Just three months ago, if anyone had asked me what fandom I outside of LOTR I was most likely to write fanfiction in, I would have said Harry Potter (am a Sirius/Remus shipper). Don't worry, the LOTR ones are coming along, now that I've got this out of my system.

Written for the 25fluffyfics fanfic challenge.

Title: The Morning Surprise
Author: Etharei
Fandom: Queer as Folk (US)
Characters: Debbie, Justin/Brian
Prompt: #16 (“Puppy”)
Word Count: 1, 839
Rating: PG-13 for language and sexual references
Disclaimer: Queer as Folk and all the characters and situations featured therein are the property of Showtime, Cowlip Productions and their affiliates. I’m only borrowing them for purely non-profit, recreational purposes, and promise to replenish the condom and lube supply when I’m done.
Summary: Debbie realises that there really may be more between Brian and Justin than just sex. Debbie-POV, introspective, nothing really happens. Set in late Season 1 (any time after 110).
Author's Notes: I couldn’t really come up with any way to use this prompt literally without breaking canon (there are some very lovely B/J pet!fics out there that I’ve read and loved, but I personally can’t imagine a furry pet living in Brian’s loft) so I took a more metaphorical approach. This is my first QAF fanfic and is unfortunately unbeta-ed.


The first time Justin breaks a house rule, Debbie doesn’t get particularly angry, because by then he’d been living under her roof for months and she knows that any other kid his age would have done it sooner. Heck, Michael did it so many times that one day she gave up counting and suggested that he go and get his own place. The only reason she’s mildly annoyed is because the sound of heavy and irregular footsteps- two sets of ‘em- passing her bedroom door at fucking one thirty in the morning had woken her up; she’d thought about getting up and telling him off in front of his trick, but decided that she wasn’t feeling nearly annoyed enough to leave the warmth of her bed in order to do so. To his credit, Sunshine kept the noise down, so she’d slipped back into sleep relatively quickly.

But now it’s dawn, and it’s time to kick the trick out before having a talk with Justin (since there’s no point having rules if you don’t enforce them). She’s actually surprised that Justin had let the trick stay- his leaving would have woken her up again, unless he decided to leap out of the second-storey window- because he’d never done that before, and she’s pretty sure that it’s got something to do with a certain Brian Kinney. Maybe Justin had been drunk enough- he certainly didn’t sound like he was walking very straight when he came in- that he’d simply passed out after, and the trick was the type to stay unless specifically told to leave. She smiles to herself, because nothing went better with a reprimand than a hangover.

Debbie opens the door with just the right amount of force and speed that the old hinges don’t make a sound. She takes a step inside, taking care to avoid the floorboards that squeak, looks towards the bed, and freezes.

It was dark inside, the light getting through the curtains only just enough to faintly illuminate the outlines of objects and furniture. But there are a couple of people in the world whom Debbie can identify from the barest of details, and the other occupant of the bed is definitely one of them.

Lying on Michael’s old bed, with his feet sticking out (because he’s really far too tall for it) and his obviously naked body covered by Captain Astro prints, is none other than Brian fucking Kinney.

Debbie blinks, in case the image is just a temporary hallucination, and her eyes adjust enough for her to make out Justin’s smaller form draped on top of half of Brian’s, partially hidden by the shadow of the older man’s body.

That’s what stops her. Not the fact that Brian Kinney has somehow allowed himself to be caught by Debbie after having obviously fucked her ward- she’d walked into the two of them going at it in her house plenty enough times that she suspects Brian privately enjoys trying to shock her- but the way they were lying together. Justin’s head on Brian’s shoulder is tilted slightly upwards, and Brian’s is turned towards him too, so it looks as if they’d fallen asleep just as Brian was kissing Justin’s forehead. A muscled, gym-honed arm rests on top of the smooth, pale expanse of Justin’s back; one of the kid’s arms is lying on Brian’s other shoulder, the delicate fingers of his hand lightly touching the man’s earlobe. Covered by the sheet from the waist down, it was hard to make out which outline was whose leg, but they were very definitely entwined.

It’s something she has never expected to ever see, though for Brian’s sake she has hoped one day to, because despite everything she does love him like a second son. There’d even been a time when she’d hoped to come upon such a scene in her house one morning, but the head she’d pictured nestled next to Brian’s had been Italian dark, not sunshine blond.

Justin shifts a little, his face moving into the light and allowing Debbie to see the appearance of stress lines on his brow. Brian moves too, his arm curling tighter around Justin, his fingers splaying out and lightly stroking the soft skin beneath them. Debbie thinks her jaw has dropped open, but she can’t tear her eyes away from the sight; how long have they been like this? Since when did Brian Kinney, king stud of Liberty Avenue, keep someone close- let alone hold them and fucking cradle them- after pulling his dick out of their ass?

Her eyes flick over to the answer- Justin. She knows how persistent the kid has been- if you believed even half of Michael’s complaints, Justin even follows them into the fucking toilet- and she’s seen with her own eyes how totally enamoured he is with Brian. She knows that, if he’d really wanted to, Kinney could have gotten rid of Justin ages ago, or at least never fucked him again- as determined and ingenious as the kid is, Debbie will not believe for a single moment that Brian couldn’t have found a way to do it if he’d put his brilliant ad exec mind to it- and has put down the fact that he hasn’t as being due to it suiting his ego to have a beautiful young twink following him around like a love-sick puppy. Her warnings to Justin about it had only fallen to deaf ears, and all this time she’s been wondering how an otherwise extremely intelligent and talented young man could fail to see what the rest of them did.

But now it seems that she has just unwittingly stumbled upon the answer- that Brian really is different when it’s just him and Justin. She briefly wonders if this could be another ploy to keep the boy on a leash, just another way Kinney teases his young admirer with something he can never have, but one look at their relaxed faces and Debbie’s quite sure that not even Brian is that good an actor.

Without warning, Brian’s eyelids flicker open. His eyes- she knows they’re hazel, has only been seeing them for a decade and a half, but they look unnaturally dark in the gloom- focus first on the top of Justin’s head. An unreadable expression forms on his face as he presses his nose against the sleeping kid’s blonde locks, breathing in. Then he seems to take in the Captain Astro print on the sheets; his eyes widen, and sweep around the room he had spent more nights as a teenager in than his own.

His gaze finally lands on Debbie, and she can practically hear the word ‘fuck’ resonating through his mind. For some reason, the fact that he doesn’t make a sound, actually moves instinctively closer to Sunshine, seems to be the most telling out of all the evidence she’d seen this morning that Brian is capable of caring for someone besides himself.

For long minutes they just look at each other. Debbie attributes her unnatural silence to the state of shock she’s still in, and Brian’s now got that challenging look in his eyes, that ‘You’ve caught me with my guard down, but don’t expect me to surrendur without a fight’ look. Debbie cocks her head, raising an eyebrow at him, and maybe Brian finally remembers who had held him when he turned up after midnight, red-faced and trembling, and never said a word when moved more stiffly than usual and refused to take his shirt off, because he settles down a bit and looks away.

She’s not sure which she wants more at that moment- give Brian a kiss and tell him that it’s all right to be human sometimes, or smack him on the side of the head and berate him for making her believe that he’d become so entrenched in the cold-hearted asshole role he’d moulded for himself that there was no saving him. But she’s pretty sure that any reaction at all will piss Brian off; this is one of those things that Brian Kinney does not Do, and the thing about Brian is that if an action isn’t acknowledged then he can safely pretend that he never did it, and maybe that’s how Justin’s managed to stick around for so long, because from the looks of it this is not the first time the two have slept like- well, like fucking lovers- yet Justin (who’s supposed to be the love-sick, starry-eyed kid) has never mentioned or even implied it. So Debbie just makes a small smile and whispers, “Breakfast in half an hour,” as if she’d just come in to wake him and Michael.

Vic eyes them strangely when they finally come down the stairs. As usual, Justin calls out ‘Good morning” in a sing-song voice and bounces over to help Debbie with the waffles; Brian answers Vic’s questioning expression with his usual smirk, but only relaxes completely after about ten minutes pass without any smart remarks or references; in fact, at that point Debbie’s gone on a roll about the next PFLAG event. When he leaves, he gives Debbie a tentative half-hug, and she smiles and pats him twice on the cheek.

On the way to the diner, Justin suddenly says, “I’m sorry for coming in so late last night, Deb. My watch stopped working, and if it hadn’t been for Brian I’d probably have stayed in Babylon until morning.”

She steals a look at him; bright blue eyes meet hers guilelessly, he’s such a beautiful kid, but now Debbie notices that there’s something reminiscent of Brian Kinney in there, though you wouldn’t see it unless you know what you’re looking for. It’s too easy to think of Justin as just another brainless blond twink, and she realises that he’s fooled her too, because if she’d actually thought about it, she’d have realised sooner that a kid who manages to get Brian Kinney to break his one-fuck-only policy must have something more to offer than a perfect bubble butt.

Does he know that Debbie had walked in on them, had realised why Justin hasn’t yet given up on Brian, had seen the evidence that, however slowly, he really is getting to the man? Would Brian have told him? A couple of hours ago, she would have been sure that he wouldn’t, but now she doesn’t know what to think. There’s a speculative look in Justin’s eyes as he waits for her response, but she’s not even sure if it’s really there or if the world-shaking revelations of the morning has left her reading too much into things.

“Don’t worry about it, Sunshine,” she says, then pauses. “Plus, I believe what I said was ‘no tricks after midnight’, and Brian Kinney’s hardly a trick.”

Justin flashes his namesake smile and nods. Debbie is still quite sure that the kid’s working to get his heart broken, but maybe it’s time she stops dismissing this as just a huge infatuation, and even risk a little bit of hope for the most wayward of her boys.

Look at the Prompt Table of Fluff.

If you liked what you read (or better yet, if you didn’t) I’m in need of a beta for an early S2 and a late S3 standalones.