"Okay, we have just enough for one."
They'd paid the vender in loose change, mostly pennies, and ended up dropping half of it on the ground, scrambling around in old leaves to recover it, and laughing the entire time. The money had finally made it into the hot dog vender's hand, and they'd stepped away with their prize.
"Some day." The darker one said with conviction "I'll be able to afford to give you a full one." He broke it in half and handed the other young man his share. They glanced at each other and cracked up again.
They finished off their small lunch, and then kissed, looking into each other's eyes in rapt adoration.
It had nearly been enough to make Brian lose his own lunch.
They hadn't noticed him there, in the doorway, watching them. In fact, they were focused so completely on each other, with artistic intensity, that he could have driven his jeep into them and he doubted they would have reacted.
He knew he should have moved on, that it was none of his business, not any more, but he continued to observe them anyway. They tossed the wrapper into a trashcan and Ethan's arm locked around Justin's. Together they headed back down the street, and he could no longer make out what they were saying, but he heard Justin laugh again, and Ethan's deeper echo.
There was a part of him that wanted to believe this entire thing was just a game Justin was playing, that Ethan was nothing but a pawn to make him jealous, make him turn all mushy and declare his undying love. And maybe in the beginning, that was what the other boy had been. But Brian hated dishonesty, and he especially hated it within himself.
Justin looked at Ethan the same way he had always looked at Brian. No, not even that. There was something else in his eyes besides blind love now. It was happiness, contentment. Confidence. The kind of love that thrives only in knowing that it's returned in full.
He remembered running into Ethan in a store not long after Justin had left him, and he hadn't been able to resist snarking at the boy, watching him fill his cart with cheap store brands and mark-down items. "Justin was raised with money. He's a spoiled little brat with expensive tastes, and you can't afford him." He'd said it nonchalantly, not even looking at Ethan as he picked up something that cost more than all of Ethan's purchases combined.
"Justin says that you collect nice things." Ethan had said after a minute. "I'm a collector too."
"Oh?" Brian asked, pretending boredom.
"I collect things no one wants any longer. Things they didn't appreciate having enough to hold on to. Furniture. My cat." He smiled suddenly. "My boyfriend." He threw something else cheap into his cart. "I haven't heard any of them complain yet. But that belief that you have about Justin? That if you throw enough money at him he can be happy no matter how you treat him? That's the reason he's with me instead of you. Because you never did understand him. You're an idiot, Brian Kinney. You had him. And you threw him away. And I claimed him." He'd walked off, humming something under his breath.
Dismissing the boy's words, Brian had waited, knowing that Justin would soon grow bored with pinching pennies, staying home at night instead of clubbing, shopping in thrift stores for his clothing. He'd be begging Brian to take him back. And he would. Oh, he'd make him crawl for it, but he'd be nice and forgive him. It shouldn't take long for him to have this Ethan and his romantic, starving-artist bullcrap out of his system.
It was four months later.
And one day, Brian had woken up, and looked at Justin's side of the bed, and realized that he wasn't coming back.
He couldn't even use Justin's debt to him over his head, because the boy had used the royalties from the sale of Rage to pay him back. After paying off Brian and his tuition, there hadn't been much left, and not much more to come since Michael had flatly refused to partner with him any longer. Brian had argued against that, insisting that his problems with Justin weren't Michael's problems, but Michael's loyalty had pleased him anyway. Melanie had tried to convince Justin to bring legal action against Michael, but the young man had refused. Continuing to draw a comic where his ex- boyfriend was the central character did not appear to be high on his list of priorities these days.
He'd drifted out of their lives as easily as he'd entered them, with the exception of Debbie. And Mel and Lindsay. The last time he'd been over to visit Gus, he'd seen pictures in their living room of Ethan and Justin together. They respected him enough not to bring the subject up, but Debbie had no such tact. "He's happy. Ethan is a good boy, and if you do anything to fuck this up for him, you'll answer to me."
"Why would I do that?" He asked her with a sigh.
"Because you're Brian Kinney, and you don't accept defeat without a fight. At least, you never have before."
Maybe that was true, he thought later, but didn't she know that when Justin had left, he'd taken a good amount of Brian's fight with him. But it was something more than that, something he didn't quite understand himself. A phrase popped into his head:
"If you love something, let it go. If it comes back, it's yours." He whispered.
"If it doesn't, hunt it down and kill it."
Startled, Brian looked up from his desk and his thoughts, to see Gardner Vance standing the doorway of his office.
"I'm sorry, what?" He shook himself.
"If you love something, let it go. If it comes back, it's yours. If it doesn't, hunt it down and kill it." Gardner was grinning. "Always liked that ending a bit better than original."
In spite of himself, Brian had to smile in return. "I'll have to remember that."
"Good heavens, I hope not. It's a figure of speech; I'd hate to be responsible for you opening fire in a restaurant some day. Even if the twit you're sitting here mooning about does deserve it."
This conversation was getting into dangerous territory. "I'm not mooning. And even if I was, you don't have to worry. It won't interfere with my job." He picked up a folder off his desk and began thumbing through it.
"Brian." Gardner sat down in the chair across from him. "I'm not trying to intrude, but the fact is that whatever is on your mind can't help but affect your job. That's not a complaint; you're still mountains above anyone else here except for me. But when it gets down to it, you blackmailed me into letting you become my business partner, and if I'm stuck with you until I retire or I lose my temper and throttle you, would it hurt us to be friends?"
Brian did not answer at first, and the glanced up with his best blank expression. "Fine. We're friends. Anything else?"
Gardner rolled his eyes. "In other words, sod off."
"You said it; I didn't."
"Got dumped, did you?"
"It's none of your business."
"My boyfriend ran away with a fruit salesman." Gardner said suddenly.
Brian put down the folder and stared at Gardner, who gave a half shrug.
"I didn't know you were gay." Brian said the first thing that came into his mind, and he was truly surprised. He could usually spot another queer a mile away.
"You're not fucking me. It was none of your business." Gardner was trying hard not to laugh.
"A fruit salesman?" The younger man asked, not sure he'd heard right.
"That's right. Ugly, fat little man who sold apples and oranges on the corner outside of our flat. He looked a bit like a rotten orange himself, if I may be blunt. I never suspected a thing, until I came home from work one day to find the lying little bastard shagging him in the middle of our sofa. We got into a horrible argument; he announced how much he loved the fruity fruitman, and off they went. I never could get the stains out of the sofa; ended up tossing the damn thing."
"How long ago was this?"
"Ten years next month. And damned if I don't still miss him sometimes, however pathetic that is." Gardner twisted his fingers around, studying then, and then glancing back at Brian. "I've racked my brain at times, trying to figure out what the fruitman had that I didn't, but I'm afraid it's beyond me." He didn't appear to be upset by the memories the conversation had invoked. "And no, I did not hunt Charles down and kill him. Although I'll definitely admit the temptation." He leaned back in the chair. "So? What about you? I suppose the States has their share of home- wrecking fruit salesmen as well?"
"A violin player." Brian found himself admitting. "Kid looks like he hasn't showered in years." He hadn't meant to say that; this was a subject he even refused to speak to Michael about.
"What do you say that we both leave here and get pissed?" Gardner suggested, standing up. "Not something I do all that often, but you look like you need it."
At first Brian was too stunned to answer, and then realized his partner was referring to going out for drinks and not a watersports romp. "Why not?" He stretched. It wasn't like he had anything better to do.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
"He came back for his clothing." Gardner leaned over his beer. "I gave it to him in a trashbag. I'd thrown a bunch of berries and bananas and things in there, and the whole thing was a mess of flies and rotten fruit. I told him I was just trying to get him used to it."
Brian almost choked on his beer. "That's good." He finally managed to say.
"What about you? Any great acts of revenge to confess?"
"No. Everything kept expecting me to. I probably should have." Brian swallowed more beer.
"Why didn't you?"
Brian shrugged and bit his lip. He wasn't about to tell Gardner the truth, that if he had retaliated, Justin would have known how hurt he was. He didn't show his soft underbelly to anyone.
"You love him?"
"That's…"
"None of my business." Gardner finished, finishing the last of his own beer and signaling for another one. "And it's pretty clear what the answer is."
Brian looked away.
"I loved Charles." Gardner traced a pattern on the table. "But in the end, I loved my pride more. Too much to swallow it and ask him to stay. So I think that maybe now, looking back, I didn't love him as much as I thought I did. If I had, I'd have fought harder to keep him. I don't think I really loved him until after he was gone, as odd as it may be."
"This guy is good to him." Brian found himself saying, hearing himself as if from a distance. "He makes him laugh."
"Important thing for a teenage boy." Gardner agreed, and Brian sat down his drink with a thud. "How did you…"
"Brian, Brian, Brian. When I took over the company, the first thing you did was go out and hunt down every piece of information on me you could. Come off it, you don't think I did the same thing about you? The only difference is I've got more experience hiding the things I'd rather not everyone know."
Brian didn't like feeling like this. In all conversations, with everyone he associated with, he always had the upper hand, the control. Most people were too afraid to try and get the better of him; those that weren't afraid, like Melanie, still deferred to him more often than not.
"I didn't get where I am today by sitting on my thumb and spinning around." Gardner added. "I've worked bloody hard for every success, the same as you have. I didn't keep you around because of the Brown account. I didn't even keep you around because you're gay, no matter what you might be thinking. Or to shag you, although I'll admit you aren't hard on the eyes. I kept you around because you had the balls to stand up to me, and not run away with your tail between your legs. Because if I'm blowing bullshit and about to wreck the entire company you're the type to stand up and call me on it. But that same kind of drive that makes us good businessmen makes it fucking hell on a social life."
Gardner, it appeared, was getting very drunk.
"So what's the answer?" Brian asked, feeling the buzz himself.
"I'll get back to you on that. Feel free to say whatever you want. We'll both get so intoxicated we won't remember a word of it tomorrow. And if we do, we'll pretend that we don't. Life goes on."
Gardner raised his beer glass in the air. "To unwashed fruitsalesmen. May they all slip on banana peels and fall to their deaths."
Brian lifted his own glass. "To unwashed fiddle players." He paused. "I can't think of a good way for a fiddle player to die."
"I'm sure you can." Gardner urged. "You just need a few more beers. You know the old joke. How is American beer like sex in a canoe?"
"Both fucking close to water."
"Exactly!" Gardner patted him on the arm. "But if you drink enough of them, it's bound to do the trick."
"I do enough tricks, thanks." Brian quipped.
"To tricks." Gardner toasted again. "They'll mess up your sheets and give you crabs, but they won't break your heart."
"To tricks."
Their glasses clanked.
They'd paid the vender in loose change, mostly pennies, and ended up dropping half of it on the ground, scrambling around in old leaves to recover it, and laughing the entire time. The money had finally made it into the hot dog vender's hand, and they'd stepped away with their prize.
"Some day." The darker one said with conviction "I'll be able to afford to give you a full one." He broke it in half and handed the other young man his share. They glanced at each other and cracked up again.
They finished off their small lunch, and then kissed, looking into each other's eyes in rapt adoration.
It had nearly been enough to make Brian lose his own lunch.
They hadn't noticed him there, in the doorway, watching them. In fact, they were focused so completely on each other, with artistic intensity, that he could have driven his jeep into them and he doubted they would have reacted.
He knew he should have moved on, that it was none of his business, not any more, but he continued to observe them anyway. They tossed the wrapper into a trashcan and Ethan's arm locked around Justin's. Together they headed back down the street, and he could no longer make out what they were saying, but he heard Justin laugh again, and Ethan's deeper echo.
There was a part of him that wanted to believe this entire thing was just a game Justin was playing, that Ethan was nothing but a pawn to make him jealous, make him turn all mushy and declare his undying love. And maybe in the beginning, that was what the other boy had been. But Brian hated dishonesty, and he especially hated it within himself.
Justin looked at Ethan the same way he had always looked at Brian. No, not even that. There was something else in his eyes besides blind love now. It was happiness, contentment. Confidence. The kind of love that thrives only in knowing that it's returned in full.
He remembered running into Ethan in a store not long after Justin had left him, and he hadn't been able to resist snarking at the boy, watching him fill his cart with cheap store brands and mark-down items. "Justin was raised with money. He's a spoiled little brat with expensive tastes, and you can't afford him." He'd said it nonchalantly, not even looking at Ethan as he picked up something that cost more than all of Ethan's purchases combined.
"Justin says that you collect nice things." Ethan had said after a minute. "I'm a collector too."
"Oh?" Brian asked, pretending boredom.
"I collect things no one wants any longer. Things they didn't appreciate having enough to hold on to. Furniture. My cat." He smiled suddenly. "My boyfriend." He threw something else cheap into his cart. "I haven't heard any of them complain yet. But that belief that you have about Justin? That if you throw enough money at him he can be happy no matter how you treat him? That's the reason he's with me instead of you. Because you never did understand him. You're an idiot, Brian Kinney. You had him. And you threw him away. And I claimed him." He'd walked off, humming something under his breath.
Dismissing the boy's words, Brian had waited, knowing that Justin would soon grow bored with pinching pennies, staying home at night instead of clubbing, shopping in thrift stores for his clothing. He'd be begging Brian to take him back. And he would. Oh, he'd make him crawl for it, but he'd be nice and forgive him. It shouldn't take long for him to have this Ethan and his romantic, starving-artist bullcrap out of his system.
It was four months later.
And one day, Brian had woken up, and looked at Justin's side of the bed, and realized that he wasn't coming back.
He couldn't even use Justin's debt to him over his head, because the boy had used the royalties from the sale of Rage to pay him back. After paying off Brian and his tuition, there hadn't been much left, and not much more to come since Michael had flatly refused to partner with him any longer. Brian had argued against that, insisting that his problems with Justin weren't Michael's problems, but Michael's loyalty had pleased him anyway. Melanie had tried to convince Justin to bring legal action against Michael, but the young man had refused. Continuing to draw a comic where his ex- boyfriend was the central character did not appear to be high on his list of priorities these days.
He'd drifted out of their lives as easily as he'd entered them, with the exception of Debbie. And Mel and Lindsay. The last time he'd been over to visit Gus, he'd seen pictures in their living room of Ethan and Justin together. They respected him enough not to bring the subject up, but Debbie had no such tact. "He's happy. Ethan is a good boy, and if you do anything to fuck this up for him, you'll answer to me."
"Why would I do that?" He asked her with a sigh.
"Because you're Brian Kinney, and you don't accept defeat without a fight. At least, you never have before."
Maybe that was true, he thought later, but didn't she know that when Justin had left, he'd taken a good amount of Brian's fight with him. But it was something more than that, something he didn't quite understand himself. A phrase popped into his head:
"If you love something, let it go. If it comes back, it's yours." He whispered.
"If it doesn't, hunt it down and kill it."
Startled, Brian looked up from his desk and his thoughts, to see Gardner Vance standing the doorway of his office.
"I'm sorry, what?" He shook himself.
"If you love something, let it go. If it comes back, it's yours. If it doesn't, hunt it down and kill it." Gardner was grinning. "Always liked that ending a bit better than original."
In spite of himself, Brian had to smile in return. "I'll have to remember that."
"Good heavens, I hope not. It's a figure of speech; I'd hate to be responsible for you opening fire in a restaurant some day. Even if the twit you're sitting here mooning about does deserve it."
This conversation was getting into dangerous territory. "I'm not mooning. And even if I was, you don't have to worry. It won't interfere with my job." He picked up a folder off his desk and began thumbing through it.
"Brian." Gardner sat down in the chair across from him. "I'm not trying to intrude, but the fact is that whatever is on your mind can't help but affect your job. That's not a complaint; you're still mountains above anyone else here except for me. But when it gets down to it, you blackmailed me into letting you become my business partner, and if I'm stuck with you until I retire or I lose my temper and throttle you, would it hurt us to be friends?"
Brian did not answer at first, and the glanced up with his best blank expression. "Fine. We're friends. Anything else?"
Gardner rolled his eyes. "In other words, sod off."
"You said it; I didn't."
"Got dumped, did you?"
"It's none of your business."
"My boyfriend ran away with a fruit salesman." Gardner said suddenly.
Brian put down the folder and stared at Gardner, who gave a half shrug.
"I didn't know you were gay." Brian said the first thing that came into his mind, and he was truly surprised. He could usually spot another queer a mile away.
"You're not fucking me. It was none of your business." Gardner was trying hard not to laugh.
"A fruit salesman?" The younger man asked, not sure he'd heard right.
"That's right. Ugly, fat little man who sold apples and oranges on the corner outside of our flat. He looked a bit like a rotten orange himself, if I may be blunt. I never suspected a thing, until I came home from work one day to find the lying little bastard shagging him in the middle of our sofa. We got into a horrible argument; he announced how much he loved the fruity fruitman, and off they went. I never could get the stains out of the sofa; ended up tossing the damn thing."
"How long ago was this?"
"Ten years next month. And damned if I don't still miss him sometimes, however pathetic that is." Gardner twisted his fingers around, studying then, and then glancing back at Brian. "I've racked my brain at times, trying to figure out what the fruitman had that I didn't, but I'm afraid it's beyond me." He didn't appear to be upset by the memories the conversation had invoked. "And no, I did not hunt Charles down and kill him. Although I'll definitely admit the temptation." He leaned back in the chair. "So? What about you? I suppose the States has their share of home- wrecking fruit salesmen as well?"
"A violin player." Brian found himself admitting. "Kid looks like he hasn't showered in years." He hadn't meant to say that; this was a subject he even refused to speak to Michael about.
"What do you say that we both leave here and get pissed?" Gardner suggested, standing up. "Not something I do all that often, but you look like you need it."
At first Brian was too stunned to answer, and then realized his partner was referring to going out for drinks and not a watersports romp. "Why not?" He stretched. It wasn't like he had anything better to do.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
"He came back for his clothing." Gardner leaned over his beer. "I gave it to him in a trashbag. I'd thrown a bunch of berries and bananas and things in there, and the whole thing was a mess of flies and rotten fruit. I told him I was just trying to get him used to it."
Brian almost choked on his beer. "That's good." He finally managed to say.
"What about you? Any great acts of revenge to confess?"
"No. Everything kept expecting me to. I probably should have." Brian swallowed more beer.
"Why didn't you?"
Brian shrugged and bit his lip. He wasn't about to tell Gardner the truth, that if he had retaliated, Justin would have known how hurt he was. He didn't show his soft underbelly to anyone.
"You love him?"
"That's…"
"None of my business." Gardner finished, finishing the last of his own beer and signaling for another one. "And it's pretty clear what the answer is."
Brian looked away.
"I loved Charles." Gardner traced a pattern on the table. "But in the end, I loved my pride more. Too much to swallow it and ask him to stay. So I think that maybe now, looking back, I didn't love him as much as I thought I did. If I had, I'd have fought harder to keep him. I don't think I really loved him until after he was gone, as odd as it may be."
"This guy is good to him." Brian found himself saying, hearing himself as if from a distance. "He makes him laugh."
"Important thing for a teenage boy." Gardner agreed, and Brian sat down his drink with a thud. "How did you…"
"Brian, Brian, Brian. When I took over the company, the first thing you did was go out and hunt down every piece of information on me you could. Come off it, you don't think I did the same thing about you? The only difference is I've got more experience hiding the things I'd rather not everyone know."
Brian didn't like feeling like this. In all conversations, with everyone he associated with, he always had the upper hand, the control. Most people were too afraid to try and get the better of him; those that weren't afraid, like Melanie, still deferred to him more often than not.
"I didn't get where I am today by sitting on my thumb and spinning around." Gardner added. "I've worked bloody hard for every success, the same as you have. I didn't keep you around because of the Brown account. I didn't even keep you around because you're gay, no matter what you might be thinking. Or to shag you, although I'll admit you aren't hard on the eyes. I kept you around because you had the balls to stand up to me, and not run away with your tail between your legs. Because if I'm blowing bullshit and about to wreck the entire company you're the type to stand up and call me on it. But that same kind of drive that makes us good businessmen makes it fucking hell on a social life."
Gardner, it appeared, was getting very drunk.
"So what's the answer?" Brian asked, feeling the buzz himself.
"I'll get back to you on that. Feel free to say whatever you want. We'll both get so intoxicated we won't remember a word of it tomorrow. And if we do, we'll pretend that we don't. Life goes on."
Gardner raised his beer glass in the air. "To unwashed fruitsalesmen. May they all slip on banana peels and fall to their deaths."
Brian lifted his own glass. "To unwashed fiddle players." He paused. "I can't think of a good way for a fiddle player to die."
"I'm sure you can." Gardner urged. "You just need a few more beers. You know the old joke. How is American beer like sex in a canoe?"
"Both fucking close to water."
"Exactly!" Gardner patted him on the arm. "But if you drink enough of them, it's bound to do the trick."
"I do enough tricks, thanks." Brian quipped.
"To tricks." Gardner toasted again. "They'll mess up your sheets and give you crabs, but they won't break your heart."
"To tricks."
Their glasses clanked.