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Babes in Boyland* * *
You can't always get what you want …Babylon, home to the exotic, the lushly exquisite, the perfection of mankind. You couldn't say the place was dull. I remember, nearly two years ago now, standing by the bar between the Mississippi Queen and ever-morose Teddy bear Schmidt, watching the glory of man on the dance floor before he went into the backroom, before we had to leave, before Brian Kinney saw Sunshine on the streets outside. I was fucked the moment they laid eyes on each other but don't think there weren't times afterward when I came so close …it's all so rote now. 'He's good for you, Bri, don't let him slip away.' Seems like there's bad water between the two again. Everybody's favorite couple dancing on eggshells around each other instead of grinding together amongst the crowd in a display as close to sex as two people can get while fully clothed and in such a public location.
Not that the latter has ever mattered much to Brian fucking Kinney.
I see all of this but it's like I'm looking at it through the bottom of a beer bottle. I'm just so damned happy that Ben isn't actually going. Holy Christ, I'd told him he had my blessing and approval to leave and for a while there he was going to go. I think I'm drowning in euphoria and I wonder if it's possible to explode from so much joy and relief and surprise. Suspicion too …I can't help but wonder if my mother had a hand in this, but it really doesn't matter. He's staying here with me and he's happy, he doesn't think I'm holding him back from attaining his dreams, he tells me I am his dreams. It makes me feel so proud that I was willing to let him go and that he decided against leaving. What was that about loving something and letting it go? No matter, I'm babbling now anyway, this is such a great night. God, thank you for this. Christ Ben, I fucking love you.
But if you try sometimes …Listen here, Mr. Prissy Pants. Emmett thought to himself in irritation. I know I haven't been handling much correctly when it came to Ted lately …ever since that dinner fiasco. Well, technically before that, I knew Melanie and Lindsay appeared too giggly when they came back with Teddy. I should have known they were hiding something from me. Grimly, Emmett squashed the little voice of ridicule in his mind. He was going to fix things before they got entirely out of hand and he lost Ted as a friend forever.
With a startling flash of lucidity amidst the taunting inside his head and his own speech to Ted he realized something quite crucial to the conversation he was attempting to have with his good friend. By the tone his voice had taken and the words he was now saying the hesitant flicker of hope in Teddy's eyes came as no real surprise to the Mississippian native.
He was rapidly falling in love with Ted – or at least rapidly coming to the conclusion that he loved the other man – and loosing himself as quickly as he had claimed in Ted's eyes and the other man knew all of this. It was strange to have someone being aware of the unexpected changes occurring to him as they happened and before he knew it he had given up on speech and merely gazed into those wonderful pools of brown.
It was time to breathe new life into that sputtering flame of hope and to cast aside Ted's insecurities for once and for all. He took Ted's face in his hands and kissed him thoroughly. Separate, catch breath, grin helplessly while Ted makes a quick order and joke, forget the eyes and return to the lips and tongue. The admonishing inner voice had shut up and Emmett smiled as he and Ted kissed for all they were worth. Maybe things weren't always as bad as they seemed.
You just might find …Justin Taylor watched his lover fucking a trick in Babylon's ever-happening backroom and thought. Voices whispered in his head, people telling him over and over again how good he was for Brian and how much Brian loved him …how much Brian was happy and proud and wanting to be at his side in his magic moment. Justin wondered wryly whether that would be too 'ridiculously romantic'.
He was suddenly so tired of it all, the empty feeling that spread like a cancerous growth with an ache every time they wouldn't talk. Memories of the guilt over keeping Ethan a secret and of even having Ethan at all. Hopeless lusting for something he couldn't quite pin down and name or describe beyond that he could be content and satisfied if it was granted him.
Standing there surrounded by a perpetual orgy and with the music stirring emotions deep inside Justin wondered both how he could find boredom and emptiness while here, and what had ever offered more than the illusion of fun and happiness here before. He found himself battling an asinine urge to grin and wasn't quite sure if he had kept the smirk from his features as he made his way back to the dancing, to the bar, to his friends.
His mind was whirling and he thought vaguely about loosing himself in dancing and partying like Brian seemed oh-so-capable of doing or just to leave when a familiar figure caught his eye and he stared openly as Ethan hesitantly, playfully lifted a mask before his face. It was an opening, it was an exit, it was the ending of what seemed almost a dream, and it was a new chance for him. Making up his mind in that heartbeat, Justin went for it.
You get what you need …Brian shifted and slipped through the throng of people, searching for his Sunshine but not prepared to admit that even to himself. He had seen Justin in the backroom, had watched the thoughts and feelings play across the younger boy's face. Justin had always been easy to read. Easy to provoke, easy on the eyes …apparently not so easy to satisfy.
For perhaps the thousandth time his brain railed at him, joining forces just this once with his heart to argue against his actions – or lack thereof. Still, as he caught sight of the youth through the partiers and Babylonian dancers he refused to go against what he had already decided to do.
It would hurt for a while, he knew that, but alcohol, drugs, and tricks could make him forget the pain quickly enough, or at least dull it. This was right, he was sure of it. He wasn't about to go out of his way to continue the little play their relationship had become. The façade was chipped, the game was done. Brian was ending this now, while he still retained some possession of his heart – though in truth he wasn't quite sure about that – and while he still had some pride. He was Brian fucking Kinney. And he was saying it was over as best he knew how.
Although, as he watched Justin letting himself be lead away by pretty-boy violinist Ethan, Brian privately worried and wondered why it felt so wrong before doing as he did best, putting up a front and teasing a trick. It was going to be a long, long night.