Midnight Whispers
QAF Brian and Justin Fanfiction
Author's Chapter Notes:

Just an FYI: I'll likely be late in posting over the next few days as RL is a pain in the ass right now. I'll try to do so as early as possible, but it likely won't be until midnight or so PST if things keep up the way they have. Thanks for reading and all of your support! :)


 

March 1

Justin sipped his coffee, trying to stretch it out for as long as possible as he knew he was going to need the energy pick-me-up today and this was the only caffeine that he was allowed. He glanced over at the clock and stood, gathering up his and Brian's breakfast plates from the table and walking them over to the sink.

Brian looked up from his paper and grimaced at the time; and then he hastily folded it as Justin rinsed their dishes and stacked them into the dishwasher. Standing, he quickly gathered it up, one eye on Justin the entire time and then hastily made a beeline for the door; just as Justin had suspected he would. And he thought he wasn't predictable.

"Don't go too far," Justin called over his shoulder, smirking when Brian cursed under his breath, realizing he hadn't been so stealthy in his retreat. Justin shook his head in amusement; he'd known for days just how much his husband had been dreading today and he couldn't help teasing him. "I'm going to need your help."

"Justin…" Brian said, coming suspiciously close to a whine; not that he'd ever admit to it.

"Brian…" Justin mimicked as he dried his hands and turned around; Brian scowled and Justin could see him internally denying that he'd sounded anywhere near that whiny. But...

They stared at each other for a long moment; with Brian obviously searching for a plausible reason to get out of Justin's plans for the day. And Justin willing to let him sweat it out for a bit just because he could. Brian's scowl deepened as he'd obviously failed to come up with a reason; so, Justin decided to let him off the hook.

"I wasn't talking about putting the favors together," Justin said, rolling his eyes at his husband's antics. "I'd rather not listen to you whine all day. But, Em has several boxes that need to be brought in; so, I'm certain that you and Drew can take a few minutes out of your busy schedules to get your He-Man on and bring them in for us; and then you're free to do whatever the hell you want."

Brian narrowed his eyes and stared at Justin suspiciously. Justin just smiled winsomely; it wasn't his fault that Brian had misunderstood; even if that had been his intention. Growling under his breath, Brian stalked over to Justin, knowing he'd been had.

"Oh, you are so asking for it, Sunshine," Brian warned, yanking Justin against him as he'd tried to pass by; not that it did much good, as Justin just continued to smile serenely. "I still haven't gotten you back for the triplets joke, and you just keep adding to your balance."

"I'm trembling in my boots," Justin snickered, quickly extracting himself from his husband's clutches, and walking out of the kitchen to go wait in the foyer for his guests.

"Laugh now, little boy," Brian huffed, following in Justin's wake; he stomped off to the living room, his only concession to Justin's request. "I'll get you when you least expect it."

"And I look forward to it," Justin simpered, yelping when Brian swatted him on the ass with the newspaper as he passed by. Justin rubbed his hand over his smarting ass and glared at his completely unrepentant husband. Asshole. As if it wasn't sore enough from yesterday.

Brian smirked, his tongue in his cheek as he flopped onto the couch and picked up the section he'd been reading at the table, blatantly ignoring Justin's stink eye. Justin huffed and turned away, watching through the window for Em and Drew's car. And after a few minutes he perked up as Em's voice came over the intercom and Justin opened the gate for them.

Walking over to the door, he opened it just in time to see Em and Drew pull up, followed by a second car that he hadn't been expecting. Turning to Em, he raised brows, silently asking what was going on as Em climbed out and rounded the van.

"I hope you don't mind that I brought Todd and Darren along," Em said by way of explanation as the aforementioned two stepped out of the second car and made their way over to the back of Em's van. "I figured some additional hands wouldn't hurt since we have a lot to do today."

"Hey Todd, Darren, Drew," Justin nodded and greeted the other three before turning back to Em. "Fine by me; I set us up in the kitchen since all the cookies, the chocolates and the champagne bottles were being stored in the pantry anyways."

"Perfect," Em said, opening the back doors to his van, revealing several medium sized boxes, which Justin assumed held the various favor boxes that Em had ordered and had sent to his house by accident. "I have the favor boxes that we ordered, plus the ones that I made in the back; you said fifty, right?"

"Yup," Justin nodded, wondering how on Earth his guest list had crept up that high. So, much for a small get together. "It's really like forty-six or forty-seven, but this way we have a few extra in case something happens or we have an unexpected guest."

"How the fuck do you have that many people to invite?" Brian asked as he finally came out of the house; nodding at the others, he reached in and grabbed a couple of boxes out of the van, stacking one on top of the other. "We don't have that much family.

"Well there's more than the family to think of, Brian," Justin huffed as he grabbed one of the smaller boxes. "We have some friends from Babylon coming, along with a few from Kinnetik. And then a few of your accounts needed to be invited, as you know damned well that Kellie and Lucille would have our balls if they weren't. And then there was my agent and her husband, and Sydney and his wife and other various friends from New York. It adds up."

"Mr. Popular," Brian mocked as he picked the boxes up.

"I can't help if people adore me," Justin simpered, fluttering his lashes and making Brian snort as he walked back towards the house.

"Hey Todd; how's it going?" Brian said with an absent nod as he passed.

"Fine…" Todd lazily replied, echoing his typical answer whenever they were at Babylon, and making Justin, Darren and Emmett snicker as he walked past Justin to grab another box.

Brian paused and did a double take, staring at Todd as if he'd never seen him before, and then he shook his head and continued into the house. Justin snickered, well aware of the reason behind Brian's confusion as this was likely the first time that he'd ever seen Todd outside the back room at Babylon.

Shaking his head, Justin focused on the task at hand, and with everyone helping, they'd managed to get it all in within a couple of trips; after which Brian and Drew immediately disappeared. He played host for a few moments, pulling out drinks and snacks and setting them on the counter and then walked over to the table, where Emmett had started laying things out.

"So, how do you want to do this?" Emmett asked, as he pulled out another tray of cookies from the pantry and set it down. "Because as much as I wish otherwise, I doubt we can fit everything in the boxes I made."

"You made it to my specs, right?" Justin asked, wondering what might have gone wrong with the boxes, as he'd already figured out just how much room they were going to need and there should be plenty of it if Emmett had followed the specs.

"Yeah," Emmett said as he grabbed several boxes of chocolates from the pantry as well. "But I tried to put it all in there, and there just isn't room for the T-shirts, Baby."

"Oh, sorry!" Justin exclaimed, immediately realizing the problem. "I forgot to tell you; the shirts aren't going to be in the box. We're going to hand them out at the door; they're all the same side, so I'm setting them on a table, along with a couple that I'm going to leave out in lieu of a guest book. The guests will sign those instead; that way we can frame them later and hang them in Sunbeam's room."

"Oh, well that makes much more sense!" Emmett said, sighing in relief that he hadn't messed anything up. "I'm glad to know that I didn't put them together wrong. And it's such a cute way to remember the event! I so love them, and I'm so glad that Yasmeen suggested them."

"Me too," Justin agreed, smiling as he pulled out a box of champagne bottles to add to their growing piles of goodies. "So, I figured that we'd each take a station since there are four of us now and do this as sort of an assembly line? Like Todd, if you'll come over here and I'll have you put together the boxes for the Dipped Oreos and then have you pack them up if you could, please."

"Sure, Justin," Todd said as he came over to where Justin was standing; he opened the boxes in front of him and then looked up at Justin. "How many of these per box?"

"You should be able to put four cookies into each favor box," Justin said, moving onto the next station. "Also, there are these yellow bakery sheets to line the box with if you would, please. And then just stack them in a pile over here when you get them done."

"Not a problem," Todd smiled and began building boxes. "Fifty, right?"

"Yup," Justin nodded, opening up another box and setting it by the other trays of cookies. "Any leftovers we'll hold onto and serve at the shower. And Darren, if you wouldn't mind, I thought I'd have you work on the You are My Sunshine cookies. They go with these tent boxes and again, they should be wrapped with the yellow bakery sheets. Three to a box - one circle cookie, one rectangle with designs, and one with words in each, thanks."

"Of course," Darren nodded, taking the spot over for Justin. "Whatever you need; where would you like me to put them when they're done?"

"Just set them here, next to the ones that Todd is packing," Justin said as he rounded the table and went to the next work station. "Now, Em; did you want to pack the key chains and wrist bands or did you want to assemble the larger boxes?"

"I'll stick with the key chains and wrist bands as you seem to have an idea of how it's all packed up," Em said, walking over to Justin. "You wanted these in the yellow, scallop-edged boxes, right?"

"Yup" Justin nodded, walking to the final station which held the large favor boxes, a box of wine totes, a box of champagne bottles, a box of votive candles, a box of candle holders, and more yellow tissue paper in the same color as the wax paper. "I wish I could have found them in a brighter yellow like the rest, but what can you do?"

"You should have said something, Baby," Emmett chided, quickly putting together boxes and filling them with the ease of someone who'd done it hundreds of times before. "I could have talked to one of my vendors; I'm sure they could have done a special order."

"That's okay," Justin shrugged as he began building his boxes five at a time, first lining them with tissue paper; and then he pulled out the lemon-print wine totes and folded them in half before laying them on the bottom of the box. "I just wanted to get it done without Brian having a heart attack. He was already grumbling this morning about it. Never mind the fact that I paid for it all with my own damn card."

"They always do, honey," Darren said, laughing as Justin huffed and Em and Todd tittered. "Men like Brian just don't see the point to all of our little rituals. They understand why we would want to make such a fuss and to thank the guests, who are coming to a party meant to celebrate you. Don't you remember what he was like with the wedding favors?"

"Yes; but I just want people to walk away with something more than a bag of Jordan almonds they'll never eat and little bottles of bubbles," Justin said, placing a half bottle of champagne on top of the wine tote. "Besides you know that Mr. Label Queen would have a shit fit if we ever did anything so traditional despite his complaints."

"Don't we ever," Todd snorted, pushing over his first pile of favor boxes.

"Actually, I'm surprised that you don't have Big Bad in here helping," Emmett said, building more boxes and setting them on the table. "How did he manage to talk his way out of it?"

"Are you kidding?" Justin huffed, grabbing several scented votive candles and placing one each into gold, metal lanterns with sun cut-outs on them. And then he packed those beside the bottle of champagne. "I'd like to have these done sometime today. If Brian had been in here, he'd argue with me every step of the way and then I'd have to kill him. A dead baby daddy does me no good."

"Fair point," Emmett conceded, snickering as he set several completed boxes near Justin's station so that he could add them to his own favor boxes. "Does he even know what's going into them?"

"Nope," Justin said, popping the "P" on the end as he set one of the tent boxes of cookies next to the candle holder, added the box of Oreos in front of it and then one of  Emmett's boxes on top of that. "Well, other than the champagne bottles; the rest is a complete mystery to him as he said, and I quote, 'Sunshine, if you wanted to fill them with pig shit, I couldn't care less as long as it doesn't come into my house,' end quote."

"Lovely," Em said, wrinkling his nose with disgust.

"That's Brian for you," Justin shrugged as he dumped ten miniature chocolate bars into the box; and then he folded the tissue paper over it all and closed the boxes, setting them aside for their labels.

"He does have a unique way of expressing himself," Darren said, setting more boxes of cookies by Justin's station, just as Justin set five more favor boxes onto the table.

"So, I'm guessing that he's going to skip out on the shower altogether?" Todd asked curiously, pushing his finished favors in front of Justin and working on a new batch.

"Oh, hell no," Justin hissed, eliciting another round of laughter form the others. "Are you crazy? I'm not doing this by myself. I've already warned him of his expected attendance unless he wants to sleep in the guest room for the rest of the month. He'll be there if for no other reason than he'd go catatonic if he were deprived access to my ass."

"And that my dears," Emmett drawled, a knowing smirk on his lips. "Shows you just who holds the power in the relationship; it certainly isn't the top."

"Amen to that," Darren and Todd fervently replied at the same time; and then they looked at each other and laughed. Justin grinned, especially when Brian walked in, a suspicious look on his face when all of the others immediately burst out laugh once again. Well, what he didn't know wouldn't hurt him.

 

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