Brian tends to make big emotional statements when he’s pretending not to pay attention. Justin’s noticed that if Brian wants to say something, really wants to say something, he’ll stack the dishwasher or roll a joint. Start up the computer, check his email. Do anything to avoid looking into his lover’s eyes.

They’d been arguing one day, sort of, and Justin sighed, “You don’t believe in love, you believe in fucking, you believe in cock and ass and the fucking backroom, and that’s fine. But when are you going to believe in ME?”

Brian had sucked in a breath, his eyes dark, deep, wounded. Justin lets out a frustrated breath, feeling it scrape and catch against his swollen throat. He’d looked at Brian for a long, tense moment, and then sighed, because it was pointless and painful, and there was a Law and Order marathon on TV.

They were quiet for twenty minutes, thirty minutes. Brian was sitting in the corner smoking, and Justin felt hazel eyes burning into the back of his neck, the line of his back. He wanted to go over and curl up against his lover, snag the cigarette, take a drag. Feel the warmth of smoke in his lungs.



But Justin was tired and McCoy was yelling and for once he just didn’t want to give in.



An hour later, Brian started moving around, and Justin heard the hiss of running water, the snap of a cupboard door opening. He tried his best to ignore his lover, let himself fade away in the grisly world of homicide, but as usual, part of him remained attuned to Brian’s presence, Brian’s existence.

When he heard Brian move up into the bedroom and begin to change the sheets, he got suspicious. Changing the sheets wasn’t something Brian did himself, generally. That’s what maids were for, and if they got dirty enough, that’s what Justin was for. So hearing him do it now put Justin on edge, made his tummy flip, his hands clench. Not in fear, but… something else.

“Turn that off,” Brian called out. His voice wasn’t angry. He sounded tired, unsure. If Justin wasn’t sure he’d be punished for so much as thinking it, he’d have thought Brian was vulnerable.



Justin complied, quietly, tossing the remote aside. He stood and made his way to the bottom of the stairs, watching Brian as he tossed the old sheets aside and pulled out new ones, stark blue grey against his hands.



Brian knelt on the ledge, his hand sliding along the side of the mattress. Justin watched the muscles move and play in his lover’s back.



“I - I do, you know that, okay?” Brian still didn’t look up at him. “You fucking know. So don’t start this ‘You don’t believe in me, I’m just some poor stupid useless housewife’ shit because it’s fucking retarded.”



“It’s not - “



“Shut up. You do know.”



“Yeah. I guess.”



Brian sighed in frustration, looked up, met Justin’s wide open eyes. “And you know - you know that if I were to believe in love - and I’m not saying I do - you know that it could only ever be you.”



Woah. Woah, woah, woah.



Justin’s head was spinning. He thought that this was probably the closest Brian would ever come - the closest Brian COULD ever come - to a declaration of love. He felt his heart thump wildly and pathetically against his rib cage. He wondered if Brian would object to being bowled over in a frenzy of hugs and kisses and stupid, mushy whimpering.
“Brian -”



“Justin, whatever you’re thinking, don’t fucking do it. I swear. Don’t.”

Brian had torn his eyes away and was busily - anally - fixing the bed sheets. Justin had never seen more precise hospital corners in his life.



“Okay. I won’t.”



Brian grunted. Justin noticed the tension in his back, wished it weren’t so hard for Brian to feel this way. He worries that one day Brian’s going to notice how head over heels in love he is and just flip out and have an aneurysm.



“But is it okay if you fuck me now?”



Some of the tension subsided, and Brian looked up, a slight smile playing on the edges of his lips.

“Now? I just changed the fucking sheets.”

Justin grinned. “So fuck me in the shower.”