To Know the Difference God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. The first night you come here, it's with a bag of Chinese take-out and an urge you can't quite explain just to exist in the same space as Justin, even for a little while. He's been gone a lot lately; so much, in fact, that the loft has started to feel -- big, in a way that it hasn't been in a long time, not even during the seven and a half months that he just spent in LA. Then, at least, there was hot late-night phone sex, and hastily-scrawled postcards featuring the Hollywood Sign or Venice Beach, and the few short but intense visits. Now, there's just empty space filled up with Justin's things, and it's not really good enough. You rest the food on one hip and dig through your pocket for the key Justin gave you, careful not to let anything drip on your pants. They're just jeans, but they're fucking expensive jeans, and you'll still be royally pissed if they end up covered in duck sauce. You take the stairs by twos, hollow metal echoing through the empty staircase with a clang, and you open the door to his studio without knocking. He doesn't seem at all surprised to see you, just cocks his head a little, offering a half-smile and a "hi." There's crap on every available surface -- the wooden table in the corner, the long desk on the far wall, so you set the bag on the floor and move to stand behind him as he steps back to evaluate his work. "It looks good," you say, resting your chin on his shoulder and wrapping one arm around his chest, the other reaching down so that your hand is in his front pants pocket. His answer is a smug grin against your cheek and a playful nudge of your head with his own, so you kiss him quickly on the side of the mouth, muttering something about artist's conceit and the inability to properly accept a compliment. "Just a few more minutes, okay? I want to finish this little bit." He points with the brush still in his hand to a spot on the edge of the canvas that spans the wall in front of you. You walk over to the desk, if you can even call it that -- it's more of a receptacle for all of Justin's art shit and everything else that makes it here and never makes it home, from fat bundles of colored pencils to paint-splattered t-shirts to a worn copy of Naked Lunch. There are pencil drawings everywhere, some taped to the walls in neat rows, others spread carelessly across the desk. He only keeps one sketchbook at the loft now, claiming that it's easier to keep "the archives," as you call them, with everything else here. You thumb through the sketches, and of course, there are a lot of you. Most of them you don't remember Justin doing. Some are from times and places you can't even remember being, but they're all so fucking beautiful. You wonder, for a minute, if this is what everyone sees when they see you, but it's a stupid thought because even you know that Brian Kinney through the eyes of Justin Taylor is the most beautiful you that there is. You're still staring intently at a drawing of you staring intently at your computer screen when he slides up behind you and asks, "Ready to eat?" The only chair is at Justin's desk, so you spread the food out on the floor, pushing the dropcloth back to expose the wood. When the cartons are empty and fortunes have been read (yours: Don't count your chickens before they hatch.; his: Try another delicious fortune cookie.), you lie back against the floor, one arm stretched behind your neck and his head on your chest. You feel heavy and sated, the buzz of MSG making your cheeks flush and your lips tingle, so you really can't be held responsible for trying to make conversation. "When are you going to tell me what this painting's of?" "You'll see." You chuckle, and his head rises with your chest. "I see bodies, there at the right, but I can't tell what they're doing." "Well then," he says, turning on his side to face you, "You'll just have to keep looking." You're still for a minute, quiet, and then: "It's my dick, isn't it?" "Huh?" "Your painting," you say slowly. "My dick. In all its glory, for all the world to see. Honestly, Sunshine. It's not fair to torment them like that." "Please," he scoffs. "It's not like a good third of the world hasn't seen it already. And really, if I wanted to show the entire Vic Grassi House your cock, you could just go over there and whip it out, and I could save myself all this time and energy." You smile, and he smiles back, and then you kiss him and he kisses you back. At some point, between the time that your lips first meet his and when your palm slides down to cup his erection, he decides that he really doesn't need to work anymore right now. He tosses the leftovers in the trash on the way out and fumbles with the lock while you continue to grope him, slipping your fingers through the holes between the buttons on his jeans. You're not exactly sure how, but you make it back to the loft and up the stairs and into the bedroom, and then he's naked, spread out against the sheets with his knees open wide in invitation. Looking at him, you marvel at how, even after four years, he can take you from zero to sixty in just a few seconds, while no one else has ever held your interest beyond a single night. This wasn't quite what you imagined when you told him that he'd always remember getting fucked by you, but his ass is just as tight and hot as the first time, and he still makes those little whimpering noises and looks at you like you're the sexiest thing he's ever seen, so you can't really bring yourself to care. ---------- "You should paint naked," you tell him later, lying in bed. "Let me watch." He laughs and shakes his head. "No way, Brian." "Don't tell me you've never done it before. All artists work naked. Michelangelo, Boticelli, Rembrandt... Picasso painted naked, and look how great he turned out to be." "Whatever," he says dramatically, rolling his eyes at you. "You totally made that up. Anyway, Picasso wasn't a fag, and he didn't have his hot voyeur boyfriend watching him attempt to paint with a boner." "Mmm," you concede, drawing your lips in between your teeth, then lean over him to grab a lighter and a cigarette from the pack on the nightstand. He skims his hand down your ribs, then back up to wrap around your neck, pulling you down on your side to face him. "Tell me about the first thing you ever drew," you mumble around the cigarette in your mouth, flicking the lighter. "You can't expect me to remember that," he says, smiling like this is something you should have already known. "I've been drawing since -- since forever." "Make something up, then." "Brian! Come on, be serious." He smacks you against the chest, and you catch his palm in yours and thread your fingers together, bringing them both to your lips to grasp the cigarette. He pulls it away from you, snubbing it out in the ashtray beside him, and you scowl. "Fine. Fine," you say, falling back against the pillow and throwing your hands up. "Tell me about the first thing you ever drew that you knew was good." He pushes up on one elbow and looks at you curiously. "You really want to know?" "I asked, didn't I?" "I was twelve," he begins, and reaches a hand out to turn your face towards his. "I'd-- I don't remember now, had a bad day or something. Somebody probably called me a faggot, I have no idea. I um, I came home from school and I remember just being so pissed off, you know? I didn't even have a sketchbook then; I just drew on whatever was around. So I grabbed this huge stack of paper from the printer, ran up to my room and locked the door. And I just started drawing. It was so weird: I could feel all of the anger pouring out of me, like in waves, and going onto the paper. I don't even remember making any conscious decision of what to draw, you know? I just did it. And then I felt better, and I knew I was finished. And I um -- this is kind of crazy." You raise an eyebrow, and he grins at you, this big toothy grin. "I looked at the paper, and it was like I was seeing what I'd drawn for the first time. Seriously. It was just this -- this sketch of a huge pile of dirty clothes I had on my floor, and shoes and school books and whatever, but I remember thinking, 'God, that's really fucking good'. And I was so proud of myself, because I felt like a real artist." He laughs, and it's deep and rich and completely joyful. "A real artist, drawing my twelve year-old dirty underwear." You know you're staring at him, not reacting, not even blinking, and he regards you strangely. "What?" he asks. You scoot in closer, pulling him down until your noses are touching, and he slings a leg over your thigh when your fingers begin to rake through his hair. "You are a real artist," you tell him. "You're a fucking top-notch, brilliant artist." He beams, and you think you'd probably tell him anything he wants to hear if he'd keep looking at you just like he is now. This, though, is true; the kid's a total genius. "Yeah?" "Yeah," you nod solemnly, tilting your chin up to meet his lips. You kiss him, and he tastes sweet and clean and a lot like something you want more of, so you slide your tongue inside his mouth and he moans in response, then pulls back from you suddenly. "You helped, you know." "No, I didn't," you say; it was supposed to sound annoyed, condescending even, but instead it comes out quiet and earnest. "Oh my God, yes you did. You so did," he argues, sitting up cross-legged. "Brian, there have been so many times that I've wanted to just give up on my art. It was too hard or I was too pissed off or frustrated or whatever. And you just kept encouraging me, every time, even when you didn't know you were doing it." You smile, slightly embarra...
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