Archive of Our Own

March 2015

"Representative Gutiérrez votes aye."

Brian does a victory dance so enthusiastic that his wheeled office chair almost shoots out from under him and the headset pops out of his ear. Impervious to his glare at her desk outside his office, his legislative aide Justine snorts. He replaces the warm plastic headset in time to hear John asking, "--think you'll get home tonight?"

Brian glances at his clock. He came in this morning with his shirt-sleeves already rolled to the elbows, prepared to batten down the hatches and sleep on the office couch. But the Judiciary Committee meeting got moved from 8 to 6 and his bill from fifth to second on the docket. No one tried to amend it, and the only dissenters are Ebbets' cohort, who only number two on Judiciary. Debate was short and concise, because Chair Hughes doesn't stand for bullshit delay tactics in her committees. "Not too late. Legislative Review Board, as soon as this passes out of Judiciary, they'll do the committee report so I can sign off on it. 9:30?"

"Great. I'll try to be up."

"The mighty John Bender in bed before 9:30?" Brian chuckles fondly.

"Hey, fuck you, asshole; I was up at 4:30 this morning." Took a bunch of the boys from the Sangamon County program fishing, of all things. Apparently, he fell in the river. Brian hopes to god there's video.

"Representative McLeod votes nay."

Brian's shoe hits the TV screen with a resounding thunk. "Twatmunch!" he yells. At her desk, Justine raises an eyebrow; Brian smiles sheepishly.

John's laugh fills his ear through the headset, warming Brian to his core. "Morris McLeod votes against common-sense measures to protect government data," John says. He's less invested in this bill than Brian is, but they've discussed it enough that he understands all its nuances. "I'm excited about his chances for reelection."

"He voted against 344 and 490, too."

"So he's against hacking safeguards and winter heating assistance and for violence in the juvenile justice system. Can I...punch him in the face? Just once."

"Ugh." Brian leans back so far his chair wobbles a warning. "Don't tempt me. I don't know why they're being such assholes, you know? I mean, what have I done to them?"

"Sodomy," John says reverently.

A startled laugh burbles up in Brian, dying when he processes what John's said. "Not to them," he says, scandalized. John laughs so loudly Brian winces.

"They're making a point, Bri," John says between guffaws. "It has nothing to do with the issues. They're making sure you know they disapprove of your 'lifestyle choice.'"

"Ugh, I know," Brian says, punching the air as Representative Yang votes aye and Chair Hughes declares the bill passed. "Monogamy. I'm as disgusted as you are, but I never found anybody else as good as you at sucking m--"

"Hey, asshole!" Justine shouts. "Respect in the motherfucking workplace!"

"Ooh!" John says. "Was that Justine?"

"Mm." Brian waves at her. "She's plotting a coup."

"Tell her hi. She's my favorite."

Brian catches Justine's eye. "John says you should be jailed for sedition."

She flips him off. "I hope you choke on his dick."

"You're her favorite, too." Even if Brian could trace all the steps, pinpoint all the decisions and actions that led them to this moment, where he sits in an office in the Illinois Capitol Building, engaging his legislative aide in a conversation that could get them both fired, while John Bender--who is his actual, legal husband, after years of domestic partnership bullshit and longer with no legal standing whatsoever--fails to stay awake on the couch in their Springfield apartment...even if he could do that, he doubts it would lessen his sense of wonder at how it's played out. He smiles. "You know you're my favorite, too, right?"

John's contentment is so strong Brian swears he can feel it. "Yeah," John says. "I know."

* * *

April 1984

Three cop cars blew past the Johnson house at 9:00 on Friday night. Brian looked up from his physics homework as the flashing lights briefly painted his walls blue and red and hated himself for immediately thinking of Bender. He wasn't sure what he felt worse about: thinking about Bender in connection to police cars or thinking about him at all. In the month since detention, Brian had thought about Bender a lot, and never without a twisting low in his gut and a vague guilt he could never explain.

At 9:30, someone knocked on Brian's window. He jumped and spun and nearly had a heart attack before he realized he wasn't surprised to see Bender crouched in the window well outside Brian's basement room, shivering despite the warmth of the April evening. Brian sprang across the room, cranking open the window. "Bender. What the hell, man?"

"Let me in, Brian. Come on."

Stunned by Bender's unvarnished use of his given name, without insulting nicknames or mocking intonation, Brian popped the screen out of the window and stood back to let him in. Refusing Bender's request, or demanding more information first, never crossed his mind--not once he'd seen how Bender's hands were shaking or how his wide, wild eyes seemed unable to settle on anything for more than two seconds.

Bender all but fell inside, and Brian rested a hand on his bicep before he'd thought it through. Even through who knew how many layers of denim and flannel, the contact raced up Brian's arm like an electrical shock, but Bender didn't seem to register the touch. "Bender," Brian said, and then, softer, "John. What's going on?"

"You gotta--you just--" Bender looked around the room, seeming to take in details in slow increments. He nodded and exhaled sharply. "Perfect. Your room is as square as you are, dweeb."

Brian exhaled, too, weirdly comforted by Bender's reversion to his usual cruelty. This was normal. This was Bender hiding himself in Brian's room the same way he hid weed in Brian's underwear: the last place anyone would look. "What'd you do?"

Bender crowded against him, breath hot on Brian's face, setting up a whole flock of butterflies in his stomach. "Nothing," Bender snarled. "I didn't--I didn't--" He stepped back with a frustrated huff, pushing leather-gloved hands through his long hair.

"I saw the cop cars," Brian said, voice low. He could guess how Bender was going to react to this line of questioning. It wouldn't end well for him.

"So you figured--"

"I don't--I didn't--I can't figure anything, okay, if you won't tell me!"

"It's--yes. Okay, nerdtron, is that what you want to hear? Yes, that's my crew the cops were going after. Knocked over a fucking liquor store--Jesus Christ, what a bunch of morons. And I told them--I don't know what's happening to me, but I told them it was a shit idea."

Brian wrapped his arms around his torso, hugging himself tightly. The thought of everything that could've gone wrong if Bender hadn't said no, if those sirens had been wailing for him, left Brian cold in ways he couldn't look at, let alone make sense of. "Because it was a shit idea."

"Which is why I should've loved it!" He crowded into Brian again, backing him against the closet door. "What the fuck did you do to me, brainiac? Your fucking work ethic and your head down and--fuck!"

"Bender! You just avoided getting caught in the middle of an armed robbery. My experience with the Cook County juvenile justice system is admittedly limited, because it turns out possession of a flare gun isn't illegal, even on school property, but if you're going to stand there and tell me what a bad thing it is that you're not under arrest right now, then by all means, go to the nearest police station and turn yourself in." Brian blinked rapidly. What had he done? He'd told off John Bender, that's what. Now he would be shivved and stuffed into his own closet. Good-bye, cruel world.

Bender stared at him, eyes burning with an anger Brian was pretty sure was eating Bender up inside. Ulcers, maybe. That's where those came from, right? Anger and stress, churning inside while everyone pretended everything was fine. Then, "I'm staying here tonight."

"No." The refusal was reflexive. Brian Johnson did not have friends stay the night. It wasn't allowed. And Bender wasn't really his friend!

"Yes. I. Am." Bender spun on his heel and stalked across the room, throwing himself into Brian's bed. If Brian's body contained organs capable of processing oxygen, they weren't functioning now. John Bender was in his bed, and his legs lacked the strength to carry him there.

"My parents--"

"Your parents are nicely tucked up in their Ozzie and Harriet beds, dreaming of the straight and narrow."

"I had--I had plans, Bender!"

"Plans with your homework, do-gooder buttwipe." Bender leaned over and, with casual malice, swiped his hand across the desk, shoving Brian's textbook and notebook to the floor.

Brian swallowed. "I...I would appreciate a greater show of respect for my possessions, Bender."

Eyes locked on Brian's, Bender reached out, picked up the pencil cup, and twisted his wrist, dumping the contents to the floor.

"You...you fucking asshole," Brian hissed, storming across the room. Bender reached for the stack of Ant Man comics next, but Brian's hand closed around his wrist. "Stop, okay? Just...stop."

Lightning-fast, Bender flipped his hand so his own fingers curled around Brian's wrist. They stared at each other. Brian's breath came in harsh pants as Bender's gaze bored into him. Brian licked his chapped lips. A slow, wicked smile twisted Bender's mouth as he watched the motion. "Well, well," he whispered. Then he yanked.

Brian fell on top of him, breath escaping in a startled whoosh when he hit a plane of hard muscle. "Bender--"

"You like that, don't you?" Bender said. He grabbed Brian's other wrist, too, hauling their bodies together and pinning Brian's hands to the mattress. "Like it rough. Like a big guy to push you around. Whatever will Mr. and Mrs. Johnson say?"

"'Get off of that boy and finish your homework, young man.'"

For a long beat, Bender stared at him, eyes widened slightly. Then he started making this sound, quiet and almost rusty. After a second, Brian recognized it as laughter. Not his usual sarcastic snorts or mocking chortles. This sound was rough and real and clearly underused. Brian wanted to hear it again and again.

Brian shifted until he straddled Bender. Bender pushed up and smashed their lips together gracelessly. It was a hard, fumbling kiss, full of teeth and metal, with faint scents of weed and denim. Brian fell into it, shocked by how soft Bender's lips were. Bender's tongue teased at Brian's lips; Brian gasped and opened. Bender's tongue was soft, too, but aggressive, insistent.

Bender thrust his hips up. The friction against his erection, even through their layers of clothes, made Brian arch, gasping. Bender did it again; Brian met him with a downward grind that had Bender's head dropping back, a string of choked-off curses falling from his lips.

So there was Brian, 15-year-old virgin, having...something sex-like with Shermer High School bad boy John Bender. He was never gonna last long. They'd barely found a rhythm when Bender's hands rose to Brian's hips and flexed, fingertips brushing the skin between the hem of Brian's shirt and the top of his jeans. That whisper of leather, the edges of Bender's gloves against Brian's skin, set off a chain reaction that ended with the strongest orgasm of Brian's life. He shuddered through the aftershocks, panting, chin dropped to his chest.

His gaze fell on the spot of wetness darkening Bender's jeans, and, Jesus, he did that. He, Brian Johnson, nerdiest of the nerds, had done that to John Bender. He pawed at Bender's fly, shoving his jeans and boxers down enough to free his cock. "I want to--John, can I?" He pushed himself backward and down as he asked, so there wasn't much room to misunderstand.

"If your braces cut my dick, I end you, got it?" John--stupid to think of him as "Bender" anymore--snapped. Brian grinned and leaned down for his first taste.

It was unlike anything he'd ever known or imagined. The flesh beneath his tongue was hot and musky and seemed, this close, impossibly large. But at the instant his mouth made contact, John hissed and spasmed. Brian figured he must be doing something right.

Brian knew he was more enthusiasm than finesse, but John's "bad sex is better than no sex" attitude worked to his advantage. He licked and sucked with abandon, and John writhed and swore and flung both hands above his head to white-knuckle the headboard, and if Brian had two more minutes he'd've been ready to go again from that sight alone. As it was, after about a minute and a half John grunted, "Fuck, I'm gonna--" and then he did, coming in thick spurts down Brian's throat. Brian swallowed as much as he could and wiped off the rest with the sleeve of his t-shirt. John stared glassy-eyed at the ceiling, chest heaving like he'd run a marathon, and Brian resisted his urge to (literally) pat himself on the back.

After a few minutes, John lurched upright, shoving Brian off and pulling his cigarettes from the pocket of his flannel. "You can't smoke in here," Brian said automatically, but when John raised both eyebrows, he realized how absurd that sounded. "Okay, fine," he huffed, holding out his hand. "Give me one."

"You don't smoke," John said, equally automatic, but gave him one anyway.

"I don't do a lot of things," Brian countered, earning a grudging half-smile from John. They squished into the egress windowsill, feet and legs bumping, and took turns blowing acrid smoke into the night air. The silence felt almost gentle.

Then John had to go and snap it. "We're not boyfriends," he said abruptly.

Brian picked a fleck of tobacco off his lip. "Okay," he said carefully. He hadn't expected anything different and was surprised John had brought it up. John and Claire had lasted ten days, and Brian wasn't sure what other girls (or, it now seemed, guys) were on John's radar. Obviously, his sea wasn't hurting for fish. "Why not?" he asked, mostly for curiosity's sake.

John flipped a lock of hair impatiently off his face. "Because I'm not gay."

Brian choked. "You're--you're obviously something." For Christ's sake, he could still taste John's spunk on his tongue, his own cooling and congealing uncomfortably in his jeans.

"No, but, see, that's--" John took the last draw off his cigarette and crushed it on the windowsill. "That's just sex. Dudes helping each other out. It's only gay if you date. If there's feelings and you buy each other flowers and shit."

"I--you wouldn't have to buy me flowers," Brian assured him.

John got right up in Brian's face, all bluster and aggression once more. "I ain't buying you shit. Because we're not dating. Because I'm not gay."

Two more rounds of sex that night, coupled with waking up around 3 with John's arms wrapped so tightly around him he could barely breathe, told Brian a different story, but he had enough self-preservation instinct not to say anything about it.

*

The cops caught up with John on Saturday, taking him in for questioning as a "person of interest" in his idiot friends' liquor store robbery. But since his friends swore that he hadn't been involved, and two admitted he'd tried to talk them out of it, they let him go with a warning about the quality of his friends. He walked from the police station to Brian's house, and Brian understood that the blowjob John gave him was intended to be a thank-you. So, in a weird way, was John staying again Saturday night, though the danger was past. Then again, given John's home life, a night crammed into Brian's squeaky twin bed was a gift for them both.

*

Brian's mom dropped him at school early Monday morning on her way to an early shift. Still riding the high of sex and a particularly good physics problem set, he dawdled at his locker in the mostly empty hall and didn't notice the pack of jocks descending until they were right behind him.

"Hello, faggot," one of them hollered in his ear. Matt, Brian thought his name was. Brian looked around for Andrew, who was still kind of a friend and had started shielding him from the worst of his friends' abuse. Then he remembered that this morning Andrew was at his last anger management session, mandated by the school social worker as part of his punishment for what he did to Larry. Matt grinned sharply and leaned on the locker next to Brian's. "That's right. Your protector isn't here today. It's just you and us." Matt leaned in so close Brian could smell Mountain Dew and stale Doritos on his breath. "Faggot."

That was all. Not a taunt, really, or a specific threat. Just a word. A knot in Brian's chest, below his heart, loosened. Guys like Matt had goaded him with that word since junior high. Its power lay in its shame, in the idea that they couldn't accuse him of anything worse. Now that it was true--or, at least, something like it was true; Brian didn't have a big enough sample size for statistical validity, but he'd enjoyed everything he and John had done this weekend--it'd lost its power over him. He tilted his chin up and looked Matt in his beady eyes. "If I were, I still wouldn't touch you."

The fist went into his gut before he had time to process what a terrible idea that'd been. He doubled over and braced for the next blow, which he was pretty sure would fall on his back.

It never came.

Instead, he looked up in time to see John slam Matt against the locker with an arm braced across Matt's throat. "Touch him again," John snarled. "I dare you."

Matt laughed, though there was a lot of wheeze to it. "What? Are you his boyfriend?" Behind them, his posse laughed, too, uncertainly.

All other sound died at the quiet snick of metal on metal and the brush of fabric on fabric as John pressed the switchblade's tip against Matt's lower eyelid. "You better fucking hope not," John said. Brian couldn't breathe. John leaned in further, twisted the blade. Matt squirmed against the locker. "This kid's off-limits. I figured Clark made it clear, but in case your ears are defective: Don't. Fucking. Touch. Him. Understood?"

Matt nodded once, jerkily, and John straightened and whisked the switchblade back into his clothes. "Fucking psycho," Matt hissed. John touched a finger to his forehead in a mocking salute.

John stood at Brian's side as the jocks moved off, muttering about crazy fucking queers and telling their dads. He maybe even leaned into Brian. "Still not my boyfriend," he said. "Don't get any ideas."

"I won't," Brian promised, grinning.

*

At lunch, Brian made his way to the burners' domain next to the row of temporary classrooms behind the high school. With most of the crew still in the custody of the police or Children and Family Services, the only people there were John and that one freshman who wore black and a lot of eye makeup and never took off his headphones, even in class. Brian waved nervously. "Uh, hey, Yusuke." Yusuke stared back.

"Johnson, what the hell are you doing here?" John demanded.

Brian dropped his backpack onto the ground by John's feet and threw himself down after it. "Okay," he said, wiping sweating palms on the legs of his jeans, "so we're not going to be--" He snuck a guilty look at Yusuke, but he was lost in whatever was playing on his Walkman. "--boyfriends, or whatever, but Friday I, like, saved you from the cops, and then we--and this morning you totally rescued me from those guys, and--" He took a deep breath. "We're going to be friends. And that's just...it."

Even granting that they'd only really known each other a month, Brian had never seen John's expression blank. Even his resting face had nuances, of mockery and rage though they tended to be. But the look he was giving Brian now was an absence of expression, as though he were a mask on a shelf. "That's it, huh?" he asked, his voice as affectless as his face.

Brian folded and unfolded the strap of his backpack between his fingers. His gaze flickered between the ground and John's unreadable eyes. "Y-yeah," he said. "I mean--yes. Yes."

For an instant, John's face showed everything at once--rage, discontent, the disappointment and fear no one was supposed to see. Then Brian watched it fall away, leaving a look of serenity he wouldn't have believed possible if he weren't looking right at it. Brian's breath caught in his throat, and his fingers jerked against the backpack straps. He was staring at John, mouth agape, and he couldn't stop.

The look vanished, replaced by John's default sneer. He ripped the backpack out of Brian's hands. "Golly gee, friend," he said, rooting around the main compartment, "what's for lunch today?"

Brian ducked his head to hide his grin. John took half his lunch. He'd've given it all, if John had asked.

* * *

March 2015

John's telling the maître d' that his party might already be here when he hears Minnie. "Johnny! Yoohoo, Johnny!" He forces himself not look, but he imagines she's half out of her chair, waving frantically.

The maître d' looks over with a faint look of distaste, though he'd never say anything to Minnie's face. "Isn't that your party, sir?"

John raises his eyebrows and leans an elbow on the stand. "I don't think so."

He catches the edge of Minnie's huff, then she calls, "John! Over here!"

John grins and straightens. "Now that's my party," he says and slips into the outdoor seating area, ignoring the maître d's dirty look. "Hello, Minnie, dear," he says, air-kissing her cheek (which is the stupidest thing people do--why is it still a thing people do?) before sitting.

She shakes her head at him, eyes narrowed mischievously. "Johnny," she scolds.

"Ermintrude," he replies, and she bristles. He fishes his glasses from the inner pocket of his camel-colored suit coat and slides them on as he eyes the menu. "What's good today?"

Minnie rolls her eyes; they're the only parts of her face that move without extensive effort. "However should I know? I don't actually eat at these places."

John suspects Minnie Ebbets doesn't much eat, full stop. She's Botoxed to within an inch of her life and has an absurd fitness regimen that takes three hours every day. It's supposed to make her look younger than her 62 years, but she reminds John of a poorly-preserved mummy he saw once at the Field Museum. She always smells like lily of the valley, which is how John thinks grandmothers should smell, though his own usually smelled like Wild Turkey and Parliament Lights. He hates everything about the way she lives her life, and the feeling is entirely mutual. They've adored each other since the moment they met.

John orders poached salmon and a Guinness (because Minnie thinks imported beer is the devil's piss); Minnie orders a salad, which she will not eat in the most ostentatious way possible. John glances into the restaurant, where a TV over the bar shows the Senate floor debate. In this part of town, they watch the government like normal people watch sports.

John grins into his water. "What do you think about jerseys?"

Minnie frowns at him--at least, he thinks she's trying to. "Jerseys?"

He points at the TV. "Like football jerseys. For the legislators. With their names and district numbers. They'd each have one, and their fans could get them, too. There's a passel of kids in Bri's cyber-crimes class at UI Springfield who'd love a Johnson jersey." Passel. This is what he's come to.

Minnie considers him over the rim of her own glass. Then she sniffs and sets the glass down. "Your husband's bill passed out of Judiciary." One thing he'll say for Minnie: she thinks his marriage is an abomination and a mockery, but she respects its legal standing and always calls it and Brian by their proper names. He appreciates that more than he'll ever willingly say.

John nods. "No thanks to your husband." He doesn't appreciate her use of proper terminology enough not to point out that she's married to a reactionary asshole.

Minnie titters. "Dirk's not on Judiciary."

"No, but McLeod and Osterhaus are, and they're good little soldiers who vote as they're told. By your husband."

She shrugs as if bored, and John snorts. Minnie'd have made a damned fine politician herself, if Dirk hadn't had firm opinions about her proper role in his life once his own political career took off. He sees it in her eyes sometimes, a flash of regret for the life she might've led, and an awful lot of factors go into whether, on any given day, he reacts with sympathy for the outmoded social conventions that bind her or a hearty, "You made your bed, bitch." Given that she's trying to simper her way out of acknowledging Dirk's culpability for what Brian's been through since the session started, sympathy is losing the race today. "He did express concerns about one or two provisions..." she says.

"Bullshit." John's suddenly tired of this conversation. He likes Minnie, but maybe they can't overcome the ideological divide. It isn't just their political views; it's the way Minnie and Dirk manipulate the rules of the House for their own ends. Maybe he and Brian will be the same, after ten terms of this, but for now the power plays and false modesty and pretense of concern for constituents' standard of living sicken him. "If Dirk understood one or two of the provisions, I'll eat his hat." (It's a hideous hat.) "He expressed concern with the bill's chief author, and anything else you tell me is a damned lie." There's a brief cessation of hostilities as the server places a basket of breadsticks on their table. John watches Minnie marshal her thoughts, trying to figure out which argument is likely to sway him. No argument is likely to sway him, but he won't tell her that, because watching her struggle is rare--and so much fun.

She shrugs and spreads her hands. "We're old-fashioned, John. In our day, your sort kept to themselves."

"Minnie, Minnie," John cajoles, though he's going to gouge the tabletop if he digs his fingers any further into it, "in 'your day,' my sort was rioting at Stonewall, and your sort was burning bras on the capitol steps. It was Illinois during Vietnam, not Antebellum Mississippi."

She tilts her head, considering him for a second, and then tries, "The expression of our sincerely held religious beliefs--"

"Has nothing to do with government data privacy protection, juvenile justice, or the cold weather rule, Minnie, come on."

"I do so enjoy our time together," Minnie says. "Do you want to tell me why you called?"

John takes another breadstick, though he hasn't touched his first one. It's not like Minnie's going to eat them. He leans forward. "Call them off, Minnie."

Minnie, bless her heart, doesn't dissemble for an instant. "What makes you think they'd listen to me?"

"You're Minnie Ebbets. It's what they do."

She shakes her head. "Not on something this big, John. You're asking them to betray sincerely held beliefs."

"Bullshit," he says again. "They were against gay marriage. We won. They're sore losers."

Minnie leans back in her chair and gives him a shrewd once-over. Inside he's squirming, but after four years under Dick Vernon's eagle eye, he knows how not to let anything show. She makes a humming sound, almost curious. "What's in it for me?"

He smirks and waves his breadstick at her. "A clear conscience?"

"Cute," she says, tossing the smirk back.

"You know I'm not in a position to promise you anything..." He lets his voice trail off with false uncertainty, not hoping for an instant that she'll buy it.

She doesn't disappoint. "Bullshit." He hides a grin at having his own word turned so neatly back on him. "You're a born kingmaker, John Bender; don't let anyone tell you otherwise."

John shrugs and roots around in the breadbasket, holding his face needlessly close to it to hide how goofily pleased he looks. "I might," he says conversationally, more to the breadsticks than to Minnie, "be able to get pressure off your boys for the ethanol credit."

From the way Minnie stills, John knows he's scored a direct hit. He bites into one of his army of breadsticks to hide his smile. He needs to find a better way to hide his expressions or he'll be a tub of lard before Brian's first term's over. In a display of goodwill from the universe, their food arrives, so John gets a few seconds of watching Minnie try not to squirm over the massive olive branch he's handing her. Once the server's moved away from the table, he shrugs magnanimously. "I mean, yeah, they backed the wrong horse, but there's no need to keep punishing them for it, right?" As it happens, party leadership's already said to step down the attacks on that one, but Minnie doesn't need to know that. Let her think he's doing her a huge favor. He points his fork at her. "But it has to be all of them, not just Dirk. I need McLeod, Osterhaus, Hendricks, and Walker off Brian's back."

Minnie's lips purse. "You give me too much credit, John," she says waspishly, and John gets how frustrated she feels about the limitations of her power. John might feel it, too, if he'd given up his career and his dreams to prop up Brian's glory. Or not. He's never been power-hungry like Minnie is; when it comes to politics, he's honest to god only ever wanted what was best for Brian, which had probably been the scariest revelation of his adult life. John Bender: guy who gives a fuck. It still freaks him out sometimes, because the ironclad rule of his youth was never getting attached, and even after 25 years, the fact that he's so attached to Brian he's practically a barnacle periodically makes him want to hop on the nearest Greyhound and ride the fuck out of town. (He never will. He can't do that to Brian. He's not sure that makes it better.)

"Maybe," he says, tucking into his salmon, "but they have wives, too."

Minnie's fingernails drum on the tabletop. "What do you have in mind?"

John fights down a wicked grin. Now they're getting to the fun part. "You double-majored in classics and drama at Columbia, right?"

She shakes her head. "I won't bother asking how you know that. Understanding of ancient civilizations and a flair for the Big Moment. Shockingly good preparation for life in politics." Her eyes narrow. "You're not suggesting Lysistrata?"

John beams at her. "That is exactly what I'm suggesting."

She gives him another long, considering gaze, and he waits for a crack about being surprised that he knows the work. It's not a bad assumption to make, given how much he plays up his bad-boy-gone-good persona to emphasize the importance of the juvenile diversion programs he runs, but he'll be disappointed if she's fallen for it. Minnie Ebbets ought to be the first person to know that image is everything in this town but also that it's not always truth. Instead, she pushes her fork aggressively through her uneaten salad greens and says, "It won't work."

"You're very persuasive," he says around a mouthful of asparagus--which, nope, he still hates, sorry, Bri.

"It's not a question of whether the wives will agree. All of us except that harridan Cynthia Walker think our husbands are being tremendous babies about Brian. A sex strike simply wouldn't work because all of the men have at least one discreet, amenable mistress or call girl in their contact lists." She leans forward as though imparting a naughty secret. "One has a young man in the rolls."

John's fork dangles halfway to his mouth. A well of molten rage bubbles inside him, rage like he hasn't felt in years. "How can you--" He chokes, takes a huge swig of beer to chase away the burning in his throat. He feels twisted inside, like there's no channel for his fury to escape, and it's going to build up until he explodes from it. "How can you live with the hypocrisy? For them to stand there and say we're cheapening marriage, when their own marriages--" John's fists clench and unclench on his knees. He's never had a panic attack, but he thinks one might be building.

John's staring at the table, so Minnie's hand on his cheek startles him. "You poor thing," she murmurs. "You were never really a child, but you're still an innocent." It's a gentle touch, almost maternal, and John clenches his jaw and looks down until she pulls away.

He throws his glasses onto the table and presses his fingers against his eyelids. Christ, what's wrong with him? He's 47 years old, but he feels 14 all over again, finally cracking after the old man called him a good-for-nothing faggot one time too many.

Silence reigns at their table for a moment, and then Minnie says quietly, "I'll see what I can do."

John nods and murmurs, "Thanks." He'd envisioned this as a moment of triumph. He doesn't feel triumphant.

* * *

May 1989

Brian endured three iterations of The Talk in adolescence, each more mortifying than the last. But the only time he recalls anyone he considered an authority figure talking to him about love--beyond the condescending crap about confusion being perfectly normal at his age, but that he was too young to know these things, and that he'd understand when he met the right girl--didn't come until the end of his sophomore year at Northwestern.

Brian's advisor, Professor McCoy, swore like a soldier, drank like she'd been lost in the desert for a year, and seemed at times to be advising him in existential philosophy rather than computers. He swung by her office one mild spring evening when everything smelled like it was waiting to burst into bloom. He wasn't expecting her to be there and planned to drop his proposed schedule for the first semester of junior year in her mailbox so she could sign off on it. But she was in her office, surrounded by its old-book scent, illuminated by one desk lamp, staring out the window with a glass in her hand. When she heard him, she waved him in and motioned to a chair. "Johnson," she said, nodding sagely as though she'd discovered something important. "Sit." She took another glass from the bookshelf and poured a generous measure from the bottle on her desk. "Glenmorangie," she said, and Brian swallowed his impulse to say "Gesundheit." He took a cautious sip and, being an uncultured college sophomore used to pisswater beer and bottom-shelf tequila and vodka, started spluttering. "Careful," Professor McCoy said, smiling over her glass, "it's got a kick."

"It tastes like swamp," Brian said.

She snorted. "It's 25 years old," she said. "Respect your elders." Returning the bottle to the shelf, she settled in her desk chair while Brian sipped his swamp and tried to imagine waiting 25 years for it. "You been in love, Johnson?" she asked.

Brian blinked. Clearly they weren't going to talk about his fall schedule tonight. "Uh, no. No, I--no."

Professor McCoy's lips twitched at his verbal flail. "The thing about love..." She trailed off, running her finger around the lip of her glass.

Brian leaned forward, mesmerized. For most of his life he'd been waiting for the adults around him to be, well, adult, sources of guidance, offering pearls of wisdom gleaned from experience. Instead they'd doled out advice grudgingly, and about subjects like college and personal hygiene (the tattoo Brian got the day he turned 18 was a direct result of his father's lecture about how filthy tattoo parlors are), never about deep life issues. To have a professor--she had a doctorate and everything!--tell him something about love thrilled him to his toes. God, he hoped it didn't turn out to be something stupid, like about toothbrushes or sharing blankets. Or maybe those things weren't stupid. What did he know?

"Life sucks, a lot of the time," she said, and Brian thunked back in his chair. Pep talks did not work like this. "But if you're lucky, you find someone who walks into a room and makes it seem better for a second. Not because of anything they've said or done, but by being who they are and choosing to spend their life with you."

Brian thought about that. It sounded...nice. Stable. Lasting, in away he'd never considered. Then his brain, without his permission, carried the fantasy forward, beyond merely walking into a room. It filled in a moment of quiet comfort, strong arms wrapping around him, his face buried in long, soft hair--

Professor McCoy smiled softly. "Thought of someone, didn't you?"

Brian took a too-big gulp of scotch and held still against the burn of it. John. He'd thought of John, who screwed him but wouldn't date him. Who was Brian's best friend. Had been his only friend, for a time.

The stupidest part was, now he was angry. Angry that he'd never wanted this for himself, but now that he did, he wanted something he couldn't have. Angry at John's stupid beautiful face and his stupid soft hair and his stupid strong hands and his stupid refusal to view men as anything more than an easy lay (actually, he was angry at John's father for that one, but John's father terrified him, so aiming his rage at John felt safer).

Brian took a furious swallow of scotch that he regretted instantly as it seared his throat. "If love's so great," he said sullenly, "why are you drinking alone in your office at 10 at night?"

Professor McCoy laughed and stretched her foot. Brian stared at it, strangely mesmerized by the casual gesture. "Because my husband's at a conference in Seoul. Besides, I said that person could make your life seem better. The problems don't actually go away."

"So what are your problems?" he demanded, then stared, horrified, into his empty glass, twisting it against his jeans. Shit, what was he thinking, mouthing off to the professor who basically held the reins of his academic fate?

But she shrugged. "About the same as yours, I imagine." Before he could protest, she added, "The world's failure to behave the way we want it to." Brian couldn't argue with that.

She signed his schedule, eventually. It felt like a hollow victory.

* * *

March 2015

Thirty years with one person blunts the sharp edges. Though Brian and John still have a lot of excellent sex, things are seldom as frantic as in those heady first days when John's boundless rage clashed with Brian's bottomless insecurity and they fought almost as much as they fucked. They tend to be gentler, these days. More deliberate.

Which is why Brian can be forgiven his surprise when he's barely through the door of the Springfield apartment when he's ambushed by a pair of arms wrapping around his waist and a face pressing into the crook of his neck. "Hi?"

"Shhh," John says. "I need this."

"Okay," Brian agrees, curving his arms around John's back and resting his cheek on the top of John's head. "How was lunch with the enemy?"

He expects a light slap on the arm and an admonition that Minnie Ebbets isn't the enemy. Instead, John's body tenses, and he leans far enough away to stare into Brian's eyes with an intensity that makes Brian shudder. "You've been it for me," he says. "Since the wedding."

It takes Brian a minute to realize what John means, what wedding he's talking about. And he does know, and it humbles him still, because he remembers what the name John Bender used to mean when it came to sex. He just doesn't understand why John's bringing this up now. He rests his hands on John's jaw and tilts his face up, kissing him gently. "I know," he says.

"And I don't see how anyone could--I would never." His voice turns fierce. "I would never."

Brian knows that, too, because it turns out that, once his heart is invested, John's fidelity is unshakeable. Brian groans as the pieces fall together. "Dirk Ebbets is not the poster boy for healthy marriage, John," he says. "Remember the time he got censured for pulling an Indecent Proposal on one of his aides?"

"But it's not just him. His whole gang," John mutters, extricating himself from Brian's hold. "More, if Minnie's telling the truth. How they can stand there and say we're the sick ones--"

"Hey," Brian says, squeezing John's neck. "Come here." He leads John to the couch, ditching his suit coat and tie as they go. When they're facing each other on the couch, Brian curls the fingers of one hand around John's bicep, stroking a thumb across the sleeve. "You know what I think? They're scared. Guys like Ebbets and Osterhaus, this isn't their world anymore. For years, they sold everybody on this idea that same-sex marriage would destroy civilization as we knew it. But now it's legal, and civilization keeps on kicking. So they've got to be wondering what else they've been wrong about."

“Aren’t you angry?” One of John’s hands clenches into a fist. Brian’s not sure he knows he’s doing it.

“Of course I am. But I feel sorry for them, too.”

“You’ve always been a softie,” John snorts.

“Nah.” Brian squeezes his arm gently and drops his other hand to John’s knee. “Before you, I barely knew I had a heart.” He searches John’s face. “You okay now?”

“I’m tired,” John admits. “I’ve been angry all afternoon. It’s exhausting. I don’t remember being angry making me this tired before.”

Brian smiles. “Last time you were this angry, you were 16. More energy.”

John’s glance flicks toward the ceiling. “I barely remember 16.”

“By the time I was 16, we’d been having sex for almost a year, and you still refused to admit I was your boyfriend.”

John snorts. “I’ve never understood why everyone thinks you're the romantic in this relationship.”

“Because it’s sure as hell not you.”

John rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands. "Man, all that shit you said. When'd you get so...wise?"

Brian shrugs and ducks his head. "I'm a simple man of the people."

John snorts, squeezing Brian's other hand where it rests on his knee. "Save it for the campaign trail."

"You don't like my stirring oration?" he asks with mock hurt.

"Well, I could think of a couple better things you could be doing with your mouth."

Here they are, well into their forties. Brian's softer around the middle; John's hair is streaked with gray; but that look from John still turns Brian inside out. He feels stretched to his edges, pulled inexorably toward John, always. But he's an adult now, or so he's told, and his body has other needs, and it's been a crappy day. "Later," he promises, squeezing John's knee. "Dinner first."

"Right. Dinner." John extracts himself from Brian's hold and pushes to his feet. "I'll make the lentil thing?"

"Perfect, thank you." Brian takes the opportunity to grope John's ass as it passes him. "You're a good man." He's talking about far more than dinner, and he trusts John will get that.

From the way John's cheeks turn pink, Brian knows he does, but he laughs as he goes into the kitchen and says, "I'm undermining the sanctity of marriage, one legume at a time."

* * *

June 1986 --August 1987

The person most surprised when John Bender graduated high school was John Bender, though Dick Vernon ran a close second. His disgusted scowl as he handed over John's diploma made up for every night he had spent in Brian's room instead of carousing with his other friends, every ounce of weed unsmoked, every bottle of vodka undrunk.  

He hadn't planned to start spending his free time studying with Brian. But since that day behind the trailers, they'd been friends, like Brian had threatened, and apparently being friends with Brian meant a lot of time doing homework in Brian's room. Boring as fuck, but at least he wasn't getting arrested or knocking anyone up or fighting with his old man. And most nights, once the books were packed away, Brian would rim him, or let John blow him, or they'd lie side by side on Brian's bed and exchange slow hand jobs and lazy kisses. They weren't boyfriends. They weren't. John wasn't gay, even if Brian had embraced the label with the pride of a fucking parade. But the sex was damned good, and John had never had a friend who didn't want anything from him but his time and attention.

So he graduated, mostly because of Brian, but then he had no idea what to do with himself. He drifted between menial jobs and slept on the lumpy couch in the unfinished part of the basement outside Brian's room (somehow without the rest of the Johnsons realizing it) while he waited for Brian to finish his senior year and for...something to happen.

When Brian applied to MIT, John drank a fifth of Jack. When he applied to CalTech, John got so baked he couldn't feel his feet for the rest of the day.

One night in early February, as John sprawled on the couch staring at the ceiling, Brian flopped at the other end, shoved his toes under John's thigh, and announced, "I've decided on Northwestern."

John rolled his head to look at him. "Yeah?" Brian nodded, and John rolled his head back. He thought for a minute about waiting for something to happen and tried not to analyze why even Evanston felt so far away. Then he said, "Gonna live in a dorm with the other brainiacs?"

"I...haven't decided yet," Brian said carefully. "Depends on...things."

John exhaled. "What's it like, Evanston?" He saw Brian's grin from the corner of his eye. It was pretty fucking brilliant.

*

The piece-of-shit red Honda Civic Brian insisted was made of safety, dependability, and fake-pine freshness broke down fifteen minutes from their new apartment. Ever the Boy Scout, Brian walked to the nearest gas station and called AAA, but John had the problem half fixed by the time the tow truck showed. The driver, a middle-aged white guy with a fringe of gray hair and a patch that said "Hal," watched him for a minute before offering his help and his toolkit (which was all John needed, since his was buried somewhere in the trunk).

Once the car was sputtering happily again, Hal looked it over and said, "You boys new in town?" Like that was a tough guess, with all their worldly possessions crammed into the backseat.

"Starting Northwestern in two weeks," Brian said proudly.

Hal looked shrewdly at John. "Both of you?"

John jerked his thumb at Brian. "He is. I'm here to mooch."

"Huh," Hal said. He reached into a pocket in his coveralls and handed John a business card that said Crockett Auto Repair & Service. "Give a holler if ya get tired of mooching. We can always use guys who know their way around imports."

Hal got into his truck and slammed the door, but to John it sounded like a door being opened.

* * *

March 2015

Unlike the majority of Ebbets' gang, who avoid him like they think they're gonna catch the gay by looking at him, Brian can usually count on Sean Osterhaus acting like a civilized human being toward him.

Which is why he's confused and mildly hurt when, at 3:00 on a godforsaken Thursday morning halfway through session, their paths cross at the Retiring Room coffee urn and Osterhaus practically hisses at him before clutching his mug to his chest and scuttling away.

Brian squints after him, then pronounces himself too sleep- and caffeine-deprived to interpret the encounter correctly. He turns back to the table to finish doctoring his coffee and spots a ragged copy of Germaine Greer's translation of Lysistrata, bearing a price sticker from a used bookstore near campus. Brian lifts the cover and is startled to see "S. Osterhaus" on the flyleaf. What's a Tea Party darling doing reading a controversial feminist adaptation of an ancient Greek comedy?

He hands the script to a page with instructions to return it to Representative Osterhaus. He'll pass Osterhaus' seat on his way back to his own, but he's not eager for another run-in. Plus, this late at night, it's best to keep the pages occupied. Idle, coffee-soaked high-schoolers are the devil's tools. He remembers himself and John at that age well enough to know the absolute truth of that.

*

He forgets it until Friday afternoon. His business wrapped up for the week, he's in the Capitol cafeteria trying to ignore the smell of onion rings while he buys last-minute snacks for the long drive back to Evanston. (I'll be home ~10, he texts John. John's reply, I'll be naked, is a powerful incentive to get away from distractions and onto the road.) When he backs up to close the drink cooler, he smacks into someone and turns to apologize.

He flounders when he sees that it's Morris McLeod and that they collided because McLeod is distracted by whatever he's listening to on his iPhone. McLeod's voting record portrays a proudly anti-technology dinosaur; Brian's shocked he knows what a smartphone is.

"Sorry, Morris," Brian says automatically.

"Johnson," McLeod says, looking like he'd rather be eaten by rabid weasels than spend a single second interacting with Brian.

As he fumbles his Coke and burrito and slice of pie, McLeod bumps his phone screen, which illuminates long enough for Brian to see he's listening to an audiobook of Lysistrata, read by the Classics Drama Company at DePaul. It's incongruous enough that Brian opens his mouth to ask about it, but McLeod tosses him a haughty "don't speak to me, barbarian" look and sweeps away.

Brian pays for his apple juice and trail mix and thinks about Lysistrata. If it's a coincidence that Osterhaus and McLeod are reading it at the same time, it's a weird one. If it's deliberate--well, that's weirder.

* * *

May--July 1989

The car wasn't worth the effort. This was the third time it'd been in since John started here ten months ago. For a couple hundred bucks more than the repairs would cost, Jumaine could buy a much more reliable used car. But in this neighborhood, a couple hundred could be as hard to come by as a couple million. "Come on," John sighed as he slammed the hood and gestured toward the front of the shop. "Let's talk about what you can get away with skipping this time."

As they came out of the garage, John saw a kid--Jumaine's kid, he was pretty sure--darting in and out of the parts aisles. John excused himself and came around an end-cap in time to see the kid stuff a package of spark plugs into the kangaroo pocket of his gray hoodie. John leaned on the rack and waited, but the kid had his head down and his hood up and didn't see him. "Hi," he said, enjoying watching the kid jump. "Empty your pockets, please."

The kid's gaze darted around frantically. "W-what?"

"Your pockets. Empty 'em."

His response was a defiant chin-jut. "I ain't gotta do shit for you, man. I got rights under the Constitution."

John grinned, thrilled with the kid's moxie. Before he could challenge the kid to a civics debate (shit, living with Brian had turned him into such a nerd), he heard Jumaine's sharp, "Anton! Empty your pockets this second!"

With a scowl at his father's betrayal, Anton turned out the pockets, sending the spark plugs and two other packages clattering to the floor.

"Anton, why?" Jumaine groaned in despair.

As Anton angrily looked everywhere but at the adults (fuck. John was 22. He was one of the adults now, a member of the suspect class. When the hell had that happened?), John considered the parts on the floor. "What're you building?" he asked. Father and son both stared at him. He pointed. "Those aren't random grabs. Man steals something like that, he's restoring something."

Eyes wide, hands gesturing wildly, Anton launched into a story about how he and his friend Nikki were rebuilding the engine on a motorcycle Nikki's brother won in a poker game and abandoned when he realized it didn't run--but it totally could, given the right parts. Jumaine stared in stunned horror, clearly hearing it for the first time.

John considered his options. He'd be within his rights to call the cops. But he knew what it did to a kid Anton's age, going into the system. He glanced toward the back lot. "You seen the clunkers back behind this place?" Anton nodded. "Old man Crockett, who owns the place, swears he's gonna fix 'em up and sell 'em. But I've been here ten months, and he hasn't kicked a single tire." He nodded toward the parts. "You want those, you come back and work 'em off. See what you can do with those heaps."

Anton stared at John, then at his father, who shrugged, looking equally shocked. It made John want to hit something, the thought that someone being generous to them, being nice, was so surprising. He'd been that way himself, once, and that made it hurt worse.

Then Anton beamed at him. "Can I start tomorrow?"

*

Over the next few months, John saw more of Anton than any other human being besides Brian. At first he came once a week, but soon he was there every other day.

He talked. Endlessly. He was 14, hated his English class but loved science and comic books. His understanding of cars was intuitive; he always knew what went where and what needed fixing, even when he didn't know the names of the parts he was messing with.

His friend Nikki started showing up, too, a firecracker who knew even more about cars than Anton did. Then came Nikki's brother, a sullen 16-year-old who went by Rog and reminded John so much of himself at that age he wanted to shake the guy to knock some sense into him. Other kids dropped in and out, working with varying degrees of skill and persistence on the wrecks in the back lot.

"Bender," Hal barked one Saturday morning while four hellions chased each other around the lot, "am I running a group home for troubled youth?"

John looked at the ceiling and took a bullshit minute to redo his ponytail, which had had the morning to fall apart. "Kinda?"

Hal stared at him, then at the kids--and the cars, which were looking a hell of a lot better. "Huh," he said and clomped away.

John wasn't sure if it was coincidence that two days after that conversation (Hal spoke twice. It counted), a tall, lithe woman with long braids and an impeccable navy pant suit walked into the garage and said, "John Bender?"

He looked her over. Beautiful dark skin, sharp gaze, Obsession perfume, just enough older to seem dangerous--he should be cranking up the charm. Instead he noted that she looked a little taller than Brian and said, "Who's asking?"

She held out a long-fingered, flawlessly manicured hand. "Essie Friedman. I'm a social worker in the Cook County Juvenile Justice Division."

John snorted and pulled a cleanish rag from his coveralls, wiping his grease-covered hands before he shook. "How's the old JJD gang? Dr. Flagg? Judge Quinn? Still serving the same watered-down punch at the Temp?"

With a small smile, she said, "Ah. I see you've enjoyed our hospitality before."

"No, ma'am," he deadpanned, "I wouldn't say I enjoyed it at all."

She chuckled ruefully. The social workers at JJD didn't universally suck; they were mostly overworked and overstressed and ill-equipped to deal with rambunctious teenagers determined to buck against any limitation put on them. Most understood that the juvenile justice system was woefully short on actual justice, and they didn't pretend to offer anything beyond stopgap compassion until the disciplinarians descended. "Well," Essie said, "I had to meet you before your reputation gets too legendary and people start attributing miracles to you."

"My reputation?" John repeated blankly.

"You're playing host to several of our regulars," she said. When he kept staring, she added, "Anton Harding? Rog Kingston?"

"Yeah, I know them," John said. "I hadn't realized..."

"They haven't gotten in trouble in several months, which is unusual for both of them. We asked around, and everyone says they're too busy fixing cars with you to get up to their usual tricks." Essie was giving John a look he didn't like, one that said she was about to ask him for something. John didn't like people asking him for things. Didn't like other people's expectations clinging to him like flop sweat. "You know," she said, "there are grants. If you want to turn this into a real diversion program. We have people who can help you organize. Write grant proposals. Have the county reimburse Mr. Crockett for the parts, instead of paying for them out of your own pocket."

John knew a lot of words. Knew how to string them together in ways that cut and stung, that would shove this nosy do-gooder back to the system to ruin someone else's life. He was John Bender. If you held out your hand to him, he would bite it.

Only...he thought of Brian. Who yesterday, when John described Nikki and Rog stripping and rebuilding a transmission in under two hours, smiled and said, "You're good for those kids, you know that?"

John put away his biting words and said, "You got a card?"

The instant Essie left, John rushed to the shop phone and called home. The machine picked up, but Brian would be there in twenty minutes. "Gray Duck tonight," he gasped at the machine. "I'm gonna need a lot of beer."

Over a lot of beer at Gray Duck, John told Brian about Essie Friedman. Then he poured out, so fast and low he wasn't sure how much Brian heard, the things he'd thought of doing for the kids if he had the money.

When he could bring himself to look up, Brian was rubbing his hand over his mouth and smiling softly. "It sounds great, John," he said. "It sounds...really great."

Even as often as John and Brian had sex, full penetration wasn't in the cards that often. But John needed it tonight, needed to convince himself that one area of his life was still under his control. Instead, shuddering apart inside Brian, breathing Brian's name like a curse, or a prayer, John felt his last shards of control dissolve. He had the distinct sense, in a there-and-gone flash as Brian's hand stroked shakily down his spine, that he had become someone new, that the John Bender who'd existed in Shermer had fallen away completely, leaving an empty nothingness in its place. Who was he now? What would the world demand of this new John Bender? What could it steal from him?

He staggered from his room to the bathroom and threw up, then spent the night tossing and turning on the living room couch.

They'd never been exclusive--because they still weren't dating. After that day Brian ambushed him behind the trailers, they hadn't raised the issue of "boyfriends" again. John knew Brian had seen other guys since he started college. But he also knew Brian had only slept with one of them, an absolute fuck of a human being named Erik, who'd lasted three dates, after the last of which Brian had crawled into John's bed at two in the morning and said, "I know you have that...that thing where I'm not supposed to sleep here, but tonight was not...and Erik turns out to be...I need to sleep here, is what I'm saying." Then he'd started crying, and John let him stay, because he might not have been great at the whole "being a best friend" thing (he'd never had one before Brian), but he knew you didn't turn your best friend away after his date turned out to be a dick. No matter your own conflicted feelings about him sleeping in your bed.

And make no mistake: they were conflicted. Because what Brian didn't, and hopefully never would, know was that John hadn't had sex with anyone else since they moved to Evanston. Not for lack of offers; if anything, interest in a rough-looking piece of ass like himself was stronger here than in Shermer. But no matter how many times he tried to lose himself in whoever and whatever was on offer, he couldn't shake thoughts of canny blue eyes, long, clever fingers, and a nerdy, overloud laugh. Couldn't free himself enough to close the transaction. Lately, he didn't bother returning the glances.

It figured. He'd finally accepted what he wanted from Brian, to the point where he didn't want it from anyone else, and he had no idea how to ask for it.

* * *

April 2015

"Are you enjoying the gossip?"

John tsks. "I don't listen to gossip, Mrs. Ebbets, and neither should you."

"Oh, I don't," Minnie assures him. "Why bother when I start so much of it?"

John's heard a tidbit or two. It's hard; he's been in Evanston all week, so he's less connected to the congressional rumor mill than when he's skulking around Springfield. But things are filtering through.

A former student of Brian's, now a legislative aide, complaining about Rowan Walker's increasingly foul temper. Two staffers from House Research speculating on the cessation of nasty amendments to Representative Johnson's bills. The suggestion, confused though it is, that it has something to do with sex.

Minnie's the best at what she does. And what she does is direct and redirect--and misdirect, when need be. When Minnie puts her mind to it, people look where she tells them to look and ignore the rest.

It's the best outcome John can hope for. It's not like she was going to call a press conference and announce that she and four fellow congressional wives are withholding sex until their husbands stop being jackasses about Representative Johnson's dudeward inclination. She's done what she can, and it's bearing fruit. Soon the reps will either have to start acting like men being blue-balled and accede to their wives' demands or admit to the call girls and mistresses on speed dial who keep them from acting like men being blue-balled and be exposed as the hypocrites they are.

Either way, it'll be a good outcome for Brian. John still wishes it could have gone down any other way.

* * *

June 1990

"Alli, Alli, I am so wasted," Brian announced.

"I know!" Allison collapsed onto the couch between Brian and Andrew, giggling. "You're still a lightweight."

"I am wasted on a couch in a women's bathroom, Alli." He looked around, lips pursed. "Why does this bathroom have a couch? The men's room doesn't have a couch."

"It's a fainting couch," Allison said.

Andrew looked around with wide eyes. "Women faint in bathrooms?"

Allison nodded. "All the time. A secret epidemic of fainting women." She swooned demonstratively into Brian, her body soft and warm against his arm. He wished, for the first time in years, that he weren't quite so gay, because women were awesome.

"So why, like...why is there weed at your wedding rehearsal dinner?" he asked, twining one hand through Allison's hair.

Andrew raised a finger. "Better question: why are we at your rehearsal dinner? We're not in the wedding."

"Because Greg's mother--" Allison pronounced the words with the painfully deliberate politesse she'd used all evening when referring to her mother-in-law-to-be. "--says it's a nice thing to do for the out-of-town guests."

"Getting stoned in the bathroom?" Brian asked. "Yes, that's nice of you."

"I think she means the dinner," Andrew whispered loudly.

Brian squinted at him. "What about the dinner?"

"Lightweight!" Allison cackled.

"Also," Brian felt compelled to remind her, "I live in Evanston. I'm not sure I count as out-of-town."

"My wedding, my definition." She grinned. "Where's Bender?"

Brian looked around. "He's...he went..." Shit. He knew this one.

"Hey, guys," Andrew said with a wide smile. They cocked their heads. "We got the band back together."

They beamed at each other for a second. "Too bad Claire couldn't make it," Brian said.

"She wanted to." Allison shrugged. "It's too far to come from Tangiers. She sent us nice sheets, though."

"You opened a wedding present before the wedding?" Andrew sounded scandalized.

"Tons."

"What's your best gift so far?" Brian asked.

"You guys," she said immediately.

Brian jostled her. "Come on."

"I mean it. We were soldiers who survived a terrible battle together. Having you here reminds me what I've already been through. If I can survive Dick Vernon, I can survive Greg's mother."

"Yeah, but you're, like...you know what you're doing with your life. You're in culinary school, man. You're getting married." Brian shook his head. "Shit. You're getting married. And, and Andrew, you're coaching, you know, Olympic wrestlers!"

"High school junior varsity, idiot," Andrew said, laughing. "What about you? They don't let fuck-ups into Northwestern."

Brian shrugged. "I mean...maybe? It's like...it's college, you know. Like, I'm supposed to graduate this year, but then I got interested in--there's crimes, right? People are using computers to commit crimes, and the cops don't know what to do. I mean, what's a cop in Shermer know about computers? So I added...like, I added a legal studies major on top of computer engineering, and now I don't know if I'll ever finish.

"And John, right? John's got his life so together, you know; he's getting, like...grants for this thing he does at work, and this hot social worker wants in his pants, and I'm just...this guy who can't finish a bachelor's."

"Shit," Andrew said, though whether he was reacting to the spew of words or to the idea that John's life was more together than Brian's was hard to say.

Allison twisted her head to smile at Brian. "How did you find Bender? I had a hard enough time finding you!"

Brian squinted. "How'd I who-what, now?"

"Yeah, man," Andrew said. "I looked for Bender for like a year after we graduated. Nobody knew where he was."

"Are..." He stared. "Are you serious?" They stared back.

Brian tried to think logically. He tried to think at all. The Breakfast Club fared okay for almost a year, friendly, if not truly friends, until Andrew and Allison broke up in January of '85. Then, like divorcing parents splitting the kids, Andrew went back to hanging out exclusively with Claire, while Allison kept spending time with Brian and John. Everyone still nodded in the halls and said hi in the cafeteria line, but the days of the five of them against the world had ended. After the breakup, Allison started getting her academic life in order. She dove into her studies; joined the debate club, of all things; and started taking SAT prep classes like they were candy. Given that, Brian supposed it wasn't surprising none of them knew how close he and John had gotten--and stayed.

"You guys, he was on my basement couch after graduation. And then he...for the past four years he's been in Evanston in the room down the hall from mine."

Andrew almost fell off the couch. "Are you shitting me?"

"He's my best friend! How--how did you not know this?" Suddenly he felt too sober for this conversation. He snatched the roach from the ashtray on the low table in front of the couch and lit it with an angry flick of the lighter.

"And he's okay with..." Allison trailed off and glanced nervously at the other end of the couch, like maybe Andrew was the one person from Shermer who hadn't known Brian was gay.

Andrew snorted. "You don't remember the time Bender beat up Matt Hadley for being a homophobic shithead?"

Well, that was an...interesting recollection of how that'd gone down, but Brian was too stoned to argue, and at least Andrew seemed to be on his side in the scenario, rather than Matt's. Somewhere behind him was a whooshing sound he thought he should recognize, but he was too stoned to care about that, either. "It's never been a problem." Not technically a lie. In all the fights they'd had--and some had been epic: thrown plates and hollow threats and cops at the door, once--Brian's sexuality had never been an issue. Sexuality in general--Brian's, and John's, and the sweat-slicked, fevered moments where they intersected--was the one thing they never fought about, because they never talked about it.

"So what's it like?" Allison asked. "Living with Bender."

"Torture," he said instantly.

"Really."

Brian turned his head toward the bathroom-y part of the bathroom and smiled at John, who stood in the archway. "Where've you been?"

"Taking a piss, numbnuts."

Brian leaned forward. "I don't know if you know this," he whispered, "but this is a women's bathroom."

John snorted, but it sounded...hollow. "Yeah, Einstein, I know. It's also the basement of a building that nobody's in but Alli's friends. No one's coming down here. Now, you were telling these nice people how living with me is torture."

Brian took a longer look at John. His arms were crossed, his jaw was clenched, and he looked hurt in a way Brian hadn't seen in years.

No. No, John didn't get to be the wounded party here, after he'd been casually destroying Brian's life for the past four years. Some hazed recess of Brian's mind reminded him that he was stoned and without filters, and that maybe this conversation should wait until they sobered up, but with Andrew and Allison behind him looking pitying and John in front of him looking like Brian'd run over an entire boatful of puppies, he couldn't stand another second. He shoved Allison away and jumped to his feet, coming to stand toe-to-toe with John.

"Yes, torture!" he shouted, and John flinched. The thrill of being taller than John had never gone away, but he'd never used it like this, like an advantage, like a weapon. "Being in that space with you every day, watching you become this amazing person, and...and crawling out of your bed in the middle of the night like I'm something to be ashamed of, and--and I know you don't want us, okay? I know I'm just a convenient surface to rest your dick on, but I've been in love with you for the last year, and I can't do it anymore, John. I just...I can't."

In the shockingly absolute silence that followed, Brian suddenly remembered that he'd said that in front of people, that he'd outed John, outed them without consent. If he had any consolation, it was that he'd made it clear that John was using him for sex; John didn't need to worry that his feelings had come across as gay, which had always been his main concern. Brian hunched his shoulders and stared at the floor. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "John, I'm so, so sorry I--"

"Shut up."

"I'll start looking for a new place as soon as we're back in Evanston, and I don't want you to think that--"

"I said shut. up."

Brian stopped, then, and stepped back, daring to look at John. John looked...well, more importantly, he didn't look angry or embarrassed. He looked.. broken. Like Brian's words hurt him. More disturbing than that was the fact that Brian could see that at all, that the masks that usually shielded John's emotions from the outside world were nowhere in sight. "John?"

Then John snorted and crossed his arms. "You're in love with me." It came out like an accusation.

Insides snarling again, Brian stepped forward. "You know that, John. You don't get to pretend you don't."

"Well, too bad, because I don't. When the hell have you ever said it?"

"Of course I don't say it, Jesus. How many times have I heard it from you? 'I'm not gay. We're not dating. I'm not your boyfriend.' Message received, okay? But the way I feel about you, it doesn't shut off. God knows I've tried. So, no, I don't say it. But you look back--I dare you to find a single day I didn't make it so clear to you."

They stared at each other. Brian's pulse thundered in his ears; John's breath was coming in ragged bursts. Everything balanced on a knife-tip.

"Brian."

Just that.

Then they were falling into each other, John's hands cradling Brian's jaw, Brian's fingers buried in John's hair. They'd been fucking for six years, but they'd never kissed like this. Frenzied, yes, but with pent-up affection, rather than lust, full of longing and desperation and apology and...and love. The things Brian had never felt he could say to John, he poured into that kiss. The things he'd never imagined John would say in return came pouring back.

When it ended, they didn't go far. John wrapped his arms around Brian's back, hands twisting tightly into his shirt. Brian's arms curled up, his hands cupping the back of John's head where it rested on Brian's shoulder. Brian wanted to stand here forever. "I love you, okay?" he whispered into John's hair. "I don't know what--what happens now, but I love you, and you should know it." He knew it was something John didn't hear a lot.

"I--" John coughed. "I love you, too. Enjoy that. I'm not gonna say it much."

And that. That 'gonna.' That was the future-tense verb that changed Brian's life.

Behind him, Brian heard a strangled gasp, followed by Andrew's quiet, "What the hell?"

"Shush," Allison hissed, "Brian and Bender are having a moment."

Aaaand there was the ground, rushing back up to meet Brian. He'd forgotten they weren't alone. Forgotten that his romance-film climactic moment was happening in a women's restroom while two stoned sometimes-friends from high school looked on.

"Bender's gay?" Andrew asked.

Brian braced for it: the vehement denial, the cold loss of John's arms. But when Allison whispered loudly, "I think he's bi," John tightened his hold and said, "I think it's none of your business," voice muffled against Brian's shoulder.

Brian gave a wobbly chuckle. "Think we made it their business."

John lifted his head to glare over Brian's shoulder at Allison and Andrew. "Yeah? I'm unmaking it." He looked at Brian. "Can we go home now?" There was a plaintive note in his voice, unlike anything he'd imagined John capable of, that damn near undid Brian on the spot.

"Yeah," he said. "Yes, come on, let's do that." He stepped back, out of John's arms, and John immediately reached out and grabbed Brian's hand in his. Brian stared at their joined hands. He hadn't--no one had ever--he closed his eyes until the dizzying sense of having fallen into someone else's life passed. Then he turned to Allison and Andrew, beyond caring how idiotic his smile probably looked. "We're gonna go now."

Allison jumped off the couch, giggling. "You better," she agreed. She pulled Brian into a hug so fierce it pushed the air from his lungs and whispered, "You jerk! You never said!"

He rested his temple against hers. "Wasn't mine to tell."

She made a grumpy sound and let go, forcing his hand out of John's as she transferred the hug to him. Brian looked at Andrew, who wouldn't meet his eyes. Brian swallowed. This wouldn't be the first time he'd lost a friend because he was gay--closer friends than Andrew--but somehow the thought of it hurt more. "So, this thing with John, I'm sorry if it upsets you, but it's like...it's what it is, you know?"

Andrew scoffed and bumped his toe against the low table in front of the couch. "It's not the gay thing. It's the feelings thing." He sighed. "Look, we saw through Bender's BS a long time ago, right? So don't let him use that crap to push you away when he freaks out."

Brian's mouth dropped open. "When did you get so smart?"

Andrew laughed loudly. "These kids. The high schoolers I coach? They're us." He shook his head in something like awe. "I thought I'd recognize myself in them, right, because wrestling was my sport. And I do. But, Brian, man, I'm telling you: we're all there. Even the girls. I watch how hard they work to keep anyone from knowing how lost and hurt and scared they are. And I keep thinking how much better high school would've been if we'd seen it back then."

"I don't think it would've been high school if it hadn't sucked."

Andrew laughed. "That explains Vernon, I guess."

Brian clapped Andrew's shoulder. "Dude, nothing explains that guy."

"Yeah." Andrew glanced over where Allison was still whispering to John, something that made him blush beet red and look quickly at Brian and then away. "Bender needs someone like you in his life. So don't fuck it up, okay? And don't let him fuck it up, either."

John looked over again, and this time Brian held his gaze, filling with a sense of rightness. "I don't plan to."

The 45-minute drive back to Evanston was mostly silent. Every few minutes, Brian felt John's eyes on him, but he was looking elsewhere whenever Brian looked back. Only when John started shoving his hand repeatedly through his hair, about five miles from home, could Brian name the tension in the atmosphere. Nerves. For the first time ever, Brian was the one making John nervous. Not worried, though. It felt...anticipatory. Brian would be lying if he said the realization didn't go to his head.

Still. They'd turned John's world on its head tonight. For all the people he'd had sex with over the years, Brian knew John had never been in love. Whereas Brian had long years of practice at love and was only unfamiliar with what to do when that love was requited.

So when Brian maneuvered John against the apartment door before it fully closed, their kiss was more fragile and tentative than any they'd shared before.

John stroked his hands down Brian's upper arms. "Can we--" He cleared his throat. "Shit, this is dumb."

"Hey, no," Brian said, fingers squeezing John's shoulders. "Anything you want, John. Everything...I think everything's on the table now, don't you?"

John leaned against the door and blew his hair out of his eyes. "But tell me to fuck off if it's a lame idea."

"John," Brian laughed, "when have I ever said no to you?"

John cocked his head to study Brian; then, with a flash of the insight that had been devastating Brian since the day they met, he said, "Only because I don't think you knew you could." Brian had to look away. John sort of coughed. "Can we...Christ. Can we not have sex tonight?"

Brian never knew what was going on John's brain, but he could guess it wasn't a quiet place right now, so he nodded and started to back away. But maybe he'd guessed wrong, because John made a frustrated sound in the back of his throat and grabbed Brian's wrist, holding him in place. "I need--fuck, I feel like such a chick--I want to sleep. In the bed. With you."

Blessed are the cracked, for they shall let in the light.

That was a silly old Groucho Marx quote, but it was how Brian felt--cracked open and filled with light. "Yes," he said, "let's do that."

And Brian had--look, he had always hoped that he'd get over John and get a real boyfriend. And John evidently thought he'd keep having one-night-stands ad infinitum, fucking people and kicking them out. So John still had the rusty single bed he'd charmed off the guy moving out of their apartment for ten bucks and a half-pack of smokes, and Brian had the queen with the ridiculous brass headboard he'd fallen in love with at the used furniture store. But he was the only person who'd slept in it, because John treated him like a frequent one-night stand who happened to live down the hall, and after sex in John's bed, Brian snuck back to his own room like a guilty secret.

So it seemed fitting that they spend their first whole, sex-free night together in Brian's bed.

Brian slept terribly. He woke every hour, convinced John was about to wake up, freak out, and disappear forever. John--of course--slept like a damned log. He started the night pressed cautiously, almost chastely, along Brian's back, one hand resting lightly on his hip, the other tucked under his own head. But by the four-a.m. panic, John had turned into an octopus, one arm snaked under Brian's neck, the other around his chest, and one of his legs pinning one of Brian's to the mattress. When Brian tried to ease himself out, John tightened his hold and honest-to-god snuffled into the nape of his neck. Brian finally allowed himself to sleep.

Then John, the asshole, years of opening shifts at the garage having molded him into a morning person, popped upright at eight-o-fucking-clock, eyes bright and smile sardonic. When Brian swore at him, John pressed a smacking kiss to his lips and jumped out of bed. Brian dredged up the energy to admire John's ass as he shimmied into his jeans. Then John was sauntering out of the bedroom in all his shirtless glory, saying, "I hope you're well-rested, Briii-an, 'cause after I make breakfast, you're gonna fuck me into the mattress, and then we're gonna go to Allison's wedding so I can show off my hot new boyfriend."

If Brian hadn't been sitting, he would've swooned. They'd made it through the night, and John was having the exact opposite of regrets, whatever that was. He managed a weak, "You cook?" as he got out of bed, found cleanish boxers and yesterday's undershirt, and staggered into the kitchen.

He found John sitting on the counter, cigarette in one hand, orange juice carton in the other, a bowl of cereal and the jug of milk beside him. "And, when I say 'make you breakfast,' I mean pour that stupid twig cereal you like." He gave a sharp grin and swigged the juice. "Eat up, dweeb-o."

He was too ridiculous and perfect not to step into the space between his knees and kiss him until they were breathless. If there were any deeper for Brian to fall, that was the moment he did it.

* * *

April 2015

"Representative Ebbets is here to see you." Justine does not panic. This is one of the things Brian likes best about her. She handles everything her reps throw at her with cheerful aplomb and never loses her head in a crisis. Of course, once the crisis is over, she'll pour coffee on your favorite tie and fill her Instagram account with embarrassing pictures of you asleep on your office couch, but Brian appreciates her steadiness under fire. So the fact that she's currently leaning against the closed office door, looking like she's been chased here by a pack of wild dogs, gives him significant pause.

Not that he blames her. If Dirk Ebbets were here to see him--oh, wait.

He sets aside the book he was about to put in his briefcase, waving good-bye to his dream of leaving on time. "What does he want?"

Justine shakes her head. "Not a clue. But his face looks pinched."

Brian gives an unconvincing laugh. "That's just his face." He makes sure nothing confidential is out where Dirk could see it and takes a deep breath. "Okay. Send him in."

Justine ducks out of the office and five seconds later Dirk Ebbets ducks in. He's physically imposing, aging well but markedly. Unlike Minnie, who fights the years with everything she's got, Dirk is letting himself go with an almost fervent dedication, like every white hair and sagging jowl is an act of patriotism.

Brian studies his face and decides that "pinched" is a more than usually accurate descriptor. He realizes Dirk's never been in his office before and may have anticipated everything being covered with rainbow flags and pictures of naked dudes. For a brief second, he regrets that it's not. "Representative Ebbets," he says as respectfully as he can.

"Johnson," Ebbets says tersely as he drops into one of Brian's visitor chairs and stares at a point that looks like Brian's eyes but is really the wall behind his head.

"What can I help you with?" Brian asks.

Ebbets startles and answers, possibly more honestly than he'd intended, "Make him stop."

Brian blinks. "I'm sorry, I don't--"

"Your...your friend." Brian's never heard that word sound like a slur before.

A finger of old rage unfurls in Brian, and he runs a years-old breathing exercise to control it. Not everyone familiar with John's spectacular explosions of anger knows that they're mostly for show, that Brian is the one whose temper cuts. "I have a lot of friends," he says as evenly as he can. "Can you be more specific?" When Ebbets intensifies his glare, Brian puts on what his sister calls his "naïf face," surprisingly still effective even now, and says pleasantly, "Or do you mean my husband?"

Ebbets makes a growling sound low in his throat, as though Brian's words physically pain him. "He's done...something, and you need to make him stop."

Brian has no idea what the man's talking about, but he's betting it's a collaborative effort between John and Minnie. "Again, I'm not sure what you mean, but John is his own man, you know? I don't know how your marriage works, but I can't make him do anything."

"Fine." If Ebbets grits his teeth any tighter, they're going to grind away to nothing. "But you can encourage him."

"Maybe." Brian nods. "What, exactly, am I encouraging him to do--or not do, I guess?"

Ebbets snorts. Then he leans closer and studies Brian. "You don't know, do you? He hasn't told you." He shakes his head. "Although how you can be with him and not follow the gossip around here--"

"I got my fill of gossip about John in high school," he says tartly. Ebbets glares at him. Yeah, he thinks, I compared you to a high schooler, and I'm not sorry.

Ebbets says, "Someone suggested a...strike of sorts to my wife and the wives of certain of my colleagues."

"Our colleagues," Brian corrects with a small smile. "What kind of strike are we talking about?" Instead of answering, Ebbets turns the color of old bricks and looks away. Brian sits up, pieces falling into place before his eyes. "Lysistrata," he says. Ebbets scowls murderously. So that's why they're reading it. John, you beautiful asshole. "What's the condition?"

Ebbets sighs and rubs his forehead. "We're supposed to stop voting against your bills."

Brian bites the inside of his cheek. "I'd like that, of course," he says carefully, "but you have to vote your conscience. It'd be sad, though, if you were voting against my bills solely because I happen to be gay, don't you think? I mean, they're good bills. You know, if you're into data privacy and juvenile justice and people not freezing to death."

Ebbets puffs up and then deflates. Like most bullies, he relies on his torments going unchallenged. With his bluff called, the fight goes out of him. "I'll talk to them," he agrees grudgingly.

"Thank you." Brian inclines his head graciously. "I'll talk to my husband." Usually he'd say "John," but he can't resist rubbing salt in Ebbets' wounds.

"Thank you," Ebbets says stiffly, rising. He considers Brian for a minute, and Brian knows this is where he'd usually shake hands at the end of a successful negotiation. Instead, mindful of Brian's gay cooties, he nods and heads for the door.

And, yeah, Brian should be the bigger man here. But, shit, you don't spend 30 years living in John Bender's pocket without picking up a taste for the low road. "For the record," he says casually, not looking up from his desk until Ebbets turns to fully face him, "John and I are still having a lot of sex. And it's fantastic. In case you wondered."

"I didn't," Ebbets snarls as he yanks the door open and storms out of the office.

Justine gives Brian a huge grin and a double thumbs-up. Brian smiles and goes back to packing up his briefcase. He'll take the long route to the apartment tonight. That way, he'll probably have decided by the time he gets there whether John's stunt deserves a scolding or a medal. Possibly both.

*

"So, Dirk Ebbets came to see me today." It's late, and sleep beckons, but they need to have this conversation now, before Brian has time to convince himself it's easier not to bother. John had been, once again, naked when Brian got home, and he continues to be so, and this is the first chance they've had to say much to each other beyond "Harder," and "Do that again," and "Jesus, my leg doesn't bend that way anymore."

"Yeah?" John glances up at him, his fingertip tracing swirling patterns on Brian's thigh. "How's ol' Dirk?"

"Apparently, his balls are bluer than the Danube."

John gives a surprised cough of a laugh, fingers twitching against Brian's skin. "Ooh, that sounds rough. He should talk to his doctor; there's pills for that now."

Brian snorts. "Lysistrata, John? Really?"

There's not an ounce of remorse in John's voice as he says, "I saw a solution to a problem. I took it."

"I don't need you fighting these battles for me."

John rolls onto his side. He leans up on his elbow, propping his chin in his hand and staring at Brian. "Brian, for real? After 25 years, do you still not get that this is what I'm here for? I mean, it's been a long time since I punched anybody, or pulled a knife on a homophobic nut sac, but I'm still your protector. Still the guy who can get his hands a little bit dirtier than you can."

Brian knows this. Knows there might've been times during the campaign that John resorted to less than pristine methods to fend off Brian's opponent's more vicious attacks. John has never volunteered information about it, and Brian figures it's best if he doesn't ask, but Springfield's not too big for rumors to get around. Brian's skin prickles. "You're not my guard dog, John."

"No," John agrees easily. "I'm your husband."

"Funny." Brian's heating up, knows he'll be flushed with anger in seconds, a betrayal his body's never outgrown. "Our wedding was less than a year ago, and I don't remember you vowing to crush my adversaries."

"Oh, sure," John says easily, deflecting Brian's anger like he's always done, "it was right before your mom started crying."

Brian's laughter slips out despite his best intentions. "Just promise me you'll behave."

John rolls his eyes. "Look me in the eye and tell me you weren't impressed."

Brian can't do that, and John knows it. His smile smolders like a poorly banked coal, and he leans in for a kiss that rips the breath from Brian's lungs.

"Oh, you are such a fucker," Brian gasps when he has the air to. He rolls them, moving onto his back and pulling John with him. He reaches up, threading his hands into John's hair. He searches John's face and still sees, in a sly curl of the lips and a mischievous flash of the eyes, the reckless kid who drew him in all those years ago and has never stopped drawing him in.

John gives him that charming asshole grin that Brian's spent three decades failing to build up a resistance to. "At this point," John says, "it's pretty much the only thing I've been doing longer than I've been loving you."

Brian kisses him again, hard, because it turns out there’s nothing Brian’s been doing longer.

* * *

December 1991

Brian eyed the bedroom door with despair. He'd lost five rounds of rock-paper-scissors; it was time to concede defeat and go to the damned kitchen.

It was just so cold. The giant blue rag rug John'd sweet-talked off the girls who'd moved out of the apartment next door would protect his feet until he hit the hallway, but the air temperature in the apartment couldn't be above 40. Illinois had a winter heating rule, but their asshole landlord exploited the fact that December 13 wasn't technically winter to ignore their entreaties for heat. They'd huddled in bed all day, too cold to do anything but burrow into each other and shiver.

"We're moving out of here in May, do you hear me, John? Your job pays enough, and when I start my internship, we'll be able to afford a place that doesn't suck."

"That's what you keep saying." John shrugged, but Brian noticed his fingers shake around the cigarette he was trying to light.

"Hey." Brian laid freezing fingers on John's thigh, ignoring his startled hiss. "You know I want to keep living with you after graduation, right?" John wouldn't look at him. "Seriously, John, I want to...to live with you basically forever."

John scoffed, but the smile breaking across his face was too brilliant to hide. "Go get the damned soup, would you?"

Brian leapt out of the bed, throwing on clothes as quickly as his cold-numbed limbs could move. "We'll move out, and we'll sue his negligent butt, and we'll make sure he never takes advantage of anyone this way again."

"Yeah," John said in that tone of mock earnestness that still made Brian grit his teeth, despite knowing now how to listen for the affection underneath. "There oughta be a law."

"Someday," Brian promised, "there will be."