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The One Where Brian Sells the Loft
Author: yoursweater Pairing: Brian/Justin Rating: G Timeline: Future Spoilers: No Universe: Elliott Summary: They decide to move out of the loft when Elliott turns nine months old. Written for on_impulse challenge number two. Author's Note: This one is set in the Elliott Universe, but written for on__impulse challenge two. And for any people that are wondering, the next chapter of The Stockholm Syndrome will be up sometime tonight/tomorrow. They decide to move out of the loft when Elliott turns nine months old, because Justin never stops complaining about the lack of space, and Brian ends up in a mood worse then usual whenever he tries to work but all he can hear is Elliott crying. So Justin tells his mother, and Jennifer ends up putting together a folder full of locations that are available and in the price range that Brian refuses to buy under. She tells her girlfriend over brunch one day that she finds it kind of funny that her best customer is also her… well, she still hasn’t figured out what exactly Brian is to her yet, but she figures it must be something important, considering she got a grandchild out of it. Brian goes through the folder by himself first, vetoing seven out of the ten prospective lots of property before Justin manages to get a glimpse of them for himself. “Fuck you, this is advertised as ‘country chic’.” Brian says one morning, scowling at Justin from his side of the kitchen island. Justin rolls his eyes and moves the baby from one knee to the other. “I don’t do country anything.” “Excluding cowboys.” Justin smirks, tongue in his cheek as he looks over at Brian. The coffee maker starts to drip just as Brian clarifies, “I’m not living in a barn.” Almost a month after they start looking for a new place, they finally go and tour the first piece of property that Brian sees fit for the three of them to live in. “Isn’t this pretty much just a bigger and more expensive version of the loft?” Justin asks, looking out of the car window as they pull up in front of an old and now gutted industrial building downtown. “I looked at your stupid paint chips, and I agreed to the wood floor.” Brian says as he shuts off the engine. “So shut up and get out of the car.” Justin takes his seatbelt off, pushes his door open, and tries to hide a grin. The first legitimate house they look at has no indoor plumbing installed because the previous contractor cancelled without notice, and Brian is more horrified then that one time he found Ted in the backroom at Babylon. “We’re lowering the asking price a great deal to compensate.” The real estate agent tells them both, and Justin is dimly interested until he notices the cracked floorboards and uneven ceilings. Later that night at the diner, Justin complains about the fact that the place was a complete dump with a location worth the bordering a million dollar asking price, Debbie smothers Elliott in her usual style, and Brian sneers when Michael suggests a two story house that’s going up for rent near his and Ben’s place. “Just because I have a kid doesn’t mean I’m going to move to Stepford World.” Brian states, and Justin’s kind of glad that he does – even if it’s the millionth time he’s said it – just because he doesn’t really want to move to Pleasantville either. Jennifer puts the loft on the market, and three days after it’s listed they have an open house. Brian takes Elliott and disappears to the Muncher’s House to see Gus, because he’s suspicious that the entire population of his past tricks will take the chance to parade through the house even if they have no intention to purchase it. Justin stays quiet most of the time, putting his Country Club manners out to show when he greets the potential buyers and then directs them towards his mother for the business side of things. A family that looks like they fell out of Michael’s neighborhood appears around noon – two guys with matching khaki pants and a redheaded teenager that trails behind them with a set of expensive headphones on his ears – and they quietly discuss the property with each other, considering it as potential studio space. Justin doesn’t tell Brian about them when he comes back that afternoon, because he’s pretty sure the thought of two “pseudo breeders” using the loft for anything will break Brian’s heart. The next day they go to look at some ridiculously expensive place five minutes away from downtown. Jennifer shows them around since it’s one of her clients that’s selling, and Brian is bordering impressed at the high beam ceilings and polished floors. “It looks like the loft does, only it has two floors and a basement attached.” Justin muses, setting Elliott down on one of the kitchen stools. He squirms around and eventually slides his way down to the floor, then uses Brian’s leg to pull his uncoordinated body up until he’s standing on wobbly feet. “I want it.” Brian says, and Justin would probably try to argue against the defiant tone in Brian’s voice if he didn’t secretly want it too. The loft ends up selling to Brian Kinney Revisited, Justin tells Daphne a few weeks later. She helps him pack up the assortment of shit in the storage space underneath the hallway stairs, and Justin almost forgot about it until he started to wonder where his really old artwork was. “It must attract people who have a personality like Brian’s.” Daphne says, like she’s diagnosing some type of disease on a patient she doesn’t have the doctor’s degree for. “I read about it in a psychology book.” She continues, pulling a canvas half the size of her body from behind last year’s set of living room furniture. “Was he hot?” Justin sits back on his feet and tries to remember the guy who looked like he was in a church as Jennifer gave him a quick tour around the potential space. “I don’t really remember.” Justin says finally, shrugging. “He could’ve been.” Daphne stays for dinner after she spends three hours packing the entire closet of clothes that only two gay guys could have, an assortment of overpriced pieces of junk Brian has collected over the years and called art, and Elliott’s extended toy collection. “So is he walking yet?” She asks, nodding across the loft - which is more empty then usual - to where Elliott is holding onto the back of the sofa and jumping up and down as Brian tries to watch a movie. Justin looks over his shoulder to where the television is and then back to Daphne, who has half of a carrot stick in her mouth. “Almost. Emmett is convinced that he’s the one who taught him how, because he was sitting with Elliott in the diner at the time.” Justin smirks, opening the refrigerator door. “He and Brian argued about it for days.” They move into the new house, and the first thing Justin does in the kitchen is spray himself with the apparently secretly faulty sink faucet. Brian laughs about it for hours, replaying the image of a soaked and scowling Justin in his mind as Justin calls a plumber and very calmly tries to explain the current sink situation. It’s about a week after they’ve moved into the new place when Elliott gets a box of crayons for little to no reason one day, Brian just produces them from his suitcase and hands them over. The majority of their belongings are still in cardboard boxes or sitting under white sheets in the garage, and while Justin is trying to hang a picture in the living room and Brian denies that he’s eating ice cream in the kitchen, Elliott crawls into the front hallway with a few already broken crayons in one fist. When Justin comes out of the living room ten minutes later with a nearly smashed thumb and three bent nails, the hallway is adorned with scribbles and assorted wobbly shapes in black crayon. He leans against the doorframe and crosses his arms over his chest, trying to figure out what the slightly flattened circle in the middle of a bunch of bordering straight lines could mean. “When are the paint guys coming?” Justin calls, and in the kitchen he hears Brian’s feet on the wood floor, and then the freezer opens and closes with a muted thump. Elliott realizes someone’s standing behind him and tilts his head backwards with a wide grin on his face, and Justin has to reach forward and grab him before he falls over due to lack of balance and an abnormally large head. “Tomorrow.” Brian replies finally, and when Justin picks up Elliott and takes him into the kitchen, he finds Brian at the counter, peeling an apple. “Just don’t go into the front hall until then.” Justin says, not bothering to explain why. Brian doesn’t bother asking him to elaborate, anyway. |