Thanksgiving, Part 10 (You & Me Series)

[soulmatejunkee]

Title: Thanksgiving, Part 10/10 (You & Me-Series)
Author: soulmatejunkee 
Fandom: Queer as Folk US
Pairing: Brian/Justin
Timeline: Post 5.13; POV's  
Word Count: 5.006
Disclaimer: I don’t own anything. It’s all CowLip and Showtime.
Beta: qafkinnetic

I know it had been a little longer this time, sorry for that. But somehow I couldn't write anything I liked. It was like my muse totally disappeared. Anyway, now it's done, also this part of the series is done with that chapter. I hope you enjoy it. As always: Every comment is welcome. I Love to read what you think. Thanks!

1. Listen to me
2. Trust me
3. Babylon Part 1 | Part 2
4. Find a way Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
5. ...remember what's missing?
6. The Party
7. Thanksgiving 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9





Justin's POV

It didn’t take long before Lindsay started to talk about New York. I knew I was living her dream, unfortunately, it had been becoming a nightmare lately.

"It’s not the fairy tale you might have had in mind," I told her. "New York is cruel, the people are...unfriendly. At least the ones I asked for help. They’re not interested in a new artist, especially not in an artist who hasn’t sold anything so far. It’s like you have to be successful when you want to be successful."

"I’m sorry," she said and god, I hated that look on her face. I knew she didn’t mean to hurt me, she wanted to comfort me, but that look was just...almost as hurtful as Nadya's laughing. Humiliating. Made me feel like a failure.

"You don’t know anyone I could contact for help in the big city, do you?" I asked her.

"No. But I could ask Sidney. He knows other gallery owners, maybe he knows someone in New York, too. It’s worth a try."

"Okay."

"I’ll call him tomorrow."

"Thanks."

It was incredible. Gus didn’t leave his father's side for the entire time we were at Debbie’s. Before we left the kids were already asleep and while the girls gave me some of Gus' stuff for the weekend, Brian took the sleeping boy to the car and put him on his lap at the front passenger seat, which meant someone else had to drive the car, which meant I had to drive the car. I decided not to ask and not to argue. Like I said, it was incredible.

"We need a cab tomorrow", I said. "We can't drive with the kid on your lap."

Back at the loft we put Gus on the sofa and gave him a pillow and a blanket, he didn’t wake up.

It was just 11 PM, actually it was pretty early for us to sleep, but what else were we suppose to do? We couldn’t leave the kid, so we couldn’t go out and we also couldn’t watch TV since he was sleeping on the sofa. We also couldn’t fuck since there weren’t any walls in the loft and I guess we agreed that two fucking guys wasn’t something the boy needed to see at his age.

So we just laid there.

"I’m proud of you," I said. I knew he didn’t want to hear that, he couldn’t handle it, but I didn’t care. I was proud of him. He was so scared to see the kid again and in the end he saved the day. Kinda like a father was suppose to.

"I’m pissed at Michael," he answered.

"Yeah, well, as far I could tell, almost everybody was. As soon as he comes back from dreamy-baby-land he will realize that, too. Otherwise, I’m sure Ben’s going to tell him. And Debbie. And Mel. And Linds."

He looked me straight in the eyes, it was kinda scary. Normally I could easily figure out what he was thinking, but this time I couldn’t. He just looked sad.

"It’s our last weekend," he whispered.

Oh, that...I took his hand in mine and shrugged. "It’s been just a few weeks and I’ll be back." Hopefully with a new project and hopefully with some more success and hopefully with a new job. "You won’t have time to miss me, you’ll see."

It was bullshit, just some empty words to comfort him. It wouldn’t work, I knew it, it never worked with Brian. He would have a lot of time to miss me and Gus and life as it used to be. I guess the last year wasn’t one he would call a good one.

"Don’t think about it," I said and moved closer to him. "Let’s think about something good."

"Christmas?" he assumed.

"I was thinking about next summer. I thought maybe we could invite Gus to stay here for two or three weeks, what do you think? And we could stay at the house. Okay, I know it’s a ruin..."

He frowned. "A ruin? What did you do, burn it down?"

I laughed. I never went to the house, the last time I was there was when I sized one of the rooms I decided to make my studio, one week after the proposal, two weeks before we called off the wedding, three months before I found out that it was my house. I knew how the house looked, of course it wasn’t a ruin, but it also not a place where you could just move in, there was a lot of work to do. But since it was my house I didn’t want to ask him for help.

"I was thinking we could live there for that time, maybe we could do some kind of adventure holiday there, you know? We pitch two tents at the living room or in the garden, when it’s really warm outside and then we sleep there. I’m sure Gus would have a lot of fun."

Gus would have a lot of fun, Brian wouldn’t. "By sleeping on the floor?"

"Yeah. We have a fireplace, so we could do some campfire stuff there, like toasting marshmallows, this would be fun, I loved it when I was a kid."

"Did you ever go camping when you were a kid?" he asked.

"No... but I always wanted to. And starting inside is a good idea. I always wanted to toast marshmallows and..."

"Sing campfire-songs?" he asked. He looked a little shocked.

"I’m not a bad singer."

"Not the point. Where’s the sex, the fun, the drugs?"

"I’m sure I can afford to clean up the pool so we could have fun there, too. He’s going to love it. Trust me." I kissed him. "And as for the sex... there are a lot of rooms we never used."

He tried to smile, he tried to get used to the thought of spending a few weeks in summer with his son at the house. "You really think he would like it?"

"Yes." And I also thought that after those weeks the kid would be happy and relaxed while the two of us would be totally worn out.


Brian's POV

I felt something on my shoulder, it wasn’t a kiss or any other tender touch, so it couldn’t be Justin. I blinked and saw Gus standing in front of the bed, looking at me kinda scary. Maybe he had a nightmare.

"Sonnyboy."

"I have to pee."

He was five years old, wasn’t he suppose to pee by himself? I looked over my shoulder, Justin was still asleep. Then I looked back to Gus and nodded. "You know how to pee, right?"

"I don’t know where."

I was still half asleep. I guess that’s my only apology for thinking that the girls really did something wrong with their child-rearing if the poor kid had no idea what a toilet was and I had no idea how to explain this to him. "Well..."

"It’s urgent, Daddy," he whined.

"The toilet is right there."

I turned around to see Justin awake and smiling at Gus while showing him the way to the toilet and then I saw the kid turning around and running into the bathroom. I fell on my back and closed my eyes. "Oh god, thank god."

Justin just looked at me and laughed. "Really?"

"I need some coffee."

It was weird. It was a really long time ago since the boy had stayed overnight with me. Actually it was only once and that wasn’t my best memory. It was easy to spend time with Gus when the girls were around or when we were at his home, but it was different without the munchers.

While I was making coffee, Justin was helping Gus at the bathroom. When they came out, the kid was smiling brightly, while Justin didn’t look very pleased. They sat down at the table and looked at me.

"What?" I asked.

"So," Justin said and pointed to Gus. "He’s getting a Wii and I didn’t?"

"Don’t be so ungrateful," I answered. "You already got a fuc....," I stopped myself. "You already got a palace and a ring..."

"Daddy almost said the F-Word," Gus whispered chuckling and turned to Justin. "You have a palace?"

"Yes, I do. It’s a really big palace with a pool and...a fireplace."

"Cool," the kid smiled brightly. "Can I see it?"

"How do you think about spending the next summer there? You, me and your daddy."

"Cool."

Justin was right, Gus loved it.

It turned out that he also loved the Choco-Pops as much as Justin did, of course. So I let them eat their unhealthy sugarbomb and just drank some coffee and guava-juice, which neither of them even wanted to try.

After we were done with breakfast, Gus became really quiet. He looked around the loft as if he was looking for something.

"You’re okay, sonnyboy?" I asked.

"Where’s Mommy?"

"She’s in the hotel," I answered.

Justin grabbed the phone. "You wanna call her?"

The kid started to smile brightly and nodded, while crawling up on Justin's lap. "But don’t tell her about the Choco-Pops," he said. "Mommy doesn’t like them."

"Wanna know a secret?" Justin answered while calling the number Lindsay had given us. "My mom never liked them either."

A few seconds later Justin looked at me with his WTF-face, when Gus babbled into the phone "Hi mommy, guess what, Justin ate the Choco-Pops, but I didn’t." I somehow felt a little proud. And I had to laugh.

Justin sat the kid on the chair and followed me to the kitchen. "That little shit."

I was still laughing, until I looked at the boy with the phone in his hand. "He’s homesick, isn’t he?"

"I guess so."


Justin's POV

I looked at him, he looked at Gus and it was all over his face again. I took his hand in mine and smiled at him. "He’s five, he’s around his mommies every day."

He nodded. "And I’m practically a stranger."

"You’re not a stranger."

"Of course I am." He pulled his hand back and put the plates and dishes into the sink.

"Brian."

"I’m sure J.R. isn’t homesick when she’s with her father."

I closed my eyes briefly and took a deep breath. "Don’t do that."

"Do what?"

"This!" I pushed him away from the sink, so that he had to look at me. "It’s bullshit! He’s five years old, it doesn’t matter if he lives twenty minutes from here or in another country, this place isn’t his home, so he’s going to be homesick. That‘s totally normal, it has nothing to do with you. And as long as a phone call can fix it...it’s absolutely harmless. All we have to do is take care that he’s busy. There’s probably going to be a harder homesick-moment tonight, so be aware of that. The later it is, the harder it gets."

"Why?" he asked, obviously confused.

"I don’t know, but I remember that I enjoyed the days with my grandmother, I wanted them to never end, but as soon as I had to go to bed I wanted my mommy."

He just nodded and looked down. I felt sorry for him. I doubted that he ever thought his life would be like this. His son and his partner out of town and his best friend happily married and totally in love with his babygirl.

I took his hand again and leaned against him. "Come on. Let’s enjoy the day, okay?"

Right in that moment someone knocked at the door. It was Michael who looked really guilty all over his face, he always got this puppy-look. It was obvious that the girls had talked to him.

"I’m so sorry," he said while looking at us. "Really, I am. I wasn’t thinking, I didn’t see that coming. I never wanted to hurt Gus, you know that, right?"

Of course we did...

"Is he okay?" He seemed really concerned.

"He’s fine," I answered acquitingly.

"Thank god."

"Fuck you," Brian interrupted.

I looked at Gus, he was still talking at the phone.

"Look, I’m really sorry. My mom already slapped me. Not to mention Melanie and Lindsay and Ben. I was just so excited to see my baby again that I didn’t think... I should have, there’s no excuse." He looked over to Gus. "Can I talk to him."

"Sure," I said.

Brian looked at me and I shrugged. Okay, he was pissed and he had every right to be and I had absolutely no problem if he would talk to Michael, too, but not in front of the kid. And right now it was just about the kid.

When Gus said goodbye to his mother, Michael walked over to him and knelt in front of him. "Hey Gus. Listen, I want to apologize to you for what happened yesterday. It was very unfair to you and I’m sorry for that."

I wasn’t sure if Gus knew what Michael was talking about, he just looked at him and listened to him and didn’t say anything and somehow I thought that if he knew what this was all about, he would’ve said something. But maybe he didn’t even remember it, since he knew he would get tons of gifts, too.

"And I promise you, it won’t happen again," Michael nodded. "Are we still friends?"

"Okay."

He definitely had no idea what this was all about. But it was somehow cute to watch them doing a weird friendship-handshake.


Brian's POV

People told me more than once that I’m complicated. Michael told me, Debbie told me, Justin told me... hell, even Cynthia told me. And I guess that this day was one of those you-are-complicated-days, because...it was a great day and everybody was happy.

Gus smiled the entire time, he was jumping around, running through the store, playing with other kids or just hanging out with us. Justin was happy, he was smiling all the time, he was great with the kid. And while I watched them I wondered why I couldn’t be just as happy as they were.

It turned out that my son wasn’t very spoiled. All he really cared about was that Wii thing and some games for it. And he fell in love with a plush toy. He slept all the way from the store back to the loft, but as soon as we passed the door, he was awake and wanted to play with his new Wii. I still had no idea what that thing was, so I offered to order pizza while Justin tried to connect the Wii with my TV and a few minutes later they jumped in front of the TV while trying to dance some moves.

I just sat at the sofa and watched them while waiting for the pizza. Yes, they were happy, they enjoyed the game and I enjoyed watching them, but all I could think was that this day would be over very soon and that Gus would leave tomorrow and that Justin would leave in four days and that I wouldn’t see them again until Christmas, which seemed very far away.

I kept an eye on Gus all the time, waiting for another homesick-moment, aware that he probably wouldn’t want to spend another night at the loft, without his mommy, but nothing happened. He was goofing around the entire time and I think if it would have been possible he would’ve asked the munchers if he could take Justin with him to Canada. They totally fit.

"Come on daddy, play with us!" Gus called to me when they started a soccer game. It was weird, since you had to play with your arms and hands, but I had to admit, it was funny. And the best part, I won, twice. Even though my son told me that I committed a lot of fouls. Who cared? I won!

When the pizza arrived, Justin kept Gus talking about his soccer team at home.

"Next summer I will go to the soccer camp," the boy told us.

So much for the house-camping-holidays. Neither Justin nor I said anything, but Gus remembered anyway and looked frightened.

"It’s okay," Justin said. "We can do it after the camp."

"Really?" Gus asked hopefully.

Yeah, really?

"Sure. I’ll talk to your mommy about it."

"Don’t tell her about the pizza," the boy said. "She doesn’t like pizza."

„I won’t.“

Gus nodded and then looked at me with big bright eyes. "Can we toast marshmallows next summer? We did that last summer at the barbecue, it was cool!"

Just gave me a see-I-knew-it-look and I just nodded. "Sure."

"Cool."

There was no other homesick-moment. We played with the Wii and when I told the kid that it was time for bed he just looked at me with big blue sad eyes... and I expected him to ask for his mommy again, but all he said was "But you have to read to me."


Justin's POV

I was at the kitchen, cleaning up and watching them on the sofa. It was weird. It had been a great day, we had a lot of fun, even though I knew that Brian was thinking about the goodbyes already, instead of just enjoying the day.

When I was done cleaning up the kitchen and walked over to them it was the most beautiful picture I’ve ever seen. They were both asleep. Brian was leaning back, half sitting, half laying and Gus was lying between his legs, his head on his fathers stomach and the new plush toy in his arm.

I took my sketchbook and started to draw it, I had to...After I was done with the contours my cell-phone rang and I went to the bathroom and closed the door to talk. It was Daphne.

She told me about her new boyfriend. I have absolutely no idea how many boyfriends she'd already had, she really enjoyed changing them. And as long as she was happy, it was fine by me.

I told her about Gus and the day we spent with him and that he was now sleeping in his fathers arms.

"So, how is it going with Brian?" she asked. "Did you tell him about the project?"

"No. I offered, but he didn’t want to know. It’s weird, you know. He’s different. He’s not himself lately," I told her.

"What do you mean?"

"It seems like he’s always hiding, he doesn’t say what he thinks, he doesn’t do what he wants, as if he’s afraid that if he does something really bad happens."

So there I was, listening to my best friend – a medical student in the last semester with tons of psychology knowledge.

"Guess you’re right, he is afraid," she said. "I mean, he can’t risk anything anymore, there’s nothing left. Lindsay and Gus are gone, you are gone, Michael is also gone – somehow. Guess he’s afraid that when he does something wrong... that you might stop calling."

"And I did...," I mumbled and sighed.

"What?"

"Fuck." I looked at the drawing on my sketchbook I made just a few minutes ago. "Why didn’t you tell me that a few months ago?"

"Because you never called!" she answered bitchy.

"Fuck."

"You really stopped calling him?" she asked.

"No, of course I still call him. But after I moved to New York I called him every night, but when I started to work on the website I got really busy, it was stressful and I... didn’t call every night anymore."

"Ouch."

I closed my eyes briefly. Fuck, why did this man have to be so fucking complicated? Why couldn’t he just call me on my shit, why couldn’t he just call me and tell me, that he was waiting for me to call? What did he expect me to answer?

"Guess I should stop telling him that he should trust me and start telling him that he should trust himself."

"Guess it’s too late for that. He’s fucked up."

I went to bed and finished the drawing. I was done right before my hand started to hurt and right before Brian came to bed.

"What were you drawing?" he asked while he took off his clothes.

I shrugged. "Something for Rage."

I waited until he was done in the bathroom and laid down beside me, before I turned off the light. "It was a great day," I whispered.

"And now I know what a Wii is."

"So, you’re going to buy me my own one for Christmas?" I tried again.

He frowned. "Have I told you about the jacuzzi I wanted?"

"You don’t love me," I complained.

He laughed. "You’re so right."

I moved closer to him and I really hated that I couldn’t do what I wanted to do, because the little boy was sleeping on the sofa. So I just kissed him, very long and very passionate and very hot and... way too intense to ignore the results. Fuck!

"If I would’ve seen that coming I would have bought a loft with some more walls," he moaned into my mouth.

"Yeah that would’ve been better," Let's just ignore the fact that with walls in it, it wouldn’t be a loft and concentrate on the fact that we were both hard.

"We could take a shower," he whispered.

"What if he wakes up?" I asked.

"Lindsay always says he sleeps like a stone."

It wasn’t easy to reject him, really... not easy, but I knew I couldn’t relax with the kid on the sofa. "What about tomorrow? Right after breakfast we bring him back to the girls and then..."

"...we check in too and fuck at the hotel, great idea. That’s what we do."

Huh?

But that was really what we did. After a little discussion about the toys he had bought for Gus, Lindsay told us that we would met at Debbie’s for lunch and that they would drive back home after lunch and so I had to admit that Brian's idea wasn’t that bad, because we only had three hours before we had to be at Debbie’s.

I would so miss those daily fucks when I was back in New York, I knew I would. There’s a huge difference between feeling, smelling and tasting him and just listening to him.

Three hours, six fucks – unbelievable. One right at the door, because even the three meters to the bed were too far when we arrived, twice at the bed, one right beside the bed, but I have absolutely no idea how we ended up there and twice at the shower.

Sometimes I wondered how he was doing that. Not only that he was able to fuck six times in three hours, he was also able to make me come every time he fucks me. Even in my earliest teenage-days I didn’t jerk off that often – and hell, after I found out how it worked I jerked off very often.

We arrived at lunch right in time and as much as I love them, all of them, I was happy when it was over. It was too loud and too much to eat. Right after lunch the girls left. We were all outside the house to say goodbye.

Lindsay held me back when the others went straight to the car. "I asked Sidney and he gave me this address," she said and gave me a note. "He said it’s a small gallery, but it seems to be an in-place for young artists, with shows that support them. So maybe when you tell the owner, it’s a young woman, who you are and show her some of your work, she..."

"...fired me," I interrupted her while looking at the note.

"What?"

"She fired me. I know her, she’s horrible. I worked at her gallery, I asked her for help... she...," it still hurt, it was embarrassing and humiliating. "She laughed at me."

"Oh," Lindsay said and frowned. "I’m sorry, I didn’t know."

"It’s okay, I’ll find a way," I nodded. Of all the galleries on this planet Sidney Bloom had to recommend Nadya's? "New York is big."

"I’ll ask him again, or even better, you ask him. He knows you, he knows your work and maybe... why not?" She shrugged. "Just try. You have nothing to lose, right?"

That was right. And it wasn’t a bad idea, especially since one of my pieces was still hanging at his gallery. "You’re right."

She gave me one of her warm smiles, the mommy-ones, the ones that made me feel like a little boy. I liked that, at least as long as we were alone.

"Linds, there’s something else I want to ask you for. It’s not really for me, it’s more for Brian."

"What is it?"

I looked behind her and saw the others in front of the car. "It’s about Gus."

"Oh, is it about the summer?" she asked and smiled. "He’s totally euphoric about it."

"No, it’s not about the summer." I nodded in Brian's direction. "Do you think it’s possible that he calls him from time to time?"

She looked very confused. "He can call him anytime."

"No, I meant Gus. Do you think he could call his father from time to time, lets say... twice a week? Maybe before he went to bed so that Brian can read to him? Or maybe ... just to say goodnight or something."

Now she turned around to look at them. Gus was still on Brian’s arm, while Debbie was chuckling with him. Then she looked back to me and it was one of those no-words-are-necessary-moments you sometimes have with someone. She hugged me and kissed my cheek. "Of course."

"Thank you."

She smiled at me. "Guess we don’t make it easy for him, do we?"

"No."

She touched my cheek and nodded before we went to the car, too.


Brian's POV

Time moved on. We went to Babylon on Saturday night and also on Sunday night and then Monday was there. I had to go to the office and Justin said he had some stuff to do. Guess he was seeing his mom, his sister, Debbie, Michael... it was time to say goodbye again.

His flight was booked for Monday night.

"I wanna ask you something, but you have to promise me, to be honest," he said while we laid in bed together.

Somehow announcements like this made me fucking nervous. What good thing could come out of that? "Okay."

"I really enjoyed this last four weeks here, so I was wondering if I could come back?"

Little shit. I frowned to make sure that this was really just a joke and not just the foreplay. "You know, for someone who owns a palace you’re very modest."

"I always preferred to be where you are."

I tried to smile. But I couldn’t ignore the fact that the night I tried to avoid for the last four weeks was there. "Did you talk to ... Darwin?"

He laughed out loud. "Sidney. His name is Sidney."

"I knew it was a place in Australia," I justified. "So? Did you talk to him?"

"Yeah, I did. Unfortunately my painting is still unsold. Maybe it would help if I could at least possess one success," he sighed. "Anyway... he gave me some names in New York. I’ll try them. What’s the worst that could happen?"

"Why don’t you just lie about the selling? Everybody does. What’s the worst that could happen?"

"They could find out," he said.

"And then what? Putting your paintings down again, after the press praised them, because that’s what they would do, they always did."

"Once, just once."

I shrugged. "Whatever. They wouldn’t do anything if they found out, because it would be an admission that they didn’t do research. It would be publicity for you and every kind of publicity is a good one. Stop being so fucking honest and perfect, you want success, so go out and play their game. Honesty is by far the hardest way to be successful, trust me. And that was a free advice from a professional seller."

He looked totally insecure. That was new, normally he knew exactly how good he was. Maybe all the rejections made him start doubting his talent. He wouldn’t be the first artist who gave up on his talent, because no one else could see it.

"You say I should risk some more?" he asked and I nodded. "What if...what if one of them is doing research before he booked me for a show and then tells the others?"

"It’s not a crime to lie about something like that. As long as you don’t misuse the work of someone else, it‘s all fine. It’s just business."

I didn’t want to fall asleep, but of course I did. I woke up when my cellphone rang and when I turned around to watch the clock it was just 6:30 AM. I grabbed the phone and opened it. "What?"

"Do you already miss me?"

I looked at the empty bed and saw a rolled up paper. "How was your flight?"

"Nothing special," he answered.

"What’s in that paper roll?"

"Open it."

I did and found a drawing of me and Gus, sleeping on the couch the other day. It was... perfect. I mean, we were asleep, but there was still so much emotion coming from the drawing. I swallowed and cleared my throat. I didn’t like the feelings it sparked off in me. It was just a reminder of something that was gone now, just like the empty bed. "It’s beautiful. Thanks."

"I love you," he said. "Go back to sleep until the alarm goes off. I’ll call you tonight."

I had a lot of work to do and so I kept working at home. Work wasn’t a bad distraction. When my phone rang it was just 8 PM, it was pretty early, but I thought maybe he had some plans for tonight, finally back in the big city.

"You’re early," I answered the call, without looking on the display.

"Hi Daddy!"


The End (of this Series-Chapter)

Comments

[har2.livejournal.com]

I loved this chapter. Justin is so great! He is so supportive of Brian and Gus's relationship. I love the way he worries about Brian so much and makes sure that Brian is secure in their relationship. I sure hope that things start improving for him in NY. He deserves some success. I like Brian's advice to him, but somehow I doubt Justin will want to lie.

[soulmatejunkee.livejournal.com]

Guess you're right ;)

Thanks for reading and for your comment :)