FIC: All of The Secrets (QAF, B/J) Brian POV

[freakykat]

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Title: All of The Secrets (It's Only Time series)
Author: freakykat
Time Frame: Gapfiller - 513 last scene
Summary: Brian grieves for what he has lost. Second short in a series titled It's Only Time. The series should lead up to a work in progress that is underway.
Rating: R
Warnings: Angsty, angsty and more angsty.
Notes: Thanks to wouldbedorothy for beta-reading especially since she wasn't feeling 100 percent. Props once again, to the song The Darkest Night of All by Lisa Germano which inspired this little drabble of sorts. Feedback much appreciated. I'm a relative newbie to writing for this fandom and slash so constructive criticism especially loved. Thank you to everyone who gave feedback. Much appreciated!
Disclaimer: I own none of this - they belong to Showtime, Cowlip and others. I only play with them a little. Once I'm done, I'll dust them off and give them back.


Note: This is actually the second part in the series. The order is slightly messed up. Please go back to memories and click on "Minutes to Go" which is the first past. Follow the links from there!


All of The Secrets

You knew it would hurt. That when this moment arrived, you would feel everything you’d always avoided. Your fears and excuses for never letting another heart touch yours would have been validated. What were those fucking clichés everyone always used? Heart ripped out? Soul torn apart? Organs ground to dust?

Didn’t even begin to fucking cover it.

You refuse to move from where you’ve been laying for hours. The stiffness in your arms and legs keeps you alert enough, away from the soft seduction of sleep. You bury your face deeper into the sheets, his smell caressing your senses. The pain was preferable to leaving the only piece you had left of him.

You will, eventually, knowing you can’t stay here forever. It wasn’t in your nature to wallow…for too long. But you figure what the fuck. Losing half of yourself deserved as much.

Jesus. You’d turned into a goddamn lesbian.

You could care less at the moment. Later, there would be time to berate and ridicule your actions. Not now. Now you would get to…

Your hands grab at the sheets, fingers tightening around them, and you fight the grief bubbling inside. You feel your stomach and chest shake against the force and you let something akin to a moan escape. One tear manages to come loose before you push down, plugging it away inside.

It was a leak you couldn’t afford. One that you knew would cripple, and that wasn’t going to happen.

You thank whatever force had given you the strength to keep from showing any of this to Justin.

It had taken every bit of willpower to let him go. Not to reach out and grab his arm when he’d pulled out from under you. Not to have turned to look at him when he’d laid his head on you. Just like when you’d first been together and he’d thought you’d been asleep. He’d slide closer, his head on your shoulder or back, and just listen to your breathing.

It was almost your undoing, the kisses he’d placed on your skin, and you were relieved when he simply walked away, the imprint of his lips on your neck and his words in your head.

“I won’t look.”

And you knew he wouldn’t. You’d wanted to open your eyes, to watch him walk out that door.

You couldn’t.

But you knew the moment he did. Felt the moment the sun went out and darkness descended. It even felt colder, staler…color turned to sepia.

Shit.

You had expected the pain but not the emptiness. Not the vast nothing that seemed to weave around the moment you’d heard the soft whoosh of the door. You had to have known it was coming. If you thought about it, you knew you had. That the moment you’d entered him that night, it had been to fill up. To keep some part with you. It had been love that drove you into him.

You could count on one hand the number of times you’d made love in your lifetime.

Never before Justin and you were sure, never again.

The first time had been for him. At least that’s what you had told yourself, in that moment when your bodies, bathed in blue, had succumbed to the quiet of each other. You’d watched him then, feeling your heart swell against your will. Relishing the soft gasps, the feel of your hands in his, your lips on his skin. You’d known you loved him then.

The second time had been a rush of emotions and needs. Kisses replacing apologies and words, hands taking the place of promises and demands. You could admit that one had been for you as much as for him. You’d wanted him to forget the feel of music. You wanted to remember the sound of art. How it consumed and filled everything.

The day he’d accepted your proposal had been the third. It had felt…right. You’d wanted the moment to be special. For him…even for you. Touches filled with love, whispered words and, what you had never given him before, promises.

But…tonight had been for you. You’d entered him over and over, holding onto him for strength. Surrounding your skin with his scent….your mouth with his taste…your hands with his touch. You’d needed to feel him. Deep and hard and…always. You looked into his face, seeing the boy you’d wanted inside the man you loved. Touched his cheek with your hand, finding the evidence of his pain on your skin. You’d held onto him as tightly as you could, needed to feel him there. With you.

You knew now that’d you’d feel him…forever.

You let out a bark of laughter at that thought.

Yep. A fucking lesbian.

The first rays of sun shimmered through the windows and you knew it was time to face the nothing. You stood carefully, loosening the stiff muscles and allowing your eyes to look around you.

The rush of memories hit you before there was even a moment to prepare. Places you’d fucked. Places you’d laughed. Secrets shared and not known were in every corner.

So many things never said filled up the space he’d left behind and for once in your life you *almost* feel…

No apologies. No regrets.

“He loves me.”

“Your dreamy-eyed schoolboy.”

“In ways that you can’t.”

“In ways that I won’t.”

“He told me that I’m all he wants.”

“They still using that one?”

“It’s more than you’ve ever said.”

“And it’s more than I ever will. So, ah, what the fuck are you still doing here.”

“Would you care if I wasn’t?”

You remember that ache from then. Almost wishing that you could tell him how much he’d meant. That you had loved him. But you know that it would have made no difference. That manipulating him to stay would have been unfair. You were not enough then. You never had been.

That little truth was your secret.

You reach for the drink now, still undressed. His dried come on your skin feels like a connection to hold on to. You can’t wash him away. Not yet. You pour the first shot, gulping it down and pouring the next. Dulling the pain had always been easy. Never-ending fucks and bottomless bottles of Beam.

You know this time that won’t be enough.

“What, and you’re so smart? If you had any fucking brains at all you never would have let me leave. You would have told me I was making the biggest mistake of my life. That I would live to regret it. That what you gave me was worth a thousand, a million times more than anything he had to offer. You would have told me that you loved me. That you would go on loving me even after I was gone.”

“Is that what you were waiting to hear?”

“Yes. But as usual you never said it. So it’s just as well that I go.”

It had always been your pattern. To let him walk away, too afraid…too stubborn to tell him the truth. Keeper of secrets you could never tell.

“Then why are we still doing this, if we both know it’s never going to work?”

“Damned if I know.”

And then…the world you knew blew up, shattering everything you ever told yourself you believed. You had realized in that one horrifying moment that you needed him. Like nothing else in your pathetic, empty life.

You dress slowly, not showering for now, and sit on the bed, breathing in slowly when that hurt returns. The emptiness grows and you lie back, reaching into your pocket for a smoke. You light it, inhaling the harsh smoke into your lungs, allowing it to settle before blowing it out slowly.

He had been the one. You know that now. You’re sure you knew it then. Had always known it.

That was why you had to let him go. It was the reason you had lied to him. Pushed him away to chase the dreams he would have given up for you. Let him believe that the life you had been building with him wasn’t what you wanted. That it would have changed you.

You followed the pattern. Of keeping the secret locked away.

And you lied, telling him that you couldn’t live with someone who sacrificed his whole life and called it love. You felt your heart shatter and your pride swell when he’d agreed. You had done exactly what you’d said you didn’t want.

You’d sacrificed your life for his, calling it love.

And you’d watched him go.

He would become someone. The person he was meant to be. The man you’d helped build, and that soothed a part of you. He would leave for the life he was destined to have.

Never knowing that he took yours with him. That everything you ever wanted would leave when he did.

You swallow down the emotion that wants to claw its way up and out of you. Push it down, filling in the empty hole inside. You had changed for him and you couldn’t change back. It would be your secret…nobody needed to know.

Nobody would.

Part Three

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Comments

[freakykat.livejournal.com]

Oh you wibbled...*sniffs* Thank you so much. I'm still in the beginning stages of outlining and arcs so forth. Happy ending is a must in B/J land so I'll do my best!