


The Way Your Innocence Tastes

by Katherine Cruz



Category: Queer as Folk
Genre: Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-08-22
Updated: 2008-08-22
Packaged: 2013-07-01 10:32:46
Rating: M
Chapters: 1
Words: 664
Publisher: www.fanfiction.net
Story URL: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4491849/1/
Author URL: http://www.fanfiction.net/u/307264/Katherine-Cruz
Summary: He always knew... Written for LJ's 30 ballads challenge for Alt. Choice #31, "Better Than Me” by Hinder. Brian&Justin. This is basically a 220 gap filler.





	The Way Your Innocence Tastes

**The way your innocence tastes**

It's the quiet he can't stand now.

It used to be different. There was a time when all he ever wanted was silence. It suited him once. The vast emptiness he was surrounded with until it seeped inside and he pretended it just was.

Now it was thick and suffocating.

He hears the scrape of metal, the sound echoing through the loft, and that final boom as the door closes. The soft padding of his shoes starts and stops across the bare floor. Brian can feel him. He can always feel Justin. He allows his eyes to find him, half hidden in the darkness. And, even from this distance… one that's more than mere feet… he can tell that he is breaking.

He'd known it for a long time. Everyone liked to think he was oblivious, that he could give a shit, and the truth was, he preferred it that way. The numbness had served him well. But alone, in the absence of light, Brian had known. You didn't sleep next to someone every night and not know. He felt the loss… the growing resentment… the space between them. He still wonders why he chose to ignore it and refuses to examine the truth that screams inside his head.

His chest tightens as he watches him slowly walk forward, feet dragging as he comes to stand at the foot of the bed. Their eyes meet, and Brian can see it clearly now. Those things he'd ignored before: the pain in his eyes, the despair sketched across his face, the hopelessness that he'd thought they'd manage to banish away under blue lights and silk.

But it's all there between the light and shadow sketched across his skin as he pulls off his shirt, eyes not quite meeting Brian's anymore. He drops it softly, and Brian swallows back what he refuses to name. He remembers when they bought it… their hands melding together in the dressing room, skin against skin, the soft moans against his throat… and he fights the blur of his vision.

He stood before him now, clad only in his underwear, tired and confused and needing…

And, in that moment, Brian knew.

Knew that Justin would leave him. Knew that he would choose to retain some of the innocence that had been taken from him. Choose what he needed over what he wanted.

And it was how it should be.

It's instinct, he tells himself, that makes him pull back the cover and allow him into their - his bed. That fucking desire he still has to make it better. To fix what he helped break inside Justin.

He watches him crawl up the bed, wraps him inside the warmth of his scent… wanting to leave his mark, no matter how temporary… and rests his arm across him. He grabs one wrist, thumb stroking the skin gently, and then moves to the next, following the same pattern. Speaking in actions those words he can't - he won't. He can feel his pain coursing through him and wonders why someone so young - barely nineteen - deserved that.

He didn't.

He deserved more. Better than him.

Brian knew that.

He would ease it somehow. Make it less for him.

He told himself he wouldn't miss him. Wouldn't remember the smell of his skin. The feel of his hair on his face. The way his innocence tasted. The sound of his voice as he chattered on about his day. He wouldn't miss the light…

Because he would let it sink into his skin. He would hold him now, close his eyes, and let that be enough. Let that be all.

He would let him go… and shove what was left into that box inside. And, in the end, it would just be like everything else there. Memories that sustained him.

It was enough.

It had to be.


End file.
