A PLAY AND A PRESENT Justin was pretty sure that he hit a handful of people with the duffel bag swinging dangerously behind him, but for once he was tossing the manners his mother had carefully drilled into his childhood self to the whistling Canadian wind, so to speak, because some things were far more important than what total strangers he�d probably never see again thought of him. One of them, and the reason for which his Gucci-clad feet were pounding industriously away across the polished floor of the airport at Toronto, was the Christmas play at Gus� school. He absently wished that he�d been wearing his usual battered sneakers, but he�d pretty much rushed out of an interview with a magazine about his upcoming show and boarded a plane with only a single change of clothing and his passport. He tried not to think about what Brian would say about what he was doing to his thousand-dollar genuine leather footwear. On the other hand, his lover really should know better than to give him shoes that expensive. His heart sank when he saw the thick crowd in the waiting area, most of whom held aloft boards bearing names or craning their necks and waving frantically. How the fuck was he supposed to find Mel in all-? Oh, there she was. He grinned when he saw that the people around her were giving her space; a newcomer bumped into her from behind, and the expression she directed at him (Justin couldn�t see from his angle) made him blanch and back off immediately. "How late am I?" he gasped as he reached her. She grabbed his bag and began walking quickly enough that he didn�t even have to slow down much from his jog. "We�ve got half an hour." Melanie answered, leading the way to the parking lot. "And Lindsay says these things usually get delayed at least fifteen minutes." "Thanks again for picking me up. I really would have been fine with taking a cab-" "In this weather?" Melanie grinned. "And to be honest, you�re doing me a favour. I love Gus, and having JR made me realise that I have a maternal side, after all. But that doesn�t mean I relish the idea of being in a room full of screaming kids." Justin chuckled. "I guess you have a point; I can�t see you pinning up costumes and painting faces, either. But Lindsay said they school needed a lot of parent volunteers- won�t they be short-staffed with you here?" "They would be." Reaching a beige Sedan, Melanie took out her keys and quickly unlocked the car. "If I hadn�t signed Brian up into taking my place. Without telling him, of course." Justin stared at Melanie, open-mouthed, then laughed as he got into the passenger side of the car. "Come on, I�d hate to miss Brian�s debut as a PTA Dad." # Being blessed with the good looks that he had, Brian was used to being stared at, and usually enjoyed being the centre of attention and the bona fide object of lust. However, there was something ridiculously... inappropriate about it when someone was paying him such homage while he was preparing his son for a school pageant on a supposedly religious school event. To make it even worse, the person presently casting him longing looks every nine seconds was female, and the mother of someone in Gus� class. Not that he would do anything if all of the gay men in Canada paraded in front of him wearing only leather jockstraps. The cancer had left him only one real ball, after all. "Check out my beard, Pops!" Gus crowed enthusiastically, bouncing to a stop in front of Brian with a face swathed in fluffy cotton. "That�s a very cool beard you�ve got there, sonny boy," Brian said with a smile that he didn't even have to force. "Are you sure you�re not too old? Scrap that, are you sure you can actually see?" He considered making it clear to the lady in charge of make-up and props that no force on Earth could save her ass if his son fell off the stage because he did not have full peripheral vision. "I can see fine, Pops," Gus said. "And I�m supposed to be old! I�m one of the Three Kings!" "I know, son. I was just checking." He patted the boy on the head, and grinned when Gus darted off to look at himself in the mirror once again and sweet-talk the costume lady (aka his mother) into making another adjustment. Yup, definitely his son. "Your son looks just like you," Miss Admirer spoke up, smiling at her own daughter (who appeared to be either an extremely old King, or a sheep). "And I�m sure he�ll be as handsome as his dad when he grows up." "Thank you. But I hope he gets his mother�s personality," he said with only a little sarcasm, unable to think of anything besides variations of �Fuck off, lady, I�m not into twat�. "Ms. Peterson always speaks well of you," the woman continued, unsubtly moving closer to Brian. "Ms. Marcus is a lovely woman, of course, but I can�t imagine how any woman could leave a man like you." Brian blinked. "I�m sorry, but you think that-" "Helen, hi!" interrupted Lindsay, smiling in that overly bright way of hers that indicated to Brian that she was butting in on purpose. "I see you�ve met Brian, Gus� father. You know, the one who�s gay." Helen smiled at Lindsay in a fake and unpleasant way. "Oh, I wasn�t sure if I heard you correctly. Besides, I just wanted to introduce myself. He is every bit as gorgeous as you said." She turned dark, sultry eyes towards him. "If I had a man like him father my child, I�d never let him get away, even if I have to chain him to the bedpost." Her words and the downward flicker of her eyes were probably meant to be seductive, but Brian had to lock his knees in order to prevent himself from backing away. "Helen, is it? Please don�t take this the wrong way, but I really am not interested in p-" A miniature brown-haired ball of energy bounced off his leg, and he remembered in time where he was. "I�m not into women. So please, just go back to your daughter." The woman blinked at him, looking like she was having difficulty processing his words. From behind them the stage manager called, "Everyone, to your places!" Lindsay tugged on his arm. "Come on, Brian, we�ve got seats at the front." # They arrived approximately three seconds before the auditorium went dark and the curtains rose. Not wanting to cause a disruption and possibly distract Gus when he came on, Justin followed Melanie to a seat near the back. Despite being somewhat exhausted from his plane ride, Justin gave the show his full attention. Gus appeared nervous, insofar as it was possible to tell through the mountain of cotton someone had stuck on him, but delivered his lines clearly and fluidly; it sounded weirdly a lot like Brian in presentation-mode. When the show finished without any of the sheep falling off the stage (which one of them, a little mousy girl, looked dangerously close to doing at one point) or Mary tripping over Baby Jesus in his haystack, the whole audience rose to their feet in a standing ovation. Justin and Melanie unabashedly whistled and cheered Gus� name, but the tallest of the Three Kings clearly had his eyes on a couple sitting right on the front row. The children filed away and the lights went back on. In the ensuing chaos of jubilant children and proud parents, Justin momentarily lost sight of Melanie and nearly got jostled right out of the auditorium. When he pushed his way back in, he bumped into her from behind, but instead of snapping at him, she seemed transfixed at something in the distance. "Sorry, this is like Times Square at lunch hour," he said, stopping when he followed her gaze. Near where they�d been sitting earlier, Lindsay and Brian were standing and talking, the joy in their faces evident. Then Brian turned, somehow knowing that it was Gus even before the little boy, still bedecked in cotton, managed to shove his way fully out of the crowd at the door towards the backstage area. Gus threw himself at his father, laughing loudly and whooping when Brian easily picked him up. Lindsay, also laughing, leaned in to kiss him on the cheek, and for a long moment the three of them stood, a happy family huddle. "They look so beautiful," Melanie whispered. "Shit, they make a perfect family." Justin threw her a look. "Except for one thing," he interjected. "It�s not each other they want to be with." "Really?" At Justin�s questioning look, Melanie went on. "From the day I fell in love with Lindsay, I've known that there will always be a part of her that belongs to Brian. I try not to think about it a lot, but it�s moments like this... I want to turn around and just walk away. Let them be a family this world can accept." Taken aback by sentiment behind Melanie�s words, Justin cocked his head. "Do you really believe that? That you can just walk away, that Lindsay won�t come after you? That Gus won�t ask where you�ve gone, or miss you?" She let out a long breath. "No, I guess not." Justin had never felt particularly close to Mel, but they�d always had an easy friendship, and though Melanie�s animosity towards Brian had only waned a tiny fraction over the years, she and Justin had never actually butted heads over it. As it were. "Mel, what brought this on? Has something happened?" She pursed her lips. "None of the kids know, but the teachers were considering Gus for the role of Joseph. Unfortunately some of them felt that certain traditionalist parents would be offended that the child of same-sex parents would play a prominent figure in a religious re-enactment. The official reason, of course, is that they gave the three tallest boys the role of the Three Kings. Gus was ecstatic when he found out, he was pretty sure he�d be made an animal, so we didn�t press the issue." "Shit," Justin muttered, earning him a glare from a passing mother. "Does Brian know?" Melanie shrugged. "I�m leaving it up to Lindsay whether or not to tell him. I don�t think she has, though." "I�m sorry, Mel," he said. "I know you hoped things would be di...
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