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| basements. PART: 19/25 PAIRING: Brian/Justin RATING/TIMELINE: R/Alternate Universe ARCHIVE: Ridiculously & QAFVault.com LJ ARCHIVE: LJ Memories SUMMARY: He never expected college to be like this. (Go back to Chapter 18) Author's Note: Thanks for all your feedback on the last chapter. Like I said, I'll be updating more regularly, so here's chapter nineteen. And also, I'm curious as to who actually reads this story. If you do, just leave me a little comment, it doesn't even have to be feedback, I'm just wondering who's reading it. Alright, enjoy this chapter!  chapter nineteen: the vegas. It’s still dark and typical March-cold weather when they leave, hurrying down to the underground parking level of Brian’s apartment building with only a half filled suitcase between them. On the way to meet Greig, Justin considers stopping at McDonalds, and his most important worry is whether he should get hash browns or pancakes. Brian turns on the heat and rubs his hands together, revving the engine before he can figure out what the fuck is happening and why it is that he’s even doing it. Justin calls Lola when Brian’s on the freeway, and after explaining the current situation through a not-sorry-at-all grin, whispers, eyeing Brian from across the car, “But don’t tell Liam.” She doesn’t say what she wants to, what she feels is on the tip of her tongue. Instead, she promises that she won’t, just tells her friend that he’s going to get fucked if he gets himself into this any deeper. Justin doesn’t really know what this is, but if he’s a part of it right now, then he’s fine with being in this. So Justin refrains from saying that he hopes he gets fucked. But just barely. From the driver’s seat of the car, Brian wonders when the point in his life came that he was running away to Las Vegas with an ex to watch his best friend get married. And be the best man, no less. He looks over at the blond, and knows that that point is now. “They only serve them until eleven.” Justin explains, voice calm as he trains his eyes on the side of Brian’s face. A typical photograph of what once could be called a relationship, now just a ripped polaroid of the past. “Fuck you, they only serve them ‘til eleven.” Brian’s snorting now, glancing over at Justin every time his eyes aren’t on the road. “It’s five fucking thirty, and I’m not stopping at some grease dump just so you can soak your fingers in it.” The blond is quiet for a moment, and a moment is all Brian gets before, “That didn’t even make sense.” Brian quietly seethes, then says, “You’re not getting an Egg McMuffin.” Crossing his arms over his chest, Justin narrows his eyes at the dashboard and mutters something that sound suspiciously like, “I should’ve gone with Greig.” When he sees that Brian’s looking over at him and that he’s obviously been heard, he adds in a louder voice, “They’ve stopped three times so far, just for food.” “I’ll drop you on the side of the road, then.” Brian smiles, obviously forced to stretch over that much of his face. Justin is reminded of summers full of camping trips and arguments over who gets what side of the tent. Instead of saying that, he mumbles, “Fine.” Justin passes out against the window, cold with condensation, around six. He groans every time that Brian reaches across and shoves his shoulder, determined that he won’t be the only person forced to stay awake in the car for dumb reasons like he’s the one who’s driving it. “Fuck off.” Justin moans, trying to flatten himself against the cold window even more. His face is already pressed up against the glass, cheek smashed and eyelid pulled. From where Brian sits in the car, he decides that it looks as though Justin has had some form of stroke. When Brian starts laughing, Justin knows that it’s at his own expense. Murmurs another, “Shut up.” Brian runs a hand through his hair and looks around for a set of goddamn arches. He has to use the bank of payphones across from the fucking Play Place because Justin forgot to turn the cell off after phoning Lola, which ended up draining the battery and leaving him with a dead phone and no charger, forgotten on the kitchen table in his apartment. So he angles himself away from the screaming children and pops his quarter in, plugging one ear with a finger so he can hear Oliver’s voice on the other end. “You can cover for me then?” He asks, eyeing Justin across the cheap, plastic and child friendly restaurant, listing off an elaborate order to the teenager standing at the counter. “I owe you one, man. Thanks.” Justin motions to the sticky yellow table in front of a huge finger printed window that overlooks the parking lot below, dumpsters and grease deposits and all, and as Brian’s hanging the phone up and running a tired hand through his hair, he tries to trace his memory back to when he thought that this was a good idea. That’s right. Never. He approaches the small table as Justin’s starting to unwrap two of the heart attacks on a tray, plastic again, and he blinks the sleep from his eyes, retains the perfect example of a scowl on his face. “I got them without the meat, cause I heard one of the cooks saying something about green edges.” Justin explains. “I don’t know what that means, but…” Brian wants to bash his head against the wall. Instead he sits down on an uncomfortable barely adult sized chair that boasts a Hamburgler motif, and forces down half a flat Coke. They stop around noon because once the initial assorted caffeine and drug highs wear off, everyone completely crashes. Greig finds some Motel 66 just before the I-80, that just so happens to have a mini-golf across the street from it, and everyone knows that that’s probably what wins him over in the first place. Three rooms are split between them, but in the end Brian pays an extra fourteen fifty to get a separate room, since he refuses to sleep in the same area with a couple of breeders who fuck almost as much as he does. Everyone’s happier when Brian isn’t complaining, anyway. “I’m not on anyone’s team, because I’m not playing.” He snaps, shaking his head in a definite ‘no’ as he pulls a cigarette out of the dangerously near empty carton. Beside him, Greig squawks. “Stop being such a fucking princess!” He exclaims, prodding at Brian’s arm. Brian hits him off and continues with the nicotine fix, lighting his cigarette, which Greig takes as a cue for him to continue. “You can be on Gnar Kill.” A shake of the head and a snort, and the cigarette ignites along with Brian’s growing temper. “I’m not being part of a team named Gnar Kill.” Brian snickers, then stops and glances up at Greig, a perfectly copious smile across his face. “You didn’t even make that up.” The earlier squawk turns indignant, and Greig promptly smashes his fist against Brian’s shoulder. Brian immediately starts laughing, and rubbing at the spot with one hand. “Fuck you!” Greig shouts. “I was on OT Gnar Kill!” A single raised eyebrow and against his own better judgment Brian asks, even though he technically doesn’t really want to hear the answer, “OT?” Greig’s eyes widen two whole sizes. “Original Team!” Three moments of silence pass between the two, a wondrous expression crossing Brian’s face before he shakes his head and climbs out of the rickety motel chair, pausing just long enough to stash his lighter back in his pocket. “I’m going to swallow a bottle of Xanax and fall the fuck asleep.” Brian smiles, walking past Greig and towards the door. “Excuse me.” As Brian’s leaving the room, he hears behind him, “So you’re on the team, then?” “I thought you said you weren’t playing.” The blond is scowled at as soon as Brian sets foot outside the motel room door, both eyebrows tightened together, grimace on his face. Beside him, Greig snickers, but tries to hide it behind his hand. He chooses not to say a word. Brian snaps, “Fuck you.” “Fuck you!” Brian exclaims. Justin gapes, yells, “Fuck you! You’re the cheater!” Using his mini-putter as a pointer, Brian motions towards the undersized Eiffel Tower looming behind them, a ceramic french man shifting back and forth in front of the hole, and yells back, “I didn’t cheat!” Across the park, a family of three pause on their hole, themed as a Medieval Castle, to listen to the argument, growing in pitch and volume. “You did too!” “Fine!” Brian snaps. “Let’s ask Greig what he thinks, then, asshole.” As Brian turns to leave, Justin throws his mini-putter down, and it bounces off the fake green turf, yells at Brian’s back, “Greig still thinks that Tupac is alive – I doubt he’s going to have any insight into your cheating!” Another putter hits the floor as Brian screams, “I’m not fucking cheating!” “Are they always like this?” Helena asks, watching Greig as he carefully lines up his shot, aiming it towards the oversized head of Abraham Lincoln. He hits the tiny blue ball, and listens to the argument drifting over the course. “Yep.” “She’s doing well. We took her to the hospital because we weren’t sure what was happening, but the doctor on call said she suffered a panic attack, probably because of my dad, stress… They’re going to keep her in overnight, and…” Greig’s lining up another ball with a careful hand, determined to sink it through the octopus tentacles he’s standing in front of. Beside him Brian stands, trying not to listen to the phone call, and concentrate on the ‘game’ instead. Unfortunately Greig doesn’t know that, because after hitting and knocking the ball against the edges of the course and having it land about five feet away from the purple concrete octopus all together, he asks, “Doesn’t that bother you?” Brian raises both his eyebrows and moves up to smash Greig’s ball with his putter, ignoring the rules and adding Helena and her friends, giggling and screaming beside him, to his list of people to ignore. “Does what bother me?” A shrug from Greig, and then as an afterthought a hand motion towards Justin, obviously uncomfortable and flustered and trying to get off of the phone, mini-putter tapping against the fake plastic ground he’s standing on. Greig clarifies with the visual and a, “That.” Shaking his head, Brian hits the tiny pink ball with a little too much force. “No.” He snaps, and that’s when Greig knows. “Not at all.” Original Team Gnar Kill loses by five hundred points, but nobody really believes that score because Justin tallied it up and he was on Team Mini-Putt World Champions, and anyway, nobody really loses by five hundred points ever. But either way, Original Team Gnar Kill loses, and after stopping at a discount grocery store to stock up on packets of ramen for the night, they go back to the motel and pass out on the moldy smelling mattresses. “You know how close Greig was to kicking your ass?” Brian laughs, throwing his jacket onto one end of the bed, because he doesn’t trust opening the closet and seeing what currently might be stashed inside of it. A snicker and Justin says, “He’s just bitter, cause he lost.” Brian snorts and throws himself onto the bed, head hitting the no doubt grungy pillow before the rest of his body lands, and he wonders how the current situation came to be, the fact that he’s in Vegas with an ex to get his best friend married. An ex who he’s currently fucking on a bi-nightly basis. But that’s just reiterated information. Aforementioned ex who he’s currently fucking on a bi-nightly basis but that’s just reiterated information crawls onto the spot in the mattress next to him, grimacing at the stains and other magical things that the sheets have a very good chance of containing. He slides his body next to Brian’s and looks at the ceiling, his eyes already starting to drift closed because of too many hours with too little sleep. “What did Liam want?” Brian asks, voice soft, and it’s out before he can stop it. Beside him, he feels Justin tense up immediately – the same way his own stomach is doing. The blond shakes his head and turns, smaller body curling into Brian’s side. “Doesn’t matter.” He whispers, and that’s when the constant throb in the back of Brian’s head starts to fade away. It’ll come back, and he knows it will. But right now, right now it’s just okay. They sleep straight through and into the next day, and when they wake up, it’s night again, red numbers on the ancient digital clock that’s bolted to the table reading 8:12PM. Greig takes the liberties and calls to make an appointment at Uncle Mac’s Instant Church of 10-Minute Weddings for ten o’clock, because he’s booked to marry two cousins at nine. Both Brian and Justin are announced to be best men because Greig didn’t bring anyone else, wouldn’t have anyone else anyway, and even though they could use the three default men that Uncle Mac says he can provide, Greig figures, why pay the extra fifteen dollars? So while the three of them get high outside the motel window, Helena gets dressed in the next room, soaking her hair in hair spray and painting her lips a more vibrant red. “Is she pregnant or something?” Brian asks, eyes red and blurry from the pot, which is really good, and somehow stronger than he remembered. Immediately Justin starts to laugh, and once the words register in Greig’s head, he does as well. A shake of the head, and for one reason or another, Brian finds himself laughing too. There was Bill, and Justin remembers that he was boring, just like his name. The only reason Brian bothered to talk to him the one time was because he heard the kid could score some fake IDs for fifty bucks each, and somehow after that, it just kind of transformed into this faux friendship. Bill had long dreadlocks and puffy lips, but for all the shit that he was involved in, he was as boring as sin. He lasted the eleventh grade, at least as far as Justin remembers. Mario was Latin and was around all of three weeks. The only reason he was kept in the same regard as everyone else was that Brian liked to make fun of him though, so technically, it wasn’t a friendship. It was worth it though, because Justin broke five stomachs laughing at the gold chains around his neck, and the stereotypical slang that slurred from his mouth. Mario got pissed off one day and punched Brian in the right eye, and then that was the end of that. The new kid in twelfth grade was Toby, and Justin remembers he was about the closest thing that Brian had to a best friend in high school. He was tall and thin and talked with his hands, his hair always dyed Ronald McDonald red and spiked to absolute perfection. They challenged each other every day, got into arguments and wrestling matches in the halls. Justin remembers Brian’s arm through around his shoulders as they walked down the street with Toby, laughing and tripping over slick gutters. And then Toby went and died on them all. Got into a freak accident after a basement party in eleventh grade, was bashed on his way home by some religious group of kids that didn’t like the color in his hair or the makeup around his eyes. Brian pretended that he wasn’t affected, attended all the right parties and touched Justin in all the right places, but inside, they all knew that he was breaking. Brian never had much of a good track record where friends were concerned. Not until he met Greig. They all start laughing before Helena even sets foot into the aisle, and Brian keeps snorting against the back of his hand, but he can’t help it – the plastic roses and the organ and the fool dressed in a suit made of glitter in front of the minister. And Jesus Christ, he doesn’t believe in marriage anyway, but this, this is just ridiculous. Beside him, Justin decides that if he were to ever get married, this would be the way he would do it. Greig’s got an eternal grin on his face though, and Brian cries because the laughter starts to pour from his eyes when Uncle Mac says, “And do you-“, and pauses to make a popping sound with his mouth to cue Greig. “Greig!” Uncle Mac turns to Helena and continues, “Take-“, and another popping sound. When they two best men meet each other’s eyes it’s all over, because they start laughing and they can’t stop, not even to hear the remaining vows and, “You may kiss the bride and pick up your fifteen dollars worth of chips for Uncle Mac’s Gambling Emporium at the front desk.” Brian decides that the night officially turns to shit when they end up at a karaoke bar and Greig slurs and stutters his way through some rendition of a punk song. He manages to hide his laughter behind a well-earned grimace, but doesn’t exactly feel bad for his friend on the small stage, standing and gyrating his hips to no beat at all, but just because he’s being thrown one dollar bills and the caps from beer bottles. “You should do it.” Justin snickers, an arm around Brian’s shoulders and a wet mouth on his neck. “Sing a duet with me.” A huff that indicates ‘not likely’ before he says, “In your dreams, Sunshine.” Once Greig’s rattled his way through another two and a half songs, he gets kicked off the stage, so they leave the club and stumble around the strip until they find a suitable bar that is deemed worthwhile of the official wedding dinner. Greig announces that he’s going to buy a wedding ring at the casino with the fifteen dollars worth of chips courtesy of Uncle Mac, and gets a punch in the side from Helena. It’s Brian that does the official toast, dirty glass of beer raised up into the air of the smoky bar as he puts his acting talent to shame for long enough to ramble off an elaborate, bordering drunken, speech. “Here’s to the nights we felt alive, and to the nights where we all thought that we’d be better off dead.” Brian announces, his voice three pitches higher than the canned music that’s filtering through the air. “And here’s to right now, because tomorrow’s gonna come too fucking soon.” As he drops back down into his chair, Justin looks at him – really fucking looks at him – all dark eyes and hair that’s grown an inch too long, and he sees him for the first time since high school, sees Brian and inside Brian. And it’s been too long. They drink too much which makes them laugh too much, and Justin touches Brian too many times. Suddenly it’s three thirty five in the morning and they’re both leaving, slurring goodbyes and giving sloppy kisses to the side of Greig’s face with a mumbled, “Congratchulashuns.” And the bar is forgotten as soon as they stumble outside, one of Brian’s arms wrapped around Justin’s shoulders as the other holds the last bottle of booze, which will later be shared between them. When they morning comes, they won’t know where they went. They’ll pass out on the motel bed together and wake up with their faces indented from the cheap fabric of the blanket. But with foggy heads and foggier hearts, they get through the doors of a club, all strobe lights and caged dancers pouring out onto the sidewalk. The idea, conceived on a drunken whim, turns into hours, and soon the highs wear off and they find themselves in the middle of a packed floor, hips against hips and knees pressed together. In the morning this memory will be blurred, but it’ll be there, it’ll all be there. So for now they grind and they feel their chests as they constrict because it’s so hard to breathe such thick air, and they’re so good together, so fucking good together, arms wrapped around shoulders in the middle of hundreds of other people, all just like them. The music throbs and so do their muscles, and Justin finally feels as though he can clearly think, head cleaner than its ever been, despite the narcotics still floating through his system, because his eyes are clear and everything inside of him is empty except for this. This feeling in his torso and the way Brian’s hands are on his hips, pressing their bodies together. It turns out that what Justin wants is in Las Vegas, what he wants in place of the art critics and the big words that were made with vocabulary builders. Because he wants Brian, wants all of Brian, wants this feeling for as long as he can have it for. He wants everything, and for right now, the only two things that make up that list are right here. |