Prologue

2042:

Dr. Jiang had been lecturing animatedly to his students on the profound importance of the artifact currently rotating on the screen at the front of the room, when his hands suddenly gripped his head and he collapsed to the floor beside his lectern, his body seizing. His heart had been stopped and his brain deprived of precious oxygen for several minutes by the time paramedics were able to navigate the intricate maze of hallways that were infamous in the campus building that bore his name. He had fought long and hard to keep the building in its original architectural state, to avoid the massive modernization the remainder of the university had undergone a decade or so ago. It seemed fitting, then, that the building witness the final protests of his fierce heart, that its walls would echo with the fading sound of his final breaths.

At 3:42 on a warm, cloudless Tuesday afternoon in May, Dr. Jiang was pronounced dead. He was sixty-two years old and tomorrow he would have celebrated his thirty-third anniversary. His husband grieved, his heart wrenching at the incomprehensible loss of Tommy Jiang's touch, of his soft voice and soulful eyes, of his quiet spirit. He endured it all with a pretense of stoicism. He would never again be in the presence of Tommy's boundless energy nor the recipient of his immense wisdom. He would break down later, he knew. But not now. Not now. Now he would call up every vestige of decorum he possessed to honor and respect the man who had taught him so much about love and loyalty and acceptance.

Two taller, older figures flanked his every movement for three days. Their dark hair shot through with streaks of gray and their bodies slightly less imposing than they'd been in their youth, they put aside their own grief and willed their own strength into the smaller man they supported. On the fourth day the three men stood, arms holding each other up, as Zongxiàn 'Tommy' Jiang was buried, his head pointing toward China, one final show of respect to his ancestors.

Justin would later have inscribed on his beloved husband's monument:

                        Yī yè zhī qiū - The falling of the first leaf heralds the Autumn.

Introductions

2012:

"Where the hell's my other shoe?" Justin was rushing, yet again, to make an early morning appointment with a client. He'd worked late into the night desperately trying to finish up a curriculum for the new children's interactive art program at Montoya Synergetic. With the lack of sleep, this morning was looking bleak as far as his already tight schedule was concerned. And now, with the great shoe hunt redux, his time was seriously bordering on a stranglehold.

"This what you're looking for, bǎo bèi?" Justin turned and saw a smirking Tommy swinging the delinquent runner by its still tied laces. "You know, if you'd simply put them in the closet when you get home instead of leaving them where you kick 'em off, this problem would be so easily solved."

Justin retrieved the shoe and kissed the smirking man passionately. "Kiss my ass, pìyǎnr ."

"Oooo...If that's an invitation," Tommy laughed, "you'll definitely miss your appointment this morning. Just think about the children, bǎo bèi."

"Thinking about the children is exactly why I'm running so fucking late this morning," Justin huffed. "Finessing the curriculum took a lot longer than I anticipated."

"But it will be wonderfully fun and comprehensive, as always, Jus." Tommy handed Justin a travel mug of coffee and pushed him toward the door. "Now, go. Be brilliant. Bring artistic enlightenment to the huddled masses and I'll see you tonight," he said with a light kiss on Justin's forehead. "Chinese okay for dinner?"

"Always the comedian, Dr. Jiang," Justin shrugged his satchel onto his shoulder and with a smile he added, "Love you, Professor. Knock 'em dead from the lectern."

Tommy winked. "Love you, too, Jus."

Ten minutes later Justin held precariously to the overhead strap on the subway car. No matter how many times he'd taken this trip over the last seven years, he'd never completely gotten used to the velocity, the propulsion of subway transit. It always made him slightly nauseous and the crush of riders with their potpourri of smells didn't help the situation much. The unwashed bodies, the overly sweaty ones, the cheap colognes and rich perfumes... it all mixed into a sometimes overwhelmingly heady experience of this city.

Nothing in Pittsburgh had prepared him for the pure culture shock - just pure shock itself - that met him when his feet had first hit the ground at Laguardia. He'd been to New York before, of course. But now, he was going to live here. He'd been at once terrified and exhilarated, a little bit melancholy and a little bit angry. Why the hell he hadn't taken more time to better plan this 'great artistic adventure' he didn't know. Living on a frayed shoestring while bunking on a broken-down sofa in a fifth floor walk-up shared with three other desperate souls wasn't exactly what he'd planned, but it was what he had. As well as flashbacks to sharing a decrepit apartment in the Pitts, complete with sound effects, compliments of one fucking cello-playing roommate named Jorge.

Once the initial adrenaline slowed, it didn't take long for the depression to set it. Justin had been just a hair's breath away from full blown depressive since the bashing as it was. Now, in the wake of bombs, with poverty burning a cold hole in his pocket, and without the consistent support network he'd so cavalierly left behind him, his emotional state tanked.  It fully hit when it became obvious that he and Brian were really over, that there were just too many issues between them to navigate, that they weren't even going to seriously try to make it work. His art suffered and he further distanced himself from Pittsburgh and the family for a long while. He fleetingly dabbled in Brian's methods of managing his pain until he woke up in yet another hospital room, swollen and struggling to breathe from a reaction to who knows what random drug he'd ingested. He was alone, scared out of his mind at what he might have done, and with another hole in his memory.

But, as tends to happen, time passed and he came to terms with his life and he started to grow up. Slowly and painfully, he learned who he was as a man, living on his own terms. What he was capable of without the stigma of being 'the stalker' or 'Brian's Kinney's twink' or 'the Boy Wonder'. He found out things about himself that he'd likely never have discovered under Brian's wing: a love of opera and Gregorian music, a decided aversion to Thai take-out, that not shaving every day made him appear older, that he didn't need 'friends' who expected carte blanche access to his home and the details of his personal life.

Most importantly he realized that the sun rose and the sun set with or without Brian Kinney around. That had been a hard fact to accept at first. But it had been a necessary one. And the acceptance had let him live 'just another day'.  'Just another month'. 'Just another year'. Finally, he learned how to live without the scare quotes and time framing. 

At last Justin felt the train slow at his stop, heard the mechanical hiss of the doors sliding open with the accompanying rush of bodies against his own. His stomach calmed as his feet again made contact with the stained concrete of the landing, as one foot brushed aside the discarded remains of someone's hastily eaten breakfast, as the deafening cacophony that was The City once again thrummed against his eardrums. The never-ending beat pulsed through him like a Saturday night at Babylon, and he smiled widely.

He fucking loved New York.

:::

Brian closed his laptop and laid his glasses on the cover. He'd been working on this account for a few too many hours and now, even with the readers, the words were starting to run together. He yawned and stretched and, looking at the small digital clock on his desk, realized it was already 12:45. He should have been in bed an hour ago. As he stood, he felt that small twinge in his right knee again. A memento of his chaotic childhood that bothered him more and more as the years passed. Christ, he thought, when did I get so old? After another, longer stretch he quietly turned off the lights and made his way to bed.

"Mmphfh." Brian smiled at the unintelligible acknowledgment from the body snuggled down into the dark blue duvet. He rolled over and, pushing a lock of shaggy hair aside, let his lips drift across the soft skin just behind his partner's ear.

"Go back to sleep," he said softly.

"Mmm... Love you, Brian. 'Night," came the sleepy reply.

Brian chuckled lightly at the sleepy lump beneath the covers and once again marveled at the way his life had played out. A little over seven years ago he'd been convinced his life was over. A few weeks after Justin left, right on the heels of losing Gus to the Great White North, Brian's life spiraled.  He'd thrown himself headfirst and blind into the bottle, the drugs and as many tricks as he could possibly find. But every drink, every snort, every anonymous body just left him feeling a bit more empty.

The final blow had been one fucked-up party and a drug bust, with a plea bargain six months later. Thank god he'd had Cynthia and Ted, and a host of others, to pick up the reins of Kinnetik or he would have ended up penniless. While he detoxed and spent his time in court mandated rehab, they carried the company. Hell, they made it thrive. He would never be able to thank them enough for that, a fact they never missed an opportunity to remind him of. His professional reputation had taken a serious hit and Brian knew it. He also knew he'd been lucky to have dodged this particular bullet for so many years, a circumstance which had fed both his dependencies and his now tarnished Teflon image. But after everything he'd gone through to build his company, he'd be damned if he'd lose the last thing he had of any worth in his life.

It was the wakeup call he needed to start getting his shit together. And now, at the age of 42, after years of the therapy he'd always sworn he'd never submit to and facing down demons he'd managed to avoid for the better part of thirty-five years, his life was... good. He'd left the Pitts and resettled Kinnetik in New York, carving out a niche for himself in the bustle of Manhattan's streets. He had a comfortable home, a best friend who knew him better than any friend should probably ever know another - and he had this crazy lump in bed beside him. As his partner.

Peter Pan had finally given in and grown up. 

As he crawled into the warmth of the sheets and curled himself up to the lean muscled back, he let out a contented sigh against tousled, dark hair.

"Night, Kels. I love you, too." The words came easily. Honestly. And he'd always be just a little amazed at that.