A/N So I recently started watching QAF again after a couple of years ago I dumped it, claiming it was too stupid, everyone was stupid but mostly Justin for letting certain bastards treat him bad (it was the grief talking). Now, I know they love each other and we all love jealous Brian but can the blond be more obvious? I felt uncomfortable enough to blush at his attempts, I. I kept thinking that someone had to teach him what subtlety means and thus the idea was born.

This takes place after Justin breaks up with Ethan but before 'follow-Brian-like-a-puppy' thing. I hope you like it ^.^

Stupid Me To Believe I Could Belong To Stupid You

The music boomed in Justin's ears, making his whole body thump, as he tried to pick himself a trick. Here and there, there were appreciative looks thrown his way but he couldn't help the grimace that twisted his face every time he connected a head with a body and found it far from the perfect combination. He was starting to think he would never find something remotely attractive in here. But then again he only had to pick one of the few ones that wouldn't make him want to puke, seduce them until they turned into a puddle of goo and make Brian jealous. That was the plan. Easy as a fucking pie except... not so much.

His eyes kept drifting to one man in the middle of the mass of swinging bodies. Short brown hair, tall and lean, not muscular but really, Justin didn't mind that much. His jeans hugged his body tighter than it should have been allowed, for the sake of the newcomers drooling all over his ass, skin glistering with sweat from underneath a blue button-up shirt. He looked so... neat and yet as he was moving with the elegance of a cat, every move as if calculated to lead to the perfect outcome, he was gathering almost everyone's stare. Justin himself had seen him every night in the past one week, dancing like nobody was watching and turning down everyone bold enough to approach him. The stranger was starting to make a name for himself but the blond liked challenge. Oh, he'd show Brian.

The crowd parted as he made his way to his pray and he had to smirk at that. Everyone, even Brian, at some point had tried catching the man's attention and now they were looking at Justin with a mixture of pity and amusement. They didn't believe he would make it... That boosted the blond's confidence even more. Wrapping himself around the twisting body and claiming it his own for the night, he dared a look at Brian. Poor, jealous Brian who was glaring just slightly at them. He could be angry because the man had yet to push him away and what a hit to his reputation would be if Justin could trick someone he couldn't? Before he had dwelt on that for too long he felt the stranger move closer and lean to whisper in his ear. The blond expected a string of dirty words to leave the other's mouth or even a 'Fuck off'. What he got was even stranger.

"Don't do that," the man said, his accent thick and voice doing things to Justin's body. Certainly not better than Brian's but there was something in it that just made you listen and that's exactly what he did. He listened, but nothing else came from the other's mouth.

"Do what?" Justin finally demanded and the stranger smirked. He had pretty lips. The blond wondered how they would look stretched around his cock.

"Staring at your boyfriend like that. You are making it too obvious that you are doing all of this to make him jealous." Caught off guard, Justin gawked at him, his mouth agape in what he guessed wasn't the most seductive way. But the stranger wasn't done. He nodded toward a glass on the wall, the movement graceful and if someone was watching they would never had guessed he was pointing at something specifically. Maybe that was the point. "Use that, it would be far less noticeable and you might even catch him off-guard"

"He is not my boyfriend," Justin mumbled in a few seconds, but didn't turn around anymore, taking the stranger's advice and focusing all of his attention on the mirror. He felt the other's warm body press closer, chest trembling with laughter vibrating against his own. He wondered how it looked like from an outsider's point of view. The way the man wrapped an arm around his waist and tucked his head under his collarbone. Almost lovingly. It must have looked like he'd won. Judging by the way Brian was shooting daggers at their direction and trying his hardest to hide it it was just so.

"Where is your's, then? Your partner?"

The body next to him stiffened, just slightly but he felt it. The stranger stepped away from him, hands still holding his hips but it was cold. His blue eyes were cold too, not a drop of the previous amusement.

"I don't have a partner." It wasn't from the lack of trying, his body language was screaming that. The man smiled and the blond returned the grimace. He knew all about bitterness.

This simple sentence made Justin look at the stranger in a new light. Not his next victim but a man, too much like him. It also made him do something he had never believed himself capable of.

He rested his hands on the dark haired man's elbows and squeezed slightly.

"Do you want to get out of here?"

He winced at the cliche phrase, it sounded like a pick-up line a desperate 14 year-old would use, and a second later he wanted to hit himself but for an entirely different reason. The other's gaze shifted and turned toward the backroom. Just like that, a simple movement, and the blond knew he was losing. The man's eyes widened, his back straightened and he took a step back. Or he would have if Justin wasn't holding him tightly. They had completely stopped moving now and somehow it didn't matter. The bodies could slam into them and he couldn't care less. The blond wasn't leaving- not alone, anyway.

"I meant for a drink."

Without waiting for an answer he grasped the other's wrist and led the way to the door, not caring about the way people were staring at them, impressed and envious, or the look of surprise on the stranger's face. A look that, after a last glance in the glass, was mirrored on Brian's face.

The moment they were out everything changed. Justin was no longer dragging the other, instead they were walking side by side, the stranger knowing exactly when and where to turn even if they hadn't spoken about the destination. The blond didn't even know where they were going but he wasn't too shocked when his feet led them to Woody's. After all, where else to take a man you have met not even an hour ago and didn't even know the name of. Speaking of which.

"I'm Justin, by the way."

"Ianto." The other nodded as he lowered himself on the chair. Welsh, the blond should have known- with that accent. "Why did you bring me here?"

Straight to the point, Justin liked that. He found himself liking a lot of things in that man. "Why don't you tell me about your not-partner."

The smile, simple turning of the lips that looked more like a grimace, returned on Ianto's face as he wrapped his hands around the coffee they had served him just now. Justin didn't even know they were offering coffee. "I'm sure you know the type. Dazzling, charming, sarcastic and witty, the words 'monogamous' or 'love' not even present in his dictionary and with the strange ability to let phrases like 'Keep it in your pants' go in at one ear and out at the other."

The man took a sip off his drink and scowled and the blond tracked every movement. That was the kind of person he had to be in love with. Pretty, intelligent, keeping to himself everything but what he wanted you to know. Mysterious. Instead he was stuck with Brian who... was pretty much the same, except with all the little bonuses Ianto had pointed out. And everything the Welshman had said? Spot-on, that was Brian, all right.

"How did you deal with it?" And directly on the question again. Justin was never going to admit it but he was actually searching for an advice from that strange man. Even to himself he couldn't explain the reason behind that sudden faith. Maybe he was that desperate to listen to from willing to talk to him?

Ianto looked at him, genuine surprise making his eyebrows lift. Then he bowed his head and his gaze fell on his shaking fingers. It was something Justin noticed only when he tracked his eyes and by the way the other's eyes widened he was only becoming aware of it right now. The blond expected him to leave, get up and turn his back, pretending he hadn't showed weakness to a complete stranger but the Welshman just smiled at him and pushed his coffee away. His hands were no longer shaking.

"The way I see it you have two options with a man like that. You can either stay with him, deal with all his bullshit and hope that eventually he will notice that he loves you and break your heart every single day when that doesn't happen or you can leave him and pray that you find someone that resembles him even a bit. The third possibility... well, it's not a real thing except if you live in a fairytale or a novel written by a hormonal teenage girl. No matter what they say you can't make someone remember something they had never known. You can try with jealousy, teasing, self-harm even, the effect would be immediate but by the end of the day he would have forgotten that feeling again. And this would repeat until it drives you so mad you have to choose between the real two options."

Justin's own hands contracted around his glass, his empty glass, where had all the alcohol gone? as he absorbed every word. It was still that voice that just snatched your attention but filled with so much bitterness that not only attracted but detained it and made you feel just as its owner wanted you to feel. And there was nothing more that the blond wanted than to roll in a ball and childishly cover his ears. Because everything the other man was saying was true, he could see it in his eyes, he could see it in his own past. "Take it or leave it", no other option. Unless if you wanted to separate with your sanity, but then again what was that?

"What did you choose?" he couldn't help but question.

The words had slipped from his mouth without waiting for his brain's approval. They had been apparently the only wrong words in this scenario. Ianto grinned at him, a predator showing its teeth to a victim, and stood up.

"It was very nice chatting with you, Justin, but it's getting late. Goodnight."

He threw a few bucks on the table and with that he was gone and the finality of it all made Justin feel like a whole future chapter of his life had been burned just by a few words. He watched the stiff back walk to the door, pale, long fingers wrapped around the doorknob and yanked it and he saw nothing. His mind was too preoccupied with the choice he was forced into. "Take it or leave it" He had already tried both. The question was which one had hurt less.

After that he was in a daze. He barely slept, he didn't eat, one single thing twirling and twisting around his mind, intoxicating it with false images of bliss he didn't want but needed desperately. What if...

A lot of people were trying to talk to him but he only noticed when Brian did. It was always about Brian, wasn't it?

"So how was the Ice Queen?" his ex-something teased in a way of greeting in a sweet voice.

"Very eye-opening. And other things-opening too."

He had never thought he would stood so low but there he was, answering Brian Kinney the same way he did. He scowled, more at himself than anyone else, and turned to take the orders of the new-comers. But as often happened in cheap and cliche novels, and when had his life become like these things, his eyes fell and glued on a familiar face. He didn't know how long he just stood there and stared, taking in every little detail like the way Ianto was holding himself or the way his eyes burned like two pits of blue fire or the Welshman's suit. He loved a man in a suit.

Then slowly he began to see the bigger picture. As in, finally noticed the man sitting across Ianto, teasing and flirting with everyone around him but the man that was looking at him as if he was made out of diamonds. That was his own Brian, then.

Justin needed only one "Ain't paying you to daydream, Sunshine," to drag him back to Earth and he walked toward the couple. Brian 2 immediately looked up to him, the twinkle in his eyes able to make anyone propose to go down on him right there, right then. Everyone except of Justin, who was immune to this look if it wasn't coming from his own Brian, and Ianto who just rolled his eyes and sighed. It was actually quite endearing, the face the Welshman made when he too raised his head to meet their waitress.

"Hello, Ianto," Justin smiled brightly, fixing his gaze pointedly only at him but also using what he'd learned to spot a surface he could use as a mirror and keep an eye on Brian 2. "I'm so glad to see you. Yesterday was wonderful and I was hoping we could go again some other time, for, I don't know." He shrugged and then bit his lip slightly. Brian 2's eyes were widening with each passing second. "a walk? I will even put on a shirt for you for a change."

Ianto's not-partner was ready to pounce at him and drag him as far away as he could, the blond could feel all the tension even without seeing the fists clenching and unclenching on top of the table. The Welshman himself... wasn't so impressed. He was giving him that soft patient look parents usually used when they wanted to humour their child. A second before Justin started fearing that he might have gone too far, Ianto reached into his pocket and pulled out a card.

"Call me whenever you want. We are in town for another week." Justin nodded vigorously and spared a look at the Welshman's companion, who was just opening his mouth to most probably correct his not-partner. And this was the exact moment Ianto decided to turn toward him and bring each complain to a halt, "What would you have, Jack?"

A minute later and an order taken, Justin was heading toward the next table. On which, unsurprisingly, was sitting Brian. The blond served him the coffee, secretly wishing his hand would slip and damage that suit but he wasn't suicidal enough to do it on purpose. Brian would know. He always knew.

"So, chasing after guys in a relationship, aren't we, now?"

"You can use the word relationship in a sentence?" Justin gasped, mouth flying comically open. "I'm so proud of you."

For the first time in maybe his life Brian-big-mouth-Kinney had nothing to say and he showed that fact with filling his mouth with coffee. Justin grimaced at that and his eyes again found Ianto and Jack in the filled diner. Not many people could boast they had seen their future but Justin's was standing right in front of him. That's it if he and the man he had served coffee had a future together.

And if it could be called together. Brian flirting with everything he could lay his eyes on, not giving a shit about anything but himself and Justin watching from afar, suffering, waiting. However, it wasn't like that with Ianto and his something. Jack was focusing only on him, stealing his attention. Possessiveness, not love. Justin knew it, Ianto did too, if the way his eyes hardened just slightly when the man opposite him took his hand was any indicator.

'Take it or leave it,' his own voice whispered in his ear, 'or...'

'You can't make someone remember something they...' Find someone that resembles him just a bit.

The thought that had been chasing him all day was there again, hitting him with more force than ever because it was possible. It was there. Ianto was there. And he was perfect.

This was the kind of decision that you took in a matter of seconds and once you have decided you hurried the fuck up before reason and logic had kicked in. So it was no wonder Justin practically skipped to the other side of the room and not giving any kind of explanation or warning, grasped the Welshman's hair and dragged him into a kiss.

...It was a nice kiss, he wouldn't lie about that. Ianto immediately opened his mouth, tongue coming out to play, as if he knew. Justin couldn't even consider that he didn't. It was skillful and perfect and passionate and not enough. He pushed forward even harder but the spark was missing, it had never been there. The blond could hear wolf-whistles in the background, that never happened with Brian. When they kissed, even if in a room filled with people, it was just the two of them.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled against Ianto's lips when they separated, pushing their foreheads together. He didn't elaborate or deny it was because of the kiss. It wasn't, even if everyone around them- which was the whole diner, believed. He had made his choice. And Ianto would guess.

"It's okay. I'm still here too, aren't I"

Ianto smiled at him and he suddenly understood. 'Take it or leave it' was never an option. He was too proud, too in love to just roll over and accept his fate. They both were. They had both chosen the non-existing third option. And they were going to stick with it... until it ruined them.

A life day by day was better than no life at all.

Justin bit his lips, afraid that if he grinned his whole face might slip in two. After a final peck and a promise to call Ianto as soon as possible, the blond straightened up. Acting like nothing so strange had happened, he was so good at that, after all, he made his way out of the crowd. He had to bit his lips again, just as he had thought, Brian was still sitting on his table, sipping his coffee. Looking bored out of his mind but Justin knew the expression had recently replaced one of jealousy. Or so he hoped. It would be far easier for his plan.