The Little Prince Written By: Timeline: Post 5.13 Rating: R (For language mostly�lame, I know, but I can�t write porn. Sorry.) Warnings: None Summary: Justin has angst. Brian makes lame innuendos. Craziness ensues. Author Notes: It helps to have a general knowledge of the original The Little Prince to appreciate this, but it�s not really necessary. Go check out Wikipedia, �tis your friend! At nine o�clock in the morning, precisely six months after Justin moves to New York, Brian locks himself in his office. An hour passes, then another. Five hours and one staff meeting (for which Brian is AWOL) later, everyone pretty much assumes that he�s not coming back out. The chaos that ensues is subdued. The interns and temps shuffle around Kinnetik confusedly, not really knowing what to make of the whole thing. A few gather in the break room, taking full advantage of the boss� non-absence. Cynthia shoos the group of them away from the water cooler after half an hour, reminding them, �I wouldn�t be caught dicking around if I were you. Unless, of course, you want to be fired.� There are whispers in the art department, where words like �nervous breakdown� come up frequently and anxious eyes peer over the tops of cubicles. The junior execs run around like chickens with their heads cut off while trying to run damage control on a botched Brown meeting. Ted calls Michael. �What do you mean, �he won�t come out�? Of course he�ll come out.� Michael doesn�t seem to understand the gravity of the situation. Ted sighs into the phone and keeps his eyes on the still-closed door. �I wish I could believe you, Michael. He won�t open the door, refuses to take anyone�s calls, and I doubt he�s eaten anything all day. You�re not worried?� Michael starts to answer, but Ted is distracted by the sight of a purple-haired art department intern crouching in front of Brian�s office door. �Hold on, Michael. Hey, what are you doing?� The intern looks up as if she�s been caught red-handed. �Um�� She makes a move to hide whatever she�s holding, but Ted sees a yellow-orange object flash by as she moves her arm behind her back. �Is that a slice of cheese?� The intern bites at her lower lip, twisting it back and forth before speaking. �Maybe?� Ted rolls his eyes. �Do I want to know?� Still crouched on the floor, the intern sighs dramatically. �Everyone wants to find out what�s going on in there, and since Mr. Kinney won�t come out I thought that maybe I could ply him with food. However, since he won�t open the door�hence the mystery appeal�I figured that the only foods I could use would be flat ones that would fit under said door.� She holds up the item in her hand. �Enter the cheese. The other interns dared me to do it,� she says quickly. She hands Ted the plastic-covered square and walks away, her ponytail bouncing with each step. Just then, the door opens, revealing an apparently still-alive Brian Kinney. The rest of the Kinnetik staff suddenly appears to be extremely busy. Brian beckons Ted with a wave of his hand. �Theodore. In my office. Now.� Ted follows him into the office and Brian closes the door behind them. �I need your financial wisdom to help make some things happen,� he says. It turns out that Brian has spent the entire morning in the final stages of courting a prominent international software company, playing phone tag with various executives in various time zones and sending out the proposal that he�s apparently been painstakingly assembling on his own for quite some time. This is Brian�s pet project, and it�s all about to come to fruition. Brian produces a stack of what appears to be fairly standard-fare financial and legal paperwork, but tells Ted to triple-check that Kinnetik will be making as much money as humanly possible off the deal. Ted sorts through the paperwork as he begins to fully process the implications of landing the software account. �Brian, this will put Kinnetik on the map! Companies from all over the world will want to work with this agency!� Though Brown Athletics is still a solid name with which Kinnetik is associated, the agency had taken a bit of a hit professionally after Brian told the Remson people to fuck off. Brian smirks. �I know. I�ve already told Cynthia to start looking for office space in New York.� There really isn�t anything wrong with New York, Justin thinks. The art scene is like no other, the people are generally friendlier than the movies would have you believe, and it�s probably one of the more gay-friendly places on the planet, provided you stay in the rights parts of the right boroughs. The thing about New York is that it�s not for everyone, not by a long shot. This is the part that makes those ubiquitous �I Heart NY� t-shirts so misleading. You may very well love New York City, but it doesn�t have to give half a shit about you. Of course, the people that give half a shit about Justin are hundreds of miles away, far off in a land of sprites, fairies, and seemingly endless winter. That might have something to do with his feeling of general discontent, just a little bit. A man comes up from behind Justin and clears his throat, catching Justin�s attention and drawing him out of his reverie. The man pantomimes sweeping the floor, and looks at Justin expectantly. �What is Stephen doing?� he asks, continuing the motion. Justin smiles tightly. �Besides referring to himself in the third person?� he mutters, grabbing the nearest broom and sweeping the area around the front counter in order to placate his supervisor. Justin can�t wait to hit it big and quit his shitty restaurant job. He thinks that this is probably what every waiter in New York City thinks, every day, and the starkness of that realization depresses him a bit. �Pick up the pace, Taylor,� Stephen says as he walks off to badger one of the other waiters. Justin rolls his eyes and thinks of the Zimbardo prison study, where college students were randomly chosen to be either �guards� or �inmates� in a simulated prison environment. After a matter of hours the �guards� were completely drunk on power and began developing decidedly sadistic tendencies that led them to torture the �inmates� without mercy. Justin glances wearily across the restaurant at Stephen and decides that he might be overreacting. A little bit. It�s been a long day. During his much-anticipated dinner break, Justin sits in Bryant Park and eats his food in relative peace. On his way there from the restaurant he was accosted by no less than five canvassers for no less than five different organizations. But sitting at his small wrought iron table on the side of the park from which he can watch harried commuters rush to catch their trains, it�s nice. It makes him feel more like a detached observer than an active part of the mess that is life in New York City. The honeymoon period is definitely over, Justin thinks, and then he takes note of how unfortunate that term really is. He can�t even describe his culture shock�something so uniquely his�without alluding to Brian. Justin flips open his cell phone and stares at the keypad for a few moments before shutting it again. Brian knows that he should probably call Justin. After all, launching a New York office is big news, and it�s even bigger news if one�s unconventionally significant counterpart happens to reside there. He decides he�ll call later, when Babylon�s ever-present thumpa-thumpa isn�t ringing in his ears and he can actually devote the majority of his attention to the call. Besides, no one knows about the New York office other than Ted and Cynthia, so there�s really no point in trying to beat one of the other Liberty Avenue gossips to the punch by telling him before all the details have been finalized. Justin shares a studio apartment that sits on top of a Wendy�s in SoHo. The apartment is smaller than his childhood bedroom and it always smells vaguely of French fries, but these are things he doesn�t really notice after a while. It�s just as much his home as anywhere else. He tries to be quiet opening the door as his roommate, Brittany, is most likely asleep. She works as a research assistant for some museum curator uptown, so she and Justin inconveniently manage to have schedules that rarely allow for them to be both awake and in the apartment at the same time. In the sliver of light created by the door opening, Justin sees at least five huge roaches in the center of the room. It�s as if they called a quorum between the two beds while he was out. Justin lets out a noise that is definitely not a scream and scrambles to find the roach spray before the little bastards disappear back into the cracked walls. He isn�t successful, and the thought of going to bed while those things are still around freaks him out. �Oh, hey,� Brittany murmurs sleepily from under her comforter. �How was work?� �I�m going out.� For a city that never sleeps, certain parts of New York have an odd calmness to them at night; that is, if one discounts the occasional schizophrenic bag lady screaming on a street corner. Justin strolls down Broadway on auto-pilot, not really paying attention to the signage in Chinese as he crosses Canal Street on his way to the southern part of Manhattan. As he approaches the Brooklyn Bridge, he can already see the zen-inducing view that extends over the water. He finds a bench near the middle of the bridge and watches the zooming cars below, the breeze from which makes the humidity of the summer heat wave nearly bearable. Justin calls Brian. �Hey.� �Hey. What�re you up to?� �Hmm,� Justin hears the sound of the loft door sliding open and then sliding shut. �Just got home from Babylon. You?� �I�m out and about.� �You partying it up in New York�s hottest clubs? I don�t hear any music.� Justin shakes his head, and then remembers that Brian isn�t actually on the bridge with him. �...
Mojaunicorn