Love of His Life by Julad Post S3. This one's for Jenn, whose enthusiasm kept me working on it. Thanks to a lot of people who read it at various stages, including Cesca and Mia and Josselin. Final beta duties by Jenn and Mia. This isn't what I wanted it to be, but season four is upon us and it's probably now or never. After the party after the election after a very long fucking month, Brian drank a lot of booze and took a lot of drugs and fucked a lot of men. Then he went back to the loft and hit his head on the kitchen counter as he passed out. He woke up in a strange bed with a totally hot blond resting a hand on his forehead. He knocked the hand away-- his head was really hurting. "Brian, are you okay?" the blond asked. "Sure," Brian said, sitting up. Headaches were for sissies. "Where the fuck am I?" Kind of a stupid question--he was in a really posh apartment. The blond must be a trust fund kid. And seriously, he was hot. Not his type, but he was annoyed that he didn't remember fucking him. The blond bit his lip. "It's okay, Brian. You're at home. Just lie down." "I need to get home," Brian said. He had shit to do. He needed to get home and shower and possibly puke and then take a ton of codeine and get on with it. "Brian, you are home." Okay, so the blond was a creepy possessive deluded trust fund kid. Fuck, his head hurt too much to deal with this. "Fuck off," he said, getting up and looking around for his pants. "It was just a fuck, and now I'm going." "Brian!" The blond pushed him down to sit on the steps. "Fuck, what the fuck is wrong with you? I know the furniture's gone, but this is still your home." Brian looked around and laughed, which drove bright spikes of pain through his head, so he stopped. "Very funny," he managed. "Can I go now?" The blond swore and fetched a pile of papers from a cupboard. The papers all had his name on them. He squinted at them through the haze of hungover agony. "What the fuck's this?" "It proves you live here," he said, biting his lip. "And, um. You live here. See, it says on all the letters." All the letters had his name and some other address. "Have I been drugged? Is this a kidnapping?" The blond sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "I'm calling Michael now, okay? I think you should lie down." There was something about this guy. Why would a one night stand pretend to know Michael? "Do I know you?" Brian demanded, and then it clicked. He grabbed him by the throat and pushed him up against the wall. "If this is some fratboy joke, I'll break both your fucking arms. I'll break them both in six places, I fucking swear it." "Brian!" the blond shouted. "Brian, it's me, Justin. What the hell is wrong with you?" "I don't know your fucking name," Brian snarled, "and I don't care. I'm going." He looked around for his denim jacket, but couldn't see it. Well, fuck it. He'd find it later. He had a paper to write and the closing shift at Il Centro tonight, and then he was going to get fucking laid. "Brian," and the blond was sure as fuck persistent. "I know you. You sucked off your gym teacher." The world, which had been slowly righting itself, promptly tipped over onto the side. Brian stopped with his hand on the door and carefully composed his face. "You climbed into the shower with him. Do you remember that? You told me about it. You hate your parents, their names are Jack and-- okay, I don't know your mother's name, but your sister is Claire. And I know Debbie, and Michael, and Vic, and, um. Lindsay!" "Who the fuck is Lindsay?" The only Lindsay he knew was the stuck-up bitch in his Art History class. "Okay, forget Lindsay." He laughed, a strained sound. "Which you obviously have. Brian, what year is it?" Brian rolled his eyes. "'91. Why?" Justin grabbed the phone -- an incredibly small, sleek phone -- and punched in numbers, swearing under his breath. "I need to talk to Michael," he hissed, while Brian hunted furiously for a newspaper. "Shit. Fuck. What about his cellphone? Okay, fuck. No, Deb'll freak, I'll call Lindsay." Newspaper, found. Front page news about some stupid election. The date on the front was -- "Yeah. He's got fucking amnesia." -- the date was 2003. "Brian, lie the fuck down!" the blond shouted, phone forgotten. "Don't go in there!" "Fuck off, I need to know." The bathroom was posh as well, with a great shower. Brian looked in the mirror, and nearly puked. He got old. The blond, who kept saying his name was Justin, brought him pills and made him lie down. Brian couldn't stop seeing his reflection in the mirror-- bags under his eyes, sagging chin, wrinkles around his mouth. It was a joke, it had to be a joke-- or bad drugs. That couldn't have been E he took last night. He was never buying drugs from that prick Aaron again. Justin fussed around him, putting a bottle of water by the bed and plumping up the pillows. He was wearing indecently thin trackpants and rubbing Brian's forehead and running hands through his hair. Okay, he was hot. That ass. "Come here," Brian said, grabbing his hand and pulling it down to his cock. "Brian!" the blond squealed. "You have amnesia!" "So?" Brian tugged him into the bed. "Jog my memory." Brian woke up in the strange bed again, but this time his head didn't hurt, and he remembered fucking the blond. Fuck, he'd been fucking fantastic. Then he remembered that he was old. Or maybe Aaron's shit had sent him on a really bad trip last night. He tiptoed into the weird bathroom and peeked into the mirror. Fuck. "Brian?" the blond called, and then appeared, tugging him away from the mirror. "Are you feeling better? Can you remember?" Brian looked around at the loft. It was very weird-looking, like a movie set or the Green Goblin's lair. "Okay, so say, theoretically, this is my place. Did I just move in?" The blond shook his head again. "I think you've lived here for about five years." "So why isn't there any furniture?" The blond sighed. "Long story." He might be hot, but he was dumb as fuck. Brian tapped his foot. "Short version?" "You sold it all to buy a hundred thousand dollars worth of TV spots to stop a politician winning an election." "I did what?" Brian looked around. "Why the fuck would I do that?" The blond sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Really long story." He handed Brian jeans and a shirt. "Get dressed, Lindsay's here." It was the Lindsay he remembered, sitting at the kitchen bench, except she was really old, fat, and frumpy. He squinted at her. "Barbie girl from Art History? What the fuck happened to you?" Lindsay laughed her stupid little laugh, hands over her mouth like she was three years old and somebody said 'poo'. "The scary scholarship kid! My God, Brian, I'd forgotten how you used to be." There was something wrong with this picture, this assumption that he would ever be friends with this silly cow. He folded his arms and stared down at her coldly. "And how did I used to be?" "Exactly like that!" Lindsay shrieked, and waved her hands at Justin. "You see? Mister Icy Cool. He was all, 'I wouldn't be caught dead at one of your stupid parties, you're all so immature and pathetic because you don't get perfect grades.'" There was a sick feeling in his stomach, a slow pounding starting up in his forehead again. This was some kind of bad acid trip, a fucked up Christmas Carol which was obviously teaching him the perils of hanging out with sorority girls. "I have to get perfect grades," he said, furious. "Unlike you and your rich bitch friends, I can't do this without a full scholarship." "Oh, God, I'm sorry." She stopped laughing, took both his hands and kissed him on the mouth. "Brian, I love you to death, okay? We-- here, sit down." "Can't," Brian said, gesturing around. "In my dotage, I decided I could live without furniture." "We can sit at the kitchen counter," she said, like that solved everything. Justin made coffee, and Brian stared at Lindsay. "We are friends, you know," Lindsay said. Brian kept staring. "I walked in on you fucking, I can't remember his name, some quarterback. And the quarterback ran off and I was--" she stopped and laughed. This day was turning out to be really fucking annoying. All these weird people kept reliving these bizarre memories that he didn't have at all. And also, which quarterback? He had plans for Charlton McIntyre, and if he'd actually nailed that phobic fuck, he wanted to know about it. "You called me a dumb bitch for ruining your sex, and you grabbed your jacket and said there was no reason to be at this stupid party if you couldn't get laid." He didn't know her well, but he could see the shape of her face from class, the voice echoing with deja vu of Degas and Miro. Justin leaned on the counter, listening, interested. Lindsay took a sip of coffee. "And I had been so confused, for so long, and there you were, fucking another guy like it was the only thing to do on a Saturday night. So I said, 'I'm gay.' And you looked just like you do now, you were so unimpressed, but Brian," and she reached over and gripped his hand. "It was the first time I'd said it, even to myself. So I started crying, and you went into the bathroom and came back with a roll of toilet paper and told me to wipe my nose and get the fuck over myself." "Yeah, well, crying fucks me off," Brian said, getting angry at this woman. She was just like Claire, like his mother, thinking tears could change anything. "It's pathetic. Life isn't fair, so bring on the waterworks." Lindsay nodded. "That's what you said. And I did get over it. I shaved my head, fucked a hundred women, and petrol-bombed a police station." Brian laughed out loud. "You did not." Justin was laughing too. "No fucking way." She laughed back, and leaned over to Justin. "He didn't believe me when I called...
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