AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Sorry I haven't posted for a while - my lap-top self-destructed and I lost a lot of stories I was working on, which was bit disheartening to say the least. So I'm just putting up this little fic to see if I can work the horrible new lap-top the same as the old one, and to let you all know I haven't gone away or died or anything!

THREE DOWN

"Really, Mikey? That's great." Brian is sitting at his desk, cradling the phone to his left ear while he types with his right hand, his eyes flicking across the screen before him. His attention is completely focussed on his work and Justin, lounging on the sofa, smiles.

Ben is attending a conference on Buddhism and its influence on Western culture in Toronto so Michael has grabbed the chance to spend a weekend with JR, and from the way Brian is tuning him out even more than usual, Justin guesses that Michael must be regaling him with updates of the child prodigy's latest accomplishments.

"Uh-huh," Brian grunts absently as he glares at the presentation he's composing. A scowl; a thoughtful tug at his lip; a few seconds of furious typing; a curt nod of satisfaction. "I'm sure she is." Brian's fingers fly across the keyboard as Justin watches, the latest Art Forum lying abandoned on his lap. This is the Brian he never tires of drawing: so absorbed in his task that he has completely forgotten he's not alone and lets his facial expressions actually mirror his emotions. The only other time Brian's guard is lowered like this is when he is fucking, and in those circumstances Justin's ability to put pencil to paper is usually pretty limited.

Brian is sighing heavily. "Mikey, never mind what Mel says. If JR wants a fucking Barbie then buy her a fucking Barbie. Mel's just going to have to deal with it."

Justin snickers. All of Melanie's attempts to eliminate any sexual stereotyping from JR's emotional development have proved fruitless: the little girl's predilection for pink bows, dolls and My Little Pony continues undiminished, much to Brian's glee and Mel's complete chagrin. Justin still treasures the look on Mel's face the day JR informed her that what she really wanted to be when she grew up was a hair-stylist.

Those Novotny genes, Justin muses. An irresistible tsunami of kitsch and Rigatoni. Mel never stood a chance.

Brian stops typing and pinches the bridge of his nose. "Mikey …" A long pause. "Mikey." He glances over at Justin and rolls his eyes. "Michael! Enough already. Let me speak to Gus, for fuck's sake." Another pause. "Yeah, Mikey, love you too. Always have, always will."

He waits, drumming his fingers on the desk, and Justin sees the precise instant Gus comes on the line because Brian's expression softens and his eyes light up, and Justin slides over to grab his sketchpad and starts to draw, because he can't resist. Brian's focus has shifted: he forgets to type as he listens alertly to his son, asking him questions about school, about his friends, and chuckling softly at Gus' replies. Justin's pencil skims across the paper as he tries to capture those fleeting, ephemeral moments. He plans to show these sketches to Gus on day and tell him: this is the way your Dad used to look when he was speaking to you in Canada. That's how much he loved you. And then Gus might understand that, however far away his mothers had taken him, Brian had no intention of letting go.

The conversation is obviously winding down. Brian looks over at him again and Justin can feel the warmth of his smile like a physical caress against his skin. "Yeah, he's here," Brian says, and snorts laughter. "Yeah, I'll tell him." He listens and his smile dims a little. "I miss you too, kiddo. But it'll be summer before you know it and then you'll be coming to the house … yes, I promise. No, I won't forget. I love you too, Sonny Boy. And your Mama. I'll see you both soon."

He places the phone carefully on the desk and gazes at it a long moment before getting up and walking slowly towards Justin. Justin watches the grace of his long stride, the pacing of his lean, naked feet, and sucks in a little breath. It's been eight long years since he stood under that street lamp on Liberty and watched Brian' feline approach, but damned if he doesn't still get exactly the same shiver of anticipation every time he sees it.

Brian stands looking down at him: Justin puts down his sketchbook and tucks his feet up under him, tilting his head back to meet Brian's gaze. "Michael having problems?" he asks.

Brian hitches a shoulder and scratches idly at his left buttock. "JR's a Novotny with Marcus attitude – it was never going to be a good combination. She figured Mikey for a soft touch the minute she laid eyes on him, and she's been playing him against Mel ever since. It'll only get worse as she gets older."

Justin remembers Molly at JR's age and shudders. He's so glad that Brian had a son and not a daughter. "Poor Mel."

"Fuck 'poor Mel', she should have thought of this shit before she chose Mikey as the father. She never saw further than the big brown eyes and the dutiful, obedient son. Makes you wonder how she ever got to be a lawyer."

Justin grins. "Well, her first choice refused to participate, remember?"

"Didn't mean she had to pick Mikey," Brian grunts.

"Maybe she and Lindsay thought that, since Michael's the closest thing to a brother you have, choosing him for JR's father would be the next best thing to the kids actually being siblings. Makes sense, I guess, in a creepy, incestuous kind of way."

Brian narrows his eyes. "Shut the fuck up, Brat."

"Make me, old man."

Brian crouches down and looks straight into his face. "Gus told me to give you his love," he informs Justin brightly, "… and a kiss." He presses his lips to Justin's, tasting of coffee and Marlboroughs; and as the kiss deepens and hardens and Justin feels Brian's tongue slip into his mouth and Brian's fingers twisting in his hair to pull him closer, Justin knows that this is another response to Brian that hasn't changed.

He shuts the fuck up.

With his face squashed into the pillows and his ass high in the air, Justin gasps for air as Brian pounds into him. Sweat trickles into his eyes and down his nose; his whole body seems to be leaking, and Brian has to dig his fingers into Justin's shoulders to keep a grip. They're both grunting and moaning, all clenched hands and gritted teeth and flesh slapping together, and when Justin knows he can't hold it any longer he reaches back and claws at Brian's thigh, urging him faster. Brian's hand snakes beneath him to fist his cock, and Justin cries out and spatters his own belly and chest as he comes. He hears Brian gasp and feels the familiar pulsing heat deep inside, and then Brian is collapsing on him, pinning him to the mattress with his weight. Justin feels Brian's heart pounding against his back; he's tangled in sweaty sheets and Brian's legs and he's having trouble getting his breath; he squirms and wriggles and eventually Brian takes the hint and rolls off him with a groan. Justin flops onto his back, one arm thrown over his eyes and the other across his wet, sticky stomach, and waits for his own heartbeat to slow back to normal.

He feels Brian's fingers stroking his matted hair and soft lips against his temple. "Okay?" Brian asks, and the tender concern in his voice sends a sweet warmth right through Justin's body from his scalp to the tips of his toes. He doesn't trust his voice so he just nods and shifts so that his head is resting on Brian's shoulder. Brian's arm loops around him, holding him close.

Brian loves him. Justin knows it with every fibre of his being, the way he did back when he was seventeen and believed he was invincible, before life and baseball bats taught him a different reality and changed his perceptions forever. Looking back now, Justin finds it a constant source of amazement that he and Brian had survived: Brian guilt-ridden and unstable, alternately protective or dismissive as he teetered between his desire to make Justin a permanent fixture in his life and the urge to deny that he was doing any such thing: and himself, insecure, terrified, rootless; demanding Brian's attention because he was the only safe rock Justin had to cling to in a world that had suddenly become alien and hostile. And he'd been so fucking young … he'd had no more idea than Brian how a relationship worked: Justin thinks he understands now how there came a time when he began to doubt how much he meant to Brian; a time when he put more value on the words Brian spoke than in the tone of his voice, the touch of his hand and the look in his eyes. They'd waged a long, hard battle through those years, with what could easily have proved mortal wounds dealt on both sides: but somehow - after the Zucchini Man and Vermont, Hotlanta and Hollywood, the Birthday Hustler and Ethan, Cody and cancer and Britin and fucking New York - somehow they'd patched each other up, leaned on each other and staggered on.

Because it had never been about the tricking, not really. Justin had simply needed to know that he owned a special place in Brian's heart where no trick, no Michael or Lindsay or even Gus was allowed. Before Hobbs had rearranged his neural connections he'd been certain of it, and it hadn't mattered whether Brian could verbally admit the fact or not: afterwards, he hadn't been able to read Brian in the same way, and Brian's refusal to actually say those words to him had only reinforced the doubt that Brian cared anything for him at all.

Justin doesn't feel that way anymore. Ethan, Hollywood, and most of all, New York have taught him that words mean nothing; that promises, like pie crusts, are there to be broken.

He still, however, wonders. His mind goes back to the phone call earlier: always have, always will: I love you too, Sonny Boy. Brian has never had a problem saying those words to Michael and now he says them just as easily to Gus. He'll say them to Lindsay; hell, Justin's even heard him say them to Debbie, and Brian never acts like it's a big deal. But every time they're together like this – when Justin can see those words reflected in Brian's eyes, feel them in every caress, taste them with every kiss – Brian will not say them, and Justin has never understood why. And because his mind is still on that phone call, and because sex with Brian always seems to open an uncensored connection between his mouth and whatever he's thinking about, he finds himself asking: "Why can't you say 'I love you' to me, Brian?"

Brian's hand stills in his hair. "I think you'll find I have," he replies lightly. "I'm hurt that you don't remember."

Justin nods. "Three times. You said it after Babylon was bombed; the night I left for New York; the day I came back."

Brian extricates himself from beneath Justin's head and reaches over for his cigarettes. He pulls one out, lights it, and draws smoke deep into his lungs before saying: "I didn't know it still bothered you."

Justin rolls over towards him, begins to play with the sparse, fine hairs on Brain's chest. "It doesn't," he answers honestly. "I know you love me, Brian: I don't need to hear the words."

Brian looks down at him. "Then what's the problem?"

"It isn't a problem," Justin insists, proving it by planting a warm, wet kiss on Brian's shoulder. "It hasn't been for years. I understand that, even now, there are a lot of things you're not comfortable saying, and that's fine. But you could always say them to Michael and Linds, and now you say them to other people as well. You tell Gus that you love him every time you speak to him. So how come you still find it so hard to say the same thing to me?"

Brian shifts uncomfortably. "That's different."

Not so long ago Justin wouldn't have pushed; if he had, Brian would simply have shut him up or shut him out according to how pissed off he was. But Justin isn't afraid anymore; and besides, he's curious. So he asks: "How?"

Brian shrugs. "Gus is my son. Of course I love him. I'd die for him in a heartbeat. And Mikey is just … well, Mikey."

"And I'm … Justin. And you love me. So why won't you say it?"

"Because it's not the same thing!" Brian stares at him, his face full of frustration. "I love the Armani spring collection. I love fucking. I love winning a new account. I love lots of things. But what I feel for you, Justin … it's not the same thing; nothing like the fucking same. After the bombing … when I thought there was a good chance you were…" he swallows hard, "dead, I said it because I fucking had to. There wasn't any other way to make you understand how I was feeling. And I know I've said it a couple of times since, for the same reason. But, love, Justin? That's not a word I ever want to associate with you, because it's altogether too trite, too common, too fucking trivial to define what I feel. I don't have a word for it. I don't think there is one."

Brian's eyes are troubled, and now Justin feels bad because he hadn't meant to stir up worries and insecurities that should stay dead and buried. Especially since Brian has just lifted another corner of the curtain and allowed Justin a further insight into the eccentric but logical workings of the inimitable Kinney brand of integrity. He sits up and moves to straddle Brian's thighs, reaching out to cup Brian's face in both hands. "That's probably the most romantic thing you've ever said to me, Mister Kinney."

Brian studies him carefully for a moment; then his lips twitch upwards. "I thought my Prince took a lot of beating."

"Bleh," Justin says and starts to giggle. "What about you ordering Emmett to get me Golden Gardenias from China? Your lover has only to inhale their fragrance and he will be yours for all eternity," he quotes breathlessly, fluttering his eyelids.

Brian barks a laugh. "Yeah, it was pretty ridiculous." He stubs out the cigarette and takes Justin's hands in his own, his eyes suddenly serious. "You didn't really want all that shit, did you?"

Justin shakes his head. "If I had, I would have let you go through with it, wouldn't I?" He bites his lip. "Brian … our wedding would have been hideous. I don't think I'd have ever been able to look you in the face again."

"Then why the fuck did you go along with it?" Brian demands. "And the fucking Gardenias were your idea in the first place."

"I guess I never completely bought your proposing to me like that," Justin explains. "Oh, I didn't doubt it when you said you loved me," he adds hastily as Brian frowns. "It was just that everything happened so fast after that; it was like you'd finally decided to take the plunge, and from then on you had to keep swimming or drown. So suddenly you were offering everything; a house, monogamy, marriage. I said yes because I knew you'd done all that for me, and I was happier than I've ever been in my life, but I saw the expression on your face when I accepted and I couldn't get it out of my head that I'd taken you by surprise when I said yes, and that you'd just realised what you'd let yourself in for."

"I meant it," Brian said soberly. "Every word. And I did want it, Justin."

"I know that now. But I couldn't shake the idea, so I kept coming up with stuff I knew you'd hate: tuxes, rings, vows, a reception for everyone, a fucking honeymoon … demanding those Gardenias was just the final act of desperation. I was so sure you'd laugh yourself into a hernia, and you'd just turn around and say You know what? Fuck all this crap and fuck you too, and then everything would go back to normal. But you didn't back down, so I knew you meant it. And I guess that's what gave me the strength … to go to New York and find out what I did want, and to know that you'd be here waiting for me when I came back."

"No regrets, then?" Brian asks softly.

"Not a one," Justin replies earnestly.

"Then I guess it was it was all worth it."

The next morning Brian is quieter than usual, and his expression thoughtful. He isn't curt with Justin, but something is definitely on his mind. When he picks up his briefcase and turns to kiss Justin goodbye, Justin puts his arms around Brian's neck and holds on. "I totally got what you were trying to tell me last night," he says. "And you have no idea how flattered I am. Please don't think you said anything wrong." Brian hugs him back and presses a kiss to Justin's forehead, but it doesn't make Justin feel any better.

Once Brian has left, Justin finds himself puttering about. He isn't in the mood to paint; he can't concentrate, he's worrying. He thinks that perhaps he was a little too dismissive of their Almost Wedding, considering the effort Brian had put into it. Justin thinks that Brian might be a little hurt. Not that Brian is likely to l go off on an alcohol fuelled sex-binge, because that hasn't happened since Justin came back from New York; but he knows that Brian is still fretting and Justin can't help but feel that it's his fault.

Eventually he starts working on some sketches for the next issue of Rage, which distracts him enough so that it's not until his stomach starts rumbling that he notices it's nearly lunch time. Justin works the kinks out of his neck and decides to take a break and start the crossword.

There's always been a strongly competitive side to their relationship, and completing the New York Times crossword has become something of a ritual. Brian has two copies of the paper delivered, one of which he takes to work with him. They usually compare results during dinner, with prizes – mainly but not exclusively of a sexual nature – being claimed by whoever has managed to complete it. Justin is proud of the fact that his record is every bit as good as Brian's.

He wanders to the kitchen and roots through the refrigerator for ham and salad to fix himself a sandwich and as he's pouring a glass of milk his cell goes off.

I'm too sexy for my love, too sexy for my love, love's going to leave me…

I'm too sexy for my shirt, too sexy for my shirts, so sexy it hurtttts…

"Hi!" Justin answers happily.

"You started the crossword?" Brian asks.

"Nope. I've been doing some stuff for Michael. I'm just making lunch."

"Three down," Brian says tersely, and rings off.

Intrigued, Justin picks up his plate and his glass and carries them over to the sofa, where the Times is lying on the coffee table. He takes a bite of his sandwich and munches as he turns to the crossword page and studies it. Three down: the clue reads, Can't live without it? Six letters.

He ponders while he sips his milk, but nothing comes. So he studies the other clues, and after a few minutes he finds out his target word ends with n. Ten minutes later he gets a g as the fourth letter, and then an x as the second. He starts to smile.

He calls Brian. "Oxygen!" he says triumphantly. He's grinning so widely his cheeks hurt.

Brian chuckles. "Clever boy."

"It wasn't exactly taxing. But I really appreciate the sentiment, Brian." Actually Justin has just revised his opinion: he thinks that this is probably the most romantic thing Brian's ever done for him.

"Anytime." Brian sounds extremely pleased with himself, and Justin bites back a laugh because he knows Brian is going to be smug about this like forever.

"I was afraid you were angry … because of what I said about the wedding."

Brian snorts. "Are you kidding, Sunshine? You were absolutely right. It would have been hideous … outrageously expensive, of course, but still hideous."

"We should have just eloped to San Francisco."

Brian is silent. "We still might," he says eventually. "I still have the rings, remember."

Justin finds himself having to blink suddenly as his breath catches, but he manages to sound casual. "I'd have to insist on keeping the honeymoon …"

"Justin, the idea of fucking you senseless every night and day for two weeks is the most compelling reason I have for marrying you in the first place."

Justin snickers. "Like you don't do that anyway!"

"Unfortunately real life tends to interrupt," Brian replies dryly. "I'm talking about two weeks of my exclusive attention … no family … no work … no distractions at all." His voice drops, low and sultry. "Just you and me … for two … long … weeks. What do you say, Sunshine?"

"Um … sounds good to me," Justin squeaks, trying to remember whether he needs to renew his passport or not.

He has a feeling he's going to need it

THE END