Chapter Text
Quitting
“I fucking hate New York.”
“No, you don’t.” The returned voice was mild, but a forced sort of mild, the sort of voice that was determined to keep the fucking peace even if it god damned killed him. Brian hated that voice. On anyone. It didn’t matter who used it.
“Yes, I do,” he insisted, practically spitting the words out as if they offended him. They should offend him, given that they were a lie, but he was in no mood for semantics.
“No, you don’t. You’re just being a little bitch because you want a cigarette.”
“This is fucking killing me.”
“You won’t die without a cigarette, Brian.”
“No, but you might,” he muttered darkly and stormed out of the room, leaving Justin sprawled on the sofa, all arms and legs, and massaging his forehead like that alone would cure headaches.
God damned health scares. Little blips on yearly cancer scans that ultimately turned out to be nothing, but it was enough to get him to finally listen to both Justin and the doctor and attempt to quit smoking. But fuck if he wasn’t going to take Justin with him. If he had to end a love affair with one of his chemicals of choice, so did Justin.
It’d be easy to think that Justin was having an easier time with this, especially with Brian slamming things around, fixing a drink he didn’t really want with extreme prejudice, but just that morning he watched the back end of a paintbrush go all shower scene psycho into a canvas repeatedly, so it wasn’t just him. It didn’t make for a peaceful house though.
And god fucking damn, the temptation. The temptation! He’s never been one to deny himself anything, anything at all, and yet, here he is. You’d think the booze or the narcotics would be first off the list, but no. Cigarettes.
“Fuck!”
“Don’t break anything,” Justin yelled in response and Brian heard stairs creak under footfalls that were just under stomping threshold.
Still. Fucking still. The only reason he was doing this was that they were right. As much fun as drug abuse was, he didn’t indulge that often anymore and honestly, beyond getting stoned, everything else left him groaning with a hangover the next day. It wasn’t worth it, sailing into the office feeling three steps behind everyone. Booze was an old friend of his, old enough that flat out abuse wasn’t on the table anymore because can you really abuse someone you know so damned well and they were around so fucking often? And besides, bouncing back from getting truly hammered wasn’t all that easy anymore.
Getting old sucked. And not in any good way at all.
Still. They were right. Everything was going smokeless. Even the last great bastion of sin, seedy bars, were considering it and if your bar didn’t have a sticky floor, it was a safe bet that cigarettes had been banned for a while now. Oh, sure, you could stand around outside, and that’s what he tended to do, at least until Justin showed up to steal his cigarette and smoke it down to the filter, but what was the point? He wanted to be around. He wanted Justin to be around. For a long time. That meant paying attention to health. And wasn’t that a fucking kick in the balls. Being responsible. Jesus Christ.
Brian put his aching head down on the counter in the kitchen he had retreated to and let out a long and noisy sigh.
And just stayed there. The cold marble felt amazing on his overheated face and watching the light change in the room didn’t overtax neurons that were staging a rebellion from lack of nicotine, so there wasn’t much reason to move. He didn’t move when Justin came in on bare feet, who knows how much later, though he did eye the lad with deep suspicion. That ended the moment Justin laid one of his kitschy bean bag heating pads on the back of his neck, making eyelids flutter and a groan like coming fall out of his mouth.
Wisely, Justin didn’t say a god damned word. He just pulled up a stool and stole the drink Brian had fixed and subsequently ignored and just sat in companionable silence, at least until Brian broke it.
“Justin—“ he began, but had no idea what to say after that. It’s not like he even smoked that much, but the lack of it seemed to make him just go stupid and angry. Justin, for one, didn’t even bother to reply beyond shifting so that shoulders rested against each other.
And just like that, he knew what to say.
“Stop managing me.” It was grumpy and weary and out of sorts but there was a heating pad encouraging muscles to unknot, so it wasn’t as angry as it could have been.
“Somebody’s got to do it and you moved in with me, so I think you’re stuck.”
“Fuck me,” he sighed in disgust.
“Maybe later.”
They both huffed out soft little laughs at the tired old joke, further dissolving the tensions that had been building in the house.
“You know the worst part of all this?” Justin asks as Brian closes his eyes to sink into the feeling of soothing warmth and ice cubes rattling musically in a glass.
“Mmno. What?”
“Smoke smells really good on you. I mean, like really fucking good. I swear it makes me drool.”
“That’s the worst part,” he said in flat disbelief.
“Yeah.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“Mmhm. But you moved in with me. Head better?”
“Yeah.”
“Love you too, Kinney.” There was a hand in his hair, squeezing gently and scratching lightly at his scalp, just for a second or three, before Justin and his stolen drink drifted into a different room. And it wasn’t too long after that that Brian followed after him, feeling just a little more on the positive side of human.