Chapter 6 – Light breaks on secret lots Justin I wake up because I’m too comfortable. I’m reluctant to open my eyes, though, and sacrifice this perfect mixture of imagination, nostalgia and longing. I don’t want to open my eyes and see the clutter of my apartment, the promise of the New York skyline through the window - a promise that started being something of a curse a while ago. I don’t want to see white covers instead of blue, don’t want to give up this painful pleasure. But then I breathe deep, and I smell him. All around me, on me. I risk a peek. And realize I’m in the loft. I’m in his bed… in our bed. And last night comes back to me, this time not as some hopeful and all too real dream, but as a memory. As truth. As a release… It’s his absence that makes me wake up completely, sit up and try to get my bearings. Before any rational thought can make its way into my conscience, I’m panicking. He’s not here, he’s not lying next to me. Maybe he regrets this already. Maybe I got it wrong, and he doesn’t want to try again. Fuck… what if… what if he thinks last night was a mistake? ‘Come down to my level and share this cold with me, The space once filled heavy with loss now lies empty’ “Gonna get your ass out of bed anytime soon?” I feel a relief so strong I could pass out. He’s in the kitchen. Shit, Taylor, get a fucking grip… I’m such a goddam drama queen (Brian would be all too glad to tell you that, but he’s probably worse, so he can shut up). I grab my jeans and put them on, steal one of Brian’s white t-shirts and go claim my cup of coffee. Brian has his back to me, staring out the window. He’s got nothing but jeans on, and I feel a sudden urge to sketch him like that, an ungodly beautiful image of contained feeling and gathering strength. With his back to me, probably inscrutable to anyone but me… I can read every plane of his body - I can see the tension, the way he’s steeling himself. I take a sip, and sigh… it’s the best cup of coffee I’ve had in two years. It’s just how I like it. I walk towards Brian until I’m standing behind him, caress his back briefly. “How did you sleep?” “Good. Best sleep in - in two years, actually.” I confess. He finally turns around, smiles a little. He kisses the top of my head, and breathes out, “Me, too.” He leans back, looks at me carefully. There’s a strange silence, like the calm before the storm. I see resolve in his eyes… and I know what’s coming. “So… we need to talk.” I say. He nods, and looks down. “Never thought I’d say the words, but yes… we need to talk.” he looks up, meets my eyes. “About the past, about what we want - about the future.” I take a deep drink from my coffee, to hide my childish glee at the fact he said future, and to hide my fear that this future isn’t together. “You know I’m not too good at his ‘talking’ thing.” his hesitance is clear, yet he goes on. “But… I have been doing a lot of thinking, these two years. And, I’ve made some decisions about what *I* want.” he stops for a second, just looking at me, and it comes to me. That’s what I said before I left him. Before I left him for what I thought I wanted… shit. I hope he doesn’t… I hope this doesn’t mean the same. His eyes are intense, they bore into me… I want to look into them forever, and at the same time, I want to look away because whatever he’s going to say is going to be more than I can take. ‘My hero bares his nerves’ “I want you. I do. More than anything," he starts, his voice quiet but clear. "I want… I want to sleep next to you and wake up beside you - and fuck you in between, before and after that. I want to tell you about whatever ad-campaign is torturing me, so you can fuck the stress out of me and then help me with it. I want to kick your ass at pool in Woody’s and have you give me a victory blow job. I want to see your face after you have a great day in the studio, and I want to fuck you while you still smell of turpentine and your hands and hair leave paint on my clothes - I want to bitch about the dry-cleaning bill later. I want to see you play with Gus, see how the years and the pain leave you and I can see the seven year old you were. I want to go to Sunday dinner at Deb’s with you, so she can mother and overwhelm you instead of me, for a change… I want you.” He ends in a whisper, and turns to look out the window again. I can’t breathe, and I can’t speak and I… fuck. Fuck. He said it. In his own way, in the way that matters - he said it. And I suddenly understand, after all these years. Love can’t be explained or said by mere words - it's much greater than them. Before I can say anything, however, he starts speaking again. And this time, it’s with a certain reluctance, a reluctance with an edge. “I want all of that, Justin. But… but I can’t become a Stepford Fag. If what you want is still a house in the suburbs, and a husband and babies…” he takes a deep breath, and I can see this hurts to say. “I’d do it. For you - I would. I’d say the vows in the matching suits, and buy you a mansion in the country and take up gardening, or whatever the fuck the fashionable wannabe breeders do these days. I would.” He turns to look out the window once again and I know he's bracing himself, and eventually he turns to look at me once more and continues. “But it would - it would make me something I’m not. And you’d end up married to something that used to be me, but is a resentful shade now. And I’d do something stupid out of spite, something neither you nor I could forgive… and we’d end up hating each other.” he looks away for a moment. “I think I’d prefer not ever seeing you again, rather than having you hate me. So if that’s what you want - I *won’t* give it to you.” And I’m a second away from totally losing it, crying like an idiot. Because I understand what he’s saying, and I agree… I had time to think, and it came to me that I’m not Mikey. Brian’s not Ben. And as much as their life seems comfortable and happy, and even though I know they’re in love… they’re not us, and they’re not in the same kind of love Brian and I are. They don’t know what it’s like, when your salvation and your damnation depend on this one person, when every fucking thing that you like about yourself is their making, when breathing is easier if they’re by your side, how the world lacks color if they’re not there. It’s beyond clichés and beyond explanations. It’s something that changes you irrevocably. It’s what made you, makes you, what keeps you going and the only thing that could make you stop. It’s dependant, and probably a bit unhealthy… It’s insane, it’s inescapable… it’s us. And I finally understood, through pain and missing and distance - no vows and no ceremony could ever bind and define us. Because we’re bound in a way that’s almost painful, and because we’re beyond a definition. I want to say all this, I want to reassure him, but I sense he’s not done. And it’s so rare, when Brian lays himself open like this… “I don’t know what to hold you with, Justin. But I offer you whatever I have. Whatever I am. I offer you my stubbornness and my silence, I offer you my bitterness and my old pain, I offer you whatever value I have, whatever humor and happiness my life. I offer you a battle, a battle with me, every single day, for something most people have no trouble expressing. I offer you the best sex you’ll ever have… And I offer you my love.” I'm totally breathless, I want to jump with joy, I want to kiss him, and beg him to fuck me into the mattress. I want to tell him so much, but before I can say anything, he goes on. “But if you take it, take it. All of it. All of me. Not what you think I am, but what I actually am. I’ve been doing some growing up, but I have some way to go. And if you’re going to be with me… You can’t keep cutting me open and leaving me. I’m not - I’m not like other people, Justin, I need time to adjust. And it fucking sucks that I do, and I hate it, but it’s true - I don’t *know* how to do this. It comes natural to you, but… I had it beaten out of me before you were even born.” he pauses, takes a jagged breath, and there’s so much fucking pain in his eyes, such vulnerability… I want to hold him, to take it away. ‘All I’ve ever learnt from love was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you’ And it hits me, more than it ever has - we’re all responsible. Not just Jack and Joan… but all of us. Why do we expect him to know how to do this? And to think he’s worthy of love? He’s never known unconditional love. Debbie pushes and pulls. Mikey always looks at him with a shadow of pain… of accusation. Lindsay does too… and her and Mel use Gus, the one person who loves Brian without wanting something from him other than love, than a hug - they ask for his money and demand he be a better father… then don’t believe him when he is. Emmet and Ted keep their distance… even though Ted has been a good friend lately. And me… first I loved the idea of him, then him… then I made him break all his rules and bare himself open, and I forgot it. Not intentionally, but… I still forgot. And then I left him. I came back, and for some time it was close to perfect. But anger and cancer and Rage got in the way. And I came home and let others dictate what I should want, again. I let them convince me we were other people. I left him. So no wonder. No wonder he has these walls and this pain. Has anybody not hurt him? Those of us that profess to love him, to be his friends - have we not thrown his quiet, absolute love in his face? ‘Love is not a victory march, it’s a cold and it’s a broken hallelujah.’ I’m filled with a regret so deep I could drown. And I want to show him that I do love him, more than myself… more than any romantic ideal. Him. All of him. I want to spend my life making sure he knows it. He’s regained control of himself. And when he speaks again, he’s quiet and controlled… anyone else would think he doesn’t care about what’s happening and what he’s saying and what my answer is. But they don’t see the shadow of overwhelming hope and fear, deep in his eyes, or the nervous movement of his hands. “I don’t want you to answer right away. I want you to go somewhere, and think it through. Because… I want you to be absolutely sure.” We’re quiet again. The silence has a heavy, charged quality… I feel the air ripple with the words that have been said, with the expectation and the tension. He sits down on the couch, exhausted with feeling. I wait a moment before leaving, I need to gather myself. I go to stand in front of him, kiss him on the cheek. “I’m gonna go have lunch with Daphne… and I’ll be back later, ok?” He nods. I fight against the urge to kiss his doubt away. He needs a real answer, and he deserves one. “Later.” I whisper, and leave. ~o~ Brian ‘Tied to the testing of wills, and my heart breaks and spills’ Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. I can’t believe I said that. I can’t believe the words actually made it past my throat, for a change. It’s the fucking hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. Ever. To tell him how I feel, what I want… and then to let him go, to let him leave this loft - knowing that when he comes back, it may be to leave forever. I don’t want to think about what would happen if he did leave. The mere idea of it, the possibility… it crushes me. I’d end up the fucking sad cliché I tried hard to avoid… the love sick fool, forever hurting. Because what I didn’t even dare voice and what I barely dare to feel is - it’s Justin, or nobody. I don’t think anyone could ever get under my walls the way he did, sneak his way into my heart. But more than that, I wouldn’t want anybody else. Ain’t that a kick in the head… Brian ‘no love, just fucking’ Kinney. In love. Forever. Goddamn it. I stand up and go to the bar, and before I can even think, I kick back a tumbler of Beam. I’m refilling it, when I pause. I don’t want to be drunk to hear whatever Justin has to say. Of course… it would be a hell of a lot easier… but whatever the answer is, I want to be fully sober. Resolved, I set the bottle and glass down. Fantastic job, Kinney. Now what the fuck are you going to do until Justin comes back? ‘All this fear falls away to leave me naked’ I stare around the loft, waiting for inspiration to strike. It doesn’t, but I do get an idea. I put on a t-shirt, grab my jacket and keys, and as I’m heading out the door I call Lindz. Time to see my son. ~o~ Thankfully, Mel is out with J.R. doing whatever lezzies do with their kids, and I’m not sure what Lindsay can read in my eyes, but she doesn’t ask any awkward questions. We take Gus to the park, and I kick a soccer ball around with him. He’s getting good… and I’m filled with happiness and sadness at the same time. So much happiness because he’s my kid, and I love him, and he’s growing up fucking fantastic. And a vestige of deep sadness… for the boy I was, who never did have someone to cheer him on, to kick the ball around with. Shit, I knew this ‘opening up’ crap was a can of worms… “Goal!!! I beat you, daddy!” The gleeful yell jolts me out of the memories, and I’m gladly brought back to the now, to my son. “Good one, Sonny boy!” ~o~ I plop down on my couch, blessedly tired and somewhat content. I always feel like this after spending time with Gus. But after a moment, the silence of the loft brings back all my doubts and fears with a vengeance. I need to keep moving, need the small actions so I don’t lose it. I take off my shirt, take off my shoes… I’m a bit sweaty after all that playing with Gus, but I don’t want to take a shower. I haven’t all day actually. It’s irrefutable proof I’ve become a lesbian: I don’t want to take a shower, ‘cause I don’t want to wash him away. The moment I admit this to myself, I’m actually standing up to run into the hot shower, fuck it all, I have some dignity left, but the door slides open and I freeze. Time for the final showdown. ‘As the sun sets on battlefields, I hope you can save me I hope you can save our wounded hearts.’ Justin comes in, takes off his jacket… slowly, methodically. I’m this close to yelling at him to fucking get it over and done with, the jacket won’t die if it doesn’t hang perfectly straight, thank you very much. Whoa. Breathe deep. Get a grip, Kinney. Control yourself. Control… “Hey.” I say quietly. “Want something to drink?” “Hey, yourself. No, I’m ok, thanks.” I nod, and grab a bottled water for myself. Next time I say I want to be sober to hear something that might define the rest of my life - give me a fucking drink. We both head over to the living room, and I decide I really need to be sitting down to hear this. He decides he has to sit down to say it, apparently, because he plops down next to me, but turns to face me. We both take deep breaths, and I’d really be tempted to say something to break this tension, a bad sex joke, anything, but I refrain. “Before I say anything else, Brian… I want to say thank you. Thank you for saying what you felt, what you really felt… and what you really wanted. It meant more to me than I can say.” I really want to interrupt him and tell him he doesn’t have to fucking thank me, but the look in his eyes stops me. “I did my thinking… I think I’ve been doing it for the past two years.” he says with a sad half-smile. “I missed you so fucking much, I - don’t think I can actually say how much, so I won’t try. And I faced some hard truths, Brian, about myself, about you… about us. I was so fucking stupid, leaving… letting myself think I wanted something I didn’t really. But I don’t actually regret it, because these two years have made me value what we had… and I grew up too. I realized that a house in the suburbs and a ceremony can’t measure love and it doesn’t say what we mean to each other… we’re not made for conventions. We never have been conventional…” … … “And I know now that I can make it by myself, that I can be without you…” My heart stops. Fuck, fuck, fuck… “But more than anything else, I realized I don’t want to be without you.” Fucking hell. I might die before this little heart-to-heart is over. See, I was right - talking *is* bad for your health. Deep breath, deep breath… “It doesn’t make sense without you, Brian. Not my life, not my success, not my art. I’ve been sleepwalking all this time, going through the motions. I exist without you, Brian. But I can’t actually *live*.” he pauses. “I don’t need to stay in New York, not really. I have an agent, and I have something of a reputation… I can paint anywhere, fly in for shows… I guess what I’m saying is, I want you too. All of you. The good, the bad, the ugly, the snarky, the brilliant, the bitter, the hidden romantic, the cynic and the kid. Because I love you. I love *all* of you.” He smiles… and it’s *the* smile. The Sunshine smile. The one he gave me the night we met, the one he gave me after the dance at prom - the one he lost for such a long time. I have to smile back. And then I have to kiss him. And rim him. And fuck him. So I do. ‘Come down to my heaven, and share this warmth with me We’ll bleed here together, and lick our wounds better.’ TBC Author’s note: chapter title from a Dylan Thomas poem. Songs quoted are, in order: Slow Song by Hell is for Heroes, another Dylan Thomas poem, Hallelujah written by Leonard Cohen and sung by Jeff Buckley, Signal Fire by Snow Patrol, Bend your Arms to Look Like Wings by Funeral for a Friend, and Slow Song again. Bit of a heavy chapter, both boys did a lot of talking… let me know what you think, and thank you so much for your feedback.