Reverberations

Chapter 9

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Brian

I'm too fucking afraid to say anything walking to the car. I don't know whether I'm scared of what his response will be, or of what might come out of my mouth.

I can feel some part of my life crumbling around me; something that I thought would be there forever. And somewhere in that there's pain, and fear.

But what I'm mainly feeling right now is so fucking angry I can't find words to express it.

Shit! Shit! Shit!

Michael, of all people, should have some idea how badly hurt Justin was by the failure of the dreams he had - the dreams they both had - for the Rage movie.

He was so fucking happy and excited when he got on that plane to LA. Trying to damp it down, so I wouldn't think he was glad to be leaving me, but just radiant with pure fucking joy. He really was living his dream. Turning his art into a movie, making a big budget Hollywood film, for fuck's sake, about a gay superhero that he'd created, he'd brought to life.

And then those fucking dickheads out there took it all away from him. First they tried to rewrite the character and turn him into some sexless twat, then, when they couldn't do that, they just pulled the fucking plug. Assholes!

He didn't say much about it when he got back. He didn't have to. He was fucking crushed by it. Or he would have been if he were anyone but Justin. Being Justin, he picked himself up, took a deep breath and just kept on going.

He's tried so fucking hard to behave like it was all nothing, like losing his dream when he was in fucking touching distance didn't completely gut him. Like those assholes didn't damned well stomp all over his dreams, didn't give him yet another kick in the balls, just like Hobbs and his father and fucking PIFA, and all the rest of them. He's tried to settle back in here and just get on with things

But not with Rage. He hadn't done a single drawing for Rage up until Mikey suggested this damned wedding issue. It was like he couldn't bear to even look at that stuff anymore.

He wouldn't have done this damned issue, except he believes that it will help fight for The Cause. He always has some fucking Cause or other. So he put aside all those feelings, all that pain, and did his best not to think about the movie and all that stuff every minute he was working on these fucking drawings, and now Mikey …

I'm not fucking stupid. I can work out what's fucking happened. Mikey has seen fit to censor the one fucking panel that Justin actually wanted to draw. And then he's sprung it all on him in front of all our friends so that there was fuck all Justin could do about it. In other words, he's done just what those Hollywood assholes did; he's taken all Justin's work, and then just completely fucked him over.

It's a good thing we left when we did, because I don't want to punch Mikey out again, but I'm so fucking angry that …

When did my so-called best friend turn into this self-righteous self-important fucking asshole?

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Justin

I can hardly drag myself to the car. Part of me just wants to fold up and die; sink down on the curb and just fade into nothing. I can't believe that Michael did that. I can not fucking believe it. I don't want to. I don't want to believe that anyone that I've worked with on this thing for so long could be such a total fucking asshole to me.

But I can't believe that I said the things I did either. I guess all the anger that I've felt with him so often, and had to fight to keep suppressed, all the things I've bitten my tongue and forced myself not to say, finally all just spilled out.

Brian's angry. He's not saying anything, but he doesn't have to, I can tell.

At least he left with me. I half expected him to hand me the car keys or something and just bail on me. Not that I'd blame him. I've stirred up a hornet's nest and now they'll all come after us - well, after Brian, because it won't be long before they find a way to blame it all on him. They always do.

Why the fuck couldn't I keep my mouth shut? At least until I got Michael on his own.

Now …

Now I've created this big mess, and Brian …

Brian's the one who's going to have to wear it.

I feel tears stinging my eyes, and blink to try to keep them back. Fuck, Taylor! suck it up.

I take a deep breath. I have to find a way to try to make this right. At least, to repair some of the damage.

"Brian," I hear myself say, "You should just drop me at the loft and go back. You know, make it clear that …"

He stops the car with a jerk, right in the middle of the road, and swings his head round to look at me. Then he pulls over to the side, very slowly and carefully. When he's parked safely, he stares off into the distance for a moment and then he says, "Do you really think I'd fucking do that?"

Trying to find a way not to make things worse, do even more damage, I can feel something in me start to crumble. I will not fucking cry over this. Michael's important to him. I know that. I just wish …

If the `Vette was easier to get out of, I'd open the door and take off down the street, just to get away and not have to think about Michael, and Brian; and Brian and Michael. But getting out of this fucking car isn't that easy, you practically have to climb out, and I'd probably fall on my ass and make an even bigger idiot of myself. So I stay put.

Then I realize that staying and toughing it out is what I should do anyway. I've run away too often. And this time it was me that messed up, so the least I can do is …

"Do you?" he hisses.

I my heart starts to do something weird, feel some strange fluttering of a hope that I don't dare reach for, and then he turns and looks into my eyes, and I finally fucking know for certain that it's not me he's angry with. Tears do spill then, I can't help it. As I shake my head, I try to blink them back, but then he hooks his hand around my neck and, pulling my head into his shoulder, whispers fiercely into my hair, "Don't let the little fucker get to you. He's not fucking worth it."

"I'm sorry," I mumble, sniffing hard and trying not to get snot all over his jacket, because he'll have a fit.

He huffs a laugh. "You know what I think about `sorry'," he answers.

Then he holds me. Just holds me, while around me, and inside me, the world changes shape.

When I finally get myself together, and pull away from him, he opens the glove box and points to the tissues inside. I laugh and clean myself up.

Then we sit and look at each other for a few moments that might be a lifetime, so much changes between us while we do.

Suddenly the whole fucking thing about the comic seems ridiculously trivial.

Or the most momentous thing that could have happened.

I've lived with the Brian and Michael dynamic all this time, all these years, known it to be the one inviolable in Brian's life. The one thing that I couldn't challenge. Didn't dare to. And now …

While his eyes change from stormy green to warm hazel, and his tongue wanders into his cheek, I feel myself smiling at him, and even blushing a little. I wish I didn't fucking do that. But …

I realize for the first time that I've been lying to myself all this time. I've always believed, wanted to believe, I guess, that the reason that I didn't tackle Michael over all the shit he's pulled was for Brian's sake. So that he wouldn't get caught in the middle. So that he wouldn't have to take sides, to choose.

Now, I finally see that that was bullshit. The reason that I didn't want Brian to have to choose between Michael and I wasn't to spare Brian's feelings; it's because I've always been afraid that if I made him choose, he wouldn't choose me.

Now I did. And he did. He has.

He leans towards me, and we kiss gently. Then he presses his forehead against mine.

"This isn't your fault," he says. "Mikey's been behaving like a fucking cunt for weeks, and it's more than time someone called him on it."

I shake my head a little, not wanting to talk about Michael, about any of it right now. I press a kiss to the side of his mouth.

He chose me.

For the moment, all the anger has just drained out of me and I feel like leaping from the car and dancing down the street.

Brian's chosen … me.

I kiss him again. Harder. And all the anger energy, and the relief energy and the happy energy coalesce suddenly into one intense pulse of pure desire for my partner.

"Take me home," I demand. "I want to fuck."

He laughs, and starts the car. We take off close to light speed; but not fast enough. Never fast enough.

I want him NOW.

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Brian

One thing about fucking when you're angry, even if it's not with the person you're fucking - maybe especially if it's not with the person you're fucking - is that the anger adds an edge so that all your senses are heightened. Maybe that's why it finally sinks through my thick skull as some part of my mind watches the way his hands reach for me and his eyes fight to stay locked to mine even when he's on the verge of coming and normally he'd have them squeezed tight shut the way his ass is squeezed tight around my cock, that he really had expected me to take Mikey's side in all this.

Or at least, to not take any side. Not to stand at his side, anyway. Not to have his back on this.

Even fucking worse than that, I realize why. The first wave of that thought nearly makes me lose my erection, but then it makes me angrier - with him, with me, I don't know. I settle for being angry with Mikey.

I don't do fucking regrets. I don't. They're bullshit. You can't change anything, so why waste time regretting shit you've done, or haven't done? But I can't hold back the waves of regret pouring over me as I realize what I've done. Or haven't done.

All these years and I've never once had his back in his struggles with Michael.

And there have been struggles. Despite the fact that they work on Rage together, their relationship has always had the element of a battle. Or maybe of an invasion - Justin moving in, taking over, while Mikey waged guerilla warfare from behind the shelter provided by Deb - and by me.

I would have to be a complete fucking idiot not to have figured out that if Michael had made that fucking "should have left him lying there" remark to me, then he's probably said as much, if not worse, to Justin. But I let it go. I pretended it wasn't happening. If I'd thought about it, I would have said that Justin's a big boy and can fight his own battles. Which Christ knows he can.

But not with both arms tied behind him.

And that's how it's been for him, all this time, because he couldn't fight back, couldn't fucking let Mikey have it the way he did tonight, because of me.

Because he didn't want to hurt me, I guess. But also because he couldn't fucking count on me.

I've always told my friends - told him - don't count on me; you can't count on me for anything.

So why is my gut aching when I realize that he's never been able to count on me for this?

When, sweating and panting, we both finally get there, reach that always changing, always the same destination, I roll away from him. I feel him tense up beside me as I climb to my feet. We hadn't quite got as far as the bed, barely made it in the door. Now I stand, and then reach down my hand to him. After a moment's hesitation that goes through my gut like a knife, he takes it and lets me help him up.

That's when I pull him close and kiss him, trying to say all the things with my body that I can't find the words for. I've never been able to find the words for him. Even when my head felt like it was going to splinter into fragments, if I couldn't find a way to tell him what I was feeling, I never could get my tongue around the words. Couldn't trust myself enough to let them tumble from my lips.

Especially The Words. The words I've given only to Mikey. The ones about "love" and "always". Those words.

I don't even attempt them tonight. But I have to find something. I have to try to make this right. Sorry might be bullshit, but … he's my fucking partner for Chrissakes. That should mean something. It has to mean something. Something about being able to count on me when, like tonight, some asshole tries to rip a little more of his hope, his trust, his fucking innocence away from him. I stood there and watched while his father did it because all I could do was make that worse, I was too fucking late to stop Hobbs, and I've been powerless against the Fiddler, and those fuckers at PIFA, and that psycho Cody, and the assholes out in Hollywood, but this time … this time he should have known I'd have his back. He should have been able to know that. To be sure of it. To be able to fucking take it as a given that I'd be there for him.

And he couldn't. And that's my fault. All this time I've turned a blind eye to all the bullshit that Mikey's put him through. Worse than that, I've taught Justin not to fight back against Mikey, not to call him on his shit.

Tonight, I have to let him know that all that shit stops now. From now on, it's him and me against the world, if that's what this turns out to be. We might get creamed, but at least we'll go down fighting.

And together.

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Justin

Brian's kissing me, the most amazing kisses. Kisses that make me feel like no one else could ever make me feel. They make me feel … loved. Cherished, even. They make me know that he's okay with what happened tonight. If he was angry, it wasn't with me. It was with Mikey. And with the others, probably. Especially Mel.

I like Mel. Sometimes. I really do. But sometimes, honestly, she's just a bitch.

Especially to Brian.

I didn't hear all she said tonight. I was out the door, on my way down the steps when I realized he wasn't with me, and …

I was just going to walk away. I really was. But then I heard raised voices, so I went back to see what was keeping him, and heard the last part - the part about me not wanting to know Brian. And that made me mad as Hell before ever Mikey chimed in with his piece of shit.

Where the fuck does she get off, where do any of them get off, thinking, let alone saying, something like that. She thinks I don't know Brian? Fuck!

She sees him what? Once in a blue moon when they have to share some space because Lindsay's forced them to?

I've fucking lived with him for four years.

All right, technically, I wasn't living here all that time. But really, that's how long I've been moving in and out of the loft. And even when I haven't been living here, even when I was with Ethan, I saw more of Brian than Mel ever has.

Why do they still think of me as being some stupid little kid who has to be protected from Big Bad Brian? Or worse, as some stupid fuck who just can't see what Brian's like?

I know him.

I know that he fights so hard against any sort of commitment 'cause it fucking terrifies him. I know that.

I know that he can't tell me he loves me because he's too scared to, too scared of the power he thinks it would give me over him.

I know that too.

I know that he's never going to want to settle down in some nice house in the suburbs, and have a dog; or a live in kid; and hold barbeques for the neighbors on the Fourth of July. Or even stunningly catered affairs for his friends; unless they're for business, maybe.

I know all that.

And I don't give a rat's ass about any of it.

Because I also know that he loves me. I know that when things have been at their worst for me - after Hobbs, and after Hollywood - he's been there to help me piece myself together. I know that he cares about me, and he cares about his friends, whatever they may think, and that he loves me in all the ways he can. I know he's finding more ways to do that every day.

They might not see that, but that's because they don't know him, whatever they may think. They weren't here when I had nightmares night after night, and he soothed me, and held me, and loved me, even before I could let him have sex with me again. They weren't here when I told him about the Hollywood offer, and saw something die in his eyes; or when I came back, and saw it slowly come alive again, partly because he saw how much I needed him to help me bear the disappointment that felt like something gnawing at my gut so that I hardly knew how to get through from moment to moment with the pain of it. They weren't here to see how his loving me, and hating all those assholes for what they'd done to me, somehow did more than anything else to help me get myself back together and face everyone as if I was fine, and who gave a shit about the movie.

They're not here with us right now, while he's kissing me, and making sure that I know he's got my back on this. They don't hear his tongue stumbling over words like "fucker" and "don't hold back". So I know that whatever mess that I've caused tonight, we're in it together, and he's not going to hold back from me, he's going to support me.

Like I should have known he would, because he always fucking has. Whenever I've really needed him to, he has.

So fuck them!

And, of course, as I think that, the phone starts to ring.

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Brian

We both stand and stare at it for a moment or two, then we share a glance. He grins, and says, "I bet Debbie."

I consider. Deb. Mikey. Linds. Lots of options.

I go with Linds. They'd line her up as the peacekeeping force.

"What's the bet?" I ask.

He laughs. "If I'm right, you have to talk to her," he dares me.

The machine picks up.

We're both wrong.

It's Ted, of all people.

And what he says strikes the pair of us completely fucking dumb.

"Brian," he starts off, not even sounding fucking nervous.

"I thought that you should know that I've collected all the copies of the comic, and that I've advised Michael that before he considers circulating them he should consult a lawyer. I checked with Mel and she admits that there's something in their contract that says that they have to agree on the content of every issue, so if Michael's changed something without Justin's consent, then he's in breach of contract, and Justin could sue."

He doesn't say anything for a moment, and if I was less dumbfounded, I might have picked up the phone. I might even have had to say thank you.

"Just thought that Justin would like to know," he finishes up. "I'll, ah … see you Monday at work."

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