Disclaimer - CowLip/Russel T Davies/Showtime own them, yadda yadda.

This is the first QAF fic I ever started writing. It got stuck halfway through and stalled for a while, but today it finished itself. Woo!

Set some time after 513, but contains definite spoilers. Rated R for language. Brian/Justin. Feedback would be fab :)

*

You don't know why you're surprised. Cynthia has never had a subtle bone in her body.

It's part of the reason why you get on so well.

You're acquainting yourself with your newly-furnished office, wondering just what the hell it'd look like if Emmett *had* got his hands on the designs - as he'd intended - as Cynthia lists the things you need to know.

Or, as you soon discover, the things *she* thinks you need to know.

There's a clipboard in her hands as she talks, but you're pretty sure she's just wielding it for effect.

"...electrician is coming back in to finish up at ten, Ted's calling with an update from Pittsburgh at 10:30, and I programmed some numbers into your new phone."

She isn't hiding her face, looking down at the clipboard as some kind of escape. She's looking right back at you.

That's something else about Cynthia: she's never been afraid of you.

It's another reason why you get on so well.

Eyeing the phone on your desk - the phone you know she's referring to - you decide that this is one of those things that are none of her business. "And," you begin, "I suppose you're going to share with me now what those numbers are." It's not a question because there's no doubt about anything.

She doesn't hesitate. "Ted, Michael, Lindsay, Emmett, Debbie, Jennifer, all of our main accounts." This is not what you're waiting for, and she's utterly aware. "Justin's apartment, Justin's cell, and the gallery that's showing his work at the moment. Oh, and that restaurant you both went to the last time you visited, just in case you decide to make plans."

Your life is being run by a PA with a romantic streak fifty fucking miles wide. You almost feel ashamed of yourself.

Finding a folder on your desk to thump open, you punctuate the noise with a glare. "Theodore waved his magic fairy wand, crunched the numbers, and said it was time to expand. *That's* why I'm here." You had enough of this from the others when you announced the news back in the Pitts.

"Well," she smiles sweetly, which is so far from her natural state that it should be memorialised, "if it's not that big a deal, why don't you call him?"

****

"So, have you called him yet?"

Lindsay's no better and you wish she'd put Gus back on the phone. Hell, even Mel. "I hate you." You're in a familiar pose - stretched out on your back, smoking in bed. The only difference is the phone pressed to your left ear.

Her laughter travels down the line and you briefly envision a snow storm enveloping their house, even if it is the middle of July.

"No, you don't. Come on, Brian. Isn't it time you told him?"

You've been in your new place for eleven days, but you've been travelling between Pittsburgh and New York for work for months.

Most of the boxes still haven't been unpacked.

"We're not fully up and running yet, you know that." It's a familiar story, one that feels almost comforting as it falls from your tongue. "I just want to get the office going and-"

"Bullshit," she interrupts, and you know you've reached one of those rare moments where you've Really Pissed Linds Off.

Not that it stops you. "It's *not* bullshit-"

"Brian," she sighs. "You told him how you feel. You asked him to marry you, for God's sake, and he even said yes. What's so scary about this?"

When you get up the next morning, you trip over a box and bruise the fuck out of your right knee.

****

You tell yourself it's not stalking even as you wonder if this is what he felt like the first year you knew him. The gallery seems okay, very...white, which is pretty much par for the course and pretty much all you know.

You can't risk going in, of course, and wait until he comes out. You know what there is of his schedule and you're just checking that he's not meeting anyone, that's all. If he's seeing someone you don't want to interrupt them for The Big Reunion (Mikey keeps threatening to call the next issue of Rage that. You keep threatening to rip off his balls). Fuck knows you've been pissed off enough times when someone suffered from a severe case of bad timing and interrupted a little Brian and Justin Fuck Time.

Your hand tightens on the steering wheel as you watch him walk away. He's grown his hair out since the last time you saw him and you *have* to tighten your hold on the steering wheel because suddenly the palms of your hands are itching.

Following him for the rest of the evening you make the following observations:

1. He isn't fucking anyone.
2. He still buys enough groceries to feed a small country.
3. He isn't fucking anyone.
4. He has friends he meets up with in a bar that he kisses on the mouth, but there's no tongue involved.
5. The interior of your 'vette actually manages to get *boring* after a while.
6. He isn't fucking anyone.

All in all you decide it was a successful evening, even if your knee is still fucking throbbing.

****

In the office the next morning your cell phone rings, and though the personalised ring tone tells you it's Justin the Caller ID reads LuvOfYrLfe.

Fucking Cynthia. You're going to have to ream her ass out later about invasion of privacy - although not literally, because...

Shuddering, you answer the phone. "Good morning, Sunshine."

"Hey," he greets, sounding a little breathless. "So when are you planning on actually telling me you're in New York? Or are you going to just watch me from afar for another month?"

You wonder if he can hear the sound of your blinking even through the phone, but you're Brian Kinney and you always manage to think up a good response when you're caught unawares. "I was thinking two months," you tell him, even as something like panic settles on your chest, "but I could be talked down to one."

Maybe it isn't panic. Maybe it's joy.

Maybe you've turned into a dickless, ball-less, dyke.

"Mom told me the same day you told her," Justin explains, answering the question you probably wouldn't have asked. "Of course Debbie called me a week before that, and Michael called me ten minutes before Debbie."

"Wow," you say, nodding even though you don't need to, "you'd think that someone, somewhere on this small spinning globe, would understand the definition of the word 'secret'."

"Brian!" He practically laughs down the phone. "You've met our family, right? What makes you think that any one of them could keep their mouths shut?" You don't answer, because you don't need to. Because maybe he might think there's a reason you told the others you were coming here long before you did, that maybe there's a reason you bought a king-sized bed for your new place and it has nothing to do with comfort.

"It's nice, though," Justin continues, rambling on. "It's like we've come full circle. This time I'm the stalkee, and you're the love-sick extra from Dawson's Creek."

"Fuck you," you grunt, and just for a moment you miss the boy who used to fear and idolise you. Where the hell did he go, anyway?

"Now, now," he taunts, "how are you going to manage that when you're keeping at least fifty feet away from me at all times? Oh! Wait! I know!"

The door to your office opens and though you should figure it out sooner, you don't until you're wondering what Cynthia wants and realise that unless Cynthia has lost a lot of hair and gained a dick, the person standing in the doorway is *not* your PA.

This is the closest you've been to him in four months, eleven days and...well, you're not going to look at your watch because you'd never fucking forgive yourself for that level of sentimental bullshit, but at least you're pretty damn sure he looks happier to see you than you do to see him, so that's something.

Casually ending the call, you watch as he smirks and snaps his own phone shut.

"Taylor," you greet, tossing the phone onto your desk and leaning back in your chair.

Smirk transforming into a smile, he steps inside and closes the door behind him. "Mr Kinney."

Somewhere outside your office, Cynthia had better be making fucking damn sure that you're not going to be interrupted.

~FINIS

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