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The End Done Right
by Vamphile
Chapter Ten
Justin forced himself to go to lunch at Deb’s, Emmett was there too, and he suspected an ambush when Ted and Blake stopped by as well.
“Shouldn’t both of you be at work?”
“Took the day off” Ted said, “We’re house hunting.”
“So then shouldn’t you be off house hunting?”
That’s when Debbie smacked him “Sunshine stop being rude, they came to say hi, you’ve been hiding yourself away in that house you won’t let us see.”
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, he was being ambushed, he was going to fucking kill Brian, there was no doubt in his mind that Brian was behind this, he was too happy about Deb’s lunch invitation last night. Justin pasted a smile on his face and made it through lunch. He left as soon as he could without evoking more of Debbie’s wrath. Truth be told it wasn’t so horrible, except for the fact that all he wanted to do was get back to the studio. It wasn’t until he shut and locked the studio door that he began to relax. He felt like he’d been holding is breath since he’d left the house early this afternoon.
When Brian returned home he was less than surprised to find a steady thumping beat coming from the studio. He tried the door, it was locked. He knocked; Justin opened it, and grabbed Brian by the shirt, pulling him forward as he danced.
Brian put his arms on Justin's shoulders, falling into the familiar rhythm of dancing with Justin. Foreheads together, legs entangled Justin's hands roaming. Brian smiled, and Justin looked up at him, his smile wide, his eyes…black.
“You’re very high” Brian said, “No fair not sharing.”
Justin reached into his pocket and in a move he’d learned from Brian, put the E on his own tongue and then leaned in to kiss Brian. The kiss was intense, and Brian swallowed the pill and continued dancing. He hadn’t seen Justin this happy in a while, but apparently lunch at Deb’s had been a good idea, and of course, being chemically altered had helped.
It was hours later; they were both coming down, naked, entwined on a probably ruined Armani suit. Neither one cared. Brian kissed the top of Justin's head. “I missed you today Sunshine.”
Justin looked up at him “you were only gone for a few hours”
“Ten hours, felt like a lifetime today.”
“Is the cold cruel world of advertising treating my Brian roughly?”
Brian let out a chuckle “nothing I can’t handle. Oh, and your mother called.”
“My mother called you?”
”Yes, it seems somebody is being a bad son.”
“She thinks you’re being a bad son?”
”Stop being retarded, you need to call your mother before she tracks me down and has me arrested for kidnapping.”
“She can’t do that anymore, I’m like a grown up or something.”
“Yeah, well let me explain something I learned from Debbie, mothers, don’t understand the concept of ‘grown up’ when it comes to their children, so don’t make me say this again, Call. Your. Mother.”
Justin settled his head against Brian's chest. “Fine”
The two of them lay for a little longer, Justin reached behind him and grabbed a bottle of water out of the fridge, he drank half in a single gulp and handed the bottle to Brian who finished it off.
Brian was enjoying the comfortable silence and hated the words that came out of his mouth before he said them, but he had to try “so, should we order something in, or do you want to go out?”
“Uggggh, food.”
Brian looked down at him. Justin had his patented crinkled nose “I ate too much at Debbie’s to ever consider eating again.”
Brian couldn’t argue with that, carbo-loading was perfected at Deb's kitchen table.
Justin searched around for his pants, pulling a joint and lighter out of his pocket. He took a hit and passed to Brian.
Two days later Justin was less than happy about dinner obligations with Michael and Ben. “I don’t see why I have to go, I really wanted to work some more tonight.”
Brian sighed, “you don’t HAVE to go, but you haven’t seen Michael or Ben in a while and since I’m not having anyone over here until the place is done, I say we suck it up and go.”
Brian was trying not to push the issue too much but he had gotten calls from both Jennifer and Daphne today asking if Justin's phone was broken because they’d both left several messages, none of them had been returned. Justin was behaving oddly and Brian wasn’t sure why, but it was worrisome. He never left the house, he got up, went to the studio, came back to bed, for a few hours, and then was back at work. The power struggle was getting tiresome and the kid was getting bigger dark circles under his eyes.
Here he said, choosing one of the ensembles they’d chosen on their New York adventure. Justin pouted but put on the shirt, and then caught the pants Brian had thrown towards him.
Brian watched wondering to himself how he was now a person who found the sight of a man putting clothes ON sexy. It was the way Justin moved, it was graceful, but with something extra, he had a half grin on his face, which disappeared once Justin had finished zipping and buttoning the fly. Justin was swimming in the clothing. Well, okay, not exactly swimming but the waist of the garment was obviously too big. The pants sat on his hips loosely making him look like he was all dressed up in daddy’s clothes. The shirt was too big as well.
“Jesus Christ, Fucking tailor.”
“What?” Justin looked up, thinking Brian was talking to him
“No, not you, the tailor, at Barney’s he totally fucked up the sizing.”
“No he didn’t, these fit fine.”
“They’re falling off you, didn’t you try these on when they got here”
“Yeah I did, don’t you remember?”
And Brian did, Justin had given him a fashion show, an agonizingly long fashion show that had ending in a very long night of Brian showing his appreciation for just how beautiful Justin looked in and out of clothes. The clothes had fit then.
“Justin, what the fuck, come here.”
Justin was suddenly scared. “What?”
Brian walked over to him, putting his large hands on Justin's slight hips. He noticed for the first time how closely his hands came to meeting when he rested them like this. He took a step back, looking critically a Justin, seeing for the first time that his cheekbones were a little more prominent, his face a little less round.
“Do me a favor, take your shirt off” Brian said
Justin tried to keep the mood light “absolutely, this is a much better way to spend an evening than at some dinner party with the Novotny-Bruckners.”
Brian smiled, trying to keep his eyes blank, Justin took off his shirt and Brian eyed him carefully, seeing for the first time the thin blue lines on his arms, he pulled him forward and ran his hand down to the small of Justin's back, feeling each vertebrae as he went.
“Christ Justin, you’ve lost a lot of weight”
“You think so?” Justin shrugged away from Brian, putting his shirt back on. “That’s probably a good thing, I mean I’m getting too old to still be eating like a kid and not worrying about it.”
“Yeah” Brian agreed, keeping his expression neutral. “C’mon we’re gonna be late”
Justin headed to the car and Brian went back in to grab a bottle of wine. He picked up the wine and then rested his forehead against the doorframe out of sight of Justin. He took a deep breath. He had been fooling himself, the kid wasn’t eating, he was making himself sick, not eating, barely sleeping, and from the looks of it living on water and cigarettes. He shut his eyes and concentrated on keeping things light.
If he came at Justin with this hard the kid would bolt again, he had tried, so many times in the past to keep Justin from making mistakes, and had learned from experience that the subtle approach was the ONLY one that worked with his little blonde twink.
The problem was sometimes the subtle approach took months, he wasn’t sure he had months, or even weeks before Justin collapsed.
He idly wondered how long one really could live on nothing but cigarettes water and the occasional narcotic.
Shaking his head he readjusted his expression to one of boredom and got in the car.
Dinner was actually far more relaxing than Brian would have thought. It was just the four of them, and Michael had moved beyond his annoying pretentious dinner party stage. Ben cooked, and between the four of them they polished off almost six bottles of wine… They were happily buzzed and comfortable when they moved to the living room for coffee. Brian sat and Justin leaned against him sighing contentedly.
Brian was just comfortable enough to not be too upset over the small amount he’d seen Justin eat at dinner. But he had eaten, and he would eat more in the coming days, because Brian wasn’t….
Brian wasn’t gonna think about it tonight. He wrapped a hand around Justin's waist pulling him closer, but carefully, he could feel the boy’s ribs under the finely woven cotton of his dress shirt.
“So Mikey, when are you leaving for the Toronto?”
”My flight leaves tomorrow at seven.”
“That’s good, hey, give this to them for me.” He pulled an envelope out of his pocket and handed it to Michael”
“Sure, what it is?”
“It’s a letter to Gus, and one to Lindz”
“Why don’t you just mail it?”
“Why don’t you just give it to them”
“Brian there’s cash in here”
“Is there?”
”Brian, why are you…”
“Can you just give it to Lindsay for me?”
“Yeah sure, whatever, but you think there’s something wrong too don’t you?”
”I think I want to make sure my son has everything he wants, that’s all.”
Justin was only half listening to the conversation, the wine had gone straight to his head, and he was feeling extremely relaxed, his head leaning against Brian's chest, hearing his heart beating in a slow steady rhythm, feeing his chest rise and fall as he breathed, feeling the vibrations through his body when he got more agitated with Mikey. His eyes closed and before he knew it he was asleep.
Ben glanced over to see the blond contentedly sleeping against Brian. “Looks like Justin’s been working pretty hard.”
“Yeah” Brian agreed, “he has, I’m surprised he lasted this long without crashing tonight, he’s been in the studio night and day getting the show ready.”
Ben looked at Brian and then his eyes shifted down to Justin. He took in the dark circles under Justin's eyes, and noticed that he did look thinner, and made a mental note to talk to Justin about good nutrition and some relaxation methods, he looked like he could use them both.
They continued talking good-naturedly for another half hour or so when Justin suddenly sat bolt upright.
He was sweating, breathing shallow. “Brian lets go home.”
Brian put a hand on his back, rubbing lightly, “Hey Justin, you okay?”
“Yeah, fine, but it’s late, I’m ready to go okay?” There was an odd urgency in his tone.
He was obviously not okay, but it seemed a bad time to call him on the lie, “Sure.”
Justin stood up, “I’ll meet you out front.” And without another word walked out the door.
Brian shrugged “Time to get princess home, he’s about to turn into a pumpkin.”
“He okay?” Ben asked?
“Yeah, he’s just probably tired” Brian lied
He grabbed his and Justin’s jackets and headed out to the car, Justin was around the side of the house, obviously vomiting what little food he had eaten. Brian tried not to react, and in truth, if he were going to react, he wasn’t exactly sure what appropriate response would be.
Anger wouldn’t work, he was fairly certain Justin wasn’t doing this on purpose.
Concern, but he was never all that good at expressing concern.
In truth his first instinct was to go with outright panic, but that just wasn’t a very Brian Kinney like reaction, so he shoved that down and went with studied nonchalance and light humor.
“Hey, I know Ben’s cooking isn’t exactly to everyone’s taste but isn’t it a little rude to leave it on their lawn like that.”
Justin looked up at him and smiled, just suddenly felt a little ill; he shrugged and walked to the car.
Ten minutes into the silent ride back Brian broached the subject again “Wanna tell me what’s going on?”
“Nothing, I was tired, and had way too much wine”
Brian nodded, “yeah, we must have polished off at least a bottle each tonight”
“Add that to the…what the fuck were we eating?”
Brian laughed, I have no fucking idea, it wasn’t bad though”
“Too much tofu” Justin wrinkled his nose, Ben needs to eat more meat
Brian laughed, that’s a personal issue between Ben and Mikey, I’m not gonna get involved. This time it was Justin who giggled.
Brian's hand was resting on the stick shift, and Justin put his hand on Brian's, “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For not making this a huge issue. I know I haven’t been eating right, I know I’ve been working too hard, I promise, promise, promise, that I’ll be good from now on.”
Brian looked over at him and raised an eyebrow “Who said I want you to be good?” he licked his lips suggestively moving his hand to Justin’s thigh
“Brian, you know what I mean.”
“Yeah I do, and don’t make promises, just do it, okay, just eat, and sleep, cause you know, I need your energy levels high if I’m gonna fuck you into the mattress” and with this Brian leaned his head over and whispered hot into Justin's ear “all night long.”
Brian's hot breath, and the memory of the first time Brian had ever said those words to him made Justin shiver, in a good way.
“Maybe we should stock up on some energy bars, I wouldn’t want to disappoint you”
Brian smiled, “Good idea, I hate disappointments.”
And they left it at that for the night. The rest of the drive home was spent discussing such mundane topics as the possible need to bring in the cleaning service three times a week rather than the twice-weekly schedule that they were now on. They also came to the conclusion that Saturday they would go shopping for a table and chairs for the den, since they spent most of their time in there it made sense to have a place to sit and eat.
It was Tuesday before Brian made it back to the diner for lunch, he’d been busy with the new campaign for Rapkins Restaurants and the pitch was tomorrow but he needed a break, he was starving, and he wanted to see if he could catch up with Mikey, get the news from the Canadian front.
“Ted, I’m gonna grab lunch at the diner, you coming?”
Ted looked up, surprised, his relationship with Brian was different these days but lunch invitations were rare. Ted was smart enough to know that there was a reason for the invite, probably needed a buffer between himself and Michael, but he was also smart enough to know that if he wanted to know what was going on, and not piss Brian off, it was best just to acquiesce.
“Sure Brian, just give me a minute to close out this file”
“They walked in together and Ted slid into the booth next to Michael, Brian sat across from them.”
“So, how’s my sonny boy?”
Michael looked up and smiled, “Gus is getting so big Brian you wouldn’t believe it, and he has decided his cast is the ultimate weapon against evil, he wields it like a light saber”
“Mikey if you turn my kid into a geek I will never forgive you.”
Michael looked hurt
“It’s not my fault that the kid has the brilliance to see the inherent cool in the way of the Jedi”
Brian buried his face in his hands for a second…”how the fuck does a four year old know the way of the Jedi?”
”Well I couldn’t bring gifts for JR and nothing for Gus could I?”
”So you bought him…”
“The original three, the classics, and Brian the kid loved them!”
“Great, and now he’s wandering around telling people ‘may the force be with you’ Mikey, he’s already got two mommies, isn’t’ that enough to get him beat up on the playground, do you have to make him a complete nerd too?”
Michael just rolled his eyes “you saw return of the Jedi SEVEN time in the theatres, didn’t seem to damage your cool factor.”
Brian just gave him a look of contempt in a way that only Brian fucking Kinney could get away with.
“Well anyway, I have pictures, want to see?”
”Sure”
Michael handed him a stack of pictures, most of them were of JR, she was a year old now, and turning out to be quite a cute little kid, Gus was growing so fast it was frightening. It looked like he’d inherited his fathers height. Mel and Lindz were in the background of most of the pictures but as Brian scanned through them he noticed something, they were never in the pictures together.
“So Ted” Michael turned his attention away from Brian for a moment, “have you two found a place yet?”
Ted sighed, Blake wants house, I don’t see why we don’t just get a nice condo clean, new, no yard to mow.
Michael laughed, “Didn’t you already do this once with Emmet…you know you’re going to give in a buy a house, why don’t you stop fighting it?”
”Because if we get a house Blake is going to want a dog”
Brian actually looked up from the pictures for a second. “Teddy, are you saying you have something against puppies?”
Ted shrugged “of course I do, they’re messy and they leave hair all over everything and they turn into dogs.”
Brian snorted, “Teddy’s afraid of dogs.”
“I wouldn’t say afraid exactly, lets just say, that I don’t need some big untrained sloppy wet nosed animal sniffing at my crotch as soon as I get home”
“I thought that’s what attracted you to Blake in the first place” Brian said, and Ted just rolled his eyes.
“I don’t like dogs okay? I had a bad experience when I was a kid”
“Have you told Blake you don’t want a dog?” Michael asked.
“No, how do you tell someone that you’re against puppies, without sounding evil?”
Brian smiled to himself, and handing the pictures back to Michael took a bite of his sandwich.
“So how are Mel and Lindz?”
“Oh, you know, they’re Mel and Lindz, they bicker and make up and bicker and make up”
“Christ, lesbians.”
He finished his lunch, laid a few bills on the table and kissed Michael goodbye.
“Oh and teddy, you should really consider getting a puppy, I hear they really bring a couple closer together.”
Ted just rolled his eyes. “See you back at the office Brian”
Brian left
As soon as he stepped out of the diner his cell phone rang, it was Lindsay.
“Hey”
“Hey Brian” her voice was shaking,
“What’s wrong?”
”What? Nothing, I was just calling to see how you were doing, and tell you Gus had his check up for his arm today”
“Is Gus okay?”
”The doctor says he’s healing fine and should be able to take the cast off in a couple of weeks. Gus is very disappointed, he wants to keep the cast”
Brian chuckled, “yeah, I hear he’s also practicing his Jedi mind tricks”
“Brian he loves those movies.”
“I’m going to have to kill Mikey.”
“I’ll help you, I’ve seen empire strikes back about a dozen times in the last three days”
“Well, remember your obsession with Ghost, you must have made me watch that film a couple of hundred times junior year.”
“As I recall you weren’t so very upset about.”
“Patrick Swayze.”
“riiight”
“So how are Mel and JR?”
“They’re good, JR is growing up so fast, and Mel is still working on being licensed to practice law up here.”
“Good.”
“Brian.”
“Yeah?”
”I wanted to thank you for the gift”
“Don’t mention it”
“It was too generous, you know I can’t really accept it”
“It’s for Gus, he’s gonna need stuff, and while Mel’s not working…”
“Mel won’t be happy about it”
“Since when has Mel ever turned down my money?”
”Since she didn’t ask”
“Lindz, that’s why it’s cash, you don’t have to tell her”
“Oh I already told her, we don’t keep secrets from each other”
“Well, yeah, that’s one way to kill a relationship”
“BRIAN!, you know you’re not that jaded”
“I do?”
”I’ve seen you in love now you know, you can’t pretend with me anymore”
“Yeah well, then consider the gift an act of love and just take it okay, my kid may end up being Canadian but he can at least be well dressed, none of that flannel, and no hat with earflaps, you hear me?”
Lindsay laughed, “I promise, and thank you”
“Talk to you later Lindz.”
“Love you Brian.”
“Yeah.”
Brian considered calling Justin to make sure he was okay, but with no pressing reason to assume otherwise at this moment he dismissed the thought and went back to the office to yell at the creative team, who had, as expected, fucked up the boards for the restaurant pitch.
Justin was standing in front of the bathroom mirror in the studio. He turned his head and tried to see if he looked any different. He had lost weight, because lately he felt like he could barely hold anything down, and he knew it, but he didn’t look bad. If anything, maybe he even looked a little better, a little more like a man and less like a boy. His cheekbones being more prominent made his eyes look almost catlike. He shook his head to clear his thoughts and lit a cigarette.
He wandered around the studio aimlessly, trying to decide what to work on next; he flipped through his sketchbook, searching for an idea that would inspire him. He came across a sketch he’d done in New York, and realized that was the perfect subject for his next piece.
Inspired again he started preparing a relatively small canvass, this was going to take a little more effort and precision, he flexed his right hand a couple of times and realized that he’d have to be careful. Most of the time his hand was fine but too much detail work could make it cramp into a claw. It frustrated him still, but for the most part he worked around it, alternating between detail work and larger movements on larger projects.
He was exhausted when he finally felt like he was at a reasonable stopping point. He locked the studio and went to bed.
It was 4:30 in the morning when Brian heard Justin come upstairs. He’d gotten used to seeing him less and less in the evenings, as his work in the studio seemed to be at a crucial point. When Justin crawled into bed, he pulled him closer, not cuddling, because he didn’t cuddle, just, keeping the kid warm that’s all.
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