Everything is Dean's Pie

Just This Side of Hell, 12/16

2009-09-10T16:09:02Z

Title: Just This Side Of Hell 12/16
Author: vamphile
Rating: R
Pairing: Sam, Dean
Warnings: You know, there’s hell and stuff, thus Major Dean!Whumpage and Sam Emotional!Whumpage. Fun for the whole family.
Word Count: 2200+/-

Summary: Sam rescues Dean from hell, which has repercussions. (surprise!) Things get tricky because they're Winchesters, so there's guilt and pain and of course physical trauma because, you know, hell. Come along for the ride, might be fun... oh, and Bobby, there's a whole bunch of Bobby, which is right up there with pie.

A/N: This fic is complete in 16 chapters. They will be posted Mon-Thurs

Click the banner to read the fic

Just This Side of Hell, 11/16

2009-09-09T16:24:58Z

Title: Just This Side Of Hell 11/16
Author: vamphile
Rating: R
Pairing: Sam, Dean
Warnings: You know, there’s hell and stuff, thus Major Dean!Whumpage and Sam Emotional!Whumpage. Fun for the whole family.
Word Count: 2600+/-

Summary: Sam rescues Dean from hell, which has repercussions. (surprise!) Things get tricky because they're Winchesters, so there's guilt and pain and of course physical trauma because, you know, hell. Come along for the ride, might be fun... oh, and Bobby, there's a whole bunch of Bobby, which is right up there with pie.

A/N: This fic is complete in 16 chapters. They will be posted Mon-Thurs

Click the banner to read the fic

Just This Side Of Hell

2009-09-08T17:11:58Z

I'm going to be posting my SPN fic here as well as at LJ (permenanty insane with 5000 userpics? Yeah, i've always liked it here.)

If you don't want to read my SPN fic, I understand, feel free to defriend of rilter me, I won't be offended.

Here is my latest work. The first ten chapters are posted and linked.
Title: Just This Side Of Hell 10/16
Author: vamphile
Rating: R
Warnings: You know, there’s hell and stuff, thus Major Dean!Whumpage and Sam Emotional!Whumpage. Fun for the whole family.
Word Count: 2600+/-

Summary Sam rescues Dean from hell, which has repercussions, (surprise!) Things get tricky because they're Winchesters, so there's guilt and pain and of course physical trauma because, you know, hell. Come along for the ride, might be fun... oh, and Bobby, there's a whole bunch of Bobby, which is right up there with pie.

A/N: This fic is complete in 16 chapters. They will be posted Mon-Thurs

Thanks to: passing_through, You kept this fic going even when we both weren’t sure where it was going. Just… Thanks.

Banner and Icons by: brianslave68 Who makes me want to write the kind of fic her banners deserve. Seriously, there are things I can’t do… pretty graphics is on that list and thus, I think you’re magical.

| I | II | III | IV | V | VI | VII | VIII | IX | X | XI | XII | XIII | XIV | XV | XVI |

Chapter Ten

vamphile @ 2009-06-26T20:25:00

2009-06-27T00:25:37Z

I won't miss him.
He was a talented musician.
He was a pedophile.
The body's barely cold and he's already a music icon/saint.
I shall repeat, for it bears repeating,
He was an active and predatory pedophile.

SPN FIC MASTER LIST

2009-06-03T01:56:35Z

Vamphile's SPN Fiction
Master Post

Gen

This Time I Mean It Sam At Stanford, Pre-series to Pilot

Just Let Go Dean and Sam, Alternate Pre-Pilot Thingy

LEARNING THE TRUTH | Part One | Part Two | Part Three |
dean Visits Sam at Stanford Meets Jess. All Goes Well Except Something Followed Dean... ROAD TRIP!!!

The Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, Amsterdam, and You: Appocafic, a moody one shot that results in avoiding the apocalyps, sort of.

Blackened Post 4.22 Sam's not sure how evil he is, or what to do with himself. Dean's pretty sure letting Sam hurt himself isn't the answer.

A City Without Walls Prompt:I love the idea of Dean, who strives to be so in control of himself, just being psychologically very broken (you know, in a much more visible way than he already is) to the point of almost not being able to function, and in obvious need of being cared for. Serious H/C for the spnkink_meme (1200 +/- words)

Idiot Sons Even in the afterlife married couples bicker. (John/Mary 350 +/- words)

Via Trinus per Meus Frater (Road Trip with My Brother) Dean idolizes John. Sam takes care of Dean and in the end, it's all more complicated than it seems, or maybe it's simpler. Pre-series and then slight AU for the Pilot. (1800 +/- words)

Wincest

Do We Need To Talk About This? Sam/Dean first time Set early season four

Sniper Vision Starts with before the fire, follows John Sam and Dean, One Shot, All from Johns POV. Hard to put into a summary. Let's Say, John's POV on Sam and Dean and Sam&Dean (so obviously also wee!chester and Teen!chester)

Thursday PWP

Sweet Sixteen PWP (Teen!Chester)

Ninja! Dean went to hell, where the hell did Sam go? Ninja! (900 words of crack)

Jack This Sam, Dean, The Impala... it's not safe to try and break up that threesome, (600 +/- words)

Inevitable Dusk Dean salts and burns something that decides to punish him by going after Sam. (Stanford!Era) (9500 +/- words) caseficcy, Protective!Dean Protective!Sam.
A Language of Looks and Touches PROMPT: A Language of Looks and Touches Comment Fic. (350+/- words)

I Need You to Need Me PROMPT: Dean doesn't ask for much in the bedroom. He doesn't ask for much other times either. But Sam knows what he needs. Comment fic for spnkink_meme (1600+/- words)

Just This Side of Hell
One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Seven | Eight | Nine | Ten | Eleven | Twelve | Thirteen | Fourteen | Fifteen | Sixteen |
Sam rescues Dean from hell, which has repercussions, (surprise!) Things get tricky because they're Winchesters, so there's guilt and pain and of course physical trauma because, you know, hell. Dean!Whumpage Emotional Sam!Whumpage

Wee!Chester

Rack 'em John with Grade School/Middle School Sam and Dean

J2

Third Season's The Charm PWP, First Time, Mostly goofy schmoop and then a bunch of NC-17

The Jelly Bracelet of Love Unapologetic Schmoop

PROJECT RUNWAY: J2 FASHION (AU) COMPLETE
| Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five |
Jensen is the host of Project Runway. Jared is a contestent. They like each other, a lot.

THICK SOCKS VERSE
Sick!Jensen
Time Constraints
Plus One

OWNER SURRENDER (AU) COMPLETE
| Part One | Part Two | Part Three |
Jared Volunteers at a Dog Resuce. Jensen Adopts a Dog From Him. They Like Each Other, A Lot

Clear J2 ficlet regarding some things Jensen said at the Asylum Con in England

MANY A LONG NIGHT (AU) COMPLETE Jensen's A Plumbing Contractor. Jared's a Welder with a Secret. They Like each other. A Lot.
| Part One | Part Two | Part Three| Part Four |

I Want to Take Your Photograph Schmoop with gift giving based on a photo of Jared on the lawn with Harley. (1000+/- words)

Lifespan Jared/Jensen and Harley and Sadie after SPN is over, (kinda sad 600 words)

VOICE OF A GENERATION (AU) COMPLETE
One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six
Jared's a recent college graduate with a popular blog. Jensen is a network executive who hires him. They like each other. A Lot.

Misc

Take The Sky From Me Serenity under the Flogger, PWP (Misha/Jeff)

Worth Fighting For Jensen's boyfriend hits him, Jeff takes action (no set pairing) written for spn_hurtcomfort meme (900+/- words)

fuck it, i'm posting my SPN fic here too, you don't have to read it

2009-03-24T22:27:09Z

Author vamphile
Timeline Pre-Series – Dead Man’s Blood (no spoilers)
Wordcount 7700
Summary Sam and Dean from John's POV
Disclaimer None, I own Supernatural, Sam, Dean, John.

I owe it all to bookgirl24 for putting up with my babbling and revisions
zaipixie for the art. It's pretty, you should click just for that.
vl_redreign for the commas

Sniper Vision

Mary was mixing the batter for cookies. Peanut-butter-chocolate-chip, his and Dean's favorite. John was considering purchasing the building next door to the garage and expanding. Mary was humming as she spooned the cookie dough onto a baking sheet. Once the smell started wafting, Dean abandoned the plastic truck he’d been pushing around the kitchen floor and tugged on her shirt. “Mommy.”

She picked him up until they were face to face.

“I’m gonna marry you.”

Mary tilted her head. John tried not to freak the fuck out but that? That was just weird. Mary nodded as if she was considering it. “You’re a little young for me. How ‘bout you ask again when you’re older.”

Dean nodded. “Okay.” He ran off to find a new way to create noise.

Later, long after Dean was asleep, John slid in next to her in bed. “So, do we have to send him to therapy or something?”

Mary rose up on one elbow and stroked his face. “Because he wants to marry me?”

“Well, yeah.”

“It’s totally normal. Haven’t you ever heard of Oedipus?”

”Didn’t he poke his own eyes out and kill his parents?”

Mary shrugged, “I’m not sure, but the Oedipal complex thing is a totally normal and healthy psychosocial stage. He loves us. At this age, it’s a healthy attachment. Tell you what, if he’s still this attached at fifteen, then we can worry.”

“He loves you.”

She nodded. “True. You he sees as competition, but hey, I think you’re safe.”

“Are you sure, because he may be wiggly but I think I can take him.”

Mary laughed, it was an open, light sound and John kissed her, wanted to pull that sound inside himself. Wanting to bury himself inside her. It was the night Sam was conceived.

When Sam announced the same thing to Dean it brought back strong memories of peanut-butter-chocolate-chip cookies and Mary’s open and full throated laugh.

He stood back though, watching a scene so similar to the original. Dean wasn’t making cookies. He was making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. John knew that the carrot sticks on the side would be eaten because of the Tootsie-Rolls in Dean's pocket. It was a deal Dean made with Sam silently, and John wasn’t sure that carrot sticks counteracted Tootsie-Rolls but he couldn’t get Sam to eat them at all, so points for Dean. But, good brother points or something more maternal?

“It’s a healthy attachment” he recalled Mary telling him. Was it healthy if they were brothers? He could step in; push Dean aside, literally and figuratively. Finish lunch, finish raising Sam, but he worked, and hunted, and Dean was confident in his place in the family, and that was good, right? John took his own sandwich and carrot sticks from Dean and decided that maybe it wasn’t the worst thing in the world for Sam to have a mother figure. He tried not to think about how mother figures weren’t supposed to leave you for girlfriends and college, but that was years away and Sam would get over this Oedipal thing by then, right?

When he finished his carrot sticks, he playfully tackled Dean, teasingly demanding his own Tootsie-Rolls. Dean laughed and Sam flung himself on top of them, his mouth smeared with grape jelly, his fingers sticky, his laugh heartfelt.

John was sometimes concerned, afraid. of this monster he’d created. Almost no personal space, few if any personal belongings, perpetual fear of death or abandonment and constant displacement. They had nothing to hold onto but each other. He got that but sometimes he forgot that.

When Dean started in kindergarten he picked him up after the first day, holding his hand and leading him back to the car. When they got within ten feet of it Dean slid his hand from John's. “What’s up, buddy?”
Dean shrugged. “Sammy doesn’t like it.”

Sammy doesn’t like it.

Dean wasn’t wrong. They went to the market, Sam seated in the front of the cart. John was holding Dean’s hand. Sam was frowning, fussing, upset. John handed him an animal cracker and he seemed appeased until John took Dean’s hand again. Then he threw the cookie down angrily. Eventually Dean stood up on the bottom rail of the cart the way all the diagrams tell you not to and Sam smiled and laughed and John kept his hand on Dean’s arm. As long as Dean was touching Sam, no issues.

When Sam was five John took them both to the doctor. Sam needed his immunization records to get him into school and those were hard to fake. Dean was getting his physical first. Turns out Sammy doesn’t like it when anyone who isn’t Sam touches Dean.

Sam cried and whined and finally Dean sighed and rolled his eyes. “Dad, just give’em to me.” So Dean, sitting there in nothing but his briefs, held Sam on his lap until Sam knocked him backwards onto the exam table. Dean laughed with Sammy even as the air was pushed out of him. Sam crawled all over him. Dean looked over Sammy's shoulder at the doctor. “Just let me know if you need to get to something he’s blocking.” And then went back to making faces to amuse Sam.

It was okay to touch Dean as long as Sam was touching him too. John knew, the way people who let their dogs bark at three am and parent’s who let their kids sleep in their beds with them til they’re too old know, John knew that he should be putting his foot down on this but it seemed like such a small thing. He held Dean’s hand, Dean could hold Sammy's and thus they could cross the street, go to the movies, make it across a field to target practice, whatever. By the time Sam was seven they didn’t even think about it anymore, it was just second nature. If he wanted to wrestle with Dean, Sam was going to throw himself in the mix, and if he wanted to teach Dean how to properly hold a pistol, Sam was going to sit between Dean’s feet and be “super still”. And the fact that Sam would be super still for Dean and not for John… that was something else entirely, right?

It was the summer before Sam started sixth grade. They’d just settled into a small house that had seen better days. John was sitting on the sagging back porch. Dean handed him a beer and sat down next to him with a bottle of root beer and squinted across the rocky expanse of grass to the tree almost two hundred feet away. “This lawn’s gonna be a bitch to mow.”

“You lookin’ for a raise in your allowance?”

“I get an allowance? Hadn’t noticed.”

“How ‘bout I let you live another year?”

Dean nodded. “Deal. But then you have to mow the lawn.”

John laughed. “We’ll re-negotiate later.”

They sat silently for a while. Dean wearing jeans but no shirt, it was still over ninety degrees. “Dad, Sam’s going into sixth grade.”

“I know.”

“I kissed my first girl in sixth grade.”

“No you didn’t.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean.”

“Yeah, so, you don’t want Sam kissing girls. Should I make a rule? He loves those.”

Dean took a long swallow before he started again. “I got my heart broken in sixth grade.”

“I remember.”

“Didn’t you want to kill her?”

“Kill who? The girl?”

“Yeah.”

“No. I didn’t want you to hurt but, you know, I kind of saw it coming.”

“You could have mentioned it to me.”

“Would you have listened?”

Dean shrugged and then smiled tipping the bottle to his lips again. “Probably not.”

John waited.

“I’m gonna wanna kill her.”

“Who?”

“The girl who breaks Sam’s heart.”

“Yeah, you might want to, but you won’t.”

“You sure?”

“You’re gonna beat up a 12 year old girl, Dean?”

Dean flushed. “Okay, probably not. I could ruin her though.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, tell everyone she’s a total slut.”

“You’re going to spread the rumor that a 12 year old girl is a total slut?”

“It sounds wrong when you say it.”

“Dean, Sam’s gonna get his heart broken, a lot.”

“He doesn’t have to. I don’t.”

“Yeah, how do you manage that?” John thought he might not actually want to know.

Dean’s grin was more of a smirk this time. “Never stay with any of ‘em more than ten days.”

“Ten days.”

Dean nodded. “Yeah, prevents having two weekends.”

“Your brother isn’t built that way.”

“You sure?”

“You know him better than I do.”

“Maybe he won’t like girls at all.”

John looked over at Dean.

“Not like that. Like that would be a whole other set of problems, I just mean, maybe he’ll be a late bloomer.”

“Or maybe he won’t tell us about it.”

Dean patted John's knee as he stood up. “He tells me everything, Dad.”

And John sat with his untouched beer, thinking that the yard was going to be a bitch to mow and trying not to think about Sam getting his heart broken, Dean refusing to be near anyone, even someone he liked enough to kiss for more than ten days, and the easy grace with which Dean loved his brother, no matter what team Sam played for or who’s heart got broken, and he had a feeling that in the end, it was always gonna be Dean with the broken heart.

School was out, the house was long abandoned and they were in a motel room, pretty much a repeat of every summer for the past twelve years. Sam and Dean were wrestling on the floor, Sam's height catching up to Dean's, Dean's moves requiring readjustment to counter him. Sam had him pinned to the ground, declaring himself the champion of all that is, was or ever will be.

The knock at the door startled the boys. John opened it and accepted the rollaway cot. The boys stared at it. Dean actually poked it. “Seriously. Dad?”

“You’re too old to be sharing a bed. You’re getting too big for it.”

They both shrugged and something in John relaxed. He’d half expected an argument. They wrestled again to see who had to sleep on the piece of shit cot. John didn’t even bother to correct their language. It was a piece of shit cot and he wasn’t sure Dean would fit on it. He wasn’t even sure Sam would but he set it up at the foot of the bed and Sam grumbled but faced the TV and tried to sleep. When John woke up in the morning Dean was wrapped around Sam. Dean's head on the pillow, Sam's head on Dean's shoulder. Dean's arm draped over him, casually, comfortably. Innocently John told himself. He woke them the way he often did, by kicking the bed. Dean woke up first, fully alert before he’d even reached for the weapon under his pillow. John stared at him, eyebrow raised. Sam woke more slowly, stretching and yawning.

Dean met his father’s gaze and followed it to the cot. “He had a nightmare.”

Sam nodded. “Fucking nightmares.” Sam didn’t say anything else and in the midst of John and Dean’s staring contest, Sam took advantage and bolted into the bathroom. “Hot water’s all mine, bitches!”

John and Dean laughed and folded up the cot together. John tried a couple more times over the summer but if Sam didn’t have a nightmare, then the springs were poking Dean in the back, or the thing creaked every time it moved, keeping them up. John watched his boys carefully. He hated himself for what he was thinking. He hated that he’d raised his boys into a life where it would almost make sense if he was right. But he knew he wasn’t.

John walked in and found his boys exactly where he expected, curled up around each other like puppies in a basket. It was always like this, the two of them looking like they’d collapsed mid-sparring match. It barely registered anymore. Sam's leg was stretched all the way down the back of the sofa. His other wrapped around Dean's thigh. The position accentuated the muscles Sam was developing. Nothing was out of Sam and Dean ordinary except that the way the light hit Sam's face, he could see the angles, and the way the baby fat was not so much melting off of him but being stretched as he shot up like a weed.

Dean's muscles were defined in a way that they hadn’t been last year. The hand resting on Sam's stomach was strong, with a square palm and competent fingers that could break down a gun and rebuild it in seconds. A hand that had more than once stitched John back together. It wasn’t a boy’s hand. Sam's body was looking more like a man than a boy in this light, too. Dean's head resting on Sam's stomach was harmless. Their free hands fighting halfheartedly for control of the remote, an excuse for increased contact, and years of habit was nothing John hadn’t seen before but today it looked off. Today they looked more like lovers than brothers. The moment the thought clarified he shook his head. Dean's voice, asking if he was okay put the rest of his thoughts to bed. This was Sam. This was Dean. He was seeing bad and wrong where there wasn’t any. He supposed it was an occupational hazard.

They were about ten miles out of town. Sam had his school books with him, hoping he could squeeze studying in between his turns at target practice. Bow Hunting. John went back to the car to retrieve more bolts. They’d collect them all later. He grabbed a few bottles of water, too. When he closed the trunk he saw Sam sitting between Dean's legs. Dean's fingers working over Sam's back. He crossed the space quickly. Neither of them did more than look up.

“His arm’s really sore.”

John nodded and headed back to the car, searching through a jumble of tubes to find the cream for Dean to work into Sam's muscles. By the time he returned, Dean was leaning back against a tree, legs out straight. Sam was on his back, head on Dean's thigh. Dean's fingers ran through Sam's hair. Sam shielded his eyes with his hand to look up at his dad. “Headache.”

John nodded and tossed the tube to Dean along with a rag. “Work this into his shoulder and then get your fingers clean. We’ll go again.” Dean nodded. A few minutes later he was standing at John's side, eager to take the bow. Sam's sitting under a tree squinting at a textbook, highlighter in hand.

“You give him some aspirin?”

Dean nodded. “Made him drink the whole bottle of water too. He’ll be all right.”

“He’s upset.”

“Got in a fight with some asshole over a girl.”

“Thought that was your job.”

“That’s what I told him.”

“He get hurt?”

John could feel disapproval in Dean's stare.

“Yeah, stupid question. Did he get in trouble for hurting the other guy?”

And that was the proud smile that Dean reserved for moments like these. “Scared the kid too much to let him say anything to anyone, including his friends.”

“He get the girl?”

Dean's smile became a smirk. He shook his head. “Dad, that’s between me and Sam.”

And John supposed that maybe at this age, it was.

Sam was in the back of the car. The hunt had gone less than FUBAR but worse than fine. His leg was bleeding. Dean kept rotating his own wrist as if that could make it hurt less. It wasn’t broken, Dean wouldn’t fuck with broken. John knew he wouldn’t get a chance to look at it until Sam was stable. Sam was awake but just barely; he’d been knocked in the head. Mild concussion. Dean should be in the front seat, or possibly even driving, but he was sitting against the passenger side back door. Holding Sam against his chest. “Sammy, you with me?”

“Mwuh?”

“Yeah, thought so. What’s your test in on Monday?”

“Science.”

“Tell me the periodic table of the elements. Go.”

“’s not on that.” Sam's voice was slurred.

“So, I still don’t know it, and you do. C’mon, help me out.”

“You got a test?”

Dean glanced at John, worried. He’d graduated the previous year.

“Nope, no test dude. I finished remember?”

Sam frowned. “Then why?”

“C’mon Sam, think. Gimme something.”

“Whaddaya want?” Sam's grin was a little loopy and Dean chuckled whispering something in his ear. Sam laughed. “I don’t have that anymore.”

“Huh, so then tell me chemical make up of salt.”

Sam laughed but rattled it off quickly and by the time they got back to the motel it was safe to let Dean hold Sam up while he showered. They ended up on the bed in the same position they’d taken in the car. Sam between Dean’s legs, his back against Dean's chest.

“Let’s see the wrist.”

Dean held it out for John to check and Sam frowned at it. “S’sprained.”

“Nah, just a little sore.”

“Dean… “

Dean shook his head and held his wrist silently. They all knew it was sprained. It needed to be iced. Shouldn’t have been shoved under a hot spray to help Sam shower but Dean clearly wasn’t going to let any of that be said. John wrapped it and went to get some ice. “When you come back I’ll clean up your leg.” Dean called. John raised a hand in acknowledgement without looking back.

Sam was trying to fall asleep again. Dean was rummaging one handed, with his bad hand, into the first aid kit. He found some Excedrin but John took it from him. “Dean, you need to sleep.”

“Sam can’t. I gotta keep him up.”

“I’ll…”

Dean just stared at him and John realized that yeah, Dean was younger, and better able to go without sleep. Dean was also able to get Sam to listen to him without causing an argument, even when it was as simple as “don’t sleep with a concussion.” He backed off and brewed some coffee. Dean shifted until Sam was laying down, his head on Dean's knee, while Dean cleaned the wound on his father’s leg. “Doesn’t need stitches.”

John nodded and went to take care of the bandaging himself. Dean had his hands full.

Sam was at school. John was researching and Dean had finished weapons maintenance. Now he was cursing like a sailor and tossing things from one side of the room he shared with Sam to the other.

“Dean, cursing doesn’t prove anything but a lack of imagination.”

“Fuck imagination. Or better yet. Imagine real hard where my last clean t-shirt went.”

John laughed. “Didn’t you check before he left?”

“I was asleep, kind of like you.”

John was getting nowhere with his research. The text was starting to blur. He stuck a pen between the pages, slammed the book shut and stood up. “Let’s make a Laundromat run.”

“Fucking kid should do his own fucking laundry.”

“Fucking kid is in school. And he took laundry duty twice for you last month.”

“Mouthy little thing.”

“Dean, what crawled up your ass?”

Dean stood there, glaring, wearing a shirt that pulled across his chest. The sleeves were too long and he looked… deformed. John laughed. “Only clean shirt in the house?”

“Fucking goddamned kid needs to learn to respect other people’s property.”

“The shirt he borrowed. Was it completely yours?”

And Dean at least had the decency to look down. Boxers, jeans and weapons were the only things they called specific rights to. Dean and Sam treated everything else as common property. “Dad? Shut up and lend me a shirt.”

John did both. They laid claim to three machines and ignored the exasperated sigh of a woman who came in after them. They sat back on the uncomfortable plastic chairs that always made John think of ER waiting rooms.

“We’re sticking around here for a while.”

Dean looked up, surprised. “'til the end of Sammy's semester?”

“‘Til the end of Sammy's high school career.”

“Have you told him?”

“I’ve been waiting ‘til he’s in a good mood.”

“So you’re never going to tell him.”

“Actually, I was but… Dean, you know there’s a good community college in this county.”

“Dad, Sam's two years away from college.”

“I mean for you dumbass.”

“Why would I go to college?”

“Why wouldn’t you?”

“What’s going on?”

“Sam's going to college, Dean. He wants to.”

Dean fidgeted a little and then went completely still and John wasn’t sure what Dean was hiding, but he was working hard at hiding it. John waited. One thing he could always count on was having more patience than his son.

Dean's eyes shifted to their clothes spinning, to the woman with the young child, drab laundry and colorful blocks and then he shifted his eyes back to his father. “He might change his mind.” His voice was almost flippant, but the fear was there.

“I don’t think he’s going to. You want to go back to school?”

“No”

“Ever wanted to?”

“No.”

“Well, that’s how Sam is about wanting to go.”

“And you’re just going to let him? Do you know what could happen to him? What are we supposed to do? Settle down, watch over him and give up hunting? He can’t go to college, it won’t work.”

And John realized that maybe this is the one thing he knew about Sam that Dean didn’t. Sam was going, and how it worked for John or Dean wasn’t Sam’s primary concern.

“How can we hunt if he’s stuck in one place?”

John stared at the laundry spinning quickly. It really didn’t occur to Dean that being away from Sam was an option.

“Well, let’s start by staying here, and if we can make that work…”

Dean turned to look at John. “Why do you need a college education to hunt?”

“You don’t.”

Dean stood up, leaving John to finish the laundry and lug it back home by himself.

They moved into a two bedroom apartment in a complex, with a lease, (in Joseph Studebaker’s name) and its own laundry facilities. They were on the second floor, which sucked, neighbors above and below them. John looked out one night to find Sam and Dean competing for the most pull ups on the jungle gym in the middle of what the complex proudly called the “tot lot”. Dean was taunting Sam, who was tall enough now that he had to bend his legs to keep from cheating. Dean's bar was higher and his upper body strength was still superior to Sam's. He’d prevail but it was gonna take a while. It was after seven and most of the kids who roamed the parking lot had been called in for dinner. A few punks were circling around looking for trouble but they stopped. So did a few girls. His boys were drawing a crowd and he should probably call them in but he watched them watch each other, competition and affection in their eyes. He watched them, his boys, strong and still alive, really, against anyone’s odds. He went back inside.

They came back several hours later. Slightly tousled, sweaty and almost looking guilty.

“You picked off two of those innocent girls from the crowd didn’t you?” John smirked.

Dean smirked back. “Mine wasn’t so innocent, but leave it to Sam to find one who wanted to discuss poetry or some shit.” Sam blushed but sat down next to Dean, their feet on the old trunk they were currently using as a coffee table.

“Just be careful. I’m not in the mood to try to fit a baby seat in the back of the car again. Bad enough I had to do it for you two. She’s never forgiven me.”

Sam blushed deeper and Dean whispered something in his ear. He laughed and John tossed the phone to Dean. “Order a couple of pizzas.”

Sam stood up and John handed him two beers, taking one of for himself. Really, if the boy was old enough to fire a rifle, chant an anti-possession ritual, and field dress a puncture wound, he was old enough for a beer. He sat back against the edge of the less than comfortable sofa. Dean was pacing on the phone but kicked his knee lightly. Sam rolled his eyes but stood up, letting Dean have the sofa… for twenty five seconds and then he was next to Dean, and sort of on top of him, and a little around him, and honestly, it was like one of those twisted nail puzzles that Sam was so good at. Just the right pressure would separate them but John had never found that pressure. He’d stopped looking for it years ago. Dean hung up the phone and pried the remote out of Sam's hand. Sam closed his eyes. Dean had somehow managed to steal them cable. John figured if the kid was old enough to hunt full time, rebuild a carburetor and run credit card scams all because his father had taught him how, it was a bad time to go parental on the rights of the cable company.

Neither moved when the pizza came. John almost laughed. “No, no, don’t get up, I’ll get it.”

Two hours later, they were arguing about their next job. Sam was quiet. He usually helped with research and could make a good case for one job over another but it was close to junior year finals and those were vital for college admissions. Dean was against cutting Sam slack for them. John was against Sam leaving too, but hunting when your heart’s not in it is deadly, and there were other reasons. Ones he couldn’t share with Dean. Sam's college prep was the only thing he and Dean ever fought about, and never in front of Sam.

“I can’t believe you’re willing to just let him go!”

“He doesn’t want to be here. He doesn’t want this.”

Dean's eyes were almost unreadable. Not blank, emotion flitting so quickly from one extreme to the other that John couldn’t get a handle on it. “You think he doesn’t want this? Then why hasn’t he said something?”

John genuinely didn’t understand the question. “He says it every day. He’s been saying it since he was fourteen. He doesn’t want you to get hurt. He doesn’t want us to hunt. He wants to be normal.”

“Safe.” Dean says. Like he’s beyond yelling. “He’s not asking for normal, he’s asking for safe.”

“Well Dean, hate to break it to you but, what we do isn’t safe. Did you fail to notice that when you got thrown against a tree by a fucking ghost with a grudge last week?”

“Sam's safe with us.”

“He’s safer with us than anywhere else. Sam should stay with us.” John agreed.

“Then what the fuck, Dad? Just tell him he can’t leave.”

“He wants to, Dean. If I tell him he can’t, he’ll leave anyway, and we’ll have to track him. This way, we might have a shot in hell of staying in touch.”

“Dad, you’re full of shit. You don’t know anything. No way is Sammy ditching m-us. No way is he ditching us for some community college.”

“Dean. He’s applying to four year schools. He’ll get in, too.”

Dean swallowed reflexively. “What did you do?”

“What’s best for my boys.”

“You fucked with his applications?”

“No, just cleaned up his transcripts a little.”

“Where’s he gonna end up?” John recognizes the panic in Dean’s voice. It’s the ‘Sam's been hurt, might be hurt, isn’t accounted for” panic.

”He’ll end up wherever he wants to be. Sam’s gonna have to make that decision himself.”

Dean sat down and put his elbows on his knees. He dropped his head in his hands for a minute and when he looked up, his expression was blank. “Thanks Dad. You always do what’s best for your boys.”

He leaves and John knows he’s pissed. He also knows it’s almost three and Dean’s supposed to help unload the shipment at the bar at four. He won’t come home tonight. Sam will do his homework and pretend he’s not eyeing the door and John will continue to research a hunt for next week. Dean needs to kill something, and John would prefer it not be him.

Its late afternoon on a Thursday. John has figured out where their next job is and took off a couple of hours early to get them packed. If Sam can afford to miss two days of school they should all be back by Monday night.

He hears the sound as soon as the door opens. It’s a grunt. Someone’s hurting. He waits and hears another one. He’s about to knock on the boys’ door to see if Sam's okay when he hears a laugh, a light thunk then a gentle whisper and John's furious. Sam brought a fucking girl back here.

He looks around the living room; four knives, three sheathed, laid out on the coffee table waiting to be sharpened. A shot-gun sitting casually on the “breakfast bar”, all of the research and a few theoretical sigils, wards and incantations tacked and taped to the wall. Sam walked a girl in past all of this to get laid in his own bed.

John covers the living room and the hallway in a few quick strides and bangs his fist against the door, sorry to scare the poor girl but too angry to care much.

Dean opens the door. His eyes are half lidded as if he’d been sleeping. He’s barefoot, in just his jeans, the top buttoned unbuttoned. His arm is up, his hand resting on the doorjamb. “Jesus dad, you woke me up.”

John takes a step back. There’s nothing new here. This is a scene he’s witnessed more times than he can count. Lazy, tired teenaged boys waking from a nap except that he knows what he heard. He looks over at Sam, who’s asleep, the sheet pulled up to his hips, the broad expanse of his back visible as the afternoon sun heats the room and accentuates just how much the room smells like gym socks, sweat and sex.

Sam moves his head. John's eyes are glued to Sam's neck. There’s a fresh bite mark, pink, not swollen or even darkly bruised yet. There are, when he looks closely, scratches down Sam's back and he turns away, mumbling something about knives and pigsties. He slams the door behind him.

When he’s down the steps and around the corner he sees black around the edges of his vision and leans his hand heavily against the side of the building. He grips his fingers into the cheap siding and leans forward, vomiting until there’s nothing left. When he stands up again he focuses on breathing. Wiping the back of his hand across his mouth and then onto his jeans.

He ends up leaning against the building, crouched, his hands in his hair. He knows what he saw but there’s surely an explanation. Dean wouldn’t. Dean would if Sam wanted him to. Sam wouldn’t Sam has never needed or wanted anything the way he needs Dean. It’s wrong they’re all they have. It’s my fault. You should have stopped it. You knew.

John argues with himself. Mentally argues with Sam and Dean, individually and together. He tries to come up with an icebreaker; a way to discuss this. he wonders when it started, realizes he doesn’t want to know, thinks if he really focuses he probably already knows. He gave Sam to Dean, said, “Take care of him.” He didn’t tell him what that meant. He didn’t show him what that meant, or didn’t mean, or… But he clearly did!. They hid it. They’ve been hiding it. They know it’s wrong. They know.

In the end John says nothing. There’s nothing to say. “Want a beer? Oh, and hey, stop fucking your brother.”

He tries it as just, “stop fucking Dean” Or “stop fucking Sam.” It always gets buried until the memory is salted, but not burned. It’s pressed back where it can’t hurt anyone…besides he tells himself, There’s no proof. You don’t actually know anything for sure. It works.

Until Sam gets into Stanford.

The week after he receives his acceptance letter Sam sits next to John in the breezeway. “You gotta look out for Dean.”

John nods. “He’s gonna miss you.”

“Dad. You gotta look out for Dean.”

“You said that.”

“I can’t… he’ll… don’t let him…”

John understands and nods. “I’ll keep him safe, even from himself.”

Sam lets out a long breath and stands up. It’s all he has to say to John.

Dean's a wreck, a motherfucking wreck. He can’t stop growling at his brother. He can’t stop picking fights with him. He lands a couple of solid blows, more than Sam usually lets him get in, before John has to separate them.

Dean's out almost every night, he comes home reeking of cheap perfume and smoke and beer and John knows he’s already failing Sammy because this is not protecting Dean from himself and Sam's not even gone yet.

Sam's packed and there’s money tucked everywhere John can think to tuck money, duffle, jeans pockets, etc. When he comes across other wads of bills he knows Dean's doing the same thing.

It’s not that John's not proud, he is. It’s just that he’s more scared than he’s been since he first lost Mary, since he first found out how he lost her. His research is pointing towards there being a connection between Sam and the thing that killed her. Dean is coming apart. Vibrating with fear and anger in a way that makes John wonder how he’s still in one piece, or if he is still in one piece.

They’re all picking at their dinner when Sam says “I’m getting an apartment. I won’t be able to keep a dorm room, let alone an entire dorm building safe. Here’s the address.”

John looks at it. It’s all been theoretical until now, but here’s a permanent address for Samuel Winchester. He knows Sam. There are roommates, and a signed lease, and other arrangements already made. Sam isn’t just leaving for a semester. He’s not going to catch up with them when school’s out to work a job. Sam's out. John feels broken but Dean looks it.

He nods and Dean smiles, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I’m… that’s… you did good, Sammy.” And Sammy doesn’t remind Dean it’s Sam and John feels like he’s watching Sam get taller while Dean shrinks and Sam's been taller by a couple inches for over a year now but Dean's never seemed small, not since he was thirteen really. John's anger overwhelms him.

Dean didn’t start this. And by the time Sam started it he probably already knew he was leaving. Sam has always known he was leaving and that Dean was staying. This is killing Dean.

If Sam comes back, then what? Is it… John feels nauseated. Is it just pretending it never happened? Does Dean give himself back to Sam, only to watch him leave again when the next semester starts? And what about when Sam doesn’t come back, when he gets a better offer, finds a girl, a guy, a… whatever the fuck he wants that isn’t Dean and his anger builds until they’re screaming. He’s not sure what he’s saying, something about being a selfish little kid and not loving his family the way he should.

Dean's standing between them, looking closer to tears than he has all week and that’s pretty fucking close and in the end John hears himself say it. Doesn’t mean it. Wants to take it back, but also knows that it’s right. It’s right for Sam's safety from the thing that killed Mary. It’s right for Sam's safety because you can’t stay a lethal weapon and a college freshman and right now, more importantly, it’s right for Dean, because a clean break is always better.

Maybe it’s all the anger he’s felt since he found out. Or maybe, he thinks to himself, this is just the kind of father he is.

“If you’re going, go, and don’t fucking bother coming back you little bitch!”

Sam looks shocked.

Dean looks betrayed.

John feels the silence like a gunshot cutting through the cacophony.

Sam gets his bags. Dean follows him into the bedroom. They talk in the hushed tones John has learned to recognize as specifically Sam&Dean when they don’t want him to hear or understand. He hears a “yeah.”

Dean's twisting the keys in his hands, looking young and unsure and so fucking scared. “I’m taking Sam to school. Should be back in a few days, I’ll call you from the road.”

John wants to hug them both. He feels like he’s saying goodbye to the both of them but Sam won’t look at him and angles away when he tries to touch him. Dean just looks down and waits by the car with two of Sam's bags.

He hears the distinctive rumble of the car and then his boys are gone.

Dean returns and he’s ready to hunt anything and everything. Ready to ditch the lease and the fake domestic bullshit and the fixed address and get on the road.

John agrees and they head towards the job he’s been researching since they left. A hundred times he opens his mouth ready to ask about Sam but Dean turns up the radio, checks the map, calls a contact, or any of a thousand other things to prevent the conversation.

The Pukwudgie was nastier than originally accounted for. John may have picked the job because it was on Cape Cod which is, conveniently, almost as far as you could get from Palo Alto and still be in the lower 48. He’d counted on it being just challenging enough to get Dean's head back into the game but not so challenging as to be a risk if Dean wasn’t there yet. Fucker wasn’t playing fair.

Kicking sand in people’s faces was part of their MO, so were the short knives, but when it had climbed up a huge pile of rocks Dean had followed it. Dean knew the things could appear and disappear. He knew they liked to throw people off cliffs. It’s how they’d found it. Four people died by falling over cliffs on the Cape in two months. Dean lunged for it, over reaching and John knew then, with a gut wrenching certainty that he was seeing something he wasn’t meant to see.

Dean didn’t care if he killed this thing or not. Dean toppled over and John moved at speeds can only be accounted for by freak adrenaline rushes, which can happen when your oldest son tries to kill himself by going over a cliff under the guise of hunting.

The Pukwudgie is laughing, waiting at the bottom of the cliff and John lowers himself down, kills it fast, sets in on fire and sees Dean lowering himself down now, with a reasonable amount of care. They pull some driftwood over onto the comforting blaze of the Pukwudgie and John starts, not caring how much Dean doesn’t want to talk about it. “You do that again and I’ll fucking kill you.”

Dean smiles, almost laughs. “Funny.”

“I mean it Dean. You don’t want to be here, you can go.”

“Is that what you want? Us both gone?”

“No, you moron. But suicide by supernatural creature seems to be on your Christmas list this year.”

“I wasn’t…”

“Don’t insult me like that, Dean.”

“I miss him.”

“No shit. I miss him too.”

“But…”

“I know. You miss him more.”

Dean turns his head quickly in surprise but says nothing. He nods once.

“He’s moving on, and that sucks, but you have to do the same or he wins.”

Dean doesn’t move his head but his eyes slide over to John's. “You really think you can still get us to do what you want by making it a competition?”

“Dude, it took you ‘til you were like, eighteen to figure it out.”

Dean shrugs. “No, I could just always beat Sam, so…”

It’s the first time Dean's said his name since he got back and it looks like it hurt.

“He let you win.”

“He did not.”

“Not at first, but later, winning was more important to you.”

“He won in the end, though.”

And John thinks that if Dean had ever had a serious girlfriend, this is the conversation they’d have had when it ended. But he had Sam. “He hasn’t won. And you did alright. You got to keep the old man.”

Dean actually laughed. “Dude, I lost that coin toss.”

John laughed too. “We killed this thing and there’s a haunting in New Jersey.”

“There’s a poltergeist, a nasty one in Canisteo, New York.”

“Dean, son, it’s time to get over your hatred of New Jersey. We’ll swing by New York on the way back and clean out the house with the poltergeist.”

Dean nodded and bitched the entire walk back to the car about beaches, sand, and New Jersey until John put a hand on his shoulder and said. “Dean, New Jersey, Atlantic City, Casinos.”

Dean's eyes lit up and he didn’t bitch again.

It took a while. Dean went through a few months of fucking any girl that would let him and drinking anything that was available. John eventually slowed down their hunting, spent a weekend drying Dean out and then did something that was so against his nature it hurt. He broke the Impala. Not a lot, just enough to make it seem like a bad pot hole had fucked it all to hell. Luckily they were near Bobby who, it just so happened, could be there immediately. They spent a month there “waiting” for the part. Dean wasn’t stupid but he also wasn’t stupid so he stayed put, and stayed sober, and did some research and helped John with the pickup truck that was sitting in Bobby’s yard taking up space.

Dean asked him one day, rolling out from under the truck. “This for you or for me?”

John held up the beer. “This?” He took a long drink, “for me.”

“The truck.”

John didn’t know he’d been that obvious. “Car’s yours Dean.” Dean jumped up and John followed him to the Impala. “There are conditions.”

“Dad, you know I’ll take care of her.” He ran his hand over the hood and John swore he’d seen that exact movement on Sam's back. He shuddered. He really hated his own head. “That’s not the condition, I know you’ll take care of her, the same way you took care of Sam.” There, he’d said his name.

Dean looked up. “Then what? Are you gonna make me promise never to…”

John swallowed the last of his beer because he wasn’t sure how to cover up the sound of your heart breaking. Did Dean really think that this late in the game he’d try to keep them apart, that he thought he could? He shook his head. “Your car, go where you want with her. Condition is you take care of yourself like you do her, like you did him.”

“I always…”

“Promise me Dean.” He cut off the lie.

“Yeah, I won’t get myself killed by a Pukwudgie, I promise.”

And John nodded. “You’ll stay in touch. And you don’t take any big jobs on your own. You call me. I’ll come.”

“Dad, promise me…”

“What Dean…”

“Just… same thing. Don’t go flying headlong after that thing, or any thing. Call me you know, when you need me there or when you just… want me there.”

John pulled him into a fierce hug. The question on the word want, as if he didn’t want Dean beside him. As if there was anyone he trusted more than he trusted Dean but he was twenty three, and dammit, this is how you push a bird out of its nest, with a fully loaded armory, a working credit card, cell phone and a ‘67 Impala. This had to be right.

When the part for the Impala “arrived” they worked until late to finish it. Dean was ready to go as soon as he’d slugged down some coffee the next morning.

“Thanks Bobby.”

“Don’t be a stranger, kid.”

John stood up and slid a couple of hundred dollars into his hand and whispered to him. “If he’ll listen, tell him I said hi.”

Dean nodded and smiled as he slid behind the wheel. “Dad, ever think you’d see the day that I had a hotter car than you?” He pulled out of Bobby's in a cloud of dust with the radio blasting.

John heard about Jessica and the Fire. He considered what a live-in girlfriend meant for Sam. More than just that “safe” that he’d been chasing. He really had found normal, and then lost it. John never wanted to kill the demon more.

When he did get time together with them, he saw their easy grace was still there. He watched the way Dean ended up stuck in the middle of his arguments with Sam, and the way they were willing to sacrifice anything for each other, follow the other’s lead, work as more than a team, or a unit, as an almost single entity. He figured them working together was probably the closest to safe Sam would find. Really, nothing had changed.

Keeping Time Chapter Seven

2008-11-27T02:17:06Z

So, it's been a year and ten days, but I promised I would finish it and I did!
So, without further ado...

Chapter Seven of Keeping Time.

Chapter One is here
Chapter Two is here
Chapter Three is here
Chapter Four is here
Chapter Five is here
Chapter Six is here
Go to the index of my fiction if you want to catch up on the other stories in this series.

It was beta'd by xie_xie_xie and vl_redreign

Keeping Time

Chapter Seven

Aaron was curled up under the cashmere throw that had been delivered sometime last week. Lee put a sandwich down on the side table that had been delivered some time in the last few days and stared at him. “Eat.”

“I’m not hungry.” His attention turned back to the TV. He heard Lee sigh and wanted to say something but there wasn’t much left to say. Maybe Lee would be in a better mood if the UPS guy didn’t show up almost daily. His thought was interrupted by the doorbell.

Aaron glanced at the clock. “Too early for UPS; must be Justin.” He pulled the covers over his head and closed his eyes.

The blanket was ripped off of him quickly.

“Hey.”

“Hey, wake up.”

“Just because you get up at some ungodly hour…”

“It’s almost noon.” Justin sat in the new suede chaise lounge and Lee moved to the far corner to work on something that Aaron knew was due soon, he just couldn’t remember quite when.

Aaron looked at the sandwich and almost smiled. Lee had cut the crusts off and layered the Swiss and provolone on opposite sides of the ham. He picked up one of the quarters and took a bite. He heard Lee make a sound that seemed like relief, or maybe approval, or possibly frustration.

“Thank you.”

“Chew, swallow, then talk.”

Aaron looked over at Justin. “What’s up?”

“Nothing, I came to see if you needed anything.”

Aaron looked towards Lee. “Did all our phones die?”

Lee laughed and went back to whatever he was working on. Justin took the remote and started to flip through the channels.

Aaron reached out for it. “Gimme. You won’t stop at anything cool.”

Justin held the remote out of his reach and Aaron grunted and took another bite of his sandwich. “I’m thirsty.”

“So get something to drink.”

Lee was halfway to the kitchen already and Justin shook his head. “You’re spoiled.”

“And you’re not?”

“We’re not talking about me. Seriously, get up and get your own damn water.”

“Lee does it better.”

Even Lee scoffed as he handed Aaron a water bottle. Aaron smiled triumphantly at the both of them.

Lee walked away without saying anything. Justin rolled his eyes. “Why don’t we go out? Lee’s editor is waiting for the final illustrations, and you’re not helping.”

“I could have just stayed in my room but you were all so eager for me to come out here.”

“Right, that was last week. Now it’s time to go outside the apartment.”

“But all my cool new stuff is here.”

“Aaron, get dressed. We’re going out.”

“Justin, I’m really tired.”

“I don’t care.”

“Justin,” Lee interrupted

Justin looked towards Lee, an eyebrow raised.

“He’s not ready. Just let it go.”

Justin shrugged and moved next to Aaron on the sofa. “Any new games?”

“Since yesterday? Yeah, one.” Aaron handed it to him, Justin loaded it and they both played in relative silence. Lee looked up every few minutes to check on Aaron. Justin wanted to tell him to relax and focus on whatever he had to do but knew there was no point. Instead he kept Aaron occupied until he had to leave. He had a meeting with his agent to sign the final paperwork on the Miami commission.

The UPS guy had just arrived as he was leaving. He wondered if it was the DVD boxed set he’d ordered or the kindle Brian had.

Justin got home later than planned. The apartment was empty. He considered calling Brian to remind him he’d hired the new account reps in order to reduce his own workload, but in the end, he turned off his phone, changed clothes and shut the studio door, turning up the music.

He heard a knock on the door a few minutes later, or what felt like a few minutes later. When he opened it Brian was telling him it was after one am.

Justin scanned Brian’s expression and attire. He was still in his suit. His tie was barely loosened and he seemed tense. Justin glanced back at his painting and Brian kissed the corner of his mouth. “Go back to work.” Justin nodded and turned back to his canvas. He was barely aware of the door closing behind him.

Brian woke up the next morning to the feel of Justin's mouth on his neck. Justin's hands were moving lower. Brian turned his head, his neck bent so his mouth met Justin's. He pulled away from the kiss nipping at Justin's lower lip and then whispered against his ear, “Welcome back.”

It was Justin's turn to pull his head away. “Did I go somewhere?”

Brian stared at him, eyebrow raised and Justin had the good sense to look slightly chagrinned. “It’s not as if you were around to notice much.”

Brian still didn’t say anything. He simply waited.

Justin sighed. “I’ve just got this huge deadline of the show hanging over my head, and there’s stuff that I want to be working on, plus the sketches for the Miami mural… it doesn’t leave a lot of time for…”

Brian pulled Justin closer. “You’ll find the time to do all of that. Maybe just not all at once.”

“Yeah, but I’m leaving in two weeks. I’m supposed to go sign the contract today and…”

“What, you’re going to miss my cock that much, you can’t be away from it for even six weeks?”

Justin laughed. “Pfft. I’ve got half a dozen dildos that will do just as well.”

“As long as you don’t use them all at once.”

Justin settled himself more comfortably on Brian's chest. “I am going to miss other parts of you, though.”

“Wait, you’re not going to miss my cock?”

“Oh my god. Yes, I’ll miss you fucking me, now can we get to the mushy part?”

“Can’t we skip that and leave it at your ass missing me?”

“Sure.”

“Justin.”

“Hmmm?”

“Just ask.”

“Do you love me?”

“No, I’m not fucking anyone else out of my sheer indifference to you.”

“Wow, indifference is worse than hate.”

“So should I hate you?”

“I’d prefer you loved me.”

Brian kissed the top of Justin's head.

“You sooo love me.”

Brian laughed, his fingers carding through Justin's hair. “It’s true. I do.”

“Brian I want something from you.”

“I’m shocked.”

“It’s complicated, so listen carefully, okay?”

“Okay.”

Brian wanted to take Justin's hand in his, but currently Justin's fingers were tracing patterns across his chest, and that was good, too.

“Here come the instructions, are you ready?”

Brian made a noise that Justin took for an affirmative.

“First, I want you to rim me until I’m dripping. I might beg, but ignore that and just keep at it. Then I want you to fuck me, hard, I mean really hard, I mean possibly harder than you’ve ever fucked me before, but when you do that, I want you to make sure you’re not thinking about what it will feel like when you can actually discern with your own bare skin the difference between the feel of your spit and the feel of your pre-come and the feel of lube when you slide inside me. Can you do that?”

Brian wasn’t sure he could even move but he felt Justin roll away from him and watched as he positioned himself, his hands folded over the pillow, his face resting on it, his legs spread, his right knee bent.

Brian followed Justin's instructions to the letter, well, except for the not thinking thing.

After they stumbled out of bed, both a little shaky on their legs, they showered. Each grabbed a cup of coffee and headed to work. Brian made it through the day with minimal aggravation. At least one of the three new account reps he’d stolen from other firms was starting to pull his weight. He finished a conference call with Ted and a couple of department heads in Pittsburgh and hung up the phone. It was still early, only a little past six. He powered down his laptop and put it and about half a dozen other things that needed his attention into his briefcase and left for the day.

Aaron seemed to be almost chipper when Brian sat down.

“Oh thank god.”

“Well, yes, most people are grateful to see me.”

Aaron rolled his eyes. “No, it’s just you can get Justin to listen to you.”

Brian decided to ignore the snort that came from Lee. “What’s wrong?”

“Can you make him stop?”

Lee snorted again and Brian considered saying something but realized he kind of agreed with Lee. “Stop what?”

“The hovering thing. He’s here every day.”

“He’s worried about you.”

“I promise he’ll get a call if anything happens that he needs to know.”

“That’s not necessarily your promise to make.”

“I promise too.” Lee added without looking up.

Brian shook his head. “You know I can’t get him to stop if he thinks…”

“What? What does he think? Does he think that I’m going to relapse right here, in the apartment while Lee’s working and that he’ll notice when Lee doesn’t?”

Brian nodded.

Aaron rolled his eyes. “If I’m going to use again he wouldn’t be able to tell. Lee wouldn’t be able to tell… I’d hide it way better this time.”

Lee looked up and Brian smirked. “Well, I guess I don’t need to worry about you then.” He left and Aaron seemed to realize what he’d said just as Brian saw himself out.

“You’ll hide it better?” Lee was standing over Aaron and doing a really good imitation of Brian’s dead eyed glare.

“I was making a point so that Justin would leave me alone.”

“Aaron…”

Aaron plucked at the blanket on his lap. “I’m clean. I swear.”

“I know. But you still haven’t…”

“Left the house. Do we have to do this every fucking day?”

“I’m not asking you to go to a meeting, I’m saying let’s take a walk, get some sun, get away from Mrs. Pernickely’s chicken and cabbage scented fumes.” Lee moved a hand to Aaron's hair but Aaron ducked away from him. “You’re stuck.”

“I’m not. I just still hurt.”

“I know, but you need to go back to see your physical therapist and you can’t do that until you, you know, leave the apartment.”

“I’m working up to it.”

“By staying in your sweats all day?”

Aaron ducked his head. When he looked up again his eyes were swimming with real tears. “I’m trying, it’s just…”

Lee nodded and sat next to him, “I’m sorry, I’m pushing too hard.”

Aaron pressed his face against Lee’s chest and knew he was keeping him from finishing something important, something that, unlike himself, would contribute to their comfort, income, and add something to the world. He took a deep breath and sat up. “I’m fine, just a moment of self pity. I’ll go out for a walk, okay? You go back to work.” he smiled, but apparently even that didn’t work on Lee anymore.

Lee shook his head and handed him the remote. “Pick something.” He leaned back and pulled Aaron towards him. Aaron promised himself he wouldn’t let Lee spend all night babying him, but in the end, he did.

Two weeks later Justin was packing for Miami, only a little happier with his most recent finished canvas than he had been with its unfinished wrongness. Brian was squinting at his computer screen, and Justin wondered if the hit and run tactic of telling Brian he needed glasses and then taking off for a month might not be the best plan. He decided Brian would figure it out on his own eventually. All of his work was packed up and in storage. His studio was being dismantled this weekend, the renovations on the new place were supposed to start in two weeks, and everything was running so close to plan that Justin was nervous. He paced a little and then pulled Brian away from his computer. “I’m tense.”

Brian pretended to scowl. “What do you want me to do about it?”

“You know what the fuck I want you to do about it.” Justin was pulling his shirt off while he said it.

Brian shrugged. “I’m busy.”

Brian barely had time to pull his fingers from the keyboard before Justin trapped them there as he closed Brian’s computer. Brian laughed. “I guess I just thought I was busy.”

“You thought wrong.” Justin had his fingers hooked in the waistband of Brian’s jeans and was pulling him towards the bedroom. Brian wrapped a hand around Justin’s wrist and stopped him. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Justin turned around and headed towards the bedroom. “I’m getting off. If you don’t want to join me well… then I guess we have something to talk about, you know, when I’m done.”

Brian laughed and his arm wrapped around Justin’s waist as Justin’s jeans dropped to the floor. “Planning on starting without me?”

Justin stretched his neck, letting Brian’s tongue and teeth tease the skin there. “It’s not like I want to, but you’re so busy and a man can only go so long.”

“If four hours is your limit, we’re in trouble.”

“Please, a little bump and grind in the shower barely counts, plus if you fuck me now maybe it’ll take me more than a day to miss your cock.”

“It won’t. But you’ll be busy working, probably even harder than you have been for the last month here.”

“Right, I’m sorry, that’s completely different from being at KinnetiK from painfully early until midnight every night.”

“Are we arguing so it’s easier for you to leave?’

“We’re arguing because you’re hesitating and I want to get laid.” Justin turned around and pulled Brian's head forward for a hard kiss. “We got busy, and now I’m going away and we could talk that to death, or you could fuck me.”

Brian nodded and let himself be pushed backwards onto the bed, Justin joining him as the bed bounced.

Much later they were both too worn out to move. Justin gathered his energy to look at the clock. Two hours before the car came to pick him up. He kissed Brian’s shoulder and moved to the shower.

Brian joined him in the shower

“I thought you were asleep.”

“I’ll have plenty of time to sleep when you’re gone.” Justin leaned back and closed his eyes as Brian worked the shampoo into his hair.

Justin was settling into one of the few completed suites in the new building and anxious to get started. He’d gotten some recommendations for work crews and had meetings scheduled the next day to interview them and show them the plans. Today he just wanted to spend some time visualizing and finalizing sketches that, if he were honest with himself, had already been “finalized” a half a dozen times.

Aaron closed the door behind him, trying not to appear as shaky as he felt. Lee saw it anyway. “That bad?”

“No, just… here, I got the milk and bought some more bagels.”

Lee took the bag, put the milk in the refrigerator and then took Aaron’s hand, leading him to the sofa. “I’m proud of you.”

“For buying milk and bagels with your money?”

“For taking this step forward. You’re amazing, did you know that?”

“I did once.”

“I wish you could remember that nothing’s changed.”

“Everything’s changed.” Aaron shook his head. “I’m not…”

“Not what?”

Aaron flipped on the TV and scrunched down on the sofa. “I’m not in the mood to talk about it.”

Lee nodded and went back to his desk. “Whenever you’re ready, I’m here. Or you could…”

“I’m not going to a fucking meeting. I see the therapist, I see my physical therapist, I don’t need a bunch of useless junkies to tell me that I made a mistake and I have to fix it.”

Lee held his hands up against Aaron’s verbal assault. “I’ll back off.”

“Pfft, fat chance.”

Aaron found something to watch and fell asleep on the sofa to the comforting sounds of Lee working.

Justin was freezing and aggravated. Two of the men on the crew had quit because of… he hadn’t really been listening once they got past the “today was our last day” part of the conversation. He was calling a few of the contacts he still had, hoping to find a couple of warm bodies to finish this part of the mural but he was having as much luck with that as he was getting the room to be a reasonable temperature. He turned off the A/C and within twenty minutes was sweating.

He got bored going over the materials budget again so instead he distracted himself by ordering a few things for Aaron. He saw a lot of things he’d like for the new space in New York but they weren’t at the furniture buying stage yet. Besides, that came after the raw fucking stage and so any thought of new purchases quickly took a back seat.

He called Brian.

“What time is it there?”

“Time to fire all the new account reps. Why, what time is it in Miami?”

“It’s a quarter past the unreliable crew sucks.”

Brian laughed. “Is it hot or cold in your room?”

“Cold now. Ask me again in fifteen minutes.”

“I suppose I could warm you up.”

“I know you could but that’s not why I called.”

“It isn’t.”

“….”

“Justin.”

“It’s not the only reason I called. I also wanted to check on Aaron.”

“Way to kill the mood. And to check on Aaron, shouldn’t you call Aaron?”

“I don’t trust Lee.”

“Well, you’re one up on me. I don’t trust anyone.”

“I mean to tell us the truth. How long since you’ve seen them?”

“Two days.”

“Go by there tonight, please.”

“Justin, he’s…”

“He’s my brother.”

“I can’t tonight, but I’ll stop by tomorrow and file a full report.”

“Thank you.”

“Now, are you still cold?

Justin laid back resting his head on the pillow and taking his cock into his hand. “Maybe a little, but probably because I’m naked.”

Brian laughed.

The next day Brian didn’t get out of the office until later than usual. The new account reps seemed to be causing more work than they were saving. He never thought he’d actually miss Ted, but Jesus, the head money wonk Ted hired for the New York office was more boring than Ted was and didn’t take verbal abuse half as well. Most nights he got home in time to peel off his clothes, talk to Justin and fall asleep with a stack of documents he should be reading piled on the nightstand.

By Justin's decree he was at Aaron and Lee's door, but truthfully, he would have been here anyway. He had a feeling something was wrong. Well, wronger.

Lee answered the door and didn’t seem surprised or happy to see Brian.

“Where’s the kid?”

“Aaron? Asleep probably. And he hates being called a kid almost as much as your 29 year old permanent fuck-buddy does.”

“It’s not my fault they both look young.” Brian didn’t look up from his current task of rearranging some fruit that was sitting in a bowl on the counter.

Lee took the bowl away from him. “Is there anyone’s home you don’t invade completely? You’re like Germany and the world is your Poland.”

Brian looked up, smirking. “Someone’s cranky.”

“Fuck off, Brian.”

Brian nodded. “I need to talk to Aaron, then I’ll go.”

Lee ushered Brian to the door. “Aaron's asleep. It’s almost eleven. Most people wouldn’t have even come by this late. Go home, Brian. I can’t help it that Justin's in Florida but we won’t be your stand in entertainment.”

Brian headed towards the door, actually impressed with Lee's initiative but he stopped when he saw the stack of UPS boxes by the door. “Shit you have to return?”

“Shit we never needed in the first place.”

Brian nodded. “I can just…”

Lee ran his hands through his hair while he let out a yell of pure exasperation. “You can just fuck off!”

Brian stood, leaning against the kitchen counter. Lee shook his head. “You fucked up. Justin fucked up. And yeah, I fucked up. No doubt. Now I’m trying to fix it but I can’t if the gay Ozzy and Harriet keep sending presents and stopping by to provide emotional support for his mistakes. Our mistakes. It takes me forever to get him to leave he house, but why should he bother when everything he even remotely shows a passing interest in turns up on his doorstep the next day?

“He won’t go to meetings. He’ll barely admit that what happened is an issue. It takes all his energy to buy some fucking milk but that’s okay because the new season of Doctor Who just got released on DVD and hey look, it’s here.

“I’m trying to fix what I fucked up, what he fucked up, and you, and Justin, you’re in the fucking way. Get. Out. Of. My. Way.”

Brian shrugged. “I think you’re yelling at the wrong person.”

He left.

Aaron stood in the doorway. “Why were you yelling at Brian?”

Lee closed his eyes and shook his head. “It’s nothing.”

“No, I mean, why were you yelling at Brian when you’re mad at me?”

“I’m mad at Brian.”

“And me.”

Lee sat down, looking drained. “Yes, and you.”

“Because I won’t go to meetings.”

Lee looked up. Aaron was leaning against the wall still not putting full weight onto his bad hip. “Because you almost died.” Lee swiped his hand over his eye, “You almost died and you don’t think it’s a big deal, and they keep sending you presents, which makes it a little hard to drive the whole ‘it’s bad don’t do that again’ point home.”

“They’re buying their way out of guilt. They’re wicked parental like that.”

“Well, they need to start practicing some tough love.”

“We need to stop talking about them. You’re not crying because of what they did. You’re crying because of what I did.”

Lee leaned back and Aaron sat on the storage cube/coffee table across from him. “You’re allowed to be mad at me. I was phenomenally stupid.”

“And reckless and careless and capricious and…”

Aaron laughed a little, “You know a lot of words for irresponsible.”

“Well, I’ve known you a long time.”

“Ouch, low blow.”

Lee cocked an eyebrow and Aaron tilted his head conceding that it was also accurate.

“Do you want to get rid of all the stuff? We can.”

“That’s just stupid, and you and…” Lee gritted his teeth, “Brian aren’t wrong.”

“You’re admitting Brian's right? Should I call and tell him?”

“Fuck off. You’re right.” Lee took Aaron's face between his hands and felt Aaron try to pull away. “I’m angry with you. I’m furious and horribly worried that you’re not recovering, at all. I’m scared to death that whatever I do will be the exact wrong thing. I’m terrified that whatever happens next will be worse that what happened before. And I’m petrified that you’re always going to flinch away from me and try to pull back when I touch you like you’re doing right now.”

Aaron leaned back, letting his hair cover his eyes while he considered this. “You know a lot of words for fearful, too.”

“Again, I’ve known you for a while.”

“I’m sorry.”

“That you scare me?”

“Well, that knowing me has made you learn fifty different ways to say careless, scared and angry.”

“Yeah, I’m gonna have to start learning phrases in other languages soon. How do you say terrified in Urdu?”

Aaron refused to laugh. “I’m sorry about more than that. But the making you scared and angry is big on the list. The flinching thing… I’m working on it.”

“You know that the scar is barely visible, right?”

Aaron sat, head down, refusing to let Lee see his face going red.

Lee ran a hand through Aaron's hair. Pushing it back away from his face. “I wouldn’t care if it were visible. I won’t care if you have a permanent limp, except that it would upset you. It doesn’t factor into how I feel about you. It doesn’t factor into what I want from you, and for you.”

“Don’t lie.”

“No, I’m done lying”

Aaron looked up. “What else have you been lying about?”

“Nothing, and don’t change the subject.”

“The subject of how you think I’m an irresponsible kid who both angers and scares you.”

“No the subject of how much I love you and care what happens to you even when you make decisions that make it look like you don’t care.”

“I do care about you. I do, you know, love you.”

“I meant you. You don’t seem to care what happens to you.”

“I…”

Lee just stared at him.

“I care. I don’t want to die. I never wanted to die. I just don’t understand why you’d stick around after all of this.”
,
“Well, congratulations, you got more from Brian Kinney than his EZ-pay account code. I stick around because I love you. I stick around because I’d rather be here, in this overcrowded apartment with way too much shit from the in-laws with you than anywhere else without you. I don’t care that you’re more work than anyone I’ve ever dated. I love you.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh.”

“Me too.”

Lee just stared at him. “Me too, what?”

“Me too to the loving you thing, and the thing where you’re where I want to be. I just want you to know that if you ever… change your mind…”

“Shut the hell up.”

Aaron smiled. “So does this mean you’re going to stop being nice to me?”

“About some things.”

“Are we banning the in-laws from the apartment?”

“He’d buy the building.”

“He’s going to be over a lot. He doesn’t know what to do without Justin.”

“No shit.”

“Can we never let that happen to us?”

“I don’t know. I swear, if they did a paternity test, you’d come up as the son of both of them.”

“I do not have Kinney DNA.”

“No, you’ve got Kinney neurosis mixed with Taylor DNA. I’m in for a long road.”

“You can always take a detour…”

“I told you to shut the fuck up.”

Aaron smiled. “I do love you, Lee.”

“Let’s go to bed.”

“Excellent idea.”

Lee stood up, offering Aaron a hand. Aaron didn’t take it until after he was standing on his own.

When they finally fell asleep, Lee's arm flung over Aaron's back, Aaron's head facing Lee's, Aaron hoped he might be able to make it through without a nightmare, and that Lee might be able to do the same.

Two weeks later Brian was lying on his back in Justin's hotel suite. Justin was standing in front of him, naked and towel drying his hair. “They’re what?”

Brian sat up. It was the first time since his arrival 24 hours ago that they’d stopped kissing and/or fucking long enough to have a conversation. “I tried to explain it to you over the phone. Lee keeps saying something about boundaries. Aaron keeps saying something about being an adult. I don’t know. I usually tune out anyone who feels the need to quote their biological age as a reason for anything.”

Justin nodded. “No shit. But you’re saying they’re what, cordoning off their lives?”

“I think just their relationship, and Aaron's recovery, oh, and any possible need of financial assistance.”

“That leaves what?”

“Brunch?”

Justin shook his head. “That’s totally fucked. I’m calling Aaron.”

“Justin.”

“What?”

“It may not be as totally fucked as it feels.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying Lee's right. We did fuck up. We fucked up phenomenally, and did a really thorough job of it, too.”

Justin winced. He couldn’t deny that. “Still, he’s my brother.”

“And you can see him, and talk to him, and give him important brotherly advice on… whatever brothers give advice on. What you can’t do is try to fix him. We suck at that. We can barely do it for ourselves, and have you ever seen what happens when we try to do it for each other?”

Justin fell on top of Brian, the white cotton sheet the only thing separating them. “You do a pretty good job of fixing me when I need it.”

Brian snorted. “Yeah, bang up job. You’re how old and…”

“I tune out when people use my biological age to make any kind of point.”

Brian laughed. Justin kissed Brian's neck.

“Just give them some space. I’ll keep an eye on them, even if I have to do it less personally.”

“You going to hire a PI?”

“Justin, let’s give them some breathing space.”

Justin nodded, running a finger over Brian's lips. “Are you tired?”

Brian just looked at him.

“Because I know at your biological age you might need to slow down but we have all these condoms and we have to use them soon because in a month we won’t need them again. Ever.”

Brian laughed, rolling Justin over and pulling the sheet out from in between them in a single fluid motion. “I’m not tired.”

Justin gripped Brian's neck, pulling him in for a kiss. “Good.”

Brian stood back and watched as Justin directed several crews seemingly at once. The construction that curved the wall out was intricate and clearly Justin's vision for it was different than the contractors. He decided never to tell Justin how hot it was to watch him ordering men in hardhats around. When the altercation, or conversation, depending on who you asked, was over, Justin walked over to Brian.

“Take me to lunch.”

Brian considered mentioning Justin's demanding mood but was actually enjoying it, so he nodded and they left. Justin turned back twice on their way out to make sure no one was fucking up again. Brian was sure someone would fuck up before they got back. He wouldn’t say it out loud but he was kind of hoping someone did.

Justin ran a hand through his hair and then rested his face in his hands as they sat at some Cuban fusion place. Brian wasn’t sure what it was fused with, but he didn’t really care. Justin pulled his sleeves over his fingers. The air conditioning was a little overpowering.

After they’d ordered Justin looked up. “Okay, the new place. Go.”

Brian just stared.

Justin stared back.

Brian leaned back and sighed. “It’s moving along. The interior work is about as fuck-up free as your project is. The budget’s getting insane and within the next two weeks you should look at the links I sent you with furniture options.”

“I looked at them. I’d had the same ones marked to send to you, so yeah, order some stuff, if we hate it later we can always just pretend it was the other one’s fault. I’ll be up next weekend. So if there’s other stuff you want to see...”

“Furniture shopping isn’t high on my priority list this year.”

“That’s weird.”

Their food arrived and neither said anything for a while. Finally Justin broke the silence.

“Is Aaron getting better?”

Brian nodded.

“Is it because I’m not there?”

Brian rolled his eyes. “Time.”

“I guess so. Although…”

“Cut it out.”

“Brian?”

“Hmmm?”

“Can I just retire?”

“Sure, stop painting.”

Justin grimaced. “I don’t think I could do that.”

“I know.”

“Can I tell you something?”

Brian just stared. If Justin didn’t know he could tell him anything at this point…

“Do you know what I’ve been busy doing?”

Brian flinched internally, hoping Justin didn’t see it. No need to panic until there was something to panic about.

“I’ve been thinking about us, about July, about you, inside me, naked, completely and totally naked. I’ve been thinking… “ Justin leaned forward and Brian couldn’t help himself, he leaned forward too until their faces were inches apart. “I’ve been thinking about what it will feel like when you come inside me. And when I think about that, I have to jerk off and that’s why I haven’t really looked at the furniture websites or responded with choices of my own, because I don’t care what the furniture looks like as long as we can be really really naked on it, together.”

Brian knew he should lean back. He knew he should talk his erection down but instead he pulled Justin's head forward and sucked his tongue into his mouth. Letting the wet cool taste of the beer meld with that flavor that was entirely Justin and trying to clear his head of the images Justin had reminded him of. It’s not like Brian hadn’t been thinking the same thing.

Two weeks later, Justin had to cancel his visit home. The contractors, unlike Brian, hadn’t figured out that if Justin wanted something, you either helped him or got the fuck out of the way. As a result he refused to leave, sure that he’d come back to more work and more mistakes when he returned.

Brian killed the time by burying himself in KinnetiK. When he wasn’t at the office he was dealing with contractors of his own. The new apartment was almost finished. The salt water aquarium was installed. He’d had the carpet pulled up and the concrete floor installed in Justin's studio. Other than having the sound system installed he left the room alone. It was Justin's studio; it should be Justin's design. He did move the few items from the other studio into the space. They had crowded the previous room; they were dwarfed by this one. Brian was satisfied.

He went to see Aaron three or four times a week, paying for dinner but not buying him anything else. Aaron didn’t even pout… much. He saw improvement, too, genuine improvement, from Aaron. More than just his return to being the world’s most annoying twink-in-law. He seemed to actually appreciate Lee more, or at least not take him for granted. He still took Brian for granted, but Brian figured that was par for the course. It wasn’t as if he was going anywhere. The kid was family.

As Brian watched Aaron's frighteningly rapid progress he became sure that he was right. He had been the one fucking Aaron up all along. He considered stopping his frequent visits but would then have to explain to Justin why he didn’t know how Aaron was doing. Besides, he had never been very good at being alone.

Two weeks after Justin's cancelled visit he made it back to New York. They stayed in the only habitable corner of the new place. They were both sweaty and panting, the sheets twisted around their ankles, their bodies touching at hip and shoulder but both feeling too sticky for more contact.

Justin watched Brian eyeing him. He raised his eyebrows in question.

“You know what’s great about fucking men?”

Justin was surprised by the question. “Um, everything?”

Brian laughed, “Yeah, there’s that, but the really great part is that they can’t fake an orgasm.”

Justin was lost. “I’m lost.”

“If I didn’t know better I’d say you were somehow…” Brian pulled his lip into his mouth, “disappointed.”

Justin rolled his eyes. “Yeah, sex with you is always sooo disappointing.”

Brian waited.

“I’m not, at all, I’m just… impatient.”

“Not news.”

“For July.”

“Three weeks.”

“I know but… I want it now.”

“We talked about this.”

“And I’m not disagreeing.”

Brian laid back, staring at the ceiling and it was Justin's turn to grill him. “What are you thinking about?”

“I hate that question.”

“I hate that answer.”

“You.”

Justin rolled his eyes again. He’d mostly broken the habit but seriously, what the fuck was up? “Not the answer you think I want. The real answer.”

“I really was thinking about you. You’re the last man I’m ever going to fuck.”

“Well, yeah, unless I die first.”

Brian shook his head.

“Brian…”

Brian looked up. “We’ve had this discussion before, Justin.”

“I know but I couldn’t exactly argue with you at that point, I was about to have brain surgery.”

Brian flinched. “I haven’t changed my mind.”

“So you’re saying that if I get eaten by a shark off the coast of Sydney next month you’ll never fuck anyone again, ever?”

“You’re going swimming in Sydney next month?”

“Okay, so what if my plane went down in the Andes?”

“You have a job offer on the other side of the Andes I don’t know about?”

“You’re avoiding the question.”

“I’m not the one swimming off the Great Barrier Reef with the sharks.”

“Brian.”

“Justin, you know that thing you do, with the folded arms and the foot stomping? The one where you tell me that you’re not going anywhere and this is your choice and I am your choice and there’s nothing I can do about it?”

Justin considered arguing the whole stamping of the feet thing but realized that if the behavior wasn’t accurate, the tone was. “Yeah, and I mean it.”

“Well so do I.”

“So you’re saying that it’s ‘til death do us part and beyond?”

“Not us. Me. You have something I don’t.”

“Blond hair and youth?”

“Bite me.”

“So what is it I have that you don’t?”

“Resilience. You have this astounding resilience. No matter what happens you come out better than okay. So no, not ‘til death and beyond for you.”

“So you’re going to shrivel up and die but I’m supposed to go find someone else?”

Brian shrugged, and Justin knew that Brian’s finger tapping against his thigh just mean he wanted a cigarette somewhat desperately at this moment. “No.”

“What?”

“Don’t act surprised. If I die, you are not allowed to fade away. No isolating, no pulling back, and no death wish moment exit strategies.” Justin turned to look at Brian. “Promise me.”

Brian sighed. Justin kissed his eyelids “’Til death do us part but not beyond. Promise?”

Brian nodded. “I do.”

He pulled Justin in further. “That resilience, you promise you’ll use it?”

Justin closed his eyes against a tear. “I do.”

Brian nodded, rolling both their bodies and gently kissing Justin's neck, fucking him in a way that really could only be described as making love.

When Justin woke and stumbled into the kitchen the next morning, careful to avoid the construction detritus, Brian tossed a very familiar box at him. Justin looked up.

Brian shrugged. “You said I do.” Justin noticed as Brian held his coffee mug that he was wearing his ring too. Justin smiled. “I guess I did. Does this mean we can go back to Australia for our honeymoon?”

Brian shook his head. “No, you’re planning on getting eaten by a shark.”

”So I guess Chile is out, huh?”

Brian took Justin's suitcase and Justin to the airport.

Two and a half weeks later Brian was wandering through the new place with a beer. Aaron had started back at KinnetiK earlier in the week which somehow made the whole leaving him alone thing more difficult. He was starting his senior year in August. He was telling Justin this on the phone as he continued to pace through the apartment.

The bed had just been delivered and installed the previous day. It was bolted to the floor, heavy, solid, imposing and exactly what they’d wanted. He had no intention of sleeping in it until Justin got back, but he also had no intention of telling anyone that so he figured that worked out well. It was after one in the morning and he was about to head to the guest room when Justin opened the door, pulling his suitcase in behind him. Brian hung up the phone. “You’re here.”

“I’m done.”

“Done?”

“Done.”

“How done?”

“Oh-my-god-it-sucks-I can’t-believe-how awesome-it-looks-it-needs-fifty-changes-it’s-absolutly-perfect-if-I-don’t-walk-away-from-it-now-I-can’t-leave-it-I-want-to-stare-at-it-longer-there-really-is-nothing-left-to-do-it’s-perfect done.”

“That’s really done.”

Justin nodded handing Brian a folded piece of paper.

“Is this the bill?”

Justin didn’t say anything but he looked almost nervous. Brian unfolded the sheet and took his reading glasses out of his pocket. He waited for Justin to say something about them but Justin didn’t even seem to notice. Brian turned his attention back to the sheet in his hand. He blinked twice. “You got tested early.”

“Five months and twenty-six days, six months, what’s the difference reall…”

Brian pulled Justin in for a kiss, turning his body and backing him towards the steps. Buttons skittered across the floor as Brian literally ripped the shirt off of Justin's body, yanking at his pants and almost causing them both to fall down the steps.

“Brian, Brian… wait.” Justin gasped out as Brian's mouth covered his again.

Justin pushed at Brian's chest, trying to slow things down but Brian only leaned over, reaching into the nightstand next to the bed. He handed Justin a similar sheet of test results and as soon as Justin understood his hands were yanking at Brian's pants, tugging at his shirt, and generally shredding whatever wasn’t sliding off quickly enough. They barely made it to the bed. Justin half on half off, Brian inside him almost before either one of them realized it, and then all movement just stopped. Brian's mouth stayed open but still. Justin felt Brian's hot breath on his neck, but more than anything he felt Brian inside him. No latex, no barriers, just Brian. He wanted to move, and yet, he just wanted this moment. He inhaled sharply and Brian cursed. Justin could feel Brian's cock throbbing inside him and then almost whined when Brian pulled out.

“Bria…” his word trailed off as Brian pulled him further onto the bed, faced him, kissed him, slid into him, and didn’t close his eyes. Justin watched, fascinated as Brian's eyes dilated to almost black and then he was beyond noticing things like that. His hands gripped Brian's biceps. He squeezed his ass around Brian's cock and before he could lean up to kiss him Brian cursed and Justin felt him come.

Justin cursed then too. He thought he understood how good it would be. He’d thought he’d imagined every moment of this but he was wrong, a thousand times wrong. As Brian came inside him, filling him in a way he’d never been able to before, Justin's own orgasm was strong and surprising. His body racked with passion, his legs flexed, his back arched. He felt the friction lessen as Brian's cock was now lubed with his own come. The thought made Justin's body shudder and Brian cursed again, falling on top of him, his face buried in Justin's neck, his hand finding Justin's, their fingers interlaced.

It was a few minutes before either of them could say anything. Surprisingly it was Brian who spoke first. “That wasn’t how I planned it.”

Justin laughed. “Me either.”

“Are you okay?”

“Mmm, better than okay, but, we’re going to do that again soon right?”

Brian laughed. “Yeah, just… Gimme a minute.”

Justin nodded, his body pinned by Brian’s. He felt Brian's erection against his thigh much less than a full minute later. Brian pulled Justin up this time, wrapping his arms around Justin as he sat on Brian's lap, their mouths fused. He tried to concentrate on something that didn’t have to do with how very hot, and tight and wet, and perfect this felt, but every time he moved, or Justin did, it was all he could do to stave off his orgasm. And after almost two minutes there was nothing he could do.

Justin came before Brian did and when they collapsed on the bed Justin laughed, the kind of bubbling laughter that just builds until you can’t contain it any longer. It was infectious and Brian laughed again too. “We used to be very good at this.”

Justin kissed Brian's shoulder. “We’ve never done this before.”

Justin rolled over until he was on top of Brian. Brian automatically spread his thighs a bit making room for Justin's hips between them. “Want to know the best part?”

Brian raised an eyebrow.

“We’ve got the rest of our lives to practice.”

Brian wrapped his arms around Justin and rolled him over, ready to start practice sessions immediately.

~The End~

Halloween Drabbles

2008-10-30T20:54:20Z

It's Halloween, or it will be tomorrow and since I couldn't write any halloween porn this year, i thought I'd retread something i wrote last year.

All Hallows Eve

One
Justin was smirking and Lindsay was giving him that look and Brian knew he was completely fucked either way. He could take Gus trick or treating, which absolutely, according to Lindsay, required that he be in costume, or he could cover the candy handouts at casa de munchers while Mel and Lindz took Gus out.

“Justin, you can hand out candy for them, can’t you?”

Justin shook his head. “Sorry. No.”

“Brian pinched the bridge of his nose. “Fine, I’ll hand out the sugar, but…”

Lindsay cut him off with a peck on his cheek as she turned to leave.

Two
After Lindsay left Brian turned to Justin. “What do you have to do on Halloween that’s so important you can’t help?”

“Nothing.”

“Then what the fuck?”

“I don’t have any kids. It’s not my job.”

“So you’re going to leave me there, giving out candy, when Babylon is having it’s ‘no costumes, no clothes’ night?”

Justin shrugged.

“You have something better to do?”

“Daphne’s having a party...”

“That you already told her you couldn’t attend.”

Justin’s grin dimmed a little. “Or I might need to work…

Brian laughed. “I’ll see you at Mel and Lindsay’s at five. Don’t be late.”

Three
Justin took a bite out of his seventh fun sized Snickers while Brian made a face of disgust. Justin knew that Brian was covering his own desire for chocolate. He straddled Brian’s lap, his mouth full of peanuts caramel and nougat. Brian’s hands pulled him closer as his tongue transferred the sticky mess into his own mouth. Justin was grinding his ass on Brian’s lap, tasting the chocolate on both their tongues. Brian’s hands were on Justin’s thighs, stroking softly over the rough denim. He was sucking on Justin’s bottom lip, nibbling it. Justin moaned as the doorbell rang. “Shit.”

Four
Justin moved to stand up but Brian’s arms were wrapped around his waist. His lips nuzzling Justin’s neck. “Ignore them maybe they’ll go away.”

“And Mel and Lindz will have our balls.”

Brian sighed and released Justin.

Justin opened the door and feigned fear for the kids. He put a handful of candy in each of their bags and shut the door, moving back towards Brian. “Now, where were we?”

Brian shook his head. “They’re gonna start coming in droves now. Let’s turn off the light.”

“You know we can’t.”

Brian sighed. “Halloween is a fucking pain in the ass.”

Five
Melanie and Lindsay returned with Gus in tow. His pirate costume disheveled, his hands smeared in chocolate.

Mel used a wet paper towel, wiping his hands and chastising him for eating candy before an adult checked it. Brian stood up. “You look great sonny-boy, I’ll see you later.”

Gus was too busy looking over his haul, to do more than wave to Brian and Justin.

Lindsay walked them to the door. “Thank you.”

Justin smiled. “I owe you a couple of Snicker’s bars.”

“Ten.” Brian added helpfully.

Lindsay laughed. “Go, it’s early, you have time to stop home before Woody's.”

Six
Brian was pushing Justin’s jeans below his hips, while Justin worked at tugging Brian’s shirt over his head. Their discarded clothes created a trail to the bed where they were both naked. Justin straddled Brian’s thighs, rolling a condom over his cock quickly. He moved his hand more slowly as he coated Brian’s cock with lube and then slid forward reaching behind him and guiding Brian inside him. Brian sat up and Justin’s arms wrapped around his shoulders, using the leverage to ride him, tightening his ass around Brian’s cock on the down stroke. Brian’s mouth capturing his, biting lightly.

Seven
Justin pulled away from the kiss, raising his body up and almost completely off of Brian’s cock. He slammed down hard, grinding into Brian’s groin, taking Brian as deep as possible. Brian’s hand move to Justin’s cock, his thumb swiping over the head, his fingers twisting and moving in rhythm with Justin’s movements. Justin’s eyes were closed, his mouth open, his lips wet. He let out a deep grunt and Brian felt him come in his hand. Justin kept moving, his body shaking with pleasure as he pulled Brian’s orgasm from him. They both collapsed, their bodies never losing contact.

Eight
An hour and three cigarettes later Brian made his way to the shower. Justin joined him. It was almost eight. By the time they were out of the shower it was closer to nine. When they entered Woody’s they saw Emmett and Ted already at a table. Brian went to get their drinks and Justin joined their friends. Emmett smiled. “Well, don’t you two look freshly…”

“Showered?”

Emmett laughed.

Brian sat next to Justin, draping his arm over his shoulder “it’s our Halloween costume.”

Justin looked at him “it is?”

Brian nodded. “We’re going as a couple.”

Justin kissed Brian.

Too Many

2008-09-26T02:35:11Z

I have two dogs.
I'm fostering a Lhasa.
I just took in two more fosters, (a yorkie mix and a puggle)

in general, all small dogs, combined... FIVE LITTLE DOGS all running in a pack around the house...

these dogs are adorable but i can't wait til they're at their forever homes and then i shall not take any more fosters for a bit so my dogs can have some serious mommy time. they should not have to crawl over other dogs to get to their spot on my pillow or behind my knee.

ION bj_action has some really hot fics and you should read them and give love to the authors and special love to not_yet_defined because she put the challenge together.

ION i'm devouring SPN on surfthechannel.com and right now i'm having bad withdraw issues because the toudu server is down and they're missing two season two episodes.

ps. PLEASE TELL ME NOTHING THAT HAPPENS PAST SEASON ONE AS I'M ONLY AT 208 AND AM A MAJOR SPOILERPHOBE!!!!!!!

In the SAME news, surfthechannel seems to have lost their dr. who links and i seem to be quite sad about that.

so um... yeah, i'm going to bed now because it takes at least forty minutes for all five dogs to settle down enough for me to sleep.

For all the HP fans on my flist (i'm one of them btw)

2008-09-21T16:42:52Z

From Post Secret

I thought of a lot of you that I know to be smart adult women who happen to really like a set of , (IMO) well written books with compelling characters that we're not supposed to like because we're not 15.

SUN (for the moment.) it might be a spamming my flist day. i apologize in advance)

AARF

2008-09-15T03:18:45Z

no this post does not belong in qaf_pets

upon the advice of... everyone i began recently to volunter for AARF (Animal Adoption and Rescue Foundation), Hush, i didn't name them.

anyway so now, on saturday's i sit with 54 ounces of diet pepsi and a dog on a leash and sometimes i talk to people and sometimes i notice "omg they need water" and busy myself with dogs and thus not dealing with the multitudes of ~~idiots~~ people.

I have also learned something. Larger dogs, (40+ lbs) are difficult to find homes for. Pit Bull Mixes scare people even though the ones we have at the stands are very sweet and small dogs, while easy to find forever homes for, are difficult to find foster homes for.

(most people who foster have large dogs with issues) so today i have my second foster dog since i started with AARF. The first was a sweet terrier named sheba, she was 30 lbs. (my dogs thought she was enormous). This one is a Shi Tzhu, (yeah, kinda like twink but he's a mix) she's about two years ols and was left on a chain 24/7.

well, that's her story, but she's way too good in the house and too comfortable with the inside after 12 hours for me to think this is true.

i don't have a point, or a picture. I named her Powder, (she's mostly white) and she'll probably be renamed once she's adopted, which will probably be in two weeks. (a week to do the medical stuff and get some applications in. A week to check the reerences and arrange for her to go to her forever home)

why am i telling you this?

no reason at all. seriously. i'm feeling disconneccted from my life and well, sometimes typing about it makes me feel differently.

oh btw, yes, of course i have the option of adopting this prosh little thing but it is not time for me to get another dog and if i had another it would innterrupt my ability to foster those who need it.

i'd tell someone else this but long story short, even though they wanted me to volunterer, there are a few who would yell at me for fostering. i say, there's no such thing as too much adorable puppiness, (even if she is probably about 2.5 years old)

I must be bored or high

2008-09-13T23:37:35Z

go here , put in the address of your fave QAF pic and see it become a kaleidescope. much fun if you're bored or high

where i've been

2008-09-12T04:32:03Z

I'm crazy, and i used to think it was cute to say that, but i didn't use to think it was as accurate as it turned out to be.

i know a lot about crazy, both professionally and personally and what that means is that the kind of crazy i am now, and the way i was treating it in the past, has left me with possible permenent damage because the longer you let an episode go, the more damage it does to your brain chemical delivery system and the actual gray matter.

so yeah, there's a possiblity that i will never be okay. right now, it feels like a really real possibility.

i know that bit up there probably doesn't make sense, but that's where i've been recently. i've been processing and coping and failing.

i'm back to being employed only part time. i'm back to working somewhere that makes me angry and eats at my soul like a cancer.

on the other hand i've started to volunteer for a dog rescue foundation, (yeah, i'm one of those annoying people who sits out with the dogs in front of the petsmart) and i'm fostering a dog this week. She's big, (30 lbs) and sweet and will probably go to her forever home on saturday.

I feel really lost lately. I feel like i've lost touch with people that i thought i was close to. I know this isn't what fandom journals are supposed to be about and that i should just shut the fuck up, but right now, (and no, i'm not medicated yet) i just feel the need to tell those that have been supportive of my writing that i'm trying to find my way back but my brain has been stripped of anything creative or fun or squee worthy and i'm left with almost enough energy to trudge through a day.

so um, yeah... that's where i've been.

WTF?

2008-09-10T23:41:59Z

My gay BFF is voting for McCain.

i'm heartbroken.

In The Broom Closet

2008-08-31T05:12:48Z

I've been meaning to start this rumor for two days now.

Sarah Palin is in the broom closet.

That woman is a Wiccan, and while it woldn't stop me from voting for her, it would make the people who think that a anti-choice, blah blah blah, son going to iraq, blah blah blah, has overies, blah blah blah is younger than Obama, blah blah blah question her validity as a running mate.

what proof do i have?

her children's names.

Two most powerful wiccan's on Television? Willow Rosenberg, (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and Piper, (the oldest sister with the most kick ass powers on Charmed.)

her daughters names? Willow and Piper...

she's a wiccan, yo.

blog about it,
spread the word.

this information MUST get out ASAP.

thanks.

i'm sure it's been covered but...

2008-08-21T19:31:10Z

have you seen these?

i'm guessing those who think they came from ugly parents, still hate them. (yes, i am bored at work, why do you ask?)

Warning, do not operate heavy machinery after reading this post

2008-08-21T02:28:11Z

so I've had a lot of random RL bullshit. Nothing bad... well, nothing worse than my usual random RL bullshit, however...

there have been a few changes at work that affect me directly. A) i'm there all the time and that might continue, (that's a good thing).

B) my boss has made it clear that she's not setting up two new work areas in the room that she cleared for that exact reason, so all seven of us will continue to work, cheek to jowl, in the one room that's about the size of a... It's a converted two car garage with six desks lining the walls and a conference table with six chairs in the middle. She likes us working in a pit like this.

I am learning to accept a complete lack of privacy.

when your working situation makes you LONG for a cubicle... you know you're fucked.

but the biggest change is that my boss got approved to foster towards adoption three siblings. This is generally really good news. the kids are 8, 6 and 2. The oldest two are boys, the youngest a girl.

Okay, i'm all for kids getting adopted into a loving home. there are so many good things about it that it seems wrong to mention the bad, but i'm gonna, because i've gotta be me...

there are now, in the building where i work, which is also my boss' home, 3 kids ages 8, 6 and two. the oldest two are boys. they wear heelies, those sneakers with wheels in the soles, and they run down the steps and yell for their mom, or their dad, in you know, kid urgency tones, which is loud.

the youngest it two. she cries.

my boss thinks they're the shiniest prettiest things ever. so she doesn't close the door between the office and the home even after the kids get home. it's... LOUD.

six women all with their own phones and computers running, plus conversations plus three kids, plus one guy who has bad hearing in one ear so when he mumbles to himself, which is always, he does it at a louder than conversational level.

what's my point?

i bought an MP3 player. I have to block out the noise.
it's this one

i use the green thingy because it mathes my calender and pen.
it only holds a gig and i probably got ripped off at best buy... but it was sort of an emergency purchase.

the thing is, i don't listen to music, so now, i'm just downloading books in the public domain.

SO... what books that were written over 100 years ago, are good?

i read/heard the picture of Dorian Gray today. I knew the story, (obviously) but never really sat down to read it before.

'twas cute.

okay, no, i didn't have a point... maybe you can think of a point for my next post.

ETA:
i changed my layout again.

this time i think it looks like the lobby of a hotel that's trying to seem upscale. opinions?

She's be 68 today, (that's still pretty young)

2008-08-17T18:01:10Z

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOMMY

So before you get all creeped out at the idea that my mother might read my IJ/LJ, she can't.
She died in October of 1999.
I am aware that i shouldn't miss her as much as I do, but I can't help it.
Everyone has roles that they fulfill in the family dynamic. I say this with full knowledge of how flawed she was...
she was the heart, the soul and the organizer. i know because i tried once she was gone to fill those gaping holes in the dynamic. I couldn't.
My family has disintegrated. I think my memory of her is disintegrating the same way her memory did before she died.

When we were all so very young, (i think she may have been younger than I am now) she used to say, when someone forgot what they were going to say.... "if you can't remember, it couldn't be that important."

Going by that, her children's names. Her husband of 37 years, nouns, all apparently weren't very important.

if you get a chance, hug your mom today, even if she's a raving lunatic, an irrational bitch, or you know, can't bake. I promise you'll never regret the time you hugged your mommy unless you do it once they've embalmed her :shudders:

my plan

2008-08-15T23:43:08Z

it was Douglass Adams who said, (in dirk gently's holistic detective agency) that there's no point in doing what you want unless you've planned something else entirely and the whole point of a plan is so that you can ignore it. (i'm paraphrasing, and he was talking about a horse)

anyway, here is my plan, subject to random bouts of being ignored if i feel like doing something else this weekend.

Watch the three episodes of this season's Mad Men that i have yet to see, (the third one won't air til sunday) Watched the two i could so far

Update my resume

~~watch all five episodes of One Tree Hill reruns that i DvR'd.~~ Done

try really hard not to write slash fic in my head about Chad Michael Murray, specifically H/C slash fic. so far so good

Work on the part that's got me stuck in Keeping Time, (it's aaron and Lee btw, brian and justin, even their fictional selves in my head are completely fine)

do at least two, maybe three loads of laundry

unload the dishwasher

load the dishwasher

make a wal-mart list, (meds, shampoo, conditioner, turkey, trash can etc.)

figure out how to get to work by nine every day next week, (except tuesday when i have an appt. and can't be there until twelve thirty)

spend copious amounts of quality time with my dogs.

get copious amounts of not medicated sleep if at all possible couldn't sleep unmedicated last night but did take a 2.5 hour nap this afternoon. now lets see how sunday goes

~~figure out if my current state is manic or depressive.~~ (it's probably a mixed episode which would explain why i can't figure it out and fuck up my diagnosis, Again) it's depressive, so i can cross that off the list

try to figure out how to use photoshop, even a little.

investigate ram for my new computer.

finish JoJo's fashion show 2

possibly write a fun ficlette.

now do you understand why i'm so exhausted? (its becaus to me, this seems like a really lot of shit to do, when for most people it isn't.)

okay, 2.5 days and counting, time to get crackin... i think i'll start with the two episodes of mad men and then go to bed.

Oddest of weeks

2008-08-15T03:57:12Z

So on September Second my full time job starts again. To keep from boring you i'll just say, i've been working full time at my part time job while my full time position as an in school counserlor was, well, waiting for the schools to reopen.

during this time i hit the three month mark at the FT job and qualified for benefits. I enrolled... with a lot of hassle because of a fuck up on HRs part. But after two days of back and forth with HR and the Benifits provider it was all set and i was good to go. At eight thirty in the morning i got confirmation of that.

at one in the afternoon my phone rang. i was at my PT job (that for the month of august has been my FT job) i said, "this can't be good" even though i didn't know who it was.

It was my FT job, laying me off because they don't have enough kids.

did you follow that? seriously.

Hi, here are your benefits, here is the training schedule for the rest of the month, oh and you're fired.

deep breath.

fortunately i'm still employed Full time at my part time job and will be til the end of august, after that, maybe i can stay full time at my part time job, or maybe i'll have found something else...

anyway, that's where i've been all week, (except for moneday when i posted fic)

i plan to post more fic and less work bullshit soon.

also, i have a new layour and i think i may have managed to frighten even myself with the ugliness of it. It's like a miami living room set circa 1987, with a little random clashing thrown in for good measure.

SUN
~vamphile

ETA I have since changed from the fern fronds of death to um... the pine box of... yeah, it's still death. It's a work in progress, bear with me.

She was a good ol' girl

2008-08-13T03:06:27Z

She was, in 1999 I spent a thousand dollars on her, and over the years, had to put very little more in. A stick of ram here, an upgraded video card there, and she ran like a champ...

but sadly she just couldn't do it anymore. she chugged along but even the simplest gamehouse download made her breathe hard and running three programs at once... it was just too much for her.

so today, I am telling you about my compaq presario from my craiglsist find. 2.4 ghz processor, 512 of ram (that i'm probably going to upgrade) 80 gig hard drive, pre loaded with XP, MS office 2007, The Sims 2 including all expansion packs and the newest version of photoshop, which i have no CLUE how to use.

130 bucks. not bad huh?

so yeah, now i'm running on a new old machine. if it took me nine years to almost max out a 30 gig HD, i think this one will do fine by me.

also, it's fast yo, i mean, considering the old girl had been dying a little for a while.

i have nothing else to report at the moment but it's nice to type and not have to wait for the letters to catch up to my fingers on the screen, you know?

okay, "DH, New Earth" is on my DVR and i think i shall go watch rose and the doctor express joy over apple grass.

SUN.

Personal Space

2008-08-11T22:41:45Z

Title: Personal Space
Author: vamphile
Timeline: Post 507 AU
Beta(s): xie_xie_xie
AN: Written for this request by iwant_todance
Rating PG (I'm as surprised as you)

Personal Space

I’m halfway up the stairs when I feel the handle on my grocery bag start to give. I’m not surprised. It’s been that kind of day. Michael and I couldn’t seem to come to an agreement on the next cover for Rage. The laundromat’s dryer ate one of my favorite shirts. The market was out of crunchy peanut butter, and it’s fucking freezing out. It’s April; at some point, even in Pittsburgh, it’s supposed to get warmer, right?

I wrap the remaining good handle of my biodegradable, reusable, renewable-resource shopping bag around my palm, and move a little more quickly up the rest of the flights of stairs. I ignore the greetings of my neighbors. I learned quickly enough that conversations with them go nowhere and end in a plea to borrow a couple of dollars. I’m not in the mood.

When I get to my place I start reaching for my key but apparently don’t need it. The door is slightly open. I push the door open slowly and end up dropping everything I was carrying. I stare, trying to make sense of what I’m seeing, but I can’t. I don’t know how long it takes for my brain to actually process what’s happened enough to take action, but it finally does, and I do. I call Carl.

Soon after, at least I think it’s soon, two uniforms are there, asking me questions I can’t answer. Carl is standing beside me, and I didn’t notice how much better that felt until he walked away. Shit, he’s calling Debbie. I’m not really in the mood to be mothered.

Brian walks in just as the cops are leaving. I'm surprised, but I guess I shouldn’t be. “Debbie called you?”

He nods. “Any clue what happened?”

“It was a bitch of a day before this.”

I stand up again and grab a couple of burlap bags and then turn in a circle. “Fuck. They stole my fridge.” I stand there, the bags hanging limply from my fingers and I look, really look at the place. It’s trashed. The loveseat is crooked. The armchair is knocked over. A tin can holding some paintbrushes is lying on the floor. Apparently there’s no street value on good sable brushes. A lot of my paint is gone. I grit my teeth against either anger or tears, I’m not really sure which. “My laptop.” I run a hand through my hair. “I had a few new projects laid out on that.” I don’t know why I’m telling him this, but somehow it feels better saying it, admitting the loss.

“You backed them up, though, right?”

Well, it did feel better, until Brian opened his mouth.

“Yes, Brian, I backed them up onto my external drive, which conveniently was right next to the laptop.” I motion towards the empty space on the plywood-over-sawhorses that serves as workspace.

Brian looks like he wants to say something, but he sits silently as I take in the damage done to my canvases. I wiggle my fingers through a shredded section. It was close to finished. “Think I can convince anyone this is supposed to be distressed?”

Brian doesn’t seem amused. “The locksmith should be here in another hour. Once the place is locked up…I can book a hotel room for you, or you can stay with Ben and Michael, or with me. I don’t think you should stay here tonight.”

I don’t say anything. I’m not sure what will happen if I let myself talk. Instead I sit next to him on the loveseat. I rest my head in my hands and feel the soft reassuring press of his hand on the small of my back. I know I should probably push it away, push him away, but I don’t. I just let myself want him to be here.

I usually don’t let myself feel like that. He’s been here exactly twice in the three months since I moved in. Once to tell me what a dump it was, and once because Debbie made him bring me a care package of lemon squares and turkey meatloaf. He mentioned what a dump it was then, too, but it wasn’t his primary purpose for the visit.

The locksmith comes, and I ignore the look he seems to share with Brian, some sort of patronizing, “Is there really a point to locking any of this shit up, especially with these neighbors,” kind of thing. Of course, it’s been a rough day, and I could be reading way too much into the locksmith’s raised eyebrow at the triple lock request.

He drills and reinforces, and all the while I’m trying to figure out how to calm myself down enough to sleep here tonight. Brian’s hand moves to my shoulder and I realize that I don’t want to. I wait to see if the feeling passes.

Once the locksmith’s gone and I have two shiny sets of new keys, I put them in my pocket and look over to Brian. “I think I’d like to stay at the loft tonight, if the offer still stands.”

Brian doesn’t make the bad innuendo I expect. He just nods and waits while I lock all three of the locks. I turn to him, trying to smile. “Barn doors and horses, huh?”

He smiles too, and we drive back to the loft. It’s weird being here again. I see Brian around, at Red Cape, the diner, even Mel and Linds’ once or twice, but I haven’t been back to the loft since I left. I brace myself for the post-Justin-departure redecoration, but this time, there is none. Everything is exactly as I left it. It’s a little disappointing, really, because that means Brian’s also exactly as I left him, which is why I left him.

I shake it off. Brian offers me a beer and I take it.

“You hungry?”

I shake my head.

It’s late now. Brian finishes his beer and goes into the bedroom. I don’t watch him take off his clothes. I don’t watch him slide between the smooth clean sheets. It’s easier this way. I move to the closet and grab the extra blanket and pillow.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m tired. I’ll…” I motion with my head toward the living room.

He rolls his eyes and pulls the covers back. I drop my jeans and pull off my shirt and try not to feel too comfortable, but with Brian’s soft wheeze in my ear, and the mattress that feels molded to my body, I can’t help but feel at home, even if it’s not my home anymore.

It's morning, and he's already gone, but he made coffee. There are some things that will redeem a man; that’s one of them. I drink it slowly, knowing I’ve got a lot of logistical bullshit to deal with today. I’m feeling a little emotionally wrung out, and that’s one of the primary reasons I ignore the diner and buy a scone and a second cup of coffee at Starbucks before I head home.

Once there, I start a list of what I know is missing. I keep my back to the damaged paintings. If I look at them I’ll cry, or start stabbing someone, and I don’t really have the time for either.

I call my insurance company, and am off the phone just in time to answer the door and find my mother there, her brow creased with worry. She shakes her head and says everything except the exact phrase, “I told you so." She’s also brought some other listings. I try explaining, calmly and rationally, that we went through this three months ago, and nothing has changed. I like the light, the space and the price. I’m not moving. She looks disappointed, and plays her worried mom card, twice, but eventually just pushes some cash in my hand, “to buy more groceries,” and leaves.

Unable to stand the silence, broken only by the noise made by my downstairs neighbors who are clearly not seeing eye to eye on something, I grab a sketchbook and head to Red Cape. I have to tell Michael that we’re going to be running behind, with so many sketches gone with my laptop.

He finishes ringing up a customer, and nods when I tell him. Carl knew, so Debbie knew, so Michael knows. Somehow I forgot about that for a moment. I go over the plot line again, tightening up the plot and storyboards, and spend a little while sketching while Michael handles the after school rush. When he gets a break, he offers me Hunter’s room.

“I stayed at Brian’s last night. I’m fine.”

“So you’re moving back with him?” Michael turns away and pretends to be arranging the action figures behind the register. His practiced disinterest tells me more than a piercing stare could. He thinks we should be back together.

“No.”

“I talked to Ben. He said he’d be fine with you staying, and he even mentioned helping you find some off-campus housing with another student.”

I laugh. “Michael. I’m not a student.”

“I wasn’t telling you to go back to school, but you know that Ma worries about you, and me and Ben and Brian.”

“So what, I should run away because my place got robbed? I did that after Brian’s place got robbed and how did that work out?”

Michael laughs. “Probably better for you than it did for me. You took my room!”

“I gave it back.”

“Yeah, but now Emmett’s got it.”

I’m actually relieved that the conversation has turned away from the previous night’s events, but Michael can’t let anything go for long.

“You really should consider a safer neighborhood, though.”

“Where I live now is safe. I got robbed, but I’m fine. I have better locks this time, too.”

“Justin, maybe you should find someplace where…”

“Where what? Someone can keep an eye on me?”

I could tell Michael wanted to say more, but he didn’t. He just crossed his arms over his chest and muttered to himself.

I wanted to go home, make something for dinner and just listen to some music while I plotted out a new painting, but my iPod was gone, my computer was gone, my refrigerator was gone, and that mutilated canvas that wasn’t finished and now never would be, and that all combined to make me think the diner was a good idea. It wasn’t.

Debbie started from the moment she saw me, talking about drugs and people who’ll do anything for them and dead boys found in dumpsters and anything else she could think of that would get me to live somewhere else. I was about to tell her off when Lindsay came in to pick up a takeout order. She hadn’t heard, so we had a civil conversation until Debbie filled in the backstory.

Lindsay’s face did that thing, the one where she tilts her head to the side and makes this sympathetic expression. Then she touched me and nodded. “You should consider something safer, Justin.”

I dropped my money on the table and left. I bought a stereo/TV combo at the Big Q, locked myself into my apartment and plugged it in.

Over the next few days I replaced most of what was missing. I admit I might have been a little obsessive about it. I wanted my home to feel like home again. I tried not to think of the list of music downloads I had to rebuild, or the ideas and layouts that were gone forever. I tried not to let myself get too angry or too sad. I had moments when I succeeded. I had more moments when I failed. By the end of the week, things were pretty much back to where I started, material possessions-wise, except that now when I saw anyone, their first question seemed to be, “How can you feel safe there?”

I didn’t answer, because the truth would give them more ammunition. I didn’t always feel safe here anymore. Sometimes I would hear an argument, a loud noise, or someone walking by my door, and I would freeze. I’d read the statistics. A lot of places get robbed soon after the initial robbery, when all the stuff has been replaced and is shiny and new. I learned to deal, the same way I deal with headaches and hand cramps and nightmares. I accepted. I coped. I tried to put it behind me.

I didn’t bother to leave the apartment on Saturday. I spent the morning getting everything loaded on my laptop. I was planning to start work on a new piece, but before I could, I had to clear the one part left that showed what had happened here. I moved the shredded canvas but I couldn’t throw it out. I thought about hanging it, but tossed that aside as a ridiculously bad idea. I don’t need a ruined painting to know the world’s not always safe. I ended up spending the rest of the day staring at the work I’d already done, some of the small pieces of some of the shredded canvases calling to me. I just sat back and stared. I let the anger was over me. I let the fear in for a limited time as well. I lit a cigarette, even though I rarely smoked these days. I sat on a stool and stared at the three pieces all, in some way, damaged. I still hadn’t decided what to do with them when there was a knock on my door.

It was Brian, smiling, with Chinese food.

I took the food and let him in, locking the door behind us.

I still hadn’t gotten new chairs for the table. We ended up sitting on the floor.

“So, is this your way of softening me up before demanding that I find someplace safer to live?”

He looked at me and tilted his head, not understanding the question, and then shrugged. “You should have seen my first place.” Then he tossed me a fortune cookie. “Read it to me; you always get the best fortunes.”

I laughed and shared the last piece of shrimp with him from my chopsticks. “You used to complain they were too long.”

Brian shrugged and leaned back, relaxed. Happy? “I think I’ve developed a taste for long fortunes.”

There is a sequel to this story Called Personal Question

His own worst Critic, Set in the visible 'verse

2008-08-04T23:06:01Z

Title: His Own Worst Critic
Author: vamphile
Beta: My darling xie_xie_xie who makes me a better writer, and sometimes a better person
Authors Notes(s): This is set in the "visible 'verse" which can be caught up on here at the index of my fiction.

But all you need to know is that Brian used to be a porn star, Justin was the virgin hired to have his cherry popped on film. That was years ago. Now Brian's a legit actor on Desperate Housewives and Justin is working as a set designer in LA.

Have fun. I live for feedback.

His Own Worst Critic

Justin was towel drying his hair after a long swim when Brian came home. Watching him head for a beer before he did anything else, Justin laughed. “Rough day at the office, dear?”

Brian scowled. “No rougher than usual.” He downed half the beer in a single pull and then shed his clothes, leaving them for the moment where they lay and diving directly into the pool.

Justin grabbed the sketches he needed and the pages Brian had brought home and relaxed on the chaise lounge, enjoying the view as Brian’s body cut gracefully through the water time and again.

Fifty laps later Brian’s arms were crossed over the edge of the pool.

“Feeling any better?”

“I might if I had another beer.”

“I suppose you want me to get it.”

“Well, I could dry off, go get the beer, come back, drag you into the pool with me, and then you wouldn’t have a beer and you’d be too wet to get one, but that seems complicated.”

Justin got up, laying the dry towel over the papers to keep them from flying away. he returned with two beers and slid in next to Brian. "So now we’re both wet."

Brian clinked their bottles together. “Why did we come back to LA?”

"It's where they’re shooting 'Desperate Housewives.'"

Brian made the same face he always did when he heard the name. Justin pre-empted his rant. “They’re not going to rename the show simply because you don’t like it.”

“Is that what the fan boards are saying?”

“They’re saying that they’re excited about getting to see you and a lot of your diehard fans are catching up on the previous seasons so they won’t have missed anything.”

“And what are they saying about my blond paramour.”

Justin frowned. Brian smiled. Of all the titles they’d given Justin, only two really bothered him. “Paramour” and “twink.”

“They wonder where I’ll be during all the hetero love scenes.”

“Same place you were while I was shooting Gay Porn, somewhere else.”

“Exactly, but… whatever, they still don’t get it.”

“As long as you do.”

Justin nodded seriously. "Lack of understanding, that’s our problem.”

“I thought it was that you had no common sense.”

“And I thought it was that you were an overprotective freak with intimacy issues.”

“Six of one…”

Justin laughed. “How many pages for tomorrow?”

“Half a dozen. No major changes.”

“You need help running lines?”

“Later. I need to fuck you first.”

“Need?”

“Well, fuck someone. You’re convenient.”

“It’s why I moved back to LA with you.”

“I always suspected as much.” Brian wrapped his arms around Justin and pulled him into the slightly deeper area of the pool, kissing him while Justin’s legs wrapped around Brian’s waist.

Ten Days Later:

Brian was sitting with his feet up, the top button of his jeans undone. Justin looked up from his laptop. “You have to leave in an hour.”

“I’m not going.”

“It’s a contractual obligation. Go. Be nice. Come home. Fuck me.”

“I’m skipping the first three.” Brian stood up and kissed Justin’s neck, pushing Justin’s t-shirt out of the way as his hand moved over the flat expanse of his stomach, up his torso and tweaked a nipple.

Justin sighed. “You have to go.”

Brian spun the chair around, pulling Justin away from the computer. “Come with me.”

Justin stood up, laughing. “Brilliant plan. And the first person who asks me about Blue Light Special gets an exclusive on your overprotective insanity. Also, I don’t want to.”

“I don’t want to either.”

Justin sighed, and pulled Brian with him to the shower. “This will barely hurt at all.”

Brian rolled his eyes but followed Justin into the shower. He was even magnanimous enough to allow Justin to blow him once they were in there.

Justin was looking through his sketches for the new show he and James had recently been hired for. Brian was getting dressed. Justin watched him change his shirt four times; when he pulled out a fifth, Justin put the sketches to the side and slid his arms around Brian’s waist, resting his face against Brian’s back. He glanced out the window quickly. “Your car’s here.”

Brian didn’t say anything.

Justin turned him around in his arms and kissed his neck. “Go. Play nice. Come home. Fuck me.”

Brian nodded silently and left. Justin sat back, logged onto the live entertainment blogs and held his breath.

Brian scanned the room and made a beeline for the bar. He was on his second double scotch before one of the network wonks found him and steered him towards the press. He nodded as a guy in a particularly gruesome suit yammered directions in his ear, pretending to listen as he allowed more and more space and people to separate them. He put down his now-empty glass, and managed to get another before someone else found him and tried to redirect him again. He smiled politely and allowed a few photos of himself and the cast to be taken. Teri Hatcher wrapped herself around him, smiling broadly and joking with the photographers. Brian tried not to shove her away. He glanced (hopefully discretely) at his phone. He’d only been here an hour? He walked away from the cameras and found a quiet corner.

Justin picked up on the first ring. “How’s it going?”

“I’ll be home in a half hour if there’s no traffic.”

“Brian, you know you can’t leave yet. There’s a Q&A thing you have to do later.”

“I’m not…”

“Just tell them you don’t want to discuss Blue Light Special and that you’re all about your current project.”

“Can’t I just ignore them?”

“Brian, go, schmooze, you’re one step closer to coming home and fucking me.”

“Are you naked?”

“If you want me to be.”

“Liar.”

Brian downed another double scotch before he carried his fourth, or possibly fifth, to his table. Everyone around him was chatting amiably. He scanned the crowd for a likely prospect to drag into the men’s room, but sadly was still stuck with either big name stars or network co-workers, and any of those that were here were too busy whoring themselves to the critics and the rest of the media to actually get laid.

He ignored his salad, finished his drink and gestured for another. He was a little wobbly as they led him to the panel for the Q & A. The questions came, about his work on "Deadwood," and then the unresolved plot issues on Blue Light Special. Questions about his relationship with Justin, questions about Justin’s age.

He stood up when it was over and called Justin again.

“How did it go?”

“They got what they wanted.”

“Got what they… what did you say?”

“I’m not sure… I think you might be twelve.”

“Okay, Brian, don’t say anything to anyone. Find your car and come home. Now.”

“But I’m just starting to…”

“Now, Brian. Shit.”

“What?”

“Nothing, Brian, just… find your car.”

“Why don’t you come here? I think I can convince Dave Annable to…”

“Bring him back here if you want, but just get out of there. You’ve done enough damage for one evening.”

“Who says I did any damage at all?”

“………”

“I’ll be home soon.”

Justin stared at the screen. He was sure that someone was exaggerating. The more reliable, or at least better spun, version would appear soon, but right now, the blogs were buzzing. New pictures of Brian, wearing what Justin recognized to be the outfit he’d so meticulously chosen this evening and a particularly drunken expression that invariably caused problems.

He closed his laptop and sighed. They’d get through this; they always did. He didn’t know if the “Brothers & Sisters” guy was a lame attempt at humor or an actual possibility. He’d find out once the car returned Brian.

Traffic must have been difficult, because it was over an hour later when the car pulled up. An hour in which Justin had steadfastly refused to read any new blog entries. An hour in which he concocted several scenarios, from Brian fucking a costar in the back of the limo and forgetting to shut the door, to Brian refusing the car service and trying to navigate the freeway himself in a borrowed car, to Brian simply staying and doing even more damage to his image and his future job prospects.

Justin refused to humor Brian when the car did arrive. Refused to be the hand wringing damsel awaiting her beloved’s return. He sat back on the sofa and scanned through his iPod for an appropriate song. Several minutes later he heard the doorbell. The driver was there with an apologetic look on his face. “Are you Justin?”

Justin sighed and approached the open rear door. “Brian.”

“Sunshine!” Brian grabbed his wrist and tried to pull him in.

Justin twisted his wrist out of Brian’s grasp and then grabbed both of Brian’s hands, pulling him into a sitting position. “C’mon. You’re home. There’s only one step left.”

“I’m not sure I played nice.”

“I’m almost positive you didn’t.”

“Does that mean I don’t get to fuck you.”

“Brian, if I waited for you to act appropriately for me to get laid, I’d be very, very frustrated.”

Brian nodded seriously. “Or you’d have to get laid by a lot of other people.”

“I already do that.”

“I know, but you like my cock the best.”

“Yes, yes I do. Let’s go.”

Brian tried to stand and almost fell. Justin caught him and let Brian lean most of his weight onto him.

“Are you mad?”

“We’ll talk about it inside.”

“That means yes.” Brian looked towards the driver. “That meant yes. He’s mad.”

The driver made no sound and Justin nodded to him. “Thanks.”

He maneuvered Brian into the house while the driver closed Brian’s door and drove off.

Brian flopped back onto the sofa. Justin retrieved a large bottle of water and a trashcan and some aspirin. He’d given up on the idea of getting laid, and honestly, at the moment, Brian was not all that enticing, his eyes half closed, his clothes disheveled, his mouth open a little. Justin tapped him on the shoulder. “Here.”

He handed Brian the aspirin and water.

Brian tried to drink the water without sitting up. Justin took the bottle from him. “What the fuck did they put in your scotch?”

“More scotch.”

Justin laughed. “That’ll do it. Want to try to make it to the bed?”

Brian sat up. “Bed, I get to fuck you now.”

“You really think you’re up to it?”

Brian moved Justin’s hand to his cock. “What do you think?”

“I think I’m in love with a complete dork.”

Brian tried to make his expression serious as he rose to his full height but he swayed a bit and his eyes were still only half open, so the look wasn’t as intimidating as he’d probably hoped. Justin turned away from Brian, putting one of Brian’s hands on each of his shoulders he led Brian to the bedroom.

“I like this room!”

“I’m very glad.”

“We had to compromise on the bedding, though.”

“Yes, six months ago we had to compromise.”

“I hate compromising.”

“I know.”

“I don’t hate you.”

“I know.”

“I think I fucked up tonight.”

“I think you might have.”

“Fuck.”

“If you want.”

Justin turned around and Brian leaned down, kissing him with a wet, hungry mouth. His hands were on either side of Justin’s head, as if he needed to hold it still. He swayed a bit, and Justin wrapped his arms around Brian’s waist and turned them a bit so that when they fell, they were both on their sides. The kiss resumed.

Justin did most of the work when it came to disrobing. Brian helped by rolling a bit this way, lifting his hips a bit that way, until they were both naked. “Feel better?”

Brian stared at Justin, their face inches apart. He nodded. “I missed you tonight.”

“Is that why you tried to hook up with David Annable?”

“He’s hot. I wanted him for you.”

“You’re very sweet. Thank you.”

“Danny’s going to call.”

Justin shook his head. “I told him not to call 'til the morning.”

“Does he know what I did?”

“Do you?”

Brian seemed to think about it. “Not really. I think dinner sucked. And they asked questions about…”

“We knew they were going to do that.”

“So I answered them, which I wish I hadn’t done.”

“Regrets?”

Brian seemed to consider again. “Fuck regrets. Know what I’ll regret?”

“Not drinking the rest of that water?”

“Not fucking you.” Brian leaned in to kiss Justin, his hand on the small of Justin’s back pulling them closer until their cocks were pressed against each other. He circled his hips and Justin pressed his tongue into Brian’s mouth. Brian pushed at Justin’s hip, laying him flat on his back and moving over him. “The only times I ever regret are the ones when my cock’s not in your ass.”

Justin laughed and let his knees fall open. “You say the sweetest things.”

Brian had the condom on in moments. He poured the lube over Justin’s cock. Justin hissed as the cold liquid slid languidly over his balls. Brian's hand grasped him and tugged and then moved away, his slick fingers working their way inside Justin’s body.

Justin put his arms up over his head, trying to be patient, knowing that Brian would get him there, even this fucked up. Then he felt Brian’s cock at his hole. Brian’s tongue pressed into his mouth with the same slow steady pressure that his cock pressed into his ass. Justin’s hands tangled in Brian’s hair, drawing Brian's tongue into his mouth and hoping the gesture would be mirrored by Brian’s cock in his ass. It was, and he gasped.

Justin watched Brian’s eyes close as he stayed like that for a moment. His mouth, hot and open over Justin’s. His cock, full and throbbing inside Justin. No movement, just the feeling of being completely encompassed by Brian. Covered by Brian’s body, full, and still wanting more. Brian moved then, slowly, his elbows resting on either side of Justin’s head. His mouth kissing anyplace on Justin it could find. Mouth, jaw, eyes, hair, ear, shoulder.

Justin wrapped his legs around Brian’s waist, his ass rising to meet each thrust, and when Brian came, Justin’s orgasm was right there with him. Brian put his arms around Justin’s waist and rolled them over, never quite pulling out. Justin sat up and surveyed Brian, his hair sweaty, his lips red and full, his chest rising and falling, his eyes closed. His cock still softening inside him even now, while he was completely passed out.

Justin kissed the side of Brian’s mouth and pulled off of him, removed the condom and put a pillow under his head. He moved the water to the nightstand where Brian could find it easily and then went to his laptop to see just how bad the damage might be.

Over an hour later Justin returned, dropped his sweatpants to the floor, and shook his head at the man passed out on the bed. He hoped they’d reported his recent hi-jinx inaccurately, but had a feeling that they’d gotten it right. He rested his head on Brian’s shoulder and went to sleep.

Brian woke up and groaned. He reached for Justin but couldn’t find him. He did find the water and tried to wash the cat-box flavor out of his mouth. It didn’t work as well as he’d hoped, and the headache he’d been barely aware of was intent on making his presence known. He didn’t remember how much he’d had to drink, but from the smell it was apparently enough for him to be sweating pure scotch. He brushed his teeth and took four aspirin before he showered. A half hour later, when he finally felt almost clean, he brushed his teeth again, and took four more aspirin. He didn’t remember much of last night. He hoped he hadn’t pissed Justin off; he didn’t have the energy for an argument at the moment.

Barefoot, wearing only a faded pair of jeans, he ventured to the living room. Justin was frowning at his laptop. Brian kissed his neck and then looked up, relieved; there was coffee. He couldn’t have fucked up that badly if Justin made coffee.

He noticed Justin’s mug was empty, so he took it with him to the kitchen and refilled it, pouring himself a large mug as well. When his had enough sugar to satisfy him he returned to the living room, placing Justin’s coffee carefully on the desk and then sitting back on the sectional waiting, not sure for what.

“Brian?”

“Mmm?”

“Of all the times I’ve pissed you off…”

“The thousands of times, you mean?”

“Yes. Of the thousands of times, I can’t remember you ever throwing chicken at me.”

A vague memory tried to push its way through the cloud of scotch. “I don’t think I threw it at anyone specifically.”

“But you did throw chicken in a room full of television critics and reporters.”

“There is a slight possibility that when I dropped it…”

“It rolled fifteen feet and hit a reporter in the foot?”

“Well, I was sort of… have you ever skimmed stones?”

“On a lake, yes. Skimmed chicken in a banquet hall? No.”

“Oh, then I have no response.”

“That would have been a much better reply to a lot of these questions.”

“I did more than skip chicken.”

“You asked some reporter who doesn’t even live in Pittsburgh to come clubbing with you.”

“I did not.”

“You did. His reply, by the way was, and I quote, whatev.”

“That’s just a… wait, ugly guy, mustache, balding?”

Justin shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“I was kidding. Do these people not have a sense of humor?”

“Were you kidding or were you just using a line without paying attention to who was on the hook?”

“Are you jealous?”

“Yeah, that’s it, I’m jealous of the reporters because you ask them to go clubbing.” Justin rolled his eyes. “You made an ass of yourself.”

“I’m becoming increasingly aware.”

“Danny sent you a fax, and there are a million things you can do to help people forget, but you can’t whitewash this. You were a boorish drunk.”

“I didn’t want to be there.”

“And now, you may never have to be anywhere like there again.”

Brian pulled a throw pillow over his head. “Can we discuss this once you’ve made more coffee?”

Justin stood up and dumped his cup out. “I don’t want anymore coffee. If I don’t make more, are you going to throw chicken at me?”

“I don’t think we have any chicken.”

Justin laughed. “Brian, what happened?”

Brian shrugged. “I’m tired of this.”

“Of what? Press? I told you, keep doing theatre.”

“Of Blue Light Special press. Can’t people forget that I was a porn star?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“People are shallow and they think it’s the most interesting thing about you.”

Brian looked up. “It is the most interesting thing about me.”

Justin shook his head. “I know you think that, but it really isn’t.”

“So what is?”

“Depends on when you ask me. Right now, it’s that you tried to skip chicken across a banquet room floor. Three days ago it was that you thought the guy in all white was worth your time. Six months ago it was that you took the TV gig even though I thought you’d decided to stay with theatre for a while.”

“You know what’s most interesting about you? That you’re still here.”

“I can’t believe you need me to tell you this right now.”

“What?”

“I love you, Brian. I’m not going anywhere.”

Brian nodded and pulled Justin into a deep hug, kissing him and peeling his sweatpants off of him.

After they’d fucked, Brian was playing with Justin’s hair, his cock still inside him. “I love you, too,” he whispered as he kissed the back of Justin’s neck.

He felt Justin’s smile even if he didn’t see it.

Edited repost

2008-08-03T04:01:17Z

Season One Suessian Poem

Michael:

You can fuck him in your loft
and let your friends just mock and scoff

You can fuck him at the zoo.
Or in the car… you know you do.

Fuck the kid where you might like
On the stationary bike

The back room at Babylon
You know I could go on and on

Make it special. Make it right
Or just call it an early night

He’ll blow you in a bathroom stall
You needn't fuck him e’er at all

But if you’re gonna do the deed
There’s only one thing that I need

Rim him on the fucking moon
But just don’t fuck him in my room.

Brian's Reply:

I fuck a lot of guys, I know.
Backrooms are fun, put on a show.

I’ll fuck the kid, he’s kind of sweet.
Forsake the rule of no repeats

He’ll blow me while I drive my car
Cause freaks like that is who we are

He’s hot as hell and smart as fuck
Michael your bullshit's run amok

You’ve got your life and I’ve got mine
I cast no blame, my sex life’s fine

I know you wanted something more
Not gonna happen… there’s the door.

So yes I’ll fuck him where I want
Sometimes you are such a cunt

And if he’s living with your mom
Your room is where we'll get it on

I love you and you’re my best friend
This stupid crush has got to end

For Justin I am breaking rules
Don’t bitch at me you fucking fool

If you want to stick around
Then know my bed’s where he’ll be found

And my shower and my couch
The kid can make me seem the slouch

It’s part of life we grow and change
You needn’t make it seem so strange

You’ve got Ben you’ve got your life
Be happy as professor’s wife

Justin and I are solid, damn
Just grow up and be a man

Believe it like the stars above
Accept that he’s the one I love.

Justin’s response

Bottom line is Michael's lame
I’ll let him play this childish game

I’m not threatened, anymore
He thinks he knows Brian’s core

Well I know Brian better still
What he won’t do, what he will

I know the spots that make him moan
I know his moods I know his tone

I know what makes him come too fast
and I know how to make it last

You say i'm just some dumb-ass twink
As if I care what you might think<

I know what we have is more
It’s all that you were hoping for

I don’t think I can be more clear
I’m his twink and I’m still here.

I never do this, except when I do

2008-08-01T03:36:59Z

I specifically never do this regarding other fandoms. I personally am only a member of teh QAF fandom.

That said, there is this writer...
Lazuli_Kat

you think I throw people/vampires/timelord/what-the-fuck-ever-Jack-is down wells?

She writes Hurt/Comfort like nobody's business.

You think I write long stories? 126 chapters and i sucked down every one and then started from teh beginning again, and i never do that.

Many of you have probably read the Spander Fic Reposession, as, if you're into spander fic, it's renown. But did you know she just wrote a Ianto/Jack fic called Attrition, that has Hurt Comfort and Ianto threatening to kill owen, and well, it all happens between season one and two of Torchwood, and um...

oh, just Go read everything she's ever written because it's really good. And then, you know, tell her, and me what you think. Me because i'm intersted and curious, her because she's written like a bajillion beautiful words and i don't even know her but can say that as a writer, it's what we like best.