The One Where They Visit New York, Brian Doesn’t Answer His Phone, Justin Doesn’t Like Michael and Elliott’s Older Than He Usually Is. Pairing: Brian/Justin Fandom: Queer as Folk Author:  yoursweater Rating: G Timeline: Future Universe: Elliott Archive: Ridiculously Summary: Three days after Elliott turns eight years old, Justin starts to look for prospective studio space in the heart of New York. Author’s Note: Alright so I had this finished last night, so I figured I’d post it since I probably won’t be around for a couple of weeks. The upcoming chapter of ‘Basements’ will be the next thing I post, though, so make sure you check back later to get a hold of that. But yeah, for now, enjoy this. It’s part of the ‘Elliott’ universe, since lots of people asked for more of him back when I was doing requests. Three days after Elliott turns eight years old, Justin starts to look for prospective studio space in the heart of New York. “No. No, we just got here. What? No, I can’t hear you, the fucking… Elliott! Put your jacket back on! What? Wh- No, I can’t, I can’t hear – I’ll call you back when I get out of the airport. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Okay – later. Justin manages to hang up just in time to reach out and grab Elliott before he disappears into the luggage carousel, and just before Brian starts asking him more questions about the flight. Elliott’s giggling and holding onto the no doubt wickedly expensive designer name suitcase that he’s sitting beside, and all that Justin can manage is a hand through his own head of hair. “Hey!” Elliott exclaims, frowning when Justin pulls him off of the rack and sets him back down on the floor, attempts zipping up the jacket that Elliott’s been trying to pull off all day. Apparently, Elliott loves to get rained on by mid-September New York weather. “Remember, Eli.” Justin starts to say, pausing to smooth one hand over the top of Elliott’s head. His hair is sticking up on end from the static that’s appearing from somewhere, Justin can’t think about where it’s coming from right now without his head exploding into forty three pieces. “Daddy said not to be a little shit, and that includes getting back onto the plane via the luggage rack.” Elliott smiles and nods, shows teeth that make Debbie get him whatever he wants, and reaches his hand out for Justin to take. Justin nods and exhales, stands up and decides that it probably wasn’t a great idea to take his kid to buy some professional space anyway, but there’s no way in fuck that he’d leave him with Brian and Cynthia again. Not after the last time, when Elliott had photocopied his own face damned near five hundred times while Cynthia ran across the street to get coffee and Brian bitched out the art intern that was, at the time at least, new. “I’m starving.” Elliott sighs as they start towards the lobby, his voice melodramatic and bordering on sounding like Brian’s does. Justin rolls his eyes and carefully leads Elliott out of the drop off and pick up area by the hand, looks around for some kind of machine that dispenses food saturated with sugar and fat. He can’t find one, but he knows that if there was one in a five mile radius, Elliott would know about it anyway. Elliott tugs Justin’s hand, says, “Let’s go back to Grandma Deb’s. I want some brownies.” Justin pretends to ignore that comment and shakes his head, decides that the best idea would just be to lift Elliott off of the floor, lanky eight year old body and all, so that’s what he does. It’s the only way to effectively get him out of the airport, even if he is still complaining about his lack of brownies when they arrive at the entrance. Justin sighs and gives in, says, “I’ll tell you what, Eli. I’ll call daddy, and get him to bring some when he comes tonight – but, only if you stop whining. At least until we get a cab.” The child carefully considers this deal for about half a minute before he smiles and nods, pats Justin’s shoulder with the palm of his small hand and smiles, showing crooked teeth with one missing in the center. “I want two brownies though.” He says, showing his point by holding up two carefully counted fingers, fingernails black from getting into the permanent markers in Justin’s Liberty Avenue office. Brian blamed it on Emmett’s influence, and tried in vain to wash it off for a good forty five minutes. Didn’t work. Elliott reiterates his point with a, “Two.” Justin sighs and damns Brian’s influence to hell. “I’ll get you an entire pan, as long as you don’t cause any havoc today.” Elliott raises one eyebrow, a move that he’s been tediously perfecting since the age of four, and asks, “What’s havoc?” Justin snickers and says, “It’s your middle name.”  … “So, when was this available again?” Justin asks, looking over the brochure he had been handed when he was not two steps inside the door. He looks to the completely over the top realtor, her hair pulled so tight that each morning she must get an instant facelift. “October first. However if necessary, my client is available to move out by the fifteenth of this month, it wouldn’t be a problem.” Nodding, Justin looks back around the space again, surveying the shiny floors and Elliott as he traces one pale finger over a misty window pane. When he gets bored of that, he starts to make faces in the reflection that’s shining back at him – first raising both of his eyebrows, then one, then the other before he growls. Justin shakes his head and absentmindedly looks up at the high beam ceilings. The location’s perfect – the abandoned warehouse Brian leased for the New York branch of Kinnetik’s only ten minutes away, and Justin knows that there are some newly restored condos in the next block over, if the time ever came that they may need to lease one. He taps his fingers against the glossy brochure, and turns back to look at the realtor, still carefully studying him. Probably wondering what color number the ‘dye’ in his hair is, if he knows women. Which… technically, well, he doesn’t. “I just need to make a phone call.” He says, shrugs his shoulders a little and watches as she immediately nods and excuses herself into the hallway, leaving Justin to his cell phone and Elliott to his own devices. Justin dials the number to Kinnetik. Waits for the usual five rings to go off on Brian’s desk before he’s transferred over to Cynthia, who will then transfer Justin back to Brian. Four rings and then five, followed by an annoyed, “He’s not even in a meeting. I’m going to shove my foot up his ass if he doesn’t start picking up.” Laugher echoes through the near empty space Justin’s standing in as he listens to Cynthia huff, replies to her comment with a perfectly timed, “I wouldn’t do that – he might like it, and you’d never get rid of him, then.” Cynthia laughs and Justin hears her sipping either coffee or water, whatever new diet she’s on this week, before the line gets cut off, and he’s finally transferred over to Brian’s office. “I’ll kill you with my bare hands if you don’t have that font ready to use.” Brian greets, voice hard and fists probably clenched. Justin rolls his eyes but before he can continue he’s distracted, hurries to jog over to Elliott just in time to pull him from the window before the child can complete the half drawn cartoon version of the realtor in the fogged up glass. “Nice to talk to you too, darling.” He finally snorts, shaking his head and narrowing his eyes at the top of Elliott’s. As soon as the words leave the blond’s mouth, though, Elliot looks up at him with raised eyebrows. Justin makes another face down at Elliott, one that says ‘don’t worry, I’m just kidding’ this time, before the kid giggles and reaches up for the phone so he can talk to Brian himself. “Hold on, Eli.” “And here I thought that I was rid of you for an entire day.” Brian drawls, and Justin hears him shuffling papers around in the background – probably for no reason other than so Justin can hear him shuffling papers around in the background. “No suck luck, old man.” Justin says. Reaches down so he can pry Elliott’s fingers away from where he’s started trying to untie Justin’s shoelaces. “But hey listen, I did find a pretty nice place. Great location, too. I want you to come see it.” “Was the plane ticket I bought for five o’clock tonight invisible, or something? Is that how they’re making them these days? I’ll fuckin’ sue.” Justin knows Brian’s rolling his eyes back in the Pitts, even if there’s no one in the room to see the motion. “Fuck you.” Elliott doesn’t blink twice when Justin says that. “I’m just saying, I want you to come and see it. It’s kind of close to Kinnetik.” This is where Brian starts to complain some more about how he doesn’t want to work beside where Justin is all day, but Justin knows that he’s bullshitting something wicked, so he hands the phone off to Elliott without a second thought, who immediately goes into some dramatic recount of the taxi ride over. The realtor comes back in and babbles to Justin the same way Elliott is babbling to his father.  … “Where are we going?” Elliott asks as he ties and then undoes the drawstring on his little black hoodie, his blue eyes trained on the window that’s being pelted by sheets of rain. The cab driver watches his two passengers from the front seat, his brown eyes reflecting in the rear view mirror, flashing whenever they pass by a light. “The hotel.” Justin replies without thinking, on his way to comatose as he tries to work the text messaging on his cell. Brian refuses to answer that particular kind of communication, and Justin knows that even if he were stranded on an island and his only form of communication was a text message, Brian would never get around to rescuing him cause he’d be too busy bitching about having to squint and read the tiny words. So anyway, the only person that Justin ever really text messages is Mikey, and that doesn’t even count because it isn’t even fun. Mikey doesn’t know how to turn the caps lock off if he accidentally hits it, so usually Justin ends up with a message something like, ‘those new stORY BOARDS R DUE NEXT WEEK, SO U BETTER GET THEM TO ME OR I MIGHT HAVE TO SHOOT YOU HAHAH.’ After all these years Justin still doesn’t like Mikey that much. “When are we gonna go home?” Elliott asks, his fiftieth question of the night, as he leans back against his seat and starts to drum his hands on his lap, one palm on each knee. Justin can feel the driver starting to get aggravated, but honestly can’t find himself to care. At least Elliott’s not trying to climb out the window, he figures. “Tomorrow afternoon. We have to go back to that place we looked at this morning tomorrow morning.” Justin explains. “I want to see if Daddy likes it too.” Elliott nods and goes back to his tapping, so Justin goes back to carefully typing out, ‘I left the story boards at the store, I put them right in your fuckin hands. If you lost them again, Michael I swear to god, I quit. And the caps button, its right beside the fuckin A. You can’t miss it.’  … Elliott’s hitting numerous buttons on the television remote at the same time when Justin hears a key card in the door, glances at his watch and realizes that its already seven at night. Suddenly the volume on the TV increases at least ten notches in two seconds flat, and Justin jerks, almost drops the bottle of water he’s holding, and then tries not to laugh as Elliott frantically tries to hit the power button, quite obviously spooked from the sudden turn of events. “I’m about to pass the fuck out.” Brian complains, closes the door behind him and then drops his carry on bag, not one pace inside of the room. Elliott looks up from the remote just as the lock is clicking and grins, eyes still wider than usual from the earlier event of the blaring TV. Says, “Daddy promised you’d bring me some brownies.” Brian rolls his eyes and tosses his key card onto the nearest table, kicks his too expensive to be kicked shoes off, and starts to half shrug out of the jacket that he’s wearing. It’s obvious that he left Kinnetik and went straight to the airport just from his attire, and it’s also obvious that Elliott starts pouting as soon as he realizes that Brian’s ignoring him. “I did promise him.” Justin supplies from his position on the bed, even though most of his concentration is on the answering machine messages that he’s checking from their house in the Pitts. One’s from Deb reminding Brian about the brownies, one’s from his mother giving him a phone number for a back up realtor, and two are from Mikey. Justin doesn’t really listen to those with too much intent. Disappearing into the bathroom, Brian calls over his shoulder. “They’re in the front zipper, Eli. But they may or may not be smashed into one hundred pieces.”  … Elliott falls asleep in the corner of the couch, chocolate smeared over his face and hands, head at an awkward angle against the armrest with the TV still on in front of him. They take the opportunity to fuck in the shower – Brian doesn’t slip once, and Justin doesn’t get soap in any unmentionable places.  … “Look at the windows. Look how fucking high they are.” Justin says, motions to the twelve foot high windows and the crappy weather that they’re currently showcasing. Brian shifts Elliott up higher on his hip and shrugs with one shoulder. Sends a glance over at the realtor who’s pretending that she isn’t listening to their conversation over in the corner, writing some fucking thing or another in her book. Justin’s still talking, saying, “I can use the bottom floor for a showroom – maybe even open it up to the public.” Brian raises his eyebrows but nods anyway, bounces both of his shoulders when Elliott lays his head down on one, the child laughing when his ear hits the damp fabric of Brian’s winter jacket, which is probably worth more than most people’s monthly salary. “Whatever you want.” Brian finally concedes, and Justin rolls his eyes. Knows that he’s got Brian wrapped around any one of his fingers, just as much as Elliott does. Brian turns around and looks over at the realtor, who suddenly looks up at him with a classic deer in the headlights look on her face. Brian says, “But before we get it, I want to bring in a professional to check it over. To make sure there isn’t anything wrong with it.” She nods immediately, and Justin smirks. Winks at Elliott, who’s grinning into the fabric of the jacket as Brian turns around to study the chipped red brick wall.  … They get back to the Pitts, and Mikey appears on their doorstep exactly three hours after their plane has landed, hands a stack of story boards over to Justin and explains that, “I found these stuffed behind the cash register. I have the new versions, but these are the old ones that you ended up redrawing. You know, thought you might like to have them.” Justin grinds his teeth in the back and tries his damndest not to just murder Michael, because Debbie might never forgive him, and would most likely pull out of the ‘free babysitting whenever you want’ deal that they’ve had with her since Elliott was two and a half days old. And that’s not something Justin’s about to risk. From somewhere in the house, Justin and Mikey hear Elliott’s screams and then Brian’s laughter, and Justin presses a hand to his forehead. Tries to think back to when Elliott did nothing other than sleep, and Brian just complained a lot. Looks over at Mikey, who’s pointing our some fucking thing in each panel – either Rage’s head is too flat on one side or some other ridiculous ‘flaw’, but Justin isn’t really listening anyway so technically it doesn’t count. He smirks and closes the door in Mikey’s face, proceeds to ignore the squawking that comes from the front stoop, and tells Brian that it’s nothing when he asks what the fuck that noise is. Watches as Brian loses interest in the conversation before it really even starts, and then resumes his chasing Elliott around the kitchen – a black spider the kid discovered under the kitchen sink crawling over one of his hands.