(08) Guest Fanfic!: A Coming-Together in Thirteen Parts by the lovely mclachlan
Hello! I'm so excited to be posting the first fic by one of my super fabulous Guest Ficcers. mclachlan is one of the best writers in our fandom. Her beautiful and poetic prose has actually been known to make me tear up on occasion, and that just doesn't happen. I haven't even had the chance to read this yet (!!), so I'm posting it just as she sent it.
Thank you, mclachlan, for contributing to my Blogathon today. You're amazing.
Title: A Coming-Together in Thirteen Parts (or The One In Which Brian Is Hit By A Big Honkin' Clue Bus)
Author: R.C. McLachlan (mclachlan)
QaF US, Brian/Justin
5.07 AU
Written for Severina's Blog-a-Thon
For tamalinn ♥
One: Patchwork
He had been expecting pain, a crushing devastation that caused something dark and bitter and unnamable to close in around him, trapping him and weighing him down for days, weeks, eternities. A heartbreak so acute that he was sure he was being torn apart from the inside, like the edges of countless letters begun and never finished, all apologies, begging for a second chance, promising to be happy with what was given to him.
He hadn't expected to feel completely and shamelessly free.
And so he wakes up in Hunter's old room, exactly nine hours and X amount of minutes since Lindsay called with the most exciting news, and peels away his sleep -- for the first time after a night of dreams not plagued with images of Brian -- like a stamp to be used again for another time, another purpose, and vows to make New York his patchwork of letters.
Brian will be held tightly together with a rubber band, or an industrial paper clip, and shoved into the back of a drawer, brought out to be read and examined only under the most maudlin of circumstances.
New York is a new beginning, and Justin likes those.
But if there was something promising in the words tightly bound in the back of the drawer, something worth reading, then he might decide to write a sequel to the story.
As great as new beginnings are, wrapping up a "to be continued" is even better.
Two: Dreams
Brian dreams in black and white, and always has. It's a simple state of fact.
But the first night back in the loft after Australia he dreams in glorious Technicolor. Justin twirls in a powder-blue tuxedo with seventies ruffles and a giant smile that outshines the flamingo pink and fire engine red balloons, the tangerine orange streamers hanging from the ceiling, of Daphne's dress. The gowns are bright splashes of flowers and butterflies and expensive pastries against the sharp green of his periphery, now softened to a calm jade. Spin spin spin. Justin laughs and it sounds like sunlight yellow.
Brian wakes up, hunching away from his colorless walls and thinks that maybe he was a bit hasty in letting Justin go so easily.
He blames that thought on the hangover.
Three: Grease
Time comes to a stand-still when Brian enters the diner, his eyes hidden behind dark and expensive frames but first seeking out Justin, placing him, taking in how he smiles at the three men he's serving and ignores their blatant stares, how their eyes flicker to where Brian stands.
Debbie snaps her gum and ushers him to a booth, fixing him with an unimpressed look. She knows this man better than anyone, sometimes even her own son. "Nice tan."
Brian gives her a smarmy grin and refuses to feel guilty. "Coffee, Deb?"
"I've got it, Debbie." Justin, all smiles, walks over and waves a half-filled pot of coffee. There's a grease stain on the shoulder of his powder-blue tee shirt, the one part not protected by the apron he wears. For a moment, Brian sees pink and red balloons and tastes sunlight on his tongue.
Debbie shrugs and gives Brian the Eye. "Way to fuck up, kid."
Justin takes the spot she was standing in and pours Brian's coffee with a steady hand, without spilling a drop. "Heard you went to Australia. How was it? I've always wanted to go."
Brian does not think about how he'd purchased two plane tickets from his travel agent. And he most definitely does not think about how the second ticket is in pieces at the bottom of some landfill, put there by the Casciato Brothers garbage collection service.
"It was hot."
Justin laughs, and Brian wants to wring his neck. No moping, no sulking. "In more ways than one, I'm sure."
Brian smiles and doesn't feel it. "How are you doing, Sunshine?"
Shrugging, lifting the coffee pot in a salute, Justin says, "I'm doing well, Brian, thanks."
He leaves Brian sitting there with his cup of mediocre coffee to go refill some other fag's cup. The guy says something and Justin laughs.
Brian thinks that the boat left and he just wasn't on it. Or he'd missed a memo.
He blames that on the hangover, too.
Four: Crayons
It isn't Lindsay or Justin who tells him about the article, but rather Melanie, who gives him the news with no small amount of glee. He reads it twice.
Lindsay comes into the living room, Jenny Rebecca in her arms and Gus trailing behind her, a coloring book clutched in his hand. He clambers up to sit on his father's lap, accidentally crushing half of the magazine under his leg.
"Isn't it wonderful?" Melanie inquires airily, taking the baby from Lindsay's arms and ignoring the glare sent her way by stealing a warm kiss. "I mean, he's a genius, we all know that. But to see his name in print…"
"Mel…" Lindsay hisses, elbowing her.
Brian's in the process of turning the page (again) when she continues with, "And Michael told me that Justin was starting to look for places in New York."
His finger freezes for only a moment and then he finishes reading the article. Gus asks him to color with him.
Brian says, "of course, sonny boy."
He's screaming under his breath as Gus hands him a sunshine yellow crayon for the sun. Gus colors in the Statue of Liberty.
Melanie coos over what a good job daddy's doing.
Five: Realization #1
Brian wakes up a week later, rolls over and throws his arm across Justin.
And then really wakes up when he remembers that Justin isn't there, and never will be again.
"Fuck."
Seven: Apples
Whenever Justin sees Granny Smith apples, he thinks of Brian. Which isn't a shocker, as the man kept a bowl of them on the kitchen island in the loft. They were Brian's constant, his fruity little muses, the only thing he seemed to consume at home other than Beam and guava juice. If he was in a creative rut and couldn't come up with the most controversial ad possible, all it would take was a bite of green skin and the spilling of sweet juice onto his jaw (which Justin used to love to lick) and the idea would come. And the ad would be made. And he would fuck Justin senseless in celebration.
Ben's gotten it into his head that Justin needs to start eating more fruit, so he sends Justin out of the house every day with a shiny Granny Smith apple. He thanks Ben for his thoughtfulness when what he really wants to do is bludgeon the man to death. With a Granny Smith apple.
Because he really doesn't need the reminder. He misses Brian with the ache of someone who wants to read all of the old, unsent letters that are locked away in the drawer, but can't. Old wounds don't heal if the sutures are constantly torn out.
The day after he announces that he's going to New York to establish himself as an artist, Ben doesn't send him to work with a Granny Smith apple, but a painted lady. It's bigger and more colorful, just like his future career, Ben tells him.
On the way to the diner, Justin goes to the corner market three streets away from Liberty Avenue and switches the painted lady for a Granny Smith. He'd always enjoyed monochromatic schemes more than anything else, anyway.
Eight: 911
Brian calls Ted and to tell him that he'll be working at home today, and yes he feels fine, and no that doesn't mean that the meeting with LaScola and Co. is being cancelled because Ted and Cynthia can handle it themselves. When he hangs up, he lays in bed and stares at the ceiling and wonders why he had been born in the wrong era. Because he totally belonged in Ancient Rome, with the world class orgies and vomitariums. He would've been a god.
Trajan's Column. Fuck that. It'd be Kinney's Column.
Parties every night, beautiful boys brought to him by the dozen, all trained in the art of pleasure and not at all in the art of conversation. Because there is no need for it. Sex. Just sex. No public service announcements, no concerns for the state of his health. Not baseball bats. No one to love him. Just sin and debauchery.
And then he would have gone out in a blaze of glory... literally. In the blaze that destroyed the city.
He rolls over and stares out the window, imagining the whole of Pittsburgh engulfed in flames. Pink and red balloons, powdered blue tuxedos, dancing... all gone in a plume of smoke.
And no one to call IX I I, either.
Nine: Realization #2
He'd fucked up. Big time.
Ten: Operation: Cock-a-Doodle-Doo
The first step to any recovery is admitting you have a problem. Of all the countless AA pamphlets he's anonymously sent to his mother over the years, he's learned this. People have been teasing him about it for a long time. About his drinking, about his promiscuity, about his phobias of aging and commitment.
Fuck them. It's like they enjoy reminding him.
He calls it Operation: Cock-a-Doodle-Doo. Because as the rooster encaged in a pen full of moronic egg-layers, he needs to bring back the sun. Before it goes to set somewhere else. Like New fucking York, where it won't shine because the buildings block the coming dawn. All shadows and trash in the gutters. In a place that even with a million people, you're always alone. Plus, the city smells like piss.
He has it all planned out.
1. Go into the diner.
2. Engage Justin in simple conversation.
3. Ask if he wants to go fuck because no one seems to be up to par these days and whatever happened to skill, really? Tell him that he should've stopped him from leaving and talked it out.
4. Go and celebrate his return by fucking.
It's a good plan.
He gets to 2 and asks Justin about New York, to which Justin replies,
"Oh, so you heard? Yeah, Daphne's friend was looking for a roommate anyway, so it looks like everything's falling together nicely. I'm planning on leaving sometime soon."
He opens his mouth to tell Justin that he should've stayed and talked it over, but what comes out is, "It sounds like your dream is coming true. You'll be great."
Fuck.
Mission: Failure.
Brian Kinney: Failure.
He hopes that he's hit by a plane the minute he steps out of the diner.
Eleven: Justin Fucking Taylor
Poor Brian.
As Justin bites into a Granny Smith apple, he thinks he'll let him sweat it out for a little while longer.
Twelve: Operation
Brian has a new plan. It's called 'Operation'. He's been too stressed lately with thinking of ways to charm Justin back to him and trying to create a slogan for LaScola and Co.'s newest cologne product, so there hasn't been time to name the operation. But if all else fails, he has a back-up plan.
Debbie invites everyone over to celebrate the Art Forum article and Justin's decision to move to New York to make it as an artist. Justin practically glows as his make-shift family sings his praises, laughing and shoveling ziti marinara into his mouth while telling his mother and Michael both that the first place he's going to visit is the MOMA and that he'll probably live there for the first two weeks, just to take everything in.
Brian thinks that he's popped a blood vessel somewhere crucial in his brain, he's clenching his teeth so hard.
"What's the first thing you're going to buy with your first sale? In New York?" Melanie asks, shooting Brian a wicked smirk. Brian wills her head to explode and forces himself not to pout when nothing happens. Another failure.
"Probably next week's groceries."
Everyone laughs.
"And just think of all the hot men in the city," Emmett sighs, grabbing a hold of Ted's arm. "Remember when we went?"
"To bring wittle Sunshine home?" Brian sneers at them, dragging the prongs of his fork across the ceramic plate, releasing a hair-raising squeal into the air. Everyone shudders. He looks at Justin, hoping it sinks in. HINT HINT.
Ted rolls his eyes, which become a bit glazed as he mulls it over. "Yes, I remember the men. All of the men. Just think how many more there are now."
Justin makes a noise of agreement. All smiles. He spears three ziti's with his fork, rolling them around in the mixture of marinara sauce and Romano cheese. "I know. It'll be like hitting the jackpot."
That's it. Enough is enough. It's time to enact the back-up plan.
Operation: Fuck This Shit, His Ass Belongs To Me.
"Or," Brian begins loudly, slamming his fork down. Everyone falls silent. "Or, you could stay here."
Lindsay blinks and haltingly tries, "Brian, I don't think--"
"You don't think he could be a successful artist from Pittsburgh? He had a showing. He got a write-up in that fucking magazine. Why the fuck does he need to up and move in order to become famous? There are plenty of galleries here, plenty of filthy rich people to buy his work. I mean, there are plenty of things here that are just as good as New York's shit. The Center for the Arts. The Carnegie Museum of Art. The Art Institute. Even the fucking Mattress Factory Contemporary Art Museum!"
He thinks absently as he opens his mouth to continue that Debbie's never been so quiet.
"And another thing!" Everyone jumps. "His entire fucking life is here. His family, his friends. ... Me. I'm here. I'm here, not in New York. New York... you don't have to go." He turns up his chin defiantly. "I don't think you should go. I don't want you to go."
Silence, and then
"Okay." Justin shrugs airily and pops the three ziti's into his mouth.
Brian opens his mouth, closes it, and opens it again. "'Okay?'"
"Yeah, okay." Justin's smiling again, warmly. Knowingly.
"... Okay."
Everyone clamors to him in unison, forbidding him to stay, to stifle his dreams just so he can stay with one emotionally-stunted idiot with a nine-inch cock. But Jennifer is crying and reaching over to kiss her son on the temple, thanking him for thinking it through and Debbie says that if he's staying he can't work at the diner anymore, because he's above that. Lindsay says that it's not a good idea to stay. That he has to go. Melanie grumbles into her wine.
And for the first time in a long time, Brian relaxes.
Thirteen: Letters
"You know, you're like unsent love letters that you shove in a drawer and never want to look at again," Justin says, curled up against Brian's side after a long night of spectacular sex. Complete with conversation and laughter. Brian's pretty sure that Justin wasn't trained in the latter two.
"I'm like what? What does that even mean?" After all this shit, Justin better not decide to switch professions and become a writer. Brian hates writers, especially the ones at Kinnetic who can't come up with jack shit.
"But you can't stop looking at them, reading them, because they're always there. You can't unwrite them," Justin goes on, licking up the cooling sheen of sweat covering Brian's jaw. "I don't know. You're just like love letters."
Brian rolls Justin under him and settles on top of him, feeling the chest under his move up in down. Justin grins. "Sunshine, I still don't know what the fuck that means."
Rolling his eyes, Justin tries to shimmy his way out from under Brian. "Forget it."
Lips thinning, Brian wraps his hands around the thin wrists, the ones that know the perfect position to get the perfect brush stroke. They know how to create, where Brian's know only how to destroy. They balance each other perfectly. "Would you stop that? Just... Just tell me."
Justin relaxes back into the mattress and shrugs. "I don't think I can. Explain it, I mean."
"Then don't. Write it to me in a letter." He slithers down Justin's front until his chin stops just above Justin's hipbone. His fingers release Justin's wrists, one arm falling to the bed and the other resting against Justin's side. His index finger slowly trails up to the chest, raising and falling with every breath.
Tracing. It should be so easy, just like a sales pitch. A slogan. The simplest and most complex slogan ever.
I... Love...
The chest stops moving as Brian stops tracing. Instead of finishing it, he lifts his head and looks up. Justin's lower lip is snagged between his teeth, golden lashes fluttering. "... Why?"
Why? Why, indeed. He smiles, small and shy, and feels something inside lift. Everything is brighter. Color, sound, history. All worthy of becoming a concrete memory. "I don't know. I'm like love letters."
Justin laughs, and tears spill from the corners of his eyes, staining the pillowcase. "That doesn't make any sense."
Brian surges up and captures Justin's mouth, hard and then gentle, savoring what will be his for a long, long time. This. Balloons and corsages and music and tuxedoes and dancing. This is it. This is joy. This boy, man, beneath him. Above him. All around him, like air. Like song. Like sunshine.
This is happiness.
If a blue bird lands on his shoulder, he's killing the smug fucker.
Original Prompt: I'd really love a fic where Brian and Justin break up in 507, and Babylon doesn't get bombed in 510, so they don't get back together out of that kind of desperate fear of losing one another for good.
Brian goes to Australia, and he gets back and he sees the Art Forum article. Justin's talked to Lindsay and decided to go to NY (whether or not he does is up to the author). I'd like to see Brian not try to change himself for Justin by becoming Super Happy Marriage Man, which was a change that was born, I believe, from his terror that Justin could've died. Again.
How would they work it out? Or, I guess really, COULD they work it out? -- tamalinn
.
Thank you, mclachlan, for contributing to my Blogathon today. You're amazing.
Title: A Coming-Together in Thirteen Parts (or The One In Which Brian Is Hit By A Big Honkin' Clue Bus)
Author: R.C. McLachlan (mclachlan)
QaF US, Brian/Justin
5.07 AU
Written for Severina's Blog-a-Thon
For tamalinn ♥
One: Patchwork
He had been expecting pain, a crushing devastation that caused something dark and bitter and unnamable to close in around him, trapping him and weighing him down for days, weeks, eternities. A heartbreak so acute that he was sure he was being torn apart from the inside, like the edges of countless letters begun and never finished, all apologies, begging for a second chance, promising to be happy with what was given to him.
He hadn't expected to feel completely and shamelessly free.
And so he wakes up in Hunter's old room, exactly nine hours and X amount of minutes since Lindsay called with the most exciting news, and peels away his sleep -- for the first time after a night of dreams not plagued with images of Brian -- like a stamp to be used again for another time, another purpose, and vows to make New York his patchwork of letters.
Brian will be held tightly together with a rubber band, or an industrial paper clip, and shoved into the back of a drawer, brought out to be read and examined only under the most maudlin of circumstances.
New York is a new beginning, and Justin likes those.
But if there was something promising in the words tightly bound in the back of the drawer, something worth reading, then he might decide to write a sequel to the story.
As great as new beginnings are, wrapping up a "to be continued" is even better.
Two: Dreams
Brian dreams in black and white, and always has. It's a simple state of fact.
But the first night back in the loft after Australia he dreams in glorious Technicolor. Justin twirls in a powder-blue tuxedo with seventies ruffles and a giant smile that outshines the flamingo pink and fire engine red balloons, the tangerine orange streamers hanging from the ceiling, of Daphne's dress. The gowns are bright splashes of flowers and butterflies and expensive pastries against the sharp green of his periphery, now softened to a calm jade. Spin spin spin. Justin laughs and it sounds like sunlight yellow.
Brian wakes up, hunching away from his colorless walls and thinks that maybe he was a bit hasty in letting Justin go so easily.
He blames that thought on the hangover.
Three: Grease
Time comes to a stand-still when Brian enters the diner, his eyes hidden behind dark and expensive frames but first seeking out Justin, placing him, taking in how he smiles at the three men he's serving and ignores their blatant stares, how their eyes flicker to where Brian stands.
Debbie snaps her gum and ushers him to a booth, fixing him with an unimpressed look. She knows this man better than anyone, sometimes even her own son. "Nice tan."
Brian gives her a smarmy grin and refuses to feel guilty. "Coffee, Deb?"
"I've got it, Debbie." Justin, all smiles, walks over and waves a half-filled pot of coffee. There's a grease stain on the shoulder of his powder-blue tee shirt, the one part not protected by the apron he wears. For a moment, Brian sees pink and red balloons and tastes sunlight on his tongue.
Debbie shrugs and gives Brian the Eye. "Way to fuck up, kid."
Justin takes the spot she was standing in and pours Brian's coffee with a steady hand, without spilling a drop. "Heard you went to Australia. How was it? I've always wanted to go."
Brian does not think about how he'd purchased two plane tickets from his travel agent. And he most definitely does not think about how the second ticket is in pieces at the bottom of some landfill, put there by the Casciato Brothers garbage collection service.
"It was hot."
Justin laughs, and Brian wants to wring his neck. No moping, no sulking. "In more ways than one, I'm sure."
Brian smiles and doesn't feel it. "How are you doing, Sunshine?"
Shrugging, lifting the coffee pot in a salute, Justin says, "I'm doing well, Brian, thanks."
He leaves Brian sitting there with his cup of mediocre coffee to go refill some other fag's cup. The guy says something and Justin laughs.
Brian thinks that the boat left and he just wasn't on it. Or he'd missed a memo.
He blames that on the hangover, too.
Four: Crayons
It isn't Lindsay or Justin who tells him about the article, but rather Melanie, who gives him the news with no small amount of glee. He reads it twice.
Lindsay comes into the living room, Jenny Rebecca in her arms and Gus trailing behind her, a coloring book clutched in his hand. He clambers up to sit on his father's lap, accidentally crushing half of the magazine under his leg.
"Isn't it wonderful?" Melanie inquires airily, taking the baby from Lindsay's arms and ignoring the glare sent her way by stealing a warm kiss. "I mean, he's a genius, we all know that. But to see his name in print…"
"Mel…" Lindsay hisses, elbowing her.
Brian's in the process of turning the page (again) when she continues with, "And Michael told me that Justin was starting to look for places in New York."
His finger freezes for only a moment and then he finishes reading the article. Gus asks him to color with him.
Brian says, "of course, sonny boy."
He's screaming under his breath as Gus hands him a sunshine yellow crayon for the sun. Gus colors in the Statue of Liberty.
Melanie coos over what a good job daddy's doing.
Five: Realization #1
Brian wakes up a week later, rolls over and throws his arm across Justin.
And then really wakes up when he remembers that Justin isn't there, and never will be again.
"Fuck."
Seven: Apples
Whenever Justin sees Granny Smith apples, he thinks of Brian. Which isn't a shocker, as the man kept a bowl of them on the kitchen island in the loft. They were Brian's constant, his fruity little muses, the only thing he seemed to consume at home other than Beam and guava juice. If he was in a creative rut and couldn't come up with the most controversial ad possible, all it would take was a bite of green skin and the spilling of sweet juice onto his jaw (which Justin used to love to lick) and the idea would come. And the ad would be made. And he would fuck Justin senseless in celebration.
Ben's gotten it into his head that Justin needs to start eating more fruit, so he sends Justin out of the house every day with a shiny Granny Smith apple. He thanks Ben for his thoughtfulness when what he really wants to do is bludgeon the man to death. With a Granny Smith apple.
Because he really doesn't need the reminder. He misses Brian with the ache of someone who wants to read all of the old, unsent letters that are locked away in the drawer, but can't. Old wounds don't heal if the sutures are constantly torn out.
The day after he announces that he's going to New York to establish himself as an artist, Ben doesn't send him to work with a Granny Smith apple, but a painted lady. It's bigger and more colorful, just like his future career, Ben tells him.
On the way to the diner, Justin goes to the corner market three streets away from Liberty Avenue and switches the painted lady for a Granny Smith. He'd always enjoyed monochromatic schemes more than anything else, anyway.
Eight: 911
Brian calls Ted and to tell him that he'll be working at home today, and yes he feels fine, and no that doesn't mean that the meeting with LaScola and Co. is being cancelled because Ted and Cynthia can handle it themselves. When he hangs up, he lays in bed and stares at the ceiling and wonders why he had been born in the wrong era. Because he totally belonged in Ancient Rome, with the world class orgies and vomitariums. He would've been a god.
Trajan's Column. Fuck that. It'd be Kinney's Column.
Parties every night, beautiful boys brought to him by the dozen, all trained in the art of pleasure and not at all in the art of conversation. Because there is no need for it. Sex. Just sex. No public service announcements, no concerns for the state of his health. Not baseball bats. No one to love him. Just sin and debauchery.
And then he would have gone out in a blaze of glory... literally. In the blaze that destroyed the city.
He rolls over and stares out the window, imagining the whole of Pittsburgh engulfed in flames. Pink and red balloons, powdered blue tuxedos, dancing... all gone in a plume of smoke.
And no one to call IX I I, either.
Nine: Realization #2
He'd fucked up. Big time.
Ten: Operation: Cock-a-Doodle-Doo
The first step to any recovery is admitting you have a problem. Of all the countless AA pamphlets he's anonymously sent to his mother over the years, he's learned this. People have been teasing him about it for a long time. About his drinking, about his promiscuity, about his phobias of aging and commitment.
Fuck them. It's like they enjoy reminding him.
He calls it Operation: Cock-a-Doodle-Doo. Because as the rooster encaged in a pen full of moronic egg-layers, he needs to bring back the sun. Before it goes to set somewhere else. Like New fucking York, where it won't shine because the buildings block the coming dawn. All shadows and trash in the gutters. In a place that even with a million people, you're always alone. Plus, the city smells like piss.
He has it all planned out.
1. Go into the diner.
2. Engage Justin in simple conversation.
3. Ask if he wants to go fuck because no one seems to be up to par these days and whatever happened to skill, really? Tell him that he should've stopped him from leaving and talked it out.
4. Go and celebrate his return by fucking.
It's a good plan.
He gets to 2 and asks Justin about New York, to which Justin replies,
"Oh, so you heard? Yeah, Daphne's friend was looking for a roommate anyway, so it looks like everything's falling together nicely. I'm planning on leaving sometime soon."
He opens his mouth to tell Justin that he should've stayed and talked it over, but what comes out is, "It sounds like your dream is coming true. You'll be great."
Fuck.
Mission: Failure.
Brian Kinney: Failure.
He hopes that he's hit by a plane the minute he steps out of the diner.
Eleven: Justin Fucking Taylor
Poor Brian.
As Justin bites into a Granny Smith apple, he thinks he'll let him sweat it out for a little while longer.
Twelve: Operation
Brian has a new plan. It's called 'Operation'. He's been too stressed lately with thinking of ways to charm Justin back to him and trying to create a slogan for LaScola and Co.'s newest cologne product, so there hasn't been time to name the operation. But if all else fails, he has a back-up plan.
Debbie invites everyone over to celebrate the Art Forum article and Justin's decision to move to New York to make it as an artist. Justin practically glows as his make-shift family sings his praises, laughing and shoveling ziti marinara into his mouth while telling his mother and Michael both that the first place he's going to visit is the MOMA and that he'll probably live there for the first two weeks, just to take everything in.
Brian thinks that he's popped a blood vessel somewhere crucial in his brain, he's clenching his teeth so hard.
"What's the first thing you're going to buy with your first sale? In New York?" Melanie asks, shooting Brian a wicked smirk. Brian wills her head to explode and forces himself not to pout when nothing happens. Another failure.
"Probably next week's groceries."
Everyone laughs.
"And just think of all the hot men in the city," Emmett sighs, grabbing a hold of Ted's arm. "Remember when we went?"
"To bring wittle Sunshine home?" Brian sneers at them, dragging the prongs of his fork across the ceramic plate, releasing a hair-raising squeal into the air. Everyone shudders. He looks at Justin, hoping it sinks in. HINT HINT.
Ted rolls his eyes, which become a bit glazed as he mulls it over. "Yes, I remember the men. All of the men. Just think how many more there are now."
Justin makes a noise of agreement. All smiles. He spears three ziti's with his fork, rolling them around in the mixture of marinara sauce and Romano cheese. "I know. It'll be like hitting the jackpot."
That's it. Enough is enough. It's time to enact the back-up plan.
Operation: Fuck This Shit, His Ass Belongs To Me.
"Or," Brian begins loudly, slamming his fork down. Everyone falls silent. "Or, you could stay here."
Lindsay blinks and haltingly tries, "Brian, I don't think--"
"You don't think he could be a successful artist from Pittsburgh? He had a showing. He got a write-up in that fucking magazine. Why the fuck does he need to up and move in order to become famous? There are plenty of galleries here, plenty of filthy rich people to buy his work. I mean, there are plenty of things here that are just as good as New York's shit. The Center for the Arts. The Carnegie Museum of Art. The Art Institute. Even the fucking Mattress Factory Contemporary Art Museum!"
He thinks absently as he opens his mouth to continue that Debbie's never been so quiet.
"And another thing!" Everyone jumps. "His entire fucking life is here. His family, his friends. ... Me. I'm here. I'm here, not in New York. New York... you don't have to go." He turns up his chin defiantly. "I don't think you should go. I don't want you to go."
Silence, and then
"Okay." Justin shrugs airily and pops the three ziti's into his mouth.
Brian opens his mouth, closes it, and opens it again. "'Okay?'"
"Yeah, okay." Justin's smiling again, warmly. Knowingly.
"... Okay."
Everyone clamors to him in unison, forbidding him to stay, to stifle his dreams just so he can stay with one emotionally-stunted idiot with a nine-inch cock. But Jennifer is crying and reaching over to kiss her son on the temple, thanking him for thinking it through and Debbie says that if he's staying he can't work at the diner anymore, because he's above that. Lindsay says that it's not a good idea to stay. That he has to go. Melanie grumbles into her wine.
And for the first time in a long time, Brian relaxes.
Thirteen: Letters
"You know, you're like unsent love letters that you shove in a drawer and never want to look at again," Justin says, curled up against Brian's side after a long night of spectacular sex. Complete with conversation and laughter. Brian's pretty sure that Justin wasn't trained in the latter two.
"I'm like what? What does that even mean?" After all this shit, Justin better not decide to switch professions and become a writer. Brian hates writers, especially the ones at Kinnetic who can't come up with jack shit.
"But you can't stop looking at them, reading them, because they're always there. You can't unwrite them," Justin goes on, licking up the cooling sheen of sweat covering Brian's jaw. "I don't know. You're just like love letters."
Brian rolls Justin under him and settles on top of him, feeling the chest under his move up in down. Justin grins. "Sunshine, I still don't know what the fuck that means."
Rolling his eyes, Justin tries to shimmy his way out from under Brian. "Forget it."
Lips thinning, Brian wraps his hands around the thin wrists, the ones that know the perfect position to get the perfect brush stroke. They know how to create, where Brian's know only how to destroy. They balance each other perfectly. "Would you stop that? Just... Just tell me."
Justin relaxes back into the mattress and shrugs. "I don't think I can. Explain it, I mean."
"Then don't. Write it to me in a letter." He slithers down Justin's front until his chin stops just above Justin's hipbone. His fingers release Justin's wrists, one arm falling to the bed and the other resting against Justin's side. His index finger slowly trails up to the chest, raising and falling with every breath.
Tracing. It should be so easy, just like a sales pitch. A slogan. The simplest and most complex slogan ever.
I... Love...
The chest stops moving as Brian stops tracing. Instead of finishing it, he lifts his head and looks up. Justin's lower lip is snagged between his teeth, golden lashes fluttering. "... Why?"
Why? Why, indeed. He smiles, small and shy, and feels something inside lift. Everything is brighter. Color, sound, history. All worthy of becoming a concrete memory. "I don't know. I'm like love letters."
Justin laughs, and tears spill from the corners of his eyes, staining the pillowcase. "That doesn't make any sense."
Brian surges up and captures Justin's mouth, hard and then gentle, savoring what will be his for a long, long time. This. Balloons and corsages and music and tuxedoes and dancing. This is it. This is joy. This boy, man, beneath him. Above him. All around him, like air. Like song. Like sunshine.
This is happiness.
If a blue bird lands on his shoulder, he's killing the smug fucker.
Original Prompt: I'd really love a fic where Brian and Justin break up in 507, and Babylon doesn't get bombed in 510, so they don't get back together out of that kind of desperate fear of losing one another for good.
Brian goes to Australia, and he gets back and he sees the Art Forum article. Justin's talked to Lindsay and decided to go to NY (whether or not he does is up to the author). I'd like to see Brian not try to change himself for Justin by becoming Super Happy Marriage Man, which was a change that was born, I believe, from his terror that Justin could've died. Again.
How would they work it out? Or, I guess really, COULD they work it out? -- tamalinn
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