Work Text:
~Justin~
Everybody loves the things you do
From the way you talk to the way you move
8 years can seem like forever when you are in a city that moves with the speed of light. It may not make any sense, but until you’re there...stuck inside it, you wouldn’t understand. 8 years can seem like an eternity when you are away from the things that made you who you have become. When the people who helped shape you into the man are 400 miles away and you’ve never been on a greyhound in your life and every time you go to click ‘confirm’ on your flight itinerary, you just bring yourself to do it.
But 8 years can disappear in seconds with a glance of his hazel eyes and his tongue in cheek smirk. 8 years can become nothing but static when he moves around the room like he’s some sort of 50’s movie star and everyone has their eyes on him. 8 years can seem like nothing in the grand scheme of things, no matter how successful you’ve become, no matter how much money you have in your piggy bank, when his eyes lock with yours and it's like the first moment you saw him 13 years ago under a streetlamp when the world seemed so big you thought it would swallow you whole.
Everybody here is watching you
'Cause you feel like home
You're like a dream come true
Convincing yourself to go wasn't as hard as you thought it would be. It wasn't something you tortured yourself over. It didn’t keep you up for days on end trying to think of what you’d say, what he’d say, how it would feel to see him again. It was the simplest of decisions; like deciding all those years ago to not give up on him. Loving him was always the easy part. Going back came naturally. It was the staying part that came hard.
He had been nominated before. During that first year together he had mentioned it in passing while the only light other than the ones above his throne of a bed, was the end of a lit cigarette after he had been inside you for over an hour. It was one of the nights, of many to come, where he had chosen you as his victory. And after he mentioned it, so flippant, you smiled in the darkness because you realized he was celebrating his achievement with you and no one else.
You couldn't help but wonder who he had celebrated with this time.
But this time, unlike last, he had won. ‘Ad executive of the year.’ For Kinnetik.
The celebration is held in New York and it was an odd and unexpecting voice that told you when it called from a number you don’t think you ever had programmed into your phone. But it rings with a Pittsburgh exchange and your heart stops for only a moment.
Ted tells you about the event just so ‘you would know’ in case ‘it was something you’d consider attending.’
Like you said it was a simple decision.
Coming back was never hard.
There is a buzz in your veins and a heat on your skin just being in the same room again with a man that had turned a 17-year-old naive and little shit into a 28-year-old successful little shit. It's a sensation you hadn't felt in so long it almost makes you drunk with emotion. He seems bigger than life; more extravagant and overpowering than he was for all the years you shared a bed and a life with him. He could always work a room no matter if there were 5 people in it or 500 and he was always hard to miss no matter the number but it's like the air and the earth that circles on its axis around you and the life you made for yourself in this city of 8 million has suddenly become so much smaller with just a look from him across a room where all eyes are on him.
But his eyes are only on you.
You feel more naked than you ever have; even on those nights he made the ‘no clothes rule’ in the loft and you had to walk around naked the entire time while he leered at you with an expression on his face and a flash in his eyes no one ever given you before him, in between times with him, or after him. It was a look he only ever shared with you, even when he was fucking a hot piece of ass in the back room, or in the bed you shared with him. You never gave the looks much thought at the time, but it was those looks you remembered on late nights in your New York City apartment when the only thing you craved were those looks and his hands on your skin.
He’s giving you one of those looks now and it feels like coming home.
But if by chance you're here alone
Can I have a moment before I go?
'Cause I've been by myself all night long
Hoping you're someone I used to know
He tortures you by making you wait for him all night. You watch him talk to all the right people in all the right ways and watching him in work and schmooze mode has always made you hard and you haven't been this hard in 8 years.
He keeps an eye on you though in that Brian Kinney way where he looks at you in between gushing fans and propositioning men who either want his brain or body. Or both. He keeps them interested just long enough until he’s off to the next group of people waiting patiently to get a few minutes with the man everyone knows of, but will never really know.
That kind of slow torture is reserved for you only and he milks every last drop of patience from you. When the room begins to suddenly feel too small you make a shy exit for air, a smoke, and your dignity back.
You look like a movie
You sound like a song
My God, this reminds me
Of when we were young
He finds you, he always finds you, ironically but not coincidentally leaning against a street lamp a cigarette hanging out of your mouth like some kind of modern western. Right up his alley.
His voice is like a mixture between silk and sandpaper when he finally says your name after 8 years and you have to wonder if he’s whispered your name into the air of the loft as many times as you’ve whispered his in your small studio apartment. You wonder if it echoes as much as his did, no matter how small the world has seemed the past 8 years.
Words die on your tongue before you can release them, just like all the calls you never made or letters you never wrote. He smokes his own cigarette like he always had; clutched in between two gloved fingers like it had insulted him in some way. He’s forceful with it between his lips as it invades his lungs; much like he was with you when you invaded his world.
You feel like there should be something to say. Like the position you both are in requires something to be offered up to the relationship gods but neither of you offer up anything so you stand on the sidewalk stuck in purgatory.
It seems appropriate since this man has taken you to hell and heaven more times than you can remember so there really wasn't anywhere else for the two of you to go.
As if you both deserve this. Both for different reasons, but the end result is the same.
Love doesn't make fools of us all.
Time does.
~Brian~
I was so scared to face my fears
Nobody told me that you'd be here
And I swear you moved overseas
That's what you said, when you left me
He still looks as young as you feel old, and you still search for him in every mess of blonde hair you pass on any given street in any given town.
You searched for him in the faces and the asses of the men you took back to your hotel when he was in Berlin doing a show. A show you never attended but just being in the same country as him was enough for you.
In every city he went you were there too. Never crossing paths, you made sure, you just needed to be close to him in a way only the two of you would ever understand. You bought his work; the ones you knew were about you and even ones that weren't; before anyone else could purchase it to hang on in their home or office or god forbid bathroom thinking they knew what the artist was FEELING when they created it. They would never have a fucking clue. No one got that part of him. Or you. Or what you had made together.
Sometimes you wondered if he painted you in such an intimate and raw way because he knew you were the one buying the pieces. You were sure you’d never really know. And even as he stands in front of you; still glowing, still beautiful and young and perfect; you doubt you ever will.
You haven’t said anything other than his name because you don't want to ask him how he is because you honestly don't care about exchanging pleasantries. Its not who you ever were. No, you want to hear the things he only used to whisper to you in the dark, like they were secret hidden treasures, secrets, only for your ears. Those are things you yearn to hear. Not how his career is going (he’s close to being a millionaire now) or how he still lives in a shitty studio apartment even with his wealth because even though he’d never admit out loud on this New York City street, but the only place he’d ever felt at home was with you in an expensive loft that honestly only felt like home to you those 5 years he had been there with you.
You want his fears, his doubts, his desires back. But they feel so far away as if maybe you had dreamed them ever existed to begin with.
In case it is the last time
That we might be exactly like we were
Before we realized
We were sad of getting old
It made us restless
You know he will break eventually; the need to speak overwhelming him from the outside in. You were always more patient than him. You had to be. All the times he left and you just waited; always waiting. Patience was something Justin taught you. How you will never understand when the boy didn't obtain that virtue.
“Congratulations,” He finally spits out. As if it rose from deep inside himself and he spews it out of his mouth like some guys cum that tasted horrible on his tongue.
“Theodore?” You finally ask; as if you didn't know the answer. It unnerved you how someone so tedious and flat as Theodore would end up becoming the closest person to you. Knowing you in a way, a way Michael was never able to or wanted to, when it came to Justin. So many people have had their hands on the typewriter pushing out pages of the ‘Brian Kinney operating manual’ you aren't even sure who wrote the first page anymore. Chapter One. Part A. Index I.
He nods, lighting another cigarette. It doesn't calm his nerves. You know that. You wonder if he even started so he looked cool. But fuck if he doesn't.
There are kind words on the tip of your tongue about how good he looks, how you know how successful he is now and how fucking proud you are of him because he surpassed everything you ever thought he’d become, but you swallow them down along with all the loneliness, regret and apologies you swore you’d never let yourself feel. But everything you ever believed in, everything you prided yourself on, went out the window 13 years ago when you found him under a streetlight similar to this one and you wonder if it’s a cruel joke or a second chance at starting your life over again tonight.
You are older now. The gray in your hair unable to be hidden no matter how many times you dye it. The wrinkles in the corner of your eyes that come to life when you smile haunt you so you decided to just not smile anymore. Not that you have much reason to. And you knew you let your own fears take over when he left because if you had continued the dance the two of you had been memorized for all those years you’d end up an old married couple and the word old made you sick to your stomach just as much as him walking out of the loft that night while you pretended to be asleep did.
It's hard to admit that
Everything just takes me back
To when you were there
To when you were there
And a part of me keeps holding on
Just in case it hasn't gone
I guess I still care
Do you still care?
You stand outside for so long on that sidewalk not speaking, just taking in each other's breathing that when people start to file out of the event that was for you, in your honor, you should feel guilty, but you don't. You have enough to feel guilty for. It's not worth letting one more thing add to the years of it you’ve been carrying around with you.
He doesn't look bored. Or scared. Or sad. But he doesn't look happy or relieved either. Its an expression that's new to you; you thought you knew his face so well. It had haunted you for years and you were sure if you ever saw him again it would all come back to you. Every smile. Every tear. Every emotion he had ever worn on his beautiful face would destroy you just as they did when you lived them the first time around.
But a sinking realization floods you and you realize 8 years is a lot of time and the bullshit you spewed at him the night he left about how it didn't matter when they saw each other again it wouldn't matter because what the two of you had meant more than any span of time could destroy, was just that. Bullshit.
Who were you trying to convince that night? Him or you? Or maybe it was your own way of praying; to whoever decides your fate; to please let that night not be the end of the two of you.
You guess no one heard you.
Oh I'm so mad I'm getting old
It makes me reckless
It was just like a movie
It was just like a song
When we were young
You aren't ready to let go. Maybe what you both needed was just time. Maybe what you had told him that night didn't mean exactly what you thought and intended for it to mean and it turned into something different over the last 8 years.
The time you had talked about morphed and was reborn into two different people that had struggled and lived their lives without one another and the end result was this moment. Was this starting over? Picking up where the two of you had left off? What could be forgiven and forgotten and what could be held close? You don't know, you may never have the right answer. But he still gives you that same feeling of peace just like that first night standing under similar lighting and you realize that's a good enough place to start.
“Where you headed?” You want to sound as sexy and confident as you did that very first night, but you aren't that same man anymore. And neither is he.
“No place special,” he answers quickly, no hesitation, no pause to think about what this all could mean for the two of you. He was always braver than you.
You know the next words. You know them because sometimes he had you role play them in a pot and whiskey induced daze after a particularly hot night at Babylon. Sometimes he just wanted to go back to the beginning; remember the electricity that coursed through both of your veins made of want and need. But that original feeling may have paved the way for what had eventually happened between the two of you, but it wasn't what kept it together.
What kept you together was work. You had always been willing to work so hard for everything else you had in your life, why couldn't you for him?
You’re tired. You’re just tired of not being with him.
“Then come home.”
He doesn't look surprised or angry or sad. He looks relieved.
And for the first time in your life you actually believe there is a God up there.
He pushes himself off the streetlight and reaches out for your hand.
The gesture says so much that you feel deaf from it all.
But the only thing you focus on is the main thing it confirms.
‘Okay.’
And time begins again.