Five Places that Brian Never Met Justin AUTHOR:  yoursweater FANDOM: Queer as Folk CHARACTERS: Brian Kinney/Justin Taylor PROMPT: Where? WORD COUNT: 1,966 RATING: PG-13 SUMMARY: The weird yellow fog, the stepped in puddles and the arm around Mikey’s shoulders… That night at Babylon never happened. Author’s Note: It was only a matter of time before I wrote one of these ‘five’ things, so enjoy. Obviously I can’t write these author's notes while trying to watch TV at the same time… I am double task impaired. Which means if there are any weird typos, it’s The Simpson’s Halloween Special’s fault, not mine.  Written for fanfic100. 1. Brian never met Justin in elementary school. The classroom smells like any other – like plastic jars of paint and liquid glue. There are bright orange, yellow and red leaves, all ragged and cut out from construction paper with safety scissors, and they all hang in a careful line around the room, each one of them pinned to a string with a paper clip and dangerously close to falling whenever a student brushes by. “Those are my crayons.” One of the children say, and he’s a little boy. He leans against the plastic table and reaches across the surface, fingers wiggling towards the yellow and green box of crayons sitting in the middle. The other boy’s attention is taken by the piece of paper he’s drawing on, slightly wrinkled from haphazard scribbles, and ripped a little around the edges. He looks up from the page and shakes his head, says, “No they aren’t.” “They are so!” The little blond one exclaims, and flattens his palm against the sticky table top. He bounces on his knees again, his feet arching against the orange carpet, but his classmate only ignores him, choosing to instead add a fourth leg to the brown dog he’s carefully outlining. Above the out-of-the-lines drawing, ‘MY DOG MAURICE’ is written in careful teacher’s scrawl, and then copied below in neon green crayon, the color so bright you can barely make out the lettering. The teacher will later correct the extra arm on the E, from four to three. The child with the white blond hair stands quietly for a minute, watching the drawing come to life and staying still for as long as a child possibly can, before letting out a growl of frustration, and slapping both of his hands flat against the table again. “This is my crayon.” The crayon-stealer says, his voice calm as he finishes the last paw, and then lifts his head from the paper. Widens his eyes, and says, “It’s mine.” Despite everything that he knows he should remember from when his mom told him about bullies, the little blond kindergartener can’t seem to recall a single word now, and instead he finds himself trying to fight back the quick set of tears already springing to his eyes with a practiced ease, perfected after too many times of his parents telling him ‘no.’ “No it’s not!” He exclaims, voice starting to wobble. “It has my in-in-tials on it!” The other boy, the one with the messy brown hair, he shakes his head again, and underneath the table, he taps the toe of one of his yellow gum boot feet against the chair leg. “Liar.” He says, glancing up at the blond, the action only taking a second before he’s back to the drawing, his piece of artwork dangerously close to having a brown sky. He’s so wrapped up in the minimal conversation, he’s forgotten to change his brown crayon to sky blue. “No!” The blond repeats, and tries to point to the little ‘JT’ written on the side of the crayon with black felt-tip pen. He doesn’t stop to think that maybe the boy who’s stolen his crayons has done so because he doesn’t have any of his own. “I’m using this crayon.” He says, and gently slides the brown crayon back into the box. The blond child stomps his foot then, and the loud thump is what catches the attention of the teacher, who tells little Franklin Montgomery that she’ll help him with his numbers in a minute, and hurries over to the two dueling children. “It’s mine!”  … 2. Brian never met Justin while working as a delivery boy for Take It Easy Thai. “Mom?” He shouts, hurrying around the corner that separates the kitchen from the staircase. He can hear her puttering around in the upstairs hall, doing laundry or knitting or something, whatever moms do around dinnertime. He skids to a stop at the bottom of the stairs, his socks sliding on the polished hardwood as his hands shoot out to steady the rest of his body against the wall. A pause, and then, “What?” is called back down the stairs. “I need some change!” He yells, contorting his face so it looks like he’s really screaming the words, even though there’s no one around to see his little dramatic moment. Then he repeats himself, asks, “Do you have any change?”, and then her footsteps sound like they’re creaking down the upstairs hallway. They don’t stop until she’s at the top of the stairs, looking down at her son. He lowers his voice and explains, “I ordered dinner, but I forgot about the tip.” She runs a pale hand through her hair and thinks. Just as the doorbell is ringing and there’s a shadow on the stoop outside, she says, “Your father left some change on the dining room table last night, go check and see if it’s still there.” The blond nods and pushes himself away from the wooden stair banister, shouting, “Hold on, I’m coming!” as he hurries down the hall, narrowly escaping from tripping over a laundry basket on his way to and from the table, which he finds a few dollar bills and low numbered coins on. He throws the door open with a smile on his face, and a tip in his hand. “Order for Taylor.” The delivery boy says, voice low as he hides behind the hair in his eyes. As the blond is digging through his jean pockets for the twenty dollar bill to cover the food, the delivery boy sets the heavy brown paper bag down inside of the hall. The blond hands over the twenty dollar bill, and then the fistful of change, letting the delivery boy count it as he bends down to pick the bag of food up from the floor. When the delivery boy is sure he isn’t being short-changed, he nods quickly, and then turns away. The blond half-watches the boy bounce down the stairs on long legs, but closes the front door before he even reaches the start of the sidewalk.  … 3. Brian never met Justin at a bus stop while it was pouring with rain. He pulls the hood of his jacket up over his head and huddles into the corner of the bus stop, glad that the plastic overhead covers enough of him up that he won’t end up getting onto the bus soaked straight to the bone. The fucking bus, which pulled away from the same stop he’s standing at now a mere ten minutes ago, even though the asshole driver quite obviously saw him running towards it, one hand waving. The one hand turned into one particular finger pretty soon after that. “Excuse me?” Someone calls from behind him, and he looks over to see some blond kid holding a wrinkled transportation guide. He raises his eyebrows and glances down at the kid’s bag, strapped over his wet chest. There are a few pins running up and down the side. “Um, yeah. Do you know if the 31 stops here?” Nodding, he points up at the sign above him. The sign that very clearly reads – ’12, 22, 31, 45’ – and ignores the way the kid blushes, ducking back into his own corner of the enclosed bench.  … 4. Brian never met Justin in a Denny’s at four a.m. He laughs and falls against the cheap red vinyl of the booth, one clumsy hand running over his own face, pulling at his eyes and lips as the waitress stands in front of him, tapping her booth-matching red pen on the notepad she’s holding. “You know, if you don’t order something, you’re gonna have to leave.” She says, her voice a practiced drawl. “Kid, you’ve been here three hours.” Still laughing, he wonders if E secretly fills people up or something, because he’s not really that hungry, even though all he can smell is grease. Then again, that’d probably just turn off his appetite anyway, even on a good day. He slides out of the booth and stumbles past ‘My Name Is: Charlene’, starts to head over to the glass doors, and his feet are making him walk on an angle, even when he presses one hand against the child’s fingerprint smeared windows to steady himself. As he’s pushing his way through the main door someone else comes in, and their shoulders bump together, making him feel as though he’s suddenly thrown through an airplane propeller, and then tossed against a brick wall. He can hear an old child-targeted jingle ringing through his head: don’t you put it in your mouth, until you ask someone you love – drugs are bad, kids. “Sorry.” The guy that he ran into mumbles, cutting off his internal radio, and then that’s it, they’re both walking in opposite directions. He glances over his shoulder, and with blurry eyes he makes out a body with a blond head walking toward the order counter. Then he wonders if he has enough left in his drained bank account to get another couple tabs of E. He hopes so.  … 5. Brian never met Justin when it was too late. “Put it the fuck down, Gus. You’re not getting it.” He snaps, pressing the cell phone to the side of his neck and pointing a straight finger at the child, currently huddled over the animal cracker display at the end of the aisle. “Gus. I mean it,” He continues, sends another warning glance and puts the phone back to his ear. “Sorry about that – did you want to book the meeting for tomorrow morning, then? Fantastic. I’ll get Cynthia to call you with further details.” He flips the phone shut without so much as a goodbye, and presses the fingers that aren’t holding the cell against one temple as he looks down the narrow aisle. The kid is now teetering on the edge of one shelf, trying to reach a box of cookies that are obviously placed too high for him. Just as Brian goes to tell him they’re going to leave, the shelf gives way and the entire assortment of crackers and cookies go crashing down, right on top of the kid. “Jesus fucking Christ.” He whispers, letting his shoulders drop in defeat before he’s hurrying over to the scene of the earlier slow-motion fall, the child already covered in cookie boxes. “Are you okay?” An employee comes around the corner just as Gus is propping himself up on pointy elbows, squinting up at his father from the floor. The employee’s eyes are wide and his mouth has dropped open as he stares down at the mess on the shiny tiles – a mess that he probably stocked just hours before. “I’m sorry.” Gus manages to wheeze, obviously after having the wind knocked out of him. The employee presses a hand to his forehead, forgetting about customer service completely as he gazes down at the pile of cookies. “I apologize for the mess.” Brian says up to the employee, pushing himself back onto his feet so he can extend a hand as he tries to step over the mountain of packaged food. He glances down at the nametag on the bright green apron and forces a smile as – My Name Is Justin, Ask Me How I Can Help You Today!, with a little glitter smiley face sticker beside it – runs another hand through his hair. “And I assure you, my son will help you clean it up.” Justin with a smiley face nods and turns around to call the store manager. And nothing changes. The universe doesn’t shift, and the angle of the air around their bodies doesn’t twist or shake, or pop or brighten. Because it’s just another day, and Brian still has to phone Cynthia.