Dull sublunary lovers' love
(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
Those things which elemented it.
“I don’t do that.” Brian instinctively turns his face, blocking the man pressed against him from sealing his mouth in a kiss.
“Boyfriend?” He asks, chasing Brian’s gaze with his own.
“No,” Brian replies after a moment. He pulls away, turns back towards the bedroom. “Get out.”
“You know, I always heard you were an asshole.” The nameless trick snatches his shirt, slips on his shoes. “But I at least expected a half decent fuck out of it.”
“Didn’t hear you complaining five minutes ago when you blew your load all over my new sheets.” Brian faces him once more, suddenly seething with rage. “Now get the fuck out!”
What’s-his-name storms out of the loft without another word. As the door slides shut behind him, Brian perches on the edge of his bed, lights a cigarette, and attempts to stave off the memory of the last time a passionate mouth crashed into his own.
Six weeks gone, and he can still taste him on his tongue.
Six weeks since he and Justin last touched, since they last fucked slowly, almost sadly, in the early morning hours. They kissed softly as the sunlight splashed across their skin, and if Brian had known it would be the last time, maybe he would have insisted they hold on just a little longer.
At times like this, he’s thankful he doesn’t believe in the concept of regrets.
This is how it always goes. He refuses to kiss, they assume he has a boyfriend, an arrangement, a partner, a commitment, and every single time he is reminded of what he has lost.
He’s aware it’s probably pathetic to continue reserving his kisses for someone that is no longer a part of his life, someone who will likely never be a part of his life again, but he suspects tasting someone else in his mouth would be far worse than the constant reminders of the void permeating his life.
He had himself convinced for a time that if Justin ever left him — or ratherwhen Justin inevitably left him — that life would return to the way it had always been. Fucking and sucking without consequence. Kissing everyone he desired with shameless abandon. No apologies. No regrets.
But despite the fact that their commitment has been shattered, Brian and Justin remain connected nonetheless. Kissing was always something higher for them, something far beyond fucking or physical pleasure. It was the thread that bound them together. A thread that refuses to snap, even now.
If Justin’s absence can do nothing to sever that bond, Brian’s uncertain anything ever will.
—
But we by a love so much refined,
That our selves know not what it is,
Inter-assured of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.
“Don’t.” Brian presses his fingers to the man’s lips, pushing him back with the force of his refusal.
“Let me guess.” He eyes Brian intently, bodies crowding them all around on the dance floor. “You have a boyfriend.”
“Fuck off!” Brian shouts above the pulsing music.
He spins around, makes a beeline for the bar, and gets wasted in record time. Once his irrational anger has subsided, he heads to the back room, and finds someone willing to put their mouth to good use sucking his cock instead of doing their best to remind him of the one person he came here to try and forget.
He comes the moment he thinks of Justin’s tongue sliding against his own, fingers playing at the nape of his neck. For a moment he can feel it, recalls exactly what it meant to lose himself in the heat of Justin's mouth. It became something only the two of them shared, became the ultimate expression of their adoration for each other. It was theirs, and forever theirs it will remain.
After two months of separation, Brian assumed his feelings for Justin would subside. He assumed the ache would leave him. He assumed he would eventually not recoil every time a trick tried to kiss him on the mouth. He assumed he wouldn’t turn into something so utterly pathetic.
Back at the loft, he gets higher than he’s been since just after Justin’s bashing. Lying in the middle of the rug, he decides his love for Justin will never fade, will never lessen, because it’s always been so much more than what ordinary people share. It's not some trite cliche. It exists somewhere else, somewhere outside of who they are. It is not dependent on time spent together, not altered by the distance between them.
Brian knows, without a doubt, if he never sees Justin again, he will love him just as much in his final hours as he does in this moment.
Brian knows, without a doubt, that he is completely screwed.
—
Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to airy thinness beat.
“I don’t kiss.” Brian pulls back, wrapping his lips around a cigarette, lighting it as the man he was fucking into his mattress just moments ago eyes him incredulously.
“Boyfriend?” Nameless trick number 3,456 asks. “Husband?” He continues when Brian doesn’t respond. “Wife?”
Brian stubs out his cigarette, quickly gathers the discarded clothes strewn around the loft, and throws them out into the hall seconds before unceremoniously shoving the man out after them.
Twelve weeks gone, and Brian can still smell him on his skin.
He lies in bed for a very long time, chain smoking, staring at the ceiling. Glancing over at the clock, the display telling him it's just past midnight, he spies his bracelet discarded on the bedside table. He hasn't worn it since Justin returned it to him last week. The moment his deft fingers tied it around Brian's wrist, it became something like kissing for him. Something reserved for only them. Something that would never again belong to the rest of the world.
He rolls out of bed, opens the top drawer of his dresser, and tucks the bracelet gently beneath his favorite silk tie.
In the shower, he jerks off thinking about the happy little noises Justin would make during lazy make out sessions after long days apart. The way his strong hands would trace the curve of Brian's jaw. The way he would thread his fingers in Brian's hair as he deepened the kiss. The way he would straddle Brian's lap and moan into his mouth as they both grew rock hard in their pants.
Brian doesn't believe in the concept of soulmates anymore than he believes in any of the other sappy, bullshit fairytales that heterosexuals dream up to make themselves feel less alone. He's not even sure he believes in the concept of the soul, and he certainly doesn't believe in destiny, but he knows that his time with Justin altered him forever. He'll never admit it out loud, but Justin awakened something inside of him. Something he never knew existed. Something that continues to grow everyday, despite their separation.
He climbs back into bed with one thought playing over and over again in his mind. If there exists a place where their love is a living thing, if such a place could exist, they must be kissing there. Their lips creating eternity, their tongues becoming infinity, the threads connecting them endless and unbreakable.
It's a nauseatingly sentimental thought. How the fuck did this become his life? The Brian Kinney of years past sneers at him in the corner of his mind. The Brian Kinney of now drifts off to sleep hating everything he has become.
He dreams that he is falling, drifting, lost inside a night that seems to go on forever. He is terrified, stumbling around alone until he sees the light. It's so dim at first, so distant, for a very long time he is convinced he is imagining it. But it grows, and it grows, and it grows until it is as massive as the sun, until it warms him to the bone.
He feels a hand slide into his then, basking in the light, warm heat on his tongue, and he knows that this is where they end. That this is where they have begun.