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The boys – the two men, were sitting in their home one evening, plagued with a daunting decision. Justin thought the toughest decision of their life had come a year ago when they embarked on this journey. Little did he know that the hardest decision would be naming a baby – two babies.
Justin had always thought the hardest task of his life would be convincing Brian to have a baby with him. Even though Brian already had a kid, Brian wasn't a parent. Brian being a father to Gus didn't change how he lived his life, he still drank, did drugs, fucked around. Being a full-time parent would force Brian to change and Justin never thought he would live to see the day that Brian Kinney would willingly do that. So imagine Justin's surprise when he asked Brian a year ago about having kids and Brian took a moment to think, then with complete conviction said, “let's do it.” Justin was sure Brian had been joking but when they were at the surrogacy agency, Justin finally let it sink in, it wasn't a joke, they were really going to be parents.
The whole process from the beginning had been almost too easy, they agreed on everything, never having a single disagreement, until it came to naming the kids. Brian had insisted that their kids names couldn't be the name of any trick, anyone they ever were involved with, any client's name, relative's name, or really just anyone they ever met. Justin had started to think their children just wouldn't have names. Maybe deciding to have boys had been a bad idea, naming a girl wouldn't have been too difficult.
They had slowly been compiling a list of all the names they couldn't use since the day they found out the implantation was successful and they could expect two babies in nine months. At the top of the list of unusable names was unsurprisingly, Ethan and Ian, but because Brian had clearly lost his mind, he felt the need to add Paganini to the list. He even went as far as putting brackets next to it to include 'Paganini Junior' and 'PJ'.
Now, just a week before their babies were expected to be born, they were desperate. They needed to find a name for these kids.
Sitting in their living room, Justin decided it was as good a time as any. “Okay, ready to try this again?” Justin had a piece of paper with names on it in his hand and held it up to Brian.
Brian reached into his back pocket of his jeans and pulled out a small piece of paper, “no, but we don't have a choice. What's your first one?”
Justin looked at his paper, he only had three names on it and these three names had been hard enough to come up with so he really couldn't imagine another night of this. “Cameron?”
“Absolutely not. Remember? Michael dated that asshole doctor.”
“Oh.” Justin scratched his head vaguely remembering, “right, David Cameron. Okay, you?”
Brian wasn't sold on the name but at least he hadn't ever known anyone with this name, “Vince?”
“Nope.”
“Why not? I know it's not great but it's not bad enough for that kind of harsh 'no'.”
“I just don't like it.” Justin seemed to think that was a strong enough argument and bypassed any further conversation by throwing out his next name, “Phil?”
“Oh, I see. You don't want our kid to be named Vince but Phil is acceptable?” Brian said the name with such disgust, he was starting to question Justin's sanity to come out with a name like Phil. “Why don't we just name our kid Ted and be done with it.” Brian shuttered as though the name was a bug on his body he was trying to shake off, “Alexander?”
That had been the first name that Justin really put some thought into. It wasn't a bad name, but it did have some problems, “it's not bad.”
“But...?” Brian dragged out the word knowing Justin had much more to say than that.
“It's long, so it will always be shortened to 'Alex'. I don't mind a name that can be shortened but I don't like a name that will always be shortened.” Justin took a deep breath, he only had one name left and seeing as they couldn't agree thus far, he was worried it would be another night of defeat. “Aidan?”
“Hmm.” Brian put his thumb to his mouth, turning it sideways and gently biting down. Aidan. Aidan. Aidan Kinney.
“Brian, if you don't like it, it's fine. We will figure this out.”
Brian hadn't shown his paper to Justin, but Brian's paper also only had three names on it. He liked the name Aidan and hoped the last name on his list, Justin would like also. “Nathan?”
“Nathan.” Justin said the name to hear what it sounded like coming from his mouth. It sounded good when Brian said it and he wanted to make sure he liked saying it. Nathan. Nathan Kinney. “Aidan and Nathan Kinney? Did we just pick our kids names? Is this nightmare finally over?”
Suddenly Brian's face changed. Brian looked...nervous? “Aidan and Nathan...Taylor – Kinney?”
It had been a few years since the last, but Justin was pretty sure he knew a Brian Kinney proposal when he heard one. With a smile he asked, “Brian Kinney, are you proposing?...Again.” He ended with a chuckle.
For a man dead-set on never getting married, Brian never thought he would be proposing repeatedly, especially not to a man that would have gladly married him when he was seventeen. “Well, we do live together. We've been together for almost eleven years. It was important to you that we buy a house together, splitting the cost so that it wasn't just my house. We're about to have two babies. We wear the rings for Christ sake. What's stopping us?”
Justin was a little surprised, Brian hadn't mentioned marriage since they talked about it after Justin had finished with New York and returned home. It was in that conversation that they decided just wearing the rings were enough. “Nothing. I just thought we decided that wasn't for us. We don't need marriage. Right?”
Brian had gotten much better with these kinds of conversations but he still struggled with allowing himself to want things. Justin was all he ever needed, anything else was just icing on the cake. But over the years, Brian allowed himself to want more and sometimes he was even able to ask for what he wanted. “What about wanting it?”
“Brian, do you –” Justin stopped and cleared his throat, it was his turn to ask the question. “Brian, will you marry me?”
A smile overtook Brian's face. It happened like it was in slow motion. So many times Brian watched as everything slipped away from him, but this time he felt like everything he never knew he wanted was rushing at him. He could have it all, he just had to say, “yes!”
*****
A few months later, Brian was standing in the doorway to his children's bedroom, watching his husband put Aidan and Nathan to bed. Brian's face was soft and relaxed, he had a smile in his eyes and just the faintest smile on his lips. His life had become a dream. Some days he wondered if he really was living in a dream, because he didn't know reality could be this good.
Just as the newlyweds got tucked into bed, Justin said, “you know...I have always wanted a puppy.”
And just like that, Justin would say something that made Brian absolutely certain that this was reality. Brian's dreams would never include a puppy, although Brian's dreams had never included any of the parts that were now his life, so maybe adding a puppy to his dreams wouldn't be the worst thing.