And Many More

LaVieEnRose

I woke up before Justin on March 11th, 2013. He'd come home tipsy after what Evan had sworn up and down had been his one allotted drink—now that Justin's mostly sober his tolerance is for shit—and fallen asleep on top of me after a spectacular exchange of blow jobs, even by our standards, thank you very much, and I wasn't surprised that he was still conked out. It was early, and his hair was damn near platinum in the sun, and the blinds left long shadows from the curve of his ass to the small of his back. His eyes were a little puffy already from the pollen, and he was whispering to himself in his sleep in that way he does, and...well. He was thirty years old.

He'd made it thirty fucking years.

**

I heard him stirring in the bedroom while I was halfway through making pancakes, and I looked up to see him rubbing his eyes in the doorway. He'd pulled on a pair of sweatpants, those ridiculously old, ridiculously soft gray ones that are almost, but not quite, thin enough to see through.

I said, I was going to bring you breakfast in bed, you know.

He pouted at me, but he was smiling, really. My boy's a trooper. No blindfolded queening out for him.

Well, he probably would queen out if I blindfolded him, but he gets a Deaf pass for that.

You don't look a day over twenty-five and you know it, I said.

He wrinkled his nose.

Did you take your meds?

Not yet. They're my job, really.

I'll get them. Come sit.

He'd set places for us at the counter and was cooking the pancakes when I got back. His hands were busy with the spatula, so I filled a glass of water and got his attention and opened my mouth. He copied, and I tilted the pills into his mouth and held the glass to his lips.

He swallowed. “Thank you,” he said, and he got on his toes and kissed me. I don't know if you even have time to eat these. You're going to be late.

I shook my head and poured some of the coffee I'd put on before I started on the pancakes. No work today.

He frowned a little. Isn't it Monday?

I took the day off.

He blushed and flipped a pancake. “You didn't have to do that. Really, I'm fine. I'm not even going to spend more than a few hours at most checking the mirror for gray hairs.”

I took tomorrow off too.

He watched me, a bit of a smile starting to show up on his lips. Are we going somewhere?

I cleared my throat and sat down my mug. Sit down. I'll finish these.

**

We showered and fucked and dressed, I grabbed the bag I'd packed the night before, threw in a few last minute essentials, and we walked to the garage where we keep the 'vette. We stopped for coffee on the way and drank as we went. Justin's hair blew into his eyes, and he pawed at his nose with the back of his wrist.

What did you get me? he asked.

Nothing, I got you a trip.

That's not a present. I need something I can touch. Preferably something expensive. Remember what I got you for your thirtieth?

Dried out cake and a coffin?

He thought back. Why did we think that was funny?

I tucked him under my arm as we took a corner. Because no one we knew was sick.

**

“Anyway,” Justin said, as I unlocked the car. “That's not what I got you for your birthday, that was the girls. I got you—”

The ugliest shirt the world has ever seen, I remember.

“I don't know why you think you have any taste in clothes,” he said. “Just because you're hot, you've gotten it into your head that you can dance and dress.”

Hot people can do everything, I said, getting into the car. It's in that contract I signed when I sold my soul.

Oh, I'm familiar with it.

I looked him over appreciatively. I know you are.

He messed with the radio even though we were still underground because I suppose he lost his logic along with his hearing. “You never even wore that shirt.”

I absolutely did, I said. While you were in the hospital.

“Which time?”

I gave him a look as I backed the car out. The first time.

Did you really?

Yeah, it was part of the whole sadness outfit. Scarf, shirt.

Whiskey.

Whiskey.

Did you wear it to the hospital?

We drove out into the New York sun and the radio roared to life. Oh yes. Eventually that nurse—the mean one, Carla?

Oh, God.

Yeah, she yelled at me to take a bath.

Justin laughed. She would.

I really took that grieving widow thing as far as it would get me. I had it down to an art.

He smiled at me.

**

We argued about music most of the way out of the city. Justin kept stealing my phone and putting on loud shit.

You are completely missing the tone of this trip, I said. This is very low-key. This is a two cowboys driving over the wild west sort of situation.

Cowboys don't drive. They ride horses.

Your allergies are not my responsibility.

And this isn't the wild west.

Geography's not my responsibility either. We used to have trouble signing and driving, but we're pretty good at it by now even though we don't drive anywhere more than once a month at most. Sign language has all these rules about eye contact—basically, do it—but we're fucking great at having conversations where we barely glance at each other, where we shouldn't be catching everything the other one's saying but we somehow do anyway. It's just about the mood, I said. We're supposed to be looking at the windows thinking about the passage of time while a voiceover plays our inner thoughts. Yours can have subtitles.

What the hell does that have to do with the music?

Come on, you remember those scenes in movies. You need some Harry Nilsson or something.

I don't know who that is. I'm thirty, not...whatever you are.

I looked at him sideways, and he shined that bright smile directly at me, the little shit.

God. Thirty. Older than I was when I met him. It felt...impossible that he should be older than a time when I knew he existed, when the fucking universe started. It was some fucking hole in the space time continuum. All the fucking shit he's been through, and...fuck, my life had barely started at his age. I'd barely felt anything.

He leaned his head back against the seat and watched me.

Quiet music, I said.

But I can't hear the quiet music.

You can't hear the loud music, either.

True.

I put on something soft but with a good bass beat, and he put his hand over the speaker and seemed satisfied. It gets loud part of the way in, though, so when it was coming up I looked over at him and said, Okay, you ready? Three, two... I pointed at the speaker, and my put my fingers over mine so I could feel it too.

Justin grinned.

Yeah, you like that? I said.

He nodded.

I knocked his head to the side, carefully. Good.

**

I took Justin to a beach town in Connecticut. It was gray and windy and barely above fifty degrees, and I parked our car right on the beach because there was no one there to stop us. Most of the shops were still boarded up for the season, and there was one woman sweeping the sidewalk and, way down at the other end of the beach, a couple walking the opposite direction.

Besides that, just the cloudy sky and the ocean and us.

Justin got out of the car and looked confused for a few seconds while he watched the water, then turned to me with amazement in his eyes. I can breathe.

I know you can.

He took a slow, deep breath. Wow.

Good?

Good.

Let's sit.

I spread one blanket out on the sand and put another around Justin's shoulders after he sat down. We really should think about getting a second place, I said.

Can we afford that?

Not yet, but maybe in a few years. Just somewhere to get away to in the summers where you'll be a little less miserable.

He lay back, pulling his blanket around himself like a bat wrapped up in its wings. “I like this.”

We took our shoes off despite the chill and buried our feet in the sand. Justin dug out the sketchpad I'd packed and drew for a while, and I closed my eyes and listened to the soft scratch of his pencil and the roar of the waves. There were some seagulls circling above us, calling out to each other, and two people laughing off in the distance.

I don't feel bad that Justin can't hear very often. He's happy.

I felt him shift next to me, and then his lips against my neck, and I smiled and pulled him in to me. We pushed and pulled at each other for a little while, kicking up sand, and when I opened my eyes he kissed me and showed me his drawing. It was me, from behind, standing at the edge of the ocean with my jeans rolled up to my calves.

Sign it, I said.

He rolled his eyes and did. I've always loved his signature. It hasn't changed. One of the only things about him that hasn't.

And date it, I said.

He grinned. March eleventh.

Twenty-thirteen.

Twenty-thirteen.

Justin got up and stretched, then slowly bent over backwards and arched his back until his palms hit the sand. His shirt rode up, and I watched the muscles around his waist stretch and pull. He's more flexible than I am, and I'm sometimes goddamn amazed watching the way his body works, how much strength he has. I notice during sex, or when he's punching me in the fucking face during a seizure, but God help me I forget other times.

I rested my chin on my knees and watched him. He chuckled a little as he straightened himself back up. “What?”

Nothing.

“You love me?”

Yeah, are you surprised?

He sat down next to me. “Every single day.”

Well, you're brain-damaged.

He laughed with his head back, and God, the fucking irony that he could breathe out here.

**

We went down to the water eventually, and of course it was goddamn freezing. Justin kept splashing me, so I grabbed him from behind with my arms around the waist and spun him around, and he kicked his feet in the air and screamed loud enough to wake the dead.

**

“So come on,” Justin said, as we walked down the boardwalk with ice cream cones from the one place we found open. “What did you get me really?”

Nothing.

“Brian.”

I don't actually like you that much.

He held out his ice cream cone. “Trade,” he said. I licked his and held out mine for him to taste. He made a face. “I don't like it.”

Then why do you always want to trade?

“Someday you might pick something good.” He licked a drip off his hand. “What did you get me?”

Nothing. In all seriousness, buying presents for Justin is a bit of a tricky affair. You don't want to ever get him something big, because he doesn't do all that well with surprises. Big things need to be brought up gently, discussed, planned, which I prefer anyway, so that's fine. And if he needs something small throughout the year I just get it for him. I told you. You get a trip.

This is barely a trip.

Hey. What happened to, wow, I can breathe?

He waved his hand. “Novelty's worn off.”

I couldn't exactly sweep you away to Spain, I said. Emily's about ninety weeks pregnant. Figured you'd want to be close in case your daughter makes an early appearance.

He licked his ice cream thoughtfully. “This is my last birthday not being a father.”

Guess you have to get all the irresponsible out of your system now, then.

He looked a little sad. And tired. “I think those days are over.”

You want to sit for a minute?

“Yeah.”

We sat down on a bench facing the water and looked out over the empty beach. Justin's head was bothering him, I could tell, and I gave him a minute, not watching him, just trailing my fingers lightly up and down his back so he'd know I noticed. He sat back eventually with a small sigh, his eyes closed, and I watched him and how goddamn young he still seemed. People don't know shit to look at him. You wouldn't give him credit for what he's been through, what he goes through, not if you didn't know.

He opened his eyes and watched me watch him for a little while. “What are you thinking about?” he asked me, after a minute.

I'm thinking, I said, how I think it's goddamn amazing that you're still alive.

He smiled a little bit.

I took his hand and gave it a quick kiss before I turned back out to the water. Try to stay here, okay? I said, casually.

I saw him nod next to me, and a minute later he dropped his head onto my shoulder.

It wasn't that long ago that the idea of losing Justin—I can say it now: of Justin dying—scared me so bad it was paralyzing just to think about. And I'm not going to pretend that I'm some well-adjusted bastard all the time now, and that if—when—the time comes, I'm going to be all goddamn zen about it. But I think that, even though it's not as if Justin's terminally ill or anything fucking dramatic like that, when you spend this many years in this kind of precarious position, you develop a relationship with the things that scare you. You have to. Pain and illness and yeah, death...you come to an understanding. You get used to their presence, even if you don't like them. And it can actually become kind of a symbiotic relationship, if you let it. You can allow these things to scare the shit out of you, or you can allow your fucking self to look at this boy next to you and think, Goddamn, Goddamn, thank you, every morning until...well, until.

Like I said. I'm not going to pretend I'm like this all the time.

But tonight I would bring him back to the hotel room I rented and get into the enormous bath tub they'd promised us and fuck him between cool sheets and give him a cashmere hoodie and the softest pair of jeans I could find, because he deserves to have clothes that don't hurt him. And when we got home I'd show him the tentative itinerary I'd come up with and let him start planning for me to sweep him away to Spain for our anniversary, just the way we both like it. And he can't promise me anything, but that's okay. We can make plans. We like making plans.

Thirty years, and here's to however many more.