Work Text:
July 24, 2011
“Brian,” Justin whispers. When Brian just groans, he says it again, louder, “Brian!”
“Urmmf?” comes from under the sheet.
“I have coffee,” he says in a singsong.
When the only response is a grunt, he adds, “And maybe a blowjob.”
Brian pulls the sheet off his head, raises his eyebrow at Justin. When he sees the coffee, he levers himself up to sitting, then drinks it as fast as he can without burning himself. “What’s so urgent you have to wake me up from death?” he finally asks.
Justin opens his mouth, then shuts it. “Never mind.”
Brian’s eyes focus on Justin’s face and he frowns. “Never mind?”
“Yeah, it was nothing. Just thought it was time to get up.” Justin feels a bit uncomfortable, kind of exposed. “Though with the hour you came in last night, I can imagine this might feel like early morning to you.”
Brian’s brow furrows, and he reaches out a hand to Justin. “Hey. Sit.” He pulls Justin down beside him. “Are you upset that I... ?”
Justin shakes his head. “No! I hadn’t even thought about it.” And actually, that’s true. Brian had done one of his increasingly rare “nights on the town” last night. Justin could have gone along or could have had his own, separate night out, and he’s done both of those things a lot in the past. He just didn’t feel like it last night. But Brian had been getting that now-infrequent look around his eyes, that sort of kinetic feel radiating off him, that meant he needed to go run free, get fucked up and cruise some strangers and fuck or be sucked with someone new.
Despite himself, Justin feels a smile pushing up the corners of his mouth because of the, well, irony, given what he wants to ask.
Brian’s looking more and more worried, so Justin tries to get over himself and bite the bullet. “No. Seriously, no. I was wondering, uh, if you’re free this afternoon for a, a thing?”
“A thing?” Brian fake-leers at him. “So it’s the opposite of what I was worried about. You’re not jealous and in fact you’ve arranged some sort of massive orgy for later?” He’s teasing -- it’s a work night for him, they don’t do that but a couple of times a year at most, and never after one of them has just gone out -- but still, heat flares in Justin’s belly, thinking of the times, once in a long while, when they do something like that. They’d figured out a while ago that both of them got off on it; Justin from feeling like he was Brian’s to do with what he wanted, Brian from the same thing. Not that they haven’t experimented the other way, too, Justin offering Brian up to whoever he wanted to, to give blow jobs or to fuck them.
“Mmm,” Justin says, curling his fingers possessively around Brian’s cheek. “But no. Sooo no.” He can’t help it, he grins on the absurdity of the juxtaposition.
“What then? A kid thing? An unexpected visit from the Little Prince?” It’s their private name for Gus these days, who’s as annoying and charming as you’d expect a preteen version of Brian to be.
Justin outright laughs. “No.”
“Then what? Okay, I’m getting worried. ” Brian’s voice lowers into the semi-growl it can take on. “Spill.”
Justin responds to it viscerally, but reminds himself not to be distracted. He takes a deep breath. “Okay, well. This is going to sound crazy, but. Do you remember what you promised me, six years ago?”
“Uh.”
Justin laughs.
“Sorry?”
“You do, though. Remember. You just don’t know you do. You said you’d do it if I turned the age you were when I met you and still wanted to. It was after, you know, we didn’t go through with it. You said you’d do it when I turned twenty-nine. Well, I’m twenty-nine now.”
Justin watches Brian’s face carefully, ready to retreat, take it back. But what he sees makes his heart beat hard in his chest, though Brian schools his face quickly to a neutral expression. “You don’t need to hitch yourself to an old man like me, Sunshine,” Brian says lightly. It’s rare that Brian pulls out that old nickname these days: Justin is far from that bright-eyed boy he used to be.
Justin figures it’s not a time to avoid hard truths. Besides, if there’s one thing he’s come to value, it’s Brian’s honesty, and Brian’s appreciation for it. “I’ve tried other people, other ways...”
Brian nods slowly. Justin squeezes his hand, because it’s not easy for either of them to think about those first few turbulent years, when Brian kept pushing Justin away, and Justin finally threw himself into a series of pseudo-boyfriends. It hadn’t mattered in the end: Justin always circled back to Brian, and ultimately Brian never could refuse.
“That’s not what I want. I want you. This.” Justin waves his hand between them, then in a bigger circle around the apartment they’ve ended up de facto sharing in New York.
Brian’s smile turns mocking. “This apartment of yours that I camp out in half the time?”
“This apartment of yours, that I live in,” Justin counters. He swallows and adds, “That you live in with me, a lot of the time. That you live in sometimes when I’m gone, that I live in when you’re not here.”
“I live in Pittsburgh,” Brian says flatly.
“Look around, asshole,” Justin says, stroking his thumb on Brian’s wrist. “Ever since you opened the New York office it’s three weeks a month. I begged you, remember?”
Brian’s stuff is everywhere, in the closets, in the kitchen, in the bathroom, next to Justin’s. Brian has a work computer here. Justin’s paintings are on the wall. It’s all jumbled together. Like them.
“Yeah, well you’re gone a lot of that time,” Brian tries.
“Yeah, I am.” Tours and speaking engagements and teaching slots have Justin gone almost as much as he’s here. “That’s one of the ways you convinced me to move into this place three years ago, remember?” Justin modulates his voice to be a mocking imitation of Brian’s: “You don’t need to live in that shithole. Let alone pay that highway robbery rent for it. You need a place with better light. You’re never there, anyway. Oh and by the way, you can do whatever you want with it; it’s just an investment and a place to crash if I’m ever in town.”
“Well, since you became a rich and famous artiste it’s not like I’m even paying for it any more,” Brian says, frowning.
“Because of all the years you paid for me,” Justin says. He shakes his head. “This is all pointless. The point is, you promised to marry me if I still wanted to when I turned twenty-nine. How old am I now, repeat after me.”
Brian scowls. “Old enough you’re not a cute little twink any more. I think I’d better get rid of you.”
“That cute little twink was an idiot, though,” Justin sighs.
“Hey!”
“No, really. Listen, Brian, I was a romantic, naive jerk, who persisted in believing people’s words rather than actions for way too long.”
“You were actually pretty smart back then about a lot of things.” Brian looks away. “Words can be important, too.”
Justin squeezes his hand. They both know Brian’s done his share of hurting Justin, though it’s been the other way around at least as often. “So marry me. The law goes into effect today. Let’s go down there and do it.”
“Law?”
Justin hits Brian’s arm. “You know perfectly well what law, asshole. Mr. Secret Donor to LGBT causes.”
Brian raises his eyebrows. “I hardly think that the day after I spent a night... like I did last night, is the right time to get married.”
Justin grins at him. “Well, I think it’s perfect. Brian, listen.” He waits until Brian’s looking him in the face. “I don’t want to change a thing. I like the arrangement we’ve come to. I like it a lot. This is who we are. It doesn’t mean we can’t get married. And it doesn’t mean we’d have to change.”
Brian laughs, thank goodness. “We’d swear to fuck strangers regularly and tell each other about the good fucks we’ve had when we’re apart?”
“Basically, yeah.” Justin grins at him.
“Aren’t I the ‘I don’t do promises’ guy?” Brian’s expression is weird, somewhere in between laughter and something so serious it makes Justin’s heart beat fast in his chest and his throat feel tight.
“I don’t want promises any more. Promises are for shit.” Justin hurries to the next part so neither of them will think too much about the promises Justin went chasing with a couple of guys. “I just want to be able to be there in the hospital if something happens to you, without any bureaucratic bullshit. I want to be able to sign papers about the fucking plumbing repairs when you’re out of the country. And most of all, I want to throw it in the faces of all the homophobic assholes out there, that I get to have it too, the right to the exact same thing as them.”
“Well, there is that,” Brian quips, but his eyes are suspiciously bright. He looks down. “No promises?”
Justin’s chest hurts. “Well, for me, it’s not about promises. It’s about acknowledging what we are.” He wants to say more, but that really pretty much says it, doesn’t it.
The silence grows and builds, and Justin lets it. It’s not always a bad thing, and they can take it.
Brian finally whispers, still looking down, “I want you to be free, though. Not saddled to me.”
Justin doesn’t let himself think, just knocks Brian over and crawls on top of him. He takes Brian’s face between his hands and forces him to look up at him. “If what we’ve been through over the past twelve years -- twelve fucking years, asshole -- hasn’t shaken us apart, then I don’t see what fucking would. And I don’t want anything to. I want you. I want you. When I was seventeen I wanted you. When I was twenty-three I wanted you. And now that I’m twenty-nine, I want you. But I don’t want a white picket fence or a house in the suburbs or monogamy. That was a kid’s idea of what this should be. That’s fine for people who want that, but I want our own version.”
Brian isn’t looking at his face, eyes turned down. “If I say no?”
If Justin didn’t know him as well as he does, he wouldn’t get it, what Brian’s thinking. But he does. Justin smiles and runs his thumb up Brian’s cheek. “If you say no,” he says, “ nothing changes. I want this, this thing we have.”
“And if I say yes?”
“Nothing changes. I want this, this thing we have.”
“You’re obnoxious,” Brian says, finally raising his eyes. “Yes, okay? Yes.”
Justin laughs. “Yes?”
“Yes, you twat,” Brian says. “Now what?”
“Now,” Justin says, “we fuck. Then we take a shower and fuck. Then we get dressed in our most fagalicious clothes and go to City Hall.”
“Isn’t this a Sunday?”
“New York City, finest city in the world, open for special business for queers today!”
“This I have to see.” Brian grins up at him. “But no bridesmaids? No Men of Honor? No wedding cake?”
Justin shakes his head. “Just us. Nothing’s changing. In fact, afterwards, I might go track down this hot guy I saw at the deli the other night...”
Brian surges up and rolls Justin underneath him. “You’d better fucking not,” he growls. “I want a fucking wedding night to remember, you hear me?”
Justin bats his eyelashes. “Oh, yes, sir! Well, if you say so.”
Brian swats him, but then finally leans down and kisses Justin. The kiss belies the growling and the playfulness: it’s soft and sweet, Brian’s fingers twining in Justin’s hair.
Justin’s breath catches in his throat.
Brian takes in a big breath. “Let’s go now.”
Justin’s instinctive response is to pull him down for sex, or make a joke, but at the last minute he remembers, this is what they’re about, what being with Brian Kinney is about: the sharp gasp of excitement, how everything can turn on a dime.
Which is how they’re at City Hall one hour later, showered and dressed to kill, since Brian of course insists that only Armani will do for this. Justin has already handed in the paperwork he’s been preparing for a few weeks; his ‘forging Brian’s signature’ skills have finally come in handy for something besides dealing with the landlord. They’ve made it past all the supporters and people without pre-done applications with a minimum of fuss, considering.
Brian did make a few inappropriate remarks about munchers and old queens as they passed the huge numbers of joyful couples waiting, but Justin grabbed his hand and pulled him through it all. They got a few well-deserved cat calls and more than one proposition, but they finally made it through to the room where they’ve been meeting with the official who will perform the ceremony.
Brian’s been cloistered with her for a few minutes talking about something privately, but they’ve moved the discussion back over near Justin now. The official wants to know what they want for their vows
Justin starts to say they’re not going to be promising anything, but Brian cuts him off. “What’s the traditional one?”
“Well,” she says, “there are lots of different ones. But you might mean this one.” She shows him a sheet with vows printed on it.
“Okay, yeah.” He points at the sheet. “Can we do this, without the end part?”
“You can do whatever you want,” she says, smiling at him.
“That’s what he’s been trying to tell me,” Brian jokes, pointing at Justin. He turns to Justin. “You want input?”
“Nah.” Justin shakes his head. “I’m fine with whatever you want.” He considers for a moment. “No, wait, I have one thing. Honesty. Honesty with each other.” He looks at Brian and feels himself flush, because he hasn’t always done that one. “Put that in there.”
Brian’s eyes are soft on Justin, but he nods at the official. “Let’s do it.”
“Just a second.” Justin pulls him aside. “Are you sure?” he whispers, hands on Brian’s lapels.
Brian smiles, and it’s real and full and beautiful. “Let’s stick it to the man.”
Justin’s suddenly speechless when the official starts reciting the vows and Brian repeats them, voice steady, eyes clear on Justin. He didn’t understand, didn’t think, what this would actually feel like. It’s almost too much, Brian’s intensity like the heat of the sun on his heart; he feels like he can’t breathe for the beauty of it.
“To have and to hold, from this day forward, in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer...”
Brian leans forward and whispers in his ear, “Breathe, baby. It’s nothing we haven’t done already.”
Justin stares at him, heart beating fast in his throat.
Brian grins and continues: “...being honest with each other in all things, to love and to cherish, I take you in marriage.”
Justin just stands there.
“You can still back out, no problemo,” Brian says. “Doesn’t change anything.”
Justin grabs onto his hands, squeezes hard, shakes his head. “I. No. Yes.” He swallows, starts slow but gathers steam, joy gripping him hard: “To have and to hold, from this day forward...” He manages to make it through all of it, the official smiling at him as he goes.
He thinks it’s over at that point, but there’s one more Kinney-patented curve. “The thing we talked about, do you want...?” the official reminds Brian, who’s been looking at Justin with eyes that are so warm on him Justin almost can’t look back.
“Oh! Yes, here,” Brian says, fingers fumbling to open a small velvet box.
Justin gasps and Brian looks down at the floor. He might be blushing.
“The rings?” Justin whispers. “You... all these years?”
“Do you want to?” Brian asks. “I mean, not all the time, we’d take them off when we’re, uh...”
Justin laughs, bright and sudden, and his eyes sting. He leans in close to whisper in Brian’s ear. “How about we wear them just when we’re in bed together?”
“Ha!” Brian laughs, hearty and full of an answering joy. “We’ll figure it out?”
Justin holds out his hand. It only shakes a little when Brian slides the ring on his finger. It takes him three tries to slide the matching one onto Brian’s.
“I now pronounce you husband and husband,” the official says. Then, with a wink, she adds, “And mighty fine ones, if I may say so.”
They stare at her and she laughs, motioning between them. “You could totally, you know, kiss the husband now. Just a thought.”
Brian, who sailed through the whole ceremony with perfect composure, suddenly freaks out; Justin can see it on his face. “You’re freaking out now,” Justin says, reaching up for Brian’s face and pulling him down. “Kiss me,” he says in his most bratty voice.
Brian’s eyes lose some of their glazed look and he laughs. “Brat.”
“Pretty much,” Justin says, right before Brian sweeps him into a knee-weakening kiss that reminds him for a second of the kiss he knows Brian gave him at their prom, those many years ago. Except, it’s not like that at all: it’s not fairy-tale, it’s real. It’s fighting and misunderstandings and working things out piece by piece. It’s them.
It’s also them that the wedding night sex is prefaced by Brian, clutching the photo of their beaming faces in the City Hall elevator, leaning in and whispering into Justin’s ear, “I’m going to take you home and fuck you so hard.”
Justin half-smothers his gasp, but stays hard the whole way home, Brian’s gaze like something tangible on his skin.
They’re barely in the door when Brian has him flipped up against it and is shoving his pants down, prepping him with lube he mysteriously found somewhere, rolling a condom on like the pro he is. It hurts a little, but it’s in a good way, the burn of two fingers, then three, no messing around, just doing the job. Brian shoves into him all at once, the dirty slide of heat making Justin’s fingers curl.
Brian shoves his hands up above his head on the door, holds his wrists in one hand, biting Justin’s neck, then soothing with kisses. It’s hard and fast and Justin’s desperate for friction on his cock, ruts toward the door but it’s too far away. Brian chuckles in his ear and fucks him harder, licking around his ear. Justin moans and throws his head back on Brian’s shoulder.
Brian murmurs, low and dirty, “Husband,” and Justin’s body seizes, curling in on itself, coming fast and loud against the door. Brian groans and follows, hands tightening on Justin’s wrists and hip.
After a moment or two, Brian pulls out gently and Justin turns around and slumps into his arms. “Shit. You okay?” Brian asks, and there’s something uncertain in his voice, like he thinks he’s violated some protocol for wedding nights.
Justin laughs. “Sooo okay. Come on. Meet me after you wash up. There’s food.” He pulls out some takeout he’d ordered in advance, then goes over to the sofa, where Brian joins him.
Brian raises his eyebrows. “Planned ahead, huh? And by the way, don’t think I didn’t notice you must have forged my signature about a billion times for that to happen today.”
Justin grins around his noodles. “So what’re you gonna do, punish me?”
Brian’s gaze turns dark on Justin, and he crawls over to him on his hands and knees. “Shower, now,” he growls.
They do, Brian’s hands moving Justin possessively through it, cleaning him everywhere. “On the bed,” he says.
Justin shivers, and opens their special toy drawer, brings out a couple of things.
“Really?” Brian asks, eyebrows raised, when he walks in. “I was mainly joking. Shouldn’t this be, you know, slow and tender and wedding night-ish?”
Justin sighs dramatically. “Well, I suppose if you’re getting too old to play games, then...”
Brian pounces, raises an eyebrow again at what Justin’s laid out, but runs his hands up Justin’s arms, pulling them up and tying his hands to the headboard above his head with the soft restraints Brian prefers, the kind Justin could undo himself if there were a problem. “I’ll show you too old,” he says, slipping a cock ring onto Justin, who’s already sweating and rock hard. “I’m going to fuck you with this dildo until you’re begging, then fuck you with a bigger one,” he growls. “And when you can’t take it any more, I’m going to fuck you myself.”
“Nnnrrgh.” Justin’s eyes roll up and he curls up as far as he can, reaching for Brian’s lips. Brian kisses him softly, then harder. He slithers down his body, shoves his legs up and licks him open. “Remember?” Brian murmurs, and Justin knows exactly what he’s talking about: their first time, Brian fried out of his mind, but still kind enough to rim a boy really, really thoroughly before his first time. It was like his whole self turned inside out that night, finding what his body really wanted.
“I remember,” Justin pants. “I’ll never forget. Come up here.”
Brian raises an eyebrow, but does, kneeling over Justin, letting him set the pace at first, then groaning and taking over in the way that Justin loves. Brian had been right when he’d said Justin loved cock inside him. Anywhere, any way. It makes Justin insane when Brian does this, fucking his mouth when he doesn’t have any control. Everything narrows down to the taste, the weight of Brian’s cock in his mouth, the struggle to relax and accomodate him.
After an especially hard thrust, Brian pulls out and slides back down to lick at Justin again. Justin can’t do anything except moan; sensation lighting him up everywhere until it feels like every pore, every inch of skin is on fire.
When he’s straining at the restraints and whining low and steady, Brian pushes a dildo into him, eyes hot on the place it’s entering Justin’s body. It makes Justin crazy and Brian knows it, thinking of being spread out like this, Brian watching the dildo enter his body. It feels like hours later when he pushes a bigger one in, all the way in, then out, over and over, muttering in Justin’s ear, “Take it, take it for me. So fucking hot, Justin.”
Justin’s thrashing on the bed, dripping wet. All he can do is moan and pant and beg: “Brian. Brian, please, please.”
The wild joy Justin’s felt all night is in Brian’s eyes when he finally fucks him, curling over Justin and kissing him roughly, then gently, pounding into him while he whispers dirty into his ear. Justin doesn’t know how he got so lucky, finding someone who can turn him on and fill him up like he needs, but he did, and Brian is fucking his.
“Mine,” Justin says, in a weird inverse of what their positions might imply, right before Brian unsnaps the cock ring and Justin comes, before everything goes white-hot and he loses awareness of everything but the pleasure rocking him.
“Yours,” Brian whispers back right before he comes, Justin clenched down around him, legs pulling him in harder, harder, because Brian gets stuff like that, what Justin was trying to say.
It’s a while before Brian can move enough to undo the restraints, then rub at Justin’s wrists. “You okay?” he whispers, running a hand down to Justin’s hole, feeling gently around the swollen edges. “That was pretty intense.”
“Mmmm,” Justin manages, cock actually jerking a little when Brian’s fingers touch him. He chokes out a half-laugh and hugs Brian close. “Intense like you. And just what I asked for.” He adds, “You okay? I don’t want to be too demanding.”
Brian gives him an incredulous look and Justin smirks. Okay, yeah, he does know how much Brian loves to have him helpless once in a while, giving up everything to him.
“I don’t know if I have the strength to take a shower,” Justin says, snuggling into Brian’s arms.
“Mmm,” Brian agrees. “How about a nap and then...”
“More fucking,” Justin agrees, shutting his eyes and letting himself drift down to sleep.
When Justin wakes up it’s early evening. Brian’s still asleep. The shadows paint his face, highlighting his killer cheekbones. Even the wrinkles and the few grey hairs just make him look hotter, but it’s his eyes, now opening suddenly on Justin, that always make Justin’s heart beat a little faster.
“You caught me staring,” Justin says.
“You can always look at me like that,” Brian says, unguarded.
Justin smiles. “I do.”
Brian smiles back. “Hey! Didn’t we already say, ‘I do’ once already today?”
“We did. Come on,” Justin says, hauling Brian up to the shower. Brian finishes early and Justin luxuriates in the spray from the multiple nozzles for a while. When he walks into the living room he stops and just stares: Brian’s spread a tablecloth on the floor and has a bunch of food on it.
Brian holds up a hand. “Not a fucking word.”
Justin laughs and just crawls over to him, then feeds Brian grapes one at a time.
“What’s next on our agenda?” Brian asks, running his hands over Justin’s shoulders.
“Well, let’s see,” Justin says. “We’ve done against the door, we’ve done kinky. What’s left?”
“Only about fifty variations.” Brian clears his throat and looks hard at his sandwich. “Plus, there’s doing me,” he adds quietly.
Justin takes a deep breath, lust hitting him in a wave. It’s not like they don’t do it that way; they do. But it’s rare, something neither of them usually wants as much as their regular way. But when they do...
“Now,” Justin says, in his own version of a growl, throwing his fork down.
Brian cocks an eyebrow at him, but a quick glance tells Justin Brian’s already half-hard in his sleep pants.
Justin tows him to the bed and flips him on his stomach, stripping off his pants as he does; Brian goes easy, something that took a lot of years to happen. Justin starts at his shoulders and kisses down the long muscles of his back, then down his thighs until Brian’s panting, spreading his legs and making impatient sounds. Justin returns the favor from earlier, licking Brian until he’s pushing up into it, then fingering him carefully, building up from one to three fingers slow and easy, since it’s an understatement to say this isn’t something Brian does very often.
He’s slow when he pushes in, even though by then Brian’s making little sounds that mean he’s more than ready. It’s always doubly exciting, doing this: it feels illicit, like crossing a boundary. Plus, Brian’s fucking hot and tight and now he’s rising up into every thrust.
“Come on,” Brian murmurs. “You pussy, do it harder.”
Justin laughs and obliges, and they hit a rhythm, hard and fast and just right. When Justin’s panting and focusing hard on not coming right this second, Brian grabs Justin’s hand and pulls it to his mouth, kisses his fingers, sucks them in his mouth. Justin gasps, because it’s so fucking hot, but then...
But then it’s like someone reached in and squeezed his fucking heart, because Brian’s laying kisses, soft and sweet, all around the ring on Justin’s hand. The wedding ring.
“Oh, fuck,” Justin says, bending down and kissing Brian’s neck, nosing into the skin behind his ear. “Baby.” Something he never, ever, calls Brian, and he’s scared for a moment that it’s too much, too far...
Brian arches underneath him, then comes spectacularly into the sheets underneath him. Just the idea, the idea of that... Justin bites Brian’s shoulder and comes and comes and fucking comes.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Brian mutters after a while.
Justin can only grunt and clumsily lever himself off Brian, easing the condom off and tying it, then collapsing on the bed. “Holy shit.” He laughs breathily. “Didn’t think of rings being a kink...”
“Neither did I. But now I know better.” Brian just breathes for a while, then asks, “So what’s next, Mr. Wedding Planner? I’m about tapped out.”
Justin takes a deep breath, because he knows this is going to be a hard sell. “What’s next is, you’re going to get showered, get dressed to kill, go out to a club, and find some stranger to fuck.”
Brian takes his arm off his face and stares at Justin. “Fuck me. What?”
“You heard me.”
“What if I don’t want to?” Brian has a weird look on his face that Justin can’t quite figure out.
Justin plays with the sweaty hair falling down onto Brian’s face. He smiles at him. “You need to do it so your lizard brain doesn’t start telling you that you’re trapped now. You need to do it so you understand what this actually is. And isn’t.”
“Thank you, Doctor Taylor,” Brian grouses. He brings his hand to Justin’s face in a mirror of Justin’s, brushes at Justin’s bangs. “When did you get so smart, huh?”
Justin just raises an eyebrow.
“Is that... Is that what you want to do next?” Brian’s voice sounds weird and Justin examines him carefully.
“I don’t know.” And Justin doesn’t know, not exactly. “But I do think you should.”
Brian presses his lips together. “I’ve thought about it, and I don’t want to. You can, though.”
Justin shrugs.
Brian squeezes his hand. “I don’t want to, but I suppose I will soon enough, because you know me better than anyone, and I believe you. But not until we’ve had a suitable honeymoon. And a party. I want to have a party, in Pittsburgh, maybe at the diner or something, with all our friends there.”
Justin grins. “Fuck me.”
“I mean it.”
“Okay, tell you what,” Justin says. “I’ll agree to your hopelessly schmoopy wedding reception,--”
Brian aims a punch at Justin but he dodges it, laughing,.
“If you’ll agree to a second party, at Babylon. And if you haven’t by then, you’re going to find someone to fuck in the back room.”
“Mmmm, maybe I’ll find some married man to fuck back there.” Brian leers at him.
“Hot,” Justin says.
Brian gets a dreamy look on his face. “Really hot. You shoved up against the wall, everyone secretly watching, your wedding ring glinting in the light while I shove it in...” He runs a considering hand up Justin’s thigh.
“Oh my god,” Justin mock-groans. “This marriage stuff is going to kill me. You’re trying to actually kill me with sex. I’m exhausted.”
“The day I can wear out my boy toy is a good day indeed,” Brian says, yawning. He grabs Justin’s hand, the one with the ring, and clasps it between his hands. “Obviously I’m cancelling work this week, and I’m sure you’ve cleared your schedule already just in case, because you are a scheming twat. So, I say, honeymoon in Bermuda starting tomorrow, a party, or actually two parties,” he leers at Justin, “in Pittsburgh later this summer, when it works for our schedules.”
“And your appointment to go out looking?” Justin asks.
“Can I at least wait until the honeymoon that we’re starting tomorrow?” Brian laughs. “Maybe we’ll find a cabana boy or something.” He rolls over on top of Justin and gets serious. “Listen. All I want is you right now. You’re what I want. I get it, that I can do what I want still, within whatever our current arrangement is. You get that, too?”
Justin nods.
“Okay, so can we go to sleep now?” Brian asks, gathering Justin into his arms. “This old man needs his beauty sleep. Plus, if we’re going to Bermuda tomorrow we need to get up early.”
Justin presses soft kisses to Brian’s mouth, runs his hands down his arms, his back. “Or we could honeymoon here,” he says softly.
“Here?”
“Home,” Justin murmurs. “Our home.”
Brian freezes in his arms and Justin worries for a moment: has he crossed some line? Brian clears his throat. “You’re really not upset we sold Britin?”
Justin shakes his head. “I forced you to sell! That was a boy’s idea of a perfect life. I have a perfect life now. Here. With you. With me leaving a lot, and you leaving a lot of other times, but. Always coming back. Home.”
Brian’s eyes fill, and he doesn’t turn away, doesn’t try to hide it. The best gift. “Here is good,” he says low. “Home.”
~ ~ ~
“Look at this,” Brian laughs the next morning, after they’ve come together with Brian’s hand wrapped around both their cocks, kissing like they’re trying to bury themselves in each other. He’s got his laptop and is pointing to the local news.
Justin’s blissed out and lazy, but manages to answer. “What?”
“It’s just, we’re on the front page of the New York Times,” Brian says. “And their website. And most every other website in the world.”
“You’re fucking with me,” Justin mumbles into his pillow.
“Ha! ‘Largest state allowing gay marriage experiences first day of weddings. Up-and-coming artist Justin Taylor and--’”
“The fuck! Give me that!” Justin says, grabbing the laptop. His mouth falls open when he sees the photo and the headline.
Brian lies back laughing.
“Brian! Are you insane? Aren’t you upset? Everyone’s going to know you’re married! What about your tricking?” Justin says incredulously.
“Justin, Justin, my young friend, let me tell you a secret. Anything that makes someone off limits just makes them hotter.”
“But it’s, you know, marriage. It’s like the very opposite of your image!”
“I think it’s hilarious,” Brian says. His grin is huge. “All the homophobic assholes who hate this can suck my dick. In person. Because I’m the face of everything they hate.”
Justin shakes his head. “You are something else, Brian Kinney.”
“I know, right? I’m pretty awesome, actually, as I’ve been trying to explain to you for about twelve years.”
That’s when their cell phones start ringing. And ringing. And ringing.
“Busted,” Justin whispers.
“Fuck ‘em,” Brian says, pulling Justin down for a kiss. “Fuck ‘em all. We do what we want.”
Justin smiles and pulls him in tight. “We do. And we’ll keep doing it.”
“Until death do us part,” Brian whispers into Justin’s hair. Justin knows better than to say it back, but he pulls Brian in tight, wrapping him in his arms and his legs, lays kisses on his hair. It hadn’t escaped his notice that that phrase wasn’t in their vows, and he’d been glad. He really doesn’t want promises.
“It’s not a promise,” Brian says, as if he can read Justin’s mind. “As a very smart individual said, it’s just a statement of what is.”
“I know,” Justin says. “It’s just what we are.” He glances over at their phones, both lit up with message after message. “Of course, what we also are right now is royally busted. Our friends are probably fighting over who gets to kill us first. I don’t know who I’m more scared of, my mother, Debbie, Daphne, Michael, Lindsay...”
“Oh my god. Debbie,” Brian says. “Maybe we’ll just never go back there.”
“We could just stay on our honeymoon forever,” Justin offers.
“That is a plan I can definitely get behind.” Brian shoves his hips meaningfully into Justin.
Justin groans. “Why did I marry someone who makes horrible puns again?”
“Do you want me to remind you?” Brian asks, teasing.
“I do,” Justin says, then hearing the words, more seriously, “I do. To everything.”
“I know,” Brian whispers into Justin’s hair. “Me, too.”
It’s a long time before they call anyone back.
THE END