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His name is Mason, and he grew up in one of those small towns in a state that everyone makes fun of, and it's really ok by him that they make fun of it (Omaha, or maybe Idaho), because he grew up there, and it really is nothing but pigs and corn and tough guys wearing shitkickers. And his father was a state trooper, or maybe he was a cowboy or a farmer, or a cop, and Mason's got three older brothers, all of whom wear Wranglers and boots and he knew from the start that he didn't fit in.
And his dad was none too happy about having a fairy for a kid, and maybe Mason would grow out of it if he played football or shot hoops, but all he was ever great at was track, because in Iowa (or Oklaholma, or Kansas), you get a lot of practice running away from older brothers and their shithead friends.
So nobody in his family really put up much of a fuss when Mason took his fancy-pants scholarship and got the fuck out of town as soon as graduation was over. And he hit LA like he was a bomb going off and spent most of a decade - when he wasn't studying, anyway - partying a little too much and drinking a little too much and just everything-ing a little too much. Because it was all right there all of a sudden, and he didn't have to run away from anybody in West Hollywood.
There was this guy one night, he picked him up at The Abbey on one of their go-go nights, and he was this gorgeous blond fucker and he did and said all the right things and it was fucking magic. And maybe they hooked up a few more times that month, in the spring of 2011, and maybe they didn't, but that was it, and Mason never saw him again after that.
And a couple of years later, once he'd gotten it all out of his system and Senior Developer wasn't looking like a pipe dream anymore, maybe he meets this guy, Paul, and they hit it off immediately. And Paul's a paralegal, and that's not particularly Hollywood or glamorous, but neither is IT, and it suits them both just fine. He's originally from Seattle, and moved down to get away from the rain, and they spend a lot of weekends biking and rollerblading and just being outside, in the sun, together.
They hit it off so well that a couple of years later they're sending out wedding invitations, because California has finally gotten its collective head out of its collective ass and made that shit legal, and Paul's rubbing his shoulders while Mason addresses the invitations to his family, even though his hand might have been a little bit shaky while he did it. But they come after all, his dad and mom and two of his brothers, because blood is blood and that's the end of it. And maybe, just maybe, it wasn't so bad having pansy-ass Mason for a little brother, even if it was a husband he was marrying instead of a wife. Because damned if his in-laws didn't throw one hell of a party.
Still, even though life is pretty good, every once in a while Mason will catch sight of blond hair in that particular shade, or kiss Paul on the mouth and taste bourbon there, and his mind will rocket back to those late spring nights in 2011, and he'll wonder. Just for a moment. Where he is. What he's doing now. If his life had gone the way he'd wanted it to, if he'd ever found the guy whose name he'd called out in his sleep-
And early one morning, after getting up to piss, Mason trips over a stack of magazines that Paul left by the side of the bed, because he's a one-man disaster area and never, ever puts anything away on a shelf if there's a spare piece of floor... Mason finds out.
It's an art magazine, because Paul loves that shit - he's got a membership with every museum and gallery in a 50-mile radius, despite not being able to draw a straight line with a ruler, and really, it's a good thing he's so cute...
It's an art magazine and Mason flips through it idly, and there he is, all of a sudden, reading an article all about his career. And he's standing with his partner in the picture, arms around each other, and damn if they're not ridiculously hot together. Older, sure - they all are, and there's grey in Mason's dark brown hair now, and in Paul's as well, and that spring was a very long time ago. But he's there, Justin Taylor, and he's opening a gallery of his own and there are smiles in every line of his face and in his eyes, and Mason nods. And he smiles.
Good for him.
Because it's written there, not in the words but in the lines around his eyes and in the ring on his hand - he found what he was looking for.
Then there's a sound in the hallway and Mason drops the magazine and dives back into the empty-but-still-warm bed, and he pretends to still be asleep, even though both of them know that he's a lying liar who lies. Because it's Sunday morning, and Paul has a thing for breakfast in bed, and when he's in a really good mood, he likes to wake Mason with a blow job or a hand job, and really, Mason has it good, magazines all over the floor and towels all over the bathroom notwithstanding. The bedroom door opens and that door to 'what if' closes, for good this time, and there's the smell of coffee, and bacon, and Paul is humming under his breath as he heads, sure-footed, towards the bed.
And this skinny little kid from Wyoming (or maybe Nebraska) figures that he has to be the luckiest son of a bitch in the entire world. And he's certain, now, that somewhere in NYC, a skinny little kid from Pittsburgh is feeling exactly the same way.