1. Orange by sophalie
2. Red by sophalie
3. Yellow by sophalie
***
“Daddy, no!” he yells.
It hurts. Aidan can’t really tell whether it hurts more: under his ribs where daddy kicked him or behind his ribs, where the heart is. Anyway, it aches. It burns. It stings. It feels ten times over every word that is used to describe any kind of pain, not that Aidan knows a lot of them, he is, after all, only four.
And he yelps and he babbles “please-no-no-no” through his wet salty lips and he crawls away and he gets caught each time.
“What did I tell you?” Daddy shouts as he grabs Aidan by the scruff of his neck and lifts him effortlessly in the air. “What the fuck did I tell you, Aidan?”
“N-not to run past the TV while the soccer is on,” Aidan manages to sob in reply, the collar of his t-shirt biting into his neck. “I’m so sorry!”
Daddy doesn’t answer anything. He just carries Aidan - heavy footsteps stomp-stomp-stomping up the stairs - into his room and releases his collar, making Aidan land on the floor with a thud. Aidan barely manages to open up his palms enough to stand on all fours.
Aidan doesn’t cry. He wheezes heavily while straightening up to sit on his heels; long hissy breaths escaping his mouth. Breathing is hard after you have nearly been choked with your own t-shirt.
“It’s okay, Aidan,” the voice tells him. “Rub your neck a little to keep the blood flowing. Then lay down.”
The voice comes each time Aidan is hurting, the voice is a friend, and Aidan is happy to hear from a friend right now. The voice is also very smart, it tells Aidan what to do to feel better. It always sounds so wise and knowing and grown-up.
It doesn’t have a name. Aidan had asked before.
***
October this year turns out to be one of the rainiest out of all twenty-three Justin had lived through. Justin lops across the parking lot, two minutes late - his taxi missed the green light earlier - for his first ever day at his first ever job. Well, a first ever seriousone, anyway.
When the double doors slide open for him and he finally steps into a wide, well-lit lobby of the advertisement agency, it’s already five minutes past nine. Hastily folding his umbrella, Justin splashes raindrops all over his perfectly white neatly tucked shirt. He cusses under his breath as he runs into an elevator.
In a few agonizingly annoying dings, he reaches the right floor.
“Oh, hey,” the secretary and the right hand and the I-do-everything-the-boss-has-no-time-for woman swallows her coffee abruptly to smile at Justin. Cynthia, her name is Cynthia and she was the one to interview him and actually accept him at the job. “Let me grab your coat and go, he’s waiting.”
Mr. Kinney. Right. Mr. Aidan Kinney. Justin inhales a lungful of air, straightens his back and makes himself relax into a tiny polite smile before he steps inside his boss’s office.
The room is spacious and full of gray daylight. Against the window outlined a tall, lean figure.
“You’re late, Mr. Taylor,” declares the brunette, looking down at a stack of papers on his desk. “Just what am I to do with you?” he drawls suggestively.
And then he looks up - a soft knowing smile settled on his sensual lips - making Justin’s heart jump immediately into his throat for a brief second. Six (at least) feet tall, strong jawline, huge, long-lashed hazel eyes.
Mr. Aidan Kinney the-Justin’s-boss is a perfect embodiment of a tall dark and handsome trope.
“I’m sure you’ll think of something, Mr. Kinney,” Justin blurts out before he can think and hates himself instantly for being so openly flirtatious. He half expects a glare in return, but that doesn’t happen.
“I’m sure I will,” his boss shrugs, shoves the papers he was studying aside and looks at Justin with a dim spark of something unknown at the bottom of his eyes.
And then he congratulates Justin on the position in the art department. And then they discuss some work while Justin occasionally scolds himself for staring on his boss’s lips, or hands, or crotch.
Later that evening as Justin does a double take on the dusty watch on his newly obtained desk, he realizes that it is, yet again, five minutes past nine. He was mostly carried through the day by a string of introductions and hello’s, but managed to check on some actual work assignments while at it. Pleased with himself, he picks up his coat from a hanger on the wall and walks through the empty corridors without a slight anticipation of meeting anyone at that hour.
A few yellow threads of light spread on the floor, crossing Justin’s path. His eyes trace them to a slightly ajar door which happens to lead into his boss’s office.
“We had an agreement, Brian,” Aidan says behind the door and Justin can’t help but listen. “This is my territory, my work. I provide for us. You can’t just pop up whenever you please. I don’t… I… Brian. No. Stop, alright?”
Justin presses his chest tight against the doorframe so that his left eye fit right into the gap. Mr. Kinney seems quite distressed, a frown spread on his forehead, his fingers buried deep into his hair.
“You know this was irresponsible,” he continues. Justin still thinks he is speaking on the phone, yet no phone can be found in his line of sight. “He is just a boy, he is twenty-three. He is new, and you have probably scared him,” he is talking about Justin, isn’t he? “Don’t do it again. What? Bri- Jesus, Brian. Alright, yes. I find him handsome. Happy? I just figured I don’t want to go after your type, to not to… you know. Tempt you or anything. Now cut it out. Please.”
The last coherent thing Justin has time to think about before he hears the words “I find him handsome” is: there is definitely no other phone in the room other than one on the desk that has its handset pressed soundly into the receiver.
And then his mind is flooded with a familiar and always welcomed shimmer of he-finds-me-handsome, that usually sweeps you at the moment you find out your attraction is possibly mutual.
Is it too early? Justin doesn’t know. Was the whole talking-on-the-phone-with-no-phone scene just a tat bit strange? Probably. But all Justin cares about is that his absolutely gorgeous boss finds him handsome.
***
The next out of ordinary thing happens when Cynthia cuts her finger with one of the letter opener knives. Justin paces through the office corridor with a bunch of boards tucked under his arm when he hears a sharp shriek pierce the casual hum of Monday-morning muttering.
The cut is, Justin would say, somewhere around seven out of ten on the scale of nastiness. As soon as a string of blood twirls around Cynthia’s wrist, soaking her crispy-white sleeve, it definitely becomes a solid eight.
“Jesus, fuck,” Cynthia hisses as Justin, having already tossed the boards aside, hurries to help. “Could you get me a napkin or something? Quick, I can’t drip on these papers!”
Her privileged position of a CEO’s personal assistant does not play in her favor this time: her table is set in a very private corner, separated by a few stylishly carved wooden partitions, right next to Aidan’s office. All of which ensures that Justin is in fact the only person who is able to hear her fussing around and approach in time. It also ensures that the closest place potentially containing napkins in it is Aidan’s office.
“Calm down, alright?” Justin asks her, already standing in front of the door. Before he even has the time to contemplate knocking, the door swings open by itself.
“Justin?” Aidan asks softly and rises a confused eyebrow at him. “I thought I heard…”
“Do you have a napkin?” Justin blurts out, not allowing himself to get distracted by how stunning his boss looks in one of his usual insert-a-big-brand-name suits. Today he’s also wearing a pair of stylish glasses Justin didn’t notice earlier. “Cynthia just hurt herself.”
Aidan steps aside to give way as Justin gestures at Cynthia to follow. Muttering something about messing up the Italian rugs, the assistant finally crosses the doorway into the office. As soon as all three of them are safe behind the closed door, the out of ordinary thing happens.
Aidan grits his teeth at the sight of trickling blood, getting noticeably paler by the second. His eyes dart around the room in confusion for a brief moment, then he takes his glasses off and pinches the bridge of his nose.
And as soon as Aidan lifts his head back up, he looks like a whole other person. His lean figure relaxes confidently when he eyes Cynthia’s injury like it’s no big deal.
Which it probably isn’t. Except Aidan didn’t seem to think that a second ago.
“Is that all you girls were fussing about?” he asks casually, jerking a handkerchief out of his jacket’s chest pocket all the while swiftly reaching for his desk to eventually retrieve a half-finished scotch bottle from the bottom drawer.
His normal speaking voice drops at least a pitch down. He also tosses his glasses away on the desk as if he doesn’t need them.
After splashing some scotch on - dammit, Aidan, could you have warned me? - yelping Cynthia’s finger and slapping the silken handkerchief on top of the wound, Aidan tosses a pack of napkins at her and sends the assistant away. Justin awkwardly tags along after her, thinking that he is unnoticed, but his movements are not lost on Aidan.
“Taylor,” he says, his voice low and sultry. “Stay.”
And Justin does. He watches quietly as Aidan calls the cleaning lady for the blood and scotch stains on his Italian rugs, watches as he puts the phone down, watches as he makes a step around the desk, and then hesitates, and then stares at his feet for at least half a minute.
Yet again, he lifts his head up looking different. His facial features soften, and he… squints. Then squints some more. Then reaches for the desk to slap his opened palm blindly on top of it and eventually find his glasses.
Justin just stands there. The whole thing seems way too strange to absorb and digest.
“Justin,” he clears his throat. His voice is back to normal. “Would you have dinner with me?”
***
“Mom?” Aidan calls gently into the shadowy living room as he steps down the stairs, one at a time. “Mommy?”
He is five already, way too old to call his mom “mommy”. Or at least his dad says so. But Aidan is so worried, he heard mom and dad having an argument, there were angry voices and loud noises, and now it’s so quiet.
All he really wants is to see mom and a cup of milk, and maybe a warm hug. The house is way too scary at this time of evening, when twilight had just begun, but the lights aren’t lit yet. So, he proceeds towards the kitchen, hoping that mom is there.
And she is.
The first thing Aidan sees is her hand in the doorway, only he doesn’t recognize it right away. It looks like a big white spider, laying lifeless on its back. Or maybe a beach crab, like in all of those nature documentaries Aidan sometimes gets to see on TV while daddy falls asleep during a soccer match and is way too drunk to notice Aidan sneaking the remote from him.
But in a second or two Aidan’s mind is ready to absorb and register the full picture. He steps quietly closer, and the doorframe doesn’t block his view anymore. Mom is laying on the floor with her eyes wide open, something syrupy and gooey and dark red spilled all around her.
Blood? Is it blood, like in the movies?
“Aidan!” he hears his dad shout. “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted a-”
He doesn’t get to finish. A swift heavy hand lands on the back of his head. And he himself lands on the floor from the impact, and gets all covered in sticky wet blood. It feels cold on his skin when his pajamas get soaked through. A jolt of horror pierces his body. He doesn’t like blood. He doesn’t like movies anymore.
That is the last thing he remembers before his consciousness is scooped away by something warm and caring and protective. It feels like he is embraced, guided, and put carefully into a bundle of fluffy blankets.
“It’s alright, Aidan,” the voice says. “I’ve got this.”
Only now the voice is not inside his dead. The voice is now him, using his mouth and throat to speak and his eyes to see and his arms to lean upon as he gets himself up on his feet. While Aidan himself is only watching from aside, no more in control.
“Stay put!” he hears his dad shout.
He also hears a loud smacking sound, but the pain doesn’t come. Nothing comes, only silence. When Aidan closes his eyes shut, he floats away to some place where nothing ever happens. The voice is now out there for him, feeling everything. And Aidan is safe, Aidan is warm, Aidan is not hurting.
“Hey,” the voice calls him after some time, still using his mouth and his throat. “You can come out now.”
Aidan opens his eyes once again, finding himself in the warm far away place. He doesn’t want to leave just yet.
“Can I stay like this for a while?” he asks.
“Sure,” is the reply. “By the way, you wanted to know my name, remember? I thought of a good one.”
Aidan is interested, he lets himself peak a little bit and finds out that he is now in his room, sitting on the floor hugging his knees to his chest. Or the voice is, anyway. Aidan is just watching from aside.
“Which one is that?” Aidan prompts the voice impatiently.
“Brian,” the voice chuckles slightly at his eagerness. “My name is Brian.”
***
Justin knows his worth, at least when it comes to looks. His face is youthful and smooth, with bright blue eyes and pouty doll-like lips. His blond locks are a shade of shimmery silky gold, longish, but not too long. He is practically hairless, skin creamy and soft to the touch.
Sure, he’s short, but he has a pretty round ass and no gag reflex to make up for that.
All of that said, the reflection he catches in the mirror before walking out makes him less nervous. At least Aidan will have something pretty to look at, even if Justin turns out to be unfunny or awkward to have around during the dinner.
Not that he is. But it’s good to have a backup plan.
While Justin sits in a dark cab watching orange lamppost lights flash-flash-flash by behind the window, thoughts of possibly bailing on Aidan cross his mind. Yes, his boss is absolutely, utterly gorgeous, but that doesn’t stop him from being the strangest man Justin had ever encountered. Maybe, Justin should be scared or something.
Or something. When Justin’s eyes land on Aidan waiting patiently by the restaurant door, all doubts melt away into one thought. The thought is: “I want him”. Aidan seems to be his usual self this evening, dressed in a knee-long black overcoat and a pair of casual slacks, but the whole outfit still screams “money”. He is holding an umbrella above his head while checking his watch (did Justin mention they also scream “money”?).
Justin - he is not sure completely why - feels relieved to see him have his glasses on.
“I hope I’m not late this time,” Justin graces his boss with a dimmed down (adorable, but just enough) version of the usual in-case-I-messed-up grin. “Hello, Mr. Kinney.”
“Oh,” Aidan looks caught off guard, but only for a moment. His long-lashed eyes focus on Justin, quickly move around his face and body. “Just by a minute. It’s nothing, Justin. And please, do call me Aidan when we’re alone.”
He seems pleased with the sight. Justin is usually pretty good at reading people, and Aidan is one interesting person to read, so Justin pays a lot of attention. Although, paying attention proves to be really, really hard when your handsome boss is playing a perfect gentleman with you the whole evening.
Aidan is well-educated, mild-mannered, soft-spoken, and everything else that comes along with being a perfect package. He darts his huge eyes across the table - now, under the artificial indoor yellow lights they seem a deep, rich chocolatey shade of brown - and the look in them is so warm it washes over Justin and burns somewhere inside his chest, as if he had just swallowed a mouthful of sweet liquor.
At one point he shows Justin how to fold an origami frog out of a napkin. He rolls up his sleeves, and Justin scoots up along with his chair, so that they sit beside one another instead of across from each other - Aidan smells amazing, a blend of expensive cologne and freshly ironed clothes - and they have quite a laugh making their paper frog jump while the waiters just look patiently at them. After all, Justin did mention several times that everything in Aidan’s look screams “money”, so they really have no choice.
Later it turns out Aidan is able to tell Louis Schanker and Stuart Davis apart on sight, which alone already wins Justin’s heart.
And everything is absolutely as far from being any kind of weird as it can possibly be, which lulls Justin’s suspicions a great deal. By the time they walk outside, heated by all the sneaky looks and knee bumping under the table, Justin forgets he even doubted anything.
But not for long.
On their way back Aidan insists walking Justin right to the doorstep, so they take a cab since both of them had some wine earlier and Justin doesn’t even drive. It rains. As orange lamppost lights flash-flash-flash by again, they hold hands.
Aidan has long, delicate fingers and just overall beautiful hands, so it’s a joy for Justin to put one flat on his lap and study it intently, running his own fingertips against the smooth skin. Aidan lets him.
“You wanna stay the night?” Justin asks bluntly as they stand beneath his apartment windows.
He darts an upward glance at Aidan and receives a soft smile of clear restraint in return. Of course, a perfect gentleman. Justin scolds himself for seeming so easy. He just really, really wants him.
The sounds of a waiting taxi engine trickle through the blur in Justin’s mind as he tip-toes to connect their lips in a soft brief kiss that tastes slightly like the truffle cake they shared for dessert. Aidan doesn’t seem to approve, yet catches Justin’s waist and pulls him closer anyway.
“You don’t owe me anything, Justin,” he says, his eyes serious behind the glistening raindrops on his glasses. He is still holding Justin. “We can take it slow, alright?”
“Yeah,” Justin breathes out reluctantly as he bites his lower lip and darts his eyes away. “Alright.”
With a slight heartwarming chuckle Aidan leans in and kisses him again, smelling so intoxicating that Justin has to hold on to his shoulders for dear life. And that’s when they hear it.
“Hey, faggots!”
Justin did warn Aidan about the neighborhood he lives in, which, Aidan insisted, was all the more reason to walk him right to the doorstep. Now Justin breaks off their embrace and spins around to see two bulky men in denim jackets. Both of them are sneering, one of them is dragging a baseball bat on the pavement. A menacing scraping sound ricochets in between the building walls as it is carried above the street.
“Yeah, you two!”
It takes them less than half a minute to approach. Justin and Aidan just stand there, not having any time to escape anymore. A possible route to escape is also gone at the very moment the bat swishes through the midnight air and lands on one of the cab headlamps. As it pops with a loud crack, the car takes off, since the driver probably cannot be bothered to deal with whatever is going on.
It leaves them with pieces of red glistening plastic on the asphalt beneath their feet, a sharp echo of the whistling tiles, and two angry men glaring at them.
“Listen, gentlemen“” Aidan begins softly, raising both his opened palms in the air to calm them down.
He also cuts in front of Justin as if to protect him. The glint of neon light is caught by the watch on his wrist, and that entices the men even more.
“We got ourselves a rich one, huh?” the one with the bat drawls. “A rich fag?”
Justin tries his hardest to think, but he can’t. A rush of fear swallows him whole and no coherent thought can be formed in his head, so he keeps staring at the fabric of Aidan’s overcoat. Absolutely numb.
“Wacha hiding back there, fag?” the one with no bat reaches Aidan in two steps. “Your damsel?”
He pushes Aidan’s shoulder causing him to stumble slightly backwards, but Aidan manages to balance and stays firmly on his feet. And then the out of ordinary things start happening once again.
Just like the other day back at the office, Aidan looks completely confused for a second or two, but this time everything escalates way faster. He lets out a groan through the gritted teeth, hisses “stay back” over the shoulder at Justin and jerks his glasses off his face, tossing them down to the ground.
“So,” he growls with that unusually low voice Justin heard at the office before. “Who wants to go first?”
The men seem taken aback, but only for so long. They both sneer and the bat swings once again, only this time at Aidan. Justin holds his breath the whole time Aidan flings his upper body back and away from the bat, straightens up swiftly to launch at the attacker and lands a well-aimed punch right at his jaw. A wet crunch follows just before the sharp cry and a moan of pain.
The bat drops with a distinct knocking sound and Aidan is quick to pick it up, but as soon as he does it the other guy has a chance to throw a sucker punch. A cheap jab lands somewhere around the side of Aidan’s mouth and that seems to enrage Aidan completely, because right after the guy receives a clean calculated hit beneath his knees, causing him to yelp and collide on the ground right near his unfortunate friend.
“You. Should’ve. Stayed. Home!” each word is aligned with a swing and followed by a blow. The blows don’t seem that severe, if anything, Aidan looks like he is toying with the guys at this point. “Watch Netflix or something,” the bat is thrown aside once again, rolling down the pavement. “Now crawl the fuck back to your mothers.”
And they do. They moan and sob and wail and utter curses under their breaths as they slowly collect themselves enough to stand and limp in the opposite direction. This whole time Justin wonders if he had ever heard Aidan as much as whisper a curse word before.
He doesn’t manage to recall a single time. This man in front of him doesn’t seem like Aidan he just spent the evening with. He doesn’t seem like anyone Justin knows even remotely, because Justin sure as hell doesn’t know anyone who is able to knock down two guys single-handedly with half of the grace and swiftness Aidan just did.
“Well, princess,” he turns to Justin and spreads his arms wide. “How did you like me?”
He is breathing heavily, forming a cloud over cloud of thick hot air that immediately melts away in the darkness.
“You’re bleeding,” Justin comments quietly, not knowing what else to say.
“Great skills, Sherlock,” is the reply, and Aid- this man that looks like Aidan spits blood on the ground before casually wiping his lips with his overcoat sleeve. “You alright?”
“They didn’t even touch me,” Justin shrugs, looking anywhere but at Aidan.
He is scared, and the man picks up on that very quickly. In one, two, three rapid steps he reaches Justin to loom over him - right now for some reason appearing even taller than usual - and smiles as he runs his scraped knuckles against Justin’s soft cheek.
“I won’t hurt you, blondie,” he rasps. Justin feels his hot breath and instinctively leans a little closer, driven by a sudden jolt of desire. His cock hardens. “Not unless you beg me to.”
Justin swallows hard, not able to come up with anything coherent. The danger of the situation they were just in overwhelms him, but the menace and the strength the man in front of him radiates is inflaming. Even considering the fact that Justin understands close to zero percent of what is going on.
“Damn, are you a sweet piece of ass or what? Aidan is one lucky motherfucker,” suddenly a heavy, hot (even through the fabric of his jeans) palm lands with a smack right on Justin’s ass and next thing he knows he is groped and jerked towards the man, stumbling right into his arms. “Woops, sorry. Lucky I caught you, right?”
He enjoys that, Justin thinks. A slight irritation stirs up inside of him, but it’s quickly swallowed by a rush of hot, boiling desire, as soon as Justin inhales the scent of the man. He smells like Aidan, looks like Aidan, talks like Aidan (except for his slightly lower voice), but the aggression and dominance in him sets Justin completely over the edge. He would have kissed him.
Really, he would. Right on his wet hot bloody mouth.
But the man smirks at him and lets go, warm encircling embrace breaks out, leaving Justin slightly chilly, squirming at the autumn wind.
“Later,” the man whispers before turning around and striding away down the glistening rainy street.
***
Of course. This Monday has been a disaster from the very morning, why should now be any different?
As soon as the doctor prescribed him glasses three days ago and his mother got the ugliest ones possible, Aidan knew this was not going to end well. He was never popular at school, and sometimes jocks would pick on him as it is.
But now they have a clear reason to.
“Are you deaf as well?” a bunch of boys follow him and Aidan feels that the fight is now inevitable. “Hey, Kinney!”
He speeds up, his heart jumping right in his throat. There are at least two, maybe three of them, he can’t get a good look anymore.
“Aidan?” he hears Brian call him in his head. “You want me to deal with them?”
Aidan wants to. Yes, he is about to agree any second, but is trying to stay silent for as long as he can. Brian is always there, ever since he was a nameless voice in Aidan’s head, always protecting him, always taking his pain away. Brian is fearless, fierce, strong, and he stops at nothing.
Aidan is jealous of him. But letting Brian out means accepting defeat. So, he breaks into a run, and not long after someone launches their backpack at him. It hits him right in the shoulder, knocks the air out of his lungs and forces him to land on the dirty pavement.
“Gotcha! Strike!”
Their shrieking laugh is so loud it pierces the sky above and echoes in the air. Aidan is breathing in the dust, not even trying to get up. His glasses got knocked off his face and among all the blur - wet, are those tears? - he cannot even spot them.
“Let me out, Aidan,” Brian speaks softly. “I don’t want you hurt.”
“I’m already hurt,” Aidan sobs, standing on all fours. His scraped palms sting so, so bad.
“Then let’s hurt them back,” Brian decides. “You can watch if you want.”
With that, a familiar strong, overwhelming feeling swallows Aidan’s mind and takes him away, away, away so far and so deep, a place where he cannot hurt anymore. Where the pain doesn’t reach. A place where he is soothed by the soft silence, covering him like warm blanket. He doesn’t want to watch. He will just let Brian do his thing.
“They ate dirt,” Brian proudly says later and Aidan actually manages a soft smile from his far-far away place in the depth of his conciseness. “You know what?”
“What?”
“I found your glasses,” he puts them on and flinches immediately. “Shit. Why do you even need them?”
Aidan peaks out a little and sees their body stumble on the way home. The road is empty, so no one is there to hear Brian talk to himself.
“You don’t?” Aidan puzzles suspiciously, but as soon as he peaks some more, he understands what Brian means.
It’s all blurry. Brian’s vision goes blurry when he puts the glasses on, just as Aidan’s when he removes them.
“Wow,” Aidan sighs enviously as Brian shoves the glasses into his pocket and they stay silent for a second or two, “Brian?” he finally calls.
“Yeah?”
“Can you go to doctors with mom instead of me?”
“Deal,” Brian giggles. “But you know I’m not so good at pretending to be you.”
“Then don’t pretend,” Aidan shrugs from his fuzzy bundle of imaginary blankets on the backseat of his mind. “And Brian?”
“What the fuck more?” Brian replies, amused.
“Go to school, too,” Aidan suggests. “At least sometimes.”
“You’re smarter, though,” Brian tells him dubiously.
“You’re tougher,” Aidan finds himself say. “And… we both need some time out, right? It’s… healthy.”
“If that’s how you talk after just one doctor visit, I better damn go there instead of you, smartass.”
And they guffaw. And Aidan feels so warm, soft and tingly, and cared for. He allows Brian to carry him home, because that’s how it always seems: as if you are safe at the passenger seat while someone else is behind the wheel, in control.
And if there is anyone on earth Aidan doesn’t mind relinquishing all the control to, it’s Brian.
***
Everything in Aidan’s home is neat. The place is a large mansion in the outskirts of the city - rich people’s village, if you will - and it even has stables. Not to mention the pool.
None of which interest Justin at the moment.
“Aidan, I still don’t understand.”
“Did he?”
“Did he what?”
“Touch you.”
“Who?”
“Brian!”
“I have no idea who Brian is.”
The exchange between them is so rapid, Justin almost feels like Aidan is accusing him of something. He still does not understand why did he even accept the invitation in the first place. Probably, because his enigmatic boss just draws him like Justin is some stupid moth near a flame.
“I’m sorry, Justin,” Aidan inhales deeply. Then he exhales. And Justin unknowingly does the same, which actually helps a little bit. “I should’ve started this conversation in a whole other way. Would you give me another chance?”
Justin is not stupid, a moth or no. He spent the whole night after dinner (with his ass cheek still burning from the grope) searching any information about different personalities or disorders that included Aidan’s symptoms. He found quite a lot of information, and some of it even made sense. Yet he had to hear it from the man himself.
So, he played a pretty little idiot. People often underestimate how far that can get one in life.
“Go on,” Justin prompts, folding his arms across his chest.
“Brian was there since I was a child,” Aidan begins, scotch splashing and shimmering in his thick glass tumbler. “First as a voice, then as… an entity? Call it as you wish. My family… my father wasn’t quite fond of me. And at some point, I needed… protection. That’s when Brian came along.”
“Did he abuse you?” Justin suggests in a soft voice. “I mean your father.”
“He… yes. Yes, he did,” Aidan confirms and his deep beautiful eyes fill with something sad and mysterious. Probably, memories of the past. “Despite us sharing one body, Brian is a whole other…”
He thinks for a second or two.
“… thing,” he finishes.
“… person,” Justin offers at the same time.
Their eyes meet and Aidan’s face softens.
“Okay, person,” he confirms quietly as he pushes his glasses up into place. “I swear neither of us is a serial killer or something. I’m sure, whatever Brian thinks of you and however he… is, he never would as much as lay a finger on you, same goes for me. That’s important. Do you trust me, Justin?”
‘He thinks I’m a sweet piece of ass’ thought rushes through Justin’s head like a bullet train, once again leaving him strangely exited.
“Justin?” Aidan raises an eyebrow at him, waiting.
“Yes. Please, go on.”
Aidan turns his head towards the window and Justin admires his graceful profile. Aidan is nice to look at, his face outlined warmly by the glints of crispy fire in the fireplace. Justin likes this time of evening, when twilight is already here, but the lights are still not on.
“Brian got me through the most difficult times of my childhood,” Aidan continues, then he makes a sip. Justin hopes that eventually his scotch will help him to ease the stutter. “And in return, I got good education and focused on finding a well-paid job. I was always the brain, and he was the muscle, if you prefer a simple, boiled down version of it,” he clears his throat. “We both have our separate lives, or some… activities that we do. Essentially, I provide and he protects. We’re thirty now, so it’s a well-oiled machine at this point. Or it was. Until you came along.”
The words burn. Not in an aching sort of way, but in a sweet, satisfying sort. Justin doesn’t know why, but the ability to confuse this man (these men?) flatters him immensely.
“Do you… uh,” Justin doesn’t quite know how to formulate this particular question, so he narrows his eyebrows, while Aidan ducks his head and waits patiently with a soft, forgiving expression. He even smiles an indulgent smile, but Justin doesn’t like that. “Do you come out willingly? Do you… see what Brian is doing when he’s out? Does he… see?”
‘Is Brian looking at me right now?’ is not said out loud, but Justin is very bothered. He can’t tell exactly in what way.
“Depends,” Aidan replies slowly, putting his glass aside. Something about his body tells Justin he is going to step closer to maybe touch him. “Sometimes we can allow each other to peak and be co-conscious, that’s useful. We can speak to each other as well,” he does stand up from his chair, just like Justin expected him to. Tall and soft and strong and smelling so nicely. Justin’s heart jumps anticipating a nearing embrace. “Sometimes we don’t want to watch. Yesterday I didn’t. But sometimes we want to shut each other out for privacy,” he takes Justin’s hands in his, looking at them intently, and then his eyes dart up to meet Justin’s. “Like now.”
Justin wants to kiss Aidan, but what he wants more is for him to take another first step. Aidan doesn’t.
“Why didn’t you watch?” Justin whispers, leaning closer.
“I… I sort of freak at the sight of blood,” Aidan starts stuttering once again and Justin reassuringly squeezes his hands. “Usually Brian fronts immediately if there is any blood around. He doesn’t like that, though…” a breathy nervous laugh escapes his mouth. “Says it’s the silliest reason for him to come out. But he still does, ever since we were kids. You saw him in the office with… with Cynthia. He pushed me to ask you out, actually.”
Questions swarm Justin’s mind, flashing through his thoughts.
“Does Cynthia know?”
“No. She just knows her boss is a little… weird. Brian knows his place while we’re at work.”
“Pushed you to ask me out?”
“We both liked you when we saw the picture on your resume. I wanted to step down, he dared me not to.”
“So, is it a fucking contest then?” Justin blurts out and gives Aidan a solemn upward glare. He can see Aidan flinch slightly, but for some reason he doesn’t start another one of his endless explanations.
“Am I winning?” he flashes Justin an actual grin.
“Not funny yet,” Justin replies, softening slightly at the change of mood.
‘Am I winning?’ run-run-runs in his head, all over again, like a broken radio playing. Is he winning? Justin does want him, but as soon as he remembers Brian’s grip and his husky laugh and his hot breath and everything, a whole different kind of fire sparks his blood, making his limbs heavy and needy. It doesn’t even feel like cheating, since both men share the same body.
“Another reason why I didn’t watch,” Aidan adds, grin melting away from his mouth. “I would hate to see you scared. And I knew I was leaving you in capable hands, too. Brian is yet to let me down when it comes to that sort of thing. He is strong.”
“He is,” Justin confirms simply. Images of Aid- Brian fighting off two people with a baseball bat fresh in his head. He smiles shyly. “It was impressive, actually.”
“Justin?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you like him? More than me?”
“Aidan, he…” now it’s Justin’s turn to stutter. “He looks like you, talks like you, smells like you, he is you. Don’t expect me not to get confused with… all this.”
For a moment, there is silence. And then Aidan’s hands fall and he doesn’t hold Justin anymore, just stands very closely, a strange expression Justin can’t identify yet taking over his face.
“Of course. Of course, guys always liked him more,” Aidan mutters quietly and Justin thinks that’s the first ever time he actually sees his boss annoyed. “Because he is pushy and sexy and cool and a macho and God knows what. Everyone liked him more. But you know what? Even if you do get with him once, he will just have you in bed and forget you, because that’s what he does.”
The words are way too harsh to be said by someone like Aidan, and he himself appears to be scared of Justin’s reaction now. Justin watches his eyelashes flutter as his eyes dart around the print on the carpet beneath their feet.
‘Have you in bed’ is such a ridiculous way to put it just for the sake of not saying the word ‘fuck’, Justin thinks. And yet, he likes the prospect. For some reason, that exact phrase makes him think of Brian’s hands on him and his skin ignites again.
“Aidan,” Justin calls to him gently as he puts a tender hand on his cheek, running it down his shoulder and leaving it there, warm, comforting. Aidan’s head remains hung, and his breath seems heavier. “Try and understand me, alright? It’s a lot to take in.”
Justin skipped the moment when the shift in Aidan’s posture and behavior became familiar and easily recognizable, but apparently, now it is. He feels muscles under his palm tense for a split second, Aidan’s eyes still darting around.
And then he loosens up, lifts his face and Justin sees a suggestive smirk settle on his soft mouth. In what Justin can now define only as Brian-like fashion, he takes his glasses off and tosses them aside dismissively.
“I can give you something else to take in,” Brian rasps and Justin is immediately yanked towards him, encircled by strong hands on his waist and pressed tightly against the man’s chest. His lips brush against Justin’s earlobe, sending a jolt of heat down Justin’s body and straight into his dick. “Except that might be an even bigger struggle.”
“Jesus,” Justin gasps.
“Just Brian,” is the reply.
“What are you doing here?” Justin attempts to appear pissed off while Brian pushes him slightly towards the nearest wall and shoves a knee in between his legs. A smug expression that takes over Brian’s face upon discovering Justin’s hard-on actually helps Justin appear pissed off. “We were having a serious conversation.”
“I heard bits and pieces,” Brian says wetly into Justin’s neck while his hot hands travel down Justin’s back and onto his ass. “You seem to have upset Aidan and now he needs time to sulk. So here I am.”
“Why are you doing this to him?” putting his hands firmly against Brian’s shoulders, but not actually pushing away yet, Justin asks. He hates himself for throwing his head back, exposing his neck more for Brian’s mouth.
Brian laughs: a husky, bitten-off bark that goes straight to Justin’s cock.
“No, sunshine,” he breathes out against the side of Justin’s face. “You are doing this to him,” one of his hands finds its way to Justin’s crotch. “I dare you to tell me you don’t want me. Go on.”
As he brushes his fingers deliberately against Justin’s dick through the denim fabric of his pants, Justin himself sees white. His thoughts tangle together in a messy mush of “yes-yes-more-yes”, his breath gets ragged, and a soft moan is pulled forcefully out of his throat as Brian’s lips finally devour his. Brian pushes his tongue right into Justin’s mouth while cupping his chin in one hand, squeezing it. The kiss is wet and hot and sloppy and needy. This has nothing on Aidan’s soft, gentle, respectful kisses. This inflames Justin’s whole body, makes his blood shimmer and hum.
“Aren’t you gonna ask me?” Justin gasps for air helplessly.
“Ask you what?”
“What did I upset him with.”
“What is there to ask?” Brian scoffs and Justin flinches slightly as the air cools off his wet-kissed skin. “Aidan usually gets cranky when a guy picks me over him. That’s why we stopped going after the same ones.”
“How often did that happen?” Justin finds himself tip-toeing, reaching for Brian’s hot breath to eventually connect their mouths once again. His mind is way to clouded to deny anything at all, even if Brian is not exactly in the right about Justin picking anyone yet.
If anything, what’s to blame is Justin’s cock. It’s definitely way too hard for Brian.
“How often do you think?” Brian pushes him away playfully, arching a cocky eyebrow.
A pang of guilt pierces Justin’s blurry consciousness and he actually manages a stern look for the first time in ten minutes.
“Aidan is a good man,” Justin says and he is not lying.
“Face it,” Brian’s sharp tongue slides in between his lips while he runs a hot wanting look over Justin. “Aidan is boring.”
“You can be good and boring,” Justin complies quickly and pushes himself up off the wall once again, this time actually kissing Brian. The man smiles into his lips and responds lazily. His hands stay down this time.
“Not that I don’t want to fuck you,” Brian finally tells him, stopping the messy kisses with a firm hand on Justin’s shoulder. “But we need to establish something. Aidan wants you too, so it’s better that none of us has you. Believe it or not, I can keep it in my pants when it counts. Besides,” he turns around and starts to pull Aidan’s cashmere sweater off while he crosses the doorway and heads upstairs. “I planned to party and I fucking hate his posh clothes, so gotta change.”
‘We wouldn’t need clothes if you’d fuck me’ Justin thinks, but smothers the thought silent. He drinks the sight of Brian’s smooth, toned body instead. He wants to run his tongue all over this sun-kissed golden skin.
Justin knows Brian wants him, and no matter what he says, there are still opportunities. A lot of them.
“You coming?” Brian asks over his shoulder. Exactly what Justin thinks. Opportunities.
***
Justin sees him across the dancefloor. The man looks content and sated, striding confidently towards Justin and the bar. Dressed in a pair of form-fitting jeans and a thin cotton t-shirt, all black, Brian now looks distinctively different, not at all like Aidan in his posh expensive suits and sweaters and slacks.
“Hey there,” a new voice calls Justin. “Looking for some company?”
“No,” Justin does not even glance at him, eyes fixed on Brian as he repeats his chant of the evening: “I’m not interested.”
“You’re hot as fuck,” the guy keeps at it, and Justin senses him step closer. “I watched you. You stood here alone for, like, an hour.”
“Wonder how that happened,” Justin mutters as he rolls his eyes, still determined not to look at the stranger. Brian suddenly emerges from the crowd and casually puts his arm on the bar right beside Justin’s body, effectively cutting the annoying guy off.
“You want him?” Brian mouths to Justin, gesturing his index finger towards the guy. As soon as he sees Justin shake his head ‘no’, Brian turns to the stranger and orders firmly: “Get lost.”
“Thanks,” Justin sighs when the guy finally takes off, intimidated by Brian.
“Should’ve gotten laid while you had the chance,” leaning closer, Brian tells him, mouth against his ear for the second time this evening. “I know I wouldn’t have been able to talk to you at all if I didn’t.”
Justin shifts his body slightly and ends up touching the crook of Brian’s neck with his nose. He inhales deeply and grits his teeth as the scent alone makes him hard: Brian doesn’t smell like Aidan anymore, there is no blend of expensive skincare products or neat clean clothes. A trace of cologne still remains, but now it’s mixed with sweat and nicotine and something musky, something of Brian’s, so intoxicating that Justin almost feels dizzy.
“I thought you didn’t want to upset Aidan,” Justin replies, lips brushing against Brian’s neck.
“You don’t want him anyway,” Brian shrugs. “Wanna get out of here? I’m always fucking starving after I fuck my brains out.”
Later, when Brian parks his Jeep - Justin learned earlier that he and Aidan even have two separate cars - at the nearest beach, both of them munch on fried Chinese takeout watching the stars slowly dissolve as the dawn nears.
Justin doesn’t know if he prefers this to a fancy expensive place he and Aidan were to, but he certainly doesn’t mind feeding Brian, who it turns out, absolutely sucks when it comes to using chopsticks.
“That is so weird,” Justin giggles as another piece of chicken disappears in Brian’s mouth. “I saw Aidan use chopsticks once when he ordered food to work. He has no problem with them.”
“We have different skills,” Brian explains reluctantly. “He needs glasses, I don’t. He’s scared of blood, I’m not. I can throw a punch, he can’t. You get the picture.”
“You didn’t list anything he’s good at,” Justin takes a bite himself, using the same pair of chopsticks.
“Didn’t you just say he can use chopsticks?”
“Seriously.”
“I usually take fucking over interrogations.”
“It was your call.”
They share a couple of hot glances and a moment of silence, and then Brian breaks eye contact.
“Fine,” he continues. “I hate math, have no idea about art or advertising, suck at etiquette… I was only in college to play soccer, really. Aidan can’t hold a fucking ball to save his life.”
The whole idea of two completely different people sharing one body is so new to Justin that he can barely contain himself.
“I don’t understand how could that be,” he gasps and puts the box of fried rice on the dashboard, driven by the sudden urge for the animated hand gesturing. “If Aidan is the real one, and you’re just-”
Justin understands his mistake nearly immediately, freezes for a second, and then honestly tries to soothe the effect of his words by rapid “no-no-no, that’s not what I meant”, but it doesn’t work. Brian’s face gets stern, all the playfulness melts away along with the last star on the now pinkish sky.
“I’ll drive you home,” Brian says evenly. “You and Aidan have an early morning.”
***
“Silly girl!” Jack Kinney hisses as Brian runs in through the front door. “I told you not to step in between me and mother!”
Claire was Aidan’s sister, and today, just like many other days before this one, she got mixed up into Joan and Jack Kinney’s relationship drama. Jack usually rarely hits her, but since he nearly broke Joan’s skull in back when Aidan was five, Claire started to get in the way of their fights more often in attempts to protect her mother.
They’re seventeen already, and Brian started to work out regularly to keep themselves in shape. He enjoyed being strong.
“Dad, stop!” Claire yells as Jack pulls her hair and tosses her aside, smashing her frail body into the nearest wall. “Don’t touch her!”
Joan is silent. Sometimes Brian thinks ever since she took a flower vase to the head, something went wrong with her. He feels no compassion towards her, she always let Jack do whatever he felt like doing, even if it included beating his own children breathless.
Nonetheless, Brian crosses the living room in two swift steps and yanks Jack backwards by the collar of his t-shirt, effectively forcing him to land on the couch.
“Sit down,” he snarls. “Or else.”
The older Brian is, the more his death stares seem to affect Jack. Old man just nods at him and stays sitting, finally letting Joan to keep going with whatever she was preparing in the kitchen.
“Let’s go wash your face up,” Brian says as he stretches his arm towards Claire.
The girl sobs a little, still on the floor, looking up at him hesitantly, and then clings on to his arm to let him walk her upstairs. As soon they’re alone in the corridor, she breaks her hand free from his and jumps at least a foot away.
“You’re not my brother,” she whispers, eyes full of horror bored into him. “Don’t ever touch me again.”
Brian just stands there, unmoving, as Claire is about to disappear behind the bathroom door. Before she does, she looks at him once again.
“You’re just Aidan’s fantasy because he’s sick,” she adds. “You’re not a real person.”
And then the door slams shut.
***
Aidan has been ignoring Justin for nearly the whole week at this point. And, since there is no Aidan, there is no Brian either, which is absolutely agonizing.
Justin has to see him again to at least to let him know he is sorry. And he has no way of contacting Brian directly, so on Friday afternoon Justin is doing exactly what he wanted the whole week prior: standing right on the Italian carpet in the middle of his boss’s office, demanding an audience with his boss’s alter ego.
He is not sure if Brian would be offended to be called that, too.
“Justin,” Aidan answers in his usual gentle tone, which now seems a little bit patronizing. “I don’t even know what happened. However, as I said, if you and Brian-”
“We haven’t fucked,” Justin cuts in, immediately catching up on what Aidan is getting to. “Actually, you know why?”
His voice is way too loud, so Aidan gestures a soft opened palm at him.
“Because he didn’t want to upset you,” Justin hisses.
“I’ll make sure he knows I’m grateful,” Aidan is quick to give Justin a brief studied smile in return. “As you can see, Justin, I’m busy, and-”
“Have him out,” Justin demands. “Do it.”
“I can’t just-”
“Have him out!”
“Justin!”
Justin is determined. Probably as determined as he ever was, because he actually brought one of Cynthia’s letter opener knives along, hidden in the pocket of his jeans. He squeezes it in a nervously sweaty grip as he gives Aidan one more chance.
“Please, Aidan,” he asks instead of demanding this time. “Just for a little while.”
“Why is it always him?” Aidan frowns, getting up on his feet, and walks towards Justin slowly, seemingly with no intention of becoming Brian any time soon. “What do you all see in him? And you, Justin, you specifically, you don’t even know him. Why do you want him so bad?”
Justin doesn’t have an answer to that. Both men share one body, and Aidan is way more sophisticated, educated and delicate, yet at the mere thought back to that kiss he and Brian shared, Justin’s knees get week. As for the thought about calling Brian not real, he feels so much guilt he can barely stand it.
“I’m sorry, Aidan,” Justin mutters right before he whips out his letter opener and slices his left palm just below his thumb with absolutely no hesitation. “There, you have to get a good look.”
Driven by determination and the adrenaline, Justin probably pushes the knife in too hard, because the cut seems way deeper than he anticipated. Quick threads of dark, thick blood stream down his hand, circle around his wrist and soak his sleeve. A few persistent drops eventually get on the poor Italian carpet.
“Good God, Justin!” Aidan gasps and Justin watches contently as his face gets paler. “For the last two weeks you caused more mess in my office than I had the whole year.”
“First time it was Cynthia,” Justin corrects as he holds his bleeding hand out. “Are you looking?”
Aidan probably realizes that it’s way too late for trying to put up a fight or even pull out a handkerchief, because all he does is step wobbly backwards, holding on to his desk, and seize all attempts to speak. Meanwhile Justin gets a better look at the cut himself.
It doesn’t look good.
“Just what the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he hears Brian roar. Glasses drop on top of the table. One, two, three muffled steps get closer and finally a pair of warm hands encircles Justin. “I know you’re blond, but this is next level stupid.”
“Cheap shot,” Justin sobs against Brian’s shoulder and holds the bleeding hand away, trying not to mess with Aidan’s Prada shirt. “Brian, I-”
“Save it for later,” Brian interjects as he releases Justin and buries his long fingers into the knot of Aidan’s tie on his neck. “We’ll tie you up.”
“Not the kind I had in mind,” Justin giggles as his blood still trickles on to the carpets. He also ends up messing the Prada shirt anyway. “But go on.”
Brian gives him one strange pissed-off-but-also-turned-on look, and finally pulls off the tie. Justin feels a whole lot better just by finally having him around.
***
“You have your own place?” Justin asks breathlessly, lips still burning after being devoured by Brian’s. They both step out of the Jeep.
“I hate his fucking mansion,” Brian shrugs. “So, we got this. Sometimes he crashes here too.”
The building is tall and looks boring on the outside. They reach the top floor - and even manage not to make out in the elevator - before crossing the doorway of a spacious, stylish loft. Way less room than Aidan’s place, but so… Brian. Black and blue and white. Tile and wood. Justin giggles slightly when he spots a huge bed on a god damn pedestal.
“Want anything?” Brian queries casually as Justin tosses his jacket off.
“Why did you bring me here?”
“You nearly bled to death.”
“Why did you really bring me here?”
“You nearly-”
“Brian.”
The name rolls off of Justin’s tongue for the first time - Bri-an, the sound is bright and jingly like a new round golden sovereign - and Brian steps hastily towards him. Before his lips are crushed by Brian’s, Justin has just enough time to make a mental note for himself: personal validation and extra attention to him being his own separate personality makes Brian extremely content (and hard at that). Even if it’s just calling him by name, which is not what a lot of people really do, Justin thinks.
“Would you do it while I fuck you?” Brian rasps, hands already under Justin’s shirt.
Justin steps back-back-backwards in Brian's arms, and then his back meets silky sheets as he lands flat on the bed.
“Call you by your name?” he asks after regaining some of the breath knocked out of him and gets a nod for an answer. He flashes Brian a cheeky grin. “Depends on how good you are.”
Brian seems to take it as a challenge, he also seems to never half-ass any challenges. Because later, while Justin is on all fours being nailed into the mattress, it feels like his own limbs are about to give out. Brian has a gloriously thick hard cock which is now buried balls deep inside Justin’s ass, he is also relentless, fierce, and not at all gentle (which was never a Justin’s thing anyway). He trusts hard, he manhandles Justin however he pleases at whatever moment he wants, and he slaps Justin’s needy hands away, not allowing them to touch neither Brian nor himself. Sometimes he holds Justin’s wrists firmly above his head, and the look in his eyes becomes completely primitive and feral then.
At some point he scoops Justin’s body up, holding him across the chest and sits on his heels to push upwards, and it’s the moment when Justin can’t take it any longer.
“Please,” he moans. His head lolls back at Brian’s sweaty shoulder. “Please, Brian.”
“Please what?” a hoarse whisper burns his ear.
“Brian,” Justin doesn’t manage to say anything else coherent. Brian only lets out a ragged chuckle in response.
Justin’s thoughts entangle into one chaotic knot of “Brian-Brian-Brian” as he completely loses his vision and his knees tremble. He wants to whimper, or scream, or laugh, but instead he just goes limp in Brian’s arms when orgasmic shudder comes over both of them, taking the last sanity Justin has left, if any.
“Hot,” Brian drawls when they both lay down, replete and barely able to move. “Worth Aidan throwing a fit.”
“He won’t,” Justin replies, resting his head on Brian’s wet sticky chest. “He thought we already fucked, actually.”
“Nah, he was bluffing,” Brian reaches for a cigarette. “He really likes you.”
“Don’t you feel bad?”
“Would you rather I didn’t fuck you?”
“Touché.”
They lay still for some time; Justin’s eyes lazily trace the twirls of blue smoke in the thickening evening darkness. The blissful post-orgasmic emptiness of his mind slowly fills with thoughts again, one by one.
“Brian?”
“Yeah?”
“How did you come up with the name?” for a quick second, Justin is scared of offending Brian again, but the man only sighs - his chest heaves under Justin’s cheek - and scrubs his chin with a cigarette still squeezed between his fingers.
“I don’t know,” he eventually tells Justin. “I was five, it seemed cool.”
“Does anything make you go away?” Justin runs his finger gently around Brian’s nipple. “You know, like blood for Aidan. Are you afraid of anything?”
“No,” Brian seems to be patient with Justin now, going along with the questioning. Maybe because he did fuck him this time. “That’s the point. I was- I am here to protect him. What good would I be if I’d stop fronting when shit happens?”
Justin feels a pang in his heart and hastily lifts his upper body on his arms to crawl closer, face to face with Brian.
“Don’t say that,” he is serious. And not only because he’s sorry. “You are a person, Brian. You aren’t here for anyone, you just… are.”
And Justin believes it as he says it. After all, being a part of Aidan doesn’t make Brian a fantasy or any less real than Aidan is. If it wouldn’t have been for their abusive father, they would probably have grown up merged as one person, having a single well-balanced personality.
Justin thinks for a second who would that person be. Nothing of enough substance comes to mind, and then Brian’s long-lashed eyes run over Justin’s face quickly before he pushes up and kisses him. His mouth tastes like wet smoke.
“Does Aidan smoke?” Justin goes back to settle on Brian’s chest, afraid of losing the moment for more questions.
“No,” Brian says simply. “He tried countless times to get me to quit. He still throws all of my stashes away when he finds them.”
That makes sense, because Aidan is a vegetarian and jogs every morning and is subscribed to magazines about meditation. To think of it, Brian was right. Aidan is boring.
“Has he ever been to a therapist?”
“As in has he ever tried to get rid of me?”
“Something like that, yeah.”
“He was about to once,” Brian groans softly as he shifts his body under Justin for more comfort. “Went to a local shrink while trying to make up a thousand excuses for me not to get mad.”
“Did you?”
“Get mad? Maybe,” Brian’s hand instinctively finds its way into Justin’s hair, and Justin himself all but purrs at the touch. “Anyway, the shit we have is apparently kind of rare, so after an hour of being treated like a lab rat by the so-called therapist and me making fun of him in the process, he gave up.”
“Have you ever tried to get rid of him?” Justin presses his head tighter against Brian’s chest and feels a calming, muffled sound of his steady heartbeat.
“I wouldn’t be able to hold his job if I did.”
“How do you know that?”
“Justin, I’m good at beating people up and fucking,” Brian’s tone breaches the threshold between ‘I’m tolerating you because I had a good fuck’ and ‘I’m annoyed at you because the good fuck was too long ago for these kinds of questions’. However, he continues: “Well, okay, I’m also slightly more fun than Aidan, but that really just about covers my superpowers.”
“Don’t talk yourself down,” Justin frowns as he catches Brian’s palm and brushes his lips softly against it.
“Okay, I take that back,” here goes the joke, Justin thinks. “I’m not just good at fucking, I’m amazing.”
“I knew you were going to say that.”
“Would you argue though?”
“Not after today, no.”
***
Or kiss. Or fuck. It depends, really.
Brian and Justin spend so much time together that at some point Aidan stops talking to Justin completely, and that’s fine with all three of them. Or so it’s seems. Somehow Justin appears to fit right into their well-oiled perfectly working machine, except for these couple of mornings when he wakes naked in bed with Aidan.
Aidan is way too boring to pretend to be Brian (not that he would ever succeed) or even throw a fit, anyway. He just acts embarrassed and sneaks a few glances at Justin while they dress up. Justin doesn’t mind. Brian does, though, so at the third morning when that happens, another sneaked glance like that triggers him to front and jump on Justin to fuck him possessively. That Justin doesn’t mind either.
A life with half a time than everyone else has spent with your lover is not easy, by all means. But they manage. Sometimes Justin even has a glass of guava juice with Aidan while they discuss modern day art.
Sometimes a co-conscious Brian chimes in through Aidan, and of course he has nothing else to say about abstractionism but the usual comments about cat vomit. Justin is really surprised that Aidan even bothers to voice his thoughts at all.
They manage, they really do. Up until Brian disappears.
Aidan still shows up at work every day, but there is no Jeep and no Brian after. Justin gives him space, or he is trying to, while constantly wondering what could be wrong. He learned long ago that Brian and Aidan did have separate phone numbers, but neither one picks up.
So, after two weeks of suspense, Justin has nothing else left to do but force his way into Aidan’s office once again.
“I don’t have a knife on me, don’t worry,” Justin tells him right away. “What is happening, Aidan?”
“I’m firing Cynthia for letting you in again,” Aidan replies, harsher than usual, and doesn’t even lift his eyes from the papers in front of him. “That’s what’s happening.”
“I snuck in,” Justin lies just in case. “And I’m serious. Where is Brian?”
Aidan’s studied shell of callousness gives a crack as his eyes stop darting around the papers in pretend business. His shoulders fall, and next thing Justin knows Aidan buries his face in his hands, exhausted. For that, he needs to remove his glasses first, so Justin almost gets excited at the signature gesture.
But no Brian.
“You don’t know?” Aidan finally lifts his head, a few of his eyelashes stick together funnily and that would have probably made Justin smile under any other circumstances. “I should have figured he wouldn’t tell you. Way too proud.”
“Tell me what?” Justin urges, stepping closer. Aidan lets out a now-or-never kind of sigh.
“I- we. Brian and I. We have cancer,” after a second or two of complete silence Aidan gestures towards the chair near his desk and only then Justin feels that his legs are ready to fail him.
There are no usual thoughts. Justin’s head seems empty, as if he is five again and was just pushed off a swing and onto the ground, all the air knocked out of his lungs. He descends heavily on the char and runs a quick glance over Aidan’s whole body, which is not at all lost on Aidan himself.
“The body is functional,” Aidan says firmly, voicing Justin’s thoughts. “For now. Brian is in no shape to front, though, so I’m finishing my last arrangements and preparing for the surgery.”
“What do you mean in no shape?”
“He didn’t take the news lightly.”
“I suppose he didn’t,” Justin assumes in a mere whisper. “Not used to being weak.”
“Exactly,” Aidan confirms and his face suddenly softens. “Afraid you will see him weak, too.”
“Aidan, please,” Justin frowns, not looking at Aidan at all, way too scared to see any trace of Brian in him and actually start crying. He bites his bottom lip. “Could you just… let him know. Let him know that I want to help? And that I really,” he swallows hard. “Really miss him.”
***
“What?”
Justin holds his hand. He doesn’t care about supporting Aidan as much as about potentially making Brian inside this body jealous and forcing him to come out by the gesture. After all he does for Aidan, it doesn’t even feel that horrible.
Then again, he mostly does it for Brian. So that he has a body to return to, in the best shape possible.
Justin spends all of his free time with Aidan, helps him around with everything, talks to doctors, makes work calls, answers work calls, carries checks over to both the loft and the mansion for the cleaning lady to pick up. Justin takes Aidan’s life completely in his own hands, simply for Brian. Or for a slim glimmer of hope.
Brian never once shows up during these days.
“The darkness,” Aidan repeats, some hospital tech beep-beep-beeping on the background. “When we were little, me and Brian, whenever it would get… bad. I’d run away. Inside my head, just… switch off. Let Brian take over, let him deal with whatever is happening,” he sighs, chest heaving under the crispy white sheet. For a moment it amazes Justin how different he and Brian actually are. His mind trails back to the old times when he was unable to tell them apart, but he forces it to stay present. “And each time that happened, darkness would take me. For a while. But there was always a point to come back, you know? A new cartoon episode or mom baked a cake or something. And then, as I got older, there was Brian,” just hearing his name, Justin squeezes Aidan’s hand unknowingly tighter. “Because I knew he needed me, in his way. But now… he has you. And I’m too old for cartoons. And since I learned what carbs are, cakes stopped being fun, too.”
“You don’t know what you’re missing, Aidan,” Justin decides to pick a lighthearted route and smiles softly. “We’ll get you a cake after surgery, alright? As soon as your doctor allows. A chocolate one, they’re the best.”
“The darkness, Justin,” Aidan tells him again, looking straight into his eyes. “Ever since you and him got together, I thought, what is the point of coming back? And I saw none.”
“Aidan…”
“Tell me,” Aidan runs his thumb gently over the scar on Justin’s palm, the one from the letter opener stunt. “Honestly. Who are you here for, Justin?”
At least a dozen of beautiful, uplifting, graceful lies twirl and spin and dance around in Justin’s mind. They spark up like fireworks, they shimmer and glisten and beg to be voiced, and then Justin opens up his mouth.
“Him,” he says. He stares at Aidan and repeats confidently: “Him.”
Aidan’s head moves slowly; a few tiny knowing nods, pillowcase rustling underneath.
“I figured.”
“Mr. Kinney,” the doctor calls behind Justin’s shoulder.
Aidan closes his eyes. And then they roll him out of the room and Justin is quickly ushered away into the corridor, left alone with hours and hours of dim blue wall hospital waiting. Nothing good crosses his mind during that time, nothing bad does either. He sits, his head thrown back, his eyes closed, and just listens to the hum and muttering of the hospital.
Aidan is in surgery for several hours, then in special care for a few more, and then they finally return him to his own room and let Justin hold his hand once again.
Justin does. He does through half a night, right until Aidan opens his eyes once again, tech beep-beep-beeping on the background.
“Sunshine?”
At first, Justin doesn’t realize it, since he is up for nearly twenty-four hours at this point and a few whispered sounds barely even register in his mind. And then he identifies the word spoken as indeed ‘sunshine’, and Aidan has never once called him sunshine, not even before Justin and Brian got together.
“Brian,” Justin’s voice falters and instead of saying anything he holds Brian’s hand up to his mouth and peppers it hastily with small kisses.
Kisses that quickly become wet and salty.
“I guess we are in survival mode since I’m here,” Brian groans as he tries to move, and Justin doesn’t know what is it that really stops him: the physical pain or Justin’s death glare. “Alright. I’ll try that again later.”
“You better,” Justin mutters under his breath.
Brian looks at him for a long-long while, maybe for a whole minute, and something very serious flashes at the bottom of his large sad eyes.
“I missed you,” he says simply.
***
As each new day passes, Justin’s anger starts to melt away, until it disappears completely. To be exact, it is swallowed whole by the overwhelming joy of that first time when Brian really smiles at him upon discovering the fact that he can be discharged the next morning.
Of course, he doesn’t smile at the doctor, he waits long enough for her to leave the room. It would have been sappy any other way, and Brian doesn’t do sappy.
Aidan doesn’t front once during the recovery, not even when Cynthia calls and asks how is he feeling. Brian handles the call well, but is left with a puzzled expression Justin can only classify as ‘how-did-I-not-notice’ sort of frown.
“You are just protecting him, Brian, as you always were,” Justin tells him. He mentions nothing about his and Aidan’s last conversation. “He’ll show up when you’re healthy.”
After a week spent at the loft being fed chicken soup, Brian is finally fit to drive and the first place they go is an abstract art gallery. Justin doesn’t ask, he knows. He knows Brian wants to potentially trigger Aidan out or at least talk to him for the first time after surgery.
“He didn’t get scared when we found out,” Brian’s voice is low and raspy after their long, silent drive. “I did. I got scared, Justin. Remember, I told you I-”
“You don’t get scared, I remember,” Justin cuts in, and then he puts a warm comforting hand on Brian’s denim-clad thigh. “It’s natural, Brian. People get scared of things.”
“I thought you’d see me like this and leave,” Brian says, and Justin feels a pang of pure sadness as he squeezes his palm. “And that would be the last thing I remember because after I’d just… die.”
“Brian,” Justin whispers. He wants to cry and confess something very melodramatic, but he knows Brian better than that. So, wearing a mock-sorrowful expression he leans closer, supporting himself with his palm flat on Brian’s thigh and says: “Don’t be a drama princess, they only cut off one of your balls.”
Seeing a corner of Brian’s lips slowly jerk in what later becomes a full-on grin actually makes Justin’s heart feel at ease. At least for now.
“Eat shit,” Brian chuckles and they both hop out of the car and into the foggy, gray street.
Their steps echo from the marble floors and ricochet off of the empty gallery walls. The middle-aged supervising lady’s glasses catch light and glisten as she moves her head along with Brian and Justin's movements.
“That is cat vomit.”
“No, that’s Kandinsky.”
“Okay, that is certainly fucking cat vomit.”
Justin flinches slightly at the word ‘certainly’. Before today it was mostly just collecting dust in Brian’s vocabulary, barely ever used. Aidan liked it, though, but Justin pays little attention to that fact for now.
“How very unpatriotic. That’s Pollock.”
“Is that a snatch?”
“One can interpret art as they want. But it’s actually an iris flower.”
“Since when are you such a smartass?”
“If we’d spent half a time talking that we spend fucki-”
“I’ll stop you there. If that’s what it takes, I’ll pass,” Brian steps closer to another picture as he wraps his arm around Justin’s waist to pull him close. “This is literally just orange on red. What is so special about this to hang it here?”
“There is also a bit of yellow,” Justin adds carefully while throwing a quick look on the supervising lady. She doesn’t seem to mind them disrespecting art, as long as they content themselves with verbal disrespect only. “Aidan liked- likes this one. It’s Rothko.”
“Aidan hates red,” Brian states hesitantly. His eyes move over the painting hastily, long lashes fluttering.
“He told me it makes him feel more like you,” Justin whispers, staring at Brian’s profile.
He isn’t lying, Aidan did tell him that once, during one of their guava juice art conversations. Justin hasn’t ever been a big fan of Rothko’s work, but after the remark about Brian he looked at the paintings in a whole different light. Sharp figures, blurry angles. Simplistic, but catches your eye. Aggressive, but inviting.
So Brian. Justin assumes no one knows Brian better than Aidan does.
Or did, anyway.
“I feel like I’ve seen this one before,” Brian frowns and his arm on Justin’s waist tenses. “Maybe it’s just because you said… all that.”
“Maybe,” Justin shrugs and tip-toes for a second to plant a brief wet kiss on Brian’s jaw. It feels scratchy.
They stand like this for quite a while longer: Brian staring at “Orange, Red, Yellow” and Justin staring at Brian, each admiring a masterpiece before their eyes.
***
Aidan still doesn’t come out. He doesn’t come out even after doctor at the next check-up announces that Brian is completely healthy.
“He doesn’t talk to me anymore,” Brian says from behind his office desk as Justin props his thigh against the side of it and looks softly down at Brian. “It fucking annoying… I mean it’s so infuriatingly quiet.”
Infuriatingly quiet. Brian’s vocabulary does seem to improve ever since the discharge from the hospital, and the more Justin hears him speak like Aidan the more suspicious he gets. Long time ago, during his ass-still-burning-from-Brian’s-grope internet spree on any information about multiple personality disorders, he did learn that they can possibly merge. It doesn’t work for everyone, but for some people.
Is that what’s happening?
“Aidan,” Cynthia comes in right after her three pro forma knocks on the door. Her face expression doesn’t promise anything good. “Leo Brown just called. He wants the font changed to the one you suggested at the meeting, and… he didn’t tell which one. And I don’t even have it written down, I just checked everything.”
Justin was at the meeting too and he tries his best to remember what Aidan had suggested, but nothing comes to mind. Leo is either toying with them, or just a complete idiot, along with Cynthia herself who didn’t even bother to write it down back at the meeting, double check back at the meeting, or at least politely ask for a reminder on the call today.
“Call him back?” Justin says in a ‘duh’ sort of fashion.
“Corbel,” Brian answers at the same time.
Justin’s mind goes blank as Cynthia announces a chirpy “I love you, boss!” and quickly leaves the office.
“Corbel?” he asks, pushing off of the table he’s been leaning on. “How did that happen?”
“I have no idea either, Corbel looks fucking ugly on that board if you ask me.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
Brian lets out a long sigh. “Just came up in my head, that’s it. I’m no phycologist, Justin.”
“Alright,” Justin chews on the inside of his cheek as he darts his eyes aside. “So that’s how you kept the job? By things just coming up in your head?”
To be honest, Justin had always believed in Brian and knew he could manage to back Aidan up in case anything ever happens. As much as Brian wanted to seem like a brainless jock at times, he spent his whole life in Aidan’s head (not that Justin had ever planned on telling him anything even remotely along the lines of that), and that had to count for something.
“Pretty much,” Brian shrugs and suddenly flashes a cheeky smirk at Justin. “Just so you know, things are not only coming up inside my head, they’re also-”
Justin rolls his eyes. “Don’t even go there.”
Much later, while laying on the couch at the loft, head on Brian’s lap, Justin focuses on the man’s face way more intently than on television screen. They’re watching “The Beyond”, driven by Brian’s sudden fixation on old horror classics, and twenty years after its release the movie doesn’t even seem like a horror anymore.
Justin actually has a couple of laughs, right until he notices Brian wince at the sight of blood. Brian doesn’t freak out, doesn’t get pale, doesn’t say anything really, just winces slightly while his fingers stop stroking Justin’s hair for a split second. On the other hand, the blood is obviously artificial, since the movie is too old to have any believable makeup or effects in it.
Justin decides not to comment and relaxes under the soft hand that is playing with his hair once again.
***
Brian carries a blissful so-not-there look on his face. His whole body glistens with sweat and his back is not even sticky, it’s just straight up wet under Justin’s hasty needy palms as he runs them up and down Brian’s skin, sometimes burying his nails into it and earning himself a groan or two through Brian’s gritted teeth. Brian is not even Brian anymore, not even human anymore. He is a liquid shining feral beast that hunts and preys and gets to the deepest, unreachable places of Justin’s.
Justin’s bones seem like they have melted into fairy dust, ran through the pipes of his veins and enchanted his blood to hum. He feels hot, limp, physically inexistent except for the one very place Brian is reaching with his throbbing cock. That depth is the only place Justin has left to sense, each thrust sending his mind over the edge, again-again-again until he finally rips open and spills and splashes and explodes with all the shimmer and glitter and magic that had swelled inside of him.
“Fuck me,” Brian wheezes as he rolls on his back and pulls a filled condom off of his dick in one motion.
Squeaky sounds of latex being tied in a knot, a swish of a flying condom, a whack of a condom landing on the hardwood floors.
“Thought you’d never ask,” Justin says breathlessly, but doesn’t actually attempt anything. Partially because he is absolutely exhausted, but mostly because Brian wouldn’t in a million years let him top.
Aidan? Maybe. Not Brian. But Aidan hasn’t been out for months at this point.
“Shut up,” Brian chuckles dismissively, and then suddenly adds: “I’ll consider someday.”
Okay, maybe a million years had just been scaled up to ‘someday’. Justin lets his daring mind wonder and pretend how could that feel to top Brian and how could his ass clench around Justin’s cock and how-
“I wanted to show you something,” Brian’s voice yanks Justin out of his thoughts and back into reality. “Hang on.”
“Does it look like I’m going anywhere?”
Thin, watery blue twilight in the room slowly melts away as the dawn grows nearer. Justin lies sprawled on his back, listening to Brian’s bare feet slap-slap-slapping around the loft, across the living room, to the bathroom, and then finally back. It takes Justin a second to figure that Brian took his time to discard the condom into trash.
Just one of many Aidan-like things he now does. His tolerance level for any mess decreased drastically in the last few months.
“Here,” a cold rectangle-shaped piece of plastic lands on Justin’s chest, somewhere between his nipples. Justin frowns as he pushes himself up on his elbows and receives a pair of raised eyebrows in return. “Go on, take a fucking look already.”
Somewhere at the back of his mind Justin actually feels somewhat frightened, although the feeling is so far-far away and flimsy Justin smothers it dead in no time. It takes him a couple of flat palm slaps to feel the object up and peel it off his sticky chest, and another couple of confused blinks to realize it’s in fact an ID card.
Not just any, but Brian’s ID card. The one that says “Brian Aidan Kinney” on it.
And even has his picture with no glasses on.
“You didn’t tell me,” is the first thing Justin finds himself say in a muttered undertone. The feelings are conflicted: he is happy for Brian, offended for himself, and scared for Aidan.
He scoops himself up on the silken bedsheet and sits upright with his legs crossed, staring at Brian intently. He expected to be a part of a decision like this, or at the very least be there with Brian while he takes the picture.
“Didn’t want to,” Brian shrugs simply, flopping backwards on the mattress, an already lit cigarette in hand. “Not until it was done, anyway.”
“You didn’t tell me,” Justin repeats.
Brian watches him at the corner of his eye, taking a long drag. “I didn’t tell him either, so it’s only fair.”
“Not that you had a chance,” Justin sighs. “What if he gets mad when he returns?”
Pause, exhale, smoke twirling above their heads in a few very first rays of sunlight.
“What if he never returns?” Justin’s favorite thing to do is watch Brian’s lashes flutter while his eyes dart around. “Besides, I did keep his name. Somewhat.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
‘Darkness calls me in’ Justin thinks over and over again as he curls up to Brian’s side. Justin presses his nose tight against Brian’s chest and drags it up, trailing it all the way to his neck, inhaling a lungful after lungful of his smell; salt and honey and musk.
“You want me to tell you I’m proud of you?” Justin finally asks. “You know I am.”
“I know you are.”
“And he would be, too.”
Brian rubs his fingertips over the back of Justin’s neck as they lay silently, surrounded by sunlight spilling over the windowsills and into the bedroom. If Justin were to throw his head back right now and look at the city behind the window, flopped upside down, he would see the yellow sun peaking above the red dawn horizon line, spilling its shimmery liquid light that, after piercing the clouds, becomes orange.
Justin has never considered himself to be a truly great artist, but looking at Brian squinting beside him with the sun covering his golden skin, Justin thinks that these particular shades of orange, red and yellow he finds to be perfect.