Brand

Brand By Benji Bright

"Hey yo, everybody, this is Bryan!" says the blond, beaming.

"And Corbin!" the brunet says, running in from off-screen.

"Welcome to another fitness cast," Bryan says, flexing one bulging bicep and attempting to look grave and serious while Corbin does exaggerated superhero poses behind him. In another moment Bryan's dropped the mock seriousness and Corbin's joined him on screen with one arm around his shoulder. Bryan continues: "Now a lot of you guys have been asking us what kind of exercise we actually do every day. Well, they've been asking me. Corbin apparently came out of the womb jacked."

"Hashtag no cheat days for babies," Corbin ad libs immediately.

"So do you want to tell 'em?" Bryan asks.

Corbin strokes his chin like a villain. "I dunno... maybe if there was some way for our viewers to prove their loyalty...to show that they deserve to know our deepest secrets..."

Bryan's eyes light up, as if he's just thought of something. "Oh! You mean like hitting... two-hundred thousand subscribers?!"

An air horn sounds three times and confetti bursts from above the two jocks and rains down on them as house music blares. Bryan links his hands and simulates a wave running from elbow to elbow while Corbin does the running man. Later, a quick cut will be inserted and the two of them will be positioned back in front of the camera. It's the sort of snappy editing that's become typical of their channel's style.

"Seriously, you guys. Thank you so much for your continued support. Honestly without you guys, this channel would just be me listening to Corbin talking about his lower back hair problem," Bryan says.

Corbin stares into the camera, and deadpans, "it's not a problem anymore. Since I started using the Lower Back Hair Shredder 6000: Take Your Lower Back Hair Down... for good. Unrelated: thanks to Lower Back Hair Solutions for sponsoring today's cast."

Beneath Corbin's face scrolls a message that Lower Back Hair Solutions is a fictional entity and that in fact there are no sponsors to speak of. Yet.

"Were we talking about something else?" Corbin asks, snapped out of his trance.

"Exercise. Fitness. The Spartan Pursuit. The..." Bryan drones.

Corbin snatches the camera and walks away as Bryan continues to go on with made up synonyms for exercise. Corbin speaks earnestly to the audience about their reaction to the news of hitting two-hundred thousand followers. After that the guys goof off for a bit longer and then get into the workout that ends the cast.

Once the cameras are off, the cameraman comes out from behind camera two. "Looks good, mostly, but Corbin, you lost your glisten about three-quarters in. I'm gonna need you guys to get your energy up again so I can get some stuff b-roll stuff to slice in. And Bryan, I don't think the lower back hair stuff works. I may cut it."

Bryan squints. "What? Kendall, we were just being funny. That's why people watch us."

"Which is great, if you actually are funny," Kendall replies. "Stop arguing. Just work up a fucking sweat and let me get this done? Please, Bryan. Do I have to beg?"

Bryan rolls his eyes, but hits the mat with Corbin, anyway.

Of the two, Corbin is the larger. He has bowling ball shoulders their viewers covet and idolize in equal measure and a thick neck. Muscle atop muscle packed onto a solid frame that only a disarming smile keeps from seeming intimidating. Bryan--only leaner by contrast--has calves of granite, robust thighs and round, high glutes connecting to a trim mid-section. As they move through their exercises, growing sweaty and red-faced, Kendall floats in their periphery, staring through the chilly distance of his camera's lens.

The jocks work hard to appear focused though Kendall routinely interrupts them so as to prompt them to hold poses or exaggerate motions that will later seem tasteful and effortless once Kendall has worked their two-dimensional images like clay on his computer screen.

Even their conversation, light and aimless, is a mine of behind-the-scenes content or post cast blooper material. Bryan finds he barely recalls these days how he and Corbin interacted before there was a camera between them. And then there's Kendall.

After their first few thousand followers it occurred to the young men that there might be something beyond just goofing off on camera for their friends and friends of friends. Kendall, Bryan's older brother, had just graduated from college out west with a minor in advertising. They promised to pay him in beer (which they were then too young to buy) and a future stake in the business (which did not exist). Kendall took nothing and offered them only a summer of work. Two years and thousands of hours of film later, Kendall's still breathing their sweat and is just now lingering over the tensing muscles of his younger brother's arm during a flawless, protracted tricep kickback.

"Let's switch to legs for a bit?" Kendall asks.

Bryan puts down his free weights and gives himself a moment to shake off the effort. His white tank top with the pixel fox logo of their brand is transparent with sweat and Kendall hovers around him as he lifts the bottom edge of his shirt up to wipe his face. He glances behind him at one of the mirrored walls of the exercise room and notes the considerable wetness on the back of his shorts. He doubts that will make it into the cast, but Kendall snaps a photo with the high-definition camera hanging around his neck, anyway.

Corbin leads them through a set of lower body exercises that Bryan finds challenging, but invigorating. Using little besides sidelong glances and slight smiles, they calibrate the workout in tandem, knowing each other's limits intimately from years of working out together. It's not for nothing that the online commentariat has often pegged them as an item despite increasingly frequent social media posts with pictures of Corbin and his girlfriend Jessica.

There were some concerns that Jessica would ruin the purity of the connection between Corbin and Bryan. Perhaps muddy the narrative of their perfect friendship with something as coarse as sexuality. And there were disappointed fans and several threats against Jessica, but together they made a photogenic couple and Jessica with her tattoos and motorcycle and devil-may-care attitude provided a counterpoint to the wholesome, puckish prankster jocks. Kendall carefully setup the narrative of their relationship and through a series of posts over one long weekend their follower count exploded and just like that the relationship was here to stay.

Bryan thinks about that moment a lot. He wonders what would have happened if the Jess debacle had gone another way, tanked their audience engagement instead. Would Jessica have gone away or become a covert part of Corbin's life instead of showing up in their videos a few times a month? He tries telling himself that it's impossible to know, but the question rolls around his mind like the grain of sand steadfastly refusing to become a pearl.

The next day brings more of the same. Four days of filming in their rented exercise room slash studio per week and then another for recording the 'candids' that populate their social media accounts which Kendall then organizes with a master's touch. Even when their photos of a spontaneous trip to a local taco truck were taken weeks ago, their official timeline remains consistent. He tells them all the time that consistency leads to reliability and ultimately it is reliability, more than actual truth and authenticity, that people crave.

So it's a surprise when Corbin and Bryan arrive in their workout gear and Kendall tells them they won't be shooting, or at least, that they won't be shooting what they came to shoot.

Corbin crosses his massive arms. "Dude, we spent all weekend shooting candids. What the fuck more--"

Kendall cuts him off. "Not candids. Something else. We've gotten an offer."

"An offer?" Bryan asks. He fights the jittery feeling in his stomach. They've been looking for a major advertising partner. This,he thinks, could be the moment that changes everything. "Which advertiser?"

Kendall licks his bottom lip. It's his tell. Bad news, Bryan thinks. "Bro. Just fucking tell us."

"The offer is... look, I wouldn't be bringing it to you guys if this wasn't real. So just keep that in mind. This is real," Kendall says. He hands Corbin his phone with an email chain pulled up. Corbin reads it slowly, his openly curious expression turning stormy, unreadable.

"What? What the fuck?" Bryan asks. Corbin hands him the phone and he reads the emails between Kendall and some person named Jerry who's offered money to see Bryan and Corbin together. Naked.

It's a lot of money. Bryan looks at Corbin first, who doesn't meet his gaze, and then at Kendall whose eyes might as well be full of cartoon dollar signs.

"It's a lot of money," Kendall says. "And I've gotten him to agree to a video where I scrub your faces beforehand. No one will be able to identify you. And..." Kendall squeezes his own shoulder and makes a face. "It's a lot of fucking money."

"I'm not--" Corbin begins.

Kendall puts his hands out. "I know. I know. This guy knows, too, which I think is why he wants it. It fucking does something for him, I don't know."

Corbin scoffs. "We're not considering this, right? Not seriously."

Bryan says it's ridiculous to even consider. Corbin agrees with him, but Kendall just keeps bringing up the money. A few days pass and Bryan is alone at home: a studio he rents in an all right part of town paid for by sweat and smiles. He gets a call from Kendall.

"He agreed."

"What? Who agreed to what?" Bryan asks.

"Corbin. To the private cast. Can you get here in the next hour? I don't want this to eat into our regular filming schedule, so it has to be tonight."

"But what about me? What if I don't want to do it?"

Kendall laughs. "Bryan... This is me, I know you better than that. Now take a shower and be here in an hour."

Bryan ends the call, puts down the phone, and stares at it for a while. Then he gets up to go take a shower.

Corbin is nervous, and it shows in his hands. He keeps clenching and unclenching them as if by some dextrous use of his fingers he can will himself into another room, will himself clothed.

Or maybe at least soft.

Bryan has seen his best friend's cock before. They've skinny dipped, talked shit in saunas, helped each other through some pretty gnarly injuries both in the studio and out in the world. But he's never seen it in this context. He never particularly expected to see it hard, at least not while his own cock was hard. He finds himself light-headed and dry-mouthed, but Bryan's cock is hard, too, and there's no hiding it.

Kendall's voice cuts through the tension like a grenade.

"OK, boys. Just be yourselves. A bit of posing, maybe some goofing around. You've done this a million times. It's no different."

"It fucking is different, Kendall. Stop being fucking obtuse," Corbin says savagely.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Corbin. Would you prefer not to get a check for this? Is that why you drove out here, to use your dictionary practice on me?" Kendall snaps back.

Corbin cracks his knuckles and gives Kendall a withering look. Bryan's elder brother is tall and lanky, not apt to win a fight if Corbin is inclined to give him one, but Bryan puts a hand on Corbin's shoulder and when his friend looks at him, Bryan smiles. "We were looking for a way to make more cash off of our content. Imagine making this much money and we didn't even have to put our clothes on."

Corbin extends his glare to Bryan, but it doesn't hold and he laughs. Kendall is already rolling.

Bryan finds it's easier than he'd imagined. He and Corbin just shoot the breeze, they flex and race each other up and down the length of the studio. Corbin hits himself in the balls accidentally and collapses in a mix of anguish and laughter while Bryan stands above him, pretending to teabag his downed friend. That turns into the two of them wrestling on the floor, one of them then the other on top. Their arms and legs bulge as they strain against each other, muscle pitted against muscle with Corbin in a vast lead, but Bryan is spry and vicious and their contest is not the foregone conclusion that an onlooker might expect. They know each other too well for it to be easy. So they struggle and fight and eventually Kendall shouts cut.

The two of them blink at each other. A half hour has passed, the work is over.

Kendall stays behind fiddling with his equipment while Bryan and Corbin get dressed and leave the studio. As Kendall has reminded them several times, they still have filming in the morning.

As the two of them walk together, Corbin says, "is it ok? What we just did? Was it the wrong thing to do?"

Bryan shakes his head.

"I don't know. I hope not. We've gotta' trust Kendall."

"And do you?" Corbin looks at Bryan, his eyes searching.

Bryan can't think of an answer that would satisfy his friend, so instead he slaps him on the arm. "Let's just be fucking meatheads and leave the heavy thinking to the Ivy-Leaguer, eh? I'm thinking we go fuck up some burgers? Fucking avocado bacon with an over easy egg? Tell me you're not wet."

Corbin smiles. "I would, but I'm supposed to meet Jessica."

"Right. Of course. Another time."

"Thanks for understanding, man. Another time though. For real. And without the cameras, maybe."

"That'd be nice," Bryan says. "I'd like that."

They don't discuss the late night cast again. There's no reason to. The money comes in as promised and is split the regular way with Bryan and Corbin each taking thirty-five percent, Kendall getting twenty, and the leftover ten going to administrative fees. Even after the split, it's still a considerable amount of money. Enough to keep them happy and fed for a good while.

So when Bryan arrives at the studio a few weeks later to find Corbin waiting for him, sitting outside the studio on a planter vaping giant clouds of smoke, money is the last thing on Bryan's mind. Corbin springs to his feet as soon as he sees Bryan approaching across the parking lot.

"Hey," he shouts as soon as Bryan is within range. "Have you talked to Kendall?"

Bryan shakes his head. "Talk to Kendall about what? Is everything ok?"

Corbin sidles up beside him and they walk into the studio. Once the door is shut behind them, Corbin says, "another... opportunity."

Bryan can't disguise his shock or at least doesn't both trying. "Again? Seriously? Same guy?"

Corbin shrugs, grumbles. "I don't know... Kendall was supposed to talk to you. I don't know what the fuck."

"I think I'm... I don't know if we should..." Bryan says, but Corbin isn't listening: he's talking, too. His fingers clench and Bryan thinks back to his naked cock, hard as a fucking rock, and his stomach lurches.

"Jessica and I are thinking about buying a house. The money... it could do a lot, you know. It's not just bullshit. This could really mean a lot. I just think we shouldn't... you know, just refuse if it could be something. Worth something, I mean..."

"Corbin, I--" Bryan begins.

Corbin stops him. "Wait. Let me. Please? This request is more... it's just more than we did last time, but I didn't think it was that bad last time. Not as bad as I thought it would be. Not that I thought it would be bad because of--" Corbin blows out a long breath and tries to compose himself. "I don't think it's bad if we do this. It's just money, Bryan. It doesn't have to mean anything."

"But what if it does? What if means something to me?" Bryan whispers.

Bryan's gaze falls to his own purple-and-gray sneakers, but he can feel Corbin looking at him for a long time. Too long. And Bryan wishes he had said nothing, had never opened his fucking mouth. He doesn't know what to expect when he looks up at Corbin again, but it isn't the vitriol, rage, and disgust he's expecting. He can survive those. This is pity.

And it's fucking worse.

"I didn't realize. I'm an idiot," Corbin says.

"No. Don't do that. It's not--"

"I'm sorry. Christ. And Jessica, the whole thing... was it awful? Has it been awful this whole time?"

"No. Look. I'm happy for you!" Bryan says. He puts a hand on Corbin's shoulder and grins. "I'm happy for you. Always."

Corbin pulls Bryan into a hug. The embrace of the larger man is warm and the smell of his shower gel is oddly comforting. Bryan lets himself rest his head against Corbin's shoulder. He knows this isn't what he wants, not really, but it's a piece of it. It's nearly enough to fill the yawning chasm that's opened up in his chest with this impromptu admission. Corbin strokes Bryan's head.

"I think we should do it. Would you? For me?" Corbin asks.

Corbin is pressed up against him now and the smell of his freshly washed body rises up through his clothes. Bryan can feel the lump of Corbin's cock against his leg and Bryan knows that it's unfair, that he's desperate for something that's not even real, but he's trembling and he can't stop himself; he swallows hard.

"Ok. For you."

It's at that moment Kendall arrives and Corbin backs away, taking his warmth and his fresh laundry and clean skin smell with him. Kendall looks at them, suspicion or something like it on his features, but he doesn't address whatever's nagging at him.

"Are we decided? Are we doing this?" Kendall asks.

Corbin nods. Bryan nods. Kendall sets up the cameras.

It isn't like the time before. There's no goofing around and the small talk disappears. They're positioned next to each other on a bench along the far side of the studio wall.

Bryan is nervous, too nervous to be himself, he doesn't even know who himself is in this context. But Corbin is animated by something other than fear and anxiety, he reaches over and undoes the string cinching Bryan's shorts and pulls them down his thighs along with his underwear. Bryan lifts his ass off the bench to help the process, but he does nothing else. His face is flushed and his heart is trying to escape out of his throat.

Corbin leans over and Bryan's cock disappears into his best friend's mouth. The exact instant it happens, Bryan cums. He doesn't mean to, but the sensation running through him is more than just sexual excitement, it's the culmination of something that he hasn't even been able to name. Corbin pulls back as Bryan's cock continues spurting reckless blasts over his legs and onto his stomach. When Bryan looks over, half-horrified, half-delirious with lust, he notes that Corbin wipes his lips with the back of his hand and grimaces, but he swallows.

"Well, that was sub-optimal. I'll fix it in post. As long as Corbin can last a little longer," Kendall says from behind the camera. "Bryan?"

Bryan looks up.

"Get to it" is all that Kendall says, so Bryan does.

And where Bryan screwed the proverbial pooch, Corbin performs admirably. He's vocal and expressive--not just with his face, which will be edited out--but with his body. He squirms and thrusts his hips, forcing his cock up into Bryan's hand and later up into his mouth, when the blond wraps his red lips around Corbin's red cock. Corbin engages his core and twists his body toward the camera for maximum exposure. His performance wakes up the part of Bryan that knows how to perform regardless of the tempest stirring in his mind and in his heart. So he groans around Corbin's cock, worships it with mouth and begs for more. It's a cast and in a cast, you perform, Bryan tells himself.

He tells himself this over and over as Corbin positions him on the bench with his ass in the air then kneels behind him. Corbin's mouth locks onto his hole and his tongue goes to work on noisy, sloppy wet feasting that feels fucking wondrous to Bryan. He need not feign his excitement and his cock firms up again, harder even than before. Corbin eats his ass and then abruptly transitions to pressing the head of his cock against Bryan's ass. Bryan reels. Was this a part of the plan? They hadn't discussed it. He feels Corbin's hand on the small of his back.

"I can stop," Corbin offers.

Bryan reaches behind him and interlaces his fingers with Corbin's. Bryan has imagined this moment more than once, more than a hundred times. But never with the cameras, with his older brother in the room. There's a stone in his throat he struggles to swallow around, but he refuses to refuse. He squeezes Corbin's hand and Corbin fucks him.

And for all Bryan's hesitation, the sensation is the same--no, better!--than in his fantasies. Corbin's cock is fairly thick, but he's a thoughtful lover and he moves carefully at first while Bryan adjusts to the size of him. His mouth is a litany of phrases: "I can't believe we're doing this, bro." "I could never have imagined how hot this would be." "I love the way you feel around my cock." "I want to fuck you so fucking hard." "I could fuck your ass every day."

"I could fuck your ass every day."

Bryan fixates on that as Corbin thrusts in and out of him, stimulating his ass in a way that feels almost too exciting. He finds it hard to focus. To be present. He just groans, passively takes each thrust and leaves his own deliriously hard cock dangling between his legs alongside his low-hanging balls swinging like a pendulum to the rhythm of the progressively rougher fuck.

Bryan realizes as the pressure inside him builds, his ass slackens under the assault, and Corbin fucks him harder, that what had actually said was, "I could fuck ass every day." It's a minor difference, but one that subtracts Bryan from the equation. He realizes that it's not his ass Corbin hungers for, but any warm hole that's willing to accommodate him. It changes things.

"Fuck, I'm gonna cum. Fuck! I'm gonna shoot," Corbin cries.

"Do it inside him. Cum inside him," Kendall commands.

So Corbin buries himself deep and the two of them grunt in unison as Corbin's cock throbs a dozen times or more, growing even fatter momentarily and filling the space of Bryan's brutalized rectum. When Corbin finally pulls out, Bryan can feel the sperm dripping out, dribbling down his perineum. Corbin reaches for a towel, but Kendall comes forward and trains his camera on his little brother's leaking hole.

After the recording light goes dim, Corbin towels himself off and throws one to Bryan. The two of them clean up silently until Corbin breaks the silence.

"I can't stick around. Jess and I have plans to..." Corbin trails off. "It's gonna be a busy day."

"Yeah. I get it," Bryan says. He can't bring himself to smile and be gentle.

"But... maybe we can..." Corbin starts. Fails. Tries again. "Let's talk later."

Bryan makes agreeable noises and Corbin leaves. Kendall stays behind. He sits cross-legged on the floor hunched over his laptop. Once Bryan is dressed, he goes over to see what Kendall is working on. He doesn't know what he expected, but Kendall is watching a scene of Bryan getting fucked in super slow motion. It doesn't seem as rough as it had been. The echoing sound of Corbin's skin slamming against his ass is gone in the silenced video. The smell of their co-mingled sweat and the Bryan's hard fucked ass are absent.

Kendall gets to a scene where he zoomed up close to Corbin's big cock coming out of Bryan's ass. Bryan's thoroughly fucked sphincter hangs open for a few long seconds, waiting to be filled again. Kendall's eyes are glued to the screen and Bryan notices how hard his brother is in his khakis. Kendall sees his brother staring at his lap and adjusts his cock so it's less obvious, but nothing could completely hide the sizable erection in his slim fit pants.

"Occupational hazard," Kendall says. Bryan laughs, half-heartedly; Kendall's gaze drifts back to the screen.

The cast begins with a sea-foam green couch in a nondescript apartment and then Bryan comes around from behind the camera and sits on the couch. He flashes his trademark smile, but it quickly disappears.

"I wanted to address the fans directly. I know there hasn't been a video up in the last two weeks and I just wanted to tell my side of the story. I want to get it out there."

He shifts in his seat and grinds his knuckles into his meaty thighs, which even in this setting are just barely covered up by a pair of dark above-the-knee length workout shorts. His legs are spread.

"Corbin and I have been doing our casts for a few years now and it's been great. He's my best friend, my business partner, and my lifeline. Honestly, there have been a lot of dark moments I'm not sure I would have made it through without him. But there's another side to our dynamic I haven't talked about publicly. I've barely admitted it to myself."

He looks into the camera, blue eyes full of tears. He blinks and suddenly his cheeks are wet.

"I have feelings for Corbin. I care about him and I'm in love with him. It's getting harder to hide and I don't think I want to anymore. He's family and I don't want either of us to be hurt by this, but I can't pretend it's not real. That it's not something I'm going through. And this is not to disrespect Jessica. I love her and she's so good for him, so please keep her out of this. However, Jessica's involvement in his life doesn't change my feelings. I don't think I can continue on with this channel anymore. It's painful, and it's not fair to Corbin or myself, if I'm honest. I can't keep pretending. I have to live authentically and be real with you guys. That's the most important thing."

He's momentarily overcome with emotion, but he settles himself, continues.

"I'm sorry if I let you guys down. That was never my intention. Thank you so much for your support so far and please don't badger Corbin and Jessica about any of this. It's not their fault, and it's not their responsibility to comment on my shit. I love you guys. Thank you so much. I'll see you later."

The playback of the cast is paused there on Bryan's earnest, open expression as Kendall taps something on the computer balanced on his lap. The projection on the big screen on the other side of the room dies and the lights come back up.

The three of them are sitting in plush leather computer chairs in a rough triangle. Corbin sits beside his little brother and Kendall sits across from them both. The office space is a rental and out of the way for all three of them, which is good because they're meeting to deal with the fallout of Bryan's surprise announcement. Their studio has been swarmed with fans since the cast got picked up on several high profile entertainment blogs.

"You should have talked to me first," Kendall says. "We could have figured it out. Worked out the details."

"You don't give a fuck about the details. You care about the follower counts, user engagement, and endorsements," Bryan spits.

"Exactly. The fucking details. Or did you forget why you pay me twenty percent of your earnings?" Kendall fires back.

Bryan makes a disgusted face.

"Bryan. I'm sorry that I didn't know and I didn't take you more seriously," Corbin says.

Bryan looks like he wants to say something nasty, but he doesn't. He softens like butter left out on the counter. Corbin has a way with his little brother that Kendall envies. It would make life easier if they both had that soft touch.

"Well, since we're all friends again. Here's the--" Kendall air quotes. "--details. The follower count since the confession has gone to seven-hundred fifty thousand. If we capitalize on this. If we do it right. We could hit a million imminently and that's when the brands will come calling," Kendall explains. "I'm already in preliminary talks."

Bryan shakes his head. "You expect me to go back into it? Just like that?"

"I expect you to operate in your own self-interest instead of sabotaging your career because of a schoolboy crush," Kendall replies.

This time it's Corbin who shoots Kendall a look. He turns to Bryan and wheels his chair closer. The soft touch again.

"No one is expecting you to jump back in right away. But when you're ready, maybe we do a statement together. Just something showing we're still talking. That there's still a future. If that goes well, we talk about some other opportunities. Yeah?" Corbin says. He puts a hand on Bryan's shoulder and rubs it gently. Bryan relaxes into the impromptu massage.

"Opportunities? You mean..."

Corbin licks his lips, keeps massaging Bryan's shoulder. "Whenever you're ready, Bryan. That's what you have to understand. There's no one forcing you. But I think we're good together. On camera. It can be whatever we want it to be. Just think it over." His other hand goes under the table to rest on Bryan's thigh, then slips between his legs as Kendall watches. Bryan moans softly. "It's good money and it's fun. You seemed to enjoy yourself. Why stop now? We've barely scratched the surface. All you have to do is say yes and we'll take care of the rest."

Bryan, eyes lidded with lust, but still biting his lower lip apprehensively, opens his mouth and answers...

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