Title:  Live Now
Author:  darksylvia
A/N:  It is set between seasons 4 and 5, I did not incorporate any season 5 spoilers into it. In fact, I started it before I knew the season 5 spoilers, lost track of what I was saying, and then attempted to finish it today.

It needed to end. msjudi did what she could (which was considerable, and very appreciated), but as usual, I don't like it right now. You can, of course, leave feedback in whatever varying degrees of honesty you'd like. I can take it all, swear.

*****

"I've been waiting for you to ask me that."

"I know. So how are you going to answer?"

"Yes." He said. Brian slowly let out the breath he hadn't known he was holding. "But I have to tell you something."

"What? You’re dying to blow me?” he raised an eyebrow.

"No," said Justin, patiently. "I have to go to Hollywood for a while. Brett offered me a job on the movie."

His voice was pitched for maximum nonchalance, which Brian was pretty sure he'd gotten from dating him. Brian's stomach clenched a little, and his shoulder throbbed.

"When are you leaving?"

"Four and a half weeks. They're doing the legal stuff now. I'll probably be there for six months. Then I'll come home. Here."

"Okay," Brian said.

Justin was looking at him warily, as if he expected an explosion, or a cold sentence like 'Who says I'll be around?'. Maybe the pain medication was helping. Or the weed. But that was what someone else would have said. Someone he’d grown out of and couldn’t get back.

"Really okay?" Justin sounded more hopeful now, instead of flat, and came around the counter to tuck himself under Brian’s good arm.

"I'll be here when you get back,” said Brian.

*****

And that had been the end of the conversation. Except that hadn't been the end of the issue. It had taken Brian a little longer than usual to figure out what was wrong with Justin’s weirdly-timed silences that left words hanging unsaid, and the way Brian would wake up too hot because Justin had nearly climbed on top of him in the night.

Brian wasn't clingy. He'd never been, except maybe to Mikey, when he was drunk and needed a ride home. Justin wasn't clingy either. He'd had leanings that way in the beginning, but Brian had sarcastically cut them out of him, something he was not really proud of. Of course, if he cared to acknowledge it--which he didn't--he'd had all of his clinginess dissected from him a long time ago, by Jack.

The point was, he could let Justin go because he knew it would be best for Justin. And Justin could leave him, because Justin intended to come back. Whether Justin was happy about leaving was a different question. Brian needed him to be happy about it. He wanted Justin to go off and have adventures and not be stuck wanting to be somewhere he wasn’t, with someone he wasn’t.

“Justin.”

Justin ignored him, caught up in something on the computer.

“Justin,” he tried again, louder.

“What?” The spikes of his hair and one of his cheekbones were illuminated by the computer’s light.

“Snap the fuck out of it.”

“I was just reading, Brian. Jeez.”

“Not that,” Brian advanced on him, liking how the heat always rose in Justin’s eyes when he got closer. “Stop moping.”

“I am not moping,” said Justin.

“Yes, you are.” Brian reached down and pulled Justin up and against him with his good arm. “Stop it. I know you’re going away. There’s nothing you can do about it but enjoy it.”

“I know,” said Justin.

He wrapped both arms around Brian and pushed himself up so that they fit together, then he leaned in and kissed Brian. It was the same way that Brian kissed him when he wanted to stop a conversation. And there was a slight edge to it that was really hot, but kind of disturbing at the same time. However, his brain shorted out when Justin slid a hand down his pants, so with his last coherent thought that didn’t have to do with stripping Justin down and roughly fucking him on the floor, he planned for tomorrow.

*****

It wasn’t really hard to skip work on Friday. True, Brian had this annoying residual work ethic that some fucking psychiatrist could probably trace to the more desperate parts of his childhood, but Justin’s presence trumped that, like it did a lot of other things in Brian’s life. It used to annoy him; now he was bizarrely grateful.

Brian shook Justin awake at six am. When Justin rolled away and tried to bury himself under the pillows, Brian rolled him back over and kissed him to full consciousness. Justin sleepily shoved his head downward, and because Brian was helpless to resist Justin’s cock even when it’s owner wasn’t half-asleep and making really, really hot noises in the back of his throat, he slid down under the covers, gripped Justin’s hips, and sucked him off. When Justin came, shuddering and gasping, Brian got off the bed and took the covers with him.

“Get dressed,” he said.

Brian was parked, leaning against the car in the no-parking lane in front of his building when Justin finally came stumbling down. He was wearing khakis and his winter coat and his hair was still messy from sleep.

“Ready,” he said.

“Good,” Brian replied. He opened the passenger door. “Get in.”

“Where are we going?” Justin asked. But he got in willingly enough.

“Disneyland,” Brian replied as he got in on his side and put his sunglasses on. Justin grinned disbelievingly and buckled his seatbelt.

*****

While the valets of the Hotel Plaza Athénée parked the corvette, Brian checked them in and handed off their baggage--what little there was--to the bellboy. Then he steered a grinning Justin back out the giant doors and over the few blocks to the newly remodeled Museum of Modern Art. The closer they got, the more animated Justin became.

At the foot of the steps, Justin bounced a little and gave Brian a grin of pure delight. “It is Disneyland,” he said. He grabbed Brian’s hand and set off up the stairs.

*****

Three museums and six hours later, they were both ready to drop. Even Justin's bottomless love of art was starting to be edged out by the demands of his equally bottomless stomach.

They went for pizza. Around a giant slice of pepperoni, Justin asked, "So, you just woke up this morning and decided to kidnap me to New York?"

"No. While I was fucking you yesterday night I decided to kidnap you this morning."

Justin grunted and put down his pizza. "Well, it was a good idea. This is so great. The last time I got to go to any of these places it was with my mom when I was like, ten."

"We've got more tomorrow and a lot of fucking to do in between," said Brian.

Justin grinned and ate faster, including finishing Brian's half of the pizza while he tried to talk about all the art he’d seen today at the same time. Brian leaned his head on his hand, imagined how horrified Justin’s mother would be at his table manners, and decided he’d accomplished his objective for today. He'd gotten going away off of Justin's mind.

*****

At two am, Justin lay awake, and consequently, so did Brian. In spite of the early morning, the walking, enough art to make anyone's head spin, and the more recent round of sex, Justin hadn't fallen asleep. Brian had tried to tire him out, to distract him so much that he didn't have time to brood about L.A. any more. Obviously something hadn't worked. He nudged Justin’s leg to let him know he was awake, but didn't say anything. Usually if he waited long enough, Justin would start talking about whatever was bothering him and then he could try and fix it.

"When I'm across the country, will you miss me?" It was said in a very low, steady voice. It wasn't the same way Justin had asked, just back from Vermont, seemingly forever ago. This was a question with a point, not a question to soothe a rocky relationship.

Brian was silent for a long moment, fighting a small inner-war.

"Yes," he said. He started to reach for a cigarette and checked himself. No smoking while his bones were knitting.

"Good," said Justin. Brian felt him relax slightly. "I'll miss you, too."

"Justin?"

"Huh?"

"You're going to have a fabulous time fucking movie stars, and drawing my cock for huge audiences. Don't waste it, okay?" Brian turned his head to meet Justin's eyes. He skimmed his hand over spiky blond hair. "I'll miss you, but that shouldn't change anything that either of us does." He waited for Justin to nod and the rolled onto his side. "And Justin?"

"What?" asked Justin quietly. Justin was looking at him with something in his eyes that used to scare the shit out of Brian.

"Stop thinking about leaving. Think about now." He trailed a hand down Justin's chest and in between his legs, smiling. “Live in the now, Sunshine."

"You're getting sort of new-agey in your old age, aren't you?' said Justin. Then he gasped when Brian gave his cock a friendly stroke.

"Bullshit," Brian said. "It was my mantra first." He rolled over to cover Justin. "Always live for each fucking second, because living in the half-imagined future, or the never-happened past is not living at all."

“I get it,” said Justin. He paused and then smiled widely. “It’s enough that you’ll miss me.”

Brian stared at him for a minute, just breathing, just existing, and just absorbing the fact that things were good.

Then, without warning, he heaved himself up and pinned Justin’s wrists to the bed. “What did you say about old age?”