Title: Old School Love
By: Amanda
Feedback: sweety167@yahoo.ca
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: The Series, but none really
Disclaimers: I own nothing related to QAF, although I do like to play with them. And the song ‘Old School Love (radio edit)’ is by Divine Brown.
Pairing: Michael and Brian
Summery: There’s no love like that first love, that old school love and no one knows that like Brian and Michael.
Completed: July 27, 2005




It's funny, how memories
Keep bringing you back to me
Just when I started to get myself together again
Thoughts of you
Come creeping in
Met at a party in June
Wasn't really tryin' to notice you
You looked at me with your sweet brown eyes
You walked up and said 'Hi'
Who would have known
That a love affair like ours would grow
Then slip away

Brian could deny it – had in fact for years to anyone who accused him – but Michael was under his skin. So deep, he was lodged in his heart, an unremovable piece. It would just stop beating without it. The truth was Brian loved Michael. Had since he met him, he just preferred to ignore that, repress it. But that face never left him mind, certainly never his heart. Not that he was sappy or a lesbian or anything. He was just a man haunted by living memories.

Lately, it was memories of the first time he laid eyes on Michael, that first time the raven-haired boy stepped into his life were creeping in on him. Were invading his every moment.
For a new kid in a new town Michael was just what was needed. Those rich eyes hidden under that raven hair, that bright, welcoming smile. The first person to accept him for him, and not what he could do for Michael. He just smiled, said ‘Hi’ and welcomed him to The Pitts. And for the first time in his life Brian felt welcome.

And for the first time in his life Brian knew what love was. Only to lose it…

Still miss that old school love
Not quite that do right love
Your love was fine
Never old time
You're steady on my mind
Still miss that old school love
Not quite the right one love
I don't want you back
But I'll never ever love the same way again

Michael had been pathetic, even he knew it. No matter what men came into his life he’d always miss one man, the first man. His first love. Brian. And that was the one true fact of Michael’s life; he would always love Brian Kinney, no matter what. He could hate him, despise him, but still remember to love him. Parts of him. Brian was the first man to stake a claim in Michael’s heart, Michael’s life. Part of him would always belong to Brian. It wasn’t perfect, that was for sure, but it was real. Is real.

Brian just wasn’t his, but always would be. It was complicated but everyone understood it. It was unwritten, and yet always Brian and Mikey. But things do change, even them. It could never be The Brian and Mikey Show again, but neither could be a part of another ‘show’ either. They were that something that could never be duplicated, or repeated.

No one could ever love that same way. That was just them.

Now here I am startin' over with a new love
He's a real man with a good heart
He's more than enough
Laid back and smooth
With a warm and gentle touch
Near or far
His love is (never) never
(Never) never too much
(There I go again)
Thinkin' about your lips
When I'm kissing him
(There you go again)
Throwin' me back, makin' me reminisce
And I know it's wrong (I know it's wrong)
Me holding on (me holding on)
Thank you for being the one that I…

But even the pathetic have to move on. And Michael moved on with Ben. He was big and strong and offered everything Michael wanted. Almost. But it was better than chasing an old dream: building new ones, solid one. It was real too. And Ben understood. He was patent about the effects of Brian on Michael. He waited. He waited there, offering his strong and gentle arms. Offering everything that was denied in that first kiss of Michael’s life.

But no kiss was ever as strong and gentle and powerful as Brian’s. No kiss ever had that slow, soft brush of lip, that tangy taste of tongue. That affect on him. That was the problem, is the problem. It’s still Brian’s kiss that Michael remembers, relives. Every kiss reminds him of his first. His first kiss from someone who counted, from his first love. From Brian. And each one after only fed the legend. A legend no one man could live up to, maybe not even Brian himself. His superhero, his life-long fantasy. The one thing he still hadn’t let go of, not completely. No, never completely.

After all, Brian was the first. He always would be…

Still miss that old school love
Not quite that do right love
Your love was fine
Never old time
You're steady on my mind
Still miss that old school love
Not quite the right one love
I don't want you back
But I'll never ever love the same way again

That’s what it all comes down to, Michael. Them. Together. First and foremost. And Brian missed that. As unfair as he knew it was, Brian missed having Michael all to himself, he missed the way it was. He missed being the one in Michael’s life the way that Michael was the one in his. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t right, but hell, it was real. It was them.

Don’t think Brian didn’t know, even as he tried to hide it from himself, but he always recognised that the only steady and secure thing in his life was Michael. His rock, his anchor, his first love. The problem has always been Brian. He was never right, it was never his right time, he was never fair. So, he couldn’t expect Michael back the same way, could never asked him to be. He could only thank him, be in silent awe of him for teaching a Kinney what love was. For showing him that he was capable of love.

But no one could take that place. He could love no one like Michael.

I don't want you back no no
I don't want you back
But I'll never ever love the same way again

Neither man wanted to go back. Neither really could. And neither would deny the other of the men they had grown into. Neither really could.

They couldn’t be that Mikey and Brian again, they couldn’t be those fourteen-year-old boys wanking to Patrick Swayze, they couldn’t be those twenty-something club kids clinging to the same skin, they couldn’t even go back to being lost and thirty fumbling over each other.

They didn’t want to go back, not really. They wanted to go forward. They learned to go forward.

One day, together.


The End.