Title: Life and How to Live It Timeframe: post-513 Genre: Christmas, Romance, some Schmoop, a bit Angst Rating: R Summary:It’s all Lindsay and Melanie’s fault. It was their whole stupid Chrismukkah bullshit that lead him into this situation.
Notes: This turned out nothing like what I first had in mind, but um, I hope it still counts as Christmas fic anyway. | Thanks to kat_us for reading this through! | Title stolen from the R.E.M. song. | Happy holidays, everyone!
Life and How to Live It by sakesushimaki
You don’t give people ultimatums, especially not your significant other. Every one-dollar how-to guide knows that.
He rubs his eyes, feeling like he hasn’t slept in days. He got up only two hours ago.
It’s all Lindsay and Melanie’s fault. It was their whole stupid eggnog-gingerbread Chrismukkah bullshit that lead him into this situation.
+++
“I want you to— I expect you to come.” Lindsay’s voice has that faint shrill to it. “It’s our first Christmas back and we want you all together in our new place for the holiday.”
He has the phone pressed between his ear and shoulder while looking through the fridge. Those kiwis look a bit too furry. “I don’t even get what the big deal is. You’re not religious and your wife is always propagating Jewish traditions anyway.”
“Well, I’ve always liked Christmas. And this year, in order to accommodate everyone’s beliefs, we’re going to celebrate in mixed tradition. We’ll have Chrismukkah.”
He throws the kiwis into the trash. “Are you shitting me with this?”
“Brian,” she whines.
“What?”
“Don’t you want to see your son?”
Playing the Gus card — classic. “Of course I do. And I can see him every day before Christmas and every day after.”
“But Justin said he’d come!”
The Justin card — it is never far behind. “Justin,” he sneers – he has a bone to pick with that twat – “Will arrive only half a day before your little syncretistic soirée is going down, so by that time, he will be tied to my bed and won’t be the one making the decisions about coming.”
Even Brian himself knows that he’ll end up going to the ridiculous feast instead of getting out the ties.
+
Okay, so maybe it isn’t so bad, sitting here, drinking eggnog, making fun of Ted’s festive sweater, and watching his kid play with the five million toys he got. Deb’s attempts to stuff everyone with food — most of which is courtesy of her, despite Mel and Lindsay’s protest — until they can’t breathe aren’t that bad, and the wine is, surprisingly, halfway tasty. It feels okay that Justin’s arm repeatedly wraps around Brian’s waist and maybe it doesn’t annoy him entirely that Justin tastes of gingerbread and sugar mayhem.
Justin is telling another one of his New York tales, with everybody hanging on his words while trying to recuperate from yet another dish the Lesbian Chrismukkah Initiative came up with. Brian knows he’s got to be the only one not really listening.
It’s ridiculous. In twenty-four hours Justin will be gone again. One and a half days? That’s just stupid. That’s just… not okay.
It’s well after seven when they eat the hundredth carb-laden course. Brian’s given up on his making-up-for-this gym calculations not even halfway through the evening, declaring them futile.
Justin, all carbed up and holiday-mellow, continues to press little kisses to Brian’s neck and try as he might, Brian can’t bring himself to be completely annoyed by that.
They haven’t seen each other in almost two months and Brian feels the anticipation over taking Justin home tonight spread comfortably warm in his body.
And if he eats one more cookie, lets Gus sit on his lap for a little longer, and tells Justin he’s glad he made it home, he won’t die from it. Probably.
+
Later, in bed, Brian wants to tell Justin just how stupid it is to take the trip for one and a half days, but he’s kind of preoccupied with Justin’s lips then. They still taste of warmth, of sugar and spice.
He ignores Justin’s moaned demands for more and continues to slide their bodies and cocks together, biting and kissing his lips. Brian moves down a bit to drag his mouth over Justin’s neck, his palms covering Justin’s and pressing him into the bedding. His dick slips down as well and nudges behind Justin’s balls, causing a hitch in Justin’s groan. Brian nudges again and swallows the hitched groan off of Justin’s mouth this time. One more nudge, and Justin comes, releasing hot wetness against Brian’s stomach and moist breath into his mouth.
Brian licks Justin clean, provoking a twitch here and there. He knows it’s too soon, but he can’t wait a minute longer now. He mouths Justin’s empty balls, ordering them to fill again, and moves two slick fingers into Justin’s body. Justin cries out, nerves still a bit too sensitive but want still too prominent to stop him.
Brian loves him that way.
+
Brian wakes up during the night with his arm wrapped around a pillow.
Now that just about does it. He pushes the pillow away, disgusted, kicks the blanket off his body and jumps up from the bed at — as the alarm clock says — 3:27 am.
The fucking thermostat must be on the fritz again because it’s freezing. He curses as his feet make contact with the cold hardwood and hobbles down into the living room.
Sure enough, there he is, sitting on the rug that Brian hates but Justin loves, sketching. At 3:27 am.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Brian barks.
Justin loses his grip on the charcoal. “Shit, you startled me.”
Brian feels oddly satisfied at hearing that. “Why are you not in bed?”
“I woke up an hour ago with this scene in my head and just had to get up and draw it. Here.” He hands over his sketchpad.
Brian looks at the figures crowded around the table, recreating the exact setting they were in a couple of hours ago. Brian and Justin are the frontmost figures, portrayed from the back. The hand resting on Justin’s back is Brian’s and Brian tries to remember if that’s really how it was. He thinks it might be.
It angers him. “Why are you drawing little idyllic pictures when you don’t even want to be here?”
Justin blinks, then narrows his eyes at Brian.
Brian hates when he does that, when he tries to see through him and figure out a way to play it. And holy shit, is it cold! Brian steps onto the ugly rug.
“Yeah, you might want to reconsider your sleeping-naked rule until the thermostat is fixed.”
Brian wants to wipe that smirk off Justin’s face.
“What?” Justin wonders.
“This sucks!”
“Mind being a bit more specific?”
Brian fists his own hair, frustrated.
Justin lifts an eyebrow. That’s Brian’s move. “What’s wrong? Are you pissed because you woke up?”
“I’m pissed because, maybe, when I fucking turn around in bed at night, I want to see your snoring, blanket-stealing self there! But, apparently, I can’t even have that when you’re actually here!” Brian’s not sure he’s making any sense. Except that he knows he is.
“Huh? But I was just—”
“It’s not just that, Justin!”
Brian stomps off, not feeling the cold anymore. Not feeling much at all.
+
The morning should make Brian feel remorseful, pathetic even, but surprisingly, it doesn’t.
He’s drinking his second cup of coffee while looking up into the bedroom. He can hear Justin’s soft snore filling the loft, sees his socked feet sticking out from the blanket, knows how warm and soft his skin feels in the morning, how fucking good his neck smells.
God, some mornings he could barely contain himself. Some mornings he would roll over, feel Justin’s skin under his palms and go crazy with need for him. Those were the mornings Justin would wake up with a tongue in his ass or a mouth on his dick or a hard cock pressing insistently against him or just with Brian’s hands moving up and down his body and his face pressed into his neck.
There haven’t been too many of those mornings in the last couple of years, just because there haven’t been too many mornings together, period. Going cold turkey on morning-Justin is one of the things that have made Brian bitter.
He puts his cup in the sink and reaches for the keys.
Justin will go back to the glamorous city in only hours, Brian is well aware of that, yet he spends most of the late morning and afternoon out. He gets his car a wash and himself a blowjob and a fucking donut from a street vendor. He thinks that he hasn’t walked around the city that much since he’s had a driver’s license.
By the time he finally returns to the loft, his decision is made, his mind set.
The first thing he sees is the small carry-on by the door. Brian ignores the twitch in his chest and searches for the yellow head. He doesn’t search for long and walks over there to plop down on the other end of the sofa.
Justin looks, eyes big and questioning, but doesn’t say anything.
So Brian does. “I called you a cab. It’ll be here in five minutes.”
“You’re… not driving me?”
“No. I need to tell you something and I can’t be driving around the city with you afterwards.”
“Okay.” Justin’s voice sounds… smalll.
Brian didn’t plan how he’d start off. But why beat around the bush, right? “Be honest. Do you hate it here? Do you hate Pittsburgh? Because I can understand that, believe me.”
“What?” Those two wrinkles form on Justin’s forehead. “I love it here! Pittsburgh is my home!”
“Okay.” Brian ponders the answer. “So then, here’s the deal: You either come back here, home, to live here, within the next three months, or we’re gonna end this.”
“What?!”
“If you want New York, take it. I want you to have it, if it’s what you want.” He really means that too.
“What do you…?”
“It was important for you to be there, center of the art world and all that shit, and I’m glad you followed through. But it’s been three years now and you’ve actually made it. You’re selling your art, you’re making money, you’re accomplished. You can work anywhere, you don’t need to be there anymore. But I understand if you want to.”
“What are you saying?”
Brian stares down at the hideous rug. “I’m saying that I’m sick of this. I’m sick of not having you here.” Sick of waiting for the bi-monthly visits that last all of two days, if that.
“But… but I thought this was working for us.”
“It isn’t. Not anymore,” Brian admits.
“I… I don’t know what to say.”
“Three months. Plenty of time to figure it out.”
+++
It’s been two months now and they haven’t spoken a word.
Brian is sitting in his office, staring at the screen calendar, and ruining the third pen in a row via extensive twisting.
Yeah, ultimatums are stupid, but he had to do something. There was no other way.
He remembers how on New Year’s Eve at Babylon he’d almost cracked and called him. He’d wanted to take it all back, undo the fucking ultimatum, only a week after laying it out to him, but too drunk off his ass to care. Luckily, he’d had some problems finding the adequate keys on his phone and gave up after a couple of minutes.
In the end, he had the bartender hand over a bottle of Jim, stole one of Emmett’s fortune cookies and headed for the office upstairs, with the firm intention of passing out before midnight.
Brian woke at 5 am, the club below him already empty, with a foul taste in his mouth and a strip of paper stuck to his cheek that read, “Grant yourself a wish this year.”
Emmett never found out why Brian hated him for a whole week.
+
Two and a half months and still nothing from Justin.
Honestly, if he is choosing New York, then he should fucking say so already instead of leaving Brian hanging. Asshole. In fact, Brian’s not even sure if he wants him back after this.
He remembers the last time he felt Justin, fucked him, kissed him, the warmth of post-Chrismukkah, eggnog and gingerbread surrounding them.
The weed smells kind of stale now, in comparison, and Brian decides to switch to tobacco. The rug isn’t that uncomfortable, after all.
He’s halfway through his third cigarette when the doorbell buzzes and Brian wonders why he even gets up. Everyone he’d consider seeing right now has a key.
“What?” he says into the intercom.
“Yeah, I have a delivery here for a Mister, uh, B. Kinney?”
“He’s not here.”
“Um, sir, could you then maybe accept the delivery instead?”
“No, all right?”
“But there’s kind of a lot of boxes—”
Brian rolls his eyes, annoyed, and walks away. Back to the living room, back to his lovely rug. Except… He almost trips over his own feet hurrying back to the intercom. “What did you say?”
“There’s… a lot of boxes? And we—”
“Who’s the sender?”
“Some, uh, some New York address. Wait, I have it on my clipboard.”
But Brian’s already heard enough. “Top floor, take the elevator.”
+
He’s been staring at the thirteen boxes in various sizes for three days — still without a word from Mr. Twat, New York, New York, of course — when his phone rings.
He looks at the display and bites his lip. “Well?” he answers.
“Come downstairs and help me with the rest of my stuff.”
The van-like rental is ugly and doesn’t fit Justin at all, but Brian pets its hood nevertheless in a silent thank you.
Justin grins and Brian tries to mobilize some of the anger and frustration he’s felt for this guy in the past ten weeks. But instead, he knows that he sounds defeated, exhausted, and god knows what, when he says, “Two and a half months, Justin? Really?”
Justin rolls his eyes. “There’s something called lease commitment, you know? I already had to blackmail my landlord so he’d let me out earlier than agreed in the contract, so don’t you dare complain now.”
“Oh yeah? What’d you do?”
Justin walks around the car to open the trunk. “I might have mentioned his creative tax write-off policy and my good friend, Damien, from the IRS.”
“Your good friend, Damien?”
“Yeah. Damien Hirst, of the IRS.”
Brian has to laugh and feels months’ worth of tension flow from his body. “Are you serious?”
“Shut up, it was the first name that came to me.”
“Oh, how very cunning of you, Sunshine.” Brian walks towards the trunk too. “But to be honest, I’m not sure I’m comfortable living with someone as wily as that.”
“Imagine. And here I thought your drawers would be happy to see my drawers.”
Brian grabs Justin and presses him against the car. “They are.”
The air is freezing and Brian’s only in a t-shirt, but he doesn’t feel the cold. When he opens his lips against Justin’s and slides his fingers into soft hair, all he feels is warmth. Warmth like eggnog, and gingerbread, and warmth like morning-Justin.
Chrismukkah might only happen once a year, but he thinks he’s going to have morning-Justin every day now.