testdog65 (testdog65) wrote in qaf_challenges, @ 2007-06-03 18:09:00 |
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Original poster: _alicesprings
Title: Going to a Town
Written By: ellyriana
Timeline: Post 513.
Rating: R
Summary: Justin’s stopped calling.
Author's Notes: My beta is awesome ♥
When Justin doesn’t call, Brian suspects the worst because he’s trained to. He has too much experience losing Justin to more exciting adventures, romantic endeavors, to expect anything less. It’s been three weeks since he’s actually talked to him, two since the last e-mail, and one and a half since the last text message. Justin doesn’t call and Brian resigns himself to the idea that the long-distance relationship, the separation, the things Justin railed so hard against and tried to prove wouldn’t matter, have finally started to.
He leaves a message on Justin’s cell: “At least you could tell me it was someone else instead of playing this dodge-the-voicemail shit.”
Then he turns his cell off, unplugs the cordless, and goes to Babylon, where he fucks every guy that so much as looks at him because he’ll be damned if he lets Justin get the best out of him after this long.
He stumbles back to the loft at five in the morning and passes out on the floor, lacking the energy to even make it to the bed. He wakes up at ten with the worst hangover ever and turns his phone on to call Cynthia with orders to cover for him today. Halfway through his Contacts list, though, he sees that he has a message.
It’s from Justin. His voice is tired and Brian can see what he looked like when he left it – disheveled, nearly naked, smoking a cigarette.
“Sorry,” he starts. “Sorry I haven’t called. Some shit’s happened, though, and everything’s gone wrong lately. I want to come home this weekend, but I’ll have to see. Later.”
Not exactly informative. And what did he mean by everything going wrong? Brian hopes that if something really were the matter, he’d be told about it. Had two years of weekend visits and brief getaways altered that?
He’s too hung over to contemplate it seriously. He calls Cynthia like he’d planned and then crawls into bed, determinedly ignoring the nagging “you’re too old for this shit” voice in his head the whole time.
Michael rouses him later with a phone call complaining that Justin’s two weeks late on the Rage panels he promised.
“What do you want me to do about that?” Brian seethes, stirring his too-pulpy orange juice.
“He’s your boyfriend,” Michael says. “You’re allowed to get on his case.”
“Not when we’re not speaking.” Brian hangs up before Michael can contradict him.
He leaves Justin another message on his cell, full of rage and motivation. “Fuck that shit,” he hisses into the phone. “Get your ass down here or get on the phone. Just fucking tell me what’s going on.”
Brian’s more convinced than ever that Justin’s found someone else, but he’s done chasing him. If Justin’s doing his little ‘I’m devoted totally to you while I repeatedly fuck other guys’ bit again, he wants him to admit it.
He goes and picks up dinner from the new Chinese place down the block. When he gets back, there’s a message on the answering machine. Of course Justin timed it that well. Of course.
On the recording, Justin sounds a combination of irritated beyond belief and worn out.
“Who’s stopping you from coming up here?” he proposes tersely. “You’re living the high life. You can afford a plane ticket.”
Brian picks up the cordless before he stops himself, punches in Justin’s number, and registers his weary “Yeah?”
“I’d pay for your fucking ticket!” Brian shouts, then slams it down so hard the casing cracks. He realizes he’d just spoken to Justin for the first time in weeks and hung up on him with gritted teeth. He tries to call him back, but, naturally, Justin won’t pick up. Brian abandons his food and decides to go to Woody’s, play pool, and get drunk.
Only on the drive over, he makes a wrong turn and winds up sitting in front of the entrance to the Pennsylvania Turnpike. He flexes his hand on the steering wheel and considers the acceleration ramp. He can drive five hours to fucking New York, confront Justin, and get it over with. Or, he thinks, he can get drunk and stoned and blown and wake up still pissed off at Justin in the morning.
He digs out the change from the passenger seat (often the recipient of Justin’s loose coins) for the toll plaza and speeds up.
An hour into the drive, Brian curses out Pennsylvania, New York, cars, and anything associated with road trips and asks himself why he didn’t just fly.
He hits the accelerator and calls Justin’s cell on a loop, leaving no messages, until he is finally forced to answer.
“Brian –“ Justin starts.
“Where are you?”
He can tell Justin’s looking around, worried that Brian’s standing across the street.
“At the apartment,” he warily replies.
“Will you be there three hours from now?”
Justin pauses, mulling over his options. Brian sighs.
“Let me rephrase: you’ll be there three hours from now.”
He hangs up before Justin can tell him no, and spends the next two hours convincing himself that telling Justin “it’s your call” will not be anything more than a blip on his emotional radar.
He calls Michael to tell him not to panic, which Michael assures him he was not going to do even as Hunter violently disagrees on the other handset. Cynthia calls shortly after to tell him how the presentation went, and Ted is hot on her heels, relaying Babylon’s projected fourth quarter earnings if it keeps turning a profit like this.
Right before he hands up, Ted asks, “Are you in the car?”
Brian rolls his eyes and somehow manages to refrain from snarking violently at him.
After about a century of driving, Brian finds himself in Manhattan, so relieved to finally be off the road that he forgets to give the finger to every driver that cuts him off, leans too close, or blares their horn up his ass. He vows to only ever fly into New York again and pays too much money to park the Corvette overnight in the Port Authority, because he just drove for fucking ever and he’s not getting behind the wheel for at least another twenty-four hours.
Brian arrives at Justin’s apartment with no idea of the time and only a burning, seething anger that that little twat could make him act this way. He lets himself up with the key Justin gave him and does the same with the apartment itself, deciding that he deserves the privilege of not knocking after the hell he endured.
“Justin!” he calls, stripping off his coat and dumping it over the tiny TV. “Justin, get your ass out here!”
The tiny cupboard of a bathroom door opens and Justin shuffles out in plaid flannel pants and a white T-shirt, his too-long hair in a ponytail and a folded piece of paper in one hand. He looks like such shit that Brian finds his anger starting to seep away against his will.
“What?” he demands, crossing his arms, the paper sticking out from under an elbow. “You drove all the way the fuck up here. What’s so important that you couldn’t wait for the weekend?”
Five hours in the car have drained all of Brian’s little vestiges of patience. “Are you fucking someone more than once?” he asks, and firmly denies sounding upset about it.
“No,” Justin says.
Brian draws a breath, frowns, and blinks. “Are you shitting me?”
“No,” Justin repeats. Brian feels like he’s in another dimension.
“Then what the fuck is going on?” he practically roars. Justin doesn’t even flinch; just sits down on the arm of the ratty couch and offers the paper he’s been casually holding the whole time. Brian takes it hesitantly, unsure what he’s going to find, and opens it.
He reads it once, twice, three times, and then looks up at Justin, who shrugs. Brian reads it a fourth time for good measure and crumples it violently in his hand. Throwing it into a corner, he stalks into the bathroom and slams open the medicine cabinet. He looks over his shoulder at Justin, who is watching him blandly, devoid of expression.
Brian pushes all the fury down, deep down, filling in the spaces his lost patience has left. He goes back to where Justin sits and stands in front of him.
“Don’t say anything, Brian,” Justin mutters, looking away. “Just don’t.”
“That doesn’t leave much room for conversation,” Brian tightly replies.
“Then I’m going to take a shower.” He slides off the couch and starts to cross the room, and Brian suddenly finds himself shouting.
“Fucking running away again? That is what you do best, isn’t it? Hiding up here because you were too afraid to tell me. You’re so full of shit. You threw a little princess fit when I didn’t tell you about the cancer, and now you go and do the exact same thing.”
If one thing hasn’t changed after all these years, it’s Brian’s ability to tell the honest truth as brutally as possible.
He figures the hurt on Justin’s face is better than the nothingness of before.
“It’s not the same,” Justin says after a while. “It’s not the same, not at all. We were living together. You flat-out lied. And it’s not cancer.”
“If I wanted statistics, I’d talk to Theodore, so don’t bother,” Brian snaps. “And, according to the gospel of St. Justin, lying has always been on par with total and complete avoidance.”
“I’d understand,” he begins slowly, but Brian cuts him off.
“Don’t even,” he warns, and doesn’t go any further.
Justin sighs, picks his careful way across the cluttered room, and fits himself neatly against Brian, wrapping his arms around the tense muscles of Brian’s back and breathing in deeply. Brian holds him long enough to make up for the time they’ve been apart and leans down to kiss him. He moves to Justin’s neck after a minute, sucking hard on the fragile skin there, and then pushes up the white shirt to work down Justin’s chest.
Justin doesn’t start to protest until Brian pushes him down on his back on the grubby carpet, easing the soft pajama pants and briefs down to his ankles at the same time.
“Brian,” Justin whispers, his hands trying to settle on a place to shove him away. “Stop. Stop. I don’t – I don’t want you to –“
Brian undoes his belt and pulls a condom from his pocket. He presses it flat against Justin’s sternum and leans their foreheads together. Justin wraps his arms around Brian’s neck to keep him where he his, chin tipping up and lips grazing Brian’s five o’clock shadow. He closes his eyes as Brian peels back the foil, scraping it purposefully across Justin’s skin, leaving quickly-vanishing scrapes in its wake. He slides his pants down and Justin’s legs onto his shoulders.
Justin’s gasp at Brian’s first thrust sounds more like a badly suppressed sob, which Brian ignores. Melodrama is something he does not indulge, and no matter how bad you feel, he believes that a good fuck can make it better. That is his philosophy in a situation he knows nothing about, like this one.
His hand reaches up to tug Justin’s out of its death grip on his neck and tangles them together on the carpet instead.
He goes as slow as he thinks is necessary, knowing that neither of them will benefit any from something fast and rough. Justin eventually succeeds in forcing down his emotions and instead kisses Brian, kisses his hair and his eyes, kisses the fingers Brian slips onto his cheek and the soft skin of his shoulder. Whatever he can reach is good enough for him.
They come seconds apart, and Brian can feel Justin’s fear, worried for the chance they’re taking and the risks he is opening to Brian like a blossoming flower. He pulls out as carefully as he can, keeping a tight hold on the condom as he does so and making sure Justin knows it. He ties it and tosses it aside. Justin grabs a sock from a hideous plaid armchair to clean off with.
Brian takes a cigarette and a lighter from a sixties-style end table. “I want you to come home,” he says, lighting up.
Justin tugs his briefs on and balls up the dirty sock under the couch, quarantining his fears. “I’m not a success yet,” he replies in an imitation of Lindsay’s voice.
“You can paint from Pittsburgh and have an agent that represents you in New York. You don’t have to live here.” He’s had this speech planned for a while; he just never figured he’d be using it in this context.
Sitting across the room from him with his back against the couch and his legs lazily spread apart like a slutty teenage girl, Justin remains impassive. Brian takes a short drag on the cigarette. “Come closer,” he coaxes in a voice he hasn’t used since Justin had nightmares.
Justin raises his eyes, sighs, and crawls on his hands and to where Brian reclines against the squat, chipped sideboard the television is set on. Brian hands him the cigarette and casually rests an arm around his shoulders.
“You’re just worried a cold will send me into a coma and that I’ll forget to pick up my prescription.” Justin says this with a scowl, but doesn’t meet Brian’s eyes, the way a child does.
“Partially,” Brian admits. Justin glowers at him and is ignored. He finishes the cigarette and puts it out in the cracked ashtray by Brian’s ear.
“Well. At least you admit you care instead of denying it as usual.” He kicks at his pants, lying in a heap at their feet.
“It’s also so that you can’t play your merry little game of phone tag anymore. If I want to talk to you – or better yet, fuck you – I know exactly where to look.”
Neither of them says anything for a while. Brian shifts his arm slightly on Justin’s shoulder and lights another cigarette. Justin twines his fingers in a braided rug Daphne sent from Spain when she studied abroad during her last year of college.
“I want to drive back with you,” Justin announces suddenly. “I want to sleep in the loft tonight. I want to take a trip to the big fucking house you bought me. I want – I want…”
Brian kisses him hard on the mouth to stem the flow of regrets and last wishes pouring out of him as if his casket had been picked out and was waiting somewhere in storage for him, open, ready. Justin pulls away from Brian’s mouth and leans fully on the strong arm around him. His body shakes and he wills it to stop even though he knows it won’t.
Brian presses his lips into Justin’s hair and closes his eyes, the quaking of Justin’s lithe frame (so easily it could be smaller, frailer, and he drags his thoughts away from that, forcibly drags them) rocking his own.
The scenario may change, but he remains the same. Brian’s always given him whatever he wanted, and he’s not about to stop now.
“There is one clause, though,” he says seriously, and Justin shakes his head, unwilling to even listen to what Brian has to say. He’s sure that it’s going to be a break-up, a get-out, a pack-up-your-shit-and-leave-my-life.
Like Brian’s been conditioned for betrayal, Justin’s been conditioned for abuse – and not the physical kind.
“What?” Justin asks, the word distorted and ugly, having come out of his thick throat.
Brian smiles, because he’s got it, because he knows how to fix it. Because somehow, someway, figuring that out means the rest of it will be alright.
He says, “You’re driving.”
There is a moment of silence, and then Justin snorts a kind of half-assed giggle.
It works.