THE SIGN, PART 2 / 8

[kachelofen]

THE SIGN

PART TWO

Brian is bored with his meeting after fifteen minutes, but outwardly there's no indication of it. He's always been good at not letting his feelings show and has perfected it over the last few years. He jokes and laughs and charms Paul Ashton of Guiltier Enterprises so much that he has to find a way of letting him down after the meeting without endangering the contract that Ashton hasn't signed yet. The words ‘my partner’s in hospital’ come more naturally to him now than when they were true years ago.

Ashton backs away from his insistent invasion of Brian’s personal space, joking that he didn’t take Brian for the faithful type and Brian says in a regretful tone that he isn’t but would consider it in bad taste to ‘cheat’ under these circumstances. In the taxi he wonders why he feels relieved that he didn’t fuck the client.

Justin’s place is in a part of town that Brian wouldn’t have expected him to be able to afford. There's a doorman, who opens the door for him and directs him to the right apartment. When Brian gets to the third floor, the door to number 304 opens before he can knock and he almost collides with someone coming out.

“Hey,” the guy says with a bright smile. “Can you tell Owen I’ll give him a call?” He looks Brian up and down and his smile turns seductive. “Or I could call you instead if you give me your number.” Leaving the door open, he squeezes past Brian, making as much body contact as he can before Brian steps back a little.

Brian gives him a non-committal smirk, more out of habit than any real interest, and watches the guy walk along the corridor backwards, still running his eyes appreciatively over Brian’s body before disappearing into the elevator. Shaking his head in amusement, Brian enters the apartment and shuts the door.

The place is big and airy. He can approve of the clean lines and all the leather and chrome, even though he can’t see much of Justin in it. It’s too clean, too tidy, but there are two large paintings on the wall that scream Justin from every brush stroke. One he's seen before, even tried to buy, but was told that it wasn’t for sale. This is the first time he’s seen it in person because he never went to Justin’s one and only showing in that tiny gallery last year. He steps closer, fascinated by the size and mournfulness of it, which is so much more pronounced than it appeared in the photographs.

Brian recognized himself in the broad strokes and abstract lines the first time he saw it, although the likeness isn’t obvious. However, it is blatant in the second painting, one he’s never seen before. It’s a picture of himself, naked and stretched out on the dark blue sheets of his bed in the loft. Even just showing his back and his ass, he’s unmistakable, but he's also gazing over his shoulder with a sultry look. Brian is amazed how much it captures how he sees himself but at the same time shows how Justin sees him - and by the sheer eroticism of it.

“Who the fuck are you?” says a voice behind him.

Brian turns slowly and is confronted by a guy who’s dressed in no more than a pair of sweatpants. He’s almost as tall as Brian and hot as hell. His dirty blond hair is shoulder length and his eyes are of an intense green. Brian thinks he's just about as hot as he expected Justin’s boyfriend to be.

“Your trick said to tell you that he’ll call you,” he says instead of answering the question.

“You’re Brian,” the guy says with some surprise, looking from the painting to the original. Then he adds in a lazy drawl, “If you’re looking for Justin, he’s not here.”

“I know he isn’t.”

“I’m Owen. Want some coffee? Or something else?” He grins and runs his eyes over Brian in a very deliberate fashion.

Brian would laugh at the familiar lines and behavior if he wasn’t so indignant over the guy’s lack of concern for Justin. “I’ve come to pick up some clothes for him.”

“What the hell for?”

“He’s in hospital.”

“Wanna tell me what the fuck’s going on?”

“Justin has meningitis. He’s been in hospital since yesterday. I take it, not coming home for the night is a common occurrence?”

“Not really, but he has his own room. I’m not his keeper. How is he?”

“Alive. Wanna point me in the direction of his room?”

Owen gives a nod towards one of the doors and Brian walks into the indicated room, which is completely like Justin, chaotic, cluttered and smelling of paint. This is obviously the room Justin paints in nowadays. It’s full of canvases, paints, brushes and an omnipresent smell of turpentine. Brian looks over some of the paintings stacked against the walls. The room is big and he can well imagine Justin having had a spontaneous orgasm over the lighting. Then he wonders when he started looking at rooms with Justin’s eyes.

“How exactly do you fit into the picture?” Owen has followed him from the living area and is leaning against the door jamb with his arms folded. Brian gives him the barest of looks, just long enough to acknowledge to himself how fuckable the guy is. It’s not just that Owen is good-looking, he has that pervasive sexiness designed to make guys want to jump his bones that Brian himself had down pat by the end of his teens.

“His mother called me.”

“Ah, good old Jen! Yeah, she'd rather bite off her tongue before she’d tell me anything.”

So Jennifer's gone back to hating whomever Justin is with. But for once Brian approves. Something about this guy gets his back up and he hopes that it’s merely about the fact that Owen doesn’t seem overly concerned that the guy he’s fucking has a potentially life-threatening illness.

Brian opens the wardrobe and finds the same ugly duffle bag at the bottom that Justin always used to schlep stuff bigger than his messenger bag to and from the loft. Setting it on the bed, he starts putting in casual clothes, which isn’t very difficult since they make up the majority of the items in the wardrobe. He does spot a nice charcoal Dolce and Gabbana suit that meets his approval, although it would be completely useless under the circumstances.

“How long will he be in hospital for?” Owen asks, eyeing the growing amount of clothes Brian’s folding neatly into the bag with a frown. It makes Brian stop and wonder what he’s doing. He notices with some amusement that it does look like he’s packing most of Justin’s stuff. He looks at his replacement - for the first time without checking him out or dismissing him. If this is the guy Justin’s in love with, then maybe he deserves to be treated with a little more consideration for Justin’s sake.

“The doctor said a few days, so he could be home before the weekend. He’s being moved to his own room this evening.” He hesitates for a moment, then forces himself to add, “You should visit him. I’m sure he’d like that.”

Owen has moved into a more alert stance and now takes a step back. “Home? By the weekend? Are they nuts? Do you have any idea how contagious meningitis is? He can’t come here for a couple of weeks. At least.”

Brian stares at the guy, trying not to hate him to the point of wanting to punch him, trying not to be disappointed in Justin for being with such an ass, trying not to think, ‘how the fuck am I going to tell Justin?’ and failing miserably on all counts. He smiles a sickly-sweet, false smile.

“So, I take it you won’t be visiting your beloved in the hospital then?”

Owen switches to belligerence immediately. “Why do you care? Aren’t you the guy who disappeared from his life from one day to the next and hasn’t spoken to him in three years?”

“Would you like me to give him a message?” Brian zips up the bag and ignores the accusation. He’s not discussing this, not with this guy, nor with anybody else.

“Tell him to call me when he can.”

“Will do,” Brian mutters and makes his way past the guy to the door. There he stops and can’t resist asking, “Does he know you’re fucking around on him?” He's well aware of the hypocrisy of that question, but it irks him somehow.

Owen grins insolently. “Who I fuck is none of your business - or his.”

Brian snorts without humor. This is just too fucking familiar. “I’ll give him your love then,” he says and pulls the door shut behind himself.

Brian goes back to the hotel to shower and change and call Cynthia to discuss his lunch meeting with Ashton. Cynthia is a little too focused on work and getting through the minutiae of the meeting and he doesn’t need to think very hard about the reason for that.

“I don’t appreciate you passing on my number to Jennifer Taylor, Cynthia.”

“She was desperate, Brian.”

“And so will you be if you do that again.”

“What are you gonna do, block my number, too? How are you gonna run the office?”

“Cynthia,” he says warningly.

“The woman needed help. And you need…”

“Need what…?”

There's a long pause. “Brian...” she says finally and nothing else. He hates how softly she speaks to him nowadays.

“Your job’s to make my office run smoothly. Don’t tell me how to live my life!” He snaps the phone shut and throws it on the bed. Damn all women! Deciding not to think about it any further, he makes his way into the shower. He knows that he needs Cynthia, and in general he likes her just fine because at the moment she's one of the more stable parts of his life. However much it… makes him nervous to have anything that's stable, he can bear it because she's always been professional and has become even more so in recent years. Professional he can cope with.

When he arrives back at the hospital, Justin has already been moved to a private room. Brian notices with satisfaction that it’s large and comfortable and almost luxurious as hospital rooms go, with an en suite bathroom, a TV and even a DVD player. But all he does is dump the duffle bag by the bed and say, “I notice your fashion sense hasn’t improved.”

Justin recognizes Brian’s pretend grumpy remark as the cover-up for his unease that it really is. Since he woke up properly in the afternoon and realized that Brian having been at his bedside was not some crazy dream, he's been cursing himself for asking him to collect his clothes. He should have taken Brian up on his offer to buy new ones or waited until his mother arrives - anything to keep Owen and Brian apart. Although his mother and Owen together is only marginally more desirable.

It doesn’t take a psychologist to predict that Brian and Owen will hate each other, nor does it take one to work out that the reason for that is because they're so similar. He doesn’t want Brian to think that he’s been replaced by a clone, although physically there are no similarities. That’s one point Justin doesn’t have to worry about. No one will look at Owen and think Justin chose him for his resemblance to Brian - although they might when they get to know him. Only, Justin knows that they couldn’t be more different in any other respect, too.

“You found it all right, then,” is all he says because he won’t be drawn into a discussion about his clothes and he’s dying to know what happened at the apartment.

“Even I can give an address to a cab driver and arrive at the right destination,” Brian snarks, appearing to make himself comfortable in one of the chairs with his usual grace. But to Justin he doesn’t look particularly comfortable and he can marvel at how well he can still read Brian’s body language. He wonders if anybody else could ever read him quite as well. Maybe Michael could have at some stage, if he hadn’t been too blinded by his adoration to ever consider taking Brian at anything other than face value.

“How did your meeting go?”

“Fine.”

Great. Brian is playing ‘let’s make Justin work for any little scrap of information’, a game Justin remembers well from his pre-Ethan time with Brian. But he doesn’t feel like playing games anymore, especially not with Brian. “What did Owen say?”

Brian's been dreading and looking forward to this conversation in equal measures. Part of him wants to get up and leave and never come back. What does it matter to him what Justin does and who he’s doing it with? Brian's been so careful not to pay attention for so long that he didn’t even know where Justin lives now, nor whom he lives with. Because it has to be that way. And in less than 24 hours, he knows more about Justin’s life again than he wants. And now that he knows, he can no longer ignore it.

But there’s another part of him, which relishes this conversation, the part that’s still hurt by Justin somehow, however unfair that may be, the part that wants him to be the best homosexual he can possibly be, the same part that wants to throttle him for his choice of boyfriend. He’s torn between wanting to inflict pain for being disappointed and, yes, worried, and wanting to somehow phrase it in a way that will help Justin keep up this charade that is his life. But how do you paraphrase ‘your boyfriend didn’t even worry about you not coming home last night because he was too busy tricking’ into a sentence that won’t make Justin explode into righteous anger? Hell, it makes him want to explode into righteous anger.

“He didn’t say much.”

Justin looks at him, wanting to ask a hundred questions. He needs to know what happened between those two, so he can prepare himself for the backlash from both of them. Why Brian should care is beyond him. Brian hasn’t bothered with Justin for so long and so thoroughly that Justin has started to really believe that he no longer cares. But Brian has always had this habit of wanting to make people face the truth as he sees it and trying to sort out their lives whether it's wanted - or even warranted - or not. It’s entirely possible that he'll voice an opinion or even interfere simply because he doesn’t approve.

And Owen will be in a snit for ages just because Brian turned up. However much Owen says that he doesn’t care what Justin does with other guys, when it comes to Brian, that no longer holds. Which is amazing for a guy who allows two large paintings of Justin’s ex-lover to hang in his own living room and who likes to point them out to whoever is interested. But that’s just his way of demonstrating how little he cares. Justin doesn’t think too much about it. It’s entirely possible that Owen genuinely doesn’t care. Because they're so similar in their behavior, Justin tends to imbue Owen with feelings that he knows Brian would have and he's never really bothered to find out if that’s justified. In a way, he hopes it isn’t. He wouldn’t want Owen to get hurt.

“What was he doing?” he tries again.

There's a long pause and Brian just looks at him. Justin can’t remember any other occasion when Brian was stuck for words and he can’t imagine why he would be now. Then he hits on the answer and he can’t decide whether he’s angry or amused by Brian’s reluctance. What right does he have to judge? Justin decides to go with laughter.

“He was tricking?”

Brian looks surprised. Did he really think that Justin doesn’t know about that? Or that he’s still the love-struck fool who's hurt by his non-boyfriend’s escapades like he was with Brian or even oblivious like he was with Ethan? That’s kind of insulting. He’s twenty-six now and, if nothing else, Brian should give him some credit.

“Owen tricks all the time. It’s no big deal.” Or no deal at all because Justin doesn’t care. It’s not the pretend not-caring that he projected when he was with Brian, hiding his hurt behind a façade of nonchalance, no, this time his indifference is genuine. The only times it bothers him is when he wants to fuck and Owen is tricking because it means that Justin has to go out to get his needs met somewhere else and that can be tedious. He doesn’t particularly like going to clubs anymore. Justin and Owen have only one rule: all their tricking takes place away from home or in their respective rooms and the sole reason for that is that the large, flat-screen TV is in the living room.

Brian is quiet for a long time. He can’t decide how this information makes him feel. On the one hand, he’s relieved that Justin’s not hurt, on the other, he can’t believe that Justin would put up with that sort of behavior - again. It’s as if Justin hasn’t progressed at all in the years they’ve been apart. Brian would have thought that Justin would have found more self-respect in that time. How can he still be with people who don’t give him what he needs?

Brian has tried very hard not to think about Justin in the last three years, or about anyone at all really. But when he did think about him during that time - usually because he was too intoxicated for his usual discipline - he always imagined him in a cozy, monogamous relationship with some breeder impersonator. Why would Justin do this to himself again?

For a while, Brian fights his anger, telling himself that it’s none of his business, but in the end he can’t help saying, “So now it’s suddenly all right for your partner to trick?” in a voice that doesn’t sound quite as tense as he feared.

“Owen’s not my partner or my boyfriend. We’re just living together. I pay rent and utilities and make my own food.”

“So you two aren’t fucking?”

“Of course, we’re fucking.”

“And you’re overlooking that he’s tricking? That he’s tricking so much that he didn’t even notice that you weren’t home?” Brian doesn’t like how bitter he sounds - at all.

“I trick as much as he d…” Justin stops in mid-sentence when he realizes why they’re having this conversation. “You’re jealous,” he murmurs more to himself than Brian, the surprise overriding the habitual censoring of his words around the other man.

“Bullshit. It’s just strange how I had to jump through endless hoops for you, while this guy gets a free pass.”

Justin is quiet for a long time, trying to digest this unexpected revelation. It doesn’t tally with the reality of his life since he last saw Brian.

After Brian disappeared for two months three years ago and they'd gone as far as contacting the police, Cynthia called one day to say that Brian had been on the phone to her. She was the only one Brian had contacted, but she claimed not to know much about anything other than that he was coming back to work.

Justin, who‘d been living in limbo at the loft, waited for his return, veering between relief and anger. But nobody even knew that Brian was back in Pittsburgh until he visited Debbie a few days later, told her that he needed more time and said very little else. Where he’d been or what he was planning remained a mystery.

After a few days Justin returned to New York in a fit of anger, fueled by disappointment and despair. But it didn’t last long. He tried to contact Brian. It was a difficult undertaking because, apart from not answering his calls, emails and messages, it was also simply impossible to find him.

One day, on his frequent visits to Pittsburgh, Justin arrived at the loft to find it no longer empty but rented out and there was no forwarding address. For a while, he suspected anyone and everyone of withholding information from him on Brian’s orders, but it soon became clear that he wasn’t the only one in the dark. Michael was equally frantic in his attempts to find out what was going on.

Then Michael called about a month after Brian came back to say that he’d heard from him, but Michael was not allowed to give Justin Brian’s new number or tell him anything. He said Brian was okay but wanted to be left alone. Of course, Justin eventually wormed the new number out of Michael, but Brian never answered any of Justin’s numerous calls and eventually Michael called again to say that Brian had changed his number again and that Michael could no longer talk to Justin about Brian for fear of losing him altogether. Justin forgave Michael for that - mainly because he was crying when he said it.

So Justin had assumed that Brian was genuine when he said that he never wanted to see Justin again - not that he’d said it in so many words. For a long time, he held on to the belief that Brian would come round eventually, that, when he had worked through it all, he'd come for Justin and either pretend nothing had happened or tell him to suck it up and deal. By that time, Justin was quite willing to do that. Who wouldn’t under the circumstances? But eventually, after months of waiting, he gave up hope. Brian seemed to have renewed his contact with most other people, but Justin was still out in the cold. He could no longer pretend that he hadn’t been singled out or that it wasn’t permanent.

All he could do was finally admit to himself that Brian had stopped loving him. And that was the hardest part. It was easier to live with not seeing him than to live with not being loved by him. Justin had lived in Brian’s love for so long that he didn’t know any longer how to live without it. It was the darkest time of his life. But in the end, he picked himself up and carried on regardless, because he had to, because life didn’t just stop when Brian stopped loving him. It just became cold and lonely.

And now here he is again with Brian taking care of him and showing his concern in his own inimitable style - by grousing at him. Justin can’t yet decide whether he likes it or not. On the one hand, it scares the hell out of him. What if Brian disappears again? Justin could never go through that again. On the other hand, Brian caring is familiar and warm. Justin smiles a soft smile.

“That’s because you were important.” Because I loved you, because my world revolved around you, because I wanted to be everything to you. All of those would be true as well, but for now, it will do.

Brian snorts derisively, murmurs something about ‘just my fucking luck’ and goes to the window to check out the view. Justin watches him standing there, his lean form, his long neck, the classic profile and knows that if Brian doesn’t disappear from his life again, he will never have the strength to let him go. Great! Three years of struggling to cope down the drain.

“Could you get me some decent coffee?” he asks, just to test the waters.

Brian glares at him. “I’m not your fucking servant, you know.” But despite his grumbling, he makes his way to the door and Justin knows that he'll return with a non-fat double shot cappuccino with added vanilla from Starbucks. And he also knows that everything is fucked up again.

*

Thomas Calhoun is trailing his wife of ten days down the hospital corridors. He hasn’t thought much beyond the fact that she’s incredibly upset and he wants to comfort her in any way that he can. Returning early from his honeymoon hasn’t bothered him under the circumstances. More than anything he wants Jennifer to be happy and the last three days have been the most upset he’s seen her in the eighteen months he’s known her. There was never any question of trying to persuade her to stay on in Mexico, even after she was told that Justin had woken up and was as well as could be expected. He wouldn’t have stayed either if this had happened to one of his children.

Thomas has met Justin a few times and he likes him. Justin is bright and witty and has a wicked sense of humor. He can also disappear into a cloud of misery that makes him uncommunicative and drives his mother to distraction with worry. His homosexuality isn't an issue for Thomas although he’s aware that his own son, Nathan, is struggling with it at times. He thinks it will do Nathan good to have to confront his unacknowledged homophobic tendencies and so far there seems to be a gradual convergence between the two young men, who are roughly the same age.

Thomas’s daughter is another matter. Felicity is a year older than Molly and has taken to Justin like any teenage girl would to a good-looking young man, who’s also making an effort to get to know her. Thomas suspects that she has a severe crush, disregarding the fact that Justin is not only gay but also her stepbrother now. Molly, on the other hand, seems to dislike everyone in equal measures at the moment, Thomas, his children, and even her own mother and brother. Whenever she doesn’t get her own way, she threatens to move in with Craig, who’s giving no sign of accommodating his daughter, as he’s having his hands full with a three-months-old baby.

Thomas feels pretty secure that Justin likes him well enough, although he’s aware that it may be more relief to be rid of his predecessor than personal affection. Either way, he’s grateful for Justin’s support of his mother’s marriage and his occasional admonishment of his sister for her behavior. Of all the people in this new family situation, Justin seems to have the most influence on Molly.

When the hospital phoned and it turned out very soon afterwards that there would be no way of getting back here quickly, he listened with growing exasperation to Jennifer’s efforts to even get a phone number for Justin’s ex-boyfriend. Thomas has never met the current boyfriend and he can’t understand why it was the ex Jennifer was pinning her hopes on. In the end, the guy’s secretary was the only one who was willing to brave his wrath by handing out one measly phone number.

Thomas expected the guy, Brian, to shut Jennifer down quickly, but apparently he went to the hospital straight away and then phoned an hour later to say everything was stable. He called again the next day to say that Justin was awake and Jennifer’s tearful relief made Thomas forgive Brian for making it so difficult for her to get this far.

After the phone call, Jennifer sat outside their chalet and spoke about Justin in great detail for the first time. She talked about bullying and bashings, getting disowned and arrested by his own father, and bombings. He'd known about these things only vaguely and suddenly understood why Justin will always be the one person she worries about the most.

She also spoke about Brian, whose presence in Justin’s life seems to be equally all-consuming and devastating as his absence. And yet there’s no hint of resentment in her voice when she speaks either of Brian or to him, only a lot of affection and much sadness. He gets an inkling of why that is so when there’s a driver waiting for them as they arrive at the airport to take them to the hospital and their luggage to a nearby hotel. Now he’s quite curious to meet this Brian.

Jennifer can't believe that she’s here again, looking for her son, who's been admitted to hospital with a life-threatening condition. Her knees threaten to buckle with relief as she steps into the room to see Justin sitting up in bed, watching the news. He looks tired and drawn, but he’s awake and alive and nothing else matters. He has barely time to switch the TV off when he sees her, before she has engulfed him in a tight hug that she doesn’t want to end.

“I’m alright, Mom. I’m alright. You shouldn’t have come.”

She draws back and just looks at him. He grins impishly. “Okay, okay, you’re my mother. You’re allowed to worry. I’m sorry I spoiled your honeymoon.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Thomas says as he enters the room and Justin gives him a smile. “We were getting bored anyway.” That earns him a glare from his wife and he smiles softly at her. He knows he'll never get bored with Jennifer. This is the woman he wants to spend the rest of his life with. There’s never been a single moment since he’s known her that he hasn’t loved and wanted her. And he suspects that it will never change. What he felt for his first wife, God rest her soul, doesn’t even compare.

Jennifer’s very much aware that she hit the jackpot when she met Thomas. Their attraction was immediate and hasn’t dimmed in the slightest since then. She smiles back at him and sees Justin avert his eyes. Sometimes, he finds it hard to witness their happiness and she knows that it’s because he remembers what it feels like. This is her biggest grievance with Owen Spencer, that he doesn’t make her son happy, that the sadness surrounding him hasn’t lessened in the slightest.

She looks at Justin and smiles. “Where’s Brian?”

Then she has to laugh because her son’s voice is a perfect imitation of Debbie’s world-weary tone when he says, “Eeeverybody’s looking for Brian.”

PART THREE: http://kachelofen.livejournal.com/20022.html#cutid1