Justin sees him for the first time in seven years on December 21, 2014.

To be more accurate, it has been seven years and one month to the day. He can’t remember the hours and minutes offhand. He isn’t a lovesick teenager anymore. But if he is being completely honest with himself, he could probably figure it out if he thought really hard about it. Then again, if he was going to go ahead and be completely honest with himself anyway, he also knows he didn’t want to think that hard about November 21, 2007 and the dates in between when it came to Brian Kinney.

He had thought, hoped, he would see him again one day. After the angry words filled with hidden accusations and pain thrown between them during a snowfall that had come too early became less painful to think about, he wanted to call. However, while the gang always thought Brian was the stubborn one in their dynamic, little did they know that Justin could easily match him on that front. It wasn’t until May of the next year that he even thought that maybe he should be the first one to make contact with Brian again, or any of his extended family back in Pittsburgh for that matter.

The only people from back home he had kept in contact with within those six months were Daphne, Molly, and his mother. And of course they didn’t tell him anything about Brian because he avoided asking about him. Not that they knew that much, since they only saw Brian occasionally. He decided to reach out to Emmett first. Emmett, of course, started berating him for not calling or answering his calls and then cried with happiness due to finally hearing from him again. Then he started acting nervous and overly talkative, even for Emmett. When Justin mentioned he was going to take the first step and call Brian and apologize for what happened, he knew it was too late.

“Sweetie, don’t get me wrong, I think it is a good thing that you are willing to patch things up now that you have gotten your head out of your ass. But Justin…he’s been seeing someone.”

“So, he's seeing the same trick more than once then? It isn’t like I am with him anymore. I’m not going to have a problem with that, especially with what happened.”

“It's more than that. He told us he has been with him for three months. He brought him to dinner. Which is honestly a complete surprise for multiple reasons because we hadn’t seen much of him since you were last here and voila! He comes in last week with his new beau and tells us all about how they met. And Teddy was the only one out of all of us who knew about it, which hurts because he knows I wouldn’t tell anyone ever-”

And, on that fateful day in May of 2008, he learned about Eric Davisson. The new eligible gay bachelor of Pittsburgh who, at 32 years old and approximately 5’11”, was lean yet muscular and had olive skin, black curly hair, beautiful green eyes, and a kind and gorgeous smile. He was a genius and innovative architect who was designing the building for a gay and lesbian youth center that Brian was funding and was surprisingly very passionate about. According to Emmett, they met and hit it off. And then they kept hitting it off on a regular basis.

It hadn’t been his intention to even start things back up with Brian. At least not immediately. But he couldn’t help but feel betrayed and heartbroken by Brian moving on, and so soon after they had broken up. He knew he should have done more. He knew he should have taken Brian seriously when he brought up expanding Kinnetik to New York and the two of them getting a bigger apartment together. In all honesty, New York had become a new and exciting place for him to explore, become independent in, and a place to meet new people. He hadn't been pining for Brian like he was when he first moved up and was homesick. He should have taken Brian seriously when he told Justin he didn’t want to trick anymore because it didn’t make him feel happy, it just reminded him how lonely he was.

And what did Justin do? He pulled a fucking Michael and dismissed it by telling Brian he was just going through something and he would get back to normal. And he kept doing that because it was easier to leave Brian in Pittsburgh with their “no lock on our doors” rule and convince himself that Brian was okay with that since he is the one that enforced the rule in the first place. That made the fact that the man he loved had stayed a changed man and was unhappy easier to ignore. And Brian eventually got to the point where he stopped hiding it. It was just little things first. He started calling less for a while, then he started calling more "just to hear Justin's voice." He would get a bit more openly upset when Justin postponed a visit or told Brian that it wasn't a good weekend for him to come up to New York. One sign that should have raised an alarm was when they fought over the phone and two days later he received two dozen fake roses in the mail because Brian knew that Justin developed an allergy to real ones.

So it shouldn't have been a surprise when Brian lost it the day before Thanksgiving. It had been building up, he gets that now. It is only when years have already passed that he gets that Brian was changing because he wanted and needed to change for himself, not only because he felt the whiplash from the pressure put on him by his friends to grow up one second and stay the one constant in their lives the next. He also gets that Brian felt hurt when he called off the wedding due to the quick changes in Brian’s personality. But he also thought that Brian felt relief to stay a free man. And he can also admit to himself that, in his early 20s, he wasn't really ready to settle down right then. He just wanted it to be guaranteed that it would eventually happen one day with the love of his life and he thought that was Brian.

But seven years ago, he thought he was doing Brian a favor by giving him the space and freedom he used to thrive on and trying to redirect any returning thoughts Brian may have when it came to monogamy. Some of the gang felt the same, at least Michael, Lindsay, and Debbie did. Emmett had hinted to him that Brian wasn’t tricking nearly as much as he used to and even Ted had called to let him know that Brian seemed a bit depressed and asked when he was coming for his next visit. Soon, they both knew they were wanting different things yet again but the situation was completely switched around.

Brian was the one to kick him out though. That was one recurring event that stayed pretty constant. They had sucked and fucked to the days leading up to it, as per usual. But that night Brian sat him down and said he wanted to get Justin out of the sublet room he was currently residing in and get them a bigger place in New York. He wanted expand Kinnetik and have an office in Manhattan. He went as far as getting the rings he kept out and Justin was stupid enough to say he didn’t want Brian to go against who he really was and that monogamy and marriage weren’t important. He expected Brian to feel relieved at that. He wasn’t.

“Brian, I’ve been trying to tell you not to worry about changing for me. You know I love you how you are. Please sit-”

“I haven’t changed for you, Justin. I want this. I thought you wanted this. Why won’t anyone believe me when I say I want this?”

“Brian, I’m sorry. Look, we can talk about it. I just don’t get what changed.”

“I changed, Justin. I didn’t plan for it to happen, but it did. Jesus, I changed because of you, not for you. I want to be with you. I miss you when you aren’t here and no one takes me seriously and then they just dismiss what I am saying when I bring up any fucking feelings I have over this and I am sick of it. No one in fucking Pittsburgh can see that I don’t even want to be the stud of Liberty Avenue anymore and that I haven't been since before you left. And when I finally wanted to commit to you, you back out and I understand that because you are doing so well in New York and you deserve to get noticed and you need to establish yourself but I am willing to move there to be with you and even though this is the most I have ever probably said at once in my entire life, you don’t get it! No one fucking gets it!"

And Justin tried to reason with him. He did. But Brian eventually pulled out the truth that he, Justin Taylor, was not ready for any sort of commitment after all and that while he would love for Brian to come up to New York, he still wanted to explore his options and fuck around. He even would prefer to stay with his roommate for a little while longer. And he thought that if Brian knew that he still did love him and wanted him there, even if Justin himself wasn't ready to take that step yet, Brian would cool down and realize that the long distance thing got to him and eventually he would realize that he didn't want to take that step either. That wasn't the correct assumption. Just like that, the argument stopped. Brian stared at him with a flushed face and Justin could swear with tears in his eyes, and then ended things with a, “It doesn't matter if I become everything you ask for. We are not on the same page. No matter what we want, we never were and never will be. Get out.” and threw Justin’s duffle bag out into the hallway.

And that fucking hurt. It hurt a lot. And he missed Brian and he wanted him to call but he never did. And only when he worked up the courage to even think about calling Brian himself, he found out that it was in fact possible for Brian Kinney to willingly and enthusiastically move on and commit to someone.

He never ran into him in Pittsburgh. He barely ever went back to visit anyway. Soon, there became no reason to. His sister went to college at WVU and just accepted a job in Morgantown. Daphne met a guy her junior year of college and moved with him to Philadelphia after graduating. His mother and Tucker moved up to Connecticut to be closer to Justin’s grandparents. Michael and Ben eventually moved to Toronto to be closer to the girls and JR. Not so surprisingly, Debbie didn’t last more than a year in Pittsburgh without her son, so she and Carl put the house up for sale and bought a place up there as well. Emmett eventually got back with Drew and Drew signed with the New York Giants and finished up his football career with them. They got a nice town house in Hoboken, so he saw Emmett pretty regularly and he had even catered a couple of gallery showings Justin had attended. Justin and Ted were never that close and Ted had become close friends with Brian anyway, but he was still with Blake and still working at Kinnetik. According to Emmett, Brian had made Ted and Cynthia partners a few years after Justin had moved to New York. The last big piece of news he had really heard about Brian was that he had expanded Kinnetik to Chicago over three years ago and moved up there with Eric and their newborn daughter. The little news he had received about Brian over the years had shocked him less and less as time had passed.

Eventually, instead of feeling shocked and heartbroken, he felt surprised and even happy for him even though those emotions were conflicting with the bit of longing and sadness he still held in his heart. Despite that, he was glad Brian seemed to find some sort of happiness with someone who couldn’t automatically judge him due to who he was before. And he can’t feel bitter about that, because Justin had mostly moved on as well. He had a string of fuck buddies and boyfriends throughout the years but he eventually met Nathan who has been with for almost two years. He formed a small group of friends up here and started to keep in touch with Emmett, Debbie, and even Michael and Ben again. His work is selling well in various galleries not only in New York, but in other parts of the country as well. He is happy with his life.

“Justin?”

Justin jerks himself out of his thoughts. He looks up to see a tall man with a bundled up little girl on his shoulders and he realizes Brian had spotted him and made his way over to him.

“...Hey, Brian.”

There is a long pause and they just look at each other. He looks different. A bit older. He had a short beard that appears to have a couple of grey hairs in it and a little bit of crinkling around his eyes. He is still beautiful.

“Aren’t New Yorkers supposed to avoid Macy’s at all cost?”

“I like the displays they have for Christmas and haven't gotten around to seeing it yet. That doesn’t explain you. Why aren’t you on 5th Avenue shopping instead?”

“Macy’s is much more fascinating to a three year old than the stores on 5th Avenue.”

The little girl on Brian’s shoulders starts to pull at his hair and chants,

“Daddy, Santa!”

“We’ll see, baby.”

Brian leans in and quietly says to Justin, “There is no way I am waiting in that line. She saw Santa in Chicago. She will forget about it once she looks at the window displays, I’m hoping.”

Justin nods, not sure what to say to this Brian. Brian smiles at him and introduces him to his daughter, Lily. She looks down at Justin excitedly, gives an exaggerated hand wave, and yells, “Hello, Justin!” and goes back to looking at what she can see from her father’s shoulders.

“Want to walk with us to the other side of the building?”

The few minutes it takes to get to the displays are a little awkward. He asks about Gus, who Brian says is in his first year of high school (and doesn’t that just make him feel old) and has his first girlfriend, whom he is crazy over. Lindsay is managing a gallery in Toronto, which he knew about, and Melanie was finally able to start her own practice last month, which is great considering the rocky start she had while gaining the right to practice law in Canada. He is working up the courage to inquire about Eric, when they hit the crowd of the people who are looking at the windows of Macy’s, mesmerized.

One window displays a wonderland of flawless crystallized ice that shines with hues of blue, white, silver, and gold. Other windows display small moving sets that depict complex and dreamlike images that appeal to people of all ages. When he finally stops himself from looking at the displays, he looks over at Brian.

“Look at that one over there, Lily! Do you see them dancing?”

“Look at that one, Daddy! It looks like Frozen! Where’s Olaf?”

“I don’t know what either of those things are.”

“Daddy! You do know! You know all the words to-”

“Lily, look! Rudolph!”

Brian stops and sneaks a glance at Justin. Justin glances right back at him and smirks. Brian mirrors his expression before reaching into his pocket to look at his phone.

“Lily, we’re gonna go meet Papa down the street and go eat.”

“But, I’m looking-”

“We can come back later, I promise.”

Lily seems to consider it, agrees, then she looks at Brian and says, “You inviting Justin to meet Papa too?”

Brian is put on the spot for several seconds and looks at Justin as though he is asking him a silent question. Justin is about to put him out of his misery and tell him he has to get going but then Brian asks,

“Are you hungry?”

Justin wasn’t expecting that. He is about to say no, that he had already eaten a shitty hot dog off the street, but thanks. But he is curious. He is curious about the man Brian is raising a child with and has built this life with. He also is genuinely hungry because his body never is able to say no to the prospect of food, even after he got over puberty.

“I’m never not. That is something that hasn’t changed.”

Brian grins and says, “You always did eat everything in my fridge.”

“Like that was hard. All you usually had was leftover Thai and guava juice.”

“I like grape Juicy Juice the best.” Lily exclaims proudly.

“That is a wonderful choice, Lily,” Justin tells her.

“So, you’re coming with us?”

“...Yes.”

Brian's expression is blank. But then he nods and reaches into his pocket to grab his phone and send a quick text. He waits for a minute longer and his phone lights up. He reads the message silently and glances at Justin once more.

"Let's get going then."