “Jesus! That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”
But Emmett kept twirling the straw in his Cosmo and staring at you with the same pitiful, gentle look in his eyes. And you didn’t know where to hide.
That night as you laid down in your bed, for the first time in your life, you felt this strange, bleak loneliness in your heart that you’d never been aware of in your life.
You’d loved and you’d lost and you’d gone through hell in your life. But you’d never thought you’d fall for the one person you felt was your nemesis.
Brian Kinney was beyond your orbit. He was sex personified. He was beautiful and ruthless and courageous and relentless and beyond your fucking reach.
He always had been and he always would be.
And that was the truth you had to live with.
And every time you saw them together, you thought they were beautiful. And you knew that was the way it was meant to be. Brian Kinney deserved to be with someone who challenged him, who took him head on without flinching, who completed him in every way possible.
That had been Justin Taylor from the first night he’d found himself standing under a street light in a smoke filled alley, and Brian Kinney had taken one look at him and been hooked.
He’d pulled Justin into his hazy swirling orbit of sex and sensuality and Justin had stayed there ever since. Unflinching and unafraid.
Always sure of his place in Brian’s heart.
Life went on. Brian Kinney learnt to hold on to his prince, while maintaining his control over his turf.
And if ever you thought of the day John-John’s plane had gone down and you’d found yourself in the midst of an orgy at Brian’s loft, you found yourself smiling.
Life was an orgy with Brian. Work was an orgy with Brian. He was sensual at everything he did and if he thought of you as a friend and trusted you with his business then you knew you were privileged.
You were honored to be his friend and his confidante. And you could love him from a distance, knowing he was happy and fulfilled in his life.
The King of his domain. Forever and beyond.
*******************
The End