Here's Looking at You, Kid

The guys had been busy for the previous few days and they had not been able to sprawl together in front of their fake fireplace, so Justin was very pleased for the opportunity to do just that one particular evening. Brian was glad too, but Brian was also wondering about something.

"Would you rather go out than sit here, Baby?" he asked the kid.

"No way," came Justin's reply. "We've been out the last couple of evenings and I missed this. If you want to go out, I'll be glad to go with you but I'd rather stay here - as long as you're here too. Do you want to go out?"

"I guess I'd like to sit here forever," Brian responded, "As long as you're here with me, but I'm old and you're young. I don't know if I would have wanted to sit around in this loft in the evenings when I was your age."

"Brian," Justin confided. "I'm going to tell you something, but if you ever tell anybody I said it, even me, I'm going to deny it. You are not old. You are as young as you ever were. When you were my age, you didn't have me, so why would you want to sit at home? Now you've got me, so why would you want to go out?"

Brian smiled. "You know, Honey," he told the kid, "There's a lot of truth in what you just said."

"You think so?" Justin laughed.

"Yeah," Brian said. "I am as young as I ever was. Sometimes I forget that. Thanks for reminding me."

"And what about the rest of what I just said?" Justin wanted to know.

"I'll need some time to think about that," Brian responded with a smile.

"Wrong answer," Justin told the big guy, but he put his head down on Brian's shoulder, which sent an entirely different message.

After a little while, Brian reopened the discussion. "So you are really satisfied to waste your evenings just sitting here with me?" Brian asked.

"OK, Bri," Justin came back. "Sometimes you are a little bit weird, but not too often. Well you're being weird now and I want to know what's the problem. What's this about me wasting my evening?"

"It's just that I don't want you to get tired of sitting around here with me," Brian said. "I want you to be really happy. I don't want you to be missing stuff."

"Damn it, Brian," Justin complained. "I have never been happier in my life. I love you. I love sitting here with you. There is nothing I would rather do than be with you. You know that. What the hell is going on in that mind of yours? I could be getting scared if I wasn't pretty sure you loved me back."

"Forget it, Kiddo," Brian decided. "I am acting weird. Just forget it."

"Brian, Honey," Justin smiled at him. "Do I ever forget anything? I think the best thing for you to do would be to tell me what's going on? I really think that would be easier for both of us."

"OK, you win," Brian told him. "When we were in the drug store today. I saw you smiling at that twink behind the counter. You don't smile at me that way."

"Brian, that's crazy," Justin objected. "I always smile at you. I love you. You're acting crazy right now and I'm still smiling at you."

"Not the way you smiled at that kid in the drug store," Brian insisted. "I think you used to smile at me that way but not lately."

"You mean I have different kinds of smiles?" Justin wanted to know.

"Yeah," Brian confirmed. "You have a lot of different kinds of smiles, and I think I know them all."

"And just how do you know so much about my different kinds of smiles?" Justin quizzed.

"How do you think I know?" Brian came back. "I watch you. I like to watch you so I know all your different kinds of smiles. I was watching you at the drug store today but you were watching that kid behind the counter."

"Maybe so that I'd know when he was handing me the Tylenol and my change," Justin posited, "Because that kid wasn't looking at me or the Tylenol or the change. He was looking at you. Didn't you see that look on his face?"

"Nope," Brian admitted. "I was looking at you, and you weren't looking at me."

"This is crazy, Bri," Justin concluded. "You were looking at me and I was looking at that kid and he was looking only at you. That's why I was smiling. That kid fell for you the minute he saw you. I could see it in his eyes."

"Because you were looking at him," Brian concluded back at him. "And giving him a smile you don't give me any more."

"I wanted my Tylenol and my change," Justin laughed. "And you should probably be the one who paid for the Tylenol instead of me because I don't think I'd ever need it except for you."

"Well I sometimes need it too," Brian groused, "And I wonder why that is."

"You know, Bri," Justin said through a big smile. "I guess I'd rather argue with you about who uses the most Tylenol and why, than I would about me smiling at that kid in the store, but I'm going to tell you something else that I plan to deny if the subject ever comes up again. I was smiling because I saw myself in that kid. He was looking at you the way I looked at you when I first met you. I loved you right away but I couldn't believe a big handsome guy like you could ever care for me. I was kind of hoping today that the kid would have the same luck that I had, but not with the same guy. My guy's mine."

"Flattery will get you nowhere," Brian warned the twink with a smile of his own.

"I don't know why you'd say that," Justin wondered. "It has always worked before."

"Get that supercilious smile off of your face," Brian ordered the kid who obediently replaced his supercilious smile with his contented smile as he snuggled up to the big guy, bringing the conversation to a close, temporarily.

It was Brian who eventually renewed the discussion with a supercilious smile of his own. "I guess I should play a little harder to get, eh?" he suggested to the twink. "Then maybe I'd get that smile like you give the big handsome guys you think you can't get."

"That was then, Kinney," Justin informed him. "This is now. I got the big handsome guy I wanted, and since he's the biggest, handsomest guy in the world, I know now that I could get anybody I wanted, but I only want the guy I've got, and that's all I'll ever want. You can be sure of that, Brian."

It was a little while before Justin looked at Brian and concluded, "Hey, Bri, I know what that smile on your face means," he told the big guy, "And I think you're thinking the same as I am."

"I have different kinds of smiles?" Brian asked, showing some surprise.

"Yeah and I know every one of them, BK," Justin informed him. "I'm not stupid. I learn something new about you every day."

"Yeah?" Brian challenged with a trace of doubt in his voice. "Well what did you learn today, Twink?"

Justin responded with his confident smile on his face. "I learned that I should go to the drug store myself when I need Tylenol."

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