The One Where Justin Finishes His Work

LaVieEnRose

Sometimes I look around at my life and wonder how the hell I got all the way here.

Like...okay. Just as an example, sometimes I think about what it used to take to get affection out of Brian.

Physical affection, sure, that was easy, and I'm not even talking about sex here. There's a reason I knew pretty early on in our...whatever it was, back then, that Brian was fucking gone over me. Little pats on my thigh when he asked me if I would get him some coffee. Palming the back of my head when he walked past me. Slinging an arm over my waist when I got back in bed if I got up to pee in the middle of the night. Fucking constantly burying his face in the crook of my neck whenever he was tired.

But actually saying something nice to me? That was an entirely different matter.

I actually still remember the first nice thing he ever said to me. I was living at Deb's, and even though he hadn't stayed over the night before, he came by in the morning to bring me to school. Again, unspoken shit, never an issue.

I was at the breakfast table sketching a picture of my mom, and I drained the last of my orange juice and kissed him. “Almost ready.”

“Mmm.” He prowled the kitchen in that way he does, picking food off everyone's plates because that way it doesn't count as him actually eating, squeezing Vic's shoulder and ruffling Deb's wig. Eventually he made his way back over to me and glanced at the picture I was drawing. “That's not bad,” he said.

That! That was the first compliment Brian ever gave me. “That's not bad.” After I'd known him for six fucking months, and I floated on air from that shit for fucking weeks!

It has always, always been a struggle to get affectionate words out of Brian, and it bothered me some when I was younger, especially after the bashing when everything was just...confusing. It's hard to explain to people what that time was like, because Brian says I started acting pretty normal after the first few months of recovery, but...God, it took like a year and a half before I felt like myself again, and I totally thought everybody knew! It wasn't even like I was trying to hide it from people; I honestly thought everyone could tell what a fucking mess I was. And even Brian couldn't. I felt like I was underwater, like everything was happening to me slower than it was happening to everyone else, and by the time I processed what was going on it was already over.

But anyway, after I finally rejoined the living, it never really bothered me that Brian didn't say stuff verbally. Brian expresses affection by touching me and giving me shit, and as someone who likes sex and living outside of my means, that works out pretty fucking well for me most of the time. I get a little sad sometimes that I never heard him say I love you before the sound went off, but honestly I'm not sure I even would have realized that he never said it if he hadn't gotten drunk and cried about it when I was twenty-five. It's just not what I expect from him. Brian Kinney doesn't say shit. He tells Michael he loves him, sure, but like he's reciting lines from a play. Which is not to say he doesn't love Michael, not at all! He totally does. But he tells him because he's trained himself to do it, and that's not what I want.

When we started signing, it didn't even cross my mind that things would change in that respect. Which I guess makes sense, I mean, it's not like I had some shortage of things to focus on when I was losing my hearing. Because if I'd really thought about it, it should have been kind of obvious, right? Give Brian Kinney, the world's most physical person, a physical language, and shit's going to be different.

But sometimes I'm still fucking amazed by the things that just...fall out of his hands. I have a few other friends who started signing later in life who say it's the same for them, that they're more impulsive when they're signing than when they're speaking, that they don't even realize they'd decided to say something until they're already saying it. And it's true for me too, but expressing myself has never been the sort of Arthurian quest for me that it is for Brian, so it's less remarkable.

As if there's anything in the world that's not less remarkable than Brian, but you know. This is already going to be a pretty sappy story—I mean, fuck, I'm supposed to be summing everything up here!— so let's keep it together while we can, people.

So, okay. Here's where we're gonna end this, with a list of shit Brian Kinney never, ever would have said if he had to voice it out loud. Things his hands said that he definitely didn't mean them to say. Maybe that seems like kind of a flippant place to finish, but...

I don't know. You'll see.

**

Ages ago, back at the loft, I was stir frying some noodles and Brian came up behind me and wrapped an arm around my chest.

“Hi,” I said.

He ran a cupped hand up and down my torso, and I shivered. He pressed a kiss to the back of my neck. My shirt, he signed on my chest.

I blushed and turned around. I know. I was cold. I won't get oil on it.

He ran his hands up and down my arms and shrugged. It's okay, he said. You look hot. He drifted over to the cabinet to start setting the table, and I stared at his back.

A second later, he froze, then turned around and looked at me with the most baffled look on his face.

What? he said. What the hell did I just...?

I started laughing so hard I almost fell over. I made fun of Brian for having a crush on me for like a week after that.

**

A couple months later we were in shower, washing the stench of onion rings and tuna melts off me after a double shift. Brian was washing my hair because my hand was useless after hours of juggling plates and pouring coffee, and because, well, he usually washes my hair. He says it's the only thing in the world I'm the right height for. Asshole.

Should I just record this conversation so you can watch it in your spare time and we can stop having it over and over again? he said. Quit the fucking diner.

“I can't,” I said out loud, since my hand was out of commission.

I know it's a great job opportunity, what with the minuscule pay, the rude customers, and the way it absolutely wrecks your hand, but—

“I can't do that to Debbie. You know I can't.”

I've been disappointing Debbie since I was fourteen. Trust me, she gets by. He tilted my head back and rinsed my hair.

“This isn't like her walking in on me smoking with Michael.” I shook the water out of my hair. “Kiki's threatening to quit all the time, and we already lost the new cook earlier this month. She counts on me.”

I'm going to find you flattened on the street one day and your last words are going to be, 'but they needed my body to fill in this pothole.'

“One thing I've always admired about you is your restraint against hyperbolizing.”

He snickered and kissed me. Sometimes when I watch him laugh, I swear I can still hear it. I could, right that minute. And then he touched my fingers to the base of his throat and hummed so I could feel it. I leaned into his collarbone and closed my eyes, and I felt him take my right hand and gently uncurl it under the hot water. My fingers shook against his palm, and he ran his other hand over the inside of my forearm.

He moved his hand underneath my chin and lifted it with two fingers. Think about the lawsuit after you pour coffee on a customer. Debbie should be begging you to quit.

“You know, it's amazing how people think you're uncaring. You express your concern so openly.”

I know, I don't get it either. He stuck his tongue in his cheek and grinned at me. You done? I nodded, and he turned off the water and we toweled off. He said, Look, we're leaving in a few months anyway. One way or another, she's going to have to get used to running shit without you. Why not have her do that before you hurt yourself?

“I'll think about it,” I said. “Okay? I'll try cutting back at least.”

He gave my hair a tug and smacked a kiss on my lips. Want to eat before we go out?

“Yeah, I'll make a salad.”

We got dressed, and he gave me a quick squeeze with his arms all the way around me. Don't go anywhere, he said casually as he walked to the kitchen to reheat some of the leftovers from our last Sunday dinner.

I laughed a little. “Where am I gonna go?”

Just generally, he signed over his shoulder. Don't go anywhere.

**

What the fuck, he signed, gasping, my dick still inside him, our first weekend in our new apartment. What the fuck, how?

**

My first week with my new job was incredibly hectic, and I was just starting to get pulled out of the really shitty depression I'd been in that whole season, and I could tell Brian was keeping an eye on me. He'd look at me sideways on the couch if I got an email after business hours, and nag me about getting enough sleep, so I knew he was worried I was overwhelmed. Which was why when I was at my desk one time looking through the portfolio of a young artist Marie was curious about early one Saturday and Brian walked in when I thought he was still asleep, I totally expected to get lectured.

He sat a coffee cup in front of me and stood there drinking his own. What are you working on? he asked me.

I scrunched up my nose, trying for adorable, and the look on his face told me I was succeeding, but only just. Up and coming artist in Georgia, I said. She's done a few local showings and I found her website, and Marie told met to put together a proposal if I want us to show her.

Can I see?

Yeah. I spread some of the prints out on the table. I mean...I don't think anyone else in New York is looking at her yet. This could be big for the gallery, we could be discovering someone who's going to be really monumental. She's only thirty. She could really be something.

Only thirty, huh? Brian said dryly, and he leafed through the prints. He paused on one and said, This is kind of great.

That's my favorite too! The proposal I'm thinking of is centered around this piece, and the one three back that kind of supports it...

Brian looked. Yeah, I can see it.

I took the coffee cup in my hands and jiggled my legs. “I keep thinking about her sitting in her apartment in like, shitty rural Georgia, just painting, with no idea this is even on the table,” I said. “If Marie likes my proposal, if it goes through...this will completely change her life. I could do that.”

That is really fucking cool, Brian signed, small, still looking through the prints.

I grinned into my cup.

**

Brian's been a wuss about hangovers for as long as I've known him. He always said once I got older I'd understand, but now I'm almost as old as he was when we met and even though I can't drink that often because of my meds, I slip up often enough to know that no, he's just a damn baby. He says that's not fair to him because I know what actually being sick feels like so I'm used to it whereas his experience consists of catching a cold once every five years, so it's worse for him proportionately. You cannot make this shit up.

I was making him breakfast to bring to him in bed one Sunday morning because I am a man of infinite patience. I had earbuds in and the volume cranked up as high as it would go so I could feel the vibrations in my ears, and I danced a little as I slipped my spatula under an omelet. I felt the floor creak over by the doorway, and when I turned around he was leaning against the refrigerator, his hair sticking up in all directions.

“Hello,” I said.

You're going to ruin what's left of your hearing doing that.

I did a mock-provocative dance for him, still holding the spatula, and he snorted and pressed his face against the refrigerator to hide how hard he was grinning.

“Do you want some aspirin?” I asked him.

Yeah. I grabbed the bottle from the cabinet, and when I turned around he said, I like your hair longer like this.

Thanks.

**

So then, at the end of July, I poured a pot of boiling water on myself, but that's old news by now. Brian was initially kind of skittish about sex after, about touching me anywhere close to where the grafts are, but he got over it and a week after I got home from the hospital he was back to fucking me as roughly as ever. Thank God.

The night before he had to go back to Pittsburgh for work, he was making me squirm and see colors and make God knows how much noise, and I shifted at one point to unpin my arm from underneath me so I could sign some dirty shit at him, and he stopped when I readjusted and said, What's wrong, am I hurting you? and God, his eyes were so big.

I'm fine, I told him, signing right against my new graft, and he kissed me and I hung on, fiercely.

**

So, like I said, he had to go back to Pittsburgh for a few days to clean up some mess Ted made, and I was swamped diving back into work and couldn't go back with him. I was still a little freaky from the whole thing and was planning to get Daphne to come stay with me at the apartment while he was gone, but I mentioned it offhand to my mom on the phone, and she said, No, I'll do it, I'll come up, with all this hope in her eyes, and I couldn't say no. I knew she'd been so freaked out by the whole ordeal, and the last time she'd seen me in person I was still laid up in the hospital bed, so I figured it would be good for both of us to kind of get some more assurance that I was doing okay. I found a Broadway show that had an interpreter that weekend and took her out for that and a nice dinner and all in all it was a really, really nice visit. Between that and work it was a lot of rushing around, though, and I still wasn't back to my old energy levels, so I was sacked out on the couch on Sunday when Brian came home. I waved, and he gave me one of those smiles that's only with his eyes.

How'd he do? he asked my mom.

Great. She hugged him. He's great.

Just tell me what I owe you for babysitting, he said.

We all had dinner together at the apartment before Mom's flight, and we told Brian about the show and he made a good job of pretending like he cared while secretly sending me death glares whenever Mom wasn't looking for making him sit through a play-by-play of a musical, and he regaled us with the story of saving Kinnetik: Pittsburgh from certain destruction, and filled me in on how Gus was doing, and Mom, who had seen him the week before, piggybacked on that, and I got to just sit there and watch them and try to stay awake, and the whole thing was so fucking domestic that Brian was probably coming out of his skin, but he hid it well. Brian had a few messages on his phone that Cynthia said were urgent, so he dived into those as soon as we were done eating, standing in the kitchen with his phone to his ear. I offered to take Mom outside to get her a cab, but she told us she was perfectly capable of hailing her own, so I told her I loved her and she kissed my cheek and squeezed me tight.

I love you, she said to me. She leaned across the counter and kissed Brian. Love you.

Love you too, he said, barely paying attention, still focused on his phone, and I tried to wait until my mother was gone to fucking gape at him, but I don't think I succeeded. He, on the other hand, managed to wait until she'd closed the door behind her before he sunk his head down to the countertop.

“What the fuck,” I said.

Oh my God, he signed without lifting his head.

“You are fucking out of control,” I said. “I'm going to have to handcuff you. Jesus Christ, what's next?”

He stood up, set down the phone, and gave me a quick kiss as he walked past me. Goodbye. It was nice seeing you. I'm going to go drown myself now.

**

I got sick again a few weeks later, just a cold, and it turned out totally fine, but we were both kind of nervous about it. I stayed home for a day, and he ended up moving things around so that he could work from home and keep an eye on me. And for some reason I just felt really fucking bad about that, I don't know. I don't fall into the guilt spiral all that much anymore, but it gets to me sometimes that this isn't what Brian signed up for, and that there's no endpoint, that I'm just going to be like this forever and he...I don't know. I just feel depressed about it sometimes, and I did that day.

I think Brian could tell because he made a big point out of not hovering, of working obviously in the office and otherwise making it clear that I wasn't the center of his universe, which was what I needed. I lay on the couch most of the day and ate junk food and coughed and felt sorry for myself. He came out of the office around noon to make himself a sandwich. Want one? he asked me.

Yeah.

He brought one out to me. I pouted at him, and he copied it back to me, and I smiled a little in spite of myself. Fever still low? he asked.

“Uh-huh.”

He gave me a hug and started nipping at my neck, his hands slipping under my shirt, and I said, “Brian...”

He hummed behind my ear.

“I'm all sweaty and gross and...sick,” I said, and I probably sounded as self-loathing as I felt.

You smell good, he said, still kissing. You smell like you.

**

I finished my canvas just as the city started to cool. It was colbalts and indigos, turquoises and fiery oranges, and it was fucking enormous and it was finished.

Brian opened a bottle of sparkling wine in my studio and we drank out of paper cups. Upstairs, the movers were setting up for the show of the artist I'd found in Georgia.

Brian got close and touched one of the sweeping lines I'd done with the brush I built myself. I let him.

Sunshine, this is stunning, he said, without looking away from it.

**

My show opened just before Christmas.

My mother and Molly came, bu the rest of the Pittsburgh crowd wouldn't be here until next week, after the holiday. I'd arranged it that way; I didn't want them in town when the first reviews came in, in case they were awful. I didn't want the pressure of reassuring everyone that I was fine.

I wasn't fine. People were starting to show up, trickle into the gallery, kiss Marie's cheek, look at my work—my work. At my huge canvas taking up an entire wall. I could see it all through the window while I paced back and forth on the balcony outside my office.

The glass doors opened and Brian stepped onto the balcony. He was wearing a new suit, head to toe black, and he looked...so fucking serene, like he was born to do just this.

So, the total opposite of how I felt, basically.

Derek and Emily just got here, Brian said.

I know.

Finally Stephanie has someone to interpret for, Brian said.

Yeah.

Since you are not there.

I know.

He leaned against the railing and sipped his drink, watching me pace. Why are you freaking out?

I looked at him incredulously, and he shrugged, all innocence and nonchalance and fucking...God, just the way he crossed his ankles as he rested on that railing. He was an artwork.

This could be it, I said.

I'm aware.

No, I mean the other it. My career could be about to be over before it even starts. They could hate it...

He finished his drink and set down the glass. They won't.

You don't know that.

Of course I do. They're going to adore you.

How do you know?

He shook his head, watching me. You are so stupid.

I know. I looked down from the balcony. Do you think I'd live if I jumped from here? I could just hit the ground and start running.

He sighed. Come here, my love.

I folded into him and took a deep breath, and we stood there for a little while, the cold air of the city surrounding us, his body keeping me warm.

Okay, I said eventually. Okay. I'm ready.

--the end