FIC: Assassination 6/10
Previous Chapters: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5
The Assassination of Brian Kinney By the Model James Ford
The Assassination of Brian Kinney By the Model James Ford
By Violet Jones
Chapter 6
Brian awoke in Justin’s bed to the sound of a phone ringing for the second time in less than twelve hours. This time it was Justin’s cell phone, the ring tone muffled by the clothes piled on top of it on the floor.
“Fuck off, Mom!” Justin shouted like a petulant child from his side of the bed.
“I don’t think she can hear you,” Brian said. “Maybe you should just talk to her and we won’t keep having our sleep interrupted by maternal figures.”
“I bet you ten bucks she calls me on the house phone within the hour. I wish I could just get rid of the fucking thing, but I need it to keep the hi-speed internet for work.”
“Speaking of which, don’t you have to be there today?”
“Nope. Monday, like Sunday, is also my fun day.”
“Have you been listening to that 80’s compilation you stole from me, again?”
“Maybe.”
“You have the Bangles on your iPod, don’t you?”
“No comment.”
“That may actually take the crown as being the gayest thing about you.”
“I wouldn’t taunt if I were you. I know about all those show tunes you have disguised as other songs on your iPod. If Emmett only knew…”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Brian answered nonchalantly.
“You closet Streisand freak.”
“At least I’ve never openly admitted to being an N’Sync fan.”
“I was in high school at the time, and Justin Timberlake has completely null-and-voided all memories of his former musical atrocities in every person on the planet since then, so it doesn’t really matter.”
Brian was about to retort wittily, when Justin did the unthinkable…
He began to sing.
“People… People who need people… Are the luckiest people in the world…”
“Now you’re just asking for it,” Brian said, rolling over and using the only kind of corporal punishment appropriate to such crimes against humanity… the tickle.
Justin was soon laughing hard, while begging for mercy, and Brian finally let up when Justin’s face became the brightest shade of tomato red possible, and it was apparent that he could barely breathe.
“Such… a child…” Justin chided.
“You are,” said Brian.
True to the plans they’d made the night before, Brian and Justin had spent the better part of the night fucking, taking intermittent breaks for midnight snacks and catnaps. It was currently around 10 AM, and despite the lightheartedness they’d maintained so far during their time together, Brian could sense a growing nervousness in Justin that was doing nothing to quash Brian’s own increasing sense of urgency.
He’d come to New York for a reason, and he’d let himself become sidetracked by a conglomeration of outside forces… Justin’s new non-boyfriend… Justin’s sweet, sweet ass… His own fear and uncertainty about what to do and say… He was basically still just as fucked as he was before he’d boarded the plane in Pittsburgh.
Maybe even more so… he couldn’t tell.
By this point, they were both working hard to evade all real issues, and avoid any type of confrontation or discourse having to do with their relationship.
But there was no way things were going to remain so unsaid before he left Justin’s apartment that afternoon. It was just that he had no earthly idea how to bring up the subject, or where to even begin. He didn’t even know what he wanted to say exactly. He hadn’t been of an entirely clear mind when he’d decided to hop the next plane into town. He’d been freaking out, and had no plan.
Maybe he could wait for Justin to say something. Surely he would eventually. Then Brian could take it from there.
Brian was lying flat on his back, studying the ceiling again. Justin had stuck glow-in-the-dark stars and galaxies above the bed, which he’d surprisingly found adorable, an adjective he’d only ever used when referring to Gus. By the light of day, though, they looked pretty shitty.
“What’s wrong?”
Justin had recovered from Brian’s tickle attack, and was now propping himself up with his right arm, looking down at Brian’s face, studying it.
He didn’t think he could do this just yet. They had another five hours to spend together after all.
“Nothing,” he said, smiling faintly.
“Brian, I can tell when you’re lying.”
“I never lie, Sunshine.”
“Liar.”
Brian’s eyes darted around, taking in everything in his line of vision except Justin’s face. There was no point in pretending.
“You know what’s wrong, Justin.”
He met Justin’s eyes, which became instantly wide and glassy. He was obviously startled by Brian’s sudden forthrightness.
“Yeah, I guess I do.”
Brian couldn’t think of what to say, and Justin had just opened his mouth again, when the landline rang from the other room.
‘Thanks Jen,’ thought Brian.
“Jesus,” Justin huffed. “I guess I’ll go get her off my back.”
With a feeble smile, he arose from the bed, and Brian couldn’t help but watch his ass as he walked out of the room.
How he’d missed the visual and tactile perfection that were Justin’s plump buttocks.
He listened as Justin answered the phone, and then let his ears zone out, as he gazed around the room, imagining Justin here on his own, doing the things Brian had seen him do time and again when he’d lived alongside him.
He imagined him setting up an easel in front of the large bedroom window… the only thing in the entire place that could be described as large… and pulling back the blinds to paint in the sunlight.
He imagined him dancing around to horrible techno music, unfettered by the thought of someone bursting in on him.
He imagined him cooking Jen’s and Debbie’s recipes for one, slaving over the tiny stove, and bitching aloud about inadequate counter space to work with.
He wondered if Justin preferred these things here in his little rundown corner of the world.
Leaning over the bedside, he pulled a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of his jeans. He sat up farther on the bed, resting his back against the wall, and lit one.
As he smoked, he studied the artwork on the walls. He recognized two pieces Justin had done after the bashing, when he’d begun using the computer Brian had gotten him to help with his work. Justin had been such a mess back then, and for a while it had felt like Brian was the more reasonable party in their relationship.
The most recent piece Brian recognized was the last painting Justin had done before leaving for New York. It was steeped in a sadness Brian could barely bear to look at. Justin had tried to give the painting to him as a parting gift, but Brian had refused. At first Justin seemed hurt, but Brian had made it clear that it would be too hard for him to look at everyday, and he didn’t want to stash it in the closet somewhere, because that wasn’t fair, and he would’ve felt a little too Dorian Gray.
There were quite a few canvases stacked up against the wall, facing away from him, in one corner of the room. He idly wondered why they seemed to be hidden.
He leaned over to retrieve the ashtray on the bedside table, and noticed a sketchbook lying on the floor in front of it.
He picked it up, and began flipping through it. At the very front were a few sketches of Brian: one he’d sat for, one he’d slept through, and one that was either candid, or done from memory.
The following twenty pages or so were of strangers, or rather, people Brian had never seen, and assumed were strangers. He knew that Justin sometimes sat in the park or in a coffee shop drawing people who looked interesting.
A handful of the pages that followed depicted busy street corners, and one of a bridge… obviously New York Cityscapes.
Five pages or so after that were filled with images of Brian once more. He sat up a little straighter as he looked through these, feeling a fresh wave of hope, because these had to have been drawn from memory quite a bit of time after Justin had moved to Manhattan. Not that Brian had really believed that Justin never thought of him, but it was nice to have proof with which to confirm it.
And then he flipped the page again, only to find the highly annoying, yet undeniably attractive image of, ‘that fucking James Ford character.’
And there were more… many more.
The first few were merely headshots, and they seemed to progress from there, as if a camera had been taking snapshots, pulling the focus out wider and wider, revealing shoulders, chest, torso, and so on, until the full body was displayed.
Model Boy certainly knew how to pose his ass off, but Brian took pleasure in noting that the man’s cock was definitely smaller than his own by at least an inch, even if his abs and pecs weren’t as clearly defined.
As he continued to page through the sketchbook, he became increasingly troubled by the sheer amount of drawings of James. They seemed to be never fucking ending.
It reminded him a little too much of the way his own image once filled pad after pad, and he’d pretended to be annoyed by the fact that Justin seemed to have no greater muse, or even the slightest hint of interest in other subjects.
Truthfully, he’d been flattered beyond measure. He’d always been used to the attention his good looks afforded him, but he’d never seen it manifested in a creative way like that, which was the primary reason he’d bought the piece Justin had drawn of him for his first showing ever, at the GLC when he was still attending Saint James.
‘God, I can’t believe I got reeled in by a seventeen-year-old.’
He kept turning the pages until they became blank, wishing he hadn’t opened the wretched thing in the first place.
When Justin reentered the room, Brian still had the pad propped open on his knees, and was staring at a blank page in a sort of daze, lost in thought.
“What are you doing?” Justin asked.
“Just checking out what’s been inspiring you these days,” Brian answered in a dire undertone he couldn’t help.
“Actually, the reason I’ve-”
“Did you give my love to Mom?” Brian said, cutting off any offer of explanations or excuses.
“I didn’t know you wanted me to.”
“You didn’t tell her I was here, did you?”
“No, actually, I didn’t.”
Brian laughed contemptuously, “Of course not.”
“I don’t want her thinking something’s going on, when it’s not. And I don’t want her giving me her two cents on the matter, either.”
“Right, because what’s going on right now is nothing. We’re not doing anything at all!”
“Brian, you know what I mean! Essentially, we aren’t doing anything, because we can’t do anything! WE’RE NOT TOGETHER ANYMORE!”
There it was, finally… Justin raising his voice in true anger.
“Well, I suppose it would be fitting,” Brian said. “Ending it with a one-night-stand. Now we’ve come full circle.”
Justin’s face fell, and his ire appeared to transform into dejection before Brian’s very eyes.
“So this is what you’re gonna do? You rifle through my things, see something you don’t like, and lash out at me? Real fucking mature, Brian. I didn’t know you had it in you to fly five-hundred miles just to crush me.”
“That’s not why I came here, and you know it. I came here, because I couldn’t not come.”
“Why?”
“Because I needed to see you. I know I should’ve come before now, but I… I couldn’t, for some reason. You know how fucked up I can be, and I don’t know why I do things half the time, but I knew that I had to see you now. That phone call was only the trigger. I haven’t been myself for ages, and it’s because of you.”
“And what? You think I’ve just been able to forget you, and move on as if nothing happened? We had the most significant period of our relationship right before I left, and it lasted a matter of weeks, and then it was over. And I didn’t choose that for us, you did. So, sorry if it was hard for you, but it didn’t have to be.”
“Like you really believe that! If you couldn’t live without me, and you didn’t really want to leave, you would’ve come back. But you didn’t.”
“Is that you were waiting for?” Justin asked incredulously. “For me to come running back to you the way you’ve always made me do before, no matter how much you were suffering silently? You’re so fucking laughably predictable! Well, guess fucking what, I’m not going to be the fucking weak hanger-on anymore! If you haven’t been yourself, and it’s because of me, then you should fucking have the balls to do something about it, but I can tell you right now, that this isn’t the way you’re going to do it.”
“How the fuck am I supposed to do anything when you’re parading around pretending to be in some ideal relationship with my fucking doppelganger?”
“For the billionth time, his name is James, and I’m not pretending. We aren’t even in a real fucking relationship, but I knew that he’d get to you this way. I just fucking knew it! The reason I like going out with James, not that I owe you a fucking explanation, is because we have FUN together. We actually DO things that don’t involve fucking and clubbing. It’s a nice little freedom I’ve slowly discovered since moving here… having other things in my life besides shallow bullshit that never gave me much joy to begin with, and getting to share that with someone else feels really great. Why is that so fucking hard to believe?”
“Somehow I knew all this would come down to the things that I never did for you. You have this huge fucking grudge against the way I’ve always lived my life, and never stopped to consider everything I’ve slowly sacrificed about myself for you!”
“That’s fucking bullshit, and you know it! I never wanted to marry you, and settle down in the fucking suburbs at age 22, but you assumed I did, and started acting completely unlike yourself, which I did put a stop to, because despite everything I fell in love with you for who you were, even though there was a lot left to be desired. But coming to New York was all your doing, not mine! I didn’t want to come here, because I didn’t want to leave you behind, but you made me. I came here against my will, but I realized that you were right. That I needed to be here, and guess what? I fucking love it, so deal with it!”
“I’ve tried to deal with it, Justin, but I can’t. I don’t know what to do anymore. I like having you around me, and it’s fucking hard for me to admit how much I can’t stand not having you around me. I feel like I’m constantly in a state of waiting for you.”
“Welcome to the fucking club!”
“At least you obviously have the power to move on, I can’t even do that.”
At these words, Justin wavered. The rigid poise his body had adopted ebbed away, transforming into more of a defeated slump, tentative and uncertain.
“I haven’t moved on, Brian. That’s not what this is about. I still love you as much as I did a year ago, but I can’t just fall into the same fucking routine with you again. I have a life here that I like. I won’t give that up.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“Then what exactly are you asking?”
“I don’t know,” Brian admitted, lowering his gaze in an almost ashamed manner. “I just had to tell you that I still want you in my life.”
“Yet you have no idea what that entails, or how you want to make that happen,” Justin said, pausing momentarily. “I’m being completely up front with you when I say that James and I aren’t serious, but I’m not prepared to give up even that when you can’t even tell me where we’re headed.”
“Why do I have to know that? No one ever really knows that.”
“I know that it always ends the same with you.”
“What if this time it didn’t?”
“I guess you’d have to convince me that’s a risk that I should take.”
“Why should I try to convince you?”
“Because I’ve finally seen what else the world has to offer.”
And this was the blow Brian never saw coming. He flinched visibly as if he’d been struck, and knew he couldn’t stay in the room with Justin any longer.
He rose from the bed searching the floor for his clothes, and pulled them on quickly, as the words echoed in his head. At first Justin didn’t say anything, but then he heard in his periphery vague pleas for Brian to wait, for Brian to listen, for Brian to talk to him, and not just run away.
All of these pleas fell on deaf ears, not because Brian was necessarily trying to block Justin out, but because he was on autopilot, and he had to. It was one of many defensive tactics inborn to his character being put into action.
As Brian was attempting to storm out of the small apartment, he caught sight of a few things he hadn’t noticed before which gave him pause: A portrait Justin had drawn of him a couple years before hanging on the narrow strip of wall next to the refrigerator which he now saw was littered with pictures of people back in Pittsburgh, including the few snapshots of the two of them together that different members of the family had taken and given to Justin, but never to him. There was even a picture that Gus had obviously drawn that read, ‘TO JUSSEN’ in big messy letters across the top.
His step faltered, and he couldn’t help but stand and study these images for a minute, but then he wiped a hand over his face and snapped out of it, prying open the door and shutting it firmly, yet not forcefully, behind him.
***** ***** ***** *****
The Assassination of Brian Kinney By the Model James Ford
The Assassination of Brian Kinney By the Model James Ford
By Violet Jones
Chapter 6
Brian awoke in Justin’s bed to the sound of a phone ringing for the second time in less than twelve hours. This time it was Justin’s cell phone, the ring tone muffled by the clothes piled on top of it on the floor.
“Fuck off, Mom!” Justin shouted like a petulant child from his side of the bed.
“I don’t think she can hear you,” Brian said. “Maybe you should just talk to her and we won’t keep having our sleep interrupted by maternal figures.”
“I bet you ten bucks she calls me on the house phone within the hour. I wish I could just get rid of the fucking thing, but I need it to keep the hi-speed internet for work.”
“Speaking of which, don’t you have to be there today?”
“Nope. Monday, like Sunday, is also my fun day.”
“Have you been listening to that 80’s compilation you stole from me, again?”
“Maybe.”
“You have the Bangles on your iPod, don’t you?”
“No comment.”
“That may actually take the crown as being the gayest thing about you.”
“I wouldn’t taunt if I were you. I know about all those show tunes you have disguised as other songs on your iPod. If Emmett only knew…”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Brian answered nonchalantly.
“You closet Streisand freak.”
“At least I’ve never openly admitted to being an N’Sync fan.”
“I was in high school at the time, and Justin Timberlake has completely null-and-voided all memories of his former musical atrocities in every person on the planet since then, so it doesn’t really matter.”
Brian was about to retort wittily, when Justin did the unthinkable…
He began to sing.
“People… People who need people… Are the luckiest people in the world…”
“Now you’re just asking for it,” Brian said, rolling over and using the only kind of corporal punishment appropriate to such crimes against humanity… the tickle.
Justin was soon laughing hard, while begging for mercy, and Brian finally let up when Justin’s face became the brightest shade of tomato red possible, and it was apparent that he could barely breathe.
“Such… a child…” Justin chided.
“You are,” said Brian.
True to the plans they’d made the night before, Brian and Justin had spent the better part of the night fucking, taking intermittent breaks for midnight snacks and catnaps. It was currently around 10 AM, and despite the lightheartedness they’d maintained so far during their time together, Brian could sense a growing nervousness in Justin that was doing nothing to quash Brian’s own increasing sense of urgency.
He’d come to New York for a reason, and he’d let himself become sidetracked by a conglomeration of outside forces… Justin’s new non-boyfriend… Justin’s sweet, sweet ass… His own fear and uncertainty about what to do and say… He was basically still just as fucked as he was before he’d boarded the plane in Pittsburgh.
Maybe even more so… he couldn’t tell.
By this point, they were both working hard to evade all real issues, and avoid any type of confrontation or discourse having to do with their relationship.
But there was no way things were going to remain so unsaid before he left Justin’s apartment that afternoon. It was just that he had no earthly idea how to bring up the subject, or where to even begin. He didn’t even know what he wanted to say exactly. He hadn’t been of an entirely clear mind when he’d decided to hop the next plane into town. He’d been freaking out, and had no plan.
Maybe he could wait for Justin to say something. Surely he would eventually. Then Brian could take it from there.
Brian was lying flat on his back, studying the ceiling again. Justin had stuck glow-in-the-dark stars and galaxies above the bed, which he’d surprisingly found adorable, an adjective he’d only ever used when referring to Gus. By the light of day, though, they looked pretty shitty.
“What’s wrong?”
Justin had recovered from Brian’s tickle attack, and was now propping himself up with his right arm, looking down at Brian’s face, studying it.
He didn’t think he could do this just yet. They had another five hours to spend together after all.
“Nothing,” he said, smiling faintly.
“Brian, I can tell when you’re lying.”
“I never lie, Sunshine.”
“Liar.”
Brian’s eyes darted around, taking in everything in his line of vision except Justin’s face. There was no point in pretending.
“You know what’s wrong, Justin.”
He met Justin’s eyes, which became instantly wide and glassy. He was obviously startled by Brian’s sudden forthrightness.
“Yeah, I guess I do.”
Brian couldn’t think of what to say, and Justin had just opened his mouth again, when the landline rang from the other room.
‘Thanks Jen,’ thought Brian.
“Jesus,” Justin huffed. “I guess I’ll go get her off my back.”
With a feeble smile, he arose from the bed, and Brian couldn’t help but watch his ass as he walked out of the room.
How he’d missed the visual and tactile perfection that were Justin’s plump buttocks.
He listened as Justin answered the phone, and then let his ears zone out, as he gazed around the room, imagining Justin here on his own, doing the things Brian had seen him do time and again when he’d lived alongside him.
He imagined him setting up an easel in front of the large bedroom window… the only thing in the entire place that could be described as large… and pulling back the blinds to paint in the sunlight.
He imagined him dancing around to horrible techno music, unfettered by the thought of someone bursting in on him.
He imagined him cooking Jen’s and Debbie’s recipes for one, slaving over the tiny stove, and bitching aloud about inadequate counter space to work with.
He wondered if Justin preferred these things here in his little rundown corner of the world.
Leaning over the bedside, he pulled a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of his jeans. He sat up farther on the bed, resting his back against the wall, and lit one.
As he smoked, he studied the artwork on the walls. He recognized two pieces Justin had done after the bashing, when he’d begun using the computer Brian had gotten him to help with his work. Justin had been such a mess back then, and for a while it had felt like Brian was the more reasonable party in their relationship.
The most recent piece Brian recognized was the last painting Justin had done before leaving for New York. It was steeped in a sadness Brian could barely bear to look at. Justin had tried to give the painting to him as a parting gift, but Brian had refused. At first Justin seemed hurt, but Brian had made it clear that it would be too hard for him to look at everyday, and he didn’t want to stash it in the closet somewhere, because that wasn’t fair, and he would’ve felt a little too Dorian Gray.
There were quite a few canvases stacked up against the wall, facing away from him, in one corner of the room. He idly wondered why they seemed to be hidden.
He leaned over to retrieve the ashtray on the bedside table, and noticed a sketchbook lying on the floor in front of it.
He picked it up, and began flipping through it. At the very front were a few sketches of Brian: one he’d sat for, one he’d slept through, and one that was either candid, or done from memory.
The following twenty pages or so were of strangers, or rather, people Brian had never seen, and assumed were strangers. He knew that Justin sometimes sat in the park or in a coffee shop drawing people who looked interesting.
A handful of the pages that followed depicted busy street corners, and one of a bridge… obviously New York Cityscapes.
Five pages or so after that were filled with images of Brian once more. He sat up a little straighter as he looked through these, feeling a fresh wave of hope, because these had to have been drawn from memory quite a bit of time after Justin had moved to Manhattan. Not that Brian had really believed that Justin never thought of him, but it was nice to have proof with which to confirm it.
And then he flipped the page again, only to find the highly annoying, yet undeniably attractive image of, ‘that fucking James Ford character.’
And there were more… many more.
The first few were merely headshots, and they seemed to progress from there, as if a camera had been taking snapshots, pulling the focus out wider and wider, revealing shoulders, chest, torso, and so on, until the full body was displayed.
Model Boy certainly knew how to pose his ass off, but Brian took pleasure in noting that the man’s cock was definitely smaller than his own by at least an inch, even if his abs and pecs weren’t as clearly defined.
As he continued to page through the sketchbook, he became increasingly troubled by the sheer amount of drawings of James. They seemed to be never fucking ending.
It reminded him a little too much of the way his own image once filled pad after pad, and he’d pretended to be annoyed by the fact that Justin seemed to have no greater muse, or even the slightest hint of interest in other subjects.
Truthfully, he’d been flattered beyond measure. He’d always been used to the attention his good looks afforded him, but he’d never seen it manifested in a creative way like that, which was the primary reason he’d bought the piece Justin had drawn of him for his first showing ever, at the GLC when he was still attending Saint James.
‘God, I can’t believe I got reeled in by a seventeen-year-old.’
He kept turning the pages until they became blank, wishing he hadn’t opened the wretched thing in the first place.
When Justin reentered the room, Brian still had the pad propped open on his knees, and was staring at a blank page in a sort of daze, lost in thought.
“What are you doing?” Justin asked.
“Just checking out what’s been inspiring you these days,” Brian answered in a dire undertone he couldn’t help.
“Actually, the reason I’ve-”
“Did you give my love to Mom?” Brian said, cutting off any offer of explanations or excuses.
“I didn’t know you wanted me to.”
“You didn’t tell her I was here, did you?”
“No, actually, I didn’t.”
Brian laughed contemptuously, “Of course not.”
“I don’t want her thinking something’s going on, when it’s not. And I don’t want her giving me her two cents on the matter, either.”
“Right, because what’s going on right now is nothing. We’re not doing anything at all!”
“Brian, you know what I mean! Essentially, we aren’t doing anything, because we can’t do anything! WE’RE NOT TOGETHER ANYMORE!”
There it was, finally… Justin raising his voice in true anger.
“Well, I suppose it would be fitting,” Brian said. “Ending it with a one-night-stand. Now we’ve come full circle.”
Justin’s face fell, and his ire appeared to transform into dejection before Brian’s very eyes.
“So this is what you’re gonna do? You rifle through my things, see something you don’t like, and lash out at me? Real fucking mature, Brian. I didn’t know you had it in you to fly five-hundred miles just to crush me.”
“That’s not why I came here, and you know it. I came here, because I couldn’t not come.”
“Why?”
“Because I needed to see you. I know I should’ve come before now, but I… I couldn’t, for some reason. You know how fucked up I can be, and I don’t know why I do things half the time, but I knew that I had to see you now. That phone call was only the trigger. I haven’t been myself for ages, and it’s because of you.”
“And what? You think I’ve just been able to forget you, and move on as if nothing happened? We had the most significant period of our relationship right before I left, and it lasted a matter of weeks, and then it was over. And I didn’t choose that for us, you did. So, sorry if it was hard for you, but it didn’t have to be.”
“Like you really believe that! If you couldn’t live without me, and you didn’t really want to leave, you would’ve come back. But you didn’t.”
“Is that you were waiting for?” Justin asked incredulously. “For me to come running back to you the way you’ve always made me do before, no matter how much you were suffering silently? You’re so fucking laughably predictable! Well, guess fucking what, I’m not going to be the fucking weak hanger-on anymore! If you haven’t been yourself, and it’s because of me, then you should fucking have the balls to do something about it, but I can tell you right now, that this isn’t the way you’re going to do it.”
“How the fuck am I supposed to do anything when you’re parading around pretending to be in some ideal relationship with my fucking doppelganger?”
“For the billionth time, his name is James, and I’m not pretending. We aren’t even in a real fucking relationship, but I knew that he’d get to you this way. I just fucking knew it! The reason I like going out with James, not that I owe you a fucking explanation, is because we have FUN together. We actually DO things that don’t involve fucking and clubbing. It’s a nice little freedom I’ve slowly discovered since moving here… having other things in my life besides shallow bullshit that never gave me much joy to begin with, and getting to share that with someone else feels really great. Why is that so fucking hard to believe?”
“Somehow I knew all this would come down to the things that I never did for you. You have this huge fucking grudge against the way I’ve always lived my life, and never stopped to consider everything I’ve slowly sacrificed about myself for you!”
“That’s fucking bullshit, and you know it! I never wanted to marry you, and settle down in the fucking suburbs at age 22, but you assumed I did, and started acting completely unlike yourself, which I did put a stop to, because despite everything I fell in love with you for who you were, even though there was a lot left to be desired. But coming to New York was all your doing, not mine! I didn’t want to come here, because I didn’t want to leave you behind, but you made me. I came here against my will, but I realized that you were right. That I needed to be here, and guess what? I fucking love it, so deal with it!”
“I’ve tried to deal with it, Justin, but I can’t. I don’t know what to do anymore. I like having you around me, and it’s fucking hard for me to admit how much I can’t stand not having you around me. I feel like I’m constantly in a state of waiting for you.”
“Welcome to the fucking club!”
“At least you obviously have the power to move on, I can’t even do that.”
At these words, Justin wavered. The rigid poise his body had adopted ebbed away, transforming into more of a defeated slump, tentative and uncertain.
“I haven’t moved on, Brian. That’s not what this is about. I still love you as much as I did a year ago, but I can’t just fall into the same fucking routine with you again. I have a life here that I like. I won’t give that up.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“Then what exactly are you asking?”
“I don’t know,” Brian admitted, lowering his gaze in an almost ashamed manner. “I just had to tell you that I still want you in my life.”
“Yet you have no idea what that entails, or how you want to make that happen,” Justin said, pausing momentarily. “I’m being completely up front with you when I say that James and I aren’t serious, but I’m not prepared to give up even that when you can’t even tell me where we’re headed.”
“Why do I have to know that? No one ever really knows that.”
“I know that it always ends the same with you.”
“What if this time it didn’t?”
“I guess you’d have to convince me that’s a risk that I should take.”
“Why should I try to convince you?”
“Because I’ve finally seen what else the world has to offer.”
And this was the blow Brian never saw coming. He flinched visibly as if he’d been struck, and knew he couldn’t stay in the room with Justin any longer.
He rose from the bed searching the floor for his clothes, and pulled them on quickly, as the words echoed in his head. At first Justin didn’t say anything, but then he heard in his periphery vague pleas for Brian to wait, for Brian to listen, for Brian to talk to him, and not just run away.
All of these pleas fell on deaf ears, not because Brian was necessarily trying to block Justin out, but because he was on autopilot, and he had to. It was one of many defensive tactics inborn to his character being put into action.
As Brian was attempting to storm out of the small apartment, he caught sight of a few things he hadn’t noticed before which gave him pause: A portrait Justin had drawn of him a couple years before hanging on the narrow strip of wall next to the refrigerator which he now saw was littered with pictures of people back in Pittsburgh, including the few snapshots of the two of them together that different members of the family had taken and given to Justin, but never to him. There was even a picture that Gus had obviously drawn that read, ‘TO JUSSEN’ in big messy letters across the top.
His step faltered, and he couldn’t help but stand and study these images for a minute, but then he wiped a hand over his face and snapped out of it, prying open the door and shutting it firmly, yet not forcefully, behind him.
***** ***** ***** *****