Roamin' Around

 
It was time for the guys to position themselves on the floor facing the fake fireplace. Justin had been impatiently waiting because he wanted the help of the fireplace when he brought up something that was bothering him. Brian encircled him with his arm and that made Justin feel a little better but he was still uneasy. He went straight to what was on his mind.

"Brian, I know you pretty well by now, and I know your moods too," he began. "So I know you're mad at me."

"No, I'm not," Brian smiled at him. "So the great Justin Taylor may not be as intuitive as he credits himself as being. Sorry about that."

"Now that answer just convinces me that I'm right," Justin maintained. "You are mad about something, so it will be better if I don't get mad at you for calling me unperceptive. I am perceptive enough to know it's better when we're not mad at each other at the same time."

"Yeah," Brian agreed with that. "It wouldn't be a good idea for us both to be mad at the same time. But you can get mad at me right now if you want to because I'm not mad at you."

"So you're not going to tell me why you're mad," Justin pouted. "If you loved me you'd tell me what you're mad about."

"So you'd rather that I was mad at you than for you to be unperceptive, Twink," Brian laughed. "That's crazy."

"No it's not either," Justin disagreed. "If you're mad at me I can probably fix that, but if I'm not perceptive, that's a character flaw that I might not be able to fix. Anyhow you are mad and I know it so you may as well just tell me why. You'll have to do that sometime – so why not just do it now?"

"Maybe I'll just wait until you tell me about the toga party," Brian responded. "When were you going to tell me about the toga party?"

"Toga party?" Justin replied. "How the hell did you find out about that? Anyhow the truth is that I was never going to tell you about it. I didn't want you giving me a hard time about the weird younger generation – which doesn't include you when it's weird. How did you hear about the party anyhow?"

"You're telling me that you weren't going to try to trick me into going?" Brian seemed surprised. "It's an Institute event, isn't it? Just seemed to me like it would be something you'd really go for."

"Well maybe you're not so perceptive yourself, Mr. Kinney," Justin advised him. "I didn't think you'd want to go to any toga party – and I didn't think I wanted you to go to that toga party either. Half the guys at school are gay and I'm not sure I'd want you running around with them half-dressed."

"So you think there might be some competition, eh?" Brian grinned. "Little Sunshine is worried?"

"Don't go there, Kinney," Justin warned him. "Don't try to pretend you want to go to that toga party either. If you try that, I'll pretend I want to go too and then we'll be going to a toga party that neither of us wants to go to."

"OK, Baby," Brian cuddled the kid. "Whatever you want. I am surprised that you don't really want to go though."

"Well, maybe I'm just growing up, Bri," Justin responded. "Life will be a lot easier for you if I grow up some, I guess."

"I'm not sure I want you to grow up, Baby," Brian told him. "I think I love you just the way you are."

That was a line destined to bring the conversation to a sudden halt – and it did. But the discussion was not over and after a considerable period, it resumed.

"You didn't tell me how you found out about the party, Bri," Justin said. "I guess it was from Mikey. Hunter and Malcolm are going. I should have figured that you'd find out even though I asked them not to tell you. I didn't tell Michael."

"Mikey didn't tell me," Brian informed him. "Hunter and Malcolm told him not to tell me so he was surprised that I knew when I asked him about it."

"Well then how did you find out?" Justin was interested.

"Emmett." Brian told him. "Emmett stopped me at the diner. Seems he's making special designer togas for Malcolm and Hunter and he wondered why we hadn't asked him to do ours."

"O my God," Justin exclaimed. "I never even thought of designer togas."

"I'll just remember that when you start bragging about thinking of everything," Brian mocked him laughingly.

"Well, I'd advise you not to be lulled into a false sense of security, Kinney," Justin came back. "Maybe I'm not perfect but I'm pretty close."

"You're perfect enough for me, Sweetrheart," Brian told him, seemingly making a habit of stopping the discussion in its tracks. It was a while before any conversation resumed.

"You know what, Brian?" Justin told Brian, finally breaking the spell. "I wonder what our designer togas would have looked like. I really don't want to go to the party but I do wonder what the togas would look like. We can see Malcolm's and Hunter's though and I guess that will give us an idea what we missed – but we'll never know what Emm would have decided for us."

"Maybe we will," Brian responded. "Actually this was supposed to be a surprise but I told Emmett to go ahead and design some for us too. I even think they may be already finished."

"You want to go to the toga party?" Justin recoiled slightly.

"Nope," Brian laughed. "Never. We can wear them around the loft sometime if you want to, but you're the only one who's ever going to see me in that toga – and I wasn't crazy about the idea of you running around in front of those gay guys at the Institute either – in any especially fetching designer toga – or in any old plain toga either."

"I love you, Brian Kinney," Justin kissed the big guy. "You are a lot of fun in addition to being the greatest guy in the world. You know what we'll do. We'll have our own toga party right here the night they have the one at the Institute. Just the two of us."

"See," Brian grinned at him. "I was right all along. You do want to get me to some toga party. I knew it all along."

""Shut up, Bri," Justin commanded. "There are some other things I want to get you to do before any old toga party – so just shut up about the toga party, will you – so I can get to work on those other things."

And Brian was happy to comply. The kid always got what he wanted.


 

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