Second Year

May

Brian had picked Justin up at the airport the day after Eric had shown up in New York to see his paintings at the gallery.

He never asked what Justin had done that day and a half that he had spent in the city after Brian had been called back to Pittsburgh and if he had any suspicions, he kept them to himself. Justin did notice that he was quieter than usual on the ride back to the loft and that night in the shower he seemed to be looking for marks, but there were none.

He never asked and Justin never volunteered. It didn't matter. They both knew.

Fred never spoke about his suspicions, thinking it was none of his business, and Brian never asked him, either.

If Brian kept more to himself and spent even more time getting his new agency on firm footing, well then, Justin knew that was what he had to be doing just then. He was often down at his new office, starting early, working late and skipping meals. The pattern from last year was back with a vengence but Justin was almost too concerned with his own tight schedule to make more of an effort with his husband. He knew, when he grudgingly allowed his throughts free range, that part of the problem was of his own making, but he would manage to rationalize these ideas away or simply push them to a back burner.

He knew that Brian was exhausting himself, that he was losing weight again and that the circles were back under his eyes. He seemed almost apathetic other than when it came to work. He almost never went to Woody's or Babylon, he would snap at Justin if he asked a question when he was absorbed in something on his computer and he declined almost all invitations, telling Justin to go without him and have a good time.

In bed he would, when he finally got there, hold Justin gently, spoon behind him and stroke his arm or cheek, but sex was either rushed—almost frenzied—or so slow and languid that Justin was too embarrassed to admit that it went so long that he was sore and a little bored by the end of it.

Finally one day Brian was sitting alone in the diner between the breakfast and the lunch rush, quietly nursing his third cup of coffee and going over some report when Debbie sat down oppisite him with her own cup and stared at him until he gave her a glare.

"You gonna tell me what crawled up your ass?"

"My ass is fine, thank you."

"Well the rest of you is full of shit, then. You've been moping around like a teenager whose boyfriend forgot to call for three weeks now. Spill, kiddo. What happened?" She went for the direct attack. "You and Justin have a fight?"

"No and butt out." He repeated his glare but Debbie has seen it too many times for it to bother her.

"You know me better than that." She tried a half smile which he pretended to ignore. "Brian, honey, what's wrong?"

For a long moment she thought that he was simply going to get up and leave but he leaned back against the wall, one foot up on the seat and looked at his hands then said, almost to himself, "I don't know what the point is anymore."

Whatever she thought he might say, that wasn't it. "What point, sweetie?"

"…All of it." He paused, seeming to gather his thoughts, probably articulating whatever had been bothering him for the first time, even to himself. No one else was in the place, they had it to themselves. "I used to think that being the best at my job, making the most money, screwing whoever I wanted was the point. You know, having the most toys, doing what I want, fuck you' to my parents."

"And then you met Justin and he threw you for a loop, right?"

"He was just another factor in the equation, another toy, another notch on the belt"

That was pure Brian, talking logic and planning, everything plotted out and planned. And she knew damn well that Justin may have started as just another score, but he sure as hell had been more than that for a long time. "Uh-huh. So what's the problem? You've been looking like someone took your puppy since you got back from Justin's show."

He looked down at his wedding ring. It was probably an unconscious move but it told Deb what had happened. One of them had a fling, maybe more than a fling and judging from Brian's mood her money was that either Justin had met someone—which she thought unlikely after the whole mess with Ethan—or that Brian had and Justin had found out about it and they were trying to work it out and weren't having much success.

She stalled for some time while she tried to decide how to handle this, if that was what it was. "The new agency is doing alright?"

"It's fine." For Brian to say that he must be making money hand over fist.

"Then you sit your husband down and you two talk about whatever the problem is because if you don't it will grow so big and so ugly that you'll never get past it. You hear me?"

That was the sort of thing that would normally be guaranteed to get a rise of him but he just sat there. This was worse than she had thought and she was used to drama queens.

"…That's where I don't know if there's still any point left." From the look on his face, all still and closed, she knew what that sentence had cost him. So that was the problem, she was right. One of them, probably him, had been screwing around and it was tearing them up. Shit.

"Then you apologize to him for whatever—or whoever you did. You hear me? While you still can."

He started to say something but stopped himself, just nodding instead then getting his report, kissing her on the cheek and leaving.

Deb hoped that he would. She thought he might and unless Sunshine had been too hurt to forgive him, they may be able to patch things up.

This time.

Brian had told Molly that he would show up at her school for that frigging career day thing. In fact he had asked her why she didn't pick her own father or her mother or even Justin, but she had told him that the kids would get a kick out of seeing the ads he'd made up since they'd all seen them and besides, he was hotter than anyone in her family.

Smart ass. She knew the way to his heart. So he plastered one of his less snarky smiles on his face and arrived at the school when he'd been asked to. He knew better than to wear one of his suits for this crowd—he knew how to sell the sizzle—and had dressed himself in his usual worn jeans and a fitted black sweater. He looked good and he knew it.

In the classroom, he waited while one of the other parents, a balding man who ran a company that made sacks for grain products talked about the intricacies of burlap and tensile strength needed to contain fifty pounds of corn. To the man's considerable credit, he almost made it not boring. Almost.

When it was Brian's turn he walked up to the front of the classroom, ignoring the girls giggling, sat himself down on the edge of the teacher's desk and explained that in his opinion, what sold product was sex. Sex sold and then proceeded to show them some of the ads he'd produced to illustrate his point of view. He managed to do it with a degree of taste that most of his friends wouldn't have thought him capable of and showed the kids his wares without offending anyone—quite a feat when you considered that one of his tag lines was "Eat the meat", an insinuation lost on no one in the room.

Molly was beside herself knowing that the kids knew that she was related to this smooth hunk and blushed when he teasingly called her Sis'.

It was a classic Brian Kinney performance; smooth, practiced and professional. He was in the business of selling and he sold himself well. It was, when you came down to it the reason he was so good at his job.

As he was finishing up he saw Jennifer slip into the back of the room, some kind of school book in hand. Probably Molly had forgotten the thing that morning and being Jennifer and not Joan Kinney, hand delivered it before it was needed.

His time up, the questions finished, the teacher thanked him for coming in and sharing with them and he left the room with a smattering of applause. Jenn followed him out to the hall, closing the classroom door behind them.

"Thank you for doing that for Molly. She was so excited this morning, I think she changed her clothes at least four times."

"It's alright, I didn't mind helping her." He made a move to go.

"What's going on between you and Justin?" She seemed almost afraid to ask. He knew that she had been expecting them to bust up a long time ago and probably just thought that the inevitable had happened.

Screw this. "What do you mean?"

"Brian, don't play dumb. He's miserable and so are you. What's happened?"

Shit. He really didn't want to get into this with her. "We're fine, just busy, that's all. He's probably tired."

She wasn't buying it. "Are you having an affair?" He raised his eyebrow. None of her fucking business. "Are you? Justin said that you left New York a day early and he's been a mess ever since. Is it someone you're still seeing or just a—trick?" Even saying the word made her blush.

Screw this, even if she was his mother. "What's between me and Justin is none of your business."

"Of course it is and you answer my question."

Fine, let her know her angle's wings were bent. "I haven't been with anyone other than Justin since before we got married."

"Is that the truth?"

"I always tell the truth." She was trying to decide if he was lying to her. "So you do the math." Jenn's eyes widened enough to tell him she got it. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have work to do."

"Justin? Are you busy?"

"…Yeah, look—this isn't a good idea."

"I was hoping that we could maybe get a cup of coffee or something."

"I have to get home."

"I didn't mean to make any problems for you. Honest to God. I just wanted us to be, you know, I wanted us to be friends."

"No you didn't. You wanted us to fuck."

"That wasn't why I went there. I swear. I didn't even know you'd be there that morning. I thought that you and Brian would be…I don't know. I thought that you'd be, you know, somewhere.

"Screw it…It was my fault. I, we didn't have to—I could have stopped it."

"But I followed you to New York. I knew that you're married and all. I'm really…God, I heard that you two are having problems now and I feel really bad about that. I swear that I never thought—I didn't want to make trouble for you."

"Bullshit. Of course you did. You were looking to get my ass in your bed and you didn't give a rat's…Shit, look, forget it. I was there, too."

"Hey, Justin…"

"No, fuck it. It doesn't matter. I could have said no."

"Are you going to be OK?"

"Yeah, sure. I'm fine."

"I mean you and Brian. Are you going to be alright?"

"Yeah. I, yeah."

"I could talk to him if you want, I could…"

"And you'd say what? Sorry I followed your husband four hundred miles so I could nail him?…No hard feelings, have a nice day'?"

"I…just meant that I could…"

"Right. I've got to go."

That evening Justin was cutting vegetables for dinner when Brian came through the door. They exchanged a look, an unspoken question about what sort of evening they'd be having—pleasant, armed truce, snark or outright hostility. It seemed fairly benign for starters. Hanging up his coat, leaving his briefcase on his desk, Brian crossed up to the bedroom, returning in a couple of minutes wearing a pair of loose workout pants and a wife beater. Evidently he had no plans for going out.

"Are you hungry?"

"No, not really." He looked at the half prepared dinner. "Sorry. I had a late lunch."

"It doesn't matter." Justin started to put the things away, to clear the counter. Brian sat on the couch, watching the end of the news, after a few minutes they were seated next to one another, not touching and pretending to listen to Peter Jennings.

"Brian, I'm sorry." It was so quiet that it was almost inaudible.

Brian turned his head, looking at Justin, studying him. "I know that you are." He half shrugged. "I take it that you want me to forgive you and then we can move forward, is that it?" He was so young, young enough he still thought that saying he was sorry would make it all better. Brian knew that Justin had broken it off with the other boy—in fact he hadn't even bothered to learn the kid's name, knowing it didn't matter any more than Ethan had mattered. He knew it wasn't important just as he knew that it would likely happen again at some point. It wouldn't happen for a while because Justin was ashamed and still looking for the vine covered cottage, but sooner or later it would happen and then he didn't know what he would do.

When he had asked Justin to get married almost a year and a half ago, he had hoped himself that things would go well and that they would be enough for one another all the time, day in and day out, but he was doubtful now that would happen.

They might well stay together, he believed that they genuinely loved one another, but there would be temptations and they would slip, probably both of them would slip and they had to decide if that hurt more than being apart would.

"Please, Brian." The same quiet voice, "I'm so sorry."

"I know you are."

Stretching his arm around Justin's shoulders, he pulled the youngster against his side and, turning his head, kissed his temple.