divergence four
Part four. Comments welcomed.
Once again, not possible without you, you, or you.
Divergence
One
Two
Three
Four
Justin turns twenty-four, and it takes Brian three trips to three doctors to figure out that it might be better to move to a warmer climate.
He spends a lot of time looking at the x-rays and talking over the “options”, which don’t sound to Brian like options at all, but more like necessities if he wants to, you know. Stay alive. And when his doctor strongly suggests for the second time that he see a specific oncologist at the University of California Los Angeles, Brian thinks maybe he should listen.
He looks at the dog-eared page in his address book for a long time, eyes tracing the telephone number he memorized three years ago, and wonders if there’s any possible way he can do this without contacting Justin. Then Brian considers the ramifications of accidentally running into him in LA, and knows that possibility is far worse.
Brian calls Justin’s apartment when he knows he’ll be at work and leaves a curt but functional message.
* * *
Justin calls him back at an indecent hour the next morning.
“It’s not even nine,” Brian grouses by way of greeting.
“I’ve been up for half an hour,” Justin dismisses. “Like a normal person.”
Brian snorts at ‘normal’ and scrubs a hand over his face. “So, uh. You got my message.”
“If you could call barking into my machine a message. You know, I haven’t talked to you in like five months. The least you could do is not be a coward and call my cell, which you know I’d answer.” Justin sounds put out, which is really the last emotion Brian would expect from him after this long, but then again. It’s Justin.
He ignores the ‘coward’ part, which is probably just taunting anyway. “Yeah, sorry. Had a conference call waiting. So you’ll be around for dinner Thursday night?” Brian beats a pattern against his sheets with restless fingers, wondering if maybe this wasn’t such a smart idea after all.
“Um, okay. Dinner’s good. Why are you gonna be here, again? I don’t remember what you said on the machine.”
“I didn’t. Meet me at seven at that crappy Mexican place we went to last time.”
“Seven-thirty,” Justin says blithely. “I have a small showing that afternoon at five.”
“They pay you to show your dick?” Brian asks, but is secretly pleased to hear that Justin’s exposure continues to grow.
“It’s pictures of yours,” he snaps back, and Brian hangs up on him.
* * *
He gets out of the airport and notes it’s still smoggy and crowded and the people still like to pretend they’re too important for everyone else. He especially loves it when they wear their sunglasses inside and look like their phones are surgically attached to their ears.
Brian thinks he’ll fit in just fine.
He stays at the same hotel just to prove to himself that the last time doesn’t matter at all; nothing about his last visit here affects him. Including the two solid days he spent fucking Justin. His cock twitches in response to the memory, but Brian chalks it up to the fact that he hasn’t gotten any head since Tuesday night. He should remedy that.
Brian showers, washing the smell of circulated airplane oxygen away, and dresses casually in loose-fitting jeans and a black t-shirt. He pulls on boots, checks his hair in the mirror, and at the last minute remembers a small splash of cologne. Then he wonders why he’s primping for Justin anyway, and glares at his reflection.
* * *
Justin is waiting for him when he gets there and the first thing Brian notices is the length of his hair. He has to clench his hand into a fist to keep from touching the silky strands when Justin rises and hugs him tightly.
“Hey,” Justin says simply, and grins at him. He is blonder and tanner, both a result of the strong southern California sun. A faint dusting of freckles crosses the bridge of his nose, and for the first time, Brian thinks maybe Los Angeles suits Justin.
“Hey,” Brian answers. “I need a drink.”
“Their margaritas are strong.”
“Perfect.”
Justin orders drinks and dinner in halting Spanish. Brian is grudgingly impressed. “You been taking lessons?”
Justin shrugs one shoulder. “Sorta. The family that moved in next door is Mexican. They have me over for dinner sometimes. Their kids started teaching me all the swear words before Rosa – the mom – heard them and insisted they teach me real Spanish. They mostly just laugh at my accent.” He stops for a minute, then continues. “But now I can ask for a blowjob in another language.”
It brings a reluctant smile to Brian’s face. “Glad to see you’re getting some form of education.”
Enchiladas with rice and beans appear before them, and Brian relishes the spiciness. They eat in companionable silence.
His plate is clean before he realizes how stuffed full he is and he pushes it away with a groan. “God. What did you do to me.”
Justin looks longingly at Brian’s last flour tortilla. “You done?”
“I’m done for the next three days. Ugh.” He motions at the tortilla and Justin takes it happily, rolling up salsa and rice inside it.
Brian watches Justin carefully while he eats, trying to gauge what he should tell him and how much Justin needs to know. Then he figures that he’s not saving either of them by dancing around it. When Justin finally sits back with a sigh and throws his napkin on the table, Brian clears his throat. “So, I’ve got something to do in California,” he starts.
“Of course you do,” Justin says reasonably. “Why would you come out here otherwise?”
Brian ignores the passive-aggressiveness. “I’m here to see a doctor.”
Justin goes motionless for a fraction of a second before blinking twice. “What for?”
“Why do you think?”
“For follow-up or something. Right? Like, like … follow-up.” Justin nods as if convincing himself.
“No.” Brian is much calmer than he expected to be.
Justin opens his mouth, then closes it again. He picks up his napkin and worries it with his fingers. “Brian. It can’t – you can’t. You were better.”
Brian parrots back everything his doctor in Pittsburgh had told him. “It’s not the other testicle. There’s only a one- percent chance of that happening, apparently. So my balls are safe. Relief, isn’t it?” He grins at Justin, who doesn’t smile back.
“Just tell me.”
Brian sighs. “Radiation can cause cancer to appear in other areas.”
“But it was supposed to fix you!” Justin is indignant in his confusion, his eyes searching Brian’s face for any sign of visible illness.
“And there you have the fucking definition of ‘irony’,” Brian says. “They say it’s a secondary cancer. In my colon. Of all fucking places.”
“Colon cancer,” Justin says slowly. “The radiation that cured your testicular cancer gave you colon cancer.”
“Very good,” Brian tells him, and signals for another drink.
* * *
Justin brings him home.
The significance of it escapes Brian until they’re actually standing in Justin’s small living room and Brian realizes Justin’s been occupying this space for nearly three years.
“You didn’t take me here last time,” he says casually, examining a small sand sculpture on Justin’s mantel.
“No,” Justin agrees, and stands in the middle of the floor. Brian looks over his shoulder at him, and for the first time all night, Justin resembles the tentative teenager that Brian met seven years prior.
Brian approaches him slowly, moving closer until they stand toe to toe and he can look down at the top of Justin’s sun-kissed head. “Why not?” he asks, and he sees Justin’s lashes against his cheek when he closes his eyes.
“Because this is mine,” Justin says quietly, and his fingers come up to play with the fabric of Brian’s shirt. “This is mine. And you weren’t letting anything here be mine, Brian. It was like you were my dad or something, just letting me play around until I wanted to come home, and you weren’t respecting me or anything I was doing here.”
Brian feels instantly defensive before he recognizes it as truth, so he forces his jaw to unclench and he waits.
“So when you came, I didn’t bring you here because I didn’t want you to make fun of it. I wanted to have something that was mine when you left, a place that you’d never seen and didn’t know anything about. Maybe that was just wishful thinking, I don’t know. Because I was really fucking lonely, and when you left, I wished so bad that I’d had the memory of us here together. And I didn’t.” Justin ends in a whisper, his fingers hooking into the belt loops of Brian’s jeans.
“And now?” Brian’s shoulders are tensed, waiting for Justin to unleash the inevitable pity about his illness.
“And now … I don’t want to be lonely like that. I thought if I brought you here, when you left, at least I’d be lonely with memories, instead of lonely without them.”
Perhaps it’s because Brian is so damn grateful that Justin made it about himself instead of Brian – whether accidentally or on purpose, he doesn’t care – but Brian has to kiss him then. He fists his hands in Justin’s hair and brings his mouth down, tasting the salt and lime and tequila from Justin’s margarita, forcing his tongue inside and biting at Justin’s lips.
They make love on the floor.
Justin starts to turn to his stomach but Brian urges him back over, pushes Justin’s knees towards his head and enters him from the front. Brian wants to pretend it’s just a better position, gives him more friction, but when he looks down into clear, morning-blue eyes, Brian knows that’s not why. He doesn’t fuck anyone else this way.
And when Justin pulls his lower lip in under his teeth and groans in the back of his throat, Brian doesn’t know whether to curse or bless the disease that brought him here.
* * *
He goes to his appointment the next day with Justin in tow. He makes Justin stay in the waiting room.
“A few months,” Brian tells him that night at dinner. “The course of treatment is a few months.” He forks an asparagus spear and ignores all the butter it was sautéed in.
“So … you’ll have to move out here,” Justin muses.
“Looks that way. Good, I need some new ass. And they need me, which they’ll soon find out.” Brian tries to sound nonchalant about the fact that he has to pack up his whole fucking life and move it three thousand miles.
“Stay with me.” It isn’t a plea or request, just a simple statement. Justin levels him with an honest gaze.
“I was thinking I’d get somewhere in Bel Air,” Brian says casually. “Close to the hospital.”
“I’m close to the hospital.”
Brian drops his knife and sits back in his chair. Justin stares at him from across the table, his pasta forgotten. “I suppose you are,” Brian says, and Justin nods.
“Brian,” he says, and Brian thinks he’s going to say something life changing, but Justin merely takes a deep breath. “Stay with me.”
Brian considers him, Justin’s expression serious and quiet. The silence stretches out. “One month,” Brian concedes finally. “We’ll try it.”
to be continued
Once again, not possible without you, you, or you.
Divergence
One
Two
Three
Four
Justin turns twenty-four, and it takes Brian three trips to three doctors to figure out that it might be better to move to a warmer climate.
He spends a lot of time looking at the x-rays and talking over the “options”, which don’t sound to Brian like options at all, but more like necessities if he wants to, you know. Stay alive. And when his doctor strongly suggests for the second time that he see a specific oncologist at the University of California Los Angeles, Brian thinks maybe he should listen.
He looks at the dog-eared page in his address book for a long time, eyes tracing the telephone number he memorized three years ago, and wonders if there’s any possible way he can do this without contacting Justin. Then Brian considers the ramifications of accidentally running into him in LA, and knows that possibility is far worse.
Brian calls Justin’s apartment when he knows he’ll be at work and leaves a curt but functional message.
* * *
Justin calls him back at an indecent hour the next morning.
“It’s not even nine,” Brian grouses by way of greeting.
“I’ve been up for half an hour,” Justin dismisses. “Like a normal person.”
Brian snorts at ‘normal’ and scrubs a hand over his face. “So, uh. You got my message.”
“If you could call barking into my machine a message. You know, I haven’t talked to you in like five months. The least you could do is not be a coward and call my cell, which you know I’d answer.” Justin sounds put out, which is really the last emotion Brian would expect from him after this long, but then again. It’s Justin.
He ignores the ‘coward’ part, which is probably just taunting anyway. “Yeah, sorry. Had a conference call waiting. So you’ll be around for dinner Thursday night?” Brian beats a pattern against his sheets with restless fingers, wondering if maybe this wasn’t such a smart idea after all.
“Um, okay. Dinner’s good. Why are you gonna be here, again? I don’t remember what you said on the machine.”
“I didn’t. Meet me at seven at that crappy Mexican place we went to last time.”
“Seven-thirty,” Justin says blithely. “I have a small showing that afternoon at five.”
“They pay you to show your dick?” Brian asks, but is secretly pleased to hear that Justin’s exposure continues to grow.
“It’s pictures of yours,” he snaps back, and Brian hangs up on him.
* * *
He gets out of the airport and notes it’s still smoggy and crowded and the people still like to pretend they’re too important for everyone else. He especially loves it when they wear their sunglasses inside and look like their phones are surgically attached to their ears.
Brian thinks he’ll fit in just fine.
He stays at the same hotel just to prove to himself that the last time doesn’t matter at all; nothing about his last visit here affects him. Including the two solid days he spent fucking Justin. His cock twitches in response to the memory, but Brian chalks it up to the fact that he hasn’t gotten any head since Tuesday night. He should remedy that.
Brian showers, washing the smell of circulated airplane oxygen away, and dresses casually in loose-fitting jeans and a black t-shirt. He pulls on boots, checks his hair in the mirror, and at the last minute remembers a small splash of cologne. Then he wonders why he’s primping for Justin anyway, and glares at his reflection.
* * *
Justin is waiting for him when he gets there and the first thing Brian notices is the length of his hair. He has to clench his hand into a fist to keep from touching the silky strands when Justin rises and hugs him tightly.
“Hey,” Justin says simply, and grins at him. He is blonder and tanner, both a result of the strong southern California sun. A faint dusting of freckles crosses the bridge of his nose, and for the first time, Brian thinks maybe Los Angeles suits Justin.
“Hey,” Brian answers. “I need a drink.”
“Their margaritas are strong.”
“Perfect.”
Justin orders drinks and dinner in halting Spanish. Brian is grudgingly impressed. “You been taking lessons?”
Justin shrugs one shoulder. “Sorta. The family that moved in next door is Mexican. They have me over for dinner sometimes. Their kids started teaching me all the swear words before Rosa – the mom – heard them and insisted they teach me real Spanish. They mostly just laugh at my accent.” He stops for a minute, then continues. “But now I can ask for a blowjob in another language.”
It brings a reluctant smile to Brian’s face. “Glad to see you’re getting some form of education.”
Enchiladas with rice and beans appear before them, and Brian relishes the spiciness. They eat in companionable silence.
His plate is clean before he realizes how stuffed full he is and he pushes it away with a groan. “God. What did you do to me.”
Justin looks longingly at Brian’s last flour tortilla. “You done?”
“I’m done for the next three days. Ugh.” He motions at the tortilla and Justin takes it happily, rolling up salsa and rice inside it.
Brian watches Justin carefully while he eats, trying to gauge what he should tell him and how much Justin needs to know. Then he figures that he’s not saving either of them by dancing around it. When Justin finally sits back with a sigh and throws his napkin on the table, Brian clears his throat. “So, I’ve got something to do in California,” he starts.
“Of course you do,” Justin says reasonably. “Why would you come out here otherwise?”
Brian ignores the passive-aggressiveness. “I’m here to see a doctor.”
Justin goes motionless for a fraction of a second before blinking twice. “What for?”
“Why do you think?”
“For follow-up or something. Right? Like, like … follow-up.” Justin nods as if convincing himself.
“No.” Brian is much calmer than he expected to be.
Justin opens his mouth, then closes it again. He picks up his napkin and worries it with his fingers. “Brian. It can’t – you can’t. You were better.”
Brian parrots back everything his doctor in Pittsburgh had told him. “It’s not the other testicle. There’s only a one- percent chance of that happening, apparently. So my balls are safe. Relief, isn’t it?” He grins at Justin, who doesn’t smile back.
“Just tell me.”
Brian sighs. “Radiation can cause cancer to appear in other areas.”
“But it was supposed to fix you!” Justin is indignant in his confusion, his eyes searching Brian’s face for any sign of visible illness.
“And there you have the fucking definition of ‘irony’,” Brian says. “They say it’s a secondary cancer. In my colon. Of all fucking places.”
“Colon cancer,” Justin says slowly. “The radiation that cured your testicular cancer gave you colon cancer.”
“Very good,” Brian tells him, and signals for another drink.
* * *
Justin brings him home.
The significance of it escapes Brian until they’re actually standing in Justin’s small living room and Brian realizes Justin’s been occupying this space for nearly three years.
“You didn’t take me here last time,” he says casually, examining a small sand sculpture on Justin’s mantel.
“No,” Justin agrees, and stands in the middle of the floor. Brian looks over his shoulder at him, and for the first time all night, Justin resembles the tentative teenager that Brian met seven years prior.
Brian approaches him slowly, moving closer until they stand toe to toe and he can look down at the top of Justin’s sun-kissed head. “Why not?” he asks, and he sees Justin’s lashes against his cheek when he closes his eyes.
“Because this is mine,” Justin says quietly, and his fingers come up to play with the fabric of Brian’s shirt. “This is mine. And you weren’t letting anything here be mine, Brian. It was like you were my dad or something, just letting me play around until I wanted to come home, and you weren’t respecting me or anything I was doing here.”
Brian feels instantly defensive before he recognizes it as truth, so he forces his jaw to unclench and he waits.
“So when you came, I didn’t bring you here because I didn’t want you to make fun of it. I wanted to have something that was mine when you left, a place that you’d never seen and didn’t know anything about. Maybe that was just wishful thinking, I don’t know. Because I was really fucking lonely, and when you left, I wished so bad that I’d had the memory of us here together. And I didn’t.” Justin ends in a whisper, his fingers hooking into the belt loops of Brian’s jeans.
“And now?” Brian’s shoulders are tensed, waiting for Justin to unleash the inevitable pity about his illness.
“And now … I don’t want to be lonely like that. I thought if I brought you here, when you left, at least I’d be lonely with memories, instead of lonely without them.”
Perhaps it’s because Brian is so damn grateful that Justin made it about himself instead of Brian – whether accidentally or on purpose, he doesn’t care – but Brian has to kiss him then. He fists his hands in Justin’s hair and brings his mouth down, tasting the salt and lime and tequila from Justin’s margarita, forcing his tongue inside and biting at Justin’s lips.
They make love on the floor.
Justin starts to turn to his stomach but Brian urges him back over, pushes Justin’s knees towards his head and enters him from the front. Brian wants to pretend it’s just a better position, gives him more friction, but when he looks down into clear, morning-blue eyes, Brian knows that’s not why. He doesn’t fuck anyone else this way.
And when Justin pulls his lower lip in under his teeth and groans in the back of his throat, Brian doesn’t know whether to curse or bless the disease that brought him here.
* * *
He goes to his appointment the next day with Justin in tow. He makes Justin stay in the waiting room.
“A few months,” Brian tells him that night at dinner. “The course of treatment is a few months.” He forks an asparagus spear and ignores all the butter it was sautéed in.
“So … you’ll have to move out here,” Justin muses.
“Looks that way. Good, I need some new ass. And they need me, which they’ll soon find out.” Brian tries to sound nonchalant about the fact that he has to pack up his whole fucking life and move it three thousand miles.
“Stay with me.” It isn’t a plea or request, just a simple statement. Justin levels him with an honest gaze.
“I was thinking I’d get somewhere in Bel Air,” Brian says casually. “Close to the hospital.”
“I’m close to the hospital.”
Brian drops his knife and sits back in his chair. Justin stares at him from across the table, his pasta forgotten. “I suppose you are,” Brian says, and Justin nods.
“Brian,” he says, and Brian thinks he’s going to say something life changing, but Justin merely takes a deep breath. “Stay with me.”
Brian considers him, Justin’s expression serious and quiet. The silence stretches out. “One month,” Brian concedes finally. “We’ll try it.”
to be continued