Chapter 4 - Drink Down All Unkindness.

When they had all finished eating, Brian tossed some money on the table and announced “It’s still early, let’s head to Woody's.”

Indicating to Justin that they were leaving, he gestured for the blond to get up. Justin quietly followed Brian’s lead, sliding out of the bench seat, waiting for Brian to get up, and then trotting along behind the taller man as he strode through the front door. Without looking, he knew that both of their table companions were following as well.

Once they got to the car, Michael rudely elbowed Justin aside and tried to get in the front passenger seat. 

“Michael, either sit in the back with Emmett or walk,” Brian stated firmly. 

Pouting, Michael climbed in the back, glaring at the blond interloper the entire time. Justin simply got in the front seat as directed and grinned back at the little tyrant via the rear view mirror. It was nice that Brian had once again stood up for him, a total stranger, even against his own friends. The longer he spent around this enigmatic man, the more pleased and intrigued Justin became. There was definitely something about Brian Kinney. No wonder Justin was so reluctant to come clean and take his leave.  

The drive to Woody’s was short. As soon as they arrived, Brian ushered Justin inside, ordered drinks for all of them, and then led his guest to an open pool table. He motioned to Justin, pantomiming shooting pool, by way of asking if the young blond wanted to play. Justin nodded. He loved to shoot pool. 

“Great. Youstin, you can be my partner,” Brian announced, which left Emmett and Michael to team up against them. 

“But, Brian, I want to play with you. I’m always your partner,” Michael whined. 

“You are not always my partner, Michael. Stop acting like a child. It’s just a fucking game,” Brian scolded his friend, annoyed at the constant whining. 

Reluctantly, Michael picked up a cue and shuffled off, around the table, to stand next to Emmett. Brian waved to his guest, mutely offering to let the newcomer break. Which Justin did quite well, sinking both the nine ball and the fourteen ball on his first try. He managed to pot another stripe on his second shot but then missed the next time, which finally allowed Michael to take a turn. Unfortunately, neither Michael nor Emmett were great pool players, so Brian and Justin beat them easily. Even allowing the losers to break didn’t give them much of an advantage in the second game. There seemed little reason to bother with a third game.

Justin noticed that, throughout the pool playing, Michael had constantly been trying to monopolize Brian’s attention. Any time Brian had even attempted to converse with Justin, Michael had butted in, insinuating his own opinions on whatever Brian had asked Justin about and physically trying to direct Brian away from the little blond. When that tactic didn’t work, Michael tried focusing Brian’s attention on any of the many good looking men who were constantly wandering by the pool tables, all of whom seemed eager to catch Brian’s eye. Brian, though, was trying to be a good host and mostly ignored his fanclub so that he could concentrate on the game of pool he was playing with Justin. By the time they’d lost their second game of pool to the Brian/Justin team, Michael’s pouting had reached epic proportions. 

In one last effort to distract his friend, Michael interrupted right as Justin was lining up to take his final shot which would sink the eight ball and win the game. “Wow! Look at the guy over there. The one in the metallic silver shirt. I haven’t seen him here before. Have you, Brian?”

Justin paused long enough to look at the guy Michael seemed so impressed by. Justin had to give the twerp credit, the hottie in the silver shirt was pleasing to the eye: over six foot, trim build, biceps that bulged out from beneath the short sleeves of his shirt, and even a cute little dimple in his well-chiseled chin. Under other circumstances, Justin would have definitely made a try for the guy. He was hot. Brian, however, didn’t seem in the least bit interested. He barely even looked over at the man before gesturing to Justin to go ahead and take his shot at the pool table. 

“What the fuck is wrong with you tonight, Brian?” Michael questioned, darting a critical look in Justin’s direction. “That guy is exactly your type. And judging by the way he was smiling at you, I’m sure he wouldn’t say no to a trip to the bathroom with Liberty Avenue’s reigning stud.” 

“I’m not interested, Mikey.” Brian waved his friend off and then, after watching Justin pot the winning shot, added, “Tonight, I just want to hang out, shoot pool, and have a few drinks with my friends. I didn’t come out looking for tricks.” 

Brian smiled at his expert pool companion and handed Justin a fresh beer to celebrate their win. “Not bad, Youstin. Not bad.”

“I guess that answers the question of whether or not they play pool in . . . Where did you say he was from, Brian?” Emmett asked. 

“Croatia,” Brian answered. 

“Well, all I can say is, if all the boys in Croatia are this cute - and this good at pool - I should probably get a passport and start planning a vacation there!” Em declared, offering Justin a flirty wink that would have conveyed his intentions even if Justin really hadn’t understood the words.

“Good luck with that, Emmy Lou,” Brian laughed at his nelly friend. “You don’t speak the language and have never been further away than New York City. You’re not exactly what I’d call a ‘world traveler’, Honeycutt.”

“Don’t call me ‘Honeycutt,” Emmett immediately corrected him, before returning to his blatant flirting with Justin. Slipping one arm around Justin’s shoulders and giving the younger man a familiar squeeze, he added, “I’m sure there’s ways we could communicate without words, right Baby?” 

Justin had a hard time pretending he didn’t understand the pass Emmett was making. He wanted to laugh so badly. Not that he didn’t find Emmett attractive, but the big queen wasn’t really his type. 

Brian, however, wasn’t having any of it. Stepping up and deliberately peeling Emmett’s hands off the blond, he pulled Justin further away from any potential additional groping, commenting, “hand’s off, Honeycutt. I’m sure he didn’t come all the way to the States just to be molested by Pittsburgh’s biggest bottom boy.”

Justin didn’t say a thing when Brian possessively turned him around and wrapped his arms around Justin’s chest so that Emmett couldn’t get to him again. He rather liked the feeling of those strong, warm, sexy arms encircling him. However, judging by the scowl Michael was shooting at him over Emmett’s shoulder, and the look of confusion Emmett himself had on his face, Brian’s friends weren’t as happy with this particular development as Justin was. 

“Hey, Brian. I think it’s your turn to buy the next round,” Michael piped up, distracting his friend, and shoving two empty beer bottles into Brian’s hands so that he was forced to drop his grip on Justin. 

Brian didn’t raise any objection to this prompt and left a minute later to get the requested beverages. Justin didn’t think Brian even saw the jealous look that Michael shot at the blond as he was leaving. Yeah, there sure were some weird dynamics going on between those two, Justin concluded. 

For the rest of the evening, Michael redoubled his efforts to keep Brian and Justin separated. He continually tried to tempt Brian to leave with one random hottie after another. It got so bad that it was almost pathetic. At first Brian just laughed off Michael’s extremely obvious attempt to redirect his attention away from Justin, but after a while you could tell he was getting pissed off. Justin was impressed at the way Brian seemed able to keep his cool, simply repeating, ‘not interested’ to each and every one of the guys Michael tried to get him to hit up. 

“Fine,” Michael finally said, after Brian rejected Michael’s fourth suggestion in a row. “I guess you’re just saving yourself for when we get to Babylon.”

Brian didn’t bother to correct him.  

Around ten, the crowd in Woody’s started to thin out, which motivated Emmett to declare it was ‘Club O’Clock’. They all finished their beers and then, as a group, followed the rest of the exodus headed to Babylon. The minute they got inside the club, Michael resumed looking for prospects to push on Brian. Justin didn’t get it; one minute Michael was glomming all over Brian, acting uber-possessive, and the next he was trying to get him to head off to the backroom to fuck some attractive stranger. What the hell was with this guy? At first he’d thought that Michael was a typical case of ‘romcom best friend crush’ syndrome, but now he wasn’t so sure. If Michael really did want Brian for himself, you wouldn’t think he’d be constantly pushing him to leave with some rando hottie, right? But, then again, the angry, possessive, jealous looks the little bully boy kept shooting Justin’s way told another story. Whatever was going on here behind the scenes was confusing as hell and probably something Justin wouldn’t figure out till he knew the parties a little better. 

In the meantime, Emmett had found his ‘Mister Right Now’ and had headed off to dance. Brian had ordered both himself and Justin bourbons. Michael just stuck with beer. They stood around, holding up the bar and looking around for a few minutes, while they admired the constant parade of pretty boys filing past. Justin had to admit, the view was nice. If he’d been here on his own he figured he could have hooked up at least a half dozen times already, judging by the interested looks he got from just about every guy who’d walked past. But, one warning look from Brian Kinney and each of them just continued on their way. That was certainly an interesting development, and something Justin would have to think on more later. 

After about twenty minutes of this, Brian turned to Michael, “I’m going to take a piss. Keep an eye on the kid for me?” Then he motioned for Justin to stay put where he was and headed to the bathroom. 

The second Brian was out of sight, Michael motioned for Justin to follow him to the dance floor. Justin shrugged and followed, curious why Michael was all of a sudden seemingly being nice. After they had been dancing for only a minute or two, Michael backed away from his dance partner, leaving Justin on his own. Justin hadn’t even noticed at first that Michael had left; he liked to dance and was enjoying himself, dancing with his eyes closed most of the time, as he let the thumpa thumpa beat flow through his body. But it didn’t take long before several men began moving closer to the petit blond. Before he knew it, Justin was surrounded by hot, hard, mostly naked, male bodies. 

Back at the bar, Michael was leaning back and drinking a fresh beer when Brian returned from the bathroom. 

“Michael, where’s Youstin?”

“I tried to stop him, but he headed off to the dance floor,” Michael answered innocently, waving his arm off in the opposite direction of where he knew he’d left the blond. 

“I told you to keep an eye on him,” Brian grumbled. “You know he doesn’t speak English and he’s probably not used to a place like Babylon.”

Michael just shrugged. 

Brian continued muttering under his breath, pissed off about Michael being less than helpful, as he headed out through the throng of dancing bodies to find his missing ‘bride’. It wasn’t difficult; he just looked for the most densely packed corner of the dance floor and there, surrounded by a bunch of muscle-bound beefcakes, all pressing in tightly around the desirable fresh meat, Brian found his blond. Justin, who’d been getting a little concerned by how aggressive the men grinding on him were being, was actually glad for the rescue. If Brian hadn’t arrived when he had, Justin might have had to deck the one big guy wearing the leather vest who was being a little too handsy for his taste. Pulling Justin against his side, Brian headed back to the bar, and Justin was more than happy for the escort. 

Michael, however, was pissed off when Brian came back, his arm protectively draped around the blond. “What is with you tonight, Brian? You should be in the backroom getting laid, not minding some wannabe ‘bride’ that you were sent by mistake who can’t even speak English.” 

“Back off, Michael. It’s not Youstin’s fault he’s in this situation. He probably has no idea what’s going on and, since I haven’t been able to figure it all out myself, I don’t even know what to tell him, assuming I could even figure out how to explain without speaking Croatian. Besides, maybe I don’t feel like getting laid right now. Did that ever occur to you?” 

“Well, that would be a first. Brian Kinney, stud of Liberty Avenue, doesn’t want to get laid?” Michael laughed, and Justin could see Brian getting more pissed off as the seconds ticked by. Of course, the twat made it worse when he added, “well, I hope you don’t plan on taking your ‘bride’ home and fucking him. You never know what you could catch from someone like that. From the looks of him, he’s probably nothing but a dirty, diseased rent boy.” 

“You know what, Michael? FUCK YOU!” Brian yelled, loudly enough that you could hear him even over the music, and causing several of the other clubgoers nearby to look their way. Even then it looked like Michael was going to continue to comment. To cut him off, Brian did the first thing that came to mind, leaning down and pulling a very surprised Justin in for a long, insistent kiss. “Don’t call me, Michael. If I decide I need to talk to you again, I’ll call,” he stated when he finally came up for air. 

Then, taking Justin’s hand, Brian stomped away from the still-pouting Michael, leading Justin back towards the exit. 

It bothered him that Michael was acting like such an ass about Youstin. The young man had done nothing to warrant such nasty treatment. How Michael had jumped to the conclusion that Youstin was a hustler, was beyond Brian. Nothing Youstin had done so far would indicate the young man was anything other than just a sweet kid who’d gotten caught up in this mess without having much say in the matter. The poor guy probably didn’t have a clue what the hell was going on and he was being a lot more acquiescent than Brian probably would have been had their positions been reversed. Youstin had been deposited into a foreign city, with an entirely different culture, dragged around town by complete strangers, and he didn’t even understand the language, let alone what was happening. And yet the kid hadn’t once complained or caused any trouble. Which was more than Brian could say for his supposed ‘best friend’. Brian was actually kinda impressed at the way the blond was handling things despite how confused he must be. 

Brian had to confess, if he was being honest, that he’d taken a bit of a liking to the young man. Youstin was not only agreeable, he’d been a pretty good companion all evening. He shot a damn fine game of pool. He wasn’t annoyingly chatty. And, unlike Brian’s so-called friends, he didn’t complain or pressure Brian to do anything Brian might not want to do. On top of everything else, the kid was definitely easy on the eyes. I mean, what wasn’t to like? 

So, when Brian had seen the blond dancing, with all those men circling him like he was fresh meat and grinding on him, Brian hadn’t even thought about it before he’d rushed in and pulled the kid away. He wasn’t sure why he’d acted like that, or why he’d felt so instantly pissed off, and right then he wasn’t inclined to examine his actions too closely. But he did have to admit that seeing Youstin like that had knotted his stomach up. Maybe he was just feeling protective because the kid was so clearly out of his element here and probably hadn’t understood what was happening. That was probably why he’d felt compelled to kiss the kid when Michael had attacked him like that too. Yeah, that had to be it. 

Justin, meanwhile, was pondering the same events along a parallel thought path. He hadn’t meant to cause trouble between Brian and Michael. He had been trying to just go along and enjoy himself. He was glad, though, that Brian had come into the crowd to get him. If things had gotten any more intense out on the dance floor, Justin may have had to blow his ‘I don’t understand’ cover. But that still didn’t explain Michael’s constantly trying to pressure Brian to go off and fuck all those random guys or his jealous anger aimed at Justin when Brian refused. That guy needed some serious therapy. It was too bad, though, that Michael had pissed Brian off so much that the night was ending on such a bad note. Justin would have loved to stay and dance, provided that the dancing was with his gorgeous host, Brian Kinney, and not the meat grinder guys. And, well, he wouldn’t have minded exploring more of that kissing thing with his lovely host either. 

Both men were still wrapped up in their thoughts as they got to the door and saw Ted and Blake just arriving. 

“Hey, Brian. Sorry we’re late. dinner ran long.” Seeing the odd look on Brian’s face, Ted asked, “is everything okay?” 

“No. No, it’s not. Tonight has been a total shitshow already,” Brian answered. “Michael is being a fucking ass and I can’t be around him right now. I’m taking Youstin home.” 

Brian didn’t wait even long enough for Ted to reply before he was tugging on Justin’s hand and leading him out the door. Once they were in the jeep, Brian headed directly back to the firehouse. Justin, of course, didn’t comment. 

The entire drive, both Justin and Brian were caught up thinking about the direction the evening had gone and the kiss that had come as the culmination of everything. That kiss had surprised the both of them. Neither had really minded though. In fact, the whole drive back to the firehouse, they were both secretly contemplating how much further they could take this thing that seemed to be developing between them.

Justin, in particular, was conflicted. He felt guilty for staying with Brian under false pretenses. He really liked the man, or at least what he’d seen of Brian so far, but if he was going to take things further, he felt he needed to be honest with him. Maybe this ‘go with the flow and keep up the charade until he figured out a better plan’ thing was the wrong approach? Brian had been so considerate towards him, looking out for him and even standing up to his friends in order to protect Justin, that it just felt wrong to take advantage of his kindness like he was. Going beyond the kissings stage would only make Justin’s guilt worse. And, since he was definitely interested in going to the next stage with his beautiful man, something would have to change.  

Brian was having similar thoughts. Since they really couldn’t communicate easily, and looking up every word as they went along was far too time consuming, Brian was reluctant to do much more with Youstin. He didn't want to seem like he was taking advantage of the blond or make him feel pressured just because Youstin was staying in Brian’s home. On top of that, Brian still wasn’t clear on what Youstin thought his relationship to Brian might be - did the kid think Brian was supposed to marry him or something? - yeah, like that was ever going to happen. It had to be confusing for the kid, though, and moving past kissing to more serious activities would only make the confusion worse. Fuck, it was confusing for Brian too.

Brian decided that maybe, if he took it slowly, things might work out better. Hopefully, they’d figure things out and could clear up any mistaken assumptions before Brian moved on to what he really wanted to do to this scrumptious blond. As a compromise, and to let the kid know he was still interested, Brian reached for the younger man’s hand and squeezed it when they stopped at a traffic light. The answering smile told him that the blond was comfortable with what he was doing. Brian figured that was at least a start.

When they got to the firehouse, Brian led Justin to the den and indicated that he should sit down. He went over to the bar and pointed out the liquor bottles arrayed along the shelf behind the bar, then pointed to Justin, trying to ask what he would like to drink. He blond indicated that he wanted the whisky, a selection Brian approved of. Brian poured two glasses and sat next to his guest on the sofa. 

Taking Justin’s hand, Brian brought it to his mouth and kissed it. In return, Justin leaned forward and kissed Brian’s cheek. Brian, encouraged, reached up and cupped the blond’s jaw as he turned his face toward his guest.

The ensuing kiss started off chaste until Brian used his tongue to gently pry open the soft pink lips so he could get a taste of what was inside. After that, the kissing quickly got more heated and soon they were lost in the pleasure of their mouths and lips and tongues doing what felt so natural. Before he realized what was happening, Justin was straddling Brian’s lap and both men were moaning. But, after several minutes of this, and before he lost control, Brian ended the kiss and pushed the younger man away.

“I would love to continue this, Youstin,” Brian whispered as he gently extricated himself from the little blond’s embrace, “but I think we should wait until we figure out exactly what it is you're supposed to be doing here. Don’t you?” He knew the foreigner couldn’t answer him, but he assumed the kid would get the gist based on Brian’s moving away.

Justin, meanwhile, was having trouble understanding what was happening despite the fact that he could speak perfect English. He had let himself get a little carried away. And it was no wonder, when that kiss had been so perfect. Each touch, each kiss, from Brian had excited him a little more until he was practically panting for this man. His cock was throbbing so hard it felt like it was about to explode. 

He wished he could just confess everything, rip off his clothes, and beg Brian to fuck him. But, since he couldn’t do that, he just settled for looking sad and confused. Brian tried to pantomime that they needed to wait, even though he was in a similar state to Justin. Finally, he just motioned that they should both go to sleep. 

Justin sadly followed Brian to the elevator and both men went to their separate rooms. Before either one went to bed though, both took showers and jerked off, thinking of those kisses and where they would have preferred the evening to end up. They might have even gone so far as to call out each other’s names as they finally reached their lonely releases.