QaF
Okay, listen up!
So I have some friends, right? And these friends are going through what we call in fandom A REAL SHITTY TIME. Everyone who's been invested even a little bit in a fandom or specific ship has been screwed at some point or other. Although I am not involved in this fandom, I have also been through A REAL SHITTY TIME in other fandoms. See: Angel leaving Buffy. See: Justin leaving Brian. Et cetera.
THEREFORE, even though I am not involved in this fandom, I have empathy for those who are. SDV, Boobs, all of my beloveds who were rocked by A REAL SHITTY TIME, this one's for you.
It's okay to be upset about stuff others don't understand.
Relativity
Brian comes home early and finds the bathroom door closed. Not too unusual, although not really a common occurrence. Brian tried closing the bathroom door in the early days of his and Justin’s “relationship” -- God, it’s not really a relationship but he can’t think of any other word to define what they have -- but Justin obviously didn’t believe in privacy. He’d barge in and watch Brian shave or pluck his eyebrows or tweeze the hairs off his chest, all the while yammering endlessly about school or the diner or how the glitter at Babylon made him itch.
And Justin never closed the bathroom door back then, which was just as irritating.
“I don’t need to hear you take a piss!” Brian had shouted more than once. “Or do anything else in there!” It was bad enough that Justin sometimes forgot to dispose of the more personal items he and Brian both used to keep clean, but Brian didn’t need to hear him using them.
As the months went on and their relationship waxed and waned, Justin began closing the door more often. “More often” only meant once in a while, though. When he remembered, or when Brian would stand in the doorway of the bathroom and give him murderous glares in the mirror.
“I’m just shaving, Brian! God!”
“You’re shaving your balls. As much as I like your smooth sac, I don’t need to watch you dropping your blond pubes all over my expensive tile. Can’t you do that while you’re in the shower?”
“Soap and water irritates me. And I can’t see what I’m doing in there.”
“You irritate me.”
Justin would usually sigh in frustration and slam the door shut in Brian’s face, and then remember to close it the next time he was doing something private. The time after that, however, he would inevitably forget, and Brian would come into the bedroom to find Justin doing something that would be better kept behind closed doors.
In any case, arriving home now to find the door shut isn’t that strange. Brian is just grateful he can’t see Justin doing whatever it is he does in there. Brian takes himself into the kitchen and looks for a beer.
There’s a Red Stripe left in the door of the fridge. He pops the top on that and takes a refreshing swallow. Red Stripe is actually a rare treat, considering there are a severe lack of liquor stores in Pittsburgh that import specialty beers. Brian has to go to a beer distributor for that, and even then, there’s a huge rack of Iron City Beer in every place he walks into.
The bottle is nearly empty by the time Boy Wonder emerges. Brian sets it on a coaster and turns the volume on the news down, waiting for the barrage of conversation that Justin always throws at him when they’ve been apart for more than three hours.
There isn’t any conversation, though. Brian can hear Justin open his laptop and sit down at the dining room table without saying a word. Brian doesn’t risk turning around in the hopes that he can actually watch the evening newscast in peace.
When ten minutes of silence goes by except for the clicking of computer keys, Brian’s curiosity gets the better of him. He gets up and goes to the kitchen with the pretense of fetching another beer, even if it’s just a Heineken.
“Rough day at work, dear?”
Justin spares him a glance, then refocuses on his laptop. “It was fine.”
“Fine? Nothing to report? No stories of assholes that didn’t tip, or assholes that did? You usually tell me how many lemon bars you ate, if nothing else.” Brian digs a Heineken out of the back and takes a swallow. He leans on the counter and watches Justin stare moodily at his computer.
“Nothing to report.” Justin clicks a few more keys and then props his chin on his hand, reading something. Probably his horoscope.
If he asks what’s wrong, Brian might get stuck listening to the answer. If he doesn’t ask what’s wrong, he’ll be punished for not giving a damn. There is no fucking way to tell which one is the lesser of two evils, so he goes ahead and asks.
“What, pray tell, is bothering his highness?” He takes another sip of the Heineken and wishes he’d made himself a martini instead. There are still olives in the fridge.
Justin lifts his eyes from his laptop monitor and regards Brian silently for several moments. “Nothing,” he says clearly, “is bothering his highness. Your majesty.”
Oh, biting sarcasm. A sure sign that something is indeed bothering Sunshine. Brian sighs inwardly and ventures once more unto the breach.
“Then why the attitude, missy?”
Justin’s mouth tightens and his eyes narrow just a bit. “Do you have to be so bitchy? I haven’t done a fucking thing to get treated like shit by you.”
Brian bites back the word “today” and swallows the rest of his beer instead. “I’m not being bitchy. I’m being a concerned partner.” Maybe using Justin’s word of choice would wring a smile or something.
No smile. Just a level stare and a faint snort. “You don’t need to know everything.”
“True. But since I’m asking, why not tell me?” Then maybe there’ll be celebratory blowjobs afterward. He leaves that part out of the sentence.
Another long look. Then finally, “I went to the art store today. My favorite one. The one with the--”
“Yes, yes,” Brian interrupts. “I know. With the glass tile art in the window.” Of course Brian knows what Justin’s favorite art store is. Justin never just says “the art store.” It’s always, “my favorite art store with the glass tiles.”
Justin glares. “Fine. With the layered tiles in the window, right. So I went to pick up some more of their linen canvas. None of the other two stores near us carry it. They have the cheap cotton crap.” He pulls a face.
Brian manages not to give a bored sigh. “This is a much longer story than I thought it’d be.”
“Fuck you, you asked. So I go in looking for it, and I can’t find it. It’s not on the back wall like it always is.” Justin folds his arms mutinously and Brian has a brief moment of comparison to Gus.
“Right. Back wall. Not there. Fascinating.” His stomach gives an unexpected growl and Brian wonders if Justin would mind interrupting this captivating tale with take-out from the Greek place.
“So I go and ask the manager guy, right? The one that’s always nice to me and gives me extra pastels. I ask him where they moved the linens.”
“The manager guy wants to fuck you. That’s why you get freebies.” Brian did not know this until Justin coerced him into shopping there one day on the way home from the grocery store. The manager had nearly drooled down the front of his apron the entire time Justin was talking to him.
“He does not.” Justin reconsiders. “Well, maybe. But it doesn’t matter. So I ask him where the canvases are and he says… he says…” He pauses, probably for dramatic effect, and this time Brian does give an exasperated sigh.
“He says he’ll tell you if you fuck him on top of the glass tile sculpture in the window.”
Justin is too irritated to catch the joke. “No! He says they don’t carry them anymore.”
Brian blinks. “… and?”
“What do you mean, ‘and’? There is no and! That’s it! They don’t fucking carry my best canvases anymore! Do you know the closest city that carries the linen canvas I like? Youngstown! That’s in Ohio.” He says it with such disgust that Brian has to laugh.
“Ohio’s not so bad. They have a couple of great clubs down there. It can be like a little field trip for you.” Brian grins.
Justin slams the lid of his laptop shut. “How the fuck am I going to get there, Brian? Last time I tried to borrow the car, you laughed and hid the keys. Am I supposed to go on the fucking bus? Pay a hundred bucks for a cab ride? How?”
Brian raises a brow. Justin sounds a hell of a lot more upset than the situation actually warrants. “Would you calm down? Why are you so wound up about this? It’s not a big deal. This is not a third world problem, princess.” Being out of Red Stripe, now that’s a problem.
A cold silence fills the room again and Justin just stares at him. Brian stares back, still unsure how or why this is a big deal. How it’s any kind of deal at all, really.
“What a fucking asshole you are sometimes.” Justin says it quietly and without rancor, which means it hits its target harder than it’s supposed to. He gets up and retreats once more into the bathroom, once more closing the door.
“Fucking canvases? Are you kidding me?” Brian asks the empty room. The room doesn’t answer.
He doesn’t bother changing out of his work suit and tie before going to Babylon.
***
Brian does not have a doubt in his mind that his loft will be empty when he returns. Very rarely does Justin stick around when he’s pissed.
So it’s a surprise indeed when he comes home just before two in the morning and finds Justin painting near the tall windows.
“You’re here,” Brian says. It’s unnecessary, because yes, they both know Justin’s right there. But the E he scored earlier is still buzzing about, making words taste sweet.
“Uh huh,” is all Justin says before sweeping another giant brush stroke of delicious purple paint across the mint green swirls that are already there. Brian is reminded of eggplant.
He ventures a little closer to examine the painting. The mint green swirls have been dotted with the palest of orange spots. Peach, almost, but Brian can see the tube of acrylic and it says something ridiculous like “burnt orange amber sienna”. That sounds like a bunch of colors mixed together, actually.
Brian plants his hands on his hips and tilts his head to study the painting. “So is this your precious linen canvas?” He’d never noticed the difference in canvases. One more reason why he was an ad exec and not an artist. Or artiste, like Emmett calls Justin.
“Uh huh.” Again.
“You’ll find somewhere else that sells it. Or you’ll order it off the internet. You don’t need to get so upset about it.” Brian’s gaze traces the wave of dark blue that stretches from the bottom left corner to the top right one. There are small white speckles in the blue paint. Stars.
Justin carefully places his brush back on the palette and wipes his hands. Without turning around, he says quietly, “It’s okay to be upset about things that other people don’t think are important. Don’t do that to me.”
His brain is still fuzzy with liquor and drugs. “Do what?”
“Invalidate my feelings just because you don’t understand what I’m upset about. I don’t give a shit if you know the difference between linen and cotton. I also don’t give a shit if you care. But I do give a shit about being heard.”
Brian stares at the back of Justin’s head. The blond strands are long and silky-looking. Brian knows what they feel like through his fingers. “I heard you. The neighbors downstairs heard you.”
Justin turns slowly and regards Brian with an inscrutable expression. “I don’t understand half the problems you bring home from work or why you get so pissed about them. But I don’t ever doubt that you’re upset. And I don’t try to minimize the way you feel. Don’t do it to me.” He brushes past Brian and goes up the stairs to the bedroom.
Brian is still looking at Justin’s painting when he hears the bathroom door close for the third time that day.
He putters around the loft for a while until there’s nothing left to do but get ready for bed. That includes brushing and flossing -- and taking a leak, since he had a bottle of water just before leaving the club -- but his bathroom door is still closed. That means he’ll have to knock.
On his own bathroom door.
Christ.
Brian heaves a martyred sigh and goes up the steps. He stands in front of the door and knocks twice. “I need to piss.”
Twenty seconds pass before the door opens. Justin slips by him wordlessly and gets into bed. Brian catches a faint whiff of spearmint mouthwash.
He goes through his nightly routine, including eye drops so he doesn’t look like a zombie in the morning. Brushes teeth, goes to the bathroom, turns off the light and climbs into bed.
Justin is silent but not sleeping. Brian can tell by his breathing.
“So linen canvas is important to you. And here I thought you wanted world peace and an end to hunger.” It isn’t any kind of apology, but it’s every kind of apology.
The bed covers rustle and then Justin is looking at Brian through the darkness. “World peace is impossibility. Right now it feels like my linen canvas is, too.”
“But we’ll find you linen canvas. Closer than Ohio.” He says it with the same kind of disgust that Justin demonstrated earlier.
It wins Brian a slight smile. Just a curving of Justin’s lips. “Okay,” Justin says. “Closer than Ohio.” He leans forward and offers a kiss; Justin’s own brand of apology.
There is no such thing as just a good-night kiss between the two of them. Brian is too addicted to the rest of it, and he takes what’s offered whenever it’s offered. He’d be crazy not to. He knows in the back of his mind that Justin doesn’t have to offer Brian anything.
They move together easily. Even on cold nights, neither of them ever wears any clothes to bed. Their skin slides and joins too frequently to bother with clothes. Justin knows where to stroke and touch and kiss; Brian knows where to caress and feel and pet. Together they turn into an odd harmony of songs that weren’t written for each other.
A warm fist around his cock brings Brian to the brink much faster than anyone else could. He’s already been sucked off once tonight at Babylon. It stands to reason that his second orgasm of the night would take longer.
But the harmony is Justin’s fingers sliding and squeezing. His thumb brushes against Brian’s slit and then presses down, teasing. A gentle fondling of Brian’s balls is the adagio to that strange music. Brian has a moment to wonder if their songs will ever match tempo, and then he is coming with one shaky breath and little sparkles behind closed eyes.
He can hear Justin following suit by his own hand, warm and wet against Brian’s bare thigh.
***
Lunch the next day is a lean pastrami sandwich on rye at his desk. At least the deli left off the thousand island this time.
While he eats, Brian sends an email to Justin with links to four art supply stores that will ship linen canvas.
End
PS -- please note, this came from some prompt words that SDV gave me ages ago. I used them, but they have nothing to really do with the fic itself.
city, layers, early, treat
So I have some friends, right? And these friends are going through what we call in fandom A REAL SHITTY TIME. Everyone who's been invested even a little bit in a fandom or specific ship has been screwed at some point or other. Although I am not involved in this fandom, I have also been through A REAL SHITTY TIME in other fandoms. See: Angel leaving Buffy. See: Justin leaving Brian. Et cetera.
THEREFORE, even though I am not involved in this fandom, I have empathy for those who are. SDV, Boobs, all of my beloveds who were rocked by A REAL SHITTY TIME, this one's for you.
It's okay to be upset about stuff others don't understand.
Relativity
Brian comes home early and finds the bathroom door closed. Not too unusual, although not really a common occurrence. Brian tried closing the bathroom door in the early days of his and Justin’s “relationship” -- God, it’s not really a relationship but he can’t think of any other word to define what they have -- but Justin obviously didn’t believe in privacy. He’d barge in and watch Brian shave or pluck his eyebrows or tweeze the hairs off his chest, all the while yammering endlessly about school or the diner or how the glitter at Babylon made him itch.
And Justin never closed the bathroom door back then, which was just as irritating.
“I don’t need to hear you take a piss!” Brian had shouted more than once. “Or do anything else in there!” It was bad enough that Justin sometimes forgot to dispose of the more personal items he and Brian both used to keep clean, but Brian didn’t need to hear him using them.
As the months went on and their relationship waxed and waned, Justin began closing the door more often. “More often” only meant once in a while, though. When he remembered, or when Brian would stand in the doorway of the bathroom and give him murderous glares in the mirror.
“I’m just shaving, Brian! God!”
“You’re shaving your balls. As much as I like your smooth sac, I don’t need to watch you dropping your blond pubes all over my expensive tile. Can’t you do that while you’re in the shower?”
“Soap and water irritates me. And I can’t see what I’m doing in there.”
“You irritate me.”
Justin would usually sigh in frustration and slam the door shut in Brian’s face, and then remember to close it the next time he was doing something private. The time after that, however, he would inevitably forget, and Brian would come into the bedroom to find Justin doing something that would be better kept behind closed doors.
In any case, arriving home now to find the door shut isn’t that strange. Brian is just grateful he can’t see Justin doing whatever it is he does in there. Brian takes himself into the kitchen and looks for a beer.
There’s a Red Stripe left in the door of the fridge. He pops the top on that and takes a refreshing swallow. Red Stripe is actually a rare treat, considering there are a severe lack of liquor stores in Pittsburgh that import specialty beers. Brian has to go to a beer distributor for that, and even then, there’s a huge rack of Iron City Beer in every place he walks into.
The bottle is nearly empty by the time Boy Wonder emerges. Brian sets it on a coaster and turns the volume on the news down, waiting for the barrage of conversation that Justin always throws at him when they’ve been apart for more than three hours.
There isn’t any conversation, though. Brian can hear Justin open his laptop and sit down at the dining room table without saying a word. Brian doesn’t risk turning around in the hopes that he can actually watch the evening newscast in peace.
When ten minutes of silence goes by except for the clicking of computer keys, Brian’s curiosity gets the better of him. He gets up and goes to the kitchen with the pretense of fetching another beer, even if it’s just a Heineken.
“Rough day at work, dear?”
Justin spares him a glance, then refocuses on his laptop. “It was fine.”
“Fine? Nothing to report? No stories of assholes that didn’t tip, or assholes that did? You usually tell me how many lemon bars you ate, if nothing else.” Brian digs a Heineken out of the back and takes a swallow. He leans on the counter and watches Justin stare moodily at his computer.
“Nothing to report.” Justin clicks a few more keys and then props his chin on his hand, reading something. Probably his horoscope.
If he asks what’s wrong, Brian might get stuck listening to the answer. If he doesn’t ask what’s wrong, he’ll be punished for not giving a damn. There is no fucking way to tell which one is the lesser of two evils, so he goes ahead and asks.
“What, pray tell, is bothering his highness?” He takes another sip of the Heineken and wishes he’d made himself a martini instead. There are still olives in the fridge.
Justin lifts his eyes from his laptop monitor and regards Brian silently for several moments. “Nothing,” he says clearly, “is bothering his highness. Your majesty.”
Oh, biting sarcasm. A sure sign that something is indeed bothering Sunshine. Brian sighs inwardly and ventures once more unto the breach.
“Then why the attitude, missy?”
Justin’s mouth tightens and his eyes narrow just a bit. “Do you have to be so bitchy? I haven’t done a fucking thing to get treated like shit by you.”
Brian bites back the word “today” and swallows the rest of his beer instead. “I’m not being bitchy. I’m being a concerned partner.” Maybe using Justin’s word of choice would wring a smile or something.
No smile. Just a level stare and a faint snort. “You don’t need to know everything.”
“True. But since I’m asking, why not tell me?” Then maybe there’ll be celebratory blowjobs afterward. He leaves that part out of the sentence.
Another long look. Then finally, “I went to the art store today. My favorite one. The one with the--”
“Yes, yes,” Brian interrupts. “I know. With the glass tile art in the window.” Of course Brian knows what Justin’s favorite art store is. Justin never just says “the art store.” It’s always, “my favorite art store with the glass tiles.”
Justin glares. “Fine. With the layered tiles in the window, right. So I went to pick up some more of their linen canvas. None of the other two stores near us carry it. They have the cheap cotton crap.” He pulls a face.
Brian manages not to give a bored sigh. “This is a much longer story than I thought it’d be.”
“Fuck you, you asked. So I go in looking for it, and I can’t find it. It’s not on the back wall like it always is.” Justin folds his arms mutinously and Brian has a brief moment of comparison to Gus.
“Right. Back wall. Not there. Fascinating.” His stomach gives an unexpected growl and Brian wonders if Justin would mind interrupting this captivating tale with take-out from the Greek place.
“So I go and ask the manager guy, right? The one that’s always nice to me and gives me extra pastels. I ask him where they moved the linens.”
“The manager guy wants to fuck you. That’s why you get freebies.” Brian did not know this until Justin coerced him into shopping there one day on the way home from the grocery store. The manager had nearly drooled down the front of his apron the entire time Justin was talking to him.
“He does not.” Justin reconsiders. “Well, maybe. But it doesn’t matter. So I ask him where the canvases are and he says… he says…” He pauses, probably for dramatic effect, and this time Brian does give an exasperated sigh.
“He says he’ll tell you if you fuck him on top of the glass tile sculpture in the window.”
Justin is too irritated to catch the joke. “No! He says they don’t carry them anymore.”
Brian blinks. “… and?”
“What do you mean, ‘and’? There is no and! That’s it! They don’t fucking carry my best canvases anymore! Do you know the closest city that carries the linen canvas I like? Youngstown! That’s in Ohio.” He says it with such disgust that Brian has to laugh.
“Ohio’s not so bad. They have a couple of great clubs down there. It can be like a little field trip for you.” Brian grins.
Justin slams the lid of his laptop shut. “How the fuck am I going to get there, Brian? Last time I tried to borrow the car, you laughed and hid the keys. Am I supposed to go on the fucking bus? Pay a hundred bucks for a cab ride? How?”
Brian raises a brow. Justin sounds a hell of a lot more upset than the situation actually warrants. “Would you calm down? Why are you so wound up about this? It’s not a big deal. This is not a third world problem, princess.” Being out of Red Stripe, now that’s a problem.
A cold silence fills the room again and Justin just stares at him. Brian stares back, still unsure how or why this is a big deal. How it’s any kind of deal at all, really.
“What a fucking asshole you are sometimes.” Justin says it quietly and without rancor, which means it hits its target harder than it’s supposed to. He gets up and retreats once more into the bathroom, once more closing the door.
“Fucking canvases? Are you kidding me?” Brian asks the empty room. The room doesn’t answer.
He doesn’t bother changing out of his work suit and tie before going to Babylon.
***
Brian does not have a doubt in his mind that his loft will be empty when he returns. Very rarely does Justin stick around when he’s pissed.
So it’s a surprise indeed when he comes home just before two in the morning and finds Justin painting near the tall windows.
“You’re here,” Brian says. It’s unnecessary, because yes, they both know Justin’s right there. But the E he scored earlier is still buzzing about, making words taste sweet.
“Uh huh,” is all Justin says before sweeping another giant brush stroke of delicious purple paint across the mint green swirls that are already there. Brian is reminded of eggplant.
He ventures a little closer to examine the painting. The mint green swirls have been dotted with the palest of orange spots. Peach, almost, but Brian can see the tube of acrylic and it says something ridiculous like “burnt orange amber sienna”. That sounds like a bunch of colors mixed together, actually.
Brian plants his hands on his hips and tilts his head to study the painting. “So is this your precious linen canvas?” He’d never noticed the difference in canvases. One more reason why he was an ad exec and not an artist. Or artiste, like Emmett calls Justin.
“Uh huh.” Again.
“You’ll find somewhere else that sells it. Or you’ll order it off the internet. You don’t need to get so upset about it.” Brian’s gaze traces the wave of dark blue that stretches from the bottom left corner to the top right one. There are small white speckles in the blue paint. Stars.
Justin carefully places his brush back on the palette and wipes his hands. Without turning around, he says quietly, “It’s okay to be upset about things that other people don’t think are important. Don’t do that to me.”
His brain is still fuzzy with liquor and drugs. “Do what?”
“Invalidate my feelings just because you don’t understand what I’m upset about. I don’t give a shit if you know the difference between linen and cotton. I also don’t give a shit if you care. But I do give a shit about being heard.”
Brian stares at the back of Justin’s head. The blond strands are long and silky-looking. Brian knows what they feel like through his fingers. “I heard you. The neighbors downstairs heard you.”
Justin turns slowly and regards Brian with an inscrutable expression. “I don’t understand half the problems you bring home from work or why you get so pissed about them. But I don’t ever doubt that you’re upset. And I don’t try to minimize the way you feel. Don’t do it to me.” He brushes past Brian and goes up the stairs to the bedroom.
Brian is still looking at Justin’s painting when he hears the bathroom door close for the third time that day.
He putters around the loft for a while until there’s nothing left to do but get ready for bed. That includes brushing and flossing -- and taking a leak, since he had a bottle of water just before leaving the club -- but his bathroom door is still closed. That means he’ll have to knock.
On his own bathroom door.
Christ.
Brian heaves a martyred sigh and goes up the steps. He stands in front of the door and knocks twice. “I need to piss.”
Twenty seconds pass before the door opens. Justin slips by him wordlessly and gets into bed. Brian catches a faint whiff of spearmint mouthwash.
He goes through his nightly routine, including eye drops so he doesn’t look like a zombie in the morning. Brushes teeth, goes to the bathroom, turns off the light and climbs into bed.
Justin is silent but not sleeping. Brian can tell by his breathing.
“So linen canvas is important to you. And here I thought you wanted world peace and an end to hunger.” It isn’t any kind of apology, but it’s every kind of apology.
The bed covers rustle and then Justin is looking at Brian through the darkness. “World peace is impossibility. Right now it feels like my linen canvas is, too.”
“But we’ll find you linen canvas. Closer than Ohio.” He says it with the same kind of disgust that Justin demonstrated earlier.
It wins Brian a slight smile. Just a curving of Justin’s lips. “Okay,” Justin says. “Closer than Ohio.” He leans forward and offers a kiss; Justin’s own brand of apology.
There is no such thing as just a good-night kiss between the two of them. Brian is too addicted to the rest of it, and he takes what’s offered whenever it’s offered. He’d be crazy not to. He knows in the back of his mind that Justin doesn’t have to offer Brian anything.
They move together easily. Even on cold nights, neither of them ever wears any clothes to bed. Their skin slides and joins too frequently to bother with clothes. Justin knows where to stroke and touch and kiss; Brian knows where to caress and feel and pet. Together they turn into an odd harmony of songs that weren’t written for each other.
A warm fist around his cock brings Brian to the brink much faster than anyone else could. He’s already been sucked off once tonight at Babylon. It stands to reason that his second orgasm of the night would take longer.
But the harmony is Justin’s fingers sliding and squeezing. His thumb brushes against Brian’s slit and then presses down, teasing. A gentle fondling of Brian’s balls is the adagio to that strange music. Brian has a moment to wonder if their songs will ever match tempo, and then he is coming with one shaky breath and little sparkles behind closed eyes.
He can hear Justin following suit by his own hand, warm and wet against Brian’s bare thigh.
***
Lunch the next day is a lean pastrami sandwich on rye at his desk. At least the deli left off the thousand island this time.
While he eats, Brian sends an email to Justin with links to four art supply stores that will ship linen canvas.
End
PS -- please note, this came from some prompt words that SDV gave me ages ago. I used them, but they have nothing to really do with the fic itself.
city, layers, early, treat