Justin had been avoiding Brian around the castle.

That much had been hard for him to admit to himself. He’d never avoided Brian before. He’d always been the boy wonder who wouldn’t take no for an answer, who faced the man who cowed everyone else. Justin knew that Brian secretly respected him for that, but as a week passed with no resolution to the stalemate, Justin was finally forced to acknowledge the avoidance as truth. It hurt his pride in a way, because as a long-time Brian Kinney devotee, he really should have been used to less than stellar treatment.

And it’d always been his exuberance, his tenacity, his unflagging determination to be around that had stopped the arguments before, had stopped Brian’s childish attempts to push him away. What made Justin avoid him this time in lieu of following him was the fact that this time the argument was about Justin’s very desire to be with Brian. Brian had said it was stupid.

That had hurt.

He’d said that Justin should reevaluate the advisability, the maturity of his desire to be with Brian.

That’d hurt worse.

So Justin sat around the castle, avoiding Brian yet unable to stop thinking about him, wondering if his love for Brian really counted after all. After all: did loving someone so much really matter if they didn’t love you back? Thus was the founding mantra to a drawn-out period of morbid contemplation.

He loves you! You know he does. He’s just too scared to admit it! Justin’s mind screamed at him on repeat like some insecure teenage girl. The malaise that was Justin’s self-doubt could have become worse; could have sat and simmered in its own juices like some slow-cooked Irish stew, until it was more destructive than it’d started out. Until it motivated him to take the plane ticket off of the fridge and leave Ireland altogether.

But he resisted. He stayed.

Avoiding Brian wasn’t hard any more. Brian spent much of his time away from the castle working on the sale of the inheritance, constantly zipping off for meetings with lawyers and contractors and financial planners. During those times he was morphed into businessman Brian—the cold, capable, untouchable version of the man. But in between those times that he was gone, Justin was able to catch glimpses of the real Brian that he loved. And based on a single week of accidental observations, real Brian was somehow changing right before Justin’s eyes.

---

On Monday, Justin caught Brian doing it in the library.

He’d come in with the intention of re-shelving Dorian Gray. Wilde might have been a fabulous queer, but he just didn’t do it for Justin as an author.

That was when he saw him.

Brian was seated below, in perfect view from Justin’s spot near the second-floor balcony. He was reading at one of the library’s massive oak tables, books spread out across its surface. Justin squinted to better make out the particulars, and was stunned when he saw that the large tome over which Brian was pouring was actually the chronicled history of Kilkenny. The one from the fake museum’s signature artifacts collection. He blinked, remembering what he’d rattled off to Brian weeks before,

“This book chronicles the history of Kilkenny back to medieval times.”

“So? I don’t care.”

“When are you going to get it through your thick head that this matters? Your family practically ran Kilkenny for centuries. Half the history in this book is about them, about your lineage. You should know this stuff!”

The task of replacing his book was momentarily forgotten as Justin fought to keep his breathing even and avoid detection. His heart soared though. Brian was reading about Kilkenny! He was reading and running his finger over the page as he read and murmuring random facts between his lips as he went, showing genuine interest that Justin was sure, had his presence been noticed, would have been quickly veiled.

It was endearing to see him so wrapped up in something about which he’d professed to hold no interest. Justin had assumed that all the books and papers meant that Brian was doing legal stuff related to the sale, but a happy feeling bloomed in his gut as he surreptitiously observed his supposedly callous lover learning more about his inheritance. Justin couldn’t believe how such a simple act could make Brian seem so adorable. Brian’s eyes squinted in contemplation and his lips pursed and the fringe of his dark hair fell forward with the angle of his head. Justin imagined that this was what Brian must have looked like in college a decade ago, studying things that actually mattered to him. Brian pouring over these books now could only mean one thing: that some way, somehow, Kilkenny was beginning to matter to him as well.

Justin was able to sneak back out of the library without being detected, and for the rest of the day he carried a smug little smile across his lips at the thought of what he’d observed. It was incredulous, to say the least. And though that was the first time he saw Brian doing it, it certainly wasn’t the last.

---

On Wednesday, Justin caught Brian doing it in the stables.

He’d come down with an apple to feed Una. He’d just rounded the corner post of the stable hallway, but he saw Brian and immediately jerked himself back out of sight. Holding his breath silently between his lips, he knew right away that he’d have to stay hidden if he wanted to witness what was going on inside the barn. He peeked around the corner again.

Brian had the new horse cross-tied at the end of the row. That Brian had found the desire, let alone managed to independently lead the temperamental Arabian out of its stall and groom and saddle it, was a tremendous shock. Justin watched with widened eyes and expanding heart as Brian could be seen calming the horse as he tightened its girth strap, talking to it in placid tones.

Talking to it! Justin knew that Brian wasn’t overly-fond of any sort of animals, but there he was in the hallway of his very own stable, petting and brushing a horse and…

Justin’s lips parted in something between shock and awe as the cross ties were undone, and Brian stuck his foot in the stirrup to get up on the horse.

---

On Friday, Justin caught Brian at it again. This time he was doing it in the kitchen.

He’d come downstairs for a snack and stopped in the doorway of the large kitchen as Brian spoke on the phone with his back to him. This time Justin didn’t fling himself around a corner to hide, because it wasn’t immediately obvious that it was happening yet again. Brian was standing at the kitchen sink, peeling an apple and staring out the sunny window as he spoke to Lindsay on the speaker phone. He wore only a pair of black silk pajama pants, and Justin’s face split in a grin as he sauntered into the room to enjoy the view. Justin had just reached for an un-peeled apple of his own, but quickly found himself holding in his breath yet again as he realized what exactly the conversation was about,

“Yeah I know I said that before but I was wrong,” Brian said. “You should see it. Kilkenny, all of Ireland for that matter, is gorgeous. It’s exactly the sort of place you’d like to visit; rolling green hills and cobblestone roads and stuff. It’s all in the little details. It’s got a quiet appeal, not obvious like Ibiza or any place like that. And you know,” he turned the water in the sink on to rinse his knife, “if the sale hadn’t been postponed I’d never have stayed long enough to notice the appeal. I’d probably be tanning on the beaches of Ibiza, still saying how ugly this place was. It’s funny how things work out, Linds. I almost like it here now. You would too,” he asserted. “You’d love Kilkenny, especially. It looks just like those little ceramic villages your mother used to put out around Christmas time.”

“Sounds like the perfect place for a low-key vacation,” Lindsay’s indulging voice could be heard saying over the phone. “And with a one year old and an-overworked wife, I could use one of those.”

Brian chuckled, the motion making the small muscles in his back show themselves—a view which Justin appreciated. It was terrible just to stand there and wait for Brian to turn around, see him, and abruptly stop talking, but Justin couldn’t bring himself to say anything. He bit his lip and forced himself to remain still to hear more. “I’d have you over if I wasn’t selling it soon,” Brian was saying. “You’d love the castle. And Gus would love it. It’s actually an honest-to-god castle. I was just thinking the other day how great it would be to show Gus all of the old rooms and the towers, the gardens, and the horses. Did I tell you I have an entire fucking stable over here?”

“I don’t know if your son’s up to any of that yet. He’s most fascinated by pooping and sleeping still. Oh, and the Wiggles.”

Brian sighed, turning off the sink and taking his first bite from the apple. “That’s the only thing… He’s so young now. I wish there was a way he could see all of this when he’s older. Visit Ireland and Kilkenny and see the castle and everything. I… don’t like thinking that he’ll never get to see it.”

“What happened to only making ‘uncredited guest appearances’?” Lindsay pointed out wisely. “You were never so interested in showing things to your son before.”

When Brian answered her, it was in a quiet admission of, “…I never had anything worth showing before. Now I’m starting to feel like I do.”

That was it. Justin had heard enough. He left the kitchen before Brian could turn around and discover him eavesdropping. Even as he walked away from the kitchen and the phone call, stolen apple in hand; Justin felt more buoyant than he had in weeks, because the fact of the matter was indisputable. Justin had long hoped for it, wished for it and fantasized of it, but never had he really expected to catch Brian in the act of actually doing it.

Yet recent events had shown it to be true. Brian Kinney was falling for Kilkenny.

---

Justin padded into the bedroom that he and Brian had shared since the beginning of their trip. There was a small bedside lamp still lit and Brian’s laptop screen glowed from atop the bed, but still the insistent darkness of the late hour seemed to press in through the castle windows. Justin yawned and plopped himself down on the bed, eager to climb under the cool sheets and get some rest. Distantly, he wondered if Brian would be amicable enough to hold their bodies together as they fell asleep

Days and days of avoiding Brian and catching him in compromising situations had left Justin tired. He just wanted Brian to admit what he really thought, how he really felt, and what he really planned to do about Kilkenny. Because all this waiting and supposing made Justin feel like he had when he’d waited and waited for Brian to do something special for his birthday last winter. It made him feel as if he was getting his hopes up.

Pulling his side of the blankets out to crawl under, Justin paused as he caught sight of what Brian’s laptop had displayed on the screen. It’d been left open to a browser window with a large photograph of Kilkenny Castle smack dab in the center, below it an article, and above it the title: The Kilkenny Inheritance: profiteering on the sale Ireland. Justin’s eyes widened and he glanced towards the master bathroom where the shower spray could still be heard. Brian had been reading this? Eyes flicked back to tracking the computer screen, he wondered if direct mention was made of Brian in the sure-to-be slanderous article. The next tab over was marked Economic trends—Dale, Ireland.

Justin remembered how the city of Dale was said to be the foreshadowing of Kilkenny, and his fingers itched to click over to the next tab. The next tab yet was a wikifile on mass tourism’s detrimental effects to micro-economies. Justin reached to tap the mouse pad. He wanted to see what Brian had been looking at, because so far it really looked as if he was guilt-tripping himself about the sale through this internet research…

But he never got the chance. Justin hurriedly pulled his hand back and pretended to have just climbed under the covers as the shower door could be heard closing and Brian’s towel-clad form appeared in the doorway. “Hey,” Brian said, padding over. He dropped his towel with his back to the bed, so all Justin got to see of his naked body before he climbed under the covers was his well-formed ass.

“Busy day?” Justin asked, turning to face Brian. He wanted to talk, wanted to break this bizarre lack-of-talking that they’d had going on for a week straight, and he didn’t want Brian to find an excuse to ignore him for another night. So he lay on his side and stared at the other man until he had his gaze and his response of,

“Yes.”

“Where’d you go?”

Brian arched his brow, “You actually want to know?”

“I just wonder what exactly you do with those people, in those meetings.”

“ ‘Those people’?” Brian smirked, using a hand at Justin’s lower back to pull him closer. “Honestly? I don’t do much. I drink coffee and doodle on legal notepads while the lawyers do most of the talking.”

“You mean scheming,” Justin mumbled petulantly.

“I’m just there to give the okay or the kibosh to little details.”

“I wish you’d give the ‘kibosh’ to the whole thing,” Justin reiterated, knowing that Brian would roll his eyes the second he said it. “Do you really still want to sell? Give it all up?”

Brian sighed, but he didn’t look nearly as annoyed as Justin had expected. “Why are you bringing this up now? Isn’t this why we’ve been fighting all week?”

“No. You called me a stupid kid and told me to go home,” Justin pointed out. “You were a jerk. That’s why we’ve been fighting.”

Brian’s voice was soft when he said, “I’d like to stop.”

“Being a jerk?”

“No. Fighting.”

“Yeah well there are tons of things I’d like, too.”

“Like what?”

Justin stared at him hard, assessing Brian’s mood to see if he was in a good enough mood to accept the truth of what he wanted to say. “I wish…” he began slowly, “That you would stop trivializing me and you. That you wouldn’t act like I’m a fluke. That you’d admit that you… that you love me.”

Then Brian did roll his eyes. “Oh come on Justin, you know me better than that. I’ve told you from the beginning: Love is just—”

“—‘what straight people tell themselves they’re in so that they can feel better, so that they can get laid’. Yeah, I know,” Justin interrupted. “But you’re not some straight person living a bullshit life in denial of what you want. You have everything you want, Brian. So sometimes it’s hard for me to understand what it would cost you to admit it.”

Brian lay there, looking seriously at him and chewing his lip and still with his hand at the small of Justin’s back, and he asked, “And that’s what you’d like, huh?”

“Among other things.”

“Such as?”

Justin looked down at the pillowcase rather than Brian’s intense stare. He fully expected a nasty remark at any minute. “I wish that you wouldn’t sell Kilkenny.”

“I know. I saw you looking at the laptop, genius.”

 “It almost seems like you’re hoping you won’t sell it, too.”

Brian scowled. “That makes no sense.”

“Oh come on, you have to admit that something’s changed. Even I can tell you’re not the same as when we got here. It’s obvious in how you look at things, how you talk to people. And now you’re Googling economic trends in Dale? I can tell you don’t hate it here anymore.” Behind him, Justin could feel Brian’s hand stiffen against his back.

“You’ve noticed that, have you?” Brian nearly purred.

Justin couldn’t tell if it was a nice purr, or a warning purr, but he pressed on anyway. “Yes I have. When we got here all you could think about was avoiding getting any sort of animal poop on your shoes, and now you’re out trying to learn how to ride horses every other day.” At Brian’s surprised look, Justin inserted, “Yes, I know about that. I told you: I’ve noticed the change in you. If you ask me,” Justin finished, his face mere inches from Brian’s own, “I’d almost say that you like it here after all.”

Brian was very quiet in response to that, which was a bit of surprise. Justin had kind of expected him to offer some protest, some incensed counter that no, he wasn’t changing, and no, he didn’t like it in Kilkenny. But instead he was silent, which was practically tacit agreement when it came to Brian.

“Brian?” Justin asked lightly, “You can tell me you know, if you like it here. I won’t judge you for it. It’s okay if you feel different about it.”

“It doesn’t matter how I feel,” Brian interrupted. He leant forward and kissed Justin lightly, almost sadly. “Just because you like something doesn’t mean you should keep it.”

Justin hated the way that sounded. He looked Brian square in the eye. “Spoken like a true ad man. I knew you liked it here.”

“You said you wouldn’t hold it against me.”

“I just don’t understand how you can acknowledge the value of something and yet destroy it in the same breath. I couldn’t do that.”

“Are we talking about Kilkenny still? Or you?”

Justin scoffed. “I don’t care. Pick one.”

Suddenly, Brian’s hands tightened around Justin’s body, holding them more firmly together and gaining Justin’s rapt attention as Brian gruffed, “I pick you. I don’t want to talk about Kilkenny anymore.” He surged in, lips mashing against Justin’s in a heated kiss. Justin’s surprised breath was lost between them, and his hands soon tangled in Brian’s hair enough to pull back.

“You’re shutting me up with sex,” he complained.

“Not yet, but give me a minute to move things along and I will.”

Their mouths connected again, and this time Justin let Brian slip his tongue in. This time, he didn’t pull back when Brian’s hard body writhed against his own. This time, he didn’t try to make Brian stop touching him and start talking to him. It was obvious by the way that Brian was rolling him over, kissing him harder, holding him closer; that he didn’t want to talk anymore.

Brian had moved them so that Justin was pressed into the covers, his back against Brian’s front. He kissed the skin of Justin’s neck and shoulder, he grabbed his waist and his ass in his hands and ground his hips against him. He nipped the edge of his ear. And the more places that Brian touched, the less Justin found that he wanted to talk as well. Brian’s fingers had just barely slipped under the waistband of Justin’s pajama pants, ostensibly to rid him of them. But before he went further, Brian paused long enough to lean forward and whisper into Justin’s ear, “I don’t like talking, and I don’t like change.”

“Obviously,” Justin murmured against the pillow.

“But I’ll do both to keep you, if I have to.” Still pinned beneath him, Justin’s heart lodged somewhere between his chest and his throat. “You’re not a fluke,” Brian said quietly, that being all he would admit before he stopped talking and finally did let his hands pull Justin’s clothing away from his body. But that was really all he needed to admit, anyway.

Justin breathed raggedly against the pillow. Brian had recited his words right back to him. Brian had promised him that he wasn’t a fluke. Justin was so busy falling even harder in love with him that he could do nothing but raise his hips in assistance when Brian tried to pull his pants off. Brian said he would change. He said he wasn’t a fluke. …Brian loved him.

While the two of them spent the rest of the night tangled in each other, the first, emerald green shoot budded out of the clay pot that Justin had been keeping on the windowsill.

---

It was sometime very, very early the next day. Justin was draped under the sheets, right between Brian’s legs. He’d gotten Brian’s morning erection in his mouth before he’d even ascertained the hour. The soft glow of the morning sun was the only indication of the time as it filtered through the castle’s ancient windows, illuminating the messy strands of his hair like a halo.

It was through that hair which Brian carded his fingers as he gained consciousness. He pushed the sheets back a little further over Justin’s head, sleepy eyes blinking down at the gorgeous man who had decided to pleasure him before he’d even woken up. “Mm…” Brian murmured happily, thinking that Justin beneath the sheets and between his legs so early in the morning was like having a sinful angel wake him up. He closed his eyes and dug his skull back into the softness of the pillow. “Mm… Whhhy?”

Justin’s hands could be felt running over his thighs, kneading the hard muscles there. He pulled his mouth free with a pop and said, “Do I need a reason to suck you off first thing in the morning?”

“No,” Brian agreed lazily, moving his hips a little in Justin’s hold.

“I felt like it,” Justin murmured, before taking Brian into his mouth once again. Above him, Brian could be heard groaning his appreciation. Justin would have grinned if he hadn’t already been sucking him off. Truth be told, he’d woken up and remembered Brian’s admissions from the night before, and he’d wanted to show how much he appreciated what he knew it had cost Brian to say those things. So he’d wormed himself under the sheets and set to the task of performing a stellar blowjob.

It was how Brian would have said ‘thank you’, or ‘I appreciate you’ in any other circumstance, using his body to show how he felt in lieu of words. So Justin was fairly sure that he would understand the gesture. He brought a hand up to stroke the length of him as he laved him with his tongue, and a glance upwards showed hazel eyes to be cast down at him in rapt attention.

“Justin,” Brian hissed. “Fuck, Sunshine. That is so perfect.”

“Hmm,” Justin agreed, his humming doing nothing to quell Brian’s sounds of enjoyment. Brian’s fingers had tightened in his hair at the vibration around his cock. He rose up and asked, “More?”

“Shit. Oh my god. Yesss.”

Brian was mad with lust. Justin lightly bit the skin at the apex of his thigh and allowed one hand to venture back to Brian’s ass. The other man didn’t complain when one finger was allowed entrance, and Justin concentrated on brining Brian the maximum amount of pleasure that he could with his hands and his mouth. It hardly took any time at all before Brian was chanting out his name on a steady breath, grinding shamelessly against the sheets and the body between his legs. Justin held him down while enjoying the mess that he knew only he could turn Brian into. Nighttime sex and morning sex with Brian Kinney were two very different experiences, and Justin was fairly certain that he was by and large the only person who ever got to experience the former these days. The thought made him glad, in a very possessive way.

Brian was never as cognizant when attacked so early in the morning. At night there was always more control to him, more composure, more thought and planning while he fucked you and made you forget your own name. But in the mornings—especially if Justin got to him first—he was downright… pliant.

With fingers in his ass and his face perched at the juncture of his groin, Justin was counting on it. He stopped sucking him, knowing that Brian was perilously close, and instead he rose up his body until their faces were close enough to garner attention. Brian opened his eyes. “Why’d you stop?” he asked, sounding breathless.

Justin licked his lips, suddenly nervous about what he’d wanted to ask Brian for since the moment he’d taken him into his mouth. “There’s something I want to do before we leave Ireland. Something I haven’t gotten to do yet.” He pushed, gently but meaningfully against Brian’s shoulder. “Turn over.” Brian froze, understanding blooming in his eyes, and he laughed a little.  Justin immediately tried to pinch him. “Don’t laugh!”

“What? You want to top?”

“Let me,” Justin goaded, resorting to kinder measures than pinching. He placed sucking, persuasive kisses against the skin of Brian’s neck, grazing his teeth against the spots that he knew made Brian shudder. “Please. I never get to.”

“There’s a reason for that,” Brian was muttering in response, though his tepid argument was weakened even further when he moaned at the way Justin was touching his good spots. “I fuck you, remember?”

“Always,” Justin promised, and pressed meaningfully on his shoulder again. Brian turned over with the utmost degree of reluctance, sighing as if he were granting the biggest boon in the world. “Just let me,” Justin kissed his words against Brian’s hair, toying their fingers together in a squeeze that said, ‘thank you’. Brian’s larger form beneath him wasn’t a novelty, but it was rare enough to be savored, and Justin made sure to look long and hard at it. God, if the back of Brian laid out like that—his strong body and tanned skin and lean muscles—wasn’t enough to have Justin hard, then Brian saying out loud to “hurry up and fuck me,” certainly was. He placed a covetous hand at the apex of Brian’s shoulder blades, not missing how they instantly drew together, tense. “Relax,” he whispered into Brian’s ear, “I want to make you feel as good as you make me feel.”

Something about the way that Brian’s head sunk a little further into the pillow at that showed that Justin’s words had the desired calming effect. Brian waited, and Justin sank down the slope of his spine, tongue counting every vertebra until the end. His hyper-aware eyes shot one last glance upwards at the waiting man who, just the day before, had admitted his real feelings towards him. The same man who now was miraculously letting him take things that he’d only been allowed to take a handful of times before. Less than a handful. And despite Brian’s gorgeous ass pretty much being right in his face, Justin could still hear those words:

I pick you. You’re not a fluke. I’ll do both to keep you. To keep you.

Those words and that conversation, brief as it had been, still tumbled around in Justin’s mind like a flavor left behind from some grand meal. And god help him if it wasn’t delicious. He licked Brian’s sacrum, felt him shiver, and proceeded to repeat every sinful thing that Brian had done to him with that first, virgin rim job.