Stars Made of Paper (7/7) Fin (that means 'the end')
Genre: AU, non-h/c
Warnings: nothing more hardcore than canon, angst, Justin/OMC, Brian/OMC;
Rating: NC-17
Word count: this chapter: 5300
Beta: moonbrightnites. I will never pay my debt to this angel from heaven, for lightfast edits at almost no-time notice, honest advice and stopping me from going overboard with angst (really, guys, this could be much worse). You are my hero! ;_;
This is for you, sakesushimaki. Back when I first started this fic, it was supposed to be as different from what it turned out to be as humanly possible. Also, I mostly didn't believe I'd break my curse of never finishing a WiP. But here it is. And it's for you and I hope you like it, because I literally need you to enable accept me the way I am even when I don't reply to your emails because I supposedly am busy with writing you a seventh WiP fic. <3 forever!
Chapter 7
Three months after Brian last saw Justin, his Liberty Air campaign gets picked up by the agency. They want to just take it and run with it, but Brian puts his foot down and points out that Justin owns the copyrights to the artwork and he, unlike Brian, is not property of the firm. They offer five thousand dollars for Justin's work. Brian bumps the price to eight and demands to be put on the team as project manager. He has to pitch the idea again, including a TV spot concept, but he knows Liberty Air is ready to kill for that campaign and eventually he gets what he wants.
It takes many passive-aggressive emails on both sides to convince Justin to produce more artwork, and even a few more before he accepts the money, half of which he wires back to Brian.
Six months later the campaign wins the first Atlas award the agency has ever seen and Brian gets a promotion, his own office and a secretary he shares with the other senior account manager.
Things only get better from there. Brian spends a lot of time fucking whoever he wants, even more time working towards becoming partner, and stays on top of his game on both counts in spite of getting very little sleep.
Justin leaves for a semester in Berlin, which Brian knows from Chloe, who was invited to his send-off-slash-early-birthday party by a mutual friend. Brian throws his own party, for two. When he wakes up and kicks the trick out, he decides it's high time to get his own apartment.
Pittsburgh has a surprisingly expansive housing market. Brian spends weeks checking out studios, one-bedroom apartments and even two-bedroom ones, because he can afford them.
Eventually he fucks a guy who says he's moving to San Francisco and puts his loft up for rent, not selling it, in case he decides to come back. Brian thinks no one is stupid enough to come back to Pittsburgh once they got out of here. And definitely, he decides when the guy takes him to the loft for the second round, not when they can afford a place like this.
Brian makes a bedroom in place of the entertainment center that was on a raised platform next to the bathroom. Because, well, the bedroom is his entertainment center. The rent is a steal. He splurges on a huge and expensive bed, because that was always gonna be the first thing he'd buy once he finally graduated from roommates. He gets a white leather sofa (because it's a bitch to remove come stains from fabric), and two months later kitchen appliances he knows he's barely gonna use, but the place would look empty without them.
Once he moves in, he realizes he's achieved everything he wanted to achieve by the time he turned twenty-eight. So now it's time to set his sights higher.
He spends all his time between work and the loft. There's not much to be gained by spending nights out anymore, because Stockwell won the election, and turned out to be one of the few politicians in history who made good on their campaign promises. He’s on the way to turning Liberty Avenue into a family-friendly place. Backrooms are closed, fines charged for sex in the alleys, you can barely grind against anyone on the dance floor without looking over your shoulder. Cops haven't yet started patrolling inside the clubs, but it's probably just a matter of time.
This police state theme proves to be subversively productive to the Pittsburgh gay scene. New clubs open every weekend in place of the ones that were closed due to safety regulations. Orgies are organized through the internet under the guise of reading clubs and bar mitzvahs. The new venues rarely last more than a month, so the scenography changes constantly. It is all fun and sometimes exciting until it becomes annoying, stiffling and foreboding.
The most packed location is always Liberty Diner, where Debbie Novotny distributes flyers and buttons, invitations to protests and angry speeches to the queens who dare to joke about the situation. The fags gather there every night for updates on which place is closed now and which just opened for business.
One evening Brian sits at the counter, turning to a guy who's waiting to be served, with an intention to ask about the newest Baths' location. But the words die on his lips when the guy sees him.
“Anthony. Fancy meeting you here,” he says after they eye each other probingly, settling on a look of resigned indifference. “You out for an adventure?”
“Not much of that to find around here anymore, is there?” Anthony is polite as ever. Brian isn't sure whether it's his upbringing, remarkable self-restraint or the fact that he just doesn't care.
“Unless you know where to look.”
“I don't. Don't really have time for that nowadays.”
“Come now. Just say a word and I'll forward you my newsletter.”
“That's very kind of you.” He looks at Brian again, another once-over, but this time it's the sort Brian's more familiar with, the one that makes him turn ever so slightly and lean back against the counter, letting his jacket's lapels slide apart.
Tony smirks. “Very tempting.”
“But you must refuse, because your boy is back in town, waiting for you to bring back Pink Plate Specials for two and a lemon square to share.”
Brian hates when his digs bring the opposite effect than what he intends. Tony's smirk widens and then he laughs.
“No, my boy isn't back. I don't think he will be. And I can't say I blame him.”
“Trouble in paradise?”
“Paradise is never meant to last.”
It's going on eight months since Justin left for Berlin. It's not that Brian believed he'd come back when his semester was over. But hearing the news from Tony's own lips isn't as satisfying as he pictured it could be. It's not satisfying, at all.
“Here you go, honey.” Debbie places a paper bag with Tony's order in front of him. When she comes back from the cash register with his change, she pets his cheek and says, “Tell Sunshine to take care of himself, and to dress warmly. He practically lives on the North Pole now.”
“Sweden, Debbie. Not the North Pole.”
“You kids never take proper care of your health. And then when you turn forty, your body just gives up on you. You're not gonna be young forever... you don't look like you're getting enough sleep, now that I think about it.”
“I'm just busy with work. Thanks, Debbie.”
Tony nods at Brian as he leaves the diner. Brian knows it's not that kind of nod, and that makes him hesitate, but he gets up.
“Hey!” Debbie's shout stops him as he turns towards the door by the counter. “Brian Kinney, you come back here and leave that man alone. He's got enough problems as it is.”
It's almost enough to make Brian stay. He knows that would be the reasonable solution.
“I'm going to help him with some of them.” He shrugs and walks out.
So he tells himself it's the thrill of the chase. He has to speed up as he sees Tony turning a corner. He tells himself it's curiosity. And the fact that he has to be up early tomorrow and this is easier than cruising bars where patrons are becoming more paranoid and distrustful with every month.
“Tony,” he says, just to give him a warning as he's closing in on him on a dimly lit street. Tony turns around, his lips quirked slightly when Brian doesn't stop at a proper distance. Pushes him back against a wall, his knee between Tony's, both to grind against his crotch and make his escape impossible.
Tony isn't trying to escape. “Are you always this charming?” He's amused. But Brian can hear the tremble in his voice, can feel the increasing tempo of his breathing, can feel Tony's dick reacting to the touch of his fingers. Can see him lean forward as Brian is bending down to kiss him.
Tony leads Brian to his place, a studio that is everything Brian's loft isn't and never will be. Brian looks around from between the sweaty strands of his hair as he fucks Tony over the back of his couch. But he can't find any memories of Justin. No photos, sketches, paintings. Maybe that mirror was a gift from Justin? Maybe this sweatshirt is from Justin's closet? And if it is, then what difference does it make? Then he fucks Tony on his messy desk. Tony looks him in the eye the whole time he's sprawled on the desk, his knuckles white from his grip on the edge. His eyes focused as if the sex is just on the margin of his mind, as if it's just a means to an end, as if he's looking for something and he's put all bets on this last resort. As if Brian has to be an answer to a question that's been haunting him.
Brian manages to dispel that look for a moment when he drives Tony so close to completion he has to shut his eyes and just survive the sensation.
“I have a bed, too,” Tony says, unscrewing a water bottle as Brian picks up Tony's t-shirt to wipe come from his own belly.
Tony sounds disappointed, as well. As if he, too, expected something impossible.
They spend the rest of the night in bed. It's like painting over cracks in a wall that's falling apart. Eye-numbing paint that doesn't fix anything, but it works temporarily and is still better than nothing. Because it kills the time and the silence and the hope.
Brian takes a shower afterwards and he thinks maybe this isn't even the shower Justin used. Maybe he's never been here. Maybe the shower gel that smells like him is just Tony's incense to ward off ghosts or to mask the smell of absence.
He thinks of how he came here because Tony had seen that place that never lasts and Brian hasn't. How he thought that maybe there was still sand on Tony's clothes or salt on his skin, some kind of keepsake that he could steal.
“Remember to tell Sunshine to dress warmly,” Brian says as he puts on his shoes.
“Mm. Anything else?”
“That he's not going to be young forever.”
“Want me to tell him something from you?”
He shrugs. “Don't shop at IKEA?”
“So that if you get run over by a bus tomorrow, he can spend the rest of his life wondering 'God, what was Brian trying to tell me?'”
“At least my last words would be wisdom to live by.”
When Brian stops smelling like lavender shower gel at dawn, he can't stand the scent of Pittsburgh anymore.
He works like a madman through the week. On Saturday, after unsuccessfully fighting with the art director and Marty for his vision, he goes to the Baths to let off some steam. Of course, the name is the only thing the current Baths have in common with the old ones. The original place closed three venue generations ago. Now the staff is different, the location and the lightening is different. Brian gives the current place less than three weeks. The point of going to the baths is to not see who you're fucking, so that you don't have to start regretting it until you're finished. The current owner seems to be oblivious to that golden rule. And... when Brian gets there, all he finds is a 'Sorry, We're Closed' sign on the bolted iron door.
“Well, good luck with figuring out the sex industry the next time,” he mutters, stuffing hands in his pockets and walking to the Diner.
Debbie doesn't look at him once and when he calls out her name, she rushes over to another customer with one of her famous one-liners. After twenty minutes, Brian gets tired of rolling his eyes, with the florescent light, with the crowded booths, loud chatter and complaining. When did getting laid become such a fucking chore? He leaves the diner and smokes by his car until someone comes up and offers to blow him in the backseat. He can't even be bothered to take the guy home, he just wants to cross this night off his to-do list and get some sleep.
The next night he gets ignored by Debbie, annoyed by the crowd, bored with a blowjob in the restroom and he goes to Anthony's place.
Brian thinks this could become a pattern. Maybe, in some other life, they could even be friends, if they had anything in common besides regret.
“I'm leaving Pittsburgh.”
He intends to say that only to check how it sounds. It sounds like a plan.
“Where to?”
“Don't know yet. California sounds warm. I'll freeze my ass off in this burgh, fucking in some damp basement of some dungeon, before they finally arrest me for sodomy. Seriously, what's taking them so long?”
“I think they're still working on that Constitution thing.”
“They'd better work faster. Schmucks. Don't even have the balls to follow through on their homo holocaust fantasy.”
There's only one, tiny problem. How the fuck is he going to find a job someplace else without losing everything he's earned so far? He’s really come to like that loft. Considering it’s one of the few places left in Pittsburgh where he can get laid without catching a cold or some disease from the molding bodily fluids smeared on the walls.
He gives himself a year. To get things in order.
Spending nights at Tony's becomes a thing.
Brian usually goes through Tony's stuff as the latter works on his paintings or grades students' work. He doesn't seem to mind Brian's snooping, humoring him like a spoiled child.
“Where do you keep postcards from Sweden?”
Tony turns away from his work and gives Brian a look full of chagrin, like he's hoping he heard that wrong.
“What?” Brian says.
“For fuck's sake.” Tony turns back to the easel and curses as he gives himself a paper cut. “Why do you think he went to Sweden instead of back to college?”
Brian shrugs.
“The reason's name is Magnus Wallenberg. I haven't heard from Justin in months.”
“So you keep lying to Debbie?”
Tony doesn't answer. Brian doesn't particularly care about Tony's or Debbie's feelings enough to pry. It just makes him uneasy that Justin and Tony didn't make it. As much as he wanted to see them fail, it was exactly because he thought it wouldn't happen.
“What does Magnus do?”
“What do you care?”
“Golly gee, aren't you easy to talk to?”
“I'm extremely easy to talk to. I just think you're asking everything except the questions you want answers for.”
“Are you challenging me?”
“Yes, I am.”
Brian snorts. “I'm surprised you just let him go.” Well, that wasn't a question.
Tony picks up the stack of students' drawings, moves to his desk and grades two of them before he says, “Wouldn't you?”
“What does it matter what I'd do? I was never his boyfriend. And I definitely was never you.”
“Have you ever answered a simple question in your life, Brian?”
“Would it matter if I haven't?”
“Unbelievable. I've never met anyone as obstinate as you. And I teach freshmen in a fucking art school.”
“Okay.” Brian grins as he looks at the back of Tony's head. “What was the question?”
“I asked if you would've let Justin go.”
“Yes.”
“So did I.” He focuses on the drawings again, seemingly ending the conversation, but after five more drawings join the pile on the floor, he continues. “He was holding on to hope that when he came back, we could pick up where we left off.” He laughs quietly. “That's not how stuff works for twenty-year-olds who discover there's world outside of Pittsburgh.”
A minute of silence passes before Brian decides he wants to fuck again and as he walks the four paces separating him from Tony's desk, he says, “Well, if it's any consolation, it was fucking ungrateful of him to leave you in the dust after you saved his life.”
Tony turns around, smiling at the tips of his fingers as they make graphite smears on his knees. “I didn't save his life. I just... loved him.”
“Whatever. You artsy people are so anal with semantics.”
The fourth week, Brian is toweling his hair and Tony is taking his shower when Tony's cell rings. Brian walks up to the desk and looks at the display. His hands freeze. And on the seventh ring, he picks up.
“Tony?” the caller asks and Brian is in that moment where he wants to say something, but has no idea what, and he thinks he has to speak so Justin doesn't hang up, but also knows he will hang up if he hears Brian's voice. “Tony...” Justin sounds like he might melt with relief. “Thank god. I didn't think you'd ever pick up and I...” Justin makes a short sound that would be a laugh if his voice didn't hitch with tears. “I just. Fuck, I didn't think of anything to say and figures that you'd choose a moment like this to finally answer my call-- Shit, sorry. Okay. I wanted to tell you that I'm back in States and--”
“You want me to pick you up?”
There's a silence interrupted by an announcement on the airport speaker and the pounding in Brian's ears before Justin asks, “Who's this?” In the time that it takes Brian to decide to answer and deal with the implications, Justin hangs up.
When Tony comes out of the shower, Brian tells him about the call and instantly regrets that he can't be honest with himself and lie to this man instead, keep the sound of Justin's voice his own private secret.
But Tony just nods, looking at the floor, and thanks him.
The fifth week, he finally finds his keepsake.
It's a stack of drawings that doubles as a nightstand. Most of them are garbage and they all have grades in red pen in the lower right corner. The second drawing from the top is in color pencil, graded C-. It's two men wrapped in each other, dancing in pink-orange-purple disco light. The drawing is really nothing to look at, the line work is quick and precursory, the colors are chaotic and unblended, like a movie on a VHS tape watched a hundred times, or a variation on Seurat. The only thing you can recognize, the only thing the artist cared to render in detail, is the taller man's profile and his hand. Brian doesn't think it's his perfect likeness, but it's passable. His forehead is pressed to the shorter man's and his hand is on the shorter man's neck. Like he's trying to strangle him, or hold onto him, or just feel his life under his fingers.
The pencil strokes are smudged in one direction, as if the drawing was pulled out from the stack so many times the chaotic lines almost blend into proper colors. As if it was pulled out and pushed back in the stack patiently until its style almost resembled what the teacher expected to see. As if over time the drawing stopped being an angry demand and turned into a colorful, pastel fantasy, no longer desperate, no longer urgent question, turning into a half-hearted speculation.
Anthony catches him looking at the drawing and says, “You can take it. If you blow me.”
Brian snorts at that. He rolls up the paper, stuffs it into his jeans pocket and says, “I'll take it. And you can blow me.” Because he can see Anthony is grateful to be rid of it.
When they fuck, he leaves throbbing fingernail scratches in Brian's back and keeps his eyes tightly shut. His moans are deeper and sound like he's holding back tears. Brian doesn't say that it's silly to cry over a drawing.
“Did you call Justin back?” he finally asks as he gets dressed in that apartment for the last time.
Anthony lies down on his back and keeps his eyes shut. He lets out a shaky breath.
“I told him not to look for me when he's in town. He's not moving back to Pittsburgh.”
Brian nods. He's searching for his shoes under the bed and when he finds them, Tony adds, “He says he'll only stay in New York for a week unless this illustrating gig works out.”
And then what?
The words won't leave his mouth. Brian doesn't want to know and infect his mind with an illusion that there is room in his life for this distraction. He can't weigh his decisions down with something as futile as obsession with another human being. He’s ready to leave this behind. He is.
“Why don't you get the hell out of this town, with him?”
“And do what?”
“Whatever it is you can do. Teach? Paint? Vandalize public property?”
“I have a life here, Brian. I'm not Justin. I can't pick up, move wherever I want and land on my feet. Do you want his address?”
It is none of Brian's business, really, where Justin was, is or will be. Brian has his own places to go.
“What, are you gonna just pass him on to me?” he says, straightening up.
“He's not a used coat, Brian. I'm not passing him on. I'm offering you a way to find him.”
“What for?”
“Jesus. I don't know what for. I'm not your spiritual advisor. Maybe so you can make things right with him?”
As if Brian had any idea how to do that.
“He's better off without me.”
“Since when is that something for you to decide?” When Brian doesn't answer, putting on his shoes and moving to get his jacket, Tony says, “He's alone.”
And then Brian really has to go.
Brian is smart. When you're smart, you learn from the mistakes of others and don't have to make your own. He's seen what pursuing this so-called happiness, and then losing it, has done to Tony. He's not going to willingly put himself through that.
Two weeks before his twenty-eighth birthday, Brian goes to the Atlas Awards ceremony. They don't win anything, because Marty decided Brian's campaigns are too provocative for the current political climate. Funny how a change in one bumfuck city mayoral office could affect one's sociological views on nation-wide campaigns. Perhaps Brian underestimated Stockwell's skills as leader - he was living proof that politics could change the world. If by no other way than to give people permission to take their hatred and prejudice out of the quietness of their homes and wear it proudly. Marty submitted a campaign by Bob and Brad for the award, which Brian found hilarious in a way that's only funny when you absolutely can't give enough shit to get properly angry.
At the ceremony, Brian fucks one of the hosts, Adam Lyons from Lyons and Hamilton, NY. Lyons says that Brian's Brown Athletics campaign got robbed this year and tells him he should ditch Ryder and move on to somewhere his talent would be appreciated. Brian pretends he's hesitating before he agrees to an interview.
He's had a resignation letter in his drawer for a few months now. He actually used to have several versions, but burned the other three when he sobered up the morning after writing them. He hands in the final letter two weeks after the Atlas awards. All of a sudden Marty is ready to compromise his pedestrian aesthetics and family morals, offering Brian a raise and more freedom, but Brian already has a job in a higher league, in a better city. It doesn't pay as much and he's back to the start as a junior account manager, but he will renegotiate that the first time he brings in a major client.
He sells the kitchen appliances and the bed, and the Mies van der Rohe coffee table and the Barcelona chairs. He won't own any furniture until there's an apartment big enough to put it in. He considers living in a hotel room until they give him a raise or he finds an affordable apartment, but it might be several months before he makes it and living out of a room that meets his standards would be a total waste of money. Chloe says he's lucky as she gives him an address for her friend from high school who's moving back to Pitts from her shared apartment in Williamsburg. Brian can move in to her place if he takes over her two months' rent and her roommate.
Brian goes first to see the apartment. It's two bedrooms plus a living room with kitchen, judging from the photos she sent him. As he drops his suitcase outside the front door, he can hear sounds from the hall. He knocks on the door loudly, smirking as he realizes he's interrupting two guys right after one of them gives that characteristic moan. Chloe told him his potential new roommate was gay, but his active sexual life shouldn't be a problem for Brian.
“Fuck,” Brian can hear coming from the inside. “Go wait in the bedroom? I'll be right back with you.”
Brian's heart slows down as the voice gets closer to the door. He knows that voice.
Then the door opens and he's not sure if he forgot how to breathe or if he's trying, but it isn't working.
Justin stands on the doorstep and his mouth is open.
He's not wearing a shirt and Brian can see the moment his nipples harden in the cold air of the staircase. He can't pull his eyes away from the silver nipple ring.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Justin's voice asks from above the ring and Brian tears his eyes away to look up.
And then Brian thinks, now his sights are set high enough.
But that will prove to be a laughable underestimation.
Justin looks at him expectantly, eyebrow raised as if he suspects Brian's brain fried from too much booze and drugs.
Brian spreads his arms, one hand pointing down to his suitcase. “I'm home.”
And that, right there, is an overestimation. That place won't feel like home for a long time. It will not be safety or comfort or peacefulness. It will be work, frustration and confusion.
Brian never follows anyone. Except this once, when Justin rubs his face with his hands and mutters into them, “You're my new roommate. This is... This isn't happening... Oh my god.” And he keeps muttering as he turns and goes back into the apartment.
And this is the only time Brian follows anyone, really.
THE END