CHAPTER 1: BEING BRIAN KINNEY

Brian Kinney was tired. He was tired of being alone; of fucking around.

He'd always worked hard so he could play harder, but now he was bored. Michael had long since given up the nightlife for domesticity. Emmett still came around once in awhile as did Ted. Drew and Emmett had reunited about four years ago when Drew was as tired as Brian was. Ted and Blake had officially been back together for the past ten years- since the night Justin had left to make his own way in the world.

He sighed as he looked out over his strobe-lighted Kingdom on one of the rare nights for the past five years he'd chosen to make an appearance. After Justin left, Michael and Ted had talked him into rebuilding Babylon, making it better and even more structurally sound. Because he'd always loved the challenge, he had agreed. But what was once his playground had in a lot of ways become his prison. It just wasn't the same without Michael, Ted, Emmett and Justin.

Back then they were young, fun, and vibrant. But most of all, they were together. And although he would never tell them, he loved them because no matter how shitty he ever acted, the feeling was returned. Yeah, he knew that their own individual ways, they loved him back.

"Another," he told the Bartender.

He stood there waiting, while mentally cutting off the running tape in his head of times gone by, and pressing business matters. That tape drove the Brian Kinney Empire toward success, guided every business venture he'd ever made. In the process, it also kept him emotionally separated from everyone and everything, able to live a decadent life and be more successful than even he had ever dreamed of. Considered the "Golden Boy" of Advertising, he'd always seemed to know what his clients needed before they realized it. As he raised the refilled glass of Jim Beam to his lips, his eyes drifted to a young blond man in the corner of the club.

He stood near the entrance to the infamous Backroom, where almost every wild homosexual fantasy could be fulfilled. Brian smiled to himself in reminiscence of how many of his own wild imaginings had been indulged under blue and yellow lights, black paint and sectioned off areas. As Brian looked on with a slight smile on his lips, an auburn-haired man a tad older joined the blond and they disappeared into the darkness clearly happy and horny. It was a bittersweet reminder of the love had, a love lost, and the love which had moved on from him so fucking long ago.

After Brian and Justin decided to call off their long-awaited wedding ten years ago, Justin packed his bags and moved to New York City. Many wondered why he didn't follow Justin, and the truth was they had talked about it. But in the end, Sunshine had asked him not to. Justin Taylor needed to find who he could be without Brian Kinney to guide and protect him. It was a freedom both hard-won, and tragically lost.

In addition, Brian had just began to work in the capacity as CEO of Kinnetik, the company Brian started at the behest of Justin. Consequently, Justin didn't want him to uproot the business, cutting off his success before it even began. As always Justin was that calming influence for the ever impulsive Brian but not without collateral damage to both of them. It had hurt like hell to let him go then. As he stood there nursing his drink and looking out over the club which had once meant everything young, carefree and beautiful to him, he realized it still did.

But he had loved Justin enough to let him go.

Sure as Justin optimistically stated on the night he left, they had managed to see each other over the years; sometimes scheduled, at other times by complete and utter surprise. The last time was in Toronto at Melanie and Lindsey's. Brian was there for Gus' birthday and had no idea Justin was there for an art show. That date always held special significance for all of them but most of all for Brian and Justin. The same night Gus was born was the same night both of their lives changed.

Justin was only seventeen at the time, while Brian was a twenty-nine year old man, coming out of the same club he was so much the center of. So much happened that night: a chance encounter, a conversation that Brian could still remember as if it happened mere minutes ago, and a fuming best friend squawking about Brian taking the young man home with him. But from the moment they'd first kissed, Brian knew there was something special about that blond boy. There still is, he thought as he replayed their relationship, mentally cataloging every time in that first year they fucked.

Justin was like a stick of dynamite- fascinating as hell to watch burn, but dangerous in close proximity- which was something Brian had sensed about him immediately. In retrospect, it was why he'd fought so hard against Justin and his allure. There was no better word to describe Justin Taylor except alluring; a wild boy at heart, who captured and held the attention of an even wilder man. A year later on the same night of Gus' birthday, Justin regained his entire memory from the bashing, which almost killed him and his dreams of an art career. So that night in Toronto seemed as if they had come full circle, once again.

Brian reached inside his jacket pocket, touching the objects there. He traced a light circle around the smaller of the two. No one knew it, but he carried them everywhere with him as a sort of talisman and in a way they had been. He'd never returned the wedding rings all those years ago. Sliding his hands gently out of his pocket, he opened his palm, cradling the precious metals.

The thump a-thumpa of the music flowed through him. The strobe lights' reflection from above his head bounced off the rings, making the sight of them even more mesmerizing. It was as if he had finally managed to palm a rainbow with all its colors, something Brian had always secretly wished he could do. With that rogue thought still at the forefront of his mind, Brian smiled that sly, seductive smile which had once made him the most desired man in Pittsburgh while still staring at the rings. And he no longer felt tired.

No, he felt ready.