Loft on Tremont-Pittsburgh, PA

Though it was earlier than he'd usually visited the loft; it was still very late. 'Why wasn't Brian home?' Justin wondered worriedly. He wanted more than anything to see his love. Soon it would be midnight, officially Valentine's Day.

He tried not to think about what would happen, when he shot nothing.

Couples's would fight, weddings would be called off, dates would be cancelled, rainbows would dim in cloudy skies, birds would begin singing off key. A world of melted chocolate and wilted petals.

'Why should he give everyone else happiness?' He shouldn't, he concluded. The self proclaimed 'Day of Love' would just have to proceed without him. Regardless of his parents overzealous paranoia. The sun would still rise whether he shot his arrows or not.

Pulling him from his inner monologue was a soft thump against the door. Instinctively, he stilled, before remembering his invisibility. Stifled moans carried in from the hallway, until eventually the sturdy metal door slid open. Justin smiled when Brian entered; frowned when a strange man followed.

"Who's he?" Justin demanded, watching this unknown body feel up the golden body of his dreams. That 'jealousy' word arrived once again unannounced. He had often heard it described as 'The green-eyed monster' a phrase he admittedly hadn't fully understood, even now.

His eyes were still blue, and had no sign of envy tinted vision. However, he was fairly positive the monster existed. It clawed now from the farther depths of his belly, it's growls echoing in his mind. It's negativity alive in his heart.

'How could Brian let this man kiss him? Touch him the way Justin's own hands begged to greet Kinney's flesh?' His tongue craving the man's taste, sure to be more delectable than even Aphrodite's ambrosia.

He walked closer toward the two men.

Eyes widened in every emotion as they observed traveling hands and exploring gropes.

His stomach flipped. Justin brought his face directly beside Brian's.

The stranger's mouth was trailing downward. Cupid's head turned in confusion. 'Why was this man kissing Kinney's abs? Were his lips not the sweetest flavor?'

He brought his pale fingers to Brian's flushed face. Lightly tracing the man's cheek, he whispered in a soft sob, "Please don't do this." He knew it was only he who should be delivering pleasure to Brian Kinney. To Justin's surprise, Brian shivered at the contact and seemingly pressed into Justin's touch.

He wanted more than anything for this man to feel him.

Brian felt a tingle on his face. An unfamiliar, yet more than welcomed touch that he felt in every inch of his body. It created a shiver more lustful than anything this random trick was currently eliciting.

He didn't even really want this man. Hell, if he was being honest he'd never really wanted any of them. Well, OK, he wanted their bodies, though nothing more. No names necessary. Knowing their names would give them substance, identities. The one and only name that ever crossed his mind was Justin. 'Pathetic' he thought.

"Please don't." he heard a faint whisper in his mind. His conscience he'd guessed. 'When the hell had he gotten one of those?'

He closed his eyes and tried his damnedest to focus only on the trick's hands that were fumbling with his pants. Suddenly he stilled.

He could have sworn he'd heard a sob, an almost pleading cry. 'Great. this pesky personal voice in his mind was a fucking lesbian.'

Once that thought had come, any thought of coming...left.

He pulled the startled man to his feet, and began refastening his jeans. "Get out." he ordered with a head nod toward the door. The trick stood for several seconds. 'Did he expect an escort?' "Hit the road." Brian sterned, then walked to the counter.

The empty shot glass slammed the counter top the same time the door slammed closed.

He sighed, grateful for the silence that now shared his loft. No nagging voice, no imaginary touches or dream men. Just him and Jim Beam, his most loyal of companions.

Too exhausted to even shower, he stripped down and crawled into his bed. The softness embraced him graciously, his heavy eyelids soon collapsed.

Cupid crawled into Brian's bed, his body pressed close against his human. Saddened only slightly that Kinney couldn't feel it. Far more content, that he could feel the man's warmth. That he was aware of just how perfectly their bodies molded together. How seamlessly Justin's head found the hallows of Brian's neck.

As the man slept soundly, Cupid searched his dream. Tonight, the man's dream did not contain it's usual loneliness.

He perked up.

Brian's dreams encircled a new feeling now. One Cupid knew a little something about, love.

His own heart pounded furiously as he listened to Brian's. "I love you." he said, his breath gracing the brunet's ear. It sounded beautiful. Right. 'If only he could've heard it.'

A sudden shock stunned the still silence. Brian awakened. Coming into consciousness, Brian had heard his angel's voice. It had told him he loved him.

Three words filled with too much meaning. Just words, insignificant letters thrown together. 'So why had they been intense enough to pull him from his dreams?'

"I love you so much." Brian heard again. Very. Fucking. Close.

Panic pounded in his throat, as it desperately attempted to say the phrase in return. He swallowed those three words, chocking a tad as their meaning hit his belly.

He shook his head, just to be sure he wasn't still dreaming.

"Can you hear me?" that flawless voice rang. Long bronzed digits ran through auburn hair. 'Anita had aways predicted this.' That one day he'd start to hear voices outside of his mind.

"Oh, my stars, you can!" A giggle. An entrancing little laugh that went straight to Brian's cock. His mouth watered a bit as he imagined the gorgeous face that must accompany such a sound.

Once again he felt a strong pull to answer. A deep rooted need, impulse to respond.

"Yes?" he both answered and asked. 'This was insane.'

"I knew it!" Cupid squealed "Oh my dearest Brian, for how long have you heard my voice?"

"Dearest?" Brain repeated, but answered the disembodied question anyway. "For about twenty-five delusional seconds." he deadpanned, making a show of checking the nonexistent watch on his slender wrist.

"Oh." Justin replied disheartened.

The change in his tone did not go unnoticed. "What's wrong?" Brian heard himself ask, but refused to allow his ready sarcasm to answer that particular question himself. 'What was right about this scenario?'

"How long have you been talking to me?" he added, not at all prepared for the answer he was about to receive.

A sigh. "Only ten years. Though it feels like forever. An eternity I've whispered to you."

The voice was gentle and laced with lovesick undertones. Brian thought very little about the way he quite liked it. 'OK, so he thought about it in volumes.' The way this lovey-dovey octave actually sounded in tune when not spoken by random men, or Mikey.

The previously banished sarcasm broke free, and wrapped itself in the brunet's words. "Oh, a decade? Is that all?"

"Surely you jest my love." There it was again, that 'L' word, that significant tug in his unsuspecting chest. Without a moment's hesitation his mouth finally confirmed what his heart had already known...

"Justin." he whispered. It was not a question, a mere statement of fact.

"Yes." Justin answered and delicately traced Brian's jawline with his fingertip.

Brian visibly shivered under the touch.

That damn hypnotic laughter danced through the air, dizzying everything in it's path.

"Was that you?" the brunet asked almost like an excited, inquisitive child. "Did you just touch me?" his voice now broke a little as he pondered the electrifying buzz coursing through him. He determinedly decided he liked the idea of this perfect phantom's caresses.

"Are you dead?" he asked bluntly, infusing a chuckle into the inquiry to lighten the heaviness of these new emotions.

"No." Justin answered simply.

"Am I dead? Are you some kind of an angel?"

"Some sort." Brian could hear his smile. The smile he longed to see.

"I'm Cupid." he explained as nonchalantly as Brian had ever heard.

"C-uu-pid?" Brian barely managed to repeat. The word exited his lips in one long, staggered motion. Much in the remedial manner his middle school grammar teacher had believed he used. But, Brian was intelligent, overly so. He'd just disliked school.

Right now, it didn't matter one iota how smart he was...there was no intelligent, reasonable explanation.

You can't explain the unexplainable. 'So, OK Cupid. He'd go with that.'

Besides, it was a much more favorable conclusion than the only other option. 'That he was as crazy as a loon.' His whole body shuddered as it imagined the itchy, tacky fabric of a straight jacket.

"Cupid." he said again, this time with only it's intended two syllables.

"Prove it. Let me see you." he challenged, a heated eagerness igniting in his veins. Now that this had been decided, he could think only of laying eyes on this mystery man he'd pictured for so long. Both anxious and fearful to confirm if Justin's appearance held a candle to the portrait his imagination had painted.

Justin froze at Brian's insisting words. A crushing nervousness pressed down on him.

His mouth suddenly became a desert. His words wandered hot and dry in his throat, with no route for escape. 'What should he say?'

He'd have thought that the realization that the original arrow's magic had by now, exceeded twenty-four hours would have made him happy. That his feelings remained as strong and magnetic, as ever. That Brian's eyes twinkled now with an adorable curiosity and ready acceptance.

Yes, all of these things should have made Cupid ecstatic; overzealous in his desire to reveal himself. However, it was exactly each one of these things that had made him even more nervous, reluctant in the revelation.

'What if he wasn't good enough? What if the man he was couldn't live up to the one Brian hadn't known he knew for a decade?'

This human's beauty exceeded even that of his mother, Goddess of beauty herself. A more serious concern, further from his own insecurities, the other side of the spectrum remained.

'What if he was wrong?' That in fact, he was too much for Brian's eyes. Although it pained him to do so, Cupid had to consider the possibility that this one was one sided. A convoluted fantasy he'd conjured up, that he alone believed. That he alone felt.

If this was reality, he couldn't bring himself to ponder in too much detail what would happen to Brian if he saw him in his truest form. His heart sank at the mere prospect. If he became the reason for this breathtaking man's last breath; he'd readily throw himself at the foot of the council and beg for death himself.

Lost in churning thoughts, he'd almost forgotten Brian's waiting grin. Such a subtle expression left Justin wishing to express so much.

Pasting on a matching smile of his own, he made up his mind. A feeling this strong couldn't be wrong. Regardless of if he knew it or not, Brian Kinney loved Cupid.

"No mortal has ever seen me." he stammered a little. Then in an ever trembling voice proceeded to explain the rules of the arrow's magic. The night he'd scratched himself. His belief that this was true. Lastly, the rules regarding his exposure to humans; the necessity of true love. As expected, Brian had (like Cupid heard so many times before) declared his disbelief in love, and his blatant disregard for all of the God's rules.

He was Brian Kinney. Recklessly brave and convinced he was bulletproof. Justin smiled inwardly at his thought. Luckily for him, the brunet possessed no armor to protect him from the shot of arrows.

"I've never felt a lover's touch. Never tasted a kiss." he admitted to an ever growing impatient Brian.

Taking a leap of faith head first into a sea of love, Cupid slowly began to materialize. Revealing himself in a soft glow of warm truth.

Brian didn't know why, but hearing Justin confess the extensive nature of his purity turned him on an embarrassing amount. Of course, that'd have been the case if Brian 'did' embarrassment. Which he didn't. But he did do horny. In abundance.

He felt exhilarated, and fucking antsy. He needed to see this dream of a man in waking hours. He needed to be properly introduced to the only person to ever have spent more than one night by his side. In his heart.

All of his running thoughts came to a halt. They fumbled all over themselves, a single one unable to regain it's balance.

Whatever he'd been thinking about now held no importance.

Nothing in the world mattered. Not even the world itself.

The only thing that deserved his attention was the unbelievable view before him.

Justin.

Whatever expectations Brian had had, were soon forgotten. There was no way they'd been nearly high enough.

Brian drank the blond in in heavy gulps.

He practically glistened, his skin dusted with gorgeous. His gleaming smile shined like diamonds. His eyes a blue the sky was sure to envy.

Brian's own eyes followed Cupid's glorious wings as they expanded in their grandeur. They too were flecked with a metallic shimmer.

With his hair like glittering silk, Brian let out a tiny gasp.

Justin stood now looking as though he'd been poured from liquid gold into a mold specifically designed for Brian's eyes.

Brian stood and stepped forward, his mesmerized gaze never leaving Cupid's form.

"You're beautiful." he declared, barely above a whisper.

Reaching Justin's side, the brunet's long fingers found soft feathers. Their tips gingerly glided against the soft wings. He'd never felt anything like it.

Justin giggled. A sound that warmed Brian from the inside out. A sound emitted from the most delectable lips he'd ever seen.

He bordered on delirium with his need to deliver to those lips their very. First. Kiss.

He did exactly that.

February Fourteenth-Midnight-Valentine's Day

The instant Justin's lips felt the velvet of Brian's, time seemed to stop. He became trapped within this exact moment. Forever freezing the first genuine taste of love.

It also too, became the first time that Brian's heart had mirrored the beat of his own. The melodic thumping of 'True Love'.

Brian's mouth tasted far more delicious than all of Justin's daydreams. He giggled into the brunet's mouth at his own giddiness when he felt the man's tongue touch his own. It was the most incredible sensation the blond had ever experienced.

If he hadn't known better, he'd have believed the man's mouths' caresses were physically reaching every part of him. In a sense they were. A strumming vibration trailed his every inch with each motion of this glorious mouth.

Though he'd been worried about his own inexperience, his worries had been for naught.

Kissing Brian Kinney had come as natural and as equally important as breath. Something he was was born to do, and needed to continue in order to survive.

Unfortunately, actual breath still held priority. Grudgingly, both men broke apart; by lips only. They remained very much otherwise tightly tangled together.

Twin pants pounded the air. Twin hearts pounded in twin chests.

"Wow." Brian's shallow breaths exclaimed.

"Wow." Justin concurred, meeting lust filled hazel with his own wanton blue.

"I love you." Cupid confessed freely.

Brian pressed his forehead against Justin's. Mostly to settle his dizzying mind. Never before had a single kiss felt so...so...he hadn't the word. His hands quite lovingly stroked the cheek of winged perfection. "I don't believe in love," he lied. Justin smiled. "but this...this..." he trailed.

"This is love." Cupid finished playfully.

"I hate it when couples finish each other's sentences." Brian attempted to retort ruefully. He'd failed. Miserably, with a blinding smile nearly bursting the seams of his face.

Before he could scold himself for the most lesbionic expression, Justin stopped it for him. The blond's soft hands roughly pulled Brian's face in for another kiss.

So severe, so intense, Brian was actually convinced the boy could taste his soul.

He kissed back with merciless intent. He too wanted to feel the very essence of cupid on his tongue. His heart.

More importantly at this particular minute...he wanted to feel all of the blond with his cock. Hastily his hands ran over every inch of glistening flesh they could reach. With more eagerness than he'd ever before felt, he allowed his body to push against Justin's. It tried it's best to lead the man to his bed.

Justin's own body protested the move. 'He was slight but goddammit, he was strong.' Brian's everything seemed to acknowledge.

His heart fell. His cock did not.

Justin kissed him once more, softly, quickly. The least two kinds of kisses Brian had wished to receive.

Almost instantly upon Cupid's lips on his own, Brian felt exhausted. He struggled to keep his eyes open, his limbs felt heavy. He could tell now, that the blond was helping him into bed. His mind wanted very much to protest. His body gave in. He soon fell into a soothing slumber.

Justin kissed his cheek. "I apologize for this my love." he whispered.

He knew enough about kisses to know where they lead. Albeit, he wanted nothing more than to allow Brian to claim him wholly, it could not be now. Could not be here.

'No. Now that Cupid was in love, he couldn't deny his duties.' He'd go grace the world with his arrows while his wingless angel slept.

Then quickly, yet not fast enough, he'd return to his sleeping beauty.

He could hardly contain his excitement as he mapped the plan in his mind.

This very morning on the day of love, Brian would awaken in The Crimson City. Cupid could not think of a better backdrop.

There, they would make love.

A first...for both of them.