Best Friends by Criss Moody <wyoluvr@yahoo.com>

Date: April 10th, 2002
Disclaimer: Cowlip does the damage. I clean up afterwards.
Distribution: List archives, ff.net, my website. Otherwise, ask.
Summary: The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Pairing: Ben/Michael, Michael/Brian friendship.
Rating: PG-13
Notes: Zahra’s my beta-bitch, yeehaw.


~~
“A friend is a lover, literally.”
~~


The worst part about loving someone since, like, forever is that it’s always there. In the morning, taking a piss, at night, fixing dinner and kissing your lover. Some loves never change and they never die and that’s the worst. Or the best. Or some hellish middle ground where the affection never changes because it never grows and it will always be exactly the same.

Michael wishes really hard that he could just stop loving Brian. Cold turkey, right now, forsake all things Brian Kinney. No dancing at Babylon, no beer and bad advice at Woody’s, no long lunches at the diner. No stroking his back through the only way Brian could experience grief – quietly, alone with Michael.

A usually distant part of Michael sees how unfair their relationship is to him. Brian gets a willing ego stroker, 24/7 and free of charge, and Michael gets to float in the general vicinity of Brian. Warmed by the awesome glow of his personality. The minute someone tries to walk away, their molecular structure starts to mutate and change, as if Brian alone has kept them safe and whole.

‘Course, that might just be Michael. He’s tried hard over the years not to delude himself. Tried to recognize his relationship with Brian as a really fucked-up version of best friends. To not hope for more than that.

But it’s hard and Michael’s not always the smartest guy but he’s smart enough to see that Brian does love him. As much as Brian ever cares for anyone, Brian loves Michael.

God forbid anyone should try to stand in that place.

Justin landed in their lives and changed things. That should have been the first clue for Michael. Things changed and things shifted. Relationships were redefined. Michael thought that Justin was a temporary annoyance. Then he grew into a threat to Michael’s being more than Brian’s best friend. A wedge between what had always been Brian and Michael, Michael and Brian. But by now Michael thinks that Justin may have been, may be, good for Brian. Justin has challenged and changed Brian. Justin and Brian are not stagnant; they evolve and flow.

Wow. See, there’s a change. Michael realizes, daily, that Ben’s changing him. Every time he speaks, he exercises more of the vocabulary he’s picked from those around him, even from comics, and the things he’s asked Ben to explain to him. He loves to watch the light in Ben’s face when he’s teaching someone. Like there’s nothing better on earth than to help a person understand a concept. To share a little bit of his knowledge with a person who really needs it.

Last night, they were watching a movie Ben had picked out, something foreign with lots of long subtitled conversations. Michael had been half-asleep, curled against Ben with his head over Ben’s heart, lulled by its steady thump. Mid-explaining some minor point of Chinese something-or-other, Ben’s mini-speech woke Michael from his doze. Something about the ubiquitous use of the evil white man in Chinese film. In the same space where Michael had sleepily asked what ‘ubiquitous’ meant, he realized he didn’t feel like an idiot for asking. He felt like he was any other guy, college-educated or self-educated, who just didn’t know what a word meant. So he asked his professor boyfriend and his professor boyfriend told him that ubiquitous mean that something was everywhere, no matter where you looked, you saw it.

No matter how he turned it, redefined it, or looked for more, Michael still has a best friend. His name is Brian and he can be a real asshole sometimes. Maybe they won’t always be pressed together at Babylon, smiling at each other like they know something no one else does. Brian has Justin, whether he likes it or not, and Michael has Ben and he loves every second of it. Brian and Michael, Michael and Brian, they’re ubiquitous. Everywhere he looks, he sees some evidence of Brian’s influence. And somehow, that’s not as evil and Vaderish as David once thought it was.

They’re friends. Always have been, always will be. End of story. Lots of layers and meanings behind that friendship, but they are friends. It takes a constant effort but Michael’s almost content with what he has. He can have what he’s always had and have Ben too. Brian can fuck every man on the eastern seaboard and be with Justin. They’ll still have that little place between them where they’re best friends.

Best friends forever.

~the end~