QaF: Dream of This
Fandom: Queer as Folk
Rating: PG13 for cussing. (Don't even say it.)
Spoilers: Post season-three, spoilers implied.
Summary: Remember the prom? Yeah.
Author's Note: This is... I'm considering it beta-version, it just feels really "raw" to me.
Justin sleeps noisily. He always has, or at least for as long as Brian has known him. Sometimes he would hear him from the other room, quiet murmurs and the shifting sounds of Justin's legs moving against the sheets. Occasionally it would wake Brian, and he would either fuck Justin back to sleep or hold him while he shook and sighed. And then maybe fuck him. And sometimes Brian would see it happen, too, lying awake next to Justin and watching his hands twitch, his eyelids flutter. Grin a little when his own name would slip from between drowsy lips and never, never admit how much he liked that.
Good dreams, bad ones; Justin has always slept noisily. But this one's... weird. Brian wakes because he hasn't been sleeping well anyway, the lack of structure to his day playing out in truly bizarre episodes of insomnia. He thinks he should do something about that soon, start to pretend he has a reason to get up and out of bed in the morning (other than "to fuck Justin in the shower") when it starts to sound like Justin might be singing in his sleep. He's never done that before. Brian watches him closely, up on his elbow and leaning a little over his face and that's where he is when Justin's eyes fly open and fix on him. The sleepy haze clears from the blue almost immediately, and he declares flatly, "You -asshole-."
And slaps him. Right across the face.
What the fuck?
Brian can't even move at first. He wonders if maybe he's the one dreaming, but the bed rocks under him as Justin scrambles up and over his body and stalks off into the bathroom. Brian wonders again, What the fuck? The toilet flushes. Justin does not come back to bed.
Brian is still fingering the warmth on his cheek and staring at Justin's empty pillow, like if he doesn't move, doesn't say anything, this won't be -real- and then he can be jostled awake by a horny, dreaming twenty-year-old and his life can go back to what passes for normal, but he starts to hear noises in the kitchen and no, this isn't a dream. But it was his nightmare, for a while.
There's a slam, and a crash of metal and... some kind of clatter. Brian bolts out of bed, naked, knowing the glassware is next because that's what comes next, right? Too many nights and too much shattered whatever-the-fuck, Brian never cared about the damage unless he fucked up and stepped in the shards. Only it's a year and a lifetime later and Justin hasn't had one of these in a long, long time, right?
Brian stops at the top of the stairs. Nothing is broken, which is a miracle because... Justin's really fucking pissed off. Pissed off, as in, far beyond his usual theatrics but not quite into full-on rage. Still, Brian thinks maybe he should -not- start yelling. Just yet. He notices that half the kitchen cabinets are hanging open, like Justin shut them too hard and the doors bounced back. His blonde hair is in his eyes and he's muttering angrily and shaking his head as he... chops a carrot. Brian finds his voice, finally.
"What... the -fuck- are you going to cook at four in the morning?"
"-Nothing-."
Brian's about ready to turn around and just let Justin have his little non-destructive snitfit when he remembers the slap. "Then what the fuck -are- you doing?"
"Trying...." Justin gives the next carrot a vicious whack, sending the top skittering across the counter and onto the floor. "... to wrap my brain around the fact that I am in love with a FUCKING COWARD."
Brian blinks. Regroups, saunters casually down the stairs and drawls, "Anyone I know?"
"Fuck. You." Justin's hands are moving swiftly, steadily. The pile of sliced carrots at his elbow grows and Brian would be more impressed by that if he wasn't approaching pissed off status himself.
"Mmm, no. Not in the mood." He's crossing the floor by now and the more Justin focuses on his fucking vegetables instead of Brian, the angrier Brian gets. "Not many people are, when they're woken out of a sound sleep, insulted, -and- sl--"
Justin's head lifts and the look in his eyes literally halts Brian in his tracks, stops the words in his throat. "I remember."
There aren't many... okay, there's only one thing Justin could possibly be talking about. And it's enough to make Brian swallow his anger and a whole lot of other things, too, but it doesn't make any damned sense.
"And... this has driven you to cutlery and root vegetables."
"Don't be an ass. I just. I had to--" Justin's maybe riding closer to the edge of scary-angry than Brian realized, because he hauls off and drives his knee into the cabinet in front of him. But then it's back to the chopping, and now talking, as if the flash of violence shook something loose inside him. Brian edges over to a barstool and pays very careful attention.
"I remember it. I fucking dreamed it, how stupid is that? The dancing, and the scarf, and the spotlight...." Justin's punctuating his words with his chops, now, and Brian's trying both to follow what he's saying and skip a couple steps ahead, because how the hell did he get from the prom to slapping Brian? And, uh, a really sharp kitchen knife?
"And God, I remember -you-. You had never looked at me like that before, not ever. Never kissed me like that." Justin's lids droop for a moment, like he's remembering it again right there in the kitchen, and yeah, Brian closes his eyes when he thinks of it, too.
"But--"
"But. Yeah. Then there was Chris and the bat and all that fucked up shit, and what was that? Your 'Get Out of Jail Free' card?" Brian flinches, visibly, but Justin's hardly paused in his rant. "I didn't remember, so -you- got to pretend it never happened. You said you told me everything about that night, but you left out what -mattered-. You. And me. Because you just couldn't fucking face it."
Justin's pointing the knife at Brian now, and he knows it's stupid but Justin is -so- pissed at him that he kind of eyes it warily, which makes Justin roll his eyes and set it back on the cutting board. "Well?"
Well. "What do you want me to say?" It sounds tired, -he- sounds tired, and not just because it's 4AM. Brian feels, right then, like he's been tired for years.
Justin shrugs, and starts on the last of the carrots. "I don't know."
Brian scrubs at his face with his hands, and leans heavily on the counter. If Justin doesn't know what he's supposed to say, how the fuck is he going to figure it out? He's got to try something, though, because the steady *thwack thwack* of Justin's knife is getting on his nerves. There's a way out of this. There has to be. "But you're mad at me."
Justin's laugh is completely humorless. "Uh, yeah." He sweeps the neat slices of carrot out of the way and turns to the refrigerator. Zucchini, this time, and Justin shoots Brian a look before closing the fridge door with a kick and just laying into it. Christ, how many sins does he have to pay for in one night?
"For not telling you."
"For not telling me. Because I deserved to know, Brian, I think... I needed to know. That. Things."
No shit. Brian has always been full of things that Justin needs to and -should- hear and probably never will. So why this? He doesn't say it out loud, but he might as well have.
"I was -there-. It wasn't just you, it was us, and I deserve that much. To know what happens in my own fucking life."
He's right. "You're right. You do."
"Yeah. And you know, it's like it's too late?" His eyes dart over to Brian's, almost nervously, like he's thinking he should have said that differently. "Not like.... It would have meant -so much- then, to know. But now...."
"Now it just makes you mad." Brian starts to think this doesn't have much to do with him at all. Well, of course it -does-, because in the end all things Justin have to do with Brian, but maybe it's not something he's supposed to do anything about.
"Now it makes me mad." The anger is seeping out of Justin's voice, and they've had so many almost-conversations like this that Brian's already bracing himself, ready for the resignation, the defeat, the slumped shoulders. He's so busy wondering how to make that not-happen that he almost misses that it's... not happening. Justin doesn't do defeat like he used to.
The chopping has slowed. Now it looks less like Justin's taking out his aggression a mound of helpless vegetation and more like he just wants to finish the zucchini he's got because he has always hated to leave a job unfinished. More than anything else, when he speaks again Justin just sounds... quiet. "Sorry I hit you."
"Sorry I'm an asshole."
That gets a chuckle. "Yeah." Justin falls completely silent, and Brian thinks if he reaches for another goddamned vegetable after this one, he is going to scream.
He doesn't. The knife slows to a stop and Justin stands, looking down at the knife and the cutting board and his hands. Everything that isn't Brian sitting there waiting for him to speak. "I'm still mad at you. Everything could have been different. Completely. That doesn't mean... fuck. It might've still sucked." Justin draws in a long breath. "But then it might -still- suck. And that's not the point, anyway. You are."
Fuck.
"See, here's the thing: you want to be a fucking pansy about this 'emotional shit,' fine. Whatever. That's your right. But I deserved better than that, and I think... I might just be mad at you for a while."
Brian doesn't say anything. For whatever reason, at four in the morning on a completely ordinary day of their lives, Justin is at some kind of crossroads and it's not up to Brian which direction he takes. And he hates that feeling, he really fucking does, but for once in his life he makes himself just stay right there and not, you know, -push-... because it's Justin's decision and Brian always makes the wrong one, anyway.
Justin mutters again, just a single, quiet, "God." He slaps the knife down on the only clear counter space left, and stomps into the bedroom. To the closet. And comes out again with his coat.
Motherfucking cocksucker son-of-a-bitch, he is -not- doing this. It's not happening. Brian shifts and stares at the door that he knows Justin is going to walk out of at any second, and his brain is stuck on a litany of "not not not not not" when he feels Justin's fingers slip behind his neck. He thinks, wildly, that they fit into the same spaces those same fingers branded onto his skin one night in Vanguard's art department and then he's pulled into a kiss that, God, could be -that- kiss all over again. How funny is it, that the kiss Brian will remember until the day he fucking dies is not the one they were arguing about? Justin whispers fiercely against his mouth, "I am not leaving. But I'm taking a fucking walk."
Brian does not sag with relief. Really. But he watches while Justin makes not-quite-a-show of snapping his house key loose from its ring and leaving the rest, doesn't quite give him a reassuring look, and definitely slides the loft door shut behind himself. He doesn't lock it.
Brian does. Locks it, leans his forehead against it and then slowly turns, rolling his head on the cool grey metal. He eyes the piles of neatly-massacred vegetables on the countertop, and decides to surf for stew recipes while he waits.
Rating: PG13 for cussing. (Don't even say it.)
Spoilers: Post season-three, spoilers implied.
Summary: Remember the prom? Yeah.
Author's Note: This is... I'm considering it beta-version, it just feels really "raw" to me.
Justin sleeps noisily. He always has, or at least for as long as Brian has known him. Sometimes he would hear him from the other room, quiet murmurs and the shifting sounds of Justin's legs moving against the sheets. Occasionally it would wake Brian, and he would either fuck Justin back to sleep or hold him while he shook and sighed. And then maybe fuck him. And sometimes Brian would see it happen, too, lying awake next to Justin and watching his hands twitch, his eyelids flutter. Grin a little when his own name would slip from between drowsy lips and never, never admit how much he liked that.
Good dreams, bad ones; Justin has always slept noisily. But this one's... weird. Brian wakes because he hasn't been sleeping well anyway, the lack of structure to his day playing out in truly bizarre episodes of insomnia. He thinks he should do something about that soon, start to pretend he has a reason to get up and out of bed in the morning (other than "to fuck Justin in the shower") when it starts to sound like Justin might be singing in his sleep. He's never done that before. Brian watches him closely, up on his elbow and leaning a little over his face and that's where he is when Justin's eyes fly open and fix on him. The sleepy haze clears from the blue almost immediately, and he declares flatly, "You -asshole-."
And slaps him. Right across the face.
What the fuck?
Brian can't even move at first. He wonders if maybe he's the one dreaming, but the bed rocks under him as Justin scrambles up and over his body and stalks off into the bathroom. Brian wonders again, What the fuck? The toilet flushes. Justin does not come back to bed.
Brian is still fingering the warmth on his cheek and staring at Justin's empty pillow, like if he doesn't move, doesn't say anything, this won't be -real- and then he can be jostled awake by a horny, dreaming twenty-year-old and his life can go back to what passes for normal, but he starts to hear noises in the kitchen and no, this isn't a dream. But it was his nightmare, for a while.
There's a slam, and a crash of metal and... some kind of clatter. Brian bolts out of bed, naked, knowing the glassware is next because that's what comes next, right? Too many nights and too much shattered whatever-the-fuck, Brian never cared about the damage unless he fucked up and stepped in the shards. Only it's a year and a lifetime later and Justin hasn't had one of these in a long, long time, right?
Brian stops at the top of the stairs. Nothing is broken, which is a miracle because... Justin's really fucking pissed off. Pissed off, as in, far beyond his usual theatrics but not quite into full-on rage. Still, Brian thinks maybe he should -not- start yelling. Just yet. He notices that half the kitchen cabinets are hanging open, like Justin shut them too hard and the doors bounced back. His blonde hair is in his eyes and he's muttering angrily and shaking his head as he... chops a carrot. Brian finds his voice, finally.
"What... the -fuck- are you going to cook at four in the morning?"
"-Nothing-."
Brian's about ready to turn around and just let Justin have his little non-destructive snitfit when he remembers the slap. "Then what the fuck -are- you doing?"
"Trying...." Justin gives the next carrot a vicious whack, sending the top skittering across the counter and onto the floor. "... to wrap my brain around the fact that I am in love with a FUCKING COWARD."
Brian blinks. Regroups, saunters casually down the stairs and drawls, "Anyone I know?"
"Fuck. You." Justin's hands are moving swiftly, steadily. The pile of sliced carrots at his elbow grows and Brian would be more impressed by that if he wasn't approaching pissed off status himself.
"Mmm, no. Not in the mood." He's crossing the floor by now and the more Justin focuses on his fucking vegetables instead of Brian, the angrier Brian gets. "Not many people are, when they're woken out of a sound sleep, insulted, -and- sl--"
Justin's head lifts and the look in his eyes literally halts Brian in his tracks, stops the words in his throat. "I remember."
There aren't many... okay, there's only one thing Justin could possibly be talking about. And it's enough to make Brian swallow his anger and a whole lot of other things, too, but it doesn't make any damned sense.
"And... this has driven you to cutlery and root vegetables."
"Don't be an ass. I just. I had to--" Justin's maybe riding closer to the edge of scary-angry than Brian realized, because he hauls off and drives his knee into the cabinet in front of him. But then it's back to the chopping, and now talking, as if the flash of violence shook something loose inside him. Brian edges over to a barstool and pays very careful attention.
"I remember it. I fucking dreamed it, how stupid is that? The dancing, and the scarf, and the spotlight...." Justin's punctuating his words with his chops, now, and Brian's trying both to follow what he's saying and skip a couple steps ahead, because how the hell did he get from the prom to slapping Brian? And, uh, a really sharp kitchen knife?
"And God, I remember -you-. You had never looked at me like that before, not ever. Never kissed me like that." Justin's lids droop for a moment, like he's remembering it again right there in the kitchen, and yeah, Brian closes his eyes when he thinks of it, too.
"But--"
"But. Yeah. Then there was Chris and the bat and all that fucked up shit, and what was that? Your 'Get Out of Jail Free' card?" Brian flinches, visibly, but Justin's hardly paused in his rant. "I didn't remember, so -you- got to pretend it never happened. You said you told me everything about that night, but you left out what -mattered-. You. And me. Because you just couldn't fucking face it."
Justin's pointing the knife at Brian now, and he knows it's stupid but Justin is -so- pissed at him that he kind of eyes it warily, which makes Justin roll his eyes and set it back on the cutting board. "Well?"
Well. "What do you want me to say?" It sounds tired, -he- sounds tired, and not just because it's 4AM. Brian feels, right then, like he's been tired for years.
Justin shrugs, and starts on the last of the carrots. "I don't know."
Brian scrubs at his face with his hands, and leans heavily on the counter. If Justin doesn't know what he's supposed to say, how the fuck is he going to figure it out? He's got to try something, though, because the steady *thwack thwack* of Justin's knife is getting on his nerves. There's a way out of this. There has to be. "But you're mad at me."
Justin's laugh is completely humorless. "Uh, yeah." He sweeps the neat slices of carrot out of the way and turns to the refrigerator. Zucchini, this time, and Justin shoots Brian a look before closing the fridge door with a kick and just laying into it. Christ, how many sins does he have to pay for in one night?
"For not telling you."
"For not telling me. Because I deserved to know, Brian, I think... I needed to know. That. Things."
No shit. Brian has always been full of things that Justin needs to and -should- hear and probably never will. So why this? He doesn't say it out loud, but he might as well have.
"I was -there-. It wasn't just you, it was us, and I deserve that much. To know what happens in my own fucking life."
He's right. "You're right. You do."
"Yeah. And you know, it's like it's too late?" His eyes dart over to Brian's, almost nervously, like he's thinking he should have said that differently. "Not like.... It would have meant -so much- then, to know. But now...."
"Now it just makes you mad." Brian starts to think this doesn't have much to do with him at all. Well, of course it -does-, because in the end all things Justin have to do with Brian, but maybe it's not something he's supposed to do anything about.
"Now it makes me mad." The anger is seeping out of Justin's voice, and they've had so many almost-conversations like this that Brian's already bracing himself, ready for the resignation, the defeat, the slumped shoulders. He's so busy wondering how to make that not-happen that he almost misses that it's... not happening. Justin doesn't do defeat like he used to.
The chopping has slowed. Now it looks less like Justin's taking out his aggression a mound of helpless vegetation and more like he just wants to finish the zucchini he's got because he has always hated to leave a job unfinished. More than anything else, when he speaks again Justin just sounds... quiet. "Sorry I hit you."
"Sorry I'm an asshole."
That gets a chuckle. "Yeah." Justin falls completely silent, and Brian thinks if he reaches for another goddamned vegetable after this one, he is going to scream.
He doesn't. The knife slows to a stop and Justin stands, looking down at the knife and the cutting board and his hands. Everything that isn't Brian sitting there waiting for him to speak. "I'm still mad at you. Everything could have been different. Completely. That doesn't mean... fuck. It might've still sucked." Justin draws in a long breath. "But then it might -still- suck. And that's not the point, anyway. You are."
Fuck.
"See, here's the thing: you want to be a fucking pansy about this 'emotional shit,' fine. Whatever. That's your right. But I deserved better than that, and I think... I might just be mad at you for a while."
Brian doesn't say anything. For whatever reason, at four in the morning on a completely ordinary day of their lives, Justin is at some kind of crossroads and it's not up to Brian which direction he takes. And he hates that feeling, he really fucking does, but for once in his life he makes himself just stay right there and not, you know, -push-... because it's Justin's decision and Brian always makes the wrong one, anyway.
Justin mutters again, just a single, quiet, "God." He slaps the knife down on the only clear counter space left, and stomps into the bedroom. To the closet. And comes out again with his coat.
Motherfucking cocksucker son-of-a-bitch, he is -not- doing this. It's not happening. Brian shifts and stares at the door that he knows Justin is going to walk out of at any second, and his brain is stuck on a litany of "not not not not not" when he feels Justin's fingers slip behind his neck. He thinks, wildly, that they fit into the same spaces those same fingers branded onto his skin one night in Vanguard's art department and then he's pulled into a kiss that, God, could be -that- kiss all over again. How funny is it, that the kiss Brian will remember until the day he fucking dies is not the one they were arguing about? Justin whispers fiercely against his mouth, "I am not leaving. But I'm taking a fucking walk."
Brian does not sag with relief. Really. But he watches while Justin makes not-quite-a-show of snapping his house key loose from its ring and leaving the rest, doesn't quite give him a reassuring look, and definitely slides the loft door shut behind himself. He doesn't lock it.
Brian does. Locks it, leans his forehead against it and then slowly turns, rolling his head on the cool grey metal. He eyes the piles of neatly-massacred vegetables on the countertop, and decides to surf for stew recipes while he waits.