Author's Notes: This story is a long overdue fulfillment of one of the
gapfillers that Astarloa requested with her winning bid in the help_haiti
auction. She asked for a ‘cancer arc’ fic that is not super angsty or filled
with over-the-top drama, but focuses more on the domestic, day-to-day life of
Brian and Justin during the cancer arc. The way life keeps going. Thanks
to Judy for the beta.
*****
“The best way out of a difficulty is through it.”
Brian placed twelve of the sixteen bags of groceries he’d bought onto the
kitchen counter. “I’m not a fucking invalid. I could have gone grocery shopping
by myself,” Brian muttered to Justin, as he watched his partner place the bags
he carried on the floor beside the fridge.
Justin shook out his aching wrist and in a slow, aggravated voice, he said, “I
really wish you would cut this shit out. I had to come with you or all you
would’ve bought was water and Special K. I’m going to be here and I need food
that I can cook with, and you need to eat food that isn’t always take-out.”
“You could’ve made me a list. I haven’t lost the ability to read.” Brian rolled
his eyes and attempted to start shelving the cereal but Justin jerked him around
by his arm to face him. “What the fuck?” he asked heatedly.
Still massaging his wrist, Justin replied coolly, “Brian, you’re an invalid. A
weakling, a newborn baby that can’t shit or piss on his own. You’re a bedridden
louse. You’re a gimp, a one-balled bastard. You’re deformed and only half a man.
You’re a helpless frail little faggot who has to have their much manlier partner
bathe you. Your puke disgusts me and I resent that I have to clean it up because
your delicate condition doesn’t allow you the strength to do it yourself. I
absolutely can’t stand having to plunge the toilet at three a.m. before I take a
piss because you’ve clogged it with your shit and vomit. I hate that the whole
loft smells like fucking Lysol and Pine-Sol from all the cleaning and
disinfecting I have to do to make sure you don’t catch any germs, and get sicker
than you already are. I can barely stand to be around you but I feel obligated
to do so because I pity you. Every time I look at you, I think about how much
time I’m wasting doing things I hate for someone who probably wouldn’t do the
same for me in return, because you’ve certainly never dealt or helped me deal
with any of my shit, have you?”
“Are you finished?” Brian asked, smirking with amusement.
“I am, until you come up with another colorful phrase or word that expresses how
you truly feel about yourself by putting words into someone else’s mouth, to
make your feelings acknowledged. With their reactions to your words, you feel
validated with your assessment of yourself. All in an effort not to talk about,
or admit to feeling you actually are those labels, or feel that way about this
shit. You’re scared and you hate having cancer just as much as any human who has
been cursed with it does, and I’m scared for you and hate that you have cancer
just as much as anyone else who is in love with someone else who has it.”
“Justin…”
“I’ll probably start in again the next time you think you know for sure that I
truly can’t stand being around you and hate helping you - the man I love - when
you need me, even if you pretend that you don’t or wish that you didn’t. Now
that you know what will set me off, maybe you can avoid it by accepting that I
do, in fact, love you and need to care for you as much as you need me to. Your
shit is my shit, that’s just how shit is. So, now that we’ve cleared the air and
have both admitted, in our own ways, that dealing with cancer is harder than
your cock in a room full of naked, horny, beautiful men and is more difficult to
endure than that time we went for months without your cock in my ass, can we get
on with our lives?”
“You know what the best part of hearing all that was?” Brian asked.
“The priceless, ‘oh fuck, he really is on to me’ expression on your face when I
first started in on you?” Justin joked, but was actually serious.
“No, it’s the expression on your face. When you get all cunty on me your cheeks
get red and your eyes darken the same way they do when you’re coming.”
“You do realize that you just inferred that cunt turns you on,” Justin said in
an eerie voice, opening the fridge and freezer doors.
“Well, asshole sounded a little too harsh and isn’t exactly appropriate.”
“I’m having a hard time deciding if you meant that as a compliment.” Justin bent
down to grab some of the frozen stuff from the bag in front of the fridge and
said thoughtfully, “You know, you call me a princess and a twat
too. Maybe you should just call me a pussy? Admit that you have repressed
sexual desires for women and be done with it?”
Brian quickly moved behind Justin, placed his hand on his back to keep him bent
over and thrust his jean-clad erection against his ass. “You’re about to find
out how unrepressed my sexual desires for men’s pretty little assholes are,” he
warned, moving one hand to Justin’s zipper and dragging it down. He reached
inside Justin’s pants and yanked his cock out, letting it fall from his grip a
moment later.
“Oh fuck, it’s cold,” Justin said as his half-hard cock began to wilt from the
freezer air.
Brian laughed. “No need to be embarrassed, Sunshine. I’ve seen it soft, you’re a
grower and a show-er.”
Justin turned and slammed the doors of the fridge closed and dropped to his
knees, shoving the groceries out of the way, not giving a thought to him
smashing whatever was in the bags as they skidded across the floor into the
cabinets. He wiggled his ass at Brian as he saw him reaching into the drawer
beside the stove to grab a condom and lube. He yanked his pants down to his
knees and started stroking himself, warming his cock up with every stroke from
his hand. He let out a needy moan when he saw Brian unzipping his pants. “Come
on, fuck me,” he demanded.
Brian got completely naked, taking a long time to divest himself of his clothes,
loving how amped up Justin got when he had to wait a few extra minutes for his
cock in his ass. He heard Justin’s breath hitch as he crouched behind him and
slid his now condom-covered dick against his ass cheeks. “So eager for it,”
Brian observed, squirting lube on his fingers.
“Shut up,” Justin spat, rocking back and forth. “You are too. You want to be
inside my pretty little ass, don’t you?”
“Oh yes,” Brian admitted, placing his slippery fingers outside Justin’s hole.
“But don’t think I didn’t realize that you weren’t hard until I called your ass
pretty. It’s all those sweet girlie words that get you turned on, isn’t
it?” He pushed the head of his cock against the rim of Justin’s ass and tapped
against the entrance, teasing him with his body as much as his words. “My pretty
boy,” he whispered, peppering kisses against his lover’s arching back. “So
pretty, so delicate and beautiful.”
Justin jerked his head back to glare at Brian. “You’re an assholey - uuuhhhhnnn
fuck!”
“You may be pretty,” Brian said, one forceful thrust having embedded him
completely in Justin’s ass, “but you take my cock better than any brute stud
ever has.” He draped himself over Justin’s body and forced them into a messy
kiss. “Even when you were just a pretty little virgin.”
Justin’s body shivered with need and he placed his hands on top of Brian’s,
squeezing them to get his point across because he couldn’t find it in him to
speak. All that came out of him were sharp gasps of air as Brian took to
pounding into him.
This was the balance; Justin thought twenty minutes later as he collapsed face
first into the floor, Brian’s body still covering his. Both of Brian’s hands
immediately grabbing his right hand and massaging the cramping out of it. Justin
could feel every breath Brian took and every beat of his heart against his back
as they lay there in almost silence, broke only because of their ragged
synchronized breathing.
A lot of shit was difficult to understand and move on through but it was easier
if you accepted the balance and made it work for you.
Justin could drop off the payment for the light bill when Brian was too sick to
do anything more than scratch his name on a check. When he got back to the loft
and opened the door, he knew he’d find Brian in the bathroom and would have to
probably clean him up and get him into bed. Then he’d get to crawl in beside
him, wrap his arm around Brian’s waist because he was too weak to push him off,
and drift off to sleep feeling Brian’s deep even breathing against his forehead,
warming his scar.
He could stay away from Brian for three days when he caught the flu and didn’t
want to get him sick. He had to rely on Michael caring for Brian and not being
too emotional while he did it, which he made damn sure the other man agreed to
his rules of decorum before telling him that Brian would need his help.
Justin could go to Woody’s after working a double shift at the diner, still
smelling of bleach water and ham and beans soup, just so he and Brian could hang
out with their friends and laugh at the karaoke singers together. All the while,
knowing that neither one of them could ever do any better. Brian would always
try to get him to give it a go, swearing in all seriousness to their friends
that when Justin sang in the car, he had ‘an awesome voice’, that he was a ‘well
rounded’ (while cupping his ass) artist. Justin knew he sounded terrible. He
couldn’t carry a tune and the only reason he was allowed in freshman drama club
and got a part in ‘Bye Bye Birdie’ was because he could dance and had been asked
by the drama teacher to mouth the words and not sing during the cast numbers.
Justin could tell himself that Brian was just being nice but that wasn’t Brian.
It was obvious whenever Brian would tell him to sing along to a song in the car
that love had somehow penetrated his hearing and he actually liked listening to
his voice. Justin could understand that, because there were times that he’d wake
up in the morning and hear Brian talking about some meaningless bullshit to
someone on the phone and start jerking off to the sound of his voice.
He would be sneaky when he needed to be, when they both needed to unwind without
the gang around. He could con Brian into taking him out on a conventional date
by calling him in the middle of the afternoon at work, giving awesome phone sex
and suggesting they meet for dinner at a restaurant he couldn’t afford if he
were paying. Justin could continue the con during dinner, and mention wanting to
go see a horror film that wouldn’t be playing much longer in theaters and say,
coyly, ‘If you feel up to it, tonight’, knowing damn well that Brian looked and
felt better today than he had the last three days. After the movie, both of them
feeling like they didn’t have a care in the world, could kiss like teenagers as
they walked out of the theater, because hey, at least they weren’t being hunted
by a crazy maniac, wielding a garden rake in one hand and a tazer in the other.
When they got back home, Justin would strip in the elevator and make Brian fuck
him against the door to the loft, their moans and nasty words trailing through
the stairwell of the complex.
They could drop by Lindsay and Melanie’s on a boring Tuesday night, ‘a good
Brian health day’, as Justin referred to them in his head. It would be in the
guise of wanting to see the new painting Lindsay had done (which he claimed he
liked but personally hated). It had been a while since Brian had seen Gus and
Justin knew the little boy’s presence would help Brian’s attitude the next day
when he had to go in for another radiation treatment.
They fought, just as loud and uninhibited as always. Justin didn’t ever hold his
tongue because yelling at a man with cancer was insensitive. Like tonight,
though he actually wouldn’t say it was a ‘real’ fight. Justin had used his sharp
words and wit to turn Brian on, knowing that it would and they could move
forward from the shitty mood he’d been in all day. He had read the Brian Kinney
manual, cover-to-cover, written some hymns himself and slapped Brian upside of
the head with it to help him get through the shit they were made to deal with
and do the one thing they could do that was never difficult.
The connection, satisfaction and pure bliss they gained through sex trumped
everything else in their lives and they never had to ‘just get through it’. It
was always over before either of them wanted it to end, no matter how long and
how good it was while it lasted. It always began the same way, the urge to begin
the act, wrapped in a hesitant anticipatory glow. It was all give and take. It
was a silent balance.
As Brian’s body slipped off him and he rolled onto his back, Justin could tell
the fuck had taken a lot out of him. With Brian still gripping his hand, he
turned to his side and could see how peaceful Brian was, but that he was also
nearly exhausted from using up so much energy. Yet, he still held his hand,
still moved his long beautiful tan fingers against Justin’s pale hand and wrist,
working out the pain and twitches that accompanied almost every fuck where
Justin had to brace himself on his hands and knees. Justin placed his
sweat-soaked head on Brian’s chest and hoped that one day Brian would understand
and accept the balance too.
The End
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