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| Title: Enough To Go By - Chapter 6 Author: phobosgirl (phobosgirl@earthlink.net) Date: 9.9.05 Rating: R Disclaimer: Cowlip owns them, I don't, wouldn't want to, not making any money from this, want no fight with the big boys! Authors notes: Future fic. Feedback is welcome. Complete: no Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Brian ~*~ "I've walked these streets, a virtual stage it seemed to me; Make up on their faces, actors took their places next to me." ~*~ I woke with an ache that seemed to penetrate every muscle and joint in my body. Laying still while I surveyed the damage, taking note of the knots and kinks that would have to be worked out by the 300.00 an hour Swedish massage I was going to need, I wondered who I paid and how much it would cost to take away the anguish of laying next to my own personal blond demon. I turned my head in his direction, noting with relief that at least one muscle worked without complaint, and watched his face as he dreamed. The faint creases in his forehead and around the corners of his mouth that had been less evident last night in the dark were more prominent in the late morning sun slanting across the bed, and some small part of me cheered to see them. He wasn't eternally young. One day, his hair would gray and lines would run deeply through his porcelain skin and his blue eyes would dim, and I suddenly felt more gratitude for it than was rational. Could I really still be this wounded by him after all this time? What an old fucking drama queen I had grown into. I sighed and closed my eyes, beginning a slow stretch with the arches of my feet and moving upwards. By the time I stretched out my shoulders, raising my arms high over my head and wiggling my back in relief, I had stopped caring if he'd wake up, and I released a mighty yawn that made my face tingle with rushing blood. Justin was just beginning to stir, mumbling his way out of sleep, when the cell on my nightstand rang loudly. I watched with amusement as he jerked awake with a grunt of surprise, his eyes snapping open. Not bothering to suppress a chuckle, I snatched up the phone and rolled out of bed as if it was no effort for me to do so. In the privacy of my own head, I could probably admit to myself that all the hours in the world spent with my personal trainer might not be enough to prepare me for a marathon fuck in the middle of the night with my old flame, but there was no way I'd let on to Justin that it had been anything more than routine. I nudged the phone open, knowing without even checking caller I.D. that it was Cole. I glanced at the clock on my way out the door, not bothering to cover my nakedness from Justin, whom I knew had to be watching me from under the covers. Fuck it. Let him see what 8 hours of cardio training, and 2 afternoons of hard-core racquetball a week did for me. I had to hand it to Cole, though. He'd let me sleep in- the clock read almost noon. "I'm fine," I started softly before he could even say hello. I closed the door behind me and stepped into the hallway. Mindful of the housekeeping staff that could wander by at any moment, I slipped into a spare bedroom and shut the door, settling myself into a thickly upholstered wing-back chair. "I'm sorry I called in the middle of the night, it was an asshole thing to do. You can take it out on me on the court later, ok?" His deep laugh covered the relief in his voice, and I pretended not to notice that he'd been worried. It's what he would expect. "At least you made it up to me," Cole reminded me. "You were hot last night; maybe you should call me at 4 am more often." The playfulness in his voice caused a rare emotion to well up in me. I felt guilty that it had been Justin's face I'd seen when I'd been on the phone last night with Cole, Justin's mouth I wanted, Justin's smooth skin I'd imagined beneath my fingertips. "Are we still on for today?" I asked, pinching off the headache that wanted to start between my eyes. "Four o'clock," he confirmed, "be ready to have your ass whipped." "Yeah, whatever," I chuckled. The was a long pause and I knew he was formulating questions. Finally he broke the silence. "Are you gonna tell me what this morning was all about?" "Yes," I promised, suddenly pining for the days in years past when I would have blown off anyone who tried to get real answers out of me. "I will. We'll talk, ok?" The tension was back in his tone when he agreed. "I'll see you in a few hours." He didn't answer. "Cole? Don't worry, everything's fine. Alright?" "Ok, Brian." His voice was soft, resigned. He knew I was lying. ~*~ "Let me finish watching you change, like a sunset." ~*~ I didn't want to think about the obvious affection I'd heard in Brian's voice as he'd stepped out of the room and spoken softly into the phone. An interloper, now, I was convinced that there was someone else, maybe even someone Brian loved, and inexplicably, I burned with jealousy. The Brian I'd known had loved anonymous sex. Lots of it. Familiarity with his sex partners made him itchy, uncomfortable, and in all the time I'd known him intimately, I had been the only one he had ever become romantically attached to. Even that had taken years for us both to come to terms with. But I was more aware now than I had ever been of how people can change, and the evidence of Brian's transformations were everywhere I looked. If I loved Brian, it meant I wanted him to be happy. And if there was someone else in his life who could accomplish that, if it meant that Brian had not been alone all these years, that was a good thing. Or, it should have been. But I hadn't even fully opened my eyes yet and my stomach was already twisted into knots. I was all grown up now, no longer a wide-eyed teenager tumbling into love after one spectacular fuck. I knew better than anyone that a single night in bed with Brian Kinney did not make us partners. But the way Brian had held me, said my name, and my paintings stashed away in my old studio, his eyes, following my every movement- could all of that really have been an illusion I was projecting onto him? Was I falling into the same terrible patterns of my youth? I flipped over onto my back, rubbing the sleep out of my face. I could only hear the deep murmur of his voice coming through the wall, but his tone was familiar- it was the sound of tenderness. Who could evoke such a vulnerable emotion from the implacable man I'd known? I lay frozen, my mind whirling, and when I saw the door swing inwards again, signaling Brian's return, I shut my eyes, feigning sleep. I listened, my heart and head in turmoil, as Brain moved carefully into the room. A long, quiet pause told me that he had stilled and my skin prickled with the sensation of being watched. I kept my breathing even and deep, and my body still, hoping that he would believe I had fallen back to sleep. Finally, he shifted and moved into the adjacent bathroom, shutting the door softly behind him. The breath I'd been holding eased shakily out of my lungs. I knew I was being childish. I'd been out of Brian's life for far too many years to believe I had any place in it, now, but I hadn't realized just how much I'd counted on Brian being alone and possibly even pining away for me, in this big, old house he'd bought for me. Finding Brian's secret cache of my paintings had nearly convinced me of a victory over the time and distance that had spread out between us. Why had I assumed that coming back to the states would be like visiting my past with a time machine? That everything here would be locked away in a little cage of unchanging permanence until I arrived with the key to unlock it? Had I lived so vehemently in the future that I was no longer in step with the real world? Apparently so. I had wanted to find Brian much as I had left him- still living hard by his own uncompromising rules, clubbing, barking orders at Cynthia every morning over his third cup of coffee in the offices of Kinnetik, insulting Teddy, forgiving every goofy thing Mikey did and said, and ignoring Emmett's breathless account of last nights' escapades. And still hopelessly in love with the world-renowned hometown-boy-made-good, Justin Taylor. I groaned softly, embarrassed by my own foolishness, and rolled to my side, yanking Brian's pillow over my head and burrowing down into it. ~*~ "Remember how you use to say I'd be the one to run away? But I'm still here." ~*~ I let the water pound down on my sore muscles, feeling the familiar old burn that fucking Justin always entailed. No one had ever put me through my paces the way he had. Or maybe I'd just never put as much effort into anyone else. Except, perhaps, Cole. His sex drive rivaled mine, a real bonus if someone wanted to be invited back to into my bed more than once, but even with him, I didn't ever remember aching so badly. Sometimes people floated in and out of your life, but Cole had landed in the middle of mine with both feet firmly planted. I'd been making the usual rounds at Babylon, checking in with the bartenders, bouncers and back office staff, and was about to leave it in the hands of my employees and go home for the night when I noticed him. He was leaning against the upstairs railing, gazing down into the usual crowd of mostly naked men covered in glitter. I could see the boredom in his face from across the darkened and crowded club. It radiated from his eyes, the set of his jaw, his posture. It wasn't an affectation designed to attract twinks, either; he genuinely could have cared less that he was surrounded by available bodies, not a few of whom were cruising him hard. At the time, I saw in him a challenge- could I engage him, bring his focus to bear on me? The club life had already begun to wane, for me. There would always be an abundance of available holes and mouths and fingers, all attached to pretty men with hopeful eyes, but they bored the fuck out of me. The only ones worth having anymore were the ones I had to work for. As I wound my way towards him, climbing the catwalk and sliding onto the rail next to him, the predator in me paced its cage restlessly. On closer inspection, he was even more beautiful than he'd appeared from below, his dark, intelligent eyes scanning the crowd below, powerful shoulders squared, long, graceful fingers carelessly clasping a beer can. I slouched next to him, and peered out into the crowd below. If he noticed my presence, he ignored me, a state I wouldn't tolerate for long. Leaning close, I let my hand slide along the railing until it was settled in front of him. This was the part of the seduction I was particularly expert at; I could insinuate myself into someone else's space and have them humming in appreciation before they've ever registered discomfort at the nearness of a stranger. Cole barely budged. He looked down at my hand, resting so lightly just millimeters away from his clothed cock, and then looked up into my face, a small, amused smile on his lips and in his eyes. No push-over, this one, and my internal temperature rose a notch. "See anything interesting?" I matched his smile, watching with quiet delight as his took on a mischievous tilt. He shrugged noncommittally, but his eyes never left mine for an instant. There was interest there that would take some finessing to bring out, but I knew I was the man to do it. No fireworks, no bolts of lightning from the sky, but I wanted him and he wanted me and it was different. It took me two solid weeks of dinners that more closely resembled hetero dating, enough of them to shake my confidence somewhat, and one 4-hour Brando movie marathon at my place before he'd let me anywhere near his ass. It was all worth it. And somehow I knew I'd be seeing him again, that I'd want to. He was brilliant, solid, gorgeous, successful- and he put up with all my shit with hardly a glance. He fought back when he needed to and ignored me when that was more appropriate. I respected him, and it made what had happened with Justin that much more painful. I was angry for breaking promises I'd made to myself with regards to Justin. A part of me had always known, maybe even hoped, that one day he'd come home. I knew if that day ever arrived, I had to have a plan, some rules firmly in place. 'Don't fuck Justin,' sat confidently at the top of that list, flashing at me in red, glaring letters. I am not a stupid man, and in the intervening years since I'd last seen him, I'd come to accept that the fastest way to lose myself was through his tight little ass. From there, my downward slide could only be swift and treacherous. I tilted my face up to the spray of hot water, wishing it could wash away more than last night's sweat and come. Clearly, I was no better at following my own rules than I was at following anyone else's. Cole would never demand an explanation about what I was doing, fucking my former fiancé. I had made it clear in the very beginning that being a part of my life meant taking me as I was, wandering dick and all, and Cole had accepted it without a fight. There'd never even been an undercurrent of resentment about it, as there'd often had with Justin, and when I began to lose interest in young twinks, when I stopped going out as much and stopped fucking around as much, Cole had never made an issue about that, either. But Cole had always known that Justin's memory still ghosted me. I had been forthcoming with him about Justin, although it had taken me months to trust him enough to begin opening up. In the end, I'd told him everything. The prom, the bashing, the fiddler, Stockwell and poverty, Kinnetik and the rebuilding of our wealth, California, our engagement, New York, Moscow, Paris. Cole knew all of it, and though he never passed judgment, I sensed that he might have sharp words for Justin, if they were ever to meet. After sharing my bed for four years, Cole knew the score. He knew that I wasn't in love with him and that I probably never would be; there was only one time in my life that I had ever allowed such a thing and I didn't plan on it ever happening again. But he didn't push for more. He seemed content, even happy, with what we had, and I had to admit that, surprising as it was, I was likewise content. And now Justin was back, and I still didn't have a fucking clue why. I shook water out of my eyes, opening my mouth under the water, letting it fall over my tongue and down my chest. Justin was home, and despite all my promises to myself, I had managed to hold out all of an hour before I'd had him on his hands and knees begging to be fucked harder. It was going to be a long day. End of Chapter 6 |