2. Exposure two.
T: Warnings remain the same and I still own nothing you see here!
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At first he had thought that things would be better now that Brian had 'let Michael go', that with the other out of their lives he could work himself closer to Brian's heart.
Then he had seen, first hand, how badly the separation was affecting Brian and, with Daphne's encouragement, he'd decided to do something to bring them together again.
Desperate for inspiration he'd flicked his way through Michael's old year books, searching out photos of the pair and learning as much of the life they'd lead together as possible.
The reminder that such a wealth of time and care existed between the pair stung and yet he had come to accept things for what they were, had come to accept that there would always be something between the pair no matter how hard anyone tried to tare them apart.
With that acceptance had come a new sort of maturity and slowly he had come to appreciate the odd sort of care that Brian gave to him, had come to accept that the older man's gruff and occasionally ambivalent manner was as a self defence mechanism created to protect Brian from the harder realities of the world.
He knew now that the other lashed out only when he felt vulnerable, knew that each hard word the other spoke to him was a challenge and that the only way he was going to get closer to Brian was to meet those challenges head on.
It was not what he had imagined it to be, yet such a thing seemed to matter little when he was caught in the warmth of Brian's embrace and the other was looking at him as though he was the only precious thing left within the world.
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T: Review please!!