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Declarations

QAF US Post-S4. For eleveninches, who wanted a story where Justin goes to LA and things are still okay.

Justin wasn’t sure how to tell Brian that he was going to LA. After days of agonizing, he decided Brian would react best to this announcement if he was shitfaced drunk at the time. He put his plan into action the following night while they were out at Babylon, casually handing Brian drinks one after another, confident that the deafening music, the joint they’d shared earlier, and Justin’s hand on Brian’s crotch would distract him enough so that he’d overlook the instinct that told him when he’d reached his limit. As Justin helped Brian stumble to the car, it occurred to him that if Brian died from alcohol poisoning, he would feel kind of bad about it.

Once at home, Brian collapsed on the bed. Justin stood over him, took a deep breath, and blurted out his news.

“Brett offered me a job on the movie and I took it and I’m going to be in LA for at least six months.”

Brian looked up, blinked a few times, and then said, “Well, that’s no good.”

“It’s not?” Justin asked, worried.

Brian shook his head. “I can only go a minimum of three months without a good blowjob. You’ll have to come back for a weekend in July.”

“Or you could come visit me,” Justin suggested with a relieved smile. “Then we could do all sorts of cool LA stuff.”

Brian leaned up on his elbows and extended one shaky arm to point at Justin. “This is why I like you,” he said. “Because you’re smart.” Then he fell onto his back again and passed out.

Three months went by without much drama, and with a steady amount of phone sex. Brian arrived in LA on a Wednesday, and at night, so Justin didn’t have to take the day off to pick him up at the airport. This worked out well, since Justin had to take Thursday off work, because when his alarm went off at six a.m., they still hadn’t finished the marathon sex they’d begun at nine the previous evening.

He and Brian spent the entire day lounging around his apartment, alternately fucking and talking, an unusually intimate dynamic that both impressed and unsettled Justin. Later that night Justin went out to get some take-out food and condoms. As he was waiting in line at CVS, his cell phone rang.

“Oh my god,” Michael said by way of a greeting. “I’ve been trying to reach you all day. Something’s up with Brian.”

“He’s a pod person! I knew it!” Justin shouted, drawing curious looks from his fellow shoppers.

“What? No.”

“Damn,” Justin muttered. For a moment he’d been kind of excited about the idea of battling an evil alien collective.

“The other day I was dropping off the baby to Mel,” Michael explained. “And there’s a jewelry store right next door to her office, and Brian was standing there, outside the jewelry store.”

“So?” Justin asked. “He was probably visiting Melanie.”

“Brian wouldn’t visit Melanie,” Michael said dismissively. “I think he was buying you a ring!”

“No fucking way,” Justin said, earning an annoyed huff from a woman behind him in line who was holding a baby in her arms.

“He was!” Michael insisted. “You haven’t seen him these past few months. He’s been all weird and mellow. And he keeps coming over to have dinner with me and Ben and Hunter. And one night at dinner he said, ‘What a happy little family you have here’, and he sounded a little less sarcastic than usual.”

Justin handed the cashier his money for the condoms. “You’re full of shit,” he said. “And even if Brian is…buying rings, why even tell me? What am I supposed to do?”

Michael sighed, as if dealing with his friends’ personal problems was an overwhelming burden. “You’re supposed to act surprised when he gives it to you.”

Justin promised to act surprised, and spent the ride home catching up with Michael about everyone back in Pittsburgh. When he got home, he put any uneasiness about the jewelry store sighting out of his mind, ate dinner with Brian in the living room, and then blew him out on the balcony.

The next day Justin took Brian with him to work: the movie studio where Rage was in pre-production. He had his own small office, where Brian nodded politely as Justin showed him storyboards, and then fucked him over the storyboards. By early afternoon, Justin had canceled three meetings and gotten rug burn on his knees. In an attempt to gets some actual work done, he sent Brian on a tour of the studio, where Brian fucked the tour guide, the Executive Vice President of Development, and the Advertising Department.

“The entire Advertising Department?” Justin asked over dinner in an Italian restaurant.

“Of course not,” Brian said. “There were two women.”

“But half the guys there are straight,” Justin said.

“Not anymore.”

After they finished their meal, Brian reached a hand into his briefcase, paused thoughtfully, and looked across the table at Justin. Justin froze with his wine glass halfway to his mouth.

“I’m proud of you,” Brian said suddenly. “Of how well you’re doing. You’re taking care of yourself, you’re making good money, and it’s just…” He paused and smiled warmly. “It’s made me want to give you something.”

Justin placed his glass down on the table, afraid that his hand might start shaking. He held his breath as Brian reached further into his briefcase, and then leaned over to place a manila folder on the table in front of Justin.

“This is the loan paperwork for what you owe me,” Brian explained. He reached over the table and began flipping through the papers. ‘This is the repayment schedule; sign at the bottom. This is the promissory note and declarations page; initial here, and keep this copy for your own lawyer. Federal Truth in Lending form; sign and date. When you’re done, these go back to me, and these are yours – coupons for each payment, due on the first of the month.”

Justin burst out laughing. “I love you,” he said.

Brian tapped on the next paper in the pile. “And I’m giving you a thirty-day grace period before I charge you interest.” He sat back in his chair. “There is no greater declaration of love. Sign the fucking papers.”

Two days later Justin stood with Brian at the security gate of the airport, kissed him, promised to call, and reminded him that it was only three months until he’d be back home again. He remained fixed in place as Brian made his way through the metal detector. From the opposite side of the crowd Brian paused and turned, as if sensing he was being watched. He gave Justin an unusually wide, unguarded smile that seemed to stretch across the room with its warmth. Then he grabbed a passing pilot by the arm and pulled him into the public bathroom.