Another Christmas Without You
Title: Another Christmas Without You
Author:
jojothecr
Fandom: Queer as Folk
Characters: Justin & Brian... Gus
Summary: What if... 4.06 - 4.10. What if he didn't make it?
Warning: Main Character Death
Disclaimer: I own nothing, but my dog. QaF belongs to CowLip
Beta:
positive_pat
Author's Note: Once again... Death of a Character...I'm truly sorry, but it had to be done. Please, don't hate me. Next time I have a fever, I won't write a fiction. It's not a good idea.
Thanks to
meljune2008 for the Brian's quote
Feedback: Keeps me happy...
Another Christmas Without You
The world behind the window is quiet, unbroken with car horns or the city lights and white like a feather. Justin watches the snow falling, dancing silently in the invisible wind, covering the land with a light, chilly blanket and hiding the dying grass and the dirty ground beneath.
He stands by the window like he used to when he was a kid waiting for Santa Claus until the sleep and his mother put him in the bed. He’s not a kid anymore, the house isn’t the same and he no longer waits for him, because there’s nothing he could bring him for Christmas. Nothing but…
“Uncle J.?” The soft voice tears him from his retrieval and Justin turns to see a small figure standing in the door. He smiles gently at Gus and moves in his direction. Gus who, dressed in a white sweater, dark blue jeans and with a red knitted hat on his head, looks nearly like an elf and much younger than he really is.
“Yes?”
“Uncle J.,” Gus repeats, looking nervously and unsurely at Justin, who watches him intently. “Where is daddy?”
Justin stops in his tracks and swallows hard, nearly wincing at the pain, which clasped his throat so suddenly. Gus’ words echo in his ears, making a hole into his brain. “Where is daddy?” It was just a simple sentence; three words which apart mean so less, but together jab like a dagger. “Where is daddy? Where is daddy? Where is daddy? Where-”
The pain is too strong and Justin feels the ground shift under him, taking him off balance and he sits, nearly slumps down to the floor. There’s darkness all around him and a white noise screaming in his ears and for a while all he can feel is the anguish grasping his heart.
“Uncle J.!” Gus’ frightened voice rings in Justin’s ears before he feels his small hands shaking his shoulders gently. “Are you okay, uncle J.?”
“Yes, Gus,” he stammers after a moment. “Yes, I’m okay.” He tries to smile at the small boy, but he can’t, instead he reaches to take the hat off Gus’ head. “Come here,” he opens his arms to pull him into his embrace.
Gus’ fingers delve into his hair as he repeats his question quietly; afraid to hurt Justin, but longing for the answer. “Where is daddy? Why did he leave me? Why did he leave you?”
Justin takes a deep breath, and then turns Gus around in his arms so he doesn’t have to look into his face. He’s not strong enough to stare into his deep, huge eyes, his daddy’s eyes. Still it seems like eternity before he’s able to speak.
“He didn’t want to leave you. Nor me, honey,” he says quietly, tracing an invisible map over the mild lines on Gus’ small palms. “He had no choice.” Justin stares into the flames of the fireplace in front of him as he rests his chin on Gus’ shoulder.
The penetrating sound of brakes squealing yells in his ears and he shudders at the memory, holding Gus tighter. The stench of burned tires touches his nose even through the smell of the mistletoe whirling in the air, even through the dazing aroma of the Christmas candy or the fresh citrus smell of Gus’ hair. What follows is the ear-piercing scream, so high and unnatural that it causes the blood to freeze in the veins, and a loud crash. Then silence.
It is four years now, but he can still feel the cold of the Christmas night. The night his lover died, when he died.
“Where is he?” Gus wonders, playing with the single ring on Justin’s hand. He watches as the gold ringlet cast flashes from the fire.
“In a place where there is no pain,” Justin replies softly; his voice is shaking, his eyes are glassy from the unshed tears, but he tries to be strong. He tries to be strong for Gus and for himself. “Where nothing hurts and where angels protect his sleep.”
“Is he…?” Gus stops and turns in Justin’s lap to look in his face. There are tears crossing his chubby cheeks. “Is he happy, uncle J.?”
“I don’t know that, baby,” Justin says, wiping Gus’ tears away with his thumbs. “I hope he is. But I know he misses you. He misses all of us.”
“He misses you,” Gus replies seriously. “He loved you. He told me.”
“He told you?” Justin wonders, staggered by Gus’ words.
“He told me when he cried… I awoke one night when I stayed at his home and found him standing by the window. I knew he cried, even when he said he didn’t. He took me in his arms and said something that I didn’t understand. Not then.”
“What did he say, Gus? What was that?” Justin pushes, feeling his heart beating even quicker.
“He asked me to tell you. He said, “Sonny boy, would you do something for me?” I nodded and he stroked my cheek. “Tell Uncle Justin… Tell Sunshine, when I don’t have the chance anymore, tell him I love him. Always will. Would you do it for me, baby?’”
“Gus,” Justin sighs and the tears spill over his face. “You still remember that?”
Gus nods approval and reaches out to brush the tears from Justin’s face. “I promised him to tell you. I couldn’t forget it.”
“Thank you,” Justin whispers, burying his head in the mess of Gus’ dark hair. He can feel Gus nod against his shoulder, but neither say a word for a long time. Justin holds him, or holds onto him, listening to the unsteady crackle of the wood, which slowly blackens in the flames.
Gus slowly pulls away, yawning. “I’m going to sleep. Will you come to cover me up, Uncle J.?” Justin smiles through the tears, which still stream down his face. “Yes. I’ll be right there.”
Gus stands up, heading to the door, but Justin stays on the floor, starring into nowhere.
“You still love him, don’t you?” Gus asks from the door, looking at Justin’s broken figure. Justin doesn’t look at him, but he nods.
“That’s why you wear his jeans and T-shirt because they still smell like him?”
Justin doesn’t have the strength to reply, and when he finally turns to look at Brian’s son, he’s not there anyway. He can only hear his footsteps as he runs up the stairs.
Justin pulls his knees to his chest and wraps his arms around them. He doesn’t try to fight the crying anymore, there’s no one he needs to be strong for. He allows his emotions to overrule him, praying for the tears to take the pain away, even when he knows it’s impossible. That’s why he still thinks about running away, running after Brian.
It was a car accident on a winter’s night. That’s what he says to everybody who asks about Brian. That’s what he says to himself. But deep down he knows it’s a lie.
It wasn’t a car accident, but cancer that took Brian away. It took him away from Justin and away from his son.
Brain didn’t tell him about the determination until it was too late. He told him only when he knew there was no chance, when he knew he was dying, all the time pretending he was okay. He told him only after he passed out in the shower, taking Justin to the floor with him.
Justin yelled at him, screamed and then cried. But eventually he armored himself and stayed there for Brian. He never cried in front of Brian. He tried to be strong for him, but without him he was breaking down.
Justin still remembers the day when his brain simply couldn’t take it anymore. Just like when you turn the light off and the darkness comes, he locked the truth deep inside his mind and forgot. He erased the memory of Brian who wasn’t the Brian he used to know.
He didn’t remember the sleepless nights he spent watching Brian sleep, checking if he was still alive. Justin doesn’t recall how scared Brian was. He pushed away the long weeks and months when Brian cried of pain. The times Brian just sat in the darkest corner of the loft, shaking and sweating, unable to stop, while his body fought with the after-effects of the chemotherapy. Brian was falling apart in front of his eyes and Justin couldn’t do a fucking thing about it.
He doesn’t remember how many times he has put two cups of coffee on the table in the morning and he pretends it still isn’t happening sometimes when he gets carried away with his memories.
It was a Christmas Eve when Brian signed out of the hospital. They allowed him that only because his state got better in the last few days. He promised to be back in two days, but Justin knew he would never come back.
He was pale like Death itself as he lay beneath the blue sheets in his bed with Justin by his side. Justin was reading some book, but Brian wasn’t able to perceive the words anymore. He just rested there, too weak to sit up, making friends with the shadows on his ceiling and holding Justin’s hand in his.
“Hold me,” he whispered hoarsely when Justin asked what he could bring him.
Just “hold me” nothing more; no sex, no drugs, no drink… Two simple words, which shattered Justin’s heart forever… “Hold me”.
And so Justin did. He held him, while the jingle bells rung behind the window and people danced in the falling snow, singing Noels. He held him while his body was thrilling with cry, because he knew. He held him long after Brian couldn’t feel it anymore.
Justin’s fingers slip over the shell bracelet he wears around his wrist and he sighs. “I miss you, Brian,” he says quietly; his voice is weak from the tears, his head’s whirling with flashbacks. “God help me, I miss you so much.”
He doesn’t want to stand up. If he could choose he would never move again, and if he could stop breathing just to chase away the pain or drown in it forever, he’d do it.
But eventually he does move, like he did so many times before and stands up. He turns off the lights and heads to Gus’ room to cover him up as he’s promised.
The boy already sleeps peacefully, holding the Teddy bear he got from his daddy once and Justin smiles plaintively at the sight. He pulls the blankets up to his chin and kisses him on the cheek, hoping that at least Gus would be able to laugh on Christmas day.
He’s about to leave, but then he changes his mind and lies beside him. He hugs him tightly; trying to absorb what Brian has left behind himself in his son.
“He’s looking down at you,” Gus whispers, snuggling closer to Uncle J., who opens his eyes widely at the words.
Does Gus know? Does he feel the same as Justin? Does he feel Brian too?
“Don’t tell me the sky is the limit when there are footprints on the moon,” Brian had said once. He’d had a fever for the whole night then and kept mumbling nonsense in his sleep. Justin could hardly recognize some words, let alone follow the flow of Brian’s thoughts, but this sentence got stuck in his mind. Wherever it was from a film or a book, or Brian himself, these words has made him shiver at the time.
He still doesn’t know what it was supposed to mean, what Brian was talking about or with whom, but for him it has only one meaning. The world isn’t so simple; there isn’t only the sky and the earth, but something in between. Justin knows he’s not alone.
He knows it’s real when he feels the bed move suddenly, as if somebody crawls on it or when he sees a pair of hazel eyes starring back at him from the mirror.
He knows that there was someone with him that night he cut his wrists. Someone, who stopped his hand before he could have caused more damage.
There was somebody who forced Michael to come over to his home the other night. Someone who had told him to go, because although they hadn’t talked for a few days, Michael came to Justin’s house just when he took the pills as a way of redemption from the hell his life has turned into.
Justin knows it’s not a dream when he feels the warm breath upon his face. The breath, which smells of cigarettes, Jim Beam and green apples and blows the tears off his eyelashes when the lonely night gets too hard.
He doesn’t care what they say and if he’s losing his mind, so be it; he feels secure this way.
“Merry Christmas, Brian,” Justin whispers. Closing his eyes, he’d swear he could overhear the swish of cherub wings behind the door. Or was it only the far bells tinkling somewhere in the duvet of snow?
The End
Author:
jojothecr
Fandom: Queer as Folk
Characters: Justin & Brian... Gus
Summary: What if... 4.06 - 4.10. What if he didn't make it?
Warning: Main Character Death
Disclaimer: I own nothing, but my dog. QaF belongs to CowLip
Beta:
positive_pat
Author's Note: Once again... Death of a Character...I'm truly sorry, but it had to be done. Please, don't hate me. Next time I have a fever, I won't write a fiction. It's not a good idea.
Thanks to
meljune2008 for the Brian's quote
Feedback: Keeps me happy...
Another Christmas Without You
The world behind the window is quiet, unbroken with car horns or the city lights and white like a feather. Justin watches the snow falling, dancing silently in the invisible wind, covering the land with a light, chilly blanket and hiding the dying grass and the dirty ground beneath.
He stands by the window like he used to when he was a kid waiting for Santa Claus until the sleep and his mother put him in the bed. He’s not a kid anymore, the house isn’t the same and he no longer waits for him, because there’s nothing he could bring him for Christmas. Nothing but…
“Uncle J.?” The soft voice tears him from his retrieval and Justin turns to see a small figure standing in the door. He smiles gently at Gus and moves in his direction. Gus who, dressed in a white sweater, dark blue jeans and with a red knitted hat on his head, looks nearly like an elf and much younger than he really is.
“Yes?”
“Uncle J.,” Gus repeats, looking nervously and unsurely at Justin, who watches him intently. “Where is daddy?”
Justin stops in his tracks and swallows hard, nearly wincing at the pain, which clasped his throat so suddenly. Gus’ words echo in his ears, making a hole into his brain. “Where is daddy?” It was just a simple sentence; three words which apart mean so less, but together jab like a dagger. “Where is daddy? Where is daddy? Where is daddy? Where-”
The pain is too strong and Justin feels the ground shift under him, taking him off balance and he sits, nearly slumps down to the floor. There’s darkness all around him and a white noise screaming in his ears and for a while all he can feel is the anguish grasping his heart.
“Uncle J.!” Gus’ frightened voice rings in Justin’s ears before he feels his small hands shaking his shoulders gently. “Are you okay, uncle J.?”
“Yes, Gus,” he stammers after a moment. “Yes, I’m okay.” He tries to smile at the small boy, but he can’t, instead he reaches to take the hat off Gus’ head. “Come here,” he opens his arms to pull him into his embrace.
Gus’ fingers delve into his hair as he repeats his question quietly; afraid to hurt Justin, but longing for the answer. “Where is daddy? Why did he leave me? Why did he leave you?”
Justin takes a deep breath, and then turns Gus around in his arms so he doesn’t have to look into his face. He’s not strong enough to stare into his deep, huge eyes, his daddy’s eyes. Still it seems like eternity before he’s able to speak.
“He didn’t want to leave you. Nor me, honey,” he says quietly, tracing an invisible map over the mild lines on Gus’ small palms. “He had no choice.” Justin stares into the flames of the fireplace in front of him as he rests his chin on Gus’ shoulder.
The penetrating sound of brakes squealing yells in his ears and he shudders at the memory, holding Gus tighter. The stench of burned tires touches his nose even through the smell of the mistletoe whirling in the air, even through the dazing aroma of the Christmas candy or the fresh citrus smell of Gus’ hair. What follows is the ear-piercing scream, so high and unnatural that it causes the blood to freeze in the veins, and a loud crash. Then silence.
It is four years now, but he can still feel the cold of the Christmas night. The night his lover died, when he died.
“Where is he?” Gus wonders, playing with the single ring on Justin’s hand. He watches as the gold ringlet cast flashes from the fire.
“In a place where there is no pain,” Justin replies softly; his voice is shaking, his eyes are glassy from the unshed tears, but he tries to be strong. He tries to be strong for Gus and for himself. “Where nothing hurts and where angels protect his sleep.”
“Is he…?” Gus stops and turns in Justin’s lap to look in his face. There are tears crossing his chubby cheeks. “Is he happy, uncle J.?”
“I don’t know that, baby,” Justin says, wiping Gus’ tears away with his thumbs. “I hope he is. But I know he misses you. He misses all of us.”
“He misses you,” Gus replies seriously. “He loved you. He told me.”
“He told you?” Justin wonders, staggered by Gus’ words.
“He told me when he cried… I awoke one night when I stayed at his home and found him standing by the window. I knew he cried, even when he said he didn’t. He took me in his arms and said something that I didn’t understand. Not then.”
“What did he say, Gus? What was that?” Justin pushes, feeling his heart beating even quicker.
“He asked me to tell you. He said, “Sonny boy, would you do something for me?” I nodded and he stroked my cheek. “Tell Uncle Justin… Tell Sunshine, when I don’t have the chance anymore, tell him I love him. Always will. Would you do it for me, baby?’”
“Gus,” Justin sighs and the tears spill over his face. “You still remember that?”
Gus nods approval and reaches out to brush the tears from Justin’s face. “I promised him to tell you. I couldn’t forget it.”
“Thank you,” Justin whispers, burying his head in the mess of Gus’ dark hair. He can feel Gus nod against his shoulder, but neither say a word for a long time. Justin holds him, or holds onto him, listening to the unsteady crackle of the wood, which slowly blackens in the flames.
Gus slowly pulls away, yawning. “I’m going to sleep. Will you come to cover me up, Uncle J.?” Justin smiles through the tears, which still stream down his face. “Yes. I’ll be right there.”
Gus stands up, heading to the door, but Justin stays on the floor, starring into nowhere.
“You still love him, don’t you?” Gus asks from the door, looking at Justin’s broken figure. Justin doesn’t look at him, but he nods.
“That’s why you wear his jeans and T-shirt because they still smell like him?”
Justin doesn’t have the strength to reply, and when he finally turns to look at Brian’s son, he’s not there anyway. He can only hear his footsteps as he runs up the stairs.
Justin pulls his knees to his chest and wraps his arms around them. He doesn’t try to fight the crying anymore, there’s no one he needs to be strong for. He allows his emotions to overrule him, praying for the tears to take the pain away, even when he knows it’s impossible. That’s why he still thinks about running away, running after Brian.
It was a car accident on a winter’s night. That’s what he says to everybody who asks about Brian. That’s what he says to himself. But deep down he knows it’s a lie.
It wasn’t a car accident, but cancer that took Brian away. It took him away from Justin and away from his son.
Brain didn’t tell him about the determination until it was too late. He told him only when he knew there was no chance, when he knew he was dying, all the time pretending he was okay. He told him only after he passed out in the shower, taking Justin to the floor with him.
Justin yelled at him, screamed and then cried. But eventually he armored himself and stayed there for Brian. He never cried in front of Brian. He tried to be strong for him, but without him he was breaking down.
Justin still remembers the day when his brain simply couldn’t take it anymore. Just like when you turn the light off and the darkness comes, he locked the truth deep inside his mind and forgot. He erased the memory of Brian who wasn’t the Brian he used to know.
He didn’t remember the sleepless nights he spent watching Brian sleep, checking if he was still alive. Justin doesn’t recall how scared Brian was. He pushed away the long weeks and months when Brian cried of pain. The times Brian just sat in the darkest corner of the loft, shaking and sweating, unable to stop, while his body fought with the after-effects of the chemotherapy. Brian was falling apart in front of his eyes and Justin couldn’t do a fucking thing about it.
He doesn’t remember how many times he has put two cups of coffee on the table in the morning and he pretends it still isn’t happening sometimes when he gets carried away with his memories.
It was a Christmas Eve when Brian signed out of the hospital. They allowed him that only because his state got better in the last few days. He promised to be back in two days, but Justin knew he would never come back.
He was pale like Death itself as he lay beneath the blue sheets in his bed with Justin by his side. Justin was reading some book, but Brian wasn’t able to perceive the words anymore. He just rested there, too weak to sit up, making friends with the shadows on his ceiling and holding Justin’s hand in his.
“Hold me,” he whispered hoarsely when Justin asked what he could bring him.
Just “hold me” nothing more; no sex, no drugs, no drink… Two simple words, which shattered Justin’s heart forever… “Hold me”.
And so Justin did. He held him, while the jingle bells rung behind the window and people danced in the falling snow, singing Noels. He held him while his body was thrilling with cry, because he knew. He held him long after Brian couldn’t feel it anymore.
Justin’s fingers slip over the shell bracelet he wears around his wrist and he sighs. “I miss you, Brian,” he says quietly; his voice is weak from the tears, his head’s whirling with flashbacks. “God help me, I miss you so much.”
He doesn’t want to stand up. If he could choose he would never move again, and if he could stop breathing just to chase away the pain or drown in it forever, he’d do it.
But eventually he does move, like he did so many times before and stands up. He turns off the lights and heads to Gus’ room to cover him up as he’s promised.
The boy already sleeps peacefully, holding the Teddy bear he got from his daddy once and Justin smiles plaintively at the sight. He pulls the blankets up to his chin and kisses him on the cheek, hoping that at least Gus would be able to laugh on Christmas day.
He’s about to leave, but then he changes his mind and lies beside him. He hugs him tightly; trying to absorb what Brian has left behind himself in his son.
“He’s looking down at you,” Gus whispers, snuggling closer to Uncle J., who opens his eyes widely at the words.
Does Gus know? Does he feel the same as Justin? Does he feel Brian too?
“Don’t tell me the sky is the limit when there are footprints on the moon,” Brian had said once. He’d had a fever for the whole night then and kept mumbling nonsense in his sleep. Justin could hardly recognize some words, let alone follow the flow of Brian’s thoughts, but this sentence got stuck in his mind. Wherever it was from a film or a book, or Brian himself, these words has made him shiver at the time.
He still doesn’t know what it was supposed to mean, what Brian was talking about or with whom, but for him it has only one meaning. The world isn’t so simple; there isn’t only the sky and the earth, but something in between. Justin knows he’s not alone.
He knows it’s real when he feels the bed move suddenly, as if somebody crawls on it or when he sees a pair of hazel eyes starring back at him from the mirror.
He knows that there was someone with him that night he cut his wrists. Someone, who stopped his hand before he could have caused more damage.
There was somebody who forced Michael to come over to his home the other night. Someone who had told him to go, because although they hadn’t talked for a few days, Michael came to Justin’s house just when he took the pills as a way of redemption from the hell his life has turned into.
Justin knows it’s not a dream when he feels the warm breath upon his face. The breath, which smells of cigarettes, Jim Beam and green apples and blows the tears off his eyelashes when the lonely night gets too hard.
He doesn’t care what they say and if he’s losing his mind, so be it; he feels secure this way.
“Merry Christmas, Brian,” Justin whispers. Closing his eyes, he’d swear he could overhear the swish of cherub wings behind the door. Or was it only the far bells tinkling somewhere in the duvet of snow?
The End