I CAN SEE CLEARLY NOW, PART 1 / 12
SUMMARY: This a sequel to Trying To Make Some Sense Of It All and therefore still an INVERTED AU. (You should probably read that one to make some sense of this one at all. :-D) It is set four years in the future. Brian has just started his last year of college.
AN: I’m just flexing my writing muscles a little with this one. There were one or two things I wanted to explore, which didn’t fit into the prequel. All the things from the previous AN are still true: enough sex to be NC-17, too little to be porn, quotes from the show, plotlines from the show and all of it jumbled together into a big mess.
The title is taken from the song by Johnny Nash.
*No small children were harmed during the writing of this fic.*
This story is complete and will be posted on a two to three day schedule, so that it will be finished before Christmas.
As always, comments of any kind are very welcome. And if you see a mistake, please do point it out to me, as this is un-beta’ed.
I would like to extend a warm thank you to britinkinlor for helping me create the icon. Thanks, Ali. ♥
I CAN SEE CLEARLY NOW
PART ONE
Woody’s is almost deserted when I get there, which is only to be expected, since it's barely past opening time. I take a quick look around and, not seeing whom I’m looking for, walk up to the bar and order two bottles of beer. Even though it’s empty now, I know it’s not going to stay that way for long, so I select the most out-of-the-way table and slide onto the stool that affords me a view of the door.
One of the guys at the bar is eyeing me with interest. I ignore him. The second bottle on the table should clue him in to the fact that I’m waiting for someone, but I know that in this place that isn’t necessarily going to deter him from coming over. After about a minute, I can see him out of the corner of my eyes as he grabs his drink to make a move on me, but I’m saved by Melanie coming through the door and making a beeline for me. The guy at the bar gives me a disgusted look and casts about for a new target.
“Sorry, I’m late,” Melanie says, taking off the jacket of her power suit and draping it over the back of the chair next to hers. Still rolling up the sleeves of her blouse, she sits down opposite me and grabs the other bottle, taking a long drink.
“I just got here myself.” I smile at her.
“God, what a day.” She's moaning down the drink appreciatively. “I didn’t even have time to go home to get changed.”
“Don’t worry, I rarely pay attention to what women wear. Now, guys on the other hand... I swear that redhead in the corner is wearing the tightest pants I’ve ever seen. Not really recommended with the small package he’s got.”
Melanie huffs out a laugh. “You’re getting more like your boyfriend by the day.”
“Is that a bad thing?” It’s out before I remember whom I’m talking to. I cringe inwardly.
“Yeah, actually, it is.”
We’re quiet for an awkward moment. I like Melanie, I really do, but her animosity towards Brian sometimes makes it difficult to have a conversation. It’s not even as if she’s the only person in my life criticizing him, but she's certainly the most vocal.
“Where’s Lindsay?” I ask, changing the subject. Melanie and Lindsay have been together for over four years now, only a few months more than Brian and I, and that’s not the only thing we have in common.
“I assume she’s at the same place Brian is. Isn’t she always?”
“I hope not,” I chuckle, thinking of some of the places Brian frequents. Not quite the right scene for someone of Lindsay’s upbringing and disposition. Not that I don’t agree with Melanie that Lindsay would probably follow Brian anywhere. Sometimes it seems that Brian simply swapped Michael for Lindsay when he started college. At least, they seem to spend an extraordinary amount of time together.
Finally, Melanie relaxes enough to laugh. She's been really stressed out for a while now because she’s in line to make partner at the law firm where she works. It makes her a little cranky.
“Yeah,” she agrees, drinking some more of her beer. “I asked Lindsay to move in with me.”
“Really? What did she say?”
“She said yes. Or rather, she said she will, after graduation.”
“Graduation? The year just started. Graduation won’t be till May.”
“I know,” she sighs. “But she wants to stay in the dorms till then. We also talked about having a baby.”
I stare at her. Melanie is so butch it’s hard to imagine her being maternal.
“Do you ever think about having a family?” she asks.
I have to laugh. “With Brian? I don’t think he’s ready.”
“Do you think he’ll ever be?” It comes out in a dismissive tone.
I shrug. Much as it pains me to admit it, she’s right. Brian hasn’t really changed much in the four years that we’ve been together. I can’t even be completely certain that he considers us as 'being together'. He behaves very much like he’s single.
“Have you never thought about it?” she chases up her first question.
“Sometimes,” I admit. “I may want a child of my own one day. But I reckon I have time. And it’s not as easy as it is for you guys. All you have to do is go to the sperm bank.”
She nods a few times and sighs. “Yeah, Lindsay doesn’t want to do that. She says it’s too impersonal. She wants to have a child with someone we know.”
I shrug again. “Makes sense.”
Melanie is looking at me over the top of her bottle for a while and I’m beginning to feel a little uncomfortable. “This is not why you asked me to meet with you, is it?” I ask.
“Well, it kind of is.”
Oh, crap. I didn’t see that one coming. “You want me to do the honors?”
“Well, Lindsay wants Brian.”
Unfortunately, I'm just taking a sip of my drink when she says it and, predictably, I choke on it, cough and spray some over the table. Melanie leans as far back in her seat as she can to avoid getting any of it on her clothes and laughs at me. “Yeah, that was my reaction, too.”
“He’s twenty-one,” I say, realizing almost immediately how irrelevant that is in the grand scheme of things.
“Well, Lindsay’s only a year older.”
I take the cardboard coaster and try to wipe up the droplets of beer, succeeding only in spreading them evenly over the table.
“Are you sure Lindsay’s ready? I mean, you guys aren’t even living together yet and you want to bring a child into the mix. What if you two don’t work out?”
“I’m thirty-two, Justin. I don’t want to be in my dotage when we have a child. Lindsay’s ready. She just needs to get out of that college environment. That makes anyone act immature.”
Her words in God’s ear because it certainly makes Brian act like a brat most of the time. Just like Melanie with Lindsay, I’m hoping that starting work next year will calm him down a little.
“Still, I don’t know,” I say. “Are you sure you’ve thought this through? How’s Lindsay gonna support you? And is this wise right now, when you’re going to make partner?” Even as I say it, I feel a little stupid because Melanie always thinks things through. She’s the most meticulous person I know, other than maybe Ted. If she says they can work out a way, then they can.
“Lindsay won’t be supporting us,” Melanie starts, then sighs. “Sorry, Justin, I’m doing this all wrong. The fact is, I can’t have kids. I have endometriosis.”
Yeah, whatever that is. Presumably something that prevents you from becoming pregnant. I wonder if I should commiserate her. Women get upset when they can’t have kids, don’t they? Wait a minute, if Melanie can’t have kids, that means… I lean back in my chair as if that will stop her from looking at me beseechingly. “No,” I say, a little louder than intended and I tone it down, if only in volume. “No. I’m not having a kid with Lindsay.”
“Why not?” Melanie seems genuinely perplexed.
Because I don’t want to have a child with a twenty-two year old. Because she’s incredibly naïve. Because I don’t trust her. Because she’s in love with my boyfriend.
I can’t tell Melanie any of these things because she thinks of Lindsay as the second coming - no pun intended. “With you, I'd think about it, Mel. With Lindsay, it’s a definite no.”
“Why?”
I shrug. “I don’t know her well enough.”
She laughs. “You’ve known her for four years.”
“You’ve known her for four years. I barely ever see her.” And when I do, she’s usually giggling in a corner somewhere with Brian - not that Brian does any of the giggling. But it doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in me that she’s ready for parenthood. Sometimes she doesn’t even seem ready for a relationship. I’m not sure if she has quite made up her mind whether she’s a lesbian either. I’m not holding any of that against her as a person, but as the mother of my child? No way. For that I’d like someone a little more mature.
Melanie looks disappointed.
“I’m sorry, Mel, but no.”
“Well, I’m not having Brian.” Which begs the question whether Lindsay has even agreed to this plan yet. I can well imagine her favoring Brian. She’s so obviously smitten with him. I don’t know how Melanie can stand it. She says it’s just a phase that Lindsay needs to go through, like a rite of passage or something and that it has a lot to do with being in college still and not having come out to her parents yet. But even if all that is true, I would hope that if Brian showed obvious signs of wanting to be with someone else, I'd be long gone.
Last weekend for example, Lindsay took Brian to her sister’s wedding as her date. Of course, she couldn’t take Melanie as her date, but if I had a boyfriend even before I came out, I would have brought him and passed him off as a friend, if need be, not brought a beard. I'd have wanted to be with my boyfriend. But with Lindsay, it’s obvious that she didn’t just do it to placate her family, but rather enjoyed having Brian there and dreamed of that situation being the reality.
Brian told me that the food was excellent, that there was an open bar and that he fucked one of the ushers. So he enjoyed himself, too. Luckily he had enough consideration for Lindsay to be discreet and he arrived and left with her. He’s very attached to her for reasons that I have yet to work out, but there was no point in the last three years, where I was worried. Lindsay might be confused. Brian is not.
“Are you hoping to get married?” I ask, changing the subject once more. Our conversation seems to be full of landmines today, which is unusual for us. From being fellow members of the GLC and working on projects together, we’ve progressed to bonding over having a relationship with a much younger partner, sometimes including Ben in our circle. Out of the three of us, Ben probably has the least problems because Michael seems happy enough to settle, whereas Brian and Lindsay are living college life to the fullest. We’re stuck with the ironic state of affairs where both, Ben and Melanie, have to cope with their partners having a crush on my boyfriend, whereas I ‘only’ have to worry about every hot guy in town. On the whole, I prefer my situation. At least I can be certain that Brian doesn’t pine after someone else.
“Marriage is a bankrupt institution. I don’t think a meaningless heterosexual ritual would improve our love and it wouldn’t be legal anyway.”
I have to laugh. If she hadn’t put the word ‘love’ in there, it could have come straight out of Brian’s mouth. Even without Lindsay in the mix, Melanie and Brian could never be friends because they’re just so damn similar.
I feel the same way about marriage. After seeing my parents and most of my parents’ friends divorce, I have no illusions that a piece of paper would hold together a relationship that has broken down, nor that it should. I’m with Brian on that one, better to be together because you want to be. And I have at least that. I know that when Brian is with me, it’s because that’s what he wants - because there are plenty of other times, when he doesn’t want to and isn’t there.
But I would like what the spirit of a marriage represents, the absolute commitment to just one person, wanting to spend the rest of your life with him and, yes, forsaking all others, too - eventually. But I don’t need to get married for that, especially as it’s not legal anyway. I just want the commitment or, quite frankly, at the moment, I'd settle for open acknowledgement. So far, the best I got in four years is a, ‘this is the guy I fuck more than once.’
“Do you want to get married?” Melanie asks.
I shake my head. “No, not really,” I say and leave it at that. No use discussing this with her. It will only lead to her telling me that I need to find a different partner if I ever want to be truly happy. I’ve heard it enough times. The thing is, I honestly believe that I'll never be truly happy with a different partner. Only, I can’t be sure that I'll ever be with the one I have either.
“He might grow up eventually,” she says unexpectedly, her smile soft. But I know she’s only saying it to make me feel better, not because she actually believes it. She wrote Brian off as a bad bet ages ago, probably the first time they ever met. And with the way Lindsay is at the moment, I doubt that’ll ever change now.
Melanie turns around to follow my gaze when I get distracted by Brian entering Woody’s and making his way towards the bar a little unsteadily. About halfway there, he notices us and turns towards our table, almost stumbling at the sudden change of direction. “Or not,” she adds sarcastically.
Brian hones in on me, completely ignoring Melanie, and I can smell the alcohol on him before he’s even close enough to kiss me. Which he does, with a lot of tongue, one hand at the back of my neck as if he’s afraid I might pull away, the other cupping my crotch. The kiss is deep and long and very wet, but I can’t enjoy it as much as I normally would because I’m too self-conscious about Melanie being here and disapproving, which is probably why he’s doing this in the first place. And I’m embarrassed for him because he’s so obviously fall-down drunk. My first instinct is to get him home.
“Men’s room,“ he says, loud enough for anybody in the vicinity to hear, which is undoubtedly his intention. He’s always more bratty when Melanie is around.
“I’m not alone,” I say with a smile. I’m wondering if he would even make it as far as the restroom because he’s leaning heavily on me by now.
“Ah yes,“ he says, looking Mel up and down as if she’s a particularly loathsome insect, a look that she mirrors completely, only she seems horrified at the same time. “Smelly Melly.” He laughs a little and I decide that I should really get him home as soon as possible. “Where’s your wife?” His words are slurred like they hardly ever are, even when he’s drunk and high. He must have consumed way more than his usual amount.
“Don’t you know?” she shoots back. “You see her more than I do.”
I should get him out of here before these two get into a fist fight - which Brian would probably lose in his current state.
“Yeah. You’re not a very good warden, are you?” he needles her on.
Uh-oh, now I know why he’s so drunk. He’s seen or heard from either of his parents. The word ‘warden’ is like a huge neon sign flashing a warning at me to beware. Any contact with his parents always leads to him lashing out at the nearest target.
Melanie just looks askance and wisely decides to ignore him. “Do you need any help, Justin?”
“No, we’re fine,” I say and slide off the stool very gently so that I don’t dislodge Brian from my shoulders in the process. “Com’ on , Brian, let’s go.”
“Yeah, the men’s room.” He nods a few times, but when I start to pull him towards the door, he follows me without much resistance. He has drunk his way past belligerence and into compliance. If I can get him home before he hits the passing out phase, everything will be fine.
Melanie follows us out silently and watches me maneuver Brian into the passenger seat of the jeep. “Will you think about what we talked about?” she asks, eyeing Brian with disgust, as he loudly bemoans the fact that there'll be a delay before he'll have his much needed fuck.
“Sure,” I say, mainly to pacify her because I really need to get home before Brian falls asleep in the car.
“You say that,” Brian grouches, thinking my answer was meant for him. “But I don’t see your ass getting naked or your lips round my cock or… you’ve too many clothes on.”
“I’ll call you,” I tell Melanie and slide into the driver’s seat before she can become aware that Brian has now started to unzip his jeans to move the proceedings along. As I lean over him to plug his seat belt in, he pushes at my shoulders a little to encourage me to give him a blowjob right here, but it’s ineffective because he’s way too drunk.
I open all the windows as I drive the short way to the loft. Brian leans his face into the cool air, his pants’ half-open state forgotten. For a moment I fear he may have fallen asleep, in which case I may have to call Emmett or Michael to help me get him upstairs, but when I stop at the loft, he comes out of his stupor a little and looks around. “Where are we?”
“Home.”
He fiddles with the seat belt, appearing extraordinarily pleased with himself when it comes undone after I manage to push the release without him noticing. I have to smile. I jog round to his side of the car and get there just as his knees are buckling a little when he gets out. But the car door is supporting him and he manages to stand upright more or less on his own.
In the rickety elevator, he leans against the wall, his arms spread to both sides for balance. “Home,” he says with his eyes closed.
“Yes, Brian,” I say with a smile.
“Much better than the men’s room.”
“Yes, Brian.”
He’s trying to molest me all the way to the bedroom, which we reach via a detour to the fridge to get him a bottle of water, but he’s so uncoordinated that, in the end, he just allows me to lead him to the bed. He grins at me when I start to undress him and drinks his water when prompted. His cock is only half-hard and I doubt that he'd be capable of doing much with it if he tried. As it is, he’s happy enough to get under the covers and is asleep within minutes.
When he gets up an hour later to be sick in the toilet, I'm still awake. I can hear him brush his teeth and drink about a gallon of water, before he returns to bed, pushes up close to me and is asleep again within moments. I’m wondering what his parents did this time.
*******
When I come out of the shower, Lindsay’s on the phone - my phone. I don’t mind her borrowing stuff from me, wearing my clothes and even stealing food off my plate in the cafeteria, but I draw the line at answering my phone. I have photos on there that are nobody’s business. Justin would hit the roof if I let anyone see them.
“Here he is,” she says to whoever is on the other end of the line and hands me the phone.
I turn my back on her before she can say anything and even walk a few steps away, towards the window, although that doesn’t afford me much more privacy in my small dorm room. And then I wish I had let her tell me who's on the line, so that I'd have had a few seconds to prepare.
“Brian? It’s Claire.”
“What’s up?” The air in the room seems stuffy all of a sudden and I open the window with one hand. It’s not as if Claire never calls me. I go round there occasionally for dinner, when the mood strikes me, although the intervals between visits have increased over time, as she’s turning more and more into a copy of Mom. But there’s something in her voice that sets me on edge.
“When did you see Daddy last?”
“About two months ago. Why?”
“He collapsed at work on Wednesday. He’s in the hospital.”
“What happened? He fall down drunk?” Fuck, he’s going to lose his job again.
“Brian.” She sounds tired, as she does every time I speak to her. “Mom didn’t want me to tell you but… Daddy has cancer. You should go and see him.”
I feel kind of sucker punched, which is very appropriate when you think about it. “What for? There’s nothing I can do about it.”
“Brian… he doesn’t have long… just days probably.”
“What? How come? You don’t keel over one day and be at death’s door without warning. There are signs and…”
“I didn’t know, okay?” She’s crying now and it has the usual effect on me of wanting to make it stop, in any way I can. “They didn’t tell me either, but Mom and Daddy have known for months. They didn’t want us to know.”
“I see.” I stare out of the window at the block of dorms opposite, where this girl always forgets to draw her curtains before she gets changed. Okay, so judging by the looks she gives me, she doesn’t exactly forget. Someone should tell her I’m not interested. But she’s not there today, so I don’t even have that distraction.
Behind me, Lindsay‘s gone very still. She always seems to be able to read my moods, almost like Justin, only, she’s clueless how to react half the time. I glance over my shoulder and she’s just standing there with one of my t-shirts in her hand, which she was just folding up neatly. She likes to tidy my room and since she’s even neater than I am, I let her. It makes her happy for some reason and saves me doing it. Everybody wins.
Claire takes my silence as a sign of agreement and starts rattling off directions to the hospital, complete with room number and visiting hours. “Don’t leave it too long,” she says quietly, no longer crying now.
“I’ll think about it.”
“Brian…”
“I said I’ll think about it.”
She sighs again and then says goodbye hurriedly to the wails of one of her kids in the background.
I close the phone and stare into space until I can feel Lindsay approaching. That makes me go over to the cupboard and start getting dressed. I know she won’t come near me when I’m naked. That usually makes her blush and pretend she’s not looking, when I know she is. Women aren't so different from guys. Lindsay’s reactions to me are almost identical to Michael's.
“Did anything happen?” she asks from her position by my desk.
“Nothing important.” I could tell her. She met Jack once, while we were shopping at the Big Q. He obviously assumed she was my girlfriend, which didn’t stop him from undressing her with his eyes and grinning his approval at me. It was fucking embarrassing. “I need to do something today.”
“We have class in thirty-five minutes.” Her voice is scandalized as if this is the first time I’ve ever cut class. Hell, she’s cut enough classes with me, until she failed her Art in the Media course last year.
I’m dressed now and I go over to her and take my folded t-shirt out of her hands. “Go to class, Lindsay. I’ve got shit to do.”
She looks hurt. “Did something happen to your parents? Is there something I can do?”
“Yes, there is. Go to class.” And leave me the fuck alone. I can’t deal with her right now.
She nods, strokes my cheek and makes her way to the door. “Meet you in the cafeteria for lunch?”
“We’ll see.” I know that there’s no way I’ll be in the cafeteria today, but this is the best way to avoid a discussion and still not commit myself to anything. I just want to be alone for a bit. Is that too much to ask?
“I’m always here for you, Brian, you know that, right?”
“Yeah, I know. See you later.”
She nods again and is finally gone. I stare out of the window and light my first cigarette of the day. Fuck. What shall I do now?
After the second cigarette, I change into my gear and go out to the field. I used to run track at school, mainly to have a second leg to stand on if I messed up on my SATs, but when it became obvious that I'd get a scholarship with my grades, I cut back on the running. It took up too much time. Since I’ve got into Pitt, I’ve been running cross country a bit. They have a beautiful track here, that cuts through the grounds and some woods and brings you back to the starting point after ten kilometers. I like running it before exams because it clears my head.
Despite the warm weather, the track is empty and that suits me just fine. The really serious runners run early in the morning, before classes and then again in the afternoon and the evening. Nobody’s around at this time. I start at a slow pace, in long strides, pacing myself. I have the right build for running, long legs and barely any body fat, just perfect. It gives me the exercise to keep it that way and it’s free. As I reach the woods, I can feel the tension falling away from me and my body settling into the rhythm.
I’m not supposed to be tense. The news that Jack is sick and may be dying shouldn't bother me at all. It’s not as if he was ever very fond of me or I of him. Over the last couple of years, I’ve seen him sporadically when I’ve gone to visit him at his club. He usually drinks with me until he’s well and truly drunk and lets me pay his tab. After the first time, I’ve always made sure that I have a decent amount of money on me. I don’t even know why I bother to see him. I haven’t seen Mom since I moved out of my parents’ home.
Jack always brags to his friends that I’m at college now and that I’m going places. Too right, I am. Places that are far away from here, like New York, where I won’t be tempted to ever go and see him again. Well, it looks like that won’t be an issue much longer anyway.
Justin talks about his dad sometimes. He always speaks of him in that wistful way that people have when they remember their childhood fondly. He also says that his father changed over the years, or that maybe he became aware more and more that his father wasn’t the man he'd thought he was when he was a child. Craig certainly did some despicable things to Justin where money was concerned and appears to have been pretty judgmental in general. Justin’s biggest regret is that he never told his dad that he's gay.
Personally, I don’t get what Justin thinks it would have accomplished. It’s obvious that his father was as homophobic as mine is. No good would have come from telling him and still Justin insists that he wishes he'd told him. Not for his father’s sake but his own, so that he would know that his father truly knew him. I can’t say that I understand it, and whenever Justin encourages me to tell my parents that I’m gay, I laugh at him and change the subject. It’s not as if I don’t know how Jack will react. It’s a foregone conclusion.
When I finish the track, I’ve come to a decision. I go back to my room, take another shower, eat a sandwich and then lie on my bed to smoke for a couple of hours, finishing up with a joint I’ve saved up to start off the weekend tonight. I must get some more supplies, but it’s near the end of the month and things are tight. I can get a lot of stuff from Justin when I’m short, but drugs aren’t included in that. Justin never buys drugs. I’m not sure if he’d know how to go about it if he wanted to.
It takes me forty-five minutes on the bus to get to the hospital. I wonder if Mom will be there or if she'll stick to her routine and go to that church thing she goes to on Friday afternoons. I’m passing the journey debating whether she would get extra sympathy from her church cronies for having a sick husband and praying for him or whether they would find her being at church and not at her husband’s bedside disgraceful. Is going to church and praying for your loved one more praiseworthy than giving actual support or is it the other way around? You never know with these religious types.
When I arrive, there’s no one about. Jack's in a large room with six beds, but he’s in a corner and the bed next to him is unoccupied, so we have some privacy. He looks smaller than I remember him, very pale and his breathing is labored. There’s an IV drip with some fluid of a yellowish-green color that looks more toxic than medicinal to me.
He greets me as if we only just saw each other recently, calls my Sonnyboy and doesn’t question why I’m here or who told me. He’s strangely resigned to his fate and I want to shake him in anger for keeping his illness from his children, but we don’t mention him being sick at all. I can feel my heart beating wildly and I feel as sick as he looks throughout my short visit.
When I leave the hospital, my ears are ringing with his words, which left me in no doubt about his opinion of me, despite being hissed with some effort and followed by a coughing fit. I light another cigarette and start walking.
I’m already tired from my run this morning and I reach the loft after more than two hours. Justin isn’t home yet, although his last class finished an hour ago. I try to ignore the fact that I somehow memorized his schedule and my feeling of frustration that he’s not here. There’s no reason why he should be. Ordinarily, my classes wouldn’t be finished for another hour and even if that wasn’t the case, there’s no reason why he should expect me to come here. We’ve made no arrangements and I’m not expecting him to wait for me like a good little wife, just like he doesn’t expect me to turn up on a schedule. We’re both free to do whatever we like.
I wait around smoking for a little while and then, as time drags on, I make a start on his bar. Justin may not have drugs around, but his supply of alcohol is almost unlimited. He likes the good stuff and the bottle of Chivas goes down like water. There’s still no sign of Justin. I may as well go out and have a drink or two at Woody’s. I’m fucking horny as well.
When I get outside, the warm air makes me more drunk rather than sober me up. I’m vaguely aware that my limbs don’t work as well as I'm accustomed to. Maybe I should have eaten more than that one sandwich today. But I make it to Woody’s alright. Okay, maybe alright is an exaggeration, but I get there somehow and I’m in luck. Justin is sitting at one of the tables and when I get to him, there’s no longer any need to watch what I’m doing. Justin will look after me now. When he’s around, I’m as safe as… whatever’s really safe. I can relax and I’ll get my fuck into the bargain. I let the pleasant alcoholic haze settle over me.
There are only two places I wake up in nowadays. One is my dorm room and the other is the loft. Apart from having more room in the bed, I always know I’m at Justin’s because it feels different, more relaxed somehow. Must be because I tend to sleep here when I have plenty of time the next morning.
I pat the space next to me and come up with nothing but cold sheets. Justin must have got up a while ago. My head is pounding and my throat feels like I've given someone a particularly vigorous blowjob and my mouth tastes like it, too. Or maybe I was sick in the night. I open one eye and see a bottle of water on the bedside table, the outside misted up and pearling with condensation still.
Thank you, Justin. My hand blindly fumbles around the surface of the bedside table until they come upon two Advil, which I knew Justin would have left there for me. I dry swallow them, which leads my throat to protest in no uncertain terms about the mistreatment and I soothe it down with the contents of the bottle. Trying to go back to sleep is hampered by needing to piss too desperately to get comfortable, so I stumble into the bathroom.
When I come out of the shower, Justin is in the kitchen making breakfast. The smell of scrambled eggs alone makes me feel ravenous and I saunter over with just a towel around my hips. I refrained from jerking off in the shower because I anticipate a fuck in my near future and any clothes I might put on will only lead to an unnecessary delay.
“Hey,” he says, piling the eggs onto two plates and adding slices of toast. He must have been out because there’s a Starbucks coffee next to my plate.
“Hey, yourself.” I slide onto one of the stools and dig into my food.
Justin eats a little and picks his toast apart with his fingers, watching me. It makes me want to get up and leave. I rack my brain to try and remember what I said to him last night.
“How’s your dad?” he asks finally and as usual he’s getting straight to the point. Well, at least this way it will be quick and painless. Or quick and painful.
“Dying.”
Justin’s fork clutters onto his plate. “What? Is this one of your misguided attempts at humor?”
“Hey. I resent that. I’m a very funny guy. People roll around laughing at my jokes.”
“Yeah, you’re funny all right. And you’re also trying to change the subject. Is your dad really sick? Dying, even?”
“Yeah.” I tell him about Claire’s phone call and my visit to the hospital yesterday. Over time I got so used to telling Justin stuff that it’s almost normal for me nowadays. Of course, I stick to the mere facts. I always do. As long as he doesn’t expect me to talk about my feelings, we’re alright. He’s happy that I confide in him and it usually makes me feel better as well.
“So how long has he got?”
“How the fuck would I know? He looks like he’s on death’s door already, but he looks like that when he’s really drunk, too, so there’s no telling.”
“Brian,” he says and then stops. What could he possibly say anyway? And I haven’t even told him the worst part yet. Then he carries on, his voice soft and his eyes gentle. I hate it when he does that, treats me like I need ‘handling’. “Did you manage to say goodbye?”
I frown at him. What the fuck does that even mean? “No, but he certainly did.”
“Oh God, what did he say?”
“I followed your advice,” I start and give him a false smile that tips him off immediately. He looks at me like he knows he’s not going to like what I’m going to say. “I told him I’m gay and he told me that I should be the one dying.”
I take a vicious satisfaction in seeing him blanch. Well, it’s all his fault anyway. He’s been the one telling me for a long time to come out to my parents. So he should be the one to suffer the consequences, not me. I would have been quite happy to let Jack go to his grave not knowing. But no, Justin thought it would be good for me to tell him. There was never any fucking chance that it would be good for anybody.
Justin is speechless for a while, which is so rare that it’s a victory in itself. Let’s see how he spins this one into something positive because he always seems to manage to do that. Or he tries to at least.
“He never deserved you, you know that, right?” Justin says after a long pause and I just laugh. There’s no humor in it.
“No, he got exactly what he deserved.”
Justin comes around the kitchen island and wraps his arms around me from behind. “Don’t say stuff like that, Brian. Your parents are wrong. They’ve always been wrong. You’re so much more than they deserve.”
The funny thing is that he really means it. He thinks that people who don’t like me, simply don’t know me or if they do, they don’t understand me. Nothing seems to sway him from that. He doesn’t care that I put Ted in a coma or endangered Michael's life, never mind that I nearly killed him three years ago. And I’m sure that he’s disappointed in me most days, but he never wavers in his belief in me. Only he doesn’t see me, he sees someone who could be a great guy, and he ignores all the evidence to the contrary. It’s tiring trying to live up to his image of me, knowing that one day he’ll realize his mistake.
“Justin?”
“Hhm?”
“Did we fuck last night?”
As he’s leaning against my naked back I can feel him stiffen, and not in a good way. He sighs. “No,” he says quietly. “You passed out.” I’m sure that sigh was less about his regret for the missed opportunity for sex and more about my changing the subject. He will see me eventually. I can’t play this game forever.
“You wanna make up for that?”
He chuckles a little and kisses me just below my right shoulder blade, softly at first, then licking a line there and gently blowing air onto it, before sucking on the same spot. I take that as a yes then.
PART TWO HERE: http://kachelofen.livejournal.com/22045.html
AN: I’m just flexing my writing muscles a little with this one. There were one or two things I wanted to explore, which didn’t fit into the prequel. All the things from the previous AN are still true: enough sex to be NC-17, too little to be porn, quotes from the show, plotlines from the show and all of it jumbled together into a big mess.
The title is taken from the song by Johnny Nash.
*No small children were harmed during the writing of this fic.*
This story is complete and will be posted on a two to three day schedule, so that it will be finished before Christmas.
As always, comments of any kind are very welcome. And if you see a mistake, please do point it out to me, as this is un-beta’ed.
I would like to extend a warm thank you to britinkinlor for helping me create the icon. Thanks, Ali. ♥
I CAN SEE CLEARLY NOW
PART ONE
Woody’s is almost deserted when I get there, which is only to be expected, since it's barely past opening time. I take a quick look around and, not seeing whom I’m looking for, walk up to the bar and order two bottles of beer. Even though it’s empty now, I know it’s not going to stay that way for long, so I select the most out-of-the-way table and slide onto the stool that affords me a view of the door.
One of the guys at the bar is eyeing me with interest. I ignore him. The second bottle on the table should clue him in to the fact that I’m waiting for someone, but I know that in this place that isn’t necessarily going to deter him from coming over. After about a minute, I can see him out of the corner of my eyes as he grabs his drink to make a move on me, but I’m saved by Melanie coming through the door and making a beeline for me. The guy at the bar gives me a disgusted look and casts about for a new target.
“Sorry, I’m late,” Melanie says, taking off the jacket of her power suit and draping it over the back of the chair next to hers. Still rolling up the sleeves of her blouse, she sits down opposite me and grabs the other bottle, taking a long drink.
“I just got here myself.” I smile at her.
“God, what a day.” She's moaning down the drink appreciatively. “I didn’t even have time to go home to get changed.”
“Don’t worry, I rarely pay attention to what women wear. Now, guys on the other hand... I swear that redhead in the corner is wearing the tightest pants I’ve ever seen. Not really recommended with the small package he’s got.”
Melanie huffs out a laugh. “You’re getting more like your boyfriend by the day.”
“Is that a bad thing?” It’s out before I remember whom I’m talking to. I cringe inwardly.
“Yeah, actually, it is.”
We’re quiet for an awkward moment. I like Melanie, I really do, but her animosity towards Brian sometimes makes it difficult to have a conversation. It’s not even as if she’s the only person in my life criticizing him, but she's certainly the most vocal.
“Where’s Lindsay?” I ask, changing the subject. Melanie and Lindsay have been together for over four years now, only a few months more than Brian and I, and that’s not the only thing we have in common.
“I assume she’s at the same place Brian is. Isn’t she always?”
“I hope not,” I chuckle, thinking of some of the places Brian frequents. Not quite the right scene for someone of Lindsay’s upbringing and disposition. Not that I don’t agree with Melanie that Lindsay would probably follow Brian anywhere. Sometimes it seems that Brian simply swapped Michael for Lindsay when he started college. At least, they seem to spend an extraordinary amount of time together.
Finally, Melanie relaxes enough to laugh. She's been really stressed out for a while now because she’s in line to make partner at the law firm where she works. It makes her a little cranky.
“Yeah,” she agrees, drinking some more of her beer. “I asked Lindsay to move in with me.”
“Really? What did she say?”
“She said yes. Or rather, she said she will, after graduation.”
“Graduation? The year just started. Graduation won’t be till May.”
“I know,” she sighs. “But she wants to stay in the dorms till then. We also talked about having a baby.”
I stare at her. Melanie is so butch it’s hard to imagine her being maternal.
“Do you ever think about having a family?” she asks.
I have to laugh. “With Brian? I don’t think he’s ready.”
“Do you think he’ll ever be?” It comes out in a dismissive tone.
I shrug. Much as it pains me to admit it, she’s right. Brian hasn’t really changed much in the four years that we’ve been together. I can’t even be completely certain that he considers us as 'being together'. He behaves very much like he’s single.
“Have you never thought about it?” she chases up her first question.
“Sometimes,” I admit. “I may want a child of my own one day. But I reckon I have time. And it’s not as easy as it is for you guys. All you have to do is go to the sperm bank.”
She nods a few times and sighs. “Yeah, Lindsay doesn’t want to do that. She says it’s too impersonal. She wants to have a child with someone we know.”
I shrug again. “Makes sense.”
Melanie is looking at me over the top of her bottle for a while and I’m beginning to feel a little uncomfortable. “This is not why you asked me to meet with you, is it?” I ask.
“Well, it kind of is.”
Oh, crap. I didn’t see that one coming. “You want me to do the honors?”
“Well, Lindsay wants Brian.”
Unfortunately, I'm just taking a sip of my drink when she says it and, predictably, I choke on it, cough and spray some over the table. Melanie leans as far back in her seat as she can to avoid getting any of it on her clothes and laughs at me. “Yeah, that was my reaction, too.”
“He’s twenty-one,” I say, realizing almost immediately how irrelevant that is in the grand scheme of things.
“Well, Lindsay’s only a year older.”
I take the cardboard coaster and try to wipe up the droplets of beer, succeeding only in spreading them evenly over the table.
“Are you sure Lindsay’s ready? I mean, you guys aren’t even living together yet and you want to bring a child into the mix. What if you two don’t work out?”
“I’m thirty-two, Justin. I don’t want to be in my dotage when we have a child. Lindsay’s ready. She just needs to get out of that college environment. That makes anyone act immature.”
Her words in God’s ear because it certainly makes Brian act like a brat most of the time. Just like Melanie with Lindsay, I’m hoping that starting work next year will calm him down a little.
“Still, I don’t know,” I say. “Are you sure you’ve thought this through? How’s Lindsay gonna support you? And is this wise right now, when you’re going to make partner?” Even as I say it, I feel a little stupid because Melanie always thinks things through. She’s the most meticulous person I know, other than maybe Ted. If she says they can work out a way, then they can.
“Lindsay won’t be supporting us,” Melanie starts, then sighs. “Sorry, Justin, I’m doing this all wrong. The fact is, I can’t have kids. I have endometriosis.”
Yeah, whatever that is. Presumably something that prevents you from becoming pregnant. I wonder if I should commiserate her. Women get upset when they can’t have kids, don’t they? Wait a minute, if Melanie can’t have kids, that means… I lean back in my chair as if that will stop her from looking at me beseechingly. “No,” I say, a little louder than intended and I tone it down, if only in volume. “No. I’m not having a kid with Lindsay.”
“Why not?” Melanie seems genuinely perplexed.
Because I don’t want to have a child with a twenty-two year old. Because she’s incredibly naïve. Because I don’t trust her. Because she’s in love with my boyfriend.
I can’t tell Melanie any of these things because she thinks of Lindsay as the second coming - no pun intended. “With you, I'd think about it, Mel. With Lindsay, it’s a definite no.”
“Why?”
I shrug. “I don’t know her well enough.”
She laughs. “You’ve known her for four years.”
“You’ve known her for four years. I barely ever see her.” And when I do, she’s usually giggling in a corner somewhere with Brian - not that Brian does any of the giggling. But it doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in me that she’s ready for parenthood. Sometimes she doesn’t even seem ready for a relationship. I’m not sure if she has quite made up her mind whether she’s a lesbian either. I’m not holding any of that against her as a person, but as the mother of my child? No way. For that I’d like someone a little more mature.
Melanie looks disappointed.
“I’m sorry, Mel, but no.”
“Well, I’m not having Brian.” Which begs the question whether Lindsay has even agreed to this plan yet. I can well imagine her favoring Brian. She’s so obviously smitten with him. I don’t know how Melanie can stand it. She says it’s just a phase that Lindsay needs to go through, like a rite of passage or something and that it has a lot to do with being in college still and not having come out to her parents yet. But even if all that is true, I would hope that if Brian showed obvious signs of wanting to be with someone else, I'd be long gone.
Last weekend for example, Lindsay took Brian to her sister’s wedding as her date. Of course, she couldn’t take Melanie as her date, but if I had a boyfriend even before I came out, I would have brought him and passed him off as a friend, if need be, not brought a beard. I'd have wanted to be with my boyfriend. But with Lindsay, it’s obvious that she didn’t just do it to placate her family, but rather enjoyed having Brian there and dreamed of that situation being the reality.
Brian told me that the food was excellent, that there was an open bar and that he fucked one of the ushers. So he enjoyed himself, too. Luckily he had enough consideration for Lindsay to be discreet and he arrived and left with her. He’s very attached to her for reasons that I have yet to work out, but there was no point in the last three years, where I was worried. Lindsay might be confused. Brian is not.
“Are you hoping to get married?” I ask, changing the subject once more. Our conversation seems to be full of landmines today, which is unusual for us. From being fellow members of the GLC and working on projects together, we’ve progressed to bonding over having a relationship with a much younger partner, sometimes including Ben in our circle. Out of the three of us, Ben probably has the least problems because Michael seems happy enough to settle, whereas Brian and Lindsay are living college life to the fullest. We’re stuck with the ironic state of affairs where both, Ben and Melanie, have to cope with their partners having a crush on my boyfriend, whereas I ‘only’ have to worry about every hot guy in town. On the whole, I prefer my situation. At least I can be certain that Brian doesn’t pine after someone else.
“Marriage is a bankrupt institution. I don’t think a meaningless heterosexual ritual would improve our love and it wouldn’t be legal anyway.”
I have to laugh. If she hadn’t put the word ‘love’ in there, it could have come straight out of Brian’s mouth. Even without Lindsay in the mix, Melanie and Brian could never be friends because they’re just so damn similar.
I feel the same way about marriage. After seeing my parents and most of my parents’ friends divorce, I have no illusions that a piece of paper would hold together a relationship that has broken down, nor that it should. I’m with Brian on that one, better to be together because you want to be. And I have at least that. I know that when Brian is with me, it’s because that’s what he wants - because there are plenty of other times, when he doesn’t want to and isn’t there.
But I would like what the spirit of a marriage represents, the absolute commitment to just one person, wanting to spend the rest of your life with him and, yes, forsaking all others, too - eventually. But I don’t need to get married for that, especially as it’s not legal anyway. I just want the commitment or, quite frankly, at the moment, I'd settle for open acknowledgement. So far, the best I got in four years is a, ‘this is the guy I fuck more than once.’
“Do you want to get married?” Melanie asks.
I shake my head. “No, not really,” I say and leave it at that. No use discussing this with her. It will only lead to her telling me that I need to find a different partner if I ever want to be truly happy. I’ve heard it enough times. The thing is, I honestly believe that I'll never be truly happy with a different partner. Only, I can’t be sure that I'll ever be with the one I have either.
“He might grow up eventually,” she says unexpectedly, her smile soft. But I know she’s only saying it to make me feel better, not because she actually believes it. She wrote Brian off as a bad bet ages ago, probably the first time they ever met. And with the way Lindsay is at the moment, I doubt that’ll ever change now.
Melanie turns around to follow my gaze when I get distracted by Brian entering Woody’s and making his way towards the bar a little unsteadily. About halfway there, he notices us and turns towards our table, almost stumbling at the sudden change of direction. “Or not,” she adds sarcastically.
Brian hones in on me, completely ignoring Melanie, and I can smell the alcohol on him before he’s even close enough to kiss me. Which he does, with a lot of tongue, one hand at the back of my neck as if he’s afraid I might pull away, the other cupping my crotch. The kiss is deep and long and very wet, but I can’t enjoy it as much as I normally would because I’m too self-conscious about Melanie being here and disapproving, which is probably why he’s doing this in the first place. And I’m embarrassed for him because he’s so obviously fall-down drunk. My first instinct is to get him home.
“Men’s room,“ he says, loud enough for anybody in the vicinity to hear, which is undoubtedly his intention. He’s always more bratty when Melanie is around.
“I’m not alone,” I say with a smile. I’m wondering if he would even make it as far as the restroom because he’s leaning heavily on me by now.
“Ah yes,“ he says, looking Mel up and down as if she’s a particularly loathsome insect, a look that she mirrors completely, only she seems horrified at the same time. “Smelly Melly.” He laughs a little and I decide that I should really get him home as soon as possible. “Where’s your wife?” His words are slurred like they hardly ever are, even when he’s drunk and high. He must have consumed way more than his usual amount.
“Don’t you know?” she shoots back. “You see her more than I do.”
I should get him out of here before these two get into a fist fight - which Brian would probably lose in his current state.
“Yeah. You’re not a very good warden, are you?” he needles her on.
Uh-oh, now I know why he’s so drunk. He’s seen or heard from either of his parents. The word ‘warden’ is like a huge neon sign flashing a warning at me to beware. Any contact with his parents always leads to him lashing out at the nearest target.
Melanie just looks askance and wisely decides to ignore him. “Do you need any help, Justin?”
“No, we’re fine,” I say and slide off the stool very gently so that I don’t dislodge Brian from my shoulders in the process. “Com’ on , Brian, let’s go.”
“Yeah, the men’s room.” He nods a few times, but when I start to pull him towards the door, he follows me without much resistance. He has drunk his way past belligerence and into compliance. If I can get him home before he hits the passing out phase, everything will be fine.
Melanie follows us out silently and watches me maneuver Brian into the passenger seat of the jeep. “Will you think about what we talked about?” she asks, eyeing Brian with disgust, as he loudly bemoans the fact that there'll be a delay before he'll have his much needed fuck.
“Sure,” I say, mainly to pacify her because I really need to get home before Brian falls asleep in the car.
“You say that,” Brian grouches, thinking my answer was meant for him. “But I don’t see your ass getting naked or your lips round my cock or… you’ve too many clothes on.”
“I’ll call you,” I tell Melanie and slide into the driver’s seat before she can become aware that Brian has now started to unzip his jeans to move the proceedings along. As I lean over him to plug his seat belt in, he pushes at my shoulders a little to encourage me to give him a blowjob right here, but it’s ineffective because he’s way too drunk.
I open all the windows as I drive the short way to the loft. Brian leans his face into the cool air, his pants’ half-open state forgotten. For a moment I fear he may have fallen asleep, in which case I may have to call Emmett or Michael to help me get him upstairs, but when I stop at the loft, he comes out of his stupor a little and looks around. “Where are we?”
“Home.”
He fiddles with the seat belt, appearing extraordinarily pleased with himself when it comes undone after I manage to push the release without him noticing. I have to smile. I jog round to his side of the car and get there just as his knees are buckling a little when he gets out. But the car door is supporting him and he manages to stand upright more or less on his own.
In the rickety elevator, he leans against the wall, his arms spread to both sides for balance. “Home,” he says with his eyes closed.
“Yes, Brian,” I say with a smile.
“Much better than the men’s room.”
“Yes, Brian.”
He’s trying to molest me all the way to the bedroom, which we reach via a detour to the fridge to get him a bottle of water, but he’s so uncoordinated that, in the end, he just allows me to lead him to the bed. He grins at me when I start to undress him and drinks his water when prompted. His cock is only half-hard and I doubt that he'd be capable of doing much with it if he tried. As it is, he’s happy enough to get under the covers and is asleep within minutes.
When he gets up an hour later to be sick in the toilet, I'm still awake. I can hear him brush his teeth and drink about a gallon of water, before he returns to bed, pushes up close to me and is asleep again within moments. I’m wondering what his parents did this time.
*******
When I come out of the shower, Lindsay’s on the phone - my phone. I don’t mind her borrowing stuff from me, wearing my clothes and even stealing food off my plate in the cafeteria, but I draw the line at answering my phone. I have photos on there that are nobody’s business. Justin would hit the roof if I let anyone see them.
“Here he is,” she says to whoever is on the other end of the line and hands me the phone.
I turn my back on her before she can say anything and even walk a few steps away, towards the window, although that doesn’t afford me much more privacy in my small dorm room. And then I wish I had let her tell me who's on the line, so that I'd have had a few seconds to prepare.
“Brian? It’s Claire.”
“What’s up?” The air in the room seems stuffy all of a sudden and I open the window with one hand. It’s not as if Claire never calls me. I go round there occasionally for dinner, when the mood strikes me, although the intervals between visits have increased over time, as she’s turning more and more into a copy of Mom. But there’s something in her voice that sets me on edge.
“When did you see Daddy last?”
“About two months ago. Why?”
“He collapsed at work on Wednesday. He’s in the hospital.”
“What happened? He fall down drunk?” Fuck, he’s going to lose his job again.
“Brian.” She sounds tired, as she does every time I speak to her. “Mom didn’t want me to tell you but… Daddy has cancer. You should go and see him.”
I feel kind of sucker punched, which is very appropriate when you think about it. “What for? There’s nothing I can do about it.”
“Brian… he doesn’t have long… just days probably.”
“What? How come? You don’t keel over one day and be at death’s door without warning. There are signs and…”
“I didn’t know, okay?” She’s crying now and it has the usual effect on me of wanting to make it stop, in any way I can. “They didn’t tell me either, but Mom and Daddy have known for months. They didn’t want us to know.”
“I see.” I stare out of the window at the block of dorms opposite, where this girl always forgets to draw her curtains before she gets changed. Okay, so judging by the looks she gives me, she doesn’t exactly forget. Someone should tell her I’m not interested. But she’s not there today, so I don’t even have that distraction.
Behind me, Lindsay‘s gone very still. She always seems to be able to read my moods, almost like Justin, only, she’s clueless how to react half the time. I glance over my shoulder and she’s just standing there with one of my t-shirts in her hand, which she was just folding up neatly. She likes to tidy my room and since she’s even neater than I am, I let her. It makes her happy for some reason and saves me doing it. Everybody wins.
Claire takes my silence as a sign of agreement and starts rattling off directions to the hospital, complete with room number and visiting hours. “Don’t leave it too long,” she says quietly, no longer crying now.
“I’ll think about it.”
“Brian…”
“I said I’ll think about it.”
She sighs again and then says goodbye hurriedly to the wails of one of her kids in the background.
I close the phone and stare into space until I can feel Lindsay approaching. That makes me go over to the cupboard and start getting dressed. I know she won’t come near me when I’m naked. That usually makes her blush and pretend she’s not looking, when I know she is. Women aren't so different from guys. Lindsay’s reactions to me are almost identical to Michael's.
“Did anything happen?” she asks from her position by my desk.
“Nothing important.” I could tell her. She met Jack once, while we were shopping at the Big Q. He obviously assumed she was my girlfriend, which didn’t stop him from undressing her with his eyes and grinning his approval at me. It was fucking embarrassing. “I need to do something today.”
“We have class in thirty-five minutes.” Her voice is scandalized as if this is the first time I’ve ever cut class. Hell, she’s cut enough classes with me, until she failed her Art in the Media course last year.
I’m dressed now and I go over to her and take my folded t-shirt out of her hands. “Go to class, Lindsay. I’ve got shit to do.”
She looks hurt. “Did something happen to your parents? Is there something I can do?”
“Yes, there is. Go to class.” And leave me the fuck alone. I can’t deal with her right now.
She nods, strokes my cheek and makes her way to the door. “Meet you in the cafeteria for lunch?”
“We’ll see.” I know that there’s no way I’ll be in the cafeteria today, but this is the best way to avoid a discussion and still not commit myself to anything. I just want to be alone for a bit. Is that too much to ask?
“I’m always here for you, Brian, you know that, right?”
“Yeah, I know. See you later.”
She nods again and is finally gone. I stare out of the window and light my first cigarette of the day. Fuck. What shall I do now?
After the second cigarette, I change into my gear and go out to the field. I used to run track at school, mainly to have a second leg to stand on if I messed up on my SATs, but when it became obvious that I'd get a scholarship with my grades, I cut back on the running. It took up too much time. Since I’ve got into Pitt, I’ve been running cross country a bit. They have a beautiful track here, that cuts through the grounds and some woods and brings you back to the starting point after ten kilometers. I like running it before exams because it clears my head.
Despite the warm weather, the track is empty and that suits me just fine. The really serious runners run early in the morning, before classes and then again in the afternoon and the evening. Nobody’s around at this time. I start at a slow pace, in long strides, pacing myself. I have the right build for running, long legs and barely any body fat, just perfect. It gives me the exercise to keep it that way and it’s free. As I reach the woods, I can feel the tension falling away from me and my body settling into the rhythm.
I’m not supposed to be tense. The news that Jack is sick and may be dying shouldn't bother me at all. It’s not as if he was ever very fond of me or I of him. Over the last couple of years, I’ve seen him sporadically when I’ve gone to visit him at his club. He usually drinks with me until he’s well and truly drunk and lets me pay his tab. After the first time, I’ve always made sure that I have a decent amount of money on me. I don’t even know why I bother to see him. I haven’t seen Mom since I moved out of my parents’ home.
Jack always brags to his friends that I’m at college now and that I’m going places. Too right, I am. Places that are far away from here, like New York, where I won’t be tempted to ever go and see him again. Well, it looks like that won’t be an issue much longer anyway.
Justin talks about his dad sometimes. He always speaks of him in that wistful way that people have when they remember their childhood fondly. He also says that his father changed over the years, or that maybe he became aware more and more that his father wasn’t the man he'd thought he was when he was a child. Craig certainly did some despicable things to Justin where money was concerned and appears to have been pretty judgmental in general. Justin’s biggest regret is that he never told his dad that he's gay.
Personally, I don’t get what Justin thinks it would have accomplished. It’s obvious that his father was as homophobic as mine is. No good would have come from telling him and still Justin insists that he wishes he'd told him. Not for his father’s sake but his own, so that he would know that his father truly knew him. I can’t say that I understand it, and whenever Justin encourages me to tell my parents that I’m gay, I laugh at him and change the subject. It’s not as if I don’t know how Jack will react. It’s a foregone conclusion.
When I finish the track, I’ve come to a decision. I go back to my room, take another shower, eat a sandwich and then lie on my bed to smoke for a couple of hours, finishing up with a joint I’ve saved up to start off the weekend tonight. I must get some more supplies, but it’s near the end of the month and things are tight. I can get a lot of stuff from Justin when I’m short, but drugs aren’t included in that. Justin never buys drugs. I’m not sure if he’d know how to go about it if he wanted to.
It takes me forty-five minutes on the bus to get to the hospital. I wonder if Mom will be there or if she'll stick to her routine and go to that church thing she goes to on Friday afternoons. I’m passing the journey debating whether she would get extra sympathy from her church cronies for having a sick husband and praying for him or whether they would find her being at church and not at her husband’s bedside disgraceful. Is going to church and praying for your loved one more praiseworthy than giving actual support or is it the other way around? You never know with these religious types.
When I arrive, there’s no one about. Jack's in a large room with six beds, but he’s in a corner and the bed next to him is unoccupied, so we have some privacy. He looks smaller than I remember him, very pale and his breathing is labored. There’s an IV drip with some fluid of a yellowish-green color that looks more toxic than medicinal to me.
He greets me as if we only just saw each other recently, calls my Sonnyboy and doesn’t question why I’m here or who told me. He’s strangely resigned to his fate and I want to shake him in anger for keeping his illness from his children, but we don’t mention him being sick at all. I can feel my heart beating wildly and I feel as sick as he looks throughout my short visit.
When I leave the hospital, my ears are ringing with his words, which left me in no doubt about his opinion of me, despite being hissed with some effort and followed by a coughing fit. I light another cigarette and start walking.
I’m already tired from my run this morning and I reach the loft after more than two hours. Justin isn’t home yet, although his last class finished an hour ago. I try to ignore the fact that I somehow memorized his schedule and my feeling of frustration that he’s not here. There’s no reason why he should be. Ordinarily, my classes wouldn’t be finished for another hour and even if that wasn’t the case, there’s no reason why he should expect me to come here. We’ve made no arrangements and I’m not expecting him to wait for me like a good little wife, just like he doesn’t expect me to turn up on a schedule. We’re both free to do whatever we like.
I wait around smoking for a little while and then, as time drags on, I make a start on his bar. Justin may not have drugs around, but his supply of alcohol is almost unlimited. He likes the good stuff and the bottle of Chivas goes down like water. There’s still no sign of Justin. I may as well go out and have a drink or two at Woody’s. I’m fucking horny as well.
When I get outside, the warm air makes me more drunk rather than sober me up. I’m vaguely aware that my limbs don’t work as well as I'm accustomed to. Maybe I should have eaten more than that one sandwich today. But I make it to Woody’s alright. Okay, maybe alright is an exaggeration, but I get there somehow and I’m in luck. Justin is sitting at one of the tables and when I get to him, there’s no longer any need to watch what I’m doing. Justin will look after me now. When he’s around, I’m as safe as… whatever’s really safe. I can relax and I’ll get my fuck into the bargain. I let the pleasant alcoholic haze settle over me.
There are only two places I wake up in nowadays. One is my dorm room and the other is the loft. Apart from having more room in the bed, I always know I’m at Justin’s because it feels different, more relaxed somehow. Must be because I tend to sleep here when I have plenty of time the next morning.
I pat the space next to me and come up with nothing but cold sheets. Justin must have got up a while ago. My head is pounding and my throat feels like I've given someone a particularly vigorous blowjob and my mouth tastes like it, too. Or maybe I was sick in the night. I open one eye and see a bottle of water on the bedside table, the outside misted up and pearling with condensation still.
Thank you, Justin. My hand blindly fumbles around the surface of the bedside table until they come upon two Advil, which I knew Justin would have left there for me. I dry swallow them, which leads my throat to protest in no uncertain terms about the mistreatment and I soothe it down with the contents of the bottle. Trying to go back to sleep is hampered by needing to piss too desperately to get comfortable, so I stumble into the bathroom.
When I come out of the shower, Justin is in the kitchen making breakfast. The smell of scrambled eggs alone makes me feel ravenous and I saunter over with just a towel around my hips. I refrained from jerking off in the shower because I anticipate a fuck in my near future and any clothes I might put on will only lead to an unnecessary delay.
“Hey,” he says, piling the eggs onto two plates and adding slices of toast. He must have been out because there’s a Starbucks coffee next to my plate.
“Hey, yourself.” I slide onto one of the stools and dig into my food.
Justin eats a little and picks his toast apart with his fingers, watching me. It makes me want to get up and leave. I rack my brain to try and remember what I said to him last night.
“How’s your dad?” he asks finally and as usual he’s getting straight to the point. Well, at least this way it will be quick and painless. Or quick and painful.
“Dying.”
Justin’s fork clutters onto his plate. “What? Is this one of your misguided attempts at humor?”
“Hey. I resent that. I’m a very funny guy. People roll around laughing at my jokes.”
“Yeah, you’re funny all right. And you’re also trying to change the subject. Is your dad really sick? Dying, even?”
“Yeah.” I tell him about Claire’s phone call and my visit to the hospital yesterday. Over time I got so used to telling Justin stuff that it’s almost normal for me nowadays. Of course, I stick to the mere facts. I always do. As long as he doesn’t expect me to talk about my feelings, we’re alright. He’s happy that I confide in him and it usually makes me feel better as well.
“So how long has he got?”
“How the fuck would I know? He looks like he’s on death’s door already, but he looks like that when he’s really drunk, too, so there’s no telling.”
“Brian,” he says and then stops. What could he possibly say anyway? And I haven’t even told him the worst part yet. Then he carries on, his voice soft and his eyes gentle. I hate it when he does that, treats me like I need ‘handling’. “Did you manage to say goodbye?”
I frown at him. What the fuck does that even mean? “No, but he certainly did.”
“Oh God, what did he say?”
“I followed your advice,” I start and give him a false smile that tips him off immediately. He looks at me like he knows he’s not going to like what I’m going to say. “I told him I’m gay and he told me that I should be the one dying.”
I take a vicious satisfaction in seeing him blanch. Well, it’s all his fault anyway. He’s been the one telling me for a long time to come out to my parents. So he should be the one to suffer the consequences, not me. I would have been quite happy to let Jack go to his grave not knowing. But no, Justin thought it would be good for me to tell him. There was never any fucking chance that it would be good for anybody.
Justin is speechless for a while, which is so rare that it’s a victory in itself. Let’s see how he spins this one into something positive because he always seems to manage to do that. Or he tries to at least.
“He never deserved you, you know that, right?” Justin says after a long pause and I just laugh. There’s no humor in it.
“No, he got exactly what he deserved.”
Justin comes around the kitchen island and wraps his arms around me from behind. “Don’t say stuff like that, Brian. Your parents are wrong. They’ve always been wrong. You’re so much more than they deserve.”
The funny thing is that he really means it. He thinks that people who don’t like me, simply don’t know me or if they do, they don’t understand me. Nothing seems to sway him from that. He doesn’t care that I put Ted in a coma or endangered Michael's life, never mind that I nearly killed him three years ago. And I’m sure that he’s disappointed in me most days, but he never wavers in his belief in me. Only he doesn’t see me, he sees someone who could be a great guy, and he ignores all the evidence to the contrary. It’s tiring trying to live up to his image of me, knowing that one day he’ll realize his mistake.
“Justin?”
“Hhm?”
“Did we fuck last night?”
As he’s leaning against my naked back I can feel him stiffen, and not in a good way. He sighs. “No,” he says quietly. “You passed out.” I’m sure that sigh was less about his regret for the missed opportunity for sex and more about my changing the subject. He will see me eventually. I can’t play this game forever.
“You wanna make up for that?”
He chuckles a little and kisses me just below my right shoulder blade, softly at first, then licking a line there and gently blowing air onto it, before sucking on the same spot. I take that as a yes then.
PART TWO HERE: http://kachelofen.livejournal.com/22045.html