Title: Glass Author: xie_xie_xie Beta: testdog65 Gift for: mandysbitch Timeline: Season 2, Christmas Day Rating: R Warning: It’s Season 2, what is there to say? It hurts. Author’s Notes: This was a very difficult request for me, and I hope I captured some of the feeling intended by the recipient. I did my very best. This follows my story "Frost" in time, but can stand alone as well.
Glass By Xie
Justin was leaning on the kitchen counter, talking quietly with Vic. I let my head fall back against the sofa, and closed my eyes.
Every smell, every taste, and tragically, every piece of hideous furniture were the same as the first time I’d walked in the door. And tonight’s Christmas dinner was the same as the first, too; turkey, sausage stuffing, and pie with whipped topping in a can. I wondered how Vic put up with it, and decided that the combination of Debbie and tradition probably overwhelmed even him.
“You look like hell.” It was Michael’s voice, hiding a question under a smirk.
I opened my eyes. “Thanks. And you have a happy holiday, too. Right after you fuck off.”
Michael just looked at me, and shook his head. “What’s wrong with you?”
I shrugged. “Besides your mother’s cooking?”
“Which you had three helpings of,” he pointed out.
I bit back a smile and just grunted. “I’m going outside.”
I passed Justin in the kitchen on my way to the back door, and I thought he might follow me out. He usually did. Fuck, he always did.
I was sitting on the porch smoking, staring at the brown dirt and grass showing through the half-melted snow, when I heard the door open. But it wasn’t Justin.
“Guess again.” Debbie plunked her butt down on the step next to me.
I blew smoke out my nose and tossed my cigarette into the black-edged ice at my feet, but I didn’t answer. My dinner was stuck in my throat.
She didn’t say anything right away, but I knew it was coming. Debbie Novotny’s counseling service knew no holidays. I was mentally counting down from ten, but she didn’t last that long.
“You know, Brian…”
“If I know, why are you telling me?” It wouldn’t work. It never did.
She ignored me. “If you’re not careful, you’re actually going to turn into the asshole you pretended to be when you were fourteen.” And she got up and went back inside.
If Justin had been the one to come out after me, he’d have sat next to me, and after a little while I’d have put my arm around him. He wouldn’t have given me advice or told me how to handle him. He’d have just sat there and soaked up whatever it was he got when he was around me.
I went back inside, and I didn’t see him. I went around the edge of the room and slipped up the stairs, and found him sitting on the edge of Michael’s bed. Justin’s old bed. I stood in the doorway, looking at him. “What are you doing up here?’
He smiled at me, but it wasn’t real. “Nothing. Just… sitting here.”
I nodded. “Come back down.”
He sighed, but he came with me. Halfway down the stairs, I heard Debbie laughing, and the sound of a dish breaking, followed by a chorus of “Fuck!” and “Ma!” and then more laughter.
It was like that the first time I came to dinner here. I could never get used to it, because when dishes broke at my house, no one was ever laughing.
Justin was behind me on the stairs, and I felt his hand on my shoulder. I turned and put my arms around him. I expected him to be stiff and resistant, but suddenly Justin was there, warm in my arms, and I let my forehead rest against his. I wasn’t going to think about the fucking ghosts of Christmas past anymore. I wasn’t going to think about Justin’s Christmas Eve in his mother’s condo, where he didn’t grow up and had barely ever lived. This had been more his home than Jennifer’s place ever was, but he didn’t live here anymore, either.
I’d thought we might go to Babylon after dinner, somewhere dark and pulsating to take the taste of family out of my mouth. But I drove home instead, and all the way up in the elevator I played with Justin’s hair and touched his face.
He didn’t say anything, but his eyes were glowing. I brushed my lips across his before I opened the loft door, and the last chill between us disappeared. When we got inside, I kissed him again. His mouth was warm, and I let that be enough, be everything, one more time.
I walked him backwards to the bedroom, up the stairs, and undressed him. He sat on the bed and smiled up at me, the first real smile I’d seen him give since he’d gotten home from his mom’s. I kissed it away, pushed him back, my hand on his shoulder until he rolled over and buried his face in his arms.
I kissed his back, all the way down. He murmured and spread his legs, and when I tongued his ass, he opened up for me. I buried myself in him, first my tongue, then my fingers, then my cock. I sank into him, his ass opening and closing around me, heat and pressure everywhere.
I pushed in hard, and he opened himself up more, arching his back and trying to get up on his knees under me. I didn’t let him, just kept him pressed into the bed while I went into him over and over.
When I came, I wanted to call it back, stop the flood of me into him. But he just said my name and then swallowed whatever else he was going to say. I bent low over him while the last of my orgasm shuddered out, and held my mouth at his ear while he moaned and jerked underneath me.
I didn’t say his name. I just kissed his face, and then pulled out of him gently.
I lay next to him until he fell asleep, and then slipped out from under the covers. Outside the window, the whole city was covered in snow, and more was falling. Debbie was probably still washing dishes, Vic at the table supposedly helping, both of them laughing, just like all the years Michael and I had heard them from the other room. I laid my palm against the glass, and felt the frost turn to water under my hand.