Rage Over Hollywood

Chapter 1

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Justin let himself into the dark apartment and launched into what had become routine during the three weeks he'd been living in Los Angeles. He turned on the light in the foyer, set the alarm, dropped his bag beside the desk and hit the button on the answering machine on his way to the fridge. As he opened the door and pulled out a bottle of water, a familiar voice broke the silence.

"What's the sense of having a calling schedule if you're never there to answer the phone, Sunshine? I've got a shitload of work here so it doesn't look like I'll be going out at all. Call me."

Justin glanced at his watch and winced as he calculated how late it would be in Pittsburgh. He'd no doubt wake his lover if he called now, but he knew Brian would be pissed if he didn't. With a tired sigh, he grabbed the cordless phone and flopped down on the sofa, punching in the loft's number as he got comfortable.

"Yeah," Brian's sleepy voice answered.

"Hey," Justin replied softly, his lover's voice bringing a smile to his face despite his own exhaustion.

"Well," Brian drawled into the phone. "I hope you didn't cut your night on the town short on my account."

Justin registered the sarcasm in the other man's voice and rolled his eyes. "I was working, Brian," he said firmly. "I just got ho… back." Before leaving Pittsburgh, he'd told Brian that the loft would always be his home. He wasn't about to give the ad exec any reason to think he'd changed his mind and even an innocent slip of the tongue could trigger a conversation he wasn't up to having, mentally or physically.

"Don't tell me," Brian mused sarcastically. "The art director's home by six and the assistant's lucky if he's out of there by midnight."

"There was a problem with some of the set designs," Justin explained vaguely. "Richard was there just as long as I was."

"Problem solved?" Brian asked, though he didn't sound all too interested.

"Close enough," Justin replied, just as happy not to have to go into detail. "So how are things in glorious Pittsburgh?"

"Fucking cold for April," Brian muttered.

Justin smiled at the man's complaint. "Just think, a little over a week and you'll be here in sunny California."

Brian was silent for a moment. "Can't wait."

The change in his tone of voice didn't escape Justin and he knew they were no longer talking about the weather. "Me neither," he said softly. "I miss you, too."

Brian cleared his throat on the other end of the line. "So, fuck any hot guys?"

Justin smirked at the change of subject. "Who's had time?" he lamented. "I'm at the studio first thing in the morning and, by the time I'm done, I'm too tired to go out."

"C'mon," Brian teased, his mood decidedly lighter after hearing Justin's admission. "No utility closets in that big studio? No aspiring young stars dying to be fucked by Hollywood's newest assistant art director?"

Justin snorted at the notion. "Please. Half the guys I'm working with are straight and the ones that aren't… well, let's just say they don't exactly measure up to what I'm used to."

"Oh?" Brian purred. "And just what is it you're used to, Sunshine?"

Justin smiled, recognizing that tone of voice. Standing up, he had his pants unbuttoned even as he made his way toward the bedroom. "Hmmm… nine glorious inches belonging to the hottest stud between here and Pittsburgh." He stripped off his clothes quickly and lay back on the bed as he awaited his lover's reply.

"I see," Brian murmured seductively. "And does this hot stud know what to do with the equipment he's been so generously bestowed with?"

Justin trailed his hand over his bare chest as Brian's words washed over him. "Oh yeah," he whispered hoarsely. "He's a master."

"You don't say," Brian continued in his sexiest tone. "Tell me."

Justin shivered slightly at the breathy voice. His cock was now fully hard, but he resisted reaching for it, wanting to draw it out as long as possible. "Uh, first he, uh…"

"Imagine he's there with you right now," Brian prodded. "Tell me what you feel."

Though Brian had initiated the little fantasy, Justin was getting into it more with every word. He closed his eyes and concentrated on the actions he was describing and wishing the fingers playing lightly over his heated skin belonged to his lover. "His hands on my skin. Tracing nice and slow over my chest, rolling my nipples between his fingers."

"Yes," Brian encouraged with a hitch in his voice. Justin pictured the other man also putting action to the words, stroking his own chest and imagining Justin's hands there.

"He's moving his hands down further," Justin murmured seductively, describing the path his fingers were taking. "Over my stomach, circling my navel before continuing lower… lower. He can't wait to get those long fingers wrapped around my cock."

A soft moan escaped his lips as his hard shaft twitched in anticipation. The sound was matched by an arousingly similar one coming from the phone in his hand. "Feels so good, Brian."

"Are you hard, Sunshine?"

"God, yes," Justin groaned, eyes still closed against the sensations building within him. He circled his cock with his fingers and began to stroke slowly. "His touch does it to me every time."

"He wants to taste you," Brian rasped. "What do you taste like?"

Justin shuddered slightly at the words and collected a drop of pre-cum on his fingers, raising them to his lips to taste himself. "Mmmm," he murmured. "Kinda salty."

"Oh yeah," Brian whispered, his breathing ragged. "Can you feel it, Justin? Can you feel his mouth on you? His lips, his tongue... his teeth."

Justin wet his fingers and returned them to his twitching cock, his mind conjuring up the memories of what Brian could do with his mouth. He swirled his fingers around the weeping head, his nails raking gently in a pale imitation of the strong, even teeth of his lover. "Jesus, Brian," he hissed.

Brian took that as his cue to take over. He was already teetering on the brink from the teasing game and knew it wouldn't take much to bring his lover to the point where they could soar over the edge together. "Stroke it, Sunshine," he murmured with a groan. "Like you're deep inside him. Harder, deeper, faster."

Justin circled his throbbing cock with his hand, imagining it was his lover's tight ass enveloping him as he quickened his strokes. "Briiian," he whimpered.

"That's it," Brian gasped. "Let go, Justin. Let me hear you cum."

That did it. Justin shuddered and came in his hand with a long, deep moan.

The sound, as well as the mental image of his lover bringing himself off, was all it took to trigger Brian's own release. "Oh, God, Justin," he groaned as his seed pumped into his palm.

Justin collapsed back against the pillows, still panting into the phone as he struggled to regain his composure enough to speak. When he did, it was with a raspy voice. "Jesus, Brian," he breathed. "Three thousand miles away and you can still push all the right buttons."

Brian chuckled breathlessly into the phone. "Sounds like you've got some cleaning up to do."

"Like you don't," Justin countered knowingly.

Brian smirked into the phone. There was no way he was going to admit to shooting in his hand like a high-school kid. "You'd better get some sleep, Sunshine, if you want to be at your artistic best in the morning."

The words doused his lazy euphoria with a splash of reality. "Yeah," he sighed. "I guess."

"Your turn to call next," Brian said in a mocking tone. He'd laughed at the idea when Justin first proposed a calling schedule, but when he'd realized how serious the younger man was, he'd finally relented.

Justin smiled into the phone. "I will. On time," he promised.

"Good," Brian huffed. "Because this is the last time I answer the fucking phone at this time of night."

Justin rolled his eyes and didn't address the comment. He knew Brian would answer whenever he called, but he did feel rather bad about having to call so late. "Brian?" he said quietly, sad that the conversation was coming to an end.

"Hmmm?"

Justin hesitated only briefly. "I love you." He held his breath while he waited for the other man to respond.

"Go to sleep, Twat."

The breath escaped between smiling lips as Justin heard the affection hidden in the words. "'K. 'Night."

"Night."

Justin hung up the phone and breathed a resigned sigh, replaying the call over and over in his mind in an effort to keep thoughts of the studio at bay. Thinking about what had happened that day would only reignite his anger and frustration. Deciding a warm shower might be able to cleanse his mind as well as his body, he rolled off the bed and headed for the bathroom.

When the phone rang a moment later, he couldn't resist a small smile. One of the reasons he tried to avoid waking Brian with his calls was because he knew how hard it would be for the man to get back to sleep. He was a bit of an insomniac at the best of times. Reaching for the receiver, he decided the least he could do was keep his lover company for a while.

"Hey," he answered into the mouthpiece.

When there was no response, he frowned slightly. "Hello?"

"This is just the beginning."

It took a moment for the sound of the dial tone to register and Justin to realize the connection had been cut off. He stared at the phone in his hand for a moment before slowly returning it to its place on the nightstand.

Apparently, his problems were no longer confined to the studio.

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Brian lay in bed thinking about the short conversation he'd had with his young lover. While he wasn't overly interested in the intricacies of movie making, that didn't mean he wasn't sensitive to the other man's moods. Justin had become increasingly vague with talk about his job. The first week, Brian could barely get a word in edgewise. And now, a couple of weeks later, Justin seemed to brush off any mention of the studio with an often curt dismissal.

When Brian had asked about the problem Justin had mentioned, he'd fully expected to be regaled with a litany of details. Instead, the blond had quickly changed the subject. The more Brian thought about it, the more it bothered him until finally, he picked up the phone.

"What?" was the terse answer he received after only one ring.

"Down, boy," Brian replied. "I was going to ask if you were all right, but I think I just got my answer. What the fuck's going on?"

Justin let out a long breath. "It's nothing," he answered wearily. "I'm just tired."

"Bullshit. You've got 30 seconds to start talking."

"Or what?" Justin demanded, growing angry.

"Or I hang up and you're on your own," Brian told him, the irritation in his own voice matching that of his lover.

"I'm on my own anyway," Justin snapped back. "You can't fix everything, Brian. I should be able to tell you something without you thinking I'm expecting you to do something about it. "

Brian was silent for a moment. "Someone giving you a hard time?" he asked, his voice having lost most of its angry edge.

"Not exactly," Justin sighed. "Not me, personally." Remembering the recent phone call, he added, "I don't think."

Brian let out an exasperated breath. "Jesus, Justin, could you be a little more vague here, please? I almost got a clue from that."

Realizing his shower had been put on hold indefinitely, Justin donned his robe and sat cross-legged on the bed. "It's just some trouble at work," he sighed, knowing Brian wouldn't let up until he got an explanation. "At first it was just little things, misplaced storyboards, problems with equipment, that sort of shit. I figured every project has some glitches, so I didn't think anything of it, really."

"You said 'at first'. What changed?"

Justin couldn't resist a ghost of a smile. Nothing got by Brian. "This morning they sent up the drawings for Rage's lair. Since I was the one who originally designed it in the comic, Richard asked for my opinion. I told him that it needed to be a little darker, more mysterious and sexy. We sat down and detailed every change that needed to be made, and then sent the drawings along with the desired modifications back to the art department. They start building the set tomorrow, so they needed to be done and approved today."

"Annoying, I agree, but it doesn't sound like the end of the world," Brian replied.

"Yeah, well, when they came back at five o'clock, they were the total opposite of what we'd asked for. When Richard went down to the art department to fire the whole fucking bunch, they showed him the list of modifications they'd worked from and it was completely different than the one we'd compiled."

"So it was no honest mistake," Brian concluded.

"No," Justin concurred. "It was deliberate. Somewhere between Richard's office and the art department, the instructions got changed."

"Do you know who changed them?"

Justin shook his head slightly, though the other man couldn't see it. "No, there are so fucking many people working on every aspect of this project it's ridiculous." With a wry smile, he added, "I never thought I'd say this, but I'm beginning to appreciate the days when it was just me and Michael."

"I'm going to tell Mikey you said that," Brian teased.

"So," Justin sighed in conclusion. "We had to redo all the drawings from scratch. That's why I was so late getting back here."

Brian was silent a moment. "Sounds to me like someone's less than enthusiastic about seeing Rage on the big screen."

"Whoever it is isn't alone," Justin informed him. "Apparently homophobia is still alive and well in Los Angeles."

"I hope that didn't come as a big surprise," Brian quipped cynically.

"There's more," Justin admitted somewhat reluctantly. "After I got off the phone with you, I got a call. Some guy saying 'this is just the beginning'."

"This asshole knows your fucking number?" Brian demanded.

Justin shrugged. "So it would seem. Brett and Richard both have it. I guess it wouldn't be too hard for someone working at the studio to get it if they really wanted to."

"I don't like it, Justin."

"I know," he replied. "I'll talk to Brett tomorrow. If I have to, I'll change the number."

"And you'll tell me if anything else happens."

It wasn't a question so much as an order and Justin had to smile a little. He loved that Brian was so protective toward him, even if he didn't want him thinking he had to solve every little problem that came up. "If you promise not to queen out whenever something goes wrong, I'll tell you everything from here on," he promised.

"You'd fucking better." There was silence for a moment. "The alarm set?"

Justin chuckled. "Like I'd ever forget that again," he teased. "Yeah, it's set."

"Ok, then," Brian replied. In a softer voice, he asked, "Are you going to be able to sleep?"

"I'm fine," Justin assured him. "I'm going to hit the shower and then bed. And I'll talk to Brett first thing tomorrow. Don't worry."

"I'm not worried," Brian was quick to correct him. "But if I'm going to spend a fucking fortune on long distance, I want to at least know your attention's on me, not some homophobic asshole."

Justin laughed outright at that. "Ok, then. I'll tell Brett he has to put a stop to this, if not because it has the potential to interfere with production, then because Brian Kinney wants to get the most out of his long distance dollar."

"Exactly," Brian agreed, causing Justin to laugh again.

"Get some sleep, Brian," he said, smiling into the phone. "And thanks."

"You can thank me next weekend," Brian assured him with a seductive purr. "All. Night. Long."

"Deal," Justin agreed. "I'll talk to you soon."

"'Night, Sunshine."

"Night."

Justin felt much better after hanging up the second time. Putting the unidentified caller out of his mind, he headed to the shower with nothing but thoughts of his lover for company.

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