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Title: Days Go By You arrived at Vangard in a foul mood and spent the morning barking orders that barely made sense, demanding coffee you didn’t drink and reviewing campaigns you couldn’t absorb. By lunchtime, Cynthia and half the staff were prepared to take matters into their own hands and put you to a slow painful death. It might have sounded appealing if it hadn’t already felt so familiar. Showing up at the diner hours earlier had been hard enough. Overhearing them talking about you was worse. Fucking Theodore; you should have expected he’d enjoy all of it, the little weasel. But Emmett, too? You tried to close your ears, to not listen or care. When have you ever cared what they think of you? But you did hear, and snapped some snarky and totally expected response to cover how much it had really gotten to you. Naturally, Mikey showed concern, as you knew he would, and while a part of you felt warmed by his love for you, you headed him off from getting grossly maudlin by assuring him that you were “fabulous!” Justin entering for his morning shift was an expected but still painful arrow to your inflated bravado, and by the time you’d made it back out onto the street, you felt like you’d been through a quiet but intense skirmish from which no one emerged victorious. Glancing at your watch and finding that barely an hour had passed since Cynthia had quietly slipped into your office and delivered a salad and another cup of coffee, both untouched, you decided to give up and leave for the day. You dreaded going back to the loft, but you weren’t accomplishing anything here except the ill will of your employees, so giving Cyn a nod as you passed her desk, you left without another word to anyone. You had no doubt that she knew today was dramatically different, and not just because of your mood. Justin hadn’t called once. As soon as you rolled the door back, you sensed that something was different. Your nerve endings told you he’d been there but the loft was silent, so he was probably already long gone. Glancing around and hating the prickly feeling at the back of your neck that screamed his absence, you climbed the stairs to the bedroom and noticed immediately that both the closet door and his sock drawer were open. Apprehension bundled in your stomach and, approaching them slowly, your suspicions were confirmed; he’d not only been here, he’d taken his clothes. Some sweaters still hung limply in the closet and a sock had dropped to the floor. He’d apparently packed hastily and you could guess the reason why: he hadn’t wanted to risk seeing you, should you come home early and find him. Realizing this was a blow and as you bent to pick up the discarded sock, all the good intentions you’d had in pushing him towards someone who might be able to give him what he needed mocked you with hollow pain. You glanced into the bathroom, some childish hope in your gut wondering if he might be in there, and wandered to the table where he’d made you both sit for dinner each night like some fucking happy hetero couple. His art supplies were gone but he’d left you something else. A message? Or just a parting shot? You weren’t sure which. You picked up the printer paper with the image of Rage whisking JT off to his lair to begin the boy’s healing, stared at it while your heart tried to decide whether to harden or crack wide open and betray you. You finally just crushed it in your fist. Rage and JT might find comfort and recovery in each other’s arms. Yours and Justin’s destiny lay elsewhere. You self-medicated for the next several days, not caring if work got done, food got eaten or friends got remembered. The phone rang often, and the caller I.D. never had good news to report- none of the flashing numbers was Justin’s. Mikey was frantic, Lindsay was insistent and maternal, and you were beyond caring. Finally it was Gus who drew you out of your self-imposed isolation. When Lindsay called, leaving the message that they would be in the park if you cared enough to join them, you decided to stop feeling so fucking sorry for yourself and walked to the park to meet them. You began to regret it almost immediately. No sooner were you listening, amused, as Gus pointed out trees, dogs and other children, but the lecture began- you weren’t nice to him; you hadn’t tried to mean enough to him; you weren’t fair to him; you should apologize, run after him like some fucking teenaged girl, profess your love and beg him to come back to you. You might have had the wind knocked out of your sails for a few days after he moved in with the fiddler, but you were still Brian Kinney and goddammit if you were going to let yourself be domesticated. Not even by Justin. “I never loved him…” you’d told Lindsay, but even as you’d said it you could feel the way the words rang with artifice. You might be Brian Kinney, but even you couldn’t pull off that lie. Evasion therapy seemed to make the most sense that night and what better therapy was there than getting your cock sucked? You simply chose to forget that he was the only one who could do it exactly the way you liked it, that only with him did you come so hard that sometimes you shuddered for fucking ever afterwards. Those facts were no longer relevant to your life, since you suspected Justin would never suck you off again. Just as well, too, you lied to yourself, he was getting really clingy anyway. You were halfway to high as a fucking kite by the time you used your key in Mikey’s front door and stumbled into his apartment in the dark. And what did you find when you arrived? Marital goddamned bliss. The good professor, moving in with your best friend. Yeah, that just couldn’t be good. You flopped onto Mikey’s bed dramatically, hoping that one or both of them would take pity on you and hang out while you fuck a few guys in the backroom of Babylon. How better to forget that Justin would never be coming home again? You would need someone to drive you home, too, and unlike Justin, Mikey had always been there for you, always would be. He’d promised. Just like old times. Only it wasn’t, really, once you got to Babylon. Mikey wouldn’t let you dance in peace, wouldn’t let you get good and fucked up, without whining at you that he was ready to go home. To his “partner”. You gut twisted in revulsion at their sappy homo fantasy. Revulsion and something else, something that clawed at your heart and made you feel a little like you might get sick right there on the dance floor. Fuck that. You pushed up against him, seducing him in the same old way he had always let you seduce him. You nudged a bump under his nose, inviting him to come out and play, and you knew that when your dick was firmly planted against the waistband of his jeans, he would never say no to you. Tonight was no exception and if you hadn’t already been so fucked up you could barely think, you might have been just a little bit relieved and childishly grateful that he wasn’t going to leave you alone out here to die slowly under the hot lights and thumping music. You did get your dick sucked that night, several times. You lost yourself in the streams of come pouring out of your body, dehydrating you but reminding you that you were still alive and that there’d been a time, not long ago, when you didn’t know anyone named Justin fucking Taylor. A time when your only responsibility was to yourself, when smarmy romance and flowers and fiddlers couldn’t steal vital organs from your body when you weren’t looking, weren’t paying attention. You came and who the fuck cared if it wasn’t as good? It was something. You nursed your hangover the way your dear old dad had taught you: in the bar with a little hair of the dog. The beer was cold and that helped to sooth the heat in your belly. You knew where they all were today, you remembered what day it was, and wouldn’t they all be surprised if they knew that? The carpet munchers’ anniversary, that’s what today was. One fucking year ago today since you’d taken matters into your own hands and made their wedding happen. One fucking year since you’d walked into that jewelry store and laid out cold hard cash to replace their rings and one fucking year since you’d tried your best to give them your plane tickets to Miami for their honeymoon. One year since you’d done all that just so they could play out some twisted hetero ideal! One year since he’d stood you up so he could stay home to be a part of it. This was going to work out for the best, after all, you decided stubbornly. You hadn’t lied to Lindsay when you’d told her that if Justin needed to find something you couldn’t give him, he should be free to do so. But by the same token, so should you and who the fuck were they to get their panties in a wad if what you wanted was to be single so you could fuck every beautiful man who gave you that delicious, hungry look? To dance every night with them? To put whatever the fuck you wanted up your nose? You were three times seven, after all. You weren’t sure how many beers you’d had when the bears on the stools next to you started arguing about some fucking thing having to do with a wedding that would never mean anything in the straight world. You couldn’t get away from it, this whole domestic bliss shit, it was everywhere you turned, reminding you of what you didn’t have. Fuck that, what you didn’t want. That’s when the idea came to you and it seemed like a good one, like it could produce a whole shitload of mischief and at the same time, let everyone know once and for all just what you thought about this entire “relationship” sham. You listened to the bears gripe another five minutes and then turned to them with a grin. This evasion therapy plan was going pretty fucking famously, so far. “I know a couple of bulls who could advise you bears,” you said, sucking your lips into your mouth in suppressed mirth. Naturally, when you arrived, everyone gaped at you like you couldn’t possibly belong. Even Lindsay, who’s supposed to be your friend, demanded to know why you showed up. You remind her that you’d been invited and then exact a little payback for her shocked expression by leaving her with the two leather queens from the bar. Karma sucks, baby. The beers caught up with you, so once inside, you took the stairs two at a time, and opened the door on who else- Justin. Your heart lurched and you wondered if you should back out quietly, but that had never been your way and the beers gave you a fuck-em-all attitude. You stepped in despite his protests and reminded him that you’d seen him naked before. Even when he’d behave like a princess, you couldn’t take your eyes off of him. You could feel the anger and betrayal radiating from him in waves but somehow your own feelings, remarkably similar to his, paled and became unimportant, standing so close to him. He began to leave in a huff and for a moment you were tempted to just let him stomp away, but at the last second you changed your mind and, ignoring the way your heart broke, you told him sincerely that you hoped he’d get what he wanted. What else could you have done? Shouting and vitriol wouldn’t win him back, as if you’d even want that, but at least you could ease his going for both yourself and him. Somehow your attempt failed, however, and it was clear he didn’t believe you. That almost hurt as much as watching his back as he turned away from you yet again and left. How many times could you watch that and remain sane? You shook your head, not having an answer, and wandered to the sink to wash your hands. Catching sight of yourself in the mirror, you realized that your evasion therapy plan had gone way off track and now you couldn’t even remember why you were there. You splashed cold water on your face and stared hard at your reflection until you’d mastered a blank expression and then turned and rejoined the others at the party. You were determined to get through this fucking thing, if only to show everyone that you could, but the fight had gone out of you. Justin had always had a way of deflating even your most outrageous temper tantrums and you wanted to hate him for it, but you doubted you’d ever be able to muster the kind of energy it would take. Finding some semblance of peace in giving up, you tried to hunt down another beer, but Mikey, fucking Mikey, had to step in and throw everything inside you back into chaos. He yelled at you that Justin never gave you a thing but how could he know? How could he know the million little things Justin gave you and the one big thing, the chance for your salvation, that he took with him when he left? You knew he’d hate Justin, it was inevitable, but you didn’t know how sharply his words would slice into you, how deeply he’d be able to cut. You told him to shut up, practically begging him, and then he said those words, used those final knives that carved you up so effectively you were forced, almost against your will, to make it stop, to make the hateful syllables stop coming from his mouth. “…you might as well have just left him laying there…” and suddenly, everything came rushing back- Justin on the concrete, the blood, his young, vibrant life draining away while you watched, helplessly- and you lashed out. Before you knew what you were doing, you had laid Mikey out cold on the cement and you mentally added another black mark next to your name in the account book you kept in your head. No one asked why it happened. They just assumed, as they always did when it came to you, that it was your fault. And there was your best friend lying in the dirt, his eye already swelling, his flesh darkening as you watched, and how could you not be to blame for that? Of course you were. Their eyes accused and they called you names and that hurt, that hurt badly, but what you’d done to Mikey, the way you’d felt your fist connect sickeningly with his face- that made you ill. You fled without a word in your own defense. When the world collapses in on you, what else would a sane man do? Only, sanity was unraveling and it was intolerable that everyone you knew was witness to it. The drive back to the loft was lost to you, you’ll never find that memory again, but you'll think later that it’s probably a good thing for it to stay buried. When you bang through the door, it doesn’t even occur to you to close it behind you. You stand in the middle of the floor, in shock, looking around blindly. Your hand, the one you used to do to Mikey what your old man had done to you too many times, throbbed and you wondered vaguely if Pop’s had hurt like this after he would beat you. You’d never know now, would you? The old bastard had gotten his due, he was moldering in a grave somewhere, and you had nothing but the void of your life to show for his life’s work. Like father, like son. That made you laugh out loud, but the sound that bounced back to your ears was crazed and sick and you forced yourself to stop before the scarves and the ceiling beams began to look appetizing again. Numbly looking for something, anything, to anchor you to this world, your eye fell on Justin’s computer. You hadn’t touched it since he’d left, leaving it as a talisman, perhaps, for the hope of his return. He’d need it. It was the only thought in your mind and it swelled to take on gargantuan proportions. He’d need it, it was essential to him, he had to have it back, you’d make sure he got it, somehow, if was the last thing you did. Turning and dashing out of the loft, you flew down the stairs to the basement, rummaged around in your storage area for the box Justin’s Computer had come in, threw everything else aside in your haste to reach it. When you finally uncovered it you almost sobbed in relief, but a particle of you remained intact enough to stop you. Image wasn’t the issue anymore, whether someone else heard or saw you didn’t matter. What mattered was that if you started now, you might never stop. Leaving your storage slot in utter disarray, you climbed the stairs, entered the loft and went directly to Justin’s Computer. You dropped to the floor where it sat, and examined it carefully, reverently, before dismantling it, piece by piece, cable by cable, reassembling everything in its designated container. You dug through a kitchen drawer for nearly ten minutes before you remembered that you were looking for tape to seal the box and when you found it, you carefully secured each flap and opening. By the time you were finished, you were calm again. You picked up the box, understanding now that it was only a computer, that it wasn’t your life or his that you’d put neatly back together, and set it gingerly on the coffee table. Reason had returned, and you fell into the lounger like a man exhausted after running a full marathon. You closed your eyes and let yourself drift to sleep as the waning daylight shifted across the floor and disappeared. Waking some hours later, you knew by the ache you felt in your gut that you had to make things right with Mikey. If you couldn’t do even that, then you really did deserve all the derision of your friends and family. After a stop at the butcher, you made your way slowly to Mikey’s shop. You weren’t sure what you’d do if he rejected you but some part of you, the part that remembered childhood and youthful promises and sleepovers at his house when you’d watch MTV together and gobble the popcorn his mom made in the big dutch oven, the part of you that still cherished those quiet moments of loving him, told you you’d fight to keep him. He let you in and you felt the skin on your testicles crawl when you saw the bruise and swelling you’d left behind on him, evidence of your crime, and suddenly it didn’t matter that he maybe sort of kinda deserved it. You’d raised your hand in anger to another human being and that was inexcusable. You knew better than anyone how that could destroy the soul and you’d done it anyway and if Mikey sent you away tonight, you’d understand. Your offering seemed weak even to you, but you hoped the steak would give him a smile. You weren’t terribly surprised when it didn’t. You tried to embrace him, to kiss his cheek where you’d hurt him, but he pulled away, something he’d never done before. Seems it would be a day of firsts. Any day when you’d lost your mind twice in 12 hours was a first. Your stomach clenched and then Mikey admitted he’d probably deserved to get decked and you let yourself admit that he did, too, knowing that was the only apology you’d get from him. And why not? Hadn’t you been the one to teach him that apologies were bullshit? You were no better at giving them than he was. And then he said it, the one person who knew you better almost than you knew yourself said it and you scrambled to deflect the truth of it, that you really loved Justin. You pulled out the same old tired charm and handed it to him in the same old tired way, reminding him that you don’t do love except for him, and like the friend he’d always been to you, he let it slide. Still, you felt defeated and you suddenly knew how you’d be spending the rest of your evening. It made you sick, what you needed, but when Mikey offered you an alternative, asked you to go out with him, you turned him down, thereby proving to yourself exactly how far you’d fallen. As you left, you turned and look at him through the dirty glass door and wondered when it had gotten to this point. The call was quick, easy, and almost painless. You’d shut down, almost to the point of vanishing into your own act, but a part of you still trembled in excitement at the thought that the agency might actually succeed and send you someone who looked like- who had his- Anyway, you’d get laid in the privacy of your own home and there wasn’t a fucking thing wrong with paying for it if you were just too tired to go out and find it on your own. You wandered your way into the bedroom and found yourself under the blue lights, staring up and not thinking, just smoking and waiting. Smoke. And wait. Smoke. And wait. And when the soft knock came at the door, you started the game in your head, the one that said it was him and he was here for you because he couldn’t stay away. When you opened the door, you looked only at the familiar hair color and the pale skin. You avoided his eyes because that would ruin the game, it would end it, and you’d remember and be humiliated by what you were doing. You were pulling the cash out of your jeans almost before he’d asked for it and directing him to the bedroom. Following behind him, looking at his back and the color of his hair, you could almost believe. But he didn’t smell the same and you knew he wouldn’t taste the same. And then he sat there, so young, looking up at you and when you nodded, he began stripping away his clothes. His body was softer, rounder, not as hard as- but it was available and willing and that’s what mattered right now. He slid up onto the bed, waiting for you, and under the lights, his skin glowed in the same way as- the same way as Justin’s had- so you stepped out of your jeans and joined him, stretching out next to him. Now you did look. You looked at his face, his body, his hair, and it wasn’t him but it was close enough, it would do until you didn’t need this anymore. The boy leaned in for a kiss, but that was against the rules, and despite your impulse to tell the rules to go fuck themselves, you just couldn’t. So you guided him with your hand to press his face to the sheets, the way he had so many times before. Then you allowed yourself to touch him and if it was tentative and if it didn’t feel the same, who cared? Given enough time, you’d be able to convince yourself that even you didn’t care, but right now the kid was here and your dick was hard and it was time to get down to business. It wouldn’t always be this bad. The End |
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