Justin POV I have to physically shake myself to rid myself of the effect he has on me. It doesn’t work but I think I can handle coherent sentences. He's switched on the blue lights over the bed and I know he's done it on purpose to draw Ethan’s attention to his “place of worship” - I'm not joking. I heard a trick call it that once. Brian’s done it to emphasise the fact that no matter what happens now I'll be up there with him the moment Ethan’s gone. Brian does nothing by accident. I turn to Ethan and smile somewhat apologetically but then I remember that he's the one who's interrupted our night so I forgive myself for inflicting him with such blatant proof of how over him I actually am. If we’d planned it that way it would have been really immature and slightly spiteful… my eyes narrow and I shoot Brian a look… did I mention that with Brian nothing's an accident? I turn my full attention to Ethan who looks sorry he ever set foot in this place. I have to say it wasn’t a smart thing to do as he's given Brian any advantage he might have gained by doing this somewhere else. This is Brian’s territory, his kingdom. Ethan is nothing here, in this place. I try to play the gracious host but as I'm about to gesture for him to go sit on the sofa, I get a flash. I can't make him sit there. Brian fucked me there on Friday and Saturday… and Sunday when I was going to the fridge. We needed to stay hydrated. We were trying for a marathon and as I went to get us both some water he threw a wrapped condom at me, told me to “hurry my ass up” and as I bent to pick it up… well you can imagine, he was out of that bed so fast… he ended up fucking me on the couch… twice. I flush and turn towards… fuck this I can't look around the loft and not see places we’ve fucked. It's just not possible. I go and sit down on one of the bar stools at the kitchen counter and leave Ethan to fend for his own seat. He stays standing, watching me. “So?” I say. “Is he staying here?” Ethan asks eyeing Brian like he's planning to call pest control. My eyebrows shoot up. “Yes. Where the fuck did you think he’d go? This is where Brian lives.” “It's just I think we could talk better if he weren’t around. Don’t you think?” “In all honesty I don’t think there is a place that can make this conversation easier.” “We could go to my apartment. I can drive you back… if you want?” he seems hopeful, like maybe he won't have to drive me back. “You're right, that would make it easier… for you. Unluckily… for you… I have no interest in making things easier… for you.” “Oh…” “Ethan what do you want?” I ask bluntly. “I just wanted to make sure you were ok. That you were happy with the decisions you’ve made. To see if maybe you’d forgiven me.” His voice is quiet but not pleading. “There’s nothing to forgive you for Ethan. We were young,” Suddenly I think, actually it wasn’t that long ago, “and I should have been expecting something to go wrong, after all life is never perfect. If it hadn’t been you it would have been me, something was bound to happen sooner or later.” “Exactly!” Ethan looks up kind of eagerly. It confuses me. “That’s what relationships are. How they work. You need to learn from your mistakes.” Right… “And I did Ethan.” “No, you gave up to quickly. You never even gave us a chance.” I sigh, “Maybe you’re right Ethan but what does it matter now?” “We exchanged rings. Did they mean so little to you?” Ethan’s voice is low and fervent. “So little to me? I'm sorry. Please tell me who it was that was fucking around?” I mean seriously he thinks he can make this my fault? I’d never deny some of the blame. I mean I could have forgiven him. But in the long run I suppose I didn’t think he was worth it. Shit! That’s an awful thing to think. “I wasn’t fucking around. It was one time and yes, I obviously did mean little to you! After all you came running back here, first chance you got. Those rings were to symbolise our love.” Woops. There go my potential feelings of guilt. He just pissed me off. “To symbolise our love? Ethan you had just told me you weren’t going to acknowledge our relationship and practically ignore me in public. That you were going to pretend to be straight for the benefit of your career. You told that reporter that Daphne was my fucking girlfriend. I nearly died coming out and you thrust me back in to a closet so fucking deep… without even talking about it with me first.” “I didn’t mean…” I interrupt him but I'm calmer now. “You didn’t give me that ring as a symbol of our love. You gave it to placate me. Like you give a child a sweet instead of the big toy he wanted, to make it stop fussing cause he didn’t get his way. And with hindsight I suppose it worked. It mollified me and I settled for some cheap ass commitment ring instead of getting what I wanted. I obviously wasn’t as grown up as I thought.” “No! That wasn’t it. You don’t understand.” “What is it that I don’t understand? That you’re a hypocrite? What is it that you think you can give me that I don’t already have now?” “Love! Unconditionally! Like you’ve always wanted.” “Maybe I don’t want it anymore or maybe I don’t want it on your terms, maybe I have it, but on mine. Maybe I just don’t believe that you actually know what that means.” “You think he’ll give you that? Be monogamous for you.” “Monogamy seems over rated suddenly. You taught me that.” “No! I loved you. I still do. You’re my muse and you should… we should give us another chance.” Finally you come to the fucking point I thought it was gonna end up taking forever and a day. “No!” I say matter-of-factually “You can’t just dismiss us like that. We could have been great and now we’ll be better.” He smiles and approaches me “We wouldn’t even be members of starving artist incorporated.” Of course the sweet personal memories… if he's trying to make a play on intimacy it's not working. “Ethan” I gesture around me “I'm hardly living in squalor, let alone starving.” “You live with Daphne.” “Like one night a week.” He's starting to piss me off. I look at Brian, exasperated so Brian turns towards him. “Ethan… how to explain this in terms you understand” Brian uses his name, even though he always calls him Ian. At least he has the very few times he deigned to acknowledge or refer to him, he usually calls him Ian... or the fiddler or… but he calls him Ethan so that I’ll know that this is important and to make sure he’s got Ethan’s undivided attention and he does. Ethan’s looking at him with barely contained disdain. “Ethan, when was the first time you smoked a cigarette? Describe it to me.” Ethan looks at me with this - what the fuck expression, but I nod as if he needs my permission to answer the question. “Umm… During break time at school with a couple of friends, I missed violin practice cause Claude said he had something to show us. I was 13, 14… Why?” Jesus only 13 and he already had friends with such pretentious names. “Okaay,” Brian says like he’s talking to an idiot. I haven't a clue what this is about but I know Brian has a point to make, so I wait it out. “Fuck I thought you were a fucking musician all about feelings and emotions…” I roll my eyes cause - subtle dig – received and understood Sir. I do understand what he wants though. Where he’s actually going is still a mystery and why he couldn’t have just said it is beyond me but I know its cause he’s such a coward. He thinks that saying words like feelings and emotions to often mean he’ll suddenly turn into this big dyke. So I laugh at him with my eyes but decide to help Ethan out anyways and I say, “He means what you felt, what you remember, the taste, the smell...” “Oh! Ummm... well it made me cough and the taste… well I wasn’t used to it so I nearly gagged but it was uhhh kind of exciting and over really quickly…” “Why?” Brian fires out “Why what?” Ethan sounds annoyed “Why was it exciting?” Brian says drawing out the words a little and I look at him with the beginnings of understanding. “Oh, cause… I don’t know. I guess cause it was a secret and I wasn’t allowed but also that I didn’t like it so I learnt not to… unless I practised a bit to get used to it…” Ethan trails of a little uncertainly as if maybe he realises that this line of questioning could maybe, possibly have a point but still not really grasping what it was. But Brian obviously thinks he’s finished because he turns around and goes back up the stairs towards the bathroom. Brian POV I walk up the stairs but decide I need a cigarette and leave Justin to finish this off. I know that Justin knows what I’m talking about now. So I know he can finish it. I also know that if I had done it the whole thing would have been less effective. I hate to have to rely on those coupley methods to get the point across… Fuck I hate having to acknowledge the fact that I know what coupley methods actually are. Hate knowing that I know when Justin has understood what I'm saying before I've finished saying it, just by the way his shoulders move or relax or… something that he does with his back and I just know what it means and it annoys me that I can tell by such an insignificant movement… I guess that with us… body language is used to a whole other dimension. I move away, but I'm still watching. I catch the fact that Ian still thinks I'm nuts and that he thinks he could win this but I know this isn’t even a fight or a war or whatever it is he thinks this is. Its just clarification. He looks at Justin with this questioning look and Justin raises his eyebrows waiting and Ian says with what I suppose he thinks is high levels of condescension. “I'm sorry, but I don’t understand. Was there a point to these questions?” I can see Justin control his instinctive reaction to roll his eyes. I can tell he both sighs at the thought that he’s going to say something hurtful, not because it's Ian, but because he just doesn’t like to hurt anyone if he can avoid it and I also see his shoulders set in determination cause he’s getting annoyed and he wants this over and he’s worried about how this is affecting me but it's not, affecting me that is. He should know that the only thing I'm getting out of this is another way of milking the situation and in the long run his cock and ass and… “Ethan, you’re my cigarette.” Justin says, but he's staring at me “This thing I did because I’d never done it before and it was a secret. Because it distracted me and eased some tension, gave me a break from different, far more serious cravings. What I remember from my first cigarette isn’t the taste or the smell. I remember what caused me to try it. I remember the thrill of doing something I thought I wasn’t allowed. I remember that I learnt, that afterwards it left a bitter taste in my mouth and that I didn’t understand why other people wanted it. My craving for romance…” he looks back at Ethan again “Well… you quenched it really well and withdrawal was a lot easier than I thought it would be. I suppose it is, once you realise you didn’t need it to begin with.” See I could never have put it that eloquently.