mander3_swish (mander3_swish) wrote in qaf_giftxchnge, @ 2013-12-30 10:41:00 |
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Entry tags: | 2013 gift exchange |
Gift # 4
TO: delvalmom
FROM: fansee
TITLE: Mad Communication Skills...Or Not.
GIFT REQUEST: "Angst lite Brian/Justin fic with a good dose of feel good by the end.... Something that looks at the first six months or year after Justin leaves for NYC." I love a fairly specific request like this, and I stuck pretty close to delvalmom's parameters. The events take place a little later than she suggested, and I'm sorry, but that's just when everything happened.
NOTE:No animals were harmed in the writing of this fic.
“So there I was,” Justin said, “giving Daphne the Grand Tour of Brian’s loft. I say, ‘I want to show you the picture of the naked man.’ Right then, like we planned it, Brian slides back one of the screens to the bedroom, and Daphne gets a full frontal of a living naked man, and he’s sporting a little morning wood.”
Eric hooted with laughter. “Omigod! What the fuck did she do?”
“She was pretty cool for a 17-year-old getting by her first look at a mature guy with a hard on. She looked away pretty quickly, but I caught her sneaking little glimpses.”
“Jesus, Justin, giving tours? I don’t know how the hell Brian put up with you. He was how old? And you were what? 17?”
“Brian turned 30 that same year and, yes, I was 17. I dunno…if you asked him, he’d have said I was a hot fuck, but…you know…he was pretty patient. I definitely interfered with his life style.”
“I’m sure you did.” Eric grinned at his roommate. “For damn sure you did. But you know what I wonder about…?”
“You’re going to tell me, right?”
“We’ve been roomies for 18 months now…”
“You, me, your sister Lisa and her girl friend, Nicole….”
“And you must have told me a hundred stories about Brian, but you never told me why you guys broke up.”
“It’s complicated.” Justin paused. “We didn’t exactly break up….”
“But you aren’t together.”
“What happened was, I got here and I moved in with Daphne’s friend, LaToyah. Right away I started looking around for work space. Of course, while I’m doing this I’m e-mailing Brian with my address and I’m telling him about my hunt for work space and the galleries I’ve gone to: all that sort of shit. He writes back, wanting to know what clubs I’ve been to and whether the guys are hot and if I’ve fucked anybody. I haven’t because I don’t want to spend a penny I don’t have until I find work space and figure out what I’m doing….”
“And you hadn’t started waitering at Vincenzo’s yet.”
“No Vincenzo’s, no money coming in, but meanwhile I’m paying rent to LaToyah and eating a lot of pizza. I’ve been here maybe six weeks and I get this e-mail from Brian. He says he’s paid for a semester for me at the School of Visual Arts. My first reaction is NO! but he goes on to say that he doesn’t care whether I get a degree or not…although he thinks that’s a good idea…but that the Continuing Education program looks good to him. To be truthful, it looked good to me, too, and after I started classes there, I got some good leads on studio space. That’s how I ended up in the Mackie Building along with all the other starving artists. Everything came together all at once…my work space, a stint as a barista at O’Doyles, then meeting your sister and Nicole at The Bike Stop…."
“Only you, Justin, could go out to a gay bar and come home with two lesbians.”
“I know, right? And end up sharing this place with Lisa, Nicole, and Lisa’s straight brother.”
“Your chance to see how the straight half lives.”
“Not to mention more than I ever wanted to know about the life of lesbians.”
“Tell me about it.” Eric gave a snort. “Meanwhile, you and Brian…?”
“Me and Brian: nothing. I kept on e-mailing and IMing him, but his answers got shorter and farther apart. Then I went home for Thanksgiving, called him at Kinnetik, and Cynthia told me he’d gone to Mexico with some guy named Stuart. I knew then, and I was right: we were done. He was avoiding me.”
“Bummer.”
“Yeah. I’ve only heard from him once, maybe twice, since I moved in with you guys eighteen months ago, and I haven’t seen him at all in the two years since I left the Pitts.”
Well, that was a lie. I did see him once.