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Author's Chapter Notes:

Brian has some doubts about this time travel thing . . . Enjoy! Sally & TAG

 


Chapter 24 - I’ll Get By.



Brian was exhausted by the time he made it back to The Strand Palace of 2016 the next morning. He had barely slept at all after Justin’s semi-conscious declaration the night before. Instead of sleeping he lay there the whole night and mulled over all the disturbing images in his mind, hearing the conversations of the evening over and over, and then fighting against the emotions that seemed to be overwhelming him. It had been a very long and very restless night, and at the end of it he still didn’t have any answers.


As soon as it had been light out, Brian had left a still slumbering Justin in his bed and fled back to the future. The second he’d stepped through the time hole into the modern Duckett’s Passage, his phone had started beeping with the special chime that indicated he had several voicemail messages waiting. He pulled the device out of his pocket and tapped at the icons that would allow him to listen to the messages as he walked the rest of the way to his hotel. The first two were from Cynthia; mostly run of the mill stuff that he could take care of as soon as he met up with her in the hotel’s office center. There were a few others that were just random stuff, all of which he deleted right off. Then he came upon a message from his Pittsburgh friend, Mikey, which annoyed him enough that he almost hung up before listening to the entire message.


“Hey Bri . . . you there?” Mikey’s voice called out from the speaker on his phone. Michael sighed loudly, “Bri? . . . I guess you’re busy,” Brian could practically hear the pout in his friend’s voice. “Are you in a meeting? . . . Nah, you’re probably out fucking your way through London Town as I speak. I bet everyone there already knows who Brian Kinney is by this point, huh?” His friend laughed at his own joke and Brian thought to himself how much he fucking hated it when Mikey called and left him messages like this - his friend was unable to leave one like a normal person, and he’d prattle on for ages as though they were having a full on conversation.


“Do you have an official title there yet? What do they call you? The Stud of Piccadilly?” More laughter from his pathetic friend who seemed way too invested in Brian’s sex life. “The Yankee Shag Monster?” Brian cringed at the way Mikey tried to take on an English accent as he spoke. “How many asses are you getting through a night over there? I bet the change of scenery and all that fresh meat has you at the top of your game, huh?” Michael chomped loudly on his chewing gum as he spoke. “Anyway, I hit up Babylon the other night with Ted and Emmett . . . it’s definitely not the same without you, but get this, some fucking young ass kid there thinks he’s a big shot and that he can take over your rep on the Avenue. Like that could ever happen, right? Don’t worry, I told the loser off for you. I told him nobody fucks like my best friend, Brian Kinney.”


Brian was rolling his eyes and shaking his head at every other sentence Mikey said. It was so bad that he almost couldn’t see where he was walking. Fucking, pathetic, Mikey.


“. . . Then the guy had the nerve to say you were old and past your prime and that, by the time you did get back, he’d have permanently replaced you,” the blather went on, making Brian wonder if Michael ever even stopped for a breath in between sentences. “I told him he was full of shit. I said you were just busy fucking your way through England since you’d already had all the best tricks here in Pittsburgh. That little shit doesn’t know who he’s messing with. This kid, though, he’ll never match you, Bri. He’s terrible at tricking. He doesn’t just fuck these guys, he becomes their friends. I heard he even DATED a couple of his tricks for a while - and let’s be real, that isn’t the way to become Top Stud. Look at you - you've never dated anyone in your life and would never risk getting snared in a relationship like this idiot. It would only slow you down, right? And we can’t have that. Like you always say, ‘so many asses, so little time!’ I mean, why go back for a repeat when you’ve already had a guy once? You would never bother with that shit. You wouldn’t tie yourself to someone . . . unless, of course, we’re talking the kind of tying up that involves bondage ropes or something kinky like that,” Mikey snorted at his own joke.


At that point in the message, Brian could hear noises in the background of the recording and there was the unmistakable sound of Michael’s mother, Debbie, hollering at him to get his ass to the table before dinner got cold. Shit, some things never changed; Michael was still the same annoying brat he’d been when he was fourteen.


“Well, anyway, I gotta go, Bri. Miss you. Call me back sometime, will ya?”


Finally the long rambling message came to an end and Brian was able to hit the button that deleted it. He often wondered why he was still friends with Michael - especially after he got hit with calls like that one. If it weren’t for the fact that the guy was Brian’s oldest friend . . .


Brian sighed loudly when he realised he still had one more message to get through. The first thirty seconds of the call were silent and he wasn’t sure who it was, but the recording at the start of the message said it lasted five minutes, so he hung on to see if anything came of it. It was only then that he heard Lindsay’s voice in the background.


“Gus, did Daddy not answer?”


There was lots of rustling on the line as Gus moved the handset around.


“No, but his voice did and it tolded me to leave a message.”


Lindz laughed, “has it beeped yet?”


“Yeah, it wented beeeeeeeeeeeeeeep, like that.”


“Then start talking. Daddy can hear you.”


“HI DADDY!” Brian had to pull the phone away from his ear as Gus was squealing so loudly. “Guess what, guess what, guess whatttttt?” Unlike his best friend, his five year old son knew he was leaving a message and didn’t wait as though he was expecting an answer. “I come and see you in FIFTEEN DAYS. That sounds like a long time, Daddy, but Mommy says it isn’t, okay? But I’m so ‘cited, Daddy! Are you ‘cited too? Mommy was showing me that they has big red busses and big black taxis over dere and I want to ride on a bus with you. Can we ride the busses, Daddy? Can we? And can we go visit the castle where the Queen lives? They has big horses there, but you can’t touch them, Daddy, okay? But mostest of all, I want to has a sleepover with you and watch Paw Patrol and eat ice cream for dinner . . . do they has ice cream over dere, Daddy? If not, we can has cookies. But . . . the sleepover has to be boys only, ‘kay, Daddy?”


Brian chuckled as he heard Lindsay, in the background, teasing their son about leaving her out. Fifteen days couldn’t come soon enough. Hearing his kid’s voice made Brian realize how much he was looking forward to having his little boy with him in London. Fucking hell, since when had he become so domesticated? Oh well, it was Gus, right?


“I has to go now, Daddy. Mommy is making me has a bath, but it’s okay, I get to play with my boats. Don’t worry, I will bring dem with me in case you wanna play too. Love you up to the clouds and down to a rabbit hole. Byeeeeeeee.”


Brian smiled against his will at the endearment from his son. The kid was fucking adorable. He was really looking forward to seeing the tyke. He had so many ideas of things they could do together. He wanted to show the kid all over, take him to all the big attractions, really make this time together special. He’d already scoped out several venues: The London Eye, London Zoo, even a couple of museums he thought might be interesting to a child, including the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum and the Imperial War Museum, which reportedly had WWII planes you could explore.


Unfortunately, thinking of the Imperial War Museum inevitably brought to mind Brian’s own World War II adventures. That led to an intrusive thought about how it would’ve been fun to have Justin with him when he took Gus to see the planes. Justin would be able to tell the boy all sorts of amazing stories about the battles he’d seen and the missions he’d flown, as well as explaining the planes’ mechanics better. He knew Justin and Gus would get along great; the young pilot had been so taken with the picture of his son.


For the rest of the short walk back to the hotel, Brian indulged in daydreams about all the fun the three of them might have together. Visions of them together at the museum, the park, the zoo. Gus and Justin laughing. His own little family . . .


Until it suddenly hit Brian just how whipped that line of thinking made him seem and renewed all the troubling thoughts he’d been unable to escape the night before.


What the hell was he doing? Had he really just spent the last month chasing after some pretty little blond boy? Seriously? Brian Kinney, the undisputed Stud of Liberty Avenue had seriously just spent several weeks of his life devoting himself to one single man? And, somehow, he’d become so distracted by that pursuit, that he’d taken to fucking daydreaming about the guy? This was insane. It was so out of character he didn’t even recognize that person. This was not him. It was not the Brian Kinney he’d always striven to be.


Brian Kinney was unapologetic. He refused to give in to societal norms. He didn’t do excuses or regrets or apologies. He also didn’t do relationships and had long determined that he never wanted to be tied down to one person, because that was too conventional, too heteronormative, too much of a surrender. Brian had never wanted to be tied down like that. He had never wanted to be constrained by the norms imposed upon him by others. That wasn't how he saw HIS life to be.


Yet, somehow, he had fallen into that exact trap. A trap where he’d spent the last several weeks focused entirely on only one young blond boy. On Justin. With the result that he’d become someone he almost didn’t recognize. He’d become the kind of guy who spent all his time thinking about one sexual partner, chasing after him, worrying about his safety, and even, amazingly, being voluntarily exclusive. He’d gone on fucking dates with the man. What the hell was up with that?


Thinking about how far he’d fallen down the rabbit hole of relationshipness in such a short time left Brian stunned. He literally did not recognize the person that he’d come to be. Thinking back on the phone message from Mikey that he’d just listened to, Brian was brought up short by the contrast between the man he’d become and the man his friend had described. Clearly, his friends wouldn’t recognize this Brian either.


So, Okay, Justin WAS a pretty amazing guy. Brian admitted that freely. Justin was smart and sexy and hot and a tiger in bed. There was nothing about the man Brian didn’t like. But even assuming he wanted some kind of relationship with the young pilot, Brian knew it was impossible. In the first place, Justin lived in another time. Literally. And, whatever this weird time travel thing was, Brian didn’t know if it would last. The time portal he’d stumbled across might disappear at any moment, the same way it appeared. There was never any guarantee that he could continue going back to World War II the way he had been.


And even if Brian did find a way to continue his time travels, he wasn’t convinced he should. He definitely didn’t belong in that time. His very presence there had caused problems for everyone he met. Look at what had happened with Lucky. Brian’s inadvertent mistake - leaving that 2016 flyer in his coat pocket - had probably been instrumental in increasing the sanctions Lucky was going to face pursuant to his arrest. And even when Brian tried to do things to help, like ensuring Daphne and Fancy were safe from that raid, it had ended in questions and problems. Who knew, maybe his meddling in the past would result in even bigger problems - maybe even some major shift in history like in all those science-fiction novels he’d read as a child. It just wasn’t safe for him to be there.


Perhaps more importantly, it wasn’t safe for him personally either. Brian wasn’t meant for that time period. He had lived his whole life being an out and proud gay man. He wasn’t prepared to go back in the closet. He wasn’t ready to live in a time where merely being gay was grounds for arrest. He certainly wasn’t ready to face the consequences of that eventuality, up to and including something as barbaric as a sentence of chemical castration. And that’s not even counting the dangers he faced just walking around the streets in the middle of a fucking war zone. What the hell had he been thinking? He could have been killed while wandering around in the past and no one here in 2016 would even know what had happened to him.


Which was even more crazy when you considered that there was no justifiable reason behind what he’d been doing. As interesting as it was to see a fascinating historical time period up close and personal like that, it didn’t warrant him putting his life at risk. For one thing, he had Gus to think about, and after hearing his kid’s voice, he knew he shouldn’t be fucking around with this shit. His life was worth more than that.


And, frankly, even his fascination with the engaging little RAF pilot he’d met there wasn’t enough to justify the potential danger. Because it was undisputed that there was no future for him with Justin Taylor. Brian knew that Justin had only weeks left, for fuck’s sake. He knew the exact date and circumstances of Justin‘s death - assuming the history books could be believed - so even if he wanted something real with his blond fantasy lover from the past, it was quite literally impossible. And dragging this thing out, would only lead to Brian getting hurt in the end. There was NO other outcome. It was the definition of insanity to think otherwise.


Clearly, it was better to just break things off now. Brian owed it to Justin not to make the kid think there was something there that wasn’t going to happen. He owed it to himself not to get involved in something he hadn’t wanted in the first place and which would never go anywhere anyways. It was just plain stupid to keep playing with fire like that. To keep deluding himself it had been more than just a bit of fun. An interesting adventure. A time out from Brian’s real life.


It was time to get back to reality, though. Brian had a life here in the present. He had a job, friends, his son. Those were the things he should be concentrating on. Not some fantasy life in the heroic past. And definitely NOT some delusional little blond boy that wanted him to become some strange monogamous version of himself that he didn’t recognize. It was long past time to get back to the real world, his real life, and get on with things.


Brian came to this conclusion just as he was approaching the entrance to his hotel. He nodded to the familiar doorman who held the gilt-framed glass door open for him. He walked through the lobby, stepping aside to let a same-sex couple - who were holding hands and smiling at each other - go past, before he stepped up to the front desk to collect his room key. The guy manning the post this morning was a newbie. And a very attractive newbie at that. The guy had close-cropped, curly, light auburn hair and a well-trimmed beard that was a slightly brighter shade of red. His green eyes twinkled with a friendly gleam. That, along with his ruddy complexion, made the lad seem almost jolly. Brian approved of what he saw.


He also approved of the fact that the clerk wasn’t at all ashamed to openly flirt with him, smiling, joking about Brian being out all night, and asking if he’d been to a particular gay club that the man recommended. It felt so natural and freeing after the secrecy and constraint he always felt when he was with Justin back in 1941. This was definitely where Brian belonged. This was his proper time. He didn’t need that closeted shit from the past.


And, just to prove it to himself, Brian pointedly asked the handsome ginger what time his next break was going to be. Red chuckled and answered right back that he could take his break anytime he wanted. Brian smiled his most seductive Kinney smile and simply tilted his head to towards the elevators.


“Ella, I’m taking my break now,” Red announced forthwith, winking at Brian as he handed off a set of keys to the the woman who came out of the back room at his call, and then trotting through the door to come up next to Brian. “After you, Mr. Kinney,” Red purred.


Twenty fast and furious minutes later, Brian was sprawled out across his bed, while Red was busying himself by putting his uniform back on. The fucking had been good. It was the usual hot, sweaty rush of lust he was used to. Red had been enthusiastic and quite athletic. They had barely got in the room before Brian threw him roughly down on the bed, stripped the man’s pants off and proceeded to use him in the typical rough and ready way he normally handled all tricks. And it had been good. They’d both gotten off. They both got what they’d wanted and needed from the experience. No mess, no bother, no hassles. Just good, old, single-minded fucking.


Brian wasn’t going to let himself dwell on the fact that it was the first time he’d been with someone other than Justin in nearly a month. He wasn’t going to let it bother him that he’d been a little thrown when he’d grabbed hold of the trick’s short, curly head of hair and been momentarily surprised not to feel the familiar golden floss he was expecting. He refused to compare the roughness of the trick’s skin to the pale ivory softness he had become used to. And when they were done, he resisted the sense of loss he felt at the fleeting thought that he wouldn’t be nestling up in bed next to a nice warm body while they both came down from their climaxes together. He wasn’t going to let himself even think about those things. All of that was just silly sentimentality. It wasn’t necessary. That wasn’t what a Stud like Brian wanted, right?


And as Brian rolled over and finally drifted off to sleep, he didn’t let himself think even once about how nice it would have been to have his Blue Eyes there curled up in bed next to him. He didn’t. Really. He was done with that. All of that.


That part of his life was over and Brian wasn’t going to even think the name ‘Justin’ ever again.  


 


 

Chapter End Notes:

1/1/18 - I'll Get By by Dick Haymes

 

Apologies for how long it’s taken us to get this chapter up, what with family obligations, the holidays and Sally catching what she believes to be some form of the Plague (throat infection), our writing time has been limited. But we’re back. And oh boy, is this about to get real exciting. Sally & TAG

 

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