New York Series
part one
It's been years since I last saw him. Since I last heard his voice. It wasn't any waking choice either of us made, it just happened. People drift over time. It happens to everyone. We're all like iceburgs, moving slowly in cold water. Sometimes together, sometimes not. I still get the occasional email, though, but that's once in a blue moon. They're really impersonal, too. J, blah blah blah, B. Like a memo or something from work. It's easy to believe he doesn't even send them. That the cold and impartial universe spit up a memo to tell me the anti-virus has been updated or something.
Most days I don't even think about him anymore. Everyone at home has stopped mentioning him to me and I stopped asking. Iceburgs drifting along in the cold night.
At night, though, it's different and I can't delude myself as much as I can when the sun's up. There's a weird sort of truth in the dark places, whether it's in the corners of my apartment or the corners of my head. Waking to find my arms and legs wrapped tightly around a pillow and swearing I felt something wrapped around me in the sweet seconds of not-awake-not-asleep. I've even had guys complain about it. Going to bed with me and waking up alone because I'm too busy hanging on to whatever the pillow is.
Even nightmares have taken on a new aspect for me, bittersweet insteady of simply scary. I'm not sure which is worse. They start out in terror but before they can really get going and really make me wake up yelling and thrashing, a familiar hand cups the back of my neck in that way that makes my knees loose and my stomach tighten and my dick hard and pulls me against a strong chest that I'm sure I know. I can hear a familiar heartbeat and feel fingers stroking through the hair at the nape of my neck and I can't see a thing though I'm trying like hell. It's longer now, my hair, mainly because I don't want to spend the thirty bucks to get it cut, but these fingers stroke through it, all of it, and I still wake up upset because in all the years I've been dating only one person's done that to me in just that way. Crying and horny all at the same time. If that's not fucked up, then I don't know what is.
On the cusp of sleep, sometimes I feel like I'm falling. It takes my breath away when it happens and usually it throws me awake. These days someone catches me before I can wake, swings me around and back up again and I know the hands on mine, the fingers gripping and tossing me up again. Someone. I'm deluding myself again. It'd be easy to say that it's a dream man and not real, or that it's someone I'm going to meet later in life or an angel watching over me. But I'm not that stupid. It smells like him in my dreams, feels like him. I haven't thought this much about Brian Kinney since I first met him. I'm drowning in him. I want it to stop and I don't. I want to catch a glimpse of his face and I don't. It makes me scared, because dispite the fact that things are going well for me and I've managed to get myself into a nice one-bedroom on the top floor of a nice rowhouse in queens, I know I can't afford the serious help I'd need to make this stop.
And what if it does stop? Do I really want it to? I feel like I'm falling again and I can't find grounding nor breath nor sanity and I don't want it to stop. I don't. It's filling my ears and eyes and mouth and hands and I'm dizzy out of my mind and painting half naked and three am because my sleep has been shit lately. But my work's never been better. I'm falling through a slow orgasm that takes hours and hours to build but makes me just as stupid and lost as the conventional type. And I can't do shit about it except paint through it, listening to the radio to try and remember who I am and occasionally bumping into the canvas, open mouthed and breathing hard. Sometimes the radio helps. It's so banal, it's hard to imagine anything more grounded, but tonight it's barely a hint of a distraction.
When there's a knock on my door I actually groan, like the hard sound's touching me in all the right places. It's probably the neighbors wanting me to turn off the radio. My hands are slick with paint and I know it's all over me but I don't care. Even if it does take me a while to actually get the door open.
For his part he doesn't ask stupid questions like if I'm alright or if I'm alone. Instead he reaches his arms through the doorway and catches me because I'm falling again. I'm falling again and clutching at him and there's paint all over Brian Kinney's face and jacket and it doesn't matter because he's kissing me and kissing me and kissing me.
Somehow, we're on the floor and the door is closed and locked again. We're both covered in paint but the old hardwood's firm under my back and he's concerned and solid above me. I'm flying high in pleasure's sharp and painful teeth, in all those dreams and he's here. He still doesn't ask, though I know he wants to. I answer him anyway with a smile.
"Sunshine." It's a revenant breath, a prayer, and hands are in my hair again, stroking, the way I need it, the way he needs to. Tomorrow's soon enough to catch up and scold and laugh and fuck but tonight's about paint and falling and prayer. He's falling too, I can tell, but I've got a good hold on him, so it's alright.
And I know he's going to quietly take over half the rent, even if he's raking in the cash. Even if he can afford manhattan, he's quietly picking queens. Quietly learning how to make love, how to live, how to slow down and enjoy everything. For a second I wonder if he's had a heart attack or something drastic like that to make him stop and take stock of things like this. And when I look into dark and shadowed eyes, eyes that look like they haven't seen sleep, real sleep, in long years, it comes to me. Yeah. A heart attack. Something like that.
Part two
It's somewhere around four thirty in the morning and I'm in the middle of fucking nowhere, Pennsylvania. The world's deserted, empty, devoid of any and all life entirely, except for me, on my ass on a grass embankment, staring at my car like it was something facinating. It's not. I thought I wanted a smoke without the distraction of driving, which is bullshit and I'm worn out enough to fall for it. I thought I wanted a cigarette, but the cigarette in my mouth's unlit and I'm kneading the tobacco out of another, so that all I have left is a filter in a beat up paper tube. It's probably something deep and symbolic, but it's also a waste of a cigarette. And I've been doing it for over half an hour.
This is so fucked up. Sitting on the God damned expressway, halfway to New York, diddling time away like a moron. I should get my ass back into the car and keep driving. I want to lay my ass down in the middle of the road and wait for some buzzed out of his mind trucker to run me the fuck over.
I want to be able to say that I can't fucking understand why I'm here, but that's utter bullshit. I know why I'm here. I know where I'm going and I know why I'm sitting here, on my ass on an empty turnpike.
It's been years since we spoke, really spoke and I'm at my breaking point, if I'm going to be perfectly, brutally honest. I'm tearing at the seams and I'm stitched together with blond and blue thread that doesn't exist in Pittsburgh anymore. And everyone at home fully realizes this, even the little shits that take forever to realize anything.
Michael thought I needed to get laid, but the idea of yet another backroom encounter left me cold. The last one, a week or so ago, gave me such a sour taste in my mouth that I couldn't stomach it. I left, just shoved him off my cock and left, the both of us unsatisfied. The more I unravelled, the more blue and sunshine thread I left behind in my footsteps, the worse it got, until blonds were fucking everywhere and not a single god damned one had the smile I wanted. Needed. Fucking Sunshine. I was a moron tonight, grabbing shoulders and spinning guys around to face me, only to shove them away when their faces weren't right, when I realized the shade of blond was all wrong.
That's why I'm going. That's why I just got into my car and revved the fucking engine and left it all behind. Left behind Liberty Avenue and my fucking reputation. Left Pittsburgh behind.
Everyone's going to to kill me, but when they're done screaming, they'll understand. They fucking better.
But underneathe everything I'm thinking about is terror. Here comes the brutal honesty again. It's a cold, hard lump in the pitt of my stomach that makes me feel like I'm gunna piss myself sitting right here, even if there's nothing left in my bladder. In my whole fucking system except blond and blue.
I haven't talked to him, really talked to him in years. No one mentions him to me anymore. What if he's moved on? What if he's settled in with someone else? Forgotten I exist? Shit. I have never in my life worried about this crap, so when I start worrying, I do it in high style, in the fucking middle of a deserted turnpike. But my life's sliding into hell at an insane pace and I have to know. I have to go. I can't live with myself anymore. And I can't even let myself think about what I'll find when I get there.
I drove like this through today and into tomorrow, stopping occasionally to think about the same fucking things over and over again, until my nerves are so tight they go twang and I can continue on. Every few hours, I gotta stop and wind myself up again, till I'm swearing at the car, at the road, at anything long enough to distract myself and just keep driving. And believe me, it takes a fucking long time to get anywhere when you've gotta do that.
Eventually, though, I do get there. And it takes everything I've got to actually knock on his door at one in the morning. I stood out there an hour, an entire fucking hour, before screwing up enough courage or desperation or whatever to just go on and do it. I know where he lives. I've always known. That was never an issue. I'm the issue. I know every move he makes from one apartment to the other, every show he's featured in, everything. I know he's awake. There's light trickling from under the door and quiet music behind it, but I can barely hear it over the thumping in my chest. My heart's beating so hard that it's actually painful and for a second I actually wonder if I've wound myself up so much over this drive that I've managed to give myself an honest to fuck heart attack.
But it all leaves me in a rush, the tide roaring away, dragging around my knees like water, when the door opens and he's there. He's there, covered in paint and looking high out of his mind and like the floor's tipping away from him. So I catch him. I reach out and take two steps that I never had to think about and catch him, smearing his oranges and blues between us. All over me. He tastes like I remember, too, only better because it's real and he's here and the taste's enough to send me whirling along with him, sliding from our feet and onto the floor.
Whatever he finds in my face, later, seems to satsify him deeply because he smiles. That smile. The one I've been looking all over for. And I'm home. "Sunshine." It's over my hands, against my face, stitching up the places in me that need him so badly. And for once, it's him comforting me and me chasing after him. But I don't care. I'm home.
Part three
You can see the long, smooth curve of his back outside the window. He's perched out there, on the fire escape, skin rippling in the cold and smoking a cigarette. Why he's smoking out there and not in here, you don't know, but it gives you the chance to study him, or at least his back, without the threat of him going all bashful on you. Might be why he does it, now that you think about it. But he's out there and you're watching and all around him are the remains of attempted green thumbs in flower pot graves and the dirty sunshine that only New York can offer is wreathed in his hair. And you've never seen him be more beautiful.
A knee-jerk reaction berates you for that thought, denouncing it as stupid sentimentality, but it's too early in the morning and you're far too comfortable to pay it much attention, so it fades to silence and lets you be.
The smoke he exhales is nearly the same color as the half overcast sky. It fades into the sky, the stonework of other buildings nearly as it leaves his mouth. His breath made this city for you. And you're sleepy enough and besotted enough to actually believe it for a second or two and actually love New York for it. Love Queens for it. You've only been here a week and already you can't leave. Won't leave. Oh, you'll visit other places, but this city, and more importantly Justin, knows you've finally come home. And home is right here.
Only a week ago you came through the door and caught him, falling in the grip of something terrifying and sublime all at once. He was covered in paint like blood, if blood could be in yellows and oranges and blues, and you could believe it, believe it came from him, out of him, through him and over his hands. Divine suffering and ecstacy all wrapped up in one. He was bleeding art all over himself and you, but it didn't matter because it was you and you were there, falling with him. And instead of pulling him out of the sublime, he pulled you in, somehow, and you understood. You rolled with him in pigmented blood and you really understood. The art was Justin, and that night the art was you, too.
These are gilded moments, you tell yourself, golden as his hair (there goes another mental kick you're ignoring), long and soft and scented with his art. They tumble past, every single one sweet on your tongue and you wonder since when did not being sensible feel so damned good? And in such a soft way. Gentle as an exhaled breath. Just as powerful, too.
You came a week ago, after a hellish night on the town, where every blond seemed for an instant to be him and all you could think about was a smile of heart stopping sweetness. So you left the town, the clubs, the bars and went home. All the way to New York. With nothing except the clothes on your back. He laughed at you for that one, delighted, and you laughed along. But he made space for you easily when you came home after shopping, dropping bags like confetti on your way to the bedroom.
Later today you've got appointments to look at spaces all around the city, to decide which building will hold your New York branch, but there's time enough later to worry about that. Right now there's just the smooth curve of his back, lean muscles twisting now towards the window and arms lifting to let him back in.
The air he brings with him is sharp and slightly smoky and his skin, when you let him back under the blankets, is cold and prickly with it. So you curl around him, protecting him from the cold's sting and he sighs in sublime pleasure at the feel of warmth. Your warmth, specifically. You simply soak in his chill, his presence, his breath until the cold finally gives up and goes away.
Later, perhaps half an hour, probably less, the warmth'll expand and wrap around you both, unfolding into a different sort of heat, where all the contact in the world is never enough and you're both writhing against each other and desperate to drink one another. But for these few peaceful, gilded moments, this, here, now, is enough.
Part four
He's painting, out in the living room. You can hear the radio going, occasionally the station changes, mid-song sometimes. And every fifteen or twenty minutes he comes into the bedroom, where you are and sticks out his right hand and you take it and massage for five minutes or so. Till the art pulls him away and off into the other room again. There's paint all over your hands from his hands, paint all over the phone from your hands. Paint on your laptop, too. It's a huge fucking mess and you don't care. In fact, you're so calm about it that you're going through real estate listings. And fielding phone calls.
"I'm listening, Mikey. I can hear you. I'm not ignoring you, but I want to." You went through his finances, after he admitted to you that he was terrible with anything resembling a number and wasn't really sure what was going on with the banks, and you discovered that he could afford half the mortgage on someplace bigger. And you both need someplace bigger. He laughed about it, tripping over his things. He laughs a lot, lately. You love it. Love it. "I'm listening, Mikey. Something about I suck, as if that was news." Sharing the mortgage makes him laugh. You could outright buy the fucking place for him, gift wrap it, stick a big fucking bow on it. But you don't. Instead you get quotes on mortgages. You understand why, too.
"You so are not! You're doing something stupid, I can tell."
"What am I doing that's stupid?" Your fingers flick the laptop's touchpad, stroking it gently, sorting through town houses and row houses, two and three stories. Three stories tickles your fancy, but you want to ask Justin about it first. The idea of a third floor turned into a studio for Justin, a shrine to his art, someplace almost holy for the sublime ... it just seems right to you. Big enough so that you can lay on the floor stretched out on your stomach, chin on your fists and watch him paint. And be there, of course, every fifteen minutes for a quick massage.
"You're in fucking New York, that's what's stupid! You're still in New York! You just fucking drove off!" The edge to Mikey's voice makes you smile. Justin's back and and you're tipping your head, wedging the phone between ear and shoulder so you can take his hand and massage his wrist again. He's edgy, wanting, needing to get back to the painting. It was catching him up, whirling him around. Almost like sex, but there's no jealousy, no worry, nothing but an odd intensity that makes your heart beat harder, makes the blood sing like paint in your veins. So you just stroke fingers and thumbs over his skin, easing pain and giving him another fifteen, twenty minutes.
"It's the first sensible thing I've done in my life, Mikey. Stop yelling or I swear I won't talk to you until fucking december." Justin's already pulling away and you're left absently rubbing at green paint on your palm. He's too distracted to look at houses right now. Too tangled up in his life's blood. You can't help but crane your neck to watch. It looks better than any drug you've ever taken, what's catching him up. It looks fucking amazing. You can't help but watch.
"You've lost your fucking mind!" He sways when he paints, back and forth, watching the canvas like he's waiting for it to talk to him. Maybe it talks to him. You wonder what it says. Maybe you know, but it's a scary thing, hearing it speak. Right now he's shifting from foot to foot, stirring something in a plastic cup and watching the canvas. Listening to it.
"I know. It feels good." It slips out before you can think about catching it and once it's out, you find that you don't mind it as much as you thought you would. It feels really good. It also brings Michael to a stuttering halt. You've got to admit that feels good, too, finally shutting his tirade up for a precious moment or two. Justin was lifting his brush and swaying forward and you tip your head still further to watch. The real estate listings were forgotten for the moment.
"You're .. you're not even listening to me, are you."
"I'm listening, Mikey. The nutty professor must not be home. He's your reasonable side." Smiling a little, you manage to go back to the listings. You're curled up on the bed, by the window with the laptop in front of you. It's incredibly comfortable. And you're coming to terms with the fact that comfortable is a very good place to be. Coming to terms that you of all people, Brian fucking Kinney, is happy with comfortable.
"You're smiling. I can hear it, you're sitting over there and smiling about moving to New York."
"So come and visit, Mikey. We're buying a house. If we can figure out which one we want." Maybe ... this one. Your fingers flick over the keys, trail over the touch pad, bring up the listing, the specs, the tiny details, the pictures. Maybe.
"Wait, the connection's got to be bad. I could have sworn I heard you say that you and Justin are buying a house."
"Don't make me repeat myself, Michael." Justin drifts back, eyes slightly glazed and shaking out his hand before offering it to you again. When you take it, he leans against you and lets his gaze drift over to the computer screen. Since he's looking, you point to the one you've had your eye on and he's reading, you can tell. This massage lasts longer than the others. "Hi, Michael," he murmurs and reads. Your fingers knead his wrist, his palm, smearing paint like blood between the two of you. "Brian, I like this one. Can we see it?"
"You're really going to stay in New York." The hurt's there, the disbelief, the, yes, resentment. You were praying that Mikey wouldn't do this. Knew he would do this regardless of any prayer you may have made. He'll probably get over this. But right now he hurts and won't listen. He's determinded to be hurt. He's been like this since he was fourteen.
"God, Mikey." You're exasperated. And you can't help it. Justin's hand is slipping from yours again and he's rolling a kiss against your temple before the painting reclaims him again. "Don't do this to me. Just fucking get your ass on a plane and visit. Or drive. Rent a big fucking van and pile everyone in and come here. Then we'll take a turn visiting you. I'm in New York, not fucking China." He's sighing and you're sighing and everyone's sighing.
"Don't you dare call me pathetic. Cause you're the pathetic one."
"I wasn't going to." The listing was sent off to the real estate agent. They'll see the house today, hopefully.
"Then what were you going to say?"
"Nothing. This is just something I had to do. In a place where I don't have to prove anything to anyone except myself." How can you explain? You just want to be alive. You close the laptop then and push it away with your feet, hoping like hell that Justin likes this place and you like this place and that the pictures do the place justice. The blankets are warm and soft under your belly and you stuff a pillow under your head. From this position you can see him paint, watch the dance his art brings him through by the tips of his fingers and the tips of his toes.
"Brian --"
But you don't want to deal with this anymore. Mikey's just being strange and unhappy because there's a ton of change going on and going on with you and it's frightening him. You wish you could explain why it's so right for once, but he's not in a place where he'll listen to anything. "Mikey, talk to Ben and then call me back." So you cut him off. "I'm gunna go. Love you." And the phone's being dropped so that you can focus your entire attention on the doorway and what's through it. Oh, Mikey'll call back tonight, you know, full of apology for freaking out all over you, and you'll nod even though nods can't be seen through the phone. And he'll understand and listen, finally, and probably marvel to Ben how much his best friend has changed. ..has grown up.
Part five
Brian's downstairs. I can hear him. He's shuffling around down there, poking through rooms and imagining furniture in corners and things on the walls. Hopefully different colors on the wall, too, because all this beige is sort of annoying. I know up here it is. The first thing I'd do is paint the walls up here. Up on the third floor. Brian's down on the second. But I have to admit, I'm not really looking around, though I should be. I think the moment I stepped into this house I loved it. The funny thing is that I think he knows it, too, but he still makes a show of looking around. Of making sure he's getting his money's worth, but I don't think there's any question of us not buying it. So I'm up here while he wanders, leaning on the railing, listening with my eyes closed. The old wood was once varnished, but it's all worn away and it's smooth under my hands and cheeks. I love it. I love the way it smells.
It isn't the palace he had once bought, but then I don't think either of us wants a palace these days. Palaces are for enclosing royalty in. They're completely unconnected to the rest of the world, and I don't want that. He doesn't, either, I think. I feel. Brian told me he just wants an office to work from home sometimes and a bedroom with my horrible, comfortable bed in it and a kitchen. And a workspace big enough for him to stretch out in. That last request touches me intimately, more so because it's casually said, a simple statement, but incredibly powerful. I wonder if he knows just how much it affected me?
Nearly as much as the mortgage affected me, really. And from the look in his eyes when he started talking about mortgage rates one random day, he knew what he was asking for. God, he knew and I told him mortgages didn't make much sense to me but I wanted to do it anyway. His face, his face was just .. beautiful. Like when a painting's telling me it's finished. Like that first night when he came to me. Just beautiful. I could let myself fall into that memory, make love to it, spend myself with it and lay sated in its arms afterwards.
"Hey Sunshine." Called down from below. My eyes pop open at that and he's standing down there under me, peering up at me with amusement all over and around him. Under his shiny shoes. So I answer him with a smile. Brian was posing in one of my favorite images. Unconsiously, but it's still there. In one of his suits, four button to accomidate and accentuate his long frame and a long wool coat on top of that. All long lines and leanness and crisp edges. I have a painting like that. But his coat is big enough that I can burrow into it when I feel like it, hiding from the world or hiding like a kid, waiting for the world to find me. He looks like he could move mountains just by asking, like he could save the world, if he wanted to. Except for the look on his face. Open. Delighted. Alive. And the smudge of paint over his cheekbone doesn't take from it at all.
"I love it, Brian. Can we buy it? I know we have to send in an offer, but I'd like to."
"Me too, Sunshine. I was hoping you'd like it." Because he loves it, too. His voice says as much loudly declaring in soft tones. The old wood floors and wood banisters suited him perfectly, nearly as perfectly as Armani. No, more perfectly than Armani. He was basking, down there, face tipped upwards like he was soaking in the sun. He loved New York. Loved this place. ...loved me.
I suppose some part of me's aware that this is the honeymoon period, or something. But I can't find it in me to worry much. He calls me Sunshine, like he's discovered it's my real name. It's pretty funny, actually. Makes me laugh, makes my work laugh. That's what they said about my latest and greatest. It laughs. It's exhuberant. Explosive. Yeah, explosive like an orgasm. The image makes me smile wide and close my eyes and drape along the railing. The house feels alive to me. Not cold and dead like a lot of new places feel. Sterile. Not this place. And I'll paint an abstract orgasm to hang right where it'll be seen, right when someone walks through the door.
I'm expecting a comment for this, my silly behavior, a question, something other than the soft and breathy laugh I do get and it makes me smile wider. My face is going to split in two starting with my cheeks. I can feel it. Can he hear me thinking, I wonder. The shape of my thoughts hanging out in the air like butterflies or something. Something bright and light, the way I feel these days. Granted, I feel slightly crazy, too, but that seems to be alright, expected even. Artists are a fairly loony bunch, I'm told.
"It'll feel even better in here once we start moving things where they belong..." Maybe he can hear them. His voice is drifting away and he's walking the floors again, measuring them against his stride, learning the pathways from one room to the other. Where things belong. Not where we want them. Where they belong. Sometimes things don't belong where we want them to be. Now there's a secret I should figure out how to paint. Or how to explain to Michael, at the very least. How to accept the happiness and perfection of an object finally being placed where it should have been all along.
The shrill voice of Brian's cell phone interupts my wandering thoughts and pulls me upright again. He's answering it and speaking to someone, describing the place in between his footsteps. It's a little echoey here, without furniture and rugs and life's junk to soak up the extra sound, but he's not trying to hush himself, which is fine for me. Must be Michael or Debbie or someone like that. I hope it's Debbie. She understands that we're not gone away. Just a little out of reach. Just take a step or two and we're there, right in front of their faces. Besides, I want them all here, very badly. To show them everything.
"I know. I can understand that." The echoes from Brian's voice decend like snow in the house's waiting air, and I step away from the rail to explore my own domain again. My studio. Airy and big and with the feel of my first studio about it, for some reason. Maybe it's the age of the place, the wisdom in the walls. They're smooth under my fingertips. Just waiting for me. The rest of the house is our nest, the both of us, but this place, this floor, it's mine. My domain, my baliwick. I sort of always thought of Brian's work in the same way, for him. His domain. His baby. But there's a place for him here, too. And, really, I'm begining to think I need him here, watching me paint and massaging my hand. Maybe he can set his office up here, too. It's big enough.
Three's a holy number, and I'm on the third floor. I have to remember that.
"I love this place." This time I'm saying it for the house's benifit. No one else's. I'm crazy, I know, whirled up and spun around and pushed down different paths with my own hands. That's crazy. That's fucked. I love it. I'm a lunatic, it's great. Later, not too long later, too, we'll go and sign paperwork and buy this place. Sign a contract to love the house as long as it loves us. And I'm ready to do that. It seems like a really big and really important step in my life, even though it's not the first place I've ever had.
But, by now I'm ready to sign my life to this place so it's time to go collect Brian and usher him towards the real estate office. It's terrible, but then there's no way to get places like this without dealing with the nuts and bolts of the system. And Brian's so very good at tweaking nuts. "You ready?" he asks when I find him. I answer with a soft affirmative sound and stretch my hand out towards his. It's like this, fingers knotted loosely together and palms touching, that we go.
Part six
He's been out here a while. Standing on the landing like a lost and confused little boy and looking up into the open space that is Justin's studio. Brian's office is tucked up in that space somewhere, too, but from here all it is is art and the tools for making it. Not that you can tell all that in the dark. But he's been out here a while. You can see the sharp edges of his face but nothing of his expression and the only sound being made is the quiet gasps and heavy breathing of Brian and Justin, up there, fucking and trying to be quiet about it. Breathy laughs from one or both of them, "Oh God, yes, more, please," the occasional soft groan. It'd bother you less if you knew Michael was getting off on it, but he wasn't. He was just standing there. Staring.
Not that you blame him, since they really are quite beautiful together like this. On their knees, one behind the other, with faint moonlight picking out their edges. They move well together, like they've choreographed it, memorizing the steps before hand, practicing, well past opening night and into the christmas matinees. Hands moving, two sets, gliding like ice on hot skin and not the least bit awkward, what you assume is Justin's head, waggling back and forth until it's caught in the net of a kiss. God, you'd be incredibly turned on, if you weren't so worried. It's art, like this. Very erotic art. Everything they do is art. This visit's taught you that much, at the very least. It's all a dance, and they dance for each other. For no one else. It makes you think of the stupid little things you do for Michael every day. The stupid things he does for you. Not nearly as elegant as ... as this, but just as deep, you'd like to think.
The simple way that they invited you all in, the way Justin laughed and cried and hugged everyone repeatedly when everyone fell out of the van and into the house, into their home. The utter laughing chaos. The stupid gossip, the news, the rumors. The disbelief in Brian's eyes when the freaking van pulled up. As if he never expected Michael to take Brian up on the offer to pile everyone into a rented van and just come to New York. Finding places to sleep for everyone. Giving up their bedroom to Debbie and Carl and making do on the inflatable in Justin's studio. Really. It's all a dance. You'd smile if you weren't so worried.
Even when they bicker, there's an ease between them. A lowering of tension that you've rarely seen between them. Like they've both just given up fighting the inevitable and let the universe order things as it sees fit. It's a deep and comfortable breath, filling, long on the exhale. Something that you only slip into occasionally with Michael, cherish when it happens. And you thought it was a strong connection, with the two of you.
"I am not going to Manhattan to go siteseeing like some retarded hick queen on vacation." Brian's voice was flat and bored, but there was a smile in hazel eyes. Currently they were being rolled away from Justin and Emmett, who were gearing up to spend the afternoon wandering around Times Square and squealling all over the sights. Emmett was waving some camera around, like this was his one and only shot at New York, New York. "They just got here. And I'm hungry. And I bet they are too."
"So go get dinner. We're going." Emmett was jumping up and down like he was five, nearly shaking Justin's arm right out of its socket, in his glee. And some how, several others had gathered round the Manhattan contingent, catching enthusiasm like it was a bad case of the sniffles.
"Fine. But the rest of us are going to Ricardo's." There was a general scurrying for jackets and shoes and scarves while they bickered, a clammour and noise accompanying it all, and several of them tiptoeing around, maybe a little worried, but you caught the look in Brian's eye, so you weren't worried.
"Asshole, that's my favorite." The self-satisfied smirk on Brian's lips said quite plainly that he knew. "Asshole."
"Well, too bad for you, then. You're going sightseeing, aren't you?" The tone was acidic, like a smirk, like grapefruit juice in the morning. Completely at odds at what you saw crouched behind hazel irises, trying hard not to be seen. Funny that no one else saw it. Well, no one beyond Justin, at least. Michael was too busy not looking to see it.
Everyone else stopped worrying, though, when Brian took home take out for the sightseers. For Justin. As if it wasn't even an option not to.
A new urgency enters someone's breathing, utterly distracting you from your thoughts. It's probably Justin's you think, since the faint and breathy noises seem a little too high pitched to be Brian's. They're still moving, even through all your introspection, and in a position you always loved just because it felt sentimental to you. The top, wrapped around his lover. Still. It's long past time to reel Michael in and rescue him, but before you can move your hand, your arm, anything, a sharp glitter gives away the soft secret that Brian's eyes are open. That he fucks Justin with his eyes open and that he's watching Justin intently, devouring details, breaths, sighs, the expression on his face. The way his lips part, his lashes flutter. God, now you're afraid to move, afraid to whisk Michael away from this, back into the safety of the bed. Afraid that Brian would see.
God, you're holding your breath, you're panting with Justin, swaying with the both of them, and you can see Brian's eyes close when he kisses Justin hard, like he's just met him for the first time. Like he's needing him for the first time. It's then that your arm shoots out and hauls Michael in fast, up hard against your chest so you can flee with him, safe in your embrace. And you're praying to God, any God that'll listen, that you're silent, that they're so caught up in each other that they won't notice the two of you, running. As the door's closing behind you, you can hear Justin's breathy moans, pushing him off his peak, and surprisingly, Brian's voice coiling richly, posessively, round the sweet silver core of Justin's.
And before you is Michael's face, devistated, but only for a bare breath or two. Your hands are framing it before you can blink, before you can take a breath, whisper his name. And the devistation fades swiftly away into something else entirely, and entirely all on its own. Maybe something a bit sheepish. Embarassed as hell. He's probably beet red, but it's too dark to really tell. "It's stupid," he's whispering softly. "But ..."
"But it still hurts to think about him loving more than one person." You whisper softly against his ear. Michael's nodding at that and pressing closer, nose tucked up alongside your adam's apple. But it makes a kind of sense. For years he's only loved one person and now ... and now. Now. Right. Now.
"At least it's someone I like?" he offers softly, shakily, mouthing the words against your throat. Sheepish. Definately sheepish. The relief you feel is so intense that your knees are like water for an instant and you have to cling to him just to keep yourself on your feet. And, thankfully, he's leading you back to bed. It needs to be talked about, absorbed and moved past, but not tonight, dammit. It's something to worry about tomorrow and you've both dealt with enough demons for one night.
Part seven
"Good morning boys, hope you enjoyed the show!"
"We're here all week, try the veal." An incredibly sleep fogged Justin pawed around the kitchen until a mug was filled with coffee. When he managed that Everest of a feat, the mumbling artist took his blanket robed self out with his coffee. More than likely back up to his studio and the inflatable bed. Poor thing was so pathetic, it was great. Brian, on the other hand, sounded incredibly chipper. It was sick, really. The rest of the world would have thought it the other way around, but then the universe worked in strange ways. Brian Kinney was a morning person, while Justin was an idiot before nine.
"What the hell are you talking about?" It was early enough that Michael's brain wasn't quite up to functioning just yet, but Ben, who had been sitting across from Michael at the kitchen table, actually blanched and left for a morning run quite a few minutes earlier than expected. He was followed out the door by a cheerful grin and a happy wave. The kind of grin that said Brian just got dealt all four aces plus the fucking joker and was planning on hosing you for all you were worth. Ben was smart enough to get away before the real damage was done. Michael, bless his supportive little soul, wasn't smart enough to see impending destruction this early in the morning. He simply sat at the little table, cup of coffee sitting innocently cooling in front of him.
"I'm talking about last night, Mikey!" A hand clapped Michael's shoulder in the exact same tone as his voice. With one toe over the line, moving from just jovial into really grating. Michael hated that tone. And Brian knew it. "Was it too dark to notice my technique or were you able to see enough to be able to comment? Because I'm a little worried about my follow through." Both hands were on Michael's shoulders now, squeezing, while his hips rocked smoothly, miming thrusts. Michael knew, he just knew, that the tip of Brian's tongue was poking out the front of his god awful smirk, making it that much worse. And there's nothing Michael could do about it.
Except let his head hit the table with a groan. "Fuck."
"You got that right, Mikey. So. What did you thi-ink?"
"I think I wish you wouldn't fucking smirk and be smug this early in the god damned morning." His hand came out and pulled the coffee cup in close, as if he was trying to snuggle it. "Can this wait until after breakfast?"
"And give you the chance to run and hide, like your smarter half? Hardly. So. Tell me. What did you thi-ink?"
"I think you shouldn't be a god damned asshole about it! It's not like I meant to watch, alright? I was going for a glass of fucking water." Michael lifted his head up a touch, so that dark eyes could find Brian. He was right, Brian was smiling in that god awful smug way of his. Some things will never change. "And you weren't quiet." Yeah. He held all the aces and Michael had been dealt a crap hand and couldn't do shit about it.
"You still watched. Were we hot?"
"Brian--" Michael was suddenly struck with the monumental task of trying to explain what, exactly, the black flake in his heart meant. The understanding that Brian finally was caught up in something bigger than himself and how Michael felt left behind for it. Something bigger than himself and something he couldn't fight. He was left with his mouth hanging open and his tongue groping for words and finding nothing, no way to explain rationally what was going on. Dispite the fact that he understood. It was that way with Ben. But how was he supposed to explain it so that Brian understood?
So, naturally, it came as a bit of a shock to him when Brian leaned across the table and gently closed Michael's mouth with a couple of fingers. "A couple of birds'll nest in there if you keep that up. They'll breed and crap in your mouth." The asshole was still smiling, but it was much softer than the edged smirk, much more affectionate, much more patient. That alone made him want to reach over and check Brian's temperature, though he knew there wouldn't be a fever. Wouldn't be a single damned thing wrong with him except that all those years of old pain and all those years of trying to drown it in something, anything, have finally had something soothing poured on them.
Maybe there was a god. One with shit for beans timing, but he did eventually get around to things. Too him long enough. He took a hurried gulp of coffee and cracked some comment about piss poor technique while Brian had his laugh. There was no anger, though. None. None he could hear in Brian, at least though he wasn't sure about himself. If he was angry, it was stupid and pointless and at least he saw that. "So when does Boy Wonder emerge from his cave?" Best retreat into safer territory.
"Give him another two hours and he'll be awake. Justin before eight is pretty pathetic. And if you want him to draw, you probably need to wait a little longer. How he managed to get through high school is a minor miracle. What're you doing up, Mikey? You're pretty much the same." Pathetic before eight. And it was only nearing six.
"Ben was up." Nothing else needed to be explained. The ghost of a smile touched Michael's lips and he shrugged his shoulders, just a teeny bit. In that way that made him look uncomfortable in his own body.
"Go back to sleep, you're on vacation." Brian was pulling away Michael's coffee cup and slurping from it himself. "Ugh, it's cold anyway. Seriously, go to sleep. No one else is up besides you and the jogging Professor."
"And you." But the idea of bed was a wonderful thing and Michael decided against resisting the call of the blankets.
"I always get up early." Nonchalantly. Brian was pouring himself a fresh cup and sipping it black. Must be good stuff if he could drink it like that. Michael couldn't tell. His tastebuds had long been burnt off by diner food.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. I just don't usually bother getting out of bed. Go sleep, Mikey. Please. You look incredibly sad."
"Yeahyeahyeah." It was easy to just fall back into bed and curl up in what was left of the warm spot. In the moments before sleep, when the world was just begining to fade away into warm and comfortable nothing, did it occur to him to wonder what, exactly, did Brian do awake in bed with his partner asleep? A heartbeat later it didn't matter anymore.
Part eight
Today, there are many eyes on me. Not obviously and not for any length of time, but they're on me. On my work. Normally, painting isn't a spectator sport. Normally it's just me and the canvas, the paint, the textures and colors I've decided to seduce today. A watcher or two, a soft conversation, a radio, those aren't big deals. I actually like them, when I notice that they're there. There are times when I'm buried to the balls and flying high and nothing can find me except the ache in my wrist and even then it takes the ache time to find me. Today could be like that. But every so often, when I'm forced to come up for air, to reach for a new brush, color, anything, I catch someone's eyes flicking up the stairwell and over me and the moment is cracked. It's almost physical. I'm not sure if I like it. Everyone's eyes are kindly, but still.
They aren't hostile. They're just curious. I keep telling myself that when frustration threatens to throttle me. They're just watching creation with an acolyte's facination. Like it's something that simple looking would let them understand, for all that I love them. For all that they're my family. For all that I wish I could explain it. This pathalogical need to transmute emotions into visions. Coming and going, looking for excuses to walk back and forth, just to watch me create. I guess I should be flattered. They come to watch me sway with the color, dance with it, obsess over tiny details, making them just right, so that the whole just vibrates like a struck bell in the soul. Pure tones or dissonance, whatever it is that's caught me today.
My poor brushes are nearly as abused as I am, thrown into a bucket of water to wait for later while I drift over towards a couch set against the windows and my anchor sitting there with a magazine. He pretends to read, but he watches, too and I don't mind it. I don't mind the utter intimacy. His eyes are steady and understanding, taking in each layer, each touch of paint. Sometimes I can bring him into it, the creation, and it's enough to give him ... everything. Everything I'm trying to do. Still, he's a piece of the real world as well as a piece of the art, and it's comforting to have him here. His hand reaches out for mine easily, mine slips into his easily and his fingers feel wonderful on stretched muscles and tense tendons.
That's when the eyes cast their gazed nets the most often. In the easy moments strung between us, when Brian's digging pain out of my hands to toss it aside and regarding the canvas with steady eyes instead of simply curious. Of course, I might be making all this up, all the ease and all the simplicity. Mad love and art could have unhinged me completely, but I don't think so. Especially in the moments when he reaches out and catches his breath before it gets away from him and really knows what the paint's telling him. What I've said without words, without structure, without formality. With just raw color and feeling.
A deep breath stills all the crap flying around in my head, whirling around like a tornado, and he's looking up at me curiously when I let the breath go. So much in such a simple look. "Still in the painting," I tell him, and that's enough that he understands. Or at least enough that he nods and continues the massage. These days I don't bother too much with drafting things out on the computer unless there's a specific story I want to tell. Spontinaity paints a specific emotion, a single moment, not a whole story, and I like that. But it leaves me with a lot of ideas whirling around and around... "Is it selfish of me to wish the house was empty?" I whisper it, afraid it might carry to ears that I really didn't want to over hear. I was only half serious, though, smiling through it, laughing at myself for saying it.
His answering smile's everything I could ever want it to be. Amusement, agreement. His fingers dig and my head's going back, my jaw's dropping, all because he knows where the pain lurks and knows how to pull it out of me. It hurts like hell, but the fact that it's leaving feels so damned good. "You're done for today," he's telling me conversationally and as much as I want to disagree, he's right. The art wasn't very kind to me today. It rode me hard, today, for all that the canvas was small, for all that there were vouyers sliding in and out all day. Maybe because of it.
"It's crap anyway." The painting's words are all muddled, slurred, like they're drugged. But I think I can see how to clarify it, how to sharpen it, how to take a weak, openhanded slap and turn it into a nasty right hook. And there's the intensity that I've been waiting for, the blooming of the idea that's been bothering at me since I started this stupid piece. The fact that it shows up now, of all times, makes me groan and Brian, for his part, lets me pull away when I move back towards the canvas. Lets me go when I grab up a brush, grab up my paints and start mixing away. When I lose myself in the work. When I let it take me and spin me around and around until I'm breathless and let me fall and never hit the ground.
"One of these days," he's telling me later, "your hand is going to fucking fall off and you're going to have to learn how to paint with your feet. You'll be the amazing foot painting freak." I'm stretched out, wrung out and spent, with my head braced against his leg. His hands are simply holding mine, lending warmth to overtaxed sinews. I've pushed too hard today, way too hard, but the painting is starting to satisfy me. Only starting. Just beginning to speak with the clarity I want it to. I'm my own worst critic, but I've been told this is normal. I can hear voices echoing through the house, pockets of people here and there, taking leasure while it's offered to them.
"I have a left hand, you know. All unabused and ready to go."
"It'll fall off, too." Ah, of course. But it's enough to wring a small laugh out of me, enough to tell him that the sublime, as he calls it, is starting to receed. Like ocean, sliding into the out tide. Sublime. Like it's religion, or even better, faith, but more importantly, his faith. It might well be that, I don't know.
"Did it..?" I had to ask. It's near magic when he's caught up, too. God, it's good. I wish I had words for it.
"It was all you today, Sunshine." I didn't really need to ask, but sometimes it's nice to have confirmation. "I'd be all over you if I got into it, too. Tired?" My eyelids droop and I'm spent, like after amazing sex, and he can tell, but he's not getting up and leaving me to nap, like he sometimes does. Everything feels heavy, everything feels pulled down to the center of the earth, but it's a good feeling. And dispite the lethargic feeling in my body, the faint hum in my brain, I'm horny. Some things never change, I suppose.
"I think I forced it, today." I know I forced it. The pieces always look angrier when I force them through. They're pissed off. Like they didn't want to see the light of day and I hauled them out of bed, kicking and screaming and threw them out the front door and out into the world. No wonder I'm spent.
And he's agreeing with me. He's probably smug right now, too, but I don't much care right now because I'm heavy and wanting and he's warm and solid and has a hand in my hair. "Got something to prove?"
"What? No!" I want to get up but his arm's heavy against my chest and I'm too tired to move it out of my way. "What would I have to prove?" What would I have to prove? But his fingers are on my chin, tipping my head a little, just enough that my painting comes into view. I can hear him picking up his magazine again, probably some catalogue for mensware or sex toys or something, while he waits for me to see what it is I'm supposed to see. When the image finally unfolds itself for my tired eyes, I finally realize what it is that I've been saying all afternoon. It's an image of definance, a fierce declaration that I will be happy. "I guess I'm a little worried." And a little amazed that he saw it before I did.
"We're older," he's reminding me and I'm nodding and twisting so that I'm face first in his lap. "Please don't make me be the voice of reason. I fucking suck at it." It's the right thing to say, too, because I'm laughing softly at it and agreeing. His fingers were prodding at my neck, suggesting none too subtly that I just relax and let things go. "I'll take you out to dinner."
"I'm not that insecure." Stubborn, sure, but not insecure.
"Who said anything about insecure. I just want to take you to dinner. Fucking deal with it."
All sorts of emotions rose up in me, all in a rush, and I let them out in a breath against his stomach. Up and out and gone instead of letting them linger. So I could just say what I really wanted to say. "Okay." My arms slid around him, my face was pressed against the fabric of his tshirt and his hand was stroking my hair and my neck.
"Okay."