Title: Age

Author: Simon

Pairing: B/J/Jennifer

Rating: PG-13

Summary: They think about the age difference

Warnings: none

Disclaimers: These guys aren't mine, they don't belong to me, worst luck, so don't bother me.

Archive: Moonshadow Tribe and ATP

Feedback: Hell, yes.

Age

Justin

I know a lot of people think I'm with Brian because he's my sugar daddy.

I know that, OK?

I guess that's how it would look to anyone on the outside looking in and that's fine with me. I know it's not true and so fuck them and the horse they rode in on. It isn't.

Besides, he's out of work right now. Sure, no one thinks that will last very long, but it's not like he's raking it in. In fact, I'm making more than he is.

OK, next week when the unemployment kicks in he'll be doing alright again—not great, but enough to pay the basic bills.

And the age thing doesn't bother me. It's just a number, right?

That's what they say, you're only as old as you feel and Brian—well, sometimes he feels old, if you want to know the truth.

I get teased about the age thing a lot, so does Brian. We mostly ignore the jokes. I mean, how many times can you laugh about Viagra and Grecian Formula and the erotic possibilities of wheeled walkers? It gets old fast but it's not like there's any way to stop the stupid comments so I just let them go. What choice do I have?

But it got me thinking, about the age thing, I mean. How does it really affect me?

Well, maybe that's too big a concept—how do I feel about it?

God, I hate that question… "How do you feel about…(fill in the blank)" That has to be the last resort of poor questioners the world over. Honest to God. Have you ever seen the news, usually the local news with the not quite as good reporters and something happens, say a fire or a car wreck and the dumb ass reporter sticks a microphone in some crying person's face ten minutes after they find out that their kid has just been burned to death in a dorm fire or Chris Hobbs gets away with a slap on the wrist and they ask "How do you feel about what's happened?"

That just always pisses me off. I mean, how would you feel, asshole?

But, as they say, I transgress.

To be honest, I think the reason I was first attracted to Brian was his age.

Fine, you got me…but it was probably the second thing after getting past his looks and his bod and his eyes and his hands and his hair and his lips and, well…you get the idea.

You see, that night I'd gone down to Liberty Avenue with the main purpose of getting my cherry popped and I wanted someone who knew what he was doing for the big deed. It just made sense, if you see what I mean. Why go with a VW if you can find yourself a Porsche?

So I was looking for someone old enough and experienced enough to know what they were doing and I wanted to find someone who wasn't too scummy.

I have standards, you know.

So that's how I ended up with Brian.

Well, yes, I wouldn't have ended up with him, even for one night if he hadn't made the first move. I'd been looking around at what and who was available and it was pretty grim and I was scared to death on top of it. I mean, I was like seventeen years old and a virgin, for God's sake. Besides, he was on his way home and he'd even just gotten blown, so it wasn't like he was dying for it or anything.

So, fine, Brian was the right look and the right age—not too young and not too old. I saw him notice me under that streetlamp and as soon as he started walking over to where I was standing I knew he was the one.

No, I'm not talking about love at first sight. That came later, like around three the next morning.

Well, that's not true, either. I thought that was it, but I don't think I really loved him until he walked out of my parent's living room and then asked me if I was going with him.

It sure as fuck was lust at first sight, though.

I just so wanted him.

I was so shit scared I could hardly talk, but I went with him and—hell, you know what happened. We were getting started and he'd already figured out that I was new to all of this but he was going to do the deed anyway when he got the call about Gus being born and we ended up at the hospital and all of that happened. I met Michael and the girls and the other lesbians then and it was like my head was spinning the whole time. It was a lot to take in, you know?

After that all kind of settled down and we left, I half thought they were going to take me back home but then I said that I was going with Brian and I guess that's when Michael decided that I was this pain in the ass he didn't need.

I think that maybe he had a point about that if you want to know the truth.

Hey, I'm sorry. I was talking about how I feel about the age difference and I go off.

So it's like I was saying, I was looking for someone who knew what he was doing and Brian did. In spades.

Afterwards like the next day in school, I sort of got to thinking that was what I wanted—boys, I mean guys my own age were boring. They hadn't done anything or been anywhere. They didn't know anything and if you tried to talk to them about anything beyond how the football team was doing it was a lost cause.

Brian knew things and he'd accomplished stuff. He was as smart as I am and there aren't too many people I can say that about. Hey, did you know he beat me in the SAT's? I got 1500, I guess everyone knows that. He got 1557. He did—Michael told me one time. I think I rolled my eyes like, 'yeah, sure', but he had this old SAT result card of Brian's tucked in his yearbook and that's what it said: Verbal 798, Math 759. Those are killer.

So he was as smart as me, OK, he was smarter and he knew what he was doing and he was kind to me—at least that first night. He made sure that I wasn't more frightened than I already was and he took it nice and slow.

I think that's what did it for me; I think that's when I realized that he was going to be important to me. I saw that under all the bullshit he was basically kind.

I know, I know—he'd smirk and say something horrible if he ever heard that, but it's true and I think that kindness and his basic decency comes from how shitty his life has been for so long. It's almost like he doesn't want to hurt people.

Well, come to think of it, that's not true, either. Brian hurts plenty of people—Ted, his mother, Debbie, Mikey, Linds, and Gus, his father, his workers. He hurts people without even thinking about it and so a lot of people don't like him, but you have to understand where he's coming from. He's been so hurt himself, you know? His parents were shits and his sister is a nightmare. Debbie doesn't think anything about slamming him every chance she gets and Melanie makes a game out of it.

The age thing, that's what I was talking about. Sorry.

I think if I'd met Brian when he was my age I would have thought that he was a complete asshole, but I see through him now.

He knows what he's doing. He knows how to be a really great queer. He's successful, he's smart, he's beautiful and he pretends that he doesn't give a rat's ass about anything while really caring like hell.

He's scared about getting older. I know that. He equates youth with beauty but I think he may be starting to see that's not necessarily true.

He is beautiful and as he gets older he becomes more so. He has a solidness about him now that most young guys don't have. He's seen enough to know what's going on and how to deal.

He has it figured out and I need that so bad you can't believe it. I'll talk to him about something and in his snarky way he'll lay out the options and let me know what he thinks and then make sure that I make up my own mind, not just do what I think he wants me to.

I know I come across as this smart kid who has his act together, but I know it's mostly crap and I'm just trying to get from day to day like anyone else—but Brian? He's got the tiger by the tail and I just try to hold on.

Brian

Age and me. Well, that's a subject we can talk about for a while. I'm not going to, though. Fuck it, what's the point?

Age and me and Justin, there's another source for debate.

Don't even start. I know, I heard all the bullshit:

I'm trying to recapture my lost youth.

I'm too immature to deal with someone my own age.

I'm ego-tripping with a kid who hero-worships me.

I'm taking advantage of his inexperience.

I'm incapable of a relationship with an equal.

I need to be in control.

I'm a selfish prick who will throw him out when I'm done with him.

I'm using him.

I'm letting him use me.

You want me to go on? I could but you get the drift.

And you know what's interesting about the whole thing? Everything I just listed is true. It is. I know it and I'm not even going to try to deny it. It is. I picked him up and planned to throw him out—in fact I did throw him out but he sort of turned into my personal boomerang and kept coming back every time he went out the door and now there's some part of me that doesn't want him to go.

I asked him to come back again and stay this time.

I think maybe my age is catching up with me and even though I know he's not ready for the Ben and Mikey scenario, I think that maybe—in my own unconventional undefined way, maybe I am.

He used to think that he was, that was what he wanted—a trip to Canada or some place and matching wedding rings…the whole lesbianic Vera Wangs and white lace and promises crap. Now I think he's realized that's bullshit.

He knows now that he has about a thousand different things he can do and maybe only five hundred of them include me and right now he's deciding if that's OK with him or not.

He's leaning on the fucking fence as far as we're concerned, the same damn fence I've had stuck up my butt these last three years, and he's not sure which side he's going to land on.

Does he go with Bad Old Brian the geezer Sugar daddy or does he go with Hot Young Stud Justin and his Hollywood friends?

Stay tuned, boys and girls.

We'll find out together.

Jennifer

Justin is gay. I'm fine with that. Honestly, I am.

I admit that it took me a little while to accept the fact, but once I did and once I really understood that it didn't really make any difference it was fine. Debbie helped and she was right. You smother a chop, not a son and I knew I had to let him find his own way, one way or another.

I just wish that he hadn't decided on Brian as the tour guide.

Brian—dear God.

Yes, he's intelligent and he's been a big help as far as Justin and his father and school and all the rest of it have been concerned. I even believe that he, as he put it, cares about Justin. I honestly don't know what I would have done if he hadn't been there after Justin got out of the hospital but—well, does he have to be so, so…well, so Brian?

The man—not a boy—the man is in his thirties and has a son himself.

The afternoon Craig found out that not only were Justin and Brian still together but that Brian had a baby son of his own—well, I thought that he would go through the roof.

Brian's life is so far beyond the things that concern Justin; so far beyond the things that should concern any teenager that I wonder how they can make it work.

Sex. I know. Sex.

I know everyone thinks of me as this WASP princess and thinks that I'm sheltered and all of that, but I have had two children and I have been through a messy divorce. I didn't just climb out of the pumpkin patch.

I know what the main attraction is here for both of them and I can't honestly say that I'm all that thrilled with it but there isn't all that much I can do about it.

I don't think it would have been any different if Justin had been born straight. He'd probably still be with an older—person. He's always been more comfortable around older people. That's just him.

But Brian? Snotty, snarky, rude, arrogant, vain and too old for Justin by a decade Brian?

God give me strength.

I used to think it was just a bedroom affair (and didn't that make me happy as you can imagine). I thought that in a few months or whatever it would blow over, excuse my pun. I figured that Justin would learn what he wanted from the arrogant jerk and Brian would get bored and move on and it would resolve itself—and that's pretty much what happened, too.

Then they got back together.

God.

I've almost accepted it now. I'm fine with Justin being gay. I really am. I'm really almost alright knowing that he's with someone twelve years older because Brian is successful and intelligent.

He's just so…Brian.

And to the end of my days, I will never understand why or how they've lasted as long as they have.

My sweet Justin needs someone as sensitive and giving as he is, someone who will take the time to understand him.

Brian needs someone who will stoke his ego and any pretty boy would fill that role. That's the thing I just don't understand—I can see why they hooked up to begin with and I wasn't all that surprised when the broke up. Their getting back together after Ethan turned put to not be what Justin had thought even made sense to me, but why they're still together now…well.

I suppose it's a mutual needs thing; Brian needs Justin to prove that he's still 'hot' and Justin needs to be needed by Brian, especially now with the cancer.

But I just don't see it lasting.

Debbie even told me one night that she didn't think they'd grow old together, that these May and December romances—alright, I suppose it's more like April and July—had a life span and would likely play itself out. Justin would, in all likelihood be the one to leave sooner or later, but one way or another it would end. She even told me Brian said as such to her one night when he'd had too much to drink and Justin was somewhere else.

He knows, though I'm not sure Justin does. He'd probably be angry if anyone suggested it to him, in fact.

I just don't and I'm not completely sure how I feel about that.

1/6/05

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