“David,” Michael sighed.  “I almost got on the plane, last night, really, but Brian-”

“Michael,” David sighed, annoyed.

“He went to Justin’s prom, and Justin, he got attacked.  He got bashed in the head with a baseball bat.”

David was silent.  Justin was only a few years older than Hank.

“Is he okay?”

“They uhh… they don’t know.”  He took a deep breath, “I’ll be in Oregon in a few days, but Brian… he needs me right now.”

“I understand.  I love you Michael.”

Michael hung up the phone and returned to his friend, still dressed in a bloodied suit.

“I swear, Daph, I’ll be at school in the morning,” he hissed, climbing out of the car.

“Yeah right,” she replied, rolling down his window as he closed the passenger side door, “What if something happens?  What if some guy drugs you?  Or takes you home and tries to fulfill some weird sexual fantasy with you?”

Justin rolled his eyes.  “You sound like a public service announcement.”

She stared at him for a moment.  “Fine, I’ll cover for you, but just this once.”

As she pulled away from the curb he headed further down Liberty Avenue and toward his fate.

Brian had a nasty hangover and yet he found himself sitting at the Diner listening to Ted and Emmett argue over the muscles of mayhem contest at Babylon.  Emmett’s voice was getting shriller by the minute.

“Will you trashy queens just shut the fuck up,” he finally snapped.

“If I’m a trashy queen then that must make you the gay pimp,” Emmett replied, not missing a beat.

“Lookin’ cute, feelin’ cute,” Justin chanted as he dropped into the seat next to Brian.

“Did you just call me cute?” Brian asked, more confused than ever.

The other three dissolved into laughter.

“Fuck Brian!” Justin gasped, “Harder!”

Brian bucked up off the Barcelona chair, pushing himself deeper.  He couldn’t remember how he’d let Justin convince him that ice cream and chair sex were a good idea.

He gripped Justin’s hips as he gasped, “That’s… it… almost…-”

Crack.

As Brian came the main beam that supported the chair snapped.  The pieces and both men fell to the hardwood floor.

The combination of the floor and the fact that Justin was on top of him knocked the breath out of Brian.

“Brian, are you okay?”

“Next time we’re switching to low fat ice cream.”

It took almost six years from the day Justin left for New York before they were finally together again in the way people were expecting, standing in the front of a room decked out in Armani suits, exchanging rings and vows.  A real, legal wedding.

Justin remembered the day he went to Mel and Linds’ wedding, and all their friends had been there to support him.  That show of love had changed his perceptions of friendship, family and love.

That was why when he leaned in to kiss Brian he felt more loved than he ever had in his life.

At first they were an introduction into a new world, Michael’s world, and they were just part of it.  They were a source of information and intimidation.

He didn’t even realize when they became his friends, the people he turned to.  But one morning there it was.  He was alone in the diner eating breakfast at the counter when Ted and Emmett came in, sat on either side of him and started up a conversation about the previous weekend at Babylon.  

Two hours later, when Michael stopped by to grab lunch the three of them were still sitting there together.

Weekends were never much good for work.  Most of the johns were sitting at home with their wives and kids, pretending to be something they weren’t.  He’d only get picked up once or twice and end up sleeping in an alley in that really skeevy part of town.

Weekends came too often.  Business was far too slow. 

One weekend he’d though he’d gotten lucky when he got picked up by that young guy in the nice car, the one who’d picked him over the other guys.  He thought they’d be jealous.

He’d come back bleeding and ached for a week.

One weekend a month Brian goes to New York to see Justin, and that same weekend Gus flies to New York to see his dad.  Correction, dads.  He insists on that now, marriage or no. 

He’s getting older now, and they both know soon he’s going to have girlfriends, parties, other plans.  They hold onto it while they can, spending every minute possible with him.  Justin puts painting on hold and Brian turns off his cell phone and censors himself, sometimes.  It is real quality time.

Lindsey wonders how they ever find time to fit fucking into their tight schedules.

Michael sat in one of the uncomfortable hospital chairs, elbows on his kneed, his head supported only by his hands as he waited.

He’d been here before.  The same gnawing feeling in his stomach.  The same feeling of dread clouding his judgement.

Taking a deep breath he glared across the hall at the window to the room where he had spent the past few days.  The beeping monitors and steady rise and fall of a chest were getting to be too much.  It was excruciating.

“Michael, are you okay?”

“Is he okay?” He asked, looking up concerned.  “Is something wrong?”

“So, do you really think we can pull this off at Babylon?” Michael asked.

“Yeah,” Justin assured him, “Ted’s been in charge of most of the general operations for a few years now, ever since the New York office opened.”

Michael grinned, “He’s going to kill you.”

“Me?  It was your idea.”

“Yes, but I have the good sense to live in a different part of town.”

Justin snorted.  He wouldn’t trade living with Brian again for anything.

“You have to admit it’s going to be a great party.”

Michael nodded, “I can’t even imagine it; Brian Kinney turning forty.”

“Nothing,” Brian insisted as he shrugged on his coat, “I mean it Justin.  I don’t want a single piece of red or green in this loft when I get home.”

“What about silver?” Justin asked from the bed.

Brian turned in the bedroom doorway.  “Nothing.  I don’t do Christmas.  If you want to decorate so badly go over to Debbie’s.  Help her put up lights.”

When the loft door slammed shut Justin smirked, rolling onto his stomach and pulling the hidden box of Christmas lights out from under the bed.  It wasn’t anything he couldn't fix later with a blowjob.

“Dude, what are you doing?” Hunter asked, hanging up his coat.

“It’s Christmas,” Ben explained, “Michael will like it.”

Hunter rolled his eyes and continued upstairs.

Michel let himself in an hour later, exhausted from the last minute shoppers begging him for one rare comic or another.

He stopped short in the doorway then stepped slowly into the living room.  There was a fire glowing in the fireplace, white lights on the tree, and simple, white candles lit around the room.

Ben appeared behind him. “I figured we needed something special to celebrate our first Christmas in the new house.”

He and Michael have been walking up and down this street for years, but they haven’t gotten up the balls to go in anywhere yet.  He’s there tonight, but Michael isn’t.  He’s standing across from Babylon alone.

“My father is an abusive drunk,” he’d snapped at Michael before storming out the front door, finally having admitted it aloud.

Tonight was different.  Tonight things changed.

Tonight when the old man had come after him he’d swung back, knocking Jack down on his ass, staring back up at him in something like shock.

He set his jaw and walked across the street.

His sister screams about her loathing for her for-shit college.  You don’t do the work; you don’t get the rewards.  It’s spooky how that works in the real world isn’t it?

His mother just stands there, the flawless model of Catholic martyrdom, ignoring her mindless wails.  She’s watching the old man as he leaves, hurrying out to his other woman, his booze.

“It’s windy out, wear a coat,” she nags, voice pinched.

After he leaves she begins pouring the alcohol.

Brian turns back to his homework at the kitchen table, waiting for midnight and another day closer to leaving forever.

Justin awoke to the scream of the wind through unsealed apartment windows and rolled onto his back.  There was something spooky about this place.  Maybe it was that it was barely midnight and he was asleep.  Maybe it was that the apartment was deathly silent.

He closed his eyes, thinking back a few months.  Plush pillows and the warm duvet cover, and the sound of leaves scraping across the roof in Pittsburgh’s windy fall. And Brian’s slightly labored breathing because of a deviated septum.

His eyes snapped open.

Carefully he scooted closer to Ethan trying to push those thoughts aside.

Brian stared up from the street.  There was something colorful in his loft windows.

The first clue to the inhabitants in his loft became apparent as he stepped off the elevator.  There, in the hallway, was a pumpkin.

Hadn’t they had this discussion this morning?

He opened the door, “Sunshine, you had better…”

His iron, the iron that was used to touching only his finely tailored shirts was pressing leaves and crayon shavings between sheets of wax paper.

“Halloween Daddy!” Gus shouted, grinning so widely.

“Happy Halloween, Sonny Boy,” he replied, trying to ignore the sly grin crossing Justin’s face.

“Holy shit.”

“What is it baby?” Emmett stepped over to look over his shoulder.

“It’s Roger,” Ted stated, pointing to the computer.

Emmett stared at the advertisement on the screen.  It had to be at least ten years old, but damn. 

“Roger?  Like, overweight, chorus director Roger?”

Ted nodded, speechless.

Emmett looked again.  The advertisement was for a band, the Well Hungarians.  Horrible pun, he told himself, but the singer was gorgeous.  Bleach-blond curls, sparkling blue eyes, and that body, obviously displayed without a shirt on the poster.

“Well, at least he really was well hung.” Emmett observed.

Ted glared.

Title: The Loft
Author: Exmptfromsanity
Timeline: Pre-series
Warnings: none
Condom: Hunter 

Title: Oh Canada
Author: Exmptfromsanity
Timeline: Post 513
Warnings: Gus makes me sad
Condom: Hunter 

Title: Moving Back Home
Author: Exmptfromsanity
Timeline: 511
Warnings: Hunter's a smartass
Condom: Hunter