One : Lucas was three years older than Justin and surprise, surprise studying his second year of drama at NYU. Justin had foolishly thought that maybe this relationship would be slightly less difficult than his prior. At this point, Justin was sure the only commitment (and that was a laugh in and of itself) he thought he could handle was with their goldfish named Manny. But maybe not, because currently Lucas was packing up his fish food. "You don't even fucking care do you?" Lucas followed him, obviously not satisfied with being ignored. Justin spared him a glance before looking, again, at his reflection in the mirror. Lucas frowned and crossed his arms and Justin swore that he had not been born to be that kind of an asshole. "You're still high aren't you?" Lucas threw his hands up and goddamn, they'd been having this argument for weeks, maybe months if Justin could trust his memory. He sighed, and wondered if Lucas had possibly snooped so low as to steal the soap by the sink, because it wasn't there now. "You're always on fucking something, Justin. Always too damn high, or too damn drunk, or too fucking wasted. You're fucking twenty years old and you're not even fucking trying for something - for anything anymore!" Lucas gave an aggravated sigh when Justin moved past him. Justin had learned it would be best just to let him get it out of his system, then he could leave, then he would call and leave message after message at first criticizing and bitching and then moaning and whining and then there would be make-up sex. Entwined hands leaned on carpet-burned knees, and Justin looked the absolute picture of attentive boyfriend. Apparently, this enraged Lucas even more. "You're a fucking jaded asshole..." Lucas choked up for a second and Justin's gaze involuntarily softened. "And goddamn me, you wanna know the fucking truth? I love you, okay? I might even love you more than I'll ever love anybody else. I'll ever be able to. But you are one of the coldest motherfuckers I've ever known, and I've known a fucking lot of them, all right." Lucas looked at him again and Justin could see something inside the other man breaking, something that he broke. Lucas laughed, a sob mixed with it and shook his head and wiped his eyes and started to close the suitcases scattered across the bed. "I can't be with you Justin, not when you fucking whore yourself out to the highest bidder. There's not even an illusion of trust there, it's..." He closed his eyes and stopped for a moment. A long moment, where Justin stared straight ahead and wished for something better, better for him, better for Lucas. "It's nothing there. You're cold and dead and fucking empty and I can't be with you anymore." He gave one last look at Justin, clad only in boxers, hair still mussed from the night before and one tear escaped before he could stop himself. Twenty minutes later and Lucas was gone. Justin walked around his little apartment for half and hour, mentally cataloging how much he had left, and how much everything had cost and how much it had really cost him in the end. It was all shit right now, he let himself think finally. Because it was true. Lucas was good, too good for him. And God he should have fucking known better than to ever even think about going there with somebody. He was a fucking whore, Lucas was right. And there wasn't a goddamn thing he was going to do about it. He couldn't go back and wish things could be different because in the end he wouldn't be who he was supposed to be, Justin fucking Taylor. Right here and right now. It was fucking shit right now, but he was sure it would get better. He laughed and wanted to cry so goddamn bad he could taste it. But Justin hadn't cried a fucking drop in a long damn time and he wasn't going to start now. In the end, he smoked two joints and laid in bed for the next few days. But he didn't cry. It was terribly ironic that Lucas had left one final pack of cigarettes on the bed side table, just enough until Justin's boss, Curt called him again. Two : "He needs you for the weekend. The whole weekend, Justin." Curt was a man of few words now and Justin appreciated that on that very special boss/employee level. Curt didn't fuck around, not when it came to business and Justin had learned, from Curt, that that really was the best way to handle their type of work. "Okay." Curt looked him up and down, something in the older man's eyes that Justin couldn't quite catch, then he kissed his cheek and left. Justin wondered idly if Curt would ever love him like he used to. There was a time when Curt looked at Justin and Justin could tell, he could feel that Curt loved him, that'd he always love him no matter what Justin ever did, or would ever do. And that was the most reassuring thing that Justin had ever known. His father didn't love him, and with that hatred he never really allowed Justin's family to love him, unconditionally, or know him, wholly, the only kind of love and acceptance Justin ever really wanted. And Lucas hadn't loved him, not really. Because in the end, Lucas had let his opinion of Justin take over everything and that had hurt him, it really had. Curt had met him when Justin was just 19 years old. He was living in an alley between two large buildings that were close to being condemned. Curt was 29 at the time, always on the look for something beautiful and he had found it when Justin jumped out of the darkness and wielded a switchblade from somewhere in his too baggy clothes at him and threatened to cut his throat if he didn't give him his wallet. Curt laughed, asked for his name, and then took him to a modest apartment overlooking a nice park that Justin later sketched for him. And Curt didn't believe him when Justin told him that it was his first time, and made up for the tears that Justin had spilled on his virgin white Egyptian cotton blend sheets by offering him a job and a place to stay. Justin accepted. Seven months later when there was too much silence in their apartment Justin moved out, shacked up with Lucas and got a very cold shoulder from Curt. Justin still didn't understand why Curt had stopped loving him the way he had, but he kind of knew that he wasn't easy to love, no, not easy at all. And he knew that it probably, more than likely, had a hell of a lot to do with the break. Then Justin turned twenty and he finally had learned that the only love he'd get provided with would be the kind of love that came from himself. A hard lesson for a young man to learn, but a good one. Curt had stopped loving him, loving him the way that made Justin smile for days, after Curt met Gabriel. A lead guitarist, a 20 year old rocker, and everything that Curt wanted because he couldn't wait for Justin to give it to him. And Justin had tried, really tried to be that person that he thought would get him love and companionship and happiness. But it seemed that he couldn't do it, couldn't make it work. And it seemed that Curt just couldn't wait, not for him. And maybe that made Justin feel a little bit disappointed and a little let down but he tried (he really did) not to let it affect him. He had been smoking a lot more lately. In fact, when Curt had introduced Justin to Gabriel, Justin was stoned. High from god knows what his dealer gave him, high enough that when his eyes got blurry Gabriel thought it was from all the smoke and not the fact that Justin had to witness Curt holding him the way he used to hold Justin. No, Gabriel thought it was just from the drugs and Justin didn't correct him. And when Curt kissed him goodbye that night, and got back into the cab with Gabriel, Justin went upstairs to his little apartment and cried the tears that he swore he would never cry again. But that would be the last time, he made sure of it. Three : Curt stood behind while the man appraised him. Justin flicked his cigarette in the ashtray provided and let his hair fall down a little bit over his eyes. This was the only part of the whole process that he really, really hated. He felt like some prized cattle, like a slave for sale. His jaw tightened, and he knew that it would by over in a few moments, a few seconds and this feeling would wash over him and he would be cleansed of it. He smirked when the man nodded slightly to Curt and dropped it as soon as he heard Curt close the door. "Benton Callis." He was Texan and Justin dropped his demeanor, and looked the man in the face and took a general likeness to him immediately. The blond could automatically tell that they were going to be too much alike, too stubborn, and too already set to be any good to each other and maybe that would be good after all. He was tall and Justin appreciated that, lanky and muscled and all smirky smiles. Not only was there a general likeness, there was also an instant attraction, on both parts. "Justin Taylor." They shook hands and Justin liked the way that his hands were so rough and he was so well groomed. It made his stomach tingle and his knees go a little weak. And that night when Benton held him down and fucked him, well, Justin liked that too. Four : "Justin, love, this is your grandmother. It's Christmas Eve ... and well, sweetie, we just wanted to call and make sure that you were doing okay and that we love you. I'm sure you're out having a wild and crazy night with all those friends of yours. Don't forget to call me, honey. And be careful there in the city, I just saw on the news yesterday that a -" He pressed the stop button on his machine and wondered if his grandmother would ever just forget he existed. The old woman was the only one in his small family that had held on to the stern belief that he was in fact still alive. Sometimes it really pissed him off. Then he would remember crinkling eyes and the smell of honeysuckle and feel bad for thinking about his grandmother that way. He was still that stupid wasp kid somewhere on the inside. He took another toke and kind of laughed at himself for even thinking about his grandmother right now. Three years in New York and yes, Granny, he was being as careful as a boy his age should be. Smirked and looked at the two thousand on the dresser, the picture of him and Curt in the mirror, the ripped open condom packages around the bed. Vaguely heard the front door softly closed. Vaguely heard the Christmas music from the psycho bitch one fucking floor down. She had invited him to the "most awesome Christmas extravaganza eva, totally J-dog"... he doubted that he would attend the festivities. Stupid trust fund bitch. Justin hated her for the sheer principle of it. He always kind of hated people like that, and it irked him to know that for the first ten years of his life, he was one of those people. Lit his joint again and resigned himself to yet another night of lonely introspection for the whore on the fifth floor. His ex-boyfriend had been right when he had left him, he was still doing nothing, wanting nothing, being nothing. Justin sighed and watched an ant-like man scurry to his parked car. What the fuck did he have to introspect for? He was grand, he was fan-fucking-tastic. He quieted his mind, because even inside of his fucking head it sounded like he was trying to convince himself. He barely heard his cell phone ring and he hesitated before not answering it because the only two people that knew the number was Curt and his dear old granny, and he really didn't feel like talking to either of them tonight. But both of them, and he knew it, he really fucking knew it, were persistent as hell. So when his cell phone stopped ringing, and then didn't start again, and silence filled the almost bare upper-class apartment Justin felt an odd chill go down his spine. Two hours later, with a personal call on his private line, he found out that Curt was dead. Justin didn't let himself think when he got ready to go to the hospital, when he was in the cab, or when he held Gabriel on the fifth floor at Mercy General. Curt was dead and Justin felt really cold inside. Turned out that Curt didn't even know what hit him, and Justin fights that all consuming urge to cry. His one time lover, mentor, friend was stabbed to death in the dead of the night, robbed, and Justin wants to think about the irony but it hurts to think now at all. Later he hears the story about how a woman walking her dog found him, beeping cell phone in hand and Justin wants to cry again. She called the ambulance, and he hears that it arrived fifteen minutes later and thinks that it was really too late anyway. That afternoon, after they were sure Curt wasn't coming back, ever, Gabriel made him take the first hit, to celebrate the death of the man they had both loved so much and Justin finally felt a little bit warmer. And when Gabriel kissed him, he felt a little more connected with the world, a little less like the ice princess he had been feeling like for so long. Both of them clung to the other, but Justin didn't cry. Just kind of (not really) felt Gabriel's tears pour over him, crying for the both of them. He let Gabriel use him and he felt that he was doing one last thing for Curt, and when he sees the bruises from Gabriel's abuse he thinks that Curt would have loved him for it because he can't love himself for it after all. He still has a black eye and bruises at the funeral and when Gabriel approaches him, with an apologetic look in his eye, Justin shushes him and takes him back to the apartment that Benton bought for him and he lets Gabriel use him again. And maybe it becomes the worst habit for both of them. Justin has taken a lot of pain in his life, but the pain from the loss of Curt lessens a little every time Gabriel makes a bite, or a mark, or a bruise. And as irrational as his guilt is, he still feels it, and Gabriel's anger management makes it better, most of the time. And in the end, Benton doesn't really mind and sometimes he even joins in.