![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flowrs4opheliaTitle: Precious
Author: me
Rating: R
Characters/Pairings: Brian/Justin
Summary: Too many times it has taken some kind of tragedy to bring Justin and Brian closer together.
Previous chapters: Prologue | Part I
Notes: Just so you guys know, I had to go back to Part 1 and add two more lines into Justin and Luke's conversation that I forgot to write. They were meant to be in there from the point I first conceived of that whole scene, but I just had a total brain fart. (This is why I usually never post multi-chaptered fics as WIPs, cause I always want to go back and change things, arrrrgh). They're not really important, but I think they give the end of Justin's explanation of what happened between him and Brian more of a feeling of "So I don't know how the story ends" rather than "And that's how the story ends." Eh. Whatever.
p a r t | t w o
It’s a starless night, but the city lights are clear and sharp beneath them like a dense blanket of stars on the opposite side of the horizon. Michael and Brian are sharing their second joint of the night, standing up on the top level of a parking garage and looking out at cars and people moving in the city below them.
“This is kind of like that day in your third year of college when I helped you move into your new apartment,” Michael says.
“Why?” Brian asks.
“Cause then we went up on the roof of your apartment building and sat with our feet hanging off the edge getting high. Remember? It was so foggy it looked kind of like the city was sitting on a bunch of clouds. You couldn’t even really see the ground.”
“Oh yeah...And we kept leaning over because if we just looked straight down long enough it felt like we were floating over all the fog.”
Michael laughs. “Shit. With how messed up we were, one of us could have fallen off and died.”
“No,” Brian says doubtfully, laughing along with him. “I would have grabbed you.”
“Or gotten pulled along with me.”
“Or that.”
Michael smiles, passing him the joint. “I would have grabbed you, too.”
They are silent for a few seconds, and then Michael thinks of something else that sets him off laughing again. “Jesus, what fine examples of fathers we are. We better cut the shit and start practicing being on our best behavior for when our kids get here.”
“I’ve never worried about that. Gus loves me 'cause I don’t set a good example and behave myself.”
“Of course. Oh well, I guess somebody will have to be like the bad grandparents that spoil them, since Lindsay’s parents sure as hell aren’t going to do the job.”
“You didn’t just use the word ‘grandparents’ to refer to us, did you?”
“In your presence? Wouldn’t dream of it.”
They look out at the city again and stay in a comfortable silence for a while. Then finally Michael looks to the side at Brian and says, “I talked to Justin yesterday.”
Brian doesn’t look at him. He waits for a second as if he didn’t hear him before saying, “Yeah?”
“He wishes someone had told him about the girls coming to visit.”
Now he does turn his head to meet Michael’s eyes, and just shrugs. “What are you looking at me for?”
“Haven’t you even talked to him since we got word from Mel and Linz that they were coming?”
“Not that it’s any of your goddamn business, but now that you mention it, no.”
Michael sighs. “It’s just that everyone probably assumed you would tell him.”
“Well, I didn’t.”
Michael looks away from him and crosses his arms on the ledge in front of them, leaning over so he can see the street below. “I just don’t understand.”
“Understand what?” Brian says.
“Why you’re really going to do this to yourself all over again. He loves you. Maybe he’s not asking that the two of you have some kind of strictly defined long-distance arrangement, but he doesn’t just want to give up - “
“Mikey? Will you please shut the fuck up?”
Michael lets out a heavy exhalation of air that was meant to be used on speech, and shuts the fuck up. But then, after a long pause of silence, Brian is the one to start talking again.
“Have you ever really wanted something and really not wanted something simultaneously?” he asks.
Michael gives a short laugh. “What are you talking about? Like having my mom around?”
“No, asshole, like...that time we read an article in school about how little kids have to make Nike shoes for a dime an hour in other countries and you went home and told your mom you didn’t want her to buy you Nikes anymore. You wanted your Nikes, but not at the expense to somebody else they come at.”
“Are you crazy? I didn’t care about my freaking Nikes.”
“Whatever. You get the idea.”
“I...guess.”
Brian looks away from him, far off into the distance on his right, and Michael almost taps his shoulder and tells him New York is in the other direction.
“There are things I want for myself,” Brian says. “But there’s also things I want for him, just as much. And they just don’t match up.”
“You two want more of the same things than you think.”
“Like what? Kids? I didn’t even want Gus.”
“Like to be together.”
Brian sighs. “It’s not just about all that...This was always bound to happen some day, you know, from the very beginning. From the day Gus was born and I took him home with me. He was fucking seventeen years old, for Christ sake, and by the end of the night I just happened to be high enough that I didn’t care. What can you share with someone that young besides a fuck?
“But I didn’t think about that all these years. And now here we are, at completely different stages in our lives. His life is practically just getting started right now. All these great things are finally starting to happen for him, and he could actually make it, and that’s got to be pretty exciting. But me? Maybe I’m not at the point where my life is starting to wind down, but I’m close. Nothing big is going to happen for me that hasn’t already happened. I’ve made it. So now, after almost five years of being part of each other’s lives, Justin and I have nothing in common except for some unknown number of fucks that’s somewhere in the thousands by now.”
“And each other’s experiences and lives,” Michael interjects.
“And each other’s past lives,” he corrects, tossing the now-finished joint away. “And who cares? At least it happened, and it was good while it lasted. And it was something pretty fucking amazing that it happened at all in the first place.”
“You can say that again.”
“But I would be even more of a selfish prick than I already am anyway if I tried to hold onto it. Justin deserves the love of somebody who is actually part of the same world as him, that won't cause him so much misery.”
“What other kind of love is there?” Michael asks. “As long as I’ve known you, you’re the one who’s always said love is nothing but pain waiting to happen wrapped up in a pretty box. Lies and bullshit, you said. It’s all misery.”
“God, is this supposed to make me want to throw myself into the suicidal pit of insanity people call love again?”
“You never threw yourself in before. You were unwillingly pulled into it screaming like Boba Fett getting dragged into the Sarlacc.”
Brian is silent for a couple seconds, and then bursts out laughing. “Wow, Mikey, you...are so...”
“I know,” Michael says with a smile, not needing to hear it all.
Brian throws an arm over his shoulders and leans his head against his. “Some things in this world I can depend on never changing.”
“Me being pathetic?”
“Actually, what I meant was you being here.”
“...That could change. You never know.” Michael crosses his arms like the thoughts are making him feel cold. “Some day I could just be gone all of the sudden. Or Ben could be gone all of the sudden. Or you. You ever have those nights when you just lie awake thinking about that stuff?”
Brian pretends to be thinking about it for a second. “No. But I’m not married to someone who’s HIV positive, either.”
“Should that really make a difference? I mean, who knows what could happen? Ben could outlive us all. My mom could outlive us all. Or JR could be the first to go.”
“Yeah. Any of those things could happen. If they do I’ll eat a fucking house, but-”
“You’ll be dead.”
“Shut up. But what’s your point? We should all be lying awake every night worrying about this shit?”
“No,” Michael says, “of course we shouldn’t. But we...I don’t know. We got to just...really cherish what is precious to us, I guess.”
Brian laughs. “I don’t know if I’ve told you this before, but you get-”
“Very sentimental when I’m high,” Michael finishes for him.
Brian smiles, leans down and kisses him. “Well, I’ll tell you this. You better not fucking check out before we even get the chance to be a couple old queens together.”
He grins back at him. “Same goes for you, Jimmy Dean," he says, and starts to walk away from the end of the roof to go back to the car.
After Justin picks up on the fourth ring, Brian thinks he knows the reason for the slightest pause there is before he answers quietly, “Hey.” Cellphones have caller ID.
“Hey,” Brian says back. “What’s going on?”
That sigh that he knows. “Absolutely nothing. I got sick. I've just been hanging around at home the past two days.”
"That sucks.”
“Yeah, and it doesn't help that it's fucking boring. I painted a lot but my wrist started to hurt so much I thought I was going to get carpal tunnel or something.”
Brian laughs softly. “Must be kind of lonely.”
“Well, New York is always lonely, especially for having so many fucking people,” Justin says indifferently. “But Luke came over earlier and brought me some orange juice and this really ugly extra blanket he doesn’t use because the heat in this place is for shit. I told you about Luke.”
“Yeah," he says, and thinks, But not everything about him, because he can tell, and wishes he would just say it. "The photographer who looks like Joseph Gordon-Levitt.”
“That’s the one,” he says tiredly, in that too-careless way he always talks about him. It's a dead giveaway. “He’s a good guy to have around, but...well, you know how I don’t like orange juice with lots of pulp in it?”
Brian laughs. “Drink it anyway. Vitamins.”
Then they are both laughing. And then for a long moment, neither of them says anything.
“You haven’t called in a long time,” Justin says at last.
He takes a while to respond. “Yeah, well...I was going to ask you...”
“What?”
“Since you found out on kind of short notice that Melanie and Lindsay are coming in town, if you won’t have the money to come visit that soon I could help you out.”
“Oh. Actually, right after Michael told me about that I realized I won’t have time to be there that week anyway. I have a gallery opening coming up and I still have a lot to get done. I don’t know if I can afford to miss any more work either, since I’m having to stay home right now.”
“Okay.”
“Thanks, though. I wish I could see them. I can’t believe how long it’s been.”
“I know. They kept meaning to come down here earlier, but obviously moving into a new country keeps you a little tied up. Finding jobs and a school for Gus and all that. And before they knew it, seven months had gone by.”
“It’s a long time not to see your son.”
“...Yeah.”
For a few seconds, it seems as if Justin is listening to his thoughts through the line. “I'm sure Gus will be happy to see you.”
“You think so?”
“Yes.”
“He's five...”
“Yeah, but trust me. He will.”
Brian can’t help but smile. He didn’t think he would be, but at this moment he’s glad he called him.
"So what's this gallery that's doing your show?"
"It's the Promenade. Lots of great artists have had their stuff featured there. Hurst, Arnaud...Well, I guess you wouldn't know who they are. Anyway, there's always lots of press there and apparently it's the place where you get noticed."
"Sounds impressive."
"It is, I guess. Luke's been totally envious and beside himself ever since he found out. He keeps saying, 'I've been going to see stuff at the Promenade for five years, I can't believe your stuff is going to be in it.'"
"Well, I believe it. You've become quite the little genius, after all."
"Don't sell me short, I always was."
"Yeah, you're right...You'll probably think this is bullshit, but I always knew you were meant for something a lot greater than business school."
"...Thanks, Brian."
He thinks but doesn't tell him, And something a lot greater than anything I can give. Those and other unspoken words live uncomfortably in a little stretch of silence for a moment, and the ticking of the clock by his bed suddenly sounds very loud in his ears.
“Well,” he says. “You take care.”
“Yeah. You, too.”
“Goodnight.”
In the meeting room at Kinnetik, Brian is staring at a series of presentation boards on easels. Cynthia is standing off in a corner of the room with a clipboard, and the head of the art department, Jones, is leaning against the table looking very nervous about the way Brian has been looking at their work for almost a minute and hasn't said anything.
"These are the boards?" he finally asks.
"Yes, Mr. Kinney," says Jones. "Uh...These are the exact design that was decided on."
"Hm." Brian turns to Cynthia. "Do you notice anything wrong with these?"
Never-nervous Cynthia doesn't hesitate to answer but seems unsure about how to say it. "Well, they are a little..."
"Yes? What?"
"It's kind of distracting that the slogan isn't written quite right."
"Distracting," Brian repeats with a short laugh. "That's a kind way to put it. Jones, did not everyone on my team pass junior high?"
Jones only looks confused. "I...what is-"
"'Homes' is supposed to be possessive, not plural. If my assistant notices it then it's sticking out like a sore thumb and making it look like my agency is run by literary degenerates. Now, guess what? You have until three o' clock to get me a goddamn apostrophe on these things or it's your job."
"Uh...Brian?" Cynthia says.
"What?"
"The Warner Security meeting is at one, not three."
He blinks. "Of course it is. I was just making sure you both know that, because at the rate people are moving their asses around here I would think we had all day to get ready for this pitch."
"Uh...right, Sir," Jones says, who now has a little sweat forming at his head, and leaves the room quickly.
After Cynthia coolly follows him out and Brian is back alone in his office, he immediately mutters, "One o' clock...fuck me."
He sits at his desk and sighs, glancing at the note he made to himself earlier when he was on the phone with Lindsay confirming what time to come pick her and Melanie up at the airport tomorrow. Right now it feels like it will be forever before this day is finally over and he can go out to Woody's and drink away the hectic stress of it, and the morning he'll see them and his kid again seems very far away.
Not five minutes later, he hears Cynthia outside his door saying, "Hey, Michael...Michael?" and his office door opens to admit his distressed-looking best friend.
"What are you doing?" Michael demands before Brian can even open his mouth to say hi.
"Uh. Working?" Brian says.
"Well, I guess I should have expected you'd just be carrying on with life as planned, acting like everything's fine."
"Isn't it?"
Michael doesn't seem to hear him. "After all, you didn't do shit to help Justin the last time something really terrible happened to him. Just stayed as far away from it as you could like you didn't even care-"
"Michael, what are you talking about?"
That finally stops him. "You mean you...Nobody's even told you yet?"
"Told me what?"
Michael hesitates for a couple seconds, and then Brian is out of his chair and going around the desk. He grabs one of Michael's arms and says in a low voice, "Look, you are scaring the living shit out of me, so just tell me what-"
"No, it's not - I mean - it's not Justin, nothing happened to him," Michael says quickly, putting a hand on his chest to calm him. "It's...his sister."
"Molly?" he says, and then goes very still. "Something happened to Molly?"
But with the way Michael is looking at him, he doesn't need an answer. He knows, and everything is suddenly very quiet. Outside his office there are phones ringing and busy talking, but he doesn't hear it. There is no other explanation for Michael bursting in here like this, and the understanding seeps through him like cold water, so that when Michael finally says it out loud the words sound meaningless and alone.
"She's dead."
Continue to part 3...
Author: me
Rating: R
Characters/Pairings: Brian/Justin
Summary: Too many times it has taken some kind of tragedy to bring Justin and Brian closer together.
Previous chapters: Prologue | Part I
Notes: Just so you guys know, I had to go back to Part 1 and add two more lines into Justin and Luke's conversation that I forgot to write. They were meant to be in there from the point I first conceived of that whole scene, but I just had a total brain fart. (This is why I usually never post multi-chaptered fics as WIPs, cause I always want to go back and change things, arrrrgh). They're not really important, but I think they give the end of Justin's explanation of what happened between him and Brian more of a feeling of "So I don't know how the story ends" rather than "And that's how the story ends." Eh. Whatever.
p a r t | t w o
It’s a starless night, but the city lights are clear and sharp beneath them like a dense blanket of stars on the opposite side of the horizon. Michael and Brian are sharing their second joint of the night, standing up on the top level of a parking garage and looking out at cars and people moving in the city below them.
“This is kind of like that day in your third year of college when I helped you move into your new apartment,” Michael says.
“Why?” Brian asks.
“Cause then we went up on the roof of your apartment building and sat with our feet hanging off the edge getting high. Remember? It was so foggy it looked kind of like the city was sitting on a bunch of clouds. You couldn’t even really see the ground.”
“Oh yeah...And we kept leaning over because if we just looked straight down long enough it felt like we were floating over all the fog.”
Michael laughs. “Shit. With how messed up we were, one of us could have fallen off and died.”
“No,” Brian says doubtfully, laughing along with him. “I would have grabbed you.”
“Or gotten pulled along with me.”
“Or that.”
Michael smiles, passing him the joint. “I would have grabbed you, too.”
They are silent for a few seconds, and then Michael thinks of something else that sets him off laughing again. “Jesus, what fine examples of fathers we are. We better cut the shit and start practicing being on our best behavior for when our kids get here.”
“I’ve never worried about that. Gus loves me 'cause I don’t set a good example and behave myself.”
“Of course. Oh well, I guess somebody will have to be like the bad grandparents that spoil them, since Lindsay’s parents sure as hell aren’t going to do the job.”
“You didn’t just use the word ‘grandparents’ to refer to us, did you?”
“In your presence? Wouldn’t dream of it.”
They look out at the city again and stay in a comfortable silence for a while. Then finally Michael looks to the side at Brian and says, “I talked to Justin yesterday.”
Brian doesn’t look at him. He waits for a second as if he didn’t hear him before saying, “Yeah?”
“He wishes someone had told him about the girls coming to visit.”
Now he does turn his head to meet Michael’s eyes, and just shrugs. “What are you looking at me for?”
“Haven’t you even talked to him since we got word from Mel and Linz that they were coming?”
“Not that it’s any of your goddamn business, but now that you mention it, no.”
Michael sighs. “It’s just that everyone probably assumed you would tell him.”
“Well, I didn’t.”
Michael looks away from him and crosses his arms on the ledge in front of them, leaning over so he can see the street below. “I just don’t understand.”
“Understand what?” Brian says.
“Why you’re really going to do this to yourself all over again. He loves you. Maybe he’s not asking that the two of you have some kind of strictly defined long-distance arrangement, but he doesn’t just want to give up - “
“Mikey? Will you please shut the fuck up?”
Michael lets out a heavy exhalation of air that was meant to be used on speech, and shuts the fuck up. But then, after a long pause of silence, Brian is the one to start talking again.
“Have you ever really wanted something and really not wanted something simultaneously?” he asks.
Michael gives a short laugh. “What are you talking about? Like having my mom around?”
“No, asshole, like...that time we read an article in school about how little kids have to make Nike shoes for a dime an hour in other countries and you went home and told your mom you didn’t want her to buy you Nikes anymore. You wanted your Nikes, but not at the expense to somebody else they come at.”
“Are you crazy? I didn’t care about my freaking Nikes.”
“Whatever. You get the idea.”
“I...guess.”
Brian looks away from him, far off into the distance on his right, and Michael almost taps his shoulder and tells him New York is in the other direction.
“There are things I want for myself,” Brian says. “But there’s also things I want for him, just as much. And they just don’t match up.”
“You two want more of the same things than you think.”
“Like what? Kids? I didn’t even want Gus.”
“Like to be together.”
Brian sighs. “It’s not just about all that...This was always bound to happen some day, you know, from the very beginning. From the day Gus was born and I took him home with me. He was fucking seventeen years old, for Christ sake, and by the end of the night I just happened to be high enough that I didn’t care. What can you share with someone that young besides a fuck?
“But I didn’t think about that all these years. And now here we are, at completely different stages in our lives. His life is practically just getting started right now. All these great things are finally starting to happen for him, and he could actually make it, and that’s got to be pretty exciting. But me? Maybe I’m not at the point where my life is starting to wind down, but I’m close. Nothing big is going to happen for me that hasn’t already happened. I’ve made it. So now, after almost five years of being part of each other’s lives, Justin and I have nothing in common except for some unknown number of fucks that’s somewhere in the thousands by now.”
“And each other’s experiences and lives,” Michael interjects.
“And each other’s past lives,” he corrects, tossing the now-finished joint away. “And who cares? At least it happened, and it was good while it lasted. And it was something pretty fucking amazing that it happened at all in the first place.”
“You can say that again.”
“But I would be even more of a selfish prick than I already am anyway if I tried to hold onto it. Justin deserves the love of somebody who is actually part of the same world as him, that won't cause him so much misery.”
“What other kind of love is there?” Michael asks. “As long as I’ve known you, you’re the one who’s always said love is nothing but pain waiting to happen wrapped up in a pretty box. Lies and bullshit, you said. It’s all misery.”
“God, is this supposed to make me want to throw myself into the suicidal pit of insanity people call love again?”
“You never threw yourself in before. You were unwillingly pulled into it screaming like Boba Fett getting dragged into the Sarlacc.”
Brian is silent for a couple seconds, and then bursts out laughing. “Wow, Mikey, you...are so...”
“I know,” Michael says with a smile, not needing to hear it all.
Brian throws an arm over his shoulders and leans his head against his. “Some things in this world I can depend on never changing.”
“Me being pathetic?”
“Actually, what I meant was you being here.”
“...That could change. You never know.” Michael crosses his arms like the thoughts are making him feel cold. “Some day I could just be gone all of the sudden. Or Ben could be gone all of the sudden. Or you. You ever have those nights when you just lie awake thinking about that stuff?”
Brian pretends to be thinking about it for a second. “No. But I’m not married to someone who’s HIV positive, either.”
“Should that really make a difference? I mean, who knows what could happen? Ben could outlive us all. My mom could outlive us all. Or JR could be the first to go.”
“Yeah. Any of those things could happen. If they do I’ll eat a fucking house, but-”
“You’ll be dead.”
“Shut up. But what’s your point? We should all be lying awake every night worrying about this shit?”
“No,” Michael says, “of course we shouldn’t. But we...I don’t know. We got to just...really cherish what is precious to us, I guess.”
Brian laughs. “I don’t know if I’ve told you this before, but you get-”
“Very sentimental when I’m high,” Michael finishes for him.
Brian smiles, leans down and kisses him. “Well, I’ll tell you this. You better not fucking check out before we even get the chance to be a couple old queens together.”
He grins back at him. “Same goes for you, Jimmy Dean," he says, and starts to walk away from the end of the roof to go back to the car.
After Justin picks up on the fourth ring, Brian thinks he knows the reason for the slightest pause there is before he answers quietly, “Hey.” Cellphones have caller ID.
“Hey,” Brian says back. “What’s going on?”
That sigh that he knows. “Absolutely nothing. I got sick. I've just been hanging around at home the past two days.”
"That sucks.”
“Yeah, and it doesn't help that it's fucking boring. I painted a lot but my wrist started to hurt so much I thought I was going to get carpal tunnel or something.”
Brian laughs softly. “Must be kind of lonely.”
“Well, New York is always lonely, especially for having so many fucking people,” Justin says indifferently. “But Luke came over earlier and brought me some orange juice and this really ugly extra blanket he doesn’t use because the heat in this place is for shit. I told you about Luke.”
“Yeah," he says, and thinks, But not everything about him, because he can tell, and wishes he would just say it. "The photographer who looks like Joseph Gordon-Levitt.”
“That’s the one,” he says tiredly, in that too-careless way he always talks about him. It's a dead giveaway. “He’s a good guy to have around, but...well, you know how I don’t like orange juice with lots of pulp in it?”
Brian laughs. “Drink it anyway. Vitamins.”
Then they are both laughing. And then for a long moment, neither of them says anything.
“You haven’t called in a long time,” Justin says at last.
He takes a while to respond. “Yeah, well...I was going to ask you...”
“What?”
“Since you found out on kind of short notice that Melanie and Lindsay are coming in town, if you won’t have the money to come visit that soon I could help you out.”
“Oh. Actually, right after Michael told me about that I realized I won’t have time to be there that week anyway. I have a gallery opening coming up and I still have a lot to get done. I don’t know if I can afford to miss any more work either, since I’m having to stay home right now.”
“Okay.”
“Thanks, though. I wish I could see them. I can’t believe how long it’s been.”
“I know. They kept meaning to come down here earlier, but obviously moving into a new country keeps you a little tied up. Finding jobs and a school for Gus and all that. And before they knew it, seven months had gone by.”
“It’s a long time not to see your son.”
“...Yeah.”
For a few seconds, it seems as if Justin is listening to his thoughts through the line. “I'm sure Gus will be happy to see you.”
“You think so?”
“Yes.”
“He's five...”
“Yeah, but trust me. He will.”
Brian can’t help but smile. He didn’t think he would be, but at this moment he’s glad he called him.
"So what's this gallery that's doing your show?"
"It's the Promenade. Lots of great artists have had their stuff featured there. Hurst, Arnaud...Well, I guess you wouldn't know who they are. Anyway, there's always lots of press there and apparently it's the place where you get noticed."
"Sounds impressive."
"It is, I guess. Luke's been totally envious and beside himself ever since he found out. He keeps saying, 'I've been going to see stuff at the Promenade for five years, I can't believe your stuff is going to be in it.'"
"Well, I believe it. You've become quite the little genius, after all."
"Don't sell me short, I always was."
"Yeah, you're right...You'll probably think this is bullshit, but I always knew you were meant for something a lot greater than business school."
"...Thanks, Brian."
He thinks but doesn't tell him, And something a lot greater than anything I can give. Those and other unspoken words live uncomfortably in a little stretch of silence for a moment, and the ticking of the clock by his bed suddenly sounds very loud in his ears.
“Well,” he says. “You take care.”
“Yeah. You, too.”
“Goodnight.”
In the meeting room at Kinnetik, Brian is staring at a series of presentation boards on easels. Cynthia is standing off in a corner of the room with a clipboard, and the head of the art department, Jones, is leaning against the table looking very nervous about the way Brian has been looking at their work for almost a minute and hasn't said anything.
"These are the boards?" he finally asks.
"Yes, Mr. Kinney," says Jones. "Uh...These are the exact design that was decided on."
"Hm." Brian turns to Cynthia. "Do you notice anything wrong with these?"
Never-nervous Cynthia doesn't hesitate to answer but seems unsure about how to say it. "Well, they are a little..."
"Yes? What?"
"It's kind of distracting that the slogan isn't written quite right."
"Distracting," Brian repeats with a short laugh. "That's a kind way to put it. Jones, did not everyone on my team pass junior high?"
Jones only looks confused. "I...what is-"
"'Homes' is supposed to be possessive, not plural. If my assistant notices it then it's sticking out like a sore thumb and making it look like my agency is run by literary degenerates. Now, guess what? You have until three o' clock to get me a goddamn apostrophe on these things or it's your job."
"Uh...Brian?" Cynthia says.
"What?"
"The Warner Security meeting is at one, not three."
He blinks. "Of course it is. I was just making sure you both know that, because at the rate people are moving their asses around here I would think we had all day to get ready for this pitch."
"Uh...right, Sir," Jones says, who now has a little sweat forming at his head, and leaves the room quickly.
After Cynthia coolly follows him out and Brian is back alone in his office, he immediately mutters, "One o' clock...fuck me."
He sits at his desk and sighs, glancing at the note he made to himself earlier when he was on the phone with Lindsay confirming what time to come pick her and Melanie up at the airport tomorrow. Right now it feels like it will be forever before this day is finally over and he can go out to Woody's and drink away the hectic stress of it, and the morning he'll see them and his kid again seems very far away.
Not five minutes later, he hears Cynthia outside his door saying, "Hey, Michael...Michael?" and his office door opens to admit his distressed-looking best friend.
"What are you doing?" Michael demands before Brian can even open his mouth to say hi.
"Uh. Working?" Brian says.
"Well, I guess I should have expected you'd just be carrying on with life as planned, acting like everything's fine."
"Isn't it?"
Michael doesn't seem to hear him. "After all, you didn't do shit to help Justin the last time something really terrible happened to him. Just stayed as far away from it as you could like you didn't even care-"
"Michael, what are you talking about?"
That finally stops him. "You mean you...Nobody's even told you yet?"
"Told me what?"
Michael hesitates for a couple seconds, and then Brian is out of his chair and going around the desk. He grabs one of Michael's arms and says in a low voice, "Look, you are scaring the living shit out of me, so just tell me what-"
"No, it's not - I mean - it's not Justin, nothing happened to him," Michael says quickly, putting a hand on his chest to calm him. "It's...his sister."
"Molly?" he says, and then goes very still. "Something happened to Molly?"
But with the way Michael is looking at him, he doesn't need an answer. He knows, and everything is suddenly very quiet. Outside his office there are phones ringing and busy talking, but he doesn't hear it. There is no other explanation for Michael bursting in here like this, and the understanding seeps through him like cold water, so that when Michael finally says it out loud the words sound meaningless and alone.
"She's dead."
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-01-22 09:49 pm (UTC)Looking for the update soon...please
no subject
Date: 2007-01-22 10:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-22 11:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-22 11:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-22 11:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-22 11:50 pm (UTC)You must update quickly ;) PLEASEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!
no subject
Date: 2007-01-23 01:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-23 05:43 am (UTC)Hm, pancakes and fanfic. Yummy. :)
no subject
Date: 2007-01-23 04:01 am (UTC)Excited for more.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-23 04:43 am (UTC)Looking forward to more.
Cheers!
no subject
Date: 2007-01-23 06:07 pm (UTC)I'm enjoying this story a lot. I hope you don't mind if I add you to my f-list, to keep an eye on it.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-23 06:55 pm (UTC)No problem :) Thanks!
Guuuh!
Date: 2007-01-27 07:14 pm (UTC)Re: Guuuh!
Date: 2007-01-27 09:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-01 06:50 am (UTC)I had a suspicion that the death would be Molly for like half a second and was like, "Nah, she wouldn't do that" but OMG I was right!!!
Smashing Brikey pot!love, by the way I really laughed at the line, “You never threw yourself in before. You were unwillingly pulled into it screaming like Boba Fett getting dragged into the Sarlacc."
Amusing office scene...I HATE how often professionals will get retarded with parenthesis!
So far the present tense is working pretty well, I think. It really must have been kind of a bitch to write without slipping into past.
Some of the stuff Brian says in the phone conversation is hard to picture Brian saying, I guess because Brian doesn't usually go on talking for several sentences at a time in conversation. He's always very brief and to-the-point. But it wasn't absurdly OOC or anything...Me lecturing you on how to write Brian is pretty ridiculous anyway. Seems like this chapter was kinda short, so not much else to say...omg...
no subject
Date: 2007-04-02 08:15 am (UTC)Why is you lecturing me on how to write Brian ridiculous? I mean, not that I know yet exactly how well you write him...but yeah. Hurry up and finish your AU dammit, so I can be like
"It sucks mister!""Awesommme."Yeah I'm bored tonight so until you read I'm going to be responding to all the comments you've left me so far.
no subject
Date: 2007-04-02 09:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-02 09:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-03 12:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-03 01:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-03 02:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-03 05:57 pm (UTC)*runs off to read the next chapter*