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| basements. AUTHOR: yoursweater PAIRING: Brian/Justin RATING/TIMELINE: R/Alternate Universe SPOILERS: No LJ ARCHIVE: LJ Memories SUMMARY: He never expected college to be like this. (Back to Chapter 1) 
Justin takes a deep drag of his cigarette and leans against the front porch railing, surveying the drunks laying on the front yard below him, empty beer bottles scattered around their bodies. They’re mostly hippies, he realizes, studying the flower patterns and obviously hand woven designs. Then he decides that if you know, the fact hadn’t been that when he was thirteen he’d get a boner at every half naked man he saw, he’d definitely know that he had been gay when he started taking mental inventories of ladies wear. “Enjoy this. It’s all I managed to get out of the fridge.” Liam says, appearing behind Justin with two beers in one hand. His arms go around Justin’s shoulders, and Justin quickly snubs his cigarette out on the wooden railing in front of him, throws the butt into the flowers below. “Thanks.” He smiles this smile that makes his eyelashes touch his cheeks and turns around, leaning against the rickety railing as he accepts one of the drinks and Liam tightens his arms around Justin’s thin waist, taking a gulp of beer before he sets the bottle down on the railing. Justin smiles and leans backwards, letting his free arm slide around Liam’s middle. Liam smiles, and tries to see the stars inside Justin’s eyes. “And who the fuck was that? She was so fucking haggard, man.” He laughs, albeit a little drunkenly, at his friend. Greig scowls and shoves the loose hand off of his shoulder, sliding though the crowd of rapidly duplicating people to get on-route to the cooler. Brian follows him a little blindly and continues to laugh and trip over other people’s feet as he does so, but that’s the thing about college parties. Nobody remembers them in the morning. “Fuck you, Brian. She wasn’t that bad.” Greig reaches the fridge before Brian does, so he takes liberty of snagging enough alcohol for them both, and as Brian breaks through the edge of the crowd and leans against the nearest wall, a girl about his age sees him from the other side of the room, looks at his flushed face and his head kind of spins as the night rushes through his body. “Yeah, well. She would’ve been a lot better without your tongue down her throat.” Hands in hair and hips pressed together, some string bean guy with a cowboy hat on his head shoves by the otherwise unseen couple in the corner of the porch. Justin smiles and pulls himself back, and laughter breaks when Liam presses his hot mouth against Justin’s throat and lightly drags his teeth down the pale column of his neck. “You wanna go back to my dorm?” Justin breathes, and Liam nods, grinning wickedly as he takes a step back and then forward once more, and his arms wrap around Justin’s body, pulling him towards the door that leads back into the kitchen. Justin has one foot over the threshold of the door and he’s breaking into laughter as Liam tries to slide his cold hands into Justin’s jeans - palms sticky from the condensation on the beer bottle – when they crash into another couple coming out, and the couple is laughing just as much as Justin and Liam are. Faces red – but not from embarrassment – they all murmur apologies without any real regret behind their words. It isn’t until Justin hears the not-sorry-at-all - “Fuck. Sorry.” – from one of the two guys, that he even bothers to look up and away from Liam’s hands. And when the two words register in his brain, it’s like he’s stepped back into the days that seemed to elapse high school, and these memories of b-sides and cheap movie nights with cheaper popcorn and porn flash through his head. The moment that barely lasts a second is cheesier than he ever expected it to be, because he remembers all those nights where he’d play their inevitable reunion over inside his head – nights before he’d even met Liam. In the middle of a grocery store aisle maybe, in the crowd for a concert of a band they both loved. But never at some classic college party – complete with girls with their boobs falling out of their too tight white t-shirts, and the boys that love them. “Brian?” He asks, and the two syllables tumble from his mouth before he can just duck his head, move on, and pretend that the entire chance counter never happened. “The fuck?” Justin hears someone laugh, and it’s not Brian’s voice, so he guesses that it’s the guy that Brian is with. Then he feels Liam’s arms tighten around his waist, and his hips press into him behind and he remembers why they were leaving. He just can’t make himself move yet. “Justin?” Brian squints as he recalls the name. His eyebrows raise as fingers tighten around the beer bottle in his hand, and Justin feels Liam’s fingers tighten around his sides too. Vaguely Justin recalls the two half-full beers still sitting in the place they were left – on the porch ledge, just waiting to be knocked over by some drunk senior, or a couple with fast hands and faster tongues. They’re still standing in the middle of the doorway, he realizes, when a string of people shove their way through, almost desperate to get out and into the night air for one reason or another that Justin doesn’t bother thinking about. And he isn’t sure what reaction he was expecting from Brian, even when he’d think about it a few weeks after they’d broken up that last time, he’d get to them seeing each other again, but he could never gauge the words Brian would say, or the actions he would make. The reaction he never expected was the way that Brian wraps long fingers around Justin’s pale wrist so he can drag him off to the side and away from the steady rush of people. “You two know each other?” Liam asks, and his mouth is pressed tight against Justin’s ear. Justin realizes that Brian’s friend has disappeared into the rush of the crowd, and Brian – as usual, still the same, Justin thinks – just doesn’t really seem to care. He notices, he’s not oblivious. But he doesn’t care. The world could be collapsing around Brian, Justin thinks, and he wouldn’t blink unless someone blew a handful of dust into his eyes. “We used to know each other.” Justin hears, though he doesn’t turn fast enough to see the facial expression Brian uses as he says it. He’s still smirking though, the classic Kinney turn of the lips, and Justin’s surprised that inside, nothing comes rushing back. The initial flash of memories are fading and now not much more than an irritating arrogant sneer is stuck inside Justin’s memory, lodged tight. He can see Brian proud about something or another – I hurt you before you could hurt me again, mom. I’m leaving and I don’t really know when I’ll be back, dad. I made you fall in love with me, Justin – and he’s only seventeen in this memory. “A while ago.” “High school.” Justin confirms. Nods slightly. Almost vacantly. Liam grins behind him, Justin can tell because he feels the way Liam’s jaw presses tight down against his own shoulder, knows by the sound his teeth make when they tighten together, an inch away from Justin’s ear. Then a hand comes into Justin’s peripheral vision, Liam’s hand, and Brian looks at it for two beats of Justin’s quickened heart. He studies the tanned skin and trimmed fingernails before he finally extends his own, shaking it in the fashion a businessman would shake his clients that is completely parallel to the way that he holds a beer bottle in his opposite hand. “I’m Liam.” A nod from Brian, but that’s all that Liam gets as he drops his hand back down to his side, so Justin doesn’t bother to say anything when Liam kisses underneath his ear and says that he’s going to go get the car, and that Justin shouldn’t be long. The bigger picture laying underneath Liam’s words are censored because of the presence of an old friend, but Justin hears them anyway, under the directions to where Liam will wait for him on the road. They both watch Liam leave, weaving through girls in belly shirts and boys with mohawks, and Brian leans against the exterior of the house with one side of his body, lets his eyes trail after Justin’s new-old half. Justin watches too, but Liam’s slightly out of focus because Justin already knows how many steps are in his stride and the way that he swings his arms when he walks, and anyways he’s concentrating on the afro of a woman standing three feet away from him and Brian. “Looks like Leroy couldn’t wait to leave.” Brian says, in the dismissal tone that he used to use with everyone, even when they were in high school. Like the time he hasn’t seen Justin has merely lapsed one day and not three years. And without answering, Justin slides his hands over his own hips, searches for the pack of cigarettes he knows are in one of the jean pockets. He pulls a cigarette out and lights it without a second thought, and he has to squint his eyes when the smoke blows back at him and makes him tear up. And he waits for Brian to say something – start a conversation, an old argument. Or just make an excuse that’s on the tip of his tongue and leave. But Brian doesn’t say a word, his lips are too busy on his beer bottle, so Justin doesn’t either. Sucks on his cigarette instead, mouth nervous and fingertips cold in the October air. “If I remember, I thought you always ‘completely fucking hated’ the smell of smoke.” Brian says, just as Justin is trying to think of something to break the tense silence, and Justin is so surprised at the words that he almost jumps. He remember a few tricks from Brian though, and this time, he’s the one who doesn’t answer right away. Instead he takes a deep drag, lets the smoke fill his lungs. Then he exhales, and the dark smoke comes out of his nose and hangs in a heavy fog around them, the same way that the old and fading memories do. Justin pretends that he doesn’t notice the way that Brian is smirking. “I do.” Justin shrugs. Stops. Glances up. Catches Brian’s eyes. Knows that Brian’s realized that Justin’s still smoking the brand of cigarettes he had back in high school, when Justin would recite ‘Just Say No!’ campaigns to him every night, in-between kiss swollen lips and ankles bumping together. “Or, I used to.” Brian’s beer is finished, and so are his words. He takes the last mouthful of beer and then tosses his bottle onto the nearest table. Doesn’t flinch when it knocks three others down and one rolls off the side then drops to the wooden floor, rolls a few more feet and drops right off the side of the porch. And when he finally looks back, Justin isn’t standing where he was a moment ago, and all that Brian can find is his narrow back disappearing into the thinning crowd. At the end of the lawn, parked against the crooked line of the pavement, a beat up dusty red Nissan waits for the blond head. Brian doesn’t see Justin get into the car because he’s too busy fighting his way back into the house. “I was so hard in that car, fucking sitting there. Waiting for you. I could see you, you know. The porch light was shining right on your head. I couldn’t wait to get back here.” Liam breathes, voice ragged, and Justin arches up against him. Hands slide down Liam’s sides and over his back. “Just fuck me.” Is all that Justin manages, because his lungs are so tight and his chest is so hot that even if he exploded right now, he still wouldn’t be able to cool down fast enough. Liam nods and buries his face in the crook of Justin’s neck, his hands grab at the pillow underneath Justin’s head.
“How long have you guys known each other?” He asks, even though his voice is muffled because he’s half inside the closet and half out as he searches for something. Justin lays on the bed and his breathing is still erratic as he studies the ceiling with half-closed eyes. “We used to know each other.” Justin says. “I haven’t talked to him in three… almost four years now, I guess.” Liam stands up properly, adjusts the boxers that are riding too low around his hips and dangerously close to falling down, and over his shoulder he continues with, “What, you guys have a falling out about something?” “We broke up.” Justin explains, tries to be quiet but the words are so loud that the dead could be raised with them. “I’ve known him since I was in the tenth grade. Back in the Pitts.” This time Liam’s body seems to freeze in time, and Justin knows that he’s back tracking through the entire night they just lived though – wondering what might have been happening while he went to get the car, thinking they were just typical old friends catching up, and inside his head Liam is rehashing old words over and over, trying to pick out new meanings. “So.” Liam starts carefully, obviously choosing each word even though his attention is now completely centered on the blond in the bed. “Why’d you break up?” “He went to college.” Is the only answer that Liam gets, and the rest is left out. Liam knows there’s a chunk missing, he can see it by the hesitant look on Justin’s face. Knows there’s something more than going off to college. The never-ending fights and the nitpicking, and just everything that meant nothing to other couples but were end-alls for them. “You weren’t in the same grade?” Justin shakes his head and starts to pick at a string that’s come loose in the old blanket that he’s laying on, and he doesn’t meet Liam in the eyes even though he knows he has no reason not to. “He’s two years older than I am.” Suddenly whatever Liam was searching for in the closet becomes significant again, and he turns back to continue going through the collection of junk that has accumulated in Justin’s dorm room since he moved in a mere month and a half ago. “Liam.” Justin says, watching, waiting for Liam to look at him. He does. “Don’t worry about it.” The string in the blanket becomes almost as interesting as the mess Liam turns back to does, but he still manages an, “I’m not.” Justin thinks about how much he might’ve just complicated the relationship and Liam wonders if the old t-shirt is really worth finding, or just an excuse not to continue the conversation. Go to Chapter 3 |