Goodbye Hello
Julesmonster


Part 1



It is the night before Brian’s interview in New York and Brian and Justin are at the loft packing.  Justin says quietly, “Don’t go.” And then more forcefully, “You can’t go.  What are you going to do without me?”  He gives a small forced laugh as he folds a shirt.



“I don’t know,” is Brian’s flip answer, “I guess I’ll survive.”



“I doubt it,” Justin says in a husky whisper filled with emotion that he refuses to let show on his face.  He sighs.  “What about me?”



“I’m sure you’ll get along just fine on your own,” Brian says with a negligence that doesn’t ring completely true.



Justin can’t keep up the pretence any longer.  “No I won’t.”



“Yeah, you will,” Brian says.  “You’ll do what you should have done a long time ago. You’ll meet some twinkie your own age.”



“What do you think I want with some kid who doesn’t know shit?” Justin asks with frustration.



Brian has no answer for that and hesitates.  “I need to take a shower.”  He walks to the bathroom.



“Go,” Justin mutters, and then continues with increasing vehemence as he tosses Brian’s clothes around the bed.  “Go take your shower.  Go to New York.  Go to your new life.  In a year, probably not even that long you won’t even remember my name. Oh, what happened to that kid who wouldn’t leave me alone, who thought he was in love with me?”  Justin closes his eyes and tries to turn away from the pain that is eating away at him.  “If you fucking think of me at all.”



With the same casual cruelty Brian used the day after they first met, he comes out of the bathroom and says, “I won’t.  I won’t think of you.”



Justin gives a pained laugh.



“When I walk out that door, I don’t plan on ever looking back,” Brian says—in a gentler tone—as he approaches Justin who has now pulled his sweater on to leave.  “And I expect you to do the same.



They stare at each other for long seconds, Justin with tears he refuses to shed glistening in his eyes and Brian with a façade of indifference.   Finally, Brian brings his hand up to cup the side of Justin’s face, slipping around to the nape of his neck and draws him into a hug.  They hold each other tightly for long minutes while Justin sniffles but refuses to cry.*



BJBJBJBJBJ



Justin woke with a start with the sound of his cell phone ringing, but the dream lingered.  He looked at his caller ID and shut off the ringer.  He could call back later, when he was awake.  Right then, the dream was more significant than yet another phone conference with his agent.  Why was he dreaming of Brian now, of all times?  It had been six years since Brian had left Pittsburgh to take a job with Kennedy and Collins in Manhattan.  And true to his word, Brian had never once looked back.  Justin had heard from Debbie that Brian had been back to Pittsburgh a few times a year to see Gus, but usually only for a couple days at a time and he never contacted Justin.



In fact, none of Brian’s friends contacted him anymore.  Brian had come back from that interview with a contract in hand and had been gone in a matter of days, a week before his thirtieth birthday and Justin’s prom.  Michael left not long after.  Ted and Emmett had never returned his calls after that and their silence had hurt—especially Emmett’s.  The same went for Mel and Lindsay.  They had always pretended to be his friends, but in the end he was just the kid that used to hang around Brian.  And with Brian out of the picture, they had no reason to keep in touch.



Debbie was different.  Debbie was Justin’s second mother in every way that counted and she refused to let him just fade into memory.  It was her love that had gotten him through some very tough times.  He thought he probably would be dead by now if not for her.  But she got him through and after he graduated, Justin stayed with Debbie and Vic until he started at PIFA.  Once school started, he went to live in the dorms, though he still had dinner at the house at least once a week and called more often, especially after Vic died.  His everyday life, however, became filled with school, extracurricular events and nights out at Babylon, even if he didn’t go dancing nearly as often as he had when he’d been with Brian.



The days immediately following Brian’s departure had been really hard.  Justin had wanted to ask Brian to go to his prom, but in the end, he was too depressed to go at all, even though he knew Daphne would have loved to be his date.  Instead the two of them had spent the evening getting high on a stash of weed Brian had left behind in his loft and eating ice cream.  At the time, the moving company hadn’t packed the place up and Justin still liked to go there and pretend that Brian would come walking through the door at any minute.  He spent many a day there, high or drunk or both, pretending that he wasn’t alone.  So it was a natural thing for him to gravitate there on the night of the prom; he and Daphne had smoked dope, drank liquor and watched corny movies on Brian’s TV.



After one particular close call that had involved too many drugs, too much booze and a walk down the center of a busy road, Debbie gave him some of her tough love and Justin had tried to do what Brian wanted him to do: he’d moved on with his life.  He stopped going to the loft when he saw that the movers had emptied the place out.  He still smoked a bit of weed and had a few drinks, but his hard core binging was over.  He still picked up tricks when he wanted a quick fuck and he dated a few guys, but none of them ever measured up to Brian… physically or emotionally.  No one could compare with the god that was Brian Kinney.



Eventually, Justin had stopped trying to find someone who could be more than just a casual fuck.  He hadn’t turned into Brian; he often kept the same guy around for weeks at a time, but as soon as they showed signs of getting serious, he was out the door.  He couldn’t love them.  He was always honest with them about that, but that didn’t mean they actually believed he would never have feelings for them.  One thing he did to make things a little easier was staying away from virgins.  Usually, he stuck to guys who were obviously older and more experienced, which was one reason he rarely fucked anyone from school.



Of course, on top of everything else that had gone wrong that spring, school had almost not happened.  Not long after Brian left, Jennifer had come to Justin and told him that Craig refused to pay for his schooling.  It took weeks of working with the financial aid office at PIFA, but since he hadn’t lived at home in more than six months, they were able to declare him an independent student and he could qualify for scholarships and loans that he couldn’t qualify for as a dependant.



Four years of school and two of taking working as a freelance artist—including for Brian’s old advertising agency, though it was Vanguard now—and Justin was finally getting somewhere with his art.  He knew that some people spent decades working without success, but Justin was never happy sitting back and waiting for what he wanted.  So he had sought out one of the nation’s top art agents and had hounded her until she took him seriously. In the meantime he worked his ass off to get his work shown in local galleries and had developed a reputation among local art buyers.



Finally, last June, at a gallery opening in the South Side where Justin’s work took up the entire main gallery space, the agent, Carol Bryce, approached him.  Now, just over six years from the day that Brian left, only a year since hooking up with Carol, and Justin was on the brink of reaching his career dreams. He hadn’t had to do freelance work for almost six months and he was making top dollar for his paintings. Carol had scheduled a gallery opening in New York that promised to bring in some of the art world’s top names.  If things went well, Carol thought she could get him into a show of regional artists at the Museum of Modern Art within a year.  Already, his larger canvases were fetching five figures and Carol promised that they would continue to increase in value.



Justin ran a hand through his hair and sat up in bed.  He reached for the pack of cigarettes on the hotel nightstand and lit one.  After a long drag, he sighed.  He was finally in New York, only days away from his big opening, and what is his subconscious concerned with?  Brian Kinney.  And it hadn’t been the stoic goodbye at the airport that Justin had dreamed; it had been the emotional scene before he’d even gotten the job.  After all this time, Justin couldn’t help but wonder where Brian was and what he was doing.  He had considered looking him up, but decided against it.  Brian had never called him when he was home and he probably wouldn’t appreciate being bothered by that kid who once thought he was in love with him.



Shaking his head, Justin crushed out his cigarette in the ashtray and turned to the other body in his bed.   “Hey.  Wake up.  You need to go.”  Justin wasn’t sure what the guy’s name was, so he didn’t use one.  “Hey!  Get up and get out!”



“Wha—huhn?”  A brunet head poked out from under the sheet and Justin saw hazel eyes looking back at him.  Well at least he was consistent.  He tended to go for that look.



“I’ve got to work, and you need to leave,” Justin said.  He stood up, not bothering to cover himself as he went to the dresser and grabbed the guy’s designer jeans and t-shirt and tossed them on the bed.  The brunet sat up and began slowly pulling on his clothes while Justin leaned against the dresser and watched.  “I’ll be in town for a couple more weeks if you want to fuck again.”



The guy got to his feet and blinked a few times.  “Yeah sure.  Let me find my phone and we can exchange numbers.”



Once the trick was gone, Justin grabbed his iphone and called Carol back.  “Hey.  You rang?”



“Justin, you were supposed to be at the gallery an hour ago,” Carol scolded.  “We still have to go over the final arrangements with the manager.”



“But he’s not there, Carol,” Justin said as he lit another cigarette.  “If I know anything about the art world it’s that gallery people are never on time.  Being late is their way of reminding artists that they have the power to make or break them.  I expect that I have at least another hour before he actually shows.  Tell me I’m wrong.”



Carol laughed.  “See this is why I love you Justin.  You make no apologies and you’re right more often than anyone should be allowed.  Grant’s assistant just came out to tell me that some emergency has come up and he’ll be here at 2.”



“So I actually have almost two hours,” Justin said with a smug tone that carried over the line.



“Yes,” Carol said.  “I was actually hoping to do lunch, but I’m guessing by the length of time it took for you to get back to me that you just got rid of the flavor of the night and haven’t even showered his scent off yet.”



“See, that’s why I love you, Carol,” Justin echoed her earlier response with amusement.  “You really know your artists and all of their quirks and eccentricities.”



Carol laughed.  “I’ll meet you at the hotel restaurant in half an hour.  I want to go over a few things before we actually meet with Grant.”



“You expect me to be presentable in half an hour?” Justin asked with mock horror.  “I take back everything I just said.  You don’t know me at all.”



Justin disconnected the call to the sound of Carol’s laughter and went to the bathroom to shower.  He really did still have to get what’s-his-name’s scent off of him before going out in public.



BJBJBJBJBJ



“I am not going,” Brian said petulantly.  “You know how much I hate these events.  They’re always filled with pretentious wannabes and has-beens trying to pretend they have a fucking clue what the hell they’re looking at.  Not to mention the tongue-tied heteros.”



Cynthia sighed as she handed Brian his tie.  “So don’t fucking go.  I’m not your goddamned mother and I’m not going to ground you if you don’t go.  I will merely point out that Michael Richards is a huge art patron and has been raving about this show for weeks.  And since he’s not been all that eager to get into bed with us, I would think that you would be all over him.  But hey, I’m just the hired help.  What the fuck do I know?”



Brian snorted with amusement at her rant even as he straightened his black tie and pulled on his tuxedo jacket.  “Yeah right, hired help?  I think we changed that a while ago, didn’t we?”



“We never forget our roots,” Cynthia said regally as she walked Brian to the door of their offices.  “Have fun tonight.  Or at least pretend to have fun.  Richards is more likely to feel kindly if he thinks you share a common interest.  Besides cock.”



“How do you find out where these guys spend their evenings?” Brian asked just before she shoved him into the elevator and pressed the button to send him to the street.



“You’ll never know,” Cynthia said with a smile as the elevator doors closed.



Once on the street, Brian swore one more time.  This was the part of his job that he really hated.  Going to these functions was always tedious.  Then again, if he played his cards right, he might just get Richards to reconsider Kinnetik for his next national ad campaign.  They could really use the business.  And really, an art gallery wasn’t the worst place he had gone to get a client.  He remembered one client back in his Pittsburgh days that had wanted to make sex a condition of his contract.  Brian had surprised himself by turning him and his contract down.  Michael had been surprised too but Justin had been so proud of him.





Brian swore to himself once more as he hailed a cab and then gave the driver directions.  Six years and he still thought about the fucking twink several times a day.  Every day.  Despite his vow to never look back, he was constantly looking for Justin.  He would see a blond on the streets that had a similar build and swear for just a second that it was Justin.  He might see something or hear something and think that Justin would have loved it.  Sometimes he just wanted Justin to listen to him bitch about his day.  Justin was as much a part of Brian’s life today as he had been six years ago.  It was fucking disgusting.  Somehow, Justin had turned him into a lesbian when he wasn’t looking.



Brian couldn’t help but smile when he thought about his little blond twinkie.  He wondered where he was these days.  He got periodic updates from Debbie, but he wasn’t in touch often enough to really have an accurate idea.  He knew that Justin had graduated from PIFA a couple years ago and that he’d had a couple shows in Pittsburgh.  Brian knew the kid had talent and ambition; he expected that Justin would have a major show like the one Brian was attending in the next five years.  He still had the drawing Justin had done of him and he’d bought from the GLC show.  He’d had it framed and it now had a place of honor in the study in his apartment, where Brian could look at it and remember the few short months he’d had Justin.



Brian climbed out from the taxi and paid the fare along with a decent tip.  Standing on the sidewalk a few doors down from the gallery, Brian took a moment to check his appearance in a store window.  Handsome as ever.  He straightened his black bowtie and smoothed a strand of hair that wasn’t lying perfectly.  He nodded at his reflection and turned to the gallery.



Brian smiled politely at the young woman at the door who handed him a small pamphlet that described the artists on display and their work.  He knew from experience that in a gallery like this there were no prices listed either in the program or by the paintings.  Any purchases were negotiated behind closed doors and probably had a sale price upwards of five figures.  He tucked the program into his pocket without reading it and grabbed a glass of Champaign from a passing waiter before subtly looking for his target, completely uninterested in either the art or the other patrons.



Ten minutes later, he had cornered Richards in front of one of the paintings and he began to chat about the work.  “I have to admit that I don’t know much about this artist,” Brian said with a disarming smile.  “A friend recommended that I come.  She believed I would find the work intriguing and she was absolutely right.”



“Isn’t it though?” Richards gushed.  “You see his use of color and composition?  I haven’t seen Classical Realism as striking as this since Jacob Collins’ early works.”



Brian eyed the painting and really got a good look at the subject.  It was a street scene done in such accurate detail that he felt like he could almost walk into the picture.  It seemed more real and alive than a photograph.  But that wasn’t the most striking thing to him.  The street that the artist had painted was one with which Brian was intimately familiar.



“That’s Liberty Ave,” Brian said in awe, forgetting his companion for a moment.



“Yes,” Richards said.  “That is the title of the work.”



“No… I mean, yes,” Brian said with some uncertainty.  “I mean, that street is Liberty Avenue in Pittsburgh.  That diner there… I went there after school every day when I was a kid.  My best friend’s mother worked there.”



“I do believe the artist is from Pittsburgh as well,” Richards said with some excitement.  “Perhaps you knew each other?”



“I doubt that. Pittsburgh may not be as large as New York, but it is pretty big,” Brian said, trying to regain some semblance of his usual cool exterior, even though his heart was hammering in his chest.  He took the program from his pocket and finally read it while Richards observed him.  There on the inside page was a biography and a picture of the artist.



Justin Taylor.



BJBJBJBJBJ



*Dialogue taken directly from Season 1 Episode 21.