Homework

Chapter 12:  Pre-Party Fireworks
 

Justin

By the time Marty leaves we've pretty much solved the furnishings issue. His little elves are going to take delivery of the stuff and arrange it, plus hang the curtains for Brian's study and the dining area, install the new window blinds for the kitchen and replace a couple of the plants in the Jacuzzi area. (Some of them look as if they've been there for a hundred years and are seriously creepy.)

In a way, I feel kind of guilty. I mean, this is my first home, I feel like I should be spending more time doing all this myself, like Brian and I should be … I don't know … bonding over building our first nest together or some shit. Or at least, I should want to. But I don't. I just don't have that kind of time. I don't want to spend hours selecting some rug for the floor of the media room or choosing linens for our dining area. We looked at some stuff Marty suggested, picked out things that seemed okay – at least neither of us hated it, and we're going to leave him to it. Like Brian says, if it turns out we do hate it, we'll donate it to Emmett's new abode or pass it on to Deb or something, and get what we do like.

Life's too short to angst over this stuff. I mean, maybe if you're Michael and Ben and you've got nothing else that you want to do, but that's not ever going to be me, let alone Brian. Which isn't to say he won't bitch if it turns out he hates something. Or that we didn't argue about a couple of Marty's suggestion. But now that the choices are made, fuck yeah, I'm happy for someone else to deal with all the shit involved in getting them into the house.

It's one more thing we can cross off the list of stuff that needs to be done before our housewarming party. Emmett and I have pretty much worked out all the food and stuff.

Mom was going to look after Gus for us on Saturday night because she thought she might be out of place at the party, and I didn’t quite know how to respond to that. I mean, when we originally talked about a house-warming party back when we were in Chicago, before I got side-tracked off to New York, we both knew that it was kind of like our equivalent to a commitment ceremony.

And though we haven’t really talked about that, the fact is that despite all his bitching about the cake and the food and the drink and every other damned thing to do with the party Brian hasn’t once even hinted at canceling and he hasn’t said once (let alone four million times like he normally would) “why the fuck are we having this fucking shindig again, Sunshine?”.

So I think he's still seeing the party as a statement that he wants to make, that we want to make together, about where we are in our lives, and how we are planning to live them.

So of course I want my Mom to be there. Even Molly.

But … it's fucking ridiculous when you think about it that this party might be the nearest we'll ever come to a wedding or it might be just a fucking party and I don't know which.

And I don't know how to ask Brian.

Or even discuss it with Brian.

Fuck!

Just when I think that we're finally getting things together I realize that in some ways I behave as if I'm still that awestruck seventeen year old kid, frightened to rock the boat too much in case the Great Sex God Kinney decided I really was too much trouble to have around and seriously banished me from his life. The problem is that although Brian and I have grown up a lot sometimes he really does behave like that moronic asshole he was back then. Backed into a corner he fucking lashes out. It's what he does. It's what he learned to do to survive. Not just survive his family; but to survive his fucking friends. When you're dealing with people like Michael and Deb who have no concept at all about boundaries, sometimes the only way you can get them to back off is to lash out as viciously as you can.

So I'm battling with sixteen years of Novotny programming as well as the shit his parents put him through.

Well, he's battling with it too, I guess.

Just like we're both battling the fact that by the time I'd met him I'd had seventeen years of dealing with my father and what that taught me was that all speaking up for myself and disagreeing with him got me was being yelled at, followed by cold silences; not to mention being grounded. So I learned that the best way to make it clear to my Mom at least that I wasn't happy was to withdraw. Usually to my room, or to Daphne's place.

So when under pressure he lashes out, and I leave, take myself off somewhere and hide, and those are the patterns we're struggling to break.

But it's been a long fucking day, and after Ms. … Megan's visit, and Marty's, I just want to crawl into bed and have him fuck me into oblivion. I don't want to start some discussion tonight that could wind up in a major fight.

But if I leave it till morning, Gus will be around, and there's never any time during the day and …

"What's got those fucking gerbils scurrying now? Surely to fuck you don't want to change your mind about the damned drapes again?"

 

*****
 

Brian

He gets this deer caught in the spotlight look and then takes a deep breath.

Oh, fuck!

There's something he wants to talk about.

Figures.

We finally get five minutes to ourselves to fuck and he wants to talk.

"My Mom doesn't think she should come to the party," he says.

He sits on the bed and starts taking off his shoes so he doesn't have to look at me.

I suck my lips in.

We've avoided having this discussion ever since we first started planning this damned extravaganza.

I think about what a selfish asshole I am to even consider letting him tie himself down to a life in one place, working and paying the bills and raising a kid. Just like the fucking faux heteros I despise. Because that's what I'd be asking him to do if …

Back when we first planned this little shindig … back in Chicago before he left to pursue fame and fortune in New York; before we'd sold the mansion I'd bought for him, before he came back to me and we found this place and we moved in; back before Lindsay lost her mind and we wound up looking after my kid …

Back then … our housewarming party was going to be our "stick it to them" statement. It was going to shove it in everyone's faces that we might not want to get married and swear eternal fucking fidelity (whatever that means) and all that shit, but that we were planning to live our lives together fighting and bitching and fucking whoever we wanted to and then coming home to each other. It was going to say 'we might not be your poster boys for gay relationships, but we don’t give a fuck what you think, we know that we're together and that's all that fucking counts'.

When I first told Emmett that he could plan a housewarming party for this new place, this place that seems so fucking right for us, it was more or less understood between us (without me having to do anything as fucking lesbianic as talk about it) that the party would still mean the same thing.

That, of course, was before Gus. Before either of us had any idea what it was going to be like to have to think about how every damned thing we do might affect this poor fucking kid who has no one but us to rely on.

Now that we've had a taste of that, I should be pushing him back to New York, or Paris or however far away he needs to get to be free of all this parenting shit.

Telling him that his Mommy doesn't belong at a party at the house of Queer and that she should take Gus for the night so we can have a good old fashioned orgy would be a damned good place to start with that.

So I must be the totally selfish fucking asshole everyone but him says I am, because instead of doing that, I dig in my pocket for my cell phone and make a call.

I know it's fucking late, but if he hasn't told her this already then she needs to fucking hear it and somehow I don't think she'll mind.

"Mother Taylor …"

She goes into super mother mode, of course, but once I get her to believe that no, nothing's wrong, we haven't managed to drown Gus in the bathtub and I haven't thrown her baby boy down the stairs or strangled him for bringing this up at a time when we should be fucking, she finally shuts up so I can say, "A little bird told me that you're not planning to attend our soirée."

She mumbles explanations and excuses and I take a moment to wet my lips that are suddenly dry for some reason. Then I go on, "This party's probably the closest we're ever going to get to a march down the aisle. We both think you should be there."

There's a sort of roaring silence for a moment, then she gives a funny little laugh and says, all soft and … something, "Oh, Brian! Oh, Brian, that's wonderful. Tell Justin …"

But I'm fucked if I'm going to pass on any idiotic fucking Mommy messages so instead I hand the phone to him and go into the bathroom. The sound of the shower will drown out all the gushing and gahing that's bound to go on next.

I try not to think about what I've done. I could bullshit myself that I did it for Gus's sake, because he loves his beloved fucking "Dus" and I don't want him to lose that as well as everything else he's been stripped of in the last year or so, but I don't bother. I didn't do it for Gus.

I'm trying not to let myself slide into my typical panic fight/flight shit when the door to the shower opens and then there's no reason to panic, because just the fact that he's here and that he gets it and that he doesn't make a fucking big deal out of it means that it's somehow okay. It's okay for me to want this. It's okay for me to believe that he wants this. It might even be o-fucking-kay for me to actually have it.

I guess I'm kind of still braced for whatever lesbianic thing is about to come out of his mouth, but all he does is bitch at me for getting his mother all hyper at this hour of the night.

"I never thought I'd get her off the phone," he grouches. "And I want to fuck."

I stifle a laugh and shove my tongue down his throat instead.

 

*****
 

Justin

I can not believe he did that.

He called my mother. And then, after he'd gotten her like hyperventilating down the phone, he handed it to me to deal with.

Asshole

Or not.

I can't believe he told my mother we were as good as getting married. I told her that it was just something between Brian and I and we weren't going to make any big announcement or anything, so not to go blabbing to anyone about it. I meant Debbie, and Mom knows that. The whole point of not getting married was so that they wouldn't be all over our business.

But …

He told my Mom.

By the time I've sucked him off in the shower and ridden his cock so hard he swears I've broken it, I hope I've shown him how grateful I am that he did that.

He told my Mom.

 

*****
 

Brian

It fucking figures that just when I think I might finally be getting a clue about how to do this relationship shit, I fuck up big time.

I have a bitch of a day at work the next day.

Boards aren't quite right, but none of us can figure out exactly what is wrong with them. Well, not until some fucking intern starts mumbling about the color of the font that I flash back to another intern. Orange might be going too far, but he's nailed the problem.

"Change the font to #FF0000," I tell them and that works, thank fucking God. But of course, when we send the samples to the client they prefer the original fucking color.

"It's more sophisticated," they whine.

We suggest focus groups, polling, all sorts of shit, but they want to stick with their insipid little color palette that one of their marketing people came up with because it all harmonizes so nicely.

If they want harmonies they should join a barber shop quartet. Advertising isn't about creating something that is so well harmonized the message blends into the background, it's about doing something unexpected that catches the eye, but there's no telling these morons that. We can only protect ourselves as best we can from the fall-out.

Then there's a fuck up with the print run for a new ad for Remson's. Ted works all fucking afternoon sorting that one out. Cynthia's tied up with some imagined crisis that Brown Athletics are fucking angsting over. Something about one of their poster girls chopping all her hair off. They're claiming they're upset because it's a key part of her image or some shit, but I suspect it's because now she looks like a particularly butch lesbian; which she isn't, as it happens. But unsurprisingly she finds it easier to play lacrosse or volleyball or whatever the shit, without having to deal with the great mane of hair that Brown seems to think is a much bigger appeal than the fact that she's won a kazillion damned medals including three world championships.

What Brown don't seem to get is that the little boys and drooling dweebs who love her fucking hair aren't the ones who are going to be buying their latest range of gym wear for the "serious female athlete". Fucking pathetic!

Anyway, with Cynthia and Ted both tied up dealing with crises real and imagined, every dick in the company who isn't quite sure about how to handle some trivial shit comes knocking on my door.

It's after five when I finally manage to clear the decks enough to start my own fucking work. I try calling and texting the little shit, but like usual when he's in his fucking studio, he doesn't answer the phone. So I call Daphne and ask her if she can pick Gus up from Jenn's because I'm not going to be home till late and I don't know what the fuck Justin's doing.

It's nearly nine by the time I get through everything I need to do for the day at Kinnetik. I've tried calling Justin twice and sent him about fifty fucking text messages, but nada.

I called and spoke to Gus a couple of times and to Daphne. I call her again before I leave Kinnetik to see if she can stay longer. She tells me she brought her jammies so she can stay all night if I want. The girl's a keeper.

She still hasn't heard from little Sunshine either. Well, fuck him. I need to … feel like me again. I head for Woody's and start.

 

*****
 

Justin

It's after ten when I get home. I feel kind of bad about that, but I wanted to get the painting for Dan finished and sent. Something tells me it's important. Hopefully it will dry overnight and I can pack it and send it tomorrow.

I check my phone just before I leave the idiotic fucking apartment I call a studio. That's when I realize it's dead.

Fuck!

Brian is going to kill me.

One thing that makes him totally crazy is when I forget to charge my phone, but seriously, there was so much going on last night that I'm not surprised that I forgot.

I spend the drive home thinking up ways to make it up to him, but when I pull into the garage I see that his car's not there. Shit!

I tumble inside and find Daph hunched over her laptop in Brian's study.

"Where is he?" I demand. Okay, so maybe my voice was a bit loud, but the way she reacts is totally over the top.

"Be quiet!" she hisses. "Gus is asleep. And never mind where Brian is, where the heck were you?"

"Me?" I can't believe she's mad at me. Brian's the one whose not home at ten o'clock at night.

"Yes, you!" she says, still kind of sounding like a spitting cat. She looks a bit like one too. Her hair is kind of standing out from her head a little and her eyes are narrowed into slits and even her fingers are curled like claws.

"I was in my studio, where do you think I was?"

"So why weren't you answering your phone?"

Fuck this. I'd expected to have this conversation with Brian not with Daphne. What's she mad about anyway?

"I forgot to charge it," I admit. "So what?"

"So what if there'd been a problem with Gus and we couldn't reach you?" she asks.

"You knew where I was," I defend. What's her problem.

"Oh, that's just great, Justin," she says all prissy and self-righteous.

"So where the fuck is Brian?" I ask, getting back to the real issue.

"Brian's where he told me he'd be," she says. "Brian's been calling every hour or so to let me know what's going on and to check that everything's okay. I'm not worried about Brian."

"So why isn't he home?"

"You can ask him yourself when he gets back. I'm going to bed."

And she just gets up, slaps the laptop closed and walks out.

What the fuck?

"Wait a minute. Why the fuck am I the bad guy? I told you, my phone was dead. I couldn't call."

She keeps going for a couple of steps then turns. She's on the stairs now, a few steps up from me and she glares down at me. For a moment she's completely silent and I don't think she's going to say anything, then she … well, she hisses again … "And just when did you find that out?"

I shrug. "Just before I left the studio but …"

"So before that, you didn't even check your phone. Not once."

I stand there kind of shocked, because she kind of has a point, I suppose. But fuck!

She gives me one more glare and walks up the stairs.

I'm left standing there, feeling like somehow the world is conspiring to put me in the wrong when all I've done is work on my painting like everyone keeps telling me I have to. And I still don't know where Brian is. But it's no good asking her again, I know Daph and I can tell she's not going to cave and tell me.

I drag my phone out of my pocket and go looking for the charger. Before it's charged enough to be able to access my messages, I hear the front door open.

I go into the hall to meet him but even before I get close I can smell the alcohol.

"Fuck, Brian! You didn't drive home …"

"No I didn't fucking drive. I got a cab. So don't play the prissy little wifey on me, Sunshine, I'm not in the mood."

He brushes past me and starts up the stairs.

Oh, that's fucking great. He's another one who's acting like I've done something wrong and he's got a right to be pissed with me.

I've been working my ass off in my studio doing exactly what he's told me to do, forget everything else and just paint. And just because I forgot to charge my phone, the whole world thinks I'm the asshole. When he's been out getting plastered and who knows what the fuck else?

But I'm the bad guy? I don't fucking think so!

I follow him up the stairs. I wait till we're both in the bedroom and close the door, ready to let him know what I think of his fucking childish behavior, but he just heads into the bathroom.

I follow him in there to find him shedding his clothes.

He never does that. He never takes them off in here, always in the bedroom so he can hang them up right away.

It kind of makes me stop and think a bit because he must be really pissed off.

Well, he always is when I forget my phone.

I put my hand out towards him and he pulls away.

"Leave me the fuck alone," he warns.

"Brian, don't be fucking ridiculous. I know I forgot to charge my phone, but …"

He gets in my face then.

"You don't fucking get it, do you? You didn't just forget to charge your phone. You forgot everything.. Me, Daphne, Gus. Everything. If you'd given us one thought during the day and tried to call you would have known your phone was dead, but you didn't, did you?"

I stare at him.

"I didn't … I didn't forget you," I try to tell him.

He turns away, pulling his shirt over his head so roughly, I hear a button pop and ping off the tiles somewhere.

"You did just what you needed to do," he says, in a flat kind of voice. "And so did I. I needed to forget for one fucking hour that I have all these fucking responsibilities. One hour, Justin. Not the whole fucking day. Just one … "

He shakes his head, dragging his suit pants off and throwing them towards the hamper. Fuck! What the hell has gone on today? He never calls me by my name. Well, hardly ever. Only when we're fucking, really. He must be really freaking out over something.

But I'm damned if I'm going to let him turn me into the villain here. Alright, so he needed to blow off steam. That's no reason for him to be pissed off with me because I didn't somehow magically know that.

He goes into the shower and I throw off my own clothes and follow him.

"I'm not the fucking bad guy here, Brian," I tell him.

He just gives me one of those exasperated, tongue shoved into his fucking cheek looks and then turns back under the spray.

I maneuver round in front of him.

"You knew where I was," I tell him. "If you nee … wanted me, you could have just come and got me."

"You were working," he says. "You've got deadlines. I fucking get that, Sunshine."

I do feel kind of guilty then because I wasn't working on anything for the Warhol or even the October show. Just doing the painting of Dan and Billy because … because it's important to me, for some reason.

I feel kind of backed into a corner because I so don't want to talk about that right now, and I guess that's why I hear myself say, "So was there anyone hot at Woody's?"

Attack is the best form of defense, right?

 

*****
 

Brian

The little shit!

I can't believe he's asking me that.

I'm not the one who disappeared tonight, Sunshine. Even once I got to Woody's, I called Daphne to let her know I'd probably be really late and she should just go to bed.

But he thinks he can disappear, have no fucking contact with anyone and then just walk in and demand answers about what the fuck I've been doing?

I don't think so, Sunshine.

"Not particularly," I snarl. "How about in your cozy little studio? Any hot models hanging around? Any of the neighbors drop by for a cup of sugar?"

His eyes widen and then go really dark.

"Fuck you!" he says and goes to push past me to get out of the shower, but somehow I find myself grabbing him and then he's grabbing me and we tussle for a bit but it winds up with him facing the wall and my cock buried balls deep where it belongs and I'm still fucking mad at him for … for … for being able to just disappear for a fucking day, I guess.

Shit!

 

*****
 

Justin

I hate fucking up against the wall like this when I'm mad at him.

It's better face to face so I can scratch and claw and bite at him.

But I guess we'll manage a second round and I'll take out my frustrations on him then.

Right now, as he pounds into my ass, and keeps slapping my hands away from my cock, I know he's working out at least some of his.

I guess he didn't find anyone at Woody's hot enough to bother with or he wouldn't be like this now.

Maybe that's part of the reason he was so pissed off. Not just because he couldn't reach me on the phone, but because I wasn't there when he wanted to fuck. And then he went to Woody's and …

And maybe he wanted to fuck someone there and didn't feel right about it.

Or maybe he didn't want to and that made him even madder.

Who the fuck knows, with Brian?

But I'm so fucking angry with him and I just don't want him to stop.

Fuck!

 

*****
 

Brian

We finally get out of the shower and dry off a little. By that time, I'm ready to just fall into bed and sleep but he's got other ideas. He wants to ride my cock, but I'm seriously not ready to have it broken off tonight, so instead I roll onto my belly.

He gives this funny little choke and then says, "I want to stay fucking mad at you, asshole."

He slaps my ass once, but then wriggles down and kisses it. I spread my legs a little and he gets the hint and I feel his tongue flicking at my hole. I sigh. I can feel all the frustrations of the day just sliding away as he rims me and they disappear completely when he suits up and shoves his cock up my ass, finding just the right angle to rub over my prostate.

Once he's in, he pauses and bites my shoulder, hard enough to leave a mark, I bet.

"I'm still fucking mad at you for being mad at me," he says. Which, in the state my brain is in right now between exhaustion and alcohol and the feel of him rubbing over that spot again, doesn't make any fucking sense to me at all. So I don't even try to make sense of it. I just grunt and let him have his wicked way with me.

We'll deal with whatever the fuck he's talking about tomorrow.

 

*****
 

Justin

I don't know what I'm expecting the next morning, but it's not to wake up to an empty bed.

I glance at the clock and realize that it's much later than it should be. I must have slept through the alarm.

I grab a quick shower and head downstairs. Daphne's sitting at the breakfast bar and I nearly get knocked over by Gus who gives a squeal when he sees me and says, "Dus! Dus! You weren't home at dinner. I couldn't show you the picksher I drew for you."

"Pic-ture," I say automatically. Brian and I are both determined that Gus isn't going to get away with falling into bad habits with his speech patterns. "You can show me now," I offer.

He runs past, out into the hall and I hear him clattering up the stairs.

"Don't run!" Brian and I say together.

I look at him then, trying to see how we are this morning.

Daphne, being Daph, gets up and says, "I need to get going. I'll see you guys tonight."

Then she's gone before I can even thank her, and he's looking at me.

"Brian …" I stop because I don't really know what to say.

He huffs. Then says, "Sunshine, I'm a selfish asshole and you're a moody bitch. We're going to fight sometimes."

I look into his eyes and see … him … him trying to make things work between us and keep his company going and make a home for his son and all the time just trying to stay Brian. I know so well how that fucking feels.

I walk into his arms mumbling something about him not being an asshole. Then I take in the other half of that statement. "And I'm not a moody bitch!"

He snorts. "You're moodier than a pre-menstrual muncher," he asserts.

Asshole.

I pinch his ribs and he snorts again and grabs my hands, holding them trapped against my back so I can't pinch him again.

Then he kisses me and somewhere along the line he lets go of my hands to cup my head in his and I wrap mine round his neck and that's when Gus comes back in.

The first we know of that is his little voice, giggling, "Daddy and Dus sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G."

Brian lets go of me and reaches out to tickle his son instead. Gus shrieks with laughter and Brian scoops him up under his arm.

"Show Dus your drawing then we have to go," he says.

So he shows me the drawing which isn't bad, actually, of the three of us out in the boat. At least, the boat is recognizable, and the river is blue, so it's clearly not a road, and there are three figures one of whom is much taller than anyone has any right to be, and one of the others has yellow hair. So I could easily guess that it was us and what we were doing.

Gus is thrilled and we hear all the way out to the car about how he's told everyone at school about the boat and they all want to come out on the water with us, but we have to take photos next time because some of them don't believe him.

I promise that we will. I'd promise him just about anything right now. I'm so relieved that none of the shit from last night seems to have affected him at all. I thank all the gods there are that we have Daphne to rely on. She's the one who came through for us and made sure Gus was okay while we were dealing with our ridiculous shit.

"Are you sure you don't want breakfast first?" Brian asks, but I shake my head at him. I can get something later. We need to all travel together in my car today because Brian left his parked at Woody's. I guess I could let them take the car and grabbed a cab later, but I don't want to.

Right now the trip to school and work is time I can spend enjoying being with my men.

It's Brian's day to leave work early to pick Gus up from school today. But maybe I can give myself an early mark as well and we can do something together.

I'll call him later and see how he feels about it.

Then I remember.

Just as Brian's about to pull out onto the roadway, I have to ask him to stop.

I left my phone plugged into the charger.
 

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