Silent Night

The guys had been sitting on the floor of the loft in front of their flickering fake fireplace for nearly a half-hour. Not a word had yet been spoken. That was a lot of silence. Something had to give.

“You know what, Baby,” Brian finally broke the spell. “We ought to try to sit here a whole evening some time without saying anything. We can call it our very own ‘silent night.’ I bet that would be a lot of fun. I think I’d like to try it. What do you think?”

“I think maybe we’ve done that already, Bri,” Justin offered. “I’m pretty sure we have. I can’t exactly remember when though. Didn’t we…?”

“Yeah,” Brian smiled at him. “Maybe we did. But it was probably sometime when you weren’t speaking to me for some reason or other.’

“No it was not either, Kinney,” Justin replied with complete certainty – but also with a smile of his own. “You know I always talk to you when I’m not speaking to you – so you’ll know what you did wrong. Otherwise you probably wouldn’t even know why I wasn’t speaking to you. You can’t always figure that out by yourself.”

“Yeah, that’s right, Kiddo,” Brian agreed in principle. “I probably wouldn’t know half the stuff I do wrong if you weren’t here to tell me. One of your really strong points is your uncanny ability to know exactly what other people are doing wrong. That’s why I’m so darn lucky to have you around.”

“Well I’m glad you admit you’re lucky to have me around, Brian, Sweetheart – even if your reasons are all wrong,” Justin cuddled himself closer to the guy next to him. “And even if you think you mean it as an insult. I just happen to know that, deep down in that Freudian superego of yours, you really do mean it though – and for the right reasons too - so I’m not insulted at all.”

There was a pause in the discussion at this point – a pause which lasted at least long enough that an observer might begin to think that the proposed “silent night” just might be a real possibility.

But it was Brian who once again sabotaged his own expressed wish. “OK, Baby,” he said. “You’ve been quiet for a really long time so I know you’re thinking….”

”Like I can’t think while I’m talking, Brian?” Justin interrupted sounding petulant – deliberately or not. “Like whenever I’m saying something, I’m not thinking? This is getting to be ‘insult poor Justin’ night around here. That’s what it looks like to me.”

“I guess I’m trying to take advantage of your insight into my Freudian superego. Sweetheart,” Brian supposed. “Surely you can detect that the very last thing in the world I would want to do is to insult you….”

“That is not how it works at all, Kinney – and you know it too. You are not gonna get away with trying to blame Sigmund Freud for you being so mean,” Justin was laughing. “Well poor Sigmund is dead and can’t fight back himself but he’s lucky to have Justin Taylor right here to defend his reputation.”

“So me and Sigmund are both lucky to have you around, aren’t we, Baby?” Brian was laughing too. “I wonder if Sigmund knows how lucky he is - like I do.”

And thereupon there was another lull in the discussion at this point – while Justin attempted to demonstrate – and seemingly successfully too - just why Brian ought be more aware of his good luck than Sigmund Freud might be – since SF was dead and BK very much alive.

“But this time it was Justin who broke up the latest attempt at prolonged silence. Justin had been thinking - clearly – maybe like he thought only when he wasn’t talking – or maybe not.

“OK, Brian,” he wondered. “What the hell is going on? You’re up to something – I don’t know exactly what it is – but I can assure you that you are absolutely not going to get away with it – whatever it is.”

“You seem pretty sure of yourself, Mr. Taylor,” Brian grinned at him. “Since you don’t know what I’m trying to get away with. But actually I think I already got away with it – at least for as long as I wanted to. Wasn’t there something you wanted to talk about tonight – which has not come up yet – and wouldn’t ever have either – if I didn’t remind you of it – which I am doing right now?”

“I think you’re just like - guessing, Mr. Kinney,” Justin challenged him. “Because I usually have a whole lot of great ideas that I want to discuss with you – so it’s a calculated guess on your part – probably to excuse your mean behavior so far this evening. That’s what I think, all right. Bet I’m right about that too – as usual.”

“So I don’t suppose you spent the morning with Mikey today,” Brian actually did suppose. “Or did you?”

“Yeah, I did, Brian,” Justin admitted. “We had some last minute stuff on the latest edition of the Rage comic book and it came out great too. But I think I did kind of mention to you that I was gonna see Mikey - so that’s just a good guess on your part. I’ll admit you’re smart, Kinney. I’ll give you that. But so what if I was with Mikey this morning?”

“And you didn’t talk about anything else but Rage?” Brian prodded. “Nothing else?”

“Of course we talked about other things, BK,” Justin informed him. “We’re friends. We might even have talked about you – but if we did – you’ll never know what we said. Mikey won’t tell you and neither will I. Mikey is not a fink…..”

“Nope,” Brian agreed. “Mikey wouldn’t spill your plot, Kiddo – not to me anyhow - and not deliberately either. But he might mention it innocently to Hunter who might have mentioned it to Malcolm who might have told Jason who just might have called Brandon and told him. By this time nobody would think of it as a secret any more – so maybe Brandon called me to ask why we were starting our Christmas preparations so early this year. You know if we’re starting early, so are they – and they’d need to know why. I told Brandon it was all my idea and I had ordered you to get started early – which is exactly what I would have done too - if I had known we needed to get an early start this year, that is So….”

“Damn, Bri,” Justin marveled. “You are a quick learner. So you pulled this whole “silent night” business just to show me that you really are in control around here – and we only talk about stuff if you want to – and when you want to - which is what I always tell you anyhow - and you still act like you don’t believe me at all - most of the time anyway.”

“Yeah, and maybe I just pulled this stuff to see if I could distract you and get away with it – postponing something that you had planned,” Brian told him. “Like - just to see if I could do it. If you want to start the Christmas planning early, that’s OK with me. I guess I just wanted to give you a little bit of a hard time. See – I’m beginning to figure out some of the mean things I do myself – all by myself….”

“Cut it out, Brian,” Justin stopped Brian’s self-accusation. “Figuring out that stuff for yourself is not a good idea. And you got it all wrong. What you did wasn’t so bad after all. And anyhow, I don’t want you to be able to figure out what you do wrong all by yourself. If you could do that, maybe you wouldn’t need me around so much. And maybe you wouldn’t see how lucky you are to have me around….”

“So I guess I should be proud of getting away with pulling at least a little bit of wool over your eyes, Sweetheart,” Brian teased him. “And I even talked about ‘silent night’ too and you never tumbled. Get it, Baby – Christmas – Silent Night – get the connection – and you never figured it out either…. Pretty clever I’d say….”

“Cut that out too, Kinney,” Justin warned him with a laconic smile. “There just might be a limit to how much you can get away with….”

”Just like there’s no limit to what you can get away with, I guess,” Brian smiled back at him. “Well you must have something about Christmas planning that you want to talk about so go right ahead, Kiddo. I’m listening….”

”Well maybe I did have a few things, Bri,” Justin informed him, snuggling up a little closer. “But maybe I’ve changed my mind. Christmas planning can wait for a day or two. There’s no big hurry. Maybe we should try that ‘silent night’ business that you were talking about….”

”Would that be like both of us not talking, Baby,” Brian wondered. “Not just me not talking. You too?”

”We could try it, Bri,” Justin grinned at him. “I think I can keep quiet – if I have something else to occupy me….”

Brian grinned back at him. In the deepest recesses of his Freudian whatever, Brian was sure he could provide the necessary distraction. It wouldn’t be the first time.
 

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