The One Where Justin Does Good Work
By: LaVieEnRose

“Ted?”

I looked over from my desk to Cynthia at hers, waving me over. She gestured to a a pretty redheaded woman standing in wait and said, “Is Brian still on with Brown?”

“I think so,” I said. “What's going on?” I offered my hand to the woman. “Hi. Ted Schmitt. Future head of Kinnetik: Pittsburgh.”

Cynthia rolled her eyes. “He's been doing that for a month,” she said to the woman, and, sure, she had a point, but could you blame me? Besides, in three months, everyone annoyed with me saying it would be gone, and I would be here, the head of Kinnetik: Pittsburgh. “This is...I'm sorry, Ms. Rowley, is that right?”

“Christine is fine,” the woman said.

“She's a sign language interpreter,” Cynthia said to me.

I said, “Oh, for Saturday?” We had our big quarterly party that weekend, and I supposed it made sense that Brian would hire an interpreter for it so he wouldn't have to stick by Justin's side the whole night, though he'd never seemed to have minded before. Justin never talked at those kinds of events, just signed to Brian and let him talk for him. It took a while after he lost his hearing before Justin would even talk to us, but he does now, and sometimes I'll even forget he doesn't hear us, because he lipreads pretty well and he talks just like he used to. Last time we were at Deb's he was in the kitchen when the phone started ringing and Deb yelled for him to grab it, and Brian just about lost his shit laughing. We spent the whole rest of the evening asking Justin to tell us what song was playing on the radio or to let us know if the timer on the oven went off or stuff like that.

“I was told to be here today,” Christine said.

“That's where I'm confused,” Cynthia said. “Did Brian say something about Justin coming to the office today?”

“Not to me. Could it be for a client or something? Presumably Justin's not the only Deaf person in Pittsburgh.”

“We don't have anyone scheduled to come in,” Cynthia said. “And no new hires or anything. I'm wondering if maybe Christine's supposed to be meeting Justin somewhere else and Brian billed her here and the agency sent her here by mistake...”

“Let me see if I can find a billing form for it,” I said. I'd barely taken a step back to my desk, though, when the glass doors of Brian's office opened and he stuck his head out. Are you Christine? he signed to her.

Yes.

“Great, you're right on time. Come in.” He looked at me. “You too.”

I led Christine into the office and stood by while they shook hands. “Justin's coming in?” I asked.

“Brilliant detective work,” Brian said.

“I knew minoring in deductive reasoning would come in handy someday.”

“Will you excuse me for just a minute?” Brian said to Christine, and when she nodded he slung an arm over my shoulder and walked me away from his desk. “I want you to find something for Justin to do,” he said.

“Come again?”

Brian rolled his eyes as if he'd been trying to explain this to me for hours, instead of literally seven seconds. “He hasn't been able to work much lately,” he said, with exaggerated patience. “He's bored, restless, wants to finish a project. Take him down to the art department, move around whatever you need to move around, fire whoever you need to fire, I don't give a shit. Find something for him to do. God knows he's got more talent in his left tit than everyone we have here put together. Shouldn't be a challenge to put him to work.”

“The diner's not filling him with that strong sense of accomplishment?”

He gave me a strange look. “He quit the diner two weeks ago.”

“He did?”

Brian shrugged. “Thought you knew.”

Nobody in this damn little family tells me anything. It's been a while since it really bothered me—Blake's always on me about how I need to learn to let things go, so, y'know, I'm working on it—but it'd still be nice if they didn't expect me to manifest information out of the blue.

“I'm surprised you got an interpreter,” I said. “Justin always seems to get by pretty well on his own.”

Brian waved a hand dismissively. “It's one less thing for him to worry about. And he doesn't like speaking with people he doesn't know, or if he doesn't know the volume of the place...”

“So this was your idea.”

Brian nodded, lips pulled in. “He might be pissed I made this call,” he said, just as Justin knocked on the door behind us. “Let's see what happens!” Brian said, and I chuckled.

What's so funny? Justin asked me when I opened the office doors.

I just shook my head and kissed his cheek and ushered him. “A Mister Taylor to see you,” I said to Brian.

Brian crossed the office and guided Justin towards Christine, his hand on his back. This is Christine he said to Justin. She's going to be your interpreter here.

Justin blinked and shook her head. I get an interpreter?

Here! Brian shoved me forwards. Practice with Ted!

I laughed nervously and said, “So I'm going to take you down to the art department, and you can see what they're working on and pick whatever project you're the most interested in and hop on board. Sounds good?” Speaking to Justin without at least trying to sign some of it—not that my signing's anything to write home about, but I always make some kind of pathetic attempt—felt really weird, and my eyes kept drifting over to Christine as if I'd really be able to tell how well she was translating me. If it's possible to do a good job capturing personality in sign, I'm not sure that's something I need to see of myself.

Justin nodded and signed, and Christine said, “I don't want to drop in and start rearranging things. Just wherever you think I could be helpful. I'll do grunt work.”

“Watch Justin,” Brian said to me quietly. “Not her.”

“Right. Sorry.” Christine signed all of this to Justin, who smiled a little.

Brian cleared his throat, then looked from Christine to Justin. “I have no idea if I'm supposed to sign or speak,” he said to her finally.

“Whichever you're more comfortable with,” she said, signing as she spoke.

“Right.” He rubbed the back of his neck and kept his eyes on Justin. “I've told Anthony down there that you're coming and that you've got...no, I'm sorry, this is too strange.” He started signing instead, too fast and complicated for me to follow, and Justin laughed, charmed.

“Do you want me to...?” Christine asked me.

“No, it's fine. God knows I've heard enough of the dirty things those two say to each other to last me a lifetime.”

Eventually Brian turned to me and signed, Okay, get lost, and dropped a kiss on Justin's cheek. Justin signed something to him quickly on our way out, a mischievous look on his face, and Brian rolled his eyes and grinned down at his desk.

“Is it really easier for Brian to sign than speak?” I asked Justin as he, Christine and I headed towards the elevator. I probably could have signed it if I needed to, but, well, she was there, and it definitely wasn't a question which one was easier for me.

“No, I don't think so,” Christine said as Justin signed. “It's just weird for him to do it with me, since he never makes me try to read his lips anymore. Sometimes he'll still talk while he's signing, but usually only when he's pissed off and needs to scream.” It was strange hearing someone else talk for Justin, hearing phrases that weren't quite the way he would have translated them, words emphasized not exactly the way he would have. And honestly, if you'd asked me before right that very moment, I probably wouldn't have thought I knew Justin well enough to notice, but there it was.

Even though Brian and I had gotten closer the past few years, there had always been a distance between me and Justin that didn't seem to be there with Justin and Emmett, or Justin and Michael. I have an unfortunate suspicion it's the age thing. Brian and Michael are twelve years older than Justin, Emmett's ten, and I'm...a depressing sixteen. I mean, Christ, I was practically the double the kid's age when we met him. And even though there probably isn't, probably has never been, much of a difference between ten, twelve, or sixteen year gaps as far as Justin's concerned, it definitely took me longer than the rest of them to think of Justin as anything other than a high-schooler, even though he was twenty-five now and I was...no need to do the math.

Plus most of the time I spent with Brian was at work, and Justin didn't come around all that often even before he lost his hearing, since he was busy with school, off and on, and Rage, and the diner, though apparently not anymore. I'd still see him at Babylon fairly often, and of course family dinners at Deb's and whenever I'd stop at the diner for lunch or bring work around to the loft, but...well, a language barrier will do a lot to a guy's developing bond with his friend's young boyfriend. We never made an effort to get to know each other back when we shared the same five senses, so it was hard to justify ramming myself into Justin's life now and making him deal with my crappy attempts at communicating with him.

“Thanks for finding something for me to do here,” Justin said through Christine. “I've been sitting around at home so much you'd think I was trying to resolve some kind of bet over who I'm going to drive crazy first, me or Brian.”

“What happened with the diner?” I asked. “Finally had enough of the glamour and glitz?”

“Yeah. Reminded me too much of Hollywood.” He shot me a look like I was in on the joke, which I suppose I was, though he was simultaneously very definitely telling me it was none of my fucking business.

We got off the elevator at the art department and I led him across the floor, introducing him to people with a dozen repetitions of an awkward “this is Justin Taylor, and this is his interpreter.” Most of the department was fairly new—we get a lot of interns down here—and so half of them were trying to figure out the interpreter thing, and the other half were trying to remember where they'd heard the name Justin Taylor before (Brian does mention him occasionally, plus one of his paintings hung right over their drafting table).

Justin found a project that looked like it could an extra hand and jumped into negotiating background colors with Lucy, one of the interns. As soon as Lucy figured out that Christine's voice was Justin's it seemed to be going smoothly enough, so I retreated back upstairs to start collating the quarterly report.

Brian called me in a few hours later. “Everything going all right?” he asked me neutrally, and obviously I knew what he was asking, but I made him listen to me go over the workings of the entire rest of the office before I got to Justin, just to push his buttons.

“Everything's going fine,” I said. “Anthony mentioned they're ahead of schedule for the first time in a month.”

Brian held up a board from his table. “He worked on this one?”

“How'd you know?”

“Because for once something doesn't look like a fourth grader did it.” He tossed the boards aside and propped his feet up on his desk. “He's not working too hard?”

“I haven't been down there. Do you want me to hire a babysitter for tomorrow?”

“Fuck you,” Brian said easily.

“Seriously, they can stand right next to Christine and—”

He picked up the board again to swat at me with it. “Get out of my office,” he said.

I was back in there going over the newly collated reports at a little after six when we heard Justin say “Hey,” from the doorway. Brian smiled without looking up.

Where's Christine? I asked him.

“She went home,” Justin said. “She'll be back tomorrow. I think she's a good fit.”

Brian looked up finally. You can sign if you want, he said. I can interpret.

Justin shrugged a little. “It's okay,” he said, and Brian nodded and beckoned him over to the couch. Justin came and perched lightly on Brian's knee while he sifted through some of the art department work for the day.

This one's good Brian said. But the logo needs to be bigger or...something I didn't catch.

What was that? I asked.

Justin said, “The logo needs to be huge or the CEO throws a fit.” He laughed a little. “Okay.” This was a technique they used a lot when we were together as a group, kind of mutually interpreting for each other; Brian signed things that other people said for Justin, but instead of speaking when it was his turn, he'd sign everything and let Justin voice it for him. Justin himself would go back and forth, signing sometimes, speaking others, and there didn't seem to me to be any pattern to which one he preferred. But Brian never cared that Justin was the only Deaf person in the room. If Justin was there, he was signing.

You can't call Brian Kinney sweet, but sometimes you want to anyway.

Brian held up a board for Abrams Electronics. This one is awful.

“Yeah, I didn't see that one until now.”

No shit. Brian looked up at him beseechingly. Can you do something about this tomorrow?

“Tomorrow,” Justin said, getting up and pulling Brian to his feet. “Tonight we are going home.”

I have to finish—

“Home,” Justin repeated, and then signed something too small and fast for me to understand, but it made Brian's face soften, his head tilt slightly.

Okay, Brian said. Justin waved goodbye, and Brian tossed me the keys on his way out, Justin's hand slipped into his back pocket.

“Can you picture it?” Cynthia asked me a little while later, while we were finishing locking up.

“Brian and Justin? Unfortunately I've caught many iterations of the live show.”

She laughed. “Not the sex. The two of them...y'know, going home together. Making dinner. Watching CNN, I don't know. Boring shit. After all this time I can still never picture it.”

“Yeah,” I said. “That never makes sense.”

**

Brian called me in at around ten the next day and handed me a board. “Go down to art,” he said. “Tell them this needs to be redone.”

“This is a job for an accountant?”

“I'm sorry, you are the person I'm bequeathing my entire company upon in the coming months, are you not? My baby, the fruit of my hard work, passing it on to you like an old fuck? You're going to what, sit in your office all day looking at files, let the art department go to shit?”

I bit back a remark that sitting in his office all day looking at files was exactly what he, our current benevolent leader, was doing, and looked at the board. Another mock up for Abrams Electronics. “It's a lot better than the one yesterday,” I said.

“Of course it is, Justin had a hand in this one. But I just got off the phone with Abrams and he hates it. Says he's looking for retro.”

“Well, this is not retro.”

“He didn't tell me he wanted retro until five fucking minutes ago. So go down there, stroke all the artists' egos, and then tell them to completely redo what they just finished.” He flashed me a tight smile as he started dialing another number. “Having fun yet?”

The art department was, predictably, not pleased. Abrams wanted something new by tomorrow, and the only guidance they had was “retro” and “not what you already came in at eight to start.”

“We don't have time to do put together a photo shoot,” Rose said. “We’re going to have to either edit these same photos or use stock or reuse the photos we ran in October.”

“He’s not gonna like that,” I said.

“I don’t know what else we can do.”

Justin, who’d been watching Christine’s signing intently, looked at me and hesitantly raised a hand. I nodded to him. He signed, and Christine said, “What If we did something completely illustrated? It would stand out from every other electronics ad out there, and we could do the entire thing in-house. We’d save money, we wouldn’t have to worry about arranging a photo shoot or repeating stock, and we could have something mocked up in a couple hours, tops.”

He looked around at everyone considering this and eventually added, “Guys, you know I’m Deaf, right? You’re going to have to tell me what type of silence this is.”

“We like it,” Lucy said.

“Great,” I said. “Who’s taking the lead on this?”

“I can do it,” Christine said for Justin. “I’m seeing it already, something like...” He found a piece of scratch paper and starting sketching something out. Anthony took a look, then nodded to me over Justin’s shoulder.

“Great,” I said. “Can you get some sketch of it to me by noon? Doesn’t have to be anything polished.” Justin was oblivious, already lost in his drawing world, so I turned to Christine and said, “Can you...”

“I’ll tell him,” she said.

I gave her a thumbs up and left them to work their magic. One of the interns brought a sketch up to me at eleven thirty, and I put it in with some invoices I needed Brian to look at and brought them into his office. Cynthia was in with him, showing him how to do something on his computer, and I tried very, very hard not to laugh.

“Not a word,” Brian said. “Are those the invoices? Took your goddamn time, didn’t you?”

“Glitter and shine,” I said, and ignored his glare. “The new mock-up for Abrams is in there too. They decided to try something illustrated. For better or for worse it should shut Abrams up.”

“That does sound appealing.” Brian flipped through the papers until he got to the mock up. He paused, dropping the rest of the paperwork onto his desk. “Justin’s drawing it?”

“You can tell?” I asked, and Brian looked at me like I was an idiot. “Yeah, he’s taking the lead on this.” Brian and Cynthia exchanged a glance. “What?” I said.

“He was supposed to be helping out,” Brian said. “Cog in the machine. Not taking the lead on projects.”

“You said yourself he’s more talented than everyone else down there,” I said. “Don’t you want your best on this?”

“I can talk to Anthony,” Cynthia said. “Get Justin pulled onto something else.”

“Can someone please tell me what the problem is?” I said.

Brian sighed and closed his eyes. “Was this Justin's idea?” he asked.

I said, “Yeah, he came up with it.”

“No, was it his idea to do the drawing himself? Nobody else talked him into it?”

“Yeah,” I said.

Brian shrugged at Cynthia.”Then okay,” he said, handing the sketch back to me. “Tell him I need it by tomorrow.”

“Brian,” Cynthia said.

“It's his hand,” Brian said. “It's his call. If this was his choice it's his choice.” He tapped the paper again. “By tomorrow, Theodore.”

“I'll let him know.”

Brian nodded and went back to the invoices.

I got swamped in reimbursement forms after that and didn't make it down to the art department until three, though I'd of course messaged down that they had the okay to continue and it had to be posthaste. Justin was surrounded by a little circle of minions when I got down there, and he was hard at work, making delicate strokes with a paintbrush. On the table in front of him, an ad was coming together like a still from an animated movie—burnt orange, brown, silver, and even though they were modern appliances, it had that “listen to the opera channel in front of the fireplace” vibe. Abrams was going to love it.

I waited until Justin was paused, stretching his fingers against the back of his hand, before I got his attention. He raised his eyebrows.

How's it going? I asked.

“Good. Is Brian getting antsy?”

“Not as long as it's done by tomorrow,” I said.

Justin watched Christine and nodded. “Shouldn't be a problem.”

“Great. Keep up the good work,” I said, and as I was leaving I noticed he was still shaking his hand out. It'd been a while since I'd seen him have trouble with it, but between Brian's remark upstairs and my memory of after he was bashed...well, it didn't take a genius.

I was once again in Brian's office that evening when Justin came by, and I expected there to be some sort of tension, or at least for Brian to ask about his hand, since Justin had it shoved into his pocket and he looked exhausted as hell. But Brian seemed perfectly normal. He looked mildly happy to see Justin, gave him a quick kiss, bitched about one of the interns in the billing department, and asked if they should pick up Thai food on the way home.

Justin, once again, spoke instead of signing, and I was beginning to think there was more of a pattern to that than I'd realized.

**

Brian called me into his office three times the next day to ask about the progress of the Abrams ad before I couldn't take it anymore. “Jesus Christ, Brian, as the person who buried me in all this fucking work, you should know I don't have time for this junior high bullshit! If you want to know how his hand is, ask him yourself!”

You don't really need his reaction to know that was the wrong thing to say, but in the interest of story completion, it was crossed arms, narrowed eyes, and a dangerously low voice. “What I want to know, Theodore, is whether or not I'm going to get my remaining ball handed to me in a teacup in three hours when Abrams calls to find out where the fuck his ad is. Is that really too much for you to find out? Is that task really too big for you to handle, because three months from now—” and then I left before I had to sit through that 'fruits of my labor' shit again.

I made it down to the art department an hour later. Justin was working furiously, and he shook his head as soon as he saw me. “I know, I know,” he said. “I'm going as fast as I can.”

“Brian said—” I started, and Justin didn't even bother looking at Christine's interpretation. Unsurprising that he can lipread 'Brian' pretty much without fail.

“I know, he needs this by two. It's going to be ready, but not if I keep wasting time talking to you about it.”

Rose snorted. I gave her a look.

I said, “Okay, just please make sure—”

“What was that sorry couldn't hear you okay bye now.”

The ad was finished minutes before two, but fuck if it wasn't great. Brian took pictures and faxed them over to Abrams before our two-thirty meeting with Lovell and Daniels Cashmere, but he didnt say anything when I pointed out how great the ad was. “Justin really pulled it out, huh?” I added.

“I said it's good,” Brian said, even though he hadn't.

We moved straight into the conference room for the meeting with Lovell and Daniels, and everything went fine for about the first fifteen minutes. Brian was standing and presenting, marinating L & D in his charisma, and I was sitting watching and possibly hanging on his every word just as much as they were. Sue me, I got to soak up all the knowledge I can get. But I was at an angle where I could see Justin appear outside the conference room doors, even though no one else could.

He motioned, left-handed, for me to come outside, bouncing slightly on his feet. I subtly slipped out of the conference room, ignoring the irritated look Brian shot me without pausing in his presentation, and without turning his head to see Justin.

I closed the door behind me. “What's wrong?”

“I need Brian,” he said, and I motioned for him to lower his voice. “Please,” he said, quieter.

“He's giving a presentation.”

“I don't know what you just said but please can you just get Brian.” He was sweating, chewing on his thumbnail.

Where's Christine? I said.

“I sent her home.”

“Why?”

“It's...please, you know I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important. Please just get him.”

“Are you okay?”

”Ted.”

“Okay, just...sit down, you look like shit.” I signed, Sit, and he nodded, but instead of going over to the bench on the other side of the hall, he just sat down on the floor right where he was. Something was very, very wrong here.

I went back into the conference room and stood by the door, waiting for Brian to pause. As soon as he took a breath, I went over to him and stood by his shoulder.

“Pass the meeting over to Cynthia and come with me,” I whispered.

“Are you fucking kidding me,” he said through his teeth.

“It's Justin. Pass the meeting over to Cynthia and come with me.”

Brian finally looked at me, the anger in his eyes barely masking his fear. He swallowed, then turned a dazzling smile to L & D. “I need to attend to something urgent,” he said. “But I'm leaving you with the incredibly capable Cynthia Yates, and if I were a slightly more humble man I'd say you were trading up.” He offered his hand and pulled her out of her chair, and she, with the shortest of questioning glances, smoothly took over where he'd left off. Brian speed-walked with me out of the conference room.

Justin was still on the floor. “I'm sorry,” he said. “I'm sorry, I'm sorry.”

“What the fuck are you doing on the...” He stopped signing and pulled Justin up, carefully, despite the irritation in his voice. He put his arm around Justin's shoulder and ushered him down the hall to his office, and I followed, feeling worse than useless.

Brian lowered Justin down to the couch with his hand under his elbow. “Is your vision tunneling out?” he asked, signing while he spoke. I remembered Justin telling me he only did it when he was pissed.

Justin nodded. “On and off for the past half hour.”

Brian ran his hand under his mouth. “You can see me right now.”

“I can understand you, can't I? I sent Christine home, I didn't want to explain...”

Brian said, “Ted, can you get, um...coffee or hot water or something. In a styrofoam cup.”

I said, “Brian, what's—” but he looked at me hard enough to shut me off. I went over to the coffee maker in the corner and filled up a cup.

Brian sat down next to Justin on the couch. “Let me see it,” I said.

He used his left hand to ease his right out of its pocket. It was curled into a malformed fist, his fingers jammed and overlapped.

“How the fuck long has it been like this?” Brian said.

“Half an hour.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, Justin.”

“It won't...it won't let go, I'm scared it's stuck like that forever.” He was breathing fast.

“It's not stuck like that forever, calm down.” Brian took the coffee cup from me and held it to the inside of Justin's wrist. “It hurts a lot?”

Justin hesitated, then nodded.

“Well, good, if you pulled me out of a meeting for something that didn't fucking hurt, I'd be pissed.” He gave Justin a small smile and carefully placed Justin's hand on his lap. “Ted, I can't sign to him while I do this, come talk to him.”

Justin sat back against the couch, pale and sweaty, and I pulled a chair up in front of him and patted his knee awkwardly while Brian set to work uncurling his fingers. Justin flinched, and I squeezed his knee while Brian brought a hand up briefly to scratch the back of Justin's head before returning to his fist.

“Tell him I told him he needed to be getting more sleep,” Brian said to me, so I signed it out as best I could.

“I have been sleeping,” Justin said. “I just—”

“Overworked it,” Brian said. “No shit.”

I signed that too.

Justin sighed, then winced as Brian pried apart his fingers. “I'm not going to have an argument with you through Ted.”

Brian carefully massaged his palm, working his thumbs deep into the muscle. Justin's whole arm twitched and jumped. “Stay still,” Brian growled at it.

We stayed like that for a while, Justin keeping his eyes closed, taking slow breaths through his nose while Brian gradually loosened his hand, me squeezing his other hand every so often when Brian did something that looked like it really hurt. When Justin finally opened his eyes and nodded to Brian, he had some color back in his cheeks, and Brian exhaled and pressed a kiss to the back of Justin's hand.

“You had to know something like that was going to happen,” Brian said, gently letting go of Justin's hand to sign. I don't know why he was still speaking out loud. Maybe because for me. Maybe because he was still upset.

“I didn't think it would be that bad,” Justin said.

“You still knew it was going to hurt you. Why the fuck did you volunteer to create an entire illustration from scratch in a day?”

“You're the one who made me do it in a day,” Justin grumbled.

Brian rubbed his forehead. “Sunshine, this was supposed to be—”

“I know what it was supposed to be,” Justin said. “Busy work to instill me with some false sense of contributing. But I found a way to actually contribute, and I did a fucking great job.”

“Yeah, and now your hand's a mess and you're going to have to take enough anticonvulsants to knock you out for two days, and you're still not going to be able to sign for a week, let alone work on your own shit. You think fucking Abrams is worth that?”

“It's not about fucking Abrams,” Justin said.

“That's good,” I mumbled. “Pretty sure he's married.”

They both ignored me—well, obviously Justin did.

“It's about doing good work,” Justin said.

“You do good work,” Brian said, gesturing to one of his paintings on the wall. “And now you can't, because you fucked yourself up doing something meaningless.”

“I'm not making a living just painting what I want,” Justin said.

Brian snorted. “You think you're making a living temping for us, especially now that you've burned yourself out in two days?”

“It's something,” Justin insisted. “It's working and getting paid. I want...I want to contribute.”

Brian pinched his nose. “Completely setting aside for a moment that the money you are making to contribute is coming out of our company, so we're really just jerking ourselves off at this point—”

“Your,” Justin said. “Your company.”

Brian rolled his eyes.

“No,” Justin said forcefully. “It's not nothing. You have the company, you pay for the loft, you pay for fucking everything, and I'm not going to just sit around like some housewife because I'm...”

Brian gave him an incredulous look. “Disabled? Are you seriously chickening out of saying the word disabled?”

Justin slumped back against the couch and crossed his arms.

“Not a bad word, Justin,” Brian said, and I could see the tension rising in him.

“It's not about that,” Justin said. “I can still work, I can still—”

“You do work, Christ! You paint!”

“That's not work! Nobody but you pays me to do that!”

“So the fuck what?”

Justin rolled his eyes. “You of all people are going to tell me that it's not about the money.”

“Exactly, me of all people. Ex-fucking-actly. If anyone would know it's me. Your ability to make money does not determine your fucking...worth, Jesus.”

“That's idealistic bullshit and you know it,” Justin said. “You're the one who told me that if I care about my ability to do what I want to do, I care about money.”

“Yeah, most people have to,” Brian said. “Not you.”

“Why not me?” he said.

“Because you are taken care of. It's a blessing. Just fucking...enjoy it, Christ.”

“But it's not...it's not fair,” Justin said.

“Not fair to who?”

“Everyone who isn't me,” Justin said. “People who don't have a choice but to drag their disabled asses to work because they don't have a partner to fucking...keep them.”

“Sunshine...again, so the fuck what?” Brian said. “You got kicked out of your house when you were seventeen. You took a bat to the head at senior prom. You nursed your partner through cancer when you were twenty years old, had your dream job ripped out from under you, lost your hearing before you were twenty-five, you manage a disability that affects the two things you most love to do in the world, three if you include jerking me off, and you had the utter misfortune to fall for the most emotionally unavailable asshole on the planet. So, yes, you have a partner who's going to buy you shit. You have found the one piece of good luck the universe saw fit to give you. Can you just fucking enjoy something for once in your neurotic, over-dramatic, miserable life? Goddamn, you're exhausting.”

And that, friends, is how Brian Kinney says I love you.

“Okay,” Justin said quietly.

“All right.” Brian palmed the small of Justin's back and seemed to remember that I existed, because he tossed me his keys and said, “Do me a favor and bring the car around, would you? I'm taking my house boy home.”

“Fuck you,” Justin said, and snuggled into Brian's shoulder.

“Excuse me,” Brian said, with a kiss to the side of Justin's head. “My artist in residence.”

**

Christine was back for the party on Saturday, but she didn't have a lot to do, because Brian never left Justin's side. He wrapped an arm around his waist and introduced him to everyone as the man behind Kinnetik's décor, the guy who saved the Abrams campaign, the most talented artist to come out of Pittsburgh since Warhol.

Megan Teller from Sawyer Medical nodded appreciatively at the painting by the front entrance, one of my favorites of his. “You do extraordinary work,” she said to Justin.

Justin watched Brian interpret, then turned to her with a smile.

Thank you, he signed, while Brian voiced. I work very hard.