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Allie
Disclaimer: All things QAF belong to CowLip. I take
liberties but they own them, I don’t.
Characters: All Queer As Folk characters
Pairing: Brian and Justin
Warning: Entire Thing will be NC-17. Spoilers for
like all Five Seasons.
XVI - The Balance
"Problems arise in that one has to find a balance between what
people need from you and what you need for yourself"
~ Jessye Norman ~
June 16, 2019 6:15am
Justin's POV
I've been awake for a while listening to the little wheeze that Brian makes
when he's in a deep sleep, and I've been thinking. Which Brian would say is
a dangerous thing, but sometimes it's not, sometimes it's a fucking necessity.
Anyway I've been thinking about Gus and about how I've been feeling lately.
I've had two nameless, faceless, colorless nightmares that skipped on the visuals
but bled pure fear. The first one was brought on by stress and from seeing Gus
panicking, which made me think of myself being like that at one time. The second
was the result of Gus screaming out in the middle of the night, and remembering
a time I used to wake up like that almost every night for a year.
It's not really fair that these feelings keep bubbling to the surface, but it's
also not like I can stop them. I feel the bed move when Brian rolls onto his
side. His hand slides over my stomach. It's so fucking warm against my cool
skin that I break out in goose bumps. I look at his face, slack with sleep,
and think that no matter how old he gets, he'll always be beautiful to me. He's
been worried lately, about Gus and about me too. I know that's not good for
him. I'm a grown man, a fucking adult, and he shouldn't be worried about me,
but he is and in some respects he always will be. I guess the same could be
said about me. I worry about him all the fucking time.
I study his face and can't help but wonder what would have happened to him if
I hadn't made it. That thought is almost too big to contemplate. It's not like
I've never thought about it before, but usually I push it aside, ignoring my
mind's desire to peruse it. I'm inclined right now though to give into it a
little because of Gus. I wonder if Brian loved me then and if so, did I know?
Sure, when I was seventeen I liked to tell anyone and everyone, including Brian,
that he loved me, but did he? Would he be a mess like Gus is now? Sure, he'd
feel guilty. He's always felt guilty for what happened no matter how many times
I told him it wasn't his fault. So yes, he'd probably give into his guilt, drink
vast amounts of alcohol, do exorbitant amounts of drugs, and fuck his way through
the rest of gay Pittsburgh, but what would that mean? Would that mean that he
loved me, that he missed me, or that he was just so fucking sorry I died?
These thoughts cause an ache so deep in me that I almost want to wake Brian
up to ask him, did he love me, would he have missed me, but I don't. Instead
I slide out from beneath his arm and get dressed. If I'm going to help Gus,
if I'm going to be there for him, then there is something I have to do.
*********************************
June 16, 2019 6:25am
Gus' POV
I'm in the kitchen turning on the coffee machine for Dad and
Justin when I see a piece of paper on the counter. I pick it up and read it.
Brian,
Went to the studio, there's something I
have to do.
Later,
J.
I set the note down and look at the clock on the microwave. He's never left
for the studio this early since I've been here. In fact, I know that on the
weekends Dad doesn't work, Justin doesn't go to the studio at all. I furrow
my brow and walk over to the fridge. It's just another thing to add to the list
of the shit I've been noticing. They think I'm stupid, or blind, or deaf, but
I'm not. I pull the carton of orange juice from the fridge and pour the last
of it into a glass. I know something is going on with Justin. It only took me
a few days to realize that the cleaning lady only comes once a week, on Mondays,
and that Justin's been the one drowning the kitchen in bottles of Clorox at
night. I've heard him twice wake up from what I assume to be nightmares of his
own. Maybe it has nothing to do with me being here, but I have a feeling it
does.
I throw the empty carton of juice in the trash and sit down at the table. I
drink half the glass before I set it down and grab the Comic section from the
paper. I read Spiderman & Rage before getting up and throwing it in the
trash. That's another thing, not a new thing, just a thing that I saw Dad do
the other morning. It looked like something he just automatically does. I didn't
ask why but I wanted to, and maybe I would have if Justin hadn't walked in.
I return to the table and sit down. I'm just finishing the last of my juice
when I hear Dad in the kitchen. Setting down my glass, I turn to look at him
just as he's adding a shitload of sugar to his coffee. It's almost funny that
he has this strict diet and yet his morning coffee is almost pure sugar. He
grabs his mug and walks over to the table yawning a hello.
"Did you see the note?" I ask him as he sits down.
Dragging the paper over to him he looks at me. "What note?"
"The one by the coffee machine that said Justin was at the studio."
He shakes his head and starts flipping through the paper. He does it three times,
the crease in his forehead deepening each time.
"I already threw it out." He looks up and raises an eyebrow at me.
"The Comics."
"Oh?"
I shrug. "I saw you do it the other morning." He takes a sip of his
coffee but doesn't say anything. "Why do you? Do it, I mean?" I want
to know. Does it really bother Justin that much that he can't even look at it?
Dad sets his coffee cup down and leans back in his chair. He looks away from
me and I figure he's not going to answer me at all. Finally he looks over at
me and shrugs. "It bothers him."
I can't help it, suddenly I just feel so angry, at him and at Justin. "So
should I pack my shit now or just wait until you throw me out too?" I get
up from the table and put my glass in the sink.
"What the fuck are you talking about?"
I turn to face him. "Do you think I'm stupid? That I can't see? That I
don't fucking know?"
He furrows his brow. "Know what?"
"That I bother him. That when he looks at me he remembers what happened
to him."
He stands up and walks over to me. "You're right." I step back from
him, feeling as if he's slapped me in the face. "It reminds him, both of
us, of a time we'd rather forget, but that doesn't mean that…" He shakes
his head. "That we're going to fucking throw you out."
The anger suddenly leaves my body and I slump against the counter. "I don't
mean to." I stare at the floor.
"We know." He places his hands on my shoulders and I look up at him.
"We're all in this together. Justin's just got to find the balance, and
he will."
"I just feel like…" I bite my lip. "That I'm not worth all this
trouble."
"Hey," He shakes me. "Don't fucking say that. You're worth it.
You've been through something that no one your age should ever have to fucking
go through. You lost someone you cared about. That's not something you can just
snap your fingers and be over."
I feel something inside me crack and break. "I just want them to stop."
I choke out. "That's all I want." I feel pathetic and stupid and embarrassed
but I can't stop the words that come. Dad pulls me to his chest and I cling
to him. "I just want to be okay. I want everything to be okay, but I fucking
miss him every day, all fucking day. I can't stop thinking about him, about
it, and it just fucking…hurts…it…hurts…so fucking…bad." And then I can't
say anything else.
Dad holds me a little tighter and says, "I know Sonnyboy, I know."
I cry harder.
***************************************
June 16, 2019 6:47am
Justin's POV
I enter my studio and set my coffee, keys, and cell phone on
the counter. I usually don't come to my studio on the weekends unless Brian
has to work. It's nice here, though, on Sundays. The gallery is closed and there's
no chance for an interruption. I reach for my cell phone and turn it off. No
interruptions. I toe off my shoes, take off my socks, remove my shirt, and walk
over to the stereo, turning the volume low. I like the noise but don't need
the distraction. I stride over to the easel I use for large pieces and move
it where the morning light is shining into the room. I walk to the corner of
the room, where I had a closet built to house supplies, and open the door. Flipping
on the light I walk to the back and remove a 60 x 48 canvas. It's big, some
people would say too big, but not for this. Carrying out the canvas, I set it
up on the easel, adjusting the side arms and tightening the knobs to hold the
canvas in place. Grabbing a box from the floor, I return to the supply closet
and gather paints, brushes, pallet knives, and a can of turpentine. I leave
the room and shut the door behind me. Once I set everything up just the way
I want it I pick up a large brush and stare at the blank canvas. Taking a deep
breath, I load the end of the paintbrush with paint and I just let myself go.
It's been hard on me, seeing Gus having panic attacks and hearing
him waking up from nightmares. It's been incredibly difficult for me to separate
what he's going through from what I went through. Both situations are similar
hues in the same spectrum, but still different colors. I've said before that
this isn't about me, and it isn't. I'm fine. I've moved past it. It took so
much to get from the place I was to the place I am. I made many bad decisions
and mistakes along the way, true, but I fucking made it.
The truth is that this, these feelings, will never leave me. It's never going
to be forgotten. How do I forget that once a long time ago someone hated me
so much they wanted me dead? No one could forget that. The thing is that I have
to stop being angry about it. I've carried this rage in me from being bashed
for so fucking long. It doesn't always come out, but it's always fucking there.
I'm angry about how unfair it all was, how that night at prom was taken from
me, how Chris fucking
At any rate, it's time to let it go…not forget, just fucking let it go. Look
at the life I have now. I'm fucking married to the first man I ever loved. We
have a fucking beautiful life together. We have everything we could possibly
ever want or need. Most importantly, we have each other. I can survive anything
this life has to throw at me as long as I have that.
It's time to stop projecting all these remnants of my past. It's time to stop
using Gus' pain and internalizing it as my own. Brian is right, I can help Gus.
I can be there for him. I can share with him how it was for me. I can be there
if he wants to talk about it, but most importantly I can love him. All I have
to do is let this anger that lives in me go. It happened. I can't go back and
fix it or change it. I have to just stop being angry, stop feeling sorry for
myself, and just understand that being bashed and having that experience is
a part of who I am. Who knows how my life would have turned out had it not happened?
Maybe the experience made me stronger, more determined, and made me who I am
today. Made me this man that wouldn't settle for less than what he wanted, who
achieved his goals, who finally married the man he loved, who finally has the
life he always wanted.
***************************************
June 16, 2019 3:47pm
Gus' POV
I'm at the park with Dad and I've been watching a homeless
man digging through the garbage for the last twenty minutes. He looks to be
about fifty. His face is worn and weathered. He's wearing stone washed jeans,
which I know went out of style before I was even born, and an army surplus jacket
he probably got from Goodwill. He's been digging through the trash around the
area where Dad and I are sitting. I've seen him pull out several soda bottles,
light four cigarette butts, and I can't be sure but I think I saw him eating
something he pulled out off a paper bag he found in one of the trashcans. When
he starts digging through the trashcan closest to us I aim my camera at him
and take a picture. Then I switch to my digital camera and take another one.
I take a few more random pictures with my digital camera. I
even take one of Dad when the homeless man approaches him and asks for a cigarette.
Dad gives him the rest of his pack and a hundred dollar bill. I watch the homeless
man walk away. "You know he's probably just going to use that to buy drugs
or alcohol, right?"
He turns to me. "Christ, you sound just like Justin."
I smile at that. "Well…that's not necessarily a bad thing."
He laughs. "No. I guess it's not."
He opens a new pack of cigarettes, taps one out, and lights it. I set down my
camera and light a cigarette of my own. We haven't really talked about my breakdown
in the kitchen this morning. That's what it was, a breakdown. It's not like
I really thought that Dad and Justin would kick me out of the loft, but at that
moment it's all I could think about. It's just that suddenly I felt like that
comic strip, that I was making things hard for Justin just by existing, and
that just like the comic strip Dad would throw me away. Like they say, out of
sight out of mind. I know my Dad would never do that. It was just the accumulation
of things, my panic attacks, my nightmares, seeing Justin reacting to all of
that, and Dad worrying about both of us. Yeah, I noticed that too.
I'm not sure exactly why we're at the park. After my breakdown we read the paper
and then just sort of migrated to the living room to watch TV. I kept seeing
Dad eye the clock and I figured he was waiting for Justin to get back. I could
tell he was irritated and bored. We were in the middle of watching some lame
ass movie when he suddenly stood up and said, "Fuck this. Let's go to the
park." And here we are.
"Before your moms moved to
I look over at him. "No shit?" I'd never heard that before.
"It wasn't much. Most of the time it was just you in the stroller and me
and your mom walking."
"I didn't play?" I take a drag of my cigarette.
He laughs. "You usually were asleep, so your mom and I would just sit there
and talk."
I look back at the homeless man who's still digging through the garbage. "What
would you talk about?"
"Nothing. Everything." He laughs. "Usually we talked about what
an asshole I was."
I look back over at him, wondering why he's telling me this because really,
Dad's not one for nostalgia or reminiscing. "Oh?"
"Everyone thought I was an asshole back then."
"Except for Justin," I tell him, smiling.
He laughs and shakes his head. "Especially Justin."
I cock an eyebrow. "Really?" That's hard to believe.
"Hell yes."
I flick my cigarette and look back down at my digital camera, flipping through
the pictures I've taken. "Why were you an asshole?"
"I was a different man then."
"Well…if you were such an asshole why did he put up with you?" I ask
mostly just to humor him. I'm not really sure I want to know.
I hear him take a drag of his cigarette and exhale before he answers. "He
didn't always." I look over at him. He shrugs. "But the little fucker
kept coming back." Laughing, he takes another drag of his cigarette.
"Why?" I ask, even though I'm pretty sure I know the answer.
He turns his head and looks at me. "He loved me."
I tilt my head to the side. "Why are you telling me all this Dad?"
He looks away and shrugs. "I have no fucking idea."
Maybe it's like when I was a kid living in
He puts out his cigarette and turns to face me. He's not smiling. He's completely
serious. "When I almost lost him."
I furrow my brow. "When he left you?"
Shaking his head he says, "No. When he almost…died on the way to the hospital
the night he was bashed."
I look away from him and squint up at the bright sky. "Yeah, that's when
I knew too."
He doesn't ask me what I mean because I guess he knows. Dad was lucky. Justin
survived, he lived, and Dad got to tell Justin, to show him what he meant to
him. I never got that. I never would. I feel the tears on my face but I don't
wipe them away. Dad drapes his arm over my shoulders and pulls me to him. "He
knew, Sonnyboy."
God, I hope he did.
*********************************************
June 16, 2019 5:48pm
Justin's POV
I step back from the canvas, tilt my head to the side, and
smile. I'm exactly where I should be, doing exactly what I want to do, and living
my life on my terms. My eyes scan the painting from top to bottom. Eighteen
years of anger, sadness, frustration, and pain has finally been extracted. Sure,
little pieces of these feelings have made it into my work, but no one piece
has ever been a totality of everything I ever felt about being bashed. Well
here it is now, everything laid bare on a 60 x 48 canvas.
I toss my brush onto the table and take another step back from
the painting. It's hard to look at, but at the same time I feel I've never painted
anything so fucking beautiful.
I hear a knock at the door and turn to see Brian walk in. I
wipe my hands and walk over to him smiling. "What are you doing here?"
He looks me over and then grabs me, kissing my deep and hard.
I want to tell him that he's getting paint all over his clothes, but somehow
I don't think he cares. He sucks my tongue into his mouth and fuck, that's hot.
It's a hungry kiss that reminds me of the kisses we'd share when he'd come visit
me in
It takes me more than a minute to put words in order so I can speak. "Miss
me?"
He laughs and strokes my hair. "You left without even giving me a blow
job this morning."
I laugh and pull back from him. "I'm really very sorry, if that's any consolation."
"It isn't." He says, poking his tongue into his cheek.
I push my hands under his shirt and stroke his stomach. "I'll make it up
to you tonight." I kiss him on the neck. "Where's Gus?"
"Mmm, downstairs with dinner."
"Oh god, I love you."
He laughs and pushes me away from him a little. "What have you been working
on all day?'
I smile at him and take his hand. "Come on, I'll show you." I lead
him over to the easel, which I've had to move several times throughout the day
to keep in the right light. My arms ache from it because the fucker is heavy.
When we get to the easel, I lean my head on Brian's shoulder.
"What do you think?"
I feel him take a deep breath. "Shit, Justin."
I nod my head against his shoulder. "I know."
He leans forward. "It's fucking…" I look up at him. "Christ."
"That's it." I tell him. He looks down at me. "That's all of
it." We both look back at the painting.
He squeezes my hand and says, "It's fucking everything."
Right at that second I love him just a little bit more. "I had to do it.
If I was going to be able to help Gus, to be there for him, I had to get rid
of all that."
I lift my head and he turns me to him. "He figured it out, that something
was going on."
I furrow my brow. "Shit. What did you tell him?"
He smiles at me as he brushes the hair back from my face. "I told him that
you would figure it out, and once you did it would be fine."
"I had to find the balance."
He smiles a little wider. "I know." He turns, pulling me with him
so that he can wrap his arms around me. He holds me in front of him and I lean
back against him. We both just look at the painting. "It's…exquisite… but
at the same time it's..."
I lay my hands over his arms around my waist. "Hard to look at?"
"Yes."
"Then it's done." I move myself out of his arms, reach for my signature
brush, and sign my name. I put the brush away, move back into his arms, and
kiss him. When I pull back he smiles at me and I smile right back. "You
mentioned food."
He laughs and I kiss him again, pulling him over to the bathroom. "Where
are we going?"
"I need to get cleaned up." He raises an eyebrow. "I need you
to wash my back."
He scoffs. "You've been gone all day. I'm going to do more than wash your
back."
I laugh. "God, I hope so."
The Painting ~ "Everything"