Justin has to threaten to withhold all forms of sexual contact before Brian caves.

"Please, Brian," he wheedles. "Michael and Ben got a dog. Why can't we have a pet?"

Brian shoots him a look of disgust and walks away.

Justin refuses to drop the issue. He starts pointing out dogs on the street, on television. He uses Gus as ammunition against him. "Every boy needs a dog, Brian," he explains patiently. "It's practically a rite of passage."

When that doesn't work, Justin starts playing really dirty. He switches Brian's porn tapes for dog movies: Lassie, Old Yeller, My Dog Skip, and, his personal favourite, Where the Red Fern Grows. Justin returns home that day to another one of Brian's notorious hissy fits. The loft is absolutely trashed and Brian is on his hands and knees in the pots and pans drawer when Justin finds him. He is blind with rage and accuses Justin of trying to kill him. He spends the night angry on the couch after Justin smiles sweetly at him, kisses him triumphantly on the cheek, and has the gall to tell him that he hasn't the slightest idea what he is talking about.

Next, the contents of their sex toy drawer disappear. It doesn't work out nearly as well for Justin, this time. The leash and collar that he leaves behind end up around his neck and the Kong toy that he leaves...he doesn't even want to think about where that ends up. Suffice it to say that he is left with a very sore ass and can barely walk straight for days.

On the verge of surrendering all hope, though, Justin has a revelation. It is time to pull out all of the stops. He needs to exploit the one thing in the world that he knows that Brian Kinney loves more than life itself. Him. So Justin drops the pet argument. He goes to Daphne's and picks up the porn tapes and sex toys that he's been hiding there. She really is the best fag hag. He puts them back in their proper places and goes back to normal.

Dinner is ready almost the second that Brian walks in the door that night and when he sees the trouble that Justin has gone through, he assumes it is his way of apologising for acting like a complete twat. He thanks him graciously for taking the high road. It isn't until bed that he notices that something is very, horribly wrong.

It had been a long day at the office and for hours he's been unable to think about any better way to unwind than ramming Justin into the mattress with his cock. Needless to say, he is in bed naked and waiting by the time Justin finishes cleaning the kitchen.

As he watches Justin strip off all his clothes, Brian is practically salivating. He has just started rising to his knees to crawl towards him when Justin suddenly reaches into his drawer and grabs a t-shirt and a pair of pyjama pants. He dresses himself for bed with his back to Brian. When he turns around and sees the look of bewilderment radiating from the middle of the bed, a knowing grin breaks out across his face.

He quickly composes himself and draws his features into a mask of pain. "Not tonight, dear. I've got a headache."

He gets in bed and kisses Brian chastely on the cheek. Making a big show of fluffing his pillow he yawns dramatically and turns his back to him to go to sleep.

"I don't think so, Sunshine," Brian says darkly, grabbing him by the hip and rolling him onto his back. He yanks the blankets out of Justin's white knuckled grip and straddles his lower body, grinding into him. "Not tonight, you don't."

It isn't a big deal. Brian's coerced people into sex loads of times. But never Justin, a nagging voice in the back of his mind reminds him. Denial always was his strong suit. He sticks his tongue into Justin's mouth and thinks from the mewling noises he hears that he's managed to convince him. He drops his hands to Justin's hips and starts pushing his t-shirt upwards. Where Justin would normally raise his arms to help him get it off there is nothing. No movement. Justin is lying still beneath him on the bed and he realises that he hasn't really been kissing him back at all. The pathetic, horny noises are his.

Fuck.

He tries again. Still nothing. A peal of Justin's laughter hits his ears as he marches into the bathroom to jerk off.

Brian's payback attempt comes in the early hours of the morning, while Justin is still asleep. When he finally wakes up, it's to one of the best Brian Kinney blowjobs on record. Naturally, Brian pulls away before Justin can come but Justin doesn't give in. He finishes himself off—which he knows Brian loves watching him do—leaving the dog hating son of a bitch in bed with a massive erection as he prances off into the bathroom to get ready to go to his studio.

Score.

A few more days pass in which Brian attempts repeatedly, blatantly, to proposition Justin. He's waiting naked for him in the Barcelona chair when he gets home from the studio. He corners him in the shower and rubs up against him until he accidentally comes like a fourteen year old virgin against Justin's hip. He laughs at him and Brian leaves, feeling pathetic.

When the sex doesn't work, he goes for Justin's jugular. He finds a box of candles in the back of Justin's side of the closet and stifles the urge to vomit as he staggers them around the bed. He sends Emmett for the rose petals because his reputation would never recover if anyone ever saw him buying them.

Justin is later than usual because he has a show in nine weeks. He's exhausted when he walks through the door, but when he walks into the loft, Brian is certain that he's won. Justin's face lights up when he sees the bedroom and he is practically eye-fucking him from the stairs. Brian shoots him a beautiful smile and inwardly starts celebrating when Justin kicks off his shoes and crawls towards him. They meet in the middle of the bed and when Brian falls onto his back he does something he hasn't done in a very long time. He rolls onto his stomach and begs Justin to fuck him. It almost kills him when Justin falls on top of him laughing hysterically, pressing big wet, disgusting, slobbery kisses to the side of his neck. Brian is simultaneously humiliated and furious and pushes Justin off of him as he stomps out to the couch.

By the time it's been a week, he knows that he has no other choice but to bow out. Justin Taylor is the motherfucking queen of passive aggressive warfare. He's working on his computer when Brian comes over and gets down on his knees beside him.

"If you're going to try and blow me again," Justin tells him without shifting his gaze from the screen, "go right ahead. It's not going to work."

Brian says his name to get his attention. It seems like an eternity before Justin sets the stylus down on the desk and turns toward him.

"Yes?"

Brian is staring at him intently. He can't actually force himself to say the words aloud. He's never lost before.

Justin stares at him expectantly for what seems like an eternity before Brian sees the lights go on behind his pretty blue eyes and then Justin starts shrieking excitedly and throws himself into Brian's arms. By the time that Justin is done thanking him against the cement pole, in the shower, and in bed, Brian has half-convinced himself that getting a dog was his idea.

Because he knows that Justin's bleeding little heart would love nothing more than to go down to the local ASPCA and adopt a maladjusted little monster, Brian insists on a dog with a pedigree. It's not much of a concession on Justin's part—he's been practically vibrating ever since Brian okay'd the dog decision.

They agree that the dog can wait until next month. Gus is coming to visit and Brian can only imagine what disturbing Norman Rockwell fantasies Justin secretly harbours about the three of them going to pick it out. By the time that they go to pick Gus up from the airport, Justin is starting to feel really crunched for time—his preparation for his show has not been going well—and so it is with great regret that he skips out on the whole event the next morning in order to bank a little more studio time.

When he finally stumbles into the loft at nearly four the next morning, Justin has forgotten about the dog entirely. He climbs into bed with Brian fully clothed and is asleep within seconds of his head hitting the pillow. Only a few short hours later, he wakes up to Gus staring at him from the ledge beside the bed. Justin can tell that it is taking an inhumane amount of strength for him to remain as calm as he is. His hands are clasped together and it looks like he is praying. When he sees that Justin is actually awake, Gus launches himself into bed, chattering about JD and how he is the coolest thing that his dad has ever bought him.

"JD?" Justin asks blearily, rubbing sleep from his eyes. "What kind of a name is JD?"

"James Dean." Brian croaks from behind him, ever the morning person.

"Gus," Justin jerks himself up onto his elbow. He cannot believe that Brian has named Gus' dog James Dean. "You know that you can name your puppy whatever you want to, right?"

Gus reassures him that, even though his dad picked it out, it's actually the coolest name in the world.

Justin's eyes start to drift closed again. It must not be here yet, or it's in it's kennel or crate or whatever the fuck Brian bought for it. He knows that there's no way that Brian would give it free run of the loft.

"Justin," Gus reproaches after a moment. He has inherited his father's drawling voice. "JD is not a puppy."

Justin is confused. "What do you mean, he's not a puppy?"

"Look." Gus says impatiently and opens his hands.

Sitting in the palm of Gus' hand is a tan coloured lizard-like creature. The only thing that Justin's brain can process is how he can get as far away from it as fast as humanly possible. Screaming like a girl, he scampers across Brian and the bed and runs to the bathroom, falling off the other side and banging his shin on the platform in the process.

"What in the fucking hell is that thing?"

Amidst the laughter from the bedroom, he is able to make out gecko and so much cooler than a dog.

"You bought him a fucking gecko?" he shrieks from behind the bathroom door.

Brian tells him that he would appreciate it if he watched his filthy mouth in front of his son

Goddamn fucking hypocrite.

Justin refuses to leave the bathroom until the animal is caged. He would have preferred to have spent the rest of the day hiding out but Brian is useless and Gus needed to eat.

Minutes turn to hours and before long it has been three days that Justin has co-existed—survived—in the loft with JD. On the fourth day, Gus goes to spend the day with Michael and Ben. They're taking JR to the zoo. They pick him up early—they're such heterosexual fags, up before seven every day, even on the weekends—and Justin tries to take advantage of the time that they have in the loft alone. He refuses to have sex with Brian while Gus is there. He says that there is something morally unjustifiable about fucking while Brian's son is asleep on the sofa—something about impressionable young minds and scarring him for life—and no sex makes Brian pissy.

Justin is hard by the time he slide the door shut after shooing Gus out. He cannot wait to climb back into bed and wake Brian up for the first of what he only hopes will be many rounds of marathon sex before Gus returns. Good part-time parent that he is, he didn't even wake up to send his son off. Things like that—along with birthdays and anniversaries and anything else of moderate or emotional importance—tend to fall to Justin.

When he gets closer, however, he sees that Brian has woken up. He's propped up bare-chested in bed smoking. JD is sitting on his shoulder and he is cooing at him, stroking his tail. Justin is so disgusted that he loses his erection and stomps off to the bathroom to shower.

The honeymoon period starts to wane within the first week. Justin is cooking dinner when he notices that JD isn't in his cage. When he makes a snide comment about him getting more attention from Brian than Gus while they're eating, he is met with blank stares from both of them.

"What do you mean getting more attention than me?" Gus asks, confused. "We haven't seen him all day."

When he is hit with the realisation that JD is somehow roaming the loft at will, Justin starts hyperventilating, draws his feet up onto his chair, and is unable to finish his dinner. It takes every ounce of control he has not to burst into tears in front of Brian's son who already, at age nine, has picked up on Brian's disgust for displays of emotional weakness in spite of living almost full time with two lesbians. It makes Brian proud.

Brian has to threaten him with bodily harm before he goes to bed that night. Even though it's pitch black in the loft, Justin can't sleep. He just knows that JD is out there somewhere. Waiting for him. After tossing and turning restlessly for more than an hour, Brian begrudgingly rolls into the middle of the bed and practically headlocks him to make him stop.

Justin finally stills in Brian's arms, although whether it is actually sleep or unconsciousness from lack of oxygen that claims him is anyone's guess. When he wakes up in the morning sprawled and drooling on Brian's chest, there are a few moments in which he forgets about the bloodthirsty reptile on the loose in their loft. He stretches and smiles at the man asleep in the bed beside him, rolling onto his back.

Justin is zoned-out and staring when he notices that, above him on the exposed ceiling, is Satan's lizard, keeping court. What happens next will be forever cemented in Justin Taylor's mind as the worst thing to go down in the history of the world. Frozen with fear and stammering incoherently, he starts shaking Brian's shoulder in an attempt to wake him up. In the process of doing so, JD drops from the ceiling and lands on Justin's pillow, hissing and screaming. When Brian wakes up, Justin is wailing and flailing his hands like a preteen at a concert.

Twenty five minutes later, Brian has returned JD to his cage and has taken Justin into the kitchen to stuff his hysterical face with food. He cannot tolerate unsubstantiated drama this early in the morning.

"He hates me," Justin sobs at Brian from across the counter.

"He doesn't hate you, you twat. He's a fucking lizard."

"Yes he does! That little fucker fucking hates me!" Justin is still in full-on freak out mode. Brian wants to throttle him.

"Justin!" Gus admonishes from the fridge. "What has he ever done to you?"

Brian tells him that he would prefer it if he refrained from referring to JD as 'that little fucker.'

A few days later, it is time for Gus to go back to Toronto. Justin breaks down into legitimate tears at the airport when he realises that JD is going to have to stay with them. Gus can't take him on the plane and Justin bitches at Brian all the way back to the loft about the rashness of his stupid fucking actions.

In his favour, Brian does try to take care of JD. It's not his fault, he tells Justin, that he forgets to feed him for three days straight. Nor is it his fault that he unplugs JD's heat lamp in order to charge his iPod. It almost kills Justin when he has to touch the crickets that Brian keeps in the freezer in order to feed JD. It takes him over an hour to gear himself up enough to do it and after he tosses them in the cage, he runs into the bathroom and vomits.

They form a detente, he and JD. Justin agrees to feed him if he stays way the fuck on the other side of the cage while he does so.

They bond, a few days later, while Brian is at work and Justin sneaks into his weed stash. His hand has been giving him hell and he decides that he should take a day at home to recuperate. When Brian comes home, Justin is blitzed out of his mind. He's sitting on the floor staring at his hands.

Brian originally pays him no mind, but happens to absent-mindedly glance into JD's cage on his way to change and sees that the little gecko is nowhere to be seen. His heart skips in his chest as he looks around anxiously.

"Justin?" he calls out. "Don't freak out."

"Why would I be freaking out?" Justin asks. "I feel grrreat."

"JD," Brian admits reluctantly and awaits the fall out. "He's not in his cage."

Justin's stoned giggles catch his attention and glances over to see what the fuck his problem is. He still can't see what Justin is looking at, so he goes to see. It's JD.

"I love you," Justin sighs happily to the little creature, stroking the top of his head tenderly.

Brian can't help but think that it's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen and smiles happily all the way into the bedroom.

The breaking moment comes on Brian's birthday. He spends the commute back to the loft filled to the brim with secret joy. He knows that Justin will have planned something fantastic and so he is more than a little surprised, upon walking into the loft, to see Justin in a t-shirt and a pair of ratty sweatpants, sitting on the computer. Brian shrugs inwardly. Oh, well. He'll make sure that Justin makes it up to him in bed.

"Hang on," Justin says to him, even though Brian's mouth is on his neck and he knows that Justin can feel his raging hard-on pressing into him through his sweater. "I'm just reading this article. Apparently there's this new multivitamin that is supposed to be, just, amazing for geckos. I think that we should totally order some for JD."

Brian jerks away and shoots Justin a look of absolute resentment. He storms over to the counter and grabs his car keys angrily. He cannot tolerate Justin loving anything as much as he loves him. "Pack your shit, Sunshine," he snaps bitchily. "We're going to Toronto."

A/N: This was the product of being just a little too wired one morning. I normally don't write stuff like this because I don't usually write funny.

I do not own Queer as Folk or James Dean. But the gecko is all mine ;)