InsaneJournal

52. Full Length Fic: Better Living Through Geometry
Title: Better Living Through Geometry
Author: simplystars
Theme: Full circle
Notes: Spans all five seasons. Angst and fluff and a shameful lack of porn.




The human heart likes a little disorder in its geometry.

Louis de Bernières, Captain Corelli's Mandolin



0 degrees (the origin)



They meet under a streetlight. Predator and prey – yet they’ll become so much more. At the time, though, they haven’t a clue; they aren’t exactly thinking with their brains.

It’s a beginning.



45 degrees (an acute angle)



Brian’s first inkling that Justin might, perhaps, be more persistent than he’d realized probably comes when he's summoned to Deb’s, where the stubborn brat waylays him with a stealth blowjob up in Mikey’s old room. Predictably, Michael pitches a fit – stopping to get his dick sucked apparently doesn't fit the definition of "Get him out of my house!" in the strictest sense, but with that mouth Justin is a natural born cocksucker, and since he’s been under Brian’s tutelage it only seems fair that he give the kid a chance to show what he’s learned.

Justin takes to being queer like a duck to water, and he never looks back. He is all boyish bravado and tender feelings and hero worship, orbiting Brian in ever-tightening circles, moth to a flame.

Brian doesn’t quite know what to do with him, except fuck him a lot. So that’s what he does.



90 degrees (perpendicular)



Looking back, it shouldn’t have been a surprise that everything went to hell. He should’ve known better and Brian will carry that knowledge with him to his grave – or Justin’s. Not that he’d be welcome at the funeral, but…

If Justin dies, Brian knows it will be his fault. He made the choice to show up at Justin’s prom, a thirty year old man in a room full of teenagers, and then he’d had to go and make Justin the center of attention. Flaunting themselves, dancing as intimately as if they’d been at Babylon, and kissing him, making a spectacle of Justin in front of classmates who hated him just for being who he was. And then leaving him there, with a kiss and a later and no second thoughts at all until he’d looked in the driver’s side mirror…

No apologies, no regrets is fucking bullshit. But Brian can't go back, can't undo the harm he's caused, and mouthing empty platitudes like I'm sorry or I didn't mean for it to happen does nothing to change the reality of the situation, no matter how fervent or heartfelt.

Not that Justin’s mom believes Brian even has a heart. She knows it's his fault, this horrible thing that has happened to her son. Oh, she doesn’t say anything; Jennifer Taylor is as silent as (the grave) Brian, both of them sitting motionless, powerless, helpless, waiting for the doctors to pronounce Justin dead or alive. She says nothing to him – spares him not one word, only the crushing weight of her silent condemnation.

At least Michael keeps Debbie away, down the hall by Jen’s side, their faces streaked with tears and hands intertwined tightly, knuckles white with strain. And Michael only tries it once: Brian, it wasn’t your fault. When Brian stiffens, pulling away and turning his face toward the wall, Mikey relents. He sits beside Brian, hour after hour, gently rubbing the back of his neck. The gentle touch, meant to soothe, keeps him grounded in hellish reality; all too aware of the flakes of dried blood on his hands, crusted under his fingernails.

But that's better than where Brian’s mind takes him, when it wanders – relentless flashbacks to the cold cement floor of a hotel parking garage, where Justin lies crumpled and broken at his feet, blood pooling in an obscene halo around his head as Brian looks down in horror and can only cry No!

No no no no nononono – God!



180 degrees (reversal)



Truthfully, Brian never expects Justin to hang around as long as he does, because Justin is smart. But more than that – Justin is insightful. And sometimes, when he turns those laser-sharp baby blues on Brian, he feels naked and exposed and uncomfortable in ways that have nothing to do with his skin.

So when Justin leaves Brian for his dreamy-eyed schoolboy, Brian doesn’t expect him to come back. Certainly not that very night, returning to the darkened loft, awkwardly stripping down to his briefs and crawling into bed next to Brian. Justin heaves a miserable little sigh and slips away into the refuge of sleep while Brian lies beside him for hours, eyes closed but wide awake, stoking his thumb back and forth over the sleep-softened muscles of Justin’s forearm.

Because Justin might have come back, but Brian knows he won’t stay.



(parallel)



It makes Brian uneasy to realize how much happier he is when Justin demands to be taken back. Maybe it’s because things seem too good to be true – the return of Justin-the-stalker, unstoppable and unavoidable in his quest to resume his place at Brian’s side and in his bed. This Justin is familiar; Brian knows how to handle him. And when Emmett repeats the Professor’s bon mot about the most historic reunification since Germany, well… it kind of really does feel that way. They dance together at Babylon, Brian’s arms wrapped possessively around Justin’s waist. Their bodies move instinctively, like they always have; Justin kisses his way up Brian’s neck and silver confetti rains down around them.

And yet… something seems not quite right. Something has changed, and Brian can’t quite put his finger on exactly what that something is.

But Justin says he knows what to expect. Justin says he wants to be with Brian, and Brian’s cock is more than happy to have Justin back; mediocre blowjobs and spectacularly unexciting fucks have been the rule rather than the exception of late, a way to kill time, to fill up empty nights. With Justin’s return, Brian’s cock is gratifyingly exhausted, taken out for regular vigorous exercise that leaves all three of them limp and satisfied. Justin’s back where he belongs, so Brian shrugs and decides to let it go.

It’s only later that Brian thinks back to his high school geometry class (his preference has always been chemistry) and realizes that while parallel lines travel in the same direction, they never, ever touch.



(skew)



Of course things don’t last. There are losses – Brian’s job and all his worldly goods with which Justin has been endowed (in a non-defined, non-conventional manner), and Justin’s spot at PIFA. There are separations - voluntary when Justin flies off to Hollywood to bring Rage to life on the silver screen, and involuntary when Brian flips his shit and throws Justin out of the loft after the cancerous cat is let out of the bag.

That’s another loss – Brian’s malignant ball, and with it his sex drive.

Justin’s sudden fascination with Mikey’s life as a house-husband. His corresponding sudden lack of interest in their extracurricular tricking policy.

Brian comes home one evening and Justin’s there, waiting quietly on the sofa. Brian gets that awful sinking feeling in his gut; it steals the breath from his lungs when Justin tells him it's over - what they have, what they are will never work. They don’t want the same things. He reaches up to hug Brian long and hard as Brian stands stunned, speechless. Pathetic.

Justin’s bag is already packed, and he leaves. Again.

Afterward, despite how much he broods over it, Brian has no idea what the fuck Justin meant. Apparently he has mistakenly assumed that they did want the same things – to be young, gorgeous, rich. To have a prestigious job, a fucking classic sports car, a fabulous loft with Italian furniture and fixtures. The most fucking fantastic sex whenever possible. What else could Justin possibly want?

In the end, though, what it all comes down to is a moment. One single moment in time, the instant that Brian hears there's been a bombing at Babylon and his heart stops, not just because everyone, everyone he loves is there but JUSTIN IS THERE and what it all comes down to for Brian in that crystal clear moment of epiphany is that Justin is the only thing that matters.

So Brian turns himself inside-out trying to give Justin what he wants and needs to be happy.

And once again Brian is stymied by the ghosts of geometry past, because skew lines never touch, and they travel in different directions. Justin’s direction is New York City.

When Brian watches him go this time, he swears it will be the last.



360 degrees (turnabout)



Brian stands by the window, smoking. He stares sightlessly through the glass, lost in thought.

From the bed, Justin can see his silhouette, backlit with a golden glow from the streetlight outside. It’s all the illumination Justin requires; his mind’s eye can detail each muscle group, each line of bone, the knobs of spine that draw Justin’s scrutiny from Brian’s long neck to sweep across the muted strength of his back and then lower, to the inviting shadowed curve of Brian’s ass.

Justin feels a great deal of affection for that ass.

He glances once, briefly, at the bedside table, which is bare aside from a small velvet box. The lid is open, the box empty.

Justin rolls out of bed and pads up behind Brian, who stubs out his cigarette. (There are three left in Brian’s last pack, Justin knows. He intends to sneak one himself in, oh, an hour or so.) Justin slides a hand up Brian’s arm, warm palm rubbing against air-chilled flesh. The ring on his finger glints in the lamplight; Brian catches his hand and turns it palm-up, presses a kiss to the middle. Justin moves in, nestles his body against Brian’s back and wraps both arms around his middle; Brian entwines their arms.

Justin feels the cool metal of Brian’s ring against his skin and smiles, mouthing soft kisses over Brian’s vertebrae.

It’s another beginning.