Final Step

 

Brian was serious about what he'd said at the cabin. As soon as they got back to the city he put the duplex on the market and they started looking for something else. He wanted something that would belong to the two of them, that wouldn't have a history with someone else for either of them hanging around the corners and lurking in the halls.

It was in the middle of one of the afternoons they spent walking through apartments and condos and townhouses that Brian just stopped.

"This isn't right."

"Would you like to see the next place on the list, Mr. Kinney? It's just a couple of blocks from here and has the most lovely views of the park…"

"No."

"Brian? What is it?" Justin turned to look at him. He had gone still and that was never a good sign. "Is something wrong? Are you sick?"

He just shook his head. "I don't want to do this."

Justin went cold. Shit-not again. He was going to be thrown out again. Brian had probably decided that he wanted to finally live alone like he had in Pittsburgh in the old loft twenty-five years ago and-shit.

"Brian?"

"Mrs. Roberts, I've changed my mind. I'm not interested in buying a new place. I don't want to see any more."

"…Mr. Kinney, you've already accepted the offer on your duplex. The contracts have been signed. Legally you're obligated to…"

"Yes, I know. That's fine. We'll move out as planned." He put his jacket back on. "I'll be in touch with your office. Justin?"

Justin gave the woman a shrug; he had no idea either, then followed Brian down to the street. Fifth Avenue near the Metropolitan Museum of Art was one of your better neighborhoods.

"Do you like living in New York?"

"Yeah, sure I do. Brian, what are you thinking?"

"No, I mean if you could live anywhere where would it be?"

"Near the park, I guess. Maybe a place with a terrace or a roof garden or something so we can get outside when we want…"

"No, not just New York, I mean in the world. Where would you want to live?"

"You mean like anywhere at all?… I don't know, I guess I'd like to live someplace quiet. Maybe out in the country or something, with a studio-but close enough to the city, at least some decent sized city, so that I could still get to exhibits and decent restaurants and shows and stuff." He could see the wheels turning in Brian's head. "But the agency is here. Even if you wanted to change to one of the other branches, move to San Francisco or back to Pittsburgh, you still have to be close enough to get to the office."

Silence.

"Brian?"

"I've been thinking about this for a while now. I've had offers to sell the agency before and I never wanted to, but another one came in last week from CG&D. They want to merge and I think this may be a good time to do it."

"But-you'd still have control, wouldn't you?"

"I think I'd like to sell outright and retire."

Justin stopped dead in his tracks. "Are you shitting me? You'd go nuts without a company to run or campaigns to pitch."

"I've run the company for almost twenty years and I've pitched enough to last me a lifetime. I want to have time to do other things."

"Like…?"

"Travel, read, hang out, get laid."

"You get laid all the time."

"Get laid more."

"You'd die."

"That's the way to go."

They started moving again, down Fifth. "You're serious about this, aren't you?"

"How would you feel about renovating the cabin, maybe enlarging it and moving there?"

"The cabin is yours." Besides, it already had eight rooms and a two-car garage. How much bigger did it have to get?

"That's another thing I was thinking about. If it's alright with you, I'll call Tony and have him add your name to the deed." They took a few more steps. "If it belonged to both of us, and if we changed it, renovated it, added on to it-then it would be ours, right?

Justin stopped again. "Brian, what the fuck is going on? Where is all this coming from?"

Brian sat on a bench they had come to. He had that look on his face where if you didn't know him you'd think he was bullshitting, but if you knew him well enough you'd know he was telling the dead on truth. "I had a moment of epiphany when I was up at the cabin. I realized that I'm tired of all the shit-the meetings and the clients and the competition. I was sitting on the dock and thought that I should be getting back to work but I realized that I just fucking didn't want to. I didn't want to drive back to the city and I didn't want to listen to the noise and deal with the crappy air and the dirt and the crowds and all the rest of it." He looked at Justin sitting next to him. "I've had enough. I want to quit." He paused for a second, as if he couldn't believe that he'd just said that. "I've never not wanted to work in my life and now I just don't care. I've had it. I'm done with it."

"You'll go nuts in two months."

"No, I won't." He was serious. "I want to get out of New York, I want to get rid of the agency and I want to just slow down-fuck, Justin, I'm fifty-three years old. What the fuck am I supposed to do? Keep at it until I drop dead?"

"…OK. And where do you see me fitting in with your epiphany?"

"With me. We'll build you a studio, to your specifications. Attached to the house, a separate building, whatever you want." Justin's face was hardly the picture of joy Brian was hoping for. "What? You want to go somewhere else?"

"…Look, we both know that if Steve was still alive you'd be having this conversation with him and the two of you would be talking about how to add some hotshit addition to the place and where you could travel when you finally get the time and all the rest of it. Right?"

"But he's not here and you are."

"…I'm the blank spot where Steve used to be." He got up. "Brian, that's all I am to you now. Pain management, a convenience." He took a couple of steps away. "As far as you're concerned, I'm still your perma twink."

Brian honestly looked stricken, like Justin's reaction had never occurred to him as a possibility. "That's not true…alright, maybe it was for a while after Steve died, but it hasn't been true for a couple of years."

"You chose him over me, remember? I'm still your second choice. I'm your back up plan"

"Jesus, give me some fucking credit here. Fuck, give yourself some credit here. Do you honestly believe that I'd spend all this time with you if that were true? Do you really think that you'd be living at the duplex if that was how I felt?"

Justin just shrugged. Sure, maybe. Probably. Why not?

"Then why have you agreed to be in my fucking bed for the last three years? Willingly, I add." Justin was stopped. He didn't say anything because they both knew the answer. No one had forced him; no one had put a gun to his head. He had other options. He had stayed with Brian because he wanted to be there.

He wanted to be with Brian, in Brian's bed-their bed, eating breakfast and dinner with Brian at their table in their home.

It was his choice, whatever the pros and cons may be, he had agreed to them. Angry with himself for being so transparent, he started away.

"You've known me for what? Almost twenty-five years? In that time I've lived with two men-you and Steve. That's it."

"What the fuck does that prove?"

"And I've loved-two men. You and Steve."

Justin looked back at the museum. He could just see the glass wall that housed the Temple of Dendur through the trees. "When you chose him over me you told me that he was the best for you. That made me second rate."

Brian remembered that conversation as well. It had taken place in a hallway at Pratt when Justin was still a student and having trouble accepting that they were over. "What I told you was that you were always first rate and that Steve wasn't 'better' than you were. He was just better for me. At that time he was. Now you are."

"You're just playing with semantics. What it came down to was that he was the one you wanted."

"And now you are."

"…Because he's not here."

"Jesus-and if my leg fell off I'd be in a wheelchair. Stop with the fucking self pity and deal with the facts for shit's sake. You're right, he's not here but you are and you're who I fucking want to live with."

"Brian, if Steve was here…"

"Steve has been dead and buried for three fucking years. I'm still walking around. You weren't the right person for me to be with then-now you are. Why are we still going around this same Goddamned circle? What is so difficult about this?"

"What's so Goddamned difficult about it is that I wouldn't be here if Steve hadn't fucking died and given a choice, he's still the one you'd be with."

Brian gave Justin a long look. It was time to set the record straight.

"When we were together back then you were a kid, I wasn't. You were a student, I was a partner. You had no money, I was on my way to being rich. You'd had one lover, I'd lost count. Your idea of a party was pizza and a six pack-Justin, it wouldn't have lasted then-don't you see that?"

"That's not true-we loved each…"

"Yes, we did, but it was too uneven and too unequal to sustain. Eventually you'd have resented that I had all the money and control and I've have become frustrated that you were still learning things I'd known for a decade."

"But we learned from each other and…"

Brian was being honest and he was trying to be kind, but Justin had to face the reality of what they'd had or their future would be based on a fantasy.

"What I told you was true. You were good for me, but Steve was the person I needed then. We were equals, we were both at about the same point in our lives. Justin, you had to grow up more."

"When will that ever happen?"

"You have."

"And now I meet your standards?" He'd learned snark from the best.

Brian was about to snap back some probably unforgettable retort but managed to restrain himself by counting to fifteen, then to twenty. He went on, but calmly. "You always did, Justin, you know that."

"But then why…?"

"If Eric hadn't died you might still be with him. If Peter hadn't hit you, you might still live in Colorado. If Steve was still alive he'd be sixty-five years old and wanting me to retire so we could travel together and if frogs had wings they wouldn't bump their asses on the ground."

Justin looked like he still didn't get it.

"Look, there are a lot of 'what ifs'. They don't matter. The fact is that we can be together now. You're right, if Steve was alive we probably wouldn't be having this conversation-OK, we wouldn't be having this conversation, but he's not here. He's dead and Eric's dead and Peter's history and that's the way it is."

"That 'mutual convenience' thing again?"

"Forty-one years old and still a fucking twat and you are starting to seriously piss me off. Will you get over yourself?"

"Do you love me?"

"Yes, I fucking love you."

"…Romantic to the last."

"Jesus H Fucking Christ. I thought I'd made that clear twenty years ago. I loved you then and I've fucking loved you all along and I fucking love you now. Do you want to fix up the cabin and move there with me or don't you? Your call."

"Sure, fine, whatever."

"Fuck you."

"Fuck you back."

"Twat."

"Asshole."

"Cunt."

"Prick."

"You done?"

"For now. Want to get lunch?"

"Yes."

"Good."

"I can design the studio any way I want it?"

"I just said that, didn't I?"

"Fine."

"Fine."

*          *          *           *          *          *         *          *          *           *          *          *

"Doctor? Dr. Taylor is on line two for you."

"Dr. Chalmers? I was hoping that you might be able to consult on a difficult case I'm in the middle of."

"Justin, you are still such an asshole. What do you want?"

"We haven't talked in a while. I was wondering what you're up to."

"Sure you are. Did you and Brian have a fight?"

"Worse than that, he wants to retire and move to the cabin and he wants me to move there with him. He even said he'd build a studio for me."

"God, you are the luckiest person in the entire world, I swear."

"Fuck you. I'm still his back up plan. He even admitted that if Steve hadn't died it wouldn't be happening."

"You are such a total bonehead."

"A bonehead? I'm a bonehead? You haven't called me that since high school."

"Well if the shoe fits. Jesus, Justin. You're just not getting this, are you?"

"Getting what? That I'm plan B again?"

"That he's loved you all along and who the fuck ever said that it was going to be smooth sailing and easy? Songs on the radio? Romance novels? That's such bullshit. Love is hard and you're lucky enough to be his first love and now you'll be his last-if you don't screw it up."

"But if Steve hadn't died he'd…"

"But Steve did die and that sucked for Brian-not to mention Steve. Now you both get another chance."

"Daph…"

"You love him, don't you?"

"Of course, but it's so fucking hard to be with him sometimes."

"Right, and you're a walk in the park?" There was some talking in the background on Daphne's end. "I have to go, the OR is prepped. Can I call you later? We can have dinner, OK?"

"He said he loved me, right in the middle of Fifth Avenue."

"He said he loved you? Brian said that? God, Justin, you know he wouldn't say it if he didn't mean it-right? This is Brian we're talking about here."

"Well, yeah, I guess."

"Call me. I'll meet you wherever you want."

"I will, later. You go."

*          *          *           *          *          *         *          *          *           *          *          *

"Alright, what are you planning this time?"

"Deb? What the fuck are you talking about now and what makes you think I'm planning anything?"

"Well, you always are and besides, Jennifer just called me and she's all upset. It seems that she thinks you're going to screw over Sunshine again and she doesn't want it to happen-again."

"Not that it's any of your business, but I wasn't planning on screwing over anyone. I was planning on retiring, moving to the country and building Justin his own studio so he can work."

"…You're going to retire? Your balls finally fall off?"

"Well if they do I'll send them to you."

"You listen to me for once in your life, you hurt that sweetheart again and I'll choke you with your own jockstrap, you hear me?

"…Deb, look, tell Jenn to unknot her panties. All I want is to be able to do what I want. I don't need the money, I've accomplished everything professionally I've ever wanted, I've won every award worth having and I want to be able to do some things while I can still put one foot in front of the fucking other."

"And I'm waiting for the end of that thought."

"And I want to do them with Justin."

"Brian, if I ask you something will you give me an honest answer?" She had stopped her shtick and was finally being serious.

He knew what the question would be. "Yes."

"Do you really love him or is he just a place filler for Steve?" That was what Justin was afraid of, that was what Jennifer thought might be happening.

Brian had wondered about that for three years now. It had taken him that long to figure it out. "…After Steve died he was a fill in. He was just a warm body for a couple of years. But now…I want him with me."

Not enough of an answer for Debbie. She was still fighting the dragons for her boys; no matter how old they all were now. "But do you love him?"

"Yes, I love him."

"Still or again?"

"Does it matter?"

"…Maybe not. You won't hurt him again if some nice piece of ass walks by will you?"

"His ass is still the best one I've ever seen."

"And God knows you've seen more than your share."

"Deb, I love him. I want to be with him and I want to retire and move up to the cabin full time. I can't put it any clearer than that."

"And all the rest…"

"Anything else is bullshit."

"Well, see that it is." There was a pause. "Hey, Brian? Can I come up there sometime?"

She wanted to make sure they were alright. "If you'll cook."

"Deal. Name the day and I'll be there."

*          *          *           *          *          *         *          *          *           *          *          *

"So you're sure that you want to do this? No second thoughts, no regrets, no unfinished business?"

"None. Let's get this signed."

And the Brenner/Vanguard Advertising Agency ceased to exist, bought out by its only real competition, CG&D. The employees would all either stay on at their old salaries and benefits, titles intact or had opted for generous buyouts.

That part of his life was over.

*          *          *           *          *          *         *          *          *           *          *          *

"We have to be out of the duplex at the end of the month. Are you absolutely sure about this? You could still find a place here in the city you wouldn't hate."

Brian looked bored. "I'm getting fucking tired of everyone asking if I want to change my mind. When was the last time I changed my fucking mind?"

"…Good point. The final design for the studio was messengered over today. Do you want to see it?"

"You're going with the separate building connected by the glassed in tunnel, right?"

"Right. Are you sure you like it?"

"It's your fucking studio, I told you to do whatever you wanted with it…Yes, I like it."

"Do you want to see the estimate?"

"Around one fifty, isn't it?"

"Give or take."

"Fine."

"Are you sure that's not too much?"

"What the fuck did I just say?"

Justin seemed stung by the snipe. "Look, don't get pissed" A comment guaranteed to piss Brian off if there ever was one. "I'm still, I mean, are you sure, you don't have to-you don't have to feel obligated. You don't have to take me in. I can afford my own place and it's not necessary for you to give me a home if you don't want to."

Brian looked like he was mentally counting to fifty in an active attempt to control the explosion that would have left no prisoners when Justin was seventeen or eighteen and back at the old loft.

In a calm, controlled and somewhat tight voice Brian finally answered. "I'm getting fucking fed up with this self-pity bullshit of yours. I've already told you how I feel about you. I've already told you that I want us together and we're building you a fucking studio so you can work at the cabin. The ownership to which, if you'll recall, I have added your name. You've known me for over twenty years. If, in that time, you haven't figured out that I say what I mean, then you need to back off and decide what your problem is."

"If Steve was here…"

"Who the fuck ever told you that life was simple or easy or neat and tidy? We were together and then I found someone else. So did you. Mine worked out for a while, yours didn't. Twice. And now we're back together. Is there some shit I missed in that?"

"But I'm just here because it's easy for you…"

Brian burst out laughing. "Justin, you're a lot of things, but easy was never one of them and this Goddamned conversation is a case in point."

"You're saying that you love me and that you want us to live together?"

Brian looked like he was about to scream. "I've been telling you that for a couple of years now."

"What about…"

"Fuck 'what abouts'. Do you want to be with me or don't you?"

"Yes, so long as you have no reservations or any of…"

His patience was wearing thin. This conversation was wearing thin. "I'm not going around this block with you again. I've told you how I feel. I've told you what I want. If you have your own reservations either work them out or fucking find another place to build your studio because I'm getting Goddamned tired of trying to convince you that I love you."

"But Brian…"

"It took you two years to believe it when you were a teenager. Nothing about my feelings for you have changed". He held up his hand to stop what Justin was about to say. "I know that Steve happened and yes, for a long time he was better for me than you would have been then, but that didn't mean I didn't love you all along. I did. I do."

Justin tried to accept it, finally. "Really?"

Brian picked up his hand, kissed the palm. "Really." He ran his other hand through Justin's longish blondish hair, an old habit left over from when they were in the loft. "Did you ask Gus if he wanted any of the cabin's furnishings?"

"What?"

"You know, couches, chairs, tables, lamps, rugs…furnishings." Justin looked blank. "If we're renovating the cabin I want to get new stuff, things we both like-remember? Making the place ours? Ringing a bell?

Justin went still. It sank in. For some reason it finally sank in. Brian wanted him-not a warm body, not just a nice and willing ass-Brian actually wanted him, Justin, in their bed, in their house and sharing their fucking lives.

He did.

"I asked him a couple of days ago, he said he'd borrow a truck and take what he wanted this weekend."

"Good, the rest we can-where do you get rid of old furniture?"

"Garage sale? Goodwill? The dump?"

"Yeah, whatever. So we'll do that. I think we should tear down the wall between the living room and the office, open it up then add an addition that will have…" Brian went on for a while, sketching out his thoughts, Justin adding and changing what he didn't agree with, talking about other ideas he had. They talked, sketched past midnight, arguing, agreeing, working on what they both wanted, hashing it out.

Their house. It was going to be their house.

Finally.

Theirs.

After almost twenty five Goddamned years.

It was going to work.

Finally.

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