34,595
Man, I am sucking with this posting thing. I'm about to write a bit more before I go to bed, though, so I won't ramble. And, just to reinforce it -- this is unedited. 99% of it sucks, and will be tweaked/rewritten in most ways before it's reposted in queerasfandom... squint hard, and try not to notice.
Edit: If I mess up the italic tag again, I uh... hope I notice before an hour passes.
34,595 / 50,000
(69.2%)
Brooklyn, New York - June 17th, 1992
“Would you stop your fucking sister from crying?” She screams at him, her voice teary and sounding as though it’s filled with snot. He closes his eyes and presses his lips together, face splashed with water and grease bubbles from the dirty dish water.
Cinderella, He thinks. Cinderella, Cinderella, Cinderella…
“Brian!” She yells, voice cracking, traveling through the walls of the bedroom that she’s encompassed herself in. “Answer me!”
Despite it all, he can’t hear anything. Deep inside, he knows his mother is yelling. He can feel Claire’s sobbing, making his lungs rattle. But everything is blanked out, thrown away by the sheer anger and hate that he feels threatening everything inside of him every single day.
He wipes the bubbles from his cheek with the back of one hand, and sets the dishcloth down beside the sink.
“Ma, would you shut up?” He calls, and hears the reverberating sound of her booze bottle cracking against the back of her bedroom door.
Brian moves through the hallway untouched, and closes the bathroom door behind him, where his sister sits in cold bath water, freezing.
…
Berlin, Germany - November 11, 2005
“Justin?”
He glances up from the papers stacked in his lap, all blank and waiting to be filled, sheets of white and black ink. The councilor pokes her head around the door frame of his room and raises her eyebrows, tipping her head to the side.
“There’s a car waiting for you outside. Janis got held up at the hospital.”
Nodding, he uncurls himself from the chair he’s been wrapped around and stands up, carefully sliding the pile of papers underneath the piece of furniture. The councilor watches him with careful eyes -- he’s never bothered to learn any of their names, but this one has blonde hair three shades more bleached than his own -- as he picks his jacket up from the foot of the bed and moves over towards the door.
“Where am I going?” He asks, shrugging the jacket on one arm at a time. He got it at the auxiliary at the hospital, it’s army green and has a little sewed on patch of the British flag on the right arm.
The councilor closes his bedroom door behind him, and follows him down the centre’s hall, pausing to adjust a cheaply framed print on the way.
“Kinnetik.” She answers.
One word, and Justin starts to feel those pins and needles.
…
It’s Adeline that meets him outside, in the driver’s seat of a company car, her brown skirt barely making it past her knees before the heavy black boots begin. She smiles at him when he gets in, small with arms wrapped around his middle, and revs the engine.
…
They pull into the parking lot at the same time that Brian is getting out of his own car, brief case in one hand as the other tries to close the door of the Jeep, crowded around by photographers and news reporters, all trying to get the first hand statement.
Mr. Taylor, Mr. Taylor! What can you tell us about the incident?
“Brian phoned me this morning and said they found the emergency exit.” Adeline explains, not blinking as they try and get through the crowd that Justin figures seems to double by the day. He closes his eyes and tries to block out the people slapping the windows, yelling at him, bright flashes of light going off despite the fact that all he can see are the backs of his eyelids. “He’s on his way over now. Actually, might already be here.”
Your statement was released last week -- do you have anything to add to that?
Nodding, Justin crosses his arms over his chest and keeps his eyes closed, waiting until the car stops before he tries to open them. Outside the car, reporters and photographers are clamoring to get in, slapping the windshield with their hands and pressing microphones against the window beside Justin’s body. He closes his eyes as quickly as he opened them.
Mr. Taylor, just one comment! CNN, Mr. Taylor!
“How are we supposed to get out?” Justin asks, voice sounding a little more panicked than he’d like, but the incessant pounding and calling of his name is making him jumpier than he expected he’d be.
Vincent Zambino is currently being held in a prison twenty miles away, how does that make you feel? Where are you currently staying?
Adeline turns off the engine, and starts to twist and turn in her seat, trying to look through the crowd to see someone.
Will any crime scene evidence be released to the media?
“I think that’s him over there.” She finally says, ignoring Justin’s question. It doesn’t matter anyway, because Justin doesn’t even think he’d be able to concentrate on an answer if he tried to. Adeline unbuckles her seatbelt, and raises up off of the seat, trying to look over the heads of the reporters that have themselves pressed flat against the windshield. She says, “He’s coming over here. He said he was going to get police escorts, but it doesn’t look like they’ve arrived yet.”
Mr. Taylor, Justin, have you heard from your parents at all?
Managing a nervous snort, Justin whispers, “Lot of good that does me.”
When are you planning to go back to the States?
Brian manages to push his way through the crowd, repeating ‘no comment’ over and over, even when microphones are literally shoved into his face, pressed against his mouth. He reaches the car just as Adeline unlocks her door, and tries to push it open.
Mr. Taylor, Mr. Taylor! Mr. Taylor!
“Fuckers found the back exit.” Brian explains, bending down and poking his head inside the car. Adeline nods and hands him the keys, squirms out until she’s in the crowd and holding the door half-closed so they don’t just push in. “The police won’t be here until later, so come on, you gotta go now.”
Mr. Kinney! Mr. Kinney, do you have a comment about the recent events?
Eyes wide, Justin shakes his head.
Mr. Kinney, how is Kinnetik handling this case?
“I can’t.” He whispers, and to Brian, it sounds as though they’re standing beside a train that’s going a hundred and fifty miles an hour. He sees Justin’s lips move, but he doesn’t hear a single word.
Do you have plans to expand the firm after this case, Mr. Kinney?
Brian shakes his head, and motions with his hand for Justin to move across the seat.
Mr. Kinney, Mr. Taylor, CNN, would you like to comment?
“Brian.” Justin mumbles again, but this time his lips barely move. “I can’t.”
Will you be granting interviews? Mr. Kinney, Mr. Kinney--
Reaching inside the car, Brian gets his fingers around Justin’s wrist and pulls, and it’s like the glue and pins sticking Justin to the seat become unglued and unstuck, because he moves quickly, then, scrambling across the seat until he’s standing up outside the car, cowering under microphones and booms and bright white lights.
How does it feel to be in the middle of an international scandal?
“You’re fine.” Brian whispers this time, and Justin hears it, hears it only because the lips are so close to his ear. Then Adeline is closing the car door and Brian is pulling him through the sea of bodies. Justin can feel hands grabbing at him, but they barely get a grip because his feet are moving so fast.
Mr. Kinney! Mr. Taylor! Mr.--
The front door of the business building that houses Kinnetik closes before Justin really even realizes that he’s left the car at all.
“Fucking assholes.” Brian’s muttering, picking his briefcase back up off of the floor and moving towards the bank of elevators, ignoring the reporters that have followed them up to the front door and are currently banging on it.
Hurrying his pace a little, Justin catches up to Brian.
“Fucking cops you mean.” Adeline mutters, shaking her head as Brian repeatedly stabs the elevator button with one finger, his face set in a perpetual scowl.
Brian nods, and turns around to look at Justin just as the elevator doors are sliding open, revealing an interior that was obviously cheaply decorated - red and gold and all of the things that Brian has nightmares of. They step inside.
“I’m hiring a private security team so that doesn’t happen again.” He explains, hitting the floor number that houses Kinnetik. Justin manages to nod, his eyes wide, quite obviously still spooked from the crowd outside. “If I don’t, it’ll only get worse.”
…
“Brian, Constantin Sicherheit returned your call, I made an appointment to see them this afternoon at three.” Adeline explains, disappearing from Brian’s office doorway as soon as she appeared.
He looks up from his computer screen long enough to call, “Good.”
“Who’s that?” Justin asks, distracted from the small amount of paperwork Brian has already set out for him to do. He watches as Brian looks up, away from his computer screen. “Constantine.”
Justin looks wary. Doesn’t manage to hide it before Brian manages to catch hold.
“Constantin Sicherheit.” He explains. “Your new security team.”
The blond nods, nervously itches the inside of his wrist before he says, “Oh.”
But Brian doesn’t move. Sits there and watches the kid, starting to crumble under the constant stare, beginning to fidget and move back and forward in his seat, uncomfortable.
Finally he breaks the silence and huffs an awkward laugh, taps his pen against the desk top and asks, “What the fuck were you thinking?”
The question comes out in one hurried breath.
Justin feels his ears begin to heat up, and he knows that the tips of them are beginning to turn pink. He keeps his eyes on the paper sitting in his lap, tries not to look up. Wouldn’t be able to look up if someone paid him a quarter million dollars to.
A moment passes, and then,
“Justin.”
Something happens whenever that word is spoken. Justin doesn’t know what it is. His stomach tenses and the tips of his fingers go warm. He can’t think properly, or at all, really, and he finds himself trying to find anything to stare at, anything as long as it isn’t the person saying that one word.
But he doesn’t think that’s going to work this time.
He keeps his head down, pressing his teeth together nervously, tightens his fingers and finally glances up, knowing Brian won’t let up otherwise. He can barely see the lawyer through the hair that hangs in his eyes at this angle, but that’s how he wants it to be. His ears aren’t the only things that have gone pink.
Brian raises his eyebrows, and in that same voice, says, “Answer me.”
All that Justin can do is shake his head, and despite himself, finds his hand moving up to his mouth, until his finger is between his teeth and he’s chewing, trying to dig himself an alibi to disappear into.
Finally he manages a soft, “I can’t.”
Physically, verbally, he can’t.
“You can’t.” Brian says, and it should be a question, a reinforced question, but his voice won’t do it, he can’t ask.
And they’re kissing.
Justin manages an awkward laugh and drops his hand from his mouth. He looks as surprised as Brian, but still manages a confused, “No.”
“Why can’t you?” Brian asks, raising his eyebrows, unsure of whether he should start laughing, or just start punching something.
The blond kind of looks as though he’s going to cry, in a sadly humorous way.
“Because I don’t have an answer.” He says, scratching the back of his neck, glancing down at the floor, back up at Brian, down at the floor and then back up at Brian again. “I don’t know why.” He continues, shaking his head a little. “I’ve, uh. I’ve been kind of trying to figure that out myself.”
His fingers cold and clammy against the side of Brian’s neck.
Unable to look away, Brian watches the kid for another moment and a half, maybe more maybe less, but he watches. Waits until Justin looks him in the eye before he moves away, runs a hand through his hair.
Presses the intercom button on his phone.
“Adeline.” He says, and Justin’s heart raises into his throat. Adeline, call the centre, I’m going to drop this Taylor case. His stomach twists, clenches. Adeline, call the police, I have something to report. His heart pounds uncomfortably against the inside of his body. Adeline, get Constantine to escort Justin from the building. His fingers begin to curl and… “Have you got the copies of that report yet? I need it on my desk, now.”
He hangs up and goes back to watching the computer screen, brown eyes tracing over words that Justin doubts he’s actually reading.
Justin can breathe again, can inhale and exhale, heart slowing down until it’s at a normal pace, thump thumping against his insides, still missing the kidney he’d claimed all those years before.
He can breathe because Brian isn’t going to say anything.
Not yet.
Edit: If I mess up the italic tag again, I uh... hope I notice before an hour passes.
34,595 / 50,000
(69.2%)
Brooklyn, New York - June 17th, 1992
“Would you stop your fucking sister from crying?” She screams at him, her voice teary and sounding as though it’s filled with snot. He closes his eyes and presses his lips together, face splashed with water and grease bubbles from the dirty dish water.
Cinderella, He thinks. Cinderella, Cinderella, Cinderella…
“Brian!” She yells, voice cracking, traveling through the walls of the bedroom that she’s encompassed herself in. “Answer me!”
Despite it all, he can’t hear anything. Deep inside, he knows his mother is yelling. He can feel Claire’s sobbing, making his lungs rattle. But everything is blanked out, thrown away by the sheer anger and hate that he feels threatening everything inside of him every single day.
He wipes the bubbles from his cheek with the back of one hand, and sets the dishcloth down beside the sink.
“Ma, would you shut up?” He calls, and hears the reverberating sound of her booze bottle cracking against the back of her bedroom door.
Brian moves through the hallway untouched, and closes the bathroom door behind him, where his sister sits in cold bath water, freezing.
…
Berlin, Germany - November 11, 2005
“Justin?”
He glances up from the papers stacked in his lap, all blank and waiting to be filled, sheets of white and black ink. The councilor pokes her head around the door frame of his room and raises her eyebrows, tipping her head to the side.
“There’s a car waiting for you outside. Janis got held up at the hospital.”
Nodding, he uncurls himself from the chair he’s been wrapped around and stands up, carefully sliding the pile of papers underneath the piece of furniture. The councilor watches him with careful eyes -- he’s never bothered to learn any of their names, but this one has blonde hair three shades more bleached than his own -- as he picks his jacket up from the foot of the bed and moves over towards the door.
“Where am I going?” He asks, shrugging the jacket on one arm at a time. He got it at the auxiliary at the hospital, it’s army green and has a little sewed on patch of the British flag on the right arm.
The councilor closes his bedroom door behind him, and follows him down the centre’s hall, pausing to adjust a cheaply framed print on the way.
“Kinnetik.” She answers.
One word, and Justin starts to feel those pins and needles.
…
It’s Adeline that meets him outside, in the driver’s seat of a company car, her brown skirt barely making it past her knees before the heavy black boots begin. She smiles at him when he gets in, small with arms wrapped around his middle, and revs the engine.
…
They pull into the parking lot at the same time that Brian is getting out of his own car, brief case in one hand as the other tries to close the door of the Jeep, crowded around by photographers and news reporters, all trying to get the first hand statement.
Mr. Taylor, Mr. Taylor! What can you tell us about the incident?
“Brian phoned me this morning and said they found the emergency exit.” Adeline explains, not blinking as they try and get through the crowd that Justin figures seems to double by the day. He closes his eyes and tries to block out the people slapping the windows, yelling at him, bright flashes of light going off despite the fact that all he can see are the backs of his eyelids. “He’s on his way over now. Actually, might already be here.”
Your statement was released last week -- do you have anything to add to that?
Nodding, Justin crosses his arms over his chest and keeps his eyes closed, waiting until the car stops before he tries to open them. Outside the car, reporters and photographers are clamoring to get in, slapping the windshield with their hands and pressing microphones against the window beside Justin’s body. He closes his eyes as quickly as he opened them.
Mr. Taylor, just one comment! CNN, Mr. Taylor!
“How are we supposed to get out?” Justin asks, voice sounding a little more panicked than he’d like, but the incessant pounding and calling of his name is making him jumpier than he expected he’d be.
Vincent Zambino is currently being held in a prison twenty miles away, how does that make you feel? Where are you currently staying?
Adeline turns off the engine, and starts to twist and turn in her seat, trying to look through the crowd to see someone.
Will any crime scene evidence be released to the media?
“I think that’s him over there.” She finally says, ignoring Justin’s question. It doesn’t matter anyway, because Justin doesn’t even think he’d be able to concentrate on an answer if he tried to. Adeline unbuckles her seatbelt, and raises up off of the seat, trying to look over the heads of the reporters that have themselves pressed flat against the windshield. She says, “He’s coming over here. He said he was going to get police escorts, but it doesn’t look like they’ve arrived yet.”
Mr. Taylor, Justin, have you heard from your parents at all?
Managing a nervous snort, Justin whispers, “Lot of good that does me.”
When are you planning to go back to the States?
Brian manages to push his way through the crowd, repeating ‘no comment’ over and over, even when microphones are literally shoved into his face, pressed against his mouth. He reaches the car just as Adeline unlocks her door, and tries to push it open.
Mr. Taylor, Mr. Taylor! Mr. Taylor!
“Fuckers found the back exit.” Brian explains, bending down and poking his head inside the car. Adeline nods and hands him the keys, squirms out until she’s in the crowd and holding the door half-closed so they don’t just push in. “The police won’t be here until later, so come on, you gotta go now.”
Mr. Kinney! Mr. Kinney, do you have a comment about the recent events?
Eyes wide, Justin shakes his head.
Mr. Kinney, how is Kinnetik handling this case?
“I can’t.” He whispers, and to Brian, it sounds as though they’re standing beside a train that’s going a hundred and fifty miles an hour. He sees Justin’s lips move, but he doesn’t hear a single word.
Do you have plans to expand the firm after this case, Mr. Kinney?
Brian shakes his head, and motions with his hand for Justin to move across the seat.
Mr. Kinney, Mr. Taylor, CNN, would you like to comment?
“Brian.” Justin mumbles again, but this time his lips barely move. “I can’t.”
Will you be granting interviews? Mr. Kinney, Mr. Kinney--
Reaching inside the car, Brian gets his fingers around Justin’s wrist and pulls, and it’s like the glue and pins sticking Justin to the seat become unglued and unstuck, because he moves quickly, then, scrambling across the seat until he’s standing up outside the car, cowering under microphones and booms and bright white lights.
How does it feel to be in the middle of an international scandal?
“You’re fine.” Brian whispers this time, and Justin hears it, hears it only because the lips are so close to his ear. Then Adeline is closing the car door and Brian is pulling him through the sea of bodies. Justin can feel hands grabbing at him, but they barely get a grip because his feet are moving so fast.
Mr. Kinney! Mr. Taylor! Mr.--
The front door of the business building that houses Kinnetik closes before Justin really even realizes that he’s left the car at all.
“Fucking assholes.” Brian’s muttering, picking his briefcase back up off of the floor and moving towards the bank of elevators, ignoring the reporters that have followed them up to the front door and are currently banging on it.
Hurrying his pace a little, Justin catches up to Brian.
“Fucking cops you mean.” Adeline mutters, shaking her head as Brian repeatedly stabs the elevator button with one finger, his face set in a perpetual scowl.
Brian nods, and turns around to look at Justin just as the elevator doors are sliding open, revealing an interior that was obviously cheaply decorated - red and gold and all of the things that Brian has nightmares of. They step inside.
“I’m hiring a private security team so that doesn’t happen again.” He explains, hitting the floor number that houses Kinnetik. Justin manages to nod, his eyes wide, quite obviously still spooked from the crowd outside. “If I don’t, it’ll only get worse.”
…
“Brian, Constantin Sicherheit returned your call, I made an appointment to see them this afternoon at three.” Adeline explains, disappearing from Brian’s office doorway as soon as she appeared.
He looks up from his computer screen long enough to call, “Good.”
“Who’s that?” Justin asks, distracted from the small amount of paperwork Brian has already set out for him to do. He watches as Brian looks up, away from his computer screen. “Constantine.”
Justin looks wary. Doesn’t manage to hide it before Brian manages to catch hold.
“Constantin Sicherheit.” He explains. “Your new security team.”
The blond nods, nervously itches the inside of his wrist before he says, “Oh.”
But Brian doesn’t move. Sits there and watches the kid, starting to crumble under the constant stare, beginning to fidget and move back and forward in his seat, uncomfortable.
Finally he breaks the silence and huffs an awkward laugh, taps his pen against the desk top and asks, “What the fuck were you thinking?”
The question comes out in one hurried breath.
Justin feels his ears begin to heat up, and he knows that the tips of them are beginning to turn pink. He keeps his eyes on the paper sitting in his lap, tries not to look up. Wouldn’t be able to look up if someone paid him a quarter million dollars to.
A moment passes, and then,
“Justin.”
Something happens whenever that word is spoken. Justin doesn’t know what it is. His stomach tenses and the tips of his fingers go warm. He can’t think properly, or at all, really, and he finds himself trying to find anything to stare at, anything as long as it isn’t the person saying that one word.
But he doesn’t think that’s going to work this time.
He keeps his head down, pressing his teeth together nervously, tightens his fingers and finally glances up, knowing Brian won’t let up otherwise. He can barely see the lawyer through the hair that hangs in his eyes at this angle, but that’s how he wants it to be. His ears aren’t the only things that have gone pink.
Brian raises his eyebrows, and in that same voice, says, “Answer me.”
All that Justin can do is shake his head, and despite himself, finds his hand moving up to his mouth, until his finger is between his teeth and he’s chewing, trying to dig himself an alibi to disappear into.
Finally he manages a soft, “I can’t.”
Physically, verbally, he can’t.
“You can’t.” Brian says, and it should be a question, a reinforced question, but his voice won’t do it, he can’t ask.
And they’re kissing.
Justin manages an awkward laugh and drops his hand from his mouth. He looks as surprised as Brian, but still manages a confused, “No.”
“Why can’t you?” Brian asks, raising his eyebrows, unsure of whether he should start laughing, or just start punching something.
The blond kind of looks as though he’s going to cry, in a sadly humorous way.
“Because I don’t have an answer.” He says, scratching the back of his neck, glancing down at the floor, back up at Brian, down at the floor and then back up at Brian again. “I don’t know why.” He continues, shaking his head a little. “I’ve, uh. I’ve been kind of trying to figure that out myself.”
His fingers cold and clammy against the side of Brian’s neck.
Unable to look away, Brian watches the kid for another moment and a half, maybe more maybe less, but he watches. Waits until Justin looks him in the eye before he moves away, runs a hand through his hair.
Presses the intercom button on his phone.
“Adeline.” He says, and Justin’s heart raises into his throat. Adeline, call the centre, I’m going to drop this Taylor case. His stomach twists, clenches. Adeline, call the police, I have something to report. His heart pounds uncomfortably against the inside of his body. Adeline, get Constantine to escort Justin from the building. His fingers begin to curl and… “Have you got the copies of that report yet? I need it on my desk, now.”
He hangs up and goes back to watching the computer screen, brown eyes tracing over words that Justin doubts he’s actually reading.
Justin can breathe again, can inhale and exhale, heart slowing down until it’s at a normal pace, thump thumping against his insides, still missing the kidney he’d claimed all those years before.
He can breathe because Brian isn’t going to say anything.
Not yet.