Here is the final, third chapter of Plans. I am already writing the sequel. As long as the world's best beta, ![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
gmta_nz, doesn't abandon me, more will come.
gmta_nz, doesn't abandon me, more will come.Parts One and Two are here and here; the interlude that came between two and three is here.
Justin’s POV
Christmas Eve
Michael and Ben had left, and Melanie and Lindsay were in the kitchen making dinner for the kids. Brian was half asleep and half passed out on the couch after his and Michael’s marathon revisiting of their stoner youth. I stood looking at him for a minute, and then reached down, grabbed his hand, and said, “Let’s go upstairs. You don’t want Gus to see you like this.”
He opened one eye and tried to glare at me, but the effect was somewhat ruined by the fact that his face was all smooshed into the couch.
“What time is it?”
“It’s time for you to go upstairs.”
He let me haul him off the couch and up to the bedroom. I contemplated making him take a shower, but he made a beeline for the bed and I let him crawl in. I crawled in after him and undressed him, while he lay back on the pillows with his eyes closed and his mouth open. He cooperated – I’m fairly sure Brian would have to be completely unconscious to not cooperate when I was trying to take his clothes off – but that was it.
I decided sleep sounded good, and stripped off my clothes, too. I threw his and mine onto the chair, and climbed onto the bed and pulled the duvet up over us both. He seemed to be really asleep now, so I snuggled up next to him and put my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes.
I woke up some time later. I didn’t have a watch and the clock was on the other side of the bed, but the house sounded quiet. It could have been an hour later, and it could have been the middle of the night. Brian was asleep next to me, still on his back, lips still slightly open.
I started nibbling and putting little kisses on the side of his face, and he responded by moving a little and rolling slightly towards me. I kept kissing him and touching him with my tongue. I thought I felt his lips twitch and decided he was faking being asleep. I put my finger in my mouth and wet it, and slipped it down between his legs and worked it between his cheeks and touched it to his asshole. He groaned and said, “If you think I’m too hung over to notice, I’m not.”
“I’m horny. You need to fix that.” I started circling my finger around his asshole and when I felt it soften for a second, I slipped my finger in a tiny bit. It didn’t feel wet enough, so I leaned down and butted my head against his hip until he rolled over enough for me to get my mouth down to where my finger was. I licked at my finger, letting a generous amount of spit run down to his hole, and then bent my finger just enough to let some of it slip in, without pulling out. He groaned again, but this time in a good way. I pressed my hand on his hip and he rolled all the way over. He even spread his legs a little, and I had my mouth on his asshole before he’d stopped moving. I slipped my tongue in next to my finger and made it hard and pointed and fucked him with it, sliding my finger in and rubbing his prostate. He rocked back against my mouth and I scrambled over his legs and lay down between his thighs. He had snuck his hand down between the mattress and his cock, and I pulled it away, holding his wrist down on the bed next to him while I fucked him with my tongue and finger.
He backed up a little more, and tried to get his hand away from me. I tapped hard on his prostate and he gave a loud moan and bucked a little bit, and I bit at his asshole before putting my tongue back in. He moved his hand back up and grabbed the pillow in his fists, burying his face in it. And lifted up just a little more. He was almost, not quite but almost, on his knees now. His cock and balls were in front of my face, and I kept eating his ass and playing in it with my finger. His cock was dripping onto the dark sheets. He was rocking back and forth, no friction on his cock, the pillow still clutched in his fists, his face still buried.
I fought the impulse to just swarm up over him and fuck the shit out of him. Trying that usually got me flipped over on my back, which wasn’t a bad thing but not what I wanted that night. I worked one more finger inside him, and then gently, carefully opened him up, moving my fingers apart and together, licking and wetting him with my tongue, touching his prostate softly, rubbing it, feeling him open up and widen and then, finally, rise up all the way onto his knees. Which he never, ever did unless he wanted me to fuck him.
I lifted my head and eased my fingers out, and got up on my knees behind him. I reached up for condoms and lube from the bedside table drawer. He didn’t even turn his head, just stayed there, even when I ripped open the condom and rolled it onto my cock, even when I put my fingers back against his hole. I squirted lube down over them, lots of lube, and let it spill around and onto his asshole, then backed my fingers up and let it pool around them, and then slipped them in, making sure he was still open, making sure he was as wet as I could make him. He pressed back on my hand and groaned, and for a minute I fought the impulse to just shove my dick in him all at once. Me fucking Brian was sometimes the hardest, sweetest thing we ever did in bed.
I put my hands down on either side of him, and moved up until my cock was lying along the crack of his ass. I shifted back and used my right hand to guide it where I wanted it, right at his hole, all my weight on my left arm and my knees. Brian shifted just a little when he felt me pressing at him, widening his legs and rocking his hips, and I let my cock rest there for a second. And then I pressed it in the tiniest bit. Sometimes I had to start over with my fingers at this point, but not tonight. Tonight he opened up just as I moved in, and I went further than I thought I would, and gasped. I grabbed onto his hips with both hands to hold him still and froze there, breathing fast and trying to keep myself as calm as I could be when I was half in Brian’s ass. Which was the tightest ass I’d ever been inside.
His right hand moved back again, and this time I let him grab his cock, while I followed the next wave of softening all the way down, further in one thrust than Brian normally could handle. He jerked a little bit, and I soothed him with my hands on his sides and back, and then bent forward and dropped my forehead to his back and kissed him, and started moving in and out. I can’t even explain what it is about fucking him that makes me feel like I’m seventeen again, and totally in over my head. Maybe it was the sense that I was barely in control of the fuck, or even of my own response, and that I had to find some way to be in control every minute of it.
I was thrusting into him, not slowly but not too fast, angling myself to hit his prostate every time, trying not to let the tightness and heat push me ahead of him, my hands on his hips, Brian fucking his own hand under me. He gave a groan that almost made me come, and I bit down on my lip, and stayed with my rhythm, faster but still steady, easy, starting to feel my balls draw up, and the hot burn starting in them. Brian had brought his left arm under his forehead, and was moving his head back and forth against it. I wanted to kiss his mouth but I just kept kissing his back, then pulled back and started fucking him faster. His hand was moving on his cock, and I was starting to dissolve, and knew I was about to lose it.
Then Brian slammed back onto me and froze, a beautiful hard moan ripping out of him, and I let myself go, shoving deeply in one last time and just letting the orgasm pour out of me, into him, feeling hot and wet all around me while his ass wall clamped down on me over and over as he came.
He lay under me panting, and I lay on his back for a minute, trying to get my control back from wherever it had gone. I waited until his ass stopped clutching at me, waited until it relaxed for just a heartbeat, then waited for it again, to be sure I knew when it would happen, and then waited for one last beat of opening and softening, and pulled out. However careful I was, I knew it still hurt him, and he gave a little moan. I bent over him, kissing his shoulders and neck, and he turned his head to the side and let me kiss his mouth, softly.
I pulled off the condom and tied it and tossed it, and lay back down next to Brian, letting him turn and lie half on top of me, running my hands softly over his back and touching his hair. I felt like my heart was going to break open and pour over him. I was pretty sure he’d gone back to sleep, so I touched my lips to his hair softly and said, “Merry Christmas.”
He snuggled in a little deeper and said “Mmmm.”
“Go to sleep. Gus is going to get us up in like two hours.”
But he was already asleep.
Melanie’s POV
There seriously is not enough coffee in the world to compensate for motherhood. Sleep deprivation is my life. If it’s not Jenny needing her little baby darling princess diapers changed or her mopsie stuffed kittybearbunny picked up off the floor, it’s Gus yelling in my ear “GET UP GET UP GET UP!” because Santa came.
Because all the toys get taken back if you wait until the sun comes up to open them. Everyone knows that.
Even if Justin hadn’t already been sort of growing on me lately, the huge pot of coffee on the kitchen counter would have done it. I hoped Lindsay got him something really nice from us. I hoped he’d bought the coffee with extra caffeine. Just in case, I put double the sugar in mine. Hopefully the high would last long enough for Gus to tear into the four thousand seven hundred twelve presents Brian had put under, around, near, and within the general vicinity of the tree. This is why I keep saying: Not a total dick.
Although Brian seemed to be in dire need of the extra-caffeinated coffee too. I think Justin put six sugars in his. You know, to give him the energy required to answer burning questions such as, “Could an android be killed by a cyborg or would the android win?”
Brian answered that very seriously, that it would depend on the firearms available to the android and if the cyborg was equipped with full destructive capabilities. Gus just nodded and snapped the android’s head off and looked inside it.
I went to get more coffee.
Justin’s POV
Brian and I stayed in denial as long as we could, but finally Gus’ “Get up, get up, get up” in the hall sent me down to the kitchen to make coffee while Brian assembled, operated, programmed, or otherwise did whatever you’re supposed to do with toys that have processors bigger than the entire computer system once used to manage the space program. Lindsay and Melanie looked totally out of it, and stumbled into the kitchen to get coffee with pathetic gratitude. I brought a cup to Brian out where he was patiently showing Gus how to convert a cyborg tank into a cyborg army. Or something. Brian’s in charge of toys in this house.
We heard Jenny wake up on the baby monitor and Mel went upstairs. Lindsay and Brian were playing with Gus, and I noticed that I was hungry. I went out into the kitchen and made some eggs and more coffee and some fat-free turkey bacon, the only kind of bacon Brian allowed me to bring into the house. I fried it in butter, though.
We were all sitting around the table after eating, watching Gus zoom around with his ray gun/sword/vaulting pole thing (I am definitely supervising Brian’s Christmas shopping next year), when Lindsay asked in a tragic voice if there was more coffee. I shook my head.
“I can make more if you want.” I didn’t sound too enthusiastic.
Brian looked over at me. “You know… I’m thinking that none of us really needs more coffee. We need to go back to bed.”
“You try telling your son that.” Lindsay looked dejectedly at Gus, who was pretty much literally bouncing off the walls at this point.
Brian smirked. “Fortunately, I’m just the drop in dad. You two are the parents. Me and Justin are going back to bed. Merry Christmas.”
Mel rolled her eyes. “Did you decide if you’re going to Debbie’s or not?”
Brian shot a look at me and I shrugged. “Yeah, let’s do it. We can always leave early.”
He snorted. “Famous last words.”
When we got out into the hall, instead of heading upstairs, Brian stopped and tugged me right up against his chest and looped his arms around my shoulders. “I have to give you your Christmas present.”
“You already gave it to me this morning.” He’d gotten me a video iPod.
“Well, I kind of got you a second present.”
“You did? What is it? Where is it?”
He kissed my forehead. “Sort of outside.” He turned around, holding my hand, and pulled me out the front door. It was fucking twenty degrees out. We went around the side of the house to what other people might call “the garage” but was really the Corvette’s apartment. I assumed my present was in the trunk. I assumed wrong.
“You hate it.”
I shook my head.
“Then why are you fucking crying?”
I just sniffled on his chest while he stroked my hair. He pulled my chin up and looked into my eyes. He looked totally confused.
“We can trade it in for a car you like.”
I shook my head again. “I like it. I love it.”
“OK. Then why are you crying? You’re acting like fucking Lindsay.”
“What am I going to do with a car in New York?”
He tucked my head under his chin. It could have been an act of affection, or maybe he didn’t want me to see his face. “I thought you could keep it here, so when you’re at the house you’re not stuck here or dependent on me to get around.”
OK. This wasn’t in the plan. At least my plan. I was seriously starting to think Brian had a plan of his own.
“That’s a good idea.”
“So, we don’t have to take it back?”
I shook my head. “No, I love it, Brian. I really love it.” I really love you.
“Good. Now let’s go in, I’m fucking freezing out here.”
These are the kinds of things Brian does that confuse the hell out of me sometimes. You can practically beg for him to do something small, like take you out on your birthday or agree that yeah, you have some small degree of affection and commitment for each other, and he’s thrashing all over the place trying to get away or just looking at you like you’re insane. Like wanting to have breakfast in bed on your anniversary, if you had an anniversary, which of course you don’t, would be totally lesbianic. And then he’ll buy you a car. Or a house.
When he invited me to come home the weekend Babylon opened, it was the start of a lot of firsts: The first time we planned to be together, the first time Brian invited me to come home, the first time I came to Pittsburgh that we didn’t go to the loft, and the first time we slowly, tentatively started talking on the phone instead of just shooting empty emails across the internet and me hoping he’d be there when I made the 400-mile trip home.
And maybe the first time I realized I felt more at home in that house where I’d almost never been than anywhere else I’d ever spent a night. I don’t know why. Even though my name is on the deed next to his, Brian bought that house the same as he bought the loft and Gus’ cyborg army and his Armani suits and the plasma TV and Babylon.
But he bought the house for me.
For the visit that weekend, Brian had booked me on a plane going home early Monday morning instead of Sunday, when I normally had to leave if I was sharing a ride with someone. He brought me to the airport and we sat in the car at the curb. He wasn’t looking at me, and I suddenly felt a little uncertain, worried I’d let too much of my plan slip away from me. He’d called me the week before I was supposed to come home to tell me he’d bought me a plane ticket, so we avoided the discomfort of our first long distance call by fighting instead.
“I can get a ride with someone like I always do.”
“Yeah. Or you can fly.”
It went around like that for a while. Neither one of us is particularly good at getting the other one to change his mind. I got bored and gave in. He kept arguing for a little while before he noticed.
We didn’t have a fight the second time he called, which was kind of a shame because there’s nothing like arguing to fill up the silences. The silences were the whole reason I’d abandoned the telephone as a method of communication with Brian in the first place. Some of the most uncomfortable moments of my life have been spent trying to get Brian to answer a simple question like “So, how’s it going?” while on my cell phone in LA. But he was calling from Kinnetik to check on something about a car picking me up when I got to Pittsburgh and I was at work, so we just kind of blew through the call and “later.”
I still hadn’t made up my mind if this was a good or bad thing. It’s just my plan had been working so well, I was reluctant to deviate from it, and it seemed like the longer it went on, the more last-minute revisions I kept making. The whole weekend at the house wasn’t part of my plan, or him driving me to the airport. The whole point of having a plan is you don’t leave this kind of shit to chance.
So, we were sitting at the curb at the airport. Brian turned his head in my direction, his hands on the steering wheel. He tilted his head just a little and I felt my face just smile, totally without any decision on my part. He cleared his throat and turned his lips inward and did all the things Brian does when he’s about to make a huge emotional commitment like ask you to go have a cup of coffee at the diner with him.
“Call me when you get home.”
I looked at him across the space between us, feeling pretty much the way I did when he first brought me out to the house and told me he’d bought it for us. A mixture of “this is so wonderful it can’t be true” and “this is so horrible it can’t be true” and “this is so weird it can’t be true.” Like I said, loving Brian can be complicated.
“OK. Later.” And I got out of the car. I didn’t kiss him because I was fairly sure if I did, I’d ask if I could stay, and that wasn’t a decision I wanted him to make when he’d almost twisted the steering wheel off with anxiety just asking me to call him on the fucking phone.
I called him when I got off the plane. He actually answered. Even though he’d asked me to call, it wasn’t impossible, in fact it was likely, that he’d ignore it when I did. But he answered.
“Hey.”
“I’m here.”
OK, this was the silence thing. I mean, what did I expect him to say? “I miss you already? How was your flight? Get home safe?” Sure, that was gonna happen. Sentimentality and small talk and Brian Kinney. Not.
“I should have asked, how do you get home? Take a cab, I’ll pay for it.”
“Brian, it’s like fifty bucks.”
“I know how much a cab ride from the airport costs.” I’m sure he did.
“I’m fine, it’s broad daylight, don’t worry.”
“Later.”
“Later.”
But see, that’s how it starts. Pre-meditated visits, phone conversations, all I needed now was someone to fucking write an article about the latest show I was in. I went outside to grab a cab. It’s only money.
Melanie’s POV
It turned out Brian’s gift-giving insanity didn’t extend only to Gus. He’d bought Justin a fucking Land Rover. Which I guess he just sort of handed over to Justin in passing after they left to go upstairs for a "nap,” like it was an afterthought or a stocking stuffer or something. Must have been some nap.
Lindsay didn’t seem happy about Justin’s new car. I wasn’t sure if she thought Brian should have bought us a car instead (especially as we might have to rent a truck to bring home all the crap he’d bought Gus), or just in general disapproved of Brian spending money on Justin.
“What’s the problem, Linds? You’re acting all upset about Justin’s new car.” We were in the kitchen, sucking down more coffee at the table where this whole fucking mess started.
“I just don’t want to see Brian get hurt again.”
“Hurt again? By Justin? What are you talking about?”
She got up from the table, walked over to the counter and picked up an apple and started slicing it on the cutting board.
I tried again. “Lindsay, sweetie … you were always telling everyone that Brian really loved Justin, back when they broke up that time. What are you worried about?”
She frowned. “I do think Brian really loves Justin. That’s the problem.”
“Huh?”
“The problem isn’t Brian, it’s Justin.”
“Justin really loves Brian. Can’t you see how happy they are together? How much less of a dick Brian is?”
“Yes, and I also see that Justin is 22 years old and has his whole life ahead of him and that no one stays with the person they were in love with when they were 17 years old!”
“So, just rip the bandage off and get it over with, is that what you’re saying?”
She walked agitatedly over to the sink and dumped all the apple she’d just sliced in it. “You don’t understand.”
“I think I do, but let me ask you something. How old were you when you met Brian?”
Lindsay didn’t answer for a long time. “Eighteen.”
“And you still love him.”
“That’s different.”
“Yes, it is. Brian loves Justin back.”
Lindsay turned around and looked at me. I went ahead and looked her right in the eyes. We may as well have this discussion, it’s only been ten years and two kids.
“Mel, I am not in love with Brian.” She looked me right in the eyes, too, and her face was completely serene.
I didn’t say anything, just looked at her.
“I’m not. Yes, I love him, probably as much as I love Gus. Probably in a lot of the same ways. I don’t want to marry him or sleep with him or live happily ever after with him. I just want him in my life, to be Gus’ father and to be part of our family. And I have asked you over and over to accept him, for my sake, for Gus’ sake, and you never have. Because you’re jealous? Is that why?” While she was talking she’d walked over to me and knelt in front of me. She was holding both my hands.
I sat there for a while, thinking about the virtues of Justin’s new policy of never talking things over. I seemed to remember encouraging Lindsay to talk and open up more. I must have been drunk.
I sighed. “I don’t hate Brian, I really don’t. I actually kind of like him. In small doses. I mean, I’ve always said he’s not a total dick.”
“When did you ever say that?”
“To myself. I always told myself he’s not a total dick.”
She laughed and kissed me. I was so fucked.
Justin’s POV
We went back inside and he brought me into the living room and pulled me down into his arms on the sofa facing the fireplace. Mel and Linds were in the kitchen on the other side of the house. He wrapped his arms around me and didn’t say anything while I sniffled and cried a little more, and then finally just lay my head back against him and stared at the fire.
I was kind of drifting off when Brian said something.
"This aversion you have to talking about stuff is starting to freak me out."
This was the second time Brian had started a serious conversation with me when I was half-asleep. Timing is everything. Fuck.
"Mmmmm."
"What kind of answer is that?"
"Did you ask a question?"
He didn’t respond right away, and I was hoping he’d given up.
"Justin, what's with the silent treatment?"
"I'm not giving you the silent treatment." I pulled myself up and kissed him. I was tired but if sex would get him to shut up, I could live with that.
He took the kiss. I let my mouth open just a little, and his tongue slipped inside. I opened my mouth more, and touched his tongue with mine, making my mouth soft and open and pliant. His breath changed and he suddenly stretched me out on my back on the sofa, lying on top of me and deepening the kiss, making my mouth open as far as it could, sucking on my tongue. His left hand was in my hair, and his right hand reached down inside my sweats and grabbed my thigh, pulling it up roughly and then slipping down and cradling my balls. He held them gently, then closed his hand just a little on them, and pressed his lips to the spot where my neck curves into my shoulder, where it always makes me crazy, and said, "Talk."
Timing is everything.
I rolled away from him and crossed my arms over my face. "You really are a complete shit, Brian."
He just smirked. "Talk."
"When did you turn into a lesbian?"
"When you started acting like a twat."
If I’d known that not talking was the best way to get Brian to talk, we’d have had this conversation years ago. Unfortunately, I was no way ready to have it now.
Brian got up and shut the doors to the room before sitting down in the chair across from the sofa. Figures. He was going to have this conversation. With me or without me. I was so fucked.
“I asked you before what you wanted. You said you wanted us to be a couple."
"And you made fun of me for wanting that. You said it was bullshit."
Brian looked down and fiddled with his fingers a little. Then he got up and walked over to the fireplace. He didn't say anything. But I could tell he was listening.
Fuck it. Fuck my plan, fuck not talking. Fuck him. "Brian. You know, I've tried to tell you what I want. I've tried to not tell you, just show you. I've tried to change what I want to match what I think you want. I've tried to figure out what you want without you telling me. But once, just once, would you do me the favor of telling me what it really is that you want?"
Brian was half turned away from me, looking out the window. His shoulders looked tense. "I told you."
I was totally lost by this. "When?"
"In this house. I told you."
"To marry me? Brian."
"Jesus, Justin, you're the one going on and on about how you tried to show me what you want without telling me." He turned and faced me, running his hand through his hair and then jamming it behind his back.
I'd known before it started that half this conversation was going to be body language and reading between the lines. "OK, are you saying you've been doing that?"
Brian shrugged. But he didn’t turn away. He just stood here, looking at me, his hair all messed up and his left arm still awkwardly stuck behind his back.
"Then let me tell you what I think you want. You want me to almost never talk to you about our relationship, except for short and basically cryptic discussions when we're drunk or stoned or lying in bed after sex. You want me to put my career as an artist in front of everything else, even if I have to leave for days or weeks at a time. If and when I'm gone, you want me to somehow, without words, let you know every day that I'm thinking about you. You want me to do exactly what I want with my life, although it makes you fucking uncomfortable to think part of that involves wanting to be with you. You want to be sentimental and sweet in front of other people on major holidays, and fuck me into the mattress when we're alone. And once in a while you want to go out and get drunk and high and have meaningless hot sex with strangers and then come home and shower and sleep with me. And you want me to not expect you to say you love me unless there's a bomb involved."
I got up and walked over and stood right in front of him. I put my hands on his shoulders and tipped my head back so I could look him right in the eye. "How'd I do?"
He almost smiled. "Not bad." He put his hands on top of mine on his shoulders. I twined my fingers with his. Then he really did smile.
I licked my lips. He smirked. Asshole. "Fine, then tell me, what did I leave out, or what would you leave out?"
"We can skip the last thing. No more bombs. And not all major holidays. And you didn't mention you blowing me, which is non-negotiable."
"OK. I want some things too."
He raised his eyebrow. "This approach didn't work out so great last time."
I laughed. "No, it didn't. But I want some things anyway. I want to live here. I want to paint here. I want to stop feeling like you're going to chase me off for my own good every time I turn around. If I get into any more shows you have to be there for the openings. And I want a complete list of the major holidays you're going to be sweet and sentimental on, and the ones you aren't. I may be willing to compromise on Flag Day."
Brian was biting his lip. And then his tongue was kind of sticking out just a tiny bit. I'd never noticed him do that before. It was pretty adorable. It was Gus-like. It was very distracting.
He seemed to make up his mind about something, and brought his hands to the sides of my head. He worked his fingers into my hair and leaned down and kissed me. I licked just the tiniest bit at his lips, and he opened his mouth up and started sucking my tongue inside, and slid a hand around to the back of my neck, and the other down to my waist and pulled me into him hard. I wrapped my arms around his neck and let him pull me in. He shifted his thigh in between my legs and then broke his mouth away from mine. I was almost panting.
"Are we done?" He was smiling down into my eyes.
"Ummm... with what?"
"The conversation."
"Did we decide anything?"
"Yeah, no Flag Day."
"Right." I started kissing his throat. There was a knock on the door, and Lindsay came in. I was fucked if I was going to jump out of Brian’s arms in our own house, but I did pull away just a little.
Brian naturally responded to that by pulling me tighter and groping my ass. He leered at Lindsay and said, “Need something?”
She just laughed. “We should go; we said we’d be there by three and it’s past two-thirty.”
“OK, let me just finish what I was doing here.” And he lifted me up off the floor with his hands under my ass and opened his mouth on mine and kissed me hard. Lindsay must have left because by the time he set me back down, she was gone.
Melanie’s POV
Brian and Justin went to Debbie’s in Justin’s new car, but Linds and I took our car since it had the baby seats in it already. Besides, it would be easier for Brian to blow Justin while he drove without me and Linds and the kids watching.
Debbie’s house was like one of those places they feature on HGTV, something like “Extreme Kitsch Gone Santa.” There were reindeer on the roof, porno elves in the front yard, lights everywhere, and canned music emerging from some kind of automated stuffed animal. Emmett had definitely not been in charge of this one.
And speaking of Emmett, he came out on the porch screaming “Merry Christmas!” and pulling Jenny out of my arms. “How’s the littlest angel? What a sweet little darling girl!” Seriously, people need to think about the way they talk to kids. It’s disgusting. No wonder we end up with outfits called “romperettes” and diapers with bunnies on them.
“Jesus Christ, Emmett, don’t make me puke before I even eat.” Brian stalked past him. Like I said: Not a total dick.
The next thing I knew, Grandma Deb had Jenny and was carrying her off to be billed and cooed at and scarred for life by the whole freakish extended family. Something else I failed to take into consideration when choosing a father for Jenny.
Lindsay came back from hanging up our coats. “They stole our kids?”
“Looks that way. Michael is over there drooling on Jenny and Debbie is shoveling sugar down Gus’ throat. Ho ho ho.” Lindsay gave me a tolerant smile. She’d probably be over there drooling with Michael if I wasn’t there keeping an eye on her.
I smiled and small talked and accepted compliments on the adorableness of my child until we ate. Carl sliced the turkey, Michael fed Jenny, and I started to have a post-pig-out need for a nap. Motherhood. Chronic sleep deprivation. Naps. I went into the living room.
I woke up to the sound of Gus shrieking in laughter, signaling an impending sugar crash, and looked around for Lindsay. I didn’t see her. I did see my daughter being walked around the room on Hunter’s shoulders, with her hands grabbing at his hair while she squealed. It was going to take me weeks to deprogram this child.
I walked out to the kitchen.
“Sweetie, you’re up!” Debbie was in her element, dishing up food and surrounded by family. It was kind of heartwarming in a tacky, overblown, incredibly red and green sort of way. I took the cup of coffee she shoved in my hand and wandered over to where Emmett and Carl were flipping through an assortment of Christmas albums. Debbie still had a record player. I bet Gus wouldn’t even know what one was.
“So, where’s Teddy?”
Emmett laughed and said, “Oh, Teddy and Blake went skiing. Romantic weekend by the roaring fire, room service, maid service, I have no idea why anyone would rather do that then be here listening to Guy Lombardo’s Christmas album, but Ted’s always been basically incomprehensible to me. I mean, he’s an accountant.”
I heard a crash from upstairs, and scanned the room for Gus. No sign of him. I sighed. Then I heard Hunter’s voice saying “Oh shit” and I figured he had it under control. “Has anyone seen Lindsay?” If Gus had broken something important, she could deal with it. She could get those teary eyes much better than I could.
“I think she went outside with Justin a little while ago,” Ben offered. He was in the kitchen helping Debbie put leftovers into packages for all the starving people in, you know, this room. The ones who just ate so much we were almost catatonic? In case we needed a little snack later.
I went out the back door, and heard Lindsay’s voice. I stopped to listen.
“Justin, you don’t understand.” She sounded upset.
But Justin sounded angry. “Lindsay, you have no idea how it bothers him to have Gus so far away. Can’t you see what it’s doing to him? How happy he’s been while you’ve been here?”
“Justin, I know you want Brian to be more in Gus’ life, but what gives you the right to decide what’s fair to him and what’s not?”
It seemed like I wasn’t the only eavesdropper; Brian’s voice cut in from the other side of the house. “Worry about the rights of opressed political prisoners in third world dictatorships, not mine.” He came down the stairs from the front porch and threw down his cigarette and ground it into the dirt.
Lindsay whipped around on him. "Can everyone fucking stop telling me what to think and do?"
Justin looked away from them, and saw me standing on the steps. I shifted from one foot to the other and tried to figure out what was going on.
"I certainly can," Brian said. He wasn't exactly shaking, more like vibrating with some kind of weird energy that felt like it was going to fly out of him in jagged pieces. I would have been afraid to touch or go near him. But Justin went right up to him and wrapped his arms around him and pressed his whole body to him and said, firmly, "Take me home."
And Brian took a deep breath and looked down at Justin's face and dropped his head and touched foreheads with him, and said, "OK."
They left, and Lindsay looked like she was going to cry. I stepped down into the yard and slipped my arms around her. “What the fuck is going on, Linds?” But I was stroking her hair while I said it. And then she did start to cry.
I held onto her and murmured the sort of meaningless crap you say to people who are crying. She held onto my shoulders and buried her face in my neck and just kept sobbing. “What is it, baby? What’s wrong? You know Brian, he’s a dick. It’ll be OK.”
Lindsay shook her head. “He’s not a dick.”
Christ. You can’t win with her sometimes.
“Then why are you crying?”
She pulled her head up and looked right into my eyes. “I want to come home.”
Fuck me.
I brought Linds inside because it was just too cold to stand out there with snot dripping out of her nose. Everyone of course came running over, and swarmed around her with tissues and sympathy. Lindsay wasn’t even trying. It was that blonde weepy thing, no one can resist it. And I say that as the woman with iced snot on her shirt.
Em took her up to Debbie’s bathroom to do some kind of makeover magic on the red eyes and blotchy face. I sat back down at the kitchen table with Ben and Michael and Hunter, who had Jenny in his lap.
“What happened? Did Brian and Justin leave? Did Brian and Lindsay have a fight?” It was Michael, trying to fit the pieces together.
“Just the usual drama – I think she and Justin were arguing about something to do with Brian and he overheard it and lost his shit.”
“She and Justin were arguing?”
“That’s how it sounded to me.” When blonds collide.
When Lindsay got downstairs we stayed long enough to have pie and coffee and offer to help Debbie with the dishes (and be turned down, as always and thank god, because I wanted to get the fuck out of there). And we didn’t talk on the way home, even though Gus was crashed out in the backseat and Jenny wasn’t likely to be scarred for life from hearing Lindsay explain to me in words of one syllable just what the fuck her problem was with Justin.
After I got Jenny changed and swaddled and all pink and fluffy (Emmett’s gift to her, don’t ask) and in her crib, I went back to our room. Lindsay was sitting on the chair at the foot of the bed, her feet curled under her, wearing pajama bottoms and a t-shirt. She was crying again.
“Wanna tell me what the fuck happened?”
“Justin was saying that we really hurt Brian taking Gus away. I told him we gave Brian the choice, he could have said no, and he didn’t. And Justin said…” and here Lindsay started doing the snot thing again. I brought her a tissue and slid down into the chair behind her and made those noises again, the meaningless ones. She sniffed and sighed and ran her hand through her hair and then got up. So much for the comforting touch. Or maybe I had to work on my meaningless noises.
“What did Justin say?” I could see we were in for a long night.
“He said that Brian always does that, always gives up without a fight.”
I was beginning to understand Justin’s plan covered some areas he hadn’t discussed with me. The little fucker.
As I remembered it, Brian had tried to put up a fight, but I’m going to guess that Lindsay did the tears and tragedy talk on him and he finally gave in.
“But Justin wasn’t just talking about Gus.” Lindsay was kind of gulping and crying now. Not pretty. “He meant him, too. I know he did. And that’s what made me so angry.”
I rubbed my head. OK. I knew Lindsay thought Justin was insane for passing up the chance to go to New York. I agreed with her at the time. But I was suddenly thinking about that whole Princess Bride thing, and true love, and the not a total dick thing, and I was starting to get a bad feeling. Yeah, and the cyborg vs android thing. Fuck. Fuck Justin, fuck his plan, fuck me going along with his plan, fuck me.
“What do you want, Lindsay? You really want to come back here? To be with Brian?”
“It’s not for me to be with Brian. It’s not even for Gus to be with Brian, or Brian to be with Gus. It’s because he’s part of our family. We should be together. If bigots and homophobes can break our family up, then what did we gain by leaving?”
I really had to pay more attention to what went on in Lindsay’s head. Because there wasn’t anything to say to that. I mean, if we didn’t come back, the terrorists would win. She was the most ruthless debater I’d ever known, and I’m a lawyer.
Lindsay walked over and knelt down in front of me. “I love you, Mel. And Gus and Jenny. And I love Brian.” She smiled and slipped her hands on the sides of my face. “And not in the way you’re thinking. You’re my family. I love you. And I want to come home. Justin’s right.”
Yeah. No shit. About a lot of stuff, apparently.
Justin’s POV
The ride home wasn’t anywhere near as fun as the ride there, mostly because instead of rubbing my crotch and trying to get me to let him undo my pants while I drove, he was drumming on his own thighs with his fingers, messing up his hair with his hands, and staring out the window. I didn’t want him to smoke in my new car, but he finally drove me so crazy I told him to have a cigarette before I made him walk home.
“It doesn’t matter, Brian.”
He didn’t say anything. I really had no idea why I bothered talking to him when he was like this, it was like I wasn’t even there. So I shut up for the rest of the drive home.
The minute we got there Brian headed straight for the bar. He grabbed a bottle of Jack Daniels and shut himself in his media room. I shrugged and went upstairs. When he got like this there was nothing I could do and at least here, there was somewhere to go until he passed out or got over it.
Melanie’s POV
Lindsay put water on for tea, and I went upstairs to check on the kids. I found Gus asleep on the floor of his room with his cyborg army all spread out around him. I got him into his bed and covered him up, and then went downstairs. On the way through the hall I noticed the lights were on in Brian’s media room. I hesitated, because if he was still up, he was probably plastered out of his mind. Sometimes Brian actually is kind of a dick.
He was standing by the window, a bottle in his hand.
“Am I interrupting?”
He didn’t even turn his head. “Yes. But I’m sure that won’t stop you.”
“What exactly am I interrupting, Brian, you getting drunk and morose? A massive orgy of self-pity?” He just took another swallow and stood looking out the window. Weird how enthralled he seemed with the view, considering it was pitch dark outside.
“Anyway, all I wanted to tell you, and I’m sure you won’t give a fuck, is Lindsay wants to come home so we’re coming home. Which means Gus is coming home. Which I sort of thought you’d want to know.”
Brian turned around and looked at me. He really was drunk, but he was in that stage where he said everything very carefully. “I don’t care what you lesbianic twats decide to do. Stay, go, I don’t give a fuck.”
Whatever.
“Lindsay’s going to apologize to Justin. She says he was right. About you, about Gus, about her.”
“Yeah? Well, maybe when she’s done apologizing to Justin she can apologize to me.” OK, now he was slipping down the slope past careful to bitter, vengeful, and queeny.
“Lindsay didn’t do anything to you. What does she have to apologize for, exactly?” I was trying to be gentle. He was Gus’ father, he was drunk, and I had a point and I was trying to soften him up so he’d hear it.
Silence.
“She did something to Justin, not you. She’s apologizing to him, not you.”
Silence.
“Unless you think she needs to apologize to you for hurting you by hurting him? I mean, talk about being a lesbianic twat.”
“Fuck you.”
Asshole. He might have been too drunk to get what I was about to say, but fuck it. “You know what, Brian? Seriously, I hope Justin appreciates what you’re giving up for him.” And then I walked out of the room.
Justin’s POV
Since it was Christmas, I relented after a while and went downstairs looking for him. He was lying on the couch, a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels on the floor next to him. But he was still awake. I stood over him and he looked up at me. He didn’t look half as fucked up as I’d have predicted.
“So.” I waited, but he didn’t say anything more. He was just looking at me. It made me nervous so I knelt down and put my arm across his chest and my head on his shoulder. He sighed a little and brought his arms up and wrapped them around me.
“You want to live here?”
“Yeah.” I didn’t turn my head. I didn’t want him to see my face.
“With me?”
Idiot. “Yeah.”
“No Flag Day, I say I love you even when there’s no bombs, you blow me whenever I want, you paint no matter what, and I don’t get to decide how you live your life without at least some minor input from you.”
“No Flag Day, you say you love me without a bomb, I blow you whenever I want, I paint no matter what, and I get major input and veto power about how I live my life. And we don’t fuck anyone but each other in this house.”
“Outside the house?”
“It all depends.”
“On what?”
“How bad you want to fuck my ass without a condom.”
“You know, Justin, you are a seriously, deeply devious person.”
“You’re only just figuring this out now?”
“Actually, no. I should have figured it out about two days after I met you, but it seems to have taken me until you started that whole email thing to grasp the actual scope of your deviousness.”
“You’ve always been a little slow.”
“I’m sweet.”
“Yeah, you are. You liked the email thing?”
“It was genius.”
“And the not talking about stuff thing, did you like that?”
“At first I did, but then I started to worry that your vocal chords had been cut or something. Justin not talking. Scary. It’s like if you stopped eating, or sucking dick.” He was kind of hugging me, and he kissed my hair when he said it.
“Yeah, I always like to be doing something with my mouth.” I lifted up my head and demonstrated with a big kiss.
“OK, that’s good, but don’t totally stop talking. You know, once a year or so is fine.”
“Like how often you let me fuck you? We’ll have a conversation then too?”
“That sounds like a little too much stress for me in one day.”
I smacked him. “STRESS? The greatest sexual experience of your life and you call it STRESS?”
Brian was laughing under me and I started to kiss him again. “OK, tell me now.”
“Tell you what?”
“The thing you don’t need a bomb to tell me.”
He groaned.
“Say it now. I’m not kidding.” But I was laughing so he probably didn’t believe me.
He mumbled something.
“OK, that’s so totally not going to count. Say it so I can hear it.”
He got a frustrated look on his face and shoved his hand through his hair, leaving it standing up all weird. It made me hard just to look at it, so I kissed him again. And I breathed right against his mouth, “Say it.”
“You say it.”
“I love you. See what a tough guy I am?”
“I love you.” He looked like he was going to choke.
“Jesus Christ, Brian, does that cause you actual physical pain or just severe psychological distress?” He heaved up off the sofa and dumped me on the floor, then stuck his hand out. I took it.
“What the fuck was that for?”
“We have to go upstairs.”
“How come?”
“Because you’ve caused me severe psychological distress and actual physical pain, which makes me need to fuck you, and I don’t want the kids to see that.”
“So every time you say you love me, we have to fuck?”
“Yeah.”
That sounded like a plan.
Decisions, the sequel to Plans, begins here.
Plans, Chapter Three
by Xie
Justin’s POV
Christmas Eve
Michael and Ben had left, and Melanie and Lindsay were in the kitchen making dinner for the kids. Brian was half asleep and half passed out on the couch after his and Michael’s marathon revisiting of their stoner youth. I stood looking at him for a minute, and then reached down, grabbed his hand, and said, “Let’s go upstairs. You don’t want Gus to see you like this.”
He opened one eye and tried to glare at me, but the effect was somewhat ruined by the fact that his face was all smooshed into the couch.
“What time is it?”
“It’s time for you to go upstairs.”
He let me haul him off the couch and up to the bedroom. I contemplated making him take a shower, but he made a beeline for the bed and I let him crawl in. I crawled in after him and undressed him, while he lay back on the pillows with his eyes closed and his mouth open. He cooperated – I’m fairly sure Brian would have to be completely unconscious to not cooperate when I was trying to take his clothes off – but that was it.
I decided sleep sounded good, and stripped off my clothes, too. I threw his and mine onto the chair, and climbed onto the bed and pulled the duvet up over us both. He seemed to be really asleep now, so I snuggled up next to him and put my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes.
I woke up some time later. I didn’t have a watch and the clock was on the other side of the bed, but the house sounded quiet. It could have been an hour later, and it could have been the middle of the night. Brian was asleep next to me, still on his back, lips still slightly open.
I started nibbling and putting little kisses on the side of his face, and he responded by moving a little and rolling slightly towards me. I kept kissing him and touching him with my tongue. I thought I felt his lips twitch and decided he was faking being asleep. I put my finger in my mouth and wet it, and slipped it down between his legs and worked it between his cheeks and touched it to his asshole. He groaned and said, “If you think I’m too hung over to notice, I’m not.”
“I’m horny. You need to fix that.” I started circling my finger around his asshole and when I felt it soften for a second, I slipped my finger in a tiny bit. It didn’t feel wet enough, so I leaned down and butted my head against his hip until he rolled over enough for me to get my mouth down to where my finger was. I licked at my finger, letting a generous amount of spit run down to his hole, and then bent my finger just enough to let some of it slip in, without pulling out. He groaned again, but this time in a good way. I pressed my hand on his hip and he rolled all the way over. He even spread his legs a little, and I had my mouth on his asshole before he’d stopped moving. I slipped my tongue in next to my finger and made it hard and pointed and fucked him with it, sliding my finger in and rubbing his prostate. He rocked back against my mouth and I scrambled over his legs and lay down between his thighs. He had snuck his hand down between the mattress and his cock, and I pulled it away, holding his wrist down on the bed next to him while I fucked him with my tongue and finger.
He backed up a little more, and tried to get his hand away from me. I tapped hard on his prostate and he gave a loud moan and bucked a little bit, and I bit at his asshole before putting my tongue back in. He moved his hand back up and grabbed the pillow in his fists, burying his face in it. And lifted up just a little more. He was almost, not quite but almost, on his knees now. His cock and balls were in front of my face, and I kept eating his ass and playing in it with my finger. His cock was dripping onto the dark sheets. He was rocking back and forth, no friction on his cock, the pillow still clutched in his fists, his face still buried.
I fought the impulse to just swarm up over him and fuck the shit out of him. Trying that usually got me flipped over on my back, which wasn’t a bad thing but not what I wanted that night. I worked one more finger inside him, and then gently, carefully opened him up, moving my fingers apart and together, licking and wetting him with my tongue, touching his prostate softly, rubbing it, feeling him open up and widen and then, finally, rise up all the way onto his knees. Which he never, ever did unless he wanted me to fuck him.
I lifted my head and eased my fingers out, and got up on my knees behind him. I reached up for condoms and lube from the bedside table drawer. He didn’t even turn his head, just stayed there, even when I ripped open the condom and rolled it onto my cock, even when I put my fingers back against his hole. I squirted lube down over them, lots of lube, and let it spill around and onto his asshole, then backed my fingers up and let it pool around them, and then slipped them in, making sure he was still open, making sure he was as wet as I could make him. He pressed back on my hand and groaned, and for a minute I fought the impulse to just shove my dick in him all at once. Me fucking Brian was sometimes the hardest, sweetest thing we ever did in bed.
I put my hands down on either side of him, and moved up until my cock was lying along the crack of his ass. I shifted back and used my right hand to guide it where I wanted it, right at his hole, all my weight on my left arm and my knees. Brian shifted just a little when he felt me pressing at him, widening his legs and rocking his hips, and I let my cock rest there for a second. And then I pressed it in the tiniest bit. Sometimes I had to start over with my fingers at this point, but not tonight. Tonight he opened up just as I moved in, and I went further than I thought I would, and gasped. I grabbed onto his hips with both hands to hold him still and froze there, breathing fast and trying to keep myself as calm as I could be when I was half in Brian’s ass. Which was the tightest ass I’d ever been inside.
His right hand moved back again, and this time I let him grab his cock, while I followed the next wave of softening all the way down, further in one thrust than Brian normally could handle. He jerked a little bit, and I soothed him with my hands on his sides and back, and then bent forward and dropped my forehead to his back and kissed him, and started moving in and out. I can’t even explain what it is about fucking him that makes me feel like I’m seventeen again, and totally in over my head. Maybe it was the sense that I was barely in control of the fuck, or even of my own response, and that I had to find some way to be in control every minute of it.
I was thrusting into him, not slowly but not too fast, angling myself to hit his prostate every time, trying not to let the tightness and heat push me ahead of him, my hands on his hips, Brian fucking his own hand under me. He gave a groan that almost made me come, and I bit down on my lip, and stayed with my rhythm, faster but still steady, easy, starting to feel my balls draw up, and the hot burn starting in them. Brian had brought his left arm under his forehead, and was moving his head back and forth against it. I wanted to kiss his mouth but I just kept kissing his back, then pulled back and started fucking him faster. His hand was moving on his cock, and I was starting to dissolve, and knew I was about to lose it.
Then Brian slammed back onto me and froze, a beautiful hard moan ripping out of him, and I let myself go, shoving deeply in one last time and just letting the orgasm pour out of me, into him, feeling hot and wet all around me while his ass wall clamped down on me over and over as he came.
He lay under me panting, and I lay on his back for a minute, trying to get my control back from wherever it had gone. I waited until his ass stopped clutching at me, waited until it relaxed for just a heartbeat, then waited for it again, to be sure I knew when it would happen, and then waited for one last beat of opening and softening, and pulled out. However careful I was, I knew it still hurt him, and he gave a little moan. I bent over him, kissing his shoulders and neck, and he turned his head to the side and let me kiss his mouth, softly.
I pulled off the condom and tied it and tossed it, and lay back down next to Brian, letting him turn and lie half on top of me, running my hands softly over his back and touching his hair. I felt like my heart was going to break open and pour over him. I was pretty sure he’d gone back to sleep, so I touched my lips to his hair softly and said, “Merry Christmas.”
He snuggled in a little deeper and said “Mmmm.”
“Go to sleep. Gus is going to get us up in like two hours.”
But he was already asleep.
Melanie’s POV
There seriously is not enough coffee in the world to compensate for motherhood. Sleep deprivation is my life. If it’s not Jenny needing her little baby darling princess diapers changed or her mopsie stuffed kittybearbunny picked up off the floor, it’s Gus yelling in my ear “GET UP GET UP GET UP!” because Santa came.
Because all the toys get taken back if you wait until the sun comes up to open them. Everyone knows that.
Even if Justin hadn’t already been sort of growing on me lately, the huge pot of coffee on the kitchen counter would have done it. I hoped Lindsay got him something really nice from us. I hoped he’d bought the coffee with extra caffeine. Just in case, I put double the sugar in mine. Hopefully the high would last long enough for Gus to tear into the four thousand seven hundred twelve presents Brian had put under, around, near, and within the general vicinity of the tree. This is why I keep saying: Not a total dick.
Although Brian seemed to be in dire need of the extra-caffeinated coffee too. I think Justin put six sugars in his. You know, to give him the energy required to answer burning questions such as, “Could an android be killed by a cyborg or would the android win?”
Brian answered that very seriously, that it would depend on the firearms available to the android and if the cyborg was equipped with full destructive capabilities. Gus just nodded and snapped the android’s head off and looked inside it.
I went to get more coffee.
Justin’s POV
Brian and I stayed in denial as long as we could, but finally Gus’ “Get up, get up, get up” in the hall sent me down to the kitchen to make coffee while Brian assembled, operated, programmed, or otherwise did whatever you’re supposed to do with toys that have processors bigger than the entire computer system once used to manage the space program. Lindsay and Melanie looked totally out of it, and stumbled into the kitchen to get coffee with pathetic gratitude. I brought a cup to Brian out where he was patiently showing Gus how to convert a cyborg tank into a cyborg army. Or something. Brian’s in charge of toys in this house.
We heard Jenny wake up on the baby monitor and Mel went upstairs. Lindsay and Brian were playing with Gus, and I noticed that I was hungry. I went out into the kitchen and made some eggs and more coffee and some fat-free turkey bacon, the only kind of bacon Brian allowed me to bring into the house. I fried it in butter, though.
We were all sitting around the table after eating, watching Gus zoom around with his ray gun/sword/vaulting pole thing (I am definitely supervising Brian’s Christmas shopping next year), when Lindsay asked in a tragic voice if there was more coffee. I shook my head.
“I can make more if you want.” I didn’t sound too enthusiastic.
Brian looked over at me. “You know… I’m thinking that none of us really needs more coffee. We need to go back to bed.”
“You try telling your son that.” Lindsay looked dejectedly at Gus, who was pretty much literally bouncing off the walls at this point.
Brian smirked. “Fortunately, I’m just the drop in dad. You two are the parents. Me and Justin are going back to bed. Merry Christmas.”
Mel rolled her eyes. “Did you decide if you’re going to Debbie’s or not?”
Brian shot a look at me and I shrugged. “Yeah, let’s do it. We can always leave early.”
He snorted. “Famous last words.”
When we got out into the hall, instead of heading upstairs, Brian stopped and tugged me right up against his chest and looped his arms around my shoulders. “I have to give you your Christmas present.”
“You already gave it to me this morning.” He’d gotten me a video iPod.
“Well, I kind of got you a second present.”
“You did? What is it? Where is it?”
He kissed my forehead. “Sort of outside.” He turned around, holding my hand, and pulled me out the front door. It was fucking twenty degrees out. We went around the side of the house to what other people might call “the garage” but was really the Corvette’s apartment. I assumed my present was in the trunk. I assumed wrong.
“You hate it.”
I shook my head.
“Then why are you fucking crying?”
I just sniffled on his chest while he stroked my hair. He pulled my chin up and looked into my eyes. He looked totally confused.
“We can trade it in for a car you like.”
I shook my head again. “I like it. I love it.”
“OK. Then why are you crying? You’re acting like fucking Lindsay.”
“What am I going to do with a car in New York?”
He tucked my head under his chin. It could have been an act of affection, or maybe he didn’t want me to see his face. “I thought you could keep it here, so when you’re at the house you’re not stuck here or dependent on me to get around.”
OK. This wasn’t in the plan. At least my plan. I was seriously starting to think Brian had a plan of his own.
“That’s a good idea.”
“So, we don’t have to take it back?”
I shook my head. “No, I love it, Brian. I really love it.” I really love you.
“Good. Now let’s go in, I’m fucking freezing out here.”
These are the kinds of things Brian does that confuse the hell out of me sometimes. You can practically beg for him to do something small, like take you out on your birthday or agree that yeah, you have some small degree of affection and commitment for each other, and he’s thrashing all over the place trying to get away or just looking at you like you’re insane. Like wanting to have breakfast in bed on your anniversary, if you had an anniversary, which of course you don’t, would be totally lesbianic. And then he’ll buy you a car. Or a house.
When he invited me to come home the weekend Babylon opened, it was the start of a lot of firsts: The first time we planned to be together, the first time Brian invited me to come home, the first time I came to Pittsburgh that we didn’t go to the loft, and the first time we slowly, tentatively started talking on the phone instead of just shooting empty emails across the internet and me hoping he’d be there when I made the 400-mile trip home.
And maybe the first time I realized I felt more at home in that house where I’d almost never been than anywhere else I’d ever spent a night. I don’t know why. Even though my name is on the deed next to his, Brian bought that house the same as he bought the loft and Gus’ cyborg army and his Armani suits and the plasma TV and Babylon.
But he bought the house for me.
For the visit that weekend, Brian had booked me on a plane going home early Monday morning instead of Sunday, when I normally had to leave if I was sharing a ride with someone. He brought me to the airport and we sat in the car at the curb. He wasn’t looking at me, and I suddenly felt a little uncertain, worried I’d let too much of my plan slip away from me. He’d called me the week before I was supposed to come home to tell me he’d bought me a plane ticket, so we avoided the discomfort of our first long distance call by fighting instead.
“I can get a ride with someone like I always do.”
“Yeah. Or you can fly.”
It went around like that for a while. Neither one of us is particularly good at getting the other one to change his mind. I got bored and gave in. He kept arguing for a little while before he noticed.
We didn’t have a fight the second time he called, which was kind of a shame because there’s nothing like arguing to fill up the silences. The silences were the whole reason I’d abandoned the telephone as a method of communication with Brian in the first place. Some of the most uncomfortable moments of my life have been spent trying to get Brian to answer a simple question like “So, how’s it going?” while on my cell phone in LA. But he was calling from Kinnetik to check on something about a car picking me up when I got to Pittsburgh and I was at work, so we just kind of blew through the call and “later.”
I still hadn’t made up my mind if this was a good or bad thing. It’s just my plan had been working so well, I was reluctant to deviate from it, and it seemed like the longer it went on, the more last-minute revisions I kept making. The whole weekend at the house wasn’t part of my plan, or him driving me to the airport. The whole point of having a plan is you don’t leave this kind of shit to chance.
So, we were sitting at the curb at the airport. Brian turned his head in my direction, his hands on the steering wheel. He tilted his head just a little and I felt my face just smile, totally without any decision on my part. He cleared his throat and turned his lips inward and did all the things Brian does when he’s about to make a huge emotional commitment like ask you to go have a cup of coffee at the diner with him.
“Call me when you get home.”
I looked at him across the space between us, feeling pretty much the way I did when he first brought me out to the house and told me he’d bought it for us. A mixture of “this is so wonderful it can’t be true” and “this is so horrible it can’t be true” and “this is so weird it can’t be true.” Like I said, loving Brian can be complicated.
“OK. Later.” And I got out of the car. I didn’t kiss him because I was fairly sure if I did, I’d ask if I could stay, and that wasn’t a decision I wanted him to make when he’d almost twisted the steering wheel off with anxiety just asking me to call him on the fucking phone.
I called him when I got off the plane. He actually answered. Even though he’d asked me to call, it wasn’t impossible, in fact it was likely, that he’d ignore it when I did. But he answered.
“Hey.”
“I’m here.”
OK, this was the silence thing. I mean, what did I expect him to say? “I miss you already? How was your flight? Get home safe?” Sure, that was gonna happen. Sentimentality and small talk and Brian Kinney. Not.
“I should have asked, how do you get home? Take a cab, I’ll pay for it.”
“Brian, it’s like fifty bucks.”
“I know how much a cab ride from the airport costs.” I’m sure he did.
“I’m fine, it’s broad daylight, don’t worry.”
“Later.”
“Later.”
But see, that’s how it starts. Pre-meditated visits, phone conversations, all I needed now was someone to fucking write an article about the latest show I was in. I went outside to grab a cab. It’s only money.
Melanie’s POV
It turned out Brian’s gift-giving insanity didn’t extend only to Gus. He’d bought Justin a fucking Land Rover. Which I guess he just sort of handed over to Justin in passing after they left to go upstairs for a "nap,” like it was an afterthought or a stocking stuffer or something. Must have been some nap.
Lindsay didn’t seem happy about Justin’s new car. I wasn’t sure if she thought Brian should have bought us a car instead (especially as we might have to rent a truck to bring home all the crap he’d bought Gus), or just in general disapproved of Brian spending money on Justin.
“What’s the problem, Linds? You’re acting all upset about Justin’s new car.” We were in the kitchen, sucking down more coffee at the table where this whole fucking mess started.
“I just don’t want to see Brian get hurt again.”
“Hurt again? By Justin? What are you talking about?”
She got up from the table, walked over to the counter and picked up an apple and started slicing it on the cutting board.
I tried again. “Lindsay, sweetie … you were always telling everyone that Brian really loved Justin, back when they broke up that time. What are you worried about?”
She frowned. “I do think Brian really loves Justin. That’s the problem.”
“Huh?”
“The problem isn’t Brian, it’s Justin.”
“Justin really loves Brian. Can’t you see how happy they are together? How much less of a dick Brian is?”
“Yes, and I also see that Justin is 22 years old and has his whole life ahead of him and that no one stays with the person they were in love with when they were 17 years old!”
“So, just rip the bandage off and get it over with, is that what you’re saying?”
She walked agitatedly over to the sink and dumped all the apple she’d just sliced in it. “You don’t understand.”
“I think I do, but let me ask you something. How old were you when you met Brian?”
Lindsay didn’t answer for a long time. “Eighteen.”
“And you still love him.”
“That’s different.”
“Yes, it is. Brian loves Justin back.”
Lindsay turned around and looked at me. I went ahead and looked her right in the eyes. We may as well have this discussion, it’s only been ten years and two kids.
“Mel, I am not in love with Brian.” She looked me right in the eyes, too, and her face was completely serene.
I didn’t say anything, just looked at her.
“I’m not. Yes, I love him, probably as much as I love Gus. Probably in a lot of the same ways. I don’t want to marry him or sleep with him or live happily ever after with him. I just want him in my life, to be Gus’ father and to be part of our family. And I have asked you over and over to accept him, for my sake, for Gus’ sake, and you never have. Because you’re jealous? Is that why?” While she was talking she’d walked over to me and knelt in front of me. She was holding both my hands.
I sat there for a while, thinking about the virtues of Justin’s new policy of never talking things over. I seemed to remember encouraging Lindsay to talk and open up more. I must have been drunk.
I sighed. “I don’t hate Brian, I really don’t. I actually kind of like him. In small doses. I mean, I’ve always said he’s not a total dick.”
“When did you ever say that?”
“To myself. I always told myself he’s not a total dick.”
She laughed and kissed me. I was so fucked.
Justin’s POV
We went back inside and he brought me into the living room and pulled me down into his arms on the sofa facing the fireplace. Mel and Linds were in the kitchen on the other side of the house. He wrapped his arms around me and didn’t say anything while I sniffled and cried a little more, and then finally just lay my head back against him and stared at the fire.
I was kind of drifting off when Brian said something.
"This aversion you have to talking about stuff is starting to freak me out."
This was the second time Brian had started a serious conversation with me when I was half-asleep. Timing is everything. Fuck.
"Mmmmm."
"What kind of answer is that?"
"Did you ask a question?"
He didn’t respond right away, and I was hoping he’d given up.
"Justin, what's with the silent treatment?"
"I'm not giving you the silent treatment." I pulled myself up and kissed him. I was tired but if sex would get him to shut up, I could live with that.
He took the kiss. I let my mouth open just a little, and his tongue slipped inside. I opened my mouth more, and touched his tongue with mine, making my mouth soft and open and pliant. His breath changed and he suddenly stretched me out on my back on the sofa, lying on top of me and deepening the kiss, making my mouth open as far as it could, sucking on my tongue. His left hand was in my hair, and his right hand reached down inside my sweats and grabbed my thigh, pulling it up roughly and then slipping down and cradling my balls. He held them gently, then closed his hand just a little on them, and pressed his lips to the spot where my neck curves into my shoulder, where it always makes me crazy, and said, "Talk."
Timing is everything.
I rolled away from him and crossed my arms over my face. "You really are a complete shit, Brian."
He just smirked. "Talk."
"When did you turn into a lesbian?"
"When you started acting like a twat."
If I’d known that not talking was the best way to get Brian to talk, we’d have had this conversation years ago. Unfortunately, I was no way ready to have it now.
Brian got up and shut the doors to the room before sitting down in the chair across from the sofa. Figures. He was going to have this conversation. With me or without me. I was so fucked.
“I asked you before what you wanted. You said you wanted us to be a couple."
"And you made fun of me for wanting that. You said it was bullshit."
Brian looked down and fiddled with his fingers a little. Then he got up and walked over to the fireplace. He didn't say anything. But I could tell he was listening.
Fuck it. Fuck my plan, fuck not talking. Fuck him. "Brian. You know, I've tried to tell you what I want. I've tried to not tell you, just show you. I've tried to change what I want to match what I think you want. I've tried to figure out what you want without you telling me. But once, just once, would you do me the favor of telling me what it really is that you want?"
Brian was half turned away from me, looking out the window. His shoulders looked tense. "I told you."
I was totally lost by this. "When?"
"In this house. I told you."
"To marry me? Brian."
"Jesus, Justin, you're the one going on and on about how you tried to show me what you want without telling me." He turned and faced me, running his hand through his hair and then jamming it behind his back.
I'd known before it started that half this conversation was going to be body language and reading between the lines. "OK, are you saying you've been doing that?"
Brian shrugged. But he didn’t turn away. He just stood here, looking at me, his hair all messed up and his left arm still awkwardly stuck behind his back.
"Then let me tell you what I think you want. You want me to almost never talk to you about our relationship, except for short and basically cryptic discussions when we're drunk or stoned or lying in bed after sex. You want me to put my career as an artist in front of everything else, even if I have to leave for days or weeks at a time. If and when I'm gone, you want me to somehow, without words, let you know every day that I'm thinking about you. You want me to do exactly what I want with my life, although it makes you fucking uncomfortable to think part of that involves wanting to be with you. You want to be sentimental and sweet in front of other people on major holidays, and fuck me into the mattress when we're alone. And once in a while you want to go out and get drunk and high and have meaningless hot sex with strangers and then come home and shower and sleep with me. And you want me to not expect you to say you love me unless there's a bomb involved."
I got up and walked over and stood right in front of him. I put my hands on his shoulders and tipped my head back so I could look him right in the eye. "How'd I do?"
He almost smiled. "Not bad." He put his hands on top of mine on his shoulders. I twined my fingers with his. Then he really did smile.
I licked my lips. He smirked. Asshole. "Fine, then tell me, what did I leave out, or what would you leave out?"
"We can skip the last thing. No more bombs. And not all major holidays. And you didn't mention you blowing me, which is non-negotiable."
"OK. I want some things too."
He raised his eyebrow. "This approach didn't work out so great last time."
I laughed. "No, it didn't. But I want some things anyway. I want to live here. I want to paint here. I want to stop feeling like you're going to chase me off for my own good every time I turn around. If I get into any more shows you have to be there for the openings. And I want a complete list of the major holidays you're going to be sweet and sentimental on, and the ones you aren't. I may be willing to compromise on Flag Day."
Brian was biting his lip. And then his tongue was kind of sticking out just a tiny bit. I'd never noticed him do that before. It was pretty adorable. It was Gus-like. It was very distracting.
He seemed to make up his mind about something, and brought his hands to the sides of my head. He worked his fingers into my hair and leaned down and kissed me. I licked just the tiniest bit at his lips, and he opened his mouth up and started sucking my tongue inside, and slid a hand around to the back of my neck, and the other down to my waist and pulled me into him hard. I wrapped my arms around his neck and let him pull me in. He shifted his thigh in between my legs and then broke his mouth away from mine. I was almost panting.
"Are we done?" He was smiling down into my eyes.
"Ummm... with what?"
"The conversation."
"Did we decide anything?"
"Yeah, no Flag Day."
"Right." I started kissing his throat. There was a knock on the door, and Lindsay came in. I was fucked if I was going to jump out of Brian’s arms in our own house, but I did pull away just a little.
Brian naturally responded to that by pulling me tighter and groping my ass. He leered at Lindsay and said, “Need something?”
She just laughed. “We should go; we said we’d be there by three and it’s past two-thirty.”
“OK, let me just finish what I was doing here.” And he lifted me up off the floor with his hands under my ass and opened his mouth on mine and kissed me hard. Lindsay must have left because by the time he set me back down, she was gone.
Melanie’s POV
Brian and Justin went to Debbie’s in Justin’s new car, but Linds and I took our car since it had the baby seats in it already. Besides, it would be easier for Brian to blow Justin while he drove without me and Linds and the kids watching.
Debbie’s house was like one of those places they feature on HGTV, something like “Extreme Kitsch Gone Santa.” There were reindeer on the roof, porno elves in the front yard, lights everywhere, and canned music emerging from some kind of automated stuffed animal. Emmett had definitely not been in charge of this one.
And speaking of Emmett, he came out on the porch screaming “Merry Christmas!” and pulling Jenny out of my arms. “How’s the littlest angel? What a sweet little darling girl!” Seriously, people need to think about the way they talk to kids. It’s disgusting. No wonder we end up with outfits called “romperettes” and diapers with bunnies on them.
“Jesus Christ, Emmett, don’t make me puke before I even eat.” Brian stalked past him. Like I said: Not a total dick.
The next thing I knew, Grandma Deb had Jenny and was carrying her off to be billed and cooed at and scarred for life by the whole freakish extended family. Something else I failed to take into consideration when choosing a father for Jenny.
Lindsay came back from hanging up our coats. “They stole our kids?”
“Looks that way. Michael is over there drooling on Jenny and Debbie is shoveling sugar down Gus’ throat. Ho ho ho.” Lindsay gave me a tolerant smile. She’d probably be over there drooling with Michael if I wasn’t there keeping an eye on her.
I smiled and small talked and accepted compliments on the adorableness of my child until we ate. Carl sliced the turkey, Michael fed Jenny, and I started to have a post-pig-out need for a nap. Motherhood. Chronic sleep deprivation. Naps. I went into the living room.
I woke up to the sound of Gus shrieking in laughter, signaling an impending sugar crash, and looked around for Lindsay. I didn’t see her. I did see my daughter being walked around the room on Hunter’s shoulders, with her hands grabbing at his hair while she squealed. It was going to take me weeks to deprogram this child.
I walked out to the kitchen.
“Sweetie, you’re up!” Debbie was in her element, dishing up food and surrounded by family. It was kind of heartwarming in a tacky, overblown, incredibly red and green sort of way. I took the cup of coffee she shoved in my hand and wandered over to where Emmett and Carl were flipping through an assortment of Christmas albums. Debbie still had a record player. I bet Gus wouldn’t even know what one was.
“So, where’s Teddy?”
Emmett laughed and said, “Oh, Teddy and Blake went skiing. Romantic weekend by the roaring fire, room service, maid service, I have no idea why anyone would rather do that then be here listening to Guy Lombardo’s Christmas album, but Ted’s always been basically incomprehensible to me. I mean, he’s an accountant.”
I heard a crash from upstairs, and scanned the room for Gus. No sign of him. I sighed. Then I heard Hunter’s voice saying “Oh shit” and I figured he had it under control. “Has anyone seen Lindsay?” If Gus had broken something important, she could deal with it. She could get those teary eyes much better than I could.
“I think she went outside with Justin a little while ago,” Ben offered. He was in the kitchen helping Debbie put leftovers into packages for all the starving people in, you know, this room. The ones who just ate so much we were almost catatonic? In case we needed a little snack later.
I went out the back door, and heard Lindsay’s voice. I stopped to listen.
“Justin, you don’t understand.” She sounded upset.
But Justin sounded angry. “Lindsay, you have no idea how it bothers him to have Gus so far away. Can’t you see what it’s doing to him? How happy he’s been while you’ve been here?”
“Justin, I know you want Brian to be more in Gus’ life, but what gives you the right to decide what’s fair to him and what’s not?”
It seemed like I wasn’t the only eavesdropper; Brian’s voice cut in from the other side of the house. “Worry about the rights of opressed political prisoners in third world dictatorships, not mine.” He came down the stairs from the front porch and threw down his cigarette and ground it into the dirt.
Lindsay whipped around on him. "Can everyone fucking stop telling me what to think and do?"
Justin looked away from them, and saw me standing on the steps. I shifted from one foot to the other and tried to figure out what was going on.
"I certainly can," Brian said. He wasn't exactly shaking, more like vibrating with some kind of weird energy that felt like it was going to fly out of him in jagged pieces. I would have been afraid to touch or go near him. But Justin went right up to him and wrapped his arms around him and pressed his whole body to him and said, firmly, "Take me home."
And Brian took a deep breath and looked down at Justin's face and dropped his head and touched foreheads with him, and said, "OK."
They left, and Lindsay looked like she was going to cry. I stepped down into the yard and slipped my arms around her. “What the fuck is going on, Linds?” But I was stroking her hair while I said it. And then she did start to cry.
I held onto her and murmured the sort of meaningless crap you say to people who are crying. She held onto my shoulders and buried her face in my neck and just kept sobbing. “What is it, baby? What’s wrong? You know Brian, he’s a dick. It’ll be OK.”
Lindsay shook her head. “He’s not a dick.”
Christ. You can’t win with her sometimes.
“Then why are you crying?”
She pulled her head up and looked right into my eyes. “I want to come home.”
Fuck me.
I brought Linds inside because it was just too cold to stand out there with snot dripping out of her nose. Everyone of course came running over, and swarmed around her with tissues and sympathy. Lindsay wasn’t even trying. It was that blonde weepy thing, no one can resist it. And I say that as the woman with iced snot on her shirt.
Em took her up to Debbie’s bathroom to do some kind of makeover magic on the red eyes and blotchy face. I sat back down at the kitchen table with Ben and Michael and Hunter, who had Jenny in his lap.
“What happened? Did Brian and Justin leave? Did Brian and Lindsay have a fight?” It was Michael, trying to fit the pieces together.
“Just the usual drama – I think she and Justin were arguing about something to do with Brian and he overheard it and lost his shit.”
“She and Justin were arguing?”
“That’s how it sounded to me.” When blonds collide.
When Lindsay got downstairs we stayed long enough to have pie and coffee and offer to help Debbie with the dishes (and be turned down, as always and thank god, because I wanted to get the fuck out of there). And we didn’t talk on the way home, even though Gus was crashed out in the backseat and Jenny wasn’t likely to be scarred for life from hearing Lindsay explain to me in words of one syllable just what the fuck her problem was with Justin.
After I got Jenny changed and swaddled and all pink and fluffy (Emmett’s gift to her, don’t ask) and in her crib, I went back to our room. Lindsay was sitting on the chair at the foot of the bed, her feet curled under her, wearing pajama bottoms and a t-shirt. She was crying again.
“Wanna tell me what the fuck happened?”
“Justin was saying that we really hurt Brian taking Gus away. I told him we gave Brian the choice, he could have said no, and he didn’t. And Justin said…” and here Lindsay started doing the snot thing again. I brought her a tissue and slid down into the chair behind her and made those noises again, the meaningless ones. She sniffed and sighed and ran her hand through her hair and then got up. So much for the comforting touch. Or maybe I had to work on my meaningless noises.
“What did Justin say?” I could see we were in for a long night.
“He said that Brian always does that, always gives up without a fight.”
I was beginning to understand Justin’s plan covered some areas he hadn’t discussed with me. The little fucker.
As I remembered it, Brian had tried to put up a fight, but I’m going to guess that Lindsay did the tears and tragedy talk on him and he finally gave in.
“But Justin wasn’t just talking about Gus.” Lindsay was kind of gulping and crying now. Not pretty. “He meant him, too. I know he did. And that’s what made me so angry.”
I rubbed my head. OK. I knew Lindsay thought Justin was insane for passing up the chance to go to New York. I agreed with her at the time. But I was suddenly thinking about that whole Princess Bride thing, and true love, and the not a total dick thing, and I was starting to get a bad feeling. Yeah, and the cyborg vs android thing. Fuck. Fuck Justin, fuck his plan, fuck me going along with his plan, fuck me.
“What do you want, Lindsay? You really want to come back here? To be with Brian?”
“It’s not for me to be with Brian. It’s not even for Gus to be with Brian, or Brian to be with Gus. It’s because he’s part of our family. We should be together. If bigots and homophobes can break our family up, then what did we gain by leaving?”
I really had to pay more attention to what went on in Lindsay’s head. Because there wasn’t anything to say to that. I mean, if we didn’t come back, the terrorists would win. She was the most ruthless debater I’d ever known, and I’m a lawyer.
Lindsay walked over and knelt down in front of me. “I love you, Mel. And Gus and Jenny. And I love Brian.” She smiled and slipped her hands on the sides of my face. “And not in the way you’re thinking. You’re my family. I love you. And I want to come home. Justin’s right.”
Yeah. No shit. About a lot of stuff, apparently.
Justin’s POV
The ride home wasn’t anywhere near as fun as the ride there, mostly because instead of rubbing my crotch and trying to get me to let him undo my pants while I drove, he was drumming on his own thighs with his fingers, messing up his hair with his hands, and staring out the window. I didn’t want him to smoke in my new car, but he finally drove me so crazy I told him to have a cigarette before I made him walk home.
“It doesn’t matter, Brian.”
He didn’t say anything. I really had no idea why I bothered talking to him when he was like this, it was like I wasn’t even there. So I shut up for the rest of the drive home.
The minute we got there Brian headed straight for the bar. He grabbed a bottle of Jack Daniels and shut himself in his media room. I shrugged and went upstairs. When he got like this there was nothing I could do and at least here, there was somewhere to go until he passed out or got over it.
Melanie’s POV
Lindsay put water on for tea, and I went upstairs to check on the kids. I found Gus asleep on the floor of his room with his cyborg army all spread out around him. I got him into his bed and covered him up, and then went downstairs. On the way through the hall I noticed the lights were on in Brian’s media room. I hesitated, because if he was still up, he was probably plastered out of his mind. Sometimes Brian actually is kind of a dick.
He was standing by the window, a bottle in his hand.
“Am I interrupting?”
He didn’t even turn his head. “Yes. But I’m sure that won’t stop you.”
“What exactly am I interrupting, Brian, you getting drunk and morose? A massive orgy of self-pity?” He just took another swallow and stood looking out the window. Weird how enthralled he seemed with the view, considering it was pitch dark outside.
“Anyway, all I wanted to tell you, and I’m sure you won’t give a fuck, is Lindsay wants to come home so we’re coming home. Which means Gus is coming home. Which I sort of thought you’d want to know.”
Brian turned around and looked at me. He really was drunk, but he was in that stage where he said everything very carefully. “I don’t care what you lesbianic twats decide to do. Stay, go, I don’t give a fuck.”
Whatever.
“Lindsay’s going to apologize to Justin. She says he was right. About you, about Gus, about her.”
“Yeah? Well, maybe when she’s done apologizing to Justin she can apologize to me.” OK, now he was slipping down the slope past careful to bitter, vengeful, and queeny.
“Lindsay didn’t do anything to you. What does she have to apologize for, exactly?” I was trying to be gentle. He was Gus’ father, he was drunk, and I had a point and I was trying to soften him up so he’d hear it.
Silence.
“She did something to Justin, not you. She’s apologizing to him, not you.”
Silence.
“Unless you think she needs to apologize to you for hurting you by hurting him? I mean, talk about being a lesbianic twat.”
“Fuck you.”
Asshole. He might have been too drunk to get what I was about to say, but fuck it. “You know what, Brian? Seriously, I hope Justin appreciates what you’re giving up for him.” And then I walked out of the room.
Justin’s POV
Since it was Christmas, I relented after a while and went downstairs looking for him. He was lying on the couch, a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels on the floor next to him. But he was still awake. I stood over him and he looked up at me. He didn’t look half as fucked up as I’d have predicted.
“So.” I waited, but he didn’t say anything more. He was just looking at me. It made me nervous so I knelt down and put my arm across his chest and my head on his shoulder. He sighed a little and brought his arms up and wrapped them around me.
“You want to live here?”
“Yeah.” I didn’t turn my head. I didn’t want him to see my face.
“With me?”
Idiot. “Yeah.”
“No Flag Day, I say I love you even when there’s no bombs, you blow me whenever I want, you paint no matter what, and I don’t get to decide how you live your life without at least some minor input from you.”
“No Flag Day, you say you love me without a bomb, I blow you whenever I want, I paint no matter what, and I get major input and veto power about how I live my life. And we don’t fuck anyone but each other in this house.”
“Outside the house?”
“It all depends.”
“On what?”
“How bad you want to fuck my ass without a condom.”
“You know, Justin, you are a seriously, deeply devious person.”
“You’re only just figuring this out now?”
“Actually, no. I should have figured it out about two days after I met you, but it seems to have taken me until you started that whole email thing to grasp the actual scope of your deviousness.”
“You’ve always been a little slow.”
“I’m sweet.”
“Yeah, you are. You liked the email thing?”
“It was genius.”
“And the not talking about stuff thing, did you like that?”
“At first I did, but then I started to worry that your vocal chords had been cut or something. Justin not talking. Scary. It’s like if you stopped eating, or sucking dick.” He was kind of hugging me, and he kissed my hair when he said it.
“Yeah, I always like to be doing something with my mouth.” I lifted up my head and demonstrated with a big kiss.
“OK, that’s good, but don’t totally stop talking. You know, once a year or so is fine.”
“Like how often you let me fuck you? We’ll have a conversation then too?”
“That sounds like a little too much stress for me in one day.”
I smacked him. “STRESS? The greatest sexual experience of your life and you call it STRESS?”
Brian was laughing under me and I started to kiss him again. “OK, tell me now.”
“Tell you what?”
“The thing you don’t need a bomb to tell me.”
He groaned.
“Say it now. I’m not kidding.” But I was laughing so he probably didn’t believe me.
He mumbled something.
“OK, that’s so totally not going to count. Say it so I can hear it.”
He got a frustrated look on his face and shoved his hand through his hair, leaving it standing up all weird. It made me hard just to look at it, so I kissed him again. And I breathed right against his mouth, “Say it.”
“You say it.”
“I love you. See what a tough guy I am?”
“I love you.” He looked like he was going to choke.
“Jesus Christ, Brian, does that cause you actual physical pain or just severe psychological distress?” He heaved up off the sofa and dumped me on the floor, then stuck his hand out. I took it.
“What the fuck was that for?”
“We have to go upstairs.”
“How come?”
“Because you’ve caused me severe psychological distress and actual physical pain, which makes me need to fuck you, and I don’t want the kids to see that.”
“So every time you say you love me, we have to fuck?”
“Yeah.”
That sounded like a plan.
Decisions, the sequel to Plans, begins here.
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