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March 11

Justin lazily leafed through the Art Forum magazine on his lap, but wasn't paying it much mind as he was far too tired and content to focus on actually reading it. In fact, the only reason that he'd even picked it up in the first place was that there was an article in it written by Lindsay's dear friend Simon Caswell; and he couldn't help but wonder what young, hot thing he was talking up this time.

Mostly, so that he could tell the kid to steer clear of the dickwad; Caswell was bad news all around and he didn't want some poor idiot with stars in his eyes getting sucked into his bullshit. It wasn't a good place to be, and Justin would happily sponsor the kid himself just so he could stick it to cunty Simon, like he had with the last two unknowns Simon tried to drain dry.

Frowning, Justin set the magazine aside and shook those thoughts off, preferring to focus on something much more productive. Nothing good came of remembering those first few weeks in New York. Plus, if he started thinking about it, he'd get pissed and then Brian would notice and want to know why; and that was a can of worms he didn't want to open right now. Especially since they'd been having such a good evening so far.

Justin stretched and sighed; and then he bent over and pick up his laptop, so that he could do some work on his show. Thankfully, he'd finished and sent off his last two pieces yesterday, having taken a little more time with them due to the show being postponed. But he still had to put some notes together about why he'd chosen to do pastels instead of his typical oils and write down a little information on each piece for Sydney.

It was all pretty tedious, but necessary work, given that his opening was in four days; or would it be three now? Well, since the show was opening on the fifteenth. He really couldn't put it off any longer. And since Brian was busy working on an account, Justin figured that there was no time like the present to finish it up and send it off.

He worked steadily for the next twenty minutes or so, enjoying the quiet camaraderie between he and Brian; sometimes it was nice to just be in the same room with each other, even if they weren't talking. And then, when Justin was nearly finished editing the file for the second time, Brian cleared his throat and looked up from his screen. Justin lifted his head and looked up at him, wondering what he needed.

"So, I heard a name that I kind of liked yesterday," Brian said out o the blue, before looking back at his screen again. Justin was a little surprised that he was bringing it up, when typically Brian just added the names onto their growing list; but maybe he wanted Justin's opinion of it?

"Oh?" Justin asked, looking back down at his screen as well, and fixing a bit of awkward wording in one of the pastel descriptions. "What was it?"

"Well, before you get your back up, it was from a book series that someone was talking about," Brian said, instantly putting Justin on guard; he really hated the idea of naming his kid after some pop culture phenomenon that wouldn't age well. "Although, I didn't catch the name of the series they were discussing."

"Brian," Justin huffed and pinched the bridge of his nose "You know how I feel about…"

"I'm not saying we should take the full name of the character," Brian interrupted, sending Justin a 'give me some credit' look. "But I did like the first name and it has the advantage of sounding gender-neutral, which is what we've been looking at right?"

Justin chewed on his bottom lip, instantly wanting to put his foot down on the sheer principle of it; but, Brian seemed so earnest about it, and really, it wouldn't hurt to find out what name he'd taken a liking to if nothing else.

"Sure," Justin said hesitantly; and then he sighed and shrugged when he couldn't come up with a good reason not to consider it. "I suppose that if I were to rule out names from pop culture, we'd never find a suitable name. What is it; we can always put it on the list."

"Quil," Brian said, typing something into his laptop for a moment, and then cocked his head before shaking it and deleting whatever he'd just written. "Only one L in it from what I understand."

"Quil?" Justin said slowly, watching Brian with no little amount of confusion; that name struck a chord in him for some reason, and it wasn't a pleasant one. Where had he heard that name again? He couldn't figure it out, so he decided to just ask Brian. "Where did you hear it again?"

"Oh, some conversation that Emmett and Theodore were having yesterday," Brian said a bit absently, still typing away. "They were debating the hotness of the male characters of some movie series that was based on a young adult novel series."

Justin furrowed his brow, running that new information through his head over and over again; it sounded familiar and something about it was setting off an alarm in his head, but he couldn't figure out why. The name didn't stand out like Katniss had.

"And they recommended it to you," Justin said, a bit concerned; because he knew Em and his addiction to young adult novels, and he had to be trying to slip something past Justin.

"Yeah, they mentioned it was some series that had vampires and werewolves; and there was some sort of love triangle in it revolving around a human girl that had accidentally discovered their world?" Brian said, shrugging his shoulders.

Justin's eyes widened in horror, because no fucking way! There was no way in hell that was going to happen on his watch. Hell would freeze over before he allowed his child to be named by anyone in that particular series no matter how small the part.

"Did they?" Justin asked, his lips compressing into a thin line; he and Emmett really needed to have discussion about appropriate names for his child. "And you didn't find anything odd with that?"

"No," Brian said, looking at him blankly; and Justin was pretty sure that he had no idea what series the name came from, but you could never tell with Brian. "Should I have?"

"No, not at all," Justin said, still watching his husband warily; he just had this niggling feeling that he was missing something; he just didn't know what. "It just sounds strikingly familiar and wondered if you might know where it came from."

"That's all I know," Brian said, nonplussed.

"Right," Justin said doubtfully, shaking his head as he pretended to take notation of the name for Brian's benefit. "I'll put it on the list."

And then I will promptly forget about it as there is no way in hell I'm naming our child after a fucking Twilight character. Because seriously, Quil? He and Emmett needed to have a very long talk about not foisting his favorite character names on Brian.

"Put down the name Quinn as well," Brian continued, and that brought Justin up short again, because Quinn just wasn't a name he could ever see Brian going for.

"Why Quinn?" Justin asked, once again wary about this particular name for some reason. But, again like Quil, he couldn't place his finger on it.

"Well, it's similar to Quil," Brian said, and Justin swore he saw a small smile flit across his face at that point, but it came and went so fast he wasn't sure; especially as Brian was staring at his screen at the time and could have just been happy with what he was working on. "Plus it also has the whole gender-neutral name thing going on."

"Where did you get that one?" Justin asked with a frown, giving up any pretense of looking through his document by this point, and simply staring at his husband.

"I overheard it on the TV when I was dropping Gus off one night," Brian said, typing something on the computer, and then clicking his mouse as if he was sending it off; he frowned and looked at the stack of papers next to his computer as he explained. "Jenny was watching some show that had a bunch of singing on it and they mentioned some character by the name of Quinn. I didn't catch the name of the show and I can't remember what the last name was."

"Was it Fabray, by any chance?" Justin asked, his face growing a bit pinched, because again, no. Just no. He didn't mind the show; it was entertaining, but he could just imagine how many fucking Quinns and Finns and Rachels were already going to be running around Sunbeam's school, and no.

"Um…maybe?" Brian asked, cocking his head to the side as he thought about it; and then shrugged again. "That sounds familiar?"

Justin gritted his teeth, but didn't say anything, pointedly not making a notation of it in his computer this time. Because no. Instead he just steadily worked on the file for Sydney; and if Brian thought that he was writing these names down, then what he didn't know, wouldn't hurt him in this case. But it didn't stop the hackles from rising because Quil and Quinn? Really?

He felt as if he were missing something for sure at this point, but he didn't know what. It made no sense to him that Brian would come up with these names out of the blue. Justin had had a hard enough time with Brian accepting the name Lea because it was too close to Leah from Star Wars. (And yes, he realized just how hypocritical his stance was given the name was of a currently popular actress, but it was pretty and a potential middle name, not a first name. There was a difference.) So, why on Earth was Brian was coming up with all these names now?

Someone had to be feeding them to him; it was the only explanation. And if he found out that Emmett had played a part, he was so going to kill him because he knew how Justin felt about the whole fictional name for his kid bit.

"And since we're on names," Brian said, startling Justin out of his thoughts and instantly setting him on edge. "I did have one last one that I was considering."

"Is it Arwen by any chance?" Justin asked sarcastically, making Brian snort; well, at least that one he recognized.

"Uh, no," Brian snickered, a devilish glint in his eyes. "But feel free to jot that down if you must."

"I think I'll pass," Justin huffed, still fuming that someone was trying to fuck with his child by giving them some god awful 'tween book series name.

"Suit yourself," Brian shrugged, leaning back into the back of the couch; he patiently waited for Justin to finish what he was doing, and when it became obvious that he wasn't going to let this go, Justin groaned internally and looked up.

"So, what name am I writing down now?" Justin asked, picking up a pen to mime writing it down, even though he had no intention of doing so at this point. Something was just off about this entire situation and he was determined to figure it out.

"Francis." Brian said with a smirk.

Justin narrowed his eyes and stared at his husband incredulously. He wanted what?

"Francis?" Justin asked skeptically, not buying it for one moment.

"Yup," Brian nodded, a placid smile on his face; which just ratcheted Justin's suspicions up another notch. "Another one of those gender-neutral names."

Francis? Francis!? You want to name our child Francis? Who the fuck are you? And what have you done with my husband?

"Dare I ask where you got that from?" Justin asked, casting a mistrustful glance Brian's way. Brian just grinned, his eyes sparkling with mischief.

"No one puts Baby in the corner," Brian quoted seriously; and then doubled over laughing when Justin squawked incredulously.

Oh, no he didn't! He did not just go where he thought he did!

But Brian just continued to laugh, his laptop sliding onto the couch as he tried to get his breath back, and Justin realized that the asshole had been playing him the entire time!

"You…" Justin spluttered, realizing now that Emmett and Ted had nothing to do with this, but it had all been his husband's doing. "You… you asshole! I thought you were being serious there for a minute! I can't believe that you…"

"Oh, I am, Sunshine," Brian said, the picture of innocence, before doubling over and laughing again. "Seriously fucking with you, that is. Oh my God, your face when I kept suggesting those names. It was priceless. I wish I had a picture of that."

"You are such a dick," Justin groused, scowling at his screen; not that it did any good, because Brian just kept laughing at him. "I was getting ready to revoke your child naming privileges until you acquired some better taste. Quil…where the fuck did you even get that; he's not a well known character."

"I looked up various character lists for the most obnoxious shows or books I could find and then grabbed the names that were gender-neutral," Brian smirked, still chuckling every now and then, especially when Justin cursed under his breath.

"Such an asshole," Justin grumbled, shaking his head as he sent the file to Sydney.

"That's what you get for your little triplets prank a couple of weeks ago," Brian said, an amused smile on his face. Justin flipped him off.

"Oh, you're going to pay for that, Kinney!" Justin promised, already trying to come up with a suitable comeuppance. But his mind was a drawing a blank at the moment.

"That's Taylor-Kinney, Sunshine," Brian corrected, snickering when Justin bared his teeth and growled at him. "Just admit it; I got you good."

 

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