Heaven on Earth

Author's Note: I sincerely apologize for the delay of the story. I could talk about the events in my life of the past months that prevented me from being able to finish the story the way that I wanted to, but I know that everyone is more concerned with the story. I do appreciate the e-mails from people both with praise and criticism. Brian and Evan's tale is actually winding down, so I expect to have it finished soon with two three more chapters. Please enjoy.

Chapter 10: Fallen Stars

I reached out my hand to touch Brian's face, but he flinched a little before holding it there with his own hand. I had never seen him like this. When I felt the wetness on his cheeks, my heart broke and I finally completely understood his concern.

"Now do you see why I would never go back to Noah?" he whispered.

"Bri, I had no idea."

"It's not exactly something that comes up in everyday conversation," he chuckled dryly.

"What happened?"

"I'm not even sure how it all started anymore." He rubbed his hands over his eyes. "You know that Noah's a small guy, but he was usually on top in bed. Whenever he couldn't afford cocaine, he would drink. When he drank, he got angry. One night he came home and punched me when I told him how I didn't want to put up with him while he was drunk. He apologized, and we made love, but he kept hitting me while we had sex and telling me that he loved me. I was so stupid and so insecure that I believed every word he said. Somehow the pain started working its way into our sex life all of the time. I got him to stop hitting me in the face, but that meant that the beating intensified in other places. Sometimes I couldn't comfortably sit down or wear short sleeve shirts. The last time that we had sex before we broke up, he had gotten so high that I don't think he was aware of how badly he was hurting me despite how loudly I begged him to stop. I never hit him back because I was afraid that I would hurt him more since I was bigger." Brian paused for a second to clear his throat. "No, that's a lie. I didn't hit him back because I loved him and I thought he loved me, only he had a different way of showing it. I ended up in the hospital. After I got out, he tried apologizing, but the combination of the drugs and the beatings was too much. I told him to leave, and thankfully, he did."

"Brian, I'm so sorry."

"Why? Because you're shacked up with an idiot?"

"No, Brian, I am not 'shacked up with an idiot.' I'm sorry because you had to go through that. You know you're worth so much. You're so sweet and beautiful and brilliant—"

"Right, because it's my brilliance that allowed me to be beaten all the time." He sat up and got out of the bed.

I jumped up right after him and stopped him from leaving the room. His shoulders were shaking with his tears as I hugged him from behind. "You're creative, and you're caring, and you mean more to me than anything else in my life." I turned him around in my arms. "I love you, and I will spend the rest of my life protecting you from all the Noahs out there who would even dream of hurting you." His head dropped slightly. "Look at me, Bri. I will never hurt you like that. You don't have to pretend to be strong all the time because you think that I'll take advantage of that moment of weakness. You can cry on me, you can break down on me, you can lose your mind on me, and I'm still going to love you just the same."

That burst open the floodgates. Brian seemed to become dead weight against me as the tears poured out. I think that having Noah re-introduced into his life hurt him a lot more than I realized, and he had not yet had the chance to talk to anyone like Kennedy Blaine. For the first time, I rocked and held him as he cried. Brian had never let himself slip when he was with me; he was in complete control of his darker emotions. I led us back into the bed and rolled him so that his face was pressed into my chest. Once his cries had died down to sobs and a mild case of the hiccups, I moved myself so that I was face to face with him.

"I'm going to make an appointment with Dr. Blaine," I said, "but I want you to come with me."

He silently nodded his head and cuddled himself back into my chest. I could tell that he had finally gone to sleep when I noticed that his hiccups had stopped and his breathing was more regular. I held him all night. I couldn't think of anything else I could do.

I woke up early the next morning and carefully released Brian. I quietly fished around in Brian's pants, looking for the keys to his apartment. I knew that I couldn't fully comprehend what he went through without seeing it. I was so busy cursing Noah that I almost forgot to turn off the alarm as I slipped out of the apartment. After letting myself into the apartment, I found the tape right where he had left it on the VCR and began to play it.

The tape picked up with Noah pressing himself into Brian and violently kissing him. Noah, who was still clothed, grabbed Brian by the balls and commanded him to roll over. Without any foreplay or lubrication, he drove himself into Brian and caused him to cry out in pain. No sooner had the sound escaped Brian's lips than Noah smacked him in the back of the head.

You better not start that crying shit or I'll make it even worse for you.

I watched in horror as Noah savagely pounded Brian to the verge of splitting him wide open. The camera was far from the bed, but I was almost certain that I could see that Brian's ass was bleeding. Noah raked his fingernails across Brian's back and held him firmly against the bed with one hand on Brian's neck. Every time that Brian made some kind of noise, Noah would beat him with his fist until he seemed satisfied that Brian was quiet enough. It lasted for about fifteen minutes, and then I heard Noah cry out and roll off Brian. They both lay there for a few moments until Brian got up to turn off the camera. He walked directly in front of it as he was turning it off, and it was very obvious that he was not even hard without any evidence of relief. Noah didn't even have the decency to make sure that Brian at least got off on it all. I truly had to wonder how Brian had ever convinced himself that he loved this monster. I rewound the tape and put it back where I got it. I locked up Brian's apartment, went back upstairs and turned on the alarm as if I had never left.

Brian was still asleep. Thank God. I took off my clothes and went into the kitchen. I may have been a terrible cook, but I damn well tried. It wasn't anything fancy: some runny scrambled eggs, over cooked bacon, toast, and some strawberries that I bought at a corner market. I poured two glasses of orange juice and made two cups of black coffee. I carried it all back on a tray into the extra bedroom.

I put the tray on the nightstand. I smoothed back Brian's hair from his temples and kissed those first. I moved on to kiss his cheeks, his earlobes, his neck, and back up again. He was already awake when I started my second rotation, but I wanted to keep going anyway.

"What smells so good?" he murmured.

"You," I said, continuing to kiss his face.

"Kiss-ass."

"You want me to?"

My joke got something of a chuckle out of him. He sat up and I passed him the tray of food. "I thought I'd let you know just how special you are."

"Runny scrambled eggs, over cooked bacon, toast, and those strawberries you bought at the corner market."

"You make it sound so appetizing."

He leaned in and kissed me. "I love you, too, baby."

I ran my hand up and down his leg while he ate. Once he finished the eggs and toast, he took a loud, crispy bite of his bacon and looked at me.

"What?" I asked.

"You're looking at me differently."

"How so?"

"I don't know. Something is different. Come here."

His hand moved to the back of my neck and pulled my head to his. Our lips met, but Brian broke it off fairly quickly.

"You're kissing me differently."

"Bri, I really don't understand wha—"

"I love you," he said suddenly.

I was almost trying to finish saying what I had started, but I came out with a confused, "I love you, too, Brian."

His deep, blue eyes locked onto my face and then became cloudy with pain. I never knew how he had known, but I suppose it was a testament to how we were bonded to each other in a way that no one else could touch. His voice was barely audible. "You watched the tape, didn't you?"

"Yea, Bri, I did."

"Why? Why would you want to see that?"

"Because I needed to understand what you went through. I had to know."

"But now you just pity me."

"Oh, is that what you think is going on? No, Brian. If you think that what I feel now is pity, you're absolutely wrong. All I can feel when I look at you is sheer awe and admiration for someone who went through so much and pulled it all together in the end."

He seemed to think about this for a while. My hand had never left his leg while we were talking. I resumed stroking him, which seemed to make him relax a little. He finished off the strawberries and bacon and moved the tray aside. I slid back under the covers with him and let him snuggle up closely. It seemed like he was listening to the beating of my heart. I heard him quietly humming as he kissed my chest. I ran my fingers through his hair and down his back, causing him to laugh and shiver. It felt good to hear him laugh.

"Brian, I want to make love to you," I said.

"Yes," he said. "I love you so much, Evan."

I reached over to the nightstand and picked up the lube. I squirted some onto my fingers and began to gently loosen up Brian's hole. When I had finished, I moved myself to the edge of the bed. Brian sat up and looked questioningly at me.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"I want to do it like this," I said. "Sit on my lap."

He smiled and complied. His legs rested on either side of my thighs as he sat on me. My penis easily slipped into him and we both sighed. In that position, he was in the perfect position for my tongue to play around with his nipples. He sat on me for a few minutes, completely impaled, while we kissed, licked, and ran our hands all over each others bodies. Mostly we just held each other and waited. Eventually, I picked him up by his butt cheeks and started to slowly lift him off me and lower him again. We kept up the same painfully slow, yet incredibly beautiful, pace. It wasn't about someone getting off, it wasn't about reaching any sort of goal. It was simply me connected to Brian on a strong emotional level, and he was connected to me in the same way. After nearly an hour of the slow sex, I think I had finally begun to wear him down. He had orgasmed twice, but I was still going strong, concentrating and stopping myself every time I felt like I was going to go over the edge. I rolled him over on his back so that he could at least lie down, but I kept the same pace. His legs wrapped around me and pushed down on my back, bringing me in closer to him, driving me deeper into his body. His eyes were closed in pleasurable silence, and his mouth was stretched into a smile of pure content. I leaned in to kiss him, and before I knew it, I was shooting into him, completely buried inside.

Brian lowered his legs as I crumbled into a heap on top of him.

I leaned over and whispered into his ear, "I love you, Brian Davis."

He only sighed in response. I didn't need to hear him say the same; I already knew how much we meant to each other.

*** Little did I know that the tape marked the beginning of the end. That night, when the two of us came in from a great Italian dinner, the phone rang. Mark called saying that Maria had been particularly down recently, so he was making arrangements for the whole family to come up and visit and then go on to visit Mom and Uncle James. I asked them to stay with me; Brian and I needed to move his bed upstairs anyway since the end of the month was quickly approaching and he needed to get out of there. We had packed boxes and moved clothing up the elevator, but there was still more to finish. They insisted that they stay at a hotel, justifying themselves by saying there was no way that Brian and I were ready to handle three infants. I could not dispute their reasoning. They were coming on Saturday.

I laid back into the cushions of the sofa. I wasn't sure what Brian was doing, but he emerged from the bedroom when someone knocked on the door. I lifted myself to answer it.

"What do you want?" I sneered.

Noah Meyers stared blankly at me with that innocent face that he seemed to have mastered. "Hello, Evan. I was looking for Brian."

I glared at him fiercely through half-clenched eyes. "I can't imagine why."

"Am I not allowed to talk to my friends? Christ, I hope you don't try to control Brian like this."

"With friends like you..."

"Look, I'm not trying to start any trouble. Will you let me talk to Brian?"

I knew that Brian was right around the corner, but I reasoned that he would have already come out if he wanted to talk to Noah. "You're not going to order me around in my own apartment. Besides, Brian isn't here. He's probably downstairs in his own apartment. You have a key; why don't you let yourself in like you usually do?"

He got very silent and studied me for a moment. "I don't have my key anymore. I lost it a couple of weeks ago, but even so, I never once used it to get into Brian's apartment."

I had to laugh out loud at that one. "Oh, right. So I suppose the tape of you beating the shit of Brian simply walked into his apartment and buried itself in the couch."

"How did you get that?" he growled quietly.

"Why don't you tell me?"

"If I knew, I would certainly kick the shit out of the guy who gave it to you. No one was ever supposed to see that."

"That's a good cover. You've actually got me convinced," I said sarcastically.

"I sincerely don't know how the hell all of this happened," he said. His tone grew dark and serious. "I did NOT have anything to do with giving you that tape. I love Brian. Do you think that I would deliberately humil—"

"Have a nice evening, Mr. Meyers." I slammed the door in his face and locked it. Enough was enough.

Brian was sitting on the couch with a magazine in hand, looking completely undisturbed. He casually lifted his head and looked at me. "I don't buy his story," he said.

I plucked the magazine from his hand and sat on his lap. I leaned in and began to gently suck on his bottom lip. I felt his hands moving up my back. The phone ringing again broke us apart.

"Hello," I answered.

"E-Evan?"

"Jane?" I said incredulously.

Brian crossed over from the couch and took my hand in his.

"Hi. I've been trying to get in touch with you. I-I think we really need to talk. About Laura."

"That sounds good," I responded timidly.

"Alright, I'll be right over."

Shit. That was the last thing in the world I wanted. She had tried to break in earlier! "Uh, actually we're pretty busy right now. We've been moving things around and the apartment is a mess. Do you think we could just talk on the phone?" Brian squeezed my hand.

"Evan, this is pretty important."

"I know, but... Isn't there sometime we can meet later?"

"I'm not sure," she said. "I'm going to be pretty busy with work for the rest of the week." She chuckled on the other end of the phone. "It's not as if I've never seen your place when it's messy."

"I know, Jane, but things are very cluttered and congested right now. How about I meet you tomorrow for lunch or something?"

The line went very silent for a moment before I heard her voice again. "That's fine. Where do you want to meet?"

"Does Washington Square Park sound good? We can meet at about 1 o'clock and figure out where to go from there."

"That's fine. I'll see you then."

"Bye."

Another pause. "Bye."

I slowly hung up the phone and sighed in relief. Jane may have been my best friend, but her suspicious behavior was too much for me to ignore. Brian, still holding my hand, led me to the couch. We sat down face to face without saying anything for a few moments.

"Any thoughts?" I asked, finally breaking the silence.

"Yes, I want you to cancel."

"I do, too, but at least I bought myself some time. I couldn't think of anything fast enough."

"Well, there's not much that can happen in public during lunchtime. I suppose you should be fine. Her behavior is just making me nervous."

"I am a big boy," I pointed out.

"I know you are," he growled and nipped my neck. Responding to the heat of his body and the feeling of his lips on my skin, I began to pull of his shirt with a fervor that matched his own hips grinding against me. I had just unzipped him when there was a knock at the door.

"I SWEAR on my granddaddy's beard! I can hear y'all through the door. Don't you ever take it into the bedroom?"

Brian fumbled to slip his shirt back on while moaning, "Don't let her in! Whatever you do don't let her in!"

I snickered to myself as I rose to let Erica in. She stood on the other side of the door with the aura and poise of royalty. She briskly walked into the living room and turned to face both Brian and myself. "Well, it's nice to know that one of you still has manners." She smirked as he zipped his pants. Next, she put on a brilliant smile and in her sweetest voice she said, "Mr. Alexander, could you excuse us for a moment? Mr. Davis and I have a few things to talk about."

Realizing that she probably wanted to talk about last night, I excused myself saying that I smelled from moving around boxes all day. I went to go jump in the shower.

I undressed while I let the water run hot. Once the steam was running out of the shower stall, I stepped into the nearly scalding hot water. I ran the washcloth over my body, scrubbing at the grime and smell from all the dirt and dust that had accumulated in Brian's apartment. I washed the back of my neck and traveled down to my back. Feeling one of my fingers lightly scraping my back, I suddenly remembered how Noah had so viciously clawed at Brian on the video tape. I winced and tried to put the images out of mind, but everyone knows that it's even harder not to think of something when you're trying hard to focus on something else. I let one muffled sob escape my lips before I finished and turned the water off. There was no way I was going to show how much Noah really got to me. I would have his head on a pike before I let him anywhere near Brian again.

I went back into the living room where Brian and Erica still seemed locked in an intense conversation.

"I really didn't mean to sound so harsh, Erica," Brian said. He held out his hand for me and pulled me into his lap. "It's that I wanted to tell Evan privately; you had as much of a right to know as he did, but given the circumstances, I felt like I needed to tell him first." He nuzzled his head into my shoulder, and I ran my hand across his back.

"Apology accepted, Bri, but if you ever speak to me like that again, I'm going to cut off your balls and sell them as mountain oysters."

"Mountain oysters?" I asked.

"They're bull testicles," she said, smiling brightly.

Brian laughed loudly, and I made a gagging noise.

"Brian is big, but he's not that big," I joked. He playfully punched my arm.

After that, the conversation came to a pause. Erica began to stare blankly into some corner of the room, and Brian and I became lost in holding each other. I mindlessly ran my fingers through his hair as he rested his head. Erica was now reclining on the couch, eyes closed. At some point, I must have fallen asleep as well because the next thing I realized was that I was curled up still in Brian's lap, and there were some noises coming from the kitchen. I turned my head as Erica came back in with a soda in her hand.

I smiled sleepily at her. "We all dozed off, didn't we?"